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Ginny stirred in the mid-morning light, groaning and covering her face with a pillow. She rolled onto her side, reaching out for the familiarity of her girlfriend’s soft arms, mussed blonde hair, or comfortable tummy, but felt only a bundle of still-warm blankets, the heat of Luna’s body not quite evaporated into the December morning. The air was humid with steam emanating from the bathroom, fragrant and heady with the scent of Luna’s rosemary soap. Ginny smiled at the sound of Luna’s absentminded, tuneless humming.
“Morning, love,” she said, admiring the view when Luna emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel.
“You’re up!” Luna came to the side of the bed to give Ginny a quick peck on the lips before opening the dresser and surveying the tangled mass of unfolded clothes shoved unceremoniously into the drawers, everything of Luna’s and Ginny’s all hopelessly mingled together.
“So, any plans for the day?” asked Ginny, stretching like a cat and burrowing deeper in her nest of covers.
“Well…don’t be cross, but I’ll need to pop round to Diagon Alley to get your Christmas gift. I know it’s last minute, but I’ve been deciding between a few things and…”
“Why would I be cross? I don’t have your gift yet, either,” Ginny shrugged, “And I haven’t even started thinking about what to get Mum.”
“A jumper?” Luna teased, slipping one of her girlfriend’s many hand-knit jumpers over her damp head. This one was purple and emblazoned with a golden G.
“Ha ha, very funny. It is unfair though, because I know exactly what she’s going to give me every year, but she gets so fussy when we dare to spend any money on her.”
“Reckon I’ll get a Weasley jumper this year?” Luna asked, taking her damp hair out of the towel it was wrapped in with a lazy flick of her wand.
“Oh, almost certainly,” Ginny yawned.
“Really? Even though she’s still so crazy about Harry? Not that she shouldn’t be, Harry’s wonderful, of course,” Luna lifted her gaze for a moment and then averted her eyes, rummaging through the chest of drawers for a pair of trousers.
“She likes you, you know that. She’ll get over the whole Harry thing eventually. Goodness knows we both already have. Hey, no need for trousers. You already look ravishing,” Ginny pulled her girlfriend close and ran her fingers over Luna’s thighs, which were peeping out from underneath the baggy sweater.
“Well, I was going to bake something to bring with us tomorrow. A Christmas peace offering,” Luna took both of Ginny’s hands and tried to pulled her off the bed, despite Ginny’s protracted groaning.
“She’ll like that, I know she will. And she won’t moan like she usually does when I’ve bought her something,” Ginny finally relented and allowed herself to be half-dragged off the bed, looking grumpy and squinting in the bright morning light pouring through the window. Luna, still holding her hands, began twirling her girlfriend round and round until they were both wide awake and shaking with laughter.
“What did you want to make? A recipe of your mother’s?” asked Ginny as they made their way to the kitchen, Ginny still in her pyjamas and Luna wearing nothing but the sweater.
“My mum? Have recipes? Ha! You clearly don’t know the Lovegood girls at all,” Luna laughed and kissed Ginny on her freckled nose.
“She didn’t like to bake?”
“No, she liked to bake. We just don’t really believe in recipes or any of that, you know. So, what does your mum like? Flavors, textures, smells?”
“Well, her favourite thing to eat at Christmas is mince pies.”
“Too boring! Plus, I’m sure she’s already made dozens for tomorrow. Let’s make something different,” Luna emptied the contents of an entire cabinet with a wave of her wand and laid the cluttered array on the countertop, which was bursting with everything from eggs to leeks to tinned sardines.
“Erm, she likes chocolate and orange. That’s Chrismassy, isn’t it?”
“That’s more like it!” Luna grated an orange and dumped over half a cannister of cocoa into the bowl after it.
“Hmm, does she like almond?”
“Think so, yeah,” Ginny watched as Luna poured in some almond extract without measuring, and then reached for the vanilla extract.
“Chocolate, orange, almond, and vanilla? Isn’t that…sort of a lot of flavors going on all at once?” Ginny watched her girlfriend with the intense fascination of an ethnographer, not wanting to offer too much help or advice lest she spoil the purity of the experiment with her interference.
“Don’t you always add vanilla in baking?” But after a restrained dozen or two drops of vanilla extract, Luna seemed to take Ginny’s advice and moved onto dumping sugar into the same bowl, again without allowing so much as a measuring cup within a three foot radius of her.
“Well why should you care what’s always done in baking? You don’t believe in recipes, apparently,” Ginny stuck her tongue out at her girlfriend as she got out a second bowl and softened a couple sticks of butter with her wand before adding a few eggs.
“Why bother dirtying another bowl?” asked Luna, now her turn to watch her girlfriend curiously.
“You have to mix the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients separately. I’ve watched my mum do it a million times.”
“Ooh, you’re so smart,” Luna said in a jokey sing-song voice, leaning across the counter to kiss Ginny. The sweetness of the moment was soon destroyed when she upended the bag of flour and both women, their bowls, and the entire kitchen were covered in a thick dusting of white powder.
“Yuck!” Ginny rubbed flour out of her eyes and ran her tongue over her teeth, which were coated in an unpleasant powdery grit. When she looked up, she was surprised to find Luna gazing at her with a rare undiluted softness, without any of the usual irony which was the core of their relationship, the streak of fun and laughter running through the sweetness.
“You’re so beautiful,” Luna murmured, taking in the sight of Ginny’s flaming hair tinged with white, perhaps a clue of what she might look like in old age, her freckles peeping through streaks in the flour, her warm brown eyes alive with laughter.
“Come here,” Ginny said, and pulled Luna to her by the flour-dusted coils of the dear old jumper that she had never liked until she felt Luna’s love for it, and saw it through her eyes. Their lips met but they pulled apart, giggling at the floury taste in both their mouths.
“Shall we give this up as a bad job and just buy something at the bakery?” Ginny asked, gesturing to the utterly ruined cookie dough, which was now absolutely drowned in flour.
“Yes, but no need to go right now…” Luna trailed off, dusting flour from Ginny’s shoulder.
“No indeed. You’ll need another shower to make yourself presentable,” Ginny laughed at the sight of Luna’s still-damp hair, now matted with wet flour.
“And you could use one as well!” Luna dusted off Ginny’s nose with a dainty pinky, to better see the beloved freckles.
“Well, we might as well take one together then,” Ginny said, with mock reluctance.
“And then back to bed?” Luna asked hopefully, wriggling into Ginny’s arms.
“Wherever else would we go?” And then they kissed, the taste of flour forgotten.