The Radiant

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When Ginny woke up it was very late at night or very early in the morning, and she was in a bed that was not familiar to her. As she shifted she realized she was naked, and the feel of the fabric of the bedclothes against her skin and the dull ache between her legs reminded her that she had –

“Go back to sleep.”

Ginny jerked, and turned on her other side.

“You startled me.”

Lucius was lying on his side, facing her but with his eyes still closed, wearing a pair of slacks but nothing else. His hair was tied back again and he was partially under the sheets.

“Well, I’m not sure where you expected to be.”

She wasn’t taken aback by his tone. Ginny had expected it. No bout of complicated sex – especially not with this man – resulted in immediate tenderness afterwards.

“Don’t be rude. It’s too late for it. Or too early.” She craned her neck to try and look out the window. “You’re awake, too.”

“That is an inane observation.”

His eyes were still closed so he didn’t see her tiny smile, but he did feel her lay her fingertips on his forearm where it rested on the bed.

“Lucius.”

And then his name was on her mouth and it was so delightful that his eyes opened unbidden. He sighed. “Yes, now I am completely awake.” He took a look at her. “Are you alright?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” He stared back at her as she looked up at the bed drapings, her fingers starting to draw restless whorls on his skin. “I can’t stop – stop thinking.” Ginny looked back down at him.

“Are you panicking?” He scrutinized her, and as he tilted his head to look at her through slightly narrowed eyes, she noticed that his hair was pulled back into a braid. Ginny smiled. If Lucius Malfoy did insecure, this was it – just one sentence, spoken amazingly calmly, revealing nothing.

“No. Not yet. I can’t help but feel, though, that if … this continues, it will be – ” she searched for the right word – “consuming. I’ll be in over my head.” His eyes had slipped closed again.

“You are hardly Dr. Faustus, Ginevra. And I am not Mephistopheles.”

She laughed, a full-body guffaw that surprised him with its indelicacy. “I wouldn’t go so far as that, Lucius. You are named after a fallen angel. And sometimes I think you might the devil himself.”

“Lucifer was an illuminated soul.”

“That’s what some people say.”

They lay in silence, Ginny with her eyes open staring blankly at Lucius’ hairline, and Lucius with his eyes closed, still feeling her fingertips on his skin but saying nothing to her.

It was her voice that broke the silence.

“What do we do now?”

He opened his eyes.

“What do you mean?”

Her fingers tightened around his wrist.

“I mean… I mean.” Her voice failed for a moment. Lucius laid a hand overtop of hers and met her gaze calmly.

“Yes.” They looked at each other for a minute.

“Lucius – you must realize that this is a terrible, horrible idea.” He noticed, with satisfaction, that she didn’t wish herself out of the situation.

“It’s near three o’clock in the morning and I would prefer to sleep now and discuss fractured pasts and dissonant families when there is at least sunlight.” He released her hand and she nodded.

“You can take off your trousers, you know.” Ginny smiled at him. “I think that they must be a little uncomfortable to sleep in.”

His eyes warmed around the corners as he slipped them off.

“Bossy.”

There was an awkward moment when she didn’t know what the proper bed etiquette was – was she to curl into his arms? She rarely liked doing that with people she had been involved with for a long time, let alone a new conquest. Ginny opened her mouth to speak and he shook his head.

“I don’t need to cuddle, Ginevra. It’s a rarity to let a woman sleep in my bed at all. Consider yourself lucky.” Saying that, he closed his eyes and began to slide the descent into sleep. She smiled to herself and turned over onto her stomach, drawing her right leg up to her side. As she, too, began to fall asleep, she reached her left arm out and laid her hand flush against his skin where shoulder met chest. They didn’t wake up until late morning.

---


She woke again, blinking her eyes rapidly against the bright, lemony slices of light that were chunking in through the huge windows. Ginny sat upright immediately, drawn to the massive panes of glass and the vermillion landscape that sat, delicious, behind them. Not caring about the fact that she was nude, she pushed off the sheets and walked to the window, running her fingers through the gnarls in her hair as she did so. It was no use – her hair remained tangled and wild around her neck. Ginny moved up to the glass, not quite ready to open the door and walk onto the balcony, but wanting so badly to smell the fresh scent that she knew existed behind the windows –

“Good morning.”

She turned her head, resting her chin on her right shoulder, keeping her naked front pressed to the glass. Lucius was walking out of his washroom, still nude as well, toweling off his face. Ginny suspected that he had just shaved.

“I daresay that the neighbours are getting a good view.” If he expected her to jump back from the glass like a naïve virgin, she disappointed him. Instead, she laughed that hearty laugh, throwing back her head as she did. It took his breath away.

“Good. Although I didn’t think you had immediate neighbours out here in snooty old Wiltshire. And if you did, I can’t imagine the Malfoy Manor being visible to prying eyes.” She turned around, revealing herself to him, yet walking past him in order to get to the lavatory. Lucius turned as she moved past him. “If you want a good morning kiss, you’re out of luck.” The washroom door closed behind her, leaving him a bit dumbstruck and perhaps a little amused.

---

When she came out of the lavatory, he was dressed in a half-buttoned white shirt and a pair of soft-looking slacks, sitting at his writing desk, looking over a few papers. She, on the other hand, was still naked, and all of a sudden felt self-conscious about her nudity.

As if he sensed her discomfort, he looked up.

“I have work to do. Can you amuse yourself for the day?”

Ginny nodded. “Yes. I might visit the library.” Amuse herself, as if she were a child, as if she were simple-minded. She clicked her teeth with aggravation.

“You can leave the premises, too, if you wish. You won’t be able to Apparate directly back into the Manor, but if you knock, someone will answer. Get the house elves to open the Floo to you.” He bent his head back down over his letters.

“Fine.” Her voice was soft, and she padded softly out of the room, pulling a dressing gown around herself.


---


Only when she had gotten back to her flat, after getting Balius to help her open the Floo, did her legs buckle. She pulled the dressing down tighter around herself as she collapsed face-first onto her bed.

“Oh, god.”

Despite having slept all night, Ginny immediately slipped into a disturbed nap.

---


When she woke up, it was late afternoon.

Christ, she had had odd dreams. In one of them, Lucius had had a pair of wings – how trite – but had been standing in a boat and when she walked up to him, he had held out an orange to her, a harp tucked under his other arm. Then she had been in a meadow, and the sun had been red instead of golden, and Draco had been holding a bottle of wine in one hand and there had been a leopard on the outskirts of the lea, around the edges where the forest began. And Lucius had held out a fox pelt to her, and when she had touched it, it had turned into a full fox-fur coat, and she put it on despite being naked and despite it being so hot - so hot – outside and she had fainted and someone had caught her –

She shook her head. Ginny stood up and pulled on a pair of khaki trousers and a cool white oxford shirt. Without even realizing the irony of what she was doing, she pulled her hair back, combing it roughly, and plaited it into a tight, long queue. Walking to the washroom, she splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth.

She was fucked. Coming back to her apartment had jolted her – she was not going to be living in a fairy tale because this was real life – real life existed beyond the doors of the Manor. Real life hunted people, unbidden, and made things bloody and difficult and stratified. Real life was muddy and seeped.

And what was this with Lucius? He made her come harder than any man she had been with before, but this was her prior lover’s father, and a supremacist and a bigot. She placed a hand over her mouth as she felt, suddenly, her throat contract. He had antagonized her family for years, and now she had fucked him. She had fucked him twice and she had liked it. Lucius made her feel like it was easier to breathe – she wondered at that. Maybe it was because she felt like she didn’t have to have any pretenses in his presence. Maybe it was because she had already screamed in his face and he hadn’t killed her – Ginny laughed out loud for a moment. He made her brain struggle to keep up with him. He made her wet.

She felt the bile rise before she could make it to the bathroom, and instead had to grab the bin from under the desk in the living room. Holding it with both hands, she vomited, and when there was nothing else to expel, she retched and retched until she was quietly heaving, reflexive tears running down her face.

When her body stopped roiling, she sat down on her window seat and alternatively watched the birds outside her window and read scraps of Coleridge.

---

The Floo flaring to life jolted Ginny out of her reverie. She fell inelegantly off of the window cushion and hauled herself up using the back of the couch.

“What? What?”

Balius’ head was in her fireplace.

“Oh, shite.” She swore out loud. It was late, and she hadn’t noticed the time. Had she made a promise to Lucius about meeting him later? Ginny wracked her brain but couldn’t remember. “Hello, Balius.”

“The master wants to know if you are joining him for dinner.”

Ginny stood up fully, pulling at her shirt and smoothing her hair.

“No, thank you. I’m not feeling well.”

---

The next morning, she simply refused to get out of bed. She had completed her articles and had sent them in ahead of time, and was now using a few of her sick days, complaining to her boss of a weak stomach. In some way, she guessed, that was true. Ginny didn’t even want to eat – she had tried to have some tea the prior night and had gagged on it, having to sprint to the sink to vomit it back up, watching the liquid swirl down the drain.

Turning over, she peered at the line of light that was beaming through the crack in her curtains – bright yellow, Apollonian light that was flooding into her room and making her eyelids feet like they had quartz and heat underneath them. The light – it hurt her eyes and she slid her pillow overtop of her head, relishing the warm, womb-like darkness underneath, breathing the smell of linen and eider and moist exhalation, allowing herself to fall asleep once more.

---

When she woke up next, it was afternoon, and she had been crying in her sleep. She did this, sometimes, ever since second year – wake up from a dream that she could remember nothing about, tears in her eyes and slicked across her face. She could wake herself up from dreams just by crying, sometimes. Ginny exhaled shakily and brushed the back of a hand across her face, feeling the gritty heat underneath her eyelids as she closed them and inhaled, breathed out, inhaled, breathed out.

And it was as if now, now that she had done the unthinkable and had lost part of her dignity like she had, now she could cry about all of her hidden things – Draco leaving, the shaky truce with Lucius leading to that vicious bout of sex, and then the odder, more tender coupling on his couch, and then cry maybe about her other hidden things as well, things like her cruel streak, her impatience, her ability to belittle, her darkest side. She was confused and felt female, felt warm, felt out of sorts and upset and vulnerable – wasn’t sure if she had been taken advantage of, wasn’t sure if she had been the one taking advantage.

And she had turned down dinner with Lucius last night.

Ginny turned over and fell back asleep, ignoring the warm golden line of light through her curtains.

---

The second day passed by faster. She woke mid-afternoon and didn’t even leave her bed to change her nightgown – just picked one out from her bedside set of drawers and changed under the covers, throwing the dirty clothing into the corner of her room. Ginny ignored the tapping at her bedroom window that she was sure was an owl – and how many of them there had been in the past two days she didn’t know and didn’t want to know – and lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling.

She hadn’t been dreaming the past two nights.

Ginny lifted an arm to brush her fingers through her hair and marveled at how wooden it felt – how block-like and dull. It was odd – as though she were an observer from outside her own body, wondering and interested in the functions of her body without feeling it. She turned onto her stomach, tucking her arms under her, and fell asleep.

---

Ginny woke up sometime in the middle of the night, and she knew that it had been her dream that had roused her. This time, however, she hadn’t been crying. Instead, she had been coming, coming so hard that her legs had been moving of their own volition, and while she had heard of men achieving orgasm in their sleep, she hadn’t known it had been possible for women until she was woken up at three in the morning, both of her hands above her head clutching at her headboard, her knees bent and feet planted on the mattress, thighs shaking. She threw her head back and gasped, feeling the air move across the newly born sweat on her forehead and lines of her neck.


---

The third morning, Ginny got out of bed.

Her legs shook as she walked to the washroom, but she steadied herself in the shower and turned the water as hot as she could bear without burning herself, washing her hair twice, gargling the shower spray, scalding her throat, closing her eyes as she nuzzled under the water. She made breakfast – oranges thinly sliced into a bowl and a warm cup of Darjeeling tea – and ate it cautiously. She grabbed the letters that had been left on her windowsill and left them on her desk, planning to open them later. Instead, Ginny decided to dress herself, choosing a light green cotton sundress, braiding her hair tightly down her back, staring at herself in the mirror.

The dark circles under her eyes weren’t as bad as she had thought they would be.

It was mid-afternoon before she found herself in the position she had thought about all day. Praying – praying – that the Floo was still open, she stood in front of the fireplace, tossing a handful of dust – shouting her destination –

She stood up after landing on her knees, dusting her dress off, looking around at the study of the Manor.

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