The Radiant

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Ginny sat on the edge of the bed, running her fingers through her hair. She stared down at the ground between her feet, trying to catch her breath. She felt like there was a hot curling vise around her chest – her lungs were finicky, her ribs constricting. The heat was novel. The action of unpacking her things into the master bedroom had momentarily floored her. All of a sudden she had had to sit down and let it wash over her, saline and new. Ginny shifted, falling back onto the bed, her arms down at her sides, her eyes closed.

She felt his presence before she heard him.

“Are you alright?” The bed beside her was indented as she felt him sit.

“Yes.” Ginny opened her eyes and looked up at him. He looked like an archangel. “The villa is nice.”

“Nice?”

“Gorgeous. The villa is gorgeous.” The answer appeased him and he relaxed, almost as if he had been waiting on her approval. “I expected flashier from you.” His brows came together and he pursed his lips at her.

“Sometimes…” Lucius looked around the master bedroom, eyes taking in the warm yellow tones, the ochre accents, the linear Spartan accoutrements. “Sometimes people need something that lets them breathe easier.” He looked back down at her. “More space.” They looked at each other for a moment, and Lucius exhaled softly through his nose. “You are so alive.” His words were so soft that Ginny had to stare at his lips to try and understand what he was saying. “Bright…”

She wondered about him, really. She wondered how balanced he was, if he was mentally sound. He shifted so quickly, so mercurially sometimes, and she was constantly off-balance. He kept her constantly off-balance, and for someone who was so used to keeping her balance in so many aspects of her life, it was frightening. Ginny kept watching him, her mind trundling along. So maybe that was it – maybe that was why she was so attracted to him. She could feel the arrows of heat narrowing their way down her body, nestling between her legs, her thighs twitchy, longing to lock around his hips, feel the slim juts of bone pressing into her soft flesh. She wanted to put a halt on the physical aspect of the relationship in order to further the mental and emotional aspect, but regretted it at times like these.

Lucius was still looking at her. He made a flexing sound in the back of his throat, his eyes running down her body, inching along. She wasn’t sure exactly what was happening in the moment, but she didn’t mind it.

Ginny smiled small and propped herself up on her elbows, turning to face him head on. “It’s a beautiful place, Lucius.”

He seemed to shake himself, rolling his shoulders, sinewy, and quickly stood up, immediately moving back two steps, tilting his head. “Are you sleeping here, or do you want the sheets pulled down in the guest bedroom?”

“This should be fine, thank you.” Ginny frowned lightly as he turned and left the room, and as her eyes following the lanky lines of his back, his fluidity, she wondered if the momentary light cracks in his façade would ever widen permanently. It was possible that Ginny would never get to the next level of Lucius.

She didn’t know if she could live like that.


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Over dinner, Ginny decided to begin peeling back his layers. She was determined to use her words diligently and wield with extreme precision – words akin to a flaying knife.

He was across from her, silently eating the salad she had prepared, his shirt halfway buttoned, his hair loose but pushed back over his shoulders, down his back.

“Do you ever talk with Narcissa?”

She made sure that her voice wasn’t prying, wasn’t accusatory, simply bland and genial. He looked at her from the corners of his eyes without moving his head.

“Interesting.”

“What?”

“That you would ask about my ex-wife.”

Ginny shrugged one shoulder effortlessly. “I’m not a jealous type, really. I’m more curious. But I don’t mean to pry.” She continued eating. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I don’t mind.”

“It’s a very occasional correspondence.” He looked at the ceiling for a moment, thinking. “She will probably re-marry soon. She has that effect on people.”

“Do you mind?”

Lucius paused, laying down his fork and folding his hands on the table. “Do I mind that she will re-marry?”

“Do you mind that she might re-marry and you may not?”

He smiled.

“Ginevra – what exactly are you getting at, you rude thing?” She coloured lightly, realizing how her question sounded.

“No – I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. Marriage has never been… it…” She lost her eloquence for a moment, running through words in her head. “I have never looked upon marriage as a thing that I wanted to work towards. Despite what my mother may say. I don’t need that. The idea of it – makes me feel – it makes me feel itchy and hot – trapped.” She shook her head. “I don’t need a piece of paper to justify… I don’t…” Ginny trailed off, looking thoughtful, and sipped her wine.

“Hm.”

“I would admire you for not marrying again.”

“It was an arranged marriage, but I’m sure you knew that.” She nodded. “I don’t see marriage in my future, no.” Here he glanced at her as if to ascertain her reaction, and was stunned, for a brief moment, to see her smile, wide-mouthed, genuinely, at him. He had thought, perhaps, that she had been bluffing about her dislike for marriage. “You are queer, you bonny girl.”

She laughed that rich laugh and he was struck at how odd it was to hear such an aged, wonderful laugh from someone so young. Picking up his fork, Lucius continued to eat.

Until Ginny spoke again.

“Have you heard from Draco?”

He froze, the fork stuttering for a moment before he recovered, liquidly, and the utensil continued its arc to his lips. Chewing, he scrutinized her before swallowing and answering.

“No. Not recently.” He seemed content with that answer but Ginny raised her eyebrows at him and he sighed and continued. “A week or so ago. I received word from him that he was going to extend his stay and that he was ‘fine’. He insinuated that I should bugger off and leave him alone. Charming, as always.”

Ginny hummed and then forged ahead.

“Is it a good relationship that you have with him?”

Lucius set his wineglass down on the table with an audible click, and she noticed the subtle tics and tightening of his fingers around the stem.

“Ginevra –”

“You can’t use that tone with me. As I told you before, you’re not my father, so don’t chide me.” She said it without rancor, just merely stated it, keeping her face open and gentle.

“Yes, you often use the father argument. It’s lovely to be reminded that I certainly could be your father.” His tone was clipped again and Ginny realized that she wasn’t accomplishing anything with her method. She decided to change tactics. Standing, she dragged her chair around the table, changing sides so that instead of being across from Lucius she was now beside him. She yanked his chair out from the table, nearly dislodging him in the process, and, ignoring his irritated grunt, she lay down across the two chairs, setting her head sideways in his lap, lying on her right side across the wooden seats.

He sighed, but after a taut minute, he raised his hand and began absentmindedly touching her hair.

Ginny felt a massive hot surge of relief race through her. It always seemed as though they spoke better when they were touching somehow. He seemed, also, to be more comfortable with no eye contact. She petted his thigh, under her head by her cheek, closing her eyes like a cat as his fingers worked through her hair,

“Lovely hair.” His voice was a murmur, and she rubbed her face across his pant leg, wordlessly acknowledging his intimate statement. Lucius quietly stroked her hair for a while more before speaking.

“Our relationship has always been a little fraught. I am not a good father.” Ginny tightened her grip on his leg in encouragement. “I know that. Draco is … volatile at times.”

“He’s not terrible.” Her voice was soft.

“No, nothing like me in my younger days.” Ginny had a vision of a Lucifer-like Beserker, a bleached Cú Chulainn, sinewy, hair whipping around a cut-glass face, eyes even crueler. She resisted the urge to shudder. “But he’s – I’m sometimes worried about him.” It sounded like he was grinding his teeth. “And now I’ve taken something that belonged to him. I’m apprehensive of how he will react to this. I don’t want to drive my son into madness.”

Ginny shifted, raising herself up, and turned around, quickly sitting in his lap, her thighs outside of his. She grabbed his hair in two large hanks, curled in her fists, and tilted his head back. He didn’t react but instead kept his eyes on hers, watching her as she searched his face. Lucius wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she seemed to find something because she leaned forward suddenly, kissing him hard, unknowingly shifting her hips rhythmically against him.

When she pulled away with a satisfied gasp, she kept her face close to his.

“You always have time to change. Chances are given.” Her voice was an abrasive whisper. “You just fucking remember that.” His mouth was a line, but he was listening – she could tell from the percussion of his chest, his breaths rising and falling, his darting eyes.

He closed his eyes and she fit her head to the hollow of his neck. His arms came up around her, wrapped tight and firm.


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“Enjoying the view?”

He was standing behind her chair, both of them on the veranda, looking out at the sunset. Ginny swirled the soda water in the glass in her hand without looking at it, tilting the cup mindlessly, eyes fixed on the orange seeping through the sky in front of her. She knew that if she looked up, his eyes would also be fixed forward. What a picture the two of them were making – the thought flitted through her mind. What a fantastic, striking profile they made.

“Very much. The effect was almost instantaneous.”

“What effect?”

“When you go somewhere – anywhere – and it just feels… right. It feels right.” She sipped her drink. “It sounds so cliché. I always wanted to come here, and I just never got the moxie to do it. To just do it. I also never had the resources to properly finance it.” She broke their forward profile and tilted her head back. “Thank you, Lucius.”

He remained staring ahead, eyes tracking the melt of the sun, but she noticed him swallow.

“Tomorrow –”

She interrupted him. “The ruins?” He looked as though he wanted to chide her but instead nodded, finally looking down at her.

“Yes. If you want.”

“I want.”

“I thought as much. I’m surprised you didn’t tow me there today.”

Ginny laughed, turning her head back to watching the sunset, standing and stretching, unaware that Lucius was hungrily staring at her from behind, following the outlines of her body as she cracked her back. She looked back at him. “I’m not that keen.” Ginny looked back at the view.

Instantly, she felt him step closer to her, and did not reach out behind her or lean back into him, despite wanting very much to. Instead, Ginny stood tall and proud and waited to see what Lucius would do. Both of them looked out onto the disappearing sun, the orange become reddened and tawny, the light ebbing. As the sun sank below the horizon, his hands spanned her lips, palms resting on the rounded bone, and she then slunk back into him, enjoying the feeling of being pressed together. She laid one of her hands on top of one of his own, resisting the urge to thread fingers together and instead settling for trying to reassure him through touch alone. They stood together until the inky night forced them to retire.

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