The Radiant

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"Tell me about prison.”

Ginny and Lucius were sitting in the bathtub, facing each other from across the water.


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He had come home earlier from a meeting with one of his clients, and had been so tense and so frustrated that he had thrown a plate at the wall. Ginny had stared, watching as his own magic flared so brightly that the air around the crown of his skull had crackled, and his hair had flown up with static. First she had sat on the edge of the table with her legs pulled up under her, watching as he had stormed around. When he had finally snarled at her, she had kicked him in the buttocks as he had been turning away from her on a pacing step. It had been almost hilarious for her to see him lurch forward as he had. Then, when he had grabbed her wrists in his hands and held them so tightly that they had bruised right on the spot, Ginny had placidly suggested a bath.

Lucius had stared at her for a moment before nodding once and disappearing. She had found him already in the tub, and had had to brace herself when stepping in because of the extreme heat of the water.

He had sat with his eyes closed for minutes while she had worked her fingers up his calves, kneading at his skin, and when he had opened his eyes Ginny had smiled and then shook her head.


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His face was frozen in the same bland expression it had been just moments before.

“I want to know,” she said softly, staring back just as impassively. When he still didn’t respond, Ginny spoke again. “I want to know. It’s the last big barrier, Lucius.”

He sighed and shifted in the water, bringing a hand up to rub at his face, leaving wet trails down his cheeks. Still he was silent, watching her.

“I’ll tell you—” Her voice was a rasp, a whisper, a licking slick of water just like the damp around them, the damp on his face, and he could see her sharp incisors as she wet her lips with her tongue, as she decided if what she was about to say was worthwhile. “I’ll talk about the war. I’d talk about Tom—to you. For you.”

He could barely control the judder that ran through him. She was a braver person than he was, to name the name even after all of the years. There was something of the dark about her—something that must have attracted him to her—something murky and slinky and wild that curled at the back of her eyes and throat, along the slide of her wrists.

But she wasn’t trying to seduce him with wafts of power or tales from the old days—he realised that as he looked at her from across the water, her hair piled on top of her head, strands sticking damp and dark red to the sides of her face. There was also something earnest and delicate in her eyes, as if she were honestly offering up a part of herself for him to pick through, sort into boxes, evaluate. And he knew that this was what people did when they were in—when they were committed to each other, when they were part of a couple.

He floundered for a minute, and Ginny still stared calmly back at him.

“Ginevra—I—” Lucius suddenly made as if to push himself up out of the tub, but she still didn’t move, watching him with mild eyes. With his hands braced, Lucius met her gaze, his eyes slightly feral, slightly like a caged animal’s, and her gaze was still so mild, so calm. He let go of the side of the tub, and lay back against the end of it, looking tired, and then nodded once at her. “Although I can’t believe we’ll be having this conversation naked.” His deflection was snappy and cynical.

“Maybe it’s better like that.” Her hands were around his ankles, and it was a soothing touch. He exhaled as she played with the downy hairs that were there, scoring her nails lightly up and down his skin. “No pretenses.”

“How cliché.”

She tugged at a few of his leg hairs and he smiled.

“Put more hot water in the bath, please.” She tapped on his ankle as she asked it, and he leaned over to adjust the tap. He watched her as she closed her eyes and sunk down in the now-warming water, immersing all of her body except for her head, the water lapping at her chin. Ginny exhaled softly, almost moaning as the heat increased, bringing wet fingertips up to pat at her hair, slicking some fly-away tendrils down.

“You’re exquisite.” He said the words before he could stop himself, and felt abashed about his outburst, but when she opened her eyes and smiled at him, sliding her legs up to loop with his, he relaxed.

“Tell me.” She tiled her head back slightly, exposing the long white trail of her throat, and Lucius sighed.

“It’s not a short discussion—”

“—Which is why I made you put more hot water in the bath.” Ginny sat up straight and her breasts emerged from the water, stray paths of moisture running down between them, and Lucius stared, noting the immediate tightening of her pink nipples in the cooler bathroom air. His view was then disrupted as Ginny moved across the bath, coming next to him. “Put your legs up.”

“Excuse me?”

“Put your feet flat on the floor of the bathtub—put your knees up.” She moved his legs into place and then slung her own leg over him, settling herself on his lower torso and leaning back against his raised thighs. “See?”

Lucius exhaled. “This position is rather sexual.”

“And you are rather reticent to talk sometimes—except when we are physically touching.” She ran a hand across his shoulders, coming up his neck flat-palmed, cupping his cheek and tracing a thumb over his lips and his cheekbone. “My hand looks so small,” she murmured, and used her fingertips to track over his nose and eyebrows. “Please talk to me.”

He shifted, and she settled more fully onto his body. They were face-to-face in this position, and Lucius felt slightly uncomfortable with having her eyes meeting his so candidly and so openly.

“Please,” and then she leaned forward, her arms around his neck, and she was kissing him softly and wetly and warmly, and he opened his lips under hers, nodding.

“When I was put into Azkaban I had a broken neck. Do you remember that?”

“Yes. I was there, you know—at the Department of Mysteries.”

Lucius looked thoughtful for a moment. “Yes, you were. I had almost forgotten about that, which seems cavalier, but—yes, you were such a little thing then. You mustn’t have been older than fourteen.”

“I was fourteen. No—wait—yes, I was.”

Lucius gave her an appraising look. “And you held your own amongst some of the most violent and battle-weathered men and women I’ve ever known.”

“It was fight or be killed. You know that.”

“I don’t know—I don’t know.” Lucius sighed and tilted his head back.

“What do you mean?” Ginny gave him a hard look.

“If I tell you, the allure of dating a rogue may wear off—” Lucius stopped the sentence halfway through, seemingly disturbed by his levity, and instead he breathed and started speaking again. “I can’t expect you to believe anything I say—anything.”

“How could you say that?” Ginny tightened her fingers on his shoulders, glaring at him. “How could you say that, Lucius? I believe you when you speak. Why else would I have moved in here? I’m living in the same Manor where my friend Hermione was tortured. I’m living in the same Manor where you wanted to hand my former boyfriend over to his death.”

Lucius flinched.

“I know.” His voice was hushed.

“So—so, then tell me what it is that you think I won’t believe!” Ginny had her eyes up to ceiling, blinking to keep the tears that had welled up in her eyes from falling.

“That I—that I—”

“Just say it, Lucius.”

“That I never wanted so many of those things.” The words came out in a guilty, slick rush, and Ginny exhaled while looking at him. Lucius looked miserable—more upset than she had ever seen him look, his mouth tight and drawn, his face pale. Ginny said nothing, and instead waited.

“That I just—I—do you know how cowardly I am? Toward the end of everything, I just wanted out. I didn’t want to have to try and kill children anymore. I didn’t want to hand over my wand to some psychotic—some—I didn’t want to have to leave my wife and my son, but I did. I did, you see. I never said no. I could have said no. It’s one fucking word, and I could have said it.”

“You would have been killed,” Ginny said, her voice a whisper. Lucius looked up at her, an expression on his face akin to horror, as if he had forgotten that she was there, perched on him with her hands splayed across his skin. “You would have died for that. You know that.”

“What did I want? I wanted to protect the race of magic—I wanted to keep us pure and protected, but then it was so much more, and then it became a way to vent rage on people I deemed lesser than me. We blame the Muggles for their genocides—Rwanda, The Holocaust, Bosnia, the Holodomor—but then we became that. And now—every day I think about because I have no idea how much of that was an act for self-preservation, and how much was myself, taking out unbridled rage stemming from—from—expectations and society and family and the awful, awful things that went on in the households—horrifying Pureblood—things—I have no idea where I ended and where I began, and I can never hope to use that as an excuse, but it’s something I think about every day. Every single day. It’s my penance—the iron shoes I wear.”

“And prison?” Ginny prompted him softly, keeping her eyes on his face still. He seemed almost in a trance; leaden and soft-spoken.

“I deserved what I got.”

“And prison?”

Lucius looked at her with wild eyes. “I told you—I deserved what I got!”

Ginny hissed and grabbed his hair, pulling his head back and meeting his eyes.

“Nobody deserves to be treated like an animal. I’m sure you saw that when you tortured Muggles. Nobody deserves to be treated like dirt. So tell me—tell me now—about prison, Lucius.”

“It was dark. There was so little light that when I was eventually free—during the raid—I couldn’t see. None of us could. Other Deatheaters dragged us along because we couldn’t see where we were going, and all I remember are the tears that were on my cheeks—the sun was so bright that we were all crying.”

Ginny sat solemnly, silent.

“I suppose that we were lucky, in a way—the only guards there were the Dementors, and they had no interest in molesting us in any way—not physically. I had heard horrific stories from Nurmengard. We had all heard those stories. But when your happiest thoughts—when anything remotely warm in your mind—are being sucked out of you hourly, daily, constantly—you begin to wonder if you would rather endure the physical duress. Would you rather be physically and sexually assaulted? I don’t know—I don’t know if I would rather take that—over the emotional assault.” Lucius blinked. “They went mad. All of them did, really. I saw people running at walls, headfirst, over and over again, trying to dash their damned brains out, just to die. There was always blood, everywhere. Blood and filth. But in the darkness, you couldn’t tell what was water, what was blood, what was piss and shit.”

Ginny shifted in his lap, watching him speak.

“I know that I paid, in part, for my sins by being in that place. I will never be atoned. I will burn when I die, but my time in Azkaban was a tithe.” He shook, a little, under her palms, and his eyes were brighter. “Every day I had to try and protect my memories from those wraiths. Memories of my son as a baby. Of Narcissa. Of my wedding day. Of teaching Draco how to fly. Some of my memories are just wisps, now. Tattered. And I relived the worst of my times—unspeakable, Ginevra. Unspeakable. My worst—we all have our worst, and I don’t know yours, but I cannot speak about mine—”

Lucius was shaking. It was as if the bathwater had turned cold and he was trying to hold back his shivering, resulting in greater tremors. The hands that had been resting lightly on her hips had, at some point in the discussion, been balled into fists in front of him, and were now trembling. Ginny smoothed her palms up his arms, across his shoulders, and brought her hands up to cup his face, her thumbs directly under his eyes. Lucius was looking shattered, his pupils dilated and darting and his eyes wet. Ginny realized, belatedly, that she had pushed him into some sort of regressive, animalistic state by asking him to talk about his experiences. He was relieving them, in some way, and now it was up to her to take the melt-down and mould it into something better.

“It’s all right, Lucius,” she soothed, hushing with her voice, stroking the crepe-like skin under his eyes with the pads of her thumbs. “It’s all right, love.” When he blinked, stray tears spilt out of his eyes and tracked down his face, and Ginny wiped them away. Suddenly, he gasped for air, sitting upright.

“Ginevra—”

He wrapped his hands around her back, pressing his head into her chest, and she could still feel him shaking as she held him, her breasts cushioning him. Ginny looked down at him and saw that his mouth was open and he seemed to be struggling for air. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and wound her fingers in his hair, petting him, rubbing at his scalp.

When he stood and lifted her out of the bath, Ginny didn’t flinch or even speak. She simply let him stand, and then place her on her feet. She watched, naked and dripping, shivering slightly, as Lucius mutely pulled the stopper in the tub. As the water roared down the drain, he turned to her, and held out towels. Ginny wrapped one around herself and then took the other one, briskly drying him. Throughout, Lucius simply stood, his head tilted slightly up to the ceiling.

Ginny threw the damp towel on the ground, standing behind him, and wrapped her arms around his chest, kissing the skin in the middle of his back. He bowed his head slightly.

“Can we go to bed now?” His voice was exhausted and cracking, and Ginny nodded against him, leading him into the bedroom, pulling a flannel nightshirt over her head, watching as he put his sleepwear on, his eyes darkened and rimmed with purple circles. When he turned and saw her on the bed, sitting on top of the covers with her white legs bent at ungainly angles, he exhaled and seemed to attempt a smile.

“Lucius.”

Her voice was melodic and warm, and even though he was turned to his bureau she could see the fall of his shoulders as he broke, slightly, from the sound of it.

“Lucius, come lay beside me please.”

She had never seen him like this, but she wasn’t scared by it. It needed to happen—it had happened to her—that hit of realisation all at once, the blow that seemed to strike in the lush area of the spine, rendering a person useless and shattered. Now—now it was time to meld the pieces back together in a proper manner.

Lucius moved slowly but still elegantly across the bedroom, sliding under the bedclothes next to her. Ginny, still on top of the covers, nestled to his side, propping her torso up with her elbow. He had turned partially away from her, and all she could see of his face was his left temple, and then all the glorious light hair. She ran her fingers delicately through it, trying to soothe him with touch.

“You’d do well to run, Ginevra.” His voice was muffled and watery, and she realised that he was crying.

Instead of being frightened or unsure, Ginny was galvanized. She felt her heart swell sharply, and she was suddenly overcome with a white-hot desire to take some of the pain into herself and destroy it there, within her, away from him. She slipped under the covers, winding her arms around him, pressing one palm flat to his chest, feeling the hiccupping heartbeat, and one palm flat to his stomach. Her arms were crossed over his middle, holding him tightly. Ginny pressed her forehead into his back, and felt as he shifted, turning slightly.

“Please turn toward me,” she whispered, her mouth tracing on his back. When Lucius was still, she repeated it. “Please—please turn toward me.” She gently pressed at him with her hands.

Lucius turned slowly in her arms, keeping his face tilted up enough that she couldn’t see his eyes or cheeks, but Ginny had seen enough despair in her lifetime to know how he would look. She didn’t try to make him show her—it would only embarrass him. Instead, she slid her leg between his, keeping a hand on his heart and one at his lower back, pressing her forehead now into his chest, looking down the line of his body. She could feel the muted sobs underneath her fingers.

“Thank you.” Her voice was hushed and silvery, and she kissed his chest again and again, trying to slow the erratic beat of his heart with her lips, trying to quiet the bucking sobs under her mouth with touch. “Thank you, thank you.” Lucius moved slowly, winding his own arms around her, and she could hear him sigh, sort of shuddering, and then he went still, the crying stopping.

They lay quietly for nearly thirty minutes, and Ginny traced small, warm circles on his chest as his breathing returned to normal. Occasionally she layered still more kisses across the expanse of his skin, her exhalations heated and soft against him.

“You’re welcome.” Finally speaking, he shifted, and tightened his arms around her. His voice was deeper—raspier, but nearly sated—somewhat satisfied. He sounded exhausted but not rancorous, and Ginny breathed a sigh of utter relief, nestling into his grasp, tucking her head against him and slinging her arms around his waist, pressing small palms into the muscles above his buttocks. “Thank you. Thank you.” He repeated her words to her, drifting off even as he spoke them.

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