Title: Bathing in Sunbeams
Author/Artist:
bluemermaidPrompt: F3: “I want to caress your skin like the sun.”
Pairing(s): Ginny/Luna
Word Count/Art Medium: 1272
Rating: PG
Warning(s): It did get rather fluffy!
Disclaimer:Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Many thanks to my beta; any remaining mistakes are due to my last minute scrambling to change things, as usual.
Summary: Ginny savors the contradiction of warmth and coolness.
The wind chilled Ginny to the bone, like the icy figure of a ghost slipping through her skin. Pulling her robes tighter to her body, she shivered and looked up. There was no sky, only the endless canopy of leaves. The trees grew so close together that it was impossible to see anything beyond them. It was almost frightening, but mostly just annoying, because it blocked any rays of the sun. Ginny couldn't have even guessed what the weather was actually like out there under the sky, for in the forest the shade closed in on her from all sides and made everything gloomy and cold.
“If I knew we were going into another world, I'd have worn a thicker cloak,” she said loudly, to draw the attention of the person walking ahead of her. But, of course, Ginny really should have known that they would be entering another world, because every moment away with Luna Lovegood was a moment in another world.
Luna turned back to look at Ginny. Her long blonde hair held an odd gleam in the dimness of the forest, like a frizzy halo. She smiled. “You ought to always bring a thicker cloak,” she said. “You never know when you'll end up needing it.”
They walked together in the chilly gloom, holding hands, Luna humming under her breath as they went. Ginny shivered again and looked around, seeking some glimpse of the sun from between the leaves. Patches of filtered light broke through here and there, like beams of some kind of magical spell cutting through the trees. But it wasn't enough to ease the chill of the woods, still the cold wind swirling around Ginny and pulling tendrils of her hair into the air and across her face. She ought to have suggested a summer trek to Luna, instead of agreeing to hunt down Crumple-Horned Snorkacks in the middle of autumn.
Magical creatures existed in all sorts of shapes and colors; who was Ginny to decide which of them didn't actually exist at all? It didn't matter that Hermione had showed Ginny page after page of animal encyclopedias, because there had to be things out there in the great wide world that simply hadn't been discovered yet. What was the point of living at all, if there was nothing to discover? Anyway, Ginny didn't mind if they never found a Snorkack. Just holding hands with Luna was reason enough to go anywhere.
They twisted and turned around the trees, and suddenly a burst of light came upon them, and they found themselves emerging from the gloom into a wide open clearing, lit by the sun. The warmth hit Ginny in a rush of elation, and she laughed as she ran into it, spreading her arms wide and beaming.
“This looks like a lovely place to rest a bit,” Luna said, moving slowly over towards the center of the clearing. She collapsed gracefully onto the ground, her robes spread out around her like a dark puddle of water. Her eyes glittered in the light. “I don't think Snorkacks like the sun quite so much as you do.”
Ginny laughed again and tumbled to the ground in a messy tangle of limbs. She could be graceful, when she wanted to, when she was tearing through the sky on a broom with her arms around a Quaffle. But here, in the forest, in a warm patch of autumn sun, she could be clumsy, because she was happy and warm and she was having an adventure with Luna. “When we do find the Snorkacks,” she said loudly, because her voice always rose when she grew too excited, “I'll step back and allow them as much darkness as they want. Right now, I'm enjoying this sunlight.”
It was funny how the weather could be so contradictory sometimes. The breeze was still cold, tickling the back of Ginny's neck, but it was sunny in the clearing, where the trees parted to allow light and warmth to pour down over them. The juxtaposition was lovely, and suddenly Ginny savored that wind, tossing her hair back into it and sighing with contentment. The combination of warmth on her face and cold on her back sent shivers of delight down her spine.
Ginny gradually became aware of an odd prickling sensation, something layered just beneath the sun, and she looked sharply over at Luna, who was staring at her. Luna's head tilted slightly, and she smiled, a smile slightly different from her usual dreamy grin. “I was just wondering what it'd be like to be the sun,” Luna said.
“Only you would wonder such a thing,” Ginny said fondly, slipping a hand into Luna's lap, where she sought out the softness of a thigh, hidden in the depths of black robes, and squeezed. “But it must be cold and lonely out there amongst the stars.”
“Oh, I wouldn't be the actual sun,” Luna replied quickly, placing her own hand over Ginny's. Her skin was cool to the touch. “For it would be quite lonely, indeed. But I'd like to be a ray of light, and streak my way down through the clouds, to touch your face.” She smiled that odd smile again, and it sent a jolt of hot magic pleasure to Ginny's heart. “It was something about the way you looked just then, I think, with your face tilted up to the sky. You looked as though you could never enjoy anything quite like that bright warm beam of the sun. And so I wondered what it might feel like to be that beam, and make you so happy.”
A flush of embarrassment rose into Ginny's cheeks, but it was a warm and pleasant one. Luna had such a knack for saying wonderful things without even trying. “You do make me happy,” Ginny said, inching in closer, and taking Luna's hands tightly in hers. “You're like my own personal sun.”
Luna laughed, high and light and giddy, and they sat there grinning at one another for a moment, silent in a rush of overwhelming affection for one another. “I should have to learn a warming spell,” Luna said, moving to take the rucksack off her shoulders. “I ought to have a spell book in here somewhere that could help. Then I could caress your skin like a sunbeam in the shade of the trees, and make you warm again.”
“Luna, you make my heart warm,” Ginny said happily. She leaned in and slipped her arms around Luna, snuggling into her with a purr of contentment. “But yes, you should probably learn that spell.” She laughed.
They lay on their backs, then, and Ginny savored the sweet combinations of warmth and coldness around her. The autumn wind warring with the rays of the sun, and Luna's cool fingers sending jolts of heat to Ginny's heart.
And later, when the sun sank beneath the horizon and the darkness pressed in all around them, when they made their camp in a protected alcove and settled in for sleep, when there were no warm rays of sun to combat the chill of the air, then Luna set her books aside and crawled into Ginny's bed. And she didn't need to learn a warming spell at all, really, for her hands and lips did the job wonderfully on their own, with only the magic of love and attraction to warm them. Ginny gave herself over to her Luna, and allowed herself to be caressed all over, like bathing in sunbeams. And it was warmer than any sort of weather could possibly hope to be.