Nightmares Redux by Verity

When Ginny was a girl, she used to have nightmares.

But now she's grown-up, and her nightmares don't scare her anymore.

Tonight she's in Lucius Malfoy's study, and she doesn't even wonder why she knows exactly how it must be. Because Tom is there, perched on the arm of her sumptuous black leather chair - beloved Tom, blessed Tom, who comes to her even in dreams.

"Some brandy, Miss Weasley?" Lucius offers, his silken drawl sending shivers down her spine. His black robes of the finest velvet drape elegantly over his own chair, spilling into elegant pools of ebony when he reaches to fill her glass from the decanter.

She looks down as he pours to find herself garbed in the kind of robes she's always dreamed of - ivory silk and organza, and hardly there - and Tom puts his hand on her arm. It's cool against her warm flesh.

"Your drink?" Quickly she takes the glass from Lucius's hand, downing a large portion in one swallow. It burns its way down her throat in an unfamiliar, but faintly disconcerting fashion. She feels her cheeks flush with the drink and the heat of the fire in the hearth.

Tom's hand on her arm steadies her - it is so warm here, so opulent and cruelly beautiful, everything she'd ever dreamed. She sips her brandy again, and she is surprised to find how quickly her glass empties as the two of them, wonderful and wicked, watch her.

"Another?" Lucius's voice, amusement in it.

"Yes." Her voice is lower and huskier than she'd expected.

Tom tilts her head up to his then, and kisses her; the glass falls from her hand and lands soundlessly on the thick carpet. When she catches her breath again Lucius has filled it. He smiles at her, steel grey eyes and white-gold hair glimmering against the black of his chair and his world.

"You're a quick study, Miss Weasley," he says.

"Yes," she says, and gratefully takes the glass from him. "Thank you."

And when this glass is through, Tom kisses her again, and she is pliant between his cool, cool hands and silence but oh-so-hungry mouth, giving herself up utterly to his desires.

Lucius watches them implacably, with a small, cool smile of approval.

When she wakes she will remember the taste of the brandy, and the ice of that warm, heady dream.