The Radiant

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She stayed most of the nights at Lucius’ house, curled beside him in his bed. Now, most mornings, she woke up with his arms coiled around her waist or torso, one of his legs between hers, the sleepy, clear morning light seeping in from around the curtains.

One early morning, however, the banging woke her up.

“What –” Ginny raised her head from the pillow, her hair tangled around her face. There was a banging coming from somewhere in the Manor, possibly the front door. She looked around wildly, seeing the empty bed beside her. Lucius was – Lucius was –

Lucius was standing beside the bed, his hair unbound. He was tying up his dressing gown.

“Here. Put this on.” He threw a second robe at her, and Ginny slid it on, slipping out of bed.

“What’s going on?” She was scared – it felt like an invasion, like the war, like all of her bad memories come back to mock and needle, and she unknowingly started running her hands up and down her forearms. Lucius shook his head slightly, looking down and exhaling.

“It’s fine, Ginevra.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s five in the morning.” He ran a hand over his chin, absentmindedly feeling the pale morning stubble. Ginny’s eyes tracked the movement of his fingers. “This happens sometimes.”

“What does?” The banging was getting louder and she could hear muffled shouting. “Is that the front door? Lucius, what is going on?” Her voice got harsh and fraught.

“It’s happened before.” Lucius looked away for a moment before cinching his robe belt tighter and looking back at her, his face impassive. “It’s a group of Aurors. Occasionally I have been – disrupted – by them.” Ginny kept staring at him, her mouth slightly open. “They say that they are here on business – that I’m a person of interest and that they are monitoring – sometimes it’s about artifacts that I used to own – or still do… but it really just gives them an excuse to push me around and periodically invade Malfoy Manor.”

“Oh.” Her word was a soft puff of air. “How many times has it happened before? Harry never mentioned anything about that –”

Lucius visibly flinched. “I should hope that your precious Potter wouldn’t discuss this with you – or anyone.” Ginny shook her head, wanting to explain to him that that wasn’t it, that she and Harry hadn’t talked in a very long time, that she was just wondering aloud, but Lucius started speaking again. “Three times before this. It has happened three times before this.”

Ginny tilted her head to one side.

“And they will be wondering why I haven’t answered the door yet. It would be best for you to leave. Go back to your flat. I’ll let you know when it’s over, but sometimes it takes hours. Nearly a whole day.”

She nodded.

“Go.” He was looking around for his slippers, and Ginny hesitated for another moment. Lucius looked back up at her, his eyebrows drawing together. “Go!” This time his voice hit a harsher note, and Ginny started into action, wrapping the dressing gown tightly around her body and hurrying over to the fireplace. She stopped only to grab her clothes from the ground. The last thing she saw before stepping into the hearth was Lucius silently braiding his own hair, pulling it back tightly behind his head, the leather tie held between his lips. He wasn’t looking at her.

Nine hours later, Ginny finally heard back from Lucius.

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He was sitting in his desk chair, pressing a cold compress against his mouth, head down as he wrote – Ginny squinted her eyes – wrote some formulae across the parchment in front of him. That was Lucius – reverting to crunching numbers and accounting when he was stressed.

“What happened?” Ginny’s voice was soft and yet incredibly, frighteningly loud in the velvet still of the room. Lucius showed no sign of having heard her. She stood in front of the desk, watching as he finally and slowly raised his head and set the compress down.

“I walked into a door.” Finally getting a decent look at his mouth, Ginny stifled a sound in the back of her throat. His upper lip was swollen, quite obviously split open at some point in the previous hours. It looked as though he had been clipped in the mouth with a very deft fist. “I’m icing it before I let Balius tend to it. Bringing the swelling down helps with the accuracy of the healing.” He lifted the ice again, pressing it back to his mouth, looking back down at his work on his desk, subtly signaling her to leave him.

“Did they–”

“Enough, Ginevra.” His tone was clipped and he was looking back up at her. “It’s done.”

“Was it Harry?” She knew that needling him like this was a bad idea, but she had to know – had to know if Harry had been involved, if it had been Harry who had struck the blow, hitting hard as Lucius stood impassive and fierce and proud, absorbing the hit, not crumpling, stoic, stoic –

“Ginevra.” His voice was rock hard now, glittering. “I’ve had a trying enough day and I really,really would prefer not to discuss this.” The rage was there, simmering perfectly beneath the surface but controlled beautifully. She wanted to lance the boil, to let his rage escape; she could be the yielding body.

“No – I want to talk about it.”

His eyes narrowed and she swallowed, but took another step towards him.

“I don’t.”

“Then – then –” Oh, this was so stupid, what she was doing, provoking him, but she continued on. “Then don’t talk.” Ginny smoothed her hands down her back and over her bottom, letting them linger across the span of her buttocks for a few seconds too long, directing her gaze to Lucius’ own hands, and watched as he watched, his eyes tracking the movements of her palms owlishly.

There was a moment where both of them breathed, evenly, calmly, staring at each other, sizing the situation up, and then Lucius made his move.

“Come here.” His voice was measured and deep. When she didn’t move right away, Lucius cocked his head. “Don’t make me ask twice, Ginevra.”

Ginny still didn’t move, partly nervous about the floodgates she was about to open and partly unsure of what Lucius was planning. He narrowed his eyes at her, and reached forward, grabbing at her wrist and yanking her around the desk. She had to follow the force of his pull, head moving back like a spineless rag doll, and she ended up beside him, standing, as he sat, pushing his chair back from the desk.

“Lucius –”

“Checkmate. That’s your word. Your safe word.” Before she could say anything else, he had yanked again on her wrists, sharply pulling her over his lap, her legs not quite touching the ground, her eyes open and staring, stunned, at his office carpet. Lucius pulled brusquely on her pants and she heard the button pop as both they and her underpants came down around her knees, effectively binding her legs together.

The first smack surprised her and she instinctually and fiercely struggled to get away, bucking her hips and clawing at his thighs with her fingers. Lucius ripped her hands away from his legs and pinned them behind her back, holding them in his own left hand. He smacked her buttocks again and Ginny hissed and tried to bite his thigh, partly sinking her teeth into his skin.

“Oh, you little shit.” The incongruous nature of his colloquial words almost made her laugh, but then he adjusted his legs under her and hit her again, harder.

She had lost count of the number of times he had spanked her, and after a few minutes of futilely struggling she had lain mainly still, reacting to each of the hits with a grunt or a hiss. Lucius was walloping her with nearly full force, each of his smacks hitting her with a full, open palm. Her skin was burning, and tears were gathering at the corners of her eyes unbidden.

Finally his arm slowed, the slaps lessening and lightening, and eventually he ceased movement, keeping one palm on the burning, blushed skin of her bottom. Lucius released her wrists. Ginny used the back of one of her hands to dab at her mouth, brushing over her eyebrows, wiping the sweat from her forehead. Lucius was breathing heavily above her, the movement of his stomach against her side. She was panting too, staring at the carpet, unwilling to move.

They sat like that for a time, both allowing their breathing to slow. Ginny shifted slightly, brushing her breasts against his thigh, and Lucius seemed to jolt back into consciousness, drawing in a deep, open-mouthed breath almost as if he were emerging from water. He reached down and propped her up, sitting her on his lap, putting them face to face.

Ginny blinked and grimaced as her wounded flesh came into contact with his hard thighs, and the tears that had cloistered themselves in her eye spilt over, wetting her face again.

Lucius looked gravely at her.

“Are you – I’m –” And he seemed to be wordless, exhaling through his nose and closing his eyes for a moment. He wiped the tears off of her face using his handkerchief. “Say something.”

Ginny caught at the hand with the hankie, pulling the square of cloth out of his grip and tucking it into her bra. Holding Lucius’ palm toward her face, she kissed it, closing her eyes as a cat would, flicking her tongue out to taste at the hot skin between her lips.

“Did I help?” Her voice was raw and heated but strong as spider-silk. “I wanted to make you feel more like the master of your domain.”

Lucius looked, agog, at her for a few seconds.

“You needled me on purpose?”

“Just because I thought you wouldn’t – you wouldn’t want to – otherwise – I didn’t mean to trick you, Lucius.” Ginny was shaking, her body slipping into a state of shock, and her teeth began to click in rhythm. “I hope –” She slipped into a faint, falling forward on his chest.


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Ginny woke up, blinking blearily into the darkened room. Where – she looked around, and spotted the blinding white hair she was searching for. Lucius was sitting on the window seat, reading, his hair pulled into a braid and reading glasses set low on his nose.

“Lucius?” Her voice was rusty from sleep and as she was pulled more and more into consciousness she realized that they were in his bedroom – she was dressed in one of his button-up shirts – the one he had worn today – and it smelled like him, deep and spiced.

He looked up at her.

“How are you feeling?”

“I can’t believe that I fainted. I’ve been hit in the ribs by Bludgers before. I’ve even sustained a broken femur. But for some reason – I can’t believe I fainted. I’m sorry.” She felt awkward, like the conversation was stilted. “Are you alright?”

He didn’t answer, looking back at her pensively.

“Lucius, I’m sorry that I provoked you like I did. I just wanted to try something…new.”

“You –” He seemed breathless. “You are apologizing – you – to me? To me?”

“Yes. You seem off. I figured you were upset with me.”

He moved quickly, pushing up off the window seat and settling on the bed next to her. Ginny looked up at him, her eyes still puffy from the tears and the sleep, the collar of the shirt dipping low and open, exposing the white curves of her breasts, and Lucius almost laughed out loud at her belief that she had been the one in the wrong.

“I’m more upset with myself. I shouldn’t have struck you in anger. I broke the number one rule. I overdid it. I over-taxed you.”

“No – I needled until you struck me in anger. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. Just because I can accede to you being the master of your domain in specific areas of our life – the master over me, at times – doesn’t mean that it will be that way all the time. But that’s what I wanted. I wanted to feel your palms on me.” Ginny smiled almost shyly at him and reached up to undo the leather tie that was holding his hair in place, carding her fingers through his plait-kinked hair. Lucius closed his eyes, reveling in the pleasure of the touch.

“I lost my temper. That is why I am ‘off.’” Lucius looked at her. “I don’t deserve you sometimes.”

“It’s not like you to truly speak candidly about your feelings. Did I do the wrong thing?”

“No.” Lucius ran his hand up and down the lengths of her legs. “I just appreciated the gesture today. The sacrifice you made for me was monumental. I know what a – spirited – and independent person you are. To be bent over my thighs would be a big accession for you.”

Ginny caught at his moving hand.

“It was.”

Lucius smiled and kissed the back of her hand, moving his mouth to her inner wrist, licking softly at the tender skin there.

“Thank you.”


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