The Radiant

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Lucius looked back at her, his mouth turned upward.

“All right,” he said.

What?

“What?”

“That might work on my stress a little more than if I spanked you again. In addition, I’m not entirely sure your bottom could take it.” He had a look on his face that Ginny had never seen before—almost cheeky, yet not quite. She raised her eyebrows so high she was sure that they were in her hairline.

“Well? Are you going to do it?” He looked back at her, and she realised that he was waiting for an answer.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve done this,” she stated slowly.

“Oh, no,” he said, lifting her off of him and settling her down on her feet. Ginny swayed slightly but regained her footing, and he stood, looking down at her.

“Well, then—well—” She floundered for a moment before making her decision. “Well, I want a paddle.”

Wordlessly, he disappeared into the closet, and when he returned he was holding a round, leather-covered spanking paddle.

“Best to start with this one. The wooden ones might tire your arm out more quickly.”

Ginny took it from him, weighing it in her hand. “Good. Hair down.”

Lucius complied languidly, pulling the ribbon out of his hair and depositing it in Ginny’s upturned hand.

“Take off your clothes.” She crossed her arms over her breasts, and watched as he unbuttoned his shirt, shrugged out of his suspenders, slipped off his ascot, and twisted out of his slacks. He lay all of his clothing on the chair, and knelt down, naked, in front of her, in order to un-clasp his boots.

Ginny looked down at the top of his blond head, past the rippling curtain of light hair, down the broad, strong mesa of his back, down to where she could see the tops of his muscular buttocks, and she ran her tongue over her canines, her mouth watering.

He stood, toeing out of his boots, and cocked his head at her as if questioning her next move.

“Bonds. Do you have cuffs? Two sets?”

Again he went into the closet, and again he came out, holding two sturdy sets of leather cuffs, similar to the ones he had used on her when tying her to his desk. This time, however, his expression was more bemused, as if he were realising how serious she was about her role. Ginny took them from him and dangled them both from her forefingers.

“Get on the bed. On your hands and knees.”

Lucius looked at her for a moment but complied, gracefully assuming the position, his head tilted forward and his glorious hair spilling down onto the coverlet. Ginny sighed with pleasure at seeing him so. She moved to the front of the bed and pulled his hands forward toward the headboard, forcing him down onto his forearms, using a set of cuffs to secure each of his wrists to the intricate looping design in the middle of the board.

“Is this what you were imagining when you had this bed made?”

“No,” he replied, his voice almost petulant.

“You had better take a more appropriate tone with me, my dear,” she said, smiling wildly and picking up the paddle. “Make sure to close your legs.” He did so, and she stepped back. “My god, you look wonderful like this.”

“Thank you.” He wasn’t making eye contact with her.

“Ha—my pretty little pet,” she said, exaggeratedly, walking to the front of the bed so that he had to meet her eyes. “You didn’t expect me to truss you up like this, did you? It’s a little less control than you expected to have.” She paused for a moment. “Your safe word is the same as mine, by the way.” Nodding brusquely, she continued. “How many strokes do you think you deserve tonight?”

He didn’t answer.

“Twenty for now, then.”

She landed the first smack across his right buttock, and Lucius grunted, bowing his head down.

“Good?” Ginny paused for a moment.

“Good. Good strength,” he breathed.

She climbed up onto the bed and knelt beside his hips, placing a steadying hand on his lower back. Ginny ran the paddle over his buttocks, smiling as his muscles twitched.

She laid into him methodically, using her strong thighs as leverage as she systematically layered her hits on top of each other. Lucius was silent except for the occasional grunt.

By ten, her arm was sore.

By fifteen, he had lowered his head and his hair was hanging down to the bed, his erection heavy and solid between his closed legs.

As Ginny finished off the twenty hits, she was struggling for breath. Chucking the paddle across the room, she paused, admiring her handiwork, and then she dragged a tongue across his buttocks, finally giving into her baser urges and biting at the firm, reddened skin. Her teeth sunk into the flesh, and Lucius jumped, biting off a moan. When she drew back up, she admired the small, even circle that her mouth had left.

“More I think. More,” she breathed. “You need something harsher.”

Lucius made a strangled sound but didn’t refute her idea. Instead, his hips thrust forward of their own accord, and he licked his lips, speaking in a raspy voice.

“The dressage whip—the cedar chest in the closet.”

When she came back, she held out the vindictive-looking, thin-tipped whip for him to inspect.

“Yes,” he breathed, his hips pushing forward again.

“Lucius, this looks nasty,” she said. It was a lighter tool, the handle textured and threaded, the long, thin end stiff and tapered.

“Yes,” he murmured again, and she realised that he was relying, solely, on her to take his anxiety and his tensions and turn it into something buzzing and sub-space and arousing. He was giving himself over, completely, to her hands.

So she stepped forward and raised her arm, using all of her sinews and sports-toned power to crack it across his buttocks.

He yelled as loud as he could, partly from surprise and mainly from the pain, lurching in his restraints, the shackles rattling against the headboard. Ginny watched, fascinated, as a lurid red line appeared across his skin, and she licked a finger and traced it along said line. Lucius reacted to her touch, hissing.

“Stop that,” he snarled, and she smacked him with an open palm on the buttock, reacting in turn to his rudeness. He gasped and hung his head forward.

“Shut up.” She raised the whip again and cracked it, watching the second stripe appear below the first. “I’ve got good aim.” Lucius said nothing, his shoulders heaving as he fought to keep from crying out again.

Ginny counted the strikes out, and by the time she got to ten, she was slavering for him to yell out again. There was something exquisite about his hoarse voice, his uncontrollable urge to cry out, his inability to stop the cracking of his voice, even if he tried his hardest.

The next hit fell on the backs of his thighs, and Lucius made a wheezing sound.

“Did that hurt, pretty?” Ginny hit him almost exactly in the same place, and he gasped. “Come on, cry out for me again. Let me hear that sexy voice pleading with me, all throaty and broken.”

The third hit broke him. After the dressage whip had made contact with his skin, Lucius cried out in a hoarse, whistling voice.

“Oh, god—”

The next two hits stayed on his thighs, and, as she walked around him, Ginny could see the teeth marks on his lower lip, the brightened eyes that let her know that one blink and tears would track down his face.

The next two hits were across the lower crease of his buttocks. Lucius’ yells had become slower and more tortured, twisted versions of moans, and she could see the redness of his erection.

The last three hits criss-crossed along his buttocks, layering overtop of already bruised and battered skin, and he did nothing more but hiss at those, his head eventually rearing like some sort of bound horse.

Ginny threw the whip on the ground and wiped her brow with a shaking hand, stepping over to the headboard.

“Are you all right, Lucius?” She pressed a finger under his chin and tilted his face up. “Christ, you’ve never looked more beautiful.” She was speechless at his exquisiteness—two tears had fallen from his eyes, tracking moist trails down his cheeks, cheeks that were splashed with a lurid pink flush, dancing across the tops of his cheekbones. His lips were swollen from being held between teeth and chewed on so violently, and his head was shaking—he was shaking all over from the effort of the scenario.

Ginny knelt on the bed and un-cuffed him as quickly as she could, moving out of the way as he fell to the bed.

“Are you all right?” She repeated the question, her hands soft on his twitching shoulder blades. He raised his head, meeting her eyes.

“Yes. God, yes.”

Ginny stood, uncertain, unsure if he could even move, but suddenly he reared up on all fours and grabbed her wrists, dragging her forcibly onto the bed, covering her body with his own. She inhaled sharply as he placed his forearms on either side of her head, lowering his face to hers rapidly.

He thrust his hips forward, entering her, and Ginny cried out, arching her entire upper body off of the bed.

“Fuck—you’re so wet—” Lucius sounded strained, his eyes closed.

“Just fuck me,” she hissed back. “Don’t worry about making me come. Just fuck me.” She ran her hands down his back to his striped buttocks, and dug her fingernails in.

Lucius roared something unintelligible at her and lurched forward, his upper body coming down onto her chest, nearly crushing her into the mattress as his hips started a thrumming, deep rhythm, each plunge forward jolting her across the mattress. She could barely breathe, her mouth open and gasping, her hands still spanned across his bottom, feeling the throb of the welts. His face was pressed into the mattress beside her head, his hair feathered across her neck and chest. His breathing was laboured and throaty, and as she raised her legs, watching them move, helplessly, with each of his movements, he half-growled, half-whined as the tightness that the new position afforded.

“I’m going to come,” he gnashed into her ear, and Ginny reached a hand down and began slapping his buttocks, one after the other, in rapid succession.

Lucius bellowed and thrust four times, as deeply as he could, and then his entire body convulsed in turbulent, spasmodic movements, and Ginny felt him come, scalding, inside of her.

He collapsed onto her, wordlessly, and immediately fell asleep.

Ginny exhaled slowly, running light fingers up and down his back, and slid out, carefully, from under him, leaving him lying on his stomach. She combed his hair away from his face with her fingers, and tied it back with the ribbon. Pulling the sheet up over him, she made her way to the bathroom.

Standing over the sink, Ginny poured out her weekly birth control potion, watching it swirl down the drain.


---


When she woke up, Lucius was gone, but there was a huge bouquet of tiger lilies next to the bed.

“Oh,” she rasped, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and sitting up. Grabbing the note that lay beside the bouquet, she tried to un-snarl her hair with one hand while reading:

I’m sorry to have left you so early this morning. One of my salt mining business associates had an emergency, and so I am in Romania for the most part of today. Please accept the lilies as an apology and also as a thank you for last night. You were magnificent. I’m going to have to take my meetings standing today.

Ginny smiled.

While you were asleep, Hermione Granger Floo-called the Manor.

She nearly dropped the note, wondering if it had been Lucius who had answered the call himself.

I spoke briefly with her. She wanted to meet up with you today—possibly for lunch. You should get in contact with her when you wake up.

I will see you quite late—tonight.

His name was signed in his sharp, slanting writing. Ginny set the note down, picturing Lucius bent over his study fireplace, speaking with Hermione—Hermione, who had the courage to actually call the Manor instead of merely sending an owl.

And her heart swelled for him, actually taking the time to talk with Hermione instead of dismissing her and foisting her off on some house elf.

Ginny wrapped the bed sheet around her body and shuffled over to the bedroom fireplace, activating it.

“Hermione?”

She waited for a minute, and heard the sound of someone stubbing a toe.

“Bugger.”

“Hermione?”

“I’m coming, one second—I’m coming.”

I’m coming—the sensations of the night prior rushed back to her and Ginny blushed.

Hermione appeared.

“Hi, Ginny. Are you all right? You’re red.”

“Er—yes. I’m fine. I just woke up. Sorry.” Ginny leaned a little farther forward. “I heard that you talked to—Lucius said that—was he all right? To you?”

Hermione inclined her head. “He was—fine. Do you want to meet for a late lunch today? Three Broomsticks at two o’clock?”

Ginny nodded. “Yes, I’ll see you there.”


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The pub was busy but not packed. Hermione was sitting at a back table and was—bless her—drinking something that looked suspiciously like firewhisky.

Ginny elbowed her way through the late-lunch patrons and sat down heavily in the chair across from Hermione.

“Hi,” she said, breathing heavily.

“Hi,” Hermione replied softly, fingering her glass.

“I’m sorry that you had to talk to Lucius this morning.”

Hermione’s eyebrows jumped a little at Lucius’ name, but she shook her head. “Actually—actually, it wasn’t bad. It was fine, actually.”

Ginny looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“I called and I was put through to his study before I could protest. He was—cordial. He actually bent down so he could see into the fireplace better. He was polite.”

“Good,” Ginny muttered, signaling fluidly to the waiter. “Hermione, are you going to be eating?”

After they had ordered, and a fresh drink had been set in front of each of them, Ginny spoke.

“Will Ron ever forgive me?”

“Straight to the point, hm?” Hermione loosened the cuffs of her button-up shirt and took another sip of her alcohol. “I’m not sure. When I told him that I had written you—that first time, after you moved into the Manor—he almost went apoplectic. I had to nearly wrestle him to the floor in order to calm him down.” Hermione peered at Ginny. “Are you happy?” The question was random but warranted.

“Yes,” she replied instantaneously. Hermione tilted her head. “I am.”

“Well, then—good.” There was awkward pause, and Hermione sighed, rubbing at her face. “I do want to apologise for my words at the ball. I was far too scathing. I meant them, so I can’t apologise for that, but I didn’t mean for them to be so hurtful.”

“It’s fine, Hermione. You were the least of my worries. But thank you—I accept your apology. And I appreciate you being decent to Lucius—and I appreciate you inviting me to lunch. I’ve lost enough of my family—” Ginny bowed her head at the unexpected warmth that was gathering at the corners of her eyes. “It’s bad enough that I’ve lost my family. I didn’t want to lose a friend, either.”

“I want to meet him,” Hermione said suddenly, and Ginny brought her head up, looking quizzically at her. “I have this evil figure of a man in my head, and if I’m going to accept this relationship in any way, I am going to have to replace that dated figure—he must not be completely rotten if you’re so happy with him.” Her words weren’t judgmental, just light.

“Agreed. And Hermione—we do talk about Azkaban. We did talk about it. And the diary.” Ginny subtly brought up the digs that Hermione had flung at her during their last face-to-face meeting.

Hermione had the grace to turn pink. “Well, I’m glad for that. There was no way a relationship could be started without—wait a moment. How did you even meet, anyway?”

Ginny grimaced. “When Draco took me to the Manor for the first time—when he took me to meet Lucius, officially.”

Hermione raised her eyebrows.

“I know. It sounds terrible. But while Draco was fiery and good and fun, he was immature and reluctant to read—” Hermione’s eyebrows creased drastically, and Ginny knew she had hit a nerve— “and Lucius was deep and willing to speak and talk and have discussions, and when Draco and I eventually—and inevitably—separated, I had to go back to the Manor to collect some of my books—my favourite books. And I ended up yelling at him.”

“Draco?”

“No, Lucius. And then he—he grabbed me and—”

“And?” Hermione was leaning slightly forward, looking engrossed.

“And then he fucked me. On his desk.”

Hermione sat straight up, her cheeks coloured. “Oh.” She wet her lips. “And was it—was it good?”

“Yes,” Ginny hissed, breathing out. “It was. It is. It’s the best I’ve ever had. I can’t even—I can’t explain it. It’s like—when he’s inside me—he’s crawling through my brain, on hands and knees, like he’s stroking all of my synapses and all of my skin and all of my nerve-endings, all at once.”

Hermione’s mouth was slightly open.

“Do you want another round?” The waiter was above them.

“Yes, please.”

When the second round had been put in front of them, alongside their food, Ginny looked back at Hermione.

“All right,” Hermione said slowly. “I accept it.”

“What?”

“I accept that you’re with Malfoy—Lucius.”

Ginny smiled. “Good. Thank you. I wish my family could at least try, as you have.”

“It’s not easy, Gin. It’s hard enough for me. I associate him with—with—Bellatrix and that night at the Manor. He watched. You must realise that. And your family—they’re a determined bunch. You’re never going to have all of them. You must know that. You do know that?”

Ginny nodded silently. “I know that. Mum is a lost cause. Dad might—maybe—come around. As for the brothers—maybe Bill. Maybe Charlie. I don’t know about the rest.”

---

“I’ll find a time when you can meet him,” Ginny said, as she pulled on her coat. “Thank you, Hermione.”

The two women stood awkwardly for a moment before Ginny lunged forward and clasped Hermione to her body, tightly and ferociously. Hermione returned the embrace after only a second of hesitation, her arms unyielding and strong as Ginny’s.

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Ginny inclined her head and Apparated to the front steps of the Manor.

---

The Aurors, clustered around the front door, were thick—stocky men, so contrasted to Lucius’ fine lines and light colouring—men who knew how to use their shoulders as they did their wands, men who were vindictive, scarred by the War as everyone else, men who were just doing their job and yet more so, men who were jolted by the sound of Ginny’s arrival.

At the crack of her Apparition, all of the men whipped around, their stark faces exposed, and Ginny felt angry and frightened.

Her hand curled around her wand.

She remembered the stance—it had been so long since she had duelled properly, but her body remembered the fantastic curves of each posture, the supple motion of wrist as a hand was flung, carelessly, insouciantly, over a head, behind a neck, hurling a curse at someone—the squared set of chest—the way she remembered Lucius with Sirius, the graceful and nearly careless arm movements, hip set, slight bent of knees.

She would battle with him.

She could battle with them.

And the wind outside the manor made her hair fly like the Morrigan, her eyes flint and fire.

“Excuse me, gentlemen. But just what is going on here?”

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