The Radiant

---


She moved beneath him, dragging a rough, cat-like tongue across his chest, circling around his nipples—and when she bit down lightly, he murmured and closed his arms in closer to her head, framing her body with his own. His pace was steady and deep, and on every thrust, Ginny felt the almost-pain of him hitting against her cervix, his going as far as possible inside of her, his mouth hovering above hers, his breath across her face.

They were in the middle of their bed, Ginny’s legs hooked over his shoulders, her hips opened wide to accommodate his thrusts. With every movement, the sheets rumpled more beneath her body, creating a sort of disheveled and yet beautiful white canvas that they lay on, colourful in the colourlessness of the linens—red and white and blond, red and white and blond and the colour of skin, miles of skin—

He was kissing her, deep and slow and honeyed, his tongue curling into her mouth, pressing her into the bed by his lips only. She slid a hand between their bodies, stroking her clitoris wetly.

“Oh, Lucius,” she murmured against his lips, and that was enough to set him off. Without taking his mouth from hers she felt his movements become erratic and hard, and then he was coming inside of her. Her hand was pressed against her mons as his body flattened to hers, and the increased pressure triggered her own orgasm. Her legs slipped from their position on his shoulders and fell to his waist, locking around him as her hips bucked against his.

Lucius sighed contentedly and brushed a kiss against her forehead, pulling out of her and slipping beside her body.

She grabbed the pillow from under his head and put it under her hips, still lying on her back.


---


“Ginny?”

Ginny looked up from her desk. She had been pleased when Lucius had suggested that she have her own study, and so she had claimed the room adjacent to the second library, far enough away from his own office so that they could both work without distracting or bothering each other. She decorated it in a spartan and burnished manner—the deep cherry desk, the red and burgundy leathers, gold inkwell, the deep gold curtains.

“It looks too Gryffindor,” Lucius had grumbled, and Ginny had laughed and patted his bottom gently and then ignored him completely.

She loved her space, and it meant that she was able to work from home more often.

“Ginny?” The Floo was officially activated.

“Sorry—Hermione? One moment. I just need to finish this thought.” Ginny scribbled something down on the paper in front of her, and then set her quill down. When she pushed herself up out of her chair, she winced slightly.

Lucius had truly been trying his hardest over the past few weeks to get her pregnant. They had been having sex up to three times a day, even though she had tried to tell him that perhaps it was best to conserve his sperm for her more fertile times. He had replied that he didn’t much believe in Muggle superstitions and that he only really knew of one way to get pregnant.

Ginny always felt full—full of his seed, the warmth and wetness of it seemingly always on her thighs. In retaliation for this, she had given him a few bites on his neck that he wasn’t allowed to cover for the entire time that they were visible and healing. If he would mark her, she would mark him, too.

Nobody knew that she was trying to get pregnant except for her and Lucius.

Even as she moved now, toward the fireplace, she could feel his come thick inside of her, dripping out of her, as only thirty minutes prior she had accosted him in his study before he left for a business trip and had made him lie on his desk while she rode him.

“Hello, Hermione,” she said, bending forward into the fire.

“I like the look of your new study,” Hermione replied. “The house elves directed me up here. I was disappointed not to be able to talk to Lucius again.”

“Rude,” Ginny laughed. “No, he’s away for a few days. And he hates when you call him Lucius.”

“That’s why I do it.”

“I know. You truly know how to run him the wrong way. It’s fantastic to watch.” She sat down on the hearth. “What can I do for you, Hermione?”

Hermione’s face turned more solemn. “This is going to sound odd, but can I—can I come spend the night?”

“Of course, if you feel comfortable enough in the Manor.” Ginny raised her eyebrows. “Why?”

“Well, I wasn’t even going to ask until I heard that Lucius was gone—er—well, Ron is away for more training, and I just don’t much like spending time alone.”

Ginny frowned slightly. It was unlike Hermione to feel that way—as far as Ginny knew, she was a fairly self-sufficient and gutsy woman. Ginny decided to get her to the Manor first and then ask the questions after, so she nodded. “You can come through the Floo, if you like. Now, even.”

When Hermione emerged a few minutes later, she dusted off her trousers with quick, efficient motions. Ginny was sitting on her desk, her arms crossed loosely over her chest.

“Explain,” she said, and Hermione sighed, setting her bag down.

“I suppose it’s that episode with Jugson. I’ve never been that expert of a dueller. Not like you—I can’t hex like you. And Ron’s away for the next few days, and I just wanted, for some reason, to be with someone tonight. I didn’t really want to be alone in the flat.”

“That’s fine,” Ginny said, smiling understandingly. “I could set you up in a guest room.”

Hermione nearly smirked. “Look at you, playing lady of the manor.”

“Oh god,” Ginny grimaced, “You’re right. I promised myself I’d never do that. That I’d never be some poncy Lady Malfoy.”

“Are you planning to be?”

Ginny had picked up Hermione’s bag and started walking out the study, attempting to get her settled in a room. She turned.

“Planning to be what?”

Hermione took the bag from Ginny’s hand. “To be Lady Malfoy?”

“Er—no. Follow me, this way.” Ginny guided Hermione up the stairs. “We’re—no. I don’t really want that. To be like mum. You know? Here, it’s this door.” Ginny nudged open the door to the guest room, revealing a deep green bed and lush mahogany furniture. “Our—my room is just two doors down.”

Hermione set her bag down and turned to Ginny. “No marriage?”

“No, Hermione. I don’t think so. I guess, in a way, I want to be free, and the moment we get married I feel like I could never—well, leave—if I ever had to. You understand? I don’t want to leave, ever, but being married would almost mean that I could never. And—well, no, that’s it.”

Hermione looked at her for a vast moment, and then nodded. “That makes sense.”

“I’m still going to keep my damned head about me, even in the midst of all of this—” Ginny waved her hand at the room around her.

“It’s impressive,” Hermione said, looking about. “I haven’t been here since—since—you know. But I don’t remember the—the décor. I don’t remember anything about the Manor at all, really.”

“We’ll steer clear of the drawing room. I rarely go in there, myself.” Ginny smiled awkwardly. Hermione nodded brusquely. Ginny realised, then, that Hermione’s reticence to be in her own home, by herself, had to been high if she was agreeing to stay the night in the Malfoy Manor.

Hermione dropped her suitcase. “Can we eat?”


---


Ginny was sitting on the library couch, her feet up on the arm. Hermione was lying on her stomach on the rug in front of the fire, an empty plate in front of her. She watched the flames jump.

“Doesn’t it get lonely in here when Lucius is gone?”

Ginny shrugged. “He’s not gone so often. And I’ve been working a ridiculous amount lately. The paper seems to want me to write more now that I have some sort of notoriety from being with Lucius.”

“You never say that you’re ‘dating’ him. Or ‘seeing’ him. Did you know that?”

Ginny cocked her head to one side. “No, but I guess it’s because I don’t think of it that way.”

Hermione propped herself up onto her elbows. “This is for life, isn’t it?”

“You make it sound like a prison sentence.”

“You know what I mean.”

Ginny inclined her head. “Yes.”

Hermione exhaled, thinking. “You could do worse.”

“Charming.”

“You know what I mean—you know what I mean! It’s a troubled past you are facing—his past—your pasts—but he’s smart enough. And he’s trying to be civil to me, which must be killing him.”

Ginny chuckled. “I think it is. He hates it. But he’s grudgingly impressed with some of the things you say. He reads as much as you do. I wasn’t lying when I said that you two would make a good couple.”

Hermione grimaced.

“I’m serious,” Ginny continued. “And you wouldn’t—” and here she threw a throw pillow at Hermione’s head, “—be making that face if you had ever fucked him.”

“Tell me,” Hermione, sitting up suddenly, resting her forearms along the couch cushions. “Just this once. Tell me.”

“Nosy.”

“Yes,” Hermione said, laughing as Ginny swatted at her.


---


They slept in the same bed that night, a thing that they had not done since their dormitory days.

Hermione had knocked on Ginny’s door just as Ginny had been getting under the covers. When the door opened and she saw Hermione there, framed by the doorway, Ginny knew that a night alone in the Manor might prove to be too much for Hermione.

So she had pulled back the bed covers and settled Hermione on Lucius’ side, relishing the feel of another body in the broad and empty bed. Hermione had said nothing, but had exhaled softly and happily, and they had not touched each other but had been lulled off to sleep slowly.


---


“What—”

As Ginny woke up, slowly, she noticed the figure above the bed. Before she had time to panic, she noted the light hair spilling over the shoulders, the long fingers, the fluid wrist, and she relaxed. Lucius had his wand out, steadily, pointing at Hermione’s supine figure.

He had come home early from his trip. He had come home because the Ukrainian wizards were brusque and brutal and because he had been sick for home and for the woman that he knew was sleeping in his bed. He was exhausted and his translation spells were faltering. He was mixing up words. After the third coal mine had been purchased, he had left his legal representative in Slobozhanshchyna and had found the first Floo to take him home.

He had not been expecting a body in the bed beside Ginny. His wand had been out immediately, and the anger had thickened his blood, waking him up.

“Lucius,” Ginny murmured sleepily. He started at the sound of his name. “Lucius. It’s just Hermione—in bed beside me. Don’t curse her.”

“What?” He shifted slightly and she could see his face come into broader focus—his drawn mouth, his tired eyes. He looked exhausted and miserable. Ginny also noted that his wand hand was still out, the wand pointed calmly at Hermione. She was certain that he was itching to hex her into oblivion.

“Lucius.” She used her voice to calm him. “I thought you weren’t coming back for a few days.” Ginny’s tone was tired and rusty but soft, and Hermione didn’t even stir as she spoke. “She wanted to come and—wait, why are you back? You told me that you weren’t going to come back until everything had been resolved.”

He moved suddenly, his form crumpling somewhat in tiredness, and the poker-faced warrior she had just witnessed was gone. In his place was an exhausted man. Lucius exhaled and put the light out, sliding his wand back into his robe. “I wasn’t going to, but I—is she asleep?” He peered at Hermione’s form with a great suspicion and a sort of anger. Ginny nodded, and he walked around to the side of the bed she was on. “Well, I—I missed you,” he said, almost sheepishly, sitting on the edge of the mattress beside her, “And I didn’t like the idea of you being alone here, especially after that incident at the pub.”

“Lucius,” she murmured. “This place is the safest home I’ve ever lived in.” Her hand drifted up to his head, and she deftly undid the stern ribbon that was holding his hair back, placing it on the bedside table. Her fingers found their way to his scalp, and she massaged it firmly, combing her fingernails along his hair. He sighed.

“Is that why Miss Granger is here?” He jerked his head over to where Hermione was sleeping.

“Yes, actually.”

“I’m going to have to burn those sheets after she’s left,” he muttered.

“Oh, Lucius.” Ginny pinched his ear and he jerked.

“Where am I going to sleep?”

“Just slide in beside me. I don’t want to wake her. I don’t think she can handle a night alone in the Manor. It intimidates her.”

“As it should,” he said. “The inherent magic in the house is probably raving angry over her appearance in here.”

“I did have to mute a few portraits,” Ginny mumbled. “Just take off your robe and come in,” she said, sidling over closer to Hermione, and pulling back the covers.

Lucius sighed again, dropping his head slightly. Ginny knew that he was fighting an internal battle—he seemed so exhausted, but he was angry at being made to share a bed with Hermione—the mudblood—the woman that he was trying to be so civil to.

She knew that he had made his decision when he slipped off his robe, leaving it haphazardly on the ground, unbuttoned his shirt, high-stepped out of his trousers, moving in efficient motions. In the muddied light of the night and the moon, Ginny was rendered speechless at his indifferent beauty—the white, murky glow reflecting off of the acreage of his skin, catching on specific silvered scars, luminescent across the bowls of his shoulders, the curves of his biceps, the length of his fingers, the soft length of his penis, the hair on his thighs.

“Move,” he said lowly, and Ginny shook herself from her quiet state, sliding even farther over toward Hermione, and Lucius knifed in between the sheets, exhaling heavily as he settled in, turned her to face their bed guest and pulling her body back into him. The softness of her buttocks settled into his hips.

His lips were light on her neck, and she could feel his heartbeat slow as they lay there, his body losing it tenseness.

Ginny sensed the change in his aim almost immediately.

Lucius’ hands were strong and hot across her waist, his fingers spanning out across her stomach. Ginny pressed her head back into his chest as his fingers found their way under the hem of her nightdress, sliding up between her legs.

“Lucius—Hermione’s—right there.” Her speech was staccato as he slipped two fingers inside of her. He sighed happily behind her, as though he had missed the feel, the heat of her. “Oh,” she murmured softly as he curled them gently.

“I don’t care,” he said softly, and she felt him reach down between their bodies. “I won’t last long, anyway.” She could nearly feel the heat from the flush that had to have been in his cheeks at that statement. It was rare that he would admit his sexual shortcomings. “I’m tired, and it’s been a long day—”

“Sh,” she said, reaching behind her, pressing her fingers to his mouth. “Sometimes, you just being inside me is enough—more than enough.”

He guided himself inside of her, and the two of them hissed softly and lowly, in unison. The pace established was rocking and sublime, slow because Lucius could not find a solid purchase on the linens and because Ginny was so careful not to wake Hermione. His hands were pressed across her breasts, along her neck, and his mouth was at her ear.

Lucius stilled, then, as Hermione shifted, as she turned to face them in her sleep as though sensing the activity even in her dreams, her eyes still closed and her breathing still even. Ginny could feel him harden even more inside of her.

“You’re so wet,” he laughed gently in her ear. “You like this, my little exhibitionist.”

Ginny said nothing, but took his right hand and guided it down the front of her body until it was between her legs, his fingers hot and strong over her clitoris. She let her head loll back as he rubbed mercilessly, his fingertips making up for what his hips could not do without waking their guest.

“This is so perverse,” she whispered. “She’s facing us.”

“She’s asleep,” he said, rocking in and out of her slowly, and the room was so quiet that Ginny could hear her slickness as he moved. She was so turned on, so hot—her body was burning up, keeping him deep inside. “But I’d continue with you if she awoke, anyway,” he said, and Ginny reacted immediately, picturing the scenario, her body clenching immeasurably, and she came silently, pulsing hard and wet around him. He laughed into her ear again and she could feel him, pushing forward, forward, harder, as much as his soft purchase on the linens could allow him without waking their guest, and then he came deep inside of her, sucking on her neck as he did, soothing with his tongue, his fingers still strong across her clitoris, wringing the last wracks of pleasure from her as he softened.

Lucius fell asleep softly and thickly, not even withdrawing from her, curling his body around her own, a hand on her stomach as if in prayer.


---


Hermione woke up before either of them, her position in the bed meaning that she faced the eastern sun. The light was lemony and bright, and it tickled Hermione across the eyes, the chin, the bridge of her nose, rousing her gently and sweetly. She stretched slowly, relishing the deep cracks of her elbows and neck.

When she turned and sat up, she jumped.

Lucius was on the other side of Ginny, and from what she could see he was quite obviously naked. Any self-righteous reaction that Hermione would have had to finding herself suddenly in the same bed as a former Death Eater was quickly quashed when she narrowed her eyes and took a strong look at the pair.

The two of them were in a sort of gorgeous disarray. Ginny’s nightgown was pushed down her shoulders, one nipple exposed, the white curves of her breasts evident and softly pressed up from her sideways position. Her red hair was thrown out around her in snarls and swells, stark against the sheets. Hermione rarely saw Ginny in such a vulnerable state. Usually she was riposting, on the offensive, witty, sharp. Growing up with so many brothers did that to a girl, Hermione supposed. Ginny could have been a different kind of girl—Hermione’s eyes were drawn to the sheer and quiet happiness of Ginny’s face. Even in sleep, she was feeding off of Lucius’ heat, deeply ensconced in him, blanketed.

Lucius was behind her, barely covered by the sheet. One of his legs was thrown out from under the bedclothes, the long and naked line of it against Ginny’s own legs, under the covers. His foot was long, his calf taut and lean, the thigh lightly furred with pale hair. His shoulders and chest were bare, one of his arms looped around Ginny’s breasts, and the other underneath Ginny’s neck and extending toward Hermione, the back against the pillow, the fingers facing upwards and lightly curling. In sleep he was not at all vitriolic. He was almost beckoning. Lucius’ own hair was wild and spread out across the pillow, a pale and satiny mass, lightly tangled, mixing with the blood of Ginny’s curls.

They were absolutely striking. Hermione brought her knees up to her chest, ignoring her own lightly clad state. Instead, she leaned back against the headboard, looking at them. Lucius would twitch lightly in sleep, and Ginny would move back into his body, subconsciously soothing him, sometimes murmuring softly.

It was then that she realised how the two of them worked—the mutual protection and security, the quieting and the comfort, the assuaging, the power that vibrated between the two of their bodies, a power so sweet she could almost taste them.

She didn’t know how long she watched them. The liquid quiet—the exquisite lull that had been created by seeing the two of them in their most natural and unguarded states—was broken when Lucius spoke without even opening his eyes.

“Granger.”

Hermione started.

“Staring is rude.”

“Sorry,” she said, smiling slightly, shifting.

“Is your arse on my pillow?

Ginny was awake now, her eyes open and hazy, blinking as she adjusted to the morning sun. Lucius’ eyes were still closed.

Hermione looked down. “Yes, it is,” she said, wiggling a little to emphasise.

“Good god,” he rumbled. Ginny pulled at the light hairs along his forearm, smiling at Hermione as Lucius groused at the slight pain. “I’m going to burn everything. That’s my side of the bed you’re on.”

Hermione shrugged at Ginny, nearly laughing. Never before would she had thought that she would have been waking up in the same bed as a naked Lucius Malfoy—never would have thought that she would have been sitting on his pillow, legs languid and body relaxed, not scared of him but rather attempting to aggravate him.

“Lucius, go back to sleep. Hermione and I are going to—” Ginny looked down and noted that her nightgown was down, her breast exposed. “Oh. Sorry, Hermione.” She hitched the straps back up completely nonchalantly, grinning brilliantly. “Hermione and I will go have some breakfast.”

Lucius skimmed his hands over her nipples, her ribcage, then up to her eyebrows and the bride of her nose. It was a quick and efficient gesture, but Hermione caught it, sharply, and stored its intrinsic tenderness away for later.

“If you get an eyeful after she moves, Miss Granger, it’s naught but your own fault.” Lucius turned his face slightly into the pillow, his eyes still closed. “I’m keeping my eyes closed because if I don’t open them, I can pretend that you aren’t sitting on my pillow—in my damned bed.” Ginny shook her head, adjusting the sheet so that that scenario Lucius mentioned decidedly did not happen, and Hermione stepped out of bed, taking Ginny with her.

“You two are beautiful.”

Hermione murmured the phrase as they left the room, but Lucius still heard it, caught in the unmoving and warm air of the bedroom, hovering above the canopy, across his ears, and even half-turned into the pillow as he was, he actually smiled.


---


“They’re in love.”

Hermione said it, firmly, and watched as his face turned a blotchy red.

“They’re in love,” she repeated, and Ron’s mouth crumpled, his eyes a stinging, bright blue. He folded into Hermione’s arms, and she pulled him into her body, pillowing him across her breasts, and she held him firmly as he exhaled—one huge, long, pained breath, a breath of anger and disappointment, releasing it all.


---