The Radiant

“They were my favourites! He took my Coleridge and my Conrad and my Murdoch and worst of all – worst of all – he took my Euripides!”

He had found her damn books. He had searched the entire bloody library and it had taken him a week, but he couldn’t even stay in the damned room knowing that there was probably a remainder of her stored somewhere in the shelves. He had replaced the blotter on his desk after she had left. He had even changed the colour of his ink from black to dark green.

Lord Jim had been wedged between a book on psychometry and a pamphlet on methods for vampire testing. The Bell was slid between a magicked version of the Kama Sutra and a book on fidelity within pureblood families. The book of Coleridge poems he had found between Draco’s old potions textbook and a few of the manor’s blueprints. Medea, however, had been a bit of a harder go. Lucius had nearly pulled every book off of the shelves searching for that damned book. In the end, it had been at the end of a shelf between a book end and – damn – one of his old notebooks.

He looked at his library books now scattered haphazardly across his carpet.

Fuck.

She was fucking everything up – he was never this chaotic.

Lucius looked down at the books in his hand. Xerxes could take them. He could wrap them in leather and stamp them with the Malfoy crest and send them with the bird.

But –

He looked out the window.

It was very rainy.

He didn’t want to stress his bird with such a heavy package in inclement weather.

You fool –

The weather –

The weather –

And the package of books was really quite heavy.

Lucius sighed.

And he hadn’t seen or heard hide or hair of Ginevra Weasley since he had rutted her on his desk four weeks ago, and it was disconcerting. He had no way of knowing if she was faring well, or if she was distraught, or if the combination of events had affected her – if she had maybe harmed herself –

Lucius turned on booted heel and walked out of the study to his cloakroom.

He really couldn’t risk sending his prize bird in the weather.

Ginevra Weasley would have to settle for a personal visit.


---


She hadn’t expected to see Lucius Malfoy on her doorstep. She had expected her brother or Hermione or some other person checking up on her to see if she had hung herself from her curtain rod yet. Of course they were concerned about her now, now that she wasn’t with Draco. But she hadn’t expected to see Lucius standing on her doorstep, looking down at her from beneath a fur hat, the rain streaming down the lines of his cloak.

“Don’t just gawk at me.”

She moved aside silently and he shouldered his way into her tiny entrance hallway. She felt miniscule next to him, dressed only in a light slip of a dress, barefoot, bare-shouldered. He was armoured in his clothes and so large – looming over her.

“Miss Weasley – ” Ginny sucked in a breath at the use of her last name. “I found the books that my son had taken from you.”

Lucius stared at her for a second before holding out his arm, brandishing the package of books at her. She stared back at him, her mouth slightly open, blinking slowly as she turned her focus to what he was presenting to her.

“My…books…” Her voice was so faint that Lucius almost didn’t hear it. He shook the books at her, arm still fully extended as if to keep her as far away from his body as possible.

“Yes, your books,” he snapped. “Are you daft? Take them. I toted the damned things here. I’m assuming that now you will stop disturbing the peace of the Manor? You have all your items. Please get on with your life.”

The blow was so hard his head actually snapped right. He hadn’t even seen her move but Ginny Weasley had slapped him so powerfully with her right hand that her palm was now reddening – she was staring at him, seething, practically crackling, and she was holding her palm up beside her face, facing him, as if to show him the blooming colour across her hand.

“You bastard – you bastard!”

Her voice was full of vehemence, and she grabbed the books from him.

Lucius brought a hand up to his left cheek, tenderly probing the skin along the lines of his cheekbone. She had struck him incredibly brutally.

Ginny was staring down at her books and she spoke.

“I don’t hear from you for a month after what we did in your study, and now you have the audacity to show up on my doorstep –” Here her voice cracked, reaching a wavering pitch – “and hand my books off to me like I’m some sort of stray?” Her eyes snapped up to his and she met his stare evenly. “Do you want to pretend that what we did never happened? You didn’t seem so indifferent when you were fucking me into your desk, Lucius.” Her voice hissed.

His eyes narrowed.

She had hit him.

Lucius made as if to speak but all of a sudden, Ginny’s arms went lax and the books toppled to the floor, spilling like a stream of pages and spines, covers open and flapping. Fallen birds. Her arms hung down at her thighs, the fingers limp, and he watched as her face collapsed and she started to cry.

It wasn’t sobbing. She wasn’t wailing. Instead, Ginny Weasley shut her eyes and Lucius watched as streams of tears welled from under her spiderweb eyelashes, her body slack and swaying, her face tilted up slightly, and that was when he noticed how tired she looked, the mauve shadows under her eyes, her chapped lips. She looked so breakable – so damned breakable.

Before he realized what he was doing he had gathered her into his arms like she was nothing – some little dolly. His cloak eddied around her as her legs buckled, and he sank to the carpet with her, guiding her down, one gloved hand cupped to the back of her head, the other arm wound around her waist. He kept her tight to his body, and felt her hands grab at the material of his shirt as she cried and cried and cried, silently, her body juddering like a boat breaching on the shore.

He rocked her slightly.

She cried still, and he made unintelligible sounds, as if to calm his horses.

She cried and cried, and then eventually, Ginny stilled.

“I’m sorry.”

His words surprised even him. He had spoken them into her hair, lips at her temple, and thought for a moment that she hadn’t heard him, but he felt her arms move from where they were place at his chest to slip around his waist, and she wrung him, constricting him almost painfully for a few seconds until she relaxed her grip, still keeping her arms slung around him.

Ginny murmured something.

“Pardon?”

She tiled her face up and he could finally see her eyes. Her eyelashes were clumped together into tiny moist spikes, her irises incredibly clear.

“Take me home with you.”

Lucius stared at her lips as she spoke.

What –

“If I do so, I do so.”

He didn’t need to say anymore. She understood what he was saying – no waffling back and forth, no insecurity, no leaving. At least not until some sort of understanding was come to.

“Fine. Yes.”

She closed her eyes and rested her head against him as he Apparated them away.

---

They were lying on a couch in his study. He hadn’t bothered taking his cloak and robes off and had instead wearily laid them down on the first horizontal surface he could find, settling back into the cushions as he pulled her over top of him. Ginny had blearily rubbed her cheek against his damp shirt like a cat and had, after adjusting her body, slinging one leg on either side of his torso, fallen asleep. Lucius had watched her – the rise and fall of her spine, the slight movements of her lips – and had too slipped into a fitful series of catnaps before dropping off completely into a thick sleep.

---

He woke up when she shifted, feeling the two heels of her hands pressing into his chest as she used him for leverage.

“What time is it?”

He hadn’t opened his eyes but asked the question, his voice sand-rough from sleep.

“Late. Nine.” Her voice was hoarse too, lowered shades from the napping they had done.

He opened an eye.

She was perched on his chest, one knee on either side of his ribcage, the full flesh of her buttocks settled into his stomach. Her hair was in red disarray around her shoulders, staticky flyaways forming a shining scarlet halo around her head. She was looking out the window at the rain, her hands still pressing into his chest. Hot little hands.

He opened both eyes.

Ginny seemed to sense it and looked down at him, almost smiling.

“We slept for – for a long time.” Lucius made a humming sound in the back of his throat in agreement and stretched, moving slowly, his arms above his head, listening in pleasure as his back cracked.

Ginny continued looking down at him, the two of them meeting each other’s gazes placidly, daringly.

“Thank you. Thank you for letting me do that.” She seemed unwilling to give a name to her break down but she was grateful and he could see that. He raised an eyebrow in response and then lowered his eyelids, making as if to slip back into sleep again.

She moved quickly. Ginny suddenly slid her hands up around his neck and simultaneously lowered her body to his chest, her fingers twining in the hair at the back of his neck as her face hovered above his.

He could feel her exhalations of breath on his cheek but still met her gaze with his heavy eyes – wanted to see if she would make the move.

She moved her face over to bury in his hair beside his left ear and made a low sound of pleasure as she nuzzled there. Over her shoulder, Lucius closed his eyes in delight.

And then she moved her mouth from his hair to his ear and sucked gently on the earlobe before moving still more, placing miniscule hot kisses along the pathway of his jaw – his clenched jaw – moving still, moving along his skin, scraping her teeth along the ridge of bone until she was again over his mouth, lined up with him, her hands on either side of his face now, long fingers tangled in his hair, fingertips putting pressure on his scalp.

He was still looking at her.

Ginny whispered down onto him.

“Well, if you won’t do it, you bloody fool, I will.”

She kissed him as he reared up to meet her, his arms coming up around her waist, as if her words had inflamed him, prodded him, and their mouths were slick together, his legs bending and his feet planted on the couch as he pushed up into her, and her calves pressed into the sides of his ribcage as she murmured into his lips, swapping sounds between them.

His hands had traveled down to her bottom and now he palmed a cheek in each hand, fingers playing with the hem of her dress and she broke the kiss as she sat up. He understood tacitly, pulled the dress over her head quickly, threw it across the room and then slid his hands up her body to cup her bare breasts.

He was so hot – his skin was burning and the room was so cool and Ginny was going to have to shed her skin to survive this fever.

Skin –

“Skin –” The one word was breathy but Lucius understood her and unclipped his cloak. She helped pulled it out from under him, her fingers snapping through the buttons of his shirt next, pulling that too out from under his torso, running her hands down his body to help his own hands at pulling out his belt, clumsily but hurriedly pushing his pants down his hips, off of his legs, socks joining them on the ground.

Lucius snapped the waistband of her underwear.

“Off.”

She rose up on her knees, slipping them down her legs and he threw them, too, before placing a hand flush against her lower back, palm to skin. He could feel her spine click as she pressed her chest to his, the skin-contact new and alien and wonderful.

For a few minutes he closed his eyes and let her rub against him, those cat-like motions returning and terribly uncanny, but as she grew more sweeping in her movements, she brushed against his erection and he snarled a sound at her, hands going to her hips.

Ginny straightened. One of her hands went between her legs and gripped him – here he ground his teeth – and then without any preamble she was pushing him into her, long and hot and thick and she was hot and wet around him as she slid down onto him, her head hanging down, her hair a curtain for him as she watched every inch of him disappear inside of her.

When he could go no further Ginny lifted her head and looked at Lucius.

“Different.”

And she was right – it did feel different. He was deeper inside of her – so deep he was clenching at the soft flesh of her hips, trying to resist the urge to either push up harder and invariably hurt her, or to come.

She started to move, then, her spine straight and her head tilted upwards, the skin of her inner thighs dragging along the skin of his hips and pelvis. Lucius kept his hands on her hips, not moving her but attempting to ground her, keep her anchored even as she rode him.

They didn’t speak but watched each other, the sound of the miserable rain a backdrop for their sex, their eyes open. Ginny noticed as he rolled his jaw, clicked his teeth if she sat back a particular way, tilted his head back. Lucius noticed as she pulled at a nipple, felt as she slid a finger between his open lips, as she mouthed nonsensical words down at him.

Shifting slightly, her next down stroke pushed him deeper inside of her and the silence was fractured then as he tried to stop the low groan from his throat and she hissed in response.

“Faster.”

His word was rumbled and low and she obliged immediately, leaning backwards and placing her hands on his thighs, allowing her rocking motions to change to the primal up and down rhythm of sex. Lucius moved his hands from her hips to her waist and then up to her breasts – breasts moving now with every upstroke – and pinched at her nipples, encouraging her to speed up even more. He trailed his hands down the centre lines of her body to between her legs.

Lucius looked up at her.

She was looking down at him through half-eyes.

“Yes – ”

Lucius traced the contours of their juncture, pressing a thumb over her clitoris and she leaned back more, allowing him to watch where his body was moving inside of hers, over and over,

“Fuck –”

He moved his hips up and their bodies met on opposite strokes and Ginny cried out.

“Oh –”

His hands moved back to her hips in order to move her faster, fingers spanning her pelvic lines.

“Yes –”

He was going to come but she was going to come first, and still they didn’t break the gaze, still they looked at each other, interested in how the other would come, interested in the physical words of orgasm –

“Please –”

The pace was so fast now that it was impending – her face was in awe and his mouth was open and his fingers dug into her skin –

“More –”

And then she felt him coming in hot, slippery swells, a tortured sound ripped from his mouth, his heels pressed into the leather of the couch below him as he pushed up into her so deeply that she gasped and fell forward onto him and then she came too, shouting hoarsely into his hair and against his grinding jaw, crying out almost sob-like as her body moved unbidden, twitchily.

She kept her breasts pressed into his skin as they lay, cooling their breaths together, and when he felt her start to slide into sleep again, he moved them to his bedroom.


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