Before now, she had not slept alone since they were married. Now she has racked up hundreds of nights without the comforting sound of his breathing, without his warmth against her back. Without his reassurances whispered in her ear when she wakes with a cold sweat, nightmares plagued by the face of the man-creature who calls them ally.
A year, too, without her husband's occlumency tests, and now she worries that her thoughts may be laid bare if anyone cared to look. She's a better Occlumens than he, but her paranoia runs rife without him there to calm her. She needs to be careful, she must keep herself safe if Draco is to survive, and she cannot do that on her own.
But today, today she'll finally have her husband back. This is what Severus told her through the fireplace, this is what her connections have sent her via covert owl.
It is past four and she has been waiting three hours. She knows he will have gone to his Lord first, to thank him for the release. Though she knows he must keep up appearances, that he must bend the knee, she selfishly wishes he had come home first. She has gone too long without the scent of him.
The door opens, and while she cannot see it — stupid, stupid, choosing a seat that does not face the door — she knows who it must be. Her heart stops for an entire three seconds, and tears come unbidden. She wipes them quickly . She must appear strong for him, he will need her now.
She gets up and takes a deep breath before turning.
He is looking around, hasn't seemed to see her yet. His hair is lank and dirty, his face sunken and tired. His clothes are not fine, rags compared to his usual attire, and they hang off his body. Ungainly, unsightly.
It is hard to stop the tears that want so much to come.
She walks over to him slowly. This is what Severus told her: no sudden movements or sounds, be patient with him. Be as normal as possible, for he has been without normalcy for a long time now.
He turns to look at her, and there is no recognition in his eyes and she thinks she might just die right there. But then his face softens, and he takes one shaky step towards her. She closes the distance, but stops just short of touching him, so they stand, she looking up into his marked and bruised face, six inches between them.
There is one long, aching moment where she fights every part of herself to stand still, to wait. Then he reaches out one hand between them, and she takes it. A gentle tug is all the invitation she needs and she wraps her arms around him, burying her head in his chest. She can hear his breath rattle, and the thundering of his heart, but everything is okay now. The warmth of his skin is enough to set off a chain reaction of nerves, and she can relax for the first time in a year. Whatever has happened, they can make it right. They always have.
They stand there, motionless but embraced, and she tries to send all of her love for him through osmosis to him, squeezing him tightly without risking hurting his frail body. She holds him close until she feels him shake in her grasp, though from emotion or exhaustion, she cannot tell.
She pulls back, reaches up and touches his cheek, saying, "Oh, Lucius." He flinches, but she's not sure if it's from her touch or his name.
"Sit," she says, and pulls him towards the sofa, gently pushes him to sit. "I'll get you some food."
But before she can walk away, he gently grabs her wrist.
"Stay with me," he says. There is a pleading note to his voice, and while she wants to feed him, to make sure he doesn't collapse, she cannot leave him now. Instead, she nods and sits next to him. She draws him closer, practically lying back on the sofa so he can rest his head against her breast. He's weeping, she knows from the wetness of her blouse, and she is sure, if she touched her own cheeks, that she would find them wet too.
His weight is the surest thing in the universe, and she finally has it back. She would trade away a thousand things to be sure of his safety.
She strokes his hair while they cry, running her fingers and gently untangling the knots, careful not to pull too hard.
She remembers the first time he ever cried in front of her. It was not long after their marriage, she came into the bedroom to find his back towards the door but unmistakably shaking. She had gone to him then, and he had tried to push her away, to hide himself. They hadn't loved each other then, she knows that. They both know that. Theirs was a marriage of politic, of keeping the bloodline pureblood, not for any great love. She had screamed and cried when her father had announced the betrothal, because, after all, she was seventeen and knew everything, including the fact she could never love a man like Lucius Malfoy.
How wrong she had been. That night, when he let her hold him while he sobbed, that had been the first stone that set the rest in motion, the first pique of affection that would, whether she wanted it or not, blossom like blood in water into love. And she hadn't wanted it, at first. She had wanted to support him, and to be the good wife she had been brought up to be because she knew it wasn't his fault that they were irrevocably bound, but to love him? No, she had resisted for so long, tried to fight it. Had been convinced that he would eventually grow bored of her anyone and take up with other women, like most men of his ilk did, like her own father did, and so what would be the point of loving him? She would only get herself hurt. How cruel she was then, to think him like that. But she was young and scared.
In the end, he had been the first to say it. They had just come home from some party of his father's, and she had noticed all night that he had been looking at her peculiarly. She thought perhaps she was embarrassing him at first, though he didn't seem annoyed, merely curious. Finally, as she sat at her vanity taking her jewellery off, she turned to him, and asked what was a matter. And he had told her, his cheeks pink in the candlelit, and his face a picture of terrified schoolboy.
She still remembers, to this very day, how light-headed the admission had made her, how unbelievably happy she was to hear it, a giddiness that filled every inch of her chest, that set every nerve a-fire.
What was a wonder was that he could still make her feel that way. She feels herself, laying under him, coming alive. Like Rip Van Winkle, she has awakened from her long slumber now that he has returned.
She kisses the top of his head, and uses a handkerchief — his handkerchief that she has carried since the day he was been captured — to dry his eyes.
"I'm going to summon Lasher, darling," she says as softly as she can. "We have to get some food in you."
He nods, and sits back up. When the house elf appears, and while she gives the order, he leans forward, covering his face with his hands. It isn't long before the elf is back with them, a plate in hand, and then the elf is mercifully gone again.
She picks the sandwich up, guides it towards Lucius, but he grabs her wrist.
"I can feed myself, I'm not a child," he says.
She quells at his tone, but then his face softens and he shakes his head.
"Sorry," he says quietly. He wipes his hands across his face. "I'm sorry."
She kisses his cheek, feels the whiskers that he would never normally let grow.
"It's okay," she says. "I understand."
He nods, and takes the sandwich from her, ever so gently. He eats in small, precise bites.
"Is he here?" he asks between mouthfuls.
"I sent him to Nott's," she says. "I thought maybe it would be too much, and I wanted to see you, I hope you don't mind, I—"
"It would have been too much," he says, nodding. "Right now, I only need you."
She tries to hide the beaming smile spreading across her face, but she can't quite catch it before he sees it. She's rewarded by the corners of his mouth twitching upwards before he returns to eating. She lays her head in his lap as he does so, and mercifully she feels his fingers tangle themselves in her hair.
When he's done eating, she stands up, reaches a hand out towards him.
"Let's get you cleaned up," she says softly.
She leads him upstairs to their bathroom, where earlier she had magicked their clawfoot bath to be full of hot water. He smiles when he sees it. She hopes that it reminds him of how he took care of her when she had dragon pox at the beginning of their marriage and could barely hold herself together, and he would run her a bath and wash her hair.
She strips him, so his shaking hands do not need to struggle with the buttons of his loose shirt. As she does so, she kisses him — his chest, his arms, his back, his shoulders, his thighs and calves. Soft, quick pecks, but it's been so long since she had his body to herself that she cannot resist it. With each, he lets out a little shock of breath, but when she looks up, his eyes are closed and he looks peaceful. When she's finished, he's hard, but she suspects that it isn't sex so much as pleasure that has caused it, so she pays it no mind, the same way that, for now, she is ignoring the marks on his body.
He lets out a gasp as he sinks beneath the steaming water, and she wonders how long it's been since he has properly bathed. The water becomes murky quickly, but a little light spellwork under her breath clears that problem up.
When she appears beside him with a loofah in hand, he smirks — a real, honest smirk.
"You're kidding," he says.
"No," she says, and puts her hands on her hips. "Arms up, Lucy."
She knows he hates when she calls him that (that fact has provided much fun in the past, so many times she's goaded him into deliciously punishing her for it), and she's glad to see him glare. He lifts his arm up, though, despite whatever annoyance he is feigning.
She scrubs him gently but firmly, determined to get the grime off. She knows it would be easier to use magic, but she wants to care for every inch of him. As she touches the bruises and scars and marks that adorn his pale body, she feels him tense under her touch, so she hums as she works, as if this were some ordinary task, as if she doesn't even notice. Every time he sucks in a breath, she must brace herself to stop the temptation of performing wandless wordless magic to ease some of the cuts and bruises. But she's not talented at that, and would doubtless only hurt him more. She works slowly, her grip on him loose so it's easy for him to refuse or turn away if she hurts him or he wants her to stop, but for now, he seems content to allow her to continue. His eyes are closed and his expression placid.
She gets him to stand up, and scrubs his groin and legs. Now she's concentrating, she sees how thin he has become, how visible his ribs are. She'll get the house elves to cook hearty meals for the next few months, things that will put meat on his bones quite literally. Right now, her fingers tremble at the luxury of being able to see him, to touch him, at all.
Finally, letting him sit back down, she washes his hair, getting her fingers close to the scalp.
"I thought about shaving it off, you know," he drawls. "But I thought you wouldn't let me back."
She laughs, a shriek of a thing that is more from surprise that he is being light-hearted than anything.
"It's true," she says, mock-sighing. "I've only stayed with you all these years because of your locks."
But on a day like today, after a year like this year, she can't let a comment like that hang out there in the ether, even in jest. She leans forward over his head and kisses his forehead, getting shampoo on her chin.
"I would take you in any form you could imagine," she says. Even to her, she who is so much soppier than him, so much more sentimental, it sounds too saccharine. Her cheeks heat.
It is only after a minute or two that he speaks again.
"Sometimes I worry he might command us apart," he says, his voice a tight whisper in the dim bathroom.
Her fingers freeze in his hair.
"Do you really think that would stop me?" she says.
He relaxes, leaning further back into her hands.
She takes her time, careful to untangle every knot in his hair and to scrub every inch of his scalp. Finally, she rinses it for him. Then, she takes the towel and helps him out of the tub, trying to ignore the water that sloshes across the marble floor.
She dries him slowly, starting at his feet and ending with with him sitting on the edge of the tub so she can reach his hair. Like her scrubbing, she's gentle but firm, touching every part of him. He doesn't suck in breath as she does so, though perhaps she cannot hear him over the sound of towel against skin. When she's finished, she casts a quick drying spell, just to catch any parts she missed.
Before they leave the bathroom, she touches his forehead with a drop of oudh, his favourite scent, and then dabs some behind his ears and on the spot between his collarbones. He told her once that he put it in that last place just for her, because he thought she can perhaps smell it when she curls up against his chest. She can, and she adores the smell and sentiment.
Finally, she takes his hand and leads him through to their bedroom, turning and tutting as she shuts the bathroom door.
"I don't remember such an awful mess with Draco," she says.
"That's because it was always me, remember?" he says.
And it's true, now that she thinks about it. She hated getting her clothes sopping wet — and how bitey a young Draco would get in the evenings. So after Lucius returned home from work, he would roll his shirt sleeves up to his elbow and bathe him for her, enduring the nipping and the splashing. She had gotten rather good at charms for drying silk in exchange.
"Do you want clothes?"
He shakes his head.
"What would you like?"
"Let's lie down, for a bit," he says.
He looks at her hopeful, like a schoolboy waiting for a teacher to either praise or scold him. It's been a long time since he last looked this lost, and it makes her falter as she steps towards him. She reaches up, taking his face in her hands, and kisses him gently, enjoying his clean, woody scent, now returned.
She walks to her side of the bed, and takes off her clothes. She feels almost embarrassed at first; it's been a long time now since she's been naked with him, and it's incredible that even after a decade, the habit has fallen away so quickly. Now she's back to being an eighteen year old girl, fresh married, and hopeful that she won't disappoint him by sight. He was always more comfortable displaying himself than she, something he once used to tease her with, but it's never more obvious than now.
He stands, though not proudly, his shoulders still slouched in a manner she's never seen, but at least standing and not trembling. He looks her up and down, and she can't resist a self-satisfied smile when she sees his body react. Any fears she would not measure up to a whole year's worth of missing a person, of imagining and fantasising, are put to rest at the sight of his cock twitching despite the obvious exhaustion in his face.
"Come," she says, and slips into the covers.
He obeys without hesitation and she lets out a long sigh to feel his naked warmth against her.
"I've missed you so much," she says, kissing his chest.
He doesn't reply, but he often doesn't verbally respond to such statements, and, especially now, she knows that's okay. Instead he wraps an arm around her and squeezes her tightly. They settle in and she spoons him, one arm under his neck, her leg strung over his hip. He's warm and she takes a lungful of woodiness, and she knows she's finally at home again.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she says into his back.
She feels him shake his head.
"Too soon," he says. And she's grateful that means that he will talk to her about it, at some point, on some day. This War has taken its toll, and there is much they need to discuss — one day, when the wounds have scarred over and do not weep.
She runs her free hand up and down his torso, luxuriating in the feel of him, the steady beat of his heart and the fuzz of his chest hair.
"I really couldn't have survived another day without you," she whispers into his back. As soon as it slips out, she realises how insensitive it might be, given where he's been, given what he's been through. But he responds by pressing back against her chest, and she knows this is an acknowledgement, a response that nor could he.
There was a time, when she was a young girl, and even in the early years of marriage when she still had the idea of youth that you might change your partner, that her husband might be a man who lavished her with so many sweet words. Who wrote her love letters and poetry, who complimented her daily and told her all the ways he could not live without her. And there were times, because of that expectation, that she and Lucius would fight terribly as young lovers, when she was scared he did not love her, or did not feel she received the affection she needed. Neither of them were wrong, they were just very different people. But they had formed a language: she, with her words, he with his body, and while he had become more openly affectionate, while he told her more often how he felt and how he loved her, she also came to appreciate the ways he spoke his feelings. Touch had become a language she understood, and could return.
They still fought occasionally about it, but it was rare. Besides, she would rather fight than not, knowing all the other pureblood couples she knew who moved as separate entities, only playing nice for dinner parties and galas, and all the while feeling nothing but, at best, hatred, and apathy at worst. Her theory is that you can tell the state of a marriage by how close the couple stood at parties. She and Lucius were content to wander and mingle, meeting back only when they became bored of the conversations or to check the other didn't need rescuing. Couples like Evelyn Zabini and whoever her latest husband was, they would be bound at the hip all night, wine glass clutched like a lifejacket to their chests, trying to prove how happy they were. Trying to prove they could stand each other's company, and definitely not get their stories mixed up about their home life.
As her hand wanders down his chest again, she notices his breath hitch as she reaches the bottom of his stomach. Experimentally, she lets her hand brush his cock, which is again hard. He lets out a little puff of breath.
She runs her fingers over it, gently, softly. He responds with a throaty sound, turning so he lies on his back so she has better access. It is the invitation she needs, but she continued to go slowly. It's nice to feel his cock again, and to feel him reacting to her touch, and she wants to savour it just as much as she doesn't want to rush him. She strokes up and down, using her thumb to massage his head as she goes, smiling at the precum that has already formed.
She looks up at him, expecting to find his eyes closed, but he's got his eyes on her, and they're dark and stormy. His mouth is parted, his breath coming shallow and fast. He reaches a hand down, pushing the covers back, and cups one of her breasts with his hand, brushing a thumb against her nipple. She gives a sigh of contentment in response.
But his eyes go glassy, for just a second, before he shakes his head. She hesitates in moving anymore.
"Don't stop," he says, voice thick, his eyes refocusing. He touches her face.
She goes gently back to stroking, watching his face carefully, but it's relaxed again. His breathing becomes more ragged as she speeds up, his face slackening, but he keeps his eyes on her.
"I thought about you a lot," he says, breath short.
She nods, eyes wide as she stares up at him. He is the only person in the world she ever wants to look at like that, her desire and love laid bare — she can feel how obvious it is in her face, and she wants him to know. To know how much she loves him and how much joy courses through her at the little groans of pleasure he makes as she brings him closure to orgasm.
"Don't stop," he whispers again.
She takes this as her cue, increasing her speed until finally he comes onto his stomach, letting out a groan, his eyes slamming shut and his head jerking. He settles, breathing hard, and she uses the only wandless magic she can actually do with accuracy; cleaning up liquids. She curls into his side, kissing his ribs before she lays her head on his chest.
When his breathing slows, he begins to stroke her hair.
"Thank you," he says. She can tell from the tone of his voice that it is not just for this.
She kisses him, just above the heart, before she props herself up on an elbow to look at him.
"There is nothing I wouldn't do for you," she says. "But I deplore you never to leave me for so long again."
He gives her a small smile, one laced with sadness.
"I never intend to," he says. He brushes a strand of her hair back behind her head. "Do you know how much I adore you?"
And even after so many years, those words still send a thrill down her spine. Perhaps especially because she has not had him by her side in so long, that they mean so much more.
"About the same as I do you," she says.
He nods. "The very same."
He leans forward and kisses her on the forehead.
"It will take me a while, I think," he says, and she knows he speaks of healing from Azkaban.
She nods. "I know. I'm patient, as long as I have you."