Out of the Silent Planet

Title: Out of the Silent Planet (22/39)
Author: moirasfate/ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Plot driven smut, Darkfic, Romance, Drama, Angst...
Warnings: M/F, Bondage, slight non-con, voyeurism, oral, anal, Dom/sub issues, Dark!Draco, and HBP spoilers.
Summary: Post-Hogwarts - Hermione Granger fulfills Severus Snape's final wish, to journey to Japan to ‘retrieve' something of importance. Set eleven years after HBP.
Author's Notes: This is my first DM/HG ficlet, so please be kind to the newbie! The title of this fic is taken from C.S. Lewis' book, first in the Perelandra Chronicles.

Many thanks to kazfeist for improving this chapter!



Out of the Silent Planet
Chapter Twenty-two - Of points of view, bitterness, and plans of refurbishment.



Draco Malfoy Disapparated just outside the door to Hermione Granger's flat making only a slight rustling noise as he compressed his body and propelled it through space and time. Within a matter of seconds, he stood just before the chained and locked wrought iron gates leading to the drive to Malfoy Manor. It had been raining in London, but in Wiltshire, there were only a few gray clouds hanging in the pale blue sky.

"Halley," Draco said plainly, turning from the gates to face his solicitor who stood a few feet away, his piggish face a horrible shade of pink, apparently startled at Draco's sudden and silent appearance.

"M-Mr. Malfoy...you're right on time."

Draco studied his aged solicitor for a moment, noting that Halley wore formal gray robes which was the exact shade of his hair and mutton-chops, and that in his hand hung a designer black leather briefcase while with the other hand, large and meaty, Halley dabbed at his ruddy face with a fine linen handkerchief. The older man seemed dishevelled, and Draco idly mused that perhaps Halley wanted to get this business over and done with as quickly as possible. It was obvious from their prior meetings that Halley was very uncomfortable with Draco.

Let him be uncomfortable, he is only a tool.

"Of course, I am," Draco answered with his trademark drawl. "This is my home, and I would like to be allowed back inside," he said turning back to the gates, his eyes following the white gravel drive through the trees just to where the eastern corner of the Manor was visible through the skeleton-like branches.

The eastern wing of the Manor was reserved for guests, or at least it had been, in the days when the Malfoys had entertained guests, and the last guests, Draco assumed, had been his father's notorious associates. The west wing was reserved for the Malfoy family, and Draco wondered if his room on the third floor had been left the way he remembered it...sterile and clean. His parents' room was on the second floor, and the apartments attached took up most of the western wing ever since Lucius had wed his mother only two years before he was born. Abraxas Malfoy had been dead for quite some time before Draco was born, but Draco knew his grandfather...at least from his portrait that had been unceremoniously deposited in the attic along with a portrait of a great, great, great, great aunt who had married a Muggleborn wizard...and Draco did not like talking with Aunt Octavia much.

The central portion of the house, which divided the eastern and western wings so that the Manor was laid out in the shape of a 'C,' contained the opulent entrance hall, the main sitting room, the communal library, and a small morning room on the first floor. On the second floor was the ballroom which Draco remembered served more as’ a classroom for duelling than ever a room for revelry and the dining room, with a view of the extensive gardens that ran between the east and west wings and down a slope to the heath. On the third floor were more guest rooms, all of which were reserved for the most important of guests, which at one point included a certain deposed and very dead Dark Lord.

There were also cellars and dungeons that spanned the length underneath the Manor as well as the kitchen, which was a half level beneath the central portion. Past the west wing were stables, now empty, a cottage, also empty, and a great expanse of wooded acreage that seemed to stretch for miles to the west. All in all, it was an impressive piece of property, Unplottable and invisible to Muggle eyes...and it was all Draco's

"...Aurors are late, Mr. Malfoy."

Draco blinked, his vision of his home and the sudden bird's eye view shrinking back into his body as if he had been stretching his consciousness outward to assess his property.

A suitable base from which to begin...

Quiet...

"What was that, Halley?" Draco asked impatiently, turning again to Halley and noticing that the wizard seemed to be rocking impatiently on the balls of his expensive leather shoes.

"The Ministry Aurors, who are supposed to escort us, are late. If they do not come soon, I am afraid I will have to reschedule..." Halley said shortly, still dabbing his face as if it were a nervous habit.

"You will not reschedule, Halley."

The older wizard seemed break into a renewed sweat. The tone of Draco's voice had been firm, almost repressively so, and Halley felt as if he had no other choice than to obey. Draco turned again, peering down at the unsightly chains around the wrought iron gate that had stood at the head of drive to the Manor since time immemorial. It was a very plain gate, but was filled with magic that kept the iron from ever rusting or the hinges from ever squeaking. The gate was set into a high wall of white stone, and, as far as Draco knew, this wall bordered the perimeter of the property.

The arrival of two Aurors was signalled by the slight popping of air behind Draco and slowly he turned, his face expressionless, but his eyes flashing. The first figure, dressed in plain black robes with the silver badge of a Ministry Auror was a tall black man, bald, with a golden earring in his ear and slim black sunglasses over his eyes. Draco seemed to recognize this man from somewhere in his memory, but could not summon his name. The second figure was a woman, much shorter than the male Auror with white bandages around her hands and neck. She wore a hood over short-cropped black hair, and her lips were painted a fierce red. Draco recognized this woman, her dark brown eyes penetrating his with a level of malice Draco had not encountered since returning to Britain...it was Cho Chang.

"You're late, Shacklebolt," Halley huffed, stepping between Draco and the Ministry Aurors, still wiping and dabbing his rosy, piggish face.

"There was an emergency this morning, Halley, but we're here, and that is all that matters!" Chang growled, her voice no longer melodic as Draco seemed to remember it, but harsh and gruff as if she had smoked a lifetime's worth of tobacco and drunk Firewhiskey on a daily basis.

"Yes...well...Mr. Malfoy is rather impatient to enter his home, and I have another client scheduled in an hour..."

Shacklebolt stepped around Halley and approached Draco.

This dark man is powerful...I can feel power rolling off him in waves.

Quiet!

Although Draco stood over six feet tall, Shacklebolt was still taller, and as he approached Draco, it seemed that Draco could only gaze up passively into the reflection in Shacklebolt's sunglasses. With a curt nod, Shacklebolt sidestepped Draco as well and laid a large, gloved hand upon the locks and chains that held the gate shut. Draco smirked as the metal melted away.

Very powerful...

...

"There are papers to sign, Miss Chang..." Draco heard Halley breathe.

"Later, Halley. Let us do our job."

"And what would that be, Chang?" Draco asked, turning his head slightly to gaze at the petite witch out of the corner of his eyes.

Chang stiffened at the sound of Draco's voice, but Draco only smirked as the gates began to open, no longer fettered by chains. Shacklebolt entered first, pulling his wand out and turning his face from one side to the other.

"I merely asked that the Ministry escort us, not search the grounds..." Halley began, but Draco stepped forward, crossing a palpable invisible barrier, and he returned for the first time in many years to the land that had borne him. The sensation was very pleasant and both voices in his head sighed in satisfaction.

"Be thankful we bothered to show up, Halley!" Chang growled, she and Halley slowly following behind Draco.

Walking along the white gravel drive that inclined upward slightly, Draco felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders. The air seemed cleaner, the sky bluer and his body lighter as he walked, the gravel crunching slightly under his dragon hide boots. He had dressed plainly in black trousers, black dress shirt, cloak and gloves, and he knew that perhaps he did not look the part as lord of the Manor, but there was no disputing that this land was his.

In what seemed like only seconds, Draco had scaled the stone stairs that led to the portico-covered front door. Two majestic oaken doors with silver carved knockers greeted Draco and had not changed even throughout the passing of years. The only noticeable change to Draco was that the ivy, which had always grown up the white stone of the Manor in the shaded western side of the portico roof, had now scaled as high as the third floor windows.

Shacklebolt had let Draco pass, tucking his wand away in the indistinct folds of his robes, his smooth face unreadable as Draco reached out his hand to open the front doors. When his gloved left hand touched the knob, Draco felt a strange current run throughout his body, nothing unpleasant, but as though some force was searching for something inside his own blood...and the door opened. Crossing the threshold, Draco took a deep breath, his mind registering the familiar scent of fresh cut flowers, old pipe tobacco, dust and the lingering smell of a sweet perfume that he remembered his mother particularly fancied. Boots tapping against green and white polychrome marble, Draco stood in the vestibule of the house, looking into the circular foyer and staircase of white marble and green carpet that led to an upper landing and the doors to the ballroom. Moving into the rounded foyer, Draco let his eyes move up to the cut crystalline chandelier and to the prismatic light streaming from the French doors on either side of the staircase that led to a patio overlooking the gardens.

"Have the Floo connections been re-established?" Draco asked passively turning his face to glance behind him and to the three figures standing in the vestibule. Kingsley nodded, still having yet opened his mouth to speak.

Two large fireplaces for arrivals and departures stood barren and cold on either side of the rounded foyer, closer to the vestibule, and Draco could see that the large bronze mirrors just above the mantles had a thin layer of dust upon the carved silver frames. In fact, everything had a thin layer of dust, as he cast his silver eyes to the surfaces of sideboards, despite the flowers being fresh.

On an axial pattern and to Draco's right and left were two doors, the one on the left leading to the sitting room and library, the other leading to his mother's morning room, where she usually took her breakfast and lunch. The entrance to the kitchens was through a hidden door under the stairs, as well as the hidden entrance to the cellars and dungeons under Draco's feet.

"Shall we go into the sitting room, Mr. Malfoy, and go over..." Halley began, but Draco waved the solicitor off, moving across the foyer and to the sitting room door. Opening the door, Draco stepped inside the sunlit room, a fire in the small grate and the curtains drawn. This room was hardly ever used except for guests, and the unfamiliarity of the room made Draco wish the he did not have two Aurors and a solicitor following him in his wake. He wanted to go to his own rooms, to the places he was familiar with, and not to the superficial facade of this sitting room which had the ambiance of being shut up for many years. Draco knew, from Hobbin's report on the Manor, that the main and eastern wings had been shut up since there were no masters in the house and only the kitchens, the gardens and the western wing were still being maintained.

Moving to the fireplace, Draco doffed his cloak and threw it over the back of one of the lounging chairs near the crackling fire. He tuned out Halley's words as the older man made himself comfortable on the Italian silk sofa, his briefcase open and papers being shuffled on the mahogany coffee table. Chang and Shacklebolt were standing on either side of the couch, Shacklebolt nodding occasionally, Chang growling as Halley went through the documents that would let Draco be the lawful master of his home once again. Draco could only stare at the fire, leaning against the marble mantle, lost in his own thoughts, for once.

He had often dreamt of home, through the years sequestered in the cold climes of Hokkaido. There had been dreams of a time when he was merely a child, gazing up into his mother's cold face and believing that she was like the cool spring sun, but it had not been in this room...

There had been times when he was sure he was home and that the scent of the enchanted garden at the ryokan had been the garden his mother had so loved to walk about on summer days...the scent of lilacs, of heather, of sod and of rain... There had been times when he was sure that he was sleeping in his crib in his room, waking to a morning while being only four years old...sunlight making strange patterns on the ceiling and Hobbin calling for him to come and dress...his father was going to take him on a broom ride...

The dissonance between Japan and Britain was nonexistent in Draco's brain for a long while, and many times he had called Kaori his mother, Fuumi his mother...Yuki his father...Toku his father...Hanako...Hobbin... And slowly the dissonance became clear and Kaori was Kaori, Fuumi was Fuumi-baa-san, Yuki was Yuki and Toku was Toku-jii-san... And slowly Draco became Ryu Matsumoto and all the dreams of Britain became muddled dreams and snatches of scents, scenes and feelings. All in all, it was strange being back.

Draco had not expected a warm welcome, and he had not been incorrect in his expectations the first day he had walked into the Ministry offices, wishing to see the current Minister of Magic. Rufus Scrimgeour and Cornelius Fudge were apparently old hat compared to the current Minister, Mafalda Hopkirk, who seemed to be the most unwelcoming face Draco had seen yet since his return to Britain. Minister Hopkirk seemed to abhor and despise Draco with an intense passion; in fact, it had been the mention of Lucius that had tipped Draco off to the main reason why this Minister had wanted little to do with him.

'Welcome home, Mr. Malfoy, and please do not show your face to me again,' had been her parting words.

It seemed every face he had passed in the Ministry either did a double take of shock (which Draco was sure had more to do with his long, blonde, Lucius' inherited hair and genetics than anything), or was screwed up in a sneer, which wished nothing more than a slow and painful death for him. Even Munch, the watchwizard at the front desk, had been nothing short of derisive and rude when Draco quietly explained he had no wand that needed to be checked...

Draco had not even bothered with the Prophet, which he was sure was running an ancient photograph of his adolescent face on the cover with slanderous headlines. He knew it would take time, years perhaps, before anyone would look upon him in Diagon Alley with an expression of indifference at the very least.

Diagon Alley had been another matter all together. Mother's hid their children, men hissed, women spit, and even Tom, the old publican, had refused him a room at the Leaky Cauldron. The goblins at Gringotts had been almost loving, compared to the populace milling about Diagon Alley.

It would take time...but for the moment, he was home.

"Now, everything has been signed, initialled and notarized, just one final signature and the Manor, the lands, and the last of the frozen assets belonging to Mr. Malfoy will be at his disposal!"

Halley's feigned cheerfulness cut through Draco's maudlin thoughts, and Draco turned to see that the two Aurors were staring at him and Halley was holding out a quill toward Draco, a tight smile revealing crooked, yellow teeth between Halley's gray mutton-chops. Draco blinked, suddenly wondering why these people were in his house, and quickly remembered. Striding across the distance, Draco snatched up the quill and bent down to sign the last piece of parchment with his angular scrawl of a signature.

With a pop, the documents disappeared, the deal done.

"Now then, I'll just show myself out..." Halley huffed, more cheerful than ever, snapping his briefcase shut and struggling to stand from the sofa. Draco watched the older man amble around the sofa and to the door, and just as the older man was about to exit, Draco called out.

"You are fired, Halley, I just thought I should tell you. Your services to the Malfoy name have been sufficient, but are now at an end," Draco intoned lazily.

Halley turned slowly, his free hand on the silver knob of the door, his piggish face suddenly looking less piggish and surprisingly relieved. "Very well, good luck to you then, Mr. Malfoy."

And with that, Draco would never see Halley again.

However, the Aurors remained. Draco flopped down into the chair on which he had placed his cloak and gazed at the black clad Ministry Law Enforcers.

"Was there something more?" Draco asked innocently, just wishing he could be finished with these people and have the house to himself...there was work to be done, walls to be knocked down, renovations to begin and an army of house elves to direct...

"We are supposed to do a walk-through of the house," Chang growled, and Draco realized it must be the only way the woman could speak...roughly.

"And why is that?" Draco asked impatiently.

"It was part of the agreement between your ex-solicitor and the Ministry. You are to inspect the Manor and make note of anything out of the ordinary to us. Actually it was quite unwise to release your solicitor since if there are any complaints on how the Ministry has managed this Manor...if anything is missing, etc, a civil suit could quickly be settled between you and the Ministry," Chang said quickly, her dark eyes burrowing into Draco's with an intensity that would make any other person squirm.

"Should I simply say that I trust that Ministry has kept my home intact and be rid of you?"

Chang smirked, her red painted lips curling at the edges. "If only..."

* * *

Draco could find nothing out of the ordinary in the east or main wings, only dust. As he walked with Chang and Shacklebolt in his wake, Draco moved along the second floor corridor from the main wing to the west wing. Down another staircase, wooden this time, Draco made note that much of his father's library was missing, gaps between books, the parquet floor scratched in a few places around the fireplace, and the portrait of his grandmother Black were missing from the wood-panelled eastern wall.

"They were confiscated after your father's arrest and destroyed," Chang answered, gazing at the photograph of Lucius and his mother in a wrought silver frame upon the mahogany writing desk below the west-facing window of the library. Draco glanced at the picture with his wriggling newborn body in his mother's arms and his father's haughty expression. His mother sat upon a wicker chair in the garden while his father stood to her right, dressed in the clothing Draco had always associated with his father...long black frock coat, black gloves, black trousers, black boots, silver hair and eyes, and that cane with the serpent's head and emerald eyes... Only his mother looked somewhat happy, and newborn Draco seemed to be fussy...

"So-called 'Dark' artefacts, I assume?" Draco sighed, glancing out of the corner of his eye to see Shacklebolt looking up at the mounted flamberge above the oaken mantle of the fireplace.

"Aye," Chang answered shortly, moving around Draco to Shacklebolt's side. "Shall we continue, we Aurors have more important things to do in a day."

Draco narrowed his eyes and led his company through the rest of the first floor...the family sitting room, the family dining room, and then back up to the second floor. Into his father's private parlours, bathroom and smoking room which was on the far west side of the wing. Draco found nothing amiss...just his father's presence, and then into his mother's private parlours, bathroom, vanities and dressing rooms, only an antique water clock was missing from one of the lacquer tables.

"Damaged, I believe; if you check with Gringotts, the Ministry reconciled for a substantial amount," Chang supplied as they reached the double doors that led into his parents’ bedroom.

Opening the doors, Draco found that the velvet drapes were pulled shut over the large windows looking north and over the gardens, but before he could move to magick the drapes apart, Shacklebolt had done so in his stead. The sunlight blinded Draco momentarily, but soon his eyes settled upon the large bed in the centre of the room, marble posters holding up a verdant velvet canopy and polychrome steps that led up to the bed...opulent, decadent, and disturbing.

Nothing seemed visibly amiss in the room, but Draco felt something quite different and could not move from where he stood, just inside the doors, looking across the carpets, the chairs and sofas, the fireplace, the painting of the Malfoy gardens from ages ago. Additionally, the room smelled as if someone had cast freshening charms repeatedly so that the air was sterile and unpleasant. It felt as if this room were filled with uninhabitable, ether-filled air.

Chang moved into the room, glancing at one thing then another and then paused just at the floor to ceiling windows, her figure silhouetted in the bright midday sunlight, her hood still raised and her red lips cast in a horrible frown. Draco could not breathe as Chang's eyes travelled across the room to his and Shacklebolt spoke for the first time that Draco ever knew or remembered.

"Lucius murdered your mother in this room."

Shacklebolt had a voice that was so deep Draco could feel the bass reverberations in his chest, and as Draco slowly turned his head to look up at the seemingly gigantic dark man, he could see his wide pale eyes reflected back at him in Shacklebolt's glasses.

"That is why the room seems to be stifling."

Draco felt his hands clench, even the one he had so recently acquired and apparently his Auror escorts had not sensed under his shirtsleeves and gloves.

...Set fire to this room...purge the smell of blood with the smell of fire...

...

"He was particularly brutal, or so I have heard...cut her head clean from her body...bathed in her blood and then ran like a coward..." Chang sneered cruelly, her voice closer, having moved from the window to lean against the sculpted marble post nearest to Draco.

"Chang," Shacklebolt intoned with warning.

"He escaped from Azkaban while you were running with Snape, came home to your mother, screwed her, then killed her..." Chang continued.

Draco felt his blood freeze...his heart stop...his lungs collapse...

...kill the bitch...

...no...
"Her blood soaked the room, her head was a'resting on her pillow...and the rest of her...was just about where I'm standing..."

Draco felt his chin meet his chest and his hair fall over his face as he gritted his teeth and took in a stale breath.

"Chang! That's enough!" Shacklebolt barked, his eyes flashing visibly even from behind his dark spectacles.

"I WILL tell him, Kingsley, the bastard needs to know... He does not deserve to come home thinking that his name is clean...that he is not tainted!"

Shacklebolt opened his mouth, his large hand grasping his wand inside his robes, and just as he was about to reprimand his partner, he froze...

Draco Malfoy was laughing, his face obscured by his hair...which Shacklebolt noted, did not look so much like Lucius' now that he studied the boy at his right side. Draco Malfoy was laughing, and Shacklebolt felt a shock run through his body as if he had touched a Muggle electrical wire. Chang apparently felt it too and her eyes widened.

"And what happened to you, Chang, eh? Weren't you the pretty Ravenclaw Seeker once?" Draco muttered inaudibly and he peered through his hair, his eyes wide and suddenly melting the icy exterior of Cho Chang's mind and running rampant inside.

"Kingsley..." Chang muttered before her head snapped back and her body went rigid.

Legilimency...was all Shacklebolt could think as he felt his own mind suddenly go blank.

Draco bit his lip until he drew blood, his vision consumed with images that were circulating in Cho Chang's mind.

Cedric Diggory dead...Harry Potter wide-eyed after being kissed...losing the Quidditch cup...Cedric Diggory kissing her...Harry Potter running down the halls of Hogwarts away from her...Marietta Edgecomb's betrayal...Hermione Granger smirking...Dumbledore's funeral...graduation...Cedric touching her face and smiling...passing the Ministry Auror trials...the arrest of Rodolphus LeStrange...burning...burning...flesh dropping from sinew...Cedric kissing her throat...Harry kissing Ginny Weasley...St. Mungo's tight-faced nurses...bandages...burning pain...Kingsley sipping coffee in the office...Kingsley wrapping bandages around her deformed and scarred hands...Cedric's head in her lap by the lake...Harry snogging Ginny Weasley...Bellatrix LeStrange screaming a curse on the battlefield...Hermione Granger falling into the bloody sod, covered in blood...burning...burning while Bellatrix LeStrange laughs...Kingsley kissing her lips...Kingsley kissing her inner thigh...Cedric's dead and vacant eyes...burning...burning...

Draco had seen enough...and released the woman to let her fall to her knees.

Shacklebolt seemed to shake from his stupor, none the wiser, but moving toward Chang as she coughed and spluttered at the foot of his parent's bed. Draco pushed his hair back from his face, turned, and walked from the room. He would have Hobbin change the room...destroy all traces that it was ever his parent's room...destroy the bed, the carpets, everything. Draco would never set foot in that room again.



* * *

The sun was setting when Shacklebolt and Chang left the Manor, going back to the Ministry with only one complaint filed...the immediate return of Abraxas Malfoy's portrait that had been removed from the Manor on the assumption that it was a Dark Artefact. How in the world the cantankerous portrait of Draco's grandfather could ever be considered Dark, was a mystery. Granted, Abraxas was perhaps the most foul-mouthed, biased and horrible man, Draco wanted to keep the portrait in the Manor where it belonged...at least in the attic to keep Aunt Octavia company.

The inspection of the third floor went quickly, only one thing missing from Draco's rooms...his broom, which he had not taken with him for his last year at Hogwarts. An Auror had stolen it soon after Draco's escape with Severus...and the Auror was sacked. It did not matter to Draco much, his Nimbus 2001 being now far too outdated...

Most of it did not matter...the missing books, portraits, the damaged water clock, or the broom. Draco knew that before long much of what was left of his old life would be removed. He had plans...

He sat now in his old bedroom, on the side of his spartan-esque narrow bed with the simple gray woollen blanket and lumpy pillow, gazing through his western facing window at the sunset, his elbows on his knees, his chin upon the bridge of his intertwined fingers. He could not stay the night in the Manor, he knew, it was far too stifling even if it was his home. The memories were far too bitter, too horrible, too poignant.

He would have to conveniently forget to mention to Granger that he had gotten his Manor back...at least until Hobbin had changed everything to his liking.

Draco would take up residence in the eastern wing; abandon the west wing to whatever guests he might ever have, and erase whatever lingering presence his father had left behind.

...You resent them so much?

Isn't it obvious?

We have parental resentment in common...

Shut up, you parasite.

Draco wanted to sleep, but not in this room with green Slytherin walls and lumpy pillows. This was a room for a boy, and the boy who had slept in this bed, gazed proudly at the green walls, hidden sweets in a niche inside the old wardrobe against the southern wall, and pranced about in front of the old mirror stand in the corner of the room in his Quidditch robes...in his Prefect robes...was dead. The boy had died that year when he had been charged with the impossible task of killing Albus Dumbledore.

Fiery anger rushed through his body and he gritted his teeth at the thought that he had been nothing more than a pawn in a sick game. The son would pay for the father's failings...the son would pay...

Standing slowly, Draco felt Vulcan's presence pulse in mirrored anger and suddenly the bed on which had supported him, began to turn to dust...the mirror in the dark wooden frame...the wardrobe with all his old robes...even the green wallpaper began to melt away as if suddenly experiencing the passage of hundreds of years in a single moment and disintegrate to dust.

It is time to begin, Draco.

We must first wipe away the sentimental garbage that hinders us.

Yes, and surround ourselves with people and objects that will be the tools we use to rebuild.

Erase Lucius' influence and rebuild.

Make a new name...

...and attain power...

...normalcy?

Yes, that too...if it is possible for us.

We will make it be so...

Draco moved to the window, gazing across the tops of the trees and the purplish light that came from the clouds where the sun had set. The madness had abated with this new symbiotic relationship between his consciousness and the whispers from the silver appendage now replacing what he had foolishly lopped off years ago. With his right hand, he squeezed his left arm, the silver yielding under his grip as if it were truly flesh. He supposed he was possessed in a sense, but not controlled. Draco would not allow himself to be controlled ever again, and the whispers had been just that...whispers. At first, the whispers had been barks and commands, but only in a matter of days, Draco had mastered even the fragmented sentience of the god who had forged his arm.

However, Vulcan still had power and forced Draco in his weakest moments to act...

Vulcan was jealous, as was Draco. Vulcan was charismatic, as was Draco. Vulcan liked his drink, as did Draco. And Vulcan wanted a modicum of control...as did Draco, to some extent. It was almost pleasant now...now that Vulcan had finally become just a whisper in his brain. A truce of sorts had been called, and slowly Draco was absorbing this newfound sense of clarity into his own soul.

Moving through the corridors and the overwhelming silence of the Manor, Draco made mental checklists of what had to be done. Replace the carpets; clean the portraits that were mostly obscured by dust and smoke from the candles in the wall sconces, redecorate the main hall and reopen the east wing... Moving down the main staircase, Draco found that the chandelier was lit and that Hobbin stood at the bottom of the staircase, leaning forward onto a gnarled and twisted walking stick, his eyes closed as if the elf were sleeping.

"Hobbin," Draco said quietly in address when his boots fell against the marble floor.

"Master. We is awaiting Master's instructions."

Draco nodded. "Tomorrow. I want to go home..." he said quietly, his mind and body starting to feel the pull of weariness.

"Master is home."

Draco blinked. It was a slip of the tongue, and not what he had meant to say at all, but his mind was filled of visions of sleeping...in bed with Hermione Granger.

The night before, sleeping in the guest room of Hermione Granger's flat, Draco had not slept better. In fact, all the while she was in the VIP ward, Draco had not slept at all, but had fluttered about Hogsmeade and taken a room at the Hog's Head going over documents that Halley had seemed to have a never ending supply of...all of which were to be read over and signed...all of which dealt with his reclaiming of his Manor.

"I am going back to London tonight, Hobbin, but I will return in the morning, and then we will have much to do."

"As Master says," Hobbin rasped, gazing at Draco through heavy eyebrows, his mouth working strangely as if wishing to say something more.

Draco sighed, and dismissively moved past Hobbin and to the vestibule where he could Apparate back to London.

He was somewhat overwhelmed, exhausted, and wondering if Granger would entertain him a bit...just to take his mind off the day's events, Chang's insensitive words, and the lingering sense that permeated almost everything with traces of a past better forgotten.

Draco was not his father, and as far as he was concerned, every iota of his father would be erased, his name, his deeds, and misdeeds, his failures of ever attaining the sort of glory fitting the Malfoy name. Draco would not be a failure, not any longer.

And with one last glance at Hobbin, Draco Disapparated to his distraction of Hermione Granger and the plans he would cherish making when it came to her...in his life.