Out of the Silent Planet

Title: Out of the Silent Planet (29/39)
Author: 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-Nine - Of lives and lies.



Draco rolled onto his side, staring at Hermione as she slept next to him in their bed.

It was almost too good to be true, and that was why he could not sleep. He wanted to fall into some lovely dream, and sleep and sleep. But as much as he wanted to shut his eyes and let his body relax, he simply could not.

Trailing a hand down the side of Hermione’s thigh, Draco sighed. She felt real enough…and when she rolled over to move closer to him, her head moving to rest on his shoulder, Draco smiled.

His Hermione…his…

He could tell that she was awake, her breathing had changed. Slowly she ran a hand between the sheet that fell over Draco’s belly and his skin. Her touch was so soft, so right and as it travelled to his hip and to the edge of his silver curls, he shuddered. His flesh stiffened immediately and he took a deep breath.

He had already taken Hermione once, after his bath, and now he wanted her again. Her right leg moved to curl around his, twisting so that she pressed her front against his side. She was so warm. He raised his right hand to bury it into her caramel curls as her small hand moved to wrap around the base of his cock. He hummed deep in his chest at her touch.

“I love you, Draco…” she whispered near his ear.

Draco did not answer…the words sounding so wonderful…

Hermione moved, sitting up slightly to look down at her husband in the pale early morning light. He tried to smile up at her…but couldn’t, her grip tightening around his cock. She moved to duck under the sheet, laughing faintly, her hair falling about her face. She giggled when Draco kicked the sheet off, her mouth poised just over him.

“I want to see you…” he whispered gruffly, his fingertips running along the outside of her breast as she leaned down and engulfed him. He grunted at the sensation and slowly hissed as her tongue wrapped around him, her hand moving up and down…

He shut his eyes as the suction of Hermione’s mouth increased. He was in heaven and in hell…he wanted to pull her closer and force his way inside. He wanted to make her scream his name, like a curse or like a prayer. He wanted to see her eyes lose their focus and her body lose control. He wanted to fill her womb with his seed, over and over, until her body could take no more. He wanted to have her belly filled with his child and see her glow with happiness that he had helped create.

He twitched, a groan passing his lips. Draco felt Hermione remove her mouth and take a breath.

“I love you…Draco…” she whispered, moving to mount him, and when she sank down upon him, her hands upon his chest, he nearly came.

He opened his eyes to look up at her, to see the bounce of her breasts and the sway of her hair…but saw something else…

Smoke…a smoky shadow in the shape of Hermione…

He groaned and closed his eyes. Opening them again, he saw Hermione’s eyes…her creamy breasts, her pink lips open to emit a pant. His hands reached out for her, pulling her down so that his lips took claim to hers.

Draco wondered if he was just tired…he had not seen a Hermione made of black smoke and smothered flames. No, Hermione was real and soft and sweet and alive…she tasted like berries and cream…she smelled of soap and jasmine…and she felt…

“I love you…” she whispered against his lips.

His hips were rising off the bed to meet her thrusts, his hands about her upper arms to hold her luscious breasts against his chest. She licked at his chin, kissed his jaw, moaning with every thrust. Draco felt the itch toward climax, his balls tightening just as Hermione’s body tightened around him. Releasing his hold on Hermione’s arms, she arched upward, her voice rising with every thrust.

He was close…so close…and cracking his silver eyes open to gaze through his lashes he groaned.

The smoke was swirling over him, the shadow of the woman was horrifying…her hair was wires, her breasts were scorched metal, and deep under the smoke was fire. But what frightened him most were the silver wires running from her wrists, her elbow, shoulders, neck, hips, knees and ankles. She was a puppet, a horrible puppet…

With a cry, Draco pushed the puppet off of his body, sending it flying past the foot of the bed and onto the floor. His eyes were wide, gathering the bed sheet around him, glancing wildly for a wand that was not that…looking at his left arm, expecting to see silver, but seeing flesh.

“No…no…” he panted, watching as the black puppet began crawling back onto the bed.

“Draco? Darling?” it said, the voice distorted as if it came from another place…mechanized.

Draco jumped from the bed and away from the creature/puppet that had somehow made it on to the bed, eyes of flame glowing in a black face. It looked like Hermione, but it obviously was not.

“What the…what the fuck is happening?” he roared, backing into the wall of the room, the sheet wrapped about his middle.

“Mother? Mother!” he shouted, sprinting to the door only to stumble back as it opened slowly.

“Draco?” a voice asked.

Draco felt a wave of nausea wash over him, for it was not his mother that stood in the door way, but another creature/puppet with a metal mask that looked so much like his mother…

Stumbling to the centre of the room, Draco grabbed his head, trying not to scream as the creature/puppets began to encroach…

“No…this is not real…none of this is real!”

The mechanized voices were calling his name…telling him that they loved him…that he was ill…that he was dreaming…

“No! No…this is a lie!”

Draco fell to his knees as pain sliced through his mind…and he began to remember.

His mother was dead, murdered by his father. Hermione would never have uttered a word about love… His life could never have been so perfect…his mother alive and Hermione Granger his wife…

Images of his life, his true life, filtered back into his thoughts. Someone had tried to deceive him…someone had tried to shackle him to a life that was nothing more than a lie.

Vulcan…the trials…

The creatures were within inches of touching him, the illusionary façade flickering in and out…flesh to smoke…skin to metal…

“No!” he screamed, a wave of magic pulsing outward and destroying everything around him…annihilating the creatures, turning the room into a void of darkness.

It was all a lie…and he had almost allowed himself to believe it.

* * *


Air returned to his lungs with a gasp, and his eyes opened to find a familiar dark figure sitting before him. Draco was sitting in the ryokan…the formal room with the moving oni and phoenixes and Vulcan was sipping on sake.

“You seem to like pain, boy. You revel in feeling the worst, being the worst…”

Draco swallowed, his anger bubbling and broiling inside his chest.

“You mortals never cease to amaze me… I give you everything you ever wanted…and you don’t want it… Mortals are perhaps the most infuriating of all creatures.”

Draco moved to grasp his left arm, but found that, once again, it was no longer there. He was feeling phantom pains all through his body, his head pounding, his throat dry. But it was his anger, his barely contained anger that kept the pain at bay. His eyes sharpened as he noticed the glint of silver…wires running from Vulcan’s fingers, which ran along the floor past Draco and disappearing in a haze…

The puppet master… It was then that Draco realized that he too had been a puppet from the moment he had donned the arm. Fury filled him…he had known there were risks, but Draco Malfoy was not going to let any thing…or any god, be the master of his destiny. Draco Malfoy did not believe in gods and Draco Malfoy was the only master of his destiny… He had not lost his mind in defeat to Voldemort, and he would not lose his soul to some god.

Vulcan raised a saucer of sake to his lips, but paused, his fiery eyes moving to gaze across the room at Draco. Vulcan smirked…the wires were severed and wagged uselessly before the red-armoured god. He opened his mouth to commend his host…and was suddenly thrown backwards as if there had been wires attached to him, which were suddenly pulled taut.

It was rare that gods were surprised.

Flying through walls, backwards, Draco watched as the dark figure that called himself a god landed outside the ryokan, into one of the many gardens. In this vision being shown to Draco, snow was falling outside…making him remember the very day he had left Japan with Hermione Granger…

Rising to his bare feet, Draco felt the length of his old winter clothing…Ryu’s clothes…fall over his legs. He felt as if every hair on his body was standing on end, and as he walked through the holes in the walls, through the ryokan, he could hear the crackle of magic around him.

Vulcan seemed to float up from the ground, his eyes flaming, his hands clenching and unclenching, sparks flying from his finger tips. The snow around the god melted away almost immediately when Draco stepped out into the snow of the garden.

The cold snow underfoot, the chill of the wind, and the heat emanating from the enraged god before him seemed so real. Draco’s senses were telling him that the threat he perceived before him was true, but it did not matter any longer.

Vulcan opened his mouth to speak, surely to denigrate him again, but Draco did not hesitate any longer. With Seeker like speed, he surged forward, his teeth gnashing, his eyes narrowing and his hair whipping in the air. His right fist smashed across Vulcan’s face. Draco stumbled back, watching Vulcan drop to the ground, holding his jaw defensively. His fist hurt and as he raised it to his eyes, the knuckles were blistered and the skin broken open and scalded. But he did not think much of it, as Vulcan began to rise.

No…

Bare feet kicked into the god’s ribs, rolling the dark figure to its back. With a snarl, Draco launched himself upon the god, his right fist slamming across the dark face, bones cracking, blood flying.

If only he had his left arm, he could choke the man he straddled…kill him somehow, make him pay for what he had done…for what he had shown him…

All the pain, all the annoyance, all the disappointment seemed to flow from him like viscous gruel, his strength never waning as he hit the mangled figure repeatedly. His eyes were filling with angry tears, his left shoulder aching horribly while his right hand felt no pain although the skin was burning, melting and the bones beginning to shatter…

He hated…he hated his mother for being too weak…he hated his father for being too strong…he hated Albus Dumbledore for being too right…he hated Severus Snape for being too good…he hated Harry Potter for being everything he was not…he hated Ron Weasley for being loved…he hated Pansy… Millicent…Neville…Blaise…Daphne…he hated all of them…

Draco hated himself more than anything…even more than the figure that was gurgling blood and bone under his fists…

He hated that he could see the silver of his left arm again…he hated that it hurt and burned him to wear it. Draco hated having to rely on an object not made by his own will and having to endure such horrors to be worthy of wearing it…

And he hated Hermione Granger…he hated her because she was so lovely, so beautiful, so honourable, so good, so brave…

Hermione… Hermione Granger…

Ever so slowly, Draco’s punches and strikes lessened in intensity and rate until all that was left of the head lying on the ground was something like a battered side of raw beef…mangled, but slowly gasping for breath.

Vomit filled Draco’s mouth as he lifted his fists to his eyes…his right hand was ruined, but the silver left hand was simply coated in clotting blood, flesh, bone and hair none of which was his own. He rolled off the body, noting that the chest was still rising and falling, but barely. Draco swallowed his sickness and hardened his eyes against the gore he had created.

He managed to stand, his entire right arm throbbing from so much use, and the silver left arm burning painfully, the roots seeming to dig deeper into his body. But the vision of agony at his feet was more than his own…and pity, that horrid and base emotion, began to filter into his brain.

And with a step and a tightened mouth, Draco raised his left arm above his head, his intent clear in his very action and thought. The sound of metal cutting the air had a crystalline ring, but as metal cut through bone and flesh, Draco felt vomit rise up again.

He stumbled backward, his bare feet numb upon the snowy ground, his eyes watering slightly from the acrid taste of vomit in his mouth. Blood dripped from the silver arm, and the sound of the viscous humour hitting the snow was deafening.

The arm had transformed, with a bit of pain resonating in Draco’s chest, and morphed into something akin to a dagger. The fingers, which felt as real as those on his ruined right hand, had fused to form the killing blade…to be used as a device of mercy, and pity.

The arm began to transform again, the silver like mercury as it moved, and Draco felt the discomfort of his fingers reforming as if he had drunk a whole bottle of Skele-go and was regrowing every tiny bone in his hand. He had put the being out of its misery…and doubled over to finally let the vomit pass his lips.

Falling to his knees again, Draco felt as if his insides were liquefied and he was gagging on his own intestines. And when he could no longer pass any bile, he went into dry heaves, coughing, gagging and feeling ever so light-headed.

But just over the roar of his pounding heart came the sound of clapping…near, but not within his range of blurry vision.

The slap of flesh against flesh, fingers against fingers, palms against palms…a harsh sound that forced Draco to raise his head…hair stiff with vomit, his lips quivering as he cradles his arms to his chest. Turning on his knees, Draco could just see the dark figure standing just beyond the carnage staining the white perfection of the garden.

“How does it feel, Draco?” the black figure asked, the voice jarringly familiar, forcing Draco’s mercurial eyes to focus sharply upon the face amongst the black… “Your first kill?”

Draco’s lips moved, and it took several tried before the acid burn in his throat allowed him to speak.

“Severus…Severus…Sev….” Draco muttered, his body recoiling in on itself.

Through the fringe of his hair, past the blood, flecks of bone and clothing, Severus Snape stood just on the other side of the body Draco had laid to die. As impeccable as he would always remember, Draco could see every tiny button on Severus’ robes, even the silken sheen of Severus’ lank hair, even the glittering in colourless crow-black eyes.

“You’re not here…you’re dead.”

“Astute observation, Draco, but this is your trial, and I would have thought you would have expected to see me sooner.”

The Severus of his memory, though faded, was perfect, black and sallow, smooth but acerbic.

“I don’t want to see you, Sev…”

“Of course not. But I wanted to see you.”

Draco felt his stomach twist, but he managed to make it back up to his feet, still cradling his pained and ruined hands against his chest.

“Why? Surely not to test me as well?”

Severus smirked, breaking the white perfection of his mask-like face. Draco could see that Severus looked as if he were a ghost of his former self, his lips bloodless, the lines in his face too harsh, the red around his eyes too pronounced…like a Kabuki player…or an imitation of a Noh mask…

“No, not exactly. I have only come here, through Hades and more, to ask you a question.”

Draco swayed slightly, his right hand was pulsing with pain, just as his left arm seemed to dig deeper into his body.

“A q-question? Surely Vulcan didn’t drag your black soul up to ask a question…besides, you’re not real…you’re not really here…I’m not really here.”

Draco moved backwards…stumbling until his shoulder fell roughly against the outer wall of the ryokan. The pain felt real enough, even the familiar scowl he was receiving from his mentor seemed real. But still, Severus Snape seemed more like a shadow in the corner of the garden, a wraith spirit of some sort and not his former Potions Professor.

“Go on then, Severus…ask away, and maybe this nightmare will end,” Draco drawled, his voice rougher than usual, sounding like that of that of his father’s.

Severus sighed, which was an oddly human action for a spirit, but Draco could not help but feel a bit relieved that Severus was there…now, at this point in his nightmare. Severus raised a waxen hand and brushed a strand of hair from his black eyes and licked his pale lips with a pale tongue.

“How long are you going to let your past rule you, Draco?”

As always, Severus’ voice was as dour and serious as Draco remembered…and because of that Draco could not help but bark with laughter, sardonic as it may have been, and strained since his throat still burned with acid.

“We can never escape our pasts, Sev; you should know that better than I. The past is what shapes us, but to your question…why do you think I am letting my particular past rule me?”

Severus’ spirit seemed to exude disappointment, and again Draco could not help but laugh.

“Nothing has been resolved, Draco. You may have gotten a handle on your emotions, even your madness, but you are still the same as you were the day that I freed you of a certain responsibility that night on the Astronomy Tower…weak.”

Draco’s mirth drained away almost immediately, and his teeth clenched in anger.

“Is that what you think, Sev? You think I am weak?”

The spirit said nothing, but folded its arms across its chest, a gesture that reminded Draco so much of those almost halcyon days at Hogwarts…

“Perhaps I was…perhaps I still am, to a certain extent…” Draco whispered, his eyes moving to the body on the ground. He still cradled his hands to his chest, the pain still present, and the lingering thought that Draco had not truly killed Vulcan…the trial was still on-going…and Draco was not a murderer.

“You think I’m weak because I didn’t kill Dumbledore?”

Severus said nothing, the snow falling all around him but never upon him…

“I didn’t kill Dumbledore because I did not want to… Lucius would have loved that… But in so many ways, I was set up to fail, wasn’t I?”

“I never thought you were weak because of that, Draco. In fact, I was proud of you that night…I was proud of you, because it seemed that you could be saved in the end.”

Draco snorted. “Except from myself, Sev, except from myself…”

The dark spirit nodded. “That is why I am disappointed in you now, Draco. That is why I am here, beyond the grave and the Elysian Fields… As part of your trial, and as part of venting my spleen at one of my last earthly worries…”

Draco slid down the outer wall of the ryokan and fell to his knees onto the snowy ground. His body was racked with shivers and shakes…all from laughing.

“You…you poor, miserable bastard…” Draco guffawed, holding his hands tighter to his chest.

Severus snarled at Draco’s laughter, but made to motion to move from his fixed spot. And when Draco’s laughter dissolved into coughing, Severus spoke again.

“You realize that you are killing yourself by prolonging this any longer?”

“Maybe that is just as well,” Draco answered weakly.

“And what of your life, Draco? Have you have nothing to live for after all? By saving your miserable, meaningless life, did I commit a grave error?”

Draco felt more bile pass his lips, but as he spit it out into the snow, he realized it was blood.

“Have you nothing to live for?”

Draco finally moved his ruined right hand to wipe away the blood from his lips, and made to stand, only to stumble back into the wall.

“My family is dead, Sev, and I have destroyed any chance of happiness with someone I might have been able to love… I have my home, I have my lands, I have my money, and I have my magic…what is that to me but a reminder of all the things wrong in my life…”

“You had Hermione Granger, Draco…you had a chance to turn everything around. You still do, if you’d let yourself be strong enough for once.”

Draco shook his head, the vomit freezing in his platinum hair and slapping against his chapped cheeks.

“That part of my life is over…and her with it, Sev. You yourself just accused me of living too much in my past…and Hermione Granger is part of that past.”

“Forgive me for contradicting myself then, but my accusation of your weakness still stands. The longer you prolong this dream, the tighter a hold that old crippled god has on your soul. You need to make a decision, Draco, and I will be the one to put the choices to you.”

Draco sighed. Of course it would be a spirit in the form of Severus Snape who would ultimately mete out his judgment…

“Either you admit defeat here, keep wallowing in self-pity and indecision and let Vulcan have your soul, or, you decide what you want out of the life you have left. Do you want to be a perpetual prisoner in your own body, useless to stop or persuade your shell to do what you will…as Vulcan would ultimately want to have you? Or do you make up your mind, control your demons, take what you want and what is good and live to be the wizard that you should have been if Lucius or Voldemort had never lived to influence your life to the point that it is now?”

“And what sort of wizard is that, Sev?”

“A powerful wizard who others will look to as a model of strength in the face of adversity, a wizard who will be as charismatic and powerful as Merlin, a wizard who will spend his last days believing that his life was worth living…a wizard who knew what it was to love and be loved by someone in this world…”

“And how do I make this decision known, Severus…these trials never seem to want to end…” Draco muttered weakly, feeling suddenly far too cold and far too weak.

Finally, as if released by some invisible bond, Severus floated across the snowy garden, casting a disdainful eye at the body on the ground and stood before Draco, taking his shoulder in his sallow and icy hands, straightening the younger man.

“Dream of what you want in your life, Draco. Right all the wrongs, and turn your world around. Let the past die, but never forget… Do you want the world to remember past misdeeds of your youth, or do you want to turn the world on its head and make it acknowledge the fact that you are not your father.”

Draco fell against Severus, surprised at how substantial Severus’ spirit form seemed…and it reminded him of the time Severus had sheltered him during their flight, and how Draco had wished in moments of lucidity that Severus had been his father and not Lucius…

“It’s so hard, Sev…it’ll be so hard…”

Severus did not move to embrace Draco, but held still to his shoulders, supporting his weight.

“That is inevitable, Draco. But you have been well-prepared all the same. You know what it is to fail, what it is to suffer, and although you don’t believe it yet, what it is to succeed…now…make your choice, Draco.”

Draco wrapped his arms about Severus’ waist and pressed his face into Severus’ chest, wishing with all his heart that Severus would always be with him…like his mother…like Hermione Granger…

“You should know my choice by now, Sev…” Draco whispered.

And the dream ended…

* * *

It was approximately a month later that Draco finally left the Manor, having been successfully nursed back to health by his faithful retainer Hobbin, and the other elves that had spent generations assuring that the Malfoy line never died before their due times. Malnourished and dehydrated, Draco knew when he awoke from his dream that he had never been so close to death…not even when he had hacked off his left arm all those years ago. He had lost so much weight that he could not bear his own weight upon his bones and therefore had to be levitated any time he needed to be moved. He was force-fed potions to restore the density of his bones and muscles; he was force-fed broth, then heavier foods; and he was force-fed the sympathy and relief of his elves…

By the time Draco was able to move on his own, he had regained all of his previous weight, as well as the hair that had fallen from his head during the stress of his trials and lack of nourishment. The room in which he had laid was torn apart, the scent of magic, bile, excrement and vomit permeating every bit of marble and panelling.

And when Draco was well enough to be seen, albeit through the Floo, he contacted his solicitor and was apprised of his holdings and how they had progressed during the months of his isolation. And then…he left Britain.

The Manor was closed up, the elves given explicit tasks to rid the Manor of everything that Lucius had touched and to refresh the house to the point that no trace of old magic remained. The rooms were gutted, the gardens allowed to go to rack and ruin, and only basic maintenance done until the Lord of the Manor would return again.

And so Draco went off into the world, erasing everything his father had done, erasing Lucius’ very name from the annals of the world.

Draco saw many things, new and wonderful, and met many people, also new and wonderful…but all the while he ached for something. He had the affluence and power, and he had admirers and women who would not hesitate to keep him company…but it was not the man, now changed, that they wanted…they wanted his power and money, almost more than he had wanted it himself.

So, Draco Malfoy returned to Britain, only to seethe over the sight of Yuki Matsumoto standing in a place so close to the one person Draco wanted.

It was time to prove his worth, Draco knew, but it troubled him that he did not know what he would do once he got everything he wanted.