Out of the Silent Planet

Title: Out of the Silent Planet (36/39)
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.


All hail kazfeist! Uber thanks goes to her for beta-ing this chapter, and for her help in the future!




Out of the Silent Planet
Chapter Thirty-Six – Of flowers, kites, and blond curls




Draco left the café to seek a room for the night. Even in Utoro, spring evenings were quite cold; a reminder of how cruel the winters could be in Hokkaido. Draco paid no mind to the people he encountered in the local hotel, nor did he pay mind to the staleness of the room and the lumps in the mattress. The only thing he could think of was Hermione Granger. For two years, she had been both his ghost and his regret.

He still wanted her, even after so long and so many refusals. Draco, himself, refused to dwell on his many mishandlings of her, and thought only of those short moments when he’d believed he had her body, soul, and mind. It was a perverted satisfaction, he knew, but those moments had been the closest he had ever been happy with another person. There had been dreams of a life, a life with Hermione Granger. As soon as Draco would dream, he would remember his trials…and the Hermione Granger controlled by Vulcan’s strings. Draco stopped dreaming and focused on the remembering.

The night passed restlessly on Draco’s part, anticipation not allowing him to sleep longer than a few minutes at a time. When the sun rose, Draco paced his room like a caged beast. The thoughts as to why Hermione Granger wanted his signature on documents and vows of non-action, had not escaped his thoughts. It only confused him, and deeper inside, angered him.

It was nearly nine o’clock, and Draco was waiting in the same café, the signed documents having just disappeared as the ink of Draco’s pen dried. He wondered to which Ministry the documents were being magicked, the British Ministry or the Japanese?

An hour passed, and Draco had had his fill of coffee for a lifetime. Just as he returned from the lavatory, Toku Matsumoto entered, motioning for Draco to sit again where yet another cup of coffee was waiting for Draco’s return.

Sitting in silence was something that Toku Matsumoto and Draco had done often during those years at the ryokan. It had been during those times that Toku had fortified the wards obscuring Draco’s true appearance, or cast an intricate spell of calming. Draco could almost feel that strange Eastern magic slide over his skin, negating his caffeine high from the myriad cups of coffee, although no magic was being cast. Serenity, how he had missed it...

“All of the paperwork is in order and accepted. Now, before I escort you to the ryokan, I must ask that you respect the rules of the ryokan. Do you remember those rules, Mr. Malfoy?” Toku asked, gazing into Draco’s eyes for a sign of recognition.

“Of course, ojii-san. Is there anything else you need to say to me, or shall we continue to stare at each other all morning?” Draco asked with a hint of sarcasm. He was impatient still, and drunk on the feeling of calm emanating from his old host and jailor.

“I want only to ascertain your intentions.”

“I declared those intentions when we last met.”

Toku narrowed his dark eyes as if to look through Draco and into his soul. With a set of the jaw and slow nod, Toku Matsumoto rose.

“I will say this only once, Draco Malfoy: any mischief from you while you are in my house, and I will not hesitate to kill you for the sake of honour, property and the trust and love put into my family’s name.”

Draco gazed evenly at the old man, and nodded slowly.

And with that, Toku Matsumoto moved, only turning at the door for motion Draco to follow quickly. Draco took the old man’s words not as a threat, but a promise, an oath of warning. The next time the older man spoke it had been only to ask that Draco follow him into the alley, and that was all the man spoke before catching Draco’s arm for Side-Along Apparation. The sudden press of travel lasted only five seconds when Draco’s feet slammed into paving stones, and the heady scent of flowers filled his nostrils.

Draco stood just before the entrance of the Matsumoto ryokan, the trees around the door loaded with white blossom…dogwood, Draco remembered. The air was cool and a breeze took with it several petals. Nostalgia filled him, threatening to consume him, and he stood frozen just before the inn, ignoring Toku Matsumoto’s insistent glances to follow him into the vestibule. It had been years, but it seemed as if he had been in that very spot admiring the trees only moments ago…

Finally, his feet disengaging from the spot, Draco moved into the vestibule and toed out of his shoes and socks, preferring the sensation of the cool wooden floors against his bare feet. He felt terribly overdressed in his Muggle suit, and quickly peeled off the coat to hang it on a peg next to several raincoats. Glancing back to the vestibule, it seemed there were several guests at the ryokan by the number of shoes resting on the stones and the missing house shoes just on the platform above the ground. Draco’s memory of a busy spring included the fateful honeymoon of Terry and Pansy Higgs…and he quickly squashed the memory.

“This way, Mr. Malfoy,” Toku whispered, having also forgone house shoes to lead Draco along the main corridor toward the family wing of the house and the magnificent private gardens there. It was that labyrinthine garden in which Draco had lived, in a hut beyond the prying eyes of the family or guests…it had been there he had been initially imprisoned.

Draco pursed his lips, ridding himself of another painful memory. He followed Toku slowly, through the roped-off section of the corridor to discourage the guests’ entrance and through several wards that crackled against his skin as Draco passed, causing his silver hand to twitch unpleasantly.

Finally, coming to what Draco remembered as the family room, a traditional place where many meals had been taken, and many evenings spent gazing at the starlit garden, he entered at Toku’s motion and found himself looking out onto a garden flooded with colours. He could hear people speaking, the wind blowing through the trees, the voices of Hanako and several Kappa. But over those sounds, Draco could hear laughter and the rustle of paper against the air.

“I am placing a great deal of trust in you, Draco Malfoy, trust that no harm will come to those who share my home. I assure you again, if you harm anyone in my household, the consequences will be dire.

I leave you now, Draco Malfoy. This is your final trial…” Toku Matsumoto said softly, but sternly. Draco watched the old man leave, the shoji sliding shut in his wake. Draco turned toward the light, letting the sensation of Toku Matsumoto’s wake wash over him.

This was his final trial, or so Toku Matsumoto had said. Draco knew he had to face it, whatever it was…and he knew that Hermione Granger was part of his final trial.

Moving across the tatami mats to the roofed porch, Draco stood in the shadows, his eyes moving slowly across the scene before him. Someone had magicked the cherry trees to bloom early, and pink and white petals seemed to rain down in little curtains over the lush grass of the small lawn. Koi fish were swimming in the small pond to the far corner, and the fish leapt from the water to shimmer in the sun, their calico spots flashing brown, silver, and gold. In the back of the lawn sat two women under the largest and oldest cherry tree, sipping tea on a quilt spread out on the grass.

Draco’s eyes immediately recognized Kaori Matsumoto, the proprietress of the ryokan, but her face was far different from what he remembered. The middle-aged woman seemed younger, her face softened with a smile that Draco found so alien that he wondered if his assumption of her identity had been correct. Cherry petals fell into Kaori’s styled hair and the woman was laughing at the petal that was floating in her tea. This was a Kaori Draco did not know…and it disturbed him. She was dressed in a light kimono, just as he always remembered, but to see the woman so unrestrained, so happy, did not seem possible in Draco’s memory of her.

Eyes moving to the other woman, Draco’s breath caught. He knew he would be surprised to see Hermione Granger at all, but to see her as she was at that moment shocked even the hidden madman deep inside Draco’s soul.

Her hair had grown long again, falling over one shoulder of a light pink kimono, open in the front in an almost indecent manner. She too was laughing, but her eyes were looking further into the garden to the source of Hanako’s voice and the watery laughter of the Kappa. Draco’s stomach tightened as Hermione sipped her tea, her lips wrapping about the rim of the small cup. As a ray of sunlight found her spot under the cherry tree, Draco’s groin tightened. Her hair and eyes were golden in the sunlight, and her skin was a healthy milk white. Draco’s eyes moved to her hands and the manner in which they held her cup before her lips. Moving to her bare legs and feet, he groaned softly. Hermione Granger had become a mortal goddess, flesh and bone, laughter and smiles. It was then that the chill of the shadows made Draco shiver. She was not looking in his direction, but to some other place where all her love was concentrated…

All the desire he had repressed and revelled in for her was pouring through every fibre of his being, hot as lava and as cold as ice. The need to go to her was overwhelming, but Draco could not move for as he managed to slide his bare foot forward, several figures entered the lawn, bringing with it the sound of laughter and the rustling of paper. Stepping backward, Draco’s eyes scanned the newcomers coming into the garden.

Hanako was nearly opaque in the sunlight, floating only a foot from the ground, never changing and perpetually silver. The girl ghost alternated between fussing and laughing, her preternatural form bent over as hands moved in an upward motion to a small figure running about barefoot in the grass trying to launch a green and silver paper kite. Moving about the garden were two Kappa, gurgling in watery laughter as a small boy jumped and ran, trailing the kite behind him.

With an ambitious leap, the boy nearly launched the kite in the breeze, but fell hard onto the grass with a tiny shout. Hanako fussed terribly as one of the Kappa helped the child to his feet. The child did not cry, but smiled with a toothy grin at the Kappa and began to run again. When the child ran near to the porch, Draco nearly stumbled back, catching sight of the child’s face.

Dressed in a tiny child’s yukata, the boy was almost the image of Draco at two years age, with silver eyes and pale brow. Blond curls bounced on the boy’s head as he ran and circled about the lawn just before the porch, Draco could see that the boy was not an exact image of himself…the nose was not as sharp and the shape of his chin was not as pointed. Draco had never had curls as a child, but the resemblance between the two-year-old Draco Malfoy and the boy trying in vain to launch his paper kite was striking.

Draco’s chest ached and he raised his silver to grasp his dress shirt, his mouth opening to gasp at the air.

The boy was his…

His son…

And everything that Toku Matsumoto had said the night before made perfect sense.

“Come, it is time for lunch,” Draco heard Hanako say to the boy who was now sitting the grass, frowning at his kite. The boy’s feet were grass stained, but he rose with a smile, speaking too softly for Draco to hear. The boy was led away, and it was then Draco saw Hermione Granger padding across the garden toward him, her eyes suddenly hardened and a terrible shade of amber.

Sitting down on the edge of the porch, Hermione did not look at Draco as he managed to sit next to her, starring at the pattern of tiny cherry blossoms embroidered on her light kimono and the swell of her breasts visible from the opening of the silk where the obi had loosened. At such close proximity, Draco could see that Hermione’s body seemed softer, her belly and breasts fuller, but still beautiful…a mother’s glow that Draco had noticed in Millicent Longbottom after her son was born.

“So that was the reason I was to vow to never take legal action against you?” Draco asked, unable to hide the sardonic chuckle in his voice.

Hermione nodded. “You will not take him from me.”

Her voice was cutting, and Draco felt the edge all too well.

“I would not…” he began, but trailed off, his eyes falling to the grass before him. “I would never dream of ever doing something…”

“But I did not know, how could I know that you would not try and take him from me?” Hermione whispered cruelly, her eyes also fixed upon the grass.

“I would never be a father in the way a child deserves…” Draco sighed, trying not to let the maelstrom of conflicting emotions filter into his voice again.

“I had hoped…” Hermione began, but nodded away the rest of her words.

They sat in silence, letting the scent and sound of the spring air move about them. The falling cherry blossoms had abated, surely magicked for the child’s amusement. Draco had also noted that Lady Kaori had disappeared, along with the quilt and tea set. Had the scene of the child and Hermione been staged, Draco wondered. It was obvious that his arrival had been noticed…

“Why hide? Why hide here?” Draco finally asked, moving his eyes to rest upon Hermione’s hands resting in her lap.

Hermione hesitated and slowly turned her face to stare at him, her eyes beginning to change with emotion…like honey.

“You were unstable, unsuitable, and unsafe. And I needed you so badly to see me, to see that I was pregnant, but you did not. I…I feared you, and I feared what you might do if you did happen to realize that I was pregnant…especially after that night when you came back with the manacle…”

Draco closed his eyes. Slowly, “I understand.”

Hermione made a noise in her throat, something like a sob, but Draco did not open his eyes and bowed his head deeper as he sat on the edge of the porch.

“I don’t think you do understand, Draco. I have a new life. I have my studies and I have a family who will support and protect me. They love me, and I love them…”

Draco opened his eyes and stared at Hermione who was looking up at the clouds rolling past the sun. The expression on her face was one of peace, but how true that peace was, Draco could not discern.

“And Alex…Alex is a special child. He is strong, so strong that his magic manifested itself even before he was born. I nearly lost him…just before the last time I saw…” she trailed off, her eyes sparkling with tears. Shaking her head, Hermione continued on. “He’s already received letters from Hogwarts, Durmstrang, Salem, Shaanxi… He loves Muggle movies…” Hermione laughed, tears breaking from the corners of her eyes to trail down her cheeks, catching the sunlight. “He is so intelligent…and so strong…and you will not take him away from me…”

His heart was breaking, or so he believed for his chest burned terribly and he grasped the front of his shirt again, and gasped for air, unable to look at the beauty at his side. All the regret he had held within, as well as some that he had not known of before that moment was killing him. Draco had been so selfish and so wrong…

“What will you do now…now that you know? I would kill you if you tried to take him, Draco…” Hermione whispered, hastily wiping away her tears.

Before Draco could attempt to answer, the sound of voices broke into the garden again, and the blond boy ran into the lawn, carrying a half eaten rice ball in his small hand. Hanako was again fussing with the boy, but the boy giggled, grains of rice stuck to his chubby cheeks as he ran to the koi pond and began breaking off bits of his food for the hungry fish leaping up into the air.

Draco felt a smile begin to form on his lips, but the twisting in his chest made his lips curl into a painful grimace. A tiny whisper entered his mind from a place deep in his soul, and it said: You now have a suitable heir…free of your demons and your past, Draco.

Tears filled his eyes for the first time in many years, and Draco trembled, hugging himself. It did not matter that Hermione watched him and frowned. It did not matter if the whole world saw him, he was hurting so horribly, and it had nothing to do with physical pain. Draco wept silently for himself, for Hermione, and for the boy who was turning to look at the two people sitting on the porch.

How wrong he had been…

The boy began moving toward them, and Draco straightened quickly, wiping his face free of bitter tears. Fear crept into Draco’s chest and mind as the boy neared, and quickly the stoic mask of Draco Malfoy, the businessman, slid into place.

Small silver eyes stared into swirling grey and red eyes, and the boy only cocked his head, wiping his hands on his black yukata to free it of loose rice grains.

“Da-re?” the boy asked, posing the question to neither adult. Draco felt his lip twitch, the boy asking in Japanese who this strange man was…

Hermione said nothing, glancing from the boy to the man and back again. Then with an open hand, Hermione pulled the boy onto her lap. Blond curls bouncing, the boy wrapped his small arms about Hermione neck and pressed his face into her neck as Hermione began whispering into the boy’s hair, rubbing his back in a soothing fashion.

Draco watched as the boy nuzzled Hermione’s neck and pulled away to stare at him, eyes wide, and mouth curling into a delighted smile.

The boy crawled from Hermione’s lap and touched Draco’s right leg experimentally, his eyes determined, and the smile still set upon his cherub-like face. Draco stiffened momentarily and quickly relaxed as the boy patted Draco’s leg with a small palm, as if testing to see if Draco were real. And with a concentrated leap, Draco found the boy in his lap, the boy reaching up to place two small, dirty palms on either side of Draco’s face.

“Papa,” the boy said in soft declaration.

Tremors ran through Draco’s body and his silver hand twitched, beginning to rise to touch the boy whom Hermione had named Alex.

“You…you know who I am?” Draco asked softly in English.

Alex nodded, curls falling around his face, as unruly as any child of Hermione Granger’s would have been. Small palms patting Draco’s shaven face, Alex smiled and bounced lightly on his lap.

Eyes wide and wetting again, Draco’s left hand slowly ran down Alex’s tiny back and up again to touch the boy’s baby soft hair. Hermione tensed as Draco touched Alex, but relaxed, noting that the silver hand was as gentle was the flesh hand that slowly moved to brush away the rice stuck to the boy’s cheek.

Tears trickled from the corner of Draco’s eyes, wide with fascination at the boy.

“Why are you crying, Papa?” the boy asked innocently, rubbing his palms across the grain of Draco’s shaven cheeks.

Draco began to nod, and leaned in to whisper to the boy. “My wealth is now complete, Alex…”

Alex giggled, a puzzled expression on his face, his small hands moving from Draco’s cheeks to touch the silver buttons of his dress shirt and the silver fingers of Draco’s left hand.

* * *

When evening came, Draco watched from the doorway of Alex’s room as Hermione pulled the blanket over the sleeping boy. The rest of the day had been spent with the boy attached to Draco’s side or sitting on his lap. The two had stared at each other for long periods of time, Alex fascinated with Draco’s left hand, and Draco inhaling the unique scent of himself and Hermione wafting from the boy’s hair and skin.

Alex had begged Draco to help him fly the kite Uncle Yuki had sent him. Draco said nothing about Yuki Matsumoto, and magicked the wind to take the kite up into the air, delighting Alex to no end. After playing with the kite, watching a Muggle animated film about a creature named Totoro, eating dinner with Alex and a subdued Hermione in the family room and feeding the koi, Alex fell asleep in Draco’s arms, a heavenly smile on his face.

Draco had carried Alex into his bedroom, which was situated in the family wing, next to Hermione’s rooms. The room was decorated with posters of Alex’s favourite Japanese animated characters, even Quidditch posters of the Chudley Cannons with a smiling Ron Weasley when he was still Keeper. Books and papers littered the floor, many of drawings of what Draco assumed were the Matsumoto family…even the Kappa executed in sickly green coloured crayon. Laying the boy down on his futon, Draco brushed a curl from the boy’s eyes and smiled. Hermione hovered behind, waiting to tuck the boy in for the night and extinguish the lamps. Draco retreated, his heart filling so full, and ran a hand over his quivering lips as Hermione kissed the boy’s forehead and whispered a quiet ‘Nox.’

When the shoji was slid shut, Hermione brushed past Draco, beckoning him to follow. At the end of the corridor, Hermione called for Hanako who appeared immediately. The ghost, upon noticing Draco, let the kind smile drain from her silver face.

“Show Mr. Malfoy to his room, Hanako. He must be tired.”

Hanako nodded and watched out of the corner of her eyes as Hermione disappeared into the shadows, leaving Draco staring after her, his mouth open to speak, but now unable.

“This way Master Draco,” Hanako whispered with a hint of sorrow.

Draco had no choice but to follow. Even in the dark, he noted the familiarity of the décor and realized with a bit of anger that he was being given the room in which Hermione had stayed in when she had come to ‘retrieve’ him all those years ago.

* * *

It was barely past midnight that Draco heard her approach. He had been sitting under the kotatsu dressed in a familiar black yukata, sipping sake by the candlelight that filled the room. He had returned from the springs an hour before, noting that he had not had the luxury of enjoying the healing waters alone. There were two men in the spring when Draco had arrived, and he tried his best to ignore the poignant stares at his silver arm. The bath had been short, but pleasant, despite the prying eyes of other Japanese wizards.

When the door slid open with a whisper, Draco was struck by the informality of her clothing, a simple pale green yukata over what appeared to be a silk shift, the hem of which reached to her bare feet. Her caramel hair was loose about her shoulders, slightly damp and curling about her body like tiny serpents. She bowed slowly to Draco, and slid the shoji shut at her back.

With a sigh, Draco Summoned a second bottle of sake and saucer, waving his hand to Hermione Granger to join him. Hermione moved across the tatami floor and sat adjacent to Draco, shifting so that her legs were under the warmth of the kotatsu. Draco poured a saucer of sake and pushed it toward her, eyeing her face from under his damp strands of silver hair. She did not look at him, but at the reflection of light from the surface of the sake. But with a quick lift, Hermione poured the contents of the saucer into her mouth and swallowed, reaching for the bottle again and wandlessly Charming the bottle to heat again. Warm sake was better on cool nights, and Hermione noticed from the corner of her downcast eyes that Draco smirked in approval.

Pouring another saucer-full, Hermione finally spoke, lifting her eyes to address Draco for the first time that day with total earnestness.

“I have never hidden the fact that you were Alex’s father. Alex has always known. And when he asked why you were not here with us, I answered him the best way I knew how.”

“And how was that?”

Hermione smirked. “You were a busy and an important man. You did not know about Alex because you did not know that he was ever born.”

Draco closed his eyes, unable to look at her bright face any longer than a few moments. The malice implied in her voice was too much to bear.

“And then Alex asked me, if you had known, would you come to live with us? And I told him that I did not know. All I did know was that if you knew about him, you might take him away…”

“Stop…” Draco whispered, painfully.

“And Alex cried. He then asked this: if you loved me, would you stay and not take him away?”

“Stop it…”

Hermione’s voice changed and Draco could hear the tears and grief. “I told Alex that I did not know. I told him that it was not as simple as that. I told him that if you had known about him, you would love him as much as I love him…because he was your precious heir…”

“Stop it, Hermione.”

“Alex then told me that he did not care about being an heir. Alex still does not know what that means…he does not know the difference between Purebloods and Mudbloods. He does not know who Lucius or Voldemort was, and if he did, I am sure he would not care. He only knows that he loves Papa, no matter where Papa might be and no matter what Papa may have done…”

Hermione was sobbing then, and Draco could not open his eyes no matter how hard he tried. His hand twitched violently under the kotatsu…wanting to touch her.

“I told Alex…I told him that I loved his Papa…so much that I could not allow his Papa to take him away…or even tell Alex’s Papa that he was born.”

Draco gritted his teeth and forced his eyes open, anger and grief turning his vision red as he stared at her…Hermione rocking herself in her own arms, weeping. The sight of her made the anger drain away, leaving only the grief. And he realized fully the damage he had done to this woman…this beautiful and brilliant woman. She could have been his life, his wife, his dream, his life companion, and she turned that option down because Draco had been too mad to realize how precious she truly was…

“I…” he began, both of his hands now twitching. “I am so sorry, Granger…you have no idea how sorry…” he whispered.

Hermione rubbed her arms and stopped rocking, leaning her elbows on the table, staring at the grain of the wood. She listened as he began slowly, speaking of the reasons as to why he was sorry, and the reasons why he had sought her out after two years of estrangement.




tbc...