Out of the Silent Planet

Title: Out of the Silent Planet (38/39)
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-Eight – Of compromises and family



He woke near dawn, the light of the ryokan’s room a perfect shade of grey, washing the colour out of everything his eyes found. Even the tangle of hair that tickled his chin was a monochrome dark grey. Draco shifted his right arm on which Hermione’s head rested, her face pressed into his chest, her brow against his collarbone. They had slept peacefully, Draco holding her close, relishing her warmth in the cold of a spring morning.

Draco listened to the distant twitter of birds, softly singing just before the rising sun. He listened to the gentle movement of the wind through the bare trees outside the window. He also listened to Hermione’s breathing, realizing that she, too, was awake. Draco kissed her forehead and ran his silver hand along her bare arm.

“Come home with me,” he whispered into her hair, his eyes watching the far horizon for the tinge of pink colour, the coming of the sun.

Hermione did not say anything, but tilted her chin downward so that she curled tighter against Draco, basking in the warmth emanating from his body.

“Come back to Wiltshire…to the Manor…”

Hermione sighed softly. “It is not as simple as that, Draco.”

Draco let the sound of her soft voice wash over him before thinking about the meaning of her words.

“Alex will have a home with us, he can go to Hogwarts when he is old enough…”

“Draco…”

He closed his eyes, images of the things he wished flitting through his mind. He knew just the room Alex would have…he thought about teaching Alex how to fly on a broom in the garden…he thought about play dates Alex would have with little Frank Longbottom…birthday parties…Christmases…

“Alex has a home here, with me and the Matsumotos. He has everything he wants, everything he needs…” Hermione whispered.

Draco stiffened at Hermione’s words, and he felt his heart begin to deflate. Why had he been the one thinking about such things as play dates and birthday parties? Why had it cheered his soul?

Normalcy. Those were the things normal families did, wasn’t it?

“Our relationship…” Hermione began. “Our relationship is too complicated, Draco. Surely you know this after so many years…”

He gave no answer; Draco knew she was right, but…

“I have a life here, and so does Alex. He doesn’t know about our lives in Britain, and I want to keep it that way for as long as I can. The War, your family, all of it is just too much for one little boy to understand, and if we were to return, the press would have a field day…”

Why had he not considered that?

“And then, there is the fact that Alex is ‘our’ child. The reputation you have meticulously reconstructed would be shattered. There is also the fact that I am Muggle-born, and you are from an ancient Pureblood line…there are people who would target Alex…”

“I would not let that happen,” Draco asserted, gruffly, his arms tightening about Hermione.

Hermione sighed again. “And then there is us, Draco…”

Her voice was a whisper, but he could feel that familiar sadness in her words. The sadness angered him.

“What happens when you grow tired of me? When the lust is sated? This…this, what we are now, will eventually sputter out…”

Draco could see colour, suddenly, shades of red.

“Is that what you want, Granger? To be used and discarded? Do you think me as shallow as that?” he growled into her hair, his hold on her becoming too tight.

Hermione winced at the feeling of Draco’s fingers digging into her spine. Carefully, she moved her arms so that her palms rested against his chest, ready to push away if need be.

“I…” she began, unsure as to how to answer. He had discarded her in the past, but only…after the vow they had shared had been completed. Further, he had returned; again and again, always with a supplicant mien, always with a need for a part of her. Hermione closed her eyes tightly.

“Have you forgotten everything I said last night, Granger?”

His voice was rough, and reminiscent of the many times he had spoken to her with a mixture of madness and lust. She shuddered. How could she forget anything he had ever said to her? From their first confrontation at Hogwarts to his most recent question, Hermione had remembered everything Draco Malfoy had said to her…

“Between my money and your brain, reputations will remain intact. As for Alex, he need not learn about our pasts until he is ready. He will know someday, though you realize that, don’t you, Granger?”

The heavy seriousness of his voice and words weighed down on Hermione’s mind. Of course, she would not be able to protect her son from all the evils in the world, but Alex was barely a babe, and there was time to soften those blows from the outside world.

However, Hermione had doubts, too many doubts to simply follow Draco Malfoy back to Britain.

“Just admit it: you are afraid, Granger.”

It was his voice in her mind, and Hermione quickly threw up the mental walls. He had been listening to her thoughts for some time…and it angered her. With a rough push, Hermione disengaged from Draco’s embrace, rolling away and out from the warmth of the futon. She rose stiffly, and padded nude around the futon, ignoring Draco’s pointed stare. Finding her wand near the abandoned table and spilt sake, Hermione Summoned a yukata from the wardrobe, her face impassive at the loss of her fine silk robes Draco had Vanished the night before. When she let the black fabric slide down her body, hiding her curves and the small bruises from the night’s activities, Hermione glided to the shoji of the room and disappeared from Draco’s sight.


* * *


Draco soaked languidly in the springs for the majority of the morning, ignoring the poignant stares of the other guests whispering to each other on the other side of the bath. He moved as he had when he had lived at the ryokan: oblivious to everyone. Immersed in his own thoughts, it did not matter that one visiting Japanese wizard recognized him as the head of Ryu Zaibatsu and begin to cater to Draco’s sense of business.

After a light lunch in his room, Draco dressed in his Western clothes, and sat in his room, staring out the window. Hermione had not returned.

Draco sat still, thinking that perhaps he had said too much, pushed himself too far. After all, he had not searched for her, just to be ignored…

Rising to his bare feet, Draco moved out of the room, slowly sliding the door shut behind him. He hated and loved that room, but at that moment, he was glad to be outside of it and its memories. Letting his feet guide him, he moved through the inn, careful not to be seen by the guests as he moved past the wards and into the private wing. He had no invitation to enter the family section, but the wards did not stop him although they crackled unpleasantly across his skin.

Returning to the family room to which he had come the day before, all Draco found was Lady Fuumi, sitting on the porch, sipping tea. Although it had been several years since Draco had seen the ancient crone; to his eyes, the woman had not changed at all.

“Master Draco…I was wondering when you would wander to me.”

Draco slowly sat a distance from Lady Fuumi, wary of the old woman, just as he had always been since Severus had left him at the ryokan. The old woman had power, and Draco did not want to test that power now. Her feeble exterior was a well-constructed façade and he felt no pity for the way in which the woman’s back hunched with age or how swollen her hands were with rheumatism.

“It is strange to hear you address me by my true name,” Draco said softly, looking out into the garden, empty of the presence of Hermione and Alex.

“I assume it would be; would you rather I call you Ryu?”

Draco smirked, swivelling his silver eyes to the old woman.

“Draco will suffice.”

Draco let his smirk form into a smile. His name spoken with a Japanese pronunciation sounded strange as well.

“She spent the evening in your room and returned unscathed. It is an improvement over your former temperament,” Lady Fuumi said more to the garden than to Draco.

“I will not harm her.”

“But you have in the past, under this very roof…”

Draco clutched his hands into the fabric of his trousers. He knew the old woman was trying to rile him, to force him to give away something, to lower his guard. The old woman’s skill with Legilimency was perfected and powerful. Draco had learned early to be on his guard with Lady Fuumi Matsumoto.

“I have made my vows, signed the correct documents, and I doubt that this house and the powers that protect it would let me harm a hair on Hermione Granger’s head, or am I mistaken?”

Lady Fuumi’s mouth stretched into a satisfied smile. “The protections that kept you in obscurity during the Dark Years have extended now to the woman. The day her child was born in this house, the spirits began to protect her and the child. And now you want to take her and the child away from this safety…”

Draco let his hands relax, the fabric of his trousers now wrinkled. He could feel Lady Fuumi’s obscured eyes glance over the silver hand.

“Have you considered that she does not want to leave this house? She came here seeking solace and safety, why would she want to leave it?”

Draco, perturbed, locked eyes with the old woman, feeling her gentle nudge into his mind. However, the old woman was locked out, so she turned her eyes away.

“Because I asked her to…because I love her and want her to live with me… Alex is my son, the son I created with her, I want him to grow up having the best…with a mother and a father…”

Fuumi cackled softly. “How is that any different than the life you had, boy?”

Draco bit the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something he knew he would regret.

What Lady Fuumi said was true, essentially. Draco had always had the ‘best’: Lucius had made certain of this…best clothes, best broom, best toys, best pets… Even his ‘friends’ had been the ‘best;’ loyal to the end, albeit not true friends, but bought friends. Narcissa had been the doting sort, always sending the best candies, the best books, always making everything in his life seem so perfect and beautiful.

The truth was, however, there had never been any real love on the part of Lucius, and too much love on the part of Narcissa. Draco knew that he had grown up living in a dream world, a world of nightmares. He had seen past the expensive veneer of lies, he had seen that his life was going down a dark path, the responsibilities of being Lucius Malfoy’s son pushing him at wand point toward a pit of hell. It had been his mother who had ultimately saved him; aware of the pain and trials Draco would have to endure just so he could end up, after it all, cleansed and alive.

“It does not sound any different, does it, baa-baa?” Draco said cruelly, throwing in the Japanese derogative for good measure.

“But it will be, because of one important thing… I love Hermione Granger, and I love our son. It was my own damn fault that I have not had as much time with my son as she, but I will make any oath or vow necessary to prove to you or anyone that I would never hurt them, or let them come to any harm!” Draco growled, his eyes flashing dangerously at the old woman who recoiled slightly despite herself.

Slowly, the anger drained from Draco and he turned his eyes to the garden again. He could sense Lady Fuumi mentally rearranging herself as she set her teacup down on the porch and gaze more openly at Draco.

“Let your actions speak louder than your words, boy, and perhaps, just perhaps, you might get what you want.”



* * *


The late afternoon sun cast the gardens in warm yellow light as Draco moved along an overgrown path through the bamboo and flower bushes, his borrowed geta clacking between the bottom of his bare feet and the hard packed ground. Hermione and Alex had not been in the house proper, and Draco knew of only one other place they could be, although he could hardly believe that Hermione would ever return to that place.

The little house, as he came upon it, seemed to have been repaired extensively since his last days of living in it. The roof tiles were in place and the paper doors were mended; even the grass of the small lawn was manicured and several reddish-purple wisterias had been planted its perimeter of the lawn. Scattered throughout the lawn were outdoor toys: Muggle toy trucks and cars, even a small sand box with plastic dinosaurs posed upon a handmade white sand dune. In one corner of the lawn, where an ageless oak tree grew was a swing low enough to the ground for a small child to be able to mount.

Draco stood at the mouth of the path and took in the sight, somehow relieved that his old hovel was no longer tainted by his madness. Even the air was different than he remembered, fresh with spring flowers and earth. The acrid smell of raw magic was gone from the place.

When his eyes found Hermione sitting on the small porch, Draco took a step forward. She was dressed in a plain periwinkle blue kimono, her bare feet dangling off the porch above woven zori sandals. On her lap, she ran her fingers through a small head of golden curls, humming low. Hermione seemed oblivious to Draco’s approach until his shadow fell over her and the boy who was sleeping on her lap.

Amber eyes studied Draco impassively, but Draco watched as Hermione’s hand moved from Alex’s hair to his back, to her wand. Draco showed no reaction to Hermione’s movement, but knelt before her, gazing into Alex’s sleeping face. There was dirt on his nose, surely acquired during his play. Little mouth slightly open, long silvery lashes resting against chubby cheeks, Alex looked like a tiny cherub swathed in a child’s black yukata. The child breathed softly, and Draco could smell sweet cream on the boy’s breath.

Reaching out to touch Alex’s hair, Draco glanced at Hermione who had inhaled sharply at his movement. When Hermione saw that Draco did not move to hurt the child, she relaxed. Draco frowned at her as his right hand ran through the silken curls. He wondered how paranoid she really was, after all that he had already vowed.

“I am afraid,” she said softly, as if knowing exactly what Draco had been thinking. “Can you blame me?”

Draco shook his head; of course, he could not blame her… He could see that Hermione was thinking only of their son, and how to protect the boy. Had not Narcissa done a similar thing, all those years ago?

“I have been so afraid, Draco, for so long…” she whispered, her voice cracking as tears streamed down her cheeks.

Pulling his fingers gently from Alex’s hair, he wiped her tears from her jaw before they fell on the boy. He rose slightly and pressed his lips to hers, swallowing the sob that was about to escape her throat. Hermione’s tears, Draco believed, should not be seen by her son. Draco had grown sick of the sight of Narcissa’s tears when he was a boy, so sick that it wounded him deeply inside; that even as a grown, middle-aged man, it hurt to remember.

Draco grasped her jaw and deepened the kiss, tasting the same sweet cream he had smelled on Alex’s breath. He hummed softly as Hermione’s own hand rested against the side of his face, fingertips tracing the stubble along his cheek to his ear. They pulled apart, silver boring into amber, amber boring into silver.

A yawn distracted them and Draco straightened, watching as Alex’s silver eyes opened blearily, a tiny fist moving to rub them. Draco took a step back so that the sun fell upon Hermione and Alex fully, the sight of mother and son threatening to take his breath away.

“Mummy…” Alex yawned before his eyes rested upon Draco, the sunlight shadowing his face. Alex reacted so suddenly that Hermione winced as the boy climbed into her lap, his hands slapping against her breasts. “Is Papa leaving?”

Draco stared at the ground at his feet. How perceptive children could be… He had gone looking for Hermione with the intention of persuading her to come back to Britain, a last attempt. Draco knew he had to go back as soon as possible; it had been too long, the delay in answering Floo-calls and the post. Draco now knew that those things were trivial compared to the fact that he had a son, and by the woman he’d loved and searched for, both of them now sitting before him.

“Papa can’t leave! Papa can’t leave, Mummy!” Alex cried, fat tears rolling down his flushed face. Hermione was weeping anew as she and her son stared at Draco Malfoy.

Crying so desperately, Alex choked on his tears, turning away from Hermione and reaching for Draco. Moving with Seeker-like speed, Draco snatched the boy up into his arms, cradling the child, rocking the child, trying to quiet the child with low noises and hums. Alex clung to his father with as much strength the child could muster; Hermione was not blind to this, and her own tears were drowning her face.

“Papa, can’t leave!” Alex exclaimed once more in Hermione’s direction, before wiping his swollen face into Draco’s chest, his tiny hands clinging to the fabric.

Hermione watched as Draco rocked the boy, running a silver hand in a circular pattern along Alex’s back. Minutes passed as Draco cooed to the child before the hysterical crying turned to hiccups and finally silence. Hermione shook at the sight, and ever so slowly, she let her denials slip away. It was obvious that Draco loved the boy, the expression on his face being one of the purest, gentlest love. She had seen that expression only a few times aimed at her, and she knew how magnificent it felt.

Squeezing her eyes shut, more thick tears ran down her face. Hermione Granger loved Draco Malfoy, and their son needed his father. Opening her eyes again, she met Draco’s gaze, and with painful slowness, she nodded her head to him.

No more running, no more hiding; there was no longer a need.

Alex slept in Draco’s arms, content with the warmth and scent of his father, someone of familiar blood. Neither parent could deny how naturally the child reacted to them, how innocent the boy’s love was, or how powerful. But the child was a result of an even greater love, beginning with mad obsession and moving toward a normal, natural love.

Draco moved to sit next Hermione; using one arm to cradle the boy, the other to gather her against him so that he held the two things that really mattered in his life. Perfection, it was the only word Draco could think of to describe that moment. The sun moved across the sky, the wind whispered through the bamboo and wisteria, and the warmth and affection he felt made Draco Malfoy realize that, at last, he had found his ‘normalcy.’




* * *


The ancient camera sat on a tripod resting on the walkway leading to the ryokan, and Hermione wondered when Draco was going to activate the device to take the picture. Toku Matsumoto was trying not to wince as Alex tugged at his neatly trimmed beard and Alex giggled happily as the older man adjusted the child in his arms. She had half a mind to scold the boy, but Toku only had to glance at Hermione to convey that her son’s attempts at play were of no annoyance to him.

Hermione, instead, laughed. Lady Fuumi was laughing as well, her ancient voice melodic, her eyes obscured by her wrinkles. The matriarch had whispered in Hermione’s mind that Alex thought of Toku as a grandfather, and Toku cherished the boy.

Hermione chuckled. This was her family.

They stood in almost the exact spot where Severus and Lady Kaede stood all those year ago, and Hermione felt a sad whisper of a sigh pass through her chest and the silk of her kimono.

Draco was speaking lightly with Lady Kaori, but his fingers found hers. This was her family, and Hermione felt a pang knowing that she was about to leave it. Hermione was afraid, but as Draco squeezed her fingers, she felt strengthened.

She would always have a home wherever Draco Malfoy was…she would always have a home with Alex and the boy’s bright face and amazing capacity of love.

Love…it had almost seemed impossible to experience when she had first arrived at the ryokan. So much darkness, so much pain…and now, as Hermione realized that the shutter had closed and the picture was done, she knew that, at last she was going home. And Hermione knew that it had all been worth it.



TBC...