Life in an Alien Land 1: In the Land of My Enemy

Thanks to you all who reviewed or gave a rating. I'm truly honored by the response to this peice. Here for your enjoyment is the next chapter.


Life in an Alien Land

Chapter 5

Lucius stayed away from the Manor, leaving for London most days before dawn and returning well past midnight. Draco remained in his rooms when not occupied with the Dark Lord's business, locking even Hermione out. After their first night together where Draco merely watched as Hermione fed her daughter, he had withdrawn. Like Lucius, he fulfilled his duties to the Dark Lord, but he withdrew from the small society of conspirators. This development concerned Hermione.

She had not really known Draco before the last year. She knew him from his bad behaviour in school, knew him for his elitist speeches and pureblood bigotry. She had even known that he was the one to let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. Even though it was Snape who killed Dumbledore, it was Draco that forced the issue. She did not know what his withdrawal meant, but God help her, she missed him.

Tonks was another worry for Hermione.

Hermione, Snape and Ginny split their vigil of the still comatose Auror into three shifts. Hermione volunteered for the late afternoon shift from three to eleven. The mantle clock had already struck twelve and neither Ginny nor Severus had come to relieve her. She looked out the window and saw the Lucius' hunched figure walk up the gravel path to the Manor in the light of the full moon. His gait was an unsteady meander as he leaned heavily on his cane. She realised Lucius was completely and utterly pissed. Hermione knew the signs, she had an uncle who was an alcoholic and would always end up sleeping it off in their guest bedroom after Christmas dinner when she lived with her parents.

Delphine snuffled in her sleep in the crib Draco had Transfigured a few days before. Hermione smiled. The little girl was finally sleeping through the night. She leaned over her daughter, watching her rosebud mouth move as if suckling in her sleep. Her reaction to her child never ceased to amaze her. The rush of protective tenderness and love sometimes overwhelmed her, leaving her fighting against tears. Delphine moved her fists as if acknowledging her mother's presence before sighing once more.

She turned to Tonks as the former Auror moaned something she did with greater frequency. Hermione resumed her seat and resumed her long vigil, knowing that it was important for Tonks to see a friendly face when she finally awoke.

&*&*&

Snape showed up to relieve Hermione when the sun rose. He looked like hell, his yellowish complexion, waxy and pale, his eyes without their normal intelligent glimmer. She hoped he was not becoming ill. The last thing they needed was for any of the recently departed to become sick. Healers could not be trusted to keep their mouths shut, not when the potential patient was supposed to have been executed on the Dark Lord's orders. Hermione stretched the kinks out of her shoulders and neck, sore from the position she had dozed in for the last hours of her vigil. "Are you all right?"

"Nothing a little rest won't cure." Snape's voice was weary. "Has there been any change in her condition?"

He ran his wand over Tonk's still form as lights danced along the wand tip. Once done, Severus reached in his voluminous robe's pocket and spelled the contents of a vial into her stomach. Hermione was impressed with his skill. "Did you ever consider becoming a Healer?"

"Death Eaters did not customarily receive an invitation to St. Mungo's for an apprenticeship in my youth." Severus stated curtly. He sat heavily on the divan next to the fire, his hands shaking, his face covered in a thin sheen of perspiration as if the small expenditure of magic exhausted him. "Miss Granger, please check on Ginevra before you retire for the morning. She's feeling unwell."

"Both of you are sick? Is there anything I can do?"

"Thank you, Miss Granger for your concern, but no, there is nothing to be done for either of us." Severus turned his face away from her but not before she saw tears glistening on his lashes.

&*&*&

Ginny was still feeling poorly and had skived off the day vigil in favour of a long rest. Hermione relieved Severus after only four hours. He slept the rest of the day. Molly relieved Hermione from her shift that evening.

Hermione was still awake as Lucius came home. She was in the library reading a book on wizarding etiquette for pleasure rather than for their research. Pureblood society, she found was an odd amalgamation of ancient Roman, Celtic and Norse traditions. She looked up from her reading as she saw a dim, grey shape pause in the doorway. The older Malfoy leaned against the doorframe, his face unshaven, and his eyelids an irritated red and his clothing askew, as if he had dressed hastily. He sneered at her, his voice a rough parody of his normal silky tones, "Why, Miss Granger, were you waiting up for me?"

"No, sir." Hermione replied starchily as she marked her place in the book and put it carefully back on the shelf from which it came. Lucius followed her with his eyes, his demeanour menacing.

She approached the exit, catching a hint of female musk and cheap perfume under the drenching odour of Firewhisky. With a scornful tone that she could not suppress she said, "Good night, Mr. Malfoy."

As she began to pass him, he stopped her with his silver-tipped cane placed gently under her chin. "Our first night together, you enjoyed my cock in you, didn't you?"

Hermione remained silent as he leaned to her, his hand in her hair, his long fingers caressing the nape of her neck. "I used to think that I was a better man. I thought that since I never cheated on Narcissa, never engaged in the entertainments staged by my brother-in-law... I thought if I never raped a woman, I could escape the stigma of the life my father engineered for me. Did I not ensure, that first night that you were given to us, and each night after, that you reached orgasm? I never wanted your experience to be unpleasant, and I never thought less of myself after our encounters."

Hermione moved her hand slowly to the cane, pushing it down with a steady pressure. She turned her face to him as he continued. "I never cared about what I did in the heat of battle. You, I imagine saw that when we met in the Department of Mysteries. I took lives in battle and revelled in the fight. I never damaged anyone's soul but my own. War is a man's game, with rules and passion. Rape is a coward's way of seeking power over the weak and helpless."

He drew a shaking breath and closed his eyes against an unseen pain. "I was a battle-hardened man by the time I was twenty-one, but Narcissa was my life. She was the safe harbour to which I returned after serving Him." His marble facade began to crumble as he admitted, "Narcissa was my first, and until you, my only."

"Lucius, what happened at your last meeting with Him?" His eyes were bleak as Hermione touched his gold-stubbled cheek.

He smiled and it was like broken glass and razorblades. "I became what I said I never would."

"He forced you to rape Tonks."

"He made me beg Him to let me violate her. He said it was His wedding gift to us." Lucius let her go with a soft push. "Go to bed, Hermione, the hour is late."

&*&*&

During the night, Hermione heard Lucius' bedchamber door open. She thought that Snape might need a break from the tedium of caring for the comatose Metamorphmagus after his illness, and so she went to the room to offer her assistance. The door was still open a crack. Hermione looked into the chamber and saw Lucius, soberer that he had been hours before. He sat in a chair next to the bed, his alabaster and gold visage warmed by the light of the flickering fire. Tonks moaned restlessly and he sat forward, smoothing her straw-textured hair from her brow, drawing his elegant fingers over her almost plain face, as if to memorise the ravaged contours. He sat back in the chair as she quieted, the muscles in his jaw working as if to suppress strong emotion, but otherwise he remained motionless. Hermione withdrew, unsettled but hopeful.

&*&*&

Draco wanted her. The intensity of his need scared him. He watched her constantly, spying on her as she bathed, ate and watched the near dead woman his father had been forced to marry. He worried that his obsession with Hermione had become the newest manifestation of his illness. He did not want to be that way with her, not anymore.

Since she had told him she was pregnant with his child, he had reflected on his mental state. With increasing clarity, he realised in his broken-minded state that he had tried to replace his mother. His skin crawled with shame as he remembered the last year and his bizarre behaviour. His rage, which had grown out of his illness, disgusted him. Each degrading act he had made her commit to pay for the crime of being a worthy Mudblood made him want to vomit. She carried his child, and he had used her as a toilet; shitting his fear, anger and shame on her as if she somehow deserved it by reason of her birth.

She never asked for any of this, not even when they were in school and his initial obsession with her was born.

She had always been an object to him, not a person with feelings and dreams. She was a cunt that spoke, tits that fed his shattered psyche. He resolved, when the Dark Lord was dead, to set her free of his jealousies, insecurities and prejudices. She and the child she carried deserved much more than the broken little boy that was Draco Malfoy.

He paced the room restlessly, wanting to be with her but afraid of giving in at the same time.

As if summoned by his need, Hermione entered reticently through the connecting door. It was the first time she sought his company and her first time in his room. In two quick strides, he was on her, kissing her hungrily. He tasted her fears and was undone them.

"Hermione." Her name was a prayer. She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time, her warm brown eyes piercing through the remaining layers of his madness, clearing his mind momentarily.

"Draco," Her whispered answer was spoken against his neck as she drew his shirt off his body with the languid motions of a practiced temple courtesan. Next, she opened the buttons on his trousers, her slow motion and gentle touch maddeningly erotic. He spoke her name again, as she knelt before him in a mirror of the games he had forced her to play to assert his mastery over her. Suddenly she was afire, a golden priestess in a plain, cotton night rail, his body a graven idol as she worshipped his cock with her mouth, laving it to hardness. He watched in fascination as she swallowed him, her lips distended over his width, his length disappearing into her mystery. He drew his fingers through the tangled bush of her hair, loving the rough, woolly texture juxtaposed against the softness of her skin.

As he struggled to master his response to her gentle attack, she wordlessly persuaded him to empty himself into her mouth. She drank him down as a Christian reverently imbibes the blood of their God, and then she daintily dabbed at her cheeks to catch the bitter moisture spilled there. With a soft sigh against his now flaccid penis she said, "I did that because I want you. Don't you ever forget that, Draco Malfoy. Now, come to bed, I need your arms around me."

He followed her to bed on weak knees and collapsed in blissful exhaustion, his legs tangled around hers. His resolution was firmer than it had been only moments before her generous gift. She deserved much more than a broken boy. She deserved a whole man.

&*&*&

Lucius began spending part of the evening with Tonks while Hermione watched the sleeping woman. He had not returned to drinking but was still withdrawn, even with Snape, his oldest friend. Hermione worried that he was taking too much of the blame for the evil that Voldemort made him do. She wished she could help him understand that, just as she was caught in a situation beyond her control, so was he.

On the fifth night of his visitation, Tonks awoke. She opened her muddy brown eyes and looked at Lucius who had retreated to a corner of the room. As her face contorted in both fear and fury, she croaked, "Malfoy."

He reacted as if she had slapped him. His normally stoic demeanour crumbled as she stared at him, her mouth working but with no sound issuing forth. Lucius' alabaster complexion mottled red, his eyes widened. Hermione hovered, but was stricken once more by indecision as the two twisted in the pain of their existence. Tonks, still weak from malnutrition and her extended illness attempted to lift her head and Lucius moved forward as if drawn by the quality. The former Auror finally asked, "My son... does He still have him?"

Lucius nodded mutely and took a few more tentative steps toward her. A tear slid down her cheek. "Then giving myself up didn't work."

"No." Lucius stood next to the bed, his hands clenched, and his agony evident in his posture. "I am sorry, Madam, for everything that occurred. My treatment of you was..."

"What you had to do, Malfoy." Tonks eyes slid shut. "How's your back?"

"It has healed." Lucius sat in the chair next to the bed.

Tonks arched her fingers experimentally. "I'm sorry about all you went through. If I had known, what He would make you do... I should have just let you do it. I've shagged in public before."

Lucius' lip twitched upward. "You are quite forgiving."

"I'm a realist." Tonks answered flatly. "Our side lost. Rape is what happens to losers."

Lucius recoiled in a physical reaction to her statement. Through stiff lips he said, "I assure you, Madam that you shall not have to suffer my attentions again."

Tonks closed her eyes as two more tears slipped out of them. "I'm hungry. Do you have any food in this crypt?"

&*&*&

Voldemort summoned the men a week later. When they returned Lucius shook with fury. He swore loudly as Severus followed him into his study. The door slammed, jerking Delphine from her nap. Her eyes widened and she wailed. Hermione stood, jiggling her daughter against her body. Draco swept into the room, still clad in his Death Eater robes. He took his half sister from Hermione's arms. "Let me."

He cuddled the girl against his chest and spoke soft nonsense to her until she quieted. Her hands grasped at his hair and she pulled. Draco smiled. "Delphine, my dear, I'm already losing my locks at an alarming rate, please don't pull out anymore than you have to."

Molly, who sat by the fire in the sitting room teaching Tonks to knit, chuckled softly. Draco scowled but refrained from comment. He looked at Hermione over the soft frizz of her daughter's head and said, "I need a word with you without distractions."

The clarity of his statement frightened Hermione more than he ever had in his madness. "Molly, Mr. Malfoy needs to speak with me. Could you and Tonks take Delphine for her nap, please?"

Molly looked between the two of them, her expression neutral. As she took Delphine from Draco, she sniffed, as if she wanted to say something but left the room as Tonks took her arm and propelled her to the door.

Draco watched as the door to the room swung shut, his grey eyes the colour of morning mist. "We must redouble our efforts to find a way to kill Him. He has begun experimentation on the other half-blood children. He's using Greyback to turn them and then he's progressing their ages magically. It leaves the child... It's not good." Draco swallowed. "Doholov's daughter already carries the Dark Lord's offspring. He wants Delphine by the end of the week."

Hermione heard a wail as the world collapsed in on her. Only when she found herself firmly in Draco's strong arms, did she realise the howling ripped from her own throat.

&*&*&

"Fuck you, Snape!" Tonks shouted over the former Professor's sneering objections. "I'm a Metamorphmagus. I don't need Polyjuice to turn into someone else. I'm the only person for the job."

Snape swooped over the seated Tonks, his lips drawn back in mocking anger. "What will you do to him; fall on him to kill him? Your legendary clumsiness alone will give you away. Not to mention the little matter of you being unable to work any magic as long as the Dampening bracelet remains on your arm."

"Take it off then, you Greasy bastard." Ron interjected. "I'd rather not have to try my skills against him. Let Tonks have a go."

Hermione rolled her eyes, apparently at the former Gryffindor's cowardice. "Don't be obtuse, Ron. If we could take off the bracelets, we would have already. Nothing works... it seems like they just... absorb... the...magic..." Draco watched her as her mind drifted into a gestaltic state of awareness, he had seen that same look many times before and it never failed to make him want to laugh at her. She looked bloody stupid when she did it. "We need the other girls who've been given these Dampeners."

Father sat forward in his chair. "Why?"

"The bracelets are the key to this." Hermione paced the room, once more assuming the role of the intelligent but homely girl that she had been. Draco watched her with a certain aroused and possessive pride. Fuck, she was perfect. "You said yourself that he had become paranoid since Neville killed Nagini. Have you seen him work any complex magic? I know he can do Unforgivables those are easy. They just require intent. Can he, say, boil water or do that...what's it called... Locomordres Charm?"

"He no longer Legilimises us, that's a fairly complex magic." Draco volunteered. "He never flies anymore. The only time he travelled was here by Side-Along with Aunt Bellla, but I'm not sure if she did it or he did."

Hermione shot him a triumphant look making Draco feel inordinately proud of himself. He straightened his posture and gave the scowling Weasley-male a two-fingered salute. Weasley almost turned purple with suppressed rage, but very wisely refrained from action.

"What are you saying, Hermione?" Father asked.

She lifted her wrist, pointing emphatically at the silver metal. "These aren't infused with Dampening magic. Otherwise, we would still be able to do Accidental Magic. These are funnelling our magic to him."

"That's a preposterous idea." Snape interjected. "He has the Elder wand that he took from Potter, he's unstoppable."

"Then why hasn't he taken full control of the UK?" Ginny asked. "I mean maybe Hermione's right and when the Horcruxes were destroyed, each little piece of his soul held some of his magic. Once they're gone... they're gone, like his soul. Poof!"

"Thank you, Ginevra, for your descriptive analysis." Snape said derisively. "Never underestimate a Gryffindor to oversimplify matters."

Tonks interrupted before the two lovers could exchange hexes. "Ravenclaws see it that way too, you git. Hermione's right. When He wanted Mr. Malfoy to... have sex with me, He didn't do any of the Compulsion Charms. The Lestrange bitch did them.

Father's expression clouded at the mention of his putative wedding night. Tonks gaze fluttered to him as if in apology. Draco thought there might be something between them, if Father could ever forgive himself. His cousin was not hard on the eyes, once she was well-fed and clean. She was no Narcissa Malfoy, but she had a nice ass and that alluring ability to change into what one requested. It was every wizard's sexual fantasy. Well, other than the one with two witches doing dirty things to each other and a wizard or the two wizards doing dirtier things to a witch. Draco felt his cock twitch. When the meeting was over, he would just have to corner Hermione and have his way with her. He may as well before the Dark Lord was done away with. He would have to give her up when it was over.

Suddenly subdued with the thought, he looked at her. Really looked. He would miss her intelligent kindness. If he did not stop thinking along those lines, he would cry. "So, father, how do we get all the women here?"

"Why, we practice the art of seduction, just as our Frankish forebears did." Lucius smiled sublimely. "It shouldn't be that hard, and I know Crabbe Jr. and Doholov would love to volunteer their girls for our pleasure. Malfoy genes are most desirable."

The women in the room gave outraged shrieks before they group began to plot in earnest.

Reviews are nice. Don't be a Voldemort and leave me without them...