Fic: Out of the Silent Planet (1/?) MA, DM/HG
This is my first posting to this community, so hello! Here's a WIP DM/HG fic, please enjoy!
Title: Out of the Silent Planet (1/?)
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: Porn WITH a plot, Darkfic, Romance
Warnings: M/F, Bondage, slight non-con, 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. This has a bit of a slow build, so please be patient! And as always, many thanks go to my Beta’s, SeductionsClaim and viccro. X-posted at QO Comm, AFF.net, and my personal LJ.
Out of the Silent Planet
Chapter One - Of Honoring Last Wishes and the Beginnings of Many Journeys
Hermione Granger felt tears welling up in her amber eyes as she sat at the bedside of Severus Snape, watching him draw short, pained breaths. She had tried her best to prepare herself for this day, but nothing could prepare her for the physical embodiment of pain that lay in the narrow cot at her side. It was hard for Hermione to even think that the wretched, withered, and dying man was Severus Snape. The War had been the cruelest to this man, reducing him to something that it might have been better had died years before, instead of left to suffer so horribly.
In the eleven years after killing Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape had aged so much that he seemed twice as old as he truly was. But for Severus to lay upon a cot in St. Mungo's was better than what Hermione would have hoped when she was seventeen, having first heard of what Snape had done that night on the Astronomy Tower. The War had lasted in full fury for two years after that fateful night, and when the smoke cleared, Severus Snape was still alive as was Hermione Granger. While Severus was ragged and torn from thoughts of what he had done to a man he considered a father, and of his role in the last stand of Lord Voldemort, Hermione was battle torn, having nearly lost her life fighting. But at that moment, as Hermione watched Severus cough dryly, bloody phlegm flying from his cracked lips, she was content to have come out in the end only with a scarred body and crippled left leg.
"Her...Hermione, listen to me..." Severus whispered, his suffering conveyed very plainly in his raspy and old voice.
"Of course, Severus, I'm listening," she said gently, leaning forward to gaze into Severus' black eyes, the whites jaundiced with sickness.
"You must..." he began, but began coughing again, harder than before, his thin body arching off the cot. Hermione winced and reached for the damp cloth on the stand by the bed, dipping it in a basin of water and wringing it out. She dabbed at Severus' mouth as his coughing began to subside. Running a soothing hand over his dry and cool forehead, Severus lay flat on the cot again.
"You must go to Shiretoko, to Madam Kaede beyond Kamuiwakka..." Severus rasped, his voice almost too soft for Hermione to hear despite her leaning over him. But the tone of his voice was adamant and clear.
"In Japan?" Hermione asked, her question revealing her confusion, but imprinting the foreign names into her sharp mind.
Severus nodded insistently and began coughing again, but not as nearly as hard as before. Hermione sat back in her chair, sliding it closer to the edge of Severus' cot, her knees against the frame.
"I left something there that needs fetching..."
Hermione nodded.
"You must bring it back, Hermione...it is very important."
Severus closed his eyes for a moment, his breathing becoming more labored than ever. Hermione sighed slightly and bowed her head. He had been so ill for so long, but he had demanded that she be by his side that day and Hermione knew then that Severus wanted her there to see him pass.
Suddenly Severus' eyes opened, glancing at Hermione, his hand snaking out with unbelievable speed and grasping her left wrist with a strength that seemed unfitting of that of a man on his death bed.
"You must promise me, Hermione!" he wheezed, his eyes suddenly very clear, his voice very strong.
Hermione grit her teeth as Severus' grip tightened.
"I promise, Severus, on my life if it would please you," she gritted out in pain and surprise.
"On your life, on your young life..." Severus whispered, slowly releasing her wrist and letting his wasted arm fall limply to the cot.
Hermione nodded as Severus turned his sharp boned face away from her and his eyes fix on a point near the top of the wall of the sick room. He took several more shallow breaths... Hermione felt tears welling up in her eyes again as she rubbed her wrist absently, watching as Severus Snape drew his last breath as if breathing a contented sigh. She marveled at her former professor, mentor, master and friend. His eyes were still open, the dark spark gone forever, but Hermione had never seen Severus Snape look so peaceful, so enlightened, and so human as he did with a gentle smile on his face. Hermione felt her lower lip tremble and the tears spill down her cheeks as she reached her right hand to touch Severus' cold and sunken cheek. Slowly her hand lingered over his open black eyes before she gently pushed his eyelids closed.
Severus Snape had passed and Hermione Granger was the only person who had been present to witness it.
* * *
History would tell later generations that Harry Potter had triumphed over Lord Voldemort, phrasing every detail like something out of a fairy tale. But the survivors of the Two Years’ War (a misnomer, for all knew that this War had been raging ever since Harry Potter was a mere babe), would tell their children and their children’s children that nothing about what happened was in the least bit fit for a child to hear. The mass murders of Muggle-born children, the rapes, the executions, the paranoia, the fear, all of it was akin to the Muggle’s Second World War, only confined to the borders of Wizarding Britain. Never in Wizarding history were so many killed and so much destroyed. And even after the destruction of Lord Voldemort, the horror continued for two years until Lucius Malfoy was caught in Italy trying to escape the contintent into North Africa.
But one Death Eater had made it through the trials and persecution and that person had been Severus Snape. Hermione Granger had sat in tears while Harry Potter testified about the night Albus Dumbledore was killed. Severus, at that point in time, was in the hospital, too weak and broken to appear before the Ministry. Confined as he was, Severus had testified from his hospital bed under Veritaserum and the watch of Ministry Aurors. Severus Snape’s saving grace came from the pensieve of Albus Dumbledore, kept safe by Headmistress Minerva McGonagall during the War years. Besides the pensieve, the portrait Albus Dumbledore recounted all the events that led up to his death, the plans, the lies, and the secrets that only Dumbledore and Severus Snape knew existed. The only sticking point in the process to Severus’ redemption came when the question as asked as to where Severus Snape had been during the two years of the War. No one knew what had happened after the attack at Hogwarts, what had happened to Draco Malfoy or Severus Snape.
Severus would not answer to his whereabouts, and this refusal to divulge his activities during the height of the War warranted Severus Snape a heavy penalty. Acquitted of the murder of Albus Dumbledore, Severus was forced to relinquish all of his private holdings leaving him a pauper. Broken and ill, Severus was not allowed to return to Hogwarts as part of the Ministry’s judgment. The only thing that was left for Severus Snape was his worldwide reputation of being the youngest and perhaps the most brilliant Potions Master of modern times. This reputation alone allowed Severus to continue working with Potions and earn a modest royalty from his patented potions. But Severus was homeless and that was where Minerva McGonagall stepped in. Donating a cottage on her family estate in northern Scotland, Severus settled into a life of quiet obscurity.
All that anyone knew of Severus Snape in the post bellum days was that he was an exonerated Death Eater, a former Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and that he had only shown his face once during the Two Years’ War, and that was during the climax, or what most called the Battle of Little Hangleton. No one was more surprised to see Severus Snape than the Order members who flew out that day to end all wars. Severus Snape stood on the fringes of Voldemort’s throng of Death Eaters, werewolves, giants, Dementors and other evil beings. But when the melee began, Severus Snape turned on his supposed allies and fought on the side of the Light. Harry Potter had wanted to kill Severus Snape almost as much as he wanted to get Voldemort out of his life, but when Severus defended Harry time and time again, Harry’s crises of faith for the two years previous came to an end. All the while hating Snape, Harry wanted to know the truth more than anything else. Harry was a pawn, and he knew it, but he knew that his life would never be normal as long as Tom Riddle walked the earth, still clinging to some perverted form of existence.
Many people fell those three days in battle, the plains of what was once Little Hangleton is barren and stark. Nothing will ever grow on the sloping greens for hundreds of years, the blood and muck and dark energies expended on that plain had destroyed all hope of renewal. So much had been lost, and therefore Severus Snape took the philosophy that all could be gained. It was this new philosophy (or enlightenment, as Hermione later called it), which brought Hermione Granger closer to the reviled Death Eater and Potions Master.
Hermione’s life during and immediately after the War had been difficult. Her relationship with Ronald Weasley had fallen through after the War. During the Battle of Little Hangleton Hermione was terribly injured, permanently marred by curse scars on her back and lower body. A bone-splitting hex shattered her left leg, and even years of treatments after the fact could not eliminate the limp or the knobby protuberances in her knee and ankle where the bones were basically pinned back together when magical healing failed. Hermione would never dance, run or skip again, not that she felt as if she had any cause to do those childish things, but it still pained her to have to walk with a cane at times. Ron had told her that the cane gave her mystique, and Hermione told Ron that he was a stupid git...as usual. Hermione’s relationship with Ron had returned to the point it had been in when they were children: friends who found pleasure in arguing.
Harry and Ginny had gotten married as soon as Lucius Malfoy was executed, Harry feeling that the last of his work was over. The last Hermione had heard in the years since, Ginny had given birth to their third child and were living in an undisclosed location in South America. Even Tonks had left, moving to America for a life free of the memories that pained her in Britain. But Hermione had stayed the course and felt it necessary to go forward with her plans she still clung to even through the War.
Hermione had begrudgingly given up her studies in lieu of the War, but when the War was over, she applied for apprenticeships with various Potions Masters...only to be refused. It seemed that no matter how perfect her N.E.W.T. scores had been or her independent findings on a treatment for those suffering the long term affects of the Cruciatus curse, or the published work she submitted to the Masters or even her status as a War hero with a Order of Merlin, First Class; no one wanted her as an apprentice. Ron told her, quite jokingly, that everyone was intimidating by Hermione’s drive and intellect. Unfortunately for Hermione, it seemed Ron’s joke was none other than the truth. Hermione sent her request and her work to the last person she expected to hear a reply from, Severus Snape. The trials were over, Hermione was ready to work again, and when the reply arrived, Hermione nearly fainted. She was an apprentice to Severus Snape.
Four years... Hermione lived with Severus Snape in Minerva McGonagall’s cottage. The relationship was difficult, but Hermione had put the past behind her when it came to Severus Snape. For the first year, Hermione was not allowed to called her Master by his first name, no matter she was an adult and aspiring to be on the same level as Severus. The second year, Hermione had to suffer Severus’ foul mouth and cruel criticisms. The Third year, Hermione developed Lupin’s Potion that was an embellishment on the Wolfsbane concoction and halted all transformations of those afflicted with Lycanthropy during their moon time. Hermione argued with Severus and won, naming it after her deceased friend and fellow Order member. The celebration, when the Ministry approved the potion, was muted, Tonks never quite getting over her lover’s death six years before and many others sorely missing the ever cool headed Remus Lupin. By her fourth year under the same roof with Severus Snape, Hermione earned her title as Potions Mistress.
During the four years of her apprenticeship, Hermione had gotten to know Severus Snape, the man, not the Professor and Death Eater. Both parties were pleased to find that they worked well together in the laboratory and in the everyday setting. There was no romance, only a connection one feels when they find a kindred spirit. Both were studious and hardworking, both were brilliant and passionate, but both were haunted by ghosts of the past and held in their feelings when it came to personal matters. So in the end, Severus Snape and Hermione Granger were friends and colleagues. They never spoke openly about themselves, but both were quite aware of each other’s personal habits, nuances and understood each other’s pain to some extent.
So after Severus Snape passed away eleven years after killing Albus Dumbledore out of mercy, Hermione Granger was the only one left who was close enough to Severus to deal with his small estate. In the five years between the end of her apprenticeship until Severus’ final decline in health, Hermione had been busy. Together with Millicent Longbottom nee Bulstrode, Hermione began a firm that dealt with the improvement and distribution of medical potions, sending several small apothecaries and firms out of business or to be absorbed into Hermione and Millicent’s firm which they called Longbottom Apothecaries Ltd., much to Severus’ chagrin when he had heard of the name.
During and after the War, Millicent had surprised everyone by standing on the side of the Order. Her entire family was either killed in the War or was sentenced to death afterward during the infamous Death Eater Trials. Millicent even testified against her own mother and pounded in the last nail in Madame Bulstrode’s proverbial coffin. Millicent was embittered since the death of her younger brother during one of many attacks on Hogwarts. The boy had been at the wrong place at the wrong time and fell victim to Fenrir Greyback and his followers.
But what surprised Hermione even more was when Millie, as Hermione called her in private, married Neville Longbottom. The relationship between Millie and Neville had begun even before the initial attack and miraculously endured through the horrors of the War and the trials afterward. Millie earned the status of Superior Medi-witch and began working with Neville in the Spell Damage wing of St. Mungo’s. All the while Neville pursued his love Herbology, and after Hermione’s apprenticeship, it was Severus’ advice that got the three together to found their own potions firm. Neville provided the Herbology elements and ingredients, Millie provided the medical applications and Hermione fused potions with the other disciplines to create, in only three years, the leading wizarding pharmaceuticals firm in all of Europe.
With the royalties Severus earned, his burial expenses were covered as well as hiring a solicitor with the small job of wrapping up his estate. A will was produced and all of Severus’ personal belongings were willed to Hermione. All remaining assets were to be donated to Hogwarts for purchase of potion supplies and equipment.
Three days after Severus’ small funeral, where only a handful of mourners gathered, Hermione entered Severus’ cottage, given to him by Minerva McGonagall. Many years before, Severus had demanded he did not appreciate Minerva’s pity and wanted to find a place of his own. Severus had offered to buy the cottage, but Minerva refused, and after being convinced by Minerva to stay, Severus relented. Severus had become so comfortable with the layout, since he had to levitate himself at times from one place to another...
The cottage had little changed. Severus had spent only a week at St. Mungo’s before he died. Millie and Minerva stood behind Hermione as she lingered inside the door, the clear autumn sunlight streaming through the small carriage windows into the parlor. The cottage was small, quaint and so unlike anything Severus seemed to represent. But to Hermione it had been home for four years. As she stepped inside the parlor, watching the thick motes of dust float in the sunlit air, she felt her crippled leg begin to shake. Tapping the silver tip of her cane against the wooden floor, Hermione stifled her tears. Glancing to the wingback chairs before the large fireplace to her left and the steps that led up to a single room, her old room, was almost too much. Severus had changed nothing since Hermione had last been to visit weeks before. Hermione had always made it a point to have lunch with him on Sundays whether Severus appreciated her company or not. It had become routine...Hermione’s bits and bobs lay about the parlor along with Severus’ rolls of parchment and books.
“Do you want a moment, Hermione?” Millie asked at Hermione’s back, wrapping her large hand around Hermione’s thin shoulder.
“No, no, I’m fine, it just seems like I will see Severus ridiculously floating out of the kitchen all the while levitating a tray of tea and biscuits,” Hermione said softly, limping across the parlor to the back wall and to the window seat looking over the heath.
Millie tutted at her old Headmistress as Minerva began sniffling into her tartan handkerchief. Hermione could only smile, she could imagine what Severus would have to say if Minerva were crying inside the door of his home. But Hermione said nothing, lifting a copy of her dissertation on the possible uses of Muggle technology in the potions field, a handwritten copy she had left for Severus months before. Hermione tucked the crook of her cane over her left arm and ran her fingers over the notes Severus had scrawled in the margins. Hugging the pages to her bosom, Hermione began moving toward the wall that separated the kitchen from the parlor. The wall was lined with shelves of books, many damaged when Severus’ Spinner’s End was destroyed, leaving the tomes lying amidst the rubble. Hermione ran her fingertips over the spines and felt another good cry trying to work its way up through Hermione’s already tired body.
“Where do you think we should start, Hermione?” Millie asked, shutting the Dutch door to the cottage.
“The bedroom, I don’t think I can bear to go in myself... Actually Severus never allowed me inside. His clothes need to be boxed up and stored... Oh, and be careful of any jinxes he may have put on the wardrobes and drawers,” Hermione said brightly, swallowing her tears and leaning against the bookshelves.
Millie nodded, her ebony hair pulled back in a braid, rolling up her robe sleeves and drawing her wand. Millie was familiar with Severus’ little cottage and could only hope that Severus had not set too many jinxes on his possessions. Walking across the parlor and around the fireplace to the small door that led to Severus’ bedroom, she disappeared from Hermione’s sight. Only Minerva remained.
Hermione watched as Minerva began to cast her old blue eyes about the cottage, watery with tears unshed, her wrinkled face seeming older in the years of mourning since the War. Hermione felt a pang in her chest and a sudden urge to take the older woman up in her arms, to either be comforted or to comfort. Hermione always felt a distinct and warm love for Minerva McGonagall, akin to the love of a child to a grandparent. It pained Hermione to see Minerva seem and act so old and vulnerable.
“Shall we began taking the books down? I am sure Severus would not mind if most of these went to Hogwarts,” Hermione said softly, her finger clutching tightly at the silver crook of her cane.
“Yes, that would be a good start, Severus had so many books, Irma will be delighted to add them to the library,” Minerva answered almost in a whisper, her thick accented voice making her voice seem even more fragile than Hermione knew it to be. Hermione nodded and together she and her ex-Head of House began levitating the highest books from the shelves into neat stacks on the floor.
Occasionally Hermione would hear Millie utter a curse in Severus’ bedroom then she would call out that she could handle any jinx or hex old Snape had planted to protect his meager personal possessions, she was sorted into Slytherin after all. And Millie, who had packed and shrunken all of Severus’ trunks and placed them on the bedside table for Hermione to take later on, soon joined the ex-Gryffindors.
The afternoon was whiled away as the three women went through the Snape collection as they fondly called it, flipping through books as Hermione conjured a quill, parchment and ink to copy down the titles. Hermione welcomed Millie and Minerva to take anything that particularly caught their fancy, but the women were hesitant. Most of the books dealt with subjects that neither woman found in the least bit interesting: potions, the Dark Arts (all cleared through the Ministry), and tomes of Muggle poetry. Millie found only one book called ‘The 101 Obscure Uses of the Mandrake,’ which she set aside for Neville’s collection. Minerva found a first printing of the ‘Lives of the Founders, Biographical Sketches,’ and Hermione urged Minerva to take it.
After a few hours, Minerva went to fix tea, and Millie sat back in Severus’ wing backed chair, reading through a collection of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Hermione’s hand was beginning to cramp after she wrote down all the pertinent information on the one thousand eighty first books, glancing disdainfully at almost three hundred more tomes sitting about her feet as she sat at the roll top desk below the front windows. Bending to her left, Hermione grasped the next book and set it before her, opening the front cover to the title page. Her ink stained hand poised over the now five foot long parchment, Hermione froze.
Just over the title of ‘The Northern Island of Japan, a Survey of Flora and Fauna,’ slightly stuck to the page, was a wizarding photograph. Hermione calmly set her quill aside and picked up the photo, her amber eyes studying the moving photograph with fascination. Flipping the photo over, there was no label or date to tell Hermione anything more about the people in the picture. Turning it over in her hand again, Hermione bit her lip, watching closely as the figures’ motions looped over and over again, endlessly.
A young Severus Snape stood at the right side of a petite woman who was smiling demurely at the camera, glancing shyly to a smirking Severus who seemed very satisfied with himself. Severus was wearing a long robe, what Hermione knew to be called a yukata or a light Japanese robe, cheaper than a kimono and made of cotton or linen. Since the photo was black and white it seemed that Severus’ yukata was black and the obi or belt holding the robe closed a pale gray or white. On his feet he did not wear boots, but elevated wooden sandals called geta. Severus appeared to be quite at ease in his Japanese clothing and occasionally swiped back a strand of long back hair from his eyes as he leaned slightly to whisper something to the woman at his side. The woman, who was very obviously Japanese would start to laugh, covering her painted mouth with the edge of the sleeve of her complexly printed kimono. Hermione stared at the woman for a long time, her ornately set hair, her dark eyes crinkling slightly as she laughed behind her sleeve...she was petite, delicate, beautiful, standing slightly pigeon toed on high sandals only making her as tall as the top of Severus’ shoulder.
The setting of the photo was what appeared to be the main entrance of a traditional Japanese home or an inn. A large vestibule was open behind Severus and the unknown Japanese woman, and there were many sets of shoes resting on the stone flags before the step up into the house. A sign hung on the doorjamb just behind Severus and as he leaned forward to whisper again to the woman, Hermione burned the exposed characters into her mind’s eye. Her comprehension of Japanese was minimal and limited to certain characters used in the texts of past Japanese Potions Masters.
Hermione sighed, the only clues as to the place or the identity of the woman most likely relied on the name of this house or inn.
‘You must go to Shiretoko... to Madam Kaede beyond Kamuiwakka...’
Severus’ dying words echoed through her mind like the distant rumblings of thunder. Suddenly something was beginning to make sense.
Hermione hastily wrote down the title of the book on her roll of parchment as Minerva came from the kitchen with a tray of tea and biscuits. Flipping through the book, Hermione found that there was nothing else stuck inside the pages, no notes in the margins, nothing in the content of any interest. Setting the photograph aside, Hermione continued to record the titles of Severus’ books, her mind preoccupied and her eyes constantly glancing at the picture as though to see if anything had changed.
As much as Hermione liked puzzles and mysteries, she loved solving them even more. When Minerva finally had to resort to threatening Hermione to take a break, Hermione replaced the quill in the ink well and shook the stiffness out of her right hand. Rising slowly from her seat at the desk, Hermione limped stiffly to sit on the ottoman next to Millie and take a cup and saucer from Minerva.
“Minerva, do you remember if Severus ever mentioned a trip to Japan when he was younger?” Hermione asked gently. Hermione had full intentions of asking whomever she could about Severus’ younger years, since he had not been forthcoming on his own accord. And Hermione did not feel that by sharing his dying request with either Millie or Minerva it would dishonor his memory. Hermione had only sworn on her life to do what he had requested, but had taken no vow of silence...
Minerva took a sip of her tea and smiled. “Many, many years ago, when Severus was just green at teaching, I remember that he had spent a summer in Japan. When he came back he had brought new seeds and sprouts for Pomona’s greenhouses and sweets for Albus. But he brought me the most beautiful robe, red silk with golden trim. I wore it once and I soon realized that someone my age is not fit to wear something so...so light,” Minerva laughed, a spark returning to her eyes at her wonderful memory.
“When was this?” Millie asked, her heavy, square jaw softening when she smiled.
“1982, perhaps? Goodness, I cannot remember well the dates anymore, but you two would have been in nappies still,” Minerva chuckled.
Hermione smiled, but felt that that moment was as good as any to mention Severus’ request to the two closest friends she had left in life. Hermione started slowly, as Severus’ passing still so fresh, and the mention of his final words, she knew, would be hard for Minerva. And when Hermione ended by showing both women the picture, they all sat in silence, the sun beginning to set, casting a warm orange glow through the windows. Silently Minerva lit the fire and the lamps that hung from the bare timbers overhead. It seemed all three were reconsidering what they knew of Severus Snape: at least Hermione knew she was trying to fit a smiling, young Severus in Japanese garb into her memories of the pale, dour man in heavy teaching robes.
The Japanese lady in the photo, Millie suggested, finally breaking the collective silence, was most likely the Lady Kaede Severus had mentioned. Minerva agreed. Hermione took their opinions into consideration. Hermione admitted that she had not acted at all on Severus’ last words, not even cracked open a book to look up Shiretoko or Kamuiwakka. Severus did not seem to have any other books on the subject of Japan besides the one, but Hermione considered that the book itself was a clue. ‘The Northern Island of Japan, a Survey of Flora and Fauna,’ most likely was pointing to where the photo had been taken, pointing to Hokkaido, the most rural of all the Japanese islands, and the most reputed to contain some of the wilder elements of Asiatic magic.
But Hermione found it disconcerting that in the four years of her apprenticeship under Severus Snape, living under the same roof and working seemingly endless hours in the laboratory beyond the kitchen, Hermione had never heard any mention of Japan or any allusion to anything from that particular island nation. Granted, she knew there was much she did not know about her Master and mentor, but his adamant final wish was hers to fulfill.
And so, Hermione felt, sitting in the parlor with Minerva McGonagall and Millicent Longbottom that a great adventure was beginning.
Title: Out of the Silent Planet (1/?)
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: Porn WITH a plot, Darkfic, Romance
Warnings: M/F, Bondage, slight non-con, 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. This has a bit of a slow build, so please be patient! And as always, many thanks go to my Beta’s, SeductionsClaim and viccro. X-posted at QO Comm, AFF.net, and my personal LJ.
Out of the Silent Planet
Chapter One - Of Honoring Last Wishes and the Beginnings of Many Journeys
Hermione Granger felt tears welling up in her amber eyes as she sat at the bedside of Severus Snape, watching him draw short, pained breaths. She had tried her best to prepare herself for this day, but nothing could prepare her for the physical embodiment of pain that lay in the narrow cot at her side. It was hard for Hermione to even think that the wretched, withered, and dying man was Severus Snape. The War had been the cruelest to this man, reducing him to something that it might have been better had died years before, instead of left to suffer so horribly.
In the eleven years after killing Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape had aged so much that he seemed twice as old as he truly was. But for Severus to lay upon a cot in St. Mungo's was better than what Hermione would have hoped when she was seventeen, having first heard of what Snape had done that night on the Astronomy Tower. The War had lasted in full fury for two years after that fateful night, and when the smoke cleared, Severus Snape was still alive as was Hermione Granger. While Severus was ragged and torn from thoughts of what he had done to a man he considered a father, and of his role in the last stand of Lord Voldemort, Hermione was battle torn, having nearly lost her life fighting. But at that moment, as Hermione watched Severus cough dryly, bloody phlegm flying from his cracked lips, she was content to have come out in the end only with a scarred body and crippled left leg.
"Her...Hermione, listen to me..." Severus whispered, his suffering conveyed very plainly in his raspy and old voice.
"Of course, Severus, I'm listening," she said gently, leaning forward to gaze into Severus' black eyes, the whites jaundiced with sickness.
"You must..." he began, but began coughing again, harder than before, his thin body arching off the cot. Hermione winced and reached for the damp cloth on the stand by the bed, dipping it in a basin of water and wringing it out. She dabbed at Severus' mouth as his coughing began to subside. Running a soothing hand over his dry and cool forehead, Severus lay flat on the cot again.
"You must go to Shiretoko, to Madam Kaede beyond Kamuiwakka..." Severus rasped, his voice almost too soft for Hermione to hear despite her leaning over him. But the tone of his voice was adamant and clear.
"In Japan?" Hermione asked, her question revealing her confusion, but imprinting the foreign names into her sharp mind.
Severus nodded insistently and began coughing again, but not as nearly as hard as before. Hermione sat back in her chair, sliding it closer to the edge of Severus' cot, her knees against the frame.
"I left something there that needs fetching..."
Hermione nodded.
"You must bring it back, Hermione...it is very important."
Severus closed his eyes for a moment, his breathing becoming more labored than ever. Hermione sighed slightly and bowed her head. He had been so ill for so long, but he had demanded that she be by his side that day and Hermione knew then that Severus wanted her there to see him pass.
Suddenly Severus' eyes opened, glancing at Hermione, his hand snaking out with unbelievable speed and grasping her left wrist with a strength that seemed unfitting of that of a man on his death bed.
"You must promise me, Hermione!" he wheezed, his eyes suddenly very clear, his voice very strong.
Hermione grit her teeth as Severus' grip tightened.
"I promise, Severus, on my life if it would please you," she gritted out in pain and surprise.
"On your life, on your young life..." Severus whispered, slowly releasing her wrist and letting his wasted arm fall limply to the cot.
Hermione nodded as Severus turned his sharp boned face away from her and his eyes fix on a point near the top of the wall of the sick room. He took several more shallow breaths... Hermione felt tears welling up in her eyes again as she rubbed her wrist absently, watching as Severus Snape drew his last breath as if breathing a contented sigh. She marveled at her former professor, mentor, master and friend. His eyes were still open, the dark spark gone forever, but Hermione had never seen Severus Snape look so peaceful, so enlightened, and so human as he did with a gentle smile on his face. Hermione felt her lower lip tremble and the tears spill down her cheeks as she reached her right hand to touch Severus' cold and sunken cheek. Slowly her hand lingered over his open black eyes before she gently pushed his eyelids closed.
Severus Snape had passed and Hermione Granger was the only person who had been present to witness it.
* * *
History would tell later generations that Harry Potter had triumphed over Lord Voldemort, phrasing every detail like something out of a fairy tale. But the survivors of the Two Years’ War (a misnomer, for all knew that this War had been raging ever since Harry Potter was a mere babe), would tell their children and their children’s children that nothing about what happened was in the least bit fit for a child to hear. The mass murders of Muggle-born children, the rapes, the executions, the paranoia, the fear, all of it was akin to the Muggle’s Second World War, only confined to the borders of Wizarding Britain. Never in Wizarding history were so many killed and so much destroyed. And even after the destruction of Lord Voldemort, the horror continued for two years until Lucius Malfoy was caught in Italy trying to escape the contintent into North Africa.
But one Death Eater had made it through the trials and persecution and that person had been Severus Snape. Hermione Granger had sat in tears while Harry Potter testified about the night Albus Dumbledore was killed. Severus, at that point in time, was in the hospital, too weak and broken to appear before the Ministry. Confined as he was, Severus had testified from his hospital bed under Veritaserum and the watch of Ministry Aurors. Severus Snape’s saving grace came from the pensieve of Albus Dumbledore, kept safe by Headmistress Minerva McGonagall during the War years. Besides the pensieve, the portrait Albus Dumbledore recounted all the events that led up to his death, the plans, the lies, and the secrets that only Dumbledore and Severus Snape knew existed. The only sticking point in the process to Severus’ redemption came when the question as asked as to where Severus Snape had been during the two years of the War. No one knew what had happened after the attack at Hogwarts, what had happened to Draco Malfoy or Severus Snape.
Severus would not answer to his whereabouts, and this refusal to divulge his activities during the height of the War warranted Severus Snape a heavy penalty. Acquitted of the murder of Albus Dumbledore, Severus was forced to relinquish all of his private holdings leaving him a pauper. Broken and ill, Severus was not allowed to return to Hogwarts as part of the Ministry’s judgment. The only thing that was left for Severus Snape was his worldwide reputation of being the youngest and perhaps the most brilliant Potions Master of modern times. This reputation alone allowed Severus to continue working with Potions and earn a modest royalty from his patented potions. But Severus was homeless and that was where Minerva McGonagall stepped in. Donating a cottage on her family estate in northern Scotland, Severus settled into a life of quiet obscurity.
All that anyone knew of Severus Snape in the post bellum days was that he was an exonerated Death Eater, a former Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and that he had only shown his face once during the Two Years’ War, and that was during the climax, or what most called the Battle of Little Hangleton. No one was more surprised to see Severus Snape than the Order members who flew out that day to end all wars. Severus Snape stood on the fringes of Voldemort’s throng of Death Eaters, werewolves, giants, Dementors and other evil beings. But when the melee began, Severus Snape turned on his supposed allies and fought on the side of the Light. Harry Potter had wanted to kill Severus Snape almost as much as he wanted to get Voldemort out of his life, but when Severus defended Harry time and time again, Harry’s crises of faith for the two years previous came to an end. All the while hating Snape, Harry wanted to know the truth more than anything else. Harry was a pawn, and he knew it, but he knew that his life would never be normal as long as Tom Riddle walked the earth, still clinging to some perverted form of existence.
Many people fell those three days in battle, the plains of what was once Little Hangleton is barren and stark. Nothing will ever grow on the sloping greens for hundreds of years, the blood and muck and dark energies expended on that plain had destroyed all hope of renewal. So much had been lost, and therefore Severus Snape took the philosophy that all could be gained. It was this new philosophy (or enlightenment, as Hermione later called it), which brought Hermione Granger closer to the reviled Death Eater and Potions Master.
Hermione’s life during and immediately after the War had been difficult. Her relationship with Ronald Weasley had fallen through after the War. During the Battle of Little Hangleton Hermione was terribly injured, permanently marred by curse scars on her back and lower body. A bone-splitting hex shattered her left leg, and even years of treatments after the fact could not eliminate the limp or the knobby protuberances in her knee and ankle where the bones were basically pinned back together when magical healing failed. Hermione would never dance, run or skip again, not that she felt as if she had any cause to do those childish things, but it still pained her to have to walk with a cane at times. Ron had told her that the cane gave her mystique, and Hermione told Ron that he was a stupid git...as usual. Hermione’s relationship with Ron had returned to the point it had been in when they were children: friends who found pleasure in arguing.
Harry and Ginny had gotten married as soon as Lucius Malfoy was executed, Harry feeling that the last of his work was over. The last Hermione had heard in the years since, Ginny had given birth to their third child and were living in an undisclosed location in South America. Even Tonks had left, moving to America for a life free of the memories that pained her in Britain. But Hermione had stayed the course and felt it necessary to go forward with her plans she still clung to even through the War.
Hermione had begrudgingly given up her studies in lieu of the War, but when the War was over, she applied for apprenticeships with various Potions Masters...only to be refused. It seemed that no matter how perfect her N.E.W.T. scores had been or her independent findings on a treatment for those suffering the long term affects of the Cruciatus curse, or the published work she submitted to the Masters or even her status as a War hero with a Order of Merlin, First Class; no one wanted her as an apprentice. Ron told her, quite jokingly, that everyone was intimidating by Hermione’s drive and intellect. Unfortunately for Hermione, it seemed Ron’s joke was none other than the truth. Hermione sent her request and her work to the last person she expected to hear a reply from, Severus Snape. The trials were over, Hermione was ready to work again, and when the reply arrived, Hermione nearly fainted. She was an apprentice to Severus Snape.
Four years... Hermione lived with Severus Snape in Minerva McGonagall’s cottage. The relationship was difficult, but Hermione had put the past behind her when it came to Severus Snape. For the first year, Hermione was not allowed to called her Master by his first name, no matter she was an adult and aspiring to be on the same level as Severus. The second year, Hermione had to suffer Severus’ foul mouth and cruel criticisms. The Third year, Hermione developed Lupin’s Potion that was an embellishment on the Wolfsbane concoction and halted all transformations of those afflicted with Lycanthropy during their moon time. Hermione argued with Severus and won, naming it after her deceased friend and fellow Order member. The celebration, when the Ministry approved the potion, was muted, Tonks never quite getting over her lover’s death six years before and many others sorely missing the ever cool headed Remus Lupin. By her fourth year under the same roof with Severus Snape, Hermione earned her title as Potions Mistress.
During the four years of her apprenticeship, Hermione had gotten to know Severus Snape, the man, not the Professor and Death Eater. Both parties were pleased to find that they worked well together in the laboratory and in the everyday setting. There was no romance, only a connection one feels when they find a kindred spirit. Both were studious and hardworking, both were brilliant and passionate, but both were haunted by ghosts of the past and held in their feelings when it came to personal matters. So in the end, Severus Snape and Hermione Granger were friends and colleagues. They never spoke openly about themselves, but both were quite aware of each other’s personal habits, nuances and understood each other’s pain to some extent.
So after Severus Snape passed away eleven years after killing Albus Dumbledore out of mercy, Hermione Granger was the only one left who was close enough to Severus to deal with his small estate. In the five years between the end of her apprenticeship until Severus’ final decline in health, Hermione had been busy. Together with Millicent Longbottom nee Bulstrode, Hermione began a firm that dealt with the improvement and distribution of medical potions, sending several small apothecaries and firms out of business or to be absorbed into Hermione and Millicent’s firm which they called Longbottom Apothecaries Ltd., much to Severus’ chagrin when he had heard of the name.
During and after the War, Millicent had surprised everyone by standing on the side of the Order. Her entire family was either killed in the War or was sentenced to death afterward during the infamous Death Eater Trials. Millicent even testified against her own mother and pounded in the last nail in Madame Bulstrode’s proverbial coffin. Millicent was embittered since the death of her younger brother during one of many attacks on Hogwarts. The boy had been at the wrong place at the wrong time and fell victim to Fenrir Greyback and his followers.
But what surprised Hermione even more was when Millie, as Hermione called her in private, married Neville Longbottom. The relationship between Millie and Neville had begun even before the initial attack and miraculously endured through the horrors of the War and the trials afterward. Millie earned the status of Superior Medi-witch and began working with Neville in the Spell Damage wing of St. Mungo’s. All the while Neville pursued his love Herbology, and after Hermione’s apprenticeship, it was Severus’ advice that got the three together to found their own potions firm. Neville provided the Herbology elements and ingredients, Millie provided the medical applications and Hermione fused potions with the other disciplines to create, in only three years, the leading wizarding pharmaceuticals firm in all of Europe.
With the royalties Severus earned, his burial expenses were covered as well as hiring a solicitor with the small job of wrapping up his estate. A will was produced and all of Severus’ personal belongings were willed to Hermione. All remaining assets were to be donated to Hogwarts for purchase of potion supplies and equipment.
Three days after Severus’ small funeral, where only a handful of mourners gathered, Hermione entered Severus’ cottage, given to him by Minerva McGonagall. Many years before, Severus had demanded he did not appreciate Minerva’s pity and wanted to find a place of his own. Severus had offered to buy the cottage, but Minerva refused, and after being convinced by Minerva to stay, Severus relented. Severus had become so comfortable with the layout, since he had to levitate himself at times from one place to another...
The cottage had little changed. Severus had spent only a week at St. Mungo’s before he died. Millie and Minerva stood behind Hermione as she lingered inside the door, the clear autumn sunlight streaming through the small carriage windows into the parlor. The cottage was small, quaint and so unlike anything Severus seemed to represent. But to Hermione it had been home for four years. As she stepped inside the parlor, watching the thick motes of dust float in the sunlit air, she felt her crippled leg begin to shake. Tapping the silver tip of her cane against the wooden floor, Hermione stifled her tears. Glancing to the wingback chairs before the large fireplace to her left and the steps that led up to a single room, her old room, was almost too much. Severus had changed nothing since Hermione had last been to visit weeks before. Hermione had always made it a point to have lunch with him on Sundays whether Severus appreciated her company or not. It had become routine...Hermione’s bits and bobs lay about the parlor along with Severus’ rolls of parchment and books.
“Do you want a moment, Hermione?” Millie asked at Hermione’s back, wrapping her large hand around Hermione’s thin shoulder.
“No, no, I’m fine, it just seems like I will see Severus ridiculously floating out of the kitchen all the while levitating a tray of tea and biscuits,” Hermione said softly, limping across the parlor to the back wall and to the window seat looking over the heath.
Millie tutted at her old Headmistress as Minerva began sniffling into her tartan handkerchief. Hermione could only smile, she could imagine what Severus would have to say if Minerva were crying inside the door of his home. But Hermione said nothing, lifting a copy of her dissertation on the possible uses of Muggle technology in the potions field, a handwritten copy she had left for Severus months before. Hermione tucked the crook of her cane over her left arm and ran her fingers over the notes Severus had scrawled in the margins. Hugging the pages to her bosom, Hermione began moving toward the wall that separated the kitchen from the parlor. The wall was lined with shelves of books, many damaged when Severus’ Spinner’s End was destroyed, leaving the tomes lying amidst the rubble. Hermione ran her fingertips over the spines and felt another good cry trying to work its way up through Hermione’s already tired body.
“Where do you think we should start, Hermione?” Millie asked, shutting the Dutch door to the cottage.
“The bedroom, I don’t think I can bear to go in myself... Actually Severus never allowed me inside. His clothes need to be boxed up and stored... Oh, and be careful of any jinxes he may have put on the wardrobes and drawers,” Hermione said brightly, swallowing her tears and leaning against the bookshelves.
Millie nodded, her ebony hair pulled back in a braid, rolling up her robe sleeves and drawing her wand. Millie was familiar with Severus’ little cottage and could only hope that Severus had not set too many jinxes on his possessions. Walking across the parlor and around the fireplace to the small door that led to Severus’ bedroom, she disappeared from Hermione’s sight. Only Minerva remained.
Hermione watched as Minerva began to cast her old blue eyes about the cottage, watery with tears unshed, her wrinkled face seeming older in the years of mourning since the War. Hermione felt a pang in her chest and a sudden urge to take the older woman up in her arms, to either be comforted or to comfort. Hermione always felt a distinct and warm love for Minerva McGonagall, akin to the love of a child to a grandparent. It pained Hermione to see Minerva seem and act so old and vulnerable.
“Shall we began taking the books down? I am sure Severus would not mind if most of these went to Hogwarts,” Hermione said softly, her finger clutching tightly at the silver crook of her cane.
“Yes, that would be a good start, Severus had so many books, Irma will be delighted to add them to the library,” Minerva answered almost in a whisper, her thick accented voice making her voice seem even more fragile than Hermione knew it to be. Hermione nodded and together she and her ex-Head of House began levitating the highest books from the shelves into neat stacks on the floor.
Occasionally Hermione would hear Millie utter a curse in Severus’ bedroom then she would call out that she could handle any jinx or hex old Snape had planted to protect his meager personal possessions, she was sorted into Slytherin after all. And Millie, who had packed and shrunken all of Severus’ trunks and placed them on the bedside table for Hermione to take later on, soon joined the ex-Gryffindors.
The afternoon was whiled away as the three women went through the Snape collection as they fondly called it, flipping through books as Hermione conjured a quill, parchment and ink to copy down the titles. Hermione welcomed Millie and Minerva to take anything that particularly caught their fancy, but the women were hesitant. Most of the books dealt with subjects that neither woman found in the least bit interesting: potions, the Dark Arts (all cleared through the Ministry), and tomes of Muggle poetry. Millie found only one book called ‘The 101 Obscure Uses of the Mandrake,’ which she set aside for Neville’s collection. Minerva found a first printing of the ‘Lives of the Founders, Biographical Sketches,’ and Hermione urged Minerva to take it.
After a few hours, Minerva went to fix tea, and Millie sat back in Severus’ wing backed chair, reading through a collection of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Hermione’s hand was beginning to cramp after she wrote down all the pertinent information on the one thousand eighty first books, glancing disdainfully at almost three hundred more tomes sitting about her feet as she sat at the roll top desk below the front windows. Bending to her left, Hermione grasped the next book and set it before her, opening the front cover to the title page. Her ink stained hand poised over the now five foot long parchment, Hermione froze.
Just over the title of ‘The Northern Island of Japan, a Survey of Flora and Fauna,’ slightly stuck to the page, was a wizarding photograph. Hermione calmly set her quill aside and picked up the photo, her amber eyes studying the moving photograph with fascination. Flipping the photo over, there was no label or date to tell Hermione anything more about the people in the picture. Turning it over in her hand again, Hermione bit her lip, watching closely as the figures’ motions looped over and over again, endlessly.
A young Severus Snape stood at the right side of a petite woman who was smiling demurely at the camera, glancing shyly to a smirking Severus who seemed very satisfied with himself. Severus was wearing a long robe, what Hermione knew to be called a yukata or a light Japanese robe, cheaper than a kimono and made of cotton or linen. Since the photo was black and white it seemed that Severus’ yukata was black and the obi or belt holding the robe closed a pale gray or white. On his feet he did not wear boots, but elevated wooden sandals called geta. Severus appeared to be quite at ease in his Japanese clothing and occasionally swiped back a strand of long back hair from his eyes as he leaned slightly to whisper something to the woman at his side. The woman, who was very obviously Japanese would start to laugh, covering her painted mouth with the edge of the sleeve of her complexly printed kimono. Hermione stared at the woman for a long time, her ornately set hair, her dark eyes crinkling slightly as she laughed behind her sleeve...she was petite, delicate, beautiful, standing slightly pigeon toed on high sandals only making her as tall as the top of Severus’ shoulder.
The setting of the photo was what appeared to be the main entrance of a traditional Japanese home or an inn. A large vestibule was open behind Severus and the unknown Japanese woman, and there were many sets of shoes resting on the stone flags before the step up into the house. A sign hung on the doorjamb just behind Severus and as he leaned forward to whisper again to the woman, Hermione burned the exposed characters into her mind’s eye. Her comprehension of Japanese was minimal and limited to certain characters used in the texts of past Japanese Potions Masters.
Hermione sighed, the only clues as to the place or the identity of the woman most likely relied on the name of this house or inn.
‘You must go to Shiretoko... to Madam Kaede beyond Kamuiwakka...’
Severus’ dying words echoed through her mind like the distant rumblings of thunder. Suddenly something was beginning to make sense.
Hermione hastily wrote down the title of the book on her roll of parchment as Minerva came from the kitchen with a tray of tea and biscuits. Flipping through the book, Hermione found that there was nothing else stuck inside the pages, no notes in the margins, nothing in the content of any interest. Setting the photograph aside, Hermione continued to record the titles of Severus’ books, her mind preoccupied and her eyes constantly glancing at the picture as though to see if anything had changed.
As much as Hermione liked puzzles and mysteries, she loved solving them even more. When Minerva finally had to resort to threatening Hermione to take a break, Hermione replaced the quill in the ink well and shook the stiffness out of her right hand. Rising slowly from her seat at the desk, Hermione limped stiffly to sit on the ottoman next to Millie and take a cup and saucer from Minerva.
“Minerva, do you remember if Severus ever mentioned a trip to Japan when he was younger?” Hermione asked gently. Hermione had full intentions of asking whomever she could about Severus’ younger years, since he had not been forthcoming on his own accord. And Hermione did not feel that by sharing his dying request with either Millie or Minerva it would dishonor his memory. Hermione had only sworn on her life to do what he had requested, but had taken no vow of silence...
Minerva took a sip of her tea and smiled. “Many, many years ago, when Severus was just green at teaching, I remember that he had spent a summer in Japan. When he came back he had brought new seeds and sprouts for Pomona’s greenhouses and sweets for Albus. But he brought me the most beautiful robe, red silk with golden trim. I wore it once and I soon realized that someone my age is not fit to wear something so...so light,” Minerva laughed, a spark returning to her eyes at her wonderful memory.
“When was this?” Millie asked, her heavy, square jaw softening when she smiled.
“1982, perhaps? Goodness, I cannot remember well the dates anymore, but you two would have been in nappies still,” Minerva chuckled.
Hermione smiled, but felt that that moment was as good as any to mention Severus’ request to the two closest friends she had left in life. Hermione started slowly, as Severus’ passing still so fresh, and the mention of his final words, she knew, would be hard for Minerva. And when Hermione ended by showing both women the picture, they all sat in silence, the sun beginning to set, casting a warm orange glow through the windows. Silently Minerva lit the fire and the lamps that hung from the bare timbers overhead. It seemed all three were reconsidering what they knew of Severus Snape: at least Hermione knew she was trying to fit a smiling, young Severus in Japanese garb into her memories of the pale, dour man in heavy teaching robes.
The Japanese lady in the photo, Millie suggested, finally breaking the collective silence, was most likely the Lady Kaede Severus had mentioned. Minerva agreed. Hermione took their opinions into consideration. Hermione admitted that she had not acted at all on Severus’ last words, not even cracked open a book to look up Shiretoko or Kamuiwakka. Severus did not seem to have any other books on the subject of Japan besides the one, but Hermione considered that the book itself was a clue. ‘The Northern Island of Japan, a Survey of Flora and Fauna,’ most likely was pointing to where the photo had been taken, pointing to Hokkaido, the most rural of all the Japanese islands, and the most reputed to contain some of the wilder elements of Asiatic magic.
But Hermione found it disconcerting that in the four years of her apprenticeship under Severus Snape, living under the same roof and working seemingly endless hours in the laboratory beyond the kitchen, Hermione had never heard any mention of Japan or any allusion to anything from that particular island nation. Granted, she knew there was much she did not know about her Master and mentor, but his adamant final wish was hers to fulfill.
And so, Hermione felt, sitting in the parlor with Minerva McGonagall and Millicent Longbottom that a great adventure was beginning.