warnings: Slash. Blood but not in the gory sense. Excessive language.
shadows.
by elissa echo
Lupin's hands are lightly scarred from wounds procured in his lycanthropic state, wounds he has refused to heal. Draco never asks why; it is obvious. But, Draco thinks, his hands are too nimble for their appearance, flitting from page to page, book to book, vial to vial like an insect at a picnic. Draco suddenly wants them to stop moving, stop moving for one goddamn second.
"Wait. Stop."
Lupin's hands pause, hovering above a row of brightly coloured potions.
"What?"
"You're…you're doing it all wrong," Draco decides, reaching forward to close a book.
Voice edged with ill-concealed disdain, Lupin replies, "I think I know what I'm doing."
"You know," Draco says, a light challenge resonating, "how to examine poisons the amateur way." He picks up a vial and holds it to the light, letting light filter through. He points at the wall, now sea-foam green.
"It's easier to study poisons by first examining how they refract light. This one lets through most of the light, which means the base is pretty weak." Draco stops, then sets the vial back in a holder. "Weak potions are the worst," declares Draco, leaving no room for argument.
Lupin does not ask why; it's obvious.
An unwelcome silence overtakes Draco's thoughts and instead of saying anything, he merely picks up another vial off the polished cherry wood stand. Again, he tilts it toward the light.
"The base of this poison is wormwood."
Lupin nods, looking bored and mildly agitated, like a student being taught a lesson he has already learned. Draco explains anyway, though it is more to have something to say than an actual desire to explain. "The light almost doesn't get through; the stronger the poison, the less light leaks through."
Lupin reaches to the far end of the table and retrieves a vial containing liquid looking suspiciously like blood to Draco's attention.
Imitating Draco in an almost mocking manner, Lupin very deliberately tips the vial and allows light to hit it.
"My blood," Lupin provides as way of explanation.
"Blood. Your blood." Draco struggles to keep his voice level. "What the fuck did you do, Lupin? Fucking bleed yourself while I wasn't watching? Am I going to have to keep a fucking 24-hour watch on you now?"
This means Draco cares; Draco doesn't like the implications.
Lupin ignores him. Draco likes that even less. Draco takes deep breaths; they do nothing to calm him. Lupin pulls another vial from the far end of the table: a second vial of blood. Trying not to wonder whose blood Lupin has collected, Draco waits and silently fumes.
With one vial in each hand, Lupin lets light hit both vials of blood simultaneously. One, the one that is not Lupin's, is thin enough to allow light freely through. When Draco shifts his gaze to what is in Lupin's other hand, all he sees on the wall are shadows; shapes that mean only one thing.
"This is what you're getting into, Malfoy. Poison."
Draco clutches one of Lupin's hands, running his thumb over the scars; Lupin shudders.
Guiding their hands to the front of Draco's trousers, Draco leans forward and mutters, "I know exactly what I'm getting into, Lupin."
19 January, 2005