Although I never posted it there, this fic was originally written for a Bertie Botts Challenge on TSS: Lucius defects from Voldemort barely getting away before being killed. Remus nurses him back to health.
The Fifth Full Moon
Dammit! The crumpled figure lodged under a stunted bush up ahead was definitely human, but was it alive?
Yes.
The outstretched hand was feebly moving, attempting to crawl further under cover. Nothing else stirred on the moors, so Remus guessed that made him the poor sod's only hope.
Of all the rotten luck! Although... it could have been worse. Remus shuddered when he considered the possibilities if Greyback had been with him. Or almost any of the pack he was currently running with, for that matter. He was so sick of being undercover; sick of lies and deceit. Sick of everything to do with the whole damn war, actually. As he trudged towards the now-still figure, he pondered ways and means of getting an injured muggle back to safety.
It looked like his bit of salvage was a girl. Long blonde locks spilled out from under the thorny bush she had chosen as refuge, giving Remus a qualm. Hell - was she even still alive? It couldn't have been a dying spasm, could it? He bent to look , careful not to touch before discovering what her injuries were.
Aw Shit. Fan-bloody-tastic: Lucius Malfoy, and he was breathing. Just.
Lucius Malfoy - and he wasn't even allowed to kill the prick. It had been in Kingsley Shacklebolt's last update to the Order, two weeks ago. Voldemort had tried to sacrifice Draco and Lucius had gotten him to safety at Hogwarts. Nothing more was known except that Voldemort was hunting for his former Lieutenant, and that his rage had made even the most hardened Death Eaters sick with fear.
'Lucius Malfoy could be an asset of enormous value to the Order' finished the scroll, 'Please report promptly if information comes to hand.'
Remus sighed, and set about saving the asshole's life.
- - -
Remus still found it incredible that the Order had decided to let Lucius recover at Grimmauld Place - and that he had been set as keeper to the Death Eater, spending most of his time in an armchair at the foot of the invalid's bed. Poppy had done her best to heal his injuries, but he wasn't young, and whoever tortured him had been quite inventive. Lucius might not ever really see properly again. He was still beautiful, though. Remus wondered why. Lucius had always been proud of his physical beauty, and it seemed odd that Voldemort should have left it intact.
"Odd," he murmured to himself.
"What's odd?" The whisper from the bed was the first thing Remus had heard the prisoner say since he had been with them.
There was no reason not to tell him. "I was wondering why Voldemort didn't mar your looks."
Lucius made a dismissive noise. "I escaped on Day 5." After a bit he added, "It was too early for mutilation - probably around day 12."
"Did they really think you were going to survive to day 12?"
There was an unmistakable snort of laughter, followed quickly by a hiss of pain. "They are experts, friend. I had at least another month in their practiced hands."
Silence fell again, but there was another little half-sigh of amusement from the prisoner before he fell abruptly asleep.
- - -
Remus wasn't responsible for debriefing Lucius - Moody and Shacklebolt did that. He wasn't responsible for feeding him; that was Molly's job. He was just the man's keeper, watching over him when he was sleeping, waking him to give him the potions Poppy sent and making sure he was never left alone. All the Order members came and went, helping out. At full moon he left Moody in charge, agreeing reluctantly that he would take two full days off duty.
"Where have you been?" the Death Eater asked when he got back. His voice was stronger now, although it lacked the silkiness of former days.
"Sick."
Lucius made no comment on the brevity of the reply. Remus could tell that the injured man had something else to ask, from the tension in his body, and the way he had half-lifted himself up onto his elbow.
"What are they going to do with me?"
Remus was taken by surprise by the question. He had actually not thought further than getting the man well.
"I don't know." He thought that Lucius had heard the genuine surprise in his voice, from the easing of tension around his mouth. "I could ask."
He berated himself silently. What on earth had possessed him to say such a thing! But Lucius lay back on the bed again.
"I would appreciate that," he said carefully.
- - -
Lucius had been silent and withdrawn when the restraining collar was fitted, although Remus had tried to help him accept the blow to his pride. "What the hell else are we supposed to do with you?" he had prodded
Lucius had been sitting in a straight-backed chair looking into the garden, his elegant hands held unnaturally immobile in his lap. "A Malfoy is not a collared serf, " he said simply, the anguish plain behind the unadorned words.
"When the war is over..." began Remus
Lucius had merely jerked his chin in negation. "When the war is over I will be dead or in Azkaban." Remus had no adequate response to that.
- - -
Remus caught himself feeling sorry for the man as he moved aimlessly around the huge house. But he began to feel truly worried when he saw how often Lucius' eyes caressed the knives in the kitchen. Lucius had to get very close to see anything, these days, and too often Remus found him in the kitchen, staring at the knife-block. A word with Molly and the knives were moved. Remus thought Lucius knew why, but he didn't say anything.
It was usually Moody who came when Lucius' extensive knowledge of the Death Eaters was needed for one reason or another. After Lucius came out of one such interrogation with a broken arm, Remus sat in on those interviews. When Kingsley was doing the interviewing Remus absented himself.
Sometimes Remus read to his charge. There wasn't much fiction in the house, but there were some historical and philosophical works. He had started the habit when he realised how difficult it was for the man to read normal text. As usual Lucius hadn't said anything, but Remus was learning to read his prisoner's restrained body-language quite well.
They enjoyed dissecting Plato and started reading Descartes. Sometimes their reflections on the text were startlingly harmonious; at other times it was as if they inhabited different worlds, staring at each other across a vast gulf of expectation and experience. Both were essentially solitary men whose adult lives had not given them much in the way of intellectual companionship, and it was a surprising joy to each man to find it here, in such an unexpected time and place.
Remus took 2 days off every full moon. After the first time, Lucius no longer commented on it. He must have known who and what Remus was shortly after that first time, and he was an exceptionally intelligent man. But the fourth full moon after Lucius' recovery was different. On Remus' second day off duty Lucius stabbed himself with a dagger to the heart. No-one could have saved him if Tonks had not actually been in the same room at the time. Lucius must have counted on her legendary clumsiness to warn him of her presence, but for once she had been sitting quietly in a corner reading a novel.
Remus found out when Molly brought him supper, several hours after the event. He staggered to his feet, too furious to think straight, and pelted down to Lucius' room, still in his pyjamas.
"What the HELL did you think you were doing?" he thundered.
Lucius was white and still against the sheets.
"What the HELL do you think I have to live for?" he echoed in cold mimicry, turning his head away from the raging werewolf.
Five furious steps brought Remus to the bed. "You deliberately waited until full moon!"
One eloquent shoulder hunched beneath the bedclothes. "You watch me too closely."
"Don't do it again," Remus growled menacingly.
Once more the voice came still and clear from the bed. "You cannot stop me forever."
Remus knew it was a declaration of war.
- - -
The tentative understanding which had grown between them was gone. Remus watched the other man unrelentingly. He read to him, and together they worked elegant problems from an 18th-century book of conundrums they found in the library, but there was never a moment when Remus turned his back casually upon his charge, or left him briefly in another room. He no longer allowed Lucius small moments of privacy, even in his bedroom or bathroom.
The night before their fifth full moon Remus spent fully awake, sitting in the corner armchair of Lucius' room, attention riveted to his charge's still form. The breathing from the bed was slow and steady, but sometimes as the shadows shifted he could see pale moonlit eyes staring into infinity. Lucius couldn't see him from that distance, but he surely knew that he was being watched.
"YOU CANNOT STOP ME!"
It was a shout, from a prisoner who had never raised his voice in almost 5 months. Remus stood up and crossed the room to kneel by the side of the bed, where Lucius could see his face.
"I will not let you destroy yourself." His face in the white light was like marble.
The man in the bed closed his eyes, the wrinkles of pain and middle age mercilessly illuminated as he asked, more temperately, "Why should I stay?"
He opened his dimmed eyes again to gaze at his tormentor. "Remus, what is there for me to live for? Whichever side wins in the war, the best I can hope for - the best, Remus - is Azkaban. If the Dark Lord wins, I will suffer a horrible drawn-out death at his hands. If he doesn't, and I somehow avoid the Kiss, I will rot in jail until my death. I'm barely 40, Remus, and wizards live long lives. 70, 80, 90 years in Azkaban - is that what I should live for?"
Words slipped cruelly from Remus' mouth. "You deserve it."
No. Shit. He hadn't meant to say that.
The prisoner's face lost all mobility. Finally he breathed, "Yes."
His shadowed grey eyes remained totally focussed on Remus. Once again he let his voice plead, although his eyes remained shuttered. "Please let me die. Please, Remus."
One tear escaped Remus' eye, although he refused to acknowledge its progress down his cheek. "No."
The beautiful face leaned forward and kissed his resolute mouth, very gently, one finger reaching out to trace the path of the errant tear. Please.
This time it was a moment before he forced the word out from his frozen lips. "No."
He fled to his corner, and it took all the strength he had not to make another sound throughout the long silent night.
- - -
When Moody came to relieve him, Remus went to Minerva.
"He wants to die! Gods, Minerva - what can I offer him to live?"
The contemplative eyes watched him assessingly. "Did he ask you to find out?"
"No." Remus jumped from his chair, pacing up and down the cluttered office, unable to bear the confinement. "It may have been in his mind - how should I know? But last month - he near as dammit died. That was no cry for help - it was a decisive action which almost succeeded. Minerva..."
His pace slowed as he swung to face her. "Minerva, I know the logic is impeccable. He deserves to die. There is no way out that I can find. But ... I don't want him to die..."
Her face was thoughtful. "Why, Remus? I thought you hated him?"
Remus' voice was low and unsure. "I know I should. I mean I did... He has so much blood on his hands... and he only turned against his master to save his son... But he's just... so Goddamn beautiful .. and bright ...and there's a core inside him - a person he never was, but could have been. I find myself looking at him all the time... Wanting..."
And suddenly he was crying, hopelessly, and she was holding him as a mother might, or a big sister. She didn't ask any more questions, and when he left, her eyes were despairing.
- - -
When he woke again after full moon, Remus had to know. Weak and shivering, he slipped down the stairs to Lucius' room, where Charlie Weasley was quietly snoring in the corner chair.
Grey eyes met golden brown in the twilight of early morning, as Remus shakily lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. Some indefinable spark passed between them, something evocative of resignation and acceptance, of sorrow and need.
Lucius said only three words: "We'll regret this," but he pulled back the bedcovers for Remus. And then at last Remus was falling into the warmth of Lucius' arms and his soft pillows with grateful joy. Death waited, but not just yet. And that would have to be enough.