Title: Red Serpent (4/12)

Rating: R

Warnings: death, destruction, sex, violence, torture and a gratuitous explosion or two. Yikes.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and associated characters belong to JK Rowling. James Bond was created by Ian Fleming.

Word Count: 2853 (31881 overall)

Summary: Remus Lupin is a spy, one of British Intelligence's finest, and this may be his most deadly mission yet. Armed with only his native wit and courage and assisted by the enigmatic and magnetic Severus Snape he must penetrate deep into Communist Russia to bring down the powerful Lord Voldemort.

A/n: Love to drachenmina for the fabulous beta.

Further notes: I didn't think I needed to say this but as this work of fiction is intended as an homage to Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. In keeping with this aim the action takes place in the mid-twentieth century and, as such, will contain views and morality appropriate for that time.

Warning: This is a work of slash fanfiction and this chapter contains a depiction of male/male relations that those not slashily-inclined may take offence at. You have been warned.

Thank you to everyone who's reviewed. Not quite a flood but it'll do. Maybe this chapter will get your juices flowing…

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Chapter Four: Small Spaces and Close Encounters

Lupin had only seen the room for a few seconds before being dragged into the cupboard and had only gained a fleeting impression of quiet and drab elegance. Snape had been in there once before but had been rather too occupied by concentrating on Riddle's words and orders to pay attention to décor, a subject that held little interest for him in any case.

If they had taken the time, however, they would probably have been impressed. The room was a pale olive green with dark wood panels all around. Two portraits hung in places of honour, one on each long wall. They were, as would be expected, of Lenin and Stalin, the great leaders. Another portrait hung above the door, depicting the pale countenance of Tom Riddle himself. When the room was occupied those in it would feel surrounded; those two old Bolsheviks to the sides and Riddle at both back and front, when the man himself was seated at his desk.

The desk itself was a magnificent piece of furniture. It was wide and constructed of the same dark wood that panelled the room. Forming a T-shape with it was the long table that stretched down the room. Long wires, attached to small and unnoticeable microphones, ran inside the table and down inside the specially-hollowed legs. Control of the recording was in the desk; concealed buttons in a perfectly ordinary-looking drawer. Four straight-backed chairs stood around the table, their green velvet only a little worn. Three ashtrays were spaced evenly down the table, empty and clean for now, between three full carafes of water.

Riddle entered first, his uniform pressed and immaculate. His bald head gleamed as much as his medals, which lay bright across his chest. The arch of his neck slid out from his collar and curved to a smooth scalp, the faint knobs of his vertebrae the only imperfections on that expanse. They rose and fell beneath the skin as he rolled his head. He settled into the chair at his desk, a lizard awaiting his court.

They arrived shortly after: Lucius Malfoy with the strut of a peacock in his gait; Bellatrix Lestrange on the arm of her husband Rodolphus, though it was all too clear who led whom; and Rabastan Lestrange trailing them awkwardly. They sat, Bellatrix and Rodolphus to Riddle's right and Lucius and Rabastan to his left.

'Greetings, comrades,' Riddle began, including all of them in his gaze.

There was a murmured response from each, carefully oblique and scrupulously polite. None would try to overreach the others in this room. Each knew of the hidden microphones; each however uncertain if the others also knew. Bonds of blood and marriage meant nothing when compared to the importance of cause and self. In this room there was power, but also the threat of losing it. Until the purpose of the meeting was announced there was no knowing what would happen.

'Colonel Umbridge remains sympathetic to us,' Riddle continued. He drew a cigarette from his desk drawer and rolled it slowly between his fingers before flicking a lighter open with a sharp click. He lit the cigarette leisurely, observing as the others watched it before their eyes flitted almost guiltily back to him. 'We will have no trouble from SMERSH.'

SMERSH (a contraction of Smiert Spionam - Death to Spies) was the most secret department of the Soviet government. Those who knew of it feared it. The most powerful woman within it, one of the most powerful in the entire state, was Colonel Dolores Umbridge. Her femininity, however, was not one of her dominant characteristics. Her face squatted on her neck like an elderly toad and her practice of scraping her hair back into a tight bun did nothing to disguise how her skin had started to sag. She cultivated a girlish giggle which emerged from her mouth with the incongruity of a flower from the lipless mouth of a slug. She was not immune to the attentions of a man - perhaps more open than most, such attentions being infrequent for her - and Riddle had easily secured her support with a few smiles and gifts.

'That's good,' said Malfoy carefully. 'Allies are important. Has our transport been arranged?'

'All is prepared,' Riddle told them. 'The boat sails in two days, as planned.'

There were nods and murmurs from around the table. This was good news for this quiet little table of plotters. Their plans, conceived and calculated in careful conspiracy around this wooden table, were finally rolling towards a conclusion. Months of planning and agonies of preparation would at last pay off.

'And when we are there,' asked Rabastan Lestrange, leaning to pour a little more water into his glass, 'what of our entry? How go those plans?'

In the cupboard, Lupin twitched. This was the part of the plan that Snape didn't know about; the part that M would need to know. Riddle had plotted some way for he and his Death Eaters to remain in Britain once they had tiptoed their way in and the only people that knew it were sitting on the other side of the door. Lupin tried to lean closer, determined to hear what he could.

'They progress as we hoped,' Riddle replied. 'Contact has been made and information exchanged.'

'If I may interrupt,' began Malfoy, 'I would say better than we hoped. I ...'

Lupin missed the rest of his interjection as he leaned too far and felt himself starting to overbalance. Snape, distracted from the meeting by Lupin's sudden indrawn breath, caught him awkwardly and pulled him to lean against his own body, which was against the only clear wall in the tiny cupboard. Suddenly face to face with Snape - whose features he could just make out in the dim light that filtered under the door - Lupin found his heart pounding as adrenaline shot through him. Heat flushed his face, only helped by Snape's faintly sour breath brushing across his cheek. Snape's arms moved up to support Lupin's, holding them both steady. Lupin attempted to twist out and stand upright again but Snape's hands tightened and he shook his head. Resigned, Lupin concentrated again on the noises from the meeting room.

There was laughter. Not loud or raucous, but the quiet smug chuckles of people who were getting what they wanted. Even though he knew they couldn't see him, Lupin felt uncomfortable.

'How useful it is when our work is done for us!' declared Rodolphus Lestrange. There were more chuckles.

'We still have work to do,' Riddle reminded them quietly. 'I want Rookwood on it. He knows what he's doing.'

'His set up is already in place,' said Malfoy. 'If events do proceed in that direction he'll be there for it.'

Lupin's head was spinning. He had, it seemed, missed the most important part of the damn meeting. And now, with only scraps of frustratingly oblique conversation, he couldn't piece it together. Especially, he decided, when pressed against the thin body of Snape. The temperature in the cupboard had gone up by several degrees, at least, if the sudden heat in Lupin's cheeks could be taken as evidence. The heat was elsewhere too, curling through his stomach and groin. The arousal was familiar; the shape of the body he held was not. A gentle sigh drifted past his ear and Snape's leg shifted against his. Lupin stiffened, knowing that Snape could now quite easily feel the erection that had inconveniently made its appearance. He looked into Snape's eyes almost unwittingly, reading nothing in the shadows.

There was noise beyond the door. Chairs were moving; the members of Riddle's inner circle were leaving the meeting room. There was a click as the main door was unlocked and opened then the footsteps of five people leaving.

'Let's go,' Lupin growled as soon as he heard the door close.

'Wait,' Snape warned him, tightening his hold on Lupin's upper arms. 'Give them time to leave.' A smirk, just visible in the dimness, bent his mouth. 'Anyone would think you were desperate to get away from me.'

'I want to get out of here before someone finds us,' retorted Lupin. And before I get too comfortable in here, he added silently. The warmth of their two bodies together was becoming increasingly pleasant and Lupin was starting to feel relaxed enough to enjoy the closeness of Snape. That couldn't be right.

They waited for five more minutes. Lupin felt every second in that close little space and his arousal did not abate in the slightest. Snape said nothing but Lupin knew he had noticed. The man had a damnable air of satisfaction about him. It wasn't something he was obviously letting Lupin know but Lupin felt it all the same. Snape moved a leg, stretching a muscle that must have started cramping after holding up both Lupin's weight and his own. Lupin held back a groan as the change brought different pressures against him, fabric sliding across his groin.

Finally, they left the cupboard. The sudden chilly light was too bright after the warm darkness of the cupboard, making them both squint like newborns until their eyes adjusted. Neither said anything beyond the necessary as they left the building and headed for Lupin's hotel, watching always for any followers. It was only when they were safely back in the bathroom - Lupin pacing furiously across the floor as Snape set the shower going to mask their conversation - that anything was said at all.

'You seem restless,' Snape commented.

Lupin's pacing did not even slow as he spat out a reply. 'That could have gone better, don't you think?'

Snape shrugged with infuriating calm. 'Perhaps, perhaps not. But we are alive and unhurt, and they did not see us.'

'We still had to spend all that time cooped up in that little -!'

Snape smirked. 'Ah, I see. So that is the cause of your … frustrations. I see.'

Lupin turned about with a whirl. 'What do you see?' he asked harshly.

With a forward tilt of his head Snape was peering up at Lupin through his hair. 'You were hard for me.'

'Hah! Don't flatter yourself.' Lupin looked away. 'You just happened to be a warm body in proximity. I … get like that on missions.' He bit out the words.

'Yes, you and your famous parade of women.' Snape snorted then leaned forwards towards Lupin. 'But you stayed hard, Lupin.' His voice was soft and sibilant. 'You looked straight at me and knew exactly who I was and you stayed hard. You even remembered you were trapped there pressed up against a homosexual who in all likelihood was enjoying that, ah, "proximity" and you still stayed so hard that I think I will have a bruise to remember it by.'

'You're sure of all that, are you?'

'I know how people think.'

'Even me?'

Snape chuckled. 'You are not a hard – hah, forgive me – I mean, difficult man to understand.' He tucked a strand of hair behind one ear with a long finger. 'Come on, Lupin. Look me in the eyes and tell me that you could never find me sexually attractive.'

Slowly, unwillingly, Lupin raised his eyes from where they had been gazing at the worn floor. His mouth opened to form the first syllables of a phrase that would never pass his lips. He stopped before air could reach his vocal chords, frozen by the cobra gaze that met him.

'Not got anything to say?' said Snape softly.

Dumbness still gripped Lupin by the throat with tight fingers. It seemed impossible that the man's eyes could be so black or that they could stare with such an intensity as if to see into Lupin's soul. The stare never wavered; not in its insinuating mockery, its passion, or its sheer willpower.

'Damn you,' Lupin finally ground out.

Snape smiled and pushed himself away from the sink. Gaze never breaking, he strolled over to Lupin and stopped only when he was chest to chest with him. His hands came up to cup Lupin's face and stroke the hair that was a little grey at the temples. There was still a chill to his fingers – in a Russian winter how could one fully escape the cold? – but Lupin soon forgot that as Snape kissed him.

It was nothing like kissing a woman, he had expected that, but the gentleness of it took him by surprise. He had always supposed such affairs between men to be more rough-and-tumble, to be a striving towards release, not this quiet and almost passive movement. He took Snape's shoulders in his hands and pulled the man closer, stabbing into his mouth with his tongue. The taste of cheap Russian cigarettes filled Lupin's mouth like a bitter pill that he had no choice now but to swallow down. They continued to kiss, nostrils flaring to take in enough air without losing each other's mouths, until Snape's hands slid under Lupin's shirt and Lupin broke the kiss with a yelp.

'Your hands are cold,' he gasped in explanation.

'They'll warm,' said Snape, sliding them up and pressing closer.

He pressed his lips to Lupin's again. His fingers darted, quick and clever, across Lupin's chest: pressing, teasing and pinching in all the right places. Lupin rubbed his hands up and down Snape's back, feeling vertebrae through the thin shirt. His arousal, still rumbling in his veins from earlier, reawakened with enthusiasm and bounded round his body. He wanted this man; wanted something, at least. He pushed more into the kiss, gripping Snape firmly by the waist. Snape smiled against his mouth and slipped a hand inside Lupin's trousers.

Lupin gasped. 'Easy down there...'

Snape chuckled in a low voice. 'Relax. I am not some virgin girl with sharp nails and no idea what she's handling.' He gave a slow twist with his hand. 'I know what I'm doing, Remus.'

It was the way he said it. A long rolling 'r' before an almost plaintive mew that spread out into the wide sibilant 's'. Lupin had never liked his name so much as when it slid across that Russian tongue.

That was enough. Foreplay was for women, he decided. A growl rolled within his chest. He pushed Snape until the man was backed into the bathroom wall and not looking the least bit surprised, damn him. Nor did he react with anything but a smug smile as Lupin ground his hips against him. Frustrated, Lupin grabbed Snape's shoulders, fingers digging in around the bones, and shoved them flat against the wall. Pushing a leg between Snape's - which parted willingly enough, Lupin thought a little cruelly - he thrust against his hand. Snape's eyes fluttered momentarily shut, a minor victory to Lupin, but opened with gleeful cunning gleaming in the darkness. A long hand pulled Lupin's head down for a kiss and a leg slid around the back of Lupin's.

Lupin bucked again, encouraged by the slow drift of Snape's ankle up and down his calf. He was still pressing into Snape's palm, which had warmed considerably and was moving in very pleasing ways. Snape had been right; he really did know what he was doing. Just as Lupin had settled into a comfortable rhythm, however, Snape abruptly pulled his hand away. Lupin, hips still moving, bit at Snape's lip in chastisement but was mollified when that hand was joined by the other in fumbling to unfasten his trousers. It was only a few moments before Snape had their trousers undone and shoved down and his hand curled around both of them.

As simple as it was, that was what Lupin needed. That flesh against flesh, at once familiar and yet unfamiliar, was what he had been craving since they were pressed together warm and secret in that little cupboard. They moved together, back and forth, grabbing at each other and pressing as close as possible. Kissing turned to an open-mouthed mess of intimate contact interrupted by panting and gasping. Pushing as hard against Snape as he could Lupin finally spilled across those long fingers, a haze fogging his eyes.

When his vision cleared he saw Snape, cheeks flushed and red, with eyes shut. Lupin raised a hand to touch his jaw, earning a smile before the eyelids raised.

'Still think this is a horrible idea?' Snape murmured, touching his forehead to Lupin's.

When Lupin hesitated Snape shook his head and kissed him gently.

'Hush.' An idea caused a faint twitch in his smile. 'I think we had better make proper use of that shower.'

Lupin followed him willingly.

Outside, the moon rolled herself high across the sky in a wide arc. The clouds had gone, blown into shreds and thrown to the winds, allowing her to view her midnight domain. Her pitted, cold face gave off nothing but light and her strange, irresistible pull. The wind had picked up and it whisked across rooftops with a sharp, chilly bite. Where the architecture interfered with its passage it howled forlornly like a wolf cast off from its pack.