Chapter Thirty-One:
Like Feeding a Full Dog

November 5, 1996

Remus struggled to open his eyes enough to gauge the time of day by where the sun was in the sky. His eyes felt swollen, and it took him a moment to realise that they were puffy from tears. Then he noticed the pain in his throat and collarbones, which felt like they'd been crushed under someone's boot.

Remus swore under his breath as he rolled himself onto his side and reached out for the water bowl he'd left near the bed. There wasn't much left, but he'd intentionally saved himself some for the morning, and it was the first thing he'd been grateful for since regaining consciousness.

"Let me refill it."

"Merlin's beard!" Remus hissed, dropping the bowl and twisting his entire body around to look at the source of the sound. It was only Lucius, wand hanging rather impotently at his side as he watched his captive's reaction. The wizard looked like he'd barely slept, face even more sallow than usual, the bags under his eyes darkened to a deep purple. Remus even wondered if the dark wizard was still in the same clothes he'd been wearing the night before, based on the way the fabric was bunched around his joints.

Lucius did not apologise for the interruption. Instead, he magically lifted the bowl up and rested it back in Remus's hands, refilling it before the younger wizard could say anything else. Remus waited until Lucius was done to lift the bowl to his lips and take a long swig of water.

Lucius remained standing near the cell door, wand now tucked back into the pocket of his long, dark coat. The leash was in his left hand, but he looked a bit awkward, as if he wasn't entirely sure what he was there for.

"What happened?" Remus asked in a gravelly voice, turning to look at Lucius again once he was done drinking.

"What do you remember?" Lucius asked, tone and twitching brow suggesting that he was somehow surprised by the question.

"Bellatrix and Narcissa coming in here," Remus muttered. "Bellatrix… attacking me."

And the reason for her attack. An ambush. The Order not only making Remus's story seem real, but acting on it offensively. It was enough to make the pressure in Remus's head seem to triple.

"What did she say?" Lucius asked, cautious.

"That they—that it was a set up."

"That we were ambushed."

Remus grunted in agreement.

"And she blamed it on you?"

"Said I'd lied."

"Did you?"

"I already told you that I didn't lie last night, sir," Remus replied, looking back at Lucius and making a face that he hoped would show how exhausted he was, too. "I don't even know what happened."

In so many more ways than Lucius could've ever guessed.

"It doesn't matter," Lucius frowned as he began walking toward Remus. "It was a pathetic attempt at an ambush, at best. They probably just happened to be nearby."

It was immediately obvious to Remus that Lucius was lying, and it certainly wasn't his best attempt, as the dark wizard's voice got higher and he looked off into the corner of the room even though he was walking right toward his captive. Still, Remus didn't have the energy to try refuting it.

"What about Bellatrix?" Remus asked as he forced himself to stand up.

"The Dark Lord punished her," Lucius answered matter-of-factly, pausing right in front of Remus, "as he would anyone who dared to act on his behalf without consulting him first."

"Then Narcissa was telling the truth? He didn't want her to torture me?" Remus asked.

"No," Lucius replied, clenching his jaw. "No, he did not."

Remus wanted to ask more, but he was struggling to focus, unable to stop repeating the words over and over again in his mind: an ambush, an ambush, an ambush, an ambush. Why had the Order done that, but not rescued him? What were they playing at? He dug his nails into his scalp and scratched his hair back and off of his face.

When he was done, Lucius spoke up again, hand still gripped tightly around the leash.

"Are you well enough to walk, mutt?"

Mutt. The word brought Remus rushing back to the last moment they'd had together before Lucius had left, the night before—when Remus's head had been in Lucius's lap. Remus had been watching his captor through blurry eyes, blood rushing in his ears so loudly that he could only just make out the words.

'I'm the only one who gets to touch you.'

Remus flinched and looked away, and Lucius must've misread the gesture.

"I can't tell what condition you're in," Lucius explained in a harsh voice, as if trying to appease Remus. "You handle pain well."

Remus snorted before making eye contact again. Lucius looked relatively calm, despite his irritation and obvious sleep deprivation. Remus thought he could remember Lucius registering the double entendre of what he'd said when Remus had been laying in his lap—but perhaps that had been a dream? Or maybe today's calm was an act? Or perhaps Lucius just didn't care?

If that was the case, Remus wasn't going to be the first one to bring it up. He was preoccupied enough with the Order's erratic behaviour without worrying about Lucius's apparent descent into madness. Especially after the nightmare Remus had had the day before Bellatrix's attack. He didn't want to feed into the tension any more.

"Well?" Lucius prompted Remus again.

Remus sighed and nodded. "Yes. I can go."

"Good," Lucius puffed up as he stepped backward. "Find your collar."

His collar. It felt like ages since Remus had worn it, though it had been less than a day, and he had no idea how much of his cell had been disturbed the night before. It only took a few seconds of the werewolf looking around for Lucius to catch on.

"Oh for Merlin's sake," the Death Eater sighed, grabbing his wand again and summoning the collar. Remus watched it fly out of a corner and through the air, straight into his outstretched hands.

The two men moved in silence as they prepared to leave the stable, neither speaking again until they were standing directly in front of each other, connected by the leash.

"I'm going to touch you, dog, and I expect you not to react," Lucius spoke, still calm.

"Why?" Remus asked, feeling himself tense up.

Lucius didn't answer, just reached out and grabbed Remus's shoulder. It brought on another memory of the night before, the way that the Death Eater has clutched onto his coat, whether it be in anger or possessiveness or—

"We're leaving the property. I need you to focus on staying with me."

"Off the property? What are you talking about? I don't want to be Splinched—"

"Then don't think about anything other than me," Lucius snapped, stepping closer to Remus until the tips of their toes were touching, too. Remus looked Lucius up and down and found no weak points. He was determined.

"Fine," Remus muttered, far from comfortable with the command.

He stopped moving and held his breath, filling his mind with as exact a reproduction of Lucius as he could manage. Him. Stay with him.

Lucius breathed, and then his magic was moving them fast and hard through light and shadow until they came thudding down onto hard, hot earth.

Hot. That was the first thing that Remus noticed, after the overwhelming nausea of being exposed to Disapparation for the first time since his imprisonment had begun. He wanted to vomit, but he was distracted by the way the heat hung in the air around him. It wasn't just warmth, it was humidity, and it was dense.

He opened his eyes, squinting when he realised that he was surrounded by sunlight more brilliant than he could remember seeing in years. The smell hit him next, a warm mixture of flowers and aromatic plants weaving their way through the dense air—and then the vastness of where they were, in a huge yellow-green field that stretched on as far as he could see on all sides.

Remus lifted a hand to shield his eyes and turned to look at Lucius.

The Death Eater looked similarly surprised, despite being the one who'd transported them. His pallor was ill-suited to the location, and he was squinting too, adjusting his overly heavy clothes and looking around the field with a bit of a frown. He'd already made some space between the two men, moving several paces back while Remus had been orienting himself.

"Where are we?" Remus asked, incredulous.

"Nowhere," Lucius muttered. "Elsewhere."

"Are we—"

Lucius cut Remus down with a withering glare.

"You'd do well to remember to call me sir, dog."

Remus did his best not to roll his eyes.

"Sorry, sir," he corrected himself, looking out at the big, open landscape again. Some part of him wanted to panic the same way he had the first time he'd left the cellar after being captured—but he couldn't seem to muster the energy.

The sun just felt good.

"What were you going to ask?" Lucius sniffed.

Remus looked back to his captor, noticing the way the other wizard was fingering at his collar, already looking far too hot in his thick, black clothes.

"Are we going for a walk here, sir?"

"Well I certainly didn't bring you here just to stand and look around," Lucius snarked, his hand seeming to tighten around Remus's leash.

"Right," Remus answered, gritting his teeth and looking back to the field. "Of course not, sir. Which direction would you like me to go?"

Lucius nodded, pointing his nose over Remus's shoulder. The younger wizard blinked, waiting for Lucius to say something, but nothing came except a set of narrowed eyes. Remus turned on his heels and started walking. His best guess, based on the sun's position, was that they were headed South.

It only took a few minutes of quiet walking for him to remove his jacket and tie it around his waist, already heating up from the sun and the warm breeze on his skin. He was relieved to notice that his limp had improved.

He dug through his memories as he walked, trying to recall the last time he'd felt that much heat, aside from the blasts from Lucius's wand after both of Remus's would-be showers. It took him several seconds to remember—but then it hit him. The Mediterranean. A very short and ill-fated trip with Tonks to find a vampire in Mallorca. She had worn a sundress, and he had made fun of her for how alien it had looked, and then they had kissed while sand had found its way into their shoes.

Remus's heart dropped, and his head went with it, so that he was looking down at the grass and clenching his fists. What was happening, that she would abandon him along with the others, only to stage an ambush days later? And a failed ambush, at that? Then he remembered Bellatrix on top of him, and the excruciating pain—

"You're walking better."

The Death Eater seemed to have a preternatural ability to choose the most annoying time to interrupt Remus's self-pitying thoughts.

"Yes," Remus agreed, trying his best to hide the exasperation in his voice, thoughts still stuck between Mallorca and Grimmauld Place. "Although it'd be easier without the leash, sir."

"So that you could attack me, steal my wand, and disappear forever?" Lucius muttered from behind Remus. "I may have made some… poor decisions in recent history, dog, but that seems like a stretch, even for me."

"Whatever you say, sir," Remus replied, letting out a breathy huff of unimpressed laughter.

It certainly had been a risky choice to bring Remus out into the world, and under any other circumstances, Remus might've considered taking advantage of it. As it was, he was still too weak from his transformation and Bellatrix's attack. The thought of escape hadn't even crossed his mind; there would be no way for him to outrun or fight Lucius in his current condition.

"Just keep walking," Lucius sighed. "There's an abandoned building up ahead, we can get out of the sun."

Remus sniffed in agreement, reaching a hand up and wiping the sweat from his brow. Tonks's sundress and bright face flashed across his mind's eye again, an image of her grinning as the sun set behind her. He frowned.

"To your right," Lucius said a few moments later, and Remus lifted his gaze to see the top of a crumbling building rising out of the grasses ahead of him. He began the arc toward it, eager for the relief of its half-collapsed roof.

"Have you spent time here before?" Remus asked, glancing over his shoulder. Lucius looked like he might be sick from the heat, and Remus had to put in actual effort not to let out a bark of mocking laughter.

"Obviously," Lucius snarled, and he sounded frighteningly like Severus. Severus. The Order. Remus tilted his head up and took a deep breath, letting it out through pinched lips.

"I wouldn't be able to take us here otherwise, now would I?" Lucius finished his thought.

"Another family estate?" Remus asked.

"I've already been very clear that I'm not going to tell you where we are, dog," Lucius snapped.

"Sorry, sir," Remus muttered in false contrition.

Lucius slowed down as they approached the building. Remus couldn't see his companion, but he could feel the change in pace in the increasing strain on his leash, how he was forced to slow down, too, so that he wouldn't be choked. The sensation, and the way he had no choice but to get closer to Lucius, made Remus's skin crawl.

"It really is too bad you won't take the leash off though, sir. We won't be able to play fetch," Remus mused, saying the first thing that came to mind in an effort to distract himself from his discomfort. "It would be so nice to run."

"Perhaps tomorrow," Lucius snipped after kissing his teeth in annoyance.

The exchange had the opposite effect to what Remus was hoping. Rather than starting up some banter that would distract Remus, he felt himself tipping over some emotional precipice he hadn't been fully aware of. Suddenly, all of his pent up confusion and frustration and anger was boiling up inside of his gut, then burning up into his chest and throat like acid. He stopped to turn and face his captor, nostrils flared.

"How many tomorrows do you plan for there to be, Lucius?" Remus spat before he could stop himself, staring over his shoulder at his captor. "We both know I'm going to run out of things to say before the next Full Moon. What then?"

Lucius looked stricken, eyes flickering to and from Remus for a moment, as if he were trying to comprehend what his captive was saying.

"Then you… behave yourself until the time comes. It's not that difficult, mutt," Lucius blinked, bewildered.

"Surely you know it's not that simple," Remus retorted, his voice getting slightly louder, shoulders beginning to shake.

"No?" Lucius asked, taking a half-step closer. He looked like he might start shaking, too. "You think I haven't thought about it, already?"

"I have no idea what you think about, sir," Remus answered honestly.

"Right now what I'm thinking about is how to avoid both of us getting bloody heat stroke," Lucius snarled, taking another step, hand drifting to the pocket his wand was in. "So, do you think you're capable of shutting your mouth long enough to walk to that damned building?"

Remus wanted to continue fighting, to fan his rage, because it was something to feel, and feeling was a relief—but some part of him knew better. He looked Lucius up and down, grimaced, and turned to keep walking toward the ruined building.

Remus had voiced a real concern, started a conversation that needed to be had, but he didn't want to push it out in the sun. Besides the bodily risk, Remus knew very well what his tact had to be with Lucius. The wizard had shown that he was vulnerable to vulnerability itself. Truthfulness was what had begun to garner him actual answers, not anger.

Remus managed to stay quiet until they were closer to the stone structure, which looked like some kind of abandoned storehouse or animal shelter. It stood alone in the never-ending field, half-destroyed and bleached by the sun.

"Go around the right side," Lucius instructed once they were close enough, and Remus did as he was told, walking around the building until he found half a wall missing, leaving them a huge gap through which to enter the ruins.

Once inside, both men headed straight for the shadowy back of the structure, where the roof was still blocking out the bulk of the sunlight, and Remus rested his forehead against the cool stone.

Lucius made an angry sound, and when Remus looked over to him, he was peeling off his jacket, dropping it onto the dirty stone floor before reaching a hand into a trouser pocket and pulling out an elastic. He tied his hair back in a rather unceremonious way, like a teenager girl about to start her homework. It was amusing enough to watch that Remus had to fight to hide a smirk, in spite of his mood.

"What?" Lucius snarled, clearly aware of Remus's eyes on him.

"Nothing," Remus lied, turning so that he could rest the back of his head against the stone while still looking at Lucius. "I just don't think us Brits are equipped for temperatures like this."

"Don't compare the two of us, fleabag," Lucius replied, scrunching his nose up in disgust even as he copied Remus's movements and went to lean against the nearest wall.

"As you wish, sir."

Cicadas started to buzz in the distance, a vibrating sound that reminded Remus of birdsong. He gazed out at the field and took a deep breath.

It was odd to be back in the storehouse. It had been years since Lucius had hidden in it, taking refuge from the hot French sun after sneaking away from whatever achingly boring affair his father had organised in their nearby villa. Lupin had guessed correctly about it being a family estate.

The building was a haunting from his past, but it wasn't an entirely dark one. Lucius had always associated the place with pleasant exhaustion and freedom. Maybe that's why he'd chosen it, out of all places—because of all the emotions Lucius Malfoy had felt since waking that morning, freedom hadn't been on the list.

It felt as though he was being actively drawn and quartered, tugged in one direction by the Dark Lord's commands, another by his crumbling marriage, another by his anger—and another by the wolf.

He glanced over at Lupin, having given the younger wizard a few moments to be quiet. He wasn't sure if it was because he was overheating or because Lupin just looked so different in the bright sunlight, but Lucius couldn't seem to stop peeking at his captive every few seconds. At his bare, scarred arms and his furrowed brow. At the sweat pooling on his t-shirt.

The werewolf was gazing out at the field, his jaw clenched.

"You're right," Lucius begrudgingly broke the silence from where he stood, several paces away.

"About what, exactly?" Lupin asked after another silent moment, tilting his head toward Lucius but not actually looking at him.

"About the… complexity of our current situation. About needing to discuss what happens next. I have thought about it," Lucius replied in as even a tone as he could muster.

"Of course it's complex, sir," Lupin sighed, lifting his chin so that he could look up at the sky once more. "You've held me captive for a month. I'm losing my connection to the outside world. I won't have much more to say, soon."

"There's more to it than that, though," Lucius mumbled. The words escaped him before he really meant them to, as so many words seemed to do when he was around the werewolf—as though Lupin's very presence was a kind of Veritaserum. Like the night before. I'm the only one who gets to touch you. Lucius winced at the memory.

"What do you mean?" Lupin asked, voice becoming a bit softer, as if he was surprised.

Lucius swallowed and stared out at the field, evaluating whether or not he should say any more. He had seen that honesty often got him further with the werewolf than games, and it would be easier to speak some form of the truth than to withhold it.

"I'm… I'm afraid I would be quite lost, now, regardless of what you could offer me moving forward, mutt," Lucius began, tentative and quiet, his stomach starting to burn. It felt unnatural to be speaking so candidly. "The Dark Lord has asked for something that seems… beyond my capacity."

'Get closer to him.' The words had been echoing in Lucius's head since he'd woken up and remembered that the events of the night before were not, in fact, a nightmare.

"Beyond your capacity?" Lupin asked, sounding shocked.

Lucius could see Lupin straightening up out of the corner of his vision, turning to look at his captor.

"I'm not sure I can do what he's asked without… losing some part of me. My sanity, perhaps," Lucius admitted.

The words settled in the air. The cicadas hummed. Lucius felt tired in his bones.

He licked his lips and then turned to look directly at Lupin again. Lucius wasn't sure if it was the exhaustion, or the heat, or the way the werewolf looked in the sun, but he made the conscious choice not to mask his fatigue or fear when he looked Lupin in the eyes.

The look on Lucius's face was enough to make Remus flinch and turn away again, although the image seemed to be seared into his retinas almost immediately. He looked so… tired. Beyond the physical. Spiritually. Remus's mind rushed with all of the potentials of what the Dark Lord might have said or done, but he was struggling to find anything that seemed proportionate to that look. Perhaps to abandon Narcissa?

"Ah," Remus muttered to acknowledge Lucius's words, hesitating for a moment before pushing himself away from the wall and scuffing his shoe along the cracked floor, kicking at a few tiny pebbles.

He could make a joke, something about there being no sanity left to lose—but something, somewhere inside of him knew better than to waste the opportunity he was being given. Unless Lucius had just revealed himself to be one of their generation's greatest actors, the Death Eater was clearly backed into a corner, and worn down closer to the bone than Remus had ever seen him.

The cicadas grew louder for a moment, and Remus bit the inside of his lip, feeling his stomach churn as an idea clicked into place.

"Well, whatever he's asking, I don't have to make it any worse," Remus replied, clearing his throat and lifting a hand to scratch at his ear. "I'll keep giving you as much as I have while I have it, and you can… use that time to find something better."

"What do you mean?" Lucius asked, quiet.

"Exactly that. You can think of something that will keep you on the Dark Lord's good side—for as long as I'm here, at least. Our erm…" Remus swallowed, nearly gulped, aware of the potential effect that his next few words might have. Aware of how smart of a move it was, despite its risk. If Lucius believed it, it had the potential to change everything. "Our fates are too intertwined for either of us to give up, now. If you go, I go."

The dark wizard had saved Remus's life by sending Bellatrix away, had shown him genuine care since the Full Moon. Surely he could be prevailed upon for them to work together, somehow.

Lucius felt the breath catch in his throat, as if someone had put a stopper over his lungs, and he had to actually raise a hand to his mouth and cough to restart his breathing.

Intertwined.

If you go, I go.

The admission, dangerously close to submission, should've made Lucius feel lightheaded and giddy. He had been working toward it since even before Severus's recommendation of positive reinforcement, for some moment of clarity between the two of them, for Lupin to admit that Lucius was the one in power. And Lucius did feel lightheaded, but it wasn't relief, or giddiness. It was something different—the sensations he'd been trying to ignore since the Full Moon.

Fear. Anxiety. Desire. Care.

A stone in the dam of Lucius's mind fell. Then two. And then a third, fourth, fortieth, and there was a flood, and the rushing in Lucius's ears blocked out even the roar of the cicadas.

Lucius didn't look away when Remus met his gaze again. He just watched the werewolf, the way his shallow breathing lifted his shoulders up and down, the way his lips sat partly open as if he might speak at any moment, the way his hands hung at his sides, fingers tensing and relaxing over and over.

Lucius wanted to say something, anything, but there weren't any words.

Remus was fairly certain that he was about to pass out.

The wizard had seen many looks of forbidden desire and longing in his life. An unfortunate number of them, really—disproportionately more than an average person should see. But this, the look of longing and desperation playing on Lucius Malfoy's face, this was a masterpiece. An award-winning display, fraught with deceit and lust and a shocking loss. A crumbling painted in Lucius's upturned brows, wide eyes, reddened cheeks, and trembling lips.

No. Remus scrambled internally, trying desperately to find another way out, some way to change the tone like they always did, completely unwilling to accept that this was the response that Lucius was offering. He had, briefly, been dreaming of teamwork, not… this.

"Isn't that what you wanted? A loyal hound?" Remus asked, trying his best to tease, though his voice sounded far too strained.

"No," Lucius breathed, and it sounded like a realisation more than an answer.

Remus thought he could hear the entirety of the Order of the Phoenix in his head screaming at him to run. To throw himself shoulder-first into Lucius's body, steal the dark wizard's wand, and run. Get out. To anywhere. To anyone. Anywhere but there.

This was the culmination of his literal nightmares, the visions of sex and gore that had taunted him, apparently more prophecy than fear.

But it was too late.

"Lupin, I—" Lucius began to speak, taking a small, half-step forward.

"No," Remus shook his head, clenching his jaw and turning away from that pleading, needing look on Lucius's face. "No. I've just said it—I'm happy to play whatever game needs to be played to keep us alive. Any game. Except that one."

A beat of silence. Then the sound of Lucius's boots on the broken ground, taking a couple of steps forward.

"And if it's not a game?"

Remus felt his heart begin to race, saw dark spots begin to pop in his vision, and he noticed that he'd stopped breathing for a moment. He let out a shaky exhale, squared his shoulders.

Run. Run. Run. Run.

"If I wanted you, I could have you," Lucius spoke in a low, growling voice. The dark wizard was still several steps away from Remus, but it felt like Lucius had just run into Remus at full speed, run into him with a truck, threatening to leave Remus crushed under the weight of the impact. Fire and ice pulsed through his entire body in tandem.

"I suppose you're right," Remus replied. His voice sounded terrible, as if he were holding back a sob, but he was shocked that he'd managed to speak at all. "I can't imagine consent and desire have ever mattered that much to you."

"What?" Lucius replied, and Remus realised that the other wizard actually sounded hurt. Remus felt his face screw up with confusion as he listened to Lucius take a step back again.

"You're wrong," Lucius continued, and some of his usual passion was creeping back into his voice, though it sounded warped, malformed. "It's not worth anything if… if you don't want it. It's like feeding a full dog. There's no joy in it."

"Joy?" Remus spat instinctively, casting a repulsed look over his shoulder at Lucius.

He expected to see the wizard's usual darkness, loathing, anger stoked by Remus's prodding—but the dark wizard seemed to be doing his best to keep some tenuous connection between them. His eyebrows were still arched upward, almost pleading, eyes now narrowed. He looked like a dog who'd been kicked by his owner.

Remus knew in that moment that running wasn't actually an option. It never had been. Even less so, now that the Order had gone off script. He had no idea how long he was going to be stuck with the Death Eaters, if he'd truly be left to his own devices until the next Full Moon, and if that was the case, there was no way that Lucius would ever be more vulnerable. How long had Remus worked for this? For some moment of clarity between the two of them, for Lucius to admit that he might have lost his power over the situation, for a weakness that Remus could exploit.

Distantly, he remembered begging the Order to save him the night before. Knowing what might come if they didn't.

Evidently, they were already too late.

"Well," Remus began, voice shaking as he stared back out at the field in front of them, crossing his arms. "I'll… be sure to let you know if I ever get hungry."

The air hung empty and terrifying for a moment, and Remus felt all of his senses go on edge, as if he was waiting for a predator to pounce.

Instead, he heard the soft voice of a broken man.

"Fine," Lucius muttered. "We're leaving."