Chapter Thirty-Two:
Taking Root

November 6, 1996

Lucius opened his eyes and turned his head to the nearby clock, trying to orient himself. He didn't remember when he'd finally managed to fall asleep—why had that been so difficult—

'I'll be sure to let you know if I ever get hungry.'

Lucius felt as though he'd been hit by a train. His head flopped back onto the pillow and he stared up at the ceiling, remembering the way Lupin had held himself while he'd rejected Lucius. How tantalising and horrible the words had sounded, coming from the werewolf's mouth. How stupid Lucius's actions had been.

"What have I done?" he asked, covering his face with his hands and grimacing. He almost felt hungover, mouth dry and head pounding. He knew he needed to get out of bed and get moving, though. There would be no peace lying in bed.

He fought the memories as he got himself ready for the day, showering, brushing his teeth and hair, dressing. He'd done the unforgivable, and he knew he wouldn't be able to go back and face his prisoner without something to distract both of them. He needed an angle, something to focus on when they were reunited, and a believable line of questioning to feed the wolf.

The Dark Lord had given him plenty to consider on the night of Bellatrix's attack. Firstly, that Lupin was a masochist; secondly, that the werewolf seemed to be communicating with the Order of the Phoenix somehow. The first suggestion was precisely what Lucius did not want to think about, for all the reasons he'd insanely admitted to the wolf the day before. He wasn't confident that he could hold himself together if he was forced to play that game, and he didn't like the pit he felt in his stomach whenever he thought about it. Whenever he considered what the Dark Lord had done to corner him there.

If Lucius kept thinking like that, he was confident he would die. So instead, he focused on the proposal that Lupin was still an active spy for the Order—and the fact that the werewolf had been proposing some kind of allyship, prior to Lucius's lunacy overtaking him. He wasn't ready to see to speak to the werewolf, but he could start to do some research.

Lucius felt more settled and reconnected to his own body once he made it to the library and started sorting through its stacks and shelves. He wasn't sure he'd find any breakthrough explanations for Remus's potential spying in his family's collection, but he also knew that he wasn't going to make any remarkable discoveries sitting alone in the dark, humid guest room. He was alone in the library, too, but the space felt full of life, the way a well-stocked library does, as if the books were having hushed conversations between their covers.

Lucius worked in the comfortable silence, losing track of time as he dug through books on magical espionage and trickery. He was skimming the index of a book titled Scrying, Spying, and Legendary Lying when the library door opened. Lucius froze, readying himself before he took a shallow breath and glanced over his shoulder, prepared for the worst.

It was only Severus.

"Good morning," the dark-haired wizard drawled, stepping further into the room and closing the door behind him.

"Good morning, Severus," Lucius sighed, shutting the book and turning to face his friend.

"Shouldn't you be with the dog?" Severus asked, pursing his lips judgmentally.

Lucius winced, tightened his grip around the book. "I have research to do."

"On?"

"His potential methods of relaying information to the Order," Lucius answered, barely masking the annoyance in his voice. "What does it matter to you?"

"Don't be a prick, Lucius," Severus rolled his eyes, crossing his arms and staring down his nose in condescension. "It's obvious that you're… struggling."

Lucius was almost embarrassed by the way he reacted to the jab, drawing himself up, puffing his chest out and squaring his shoulders like a schoolboy ready to fight.

"I'm not struggling, Severus. Not anymore than anyone else is."

The other man did not miss a beat. "You're a terrible liar."

Lucius wanted to say 'If only you knew.' Instead, he turned back to the shelves and shoved the book back into place. "Leave me to my efforts if you're so sure that I'm struggling."

"What is your working theory?" Severus asked as he glided behind Lucius and headed toward another bookshelf, running his long fingers over the book's spines.

"I don't have one, Severus, that's why I'm researching," Lucius snapped.

"It has to be something that isn't limited by the wards around the Manor," Severus continued, ignoring Lucius's tone.

"And something that's difficult to find," Lucius agreed, thinking better of continuing an argument he was certain to lose.

"Find?" Severus asked, raising a dark brow.

"If it's an object, I mean. It wouldn't still be working if the enchantment wore off with time."

"Has he been allowed to keep a lot of objects with him, Lucius?" Severus asked, wheeling around to look right at the other Death Eater.

"No," Lucius snapped. "Obviously not! I took everything other than his clothing from him the day that I captured him."

"Good," Severus sneered. "You had me worried for a moment. Although you may want to check his clothes."

"Of course, I'll get right on that," Lucius rolled his eyes. "You know the Order better than I do, Severus. What do you think they could be doing?"

"A spell of some kind. For all their faults, they have plenty of… creative minds on their side. It may not be something we're familiar with."

"A spell that does what, exactly?"

"Allows him to convey messages somehow. Or allows them to listen in at certain times?"

"It can't be that," Lucius shook his head. "We don't have a routine."

"That much is evident," Severus sniffed.

"If it was a spell, I would've already dismissed it; I had to use a counter-spell on him not long ago to end an enchantment," Lucius mused, narrowing his eyes at a book spine he couldn't quite read, hoping that Severus wouldn't ask any follow up questions. He wasn't in the mood to explain when or why he'd petrified Lupin.

"Surely you don't think they'd go to the trouble of developing a new spell if it was going to be that easily dismissed?"

"What do you propose, then? I feed him some Veritaserum?"

"Merlin, no," Severus breathed. "You don't want to know everything that thing has stored in his subconscious. I don't have the ingredients for it at the moment, anyway."

"Then what's my alternative, Severus?"

"Ask him."

Lucius stopped, swallowed hard. Severus looked far too serious.

"What?"

"Do what the Dark Lord said. Get close to him. Then ask."

Lucius felt bile rise in his throat, and he answered with a single shake of his head, jutting out his jaw.

"I can't do that, Severus," Lucius snapped.

"Why?"

"What do you mean why? The Dark Lord—" Lucius paused, lowered his voice, took a step closer. "The Dark Lord is asking for the impossible."

"How so?" Severus asked, and there was a spark in his eye, the kind he got when he was very clearly onto something. A look of figuring.

Lucius wanted to be honest. He wanted to say it all—that he might lose himself, that he might go too far into the fantasy and not be able to pull himself out again. But that would require revealing how far he'd already gone. How close he already was to losing everything.

"I could never get close to a creature like that, Severus," Lucius grimaced, doing his best to pour all of his malice and confusion into that one statement. "I'm not capable of masking my feelings like that. I can already barely handle the… positive reinforcement that you recommended."

"I don't know about that," Severus replied, raising an eyebrow. "It seems as though you've made quite a bit of headway since then."

"I said barely handle, not can't."

"I won't push you any further, Lucius," Severus sighed, "I'm just… suggesting that you might be more capable than you realise."

"Is this your attempt at boosting my morale? Or condemning me?"

The words were too sharp, and Lucius knew that, knew he didn't mean them before they even came out of his mouth. But if there was one thing Severus did not enjoy having questioned, it was his loyalty to the very few true friends he had. The wizard's nostrils flared, lips pressed into a thin line for a moment.

"I'm sorry, Severus, I'm just—"

"I'll be on my way, then. I've already been away from the school for far too long," the other Death Eater droned, and then turned and strolled out of the room just as quietly as he'd arrived.

I'm not capable of masking my feelings like that. Lucius wondered if that was perhaps the greatest understatement that had ever left his mouth.

He bit down on his tongue, clenched his jaw, and returned to the books. There was no world in which he would be spending time with the wolf today. Not in the state he was in.

November 7, 1996

Remus saw Lucius walking across the lawn long before he actually arrived at the stable. It was early afternoon, so far as Remus could tell, and he was getting lightheaded from his hunger and thirst.

Seeing the dark wizard crossing the grounds, head tilted down and expression deadly serious, did not help the situation. Lucius somehow looked even more sullen than usual, which Remus had not thought possible up to that point. The dark wizard's body language reminded Remus of an angsty teenager, bitterly stomping away from his parents' house to go kick rocks somewhere.

Had Remus noticed his captor's approach on any other day, the wait might've just been awkward. This time, it was agonising. The last twenty-four hours had been a special kind of suffering, waiting to see the results of Remus's bold rejection. He could've been softer, could've played the game better from the get go, rather than tacking on that last comment. I'll let you know if I'm ever hungry. Stupid. He'd been trying so hard up to that point, saying so much that he thought Lucius wanted to hear; that they were tied to one another, that Remus wanted to be loyal. Somehow, Remus was sure that all of his work had been undone.

The seemingly endless wait to see Lucius again, to gauge how livid he was, to find out if Remus would be punished or ignored altogether—he'd been unable to guess how it would turn out, but he was sure it wasn't going to be good.

And yet, when Lucius finally walked into the stable and lifted his eyes to look at Remus through the bars, he didn't look enraged. His expression was guarded, certainly, but he hadn't entirely closed himself off to the werewolf. There was still something hanging between them, a tenuous thread Remus was sure he'd cut, despite his best efforts the day before.

"How are you?" Lucius asked in a gravelly, tired voice.

"Fine, sir," Remus shook his head, taking a step toward the back of his makeshift cell, so that Lucius would have more room to enter if he wanted to.

The Death Eater seemed to understand Remus's signal without any other words exchanged between them. He opened the door with a flourish of his wand and stepped inside. The two of them made eye contact.

Remus's heart skipped a beat and he paused, swallowing hard. It was the first time they'd looked at each other since Lucius's unspoken confession, and although he could feel the fragile connection between them, he could also feel the weight of the discussion they'd had hanging from both of their shoulders.

Lucius was the first to break the tension, turning to clean the cell, refill Remus's water, and throw him a bag of food scraps. It wasn't the new luxury that Remus was used to, but he didn't care; the browned apple and other bits looked too good to resist after a day without any food, and he began eating immediately.

"I apologise for not bringing food sooner. I was… occupied, yesterday," Lucius explained once his routine was completed. He was still standing in the doorway, hand on his wand, seeming to look at everything except Remus.

"Everything alright?" Remus asked, unable to help himself, realising immediately that Lucius would want an explanation for a question like that. "I mean—anything I should know about?"

Lucius frowned. "Why would you need to know anything?"

"Well, you haven't exactly left for positive reasons in the past, have you, sir?"

"Everything's fine," Lucius snapped, tightening his grip on his wand.

Remus wanted to push back, get more information, but thought better of it. He could tell how tense Lucius was by the way his shoulders were sitting. The dark wizard was doing his best to hold it together, but his composure seemed as frail their apparent truce.

"Alright," Remus muttered after swallowing a mouthful of food. Lucius snuck a glance at him, clenched his jaw and then looked away again. "Where to today, sir? Perhaps somewhere tropical, this time?"

"No," Lucius replied, "we're not leaving the property. We are going for a walk, though. Don't bother with the collar."

This took Remus aback. He glanced over to where he'd left the thing on his low table, confused.

"Don't I—don't I need it when we're on the grounds? Won't someone see us?"

"Doesn't it look better that I have you under my control at this point?" Lucius asked, raising his brows and adding a slight threat to his voice.

He had a point, although some part of Remus wondered if it wasn't just an excuse to avoid getting close enough to Remus to hook the leash to his collar.

"I suppose so," Remus answered.

Lucius's face twitched, but he chose to leave the discussion there, instead stepping to the side and gesturing toward the cell door. "Lead the way, then."

For a brief moment, Remus considered asking one more question, pushing to understand why Lucius was trusting him with this. And then he remembered what he'd said on their last excursion, about their fates being too intertwined for him to go back, now. Evidently, Lucius had believed him. The younger wizard set his mouth in a determined line, put his hands in his pockets, and walked out of the cell.

They walked quietly across the lawn together, both curled in on themselves to ward off the cold air. It was about as different an experience as one could get from their last encounter. The sun was dimmed by grey clouds, world eerily quiet aside from the wind in the trees.

"How are you feeling? Physically, I mean?" Lucius asked, once again breaking the tension that seemed to gather around them whenever they were silent for too long.

"Better," Remus answered, quickly and honestly. "I think the heat helped."

"Good," Lucius snapped, and the two men fell into silence again as they walked several more metres, forking left toward the woods. The change in direction happened without words, Lucius simply nodding eastward when Remus looked to him for instruction. It was a kind of communication that smacked of familiarity rather than animosity.

"I've been thinking about what you said," Lucius spoke again a few minutes later, once they were deep into the woods. Remus felt his heart drop.

"What do you mean, sir?"

Please not that. Please not that.

"About there only being so many… tomorrows. About next steps."

"Ah," Remus breathed in relieved response, trying to wrench himself out of his memory of Lucius's desperate face, shining with sweat in the field.

"I'd like to know what you think the Order will be doing now, after a failed attack like that," Lucius continued, and his voice was almost hesitant, as if he was unsure about the proposal he was making. "To help us determine our own course of action."

Remus hesitated, looking around the forest as he considered what to say. It felt vastly different than it had the last time they'd walked there, so much more sparse and haunting now that the leaves had gone. It reminded Remus of a Muggle cartoon he'd seen as a child, where the trees reached out to attack the heroine as she attempted to make an escape. Not senseless, like the Whomping Willow, but calculating—almost lascivious.

"Same as you, I imagine," Remus answered truthfully, ducking under a low-hanging branch. "They've likely gone underground so they have time to recuperate and see what you do next."

"What we do?" Lucius scoffed. "What could we do? We still have no idea where they are."

"No," Remus agreed, "they wouldn't be waiting for a counter-attack. They would just need to know what the current atmosphere is… if you're planning something new, if you're shaken, unfazed…"

Lucius made a snort of acknowledgement, and then Remus realised that they were approaching the break in the trees, and sure enough—the water, beyond that. He bit the inside of his lip, staring for a minute, breath caught in his throat as he stood still and remembered Lucius shoving him down into the mud the last time they'd been there.

"Unfazed…" Lucius mused behind Remus, and Remus did a poor job of hiding his surprise when Lucius paused close behind him. Too close.

"And if I wanted to draw them out? To get something useful out of them watching us?" the dark wizard continued, a small quiver in his voice.

Remus paused, furrowing his brow, a wave of complicated feelings crashing over him. "Are you asking me to plot against them?"

"No," Lucius reacted in a harsh voice, coming to stand beside Remus. His shoulders were tense again, and he looked almost lost without the leash in his hand, as if he didn't know what to do with himself. "I'm asking for you to do what you said you would and buy me some time."

"Right," Remus grimaced, looking away as quickly as he could.

"So? How could I tempt them out of hiding?" Lucius pushed.

Tempt them. Remus felt his chest tighten as he considered the possibilities.

"Show them someone they want to see," Remus shrugged, shifting his weight so that he could lean away from his captor, put a bit more distance between them. "Give them some information they've been waiting to have confirmed."

"And what? See who comes? How they react?"

"Exactly," Remus nodded. "Shouldn't a few names and a location be enough to hold the Dark Lord over a little while longer?"

Lucius huffed and started to walk again, tracing along the same path they'd taken the last time they'd come to the water's edge. The wetland looked different now, far less inviting than it had the first time they'd visited, and Remus couldn't tell if that was because the seasons had changed or because he had changed. He could still taste the dirt in his mouth, feel the pressure of Lucius pushing him down into the mud, feel the way his thumb had traced along Remus's lower lip. His stomach churned, and he forced himself to start walking again.

"Who would they be interested in?" Lucius asked once Remus had started to follow along behind him.

Me. The first, most obvious answer—and one that he refused to speak aloud.

"Have they seen you since the Ministry?"

"No," Lucius breathed after a moment of tense silence. "No. I mean, if they were watching the house in Hogsmeade, then they'd know I'm still active, but nothing face-to-face."

"Make yourself seen, then. Go somewhere obvious, say something about having caught yourself a feral dog, stick around long enough that your people can watch their's scramble to report."

The plan fell out of Remus's mouth before he could really even think about it. It just made sense to him somehow, something that would placate the dark forces without endangering the Order anymore than he had to. He didn't want to play games with their lives, even if they seemed to be doing so with his own. He was just buying time, like Lucius had said.

Lucius took a deep breath, glancing upward before letting himself look briefly at Remus. "I'll take it under advisement."

Remus hesitated, furrowing his brows, not entirely sure how he was supposed to respond—but then he licked his lips, offered a curt nod, and continued walking.

Lucius let Lupin pass him, leaving Lucius to watch in silence as the werewolf strode along the edge of the water, carefully stepping around large rocks, trying not to flinch when a couple of tiny birds burst out of the reeds, bickering with each other.

The act of watching was so different now, compared to what it had been in the beginning. Lucius had been so full of rage, so much pent up emotion and a need to prove himself. The werewolf had been the perfect target. Now, Lucius's mind was quieter. Rather than rage, he found himself preoccupied with interest and nervousness, focused on observing Lupin and understanding what was happening inside of his head rather than how to control and destroy him. Interest, nervousness, and a bit of desire, sitting low in his abdomen, despite every part of him that had been screaming at him to get a hold of himself since arriving at Remus's cell.

"I need to know how they did it," Lucius confessed, eager to cut his thoughts off before he got too focused on any one part of his prisoner. Those thoughts were dangerous, and he wasn't willing to get too caught up in the idea of using himself as bait, either—not without speaking to the Dark Lord.

"Did what?" Lupin asked, glancing over his shoulder.

"Ambushed us."

Lupin's face fell, and he clenched his jaw before turning away.

"How should I know, Lucius?"

The impudence, the use of his name, should've caused a flare of rage inside of the Death Eater. Lupin clearly expected that, from the way his body tensed after he spoke, showing that his words had been an accident.

Instead, Lucius felt a little flicker of excitement at hearing his name coming out of the wolf's mouth. A flicker that was quickly followed by a metaphorical rush of cold water in his gut.

"I'm not sure dog," Lucius retorted, speaking as quickly as he could to pull himself out of his thoughts and not make his lack of annoyance too obvious. "What were your methods in the past?"

"My methods?" Remus asked, shoulders relaxing slightly.

"The Order's, obviously."

"I can't say that was ever my speciality, sir," Lupin answered, "but I know that you consistently underestimate our intelligence."

"Is that so?" Lucius snorted, unable to help himself.

"You obviously thought you had us with that stunt at the Ministry," Lupin continued, raising his voice slightly, as though he were trying to gain a student's attention, "and yet we were the ones who walked out with a living prophecy holder. You're lucky to have gotten away."

"One of yours didn't though, did he?" Lucius frowned. "You seem to be forgetting that rather important fact."

"Sirius's death was… not part of the plan," Lupin admitted, staring down at the ground, "but he rarely did anything according to plan. You can't call the entire mission a failure because of what happened to him."

"Really?" Lucius asked, not bothering to hide the surprise in his voice.

"Of course not," Lupin answered, and it sounded like he was hiding a bit of a laugh in his voice. "We saved Harry. Dumbledore scared V—the Dark Lord. You ran away with your tail between your legs."

"That's the analogy you use, mutt?" Lucius countered, and both of them snorted.

It was the first bit of shared levity they'd experienced since their time in the field. Something inside of Lucius relaxed, despite his better judgement.

"Slithered away? Is that better?" Lupin joked, and Lucius smirked, but did not laugh. "My point is that we're more capable than you give us credit for."

"Mm," Lucius hummed, not pleased to hear Severus's warning echoed back at him, moving away from the increasingly muddy water's edge, noticing that his boots were starting to get bogged down in the muck. "Who should I be giving credit to here, then? What mastermind managed to catch us off-guard?"

Lupin hesitated.

It was only a few seconds of wavering, filled in with the chirping of birds, but it was enough to set Lucius on edge.

"I'm not sure, sir. Honestly."

When the werewolf spoke, it didn't sound honest. Just tired. And that was enough for a flip to switch inside of Lucius's mind.

For the first time since the Dark Lord had proposed the idea, Lucius could feel it truly settling into his body: that Lupin might still be actively spying for the Order—that the werewolf wasn't only gathering information for future transmission, but getting it to them now, somehow. There had been stalling and manipulation before, but this was the first time that Lupin's words had sounded like an outright lie to Lucius, outside of his many pathetic explanations for being captured.

Lucius could feel the idea taking root far faster than he wanted it to, as if it was designed to grow in the soil of his mind, as if he had perfectly tilled and fertilised the earth so that the seeds needed only to nestle into place.

"Lupin, you have to—"

Lucius looked up to get the werewolf's attention, trying to tell him that he needed to tell the truth, but instead he found the wolf far too distracted to answer. Lupin was mid-step when he yelped out some muffled profanity and began to fall forward. Lucius glanced down to see the werewolf's foot had caught on a large stone, something Lupin must've missed due to their conversation, and he was about to tumble down onto another.

Lucius didn't pause to think. Instead, he lunged forward, grabbing at Lupin's shoulder and pulling him backward as hard as he could. The werewolf landed with a thump against Lucius's chest, and both of them wobbled for a moment, regaining their balance and breath before either spoke.

"Are you alright?" Lucius asked, not daring to move. Lupin's breath was frantic, his whole body was moving rhythmically against the Death Eater's chest. Adrenaline from the fall, surely nothing else. Lucius fought to fight off the vibrant images flashing through his mind, the way he might turn Lupin around, push him to the ground—

"Yes," Lupin grumbled before pulling himself forward, away from Lucius, shaking off his shoulders as if he'd made contact with something dirty.

Lucius's chest suddenly felt like it was on fire, as though poison ivy had touched his bare skin rather than the werewolf against his thick clothes, and his head felt like it might cave in on itself.

"I—" Lucius began an explanation, but Lupin cut him off.

"No," Lupin shook his head, turning around and offering a tight smile, though he looked like he was barely managing to mask something dark and angry. "It's fine. You were trying to help me."

"I was," Lucius muttered, breaking their eye contact to look down at the muddy earth.

"I would like to go back, though. I'm still a bit tired after what Bellatrix did. Is that alright, sir?"

"Of course," Lucius muttered, straightening his peacoat and gesturing for his prisoner to pass him. Lucky that Lupin hadn't asked him to say what he'd started to. Lucky that Lucius wasn't going to have to find some non-inflammatory way to say 'have you been lying to me this whole time?' quite yet. "Lead the way."

Lupin didn't make eye contact with him again, not even once they were back in the stable. All of Lucius's attempts at re-starting the conversation were useless, met with nothing more than single-word answers and forced agreement. By the time Lucius was locking the werewolf back up in his cell, he was almost glad to be rid of him.

"I'll… I'll see you soon," Lucius muttered, tucking his wand back into his pocket.

"I know," Lupin answered, not facing him, already peeling off his jacket.

Lucius found the Dark Lord in the study, speaking in hushed tones with several Death Eaters. The others quieted when they saw Lucius approaching, shrinking back like frightened animals as a threat came into view. The Dark Lord, on the other hand, affixed Lucius with a cold, unfeeling stare.

"Do you need something, Malfoy?"

Lucius flinched at his surname, not used to his master addressing him as such.

"It can wait, if you'd prefer, my Lord. I have a request for you regarding our prisoner."

The Dark Lord's hairless brow lifted, a curious expression warping his already strange features.

"You may go," he spoke in a hoarse voice to the others, waving them out of the room. They looked confused, as if they might've been in the middle of an important discussion, but none of them protested.

Lucius waited until each of his co-conspirators had left the room before turning back to the Dark Lord, who had meandered over to one of the large windows and was staring out onto the grounds in silence. Nagini was resting beside him, watching Lucius with something akin to a languid expression.

"What is it?" Voldemort asked, still staring out the window.

"I'd like to put a small team together, my Lord. I have an… an idea about how to draw some of the Order out, to gather some intelligence—"

"More intelligence?" the Dark Lord sighed, reaching a hand out at precisely the same moment as Nagini reared her head up to be gently stroked.

"Confirmation of names and faces, my Lord. And… a test, of a theory regarding the werewolf's connection to the Order. Before a new offensive."

"A test?"

"I feel very… very strongly, my Lord, that this could be crucial in our next steps. Give us something tangible to work with before we move again; make up for what happened on the last mission."

The Dark Lord considered this for a moment before turning to face Lucius, eyes narrowed.

"You've been following my orders, then, Lucius? Exploring the possibilities?"

Lucius felt a cold spark shoot up his spine, heart rate doubling in seconds.

"I have, my Lord," Lucius answered, relieved to hear that his voice didn't break when he spoke.

"And? I would've expected you to be far more… excited by the work," the Dark Lord sneered.

"O-of course, sir," Lucius stuttered, "I've just erm—put that aside for the day, you see. Focused on how I can be of use to you."

Voldemort's thin lips trembled for a moment, as if he might be holding back a laugh, but he managed to stifle it.

"If you say so, Lucius," the Dark Lord hissed. "I'll grant you permission to gather assistance, but I expect it to be quick and… fruitful."

"I promise that it will be. Thank you for your trust, my Lord."

Voldemort looked Lucius up and down for a moment, assessing him, before giving him his own silent, dismissive wave.

Lucius turned and walked from the room as quickly as he could, trying not to let his sudden nausea cause him to stumble.