After the Moon

After the Moon

*

Draco

***

The door was opened. Remus closed his eyes firmly shut to stop the sudden bright light from coming into his eyes. His oversensitive ears, however, well caught the sound of something, or someone, being tossed to the door of the dirty cell. "And don't expect daddy to save you from trouble this time," somebody said haughtily, then laughed cruelly. The door was shut again, and locked with various spells. Remus was only grateful for the darkness - the darkness that allowed him to just curl up and forget. Forget the pain, the cold, everything. Forget life, and just die.

The new occupant of the cell, however, would not have that. He moved around on the floor as if searching for something. At last, he said warily, "Who's there? Is someone there?"

Remus couldn't form coherent words to reply, he was too much in pain for that. However, he did his best to make at least some identifiable sound. Having recognized the stranger by his voice, he knew that he wasn't in any danger from his side - although the fact they both lay as prisoners in Death Eaters' cell very much had proven that already.

"Remus?" Draco was instantly alarmed. Hurriedly he rose to his feet and started to move through the complete darkness towards the corner, where the werewolf lay huddled against the cold stone wall. As soon as the young wizard got near enough, he started to examine Remus's wounds as well as he could. Noticing that the werewolf was naked, he drew a sharp breath. "Those bastards didn't even give you anything to cover yourself with." It wasn't even a question, neither of them would have expected anything more from the Death Eaters.

Not even bothering nodding, Remus just shivered. The wolf had torn into pieces the little of his robes that had been left from the transformation. Now he was naked, and very cold in the chilly, damp dungeon cell. The dust stung in his wounds, and even though his lycanthropic body had already managed to heal some of the smallest wounds, he was still in a bad shape.

Just like he didn't want anybody to see him. Not anybody, and especially not Draco. He hated nothing as much as appearing weak in front of his younger lover. Of course he knew it was impossible to avoid that; there had always been and would always be times when Draco was the strong and protective one. Like now - as protective as he could be, when they were both on the Death Eaters' mercy, anyway.

Remus heard a shuffle of cloth. Then Draco gently lifted him from the ground. The werewolf forced himself to ignore the pain of Draco accidentally touching his wounds as the younger wizard pulled his own robe on him. This helped the coldness a bit, and he desperately wanted to thank Draco, but couldn't force his mouth to form the words. Instead, he just pressed his body against Draco's. While doing this, he thanked all gods he could think of that he and Draco were mated. Otherwise, he couldn't have stood the touch. And the other's touch and closeness were just what they both needed right now.

"I can't do much to your wounds without my wand," said Draco after a moment of silence. "But I should have a potion here somewhere... Just wait a minute." After that came the sound of the young man digging through his pockets. And truly, soon a small vial was raised to his lips. Remus drank the cool liquid greedily, immediately recognizing the taste of a simple healing potion.

"I always carry some with me," Draco explained quietly. "I've come to notice that it's needed far too often to go without it."

Agreeing with him, Remus nodded, even though he knew Draco couldn't see it in the complete darkness. He, too, usually carried some healing concoction with him - often several vials. Now, however, he had lost those a long time ago in his imprisoners' investigations. Even if he'd managed to keep some of the potions, the wolf most probably would have shattered the vials in his rage.

Little by little, a slightly warmer feeling started to spread into Remus's body. He snuggled up to Draco's warm embrace, trying to relax despite the still torturing pain.

Neither knew how long they'd lain there, but suddenly, the door to their cell was pushed open. Both looked up, expecting to see someone coming in to torture them, or take them away to do the same.

However, the door was closed behind the incomer softly. Then a familiar voice said, "Lumos."

Draco's head jerked up instantly. "Father?" he asked disbelievingly, staring at the elder Malfoy, who stood calmly in front of them. "What are you doing here?"

Lucius Malfoy, however, did not reply to his son. "Get out of here," said the blond man briefly, tossing something to Draco - two something. "Those are your wands, both of yours. I figured you wouldn't leave without your little lover." At this, he gave them a dry smirk and a raised eyebrow. "Or, should I say, your old lover. My, my, Lupin, you never struck to me as a man with a knack for little boys."

"Remus's most certainly not a paedophile," snapped Draco defensively back at his father. "He's nothing like you. I'm a grown man, Father, I'm an adult. I am well capable of making my own choice of lovers."

"Keep telling that to yourself, and one day, you might even believe it," replied Lucius lightly. "And I can assure you, my son, I have never had a thing for children. Nor have I ever been attracted to males, on that note. But I should have known that you would be the one to break the centuries old line of heterosexual Malfoy men. After all, what have you ever done like was expected from you?"

"Everything," replied Draco hoarsely. "I did everything like I had to, just to please you. But my deeds were not enough -- you wanted my soul. That is why I turned."

"I never wanted your soul, Draco," the older blond said calmly. "The Dark Lord did -- maybe he still does. As your father, I'm in fact happy that you decided to go against that demand. I've been far gone for a longer time than I can remember, but you're far too good to be wasted on Voldemort's insanity. And I'm now saying 'good' in more than one way." Glancing suspiciously around himself, he then said, "Get out of here, now. Somebody might come to check on you at any moment. Make yourself invisible or something, there'll be too much chaos for them to notice you once they realize I've let you go."

"Why are you doing this?" asked Draco suspiciously. "Why don't you just kill us and be done with it?"

"Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb," said Malfoy coolly. "I have no intentions to kill my own son, no matter what you probably think about me or my morals. If I refuse to do that, the Dark Lord will torture me, and somebody else will do the job - and do it gladly. However, if I set you free, I will be tortured, killed maybe, but you'll be alive." As Draco was too shocked to reply, he continued, "Now, go. I'll stay here, in this cell -- this is the first place they'll check when the alarms go off, and I might be able to slow them down a little."

"Wait!" exclaimed Draco in desperation. "Don't stay here, Father! Come with us, and you'll be safe."

"And where would I go?" asked the older Slytherin dryly.

"I -- that is -- well -- I thought --" Draco stammered, seemingly unable to form a coherent sentence.

Lucius snorted and shook his head in mild, dry amusement. "That's just it, Draco. You have a place where to go - I don't."

"You could come to the Order," suggested the young Slytherin, sounding now really desperate. "Dumbledore is known for giving people second chances. You could come, Father. You should."

"That might suit you, or Severus," the older Malfoy said calmly, "but not me. I'm not good, Draco, not by any means. I am a Death Eater - I am evil. I've killed, Draco, killed and tortured and raped more people than I care to count. I wasn't forced to that; I've done it all on my own free will. But, I am also a father, and in my own, very odd way, I love you. And that's the only reason why I'm going to allow you to live." Then he turned around. "Once you step out of the cell, you'll have five minutes before the alarm goes off -- that's the time during which the Death Eater letting you out should be able to reach Voldemort's deepest lair, or the torture room. Try to get yourself and Lupin as far from here as possible before that." His tone was final; there was no going against it.

With a resigned sigh, Draco casted at first invisibility spells on himself and Remus, and then whispered, "Mobilicorpus," pointing at his badly damaged lover. Remus had fainted again, he noticed with concern. He could just hope that the werewolf didn't have concussion, although that could be very possible, taking in the fact of what had happened to him lately.

Worry and concern over Remus didn't rid him of the nagging feeling in the back of his mind as he walked to the door of the cell, however. There he turned around and glanced at his father for one last time. Lucius watched back, silver eyes at silver eyes, both holding the gaze just as steadily. Then they both turned away at exactly the same second, not wanting to lengthen these goodbyes any more.

Both the father and the son knew that this was most probably the last time they ever saw each other, dead or alive. And while they'd hardly cared about not seeing each other during their life to that point, neither could get rid of the sad feeling they got at this thought.

*

The next afternoon, Draco sat by Remus's bed in the Hogwarts Infirmary. Soon after they had left their cell -- about the time the alarm had gone off -- the Order forces had attacked to the Riddle Manor. They had managed to get out undamaged with only a couple of close calls, and once out of immediate danger, Draco had lifted the invisibility spells on them and started to search for help to Remus. He'd been immediately directed to Madam Pomfrey, who had threatened Dumbledore to create a Portkey to move them both to the Infirmary.

Now, Draco had got past his minor wounds very soon -- as he was Lucius's son, the other Death Eaters hadn't dared to treat him very badly. However, Remus was still in too much shape to even stay awake for a long time, and according to Madam Pomfrey, he would have to stay in the Infirmary well past the full moon.

By the dawn, they'd got joyous news: Light had won the Second War. Harry Potter had permanently killed Lord Voldemort, and there was no danger of him returning, as Dumbledore had been there to destroy his spirit as it had tried to leave the dead corpse. Unfortunately, this had drained the ancient wizard of all his power, and thus their victory was shadowed by the sorrow of the death of Albus Dumbledore, as well as seemingly innumerable other people.

Now was one of Remus's waking phases. Therefore, the werewolf noticed that Severus Snape had gone to the room. He also saw Draco's eyes immediately flickering towards his Head of House, whom he still held in much respect, maybe even more nowadays than at school.

"There's something you should know," Severus said slowly. Then he seemingly decided to go right to the point, like was his usual manner. "Draco - when we looked through the house - we found Lucius's body. He was dead, we couldn't do anything for him. None of our forces did it -- it was Lord Voldemort himself."

Draco didn't say anything. Instead, he just covered his eyes with a slightly trembling hand. Remus wanted to comfort him, to place a hand on his shoulder, to somehow show that he was there with him, but found himself too exhausted to even raise a finger.

"He didn't suffer, though," continued the Head of Slytherin softly. "Seemingly Voldemort was in too much of a hurry to torture him 'properly,' and simply casted Avada Kedarva. It was the best for him, anyway. If he hadn't been killed in the battle, he would have spent rest of his life in Azkaban, going insane."

These words, although meant to comfort, did little good to the young wizard. Silent tears ran down his cheeks as he cried for the man who hadn't been much of a father until just before his death. And when he had indeed behaved like a father, he had done it in the deepest way in existence -- by dying for his son.

Then, however, Draco laid his hand on the covers of the bed, next to Remus's. Somehow, the werewolf managed to gather enough strength despite his wounds and weakness, dragging his hand slowly towards Draco's. Once he reached it, he closed his hand around that of his young lover, squeezing it weakly.

Draco weakly returned the gesture.