Author: Mosh
Fandom: Harry Potter

Title: A Way Out
Pairing: Remus/Draco
Rating: R
Summary: Remus hopes Draco will take his chance, before it's too late.
Disclaimer: These boys belong to J.K Rowling. No money being made, no copyright or trademark infringement intended.
A/N: This is mild dark fic, with some angst. With many thanks to Anise and Toni for the beta! 2500 words.

Note: You may not archive, re-post, or alter any of my stories without my permission. Please contact me first. Thanks!

I

Draco curls cat-like on the floor in front of the hearth, his robes cocooned tightly around him, the soft flicker of dying flames in the fireplace illuminating his body. It's funny; cats are generally quite independent, and although he often gives off the illusion of indifference, it's a lie. He's not independent; he depends on his captors, and for more than just food and shelter.

Draco is depending on his captors for his life.

"Wake." Remus passes his hand across the slumbering figure's brow. Five days until full moon.

Draco's eyes snap open. "What?" He blinks, disorientated and confused.

"Isn't it about time you got up?"

"Fuck you, Lupin."

* * * * * * * * * * *

There is a way out and Draco knows it; Remus is sure Draco knows it. It's buried somewhere deep beneath the mumbling and flinching Draco exhibits in his sleep; it's a nightmare for him. He's just unwilling to believe that things will go far enough for him to use it. If only Remus could weed his way inside Draco's mind and counsel him there, where he couldn't fight or yell. If only he could find a way to make the boy see that things aren't going to change and that he should take his opportunity right now, while there's still time.

Draco turns over on the flagstones, his cream-white belly soft-looking and sumptuous. He's like cake, iced in odourless sweat, the tang of which is sweet in the air. It trickles down the stone walls from their combined breath and lack of decent ventilation in the room. Remus's eyes close but his nostrils flare, his taste buds swell, his hands clench hard on his thighs, bruising himself.

Four days until full moon.

"Draco."

He bites his lip as he crawls across the floor to where Draco is sprawled on the carpet.

"Draco?"

His hands are shaking as he hesitantly curls his fingers around the boy's neck and strokes the fine column of flesh, Adam's apple a glorious rise beneath silk skin.

Help. Oh, please... it's starting already...

He calms.

"Get out," Remus whispers, closing his eyes and willing it so. "Get out of here, Draco. I know you know how." He picks up a hand, limp and elegant, and holds it to his chest. "Before time runs out."

When Remus finally opens his eyes Draco is awake and staring back at him. The boy pulls his hand back and turns towards the fireplace, and all Remus can do is look helplessly at him, at a complete loss.

* * * * * * * * * * *

It's amazing how many places there are to hide in a room sporting only a dirty sink, a toilet, and a slot in the wall through which food is passed. He wishes he had the wolf's senses all month long. That way he'd be able to tell exactly who was feeding them. At present, the poison being put into his food - which he can taste the bitterness of, but is too hungry to reject the meat - is making his impending transformation arrive much quicker than normal. He doesn't know how they're managing it, but they've found a way, his captors. To them it's just a game, and a punishment for Remus and Draco; the former for being a member of the Order, the latter for misbehaving in the face of Voldemort. The boy has no idea that the man he is currently sharing a cell with is already feeling the beginning effects of the change - heightened sense of smell, desire for Draco's skin and blood, oh God it's terrible what their captors are doing in the name of their Dark Lord.

They're as far from human as Remus will soon be. Possibly even further.

Remus uses the pipes under the sink as a shield from the boy's unnecessary wrath. He waits it out patiently, watching what little energy Draco has left be wasted on anger.

"It isn't supposed to be like this!" Draco yells, frustration etched in the frown lines on his forehead.

Remus peers at the figure moving in the sparse light. There isn't much to throw, so Draco pummels his fists in the air like there's an invisible punching bag in front of him.

"Father! FATHER!"

Remus keeps quiet. God forbid he tries to talk to the boy; to suggest Draco save his own life. The stubborn little swine.

God strike Remus down but he's been feeling very bad things for the last three days, things directed at the boy. Draco most likely doesn't have a clue what day it is.

* * * * * * * * * * *

"In about two days, I'll be picking you out of my teeth."

"This is a test. I know it is," Draco says, his voice higher pitched than usual. "Father wouldn't... he wouldn't."

Remus does pity him, but the situation is getting desperate. "Didn't you refuse to fight for Voldemort?"

Draco flinches at the mention of the name, but he doesn't let his anger slip. "He wouldn't."

"Didn't you refuse to get your hands dirty? Isn't this your punishment?"

"He wouldn't, he can't!"

"Maybe they are trying to scare you into submission-"

"Shut up."

"But what if they're not? What if they really mean for me to kill you?"

"Shut up!"

Remus tries hard to ignore the smell of him. There isn't much wood left to burn so Remus doesn't set more logs in the dwindling fire. Instead he forces himself back across the room to his own place by the wall and watches Draco through the night, as the darkness steadily grows cold and damp.

* * * * * * * * * * *

It's the strangest thing to see the food hatch open, a tray splattered with goop that barely resembles food pushed through, and Draco actually whimper with hunger, before turning towards the wall. The strangest thing.

Remus slides the tray towards the boy's back. "Eat something." He leaves it a few inches away and waits.

What feels like an age later, he sees Draco's arm fumble blindly behind him, scrape up a small handful of goop and throw it at the wall.

Not good. Two days until full moon. The boy needs to eat because he's looking like a bag of bones, his hair limp and stringy around his forehead. His arms are wiry, legs even more so. Remus nudges the tray a fraction closer to Draco.

"All right, fine!"

And isn't this the shock; Draco rolls over to face him.

"What do you want?"

Remus blinks at the boy's scowl.

"Well? What the hell is it that you want? Or can you no longer understand English, half-breed?"

"Eat the food," Remus says quietly, firmly. "And don't be disrespectful. I'm all you've got in here."

Draco's lips are cracked and look sore. He angrily smacks his hand down onto the tray, scoops up some food and then sucks it off his fingers. "Satisfied now?" he snaps before he's even finished eating.

Remus knows damn well Draco has been waiting for this opportunity to eat. Let him act the brat. Let him use Remus as a means.

Though Remus can't help but wonder what good it'll do in the long run if Draco doesn't take his chance to get out soon.

* * * * * * * * * *

Twenty-four hours to go.

Sometime during the night Draco comes to him and lies down next to him, silent and cautious. Remus feigns sleep and inwardly struggles for control. The heat and closeness is toxic. It excites the wolf in him. He wants to touch, to press his face into the sloaping curve of Draco's neck. He wants to bite.

Come morning Draco is back in his place by the hearth, as if it had never happened.

Remus wonders if it had been a fancy, after all, but the taste of the boy's sweat is still ripe in the back of his throat, his cock is still desperately hard at the very memory of the night before, so he's quite sure it was real. It's unsettling in its innocence. Draco needed him last night, but was too afraid to ask outright.

It's unsettling because Remus had been too distracted by the intensity of the boy's scent to dare touch him, thrusting his hips at nothing in the dead of night, Draco mere inches away.

He would never know. Never.

What did it matter if he did? Time was almost out.

* * * * * * * * * * *

"He's not coming." Draco looks up to the tiny barred window. The late-afternoon light is fading already and there is no time left. His wide grey eyes turn on Remus, no longer burning with fury, but now settling into the realisation that his father wasn't bluffing; he is expendable if proven to be no use to Voldemort's cause.

Remus is a shivering bag of nerves. He huddles in on himself with his tattered robes wrapped around his body, pressed up against the wall. He can hear a tap-tap-tapping in his head and realises that it's the sound of his teeth chattering.

"No time, Draco," he says, as the light dims further, about to betray him. "You know how to save yourself, so do it, or I will be forced to kill you."

Draco is as tense as a cornered rabbit, standing across the small room, his back to the dead fireplace.

"Lupin," he says, addressing Remus directly for the first time since they had been put into the cell. "He's not coming."

"I k-know," says Remus. "Unless..."

It takes Draco a moment to gather himself. He stares at Remus, almost as if he's about to resist and replace his hope in the fact that his father will come and take him away before Remus begins to transform. The boy sucks in a breath, blinks, then whispers, "I'll show him. I'll sort things out." He goes to the food slot and pushes the flap open.

"All right!" His voice echoes around the corridor outside. "I'm sorry! Let me out! Let me out, please! I want to serve you, my lord! Father!"

Remus slides down the wall and lands on the flagstones, his limbs aching and head pounding. No Wolfsbane; he had forgotten how hard the change was without it, it's been so long. He looks at Draco's back as the boy lies on the floor and screams his allegiance to Voldemort, his eternal obedience, anything he can think of.

Please, please don't let him be too late, is Remus's last thought as the night falls, shrouding him in darkness and mind-numbing pain.

* * * * * * * * * *

He isn't sure how many months pass; it's all a blur of starvation and loneliness, transformation and need, exhaustion and nightmares. Remus cannot function properly anymore. When Draco was there it was like he had something to anchor him; a purpose: the boy's escape, a small triumph in a situation so desolate. He sometimes wonders where Draco is and what he's doing. Did he take the Dark Mark? Or did he escape, somehow?

Now Remus no longer has a purpose. How long will they keep him, he wonders. The food still comes, disgusting and tainted with poison. The logs still appear for the fireplace. The pipes in the walls groan every time he turns on the sink tap to drink the water. But there's nothing to feel or think about.

He's on the edge of the next moon when a new prisoner is thrust into the small room with him. The door bangs loudly and there are voices swirling around the corridor outside. Remus assumes they are of the Death Eaters.

The new boy is a mere silhouette against the dusk light, thin and wiry.

Remus hasn't strength enough to talk to him, but figures that this must be another disobedient fledgling of Voldemort's. He remains huddled in the corner, his stomach a dull, hollow ache. He has been living off stale air for so long that he now wheezes when he draws breath.

"Lupin."

He almost responds, yes, that's me, but can't. His eyelids are so heavy it hurts to look up.

"Lupin?"

Oh just leave me alone.

"Lupin, isn't it about time you got up?"

The room fades around the edge of his vision, black and smoky, like falling into a dark tunnel. No energy left to do anything, Remus senses hands on his body, pulling and hurting, pinching his skin, lifting him up above the ground. He hears voices; many voices. Unable to fight them off he relaxes and goes limp in their grasp.

This could be the end.

He hopes it is the end.

II

"... alert Dumbledore that he's awake. Go on now - I have work to do..."

"... Lupin's experiences while in captivity could...."

"... be okay? I want to stay with him tonight."

"No, Mr Potter, you cannot do anything for him. He needs rest..."

"... your late night visitor, Mr Lupin. I cannot deny that I am shocked by..."

"Lupin?"

Draco?

"... of all people. He was found stumbling towards Hogwarts with news of..."

"Hey, Lupin?"

Draco, what? That is you, isn't it?

"... the only reason we found Remus. We owe the boy..."

"... his life. Who'd have thought that Malfoy..."

"... when you used to come up here after your change. I sometimes wondered how you pulled through it - so small for your age..."

"... It's over, Lupin."

Draco?

" I have to go."

* * * * * * * * * *

Soup. Oh wow, soup. Remus takes a sip straight from the bowl before his eyes have fully grown accustomed to the light spilling through the window opposite.

"That'll be murder on your stomach, Remus," Pomfrey says, watching him from the side of his bed. "For Merlin's sake, slow down! You were never this bad when you were a teenager." Her thin, wrinkled hands catch hold of his and she pulls the rim away from his lips. "Easy." Gently, she tilts the bowl back so he can drink again, much slower this time.

"Mmm," Remus murmurs against the bowl, the hot broth a glorious mixture of vegetables and meat. It's beautiful and it is indeed murder on his stomach. He can already feel his gut curdling, unused to the sweet, succulent taste of fresh food after all this time. He takes a moment to lie back before he speaks, his throat burning pleasantly from the soup.

"Madam... Poppy."

Pomfrey's lower lip quivers. She gazes down at him with a melancholy expression, setting her mouth into a small smile. "Dear Remus. Welcome back."

He closes his eyes and hears her move away. Poppy Pomfrey, though hard and fussy on the outside, is a true wonder. She had always known when to make herself scarce to avoid any uncomfortable moments, particularly after some of Remus's worst transformations when he was growing up.

"Thank you," Remus whispers. His limbs tingle with the sudden rush of nourishment. He may later regret eating so fast, but for now he doesn't care; he's safe in the Hospital Wing of Hogwarts. He is home at last.

That is his final thought as he falls gratefully into sleep.

Some time during the night he wakes to a hand on his shoulder.

* * * * * * * * * *

" Well I never..." says McGonagall. "Headmaster?"

"Let them be," comes Dumbledore's rumbling voice.

Remus is only half-awake and cannot be bothered to open his eyes or turn over to face them, though he wonders what they're talking about. Later, when all is dark and quiet, he hears a creaking noise, like springs in a chair. It's coming from next to his bed. There is a sniff, but Remus is still too sleepy to question it.

* * * * * * * * * *

In the morning Remus is surprised to open his eyes to the sight of a young man sitting in the chair beside his bed, staring back at him with large, sharp grey eyes. He's still too thin, but much healthier-looking than when they were in the cell together. 'So he managed to avoid following in his father's footsteps after all', Remus thinks with relief.

"Draco."

"Lupin."

"You...?"

"Yeah... me."

~Fin~