I'm so sorry this took so long, I've been deliberating where to go with this fic. Also, college.

Part Five:

Your Shadow in the Darkness

So, that happened. Remus wasn't sure, really, but that cleaning charm had been pretty weak and he could smell it, just underneath the smell of morning, and sleep, and old wood and the tea he spilled on the rug the other day – under all of it he could smell the come.

Which probably had more to do with the time of month than anything else, but it was just one more reason to feel guilty.

Draco rolled out of bed early, as usual, quietly dressed, and made his way down to the kitchen. He put on the pot, stood outside in the cold air for a smoke, and then came back in to fix the eggs.

It was still chilly outside. And he was running out of cigarettes.

And last night Lupin and he had… yeah. So, there was that.

Hopefully Lupin would just let it go. He cursed himself for being so bloody weak. He'd practically begged, how disgusting is that? And Lupin obviously wasn't interested or he would have tried something on any of the many, many occasions that Draco had had too much to drink and slurred his way through a clumsy come-on.

Gods, he felt like such a child. And that was oddly comforting, really, because the last person who could really make him feel that woefully immature and inadequate was Severus, of course. And wasn't that just unfair?

But Lupin didn't seem to be taking it well. He trudged downstairs even later than usual, frowned 'hello,' barely touched his toast. He looked like he'd hardly slept the night before – dark circles around his eyes, and a tightness in the jaw.

"Draco-" he stated, just as Draco was about to step out onto the porch for a smoke. "Do you… is there somewhere you can stay?" Draco stiffened and then cursed himself for being so transparent because Lupin obviously noticed it and immediately added, "Just for a while—"

"It's your house," Draco answered, wishing he wasn't giving himself away by sounding so cold. He turned and walked out onto the porch rather than give Lupin a chance to elaborate.

Remus wanted to protest, but the boy was already through the door. He sat staring at his tea for another minute, and then finally he stood and decided to try again.

"Draco…" he ventured as he stepped out onto the porch. Draco didn't turn or even acknowledge that he'd heard him, though. "Look, Draco, it's not that I don't want you here," he said in his best concerned-professor voice. Draco stiffened. Remus sighed.

Draco tossed his cigarette and turned back into the kitchen and Remus followed, caught his arm, held him back.

"What?" the boy asked, sounding at once exasperated and a little frantic. "You want me out of your bed, and out of your house? Fine. Let me go!"

"No! No it's not that…. It's just…" Remus wavered. All this time the boy hadn't once mentioned it and he just couldn't bring himself to remind him who… what… he was living with. But… "the moon," he said quietly, and sank down at the kitchen table, defeated.

"That's why you…? Oh for Salazar's sake, Lupin!" the boy exclaimed, and stormed out of the kitchen and up the stairs, Severus' robes billowing behind him. Too confused to really respond, Remus just sat at the table. Mere minutes later, the boy was back carrying a steaming goblet which he placed unceremoniously on the table in front of Remus. The goopy liquid sloshed over the rim a little, and the pungent smell was almost overwhelming: wolfsbane.

"How…?" Remus started to ask, looking up to see Draco leaning against the counter, arms crossed, and rolling his eyes.

"You thought I was willing to live here with you without it? I started preparing the day after you moved in."

He spat the words, and Remus couldn't tell whether it was the usual disgust at his condition, or that notion that it hadn't occurred to him to ask Draco, Severus' potions protégé, for help with this.

"Thank you," he said, meeting the boy's eyes. Draco just shrugged.

"Self-preservation," he answered, but Remus was pretty sure that wasn't all. And he was surprised to find he was glad about that.

"And you're sure it'll…"

Draco sighed, and huffed, and walked out of the room. Probably not the best tactic, questioning his brewing skills. Remus picked up the goblet and gulped the gloppy, grainy liquid down, wincing and fighting a retch. At least it tasted about as disgusting as it's supposed to.

He set the goblet in the sink and followed Draco upstairs. He found him sitting on Severus' bed, their bed, a small bag of clothes on the floor beside him.

"You don't have to go," he whispered, sitting down beside the boy. Draco stiffened momentarily, but then seemed to relax, and leaned incrementally closer.

"I can't just stay here forever," he answered.

Remus thought that maybe he could, but he didn't say that. Instead, he offered, "it's not forever. Just for now."

After a pause, Draco nodded, and seemed to exhale. Remus dared to wrap an arm around the boy gently, and he relaxed into Remus' shoulder.

Lupin insisted that he lock and ward the basement for the night, and was still arguing until the last minute that Draco should go stay somewhere else. But honestly, where was he going to go? The manor was in Ministry hands, and it's not like he had many friends these days. Even if he had the money, he doubted anyone would rent him a room. And if they didn't, he'd probably find himself conveniently smothered by an errant pillow. Other than Potter (and he really hoped he wouldn't have to stoop that low) there was hardly anyone who would take him in.

So he warded the basement, and warded the stairs, and the door to the bedroom, and sat up, listening for signs of distress.

Which is pretty much all he heard from about dusk till somewhere close to midnight, when it changed to something more like the whine of a dog who wants to be untied. And then around 4am, as the sun was just rising, he heard woke to an ear-splitting wail. He waited until the faint grey of the morning light was pricking through the sheer curtains of the bedroom window.

Then, summoning his courage, and a spare blanket, he wrapped himself and padded down the stairs and down into the basement.

Lupin was lying on the ground, curled into a ball of misery, covered in little scrapes and with long, painful-looking bruises around his joints. His knees, hips, shoulders, even his elbows and wrists were shadowed in greyish blue. His body looked ashen where the bruising stopped, and if he hadn't been gasping faint, shallow breaths, Draco would have doubted he was even alive.

Without really thinking, Draco summoned a blanket, some flannels, and a bucket, which he filled with an aguamenti and heated. Lupin groaned just as Draco began to dip one of the flannels into the hot water, and winced when the cloth first came into contact with his battered flesh. Draco almost winced in sympathy. As someone constitutionally unsuited to physical injury himself, he had never much enjoyed the more sadistic gratification of seeing others in pain. And seeing Lupin this way was… devastating… really. He seemed suddenly so vulnerable, lying there, stiffening and whimpering in quiet agony as Draco dragged a hot cloth across his raw skin, his bruised joints, his torn, bleeding jaw. He wrung the cloth out in the water over and over, and it slowly turned from clear to pink to red.

Eventually Lupin groaned and turned over when prodded, lying on his back on the blanket Draco had wrapped around himself. Lupin's eyes were closed, sandy hair plastered to his pale forehead. Draco couldn't resist the impulse to brush it out of his eyes, assuring himself that he was just checking for further injury. He very deliberately did not look down at the trail of sandy-brown hair that led down to a pink and flaccid cock nestled in wiry hair. Instead his gently wiped away the blood and grime

When the last of the little cuts and scrapes had been cleaned, he vanished the bloody water and, with more prodding, helped Lupin to sit up and finally to stand up and limp slowly up to the bed and lie down.

He slept for the rest of the day.

Remus had barely managed to regain consciousness when he heard the door opening and soft footfalls on the landing above. For a panicked moment he forgot that he'd already transformed, but even the relief of that realization was quickly replaced by the alarmed realization that he was bruised, bloody, and entirely naked. The thought of someone, anyone, seeing him like this… he never let people see him after a transformation. Not since his parents.

The only exception was Severus, of course. When they had developed the wolfsbane together, and sometimes after that, when they were together over the full moon. But never a friend, or lover, or (gods forbid) a student. Although he wasn't quite sure where he would have put Draco, as far as those categories went. Still, he wanted to stop Draco, tell him to turn back, but everything ached and he was so cold, and maybe it wasn't so bad it the boy wanted to… surely not… But there was no mistaking the quiet charm that filled a hollow bucket with water, and Remus shivered and groaned when the hot flannel pressed against his sore skin, and suddenly he remembered the feel of Severus strong, sure hands delicately, meticulously, almost clinically cleaning out his wounds. Gods… did Draco know how much he was like Severus? How much his careful, clinical detachment, his wordless, thankless service, resembled Severus'?

The soft brush of skin against his, the smell of Draco's hair, and the nervous way he chewed his lip and studiously avoided looking at Remus' cock… these things were not Severus, these things, these little details, they were all Draco. Remus couldn't only thank the misery of his transformation for the fact that he did not grow hard under the boy's care. He managed, painfully, to stand, and let Draco lead him up to the bedroom, frequently leaning on him when he stumbled, or struggled, and surprised again and again at the strength hidden beneath Severus' overlarge robes.

Lupin slept most of that day, and the next two days afterward. He hardly spoke, ate sparsely, and generally seemed miserable. His wounds and bruises couldn't be healed by magic, but healed much more quickly than normal anyway, and by the third day, though still dazed and sore, he seemed on the mend. Draco alternated between overbearing worry and trying to stay out of his way. He couldn't tell what Lupin expected of him, or wanted, or needed, and he didn't want to ask, and it's not like Lupin would tell him anyway, so he just tried to anticipate things like needing food and water and whatnot and otherwise keep clear.

On the third day since the full moon, Draco waited until night to return to the bedroom, and was unsurprised to find Lupin still asleep. Or so he thought, because the moment he climbed into the bed on his side (and when had it become his side? Because it was, there was not doubt about that), Lupin stirred, and rolled onto his back, and stared open eyed at the ceiling.

"I want…" Lupin started, taking a breath, but then exhaling with a, "I want to thank you, for... staying…"

Draco stared into the darkness and whispered, "I want…" but he couldn't really say it, could he? Maybe.

"Draco?" Lupin asked, and there was enough depth and growl to it that Draco dared go on.

"I want you to…" he paused and moved closer, close enough to brush his lips against Lupin's ear. "I want you to take me like you used to take him," Draco whispered, and Lupin groaned, rolling over and sliding between Draco's legs.

His long fingers, so very much like Severus', probed and prepared him, his other hand stroking Draco's cock. And if Draco closed his eyes, he could imagine it was Severus above him, Severus' weight over him, Severus' terrifyingly hard length pressing into him, filling him.

He cried out as Lupin began moving inside of him – he was impossibly full and acutely, painfully aware of every slight movement, and then Severus' cock (it had to be Severus, because only Severus could ever have made him feel this way – he knew that) began pressing stroke for stroke against his prostate and the pleasure flared and built and then long, white fingers wrapped around his cock again and stroked him firmly and he cried out again and whimpered as Severus pounded into him mercilessly, pulling him, driving him, chasing him to an orgasm that burst out of him in thick ropes as he whispered, "Severus."

Moments later, Lupin stilled above him, and Draco felt himself filled with wet warmth. He winced at the sting and the strange, insecure emptiness left behind when Lupin pulled out, and again at the burn and tingle of a cleaning charm.

They lay side-by-side in the bed together, in the darkness. Presently, Lupin remarked, "You remind me of him, too."