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Notes: A sequel to 'Shelter the Foe'. PLEASE READ THE PREQUEL FIRST. Remus/Draco, explicit slash.

It's a small mercy, he supposes, that Malfoy hadn't killed anyone when he escaped.

Remus had expected it. Snape had expected it. It was bound to happen, since security around anyone 'vouched for' by a member of the Order was lax--why waste precious labour, after all?--and it had only been a matter of time before Malfoy escaped through the reduced wards, the reduced personnel, throwing hexes aimed to injure and impede, but not to kill.

Remus takes some comfort in this. Whatever comfort there is to be had. Malfoy isn't one to coddle his enemies--he would have, should have killed an Auror or two on his way out to the Order's Floo-hub. And yet, mysteriously, he hadn't--and Remus knows he's a fool to misinterpret it as a signal meant for him, an offering of peace, because peace is the one thing that will always be impossible between him and Draco Malfoy, soldiers on opposite sides of a war.

If other members of the Order glance at Remus in pity now, wondering how he'd let himself be betrayed, they get no answers. Neither do the ones who blame Remus and think him a traitor, because Death Eater scum are Death Eater scum, and you can't change them, Lupin.

He doesn't wait for anything. Of course he doesn't. He doesn't wait for an owl, or a chance meeting in Knockturn, or indeed anything else. The war goes on. Remus goes out, fights. Comes back, transforms. Waits for the full moon to pass. Receives Snape in his quarters then, who studies him as though he is a dissatisfactory specimen, shoves an extra dose of medicinal potions into his hands, and snarls in an all-encompassing way as he Floos out again.

Remus doesn't wait, and yet he isn't surprised when the quiet whoosh of ash in his fireplace welcomes not the tall, dark form of Severus Snape or the larger form of Fabius Foultin, but a smaller body, more compact and more familiar, even though he'd only known it a few days.

He isn't surprised when the scent that greets him is just the same as it had been more than two months ago--sharp, young, sweet, tinged with sweat. He isn't surprised when the dim moonlight through the curtains lights on Malfoy's silver-blond hair, his solemn mouth.

He doesn't ask Malfoy why he is here.

Instead Malfoy just says, startlingly loud in the silence: 'You unlocked your Floo to me.'

Remus gets up from his low sofa by the Muggle table-lamp--this is a quiet apartment on the outskirts of London, a safe place for an Auror to be. There is a brief silence as Remus places the Prophet he was reading down on the little coffee table--and then he answers: 'Yes.'

'You trust me an awful lot, Lupin.' Mocking. Disappointed.

'You trust me far too much, Malfoy.'

'Ah, but this time I have a wand.'

'Ah, but this time you're not my prisoner.'

Another silence--and as the curtains stir Remus sees the moonlight meet and glance off Malfoy's eyes, silver as mercury, silver as poison. Remus doesn't feel the need to say anything, since they know each other well enough--they know what they're doing, they know what they want, and both of them know that they'll regret it. There is no battle now, no line of control--the field is open and for the taking, and Remus isn't looking at a prisoner anymore, but at an equal.

Malfoy steps closer to Remus then, into the warm circle of lamplight around the sofa, and his eyes darken with shadows so that they don't look so cruel anymore.

Remus knows better.

He knows better than to do this--because he's sober now, he's in control, and the full moon is a healthy three weeks away, and he's in full control of his faculties.

He knows better, even though he unlocked his Floo to admit the magical signature of one particular Death Eater--he knows better even though he's been not-waiting for this, for Malfoy--even though he's not-dreamt of Malfoy almost every night since the battle at North Point, and he hasn't jerked himself off to thoughts of Malfoy so often that he wonders if anyone else can even make him hard again.

He knows better than to do this--because his senses aren't heightened like the wolf's now, and he's as blind as Malfoy when Malfoy's fingers quietly switch the lamp off--and how does he know how to work Muggle things anyway?--but then Malfoy's putting his wand aside, the fool, and reaching for his own collar and opening his laces and just letting his robes drop, just like that, until he's standing nude in the moonlight, so perfect and pale that he might as well be carved from stone, that he might as well be a ghost, like Sirius was for so many years when Remus still yearned for him--that he might be a puff of smoke, a delusion, a dream, a sylph come to grant Remus what he wants.

There is no wolf-hunger now, only the desperate straining of human eyes--and when Malfoy steps close, not at all intimate and completely business-like, Remus doesn't pull back. Doesn't pull back when Malfoy's breath brushes his lips, and then Malfoy's mouth--doesn't pull back when Malfoy's fingers start undoing his buttons, Remus' shirt and trousers falling to the floor, because Malfoy has a deftness that comes from having many lovers.

Many lovers.

Remus wonders about that for a moment, silly thought that it is--but Malfoy's mouth is warm and his skin is smooth, a sudden shock of it all along Remus' own, and when their cocks brush it is carefully, almost as though asking each other for permission.

The thought almost makes Remus smile--and when Malfoy raises a questioning eyebrow Remus only kisses it, and then Malfoy's face, and his mouth, and his neck, until Malfoy's hands are clenched on his shoulders. The shock of it nearly sends Remus whirling back--because Malfoy's never touched him before, not like this, because he'd always bound Malfoy's wrists beforehand.

Bind his wrists.

He wants to, he must--because this is the enemy, and every moment spent here with him is a line in Remus' own death warrant, either from the Ministry or from Voldemort himself.  He must, because he doesn't trust Malfoy as far as he can throw him--because Malfoy could kill him anytime, capture him anytime, and take him back to Voldemort for a nice bout of questioning.

He must, but he doesn't--because Malfoy's hands are warm and surprisingly rough, even though their thinness is aristocratic--he doesn't because Malfoy's face is as uncompromisingly smooth as it was before, and his mouth is shaped just so, and he still gasps just like that when Remus reaches down to touch his cock.

This is different--not binding Malfoy, not fucking him knowing the outcome--his own death, of either the little or the rather more permanent kind. This is different but it's intoxicating too, to be touched after so many years, after Sirius' death, after his own, because Remus had been destroyed and reborn with that year of the Veil.

Malfoy's tongue is licking warmly against his own, carefully--everything still so careful careful, as though they're asking each other can I do this, I want to do this, move here, touch here, please--and it's not tender at all, but clean--it's a transaction of needs that is still being negotiated, but is perfectly understood by both parties--that this is neither more nor less than what it is--that it is fucking, simple fucking, because for some strange reason Remus doesn't wait for Draco Malfoy, and Draco Malfoy doesn't wait for Remus Lupin either.

When he finally fucks Malfoy he tries to be slow, tries to be kinder than he was before--perhaps to atone for the past--but Malfoy wants none of this teasing, and he hisses impatiently and shoves himself back, quick and vicious, throwing his head back and groaning in a way that sounds, to Remus, like something between satisfaction and pain.

So, gentleness abandoned, he finds himself moving over Malfoy's flawless back--nearly flawless, Remus notices now, tracing the faint scars there with the tips of his fingers until Malfoy writhes, hissing stop, stop, but he doesn't mean it, and even if he does Remus doesn't pay any mind, because he's fucking deeper and faster and sweet, and Malfoy's tight and Malfoy's here, right here, sharp young scent and his body a soft knife all flowing under him, slender cock hard and slick in his hands, and it's good to come here, so good, Malfoy's knees on the carpet and Remus' knees on either side of him--thrusting deep and powerful and hard, one last time, and another last time, and another until last time becomes an operative term, and he's pulsing and pulsing and pulsing, and he barely realizes, by the wet splash over his knuckles, that Malfoy has come as well.

They don't spend the night together, of course--that would be ridiculous, and entirely unwelcome--but there are a few panting moments in which Remus' mouth is moving warmly over the back of Malfoy's neck, and Malfoy's skin is sticky-smooth against his own, and Malfoy sighs, a startling, beautiful sound, when Remus slips out of him soft and wet and easy.

Nothing has changed when Malfoy gets up too, naked and damp with sweat, flushed and with stray semen dotting his thighs and belly--nothing has changed when he picks up his wand and Remus tenses, as he should, but Malfoy only casts a cleaning spell on himself and puts on his robes, and doesn't look back at Remus once, doesn't say take care or I'll kill you when I see you in battle or you fucking fool or how about next week--he doesn't look back at all, not even for an instant, as he throws a fistful of Remus' Floo powder into the fireplace and says, in a voice only slightly huskier than before: 'Draco Malfoy. Home.'

Remus doesn't ask if the Floo entitlement works both ways. It's better if it doesn't--it's better if they at least maintain a semblance of not wanting to do this every time they can get their hands on each other--it's better that Remus can pretend, that he can go back to pretending, because he's fucking the enemy, and he knows this--he's fucking Draco Malfoy, murderer, Death Eater--he's fucking the man he'll have to kill, one day, or watch getting killed, or get killed by.

Just as you will keep silent whenever he comes to visit you.

Snape's voice. Echoing.

It's all so ridiculous, for a moment, so unreal, that Remus almost laughs--but when he goes for a clean-up in the shower he's hard again, a fact nigh-impossible for a man his age, and as he palms himself to climax, as business-like and inexorable as Malfoy had been, his mind goes mercifully blank and he doesn't think of Malfoy at all.