Sinope's Fiction: icing under skin

Title: icing under skin
Author: Sinope at (no spam!) gmail dot com
Rating: PG
Pairing: None (gen)
Summary: Remus finds Draco on the run. Draco's changed.
Author's notes: A ficlet request from sweetrickitten.
Disclaimer: This is an unofficial fan work. No profit was made; no ownership is implied.

Werewolves scent their fellow creatures through what they consume: a vampire clouds the air with the thick scent of freshly drunk blood, while a veela's blood-aura mingles with the sultry yellow aroma of semen and entrails. Humans, being less predictable, still emit unmistakable signals, shimmering with the warm oily contentment of a well-fed student or the watery malnutrition of an Azkaban inmate. That was what attracted Remus to James and Sirius; from the first day that he scented their twin trails of clotted cream and watercress sandwiches and perfect summer strawberries, he found himself inching closer in every class, breathing in a childhood infinitely more content than the one he'd known.

Remus used to know what Draco smelled like, when he was a child with schoolboy aspirations of prank-pulling, still too well-connected to be ignored. The boy smelled sticky-sweet, like lemonade left warming in the sun; he'd ignored his meals for too many desserts for Remus to smell anything but treacle pudding and licorice. Not fat, but undernourished, a pale child with more sculpted sugar icing under his skin than solid sense. Remus hadn't liked him then, but at least he'd been predictable.

And now. Draco's scent back then had no relationship with this scarecrow, this mass of bright-wide eyes and concave limbs, reeking of fear and cold rubbish-bin chips. He huddled beside a bush in a McDonald's parking lot, back digging so deep into the winter-bare branches that Remus feared they'd scar his skin, and the only thing keeping Remus from gathering him into his arms - seventeen years old, light as a young girl - was the way that Draco flinched every time Remus moved in his direction.

What did Voldemort do to you?, Remus thought, but what he said was, "Where's Professor Snape?"

"He's not Professor Snape," Draco said, and the tremor in his voice rattled with defeat.

"Where is he?" Remus repeated, crouching on the grimy pavement to look Draco in the face.

Draco shook his head, backing further into the bush but never letting his eyes leave Remus. "I don't know. I don't know. He took me to - to him, and then he -"

"He left?" Remus prompted.

"No. He watched. Professor Snape promised to protect me, he wouldn't - he couldn't be -" He broke off and looked around Remus. "Don't take me back. Please."

"I won't take you back." This time, Remus risked a tentative touch, but Draco jerked his arm back before he could reach it. Remus took a deep breath, then said, "How long ago did you leave Vo - leave them?"

"Christmas," Draco said. Three months wandering, then. "Party at the Notts. They wouldn't let Theo - they didn't tell him. About. Anyway, I got out."

Remus looked more closely at Draco's skin. The black smudges that he'd taken for grime now appeared too regular to be anything but slow-healing magical burns, the remnants of the searing bonds Remus remembered too well from the wake of the first War. "You're safe, now," he said, hating the lie that reeked from his voice. "What do you want?"

Draco blinked, his eyes still wide and unmarked by tears, and said, "I want to go to my father."

"All right," Remus said. Underneath the unwashed skin and rubbish-scrap diet, he breathed in raw emotions - nausea bubbling sourish-sweet, and cool salty gratitude. He extended his left arm to Draco, and placed his right on his wand.

finis.