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A Brother to Basilisks	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 85172 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 15
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter One Hundred—Half a Day of Fun
“I don’t want to move yet.”
Draco kept his eyes closed and his voice whiny. He could almost feel Harry rolling his own eyes. They’d been out by the lake for an hour, and even though it was the most beautiful day they’d had in June so far, Draco knew Harry wanted to do something else.
With Draco’s head in his lap, though, that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. And much to Draco’s pleasure, Dash seemed to share his longing for the day and didn’t want to move from his sunbathing next to the lake.
“Why just stay here all afternoon, though?” Harry’s voice was soft and rational, and he stroked Draco’s hair, and Draco bit his lip hard. “We could fly. Or we could walk down to Hogsmeade. Severus said we could.”
“I’d forgotten that he said we could go to Hogsmeade,” Draco muttered, tempted. He hadn’t really had the experience of strolling through the village in Harry’s company, and showing off for Harry in front of people who weren’t Hogwarts students.
But the melting warmth still bathed his limbs, and he honestly didn’t want to move far. If Harry could fly him into Hogsmeade, that would be perfect.
He’d opened his mouth to suggest that when he heard the slight hiss from Dash, followed by the slight laugh from Harry. Draco opened his eyes, cautiously. He appreciated Dash hissing like that so Draco would know he’d spoken, but the laughter suggested maybe a prank or something like it.
No, Dash had simply arranged himself on top of Draco, and thus on top of Harry. He’d moved so slowly that Draco had confused the warmth of his scales with the warmth of the sun itself. Draco shook his head, about the only part of him not covered with huge coils, and lay back again.
“You’re not upset?” Harry sounded astonished.
“I didn’t even feel him do it. He’s not crushing me. What do I care as long as I can lie here and be warm?”
He thought Harry probably rolled his eyes again. It didn’t matter. They were still beside the lake, they were in each other’s company, and Dash approved of Draco in a way that he thought no one else except Ron and Hermione got on a regular basis. And were either of them lying with their head in Harry’s lap right now? No. They were not.
Draco fell asleep, more than contented, even when Harry sighed and shifted loudly underneath him.
*
“That wasn’t fair.”
Harry made sure he spent a second composing his face before he looked at Draco, and that his eyes weren’t too large and innocent. “What wasn’t fair?”
“Coaxing that wave from the lake to rise up and soak me. With whatever wand movement you used. I was asleep! I couldn’t defend myself!”
“I never did anything to that wave. And don’t worry, I can protect you from rogue ones in the future. Now that I know you object to being woken up so we can go to Hogsmeade, I mean.”
Draco gave him a narrow glance. Harry, since he wasn’t obliged to admit anything, didn’t, and led Draco into the Three Broomsticks instead. He’d visited it several times before, but after the excitement and exhaustion of the Tournament, it felt further away than it had.
Some of the adults there, wizards and witches Harry didn’t know, stared to see him and Draco stroll in hand-in-hand. Harry felt a deep flush work its way over his face. Well, let them stare. Besides, most of them jumped far more when Dash crawled into the pub behind them a minute later, his tongue flickering out in interest to taste all the different scents.
*
Draco shook his head. If he tried really hard, he could remember the days when he had been nervous around Dash himself. But Harry had had him for years now, and he’d never hurt anybody—
Well, okay, Dumbledore. But Dumbledore wasn’t just anybody.
Draco shrugged away the hitch in his thoughts. The thing was, Dash had never hurt anyone except in defense of Harry. All people here had to do was stay away from any thought of hurting Harry, and they would be fine.
Dash curled himself at Harry’s feet under the table as Madam Rosmerta bustled over to them, obviously trying not to let her smile look strained. “What will you want, dears?”
“Butterbeer.”
“Butterbeer,” Draco said, and then paused. Now that he thought about it, the chilly wave Harry had struck him with had seemed to wash all the food out of his body. “And a meal. Bring me a hot sandwich and some chips.”
“Draco,” Harry hissed. “Don’t treat her like a servant.” He was almost bouncing the tabletop with the way his knee was going underneath it, and frowning at Draco.
“I’ll treat her however I want,” Draco retorted, but he did lower his voice, since Madam Rosmerta was still in hearing distance. He sniffed when he saw the hard glance Harry was giving him. “Come on, Harry. It’s her job. Not even Dash is getting upset about the way I treat her, look.”
“Dash is asleep. And when he’s awake…well, he also thinks that eating a bunch of people would have been the solution to my problems.”
Draco couldn’t help smiling. “Yes, I have to admit that would have worked. Unorthodox, maybe, but you can’t deny its effectiveness.”
Harry let his head slump gently down until his fringe hid his scar. Draco chuckled and watched him. When Harry glanced up, he blinked, as if he had thought Draco would have glanced away by now. “What is it?”
“Sometimes,” Draco said, and then spent a moment searching for another word. In the end, though, only the first one he’d thought of seemed to fit. “You’re so cute.”
Harry narrowed his eyes and sat up, opening his mouth. Then he had to close it again because Madam Rosmerta had put their butterbeer down in front of them, along with Draco’s chips. She gave him an apology for the sandwich taking longer that Draco could wave off easily. He was far more interested in Harry.
“Why? Because I’m naïve?” Harry demanded in a harsh whisper as he took a big gulp of butterbeer that left foam around his mouth.
“No. Because you take lots of things seriously, and you don’t always see your own best interest.” Draco bit into his chips, and smiled a little, surprised. They were better than they’d been the last time he’d visited the Three Broomsticks. “I would never recommend that Dash eat people. But I can agree that it would make things easier. Whereas you get all offended and nervous about it.”
“You don’t know how seriously he makes the recommendation.”
Draco shot a glance at the basilisk, who turned his head a little to show he wasn’t asleep. “Well. I know he does. But I would never agree with him that much. Just on a level that it would make things simpler, it’s a shame we can’t do it. You see?”
“I think—I just think that everyone should be respected, that’s all.” Harry made a gesture with his mug that sent foam slopping over the side. But he also seemed to see, from Draco’s face, that Draco didn’t understand, because he leaned forwards earnestly. “Dash shouldn’t threaten to eat people just for disagreeing with me. And Severus shouldn’t threaten to hex them, either.”
Draco snorted into his own mug. “I think you’ll have better luck convincing Dash to hold off on eating your enemies than you will convincing Professor Snape not to curse them.”
“But he doesn’t need to! I mean, all right, yes, someone like Scrimgeour who tried to kill me should be arrested, but they don’t need to try to kill him in return! Or curse them.”
Draco opened his mouth, then shut it and sat there in thought. He had some of the same protective impulse for Harry; he just wasn’t as powerful as Dash and Professor Snape, so he couldn’t always exercise it. And he didn’t want to say that Harry wasn’t powerful, either. This whole means of getting him involved in politics had to do with his power.
“Draco?”
“It’s just not the way I grew up,” said Draco slowly, leaning back and watching Harry from beneath his eyelashes. He picked up the sandwich, which Madam Rosmerta had bustled over to them a few seconds before, and took a calm bite. “You take revenge on your enemies because otherwise they could hurt you.”
“Why isn’t being arrested and probably put in Azkaban enough? There were so many witnesses that Scrimgeour is never going to get away with claiming self-defense.”
“He has powerful enough relatives that he might get out of it anyway,” Draco muttered, and shrugged when Harry gave him a horrified glance. “Fine, I don’t think that’s likely, either, not with that case. But it probably won’t be a long Azkaban sentence.”
“It’s Azkaban, though. You saw what it did to Sirius. That’s awful enough to wish on someone, whether it’s six months or six years.”
“But they might be able to get out of it and come hurt you again if their sentence isn’t very long. Or if they aren’t dead.”
“You said it was the way you grew up? So your father is the one who taught you this kind of thing?”
“Yes,” Draco said cautiously. From the way Harry was squinting, he had found something else to disapprove of Father for.
“How often has it happened? That he had an enemy get out of Azkaban early and come and attack him, I mean?”
Draco ate some more of his chips, frowning, despite how satisfying the crisp crunch in his mouth was. “I can’t remember. He talked to Mother once about an enemy of his who went to prison and didn’t stay there. But I don’t know if he actually came and attacked Father. He changed the subject when I came into the room. I don’t know the end of the story.”
“It probably doesn’t happen often.”
“Well, say it doesn’t.” Draco crunched his way through more of his chips andw waved his hand. “Why would you want to take the risk? Doesn’t it make sense to do something permanent to your enemies so that they don’t try to hurt you?”
Harry sank back in his seat with his eyes closed and brows furrowed. Draco tried to interrupt, but Harry waved a hand at him and said, “I’m talking to Dash right now. Be quiet, please.”
Draco went silent, more because he knew it was useless trying to interrupt one of Harry and Dash’s conversations than because he agreed. Why couldn’t Harry see? It wasn’t that Draco wanted all of his own enemies put away forever. He was doing it for Harry. That was acceptable to Harry when it was Dash or Severus. Why was Draco so different?
On the other hand, he did sound pretty upset about Azkaban at all. Maybe it wouldn’t be acceptable to him at all if it was Dash or Severus suggesting it.
Draco went on eating, his eyes on Harry, and Harry finally lifted his head and said, “I have to do something.”
“Right now?” Draco asked, and he didn’t care if he was whining. “Right when we’re in the middle of a meal together? And private? We haven’t been private in so long.”
Harry actually stared around the Three Broomsticks in a way that made Draco think he was going to say the pub wasn’t private. But then his expression softened, and he reached across the table to put his hand on Draco’s.
“You’re right,” he said quietly. “We haven’t spent enough time together lately, and I thought—well, sometimes when I have a conversation with Dash it’s so intense that it feels like I’m somewhere else for a while. But there’s no reason that we can’t stay here and eat together.” He looked up and waved at Madam Rosmerta. “Can you bring me a sandwich and chips like Draco has, please?”
“Of course, dear,” said Madam Rosmerta, with a little satisfied nod. Draco knew it was because they were spending more time in her pub, and if other people came in, they might also decide to spend time there just because Draco and Harry were.
But Draco had far more to be satisfied about, and he had things he could tease Harry about, too. He leaned nearer and fluttered his eyelashes a little, which made Harry stare at him. “Where do you see us in ten years?” Draco asked in his softest voice.
“Er—not here?”
Draco began to laugh as Madam Rosmerta came back with Harry’s plate of chips. “There isn’t a right answer, Harry,” he said, when he could control his laughter. Harry made it harder than he would ever know by staring suspiciously at Draco the whole time. “I just wanted to see how you would react.”
Harry ate while keeping his glance on Draco. Then again, Draco couldn’t help but be flattered by that. He looked back with his feelings in his eyes, and Harry finally cleared his throat and glanced away.
“I hope—I hope that we’ll live in a safe place,” Harry muttered. “With Severus and Sirius and Remus visiting. I hope Sirius will be better by then. And your mother can come visit, too.”
“Not Father?”
“If he’s proven himself smarter by then.”
Draco snorted, unable to contain his laughter, and only shook his head when Harry looked at him. “I know he’s made mistakes, and they’re clumsy ones. They’re the kind of mistakes he used to tell me he never made, in fact. So I won’t beg you to change your mind before he proves himself.”
“Okay,” Harry whispered. “So I think it’ll be a large house, because it has to have doorways that Dash can slither through without trouble, and we’ll have a house-elf or two. I don’t really like doing chores anymore, not after—”
He didn’t have to say it. Draco caught hold of his hand so he didn’t have to say it, and nodded. “I know what you mean.”
“I want it to be in the country,” Harry muttered, staring at Draco’s hand as if he didn’t know what to do with it for a second. Then his other hand came up and closed down on top of Draco’s wrist almost hard enough to hurt. “Maybe here in Scotland. I want to wake up in the morning and hear birds and wind and nothing else. And I want—in my visions, the scar on my forehead is always faded.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Draco breathed, bowing his head so the kiss he placed on Harry’s knuckles wouldn’t be visible to everyone in the pub. “It’s your idea about where we’ll be in ten years, not the rest of the wizarding world’s.”
Harry nodded slowly. “And I can picture you beside me, still asleep. I lie there and look at you. I think you’d look a lot like the way you do now, but taller, of course. Maybe a little less pointy.” Draco made an outraged sound, but Harry kept right on, and Draco didn’t really want him to stop talking anyway. “And pale. You’d look as though you were happy with life.”
“As long as I’m with you, I’m sure that’ll be true.”
Harry leaned back as Madam Rosmerta came to put his sandwich in front of him, but didn’t move his hand or his gaze. Draco thought Madam Rosmerta just chuckled indulgently. She certainly left them alone without saying anything, which was the greatest kindness Draco could think of right now. He didn’t want to be forced to pay attention to anyone except Harry at the moment.
“Sometimes I think this won’t last.”
Draco snorted. “Why shouldn’t it? Tell me that,” he added, when Harry hesitated. “Not what Dash thinks, or what you think Severus would think but what you do.”
*
He has you now. Are you going to admit that you haven’t thought about it enough to give him an answer?
But as it turned out, Dash was wrong. Harry leaned a little forwards and said, “Because this is so fast. So bright. It feels like—well, Severus has been having me read these novels because he says I need some fiction in my life, and it feels like it’s going to burn out because it’s burning so fast.”
Harry could feel his face burning. He had once been unable to imagine saying something like that to anyone. Some of the things he had thought about the Dursleys were dark and despairing and sort of the same way. He could think them, but they would sound so stupid when said aloud.
Draco, though, only watched him with brilliant stars in his eyes, while Dash nuzzled his foot. I am proud of you for saying what you think.
“Then we’ll make every effort to keep it alive,” Draco said quietly. “You can, you know. Keep fires alive, I mean. If you tend them well enough and feed them the right kind of kindling. It’s a matter of not letting it die.”
“I know where I want to be in ten years,” Harry said, flinching a little inwardly as he spoke. Sometimes it still seemed as if he would open his eyes in the middle of the day and find himself back in the cupboard under the stairs, that nothing as wonderful as this could possibly last. But he went on with it. “That doesn’t mean I think—I mean, you don’t have to be there with me if you don’t want to.”
“And you hope, and you know that isn’t the same thing as knowing it’ll come true,” said Draco, his head cocked and his eyes intense.
Harry nodded. “Exactly.”
“We can both feed the fire, you know.”
“By days like this?” Harry was sure that somewhere, in another universe, there existed a much smoother and stronger version of himself, who would know all the right answers and be able to reassure Draco that he really did want to be with him, instead of stumbling through it the way Harry did.
But Draco only smiled slowly, as if he didn’t mind that he was saddled with this awkward version of Harry. “Yes, if you want. We could also spend time together on your birthday, and on the Quidditch Pitch, and at the Manor, and in Hogsmeade, and in Diagon Alley, and in Hogwarts, and playing Exploding Snap, and chess—I’ve never showed you how good I am at chess—”
“Not better than Ron,” Harry said automatically, and then flushed a little as Draco laughed. “I meant—”
“I know what you meant.” Draco lightly closed his fingers over Harry’s and pinched them shut like he was a candle Draco was trying to snuff. “It’s all right, Harry. It’s fine,” he added, as Harry tried to open his mouth again. “We’ll get better at this together, all right?”
“You already seem to be better at it than I am.”
“I don’t have all the burdens that you do on your shoulders, either.”
Draco went back to eating his food, and Harry did the same thing after another moment. Honestly, the sandwich was delicious, and the chips crispy, and he found himself relaxing more and more as he ate. And because there were fewer Hogwarts students in the village than during the school year, and Dash was mostly out of sight beneath the table, there were fewer people staring at him, either.
They were on the road heading back from Hogsmeade to the castle when Draco reached out and took his hand. Harry glanced at him and found the way he was smiling, his eyes half-closed and his head shaking a little, gave him ideas.
He stopped in the middle of the path, making Draco turn and look at him curiously. Before Draco could say anything—which Harry was afraid would make the whole thing awkward again—Harry reached out, pressed a hand behind Draco’s neck, and kissed him.
Draco gave the softest gasp, but leaned hard against Harry almost at once, and snaked his arms around Harry’s shoulders. Harry kept kissing him, and then his other hand was traveling down.
He hadn’t told it to do that. He had an idea, but he would have sworn that he didn’t know where his hand was going until it landed on Draco’s bum and gave it a squeeze. Draco jumped into the kiss, and their teeth banged together, and their tongues tangled around each other as their mouths opened briefly.
Harry laughed.
Draco pulled back looking all red-faced and furious for a second, and then he shook his head and grinned. “If that’s your way of becoming more intimate, all I can say is it took you long enough,” he said, eyes gleaming with challenge.
“If you don’t like it, then you’re free to teach me better.” Harry tilted his head haughtily in response, and felt a distant echo of surprise from down in his chest. What am I doing? He might find someone else, he might not take it like a joke—
But from the hungry noise Draco made and the way he suddenly pulled Harry back against his chest, he wasn’t taking it as a joke or anything but a challenge.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Harry felt Dash bobbing his head in approval.
And then he lost everything but the feel of Draco’s tongue sliding against his, Draco’s hand in his hair, the warmth of their lips connecting, in the pouring warmth of the summer sunlight from above.
*
Addiena Saffir: Thank you! And here is a whiole chocolate chunk chapter. :)
Jester: Thank you! Harry didn't expect Dash to be Slytherin, either. And he will have to do something about his ripped soul next chapter, when Voldemort appears again.
SP777: Draco is determined to apply it even more often!
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A Brother to Basilisks