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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.

Chapter List
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Chapter One Hundred and Eight—Spinning Shadows
“What do you think is worse, sir? The Wizengamot declaring Scrimgeour innocent, or someone helping him escape?”
Severus turned around from staring into the fireplace. “I thought I told you to call me Severus.”
Harry had to smile, in a way that not even Dash coiling around his leg had made him able to do. Severus would always be focused on things like that, even in the middle of a serious conversation. “Sorry. Severus.” He paused. “I still want to know which one you think is worse.”
“The Wizengamot,” Severus finally murmured. “We knew you had enemies, and it is not entirely surprising that someone kidnapped an attacker of yours out of the Ministry so that they might use him as an asset. It might not even have been Death Eaters.” He looked hard at Harry. “But that the Wizengamot declined to condemn the man who attacked you in front of so many witnesses is—concerning.”
Harry heard all the emotions underneath that statement, and nodded. “And we knew there are Death Eaters out there.”
“Yes.” Severus hesitated once. Then he said, “I have been considering whether you need more…extensive training in curses and defensive magic than you have received. We did well to strike Voldemort the way we did, and next time, he will be warier. We should use this time while he recovers from his wounds to train you.”
Harry blinked. “I thought you were going to say that I needed to learn Occlumency.”
“With Dash’s power shielding the Horcrux and your connection, I do not think it the requirement of most concern.” Severus looked at him evenly. “I do not wish to hide anything from you.”
Dash twined up Harry’s leg to his hip, tongue flicking out so that it touched Harry’s wrist. Harry didn’t need the comfort or the silent offering of reality, though. He swallowed. “You mean that you’d teach me Dark Arts.”
“Yes. I do.” Severus’s eyes and voice were both quiet.
Harry looked away and asked a question he’d wondered about, and hadn’t been able to find an answer to in any books. “Are Dark Arts actually a defense against Dark Arts? If you get addicted to them, and you get corrupted by them, it seems like I should just learn countercurses and the Light Arts. That way, I don’t turn into a copy of Voldemort.”
Dash sent a wordless wave of delight down the bond. Harry blinked. He’d thought Dash would be more enthusiastic about him learning the Dark Arts than that, especially since Slytherin must have practiced them during his lifetime.
I am glad that you’re thinking. You might have to learn them in the end, but you thought about it instead of rushing in!
Your approval is noted. Harry turned to face Severus. “Sir?” Sometimes calling him by a title would make Severus answer the question. Right now, he was just staring into the fire again.
Severus swallowed and turned to face him. “It’s a legitimate question. But you might consider the fact that three adults you have known have learned the Dark Arts and not been corrupted by them.”
Harry tilted his head. “Who? I mean, you, but who else?”
“Filius knows more than his fair share of them.” Severus smiled a little, probably at the expression on Harry’s face. “He could not be a dueling champion if he did not. Most of the competitions have a restriction only on fatal spells, not on whether those spells are Light or Dark. He had to know to them to survive.” Severus hesitated one more time, then added, “And Dumbledore knew many curses.”
“You’d say—”
“If anything, what corrupted him was too great a reliance on the ideals of the Light, the words instead of the substance. Declaring you serve the greater good does little to redeem your methods of doing so.”
Harry nodded uncertainly. “But what’s different about you and Professor Flitwick and—Dumbledore from the other Death Eaters? Or Voldemort?”
“Because we have more self-control. Or had.” Severus gave a slight shrug and turned to prowl around the room. “Voldemort never did. He sought power, and if that power came from corrupting and torturing others, he was probably more pleased. Filius had the competitions to restrict him in what he learned and what he did with the spells. Albus had the expectations of his public reputation.” He paused.
“All right,” said Harry. “What was your reason?”
“Your mother.”
Harry felt his cheeks flush, and looked the other way. They hadn’t spoken very often about the way Severus thought about his parents. He cleared his throat. “Even though—you weren’t close after she married my dad?”
“She was always in my memory. I only had to think about what she would say concerning a particular spell, and I would see her smiling or frowning. It didn’t always keep me from using curses, but it made me draw back when I had a risk of addiction.”
Harry just nodded a little. He didn’t think he knew the right thing to say yet. “All right. When do you want my tutoring to start?”
“It can be after your birthday. You have enough to think about with that coming up.”
Harry turned his head in Severus’s direction, blinking. “You don’t have to do anything huge for it, you know. It’ll just be nice celebrating it with someone who thinks I deserve presents for it.”
Severus’s face grew still, and Dash chuckled into his head. You’re not going to lessen his desire to celebrate it by talking about the Dursleys. The other way around, if anything.
Harry only shrugged helplessly, because the way he felt was the way he felt. Severus said, “We will do something pleasant. Now, come see if you can help me identify some of the messes left in these cauldrons. I’ve put off tackling them all summer to see if the mess would come to life and crawl out on its own.”
Harry smiled a little and followed Severus. It was wonderful how good chores could feel, when they were magical and he was doing them with someone else.
*
Severus sighed and flexed his hand. It was late, Harry was in bed, and a mild potion plus the wine he was drinking would soon heal the pain in his wrist from scrubbing cauldrons all afternoon.
He sipped his wine while thoughts cascaded through his head. The plans for Harry’s birthday party were in place. He didn’t have to think much about what Dark Arts he would teach Harry, because he still remembered with shimmering clarity what spells he had been taught, and in what order. The older Slytherins who had taught him had done so with the goal of avoiding addiction. Severus would trim the list of spells a little. That would be sufficient.
The left only one thing to think about, one thing he did not want to think about.
Bellatrix Lestrange was more than likely behind Cyan Scrimgeour’s escape. She had been in the Ministry, she had somehow escaped from Azkaban, and she had enough skills in casting the Imperius Curse to avoid any negative consequences from being a fugitive herself.
But they had no proof.
Severus clenched his hand into a fist. Not only did they have no proof, Harry had appointed Lucius to handle the investigation into Bellatrix. That meant Severus interfering would be seen as an intrusion, and that would probably mean an argument between him and Lucius that they wouldn’t recover from.
Severus abruptly stopped, staring at the far wall. There was a long moment when his heartbeat was louder than the fire’s crackling.
The last time he had had thoughts about interfering with someone else’s assigned task and irritating them permanently was when he had still been a Death Eater, struggling to prove himself and climb in the ranks.
Severus swallowed some more wine, and attempted to banish the image from his thoughts. No. No. That didn’t mean Harry was in line to become some kind of Dark Lord. It only meant that Severus had habits of mind he hadn’t wrenched into line to fit with the new status quo yet.
Fourteen years is a long time to not recognize a new status quo.
Grimly, Severus picked up a book. If this was the only thing he could think about, then he would just have to fill his mind with new thoughts.
*
“And then I told her that I would be happy to help her, but my cousin’s wedding was that weekend, and there was no way I could help her and still be on time for the wedding, and my cousin would never forgive me for being late, so that meant…”
Lucius sat back with a grimace of frustration and pretended interest in his victim’s babblings for the rest of the conversation. He had been seeking out Ministry workers who had a need for money or were known for having silent sympathy for the Dark Lord in the last war. There was more of a chance that they would help Bellatrix.
But so far, every lead had dissolved into conversations like this one. The “mysterious woman” his victims had helped hadn’t been Bellatrix at all, but only relatives or friends unknown to the majority of the Ministry whose identities they preferred to keep private.
Luckily, thanks to the little potion Lucius had been pouring into their drinks, they would prattle everything to him and have no memory of the conversation later. But it was boring to sit and listen to.
Lucius sighed and looked out the frosted glass door of the little café where he had brought his victim, a flunkey who worked in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. A second later, he found himself sitting up and balling his fists on the table. His breathing came short. The man across from him didn’t notice.
“…And she said fine, I didn’t have to help her, but that meant I wouldn’t get an invitation to her party, and I told her the truth, that my wife doesn’t like her anyway and would prefer she never come around again, and she said….”
Hooded and cloaked wizards might be a more common sight in Knockturn Alley than Diagon, but they weren’t uncommon here, and Lucius would normally have ignored the one he’d seen moving beyond the door. The cloak was heavy, the hood so deeply shading the face that Lucius could only catch a glimpse of a grey beard. That was hardly conclusive.
But still he was sure, remembered that stride and that particular hunch of shoulders from too many Death Eater meetings. Fenrir Greyback was stalking Diagon Alley.
Lucius dropped a few coins on the table, enough to cover the cost of the tea and his victim’s twice over, and stepped outside against the barrage of words from behind him.
“…didn’t understand why I couldn’t take back what I said about her Uncle Eric, and I said…”
Lucius pulled his own hood over his head the minute he was outside, and took a moment to cast the only charm he knew that might partially conceal his scent. He didn’t think he had that much to worry about, anyway. Greyback had complained often, to all who would listen, about how difficult it was to track a single person in a crowd of this size.
He slowed down his breathing and followed Greyback into Knockturn.
The minute the werewolf passed into the shadow of the darker alley, he threw his head back—although still not removing the hood—and strode along more freely. Lucius made his own pace more meandering, and turned frequently to look into the dusty windows at the displays of poisons and weapons. No doubt it was Greyback now.
Lucius had no desire to be caught in his reconnaissance. It would be enough to study the establishment Greyback entered.
Greyback went much further down the alley than Lucius had thought he would; both the businesses that catered specifically to werewolves and the shops holding most Dark potions ingredients and the like were near the entrance. But he finally came to a stop and reached out to knock on the door of reinforced oak that guarded a small building with only one floor. He tapped in a quick rhythm Lucius didn’t bother to memorize. He could get it from his own Pensieve memories later.
The door opened, and a flood of cold air poured out; Lucius could feel it even from here. Greyback growled something and stepped inside. The door shut, and Lucius sighed and wandered into a bookshop to cover his shock.
When he was on his way back up the alley, a book of delicate sketches he thought Narcissa might enjoy tucked under his arm, he let himself think more about the building.
He didn’t know for certain, since it bore neither name nor address, but he had his suspicions. That was most likely a lodging house for those whose names might cause the Aurors to sit up and take notice.
And where Greyback had gone once, he might return.
*
Draco tucked the egg closely against his chest and smiled up at his mother. His mother gave him a small, calm smile back, and reached over to smooth his hair out of his eyes.
“I’m glad to have you back with me,” she murmured, “even though I understand that you must have enjoyed your stay at Hogwarts.”
Draco nodded and took a bite of the raspberries his mother had insisted he have for breakfast this morning. He didn’t think she really believed he had eaten well at Hogwarts, even though the elves had been thrilled to have another person to feed during the summer.
He glanced around the breakfast room. It was a soft blue color that made the sunlight falling through the window shimmer. It had a small table with room for only two chairs, both of them slim and made of delicate white wood. He had only seen his parents eat here when he was younger and they wanted some privacy.
“Why are we here, Mother?”
Narcissa put down her teacup and fixed her eyes on him. “I have the feeling that your father knows more about this than I do. But his thoughts and my thoughts on it are not necessarily the same.”
Draco stared at her, wary. “Thoughts about what?”
“Why have you chosen Harry Potter as the one to spend the rest of your life with?”
Draco could have cooked an egg on his cheeks. He cleared his throat. “Um—um. I mean, we’re dating. That d-doesn’t mean we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together.”
“I know Malfoys, and the look in your eyes is the same that your father wore when he looked at me as a young woman, before we married.”
“Mother, I really, really didn’t need to know that,” Draco whispered. He buried his head in his hands. He might have tried to flee the table, but, well, his mother would only come after him.
“I can think of several reasons you might have chosen him. But I wanted to talk with you and hear them from you first.”
“Motherrrrr.”
“What have I told you about whining, Draco Malfoy?”
“Not to do it,” Draco muttered, and lifted his head with a sigh. “I just—look, I’m not thinking about marrying him, Mother.”
“Does he know that?”
Draco shook his head roughly and scrubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t really know. I just—Mother, it was so hard not to want to date him. The way he was a Parselmouth and stood up to the whole school about it. And he likes me back. And he agreed to be my friend even though we’d been enemies for years. And he includes me when his friends are doing something. And he has Dash. And he looks at me with his eyes…” Draco trailed off.
He didn’t think he had the words for the way Harry’s eyes looked when he was staring at Draco, and if he did, he certainly wouldn’t share them with his mother.
“Well.” Narcissa picked up her cup again and sipped from it. “That explains some of the choices you’ve made, and soothes some of the fears I had.” She reached out and delicately trailed her fingers over Draco’s forehead and down his cheek. “And in the meantime, I will make every effort to support you and ensure that your Harry wins the war.”
Draco blinked. “I thought you were already doing that.”
“I was supporting his efforts because your father wanted to be free and I believe it would be better if the Dark Lord never returns. That, and my cousin Sirius cares for Harry. But I wasn’t convinced that it would be a good thing for you to date him.”
Draco opened his mouth to demand how the two things could possibly be different, then ended up closing it again, with a sigh. Hadn’t he just thought how difficult it would be to make Mother understand? He would give up on the words.
“I’ve finished breakfast. May I be excused?”
“Yes, of course. I know that you probably want to go back to your bedroom and warm the egg before the fire.”
Draco stood up and stared at her. Narcissa gave him a faint smile and reached out to touch his forehead again. “Remember that mothers notice more than you think, dear.”
If Draco didn’t have the words to explain how he felt about Harry to his mother, he especially didn’t have words to explain about the egg, when he didn’t know what sort of snake it was going to hatch into. He ended up smiling in a way that was probably shaky and going back to his room.
And he did warm the egg before the fire. But more because that was what Dash had said to do instead of it being because his mother had said so.
He thought so, anyway.
*
“Do you feel that you have anything more to learn from us?”
Sirius fixed his eyes on the carpet in front of him. It was a complex pattern of intertwining shells and flowers, and he had looked at it before when he was trying to work out a problem and needed to distract his mind.
This time, it wouldn’t be distracted. His thoughts only orbited the problem, and Sirius finally looked up and said, “No.”
“Why not?” Lughborn held out an etched glass of hot chocolate to Sirius, who took it and sipped at it.
“Because I’ve learned basic lessons so many times. And you never told me there were any more complex lessons. When I asked about other things I should be learning, you told me I would have to live them to learn them.”
Lughborn’s face remained uncomplicated and serene, but Sirius knew there could still be unpleasant surprises hiding under that expression. “Do you feel ready to learn and live them?”
Sirius licked his lips. He had thought he was before, and had had to come back here a few times, like when he looked an article that mentioned Severus Snape being Harry’s “adopted father” and exploded half the room with his magic. But now, he could feel those lessons and meditations he’d learned carefully enclosing some of his temper in chains.
The rest of his temper, he would just have to learn to live with.
“Yes,” he said, and looked up.
Lughborn put down his own glass on the low table between them. His face wore a slight smile now. “Good. I think you are right. There are no more complex lessons that you need to learn. Your problem was deep, but not wide-ranging, if that makes sense.”
“Yeah. And I know that it’s—going to take time. For me to make things up to Harry and for him to accept me.”
“As long as you know that, then I have few qualms with letting you return to England. You should keep in mind that you will continue to need Healers, if only to supply you with Calming Draughts. Unless you are going to learn to brew them yourself?”
“No. Um. Potions isn’t—fun for me.” Sirius had to leave unsaid that he despised Potions because it was Snape’s favorite subject.
“Then you will keep in regular contact with a Healer.” Lughborn turned and gathered up a clump of parchments from the floor beside his chair. With a sinking heart, Sirius watched him flip through them. “These are the other potions that will be good for you to have on hand when you feel as if your magic might escape from you.”
Sirius flipped through the parchments himself. Dreamless Sleep. Pepper-Up Potion. The Draught of Peace. Half of them he’d only heard of because Lughborn had made him take them in the past few months. He dropped the stack. “You’re saying I need to spend the rest of my life on potions?”
“I’m saying that you need to spend as much of your life as necessary, because they will help you avoid repeating your mistakes.”
Sirius only opened his mouth until he remembered the look in Harry’s eyes after Remus had almost bitten him. He winced and nodded. “All right. I’ll make sure that I’m in contact with—Healers and brewers.” He wasn’t going to ask Snape to brew for him any more than Snape would be willing to do so.
“When you think you are ready, then you can try living your life without the potions,” Lughborn murmured. “But until then, I would hold your mental calm more important than any hypothetical freedom you may have without these.”
Sirius thought about it, then resolutely tucked the parchments into his pocket and reached out to shake Lughborn’s hand. “Thank you. Do you think I could make it back to Britain in time for Harry’s birthday?”
“Yes. But you should consider telling him you’re coming, not simply walking into any celebration his friends may be holding and surprising him.”
Sirius nodded fervently. That would be tempting, if only to see Snape’s face, but…
The one he really wanted to see was Harry’s, smiling at him.
He would do anything to achieve that.
*
SP777: Cyan Scrimgeour attacked Harry in front of other people at the party Harry gave for potential allies.
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A Brother to Basilisks