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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 Nineteen—Binding Bellatrix
“I want to know how she managed to appear as one of your people.”
Susana hissed. The tongue that lashed between her teeth wasn’t forked, the way Harry thought it would be for an instant, but it was strong, muscular, and a lot greyer than most human tongues. “I want to know the same thing,” she said, and stalked forwards, moving like a predator. She loomed over the woman in Dash’s coils. “Speak!”
Harry watched Susana more than he watched Bellatrix. For one thing, he knew she wasn’t going anywhere as long as Dash held onto her.
For another, he had to figure out if this was really a surprise, or if Susana was concealing treachery.
Bellatrix only laughed scornfully, and moved her head so that some of her long dark hair fell away from her face. She couldn’t exactly use her hands to brush it back; Dash had both of those securely pinned at her sides. “There is no reason for me to do so. You know who I serve. You know I will die before I give up my loyalty to him.”
Susana hissed at the woman. Bellatrix curled her lip a little, as if she was disgusted, but did nothing else.
“That’s probably true,” Harry muttered, and saw Lucius nodding from the side. “She was one of the few Death Eaters who didn’t say they were under Imperius. And she went to Azkaban rather than give up serving Voldemort.”
“Then what is she doing here?”
“She used enchantments to make it look as if she had never left Azkaban,” said Lucius. His voice was harsh. He pointed his wand at Bellatrix, but the woman only sneered at him in turn. “I know spells that would compel her to talk.”
Bellatrix laughed again. “You think you can cast the Imperius with enough force to affect my will, Lucius? Not to mention that your little Lord there probably won’t let you use an Unforgivable.” She moved her head scornfully in Harry’s direction.
Harry faced her and clenched his fists. He could feel his own helplessness seizing him, paralyzing his muscles. He thought Bellatrix was right. All you really needed to resist Imperius was a strong will.
Dash?
No good, Dash said gently, as Harry had thought he would. I thought about trying to influence the serpent in her Mark, but it’s been paralyzed with some sort of magic I don’t recognize. Even with the soul of someone who lived hundreds of years ago, I don’t recognize all the spells there are. I’m sorry, Harry.
Harry nodded grimly. Then he—he supposed it would have to be torture. Even though the thought made him sick to his stomach.
But he would have to watch. Looking away would make him a coward.
He’d actually opened his mouth to say something to Lucius, but Draco stirred at his side and leaned forwards. “What have I been training for, Harry, if not this?” he asked softly. “Let me have a turn.”
Harry paused. He knew how much Draco wanted revenge on Bellatrix. He knew Draco had been training just for that.
It didn’t mean Harry was comfortable letting Draco take the risk of getting too close to Bellatrix.
But from the obstinate way Draco’s jaw was set, he also knew that he would get no peace or respect from Draco if he didn’t let him try.
“All right,” he said, and moved out of the way. Draco moved towards Dash and kneeled down in front of his aunt. Dash didn’t let her go, but he watched Draco with interest, even darting out his tongue as if he wasn’t picking up Draco’s scent in a familiar way.
Dash, what do you think?
There are enchantments in shared blood that run deeper than Imperius. That I do know, Harry.
*
“My weakling sister’s weaker whelp,” Bellatrix sneered at Draco as he knelt down on the grass. “What do you think you’re doing, boy? You’ll never amount to anything.”
Draco said nothing. It was odd. He had thought he would be burning with anger the minute he saw his aunt, and for a few moments after Dash grabbed her, then that anger was there. But it had melted into something so cold and calm that he felt as if he were made of little snowflakes sparkling on crystal.
Mother would approve.
Draco reached into his robes and took out the small silver knife he was never without, now. He’d only brought one to the meeting because the full set was more awkward to carry and the last thing he wanted was weapons tumbling out of his clothes in front of allies. Well, they would see them as weapons. Draco knew they were kind of useless outside ritual and against anyone but blood-related enemies. But most people didn’t know that.
From the sudden narrowing of Bellatrix’s eyes, she might be someone who did.
Draco held her gaze and cut the knife gently down the side of his wrist. The flow of blood was immediate, and sparkled a little as the magic in the knives took hold, making his power manifest in the blood. Draco knew plenty of books and people that talked about this kind of thing, but few of them knew what the phrase really meant.
Bellatrix stiffened in Dash’s coils. Yes, she did.
Draco drew a shallow bowl of earthenware out of his robes. The ritual he was going to use was based on a similar elemental one that bound earth and water together. In this case, his blood would substitute for the water. He chanted the necessary words. “Sangius, mors, vita, terra.”
The third time he repeated them, he felt the power shudder to life in his hands. It almost made him drop the bowl. But the only thing he had to think of was how disappointed in himself he would be if he did that, and his fingers steadied.
“You cannot do this, boy.”
Bellatrix didn’t sound desperate yet. Draco glanced up with a faint smile, and watched her recoil at whatever she was seeing in his eyes.
“You don’t know the slightest thing about blood magic if you believe what you just said,” he retorted quietly. “And I think the Black family trained their heirs better than that.”
Bellatrix was thrashing in earnest now. Draco ignored the way that she tried to get her hands free. Dash would take care of that. He looked down at the supercharged bowl and turned his wrist so that blood would run into it instead of smear on the sides. Then he dipped the knife into the blood.
There was another shudder of magic. Susana backed away from him, holding Ellen by the wrist as if she thought Draco might suddenly change his mind and engage in blood-battle with someone not related to him. Draco would have snorted, but he couldn’t take his gaze from the bowl and his aunt.
This is real.
The blood rose out of the bowl in a glittering chain. There were soft silver gleams in the bubbles that Draco knew came from the knife, and brown ones that reflected the bowl, and pale yellow ones that were the image of his hair. All of the power he had raised had a counterpart in this new power.
“You cannot force me to drink it!”
Draco merely raised an eyebrow, and blew the chain of blood forwards. For a moment, it hovered in the air, and anxiety threatened to crack Draco’s crystalline composure after all. If he had studied and worked this hard only for the magic to fail him when he most needed it, in front of allies—
But that didn’t happen. The chain hurtled forwards, as lightly as soap bubbles, and settled around Bellatrix’s neck despite her attempts to thrash her head back and avoid it. She screamed, an inhuman sound that made Draco shudder a little.
The chain paid no attention to what she was doing, and neither did Dash, who only tightened his hold a little. Instead, cuts abruptly opened around Bellatrix’s neck, shadowing her collarbone. The chain became liquid again and drained down Bellatrix’s throat, into the cuts, mingling Draco’s blood with her own.
Draco relaxed. He hadn’t been sure, until the last minute, whether he could open his aunt with what the books called “the knife of the mind,” or if he would have to make the physical cuts with the knife, which would have been much less impressive.
Bellatrix screamed again as the cuts sealed, and Draco’s blood began to race through her. She cursed him. She called upon the Dark Lord. Draco held still and watched her, cold again, but also flushed and trembling with triumph.
He had dreamed of torturing his aunt, causing her the same kind of pain she had caused Harry and Dash. Now he knew this was best. Bellatrix forced to betray the master she had sacrificed so much for? This was the better vengeance.
Someone made a sick sound behind him. Draco ignored them. They could look elsewhere if this kind of magic was so difficult for them to observe.
Dash gave a soft hiss. For a second, Draco did glance at him, because there were more problems if a basilisk was displeased than if a human or a vampire was. But Dash only moved his head forwards and leaned his chin on Draco’s arm, then turned his head. When Draco didn’t do anything, he thumped the end of his tail.
Pet me. The demand was clear, and Draco reached out and gently rubbed up and down the scales on the side of his neck.
Well, I’m punishing the woman who hurt him, Draco thought for the first time. Of course he would approve of that. Probably most people would.
He turned back as he watched Bellatrix began to splutter. Susana shifted in front of him and looked straight at him.
“What does this particular blood magic do?”
Well, at least she asked me. Draco found himself keeping his gaze away from Harry and Professor Snape as he answered. If they disapproved, then he really didn’t want to know about it right now. “The blood I’ve infused with my own strength blends with hers. As it circulates through her body, it also replaces her goals and loyalties with mine.”
Susana actually took a step back from him. For an instant, her hand fluttered in front of her teeth as if she thought Draco would pour his blood down her throat, too. “So—this magic only works on blood relatives?”
Draco nodded, checking Bellatrix’s face again. At least she looked paler and less responsive than she had a few seconds ago. The blood magic was supposed to work fast, but none of the books had told him exactly how fast.
“Thank Merlin.”
Draco only smiled a little as he saw Bellatrix’s eyes glazing. It was sort of what he thought she might look like if she was under Imperius. “I think she’s ready to talk now,” he said, and stood and finally turned to Professor Snape.
Who only looked quiet, and impassive, and proud.
“Then I will question her,” Snape said, as Draco had hoped he would, and swept away from Harry’s side until he was standing in front of Bellatrix and meeting her glazed eyes.
Draco took several steps back before he finally dared to glance at Harry.
And had to catch his breath at the light in his eyes, and how hard his hold was when he reached out and gripped Draco’s hand. Draco gripped back and decided, I think we’re going to be all right.
*
Severus bowed his head to Draco, although he thought Draco was too caught up with Harry’s reaction at the moment to see him. Well, that was all right. Harry could reassure him. Draco had looked—
He’d looked like Narcissa, performing that blood magic spell, the few times Severus had seen her power totally unleashed in battle.
He turned back to Bellatrix, and gripped his wand. He was going to make sure that he delved into her mind, and if there were barriers that might hold secrets, he had faith in his ability to rip them apart. “Legilimens,” he whispered as he caught her wide, staring black gaze.
It was a strange sensation to dive into a mind with no barriers at all. Of course, if the blood magic worked as Severus had always been told it did, that made sense. She was now wearing a copy of Draco’s intentions, and he never would have hidden secrets from Severus or worked against Harry.
Severus worked his way quickly through Bellatrix’s mind, pausing in front of flashing memories that showed her meeting with people in the Ministry who had known about the meeting but elected not to go. He grimaced; he didn’t recognize most of those faces. He concentrated on a list of names instead, and they swam towards the surface of her thoughts, represented as if on a piece of parchment.
None of the names were recognizable, either, but Severus knew he could put the memory in a Pensieve and copy out the list that way. On he went, flicking quickly through more images that had little to do with how Bellatrix had escaped Azkaban and come here.
He paused when he glimpsed a dark room with a carpet on the floor decorated in deep purple and black swirls. There was a single fire in the hearth, which gleamed like the inside of a ruby and did nothing to make the room seem any lighter. Severus bent all his will on the memory, which crisped at the edges like a piece of burning parchment.
This was one of those truths Bellatrix would have fought to protect if her mind were still her own, Severus knew, and pushed even harder. Draco’s blood magic wouldn’t last forever.
The darkness wavered and finally came clear, as if Severus had been standing in the room for a while and had his sight adjust. On a low couch that resembled a bed more than it should lay the Dark Lord. There was a spiderweb of purple cracks along one side of his skull, and Bellatrix was dabbing gently at his face with a cloth that looked to be soaked in healing potions.
Severus drifted near enough to listen to what she was saying. Bellatrix’s voice was low and fretful.
“You will come back, my Lord. I have to believe that. Or what did we break out of Azkaban for? What did Rodolphus die for?” She swabbed again, and then peered closely at the cracks as if she thought they would vanish in front of her eyes. When they didn’t, she sighed mournfully and sat back on her heels. “You are the center of my existence,” she told the Dark Lord. “You will wake soon.”
He is still incapacitated from our battle against him, Severus exulted, and then concentrated harder, not on the image but Bellatrix’s knowledge about it. The name of the village where the building stood flashed into his head. Little Hangleton.
He flashed away to another memory, because her mind was darkening around him, and he would soon have too much to fight. He still had to figure out how Bellatrix had disguised herself so effectively to come to the meeting, and what had made Dash suddenly able to sense her. He doubted a sudden failure of her will or magic was the cause.
He saw her weaving enchantments around a pebble, glinting fragments of magic that wove back on themselves until they made Severus’s eyes water. Then she slipped the pebble into her pocket and added another brass-colored strand of power, and in a second she was one of Susana’s people, or at least someone who looked just like one.
Severus hissed out an irritated sigh. So she’d used a variation of the same trick that had let her seem to be in Azkaban. He supposed he should have known that.
Her mind bucked like a horse now. Severus whipped a bridle of his will over it and watched the memory of her standing in the clearing, eavesdropping on their plans, and watched Dash through it.
Dash had his head turned in her direction long before he lunged.
He would never put Harry at risk. So why—
Then Severus sighed to himself. Of course Dash wouldn’t think Harry was at risk when he fully planned to capture Bellatrix before she escaped. And in the meantime, he wanted her to learn important things, the better to torment her when she realized she would never be able to tell them to the Dark Lord.
I am glad that I can figure out how to think like a basilisk, Severus thought dryly, and let Bellatrix push him from her mind. He didn’t stagger when he landed back in his body, although he knew that would have pleased her. Instead, he folded his arms and Summoned the pebble that she’d woven around with magic.
“This is the way that she fooled Susana’s people and the others,” he said, holding it out to Harry instinctively. “It might be interesting to look at.”
Dash took the pebble gently in his jaws and held it there. Well, it wasn’t as though he needed his mouth if he wanted to speak.
“And how did she learn about the meeting?” Lucius demanded intensely.
“From people in the Ministry who are apparently among her contacts, invited but not choosing to accept the invitation,” Severus said, and had to admit he reveled in the pink-flushed chagrin that overtook Lucius’s face. He had been one of the people distributing invitations. “I have a list of names I’ll need you to look at.”
Lucius nodded choppily. He looked as if he’d like to say something else, but Susana intervened.
“And what are you going to do about her?” she asked, pointing at Bellatrix with one foot.
Severus again found himself facing Harry. Only later did he think that was strange, that he had turned there for an answer instead of Lucius, or instead of offering one himself.
But Harry’s face was calm, if pale. He nodded to Susana and said, “We can’t let her go. And even if we sent her back to Voldemort with spells placed on her, I think he might be able to break through them.”
“He is incapacitated right now,” Severus interrupted. Harry turned to him, and Severus smiled without meaning to. The hope on Harry’s face was like the bloom of a sunflower. “The battle we fought against him dealt him a hard wound to recover from. But he will recover, and then I think that he would find a way to break through whatever protections we put in Bellatrix’s mind.”
Harry nodded. “I think the same thing. So—” He settled his shoulders. “We’ll keep her prisoner for a time.”
“In what prison? What’s secure enough to hold her?” Susana’s grey tongue flickered into sight again.
Harry gestured to Dash without any sign of hesitation. Dash listened with his head cocked on one side, probably having a conversation down the bond, before he turned to face Bellatrix.
His eyelids lifted.
Severus had time to look away, but even so, the skin above his spine twitched as if it would crawl off his back. When he turned back after a hiss from Susana, it was to see Bellatrix lying Petrified on the grass, and Dash easing away from her with a motion of his coils as graceful as a shrug.
“I thought that someone would only be Petrified if they met the basilisk’s gaze through a mirror or the like,” Lucius said. There was no tremor in his voice, which Severus admired him for.
Dash hissed something. Harry laughed and translated. “That may be the truth for lesser basilisks. Not for the basilisk with the soul of Salazar Slytherin in him.”
And that made the meeting half-explode. Not everyone had known that truth, Severus saw, and he stepped back out of the way with a slight shudder. It was no surprise that Dash’s gaze did what he wanted it to.
But it was a reminder, again, of how powerful both Dash and Harry were. And how lucky the world was that that power rested in Harry’s hands—the hands of someone reluctant to use even the gifts that were his by right.
*
Harry was biting his tongue in the moments when he wasn’t translating Dash’s self-indulgent answers for Susana, Ellen, the werewolves, and the others who hadn’t known Dash was Slytherin. He wanted to say something. He wanted to acknowledge what had been burning inside him since he saw Draco wield blood magic so effortlessly, and for Harry’s sake.
And for Dash’s. He didn’t even need Dash to tell him how glad he felt that Draco had taken revenge for the curse Bellatrix had cast at him in Hogsmeade.
At first, Harry had almost thought he was going to be sick, watching Draco wield that kind of magic. And then the sensation had settled lower in his stomach and caught fire, and then he knew.
He wanted…
He wanted to go back to Hogwarts and show Draco exactly how much he meant to him.
And instead he had to stand here, and translate, and listen to Dash’s rustling laughter in his head.
At least he could feel it when Draco tightened his fingers around his hand. Harry turned his head.
Draco’s own eyes were afire.
Harry shivered, and forced himself to pay attention to the rest of the meeting that couldn’t go past quickly enough.
*
SP777: But I hope this chapter makes up for it!
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A Brother to Basilisks