Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Blood Quill Consequences	By : EarthandWater Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 31160 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: We have no claim on Harry Potter nor any characters or locations thereof. We make no money from the writing of this.

Chapter List
- 13
- 14
- 15
WARNING: Um not much really, except for like butchering of a snake corpse, some more UST and Harry mommying an egg.
Disclaimer: We have no claim on Harry Potter nor any characters or locations thereof. We gain only amusement from writing this.
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Snape was chopping the leaf of a silver laurel when Uriah once again informed him of Potter knocking on the door. "Let him in." It was the morning of the day before the solstice and Snape was attempting to work on a potion he'd been tweaking for years and had essentially buried himself to avoid the sleigh ride Granger and Narcissa both were set upon. As tomorrow would be set aside for his own personal holiday traditions he wanted to do a little potions work today. However Potter's interruption wasn't unwelcome.
"Hello again Sir." Harry walked in, dressed in worn muggle jeans and a soft knitted sweater. He didn't want to go on the sleigh ride either and the first place he thought of to go was Snape's room so here he was. "Anything I can do to help? I promise to be careful and not muck things up."
"Hm." Snape pointed at some grain in a small pile on another cutting board. "Grind the rye into a powder until you have exactly two grams."
"Yes Sir." Harry started to grind carefully, weighing the rye carefully at set intervals so that it wouldn't be too much or too little. "Will you be busy the entire day Sir?"
"My plans for the day, Mr. Potter, are to appear as busy as possible so as not to get roped into any of Narcissa nor Miss Granger's festive plans. If you can not offer an alternative activity it is to be brewing and experimenting on potions all day." Snape ground the chopped leaf into a paste made of mistletoe berries. There was already an agent in the potion that would offset the toxicity in the berries so, if this was a successful experiment, it wouldn't poison the one who ingested it.
Harry finished grinding the rye and handed it to Snape, wiping his hands on his trousers. "I thought maybe we could go down to the chamber while everyone else was busy. I don't really know I will feel being back there and I don't think it should be a group activity." He ran a hand through his hair. "It can wait if you have other plans though, it was just an idea."
"That sounds like a rather perfect plan. After all Narcissa can not find the Chamber much less roust us from there. Stir this slowly, clockwise while I add the paste." Snape nodded at the silver stirring rod.
Smiling Harry picked up the silver rod and started to stir with slow movements of his wrists. "Tell me when to stop." He looked down and the simmering concoction. "I hope you're not afraid of going into the girls bathroom."
Snape carefully added the paste as Harry stirred. "Should I inquire as to why?"
"It's the way into the chamber." Harry grinned and continued to stir. "That's why Myrtle is stuck in the bathrooms, I thought you would have figured it out."
"Potter I have better thing to do with my time than contemplate why a voyeuristic female ghost prefers to haunt bathrooms. Stop stirring." Snape picked up the powdered rye and as the potion was still swirling yet not being actively stirred, he sprinkled it in then frowned as the potion turned a putrid brown and green then boiled over the side. He turned to make a note, muttering about how it's always the rye. "Miss Myrtle has greatly disturbed many of the first year Slytherin boys with her preferred hobby."
"I am very, very aware of her hobby." Harry grumbled and remembered last year in the prefects bathroom, that had not been the only nor the last time she had showed up when he was bathing. He wrinkled his nose at the fumes rising from the cauldron. "Is it really supposed to smell like this?"
"No it is not, blast it all. Always the rye. It's a vital ingredient in the original potion but in any subsequent versions it ruins a well brewing potion and I've yet to find a proper replacement. Even ergot ruins it, not pure enough." Snape once again scooped a sample vial then vanished the mess. "One day I will find the proper replacement for that grain."
"I have no doubt that you will Sir. You'll figure it out." Harry nodded and he really did believe what he said, he had full faith in Snape's abilities.
The potions master muttered under his breath. "It'd be helpful if a few of the affected individuals would volunteer blood so it can be tested for weaknesses but no," the irritable syllable was briefly drawn out, "all too paranoid." He shook his head and looked at Harry, snapping out of his impatience with the potion. "Before I get my harvesting equipment, have you thought of what you wish in return for letting me harvest the basilisk corpse? It is a requirement that I give you something of value."
Harry shrugged, he didn't know what to ask for, he had everything he needed. "How about your time? That you continue to teach me, that is all I ask for." He looked at Snape. "What kind of potion were you working on now? That you would need blood of the affected for?"
Snape moved to a cabinet, unlocking it and retrieving a leather bag. "Wolfsbane. The current potion is woefully inadequate." His voice was casual and he immediately moved over the subject of the failed potion back to the basilisk. "Are you certain Potter? Knowledge is power and advantage I admit but for the right to harvest an adult basilisk you literally could name your price."
"I don't need anything else Professor, your time and knowledge will be a perfectly reasonable price in return for something that I didn't know I owned. Harry put down the stirring rod, feeling a bit silly that he still held it. His heart had melted when he heard that Snape was working on the Wolfsbane potion, he knew how much Remus suffered every month. "About the potion, have you asked Remus? I'm sure he would volunteer, I can ask him if you want."
The professor actually twitched but relaxed after a moment. "Bring it up to him if you find the time. I doubt he'll be particularly willing however. Blood in the wizarding world is a dangerous thing to have Potter. Someone with only a drop of your blood and specific potions can steal your very identity and heritage and Lupin would be a fool to trust a Death Eater even if his mate agreed to let him volunteer." Snape looked down at his sleeves, straightening them. He refused to get his hopes up when knowing the two remaining Marauders they would be dashed.
Harry did understand the dangers of donating ones blood but he still thought that Remus would agree when it was for this cause. Harry decided that he would ask him when he talked to him and Sirius next. He didn't say anything more about it though since Snape didn't seem very talkative about this particular subject. "Will we need to bring anything special down to the chamber?" Harry thought it was best to switch the subject back to their excursion to the chamber of secrets.
Snape shook his head and held up the satchel. "I have all that's needed for the harvesting here." He held out a hand. "An official agreement then Mr. Potter, my time and knowledge for the right to harvest the basilisk."
"Agreed." Harry said and shook Snape's hand to seal the deal. "Let's go then, down the rabbits hole." Harry started to walk out of Snape's rooms to lead them to the closed off bathroom.
The professor followed him and stood behind the teen as he stared briefly at the sink then shivered as the hissing tones of Parseltongue fell from Harry's lips. Always before he'd equated that tongue with darkness and evil but hearing it from Harry, even the single short burst, it didn't sound evil or dark. It sounded...beautiful. He followed Harry down the dark dank corridor and murmured a soft, "Lumos Maximus," to better light their way.
It was strange, the corridors and tunnels didn't look as scary and as menacing as they had three years ago. They walked along the sludge and water at the bottom of the tunnels until they got the entrance to the chamber. He talked to the stone snake keeping guard and the door swung open. Harry took a deep breath before he stepped inside, knowing that Snape would follow.
The professor stepped in and found himself gawking at the positively gargantuan basilisk corpse collapsed over the main chamber floor and partially up the corridor to the left. "Sweet Circe."
"Hm." Harry walked around the fallen beast. "Everything else seems smaller this time around but this...This still seems bloody huge." There was no Ginny slipping away and no ghost of Tom Riddle whispering lies into his ear but the place still made shivers run down Harry's spine.
The casual manner of the teen struck Snape as astonishing. "How are you so...I knew this was an adult basilisk but...by Merlin it must be a thousand years old, more. I always thought the Dark Lord had acquired and raised a basilisk in his own time, not truly taken control of Salazar's own familiar." His gaze traveled over the downed snake, the snarky man speechless for once.
"I honestly didn't look to closely at it back then, too busy trying not to die." Harry knelt next to the basilisk's head. "I never blamed this though, it only followed orders, did as it was told. It was Voldemort who twisted it, forced it to do his bidding."
Snape shook his head and moved forward, running his hand along to cold smooth scales of the beast. "Slytherin would have taken the Dark Lord's head for abusing his treasured familiar so. A pity he's not around to take his descendant in hand, save us all a great deal of trouble." He stepped back and set about stripping to his rolled up shirt sleeves and casting a few protective charms to guard him from the corrosive qualities of the basilisk blood and venom. "There's more here than I could use in a lifetime. I'll keep what I will use but the rest will remain yours. I would suggest keeping the fangs for yourself as they may come in handy one day and auctioning off the rest at a potions convention." He crouched and pulled out a pair of devices that hooked up to jars, a razor sharp knife blade, and many many more jars before setting to removing the fangs and teeth for Harry.
"I already have one fang, the one that I used to skewer the diary." Harry watched Snape work, feeling both sad for the basilisk's fate and happy that it would come to use instead of just laying here forgotten. "I've always wondered if I could have gotten it to listen to me if I would have had more time. I know it doesn't matter now but still, I can't help but wonder."
"Truthfully Potter? Not likely. By the time the Dark Lord found it the basilisk had been trapped down here alone for a thousand or more years, it's master long dead. It was most probably mad with loneliness and grief and then the Dark Lord came along, easing that loneliness only to abandon it again. I would imagine the basilisk's trust was long shattered and madness entrenched." Snape finished digging out the teeth, hooked up one device to a vein in the serpent's mouth and the other to the venom glands and charmed the jars to switch as each one filled. He plucked the feathers and set them aside reverently, then he got to work skinning the beast.
"Poor, poor thing." Harry didn't really know what to say, his heart ached for the basilisk's loneliness. "I seem to always be asking this but can I help in some way, I hate feeling useless."
Snape grunted. "No, harvesting a magical creature takes long hours of experience and as this is a basilisk it requires protective charms that you don't yet know." He blew a strand of oily hair from his eyes. "Look around the chamber and it's corridors and see if you can locate it's nest. That will have shed skin and molted feathers."
"Okay." Harry got up from his knees and started to look around, leaving the harvesting to the pro. He looked around the different tunnels, feeling depressed at the damp and dreariness of them all. He turned a corner and came upon a gathering of all kinds of things really, but there was a lot of feathers and molted skin so he gathered that it was the nest. Harry walked over and started to rummage through the nest carefully, not knowing what he was looking for. Under a pile of feathers and grime there was something roundish. Harry dug it out and stared in amazement at the egg. He dug it out and wrapped it in his knitted sweater, carrying it carefully to the main hall where Snape was. "Um...Professor, I think I've found something."
"Hm?" Snape's gaze was distracted as he looked up and it took a few seconds for him to recognize what Harry held but when he did, if ever there was a Kodak moment that would have been it. When else would anyone have ever gotten to see Severus Snape's eyes very nearly bugging out as he choked on air, or swallowed his tongue, it was hard to tell precisely. "Merlin's balls Potter, do you know what that is?!"
"An egg?" Harry was a bit startled by Snape's reaction, having never seen the professor act or look like that before. Maybe the protection charms weren't enough and he had been poisoned or affected somehow by the basilisk.
Snape pointed a bloody knife at the orb in the teen's arms. "That, Harry James Potter, is no ordinary egg. That is a basilisk egg."
"Huh." Harry twisted the egg in his arms, looking at it's spotted surface. "It's valuable then? What can it do? It must be really old."
The professor made a strangled sound. "Potter...Harry. The eggs of magical creatures aren't like chicken eggs, they don't go bad with age. If we were to find a toad to sit on that egg or incubate it in black coals it would hatch. You hold in your hands the offspring of Salazar Slytherin's familiar."
"A toad?" Harry was baffled, it was the first time he'd heard Snape call him by his first name like that and Harry had to admit that he liked the sound of it. He looked down at the egg again. "We're taking it with us right? If it's a living creature inside here then we can't leave it all alone."
"All the gold in the wizarding world would not convince me to leave that egg here." Snape was still staring at the egg in utter shock and surprise and hadn't even noticed his slip of calling the teenager by his first name. "And yes a toad. If a basilisk is not available to curl around and care for the egg it must be hatched under a toad or in black coals. I wonder," he frowned, finally sliding back into his logical frame of mind. "It's rumored that a basilisk egg incubates for ten years and in all that time the mother never leaves, even to hunt, unless it's to protect the nest or she's bidden by a being that can manipulate her mind."
Harry felt a new wave of absolute loathing for Voldemort and the arse he had been before he claimed his other persona. "It's so sad, she had a baby and was ordered and manipulated to just leave it behind to do a lunatic's bidding." Harry petted the egg he was holding.
The professor didn't know if it was disturbing or sweet the way the teen had practically cooed at the egg, correction was cooing at the egg...in Parseltongue. He was leaning towards sweet though he'd bite his tongue off before admitting it. "Of course there are a few questions we should answer before hatching that egg. Such as how to mitigate the deathly gaze and how long it's been incubating in the first place."
"Mmm yes, we should know those things shouldn't we?" Harry looked up from the egg. "I don't think she would turn anyone to stone or kill them but there could be an accident so better to be safe then sorry." He wrapped the egg tighter in his sweater and put a lot of cushioning spells on it so that it would be safe and comfortable. "I think we should keep her in your rooms, Ron or Neville would probably trip over her if she was in mine."
"She?" A dark brow lifted in quiet amusement. "I was going to suggest much the same thing for living arrangements. My quarters are the most secure and tightly warded in the castle aside from here." He began working on harvesting the dead basilisk again. "What I wouldn't give for Slytherin's study, the Dark Lord probably stripped it of anything useful however if it's still down here at all."
"It's a her, I can feel it." Harry nodded. "If you've finished harvesting then we could look for the study if you want. I stopped exploring when I found the egg but there are a lot of nooks and cranny's I haven't looked at. Maybe Voldemort hasn't stripped it, it doesn't look as of he was very thorough. I can't imagine that he would have left the egg behind if he knew about it. Who knows what else he left."
Snape hummed and continued with his task. He had another ten feet until he got all the skin off and then he had to harvest the internal organs. "It's only a ten year incubation period so it was laid long after the Dark Lord physically left the chamber and the 'ghost' of his young self didn't precisely have time to do much of anything. It is a strong possibility though," he finished skinning the snake, used a harvester's incantation to split the skin into several equal bundles, and levitated them over to where the jars of venom and blood were gathered before starting to slice open the corpse's belly, "that he didn't strip it if he'd had to leave the Chamber in a rush during his school days. I know he couldn't return to it without it being known after his graduation."
Harry turned his eyes away when Snape opened the belly, he did not want to see that. "It can't hurt to look anyway, not when we're already here. Besides, what we think is useful and important may not be what Voldemort finds useful...In fact I hope it's not the same thing." Harry took a few steps away to look at the carvings on the walls while Snape finished with the dead basilisk.
"Hm, you'd be surprised." Snape's voice was somewhat muffled by distance and what he was essentially buried up to his elbows in. "Light magic and dark magic are not inherently 'good' or 'evil' just as a student is not any more or less evil when they're sorted into their house. Dark magic can and is used for good purposes and I have seen light magic used for evil purposes. What makes a magic dark or light is the toll it takes on life, either the life of the caster or another. Healing spells for example, are almost exclusively light magic as they do not 'take' anything from the caster aside from the normal spell energy and a healing spell 'gives' to who it is cast upon. Hexes on the other hand cause 'damage' of a sort, even if it's only a tripping hex, to those it's cast upon so they're classified as dark magic. Intent is what makes magic good or evil, not the spells cast."
"Yes I do understand that." Harry said and he did, he just tried to find differences between himself and Voldemort everywhere he could. He still remembered the visions and the nightmares clearly and he remembered how good it felt to be the one who caused all that pain. Harry didn't want to admit that he had anything at all in common with the plague of the wizarding world. He walked along the walls, petting the egg absentmindedly when he came upon two entwined snakes, or at least a carving of two snakes. They were brilliantly carved, it looked as if they were moving, constantly in motion. Harry reached out to touch them but the moment his hand touched stone a door swung open. Harry peeked his head inside. "I think I have found the study Sir."
"Good. Go on in and look around I'll be there once I'm finished here." Snape carefully cut out the liver, gallbladder, kidneys, lung, and heart before moving up to the head. Even damaged the eyes were still valuable as potion ingrediants among the other organs in the head.
Even with the stasis spells the study smelled musty and unused. It wasn't a particularly large room but it was surprisingly cozy. The walls were covered in bookshelves made out of dark wood and there was a huge desk in the middle of the room made from the same wooded material. It looked as if a lot of books were missing, holes gaping open where they had stood and even more books had pages ripped out of them. It was clear that Voldemort had payed the study a visit. Harry sat down in the high backed chair at the desk and looked through the yellowing parchments while he waited for Snape to get there. It was amazing really, to sit where one of the founders of the school had sat and worked.
Snape cut the final usable organ, the tongue, from the basilisk corpse and stood back. He cleaned his hands off, sent all the harvested materials and the tools up to his potion lab with a flick of his wand, his part already stored away and the rest for Harry to choose what to do with stacked neatly in a corner. He looked on the harvested corpse and flicked his wand again, casting a strong Incendio charm at it and standing there to watch it burn as if set on a funeral pyre. It was a pity, that such a magnificent creature had to end as it had. He wondered why Slytherin hadn't secured another master or a refuge with a mate for his familiar.
The professor set about cleaning the area and himself of blood, ash, and fluids, put his robes on again, and went in search of Harry. He stepped into the dimly lit study, looking around and taking in the missing tomes, the few books on the floor with missing pages, and Harry sitting in Slytherin's chair petting the egg. He walked over to a fallen book and scanned the page next to a torn section. He snorted disdainfully. "It's reassuring to know that he was just as much of a twit as most students in his time."
"Hm?" Harry looked up from his whispered parseltongue conversations with the egg. "What do you mean?" His eyes flittered over the page Snape had read.
"This book's focus is necromancy, what's torn out appears to be a ritual for increasing your magical power and 'cleansing' your blood of undesirables." A smirk tilted Snape's lips. "On the page next to it is a spell to return one's body to it's original state. A much easier and less exacting ritual than the one you described him performing last year. As a child he appears to have focused only on what would make him more powerful and what could be used to remove the 'stain' of his paternal ancestry. Idiot."
"I will not argue with that statement." Harry couldn't help but grin at the thought that there had been an easier way for Voldemort to come back than what he had done. "Hopefully he hasn't grown much smarter over the years. From what I've gathered it's still all about power and strength."
"And immortality." Snape chuckled rather darkly. "What he wouldn't give to reclaim the books in here now." He took in several more necromantic texts still on the shelves. "Having felt death's hand once I sincerely doubt he's interested in feeling it again." He cast a charm to return fallen and abused books to their shelves and let his gaze roam over the tomes. Occasionally he'd pause on a potion book but moved on in favor of books on magical creatures. There were only three but they were thick enough that even Granger would find them a challenge. "Hmm let's see," he opened the first one and found a section on serpents.
Harry got up from the chair and walked the few steps to where Snape was standing, leaning against the other man to read over his shoulder. "Does it say anything about hatching and raising our baby?" The egg was never out of his reach. "There has to be a way to turn off the killer beam so to speak."
The dark eyes lifted briefly to Harry's. "I am going to endeavor to pretend you did not just use that phrase." He found a section on basilisks and read down the page. "Hm it says the basilisk can choose if it's gaze kills or not. However this is only on adults. It doesn't mention anything about eggs or hatchlings." The next book was much the same and in the final book there was only the hatching methods for a basilisk egg. He sighed in frustration. "Perhaps there's another book with notations." He went to prowl slowly along the shelves, mind sorting logically through what might or might not hold information on basilisks. As he did he could hear Harry hissing to the egg, the Parseltongue flowing smoothly and beautifully from the teen. He had to admit that if he'd been the embryonic basilisk he'd be more than pleased to have those sibilant tones murmured to him.
He trailed a hand over a shelf with odd carvings along the edge absently then suddenly drew it back with a soft hiss, blood leaking from a small cut on his finger.
"Are you okay?" Harry stopped whispering to the egg to go over to Snape. He took the older man's finger without thinking about it and placed it in his mouth, sucking away to small drop of blood. His eyes found the carvings and he looked at them curiously, he released Snape's finger. "These are written in parseltongue." Harry read the carvings out loud and a compartment opened.
The professor was standing stock still and utterly shocked, not only at what Harry had done but at the way his body had reacted. He could feel his cheeks mottle in embarrassment even as the blood vied to continue down to his groin that was suddenly half hard. Snape was well aware that he chased for the home team and had long since become comfortable with it. It wasn't as though it wasn't common in the wizarding world. In a world where a potion could easily change your gender or give you bits you hadn't had before or where the magically powerful’s bodies often went on tangents, procreation was no problem so same sex couples weren't looked down on. It was just the fact that he had just gotten half hard thanks to a student and not just any student but Harry bloody Potter that had Snape's logic circuits frying. It also might have had something to do with the fact that he was trying to keep his blood in his head rather than going below his waist that it took a good minute for him to realize that Harry had found a compartment with several dragon-hide bound books inside with the writing on the spines in the same odd markings as he'd cut his finger on. "What does the writing on the spines say?"
Harry reached in and ran his hands down the spines of the books. Anything to avoid looking at Snape. Harry couldn't believe what he had done. What had come over him? He had sucked on Snape...He was lucky that that the Potions Master hadn't hexed his bits off. What was even worse was that he had liked it, liked the feeling and the taste of Snape's finger in his mouth...Oh Merlin! He was really in trouble. "It's says journal of Salazar Slytherin, one volume per year. I'm a bit unsure about which years but it should become clear when we read them." Harry pulled the books out, still avoiding Snape's gaze.
Snape finally got his body under control again and went over to the desk. "I have a feeling you'll be the one reading Mr. Potter. Those are likely written in Parselscript."
Harry carried the tomes to the desk and laid them next to each other, opening one and closing it again, moving on to the next one. "I think this is the first one." Harry gingerly went through the thick parchment pages. "It's amazing Sir, it's from when they had just founded the school."
Snape's brows lifted. "What the historians wouldn't give to get their hands on that, and to read Parselscript."
"Isn't there any spell that allows me to read the books outloud and it translates automatically on paper?" Harry hoped there was a spell like that because no one would be happy if he had to translate everything by hand, not even he could properly read his chicken scratches. "Or isn't there a way you can share my ability, just for a while?"
"If you can speak English while reading a dicta-quill will do. As for sharing the ability, not unless you want me so deep in your head I'm in the instinctive core. I sincerely doubt either of us want that."
"No, no I definitely do not want that." Finding out that he liked to suck on Snape's appendages was one thing but to have Snape see it too inside his head was a completely different matter, one that Harry wanted to avoid at all costs. "We should take the books with us, find a dicta-quill and get started." Harry continued to look through the pages as he spoke.
Snape just lifted a brow and used his wand to summon a dicta-quill and an ever-gro parchment roll. He set them beside Harry. "I am not leaving the safety of this chamber until dinner. Narcissa and your Miss Granger are likely back with Draco by now and I certainly have no desire to be sucked into their next plan."
Harry chuckled. "You're like a regular boy scout you are, always prepared." He agreed with Snape though, it was much better to stay here in the cozy study than being submitted to Hermione's Christmas adventures. Harry set up the quill and the parchment and began to read.
The professor listened with half an ear and retrieved a potion text from a shelf, flipping through and occasionally letting Harry know when he slipped into Parseltongue. He was studying a potion to induce lycanthropy when Harry began reading about Salazar's basilisk hatching out.
Harry read about the hatching process, how the the basilisk is poisonous straight from birth but that they don't develop their deathly stare until sexual maturity which usually happened around their tenth year of living. "Do you hear that little hatchling, we'll have plenty of time to teach you right from wrong and how to control your eyes." Harry petted the egg happily.
"Which will certainly make it easier to hide from the Headmaster. The species at any rate. Basilisk hatchlings and juveniles resemble asps until the feathers come in." Snape peered closely at the potion and growled in utter irritation. "That explains the rye."
"We will not let anyone take you away from us." Harry hissed to the egg in parseltongue before he turned his attention back to Snape. "What? Have you found something?" Harry's voice was a bit raspy after having read out loud for so long.
"Lycanthropy potion. A main ingredient to induce it is ergot. Explains why too much ruins any potion to suppress or reverse the condition."
"Why would anyone want to induce lycanthropy?" Harry couldn't understand that at all, not after having witnessed Remus' struggle with it. "Will this knowledge help in your strife with the Wolfsbane potion?"
"It appears to be an idiotic attempt to create an easy way to become an animagus." Snape flicked a bit of hair from his eyes. "It should at least give me a few new avenues for modifying it."
"Sounds incredibly stupid to me." Harry agreed thinking about his own tries to get in touch with his animagus self, he would never drink a potion of any kind to hurry the process along. "I still believe in you, you will find a way to make a brilliant potion." Harry said before he picked up the thick book and continued his reading.
Snape's lips twitched in amusement before he returned to reading the potion text.
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Harry fussed around the incubation box they had made, making sure that the black coal would be hot enough and that everything would be perfect for the egg. Part of him didn't want to part with it but he knew that Snape's quarters would be best for it. Finally deeming it fit he moved over to Snape's table where there was a loose parchment, he sat down and continued his report on how Salazar Slytherin had met his demise, being sent out to fight off a dark witch called Moira of the North. It should have been an easy battle so Slytherin had made no preparations for what would happen if he didn't make it back.
Snape shook his head as he rearranged his potion ingredients to make better room for the new additions of mature basilisk bits and happened to glance over Harry's shoulder. "If memory serves Gryffindor also faced that witch down, and succeeded rather gruesomely if the mention of her 'rolling head' was correct."
"Sounds charming." Harry made a face. "I'm sure he wanted to avenge his friend though, judging from these books Slytherin wasn't dark or evil at all. He just had an interest in science wanting to learn everything." Harry glanced over at the incubation box again. "Are you sure she'll be alright in there? Maybe I should spend the night next to it, just to make sure."
"Potter, not only would that be highly questioned by the Headmaster and the students who have remained behind, but you are turning quite spectacularly into a mother-hen. The pinpont spell we used puts the egg at a month and a half from hatching, the basilisk is fine within and I will make sure the coals remain the proper temperature."
"I'm not turning into a mother-hen." Harry's cheeks reddened. "I'm just...Concerned." He gave the egg one last wistful glance before moving away from it, having to trust that Snape knew what he was doing.
The man smirked at the blush. "Of course, just concerned. Pardon me for mistaking you for Molly for a moment."
Harry blew him a raspberry. "I have a long way to go yet before I'm in Molly Weasley's league." Harry straightened. "Are you ready to bite the bullet and go to dinner?"
Snape sighed and tugged his sleeves into place again. "Might as well. The sooner we eat the sooner I can return to my chambers and settle in."
"Knowing Hermione I doubt that you'll be able to just eat and leave. I'm sure she and lady Malfoy have all kinds of after dinner plans for us all." Harry grinned, he wasn't particularly looking forward to it but the expression on Snape's face was priceless.
"Potter I fair warn you now. I will quite happily leave you to their 'tender mercies' after serving you up to them on a silver platter with the comment that you mentioned wanting a new outfit." Snape's smirk was pure evil. "Can you imagine what they'd do?"
"You wouldn't..." Harry's voice was filled with horror and he gave a full body shudder. "If you do then I'll drag you down with me, saying you want some new robes too...Something with a little more color."
"I would and they would have to catch me first. Narcissa may be insistent on me wearing more color but she'd pass over it in a heartbeat for fresh blood, so to speak." The unholy glee in the professor's jet eyes somehow made him look both frightening and rather attractive at the same time. "So I'd have a narrow window of time to escape. I will make a deal with you however, you distract them from me and I shall do the same for you."
"You've got a deal then. Let's agree to throw Malfoy to the wolves instead." Harry realized that if there was no way to beat the master he might as well just join him. Harry straightened the robes he had changed into after their chamber excursion. For some reason he really didn't think that Lady Malfoy would appreciate him showing up in worn muggle clothes three times too big.
"Agreed." Snape opened the door and waved Harry out to head down before the ladies noticed their absence.
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Blood Quill Consequences