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A Brother to Basilisks	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 85173 -:- 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 Sixteen—Christmas Fire
            Harry relaxed as he lay back against the couch in the Gryffindor common room and kicked his feet up. Exams were finally over, and tomorrow, he would go home with Sirius for the Christmas holidays.
            The very first time he had ever had Christmas in a house where he lived, with someone who cared about him. Not at Hogwarts, even though it was nice. A house that belonged just to him and Sirius.
            And me, said Dash, who was draped over Harry’s legs to get nearer to the fire. He turned his head and let one eyelid flutter as if he was going to draw it back and let the deadly eye underneath it peer out.
            And you, said Harry, reaching down and brushing a hand against Dash’s plume. As usual, Dash’s head sagged to the side, boneless, in the wake of Harry’s caress. The thing is, I don’t think it matters to you that we live in a house. We could live in a cave, and you would be happy as long as you were able to leave and hunt. Wouldn’t you? he added, because Dash was keeping silent, and Harry was pretty sure it was out of pure stubbornness and refusal to admit Harry was right.
            It matters to me where we live. There would be more mice in a cave.
            Harry had to laugh. He thought he could. Most of the Gryffindors were either gone already to their parents or other family members, or they were running around out in the snow screaming and throwing snowballs and rejoicing in the general lack of constraint. Harry could understand that, but he had begged for one more night at Hogwarts before he went home, and Sirius had consented. It wasn’t like Harry couldn’t just walk home, anyway.
            Besides, Dash didn’t like the cold, and participating in a snowball fight would have meant Harry had to leave him behind. Which made some people in Gryffindor notice, and even Dumbledore had watched him with a narrowed eye the first time Harry had done it.
            You should warm me up, said Dash, and wrapped around Harry’s legs until Harry thought he was going to have to go boneless himself to put up with it. Think warm thoughts. That will help.
            Harry tried to comply, but there was only so long he could think about fire without thinking about Potions class and the fires under cauldrons. He scowled a little, but then he had to sigh and shake his head.
            What had he expected? Of course Snape was going to go back to being a glaring git when he found out Sirius had bought a house. Harry had been explaining to Ron and Hermione about it when Snape swept by and slowed to listen.
            Harry had glanced at him, unsure whether or not he should include Snape in the conversation. It wasn’t like they were in class. It had been Saturday, and he and Ron and Hermione were all sitting in the Great Hall after breakfast, with Dash happily winding around a little globe of hot light that Harry had learned how to conjure.
            But Harry had done his best not to think about Snape or Malfoy for the last few weeks, and the weeks had turned into months. And Malfoy didn’t ever think about him, Harry was sure. He just seemed to spend all his time in a corner of the library, researching, or going to class, or wandering around school like a ghost.
            And Harry wasn’t worried. He wouldn’t be, not after Malfoy had been such a git.
            Snape was the same way. He had listened to Harry talk about his room—because Harry wasn’t going to stop talking just because he had more of an audience—and the minute he’d heard about the stag and dog in stars on the ceiling, he’d turned and walked away, back perfectly straight.
            So Harry might regret it, and he might especially regret it because he knew Sirius hadn’t ever thanked Snape for testifying at his trial, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was just going to try and be happy the way that he knew his parents would want him to be, and in the meantime, he was enjoying the thought of living with Sirius.
            I only hope that he has not filled the rooms with mounds of biscuits, or decorations in the shape of brooms on every wall, or something equally ridiculous, Dash said, and rolled his head to the side, making Harry’s fingers move with it.
            Why would you care about brooms? Harry asked, blinking. I like them, so you either ought to like them or ignore them.
            Dash twitched his tail. I think he would do something ridiculous because the only thing he cares about is you. And now he is living in the house and only seeing you on weekends. He would do something that might make it difficult to climb the walls because he doesn’t have you there to concentrate on.
            Harry frowned, and then he shook his head a little. He didn’t know if he could deny what Dash was saying, but he wanted to deny the conclusions. So that means I’m responsible for it if he does something stupid? No, thanks. I’ve already had enough of people blaming me for things that aren’t my fault.
            Dash yawned, curling his tongue in a way that Harry knew wasn’t natural for him; he was just doing it because it made him look as if he was doing a more human gesture. Then he turned and curled around Harry’s torso, leaning his head right below Harry’s cheek. Harry stroked his neck and closed his eyes.
            No one is making you responsible for him, Dash said softly, firmly. I am not, at least, and anyone who tries can cope with my bite. He didn’t even let Harry say that he hadn’t given Dash permission to bite anyone, simply going on. What matters is that you shouldn’t be surprised if he sometimes acts obsessive.
            Harry stared at the floor. The only other obsessive people he knew, at least about him, were Voldemort and Snape.
            Yes, but one of them wants to kill you, and the other one doesn’t know what he wants. Dash nudged him with his nose and slid to the floor. That makes the first one more dangerous. And now, we are going to stop discussing depressing things andgo to the kitchens. There should be food there.
            Not food that you can kill, though, Harry said cautiously, standing up. Dash, who had sniffed out the kitchens a month ago, had once brought up the notion of hunting house-elves, and Harry still didn’t know if he had reacted too mildly, although he had yelled and stomped his feet and told Dash about Dobby.
            Yes, but there might be ice cream.
            Harry rolled his eyes and followed Dash down the stairs. Dash took them in an interesting way, flowing along the side like a stream of water. You complain about being cold, but then you want to go and eat cold food.
            Then we can come back and warm up in front of the fire, and you can pet me. I see no drawbacks to this.
            Harry had to at least give a half-smile, and from there, it wasn’t a big step to a full one.
*
            Draco checked his notes, and then bit his lip. They looked right, and he thought he had copied them right from Slytherin’s book. But he couldn’t copy them exactly with a Replication Charm. Slytherin’s book had other charms on the text that prevented that.
            In the end, Draco shook his head and stood up, going over to retrieve Slytherin’s book from his trunk. Perhaps he was being an idiot, but at least he would be a live idiot with a basilisk if he looked one more time.
            He glanced carefully around the third-year boys’ bedroom as he reached into his trunk. So far, he thought the only reason he hadn’t been caught was that this book had been sitting in the middle of an old and disused history section. Everyone assumed that everything important about the Founders was in Hogwarts, A History, except for researchers that mostly lived far away from Hogwarts.
            His hand scrabbled among clothes and patted other books, papers, his broom that he’d had to promise to put away and not use until next year—
            No book about Slytherin.
            Draco froze for a second. Then he threw back the lid and began to look fully, fiercely, not bothering to keep an alert stare around the room. He thought he would hear footsteps on the stairs in a minute, anyway.
            There was nothing there. Nothing that he wanted, anyway. Books that he had learned to disdain now he knew the secret of real power. Clothes that wouldn’t help him with the ritual. A broom that he wouldn’t need if he gained a basilisk and learned the secret of enchanting it to fly, as Slytherin’s book had promised him that he could.
            Only the bloody book wasn’t there.
            “Draco, what are you doing?”
            Draco leaped up and spun around, his wand out. Blaise stood behind him, blinking. After a second, he shook his head and walked over to his bed, although with his head turned to the side, one eye on Draco, as though he thought Draco would try to copy his homework or something.
            “Whatever it is, leave me out of it,” Blaise muttered, and sat down on his bed and pulled out a scroll and ink. No books, Draco thought, staring at him, thinking wildly. Blaise always claimed that he did his best work from memory, and he only needed his books to help him revise the essay.
            “Did you take it?” Draco demanded.
            “Your sanity?” Blaise murmured absently, dipping his quill into the ink and beginning to write a title at the top of the scroll with a flourish. “I think I saw Greg absconding with it. Be quick, before he figures out how to Transfigure it into a cake and eat it.”
            Draco was abruptly sure that Blaise was the one who had taken it. None of his other roommates would have the intelligence, and no one else knew he had taken the book out of the library. He had spotted Blaise peering at him the day he came in with the book, and some of the times he was reading it, he was sure.
            He stalked over and slammed his hands on Blaise’s bed. But Blaise had already caught his inkwell so it wouldn’t turn over and spill his ink everywhere. That confirmed to Draco that he was guilty, because how else would he have known Draco was angry and what he was going to do?
            “It would help to know the crime before I face the execution for it,” Blaise remarked.
            Draco became aware he was holding his wand in a tense, trembling hand, and that Blaise, for all his casual pretense, was watching him carefully. Draco sneered at him and brought down the wand to rap hard against his kneecap. “I want to know if you took the book I had,” he said. “My History book.”
            Blaise curled his lip. “My dear Draco,” he said, and placed a hand over his heart with a gesture that Draco couldn’t see as either false or true, given how well he was acting it, “I have enough trouble writing relevant notes in my own History book. I assure you I wouldn’t want to take anyone else’s and spy on their adolescent scribblings.”
            Draco stared for a blank moment before he realized that Blaise thought Draco was talking about his History of Magic book.
            Or he was pretending to think that. Because of course he really didn’t, and of course he was only lying, and acting, and pretending he cared about Draco and what he was researching, but no one really did, not the way a basilisk would—
            Draco uttered a short scream of pure frustration and launched himself at Blaise.
            Blaise only fell back against his pillows and flicked his wand, and Draco went flying across the room as protection spells he had never known were there leaped into life around the bed. Draco found himself lying on the floor panting, and struggled back to his feet, his head aching fiercely.
            “You’re not acting like yourself,” Blaise said, as if responding to the murderous rage that brewed behind Draco’s thoughts instead of the actual expression on his face. “You would know that if you thought about it. I don’t have your precious book. I’m telling the truth,” he added, when Draco started forwards with his mouth open.
            Draco stared at him searchingly. Blaise looked back at him and radiated sincerity.
            Acting, Draco thought, again. But this time, he didn’t think so. Which meant…someone else had taken the book. Maybe there was a charm on it that alerted the librarian if someone kept it out too long, and she could take it back. Madam Pince had started doing that with some of the Quidditch books, because otherwise, she complained, she never had them on the shelves at all.
            Maybe Theodore had noticed and done something about it. It was true Theodore rarely deigned to pay attention to anything beyond the edge of his nose, except letters from his father, but once he did see something he wanted, he was ruthless about taking it.
            Draco backed away from Blaise, panting, his eyes on the strange spells that guarded Blaise’s bed. He had never seen anything like them before, and he would have given a great deal to know how to raise them.
            Yesterday. Last week. A few months ago. Right now, he needed that book, and he needed to get into the Chamber of Secrets, and most of all, he needed his basilisk.
            “You’d better not be lying,” he whispered. “I’ll hurt you if you are.”
            Blaise’s face changed. “Then you’ll be making a mistake,” he said, and his expression looked like the shadow of a not-smile that Draco had seen on some photographs of Mrs. Zabini in the newspapers.
            Draco stared hard at Blaise again, and then turned and slipped away. He didn’t think Blaise would really poison him, which was said to be Mrs. Zabini’s preferred way of making husbands into ex-husbands, but it would also be foolish to stay and take chances.
            This was…
            He had no idea what to do next. He could track Theodore down, but not soon enough to do the full moon ritual for this month. It had to be done tonight, and Draco had already wasted some of the preparation time he needed.
            He fled from the dorms, and if there were eyes on his back, well, Blaise probably thought he had his reasons.
*

            Blaise sighed and flopped back on his bed. He had taken a chance, he knew, especially when he told Draco that he didn’t have the book. Draco was so agitated he might have taken that truth as a lie, and then Blaise would have had to show off some of the skills his mother had taught him rather sooner than he wanted to.
            In the meantime, he knew the book was safe. Blaise had taken it and owled it to his mother, with questions about what was in it and hints she might find it interesting. She would know whether Blaise’s own suspicions about the book and the spells that guarded it were true.
            Why would a book like that be sitting all alone in the middle of the library? It had been his mother’s question before, but Blaise agreed with her. His mum saw only three fit places for it: in the Restricted Section, in a private collection, or with her.
            Unless, of course, the book itself was responsible for its placement, and for the way it was preying on Draco’s mind.
            Blaise only hoped he had removed it before its effect on Draco’s mind was ingrained.
*
            Severus frowned and slowly leaned back from the Gryffindor portrait. The ridiculous Fat Lady had refused to let him in, of course. She had said first that he didn’t know the password, and next that he was the “traditional enemy” of Gryffindors, and third that there was no one in the common room anyway. Severus had argued back that he knew Potter was there and he had to speak to him, and that was when the Fat Lady had said the interesting thing, the thing that would have kept Severus from having an argument with a portrait if he had known it.
            “Went down to the kitchens a few minutes ago, didn’t he?” the Fat Lady had said, smug and robust, folding her arms beneath her bosom as she laughed at him. “Not like he’s here. I told you, no one in the common room.” And she stared vigilantly past him, as if she was going to protect Gryffindor Tower against any more “traditional enemies” if one showed up.
            Severus had decided she was telling the truth. Of course, school portraits were not supposed to be able to lie anyway, or they would have joined the students in countless pranks and the Headmaster would have lost control, but they could be biased or mistaken.
            Still, it would take no more of his time to seek Potter in the kitchens than it had taken to come up here. And Severus wanted a chance to speak to him before Black took him “home” for the holidays.
            When Severus arrived at the pear that concealed the entrance to the kitchens, he heard the sound of voices. That was not unusual; Potter would be speaking to the house-elves. Not having grown up around them, he had not adopted the usual wizarding attitude towards the creatures.
            Severus raised his hand to tickle the pear, and then paused. No, he recognized those voices, and one of them was Draco’s.
            Severus at once cast a spell of his own invention, the Eavesdropping Charm, which brought him the muffled words clearly despite the wall in the way. Then he cast a Disillusionment Charm around himself and settled in to listen.
*
            Harry had been more than surprised when Malfoy came flying through the door into the kitchens, but not as surprised as the elves, who had all frozen as solid as the mass of ice cream they’d just put in front of Dash, or Malfoy, who stared at Harry with desolate eyes and whirled to fly back out.
            “Wait!” Harry blurted.
            “No, why should I?” Malfoy asked, and he sounded as if he’d been crying, or as if he was trying to avoid crying, and not succeeding very well. “This is—everything’s wrong, maybe you took my book, now I’ll never have a basilisk.” He turned around and scowled at Harry and Dash again. Dash coiled up and watched him for a second, then flowed off the table.
            Dash! Harry said.
            I’m not going to bite him. I want to try something.
            Harry could only bite his lip and sit still and hope this would be okay as Dash slithered up until he was directly in front of Malfoy. Malfoy stared at him and said nothing. He was keeping very still, and Harry didn’t think it was out of fear. It was like Malfoy was so despairing that his despair was holding him there.
            Harry had felt like that sometimes before, mostly when he was crouching in the cupboard at the Dursleys’. He found himself holding his breath.
            Dash swayed before Malfoy like a cobra, and his tongue flickered out, tasting scents that he didn’t share with Harry, even though Harry asked. He only repeated, I want to try something, and flung a loop of his body around Malfoy’s legs.
            Malfoy sat down hard. Harry got up. He was going to run to someone’s rescue, but he really didn’t know if it was Dash’s or Malfoy’s.
            I told you to let me alone, said Dash, and the next second he had unbound Malfoy and was slithering back to Harry. There was something missing from his back, Harry saw as he picked him up, something glimmering on Malfoy’s leg. It looked like a small and silky scale, one of the ones Harry often stroked when he couldn’t get to sleep and Dash would let Harry pet him as a soothing method.
            It was as I thought, said Dash, and bobbed his head in what looked like self-congratulations. Harry rolled his eyes. Dash immediately told him that it was self-congratulations, and added, He smelled like the magic on the traps I scented around us when we left the Chamber.
            You mean Slytherin’s magic?
            Yes.
            Harry looked at Malfoy in wonder. He had wanted to find a way to the Chamber of Secrets, and it seemed like he might have found one. “You’re pretty brilliant for someone who’s not a Parselmouth,” he heard himself say.
            Malfoy slowly picked himself up and shook his head. “What did your snake do?” he asked, and he sounded as though he had forgotten he was talking to a Gryffindor and an enemy. Or maybe those were the same thing, to him.
            Harry smiled cautiously at him. “I think he healed you of some magic that was hurting you. He left you his scale.” He nodded at the glimmering green piece that still clung to Malfoy’s leg, as though it was molded there.
            Malfoy bent down and pulled on it. It didn’t come off, and Malfoy said in a high, haughty voice that Harry could recognize the terror in, “It’s stuck there. Why is it stuck there?”
            The magic haunting him was very powerful, said Dash, who was guzzling down the ice cream and flicking his tongue out as though he wanted to swallow the scent of the ice cream along with the taste. I had to leave part of myself behind to counter it. It will be bound to his body now. He turned his head and flicked his tongue out. Tell him not to smell so terrified. It’s putting me off my appetite.
            “Dash had to give you one of his scales so he could get rid of Slytherin’s magic,” said Harry. “Slytherin was influencing your mind.”
            Malfoy stopped tugging on the scale. “He was?”
            Harry listened to Dash for a second, although his words sounded oddly muffled in Harry’s mind. He was tired, Harry realized. And hungry. Using that much magic had taken something out of him. “Yes. Through the book, I think. Dash said you smelled like the traps in the Chamber of Secrets. And he gave you a scale so you could be free of that magic.”
            “It’s going to stay with me.” Malfoy stared dazedly down at his leg.
            Harry nodded. “That’s right.” He didn’t actually need Dash to tell him that this time. He thought the scale looked stuck on there good and proper.
            Malfoy visibly swallowed. Then he looked up at Harry and said, “I was looking for a basilisk of my own, not to become part one.”
            Harry grinned and gestured him over. “Sit down and tell me what you were doing. And I’ll tell you why Dash is smarter than both of us.”
            Always nice to have an audience for one’s greatness, Dash said, without looking up from the ice cream. He had already started to drape part of his tail in Harry’s lap, though, which meant he would curl up soon and start sleeping.
            Malfoy came a few cautious steps forwards. Harry beamed at him and nodded as welcomingly as possible. Slowly, Malfoy sat down and started talking.
*
            Smiling, Severus stepped back from the door and went on his way.
*
ChaosLady: Why bittersweet?
Meechypoo: Well, neither. For now.
Anon: Thanks! I promise that Draco is not going to die. But other bad things might still happen.
delia cerrano: Harry is not going to abandon his relationship with Sirius, but he will have a mentor-protégé one with Severus.
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A Brother to Basilisks