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Ancient and Noble Houses	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 29877 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 22
- 23
- 24
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Three—Hidden in the Dark
            Harry came out of his trance with a start. He had fallen into running, the way he sometimes used to when he was escaping from Dudley and his friends, and now Hogwarts had blurred around him. Harry lifted his head, panting, and turned it back and forth.
            There was…
            There was a dungeon corridor around him, he interpreted slowly, his mind stumbling as he fought his way back towards a semblance of normality. A corridor that hadn’t been used in a long time, by the chill coming from the stones and the lines of grime and dust on the doors around him. Perhaps this had once been a classroom, or even bedrooms, in the days when Slytherin House had been bigger.
            Contradictory emotions wrenched at him, and Harry put his hand over his heart, which felt as if it was trying to slow down and speed up at the same time. For a moment, he wanted to mourn for the lost glory of Slytherin, where so many of his ancestors had been.
            And for the same moment, he wanted to sneer and laugh, and say that someday they would fade and die out completely, like a good Gryffindor would.
            Like Harry would.
            Harry closed his eyes. Hermione’s words still rang in his head, telling him that he could come back and be her Harry again, Ron’s Harry, if he tried.
            But his own words were still stronger, the ones that had come from his own mouth when he asked Draco wistfully if Draco wanted him.
            Harry swallowed. He had run away like a fool, but still, he couldn’t go back yet. He pressed forwards, casting a few spells that would cut the webs in front of him, and ignoring the temptation to step on the spiders that swarmed on the floor. That was something a Black would do. Well, either that or keep spiders as pets. As long as Harry didn’t do either, then he could pretend he had a piece of himself that was separate from the house.
            “Potter.”
            The voice echoed, from several directions. Harry jerked back and stared wildly around himself. Then he swallowed and stood up. If someone had come from Slytherin to find him, his worst defense was looking weak—not a defense at all, in fact. They either hated him, or might hate him. He drew his wand.
            “That will be of no good unless you know the spells to unpaint me.”
            Harry cast Lumos, and the light speared through the gloom of the corridor as though someone had set the cobwebs on fire. Not a bad idea, muttered the part of him that Harry was trying to ignore.
            On the wall, next to a doorway that had some shattered splinters of wood sticking out of the sides, but no door, hung a dark frame of what looked like wrought gold. In the center of it, against a background of shelves, stood Professor Snape, his arms folded.
            Harry just stared at him for what felt like the longest time. He tried to remember if anyone had told him Snape had a portrait among the Headmasters, and couldn’t remember. He’d had other things to think about that summer.
            But really, even if Snape did have a portrait in the Headmistress’s office, it wouldn’t explain why he had one here, in a corridor where no one ever went.
            “Why did they hang a portrait of you here?” he asked. He had already taken a close look at the background behind Snape, the shelves that held endless rows of books, but he couldn’t see any space for another figure there. That made it more likely that it was Snape’s picture, instead of one that he had forced someone else out of.
            Snape’s eyebrows went up. “Something has changed you for the better, Potter, if the first thing you ask is a sensible question,” he murmured.
            Harry couldn’t help scowling, remembering the last thing that had changed him—Kreacher probably thought it was for the better, too. He rubbed the silver scars the Kneazle had left on him, and said nothing.
            Snape caught the gesture, and made a small humming sound, the kind that Harry remembered him making when he looked at Malfoy’s potions. Harry started to turn around. He had no desire to be an interesting potion to Snape, or anything else to Snape, ever again.
            But Snape murmured, “It seems that the consequences of Black choosing you as his heir are catching up with you at last.” He sounded pleased about it.
            Harry paused, and then pivoted back slowly. He stared at Snape. Not even Malfoy had recognized the signs of what the house was doing to him that quickly. Or, rather, Harry didn’t think he had.
            It’s not like I’ll get the chance to ask him, since I don’t think he’ll ever come near me again if he can help it.
            Harry bit his lips savagely to hold back any quiver of betraying emotion, and shook his head. “I know that Sirius never became the heir fully, because he fled before he came of age,” he said emotionlessly. “How would you know anything about it?”
            Snape laughed, and his voice was freer than Harry had ever heard it, if no kinder. “Because the elder Blacks were supporters of the Dark Lord’s cause, Potter. I met them several times, after Black’s brother became a Death Eater. They did not bear silver scars in the same place as you, but they bore similar ones.”
            Harry shook his head, amazed. He never would have thought to ask Snape for the kind of information he needed. “Fine,” he said. “Then do you know how Sirius and Regulus got out of it?”
            “By never letting it happen to them in the first place.”
            Harry’s hope burned to ash. “Right,” he said. “Fat lot of good you are.” He turned away.
            “Perhaps,” Snape said, in a voice that suggested it made him rejoice not to be of use to Harry. “However.”
            Harry made himself stop and turn around, although he knew that it was probably one of Snape’s sadistic jokes and he should just ignore him. “What?” he asked.
            Snape tapped his finger against his lips, gazing at Harry all the while, and making Harry think he would never get around to the point. However, finally he nodded and said, “There is a potion that may be able to change your body back to what it was before you began to accept the burden of the house. I would not advise it most of the time, because it is highly poisonous. However, I think that you might as well try it. If you yield and slip under the influence of the Black house, that will be worse than dying of poison.”
            Harry laughed, but cut himself off when he heard how high and shrill the laughter had begun, and saw the way Snape was staring at him. Even more than he didn’t want to be like the old Blacks, Harry didn’t want to be like Voldemort. “Right,” he said. “I’ve already tortured a house-elf and partially tortured Draco. I don’t want to do any worse.”
            Snape’s eyes narrowed as though Harry had given the wrong answer on an exam. “Why would you torture Draco? I was left under the impression that you had rescued him, misguided as such an action might seem to your friends.”
            Harry shook his head. “I thought he might have some information about the Blacks, and I pinned him to a wall and sliced into his mind.”
            It occurred to him, suddenly, that Draco actually had given him some information about the Blacks; it just wasn’t verbal information. Harry’s hand went to the book under his shirt, the one that Narcissa Malfoy had sent him.
            But before he could pull it out and get lost in its pages, Snape’s voice woke him again. “You are not a Legilimens.”
            Harry stared at him and shrugged. “Well, either it was just a matter of will holding me back before, or the house is giving me the power because it’s partially a Dark Art. And I did push you back into your mind and see your memories once, don’t forget.”
            Snape’s sneer said that he was unlikely to forget. “Do you want my help to brew this potion or not, Potter?”
            Harry planted his hand over his heart. “Oh, but Professor Snape, I would hate to disturb your eternal rest by begging you to help me,” he chirped. “Just tell me the name of the potion, and I’ll look it up myself.”
            Snape’s smile altered towards the feral. “Do you suppose I wish to see the school destroyed, boy?” he breathed. “No. I will tell you certain things, but you will brew the potion under my eye.”
            Harry had to snort. “Even you don’t believe that I’m as bad as Neville was,” he said. “What’s your real reason for helping me?”
            “So that you will live long enough for Draco to take his vengeance,” Snape said, staring intently into his eyes.
            Harry considered that reason, and found it at least acceptable, if not good. He nodded. “So where do you want me to start?”
            And if Snape helps me, breathed the back of his mind, then Draco won’t have to, and I can let him go.
*
            delia cerrano: The problem is, Draco doesn’t know what he really feels any more than Harry does.
            helga1967: Harry thinks he may have the question solved, if he can just stay away from Draco.
            CareLessLover; Thanks!
            Hermione thinks she does understand the influence of the house, and that makes her even more determined to win Harry free from it.
            SP777: Thanks! Draco will try to talk in Chapter 24, but Harry is unlikely to be very receptive.
            ChaosLady: Draco has a hard time thinking of those times!
            Cesumiss: Thank you! Hermione, at least, will try even harder to get Harry out.
            foo: Thank you!
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Ancient and Noble Houses