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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 Twenty-Seven—Springing the Trap
            You don’t need to talk to them, said Dash with a certainty that stabbed Harry under the heart like a sharp, slim bone dagger.
            What a keen imagination you have, Dash added, and his heavy head came to rest in the place that Harry had been thinking of, his tongue darting coolly out for a moment. His closed eyelids fluttered a little, and he turned his head to the side, apparently feeling Harry’s heartbeat. You don’t need to.
            “I still need a place to live for the summer,” Harry reminded Dash quietly, running his fingers softly along the ridge above Dash’s closed eye. They were in the middle of Harry’s bed, sealed behind curtains that Harry had warded with several strong privacy charms. Harry spoke quietly as much to avoid waking Ron as because his throat was too choked with emotion to speak more strongly. “I can’t have that if I don’t talk to Sirius and Lupin.”
            You could have a place with your Weasley friend. You could have a place with your professor.
            It took Harry a moment to realize which professor Dash must be talking about, and when he knew, he snorted aloud and shook his head. “Come off it, Dash. I’ll admit, he’s been nice to me, a lot nicer than he used to be, but there’s a difference between that and wanting to adopt me.”
            He would not need to adopt you to guarantee you a safe home.
            Dash sounded more enchanted with the idea as he spoke. Harry shuddered a little as he realized that Dash had vowed to get him an adult who could look after him. Snape might be the adult he had in mind.
            No, Harry snapped, switching to the silent voice of their bond as he heard someone shift in their bed. Dean, most likely. He said that he always had bad dreams right before exams. I forbid you to do anything about getting “someone” for me, Dash. You couldn’t talk to Snape without me being there, anyway.
            Dash paused, his tail tapping the sheets. The stirring sound had stopped, but this one was loud enough. The only one louder was Harry’s heart. Harry held his eyes, as well as he could when Dash’s lids still blocked them, and glared.
            I want to help you, Dash finally said, and laid his head in Harry’s lap. His emotions tumbled through Harry’s head like the images he had first hurled at Harry when he was explaining his name, and his voice was soft and sulky.
            I know that, said Harry, and used his hand to gently smooth down Dash’s plume. But I still have a home that I can get back if I say the right words.
            What about the words they should say to you?
            Harry let out a long, slow breath and shrugged. That shifted Dash’s coils around his shoulders around in a way that usually made him grumble, but now he was silent, waiting, and Harry realized how seriously he took this. I don’t know. I’ll—we’ll see how this confrontation goes.
            You realize I will be with you, and that I’ll bite them the moment they try to threaten you.
            I know that. Harry leaned back on his pillow, and didn’t speak what he was saying aloud in words: that if not for Dash’s presence there, he wouldn’t have been able to go to the confrontation with Remus and Sirius at all.
            Dash’s head snuggled further into his lap. You don’t need to worry. I’ll never leave you.
            Harry closed his eyes. He could have contested that, could have asked what happened if Dash chased after one of his enemies or wanted a mate, but he didn’t. For once, he thought, he could trust that a person who said something like that meant it.
            No one else is bonded to me.
*
            “Were they really awful, the Muggles?”
            Draco paused and laid one hand flat on the wall. He’d been about to speak to Harry when he saw him stalking along one of the corridors away from the Great Hall, after dinner had finished, but it seemed someone else had had the same idea.
            And that person was Pansy Parkinson, which stunned Draco.
            Draco waited, only leaning forwards a little to see what he could see. He heard Harry huff before he saw him. He was standing in the center of the corridor, one hand so firmly on Dash’s head that Draco would have winced if he was Dash, away from the pressure. But Dash only looked as if he liked it, even touching his tongue to Harry’s hand before opening his mouth in a yawn.
            Pansy didn’t leap and squeal at his fangs, which she had talked about being frightened of more than once at the Slytherin table. She only studied Harry, and Harry studied her back.
            “They were exactly as awful as the paper said they were,” Harry finally muttered, after what looked like an encouraging squeeze around the waist from Dash’s tail. “The article didn’t exaggerate.” He shrugged and started to edge past Pansy. “You can read about it there. It tells the truth.”
            “But—it’s different, with magical families, right?” Pansy demanded, turning to track Harry. “They wouldn’t hurt someone like that. You wouldn’t have been abused if you grew up with wizards instead of Muggles.”
            Harry turned around with a grace that Draco had only seen once before, when they were dueling in that stupid club Lockhart had tried to set up last year. For a minute, Draco was afraid that Harry was going to attack Pansy for some reason, but he didn’t. He just walked up to her and looked her earnestly in the face, earnestly enough that Pansy blushed and started looking down at her hands and picking at her nails.
            “That was hard for me to admit to myself,” Harry murmured, his voice tender. He reached out and took one of Pansy’s hands and held it still. “That it was abuse and awful, that I deserved better.”
            Pansy was trembling. She lifted her head, and Draco saw a gleam of tears on her lashes. He stared. Pansy, who never cried?
            “But what if it’s not like that?” Pansy whispered. “Why if they just—ignored your nightmares, and told you that you had to study more, and locked you in the library with books, and sometimes put potions in your food to see if you could recognize them? That’s not abuse. Not like what you went through. No one ever starved me. They were just trying to train me for the hard ways of the world.”
            Draco closed his eyes. He had heard people use that phrase before. Specifically, Pansy would repeat it soon after her father sent her a letter.
            “No. It’s abuse.”
            Harry’s voice was firm, strong, sure. Draco opened his eyes again. He was standing right in front of Pansy and giving her the kind of earnest look Pansy would ordinarily have mocked. But she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to mock anyone right now, Draco thought. And come to think of it, he couldn’t have done it, either.
            A thought did drift across Draco’s mind, even as he watched Harry do something admirable like comfort a Slytherin who wasn’t him, that it was strange Harry was so able to do this when he’d kicked and screamed about calling his own Muggle abuse by the name “abuse.” But that just seemed to be the way Harry was. Jump into the fire for someone else, not notice he was burning if it was him.
            “You’re the only one who can make the decision to call it that,” Harry went on, still earnest. “And you’re the one who has to decide what to do.” He hesitated, and then Draco saw the moment when he flung caution to the winds. “But if you want someone who will help you and not question you, then you can go to Professor Snape.”
            “P-Professor Snape?” Pansy stared up at Harry with eyes so wide and bright that it seemed as if the tears had transformed themselves into her pupils or something. “W-was he the one who helped you?”
            “Yes.” Harry looked at her again and clenched her hands. “But you can’t tell anyone that unless he wants to come out and say it, okay? We decided that it would be best if no one knew that for right now.”
            “I know,” said Pansy, and swallowed. “But I didn’t even know I could go to him about something like this.”
            “Why?” Harry sounded puzzled. “You’re a Slytherin.”
            Draco shook his head. This was the kind of thing that he would have understood better than Harry, although he also understood why Pansy had chosen to confide in Harry rather than him. She would be afraid of Draco making fun of her. Draco was trained to attack weakness. It was the lesson his father had drilled into him throughout his childhood.
            But Professor Snape was also someone who, while he would accept and repair the weaknesses of his Slytherins, wouldn’t offer much comfort while doing so. Most of Draco’s Housemates assumed he only wanted to be bothered by either things that had to do with potions, his area of expertise, or things that a student really couldn’t get help with elsewhere, like being treated unfairly by another professor. None of them would have gone to him with something like this.
            It made Draco wonder abruptly how Harry had known that it would be safe.
            “No, really, you can go to him,” Harry was telling Pansy now, maybe because she had started to confide in him and he had realized she didn’t have the words to tell him the truth. “Come on, I know he’s in his office right now and he doesn’t have anyone to supervise in detention. I’ll take you there.”
            Pansy hung back with a little murmur, but it was obvious to Draco that she really wanted to be convinced, and that was what Harry did. He smiled at her and pulled on her hand, and she let herself follow him.
            Draco leaned back. He would talk to Harry later. Maybe tomorrow. They still had about a week before exams, and Draco could take some time away from revising furiously.
            He thought he saw Dash glance back at him, snapping his tongue out to catch his scent, before Harry and Pansy disappeared around the corner. Draco looked back as hard as he could. He wanted Dash to take care of Harry. But he had the feeling that was probably going to happen anyway.
*
            “Professor Snape? Pansy wants to talk to you.”
            Severus had only a moment to wonder when Parkinson had given Harry permission to call her by her first name. From the appealing look that she gave him before she ducked her head, and the even more appealing one that Harry fastened on him, he knew what this was about.
            Severus settled his face into the neutral, natural mask that seemed to reassure Harry the most, and nodded. “Please sit down, Miss Parkinson.” That was what he normally called her in class, and he thought changing the level of formality too quickly would only make her more uncomfortable.
            Parkinson took her chair in front of his desk, and breathed out once her gaze was on her fists in her lap. Severus had expected more hesitation, but perhaps she had decided there was little use in hiding now that she was here. “It’s about my father, sir.”
            Severus nodded once, and glanced up at Harry, who was standing by the door with his gaze fastened protectively on Parkinson. He caught Severus’s eye and nodded, and slid quietly out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Although Parkinson must have heard it, she showed no apprehension. She had probably accepted being alone with Severus, then.
            Good. Parkinson was not one of the twenty-two children Severus had identified as current students who were abused. He would need to listen to her story in privacy and with keen attention, and Harry had handled the situation well.
            As he prepared the tea that he could best mix with a Calming Draught, Severus decided, I must remember to tell him so.
*
            Harry got to Lupin’s office feeling as if he was glowing from the inside. That had been the right thing to do, a good thing. He had helped Pansy, and that made him feel as if he could fly.
            It prepared him for the conversation with Sirius and Lupin, he knew. Better than the Strengthening Potion Snape would have suggested.
            Well, he would have suggested it if he knew about this conversation, anyway. Harry thought he would probably want Harry to run the other direction.
            But it had to be done. And Harry knew Sirius had come to the castle to visit Lupin tonight. He’d been at dinner.
            You can fight for her, and not for yourself, said Dash, in a sad tone of voice, just as Harry put his hand on the door.
            Harry looked down at him. I need you to support me right now, he said. Without faltering and without reservation. Can you do that?
            Dash reared exactly as much of his body off Harry’s shoulders and waist as he needed to meet Harry’s gaze. You know I will. But supporting you isn’t the same as approving of all your actions. Or not wanting to bite people.
            Right now, I don’t need criticism, Harry told him quietly. Right now, I do need approval.
            Dash slung a coil over one arm, held it tightly for a minute, and then let it go. Harry smiled down at him and knocked on the door.
            “Yes, just a moment…” Harry heard Lupin making his way past the crates and cages that his office was always filled with. He wasn’t supervising a detention tonight, either. Harry had checked. Harry folded his arms tightly and took a deep breath.
            Lupin opened the door, a pleasant, slightly dotty smile on his face that he usually wore when he thought people were coming to ask him questions. It fell away entirely when he saw Harry, and he leaned on the wall as though someone had hit him, wincing as he placed one hand to his chest.
            “Yeah,” said Harry, looking at him and holding his eyes, “it’s me.”
            Lupin licked his lips and looked over his shoulder for a second. Then he stepped quietly forwards and started to shut the door behind him, whispering, “Harry, what are you doing here? Do you need help with your homework?”
            Dash was uncoiling himself with a slow, deliberate grace that Harry knew promised nothing good. He put a hand on Dash’s head to hold him still, and shook his head slowly. “You know what I came to talk about, Professor Lupin,” he said. “And I know Sirius is in there, and I have to speak to him too. Will you tell him to come out?”
            For a moment, Professor Lupin dithered, and Harry thought he might turn away. But finally he nodded, with a kind of numb wonder on his face, as if he was stunned that he was doing this. Then he turned away and called to Sirius. Harry hugged Dash around the neck and said nothing.
            Sirius came to the door walking as slowly as if he was going to a funeral. Harry didn’t know if he’d heard Harry’s voice or if he was just thinking about Harry in general, and that weighed him down. Harry sort of hoped it was the second one, honestly.
            He held Sirius’s eyes in turn when he got there, and then nodded at the door. “Can we go inside your office, Professor Lupin?” he asked.
            Both of them moved aside so Harry could go in, and both of them watched him in a sort of daze. Harry wondered why he had to be the adult here, and then sighed. Because neither of them would be. They would have come and talked to him before now if they were going to be adults about it.
            This is why you should find someone else, someone who will treat you right.
            Harry ignored that, and turned to face Sirius and Professor Lupin. They were standing shoulder to shoulder, huddled, as if Harry really was the adult and had the power to send them to their rooms.
            Harry banished the painful thought about bedrooms and how much he wished Lupin had locked his door, and looked from face to face. “All right,” he said quietly. “I think you know what I’ve come about.”
            “You’re going to tell us why you didn’t tell us the Dursleys abused you?” Sirius was looking into his face with an earnestness that really reminded Harry of a dog trying to understand someone.
            “And you’re going to tell me why you didn’t apologize and come talk to me about what happened in your house,” Harry told Sirius.
            Sirius gave a little flick of his head to get his hair out of his eyes. “It’s your house, too,” he said. “And Remus’s house.”
            Dash was hissing, although not aloud. Harry thought he was the only one who would ever feel that throb of hissing through his mind, and honestly, the only one who ever needed to feel it. “I’ll consider it home when tell you me why you didn’t apologize,” he said.
            Lupin held out his hands. His eyes were amber-colored, and when Dash gave an incoherent mutter about a threat, Harry told him to stop that. He thought Lupin’s eyes were that color all the time. It was just more noticeable right now. “What apologies are enough for what I did?” Lupin whispered. “I can’t make up for it. I can’t beg you to forgive me. I can only—quit my job at the end of the year and go somewhere else.”
            Harry stared at him with his mouth open. He had never thought Lupin was going to quit being their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
            Guilt bubbled in him. Did I cause this?
            Dash’s tail slapped him firmly on the side of the head.
            It wasn’t a hard blow, but it did its job. Harry shook his head. No, he hadn’t. He couldn’t have, because he had opened the door not knowing where Lupin was and not knowing what he was, and that was because they had kept secrets from him. And he hadn’t even known that Lupin was thinking about quitting his job, because they hadn’t told him anything about that either.
            I deserve to be told things.
            Dash’s tongue flickered out and gently licked the side of his arm.
“I always said that snake was violent!” Sirius was pointing one finger at Harry, as if he might have missed the fact that Dash had slapped him. “How can you stand there and defend him, Harry?”
“Because he would apologize for it if he did something wrong,” Harry snapped. He didn’t mean to, but the words slipped out, and then they were out there and there was no taking them back.
Sirius slowly folded his arms. Lupin turned away and stared at his hands again. “No words can encompass how sorry I am,” he whispered. “But I am sorry.”
Harry turned and stared at Sirius. “What about you?” he whispered. “Are you sorry for not trusting me, and embarrassing when you burst into Potions class like that? Sirius?” he added, because he honestly thought his godfather might stand there until the end of time looking the other way if he didn’t.
Sirius waited so long that Harry’s hope was dying a smothered death in his chest. Then he drew in his own breath and spoke.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I thought you were like other kids. Couldn’t keep secrets.” He cleared his throat roughly. “And I thought—I thought that you—I mean, Albus tried to tell me—I knew you were different from other kids. I just didn’t know how different.” He looked at Harry, and his face was bleak and desolate. “I see now that you can keep secrets pretty well.”
“I wanted to tell you,” Harry said quietly. “But you weren’t talking to me.”
Sirius closed his eyes. His face was etched with torture. “I wish I’d never had that bloody talk with Albus,” he whispered.
Harry didn’t know which conversation he was talking about, and so he just stood there and waited. Dash squeezed and relaxed around his waist in a regular pattern. Sirius finally opened his eyes and said slowly, “I wanted you to come to me. I thought—I thought that what I did was awful, kind of like Remus.” He nodded to Lupin, who still had his head turned away. “But I wanted to talk to you in private. At home.” He gave Dash an eloquent glance. “And without a snake listening to every word we said.”
Before Harry could say anything about how Dash would be with him everywhere he went, always, Sirius met his eyes and added, “Whether the snake is a literal snake or a Slytherin.”
“Professor Snape was helping me,” Harry said. He would call the man “Snape” most of the time, but he wanted to add the title now. “He kept you out of the classroom because you were just making people more curious, and wanting to stare at me.” He folded his arms tighter. Dash flowed over them, and made Harry feel as if he was wearing armor. “And anyway, I don’t know if I would have trusted you to tell you about the abuse after Lupin attacked me and you didn’t apologize. It felt—it felt as if you cared more about each other than you did about me.”
Sirius seemed to crumble. “Oh, kid,” he whispered. He held out his arms.
Harry hesitated.
He has not solved anything, Dash told him, head still weaving back and forth. He still remains as prone to jealousy and shallowness as he ever was. Think about that.
Harry did think about that. But he also thought that Sirius looked sorry now, and weary, and tired, like Harry himself. They hadn’t apologized on time, but Harry hadn’t sought them out and talked to them, either.
And he was tired of things not working out.
When he ran forwards and embraced Sirius, Sirius murmured into his ear, “So sorry. I’m so sorry. And if I’d known that the Dursleys were treating you like that, I would have broken out of Azkaban a long time ago. I just thought—I just thought that I’d missed my chance, and messed everything up by suggesting Peter as the Secret-Keeper, and I didn’t know how I could face the guilt.”
Harry closed his eyes. It sounded like Lupin and Sirius had a lot of the same guilt problems.
You are not going to let them get away with this? Dash asked. These pitiful apologies, too late?
Harry took a deep breath and told Dash, I’m not really going to trust them again. Not unless they show me they can be trusted. But I want to live with them—well, with Sirius, and have Lupin visit, or whatever’s going to happen there. It just means that I won’t be able to relax as much around them, and I’ll have to be careful.
Dash’s silence was as bitter as hatred. At last he said, It is unfair that you should have to be the adult.
I agree with that, Harry whispered. But Sirius was hugging him, and he wanted a home, and he had one, if he could get over his own pride and anger and accept it.
And he had Dash with him to make sure that things didn’t go wrong.
I still think Snape would be better.
Snape wanted to help me with the abuse, but that’s not the same thing as helping me permanently, Harry told him, and wrapped his arms all the harder about Sirius. I’ll do what I have to.
Dash was silent. And Sirius whispered apologies, over and over again, and Harry thought it was going to be all right.
Really. No matter how heavy and disapproving Dash made his body. Harry only had to think about Pansy, and his body fired with glowing determination. He could do things that helped people. And Sirius really did love him, Harry knew that when he thought about his room. Next to that, what was a little caution?
*
ChaosLady: Thank you!
moodysavage: In a way, they already have. Harry loves Sirius, but doesn’t really trust him. And he feels neither for Dumbledore.
moon: Thank you!
Severus1snape: I don’t think many people like Albus at this point.
starr: Snape is not going to be happy that Harry went and talked to Sirius and Lupin without him, but, well, it was Harry’s choice.
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A Brother to Basilisks