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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.

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Chapter Twenty-Eight—Things That Trembled
            “Mr. Potter,” said McGonagall softly behind him, as Harry was finishing up his exam for Transfiguration. “If you could stay behind for a few minutes when you’re done?”
            What did I do now? Harry wondered, out of habit, as he scribbled down the last line and shook his hand. It didn’t hurt as much as it used to when he was trying to write with a pencil in Muggle primary school, but a quill made things awkward in other ways. He had to concentrate really hard to make sure that he didn’t blot the ink, for one thing.
            You shouldn’t think like that, said Dash, and his tail gently squeezed around Harry’s waist. You shouldn’t always think that you’re in trouble, that you’re the guilty one.
            Harry didn’t respond, only stood up and hurried after McGonagall, who had withdrawn to the front of the room. Only a few people remained—Transfiguration wasn’t horrible for Harry, but it wasn’t his best subject—and they were all in the back. Harry smiled a little. He knew McGonagall was keeping one eye on them even as she talked with him, and she would make anyone who tried to cheat wish they hadn’t.
            “I understood there was some confusion about your summer plans,” McGonagall told Harry, peering at him with concerned eyes. “About whether you were going to stay with Mr. Black or go somewhere else.”
            Harry found himself a little relieved that she called Sirius by his last name, instead of his first, the way Dumbledore did. It made Sirius sound like he wasn’t an adult when Dumbledore called him that.
            Well, he is not.
            Dash’s opinion, Harry could also safely ignore. He shook his head. “No, I’m staying with Sirius, ma’am. There was—we had an argument, but everything’s okay now.” He saw the soft, relieved breath that escaped McGonagall.
            For one second, he was sort of sad that Snape knew more about the “argument” than his Head of House did, but he shook that away. He did have people who cared for him now, and it wasn’t like he had ever wanted to talk about his abuse with the Dursleys before, much less what had happened with Sirius. And he hadn’t ever relied on McGonagall for much before.
            “I also wanted to say, Mr. Potter,” and McGonagall also paused and took off her glasses and wiped them. “I am so sorry that I never noticed what was happening when you returned from the summer before.” Her accent was so thick on the last words, Harry had trouble understanding them. “If I had known…”
            “I know,” said Harry, uncomfortable as always when someone started blubbing like this. At least Snape had never blubbed. And Sirius had, but not about this. “But I didn’t tell anyone. How were you supposed to know?”
            She should have looked, said Dash, and for a moment, the hold of his tail became constricting. If she had paid attention instead of sinking into her own obliviousness, then you could have had better guardians last year. Or the year before.
            Who would I have stayed with? Harry asked. I didn’t have Sirius then, and there’s no one else who could have taken me in.
            Dash’s silence abounded in discontent. Harry thought he was doing his friend a favor by ignoring it. He said to McGonagall, “Is that all, ma’am? I mean, I’ve got a Herbology exam in ten minutes.”
            McGonagall went on looking broodingly at him for what had to be another minute, though, before she nodded. “You realize that you can come to me if you have any more concerns or need help, Mr. Potter?”
            Oh. Harry thought he knew what this was about, now. She was feeling guilty, and she wanted some reassurance. That was easy enough to give. Harry knew the right way to smile and the right words to speak, the way he had known how to soothe the Muggles who sometimes thought they could make the Dursleys stop the abuse.
            “Yes, I do,” he said. “Thanks, Professor McGonagall.”
            He left the classroom and ran towards the greenhouse. This part of the Herbology exam was entirely practical, and he would have to drag his gloves on after he got there. At least Dash had promised not to crawl through people’s plants and crush them the way he had one time in Professor Sprout’s class at the beginning of the year.
            She could do more than that if she was feeling guilty. You shouldn’t have to lie to spare people’s feelings.
            Harry shrugged as he wrestled his gloves out of his satchel and tugged them on, using his teeth when he had to, particularly when part of Dash’s body was in the way and he refused to move. I’m already lying to spare Sirius’s feelings. And Lupin’s. Sirius had told Harry that he could call Professor Lupin Remus outside of school, but Harry hadn’t felt comfortable enough to start that yet—especially because he hadn’t yet heard the permission from Professor Lupin himself.
            You shouldn’t have to.
            Harry nearly tripped from the thunder of Dash’s feelings through his mind. He took a moment to recover his breath, and glanced down at Dash, who stared back at him appealingly, his tail shaking back and forth as if he was a rattlesnake.
            “I know that,” Harry told him quietly. “But it’s the way things are.” He made sure he was using English so Dash would pay more attention to the words. “At least things are a lot better now. I have you, and I’m away from the Dursleys.”
            But your life should be happy, perfect, not full of these compromises.
            Harry gently stroked Dash’s plume. “Nobody’s life is perfect.”
            But I am perfect, because I am a basilisk, so I should be able to make my human’s life perfect.
            At least that put Harry in a good mood to take the Herbology exam, even if Dash was petulantly insisting in the back of his mind that he didn’t really understand what Harry had found so funny.
*
            Let’s see, Draco thought sarcastically to himself as he watched Harry rub his forehead the next morning in lunch, between what had probably been a morning of frantic revising, given that Granger was his friend, and the Potions exam. Harry looks pale and he’s constantly touching his scar. Do I think something’s wrong? Yes, I do.
            Which made the way Harry had tried to fob him off earlier with a smile and a story about how he hadn’t slept well stupid. And Draco didn’t enjoy people assuming he was stupid.
            He leaned towards Blaise, who had been quiet and moody in the last few days for reasons Draco didn’t understand, and muttered, “Blaise, did your mum say anything about the Ministry getting involved in Harry’s life lately?” It was the only thing he could think of, that Harry might have been distressed by the Ministry doing something stupid. If the stupid thing had happened at school, Draco would have heard about it, and Black and Lupin had stayed away from Harry since his last conversation with them. Draco didn’t think anything new was happening there.
            Blaise jumped as though Draco had pricked him with a pin and turned around to stare at Draco with something unpleasantly close to hatred on his face. “Do you think I keep track of what’s going on with Potter all the time?” he whispered in an acid tone. “No, I don’t. It’s bad enough that his picture is on the front page of the paper every morning now, without discussing him with other Slytherins!”
            And he turned away, leaving Draco to blink at him. He had no idea that Blaise hated Harry that much. Maybe he only hated the attention and the media circus. Draco probably would if he hadn’t known the truth about some of Harry’s secrets.
            Draco did scan the Prophet when the owls delivered it that morning, but found nothing new, only rehashes of what they’d already reported on Harry’s abuse and some mention here and there of Draco’s father’s part in reporting it. So Draco decided he would need to ask.
            And what better time to do that than after the Potions exam, when Harry would probably be stumbling with tiredness and vulnerable to someone who asked questions in the right tone?
*
            That wasn’t a dream. It was real. You need to tell someone.
            Harry shut his eyes. He had his hand pressed to his scar, still, and his fingers flexed now and then. He thought if he applied some pressure, then the pain and the bleeding would go away. Or at least the bleeding would have to stop. Harry knew all about applying pressure to the kinds of little cuts he’d got from Dudley and his gang.
            And this is not that! Dash was almost shouting at him, tail so tight around his waist that Harry’s ribs ached.
            Right. That was abuse, everyone tells me now. This is nothing. Harry finally dropped his hand from his scar and turned towards the kitchens. He could distract Dash with some bread and butter, or maybe the elves would have some freshly killed chickens that he could have, or be willing to capture some mice.
            Then Dash brought him to a stop by the simple expedient of dropping his tail to the ground so that it coiled around Harry’s legs and almost tripped him up, and someone called out behind him.
            “Harry!”
            Harry gave Dash a dirty look, and turned to face Draco. Draco immediately stopped jogging along the corridor and started strutting instead. Harry swallowed back a snort. Draco had told him once that Malfoys were on never less than perfect dignity. Harry reckoned he was getting to see that.
            “I know something is wrong,” Draco said. “You looked like you were in pain at breakfast today. Tell me?”
            He was probably trying to look charming, the way he sometimes did with professors, Harry thought. What was wrong with him that it was working?
            You are a normal person and he’s your friend? Dash lashed his tail against the floor, once. Something has gone wrong when I understand human interactions better than you do.
            Harry gave Dash a dirty look, and managed to smile politely at Draco. “I had a bad dream last night. I woke up, and my scar was bleeding. It’s bled off and on all day. And my head won’t stop hurting. So I’m going to get something to eat. The headache is probably getting worse because of not eating at breakfast this morning.”
            Draco blinked once or twice. He seemed not to have expected that Harry would actually tell him what was wrong. Take that, Harry thought, although he didn’t really know who he was talking to, and turned towards the kitchens again.
            Draco walked by his side. “Have you seen Professor Snape for a headache potion?” he asked abruptly.
            Harry wanted to gape. He didn’t even know that you could go and ask Snape for that kind of thing, although now that he thought about it, it made perfect sense for Slytherins. And maybe it would have been helpful if this was a normal headache. But he didn’t want to think that much about the dream.
            “Uh, no, that’s okay,” he said. “I always get a headache when I’m hungry, and I didn’t eat much at dinner last night, either. Nerves over the exams, you know.”
            “Harry,” said Draco, and stopped in the middle of the corridor, so that Harry had to stop, too, and look at him. “I saw you last night. You ate a lot. Even Dash had what must have been most of his meals for the week there.” He hesitated. “Why won’t you tell me? What’s wrong? And does your scar bleeding have something to do with the—the Dark Lord?”
            Harry shivered. He hadn’t even realized, until this moment, that he was lying to Draco again, after telling him the truth about the dream and the headache and his bleeding scar. It seemed so natural, sometimes, so necessary. But he hadn’t really meant to do it. Draco was his friend, and he deserved the truth.
            Fine. I’ll do this.
            Dash rubbed the side of his neck against Harry’s fingers. Harry nodded a little. “I think so,” he said. “I was dreaming about a woman walking through this big dark forest somewhere. Not the Forbidden Forest, I think,” he added hastily, as Draco’s eyes widened. “But she was looking for something. I had the impression she was nervous. And then she stopped and screamed, and I saw this—this dark thing rising up from the floor of the forest, and circling around her. I don’t know her. But I think she died before the dream ended.”
            Draco shivered convulsively. Harry tried to smile and pat him on the arm. “Hey. It was my nightmare, remember? Not yours. I’m the one who had the dream. I should be the one who gets scared by it!”
            Draco shook his head, his eyes stubborn, his face mute. “I think it was real,” he whispered. “It sounds real to me. Awful.”
            Harry snorted and rolled his eyes. “It was pretty awful, but I don’t know why you think it was real.”
            “You do,” Draco said, his eyes studying Harry intently. “Or part of you does. Or Dash does. Right?”
            Harry closed his eyes. Yeah, that had been the part that he’d been trying desperately not to think about, both the part of the dream and the part of his brain. He nodded once.
            “Then you need to tell someone,” Draco insisted. “I had to drag it out of you—and why do I keep having to do that?” There was a hint of resentment in his voice that made Harry frown and blink. “You should just tell me.”
            “I’m not used to that,” Harry said, trying to sound like he was calm and not resentful himself. “And anyway, who would I tell? I don’t trust Dumbledore. Sirius—he’s just not—” Harry shook his head. Not even to Draco could he say that he was the adult because Sirius couldn’t be.
            He would understand.
            “Professor Snape.” Now Draco was looking at him as if he was mental instead of exasperating. “He’s helped you before. He would help you now.”
            Harry silently clenched his hands. He wondered how he could tell Draco that he didn’t want to. He had gone to Snape for help, and he had encouraged other people to go to him for help, but that was about abuse. And Harry reckoned he could help if someone was failing Potions, too. But this was different.
            Then he thought of something, and hesitated. “I could go talk to McGonagall,” he said. “See if she has anything useful to say.”
            “Why her, and not Snape?”
            “Because she’s my Head of House,” Harry said. And she wanted to do something to help. That line wouldn’t make sense to Draco, so he didn’t say it. He wasn’t sure that it made sense to him. But he knew that he would be more comfortable talking to McGonagall about this than he would to either Snape or Sirius. “And she’s supposed to help with things like this.”
            You can go to her, and she can try to help, said Dash. But you’re going to eat something first. He pointed his head in the direction of the kitchens as though Harry would have forgotten the way.
            “Not right now,” Harry snapped at him, and started to turn in the direction of McGonagall’s office. Then he tripped over Dash’s tail, and caromed into Draco, who caught him before he could smash his head open on the wall. Draco blinked at him, studied him for a second as though he thought Harry was drunk, and let him go.
            “Are you arguing with the basilisk again?” he asked. “What does he want now?” He nodded at Dash as though he was in a conspiracy with him against Harry, which maybe he was, by this point, Harry thought, yanking a hand through his hair.
            “He wants me to eat before I go and talk to McGonagall,” said Harry. “I can do that later. Can we go now?”
            You’ve ignored it this long and ignored me when I told you to tell someone, said Dash, and laid his head along Harry’s arm. Why can’t you wait long enough to eat, and then see if she’s in her office or still at dinner, and wait for her if she is?
            “All right,” said Harry grudgingly. “That makes sense.”
            “Yes, it does,” said Draco, and he shot Harry a sideways glance as he walked towards the pear and tickled it. “And maybe after you’ve had something to eat, you’ll have reconsidered this ridiculous prejudice you have against telling Professor Snape anything.”
            “He’s done enough to help me,” said Harry, and ducked into the kitchen, wishing that two pairs of eyes weren’t watching his every move. Even if one of them was covered by a thick pair of clear eyelids.
            “And you think he’s come to the end of his store of compassion, and he can’t give you any more?” Draco demanded incredulously, following him. “Yes, because that makes sense.”
            Harry rolled his eyes at him. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
            “Well, then, explain it better,” Draco ordered, sounding enough like both a Slytherin and a Malfoy that Harry was tempted to tell him he sounded like a Gryffindor, just to make him splutter. “And maybe I’ll agree with you.”
            His tone said he wouldn’t. Harry glared at him, and turned around to tell the house-elves who were watching him with gaping mouths, “Can you get some fresh mice for Dash, please? Can you check the traps?”
            “And some bread and cheese and soft fruit for us,” said Draco, sounding as though he ordered house-elves around every day, which he probably did at home. He dragged Harry towards a table and made him sit down, then sat down in front of him, too. “Listen, Harry. Did you think it would stop once your abuse was revealed? That Professor Snape wouldn’t want to do anything for you ever again?”
            “No,” Harry admitted. “I know he would help me if I was in real trouble.” He was trying to remember to tell the truth and behave like an adult, because he would have to when it came to Sirius. He had to practice the rest of the time, or he would be out of practice there, where it mattered the most.
            “Then you can tell him about this, and he can probably give you a potion to ease it. Dreamless Sleep, if nothing else.” Draco sat up and tugged insistently on Harry’s sleeve, reminding Harry of a puppy pulling on a shoestring. Dash was calmly eating the mice that the house-elves had brought him, for once not complaining about eating killed food, and he didn’t say anything when Harry glanced at him. “He knows a lot about the Dark Lord and curses. Maybe he’ll know what this means.” He pulled again when Harry just sat there. “What are you waiting for?”
            “Well, for the food that you thought I should eat,” Harry pointed out.
            “Oh.” Draco sat down and looked a little blankly around the kitchen for a moment, until one of the elves deposited a plate of the food he had asked for in front of them. Harry picked up a slice of apple and found that he must be a lot hungrier than he’d thought; he devoured most of that in a bite.
            “Right,” Draco said, and picked up a piece of bread that he smeared cheese on. “So. We’re in agreement that you’ll go to see Professor Snape after this?”
            Harry ate some more, and thought. When he finally knew he had the words, he shook his head. “No.” He held up a hand when Draco opened his mouth. “Can you listen to why? I know the reasons why now.”
            “As long as you don’t think that he’d turn his back on you because he was helping Pansy, or something.”
            Harry felt his eyes narrow of their own free will. “You know about that?”
            Draco shrugged a little. “Yes. And believe me, I won’t spread it around. But I want to hear your reasons.”
            “Okay,” said Harry, and looked down at Dash. Dash was quiet, though, with even the bond only a distant hum in the back of Harry’s mind. Harry sighed and looked up at Draco. “I want to be close to the Gryffindor side of me, too.”
            “Going to McGonagall will make you feel that way?” Draco folded his arms. “I thought maybe spending time with your other friends instead of me would.”
            “Stop trying to confuse me,” Harry told him. “I’m already confused enough as it is.”
            Draco’s lips twitched at that. “Fine. But what do you mean?”
            “I was almost Sorted into Slytherin,” Harry said, and he grew more confident as he talked. He knew Dash wasn’t saying anything right now, but he had the feeling Dash would if he got this really wrong or something. “But I was Sorted into Gryffindor. And I don’t feel like I understand most of the Gryffindors well except my friends. I don’t really get why Sirius didn’t apologize to me on his own. And I’ve spent a lot of time with you lately. And I went to the Slytherin Head of House for help instead of my own Head of House. So I want to go to her this time. She said that she wanted to help me. I’m giving her the chance.”
            Draco squinted at him. “So you would rather go to Snape, but you’re going to her because she wanted to help? That sounds—kind of strange, Harry. She’s the one who should have noticed and done something to help you on her own, if she really wanted to do that.” He nodded heavily.
            Harry winced, because it was so close to what McGonagall had said about his abuse. “Of course. But I want to do it anyway. Give her another chance, the Gryffindor side of me another chance, the way I gave Sirius and Lupin another chance.”
            Draco squinted harder. “That makes a sort of sense, but I still think that Snape would probably be the better choice. He’s the one with the potions.”
            Harry ended up shrugging and eating a little more of the fruit, then picking up a slice of the cheese. Dash had turned around so that he was leaning on Harry’s shoulder, all the mice making hard little bulges in his throat, and Harry sighed and rubbed at his scales. “You can think about it all you like. But I’m going to McGonagall’s office after this. Maybe she’ll tell me to go straight to Snape, I don’t know.”
            He hoped she wouldn’t. He wanted—he wanted to rely on more people, he thought. To tell more people. He’d already told the whole bloody wizarding world, and before that Lucius Malfoy, about some pretty personal and important things. He should get to choose who he told something less important to.
            Draco watched him, sighed, and then said, “All right. Don’t eat all the cheese!”
            Harry relaxed, slowly, from having his muscles braced against something he hadn’t even realized he’d thought was coming. Draco wasn’t going to tell him that he was wrong and fight and argue. He was going to just go along with it, and probably follow Harry to McGonagall’s office.
            It was all right. Someone could still approve his decisions.
            Yes. And it’s time that someone besides me did.
Harry touched Dash’s head, and said nothing, but kept a hand there all through the rest of his meal.
*
ChaosLady: Thank you!
Meechypoo: I think Harry wouldn’t ever let a permanent separation take him away from Sirius. Lupin is more questionable.
moon: Yes, it will be very long. Glad you like that!
starr: Harry is still childish in some ways, I think, but he is trying to behave more like an adult.
moodysavage: Dash will talk to him eventually, but not necessarily about that.
SP777: It was the trap that Harry was preparing to spring for Sirius and Remus, basically, to make them talk to him.
eros: Yes, poor Harry.
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A Brother to Basilisks