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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
- 29
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Chapter Thirty--Certain Things Averted
            Professor Snape and Sirius were glaring at each other, and Harry knew without asking that things were going to get a lot worse before they got better if someone didn't do something. He moved forwards, ignoring the uneasy way Dash was shifting on his waist and shoulders. Dash couldn't do this much better than he could. He would have to take over Harry's body to speak himself, and Harry thought there were people here who would pay more attention to that than to the words Dash said.
            "Stop it," he said, and got between Sirius and Professor Snape.
            "What do you mean?" Sirius stared down at him anxiously. He looked almost as wild as Lupin had when he was charging at Harry as a wolf, Harry thought. He reached out and smoothed his hand along Harry's forehead as if he was checking for a fever. "You can't mean that you want to protect him, Harry? Not really? Right?"
            "I don't know what you mean about protecting anyone." Harry folded his arms and tried to actually remember Uncle Vernon's stern expression when he was scolding Harry for something. "Unless you were going to attack Professor Snape."
            "He was leading you towards the dungeons." Sirius's voice dropped frighteningly low, and he turned towards Snape. This time, Harry thought he saw the edges of Sirius's face tremble, as though he was going to transform into a dog and spring. "What was he going to do with you? Did you ask him that?"

            "He was going to give me something to make my scar stop bleeding."
            That at least made Sirius pay attention, although Harry didn't think it was in a very good way. Sirius choked and reared back. "Why didn't you tell me that your scar wouldn't stop bleeding? I could have taken care of it for you!"
            "Are you a Potions master?" Snape asked without lifting his voice or sounding very interested in the answer. "I didn't know that, Black. How much time we might have spent together debating something other than our mutual hatred, if I had." He reached out, and Harry saw Snape's hand from the corner of his eye, hovering over his shoulder.
            Don't touch me, he thought sharply, and hoped that Snape could hear him somehow. You'll only make things worse if you touch me in front of him.
            Why should he care about that? Dash asked into his head, but Harry didn't answer. He kept standing where he was, while Sirius's face seemed to swell and darken. He opened his mouth, but couldn't answer because he was shaking too badly.
            "Listen," Harry cut in before anyone could say anything. "Yes, I think that he could help me. I was going to come and tell you, Sirius. But later. Right now, I just want it to stop bleeding. And I trust Professor Snape to help me." He could feel Hermione opening her mouth, but he didn't think she could speak before Sirius did. He was right.
            "Why?" Sirius demanded. He glared at Snape. "All he does is tell you lies about your father and not treat you right in class!"
            "He's treating me better now." Harry found that he was having to rest his elbow on Dash's head, so Dash wouldn't be able to rear up and bite Sirius. It was hard when Dash was so much longer than he was. "You heard what he said the other day. He hasn't treated me harshly since the newspaper article came out." He felt sweat sliding down the back of his neck. It was a struggle to keep calm, but at least his head didn't hurt so much right now. If his scar burst out bleeding again in front of Sirius, he knew Sirius would find a way to blame it on Snape somehow. "It's all right, really. You can let this go and I'll come talk to you later."
            "I don't think so." Sirius was taking out his wand, with slow, deliberate motions. Harry wondered if he was trying to frighten Snape. Harry was frightened, anyway. He could feel his hands shaking and his heart beating wildly the way it used to do when Dudley and his friends chased him. "I need to show Snivellus that he can't simply interfere between me and you."
            Harry felt something swelling up in his chest. It had to do with his shaking hands and his beating heart, but he didn't know what until it got to his mouth.
            "He's not the one interfering! You're the one interfering!"
            At least Sirius was looking at him now, and didn't act like he was trying to frighten Snape by clutching his wand. He did seem stunned, though. "Harry? What are you talking about?"
            "You took Lupin's side!" Harry yelled wildly. He could feel Dash squeezing him around the waist, but if Dash was telling him to calm down, Harry didn't care. "You didn't apologize to me! You act like everyone is horrible to me except you, and then you're horrible to me! If you hurt Snape now, then I'm going to run away!"
            Hermione was hanging onto one of his arms and saying something in his ear, but Harry couldn't hear what it was. Everything was happening, too much, the squeezing was there around his heart and his throat and his ribs and Harry wanted to throw up. Except he couldn't do that, either, and the world was beating and swaying back and forth like a pendulum and--
            It's all right. I'm here.
            Dash was there, he was always there, and Harry turned and grabbed him around the neck, holding him close. The pendulum stopped swaying, and Harry knew he could breathe again. He stood upright, his hands so close around Dash's neck that Harry would have been worried about choking him if he was human.
            “I didn’t think you were ready to hear Remus’s secret.” Sirius was crouching in front of him, face pale and shocked, and he had one hand reaching out as though he assumed Harry would take it and let Sirius walk him away from the situation. “I was wrong about that. But I’m not on anyone’s side except yours now, Harry.”
            “Then prove it,” Harry said. “Walk away and let me have the potion that Snape said he could give me, and I’ll talk to you later.”
            Sirius reared back as if from a striking cobra, and spent some moments glaring at Snape. Then he whispered, “I don’t know what you did to him, Snape, but I’m going to find out. His father could resist the Imperius Curse, so I thought Harry could, too, but maybe he can’t, and—”
            Harry’s head was very clear, suddenly. The swaying pendulum was gone as though it had never been, and Harry knew exactly what he needed to say and how he would say it.
            “Get out,” he said. “Go away.”
            Sirius stared at him. “What?” he whispered, and reached out with one hand that Harry batted aside.
            “You said you wanted to be there for me,” Harry muttered. He was tired, but that clear, cold sensation remained. “Well, you haven’t proved it. You keep trying to take me away from Snape for some old grudge. You cared about Lupin more than me. You didn’t apologize. Right now, you still want me to be in pain because all you care about is my dad.” Harry sighed and shivered a little. He had never thought he would say that caring about his dad wasn’t a good thing. “You can’t think Snape is good.”
            “He’s not!” Sirius sounded hysterical. He made a lunge at Snape that probably only failed because Harry was in the way and he stumbled to a stop. “You can’t possibly think that! Do you know how much he tortured us when we were in school? And he was best friends with your mum for a while, but then he called her a Mudblood—”
            Harry’s shoulders were so tight they hurt. He didn’t know what happened. He only knew that he wanted Sirius to stop talking, and he felt as though something had shaken the corridor around him, a silent thunderclap of power, a flash of white light that wasn’t a flash.
            He blinked in the wake of it, and turned around to look at the others. Snape remained where he had been, although with his head ducked into his robe as if sheltering from something. Ron and Hermione were both gaping, Hermione with her hand over her mouth.
            Dash said, That was accidental magic.
            Harry stared down the corridor. Sirius was gone. The coldness had come back, but now it seemed to have drained down into his bones, and swallowed. I didn’t—I couldn’t have—
            Killed him? Never. Dash sounded dismissive, as though the thought wasn’t worth a moment’s consideration. He stuck out his tongue and lapped it through the air, and then pulled back and draped himself over Harry’s shoulders with a satisfied sigh. He’s back in his quarters, from the smell of the shadows. Utterly stunned, and I hope that he’ll stay that way for a while.
            What was the accidental magic, then? Harry whispered. He hoped it hadn’t been controlling Sirius’s mind somehow. That had been what the Dementors had done to him, and that meant Sirius would never forgive him.
            Why do you want his forgiveness? Dash asked curiously, but continued before Harry could try to explain things that probably wouldn’t matter to a basilisk anyway. You told him to go away. So he went.
            Harry swallowed. A second later, there was a pressing hand on his shoulder, and Snape turned him around and gazed at him searchingly.
            Harry stared back at him, and Snape said, so softly that Harry knew even someone walking down the corridor couldn’t hear them, “Mr. Weasley. Miss Granger. That was accidental, wandless, forced Apparition. I trust you won’t speak to anyone else of what you saw today? Mr. Potter needs some privacy to recover.”
            Hermione reached out and grabbed Harry in a tight hug. Then she took a step back and looked Snape in the eye. “You’d better take care of him, sir,” she murmured, before she grabbed Ron’s hand in turn and tugged him down the corridor.
            Ron turned his head once, and gave Harry a single glance that was probably the most like a hug Harry had ever got from him. Harry took a single, long breath and managed to relax. Dash’s coiling around him loosened at the same time.
            “Come to my quarters, Harry,” Snape told him. “We still need to get a salve for your scar, and a potion for the pain.”
            Harry shrugged and followed. He felt more than a little drained, as if it was magic and not emotion that had bubbled up in him and then been shoved abruptly out an opening too small for it.
            In a way, that is what happened, Dash said thoughtfully as he rested his chin on top of Harry’s head. The emotion was building up and it had to go somewhere, and so did the magic. It just all focused on the same goal: sending Black to his room.
            Harry smiled wanly. He couldn’t really see it as humorous the way that Dash did. He knew he would have to face Sirius sooner or later, and he wondered what would happen when he did.
            He will treat you respectfully.
            Harry paused, then reached up and stroked Dash’s scales once. He knew who would be there to reinforce the respectful treatment.
*
            Severus was not proud of the way his hands shook as he reached for the small pot that contained the salve for irritated skin and the vial that contained the pain potion. He was even less proud of the knowledge that plucked and prickled in the back of his mind, the knowledge that Harry had done that partially to protect him.
            No. It was his anger at Black, nothing more. I cannot have mattered in that decision, or he would have said so. He said that he wanted Black to stop pretending to be on his side.
            But Harry had stood between the two of them, and he had reacted with fury when Black had started implying that Severus was somehow controlling Harry with the Imperius Curse—
            Does he even know what the Imperius Curse is? He may not have known and simply grown angry over the constant comparison to his father.
            Of course, the Harry Potter Severus had thought he’d known before this last year would have been thrilled at being compared to his father. He would have followed Black around and clung to his stories of life before the war as talismans.
            Severus rubbed his forehead with one hand and turned around with the salve and potion. It didn’t matter what he thought, honestly, or whether it was the reference to his father or the Imperius Curse or Severus or something else that had made Harry angry enough at Black to take action. What mattered was that it had happened.
            And it was a drained, shaken, thoughtful boy who reached out to take the salve and the potion from Severus, swallowing the potion with a murmur of thanks and breaking open the seal on the pot to dip his fingers into the salve.
            “One thing I don’t understand,” he whispered without looking at Severus. “Would I have hurt him when I did that?”
            “I cannot be sure without checking on Black,” Severus said. He did not dare to be less than absolutely honest with the boy, not now. “But I doubt it. You didn’t want to hurt him, did you? You only wanted to send him away and stop him from speaking.”
            “Yeah,” Harry breathed as he finished smearing the salve on the scar and handed the little pot back to Severus. “I wanted him to—to go away and stop.” He stared at the floor, then up at Severus. Severus braced himself for what came next.
            “You were really close friends with my mum, then?”
            “We were, at one point.” Severus told himself that the sensation of whips striking his soul was not so very painful, and at any rate, were perhaps what he deserved for being part of the reason this boy had no parents. He put the salve and the empty vial on the table and sat down, regarding Harry as directly as he could. “She saved me one day when your father and his friends were pranking me, and I was humiliated—she had seen me in a—a horrible position. I lashed out at her, which I should not have, and lost my only friend.”
            “You called her what—Sirius said you did.” Harry’s voice was small.
            “Yes,” Severus said.
            Harry stared in the other direction. Severus was glad for the chance to recover from the living, breathing, twisting tension in the room, but then Harry’s eyes came back to him, and he found the tension had become like a basilisk of his own pressing him down.
            Harry’s basilisk was watching him without moving, other than the faint flicker of his tongue in and out of those dangerous jaws. Severus wondered if he should feel threatened by those hidden eyes. On the other hand, the basilisk had shown no desire to move towards him so far, while Severus had not missed the way it had wanted to rear at Black.
            Harry prevented it.
            Harry doesn’t always have a good sense of when he should forgive someone or let something go as useless.
            But because Harry and not the basilisk was the one making the decisions here, Harry swallowed and said, “All right. I wish—I wish you hadn’t done that. But I want to hear more about my mum. Sirius doesn’t talk about her much. Do you think he didn’t know her as well as he did Dad?”
            I think Black was so enchanted by James Potter that he could never see anyone else with an unbiased gaze. But Severus did something he had never thought himself capable of doing, and didn’t try to make someone else think badly of Black.
            “I think that was the case,” said Severus. “Remember that he was friends with your father from first year, while—your parents only became well-acquainted in their last two years here.”
            “Oh.” Harry looked down at his hands for a second, then looked back up at Severus. His face had hardened in an expression of determination Severus didn’t understand until he leaned forwards.
            “I don’t like what he did,” Harry said. “I don’t like what I did. I said I was going to have to be the adult with Sirius, and then I got angry like a child.”
            The basilisk twined so tightly around Harry’s chest that Severus was surprised he could still breathe, but it didn’t make him move or take his eyes away from Severus’s face, which meant it was less tight than it should be. Severus simply shook his head and murmured, “No. What you did was a reaction borne of listening to an intolerable string of words in an intolerable situation. No one will blame you for striking back and doing something that might have saved your relationship with Black at all.”
            “Is Sirius going to see it that way?” Harry hesitated for a moment. “Is Dumbledore?”
            “I do not know.” Severus sighed. Even when he wanted to speak truth to Harry, it seemed impossible. Severus could only tell Harry what he thought any reasonable person would believe, but reasonable did not always include Black and Dumbledore. “You can only speak to them from a position of strength.”
            “What do you mean?”
            “Do not go into this apologizing and determining that everything is your fault,” Severus told him. “Otherwise, they will decide that they can take advantage of you, of your guilt, and they’ll make sure that you promise never to do anything like that again.” He paused. “Do you think you will never do anything like that again?”
            “No.”
            Harry’s voice was small. Severus ached in a way he had only ever felt when Lily died. He wanted to tell Harry that it was all right, that he could stay at the school during the summer, that he didn’t need to worry about Black being his guardian or Dumbledore doing anything to him, and he wanted to make it true.
            But anything he might try would only end up backfiring if Albus and Black brought the legal might of their positions down on him, and Severus would rather do less than he could and remain near Harry than get sacked and sent away now. He no longer thought Albus might refrain from doing that. Yes, Severus had been useful as a spy, but he had two of his beloved Marauders back now, and Severus’s usefulness hadn’t prevented Albus from bringing Remus Lupin in to teach Defense even before he knew Black was innocent.
            “Then listen and accept their apologies, if they offer them,” Severus told him. “Do not back down. Don’t become too visibly upset. Don’t let them play on your guilt. Use the excuse of accidental magic or needing to leave because you must control your basilisk if they won’t listen. Then come back and fight again.”
            “In other words,” Harry said, his face harder than ever, “lie to them.”
            “That is my advice, yes.” Severus wondered if Harry would reject it because of that. It wasn’t unheard of for his own Slytherins to reject advice that McGonagall or another professor had tried to give them.
            Harry sat there, thinking. When he had finally opened his mouth to say something, Severus held a hand up. He could hear footsteps approaching his door, and the single firm knock a second later could have been heard by anyone. The basilisk had certainly turned his head in its direction, though in his case he was probably alerted by Harry.
            “I want to see who that is,” said Harry, but then, instead of moving, he stared at Severus.
            Severus rose to his feet, both impressed and amused. Either Harry was thinking ahead and had decided that it would make the most sense for Severus to answer his own door because the adult who had come would expect him to, or he simply wouldn’t presume to do anything in Severus’s own rooms.
            Either way, when Severus opened the door and found Remus Lupin, most of his other emotions fled. He turned to the side so that Lupin could see his hand on his wand, and asked calmly, “Have you come to complain?” He knew exactly what hex he would use if the response was “yes.”
*
            “My business isn’t with you, Severus. But thank you for helping Harry.”
            Harry relaxed a little. Yes, Lupin wasn’t someone he especially wanted to see right now, but at least he could try to get along with Snape, and that was better than Sirius.
            He was also a wolf who tried to kill you.
            But you stopped him.
            The fact that I had to stop him instead of him taking precautions to prevent the attack at all is the problem.
            Harry saw Snape tense, and shift as if he would block Lupin’s entrance into the room. Harry shook his head and stood up. “I think it’s okay, sir,” he said. “As long as he’s going to apologize or do something other than scold me for using accidental magic on Sirius.”
            “That was accidental?” Lupin did look stunned, his eyes flicking around the room for a second as if he thought a powerful wizard was hiding in a corner.
            “Yes. I wanted him to go away, and he did.” Harry paused as Dash moved a portion of his tail down Harry’s legs. He wanted to be free to slither at Lupin if he attacked, he told Harry primly. Harry rolled his eyes in silence and added, “Did you need something, sir?”
            “I’ve come to do something I should have done long since.” Lupin seemed to brace himself against air, and he nodded to Harry. “I should have realized how profoundly the attack and the lack of explanation afterwards would hurt you. I’m sorry.”
            Not good enough, said Dash, almost vibrating his tail against Harry’s legs.
            But I’m the one who has to decide whether I accept it, Harry reminded him, and faced Lupin again. “Why are you the one apologizing and not Sirius?” he asked quietly. “I mean, I know you could have told me about being a werewolf and made sure that your door was locked in the first place, but he also could have made sure that he told me and didn’t leave me alone in the house with you.”
            Lupin sighed and touched one hand to his shaggy grey hair as if he could somehow lighten the color. Then he said, “How much did Sirius tell you about his family?”
            “Not much,” said Harry, blinking. What did that have to do with anything? “They were Dark and they were pretty awful to him. And they were upset when he was Sorted into Gryffindor, he told me that.” It was one reason he could understand why Sirius was upset that Harry had almost been Sorted into Slytherin.
            “Lupin,” Snape snarled softly. “You shall not make the Headmaster’s excuse.”
            “This is an explanation, not an excuse,” Lupin said quietly, and turned to face Harry again. “Sirius was still a child when he escaped his family by running away to your father’s parents. But I don’t think he ever let go of the vast majority of what his family had done to him. He never escaped them mentally. He—he still suffers from wanting to defy them at every turn, and that includes irrationally hating Slytherins and what he sees as anything Dark.” He glanced at Dash. “He thinks of Parselmouths as Dark wizards. He doesn’t want to think of James’s son as Dark.”
            “You are making the Headmaster’s excuse,” Snape said.
            “I said it was irrational,” said Lupin, still sounding gentle and defeated. “And, Harry, I don’t ask you to forgive him. Some of what he’s done is going to take a lot of apologizing and atoning if he ever wants to make it better. But I do ask you to be patient with him, as patient as you can. He isn’t angry at you right now. He was startled and frightened by what you did, but after he told me what had happened, I told him he should have known better.”
            “How comforting that it is still Black’s defenders coming instead of Black in person,” Snape remarked, and Harry saw Snape spinning his wand between his fingers out of the corner of his eye.
            “Let me speak to him, please, Severus,” Lupin said. “I know that a lot of what Sirius did was inexcusable, but this time, it wasn’t to you.”
            Snape’s wand stopped spinning. Lupin turned back to Harry. “Give him what chances you can,” he said. “I don’t want you to make excuses for him. Lots of people did that, and that’s how he turned into the person he is now. What I want you to do is listen to him, and talk to him about what you’re really feeling, and use magic to defend yourself again if you need to. That should knock some sense into him. What you did today already has.”
            I shall defend you, as well, Dash announced, and flicked his tongue out.
            Lupin looked down at Dash. Harry, whose emotions were churning so much that he didn’t really know what he was feeling, shook his head and stood upright when he did. “No,” he said. “I’m not going to leave Dash behind to make peace with Sirius. He’s going to come with me, no matter where I live this summer.”
            Lupin gave a deep groan. “I didn’t know Sirius was on the verge of driving you away from your home.”
            “Yes,” said Harry. “I really, really don’t want to go.” He was relaxing now. At least Lupin hadn’t immediately promised to punch Snape or something like that, and so Harry was going to make sure that Lupin listened. “But I can’t live with Sirius if he’s always going to be attacking people who helped me and never apologizing and only trying to make me into what he wants me to be.”
            “The more you show him that you’re different, I think the more that he’ll accept that you are different.”
            Harry snorted. “Because that worked so well with the Dursleys.” Of course, he hadn’t known that his accidental magic was in operation at all times, differentiating him from the Dursleys in ways he hadn’t recognized, and he hadn’t realized that Vernon and Petunia knew about magic, but it still meant Lupin’s plan didn’t make sense.
            “Sirius can listen,” Lupin said. “He’s not like your relatives.”
            “It occurs to me, Lupin,” Snape was saying, his voice low and intent, “that you persist in saying what Black will do, but you do not prove your point in what would be the best way. Drop in on the boy and Black at certain times—not the night of your transformation—and perhaps you will be able to see whether or not Black does treat him better.”
            I thought Snape was a smart man, Dash murmured into Harry’s mind.
            I think he still is, Harry said, but Lupin replied before he could engage in a full conversation with Dash.
            “I won’t be able to do that, unfortunately.” Lupin shook his head, his eyes going once to Harry before they darted away. “I—I’m leaving. I don’t—I can’t trust myself around children, Harry, not after what happened with you.”
            Harry was sure his mouth was open. The next second, he hoped that his eyes still looked stoic and strong, the way he wanted to look in front of Lupin, instead of flooded with guilt.
            You have nothing to do with this, said Dash sharply in the same moment as Snape drawled, “Fleeing like the coward you are, Lupin?”
            “Realizing that you’re right,” Lupin said, and glanced at Snape once before focusing on Harry again. “Even with Wolfsbane, which can protect my mind when I transform into a werewolf, I can’t protect others against my own forgetfulness and stupidity.” He hesitated, then knelt down in front of Harry. “Please be as strong as you can, Harry,” he whispered, embracing him. Dash hissed, but Harry simply stood stiffly for a moment, then hugged Lupin back. “Know that I think you’ll grow into a fine young man. And be as patient with Sirius as I know you can be.”
            Be the adult again, said Dash, with a bitterness that would have made Harry flinch if he wasn’t thinking about other things. Just like he knows you can be. Just like you’ve had to be for the last few months because they can’t bear to be.
            Harry drew in all his breath and asked, “Is that the only reason you’re leaving, Professor Lupin? Really?”
            Lupin paused with his eyes widening until Harry thought he could see a touch of gold in the corners of them. Then he shook his head once and murmured, “You’re even sharper than I thought, Harry. No. The Headmaster has a task among the werewolves that he wants me to complete. He thinks that You-Know-Who might be hiding among them, or there might be some werewolves who know where he is right now. During the last war, he was in contact with them, especially near the end.”
            “Did Dumbledore make you leave, then?” Harry wasn’t sure what to make of that. It wasn’t like he’d been very close to Lupin, but…
            “No,” said Lupin, and his smile was sad. “I told you the truth, Harry. I don’t trust myself, and I do think that I shouldn’t be around children. Headmaster Dumbledore just thought of something I could do other than going away and moping.” He stood up and looked down at Harry for a long minute. “I’m sorry for a lot of things, Harry, but most of all for making you feel that you can’t trust anyone.”
            Harry rolled a shoulder and thought about mentioning his friends and Dash and Snape, but in the end, he just nodded.
            “I’ll try to keep in touch by owl,” Lupin went on, more cheerfully. “And you can always owl me if Sirius does something especially stupid.”
            Harry managed to smile. “As opposed to ordinarily stupid? Right, Professor Lupin, I will.”
            Lupin ruffled his hiar and turned away. For a second, he glanced at Snape, but Snape’s expression must have been upset, because Lupin sighed and left his rooms without another word.
            I don’t like him, said Dash then, in the same instant that Snape came around and studied Harry’s eyes.
            “You are not to blame yourself for what happened with him,” Snape all but demanded. “You are not to think that things would have been better if you had been the adult at all times. You should have been safe in your godfather’s company. Lupin should have known better than to forget to lock the door.”
            Harry reached for the still center of himself where he had sometimes gone when he didn’t want to hear what the Dursleys were saying about his parents, and he nodded. “I know.”
            Snape stared at him harder. Then he finally murmured, “But you intend to continue living with your godfather nonetheless?”
            “He’s still better than the Dursleys.”
            Snape closed his eyes for a fleeting second, then nodded. “True. But you are to come to me if you need help. If you have another dream. If you think that Black is doing something that might jeopardize your safety.” He looked for a second as though he’d bitten into a sour apple. “Perhaps I should say, seriously jeopardizing your safety.”
            “The professors spend their holidays away from the castle, don’t they?” Harry asked carefully.
            “Not all the weeks of summer.” Snape straightened as if he was a soldier going into battle. “And an owl can always find me.”
            Especially one as smart as Hedwig, Harry finished the sentence for him. He nodded and smiled at Snape. “Thanks, sir.”
            I will be the one to tell you when I think you need to write to him, Dash murmured. I trust my own judgment more than I trust yours.
            Harry hesitated once, then decided Snape might as well know. “Dash is the one who will tell me when I need to write to you, he says.”
            Snape’s face relaxed in the first real smile Harry had seen from him probably since the article about his abuse came out. He nodded. “Good. The basilisk is a good judge of character.”
            “He has a name,” Harry said, finding the ability to tease from Merlin knew where.
            “Until there is another basilisk in the room, I see no need to use it. He will know who I mean.”
            Professor Snape hesitated, then reached out and touched Harry’s shoulder once. The next instant, he was sweeping to the other side of the room.
            Harry patted Dash’s scales as he let himself out. Even if I’m treated bad a lot of the time, there are a lot of people who care about me, too. I’m always going to remember that.
*
ChaosLady: Thank you!
starr: I don’t think Hermione is a nag, just very concerned about Harry and what’s going to happen to him.
Severus1snape: Thanks!
moon: Yes, that’s the way Lupin is feeling right now.
SP777: Harry really doesn’t want Snape doing it, because he has no idea how unforgivable that might turn out to be.
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A Brother to Basilisks