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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 Thirty-Four—Passing of Letters
            Sirius sat there looking at the letter from Draco. Harry took a few bites of breakfast and glanced up again. No, he was still sitting there staring at the letter from Draco.
            Eat your breakfast and attend to your private thoughts, Dash told him, winding gracefully around his neck and leaning down to eat part of Harry’s buttered toast that Harry had rejected as being too crusty. It was still a luxury to be able to do things like that instead of eating everything in desperation, and Harry was glad Dash ate his leftovers. I’ll let you know when he moves.
            Harry managed a wavery smile and went on eating. Sirius finally spoke. “He wants to come here?”
            Harry swallowed and looked up. “That’s what he says.” He would keep to the simple things, the true things, for right now.
            “Why would he ask for that, rather than for you to come over to Malfoy Manor?” Sirius’s fingers were rapping the edge of the table.
            Uh-oh, Harry thought, and would have sat back, but Dash coiled around him, forcing him to at least partially relax. Nothing for it. Harry licked his lips and spoke what he thought was the truth. “He probably thought you’d never let me go over there.”
            Sirius looked at him in silence for a second. Then he nodded. “I’m glad that someone still realizes I’m your guardian.”
            Dash shared a fantasy of snapping forwards and shearing one of Sirius’s fingers off. Harry gripped his neck and said, No. I don’t want to deal with the fuss, which made Dash sulk, but reduced the threat. Aloud, he said, “Well, can he come over here?”
            Sirius again looked at the letter. Maybe he’s looking for the secret plot to have Death Eaters come kidnap me, Harry thought snidely, unable not to.
            “No,” said Sirius at last. “I’m just not comfortable having the son of someone I fought in the war swaggering around the house.”
            Harry closed his eyes for a second. Then he said, “What about meeting up in Diagon Alley? He suggested that, too. He could bring his parents. Or his father, anyway.” He knew that Lucius Malfoy probably didn’t want to meet up with him just because he was Draco’s friend, but that was something he could deal with, too, in its place.
            “I suppose we could do that,” Sirius said slowly, as if the nonexistent plot to kidnap Harry couldn’t be foiled in public. “But I want to go with you, and I want to make sure that you and Draco don’t go away from me.” He leaned forwards and stared at Harry anxiously. “I know it might not seem like it, but I do love you, kiddo.”
            “I know,” said Harry, and if he worked at it, he could make his lips move into a smile. “I love you, too.”
            That’s amazing, said Dash, snapping his tail down once against Harry’s shoulders as he crawled most of the way to the floor.
            What’s amazing? Sirius was talking now about what shops he wanted to show Harry when they were in Diagon Alley and how much things had probably changed, but all of Harry’s attention had switched to the internal conversation with Dash.
            Not even you know if you’re telling the truth or not when you talk about how much you love him.
            Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, and Sirius promptly broke off his chatter to ask anxiously, “Does your head hurt?”
            “Just sometimes,” said Harry, and opened his eyes. It suddenly occurred to him he’d been rubbing his scar, and Sirius was leaning away from him as though he thought Voldemort was going to come bursting out of his forehead. The look on his face made Harry look away and repeat firmly, “Just sometimes. So when should I tell Draco that we’re meeting him and his father in Diagon Alley?”
*
            Lucius watched in silence as Draco broke away ahead of him, shouting. He’d apparently already spotted Mr. Potter standing next to Quality Quidditch Supplies, looking at something in the window, his basilisk wrapped around his neck and shoulders. And behind Potter lurked Black.
            Lucius sighed. Then, firmly, he pushed away thoughts of the letter he’d finally answered that morning. It was done. He had told the writer no. He wouldn’t second-guess himself now.
            He had more interesting things to study, like the way that Black bristled and seemed about to draw his wand when Draco hugged Mr. Potter. Then he eyed Lucius, and snorted, and let his hand just rest openly on his wand as if it was the hilt of a sword, while he sneered at Lucius.
            Well, sneering must take all his mental concentration, Lucius thought, as he made a shallow bow and observed his wife’s cousin. His own distant cousin, too, if it came to that. Malfoys had intermarried with Blacks before.
            A pity that we didn’t do more about the madness that lurks there. Lucius was still startled at how thoroughly Narcissa had escaped all traces of it. It was there in this Black, though, in the way he jumped at the slightest sound and leaned forwards to scowl when Draco handed Potter a letter. Potter turned it over with a mystified expression, then shrugged and put it in his pocket when Draco gestured emphatically.
            Lucius eased a little closer. It would do no harm to make sure that Draco couldn’t pull something over on him. Especially since Lucius had no intention of losing his son, either in body or in spirit.
            “What’s the matter, Malfoy? Haven’t found enough innocent victims to make it worth casting the Dark Mark yet?”
            Black at least kept his voice low enough that none of the passerby, gaping at the Boy-Who-Lived, appeared to have heard him. Lucius smiled back pleasantly. “I see that you haven’t learned any manners, Black. What an example to set for your ward.”
            Black snarled at him, an actual, honest snarl, baring his teeth the way he must when he turned into a dog. Lucius made sure to laugh lightly and shrug, as if he had anticipated that, ignoring the way Potter glanced back at them.
            “We’re here to make sure the boys have a good time,” said Lucius. “Not to argue. Not to fight. Not to act like boys ourselves.”
            “I heard you did that last year. With Arthur Weasley.” Black’s eyes were gleaming in what he must assume was wit. “And Harry.”
            “I’ve got over that,” said Lucius blandly. “Enough to let my son be friends with someone I would have violently disapproved of last year. It’s a pity that, for some people, twenty years isn’t enough to overcome House prejudice.”
            Another snarl, but this time, it was futile. Black seemed to have glanced ahead and realized that Draco and Potter were getting farther away from them, not next to Quality Quidditch Supplies now but in front of the Magical Menagerie. The basilisk had its head raised to consider some of the animals in the window.
            “Harry!” Black called anxiously, and trotted after him. Potter glanced over his shoulder with an annoyed look.
            Lucius chuckled under his breath as he strolled after Black. He would never say that he would have a close or cordial relationship with Potter, but he knew the advantages that could come from it. And he had chosen those advantages over long-term but nebulous ones already, hadn’t he? Or he wouldn’t have said “no.”
            Wouldn’t it be delicious if Black lost his ward’s trust and I gained some of it, all because he can’t stop hovering over him when there are “evil Slytherins” around?
*
            “You’ll give the letter to him, then?”
            Draco knew he was probably risking discovery by talking about this so much, but he had to make absolutely sure. His mother had trusted him with that letter. And while Harry taken it, Dash had looked at it, and then at Draco, in a way that said he didn’t like it being a secret. Draco knew he could argue with Harry and still be his friend.
            But if Dash started disliking him, then he would probably never get close to Harry again. And surprisingly, Draco was finding that that didn’t only bother him because it meant that he wouldn’t get the chance to pet Dash. Harry was part of the equation, too.
            “Yes, I will,” said Harry, his jaw firming, and then went back to arguing with Dash. Draco looked back into the window of the Magical Menagerie, and noticed a snake towards the back of the shop, a glittering green snake in a low wire cage.
            “Does Dash not like to see other snakes caged up?” Draco asked.
            “What do you mean?” Harry blinked at him, and then only looked in the right direction when Draco pointed his finger at the cage. “Oh, no, he wasn’t thinking about that at all. He was trying to persuade me to buy him birds from the shop. He wants to practice on them.”
            He tapped Dash on the head and hissed something at him that was probably “practice on your own,” not that Draco could really understand Parseltongue. But he was learning to read the way Dash and Harry interacted with each other, and that was its own sort of language. He snickered a little, but shook his head when Harry stared at him.
            “What does he want to practice on them? Hunting?”
            “Some kind of magic,” said Harry, rolling his eyes. “More than the sort of magic he gets just by existing, I mean.” He tapped Dash on the nose this time when Dash started to unwind from around his body. “No, hunt wild birds if you want to do that.”
            Draco grinned, an idea coming to him. “You know, if you went in there and announced that you were Harry Potter and your basilisk wanted those birds, they would probably give them to you for free.”
            Harry turned around and stared at him. “What?”
            “I mean, I don’t know for sure,” said Draco, and shrugged stiffly. There was something rather uncomfortable about the way Harry was looking at him. “It was a thought I had, which might or might not be true.”
            “I don’t want to get the birds for free,” said Harry. “They’re pets. They’re not meant to be snake food.”
            Draco thought of telling Harry about the fate of some animals kept in apothecaries, but he didn’t have the heart.
            “And I don’t really need any more pets,” said Harry, and smiled down at Dash. He seemed to be listening intently to a one-sided conversation, but Draco had got used to that. He looked into the shop again, at the cage with the snake in it.
            The snake was watching them through the wire and the window. It was probably only attracted to Dash, Draco thought, but he did think it was a beautiful snake, green in all its scales in a way that Draco had only previously seen on jade figurines. When it spread its hood—it was a cobra—he could make out a delicate blue design on either side of it. It looked like a flame, though, not the curved sign Draco was familiar with.
            He sighed and looked back to find Harry hesitating in front of him.
            “What?” Draco asked. They were going to go to Flourish and Blott’s, he had thought, and start buying a library on wandless magic and history for Harry. He ought to know why people would think he was the reincarnation of Slytherin because he had Dash.
            Harry’s jaw firmed for a second. Then he said, “You really want a basilisk, right?”
            “Don’t joke about that,” Draco snapped. He shut his eyes a second later and rubbed his temple, because Dash had got interested in him when he spoke sharply to Harry. “I just—I want it too much to joke about it. And I know that I can’t ever have a basilisk, not the way you can, because you’re a Parselmouth and I’m not. I know that. I’m trying to get used to it.”
            “What if,” said Harry, and his voice wavered a little, “I went in there and bought that green snake and commanded it to obey you? You know, the way I could because I’m a Parselmouth? I don’t think I could command it to bond to you, but I could make sure that it would protect you and never attack you.”
            Draco opened his eyes again. He didn’t know what to say, what to do. He wanted—he didn’t want—he wanted lots of things. He looked at Harry in helpless silence instead, and hoped that Harry would understand.
            It seemed he did, because Harry smiled. “I was a little too busy to get you a birthday gift when it was your birthday,” he said. “Call this a late one.” And he opened the door of the Magical Menagerie and walked in.
            Draco trailed behind him, a little dazed.
*
            I can enforce your commands, and that will make sure the snake never bites him, or anyone else who smells the same as him. Dash’s head was swaying back and forth, probably in interest, although the frozen shopkeeper seemed to think it was something different. Harry tried smiling at the man, but he didn’t even look at Harry. I can’t promise anything about the other people in the house, however. Or the house-elves.
            Then I’ll ask the snake not to bite the house-elves, and hope he listens, said Harry. He looked at the shopkeeper. At least the man was looking at him now, although he was using the counter to hide from Dash. He nodded to Harry only once before he stared at Dash again.
            “Um,” said Harry. “Excuse me. I’d like to buy that snake.” He pointed confidently in the right direction without taking his stare from the man. He knew it was the right direction because Dash told him so.
            The man coughed and slowly straightened, eyes darting around as though he assumed someone else would come in and save him from the agony of being afraid of Harry Potter’s basilisk. Or maybe from serving Harry Potter. Harry didn’t really know, and he was starting to think Draco was wrong. Trying to use his fame to buy things wasn’t a help. It just made people stand there and stammer.
            Tell him again, Dash suggested, wrapping his head around Harry’s neck. The man gave a little moan of fear. Dash flicked his tongue in what looked simply like tasting the air, and which no one other than Harry would know was amusement. Try a touch more arrogance this time. Sounding apologetic doesn’t work.
            Harry didn’t really like doing it this way, either, but stammering when he asked was a problem. He stood taller and tried to think about the way Sirius sounded when he was dealing with Slytherins.
            “I want to buy that snake,” he said, and pointed to the cage again. “For a gift.” He stared at the shopkeeper, and the man snuffled, but came out from behind the counter. He reminded Harry a lot of Pettigrew, except his hair was blond.
            “Sir is sure?” he whispered. “That’s a flame cobra. Highly poisonous. Prone to burn when angered.”
            Draco gasped behind Harry. Harry snorted a little. He knew Draco wasn’t afraid. That probably just made the snake sound even more special to him.
            “I’m sure,” said Harry, and he would have said something else, on Dash’s advice, but Sirius spoke from behind him.
            “You’re getting another snake? What for? You already have the most dangerous one anyone could possibly want!”
            Harry turned around and swallowed. Sirius was looming over him. Harry had a complicated emotion when he did things like that. He wasn’t afraid of Sirius, not really. For one thing, he had Dash. For another thing, Sirius wasn’t Uncle Vernon or Voldemort.
            But it made him want to flinch and back off. And he knew he couldn’t do that if Draco was going to get his snake.
            “This one is a gift for Draco, not one I’m bringing home,” Harry said, and tried a smile. “Dash wouldn’t want me to have another snake anyway.”
            The shadow ones I make would not be so bad, Dash disagreed. At least, that way, I could be certain they were fairly under my control.
            Sirius was still red in the face, but he seemed to have calmed down a little. “But you can get another gift for—my little cousin,” he said, and his eyes darted to Draco, and then away. “One that he could take to school. I don’t think snakes are allowed, are they?”
            “They might be,” said Draco, and he was smiling at Sirius. Maybe he understood why Sirius was calling him his cousin, because Harry sure didn’t. That was, he knew Draco’s mum was Sirius’s cousin, but Sirius had never called him that before. “They changed the rules so Harry could have Dash. They might do the same for me.”
            “It would be less a matter of expanding rules than reviving an old one,” said Mr. Malfoy. He had come into the shop and was near the door, leaning on his cane. Harry didn’t think he needed it, but he still didn’t know that much about Mr. Malfoy, so he steadfastly watched the shopkeeper taking the flame cobra from its cage instead. “Students used to be permitted to have the animals that embodied their Houses.”
            “Gryffindors had lions?” Sirius was still facing Harry, but Harry could see how much his eyes shone.
            “Cats, rather,” said Mr. Malfoy, his voice cool now. “And Hufflepuffs could have badgers, Slytherins snakes. Ravenclaws flew eagles. With the changing of traditions, eagles became owls and badgers were replaced by toads.” He gave a little sigh and shrugged. “As with so many changing of traditions in the last few centuries, only Slytherins were forgotten in the changes. They simply were not allowed to bring snakes anymore.”
            “A good thing, too,” Sirius muttered. “Snakes are dangerous.”
            Mr. Malfoy smiled. Harry watched the flame cobra wrapping around the shopkeeper’s arm, but he could still hear the smile in Mr. Malfoy’s voice. “Have you ever faced a cornered badger? Oh, my mistake. You can’t have, or you wouldn’t be talking as much about the reputed dangers of snakes.”

            Harry decided to ignore the expression on Sirius’s face, and turned back to the shopkeeper. “What does the snake eat?” he asked.
            I could just ask it, Dash offered, and opened his mouth, probably to talk in Parseltongue to the flame cobra. Harry pinched his side, and Dash shut up, although he looked extremely sulky about it. He gave Harry a single look before dropping his head to rest along Harry’s shoulder.
            “Um, mice and crickets mostly.” The shopkeeper blinked and then straightened a little, as if he thought he had to answer Harry’s questions. Probably because of who I am, Harry thought wearily. “But he does need hot coals and ashes, regular. That’s how he maintains his scale gloss.”
            “That’s fine,” said Harry, and reached into his pocket for the Galleons he’d bought along today. He’d vaguely thought he would buy lots of sweets and nice clothes, but the flame cobra would probably take most of his money.
            It was completely worth it, though, to see Draco standing beside him with his mouth slightly open and his face disbelieving.
            “Ten Galleons.” The shopkeeper was glancing back and forth between Harry, Sirius, Draco, and Mr. Malfoy as though he didn’t know whether Harry would actually buy the flame cobra. And of course every few seconds he stared at Dash.
            “I forbid you to spend your money on that thing, Harry.”
            Harry swallowed. He had been afraid that would happen someday, Sirius doing this in front of someone else. Harry didn’t want to challenge him, didn’t want to make Sirius feel like less than his godfather.
            But he also didn’t want to go back on his word and not buy Draco the birthday gift he had promised.
            “I just want to get this for Draco, Sirius,” he said, and he didn’t know how his voice would sound until he heard it. Mostly tired, he thought. “Besides, it’s not going to come into our house. Draco will take it home.”
            “If Malfoy allows him to,” said Sirius suddenly, sounding triumphant. “And you know that he won’t!”
            “On the contrary, I can see no reason why my son should not be allowed to have a snake as a pet,” Mr. Malfoy murmured. “For the reasons that I told you. Hogwarts rules can be returned to traditional standards.”
            “I was talking about at home,” said Sirius, while the shopkeeper looked at Harry’s Galleons as if he wanted to snatch them off his hand but didn’t dare. “And I’m still Harry’s guardian. I don’t want him to spend his money that way!”
            Fine. Harry didn’t want to do this, but he didn’t want to disappoint Draco after he’d made him a promise even more.
            He turned around and looked at Sirius as calmly as he could. “But this was money I got out of my vault before I met you,” he said. “I should be able to spend it the way I want.”
            Sirius blinked at him, and blinked again. He was looking at something distant, Harry thought. Something that had nothing to do with him.
            The thought made him sad, but it was the truth. He thought most of the things that Sirius saw had nothing to do with Harry, but they might have something to do with his dad. Or the Marauders.
            Then Sirius turned back to Harry and said, “All right. But we are going to have a talk when we get home about appropriate spending of money.”
            “That’s fine,” Harry said, feeling more than a little relieved. At least Sirius wasn’t going to yell in public. And it might mean, it might mean, that Sirius was going to start taking care of him the way Professor Snape was always saying a good godfather should.
            Fine, Dash agreed. Especially since I can always give you my shed skin to make money on your own if he unreasonably restricts access to your vaults.
            Harry petted Dash in silence. Dash wasn’t threatening people or trying to bite them, either. That made the day look up.
            “Fine,” Sirius echoed. He looked a little uneasy, but not much. “Then why don’t you give your…friend his gift, and we can go get something to eat?”
            Harry turned to Draco and motioned the shopkeeper to hand the flame cobra over to him. At the same time, he said in Parseltongue, “You know that I don’t want you to attack your new owner or anyone who smells like him? Or anyone at all, unless he’s in great danger. Dash, can you add to that?”
            Dash held out his head and hissed Harry’s instructions softly in Parseltongue, then opened his mouth. The flame cobra looked down Dash’s gullet, between the enormous fangs, and laid its hood down against both sides of its head.
            “That’s right,” said Harry, content, and turned back to Draco, who was staring at him with more than a bit of awe. “Choose a name for him, and choose a word to tell him when you’re in real danger. Then I’ll teach him what those words mean by giving him the Parseltongue equivalents, and—well, that should work.”
            Draco looked at him as if dazed. Concerned, Harry started to ask if he was okay, but then Draco shook his head and whispered, “This is the best gift I’ve ever got. Ever.”
            Harry smiled. “Happy birthday, then. But I need his name.”
            Draco looked in silence at the flame cobra for long moments, stroking the green scales. The shopkeeper took the chance to get Harry’s Galleons and come back with a cage and some frozen mice.
            “His name is Conflagration,” said Draco at last. “And I think that he—he can burn people, right, as well as bite them? You should add some instructions for him not to do that. I’ll tell him ‘Attack’ if I want him to attack.”
            Amused by Draco’s choice of name, Harry hissed the instructions to Conflagration, and Dash repeated them and showed off his throat to Conflagration again. The flame cobra cuddled closer to Draco in response. Harry smiled. He thought having Dash around would make sure Conflagration didn’t get out of hand.

            “We will see how you handle the snake this summer, Draco,” Mr. Malfoy said abruptly. “Such a trial will tell me whether you should be allowed to take him with you to school.”
            Harry jumped, then relaxed as he saw the look of determination on Draco’s face. Draco would make sure Conflagration behaved, he thought, because he really wanted to show the snake off at Hogwarts.
            And then, abruptly, Draco turned around and grabbed Harry himself in a hug. Harry froze before he could stop it, but Draco just whispered fiercely, “Don’t forget about the letter you need to give Black. And thank you.”
            Harry gently patted his back, the only thing he could think of to do. “You’re welcome.”
            Draco stepped back to gaze adoringly at Conflagration, while Dash hissed gently beside Harry, Someone who hugs you that hard is someone to hang onto.
            Harry would have asked if Dash was making a pun, but Sirius clapped his hands, announced, “I’m starving, and I’m tired of talking about snakes!”, and steered them all out of the Magical Menagerie. He seemed determined to talk only to Harry, but at least it meant he would get to have lunch with Draco.
            If Draco eats anything, he’s so fascinated.
            Draco was rubbing his hand along Conflagration’s neck. Harry smiled. He really liked that, he thought. The ability to give people gifts and make them happy.
            It just made him feel sadder that he would apparently never be able to make Sirius happy, no matter what he did.
            He shook the thought away. Making one person a day happy was enough.
            Two, said Dash. You make me happy all the time. He trailed his tail down Harry’s leg. I want you to know that.
*
ChaosLady: Thank you!
starr: You get to hear more about Narcissa’s letter in the next chapter.
SP777: Thank you!
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A Brother to Basilisks