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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 Thirty-Five—Movement In One Direction
            Harry relaxed, keeping his gaze fixed on the chair. He could feel the strong desire to drive the chair through the wall into the next room, and at the same time, he floated in the middle of the soft concentration that Snape had taught him.
            He twitched, once, as he felt Dash wind around his ankle. But Dash was part of him. He couldn’t disrupt the spell, the magic that was building in Harry’s chest.
            It was wonderful. It was like the moment when Hagrid had told him magic was real and his parents could do it. Harry just gestured, and the power flew out of him and collided with the chair.
            And the chair vanished.
            Harry glanced at the chairs that Snape had conjured nearer the front of the room. For long seconds, he didn’t think it was going to work. They were vibrating, but they weren’t vanishing, and Harry wanted them to. He narrowed his eyes and glared.
            The chairs vanished. Harry sagged to the floor with his arms spread. He could feel Dash winding around them, too, as if he was checking for bruises. Dash snapped his tongue at him when he had that thought, though.
            How stupid. I am making sure that you don’t try to exercise those muscles too soon. They’ve been through a lot, and they deserve a rest. Dash sounded like he was bonded to Harry’s muscles and not Harry.
            You want to keep them safe? Harry tilted his head back and sighed. Dash curled up around more of his body, this time keeping him pinned to the floor the way he’d kept Harry pinned to his chair in Potions that one day.
            Yes. I want to keep all of you safe. But right now, they’re the ones that hurt the most and deserve to have someone stand up for them. Poor muscles.
            Harry snorted. He pulled himself upright then, and turned towards Snape. He’d avoided looking at him until now. “What do you think, sir?”
*
            I think you have achieved remarkable results with a month of instruction only, and I am worried about what it would mean if you had to collapse in the middle of a battle, immediately after using wandless magic.
            But Severus would not voice the second thought. It was years yet—let it be—before Harry would have to engage in open battle. He inclined his head and murmured, “You did it well, with little waste of energy this time. I could barely feel the magic spilling around you. However, I did not understand the pause between vanishing the first chair and Apparating the other two.”
            Harry’s face was practically glowing, and it seemed to take him a long time to acknowledge the existence of Severus’s question. Severus wondered how long it was since he had heard praise from anyone but Severus—sincere praise, at least. The papers lavished it on him as long as he did what they wanted, and Dumbledore would distribute it to keep the boy moving along the right path.
            And Black?
            Severus shook his head. Black was one of the subjects he and Harry did not discuss unless Harry brought it up. Severus could feel it burning in him, often, the desire to speak, but he had an imagination as vivid as his desire for vengeance, lately. That imagination let him picture Harry turning his back on Severus if he pursued the subject.
            “Oh.” Harry frowned and scratched at one ear, sitting up. The basilisk twined around him and laid his head in Harry’s lap. “I think I was concentrating too much on the first chair. I only thought of vanishing that one. And then I realized the other two were still there and hadn’t gone with the first one.” He gave Severus an anxious glance. “Is that bad?”
            “Only in the sense that you may not have the chance to react with a delay in battle,” said Severus. He flicked his wand, and more chairs appeared against the wall, all in a row this time. Perhaps having them all in his line of sight at once would improve Harry’s concentration. “Now you know what you have to practice on next.”
            Harry looked discouraged for the briefest moment. Severus had found that silence and dry practicality were effective counters to that dejection, and a second later, Harry nodded. The basilisk altered position so he could rise to his feet. “Yes, sir,” Harry said.
            He is intense when he gives loyalty, Severus thought, stepping back so that Harry could concentrate only on the chairs. And anxious to give it, even after the life he has had. Perhaps because of the life he has had, Severus decided a second later.
            How has Black missed out on earning it?
*
            Sirius was sitting in the middle of the kitchen when Harry got home, sipping tea. That wasn’t unusual, not after the last few weeks. He had been quiet since that argument about Harry’s money in Diagon Alley. Harry had thought he might try to take charge because he was committed to showing he could be a good guardian.
            But he hadn’t.
            Just like every other time he has done something that seems as if it will be to your benefit, and then reneged on it, said Dash with disdain, sticking his head around Harry’s neck and flicking his tongue out for a second. And he smells like self-pity.
            How would you know what that smells like? Mice and rabbits probably don’t have it. Harry began casually putting together his own tea from the kettle and scones and butter that Sirius had left on the table. Sirius nodded to him, but didn’t seem ready to turn around and have a conversation.
            I’ve had a lot of practice smelling Black and Lupin. Dash unwound himself from Harry’s neck and dropped to the floor, curling his tail beckoningly towards Harry’s room. And eventually, I was able to name the scent.
            “Harry?”
            Harry turned around reluctantly. He’d been almost ready to carry his plate out of the kitchen and up to his bedroom, and even if he was ready to argue with Dash about what Sirius smelled like, he really didn’t want to talk to him.
            Sirius was fiddling with the handle of his teacup, turning it back and forth as if it had broken and he’d put it back together wrong. “How would you feel about taking a letter to Draco’s mum?” he asked. He grimaced as he said it.
            Harry blinked. “Why don’t you just send a letter to her?” He knew Sirius had turned pale when Harry handed him Mrs. Malfoy’s letter. That made Harry sure that Sirius wouldn’t want Harry to visit with Draco again, even in Diagon Alley. “An owl won’t mean you have to see her.”
            Sirius shook his head wildly enough to send his hair cascading down his neck. “I don’t dare,” he whispered, and swallowed through a throat that sounded dry. “What I have to say—it should be said in person, or not at all.”
            Then that is not in a letter. Dash slithered back into the kitchen and watched Sirius with hostility from the floor. He could try not saying it at all. I don’t think he has much practice with that, and getting some would do him good.
            Harry kept silent. He wanted to agree, but what he really wanted to do was repeat Dash’s words aloud. Maybe then Sirius would see how ridiculous he was being.
            Sirius turned the teacup around and stared at something on the side that was invisible to Harry. Harry fidgeted. He wanted to get along with Sirius, like Sirius, love Sirius, respect him. He wanted to be a good godson and help Sirius figure out how to be a good godfather.
            But half the time, he didn’t know how to do that, and he didn’t think Sirius did, either. He sat there and was silent and then said things that were nonsensical, like this. Maybe things would change someday, but until they did, Harry didn’t see the point of trying to change them.
            Finally Sirius cleared his throat and said, “Then I’ll send an owl to her. I think she’d like to hear from me.”
            “Oh.” Harry hesitated. He wondered if he could ask a question and get it answered. “Would you like to see her again? You could ask her over here, and Draco could come with her.” It was the only way he knew of to make sure that he would get to see Draco but not have Sirius hovering over his shoulder the whole time. Sirius and Draco’s mum would probably go into another room and talk. Then Harry and Draco could do whatever they wanted.
            “No,” said Sirius, and then swallowed. “Don’t you want to go over to the Burrow? Visit Ron?”
            “Well, they were going to see if they could visit his brother in Egypt again,” said Harry. “But when they’re back home, yeah, I’d like to go. If you let me,” he couldn’t help adding, because he thought Sirius might want to come with him the way he had come to Diagon Alley.
            “Of course,” said Sirius, and beamed at him. “I like Ron Weasley. He reminds me a lot of his dad. Did I tell you that Arthur was the one who decided to induct your dad and me into the Order of the Phoenix?”
            “No,” Harry said. He was sometimes a little tired of the stories about his father, but at least this was one he hadn’t heard before.
            He sat down in the chair across from Sirius, while Dash slithered up his leg and hissed softly in his ear, Share the scones, since we won’t be going to a place where we can share them in privacy.
            Harry began to slip the buttered scones to him under the protection of the table, and sighed a little.
*
            “You must understand that I will not tolerate the snake in my library.”
            Draco bowed his head. He had brought Conflagration to his father’s library because it was the only room early in the morning with an active fire, and he had thought Conflagration could feed on the coals he needed there. Sure, Draco could have asked a house-elf to build up a fire in his own room, but the elves were terrified of Conflagration and would barely come near him.
            It had seemed like a good plan, until Conflagration got distracted by something on the top shelf and slithered out of Draco’s arms.
            “If you cannot control the snake, it will be removed.” His father sat back in the chair and gave Draco an utterly remote glance. “I know you are not a Parselmouth, and therefore may have more trouble communicating with the snake and training it. That is the only reason why it is still outside a cage.”
            Conflagration hissed. He had given no sign he could understand English, though, so Draco thought he was just reacting to his father’s tone. Draco quickly caught him back, flushing when his father gave him a long, slow, judging glance.
            “But you may not bring him into my library again,” Father continued. “You also cannot take him to Hogwarts if he continues to misbehave.”
            Draco opened his mouth to protest.
            Father pointed again to the small mound of burned books that had happened when Conflagration climbed the shelves.
            Draco bowed his head and murmured something he hoped sounded sorry. He was sorry, but his heart had started pounding when his father said he couldn’t take Conflagration to school. Of course Conflagration was coming to school with him! That was the whole point!
            Everyone had to see how Draco had a snake of his own, and a snake that Harry Potter had given him, no less. Conflagration was special and important even if he wasn’t a basilisk. He made Draco feel more special and important, too.
            Draco wanted to walk down to breakfast with a flame cobra coiled around his shoulders. His father had said that there was no reason the rules couldn’t be changed to accommodate that. That meant Draco had to take Conflagration with him.
            “Good,” said Father at last, after a long time when Conflagration shifted slowly along Draco’s neck and Draco thought that he would probably have to take him out of the room before Father said anything approving. “Now, go work on your snake control.”
            And he turned away in a way that blatantly dismissed Draco.
            Draco opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. He turned and managed to march with appropriate speed out of the library. Then he put Conflagration down on the stones in front of him and stared at him. Conflagration raised his head and looked back, spreading his hood out.
            “You haven’t eaten anybody yet, or bitten any of the elves, or burned anything you weren’t supposed to until this morning,” Draco mumbled. “Why can’t they see how good that makes you?”
            Conflagration flicked his tongue idly out, and a tiny spark of flame jumped off it. He moved slowly down the corridor in response, and Draco sighed a little and followed. At least here it was stone, and Conflagration couldn’t scar that any worse than Draco’s ancestors had themselves.
            He would have to write to Harry. Maybe Harry could teach him the Parseltongue commands to make Conflagration come back and stop burning something. “Stop burning!” ought to be simple in Parseltongue, right?
            Draco straightened his back with a snap. He didn’t care if it was simple or not. He was going to learn it. And then he would practice and practice until he really could go back to Hogwarts with Conflagration riding tamely on his shoulders.
            There was just no reason to give up on that.
*
            Lucius stared again at the letter that had come right before he smelled the scent of burning from his library, and laid his hand across his lips. He had to admit, he would not have suspected this particular person of asking again when they were once refused. He had anticipated opening the letter to threats of what would happen to him when the Dark Lord again rose to power.
            Not entreaties.
            Which might mean that the writer was less powerful than he thought himself.
            Eyes narrow in thought, Lucius studied the letter, this time looking as much at the ink blots and the straggling nature of some of the handwriting as the words themselves.
            Lucius,
            You gave no reasons for your refusal. We have a plan, a very powerful plan. The Dark Lord is coming! He has put together a temporary body for himself from an unlikely source. He has a wand again. He has a snake familiar. He will destroy the Potter boy.
            We have a way in to Hogwarts. We plan to use something that will be announced this year as the tool to finally conquer Potter. You need do nothing but influence a few members of the Board of Governors to allow snakes on the grounds. I know you can do that. The Dark Lord also knows that your son acquired a snake familiar himself, so you’ll have a natural excuse for asking.
            You know that you can do it. Why would you still hold back? The Dark Lord will reward you handsomely when he rises.
            No signature, of course. That would have been beyond foolish, to hand Lucius the power that must come from knowing who this current, single, active Death Eater was.
            Lucius leaned back with a small sigh. He had promised Draco that he would ask about him having a snake at school, and the sudden revoking of permission now would make Lucius’s life unpleasant for the rest of the summer.
            But he was also not sure that he could grant it knowing how this Death Eater would exploit it. Potter by himself might be nothing to him. If the Dark Lord arose again, however, and learned how Lucius had aided Potter, even if it was merely for a political strike at Dumbledore…
            He could not change the past. Perhaps he would have if he had had access to a Time-Turner. But in the meantime, he would live with his choices and turn into a different path, one only accessible to him because of that very alliance with Potter.
            Lucius smiled a little as he reached for a piece of parchment. And accessible to me because I do not want to listen to my son’s whining.
*
            “You can do it, Harry!”
            Harry certainly hoped so. He and Ron had switched roles for this latest Quidditch game. He’d started out as Seeker, of course, and Ron was Keeper, but now Ron wanted to see how well Harry would handle the Quaffle.
            Harry was gripping his broom with sweaty hands as Fred and George soared towards him, tossing the Quaffle back and forth fast between them. They were also hitting the Bludgers every now and then with their paddles, apparently counting as combination Chaser-Beaters. They were going to try to split apart and one would distract him while the other got the Quaffle in underneath him, he just knew it.
            Then George lifted his broom a little and flew straight towards Harry, and Fred spun up above him, with the Quaffle flickering between his hands.
            Above, not below, Harry thought, and flew straight at George in turn.
            It surprised George, and he turned aside from Harry with a shout. Then Harry was right up in Fred’s face, and Fred lost his grip on the Quaffle because he was trying to catch it and reach for his Bludger bat at the same time.
            Harry dived after the Quaffle.
            It was almost too easy, because it was so big compared to the Snitch. Harry stretched out his hand and caught the ball around the side, and then soared up and hovered in front of the hoop again, grinning.
            Fred and George had reunited in the middle of the pitch and were having a little whispered conversation. Ron had the Snitch—a Quaffle that Mrs. Weasley had kindly shrunk and colored gold for them—in one hand and was waving it around in ecstasy.
            “Oh,” he said, when he saw Harry with the Quaffle. “I think both of us are good at being Seeker and Keeper.” He flew back towards Harry, his eyes shining. “Think I should try out for Keeper this year?”
            Harry was about to answer, but an owl flew towards him and sat self-importantly on his broom. Harry blinked. It was a huge black owl with glaring golden eyes, and now that he thought about it, he had sometimes seen that owl bringing letters to Draco.
            “I have an owl here,” he told Ron, and tossed the Quaffle back to him as he started flying slowly towards the ground. Halfway there, the owl took off and flew alongside him. Harry sighed in a little bit of relief as he landed. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt an owl that belonged to Draco.
            Or Draco’s father, as he found out when he opened the letter.
            Mr. Potter,
            I have to ask you a very particular question. Would you be able to control any snakes that might come onto the grounds during the school year? Such as Draco’s flame cobra? Or would your basilisk be able to do so?
            Lucius Malfoy.
            Even the ink he had used looked expensive. Harry blinked and turned the letter over, but that was all of it.
            Maybe the ink is so expensive that he can’t use a lot of it to write the letters, Harry thought, and glanced over at Dash, who had been asleep in the sun on the pitch. He was already awake, though, probably because Harry was thinking about him, and he slithered over and flicked his tongue out inquiringly.
            Could you control any snakes that might come onto Hogwarts grounds? Harry asked him. Even if they were somebody else’s familiar?
            Dash curled his head around as he obviously thought about that. Harry reached out and petted him absently. That made George and Fred fly down and start suggesting all the horrible and evil things he could do with Dash if he had a mind to. Harry ignored them.
            It would depend on what the familiar had been ordered to do, Dash said at last. If I was going to demand that someone go back to their master or leave Hogwarts, I could do that. But if they had been ordered to fight to the death, probably not. He lifted his head and locked his muffled eyes with Harry’s. Especially if their master was another Parselmouth.
            Harry drew in a sharp breath. You’re talking about Voldemort, aren’t you?
            You know as well as I do that he is the dark figure in your dreams.
            Harry didn’t respond. He had talked to Snape about the continuing dreams, most of which seemed to involve a masked man and a big snake and a high-pitched voice that he never saw much of, and which spoke half the time in Parseltongue rather than English. Snape had promised to teach him something called Occlumency, which he said would help protect Harry’s dreams.
            I can do something other than simply command or control snakes, however.
            Harry blinked and looked back at Dash. What?
            Fight them. Dash lifted his head and lashed his tail, and for a second, Harry thought he saw little snakes peering from his shadow. I am still the King of Serpents, and there is no venom more deadly than mine.
            Harry probably shouldn’t have felt a little shiver of excitement and pride at that. He knew what Sirius would say, Lupin, Dumbledore, maybe even his parents if they were alive. Killing people, or their snakes, was wrong. Dash should be planning about how he would turn Voldemort’s snake in to the Aurors, or capture it alive, if it came to Hogwarts.
            But Harry had learned a lot of things over the summer, even though his only “classes” were in wandless magic and concentration with Snape. He had learned that he wasn’t a Slytherin in the way people told him he was. He still didn’t want to manipulate people, and he didn’t think he was the reincarnation of Slytherin even after he had read that book of fairy tales Draco had made him buy. In fact, he thought people who believed he was were utterly mental.
            He wasn’t Gryffindor either, though. He didn’t tell the truth about everything and feel good things all the time. Sometimes, he thought about how good it would be if other people were gone, and although he didn’t want to kill them, he still wanted them gone.
            I think you’re you, said Dash, and coiled around his feet.
            Harry took a deep breath, and nodded. Then I’m going to write back to Mr. Malfoy, and tell him that you can control Voldemort’s familiar if it shows up, and in the meantime, Draco can bring Conflagration.
            Of course he must be able to do that, Dash murmured, and then raised both his head and tail to the sun. I am going to enjoy this year.
*
Easyreader: No, Draco will insist that everyone pronounces the full name. Because it is more regal that way.
Thanks.
ChaosLady: I know it probably seems like I’m teasing you with it! But I promise it will come out eventually.
SP777: Because those are not long and impressive enough. And thanks!
moodysavage: Thank you!
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A Brother to Basilisks