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A Brother to Basilisks	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 85173 -:- 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-Seven—Announcements
            Harry heard a wave of shrieks follow him as he walked into Hogwarts, and looked around, blinking. Yesterday, he had thought all the students at Hogwarts had got used to Dash, and over the summer, most of the people in Hogsmeade had, too. Were they frightened because they saw how big he’d grown?
            Then he realized that it was a line of trembling first-years backing away from him, and sighed. Of course they would have had no chance to get used to Dash, any way he appeared.
            Promise me you won’t frighten them, Harry told Dash sternly as he took his place at the Gryffindor table and watched the ceiling of the Great Hall swirl with stormclouds.
            Not even the one that looks like a mouse? Dash filled Harry’s mind with the memory of a small straw-haired boy whose nose had twitched as he backed up. I might need to practice with him when I don’t have real mice. You know how easily I run out of them.
            Harry snorted and sat back against his chair to watch the Sorting, knowing Dash was in one of those moods where arguing with him would be useless. I’ll make sure the house-elves have enough mice even for you.
            Unless I get hungry for elves, too.
            Harry had had enough. Even if no one else could hear what was running through Dash’s mind, he could. He tapped Dash sharply on the tail, just at the point where the most delicate scales overlapped each other and there was a weak point. Dash went back to sulking, which was fine with Harry.
            He glanced up at the High Table and noticed Snape nodding to him. Harry nodded back. He knew Snape would probably still have to be hard on him in class, but everyone else was free to think that the nod was a silent promise of revenge for something. Harry knew a lot of things other people didn’t.
            Sometimes that was lonely. But when it could protect him, Harry didn’t mind keeping the secrets.
            The Sorting seemed to go more quickly than usual; either there were fewer Gryffindors or there were less kids in general, but Harry hadn’t been paying attention to either number, and when he asked Dash for help in remembering them, Dash wasn’t inclined to help. Harry did notice when Dumbledore stood up near his seat, though. He had a grave expression on his face that Harry didn’t understand.
            Ron seemed to have been paying more attention to the number of professors than Harry did. “Blimey,” he whispered. “We don’t have a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor again?”
            “Maybe Dumbledore will teach us himself,” said Hermione, although she didn’t sound very hopeful. “I heard that he used to be wonderful at that, even though his specialty was Transfiguration. After all, he defeated Grindelwald.”
            “Dumbledore doesn’t have the time,” Ron started to object, and Harry poked him in the side. After all, Dumbledore was just about to talk, and he was probably going to answer that question if Ron would only listen.
            Strange that you’re in the mood to listen to Dumbledore, and not to me.
            Harry didn’t bother poking Dash. He could think back to him that that was silly and he would always want to listen to his basilisk, and listen to Dumbledore, at the same time.
            “I have several announcements to make, each of them a pleasure to make known,” said Dumbledore, and then his face fell a little. “Except the first one. I am sad to announce that there will be, this year, no Quidditch at Hogwarts.”
            “What?” Harry thought Ron’s voice was the loudest, but it was pretty much a massed shout from all the Gryffindors, except Hermione. She looked a little pleased. Harry noticed Slytherins and Ravenclaws and even Hufflepuffs fuming, too, leaning over to talk to each other or casting looks of loathing at Dumbledore.
            One dangerous thing ends, then. Dash had grown resigned to staying behind on the ground when Harry flew, because his weight was too much for a broom and he could see Harry at all times, but he didn’t like it.
            And I don’t have to like it.
            Harry stroked his neck and said, I don’t think you need to, either, while the murmurs of disappointment faded enough for Dumbledore to add, “But the Quidditch games would not have been canceled without a good reason. Would you like to hear that reason?”
            “Yes!” Fred and George yelled, making several people around them laugh. Dash wound about Harry a bit tighter, as if to say that he didn’t care about what the reason would be because it wouldn’t benefit him.
            “The Tri-Wizard Tournament is being held at Hogwarts,” Dumbledore announced, and yes, his eyes were bright. “This is an ancient competition between three schools, hence the name. The other schools are Beauxbatons, located in France, and Durmstrang, located in Bulgaria.”
            Harry caught Draco’s eye even across the space between the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables, and barely managed to hide a snicker. He knew Draco would be thinking that anyone who didn’t already know where those schools were didn’t deserve the benefits of an announcement telling them so, either.
            “The competition involves three tasks of increasing complexity, each task leading on to the next,” Dumbledore was continuing, in a grand, sonorous voice that seemed to reach the furthest corners of the room. Harry thought he could still hear some students whispering angrily about Quidditch, though. “Three champions are chosen, one from each school, to compete in the tasks.” He paused, then added, “Because of the danger—each task could well be fatal—only students who are of age will be allowed to compete. I encourage students who are seventeen already, and only them, to volunteer for the prestigious position of Hogwarts’s champion.” His eyes shot towards Fred and George, and then he turned his head a little, so that he was looking at Harry.
            How strange, said Dash, arching his neck so that he could look at Dumbledore, or at least aim the yellow glow of his covered eyes more in his direction.
            What is it? Harry asked, wrapping one hand around Dash’s neck and avoiding Dumbledore’s gaze. It made him ache to think Dumbledore would distrust him so badly that he thought Harry would actually try and enter the Tournament.
            Dumbledore has these strange ideas about you despite knowing you for years, and probably knowing more about than you realize, because he was probably spying on you from a distance. Dash leaned his head against Harry’s cheek. He doesn’t know you at all despite all the opportunities that he had to learn who you were.
            Harry had no chance to answer, because the door of the Great Hall opened then.
            “Ah, yes,” said Dumbledore, without changing the smoothness or the cheery tone of his voice. “And I am pleased to introduce this year’s Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Auror Alastor Moody.”
            Harry craned his neck, interested in spite of himself. He hadn’t ever seen a real Auror except from a distance, and the man who came limping through the door on a wooden leg looked intimidating. At least an Auror would probably know more about Dark Arts and how to defend against them than Lockhart had, he thought.
            Dash hissed against his throat, strong and threatening.
            What is it? Harry asked, looking at the man. He wondered for a second if this man was Voldemort’s familiar that Mr. Malfoy had warned him about, but the more he considered it, the more he decided against it. Voldemort’s familiar had to be a snake, and he doubted the snake could transform into a human, even with Voldemort’s help.
            On the other hand, there was a small chance that Moody was the servant of Voldemort’s that Harry had only seen as a kind of crazed, laughing figure in the dreams. Harry knew from bitter experience that people you thought were good could still help Voldemort. He slipped his hand into his pocket and closed his fingers around his wand.
            Dash hissed, He smells of slaughtered snakes.
            Harry blinked and sat back, looking at Moody again. He was saying something to Dumbledore about the weather and the trek he’d had to get here and “constant vigilance,” but Harry didn’t pay much attention to his words. He would probably hear them later in class, and Dash could repeat them to him in memory if they mattered.
            Finally, Harry noticed the flask that Moody kept pulling out and drinking from. The flask had a diamond pattern on it that could have come from snakeskin. Harry nudged Dash and pointed. Is that what you’re sensing? The dead snake smell is coming from that?
            I must get close enough to judge.
            Before Harry could pick up through their bond what he intended, Dash dropped off Harry’s shoulders and neck and to the floor, and flowed towards Moody. Harry heard shrieks. This time, he couldn’t really blame people. He lived close to Dash all the time, and sort of forgot how big he was. But Dash was almost nine feet long now, and it looked like a lot of snake.
            Moody didn’t try to run. He had a magical blue eye that swiveled to focus on Dash, but he didn’t even draw his wand. He just stood there. Harry had to admit that that didn’t seem much like a servant of Voldemort’s.
            Dash slithered straight up to Moody’s flask and stuck out his tongue to sniff it. Dumbledore was shouting something about order and how people had to be more careful, but Harry ignored him and followed Dash. He would probably get a scolding later, but right now, he didn’t care.
            Moody’s magical eye swiveled to focus on him instead as Harry put his hand on Dash’s head, and Moody grunted. “Heard about this snake of yours,” he said. “Friendly, is he? For a basilisk?”
            “Yes, sir,” Harry said, meeting Moody’s gaze and trying to figure out from the way he took Harry’s answer if he was angry or not. “I never have much trouble with him, sir. Except when people try to hurt me.”
            Moody’s craggy face got a twitch that could have been a smile. “Well, don’t bring him to my class, then,” he said. “I believe in teaching students real spells, Potter. Spells they have to dodge, or catch, or resist. Constant vigilance!” He looked down at Dash, who now had his head so close to the flask that his tongue was stroking the skin. “Is he done?”
            Is it snakeskin? Harry asked Dash. Or is there a chance that he might be Voldemort’s human servant? Dash ought to be able to make out spells that were trying to mask scents, or magic that had to do with snakes.
            It’s snakeskin. Dash still sounded upset. He reared up so that he was rising above Harry’s head and lashed his tongue again, to the screams of several students. I can’t smell any other magic that has to do with snakes. I can’t smell anything but human. Dash curled his head to the side, and his eyelids quivered. I still don’t like him. He’s too powerful. I can smell the kind of practice that you’ve done hovering around him like a scent of smoke.
            Wandless magic? Harry asked in surprise. Maybe if Snape was too busy, he could get Moody to teach him. He eyed Moody once, and found Moody looking calmly back at him. Harry had to admit he was impressed by someone who was so calm in the face of a basilisk. Then I suppose I’ll have to make sure that I practice even more, in case he is hostile and tries to throw something at me.
            Yes. Be careful of him.
            Harry opened his mouth to say something else to Moody, but he hadn’t figured out what it was going to be yet, an apology or a question that might make him reveal if he had a connection to Voldemort, before Dumbledore arrived.
            “Harry.” Dumbledore still sounded impressive when he put his mind to it, Harry found. Harry wanted to hide by force of habit. He stood still, though, helped by the way Dash had wound about him again. “I think you owe Auror Moody an apology.”
            “I’m sorry, sir,” said Harry. It was easy enough to say. Dash was teaching him how to talk, and Mr. Malfoy had taught him some, and Sirius had taught him some. Professor Snape had maybe taught him the most of all, when he had told Harry that their Occlumency lessons would have to remain more secret than the wandless magic lessons had. “I wanted to make sure that Dash didn’t hurt you, but I know it must have been awfully scary to have him coming towards you.” He gave Moody his best smile, one he’d picked up from seeing the way Draco smiled at shopkeepers in Diagon Alley.
            “Why did you let Dash get out of your control in the first place?” Dumbledore’s voice had a cool tone that would have made Harry cower last year, before the lessons with Snape and the things Sirius had told him and Dash and—everything, really.
            Everything that makes up my real life.
            “I didn’t mean to do that, sir.” Harry ducked his head and peered up from under his eyelashes at Professor Moody. Snape had taught him that was effective. “But he smelled slaughtered snakes. You know he had to investigate.”
            There was a long, startled pause, and then Moody chuckled. “The skin of my flask?” He slapped the side of it, making it bulge. “Well, he would, wouldn’t he? Took it out of the hide of a Runespoor that decided I’d make fine fodder for its argument with itself.”
            Dash flicked his tongue out again, but didn’t say anything. Harry just said, “Sorry, then,” and looked at Dumbledore. “Can I talk to you later, sir?”
            Dumbledore gave him a long, slow look, one that might have been angry or pleased. It was hard for Harry to tell, because he wasn’t looking Dumbledore directly in the eyes. That had been the second thing Snape had ever warned him about when they stared practicing Occlumency, that Dumbledore was a Legilimens.
            “Yes, you may,” said Dumbledore. “Come to my office tomorrow evening, after dinner.”
            Once, it would have been right away. Dash sounded soothed and thoughtful now. Is he sensing your change of heart?
            Harry didn’t care to explore that in the middle of the Great Hall. Besides, he hadn’t actually been to Dumbledore’s office all that many times during his years at Hogwarts. He didn’t know if it would have been right away. “Yes, sir,” he said, and turned and slipped back to his seat at the Gryffindor table, while Moody stumped up to the Head one, talking to Dumbledore.
            Ron pounced on him the minute he came back. “Is Moody an Animagus like Pettigrew was?” he demanded in a loud whisper, his face white enough to make the freckles stand out.
            “No,” said Harry, amused at what Ron was thinking. But he could see why. The last time Dash moved that fast, it probably had been when he was chasing Pettigrew. “Dash could smell dead snakes. He wanted to make sure that it was really just the skin of Moody’s flask, and not something else.”
            Ron leaned even nearer. Luckily, most of the Gryffindor table was talking about either the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Moody, or the lack of Quidditch. “You thought maybe it had something to do with You-Know-Who?”
            “You ought to call him by his right name, Ron,” Hermione scolded in a whisper, moving in on the other side. “Headmaster Dumbledore says it only makes people more afraid of him if you don’t.”
            “Then let’s see you do it,” Ron promptly told her, scowling.
            Hermione puckered up her mouth and shook her head. “Not right now,” she said. “It could cause a panic if someone heard me. I’ll say it later in the common room, when not so many people will hear me.”
            Ron snorted. “She’s afraid,” he whispered to Harry, and didn’t even try to keep his voice down so Hermione couldn’t hear them, although Harry supposed that wouldn’t have been possible anyway. “She just doesn’t want to admit it.”
            “I am not,” Hermione began.
            Bickering broke out, and Harry sighed and looked out at the Great Hall again. This time, it wasn’t hard to meet Draco’s eyes, because Draco was leaning forwards as if he was looking specifically for Harry. He promptly flicked his head at the doorway of the Great Hall and mouthed, Meet me out there?
            Harry nodded. He’d noticed that Draco hadn’t come into dinner with Conflagration. He probably needed more help with the Parseltongue words before he could completely control the flame cobra. Harry turned around to his friends, adjusting Dash as he hung around his shoulders, and said, “Uh, I’m going up to the common room. I’ll see you later.”
            Most of the time, Hermione would have tried to make him eat more, but this time, she only waved him off and continued arguing with Ron. Harry wasn’t sure whether she would say Voldemort’s name later on or not. He grinned as he slipped out into the corridor. It might be funny if she did, if only because more Gryffindors than Ron would leap in the air.
*
            Draco leaned against the wall and watched Harry walk towards him, arguing with Dash as he did.
            At least, Draco assumed it was arguing. Harry was peering intently into Dash’s eyes with his mouth a little open. He was also shaking his head, and he would probably start frowning in an instant.
            Draco, though, couldn’t know what the argument was about, and he would never know unless Harry chose to tell him. He pressed on to something more urgent. “Those Parseltongue words aren’t enough,” he announced.
            It took a moment for Harry to blink and focus on Draco, to Draco’s annoyance. However, at least he did take it seriously when he was looking at him. He promptly said, “Why not? Didn’t I write them clearly enough?”
            Dash’s head swayed back and forth. Knowing he had helped Harry write them down, Draco could only imagine what he was saying.
            Keeping his eye on Dash, Draco said, “Uh, they were fine. But Conflagration won’t always stop when I want him to, and sometimes he acts like there’s more than one thing he could stop.” He grimaced, remembering the moment on the train when he’d told Conflagration to stop hissing at Greg and Conflagration had started biting at the inside of his cage instead. Then, when Draco had told him to stop that, he’d started hissing at Greg again.
            “Well, I can’t teach you how to control him completely,” said Harry, and for some reason, smiled down at Dash. “I don’t control Dash completely even though I’m bonded to him and a Parselmouth.”
            “Oh.” Draco was obscurely disappointed. The next best thing to a bonded snake would have been a snake he could control. But he shook his head. “Can you teach me other words?”
            “Yes,” said Harry. “But keep in mind, Conflagration did get threats from Dash and me about what would happen if he didn’t behave himself. Some of what he does is probably only play, not really threatening people.”
            Draco sighed a little. “I know that, but there’s no way I can really convince my roommates and other people in Slytherin of it.”
            Harry scratched his chin. “All right. Then I think what we need to focus on is the word ‘stop’ in combination with other words. Stop hissing, stop burning, and other things like that. What are other things that he does?” He looked at Draco.
            “Stop poking,” Draco muttered. He saw Harry blinking at him, and managed to avoid blushing, he thought, as he explained, “He likes to poke me in the cheek, and like I said, when I tell him to stop he acts like he was supposed to stop something else.”
            Harry put his hand across his mouth, and even Dash hissed in a way that didn’t need any translation. Draco glared at both of them. Dash might be annoying sometimes, but at least Harry could always explain to him why he was annoying, and that might make him stop.
            “All right,” Harry finally said, lowering his hand and grinning at Draco again. “Then that will be one of the things I work with Dash on. It’ll probably take a few days. Keep Conflagration in his cage until then, or at least out and under your control, or only have him out when I have Dash nearby. Then—”
            “Um. Excuse me, Mr. Potter. I want—my mum said I was to give this to you.”
            Harry turned around with an utterly blank face. Draco blinked. He knew the second-year Slytherin who was offering a wrapped present to Harry, vaguely. His name was Jackson Selwyn, although there was a lot of debate about whether his family was actually related to the Selwyns. Draco had never had to have an opinion either way.
            Now he wished he had, because then he might have known why in the world Selwyn was offering Harry a present.
            “Thank you,” Harry said cautiously. He shot a glance at Draco, who shrugged.
            “You’re welcome,” said Selwyn, and he bowed several times, backing away. “Please let my mother know if you liked it—I mean, if it’s acceptable. I’ll owl her that you took it from me.” He gave Harry a dazzling smile and ran towards the dungeons.
            “So who was that?” Harry asked Draco, opening the package. Draco reached over and put his hand on the paper.
            “I wouldn’t open that here,” he said. “Just in case.”
            “In case it explodes on me or gives me boils, you mean?” Harry hastily pulled his hand back from the paper.
            Draco shook his head. “In case it’s something Dark.” The legendary Selwyns might or might not have been in favor of the Dark Arts, but the modern ones definitely were.
            “Well, he would be an idiot, wouldn’t he, to bring something like that into the school?” Harry retorted. He paused, then added, “Anyway, Dash says that it doesn’t smell like Dark magic.”
            Draco opened his mouth to ask exactly how much Dark magic Dash had ever experienced, and then Harry tugged the paper in the right place, and it fell off.
            Inside was a small box that looked like the sort Honeydukes chocolates came in. Harry seemed to assume that was what would be inside, because he lifted the lid with a pleased expression.
            Draco felt himself sway a little at what was inside, but Harry only looked at it with a blank expression. He looked up at Draco. “What would they give me a ring for?” he asked, turning it around.
            Draco found his tongue, after long seconds. The ring was heavy gold, and had a black stone set in the middle of it, incised with a triangular image that Draco only recognized because he’d seen it before. Even Dash had reached out curiously to touch it with his tongue, in a way he probably wouldn’t have if he’d known what it was.
            “An allegiance ring,” Draco whispered. “This is a sign that the Selwyn family pledge to follow you and assert their loyalty to you.” He turned the ring around, and both Harry and Dash seemed to see at the same time that the triangle could be a snake’s head.
            Dash hissed something. Harry hissed back, making the hair on the back of Draco’s neck rise deliciously, and then asked, “They—follow anyone who has a basilisk?”
            “No,” Draco said quietly. “They’re willing to follow you because they think you’re the reincarnation of Salazar Slytherin.”
*
starr: Sirius could be doing that, yes.
ChaosLady: Thank you!
moon: Well, it will come, but it will definitely take a while.
SP777: He didn’t—that time. Conflagration is being a little shit.
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A Brother to Basilisks