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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 Forty-Three—The Making of a Champion
            “I have wanted to introduce myself to you.”
            The stiff voice wasn’t one Harry knew, and Dash hadn’t hissed, either, the way he would have if someone unknown had approached. Which meant he had probably known this person was coming and kept silent to see if Harry would notice in time.
            Harry tossed an annoyed glance at his basilisk even as he turned around and smiled politely. The boy was one of the students from Durmstrang, one who was taller than most of them and looked vaguely familiar. “Why?” Harry asked. “I didn’t think the Boy-Who-Lived mattered so much in Bulgaria.”
            The Durmstrang boy hesitated, as if he didn’t understand. Harry was just about to try it again, without the joke, when he abruptly grinned and said, “He does not. I have come to meet your basilisk.” He nodded to Dash and held out his hand. “My name is Viktor Krum.”
            “Oh, you’re that great Seeker!” Harry hadn’t got to attend the Quidditch World Cup, but he’d heard all about it. He shook Krum’s hand and motioned him to a seat on the other side of the library table. “Dash says hello.”
            I haven’t said it yet, Dash said in a thin voice as he began to unwind some of his body and point it in Krum’s direction. You shouldn’t speak for me when I haven’t told you what you should say.
            Well, are you going to reject him and hurt his feelings? Harry supported some of Dash’s coils with his hands as he stretched across the table, because otherwise he would probably sag and look silly.
            I never look silly. And of course I am not. He is the first one other than you to address me as an independent being right away. Dash darted out his tongue, and Harry caught his impression of Krum’s scent, thick and meaty, like a heavy predator. You have my permission to tell him he’s welcome.
            “Dash likes it that you’re treating him like an independent being and not just part of me,” Harry told Krum, who was watching with big eyes as Dash reared up above him on the table. His scent didn’t smell of fear, though. “Most other people just treat him like my pet.”
            When really it should be the other way around.
            Harry ignored Dash in favor of listening to Krum, who gave him a confused look and said, “But of course he is an independent being. I have been reading the papers since I came here. He is not a normal basilisk, no?”
            At last! Someone who recognizes greatness when he sees it. Dash bowed his head and held out his plume to Krum. Harry opened his mouth to explain that was an invitation to scratch it, but Krum was already doing so, and his fingers made Dash roll limply on the table and open his mouth in a yawn.
            “Well, I don’t think most normal basilisks call someone down to the Chamber of Secrets and hatch there in front of them and bond with them,” Harry said, a little dryly. He was wondering wistfully what made Krum so different from the majority of people around him, and if maybe he would have been better off having Dash as a companion if he’d gone to Durmstrang.
            Then again, he never would have met Dash if he’d gone to Durmstrang, so he couldn’t regret it too much.
            “Oh, but that is bonding with a Parselmouth,” said Krum, and moved his free hand a little. He hadn’t taken his respectful eyes off Dash once. “I mean that he was hatching from an egg. Most basilisks must be hatched from beneath a toad, and the egg must be the egg of a chicken.” He cocked an eye at Harry. “But the papers, they did not mention chickens or toads.”
            Harry shook his head a little, even as Dash came back to full alert and said, As if I would need a toad to hatch me. Delicious things shouldn’t sit on top of my egg.
            “I didn’t see any,” said Harry. “But Salazar Slytherin was, um, well, he was a Parselmouth and I think he did all sorts of odd things. I thought maybe he’d created some kind of spell that would be like a toad but not exactly like it.”
            Krum’s eyes glinted, and he moved a little so that he could see Harry over the rising coils of Dash’s back. “He created something that I believe is different. But the difference would lie in the egg, not the toad.” He hesitated, then continued. “Your basilisk, do you keep him away from roosters?”
            Harry blinked. He honestly hadn’t ever thought about the question. He did remember Hagrid saying that he hadn’t replaced the roosters Ginny had killed yet, sometime near the start of last year, and that had been the last time anyone had brought it up.
            Dash, did you kill all the chickens?
            I heard the proud things crowing last year, but they didn’t affect me, said Dash. I would like to try roasted rooster, though. Perhaps it would taste a bit different from roasted hen.
            Harry just said, “No. I should have thought about it, because there was a basilisk in the school the year before Dash hatched, and the—the person who was letting it free made sure to kill all the roosters. But I never thought about it.”
            Krum grinned. “I think some people have thought about it. I heard them discussing the roosters and how they had no impact on your Dash even when they used spells that imitated the rooster’s cry.”
            Harry sat up indignantly. “Someone was trying to kill Dash? Who?”
            “I do not know their names,” Krum said, sounding apologetic. He again touched Dash’s plume, and Dash, who had started to coil up like a cobra, relaxed back against the table again. “I am sorry. I only know that they were in the common room last night.”
            The Slytherin common room, Harry thought. Which meant he had enemies in that House.
            Well, of course he did. Not all the pure-blood families wanted to ally with him, and he knew some of them were the children of Death Eaters. Of course he knew that.
            It still shook him, a little. He sat up and cleared his throat, ignoring Dash’s soothing hisses. There was only one set of questions he could ask right now, since Krum didn’t know the attackers’ names. “If you don’t think Dash is a normal basilisk, what is he?”

            “That is a good question.”
            Harry glared a bit. Krum was doing the same thing Professor Moody did when he didn’t know the answer and didn’t want to admit it.
            Krum, though, only shrugged and continued, and Harry realized he hadn’t meant to tease or keep things from Harry. “It is. I assume that he was changed somehow in the egg. That same change probably made the eggs able to survive without having a toad sitting on top of them.” He glanced at Harry. “Have any of the other eggs in the Chamber ever hatched?”
            “I don’t know,” Harry said, startled into simple truth. “I never went back to check.”
            And you shouldn’t, Dash said, sliding away from Krum so that he could coil around Harry’s neck and shoulders once more. You don’t need another basilisk. I am the only one you will ever need.
            That isn’t the same thing, Harry said, and stroked his neck, rubbing at the small scales in a way that usually made Dash melt. Besides, don’t you want to know more about where you came from?
            I know that I’m better than ordinary basilisks and that’s enough. Dash butted Harry’s cheek restlessly with his nose. You don’t need to know anything else, and neither do I.
            But I need to know more about you if someone is trying to murder you, Harry pointed out, and turned once more to Krum, who was speaking. “You should fetch other eggs from the Chamber. Test them.” Krum’s eyes were glowing like stars, and Harry wondered if he liked snakes, or Parselmouths, or Salazar Slytherin. Maybe even magical theory. “See what they would tell you about your own basilisk.”
            “Well, there might be a few problems with that,” Harry said, and ignored the poking that told him Dash could be one of the problems. “If the others hatch, then I’m the only Parselmouth around who can control them. But Dash won’t let me bond with any others, and that means they’d go wild.”
            Krum gave him a faint smile. “Not if you built a pen to contain them. My Headmaster, he is an expert in such things. Would you let him help?”
            Harry hesitated. He would have to think about this. He had so much going on, including the oath that Snape had told him could be a problem and the allegiance rings and the way that some pure-blood families were sending him letters with cryptic references that Harry thought were tests to see if he was really the reincarnation of Salazar Slytherin. “Let’s leave it for right now, okay? Maybe later. But thanks for telling me about the roosters.”
            Krum nodded and started to stand. Then he paused with one hand on the table and studied Harry from a short distance away. Harry looked at him silently.
            “The people who wanted to kill your Dash,” said Krum, “they seem to have given up because they believed that you had protected him magically. That is something Salazar Slytherin could do.”
            Harry sighed shakily. “There’s a bunch of people who believe I’m him reincarnated. But I’m not. I think all the similarities between us are just because we’re Parselmouths.”
            Krum’s face was impassive now. “I see. Thank you for telling me the truth.”
            He walked away, and Harry shook his head and buried it in his hands. He had so much to think about and plan for, and his dreams about Voldemort were getting more persistent even in spite of the Occlumency Snape was teaching him, and he had no idea what was going to happen next.
            Except one thing.
            Dash, you will stop poking me.
*
            “The time has come for the choosing of the Triwizard Tournament Champions!”
            Albus made the announcement with the shining smile and eyes that used to drive Severus so mad. Severus leaned back in his seat and watched with a gaze he kept unreadable as the students leaned forwards at their tables and the Headmasters exchanged significant glances. Madame Maxime seemed to be trying to keep up the unreadable façade, too, but Severus saw the curling of one hand in her lap.
            Most of Severus’s attention was on Harry, who sat at the Gryffindor table with one hand on Dash’s neck. They had spent the past week in discussion of politics and Occlumency lessons during their free time, and he’d helped the boy compose a letter to the Selwyns that carefully asked about promoting one of their businesses. Harry had suggested most of the phrasing, and Severus hadn’t had to amend all of it. The boy might be coming along after all.
            Severus expected the choosing process to present few surprises. It was evident whom Maxime and Karkaroff favored among their students, and while there might be several students picked among Hogwarts’s candidates, not that many had succeeded in putting their names in the cup. Severus had forbidden any of his seventh-year Slytherins from doing so. He doubted any of them had been so foolish as to disobey him.
            When the fire sparked and Fleur Delacour’s name came out for Beauxbatons, the cheering was deafening. Severus noticed several of his own House following the Veela girl with their eyes, heartsick. He shook his head. He was already considering including Draco in Harry’s Occlumency lessons, although so far Lucius hadn’t agreed. Perhaps he should consider giving many of his Slytherins practice in strengthening the will.
            The selection of Krum as Durmstrang’s Champion was likewise anticlimactic. Severus’s main interest in the boy was as the one who had approached Harry about Dash not being a true basilisk. But Krum didn’t look at Harry or display any interest in him as he marched into the small room reserved for the Champions.
            The silence around the Great Hall grew more and more tense as everyone else waited for the appearance of the Hogwarts name. Severus managed to plant an expression of neutral interest on his face. Albus was watching him.
            Then the name came flying out, and Albus grasped it and turned it around.
            “Harry Potter,” he said, and his voice was bewildered. He blinked and turned to the Gryffindor table.
            The Great Hall was already erupting in shouts of protest, excitement, suspicion, and rage. Severus immediately wove a charm beneath the table that would protect Harry from any “accidentally” flying spells, while his mind stuttered with shock.
            Harry would not have put his own name in the Goblet. Severus knew that the way he knew his heartbeat and Lily’s name echoing in his head in the silence of the night.
            Unfortunately, there were too many other possible suspects who might have done so. All that would have been needed was the submission of Harry’s name by someone who could cross the Age Line. Severus tried to lean back and get a good look at the faces of the seventh-years, wondering if some of the people who had tried rooster sounds on Dash might have tried this.
            It was impossible. Too many students were on their feet, yelling, waving their arms and wands, and hopping up and down. And near at hand, Madame Maxime was hissing words in French at Albus that Severus wouldn’t admit to knowing, all about how a child couldn’t compete in a tournament like this.
            Karkaroff was conspicuously silent. Severus considered him for a moment, but in the end, he decided that the man would not have done it, not in furtherance of any plan of the Dark Lord’s. Karkaroff had turned his back on the Death Eaters in sincere terror, and unlike Severus, he couldn’t plead being a spy when he had actually betrayed his confederates.
            You are avoiding thinking about what this means for Harry.
            Severus acknowledged that. There were dozens of things in the tournament that might kill Harry, at least if he was remembering the accounts of past tournaments right.
            But there was also something that made Harry different from most other Champions, and at the moment, it had twined itself into an enormous knot around Harry, preventing him from moving from his seat. Dash’s scales, turned outwards that way, would also provide an effective shield against many spells.
            “Mr. Potter.” Albus sounded less forceful than he might have, Severus decided. Perhaps he was just in shock, or reeling from the thought of somehow making Harry do what he wanted after a blow like this. “You must join the other Champions.”
            Harry tried to say something, but Dash was muffling his voice. So was someone else. Madame Maxime was yelling, in English finally and not French, and she stood up at the High Table. “Albus, I protest! I am not going to allow my most distinguished student to compete against a child who cheated—”
            The hiss that arose from Dash at that had echoes. It clattered around the Great Hall and finally collapsed into silence when everyone was staring at the Gryffindor table. In the silence that followed, Dash curled himself tighter than ever around Harry.
            And now it’s begun, Severus thought wearily. Dash quite possibly wouldn’t let Harry compete in the Tournament at all, and he was going to silence criticism of him by being dangerous.
            It was up to Severus to do something before this got completely out of control. And quickly. He could see Moody rising to his feet, and Merlin knew what he would say.
            “It seems to me that the situation we have on our hands is simple,” Severus drawled. He knew he would draw attention, even though he was sitting, simply by the calmness of his voice, and he did. He leaned his elbows on the table and studied the great knot of Dash and Harry. “Did Mr. Potter manage to cheat? How could he? We saw how the magic of the Age Line defeated even our most clever underage students who tried to get past it.” He nodded at the Weasley twins, who still had a few tufts of stubborn hair from their beards.
            Undaunted, they grinned and waved cheerfully at him. Severus turned next to Madame Maxime and asked, “Did Miss Delacour enter of her own free will?”
            “Of course she did!” A half-giant planting her hands on her hips was intimidating, but she had nothing on the Dark Lord, and Severus didn’t flinch. “If you are suggesting I would put anyone through this—”
            “But if someone else had written her name on a piece of paper and tossed it into the Goblet,” Severus continued inexorably, “would the Goblet of Fire be able to tell the difference?”
            Madame Maxime hesitated, briefly taken aback. “The person who did that would need to be a seventh-year, of course,” she murmured.
            “Or older.” Severus looked around the table, as if he hadn’t noticed all the people paying attention to his conversation with the Beauxbatons Headmistress until now. Then he gave a small shrug. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to find out who did it. But I think it much more likely someone submitted Mr. Potter’s name than that Mr. Potter managed to fool the Age Line.”
            “His basilisk, possibly?” Moody rumbled. He was looking at Severus with dislike, but he kept his head carefully turned as if the sight of Harry covered with Dash’s coils upset him even more.
            Severus gave a light snort. “Why would the basilisk wish to place his name in the Goblet? You can see how he’s holding him now. He doesn’t want Mr. Potter to participate in the Tournament.”
            “But the use of the Goblet of Fire creates a magically binding contract, unfortunately,” said Albus, giving a frown that reminded Severus of nothing so much as one of the portraits in his office. Headmaster Dippet, who sometimes whined in a high-pitched voice when Severus stayed too long on a visit, frowned like that. “That means Mr. Potter has to participate.” He cleared his throat. “Can someone move that basilisk off Mr. Potter?”
            Funny, once you would have done it yourself, Severus thought, and saw the way Moody snapped up to his full height, normal eye gleaming, magical eye swiveling over to lock on Harry.
            “I have a spell that might work.” Moody’s wand was already weaving an intricate pattern in the air, one that seemed to imitate the patterns of the coils that wrapped around Harry’s chair and shoulders.
            Severus tried to cast the countercharm under the table, but he didn’t recognize the spell itself, and it flew before he could call it back. He hissed a little and tried not to wince as he turned to look at Dash and Harry again.
            The spell bounced off Dash’s scales.
Severus stared. But there could be no doubt what had happened. Dash’s scales had reflected the spell as thought they were a mirror, and a few students screamed as their chairs flew into the air and began to shake and spin them. Severus cast Cushioning Charms on the tables and floor and turned to shout at Moody.
McGonagall was already behind him doing that, though, so Severus turned back to check on Harry. He only hoped that Dash wouldn’t go mad and attack everything in sight. That was the last thing they needed, with the rumors that would surely spread about Harry having cheated his way into the Tournament.
Dash was reared up in the middle of the table, and his mouth was open. Either he had grown bigger again, or Severus had simply never realized how much length and space a basilisk would take up. He hissed in a way that echoed around the Great Hall again, and then dropped back and curled in Harry’s lap.
Harry cleared his own throat. “I think you need to find some way to get me out of the contract,” he said. “I—Dash didn’t help me cheat to get in, but I think he’ll cheat to help me win the Tasks if I’m supposed to do them.”
“Albus?” Severus asked, calmly turning towards the Headmaster.
But Albus was standing there with a lost expression on his face that made Severus narrow his eyes. He wondered if it was possible that someone had used a Confundus Charm on Albus and no one had noticed.
Considering how eccentric his behavior is most of the time, Severus had to admit as he cast a nonverbal Finite in Albus’s direction, we might not.
But the lost expression didn’t change. Albus shook his head and muttered, “The contract is binding. The boy needs to participate.”
“Of course he does!” Moody, looking utterly undismayed that he had hit students with his spell instead of Dash, strode towards the Gryffindor table. He halted a few meters away from Harry and surveyed him intently. Harry only looked back at him from the center of a coil. “You don’t want to be a coward, boy, do you?”
Harry’s face flushed and turned dark. Severus started to stand. Of course Alastor would find the one insult that might make Harry respond.
“I’m not a coward,” Harry argued strenuously. “I defeated a basilisk in my second year, and I’m not afraid to say the name Voldemort!”
Moody gave one of those grunting laughs that seemed to start down in his chest. “But that’s a different kind of courage than actually going through grueling Tasks that might make you drop where you stand,” he said, and gave Dash a condescending look. “Or relying on your basilisk to get you through them, which is probably what you’d do instead.”
“I wouldn’t rely on him!” Although from the way that Dash’s head was dropping on Harry’s shoulder, Severus doubted Harry would actually have much choice about that.
“Then prove it.” Moody leaned towards Harry and held his gaze with so much concentrated ferocity that Severus wanted to strike out. “Prove that you can hold your own and that you’re more than a scar and a reputation. Prove that you can take on the challenge of this tournament.” He paused, then added something softly Severus couldn’t make out.
Harry tossed his head and stood up. “Then I will,” he said, and glared up at Albus with eyes that seemed to dart more lightning than the scar on his forehead. “I didn’t want to be in this Tournament, I never did, but I’ll accept it. Because I’m not a coward, and I don’t want to win using Dash’s help!”
            The basilisk gave an echoing hiss, but Harry turned and said something in fierce Parseltongue to him, ignoring the way people pulled back from him for it. Severus shut his eyes briefly. Dash stopped hissing and remained behind at the table as Harry stepped away from him and moved towards the small room where the other Champions were gathered.
            Albus shrugged when Severus looked at him. “It is a magically binding contract,” he said. “And I don’t think it was made to be broken. Otherwise, the Goblet of Fire would have worried parents besieging it and wanting to make sure that their children could get out of it.”
            Severus didn’t respond, but turned back to the Gryffindor table. He was in time to see Moody watching Harry’s back.
            There was an expression on his face that made Severus absolutely sure that Moody was the one who had put Harry’s name in the Goblet. It was nothing that would stand up in front of the Wizengamot, which meant that Severus knew he would be wise to hold onto the accusation until he had some more certain proof.
            But now that he knew it, he had a target for his vengeance.
            Dash had moved after Harry, even if it was slowly. For now, he would count on Dash to protect Harry and watch over him as the Tournament began.
            Severus had a different job.
*
moodysavage: That’s basically why. Others might expect oaths now.
ChaosLady: Thank you!
starr: Thank you! Hope you enjoyed this chapter and the announcement of Harry as Champion.
SP777: It will be a while before the politics take center stage, yes.
As for Dash, well, I had the name of a swift snake in my head, and then I decided that Dash would be perfect for the personality I had in mind.
Asra Meredith: Thank you! Fleur will at least be in the story as a fellow Champion. Let’s see if she gets more prominent than that. I really don’t know.
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A Brother to Basilisks