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The Serpent's Gaze, Book Four: Betting On Blood	By : DictionaryWrites Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male Views: 3021 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and the characters therein belong to JK Rowling; I'm playing in the sandbox, as it were, whilst claiming no ownership and making no money.

Chapter List
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Harry stands very, very still, looking down at the goblin in front of him with his lip curled in a silent snarl and the knife held out in front of him, his wand held loosely in his left hand. His hands aren't so much as trembling, and he stands very stiffly: the goblins mirror him in their unmoving posture, and all of their eyes are on his face. The contingent betray a little bit of fear, but their leader, wearing a blood-red tunic, looks Harry up and down and scoffs.
"You think you could kill us, boy?" The goblin talks loudly, obviously trying to make his voice carry over the rest of the arena, but Harry doesn't flinch or look away.
"I could," Harry says. His voice carries even though it's quiet: his tone is deliberate, and slow. "There's basilisk venom on this knife, now, I bet you - goblin knives absorb that sort of thing, don't they?" Two of the goblins take a trembling step back. "But I don't want to kill you. Let me get this straight, sir. Ludo Bagman owed you money, yeah? Bagman, don't you dare!" Harry snaps, and the man freezes where he'd been heading towards the edge of the arena to leave - in a second, Nymphadora Tonks has him by the scruff of his neck, and drags him back to the judges table. "Ludo owed you money, and you were gonna kill him, but he suggested something really clever. See, during the Quidditch World Cup, two lads bet a lot of money to him that Ireland would win, but Krum would get the Snitch - and he suggested something like that, didn't he? Two Hogwarts Champions, one of them Harry Potter - and Hogwarts would win, but Harry Potter would get killed. That's it, right?"
One of the goblins lunges past him, but Harry kicks him hard in the thigh, sending him tumbling down the wooden stairs and hitting the edge of the stands with a thunk and a soft groan.
Harry leans in towards the goblin in the red tunic, meeting his gaze. The goblin's expression is neutral, and Harry hates him for it - he thinks about the adrenaline that had rushed through him as he'd stabbed the basilisk, and he wants to stab again.
"So you nicked my robe this morning, yeah? Oh, and I bet you've been working on the basilisk in the forest for fucking months - killing all the roosters, feeding it up. That's why the Acromantula left, isn't it - you were making it stronger. And today, you went off to find it, let it smell my robe, let it trace me here, yeah? So it would kill me, and only me. You know, for a betting agency, you don't seem to be all that good at maths - seems to me you miscalculated here." The goblin's expression turns in a second, showing fury, and his wrist shoots out, showing the glint of metal - it's pure luck and adrenaline-enhanced reflexes that let Harry meet the blade with his own. There's a hiss of steel on steel, and he and the goblin stand face-to-face, their respective knives held in a parry.
A few drops of blood fall to the ground - the basilisk's, still clinging to the knife Harry holds.
"Too bad Azkaban's gone," Harry says in a very soft whisper. "You'd fit in well there." He takes a step back as Kingsley Shacklebolt comes forwards, two younger Aurors trailing him on either side - none of them are in uniform, but Harry can tell by the way they look to Shacklebolt and the way they walk that they're magical law enforcement too. Then again, Harry thinks as a bitter aside, as soon as they get to Ministry the goblins probably have to go through the Department of Magical Creatures.
Harry walks very slowly to the edge of the stands, and he jumps to a platform as it lowers to the ground, taking a stand beside Cedric in front of the judges' table. Karkaroff is very pale, looking at the basilisk with an expression of outright horror, though Bones, Dumbledore and Maxine don't seem nearly so perturbed. Bagman is at the edge of the arena, being dragged out by Tonks, and Harry looks after him for a long second.
"Tournament was rigged," Harry says, just as Karkaroff seems to gain back his breath and open his mouth. Karkaroff hesitates - Harry is voicing the thought he'd been about to, and he obviously doesn't know what to do with the concept. "But given, Headmaster Karkaroff, that me and Cedric still managed to survive pretty good odds, given the basilisk and everything-"
"You can hardly prove it's a basilisk - it has no eyes--"
"I saw the eyes get cut out - it's a basilisk. And you just saw me stab it in the head." Karkaroff recoils slightly, staring at Harry with his mouth open and his eyes wide. Usually, Harry would probably be amused to see him like this, but he doesn't feel anything right now, except tired, and angry. He meets Karkaroff's eyes directly, staring right into them, and for a second - just a second - he feels the barest hint of sadistic delight. There's a change in Karkaroff's eyes, a subtle alteration behind them, as Karkaroff's pride is replaced with a twinge of fear. A fear of Harry.
"Nothing about this tournament was fair," Cedric says. "But we still beat the odds." Dumbledore is still quiet for a few, long moments, looking between Cedric, who is covered in dust and his own blood, though he'd managed to heal up his arm, and Harry, whose scarlet coating is mostly from the basilisk.
"I believe they are correct, Madam Bones, Madame Maxine, Headmaster Karkaroff." The two women nod their heads slowly, and even Karkaroff gives a terse, irritable incline of his head.
It is Amelia Bones that stands, places her wand to her throat, and makes the announcement.
---
Harry doesn't bother taking his robes off when he initially steps under the spray of the shower. He just stands there under the hot water, letting it soak into the fabric of his robes and send a cascade of swirling, brown-red water onto the tiled floor. His glasses are neatly folded atop his change of clothes, and so as he watches the blood drain away, he sees it blurry on the clean, mint tiles of the bathroom. He rubs half-heartedly at the fabric, trying to stop the stuff from matting into it or coagulating any further, and Merlin knows what the stuff is going to do to his skin, but he just wants the robes to be halfway clean before he puts them aside for the house elves to have a go at.
It's one thing for there to be a little tear or a scuff from a miscast spell, but this is a bit different.
"Harry?" He sighs, putting his head to the wall of the shower, and he looks at the blurry figure in the doorway. There is a bath for each two to three students in the Slytherin dormitories, each with a little half-room for the sake of privacy, but the showers are in a large, open washroom with drains in the centre of the floor and a heated enchantment coming from the walls: there are screens if people are shy about showering, but so few of the Slytherin students choose to use showers that it's really an issue.
"Blaise, I'm kind of busy," Harry says. His finger catches on a rather thick lump, and it falls with a soft plop onto the wet floor. It's white, and hard - a shard of bone. Harry stares down at it, and is very glad he isn't squeamish. "There's basilisk on me." Harry had helped Snape, Sprout and Flitwick carry the basilisk out to one of the open yards outside the greenhouses - Sprout had been about ready to sow a dozen rows of some magical fruit bush Harry is too tired to remember the name of, and it's big enough to house the basilisk's corpse until Snape can dismember it.
Harry has a suspicion as to what his detentions are going to be like for the rest of the Hogwarts term.
"I was worried about you. During the task." Blaise's tone is forcibly dry, but Harry can hear the slight tremor in it. It doesn't make him feel guilty or upset like it might have done even a week ago. It doesn't make him feel anything.
"So was I," Harry says, dropping his outer robe to the side and beginning to unlace the underpiece. His hands are stained a rusty brown, and he wonders if the stuff will ever come off. "But I'm fine now." Blaise takes a step forwards and into the shower room: his clean, dragonhide brogues make a soft splash in the water. Harry is glad his face is too blurry to see.
"Harry, I didn't- I was worried-"
"Blaise," Harry says quietly, and his voice rings in the room. The intimacy of the situation hits Harry hard, the two of them looking at each other across the dimly lit, steamy room, the water soaked into Harry's clothes and wetting his skin. Blaise could join him in the shower, Harry supposes, and they could kiss under the spray like a couple in a French perfume advert. Harry doesn't want that any more. "Piss off." Blaise stares at him, absolutely still in his place. The hem of his robes dips into the water, and although Harry can't really see them clearly, he sees the dark spot that rises up the skirt of Blaise's outer robe. He doesn't say any more - he just turns on his heel and leaves, and Harry tips his head back under the water, soaping his hair and scratching almost painfully hard at his own scalp to ensure he gets out every last piece of the snake that clings to him.
Once Harry stands naked and nearly dry, the shower turned off and a towel messily wrapping up his hair (it doesn't matter what he does to dry it: it'll look the same as always), he picks the goblin's knife up from the window sill. He'd wiped off the blood with a clean cloth, and he fingers the bone handle, feeling the grip dug into the bone - it might be made for goblins, but it fits Harry's hand perfectly. Just like the knife he'd bought on a whim in Hogsmeade, he finds he likes the feel of it in his palm, its weight.
Most wizards never use real weapons, these days, not unless they conjure them during a duel.
He sets the blade at his hip for the time being, held by a stupid holster for his wand someone had bought him one Christmas - Alastor Moody, Harry thinks, who has a weird aversion to just putting a wand in a pocket - and lets it be hidden by the fabric of his outer robe.
---
"A party in Hogsmeade tonight," McGonagall says, standing straight. Harry frowns slightly, but she goes on to say, "Aurors are already remaining in Hogsmeade for the time being, and everyone will remain within the Three Broomsticks, which Madam Rosmerta has agreed to make private for the occasion - your parents have assented, Mr Malfoy, Messrs Weasley, and Mr Black has assented for you, Mr Potter, and assured Professor Dumbledore he will keep a particular watch over Ms Granger."
"This is with Professor Dumbledore's approval, then?" Hermione asks, and McGonagall's lip twitches.
"He believes you deserve some time to celebrate," she says, and Harry can't help but smile. Time to celebrate sounds... Good. Even if they won't be able to sneak that Firewhiskey for the time being. They make an agreement to meet in the entrance hall in twenty minutes or so, where they'll walk into town with Cedric, Fleur, Viktor and some of the professors, but rather than head down to his dormitory to get changed again, Harry meanders through the dungeon corridors and towards Snape's office.
Uncharacteristically, his door is slightly ajar, and Harry realizes why when he lingers in the doorway to look in - Snape has a Bubblehead charm over his head and a ward around his cauldron, working with something that appears rather toxic, and had someone knocked he'd never have heard. His black eyes shift from his work, and he holds up his left hand in a silent gesture for Harry to wait.
It's fascinating, watching him work. Harry wishes he understood potions as well as he understood charms or defensive magic - Snape works with a natural skill, and Harry's sure it comes from more than just years of practice. Snape seems to understand ingredients and the way they come together in the same way Neville Longbottom understands plants, and he can't help but envy it a little. Snape tips a vial of something red slowly into the softly smoking cauldron, and the smoke begins to tinge green. Snape's stirs the mixture three times anti-clockwise, and immediately, the smoke disappears. A soft glow emanates from the cauldron, now, and Snape leans back, banishing both the Bubblehead charm around his head and the ward around his cauldron with two flicks of his wand.
"Pass me that tray of flasks, Potter," Snape orders, and Harry takes the silver tray carefully, setting it down on the work surface beside the cauldron. Snape doesn't need a funnel: he tips the cauldron with the most delicate of charms, and it doesn't dare spill a drop as he fills the three, oblong flasks, each engraved with the words HOGWARTS INFIRMARY. "What potion do you suspect this is?"
"It's an antidote for Venomous Tentacula bites. That's what the red stuff is - juices from one of their leaves." Snape looks at him in a way that Harry can't really define - he feels like he's being appraised, somehow, and then Snape gives a small inclination of his head. He doesn't smile, and his thin lips don't even twitch, but something changes for a second in his eyes, and Harry feels the barest hint of approval.
"Three points to Slytherin," Snape says, delicately filling the final flask, and then he stoppers the three of them. "What do you want?"
"Professor McGonagall says there's a party in Hogsmeade tonight." Snape examines him, his dark eyebrows shifting slightly. The and? is silent, and yet completely understood. "I wanted to ask permission to go, sir. You said I had to ask if I wanted to leave the castle." Snape's laugh is short and grim, but it seems genuine, and as he turns to return ingredients to their shelves, he shakes his head slightly.
"Yes, Potter, you may. I have no wish to engage in the two-step the Headmaster will draw me into if I refuse."
"Aren't you going to come, sir?" Snape turns his head, glancing at Harry as if he's worried Harry's become somehow unhinged.
"No." The response is emphatic, and Harry doesn't bother to say anything in argument or response. He says a polite thank you, steps from his head of house's office, and draws the door shut behind him.
---
Lindon and Cecilia are dancing, and Harry doesn't think he's ever seen a couple so good. The music coming from the gramophone in the corner is bright, fast and brassy, and the two of them swing one way and then the other in perfect sync, keeping step with each other with their chests together, and they keep laughing into each other's mouths as they keep up their rhythm. Others are dancing, too - Sirius is dancing with Madam Rosmerta, and Lucius and Narcissa are swaying slightly together, his hands upon her hips and her arms around his neck.
It's warm inside the Three Broomsticks, but not unbearably so, and when Hermione gestures for Harry to get up, he reluctantly does so, and he lets her lead him in a cha cha. Draco, who had moved in the hope Hermione was inviting him, tries to sit down again, but Fred already has hold of his hands, and forces him into the same steps until Draco is laughing as much as he is. When the song finally winds down and becomes something slower, Narcissa and Lucius keep dancing, and Ted and Dromeda Tonks dance together, occasionally stepping on each other's feet - Harry can't actually tell whether it's accidental or on purpose.
He smiles as he orders another Butterbeer from the bar, sipping at it and allowing it to fill him with the pleasant, cheery warmth it's known for.
It's busy in the pub - he sees members of the Order of the Phoenix dotted around, but also Aurors, Ministry workers, and some of the handlers who'd worked with the Triwizard Tournament, as well as various members of the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons contingents. It's a genuinely celebratory atmosphere, and even Igor Karkaroff seems to be having a halfway good time, talking with a pretty woman from the Department of International Magical Cooperation.
"So, Harry," Lindon says quietly. There's a red tinge in his pale cheeks, and Harry wonders how much he's had to drink - the man is swaying ever so slightly. "Are you glad?"
"Yeah," Harry says, glancing over to Cedric, who is dancing with Cho Chang. The two thousand Galleon prize had been split between the two of them, and Harry has already put the entirety of his half into the Weasleys Wizard Wheezes account. He glances back to Lindon, and he smiles a little. "Yeah, I am. I'm tired, obviously, but I'm just glad it's all done with."
"Yes, well, we'll see what the Ministry do with those goblins. Bagman will undoubtedly be imprisoned somewhere or other, but goblins are always a tricky subject - the Ministry will want to be strict, though. They hate betting shops so terribly, and they've been trying to cut them away for years, so they might well put in some legislation as to betting on blood." Lindon chuckles to himself, taking a sip of his very fruity-looking cocktail. "The world ever changes, young man."
"Yeah, I guess so," Harry says. "How much do you think it's going to change in the next year?" Lindon glances to him, his jolly expression faltering some. He reaches out, putting a tremulous left hand on Harry's shoulder, and he meets his gaze seriously.
"Harry," Lindon murmurs, and Harry can barely hear him over the chatter of the crowd. "I've no doubt much will change, with the Dark Lord, with Lockhart, with your schooling, with the world at large... Yet I assure you, one thing will remain quite steadfast: our loyalty to you, young man." It takes Harry by surprise, but then he smiles, and he pulls Lindon into a short hug before he goes to join Hermione and the twins again.
He thinks about what Lindon says the entire night, however, and when they all trail back up to the castle, he feels more content than he has in a long while.
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The Serpent's Gaze, Book Four: Betting On Blood