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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 Fifty-Four—The Swirling Patterns Collide
            Harry nearly stumbled into Alisoun, and pulled back to stare at her. Wasn’t she supposed to prevent that from happening?
            But Alisoun jerked her head to the side, and murmured, “That man has similar magic to yours. Is it your godfather?”
            It was on the tip of Harry’s tongue to scoff as he turned around, because he didn’t think Sirius would bother coming to the Yule Ball. He already had everything he wanted from Harry. Harry would go home tomorrow and they would exchange gifts, and then—
            But no, it was Sirius, clad in dress robes that Harry supposed he had to own but he’d never seen Sirius wear, and with a woman who had to be Draco’s mum beside him. They were moving across the ballroom towards Harry and Alisoun. Mrs. Malfoy’s smile sparkled. Harry thought Sirius was trying to wear the same smile, but it only looked lost, like a pattern of broken glass, on his face.
            “Are these people I need to protect you from?”
            Harry realized Alisoun had taken her wand out and slightly crouched beside him, ready to spring forwards. He imagined what she could do to Sirius, and shook his head rapidly. “No! No. I mean, it’s my godfather and—the mum of one of my friends. They wouldn’t hurt me.”
            “Your breathing says otherwise.”
            “I’m just surprised to see them here, that’s all.”
            Alisoun slowly slid her wand back into her sleeve, saying out of the corner of her mouth, “Strange that they wouldn’t warn you. And that your godfather, who I know not to be married, is escorting a married witch in the way that they would use if they were dates.”
            Harry didn’t get the chance to respond, because Sirius was right beside him now and booming out, “Hey, kiddo! What a neat surprise, huh?” He reached out and ruffled up Harry’s hair.
            It wasn’t like Harry minded that, because his hair had never behaved anyway, but he did scowl at Sirius and ask, “What are you doing here with Mrs. Malfoy?”
            Mrs. Malfoy was the one who answered, her voice so soft and breathless that she sounded like she was choking. “I wanted to meet you, Harry. And Sirius and I are cousins. I’ve heard so much about you. This seemed like the perfect chance to see the boy who’s captivated my son.”
            Harry stared at her, blinking. He probably looked stupid, but for one thing, he had no idea what she meant.
            For another, up close she looked as patient and still as the stereotype of a snake. Harry reached tentatively down the bond to Dash. She looks more like a basilisk than you do.
            I’m on the other side of the Ravenclaw table with Hagrid if you need me.
            Harry breathed out and said, “I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Malfoy. But it was nice of you to come.” He tried to glance around and see Sirius, but he was talking in one of those “joking” ways with Alisoun that Harry already knew meant he didn’t like her. He would talk the same way with Draco. Harry scowled.
            “I think we should spend a little time together, Harry,” said Mrs. Malfoy, pulling his unwilling attention back to her. “Do you not think so? That we owe each other consideration as future—relations?”
            “I don’t know,” Harry said. “I don’t really consider myself related to the Black family. Sirius is my godfather, not my cousin.”
            “All pure-bloods are related to each other in intricate ways that we might—discuss better with a tapestry in front of us.” Mrs. Malfoy stepped a little to the side, as though she wanted to see what Harry looked like from there. “But I was talking about the nearer relation that you might have with me soon.”
            “Do you treat all Draco’s friends this way?” Harry demanded. He was a little nervous. Why wouldn’t Mrs. Malfoy have come and interviewed him to be Draco’s friend a year ago, if that was the way she wanted to do it?
            For a moment, he thought he’d surprised her. Her eyebrows went up, and she paused with one hand reaching out as if to touch an invisible doorway. “Then you do not know of our interest?” she asked.
            “I know Mr. Malfoy has helped me sometimes. I just didn’t think you were much interested in me.”
            “Mother.”
            Draco had arrived. Harry turned to him, and he was relieved to see that whatever Draco had against him lately, it was gone. He gave his mother a faint frown and then turned and nodded to Harry.
            “My mother is talking about—something I didn’t tell you about,” he said, and he glanced back and forth from Harry to Mrs. Malfoy so fast that Harry felt dizzy. “Something important to our family that we don’t discuss until later.”
            “Draco. You haven’t told him? Why not? How can he be prepared for what you need if you don’t tell him?”
            Mrs. Malfoy sounded definitely disapproving. Harry put up his hands. “You’re starting to sound like you need a human sacrifice to bury alive in the foundation of your house or something,” he said. “Can someone tell me what’s going on?”
            “It will indeed be difficult to explain that if Draco hasn’t told you,” Mrs. Malfoy murmured, and gave Draco a piercing glance. He flinched. Harry shook his head.
            “Do you need to talk to him or something? Because I could go outside if you have to talk to each other privately.”
            “I do think a private talk would be best, yes,” said Mrs. Malfoy. She reached out and put a heavy hand on Draco’s shoulder.
            Harry winced a little. He knew how awful that was when Aunt Petunia did it to him. But he wasn’t willing to step in and rescue Draco when he knew it would only get Mrs. Malfoy glaring at him, in turn. He tried to nod to Draco and smile sympathetically as he turned away.
            Draco looked doomed.
            Sirius was still interrogating Alisoun. Harry sighed and slipped between other people towards the gardens, which were all done up with fairies and colored lights and Christmas trees with moving decorations. This was probably a good time to get interrupted. He felt hot, and he could use the air.
*
            Draco winced and turned back to his mother as Harry left. She was watching Harry, though, and didn’t immediately turn to consider him.
            When she did, Black had moved back to her side. Draco clenched one fist down at his own side and breathed in and out through his impatience. He didn’t know what Black was doing here with his mother, but he did know it was keeping them from a conversation that he should probably go ahead and have before he expired of sheer tension.
            “She seems nice enough.”
            It took Draco a minute to realize they were talking about Selwyn. He shook his head. That wasn’t important right now.
            Apparently Mother agreed, because she said, with no more than a slight motion of her head that made her delicate silver earrings sway, “Quiet, Sirius.”
            Black opened his mouth, then glared at Mother and snapped it shut again. Draco didn’t know why. He wanted to ask why they’d come to the Ball together and if Father knew about it, but given what Mother had just learned…
            “Why didn’t you tell young Mr. Potter of your interest?”
            Draco stiffened his shoulders. “Because I wanted him to choose me because he wanted to,” he said. “Not because I was chasing him down and trying to invite him to the Yule Ball the way so many other people were.”
            “What?”
            Mother raised her hand, and Black fell into silence again, though this time Draco thought it was a more fuming silence. I still want to know what the story is there, Draco decided, with a sideways glance. But I doubt I’ll get it until they’re apart from each other.
            “You have a right to your pride. But not the right to so much of it at this particular time.”
            Draco bowed his head. He understood what she meant. Draco would only have the right to so much pride when he was older and had done something to earn it.
            Father was the one who had taught Draco that he deserved much of the world for being a Malfoy. Mother was the one who had insisted that Draco had to have some skills and gifts of his own, if only a charming and persuasive personality, or people would assume that his name was all there was to him.
            “I’m Harry’s best friend.”
            “You are not! Ron and Hermione—”
            Again Black fell silent at a tilted hand from his mother, although Draco supposed that wouldn’t last much longer. He wondered in silence exactly what his mother had paid Black to convince him to come here and act this way, because Draco could only think it was money.
            “That is not enough, not in this context.” Mother looked down her nose at Draco, the way she usually only did at Ministry workers who decided that they would raid the Manor without proper warning. “Have you considered where he came from?”
            Draco had no idea what he meant. “Gryffindor?” he offered. “But plenty of Gryffindors came with people they asked out.” He looked at where Granger was still dancing with Krum. He thought she had to have been the one to ask him out; there was no way that Krum would have been enamored enough of Granger on his own to ask her.
            Of course, that left the question of why a famous and popular Quidditch player, who could have anyone, would accept a mousy little Muggleborn like Granger. But maybe Krum was like Harry and afraid of people only asking him for his popularity.
            “Not that,” said Mother, with the kind of slight edge in her voice that meant Draco had disappointed her. “The Muggle world.”
            “Harry’s a wizard!”
            “Who was raised by Muggles.” Mother caught his eye and held it. “Do you understand what I mean?”
            “No.” Draco didn’t much want to think about it, either, although he knew from the way Mother was looking at him that he had to at least pretend. “I mean…he doesn’t understand some of the same books and history I do. But that doesn’t make him any different!”
            “I agree,” Black tried to interject.
            This time, Mother didn’t bother trying to restrain him, which was probably a good thing as far as keeping Black in line went, Draco thought. Her gaze rested on Draco, and she murmured, “Think about what else might have gone unaccepted in the Muggle world, Draco. Or simply not done. Or not guessed.”
            “If you would tell him what you’re talking about, Cissy, then he might guess.”
            Draco was the only one who saw the way his mother’s eyes flashed when Black spoke that nickname. Draco himself wanted to gag. Cissy? I know Father said that most of the Blacks were mad, but I didn’t believe him!
            “It seems that he will not make the guess, and so I must.” Draco’s mother turned back to him, while Draco could feel his face heating up with a dull flush. He wanted to make her proud, but this time, he honestly didn’t know what she wanted. “Mr. Potter has no conception that he can ask a boy out, Draco. Or be asked by one,” she added a second later, head tilted, as if she was considering the worth of that possibility.
            Draco felt as though someone had cast a Lightning Charm on him. His blood boiled with shock, and he turned around and looked for Harry even though he knew he wasn’t there.
            Harry didn’t know? Professor Snape had said…and there was the way that Harry had looked at Draco in the library as if he had no idea why he was angry…but…
            It was only children of some particularly Muggle-ish families who thought women should only date men. Draco knew that, and he’d never expected it to affect his life. After all, none of those families would want their children to be friends or allies or spouses with a Malfoy, anyway.
            And he had never bothered to try and understand what they thought was wrong with it, either. Dark Arts? Some conviction that their children should only date people they could have bodily children with in the future? Draco didn’t care.
            “Do you think he hates me for feeling that way, then?” he asked quietly.
“From meeting him here and what you’ve told me about him, I would suspect that he more than likely never noticed, Draco,” Mother said, with a slow shake of her head. “Not that you were looking for an invitation, not that he could have given one. Whether he has any emotions towards it at all, I cannot determine as of yet.”
“Enough of this load of bollocks, Cissy.” Black leaned into view again like a Kneazle demanding to be fed. “You promised that you’d give me your professional opinion of Harry if we came here.” Then he gave Draco a vicious grin. “Well, and make sure that your husband has an aneurysm.”
Draco ignored that. He knew without being told that his mother would never do anything like this without his father’s knowledge and consent, and it wasn’t his place to ask about it, anyway. He frowned at Mother.
She inclined her head. “He does not seem to have any emotions towards it, Draco. Including negative ones. You may still have a chance if you attempt to speak openly with him and he does not retreat.”
Draco straightened his back and nodded. Mother would never have told him something like that if she didn’t really believe it. Which meant he had her permission to go ahead and do his best to court Harry.
Whether he had Father’s…that was something he would wait to resolve.
He turned around to look for Harry, while Black and Mother walked away in the direction of the refreshments table. Draco blinked, a little surprised at how long it was taking to find Harry. He’d said he’d step outside, but he would have come back inside by now, surely?
            Then Draco saw the Selwyn girl who had dared to come as Harry’s date. She was standing on her tiptoes, scanning the ballroom. A second later, she started moving rapidly towards the outer doors, sliding in between the dancing couples as though someone had trained her to do that.
            But far worse, at least for Draco, was the fact that Dash had unwound from the ridiculous gamekeeper’s shoulders and was traveling like a whip along the far edge of the room.
            Harry.
            Draco was closer to the outer doors than either of them, and he didn’t have all the people in the way that Selwyn did. He also started to run.
*
            “Hello, Harry.”
            Harry turned around. He didn’t recognize the voice, and although he’d only danced with her a short time, he thought he would have known Alisoun’s. This had to be someone else, maybe from another House. Maybe Lovegood’s daughter, who tended to smile at Harry and drift away from him most of the time.
            “Luna?” he asked, but then he saw that he was beneath one of the fairies caught in the colored lights. He moved closer. He hadn’t known they could talk. He thought it was a little cruel to hang them up like this if they could.
            “No, my name is not Luna. You could say that I am…an emissary of someone who has wanted to meet you for a long time.”
            Harry tensed, but then relaxed. He hardly thought Voldemort would be sending a fairy to talk to him. “Who?”
            “Well, it would depend on whether you can keep a secret. You see, the rest of my family doesn’t approve of you. They think you represent a threat to certain established interests that have significant names.”
            The fairy was giving him a wide-eyed look. Harry supposed that came from it being enchanted to speak. Of course he was really talking with a human, he decided, but one who’d decided to stay at a distance and cast through the fairy’s lips.
            “Were your family Death Eaters?”
            That made the fairy, or the person speaking through it, laugh. “You could say that. Well, you could only say that if you called all his people Death Eaters, I suppose. They never marched at his side. But they do serve him, and I knew I would have to speak with you in private to even get you to listen to me.”
            “What is your name, then?” Harry was going over names in his head, trying to remember all that ones that Professor Snape had told him might want to ally with him once they heard about the Selwyns and the others who had sent Harry allegiance rings.
            “One more step closer.” The fairy’s voice lowered. “I dare not speak that outside of some powerful Privacy Charms I’ve put up. You won’t believe what people would do to me if they realized that I was speaking to you.”
            Obediently, Harry moved one step closer, until he was standing directly below the fairy’s lantern. Its eyes were so wide now that it looked demented, and it was pounding its fists on the globe that contained it. Harry shook his head with a frown. He thought Professor Flitwick had hung them up. He would need to talk to him. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to decorate with fairies after all if they were intelligent, like Dobby.
            The bush beneath the fairy’s globe rustled. Harry squinted into it, but it was hard to see after the dazzle of the glow from the lanterns.
            “My name is Nagini.”
            A shape lashed so fast out of the bush that Harry couldn’t avoid it even though he’d started leaping to the side. And then he felt the sharp scrape of something down his leg, something that sank deep and plunged into his blood and left something cold behind.
            Poison. She’s a poisonous snake, and she was speaking Parseltongue, and she just bit me.
            Harry thought all that as he tumbled and rolled on the grass. He heard the fairy squeaking alarm in what must have been its natural voice, and then he heard the clash and snap of fangs. He tipped his head to the side and blinked. For a minute, he thought someone had come out and conjured a ribbon to try and tie Nagini up.
            But it wasn’t a ribbon. It was a snake, another snake, and he was black against her emerald-green, and of course it took Harry longer than it should have to recognize Dash. He pushed his hands against the grass and tried to rise.
            Stay there, Harry!
            Dash’s voice was too fast, the way it hadn’t been since the first night Harry had heard it, when Dash had showed him all those hurrying images to tell Harry his name. Harry kept trying to stand up, though. If Dash was speaking like that, it must mean that he did need Harry’s help. Harry swore at himself and tried again.
            “Harry. You need to not move.”
            Alisoun’s voice. This time, he knew it, too. Harry turned his head and whispered, “She bit me.”
            “I am a bad guardian.” But Alisoun’s voice was a monotone, and she didn’t break down crying the way Harry had been afraid she would, the way that some girls would have, he thought. She drew a leaf from her pocket and chewed it for a second. Then she pulled out a green paste. Harry recoiled despite how much his head hurt from the pounding.
            “Don’t be silly,” said Alisoun, and smeared the paste briskly over his wound while Harry was still trying to decide if he trusted her or not.
            The bite immediately stopped burning, and Harry realized he could think. He gasped. “Does it heal the poison?”
            “Neutralizes the worst effects of the poison near it, and the pain of the bite,” said Alisoun without any expression in her voice, the way she had talked at the start of the evening. “But we don’t know what kind of venom it is, and we need to get you out of here and to hospital as soon as possible.” She muttered another charm, and Harry felt as if he suddenly only weighed about a stone. Alisoun scooped him up.
            “But Dash—”
            Harry turned his head back. Dash was still fighting Nagini, and the way his tail lashed and his mouth roared let Harry see his fangs. But Dash’s poison was diluted, and even if he was faster than Nagini, he hadn’t trained for battle the way she had. Harry shivered, and didn’t know if it was the venom or the fear.
            Then Draco arrived.
            Harry didn’t know what he was doing at first, and he saw one minute when Draco froze, as if suspecting there was nothing he could do. Then he shook his head briskly and plunged forwards. His wand leaped out and gestured back and forth. Harry saw a flicker of fire near where the snakes were currently rolling in the dirt, entwined viciously around each other.
            Draco set Nagini’s tail on fire.
            Nagini shrieked and writhed, this time getting free from Dash and trying to roll her tail in the dirt. Dash reached after her and grabbed her, shaking her. This time, Harry saw the way his neck twisted, and knew what was going to happen even before he saw Dash’s eyelids quiver.
            “Shut your eyes, Draco!”
            Harry had never screamed so loudly. Alisoun almost dropped him. But Draco heard him and turned around, one hand rising as if he wanted to shield his face for extra protection.
            Alisoun twisted away at the same time, so Harry didn’t get to see Dash look at Nagini so much as he saw the yellow glow from his eyes reflecting off the enchanted decorations. But he saw the moment when Nagini turned and flowed into the bushes, not dying the way she should have.
            In a few seconds, there was a sharp pop that made the bush’s leaves leap and sway, and Harry knew that someone or something had Apparated Nagini out of the school. He swore and let his head droop on Alisoun’s shoulder.
            “Where did she go?” Draco demanded.
            “Whoever sent her has taken her back,” said Alisoun calmly. “Come. We must go. I do not know how to Apparate to the nearest hospital. Where is it?”
            “Uh, I don’t know how to Apparate,” Draco said. “But it’s called St. Mungo’s. Harry?”
            “She bit me,” Harry said, forcing his jaws to move. There was a haze over his eyes. “The snake.”
            “Harry.”
            Draco was by his side then, grabbing his hands and rubbing them, staring frantically into his eyes. Dash followed him a second later, staring into Harry’s eyes with his own, shielded again. Harry smiled sleepily at him.
            I cannot heal you of this. You do need someone else, Dash said. His tongue flickered out towards the wound on Harry’s leg. But it is blood poison. It will travel through your blood, sped by the beat of your heart.
            “Harry!”
            That was Sirius, and Harry heard Alisoun immediately ask about St. Mungo’s. Then Sirius’s face was in front of him, so pale that his eyes looked like two black tunnels.
            “It’s all right, it’s all right,” Sirius whispered. “I’ll take you to St. Mungo’s. Everything will be all right.”
            “Dash says it’s blood poison,” Harry whispered. He hoped Dash would tell them other things if he wasn’t awake to translate the Parseltongue.
            I can borrow the voices of the shadow-snakes if I have to. Or talk to Draco, and he can talk to them.
            Draco’s coming? Harry thought as the darkness began to swirl lazily around him.
            Try to part him from you.
            Dash, damn him, sounded amused again. Harry dropped into the swirling darkness before he could understand what Dash thought was so damn funny about that.
*
ChaosLady: Yes. Although he’s oblivious for the exact reason Narcissa pinpointed: he has no idea that boys dating is even a possibility.
Mariah: I…am not sure how much of your angst this chapter relieved.
But Dash and Snape both have the feeling that they would rather not be involved in teenage wizarding drama.
MzPurpleMist: Snape is staying out of it.
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A Brother to Basilisks