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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 Fifty-Nine—Shake It Out
            “You are a stronger person than I knew, if you still strive to forgive Black.”
            Harry stiffened a little, then sighed. He couldn’t blame Dash for not warning him Snape was coming. Dash was on the other side of the Forbidden Forest, hunting. Harry had worried for a second when he announced his intention, but Dash had laughed and told him that the monsters in the Forbidden Forest weren’t stupid.
            “I’m not strong,” Harry said dully, looking at the lake. It had a thin rim of ice over it. Harry stuck one foot out and prodded it. It bent and then bounced back up. Harry shivered. “I’m just stubborn.”
            Snape sat down beside him and cast a charm without speaking. Harry gasped as the warmth in his hands and boots suddenly spiked, and he felt almost hot.
            “That is something you should remember to do when you feel cold,” Snape said, putting away his wand and turning towards Harry. His voice was mild instead of condemning, but Harry flushed anyway. “Now. Tell me what you mean.”
            “About what?”
            People shouldn’t have eyes that piercing, Harry thought. At least he could trust that Snape wouldn’t read his mind without permission. “About being stubborn instead of strong. Stubbornness can be a form of strength. What has changed for you, that you no longer think it is?”
            Harry grimaced. “I don’t—I don’t think like that. I just say what I’m feeling. I can’t go back and tell you what I meant,” he protested.
            “Think about it, then.” Snape looked up as small snowflakes began to tumble from the sky and cast another spell that arched a nearly-transparent roof over them. The snow slid slowly down the roof. “I’ll wait here until you come up with an answer you think represents what you are truly feeling.”
            Harry gave him a slightly horrified glance, because he couldn’t help it. “Do I have to sit here until I come up with one?”
            “No. If you get cold or need more time to think about it, then we can go back inside.”
            Harry just shook his head, which made Snape reach out and grip his arm. “Listen to me,” Snape said, his voice pitched low, although there was no one around them that Harry could see. “There is no reason for you to feel that I am going to punish you without cause. If you run into danger on purpose, if you attack another student, if you misuse magic, then yes. But I will never do it without a reason.”
            Harry sneered at him, and could see how much it took Snape aback. Well. Good. He deserves to have a surprise, too. “Adults say that all the time. But their reasons don’t make sense.”
            “Then you can ask me why I did it, if you don’t understand.” Snape’s voice was steady enough to make Harry angry. “And I will do my best to explain. Not assume you know. Not tell you it’s obvious and walk away. Explain.”
            Harry buried his head in his hands, breathing hard. He felt as though someone had lit a fire beneath his skin—no, as if someone had turned him into a wire. There were these things, this restlessness, running up and down his limbs, and they were twitching wildly every time he tried to concentrate on Snape for a minute.
            “This is just—too much,” he said, and stood up. He could feel Dash turn his way in the darkness of the Forest, and rapidly shook his head at him. Dash should stay and hunt. Harry was the one who had to get inside and find some way to get away from Snape’s probing questions.
            “Then we will go back inside Hogwarts,” Snape said, and stood up and followed Harry.
            Harry walked with his head bowed and his arms clasped across the front of his chest. He wished he knew what he wanted, other than for Snape to go away and stay close, and leave him alone and make him talk, and tell the truth and lie.
            All the impossible things. That’s not much for someone who’s an expert Potions master to manage, right?
*
            Harry had begun to shiver again.
            Since he was in front of the fire in Severus’s quarters and still under a Warming Charm, Severus doubted it had anything to do with the cold. He busied himself ordering a large lunch from the house-elves, with varied amounts of bread, cheese, fruit, drinks, and several different kinds of sandwich ingredients. He had already noticed that Harry had a tendency to pick at his food, but he would eat more if he had a selection to choose from rather than a single big dish.
            When the food arrived, Severus then was busy setting it up on a conjured table in front of the fire, and arranging it just so. By the time he turned around, Harry had stopped shivering and was watching him suspiciously. Severus let his lips turn up a little in response.
            “You can’t just trick answers out of me,” Harry said, but he sounded more relaxed.
            “I’m not trying to trick them out of you.” Severus flicked his wand, and the chair Harry was sitting in moved closer to the table. Harry looked startled, but didn’t react. “I’m trying to make you more comfortable so you’ll give them to me of your own free will.”
            Harry picked up a piece of bread and stared at it. Then he slathered some nutty-tasting cheese on it. Severus relaxed a little as he watched him bite into it, but he remained watchful even as he filled his own plate with grapes and slices of tomato.
            “I don’t know what to say. What to answer. I want to forgive Sirius. I want to be here. I want things to have changed and not changed. I want Sirius to get what he wants.”
            “Which is what?”
            “My dad back.”
            Severus made himself eat, instead of laying down the sandwich and showing his own outrage. This was about Harry’s feelings, not his. “Well, there is no magic that can resurrect the dead. Only magic that can prolong life, which you are already familiar with.”
            Harry shivered again and picked up a cup of tea, swallowing most of it so fast that Severus was surprised he had not burned his tongue. “Yeah.” Then he stared at the bread and cheese again.
            Severus subtly nudged one of the plates that was covered with dripping golden honeycomb a little nearer to Harry, and bit into a blue-black grape that flooded his tongue with sweetness. “Black knows that as well as you do. Why do you think he wants your father back, then?”
            “Because—um.”
            From the way Harry had just gone silent, it was a thought that he considered disloyal to Black. Severus didn’t react, because he had not to, or he would simply go mad and drive Harry further into his shell. He concentrated on finding the best grapes instead.
            “I don’t think I should tell you,” Harry finally whispered.
            What threats did Black make to keep his mouth shut? But Severus controlled his immediate, involuntary rage. He had already seen how cautious the Dursleys had made Harry. It was more likely to be something from his upbringing, rather than something Black had done, that made Harry silent.
            “If you wish to tell me now, then do,” said Severus, and looked up. “If you wish to tell me later, then do.”
            Harry hesitated, looking tormented. “But you’re not just going to let it go and not make me tell you at all,” he whispered.
            “No, I’m afraid not,” said Severus. “Although I would prefer not to make you tell me. I’m not sure how I could do that, anyway.”
            “You have magic.”
            Severus gripped the edge of the tray. Luckily, it was the side of the tray that was out of Harry’s direct line of sight, and Harry was so busy staring miserably at his hands that Severus didn’t think he’d noticed. What Severus did instead was bend down and wait until Harry looked reluctantly up again.
            “I will never use magic to make you tell me the truth. You will do it of your own free will or not at all. If you think that I might be acting not of my own free will, perhaps under the Imperius Curse, then you have my permission to do whatever you must to defend yourself. Do you understand?”
            “Um. Yes.”
            Harry’s face was white now. Severus leaned back and sighed. The damage done to Harry by the Dursleys, and by Black now, and perhaps by Dumbledore and himself in the past, ran deeper than he had known or guessed.
            But Lily had depths to her soul that I only guessed at, too.
            “I won’t do that to you,” said Severus, and once again found the biggest and roundest grape to pop into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed, and made himself concentrate on the flavor of the flesh and juice before he continued. “But I do want you to tell me, more for your sake than mine. Keeping it to yourself for so long can only hurt you.”
            “That’s what Dash said.”
            This time, Severus was sure, the suspicious look he got was because Harry suspected Severus of collaborating with his basilisk. Severus gave him a faint smile, and attended to his meal once more. It seemed a long time before Harry went back to eating, but that was all right. What mattered was that he ate.
            Severus had been forced, down the years when he was brewing and spying, to learn patience. To actually teach it to himself, to know that he couldn’t explode and scream and get frustrated the way he wanted to, or he was likely to make worse mistakes.
            He might have to remind himself many times of the possible reward, as well as what he had already achieved with his triumphs over Petunia and Black, before he could get Harry to speak freely. But he would be patient.
*
            Harry lay back on his bed and picked up the first letter from Ron.
            You got adopted by Snape? Really? Rotten luck, mate! What is this going to mean when we go back to school? Do you think he’ll still assign you as many detentions?
            Harry grimaced. That was something Snape hadn’t really talked about. How could he be fair to Harry about points and class if he was Harry’s guardian? There was no way Sirius would have been, if he was a professor.
            Hermione’s letter was much longer and gentler, but she seemed to think it was mostly a good thing that he was away from Sirius. Harry lay with his head on his arm as he read her letter and wondered if he was the only one who wanted to understand Sirius.
            You are the only one who would try so much.
            Harry dropped the letter and reached down to embrace Dash, who was slithering up the side of the bed. Dash licked his cheek, but absently, and turned to consider the letters.
            You mean everyone else thought Sirius was a horrible guardian? But they didn’t say anything.
            I think Ron probably thought Black was all right, Dash said. He had called Sirius “Black” since the day they’d come to Hogwarts, and not “the smelly dog-man.” Harry appreciated that he was trying, too. He gave you a wonderful room and cared about you.
            But Hermione—why didn’t she say anything?
            Because she has learned some tact. Dash turned and laid his body out, without coiling or kinking at all, all along the length of Harry’s. Harry could only marvel at how long he was, hanging off the bottom of Harry’s bed with probably a quarter of his length still on the floor. And Snape had given Harry a big bed, too. She knew saying something would only upset you, so she said nothing.
            Harry nodded slowly. He supposed that made sense about why Snape had kept quiet for so long, too. He had a rivalry with Sirius, and he knew Harry would get upset. He didn’t want Harry upset.
            Harry had come to accept that. It didn’t mean he liked the way Snape had sneaked around behind his back when he went to the Wizengamot, but he accepted it.
            And Draco?
            Harry stroked Dash’s probing nose and picked up Draco’s letter. It’s hard to read. He’s just so—happy, and keeps talking about how this makes me an honorary Slytherin, and how he wants to study Potions with me because—He stopped.
            Dash could find the echoes of the words in his head, where they hadn’t stopped echoing ever since Harry had read Draco’s bloody letter for the first time. Because he thinks Snape’s adopted son should be good at Potions.
            Yeah.
            Harry buried his head in his pillow. Dash curled up on his neck and spine, and sighed. You are warm. Warmer than the fire. It might only be my bond that makes me think so, but you are warm.
            I don’t know how I feel about being anyone’s adopted son, Harry whispered. About being anybody’s son. I mean, besides my parents’. Sirius was always careful to remember where I came from.
            I wonder if perhaps I will stop feeling the knobs in your spine as you eat better food with Snape.
            I eat well enough in the Great Hall! Harry tried to roll over, but it was hard when he had a basilisk on his back that was disinclined to move. Sirius wasn’t the Dursleys. He never tried to starve me!
            No, but Snape pays more attention. Dash stretched and wriggled around, kind of like a cat, except that he was stretching in directions impossible for a cat. Black wasn’t the kind to starve you. He was the kind to think that cake for breakfast and then a whole morning of playing Quidditch without anything to eat was enough.
            Dash…
            Dash curled up with his head on Harry’s cheek. It was hard for Harry to see him clearly, so he didn’t try. He just petted and petted Dash’s plume and head, and lay there and listened to the words that he couldn’t get away from and probably wouldn’t want to try to get away from.
            What you need is someone who takes care. Someone who puts you first, before your parents and before Dumbledore. Someone who might allow you cake for breakfast as a great treat once in a while, but would insist you eat a proper breakfast on other mornings. Someone who notices when you miss meals and sneak out at night and study your eyes out preparing for a Tournament Task. Someone who would never try to deny that you’re a Parselmouth and have a bond that’s going to endure until death.
            Harry had to close his eyes and close them hard. His mind drifted in eddies of trying to avoid tears for a little while. Dash lay there with him.
            Finally, Harry whispered, “You don’t think Snape would try to make me into some sort of Slytherin the way Sirius was trying to make me into a Gryffindor?”
            He ought to know that would be useless. If he doesn’t, he at least knows one other thing.
            “What?”
            That I have my poison back.
            “You can’t just threaten to bite everybody.”
            Why not? Dash sounded interested. It would keep them quiet, and it does wonders in shutting them up even if you just translate the threat instead of me having to do it.
            Harry laughed. He knew the sound was watery. Everything about him felt watery right now. His knees were shaking and his soul was shaking and he didn’t know what he wanted.
            Dash nudged his cheek again. You’ll figure it out. At least now you know that someone who would protect you even from Dumbledore is looking out for you.
            Harry silently wrapped his arms about Dash’s neck and held him there. He could think of one thing he did want, and he did finally ask it. “Do you think—if things change, and Sirius—I don’t know, acknowledges that I’m not going to turn into some Slytherin and—if he changes, do you think you could acknowledge that he’s a good guardian?”
            When I see evidence of it.
            Harry rolled over and sighed. “That’s a ‘no,’ then.”
            You can do the magic-learning and the saving and half the fighting and the forgiving. I’m going to do the protecting.
            Harry decided that was as much as he was going to get from Dash right now. Besides, he was so tired that his eyes hurt. He curled himself as much into Dash’s coils as he could and drifted off, hearing no sound except his own breathing and the bond’s breathing in the back of his mind.
*
            “He just talked so much about my dad all the time. You know?”
            Severus put down his Potions book as if he was trying not to startle a rat he had caught creeping around his lab and had to Stun before he could trap it. These were the answers he had wanted. And if he had to move slowly so as not to startle Harry, either, who was sitting in a chair in front of the fire with Dash asleep in his lap, then that was more than doable.
            “He said I was James’s son,” Harry whispered. “He called him James. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone talk so much about my dad in my life. Even the Dursleys didn’t mention him that much. And he told us all these stories of pranks that my dad pulled. I thought it was pretty great at first.” He stopped.
            This is not about you. This is about Harry. Severus simply nodded, to show he was listening. He thought speaking at this moment would be the wrong move.
            “It was great. I mean, I wanted to know more about my parents. Sirius knew that. He was just giving me more of what I wanted.”
            It sounded like excuses Severus had heard. Had made. The fury was there like a river in winter under the surface of the ice, but he breathed through it, and waited.
            “But in the end,” Harry whispered to the fire, “I just wanted them to stop. To hear about something else. I know why Sirius doesn’t like talking about Pettigrew. But he didn’t even talk much about Professor Lupin, you know? Or my mum.” Harry’s voce was wistful. “I wanted to hear more about her. But I don’t even know how well Sirius knew her.”
            Severus breathed again. He knew that, were he thirteen years younger, Black would already be dead. But vengeance was important to hold off, if only to make sure that he served it at the right moment.
            “I will be happy to tell you all you want to know.”
            “Thank you, sir.” Harry didn’t move, except to gather up one of Dash’s coils and hug it to himself. “In the meantime…I want to be my own person. I spent all this time when I was a kid wanting to be someone other than what the Dursleys thought I was, and then I thought I got to be that when I was in the wizarding world. And then I was the Boy-Who-Lived, and the Heir of Slytherin, and I didn’t want to be that, either. I thought I would be so happy if I met someone who knew my parents, because then I would get to be Harry Potter.
            “But then I got that, and that wasn’t what I wanted, either.” Harry turned to face Severus, but not to look at him. His eyes remained on the floor. “Sir—do you think it’s ungrateful of me, to want all these things and then—get unhappy when I have them? I mean.”
            Severus recognized a Petunia word. He weighed for a moment whether he should tell Harry what he had done to his aunt, and then discarded that impulse. No, there was too much of a chance Harry would be upset. Somehow he had come out of Privet Drive shockingly moral.
            “No,” Severus said. “Only human. And adolescent,” he had to add. “Harry, you are fourteen years old. You are allowed to want these things. To grieve. To change your mind.”
            Harry once again said nothing. There was still something else coming, Severus knew. Or perhaps he hadn’t entirely eased Harry’s fears about gratitude. It would take more than just one person he trusted telling him that.
            Then Harry opened his mouth again, and Severus knew it was something else.
            “I just—I was so happy when I saw how much money my parents had left me, because now I was rich instead of poor like the Dursleys were always telling me I was. And I was even happy when I learned I was famous at first, because it meant people wouldn’t just shake their heads at me and mutter about how I was a delinquent. But then Hagrid took me to Diagon Alley, and people swarmed all over me. And the newspapers now, with the Tournament. It’s horrible, and I hate it.”
            Dash wrapped his tail around the back of the chair. Severus wondered if he was binding Harry in the chair, getting ready to keep him from running away. Dash would know better than Severus would, from the turmoil in Harry’s thoughts, if that was a danger.
            But once Harry decided to purge the poison, it seemed it would come out all at once in a great flood. Severus listened, and remembered.
            “I just think—if someone’s rich and famous, they ought to be able to get what they want, right? I mean, famous Muggles can get houses of their own far away from anyone else, and they can hire people to guard them, and they can get paid for appearing on the telly or doing interviews or films or whatever they do. I know it’s not perfect. But I want people to leave me alone. If I’m going to do all these things for them, I should at least get something in return.
            “I don’t know if Sirius really understood that. I know he was horrified at the prophecy and the idea that I would have to face Voldemort, but he thought I should be this Gryffindor who was—I don’t know, modest? I think he would be horrified if he thought I was thinking about using the money to buy myself a nice house or something. Partially because he wanted to do it, but also because it’s not something my dad would do. Sirius showed me pictures of the house my parents had. It’s nice, but it’s small, not something grand.
            “I want a place where I’ll never have to worry about being hungry again, and no one’s going to hunt me, and no one’s going to hurt me. And Dash is welcome, and all my friends.”
            Severus stood and crossed the distance between their chairs, kneeling down so that Harry had to look at him if he opened his eyes. It took Harry a long moment to do that, and when he first did it, they were glazed and dull, but his gaze sharpened as he took Severus in.
            “If that is what you want,” Severus swore quietly, “that is what you shall have.”
            “Professor Snape?”
            “I will make sure you have all that,” said Severus, and took the boy’s hand, and squeezed.
            Maybe it was the iron grip he had on Harry’s hand, but Harry finally, slowly, nodded.
            In time, he will believe me. I swear it.
*
ChaosLady: Maybe this will be what finally prompts him to get one.
Lyran: Thank you. I haven’t had the chance to develop the characters at this length before, which I think may be what adds to it.
persephione: No, not a formal guardianship. I do have a few where Snape is Harry’s mentor or father. And thank you!
moodysavage: Thank you. Part of Harry still doesn’t want to give up on it, but he understands that part of himself better now.
Mariah: Thank you. Draco is going to reappear in the next chapter. I just thought it would be a distraction here (and Snape might not have let him visit anyway).
MzPurpleMist: If push came to shove, Sirius would have let Snape treat Harry. But yeah, it does seem like an illness to him.
Easyreader: Thank you!
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A Brother to Basilisks