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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 Six—Slytherin and Gryffindor
            “There is no way that you would be willing to leave the snake outside?”
            It took Harry a moment to realize McGonagall was talking to him. He had been arguing with Dash about what Snape might have meant when he spoke to him earlier, and whose fault it really was that Dash had been close enough to the cauldron in Potions to get a drop of his saliva in the liquid, which of course wrecked everything.
            “No, Professor,” said Harry, when he could concentrate. He reached up and stroked Dash’s scales, soothing down the hiss before it could begin. “Professor Dumbledore said I had to keep him with me at all times, just in case he tried to do something to somebody.”
            In truth, Harry thought the mirrors that Dumbledore had enchanted to whirl around him would probably follow Dash if they had to separate, but, well. There were some things McGonagall didn’t need to know.
            Like how much you blame her for not believing you and going with you to find the Stone in your first year? Dash asked thoughtfully.
            Harry had already learned Dash was a genius. For example, he had a talent for asking questions like that right before a professor spoke. Harry was going to snap at him, but McGonagall said, “Then he will need to stay around your neck, and stay absolutely quiet. I won’t have him disrupting my class. Transfiguration is a delicate subject.”
            Harry stared at McGonagall. Sure, he had heard her be harsh before, but not to people who hadn’t done anything. And this time, he thought he saw a spark of disappointment in her eyes before she looked hastily away from him.
            Was she disappointed in him for having a snake? For bonding with a basilisk? For speaking Parseltongue?
“I don’t think it matters,” said Dash, and of course he hissed aloud, instead of speaking mentally into Harry’s mind the way he’d been doing all morning. People jumped in their seats and turned around to flinch. Harry lowered his head and stroked Dash’s neck. Dash continued relentlessly, his head weaving back and forth in a series of loops that immediately melted into one another. “They would find some reason to dislike you.”
But she never did it before, Harry told Dash, as he pulled out his wand and got ready to pay attention to the lesson. This time, McGonagall was having them Transfigure small booklets into butterflies. Her voice was high and stiff as she recounted the lesson, and Harry was sure it had to do with him.
Did she support you?
Harry hesitated. It was true that he couldn’t remember McGonagall intervening last year when people were telling him that he was the Heir of Slytherin. But she hadn’t been upset with him. She had done what she could to treat him absolutely normally.
Sometimes, that isn’t what you need to do. Dash’s head nudged his cheek. Sometimes, you need someone who’s going to do more than that.
Harry would have answered, but McGonagall said, “Mr. Potter, I must insist on you leaving the snake outside if he’s going to be a distraction from your schoolwork.”
Harry lowered his gaze to the booklet and managed a passable imitation of the wand movement, he thought. The pages of the booklet in front of him fluttered, but didn’t Transfigure. Harry grimaced and tried it again. Still nothing happened, and he could feel the angry frustration at the back of his eyes that made them grow hot.
You can’t focus your magic that way, said Dash. You have to be calm and think about things that will make you even calmer.
How can I do that when everyone’s being stupid about you? Harry slashed his wand down again. This time, the pages didn’t even move. He thought he could see other people with wings beating on their desks, but he refused to look.
You have to learn to focus through the anger. With one wary eye on McGonagall, Dash edged his head down beside Harry’s. Look at me. My eyelids, not my eyes.
Harry did that. He didn’t find the yellow glow behind them soothing, but Dash said softly, Can you imagine the way that I would look if I had them open? I know that you haven’t seen a basilisk’s eyes, but—
I almost saw them last year in the Chamber of Secrets. That’s as close as I want to come. Harry could feel sweat prickling beneath his hair as those memories woke up again.
Then they aren’t the best thing for you to focus on, no matter how yellow and deep they are. Dash sounded a little amused. What calms you down the most?
Harry had to think about it, and practice the wand movement a little more, since McGonagall was walking past and giving him a stern look. But he finally said, Flying.
Dash brushed his neck coil against Harry’s ear. It would probably look like nothing much to anyone else, but he and Harry could feel the difference. That did make Harry calm down a little, thinking about secrets that only he and Dash could share.
Then think about the way you are when you’re flying, Dash murmured. Think about the way your muscles relax. You’re getting ready to leap onto the broom, and I know you’re alert and ready—
Harry thought it would take him a while to get used to someone who could hear his thoughts before he had them.
But you also have to be calm and focused, because you’re going to lose the game if you aren’t. Can you think that way through your muscles? Can you think that way about your wand movement, and do the same thing?
Harry thought. His arm relaxed, and he wondered if that had been Dash’s doing. Wondering made him start to tense up again.
You should still be thinking about getting ready to fly, Dash scolded him. Remember, I can feel it if you aren’t.
Maybe there was an advantage to having a monitor who could see everything in his head, Harry considered. He did his best to think about flying and the rush of wind past him and the relaxation that he always felt when he’d been up there a while. He felt it even when he was struggling to beat Malfoy. He always knew he would win if he just concentrated.
Dash murmured to him, but Harry wasn’t thinking much about the words anymore. He lifted his wand and brought it down in the movement McGonagall had showed them, instead, muttering the incantation the way he would mutter insults against Malfoy.
“Impressive, Mr. Potter.”
Harry blinked his eyes and came slowly out of his trance. When he looked down, he could see that he had mostly managed the Transfiguration. The pages of his booklet were butterfly-shaped, black with blue stripes around the edges; there was a head at one end; and the body mostly followed the book’s spine. The only thing that was wrong was the papery antennae hanging off the head.
“Did you do that following your familiar’s advice?” McGonagall asked, and there was a slight edge to her voice now.
Harry looked up and shook his head. “Dash only hatched yesterday, Professor. He doesn’t know anything about Transfiguration. And I’m not sure he’s my familiar,” he added, turning his head and staring at Dash. Are you?
It would depend on what you mean by that statement, Dash replied, and took a moment to lick through his memories in the way that Harry had almost become accustomed to him doing. No, I do not think I am. I can’t link with you and ground you in the way that familiars are supposed to do. And the bond they share is different than the one we have.
“He says he isn’t,” Harry said to McGonagall, and endured a few moments of her sharp stare before she nodded.
“Then continue doing what you were doing,” she ordered him, and marched over to Neville, who had somehow managed to create a one-winged butterfly flapping slowly and sadly in a circle on the table.
Harry Transfigured the booklet back into a butterfly; that was a lot easier than the other way around. Then he went back to work, imagining a different kind of butterfly in his mind as hard as he could. Maybe if he created one that was Gryffindor red and gold, then McGonagall would be a little less suspicious of him.
*
“That child will turn my hair white before the end.”
Severus paused, then eased back behind the door of the infirmary. He had come to ask Poppy for burn paste, so as to have some on hand the next time he encountered Longbottom, but it seemed someone was before him in visiting the mediwitch. And that person was Minerva McGonagall.
She had mentioned no names yet, but Severus could well imagine what child was driving her to distraction.
“You shouldn’t let Harry upset you so much that you need a Headache Draught,” Poppy said, practical as always, and confirming Severus’s suspicion at the same time. “I think it’s wonderful that he made friends with a snake. The child has almost none.”
“So Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger are nothing, then?” Minerva’s voice fired up, muted for only a moment by the clink of a vial against her teeth. “I’ll have you know, Pomona was complaining the other day that they have no talent in Herbology, that Mr. Weasley doesn’t pay enough attention to the plants he’s potting and Miss Granger is all theory, but I’ve seen both of them do remarkable things—”
“And they can’t be with him all the time,” Poppy retorted. Severus heard her shifting vials about. She kept them organized neatly, he had to admit, but in a way so different from his own that it was simpler to ask her for the burn paste than try and find it himself. “I hope that snake will do something to discourage people from hurting Harry outside school.”
Severus settled against the wall. He had no idea what Poppy was talking about, but he knew a bit of juicy gossip when he heard one.
“Who are you talking about, Poppy?” Minerva demanded. Severus heard her pacing back and forth, and imagined a tail switching from under her robes. He had seen her once in the middle of her Animagus transformation, when she was still shedding her clothes; it was not a sight one forgot easily. “I know that none of the Death Eaters has the slightest idea where the boy lives, or he would have been in trouble this past summer, after what he did to Lucius Malfoy at the end of last year.”
Severus narrowed his eyes. He had heard rumors of the trouble between Potter and Lucius, but they had not spread far before Lucius squashed them, and Severus was unsure what had happened. Something humiliating for Lucius, at least.
“I’m not talking about Death Eaters,” said Poppy.
“Then tell me who you’re talking about,” said Minerva, but her voice had dipped, as if she had taken up Poppy’s fears of eavesdroppers.
Long years as a spy and long experience of Poppy Pomfrey told Severus what she would do next. He immediately Disillusioned himself and crept into the hospital wing, moments before Poppy cast a shimmering curtain of magic that would cover the entrance and block out sound. She always did that when discussing controversial medical information about students.
Minerva was standing in front of Poppy, her face strained. Severus arranged himself in a corner to watch. Of course, perhaps she was only strained for the same reason she had come asking for a headache draught: precious Potter had picked up a snake and ruined her image of him as the perfect Gryffindor.
But there was something else there, Severus was certain, after studying her for a bit. Something that implied she knew what Poppy was about to say, and dreaded it.
“You know very well who I’m talking about, Minerva.” Poppy leaned a hand on her arm and then leaned near, as well, making Severus glad that he was in the hospital wing. Even without the spell that prevented eavesdropping, Poppy spoke quietly enough he wouldn’t have heard her from the corridor. “Those Dursleys.”
Severus cocked his head. Yes, he knew the name. Potter’s Muggle relatives.
So?
But he could not pretend that it did not matter, not in the privacy of his own head, which was the only place Lily still lived. He would admit secrets to himself that he would never admit aloud.
“I knew they were the worst sort of Muggles,” Minerva answered, quietly, voice as soft as though she was struggling against passion. “But I never thought—Petunia was Lily’s sister! I heard Lily talk about her often enough! How could she hurt her own nephew? And someone who lost his parents, like Harry did!”
Severus closed his eyes. Sometimes Minerva’s blind Gryffindor faith in human nature irritated him. She had been through a war, and she dealt with the petty intrigues and silly lies of students every day. She should know better than this.
“You’d think not,” said Poppy, in the same sort of voice Severus had heard her use with a Slytherin last year who wouldn’t stop hexing her Housemates. “But that’s the way it is. And the way that boy looks, as though no one has ever asked him how he’s feeling, when I do it…it’s true, Minerva. It must be true. And that’s something that snake might be able to keep him safe from, at least.”
“You never told anyone?” Minerva looked hunched and sad when Severus opened his eyes. At least her faith wasn’t making her blind anymore.
“I told myself it was for the best if I didn’t.” Poppy sighed. “Harry never admitted anything. I did think about telling Dumbledore, but then that incident happened this summer when Harry went to stay in Diagon Alley, and you would think that the papers never had anything else to talk about, the fuss they raised over it. What if I complained, and Harry ended up in the custody of someone even worse for him? A Death Eater like Lucius Malfoy?” She sighed again and pressed her hand against her forehead. “Fudge is certainly close enough with Malfoy for that to happen.”
Severus listened and said nothing—of course, there was no one to say it to, but this was more than that. There was a gap behind Poppy’s words, a fear she must have. Adverse publicity alone would never have kept her quiet; nor would a child’s wishes, considering how many children she bundled potions into and bedsheets across every day. And the incident with Potter’s aunt that she was crediting had happened only a few months ago.
No, there was someone else keeping her quiet, someone she didn’t want to name, maybe out of fear, maybe because the loss of that faith for her was more than she could stand.
Severus knew who it was.
“I suppose that the snake might be a good thing, then,” said Minerva grudgingly. “But only if it does not help him cheat in classes! He cast a Transfiguration spell today that I’ve never seen a third-year do as well, except Miss Granger.”
“Is merely doing a spell well a cause of cheating?” Poppy smiled a little. “Perhaps you might leave his snake with him and only separate them during exams. That might be the most he would allow you to do, anyway.”
“Allow me to do,” said Minerva frigidly.
Severus recognized the turn the conversation had taken, and determined that he had no reason to stay and listen further. He had his own methods of dealing with Potter should he try to use the basilisk to cheat during an exam or a brewing session when the students were supposed to work alone. He turned and slipped across the infirmary to the spell Poppy had cast, which was much easier to make a hole in from the inside than the outside.
Once back in the corridor, Severus adjusted his robes around himself and made his way slowly back towards the dungeons, mind on his classes and his marking.
And only an undercurrent of thought running, carrying the powerful images and information that Poppy had told him about, all unwitting.
*
The instant Harry walked into Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Lupin caught his eye and beckoned him aside. “I need to talk to you, Harry,” he said, quietly but insistently.
Harry walked over to Lupin, wondering if the man was finally going to give him an answer about why he hadn’t let him face the Boggart. Dash was silent on his neck, shifting around so that Harry could bear his weight more comfortably and take some of the pressure off the middle of his back. Maybe he could smell the magical creatures Lupin worked with. Maybe he didn’t know what to make of Lupin.
Maybe you could ask me if you wanted to know what I was thinking, Dash sniped back, and sent a flood of images that he had picked up on from Harry’s mind, including the one of Lupin shoving him away from the Boggart. I don’t like him.
Harry rolled his eyes a little, making sure that he was done before Lupin faced him again. Well, I do. So we’ll just disagree.
Dash made a soft annoyed sound, and Lupin jumped as though someone had pricked him with a pin and then looked at Dash with concern. “You know I’ve made my living studying Dark creatures, Harry,” he began.
Harry nodded and raised a hand to pet Dash’s neck. “Does this have something to do with why I couldn’t face the Boggart, sir?”
Professor Lupin looked at him with a blank face for a second. Harry thought he wouldn’t get an answer, but then Lupin waved a hand and said, “Oh, that. No, I thought your boggart would be You-Know-Who and would frighten everyone else.”
Harry frowned. It sounded dismissive. “It would have been a Dementor, sir. If—”
Lupin interrupted before he could get that far. “You know you have one of the Darkest of Dark creatures around your neck, Harry? The Ministry rates them as extremely dangerous. No one except an expert should handle them.”
Harry opened his mouth to say No shit? But he ended up swallowing back the words. He’d already argued with enough people about Dash, who was hissing angrily enough that Harry couldn’t even pick up the words. A torrent of images rushed through his head, a lot of them showing Dash chasing Lupin.
You are not chasing Lupin, Harry scolded him. He just doesn’t understand. That’s true of lots of other people, too.
But not many who make a living studying Dark creatures, Dash reminded him. Still, he calmed down and only let one heavy loop of his body dangle down Harry’s chest so that it interfered with Harry’s arms and was generally inconvenient. Harry patiently moved it out of the way again.
“Yes, I know,” said Harry, when he realized Professor Lupin was still waiting for an answer to his question, and some of the other students were turning around in their desks and looking at them. He didn’t want to be accused of being special or the Professor’s favorite or anything like that. “I fought one last year.”
Lupin blinked slowly. “Then why are you walking around with one around your neck?”
Because you’re not stupid and know that your life is better with me in it.
“Because he needed help,” Harry said simply.
“Yes, the Headmaster told us the story.” Still Lupin didn’t move, and Harry was beginning to wonder what he wanted. “Would you have gone down and tried to help him if you realized that he was crying out in Parseltongue?”
“Yes, probably,” said Harry. He honestly hadn’t considered it, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made to go if he did know it was Parseltongue. Who else in the whole school was going to hear and help?
“You know that you’re in a lot of danger from Sirius Black, Harry—”
Dash lifted his head and twisted it, and Harry smiled. “Not anymore.”
Lupin looked at him with a grave face that made Harry want to look down. But he put his hand on Dash’s neck and didn’t. If Lupin wanted Harry to care about Sirius Black, then he shouldn’t have told Harry all about the danger he could get into wandering around. Harry was taking the danger seriously. He had a snake to defend him, now.
And I will always defend you, Dash told him, and this time the rasp of his scales along the back of Harry’s hand was like a caress.
“See,” Harry said, and then remembered that Lupin couldn’t hear the words Dash was speaking, and wouldn’t have a reason to feel reassured. He shook his head a little and continued. “I mean, now that I have a dangerous snake, Sirius Black will stay away, right? Maybe he’ll decide that I’m evil and he doesn’t have to hurt me. So he can go away, and no one has to get hurt.”
“I hope that you would know better than to let your snake hurt anyone, Harry,” said Lupin. “Even someone like Black. People deserve to have a trial.”
“He wasn’t going to give me one, was he?” Harry asked, and suddenly felt a clogging rush in his throat that could have become a shout or tears yesterday. He coughed, while Dash touched his cheek with a blunt nose, and it went away. “He wants me dead for a stupid reason, because I somehow defeated Voldemort when I was one. I don’t know what he thinks killing me is going to do! It’s not going to bring him back!”
The other students were definitely staring and whispering now, and Lupin reached out and settled a heavy, cautious hand on Harry’s shoulder.
“Don’t let your snake hurt Black,” he said. “Don’t let him hurt anyone, Harry. Or he could get taken away.”
He is very strange, said Dash, with a lash inside Harry’s head that was shorter than any lash of his tongue he had made. Does he want to warn or threaten you?
Harry shrugged and looked at the ground. He still liked Professor Lupin, but he didn’t know what else Lupin expected him to do. All anyone had done was tell him that Black was dangerous and he had to stay inside the school and he should be careful in case Black tried to kill him, and now they were unhappy because Harry had someone who would stay with him all the time and protect him?
It’s like they care more about my reputation or the other students or even Black instead of me. I want someone who puts me first.
Dash leaned his head sideways and rubbed his cheek against Harry’s. Lupin stared. Harry reckoned it was something he hadn’t thought a basilisk would do.
“Well,” said Lupin, after clearing his throat for a moment. “Maybe you should come and sit down, and—we’ll think about what you should do with the basilisk later. I don’t mind you having him in class as long as he doesn’t hurt anyone.”
Harry nodded, because he knew Dash wouldn’t, and then walked over to his seat. Ron patted his shoulder awkwardly, carefully avoiding Dash’s tail. “Are you okay, mate?” he asked.
Harry sniffled, then said, “Yeah. It’s just—it’s just hard, when I don’t know where Black is or what he’s doing. It’s hard being hunted all the time, you know?” It was as close as he could come to saying what was wrong, which wouldn’t have been as easy to put into words.
Ron nodded sympathetically, and then Professor Lupin started the lesson. Dash gently tightened a coil of his body around Harry’s throat.
I’m going to be here. I’m going to guard you. I’m going to put you first.
Harry already didn’t think he could have turned away from Dash, after rescuing him form the egg and hearing Dash talk to him in his head, but he knew he couldn’t turn away now. He hugged Dash’s tail, and he didn’t care who saw him. They would stare at him and whisper anyway, no matter what he did, so Harry would take comfort where he could find it.
*
Marron: See, Harry hasn’t even considered the possibility that Draco wants to really be friends. He thinks this is either an evil plot or an attempt to get a basilisk.
Meechypoo: Harry will, although right now the world is reeling and he’s having enough time rethinking his professors.
staar: They’re afraid of Dash, but they’ll stick with Harry.
ChaosLady: Thank you!
SP777: He will, for a while.
stevie: I do, every Friday!
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A Brother to Basilisks