Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

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
- 64
- 65
- 66
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Sixty-Five—Putting Aside
            Severus sighed and pushed his hair out of his eyes. He supposed he should have expected the letter that had found him, but he had not.
            The letters, honestly. There were two that he had not expected, and he sat back and looked between them now as if one would give him help with the other. The fire roared behind him, and the glass of wine in his hand grew cool. Severus sipped from it and turned to the letter on the right.
            It was set on white parchment embossed with a faint design Severus hadn’t been able to read well, and the seal told him who it was from. A crossed M and B, linked with three rings. Narcissa Malfoy, born a Black, and using a ring for each member of her immediate family.
            The other letter had a seal that Severus had had to look up. And when he had found the explanation, it only worried him more. This one showed a crouching lion, its left forepaw drawn back and claws raised. Severus had tried all evening to get rid of his fantasy that the lion was pointing straight at him.
            In the end, Narcissa’s letter would present fewer problems to deal with. Severus broke the seal and drew it out.
            It was short, but even fancier on the inside. Narcissa had written in calligraphy, apparently because she could, and the letters were in silver ink. Severus had to tilt it towards the light to read it properly. This time, the embossed design was visible as another linked M and B, with the three rings around them.
            Dear Severus,
            I am writing to offer formal apologies for Sirius Black’s lack of care with his godson, and his petition to make amends. In return, he asks for time alone with his godson.
            Severus closed his eyes. He wanted to toss the letter in the fire, or even better, find expensive parchment and deep green ink, and write back, Not if I die tomorrow.
            But although he wasn’t eager to give any consideration at all to Black, he also didn’t want to take the chance of angering Narcissa. Not when Draco was one of the few people who made Harry so happy.
            Compromise, as usual, the political technique he had encouraged Harry to adopt. Severus enchanted a piece of parchment he had to hand to look shinier and newer, but used ordinary ink. It would send its own messages to Black and Narcissa, and Severus wanted a certain ambiguity that might hold them back from replying immediately.
            I will accept formal apologies from you. Harry may not. Also, I refuse to allow Black to have time alone with Harry unless he makes an Unbreakable Vow not to say certain things. Otherwise, he will have supervised visits with Harry in my quarters.
            At least one problem was dealt with now. Severus turned with some grimness towards the other, and broke the seal of the reaching lion. As he did, a small swirl of golden magic washed over his fingers, licking like a rough tongue. Severus froze. He knew what that spell did, but he hadn’t seen it in a long time.
            The spell faded. It had been meant to make sure that only someone the letter was intended for would open it. If anyone else tried, they would find themselves blocked from the letter by an impenetrable barrier.
            It was protective Light magic, rather like the Patronus. A Dark spell would have hurt the person tampering with the letter at the least, perhaps tried to burn their fingers off.
            And how is this going to work with the fact that so many people also believe Harry is Dark and the reincarnation of Slytherin? Severus thought with some despair as he drew the letter out.
            As he had suspected, the parchment was even finer than Narcissa’s, but this writer hadn’t bothered with embossed designs or colored ink, instead writing in a neat, firm hand that was its own claim.
            To the esteemed Professor Severus Snape,
            We have heard the rumors of Harry Potter as Salazar Slytherin’s reincarnation and bonding with a basilisk, but we dismissed them as of no importance to us. We don’t live in Britain, we can protect ourselves, and if he was Dark and became a threat, we would fight him.
            However, we also hear now that Harry Potter was victimized by Albus Dumbledore, who was Headmaster of his school. Given our connection to Hogwarts, we feel bound to offer what aid and Healing we can to Harry Potter. We might not fight in his wars, but there are other kinds of help.
            Let us know the truth of the situation as soon as possible, so that we may make our decision and send a Healer if necessary.
            Sincerely yours,
            Godric Lughborn.
            Severus put his hand over his face and shook his head. On one hand, he had wished for a Mind-Healer for Black. Black would never accept an ordinary one, but one from a Light family that claimed indirect descent from Godric Gryffindor might be different.
            On the other hand, Severus had no idea what Lughborn would do when he found out that Harry had fervent believers in the idea that he was Slytherin, and followers in Slytherin, and was using that as a political tool. Severus didn’t want to deal with House rivalries outside Hogwarts any more than he did in the middle of it.
            In the end, he wrote a polite acceptance and explanation that he would need to discuss the letter at length with Harry, and then went to the Owlery to post them. He selected a strong owl for the trip to Greece, where the Lughborns lived, and watched it wing away hoping the sight would calm him.
            It didn’t. And neither did what he saw when he turned around and started through the Owlery door.
            A glitter of sliding scales and a lifted head that showed him a faintly glowing yellow pair of covered eyes. Dash bobbed his head in a nod and slithered out of sight, far more noiselessly than Severus was comfortable with such a large snake traveling.
            Severus stood staring after him, not knowing what to think. Dash patrolled the school at night without Harry?
            Should Severus hope that Harry didn’t know about this, or that he knew and had simply never seen fit to mention it?
*
            “I am wishing to find you again for another trade.”
            Harry started badly. He’d been looking up merfolk and the kinds of spells that would let him breathe underwater, and there was Viktor Krum suddenly in front of him, staring at Harry with a frown. Harry leaned back and touched Dash’s neck for a second.
            He is so unthreatening that I don’t care, said Dash sleepily.
            “Oh. Good,” Harry said, and shook his head again when Krum gave him a curious stare. “I mean—what did you want to trade?”
            Krum sat down at the table and raised an anti-eavesdropping charm around them with a simple flick of his wrist. “I will give you more information on the Second Task,” he whispered. “And you will give my Headmaster one of these basilisk eggs that you mentioned.”
            Harry sat back. He wanted to say something like Bloody hell, no, but that wouldn’t be political, at least not the way Draco and Snape wanted him to be. And he had felt Dash stir suddenly in his lap.
            “I already know what the Second Task will be,” he muttered instead.
            Krum’s eyes widened, and he said, “Impossible. Even Delacour did not know.”
            “Then we should tell her. So it will be fair.”
            “No!” Krum leaned towards him, his elbows tugging him up the table. The chair behind him fell over, and he didn’t seem to notice. “You will be telling me how you know instead.”
            Harry frowned at him. What was Krum going on about? “The same way you did, I imagine. I used water on the egg and heard the merfolk singing about taking what I’ll sorely miss.”
            Krum slumped back in his seat. Harry frowned some more, and then Dash lifted his head and said around his yawn, I think he was hoping that you were just making it up, and didn’t really know. That way, he would still have something to trade you. Dash turned his head to the side, and his eyelids quivered. I no longer like him.
            “We need a basilisk egg,” Krum whispered then. “You do not understand. The things that are happening in Durmstrang—we need one. We need allies. If we had a basilisk protecting us, we would not have to take some of the…measures that Headmaster Karkaroff fears we will have to take.”
            “But how could you even control your basilisk if you weren’t a Parselmouth?” Harry asked, shaking his head. In private, he added, Is there any way someone could bond with one of you if they weren’t a Parselmouth, Dash?
            It’s touching that you think I have all the answers. But the answer to this one is, I don’t know. I suspect it would be impossible, however.
            Harry nodded and turned back to Krum. “If I can help protect you from Voldemort, then I will. But that’s not the same thing as giving you a basilisk. Especially when you’re acting like it would be a status symbol or something, not a friend.”
            Krum sat up and stared at him searchingly. Harry stared back. He had no idea what Krum had expected to see, and so no way to hide his emotions or project the right one.
            “You are—friends with your basilisk? Not his master?” Krum looked at Dash then, and his eyes were still wide and strange. “That is not what the reports said, or what I thought was true.”
            “You should have known that,” Harry snapped. At least this was something he could get angry about, and he didn’t think either Snape or Draco would scold him for it. “From the way you talked to him in the library and he approved of you. He doesn’t approve of you anymore,” he added, because he thought Krum should know that.
            Immediately, Krum put some distance between himself and Dash. Dash spent a long moment snickering down the bond before he stretched luxuriously and crawled under the table.
            “You haven’t told me anything that would make me think you should have a basilisk,” Harry reminded Krum. He was almost sitting with his feet totally tucked beneath him now, trying not to even look at Dash as he slithered underneath him. “And you haven’t told me what kind of danger you’re facing or what kind of allies you need.”
            Harry heard his own voice a moment later and was astonished. A few months ago, he wouldn’t have thought he could ask a question like that. At the very least, Krum didn’t owe him an explanation.
            But he’d got used to people giving him explanations. Snape always did, although they weren’t explanations Harry liked. And Draco did, and the Selwyns did, and even other people that Harry thought mostly wanted to use him as a political pawn did.
            “We cannot tell you. We would be violating the privacy of our friends.” Krum spoke slowly, and Harry didn’t think it was because he was unsure of the English words. “That is a very serious thing to do when they are in conflict with Dark wizards.”
            Harry shook his head. “And it’s a very serious thing for me, knowing that I might make an alliance with people who would try to use me or take away a basilisk and not treat it properly. Do you have any Parselmouths with these people you want to help?”
            “That is also not something I can be telling you.”
            Krum had his arms folded now, and an expression on his face that told Harry he wouldn’t get any more information. He nodded and said, “Then my answer is no.”
            “This is a serious thing you are doing.” Krum’s eyes were enormous. “These people, they could be being your allies.”
            “But you won’t tell me anything about them, or how you would treat the basilisk, and you want me to just give you one.” Harry was about to say that he didn’t even think the basilisks were his to give, but Dash’s tail curled around his ankle and squeezed once.
            We don’t know what they want. That means they might go around you and start trying to get at the basilisks on their own if they thought you didn’t have anything to do with the eggs.
            “That’s not something I can do,” Harry finished.
            “Because you have the power, or you do not have the power?”
            “Because I don’t want to see a basilisk treated the way you would treat it.”
            Krum closed his eyes. “It is not being for me. It is not being for Karkaroff. It is for people you have never met, people who need your help if the—the Dark Lord is not to destroy them.” He opened his eyes, and his face was agonized. “He is not recruiting just in Britain, you understand? They need the power to resist, or they will simply fall before him, and they will be killed in his wars.”
            Harry hesitated. Those sounded a lot like the Selwyns and some of his allies who believed he was the reincarnation of Slytherin. Alisoun had told him that her parents would probably have had to join Voldemort or at least support him if Harry hadn’t arisen as a possible alternative. Didn’t that make it his responsibility—
            You are forgetting one thing. Those people came to you and asked to be included among your allies. They did not hide themselves and ask for help—great help, great trust—without offering you something in return.
            Harry came up with at least one delaying strategy that would probably even seem like smart politics. He sat back and put as regal a look on his face as he could. “You need to offer me something better than information I already know.”
            “What, then?” Krum almost spat the words, and he was leaning over precariously, hands balanced on the edge of the table.
            Careful, Harry.
            Harry nodded in acknowledgment of Dash’s words, and said only, “I need to know at least one face or name among these people. If they won’t tell me who they are, then they’ll hide behind me at my expense and I don’t even know who I’m supposed to be protecting. Would I suddenly get an owl in the middle of the night telling me I had to go to Romania or something because people I’ve never heard of are being attacked? How could I tell the difference between a legitimate grief I should address and a trap or a trick?”
            Krum sat back and seemed to be considering it. Harry found himself holding his breath. He really didn’t want Krum or the people he was helping to get in trouble. And he didn’t want to leave someone alone to fight Voldemort when he was supposed to be doing the fighting.
            We need to spend some time squeezing the poison Dumbledore leached into your blood out of you, Dash said, which didn’t make sense to Harry.
            Krum sighed slowly and sat back with a shake of his head. “I cannot be telling you. I do not have their permission.” He stretched out a hand, and for a second Harry thought he wanted to shake. Then he realized it was more like the hand Draco had held out to him back on the Hogwarts Express on their first year. “You will not reconsider giving us a basilisk?”
            “I’m sorry,” Harry whispered. The regal mood had fled, and now he didn’t feel distant or detached or anything but sick. “I want to help you, but I have to protect myself and the people who are already relying on me first.”
            And you have to protect your basilisk, and listen to his wise advice. Dash popped his head over the edge of the library table again. I’d tell him to leave now, Harry. You’re not going to be any more good to each other.
            Harry flinched once, but only because the thoughts were an echo of his. He turned to Krum and opened his mouth.
            Krum already knew. He was getting to his feet with glazed eyes that stared past Harry. He said only, “I am hoping that you will not regret this. And even more that we do not.”
            He left the library. Harry saw all the glances that trailed after him, and the way that students immediately looked at him and started whispering. They would think Harry had done something horrible if he’d disappointed Krum.
            For once, they weren’t wrong. Harry swept up his books and went back to Snape’s quarters. He knew he wouldn’t get any more studying done this afternoon.
*
            Blaise discovered his hands were shaking when he tried to open the letter and almost tore it. He sat back and waited, breathing carefully, thinking of the lessons his mother had taught him in always being cool and composed and the best, before he finally let himself read his friend’s carefully-written words.
            My friend,
            I thank you for the information. I think I shall find some way to use your information on the bond between Potter and young Malfoy soon.
            In the meantime, I can give you little news that is good. Potter’s base among Slytherins, and those who were once members of Slytherin House, continues to grow. This seems to be almost solely due to the basilisk. They respect his Parseltongue, but his basilisk is what makes them think him some reincarnation of Salazar.
            If we could remove the basilisk, we could remove the biggest base of his power. I was exploring another avenue that I hoped would provide an answer to the removal, but alas, it entered a dead end. I think that we cannot count on regular methods to curb this basilisk’s power when it does not resemble the traditional ones.
            I have sent along the recipe for a potion that ought to prove easy to brew, but the administration of it would be difficult for me, at a distance from young Potter as I am. It is deadly only to snakes, not humans, and then only to magical ones. Could you make it and scatter the potion on young Malfoy’s sheets? It would be absorbed by his skin, and with the amount of time he spends touching the basilisk…
            I am sure that I can leave you to envision the results for yourself.
            With fond regards,
            Your friend.
            Blaise studied the recipe for the potion quickly. Yes, it looked easy. That didn’t mean it would prove to be so. And he didn’t know that he wanted to take the biggest risks in this association.
            But on the other hand, at any moment the papers might turn their attention back to the abuse if they uncovered a new story. And Blaise might receive another letter from someone who was definitely not a friend.
            Blaise closed his eyes and shuddered. This was risky, yes. But he would take that route rather than spend the rest of his life enslaved to his fear.
            Slowly, he opened his eyes and set to writing his acceptance letter.
*
            I like this spell.
            But you would like any spell that had to do with snakes, Harry retorted, reaching out to stroke Dash’s scales. Dash was wound around Harry in a complicated knot, chair back and lap and waist and shoulders. Hermione sat across from Harry, plunged into one of her books about merfolk. Harry thought she’d started looking at them to help him, but now she seemed fascinated for her own sake. That’s not a recommendation.
            Dash nudged Harry pointedly in the hip with his nose. McGonagall still won’t want you using my help to succeed in the Second Task. This is the next-best thing if you can’t have me with you.
            Harry sat back and read the description of the spell again. Are you sure I can learn to cast this spell in time? It’s pretty complex, and it’s only a fortnight until the Task.
            Dash flipped out his tail and hit the book so hard that he nearly knocked it off the table. Hermione looked at them from around the corner of her tome, rolled her eyes, and went back to it.
            What were you trying to point at? Harry asked Dash sweetly as he steadied the book. I didn’t understand that.
            Dash, unrepentant, reached out and used his tongue this time, touching a line that Harry could swear he’d read. You didn’t notice the most relevant feature of the spell, one that would keep most other people from even trying it.
            If that’s for a good reason…Harry said, but Dash only laughed at his attempt to sound ominous. Harry leaned over and started reading. Dash’s smugness was like a blank page, and Harry knew he would never get anything from him.
            There was a good reason most people didn’t use this spell, Harry saw after some reading. You needed to be a Parselmouth to speak the second half of the incantation, the “real” name of the species of magical serpent the spell created. Everyone could manage the Latin half, but not that one.
How did I miss that?
It’s a common mistake among Parselmouths who are also the Boy-Who-Lived participating in a magical Tournament, said Dash, coiling around Harry and draping his head over Harry’s shoulder so he could also look at the words. It’s called “failing to pay enough attention to your basilisk.”
Harry swatted him lightly on a patch of scales that might count as his bum at the moment, and went on reading. Dash was right. The incantation was the most complicated part. The spell was complex in its wand movements, but if the information here was also right, Harry wouldn’t need to cast it underwater. Just once, on the shore of the lake, and then he could wade in and start swimming.
Not that simple, Dash murmured, and arched his neck as he stretched. You’ll also want spells that counteract the cold of the lake water. Can you imagine the way it would feel wading in without them? He shuddered to the length of his tail. Of course, he was a lot more sensitive to cold than most people, Harry thought tolerantly.
            I am sensitive in precisely the correct proportions.
            Harry smiled at him and kept reading. The more he read, the more he thought he could do this. He would want to practice some of the other things he’d read about, like the Bubble-Head Charm, just in case it failed halfway through his swim. But he thought he could do it.
            Only one question remained to him, one that haunted the back of his mind no matter how many times Dash told him it didn’t matter that much and he’d do better to forget it.
            Who are the merfolk going to take for my hostage?
*
     zsfantasy: Thank you!
- 64
- 65
- 66
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

A Brother to Basilisks