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A Brother to Basilisks	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 85173 -:- 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 Sixty-Six—The Second Task
            Harry sat still for a long time after Severus had explained about the letters to him. Then he looked up with a sigh. The expression on his face was still the best imitation of blankness he could muster.
But Severus had learned to watch Dash when Harry was being obscure, and Dash’s tail twitched wildly. He reached up and hurled himself abruptly over the chair Harry sat in, from side to side, across his lap, where he could bind Harry to the seat if he tried to move. Dash rarely did such things anymore, but Severus thought it was significant that he would act as if he wanted to.
“You need not answer Black positively,” Severus said. “He doesn’t yet know about the Mind-Healer option, but even so, he hasn’t made the Vow or contacted me again. Whatever you want to do. See him, not see him, speak to him, not speak to him, ignore his existence. It’s up to you.”
Harry focused on him, and raised his eyebrows in a look Severus thought he had taken straight from Draco. “It’s obvious what you want.”
            “And equally obvious that I am trying to leave the choice open for your input?”
            Harry’s hand squeezed Dash’s neck. Dash didn’t move. “I—want to see him. But I can’t face him if he’s going to say the same awful shit he said last time.”
            “Language,” Severus said, mildly enough. Matters had advanced to the point that he thought he could correct Harry’s language now instead of avoiding it because it would seem too restrictive. “Then we’ll wait until he responds and makes the Vow of his own free will. And I’ll be there to supervise the visits.”
            “Yes. I want you to.”
            The tone in Harry’s voice left Severus speechless for a second. He finally reached forwards and clasped Harry’s hand. Harry squeezed back as hard as he was squeezing Dash’s neck.
            “You shall have whatever you want,” Severus whispered. “Whatever I can secure for you.”
            Harry gave him an exhausted smile. “Sometimes I think those are the same things.”
            “There is nothing I would not do for you,” Severus said, and watched the light that transformed Harry’s face. It was precious to him, and so bright that he had to wonder why no one had ever made Harry that offer before.
            Almost as good was the soft head-bob he got from Dash in the moment before Dash hauled all his considerable weight into Harry’s lap and succeeded in distracting him from his thoughts about Black.
            Severus sat back, well-satisfied. Harry had already said that he wanted to write back to the Lughborns himself and ask for a Mind-Healer. For now, he wouldn’t say anything else. Severus did take the risk now of asking whether Harry wanted the Mind-Healer for himself or Black, and got a quick, furious glance that dissolved when Severus simply remained calm.
            “For Sirius, of course. I don’t need one.”
            Severus sat there, letting the silence that was one of his most effective methods stretch and linger and move through the room like a padding cat. Harry turned away from him and leaned his chin on his fist. Dash shifted a little as if he was going to rope Harry’s arm and tug it back to his side, but in the end he didn’t do it.
            “People always spend too much time concentrating on me,” Harry whispered. “I want them to concentrate on Sirius sometimes.”
            “He has his champion in Narcissa. You need not worry that he is being neglected because Dumbledore is gone.”
            “Where is Dumbledore?”
            “Gone.”
            Severus was able to answer no more than that; in truth, he was surprised that Dumbledore had stayed even as long as he had, to apparently pack up some books and personal possessions. Then he had moved out. People who knew him well had gone to the house in Godric’s Hollow and returned without him. Others had questioned his brother Aberforth, who had made it plain that he didn’t care about Albus’s disappearance.
            He had gone so he could not be charged, Severus was fairly sure. So that he would not have to see the results of his own disappointing actions—Harry free, Black reduced to non-importance, people outraged over the way he had acted while in the guise of Professor “Moody.”
            But Severus was also sure he had gone so that he could continue to work on some of those plans in secret.
            “I didn’t mean to be so disruptive,” Harry whispered.
            Severus caught the echo of that whisper, and even though of course he couldn’t hear the silent speech Harry and Dash used between themselves, he thought he spoke even before Dash could. “That is ridiculous, Harry. You were only existing, leading the life that you are entitled to, with someone who cares for you and people who protect you. Albus would have probably tried to control the other candidate for the Boy-Who-Lived the same way, if the Dark Lord had chosen him.”
            Harry turned around and stared. “What do you mean?”
            “Did I not tell you that Neville Longbottom could also have fulfilled the prophecy? That his parents were tortured and driven insane but are not dead?” Severus shook his head when Harry blinked at him. “You may have forgotten, or else I did not tell you. Yes, it was one of the things that made the Dark Lord uncertain at the time when I last knew him. He believed in the prophecy, but he did not know which of two children born at the end of July would become his doom.”
            Harry was silent in a familiar way, then said, “Dash thinks the prophecy is self-fulfilling. Whichever one Voldemort went after was the one who would become the Boy-Who-Lived. It could have been Neville just as easily.”
            Severus shuddered, and Harry saw him do it and narrowed his eyes. “Neville is a good bloke,” he snapped.
            “Yes, but if he was the Boy-Who-Lived, I could not have come to care for you as I do.”
            Severus realized a moment later what it sounded like he was saying, that he would rather Harry had lost his parents because it left him open for Severus to love, and winced. But Harry didn’t seem to get that implication. He simply stared, then nodded and said, “Yes, I can see that. Thank you.”
            They lapsed into silence that was comfortable, if a little wondering, on Severus’s part. Then he asked, “Do you have a technique in place to handle the Second Task?”
            Harry smiled. He had closed his eyes at some point, maybe because the firelight was so bright, and he didn’t open them now. “Yes.”
            “What is it?”
            “You can watch and learn it with anyone else.”
            “Then I must hope that it is not as heart-stopping as the one you used in the First Task,” said Severus sharply. “I was not your guardian at the time, but now I am, with full authority to inflict punishment on me if you try to kill me by making me quit breathing.”
            “I was never in danger from the dragon while I was speaking Parseltongue and letting it taste my magic. If I was, then Dash would never have let me try it.”
            About to retort, Severus found himself pausing. It was likely that Harry was right, although Severus would still have preferred to communicate with the basilisk about it himself. Dash had been ready to eliminate Dumbledore—or the man he had thought was Dumbledore at the time—before Harry had revealed him. He patrolled the school at night looking for threats to Harry. If he had suggested the tactic by which Harry had survived the First Task, he would not introduce Harry to a dangerous one now.
            “I would still prefer to know.”
            Harry pouted a bit, but opened his eyes. “All right. At least I can count on you not to spread it around or tell me that it’s evil because it involves Parseltongue.”
            “Would your friends do so?”
            “Probably not actually tell me it was evil. But Ron still flinches whenever he hears Parseltongue, and I think Hermione would think it was dangerous anyway and try to convince me to do something else.”
            Severus could not fault Harry’s characterizations of his friends. So he listened as Harry leaned towards him and whispered, as if afraid that spies might overhear even here. And Severus did have to laugh when he heard what Harry was planning, even as he shook his head.
            “I do think it’s dangerous. But if Dash was the one who suggested it…”
            “He was.”
            Harry had his chin uptilted in grim determination, and Severus looked back and forth between him and Dash. One of Dash’s eyelids seemed to flutter in the motion that Severus took for his equivalent of a wink.
            “Very well,” said Severus. He had to acknowledge, even through his continued worry, that it would be something to know what was coming on the morning of the Second Task, and see the looks on everyone else’s faces.
*
            “You have to go. Something about a summons to the Headmistress’s office.”
            Draco, still blinking from being awoken at midnight, wanted to panic for a minute. What could be bad enough that Headmistress McGonagall would call him into her office now? Had one of his parents died?
            But then he remembered that the Second Task was tomorrow, and his churning stomach settled. He nodded. “Thanks, Montague. I’ll go.”
            The heavy upper-year student nodded back to him and left his bedroom. Draco pulled on school robes and cast a charm that would remove the worst of the wrinkles. Then he stood straight and marched towards the door.
            “Where are you going, Draco?” That was Greg, sticking his head out of the curtains and giving him a myopic look.
            “For something the Headmistress needs me for.”
            That was enough for Greg, and for Vince, too; they both went back to their beds and probably straight into dreamless sleep. Draco snorted a little and kept walking, trying to decide what action he should take.
            “What does she need you for?”
            Draco turned around and looked at Blaise. He hadn’t even known Blaise was awake. He was, though, and leaning on one elbow. He stared at Draco with opaque eyes, and looked away and shrugged when Draco stared back.
            “She’ll make it clear what it is when I get there,” Draco said. Blaise had been acting strange in all sorts of ways lately. Draco didn’t want to betray something Blaise would use to hurt him or Harry.
            Then he shook his head. Hurt him or Harry? Blaise might have lots of reasons to act strange. Draco knew that his mother was a strange person, and she didn’t have clear affiliations with either the Dark Lord or the other side—Draco supposed he would have to stop thinking of it as “Dumbledore’s side.” Blaise might be worried about where his allegiances were supposed to fall.
            “But what do you think it is?”
            “I don’t know yet,” Draco said shortly, and slipped out of the room.
            The Slytherin common room was silent, and Draco had a lot of time to think about what he would do as he plodded out of it, and up from the dungeons, and up to the gargoyle outside the Headmistress’s office, which jumped out of the way the minute it saw him. He rode the stairs up, and bit hard enough that his mouth filled with the taste of copper.
            But he finally thought, Harry is trying to make a political name for himself. He can do that with Dash and the idea that he’s the reincarnation of Slytherin, and the power he has from being the Boy-Who-Lived. But it would be even easier if he won the Tri-Wizard Tournament. And I can make sure he does.
            Draco straightened his back. For a moment, he wondered if Harry would thank him for that decision. He would probably say that he’d rather have Draco safe.
            But Draco wanted to be there. For the sake of helping Harry win the Tournament, and for the sake of being the dearest one Harry rescued from the lake.
            For the sake, maybe, of the kiss that Harry might give him in front of everyone then.
            When he stepped into the Headmistress’s office and saw an unfamiliar brown-haired boy and silver-haired girl waiting, and the way McGonagall turned towards him, he knew what was coming.
            And he nodded and said yes, and he listened to the reassurances, and then he sank back, under the spell of sleep that washed him in darkening waves.
*

            Harry stopped on the shore of the lake. He could feel the grim beat of his own heart, almost overpowering the cheers and chatters and shouts of the crowd.
            Draco hadn’t shown up at breakfast to tease him and wish him luck. He hadn’t tagged after him to the shore and given him obnoxious advice. He wasn’t even sitting in the stands now, pretending not to be interested.
That almost certainly meant he was under the lake, waiting for Harry to rescue him.
Why did he do that? Harry grumbled to Dash as he stepped back and limbered up his wand arm, ignoring the cold around him. He could cast the Warming Charms once he had cast the other spell. He wanted the full force of his magic to go to it first.
You can ask him when you rescue him.
Dash had already slid around Harry’s ankles in one more embrace, and then into the shadows under the stands. Harry shook his head at him before he faced the lake.
            You’d better be right about how well you think this is going to go, he whispered before he turned his head and saw the judges standing on the lakeshore. Well, not Dumbledore, of course, but it had never been Dumbledore judging the Tasks anyway. Professor McGonagall had taken his place. Her face was strained, but she gave Harry a faint smile.
            I am always right, with certain exceptions when the world bends itself just to thwart me.
            Harry smiled in spite of himself, and McGonagall nodded to him and then turned and cast a Sonorus Charm the way Bagman had at the last Task. Immediately people shut up, or at least the ones in the stands nearest her. By the time McGonagall began speaking, most of them were quiet.
            “The Champions have one hour to retrieve the dear objects lost beneath the lake,” McGonagall announced. “Their scores will depend on the speed of their return as well as the innovative measures they take to deal with the dangers.” She turned and nodded to Harry and Krum, who was standing several meters away not looking at Harry. Fleur was beyond even that, her hands on her hips.
            Krum immediately leaped for the lake. He had already Transfigured his head into a shark’s head, Harry saw. Well, good for him. Fleur was slower going into the water; she seemed to be eating some kind of plant. When gills suddenly sprouted from the sides of her neck, she gasped and leaped in, ducking her head beneath the surface.
            It seemed the attention of everyone still there, even the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students, turned immediately to Harry.
            Harry smiled, drew his wand, and cast, “Accio—” followed by a long, shuddering hiss of Parseltongue that translated to “waterlungs snakes” in Harry’s ears.
            He heard more than one person shout in shock as a snake coiled out from the tip of his wand, a long, slender whip of a thing that was blue with specks of white running in it. Harry knelt down and opened his mouth, and the waterlungs snake reared and parted its jaws. Another one was already sprouting from the tip of Harry’s wand, this one white with specks of blue.
            Harry braced himself.
            The blue waterlungs snake sucked hard, and suddenly the air was gone from his chest and nose and all the rest. Harry dug his hands into the dirt to keep calm, and the white waterlungs snake leaned forwards and breathed out a single long stream of water. It spurted down Harry’s throat, and coiled into his lungs.
            Harry deliberately breathed.
            For a second, he had the awful temptation to cough, and then the white snake sealed its mouth over his, while the blue one grabbed his throat in shimmering, transparent fangs and entwined its tail with the white snake’s. When Harry breathed, the water rose out of his lungs and hit the punctures the blue snake’s fangs made; then it traveled down the blue snake, into the white snake. While it traveled, it was made into enchanted airy water that Harry could breathe thanks to the transformation the snakes had worked on him. Then the white snake breathed it back into him, and Harry could inhale again.
            It was a little uncomfortable, but after the first minute, the hardest thing to remember was to breathe gently and slowly so the waterlungs snakes could keep up. And they weren’t heavy, and if it was strange to have something there, Harry didn’t think it was any stranger than the equipment Muggles used to dive.
            He rose to his feet unsteadily and saw everyone staring at him. Harry gave them a jaunty wave and sprinted towards the lake. He was aware of staring faces and Dash’s voice in the back of his head, wishing him a good journey.
            Then he hit the surface, and plunged down.
            The water pressed against his eyes for the briefest moment, but the book had said a side-effect of the spell would let Harry have better sight, and that was true. He could see shapes moving far beneath them, and he oriented himself and dived. The white and blue snakes coiled a little closer to him, so the flow of the water didn’t whip them away.
            Stones and weeds flew past Harry, and he stretched his arms out in front of him and swam as strongly as he could. He knew he was going to be in plenty of time to rescue Draco if he went this fast all the way, but he also didn’t think the creatures waiting in the lake would let that happen.
            Nor did they. Harry felt a hand suddenly grasp his ankle. He looked down and saw a merman beneath him. His tail was lashing like the tails of Harry’s snakes when they first started coming out of his wand, and he opened his mouth and showed sharp teeth as he hissed something incomprehensible through a string of bubbles.
            Harry shook his head and pulled his foot back. The merman only shifted and reached out with his other hand. There was a spear strapped close to his side, which Harry could imagine stabbing him only too easily. He shuddered.
            He is hostile to you because you are swimming with water snakes, said Dash’s voice calmly in the back of his head. The merfolk consider water snakes their enemies. The only thing you can do is threaten him.
            I thought you weren’t supposed to help me in the Tournament?
            Of course, if you want to go back to the surface and explain what I did and leave Draco below because you cheated, you can.
            Harry grimaced and used his arms to try to form a flowing basilisk shape. Scaring them off with Dash was the only thing he could think of, because he couldn’t speak thanks to the snakes locked around his mouth and throat.
            Either the merman didn’t understand or it just made him hate snakes more. He started to lift the spear, parallel to Harry’s body at the moment but ready to stab him any minute. And Harry could see other members of his people swimming in beneath him, their heads uplifted and their eyes gleaming.
            Harry began to shiver. He wondered for a moment if it was from fear, and then remembered that he’d forgotten to cast the Warming Charms before he dived into the lake. It could just as easily be from cold.
            I’ll think it’s from cold, Harry thought, and twisted to the side, breaking the merman’s grip again. He’d turned to watch his approaching people instead of looking at Harry. When he turned back, he was frowning heavily. This time, he thrust with the spear.
            Harry might not be able to speak, but he would bet he could still hiss. Parseltongue was a magical language, anyway.
            He hissed to his serpents, and the blue snake rippled and grew bigger, drawing more air and water into itself. Harry had to hold his breath for the seconds this would take, but when the water snake suddenly unwrapped itself from Harry’s throat and hissed loudly enough to make bubbles break all around it, the merfolk backed up and looked uncertain.
            The blue snake cracked back into place, and Harry let go his breath and dived past them, swimming frantically towards the bottom of the lake, his mind on Draco.
            There were still merfolk shadowing him, he thought, but none of them were going to come that close to his snakes. Harry paddled deeper, reminding himself to take slow breaths, and then he saw a smear of pale hair floating in the water.
            Suddenly he had to hold still and remind himself about the breaths again.
            There. There, there!
            Yes, there was a large boulder or something—no, a merperson carved of rock, with a flaring tail. There were three people attached to it. Harry could see two heads of pale hair drifting in the waves, and he had to dive closer and aim to the left before he was sure that he could distinguish Draco from the small girl next to him, who was probably part-Veela.
            Draco would be so upset if he knew that I almost mistook him for a girl, Harry thought, and would have laughed if not for the snakes.
            The “ropes” that tied the defendants to the stone tail appeared to be seaweed. Harry dived again, held his breath, and directed the blue snake to let go of his throat again. The snake darted, wriggling, to the length of its tail.
            It wasn’t close enough! Harry surged nearer, already feeling dizzy from the effort not to breathe, and the blue snake lunged and tried again.
            This time, its fangs severed the seaweed. Harry saw a shape that was probably Viktor coming down on the other side, aiming for a brown-haired boy, while Harry snatched Draco’s hand. Draco appeared to be deeply asleep, Harry decided as the blue snake reattached to his throat. At least that meant Harry shouldn’t have to worry about how he was going to breathe until they reached the surface.
            Harry darted up, to the side past a shape that he thought was another merman and then recognized as Fleur coming down, and began to rise as fast as he could. Draco was worryingly limp in his arms. Harry tried to hold back the fear that they’d drugged Draco or something when he refused to play along with them.
            Even if they have, it’ll probably wear off when we reach the surface, right?
            That would be my guess.
            Harry started. Dash’s voice felt almost strange, the way it echoed around his head. He thought that was the longest time Dash had been silent since the beginning of their bond, at least if he didn’t count the times when Dash was deliberately ignoring him.
            You’re almost there.
            Harry had to roll his eyes at that, because Dash was ridiculous when Harry could see the surface of the water rippling right over his head. He ducked his head down against Draco’s, so his mouth was almost at Draco’s chin, and as they burst out of the water, he muttered, “Finite Incantatem” to get rid of the snakes.
            Draco coughed and started spluttering a second later. Harry found himself closing his eyes in sheer relief. And when Draco began complaining about the cold of the lake water and the way it was throwing spray into his eyes, Harry swam cheerfully to the bank and handed him over to the waiting Healer who had charms ready.
            “Did you win?”
            Harry blinked at the question and looked around. He couldn’t see either Viktor or Fleur yet, and he supposed that meant they were still swimming back with their hostages or having trouble with the merpeople. “I think I did,” he said in surprise, and found Draco looking at him with an open stare. “What?” he added, and Draco reached out and touched the small trickle of blood running down his neck.
            “What did you have to do to yourself?”
            “Cast a Parseltongue spell,” Harry said lightly, and then stepped back so the Healer could work on Draco.
            Draco gave him such a direct look that Harry thought he was starting to know why Draco had agreed to be the hostage. He sighed a little. He said and said he didn’t want to be in this Tournament, but it seemed some of the people who believed that still wanted him to win.
            Footsteps pounded towards him. Harry turned to face them, then paused suddenly. He had assumed it was Snape because of the black robes he was seeing out of the corner of his eye, but Snape wouldn’t be moving that fast. He would want to retain some dignity, no matter how concerned he was for Harry.
            Then Sirius was standing in front of Harry. He didn’t try to touch him, just stared. Harry still stiffened, and felt Dash curl around his feet in a less than subtle manner.
            “What is it?” Harry asked. He thought it was stranger for Sirius to stand there and not say anything than it was for Sirius to approach him in the first place. Then Snape did come up behind Harry and put his hands on Harry’s shoulders. Harry sighed a little in relief.
            “I heard the explanation of the Task,” Sirius whispered. “It said—it said that the merfolk took something you would sorely miss.”
            “Yes,” said Harry, still perplexed. Sirius ought to know by now why Harry would miss Draco.
            “That dearest thing wasn’t me.”
            It didn’t sound like an accusing question, but it was still something, something Harry didn’t feel up to dealing with right now. He turned his back and walked away. Snape moved with him, and so did Dash, and both of them murmured quiet reassurances into his ear. Harry just wanted to close his eyes and sleep for a week.
            He didn’t think either of them would let him do that. And he couldn’t keep himself from looking back, just in time to see Krum and his hostage emerging from the water.
            Sirius still stood there, and the devastation in his eyes was as bleak as craters.
            It’s like, Harry thought, he really believes that I don’t want to run back to him now.
*
MzPurpleMist: Well, Dumbledore would certainly like Dash gone, that’s true. Sirius knows he’s important to Harry, but he thinks Harry can be healed/cured of the need for him.
moodysavage: I’m afraid I have no control over the review phrases. ;)
SP777: I know this story will go to at least sixth year. It’s so AU at this point that it probably won’t follow the books exactly from there.
I copied the riddle straight from the book, so I guess it’s just a shorter version is more often quoted?
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A Brother to Basilisks