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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 Sixty-Seven—Punched Through
            “You got the highest score in the Second Task. That means you have the highest score altogether.”
            Harry banged his quill down on the library book in front of him, and winced a little when the ink spluttered out. He drew his wand to clean it, while Dash stirred sleepily in his lap, as if asking what was so wrong.
            He didn’t actually speak the words, though. He seemed to think Harry and Draco should handle their own arguments.
            “But that’s a stupid reason for you to put yourself at risk,” Harry whispered harshly, leaning forwards to shake his head at Draco, who looked utterly unrepentant. “I mean it, Draco. You said you wouldn’t let yourself be used as a hostage. What actually changed? And don’t tell me what you already told me,” he added, as Draco opened his mouth. “You know it’s a load of bollocks.”
            “It’s not my fault if you won’t believe me.” Draco folded his arms and looked over into the shelves. “I already told you the truth. I wanted you to win.”
            “But I didn’t want to be in this Tournament in the first place. That means I don’t want to win!”
            Harry stopped when he saw the look of absolute incomprehension on Draco’s face. Draco wasn’t pretending not to understand, he realized slowly. Draco really didn’t understand, and he wasn’t playing some game with it.
            “I know you didn’t get placed in this Tournament of your own free choice,” said Draco slowly. “I know that. And you didn’t go ahead with it because you really wanted to, but because you wanted to impress Black.” Harry nodded, one hand digging into Dash’s scales until he sleepily complained.
            “But now you’re here,” Draco continued. “And it really doesn’t make sense for you to do badly as—what? Some sort of response to Dumbledore? That would be letting him control you. Take control of the Tournament, instead, and make it work for you. Make it into something other than the training session he thought it could be.”
            “You think this would impress some of the political people like the Selwyns. That’s what you said.”
            “Yes.”
            “But if I lose it? And I still might. Krum and Delacour are both older and more skilled than I am.”
            Draco rolled his eyes. “The only part of that sentence that’s true is when you say they’re older. You have a basilisk, Harry. And even though he hasn’t been with you in the actual Tasks, I know he’s been talking to you about the Parseltongue magic you used. It’s silly to pretend that doesn’t make a difference.”
            Harry frowned at the books. “But that makes it worse. Because the Tournament is supposed to test your skill in magic. So I shouldn’t try to win at all, because it’s unfair of me to win when it’s not skill at magic.”
            Silence. Harry actually looked up to see if Draco had left, because it wasn’t like him to be so quiet when Harry talked about fair play.
            Instead, Draco was wobbling in place, clutching at the table, seemingly, to keep from falling to the floor. Then he whispered, “Harry, you—you don’t mean that? You don’t think Parseltongue and spells that use it are magic?”
            Harry sighed. Once again, Draco had taken the exact wrong thing from his words. Sometimes he wondered how he and Draco could get along as friends—or boyfriends—at all, they were so different from each other.
            Dash stirred, and laid his clear eyelids against Harry’s arm. You know, if someone keeps mistaking what you mean, then maybe you should start thinking about whether they’re thick, or whether you’re not speaking clearly.
            Draco sat down hard, meanwhile. “You do think of Parseltongue and your connection with Dash as magic, right? Because it’s some of the best magic. You’re not going to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist?”
            “Why does that matter so much?” Because it really did sound as if Draco might expire right then and there.
            “Because—I can’t see—you can’t see—”
            Draco broke off again. Harry waited, because he could see how important this was to Draco, but at the same time, he had no idea what he wanted to say.
*
            How can I tell him? These are all sorts of things that he should know already, and he doesn’t know them!
            But Draco also knew he couldn’t sit Harry down and make him read a history book, either. So he finally said, “Look. I want you to think of Parseltongue as magic because I think it’s wonderful. So I don’t want you to hold back and do things that undermine your credibility because of it. And you’re relying on it politically, so you need to think of it as something real and worth cultivating, or your allies would abandon you.”
            Harry raised his eyebrows. “Not winning the Triwizard Tournament doesn’t magically make me not a Parselmouth, Draco. I’ll go on being one no matter how many Tasks I lose.”
            “I know, but—” Draco shook his head again and blurted the first words that came into his head, because trying to think of the best ones didn’t work. “If you don’t treat your magic with respect, then other people are going to be able to tell, and they’ll turn against you. And I think it would be horrible, because you might treat Dash with less respect, too.”
            Silence. Harry looked down at Dash and had one of those conversations Draco wished he could listen in on. Then he looked back up and asked simply, “Would I do that to Dash?”
            “You might do it without meaning to.” Draco was feeling a little sorry that he’d started the subject now, but he didn’t like hearing Harry talk about himself as if he wasn’t as good a wizard as Delacour and Krum just because he was younger. “Look, Harry. I just want you to say that you’re skilled in magic.”
            “I’m skilled in magic.”
            “And believe it.”
            “Not compared to Krum and Delacour, I’m not. They’ve got three years of training on me.”
            “But it’s not just training that makes a great wizard,” Draco pointed out instantly. “It’s attitude. It’s respecting magic. It’s treating it like part of you. And sometimes you do that and sometimes you don’t. What you did with the dragon was brave and risky, and what you did with the Parseltongue spell in the lake was complicated and interesting. And I deserve to get some acknowledgment from you because I didn’t get what I wanted most!”
            “What was that?”
            Harry’s voice had gone a little lower, but Draco thought that was only because Madam Pince might be listening to them, not because he was thinking of the same thing as Draco. So Draco glared back and said, “A kiss. Since I took the risk after all to make sure that you would win.”
            “I didn’t really want you to do that, Draco,” Harry complained. But Dash’s head appeared under his elbow and swayed back and forth in a happy way, so Draco knew he had at least one person’s approval.
            “I know. But it’s done. And it put you ahead. And I deserve to get something of what I wanted, don’t I? Since you don’t appreciate the risk I took.”
            Harry’s eyebrows went up, and stayed there. Draco felt as though his face was red for no reason. He’d taken another risk and Harry still didn’t want to kiss him, so why continue pursuing it?
            Then Harry smiled. “That seems fair,” he said. “But I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want to, too.” And he leaned across the table and kissed Draco.
            Draco gasped aloud, feeling as though someone had suddenly submerged him chest-deep in warm champagne. There were so many bubbles, and they seemed to be all blowing up his nose. He leaned forwards and kissed Harry back, ignoring the gasp and thump off to the side as someone dropped a book.
            Harry didn’t seem to care about the book-dropping person any more than Draco did. He pulled back first, but only because Madam Pince had come over to their table and stood there with her hands on her hips, looking at them.
            Then Harry was the one who talked, because Draco’s head was still whirling too fast, and he had to take a minute to recover. “Sorry, Madam Pince. But we weren’t making any noise.”
            “You’re the cause of disruption in others,” she said severely. “See that you don’t do it again in my library.”
            “Yes, Madam,” said Harry, in a submissive voice Draco had never heard him use. He must keep it for special occasions.
            The librarian sniffed and finally departed. Harry turned to Draco and smiled at him. Draco just looked back, his capacity to answer destroyed by that smile.
            “You can always ask for a kiss if you want one,” Harry said. “You don’t have to do something risky and then wait for it.” He eyed Draco severely. “I believe that’s more my line than yours, anyway.”
            “Neither of us should be mindlessly risking our lives,” Draco said, and saw Dash’s head bob firmly up and down out of the corner of his eye. It gave him the confidence to lean forwards with his arms crossed and frown at Harry. “You should ask for what you want as much as I do.”
            “But what if I want is to save people?”
            “Then you can come to me and Professor Snape, and we can help you work it out.”
            Harry smiled in a way that looked forced. “I don’t think Professor Snape cares for some of the people I want to save.”
            “Who?” Draco asked, baffled. He thought Professor Snape would do anything to make Harry happy.
            Harry considered the shelves, the books on the table in front of them, Dash’s plume, before he looked back at Draco and murmured, “Sirius.”
            “You can’t save him, that’s all. Not because Snape wouldn’t allow it, but because he just can’t be saved.”
            “He could if he was healed.”
            “And how are you going to heal him?”
            Harry glanced around again, but seemed to notice only the scandalized looks of the people at the other tables who had seen him kiss Draco, because he leaned towards Draco and murmured, “Not here. Let’s go somewhere else.”
            Draco was more than happy to do that, not least because everyone had just seen him kiss Harry Potter and now they were going somewhere more private. They were welcome to draw al the conclusions they liked, most correct. He slung the books and parchment he’d been working on into his arms and followed Harry out of the library.
            One of the Hufflepuffs who’d been gaping at them from a nearby table did start to stand up and follow them. Dash slithered out from between Harry’s feet and crawled inquiringly back, tilting his head as if to ask the boy a question. The Hufflepuff wavered, then backed down and scampered to the safety of others’ company.
            “You shouldn’t have done that, Dash,” Harry murmured reprovingly.
            Draco couldn’t hear Dash’s response, of course, but he thought he knew what it would be, and the way Harry rolled his eyes a little later only made the point more firmly. Why would I do something else? Dash would have said. He was coming after you, and I was only going to help him out by asking what he wanted.
            “Here,” Harry said, when they’d walked a little, and sat down in a deep alcove in front of a window, which had a bench in the stone. Harry plopped his books beside him and shook his head a little at Draco. “You’ll have to believe that I don’t want to turn my back on Sirius. I know I can’t go back to him the way he is now. And what he said after the Second Task proved it.”
            “Okay,” Draco said, suspicious. This sounded like exactly what he wanted to hear, and yet it also seemed to be crawling towards an answer he didn’t want.
            “He needs help,” Harry went on, staring towards the corridor. A second later, he drew his wand, but Draco already had his out, and he cast an Anti-Eavesdropping Charm that shielded them from being overheard. Harry smiled at him, but the smile faded a second later. “He’ll never get better if everyone just ignores him.”
            “My mother is helping him. She’s a good person for doing that,” Draco said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to.”
            “I suppose I didn’t tell you. A Light family from the Continent has written saying they’d offer me some help, in the form of a Mind-Healer. If they send a Healer for Sirius, and it helps him…”
            “Why would they do that?”
            “Because they think they’re descended from Godric Gryffindor, and they’re ashamed that someone who was in charge of Hogwarts the way Dumbledore was did what he did to me.”
            Draco blinked. He could see the chain of reasoning there, he supposed, although it was one that only a Light family full of Gryffindors would make. And more responsible than he was used to Light families being. Draco had been taught all his life that people who explicitly called themselves Light liked to dust their hands of criminals and anyone who didn’t exactly obey all the neat little rules, and watch from a distance as they died.
            “But they should hate you. Because of your Parseltongue.”
            Harry snorted. “You were the one who was trying to convince me a little while ago that my Parseltongue was wonderful magic. Do you think I would use it if I thought it was inherently Dark?”
            “Well.” Draco had to hesitate again. “I more meant that you’re in politics as a reincarnation of Salazar Slytherin. If they think of themselves as the children of Godric Gryffindor…”
            “It’s just shaking your whole world, isn’t it?” Harry broke in, smiling up at him. “You didn’t think people who call themselves Light and on the side of Gryffindor would be this nice.”
            Draco scowled a little. “And I think you ought to keep in mind that they might hold you to standards of behavior you can’t follow, or even demand that you abandon your allies like the Selwyns, if you listen to them too much.”
            Harry only shrugged as if that didn’t matter. “So far they haven’t. And if the only help they offer is a Mind-Healer for Sirius anyway, they can’t demand I abandon my allies. They’ll be doing this one thing and then withdrawing. They might do that anyway, after they get here and meet me.”
            “What does that mean?”
            Draco knew his voice was aggressive. From the way Harry blinked at him, he found it so. But he said in a mild tone, “It means that they might come to meet me and decide I’m too Dark for them to help further. That’s one reason I’m asking for the Mind-Healer for Sirius. He’s someone who was a Gryffindor in a traditionally Dark family. They’re going to want to help him no matter what they think of me.”
            “You’re not evil. You deserve to have someone help you.”
            “I know.”
            Dash lifted his head and nudged Harry’s hip so hard that he almost knocked him off the bench. Harry recovered his balance and scowled at Dash. Draco folded his arms. “What part of what I said do you disagree with?”
            “I know I’m not evil!” Harry’s eyes flashed so passionately that Draco caught his breath for a different reason. “The Dursleys tried to convince me of that. And I’m never going to listen to anything they say, ever again.”
            “Good.” Draco smiled. “But what about the other part? Do you think the—it must be the Lughborns, right?” His knowledge of Light families and Dark families and the alliances between them that his parents had insisted on was coming in useful after all. “Do you think they would turn around and leave again when they find out what you’re like?”
            Harry grimaced. “Professor Snape thinks I need a Mind-Healer. I say that we’re only guaranteed one, and Sirius needs it more than I do.”
            “You really do think they’re going to disapprove of you.”
            “Well, it’s like you said. Even though I don’t think there’s anything Dark about Parseltongue, plenty of people do. You saw the way everyone reacted in second year when I used it in the dueling club.”
            “I wish you could stop thinking that way. And if they do, so what?” Draco sat slowly down next to him. “You’re the one who has to make the decisions, but you’ll still have plenty of allies even if the Lughborns decide that you’re Dark.”
            “And the ordinary students in the school?”
            “They got used to Dash. They’ll get used to you, no matter what you do.”
            Harry was silent for long moments, staring at the stone floor under his feet as if it would crack open and give him answers. Then he shook his head and looked up.
            “I want Sirius to be healed more than I want to be healed,” he said. “Can you understand that? Can you tell Snape? Because no matter what I say, I don’t think he really understands. And it’s getting tiring.”
            Draco’s chest ached as though his breath was caught there at the dead tone in Harry’s voice. He nodded and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. Harry sighed and leaned against him in response. His eyes were slipping closed. Draco touched his hair and hoped no one happened by just now. This was a private moment he didn’t want to share.
            “How hard has he been riding you about getting a Mind-Healer, then?” Draco whispered.
            “Pretty hard. And worse with his silences than his words. I talk about Sirius being healed, and he just looks at me and shakes his head. And I talk about how I want other people healed before me, and he frowns in that way—well, you know.”
            “Like he wants to say something bad about your potion but it’s so horrible that mere insults aren’t enough.”
            Draco felt Harry smile wearily against his shoulder. “Exactly. That sort of smile.
            “And I know he hates Sirius,” Harry added a few minutes later. “I know why. He probably hates him even more now than he used to, because he’s the one who hurt me, too, and Snape cares about me now.”
            Draco agreed silently with him. Yes, it would be in-character for Professor Snape to hate anyone who had hurt what he cared for.
            “But I don’t want to—to go through this again. I can’t. I want Sirius to be healed, and until then I don’t want to see him and I don’t want Snape to talk about him as though he’s a real dog who pissed on the carpet. I want everything to go away.”
            “I’ll talk to Professor Snape,” Draco whispered back, and felt as though Harry had slumped close to sleep in his lap.
            “Thank you.”
            Harry was quiet then, and Draco stroked his hair with gentle fingers. It bothered him, that Professor Snape had been so insistent about this issue with Harry, and Draco hadn’t noticed. Of course, there’d been the Second Task and his own beliefs about how important the missed kiss was, and he hadn’t known the Lughborns had sent a letter at all until today.
            He finally felt eyes on him, and looked up. Dash nodded to him once, and then curled himself around Harry’s legs and went to sleep.
            Maybe Dash wanted to say something about it earlier, but he can’t talk directly to Professor Snape, and Harry didn’t want to talk about his reasons, so this works out.
            Draco did have to smile with wonder, though. At one time, he would have felt that Dash’s attention was an even better gift than Harry’s. Now he hadn’t felt it at all in contrast to how worried he was about Harry.
*
            Blaise sprinkled in the last crushed cinders and took a step back, eyeing the cauldron dubiously. It needed to simmer for a week, although he would have to come back on a regular basis to check the potion and make sure no contaminating matter had got in it.
            As he went about covering up the cauldron to prevent dust and other particles like that from drifting into it, Blaise shook his head. He hadn’t heard from his “friend” since before Potter’s performance in the Second Task.
            And he didn’t like the way that Task had affected Slytherin.
            Before, a lot of the people not allied with Potter had watched him with cynical eyes. Blaise knew most of them had suspected him of still putting his name in the Goblet even though a lot of the controversy had died down. They’d only raised their eyebrows when the news of Dumbledore doing it had come out. Potter could say that, and of course he would, but it was convenient, wasn’t it? Now that the Headmaster wasn’t here to defend himself anymore.
            The First Task hadn’t changed things. Potter had taken an insane risk even if he was using Parseltongue. Just like a Gryffindor. Just like the kind of person who would decide he should be in the Tournament even though he was only fourteen in the first place.
            But then came the Second Task. Potter had not only used Parseltongue and a carefully-researched spell; he’d cast a spell that most of the Slytherins Blaise knew would have loved to cast themselves. He was far from a hero, but he began to look more practical.
            And reports were filtering in that seemed to confirm what Dumbledore had really done while he was disguised as Moody. Some Slytherins believed Potter now. More of them discussed, in coded, casual terms Blaise understood well enough, the possibility of an alliance with him.
            There was the way Draco had gone to the Headmistress’s office in the middle of the night, too, only to end up beneath the lake. The Draco Malfoy Blaise had known wouldn’t have taken such a risk for anyone.
            Potter changed people. He changed them so they weren’t really Slytherins anymore. Draco was like some bizarre cross between a Hufflepuff and a Gryffindor now. The Slytherins around Blaise might as well be Ravenclaws.
            All the years when they’d joked about people just allying with Potter because of his name might never have existed. They were gone. And Blaise was left to deal with the aftermath, as the only sane Slytherin he knew, unless his “friend” was also one.
            The potion gave a final blast of steam. Blaise backed carefully away from it and cast the spell that he’d found, just in case, to clear his lungs of fumes.
            When he’d shut the door behind him and gone part of the way back to the common room, he heard whistling. Blaise at once backed into a corner and cast a Disillusionment Charm.
            Draco moved past him. Blaise couldn’t say he was skipping, but he looked too close to it for Blaise’s peace of mind. And he was whistling. And he didn’t seem to be under a curse.
            Draco never even glanced around to see if someone else was there, when the boy Blaise had once known was as cautious as a cat. He just kept walking, and whistling, on his way to the common room. Blaise waited long moments before he slid out of the corner where he’d ducked and went after him.
            His chest was heavy. He shook his head to clear it, and then paused and breathed deeply, evenly, so he wouldn’t seem out of sorts when he arrived at the common room door.
            Yes, he was mostly doing this for himself. Potter had too much power, and too much “compassion” for revealing cases of abuse like Parkinson’s. He might reveal Blaise’s any time, and there went his life.
            But he was doing this for his friends, too. For the sake of Slytherins who might be too scared of the Dark Lord and too awed by the only other Parselmouth most of them knew of to remember common sense.
            For the sake of the boy Blaise had rescued from Slytherin’s cursed book last year, he had to kill Potter’s basilisk. It was the only way.
*
Jester: Thank you!
SP777: Thank you! I am sad about Alan Rickman dying, but I always thought of Snape as a separate character from him, so no surreality.
Sirius could have stayed away, yes, but he was too hurt to do so.
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A Brother to Basilisks