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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 Eighty—Shadow of the Horcrux

            “Harry. I found one.”

            Draco’s voice was so soft that Harry would have missed it if he wasn’t sitting right next to him. He blinked and looked up from the book in front of him, which had some interesting theories about Parselmouths but nothing on how they might pass powers to each other if one of them made someone else into a Horcrux.

            Ron and Hermione weren’t with them, but revising for Potions. Thanks to Draco and, probably, Professor Snape, Harry had to admit he understood them a lot better now.

            “A book on Horcruxes?” Harry whispered, leaning across to Draco. At least most people were used to seeing them sitting together and reading now. Dash, curled around the legs of his chair and Draco’s and hugely asleep in the middle of the library, was another good reason for people to keep their distance.

            “No, a chapter. But it’s more than we had before.” Draco flicked to the table of contents so Harry could see it said “The Darkest Magic of Immortality.”

            Harry nodded, his breathing so fast that Dash gave him an idle threat about curling around him and giving him something to be really breathless about. Harry made sure to close his eyes and meditate for a minute, the way he did when Snape was teaching him Occlumency, before he leaned down and started reading the chapter.

            Immortality is not easy to attain, for any wizard who grows up in time or out of it. But the method of binding one’s soul to an object has advantages over other methods, assuming that object can be kept safe. Even death cannot steal the spirit from the world. The wizard’s spirit has a place to retreat to: inside the object. The shard of his soul that he binds to it will always be subordinate to him and unable to give him trouble. He may resurrect himself with the help of alchemy, blood magic, or Darker Arts still.

            This object is called a HORCRUX.

            Then the book went on to talk about a potion that seemed to be the first step in creating a Horcrux. Harry shuddered and skipped over that, Draco obligingly turning pages even though Harry could have turned them himself, looking for some information that would tell him about living ones.

            But there was no information like that. The book talked about objects of metal, wood, bone—for a second Harry was hopeful, but it became obvious that the book meant skeletons that people had in their labs—leather, feathers, and fur, with a warning that feathers, fur, and leather were all vulnerable to natural decay unless treated.

            And then Harry saw it, squeezed in towards the bottom of the page, and overlapping onto other pages, as if it was a note made by someone who had read the book, instead of whoever had written it.

            Certain experimenters have suggested the potential of living Horcruxes, dreaming of objects that could defend themselves and take themselves out of danger. Living Horcruxes are not recommended. The spirit of the being, unless already enslaved to the creator, would battle back against the Horcrux and keep the shard from settling, and it would certainly battle if the creator died and his spirit came looking for its sanctuary. It might even win, as the body it has grown with is its “natural” home, not a vacant place for another spirit to find strength in. Living Horcruxes are also subject to the same processes of decay mentioned for Horcruxes made of once-living material. For this and other reasons, the creation of living Horcruxes remains a speculator’s dream.

            Harry leaned back, a little shaken. He had to believe Voldemort knew that, and yet here Harry was anyway.

            “Do you think he’s planning to enslave me?” he whispered. “So my spirit can’t battle back against him if he tries to take me over?”

            “I think we don’t understand enough yet,” said Draco firmly. “We haven’t read the rest of the chapter. We need to do that first.”

            “I don’t want to know how to make one.”

            Draco paused, then nodded. “So I’ll read it, and that way, you don’t have to.”

            Harry felt nerves fluttering in his stomach as he stared at Draco. Draco looked a little distracted, but calm, as if he didn’t realize how big this was, how important it was to Harry that he’d agreed to read the book.

            “You don’t have to do that,” Harry whispered.

            “Well, someone has to, and you don’t want to. So?” Draco paused and waited for a second as though he expected Harry to come up with another, miraculous solution, and then nodded. “So I will.”

            “Thank you,” Harry said, even as the center of his chest writhed with guilt. He was running away from the problem and letting Draco do something for him that he shouldn’t. It was horrible, right? He was a coward, wasn’t he?

            No, you are finally letting someone else take a blow that they want to take for you. Dash yawned long and hard and coiled up around the side of his chair, resting his chin on Harry’s shoulder as he eyed the book on Horcruxes with interest. I think you’ve stopped everyone else who wanted to do that from doing it, even me. You probably would have prevented your mother from standing in front of you and sacrificing her life to save you if you were old enough when she died.

            I just don’t like other people making sacrifices for me.

            But when it comes to you being the one who makes the sacrifices, that is perfectly fine, of course. Dash couldn’t really roll his eyes, but Harry saw the tumble of the yellow glow behind the clear lids in a way that was similar.

            Harry turned back to Draco, since he didn’t want to continue this argument, and repeated, “Thank you. If there’s anything I can do, then let me know.”

            “There’s a little reward I’d like, if you’d give it to me.”

            From the way Draco was blushing, Harry thought he knew what that reward would be, but he grinned anyway and played ignorant. “Oh? What is it?”

            “A kiss,” Draco said, and then turned an even deeper red and looked around as though he thought someone would be spying on them to figure out what he was saying.

            “That’s acceptable,” Harry replied, and then leaned towards him. Draco’s eyes were so bright with hope and happiness, though, that Harry had to pause and add, “You know you can ask me any time? I mean, I’m not doing this just because you’re looking up the Horcrux process for me. I’m doing it because you asked.”

            The widening of Draco’s eyes and the way he breathed in as if he needed all the air in the room told Harry more than he’d known about Draco’s feelings for him. He leaned in and kissed Draco on the lips, with Draco’s hands suddenly gripping his cheeks hard enough that Harry’s jaw ached. But he was far more interested in the way Draco’s lips parted in front of him and Harry could gently push in his tongue and touch Draco’s.

            Draco actually flinched as if he’d been burned for a second, but then he leaned in closer, and Harry wrapped his arms around him and ignored the chuckles and gasps he could hear from some of the other students. When they did what Draco was doing, then they’d deserve kisses in the library, too.

            From someone other than me, though, Harry thought as he pulled back and carefully watched the dazed way Draco licked his lips, to commit it to memory. Because I’ve only got one person I ever want to kiss.

            It’s just a good thing I like him, too, Dash said unexpectedly. Because he wouldn’t get far with you if I didn’t.

            Harry rolled his eyes. You sound like Snape threatening not to let me visit Sirius.

            Yes, but I can be a lot more annoying than your Snape ever dreamed of being.

*

            Draco kept touching his lips in the next few hours, even after Harry had gone to class and Draco had finished reading about Horcruxes and put the book back. The information he’d learned sickened him. The process of brewing the potion was bad enough, but the murder, and the spell you needed to prepare beforehand, and the horrible state of mind you needed to induce in yourself…

            But everything paled when he remembered Harry’s kiss, Harry’s smile.

            Maybe he was ridiculous for caring so much about what he felt when Harry was with him. But on the other hand, Draco no longer thought he was going to suffer for it. Dash accepted him. Harry accepted him. What Harry wanted was what he wanted.

            To keep Harry safe and alive and get the Horcrux out of him somehow were the first priorities.

            But Draco was confused about something, and so he knocked on Professor Snape’s door during a time when he knew Harry would be at dinner. The professor opened it and looked at him without expression, then nodded and stepped back.

            “You were expecting me?” Draco asked as he went in. That rattled him a little. He hadn’t felt Professor Snape making eye contact with him today, and Legilimency was supposed to need that.

            “Harry told me about what you found, but also that you agreed to spare him the trouble of reading it. I thought you would probably discuss it with me.” Snape’s eyes traveled up Draco and down again, with a level of scrutiny Draco didn’t think even Father could have equaled. “You look less disturbed than I’d thought you would.”

            Draco grimaced. “It was foul stuff. But I did find one thing that made me think Harry might not be a Horcrux.”

            A moment later, he winced again. Being the focus of that much of Professor Snape’s attention was almost more painful than unnerving. Draco didn’t know how Longbottom stood it every class.

            “Tell me,” said Professor Snape, pulling a chair up immediately and hovering until Draco sat in it.

            “It’s a pretty deliberate process. You have to choose a victim to kill to split your soul, and an object to bind the soul to, and you have to brew a potion, and you have to cast specific spells…” Draco shook his head. “I just don’t see how Harry could be an accidental Horcrux. I know the Dark Lord didn’t have all those rituals and potions and spells performed before he went after Harry, and they never found an object that he could have turned into one, did they?”

            “No,” Professor Snape said absently, slowly pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. “I was not part of the investigation into the Potters’ home—no one in their right mind would have let a known Death Eater be part of it—but I kept track of all the information that came out of it. Those newspaper articles I couldn’t read at the time, I tracked down and read later, and I interviewed many of the Aurors who had been part of the main investigation.” He seemed to catch Draco’s incredulous glance, because he gave him a thin smile. “Most of those Aurors do not remember talking to me, of course.”

            “Of course,” Draco said, comforted again as he remembered how ruthless Professor Snape was. It meant Draco didn’t have to worry as much about Harry, if he had someone watching over him who would do more than kill to protect him. “But you didn’t hear about them finding any object there.”

            “No. Nothing that was not identified in some way as belonging to the Potter family. The Dark Lord seems to have brought nothing with him but his wand.” Professor Snape was thinking deeply now. “But there also seems to be no explanation for the link between Harry and the Dark Lord unless a Horcrux exists.”

            “Well, maybe it’s something like a Horcrux,” Draco said. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered why no one else had thought that.

            Of course, Black had been getting his information from Dumbledore, and Draco didn’t think he was capable of asserting that the sky was blue, if Dumbledore told him it wasn’t. And Professor Snape and Harry and his friends had gone off that information, which they’d fought hard enough to get.

            Draco even had to wonder if he was the one that was wrong, because his mouth was filled with the sticky, metallic taste of reading about what you had to do to create a Horcrux, and it was horrible enough to make him want to throw up. He could be desperate. He could be wrong.

            “That might be possible.” Professor Snape had stopped pacing and looked at Draco with a frown on his face. “Of course, then we face the same problem of identification that plagued Black.”

            “Is there any way you can question the Horcrux? I mean, there’s something in Harry that’s alive and can hurt him,” Draco went on quickly, because now Professor Snape’s frown was trained on him and everyone in Slytherin House knew that was one of the worst things that could happen to you. “So you might be able to talk to it.”

            “I do not think it conscious. A rope that ties two people together certainly exists, but it cannot be questioned.”

            “Well, ask Dash if he can talk to it. You know he wouldn’t do anything to hurt Harry.”

            “I could interrogate the Horcrux with Legilimency, if such a thing were possible,” said Professor Snape harshly. “But all the books agree that the Horcrux is not sentient, even if it has defenses that make it seem as if it is. It would be a waste of time to try and question it.”

            “Not if it’s not a Horcrux.”

            Professor Snape looked at him with a slightly open mouth. Draco sat up and tried to pretend that was a good thing, the kind of thing he’d wanted all along. Maybe it was. An open mouth might be a sign that he’d impressed the professor.

            And he didn’t get a scolding. Instead, Snape looked thoughtful. “I will at least speak to Dash on the matter,” he said.

            “Good. Make sure you tell him who came up with the idea.”

            “You care more about impressing the basilisk than you should,” said Professor Snape, though in the absent tone that proved his mind was elsewhere. Draco was used to that tone. He’d heard it too often from his parents. “You should tell Harry, if anything. He is the one you want to impress and the one whose mind Dash would be delving into.”

            Draco just nodded meekly and left when Professor Snape said he could. But as he walked towards the common room, he snorted a little.

            Does he listen to himself? Doesn’t he understand that Dash is the one who knows Harry’s mind better than Harry himself does sometimes? And I wouldn’t be Harry’s boyfriend if Dash didn’t approve of me.

*

            Harry shivered as he opened his eyes. Before he could even reach out, though, Dash was there, gliding softly along his arm and shoulder and up to his hair. Dash stuck out his tongue when he got into position and tickled Harry’s ear. Harry rolled over and put his arm around Dash.

            I know you had a nightmare, but I only got a few images from it.

            Harry managed a weak snort. Professor Snape would have asked him if he wanted to talk. Dash just left the implication there and expected Harry to fill in the gaps. But it was a good way of getting what he wanted, Harry had to admit.

            Harry propped himself up on one elbow and cast a Lumos. It reflected in the transparent mirrors of Dash’s eyelids, which looked at him patiently.

            I dreamed I was in a house that had a chair in front of a fire, Harry began, after making sure he was remembering the dream right. The snake you fought—Nagini—was curled up in front of the fire. At first I thought she was alone, but then I realized there was something in the chair.

            Something?

            It was Voldemort, but he didn’t look the way he did in the other dream. He didn’t really have a body. He was—small, like a baby. Harry shuddered and buried his face against Dash’s scales. He was muttering something about the end of the year, and the necessity to feed the snake. I don’t know what that means.

            Dash was quiet for long moments, bringing up more and more of his body to wrap against Harry. Harry leaned on him. He didn’t feel in danger from Voldemort right now, not with Dash protecting him, but on the other hand, the dream slithered across his mind and left a trail of slime.

            More like a slug than a snake.

            Harry realized a second later that the thought was Dash’s, not his, and smiled shakily. “Right,” he whispered aloud, keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t wake Ron and the others up. “Dash, what was that? I don’t know why he would try to trap me with an image like that. Unless he was trying to trap me into not waking up or something.”

            I don’t think it was a trap. I think it was a true vision. The link between you must sometimes provide true information. Perhaps he was not keeping a guard on it.

            “But there’s no way that I could have visions if I wasn’t linked to him. Why would he let me see into his mind?”

            I told you, I don’t think he let you. I think this happened without him being aware of it. And if you are too agitated over it, then you might alert him to its having happened and invite him to slam the shields shut.

            Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, trying to breathe himself calm again. You sound just like Professor Snape. He’s always saying that when I practice Occlumency, I can’t show too much emotion or feel too strongly or do all these other things that I just do on my own, without thinking of it.

            Dash nudged him gently and then wound around Harry’s hand and pulled it down from his forehead. You’ve already improved at Occlumency and trusting people since you began the lessons with him. Trust us to guard you, Harry. I say that it was probably a glimpse without Voldemort being aware of it. Treat it that way for now, until you get some proof otherwise.

            Harry nodded slowly and leaned back, closing his eyes. He could think of it that way, if he concentrated enough on it.

            And when he called back the images of the dream and let them hover in his mind as images, instead of trying to describe them in words, then he could feel Dash winding among them, and picking out information that Harry wouldn’t have been able to see on his own.

            I don’t think he has a real body. Not the kind his spirit is supposed to be able to form if it goes back to a Horcrux. He formed this body from a baby.

            Harry shuddered and wrapped his arms even harder around Dash. You think he killed a baby?

            Maybe. But look at his arms. Harry did, even though he didn’t particularly want to, and saw how short and stubby they were. He couldn’t have done that on his own. And he didn’t build that fire on his own, or open the doors into the house. He has someone with him, someone who has a normal body.

            You think one of the Death Eaters is helping him?

            It has to be. Who would stay with someone that ugly and foul unless they were blindly loyal?

            Harry nodded slowly. And then Dash hissed in satisfaction, and showed him the footprints pressed into the carpet and filled in with ash. They were part of the vision, but Harry had missed them entirely when he first started seeing it.

            There is an adult human with him. Harry had to grin at the way Dash spoke the word “human,” Most people wouldn’t have added it. Someone fairly thin, however. The footprints are not pressed that deeply into the carpet.

            Oh, come on. You can tell that from a vision? And who taught you to read footprints?

            Dash flicked his tongue out and licked Harry’s ear, which might have been a reward or a punishment. I learned all I need to learn from hunting my prey, which often leaves footprints. I know how to tell the difference between a light creature and a heavy one. Now. Think. Few adult humans would be that skinny unless they had no choice.

            Well, yes, Harry said, trying to overcome the uncomfortable impression that Dash considered him some sort of expert on human starvation, but he can’t exactly go out and just buy food, can he? He’s probably a fugitive Death Eater on the run. And he has—that thing tagging along with him. Not to mention a snake.

            That was what I wanted you to think about, Dash said approvingly. Yes, a fugitive Death Eater. Although someone who was that desperate might cast the Imperius Curse on someone else without paying attention to legalities. So. Perhaps someone who has been desperate for a long time? Someone who has been searching for Voldemort and not finding him?

            Harry hesitated, unsure. Despite his lessons with Snape and the stories Sirius had told him, he didn’t know all that much about most Death Eaters. Snape had taught him battle tactics that would work against anyone, and Sirius had mostly talked about the ones he battled during the first war, who were mostly dead now or locked up in Azkaban—

            Azkaban. That’s it. Think of how thin the smelly dog-man was when he first got out. This is likely an Azkaban escapee.

            But then wouldn’t we have heard about it? They didn’t keep Sirius’s escape a secret.

            Dash coiled himself around on the bed in a sort of curlicue. Maybe they’ve decided to keep it secret this time because there was so much bad publicity last time. Or maybe the escape wasn’t recent.

            Harry had to shake his head after thinking a bit, though. He couldn’t put the clues together in the way he thought Dash wanted him to, or in combination with any of the stories that Sirius had told him. I don’t know who it could be.

            That’s okay, Dash said suddenly, cheerfully. I didn’t expect you to divine who it was from those few clues.

            Then why question me about it like that?

            I wanted you to think, said Dash. And you did. Now we can go to sleep. And he curled himself up beside Harry with a happy little huff, the yellow glow behind his eyes rapidly dimming.

            Harry stared at him in disbelief. Dash lay there. Nothing, not even a flicker, responded in his mind when Harry tentatively reached down the bond.

            Harry ended up snorting and casting himself down on the bed. “Fine,” he said aloud. “As long as I think.”

            Dash stuck his tongue out a bit. But there was still no one there when Harry reached for his thoughts.

            A little huffy, Harry shut his eyes and lay stewing in his resentment for a shorter time than he’d expected before he fell asleep again.

*

            SP777: She would only agree if you specified that you meant ‘not bad at spells.’ ;)

            Lou: Thank you so much!

            Jester: Yes, he is.
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A Brother to Basilisks