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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.

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Chapter Eighty-One—Looking Down the Link

            “It’s worth a try.”

            Severus relaxed. He hadn’t been aware, until Harry thought through what Draco had proposed and agreed, how tense he was. He tried to cover it by moving to stir up the fire in his quarters, but he thought Dash, at least, knew, from the wise way he turned his head.

            And what Dash knew, Harry knew.

            For the moment, though, Harry seemed content to let Severus have his dignity. He turned to Draco and smiled at him, and Draco preened and puffed up at once. But Granger frowned a little.

            “Is it going to be dangerous for Dash, looking down the link?” she asked, and turned to Severus in a way that he could only be glad of. At least some students would consult him before they consulted the bloody basilisk. “What happens if V-Voldemort senses him?”

            Severus started before he could help it, and Draco did the same thing. Luckily, though, Severus spoke before Draco could. He could only imagine what ‘advice’ Draco would have for Granger. “The Dark Lord is already aware of Dash and at least some of what he can do from the previous time that Dash tried to poison him. And although the Dark Lord is at least aware of the link, I do not believe he can truly understand its nature.”

            “Why not, Professor?” Granger asked with big eyes.

            Because there is no way that he would have left Harry free of slavery or capture for this long if he thought Harry was actually a Horcrux.

            But just as some students saw no reason to appeal to Dash first instead of him, Severus saw no reason to explain every nuance of his reasoning to Granger when it would only upset her. He said, “Because no link like this has ever existed before. And even if Draco is right, Dash simply peering down the link will not tell the Dark Lord what is wrong.”

            “I wish you wouldn’t call him the Dark Lord,” Weasley muttered, in a voice he obviously intended to remain unheard. He called Severus at least “sir” when he intended to be heard.

            Severus took great delight in turning slowly towards Weasley, like the basilisk himself sensing a rodent, and saying, “I didn’t hear the contribution you were so generous as to make, Mr. Weasley. What was that?”

            Weasley turned as red as a ruined Calming Draught, but lifted his eyes to Severus’s face and said, “Well, I mean, the Dark Lord is the name Death Eaters use for him, isn’t it? You could at least call him You-Know-Who.”

            I sometimes forget that he would have Gryffindor bravery. Of course, compared to the mad recklessness of his twin brothers and Harry alike, that would be an easy thing to forget, Severus thought. “Perhaps I could,” he said, “if I did not agree with Albus that such a name encourages people to dismiss him too easily.”

            Weasley’s brow furrowed. “But it makes it sound like you respect him when you call him a Lord. Sir,” he added quickly, when Severus looked him, unblinking, in the eye.

            “Forgiven,” Severus decided, after a moment in which Weasley seemed to be holding his breath. “But I do have respect for him—cautious respect for what his power can achieve. I would rather have the wrong kind of respect than dismiss him too easily,” he added, as Weasley seemed to be opening his mouth to argue again.

            Weasley shut it. Draco was the one who spoke up this time. “So is Dash going to look at the link between Harry and the Dark Lord, or not?”

            Harry and Dash spoke silently for a moment, or at least Severus had learned the stillness of their bodies meant that, and then Dash turned and wreathed himself carefully around Harry’s sitting form. Harry nodded as if he thought all of them needed reassurance, and Dash leaned his chin on Harry’s shoulder. The yellow light behind his clear eyelids seemed to grow thicker and stronger than before.

            “Dash doesn’t know exactly what’s going to happen,” said Harry, in a voice that already seemed to echo eerily, perhaps from the wrong end of the bond. “So he wants you to have charms ready just in case I fall out of my chair or something.”

            Severus felt his lip curl. Does the basilisk think I would be so remiss in protecting my ward? But he did draw his wand and conjure a large cushion on the floor around Harry’s chair even before Granger could do it.

            “Thanks,” said Harry, while Dash moved his tail in a small acknowledgement that might have meant the same thing. Then he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. Dash moved even closer, and one loose coil of his body tightened around Harry’s arms and back.

            Severus became aware that he was holding his own breath, and relaxed with a long sigh. He could not remain tense all through an investigation that was likely to take a long time. He leaned back against the wall and summoned a house-elf to prepare tea.

            He noticed Granger watching him steadily when he did that. “Is something wrong, Miss Granger?” he asked, after the elf had the orders and had vanished from the Floo again.

            “I just wondered if house-elves actually liked being slaves, Professor. Harry’s friend Dobby didn’t.”

            “Dobby was just a weird elf, though.”

            Draco would put it that way, Severus thought, and rolled his eyes a little as Draco and Granger settled into a spirited debate. Well, perhaps he should be grateful for that. In the end, the argument distracted even Weasley from watching Harry and wondering what was going to happen next. Weasley seemed torn between not wanting to agree with Draco and wanting to tell Granger why she was wrong.

            Well, that is not something he would get the chance to do on a regular basis, Severus thought idly, and then turned and watched Harry as he sat back in his chair, his head lolling. Dash hadn’t moved in the minutes since this began, but Harry’s neck and hands had both relaxed. He might have been asleep.

            But when all his muscles tightened and his mouth opened in a silent scream, Severus knew the difference.

*

            This is dangerous.

            In that one sentence, Harry had the explanation for why Dash had never done this before, even though he’d been in Harry’s mind for more than a year now and had done all sorts of other things like lend his own senses to Harry and bring him into the deep bond. Harry moved his hand a little on Dash’s neck.

            If you don’t want to do it—

            I want to do it, Dash said immediately. What’s going to be hard is making sure that you survive this with your sanity intact.

            That kept Harry quiet for a few minutes while Dash did—something. It really felt like nothing other than slithering through Harry’s mind, the way he did when sifting his memories. But then it felt as if was going deeper.

            Like there’s a tunnel in the back of my mind and he just plunged down it.

            That’s a good comparison. This thing was buried under the surface layers of your mind. Otherwise, do you really think it could have hidden itself from me?

            Harry smiled a little, but he couldn’t put much force into the expression. What he thought was that Dash had descended further and further and further, and now the sense of him was growing faint, the way it never had before except when Harry was asleep.

            I’m venturing away from your mind into the part that links to Voldemort’s, said Dash, his voice holding a tinny echo.

            Harry tensed, and knew Dash would realize it. Don’t get too far away. I want you to find your way back.

            Dash responded, but not to Harry. He said, What are you that bars the way? Back off!

            And then the pain came.

            Harry had never felt anything like it, not even when Dash accidentally poisoned him or his scar burned when Voldemort was near him or he had the dreams. This was a sensation like someone ripping through muscles inside his mind. He screamed because he had to, but he couldn’t hear himself. He couldn’t sense Dash anymore.

            There was nothing but the pain, violent and violating and overwhelming.

            For a minute, Harry did think that he felt the end of a wand, and heard a voice chanting desperate words. But then other voices overrode them.

            I am that which watches the ways.

            You are hurting my bonded.

            What unnatural kind of basilisk are you, that you need a bond in the first place? We are part of each other, my Dark Lord and I, and he has given me many gifts. But your bonded does not give you gifts. He only places you under a crippling burden. Protect him if you can—

            Then the pain came again, and this time it resembled someone attempting to yank his brain out of his skull through his ears. Harry howled in misery, and again could hear no sound. He did sense movement, back and forth and coiling around each other, like two snakes he had once watched entwining necks.

            Then Dash said, I’m sorry, Harry, but I can’t protect you this way. We’re going down.

            For an instant, Harry felt a clutching, seizing sensation in his chest. He was afraid that meant he was going to die, and Dash with him. But then he felt the sensation of movement again, and the pain ceased. Dash had pulled him into the deep bond.

            When Harry opened his eyes, though, what he saw didn’t resemble the other times he’d looked at something while he was deeply bonded to Dash. Instead, there was a drifting blue-purple murk. Harry looked around and shuddered. It was a little like the clouds he sometimes saw around the sunset—a little. But those clouds never looked evil and like they wanted to destroy the sun, and these looked like that.

            I have to hide you here for just a while, said Dash quietly. Otherwise, the pain is going to distract both of us, it’s so bad.

            So I’m a burden to you, just like that thing said—

            That thing is a detached piece of Voldemort’s soul, watching the link between your mind and his, said Dash sharply. Of course it’s going to say whatever it can to make you feel bad. Don’t believe it, though.

            How can it be a detached piece of Voldemort’s soul, though? Harry tried to rest against something, but he floated in the clouds with nothing to touch him, one way or the other. He shivered when some of the drifting tendrils of the mist reached out towards him. I thought that was what I had in me.

            No—

            That was all Dash had the chance to say, in a voice that dripped satisfaction the way Aunt Petunia’s used to when she could gossip about one of the neighbors, before something pulled his attention away from Harry. Harry squinted, trying to make out some kind of movement in the distance from Dash, but all he could feel and hear was thrashing around.

            Then Dash broke free of the fight, or something, and came over to sound satisfied again. No. I looked at it. Draco was right. You’re not a Horcrux. They do have to be created deliberately, and there’s no reason for you to be one.

            Harry released a shaky breath, but Dash continued in the next moment, I think you were like a Horcrux, once, because there was a splintered fragment of soul clinging to you. But the piece of soul detached from you and went back towards Voldemort, because he’s more similar to it. What it’s doing right now is guarding the link between you and Voldemort, so that you can’t see anything else in your dreams. That last dream you had probably alerted it.

            It would let him through, though.

            Of course. It’s really part of him.

            What do you think detached it from me? Although Draco had kept the full facts from Harry, like he’d promised, Harry had got the impression that Horcruxes were usually permanent, not just something any old circumstance could change.

            Not to brag, but I think it was your bond with me. Dash’s smugness was vast and the only thing that tinted the clouds different colors and made them draw back from Harry a little. The Horcrux can’t comprehend love like ours.

            Harry was still for a long moment, soaking in the emotions behind those words. Then what do we do about it?

            We have to build a wall from your side, too, so Voldemort can’t come into your dreams and influence you that way.

            Can I do that with Occlumency?

            No, because he has a piece of soul strengthening his walls. You have to get a piece of soul, too.

            Harry flinched. But I don’t want to make a Horcrux, Dash. It was bad enough thinking I was one.

            I wasn’t saying that you had to use part of your soul. I was saying use part of someone else’s.

            But that would still be disgusting!

            Why?

            Harry had to pause. Dash radiated bafflement, and he knew it wasn’t an act, the way Dash’s playfulness or innocence sometimes was. He understood absolutely about not having Harry make a Horcrux, but he didn’t care if someone else died or had a piece of their soul torn loose. Other people simply didn’t matter to him the way Harry mattered.

            I don’t want it to happen, was all Harry said at last, and then he waited to see if Dash would respect that.

            If you don’t want it to happen, then it won’t happen. One of the things I’m in the world for is to make sure that you get what you want, instead of what you don’t want, which most of your life has been.

            Harry smiled as politely as he could. In the meantime, what do we do about the thing in the link between my mind and Voldemort’s?

            You shield with Occlumency, and then we go back and ask your Snape for a piece of his soul.

            Dash, I said—

            It doesn’t have to be soul-magic like the kind Voldemort used, said Dash, in the tone of a snake on the edge of his patience. What it needs to be is a kind of mask or shield made of love. It’s the one force that Voldemort and his Horcrux really don’t understand. If my love was enough to move your Horcrux out of your head, then Snape’s love combined with mine ought to make the link close for a little while.

            Well, but that’s love, Harry said, feeling as though his heart was calming down from the tremendous speed it had started to beat at. That’s not a piece of his soul.

            It amounts to the same thing. He wants to give up part of his soul for you. Or he would be willing to, anyway. I say we let him.

            Harry just shook his head, and Dash said, If you’re going to be so stubborn about it, then we can at least have the discussion with your Snape outside your head. Not the way you imagine him in here.

            Harry blinked a few times, then said, That’s fine, but how do I wake up?

            I do have to do everything, Dash said, but not exactly as if he minded, and then he wound around Harry’s mind and yanked him out of the dark, dreaming state he’d fallen into.

*

            Draco leaned forwards and watched intently as Harry’s chest slowed down and then started speeding up again, until he almost looked like he was breathing normally. Then he turned his head to the side and dreamily opened his eyes.

            He jumped when he found Draco staring at him, though. “Tell me next time you’re that close when I wake up,” he muttered, and rubbed his face as Dash started unwinding from his body.

            Draco couldn’t resist. “I don’t think I’ll need to warn you the next time I’m that close,” he whispered. “Since it should involve me being there the night before when you go to sleep, too.”

            Harry stared for a long moment before his face turned so red that Draco was glad he wasn’t touching Harry’s cheek. But Harry cleared his throat roughly and looked away at Professor Snape, stealing Draco’s fun. “Dash says Draco is right, and the thing that was in me isn’t exactly a Horcrux,” he said.

            Draco sat up. Even more important than embarrassing Harry and making him blush was being right. He got ready to send Granger and Professor Snape triumphant looks, but maddeningly, they weren’t even looking at him. They were both so focused on Harry that they had no time to spare for the genius who had figured it all out.

            “Then what is it?” Granger demanded.

            “How can we get rid of it?” Professor Snape asked what Draco thought was the most important question—of course—spinning his wand slowly between his fingers, his eyes so hooded and still that they looked as though someone had turned them to ashes.

            “It’s a part of Voldemort’s soul that used to be a Horcrux,” Harry said, and Draco leaped as if stung by a pin. He hated it when Harry just casually used the name like that. Usually he was better about it when Draco and Professor Snape were in the room. But now, he went on without acting like he noticed Draco jumping or how pale Professor Snape had become. “But now it’s not. It’s been loosened from me and drifted into the bond between us. Right now it’s like a barrier protecting Voldemort’s mind from me. I had some visions, some dreams, and Dash thinks it’s there to prevent any others from coming through. I have to block the bond the other way, though.” Harry turned to Professor Snape and looked up with that kind of melting expression that made it really, really hard for Draco to understand how his relatives could have abused him. How could anyone faced with that not relent towards Harry? “Do you think I might be able to protect myself with Occlumency? Dash didn’t think so, he thinks I needs your help, but maybe you can do something with it.”

            Professor Snape spent some time blinking. Then he knelt down in front of Harry and spoke as softly and kindly as he could. “I want you to tell me more about why you’re no longer a Horcrux. How could it have changed?”

            “Dash takes the credit,” said Harry with a shrug, and put his hand on Dash’s neck. Draco scowled a little, not sure if he was jealous of Harry for having a basilisk to pet or of Dash for getting touched casually by Harry like that. “Our love for each other is so powerful that it probably made the Horcrux drift away from me.”

            “Yes, that might be possible.” A second later, Professor Snape clucked his tongue and shook his head in exasperation. “There are simply too many unknowns in this situation. Almost nothing is known about either living Horcruxes or bonds between basilisks and Parselmouths.”

            But there’s one thing that’s not unknown, Draco thought, with what he knew was pardonable pride. Harry’s not a Horcrux. I reasoned that out. Although everyone seems content to ignore that at the moment, of course.

            “I will want to explore your mind in the company of Dash and make sure that his impressions are correct,” Professor Snape continued. He didn’t seem to notice the sudden violent twitching of Dash’s tail, or perhaps he was just going to ignore that. “A human Occlumens and a basilisk bonded to a budding Occlumens might see things differently.”

            Dash’s tail twitched once more, then stilled. Draco breathed out a little, and wondered at his professor’s bravery. He wouldn’t have had the courage to pursue a conversation when Dash looked like that.

            “All right. He agrees to that.” Harry sighed and let his head drop back. “It hurt a lot when Dash and the piece of soul were first battling, so can I have a pain potion?”

            “How much does it hurt?” Draco demanded at once. But Professor Snape knew something, and it was all right, Draco thought as he watched the man hasten towards one of the cupboards in the back of his outer room. He had to know something was wrong if Harry was asking for a potion.

            “It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it did when it was happening.”

            “Mate.” That was Weasley’s voice, low and patient, and as much as Draco wanted to jump up and demand that Harry answer his question, he held his tongue. Weasley might be more effective at getting Harry to speak. “How much does it hurt now?”

            Harry hesitated, then said, “It feels like someone stomped on me and tried to break my bones.”

            Draco’s chest ached. The sad thing was that he was pretty sure Harry had experienced exactly that, and that was why he could make the comparison.

            “I have a pain draught here,” said Professor Snape quietly, and came out of the back of the office to hand the vial to Harry. Harry drank it right away without complaining, and Draco watched with a little shiver as his skin seemed to shiver and then settle into place. “Why did you not say something right away?”

            “Because it already feels like it’s fading,” Harry answered, his eyes slipping shut. “Like a dream. I wanted to tell you everything before I forgot about it.”

            “Dash could tell us.”

            “Not until later, when I was awake and he could speak through me again…”

            Harry’s head drooped, and Draco just managed to catch him before he slipped off the chair and fell to the floor. Of course, then Professor Snape came forwards and took Harry away from him, so Draco didn’t get the satisfaction of holding him for long.

            But, as he watched Professor Snape bundle Harry away with a frown, Dash following them, Draco thought he understood one thing.

            He loved that fierce courage and that exasperating heart, and he wanted to protect them both. And if that meant slicing through the Dark Lord and Harry’s relatives and a living Horcrux, then he was going to do it.

*
            SP777: Well, Dash agreed with you. ;)
            The basilisk eggs were created by someone, most likely Slytherin. That’s why Dash can do things like resist roosters crowing.
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A Brother to Basilisks