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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 Nine—Pale With the Knowledge
            I think you need to calm down. Your heartbeat sounds like a rabbit’s.
            There wasn’t much Harry could say to that. He knew he should calm down, and not because of his heartbeat reminding Dash of prey. He thought he should calm down because he would fall over and die of a heart attack if he didn’t, and then he would miss what was going to happen next.
            Who Sirius Black really was, what the big black dog curled obstinately in the bottom of the cage looked like when he was transformed back into a man, what was going to happen to Pettigrew, the truth, what Ron would say and whether anyone was going to reassure him that Pettigrew hadn’t spied on him pissing, whether Snape would manage to glare a hole through Dumbledore…
            If you want to know what happens next, then watch Snape, Dash commanded. I think he’s the one who’s going to act next. Dumbledore is just the one talking, and as we all know, there are more important creatures in the world than someone who just happens to be speaking English at the moment.
            That made Harry snort and relax. A few of the adults, not used to his private conversations with Dash yet, glanced at him, but then they went right back to looking at Dumbledore. Ron actually gave Harry a wan smile. Maybe the snort reminded him there were normal things in the world, too.
            There’s not much less normal than waking up and finding out your pet rat is an Animagus, Harry thought, and punched Ron lightly on the shoulder. Ron relaxed even more.
            The adults in McGonagall’s office—McGonagall, Lupin, Pettigrew still in bonds in a corner, Snape, Dumbledore, and Harry supposed he had to count Black, if only as an adult dog—were mostly tense. But Snape was opening his mouth, and Dash bobbed his head for a second, a human gesture he liked. His tongue flicked out again. He smells of anger. A good, clean scent. It usually means someone is going to kill something.
            That’s not a good scent! Harry protested, a little horrified, but one of Dash’s eyes turned towards him under its lid, and he knew the answer to that objection before Dash spoke it.
            It is when you might get to eat the dead thing.
            You prefer to kill your own prey anyway, Harry thought grumpily back to Dash at the same second as Snape said, “All of these platitudes about friendship and the rest of it are beside the point, Albus. Surely our mission here is to find out why Black managed to transform into a dog, and how. And what do with him now.”
            “We must let him tell his story, of course, my dear boy,” said Dumbledore, beaming at Snape, and Harry thought Snape liked being called “my dear boy” about as much as Harry liked it when Vernon was trying to show off before a stranger and called him “nephew.” “But first, we must let Sirius know that it’s safe enough to transform back.”
            “If he doesn’t know that, he’s mad, and can be of no help to us anyway,” said Snape, and turned around to sneer at Black.
            “Or perhaps you could make your cage larger,” Dumbledore suggested, so gently that Harry glanced at him again. He didn’t think Dumbledore’s eyes were gentle, but it was hard to tell. He didn’t think he had ever heard Dumbledore when he wasn’t being gentle, for one thing, and for another, so what? What did it matter if he had to tell Snape that the cage was too small? That was the kind of error Harry would probably have made, if he was the one casting the cage.
            That’s another spell you can learn, said Dash thoughtfully. Then you could trap some of my prey when it tried to escape.
            Harry didn’t even have time to retort. Snape had turned around and enlarged the cage without a word. All the dog did was snarl at them.
            McGonagall took a step forwards and studied him. “I could force Sirius to reveal himself the way I did with Pettigrew, of course,” she said, as though someone had demanded to know why she hadn’t already. Harry thought all the adults were sounding uncertain, except Dumbledore. Well, and Pettigrew, but that was because Pettigrew was sniveling. “But I would rather not.”
            Harry stood up. Immediately everyone in the room was focused on him. It sort of made him dizzy. Why?
            He walked up to the cage and stood there staring at the dog. It was definitely the same one he had seen watching him on Privet Drive.
            “Listen,” Harry said, staring at him. “You’re Sirius Black, and an Animagus, and my godfather.” That was still strange to say. Dash shifted his weight, and Harry remembered and continued speaking, the way he had first wanted to, instead of getting overwhelmed by the strangeness. “And I don’t know if you really betrayed my parents or if you and Pettigrew did it together or if it was just him. I’ll never know if you don’t change back. Because he’ll never tell the truth.” He didn’t glance at Pettigrew, just sort of flickered his finger at him. “Are you going to change back or not?”
            Black edged one paw forwards, then another. Then Dash moved his head so he could see around Harry’s neck, and Black froze and snarled at him.
            “Don’t mind him,” Harry said. “He won’t kill anyone I don’t tell him to.”
            Except people who are harming you, Dash said helpfully. Or currently in rat form.
            The dog went on peering at Dash. Harry was a little lost. He didn’t know what Black had against Dash—how could he have anything, when Dash had just hatched a few weeks ago and Black had gone to prison years ago?—but he repeated, “He’s my basilisk, and he won’t kill you. Dumbledore has mirrors that will stop him. See?” He pointed at one of the silver objects hovering overhead.
            Why did you tell him that? Dash curled sulkily like a huge garland, dangling himself in two roughly equal halves over Harry’s neck. You make me sound so much less impressive than I actually am.
            Harry just petted Dash, and watched. Whatever Black’s mysterious problem was, they weren’t going to get any information on that until he changed back, either.
            Finally, Black sort of shivered and transformed. He kept his head bowed, and McGonagall immediately conjured some clothes onto him, too. Black kept staring down as if he was examining his pale arms and stunned not to find fur. Then he took a deep breath and looked up.
            Harry winced. The flash of his dark eyes was…sort of insane.
            “It was Peter,” said Black, his voice a rasp. “It was all him.” He looked at Harry. “And I don’t like snakes.”
            “Not you, too,” said Harry. “I tell everyone that he won’t hurt them, and they still want to take him away. And then they’re just getting used to him, and you’re someone else who’s not used to him and wants him to go away.” He touched Dash when he would have lifted his head. He wasn’t sure that was a good idea right now. Black was so mad he might think Dash was striking at him. “Can’t you just accept him?”
            Black was staring intently at Harry, and didn’t respond for a minute. No one else spoke up, either. Harry was sort of surprised. He knew why Ron didn’t, and Pettigrew was crying into his hands by now, but he had thought Dumbledore would have some wise words, or Snape would insult Harry’s intelligence, or McGonagall would take over and tell him what to do next, or Lupin would do something that proved why he was a good professor.
            Maybe they don’t know how to handle this any more than I do. They probably haven’t had someone turn out to be an Animagus and innocent of a mass murder before.
            “You look so much like James,” Black said softly. “But James didn’t grow up in the Muggle world. James never had to run away from home. James wasn’t a Parselmouth.” He looked back at Dash, and there was that feral expression on his face that made it hard to understand him again. “James would never have tolerated a basilisk that near him.”
            “I’m not my dad, point made,” Harry said. “But one reason I can’t act more like him is that I don’t know anything about him except the little bits and pieces other people have told me. Can you tell me more about him? I won’t give up Dash—” The soft flick of Dash’s tongue across his ear and the way he coiled his tail around Harry’s wrist made it clear that Dash wasn’t about to give him up, either. “But maybe if I knew more about my dad, I would understand more about the differences between us.”
            Black closed his eyes. His eyelids were trembling. “I never thought I would get a chance to do more than kill Peter,” he whispered. “This way, I could be your godfather. If the Ministry accepts everything and I get my innocence established. Would you like that, Harry?”
            “Of course I would,” Harry said, and wondered if that was another reason Black had been reluctant to change back into a human. Did he think Harry would reject him because of what he’d been suspected of doing?
            “But you don’t really know me.” Black was staring at him again, greedy and longing.
            “Anyone would be better than the Dursleys,” Harry said honestly. “But I still want to get to know you. Just like I want to get to know my dad. Can you tell me about him?”
*
            That was the point where Severus decided to intervene, because soon this would turn into a festival of weeping and good memories of James Potter, who needed no one else to idolize him.
            But he had to admit, so far he had been just as fascinated as the others, though not because of the sentimental memories of friendship that paralyzed Lupin, or the tears he could see gathering at the corners of Minerva’s eyes, or the presumably dotty plans that must have crossed Dumbledore’s mind. He was seeing another side to the boy, one that he hadn’t known about before.
            Potter had manipulated Black into transforming. He was essentially manipulating him by promising to act more like his bloody father if Black would trade him some truth. Whether anyone else saw it in the same way, Severus honestly did not care. What interested him was that Potter was more than the shallow puddle of scarlet and gold obsession that Severus had taken him for.
            Well, he had known that from the minute the basilisk had bonded to the boy. But being a Parselmouth was one thing, and having a talent for manipulation was another. He had never thought about it before. The boy got around the professors and broke the rules more than he should have, but Severus had thought that was simply coasting on the dazzling comet trail of his reputation.
            How much of it was manipulation that he apparently knows how to exercise? And how long was I blinded, not looking at it, not acknowledging it, not recognizing it if I did see it?
            Severus shook his head. For someone who had his reputation as well as his experiences, that lapse was unforgivable.
            Black had settled more comfortably on his haunches in the cage and opened his mouth. He seemed prone to reciting more tales of James the Sainted Potter, all because the boy had asked him to. And Potter went on gazing at Black, one hand resting on the scales of his snake. If that presented an incongruous picture, then perhaps Black no longer noticed, as long as he got the chance to talk about the man he’d worshipped.
            It was up to Severus, of course, to interrupt.
            “Surely the stories can wait until after the explanation?” he said coldly, and jerked his head at Pettigrew. “Has anyone summoned the Aurors? They can use the Veritaserum that you refuse to employ, Headmaster.”
            Dumbledore gave him a mild, speaking look. Severus simply looked back, unimpressed. He didn’t know what the Headmaster was trying to prove, but he did know that he was not going to sit here and let Black play the martyr.
            “I had hoped to have this handled and clarified before the arrival of the Aurors,” said Dumbledore. “It is highly likely they wouldn’t listen to us, or understand the complexities of the situation, and simply march Sirius off to be Kissed. Especially,” he added, with a small frown on his face, “given Cornelius’s involvement.”
            The Minister did have an irrational terror of Black, but Severus thought more of Dumbledore’s reluctance came from his desire to hold onto control of the situation at all costs. He turned back to Black. “Perhaps you would explain, then, since Pettigrew seems unlikely to.”
            Black snapped his teeth in a way that made Severus wonder why he had never seen the feral beast hiding inside the man before this. “I was going to explain what his parents are like to a little orphan kid who knows nothing about them,” he said coldly. “That’s more important.”
            “No, Sirius, I’m afraid it isn’t,” said Minerva, and Severus was grateful to note that at least a few people were recovering from the trance that Potter seemed to have cast all of them into. “We do need to get this cleared up as soon as possible. For one thing, the Dementors might try to enter the school now that you’re here in human form.”
            It was clear that Black hadn’t thought of that. He grew pale enough to look like a Dementor’s shadow himself, and then bowed his head.
            “Fine.” He spoke as though someone had taken a meat hook and was yanking the words out of him like gobbets of flesh. Severus sighed, a little sad he couldn’t actually do that. “I was the Secret-Keeper. I suspected Remus. I knew no one would suspect Peter, and so I suggested that James make the switch. I said I was the one who killed him because I really did. If I hadn’t suggested Peter, James would never have gone through with it.”
            Then his head flew up, and his eyes fastened on Pettigrew in a way that made Severus understand the hatred Black was really capable of, against which everything that he had ever expressed for Severus was a pale and ineffectual shadow. Pettigrew cowered back into the corner. Severus was sure that he would have fallen down if he wasn’t already sitting.
            “And he was already a bloody Death Eater,” Black whispered. His voice was on the edge of raving, and his hands had curled around the bars of Severus’s conjured cage. If he noticed how deeply they were cutting into his palms, making a slow slick of blood gather on the steel, he showed no sign of stopping because of that. “So he betrayed them to You-Know-Who, and when I figured it out and went to hunt him down, he shouted that accusation, and cast the spell that killed the Muggles, and cut off his finger, and escaped like the rat he is into the sewers.”
            Lupin shifted. There was a tautness in his face that Severus had never seen before. A moment later, he sneered at himself. As though I regularly monitor the werewolf’s expressions.
            “Then it happened that way?” Lupin whispered. “A way that makes sense of everything, and means you’re not a traitor?”
            Interesting that he’s less worried about exchanging one traitor friend for another, Severus thought.
            “It happened that way, I swear it.” Black shook his head back and forth. “And I kept myself sane in Azkaban because I could turn into a dog, and the Dementors ignore animals. It’s like they don’t see them.” He reached out and touched Potter’s face through the bars of the cage. Potter stood there and let him do it. His own expression was oddly blank, and he kept one hand on the scales of his basilisk as if that would give him all the truth he needed, without having to hear it from Black.
            “Then I saw a photograph of Wormtail in his rat form on that kid’s shoulder.” Black jerked his head at Weasley, who jumped as though he was far from grateful at this sudden notice from an adult in the room. “And I realized he was at Hogwarts, and he might still be able to do something to harm Harry. We’ve all heard that rumor about You-Know-Who coming back. Maybe it’s just a rumor. I couldn’t risk it.”
            Once again, he turned melting eyes on Potter. Potter remained blank for the oddest, longest moment, and then handed Black a hesitant smile.
            “You came because I was in danger?” Potter asked.
            “Yes,” said Black at once. “It was my responsibility as a godfather.”
            The basilisk hissed something. Potter hissed back. Black blinked and shifted around uneasily. Even Lupin looked as though he would rather that Potter hadn’t done that.
            How are they going to handle a godson who’s much less Gryffindor than they supposed? Severus thought. He would think that, he would cling to the small spar of discomfort in what seemed an ocean of good fortune for two people he hated, again. He would not let himself despair, because he was not that sort of person. He would look at what he had not noticed, and what might surprise others as it had surprised him. How are they going to handle that bloody great basilisk, I wonder?
*
            I still want to know, said Dash in Harry’s head.
            I know, said Harry, and stretched his arm out along Dash’s back so that Dash could get even more warmth than he could from just coiling up on Harry’s shoulders. But I think we need to give him a chance to prove himself.
            Dash settled down with a sulky shake of his tail. Harry sighed. He had asked why Black had run after Pettigrew if he cared so much about his responsibilities as a godfather. He should have stayed with Harry and taken care of him, Dash had said. It was what Dash would do.
            Harry said that Black wasn’t a basilisk, which was true, but Dash only took that to mean he was less equipped to be a proper godfather, either.
            Harry didn’t know. His head ached. He wanted to know the truth, and he wanted to know the stories about his parents Black had promised, and he wanted the day to end. Really, too much had happened already.
            “Shall we call the Aurors, Albus?” McGonagall had turned and looked at Headmaster Dumbledore. “We do have a story to offer them now, a story that might prevent the Minister from reaching for the Dementors at once.”
            Dumbledore stood there still and quiet for a moment. Harry didn’t know why. But he was starting to think he didn’t know the reason behind a lot of what adults did. He had always thought it was just the Dursleys he didn’t understand; the professors had seemed pretty straightforward to him since he came to Hogwarts, except Snape with his weird grudge. But now Dumbledore was acting strange, too.
            There’s a lot you don’t understand, said Dash, and he gently tapped Harry’s left hand with his tail. You need to learn more about politics. It seems that lots of people think you’re important or strange because of your name. So you should learn more so they can’t take advantage of you.
            Harry nodded slowly. He supposed that was true. He hated the thought of spending too much time around the Minister or people like Lucius Malfoy, but on the other hand, he hated attention and Voldemort, too, and he had to put up with them.
            At least he didn’t have to worry about someone trying to kill him right now.
            He looked at Black, and found him once again looking at Harry the way no one had ever looked—well, no adult had ever looked. Ron and Hermione had done it sometimes. That look said Harry was interesting and he wanted to spend time with him.
            I’ve looked at you that way, said Dash. And honestly, I’m the one that you should trust the most, because you can hear my mind and you know I’m not plotting against you.
            Harry smiled up at Dash. But you’re not an adult, so I wasn’t including you in that group, either.
            Dash considered this, then curled his tongue in a way he had told Harry was more elegant than a human sniff. Harry hadn’t bothered pointing out that a snake couldn’t imitate a human sniff anyway. All right. But you should think of me first, at the beginning of every list.
            Harry grinned again. Dash could relax him, and make it sound as if everything would be all right.
            And maybe it would be. Dumbledore was nodding decisively. “I trust that you won’t mind remaining in the cage for a while longer, Sirius?” he asked, with a faint smile in Black’s direction. “It might reassure the Minister if he seems to think you’re confined.”
            “Yeah, I can do that,” said Black, and sprawled back on his elbows and heels. He was kind of like a dog even when he was in human form, Harry thought. He turned his head and fixed his eyes on Harry. “Can I come and see you when this is all over, kid? And you’ll still want to live with me?”
            Harry nodded. His throat was thick. “And Dash can come and live with me, too?” He wanted to live with his godfather, but he wasn’t going to do it if he couldn’t have Dash.
            Black paused, then smiled reluctantly. “Yeah. I suppose I’ll eventually get used to having a snake around.”
            “In the meantime,” said McGonagall, sounding so much like a professor that Harry jumped and glanced at her, “Mr. Weasley and Mr. Potter have studying to return to.” She opened the door to her office with a flick of her wand. “They should leave now.”
            “But nothing’s been resolved!” Ron protested. Harry silently agreed. On the other hand, he was sort of grateful for an excuse to leave and get away from all the silent emotions swirling in the room. He needed to think about this.
            “You will learn the results later,” said McGonagall, and maybe something in Ron’s face made her soften a bit. “I promise that we would not keep them from you. You deserve to know.”
            With that, even Ron could be contented, and Harry accompanied him down the steps. Dash dropped and slithered beside him instead of staying on his shoulder like usual. Harry thought it was because he felt exhausted and was stumbling a bit.
            “Wow,” said Ron, when they had walked down one set of steps and were waiting for the next staircase they needed to swing around. “What a day, mate!”
            Harry nodded. Dash reached up and gently touched his plume to Harry’s face, brushing it under his eyes.
            It’ll all be better. You’ll see.
*
meechypoo: Sirius is at least realizing that the unadorned truth works best with Harry.
ChaosLady: That was actually about the same length as my other chapters.
staar: They’re in flux right now, and Harry doesn’t understand them either.
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A Brother to Basilisks