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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.

Chapter List
- 92
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Chapter Ninety-Three—One of Them
Harry had never seen so many people staring disapprovingly at him. He froze in the doorway of the courtroom, his hand falling and tightening for a minute on Dash’s scales.
You saw that many people doing this once before. When your name came out of the Goblet. Dash nuzzled insistently at Harry’s hip, which meant he nearly toppled from his feet. You can do this. They’re only ridiculous wizards who would run away screaming if I so much as showed a fang.
That’s because you’re a bloody big poisonous snake, Harry retorted as Severus curved an arm around his shoulders and led him to a chair that was right in the middle of the floor, in the middle of all those stares. Not because they’re afraid of me.
Remind them again that you control me, the way you did on the way in. That should make some people take notice.
Harry bit his lip, but nodded and sat in the chair. He saw the dreadful woman in the pink cardigan off to the side with a desk and notes in front of her, glaring at him, but he was more interested in the young wizard right beside her. He looked maybe twenty-four, and wore dark blue robes and a few splatters of ink. He looked a lot like Montague, who had spoken with Harry in the Great Hall before they came here.
Smells like him, too.
Ignoring the pink woman, Harry smiled at this other Montague brother. He got a slow nod back. At least it made him believe that whatever Graham had heard that made him so respectful, this one had heard, too.
“Mr. Harry James Potter,” said Fudge, in a rolling kind of voice that Harry thought had probably won him a lot of support, “we are here today to judge whether you had anything to do with the death of Albus Dumbledore.”
“Of course he did!” said someone in the crowd of glares and robes and hats all looking at Harry. “Dumbledore died by basilisk venom, and look! There’s one right beside him!”
“Actually,” said Severus, and Harry realized his voice was a lot calmer than the arm he had wrapped around Harry’s shoulders, “Dumbledore died by the basilisk’s gaze. A mistake must have crept into the reports somewhere, stating it was his venom.”
Fudge stared for a few seconds. Then he looked at the pink woman for one second. She looked like she was about to croak like a toad, but instead she pulled out a piece of parchment and scanned it.
“That is what Mr. Flamel said, Minister,” she said, in a simpering voice that made Dash stretch hungrily at Harry’s feet.
Behave!
I think I should eat her. She even squeaks like Pettigrew did.
Harry said nothing except to push a lot of revulsion at Dash, and turned back to Fudge as he frowned at Severus. “Were you actually there to see the death happen, Professor Snape?”
“Indeed. If I had not moved out of the way, I would have died of the basilisk’s gaze myself.”
People in the room murmured in what sounded like awe. Harry thought they sounded stupid. How could they be horribly afraid of Dash and then admire his gaze at the same time?
Humans are inconsistent. It is a great mammalian fault. Dash fell back behind Harry’s leg to yawn, which Harry appreciated. The last thing they needed was everyone seeing his fangs right now. But they may admire your Snape all they like. As long as they do not doubt the power of my eyes.
“Well, Flamel said it was the poison,” said Fudge, and then alternated looking back and forth between Harry and Severus as if he thought one of them would crack first. He had nothing on Uncle Vernon trying to make Harry do it, though, so Harry stared solidly back. Fudge finally coughed and only turned to Severus. “Can we view a Pensieve memory?”
“If you can promise me that all the members of the Wizengamot would look at it, not only you and your undersecretary, Minister.”
Fudge paused. Harry wondered why he’d only been intending to have the two of them look at it, and then wanted to smack his forehead. Of course. Because that way, it would be easier to make decisions and persuade everyone. “We don’t have a Pensieve that big, Professor Snape.”
“Then the answer is no.” Severus gave Harry a glance so quick that Harry would have missed it if he hadn’t been paying attention to absolutely everything around him now, making sure nothing was missed. “And as legal guardian to Harry Potter, I will not let you look at his memories, either.”
Harry blinked. That made him feel odd. Surely he ought to be the one to decide if the Ministry could look at his memories?
Not that he would let them, because it would probably make them think he needed to have Dash taken away from him. But it was still strange not to have the choice himself.
Dumbledore gave you too many choices, said Dash, sounding disgusted. I might think some of the rules young humans have to obey are stupid, but I know that he didn’t follow even the good ones. He let you choose whether you were going to go into danger and maybe even die.
Maybe it was just that. Harry put away the odd feeling for now, because Fudge was whining at Severus again.
“Pensieve memories are the standard in trials like this, Professor Snape! Of course we want to see them! It would help us judge whether or not the basilisk was dangerous!” From the way Fudge smiled a little and nodded his head, he seemed to think he’d come up with a coup.
“Then why not question Flamel the same way?” Severus asked in a bored tone. “You must not have looked at his memories, or you would have realized that Albus Dumbledore did not die by basilisk venom.”
“That does seem an oversight, Cornelius,” said a languid voice from the top row. “Wouldn’t you show us the memories from Flamel, too? Let this professor and this boy watch them so they can be sure they weren’t tampered with. Then we might actually get them to share their memories and this taken care of before three hours have passed.”
Fudge flushed and squinted up at the gallery. “Madam Selwyn, I promise you—”
Selwyn sounds nice, Dash volunteered, even as he pulled a few of his other coils around in preparation for going to sleep.
Of course she does. She’s a member of one of my allied families, Harry thought back. He craned his neck to try and see this Madam Selwyn, but she seemed to be seated near the ceiling, far enough back he couldn’t make her out.
“You’ve promised several things in the past. I can’t remember you delivering on most of them.” There was a tapping sound as if Madam Selwyn had found a ceramic pot to strike her nails against. “Now, are we proceeding with this farce of a trial?”
“It is far more than a farce,” said Fudge, but almost under his breath. He turned reluctantly back to Severus and Harry. “Since we didn’t request Pensieve memories from Mr. Flamel, I suppose we can’t request them from you. But you could volunteer them!”
“I think not.”
Harry had to hide a smile as Fudge visibly winced. He’d heard Severus sound like that plenty of times before when he was Snape, but it was only recently that he’d heard that tone in defense of him.
“All right then,” said Fudge, and turned to the pink woman. “Madam Umbridge, would you pull out the next piece of paperwork in this trial?”
Umbridge did it, all the while frowning at Harry and Severus with what seemed to be most of her lower face. Harry tried to keep a neutral expression. Even though he hadn’t shared Dash’s sense of smell when they met her, he thought he was beginning to understand what Dash meant by saying she was dangerous.
“The next charge you wanted to investigate, Minister,” she said, in a drawl that Harry thought was meant to make her sound important, “was the accusation that Harry Potter was involved in the murder of Professor Dumbledore, and may have fabricated some of the charges against him to get rid of a personal enemy.”
Harry opened his mouth in outrage, but Dash pressed down on his foot, and Severus against his side. Harry closed it again, and watched as Fudge turned around with a big smile and a firm nod. “Of course, of course. I hope you won’t object that what your basilisk did to Professor Dumbledore was murder, Mr. Potter?”
Harry swallowed a couple of times. It was better than rushing into the words, and it didn’t matter how expectant Fudge and the Wizengamot looked. They would wait for him, he could almost hear Draco saying. He was the Boy-Who-Lived, the important one. They were the peasants—Draco would use that word—who depended on him to make things clear to them.
“Of course not,” Harry finally said. He could feel Dash weaving up his side, and Severus opening his mouth, and ignored them both to keep his eyes fixed on Fudge’s face. When Fudge smiled, he added, “As long as you accept that what he did to me was kidnapping, and he and Flamel were going to try untested alchemy on me.”
Fudge frowned at him. Harry had no idea what it was about this time, and simply remained silent. Severus squeezed his shoulder to show he approved.
Dash was watching Umbridge, but his tail curled around Harry’s ankle and squeezed, once.
“Well, we can accept that,” said Fudge reluctantly after a moment. “If we bring Mr. Flamel in here, then we can talk to him?”
“That would be a good idea,” said Madam Selwyn’s cold voice from up near the ceiling again. “Anything to get this over with sooner.”
“Do you think she’s our ally or not?” Harry whispered, while Fudge went through the bustle of telling Aurors that he wanted them to escort Flamel into the courtroom.
“I think she is, and is using the mask of impatience and boredom to our great advantage,” said Severus softly in his ear before an Auror walked past them and he stepped back to stand staring coldly at the members of the Wizengamot.
Harry swallowed and turned back to see Umbridge smiling. She adjusted her pink cardigan and beckoned with one finger.
Harry stood up and went towards her, although Dash and Severus immediately came with him. He didn’t really know what else to do, not when she was doing that. If he resisted, then who knew what would happen? He thought Umbridge was probably more dangerous than Fudge, and not just because Dash had said so.
Umbridge looked ill when she stared down at Dash coiling near her feet, but then she took a deep breath and ignored him. She looked into Harry’s eyes and whispered, “You want to be a good boy, don’t you, Mr. Potter? Everything I’ve heard about you says you do.”
Severus made a sudden shift beside him. Harry knew why. What reports had she been listening to? He hadn’t ever cooperated with the rules even when he had trusted Dumbledore and tried to do what he said.
“I want to find out the truth, Madam Umbridge.”
Umbridge gave a slow nod. “But what if it turns out that the truth isn’t what you want to hear, Mr. Potter?”
Is she trying to threaten me?
Yes, into keeping quiet or admitting some kind of responsibility for what happened to Dumbledore.
Harry only shook his head in wonder, and went back to looking at Umbridge. “I think I want to hear this truth, Madam Umbridge. I mean, I want to know why Flamel lied about Dumbledore dying of basilisk venom. I can’t imagine not wanting to know that.”
Umbridge’s face had turned so dark red that Harry was kind of worried about her health. “Mr. Potter,” she spluttered, and then stopped as if she couldn’t think of anything bad enough to fill out her voice.
“Can I be of some assistance?”
Harry glanced up. It was Montague’s brother, the young man he’d nodded to when they came into the courtroom. He stood beside them and smiled around patiently as if there was nothing he would rather do than help. Harry thought he remembered Montague saying that his name was Lewis.
“The trial will begin again soon, Madam Umbridge,” said Lewis, giving Umbridge a faint smile. “I think we should let Mr. Potter get back to his seat.”
“Did you hear what he said to me?” Umbridge squealed. There was a bubble of foam forming at one corner of her mouth.
Aren’t you sorry now that you didn’t let me eat her?
“I know he said something about wanting to find out the truth. I don’t always agree with those kinds of ambitions, but that’s Gryffindors for you,” said Lewis, with a tiny shrug. “And at least he has ambitions. That’s more than some people in his position could say.” He smiled again at Harry, who returned it before he realized he would.
That’s good. I think we can trust him.
Harry stroked Dash’s head while he looked into Lewis’s eyes. “That’s all I want. The truth.”
Lewis nodded as if he was unsurprised, and then said, “Well, they’re bringing Flamel in. I’d sit down, if I were you, so that we can be finished on time. As Madam Selwyn says.” The slight way he tilted his head made it obvious that he was either allied to Harry like the Selwyns were or at least agreed with her.
“Oh, right,” said Harry, and went back to his seat with Severus close behind him. Severus hadn’t said anything about Lewis. Maybe he hadn’t been a Slytherin, or Severus was thinking about things.
He smells like he’s thinking.
Harry nodded and turned around to watch Flamel come in. It was almost strange to see him just walking with his hands chained together behind his back, not standing behind a glowing blue pool or floating in a cage. He looked at Harry and then jerked his eyes away. But he seemed to have a harder time looking at Dash.
“Why am I here?” he asked, staring at the floor.
“Ah, yes, Mr. Flamel,” said Fudge, trying to sound suave and failing. “There seems to be a small discrepancy in your testimony about Albus Dumbledore’s death and Mr. Potter’s testimony.”
To be fair, he could never sound suave, so we should applaud what attempts he can make.
“What discrepancy?” Flamel still barely moved his lips, and it was hard to hear his voice. He swayed his head back and forth as if he was looking into an abyss that had opened at his feet.
“You said that Dumbledore died of basilisk venom,” said Fudge, sounding a little anxious now. Perhaps he’d thought that Flamel would be more helpful, Harry thought, and prop up the side of the story Fudge had believed. “But Mr. Potter and his guardian say he died of a basilisk’s gaze. Which was it? Can we resolve it with Pensieve memories?”
Flamel was silent. Harry could see Umbridge leaning forwards to catch his words, her quill poised over the parchment. Lewis Montague had gone back to his seat, but looked as though he was waiting in much the same way. But Flamel still said nothing, until Madam Selwyn’s drawling voice called down from her seat near the ceiling.
“Are we going to sit here all night? I do have old bones, you know, and no fire is warm enough except my own hearth at home. No alchemist, no matter how respected, should be enough to keep an old woman out of her bed.”
Harry ducked his head to hide his grin. He thought he was getting a good look at how Madam Selwyn did politics, now.
Flamel started, and Fudge started, and both of them tried to say something at once. In the end, Fudge cleared his throat but fell silent, and Flamel was the one who spoke into the new silence.
“I—may have been mistaken. Things happened so fast. The things we’d planned on, and then other things.” He looked Harry in the eye for just a moment before dropping his gaze. “I might have said venom and meant gaze. I’m sorry. I was confused because—because the boy had fangs, for a while, and he killed Albus as surely as if he bit him.”
“What? The boy had fangs? What?” Fudge sounded as if he was scrambling to keep up. Umbridge’s quill was scratching away like she was a reporter.
“He did, for a little while.” Flamel nodded vaguely and looked around as if the courtroom was all back in that cave where Dumbledore had tried to sever their bond. “But he didn’t by the time we left. I don’t know why that happened.” He shrugged and fell silent again.
“You said that Mr. Potter killed Albus Dumbledore,” said Fudge, eagerly now. “What do you mean by that? How did he kill him, if his basilisk killed him?”
Harry felt all his muscles tighten in protest. Fudge would use this to show that Harry couldn’t control Dash, and that would mean he’d try to take him away again, and that would mean—
Severus bent down and said into his ear, “Fear not. I will not let anything happen because Flamel is vindictive,” at the same time as Dash nudged up under his hand and said, Didn’t I tell you I would take you away before I let them part us?
Harry gave a watery sigh and nodded. He wasn’t sure that he should feel reassured by Dash’s threat, but part of him did. He leaned back and watched as Flamel cleared his throat as if he was choking and spoke again.
“He was the one who formed the bond with the basilisk. He was the one who made it clear that—that he would choose this snake over the duties Albus needed him to perform.”
“Excuse me,” said Lewis Montague, his voice polite and helpful, and his own quill scratching. “I didn’t attend the questioning you did of Mr. Flamel earlier, Minister. Can you remind me of what Harry Potter’s duties were? I’d hate to get something wrong because I didn’t have the context.” His head turned back and forth between Harry and Flamel like he was an owl, and he didn’t really look at Fudge.
“The transcript of the trial notes—” began Fudge.
But either Flamel wanted to talk or he just didn’t see why he shouldn’t, Harry supposed. It wasn’t like Flamel would really have a reason to know who the Montagues were. “Albus agreed that Mr. Potter needed to save the wizarding world. To put his friends first. And he was concerned that Mr. Potter drifting off the path of duty and honor, and putting his basilisk first, would result in more deaths.”
“Ah,” said Lewis, nodding a little, and went back to feverishly scribbling. “But I had thought that Potter had made more friends in the last year. Isn’t that right? At least, he’s made alliances that have been reported in the Daily Prophet.”
Flamel hesitated as if he was getting a glimpse of the danger for the first time. “Not the right kind of friends.”
“The right kind?” Lewis was shaking his head. He could smile charmingly, sort of like Draco, Harry thought, and felt his stomach twist when he thought about Draco. He wished he was here. “I’m sorry, I still don’t understand. What kinds of friends would be the right ones?”
“The ones who would keep him on the path of duty and honor.” Flamel definitely looked wary now, his eyes darting around the room.
“Then I’ll be doomed just not to understand, I suppose,” said Lewis sadly, and wrote down something Harry would have given a lot to read.
“Are we still delaying?” Madam Selwyn called down. “Just get to the confession and then this trial will be done, won’t it? I have a fire to get to!”
Fudge turned around sweating, but with a smile. “Is Mr. Flamel right, Mr. Potter? Did you have basilisk fangs for a little while?”
“I don’t know. Can you trust him?”
Fudge’s smile slid off his face. “Mr. Potter, will you please answer the question?”
“I think that I should advise my ward not to answer that question,” said Severus pleasantly. “Now that we’ve established that the lead witness against him has, at best, a faulty memory. Is there anything you can truly try Harry for, now? Or would you have convicted him on the mistaken words of someone who couldn’t even remember events that happened last night and should have been burned on his memory?”
He shifted behind Harry’s chair as if he wanted to prowl around in front of it like a tiger. Dash chuckled down the bond. Your Snape has even more of the right kind of instincts than I knew he did.
“We need to try him for murder,” Fudge muttered, but he quieted down and winced when Severus sneered at him.
“When you can follow the proper procedures, you should do so,” he said. “When you have reliable witnesses, and you summon Mr. Potter to the Ministry and don’t try to leave his legal guardian behind—”
Lewis smiled and scribbled and Harry thought he heard Madam Selwyn cackle, but Umbridge was the one who interrupted in a little squeal. “What do you mean? Minister Fudge would never buck proper procedure!”
“Someone provided Aurors who accosted Mr. Potter at the breakfast table and intended to take him to the Ministry right then,” said Severus. He turned so that Harry could feel the warmth beating from him as he stood behind the chair, even though he was facing Umbridge and not touching Harry’s shoulder. “If I hadn’t been in the Great Hall, they might have managed it. And they wanted him to leave his basilisk behind, as well.”
“As they should! That thing’s dangerous!”
Someday, you’ll let me kill her for calling me a “thing,” said Dash dreamily.
Harry didn’t bother listening, because Severus had chuckled a little. “And it was so caring and kind and legal to try to deprive Mr. Potter of his protectors the day after he had been kidnapped and watched someone die, wasn’t it? I think that you can either let us go or continue this embarrassing farce, but that won’t go well for you.”
“Farce it is!” From the sound, Madam Selwyn was clashing a cane on the ground. “I’m going home and waiting for some better reason to get out of bed! Who’s with me?”
It looked like most of the Wizengamot members were, if the way they got up and headed for the door with disgusted glances at Fudge was any indication. Harry had to remind himself to breathe. It looked—it really looked—as if they had got through it.
For the moment, of course. Fudge and Umbridge were glaring, and Flamel was peeking at them from under his lowered eyelids, and Harry knew they would all try again.
But at least Lewis Montague was smiling, and Madam Selwyn cackled again as she left, and Severus was walking beside him, and Dash coiled against his leg as they left, almost warm.
*
SP777: And see, he thinks everyone else is a mess!
ANON: Well, you could say that Dash also ought to know by now that threatening to eat people is not something Harry likes, but he keeps doing it. Their bond isn't perfect. It's deep, but Dash isn't human, and Harry isn't an adult, and that makes for jagged edges sometimes.
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A Brother to Basilisks