Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Seven of 'A Brother to Basilisks'- March to Battle
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Six.
Title: A Brother to Basilisks (147/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Eventual Harry/Draco and Ron/Hermione
Warnings: Angst, violence, some gore, AU from Prisoner of Azkaban onwards
Rating: R
Summary: AU of PoA. Harry wakes in the night to a voice calling him from somewhere in the castle-and when he follows it, everything changes. Updated every Friday.
Author’s Notes: This is a canon-divergent AU that starts after Chapter 7 of Prisoner of Azkaban. It will probably run to at least the mid-point of The Half-Blood Prince. It will also be long.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Seven-March to Battle
“Are you all right, Harry? You've been shivering all day.”
Harry looked up and gave Severus a pasty smile. Severus commanded himself with all the strength that had ever been necessary when Longbottom was blowing up cauldrons on a regular basis, and said, “You can tell me if there’s something wrong.”
“I know that, sir. I promise Dash and I didn’t leave you out of this last battle on purpose.”
Severus nodded. He knew that, he understood that, and he was not about to explode any further over it. Dash had had to enter the mental world Voldemort had constructed and rescue Harry the moment he understood what was happening, of course. He had not had time to summon Severus or alert him of what was going on before the battle commenced.
It still bothered Severus that he had not been there during what sounded like the most danger Harry’s life had ever been in.
He forced himself to focus and said, “I am still waiting for an explanation about the source of your shivering. That is happening now.”
Harry gave him a fleeting smile and settled back against the couch in Severus’s quarters, his hand resting on Dash’s head. Dash had found a secret passage that curled around the back of Severus’s quarters and had insisted on entering it and sticking his head out of the sliding wall to be beside the couch where Harry rested. “I understand, sir. And I think it’s just that the Horcrux link is open wider than normal, and I’m getting Voldemort’s rage and terror.”
Severus paused. “He feels terror?”
"Of course he does." Harry was smiling now, so cockily that it reminded Severus of James Potter, but he couldn't bring himself to scold Harry. "He's mad with fear, sir. He doesn't want me to succeed, but he's sure that I'm going to."
"Is it only this latest battle that convinced him?"
"No." Harry grinned more widely, and now he didn't look like James Potter at all, and part of Severus relaxed. "I can't be sure, but I think, based on what he feels and the owl Lucius sent last night, that more and more of his Death Eaters are going to get their Dark Marks taken off."
Severus blinked, then laughed softly. Yes, he could understand how seeing the supposedly invincible Dark Lord abruptly be deprived of his eyes would unnerve someone. Voldemort might have weathered losing one eye, but not both--even if he could likely use his ability to command snakes to see through their eyes.
How much would someone believe that Voldemort was seeing through a snake's eyes, in any case? Severus thought, puzzling himself with his own joy. They might think it was impressive magic, but it wouldn't bring their loyalty back. Too many of the Death Eaters were people prone to asking themselves, as Severus would have in their place, why someone capable of such impressive magic wasn't capable of defending himself from a fifteen-year-old boy.
"I think we should tell Lucius to get that artifact of his ready," Harry continued.
Severus nodded, but his mind had turned onto a different path. "Do you think it likely that Voldemort will even wait for the decoy battle at Malfoy Manor? What happens if he attacks before then?"
Dash let out a complicated-sounding hiss, one that Harry listened attentively to. Then he nodded to Severus. "Dash says that we can't let that happen, sir."
"I do not see how we can prevent Voldemort from attacking when he wants to."
"You're still acting as though he's powerful and unwounded with a lot of loyal followers, Severus," Harry told him patiently. "It's going to be a lot easier to hold him back now. In fact, Dash thinks we might have to prod him into action when we want him to attack."
Severus nodded slowly. Harry had a point. Severus had been acting that way because he had never seen Voldemort when he wasn't in a position of power, despite knowing more about his weaknesses in the years since the first war. He had to stop letting his memories overly influence him.
"So how do we prod him ahead and yet make sure that he attacks at the right time?"
Harry smiled and let a hand rise to rest on the ridges behind Dash's left eye. "There's a way to do it, sir. Trust Dash to know."
*
Lucius chuckled as he raised his wineglass in a toast to the fire. "Everything is working out, Severus. Three more Death Eaters came to me to have their Dark Marks removed today."
Severus nodded, but with distant, unfocused eyes. Lucius felt a prickle of irritation. He had done something rather remarkable, and he was sharing this information with a valued ally. He could do with some more notice.
Then Severus's eyes sharpened again, and Lucius hid a shudder. He had forgotten what it felt like when Severus really focused on him, without the excuse of Lucius's greater social standing to limit him. "Who were they?"
"Juniper Nott, a cousin to the boy in Draco's year," Lucius said, watching him carefully. "Amalthea Selwyn. Sarah Landers."
"The last name I don't recognize."
Lucius sniffed. "A half-blood who joined the Dark Lord's ranks after her schooling in Ireland. Her mother was a Greengrass. She evidently thought that she could endear herself to her Greengrass relatives in that way. They had disowned her mother for marrying a Muggleborn."
"Ridiculous blood politics," Severus said, with a flick of his fingers. "What changed her mind?"
"Apparently, she was already halfway there when Clarence Greengrass joined Harry." It was easier now for Lucius to admit that it was Harry's side they had all joined, not his or Severus's. "But then she saw the Dark Lord when he was blind and raging. She was one of the personal guards on his room that night. She slipped away as soon as she could and ran, leaving most of her possessions behind to allay suspicion. She might need shelter and money. I doubt Clarence would give her anything."
"But she has recent information on Voldemort."
Lucius had resigned himself to the fact that Severus would probably never refer to the Dark Lord by his title again. He nodded. "The most recent of any of our recruits today. Nott and Selwyn have been in hiding for weeks."
"Harry will want to speak to her."
Lucius hesitated. "I did promise her a bed in the Manor for tonight. I can easily fetch her."
"Then do so." Severus turned and moved his head out of the Floo as if looking over his shoulder. "We will be waiting for her." The fire sparked and went out, the flames sinking low as if abashed that they no longer held any green.
Lucius stared into his wineglass and carefully exhaled his anger. He knew Severus was close to Harry, holding a position of confidence and trust that Lucius would never assume. He would be father-in-law to the Boy-Who-Lived, he thought, and that would have to be enough.
He was also, he realized a moment later, the man who had a growing number of Death Eaters in debt to him. Although they might offer information to Harry and Severus and hope fervently for their side's victory, they wouldn't feel that personal sense of obligation that they did to Lucius, the man who had performed a miracle and removed their Dark Marks.
Lucius smiled and lifted his wineglass in a toast to the ceiling this time. He wouldn't be able to change the kind of man he was, but perhaps he didn't have to.
*
"Harry, my mother needs to talk to you."
Draco had been the one to deliver that message, looking rather pale, and so Harry had followed him to the Headmistress's office. He assumed that Narcissa would speak to them through the Floo, but instead, she was waiting in the office with an unusually stern-featured Headmistress McGonagall next to her. On Narcissa's other side was a cloaked figure who Harry thought was a woman, if only because she had long tendrils of dark hair escaping from under her hood.
"I have something to show you, Harry," Narcissa said. "And I need you to listen to me instead of arguing with me. I meant to show you earlier, but that was at a meeting when others needed your attention more."
Harry narrowed his eyes and reached down the bond to Dash. Dash responded with a hum. He didn't think there was any danger. Harry relaxed and asked, "This is the person who was at the meeting where Mr. Crabbe swore loyalty to me?"
"Yes," said Narcissa. "And I need you to promise that you won't attack when you see her face."
"If she promises not to attack me."
"Believe me," Narcissa said softly, "I wouldn't have brought her around you or Draco without being sure of that."
"That's not the same as a promise."
"True enough." Narcissa turned her head towards the hooded woman, and there was a long passage of silence. At last, the woman sighed a little and tilted back the cowl.
Harry reeled back. His first thought was that Bellatrix had somehow snapped Draco's blood magic control over her, come back, and put Narcissa under the Imperius Curse. It was the only way that he could ever think Draco's mother would let her mad sister so close to them.
Draco stepped up behind him and put a hasty hand on his back. "Trust my mother, Harry," he whispered. "Really look at her."
Harry had already done that, and he started to relax almost at once. Now that he was looking, he could see that this woman wasn't Bellatrix. She had heavy dark hair and dark eyes and a similar face, but there were lines around her eyes and mouth that Bellatrix didn't have, and grey in her hair. Harry thought the lines meant she could probably laugh at something other than an enemy's misfortune.
"Cissy thought it best to introduce me like this," the woman said in a low voice. Narcissa gave her a measured look, as though she didn't appreciate the nickname, but the woman might not have noticed because she was turned away. "My name is Andromeda Tonks."
Harry closed his hand into a fist. "So what part did you have to play in blackmailing Leila Greengrass and getting her to free Cyan Scrimgeour?" he demanded.
"I know you suspected me of that," Andromeda said wearily. "In truth, nothing. Did you know that family members' magical signatures can grow similar the longer they live together?"
"No. My family is Muggle."
Andromeda looked startled for a second, and then her face folded down into a smile. "Of course. Forgive me, Mr. Potter. Well, family members can have a similar magical signature if they have lived together long enough. And particularly if they have some of each other's possessions and access to each other's hair..."
"Yes, we suspected someone might have been impersonating you with Polyjuice," Harry said. He told his heart to calm the hell down. Her resemblance to Bellatrix wasn't that startling, now that he'd had the time to get used to it. "But I hope that you're not accusing Mrs. Malfoy of posing as you."
"No. Our mother, Druella Rosier."
Narcissa closed her eyes tightly. Harry glanced at her and at Draco, and saw no dissent. It seemed that they, at least, believed Andromeda.
He nodded shortly and turned back to face Andromeda. "How did you discover that?"
"Narcissa broke through the wall of silence that I'd set up around us when she believed that I might have acted against you. And against Draco. My sister will dare things for her son that she never would on her own."
Harry remembered Draco saying that his mother had only written to Andromeda a few times, and had given up when all her owls had returned with the letters. He glanced at Narcissa. She looked a little flushed.
"She told me that she recognized the story of Leila Greengrass's blackmailer wearing a tarnished silver pin jabbed sideways through her clothing. That's a Rosier accessory that my mother could never bring herself to give up." Andromeda swallowed. "But my sister thought that perhaps it might still be me, because she doesn't know me at all--"
"It had been twenty years since we last spoke," Narcissa snapped. Harry felt Draco jump next to him, and he shifted backwards so that he was pressed gently against Draco. Draco sighed and leaned against him.
"And after all, my mother and I had frequently traded possessions, since before my disowning I wore the same kind and size of robes as she did," Andromeda continued, her voice utterly flat. "The pin might have wandered into my rooms and been taken with me when I absconded to marry my Muggleborn husband." For a second, Harry thought she would turn her head and look at Narcissa, but she didn't. "And if I had lost my senses enough to support a blood purist Dark Lord, I might also have worn the pin as a signal of some sort."
"There is also the part where I thought our mother was dead," Narcissa said, in a scathing tone that was a less polite version of the one Harry remembered her using on Sirius.
"You had no proof of her death," Andromeda said, staring straight ahead. Her hands clenched in the sleeves of her robes. "You suspected me instead. You thought I would turn my back on everything I stood for--"
"This is fascinating," Draco interrupted, in his own scathing tone, "but I think we should try to figure out what to do about my insane blood purist grandmother instead."
There was a long moment of silence when Harry thought Andromeda and Narcissa might continue arguing anyway, but Andromeda nodded shortly and turned to stare at Narcissa. "It was Mother. I'm not surprised that she still had some of my hair for the Polyjuice. You remember how she was getting before Father's death. Saving every scrap of hair and drop of blood that someone shed, out of a belief that someone could harm us with it."
"Or because she wanted to use it herself." Narcissa's hands were fisted in the skirt of her robes.
"There is that." Andromeda's mouth was a slash in her face. "But she wore the pin as a challenge, and perhaps as a signal to people who might see her in my form and remember that pin."
"Then she meant to lure us out." Narcissa shook her head. "None of this serves to tell us where she is or what she wants."
"To punish me for marrying my Ted," Andromeda said, her eyes brilliant with rage. Harry relaxed a little more. Now that he had seen her angry, he could absolutely confirm she was nothing like Bellatrix. "To reassert her authority. She had so little of it with Father around," Andromeda added viciously. "You know it's why she was obsessed with punishing us, because he didn't care about disciplining us at all and just wanted us to stay out of his sight and be silent when he had guests over."
"Mother," Draco whispered. Narcissa glanced at him. Draco shook his head. "You didn't tell me any of that. That your childhood was like that."
"I didn't want to give you nightmares," Narcissa said. She shot a look at Andromeda that Harry could only describe as displeased. "And I doubt that my dear sister has told her daughter the truth, either."
"Nymphadora knows a little more than your Draco," Andromeda admitted, her shoulders slumping for a moment. "But only a little."
"Nymphadora?" Harry asked, horrified enough to be jolted into speaking. "Did you really name your daughter that?"
"Not you, too," Andromeda said. "I'll admit that the name hasn't been used in recent generations, but Nymphadora is a perfectly lovely traditional Black name. It's not my fault that my daughter has decided she prefers to go by Tonks."
"Why did you name her a traditional Black name, though, if you wanted to break away from all those traditions?" Draco asked in a skeptical voice, and Harry bit his lip to keep his shoulders from shaking.
"Do not blame me, please, for wanting some connection with my heritage, even if it had rejected me," Andromeda said, all of her muscles stiffening.
"I don't think this line of conversation is productive," Narcissa intervened. "I contacted my sister to ask her about her role in possibly using Leila Greengrass against Harry, but now that I know she's innocent, there's still the question of tracking down my mother and confiscating her collection of blood and hair."
"Or she might pretend to be you next?" Harry asked.
"That is exactly what I am afraid of," Narcissa said. "And she could do more damage as me, because I am more highly-placed within your forces."
"A moment, Mother," Draco said, before Harry could speak. Harry turned to see him staring narrow-eyed at Andromeda. "How do you know that Aunt Andromeda is innocent?"
"I would not lie to my sister," Andromeda hissed.
"But you also maintained years of silence and then only spoke to her when Mother engaged you in some kind of intense conversation we don't know much about," Draco said. "I know my mother wanted her family back. She might ignore warning signs from the only sister she has left. Permission to use blood magic on you, Aunt Andromeda?"
Andromeda gasped and wheeled around to stare at Narcissa. "You have encouraged him in blood magic? Are you mad?"
"It's a decision that Draco made on his own, to help the war effort," Harry said. He knew Andromeda wasn't used to the way they did things in their ranks and therefore she was inclined to dismiss Draco, but he didn't want her to do that. "He's already used it successfully. It isn't mad."
"You can't know that," Andromeda said, still only speaking to Narcissa. "You can't know what blood magic does to someone, in the long run."
"Why not? I've studied many books, and I've taken precautions," Draco said, sounding offended. "And I have Harry and Mother both here to help me if I do something that goes over the moral line."
"I'm afraid that you must speak to my son about that, as he is the one who's made the decision to use that type of magic," Narcissa said, smoothing down her robes and looking with a serene smile at Andromeda.
Andromeda turned back to Draco with a reluctance that made Harry wonder how often she listened to her daughter. "I am telling the truth."
"Then that's what the blood magic will show." Draco drew a small knife that he had purchased recently, which Harry thought was pure silver, and gently sliced open his palm. Then he held out his hand to Andromeda.
Andromeda sighed, but extended her hand. Harry kept to himself the knowledge that, even if blood magic was so awful, she knew exactly what to do. Andromeda let the blood welling from Draco's cut drip into her own hand, spent a moment standing there with it resting on her skin, and then curled her fingers inwards, letting Draco slice into the back of her knuckles.
Draco spoke a few soft words, of which Harry could only make out sanguis and familia. Then Draco spread his hands wide, and said in a voice like a trumpet that made Andromeda start, "Veritas!"
The blood spun away from his hands and revolved in the air like a chain of light trailing after a comet. In seconds, it was brilliant, gleaming, and silver-edged. Some of the silver-edged blood returned to Andromeda and gleamed around the edges of her cut before losing the light and melting into her skin, knitting the wound after itself as if it had never been made. The rest returned to Draco and did the same thing to the cut in his palm.
Draco smiled and caught Harry's eye. "She's telling the truth, and she is who she says she is," he murmured, leaning against Harry in the momentary flare of exhaustion that seemed to overtake him when he used blood magic like that. "What?" he added, probably because he'd caught Andromeda's eye. "Your mother impersonated you once, you said. It wasn't impossible that she was standing here now."
Andromeda pursed her lips shut and nodded. "I suspect that Mother is also the one responsible for freeing Bellatrix from prison, and she may have used my form to do it. But I haven't been specifically accused of anything by the Ministry or the guardians of Azkaban."
"Then wait until you are," Narcissa said firmly. "No reason to go around volunteering information to them. It's not as if they're family."
"We'll stand beside you if someone does accuse you, Mrs. Tonks," Harry said as soothingly as he could, watching Andromeda's mouth twitch. She probably did try to be more law-abiding than most of the Malfoys or Blacks ever had. "But for the moment, we need you to focus on helping us as much as possible."
Andromeda nodded slowly. "Then there's at least one thing I can tell you that I doubt most people on either side know."
She paused. Harry held back a snort this time. She might be law-abiding, but she had all the Black sense of drama.
"Bellatrix used to visit me even after I was disowned," Andromeda said, and Narcissa caught her breath with a sharp noise. Andromeda smiled sadly at her. "Not because she cherished me or wanted to show me support. She would do it when she was drunk and wanted an audience to brag to. I was lonely enough for my family that I indulged her until Nymphadora was born, when she started making threatening noises about cursing half-blood children of blood traitors--" Andromeda shook her head. "At any rate. She came to me one day especially excited because the Dark Lord had given her something to guard."
"It's a Horcrux," Draco drawled. "In her Gringotts vault. Harry's basilisk Dash is going to go get it for us."
Harry had to work even harder on choking back his snort this time when Andromeda stared at them blankly. "He's showing off, but we do know that much," Harry said. "Thank you for the information, though."
"Do you know what the Horcrux is? Or how Bella chose to guard it?"
"No," Harry admitted, with a glance at Draco. Draco shook his head and then examined his nails for a moment in a deliberately uninterested way. "That's information that we would be glad to have."
Andromeda relaxed slowly, as if she had assumed that they did know everything because they knew one fact. "Good. It's a golden cup, which once belonged to Helga Hufflepuff. It has a badger on the side and two handles. From what Bella said, she put a charm on it that will make it burn to the touch and duplicate itself endlessly."
Narcissa made another sharp noise. "The Gemino Curse," she explained, when Harry looked at her. "Not all that much trouble usually, but in a confined space like a Gringotts vault, it could be."
Harry smiled at Andromeda. "Thank you for sharing that information, Mrs. Tonks. I'll specifically have Dash look for that when he goes into the Lestrange vault." He refrained from saying that Dash probably would have been able to smell out the Horcrux by himself. More information was always good.
"Good." Andromeda relaxed for a moment, and then turned towards Narcissa and Draco. Her face altered, acquiring a more open, vulnerable expression. "Now, could I get to know my sister and my nephew again? Our every conversation so far has been guided by the need to trade information. I want--I want my family back."
Draco gave Harry a glance, and Harry nodded him towards Andromeda and Narcissa, his heart aching a little. Of course he didn't need Harry's permission to speak to his own aunt. Harry hoped he'd never given the impression that he did. Harry never wanted to be that kind of tyrant in charge of every aspect of his lover's life.
Professor McGonagall cleared her throat, and Harry jumped. He had honestly forgotten she was there. "I am sure Mr. Potter and I can vacate the office for a little while," she said. "Take as much time as you need, Andromeda, Narcissa."
She moved past them and down the staircase with Harry. Harry glanced at her. "Did you have something you wanted to talk to me about?"
"Not really." Professor McGonagall sighed and shook her head. "When Mrs. Greengrass described that pin that the supposed Andromeda Black was wearing, I thought immediately of Druella. She always used to wear that pin when she was a student here, which overlapped with my own time. But I had heard that Druella Black had supposedly died years ago, and after all, she could have left the pin to her daughter. There was no proof at that point that it was someone Polyjuiced as Andromeda Tonks rather than Andromeda turning her back on the ways I thought she'd followed." She shrugged. "Perhaps I should have said something."
"It's all right, Headmistress," Harry said, and squeezed her hand. "I think part of the problem is just how secretive the Blacks and some of the other pure-blood families are. They didn't spread around the news that Druella was still alive, so you didn't know."
"Yes, that is true." Professor McGonagall stared straight ahead. "Mr. Malfoy has become accomplished with his blood magic."
"Yes," Harry said cautiously. From what he could tell, the kind of magic Draco practiced wasn't formally illegal because he could only use it on family members, but he did wonder suddenly what Professor McGonagall might feel compelled to tell someone.
Professor McGonagall must have caught his eye, because she smiled and touched him once on the shoulder. "Fight your war as you must, lad. I'll support you as necessary."
Harry nodded, with equal caution, and stepped out as the staircase came to an end. He stood with eyes closed for a second as the Headmistress walked off in the opposite direction, silently communing with Dash, even though he knew that Dash would have got the information about the protections on the Hufflepuff cup the minute he did.
I have what I need, Dash said finally. I am going tonight.
Harry inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled, and forced himself to remember the sight of the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone destroying Voldemort's eyes to calm down. "Yeah," he whispered. "Okay."
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Seven.
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