Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Nine of 'A Brother to Basilisks'- Break Free
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Eight.
Title: A Brother to Basilisks (149/?)
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-Nine-Break Free
Severus swore under his breath as he watched the goblins turning and flowing back into the bank. Something had gone wrong, something deep enough to distract their attention from the illusions of their mortal enemies. Oh, a few remained to hack at the tree-creatures, but not nearly enough to make a difference in the battle that was coming.
And he was sure the battle was coming to Dash.
Severus hesitated. For a moment, his logical mind warred with his heart, but his logical mind won.
He could do nothing to help Dash. He had no idea where the basilisk was right now, and he was as likely to get killed by a goblin’s axe before he reached that point as he was to help. And Dash, if he survived, might retrieve the Horcrux and come back to the Apparition point while Severus was still inside the bank.
If the unimaginable happened and Dash died, then Harry would need Severus to hold the remnants of his mind together.
He would stick to the plan.
Severus folded his arms and spun on his heel, Apparating back to the small courtyard between buildings in Knockturn Alley. No immense snake was waiting for him, as he supposed he should have known. He closed his eyes for a second, and hissed, not in Parseltongue, just in frustration.
Then he Apparated again. He would hold to the plan.
*
Shit.
Indeed, Dash said crisply down the bond. A minute later, Harry felt a sharp ripple travel through Dash that he didn’t understand, and then Dash reared back and opened his mouth to face the half-living Lestrange vault door.
What do you think you’re doing? You’re not a dragon, to breathe fire, Harry snapped. Get out of there, you great idiot!
What would be the point of that when we haven’t retrieved the Horcrux? And it’s not fire that I can breathe.
Dash opened his mouth wider and sprayed the entire vault door with his venom, such enormous quantities of it that Harry stared in shock. Green liquid was pooling and flowing down the door to settle into the corridor, and there was a breathless silence that made Harry wonder if it had somehow affected the goblins’ alarms as well.
Then a rippling shriek filled the corridor.
Harry screamed and saw the bed-curtains around him for a minute before the vision of the bank returned. He still clapped his hands over his ears. He had never heard anything like that; mad, full of hate, dying. He was still shuddering long after the echoes faded.
What did you do? he whispered as Dash eased towards the door of the Lestrange vault again.
Killed the living part of it. The trick is to kill the entire thing at once, or the spells binding the living part to the unliving one will keep it alive, no matter how large the wound, Draco said, as he began to twitch his coils. Harry wondered if he was going to vomit up his next weapon. Now the door is stone. And stone-
Dash reared up to his full, impressive height, making Harry’s view of the whole corridor change dizzyingly, and then flared his eyes open. The stone flaked and crumbled in front of his gaze, much the way the fire had.
Is vulnerable, Dash said, and slithered into the vault over the sudden pile of rubble.
Harry listened intently as Dash circled through the vault, tongue flicking out as he scented for the Horcrux. I don’t hear the goblins. Did they decide whatever had bypassed their defenses was too intense to tackle?
Hardly. Dash sounded amused. I think that, rather, they were distracted thoroughly by your Severus’s potion, and even goblins in their own territory would take more time than this to cover the distance from the door and overcome the residual effects of the potion.
They should still be coming, though.
I agree. Dash raised his head to the level of a shelf set back into the stone, and Harry saw the golden cup gleaming there. He wanted to recoil, even separated from it as he was by hundreds of miles. The sheer reek of a Horcrux was unmistakable.
How are you going to lift it? Harry asked, when he had caught his breath. I don’t think you should touch it.
Dash nodded and drew his head back a little. Harry waited, but he could hear distant bells now and the sound of shouted orders. At least some of the goblins had recovered from the potion, then.
Dash opened his mouth further and once again summoned a torrent of venom.
Dash! Harry cried out in shock as he watched the green liquid drench the Horcrux. That was…that was the simplest method, he had to admit. But they hadn’t discussed it, and he simply hadn’t imagined that something like this was going to happen.
I cannot chance part of my body touching it, Dash said simply as the poison cascaded onto the floor and began to dissolve gold and silver and bronze and probably other magical items Harry couldn’t see. Neither you nor Severus could defeat me if I was possessed by one of the bloody things.
I know, I just didn’t think…
And now I need to leave, Dash said, and whipped around again to face the door of the vault.
Seven goblins were standing there, holding long stone tubes that made Harry swallow nervously. He wasn’t sure what kind of weapons they were, but he had no doubt that they were weapons. And what exactly would they do to Dash?
Nothing that I do not want.
Dash slithered casually towards the goblins. Two of them raised stone tubes. The others hefted battle-axes. One of them asked a question, but it was in Gobbledegook, so Harry didn’t understand it.
They’re warning me that I’m going to die. Dash’s tongue darted out. Stubborn things. Let them stand before this.
And he twisted his body to the side and flicked his tail, and the tide of venom that had been pooling in the bottom of the vault rushed towards the goblins.
Stubborn they might be, but they had good instincts, for which Harry was grateful. He didn’t really want Dash and Severus to kill people. The goblins dived out of the way as the poison washed past them and into the corridor, where it started to eat at the stone. Dash, meanwhile, was already out, not flinching as the poison washed against his scales. It felt like nothing more than a light bath to Harry.
I should hope it feels that way, Dash scolded him as he slithered across the corridor and into one of the tunnels that led off it. It would be a poor basilisk who’s vulnerable to his own venom.
Harry sighed and decided that he wouldn’t get much out of questioning what would happen if a basilisk was vulnerable. How are you going to get out of the bank with the goblins alerted? he asked, as he watched doors blur past as Dash slid upwards faster than Harry had known he was capable of.
I’m going up.
Harry sent the feeling of rolling his eyes down the bond. You know very well what I mean. How are you going to escape when they know that you’re here and exactly where you are?
You don’t know that. Dash reached a cliff wall that Harry didn’t remember being there on the way down and swarmed up it. In seconds they were gliding along what looked like a marble wall with glinting water beneath it. For all you know, they could still be running in circles and coping with the last of Severus’s potion.
But at least some of them saw you, Harry moaned a little. They’ll want to destroy you for breaking into the bank, and they’ll probably want to destroy the Potter vaults, too.
You think a goblin would do that? Dash abruptly plunged into the water and began to swim, and Harry gave up on understanding the geography down here as he watched the water widen into what looked like an underground lake.
What? Yes, of course they would do it if they were angry enough.
Dash chuckled, his tongue lashing the air again as he crawled up on the far shore of the lake, which was dark enough to look like basalt. You still don’t really understand goblins, Harry. They’ll have listened to the rumors about me being the reincarnation of Salazar Slytherin or at least you taking the position of Slytherin’s Heir. It’s the Slytherin vaults they’ll target.
Harry blinked for a bit, while Dash squeezed himself through a tunnel that should have been too small to contain him and came up against a blank stone wall. He scented along it for a moment, then reared back and drove his head forwards. The stone crumbled and fell about him, and Dash kept going, over the lip of another waterfall and onto a set of cart tracks that made Harry swallow.
And what’s in the Slytherin vaults? he managed to ask as Dash coursed up the cart tracks and took a left at the top of what had seemed a slight hill until they climbed it, heading ever upwards. Anything that you’ll be sorry to lose?
Dash chuckled again and murmured, Goblins waiting up here. As for the vaults, they’re extraordinarily hard to get into. Those were the days that goblins would let you add your own enchantments to the vault doors, not just the contents.
And inside?
One Galleon each. Those were also the days when all you needed was one Galleon to hold a vault.
Harry snickered and watched the curtains of his bed flicker back into being around him. He clapped his hand over his mouth and hoped that he hadn’t woken anybody up.
Are you sure that you’re going to be able to get out of there? he whispered as he watched the stone walls fly past them. Dash paused at one point and broke down another one that revealed a new set of cart tracks behind it.
I am sure of it, Dash said, and then he ducked his neck as something whistled closely over his head. Harry gasped as he saw the reflected light of flames glinting on the metal of the tracks, and he wanted to twist to see what was behind them, but he was bound by the angle of Dash’s head and eyes.
“Stop, basilisk!”
Dash didn’t actually stop, but he slowed. The tunnel ahead of him was filled with goblins, more of them with the stone tubes that must have fired the blast of flame, and some with axes and swords. The largest goblin, in the front of the horde, scowled at Dash.
“You are not to move further,” he said. “You will suffer the penalty of anyone who breaks into the bank.”
Dash gave a loose, rippling motion of his coils that Harry thought he was the only one there to recognize as a shrug, and lifted one set of eyelids.
Petrified goblins tumbled back out of the way, and Dash kept slithering, over them and up and on. Harry winced. Did you crush any of them when you did that? He managed to make it sound, he thought, like a neutral question, not one that was as irritated as he actually had been.
Dash chuckled at him and kept moving. They are bruised, but alive. I don’t actually want to kill goblins, but neither do I mind their deaths.
What you said about them coming from another world...
Wizards do, too. I told you.
What did you mean by that?
That they come from another world. That all of you do. All of us do. Basilisk eggs were constructed for the first time here, I believe, at least in the way that most people breed them, but the ideas would have come with them from the other world.
Harry shook his head, full of questions. Why didn’t anyone else tell me this? Where was the world? Why did they leave it? Could we go back there someday? Do you think that it would be better than-
I am trying to escape a bank here, Harry. Why not put the questions to sleep and ask me them in a little while?
Harry swallowed back his protests and folded his arms behind his head. His bed flickered into view around him again, but he pushed the vision away.
As long as Dash was in Gringotts, then Harry planned to stay with him.
*
Severus felt a surge of relief he would have denied if asked as he watched Dash crawl into the Apparition courtyard. He reached out and rested his hand on the scales for a second. Dash dipped his head and nodded slowly, his lids locking in place over his blazing yellow eyes.
“Good,” Severus whispered, knowing it was the best reassurance he would get when he didn’t speak Parseltongue, and then Apparated them. He thought he could hear the sound of distant running footsteps, and wouldn’t be surprised if the goblins had tracked Dash into Knockturn Alley.
He staggered as they landed at the base of the path from Hogsmeade again. That was a roughness he hadn’t anticipated, and he looked carefully down at his robes to make sure that he hadn’t picked up some kind of tracking charm or dragging weight.
Dash touched him with a gentle tongue again, and Severus thought he knew what the basilisk was saying. Severus had cast a lot of magic in a short time, Apparated several times in the last hour, and transported a giant basilisk at the last, something he hadn’t done since the first hop. It was understandable that he would be fatigued.
Severus nodded his understanding and thanks, and then turned around with a scowl as he watched the lanky figure running towards them from Hogwarts. “He promised that he would at least try to get some sleep,” he muttered.
Dash fluttered his tongue next to him and slithered up the path. Severus saw Harry throw his arms around Dash, and something in him relaxed, even though he was annoyed at Harry for sneaking through the castle after curfew. That bloody Invisibility Cloak had been a thorn in his side long before Harry became Master of Death.
“Thank you for bringing him back,” Harry told Severus, and then gave him a long, steady glance. “You’re not hurt?”
Severus snorted. “Of course not. I am not the one who took the risk of going into the bank.” He glanced at Dash. “And because I could not communicate with him directly, I do not know the fate of the Horcrux.”
Infuriatingly, that got him an eyeroll from Harry. “You know you could have asked him a yes-no question, and he could have bobbed his head for yes?” Harry asked, his arm draping securely around part of Dash’s neck.
“There was no time.”
Harry’s face softened then. “I know. I saw-most of the attack and the escape through Dash’s eyes. Thank you for everything, Severus. I know that the goblins would have killed Dash if you hadn’t brewed that potion, and there’s no way other than Apparition he could have escaped so quickly.” Dash hissed as if disagreeing, but if he was, Harry didn’t bother translating. “You’re a miracle-worker.”
And if he had to share Harry with Dash, Severus thought, at least he got these declarations from Harry, so much warmer than he could have imagined even a year ago.
He dredged up a smile. “You are welcome. And the fate of the Horcrux?”
“Dash destroyed it with his venom. He didn’t want to try moving it, and he couldn’t have Levitated it or carried it in his mouth.”
Severus nodded, content. A Horcrux that someone else destroyed so Harry didn’t even have to come into contact with it was the best kind, in his way of thinking.
“Come on,” Harry murmured, to what might have been either of them, although he was looking at Dash. “You’ll get the healing and rest that you need up at the school.” And he began to tug on Dash’s neck as if he intended to bring him to Madam Pomfrey by himself.
Dash probably went only because he wanted to indulge Harry, but Severus was glad enough to follow. Thoughts of his warm bed had begun to wend through his mind, larger than even the contentment.
*
“Are you-are you disappointed?”
Harry stared blankly at Hermione and Ron for a second, then shook his head. “Disappointed? Of course not! Are you mental? I think it’s great that you’ve found things you want to focus on!”
Ron relaxed and gave him a relieved smile, then opened his mouth, probably to begin talking again about opportunities to train as a strategy coach for Quidditch teams, but Hermione interrupted. “You say that, but I can’t believe you aren’t disappointed, Harry. We were helping in the war effort, and now-”
“One way or the other,” Harry interrupted her quietly, “the war effort is going to be over soon, Hermione.” He winced when he saw how pale she got, but continued. “You helped a lot by researching the Horcruxes and giving us a way to find them, but right now, the only ones left are the one in me and the one in Voldemort. If you can even think about them separately,” he added reluctantly. He honestly wasn’t sure if he could, as disgusting as it was to imagine himself tied to Voldemort like that. “So either we’re going to win or he’s going to kill me. That’s it.”
“Don’t say that.” Hermione looked as if she was about to start scolding him, but Ron swung an arm around her shoulders and interrupted her.
“He has to say it, Hermione. He has to at least think about it so that he can be prepared.” Ron took a deep breath and focused on Harry. “So do you want us to be part of the battle or not?”
“If you want, then I thought you could join Fred and George.”
Ron blinked. “What are they going to do?”
“Stay behind the lines in the decoy battle at Malfoy Manor and use their pranks,” Harry said, smiling a little as Hermione huffed. “Honestly, they’ve been developing some pretty interesting things. I think they’re going to take the Death Eaters by surprise.”
“They should be studying for their NEWTS,” said Hermione, brushing her hair out of her eyes as she focused on Harry.
Harry shrugged a little. “I don’t think they care, Hermione. It would matter if they wanted to work at the Ministry, or-if there wasn’t a war. But there’s no NEWT you need for opening a shop the way they want to do.”
“They should still-”
Ron hastily interrupted, probably recognizing as well as Harry that they didn’t need that lecture right now. It wasn’t like the twins were even around to hear it. “What do you think is going to be the best step?”
“We can still herd him in the right direction, but only once, I think,” Harry said quietly. “Severus and Dash don’t want me to interact with him at all in the next week, and I agree. If we try to lure him into some other trap before then, he won’t take the bait when we really want him to.” He hesitated. “Draco is going to use Bellatrix.”
“You know I still don’t agree with blood magic,” Hermione muttered, but it seemed to be reflexive. Harry ignored her.
“I think that’s as good a plan as any other we’re going to get that.” Ron grimaced and settled back in his chair. “What happens if he doesn’t listen, though? Are we going to be able to get him to Malfoy Manor?”
Harry hesitated, and Ron leaned in and focused on him again. “Harry?”
“If worst comes to worst, then we’re going to use me as bait. Voldemort won’t be able to pass up the chance to attack me once he sees where I am.”
“You’re not going to really be going outside unguarded, of course.” Hermione looked as if she wanted to punch him, or maybe punch Severus and Dash. “Professor Snape would never have agreed to that.”
“No, but we might have to make me look that way.” Harry licked his lips. “But that’s only if Draco’s plan with Bellatrix doesn’t work. Right now, we have no reason to think that it won’t work.”
Hermione nodded tensely. Ron was the one who whispered, “What happens if you die during the war?”
“If it defeats Voldemort, mourn me and live,” Harry said, as sharply as he could. “If he takes over Britain, please, both of you, run.”
“We’d want to stay and avenge you,” Ron said, jutting his chin up in a way that was every inch the proud Gryffindor.
“I know that. But I would be dead, and if for some reason I am watching from the afterlife or aware for some reason…” Harry swallowed. He didn’t want to bring up ideas that Voldemort might be able to hang onto his spirit and torture him like that, even though Dash had told him how accomplished Voldemort was at necromancy. “I want you to leave.”
Ron and Hermione exchanged agonized glances. “That’s what you’d really want,” Hermione checked in a low voice.
Harry nodded firmly. “I know-I know that Dash would go on a rampage to avenge me, and I’ve already talked to him about it and failed to change his mind. And I don’t think I could make Severus and Draco leave. Voldemort would probably hunt them down and try to kill them especially anyway. But please. Promise me.”
Ron was the first to take his hand and clasp it firmly. “All right, Harry. If that’s what you really want.”
“Yes,” Hermione whispered, taking his other hand. “We promise.”
Harry closed his eyes and hugged them. It wasn’t a perfect assurance, especially considering that he didn’t even know if they would manage to flee if Voldemort won and blocked all the ways out of the country, but it was the best he was going to get for right now.
You have that from them, and you have my assurance from me.
Harry sighed. You know I would prefer it if you left, and lived.
What reason do I have to live, if you are dead?
And that, Harry thought wearily, was as much as he was going to get out of Dash. He leaned harder into his friends’ embrace and sighed.
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty.
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