Chapter Twenty-Five of 'A Brother to Basilisks'- Certain Things Burned

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Title: A Brother to Basilisks (25/?)
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 Twenty-Five-Certain Things Burned

Draco stood with his arms folded and a scowl on his face near the door of Professor Snape’s office. He knew, from Father’s single glance, that he disapproved of the scowl. Draco should smooth it out and wear a pleasant mask, like the kind he wore when Father had Ministry connections to the Manor for dinner.

But Draco knew what had happened at the end of last year between Harry and his father. And he hadn’t known until a few minutes ago that his father was going to come to Professor Snape’s office and speak to Harry for some reason. Harry had let it slip because he was arguing aloud with Dash in what he probably thought was Parseltongue, and then Draco had heard, and of course he wasn’t going to let Harry walk alone into a situation like that.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you under such different circumstances, Mr. Potter,” said Father, and bowed his head a little so he could hold Harry’s eyes. Harry had the worst habit of looking at the floor, Draco knew. He didn’t know how Harry intended to convince people to let him alone, like Sirius Black, if he just stared at the floor all the time. “You understand that we will be allies in this?”

What’s this? Draco hated not knowing. And he cleared his throat to remind the other people in the room of that.

“Yes, sir. Professor Snape told me.” Harry’s voice was a compressed little version of itself that Draco had never heard before. He even acted as if he hadn’t heard Draco clear his throat, either! Unbelievable.

Draco was about to say something else when Father’s eyes found him. Draco clamped his lips shut and looked off, at one of the jars on the shelves that held a floating, half-dissected heart in it. Draco had never understood that. Why not a whole heart? There weren’t any potions that used half.

“Good,” said Father, and sat back in his chair. Professor Snape was near the door, watching them both with his arms folded and his face as dark as it usually was only around Longbottom. Draco looked back and forth between the two of them in confusion. Which one of them had drawn Professor Snape’s wrath, Father or Harry? “How old were you when you first started being abused?”

Draco jolted. That didn’t sound like Black and Lupin. That sounded like something else, something a lot worse.

This time, it was Professor Snape’s eye on him when Draco started to open his mouth. Draco decided that since he was in class with Harry, he would get more of a chance to speak with him than the two adults did, and clamped his mouth shut again, but his throat was burning the way it had one time when he ate too many Fizzing Whizzbees at once.

What was going on? And how come Harry hadn’t told him before this? He’d told Draco a lot of other things, and if he was going to tell Father, of all people, about this, then he should have been able to tell Draco.

Draco decided he would listen. Then he would talk to Harry about it later. And he would do it with lots of details so he would know if Harry was keeping something from him or lying again. That was the best thing.

There was so much he had to learn about Harry, he thought, watching him as he lifted his head and started answering Father’s question. Dash was leaning up along Harry’s neck, watching his eyes, but Harry wasn’t looking down at him for once.

I suppose I can think of it as him telling me now…

But that didn’t mean there weren’t going to be questions later.

*

Harry had hesitated when he realized Draco would be in the room while he talked about his abuse, but then he had shrugged to himself. Eventually, Draco would know about it along with everyone else. Why not tell him now, instead of making him wait?

I could bite him, Dash offered.

You can’t simply offer to bite everyone who does something I don’t like, said Harry tiredly, and then concentrated on his conversation with Mr. Malfoy. There was nothing else he could do right now. Professor Snape had warned him that it was going to be this way, told him he could talk to someone else first, but in a strange way, Harry thought it was a good thing. If someone who was on the Board of Governors talked about Harry’s abuse, fewer people would think he was crazy or making things up.

If they say that, I will bite all of them.

You can’t.

I can. It will only take a little longer.

“I think they abused me for a long time,” said Harry. “Since I was three, anyway. I was sleeping in the cupboard by then.”

“Your bedroom was a cupboard,” Mr. Malfoy repeated. He sounded odd. Harry couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “And no one warned them that this was inappropriate?”

Harry did have to sort of look at him then, because he would have thought the answer to that was obvious. “No one knew, Mr. Malfoy. None of the Muggles ever saw the inside of the house, and they told all the neighbors that I was a violent boy who was going to a school for criminals.” Mr. Malfoy’s cane tapped on the floor at that, and Harry found himself wondering if it was something he used to use to beat Dobby.

He breathed out slowly. Focus on what he’s helping you do. That will be better than focusing on how he hurt Dobby.

It was still pretty bloody weird, having Lucius Malfoy help him. But maybe Harry would have more than one chance to get used to it. Maybe he would see Mr. Malfoy again and he would say encouraging things.

Then Harry shook his head sharply. He had only just got used to having Sirius say them, and look how that had turned out.

“I see,” said Mr. Malfoy. “How long did you stay in the cupboard?”

“Until I got my Hogwarts letters.” Harry once again didn’t know what Mr. Malfoy was thinking, but that made it easier to talk. If he had been faced with pity or something like that, he didn’t know if he could have stood it.

“Letters?” Mr. Malfoy seemed to have decided that he was less interested in the things that had outraged Snape. Harry relaxed a little. Sure, he’d talk about them if he had to, but he didn’t particularly want to.

You should. Everyone should know, and then perhaps they would try to make up for how you were treated.

Harry didn’t see the point of answering that, because it wasn’t anyone here except Sirius and Lupin who had treated him badly, and sort of Dumbledore, and just answered the question instead. “When they sent one letter, my relatives took it away. So Hogwarts sent more. My uncle finally fled the house and took me along with him.” Harry snorted a little. “They sent Hagrid instead. He sort of made an impression.”

Mr. Malfoy gave a quick look over Harry’s head at someone, but Harry wasn’t sure who he was looking at, Snape or Draco. Harry gave Dash a quick little stroke on the back of his head and gathered his voice to go on when Mr. Malfoy nodded to him.

“They didn’t feed me well,” said Harry. “They let my cousin beat me up. They made me do most of their chores.” He thought about it, but he honestly couldn’t see what else he could bring up with Mr. Malfoy that would make a good story for the papers. He straightened up, though, as he remembered why he was doing this. He didn’t want that to get left out of the stories.

“I want other kids to be safe,” he said quietly, meeting Mr. Malfoy’s eyes. It was easier to do this time, loads easier. “I wouldn’t be speaking up otherwise. I didn’t really want anyone to know about this, but if I can make sure that someone else gets to spend some time away from their abusive families, then it’s worth it.”

Mr. Malfoy only watched him with more of that odd expression on his face. Harry supposed he was thinking about the political advantages of having the Boy-Who-Lived confess like this, and didn’t care that much about the other abused kids at Hogwarts. Well, Harry could understand that. Maybe it didn’t matter so much why someone did the right thing, as long as they did it.

“I will cooperate in making them safe,” said Mr. Malfoy. It really didn’t have much passion in it, but, well, Harry supposed he could live with it. “Now. What do you mean by they didn’t feed you well?”

Harry flicked his eyes over to the side. Snape was watching him, and he leveled Harry with a glare that was more impressive than some of the ones he had used in Potions class. Harry grimaced. That meant he wasn’t going to get away with denying that it was starvation.

“I meant that they starved me,” said Harry. It was easier the second time around, he thought. Maybe someday he wouldn’t flinch at all when he said it. “They would lock me up with no food in the cupboard, and sometimes they would only give me a little food because my cousin was supposed to eat healthy. And sometimes they wouldn’t give me food until I finished my chores.”

“How often would you say that happened?”

Harry relaxed a little. Mr. Malfoy sounded like a man who had come and talked to Harry’s primary school class one day about statistics, how he collected them and reported on them. He’d just cared about numbers.

Maybe Mr. Malfoy did, too. Maybe he wouldn’t care that much about what had happened to Harry as Harry, or the Boy-Who-Lived. Maybe he only cared about what he could make happen with the numbers that Harry would give him.

“A lot,” said Harry. “Sometimes once a week. Sometimes more. It usually happened if I’d done something freaky, but sometimes just when my uncle got upset with something else and took it out on me.”

“Freaky,” said Mr. Malfoy.

Snape was glaring at him again. Dash stretched his neck alongside Harry’s and said, That word caught his attention. If you wished to avoid that, you should not have used it.

Well, how was I to know he would pay that much attention to it? Harry snapped at Dash. I didn’t know he would. He was ignoring a lot of what I said before!

You do not want pity, but you need it.

That made less sense than when Dash was trying to tell Harry about the wonders of roasted mice-which he had never tasted-so Harry ignored his basilisk and turned back to Mr. Malfoy. “That’s what they called magic,” he said. “I never knew it was magic until I got the letters, though. I mean, I made my hair grow back and I ended up on the roof of the school once when my cousin was chasing me. Those seemed pretty freaky to me.”

Mr. Malfoy nodded. “And was this word a frequent term of abuse for you?”

Harry grimaced. He supposed he would have to do that, too. “Yes. They said I was a freak and the things I did was freaky. Or freakish,” he added. If he was going to be honest, he should talk about all the words, he supposed.

Mr. Malfoy nodded and spent a moment staring off into the distance, his fingers clasped around his cane. Then he turned back to Harry and said, “You wouldn’t object to explaining how big the cupboard is? Or what your cousin did to you when he beat you up? Although it’s perhaps best done in front of reporters.”

Harry winced, but then nodded and shrugged. He’d come this far. He could go farther. He would pin his mind on the other kids he could help. He was out of the Dursleys’ house now, so no one could really help him or change what had happened, but he could still change the future.

You distress me.

Harry touched Dash’s neck, but just like he hadn’t understood Dash’s last comment, he really didn’t understand what he’d done wrong this time. Sorry.

Dash flung multiple coils around Harry’s wrist and arms, his version of a hug. Harry hugged him back, arms around his neck, and looked up only when Mr. Malfoy cleared his throat softly.

“I understand there has been recent trouble between you and your Wizengamot-appointed guardian.”

Harry stood up and took a step forwards. “You’re not going to put that in the papers,” he said.

Mr. Malfoy looked at him with the same considering expression, but this time, it failed to reassure Harry. Harry took another aggressive step forwards. He was thinking about how he had tricked Mr. Malfoy into freeing Dobby the year before. He would do something like that again, if Mr. Malfoy didn’t cooperate. “You’re not,” he said, and his voice was like a snarl. He might have managed a better one if he’d been turned into a werewolf, he thought, but not by much.

“No,” said Mr. Malfoy, and his hands relaxed from the top of the cane. “No, I will not put that in the papers.”

Harry nodded. He was wondering who had let part of the secret out, Draco or Snape. He knew Mr. Malfoy wouldn’t have talked to Ron or Hermione. “Good. Because it has nothing to do with this. It doesn’t matter what Sirius does. He won’t lock me up in a cupboard or call me freak or lie to me about magic, so he’s loads better than the Dursleys.”

“That, at least, is true,” said Mr. Malfoy, and tapped his cane. “Now. We need to plan when and where you will appear and make this announcement.”

Harry nodded. That was actually the sort of thing he had thought he would come here to discuss with Mr. Malfoy. He settled down, and Dash released the tight coil, and he could participate in conversations about the Board of Governors and reporters without feeling that he was rather stupid.

*

Severus waited until the boys were out of the office to turn to Lucius. Lucius had one hand held to his chin in thought, and Severus knew he was far away, revising plans in his head and making new ones about who to contact first.

“So,” Severus said, when Lucius looked at him with eyes that acknowledged his presence again.

“Yes,” said Lucius. “He will do well to bring down Dumbledore. What happened to him is worse than I thought.”

Severus lifted his eyebrows. He had expected the first comment, but not the second. “Despite the lack of detail, and your lack of sympathy for the boy?” He had been sure that Lucius would overcome his distaste of Harry for the sake of the plan, but he had not foreseen sympathy of any sort.

“He was lying,” said Lucius dismissively. “Or at least carefully choosing his words in an attempt to downplay the truth.”

Severus hissed a little. “I have told him to be honest. If someone in the press traps him in a lie, or Dumbledore manages it…”

Lucius shook his head. “Not consciously, Severus. He has defended his secrets for so long that I think he is unable to let go of them. It is a skill probably bred into him by long residence in that house.” He paused, and Severus waited for the next question. Lucius’s mind ran in unpredictable directions sometimes.

Lucius finally asked an unexpected one. “Why is he not in Slytherin?”

Severus gave him a grim smile. “Because he talked the Hat out of putting him there.”

Lucius had known about Harry’s near-Sorting already, but not that tidbit. He shook his head as he rose to his feet. “His loss. Someone would have discovered this before now, and secured him in an environment where he would know better than to trust someone who spent twelve years in Azkaban Prison.” His glance at Severus said he had no doubt of who that person would have been.

“Someone has discovered it now,” Severus said, and paused. “I did not intend for you to expose my inferences about Black in front of Harry.”

Luicus’s eyes narrowed around the corners in the way that sometimes made him look as if he was a fox. One about to break a hen’s neck, Severus thought darkly. “I was, admittedly, reaching for more information. There is…a certain long-standing matter between Black and myself that I would like to see resolved.”

Severus stared at Lucius. He had known that Lucius had met Black several times before his stint in Azkaban, and perhaps he had attended Lucius’s wedding to Narcissa, but that was all. “What is it?”

“You do not share all your information, Severus. You did not even tell me what the boy’s godfather is supposed to have done.” Lucius’s mouth quirked a little. “Think about this, and resolve on whether you want to tell me something more.”

He left the room. Severus sighed soundlessly and spent a moment controlling the urge to pace in a circle.

His potions that he needed for revenge on Black and Lupin were not finished brewing yet. He had invited Lucius into this explosion, and he would have to deal with the resulting burns.

But there was one thing he could do, one thing that need not ever come to light as far as the reporters were concerned, but which he wanted to do for his own peace of mind, in case Dumbledore ever tried to send Harry back to the Dursleys.

He found parchment and ink easily enough, but it was still long minutes before he could order his mind to start composing the letter to the woman who had been Petunia Evans.

*

“Why didn’t you tell me? What they did to you was horrible!”

I like this boy, Dash said, mounding his body up so that his chin was crowning Harry’s head, and giving Draco a look of unexpected approval. He talks good sense.

Harry didn’t bother petting Dash this time. That was another one of those confusing remarks that he wouldn’t understand. And he was honestly surprised that Draco didn’t already know the answer to his own question. “Why would I?” he asked, staring at the floor. He had a hole in the toe of one of his trainers. He wondered if Sirius would buy him a new pair of trainers if he asked for them. Sirius had been so strange lately, it was something he had to wonder. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Stop staring at the floor,” Draco snapped abruptly. “Look the fuck up.”

Harry did, shocked. The swear word wasn’t the only reason why, but it was a big part of it.

Draco leaned against the library shelf next to them, and spent a long moment staring at Harry. “That’s better,” he said finally. “You should meet people’s eyes. You did before you started thinking about this abuse all the time and before Black and Lupin pulled their stupid idiocy.” His voice softened for a second. “Anyway, if my father is one of the people who advocates for you and exposes your abuse to the public, then you know we can be friends more easily, right?”

Harry nodded, a little blank, not sure what that had to do with anything.

“So you can tell me things.” Draco gave him what was probably supposed to be an eloquent glance, but Harry couldn’t see why that would make things less embarrassing. It was easier to talk to people who didn’t care, like Mr. Malfoy. “And anyway, you don’t have to be embarrassed. They’re the ones who should be.”

“They’re not in the wizarding world,” Harry pointed out, getting a little annoyed. “They’re not the ones who’ll have to deal with seeing their faces on the front page of the paper for months and months.”

“But if you could tell my father, you could tell me. My father isn’t your friend.”

“I know,” said Harry and sighed. “But I let you stay there while I was talking to him, so I did tell you, didn’t I?”

Draco studied him for a second. Harry wanted to squirm. It was sometimes harder to face Draco’s eyes than Hermione’s, even though there was no reason why that should be true. Hermione was the one he’d been friends with for years, and she was the one who tended to launch into lectures about things like not doing homework. Being with Draco should be easier, because he didn’t do things like that.

No, he just looked like this, and it was worse than his father’s kind of hard-to-read expression, because it had an undertone of disappointment that Harry didn’t understand.

“You can tell me other things,” said Draco. “Besides that.” He let go of Harry’s shoulder and nodded to him and walked out of the aisle.

Dash watched him go. Harry had gone back to looking at the floor again. Dash said, He has good advice about keeping your eyes up.

“Not you, too,” Harry muttered, and went back to Gryffindor Tower. He was pretty drained, and he didn’t even bother going to dinner, despite Dash’s threat to ask the house-elves to bring him mice if he didn’t. He just needed to lie in one place and think about things for a while.

*

Blaise rolled his eyes at the way Draco kept looking up at the post-owls. Was he waiting for his mother to send him another box of sweets?

Blaise had to admit that sometimes he was jealous, because he rarely received post from his own mother, but he knew she was busy. And when she wrote to him, it was exciting. She would tell him about new magical theories she’d been investigating, or the holidays they were going to take in the summer, or that the rumors about his latest stepfather’s death had been greatly exaggerated.

He preferred that over more frequent but less exciting letters, he had to admit.

Anyway, Draco reached out and took the Prophet, in the end, not a letter or a wrapped box. Blaise shook his head sadly and picked up his fork to finish his breakfast. Poor Draco. His life had become much less exciting since Blaise had taken that possessed book away.

“Harry!”

The shout came from the Gryffindor table. Blaise looked up, and found that Weasley was staring at Potter, who went on steadfastly feeding tidbits to his basilisk as if nothing had happened. In between bites, the basilisk stared up wistfully at the soaring owls, or as much as it could with its deadly eyes shielded.

Weasley was holding a copy of the Prophet.

Blaise promptly used a spell that would allow him to look directly over Draco’s shoulder without moving from his seat. He had refused to read the Prophet on a regular basis since they’d reported false rumors about his mother, but he wanted to see this.

There was a photograph of Potter there, one they’d probably taken months ago when he first had a basilisk and they were interviewing him about that, because it didn’t look recent. Potter looked resigned but determined-appropriate for the headline.

BOY-WHO-LIVED ABUSED AT THE HANDS OF HIS MUGGLE RELATIVES!

Well, Blaise thought, as his heart gave an odd tremor and memories he had sworn to forget flooded the back of his mind, it seems Draco found some excitement after all.

Chapter Twenty-Six.

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