Chapter Eighty-Eight of 'A Brother to Basilisks'- Stories Told in Mourning
Chapter Eighty-Seven.
Title: A Brother to Basilisks (88/?)
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 Eighty-Eight-Stories Told in Mourning
Severus hurtled to a stop at the side of Harry’s bed and stared down at him. He was no longer thrashing and moaning as Draco had described when he came to find Severus. He no longer bled. He simply lay still with a face as pale as a pearl.
Severus cast the spell that would tell him if Harry was still breathing, and nearly collapsed when the reassuring numbers formed above his chest. He reached out and touched Dash, and found him as heavy and cold and unresponsive. He shook his head, unsure whether that was only exhaustion or if Dash had gone to protect Harry in his nightmares, wherever they were.
“What is it? Can you save him?”
Severus opened his mouth to answer Draco, and just at that moment, Harry gave a huge cough. It did make drops of blood fly out of his mouth, and Severus’s wand fly through the pattern of yet another diagnostic spell. But he found nothing wrong. Harry was coughing, but now the only blood was coming from the scar on his forehead.
And Severus had always been aware that that scar was anything but normal.
“Dash!” Harry opened his eyes, saw Severus and Draco standing there, and abruptly sat up and threw his arms around them.
Severus bowed his head and held tight, feeling his own exhaustion drumming through his veins. There was something warm next to his chest that shouldn’t be there, though, that was far more than the warmth of his own feelings. He reached out and drew the chain that held the shield charm he had made for Harry out of his robes. He winced when he saw the blackened and charred state of the shield.
Harry winced, too. “Voldemort said-he said the charm and Dash were exhausted protecting me from Dumbledore.”
“Is Dash all right?”
Harry nodded to Draco, and then broke free of Severus to lean over and stroke Dash’s neck. Severus tried not to be resentful, and mostly succeeded.
“Voldemort pulled me into his mind,” Harry whispered. A slow trail of blood crept down his cheek from his scar, winding around the side of his mouth. “It was horrible. He took-he took part of my soul, and said that made him my Horcrux.”
Severus closed his eyes, but he also changed the sharp motion of his wand, that had been about to start a healing charm, into one that raised walls of privacy around them. The last thing they needed was Pomfrey or, far worse, a curious Auror intruding on them and carrying the name of Horcruxes out into the wider world.
“What does that mean? Do you think that’s true?”
“I don’t-know. I don’t know how much I was dreaming and how much he was really doing because of the connection between us. But I know-after he ate part of my soul, and I felt him doing ¬that-he had my eyes.”
Severus felt sick with horror, but he forced his voice into action and his eyes open. “Then the Dark Lord no longer wants to kill you?”
“I don’t know.” Harry shivered. “I don’t know. I think he’s mad. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Even with the many horrible things Harry had lived through, that Severus could well believe.
Then Harry looked at Dash, and his face changed with a mixture of tenderness and awe that Severus would have given a quarter of his brewing skill to have inspired himself. “But even though Voldemort did that and told me he could just keep doing whatever he wanted, Dash saved me. Voldemort thought he could control Dash because he had part of my soul. And because he’s a Parselmouth on his own, I reckon,” Harry added, as if that wasn’t of much importance. “But Dash fooled him. He pretended to obey, and then he tore us free. And he said-Dash said I could share his soul.”
“That’s impossible.”
Severus was sorry for the way his words made Harry start, but only for that. He sank down in front of him and took his hands. For the first time since he and Dash had come back, Harry seemed to be really looking at him, a deep crease between his brows as he stared at Severus.
“Why?” His voice was the softest breath.
“Because that would mean you are essentially the same being,” said Severus. “And if he died, you would, too.”
That didn’t have the effect on Harry that he’d hoped. Harry only set his jaw in a way that honestly owed nothing to either of his parents, even though Severus had seen both James and Lily being stubborn times between counting. Neither had ever looked so braced to endure blows, though. “Dash already told me that he’s going to die when I do. It wouldn’t really matter if we died because Voldemort killed him, because the same thing would happen if Voldemort killed me.” He hesitated, then added, “Except that he told me he would kill lots of people if someone killed me.”
Severus glanced at the basilisk, then away. He wished he didn’t know that, because he would never be able to look at Dash in the same way again.
Then again, the important thing right now was helping Harry. Severus spoke with as much calm as he could muster. “There are no studies, as far as I know, on the long-term effects of sharing an animal’s soul. I have heard it as something momentary, something that a wizard might do to bond with his familiar and escape a dire situation involving soul magic, but they would separate immediately afterwards. And it sounds like Dash intends that this should be long-term?”
He wondered at the odd smile Harry was giving him. An odd expression itself he could have understood, but a smile?
“Let me guess,” Draco whispered, and there was the same kind of smile on his face, which made Severus wonder irritably what he had missed that two teenage wizards could understand. “Dash’s soul isn’t exactly animal, is it?”
Harry shook his head and turned to stare at Dash again. Severus wrestled with various answers in the moments before Harry opened his mouth: Dash was more like a construct because of the way he had been created; he was different from a normal basilisk, or Harry was a Parselmouth, which made it all right; Harry had gone delusional with pain and fear.
“No. He has Salazar Slytherin’s soul.”
If someone had slammed an axe into Severus’s forehead that moment, he could not have been more surprised.
*
Draco felt the laughter bubbling up in his throat, and didn’t try to stop it. He flung his arms around Harry, who jumped, but then turned and hugged him back.
“You’re going to be so great,” Draco whispered, his throat humming with the words and his mind with possibilities. All he could see was Harry stepping forwards confidently in his mind, his hands spread while magic gathered between them, his extraordinary basilisk at his feet. “Once you tell the other Slytherins that, they’ll follow you, of course. And that’s not to mention the families that think you’re already the reincarnation of Slytherin! They’re right, now. You share his soul.”
Harry stirred uneasily in his arms. Draco stepped back and smoothed a hand down his forehead, wiping away the little drops of blood that still gathered from his scar. “What’s the matter? Don’t you think they’ll accept you? I promise they will.”
“No. Just-why would I tell anyone but you and Professor Snape and Ron and Hermione? I want you to know because you’re my friends. And my guardian. But I don’t want to tell anyone else.”
Draco stared at him. Then he said, “Why wouldn’t you tell anyone else?” He felt so bewildered it was hard to put his tongue and teeth together to say the words.
“Because it just makes things worse!” Harry said in a heated whisper. “I’m already dreading telling people that Voldemort is back, even though I know I have to do that. People are going to make fun of me and think I’m lying. And the same thing would happen if I told them-that.”
“But this would help mitigate that.” Draco was glad Professor Snape was there, and talking in such calm tones. “It would bring some allies to your side and reassure them that they were not wrong to believe in you. If you are going to spread the bad news, spreading the good at the same time is only-sense.”
I wonder what other word he was about to use there?
“But it would make me seem like even more of a freak than having Parseltongue and a basilisk already do.” Harry shook his head. “I won’t do it.”
Professor Snape leaned over Harry’s bed. “I do not want you to use that word again to describe yourself.”
“What? Just because the Dursleys used it?’
“Yes. That is enough reason.”
“But sometimes it’s true.”
Professor Snape straightened back up, and his face was dark. “Draco, if you would mind leaving the room?”
Draco wouldn’t have done it even if Harry hadn’t cast him the appealing look he did then. “Sorry, Professor,” he said lightly, wincing a little as he got a glare from his Head of House. “I do mind.”
“Harry and I are only going to have a talk about matters that we don’t need a third party here to discuss.”
“It’s not as if I’m Black,” said Draco, rolling his eyes. “I think this is more complicated than you think. Harry didn’t just use that word because he’s upset or frightened or-regressing.” It took some effort to think of it the way Professor Snape might. “No, I’m going to stay here. Because I’m with Harry.”
It was the first time he’d ever used those words aloud, but it sounded right, and Harry’s dawning smile made it right in other ways. Draco smiled back at him and arranged himself coolly next to Harry’s bed, letting one hand rest on his partner’s arm and one on Dash’s neck. It felt like the right posture to take, too.
And if Professor Snape was glaring at them…
Well, it made Draco feel for the Gryffindors who had attracted his glare in Potions class in the past. And that meant he could understand Harry better, since Harry was a Gryffindor who had done that. Which made this all to the good.
At least, that was the way Draco was going to explain it to his father if Father wanted to know why he had defied Professor Snape.
*
Harry was so tired.
His head ached. His scar stung. He could still feel the ragged, patched edges in himself where Voldemort had taken part of his soul and then Dash had stitched what was left into his soul. His body still shivered with the aftermath of the torture curses that he knew Voldemort had used on him, somehow, even if it wasn’t physically.
But he had to do this first. Because Snape had been good to him, and he had to make him understand.
“I am a freak,” he said, and Snape’s eyes found his so fast that Harry shivered a little. Only his absolute trust that Snape wouldn’t read his mind unless he thought Harry was a danger to himself let him kept going. “In the special way that means I’m unusual, and there’s really no way to get past that. No one else can forget how unusual I am because something always happens to remind them. I just don’t want to remind them when I don’t have to.
“No one can see my soul, or Dash’s. They’re not going to know who he was or how we’re joined unless I tell them. Why do I have to tell them?”
That strangeness weighed on his tongue, made him want to spit. He was already unusual enough, what with the scar on his forehead and the basilisk draped around his shoulders and the Tri-Wizard Tournament that he hadn’t even wanted to participate in. He could keep this to himself, and it would be okay. Why did he have to tell anyone?
Snape was silent so long that Harry thought he didn’t have an answer, and started to cheer up a little. It was special when not even Snape could come up with a reason why he ought to do something. Harry leaned back against his pillow and kept stroking Dash.
“Because it might help you and others survive.”
That wasn’t what Harry had expected. He swallowed. “But how? Sure, there’s some people who already think I’m the reincarnation of Slytherin, but they’re going to believe that whether or not I tell them about this. Why do I have to tell them again? Besides, it would probably just confuse them.” If Dash was the reincarnation of Slytherin, and not him, then Harry could see families like the Selwyns deciding to support Dash instead of him.
“There are others,” said Snape, his voice low and resonant. He sounded almost the way he had during Harry’s first year, when he was talking about the glories of potions and the way that he could teach students about them. “Those who did not believe that you were Slytherin’s reincarnation, but will believe it about Dash.”
Harry made a little movement he couldn’t stop. Draco grabbed his hand and held it. Harry was grateful for that, but it also irritated him. Why couldn’t people just leave him alone? “Why? What will convince them? How am I going to go and talk to them? It’s not even like I have any evidence. It was Dash that convinced people like the Selwyns. I could take Veritaserum and prove that I saw Slytherin in Dash, but that only proves I believe it. They could still think I’m just mistaken.”
Snape only watched him with eyes that were so deep and dark they didn’t even look patient. They didn’t look like he was feeling anything. Harry shivered, and Draco pressed close against him again.
“You have your truth,” Snape said. “There are people who would listen to the ring of your voice and believe it, as I do. And there is the test of Veritaserum. And there are many who would find it easy to believe that Salazar Slytherin had returned as an extraordinary basilisk than simply as someone who spoke Parseltongue.”
“Yeah, okay,” Harry said. “But so far-I mean, the people who think I’m the reincarnation haven’t done anything much. Just sent me letters and questions, and Alisoun to guard me at the Yule Ball. There isn’t much point in doing anything when nothing’s going to change.”
“Nothing’s going to change,” Draco repeated. He sounded slightly hysterical.
“Mr. Malfoy is correct,” Snape said calmly. “Within the school, Salazar Slytherin is revered as a Founder. Outside the school, he is called a magical genius, one of the last true generalist wizards who were good in all branches of magic known at the time, the discoverer of several important potions, the creator and defender of laws that he did not pass himself but persuaded other people to pass. The knowledge that he has returned is going to shake certain worlds, Mr. Potter.”
Harry wanted to hide his head. “So they’ll want to come and ask Dash what he knows? Knew?” It was hard to tell how much of Dash was still Slytherin, right now.
Snape nodded slowly. “And about the mysteries of soul magic, which Dash must know if he was able to share his soul with you.” He paused. “If you think about it, now that you share his soul, you are, in many ways, the reincarnation of Slytherin yourself.”
“But I don’t have a head full of knowledge! All I feel is tired!”
Snape leaned slightly nearer. “We are going to make sure that you survive, Harry. Physically, yes, of course that is important, but politically might be the more important way right now. The Ministry might try to destroy you with the news of Dumbledore’s death. They won’t want to believe that the Dark Lord has returned, either. If you are going to raise an effective opposition to him, and take some of his support away, this is the best path.”
Draco nodded, making Harry look at him. “My father is going to be so impressed,” he said. “You have to tell him as soon as possible, Harry. He’ll want to hear it from you personally.” He hesitated, and looked at Professor Snape. “Only maybe not tonight. Harry does look awfully tired.”
“I was not going to suggest tonight was the proper time to make a new regime,” said Snape dryly. “The morning will be soon enough. As long as the news remains known to us, only,” he added, and looked hard at Harry. “I do not trust Miss Granger’s or Mr. Weasley’s discretion.”
Harry just stared at his legs. He didn’t know what to say. He could see the points of all the arguments that Snape and Draco made, and of course he wanted to keep his friends and Dash safe, and he knew that a lot of people wouldn’t want to kill Dash.
But…
It was just another thing that made him different. And he was so tired of being different. Once, he had thought it would be terrible to be normal, because the Dursleys talked about that word all the time, and he automatically hated anything the Dursleys liked so much. But just being a wizard would have been enough for him.
“Are you sure that more people won’t hate me than like this?” he asked, thinking about the way Ron might react when he heard Harry was really Slytherin-sort of.
“There are always people who will hate you,” Draco said, sounding like he spoke from experience. “But that’s never a good reason not to do something.” He squeezed Harry’s hand and turned to say something quietly to Professor Snape.
Harry lay back down on the bed. He didn’t expect to sleep. His head was whirling so fast that he didn’t have even have room for all the thoughts. Voldemort was back, and his Horcrux, and Dash was Slytherin, and he was Slytherin, and Dumbledore was dead, and part of his soul was gone, and he didn’t know how he was going to tell people, and who knew what the Ministry would do, and what Flamel would say-
“Drink this.”
It was just a Calming Draught in a vial that Snape held out to him, and Harry had got used to drinking things from his hand without hesitating. But the minute the potion slid down his throat, he knew something was off about the taste, and he began to struggle even as his eyes drooped and he rolled limply to the side.
“You must rest,” said Snape, in an iron voice.
“I don’t-I don’t want you to have to do everything-I don’t want to leave you alone to do anything-” Harry mumbled. He knew his words didn’t make much sense, but he knew he wanted his eyes open, and he knew he didn’t want Snape to make him rest.
For a moment, he felt something on his forehead, covering his scar. He thought it was Snape’s fingertip, but it could have been his hand, as fast as Harry was sinking.
“You must rest. I will protect you.”
And those words, more the potion, were what finally convinced Harry to let go and stop clinging so hard to consciousness. He fell down, and down, and ended up in the velvet halls of the deep bond, watching images of stars and clouds skidding along above him, reuniting with Dash.
*
Severus closed his eyes as he saw the lines of tension finally relax from Harry’s face. It had been intolerable, seeing them like that. After a day when he had witnessed murder and been tortured-twice-and had a new kind of bond with his basilisk forced on him, he had still been trying to take thought for others, and care for them, and protect them.
And himself. He knew Harry was sincere, the way Severus would never have thought his father, when he said that he didn’t want any more attention or to stand out anymore among wizards. But he had no choice. He had already been marked, by his lightning bolt scar and his possession of a basilisk if nothing else.
It was Severus’s task to make sure that he was marked for life, not death.
“Professor Snape, what should I do?”
Severus wasn’t surprised Draco wanted to do something. He was almost swaying on his feet with exhaustion, but looking at Harry and Dash in a way that quietly pleased Severus.
He will not serve the same masters or goals that his parents have.
“I want you to go and contact your father,” he said. “Make sure that he receives some of the news. Not the part about Slytherin’s soul being in Dash,” he added, as Draco started to open his mouth to protest. “I agree that Harry should be the one to tell him that. But he would like to know about Dumbledore’s death and Flamel before the news starts to spread too much, I assume.” Certainly before the Daily Prophet came out the next morning. Luckily, for a certain definition of luck, the Third Task had been too late for the Evening Prophet to report on it.
Draco nodded. “You want me to tell him everything except that?”
“Tell him-tell him the Dark Lord has returned.” The Mark on Severus’s arm was tingling. He didn’t bother pulling up his sleeve to look at it. It didn’t matter. He already knew what had happened from Harry’s account. “Though he may know that already. But prepare him for great news from all quarters.”
“Great news from all quarters,” Draco repeated, half-closing his eyes. He nodded. “I’ll go right now, Professor. Father’s probably awake, anyway.” He cast a glance at Severus’s covered Mark and left.
That boy has sharp eyes. At least they will be in service of the right side. Even if Lucius made a different decision, for some incomprehensible reason, Draco would stand beside Harry.
Severus turned back to face the bed. Harry was pale, which wasn’t a surprise. More important to Severus, his face was utterly relaxed now, looking as young as it might have in first year, and his scar had stopped bleeding.
It had been years since Severus had made a vow. The last one he had made, to protect Lily’s son, had been too much of a binding chain on him. It had both kept him from making others and protected him from some of the consequences that would have followed them; he could always draw back and refuse to do something dangerous Albus had wanted him to do, citing the vow that said he had to stay alive to protect Harry.
But now, Albus was dead, and only the chains of his choosing would constrain Severus.
“You will come out of this alive,” Severus said, looking at Harry. “And bonded to your basilisk. And safe. And happy.”
He smiled a little as he thought about what Harry would probably snap back. If you want me to be happy, then the least you can do is survive.
And Severus had no intentions of dying. This vow encompassed more than merely protection. It meant living. It meant guardianship. It meant striving.
I can do this.
As he turned towards the door of the hospital wing, Severus paused. He had thought he saw a sudden gleam from under Dash’s thick eyelids. But if the basilisk had really winked at him, he could not be sure, and he left with purpose in his steps.
Harry was the one who had put that purpose there. Not his basilisk, however wonderful.
Chapter Eighty-Nine.
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