Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen of "A Brother to Basilisks'- A Real Duel
Chapter One Hundred and Twelve.
Title: A Brother to Basilisks (113/?)
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 Thirteen-A Real Duel
“I want to know what you have to offer me, Lucius.”
“Freedom from the Dark Mark.” Lucius sighed and scattered a little more sugar into his tea. He was going to need it to deal with Nero Parkinson, who hadn’t stopped saying stupid things since Lucius had invited him over. “I told you that before. And in return, you join the political coalition I’m building.”
Nero sneered and scarfed up yet another scone. “And what if I just went straight to the Dark Lord with what you offered me, Lucius? You’ll need to come up with some stellar advantages to keep me from doing that!”
Lucius looked calmly back at the man. Inside his belly, his revulsion coiled. Had most of the Death Eaters he had fought and plotted and tortured with been this stupid? Of course, he had never seen most of them outside of meetings and raids. They had been too intimidated by the Dark Lord to speak during meetings, most of the time.
And to think he had once encouraged Draco to cultivate the friendship and attention of Pansy Parkinson. If this was a sample of the wits that would have been passed on…
“I want to know if you’ll consider the offer,” he said, and cast a subtle detection spell on his tea while Nero puffed up with importance again. No, nothing had been slipped into it. He didn’t truly think so, but checking when he was in the company of someone this openly hostile was automatic to him by now.
“I want to know what you can give me besides removing a brand of service that I favor, thank you.” Nero lifted his chin a little.
Lucius said, “Nothing. Freedom for your aid. The bargain is simple.” It has to be simple, or Crabbe and Goyle would never have understood it.
“Then you get nothing, Lucius!” Nero set down his empty teacup and stood up to strut towards his fireplace. “I hope you’ll enjoy your last few days of freedom before I go to the Dark Lord and inform him of what you-”
Lucius stood and said, in a voice calculated to contain just the right edge of panic, “Wait, Nero!”
The idiot turned around, smiling, and Lucius smoothly cast the Memory Charm. He could do it, by now, nonverbally. To the stupid-well, more stupid than usual-look that settled over Nero’s face, he said calmly, “You spent the last half-hour listening to me talk about a business opportunity that you’re not interested in. That’s all.”
“Of course that’s all,” said Nero, and sneered at him again before he threw the Floo powder in the fireplace to leave. Lucius waited to roll his eyes until he was sure the idiot was gone, and then turned wearily back to the remains of his meal.
Fewer outright Death Eaters had wanted to make the transition to freedom than he had expected. He had not bothered to contact the truly fanatical, but then, they were either already at the Dark Lord’s side or truly in Azkaban for the most part. It seemed that, to others, their greed and their hatred of Muggles outweighed any of the advantages that Lucius’s side could offer.
Of course, Lucius also couldn’t offer freedom from the Dark Mark to those who had never been marked. He had to come up with some more tempting bait. And while he could do research to uncover individual weaknesses and wants-for example, Jasper Shafiq was a celebrity worshipper and would be happy for the chance to spend time with Harry-that was time-consuming.
No, I must do something else. Something that will attract attention, be flashy on the surface, and at the same time contain enough seeds that the truly intelligent can look under the surface and realize it is an alternative to the Dark Lord.
“Parkinson didn’t want to join?”
Lucius looked up. Narcissa was bustling into the room, giving a disapproving look at the scone crumbs and rings from the teacup Nero had left on the small table they’d been using. House-elves appeared on cue and began to clean them up.
“No, he didn’t.” Lucius sighed. “Building up support for something I thought was obvious is proving more difficult than I anticipated.”
“That’s because you’re not giving them what they want, Lucius.” Narcissa sat down in the chair across from him where Nero had been, her face as intent as Draco’s when he’d been researching blood magic the past summer. “They joined the Dark Lord to have a free hand at expressing their baser impulses. You aren’t giving them that.”
“But Harry would never stand for it, and it would lead back to me now.”
“I didn’t say that it was the only thing they wanted,” Narcissa said, resting a placating hand on his knee for a moment. “I am saying that you have to tap into their strongest desires. Rational planning is not one of those for most of the Death Eaters or even Dark wizards outside rare individuals like the Greengrasses and Elena Zabini. What else do they want, besides the chance to flex their muscles?”
Lucius closed his eyes and fixed his mind on the past, something he hadn’t done as often as he should have in the past few months. “They wanted to prove their superiority over each other,” he murmured. “Also not something we can allow right now, with the numbers that might follow Harry so limited.”
“What else?”
“They wanted to show off magic to Muggles and prove their superiority that way. Let’s say there’s a remote chance Harry would be willing to allow that. They would still come into conflict with the Statute of Secrecy.”
“Isn’t part of this about size?”
Lucius opened his left eye. “Please tell me that you aren’t talking about the…wands of any of the male Death Eaters, my dear.”
Narcissa laughed, the quiet sound that warmed or chilled Lucius depending on what he’d had to do with making her laugh. “Nothing so crass. What I mean is that our world is limited in size. There are few people they can show off to-fewer when they dismiss Muggleborns and at least half of the non-Dark wizards as unworthy of showing off to. They didn’t even have much to terrorize unless they crossed into the Muggle world, during the last war. There is Hogsmeade, and that’s too near Hogwarts, which they feared. I think dear Bella’s raid there might have been the first one in recent memory. There’s Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley. And the few mixed villages like Godric’s Hollow and Ottery St. Catchpole, of course. But other than that? The raids the Death Eaters conducted were all on individual family homes or killing obstructive officials in their offices. They never went after the Ministry as a whole. Never St. Mungo’s. Never most of the small businesses outside the Alleys.”
“So?” Lucius asked slowly. What she was saying made sense, and he’d never thought about it in exactly those words before, but he didn’t see how it helped them with their problem.
“So.” Narcissa reached down and pulled a book out of her robe pocket, extending it to him. “I found this when I was helping Cousin Sirius search for a possible solution to the Horcrux in Harry’s scar. I kept it because I thought it interesting, but I didn’t have any reason to use its magic at the time. Now, I think, it might be worth looking at.”
Lucius turned it around. The book was bound in dark blue leather with silver and gilt lettering on the front. No sign of an author’s name. The title said only, Of Extensions.
“A book on wizardspace?”
“A book on creating more space,” Narcissa said quietly. “Pocket houses and streets and buildings and villages inside the ones we already have. Pocket worlds, come to that.”
Lucius blinked. Then he said, “That is-powerful and dangerous magic. Interesting magic. But I am not sure how it would help us.”
“Don’t you see?” Narcissa tucked a strand of pale hair behind her ear and smiled at him. “It would give them new places to build and set up. New places to enchant. New places to create manor houses, if that’s what they want to do, and fill with riches. New places to fulfill the desire to hide away, and never have to come in contact with a Muggleborn or a Muggle. New places to hide from the Aurors, even, which you know some of them will want to do.” She stroked the cover of the book as if strumming an instrument. “For some of them, that will be enough, to fulfill some of the creative urges and urge for more space that they can’t fulfill now. Others will suddenly have more, cheap places for extended homes. And the rest…”
“The rest?” Lucius was thinking of Nero Parkinson, who would probably never want to leave his ancestral home, even if he reveled in the thought of being able to go somewhere that no Muggles would ever see.
“There are ways to reverse the spells, as well,” Narcissa said. “To collapse the spaces.”
“And trap them inside,” Lucius said, and smiled at her, even as he felt a twinge in his heart. “When did you become so ruthless, my darling?”
Narcissa looked at the book instead of answering him, but Lucius was wise to that tactic from Draco and his own schooldays, and waited. Finally, Narcissa looked up, her grey eyes almost luminescent with pain.
“I hoped, when you told me my sister was free and hadn’t spent the past fourteen years in Azkaban, that she could be reclaimed,” she said softly. “But then she tried to kill Draco. I know that was her. I’m certain of it. No matter what the Ministry says.”
Lucius nodded. The Ministry had handled the Hogsmeade attack in a way unfavorable to their policies, first attempting to deny it had happened, then saying that there was no proof the attackers had been trying to hurt anyone instead of trying to defend themselves from the basilisk. Lucius suspected that many knew the truth, but many were also apathetic and simply didn’t want to speak up.
“I told Draco that family shouldn’t kill family simply because I didn’t want to see him going down the road of blood magic.” Narcissa touched the book again. “But he has, and he obviously has a talent for it. This is what I can do, both to sway allies to our side and to provide a safe refuge if we have to go into hiding.”
She looked up. “And to make sure that my very dear sister is repaid for her courtesy.”
Lucius took her hand and kissed it, in silent and devoted admiration.
*
“Mr. Potter. My…sources tell me that you’re quite skilled in Defense. Would you care to come up and demonstrate it?”
Harry made sure that his face was blank as he stood up from his desk and marched towards the front of Umbridge’s classroom. He felt a soft, tickling touch on his ankle and knew it was from Dash’s tongue.
No matter what Umbridge tried to do, she couldn’t harm him very much, Harry thought, as he turned around and faced the rest of the class. Dash would lunge the minute she did. Harry didn’t want Umbridge harmed because it would upset a lot of people at the Ministry, but he also knew that he didn’t want to be tortured or killed.
And Umbridge might have that in mind.
Umbridge walked slowly to the far side of the classroom and drew her wand. Harry clenched his teeth and waited. The first class had just been them sitting at their desks and reading Slinkhard’s useless book. He hadn’t anticipated a duel.
“You need to practice common courtesy, Mr. Potter,” said Umbridge in her soft, chiding voice. “Bowing is part of dueling etiquette, you know. Do bow now.” And she did it, in such a way that she never had to take her eyes off him.
Harry did the same thing, although he could feel the bile burning in his mouth and stomach with how much he hated her.
She cast the first spell, of course; Harry wasn’t going to do something that might make the Ministry angrier at him than they already were. It was a spell Harry didn’t know, which hit the floor as he dodged and made the stone hiss and chatter as though acid were eating into it.
“Dodging isn’t very sportsmanlike, Mr. Potter,” Umbridge scolded him, looking all the while as though a Chocolate Frog wouldn’t melt in her mouth. “I expect you to hold still this time while we-”
Harry cast the spell while she was still speaking, a nonverbal Lumos that Severus had been working with him on. Umbridge stumbled back a step and shrieked as the light flashed into her eyes, and Harry quickly cast a Tripping Jinx. She managed to avid that one, but only barely, and when she lifted her head, she was staring at him.
“Is this your vaunted skill, Mr. Potter?” she demanded. “First-year spells?”
Harry didn’t bother responding. He lifted a Shield Charm in front of himself and waited. Umbridge paced back and forth for a minute as though she was thinking about what to do next, and glanced at the class. Harry didn’t bother to, since he thought it was probably a distraction technique. He was sure they would all be raptly watching anyway.
Then Umbridge spun around and launched a spell that Harry knew all too well at him. “Ossa evanesco!”
Harry certainly couldn’t reveal that he knew the countercurse, but to his relief, the Shield Charm held up against the Bone-Vanishing spell, although it flickered and cracked. Harry skipped backwards, his eyes fixed on Umbridge. He knew now that she wouldn’t hesitate to use Dark Arts.
But he still couldn’t use them openly, because the Ministry would decide that meant he belonged in Azkaban or something.
So Harry stuck to hexes and jinxes that he knew were legal: the Tickling Charm, the Leg-Locker, and the Lumos Charm again when Umbridge was right in the middle of a delicate casting and it seemed most likely to stagger her. It did, and she sneered at him. Harry had to quell Dash’s instinctive movement with a flick of his hand by his side.
“I want to see real magic from you, Mr. Potter!” Umbridge barked, when she’d recovered from the second Lumos Charm. She was moving towards him now, her wand held up. Small shapes started hopping from it as Harry watched. They were bright toads with small orange spots on their backs. One opened its mouth and spat. The spit made a dark splotch on the floor.
They’re poisonous, said Dash, down the bond into Harry’s mind.
I know, and I still can’t use “real” magic, or she’ll start going after me for breaking Ministry rules, Harry said grimly as he watched the toads advance. He recast his Shield Charm, but the nearest toad spat directly at his feet, and he barely skipped out of the way in time. They might be able to leap right through the shield, for all he knew. He didn’t know this spell.
Trust in your political standing. Do it now. Or I will kill her.
Harry took a deep breath, met Umbridge’s eyes, and cast the Blasting Curse straight at her. “Reducto!”
Umbridge ducked out of the way with a shriek, and the curse hit the chair she’d been using instead and broke it apart. The flying splinters hit and crushed some of the toads. Harry hurled a quick Finite at the ones that remained; they flickered out of existence. Probably because they needed Umbridge’s will guiding them, and they didn’t have it, Harry thought clinically. That spell to conjure the toads seemed like a will-based one.
Well done, said Dash, judiciously, down the bond. Of course, you’ve probably made an enemy, but you would have done that whatever happened. And at least you didn’t use illegal magic.
Umbridge stood up, brushing a few splinters of the chair off herself. Her eyes were narrowed, but the spite in them was less than Harry had expected.
“Well done, Mr. Potter,” she said, after a moment. “One point to Gryffindor for finally obeying a teacher.”
Some of the Gryffindors in the class grumbled about that, but Harry was too relieved that things hadn’t gone worse. He gave a small bow to her that he made sure was slow-otherwise, she would probably start complaining about disrespect-and then turned away and sat down in his seat again.
The whole time, his back prickled, he was so sure that she would launch another curse at his spine.
But she didn’t. Instead, she said, “Who can tell me the name of the spell that Mr. Potter used when he held off my spells?”
Hermione’s hand shot into the air. Umbridge ignored her and called on a Slytherin. At least that was something he expected from her, Harry thought.
As he was leaving the class, he caught Draco’s eye. Draco was sliding what looked like a vial on a chain beneath his shirt, and he was so thoughtful and somber that Harry smiled at him. “It’s going to be all right,” he murmured, squeezing Draco’s arm.
“Hmmm? Oh, right, I know.” Draco gave him a distracted smile, then took a deep breath and said, “I’d like to talk to you about something. Can it be this evening? Maybe after Potions, before you go to dinner?”
“Of course,” Harry said, a little concerned. Draco ought to know that he could talk to Harry about anything, at any time, and Harry didn’t know what Draco could have done that Harry would disapprove of-except taunt his friends, and Harry would have heard about that from Ron and Hermione already.
Draco gave him another smile and let him go. Harry shook his head and went away to try and persuade the Gryffindors that he hadn’t done anything worthy of all the back-patting and cheering he received.
*
Draco paced slowly back and forth outside the Potions classroom. Harry had stayed behind to talk with Professor Snape, which wasn’t unusual. But Draco hoped it wasn’t too long. Professor Snape would insist that Harry go to dinner, not skip it.
And Draco had to tell him about what he’d found.
Ultio, curled up on his arm, nudged Draco with his nose in a friendly way. Draco rubbed his back, and fixed his eyes on the door of the Potions classroom.
Harry finally came out, saying something over his shoulder that got him a snort. He smiled when he saw Draco, and Draco reassured himself with that smile. Harry wouldn’t think what he’d done was awful or went too far. He was studying the Dark Arts himself. He would understand.
“What is it?” Harry asked. He didn’t look too surprised when Draco marched them into a corridor further down in the dungeons where no one else usually came.
Draco finally took the vial on the chain out from his shirt. Harry blinked. He said, “I thought you would have some potion in there when I first saw you wearing it. But-it’s blood, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Draco said. and exhaled, and took the plunge, aware all the time of Dash watching him intently from behind Harry. “Over the last month, I started studying blood magic.”
Harry’s eyes fixed on his face right away. “Because you want to find Bellatrix and punish her for what she did in Hogsmeade.”
Draco nodded.
“Draco, you don’t have to-”
“But I want to,” Draco flashed back, and when Harry blinked at him and fell silent, Draco went on, saying all the things that he hadn’t been able to say to Mother when she confronted him about it. “I want to have something special I can do to help, something no one else is doing. You have Dash and your wandless magic and your studies with Professor Snape.” Even here, he wouldn’t name the Dark Arts aloud. “Hermione is brilliant and I know that she’s working on lots of solutions that can help defeat Voldemort. Weasley has a family who’s brilliant, and he can call on them for help, and they’ll come running.”
“Ron is also-”
Draco shook his head. The last thing he wanted to do right no was argue over the qualities of one particular Weasley. “Fine, I acknowledge it. But I don’t have any special talents like that. Ultio only hatched and changed into what I needed him to be when I realized how much I wanted to get my revenge. Blood magic is one way I can do that. And it’s not all about just getting revenge, you know.”
“I’ve never studied blood magic. What exactly does it do?”
Draco relaxed. Yes, Harry will understand. “It does let you track people you share blood with. And it can let you make enchantments and spells stronger if you use a bit of your blood to help them. And it can even let you do necromancy, if you sacrifice a bit of blood to feed the dead.”
“Draco-”
“I’m more interested in something else, though,” Draco interrupted. He leaned towards Harry. “Where does blood stay most of the time?”
Harry looked as if he thought this was a trick question. But he ventured on a guess, and it was the right one, as Draco had known it would be. “In someone’s body?”
“Exactly.” Draco reached out and took Harry’s hand. “Now, imagine what it would be like to be perfectly in tune with blood. What happens when you run fast? Or when you’re in the middle of a fight and you need to move faster?”
Harry’s eyes widened. “Your heart beats faster. Your blood pumps.”
“Right. I can make myself faster and stronger this way. I’ve already tried a few duels against Father, and I’m definitely better than I was when I started studying it.”
Harry looked at him with wonder. “That’s great, Draco. Would you mind teaching that to some people in our Defense Club, if Professor McGonagall thinks it’s okay?”
“I wouldn’t mind, but it takes some really intense study to get this good.”
Harry nodded, accepting that. Then he paused. “And what can you do with the blood in other people’s bodies?” he asked quietly, finding his way straight to the one question Draco had hoped he wouldn’t ask.
Draco took a deep breath. “I can make it gallop,” he offered. “I can make someone’s heart beat fast enough that I could probably cause them to have a heart attack. I can probably make it thicken and burn. I know there are spells for that, too, but there’s a difference between blood magic and other spells like that.” He waited for Harry to nod. “There’s no defense against blood magic. At all.”
“Like the Killing Curse,” Harry muttered.
“Don’t be silly. There is a defense against that. It’s called being Harry Potter.”
“Or Horcruxes.”
The dark look on Draco’s face made him sorry that he’d brought it up. But he said, “I can be an asset, Harry. I swear I can be. I’m not as powerful as you, but I have a natural talent for this kind of magic.”
“Oh, Draco.”
Draco found Harry’s hands on his face before he could even think. Harry was staring at him intently, softly tracing Draco’s cheekbones with his fingertips.
“You’re always an asset,” Harry breathed, and kissed him.
Draco gasped and found himself drifting in hazy warmth before he could even catch his breath. His mouth ached. He reached up and caught the back of Harry’s neck, and held him in a kiss that didn’t last long enough, even though it was probably two minutes before Harry broke away, smiling.
“You’re always welcome. You’re always going to be with me.”
Draco leaned in and rested his forehead on Harry’s shoulder. His hand was trembling. Harry caught it and held it.
It wasn’t enough to lessen his quest for Bellatrix’s blood or the shame that someone he was related to had participated in the attack. But it was enough to make him remember what he was fighting for.
Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen.
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