A Brother to Basilisks

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Chapter Twenty-One—Degradation of Trust

            “I don’t know how we’re going to do this.” Harry had his arms crossed and his eyes firmly fastened on the floor.

            It didn’t bother Severus. He had dealt with far worse than a little understandable teenage sulkiness, and for worse causes. He nodded now and placed his pile of paper on the floor. Harry glanced at it, then away. The basilisk around his neck uttered a hiss that Severus could nearly take as amused, although he didn’t know Parseltongue.

            Harry hissed something back. Severus was able to listen with an impassive face. After the first few times he had heard Harry do that, it lost its ability to shock. “These are the reports I have prepared on abused students,” he said. “I will ask that you do not use any of the information you read in any way.”

            Harry jerked around and gave him a glance that stood out as wounded, despite Harry’s absurd attempt to look noble and aloof. “Of course I wouldn’t! I mean, what am I going to do, go up and taunt them because they’re just like me?”

            “I did not mean that,” said Severus, although he privately wondered how true that was. He knew he would find out when they began their announcements, but he still did not know how bad the abuse in Harry’s household had been. “I mean that you might suddenly show concern for people you have never shown concern for, and that might make someone suspicious.”

            “Oh.” Harry lowered his head until his chin rested on the basilisk’s scales, an unconscious gesture of comfort that Severus had noticed he practiced often. “Are any of them in Gryffindor?”

            “A few, yes,” said Severus. He had the temptation to ask if Harry cared about the ones in Slytherin, but halted his tongue. For one thing, he thought that Harry was doing this for all of them; for another, reminding the boy obsessively of the House he’d chosen and the one he’d rejected would lose him Harry’s trust. “None in your year.”

            “I probably won’t know them, then.”

            Severus paused. Despite his own private warnings to himself about indulging curiosity too much where Harry was concerned, his desire to ask this question would only plague him until he eased it. “Why have you made so few friends in your House?”

            Harry lifted his head. “What do you mean? I have Ron and Hermione. And Neville, sort of. And I mean, I don’t get on bad with Dean and Seamus or anything. And Lavender and Parvati are all right.”

            Severus half-sighed. “I mean that many people have more friends than you do. More casual ones,” he added, when he saw Harry’s expression, which seemed to suggest that he thought of Severus’s words as a taunt. “I know you have no trouble making friends. Your closeness to Weasley—”

            Harry snorted at the same time as the basilisk hissed. Severus refused to be intimidated by the hidden eyes of the thing. They were still hidden.

            “I don’t have an easy time making friends,” Harry said. “Ron started talking to me about everything first, and then he stayed friends with me even when he found out who I was. And I got to be friends with Hermione because of the troll.” He folded his arms tighter and glared a little at Severus. “All these other people only want to gape at my scar or accuse me of being the Heir of Slytherin or something.”

            Severus paused for a long moment before slowly nodding. In truth, he had thought the way Harry had acted last year when his Parseltongue was revealed partially a show. There was no way he could not have known about it, after all. And this year, he had seemed positively to revel in frightening people.

            Then again, he had already had to admit that he didn’t know the boy before him at all.

            “So it has nothing to do with your House placement, or wanting to keep your abuse away from people,” said Severus, just to make sure. Those were both things that could easily affect the plans he was brewing with Lucius, and hoped to brew with Harry.

            “Of course not,” said Harry. “I mean, I would have been even more out of place in Slytherin, don’t you think? Especially last year.” The basilisk curled one loop of his body around Harry’s shoulders, and Harry massaged his scales for a second without taking his eyes off Severus. “And no one knows about my abuse. So they can’t think I’m hiding it.”

            Severus would have liked to say that was not what he meant, but Harry’s expression was already closing down, and he knew he would have to get Harry used to talking about his abusive Muggle family only a little bit at a time. “Very well,” he said. “Then let us begin going through the information, and discussing strategy.”

            Harry’s eyes were big as he sat down. Severus supposed he wasn’t used to adults talking to him in that way.

            He should be. How Albus can insist that he’s a huge part of the war but never invite him in for so much as a cup of tea—

            Severus subdued his anger. If anything, he should be glad of Harry’s lack of closeness to Albus. If he had been accustomed to relying on the Headmaster for more than a chat now and then, Severus’s task would have been much harder.

            “Okay,” said Harry, and leaned forwards to pick up the first file, the basilisk looking as intently as he was at the paper. Where Severus would have found that unnerving only last week, now he rejoiced in it. Harry was more likely to do something with the basilisk close behind him, prodding him on.

*

            Draco closed the book and leaned back in his seat, staring up at the ceiling of the library. Was that really it?

            When Harry had asked him to try and figure out what was going on with Lupin, and Draco had figured out the pattern of Lupin’s pallor and weakness at the full moons, he had leaped to the obvious conclusion. But then Harry had said something about an illness, and Draco had recalled that the Board of Governors, bereft of his father’s wisdom or not, would hardly allow a werewolf to teach in the school.

            Now he thought he had found the solution. He was just a little wary, because he hadn’t had to work that hard and he hadn’t thought it would be this easy.

            Slowly, Draco opened the book and began to read again.

            The Shaking Pustules is a rare disease often thought to be a side-effect of lycanthropy. However, recent studies have proved that the only side-effect of being bitten by a werewolf is turning into one. We must therefore look elsewhere for the origin of the Shaking Pustules.

            The pustules first appear around the time of one’s adolescence, and do not often lessen thereafter. But they break out with especial violence around the time of the full moon, and oblige the sufferer to hide from others as his limbs convulse. The skin that breaks out into the Pustules runs with green and yellow pus, and covers the skin with streaks of them that may not be magically banished until the moon sets. Most of those who have the disease are obliged to retreat from society, and remain rather pale and worn for days afterwards.

            It fit everything, Draco thought—not only the way that Lupin acted pale and worn around the full moon. It would fit the way that he didn’t seem to have a lot of friends, because he wouldn’t want to make them from people who were embarrassed or disgusted by his disease. And of course he had to stay hidden all night, wherever he hid. Otherwise, he would be covered with pus.

            Draco smiled. Gross or not, he had made a striking discovery, one he thought Harry would be pleased with.

            And if Draco couldn’t have a basilisk who would bond with him and tell him how wonderful he was (not that Draco didn’t know that, it was just nice to be reminded sometimes), then he had decided having Harry Potter turn to him with that one particular smile and tell him would do just as well.

*

            “Harry, I need to talk to you.”

            Harry looked up from his breakfast, startled, and distracted from Dash’s musing over whether he would like to have a piece of buttered bread this morning, in case the taste was better than usual. Draco didn’t often walk up to him like this. They would usually meet in the corners of the library and staircases.

            But he was so determined and his eyes were shining so much that Harry found himself smiling back. He nodded and stood up, and said to Ron and Hermione, “I’ll see you lot in Defense, right?”

            “Where are you going?” Ron’s hand was suddenly clamped on his arm, in a way he hadn’t often dared to touch Harry since he got Dash, and he didn’t take his eyes off Malfoy.

            “To discuss things with Draco,” Harry said.

            Ron leaned back and blinked at him. Harry smiled as reassuringly as he could. He knew Ron didn’t understand many of the things Harry had done this year, from openly flaunting his Parseltongue to bonding with a basilisk, but Ron had borne with them pretty well. Harry didn’t think a friendship with a Malfoy would be the end of things if his Parseltongue and Dash weren’t.

            Ron finally nodded with his eyes locked on Harry. “All right, mate. Just remember that you can come and ask us for anything, right?”

            Harry wasn’t even sure Ron would have said “us” instead of “me” except that Hermione was right there, watching them over the top of her book. He smiled at her, too, and said, “I do know that, Ron. Counting on it.” He squeezed his friend’s hand once, and Ron finally scowled and released him.

            He smells excited.

            Harry jumped, wondering if that meant Ron was about to attack Draco, until he realized that Dash’s head was pointed straight at Draco. He nodded. Well, I reckon he is, or he wouldn’t have come up to me in the Great Hall. Let’s go see what it is.

*

            “I should have told you to stop looking.”

            Draco snorted and folded his arms. He wasn’t hurt, he told himself. He should have known that Harry’s reaction wasn’t going to be exactly what Draco hoped it would be, any more than he could have a basilisk for the hoping. Everyone was always turning around and disappointing him slightly.

            But he didn’t manage to keep the hurt tone out of his voice—even if it was false!—when he muttered, “Well, I found it anyway.”

            For a second, Harry looked off into the corners of the corridor they’d chosen to talk in as though he was seeing a secret in the shadows. Not the kind of information he could share with Draco, of course, Draco thought, and his heart and throat ached. Any more than he could the path to the Chamber of Secrets, or Parseltongue.

            But Dash nudged the side of Harry’s neck, and he started and came back to himself. And then he looked straight at Draco and said softly, “It’s not—it’s not anything you did.” He reached out and gripped Draco’s shoulder and shook it. “It’s that Sirius told me the truth already, and he asked me not to share it with anyone else. It could hurt Lupin. It has to do with whether Sirius trusts me or not. It must have been pretty hard to trust me with a secret like that. So I was going to ask you to stop searching, and I forgot.”

            Draco sniffed, partially appeased, but still thinking that Harry could have avoided forgetting about him. Harry seemed to realize that, or perhaps Dash had told him, because his other hand came up and tightened on Draco’s other shoulder.

            “I appreciate the work you’ve done,” he said, speaking slowly and precisely, in a somewhat annoying tone. Draco reckoned it was the best Harry could do right now. “I just think it would be better to leave this alone. You know? So Sirius and Lupin will see that they can trust me, and I can have a better relationship with them.”

            Draco gave Harry a look that made Harry blink. Draco didn’t know why. To him, it was self-evident that Harry’s words sounded odd.

            “Don’t they have to prove you can trust them, too?” Draco asked. “I mean, until recently you thought Black was a murderous monster, and you didn’t know Lupin at all.”

            “They’re friends of my parents.”

            Draco nodded. “Right, and you have the explanation for what happened with Black. But what about Lupin? Why didn’t he tell you right away that he knew your parents? It’s not like it would be some huge horrible secret, right?”

            “He’s just used to being secretive with his disease,” said Harry, but his face was sharp in a way that meant Draco’s words had pierced him.

            Draco paused. He had sometimes seen the same look on his mother’s face, and he knew that he couldn’t press further without hurting the person who had that look. But maybe this was important enough that he had to. “Right,” he drawled slowly. “You think that’s the only reason?”

            “What other reason would there be?” Harry lifted one hand away from Draco as if he would tug on his hair, but Dash coiled casually around his arm, and halted it. “I mean, he did tell me in the end. Even after Sirius showed up, I still wouldn’t have known about Professor Lupin, except he did make an effort to tell me! And he’s a great teacher, and he’s nice—”

            “I’m not saying that,” said Draco, although he personally didn’t think Lupin was as great a teacher as Harry did. The man was competent, compared to Lockhart and Quirrell, but Draco could read about lots of things in his family’s library at home that Lupin wasn’t teaching them. “I’m saying that he didn’t volunteer any information.”

            Harry relaxed a little and shrugged. “Neither did anyone else.”

            Draco eyed him speculatively. “No one wants to talk to you about your parents?” That seemed strange to him. His parents had talked about Lily and James Potter, although they’d had negative things to say, of course. It made Draco feel strange and sad to think that he knew more about the Potters than Harry did. “It’s strange.”

            “Yeah,” said Harry, and tapped his fingers on the wall for a second. “It is.”

            Dash hissed something. Harry hissed reassuringly back. At least, Draco thought it was reassuring. He would be the first to admit he could misinterpret Parseltongue.

Not because I want to. Because no one else will tell me what it means or let me learn it!

Draco did his best to suck in his breath and ignore that, though. Harry wasn’t keeping Parseltongue from him on purpose. “Ask Black and Lupin about them,” he said. “You said Black told you stories about your dad and pranks when he was in Hogwarts. He must know other things about him. And your mum. And Lupin should, too.”

“Yeah, he should,” Harry whispered, apparently to himself. He reached out and touched Draco’s shoulder again. “Thanks. Maybe—maybe they can also trust me, as well as having me trust them.”

Draco swallowed down his own feelings at the moment, and his disappointment that Harry had simply forgotten to tell him that he didn’t want Draco researching Lupin anymore. Harry just looked so desolate now, and as though he was perched on the edge of a really big decision. “Yeah. They should.”

Harry shook his head once, firmly, as though responding to an argument from someone who was invisible, and then said, “Look, Draco, I won’t forget this. You want to go out and ride my Firebolt this afternoon?”

Draco relaxed. It was a kind of bribe, but he knew it was, so that was okay, and he still would have given up a lot just to be able to ride such a spectacular broom. “Sure. About one?”

Harry nodded, squeezed his arm again, and then trotted off, his face still pale.

Draco watched him go. In a way, he thought, he still envied Harry, with his fame and his basilisk and his Parseltongue and the way that so many adults were interested in him for himself, not for his family name or things his father had done, the way Draco knew some people were interested in him.

But in other ways, Draco was more than glad to leave that life up to Harry. He was glad that he’d always grown up with his parents, and knew them, and loved them, and he didn’t have to think twice about trusting all these people who should have protected him.

*

I think you must speak to them. This is driving you mad, and making your head an uncomfortable place for a small basilisk to be.

Harry grunted. Yes. Small. Right.

But Harry was wandering through his bedroom right now, picking up and setting down games and books and small moving pictures that Sirius had got for him, and he knew what Dash meant. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking since the conversation with Draco, wondering if Sirius and Lupin really trusted him. What if they didn’t? It was the reason they had kept Lupin’s disease from him for so long.

            What if they were just watching him until he passed some sort of test? Harry could accept that. They didn’t really know each other, after all. Until this year, both Sirius and Lupin hadn’t seen him since he was a baby.

            Dash had been the one to point out that Harry was the one who should be able to set up tests, not them. Sirius had had a reputation as a murderer, and Lupin had just come from nowhere and been really secretive about his disease. Sometimes Harry wondered if Lupin would have told him about his connection with Harry’s mum and dad at all if Dash hadn’t sniffed out Pettigrew.

            That is another thing.

            Harry turned around. Dash had dropped off his shoulder when Harry began to pace, and was arranged by the door, watching him with his reared and swaying head like a cobra. It seemed to be one of his favorite poses. Harry sighed. What do you mean?

            Lupin continually casts spells to conceal his scent. If he has the Shaking Pustules, then perhaps that is to cover the scent of his pus. Dash slithered slowly back to Harry and curled up on his feet, gazing up at him with a flicker of yellow dancing like a flame behind his eyelids. He didn’t start using them until after I sniffed out the rat-man, though.

Harry swallowed. What did he smell like before then?

I was young, said Dash with dignity. I cannot remember, and I don’t think that I was yet able to sort out one scent from others so well.

Harry nodded. So you think it’s some sort of different secret? Something worse than the Shaking Pustules? He wouldn’t accept the possible alternate idea that Lupin was someone like Pettigrew had been. For one thing, Sirius seemed to totally accept him as the friend he had known when they were in Hogwarts.

I don’t think it’s a disease, said Dash. It’s something else. And I think you should go and ask them why they can’t admit you into the secret. What’s do dreadful about it that they have to hold it back from you?

Harry shut his eyes. Maybe all sorts of things.

But you won’t know unless you ask them, Dash pointed out, with the sort of sibilant snap to his mind-voice that meant he was losing patience. And it could also be that they’re just being stupid and it doesn’t have much to do with you at all.

Harry swallowed. Yes, well, he had thought of that, hadn’t he? And Lupin was here this weekend. And Sirius wasn’t home right now. He had said that the Ministry was making a fuss about some aspect of the Black fortune, some vault or property they wanted to keep, and he’d left after dinner.

Maybe Harry could use this privacy to talk to Lupin, just the two of them, without Sirius hovering between them like a barrier.

It is the best choice, said Dash, and it was his advice, more than anything else, that made Harry open his door and walk down the corridor towards Lupin’s bedroom, the one with the locked door.

Harry didn’t think it was locked right now, though. Lupin usually went up to it right before the full moon—well, Harry got to see him do that on the times that the full moon was on weekends and he was home, anyway—and spent a little time meditating before he shut himself away. Now Harry knew why. It would be hard to endure that stupid disease breaking out all over your body no matter how prepared you were for it.

But he still wanted to see Lupin. To talk to him. To tell him that keeping a secret from Harry was kind of pointless, since Harry had a friend who’d told him anyway. And Lupin and Sirius ought to trust Harry more.

Harry knocked on the door. There was silence from behind it. Harry hesitated, wondering if Lupin was still downstairs after all, or perhaps he’d gone with Sirius and Harry simply hadn’t seen him leave. He would have thought they’d tell him, but—

They haven’t told you much else, said Dash, in the neutral tone he used when he was trying not to use a considerably different one.

Harry knocked again, wondering what the hell was going on here. Sirius had always been so paranoid about leaving him alone in the house, as if he thought Voldemort was going to pop up from around the corner and attack him. It didn’t seem likely that he would have taken Lupin with him. On the other hand, Lupin being here when Harry had no way to contact him was also strange.

The door swung open slowly. Harry heard a snuffling sound from beneath it, a slow, heavy breath that made him wonder if Lupin had been crying.

“Professor Lupin?” he called, as calmly as he could. “It’s Harry. I wanted to tell you—I know. It’s okay.”

The heavy noise came again, and Harry saw a blurred shape moving towards him. He blinked, trying to focus his eyes. It wasn’t easy, with the shadows in the room seeming thicker than they had any right to be. But it almost seemed that Lupin was moving on all fours. Could the disease be so painful it had knocked him there?

“Professor Lupin?” he asked again.

The four-legged shape made another noise and blurred towards him. Harry caught a glimpse of fur, of gleaming yellow eyes, of something that opened a terrifying mouth filled with equally terrifying teeth—

And then Dash was whipping, rearing up, between him and the beast, and he sank his fangs deep in Lupin’s leg.

The beast was Lupin, Harry thought, numb, as he watched the thing fall, and then looked up and saw a pair of shredded robes deep in the room. And it wasn’t Shaking Pustules he had after all. It couldn’t be.

Another disease, another option, based on the full moon came to him. And Dash flicked out his tongue and said, He smells like a wolf.

Harry sat down hard. He looked at the breathing wolf, then away again. He’s still alive?

My poison is diluted, remember, Dash said, with a sharp hiss, and slithered back to him. He’s unconscious, and will be for some hours, but he will live.

Harry just nodded, and stroked Dash’s plume, and said nothing. He didn’t feel like he could even get up and go back to his room.

He just sat there, holding Dash, until Sirius came up the stairs and found them like that.

*

ChaosLady: It would have taken much longer—for Snape. But Dash doesn’t take long.

Meechypoo: Dash did know he was lying, or at least suggest it, but he’s still a basilisk and not good at figuring out the emotions of anyone except Harry. Plus he was reluctant to damage the trust that Harry had in Sirius, the one adult who seemed like he would be a good guardian.

Severus1snape: Thank you!

Lunar: Thank you! As mentioned here (and briefly before), Lupin has been using glamours to hide his scent.

SP777: You mean serious or not? A lot has to do with whether Harry is in danger at the moment or not.