A Brother To Basilisks (a Drarry fanfic)

Chapter 2: The Basilisk Rises

"You could stay here, and I could go get you something to eat," Harry suggested, as he struggled to climb back through the tiny tunnel he'd used to get into the hatching room. Dash was wrapped around him, his head dangling next to Harry's on the other side of his neck and his tail sweeping around his waist.

No. I don't want to. What would happen if someone ambushed you on the way back down and I never got my breakfast? And then I would have to wander through the tunnels in search of vengeance, and that could take a long time.

Harry paused with one hand on the wall, even though Dash was whining at him to get moving. "How do you know about ambushes and vengeance? And weren't your words a lot simpler a few minutes ago?" He was sure they had been, although he didn't know exactly how to classify the difference.

I learn what you learn. I know what you know. You know about ambushes and vengeance, so I do, too. There was a pause, and Harry had the distinct sense that Dash was doing something to his memories. There was a sensation like a pack of cards flipping in his head. And Dark Lords. Why does he want to kill you so badly?

"You pick up on everything else, and you can't pick up on that?" Harry muttered, starting to climb again. He tried to imagine the expressions on everyone's faces when he came out of the tunnel with a basilisk. It didn't look pretty in his head. He wondered if people would start calling him the Heir of Slytherin again. It would be for the best if Dash stayed down here.

No, it wouldn't. How could I defend you if I was down here? And stupid people can't get away with saying things like that if they're insults. Harry had the distinct impression that Dash didn't think being called something associated with snakes was an insult. And I can't tell about the Dark Lord because it has to do with mammal things. I understand revenge. Revenge is a reptile thing. But war is a mammal thing.

Harry shook his head, and Dash nudged at his ear. Harry wondered if he would have nipped him like Hedwig did if not for those incredibly sharp and poisonous fangs in his mouth. "He wanted to kill my parents. I don't really know why. They fought him, I reckon. But he tried to curse me with the same spell he used to kill my parents, and it bounced back and hit him."

He is the Heir of Slytherin? Dash sounded thoughtful. Harry hoped he wasn't about to decide that he would be better off helping Voldemort.

"Yeah." Harry halted, puffing and blowing, at the entrance back into the main tunnel that ran up to the Chamber. "You're heavy. You're sure that you can't climb down and slither on your own?"

You could talk to me in your head, and then you wouldn't need to talk aloud and waste your breath like that. But Dash did slide to the floor, with immense dignity and tickling Harry all the way, and begin to move down the tunnel ahead of him. So you don't really know why he tried to kill you.

Harry shrugged a little. "I know that he's trying to kill me now because he's tried and failed to kill me in the past."

Dash paused and swung his head back in Harry's direction, and Harry tensed instinctively. But the eyelids were still firmly clamped into place over Dash's eyes. The hiss he gave sounded delighted, and in was in Parseltongue, like the first calls for help he had given Harry, instead of mental. "You resisted him? Yes, you resisted him. And he's powerful, but you still managed to fight him."

"Of course I fought him," Harry snapped, a little irritated, brushing past Dash and taking up the lead. He was the one who had been down this tunnel before. He was the one who would know the way.

I told you, I know what you know, at least if I can understand it.

"Well, you were just born."

You think that I was only alive when I broke the shell? How like a mammal.