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lomonaaerenTitle: A Sound Like Serpents Singing
Pairing: Harry/Draco preslash, past Draco/Astoria
Rating: PG
Wordcount: ~12,500
Warnings: Profanity, angst, issues of disability (Draco is blind), partial epilogue compliance (Draco’s marriage existed, but not Harry’s).
Challenge: for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
auroraprimavera
Keywords: book, window, heartache
Dialogue: “Why can’t you trust me?”
Summary: When Draco Malfoy wants a magical snake for his son, he turns to the best in the magical world—serpent-breeder Harry Potter. Harry, who thought that all his past grudges had been settled, is startled by the way he responds to Malfoy. For many reasons.
Author’s Notes: Beta-ed by Linda, a good friend of mine, who is willing to put up with my love of Harry Potter in return for the chance to be savage about grammar and spelling.
A Sound Like Serpents Singing
Harry tapped his finger against the glass. It was the best way to create the faint vibrations that Isla required to realize there was a human nearby to respond to.
Isla turned her head. Harry smiled, the way he did every time he looked at her. Isla was half Ashwinder and half scarlet king snake, and it had taken Harry forever to figure out how to arrange that mating and then make sure that the hatchling simply didn’t burn itself up in its egg. But he had succeeded, and Isla was magnificent, with the bold black and red coloring of a king snake that burned constantly at the edges with tiny flames. Here and there, white bands ran between the red and the black, and those stripes seared with a dazzling intensity that Harry found hard to look at.
She was intelligent, too, and, at the moment, ready to lay a clutch of eggs from her mating with an Ashwinder. Harry needed to transfer her from one cage to another. He held his hand down into the cage. Ready? he said in Parseltongue.
How long will this journey last? Isla asked without moving. Her tongue lashed out once, and she gave Harry’s hand a critical glance, as though she was judging its fitness to be her transport.
From one side of the room to the other. Harry moved aside so that she could see through the glass and across the breeding chamber to the new cage she would inhabit. It had bars that smoked softly and a nest of phoenix feathers that Harry had paid dearly for. As interesting as Isla’s children would be, though, he knew that he could afford them. The place that you’ve often stared at. Wouldn’t you like to go there?
Isla’s tail twitched and shuddered. Then she curled herself around his hand slowly. Harry sighed in relief. He had quickly discovered that although intelligent snakes made more interesting companions, they were also more temperamental, and could refuse to do important things for days because something in their immediate environment had displeased them. In Isla’s case, she usually liked bare skin, and the glove Harry wore to defend his skin against her flames might have displeased her.
Harry carried her lightly and quickly past the other cages, perches, and platforms where snakes slumbered or twined in dances or curled about eggs or played with the balls and bells that Harry had purchased for them. Tongues lashed out to follow them, and more than one hissed a greeting. Harry responded to those who talked and smiled indulgently at those who didn’t. They were mostly pregnant live-bearers concerned about their young, or snakes involved in puzzle-play that had baffled them for weeks, or, in the case of Gregor, the Alpine serpent with dazzling green and white scales, jealous because Harry was handling another snake. In Gregor’s opinion, Harry existed to tend to Gregor.
Harry set Isla into the new cage and waited patiently until she unwound herself from his wrist and began to crawl across the bedding. Her tongue flickered out more than once, testing the new currents of scent. She kept her tail linked around Harry’s arm until the last moment. Harry didn’t mind. He would rather have a snake like Isla take her time and be satisfied with everything than go to the trouble of rearranging the cage for a fifth time.
It will do? He waited to ask until he was sure that she had approved of the phoenix feathers, because she coiled herself up in them and laid her nose along her flank. The strange lumps the eggs waiting inside her made looked less strange with her head beside them.
It will do, Isla said with imperious authority. Now fetch me a firefly.
Harry chuckled and turned away to the front of the shop, where he kept his large cases of mice, rats, insects, and sometimes birds to feed the snakes with. He had once believed he would do anything to get rid of his ability to speak Parseltongue. In fact, he had been sure at first that the ability had gone with Voldemort, and that he would never hear a snake talk to him in “English” again.
But then he had found a young adder that someone had sliced the tail from who needed his help, who in fact had no qualms about crawling right up to him demanding his help and threatening consequences from his fangs if that aid was inadequate. At the same time, Harry’s studying Potions to enter the Auror program had stalled on what he thought was the most fascinating part of it, the use of ingredients that were harvested from magical snakes.
And here he was ten years of studying and experimenting and speaking Parseltongue later: owner of a shop that specialized in magical snakes which could become intelligent companions to humans or who didn’t mind giving over scales, shed skins, infertile eggs, fangs, or venom when they knew that Harry would use the money from the sale of those ingredients to buy them more food and bedding and toys. Harry had been unsure he would be able to compete with the apothecaries at first, because he refused to butcher whole snakes and sell them.
It had turned out, though, that there were lots of potions brewers pleased that now they didn’t have to scramble through deadfalls and ravines after venomous serpents who might bite them or slip away in the end. And there were some people like Hermione who preferred to purchase from shopkeepers who treated their snakes humanely. So Harry made quite a nice little living.
And the snakes got fed and were kept warm and pampered all their lives. So far, Harry had met only three who preferred wild living. Snakes, like cats, could see the benefit of an indoor, guaranteed existence.
Harry cheated shamelessly by using his wand to Summon one of the fireflies swarming in the cage on the table near the window instead of reaching in and capturing it. He had been reluctant to learn from snakes in school, but not since.
He was still laughing internally at his own joke when he turned around and saw Draco Malfoy standing in the door of his shop.
Harry reached back to catch himself on the edge of the table that held the cage, the shock was so great. He stared blankly at Malfoy for long moments. He hadn’t seen him in ten years, unless you counted glimpsing him on shopping trips into Diagon Alley and seeing his picture in the paper occasionally. Harry would have said he was the last person Malfoy’s path would ever have reason to cross again.
Here he was, though, as defiantly real as the adder all those years ago.
Malfoy had long hair, hanging nearly to his shoulders and held back with a slender silver band. Where the band crossed the center of his forehead rested a glowing, triangular gem, diamond-colored but so pale and watery Harry knew it couldn’t be one. His robes were conservative in cut—Harry had learned to recognize such things from his customers—but dazzling white, so that he would still stand out in a crowd. His eyes were sharp and clear grey, which Harry didn’t understand. The last thing he knew, Malfoy had been blinded by Rabastan Lestrange before they managed to haul him away to Azkaban, and no efforts of the Healers at St. Mungo’s could reverse the blinding.
Harry cleared his throat, but that didn’t cause any flicker of the eyes. It seemed as though Malfoy was looking at him and had always been looking at him. He raised a sarcastic eyebrow, in fact, and murmured, “Do you have some objection to my presence in your shop, Potter?”
“That depends,” Harry said, annoyance winning out over his surprise and the impulse to ignore Malfoy. “Have you come to break cages and release my serpents in the name of Slytherin solidarity?”
Malfoy’s laughter was an odd sound, full and deep. Harry paused to allow it to echo around the shop, and watched his steps carefully as he walked in. Malfoy avoided the tables as if he knew exactly where they were and came up uncomfortably close to Harry. Harry lifted his chin and his own brows, and waited.
“You haven’t changed,” Malfoy said.
“Ah.” Harry drew out the vowel until he saw Malfoy’s forehead wrinkle. “I knew you would say something like that.” Without explaining what he meant, he changed the subject. Why should Malfoy be allowed to intimidate him or disappoint him because it was obvious that he still thought of Harry as a schoolboy? “Are you here for a snake for yourself or someone else?”
“Someone else.” Malfoy leaned an elbow on a table. Harry watched out of the corner of his eye as he started towards the back room to give the firefly to Isla, but no, Malfoy had chosen a table that he couldn’t knock over even if he threw his full weight against it. Harry’s respect for his old rival rose reluctantly. At least he didn’t treat other people and objects the way Harry had thought he would when he first heard of Malfoy’s blindness, as if they were deliberately trying to injure him if they didn’t accommodate him. “My son, Scorpius.”
Harry had heard worse names in his years of serving pure-blood customers, which he was grateful for; it was the only thing that kept him from snorting. “Yes, I knew you had a son,” he said. “How old is he now, and what kind of snake did you want?”
“Scorpius is eight, and I want a snake that can be a companion.” Malfoy pitched his voice lower. Harry knew that he was doing it on purpose. Watching snakes had taught him how to differentiate between a deliberate change and one that was accidental. It helped that the snakes were mostly quick to tell him when they were angry or hungry or simply playful. “I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t know that you breed the best magical companions.”
Harry mentally rolled his eyes, and then decided that he might as well do it physically. It wasn’t like Malfoy would see him, whatever adaptation he might have that made it easy for him to move around. “Yes, I know,” he said, and savored the puzzled expression on Malfoy’s face when he turned around. “But I need to know more about Scorpius. Most of my snakes that are bred to be companions are meant to be unique to the people who own them.”
“Everything about Scorpius is unique.”
Harry paused. That was the first sign of something real and human in Malfoy that he’d noted so far: the way his face softened and his fingers curled around the edge of the table. He might stroke his son’s hair that way, Harry thought.
“Well, that’s good to know,” Harry said, and hoped that Malfoy could hear the smile in his voice. “But it doesn’t tell me much in the way of specifics. Why not bring Scorpius into the shop so that I can get to know his personality and fit the snake to him?”
Malfoy gave him a single sharp glance into which a world’s worth of exasperation seemed to have concentrated itself. “I would have brought him with me today if I wanted to, Potter,” he said. “The snake is a birthday gift, and a surprise.”
Harry sucked the inside of his cheek. He didn’t like working blind—
He glanced automatically at Malfoy, and was glad that he had never picked up the habit of voicing his thoughts aloud by mistake.
He didn’t like working without knowledge of the person he was supposed to breed for. On the other hand, he would appreciate the challenge, and he’d still had more successes than misses.
“All right,” he said at last. “And do you want a snake capable of protecting him or not? And if you want a protector, do you prefer a constrictor or a poisoner?”
Malfoy straightened, his hair swinging violently just above his shoulders. “I do not want a poisonous snake around my son.”
Harry glared at him, then remembered it had no effect. “This snake would be for Scorpius,” he explained. “That means that it would never bite him, because it would recognize him as its friend. On the other hand, some of the people I’ve provided snakes to in the past have wanted companions that could bite their enemies.”
Malfoy’s eyelids drooped a little over those brilliant eyes, and he stood considering the matter in absolute silence. Harry waited for him to say something, as patiently as he could. After all, he could hardly start breeding before he knew what the specifics were.
No, wait. It wasn’t absolute silence after all. Harry turned his head, thinking that perhaps Hayley, his most ambitious rattler, had climbed out of her cage again and gone exploring.
Then he realized the sound was too shrill and faint to be Hayley’s rattle. In fact, it regularly rose to a pitch that Harry suspected he couldn’t make out, then wavered back into the lower depths of noise. It was sweet, though. It reminded Harry of the singing snakes that he had bred for a few years before he realized that they would never be in good health and it was better not to force them to mate.
This singing was not tormented, however. It was beautiful and free and full, and made Harry take a step closer to Malfoy, hardly realizing what he was doing.
“I want a snake who can teach Scorpius,” Malfoy whispered. “He needs that. He needs someone who can be a true friend, chide him for his mistakes and praise him when he does well. He needs someone who is physically smaller than he is, so that he doesn’t feel threatened, but he might despise a snake that’s too small.” He turned his head towards Harry, once again unerringly locating his face even though Harry had moved. “He’s been taught to despise weakness like every other Malfoy.”
“Smallness isn’t always weakness,” Harry argued. “Tell that to a krait.”
“I’m talking about the kind of snake my son will like,” Malfoy said, his voice even, “not the type that you might prefer to breed.”
Harry took a deep breath and nodded, chagrined with himself for struggling against a client. Most of the time, he managed to persuade them when they were wrong. There was no reason to act like they were still in school even if Malfoy thought they were. “All right. Any particular preference for color?”
Malfoy froze, then sneered at him. He tapped his eyelids. “You think I care about that anymore, Potter?”
“The snake is for Scorpius,” Harry said, “who might care.” He found it easier to hold onto his temper when it seemed that Malfoy was losing his. “Besides, you haven’t always been blind, and I don’t know how complete the blindness is. Maybe you can still distinguish colors or lights.” That would explain the ease with which Malfoy moved, though not the singing sound.
Malfoy snorted and gave a short nod, though Harry wasn’t sure what he was acknowledging or accepting. “All right. Scorpius favors green—”
“And silver,” Harry interrupted. “Of course he does.”
Malfoy gave Harry a long, slow look, which was effective even if Harry knew that those grey eyes couldn’t see him. “And red,” he finished. “He likes cheerful colors.”
Harry winced and nodded, then remembered and said, “Sorry. All right, a large snake in red and green. An intelligent snake, to be a companion.”
“It would be best if it could talk,” Malfoy continued.
Harry blinked, then said, “I didn’t know that your son was a Parselmouth.”
That got him another look, though this one was more impatient than the last. “He is not,” Malfoy said. “I was envisioning a snake that could speak easily with Scorpius in English. The private language that you use to communicate with snakes would be of no use to him. I want everything for my son.”
“If I can ask,” Harry said, “if speech is so important, why did you settle on a snake for Scorpius? Why not something like a Jarvey, or a parrot?”
“Are you saying that you can’t breed a snake that talks?” Malfoy took a step towards him, eyes wide and—delighted? Harry thought that was a weird expression when Malfoy had specifically sought out his shop to find a snake that would suit his purposes, but then, Malfoy probably thought about and experienced weird things all the time.
“I’m saying that I never have, because it’s not something that anyone else has demanded,” Harry snapped.
Now, though, he was wondering how he would go about it. And wondering always produced new thoughts in his head. It was the first step towards the fulfillment of the plans that he was wondering about, after all.
Would growing vocal cords be the best solution? Perhaps not, when most snakes had nothing like them. On the other hand, snakes could feel and respond to the vibrations of sound through the earth, and what was sound at heart but vibration? Harry could think of some snakes, including many in Isla’s lineage, that were extraordinarily sensitive to vibrations. It was one reason he usually got her attention when she was sleeping or contemplating with a finger rather than with Parseltongue.
And Isla was ready to lay. And the best time to experiment with young snakes was in the egg.
“I think I can do it,” he muttered.
“Good.”
Harry blinked and glanced up. He had forgotten that Malfoy was there, consumed in thoughts of the snake to come. Malfoy took his elbow off the table and straightened. He reached down to his belt and plucked out a heavy bag that he tossed at Harry. Harry caught it and heard the clink of Galleons.
“Take that for an initial payment,” Malfoy said. “Depending on how well you manage to fulfill my request, there may be more where that comes from.”
Insulted, Harry tossed the bag back at him. Malfoy stuck out a hand for it and caught it. Harry wondered if that was because of the whiffle it made as it flew through the air, or because of that sweet sound. The sweet sound had to have something to do with the way Malfoy could react so well. “You don’t need to pay me until I manage to come up with a result,” Harry said. “I think I can do this, but it’s not a guarantee.”
Malfoy smiled, for some reason. “You have your own pride,” he said.
“Yes, of course.” Harry shook his head. “Owl me with anything else that you think is important for me to know. I want to fit the snake to Scorpius, but it’s rather difficult when he isn’t here in front of me.” With that final jab, he turned away. He would need to secure one of Isla’s eggs as soon as possible so that he could begin to experiment, and that meant persuading a difficult and temperamental Isla. At least snakes usually weren’t that close to their offspring, so they usually agreed to let Harry do what he wanted with the eggs.
“Thank you.”
Harry glanced back. He would have thought Malfoy would have already walked out of the shop, but instead he stood there, staring expectantly at—or towards—Harry, waiting for a response. Harry nodded back. “You’re welcome,” he said. He hesitated, then softened his voice. Too much coldness, and Malfoy would think he had been right about Harry not changing. “Thanks for the challenge.”
Malfoy tilted his head to the side, not quite a nod, as if those had been the words that he was waiting to hear, and strode out of the shop.
Harry watched him go, listening still. There was no trace of the sweet noise now, and no answers to his questions about it.
But that hardly mattered, Harry told himself. He would probably hear the noise again, and if he saw Malfoy enough times, then he might gain the comfort needed to ask such an intimate question.
Right now, he would have to negotiate with Isla, and then with Gregor, whose help Harry would need with the young serpent that hatched from the egg. Smiling slightly, and numbering the mice he could afford to spare Isla, Harry stepped back into his snake room.
In the end, it took more time than he had expected, because two-headed Cryer, a blue-green snake with Runespoor heritage, had climbed up into the rafters and couldn’t figure out how to get back down, and Harry had to rescue her before he could talk to Isla.
*
What should we do first? Harry asked, cocking his head to the side and studying the colors of the scales pressed against the shell of the egg. He had begun enchanting Isla’s child, and now that it—he, Harry thought—was nearly ready to hatch, it was the time to work delicate and precise magic.
Scratch my scales, Gregor said, and turned his head to the side so that Harry could get at the delicate place under his chin.
Harry did it as gravely as he would have tried a new spell. For Gregor, his requests were to be treated as seriously as his magical advice.
Gregor sighed, a long, rolling, sibilant sound that went on until other snakes in the back room began to complain. Then he lifted his head and nudged his nose around the edges of the egg. Harry stepped back and watched him patiently, ready to do whatever he said.
Gregor was the most intelligent snake he had ever hatched, and it had been an entirely mistaken mating. Harry had meant to pair Gregor’s parents with others, but at that time he still wasn’t good at determining the sex of most snakes and he had thought both Ash and Mountainside were female. Mountainside’s eggs a month later had been a surprise.
Physically, Gregor was pure Alpine serpent, a magical breed that lived in the Italian mountains and was able to turn themselves into stones or moss when a human approached. His scales, white streaked with lightning flashes of pale green, were handsome enough that Harry had no wish to alter their color. But he also possessed the ability to see magic, in a way that Harry could barely grasp even after he’d listened to multiple Parseltongue explanations, and he could give Harry advice on how to arrange it.
None of his siblings had the same ability, and though Harry had bred Ash and Mountainside again with their consent, Gregor didn’t have any rivals among the further clutches. Harry had decided to enjoy what he had while he had it. Alpine serpents often lived twenty years or more, and Gregor was only seven.
Sometimes, it does feel like it’s been longer, living with him, Harry thought with a mixture of exasperation and affection as he watched Gregor twine his body around the egg and rub the shell with the spot on his chin that Harry had just touched. He would never say such a thing aloud, of course. Gregor was as proud and insecure as Malfoy had been in school, and wouldn’t forgive him for months.
Malfoy.
The oddest things kept bringing Malfoy back to Harry’s mind, he thought as he stepped back and examined the egg from the side. A small ripple of red light was running over the shell, just as it should be. Harry smiled reluctantly and reached out so that Gregor could wrap around his fingers. Gregor did it with a haughty lash of his tail and then turned so that he, too, could examine the egg from a different angle, in this case from the height of Harry’s shoulder.
He could hear a snake hissing now, Harry thought as he gathered up the egg and carried it over to the tank of specially enchanted water that he’d prepared. It bubbled and churned with waves of salt and waves of heat, and Harry placed the egg at the surface and watched as it began to tumble over and over.
He could hear a snake, and it would remind him of the sweet singing sound he’d heard as he stood near Malfoy—a sound Harry had decided must be some kind of special adaptation to help him around being blind. Or he could look at the pale, chiseled statue that the sculptor’s shop across the street had had for sale for two years and see the living duplicate of that face in his memory.
Malfoy had been nowhere in Harry’s life. He had become everywhere.
“Is this a bad time?” The voice he had been imagining spoke from behind him. “No one answered my knock, and I thought you might be with a customer.” Tones of disbelief striated his voice, Harry thought as he straightened up and turned around, and he knew why. No matter what Malfoy said, he wouldn’t be able to really believe that any other customer could mean as much to Harry as he did.
And maybe he’s right about that. Harry entertained either customers who didn’t affect him much, buyers for Potions ingredients who all spoke the same tiresome language and tried to negotiate new bargains the snakes weren’t willing to make, or friends whose beloved faces were always part of his experience. Malfoy was something new.
Like me, Gregor said, leaning around Harry’s neck for a good look at Malfoy.
Another disconcerting thing about Gregor: sometimes he read Harry’s thoughts. Harry tried to shake off the odd feeling as he stretched out one hand. Malfoy clasped it while fixing those keen sightless eyes on Harry’s face.
“You don’t need to jump,” Malfoy said in a low laughing voice. Harry felt sure the laughter was derisive, though, given what he said next. “Blindness isn’t catching.”
“Especially not your kind of blindness,” Harry said calmly, accepting and acknowledging his own stupidity. He stroked the back of Gregor’s neck so that he wouldn’t get jealous and nodded to Malfoy. “Do you have new specifications for Scorpius’s snake? I’m just putting the egg in the enchanted water, and there’s still a bit of time to change things if you want to.”
Malfoy shook his head slowly, as if he wanted to measure how little air he could disturb with the motion. “I came simply to make sure that the creation of the snake is going well,” he murmured, and leaned over the tank of water. Harry stepped back and let him examine the bobbing egg. Nothing Malfoy did could harm it unless he actually cast a spell on it, and Harry doubted he was stupid enough to do that. “And here I find myself baffled,” Malfoy added, his voice a deep chuckle that stirred nerves Harry had forgotten he had, “because of course I cannot tell what the egg indicates.”
Harry stepped up close to him, partially because Gregor was hissing in agitation about wanting to examine Malfoy and partially because Harry wanted to feel the warmth that radiated from him. Why not? He could do as he liked in a case like this. Malfoy wasn’t an enemy now, and Harry didn’t intend to hurt him. “The snake is developing quickly. I should have him hatched out in a week. Then, of course, I’ll need to do some more work to make sure that he has the qualities you want.”
“The intelligence?” Malfoy reached out as if he intended to trail a hand through the water. Harry caught his wrist. The ambient human magic that Malfoy carried really might disturb the currents in the tank, and Harry didn’t want that to happen. Malfoy tilted his head and gave him half a warm smile. “And the ability to speak?” he went on, as though Harry’s hand were an insect that had alighted on him. He stood still under the touch, though, still enough that Harry heard the singing noise again.
Harry was the one who caught his breath and licked his lips, and had to tell himself a moment later that he was being ridiculous. He moved back from Malfoy and tried to speak neutrally. “I have magic at work on the egg that I think will produce that result. Certainly Scorpius’s snake will be intelligent. But how well it can speak…I won’t know that until it hatches.”
“Explain to me how you went about starting to get human speech out of a snake.” Malfoy turned towards him and leaned a hip on the table that held the tank of water, the same way he had leaned on the table last time. Harry wondered if that was a gesture he had always favored or only used since his blindness. It made him look more relaxed than Harry had seen him in school, that was for certain. “I know a few facts about snakes, but nothing about the magical theory that applies to them.”
“I’m lucky in many ways,” Harry said, moving back to put some distance between him and Malfoy. His reactions would be appropriate in private, but not in a conversation with a client. “I can speak with snakes, so I can persuade them to use their own magic and cooperate in the process of breeding instead of resisting it.”
Malfoy frowned. Harry sighed, trying to keep it soundless. Even with that expression on his face, the git looked attractive. “I was under the impression that snakes, except for a few magical breeds, were not very intelligent,” Malfoy said. “How can they oppose the breeding program that you’ve set up for them?”
Gregor hissed and wound himself around Harry’s neck as if he was a constrictor. I don’t like him, he said clearly in Parseltongue. He’s speaking the way that people do when they want to disparage us. Send him away.
Harry tapped Gregor on the neck and replied, His money, and the money of people like him, is what keeps you eating. Do you still want me to send him away?
He has a funny nose, said Gregor, and then curled his own blunt nose into his coils and lay there as if he could drive Malfoy off with the sheer force of his sulking.
Harry looked up to apologize to Malfoy and found himself the focus of a faint, appreciative smile. Malfoy sighed before he spoke, a low, delicious sound which made faint shivers run up Harry’s spine. “I hadn’t realized that you communicated so intimately with your snakes. It sounds exotic.”
Harry shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. His friends were used to it, and he rarely spoke the snake language in front of clients, some of whom wanted to accuse him of being a Dark wizard even now. He felt as though someone had walked into the bathroom and seen him with his pants down. “It’s nothing special. Just a gift I got God knows how. Inherited, maybe. My family has some connection to the Peverells, and they were connected to Salazar Slytherin—”
Stop babbling, you idiot, he told himself forcefully, and shut his mouth with a small gasp. Malfoy watched him with a quizzical smile. Harry scratched the nape of his neck and looked away. Even he thinks it’s weird. You know he does.
“How fascinating,” Malfoy said. His expression was so bland that Harry couldn’t tell whether he was telling the truth or not. “And you feel bad coercing snakes against their will into a breeding program?” His voice was bland, too, but Harry thought there were complex emotions under the surface.
He had no idea what words would cause Malfoy to approve of him, and no reason to crave that approval as much as he did. So he shrugged and said, “Yes. Since I can hear them complaining. And I can negotiate with them, so why shouldn’t I?’
“There are all sorts of answers to that,” Malfoy said.
I knew he was disparaging us, Gregor said, popping his head around Harry’s neck and hissing at Malfoy. I know the way your muscles tense when you’re confronting someone who doesn’t understand.
Harry rolled his shoulder so that Gregor almost fell off. That would give the impertinent snake something to deal with. He focused on Malfoy while Gregor was still dangling half-off his arm and said, “Then give me one answer.”
“That of course you should listen to them, since they’re your livelihood and they could hurt you if they were annoyed,” Malfoy said. “That’s the answer Granger would give you. And probably my wife.” He paused, a shadow sweeping across his face.
“Is she interested in house-elf rights, too?” Harry asked politely. He would ignore the shadow unless Malfoy clearly wanted to talk about it. God knew Harry was tired of people who used every casual reference he made to pry into his life.
“I don’t really want to talk about Astoria.” Malfoy’s voice was sharp and cool.
“All right,” Harry said, and ignored Malfoy’s incredulous look. What kind of response did he think he would get from me? Maybe he assumed that I was so curious I would insist on knowing everything about her. “We were talking about magical theory that someone could use to get snakes to talk, or at least you asked about that and I started rambling and never got back on the topic.” He gave a small smile.
It took him long enough that Harry thought the muscles of his face were frozen, but in the end, Malfoy smiled back.
Harry touched the side of the tank where the egg bobbed. “I started thinking that human speech and Parseltongue are both conduits of magic, used rightly. We use Latin in our incantations, after all. What makes it special is the will that we put behind the words when we want to use them to cast a spell.”
“Yes, that’s rather important,” Malfoy said dryly.
Harry ignored him, in part because Gregor was hissing several obscene things and Harry had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. “And of course,” he continued, “I can speak Parseltongue, proving that human and snake languages have certain boundaries where they touch. Parseltongue is an inborn ability, and I can’t make Scorpius a Parselmouth. But I can try to ensure that his snake has a similar inborn gift. In his case, he’s a Humanmouth, I suppose.”
“Your names need work,” Malfoy said, but he sounded calmer now, and fascinated. “Why did you decide to modify the snake while he was in the egg instead of waiting until he had hatched?”
“Think of how much easier it is to train a human infant to do something than a human toddler,” Harry said. Malfoy opened his mouth in silent laughter, and Harry froze a moment, taking in the light that seemed to shine through his face when he did that. He shivered and spoke on in a voice he feared was huskier than before, at least if Malfoy’s curious head-tilt was any indication. “Similar differences exist between a snake in the egg and a hatchling. The earlier I begin, the easier it is to use magic on him.”
“And how soon will he be ready for Scorpius?” Malfoy’s voice was soft and eager now, and Harry remembered the way he felt when he wanted to give a present to Rose or Hugo. He found himself smiling in answer.
“It depends on how much of a companion you want him to be.” Harry looked back at the egg and made a few rapid calculations, thinking of Isla’s lineage. Yes, he thought he could count on some inborn magical ability in the snake to substitute for lost time. “If you want a very intelligent companion, you’ll need to wait a few months. But a snake who can talk and is as intelligent as a five-year-old child will need only a week after he hatches.”
Malfoy pondered openly, leaning his chin on his fist and staring at the tank exactly as if he could see it. Harry examined his face with a leisurely gaze, since now he had the chance to do so. The individual features were pointy and pale. He didn’t know where the extreme beauty he seemed to sense animating them at times came from.
I know why you’re looking at him like that, Gregor said, and curled one coil around Harry’s throat, yanking hard to let him know that he was displeased. He was even more displeased when Harry patiently unwound the coil and held him away from his throat. Gregor liked to pretend that he was a much bigger snake than he was, and hated being manhandled. You smell of the desire to mate.
Harry had no doubt that he did, because most snakes saw no need to lie. Gregor was one of the few Harry had ever met who used truth maliciously, though. He knew his face was red as he replied, But he wouldn’t want to mate with me. He has a wife and a son. In Parseltongue, he already knew that that came out as “permanent mate” and “hatchling who lives with the parents,” but he couldn’t help trying to explain the concepts. He knew Gregor could understand them if he wanted to. But Gregor considered those things too stupid to spend time believing them.
You still want to mate. Gregor slithered abruptly down his arm and left the room. Harry let him go, just relieved that he hadn’t decided to plunge into the water and eat the egg. He’d ruined several experiments like that before.
“Give me the months,” Malfoy said suddenly, making Harry jump. He’d almost forgotten the question he’d posed. “I want a snake who can truly be a companion, a friend, to Scorpius. And rushing the production of this egg won’t help with that.” He smiled, looking as satisfied with himself if he’d been the one to breed Isla and then beg an egg from her.
Harry didn’t care. That little smirk was ridiculously endearing. “Good,” he said. “That’s what I hoped you would say. It should be ready for Scorpius in four months.”
“Good.” Malfoy tilted his head and let his hair slip down his neck, reaching up one hand to push it absently back. “Have you given him a name yet?”
“No,” Harry said. “I thought I’d let Scorpius do that. Snakes don’t care as much about names as we do, given that they can smell one another.”
Malfoy paused as though Harry had told him that the egg would take longer than expected. “But you can negotiate with them,” he said. “You treat them like participants in your business and the decisions you make involving them.”
“I do,” Harry admitted. “There’s very little else that one can do when one speaks Parseltongue.”
“Then might this snake get an inferiority complex because you haven’t given him a name when you give the others names?” Malfoy’s voice hardened, and now he sounded as though he thought Harry had set out to offer him some deliberate insult.
Harry blinked. “I—yes, sometimes the snakes react that way. Not often,” he added, thinking of the way that Isla hadn’t cared while Harry hesitated and hemmed and hawed about choosing the “perfect” name for her. “But sometimes.”
“And it’s more likely the more intelligent the snake is, yes?” Malfoy leaned forwards. “I know that I would react badly if everyone around me had a name and I didn’t.”
Harry felt his mouth spasm for a moment, and was just as grateful that Malfoy couldn’t see it. He was remembering the way that Vernon and Petunia had gone out of their way not to use his name, calling him “freak” or “boy” instead. Harry had hated the fact that they would call Dudley by every variation on his name imaginable. “Yeah,” he said, aware that his voice was clipped and Malfoy would probably notice it, but unable to prevent it. “Yeah, that might happen.”
“Well.” Malfoy leaned back and gave him a smile. “Give Scorpius’s snake a name. I trust you will choose one that is not unfitting for a snake in a Malfoy’s possession.” He inclined his head to Harry and strolled out of the shop, avoiding all the obstacles in his way as precisely as he had done before.
Harry, though, was left staring after him, his heart thumping powerfully because of those three little words Malfoy had spoken.
I trust you.
How can you want to mate with someone who is not here? Gregor hissed in irritation, and shoved his head under Harry’s fingers. Put your hands to use doing something for once and pet me.
Part 2.
Pairing: Harry/Draco preslash, past Draco/Astoria
Rating: PG
Wordcount: ~12,500
Warnings: Profanity, angst, issues of disability (Draco is blind), partial epilogue compliance (Draco’s marriage existed, but not Harry’s).
Challenge: for
auroraprimaveraKeywords: book, window, heartache
Dialogue: “Why can’t you trust me?”
Summary: When Draco Malfoy wants a magical snake for his son, he turns to the best in the magical world—serpent-breeder Harry Potter. Harry, who thought that all his past grudges had been settled, is startled by the way he responds to Malfoy. For many reasons.
Author’s Notes: Beta-ed by Linda, a good friend of mine, who is willing to put up with my love of Harry Potter in return for the chance to be savage about grammar and spelling.
A Sound Like Serpents Singing
Harry tapped his finger against the glass. It was the best way to create the faint vibrations that Isla required to realize there was a human nearby to respond to.
Isla turned her head. Harry smiled, the way he did every time he looked at her. Isla was half Ashwinder and half scarlet king snake, and it had taken Harry forever to figure out how to arrange that mating and then make sure that the hatchling simply didn’t burn itself up in its egg. But he had succeeded, and Isla was magnificent, with the bold black and red coloring of a king snake that burned constantly at the edges with tiny flames. Here and there, white bands ran between the red and the black, and those stripes seared with a dazzling intensity that Harry found hard to look at.
She was intelligent, too, and, at the moment, ready to lay a clutch of eggs from her mating with an Ashwinder. Harry needed to transfer her from one cage to another. He held his hand down into the cage. Ready? he said in Parseltongue.
How long will this journey last? Isla asked without moving. Her tongue lashed out once, and she gave Harry’s hand a critical glance, as though she was judging its fitness to be her transport.
From one side of the room to the other. Harry moved aside so that she could see through the glass and across the breeding chamber to the new cage she would inhabit. It had bars that smoked softly and a nest of phoenix feathers that Harry had paid dearly for. As interesting as Isla’s children would be, though, he knew that he could afford them. The place that you’ve often stared at. Wouldn’t you like to go there?
Isla’s tail twitched and shuddered. Then she curled herself around his hand slowly. Harry sighed in relief. He had quickly discovered that although intelligent snakes made more interesting companions, they were also more temperamental, and could refuse to do important things for days because something in their immediate environment had displeased them. In Isla’s case, she usually liked bare skin, and the glove Harry wore to defend his skin against her flames might have displeased her.
Harry carried her lightly and quickly past the other cages, perches, and platforms where snakes slumbered or twined in dances or curled about eggs or played with the balls and bells that Harry had purchased for them. Tongues lashed out to follow them, and more than one hissed a greeting. Harry responded to those who talked and smiled indulgently at those who didn’t. They were mostly pregnant live-bearers concerned about their young, or snakes involved in puzzle-play that had baffled them for weeks, or, in the case of Gregor, the Alpine serpent with dazzling green and white scales, jealous because Harry was handling another snake. In Gregor’s opinion, Harry existed to tend to Gregor.
Harry set Isla into the new cage and waited patiently until she unwound herself from his wrist and began to crawl across the bedding. Her tongue flickered out more than once, testing the new currents of scent. She kept her tail linked around Harry’s arm until the last moment. Harry didn’t mind. He would rather have a snake like Isla take her time and be satisfied with everything than go to the trouble of rearranging the cage for a fifth time.
It will do? He waited to ask until he was sure that she had approved of the phoenix feathers, because she coiled herself up in them and laid her nose along her flank. The strange lumps the eggs waiting inside her made looked less strange with her head beside them.
It will do, Isla said with imperious authority. Now fetch me a firefly.
Harry chuckled and turned away to the front of the shop, where he kept his large cases of mice, rats, insects, and sometimes birds to feed the snakes with. He had once believed he would do anything to get rid of his ability to speak Parseltongue. In fact, he had been sure at first that the ability had gone with Voldemort, and that he would never hear a snake talk to him in “English” again.
But then he had found a young adder that someone had sliced the tail from who needed his help, who in fact had no qualms about crawling right up to him demanding his help and threatening consequences from his fangs if that aid was inadequate. At the same time, Harry’s studying Potions to enter the Auror program had stalled on what he thought was the most fascinating part of it, the use of ingredients that were harvested from magical snakes.
And here he was ten years of studying and experimenting and speaking Parseltongue later: owner of a shop that specialized in magical snakes which could become intelligent companions to humans or who didn’t mind giving over scales, shed skins, infertile eggs, fangs, or venom when they knew that Harry would use the money from the sale of those ingredients to buy them more food and bedding and toys. Harry had been unsure he would be able to compete with the apothecaries at first, because he refused to butcher whole snakes and sell them.
It had turned out, though, that there were lots of potions brewers pleased that now they didn’t have to scramble through deadfalls and ravines after venomous serpents who might bite them or slip away in the end. And there were some people like Hermione who preferred to purchase from shopkeepers who treated their snakes humanely. So Harry made quite a nice little living.
And the snakes got fed and were kept warm and pampered all their lives. So far, Harry had met only three who preferred wild living. Snakes, like cats, could see the benefit of an indoor, guaranteed existence.
Harry cheated shamelessly by using his wand to Summon one of the fireflies swarming in the cage on the table near the window instead of reaching in and capturing it. He had been reluctant to learn from snakes in school, but not since.
He was still laughing internally at his own joke when he turned around and saw Draco Malfoy standing in the door of his shop.
Harry reached back to catch himself on the edge of the table that held the cage, the shock was so great. He stared blankly at Malfoy for long moments. He hadn’t seen him in ten years, unless you counted glimpsing him on shopping trips into Diagon Alley and seeing his picture in the paper occasionally. Harry would have said he was the last person Malfoy’s path would ever have reason to cross again.
Here he was, though, as defiantly real as the adder all those years ago.
Malfoy had long hair, hanging nearly to his shoulders and held back with a slender silver band. Where the band crossed the center of his forehead rested a glowing, triangular gem, diamond-colored but so pale and watery Harry knew it couldn’t be one. His robes were conservative in cut—Harry had learned to recognize such things from his customers—but dazzling white, so that he would still stand out in a crowd. His eyes were sharp and clear grey, which Harry didn’t understand. The last thing he knew, Malfoy had been blinded by Rabastan Lestrange before they managed to haul him away to Azkaban, and no efforts of the Healers at St. Mungo’s could reverse the blinding.
Harry cleared his throat, but that didn’t cause any flicker of the eyes. It seemed as though Malfoy was looking at him and had always been looking at him. He raised a sarcastic eyebrow, in fact, and murmured, “Do you have some objection to my presence in your shop, Potter?”
“That depends,” Harry said, annoyance winning out over his surprise and the impulse to ignore Malfoy. “Have you come to break cages and release my serpents in the name of Slytherin solidarity?”
Malfoy’s laughter was an odd sound, full and deep. Harry paused to allow it to echo around the shop, and watched his steps carefully as he walked in. Malfoy avoided the tables as if he knew exactly where they were and came up uncomfortably close to Harry. Harry lifted his chin and his own brows, and waited.
“You haven’t changed,” Malfoy said.
“Ah.” Harry drew out the vowel until he saw Malfoy’s forehead wrinkle. “I knew you would say something like that.” Without explaining what he meant, he changed the subject. Why should Malfoy be allowed to intimidate him or disappoint him because it was obvious that he still thought of Harry as a schoolboy? “Are you here for a snake for yourself or someone else?”
“Someone else.” Malfoy leaned an elbow on a table. Harry watched out of the corner of his eye as he started towards the back room to give the firefly to Isla, but no, Malfoy had chosen a table that he couldn’t knock over even if he threw his full weight against it. Harry’s respect for his old rival rose reluctantly. At least he didn’t treat other people and objects the way Harry had thought he would when he first heard of Malfoy’s blindness, as if they were deliberately trying to injure him if they didn’t accommodate him. “My son, Scorpius.”
Harry had heard worse names in his years of serving pure-blood customers, which he was grateful for; it was the only thing that kept him from snorting. “Yes, I knew you had a son,” he said. “How old is he now, and what kind of snake did you want?”
“Scorpius is eight, and I want a snake that can be a companion.” Malfoy pitched his voice lower. Harry knew that he was doing it on purpose. Watching snakes had taught him how to differentiate between a deliberate change and one that was accidental. It helped that the snakes were mostly quick to tell him when they were angry or hungry or simply playful. “I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t know that you breed the best magical companions.”
Harry mentally rolled his eyes, and then decided that he might as well do it physically. It wasn’t like Malfoy would see him, whatever adaptation he might have that made it easy for him to move around. “Yes, I know,” he said, and savored the puzzled expression on Malfoy’s face when he turned around. “But I need to know more about Scorpius. Most of my snakes that are bred to be companions are meant to be unique to the people who own them.”
“Everything about Scorpius is unique.”
Harry paused. That was the first sign of something real and human in Malfoy that he’d noted so far: the way his face softened and his fingers curled around the edge of the table. He might stroke his son’s hair that way, Harry thought.
“Well, that’s good to know,” Harry said, and hoped that Malfoy could hear the smile in his voice. “But it doesn’t tell me much in the way of specifics. Why not bring Scorpius into the shop so that I can get to know his personality and fit the snake to him?”
Malfoy gave him a single sharp glance into which a world’s worth of exasperation seemed to have concentrated itself. “I would have brought him with me today if I wanted to, Potter,” he said. “The snake is a birthday gift, and a surprise.”
Harry sucked the inside of his cheek. He didn’t like working blind—
He glanced automatically at Malfoy, and was glad that he had never picked up the habit of voicing his thoughts aloud by mistake.
He didn’t like working without knowledge of the person he was supposed to breed for. On the other hand, he would appreciate the challenge, and he’d still had more successes than misses.
“All right,” he said at last. “And do you want a snake capable of protecting him or not? And if you want a protector, do you prefer a constrictor or a poisoner?”
Malfoy straightened, his hair swinging violently just above his shoulders. “I do not want a poisonous snake around my son.”
Harry glared at him, then remembered it had no effect. “This snake would be for Scorpius,” he explained. “That means that it would never bite him, because it would recognize him as its friend. On the other hand, some of the people I’ve provided snakes to in the past have wanted companions that could bite their enemies.”
Malfoy’s eyelids drooped a little over those brilliant eyes, and he stood considering the matter in absolute silence. Harry waited for him to say something, as patiently as he could. After all, he could hardly start breeding before he knew what the specifics were.
No, wait. It wasn’t absolute silence after all. Harry turned his head, thinking that perhaps Hayley, his most ambitious rattler, had climbed out of her cage again and gone exploring.
Then he realized the sound was too shrill and faint to be Hayley’s rattle. In fact, it regularly rose to a pitch that Harry suspected he couldn’t make out, then wavered back into the lower depths of noise. It was sweet, though. It reminded Harry of the singing snakes that he had bred for a few years before he realized that they would never be in good health and it was better not to force them to mate.
This singing was not tormented, however. It was beautiful and free and full, and made Harry take a step closer to Malfoy, hardly realizing what he was doing.
“I want a snake who can teach Scorpius,” Malfoy whispered. “He needs that. He needs someone who can be a true friend, chide him for his mistakes and praise him when he does well. He needs someone who is physically smaller than he is, so that he doesn’t feel threatened, but he might despise a snake that’s too small.” He turned his head towards Harry, once again unerringly locating his face even though Harry had moved. “He’s been taught to despise weakness like every other Malfoy.”
“Smallness isn’t always weakness,” Harry argued. “Tell that to a krait.”
“I’m talking about the kind of snake my son will like,” Malfoy said, his voice even, “not the type that you might prefer to breed.”
Harry took a deep breath and nodded, chagrined with himself for struggling against a client. Most of the time, he managed to persuade them when they were wrong. There was no reason to act like they were still in school even if Malfoy thought they were. “All right. Any particular preference for color?”
Malfoy froze, then sneered at him. He tapped his eyelids. “You think I care about that anymore, Potter?”
“The snake is for Scorpius,” Harry said, “who might care.” He found it easier to hold onto his temper when it seemed that Malfoy was losing his. “Besides, you haven’t always been blind, and I don’t know how complete the blindness is. Maybe you can still distinguish colors or lights.” That would explain the ease with which Malfoy moved, though not the singing sound.
Malfoy snorted and gave a short nod, though Harry wasn’t sure what he was acknowledging or accepting. “All right. Scorpius favors green—”
“And silver,” Harry interrupted. “Of course he does.”
Malfoy gave Harry a long, slow look, which was effective even if Harry knew that those grey eyes couldn’t see him. “And red,” he finished. “He likes cheerful colors.”
Harry winced and nodded, then remembered and said, “Sorry. All right, a large snake in red and green. An intelligent snake, to be a companion.”
“It would be best if it could talk,” Malfoy continued.
Harry blinked, then said, “I didn’t know that your son was a Parselmouth.”
That got him another look, though this one was more impatient than the last. “He is not,” Malfoy said. “I was envisioning a snake that could speak easily with Scorpius in English. The private language that you use to communicate with snakes would be of no use to him. I want everything for my son.”
“If I can ask,” Harry said, “if speech is so important, why did you settle on a snake for Scorpius? Why not something like a Jarvey, or a parrot?”
“Are you saying that you can’t breed a snake that talks?” Malfoy took a step towards him, eyes wide and—delighted? Harry thought that was a weird expression when Malfoy had specifically sought out his shop to find a snake that would suit his purposes, but then, Malfoy probably thought about and experienced weird things all the time.
“I’m saying that I never have, because it’s not something that anyone else has demanded,” Harry snapped.
Now, though, he was wondering how he would go about it. And wondering always produced new thoughts in his head. It was the first step towards the fulfillment of the plans that he was wondering about, after all.
Would growing vocal cords be the best solution? Perhaps not, when most snakes had nothing like them. On the other hand, snakes could feel and respond to the vibrations of sound through the earth, and what was sound at heart but vibration? Harry could think of some snakes, including many in Isla’s lineage, that were extraordinarily sensitive to vibrations. It was one reason he usually got her attention when she was sleeping or contemplating with a finger rather than with Parseltongue.
And Isla was ready to lay. And the best time to experiment with young snakes was in the egg.
“I think I can do it,” he muttered.
“Good.”
Harry blinked and glanced up. He had forgotten that Malfoy was there, consumed in thoughts of the snake to come. Malfoy took his elbow off the table and straightened. He reached down to his belt and plucked out a heavy bag that he tossed at Harry. Harry caught it and heard the clink of Galleons.
“Take that for an initial payment,” Malfoy said. “Depending on how well you manage to fulfill my request, there may be more where that comes from.”
Insulted, Harry tossed the bag back at him. Malfoy stuck out a hand for it and caught it. Harry wondered if that was because of the whiffle it made as it flew through the air, or because of that sweet sound. The sweet sound had to have something to do with the way Malfoy could react so well. “You don’t need to pay me until I manage to come up with a result,” Harry said. “I think I can do this, but it’s not a guarantee.”
Malfoy smiled, for some reason. “You have your own pride,” he said.
“Yes, of course.” Harry shook his head. “Owl me with anything else that you think is important for me to know. I want to fit the snake to Scorpius, but it’s rather difficult when he isn’t here in front of me.” With that final jab, he turned away. He would need to secure one of Isla’s eggs as soon as possible so that he could begin to experiment, and that meant persuading a difficult and temperamental Isla. At least snakes usually weren’t that close to their offspring, so they usually agreed to let Harry do what he wanted with the eggs.
“Thank you.”
Harry glanced back. He would have thought Malfoy would have already walked out of the shop, but instead he stood there, staring expectantly at—or towards—Harry, waiting for a response. Harry nodded back. “You’re welcome,” he said. He hesitated, then softened his voice. Too much coldness, and Malfoy would think he had been right about Harry not changing. “Thanks for the challenge.”
Malfoy tilted his head to the side, not quite a nod, as if those had been the words that he was waiting to hear, and strode out of the shop.
Harry watched him go, listening still. There was no trace of the sweet noise now, and no answers to his questions about it.
But that hardly mattered, Harry told himself. He would probably hear the noise again, and if he saw Malfoy enough times, then he might gain the comfort needed to ask such an intimate question.
Right now, he would have to negotiate with Isla, and then with Gregor, whose help Harry would need with the young serpent that hatched from the egg. Smiling slightly, and numbering the mice he could afford to spare Isla, Harry stepped back into his snake room.
In the end, it took more time than he had expected, because two-headed Cryer, a blue-green snake with Runespoor heritage, had climbed up into the rafters and couldn’t figure out how to get back down, and Harry had to rescue her before he could talk to Isla.
*
What should we do first? Harry asked, cocking his head to the side and studying the colors of the scales pressed against the shell of the egg. He had begun enchanting Isla’s child, and now that it—he, Harry thought—was nearly ready to hatch, it was the time to work delicate and precise magic.
Scratch my scales, Gregor said, and turned his head to the side so that Harry could get at the delicate place under his chin.
Harry did it as gravely as he would have tried a new spell. For Gregor, his requests were to be treated as seriously as his magical advice.
Gregor sighed, a long, rolling, sibilant sound that went on until other snakes in the back room began to complain. Then he lifted his head and nudged his nose around the edges of the egg. Harry stepped back and watched him patiently, ready to do whatever he said.
Gregor was the most intelligent snake he had ever hatched, and it had been an entirely mistaken mating. Harry had meant to pair Gregor’s parents with others, but at that time he still wasn’t good at determining the sex of most snakes and he had thought both Ash and Mountainside were female. Mountainside’s eggs a month later had been a surprise.
Physically, Gregor was pure Alpine serpent, a magical breed that lived in the Italian mountains and was able to turn themselves into stones or moss when a human approached. His scales, white streaked with lightning flashes of pale green, were handsome enough that Harry had no wish to alter their color. But he also possessed the ability to see magic, in a way that Harry could barely grasp even after he’d listened to multiple Parseltongue explanations, and he could give Harry advice on how to arrange it.
None of his siblings had the same ability, and though Harry had bred Ash and Mountainside again with their consent, Gregor didn’t have any rivals among the further clutches. Harry had decided to enjoy what he had while he had it. Alpine serpents often lived twenty years or more, and Gregor was only seven.
Sometimes, it does feel like it’s been longer, living with him, Harry thought with a mixture of exasperation and affection as he watched Gregor twine his body around the egg and rub the shell with the spot on his chin that Harry had just touched. He would never say such a thing aloud, of course. Gregor was as proud and insecure as Malfoy had been in school, and wouldn’t forgive him for months.
Malfoy.
The oddest things kept bringing Malfoy back to Harry’s mind, he thought as he stepped back and examined the egg from the side. A small ripple of red light was running over the shell, just as it should be. Harry smiled reluctantly and reached out so that Gregor could wrap around his fingers. Gregor did it with a haughty lash of his tail and then turned so that he, too, could examine the egg from a different angle, in this case from the height of Harry’s shoulder.
He could hear a snake hissing now, Harry thought as he gathered up the egg and carried it over to the tank of specially enchanted water that he’d prepared. It bubbled and churned with waves of salt and waves of heat, and Harry placed the egg at the surface and watched as it began to tumble over and over.
He could hear a snake, and it would remind him of the sweet singing sound he’d heard as he stood near Malfoy—a sound Harry had decided must be some kind of special adaptation to help him around being blind. Or he could look at the pale, chiseled statue that the sculptor’s shop across the street had had for sale for two years and see the living duplicate of that face in his memory.
Malfoy had been nowhere in Harry’s life. He had become everywhere.
“Is this a bad time?” The voice he had been imagining spoke from behind him. “No one answered my knock, and I thought you might be with a customer.” Tones of disbelief striated his voice, Harry thought as he straightened up and turned around, and he knew why. No matter what Malfoy said, he wouldn’t be able to really believe that any other customer could mean as much to Harry as he did.
And maybe he’s right about that. Harry entertained either customers who didn’t affect him much, buyers for Potions ingredients who all spoke the same tiresome language and tried to negotiate new bargains the snakes weren’t willing to make, or friends whose beloved faces were always part of his experience. Malfoy was something new.
Like me, Gregor said, leaning around Harry’s neck for a good look at Malfoy.
Another disconcerting thing about Gregor: sometimes he read Harry’s thoughts. Harry tried to shake off the odd feeling as he stretched out one hand. Malfoy clasped it while fixing those keen sightless eyes on Harry’s face.
“You don’t need to jump,” Malfoy said in a low laughing voice. Harry felt sure the laughter was derisive, though, given what he said next. “Blindness isn’t catching.”
“Especially not your kind of blindness,” Harry said calmly, accepting and acknowledging his own stupidity. He stroked the back of Gregor’s neck so that he wouldn’t get jealous and nodded to Malfoy. “Do you have new specifications for Scorpius’s snake? I’m just putting the egg in the enchanted water, and there’s still a bit of time to change things if you want to.”
Malfoy shook his head slowly, as if he wanted to measure how little air he could disturb with the motion. “I came simply to make sure that the creation of the snake is going well,” he murmured, and leaned over the tank of water. Harry stepped back and let him examine the bobbing egg. Nothing Malfoy did could harm it unless he actually cast a spell on it, and Harry doubted he was stupid enough to do that. “And here I find myself baffled,” Malfoy added, his voice a deep chuckle that stirred nerves Harry had forgotten he had, “because of course I cannot tell what the egg indicates.”
Harry stepped up close to him, partially because Gregor was hissing in agitation about wanting to examine Malfoy and partially because Harry wanted to feel the warmth that radiated from him. Why not? He could do as he liked in a case like this. Malfoy wasn’t an enemy now, and Harry didn’t intend to hurt him. “The snake is developing quickly. I should have him hatched out in a week. Then, of course, I’ll need to do some more work to make sure that he has the qualities you want.”
“The intelligence?” Malfoy reached out as if he intended to trail a hand through the water. Harry caught his wrist. The ambient human magic that Malfoy carried really might disturb the currents in the tank, and Harry didn’t want that to happen. Malfoy tilted his head and gave him half a warm smile. “And the ability to speak?” he went on, as though Harry’s hand were an insect that had alighted on him. He stood still under the touch, though, still enough that Harry heard the singing noise again.
Harry was the one who caught his breath and licked his lips, and had to tell himself a moment later that he was being ridiculous. He moved back from Malfoy and tried to speak neutrally. “I have magic at work on the egg that I think will produce that result. Certainly Scorpius’s snake will be intelligent. But how well it can speak…I won’t know that until it hatches.”
“Explain to me how you went about starting to get human speech out of a snake.” Malfoy turned towards him and leaned a hip on the table that held the tank of water, the same way he had leaned on the table last time. Harry wondered if that was a gesture he had always favored or only used since his blindness. It made him look more relaxed than Harry had seen him in school, that was for certain. “I know a few facts about snakes, but nothing about the magical theory that applies to them.”
“I’m lucky in many ways,” Harry said, moving back to put some distance between him and Malfoy. His reactions would be appropriate in private, but not in a conversation with a client. “I can speak with snakes, so I can persuade them to use their own magic and cooperate in the process of breeding instead of resisting it.”
Malfoy frowned. Harry sighed, trying to keep it soundless. Even with that expression on his face, the git looked attractive. “I was under the impression that snakes, except for a few magical breeds, were not very intelligent,” Malfoy said. “How can they oppose the breeding program that you’ve set up for them?”
Gregor hissed and wound himself around Harry’s neck as if he was a constrictor. I don’t like him, he said clearly in Parseltongue. He’s speaking the way that people do when they want to disparage us. Send him away.
Harry tapped Gregor on the neck and replied, His money, and the money of people like him, is what keeps you eating. Do you still want me to send him away?
He has a funny nose, said Gregor, and then curled his own blunt nose into his coils and lay there as if he could drive Malfoy off with the sheer force of his sulking.
Harry looked up to apologize to Malfoy and found himself the focus of a faint, appreciative smile. Malfoy sighed before he spoke, a low, delicious sound which made faint shivers run up Harry’s spine. “I hadn’t realized that you communicated so intimately with your snakes. It sounds exotic.”
Harry shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. His friends were used to it, and he rarely spoke the snake language in front of clients, some of whom wanted to accuse him of being a Dark wizard even now. He felt as though someone had walked into the bathroom and seen him with his pants down. “It’s nothing special. Just a gift I got God knows how. Inherited, maybe. My family has some connection to the Peverells, and they were connected to Salazar Slytherin—”
Stop babbling, you idiot, he told himself forcefully, and shut his mouth with a small gasp. Malfoy watched him with a quizzical smile. Harry scratched the nape of his neck and looked away. Even he thinks it’s weird. You know he does.
“How fascinating,” Malfoy said. His expression was so bland that Harry couldn’t tell whether he was telling the truth or not. “And you feel bad coercing snakes against their will into a breeding program?” His voice was bland, too, but Harry thought there were complex emotions under the surface.
He had no idea what words would cause Malfoy to approve of him, and no reason to crave that approval as much as he did. So he shrugged and said, “Yes. Since I can hear them complaining. And I can negotiate with them, so why shouldn’t I?’
“There are all sorts of answers to that,” Malfoy said.
I knew he was disparaging us, Gregor said, popping his head around Harry’s neck and hissing at Malfoy. I know the way your muscles tense when you’re confronting someone who doesn’t understand.
Harry rolled his shoulder so that Gregor almost fell off. That would give the impertinent snake something to deal with. He focused on Malfoy while Gregor was still dangling half-off his arm and said, “Then give me one answer.”
“That of course you should listen to them, since they’re your livelihood and they could hurt you if they were annoyed,” Malfoy said. “That’s the answer Granger would give you. And probably my wife.” He paused, a shadow sweeping across his face.
“Is she interested in house-elf rights, too?” Harry asked politely. He would ignore the shadow unless Malfoy clearly wanted to talk about it. God knew Harry was tired of people who used every casual reference he made to pry into his life.
“I don’t really want to talk about Astoria.” Malfoy’s voice was sharp and cool.
“All right,” Harry said, and ignored Malfoy’s incredulous look. What kind of response did he think he would get from me? Maybe he assumed that I was so curious I would insist on knowing everything about her. “We were talking about magical theory that someone could use to get snakes to talk, or at least you asked about that and I started rambling and never got back on the topic.” He gave a small smile.
It took him long enough that Harry thought the muscles of his face were frozen, but in the end, Malfoy smiled back.
Harry touched the side of the tank where the egg bobbed. “I started thinking that human speech and Parseltongue are both conduits of magic, used rightly. We use Latin in our incantations, after all. What makes it special is the will that we put behind the words when we want to use them to cast a spell.”
“Yes, that’s rather important,” Malfoy said dryly.
Harry ignored him, in part because Gregor was hissing several obscene things and Harry had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. “And of course,” he continued, “I can speak Parseltongue, proving that human and snake languages have certain boundaries where they touch. Parseltongue is an inborn ability, and I can’t make Scorpius a Parselmouth. But I can try to ensure that his snake has a similar inborn gift. In his case, he’s a Humanmouth, I suppose.”
“Your names need work,” Malfoy said, but he sounded calmer now, and fascinated. “Why did you decide to modify the snake while he was in the egg instead of waiting until he had hatched?”
“Think of how much easier it is to train a human infant to do something than a human toddler,” Harry said. Malfoy opened his mouth in silent laughter, and Harry froze a moment, taking in the light that seemed to shine through his face when he did that. He shivered and spoke on in a voice he feared was huskier than before, at least if Malfoy’s curious head-tilt was any indication. “Similar differences exist between a snake in the egg and a hatchling. The earlier I begin, the easier it is to use magic on him.”
“And how soon will he be ready for Scorpius?” Malfoy’s voice was soft and eager now, and Harry remembered the way he felt when he wanted to give a present to Rose or Hugo. He found himself smiling in answer.
“It depends on how much of a companion you want him to be.” Harry looked back at the egg and made a few rapid calculations, thinking of Isla’s lineage. Yes, he thought he could count on some inborn magical ability in the snake to substitute for lost time. “If you want a very intelligent companion, you’ll need to wait a few months. But a snake who can talk and is as intelligent as a five-year-old child will need only a week after he hatches.”
Malfoy pondered openly, leaning his chin on his fist and staring at the tank exactly as if he could see it. Harry examined his face with a leisurely gaze, since now he had the chance to do so. The individual features were pointy and pale. He didn’t know where the extreme beauty he seemed to sense animating them at times came from.
I know why you’re looking at him like that, Gregor said, and curled one coil around Harry’s throat, yanking hard to let him know that he was displeased. He was even more displeased when Harry patiently unwound the coil and held him away from his throat. Gregor liked to pretend that he was a much bigger snake than he was, and hated being manhandled. You smell of the desire to mate.
Harry had no doubt that he did, because most snakes saw no need to lie. Gregor was one of the few Harry had ever met who used truth maliciously, though. He knew his face was red as he replied, But he wouldn’t want to mate with me. He has a wife and a son. In Parseltongue, he already knew that that came out as “permanent mate” and “hatchling who lives with the parents,” but he couldn’t help trying to explain the concepts. He knew Gregor could understand them if he wanted to. But Gregor considered those things too stupid to spend time believing them.
You still want to mate. Gregor slithered abruptly down his arm and left the room. Harry let him go, just relieved that he hadn’t decided to plunge into the water and eat the egg. He’d ruined several experiments like that before.
“Give me the months,” Malfoy said suddenly, making Harry jump. He’d almost forgotten the question he’d posed. “I want a snake who can truly be a companion, a friend, to Scorpius. And rushing the production of this egg won’t help with that.” He smiled, looking as satisfied with himself if he’d been the one to breed Isla and then beg an egg from her.
Harry didn’t care. That little smirk was ridiculously endearing. “Good,” he said. “That’s what I hoped you would say. It should be ready for Scorpius in four months.”
“Good.” Malfoy tilted his head and let his hair slip down his neck, reaching up one hand to push it absently back. “Have you given him a name yet?”
“No,” Harry said. “I thought I’d let Scorpius do that. Snakes don’t care as much about names as we do, given that they can smell one another.”
Malfoy paused as though Harry had told him that the egg would take longer than expected. “But you can negotiate with them,” he said. “You treat them like participants in your business and the decisions you make involving them.”
“I do,” Harry admitted. “There’s very little else that one can do when one speaks Parseltongue.”
“Then might this snake get an inferiority complex because you haven’t given him a name when you give the others names?” Malfoy’s voice hardened, and now he sounded as though he thought Harry had set out to offer him some deliberate insult.
Harry blinked. “I—yes, sometimes the snakes react that way. Not often,” he added, thinking of the way that Isla hadn’t cared while Harry hesitated and hemmed and hawed about choosing the “perfect” name for her. “But sometimes.”
“And it’s more likely the more intelligent the snake is, yes?” Malfoy leaned forwards. “I know that I would react badly if everyone around me had a name and I didn’t.”
Harry felt his mouth spasm for a moment, and was just as grateful that Malfoy couldn’t see it. He was remembering the way that Vernon and Petunia had gone out of their way not to use his name, calling him “freak” or “boy” instead. Harry had hated the fact that they would call Dudley by every variation on his name imaginable. “Yeah,” he said, aware that his voice was clipped and Malfoy would probably notice it, but unable to prevent it. “Yeah, that might happen.”
“Well.” Malfoy leaned back and gave him a smile. “Give Scorpius’s snake a name. I trust you will choose one that is not unfitting for a snake in a Malfoy’s possession.” He inclined his head to Harry and strolled out of the shop, avoiding all the obstacles in his way as precisely as he had done before.
Harry, though, was left staring after him, his heart thumping powerfully because of those three little words Malfoy had spoken.
I trust you.
How can you want to mate with someone who is not here? Gregor hissed in irritation, and shoved his head under Harry’s fingers. Put your hands to use doing something for once and pet me.
Part 2.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-09-25 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-26 12:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-25 10:24 pm (UTC)blind. Looking forward to what comes next.
Alot of research went into this snake information.
I knew the basics of snakes, but this is much
more interesting.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-26 12:35 am (UTC)Some of it is information I knew before I started the story, but that's because I like snakes and have picked up knowledge on them from basically everywhere.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-26 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-27 12:19 am (UTC)