Tiny Twist

Chapter Seven

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter.

(--)

"The Scale Master? And Harry Potter? One and the same? Now this is a turn of events…" Turning around, with Harry's wand still in his hand, he lifted his free one to Salazar Slytherin's statue. "Speak to me, Salazar Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four!" He faced Harry again. "Let's match the power of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, and Harry Potter, Scale Master."

"You're Voldemort?" Harry asked, his eyebrow raised, emphasizing the icy-blue color over his eyelids. "Ah! I see. Tom Marvolo Riddle – I am Lord Voldemort."

"I didn't even have to spell it out for you; I'm impressed," the sixteen-year-old stated.

"I sensed some strange magic about your diary, as well. Bloody good wand-work, but not enough to get by my enhanced and new senses. So, you're calling Aegis out, are you? Sire Slytherin's guardian for the school?" the Gryffindor asked, crossing his arms with a smirk worthy of Draco Malfoy on his face. Hissing spewed forth from Tom's mouth, calling the basilisk out from the underground. Joy… I don't even know if her eyesight can kill me or not! Harry grumbled in his thoughts as he snapped his wings out, thankful that magic made room for them in his clothing, and shielded himself with them.

"Kill him!" Tom shouted, the order invoking Aegis to open her eyes to gaze at the Scale Master, whose own eyes were closed tightly. "If he won't look at you, then use your poison! Bite him!"

A sudden cry echoed before Fawkes flew into the chamber, knowing that he couldn't let Harry get hurt. After all, he was quite fond of the boy. Perching on the basilisk's face carefully, the phoenix clawed the serpent's eyes out. Crying out in pain, the basilisk shook the phoenix off, getting another cry from it before an old hat landed at Harry's feet in a ball of flame.

"You can still smell him! Kill him! KILL HIM!!!"

Harry suddenly got a bright idea. "Stop, Aegis. By the Power of Serpents in my blood, I urge you to stop." The huge snake quickly did so, freezing in motion as he gazed at her in sorrow for her eyes. "Will your eyesight cause the Scale Master to perish?"

"No, Master… You are immune to all that a scaly creature could ever hope to do to you," a soft, soothing hiss answered from the basilisk. "I had not known that it was you I had been sent to kill…"

"Shh… It's all right, Aegis. I'm more concerned about your eyes. Bring your face to mine," Harry gently commanded, smiling when the serpent did so. Placing his hands on her face, he focused magic to his intent to heal her. Golden-yellow, slit eyes were focused on him a moment later. "Much better," he hissed/whispered with a small, kind smile. An abrupt glow came from the Sorting Hat, and he looked over at it. "What's this?"

Another cry came from Fawkes, Harry knowing that, if the firebird could, he'd be grinning. Shrugging with a sigh, he lifted the hat to see inside it before pulling out two, gleaming blades, one a foot long while the other was about nine inches. The hilts were beautifully polished silver with small, some tiny, emeralds encrusted into them. The blades themselves were glossy black with 'Slytherin' engraved in Gothic lettering up the middle of each in a green that shimmered silver. Again, Fawkes gave a loud cry, but it sounded more like a trilling laugh.

"Put that in your eye, Dumbledore," Harry whispered softly before walking over to Tom. "I think I've ruined your chances of coming back to life, Voldemort." The boy held the longer dagger in his right hand and the shorter in his left as he took the diary from Ginny's nearly dead grasp. "I think we've had enough fun for today."

"NO!" Tom yelled as Harry stabbed the diary. He flung Harry's wand in front of him, casting a curse. What? Or he would have cast a curse, if he still had the wand. The boy had wandlessly summoned it back to his pocket. A resounding shout of pain came from the memory, the sixteen-year-old's body crumbling into dust.

Ginny gasped as she shot up. "Don't open your eyes!" She looked confusedly toward the voice. "Aegis won't kill you on purpose, but if you look into her eyes, she can't really stop that, can she?" The redhead closed her eyes without a fuss after that. Hissing came from the person who'd rescued her. "Okay, you're fine now."

"I…I'm sorry, Harry," she said softly. "I swear I didn't mean to hurt all those people! It's just that…that… No one would be my friend and when I found that diary in my belongings and wrote in it, Tom wrote back! He was my first friend!" Harry smiled slightly as he stood, helping Ginny up after doing so. She held onto him tightly, declaring profusely that she hadn't meant to do anything, she had gaps in her memory, and that she was sorry.

"Shh… It's all right, Ginny. No one's hurt. They're only paralyzed. Aegis… I think she feels bad about controlling you like that," Harry said, switching to Parseltongue halfway through what he was saying. The basilisk came over and nuzzled the girl's arm, forgiving her. "Come on, let's go find Ron." Harry looked at Aegis. "I'm sorry, but you will have to stay here… If anyone knows of you other than Ginny and myself, they may try to kill you. I can't let that happen."

"I understand, Master."

--

After getting back to the actual school, Dumbledore promptly fired Lockhart while admitting him to St. Mungo's. When the returned Headmaster asked Harry how he'd gotten Ginny back, the boy abruptly started hissing at him. What Dumbledore didn't know was that Harry was cursing him very foully. When asked what the creature was, Harry gave a fake shudder and looked away, stating that he was going to bed and he didn't want to talk about it.

Fawkes flew over to him and trilled softly, making it look like he was comforting the boy but was instead communicating with him. "Aegis will be guarded, Harry, by Hogwarts herself. The castle always protects her guardians. I know because I am one of them.

"You actually thought I was Dumbledore's? Oh please, he isn't pure enough! Now…you on the other hand…"

Fawkes flew back to his perch and winked at Harry from behind Dumbledore's back. "Thank you, Fawkes…" he whispered softly before leaving, his eyes looking a little lighter, though that was nearly impossible because of their glowing.

--

I hate Dursleys, I hate Dursleys, I HATE DURSLEYS! was Harry's mantra as he rode the train home, grumbling in time with his thoughts as Ron and Hermione gazed curiously at him. When asked what was wrong, he merely stated, "I'm going back to live with people who'd rather me dead than in their house. Wouldn't you be upset?" and they dropped the subject.

The door suddenly slammed open, admitting one Draco Malfoy. "I heard you fought a basilisk, Heir of Slytherin," the blonde stated, taunting with the title, but the tone was that of a question.

"Yeah, and?" Malfoy didn't answer. "Oh fine." Harry stood and motioned him to lead the way. "I'll be back, guys." He left as they protested, following Malfoy all the way to the back of the train and into the luggage compartment. Luckily, no one ever came back there, because, as soon as the door was shut, the blonde was kissing him. "Sorry, Draco… I've missed you, too." Harry waved his hand at the door, casting enough privacy charms to sink a battleship – good thing they were weightless.

"Where did you learn all of those, Harry?" Draco asked as he wrapped his arms around the Scale Master's waist, knowing what would happen if he touched the scales of the boy's spine and wings without being careful.

"I've read a lot over the past few months, quite specifically on privacy charms. Being in Gryffindor means when you do something, the entire Tower knows in about…three-point-five seconds," Harry answered, getting a laugh from his boyfriend. "I'm surprised we've been able to keep this secret so long…"

"As am I, but your acting skills beat my own easily," Draco replied, referring to the 'Boo!' incident, as he called it. "Hey," the blonde said softly when Harry looked away with a slight cringe, "Don't blame yourself. I should have listened to Sev."

"But that wouldn't have been true Draco Malfoy fashion, would it?" Draco shook his head with a smirk before kissing the tri-haired boy again. "By the way, Draco, I'm not the Heir of Slytherin… Voldemort is."

"How was he in the school? Better yet, alive?" the blonde asked softly, shocked at that revelation.

"He preserved himself in a diary, which was given to one Ginny Weasley by, lo and behold, Lucius Malfoy – who lost his House Elf because I returned the book which he then shoved at Dobby who opened it to find a sock which set him free!" the Scale Master answered with a grin, smiling when he got a laugh out of the Slytherin in his arms. "I didn't kill Aegis, though. I didn't even fight her."

"Who's Aegis?"

"The basilisk. Fawkes clawed her eyes out, and, after she'd calmed, I asked her if her sight could hurt me. She told me that it couldn't, and I healed her. After that, these came out of the Sorting Hat, which Fawkes brought to me." Harry took Slytherin's Daggers from their concealed places in the sheaths that had come to him. One, the longer, was over his right shoulder, while the shorter rested horizontally at his back on his waist, pointing to his right. "The sheaths have sticking charms to that I don't have to keep any constricting belts on my body to hold them where I want them; the charms are so powerful that even I can't remove them – and I'm not bragging either."

"They're beautiful, Harry. I've read somewhere that the Hat contains Gryffindor's Sword, Ravenclaw's Bo Staff, Hufflepuff's Bow and Arrow, and Slytherin's Daggers. You've got Salazar Slytherin's weapons of choice," Draco informed him as he inspected the works of art closely. "It wouldn't surprise me if there was a way for you to earn the other three." Draco suddenly looked up at him and asked, "Does Dumbledore know you have these?"

"Pft, you honestly think I'd tell him?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Well, you are in Gryffindor."

"But you know full well that this lion is a snake at heart!"

"A heart that belongs to me."

"Then I guess we've traded," Harry chuckled deeply, sending a shiver up the blonde. "I know we're just twelve, but it feels like I'm…fourteen…"

"I know what you mean, Harry. I've always felt older than people my age. Must be our experiences that have changed us," Draco suggested, deep in thought. "Who cares? I'm not going to question it! I would rather feel older than act younger!" After that declaration, the two dissolved into a heated kiss.

"Oh shit," Harry murmured half an hour later. "I forgot that I have to get back to Ron and 'Mione before they come searching for me."

"You haven't told them about us yet? I told my closest friends the first time we kissed!" Draco wondered, raising an eyebrow at the scaly boy.

"Who do you think they'd tell as soon as I gave them that information?" Draco sighed. "Yeah… Dumbledore. Of course, that's after the entire Gryffindor House found out."

"Okay so… How do we explain this away?"

"I glamour you to look like you've had the shit beat out of you because almost nothing can bruise or pierce my skin or break my bones. We mess up the compartment here a bit. You'll have to leave first, I'll come out with a smirk, and viola!"

"What is…'viola'?" Harry rolled his eyes and shook his head before raising his hand. "Eh…Harry, what are you doing?"

"I'm casting glamours on you," the boy answered slowly, as if speaking to unintelligent life form. Lowering his hand a moment later, Draco had a black eye, split lip, a bruise on his jaw, it looked vaguely like his arm was broken, and his robes were ripped in several places. Harry grinned before stepping over to the luggage and tossing some of it about, knocking others over, and landing a few dents in the walls with his fists. "Now, I just have to work on my clothes and…there we go," he mumbled to himself as rips, tears, and cuts laced his robes. "I can't just glamour mine because then Ron and 'Mione will know something's up."

"I understand that, Harry. I'm Slytherin, remember? I find loopholes in other people's plans, I don't make them in my own," Draco said with a laugh as he stepped over to Harry. "There's just one thing I want to do."

"What's that?" Harry asked as the blonde walked up behind him. "Draco?" He suddenly gave a loud moan, his skin flushing a light red, as the Malfoy heir licked the scales up the boy's spine through a cut in his shirt. "Twelve, remember? I can't walk around with a fucking erection!" He nearly screamed when gentle fingers and lips joined the warm, wet tongue, the blonde's hands sneaking under his shirt to attack the scales that marked his wings. "Draaaco…" he groaned before white encompassed his vision and he came. "Hello… Twelve…" he mumbled as his eyes fell to half-lidded. "Wha' the 'ell…?"

"Welcome to your first orgasm. I'm proud to have been the one to give it to you."

--End Tiny Twist--