Prompt: Draco is creating a potions, but accidentally makes a potion that allows him to talk in parsel-tongue for a week and he over hears Harry talking to a snake
WoW is this ever plotless and sappy. Shrugs, I guess? I only sort of followed your prompt, too. Hope you don’t mind.
There had been a conversation about this when they had remodelled the house; a whole discussion about how if Draco was going to have a potions lab in the extension, then he had to promise not to end up at the hospital every time he used it. Harry had wisely stayed sceptical that he could pull it off.
And Draco hated it more than anything when Harry Potter was right.
Now, sitting in a daze on the floor, surrounded by a blue-grey cloud and covered in a sticky navy goo, he had to admit that it was possible Harry had been right and it made Draco want to scream in frustration. It didn’t matter that they had been married for five years and that Harry definitely knew Draco better than anyone else did. It was still infuriating.
He dragged himself up and grabbed his notebook of the jot notes he’d been taking. Looking around at the ruined floor and table, he started trying to assess how much danger he was in.
“Why can’t you just follow a potion book, there’s no need for you to fuck around, every time I go away, do you wait for me to be out of town to blow yourself up,” he muttered aloud. “Wanker. Thinks he’s in charge of me. Thinks potions just pop up out of nowhere as if any famous Potions master used a book.”
“He just worries about you,” a small voice said quietly to his right.
Draco froze. There was definitely no one here. Harry was away at the cottage with Ron and Hermione, Scorpius was at school. Harry’s kids were, presumably, there also. Not to mention that this voice was tiny and wholly unfamiliar.
“Um,” he said stupidly. “Who’s there?” He held his wand tightly from where he’d already drawn it out of his sticky sleeve. The voice choked a little when it replied.
“Um,” it echoed. “You can hear me?”
“Yes?” Draco said, growing increasingly more puzzled. “You are speaking after all.”
“I always speak,” the voice returned. “You never hear me. Harry says we don’t speak the same language, but I’ve always sort of suspected you just choose not to hear me.”
The voice was coming from his left and was growing steadily louder as it became disgruntled. He looked down at the bench. There was no one there; there was a pot of herbs, the remnants of his cauldron, a jar of fly wings with Abra coiled calmly on top.
Abra, the tiny silver-grey corn snake that he’d bought Harry for his birthday two years ago; Abra, who mostly hung out in his lab because Harry was never there and she was a glutton for company; Abra, who Draco had been speaking to just moments ago, unconsciously using her as a sounding board for all his ramblings during the many lonely solo-brewing hours.
Abra, whose head was lifted from her coil, tilted and staring in awe at Draco.
“A-abra?” he whispered, convinced he was going mad. She nodded her flat, arrow-shaped skull at him.
Draco promptly passed out.
When he woke up, it was to find Abra on his chest, staring down at him with comprehending eyes.
“That was a tad dramatic,” she said. He reached down and touched one finger to her head. She leaned into it, just as she always did. “Checking that it’s me?” she teased. “You talk to me all the time. I can prove it. You think Harry is very beautiful and stunningly silly sometimes. I agree. You also think your potions are going to be your biggest failure. On that, I do not. Also, you think my name is Abra, which is fine I suppose since Abracadabra is quite a clever name for a wizard’s snake.”
“You’re not called Abra?” he murmured, pretty much still in shock. “I’m-I’m sorry. Harry should have told me.”
She stared at him and bobbed her head; Draco could have sworn that she had just shrugged at him.
“What is your name though?”
“Chloe,” she repeated. “You are silver-haired charming one in this language. I won’t call you that if you won’t call me Chloe.”
“This language?” Draco asked, stuttering still but managing to sit up.
“Snake. You are speaking it. Did you not know? That would explain much of your afternoon, I suppose. Must be the potion.” She shrugged again. “You should go to the hospital.”
“Fine, except that you can speak to me,” she countered. He couldn’t argue much with that. Still, he refused to go to the hospital and admit he could talk to snakes.
Abra, it turned out, was absolutely fantastic company. He cleaned up the lab, banished the disaster so Harry would never know, and set about making dinner for himself. By the time he sat down to eat, with Abra fast asleep around his neck, he knew everything about her. He knew that she and Harry had already ad the conversations they’d had, and he was annoyed that he did not know the secrets about their beloved pet. He could have been so much kinder to the gentle snake, offered her only her favourite treats and such. Draco pettily decided that it was likely because if only he knew her secrets, Harry could remain her favourite even though he didn’t spend as much time with her. Deep down, he knew that wasn’t true; Harry’s Gryffindor soul did not contain such organised spite. Still, Draco was annoyed when he went to bed.
“Goodnight, my love,” he said to Abra, who rested on Harry’s empty pillow.
“Goodnight, sweet friend,” she replied.
“Sweet friend?” he asked.
“I always say that when you call me ‘my love’,” she said, moving closer to him and dropping her tail beside his ear. “I admit, it is strange having you know that. Harry does not like when you say ‘my love’ to me.”
Draco laughed. “That’s because Harry is a very jealous man.”
“Truer words never spoken,” she said dozily.
He took a cue from her and drifted off to sleep.
The clumsy entry of a clearly drunk Harry woke Draco from a strange, instantly-forgotten dream. He did not move. If he ignored Harry’s presence, he’d soon be back to sleep. If he spoke to his husband, it could be many hours of attempting to understand confusing tangential stories. Those could wait till morning.
“Abra,” Harry whispered, pulling the covers down. “What are you doing here? You scared me.”
“Protecting silver-haired charming one,” she replied. The name made Draco want to chuckle, but he continued to feign sleep. “What are you doing here? You are meant to be at red-graceful angry’s house for three more suns.”
“I missed this one,” Harry replied soppily. “Let’s not tell him, but I worry he gets lonely.”
“Not so much now,” she responded.
Harry brushed passed the reply and settled into bed. Draco felt Abra’s tail disentangle with his hair; Harry must have lifted her to let her curl around his hand and wrist. “I suppose he’s been experimenting again.”
“Indeed. Most effectively.”
“Oh really?” Harry chuckled and Draco bristled internally. “What did he make, then?”
“A mess,” she replied. Harry sighed.
Draco snorted softly. He’d learned how precise one needed to be with snakes just this afternoon.
“Did he make a potion that does something interesting?” he rephrased. She nodded. “And what does it do?”
“It makes him far more interesting,” she said slowly.
“What?” Harry said, alarmed enough to be sitting up. Draco sighed, not caring now if he was heard. Any second now, Harry would shake him awake. “He drank his own potion!?”
“Indeed. And his accent is far lovelier than yours,” she taunted.
Sure enough, Harry jolted Draco awake a moment later; Draco opened his eyes immediately, too tired to torture Harry for sport and delay his panic.
“Relax, darling,” Draco said soothingly. “I’m fine. You should have told me our snake was such a lovely thing.”
“You already knew that,” Harry declared. “And I hardly think that drinking an experimental potion that has you speaking parseltongue is fine, Draco Abraxas. Up. Now.”
“You’re drunk,” Draco reasoned. “You can’t go to work drunk.”
“I’m not going to work,” Harry said, fully fuming now. “I’m taking my idiot husband to the emergency ward.”
“Fine,” Draco conceded. “But I’m going to hold it over your head that you came home early because you missed me.”
Harry went bright red; it was easy to embarrass the man, even after all this time. They flooed to the open corridor of the hospital, and Draco sat down heavily on an exam table a short while later while the nurse conducted her tests.
“What was the potion supposed to do?” she asked.
“It wasn’t experimental,” Draco replied haughtily. “I just screwed up some liquid luck.”
He looked down to Harry, who was sitting in the chair to the left of the bed, cradling Abra against his chest and murmuring soothing sounds to her. She didn’t like the bright lights any more than Draco did.
“Actually, you know what?” he amended. “I didn’t screw anything up. Not this time.”
