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Building With Worn-Out Tools	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 54266 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Chapter Ten—If He Will Keep A Clear Head

            Harry had many thoughts brewing in his head as he walked out of the courtroom, mostly concerning what Malfoy had done for him and whether it was a sign that he really believed what he said or just that he was a good Arguer. He had the chance to voice none of them, however, since Ron was waiting for them outside.

            “Harry!”

            His voice could still make Harry turn automatically towards it, and he ignored Malfoy’s soft growl. It wasn’t Ron they had to fight with, after all, and Ginny and Zabini had already departed. “Ron!” he called back.

            “Don’t talk to him,” Malfoy said stiffly.

            Harry rolled his eyes at him. “You don’t need to stay and listen. I’ll Apparate back to the Manor when I’m done speaking with him.” Ron had already started striding towards him, an anxious expression on his face. And Mr. Weasley was with him. Harry hadn’t seen him since this began, even though Hermione had said that Mr. Weasley wanted to remain friends with both him and Ginny. Harry chewed his lip now when he realized how neutral the expression on the man’s face was. He took a step forwards—

            And was jerked back when he felt Malfoy’s hand on his elbow. He hissed and turned towards him, doing his best not to panic when he felt a swirl of magic just above his skin, raising the hairs on his arms. “I know you don’t like the Weasleys,” he said. “You don’t have to stay for the conversation, I said.”

*

            Draco spared a sneer for the Weasleys as they came level, but most of his attention stayed on Potter. The other man had tossed his head back now, and his eyes flared with a complicated mix of emotions: anger, certainly, but also pride and frustration, as if he saw nothing wrong about being alone with two Weasleys and wished Draco would see that, too.

            I seem to have awakened him more than I imagined.

            “You should not remain here on your own,” he told Potter bluntly. “Your wife might find some other way to hurt you.” He did savor the way those words made the two Weasel men tense up.

            “Ginny wouldn’t do that,” Weasel the Younger said.

            “Yes, she would, Ron,” Potter said, which was encouraging, at least. But then he told Draco, “She wouldn’t attack me in front of her brother and father. Go on, Malfoy. We won’t say anything you want to hear.”

            “I’m your Arguer now,” Draco pointed out, and tried to contain his irritation. He had wanted to see Potter grow a backbone, yes. He had not anticipated that the resulting strength would be turned against him so soon. “I should be present at every conversation about the case.”

            Potter just folded his arms and looked stubborn. The magic swirling around him began to move a little faster. Draco smirked. Whether he meant it to or not, Potter simply looked more attractive when he did that, and it added to the shine in his eyes and his aura and, it seemed, even his height.

            “He doesn’t want you here, Malfoy,” Weasel the Younger sneered at him.

            “Now, now, Ron.” Weasel the Elder put his hand on his son’s shoulder and looked mildly at Draco. Draco wasn’t fooled. No matter what his expression might look like, this was the man who had assaulted his father in a bookshop. Not that Draco cared what happened to Lucius, but the man who had hit one Malfoy might well hit another. “We should, perhaps, obey the legal niceties.” He smiled and looked at Potter. “Sad as we all are that such a thing is necessary.”

            Potter dipped his head a little, and the magic playing along his skin calmed. “Hermione did say that you felt you could make peace with both of us, Arthur.”

            Satisfied that no one else would order him away, Draco moved back a bit. That seemed to serve the purpose he wanted—making the two Weasleys and Potter forget his existence, so he could observe unopposed. He wanted to see what arguments these two used, and how Potter would respond.

            So I can know how to persuade him out of it, of course.

*

            “I do,” Mr. Weasley said, and briefly reached out to grip his hand. Harry scolded himself for feeling a flash of distrust. No matter what Ginny might do, or even the twins, their father was still an honorable wizard. “And—I don’t know what else to say other than that, Harry. I’m sorry.”

            Harry nodded. “So am I,” he said quietly.

            Ron spoke up. “You said you’d see me soon when you left your house, Harry, and you haven’t even tried to contact me. Why?”

            “I thought it might be a bit awkward for you.” Harry glanced at his best friend, studying his face, trying to determine what he was feeling from the look in his eyes. “Since I obviously won’t drop the case.”

            Ron rolled his eyes. “Come on, mate. You have to.”

            Harry experienced an odd revolution in his emotions: a moment’s irritation, his automatic attempt to soothe the irritation, and then a remembrance of Malfoy’s words to him.

            He said I could be angry. He said I had the right.

            Much as he hated taking just Malfoy’s word for anything, Harry was inclined to trust him on this occasion. If he started hurting Ron, then he would drop the anger, but—Ginny had slept around on him. She was having a baby with someone else. How could Ron defend that? He might not like Harry fighting Ginny in court, but that was a long step from claiming that it was wrong to do so.

            “Why?” he asked.

            Ron blinked a moment, and then his mouth fell open. He shut it after a long scrutiny of Harry, though. Mr. Weasley looked anxiously back and forth between them, his brow furrowed. Harry had seen the same look on his face when Molly and Ginny got into a row.

            He suppressed the emotions as ruthlessly as he could. He was extremely unlikely to be welcome in the Weasley family after this, and he would just have to get used to that.

            “Because it’s Ginny!” Ron exploded at last, in the same tone he might have used to say, “But it’s Dumbledore.” “You can’t hate her. You can’t want her to suffer like this.”

            “Do you know what she said about me in the courtroom today?” Harry demanded.

            Cool fingers tightened their grip on his elbow again, and he started. He really had forgotten Malfoy was there. “Not the wisest course of action, perhaps, voicing that,” he murmured into Harry’s ear.

            Harry nodded and focused on Ron again. “Why doesn’t she drop the case?” he asked. “How can you come to ask me about this and not her?”

            Ron exchanged a glance with his father, then leaned forwards and lowered his voice. “The Healers—well, they said that deep stress could make her lose this baby, Harry. They think it’s what happened to the last one.”

            To his own surprise, Harry laughed.

*

            Draco felt a curl of attraction, approval, and amusement in his gut like warm wine. Yes, Potter, now you have it. He changed his clutch on Potter’s elbow to a caress, but he didn’t know if the other man noticed. He was too busy leaning forwards, crowding into Weasel the Younger’s face exactly the way Draco would have liked to do it.

            “Then why did she enter this case, when she knows that?” Potter said, and took a step, actually forcing his best friend to back away from him. “Why did she want to subject herself to stress, if she’s so worried about the baby?” He took a deep breath, then snorted and shook his head. “You know, everyone keeps telling me it’s my fault that certain things happened—the miscarriage, the divorce, Ginny’s stress and strain—but that misses the fact that Ginny’s a responsible adult who made all her own choices.”

            “This is killing her,” the Weasel said in a low, intense voice. Draco had to give him credit for presentation. “You don’t see the way she rips herself apart when she comes home at night, or the way she cries when Zabini tries to figure out some obscure bit of legal trivia. You love her. You don’t want this to happen to her, do you?”

            Potter stopped moving.

            Oh, Draco thought, remembering the declaration he’d made in Draco’s office the first day he visited him. He really should not have said that.

            “I don’t love her,” Potter said. His voice was clear and resolute, just the way Draco had privately imagined it pronouncing the Dark Lord’s death sentence. “I’m not sure what happened. Maybe her shrieking. Maybe her constant pressure to make me into something I’m not. But I’m sure I don’t love her, Ron. If you planned to appeal to me based on that, change your tactics. I feel sorry for her, sure. I don’t want to kill her, don’t want to see her come to harm. But if this case drives her through emotional stress and strain, into exhaustion—well.” He took a step back and adopted what Draco thought of as a heroic pose, but which he probably didn’t even realize he’d used. He had his head cocked to one side, his green eyes brilliantly vivid, and even his scar bared, when he usually spent too much time covering it, as if he were ashamed of it. “She was the one who chose it. I’ll remember that, from now on.”

            Draco wanted to cheer. As it was, he preserved his dignity by smirking at both Weasleys. Mr. Weasley just looked sorrowful. Potter’s best friend—whom Draco would not have liked even if he hadn’t been Potter’s best friend; he was too just too much of an idiot to breathe the same air as normal people—gaped like a witless idiot.

            Then he wiped a hand across his forehead and said, in a weary tone, “Buggered if I know how I can spare you this, then.”

            And Potter just smiled, as if he could forgive it all, and clapped him on the shoulder. “You can’t, Ron,” he said gently. “I know I’ll suffer strains and stresses of my own, as I go through this.”

            Much less than your wife. Draco felt his own eyes turning lazy as he gazed hard at Potter, seeing, beyond the magic, a man who could be very powerful if he would just keep a clear head. I’ll see to it.

            “But I intend to see it through to the end. And it’s not my fault if Ginny suffers.”

            “Yes, it is!” Weasley the Younger just shook his head, and Draco recognized the rising temper in his tone. His face had flushed red, too, nearly enough to make his hair part of a continuum with it.

            Oh, please say something that will make Potter hate and despise you forever, Draco thought hopefully.

*

            Harry recognized the signs of dangerous anger in Ron’s face, and decided it was time to step away from this argument. Maybe he would lose all the Weasleys forever, but he didn’t want to.

            And he recognized signs of growing doubt in himself, too. He’d taken Malfoy’s permission to be angry, but that could lead to a great many things, not all of them good. Just because he had permission to be angry didn’t mean he had permission to be an arse. Those were different things.

            He’d had years of controlling himself, flinching from implications, trying to make himself something small and unnoticed. That couldn’t change all at once.

            “Go home and think about it, Ron,” he said, in the tone he’d used since Hogwarts to break off confrontations between them when things got too heated. “Maybe you’ll think, too, about how this can be my fault when she was the one who made divorce proceedings necessary.”

            Ron still looked as if he would say something unfortunate, so Harry just nodded to him, said, “Mr. Weasley,” and looked at Malfoy. “Shall we?”

            Apparently, though Harry certainly hadn’t intended them to, his words somehow contained an invitation for Malfoy to Side-Along Apparate him. Harry found himself pulled close to Malfoy’s ribs, and then the scene before them blurred and Harry was standing in the Manor’s library, which he knew one had to be keyed to the wards to arrive directly in.

            Malfoy still held him, and his arm had shifted. Now it was slung around Harry’s waist, and was still drawing him nearer. Harry glanced up. “What—“

            Malfoy kissed him.

*

            He hadn’t been able to resist, even though part of him thought it would be wiser to wait.

            Potter’s released anger, or regained calm—Draco didn’t know which name would have been more appropriate, and he didn’t care—really had made him more attractive. He no longer had to worry that Potter would act like a coward, he thought, and so the kiss made sense.

            For a moment, the magic crept into his skin, more intensely than the last time, and Draco gasped and shivered. His mouth fell open, and he felt certain Potter would follow the invitation. Hadn’t his hands risen to grip Draco’s shoulders?

            It turned out that they’d done that so Potter could shove him away. Draco staggered, blinking, and caught his elbow hard on a bookshelf. Pain cleared his head, and brought incredulity and rage, both.

            He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been rejected so violently, and he began, “Potter, what—“

            “I’m not someone you can put your hands all over.”

            The voice sparked with anger. Draco straightened, and glared, and was met by another glare. Potter had his arms folded, and none of the half-panicked, half-guilty reaction Draco had seen in him last time they’d kissed radiated from him now. There was just the slowly turning magic, and the fury on his face.

            Somehow, Draco hadn’t quite envisioned that the gifts he’d insisted Potter display might be used against him this way, either.

            “Harry,” he whispered.

            “Don’t,” Potter said, sharply, repressively. “I think I might understand why you want to do this, if the way you looked at me just before you touched me is any indication.” He rolled his eyes. “And it’s just the strangeness and the intensity of the emotions at the trial. Control yourself, Malfoy.”

            The surge of irritation in his chest was the strongest he’d felt since Hogwarts. “Fuck you, Potter,” he spat, and took a step forwards. “Do you think I offer this to all my clients? I’ve made it clear that I was interested for a week, and you still act as if this were some silly schoolboy crush.”

            “And I don’t really care what it is,” Potter snapped back. His fists clenched, and his skin was stained with a violent flush, and Draco’s own hands continued to itch to touch him. “You can have longed for me for years or have had a different lover every night. I don’t care. I need you to be my Arguer. That’s all I want from you. Stop pushing me, stop acting like you own me, stop assuming—“ He swept a hand in front of him, apparently too enraged to find the words. “Just stop,” he said finally.

            Draco eased back for a moment, his eyes narrowed, and studied Potter.

            Perhaps he had pushed too fast. He didn’t delude himself that Potter would just tumble into bed with him, but, on the other hand, he didn’t think Potter completely lacked interest in him, either. There had been more than disinterested appreciation gleaming in his eyes in the courtroom.

            And that’s it. That’s why we might suit. He admires me when he can see me as powerful, just as I admire him.

            So let him see me as powerful, then. More of that, and he’ll find it harder to resist—especially if I stop pushing and lead him on a chase. Show him my best side. Draco gave a tiny smile. I can do that.

            “Forgive me, Potter,” he said, and bowed. He could feel those green eyes sweeping over him, narrowing, and evaluating his intent. He didn’t look up until the bow naturally brought his face level with Potter’s again, and he reveled in seeing the anger there slowly became confusion. “I can accept that you have no interest in me, if you don’t. I merely thought to test my luck.” He shrugged and stood. “I meant what I said about finding you attractive—“ leave that door open, because damn, do I want to see more of what he did today “—but you’re right that it might disrupt the trial and seem unprofessional, and I have to concentrate on being your Arguer first.” He nodded to the door of the library. “It’s almost time for lunch. Shall we?”

            Potter stared at him some more, but Draco remained still, waiting. Finally, Potter gave a snort and preceded him. Draco didn’t mind that. It meant he could watch Potter’s arse move.

            And now that he thought about matters, he liked them better. Of course, if Potter had been willing to go to bed, Draco would certainly have taken him there. But a challenge would bring forth more and more of his best powers of persuasion, and thus display more and more of the skill Potter admired.

            Draco enjoyed showing himself off, and he enjoyed fucking. And he enjoyed, more and more, the way Potter looked and reacted.

            If he could win him this way, he could achieve all those pleasures at once.

            He made sure to have only an innocent look on his face by the time Potter glanced back at him. Wouldn’t do to frighten the prey off, after all.

*

            Mistaken: Sorry, but your e-mail’s hidden, so I couldn’t put you on the alert list.

            Rainwater: Well, as you can see from the contents of this chapter, you’ll get to see lots more of Draco being cool and confident—and now Harry will be joining him.
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Building With Worn-Out Tools

Chapter Ten—If He Will Keep A Clear Head