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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 Thirteen—Not All Malfoys Are Reasonable

            Draco forced himself to lie still, even though he really wanted to stand up and demand why Potter had shoved him flat like that. He couldn’t fight Lucius. Potter was insane to think he could, at least when Lucius was in this mood. Draco concentrated on keeping his breathing light and working his hand into his robe pocket, where his wand rested. He had to catch Lucius’s attention, and remind him who paid his expenses. It was Galleons that Lucius wanted, and not blood.

            Of course, if he could get both, then he wouldn’t be adverse to either.

            So Draco just had to make sure that he didn’t spill any of Potter’s blood. If that happened, Lucius would become uncontrollable.

            He nearly had his wand free when Lucius moved his wand in a downward, slashing motion, and a shallow cut opened along Potter’s arm, running red right before Draco’s eyes.

            Draco groaned, because what kind of sound he made right now wouldn’t matter nearly as much it would have before. That’s torn it.

*

            Harry had been taken by surprise when Lucius used the Slashing Hex on him. He’d permitted it to go through instead of deflecting it, though—partially because it would cause only a minor wound, and partially because he wanted to see what spell Lucius might send in its wake. He only tilted his arm so that the blood would run onto the ground, instead of over his hand, which would make the grip on his wand slippery.

            Lucius went mad.

            He simply took a deep, ragged breath and moved forwards, but Harry had heard sounds like that before. He had heard one from Bellatrix when he faced her down the last time, and they were not to be trusted. He had barely escaped with his life from that battle, and he knew it.

            He had no desire to have the same thing happen with Lucius. But the only thing that had stopped Bellatrix, finally, was Harry’s entering a mindset where he did not care about killing her, and he doubted Draco would be pleased if he killed his father.

            Better my life than his, he decided, and his mind fell into the cold, crystalline grip that he had used on the final battlefield as if he had never stopped fighting. Thanking Merlin that he had slept well last night and so his right leg was unlikely to give out beneath him due to weariness, he sprang forwards, just as Lucius sent the first serious curse from his wand at Harry.

*

            Draco watched the battle with his mouth slightly open. At last he became aware that it was slightly open and attempted to shut it, but most of his attention was still fixed on the fight raging before him.

            He had believed that Potter was only a match for his father with his magic uncontrolled and raging around him, and then, after hearing Potter’s speech about facing the Dark Lord, he had been unsure the other man would ever be able to summon the heart to duel again.

            Now he felt silly for doubting.

            Harry Potter was deadly with a wand in his hand. He moved swiftly, never hesitating, turning every potentially uncertain movement into a feint, countering Lucius’s spells without any sign of effort, seeming to know his opponent’s moves before he made them. Curse after curse poured from Lucius’s wand, and Potter avoided them, leaped them, deflected them, rolled aside from them. He let Lucius wear himself down, and grow more and more frustrated, while his temper seemed to have entirely deserted him. His face was calm and intent.

            Draco knew he would remember this vision for later, when he was alone and had more time to attend to the inevitable consequences of it.

            Lucius screamed in rage and pressed forwards, his mouth streaming out hexes the way his face streamed sweat. Potter leaped behind the nearest bush and then did some kind of impossible ducking maneuver, so that when Draco sucked in a sharp breath as Lucius blasted the plant apart, he had to let it go in a whoop, because Potter wasn’t there, after all, to be subjected to torn earth and flying branches.

            Something nagged at the back of his mind, though. He could finish him. I know he could. Why is he holding back?

            And then Potter shot a swift glance at him, as if he were checking Draco’s position and current level of danger, and Draco knew. The impossible idiot! He didn’t want to kill or disable Lucius because Lucius was Draco’s father.

            “Kill him if you like!” he shouted.

            Lucius whipped towards him. As always since he became mad, once his focus shifted, his whole world shifted. He seemed to have forgotten Potter existed. He leveled his wand at Draco and snarled through bared, foam-flecked teeth.

            Potter hit him in the back.

*

            Harry used the Flaying Knife, which opened Lucius’s back across the shoulders, separating cloth and flesh into dangling strips. Lucius yelped, as if the sight and feel of his own blood were far from pleasant, and spun around again.

            Harry stepped forwards to meet him, glad, just now, that Alastor Moody and not Albus Dumbledore had had the training of him in duels. Dumbledore would probably have chided Harry gently against “dishonorable” moves like this particular curse, or striking when his enemy faced away. Moody had been unimpressed with such things—that, or he didn’t think Dark wizards deserved the same kind of courtesy that Light wizards did.

            He moved to the attack.

            And his body remembered. His muscles knew how to flex, and not merely to carry him out of the path of incoming curses. He called to his magic without fear for the first time since the last battle.

            It rose and performed beautifully for him.

            Harry felt a moment’s bitterness that it seemed he could kill, even if he could not do anything productive, and then he went to work. Again the Flaying Knife, and then he used the Bone-Breaker, the Poison Drain, the Hurled Spear, Sectumsempra, the Dark Glass Curse. They came to his lips without thought, and he cast them while still maintaining his own defense against Lucius, giving the man no chance to hurt him.

            Finally, he landed one of the hits he had been aiming for, and severed Lucius’s wand arm.

            Lucius tossed his head back and howled like a werewolf in the throes of the change. Then he stooped, picked up his arm and wand as though they were sticks, and touched something brilliant with magic on the front of his robes, which Harry could only sense now that spells weren’t constantly flying at him. In instants, he was gone.

            A Portkey. Harry shook his head slightly. I suppose that’s how he got here in the first place—and he might still survive, assuming he arrives somewhere they’re willing to heal him.

            He was feeling too good to worry about it at the moment, however. He stretched his arms over his head, winced, muttered a slight healing charm at the cut Lucius had caused, and came over to extend a hand to Malfoy. “Are you all right?” he asked.

            Malfoy caught his hand and pulled himself up, standing in front of Harry and staring at him. His eyes were—strange. Harry raised an inquiring eyebrow, only to wind up stiffening when Malfoy lifted a hand and slid it beneath his chin, tilting his head back and forth and moving it this way and that.

            Malfoy made no effort to kiss him, however. His hand simply traveled, around Harry’s jaw and up his left cheek, rising to tangle in his hair and stir it a bit as if Malfoy didn’t like the way it curled, and then finally landing on his scar and covering it. Harry just barely resisted the urge to back away. The touch held—reverence. Or, well, something like it. Harry hated that. He already had enough people treating him as an icon, as a symbol.

            Malfoy, at least, had never been one of them. That increased Harry’s worry as to whether he were actually well; perhaps he had taken a wound Harry hadn’t seen. He was about to repeat his question when Malfoy spoke, his words traveling in soft puffs of breath over Harry’s cheeks.

            “I am now.”

*

            Potter had been giving him skittish looks since they’d entered the house and checked the status of the wards, along with Narcissa. Draco had been too relieved to see that his mother still rested comfortably in a cushioned chair, a house-elf hovering over her, to notice Potter’s nervousness at first, but now he did.

            The man had faced down Lucius—a deadlier wizard than Draco had ever been, able to do murder as Draco was not—and come close to killing him if not done it, and still he looked as though he were afraid Draco would eat him.

            It was rather funny. And it was other things, most of which made Draco’s breath come faster and his groin twitch.

            He did his best to subdue those feelings by leading Harry into his study, where the strongest wards were and he didn’t have to worry about anyone overhearing them: not elves, not Animagi, not someone under an Invisibility Cloak. They had to discuss where Lucius had come from, and this was the best place. The study was done in dark woods and stones, with both materials blending suddenly and unexpectedly into each other along the walls. The immense and equally dark furniture was part of Draco’s attempt to keep his mind on serious subjects when he was in here.

            It damped Potter’s mood, at least. He accepted a glass of lemonade from Seeky, but nothing stronger, and took a seat as near the fire as he could, as though the dark room made him cold. Then he sipped at his drink and said quietly, “Lucius shouldn’t have been able to do that, I take it.”

            “No,” Draco said, and took the chair across from him. He entertained a fond fantasy, for just a moment, that he and Harry were spending their time here after a successful day of terrorizing lesser people, but then banished it. Business. Professionalism. He saved your life, not offered to snog you silly. “I have wards around the property that alert me when he’s miles away, and even when he’s left Sweden. I should have heard them ringing the moment we arrived. That I didn’t hear them…” He let the words trail away as he sipped his own drink. “It’s very disturbing. Either he’s found some way around the wards, or someone else disabled them for him.”

            Potter started to speak, then hesitated.

            Draco gave him a faint smile. “You don’t have to worry about what I’ll say this time, Potter. You received a rather sudden initiation into my family’s troubles today, after all.”

            Potter gave a little nod. “What drove him mad? Azkaban? Or did Bellatrix—“ He glanced in the direction of the room Narcissa rested in.

            “It was Azkaban.” Draco shrugged. “Of course, we’ve had understandably limited contact since my sixth year, so if it was something different, I doubt I could tell. But he found sanctuary in Sweden with an old friend, and the Swedish wizarding community is ridiculously tolerant; I know a number of other ‘old friends’ who’ve fled there. He did send me threatening letters, the first year. Eventually, we worked out a deal whereby I send him Galleons and he stays away from the Manor.”

            “That’s why you need as much money as you make from your cases,” Potter murmured, his face suddenly clear of a shadow Draco hadn’t realized was there. “To keep him at bay as well as provide for your mother.”

            Draco wanted to retort that he used some of the money for that, but he also used it for his own comfort, and what was the problem with that? But he wanted Harry on his side in this particular argument, not aligned against him, and he reminded himself of that in time. He took a sharp breath and nodded. “That’s part of it. And I sent him money recently. Why he returned, I don’t know.”

            “That Killing Curse was aimed at you.”

            Draco leaned forwards, seeing an opportunity to integrate his more personal concerns with the business aspect. “And you saved my life. I owe you a life-debt for that, do you realize?”

            Potter lifted one hand as though Draco’s life-debt were a rather noxious dog he didn’t want to slobber on his face. “Don’t worry about it,” he said quickly. “It’s nothing.”

            “Nothing?” Draco let some heat slide into his eyes. “Malfoys take debts of all kinds seriously, Potter—more so since the war, when the number of people carrying two Knuts about us diminished rather sharply.” He lowered his voice, since he already knew what kind of effect that had on his old rival. “Whatever you want in return, just name it, Potter. Anything you’d like.”

            He tilted his head to the side and tried to make himself look vulnerable, though he knew it wasn’t something he did well. Potter’s pupils dilated the smallest bit, but then he shook his head and obviously focused on the subject under discussion again.

            Damn.

            “So your father returned for a reason, the wards didn’t alert you, and he wanted to kill you.” Potter tapped his fingers against each other. “Does he get any money if you die?”

            “Unlike some people,” Draco murmured, sitting back in his chair, “I was not stupid enough to leave people who might have reason to kill me in my will.” Potter had the good grace to look abashed. “No. All my money is slated to go to my mother, to provide for her protection and tending for the rest of her life. There’s actually a rather complicated legal procedure I’ve had Benjamin set up, whereby the house-elves can administer the Manor and the vaults as if they were independent heirs. But they’d still be loyal to my family, of course, so my mother would receive the very best care possible.”

            Potter’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Don’t tell Hermione that. The last thing she needs is new forms of enslavement to campaign against.” He leaned forwards. “Then I think the most obvious conclusion is that this is part of the trial—that Zabini and Ginny were hoping you’d take a Killing Curse in the back and spare them the problem of dealing with you.”

            Draco opened his mouth to deny that for a moment, then closed it again. He felt very stupid for not thinking of this first, in fact.

            Blaise had been his best friend for years. He knew where Lucius was living and that he was mad and obsessive—likely to fixate on an idea once he was introduced to it. He had visited the Manor often enough that he might know how to tweak the wards so that Lucius, who was still technically the Malfoy heir, could bypass them and not set them ringing in Draco’s mind as alarms. Lucius wasn’t sane enough to do it, most of the time, which was why Draco hadn’t worried, but Blaise could have reminded him of the procedure. And he had always been talented in the creation of Portkeys.

            “I should have seen that earlier,” he said. “I’m a fool.”

            Potter laughed, and it was the laugh that made Draco have to curl his fingers into his palms to keep from jumping him. “You were understandably preoccupied,” he said, his eyes glinting. Then he sobered. “It looks as though my plan won’t work now,” he said.

            “Plan?” Draco was anxious to reassure him that any plan for sharing his bed would not only work, it would receive enthusiastic cooperation from Draco himself.

            “I had planned to leave the Manor after this court session,” Potter explained, standing and shaking his shoulders and head like a dog emerging from water. “It distracts you when I’m around, that much is clear, and we don’t need to argue the way we did yesterday. But you need protection from your father. I can’t trust that he’s dead. And even if he is, Zabini might try something else. I had no idea that he hated you so much. I thought he just hated me.” His voice was calm, the tone of someone used to half the world loathing him.

            Draco had his pride, and he might ordinarily have protested against the idea of needing protection. But this time, he caught up with his own thoughts before he stupidly opened his mouth.

            He wanted Harry to stay. Of course he did. The tension between them had deepened and sweetened when Harry saved his life; they had shared yet another significant experience. Sooner or later, Draco was certain, Harry’s control would snap, and he would spin into and collide with Draco.

            He smoothed his face and voice to utter sincerity, no other emotion showing, as he said, “I’d like that.”

            Potter spent a moment staring at him suspiciously, but Draco was better at hiding his emotions than Potter was at reading them. Finally, Potter nodded and said, “I’ll be in my bedroom if you want me.”

            You don’t have to be there for me to want you, Draco thought, his eyes trailing Potter as he loped from the room. Anywhere is fine.

            He did remember to snap his fingers, call Seeky, and tell her to tend to the shallow wound on Potter’s arm, which had received no treatment but Potter’s inadequate healing charm. Then he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, replaying the scenes of the battle over in his mind.

            Potter had strength and a fierce will, no matter what anyone said—just as his speech yesterday had proven that he had charisma, whatever he thought. If Weasley hadn’t managed to encourage him to display those traits, there was something wrong with her, not her husband.

            Draco thought that he could encourage more displays of the kind. Potter just couldn’t help reacting to him, while he had grown used to Weasley.

            He would bring out the best in Potter, while Potter brought out the best in him.

            Yes, that sounds like a good bargain.

*

            Daft Fear: At the moment, it seems likely that the story will cover both the trial and a bit after it (and probably be longer than I thought). Bloody character development and plot stretching to accommodate it!
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Building With Worn-Out Tools

Chapter Thirteen—Not All Malfoys Are Reasonable