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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 Seventeen—What Friends Will Do

            “We should discuss what claim we’ll ask Judge Witherbone for.”

            Draco turned his head with a frown. He had planned to enjoy a quiet morning with Harry, since he couldn’t plan the next strike in the war until word on some of Blaise’s more interesting past exploits returned to him, and their next court date wasn’t today. But Harry seemed to have decided that lounging in Draco’s bedroom, larger and more comfortable than his, didn’t appeal to him. He was on his feet and pacing back and forth in front of the large windows that dominated the northern wall. He hadn’t even said a word about the scene they looked out on, apple trees crowded with blossom (it was an enchanted scene, of course, completely wrong for this season of the year, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t beautiful).

            “Would it kill you to read a book, Potter?” Draco asked his back. “Or to think about something else for once?” He arched his neck helpfully and stretched out on the bed, to show Harry some appropriate subject matter for his brain.

            “Witherbone said she would let us have whatever single demand we asked for.” Harry tossed his head back and glanced at Draco over one shoulder. “I simply think it’s bad policy not to speak about this.”

            “I had planned to do it tomorrow,” said Draco. “I want—“

            “To snog, probably,” Harry interrupted, boredom in his voice. “But we’ve been doing that for the past two days, and I’m beginning to wonder if you ever think about anything else.” He snorted and shook his head again, restlessly as a dragon with some fool trying to tame it. “If I just wanted someone to grope and wank with, I really would have cheated on Ginny as soon as she stopped sleeping with me.”

            Draco sat up, but for some moments, his outrage was so great that he couldn’t think of any words to speak. Yes, he knew Harry regarded what went on between them as nothing more than sex, but to say something like that--!

            Before he could get a word out about it, soundless wings beat, and a post owl soared through the nearest window and landed on Draco’s bed. It carried an edition of the Daily Prophet. Draco frowned—the morning one had come, and the evening one wasn’t due for some time—but he knew that the paper sometimes printed special midmorning editions when something large had happened, like a Ministerial election. Besides, at the moment lavishing attention on the owl and taking its burden from it was more attractive than watching the pacing Potter or getting into another screaming match with him.

            The headline made him swear. Potter pivoted around on one heel at once. “What is it?” he demanded. “Have Zabini and Ginny done something else?”

            “No,” Draco said, still hardly able to believe he’d read the headline he just had, even though it stood in front of him in letters an inch high—nearly as big as some of the headlines the Prophet had used for the divorce case. “But Pansy has.”

            The headline said:

            WEASLEY PRODUCTS RELEASED IN DIAGON ALLEY!

            Former Slytherin Believed to Be Responsible

            The moving photograph on the front page showed wizards rolling on the ground, scratching frantically at their heads and robes, probably because of the small creatures like termites running all over them. Beneath that was another picture, this one of a woman who was unmistakably Pansy tossing Puffskeins out the windows of the Weasley twins’ shop. She was laughing, and didn’t seem to notice the figures who kept sticking out their wands behind her, trying to curse her—only to have the smoke roiling out from further inside the shop obscure their aim.

            “What did she do?” Potter asked, and Draco shook himself and held out the paper so he could read. Then he remembered that Potter was being a git and Draco didn’t feel charitable towards him at the moment, but by then Potter already had the paper and was studying the headline with a gratifying expression of awe on his face.

            “She never seemed that dangerous in school,” he muttered, and then whirled around to face Draco. “Why did she do this? Does she have some reason to hate Zabini, too?”

            “Distraction,” Draco muttered, his mind working. He still didn’t know everything about what Pansy had decided, but he could divine some of it now that he saw what the results were. “She knows that it could be dangerous for us if Blaise or your wife found out about our shagging—“

            “We aren’t shagging—“

            “Excuse me,” Draco said, and made sure his voice could cut glass. “Using each other for something remarkably like sex, then. Not only that, there are Wizengamot members who don’t care for gay—or bisexual—wizards.”

            “Why do they care?” Potter looked bewildered, pushing his glasses further up his nose with one finger.

            “Muggle-raised,” Draco said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Or part of an older generation that saw it as disgraceful for a wizard or witch to prefer his or her own sex instead of having children to increase the numbers of pure-bloods.” He gestured to the newspaper. “Pansy has just given them something else to think about. Believe me, a simple act of vandalism or stealing in the Weasleys’ shop isn’t all she’s done. She’s probably planted several things underground, other tricks that will only surface slowly.”

            “That might distract the Wizengamot,” Potter admitted, with a slight frown. “Will it really make Zabini look the other way, too?”

            Draco smiled grimly. “Yes. She knows him, and she could be dangerous to him, if she wanted to be. He’ll assume she’s chosen my side and that these distractions are larger cover-ups for something else—something aimed at him. He’ll be so busy staring intently in her direction that he probably won’t notice my next plan.” He shook his head in admiration. God knew why Pansy made some of the decisions she did, and she could act like a spoiled rotten bitch when she wanted to, but Draco was glad to have her on his side.

            “What is your next plan?” Potter asked. He’d been insistent about that, even when Draco told him that he wouldn’t know the exact details himself until a few owls returned. But now, Draco thought, staring at him and thinking again of what Potter had implied with his words, he wouldn’t have told him even if he knew.

            “I fail to see why you would care,” he murmured. “Since I’m only your Arguer and someone you snog occasionally.”

            “You’re my Arguer, Malfoy,” Potter said, in a voice that showed patience creaking at the seams. “That means that I do rely on you to win this case. What else did I pay you a thousand Galleons for? And I expect to see results, soon.”

            Draco hissed and surged upright. Vague insults he might be able to let go; a direct challenge, never. “What crawled up your arse and died, Potter? You have been unconscionably rude to me all morning, and now this. You know as well as I do that you would have floundered in that courtroom on the first day without me. Blaise is a piss-poor Arguer, but at least he has some idea of where to look for legal information. You would have tried to fly on a combination of your reputation and Granger’s research skills, and ended up living in rags on the street, after your wife took everything away from you.”

            Potter grimaced and closed his eyes, massaging his temple for a moment as if he had a headache. Then he nodded sharply once, and said, “I apologize, Malfoy. You have helped me so far. I think I’ll take a nap until lunch.”

            And before Draco could insist he remain and stop feeding him a line of bollocks, Potter strode swiftly away from him, stepped through the door of the bedroom, and shut it softly.

            Draco hissed through his teeth to relieve his feelings, and then called sharply for Seeky. He would eat his lunch in his rooms today, and he hoped Potter went down to the dining room table hoping for food later and found none.

            The idiot. Did he think that I’d just nod and smile and put up with his moods the way those friends of his must have done, to encourage him to think they’re acceptable this late in his life?

            I won’t be insulted. I won’t be treated like one of his adoring fans. I wonder how long it will take him to notice his life becoming unpleasant, now that he no longer has my good will.

*

            Harry knew the cause of his restlessness. At home, he would have handled it by donning a Disillusionment Charm and venturing outside, either to tend viciously to his garden or to fly. He would have come back in to Ginny’s nagging about why he couldn’t play Quidditch professionally if he could fly for fun, but at least he would have exercised out the worst of his boiling emotions before they could transform into anger.

            Now, though, he had to stay safe behind the wards of Malfoy Manor like a good little boy, and even if he thought explaining the cause of his emotions to Malfoy a good idea, the git would laugh at him.

            It had been two days since he’d sent that letter to Ron, and he’d heard nothing.

            Perhaps it meant Ron was just busy, Harry told himself. Perhaps Ron was taking the time to consider his words carefully, since he had to make peace at once with his best friend and his little sister.

            But Harry feared it meant something else, something worse, and the suspicion and the anticipation of bad news tore through him like claws.

            Harry whirled around in the middle of his room and cast himself on the bed with a loud curse. He tried to lie still, muffle his harsh breathing in the blankets and pillows, and expel his worry through calm meditation.

            Nothing doing. His heart still beat as if it wanted to crash its way out of his chest; he still wanted to climb the curtains or yell at Malfoy or pull his wand out and burn every piece of antique furniture in sight.

            He rolled back over and stared at the ceiling for a moment. His attempt to cut his mind loose from what he suspected didn’t work, though; the thoughts just redoubled themselves, and he came up with wilder and wilder reasons for why Ron hadn’t written. Maybe he’d meant to, and then he’d heard about Parkinson-Nott’s attack on his brothers’ shop, and he’d decided that meant Harry didn’t want to be his friend anymore, and—

            Harry squeezed his eyes shut.

            He had never realized how alone he was until now. Take away Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, and he had no one to talk to.

            Malfoy—

            Harry shoved away the suggestion of his own damaged brain before it could even form into a sentence. Malfoy wasn’t a friend. They didn’t even properly shag, and just as Harry had suspected would happen, the beginning of their “deeper involvement” with each other was fucking everything up. Harry had insulted Malfoy unacceptably. A guest didn’t insult a host that way, nor a client his Arguer.

            Yet if he stayed in the house, and nothing changed, and Ron didn’t write to him in the next few hours, he wasn’t sure he could keep from doing it again.

            I need to leave, he thought, and sat up. Fuck the danger. At least I’ll have the magic to meet it. He could feel his power crackling like fire under his skin, just yearning for an excuse to be used.

            He spent a moment reaching out, touching the edges of the wards woven around the Manor and considering the strength of their magic. They were thickest on the doors and windows, but Harry had felt wards like these before, mostly around Death Eater meeting places. They were meant to prevent anyone from entering with hostile intent, and anyone from leaving without the owner’s knowledge.

            Well, Malfoy can know I’ve left, Harry decided, lifting his chin defiantly. I’m going to Apparate the moment I’m beyond the reach of the wards, anyway, and he won’t be able to trace me.

            He prepared himself quickly, gathering up his Invisibility Cloak and shrinking his Firebolt. Now that he had a purpose, the wild energy that had driven him quieted, and he made it down the main stairs and to the front doors of the Manor with a relaxed, easy stride. He saw no one but Narcissa, sitting in front of an old harp and fingering the strings gently, with a frown on her face, as though she knew she had once known how to play but couldn’t remember now. She looked up at him and smiled, and Harry gave her a faint, gallant bow in return.

            He stalked out through the wards, and felt the faint tingle that would warn Malfoy he’d left. He snorted. Let the git yell at him all he wanted; Harry’s spirits were already lifting without the enclosure of four walls around him.

            He’d just drawn his wand to Apparate when an owl landed on his shoulder, talons digging deep. Harry gave a little yelp and reached up to remove it, only to find it impatiently thrusting a letter at him.

            His heart gave a small bound when he recognized Ron’s handwriting on the envelope, and also the charm on it. The owl was forced to give the letter to no one but him. It must have been circling around outside the wards, waiting for him to appear.

            A twinge of magic at his back reminded Harry Malfoy might appear at any moment. He hastily draped his Cloak over himself, shooed the owl away, and Apparated with his letter to a place only he knew about, where he might read it in peace.

*

            Draco had nearly finished a cucumber sandwich, and had cooled down a bit, when the wards told him what Potter had done. He sat bolt upright, with a curse that would have made his mother turn on him with a scolding frown if she were present and sane, and reached for his wand, wondering what in the world the idiot thought was worth risking his life for.

            Even as he started to draw up the wards, though, he felt the flickering leap of Apparition. Potter was gone.

            Draco pushed his ruined lunch aside, jerking his head at it when Seeky popped up with an inquiring squeak. He spent a few moments sitting still with his hands clenched and his eyes half-closed.

            Perhaps he should have planned the sexual encounters with Potter better. It was true that they didn’t seem to be adding much to their interaction at the moment. Potter’s arrogance had increased, and Draco felt more than a touch of frustration—an emotion he could have easily subdued if he and Potter were still circling around each other.

            So. The answer is twofold. Either step away from the idiot, and apologize for my conduct, and stop trying to have this sort of relationship with him. That will let me put this on a professional basis again—just take his money, Argue for him, and walk away when the case is done.

            Or press him for more than this—this casual thing he seems to think we have, where we snog half the time and fight the rest of it. If what he had was nothing more than nerves or bad temper, he should have felt free to tell me. It was something else, and he was keeping it to himself, and Potter’s bottling up his emotions is never good news for anyone.

            Draco would have to think on it for a time, decide what he needed, and present Potter with the choice when he returned.

            He knew which one he wanted, of course. But not which one would truly be best. He leaned back against his pillows and prepared to do some hard considering.

*

            Harry gave his head a little shake, ignoring the way the sea-breeze swept through his hair. He hesitated, looking out over the waves, and then shoved Ron’s letter into a pocket, took his Invisibility Cloak off, and removed his shrunken Firebolt. A quick spell returned it to normal size.

            Then he had mounted up and was off.

            He’d only flown over the sea once or twice before, and never in the presence of such a strong wind—it looked like there was a storm coming on—or in such cold air. His robes were plastered flat to his body, and beneath the broomstick, the waves whirled around each other and tossed up foam that touched him when he swooped low enough. The sea growled on the shore as if it would like nothing more than to drown the land. Harry knew it would drown him if he fell in just as eagerly.

            He didn’t care.

            For the first time in far too long, he felt free. And for the first time since Malfoy had encouraged him to express his anger, he didn’t feel as if his emotions were filling up too large a space inside his chest.

            He twisted around and flew upside-down, his hair becoming soaked in moments. Salt coated his face. Harry laughed and let his hands dangle free, nearly upsetting his balance and sending himself plunging. When he pulled up again, with a twist that made the broom corkscrew as he flung his leg back around it, he plunged further, and welcomed it with a wild yell.

            Up, down, around, sideways, high and then a dive from two hundred feet in the air that would have broken his neck if he hit the water. He didn’t have to worry about searching for a Snitch; he didn’t have to worry about flying fast enough to get out of the way of Bludgers. That was what none of the people who urged him to play professional Quidditch again ever understood. If he did, he couldn’t concentrate just on the flying. He would have to do a myriad other things that could easily get him hurt or killed.

            This way, if he got hurt or killed, it would simply be from his own daring.

            He flew straight into the wind at last, a hard enough blast catching him to make his face flush red and tears sting from his eyes. But he didn’t care. He pulled up and screamed, once, a loud, defiant sound that rang out over the ocean and then tumbled into it, swallowed by the endless grumble of the water.

            At last, spent and with a smug assurance that, yes, this had been the absolute best thing he could have done, Harry flew back to the shore and settled on a rock, kicking his boots idly in the sand a few times as he pulled out Ron’s letter. He knew no one would disturb him here. This was the beach near the cave where Voldemort had once hidden the locket Horcrux. Harry had come here before when he absolutely had to think or be alone, and it had done him good.

            Never as much good as this time, though, when he’d let his emotions play around him without fear of his magic damaging anything.

            Feeling ready to face whatever was in the letter, good news or the ending of their friendship, Harry tore it open.

            Harry, mate:

            I considered what you had to say, and I think you’re right. Nothing will ever be the same again, at least not in your and Ginny’s marriage. And it’ll be a long, long time before you can be in the same house without yelling at each other, I think.

            But I want our friendship to survive. I just need reassurance that you’re the one making these decisions, not that bastard Malfoy.

            Listen. Ginny won’t be in the Burrow at all for the next few days. Can you come over? I think we should talk about this face-to-face, and with Dad there, too. (Mum is with Ginny, picking out baby clothes and giving her tips about avoiding stress).

            Ron.

            Harry hesitated for a long moment when he’d finished reading the letter, and stroked the envelope, and stared, and thought.

            Malfoy would be furious if Harry saw and talked to the Weasleys without his counsel.

            On the other hand, Ron would be furious at the mere suggestion of bringing Malfoy along.

            They should talk face-to-face.

            On the other hand, Harry didn’t want to do something to jeopardize the trial. Now that he’d got rid of his wildness, he was feeling more and more guilty about the way he’d treated Malfoy that morning.

            He didn’t like the git, and the sex—well, the sex had been a mistake, that was all, and it would have to stop, but he could still treat him like a human being. Harry liked to think he was that decent.

            He stood, with a small, determined nod. He’d Apparate back to the Manor, convince Malfoy of the importance of this, and get him to agree to Harry going to the Burrow alone. A dignified apology would be the last thing he expected.

            He gathered up his broom and Cloak, glanced around to make sure he’d left nothing, and then Apparated to the Manor again.

*

            Draco felt the twinge of the wards announcing Potter’s return much sooner than he’d expected, before he’d made up his mind about the best course of action. He flicked his wand and changed the enchanted windows so that they now overlooked the part of the lawn Potter had landed on; Draco knew he would want to see him return.

            Potter was walking casually towards the front doors of the Manor, his black hair mussed by something wilder than his own hands, his broom over his shoulder, his face set with sharp determination. He looked far more in control of himself than he had when Draco saw him last, and more powerful and self-confident than he had even speaking to the crowd in Diagon Alley.

            And Draco’s indecision sharpened to a burning full of want, and made his choice for him.

            He knew what he desired, and it wasn’t just Potter’s power, nor to have sex with a handsome man and a famous wizard. It was to share in whatever experiences they were that could make Potter look like that.

            He called for Seeky, and, when the house-elf appeared, murmured, without taking his eyes from Potter, “Harry Potter has returned. Make sure you direct him to me the moment he enters the house.”

            “Master,” Seeky said, and bowed—at least, Draco assumed he bowed. He still couldn’t look away.

            Yes. Time to up the stakes. Draco bared his teeth a bit, his own self-confidence returning in a rush. And Argue in a different dimension.

*

            Daft Fear: Well, as you can see, Pansy had a rather entertaining thing planned. Entertaining for herself, at least.

            Thrnbrooke: Pansy’s not a Seer, just rather better at reading Draco than he wants her to be.

            WeasleyWench: Draco and Harry have decided to settle a few things before their next courtroom debate. If they go in that rattled, Blaise and Ginny will have a much easier time.

            Berike88: I certainly take no offense! But Draco and Harry need to have a conversation first.
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