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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 Eighteen—The Conversation

            Harry had followed the house-elf that appeared for him the moment he entered the door of the Manor without complaint. For one thing, it was guiding him towards Malfoy’s bedroom, and that gave him a little more time to decide what he would say.

            He wouldn’t back down. On the other hand, Malfoy might persuade him in spite of himself. The git was brilliant with words, and he seemed to want to continue having sex. Harry would have to use unusual fluency to persuade him that this had been a mistake.

            Then he lifted his head, and let a faint smile play around the corners of his mouth. Well. He had the tools to do such a thing at his disposal, didn’t he? Malfoy had praised his speaking after the press conference when he told the story of killing Voldemort, and said that he could talk people into doing what he wanted.

            He was just receiving a practical exam without much time to theorize about it.

            And he had always been at his best when doing practical things, like Defense Against the Dark Arts or playing Quidditch.

            Straightening his back, Harry knocked once on the door of Malfoy’s bedroom before he stepped inside. He could be polite. He just had to show that he could.

            And keep his head in the rush of eloquently constructed sentences that were sure to follow.

*

            Draco stared for a moment when Potter stepped through the door. For one thing, his face was red and his hair a rat’s nest, as though he’d gone for a jog in a storm. Of course, that was easily explained by the broom he carried over his shoulder, glanced around for a place for, and leaned against the wall after another moment.

            Later, Draco was to blame the broom, and his surprise at the fact that Potter was still carrying it, for the fact that he let Potter get the first word in.

            “Malfoy.” His voice was calm and steady, much like his brilliant green eyes. Draco arched a brow. He could read determination in that gaze, but he couldn’t immediately see what it was directed towards. He was even more surprised when a faint smile ran around the edge of Potter’s mouth. “I should feel comfortable enough to call you ‘ Draco’ now that we’ve had sex, but I don’t, and that’s part of the problem.”

            “Really,” Draco said. He let enough sarcasm slip into his voice that it should have unsettled Potter, but the high color in his cheeks meant any signs of a blush were nonexistent, and Potter just snorted at him slightly before continuing.

            “Yes. I’ve acted like an idiot, and I apologize. I should have told you what troubled me this morning, instead of storming off.”

            Draco blinked again. Who the fuck is this man with Potter’s looks but none of his stammer?

            And then he recognized him. He’d seen him stand on a stage in front of six hundred people and talk as though the worst memory of his life were nothing more than a source of inspiration for others. Draco felt a lazy hunger stretch its wings inside him like a dragon. His interest increased again.

            “And I think we should stop any relationship but the professional one,” Potter continued, undaunted in the face of Draco’s silence. “Obviously, it unbalances me, and makes me act like a prat towards you. I’d be much more comfortable if we can work together well, of course, but even if we can’t, you’re a brilliant Arguer without me to distract you. You’ll still win the case.” He gave Draco a smile nearly as winning as the laugh that Draco had heard the first night he stayed in the Manor.

            Draco smiled a little himself. Potter relaxed the stiff stance of his shoulders, obviously thinking he’d won the argument without even letting it start.

            “Not a chance,” Draco said pleasantly, and some of the familiar frustration and outrage crept back into Potter’s eyes. He looked handsome without them, of course, but it was good to see them again.

            In fact, Draco realized, he rather liked looking at Potter’s face in all his many moods.

*

            Harry would have hissed at Malfoy if there was a snake in the room he could have concentrated on. As it was, he drummed a hand sharply against his leg before he could stop himself.

            Calm, dignified, and professional, remember? he reminded himself. And you really should have known he wouldn’t let you win with just one round. Draco Malfoy lives to be annoying. It’s no wonder he became an Arguer, so that he could annoy many people as much as possible with a legitimate cause.

            He was aware that the mocking insult was not entirely accurate even as he voiced it to himself. He had meant it when he said Malfoy was a brilliant Arguer. He wasn’t going to lie about what he did and didn’t feel.

            And why not?

            Harry threw the growing debate with his conscience into the back of his mind. There were more important things to find out now, like what the fuck Malfoy thought he was thinking.

            “You have to see that the sex was a mistake,” he said. “Why wouldn’t it be? We don’t know how to act towards each other now, Arguer and client or people who shag once in a while.”

            Malfoy laughed. Harry blinked. When he really let his mirth go like that, tilted his head back and let the curve of his throat show—

            Damn it, not now!

            “People who shag once in a while,” Malfoy repeated. “And is that really all you thought we were, Harry? And is that all you really thought we’d remain?” His voice deepened, and why did inconvenient parts of Harry’s anatomy have to take an interest? “I thought of us as lovers, frankly.”

            “You said that it meant nothing!” Harry snapped defensively.

            Malfoy heaved a sigh. “Honesty doesn’t come easily to me, but I can see I’ll have to use it, with you. Otherwise you’ll assume all sorts of dumb things.” And before Harry could protest that he was not dumb, Malfoy crossed the floor between them in three strides and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. Harry tried to shrug it off, but it stayed put. Heat he hated focusing on radiated out from the palm.

            “I’m attracted to you,” Malfoy said bluntly. “No, I don’t think it has anything to do with your magic. No, it doesn’t make me worry for my sexuality or my sanity. Yes, I enjoy the sex very much, but I’ve decided I want more than that. So just acting like client and Arguer now is no longer an option, because I want more.”

            “You don’t always deserve what you want,” Harry retorted.

            Another infuriating chuckle. “You could have thrown me off with your magic, even when I was pinning you to the bed, if you didn’t want me to kiss you, hold you, touch your cock,” Malfoy said, as if such things were normal to say. “I know you’re attracted to me, Harry. Do me the courtesy of telling me why, and if I think the reasons are stupid, then perhaps I’ll agree that this is a mistake.”

*

            Potter squinted angrily, but he’d been caught by the offer that Draco would agree with him if he told the truth. Draco increased the pressure of his palm on Potter’s shoulder, and smiled charmingly. That was the true secret to dealing with Gryffindors, he thought: offer them what they wanted while ensuring they’d fulfill your desires at the same time.

            “All right,” Potter said at last. “I’m sure you’ll agree the reasons are monumentally stupid. After all, I’ve been married for five years and I’m going through a divorce right now. What else could this attraction be but a low point in my intelligence?”

            Draco arched his eyebrow again, but said nothing. It was his opinion that Potter had failed to factor in the years he’d spent without much other companionship, and the nine months without a satisfactory sexual relationship of any kind.

            “I think you’re—handsome,” Potter said, as if he had debated various adjectives and then discarded them as insults to Draco’s masculinity. “I have no idea why, but your voice affects me. You display intelligence in the courtroom. I can’t help thinking that you know so much that I’ll never know, but you won’t mock me for that.” Potter made a wry face, as though to say he knew he was stupid for thinking that. Draco bit his lip and forced himself to hold still so he wouldn’t be tempted to soothe the self-contempt away with a kiss. “You’ve changed from your Hogwarts days, and I never thought you could. You temper your determination to hurt people and your selfishness with a ruthlessness that is—quite affecting.” Potter shifted to move out from under his touch; Draco prevented that with a soft little squeeze. “And you get angry at me, you push me in ways that my friends and family can’t, and you’re supporting me through this.” Potter shrugged. “I suppose that I like a challenge. Ginny offered me all sorts of challenges, but I didn’t want to accept them. With you, I do.”

            Draco felt a building excitement simmer in his belly. It was always pleasant to listen to oneself being praised, of course, but in this case, Potter’s attraction went deeper than the physical. Until that moment, Draco was not entirely sure that it did.

            He once again held himself back from kissing Potter, who now looked in the mood to fight—to strike back at anything intimate, in fact. Draco remained in position and made his voice as friendly as possible.

            “And your attraction bothers you because you can’t understand it,” he said soothingly. “Well, I think you’ve tried to run your life on ‘understandable’ reasons and lack of emotions for too long. You repressed yourself around your wife because you had to, but she’s gone now, and you can emerge from your shell.”

            Harry frowned at him and then said something entirely unexpected. “Well, and this bothers me because I don’t understand your attraction to me either, Malfoy. I’ll accept your word that it isn’t my magic.” For now, his tone said. “So I’m left to conclude that it’s just physical passion or some stupidity at odds with your Arguer instincts. Either’s bad for your performance in the courtroom, and we’ve already proved that our rows are destructive to progress on the case outside the courtroom. We didn’t even agree on what claim we’ll want settled before I stormed out of the room this morning.”

            Draco whistled under his breath. If he believed what he’d said to Harry—that he had repressed his own emotions and made himself into some sort of automaton that would stay calm and quiet—perhaps this shouldn’t be such a surprise. Harry would consider an emotionless recluse unattractive. But he was so much more than that, especially since Draco had challenged him to act angry and made him wake up.

            Draco felt another surge of smug satisfaction. If he didn’t want me interested in him, he shouldn’t have reacted. It’s his own fault.

            “Harry, Harry, Harry,” he said, and lifted his hand to run his fingers through Harry’s hair. “Do you really have no idea how compelling you are?”

            “Malfoy.” Harry’s voice was high-pitched with stress, and he shook his head furiously. “Don’t.”

            Draco held his hands out to the sides, but kept the intimate tone in his voice, which he knew was Harry’s major objection. Harry was uneasy with intimacy. Understandable, in light of what had happened to him, but stupid, and therefore it would change. “It’s far more than your magic or your looks—though if you had normal eyes, you’d have noticed your own beauty by now, too.” Harry’s mouth sagged open slightly as he stared at him. “If I challenge you, you do the same to me. I never know what you’ll say or do next. You’ll fight to save my life from my father right after you made plans to leave the Manor. I tell you that it’s all right to be angry, and you’re making an awe-inspiring speech a few days later, as if you’d been doing it for years. You randomly decide to dedicate your life to reading legal documents for poor wizards. And you came in here and tried to act dignified in front of me. It was a foredoomed effort, of course. You belong in an angry mood. Or a passionate one. But I appreciate it.”

            “You’re mad,” Harry said softly. “When I settle into a routine again, this—this suddenness you like will be gone.”

            “No,” Draco disagreed patiently. “It’s your restricted life for the last five years that’s been a lie, not the one you’re living now. And it’s not just the spontaneity. I want to share you.”

            “With who?” Harry demanded, as if he thought Draco would summon some hidden lover from a corner at any moment. To Draco’s intense joy, there was a touch of jealousy in his voice.

            “With yourself, you great idiot,” Draco said. “You have no idea how much you excite me when you throw yourself willingly into something. I haven’t seen you do it with fucking yet, but when I see that, then my longing to share your body will only increase.”

            Ha, he thought, as he watched Harry’s eyes widen. Let’s see him try to deny that.

*

            Harry now had a problem.

            Malfoy’s attraction to him was still stupid, because he wasn’t all those things that Malfoy thought he was; those were only on the surface. On the other hand, trying to convince him of it would only make him stubbornly insist that Harry just couldn’t see himself the way other people did.

            And maybe—

            Harry cocked his head as he thought about it, ignoring the way Malfoy fumed in front of him. Harry would rather take some time, think about this, and say the right thing than become involved in another needless argument.

            Maybe he could think of the reasons as real, as long as he remembered that they were true for Malfoy and no one else.

            He nodded. Why not? He’d had to remember plenty of times that Hermione’s pet political causes were important to her, even when Harry knew no one else who believed in them. He’d avoided arguments with her about them, and it hadn’t substantially affected their friendship. Whatever Malfoy wanted to call their—relationship, he supposed one had to say—it didn’t greatly affect what they could get out of it.

            “All right,” he said slowly. “I reckon I can understand that.” He ignored Malfoy’s grin of triumph and subtle movement towards him. There were still three more things to be settled, all of which mattered more than Malfoy’s intrusions into his personal space. “But I still don’t want to have sex with you anymore, we should decide on what we’ll demand from Ginny, and Ron invited me to the Burrow as long as I don’t bring you.”

            Malfoy stopped moving, a baffled expression on his face. Then he chuckled, as if Harry’s words had proven him right. Which they hadn’t, Harry thought, frowning at him. This wasn’t spontaneous or whatever other snobbish word Malfoy wanted to use for it; it all made sense with the thoughts inside Harry’s head.

            “You don’t want to have sex?” Malfoy asked, his words deliberately gentle and coaxing. “When you know that we’re attracted to each other, and part of that is physical attraction?” He edged nearer again, nostrils flaring as if Harry had some unique scent he wanted to sniff in. Harry eyed him cautiously. He was not incense.

            “It makes me nervous,” he said. Malfoy would mock him for that, too, though maybe not to his face. But he had to understand that Harry didn’t take this as a subject for joking, whatever Malfoy felt. “I don’t trust you enough to speak to you like a lover, and whatever you think about this—“ he waved a hand vaguely between them “—meaning something deeper, it can’t. I mean, it doesn’t yet. Not to me.”

            Malfoy blinked a few times, apparently considering this. Then he nodded briskly and clapped his hands. “If you don’t want to have sex until after the trial is done,” he said, “then I can wait. It does rather require a risk, anyway, a risk that Pansy also warned me about, and which she exercised her powers to protect us from.”

            “Won’t she be in trouble for that?” Harry asked, allowing himself to be sidetracked for a moment from his suspicions of why Malfoy had agreed so easily.

            Malfoy laughed. “She has plenty of money, an awful lot of status, and a frankly frightening army of people on her side,” he said. “And if it came to it, her husband would fight the Aurors himself to prevent her from going to Azkaban. She’ll be tied up in legal matters for a long time, but she can handle it.”

            Harry nodded. And then his memory caught up with him, and he realized what Malfoy had actually said. “I didn’t say anything about having sex when the trial is done, either,” he said.

            Malfoy gazed at him innocently. “But you did say that you thought sex had affected the way we approached the trial negatively. When it’s done, why shouldn’t we be lovers if we want to?”

            There was an eagerness in his tone that Harry didn’t understand. “Because I probably won’t trust you, still?”

            Malfoy’s amused smile deepened.

*

            Oh, Harry. Such an innocent. Really.

            But it was still understandable. Harry appeared to think Draco would open his eyes one morning, sit up, and say, “I no longer want Harry Potter! Well, that’s a relief!” and stride downstairs for breakfast. And though that attitude would have infuriated Draco a short time ago—

            Just a few minutes—

            Now all he really felt was affection. And a smug tolerance for his own mistakes in handling Harry, because now he saw where he’d gone wrong.

            He’d assumed that he was dealing with the repressed Harry, easily ordered about and dominated, even with all the signs pointing to the contrary. But this was an awakened Harry who would fight him fiercely on having his way outside the courtroom, a Harry who remembered their Hogwarts days and saw no solid reason to trust him—a Harry who would insist on being his equal.

            And if he wanted more than a fling with him, Draco would have to gain that trust. He would wait. He would show Harry that he had enough respect, patience, and affection to step back and give him some space—and, in the meantime, display all his other good traits that attracted Harry to advantage, now that he knew what those traits were.

            Harry was at his best in short, immediate conflicts. He wouldn’t even assume that Draco might plan towards a more permanent arrangement.

            Yes, this first attempt at romance had been a mistake. That didn’t mean the next one would be.

            “We’ll see,” was all he said. “Now. I think we should ask for the order that will convince your wife to leave you alone.”

            Harry blinked and shifted tracks with an obviousness that only grinding noises could have increased. “I assumed you would want the vaults from her.”

            Draco shook his head. “Whatever amount of money she wins—if she wins any at all—she could still send owls to brag and gloat and harass and plead with you. But we may not win the fight to bind her mouth at all. So I think we should take that now, and make sure we have some peace for you no matter what else happens.” Some peace for us, say rather.

            Harry relaxed and smiled a bit. “Yes, well, that makes sense. You can be rational when you want to be.”

            “Good,” Draco said, and preened inwardly at the look Harry cast at him. He doesn’t realize his admiration is written all over his face whenever he glances at me, or he would at least try to subdue it. “And about Weasley. I should go with you.”

            Harry bristled. Of course. “He asked me to come alone. And he wouldn’t try to trap me.”

            “Not on purpose,” Draco said soothingly, though he didn’t really believe that. “But he might do it by accident. Or whatever means of watching the house Blaise and your wife have could warn them that you’ve left. You’re risking your life when you go outside.” He let a touch of anger slip into his voice. “I’d rather have you scream obscenities at me than just vanish like that.”

            Harry folded his arms. “I needed to be alone. And I needed to fly.”

            “Show me that you can be rational now,” Draco said, in what was not quite a demand. “I’m happy to send a house-elf with you next time you want to fly. But a house-elf can’t enter another pure-blood wizarding household without permission from the house’s owners—and somehow I don’t think Molly Weasley would give hers.” That coaxed a reluctant smile from Harry. “Come on, Harry,” he said, and his voice softened. “I can shield myself under a Disillusionment Charm if you’d like.”

            Harry half-lidded his eyes, with the expression that Draco knew meant he was thinking. He waited. That innate Gryffindor sense of fair play would probably come to his rescue soon.

*

            Harry’s conscience was nagging him.

            Malfoy had given way on the sex thing, and been surprisingly calm once they eased past the initial discomfort. He’d settled the matter of their claim from Ginny in the same decisive way he would have used in the courtroom. Surely Harry could give way on this one thing, and let Malfoy accompany him to the Burrow?

            It might not be fair to Ron if I did.

            But…

            I think I should worry more about being fair to Malfoy than being fair to Ron right now.

            He took a deep breath, then looked into Malfoy’s eyes, and said, “All right. You can come.”

            Malfoy nodded, smiling, and briefly clasped his shoulder again. Shudders of warmth spread through Harry’s body, but he ignored them. They were not having sex now, after all.

            Or ever again.

            That caused a slight spasm of sadness in him, but Harry ignored that, too. He was just mourning the loss of the first sex partner he’d had since Ginny—the only one he’d ever had besides Ginny—not the loss of Malfoy specifically.

            Li—

            Harry strangled his conscience before it could speak further, and listened to Malfoy saying, “We can leave as soon as you’ve had something to eat and I’ve made sure my mother is settled with the house-elves.”

            Harry’s stomach chose that moment to rumble, so he nodded and turned for the bedroom door. He couldn’t help taking a moment to look back at Malfoy, who stood gazing towards the sunlight from the enchanted window.

            And glowing in it.

            He did shine. But Harry told himself sternly he had no right to notice. He had given up that right of his own free will.

*

            Draco felt a slow thrill of delight creep through his gut when he looked at Harry out of the corner of his eye and noticed him staring. Of course, he pretended not to notice, and only smirked when Harry was out of the room.

            He felt much better now than he had since hearing Harry speak to the crowd in Diagon Alley—sharper, more eager, more interested in life. The sexual tension was still there, but not overwhelming. Now that he stood a chance of coaxing Harry into more than the most elementary sex with a little waiting…

            It will be wonderful.

            He called both Heeky and Seeky then—the first to fetch a good lunch for Harry and then set a watch on Narcissa, the second to help him choose the dress robes that would make him look best on their visit.

            Harry would spend a great deal of time staring, Draco had determined, but he would not know why.

*

            Daft Fear: As you can see, Draco and Harry actually find it reassuring when they don’t think the same thing!

            Berkie88: Harry’s decided just not to think about their “relationship” at all for right now.
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