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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 Nineteen—The Burrow

            “That’s not a Disillusionment Charm.”

            “I never said that my knowledge of spells was limited to your plebian knowledge of magic, Potter,” Malfoy’s voice said from nowhere and everywhere. Harry stared intently at the patch of empty air into which he’d disappeared, and then jumped when a hand closed on his shoulder. He hadn’t heard Malfoy move across the bedroom. Malfoy laughed, and again it echoed, making it hard to pinpoint him even by the noises he did make. “This is a rather advanced spell,” he said, so smugly that Harry wanted to punch his teeth in—

            Well, do something with his mouth, anyway.

            “My voice is the only sound that disrupts its complete protection against being detected, and a direct touch from me is the only way someone else can feel me.”

            “Oh, shut up,” Harry muttered, as he shook his head once and then stared for a moment into the mirror. Of course, he had no way of knowing if simple residence in Malfoy Manor had been enough to change him into someone who would look guilty or strange to Ron. With the way that Ginny had been talking of him, he might have to show up looking as merry as Dumbledore to make a favorable impression on them.

            Stop it. Would he really have owled you and asked to see you if he hated you without compunction now?

            “And why should I shut up?” Malfoy inquired haughtily.

            “You sound like a Muggle advertisement,” Harry snapped back, and turned towards the door of his bedroom. In one way and one way only, he thought, Malfoy’s spell—almost surely Dark magic—was fortunate. If Harry couldn’t see what he looked like, he couldn’t stare at him with the admiration he had felt building towards obsession in those last moments in Malfoy’s sunlit bedroom.

            “There’s nothing Muggle about me,” Malfoy said, voice bouncing, as they walked down the stairs. “Do you know what other meanings Muggle has in the wizarding world, Harry, beyond someone who can’t do magic?”

            “Don’t call me by my first name. That’s nearly as bad as your speaking while we’re inside the Burrow at all.”

            “It means mundane,” Malfoy continued, apparently undaunted. “Ordinary. And I don’t think even my worst enemy—who, until a few years ago, would have been you, Potter—could have claimed I was ordinary.”

            “You were, though,” Harry muttered. He knew the house-elves had already set up a guard on Narcissa, but he paused to wave to her anyway when he saw her through a doorframe. She glanced up from a complicated-looking game of chess and gave him a sweet smile. “Just like every ordinary Muggle bully I went to school with before I came to Hogwarts.”

            “I was not a bully,” said Malfoy, and, infuriatingly, he sounded amused instead of angry. “Only trying to make you remember that I existed, when you seemed quite content to forget that altogether.”

            “Why should I have acknowledged you?” Harry stepped out from the Manor onto the stone path stretching up to the doors, where he had battled Lucius a few days ago, and which he had walked up that morning determined to make Malfoy listen to him. He gave a soft shudder as he thought about it. He still wasn’t entirely sure whether he had won or lost that argument, he realized suddenly.

            “I was the son of one of the richest families in the wizarding world, Potter,” Malfoy said at his shoulder—at least, Harry thought he stood at his shoulder. “And extremely good at making myself useful to my friends and annoying to my enemies. The wonder was that you could stand the company of the people you surrounded yourself with for six years.”

            “Meanwhile, I came from outside the wizarding world, and I chose my friends because they were nice to me,” said Harry. He offered his arm to Malfoy, whom he would be bringing on a Side-Along Apparition to the Burrow. “You didn’t fit that criterion.”

            Malfoy took his arm, his hand sliding warmly along to Harry’s elbow, and he bent so that he could breathe into Harry’s ear. “And what about since Hogwarts? Have I been nice enough for your taste since then?”

            Harry would have flattened his ears if he could have. Why had the mere admission of his attraction to Malfoy made it suddenly so much harder to deal with small things, like the touch of the git’s fingers and breath on him?

            Now it’s real. Now you can’t pretend that you’re simply responding to sex. Now you know part of the attraction comes from you.

            Harry hated that, but, on the other hand, reversing time and taking back what he had said about Malfoy was not an option, so he would just have to live with it. Luckily, he wasn’t required to respond to the blatant flirting just hidden under the surface of Malfoy’s words.

            “You’ve been pleasant,” he said. “Never nice. I don’t think you have it in you to be that.”

            And, letting Malfoy think about that for a moment, he Apparated.

*

            Honestly, did Harry think he would be insulted by his words? “Nice” was for people who had no depth. “Nice” was for people who weren’t Arguers, and people who lived in houses like the ones they landed in front of a moment later.

            “Nice” was for the Weasleys.

            Draco eyed the Burrow with a sneer. Not only was it less than a tenth of the size of the Manor, it had no aspirations. It crouched where it should have soared. It looked comfortable, where the Manor attained dignified even on days when the weather dulled the effect it had been built to look best in. And Harry was staring towards it with a look of longing so intense that Draco was forced to feel a kind of squirming jealousy in his guts.

            He can come to like the Manor just as well, he reminded himself. He gave me something to build on. I just have to remember that. I have little cause for jealousy. I can, however, make sure that Harry has some.

            He felt himself calm down as he considered that. It wasn’t a plan he could put into action here, alas, as there was no one in the Weasley brood he would have felt even the temptation to try and make Harry jealous with. For now, he would simply observe and learn what Harry was like around his friends, in an environment that wasn’t the Hogwarts classrooms.

            Harry walked towards the Burrow with a springing, relaxed stride, and ran a hand absently just above his hair, not through it as usual. Draco considered him critically. No, frankly, he didn’t look any different than he usually did. Just that ordinary appearance was enough to stir Draco’s interest, of course, but if Harry thought he was improving it for the sake of his hosts, he was sadly mistaken.

            Even the fact that he cares enough to make the effort says something, though, doesn’t it? While, with me, all he really wanted to do was shag or talk or eat or whatever else was in front of him. He never saw a need to alter himself.

            And with that, Draco was forced to acknowledge the true cause of his jealousy. It wasn’t sexual at all; it was the same emotion that had filled him numerous times over the years in Hogwarts when he remembered that Harry had chosen to make Weasley his best friend. He wanted some of Harry’s time and attention—not all of it, but some would have been pleasant—and Ron sat there, soaking it up instead.

            I have the chance now. What I won’t tolerate is Harry simply running back into the Weasleys’ clutches without considering what they’ve done to him. If he does that, he weakens our side of the case, after all.

            Draco gave a sharp shake as the door of the Burrow opened, and made sure to arrange himself so that he could slip into the house without touching anyone but Harry. His own emotions and thoughts disturbed him, and he was supposed to stand back, acting the cool observer, taking mental notes on Harry and putting them away in the back of his head.

            Harry, of course, strode in as if he owned the place, since he wasn’t sensible enough to feel nervous. Draco shook his head and followed him.

*

            Harry kept his head up and his eyes almost flinty, so that no one in the room would be able to see how nervous he was. He swept the Burrow’s kitchen with a narrow glance, first. No one but Mr. Weasley sat there, as Ron had promised, and he rose to his feet with a quiet, melancholy smile and an extended hand now.

            “Hello, Harry,” he said. “I’m sorry that you don’t feel able to come to the house when Molly and Ginny are here, but I certainly understand your hesitation.”

            Harry gave a small nod, and took Mr. Weasley’s hand in his own. The older man looked just as anxious and tired as Ron did. He tried to imagine what it would have been like for them—the sudden strain of a divorce; the news of Ginny’s pregnancy and the knowledge she’d lost the baby last time, perhaps due to stress or fear; the knowledge, too, that adultery was bringing them their first grandchild—and then his silence by owl. He winced. He couldn’t blame them for thinking the worst.

            That didn’t mean he would let them tell him what to think, as he had done far too often with Ron and Ginny in the last few years.

            “I wanted to avoid arguments,” he said, and sat down in the chair on the far side of the table that was usually his when he visited. Ron walked around the table to stand next to his father, and watched Harry with his arms folded and his jaw clenched. Harry tried to ignore that less-than-promising beginning. Ron was the one who owled you, he continued to remind himself. “I hoped I could explain where I stood better to you and Ron than the whole family at once.”

            “That makes sense.” Mr. Weasley nodded and leaned forwards earnestly. “Now—where do you stand, Harry?”

            Here came the moment when his sympathy and his friendship struggled against the truths he’d learned about Ginny, and himself, in the past few weeks.

            Harry was surprised to find that he was ready for the test.

            “I haven’t been living the life that I want for a long time now,” he said. “And no, Ron, that doesn’t mean I want to be a Quidditch player or an Auror and that you, Ginny, and Hermione were right all along,” he added, when his friend began to open his mouth. Ron shut it again and gave him a disgruntled look. Harry ignored it. “I was confining my emotions so strongly that, when they finally started to emerge again, I had no idea what I was feeling. Now I know.

            “I regret marrying Ginny. I don’t think we were right for each other. She wanted—“ Harry thought rapidly, discarding the first words that had risen to his lips. “More than I could give her. A romantic idyll that someone else might have managed, but I couldn’t. And I wanted someone who would support me unconditionally, and never question my decisions.” He smiled slightly. “Both our dreams were equally unrealistic.

            “Losing the baby—“ he clenched his hands together on the arms of the chair, and hoped no one noticed “—threw me badly. I retreated from Ginny, emotionally and physically, because I thought that would help her heal. Or, at least, that was what I told myself. In reality, I was trying to protect myself, confine my emotions, and heal my hurts again.

            “It’s no wonder she found what she did with Zabini. She obviously needed someone who could comfort her.”

            A hand brushed his elbow impatiently. Harry could perfectly picture Malfoy’s pursed lips and shaking head. Well, fuck him very much. Harry was saying what he really thought and felt, and he was about to follow it with a firm statement, so that the Weasleys would understand that this didn’t mean he was backing down on the divorce case.

            “But she went too far. Divorcing me when she’d fallen in love would be one thing. But she waited months, until she could throw her new love and her pregnancy in my face.” Harry took a deep breath. “And that she depended on my money to support her baby just shows that she didn’t plan this out very well. I would never have wanted our child to have anything but a happy life. She’s at least going to be raising her baby on fewer Galleons than she expected. What she did was wrong—and I’m sorrier for her child than for her. I fell out of love with her several months ago, at least—“

            “Why?” Ron burst out. His voice was thick, as if he’d been chewing his tongue and filled his mouth with blood. Harry shuddered as a private memory from the war tried to well up and take him over, but forced it away. He was listening to Ron right now, not crouching on a mud-streaked battlefield next to a dying Bellatrix Lestrange. “That’s what I really don’t understand, Harry. I’d be hurt if Hermione did something like that to me. Devastated.” He leaned across the table and put his hands flat on the top, staring at Harry. “But you aren’t. Why not?”

            “I gave you the answer already, Ron,” Harry said, patiently, quietly, refusing to give in and apologize, as he nearly always had when Ron used that tone. “We weren’t what the other needed. Maybe she never was what I needed; I’m inclined to think that, now. But I never realized it until we lost the child that would have been a bond between us. And now I’m free of her, and that’s why I won’t drop the divorce case and won’t give her what she wants. I can apologize to you for the disturbance that has caused in your lives, but I won’t apologize to her.”

            Ron blinked in stunned astonishment. Harry blinked back for a moment, then realized he was on his feet, his head thrown back the way it had been when he made his declaration that he would search for the Ravenclaw Horcrux alone.

            He swallowed. He hadn’t showed so much passion in a fight with Ron in—years. Ever, since the war? Maybe not.

            He’d always been too afraid of being angry. Or afraid that, if he did show passion about a subject Ron thought was stupid or pointless, he might lose his friendship.

            How stupid I was, he thought in wonder. Ron’s been willing to give me another chance when I’m divorcing his sister. Why would he ignore me and declare that I’m not his friend anymore just because we had different opinions on the best Quidditch team on the league?

            Of course, he hadn’t known that at the time they had the arguments during his marriage, because he’d so effectively isolated himself that the good-will of his friends and wife loomed much larger in his life than it should. He’d needed someone to appear from the outside and put things into perspective.

            Yet another thing for which to thank Malfoy.

            He focused on Ron, though, not wanting to think about the git just yet—who had been surprisingly silent, for a git—or the affection that had tinted his own thought, which he’d meant to come out as sarcastic.

            Ron just studied him, his jaw still tensing and relaxing. Then he said, “I wish you loved her, Harry.”

            “Sometimes? So do I.” Harry shrugged. At least that would mean I probably wouldn’t find blond pointy-nosed gits who live in Manors attractive. “But pretending won’t make it so, anymore than pretending that I could be calm these last few years chased the anger out of my blood. I’m choosing a career that I’m interested in, Ron, and new people to be around.”

            “You call Malfoy acceptable company?” Ron’s face was flushing red again. Mr. Weasley watched them thoughtfully.

            “For you? Maybe not. For me? Of course.” Harry merrily ignored the way Ron stared at him as if he’d announced he were moving to the Muggle world, and placed his hand flat on the table, palm up. “This is the point where I tell you to take it or leave it, Ron. That’s what I want to do. I want to retain your friendship, but not desperately enough to sacrifice everything I am and want to be for it.” Harry took a deep breath and expelled his fear in one long exhalation. “So, it’s your turn to make a choice now. What is it?”

            He met his friend’s eyes, and waited.

*

            Well.

            Draco blinked. He’d known Harry was better in short, quick confrontations that tested him than making plans across a long range of days, but he hadn’t quite realized that Harry was good at engineering his own confrontations.

            Harry stood looking at Weasley in a way that seemed to indicate he’d never known fear. What Weasley did was a matter of perfect indifference to him.

            Draco felt a stirring of smugness, and tamped it down, along with his own bewilderment. Harry did keep surprising him. Well, since he valued the man’s spontaneity, that shouldn’t disconcert him as much.

            Finally, Weasley leaned across the table and slowly, grudgingly, clasped Harry’s hand.

            Draco was glad that no one could hear his sigh of disappointment, or that they mistook it for the sound of Harry’s heavy breath if they did.

            “I understand,” Weasley muttered, sounding resentful, but as if he meant what he said. “I don’t like it—I still hope you’ll change your mind, Harry—“

            “I won’t,” Harry said, and nearly hissed the next words. “If that’s the only reason you’re holding my hand, you might as well let it go right now.”

            Weasley shook his head impatiently. “No. I’ll still be your friend no matter what.”

            Harry gave a brilliant smile and drew his friend into a hug. Draco counted the seconds their arms stayed around each other, and suppressed the urge to cough when the number surpassed five.

            “What Ron says goes for me as well,” Mr. Weasley said gently. “It’s a trying time, Harry, but I still think of you like a son, and you’re as welcome in my heart as you are in Ron’s.” He stood up and clapped Harry briefly on the shoulder. “Thank you for making it clear that you still value us.”

            “I do,” Harry said calmly, confidently, tilting his head back to smile at Mr. Weasley in turn. “No matter what Ginny’s done, she can’t make me hate the rest of her family.”

            Which is a pity, sometimes, Draco thought, but the thought had no bite to it. He was—

            He stiffened, and was once again glad that no one could hear the tiny, disgusted sound he made , much less see the expression on his face.

            He was feeling ridiculously sappy about Harry. He didn’t just value his strength and want to share a life that seemed likely to be interesting with him; he wanted to have the Weasleys like Harry even if they didn’t like him.

            He didn’t appreciate the feeling, but there seemed to be nothing he could do about it.

            He sincerely hoped that the sappiness would take a long time for Harry to notice.

            At least, tomorrow, we return to the courtroom, and to a place where I can dazzle Harry with what I say instead of standing in silence and thinking too much because of it, he finally remembered, and he was patient for the rest of the visit, which stretched absurdly long because Harry had to stay and eat a cake that Mrs. Weasley had baked the day before, and exchange Hogwarts reminiscences with his friend. Ron, of course, took particular delight in the ones that made Draco look like a prat.

            He had figured out the truth by the second time such a memory crossed the Weasel’s lips, of course. Even if Harry made a declaration of undying affection, Weasley was still worried about Draco taking Harry away from him. He was jealous in the same way Draco was, but far more so.

            It might never happen, but I can make him fear it, Draco thought, and then indulged himself in spending some time planning that instead of listening to their anecdotes—though he made sure he still remained aware enough to follow Harry through the door when he waved and departed. The idea of staying the night in the Burrow, unable to move for fear of inhaling Weasel stink, was not a pleasant one.

*

            “So we go into the courtroom again tomorrow.”

            Draco took another look at Harry, who was leaning back in a chair in the library, his arms folded behind his head and his eyes closed. He didn’t even need the wine at his elbow to look peaceful. Speaking with his friend, and being reassured that he was still his friend, had done him a world of good.

            At least Weasley’s accomplished something in his miserable tenure on this earth, Draco thought, as he answered. “Yes. And we’ll ask for the concession that your wife’s charming mouth be bound as soon as possible.”

            Harry’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed. He opened them in the next moment, and nodded. “That sounds good.” He hid a yawn inexpertly with the back of his hand, then rose. “I’ve felt more today than I have in five years. I’ll go to sleep now, I think.”

            Draco nodded, and turned back to the book of obscure claims he was scanning. It wasn’t beyond possibility that Blaise would ask for one of them in the next court session.

            He was startled to feel Harry’s hand descend on his right shoulder, squeezing. He looked up. Harry was smiling at him.

            “Thanks,” he whispered. “I do owe you, and I even have the feeling that I could come to like you. Mad, I know.”

            Draco managed to swallow, and then say, “Don’t let the excitement overheat your brain, Potter.”

            Harry looked at him tolerantly. His hand lingered for a moment before he took it away.

            It was not as good as a kiss, but Draco found himself with a faint smile on his face as he turned back to his reading again.

*

            Chrissy: I am afraid that plot must prevail for now. :)

            Ok: Draco didn’t really realize it, either, because of Harry’s emotional weakness so far. Now that he knows Harry can be strong when he wants to, he’ll be less likely to try and turn their relationship into something it’s not.

            Soria: Thank you, and I’m glad you’re enjoying this.

            Yocum1219: Sorry, but I can’t see your e-mail address.
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