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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 Twenty-Three—Call It A Rescue

            Harry carefully cracked the door of the loo and peered through the crack, attempting to stifle all the memories of the war where he had done the same thing on a Horcrux hunt, with Ron and Hermione at his back. This was not the same situation, even if it somewhat compared in seriousness and Harry’s desire to succeed. Letting comparisons that meant nothing into his conscious thoughts would only dull his reflexes and thus his chances of success.

            He had wanted to make sure that Zabini and Ginny had not moved, perhaps growing nervous with their long silence, but no, they were still in the same place. He could see Ginny’s features from here, though not Zabini’s, since he was leaning forwards and giving some order to Madam Rosmerta. Her face was still frozen. He had recognized the expression from the first—it was the one she had always worn when she wanted to hide something—but he had not known what she was hiding until now.

            Yes, I think she’s sincere. And that only makes it all the more important that we get her away from Zabini, since he might try to kill her when he knows she betrayed him.

            Draco’s hand clenched on his shoulder for a moment. “You realize we might have to use violent methods to—persuade—her?” he asked.

            “That’s your department,” Harry said absently, his eyes estimating the number of tables between the loo and Zabini’s booth. Who would move in the next few seconds? He thought he could be fairly certain, and as soon as Madam Rosmerta stepped away, he would have a fairly clear run. “Leave the rescue up to me.”

            “I wish you wouldn’t call it that,” Draco said, in a tone that managed to be harsh even though he was whispering. “Rescue is the last thing she deserves, after what she’s done to you.”

            “How about you let me decide how much to resent that?” Harry said, and then Madam Rosmerta moved.

            His body took over, and flung him forwards. He could feel his thoughts humming in his head, turning as fast as ingredients in Hermione’s Muggle blender. He was half-thinking and half-acting.

            Leave the complicated plotting and spinning of schemes within schemes up to Draco, he thought. He couldn’t do that, and his Arguer could. But at effective, direct use of powerful magic, he was better, and he knew just what to do.

            He couldn’t allow Zabini enough time to realize he was coming, so he cast a glamour even as he moved—one that would blur his form and confuse and dazzle Zabini when he turned in their direction. It was targeted only to Zabini, so other people could still see through it, but their confused cries didn’t include his name until the last moment, and so gave Harry precious time.

            Then he was on top of Zabini, his wand whipping in a complicated pattern that trailed light, meant to distract the eyes of an opponent. It worked. Zabini snarled and lifted his own wand to aim straight at Harry, completely ignoring the way Ginny had leaned forwards next to him, her eyes bright and wide.

            Harry twisted backwards, lying flat on the table as he snaked one arm around Ginny’s waist. Zabini’s spell flamed along above his stomach—just an inch or two above—and crashed into the far wall, rousing a cry from Madam Rosmerta. Harry heaved and twisted, and Ginny came out of her seat sideways, landed awkwardly on top of him, and then scrambled off him and onto the floor.

            Zabini tried again, and though Harry was already moving, this time he was lucky. Harry hissed as he felt his robes rip along the side, and pain flare along his hip. Well, he didn’t have time to attend to it now, so it would just have to wait. And now he was in the position he had wanted to be in all along—as much to indulge his own aggression, he had to admit, as because of his anger over Draco’s predicament.

            He kicked Zabini in the midsection, and then, as he bent, in the face. He distinctly heard the crack of cartilage that meant his nose was broken, and the snap and splinter of more than one tooth falling out of his head. Harry chuckled, hissed as the motion sent vibrations through his injury, and then whirled back to his feet and seized Ginny’s arm, sweeping the room with one glance.

            Draco, he was pleased to see, had the sense he was born with, and had advanced from the loo to meet them, using a spell that cleared both tables and people sprawling from their path. He tilted his head at Harry, expression so intense that it was hard to tell what he was feeling, and then sped out the door.

            Harry was right behind him, half-cradling and half-hauling Ginny. She found her own feet soon enough and ran in the same direction, luckily, or he never could have managed it. The motion tore his wound open further. Harry rolled his eyes to himself, imagining the lecture that Hermione would no doubt deliver if she were here, to scold him for being hurt on so relatively simple a maneuver.

            They stopped outside the Three Broomsticks, and Harry whipped himself around. Zabini wasn’t coming up behind them—yet. And if he had some means of summoning Lucius, he hadn’t exercised it—yet.

            Draco stepped up behind him, making Harry’s muscles tense frantically in the moment before he realized it was a friend, and hissed into his ear, “I won’t bring her inside the Manor’s defenses, no matter what.”

            “No one’s asking you to,” Harry snapped back. His blood was up and buzzing. He already had a plan, and where it had come from, he didn’t know. He wrapped his cloak around Ginny and told her, “Hold tightly to my arm.” She did, after one look at his face. Harry extended his other arm to Draco.

            “Come on,” he insisted, when Draco just stared at him.

            “Where are we going?” Draco demanded.

            “Not the Manor.” Harry winced as a fresh stab cut through his wound. Zabini had probably used one of the Expanding Curses, damn him; they created minor injuries at first, but remained and worked in the flesh, doing more damage the longer they went untreated. They’d been fairly common among the Death Eaters. “Place I know.”

            Draco raised his eyebrow, but finally, finally took his arm.

            Harry closed his eyes, envisioned the beach outside the cave where Voldemort had hidden the locket Horcrux, and Apparated. He was aware of their breathing as he did: Draco’s calm and cool and determined, Ginny’s fast with fear.

*

            The moment they landed, Draco turned and hauled Harry around with him, separating him from the close embrace of his wife. If she’d had some dagger in her hand or wanted to flick her wand and cast some spell at Harry’s heart, she could have done it easily. The idiot hadn’t considered that, of course.

            Harry cried aloud at the movement, and then cursed. Draco glanced down and saw the darker stain of blood welling through his robes.

            Another wave of transcendent rage passed across his mind. He tried to steady Harry on his feet, but he must accidentally have touched the injury, since Harry stamped and pulled away from him. “What happened?” Draco asked.

            “A combination Cutting and Expanding Curse,” Harry said back, voice strained. “Zabini got me when I was lying on the table. I’ll take care of it.” He pried his robes back with a single enormous wince—Draco never could have done the same thing without preparing himself, since the blood had stuck the cloth to the flesh—and aimed his wand at the revealed cut across his hip, which looked too much like a hungry mouth for Draco’s taste. “Integro!”



            The cut bubbled for a moment, but Harry repeated the spell in a strong voice, and the air burst with magic, and the bloody mouth narrowed to a thin, grim red line, like a pair of pursed lips. It must still have hurt, but Harry just nodded as if that satisfied him, and then turned and faced his wife.

            Draco moved up behind him in a moment, bristling, and placed his hands on Harry’s shoulders, wanting to show Weasley exactly what the configuration of alliances was here.

            He thought he heard Harry stifle a sigh, but he didn’t say anything to dispute Draco’s positioning or try to make him less hostile—which was a good thing, Draco thought, because it wouldn’t have worked. He leaned around Harry’s head and addressed Weasley. “You said that you wanted out. We’ve provided you with a way out. You also said that you knew where my mother was. Talk.”

            He put all his contempt and all his hatred into the one word, and it had the effect he had hoped for. Weasley went so pale that her freckles looked like spots of blood on parchment. She nodded, wordlessly, and then cleared her throat. “She’s in a secure flat that Blaise chose,” she croaked. “I’ll give you the address as soon as you promise me enough protection that I know Blaise can’t come after me.”

            The bitch. Every tendon and ligament in Draco’s body seemed to stiffen. His voice was still under control when it emerged, however, because he was exercising the entirety of his will to making sure it stayed that way. “Keep the rest of your promise now,” he said. “We’ve already done more than enough for you, considering that you were part of her kidnapping in the first place.” He did not voice his other fear: that Blaise might even now have been racing to the flat, ready to move his mother someplace else. He would do nothing to give Weasley the impression that she had power here.

            “I never approved of it!” Weasley snapped, her face flushing. She crossed her arms in front of her belly. “By the time I knew about it, he already had it all planned out. He was the one who contacted Lucius. He told me about it after your father had already left Sweden. Don’t blame me, it’s not my fault. There are some lengths I won’t go to, money or not—“

            Harry was the one who interrupted, just moments before Draco would have unleashed the full force of his anger. “Ginny,” he said, and there was something in his voice that silenced her immediately. “We need to know. Where is Narcissa?”

            Weasley’s mouth fell open, and she shivered. It occurred to Draco, for the first time, that perhaps her claim that she had been afraid of Harry was not all bollocks. She answered at once, in a tiny, obedient voice. “On 55 North Crescent Street, in the East End of Muggle London.”

            “Thank you,” Harry said, and his voice was gentle but without warmth, a feat that Draco didn’t know how he managed. He tossed his head at Draco. “Do you want to go and rescue her while I take Ginny somewhere safe?”

            Draco clamped down his hands immediately, holding Harry in place and wringing a slight gasp out of him, perhaps from the pain in his shoulder blades. “Nothing doing, Potter,” he hissed at him. “First of all, we won’t split up. Second, we have no indication that she’s telling the truth.”

            “We have to reach Narcissa as soon as possible,” Harry said, sounding irritated. “But we also have to make sure—“

            “No, we don’t.” Draco bared his teeth. The gesture was behind Harry’s head, so he couldn’t see it, but the terror filling Weasley’s brown eyes showed she understood well enough. “We do have a means of making a guarantee of her words, however.” He slipped one hand into his robe pocket, where he’d had the forethought to drop a vial of Veritaserum. He hadn’t really thought he would have a chance to insert a few drops into Blaise’s drink or Weasley’s, but he had planned for all eventualities. And now he did have the chance.

            Weasley backed away from them, her hands covering her belly. “I’ll leave you,” she breathed. “I’ll Apparate—“

            “And you can’t go anywhere that Blaise won’t look for you, eventually,” Draco said without mercy. Fear was their only method of controlling her now. “Your parents’ home? The first place he’ll go. His house? The wards won’t hold against him. The houses of any friends you still have? I imagine that he knows all about them, too, doesn’t he? I would have made sure.” Weasley hunched her shoulders, showing that blow had gone home. “That’s why you had to appeal to us for protection in the first place.” Draco rushed through the words, aware of time bounding and leaping away from them, but desperately needing to make sure this was done right the first time. The one thing that would torment him more than losing his mother was the knowledge that he had let the opportunity to save her slip through his fingers. “If you could save yourself, you could have left Blaise at any time.”

            Weasley swallowed, a loud noise. Harry echoed her. Draco didn’t know what he was thinking, and had no time to ask. He just had to trust that Harry would back him up on his decisions, no matter what happened.

            “I don’t—“ Weasley tightened her clutch on her belly, and edged away from him again, towards the dark mouth of a cave opening in the sandy rise near them. Her eyes were wide, her mouth nearly hanging open. Draco stepped back from Harry, and let her see that he held his wand along with the vial. She stopped moving. “Veritaserum will harm the baby,” she said.

            “Hardly.” Draco stalked a few steps forwards, measuring the distance between them with his eyes. She was still too frightened to draw her wand. If he pressed her much more, however, she would probably think of it; Gryffindors in a corner often did. He must win this contest now. “It’s been tested on pregnant women before, and had no ill effects.” He raised his eyebrows mockingly. “If you tell us the same thing you already told us, why should you fear taking it? Unless you have something else to hide, of course.”

            Weasley uttered a frightened little whimper, and then turned as if she would run.

            Harry went past Draco with the dark grace of a leaping nundu. His wound hardly seemed to slow his pace. He grabbed Weasley, twisted around, and then fell to the ground so that he was holding her securely but cradling her belly with his body. In a moment, he’d turned them so that she sat firmly in his lap, her wrists so firmly entwined with Harry’s hands that she’d probably break them trying to draw them free.

            “Now, Draco,” Harry said, and when he looked up, his eyes were hard, as if he’d begun to suspect what Draco had. “Use the Veritaserum.”

            Draco took positive pleasure in approaching them both and tipping three drops of Veritaserum into his hand. Weasley tried to clench her jaw and turn away, but Harry lifted their joined hands and slammed her chest. As she opened her mouth to gasp in pain, Draco slipped the drops inside.

            Her face went slack in seconds, and Draco demanded, “What is your name?”

            “Ginevra Molly Potter,” she whispered. Harry grimaced as if he’d tasted something bad.

            “Who is the father of the child you carry?” Draco said.

            “Blaise Zabini,” she said in turn. Her eyes were rolling like a startled cow’s, and it made Draco both glad and contemptuous to look at her.

            “And where is my mother?” he said. He waited to hear the same address emerge from her lips.

            “I don’t know,” Weasley whispered. Tears began to slip down her cheeks.

            Harry’s face twisted in disgust. Draco thought he would have flung her from him if not for the need to keep a firm hold on her so she wouldn’t Apparate—and if not for the baby.

            Breathing hoarsely, Draco clenched his hands together behind his back. He wanted to destroy her. He thought she deserved, at the very least, to lose the child she was carrying. She had miscarried once, perhaps even deliberately; what would a second time hurt?

            Harry would stop him from doing that, of course.

            “You said that even if she didn’t know, we would still have two bargaining chips,” Draco said coolly, raising his eyes to Harry’s. “Given that it was your idea, what do you suggest doing now?”

            Harry closed his eyes for a long moment, and then said, in a low, commanding voice, “Kreacher. Come to me.”

            Draco blinked as a supremely dirty house-elf appeared with a sudden pop in front of Harry, spluttering. It saw him and stared for a moment, but Harry snapped, “Kreacher. Never mind about him. Take her—“ he twitched his head at Weasley “—and keep her confined in Grimmauld Place.”

            “Kreacher is not liking to put blood traitors in the old mistress’s house,” the house-elf complained, and glared at Harry. “She would—“

            “Do you remember what I told you after the war?” Harry asked.

            The house-elf paused for a moment, and then whimpered and said softly, “Yes. Kreacher remembers. Kreacher cannot forget.”

            “Then confine her behind wards.” Harry pushed Weasley towards the elf. “Don’t harm her physically, but make the wards secure so she can’t get out in any way, and tell her all the terrifying stories you like.”

            With a malicious smirk, the house-elf said, “Yes, Master,” grabbed Weasley’s hand, and vanished. Harry rose to his feet shaking his head and smearing at his robes, as if he had something dirtier than sand on them.

            “What was that?” Draco asked.

            “The house-elf that came with Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, the property I inherited from my godfather, Sirius Black.” Harry’s face was still twisted, caught, it seemed, between warring memories. “Sirius’s ancestors made a habit of chopping off their house-elves’ heads and keeping them on the wall there. I told Kreacher that I’d kill him and bury him far away from the house if he betrayed me. He’s obeyed since.” He gave Draco a faint smile. “Don’t worry. He’ll keep her—safe.”

            “Meanwhile, my mother is not,” Draco said.

            “Yes.” Harry drew his wand. “We should go back to the Manor and perform the blood ritual. I read it in enough detail that I think I could do it here, but we have to have a pewter cup and a crystal stirring rod.”

            Draco nodded once. It was no use regretting lost chances, or the fact that Weasley hadn’t really known where his mother was. Better to move. At the least, it didn’t give him much time to think. He reached out and gripped Harry’s arm.

            “And, Draco?”

            He cocked his head at Harry, whose eyes had an odd shine to them.

            “I almost wish I could bring myself to kill her for you,” Harry whispered. “If not for the baby, I might.”

            Draco took a step closer to him, until he stood enfolded in warmth, and nodded, so close that his hair brushed Harry’s face. “Thank you,” he said.

            Harry put his arms around him and Apparated them both back to the Manor.

*

            Harry noticed that Draco didn’t flinch when he took the blood from his arm, though the cut was a fairly good size. Harry made a small incision on his own finger; he’d thought about opening the wound on his hip again, but he didn’t want that to slow him down when he faced Lucius, as he fully expected that he’d have to do.

            He mixed their blood together in the cup, and began to stir it with the crystal rod, casting a Tempus charm so that he would know when the five minutes required by the ritual had passed. Meanwhile, he watched Draco’s face, the changing emotions that sometimes flitted there like shadows on ice, and thought about his own fierce disappointment in Ginny.

            It was no surprise that she hadn’t approved of all of Blaise’s tactics. She did have morals, after all, and Harry could easily imagine how it must have been: how her pride and resentment would have led her to approve everything her lover did at first, when it didn’t seem quite real to her; how her uneasiness would have begun, and grown; and then how she would begin to react with deep dread as she realized the trial might both dash her hopes of wealth and truly harm her or her child. She would have wanted out of Blaise’s plan. She would have wanted safety.

            To pretend to know Narcissa’s location when she did not, however…

            That was the part Harry found it hardest to forgive her for. She could have asked him for simple safety for the baby’s sake, and he would have given it. She hadn’t needed to lie.

            And he found it hard to forgive himself. He would have trusted her without the Veritaserum. And then he and Draco would have dashed off and spent a few fruitless hours searching for Narcissa, during which time Blaise would probably have managed to change everything about. At least there was the chance he wouldn’t, now, since he would have known that Ginny didn’t know anything about Narcissa’s location.

            And if he had only agreed to an amiable divorce in the first place, or read Ginny better when he first married her, then Draco and his mum would never have had to be involved in this nightmare.

            He lifted his head and studied Draco once more. Draco stared into his eyes. Harry couldn’t read regret there, though, just fury and loathing and fierce determination.

            Five minutes, flashed the charm. Harry drew back and cast the first spell above the blood. The liquid in the cup shimmered and turned golden. Draco came in with the supporting chant, his voice low and strong, like the sound of kobolds working underground.

            The second incantation. Harry could feel the spell yanking magic from him now, as if it wanted to be out of his body and inside the worn Latin syllables tumbling over his lips. Good enough for him, really, whichever way he managed it.

            Except that it couldn’t be just “good enough.” The spell had to be perfect, for the sake of Narcissa.

            Harry settled back on his haunches and chanted the third incantation in his mind while flipping his wand through the fourfold pattern above the blood. He didn’t allow himself any more time to slow down and doubt than he had in the Three Broomsticks. This had to be done, and well, so he did it, and well.

            The pattern blazed golden when he was done with it, four interlocking wheels, glowing and dancing around one another for long moments. Then they dived into the blood, and the liquid itself shone like a rising sun.

            In the sane moment, Draco gasped and sagged, grabbing his arm. Harry looked up, astonished, as a golden cord spilled from his wound and rolled along the floor, picking up speed as it hit the wall of the potions lab where they’d cast the spell. It vanished beyond, but Harry could see through the wall where it trailed, and could make out the cord rapidly racing beyond the Manor and into the distance. He blinked several times. He remembered nothing like that from when they’d tracked Bill. Presumably it was something only the actual caster could see.

            “We can follow it,” he said quietly, and turned to Draco. “Are you all right?”

            “Yes,” Draco said, and stood as if he had never sagged at all. “Are you ready?”

            Harry inclined his head once, then rose to his feet and gathered Draco with one arm. They would have to walk to the edge of the Manor’s anti-Apparition wards before they began to jump, but from there on out, given the unnatural clarity of his sight where the golden thread ran, they would be able to Apparate again and again along its length, sooner or later arriving where Blaise held Narcissa.

            And Lucius.

            Harry’s mind throbbed and turned clear. As carefully as he could, he began preparing himself to kill.

*

            WeasleyWench: I promise, Ginny’s child is not Harry’s. If nothing else, they haven’t slept together now in more than nine months.

            Soria: Alas, I can’t tell you that.

            KLS: Sorry, but I couldn’t find your e-mail address.
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Building With Worn-Out Tools

Chapter Twenty-Three—Call It A Rescue