He'd fallen in love with her at some point. With her smiles, with her laugh, with the way her eyes begged for someone to see that she was hurting.
He saw it. He saw the way her hands inched towards her wand at the slightest tease before she processed at it wasn't serious. He saw the way she would slowly remover herself from the room sometimes, laughing all the way before slipping out like a ghost. He saw the red eyes she had most mornings, which were always followed by a day where she was more alive than before. He saw her.
She missed her family. Her friends. They'd all been sentenced to Azkaban, despite his best efforts to help them get pardoned. Even the Malfoys got arrested but Harry could do nothing to save them.
But Pansy. She was the only person in her year without a Dark Mark, without family to run to, without a place she could call home once the Ministry took hold of her assets. The Order took her in but no one wanted her and she knew that. So she forced herself to be helpful and useful and eventually they forgave her for sins she committed as a child. Eventually they forgave her for sins she had no part in. Eventually they accepted her.
Three years later she hadn't accepted herself. Three years later she got the news that her mother had died trying to escape from prison, her last words not a declaration of love for her daughter but a scream for revolution. Three years later she wouldn't let anyone love her the way she needed.
Harry loved her even though it would never be enough. Harry loved her even though she wouldn't, couldn't, return it.
Harry loved her.