A/N: For the Houses Competition

House: Ravenclaw

Category: Themed

Prompt: Hate

Word count: 2314

People talk so much about how love can turn to hate in the blink of an eye. About how relationships can sour, and feelings can fracture and dissipate. They talk about it so often that they forget that the opposite can happen, too, that hate can turn into love, and feelings that were once embittered can become fond and passionate.

Perhaps it is because love is far more subtle than hate. Hate rages and gnaws away at your insides, always making itself known. Love, though, love is warm and soft, and you don't realise it has taken over until you're full to the brim with it -

And perhaps it is because love is just like hate. Rather, hate is just like love, only twisted, broken, warped - what you will. Love rages and screams and tears away at you, because love hates. Love hates when its target is hurting; love hates when it is not reciprocated; love hates when there is someone else and it goes unnoticed.

And, just as it was for so many before them, so it will be for the love story of Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter.

Draco had grown up on the stories of the infant who had defeated Voldemort. He had listened in wide-eyed wonderment as his mother and father told him of those dark days, and how this child would one day be a powerful ally, even if he was only a half-blood.

("You see, Draco, Harry Potter's father married a filthy Muggleborn - a shame for a pure-blood such as he was."

"Why would he do that, father?"

"His friends will say they loved each other. Others say she bewitched him.")

He had dreamed of the day he would meet this Harry Potter. In his dreams, the two of them became fast friends. They would be sorted into the same house - Slytherin, of course, Draco couldn't let his father down - and they would eat together and sleep in the same dormitory. Perhaps Harry would even be able to stay with him at Malfoy Manor, instead of with those Muggles he was trapped with. They certainly had enough room.

When the day finally comes, Draco checks every compartment on the train to look for Harry. There's a strange feeling of nervousness in his stomach that he hadn't had when they'd unexpectedly met in Madam Malkin's. He supposes it's because he's had time to prepare for this meeting, and now he's worried that he made a bad impression before. He doesn't think that's possible, because he did everything his father had told him, but still.

Suddenly he's there, and Harry is looking at him with shocked recognition. Draco hesitates a second, then notices the only other person in the carriage. A young boy with bright red hair and overly large, worn out clothes. Yes, Draco knows who this is. Or, rather, Draco knows his family, and he also knows that a rich, famous wizard like Harry Potter wouldn't want to be friends with a blood traitor such as a Weasley.

Well, he thinks, nerves dissipating as he pulls out a smirk. This should be easy.

He does as he's been taught - tells Harry about knowing which friends to pick, not wanting to get mixed up with the wrong sort (he makes sure to nod to the Weasley with that remark), and offers the hand of friendship. He thinks it's all gone perfectly, and surely there's no way that Harry can turn him down now, and-

"I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks."

Draco feels a blush creeping up his cheeks, so he rearranges his face into a scowl to make it look like anger. He hadn't expected this rejection, and now he's going to have to tell his father of his failure. Unless.

If he tells his father that Potter has already firmly rooted himself with the others, perhaps it'll be more acceptable. Besides, it's not a lie anyway. And, although he would never admit it to anyone (sometimes, he can barely admit it to himself) he had desperately wanted to be friends with Harry Potter. He'd been looking forward to this moment since he was a child, and he had blown it.

Expectations turned to disappointment, excitement to resentfulness. Potter had made a big mistake in refusing to be his friend, and now he would pay.

(Love twists)

Ginny Weasley arrives at Hogwarts in their second year, and it's immediately obvious to anyone with eyes how taken she is with Potter. Outwardly, Draco scorns and mocks her, but inwardly he pities her.

Don't bother with him, he thinks. He'll only disappoint you.

But, of course, Ginny is a Weasley and a Gryffindor, whereas Draco is a Malfoy and a Slytherin. Potter saves Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets, and they all live happily ever after.

(All of them that matter do, anyway. Draco learnt a long time ago that he doesn't.)

Draco knows that Potter sees Ginny as a little sister, but he doubts it will be long before that changes. And he hates the fact that Potter is so quick to make friends with them, so ready to accept the familial love the Weasleys are offering. That could have been him, if things were different. Granted, Draco doesn't have a little sister to dote on, nor is his family as warm as the Weasleys, but that doesn't matter. That shouldn't matter.

(Love resents)

Draco kisses Pansy for the first time in third year. It's nice, he guesses, but it's not what he thought his first kiss would be like. Of course, Pansy is a pure-blood from a respectable family, but he's starting to learn that maybe blood status isn't all there is to worry about.

Sometimes, he looks at Potter and wonders what it would be like to kiss him instead. Then he remembers who he is, and spends the rest of the day trying (and failing) to banish that thought from his mind.

Potter faints in front of the Dementors that year, giving Draco ample fuel for mockery. And yet the sneers he always makes sure to wear whenever he looks at Potter (the ones that he reserves for Potter, only Potter) feel less real each time. It's more effort now than it was before, although he tries his best not to wonder why. His facade must continue, after all.

(After the Quidditch match, when Potter is in the hospital wing after his fall, Draco finds himself standing outside the ward, not wholly sure why he's really there. He can see the Gryffindors - Potter's friends - surrounding his bed, and he feels jealousy bubble up inside him.)

(Love envies)

Potter gets picked for the Triwizard Tournament in fourth year, and Draco pretends that he wants him to fail. He makes the badges, he openly supports Diggory, he takes every chance he gets to badmouth Potter - the prick - especially when there's large crowds of people to hear him. He makes sure that people (Potter) hear him..

He's good at pretending, always has been, and he almost believes it himself when he laughs and tells Potter that he'll only last five minutes with the dragon. Almost.

The truth is that Draco is angry. Not because Potter isn't failing like he's supposed to, not because he's once again getting all the glory and leaving others in his shadows, and certainly not because Draco wishes he was the Champion instead of Potter. No, Draco is angry because he is worried.

He hates it, but it feels like his heart is in his mouth when the dragon cuts Potter's arm open. His hands begin to shake when well over an hour has passed, and there's still no sign of him in the Black Lake. Terror fills him when Potter shows up, clinging to a dead body, looking even more broken than Diggory's corpse.

He hates it - he hates him - but he can't stop these stupid, ridiculous feelings from taking over his mind, body, and soul.

(Love consumes)

Voldemort returns and his parents become ever more distant, leaving Draco to carry on as normal - or as normal as things can get these days. He doesn't know any other way than the arrogant, prejudiced, pure-blood mask he's wore for so long, so he sticks with that. The stupid song he makes up to taunt Weasley, the Inquisitorial Squad, the fight; he doesn't really mean any of it, but this is how Draco Malfoy is supposed to act, so that's how he acts.

He hears the whispers, of course. People who support Potter's claims that Voldemort has returned remember his family's connections to dark magic, and they make sure he doesn't forget either. He doesn't miss the dirty looks they send him, nor the mutters that his father ran straight back to the Dark Lord's side as soon as he got the chance.

He wishes that they would stop, because he knows it's true (Merlin, he knows, there's not need to keep reminding him) but most of all, he wishes that these whispers didn't exist at all. He bets Potter probably started some of them, and it aches that he must resent Draco so. But he says nothing, and carries on as he should, because he is a Malfoy, and that name means something. Or, it used to, at least.

After his father is arrested (on Potter's orders, his brain reminds him), Draco is approached by a few old Death Eaters, along with his mother, who has tears in her eyes. He spends that summer training, the new mark on his arm feeling more wrong with each passing day. He is fifteen years old, and all he wants to do is tell the boy he loves that he's sorry, and that he'll do anything to make up for what he's done. He is fifteen years old, and he must be a murderer.

(Love regrets)

He tries to distance himself as much as he can from his friends in sixth year. He doesn't have the time to be keeping up relationships right now. Pansy near enough throws herself at him in an attempt to get him interested, but his heart isn't in it. Not that it ever was, really. Pansy isn't the person he wants.

At least his work on fixing the Vanishing Cabinet, and trying to find a way to kill Dumbledore without arousing suspicion, keeps him busy. More importantly, it keeps his mind off Potter. Just.

He knows that Potter suspects something, and he wants more than anything to tell him everything that's going on, but he knows that he can't. Potter is the enemy now; he can't forget that fact.

Even when Potter finds him falling apart in the bathroom, he forces himself to throw up his barriers. Not that Potter even cares that he's this close to just giving up on everything; he lets Draco know of this when he casts that spell and Draco finds himself bleeding out on the bathroom floor. That realisation hurts - more than the physical pain of the curse does - but what's worse is the knowledge that Potter will never see him as more than another one of Voldemort's lackeys, or as more than a Malfoy. Will never see him as more.

(Love hurts)

They save each other's lives during the year that Draco spent alone and afraid, trying not to be killed by Voldemort. He thinks that Potter rescues him from the Fiendfyre more as a courtesy, as recompense for Draco not immediately handing him over when he was brought to Malfoy Manor. He doesn't regret what he did, even though it caused him trouble when Voldemort arrived.

He tells Crabbe not to kill Potter in the Room of Requirement. He reasons that the Dark Lord wants him alive - which is true - but his heart beats just that little bit quicker whenever he thinks of Potter getting hurt. But Crabbe tries anyway, and it is Potter - Harry - who rescues Draco from being killed, instead of the other way round.

(He wills himself to act normal when he ends up behind Harry on the broom. His body does not listen, and he feels a strange electric sensation at every point of contact between their bodies. He feels a blush rise up his cheeks, and suddenly he is glad that Potter cannot see his face.)

He goes to find Harry after the battle is done, staying out of sight of the other students milling about in a grief-stricken daze. They have lost enough today, and he knows that he is the last person any of them would want to see.

Perhaps he is the last person that Harry would want to see, but he realises that this will be his last chance to make amends. It will be his last chance to say everything he's been hiding for too many years. He eventually spots Harry standing next to a cracked pillar, and Draco speeds up, desperate to say something before he loses his nerve entirely.

Then he rounds the corner and spots Ginny Weasley reaching up to brush a hair out of Harry's eyes, and the gesture is tender and loving, and Harry doesn't reject her touch. He seems to welcome it instead, and Draco's old, familiar ache returns, spreading from his chest to his entire body. They're talking softly, looking into each other's eyes, and Draco knows that his chance is gone.

(No, that is not quite right. He knows that he never had a chance at all, not now, not ever.)

Ginny kisses Harry, and Draco turns away. He brushes away the traitorous tears that have started tracking down his cheeks and leaves, to where he does not know. Anger spreads through his entire body - anger at Ginny Weasley, at Harry Potter, his family, and himself most of all.

So, he finally realises. This is what love truly is.

(Love hates)

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed that! Please leave a review if you have a moment. Bye!