A/N: Why does Draco randomly like dolls, you ask? I made up that detail for my Lucius Malfoy parody fic (also available on my profile, yes totally worth checking out), and decided to run with the same detail for this fic (which turned out a lot more serious than I meant it to be, but whatever). Enjoy your Drarry, guys. Enjoy your Drarry.
Draco Malfoy had two main interests: dolls and Harry Potter.
One was a nearly lifelong passion that consumed all his time and energy; the other was a fun collecting hobby.
He liked making fun of mudbloods, of course, and throwing his elitist weight around as a cis white attractive wealthy guy, but that was mostly just something he did when he was bored. An occupation to bide his time. What he REALLY liked to do, what he spent hours on without even realizing the lost time, were the two things mentioned above. Collecting dolls, and being mesmerized by Harry Potter.
Let's start with dolls. Unlike Harry Potter, they really WERE a lifelong hobby of Draco's. He received his first one while he was still in the cradle with a literal silver spoon in his mouth. (His mother had been feeding him.) His father hated dolls- could barely stand to look at one without flinching- but upon his first meeting with one Draco loved it. It was like a little friend that he could carry around with him, only this one never insulted him and always did whatever he wanted it to do. Whenever he felt lonely, at least he still had Special Healer Edition!Barbie to comfort him and listen to his complaints. Once Draco reached the age of two and realized dolls were a thing you could exchange Galleons for, he started collecting them, begging Narcissa every time they entered a shop and blowing off all his birthday and Christmas money on new dolls. He had Tri-Wizard Tournament!Barbie. Quidditch Player!Ken. All the dolls you could ever dream of, including a Dumbledore that spoke ten different catchphrases ("At Hogwarts, help will always be given to those who ask for it!" "I'm gay and in love with Grindelwald!") and a baby Harry Potter with its own little lightning scar.
That last doll had meant nothing in particular to Draco until he met the Boy Who Lived himself when they were eleven. It wasn't immediate love at first sight, of course. That was stupid. Draco's capacity for love was limited, almost entirely taken up by the shelves upon shelves of collectible dolls he had in his master-sized bedroom. (Narcissa called the display "impressive," Lucius called it "a hell full of unblinking plastic demons that will devour us all".) Even as late as third year, Draco felt only hate and envy towards the boy who managed to beat him at everything. During those times, he would take the Harry Potter doll off his shelf and roll it aggressively across his room. But only on carpeted areas- it was a limited edition collectible, after all!
But after a couple years, the competitiveness between him and Potter seemed to grow into sexual tension, or at least so it seemed to Draco. All good romances start off with two rivals. Benedick and Beatrice. Elizabeth and Darcy. Spongebob and Squidward. (You know you ship it.) Beginning when he turned thirteen, Draco would start off sneering at Potter and end up staring a little too long at Potter's jaw.
Oh, sweet mother of Merlin. Draco was gay. He was as gay as the rainbow unicorns who lived in the Forbidden Forest. Oh man. OH MAN. And Draco had thought he was normal!
Except...except girls. GIRLS and their curves and their boobs and their long legs! Half the girls in his year- hell, most- were idiotic bimbos who probably couldn't even read, but Draco couldn't deny the fact that they were hot. Hot as balls, in every sense of the phrase. Ever since he had asked Pansy out to the Yule Ball in a desperate attempt to go with someone, he had always enjoyed snogging her. She was rubbish at everything else, of course, as people who were not the Malfoys usually were, but at least she was decent at snogging.
Oh no. Now Draco was both gay and not gay. He was a Schrodinger cat of confusion and woe. In this turbulent period of his life, he spent many hours talking to his dolls, hoping their blank, glossed over faces could listen and understand. The Dumbledore one always seemed particularly sympathetic. ("I'm gay and in love with Grindelwald!" "Nitwit! Oddment! Blubber! Tweak!")
Draco spent approximately two weeks in this fashion before he began to get tired and bored.
Putting it back on the shelf, Draco told his Dumbledore doll that dammit, Draco didn't care anymore. He would willingly snog the living crap out of Harry Potter, but same goes for any attractive female that entered his way. He had a crush, not a marriage partner. He could be attracted to a few people in different ways, in the same way that some Slytherin girls kept tabs on about five different Quidditch players, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. Besides, deep down in his core, past his horny desires to get it on with Pansy? Draco had a special eye for Harry Potter. He always had.
The messy hair that fell in his eyes. The clumsy, haphazard way Potter threw on his cloak. All the little things, the stupid things that Draco liked about Potter, they were all flaws. How Potter reacted with irritation if you criticized someone he liked. The millions of ways Potter managed to break his glasses. The stupidity- no, it wasn't bravery- that made Potter want to rush headfirst into battles without thinking things through. They were all imperfections that led to a sort of flawlessness, holes that punctured the revered figure of the Boy Who Lived but sunk Harry Potter straight down into Draco's heart. Draco never touched these details when he was teasing Harry. Instead, he teased about the general things, stabs at Harry Potter's lack of parents or basic insults on his clumsiness. Draco supposed that if he used his knowledge of Harry Potter's flaws, wedged his knife deep into the holes and twisted sharply, he could probably hurt the boy so thoroughly that Draco could finally get a reaction more than indifference, but why would he want to do that? There was still the small chance that Potter might be gay. Maybe he wasn't. Even if he definitely was, Draco wasn't sure if he would readily abandon his family and his beliefs just to get a few terrific snogs. (He wasn't a fool enough to truly believe much more would come out of it.) But maybe Potter was, and just the possibility was thrilling. It was much better, after all, to live on hopes and optimistic dreams than to live with the disappointing truth.
Sometimes Draco thought about pulling back the reins on his own relentless bullying. He dealt with his feelings for Potter primarily by provoking Potter into interacting with him, but even Draco knew that that was a crappy way to deal with a crush. Straight-up bullying does not gain you a new boyfriend. It just builds a wall of hate that towers higher and higher until it can't be crossed at all. Draco had been carrying on for years now, and he couldn't just stop. Not without having to explain, and not without looking weak. Draco feared looking weak more than he feared anything else.
And so he carried on every day, teasing Potter almost nonstop during school hours and then going home at night to his dormitory room to dust all his dolls before he slipped into bed. (Whenever he stayed at Hogwarts, he brought exactly one quarter of his doll collection along with him.) Harry Potter and dolls, dolls and Harry Potter, day in and day out. You'd think that Draco would combine the two and buy himself an entire trunkful of Harry Potter dolls, but such was not the case. On the contrary, ever since he had started thinking about Harry Potter's lips much more often than a normal person would, Draco had been rather embarrassed by any representation of Harry Potter in his room. It felt as if The Chosen One was actually there, watching over him, and that made undressing especially awkward. (And also kind of hot. But really awkward. Draco didn't have the time to go through a blushing fit and a full goddamn erection every time he had to put on his pajamas.) Draco had long since put away his one Harry Potter doll on the back of the shelf in his room at Malfoy Manor. No, he didn't need or want Harry Potter dolls. It was the real deal that he aimed for.
Or kind of aimed for, or at least wanted to aim for. Every time he passed Harry Potter in the hallways, Draco always started out smiling, but then cranked up the notch too much so it suddenly became a sneer. He quickly covered up any instances of him being caught looking at Potter by flipping Potter off. Either out of habit, or out of a desperate, last-minute attempt to cover up his feelings, Draco just couldn't do it. He didn't know how other mortals could manage it, confessing love in a way swoon-worthy enough to win a new snogging partner. Sometimes, it was just very strange. Why, look at that Weasley boy- all he had to do was act awkward and a little distant, and that Mudblood girl would jump into his lap at any chance she got. Love was a ridiculous game, one that Draco had never bargained for, really. He could've happily spent the rest of his days snogging hot people without any such emotional attachment. Even now, Draco wasn't helpless. He could quash any sort of weakness he felt towards Potter and begin searching for someone else. Draco could tell himself over and over again that Potter was straight until Draco believed it and moved on, sick with disappointment. Perhaps it would be better that way, not constantly wanting to hump the boy who was supposed to be his enemy and his polar opposite.
But at the same time, Draco sort of liked it. Watching Potter gave a kind of purpose to his day. Draco had become quite familiar with the way his heart walloped every time he caught an unexpected glimpse of Potter in the hallways, and the adrenaline pumping into his blood every time he challenged Potter to lay a finger on him. A life without either of these things seemed rather sad. In the end, Draco just couldn't find enough reasons to give it up. Sure, it was a one-way road to heartbreak and despair (stop looking at him like that, the quadrillionth Weasley that has ever been born), but it was also a secret source of happiness. Potter made him happy. And confused, and conflicted, and angry. But ultimately happy. And Draco liked it.
Hell, Harry Potter was going to be the end of him.