Harry and Draco belong together. You know it's true. I rated this M because, though it isn't slash yet, it will be in the (hopefully very near) future.
Enjoy :) and review please!
It took Harry a long time to realize what he felt towards Cho Chang wasn't love. It was simply an admiration of beauty. He looked at her as he would a flower or a snowflake: something to marvel at but not to mourn when its beauty fades or when it can't stop crying over its dead boyfriend.
When he left after their argument in Madam Puddifoot's that fateful day, he was only angry because he was quite over all the problems that seemed to go along with being her boyfriend. He was quite over her in general. Really, who messed up a disarming charm, even if she was nervous? It was Harry's go-to spell, the one he could remember if he forgot everything else, and it had killed him a little inside to see it mangled by Cho's pretty lips. And that crying. Honestly, the girl had only gone out with Cedric for a few months and didn't seem like she was that enamored with him for any reason other than his good looks. He'd begun to suspect it was merely a desperate, ugly cry for attention and didn't want to deal with it anymore.
Afterwards, everyone had asked him if he was okay. Why shouldn't I be? he had thought, It's just a breakup. He began to understand it wasn't just a breakup as the year progressed. As those around him came together and split apart, it actually affected them deeply. It killed them inside, sometimes. He never felt like that, even though he'd had such a crush on Cho. He figured he wasn't truly in love with her, but if that wasn't love then what was?
It was when Ron started to explain a very complicated set of feelings about Hermione to him that he began to feel empty. Thinking she was the most wonderful thing in the world? A little twist in his gut when she came near? He'd never felt like that before, ever. He began to seriously doubt his capability to love.
Dumbledore said love was Harry's most important power, something Voldemort didn't possess, so he must have some capability. Over the summer he spent getting bullied by his aunt, uncle, and cousin, he delved into his thoughts rather than face the reality of his dismal situation. He decided that it was only non-platonic love he couldn't experience. After all, he deeply loved Hermione, Ron, and the other Weasleys, and he had loved Sirius. Otherwise he wouldn't care for them so deeply. Otherwise it wouldn't hurt so much when they died.
Still, the emptiness grew inside him as he realized a thousand things he would never have. He couldn't help blaming Voldemort for taking away his loving parents and the Dursleys for treating him like a slave rather than family. He felt somehow that the missing piece of him was related to missing parental affection, even if that wasn't true.
As he started school again, thoughts of what he was missing began nagging on him more and more and he felt his mental condition deteriorating as though the emptiness would swallow him up. He began being irritable and snapping at his friends, though he didn't tell them anything. Harry Potter was the Golden Boy. He didn't have insecurities or faults. If he did, he put on a brave face and dealt with them himself. The Boy Who Lived was a martyr. The Boy Who Lived faced things alone.
It was one day, during the first onset of winter, that he experienced something. He just couldn't tell if that something should fill him with hope or bury him beneath an insurmountable swell of despair.
He had just spent several arduous hours scrubbing cauldrons clean (without magic, of course) as punishment for accidentally tracking mud in after herbology. He silently cursed Filch and his bloody cat. He was quite adept in cleaning, being trained in it by Aunt Petunia quite thoroughly over the years, but the cauldrons were not just dirty. They had Merlin-knows-what cemented onto their insides by magic, and Harry had barely gotten through half of them before he couldn't take any more. His shoulders felt like they had been pulled apart from scrubbing.
He didn't normally like to use the prefect's bathroom since the mermaid in there always caused him to have unpleasant flashbacks to the second task of the Triwizard Tournament, but he had permission as Quidditch captain to use it. Seeing how much his muscles ached, he felt like nothing more than a good long soak he couldn't get elsewhere. He decided to risk bad memories and set off towards the fifth floor, hoping the mermaid was asleep.
It was well after curfew, so he hidden under his invisibility cloak as he traversed the halls. He was actually glad of the late hour. He was far less likely to be disturbed, that way. He reached the entrance and muttered the password.
"Squeaky clean."
The portal swung open silently and closed behind him in the same way after he stepped through. He was going to remove the cloak but something told him not to. It was that sense of self preservation, one of the many qualities possessed that was esteemed by Slytherin House. He walked cautiously forward, still invisible, with every sense alert.
The first thing he noticed was an odd, humid texture to the air. It felt unnaturally warm and moist. Then he smelled a familiar combination of perfumes and realized that someone must be taking a bath. He turned to leave, but was suddenly filled with a voracious curiosity. Who could be using the bath at that hour?
He walked closer, through thin layers of steam, and his breath caught at what he saw.
Draco Malfoy was laying in the bath with his head tilted upward, eyes closed, and he was shining.
Soft candlelight flickered against his pale skin, licking along it in beautiful golden patterns. Malfoy's skin shone with a satiny glow and he reflected the light in a silvery radiance just as the moon reflects the sun. It was beautiful in a tangible way, true, but for some reason Harry didn't simply want to admire it as he did with all other freshly discovered things of beauty. He was filled with an inexplicable desire to get closer and followed it without thinking, treading lightly and silently.
He got up close to Malfoy and saw that any bubbles had long since popped, leaving clear rippling water in their wake. The rest of Draco's body, though submerged, held the same luminosity as his face and hair. Harry noted with interest that it was the body of a dancer: all lithe muscle with no fat covering it. It was silky-looking and perfectly smooth, and filled Harry with a desire to run his fingers all over it. He marveled at its texture and pristine beauty. For the first time in Harry's short yet eventful life, he wanted to spoil something exquisite and leave his mark on it.
He reached for the pale boy, hand outstretched, wanting to brush it over the skin that tempted him. Luckily, his hasty step forward caused and audible creak. Malfoy whipped around with his wand out, ready to curse anything and everything he saw. For Harry, the movement seemed to break the enchantment he was under. He realized his position with horror and raced out of the room, collapsing against the wall a little ways down the hall.
He'd heard the other boys in the dormitory speak of it often enough to recognize the burning inside him. He could easily identify it as lust. The thought of it brought joyful tears to his eyes, because it seemed like that feeling was the key to everything he was missing. It was the ability to form a romantic relationship with somebody. He thought about futures and happy families and grandchildren and…
He went pale.
The only person he had ever felt that towards, in sixteen years of life, was Draco Malfoy. Malfoy, his eternal enemy, considered equivalent in his mind to Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange. Malfoy, son of a known Death Eater, under suspicion for being one himself.
Malfoy, a boy.
The tears of joy changed to despair and he raced off towards his dormitory. He fell into bed without disturbing the four other boys sleeping there, tossing and turning all night without any reprieve in the form of slumber from his thoughts.