Author: tigersilver
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 900
Warnings/Summary: Major Character Death (Harry); unrequited. It's a damned shame it's all just in Harry's poor head. Isn't it?
HD 'Pity'
He doesn't care for the way in which Malfoy looks at him, across the table, across the room, across the life. (He'd a perfectly marvelous job and the kids are well, and if Ginny's gone more often than not, than that's understandable, he's not standing in the way of it…and what's it matter to Malfoy, in any case? The man has his own life, his own career, and his own troubles, so what does he care about Harry for? To watch him, like that.)
He's irked to be casually bumped in the hallways of the Ministry. Doesn't he deserve a little respect, even from the likes of that twat? (It happens often; Harry bumps back, and sometimes they touch a little longer than may be comfortable. Harry knows he's turning pink, all up his throat and down below his high collar, and Malfoy must be doing it to humiliate; getting a rise, but it still…feels…hot.. Yes, hot.)
No one should have the gall to stare at him like that, in that insidious way, that horrible way, as if Malfoy knows Harry's got a secret, even though Harry clearly has not. (And he's maybe not being entirely honest here, even with himself, but the box in his head—it's more a cupboard-shaped space and the fucking spiders are huge—it's terrifying to even think to open it. And Harry's no coward, is he? No. Not.)
"Just, stop," he says, a month in, when he realizes he misses too fondly the eyebrow waggle of back then, ages ago, on the Platform and Malfoy looking across and meeting his eyes and it was all good, all good, that, having families. It's not, now. Pity. When did the git go back to being such a git, and fucking with his head?
It's not nice. Harry objects.
"Stop what?"
And Malfoy's already making his way down the hallway, sashaying in just that way he has, all long strides and swishing cloak and Harry just stares—and stares. And nearly chokes on his own tongue when he thinks he's staring at Malfoy's arse.
"I told you," he growls, next time they meet up, by maybe-maybe not accident in the staff room, making tea. "Stop it. It won't work."
"What won't work, Potter?" Malfoy asks him pertly and he seems genuinely bewildered, and Harry catches his breath—because what if it's just his imagination?
He doesn't care to think how he might feel if this is all his fancy—no, there must be some kernel of truth!
"I don't understand?" Malfoy is all that is pleasant, and Harry's just not convinced. He's seething; surely Malfoy must feel something along those lines, too?
"You've been," he grumbles, and he hates being put in a corner, mental or not. "You've been looking at me. Stop it."
Malfoy blinks, and all Harry can see is a grey solid honesty awash in those orbs, which he instantly hates on principle.
"Sod this," Harry retorts, and shoves Malfoy, mug and all, up against the wall. Tucks his hot face into Malfoy's long neck and waits. And…waits.
There should be something, some reaction: a huff of disgust, a snort of dislike, a hiss of triumph—but something!
"Potter?"
It's only his surname, and it takes quite a bit of waiting for even that to appear. Or be heard, rather. In the meantime, Harry works on his breathing, in and out, and not pressing too closely. It's unheard of, what he's doing with another Auror, and it's absurd, what this man does to the interior of his chest. He can't endure it for much longer, and even Kingsley would say he was allowed some relief…
Wouldn't he?
"Potter," and it's all there, Harry's madness, evident in the kindness of Malfoy's voice. "Potter, I think you've got the stick by the wr—"
Harry can't bear that. He's good at what he does; always has been. He might plod a little along the way, might chase his tail, but always, in the end, he gets his Wizard, his man.
Except this man.
"I'm not—" He pulls back, patting down Malfoy's robes uselessly, and the world is gone as grey and opaque as those eyes, trained ever so carefully on him. "I didn't mean anything by it; my mistake."
It's a long harsh inhale, burning him from the inside out, and he's focussed solely on not crying, he realizes, though he's not cried in years, if ever, and that it would be over the loss of something that never even existed, that he never had? How unbearable?
"My mistake."
How fucking piteous, how pathetic. How sad, to come down to this. He's a fool; worse than, thinking he was important.
"S-Sorry," Harry mumbles, and there's a mile of space made suddenly between them, and Malfoy's resettling his bobbled mug with downcast eyes and a determinedly pleasant expression plastered on his pale, patient face.
"S'all right," Malfoy replies kindly. Placidly. "Fine."
And so ends Harry Potter's life-long obsession. It dies a drab little death, unremarked by the Prophet or Witch Weekly.
Except…not really.
It really only ends when he dies, really honest-to-god dies, no coming back this time, on a bollixed up mission he never should've been a part of but was, what with the kids grown and Ginny firmly entrenched in her career. Not like anyone in particular would miss him, not even himself.
("Poor Potter; did you hear?" Malfoy remarks to his wife of many years, that lazy cozy Saturday morning over a companionable breakfast table. He shakes out the Prophet and sighs over the close-printed sheets. "Good man down, there. Pity, don't you think?")