Title: What You Do To Me
Summary: Draco Malfoy is used to sitting in the shadows when it comes to Harry Potter.
Pairings: One sided Draco/Harry
Rating: K
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. All rights go to JK Rowling, City and Colour and whoever else.
Author's note: So it's been a long while since I've posted anything and was in the mood to write a quick songfic. I've recently rekindled my love for Dallas Green and this song is beautiful. There's no point to this, really. I just felt like writing something. As with everything, this is unbeta'd/unedited. I hope you enjoy. It's a bit OOC and a bit jumbled school-year wise, but try not to focus too much on that.
Draco sits in the stands watching the Quidditch match with quiet eyes. It's Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw and, as expected, Gryffindor are winning quite substantially. Everyone around Draco, in the other stands, are shouting and cheering and booing and jeering. It's been a long match, and nothing especially exciting has happened. Weasley nearly got knocked from his broom by a rogue Bludger, but there's nothing new in that. It happens every other game.
Draco's alone in his stand. He usually is. An hour ago a second year came up but as soon as she spied Draco she went scampering back down. He notices she had squeezed into a stand directly opposite – as far away from his stand as you could possibly, he also notices.
His eyes, as usual, flick back to Harry. He's sitting above everyone else; watching the air like a hawk, as if he can see every molecule vibrating around him, the only one he cares about is golden. He's seen it a couple of times, but each time he dived for it, it had flew out of sight.
It's an August evening, warm, but there's a bite to the air. Draco wraps his cloak tighter around himself and sighs. His gaze lazily follows Potter in circles and then, for a split second, their eyes clash and Draco shivers hard, like someone had put an ice cold hand on his back.
The moment's over before it began but Draco's more alert for the rest of the evening.
…
…
A week later and the students are enjoying the warm evening sunshine while it lasts. Draco's sat on the slope towards the lake, a book in his lap, distracted. The Golden Trio are sat closer to the lake under a tree. Granger seems to be studying (no big surprise) and harping on about one thing or another – probably haranguing the others to study, too. If Draco knows Potter, and he likes to think he does after all these years, even if only a small amount, that's never going to happen.
He watches as Weasley picks up a handful of dewy bronze leaves and hurls them at Potter. Laughing, Harry tosses a handful of his own. It looks like child's play, like fun, and Draco sighs.
He feels strange, constantly watching, but he can't help it. He's tried tearing his gaze away, tried immersing himself into schoolwork or a book whenever he's around, but somehow, his gaze always returns to black hair and green eyes and round glasses.
There's a full blown leaf fight going on now, and the leaves, insignificant at they are, catch the setting sun and seem beautiful. Draco has always found autumn beautiful. Everything's dying and falling and yet looks so… calm. If there's a way to romanticise death, autumn has it down. The leaves remind him of Potter. Not in the death way, but in the unconventionally beautiful way. Because he's just a boy. He's a hero and famous and amazing at everything (besides potions) but he's just a boy. He's just a speccy, messy-haired, seventeen year old boy. And not enough people remember that. Too many people take him for granted.
I take him for granted, he thinks, although he doesn't know why.
The sun sets and the sky darkens and everyone's gone inside for dinner except Draco, who stares at the scattered leaves. The sun may have gone in and the sky may have turned black, but the leaves are still beautiful. He is still beautiful.
…
…
That night, Draco lies in bed, staring at the ceiling. He had been asleep, but his dream had been filled with glittering leaves and emerald eyes and throaty laughter of gingers. Now it's early morning and he can't sleep. He sighs and sits up, peeking through his curtains at his sleeping roommates.
Blaise is murmuring and twitching like usual, Theo his his covers over his head, and Goyle is snoring like a foghorn; it's a wonder anyone can get any sleep. He kicks the covers off and stands up, shivering at the cold air. He grabs his robe and pads across the room to the bathroom. He inspects his face and sighs again; there are purple bags under his eyes. He's so tired he can barely function but he doesn't crawl back into bed. Instead he creeps downstairs. The common room is empty and there are only embers in the grate, but he doesn't care. There's a book on the arm of the most comfortable sofa so, after relighting the fire, he collapses into the cushions and opens the book.
He reads no more than two pages before his tired mind wanders. Once again his minds is filled with emerald eyes hiding behind glass, unruly black hair that refuses to lie flat, a voice that would grate on his nerves under normal circumstances. He sighs – he seems to be doing that a lot lately - and puts the book on the coffee table. He lies back on the sofa and lets his mind wander. He's given up stopping it.
The more he thinks the more empty he feels, like someone's ripped out his most vital organs. The emptier he feels, the weaker he feels. The thoughts and emptiness weighs on his eyes and he finds himself slipping into a Harry-free dream. He didn't know if he should be thankful or bereft. His last thought is oh, my love; you don't know what you do to me.
…
Autumn froze into winter which melted into spring which boiled into summer and before he knew it, it was July. He'd not seen much of Harry outside classes. Draco is sat in the Manor gardens, wondering where Harry is, what he was doing. It was normal to think about someone you cared for, he reasons, but he couldn't help feeling creepy. Not that that has ever stopped him.
He thinks back to the previous December – he had stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas, not wanting to go home, not wanting to face his overly-protective mother or his mostly-reclusive-in-his-own-home father. He'd rather spend the time in Slytherin common room, alone but for the three fourth-years and Blaise, who was the only one left. Even Pansy had gone.
When he wasn't shut up, he was outside, watching the snow fall and the world pass. It was in the courtyard that he found the Trio, plus Girl Weasley, the twin Weasleys, and Neville Longbottom. In the autumn it had been leaves, and now it was snowballs. They were laughing and screaming, taking no notice of him, so he thought it safe to curl up on a bench with a book and use it to his advantage, surreptitiously watching them – watching him – every now and again.
Coming back to now, he shivers. It's mid-July but he's cold. He's known for doing that – immersing himself in a memory so far, he feels its effects.
…
It's getting on for winter again, the sky a perpetual grey. Draco is sat, as per his norm nowadays, outside. He must be the only one stupid enough to sit out in the blistering winds and oncoming storm, but he doesn't care. It's quiet, and that's all he needs. He's sat by the lake, watching the shadow of the Giant Squid go about her daily motions. He wondered what it was that kept a squid busy in a lake. He wondered if it ever got lonely down there in the deep dark depths of the lake. It probably did.
He looks up at the sky and lays on his back, watching grey clouds twist and roil and drift into one another against a darker grey sky. He could hear the lake, now, instead of see it. With the approaching storm and the seemingly-gale-force winds, the water was rough, slapping against the shore, waves – if you could call them that – crashing and colliding. Still he looked at the sky, darkening further as each minute passed. He thought of the clouds, of the darkness, as being him, the hate and the anger and the bitterness inside him, twisting and coiling around his heart and his stomach, turning him to ice.
He sighs and sits up again, as restless as the water before him. He thought of Harry then, thought of him diving into the darkness of the lake to save his friends in fourth-year. He thinks of the lake now, how rough it was becoming, and he thinks of himself, his mind as dark and chaotic as the water. How easy could Harry wade into it? How easy would it be for Harry to save him, Draco Malfoy?
With one last glance at his mind and heart, one reflected in the other, he stands and walks away – his insides have turned to worms and his head aches. He had been calm by that lake, and one thought had turned it to dust. You don't know what you do to me, he thought, not for the first time.
…
As the weather becomes colder and the days become shorter, Draco becomes darker. The bitterness grows and the loneliness peaks and still he only watches from afar. It's the last year of Hogwarts. He's becoming desperate. He doesn't know what he wants. He doesn't love Harry Potter – what an absurd notion – but he's intrigued by him, cannot stop watching him, wondering about him. Somebody stabs Draco whenever Harry's with Weaslette. And as he watches, he becomes darker still.
Perhaps the dawn will break when they all leave school – perhaps not being able to see Harry will do him some good. But until then, he'll reminisce. He sits outside or in the common room or in the class room and Harry Potter sits on his shoulders, weighing him down and never leaving him alone.
He thinks of the first day they met, in Madame Malkin's shop, and how unbearable he had been. And then on the train, practically forcing himself on him, almost grabbing his hand and forcing it into his own. Oh, to be friends with Harry Potter. Oh, to be more.
He often wonders what it would be like if Harry had taken his hand. If Harry had accepted his (admittedly, very arsehole-ish) offer of friendship. He wondered if they would've been great friends. He wondered if Harry would come over to the manor for supper. He wondered if that had happened all those years ago, would Voldemort have been housed at his house? Would his father have handed him straight over? Would they've talked about everything? Would things be better, or worse? Would Harry care when Draco told him he was gay? There was no chance for any of that now. When he caught Harry looking at him, it wasn't civility he saw. It wasn't hatred, but it wasn't an invitation to hug and make merry.
Draco's hand sneaks to his chest, tracing the Sectumsempra scars over his robes. What if that had never happened? The fight in the bathroom, the curses; what if Draco hadn't become a Death Eater in the first place?
What if? What if? That was all there ever was, he thought.
In all his time obsessing over Harry, watching Harry moving on, from the war, from his abhorrent Muggle relatives, from the loss of his parents, from everything… he felt envious, because he couldn't move on. Everyone around him, not just Harry, was building themselves up, laying the foundations of their futures, and Draco was stuck stand still, alone, left behind.
…
The last day of school, possibly the last day he'll ever see Harry Potter and his infernal friends. Possibly the last day he'll see his own friends, if they can be called that. He watches a dark head disembark from the train, watches Mister and Missus Weasley flap over their children, Harry included. Draco looks around the platform for his own parents, knowing they won't be there. He'll find his own way home; he usually does.
When he sees the Weasleys and Harry Disapparate, he feels something break in his chest. Not his heart, because he isn't in love with Harry, but something. Their unspoken bond of mutual dislike, perhaps. Whatever it is, it his him like a freight train and sends him stumbling off the Hogwarts Express and into the crowd, barging past everyone until he reaches where the gaggle of gingers (and Harry) were stood not a minute before. He knew it was too late – he saw them disappear. He had never regretted anything more than not trying again.
And now it was too late.
Maybe he'd learn. Maybe others could learn from his mistakes. Maybe he could comfort others with his wrong doings. Maybe he could learn, and maybe he could heal.
Whatever happened, it was too late.
…
Three years passed and nothing had changed. Harry and Ginny had married two months ago. There had been nothing but Harry Potter and Ginevra Weasley wherever you turned.
Draco had attended the wedding, under a Glamour, of course. It was then, hearing Harry say 'I do' to someone else, that Draco had to admit that, yes, maybe he was a little bit in love with him.
Now he sat in his study, Firewhiskey in hand, desolate, moping, feeling more alone than ever before, still standing still. I'll always be without him, he realised. I'll always be stuck here.
Oh my love, if I could just find you tonight.