He flinches at raised voices.
He always has, and this Draco knows, understands. So he's always cautious, careful, not to raise his voice. And maybe that's a weakness, but he can't seem to not. Enemies though they may seem, it's never really been that way to Draco.
Harry Potter has always been someone so close, so there, and yet so far away. Because his hand was there, and it was almost touching Draco's, but then it was gone, and Draco let the most important thing he ever could have had in his life slip away.
So Draco opted to watch, instead. To watch the boy with the messy black hair and the skinny frame and the green eyes that were more beautiful than the grass in the summer mornings that Draco's always loved so greatly. Watch the he is careful with his words and his actions and how he always seems so afraid of people hurting him and yet . . . nobody noticed.
Draco's known, for a long time, that Harry is spectacular. He's also known that they're meant to be enemies, at each other's throats with anger and insults, on one side of the battlefield while the other fought for all the wrong reasons.
So falling in love was a big deal.
But it's always been there, in the way Harry smiles at his friends and the way he eats his food slowly, savours each moment as if he'll never get the chance to eat again. It's that glint in his eyes when people remind him he's more than the Boy Who Lived and the billowing spirits of loss ghosting around him.
And so the years passed, years of yearning, of wanting, of simply watching. The more he watched, the further he fell, and maybe he should've cared more, but somehow Harry always was the exception.
Draco remembers seeing Harry watching Cho Chang with this look in his eyes and feeling absolutely shattered, because he would give the moon and the stars and the sun to have Harry turn that gaze on him.
Endlessly selfish he may be, but he always has been. It's what his parents taught him to be. To demand and to continue demanding until he receives. Be the cold, merciless leader his father always has been. Don't forget who you has always been down forget what your name is. He never has.
Except for when he's seen Harry, he thinks.
Harry is smiles and courage and the scent of fires slowly burning out yet always flickering back to life in the end. Harry is life and death and everything in between and Draco can't help but wonder when he found himself in Harry's eyes and forgot entirely who he was always supposed to be, and instead stared at the person he was, the person he remains to be now.
That person is scared, afraid of the way the world coils around him and chokes him and throws him to the ground. That person is a pawn, desperately trying to climb to the other side of the chess board but being too small, too weak.
Harry's always been on the other side, the king protected by the rest of the players. For if he were to fall, the game would be over. But it's in the way he holds himself, unsure, the way his eyes flicker when people so much as walk by, the way he falls back when someone raises a hand or a voice and nobody notices.
It's the hesitation in every little thing he does, in the brief moment of steeling himself before he continues, as if he's afraid of messing up. It's the way he doesn't touch, is cautious when other people do. It's the small little uncertainties, the hunched shoulders and the misted eyes and the obvious deep-seated fear over everything.
He comes back every year looker more and more dark, and Draco remembers coming back for their fifth year and seeing nothing but genuine unhappiness. And he had been afraid, then, that those eyes would never light up again, but then they did—in anger.
So Draco pushed him and pushed him with growing despair when those eyes only grew duller. But then some furious light erupted inside of Harry, and Draco was overjoyed. Never was it enough, though, and so it became a game.
And it was unhealthy, Draco thinks. Such a truly awful thing it was. It was something Draco quickly became addicted to, though, some kind of heavy smoke he breathed in and it slowly killed him, but maybe he would have died sooner without it.
Harry's always been so beautiful, Draco thinks. Always.
The next year, something sparked and vanished, and Draco forgot the reflection in Harry's eyes and remembered his name and he wished he hadn't. It was a year where dark storm clouds began to circle above and where he thought he was most likely to lose it all. Perhaps, if he tried, he would be able to hold on to Harry.
It was easiest to think it than to actually do it.
When Harry saw him that day in the bathroom, Draco tried to hurt him. Draco never will forgive himself for that, for attempting to torture Harry. And Harry had retaliated with a curse that almost killed Draco, and Draco remembers lying there and hearing Harry whisper incoherent words and wishing with all his heart that it would kill him soon, take him from this cruel, vile world.
But then he had lived, had seen the next days, and the show had to continue on.
It was the year after, when he saw Harry and he had to make the choice between what he loved and what else he loved, and he had chosen what he loved. It had been a rash choice, but in that moment Draco had remembered the reflection on his eyes and the small hesitant smile and the small fire igniting and his chest. And he knew, Merlin did he know.
Now it's over, he thinks, and it's the scent of fire falling, collapsing, dimming, and Harry is right there, and he misses him so, so much. The weight of it hits him like a stunning spell and he has to stop himself from reaching out, touching, feeling, remembering. He never wants to forget who Draco is again. He wants to erase Malfoy from his memory.
And then they're kissing, and it's fiery passion and hesitance and maybe they're both too afraid, but it's the best feeling Draco's ever felt and he never wants it to leave.
It's the words "I've loved you for so long" ringing in his ears and hardly masked sobs as he says, "Me too."
It's the end of everything, and the beginning of something so much bigger.
Draco fell in love with green eyes and fear and burning flames and someone who always knew who he was. Now, green eyes and a hesitant smile look up at him and he thinks that he sees where he belongs in that green canopy meeting stormy grey.
Maybe things aren't there just yet, but Draco can see renewal around them, within them. And he can't help but think that this is where things get better, where the skies grow to blue and the ghosts shuffle away and happiness lies just a little further ahead.
And thus Malfoy drifts away, replaced by Draco, who he always was, who he'll always be—the person who stares back at him from inside the green eyes of the person that makes him completely whole.
That's the thing about Harry, Draco knows: he's always been Draco's everything, something crucial to his existence. And never could he live without him.