He wanted someone to love him for who he was. He tried to date Hufflepuffs, to see if they were different, but Hannah was a disaster. He figured out it may not be house, only gender, but Justin was no better, nor was Terry. With only two months before he graduated, with Voldemort readying himself for war, Harry finally decided that he needed something different. Something Slytherin.
He eased himself into it. Blaise Zabini was flamboyantly gay, silently neutral, and unashamedly Slytherin. They met in the dead of night and when they kissed it was brutal, a mix of teeth and disrespect, but to Harry it wasn't enough. There was no hero worship, none, but Harry was still dissatisfied.
Blaise noticed Harry flinching from his absent affection, flinching from kisses on the cheek and Blaise's fingers across his face. He noticed that Harry leaned into the bites and scratches and pain, and he knew.
"You want Draco."
"Pardon me?"
"You want pain and antipathy, and I am not the person to offer that to you."
"I-I don't want him."
"You do, but really Potter..."
"But what?"
"Have you developed a death wish?"
"It's not like that."
"He wants you dead, I don't care either way. I'd say it's exactly like that."
Malfoy was something different.
During one shared detention Harry gathered the nerve to kiss him. Malfoy bit his lip then spat in his face.
Harry only wanted him more.
The final month was spent in silent pursuit. Blaise watched, amused by Draco's fear, by Potter's determination to be debased. Draco lost his temper, punching Potter across the face, and Blaise had to fight to keep his face from changing.
Harry was falling in love. Not with Draco, not with Slytherin. Harry had fallen in love with disrespect, with pain and with betrayal. Blaise was only glad that he hadn't suggested Proffessor Snape.
At the graduation party, Draco drank himself into a stupor. Potter darted across his peripheral vision, determined but still disgustingly polite, never one to take advantage of those intoxicated. Draco, possessing said intoxicated mind, was not as disgusted by the pathetic boy as he should have been.
Tomorrow Draco would enter the world, enter and be sheltered again by Pureblood politics, by Voldemort and war. He would never live in the real world, he would more likely die or become the next rich Malfoy lord in a line of far too many. He would marry and produce, or he would die fighting for the politics the Malfoy's were so proud to support.
Potter did not figure into tomorrow.
But tonight they kissed, softer than they should have, light presses of lips and traces of touch. And if Potter was still infatuated, or Draco slipped into an infatuation of his own, no one was to say. No one but the quiet boy in the corner, face a mask. Inwardly Blaise was in turmoil at his miscalculations, but he did not move, did not speak, and the next morning, he was the only one to know of their weakness.
Blaise was always neutral. He informed the Order of Draco's weakness, informed the Death Eaters of Potter's. And then he dissappeared.
In the last battle, a battle years later, the Death Eaters finally used their old intelligence information. They left him outside, tied him to the security of the place. It would not fall until he died. Draco was their shield, they figured. They were surely safe, at least for awhile.
They were safe for two minutes.
Harry levelled his wand and Draco sneered. Harry hesitated, so unused to disregard, to disrespect. He smiled. Draco saw that smile, was terrified and begged for life, begged to the boy saviour. Harry curled his lip and tore the assumption from Draco's lips.
Draco sagged. Harry didn't much care, and went to kill the rest.