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He didn't love him. He was addicted — absolutely, plain as day. But he didn't love him.
He didn't like anything about him — not Molly's perpetual knitted green jumpers, not the burgundy checked shirts, not the motley, horrible Gryffindor tie around his neck.
Green eyes looked funny behind the thick glasses.
Potter had managed to lose them once during sex. Afterwards, completely forgetting that he was a wizard, had searched for them all over the Room of Requirement, crawling on his knees, fumbling with his hands on the cold stone floor. Draco watched this for quite some time, holding those wretched glasses in his hands.
Malfoy grinned crookedly and flicked the ash from his cigarette right against the railing of the Astronomy Tower, separating him from the endless expanse of Scotland. The ash was picked up by the wind and disappeared from view after a few moments. Freedom was in the air.
He didn't like Potter. Didn't like his smiles, didn't like his silly jokes and his loud laughter at the Gryffindor table. Didn't like the way he looked at him.
He'd seen it once before. Hermione had slapped Harry on the shoulder with a small, girlish hand and hissed loudly, like a snake, to stop staring. Blaise had laughed for a long time, and Pansy hadn't missed a single chance since then to remind Malfoy of the situation. Because Potter's gaze was just awful — loving for some reason, unable to hide his feelings, long and uninterrupted.
Draco wouldn't allow himself to do that.
Yes, he pressed his heated body into the sheets, but then whispered that he hated him. Yes, he kissed his plump, tired lips, but then squeezed his thighs until they were bruised and promised to leave him.
Harry was pissing him off. Sincerely, without giving him a chance to think about why.
Once, he'd made Malfoy so mad that he'd had to be fucking sedated — literally, a normal person would have been in the infirmary for five days after a tantrum like that. Draco had begged everyone to let him out a day early, and that night he was calming down in Harry's arms.
If Malfoy had realised at that moment that Potter should be sent away from him, he might not have even started smoking.
The boy leaned on the railing with one hand, holding the slowly extinguishing cigarette in the other. The palm of his hand felt icy cold, but Draco only grimaced and didn't bother to pull it away — it seemed to him that under the thin layer of his white skin the temperature had long since gone into the minus range.
Malfoy hated Potter.
He snapped at him, lashing out at him for every questionable word, every offended look.
After Harry had taken offence at him for making a joke about Hermione, Draco had taken offence at him in retaliation. And after the blond hadn't spoken to him in weeks, Potter couldn't take it any more. Took him dry, finally achieving the suppressed sobs and requests to stop.
Then they didn't speak for a month.
It was funny — yes, stupid, selfish, stupid, hurtful, the way only teenagers can behave — but funny nonetheless.
Malfoy had been huddled around Zabini then, and in the Great Hall he had begged himself not to turn back to the fire-coloured table. Because he knew he wouldn't be able to resist when he saw that look of love in his eyes. Harry was staring at him — and who wouldn't — and when Draco did turn around, he was looking at him not in love, but with guilt.
It looked silly. Malfoy looked away and sighed a full breath. He wasn't losing anything from it.
Pansy was a good kisser, by the way.
Cedric too, Harry said so.
The cigarette melted in Draco's hands. The greyish crumb burned his hand. Not good.
A cold wind chilled his palm as Malfoy shook it indifferently over the chasm. The boy stared intently at the ash. He wanted to melt into that air just as much.
Potter stood beside him and looked at the reddened area of Malfoy's hand.
Draco didn't love him.
Harry didn't love him either.