A/N: This was very fun to write. I don't usually write fanfiction or romance but I love this pairing so much. And I have to say that while writing this, I feel like I've been influenced by Faith Wood and Maya a bit, who are a couple of my favourite fanfic authors, so that's no real surprise. I will be posting chapters regularly. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or these characters. No copyright infringement is intended.

"Draco's feelings for Harry were always based, in a great part, on envy." – Pottermore

Chapter 1

For years, Draco Malfoy had always thought that he wanted to be more like Potter. The 'famous Harry Potter,' 'The Boy Who Lived,' the one every child grew up hearing about. The one everyone knew and loved—or even loved to hate. He wanted to be that, but for the other side.

It was only until the war actually picked up that he realised how positively frightening that prospect was. He couldn't handle it, he couldn't kill Dumbledore and no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't be the Harry Potter of the Dark Side. When the war was over, Draco knew that wasn't what he wanted anymore.

But there was still something about Potter. Something that Draco had always longed for, something that he still feels with a burning intensity every time he looks at him.

It took seven years, but he finally realised just what that something was. Draco didn't want to be like him; he wanted to be with him.

As in holding hands being with him. As in dating and kissing and all the other unspeakable activities Draco wanted to do with Potter. Frankly, it was disturbing. He wished he could go back to being simply envious of Potter.

This troubling realisation might not have bothered Draco all that much, if he could just never see Potter again and try to forget about it. But, as Draco had come to expect lately, things haven't been going his way.

Ever since the start of the school year, Potter seemed to be everywhere. Popping up at random corners of the castle wherever Draco went. This happened in Sixth Year too, of course, but this time it was as though Potter wasn't even trying to hide it. Draco just couldn't catch a break, could he? The war was over and Potter was still suspicious of him being up to something? What more did he have to do? Cut his left arm off to be rid of the Dark Mark once and for all?

Potter would bump into him in the hallways, graze Draco with his arm before righting him again with his hand on Draco's shoulder. "Alright, Malfoy?" he'd say. Draco wondered what the poison Potter surely must have smeared on his robe was. Draco had checked several times, but the only thing he could ever trace was Potter's scent. Which, when Draco smelt it—a kind of cinnamon smell and something that was just so male and Potter—he wondered if that was the real poison after all. Maybe it was Amortentia, Draco thought dazedly.

Not only did Potter seem to touch him every chance he could get, but his eyes also appeared to follow Draco everywhere he went. It was like having the Borgin and Burkes shopkeeper eyeing you suspiciously, and even though you know you're not going to steal anything, just the very weight of the shopkeeper's stare has you acting all weird and making you seem even more of the criminal you aren't.

Because Draco wasn't a criminal. He was excused from his war crime trail, thank you very much. With the help of Potter, that is. After Draco apologised to him for everything he could apologise for. Which meant that Potter was both accusing him of being a criminal and attesting that he wasn't. Draco frowned. His thoughts tended to make less sense these days.

Potter was much more attractive than Mr. Borgin of course, which had the effect of making Draco all the more unnerved by his stare. But when Draco looked back at him, Potter would just smile.

Which was what he was doing right now as he took the seat next to Draco in Potions class. Draco, immersed in his thoughts of Potter, quickly looked around the room, wondering how this could be happening. Pansy had ditched him for Blaise, he saw. Weasley and Granger were sitting at a table of their own. And everyone else already had a partner.

"There's nowhere else for me sit," Potter said, as though Draco hadn't just seen that for himself.

Draco said nothing. Which was strange, considering he always had something to say to Potter. When had that ever changed? Just as he opened his mouth to finally say something, Professor Slughorn told the class to quiet down. Draco scowled.

"Take a good look at whoever you're sitting with, because that person will be your partner for the rest of the year!" Slughorn announced happily, quite in contrast with Draco's deepening scowl. Potter seemed to be on Slughorn's side, as he too, was smiling at Draco again.

Quit smiling at me.

Draco was so caught up in Potter's smile—he actually had a dimple if you looked hard enough, of course he had a bloody dimple—that he didn't listen to a word of Slughorn's instructions and was beginning to panic a little when everyone started to move around.

"We're to make a Hiccoughing Solution." Potter pointed to the board.

"I knew that," Draco snapped.

Potter shrugged. "You seemed to be in a world of your own." He gathered the ingredients and Draco snatched the Valerian Sprigs.

Slughorn passed their table. "I'm sure with Harry's help here, you'll be able to brew a better potion than you did in Sixth Year." He nodded to Draco before winking at Potter.

Draco clenched the sprigs in his fist. Potter jumped in. "Sir, you know I only did well because I had Snape's potions book," he said rather earnestly.

Slughorn's smile faded. "Now, Harry, I'm sure the potions genius is still in you somewhere!"

"I doubt it, sir."

Slughorn frowned then joined Weasley and Granger's table where Weasley seemed to be hiccoughing while Granger looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh.

"I knew it was too good to be true," Draco sneered.

Potter merely shrugged. "Guess we'll have to work hard together if we want to do well in this class." And then he smiled that dimpled smile again and Draco promptly forgot what they were talking about.

"It was horrible, Pans," Draco moaned later on in the evening. They were having dinner in the Great Hall. Draco had one hand propping his head up while the other moved the food on his plate with his fork. "He kept smiling at me."

"Remind me how that's horrible again?" Pansy was now serving herself a generous amount of jelly for dessert.

When Draco had confessed with the deepest of confidences to her of his crush on Potter, he assumed she would be as horrified as he was. Instead, Draco was treated to a reaction that was much the same as when he first told her he was gay. "Oh, I already knew that,"Pansy had said with a wave of her wand as though the issue was just a fly that could be waved off. For Draco though, the fly would come back every now and then, buzzing in his ear to continually torment him. But this whole Potter thing was an even bigger could only hope Pansy's reaction didn't mean that everyone else noticed how he drooled over Potter too. He couldn't live with the mortification.

"Because it's Potter. And he makes me act like an idiot."

"That's not anything new," Blaise injected, sitting across from Draco. Draco glowered at him.

"Maybe he likes you," Pansy said as though she were suggesting something as likely as it raining tomorrow when really she was suggesting a great hailstorm. A hailstorm that would never in a million years happen. Because other than rain, the weather was perfectly fine here. In fact, rain isn't bad weather at all. Rain is needed. Hailstorms, on the other hand—no matter how much Draco wanted them—would never happen here, and he refused to believe that they could.

"What are you mumbling about the weather for?" Blaise quirked an eyebrow.

Draco hadn't realised he'd said any of that aloud. "Nothing," he muttered. "The point is, you are out of your mind if you really believe that."

"I don't know why it's so hard to believe, Draco." She paused to feed herself a spoonful of jelly. "Last I heard, he and Ginny Weasley broke up."

"Yes, that certainly looks like they're no longer together," Draco said petulantly, nodding his head over at the Gryffindor table where Potter and the Weasley girl were chatting amicably.

Pansy rolled her eyes. "They're still friends. Like you and me." She grinned suddenly and Draco was reminded of the time he took her to the Yule Ball.

"Are you telling me that she was his beard this whole time?" Draco asked disbelievingly.

"No." She had another spoonful of jelly. "Not everyone is monosexual like you, Draco."

Draco was silent for a moment. Pansy was something like a sexuality expert, tossing around words like monosexual all the time. "Be that as it may, there is still no way he will ever feel that way about me."

"Merlin, you're so stubborn." She sighed but she knew she wasn't going to get to Draco, so she continued to eat her jelly in relative peace.

If Draco thought Potter's smile was bad, he should have foreseen how bad his laugh would be on Draco's sanity. It wasn't just the sound of it, or the way his eyes would light up, or the way he'd throw his head back sometimes, or the way he'd even slap his hand against something if whatever he was laughing about was particularly funny; it was all of that and more. Draco's favourite Potter Laugh was when his nose would crinkle just a bit. He tended to do that after someone teased him about something. It made him want to tease Potter himself.

About his nose, that is. Because it was stupid. Draco caught on to his own thoughts and reprimanded himself. This crush was getting out of hand, he just categorised a favourite laugh of Potter's, for Merlin's sake.

"So, listen."

Draco looked up to see Potter himself. He had turned around in his chair to face him and was smiling that dimpled smile while he had one arm on the back of his chair. Weasley and Granger did not seem concerned in the slightest that Potter was talking to him. They sat on either side of him, continuing to do their Transfigurations work. Of course Potter could get away with talking in class.

"The Eighth Years are having a little get together down by the Hog's Head," he whispered. "It was going to be the Three Broomsticks but I know you're banned there so I had them change it."

Draco raised his eyebrows. Potter was rubbing the back of his neck with his other hand uncertainly. The image was somehow ridiculously attractive. How can he be so attractive? Having messy hair like that should make one less attractive, not more so. But leave it to Potter to bend the rules like always.

"Everyone in our year is invited. So tell Parkinson and them." Potter waited for a response but Draco didn't give one. He hesitated before turning back in his chair.

"Potter!" Draco hissed. Potter turned to face him again. "What time?"

He smiled. "Nine. Sunday night."