If This Is Love It Breaks My Heart

[Disclaimer] Characters belong to JK Rowling. No money is being made from this story.

I never took it very seriously: or at least that what I was telling myself day after day as I saw him. He was the fhairhaired dark horse. I knew he was troubled. I knew he was temperamental. But still as he grew and I grew I found myself listening to him more: snorting at his comments and smirking to myself.

One day I saw him notice my amusement and give me a smile in return. I closed my eyes and shook my head at him. He was a mess. A wealthy, spoiled brat and I knew tangling with him would bring me little other than trouble. And if I hadn\'t sussed that for myself, I was certainly warned away from plenty by Ron and Hermione. He was on the rebound. His relationship with Pansy had always been stormy, checkered. But this time it seemed like the break up was for real.

I kept a low profile as we snuck off to meet in closets, in the Room of Requirement, the Astronomy tower: whenever and wherever. We laughed at the other students. We mocked their pledges of allegiance to one another that were only to break days later. We walked down a road of debauchend pnd perversion and all the while I kept him at an emotional arm\'s length; too afraid that getting close to him would drag me down with him. Draco Malfoy was no good and this was practically stitched into his clothing. I could smell it on his supple pale skin. I tasted it on his lips each time we kissed.

When he wasn\'t around I thought about his lips, his cold steely gray eyes. I thought about how he held me, but most of all I thought about how he let me hold him. I thought about how he confessed his problems to me. I felt so helpless in his presence. He was intoxicating and he knew it. He knew how to control me, how to push me further and further from my friends. There wasn\'t one person that I liked that he did. I pretended to myself that my distance from my friends was a normal progression of an increasingly intimate relationship. That it was something acceptable. I gave into him time and time again, allowing him to tell off people I cared about and disallow me to talk to people I’d known for ages; feeling myself pushed further into him and away from myself.

I had never felt so close to someone before. I held him when he cried about losing his father and their fortune and swore never to tell. I held his secrets tightly and protectively to myself, wanting to take all of the parts of him he wanted to cast away tucked away within me. I took his weaknesses so he could be strong and above all-- though I resented it completely-- I fell in love with him. Not the proud crazy perverted man, but the small scared boy I wanted to protect who in turn wanted to shield me from classmates and accusing friends.

But a love like that must die.

His dark moods became more frequent and I wrote them off to impending examinations. Though we still saw each other frequently, the light that had been there when he looked at me was fading. And also his urge to hold me, to speak with me slowed and slacked. I tried to remain unmoved. I went into this always maintaining that we were just two boys sharing some laughs, some fun. We were kids, just playing and fucking and it was never to be serious. It was a fling. But clearly it had moved beyond that; and in my desperation to fill the void in me that our mental separation was causing, I took on new lovers.

They never lasted very long. I was never particularly interested in them. I didn\'t even want to make Draco jealous so much as I just wanted to reclaim the part of me that had been swallowed by his absence. Maybe I thought I\'d find it in another mate. Maybe I was just bored and angry at waiting around to be noticed and loved so intently again. I don\'t think I could explain it now or ever. It was what I did to cope.

I\'m not even sure when I realized that Draco hadn’t been going to his classes. In retrospect this was obvious. How could he have been as available as he was to me in the early days if he had been attending class? My worry for him grew and because of my vocalized concerns he pushed me further and further away. Further out of his life. After feeling so loved, so adored, so cherished, this was like a cold slap in the face.

And so I turned away from him. What else could I do? I brooded alone and studied, keeping my head down and tried to remain busy. I found new pursuits and rekindled my old friendships as best I could given what I’d done to them. But still, when he would pass by I would catch a whiff of his cologne or hear his voice through the corridor and my heart would leap for joy as my head pushed back the feelings of longing. He didn\'t want me. He didn\'t want my help. He for damn sure didn\'t want my worry. And so I trudged on.

When we did speak the fights had become more public and frequent. We would try to talk again, try to rebuild what we had only to have it crumble to pieces as a new friend I\'d made met with his disapproval and I would refuse to stop speaking with them. Or he would be feeling snappish and nag at my faults. My desire to please him and bend to his will waned under his cruel moods and I found myself arguing banal points with him, and undercutting his speech with snarky remarks of my own.

Finally the bitterness of his moods, his refusal to let me in any further got the better of me and I gave up. I just couldn\'t do it anymore. I\'d given all I could and my glee at his presence had turned to dread for how he would criticize me next. So many had seen our arguments and I was so caught up in them I did not realize how public it had all been until a third year started hanging around me more and chatting me up. I gave in with little coaxing from him and took him as a lover.

His pale skin and blue eyes so resembled my dear Draco. He didn\'t have the fire in him that Malfoy did, but what he did have was his love and need for me. He told me of how he\'d oved ved our fighting, of how he felt so much for me: of how he wanted to be held and loved as I had attempted to do with Draco. It was at once flattering and embarrassing. I felt like a battered spouse, that I had been putting up with it for so long that now I was deserving of pity. I was brokenhearted, though and I melted into it. I found myself telling this boy words I could never burden Draco with. \"I love you.\"

I recall now that I did say it in public to the boy. Maybe it was foolish but I was feeling loved and like my love was received and wanted in return. It wasn\'t quite the passion I\'d had with Malfoy but it was sweet and loving and it made me feel optimistic and contented. I felt more like myself. And more like I could be myself without fear of ridicule. And then Draco saw.

What he was most upset about was hard to tell. There was the usual ranting about the boy not being worthy of me. He tried again to pull me back in but I was stubborn. I just couldn\'t. I couldn\'t be sucked into it again. I had committed to loving this new boy and I wasn\'t giving him up at Malfoy\'s whim.

So instead, Draco bullied and wore the new boy d He He drove him away from me out of simple jealousy and spite. I railed at Malfoy. I begged him to tell me why he wouldn\'t let me be happy with someone new; especially when he clearly didn’t want me himself since he refused to touch me. But of course I got no response other than being called filthy names like “whore” or “slut” and “skank.” What could I say to that? I was none of those things; I was just a boy who wanted what we’d had back. But he refused to understand that and snubbed me entirely. And so again, I walked away. Againhearheart was broken, not just for Malfoy, but for myself. For how broken I am and for how much I know that still I need him.