The more I think about the female Malfoy idea, the less I think Harry and Malfoy should actually be “dating” during Hogwarts.
I think whatever is between them should mostly happen in glimpses, and mostly in private.
Publicly, they’re still Potter and Malfoy. They argue, insult each other, sit on opposite sides of the room, and Draca keeps falling back into the role she’s been raised to play.
But every once in a while Harry catches her alone and gets a completely different version of her.
She admits she’s scared. She isn’t sure what she believes anymore. Her family expects one thing, Dumbledore represents another, and Hogwarts has become more of a home to her than she wants to admit.
And eventually Harry realizes that when she says she feels torn between her family and Hogwarts, part of what she really means is that she’s torn between her family and him.
Harry being Harry, I think his first instinct would be to try to save her. He’d keep thinking that if he can just get through to her, she’ll finally choose the right side.
But she keeps disappointing him.
When things get dangerous, she chooses whatever keeps her and her family alive for another day. She retreats back to the Malfoys. She follows Voldemort when she’s terrified not to. She might tell Harry one thing in private and then act like she hates him again the next morning.
So Harry keeps feeling betrayed, while Malfoy knows that what she told him privately was real and hates herself for not being brave enough to act on it.
Eventually Harry has to learn something too: he can’t save her by wanting it badly enough.
He can give her a way out. He can care about her. He can understand why she’s afraid.
But she has to choose.
That’s why I like the version where she finally stands beside Harry against Voldemort during the last battle.
For years she can only admit what she really feels when nobody is watching.
Then, when everyone is watching, she finally makes the choice that might get her killed.
She doesn’t choose Harry instead of doing the right thing.
For the first time, they’re the same choice.
I think that’s the real quiet confession of love.
like the whole “Malfoid turns sides at the last second and her and Harry do a team blast somehow to beat Voldy” is such a goddamn upgrade in every single way, James and Lily’s live saved Harry, and Harry’s love should have killed Voldemort. We missed the back half of the parallel