I Think I Like Him

31. Those Words Left Unsaid

Word count: 1403

_____________________________

Harry was still in bed when the first letter arrived. Getting dressed, when the second came. In the common room, for both the third and fourth.

He had read half of the first one, incendio-ed it, seen the handwriting of the second and done the same. Then, for the rest, didn't even look up as he set them alight. They disappeared before they'd even hit the floor. The huge dark owl would give him evils each time; angry that all its work had been for nought; before swooping out the nearest window once more.

"I understand why you're angry, Harry." Hermione said as they were heading down to the great hall for breakfast, "But maybe you should read the letters." At his scowl, she quickly added, "Just to get some closure about the whole situation!"

Ron was the one to answer, "Harry doesn't need closure, he just needs to ignore the stupid prat. Don't you, mate?"

"Took the words right out my mouth," he said, dryly.

He felt a bit numb if he was honest. There was so much emotion thundering around him, that he could hardly pick one out from the next. As a result; he felt nothing at all. There was betrayal there, certainly. Sadness, at having another good thing taken away. Not in the same sense as something being lost. More... like a childhood memory pried from its rose tint; bathed in harsh reality.

There was a young couple that lived just a few houses down from the Dursleys. David and Rachael. They saw him on one of those long summer days; forced to weed the front garden in the blistering sun. They came and gave him some orange juice and a pack of Smarties; gold to any eight-year-old but especially Harry, who hadn't had any before. A few days later they walked past with their children. Two boys of just three, and eight months. They were the most picture-perfect family Harry had ever seen, and he had longed for that desperately.

He carried around the thought of them for years, until he heard Petunia talking about how they had divorced. He had been so jealous, but finding this out did not make him feel better.

Because even in the worst of times, that family reminded him that happiness was real. Achievable. Nearby, even.

It was that kind of sadness. He felt stupid but also wished he could be that stupid again because life is more bearable that way.

He covered all this up with anger, though. After all, he still had Sirius Black to worry about, so he couldn't stay in bed crying forever. He had to be brave. And if not brave, then angry would do. He supposed it always came back to that; Harry's burning rage.

...

He had a feeling that Harry wasn't reading the letters when Argos came back empty-handed for the fourth time. He was certain he wasn't when the dark owl nipped him when he tried to tie the seventeenth to his leg.

The letters began quite formally, the first reading;

Dear Harry,

I apologise for reading your journal. It was wrong of me and I regret it more than anything. It was just my childish way of getting back at you for punching me in front of my friends. Once I read it, I realised how awful I was and gave it back, but I understand that doesn't change anything. What I can say with the utmost sincerity, is that I have not lied about anything else since. Not in the hospital ward, not at Christmas and not any of the time spent in broom cupboards kissing you. I don't need your forgiveness, I only need you to understand that although I have done many nasty things over the last few years, I would never stoop this low. I'm sorry you have reason to question me on that.

But it was around the eighth that they got a bit more passionate.

Dearest Harry,

I've never felt like this about anyone before. Like you are the only important person in the room. You could be stood between the minister for magic, Merlin and a Veela, yet I'd never even blink away from you. Not for a second. I miss you so much. Your smile, your laugh. Your mouth. But most of all your eyes. I love how expressive they are. Bright and wide when you're happy. Even brighter when you're enraged. Recently, before you found out about the journal, they started going dark when you looked at me. Your pupils wide with a glowing ring of green around them. Looking at me through your eyelashes like I'm something worth looking at. I feel like I've been blind my whole life; deaf and blind. But now I can properly see the world, see you. And everything's different. And now I can't go back to how things were before. You mean too much to me.

As each letter was left unanswered, he became increasingly more desperate. The one that Argos wouldn't let him send, went;

Harry,

Please I can't keep doing this. What do I have to do to make it up to you? If I had a journal, I'd let you read it. You wouldn't read anything new anyway, I've already told you it all. Everything that matters, anyway. Just please tell me what to do. You're too important to lose Harry. I can't. Not now, after everything.

There were three words at the end that he scribbled out so harshly he tore the parchment, and bent his quill. He knew Harry wouldn't read it, but couldn't let himself put that regardless. Now was not the time, even if it ended up being the only time, he still wouldn't do it. It would stain the word, if he said it now. Harry wouldn't even believe it. Though Draco knew it was true. He had for a while, by then.

...

Ashes were pilled around him as he sat at the Gryffindor table, as he'd burned the last letter so violently, that it had exploded. The bright side to his ruined toast, however, was that it had singed the end of the owl's tail, and so he doubted he would let Draco send him again. Good.

Sometimes he'd worry he was being a bit harsh when he'd think of Draco in his dorm scribbling down apology after apology. And then he'd remember all the pain that he had caused him, over the diary. Over his entire time at Hogwarts, in fact, and he wouldn't worry anymore.

Hermione would frown every time he set a new letter alight, but Ron was doing an even better job of ignoring them than he was, and Harry was getting very good at it.

As he had hoped, they stopped after the letter explosion, but Draco still came to herbology. Still stared at him the entire time, practically unblinking, and then went on to do the same all the way through potions and history of magic.

There was an expression that Ron used sometimes; the spell that shattered the cauldron. Every time he felt the blonde look over at him, was another spell, and so when he eventually shattered in the hallway just after Professor Binns had dismissed them, it was no question why.

Draco was walking around six wand-lengths behind him. He wasn't doing anything, but Harry could hear the rhythm of his footfalls and something about that angered him. So, as one does, he whipped around, stomped up to him and shoved him over. His back hit the floor with a harsh thud.

"Leave me alone Malfoy." The words themselves weren't overly threatening, but the way he screamed them probably was. Draco shrunk in on himself below him. To everyone else, it looked like a relatively normal Potter-Malfoy interaction. But Harry could see how those crystal eyes shone with tears that Draco was either too proud or too scared to let spill.

He left him there, a small heap on the floor, and as though unfrozen, everyone else in the hallway carried on moving. He hadn't even noticed they'd stopped.

As Harry sat quietly with his friends, who intelligently did not address the incident, a painful thought crossed his mind, for just a second before he shoved it away again;

Would he ever find contentment like he'd found with Draco?