Violets (A Drarry FanFiction - Roses are Red, Violets are Blue Part 2)

Chapter Three

   The first few hours passed in a numb blur. Harry had collapsed onto the sofa, still warm from where Draco had been lying, and stared at the ceiling as his thoughts whirred like an angry bee hive. He hadn't meant to start the fight, he hadn't, but now it was done he couldn't bring himself to regret what he'd said.

He'd known that Draco was nervous about exposing themselves by coming out as a couple, but the fact he was still hanging on to this possibility of marrying someone just because his parents wanted him to? That was what left Harry feeling truly sick to his stomach.

He would come around, he insisted to himself. He had to. Everything they'd been through couldn't possibly just go up in smoke because of one argument. Draco would calm down and see sense, Harry had to believe that.

It was this that persuaded him off the couch a few hours later, by which time the sun was setting and the TV had had enough of being on pause for so long and turned itself off. Harry went to his spare room where his grouchy owl Mildred was sat on her perch. "You alright to take a message for me?" Harry asked, his voice hoarse and taut. She seemed to sense he wasn't his usual self, as all she did was scowl and stick her leg out. She didn't even try to bite him.

"Draco," Harry scrawled hastily. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to hurt you. I'm here when you're ready to talk."

He resisted adding any notes of love or affection beyond that, in case the message was intercepted. Despite his anger he meant what he said, he wouldn't out Draco against his will. He just had to hope his patience was enough.

Harry didn't receive a reply that evening, which he wasn't all that surprised by, but it lead to a fitful night's sleep. He would never consider not going into the office, but he couldn't help but wish he could have Sunday over as the alarm went off and dragged him out of bed.

Work was busy so kept his mind occupied. Ron asked once if he was feeling alright, but seemed satisfied with Harry's explanation of a headache. Since they had begun their relationship, Harry had only bumped into Draco twice at work; however that didn't stop him from jerking his head up hopefully every time someone walked past their door. He was being foolish. Draco needed more than a few hours to think about everything, he would just have to wait.

But as the week stretched out, Harry's anxiety became almost unmanageable. This was the longest they'd gone without talking to one another since the cottage, let along seeing each other. So come Thursday Harry found himself penning another note, urging Draco to get in touch so they could work things out.

They barely had any mutual friends and didn't work in the same area of London, so it was hardly surprising that another week went by and Harry had neither sight nor sound of the man he considered to be his boyfriend. Several more notes went un-replied to, and Harry threw himself into work, staying late in the evenings and putting extra effort into old cases he'd dismissed previously as unsolvable. Anything to keep his mind free from dwelling on sparkling grey eyes and soft blond hair.

His bed felt massive, and Harry taunted himself by sleeping on Draco's side in one of the t-shirts he'd left behind, even when it no longer smelled of him or his aftershave anymore. After another week he got into a bad habit of falling asleep on the couch in a bid to avoid that numb emptiness of waking up alone and bereft.

He forcibly limited the amount of notes he wrote, no more than three a week, no matter how bad it got. He kept telling himself, every time he let one fly with Mildred, that this might be the lucky one, that Draco would have had enough time to think by the time this one reached him.