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(Once upon a time, he had a happily ever after: it came in the form of a boy named Niall, whose hair was a fair shade of blond and vaguely reminiscent of sunshine, whose eyes were blue and brightly so, who pressed their hands together, palm to palm and finger to finger, and murmured in declaration, “I think you were made for me.”)
His parents offer him their condolences; so do Niall’s, after they’ve pulled themselves away from the casket. It’s all Harry can do to offer them smiles and pretend he’s all right.
There are two tulips in his hand. They’re red – Niall’s favorites – and they supposedly stand for reclamation of love, and when it’s his turn to walk up to the casket and face the lifeless truth in it, Harry can’t help but murmur, “Come back and reclaim yours, then.”
The dark, hand-shaped bruises on Niall’s neck have been covered by a white shroud, and Harry thinks he looks peaceful like this: innocent, untouched. He expects Niall’s eyes to open any moment now and for him to sit up and declare this all a joke – a very sick joke, but a joke nonetheless, and Harry would scowl at him one second and gather him into his arms the next.
He misses Niall already.
“Are you ready, Harry?” his mother asks behind him. Her hand is meant to be a comforting weight on his shoulder, but he does not truly feel it.
Outside of their village, the kingdom goes on with their lives, oblivious to the one lost today. Harry wants them all to know about the boy who was senselessly murdered, and at the same time, he wants to adorn Niall’s body in cloth and flowers and hide him away from the other brutalities of the world.
“I’m sorry,” he says to the casket, “that I couldn’t protect you.”
He lays down one of the tulips, tucks it between Niall’s fingers. It’s all he can offer.
“Come,” his mother says gently.
Harry lets himself be led away.
. . .
Their village is a small one, and his family’s cottage happens to be situated near the edges of it; that does not stop practically their entire population from dropping by. Most come to apologise – what for, Harry will never figure out – and others come to make sure he is faring well.
Niall’s mother and father are with them for the rest of the day. Harry excuses himself early, so that he doesn’t have to sit with them and listen to stories about Niall this, Niall that. He knows them all by heart; he’s lived through them all and sees them replay every time he closes his eyes.
They’re speaking about the murderer. A man has been apprehended, and come morning, there will be a trial, and they will know who was responsible for the death.
He goes up to his room only to grab his jacket. When he returns downstairs, his parents are still immersed in conversation, and Harry thinks he’s free to go until he turns and sees his sister there.
Her eyes land on the jacket draped around his shoulders. She looks unimpressed and weary.
“You can’t stop me,” Harry tells her. It’s not defiance, but promulgation.
“I know I can’t,” she accedes. She grabs his arm and forces his palm open, pressing a knife into his grip. “Take care of yourself, you hear me? One was enough.” Then she’s gone, before Harry can thank her for understanding.
Wrapping his jacket tighter around himself, Harry makes sure no one else notices before slipping through the back and shutting the door softly behind him.
. . .
The sun is a fading light in the horizon, already dipped halfway down. The wind is cool and rustles the fallen leaves on the ground, and Harry doesn’t think of autumn, but of Niall and how this was his favorite time of the year.
He walks along the village walls, holding the tulip loosely. The guards at their posts call to him and warn of rainfall, and Harry waves in acknowledgment and assurance that yes, he will be home soon.
The first droplet of rain comes not ten minutes later, when the sun has not even completely set yet. Harry is on the other side of the village, the one with the more dilapidated cottages, but he feels no sense of urgency; he tips his head back and welcomes the rain on his face.
He doesn’t know how long he stands there for, only that eventually someone is grabbing him by the arm and dragging him away. He shouts in protest, reaching for his knife, but then he’s tugged into the shelter of a house.
“Are you daft?” sneers the woman who saved him. Harry recognizes her as one of the healers – most certainly not a killer. She nudges the door shut, already slipping her cloak off and setting it by the fireplace. “A murderer still wanders, yet you offer yourself so openly.”
“The man’s been caught,” Harry mumbles, tucking the knife back into its sheath. “I do not think I’d care, anyway. Let him find me, and maybe I— I would—“ His fingers stutter on the hilt of the blade. He imagines how vengeance would taste.
“You are naught but a boy.” The woman disappears somewhere in the back, leaving Harry to take a seat by the fireplace. “A foolish one, at that,” she adds when she returns moments later, carrying a cup of steaming water. “Drink.”
Harry takes the wooden bowl into his hands, but makes no move to press it to his lips. The woman sighs and lowers herself next to him, so that they’re sharing the warmth of the fire. “He was dear to you,” she speculates.
“You could say that,” Harry allows. Niall liked the rain, he thinks. Once, they were ill for nearly a week after he dragged them out to the meadow, just so he could dance under heaven’s tears.
“Did you love him?” This time it is a question.
Harry looks down at the tulip instead of the woman, unfaltering when he answers, “Yes.”
“And did he know this?”
He closes his eyes. “Yes. I told him whenever I could, and he would brighten every time.” (Yet he did not tell him nearly enough times.) “I’d’ve captured the stars for him, I think. And the moon.”
The woman chuckles. “Would he have wanted them?”
Harry finds himself smiling a little, imagining Niall with an armful of stars. “No. Probably would’ve panicked and told me to put them back, lest we douse the whole world in darkness.” Niall was the type to care about things like that.
He exhales a breath he didn’t know he was holding, and this—this feels all right, he thinks. Talking helps.
“The red string of fate,” the woman muses, “connects two lovers together, so that no matter where or who they may be, they will always find their way back to each other.”
Harry is only half listening, staring intently down at the tulip and plucking one of its petals.
“Would you like to see him again, Harry?” the woman asks, and that’s when he looks up sharply, angrily, ready to call her out on her mocking. Her expression, though, is nothing but sincere.
“And what would you be able to do about it,” he says bitterly, tossing the petal off. It flutters in the air for a moment, before finally landing in the bowl of water.
“Something,” the woman replies softly. “Not much, but something, indeed.”
The water seems to illuminate underneath the petal, glowing a faint gold and becoming brighter by the second. Harry scrambles backwards in surprise as the light spills out of the bowl, and in the distance, he hears, “You have six chances, Harry,” before everything is consumed in light.
Outside, the rain patters on.
. . .
When he wakes, he is sitting on the throne.
“Straighten yourself out, boy!” someone barks, and the harsh thwack of a cane lands on his knee.
Harry straightens quickly, but the movement is too sudden and brings a rush of dizziness to his head. He clutches at his temples, groaning.
“Ten minutes of reprieve,” comes the same gruff voice. “When I return, you better have quitted yourself from this nonsense. Horan!”
At this, Harry peeks through his fingers.
“I know you’re hiding there. Bring His Majesty a cup of water, and ensure that he is ready to proceed with lessons.”
He lowers his hands from his face slowly, just in time to see the broad back of a man storm through a wide set of doors.
He is not in the old woman’s cottage anymore. The stones walls are covered in drapes, each one marked with the same symbol, but it can’t possibly be what Harry thinks it is, because that is the symbol of the royal crown—
He is in the throne room. More specifically, he is sitting on the throne, and when he realizes this, he practically flies out of the chair and ends up sprawling on the floor.
As if that isn’t enough, a soft voice inquires, “Harry?” and nearly scares him out of his skin a second time.
He looks up.
Niall stares down at him, blue eyes curious. He isn’t wearing those white robes, but instead a pale blue tunic and brown trousers. He’s got a goblet in his hand.
“Niall?” Harry utters.
“And I thought I was supposed to be the skittish one.” The boy rolls his eyes, just like Niall would do, and extends a hand towards him. “C’mon, you’re starting to look less princely and more…idiotic,” he says dryly, and there’s a smile teasing his lips.
This is Niall and—
(Harry takes his hand.)
–he’s real.
“This is the second time Paul’s caught me now,” Niall is saying, brushing invisible specks of dust from Harry’s suit. “I think we should resort to meeting after your lessons, or the man really will pop a vein.”
“Let him,” Harry says heedlessly, and then he’s leaning in and pressing their lips together.
The goblet clatters to the floor and Niall is frozen against him, but slowly, the boy relaxes and kisses him back.
There’s something wet sliding down his cheeks. Niall pulls away first, brushing his knuckles across his eyes, and he comments quietly, “You’re crying.”
“I thought you dead.” Harry keeps him close, doesn’t dare relinquish his grip nor even blink, in fear that Niall will disappear if he does. “I saw you in the casket, and your eyes were closed and you wouldn’t wake up—“
“Harry.” Niall cups his cheek carefully. “You’re scaring me.”
Harry stares down at him, dumbfounded.
“Ah, you made me drop the water.” Niall ducks out from under his arms to kneel down and grab the fallen goblet. “You dropped this, too,” he says, and he holds out a red tulip, damp from the spill.
Harry accepts it numbly. A split second after it leaves Niall’s hand, a petal comes unattached and floats to the floor. By the time it hits the ground, it’s already glowing.
“Reclamation of love, isn’t that what it means,” Niall says amusedly, straightening up.
The light swallows them whole before Harry can answer him.
. . .
(You have six chances.)
. . .
The tulip is in his hand when he wakes.
He isn’t in the throne room anymore, but he isn’t back in the woman’s cottage either. He’s in some circular bedroom, where there are four other empty beds. The room is decorated in reds and some gold, and there is a large banner above the door that bears the face of a roaring lion.
There’s a window to his right, and by the looks of it, the sun is just rising.
His head is throbbing again.
Harry slips off the bed and lands on socked feet, using a free hand to steady himself on the wall. Not too long after this, he hears the unmistakable creak of a door opening.
“Hello?” someone calls, and he knows that voice.
The door opens wider, and Niall rushes inside in a flurry of black and gold robes. “You overslept already,” he accuses, throwing himself on the bed and nearly landing on Harry. “You said we’d meet up for breakfast!”
Harry fiddles with the sleeves of his night shirt, untrusting of himself to say anything.
The boy is Niall, but he’s not wearing servant’s clothing anymore; he has a black cloak hanging around his small frame, the front emblazoned with the symbol of a badger.
“I’m sorry,” Harry says, even if he’s not entirely sure what he’s saying sorry for. He reaches out to Niall with one hand, the tulip clutched tightly in his other.
(He thinks he knows what’s happening now. It’s maddening and terrifying and wonderful at the same time.)
“Better be,” Niall grouses, taking his hand and sitting up on the bed. “We could still catch breakfast before morning classes start. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Harry chuckles before he can help himself. “Breakfast, then,” he says, brushing off the last jittery sense of uncertainty.
Niall’s smile is blinding as he leads Harry out of the bedroom and into an even bigger hallway. He’s saying something about owls, but Harry’s too busy looking down at their joined hands and wondering when he’ll get pinched and this dream will end.
“By the way,” Niall says, propping a door open for him, “what’s with the flower?” It becomes a little hard to hear him; the dining hall is alive with conversation, and opening the door lets the voices carry out into the hallway.
Harry realizes that he still has it squeezed between his fingers, a little too harshly.
Niall turns away, sheepish suddenly, and Harry thinks he catches a glimpse of a blush. “Someone finally caught your eye?” he asks, and it occurs to Harry that maybe, in this universe, Niall doesn’t know.
(It’s unacceptable.)
“It’s a tulip,” he answers slowly, tugging Niall back before the other boy can take a step further away. He finds his hand and laces their fingers together so that they’re both holding the tulip, and Niall is beautiful like this, looking at him with widened eyes and cheeks flushed. “It means reclamation of love, and it’s for you.”
“For me,” Niall repeats dubiously.
“For you,” Harry says, and he kisses him.
The hallway goes eerily quiet. He’s vaguely aware of the door still open and the hundreds of pairs of eyes gawping at them, but he doesn’t care; let them see, he thinks. Let them know that Niall is loved.
A burst of tiny fireworks go off over their heads, and Harry pulls back as they’re showered with harmless flecks of gold and red.
“You owe me five galleons,” someone stage whispers.
Niall lowers his head, the blush on his cheeks growing more prominent by the second. Harry slips an arm around his waist and leads them into the dining hall. He remembers the first time he and Niall told the truth about their relationship and the weeks of disdainful stares that ensued, but no one is looking at them with disgust. They look awed, if not unsurprised.
Four long tables run the length of the hall, and Niall pulls them over to some vacant seats in front of two other boys. “Took long enough,” is the greeting they receive when they sit down.
“Shut up, Louis,” Niall huffs, flicking a piece of bread at the boy who spoke, the one with blue eyes like Niall except sharper, more mischievous.
It occurs to Harry again that in these universes, it isn’t just them – that they don’t all take place in the small, sleepy setting of their village, that Niall has other people, other friends, others who aren’t Harry that he could end up being.
(That’s unacceptable, too. His arm tightens around Niall slightly.)
“Oh, is that how you confessed?” Harry doesn’t realize he’s the one being addressed until Louis is reaching and snatching the tulip out of his hand. “Sickeningly cheesy. I approve.”
Annoyed, Harry leans over the table, grabbing for the flower. “Give it back,” he demands, despite the infuriating smirk plastered on the other boy’s face.
“Lou,” Niall says tiredly, but he goes unheard.
“You’ll have to reach a little further than that—“
Harry feels his hand brush roughly against the bud, and he watches with gritted teeth as a third petal is torn off and sent careening through the air. It’s landing in one of the goblets before he can stop it.
Instantly, anger flares. The whole table jolts as he slams his fist down and growls, “What the hell did you do that for,” glaring daggers at Louis and wishing that looks could kill so that he would just drop dead.
Niall tugs him back down, pretty face creased in a concerned frown, and Harry does sit back for his sake. “It’s fine, Harry,” he says in between sending Louis harsh looks. “Most of it’s still intact, see.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Harry drops his elbows heavily on the table and buries his head in his hands. “Doesn’t fucking matter now.”
He thinks he would have liked this one, could have come to learn about this world’s quirks and oddities, and yes, it would have been hard, but he would’ve had Niall. Niall makes anything worth it.
No one else notices the bright glow. Harry is gone in the next second – no one notices that, too.
. . .
He opens his eyes and almost falls over.
This room is lit brightly by a chandelier, the music filled with the soft sounds of a piano. He has traded in his robes for a dark suit with a matching mask. Bewildered, he pulls the mask off and recognizes it as one of the masquerade masks: black and maroon around the edges, little triangles dotting the corners of the eyeholes.
Someone sidles up next to him and jabs an elbow into his side. “What do you think you’re doing, Joker?” asks the woman, shooting him a cordial smile that doesn’t match her tone. “Put the damn mask back on before anyone sees you.”
Harry acquiesces, though not without giving her a wary look.
“Last mission before we get home,” she continues to berate, adjusting the lapels of his jacket. The tulip is tucked into his front pocket. “Just try to find the target, get a good recording, and don’t fuck anything up.”
She pushes him towards the loosely gathered crowd of people in the middle, and he lands somewhere in the middle. He’s surrounded by a sea of masked faces and it makes him dizzier than the transition did. He stumbles back and bumps into someone.
“Excuse me,” says the stranger, in his gray suit and silver mask that looks like it was scratched by a wolf’s claw. His eyes are blue.
“Niall?” Harry manages.
The stranger pulls away, leaving Harry’s arms empty. “Sorry, you’ve got the wrong guy,” he says with a sweet smile.
Instinct tells him to follow, and that’s what he does: Harry barely remembers to excuse himself through the sea of partygoers, keeping that blond head of hair in sight until he sees Niall duck into another room. Harry steps in without hesitation.
“Niall,” he says, shakily.
They’re in a kitchen of sorts, and Niall is on the other side, tugging his mask off. He curses when he sees Harry standing there. “What the hell are you doing here?” he snaps. His voice is cold and it sounds unnatural on him.
But the uncertainty is evident in his actions; Harry notes the tension in his jaw and the way his eyes flicker back and forth between him and the doorway. “It’s me,” he says by some attempt to placate.
“I know it’s you,” Niall hisses in return. He pulls something out from behind him and wields it, a sleek, shiny thing with a trigger. “I asked you what you were doing.”
Harry keeps his arms by his head and chances another step forward. “Niall, listen to me,” he says slowly, only to be cut off by a tiny beeping.
Niall’s eyes fly wide. “What is that?”
Harry has no answer for him, but he does reach into his pocket and take out the black device. It is small and simple looking, with a single red light that flashes on and off.
“I’m the fucking target?” Niall snarls. He takes one step towards Harry and doesn’t get any closer than that.
An explosion rocks the ground and sends the expensive plates and utensils clattering to the floor. Niall loses his balance, tipping into the counter and his weapon flying out of his hands. (It hits the floor too and lets out a loud shot, one that elicits a round of terrified screaming from the party outside.)
Harry is at his side in an instant, grabbing his arm and slinging it around his shoulder. “Are you okay?” he asks roughly, pulling the other boy up with him.
His ears are ringing.
“I’m sorry,” he hears Niall say.
Then the smaller boy is twisting backwards out of his grip, bringing his arm with him, guiding it through a full circle, and pressing forward until pain screams up his limb and Harry crumples to the floor, tears prickling at his eyes.
Niall releases him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers again, “for the record. Not just about this, but everything else, y’know? Whatever I fucked up between us.”
Harry’s vision is swimming. He is barely aware of the chaos still erupting around them, marked by a second explosion just seconds after. He looks up at Niall, whose eyes aren’t quite as bright and perhaps…regretful.
“I think I would’ve liked to try again.”
Harry pushes himself up to his elbows, but Niall puts a gentle hand over his chest and keeps him still. He has the thing in his hand again – a fucking gun – and he’s got it nudged against Harry’s chest. “Nice flower,” he comments off-handedly. “Means something about love, doesn’t it.”
“Tulip,” Harry manages.
Niall smiles. “You would know,” he says softly, and he leans down and kisses Harry’s cheek at the same time he pulls the trigger.
Blood soaks the front of his jacket.
. . .
This transition is the easiest one.
Harry opens his eyes blearily, and he’s not on the ground anymore; he’s sitting in a desk, surrounded by books and papers and glass beakers. Above him twirls a mobile of the earth and the moon.
The first thing he does is touch his chest and release a shaky breath when he finds that the blood is gone; the tulip is nowhere to be found and he’s sort of glad for it. The last bits of adrenaline have yet to wear off, and he tries to calm his heart by closing his eyes, but he only sees Niall pulling the trigger, and then Niall lying there, unmoving.
(Means something about love, doesn’t it.)
He sits up at the sound of someone joining him, and no, he isn’t surprised when he sees a blond boy enter the room.
At first, it doesn’t seem like that, but Harry quickly realizes that it’s still Niall. He’s wearing a strange yellow shirt with the word Eagles printed across the front, and he has one bag slung over his shoulder and an armful of books. A pair of black frames is perched on his nose, partially covering his bright blue eyes.
“I…uh, you wanted to see me?” he asks.
Harry doesn’t think he’s heard him sound so shy before. He motions for Niall to come closer, pushing some of the beakers out of the way.
“If this is about homework again,” Niall grumbles, making his way over, “I told you I can’t do it today. I’m meeting Liam after school.”
“Who’s Liam?” Harry blurts.
“Liam. My friend.” Niall looks at him like he’s been affronted, but he shakes his head and seems to brush it off. “Look, just tell me what you want, yeah? There’s a class coming in here soon, and the last thing I want is to get caught.” He sounds borderline annoyed.
Harry gestures for him to move even closer, saying a silent thank you when Niall drops his books and complies, albeit with a sigh.
“What?” the boy asks, and when he’s close enough, Harry wraps his arms around his middle and pulls him in the rest of the way, so that his head is right over his heart and he can feel it, thrumming and alive.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles thickly. “I’m sorry we fought. I’m sorry I let you go alone. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to protect you, I’m so sorry—“
Niall manages to pry his arms off and take a step back, looking lost. “What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean any of it,” Harry says desperately, and he needs Niall to understand this, even if he’s not the right one. “I love you.”
Those words make Niall flinch. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” his voice is shaky as he gathers his books back into his arms, “but I need to go, and— You need help, Harry.” He hefts his things off the table and the action sends a beaker falling over, spilling and skittering across the surface of the table, and only then does Harry see the tulip lying there.
He lurches out of his seat and calls after Niall, tells him to stop and wait and listen, but Niall’s hurrying out of the door and the flower is glowing—
(This transition is the hardest one.)
. . .
Darkness fades into light.
Consciousness returns and he’s sitting next to a white bed in a white room, surrounded by white, white, white. There’s a boy lying under the sheets and it’s Niall and he’s not moving.
He has a serene expression on his face, clear of the confusion and horror that had marred his features when he heard those three words. But Harry can’t be bothered with relief; he rises out of the chair and reaches for Niall’s hand. He says his name once, twice, and receives no answer. (He thinks he already knows what this one is.)
(It does not stop him from plucking the tulip out of a glass vase and pressing it into Niall’s hand, to make it look like he’s holding it.)
(He doesn’t understand. This one is too similar to his reality.)
“Hey, Niall,” he says softly. “You aren’t going to waste the day away sleeping, are you?”
He remembers how Niall would fluster whenever Harry kissed him awake. He would complain about it, but there was always something in his eyes like adoration that convinced Harry— perhaps he didn’t mind at all.
He kisses Niall, and Niall’s lips are cold.
He doesn’t feel the tear sliding down his cheek, doesn’t notice when it hits the petal and sends gold encroaching red.
This transition is the most painful.
. . .
Harry wakes, and he does not want to do this anymore.
Six chances, she’d said. He can’t remember what this one is, but he doesn’t want to be reminded of what he used to have, could have had, only for it to be snatched away at the last second. Fatigue is settled heavy in his bones and he wants to be yanked out of this lurid dream.
He wakes, and there is a sea of cheering people. The noise makes his head throb even more, and the tell-tale remnants of tears are gone, but his eyes feel raw. He doesn’t know what world this is, nor does he want to know; he wants to go back to his own.
This is the setting: a giant stage of sorts, illuminated by show lights and backed by things that flash dizzying patterns. Someone is singing, “…though it makes no sense to me.“
The cheering dies down then, and although he can only see a few feet in front of the stage, he can feel thousands of eyes on him. There are three other boys on the other side of the stage, and Harry stares, trying to decipher what they’re mouthing at him for.
The tulip is still in his hand.
“You still have to squeeze into your jeans, but you’re perfect to me.”
The voice, soft and sweet and unmistakably Niall’s, makes him look up just in time to see the blond taking a seat next to him, a guitar in his lap. “I won’t let these little things slip out of my mouth, but if it’s true,” he continues with a nod, like he’s trying to get Harry to sing with him, but Harry can’t, because he doesn’t know these words—or anything else, for that matter.
He looks down at the tulip and, without thinking, tears it apart and drops it to the floor and grabs Niall by the front of his shirt and kisses him, letting the words, “It’s you, oh, it’s you they add up to—“ die on his tongue.
Reclamation of love, he thinks.
Their audience erupts into another bout of loud cheers, to the point where Harry’s ears start ringing and he barely registers the sound of several microphones being dropped. He doesn’t care.
“I’m in love with you,” he utters, and something feels right about saying them. If he had enough breath to say one last thing, he thinks, it would be those words.
Niall does nothing but stare for a few moments, his eyes unreadable, and then slowly, furtively, he leans in and kisses him back.
(Harry doesn’t spare the fallen tulip a glance, instead just waiting for the light to come and take him away.)
(It doesn’t. Ten seconds of his heartbeat later, Niall is still there, still kissing him, and there’s a thrilling, terrifying thought settling in the back of his mind—)
. . .
—and this is it. He’s found the right one.
(Reclamation of love, Harry thinks. This is me reclaiming mine.)