Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Louis likes being fourteen. Fourteen means he can go out with his friends without his mum coming along, it means he can go for sleepovers at Liam’s place or Zayn’s , it means he doesn’t have to go back home before it gets dark. It also means he is in his second year of secondary school.

Six months into his school year he decides he likes it; not school per se, - who likes doing school work anyway? – but the school is a lot bigger, there were a lot of new people who he’s made friend with, though of course Liam and Zayn are still his closest friends, and he thinks its just exciting, not being in primary school anymore. It’s even better now, when he’s not in the youngest group at school anymore.

Today is Saturday, the first day of their half-term holiday and Louis is meeting up with Liam and Zayn at the park. He takes his skateboard with him shouting an ‘I’m going mum’, so loud that she can’t possibly have missed it even with all the noise the girls are making. He makes quick work of getting there with his skateboard, even if he does come close to running into a few people who shout words angrily at him, the type of words that should shock and intimidate him but don’t really because he’s not in primary school anymore and he’s used to hearing them from older students.

Liam and Zayn are already there when he arrives and he quickly chucks the skateboard away, eager to play some footie with his friends, though it’s more of kicking a ball around than playing footie, what with them only being a group of three. Louis will have to make sure to invite some more of his friends from school next time.
“What took you so long anyway?” Liam asks, kicking the ball towards Zayn.
Louis shrugs, there’s no specific reason really, he’s just incapable of ever being on time for anything.

When they tire of playing, they lay around on the grass, sweaty regardless of the temperature which can’t be over six or seven degrees. They figure it will help them cool off, so they stick around for a while.

Louis looks around, distracted, and can’t help but notice a boy seating on a bench about ten meters away. There are lots of benches at the park, but the boy is seating on the one that is just next to the playground where little kids are playing with their parents watching them. What is funny about the boy is that he is looking at them, watching. Louis thinks he recognises him, is sure he’s seen the boy around a few times on the street, guesses he probably lives close by. He also knows that every time he’s seen this boy he’d been alone, just like he was now. He shrugs it off; he’s probably one of those weird kids who have no friends.

When his teeth start chattering from the cold Liam decides they should go, so the boys pick up their discarded jackets and bundle up in their scarves and gloves and set off on their way after agreeing to meet up again the next day.

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Louis has nine days in total to do the half-term homework they were set, but keeps putting it off in order to go meet up with his friends, or just do about anything really, you know, except for homework.

On the last Saturday of their break he goes to the park again, with Liam this time, Zayn having left to spend the day at a relative’s house, which is something Louis’ family almost never do, not being close with the rest of his relatives. It doesn’t bother him, from what Zayn tells him there’s always a bunch of little kids running around screaming and crying, and no matter how much Louis loves his little sisters he has enough of that at home.

“I shouldn’t be here” Liam says, he seems a bit flustered and all Louis can do is roll his eyes.
“I haven’t done my homework yet.” Oh yes, and there it is, the guilty face.
“So?” He kicks the ball back at Liam “I haven’t either.”
“Yeah, but that’s you” He says it as if it explains everything. Louis supposes it does.
“How come you haven’t done it yet anyway? It’s usually the first thing you do.”
“Do you even have to ask?”
Louis looks at him confused.
“It’s your fault!”
“How is it my fault?” He feels a bit affronted now.
“Well, you keep coming up with things for us to do everyday and now I haven’t had time to do any of it and I only have one day left and I’ll never have time to finish it all” He seems to just freak out more the longer he keeps talking.
“Liam calm down! Gee, if you’re so scared about it then just go home and do it!”
“I’m not scared” he scowls.
“Yeah, yeah whatever. Just go alright? Before you end up giving me white hairs or something”
“Sorry. Fine. I’ll just… You’ll be alright?”
Another roll of eyes.
“Yes Liam” he sighs.
“Well… okay then, I’ll see you on Monday yeah?” he turns around and is gone before Louis can answer. That boy and his homework, Louis shakes his head. He thinks he’ll never understand it.

He goes back to playing around with his ball, but he get bored soon, doesn’t really like playing alone. He picks up his ball, intending to go home but his eyes fall on a boy sitting across from him. It’s that boy again, the one with the messy, shaggy hair that he never sees with anyone else; and he’s watching him again.

Louis huffs angrily and starts off on his direction. He can see, even from where he is the boy’s eyes widening in surprise. He stops once he’s a few feet away from the boy and crosses his arms.
“Why do you keep watching me?” He asks, voice sounding harsher than necessary, but the boy only shrugs his shoulders in response. Louis is not taking it.
“Well?”
He sees the boys’ cheeks turning red, and he looks down at the ground before looking back up at Louis who’s still waiting for an answer.
“I like you” the boy says simply leaving Louis both confused and embarrassed.
“What? You can’t like me.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why can’t I like you?” Louis looks at him with wide eyes, thinking that this is definitely not what he was expecting from this conversation.
“Because. You’re not supposed to. You don’t even know me!”
The boy looks down at the ground again, ashamed; shuffling his feet that just barely seem to reach the ground and Louis can’t help but take pity on him.
“How old are you anyway?” He thinks the boy can’t be any older than ten with his chubby cheeks and features that are too big for his face.
“Twelve” he says and Louis scoffs impatiently.
“Yeah right.”
“I am!”
“Whatever.” Louis turns back around, walking away from the boy. He feels quite cold and wonders whether his mum will be in a good mood when he gets home and make him some hot chocolate, or tea. Louis likes tea.

He is aware as he walks that there is someone walking behind him, but it’s only when he turns a corner into the narrow alleyway that leads out of the park that he sees in his peripheral vision the same boy from before, skipping and humming happily as he looks at his own feet. Louis shakes his head, sure that the boy can’t be twelve, but he halts and waits until the boy looks up again.
“Are you following me?”
“…No?”
“You are!” Louis says, accusingly.
“I’m not!”
Louis rolls his eyes.
“Where’s your mum anyway?” Louis knows that if one of the girls walked out of his mum’s sight when they were out that she’d definitely be freaking out.
“Home” Louis frowns.
“She doesn’t mind you going out by yourself?”
“Of course not. I’m twelve!” he sounds a bit indignant now, it’s quite amusing.
“Right.” Louis nods along, “just stop following me okay?”
“Okay” he says meekly.
Louis nods again, satisfied. He thinks of Liam’s and Zayn’s faces when he tells them that he had a ten year old following him around. Chuckling to himself he doesn’t notice or hear the light sounds of footsteps that are not his.
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He doesn’t see the boy again, too busy running around with his friends or being forced by his mum to go revise for his exams. She’s promised him he can have the mobile phone he’s been pestering her about for months if he gets good results. He also has to choose his GCSE subjects, a matter Liam seems to take very seriously.
“I can’t choose!” he cries out one day at school. Louis and Zayn just look at him amused.
“How can they expect us to choose only four out of all of these?” They laugh at him, not only Louis and Zayn but the others who are sitting around the table. It’s not malicious laughter. Though Liam is by far the most studious guy in their group, he is also kind of endearing and just about nice to everyone, so no one ever picks on him for it, instead just tease him playfully.
“Calm down Li, it’s fine just choose the ones you like the most.” Zayn tells him.
“Have you guys decided yet?” Liam asks.
“Yep, I crossed out the ones I didn’t want and then closed my eyes and picked four” Stan says.
Louis grins, the others laughing around him.
“That’s an excellent idea!” He praises, taking out his wrinkled form from the bottom of his bag. He’s already chosen music and drama, so he has only two more to choose from. He closes his eyes and starts picking though his finger seems to always end up in one of those subjects he is certain he doesn’t want to spend two years doing, so he has to do it a few times. He ends up with P.E and Spanish, and shrugs, thinking it could be worse, so he ticks them and fills in his name and everything else he needs to at the top, while the others keep talking around him.
“Done!” He shouts, accomplished.
“So, what are you doing?” They ask curious.
“Music, Spanish, P.E and Drama” He recites.
“Really? Spanish?” Zayn sounds doubtful.
“P.E? I’m thinking about taking that one” Liam muses.
“Could be worse” Stan agrees.
“Yeah, but Spanish?” Zayn is still sceptical, and Louis doesn’t blame him.
“Yeah, you suck at accents, let alone another language.” Cher agrees.
Louis rolls his eyes.
“It’s my fate to study – or not – Spanish, so I shall do it.” He says, solemn.
They roll their eyes, snickering, but let the subject drop.

When he tells his mum, she’s really just happy that he’s finally decided on something.
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The summer holidays start on the 22nd of July, which Louis thinks is unfair because summer is half gone by then already, but he is just happy about not having to wake up at 7:30AM everyday.

He’s walking down his neighbourhood towards the nearest shop, one of those small ones that are always open. His mum asked him to go get some more milk and he just took it as an excuse to get out of the house, because it was blistering hot in there.

He’s about two roads down his house when he catches sight of that boy from the park, he is on the other side of the road, thankfully, standing next to a bike much too big for him, he sees the boy drop the bike on the small, grassy front garden before running inside the house.

Louis can’t help but feel a bit silly for thinking the boy was following him all those months ago, when he really just lived close to Louis’ house.
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Louis sighs, bored. His mum asked him to take the twins to the park today and she didn’t even let him take his ball or video game with him, saying that he’d probably get distracted and forget to watch the girls. So there he is sitting at the bench right next to the playground, hoping those noisy birds will keep away from him and wishing he had his mobile already so at least he could text his friends or something.

He jumps when a pigeon lands a bit too close to him, and watches suspiciously as it starts to waddle away, until it’s next to a boy sitting down criss- cross on the glass. He’s seen him so many times by now that he recognises the boy immediately. He’s looking down at the bird interested, while messily licking away at an ice-cream that is melting all over his hand.

Unfortunately, or so Louis thinks, the boy looks up, catching his gaze, eyes widening before he gets up and starts walking towards Louis, who only sighs resignedly.

He watches as the boy hops up onto the bench next to him before saying a cheery “Hi”.
Louis mumbles another “Hi” back, wishing he could just ignore the boy.
“What are you doing here by yourself?” He asks, leaning forward to catch a look at Louis.
“I’m watching my little sisters.”
“Oh.” He pauses, “Are you okay?” he asks leaning forwards a bit further so that he ends up loosing his balance. Louis instinctively reaches out for him, to stop the boy from falling on his face.
“Jesus! Be careful would you?” Louis snaps at him.
“Sorry” the boy says sadly, before looking down at the ground where the ice-cream he wasn’t able to save is. Louis sighs.
“What’s your name?”
The boy looks up again, smiling; ice-cream forgotten.
“Harry!” Louis chuckles at the boy’s enthusiasm.
“I’m Louis.”
The boy – Harry grins wider, dimples appearing on the chubby, rosy cheeks that Louis can’t help but feel jealous of. He’s only been a teenager for two years but he’s already tired of having spots and pimples everywhere on his face.
They go silent then and Louis wonders how much longer he’ll have to stay here.
“What’s your school like?” Harry asks after a while. Louis looks at him sideways.
“Why do you ask?”
“I’m going there in September.” Louis frowns.
“How do you even know what school I go to?”
“I’ve seen you.” He blushes. And, of course he has, Louis thinks.
“You’re starting year eight then?”
Harry nods excitedly, and Louis mentally winces. Harry barely looks older than eleven now, and secondary school is tough. It wasn’t for Louis of course, because he’s loud and funny and he made friends faster than Liam could work out maths equations, and people just like him, but secondary school was filled with students up to the age of eighteen, and as usual the big kids just loved to pick on the smaller, wimpy looking ones like Harry, and he’d seen a fair share of them getting mocked and pushed around at school and all he can think is: poor Harry.
“Good luck then.” Louis mutters, knowing he’ll need it.
“Thanks!”
Obviously Harry doesn’t realise the problem, and no matter how annoyed he gets with the kid he can’t help it. Just. Poor Harry.
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First day back at school is a drag as usual, it’s the same thing over and over again with teachers explaining everything they’ll be doing for the next two years and what the course consists of and blah, blah, blah and Louis just wants to sleep because he definitely got his sleeping pattern all mixed up during the summer and waking up this morning was just about the hardest thing he’s ever done.

He is lucky though, he admits to himself at the end of the day, because at least he’s in the same group as Liam, Zayn and Stan for English, Maths and Science which are obligatory, the same for Ethics, R.E and Games, and he has enough friends that he’s always with someone he knows on his chosen subjects, also having Zayn in his music lesson and Liam with him in P.E.

All in all it could be a lot worse.
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It’s a few weeks into school when he sees Harry, he’s just coming out of the English room, watching the floor as he always seems to be doing, shoulders hunched, and Louis know immediately that he’s had a few rough weeks at school already.

When he sees Louis though, he seems to forget about it, lips stretching out in a smile as he bounds his way up to him.
“Hi Louis!” Louis looks at him amusedly, can see at the edge of his eyesight both Liam and Zayn gaping at the kid.
“Hey Harry” Louis watches as he bounces on the balls of his feet grinning up at him, but apparently he dwindles too long and the English teacher, Miss Elliot comes out of the classroom telling Harry to “Hurry up now or you’ll be late for your next class.” Harry looks down, subsided once again.
“Sorry Miss” he mumbles before hurrying away.
“Who’s that?” Liam asks him curiously as they walk in to take their places.
“Some kid who apparently ‘likes me’.” He tell them, plopping himself down on his seat.
“He likes you?” Zayn sounds amused, Liam just looks surprised.
“Apparently.” He waves over Stan who’s just walked in.
“That’s weird.”
“He’s fine.” Louis says, “Weird. But fine.”
“Who’s weird?” Stan asks once he’s close enough to hear the conversation.
“No one” Louis shrugs and they turn around once the teachers calls their attention so that they can pretend to listen while Liam takes all the notes.
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He gets used to seeing a lot of Harry after that, not just him either, everybody pretty much gets used to the sigh of the lonely boy following him around. His friends don’t even blink anymore at the fact that wherever they decide to sit during lunch the curly haired boy is always, always in sight of them or, you know, the other way around. His friends find it funny, usually referring to the boy as his “pet”.

After a few months it starts to grate on Louis’ nerves, though Harry never really approaches him when he’s with his friends, he’s always just a step behind, saying hi to him every time they pass by each other on the corridors. It doesn’t matter how sad or sulky the boy is every time he sees Louis and gets a “hi” back his face always stretches out in a smile so wide Louis thinks it must be painful.

One day, Louis snaps. He finds him during lunch – not of course, that he had to look for him, he was always there.
“Harry.” Louis starts, sitting down at the table where Harry is sitting by himself.
“Louis!” Harry says happily, unplugging his earphones.
“Erm, hi.” He really wants to be firmer, harsher so he’ll finally get his point across, but Harry’s reaction to him is a bit disarming, he admits to himself.
“Look Harry, we have to talk.”
“About what?” He asks innocently. Does he really not know?
“You’ve been following me.”
“I haven’t.” The boy shakes his head.
“You have.” Louis says, annoyed at his denial, when it’s so obvious to him and everyone else in school, that yes, he has.
“’M sorry” he mumbles, looking down.
“Don’t be sorry. Just stop doing it okay?” Exasperation colours his tone and he watches annoyed as the boy’s face flushes.
“But –“
“No Harry seriously, don’t you have friends to hang out with or something?”
“Friends?” He asks it as if he’s doesn’t understand the concept, never even thought of it.
“Yes, friends. Make some and stop following me around, it’s annoying and weird.”
“But why?” Louis wonders how this can not be getting through to Harry. Is he really that oblivious?
“Because!” His voices rises “I want you to stop! I don’t like! It’s annoying having you follow me around everywhere. It’s no wonder you don’t have any friends if this is how you always are!” He gets up angrily and walks away without looking back at Harry, even if he can already feel regret at what he’s said, especially as he can hear, people laughing and snickering at the boy, but he feels torn, confused, and he doesn’t tell them to stop even though he could, if he wanted to.
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He feels guilty. Louis is a lot of things yes, a joker? Sure. A slacker? Most definitely. And, okay he is a bit sarcastic, and he’s been called sassy quite a few times and admittedly he has a problem with his attitude sometimes, but Louis is not mean and his conscience keeps bothering him all day.

His friends are not helping either. Liam is looking at him reproachfully, Zayn keeps grimacing at him and even Stan keeps stealing this guarded glances at him as if he is a time bomb that will explode though he doesn’t know when.

And okay, so maybe he snaps. Again.
“I get it! Okay? I have to go apologise. Now stop looking at me like that all of you.”
Apparently though that only opens up the floodgates.
“There was no reason for you to yell at him like that.” Liam tells him.
“Yeah, well, you’re not the one he’s been stalking for the past five months” Louis sulks.
“Yeah, but still, it’s not like he was actually doing anything.” Zayn adds.
Louis sighs, looking at Stan for help.
“Sorry mate. But, you made him cry, like” he grimaces “that’s not very you is it? I mean everybody else already picks on him, and just… you know.” He shrugs at the end not knowing what to say.
“Fine, I’ll just. I’ll find him later alright?”
“Good, this is his form room, so it won’t be too hard for you to find him” Liam tells him.
“It’s not like it’s ever hard to find him. How do you know this is his form room anyway?”
“It might be now that you embarrassed the boy in front of the whole school” Liam says harshly, and Louis flinches, filled with guilt once again.
“Besides” he sighs out “He comes in here at the end of the day, and this is our last lesson” he says it slowly, in a tone that suggest an underlying “How could you possibly not know where his form is?”
“Right.” he says helplessly.

They wait with him at the end of the day, outside the classroom even though they should be going to their own forms. They can hear the teacher inside doing the register, but Harry never shows.
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He doesn’t find him the next morning either. It feels weird, he realises; looking around and not seeing the messy haired kid, but he doesn’t see him anywhere, and the longer it goes the guiltier he feels.

He leaves form in a rush to get to Harry’s form room, but when he gets there the room is already empty. Dejectedly he walks towards his locker where he can dump his stuff before leaving. He closes his locker, swearing under his breath at the stiff key that keeps getting stuck in the lock and turns around feeling annoyed at his day. Really he never realised the kid could be so hard to find. All he really wants to do is apologise so he can stop feeling guilty and then forget about it and move on.

He looks up, eyes suddenly falling on a head of messy hair. He perks up quickly dodging the few people that are still around the corridors. He is just about to call out his name when he sees him trip slightly and bump into another boy who he recognises as Marcus something, and who Louis is pretty sure is in year nine.

Apparently though the boy doesn’t like being bumped into and he immediately pushes Harry, hard, and he falls to the ground with a surprised yelp.
“Watch where you’re going, you freak” he spits.
“Sorry… Twat.” Louis eyes widen and shit.
He watches as Marcus advances on Harry whose still on the floor.
“What did you just say to me?” He grounds out, and Louis thinks that this is definitely the time to interfere.
“Oi” he calls out, “What are you doing?” His voice rises in volume as he sees Marcus lifting a fist.
At the sound of his voice though, he stops looking up at Louis before grinning.
“Just teaching this freak a lesson, no need to thank me.” Louis wrinkles his nose in distaste. Does he really think he’ll just stand there and let him beat Harry up.
“I don’t think so.” He walks towards where Harry is, watching the interaction with wide, scared eyes.
“What?” Marcus asks, confused.
“You’re going to leave, and you aren’t going to bother Harry anymore.” His voice is forceful, and damn it if he can’t be scary when he wants to.

He watches as Marcus’ eyes flicker down to Harry before rightfully deciding he isn’t worth it, walking away with a scowl on his face that’s the size of the world.
“You okay?” The boy looks up at him and Louis watches bemused as slowly Harry’s face breaks out into a brilliant smile, his whole face lit up. Louis doesn’t really understand how Harry can still smile at him after what he did to him, but he doesn’t ask, instead offering a hand to help the boy up.
“Wow” he sighs out, “Thanks a bunch Louis”
Louis shrugs.
“Listen Harry, I want to apologise for yesterday” he starts but Harry is cutting him off before he can say anything else.
“It’s okay Lou” he shakes his head.
Louis startles a bit at the nickname, but considering he kind of owes the kid for what he did he lets it go.
“Ugh, are you sure?” he feels a bit awkward, wasn’t really expecting such easy forgiveness.
“Course” he says happily, nodding.
“Huh” it annoys him that being forgiven so easily only makes him feel guiltier. That was definitely not the plan.
They start off together towards the exit doors and god, the boy is practically skipping, and it’s really no wonder he gets picked on so often.
“What happened to you yesterday?” Louis can’t help but be curious.
“What do you mean?” Harry looks up at Louis, big, round green eyes staring happily up at him, and Louis wonders how he could ever have been mean to a boy with such a baby face. Damn it, he must be an awful person.
“I was looking for you, but you didn’t show up for registration.”
Harry’s eyes widen, mouth parting in surprise and awe, as if the fact that Louis came to look for him is the most amazing, unexpected thing he’s ever heard.
“Really?”
“Yeah…so what happened?” Louis is a curious person okay?
“Oh, mum came to pick me up early” Louis’ stomach churns a bit as he forces out a “why?” he really, really hopes it’s not because he was upset. Really, really hopes.
“Oh she promised to take me out for the day, so she took me to London to watch this musical, and it was brilliant!” He’s practically bouncing on his feet in excitement now, but Louis just feels more curious.
“Why did she promise that?”
“Well, it was my birthday yesterday!” Louis halts, feeling his breath rush out of him, because this is a lot worse than what he thought; a lot worse than him being upset. Louis can’t help but feel like the worst person ever.
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Harry tries after that, even Louis has to admit it, but it’s not like he stops following him around like some lost puppy, it’s just that he becomes a lot more sneaky, so that Louis doesn’t spot him. His friends do though, every once in a while, and Louis just sighs giving up. If that’s how Harry wants to spend his time, it’s fine with him as long as he doesn’t start coming up to him as well, or expects Louis to talk to him. He tells this to Harry one day, and watches Harry’s face falling in disappointment.

Still, something changes after that day. They still don’t really talk to each other, but whenever Louis sees someone picking on Harry, and it happens more than he had ever noticed, he always makes sure to shoo whoever it is away and that Harry is fine before going back to his friends. He learns one day, that Liam, Zayn and Stan do the same thing when Louis isn’t around, and he is grateful, because he feels somewhat responsible for the kid, even if it is ridiculous.
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That summer is different; very different from the last. That summer, Louis realises he’s not interested in girls, or at least he’s not interested in them the same way his friends are, Zayn often talks about the latest girl he’s snogged, and Liam seems incapable of stop talking about this girl in their year – Danielle or Gabrielle or something.

He thinks many of them are pretty; beautiful even, but he often finds them as annoying as he finds them pretty. Maybe he wonders to himself, maybe he just hasn’t found the right girl yet.

Another thing that’s different is that he finds out that his friends actually like Harry, and he’s got to admit, that comes as a surprise for him.

They are at the park again, Louis, Liam and Zayn. It’s really their best option since they don’t have any beaches close by. This time though Zayn keeps getting distracted by passing girls in short shorts, while Liam never stops looking around. Louis is pretty sure he’s looking for that Danielle girl.
“How do you even know she’s going to be here?” Louis asks after about half an hour of Liam trying to strain his neck.
“I don’t.”
Louis stares at him, can see Zayn doing the same.
“So why are you looking for her?” Zayn asks practically taking the words out of Louis’ mouth.
“Just in case.” He shrugs.
Both Louis and Zayn look at each other amused.
“Oh hey, isn’t that Harry?” he nods his head towards a boy sitting under a tree that Louis immediately recognises as Harry.
“Should we go say hi?”
Louis groans “Do we have to?”
“Yes. Come on.” Liam says, already getting up.
“But why?” He’s whining now, but can you blame him?
“Because he’s your friend. Come on, don’t be rude” Liam nudges him with his foot signalling for him to get.
“Fine.” He huffs out.

He looks at Harry where he is sitting in the shade; he has a book in his lap which he seems to be writing on. At least it doesn’t look like he was watching them, Louis thinks. It must be some kind of improvement, maybe he’s finally getting over this hero-worship thing he has with Louis.
“Hey Harry!” Liam calls out once they are close.
Harry looks up confused, pulling his earphones out and looking up at Liam. Louis sees his eyes going from Liam to Zayn to finally fall on Louis, a bright smile appearing on his face as soon as he sees him and Louis mentally sighs because, nope, apparently he is still no over this thing he has about Louis, whatever it is.
“Hi Louis!” he says, completely ignoring Liam’s greeting.
His friends chuckle, amused, while Louis flushes a bit in embarrassment.
“Hey Harry.” He mumbles.
“What are you doing there?” Zayn asks.
“Oh!” he looks down, “ nothing really, just doodling”
Zayn grins, he’s quite big on art, and drawings of any kind.
“Oooh, let’s see” He grabs the book quickly, ignoring Harry’s protests.
“Holy…!” he trails off, looking at the book with wide eyes. Louis really can’t be blamed for getting curious.
“What?” Both him and Liam ask at the same time.
“This is brilliant Harry!” He shoves the sketchbook at Liam and Louis quickly moves next to him to see it. There’s a small picture of a girl stuck to the corner of the page, a pencil drawing covering the rest of it. The drawing is so good; it actually looks like a picture itself even though it has no colour. Louis stares at it for a few minutes.
“Who is that?” Liam asks, after looking at the drawing from every angle possible.
“That’s my sister, Gemma.”
“You have a sister?” Louis’ surprised about that, he’s never seen the boy with anyone else, nor has he ever even heard him talking about anyone else.
“Yes, she’s eighteen, and she’s leaving for uni soon.” Harry frowns. Louis wonders if he’s close with her, he is close with his little sisters regardless of the age gap and he’d definitely miss them if one of them left to live with their dad or something.
“Well, it’s a really good drawing Harry.” Louis tells him.
“Really?” he perks up.
“Yeah.”
“Thanks Lou!”
Louis can feel his cheeks flushing again and can see both Zayn and Liam trying to hide their laughter.
“Well, anyway. We’ll see you around, yeah Harry?” Liam says; always the nice guy.
Harry nods enthusiastically and calls out a “Bye Louis!” as they walk away.
As soon as they’re far enough his friends burst out in laughter.
“Oh, shut up.” Louis snaps at them.
“Sorry, Lou” Liam is breathless now, eyes full of mirth, “it’s just that, he’s so. He’s so…”
“Cute!” Zayn finishes for him.
Louis rolls his eyes, “he’s embarrassing.”
“Don’t be mean Lou, he just has a bit of a crush, it’s adorable really.” Liam admonishes him.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”
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On a Thursday morning, he takes Phoebe and Daisy to their ice-skating lesson. He grumbles about it a bit, mostly because he had to wake up at 8:00 am. He sits on the bleachers, half watching, half playing on his phone. He would call the boys but he is pretty sure they’d kill him for waking them up so early.

He smiles and waves every time the girls do something, wonders if his mum ever feels this proud when any of them do anything.
“Hi.”
Louis startles at the voice, turning around to see Harry sitting next to him, a dejected look on his face; and sure, it’s not like they live in a huge city, or even a city at all, but this is a bit much.
“Harry, what are you doing here?” Louis thinks he has a right to feel suspicious, the boy has been stalking him for over a year, but Harry only sighs a bit sadly.
“Gemma convinced me to come for lessons with her, but I’m not very good at it” He blows his curly fringe out of his eyes and Louis looks down, noticing for the first time that the boy has got skates on. Oh.

God, now he’s getting paranoid.

“Is this your first lesson?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know you’re bad at it then? Everybody is bad at their first lesson.” Louis’ never seen the boy looking so downcast, it’s a bit weird really.
“Because I fell more times that everybody else put together” he answers, flatly.
Louis thinks that it’s really, really strange to hear the boy talking like that.
“Why don’t you go back on the ice, and I’ll watch and tell you whether you have any hopes of succeeding in this?” Louis asks, he’s only trying to be nice really. Even if the boy hadn’t told him he was bad at it, Louis would have suspected so, he could barely walk straight without tripping on normal ground, let alone ice.
“Really?” He looks up at Louis surprised.
“Yeah, go on.” He shoos him away, and watches as Harry trips over his feet as soon as he takes the first step.

In the next twenty minutes, Harry proved that Louis’ theory was right. Louis on the other hand couldn’t stop wincing every time the boy fell, and it turned out that Harry was right too: he did fall more times than everyone else put together.

When he comes back to Louis, grimacing and rubbing at his elbows, Louis smiles at him, feeling bad for the boy, maybe it would have been kinder to just let the boy give up.
Harry sighs, sitting next to him again.
“That wasn’t so bad.”
Harry shoots him a look that says “are you stupid?” and it surprises Louis so much he actually laughs.
“Okay.” Louis admits, “You’re pretty bad.”
Harry nods sadly, “Mum always said I have two left feet.”
And truer words were never spoken, Louis thinks.
Louis looks up once he hears his name being called, sees his sisters running up to him. The sight made a lot funnier because of the skates they still have on their feet.
“Lou! What do you think? How did we do?” They ask excitedly.
“You were great girls.” He tells them even though he didn’t watch them much for the last few minutes, kneels in front of Daisy to start undoing her laces.
“Who’s this Lou?” Phoebe asks, looking up at Harry.
“That’s Harry.” He is distracted with helping Daisy, and is surprised when he looks up to see Phoebe on the sit next to Harry, tugging at his hair, while Harry smiles at her.
“I’m Phoebe,” she tells him, “and I like your hair! It’s pretty.”
Harry grins, “Thanks,” he lets her play with his hair, seemingly unbothered.
“Phoebe! Leave him alone.” Louis chastises her.
“I don’t mind.” Harry says happily. Apparently he’s over his disaster of a lesson.
Louis just shakes his head, helping Phoebe with her skates.
“Come on then loves, lets get going” Louis says once he’s got them ready.
They both hold on to each of his hands, turning around to wave at Harry who waves back and calls out a bye to Louis.

Louis just shakes his head.
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On Saturday Liam drags Louis and Zayn to the mall with him. Apparently Danielle will be there. Louis couldn’t help but roll his eyes once he heard that.

Zayn is bored. Louis is dozing off on his shoulder. Liam is blabbing about how great Danielle is. All in all Louis thinks this day could be going a lot better. Apparently though, this day is not destined to be a good one.
“Oh hey there’s Harry.” Louis jumps as soon as he hears the boy’s name.
“What?”
“Over there, look” Liam points to where harry is sitting by a bench a thin (picture book?) in his hands, he can also see the boy taking small glances over it every thirty seconds or so.
He groans.
“He followed me here, didn’t he?”
“Seems so” Zayn shrugs.
“Don’t be so big-headed” Liam says “come on”
“Noo, not again” he whines but Zayn just pulls him up dragging him up to where Harry is.
“Hi Louis” he says, smiling happily, Louis just gives him a faint smile.
“So Harry, did you get the lessons then?” Louis looks at Liam, confused at his question.
“Oh yes! I finally convinced mum to pay for the lessons, I had to give up ice-skating with Gemma though, but I don’t really mind” Harry smiles sheepishly.
“Wait, what lessons?” Louis is admittedly confused.
“Harry is taking piano lessons” Zayn tells him.
Huh.
“I just had my first lesson a few days ago, and Greg told me to buy this book” he shows them the book Louis thought was a picture book that says ‘piano for beginners’ on the cover “he told me to practise them at home. I can’t though because I don’t have a piano yet, but mum says she’ll buy me one in a while if I don’t change my mind, I don’t think I will though, playing piano is a lot more fun than ice-skating” he says it all in one breath and Louis has to concentrate to catch it all.

They left him a few minutes later so they could go back to their Danielle hunt. Louis isn’t really sure what to think, he just blurts out the first thing that comes in mind.
“How did you know Harry’s taking piano lessons?”
Liam looks at him surprised.
“He told me the other day.”
“Since when do you talk to him?” he sounds harsher than he intended, but it’s still a good question.
He flares up in annoyance when he sees Zayn and Liam exchange a look.
“What?”
“Louis” Liam starts cautiously, “what exactly is your problem with Harry?”
Louis gapes at him for a few seconds.
“Are you serious? He’s been following me around for over a year, and you ask me what my problem with him is?”
“He just wants to be your friend Louis, what’s so bad about that?” Zayn asks.
“What’s wrong is that I don’t want to be his friend! Why can’t he understand that?”
“He is not bad you know” Liam tells him, “Sure he’s a bit starry eyed when it comes to you, but he’s actually quite nice.”
Louis is angry, can’t really believe he’s fighting with his friends because of that kid.
He catches sight of Harry again, he’s standing in front of a window display of a music store, staring at the piano inside, leaning forwards as if he wants to just melt through the glass.

Louis starts off in his direction, determined to get the boy to stop with this whole thing.
“Harry” he starts. His hands are clenched and he knows, knows that he has to calm down; he doesn’t want to regret this or feel guilty later, but he just has to make Harry understand. Has to.

Harry smiles cautiously at him, and Louis thinks that perhaps he’s picked up on Louis’ mood.
“What is it Lou?”
“Don’t call me that.” Louis says curtly, “look Harry I know it might be hard for you to understand, but I want you to stop with all this okay? You’ve been stalking me for a year and now you just think you can steal my friends too?” It might be petty, but Louis is not thinking about that right then, all he thinks about is the fact that Harry’s become a much bigger part of his life than he ever wanted him to be.
“I’m not Lou. I’m not trying to –
“And I don’t want you following me around anymore, and for God’s sake don’t say you haven’t been!” His cuts him off, voice strained and he takes a deep breath, trying to calm down.

Harry just looks tongue-tied, unable to say anything.
“I don’t like it, and I don’t like you okay?!” His chest is heaving.
Harry looks up at him with big, watery green eyes.
“But Lou – I thought. I thought we were friends.
“We’re not, and I don’t want to be your friend Harry, just give it up okay?!”

He walks away then, ignoring the looks Liam and Zayn are giving him. He is not going to feel guilty over this. He’s not.
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When he meets Eleanor, he thinks he’s finally found the right girl for him. She’s pretty and funny and they spend most of their time together, Louis kind of wishes summer would never end.
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When school starts up again, all Louis can think about is how he still has three more years to go.

They walk around school holding hands, and Louis can’t help but feel a bit smug about it. He kind of likes Eleanor and the fact that she likes him too makes him feel a little bit kind of invincible.
“I’ll see you at lunch?” She asks him before they part ways.
“Course! I’ll be waiting” He smiles at her, leaning down to peck her lips and watches as she walks away. His eyes catch on to Harry’s for a second who’s standing in front of his locker, Louis frowns warningly at him and Harry flushes looking down quickly.

Satisfied, Louis starts off towards his class, he’s got Spanish this morning and he thinks that’ll be a great way for him to catch up on sleep.
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Chapter Text

Harry stops following him around, or at least Louis doesn’t see him everywhere he goes anymore. He doesn’t worry about it much though, barely thinks of it; it’s a surprisingly busy year for him, so it comes as a surprise for him to see Harry, on their last week before they break for Christmas. What surprises him though, is the fact that Harry isn’t by himself, as usual. Instead he has a blond boy walking next to him. Louis learns later that the boy is called Niall and he’s moved from Ireland over the summer or something. Usually Louis knows pretty much of everything that’s going on in school, so it’s weird that it takes him over three months to find out about this. He shrugs it off though, he has been quite busy lately.

Still he becomes a lot more aware of Harry, which he blames on Niall. The kid is loud and boisterous and reminds Louis a bit of himself. He has a laugh that can be heard from the opposite side of the school and seems to be just as cheerful as Harry is, though from Louis’ conversations with Harry he knows that Harry’s chipper, bouncy moods tend to be a bit more quiet .
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It’s hard for Louis to find time for everything he wants to do during the Christmas holidays. He goes shopping a few times with El, trying to find his sisters and mum presents. He’s forced by his mum to sit down for at least three hours a day and revise for two of his GCSE’s exams which are in January, has to take the girls out shopping separately because they want to keep each other’s presents a surprise, still has to find time to hang out with his friends. Although it’s busy, it’s also mostly fun so he’s not complaining.

He spends his birthday and Christmas day with his family, but he has to admit, if only to himself that he kept his phone on him and spent half the day texting his friends and Eleanor who texted him about twice as much as any of the boys. He just rolls his eyes at it though, still thinking himself lucky because at least Eleanor is not as annoying as Perrie, or god forbid, Cher.

It snows on Christmas, and then it snows a lot more during the night. The next day is a bit chaotic, as everyone tries to wrap up and get all their wintery, snow gear so they can go out. He goes out to meet Liam, Zayn and Stan, having agreed to go to a different park - after all there are more than enough parks where he lives - one that has a few small slopes where they can slide down.

There are quite a few people around by the time they get there, and they quickly hike up a slope, all of them pulling their boards with them. There’s a lot of laughing and whooping in the next hour, Louis tries sliding down in the craziest ways possible, even tried going all four of them together.

They are all scattered around the snow once they get to the bottom, laughing breathlessly, trying to catch their breaths. The sound of that familiar laugh is what makes him and the other boys look up, it’s hard to tell anyone from anyone when they’re all covered heavily with jackets and gloves and scarves, but when the boy laughs again Louis is absolutely sure it’s Niall, and where there’s a Niall…
“Oh hey Lou, it’s your little friend. Did he get tired of following you around or what?” Stan asks.
Louis shrugs awkwardly in response, while Zayn scoffs and Liam sends him that disapproving look he knows so well after so many years of friendship.
“What? What happened” Stan looks at them confused.
“Oh nothing, Louis just decided to be the biggest ever prick to the kid again” Zayn says, leaning back on his elbows.
Stan rolls his eyes. “There’s something very wrong with you mate”
“Why are you all defending him? This is a good thing you know, I mean who knows, the kid could grow up to be a psycho or something, if I just let him continue with his stalking.” Louis gets three incredulous looks sent his way.
“What?”
“Have you looked at him? The boy is as much of a psycho as you are an angel of decency and good-behaviour.”
“Oi!” Stan just shakes his head at him before turning around and shouting a “Hey, Niall!”
Louis sees both Niall and Harry looking up at them, “What are you doing?” he hisses.
Stan just waves it away, “Have you talked to that kid? He’s a right laugh.”
He watches as Niall starts walking on their direction, pulling Harry along with him.
“Stan! What’s up mate?” Niall drops down so he’s sitting down with them while Harry stands behind him shuffling his feet awkwardly.
“Not much, just having some fun, we’re thinking about going to get something to drink yeah? Want to come?”
“Sure!” Niall grins looking around at them.
“Oh yeah sorry” Stan apologises, “That’s Liam and Zayn and Louis” he points as each of them accordingly.
“Lets get going then lads? I’m starving.” He says once everyone’s said hi to him.
“You’re always hungry” the tease seems to slip out of Harry’s lips before he can realize and Niall turns around to look up at Harry, laughing, “You know me so well mate.”

Surprisingly they manage to have a good time, Louis actually has fun with Niall and Harry, it’s easier when there are more people around, because Harry’s attention is not solely focused on Louis in that way that makes him uncomfortable and fidgety. By the end of the day he thinks that maybe Harry might not be so bad.
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His January exams go alright, with Liam and his mum nagging him, he actually manages to put in a good few hours of revision. He’s just relieved that he doesn’t have to worry about the results until March.
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Sex with Eleanor is alright; nice even, but he doesn’t understand what the fuss is about, because as nice as it was, it was also awkward and uncomfortable and embarrassing, and definitely not as amazing as it’s made to be. He doesn’t really understand, even Liam seems to like it well enough, though he gets all shy and embarrassed whenever they talk about it. The same goes with Zayn and Stan. He wonders if there’s something wrong with him.
“I can’t believe it!” Louis shouts gleefully.
“I know! Shy, little Liam.” Stan puts in, while Zayn cackles on at the sight of Liam’s flushed cheeks.
“Guys! Shhh.” Liam hisses at them, face flaming in embarrassment.
“Oh this is too good.” Louis wheezes out. He’s quite surprised actually, because Liam’s been with Dani for about three months. It took him much longer, and it only really happened because Eleanor kind of initiated it. Trying not to think too much about it, Louis focuses on his embarrassed friend once again and grins thinking that Liam definitely should’ve known that they wouldn’t let this go after he told them.
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He leaves school later that day as usual on a Tuesday or Thursday because of afterschool activities. He sees Harry standing around outside, earplugs in as usual. He approaches him before even realizing what he’s doing. He taps him on the shoulder lightly to get his attention, but Harry shrugs his hand off, muttering a “leave me alone”.
“Harry?” Surprised, he calls out his name.
Harry whirls around, astonishment colouring his features.
“Louis?”
“Uh yeah” Louis is the one feeling awkward this time, “what are you still doing here?”
“I haven’t been following you, if that’s what you’re asking” he says quickly, a slightly defensive tone in his voice.
“I wasn’t – uh, I didn’t mean that.”
“Oh.”
They take turns looking at each other, then looking at the ground, even though Louis knows that this is clearly ridiculous and he has no idea why he’s feeling so…weird.
“I’m waiting for Niall.” Harry breaks the silence.
“Oh.” Louis looks at him, he still doesn’t look much older than when he did when Louis first met him, though maybe he’s an inch or two taller and his cheeks aren’t as chubby.
“Why are you here late though?” Louis asks.
“Music” Louis nods, he remembers the afterschool activities schedule and how he had to choose between football and music because they were both on the same day.
“You’re still taking those lessons then?”
“Yeah” Harry fidgets “I actually just got a piano. Mum gave it to me for my birthday last month.” Harry smiles big in remembrance and Louis chuckles in response.
Harry’s eyes snap back up to Louis’ as if he had forgotten that he was there for a second.
“You take music don’t you?”
“How do you know?” Louis frowns.
“Zayn told me you guys take it together.”
“Oh yeah” Louis nods “you’ll take it next year then?”
Harry nods enthusiastically, “I don’t know what else I’ll take though”
“Oh, do it like I did; close your eyes a pick some” Louis tells him grinning.
“I get it. Leave if to fate right?” He nods along happily.
“Exactly. Remember to cross out the ones you definitely don’t want though”
Harry smiles, “yeah.”
“Oi Harry come on!” The shout comes from somewhere behind them, and they both turn to see Niall waving him over.
“Right, uh, bye Louis”
“Bye Harry”
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Louis feels pretty relieved by the time the summer holydays comes around; sooner than anyone else’s at school, besides maybe the year thirteens. He can’t really believe how much he’s actually revised for his GCSE’s; is pretty sure that if he told his friends, they wouldn’t believe him either.

They go to the park again; this time as a big group, Stan, Nick, Cher, Eleanor, Perrie and Danielle also making an appearance. The day is going on just fine, until Stan mentions Niall.
“You guys should see him playing though. He’s sick.” He tells them.
“That’s true.” Zayn agrees. Louis wonders how they know.
“We go to choir rehearsals remember?” Zayn says once Louis voices his thoughts.
“Harry is pretty good too”
“Oh yeah” Zayn nods along, “you should see the stuff that boy’s written, he’s brilliant” Zayn’s positively gushing now and he’s no really one to do so, so Louis assumes it must be true.
“Isn’t Harry that weird kid that kept stalking you and was always alone?” Eleanor’s voice is harsher than necessary and Louis looks at her in surprise; Eleanor is always so sweet, it’s weird to hear her talking like that.
Louis winces a bit in response to her question.
“Uh, yeah”
“He’s such a weird kid” she says, pursing her lips in distaste.
“There’s nothing weird about Harry” Liam puts in firmly. Eleanor just stares at him surprised. “Oh come on Liam have you forgotten that he’s stalked Louis for a whole year?”
“He’s not so bad El” Louis says quietly, and she transfers her stare towards him.
“You don’t need to be nice, Lou, I know he annoyed the hell out of you. You wouldn’t have yelled at him if he didn’t right?”
“Uh” there’s an uncomfortable silence hovering over them.
“Right! Now that Eleanor’s finished being her lovely, sweet self, we can change the subject yeah?” Danielle says sarcastically.
“What do you mean? It’s true!” apparently though she’s the only one that thinks so, and it still surprises Louis that even though the whole school seems to dislike Harry intensively, it seems that all his friends actually ended up liking him. Except for El that is, but they were never friends either, there wasn’t a build up to their relationship, they were just suddenly together.

Things turn awkward after that, and Danielle keeps throwing dirty looks at Eleanor, so Louis decides it’s time for them to go.

“I can’t believe she got mad at me just for saying the truth!” she complains repeatedly on the way to her house, and Louis – and his docile temper – ends up snapping at her.
“You don’t even know him El.” He looks at her annoyed.
“You don’t either!”
“Yes I do, and he’s not half as bad as you’re making him out to be.” She huffs annoyed but finally lets the subject drop.

Louis thinks this will be the end of it, but after a while it gets clear that him defending Harry only makes her dislike him even more. The funny thing about it though is that it seems that the more she dislikes him, the more Louis actually likes him.
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Year twelve isolates him a bit from the rest of the school because of the common room, and he also finds that he has a lot more free time which he should be using to study as Liam likes to say, but spends it instead talking to people in the common room or roaming around the school with Zayn and Stan.

On this one day they take him to the choir rehearsal so he can finally see Niall and Harry playing. He is surprisingly not as adverse to the idea of seeing Harry as he would have been a year ago.

When he gets there though Harry isn’t playing, or anyone else really, except for Niall. And Harry; Harry is singing. Louis is pretty sure his jaw is hanging open, because oh my god he’s really good. It’s the first time Louis really notices his voice, and it’s really deep and gravely and it’s kind of ridiculous really because he still looks about twelve.
“Huh, never seen him singing” Stan says, and by the sound of his voice Louis knows he’s just as perplexed as Louis is.

They run into the room as soon as the song ends; or well, Stan and Zayn do. Louis walks in slowly, still a bit gobsmacked, watching as the boys shower both Niall and Harry with praises.
“That was amazing”
“Yeah, I had no idea you could sing like that Harry”
“I know he’s brilliant, isn’t he?” Niall’s grinning, “It took me ages to convince him to sing in front of me”
“You really are Harry” Zayn says seriously.
“Not really” he mumbles, shy.
“You are! Isn’t he Lou?” Stan asks, and Louis watches as Harry notices him there for the first time, cheeks immediately going a dark shade of scarlet.
“You are” Louis says, and instantly the smile is showing on the boys red face, and Louis is reminded of Harry’s little infatuation with him.
“Thanks Lou-ee” he trips over his name and Louis laughs, “you can call me Lou if you want you know?”
Harry blinks, confused.
“I …can? But I thought you said – “
“Just forget what I said alright? I was kinda being a jerk to you.” Louis admits.
He can hear Zayn’s mumbled “Kinda?” but he ignores it only turning to send him a quick glare, before turning back to look at Harry.
“Oh, well, that’s okay” Louis looks at him a bit incredulous.
“Seriously?” Harry nods happily in response, and god, what is this kid?
“Awwww, look at you, being all nice to each other” Stan says throwing his arms around both of them, Niall’s laugh booming around them.
“I’ve always been nice to Louis” Harry objects.
“Thanks Harry” Louis huffs but Harry just smiles cheekily at him.

When Louis looks around he’s surprised to see that there’s nobody else in the room anymore.
“Where did everybody go?” He asks confusedly, which for some reason seems to be a really funny thing to say, because they all laugh at him, Niall’s laughter being by far the loudest, though the only thing Louis can really think of is the fact that he’s never heard Harry laughing before.

It’s nice.
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They become kind of friends after that. They still don’t hang out together, or even talk much, but Louis calls out a ‘hey Harry’ to him every time he sees him around school, taking special pleasure in the way the boy gets all embarrassed about it. Louis thinks of the first time he did that, when Harry actually tripped and very nearly fell, he was so shocked; Louis still laughs every time he remembers that.

Eleanor doesn’t like it.
“Why do you even bother with him anyway?” it’s weird how sweet Eleanor is about everything but still manages to be the most bitchy, harsh girl ever when it comes to Harry.
“What is your problem with Harry anyway?”
“My problem is that he is just some attention-seeking brat!”
“What the hell?” he looks at her wide eyed, this is by far the meaner she’s ever been.
“It’s true isn’t it?!”
He doesn’t answer, doesn’t really talk to her for the rest of the week.

She apologises later, though it’s pretty apparent she still thinks the same about Harry, might even dislike him more than she did before. Not wanting to fight, Louis just accepts the apology.
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That year’s Christmas holidays are definitely not as good as his last one. For one he has to study a lot more even though he only has one exam to study for. He chose exactly the same subjects for his A-levels as he did for his GCSE’s but he feels a bit peeved about the whole P.E thing. He was obviously expecting to play some sports or something, but most of the course consists of coursework, the rest of it of actual exercising. At least he thinks, he’s getting right fit because of it.

And then, there’s Eleanor. Eleanor who seems to get clingier with every day that goes by.
Louis is not sure how he feels about it, but if he had to describe the feeling he thinks he’d use the word suffocated.
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He bumps into Harry once he’s back at school, he’s surprisingly – odd how that’s changed – by himself, Louis has gotten used to always seeing him with Niall. He is sitting in the empty hall, and Louis walks towards him instead of walking out like he was planning. He’s just done his exam and all he wants to do is go home and plop himself down on his bed and not study.
“Hey Harry” he sits down next to him and Harry turns around pulling out his headphones.
“Do you ever go anywhere without that ipod? He asks amused.
“Uh hi Louis”
“What are you doing here anyway?” Louis looks at him curiously.
“I have an exam in a bit” Harry shrugs.
“Ooooh, what subject?”
“Business.”
“Ouch. Why did you choose that?”
“It was fate” he shrugs smiling.
Louis looks at him surprised “did you actually listen to me when I told you to close your eyes and choose at random??”
Harry laughs “at the rate I was going, that was the only way I was ever going to decide on something…so, you going home then?”
“Yeah, just finished my exam”
“Oh? How did it go?”
Louis gives him a blank look, “I rather not think about it, thanks”
“I know what you mean” Harry nods solemnly.
“Yeah… what else are you taking then?”
“Ugh, well business, music, erm French and catering”
Louis looks at him surprised, “Catering? Really?” he chuckles.
“Yeah, yeah I know it’s weird” he looks embarrassed and Louis feels bad for laughing.
“No, no I didn’t mean it like that! I was just surprised, really”
“Oh” he smiles, “ okay, sorry, it’s just everybody else thinks it’s, you know, erm, weird, except for Niall that is, but that’s just because he likes eating my food”
“Niall will eat anything though” Louis muses.
“Are you saying I’m a bad cook?” Louis laughs at the look of mock affront on Harry’s face.
“I don’t know, I’ve never tried your cooking. You, could be deadly”
Harry laughs “I’ll bake you some cookies yeah?”
“You bake too? Gosh you’re just a box full of surprises aren’t you?”
Harry smiles shyly, a blush taking over his cheeks. Louis thinks it’s kind of endearing.
The bell goes then and Harry stands up, “I have to go, my exam will start in a bit”
“Alright then. Good luck Haz” the nickname slips past his lips easily, but Harry blushes so hard that Louis doesn’t regret it, even if he almost, almost feels sorry for him.
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On Wednesdays Louis wakes up easily; used to waking up early, the extra hour always feels great, and he really loves sixth form for all the home study, and free periods they are given.

Before he even leaves the house, he gets a text from Liam. “Did u no that 2days Harrys bday?” Louis frowns, because no, he did not know that and he sort of thinks he should.
He doesn’t have time to get him a present; wouldn’t even know what to get him to begin with, but he does buy him a card. It has a cartoon of a little boy with curly brown hair, blowing out a bunch of candles with a big grin on his face. Louis thinks it’s sort of perfect.

He quickly scribbles a ‘To Harry, Happy Birthday Curly!” signs his name at the bottom and hurries up on his way to school.

The boys sneak in both Niall and Harry into the common room at lunch time, so they can give him the birthday cake Liam managed to get during one of his free periods, they sing him happy birthday, Louis is specially loud and very successful at ignoring the glares he can feel coming his way from where Eleanor is sitting with her friends. Louis can see Harry blushing and looking up at him with glassy green eyes, a little smile on his face showing, though he’s obviously trying to contain it. The expression is so adorable Louis quickly takes his phone out of his pocket and takes a picture of him.

He really wishes though that he also had a picture that showed Harry’s face when Louis gave him the card.
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It’s funny how it makes him feel, seeing Eleanor’s name flash on the screen of his phone. It fills him with reluctance and he’s sure that there was a time when he’d get very excited when that happened. He wonders where those times went.

By the time he arrives at Eleanor’s he’s just about twice as unwilling to go in as he was when she first invited him over.

She hugs him in greeting pulling him along by the hand.
“My parents won’t be home until later” she says, smiling coyly at him over her shoulder.
“Oh” he tries to make himself excited over her obvious intent, but he can’t, can’t, can’t, and yes there’s definitely something wrong with him.

Her mouth is on his as soon as they walk in her bedroom, hands running over his flesh in a way that makes him feel weird, it’s a bit like pins and needles he muses, though a second later he mentally slaps himself thinking that he should be focusing on her. Focus, focus, focus.

There’s a certain familiarity to it, and he isn’t sure whether that’s a good thing or not. He knows exactly what to do, exactly what she likes after nearly two years together, and at first he’s calm, almost detached even as she moans and mewls under him. It takes a long time for him to get aroused, and he’s just simply not there with her, not feeling the same things she is. The problem, he realises is that either she never learnt what he likes, or he’s really just asexual, because fuck, he can’t finish, and he leaves her quickly in a flurry of embarrassment and confusion; doesn’t understand what’s wrong with him, but is sure now that there is something happening that shouldn’t be, or he thinks scornfully to himself, there’s something not happening, that should be.

He’s a bit mortified, if he’s being honest to himself and he tries to avoid her subtly over the next few days, needing some time to get over his embarrassment.
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For some reason, he finds himself looking for Harry on lunch time. Strangely though he’s not in the Hall. He spots Niall quickly, sitting next to a ginger boy Louis is sure is called Ed, and talking as enthusiastically as ever, moving his arms around grandly, but there’s no sign of curly hair and Louis frowns for a second, until he wonders to himself where the boy could be. Unconsciously he starts walking towards the music department, thinking of how excited Harry looked every time he mentioned his piano, or playing.

He chuckles to himself, because it has definitely never been this hard to find Harry before, and the tables feel a bit as if they are turned.
However he doesn’t find Harry; not until he finds Eleanor, who’s motioning for Harry to follow her. Curiously Louis follows the two of them, instinctively keeping himself hidden behind a row of lockers.

He can see as they stop in the middle of an empty hallway, watches as Harry shuffles and squirms around uncomfortably.
“What is it?” Harry mumbles.
“You should just give it up Harry. This thing you have with Louis, it’s really creepy”
Harry frowns, “Louis said that?” though Louis can’t see El’s face since her back is to him he can see her nodding “He’s always complaining about it, about how annoying you are”
What the hell? Louis thinks to himself, if there’s anyone who’s always complaining about Harry, it’s definitely not Louis.
“Louis is my friend.” Harry mutters in denial to what Eleanor is saying though Louis can already see the little purse of Harry’s lips that tell him he’s upset.
“No he isn’t honey, can’t you tell? He just feels sorry for you” her voice is dripping with false sweetness and suddenly Louis can barely recognize her, thinks that she is definitely not that girl he used to like.
Harry crosses his arms, defiance flashing across his face. It reminds Louis of that time he called Marcus - a guy that was nearly twice Harry’s size – a twat.
“I’m always Louis friend. Even if he isn’t mine” he shrugs at Eleanor.
Louis feels an odd surge of affection at his words.

Eleanor however, reacts differently.
“That’s pathetic” she says abruptly, “and really desperate. Look Harry I’m not trying to be mean here, I’m just being honest with you, so you can open your eyes and stop embarrassing yourself” She pauses, Louis can see the movement of her shoulders as she shrugs, “he is my boyfriend, and you’re just making both of us uncomfortable with this little crush of yours, so I really suggest you back off.” She saunters off then, leaving the upset boy by himself.

Louis wants to go to him, tell him the truth, that she lied, that they really are friends now. Instead he turns around and walks away on numb legs. He feels torn. He’s angry at what Eleanor did, angry that she upset Harry, the problem is that he can also see where she’s coming from. She is jealous, and she’s defending their relationship. Louis doesn’t like the method she uses to do so, but he kind of understands it.
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He doesn’t know what he should say to Harry, doesn’t know whether he should let him know that he saw their conversation, not sure how to say that Eleanor was lying without giving away that he was eavesdropping.

When he sees Harry in school, he’s not sure he’s ready to face him, but he doesn’t really have a choice, because Harry, it seems, can never catch a break.

The boy pushes Harry back onto the lockers, “how many grades did you skip to get here?” the boy Louis doesn’t recognise grins maliciously at Harry who doesn’t say anything, just looks up at the boy, scared.
“Have you stopped following Tomlinson around yet? I bet he’s got tired of you already hasn’t he? I don’t blame him. Freak.” He pushes Harry again who whimpers slightly in pain.
“Such a baby” the boy mocks.
Louis thinks he’s seen enough, he doesn’t even stop to think about what he’s doing, he just walks up to them and violently pull the boy away from Harry, punching him hard on the face before the boy can even react.
“What the hell man?” the boy splutters, clutching his bloody nose.
“Leave” Louis never knew his voice could be so cold, but he’s happy for it now, as the boy scatters away, shouting about how he’s ‘going to pay for that’. Louis just rolls his eyes, not worried, and turns back around to check on Harry.
“You alright there Haz?”
Harry doesn’t look up at him, just nods.
“You sure?”
“Fine, thanks.” He mumbles before quickly walking away, leaving Louis standing there, shocked, until he remembers that, damn it, Harry still believes all that stuff Eleanor’s told him.

He’s not sure who he’s mad at the most right then; Eleanor or himself.
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Year twelve breaks for summer a few days before the lower years, so Louis only has a few days to talk to Harry, but Harry’s had years to perfect the art of sneaking around and being invisible and apparently he’s using it to his advantage.

He doesn’t manage to speak to Harry before the beginning of the summer holidays, but he’s confident he’ll see him around sooner or later. He hopes it’s sooner though, because he kind of misses him, even if he’ll never ever admit that to anyone else.
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He goes out with the boys a lot that summer; mostly so he has an excuse as to why he can’t go out with Eleanor. Louis thinks that Liam and Zayn know exactly what he’s doing, but if they do, they haven’t said anything yet.

They go to the park quite often because Louis insists on it, though he tries to be subtle about it. Seeing the looks Liam and Zayn exchange when he says it though, he doesn’t think he’s succeeding. Still, they go with him, so he’s not complaining.

He spends half the time he’s there looking around in a way that’s a bit to fidgety and nervous to come off as casual.
“I don’t think he’s here Lou” Liam says, Louis doesn’t like the way he’s looking at him, it’s like Liam is feeling sorry for him.
“Who isn’t?” he doesn’t want to admit that he knows who Liam is talking about, but his friends are not about to let him get away with it.
“We all know, you’re looking for Harry, Louis. Just admit it” Zayn says, leaning back on his forearm.
“I’m not!” Zayn archs his eyebrows at him, while Liam just looks at him incredulously.
Louis sighs, both annoyed and disappointed, he looks back at the bench which seemed to be Harry’s favoured place, which is now noticeably lacking a certain curly haired boy who was always full of bright, dimpled smiles and starry, watchful green eyes.
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He’s about two weeks into his summer holidays when he finally caves in. And yeah he goes to Harry’s house, and yeah he knows where he lives, and yeah he feels a little bit like he’s the stalker now. Well damn.

He doesn’t find Harry, but he does find out why he hasn’t seen him around. His mum, who Louis learns is called Mrs. Cox, tells him that Harry’s gone on holiday with Niall and his family. He sulks a bit, because he misses having Harry around. He tries not to think of why that is, he just does. What upsets him the most though, is that he still hasn’t had a chance to talk to Harry and clear up all that stuff Eleanor said to him, which he still hasn’t gathered enough courage to talk to her about. So yes, he’s a procrastinator, sue him.

He goes back a week later, just because. However Harry’s still not back. Mrs Cox explains to him that Harry will be away for the rest of the summer.
“Oh.” If the disappointment in his voice sounds half of the way he feels, Anne doesn’t mention it; just smile sympathetically.
“I told him you came by though, he was pretty happy when he heard it” Louis blushes a bit, a small smile forming on the corner of his lips.
“I could give you his number if you wanted” she tells him, and the smile on Louis’ face immediately widens.
“Yes please.”

He walks all the way home – which is not really that long – with his phone in his hands, turning it over and over. He wonders if he should just call or text, and whether he should just be blunt and tell him that he knows what El said to him.

He finally decides on texting once he’s back in his room, he sends a quick ‘hey Haz’ and waits for a response that comes a couple of minutes later.
‘Who’s this?’ it says and Louis slaps himself on the forehead because, duh, of course, Harry doesn’t have his number.
‘Its Louis’
‘How did you get my number?’ Louis smiles, thinking about how much easier it is to understand Harry’s texts than Liam’s.
‘your mum gave it to me’
‘oh’ Louis chews on the inside of his cheek, and well, screw it.
‘I wanted to talk to you about something’
‘oh?’
‘are you ever gonna answer me in something more than monosyllables?’ Louis smiles, amused.
‘if you tell me what you want to talk about’
‘right. Okay I know I shouldve talked to you about this before, but..I might’ve overheard that conversation you had with El’
‘what? What do you mean by might??’ and whoops, that doesn’t sound too good.
‘I just want you to know haz that what she said wasn’t true’ Harry doesn’t reply after that.

Ten minutes later Louis tries again, ‘haz?’
‘what part wasn’t true?’ Louis gets after another few minutes.
‘ugh, pretty much all of it’
‘really?’ the answer comes quickly this time, and Louis smiles.
‘yeah, El’s a bit..she doesn’t like you much’
‘just like you huh?’ Louis grimaces at that.
‘I do like you harry’
‘yeah?’
‘yeah’ Louis writes, blushing even though no one can see him.
‘where are you anyways? Your mum didn’t say’ he changes the subject quickly, willing his face to go back to it’s normal colour.
‘Spain. Niall chose it’
‘lucky bastard’ Louis pouts, jealous.
‘lol, I know’

Conversation gets easy after that. Louis spends the rest of his summer glued to his phone, typing obscenely fast or just smiling stupidly at it. He’d never realised just how cheeky and weirdly funny Harry was, and every once in a while he’ll feel those pangs of guilt when he thinks that if he’d just given Harry a chance before they could’ve been best friends for forever now.

Both Liam and Zayn, and even Stan tease him mercilessly about it, because nowadays all he does is either talk to Harry, or about Harry. Louis blushes a lot, but otherwise doesn’t say anything else, or complain, though he does tell them that he’s officially replacing them and naming Harry his best-friend. They just tease him even more for it, so Louis kind of gives up on the whole thing and just goes back to his phone.
‘my friends are being gits’ he tells Harry.
‘is Liam even capable of being a git?’ Harry muses back at him.
‘oh trust me, you don’t know him, he likes to play the nice, sweet one, but he’s evil.’
‘I find it hard to believe, but if you say so..’
‘that’s just how good his cover is, I still wonder why he never took drama with me’
‘you are a pretty good actor’ Louis raises his eyebrows at the text.
‘how would you know?’
‘you were at quite a few of the school plays you know?’ Louis grins.
‘awwww haz, you came to watch me?’ Louis can’t stop smiling remembering Harry’s slightly stalker-ish ways.
‘no actually, I went to watch that George guy, he was pretty good’ Louis laughs out loud, ignoring the teasing coming from Zayn and Liam.
‘you wound me harry’
‘awww poor Lou-lou’
Louis blushes at the nickname, holding onto his phone desperately as Liam and Zayn try to take it from him, to see what’s got him blushing so ‘prettily’.
‘I hate my friends haz’ he tells him sulking as he walks home, finally tiring of his friend’s antics.
‘uhu, I’ve to go Lou, we’re going to the beach’
‘I hate you too’

He breaks about two hours later and texts Harry again, it’s weird how addictive the younger boy can be.
‘haaaaz, I’m bored. Entertain me!’
He waits nearly twenty minutes before getting a response.
‘Sorry lou I’m still at the beach’
‘but haaaaz’ and yes, Louis is fully aware he’s whining, but still he wants to talk to someone, and he’s kind of mad at his friends right now. Maybe it’s a bit hypocritical, since he’s just about ignored the last ten texts Eleanor’s sent him in the past hour, but its just that, well, he doesn’t want to talk to just anyone, he wants to talk to Harry. There’s nothing bad about that right? Besides Harry seems more than willing enough to go along with whatever Louis wants. So even though he probably should be having fun with Niall at the beach, he spends the rest of the afternoon, and quite a bit of the evening too, talking to Louis.
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He realises he might have a problem when he starts ignoring Eleanor’s texts and glaring impatiently at his phone waiting for Harry’s texts.

There’s about two weeks to go until the school year starts, and Louis starts counting down the days until Harry’s back. He also makes sure to be really obnoxious about it.
'12 days to go haaaaz!’ He texts Harry the amount of days to go everyday at what Harry says is a really ‘ungodly fucking hour. Go back to sleep you fucker!’. Apparently Harry isn’t much of a morning person.

Louis is pretty shocked.
‘such language Harold’ he teases.
Harry doesn’t answer. Louis is pretty sure that means ‘fuck you’.
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When there’re only four days to go, Louis is forced to face the fact that yeah, he definitely has a problem, because he wakes up painfully hard, and though he can’t remember what his dream was about exactly he’s pretty sure that Harry was in it.

Louis shakes his head in panic, because, oh no, oh no oh no oh no. This cannot be happening.

He’s forced to admit defeat a few minutes later though, because no matter how many disgusting things he thinks about, it just won’t go away. With an annoyed grunt he gives in, hand reaching down to touch himself.

Closing his eyes, he’s faced with another problem, because as soon as his eyelids shut, all he can see is Harry, and god damn it this is wrong, wrong, wrong. He forces himself to think of Eleanor; she’s his girlfriend right? He should feel excited at the thought of her. Right?

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t get rid of the erection, but it doesn’t allow things to escalate either.

He tries to think of famous girls who he’s though of as hot or fit before and for a moment it works, he sees in his mind’s eye, narrow waist and soft curves and dark full pink lips that change suddenly to lips that are slightly thinner but prettier, beautiful cupid’s bow on rosy cheeks, crazy-soft looking curly hair that he wants to touch and bright green eyes staring back at him.

Louis’ eyes snap open because, no no no, that’s not supposed to be happening, but no matter what he tries, his thoughts always go back him, and with an almost relieved sob, he gives in, hand pumping up and down on his length, desperate for more, more, more, more friction, more everything, and all he can think as he comes in violent spurts in his hands is goddamn that kid and his stupid fucking dimples.

He’s not sure what he should be feeling then. He wonders if he should feel ashamed and then shakes his head at himself, because of course he should be ashamed, he just had a wank to his best friend, to his younger friend that is fifteen but barely looks any older than thirteen. Goddamn it, he’s a bad person, a very bad person, and even knowing that, even knowing that it’s wrong he can’t help but feel a bit relieved too, because at least now he knows he’s not asexual, because he really understands the fuss now, if this is how his friends feel – and he can’t help but grimace at the thought a bit – then he kind of gets it.

There’s one thing he knows for sure though: he has to break up with Eleanor.
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The whole breaking up thing?

It doesn’t go too well.

Louis gets back home rubbing his cheek where he’s sure he has a very clear and red hand-print on. He tries to look at the bright side though, at least he doesn’t have to deal with Eleanor anymore.

He sighs, feeling lighter and wonders why he didn’t do this months ago, when he started noticing that Eleanor wasn’t nearly as sweet and nice as he first thought she was, or when he saw her saying all those things to Harry.

He tries not to feel too guilty about that, because he knows that there isn’t anything he can do about it now.
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The next two days kind of go by a bit too fast. Louis is pretty torn. Half the time he feels excited and impatient and like he has way too much energy in his body, and he spends more time than it’s healthy staring at that picture of Harry he has on his phone, the other half he spends dreading the time he’ll see Harry because fuck, he had a pretty amazing wank at the thought of him, a wank that felt about a hundred times better than actual sex ever did, and he did not do it only once.

Monday morning comes up too quick and he’s been texting Harry and he knows he’s back, that he’ll be in school and that he’ll see him sometime that day and oh well. Shit.

He’s too nervous to pay attention to anything that’s going on in school which is too bad, really, because a warning would’ve been nice.
‘everybodys staring at me like im a zoo animal just cause I grew up a couple inches over the summer’ Harry texts him that morning, and Louis cant help but laugh.
‘awww is wittle Hazza growing up?’ Louis really hopes so, because then maybe he won’t have to feel too bad about what he did.
Harry doesn’t answer though and Louis doesn’t really think about the text again.

The first thing Louis does when he sees Harry is hug the daylights out of him. He shouts Harry’s name obnoxiously loud before latching onto the boy as if he’ll never let go again. Louis doesn’t think it’s such a bad idea.

It’s only when he pulls back a couple of minutes later, that he realises that for the first time ever he actually has to look up in order to look Harry in the eyes.
He stares befuddled.
“You’re staring too Lou” Harry blushes, ducking his head down.
“A couple of inches?!” Louis can’t really stop staring at him. Gone are the chubby cheeks and the pale skin and the thirteen year old looks.
He’s all defined cheekbones and long limbs and broad shoulders, and oh, thank god, thank god, thank god, because Louis was starting to think of himself as some sick paedophile, but looking at Harry now… maybe he’s not such a bad person?
“Uh” Harry shrugs sheepish.
“What the hell did they feed you in Spain?”
“It was the sun” Niall answers throwing an arm around Harry, and oh yeah, Niall’s back too, Louis remembers.
“Harry here,” he grins, “is just like a delicate flower, he just needed some water and sunshine to flourish” he finishes, cackling in laughter, while Harry pushes him sideways with his shoulder.
“Oi, no need for such violence!” Niall says regaining his balance.
“Sorry, sorry.”
“I actually think he got too much sunlight and water if you know what I mean” Niall says, quickly hugging Zayn, Liam and Stan, “I swear I could see him growing by the day”
“Shut up” Harry mumbles, shuffling his feet embarrassed, and Louis grins.
“Awww, look at my little Hazza bear, he’s all grown up” He teases, causing the others to laugh, and Harry to blush profusely.
“Come on Haz, you gotta tell me all about your adventures in Spain” Louis says, pulling Harry along with him to go back to where he was sitting, leaving the other boys behind looking extremely amused, and knowing. Louis decides to ignore them.

Perrie, Cher and Dani smile at Harry and Niall in greeting asking them about the holiday. They all talk for a few minutes, but Louis is not very happy with the arrangement, wanting Harry’s attention to be focused on him. Louis is not exactly scared to show it either, he keeps poking his sides, and nudging his leg with his knee and reaching his hand out to play with Harry’s hair, and oh, he totally gets what his sisters were on about now. It’s just as soft as he imagined it would be, and so curly; Louis is pretty fascinated by it. He notices it also looks a bit lighter than before, thinks it was probably the sun. Over all Louis just thinks it’s pretty and nice-feeling.
“Louu” Harry whines pushing his hands which were being used to poke his ribs away.
“What?” Louis asks innocently.
“Stop that”
Louis complies, throwing an arm around his shoulders instead, enjoying the dark blush that goes up Harry’s cheeks.
“I missed you curly” Louis tells him softly, nudging his side lightly.
“Really?” Louis nods, watching pleased, the way Harry seems to completely light up, looking at him with those big green eyes, and yeah, there’s the Harry he remembers.

When the bell goes, Louis is reluctant to let go of Harry, but before he can try to talk Harry into skipping (bad, bad person) Niall is already pulling him away. He watches fondly as Harry half walks, half trips-over-nothing, and smiles thinking that some things never change.
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For the next few weeks Louis sticks to Harry’s side a bit like sand sticks to the skin: determinedly and stubbornly. Harry for his part seems just about delighted at the change, especially when Louis tells him of his break up. Though he still blushes crazily every time Louis goes looking for him, calling his name out embarrassingly loud, so much that everyone else stops to take a look at what is going on. After a while though, everybody seems to get used to the change. Louis and Harry are a duo now, there’s no more trying to be sneaky while following Louis around for Harry, and there’s no more snubbing Harry for Louis.

His friends, or, well, their friends, notice the change as well, and they are forever giving the two of them those annoying, knowing glances and smirks that never fail to make Louis squirm, and Harry blush. They don’t say anything though, because it’s not really necessary.

They all know where this is going.
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It’s no surprise that they get together. Not really. It happens quite simply; Louis is over at Harry’s place and both of them are spread out on his bed, draped all over each other as they watch a movie, and suddenly Louis is tired. Tired of pretending they’re just friends when they’re obviously not, tired of pretending that he doesn’t want to pull Harry in and smack his lips over that sinful mouth of his every time he smiles showing those irresistible dimples.

So he stops.

He rolls over on the bed so he is hovering over Harry, and before Harry can ask him what he’s doing he leans down planting a firm kiss on his lips. Harry doesn’t move for a couple of seconds, Louis isn’t sure why, but he doesn’t have time to ponder it because right then Harry is reaching out, hands gripping tightly onto Louis’ shoulders, and Louis forgets everything else that’s not Harry, because kissing someone has never felt this good, and he wants more, greedily licking into Harry mouth, pressing himself closer to him, hands eagerly reaching for Harry’s hair, pulling and tugging at it at the same time as he bites and sucks Harry’s lower lip into his mouth, and Harry is making the most amazing noises and pulling him in closer even though Louis is sure there’s no way they could possibly get any closer, but Harry still tries and Louis is not complaining.

When he thinks he can’t go another second without breathing he pulls back, just to latch his lips onto Harry’s smooth skin, kissing and biting on the line of his jaw and sucking bruises onto his neck and Harry is pushing his hips against Louis, and Louis can feel how hard he is, how hard both of them are and Louis knows they should stop. God, god, god.

Louis pulls away slowly, reluctantly. He can feel Harry’s chest heaving under him, and Louis is not any less breathless, but all he can really think about is how beautiful and just stupidly delicious Harry looks, all flushed and glaze-eyed, lips pink and swollen, bruises already showing on the delicate skin of his neck.
“What – what was that?” Harry stares at him wide eyed, lips parted and it just makes Louis want to kiss him again, instead he just shrugs.
“Do you mind it?”
Harry shakes his head quickly, licking his lips as he whispers “no.”
“Good” Louis says leaning down to kiss him again.
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Sex with Harry is different. Nothing like it was with Eleanor and about fifty times better than wanking to Harry was. Louis finally, finally really understands why it is that all teenage lads seem to think about is sex, because he can barely keep his hands off Harry, and he just wants to touch and kiss and bite and rub and a million other things, as long as it’s with Harry, as long as Harry wants to do exactly the same with him, and Louis never tires of looking at Harry, (looking and touching and kissing and hugging) looking at Harry naked is even better (it’s something Harry tells him he likes to do. Louis never would’ve thought) when he’s all sprawled out on his bed, and he’s just so beautiful and Louis can never decide whether he wants to touch Harry or himself first, but Harry always seems to win. Louis is not complaining.

Harry is amazing, he just gives, gives, gives, like he’s always had, but now Louis gives back, and he can’t believe how long it took him to realise, to notice even though Harry was always there.

Louis apologises, over and over and over, whispering the words into his skin, but as usual Harry only shakes his head, telling him to shut up and pulling him in for a kiss to make sure he does.
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One day they show up at school holding hands, oblivious to everybody else, just staring at each other and whispering at each other’s ears and giggling like little kids. Harry’s attention is solely focused on Louis and Louis wonders why he ever thought that Harry’s fixation on him was annoying because he likes it now, likes having Harry’s attention on him, having Harry looking at him just as much as Harry seems to like looking.

It takes them a while to realise that their friends are staring, with shit-eating grins on their faces. Louis can feel Harry squirming next to him and he doesn’t need to look over, to see that he’s blushing, but Louis just grins, smug.
“What?” He smirks at them.
“I knew it!” Niall says in form of an answer and the others just nod along with him.
Louis just shrugs and throws an arm over Harry’s shoulder, reaching up to play with his hair in a way that’s quickly becoming a habit.
“So are you guys together now?” Zayn asks while the others look on, curious.
It’s Harry’s turn to shrug, turning his face into Louis shoulder in order to hide the scarlet colour of his face.
Louis however isn’t shy about it at all, grinning and nodding his head emphatically as he says yes. He turns to look at Harry who’s staring at him with this love-sick expression on his face that Louis sincerely hopes stays there forever, and unable to resist it he leans down to peck his lips ignoring the teasing “awwww” coming from their friends. When he pulls back Harry beams at him, that type of wide smile that Louis still thinks must be painful, though now he’s just happy to be the one who put it there.

He can see over Harry’s shoulder Eleanor glaring angrily at them and Louis finally understands that maybe Eleanor really did have a reason for disliking Harry so intensely. It makes him feel a bit like an oblivious fool, that his ex actually suspected that there might be something between Harry and him, but it took Louis so long to finally realise it.

“Are you okay Lou?” Harry asks, looking at him with loving green eyes that remind him of all those years ago when Harry asked him exactly that same question, and Louis just smiles out a “yes” because the truth of the matter is that he’s absolutely perfect, though he’ll never admit to such cheesy thoughts to anyone else but himself, and Harry, maybe.

Eventually.