Chapter Text
SEPTEMBER 2025
ʚ PRESENTɞ
Willow is heartbroken, like Louis has never seen her before in the year they’ve been best friends.
She doesn’t cry prettily, not like the girls in movies. Her face is blotchy, voice hoarse, tears leaving stains down her neck. She keeps apologizing for crying so much, which only makes Louis feel worse.
When she first told him they’d broken up, Louis had felt a flicker of something sharp, something wrong, relief. Maybe even thrill. A sick little jolt of electricity in his chest, like something that had been strangled inside him for almost a year had been let go.
That had been before, when he thought Willow took the break up pretty well, and she said they both decided it was for the best to part ways to fully focus on their professional lives.
Before she barged into their shared apartment, crumbling right in front of Louis.
Now, there’s only guilt.
Guilt because the last thing Louis ever wanted was to see his best friend hurt, not over a man.
Especially not over Harry Styles.
“Oh, love, I’m so very sorry,” Louis whispers. And despite everything, he actually means it. “Do you want to cuddle? Some tea?”
“I thought you said you wanted it, too.” Zayn purses his lips, still pink and swollen from kissing. His head tilts, studying her coolly from the far side of the sofa. It’s not a new thing, hooking up with him, something messy and impulsive and barely defined. But it’s one of the few things that make Louis feel good lately, ever since he realized the truth about his feelings. Since the- “The break-up, I mean. It was necessary, the relationship ran its course. Wasn’t that what you said?”
Willow wipes her cheek with the back of her hand. Her fingertips spark faintly with gold as she does, her magic bleeding out her body. “That was before I saw him making out with a random guy tonight at Azure.”
Louis’ stomach twists into an anxious knot. He doesn’t have time to explore it. He doesn't want to. “We go to that bar all the time,” he says, weakly.
“Exactly! After everything— He promised he at least would try to—” Her voice cracks. The air around her shivers, a gust of wind slips through the room, out of nowhere, rustling the curtains. Willow shuts her eyes and breathes in. “He’s a liar. You warned me he was one—”
“I barely know the guy,” Zayn drawls, looking at Louis, expecting something, a reaction, a defense, anything. But Louis' head is full of static.
Harry is already with someone else. Probably already feeding off someone new, too.
“But I’m only now finding out how big of a liar he is.” Willow snaps, glaring at Zayn. “A cheater!”
Zayn arches a brow. “How is he a cheater if you already broke up? A mutual break-up.”
“It’s called an appropriate and decent mourning period, you moron,” Willow says through gritted teeth
Zayn’s eyebrows shoot up. “Did you just call me—”
“Okay, maybe we should calm down a little. It’s been a very hectic week, right? So we just need to— Where are you going?” Louis asks Zayn, who’s already putting his boots on.
“I think it’s time for me to leave.”
“But—” Louis blurts out, blinking rapidly as the man stands up. “We haven’t finished… the movie yet,” he adds weakly.
“We won’t finish a thing tonight,” Zayn’s eyes turns to Willow before focusing on Louis again. “But you can call me when she falls asleep, yeah?” Then he leans in, presses a brief kiss to the corner of Louis’ lips.
There’s a soft huff beside Louis. Despite what it seems, Willow doesn't dislike Zayn, she just struggle to understand the relationship he has with Louis and is not ashamed to express it—loudly and frequently.
Zayn straightens with a sigh and a smile. “I’m going to be waiting for your call.”
“Okay,” Louis whispers, face flushing as he watches Zayn disappear through the door.
“I don’t know what you see in him,” Willow mutters, curling into the corner of the couch.
The air still smells faintly like Zayn’s cologne, lingering where his body had pressed into Louis' just minutes ago.
“Well, for starters, he’s gorgeous. And he treats me well.” Louis gives his friend a sultry smile. “Very well.”
She scrunches her nose. “Ew. Too much information.” She sniffs. “Besides, looks aren’t everything. There’s other type of men. Perhaps not as good-looking as Zayn, but have other qualities in them.”
Louis snorts. “Like who?”
Willow opens her mouth, then closes it again. The air shifts, some small, sad pulse of magic trails off her skin like a sigh. “I don’t know,” she says at last, the words brittle. “Other men.”
A weak smile ghosts over Louis’ mouth. “You have to be nicer with him.”
Willow shrugs, shoulders small, spine curled defensively. She won’t meet his eyes. “I was being nice until he wasn’t with me.”
“Babe, you need to understand this is a little confusing. I also thought you were fine.”
Willow bites her lip, the soft pink already raw from stress. Her voice falters on the inhale. “I—I was never fine. You know how breaks up are. You pretend to be strong when you really, really aren't,” she says, voice fragile.
Louis presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth. It’s the only thing keeping his throat from closing. Because the worst part isn’t just how much she’s hurting. It’s that, somewhere deep down, he still doesn’t hate Harry for it.
And he wants to. Gods, he wants to. But he just... can't. And that’s what makes him feel like the worst friend in the world.
“Oh, love,” he rasps, the knot in his throat nearly choking him. “You matter so, so much. You are so special to so many people. You literally bring life to every place you go. Fuck him if he can’t see that, and fuck him twice if he can, but he’s too afraid of your light. Let's just… ignore him forever.”
Willow shakes her head frantically. Her lilac curls bounce with the movement, and a faint breeze flickers through the apartment. Louis mirrors her, already shaking his head like a reflex.
“No?” he asks, confused, brow pulled tight.
“I mean, yes. I’m totally doing that. For sure. But…”
“But?”
“But…” she takes a deep breath. “I need to do something first.”
“Something like what? Break his things? Egg his apartment?”
She bites her bottom lip. “I want you to destroy his future relationships.”
Louis freezes. “Wait… What?”
“Please. At least… for, I don’t know, A month? Until I can move on with dignity?”
Louis blinks, mouth parted. The weight of the ask settles on his chest like a curse he’s already halfway to casting. “I thought you wanted me to never speak to him ever again?”
“When did I say that?”
“Well, when you— The day— When—” Louis tries to find the moment but he can’t. Willow never said it. Never even implied it.
In fact, she’d reassured him, told him she wouldn’t ask him to choose.
It had been him. His guilt. His fear. His way out.
“Please,” she says again, eyes wide, voice wrecked. “I need this.”
And Louis just, freezes. Because how do you say no, when you’re already drowning in feelings you were never supposed to have? When shame's already curling its claws beneath his ribs.
So he nods. Once.
“Consider all his next relationships destroyed.”
It’s a stupid thing to say. Dramatic. Immature. But Louis says it anyway, because he doesn’t know how else to say: I’m sorry a part of me wanted this. I’m sorry it feels like a gift. I’m sorry you’re hurting, and I’m not hurting enough.
Because if there’s one thing Louis Tomlinson knows how to do, it’s perform.
And if Harry Styles came back into his life last year… he’s going to wish he stayed gone.
DECEMBER 2024
ʚ PAST ɞ
It was the last day before winter break. Snow fell in lazy spirals outside the tall, arched windows of the campus library. The fireplaces were charmed low, more decorative than functional, their flames a soft, constant hum of gold and red. Most students had already gone home, flown, or been fetched by family guards. But Louis stayed behind to finish his essay on multi-realm contract law.
Because of course he did.
Across the quiet lounge, his notes were stacked in ruthless order. Everything about the space looked efficient. Controlled. Which was a lie. He was already dreading the break. The suffocating presence of his parents already looming over him like a ghost with claws already pressing his neck, stomping his will.
All his friend already left one by one, Willow, the last one, had left an hour ago, backpack slung over one shoulder and fingers still slightly stained with the ink she insisted on bottling herself. She’d hugged him tight, glitter catching in his hair from the little shimmer she always left behind, and disappeared through the gates with a wave and a blown kiss.
Fairies hadn’t been allowed at Valemount until recently. Not officially banned, but never quite invited either, too volatile, too wild, too “unstructured” to fit the academy’s polished image. But that year, with political tides shifting across the underworld, the board had no choice but to finally open enrollment. Still, the requirements were narrow. The selection process conveniently biased. And no matter how many laws were rewritten, some old instincts—the ones that decided who belonged and who didn’t—stayed quietly, stubbornly intact.
Louis didn’t expect to either like or dislike Willow. But then she walked into Intro to Magical Ethics wearing a jacket covered in hand-stitched patches and an unbothered expression, sat beside him, and immediately got into a debate with the professor over whether fairy magic was “primitive” or “instinctive.”
He’d adored her ever since.
And now she was gone for break, back to her hometown on the outskirts of the forest— an area most still called “untamed,” even though it had its own laws, wards, and a far better community fruit market than the overpriced alchemy shops downtown.
Louis was thinking how big would be the reprimand if he decided to visit her during the break, when he heard a voice that all the muscles in Louis’ back tensed like strings pulled taut.
“Tomlinson.”
It wasn’t an abnormal reaction, much less personal. Vampires had that effect on people. Wizards. Werewolves. Fairies. Every species in the underworld, no matter how evolved, carried the same ancestral coding.
It wasn’t fear, not exactly. It was awareness. The same way that deer lifted their heads the second the wind shifted. Even now, in this so-called age of diplomacy, of peaceful coexistence, something deep inside every mortal body remembered. A quiet, unshakeable knowledge that no matter how charming the suit or slow the smile, vampires were creatures designed to feed and hunt.
Not that they did anymore. Not like that. Vampires had blood partners, Bounds, contracts, regulations. Most hadn’t hunted in generations.
But the body doesn’t care about reforms. The body only knows what it’s been ancestrally taught to fear.
So Louis didn’t flinch, he locked, spine straight, shoulders stiff, breath caught somewhere between inhale and defense. And when he heard that familiar voice, the same one that used to make him feel at home, back before everything, all he could feel was the old instinct screaming at him to brace.
“Don’t even dare…” he said coolly, keeping his eyes on the page.
“What?” He drawled.
Louis didn’t need to look up to know he was smirking. He could hear it, that smug little curve tucked behind every syllable, like this was a game the vampire already thought he was winning.
“Anything. Whatever you need. The answer is no. Negative.”
It was reflex, a shield built from years of silence and one single, clean break they never repaired. They hadn't spoken for almost three years and had no reason to talk at all. They had nothing in common. They didn’t share classes. Or friends. Or lives.
Louis truly didn’t know what the vampire was trying to do. He just knew he wasn’t interested in giving it.
“How do you know I want something from you?”
“You always want something. You cannot ever be just nice, there’s always an agenda behind.”
“I haven’t even tell you what it is.”
“You don’t have to.” Louis mumbled, still looking at his spellbook. “The response is still no. But go ahead and tell me anyway, so I can make sure you never, ever, ever get what you want.”
“I need a Bound.”
Louis’ head snapped around, gaze locking on the vampire now standing far too close to his table.
It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Harry this year. Or this month. Or even this week. They’d passed each other in corridors, stood in the same bars, shared space without ever sharing breath. But this, this was the first time in years Harry had stepped inside Louis’ air. His atmosphere.
Louis’ body didn’t know what to do with it.
His mouth went dry. Not from nerves, from something deeper. Something raw and old that hadn’t been soothed in years.
Harry looked the same in the ways that mattered. A little taller maybe, a little sleeker, but still carrying himself with that same impossible ease. As if the world were shaped around him and not the other way around. His eyes held the same weight they always had, steady, green, unreadable. Kind, if you didn’t know better. Louis did. And still, his ribs ached with the memory of thinking Harry was the safest place he’d ever known.
Because for a long time, he was.
Louis had always been too much for the people meant to love him. Too sensitive, too drawn to the wrong kind of softness. His parents applauded his grades, paraded his achievements, but behind closed doors, their silence was sharper than scolding. They saw him like he was a slow-moving collapse.
His father's words came sharp, easy, like flicking lint from a jacket: Don’t walk like that. Don’t talk like that. You’re embarrassing yourself. As if Louis was putting on a show. As if softness was something he’d borrowed, not something that belonged to him.
But that was the cruelest part, he wasn’t performing.
The tilt of his wrist, the gentle cadence in his speech. The way his gaze lingered too long on his sisters’ dolls, his mother’s pearls, he hadn’t been trying to be anything.
He just was. And it was already too much.
Love, in the Tomlinson's household, was a resource. Conditional. Counted. And Louis had spent too much of it just by existing wrong. Disappointment clung to every glance, cold and practiced. Whatever Louis was, whatever he was becoming, they saw it early. And they didn’t want it. They didn’t want him.
So he adapted. Became fluent in what pleased them. He sharpened his posture, his speech, his smile. He hit every mark—grades, charm, obedience. Learned to wear the shape of a boy no one would question too much.
But Harry had never needed him to be any of that.
He didn’t wince when Louis’ voice pitched too high or cracked under pressure. Didn’t judge the colors he liked or the way he moved. When Louis clung in the way people do when they’ve never been taught how to be held. Not out of fear of breaking someone, but out of disbelief that anyone could stay intact under the weight of him. He held on like gravity, like instinct, like he didn’t know how else to ask someone not to leave.
And Harry stayed.
He didn’t flinch when Louis got too close. Didn’t peel him off or laugh it off or shift away. He leaned in. Let Louis dig in, let him leave marks. Because Harry couldn’t be broken or harmed—not by Louis. Not even if he tried. Not even if he wanted to.
Louis could claw at him with all the grief in his body, could pour every sharp, aching part of himself into Harry’s skin, and he would still stand there, untouched. Unmoved. Immortal.
But he still let Louis try. Let him carve himself into the spaces between them and believe, if only for a second, that someone might splinter from loving him back.
It made something dangerous bloom in Louis’ chest. Because with Harry, he didn’t have to ration himself. He didn’t have to dilute what he was just to stay wanted. There was something dizzying about that kind of safety, like being seen and not punished for it. It made Louis want things he didn’t know how to name. Made him believe, for a while, that he could want without being left behind.
But all of that shattered in a single moment. With one decision.
“First of all, it’s disgusting you even perceive me,” Louis snapped, lip curling. “Second, you wouldn’t know what to do with my blood.”
Harry smiled, that awful, lazy kind of smile that was once Louis’ favorite thing in the world and now made him want to bite something. “I know,” the vampire said softly. “That’s why I need your friend.”
Louis’ breath caught in his throat. “You know?”
“Did you hear the second part?” Harry tilted his head, gaze locked on him.
“Right.” Louis' stomach twisted. “Which friend? Wait—No. None of my friends would want to help you.”
“Won’t know until I ask, will we?”
Louis snorted. “You really think Orion or Amor would want—”
“I was talking about Willow.”
“Willow…”
“Yeah. She seems nice. Sweet.”
She was. Devastatingly so. Always knowing the right thing to say without ever needing to raise her voice. Sweetness poured off her in waves. A gentleness Louis wasn’t allowed to have.
So that was what Harry liked. Sweetness. Clean edges. Soft hands and quieter needs.
Certainly not Louis.
It landed with a cruel, clean snap somewhere under his ribs.
For years, Louis thought when Harry turned eighteen and was finally allowed to choose his first Bound, the vampire would choose him. They talked about it all the time, half-serious but fully certain. It was something given. Something known.
Louis had been proud of it. Nervous, but proud. He wanted to be worthy. He even began to eat better months in advance, memorizing every article he could find about blood enrichment. The wizard sent them all to Harry, everything from garlic myths to hydration hacks, even a detailed chart comparing blood flavor notes to red wine pairings.
ok so apparently if I eat dark chocolate before, the blood tastes kinda bitter. do you like that or do you prefer it sweeter??
also I read that pomegranate juice makes it taste better science is on my side 🧃🧛
He sent dozens like that. A hundred, maybe. Smiling down at his phone like an idiot, heart racing whenever Harry texted back.
It wasn’t just about the blood. It was about belonging to him. Being chosen. And Louis— Gods, Louis would’ve done anything to be chosen. Especially by Harry.
So Louis tried. He did everything right. Because he thought it mattered. Because he thought he mattered.
And for a while, he let himself believe it.
And then, months before the ceremony, Louis kissed a boy. It was something small. Innocent even, but it cracked something deep in him, something long suppressed and poorly buried under years of practiced indifference. Because when he kissed that boy, the world did not shift, but something inside him did. Suddenly, this dreadful side of him—twisted in longing, full of static and shame— always looming at the edge of his life could no longer kept hidden.
Louis liked boys. He trembled under their touch like no girl had ever made him tremble, spine taut, heart disloyal. It wasn’t just want. It was recognition. It was the realization that he could never erase this truth about himself, and that knowledge alone changed everything.
It was the worst day of Louis’ life.
So he did what had always felt like instinct. He went to his best friend. Confessed to him like a devoted man confessed to a god he wasn’t sure would love him after. Quietly, nervously, in a corner of Harry’s room where the light was soft and forgiving. Harry had promised him nothing would change. Had sworn it, actually, with the same fierce loyalty that once made Louis believe he might actually belong somewhere.
But something did change.
Because when the day came, Harry didn’t choose him.
No explanation. No warning. Just a different name, a different face. And the unspoken understanding that Louis had been wrong, about the promise, about the closeness, about what they were to each other.
And Louis, young and cracked down the middle, had done the only thing he could to stay standing, he cut all ties with Harry.
At first, Harry tried. Tried in the slow, clumsy way people do when they’re not quite sure what they’re apologizing for. A message here. A half-hearted attempt at conversation at a shared event. Small, harmless gestures, as if he didn’t realize something fundamental had broken. But Louis made it clear. No smiles, no eye contact, and eventually, no presence at all.
He didn’t show up to their family’s dinner two nights later. When Harry texted—twice, then once more the next morning—Louis stared at the messages until the screen dimmed, refusing to give in. By the end of the week, he’d deleted Harry’s contact.
Louis kept kissing that boy. The one from that first night. And the boy was kind, and gentle, and made Louis feel almost happy. He made Louis laugh, even on days he didn’t feel like a person who deserved to. And for a while, Louis let himself lean into it. He let himself believe in gentleness as something he could hold.
But he never clung. Not like with Harry.
Because this boy, he could bruise. Break. Louis saw it in the careful way he touched him, as if asking permission even in silence. The kind of softness you protect, not the kind you lean your full weight against. Louis knew how to wreck beautiful things just by wanting them too much. So he didn’t let himself take. Not the way he did before. Not the way he did with Harry.
Louis didn’t love the boy less. But he loved him carefully. With restraint. With apology stitched into every gesture.
He was almost happy. Almost whole. Almost.
Because some wounds don’t bleed. They just echo. And the part of him that fractured the day Harry said someone else’s name instead of his never truly mended. It only learned how to lie still beneath the skin, humming low like a bruise that never quite fades.
And now Harry was there. Asking like none of it had ever happened. Like his voice didn’t still echo just as loud as his betrayal through Louis' bones when he wasn't paying attention. Like he hadn’t once been Louis’ entire world, the bright, steady light in a place that never quite felt like home.
Louis wanted to lash out. To kick him out of the library—his library—before the walls remembered Harry too and stopped feeling safe.
“She left.” The words snapped like a match head in the quiet, anger simmering just beneath his skin.
“I know,” Harry said. Calm. Familiar. The same voice that had once tethered Louis to himself, now asking to untie another knot. “That’s why I’m here. I need her number.”
It wasn’t shock. It wasn’t even hurt, not really. What bloomed inside him wasn’t something fragile, it was ugly. That thick, slow burn of humiliation rising up his throat like bile. Of course Harry wasn’t here for him. Why would he be?
“Ah…” He swallowed, quickly averting his gaze at anything other than the vampire in front of him. Hands already rifling through papers he didn’t remember moving. Trying not to look as shaken as he felt until his clammy hand wrapped around something. His phone.
Louis could feel Harry’s gaze on him. And for a dreadful second it almost felt as if the man still could see every past version of Louis still reaching out, desperate and loyal, begging for scraps.
With slightly shaky hands, he scribbled something in a paper. Numbers he hadn’t planned to give it to him. But if he said no, Harry would stay. Would push. Would stand in this place and look through him until Louis fragile facade was exposed again.
So he gave in.
Not out of kindness. Out of desperation.
Besides, he was sure Willow would reject him. Harry represented many things she hated. So she wouldn’t give him the time of day. Everything would fall apart before it began. It had to.
“Here.” He shoved it toward him without meeting his eyes. “Now leave me alone.” He said turned back to his papers. “I have things to do.” His chest buzzed, warm and hollow.
Yes. Everything was going to be fine. It had to be.
SEPTEMBER 2025
ʚ PRESENTɞ
Louis has everything under control. Or at least, that’s what he kept repeating as he stepped into Orion’s apartment like a man on a mission instead of a slow-moving breakdown in designer boots.
Clara Belle waddles in ahead of him, her pink knit sweater riding up over her soft, squishy belly. She's a squonk the color of wilted hydrangeas, perpetually teary and impossibly tender, whose natural defense mechanism was self-pity. Louis chose her on his first year at Valemount to feel less alone. The plan had been to pick a fox that could shapeshift into other creatures.
Cool, right? Louis thought so, too. Throughout all his life.
That, of course, before he spotted Clara Belle among the other magical creatures. And funnily enough, he understood the sad and knowing glint in her eyes. No one wanted her, and she was aware of it. She was just a baby and was already grieving the life she’d never be offered. And Louis, too familiar with that feeling, had taken one look at her sobbing quietly in her cage and said, “I’ll take that one.”
She still cries, of course. At sunsets. At good food. At compliments too sincere. But that haunted look—the one that said I know no one wants me—was long gone.
Louis made sure of it.
He dresses her in pastels, buys her satin bows and hand-embroidered collars, calls her beautiful every morning with the kind of conviction people reserve for prayers, and tells anyone who’ll listen that she’s the best creature in the world.
Because she is.
And if Louis had anything to say about it, no one would ever make her feel like too much again.
Not while he was still breathing.
“I could’ve been fucking your friend on the couch,” Gala drawls, gliding in from the kitchen with a wine glass full of blood balanced between elegant fingers. The light catches in her hair, so pale it’s nearly white, loosely twisted up and beginning to unravel in soft waves at her neck.
Gala's not just Orion’s girlfriend. She’s Harry’s closest friend now, the one who stuck around when Louis didn’t. Gala is a breathing and direct connection to the vampire Louis can’t cut clean, no matter how much he wants to. Because based on the way Gala looks at Orion, soft and amused and quietly feral, Louis knows one thing with certainty, she is never letting that girl go.
“And Clara could’ve won Miss Familiar last month.” Louis rebukes as Clara Belle collapses on the carpet, tail wagging without direction. “Are we just throwing out random facts now? Where’s Orion?”
Gala snorts, sinking onto the couch. “Shower,” she replies, patting the cushion beside her. “Come be tragic next to me. I’ll even offer nods at the right moments.”
He hesitates, then slumps down beside her. “This one might be above your paygrade.”
“Try me.”
He eyes her and the sighs. “I’m going to haunt someone’s narrative.”
The vampire blinks, clearly trying to make a sense of what just came out from Louis’ mouth. “Haunt?”
“Yes. Haunt. The narrative.” Louis repeats.
“Whose?”
Louis opens his mouth, then shuts it and fidgets. He can’t say it. Can’t offer it up, not to her—not to Harry’s best fucking friend. “That’s… classified.”
Yes. That would be enough.
Gala studies his face for a moment before her eyes widens. “Harry’s narrative…”
“How—”
“Hi, Lou,” Orion calls brightly, breezing in like a change in weather, a towel twisted around her curls, drops trailing down her skin. “Hey, Miss Belle, you look especially pretty today,” she cooed at the squonk.
Clara does, in fact, look exceptionally pretty, her skin dry and soft, courtesy of the refined charms Louis uses to keep her that way: warm, comfortable, a little spoiled. She ignores Orion entirely. The way she always does unless she’s holding snacks. Compliments only matter to Clara Belle when they come from Louis.
“Everything alright?” Orion asks, flopping down on Gala’s lap
“Louis wants to haunt Harry’s narrative,” Gala, the snitch, tells her girlfriend.
“Fun!” She beams. “Do we have a plan?”
And just like that, she’s in.
No interrogation, no sideways glances, no slow blinking pity. Just pure, reckless loyalty.
That’s Orion. Ride or die in the most unshakable way. The kind of friend who doesn’t ask why the house is burning, just grabs a bucket and helps you pour more gasoline. Someone who held into people as hard as Louis used to.
Louis clears his throat, then pulls a folder from his bag—color-coded, annotated, unreasonably thorough. “I have. Several, actually. But the goal is the same. Sabotage Harry’s romantic prospects.” He hands them over the files.
Orion lights up like a birthday cake. “Oh, Gala can help with that!”
The vampire tilts her head. “Can I?”
Orion purses her lips. “Can’t you?”
“I can,” she replies, and it’s warm in a way Louis doesn’t expect. “Of course I can.”
Orion gives her a small peck on the vampire’s nose. “This is why you are the best.”
Louis averts his eyes, intently looking at Clara, who is already looking back at him, sniffing softly.
“Work schedule, Bound renewals…” Orion was already flipping through the packet. “You did a great job here, Lou.”
“How did you get those?” Gala asks, there’s no accusation or judgment in her voice, just genuine curiosity.
Louis lifted a shoulder. “I have contacts.”
“One of the interns at Harry's company share some classes with us and has a thing for Louis,” Orion supplies, smiling. "I knew you were up to something when you started talking to him out of nowhere!"
“He's very dutiful,” Louis says solemnly. “Handsome, too.”
He doesn’t mention how the man had kissed him like he knew he’d never get a second chance. Hands reverent, holding him down like he understood exactly who he was touching and couldn’t quite believe he’d been allowed to. He didn’t even try to leave a mark, as if he knew, somehow, that Louis wouldn’t let him. That marks meant memory, and Louis wasn’t offering that.
“We mutually helped each other last night.”
“Wait–” Gala’s brows furrows. “I thought you and Zayn were serious.”
“Openly serious and seriously open,” Louis wiggles his eyebrows. “We are more friends than anything else.” He shrugs, light and flippant, but it catches on his shoulders, like the weight doesn’t sit right. He can only imagine what she’s probably thinking about him. “He’s can to see any boy and any girl he wants.”
“So you can too…” Gala says almost under her breath while she nods. “I see… Okay… Good to know.”
“You are being a little weird, babe.” Orion says, grinning as she kisses her girlfriend’s temple.
“Sorry, sorry. I’m just trying to keep up.” The vampire smiles back, then turns to Louis. “But it seems you’ve got most of it sorted. What do you need from me?”
“Well, these are just formalities, but I still need to know where and when he hangs out.”
Gala’s lips curve, amused. “Right… okay. I can definitely help with that.”
“You are the best,” Orion tells Gala, voice full of love and tenderness.
Something presses sharp in Louis’ chest.
Gala just smiles, lips brushing Orion’s shoulder. “Anything for my princess.”
JANUARY 2025
ʚ PAST ɞ
Winter break was over. The snow hadn’t melted, but the air felt different, emptier, like it had swallowed something it wasn’t supposed to.
Louis had spent it at home. Not by choice, but because it was what was expected. His parents had asked about grades the moment he walked through the door. How many advanced classes this term? Who were the instructors? Had he applied to any shadowing fellowships yet?
They didn’t ask anything else. Not how he was sleeping. Not who he was seeing. Not how the ache behind his ribs hadn’t gone away since summer.
His sister wasn't there. Off at some high-profile winter combat camp their parents had pulled strings to get her into. He was alone in the house, surrounded by people who never noticed his absence when he wasn’t.
His birthday came and went without so much as a mention. That, until his mother handed him a wrapped box on his desk like it was an apology. Or worse, an obligation. Inside the box laid a navy silk tie. Something he was sure he would never wear.
Amor and Orion visited two days later, crashing into the silence like they were allergic to it. Orion gave him matching knitted berets shaped like cherry pies, one for Louis and a miniature version for Clara Belle, who sniffed hers suspiciously before accepting it with grave solemnity. Amor arrived with a cake he’d made himself—vanilla and plum, slightly lopsided, with Witches Don’t Age! scrawled across the top in chaotic frosting.
He’d brought Zayn too.
He was a werewolf, like Amor. His presence carried a weight. Like earth after rain, stone that wouldn’t move even if you wanted it to. Louis felt it every time Zayn leaned a little closer without hesitation, like he knew exactly where his body belonged. He laughed like it meant something, eyes crinkling at the corners, gaze steady. He didn’t need to say much to take up space.
They talked, and it wasn’t deep, but it settled over Louis like warmth. Easy. Unhurried. Their knees bumped once, then again, and neither of them moved. Zayn’s fingers brushed his during a laugh that came too quick, too loud, over something forgettable, but the contact stayed with him. Not electric. Just… easy.
Zayn looked at Louis like he wasn’t complicated. Like he wasn’t a mess to navigate. Like he’d stay, if he was asked. Louis didn’t ask. But he liked the thought that he could’ve.
It was the only part of break that felt real. And then it ended.
Willow was already waiting in the apartment they had been sharing since a year ago when Louis arrived, smiling with a kind of nervous joy that made something cold settle in his stomach. She told him Harry had gone to visit her during break. That he’d spent time in her hometown. That he’d helped with wards, tried her grandmother’s tea, and called her every day.
As it turned out, they had actually quite a lot in common. Louis had smiled back. Tight and forced.
He hadn’t told her about the tie. Or the silence. Or the way his house had felt too big, too quiet, like it no longer remembered him. Like maybe it had never fit in the first place.
Willow would care, he knew that. But she spoke with such uncomplicated joy, her words loose and glowing, like fairy lights wrapped around something breakable. Not because she feared it might crack, but because she trusted it wouldn’t. Louis couldn’t tarnish the brightness of her break with the dull ache of his own.
So he nodded. Let her talk. Laughed when he was supposed to.
Because what else could Louis say?
Harry used to call me every night, sometimes just to hear me breathe at the end of the line.
I memorized how he takes his tea and how his coffee always went cold while he talked.
I knew him so well I thought it meant I’d know what he’d want in a Bound too. I thought it gave me the right to believe I could be that for him.
I thought I could be you, before I even knew you existed.
Of course Harry liked Willow. She was everything Louis wasn’t. Good without the wreckage, gentle without needing to be forgiven for it. In a way that made people want to stay. She carried a love that was breathable. Not something that wrapped around your neck and tightened the closer you got. Suffocating.
She didn’t need to be unmade to be soft.
Louis wondered if that meant she’d get to keep Harry. And if maybe, through her, he’d get to keep some part of him too. Even if only in passing. Even if only through secondhand warmth.
He spotted them through the glass before they made it inside, Willow’s coat swinging open as she laughed at something Harry said, his hand brushing her elbow like it meant nothing. Louis had about thirty seconds to get his face in order. By the time they reached the table—his table, the one tucked near the back windows with the crooked chair leg and the perfectly golden morning light—Louis was already seated, back straight, expression smooth. He looked up casually, as if he hadn’t just been caught off guard.
The smile Louis gave them was almost lazy. Unbothered. A little too sharp at the edges.
“Look at you,” he said, drawing out the words slowly. “Making friends with a Leecher.”
He watched Harry’s brow lift, that familiar arch of unimpressed amusement. “Isn't that a very discriminatory insult, Tomlinson?”
The way his name rolled off Harry’s tongue still did something awful to Louis’ spine. It sounded too natural. Like it still lived in the back of his throat, even after all this time.
“Oh, I wish,” Louis put his chin on the palm of his hand.
Willow let out a small gasp, more of a squeak, really. Sweet and scandalized. “Lou…”
Louis waved his free hand. “He’s literally a vampire. There’s no more powerful being than him on this realm. Nothing I say can hurt him.”
Harry pressed a hand to his chest. “Is that a compliment?”
Louis’ smile curled tighter, meaner. “This is why you lot get shunned from nearly every realm you enter,” he said lightly. “You don’t know how to act normal.”
The vampire lifted a finger. “Hate speech.”
“No, no,” Louis said quickly, eyes wide with mock concern. “I know some vampires. Swear on it. I’m very tolerant. I even believe in humbling them every chance we get. You know, to keep the balance.”
The corners of Harry’s mouth twitched, then sharpened. “I can’t wait to tell my mother what you think about her.”
“When I talk about vampires,” Louis said smoothly, “it’s never about your mother or sister. In fact, I think she should be canonized just for surviving you as a kid. Besides…” He let his tone dip into something sweeter. “She’d never believe I said that about her.”
Willow’s frown deepened as she looked between them, confused. “You know each other?”
Louis exhaled, long-suffering. “Sadly.”
And Harry, like it cost him nothing at all, added, “We used to be friends since we were kids.”
Used.
The word rattled in his ribcage and the ache was almost nonexistent. Almost.
Willow brightened, oblivious. “So there’s no need for introductions!”
“Well,” Harry said, glancing at her, “Louis here is practically a stranger now to me. We haven’t spoken in years.”
The words were light, almost tossed aside, but Louis felt them like a scratch against old scar tissue. And then, as if Harry hadn’t just laced the air with something heavy, he added, almost breezy, “Besides, you still have to introduce me as your boyfriend.”
If Louis had been younger, less disciplined, he might’ve shattered every light fixture in the café just with the heat curling under his skin. Instead, he smiled, easy, controlled.
“Boyfriend?” he echoed, letting a quiet laugh curl around the word. “Thought you had better taste, darling.”
Willow’s smile faltered. She didn’t chide him this time. Didn’t laugh it off or play peacemaker. Instead, she turned fully to Harry, and something in her shifted, barely perceptible, but there. The warmth she always carried dulled to something cooler, more precise. A narrowing of focus.
“Did you hurt him?” she asked to Harry, and there was no decoration in her tone. No effort to cushion the blow. Just the question, raw and pointed.
Louis realized right there it wouldn’t matter what Harry said, if Louis said yes, if he gave Willow even a sliver of confirmation, she would end it. No questions. No arguments. Not because she didn’t care for Harry, but because she cared for Louis more.
It had been years since Louis felt that specific kind of pull, that urge to set something alight just to watch it fall apart. The temptation to undo things, recklessly and without care, sat just beneath his skin. But he knew he couldn’t do that to Willow. Because as much as Harry's decision hurt back then—and gods, it did—he knew Harry hadn’t meant to cause it. The damage hadn’t come from cruelty. It had come from absence. From love that never arrived quite the way Louis needed it.
He’d expected too much. Expected something unspoken to become something real. Something his.
But it wasn’t. Harry wasn’t. And he needed to finally learn to live with that.
“I was just joking,” Louis said at last, avoiding Harry’s gaze. “We drifted because that’s how life sometimes works.”
Willow’s lips pulled tight. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
She studied him a moment longer before nodding back, though the tension in her shoulders didn’t ease. “Good. Because I want my boyfriend and my best friend to be at least cordial.”
Louis raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you know the best formula for a relationship is if your boyfriend and your best friend absolutely hate each other?”
Harry gave a short laugh. “You just made that up.”
“There are studies,” Louis sniffed, lifting his iced coffee like it was a fine vintage. “Underground ones. Brilliant researchers. Very credible.”
A corner of Harry’s mouth lifted, slowly. The same smirk that still did strange things in Louis’ lower belly, regardless of how much time had passed. It curled low and warm and unwelcome.
“The voices in your head don’t count.”
Louis hummed. “To you.”
Willow’s giggle interrupted whatever Harry was about to say next. Louis tried to push the stubborn feeling of disappointment. “Oh you’re actual friends!” She looked at them both, eyes crinkled with delight. “Like, friends friends.”
“Were.” Louis clarified.
“Well, now life’s giving you a second chance! You can be friends again!”
A buzz in his phone saved him from having to reply to that. It was two pictures. The first was of Milo—the grey stray that had adopted Zayn one rainy afternoon without asking—sitting on the windowsill, staring at a sleek black cat like he wasn’t sure yet if they were friend or threat. The second showed both of them napping side by side, paws tucked close, bodies folded into one another like trust had arrived quietly in the afternoon.
Zayn:
i think milo wants to adopt a cat lol
he didn’t trust milo at first but i think he now feels safe with him
it kinda reminded me of you?
Louis stared at the screen, the corner of his mouth tugging before he could stop it.
“Look at that smile…” Willow sang as she finally dropped into the seat beside him. “Who is it?” She reached out immediately, hands open and insistent.
Louis handed over his phone without resistance. “Zayn.”
Willow nodded, already scrolling through the texts. “The name sounds familiar…”
“He’s Amor’s friend.” Louis told her. “We met this break. He’s cool.”
“Oh, the werewolf!” She perked up. “I remember him. He’s so handsome, too!”
Louis huffed a laugh. “Don’t tell him that. We’re trying to keep his ego at a manageable level.”
Harry, still watching them with the kind of quiet attention that made Louis feel like glass under a spotlight, leaned in just enough to be heard. “Too cocky for you?”
Louis hummed around his straw. “No. The perfect amount. I just like to play with his head.”
Harry’s gaze flicked. “He likes it, too? The mind games.”
There was another question between lines. A whisper on the back of his head in the form of a sharp smile, but the sound of a group of people entering the coffee shop prevented him from going further. He looked toward them, then back again.
“Very much so,” he said, evenly.
Willow gasped. “Speaking of mind games, you have to help me find a dress for the Cindervale. Harry invited me as his plus one.”
A swirl of emotion rose sharp in his chest at the mention of it. The Cindervale was nothing but a gilded circus. It wasn’t about elegance, it was about exclusion. About reminding people who was welcome, and who would always be merely tolerated.
Willow, with all her soft, wholehearted wonder, would stick out like sunlight in a gallery of mirrors. Too bright. Too real. An easy target for the kind of cruelty that never raised its voice. They’d dissect her spirit with surgical precision, revealing every perceived flaw, every vulnerability, until she was left exposed and defenceless.
Louis had grown up surrounded by it, polish over poison, velvet gloves hiding claws. He knew exactly how that world worked. Where kindness was currency you spent sparingly, and real emotion marked you as naive. And part of him—most of him—was worried for his friend and wanted to shield her from that brittle, ugly side of the world he’d grown up in. But beneath the concern, under all the protective instincts and loyalty and friendship, there was something uglier. Something he couldn’t reason away.
A flicker of envy.
Because this wasn't just a date. This wasn’t just Harry bringing a girl to a party. This was a public declaration. A formal introduction. A signal to the people who mattered that she mattered. That she belonged because he wanted to.
This was serious. Beyond serious.
Harry was bringing her into his world, he was offering her a specific place at the table, a place Louis had once, foolishly, believed could be his if he tried hard enough.
The shame came hot, sudden, and suffocating. His cheeks burned with it. How could he be so selfish? How could he let his delusions speak louder than his love for her friend?
Willow deserved every bit of happiness. Every door opened. Every name spoken with reverence. And knew if anyone could give her that safely, it was Harry.
And yet, some part of him—quiet, tired, and bruised—still helplessly ached. And that ache... he didn’t know how to forgive himself for it.
“Are you going to that?” Louis frowned, worry and shame bubbling in his chest. Successfully drowning any other wrongful feeling growing there, too.
“My parents asked me to go in their place,” Harry replied instead of her.
Louis blinked, gaze flicking toward him, searching. That didn’t make much sense. Harry’s parents adored their son fiercely and without conditions. They’d spent years shielding him from exactly this kind of place—the politics, the pedigree games, the brittle expectations dressed up as elegance.
They would never ask him to attend the Cindervale. Not unless something had changed. Perhaps it was them. Louis wouldn’t know. It had been years since he’d seen them. Years since he’d been close enough to tell.
“I need to give the best impression,” Willow stated, giving Harry an intimate smile.
“You always do,” Louis said, with a slight, easy smile. He tried to project calm, but inside, his stomach churned with a familiar unease. He couldn’t really ask her if she was sure if she wanted to go, if she even knew what that implied. It was condescending. Willow was one of the smartest people Louis knew. She was capable. Far from naive. “If they can’t see how amazing you are, that’s their loss.”
Willow wrinkled her nose. “Still. I want you to help me.” Her pout was playful, lit from within. “Harry’s grandparents will be there.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Louis muttered, too fast to pull it back
While Harry’s parents were warm and open—the kind of people who saw their son for exactly who he was—his grandparents had been a different kind of gravity. Heavy. Controlled. Cold in a quiet, ancestral way.
Louis remembered the way they looked at Harry. Not with cruelty, but with a subtle, constant calculation. Like he was something to be molded, measured, improved. Even as a boy, Harry had stiffened under their attention.
“They aren’t as bad anymore,” Harry swore, but Louis didn’t believe him anymore. Perhaps they still were as bad, but he only saw them differently because he was closer to them. “Besides,” Harry added, “they always liked you.”
Louis rolled his eyes. “They were polite. That’s not the same.”
“That was them liking you. They thought you were way smarter than me,” Harry pouted. “Don’t be unfair to them, pixie.”
Every muscle in Louis’ body locked up, like his bones had forgotten how to hold him.
Pixie.
It slipped from Harry’s mouth so easily, like it hadn’t gathered dust. Like it wasn’t sacred once.
It had been years since Louis heard it aloud, tucked away somewhere in a corner of his memory he rarely let himself dust off. Back then, he’d huff and roll his eyes whenever Harry said it, acting annoyed just enough to keep it believable. But secretly? He loved it. Loved the softness folded into it, the private meaning, the idea of being something Harry had named and noticed. But now… it felt like a punch in the gut.
A mockery.
“Pixie?” Willow beamed. “That’s so cute!”
Louis didn’t answer. He was too busy reeling at the absurdity of it.
Once upon a time, he’d been Harry’s pixie. And now… he was dating a real one.
“He used to create these intricate potions to make special flowers grow. Made flowers grow in frost. Coaxed trees into blooming with fruits from different seasons. Like an actual fairy.”
Louis’s chest tightened. The memory used to be his. Theirs.
He wanted to shut it down. Curl around the words and shield them from being handed off like trivia. That was mine, something inside him whispered. You don’t get to give that away. But Willow was his best friend. And Harry—Harry wasn’t being cruel. Not exactly. Just careless.
“This is why you were so curious about my powers?” Willow asked, reaching for his hand.
“No,” Louis smiled for her, genuine, if a little fragile. “It’s been years since I made anything grow. I just thought you were very cool.”
Willow squeezed his hand. “Well, we can talk about it whenever you like. I’d love that.”
“Thank you,” he said. Then, quieter, “And I will help with your dress.”
“You’re the best!”
Louis nodded, smile still in place, but something inside him flinched at the words.
He wasn’t. He really, really wasn’t.