Boy Wizards | Harry/Louis (Zayn/Niall) | NC-17 | Harry is the Ravenclaw prodigy and Louis is the Gryffindor hotshot who can’t seem to stop staring at him.
Notes: Two updates in one day? I don’t even know who or what I’ve become! Also, just in case you missed it, I updated LTY earlier in the day, so check that out if you haven’t! And as always, hope you enjoy the chapter :)
“Harry. Harry. Blimey, are you even listening to me right now?”
The curly-haired boy had jumped at the second mention of his name, which was only slightly awkward given that they were walking in a rather crowded hallway and he had almost trampled some poor first-year girl in his shock. She scowled at him, although she ran away red-faced to join her friends that were now walking yards ahead of her. He frowned, especially when he noticed how Niall’s eyes gleamed with amusement.
“Sod off,” Harry muttered, resuming his pace so that he wouldn’t be stampeded by the other students rushing to the Great Hall for breakfast.
“Ickle Harry’s in an icky mood,” Niall teased, pinching his best friend in the side.
“Only because you’re forcing me into one,” Harry noted, though he was smiling in spite of himself. Even then, Niall poked him in his dimple. “Hey!”
Niall bellowed a laugh that startled several girls walking beside them. Harry felt a brush creep up his cheeks as he felt all eyes in the hallway turning toward them.
“Merlin, try not to make us the laughingstock of the castle at least until after I’ve got food in my system,” Harry said wearily. He stifled a yawn; last night’s activities had left him rather exhausted, and getting up and out of bed this morning had been one of the most trying tasks in recent memory.
“And I thought I acted rudely before eating,” Niall observed casually. “But Princess Harry’s proven me wrong again.”
They rounded into the Great Hall and found empty spots at the Ravenclaw table, which was already laden with plates of toast, eggs, sausage, and goblets of juice that Harry instantly lunged for. Niall just watched him, entertained.
“Anyway, you still haven’t answered my question,” Niall said with a mouthful of porridge. “Are we purposefully avoiding each other now?”
“Question?” Harry didn’t even flinch at the way that orange juice trickled out his mouth and down the sides of his jaw. Niall only snorted as he wiped it off his chin with a napkin.
“Yes, the one that I asked earlier,” the other boy said, only mildly exasperated. “Where’d you head off to last night?”
Harry tried not to let his reaction play on his face as he bit into a slice of toast.
“What do you mean?”
Niall rolled his eyes. “Come off it, Harry. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw that your bed was empty. Then I woke up again when I heard you slip into the dorm. Honestly, for someone with a petite figure such as yours, you would think that you’d be lighter on your feet. But no.” Then Niall transitioned into an impersonation that Harry could only really classify as a troll clambering into a stone hallway – with cauldrons for feet.
Harry blushed again. “Was I really that loud?” o
The other boy scooped some more food into his mouth. “‘M a heavy sleeper,” he slurred. “Let’s just say that much.”
Harry nodded because, yes, Niall really was a heavy sleeper. And the fact that he’d woken up only meant that he must’ve been louder than he expected. But he couldn’t really be held responsible for that, not when he’d received his first detention only mere minutes ago.
“So?”
Harry sighed. “No follow-up questions, okay?”
“I’m not making any promises – ”
“I went out with Louis last night.”
“Tomlinson?”
“We snuck out to the Quidditch pitch.”
“You snuck out to the Quidditch – ?”
“No questions!”
“I never made any promises – ”
“Then we got caught and now we have detentions.”
“You have a dete – ?”
“What did I say!”
“Fine! Sorry!”
Niall huffed and dropped his spoon from his hand, folding his arms in frustrated thoughtfulness. Meanwhile, Harry diverted his attention immediately to his breakfast, because he knew that in spite of his warnings, Niall would come up with a million questions and, try as he might, he wouldn’t be able to deflect them all; that was just the way their relationship worked.
But just as Niall made a motion to say something, Harry interrupted.
“Give it a minute. Make sure it’s really the question you want to ask first.”
Niall thought about that and shut his mouth, his eyes glossing over with contemplativeness once more. Then he arched upward again, mouth open with the prospect of a new question.
“Are you sure?”
“Merlin, Harry! Can I speak now?”
Harry only shrugged, repressing whatever smile threatened to break out across his face at his best friend’s exasperation.
“So,” Niall started slowly. “Detention…with Louis? Louis Tomlinson.”
Mouth full of egg, Harry only nodded.
“Okay. So, I suppose the next order of business is…” Niall blinked for a few moments. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“What do you mean ‘what was I thinking’?”
“You never do shit like that,” Niall said matter-of-factly as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and in a way, it kind of was. “When I saw you last, you were studying!”
“My life isn’t only studying,” Harry said, a little too defensively. “Besides, where the hell have you been?”
“Now what’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re always gone for hours at a time – ”
“Quidditch!” Niall replied quickly, almost knocking his goblet of juice over in his enthusiasm.
“Bollocks,” Harry said simply, and Niall huffed again and sat back down without having realized he had stood up slightly.
“I don’t like what you’re accusing me of,” Niall muttered sullenly, though a bite of sausage seemed to brighten his spirits almost instantly.
“I didn’t,” Harry remarked thoughtfully. “You’re the one acting like there’s something to accuse in the first place.”
Niall shook his head. “Okay, okay, whatever. That’s not the point. When’s your detention?”
Harry opened his mouth then shut it; he actually didn’t know that. It had all happened so quickly last night that he accepted his fate without so much as another word before stalking off to the Ravenclaw common room, leaving McGonagall and Louis in his wake.
He spun around to look at the Gryffindor table where he knew Louis must have been sitting. He saw the boy’s back, but couldn’t make direct eye contact with him – as if that would have answered his question. Only somewhat crest-fallen, he turned back around to Niall, who had been looking at him curiously.
“I’m not sure,” Harry ended up replying, fighting off the urge to lash out with a very pointed, ‘What?’
“You might want to figure that out.”
“You think?”
But before Niall could say anything else, the typical morning time clatter and hooting of a hundred or so owls streaming into the Great Hall cut off his words. They spun around in high circles around them, and while some of the first-years still adjusting to the commotion stared awestruck at the air above them, Harry and Niall resumed their breakfast, only cowering slightly over their food to deflect any stray feathers – or worse – that could have landed there.
Just as the owls started streaming out again, Harry was jolted out of his eating reverie by a small envelope that landed in the plate of muffins sitting before him. Niall eyed it quizzically, and Harry pulled it out; he never got mail.
“‘S that?” Niall said, tearing a chunk out of his bacon.
“Dunno,” Harry said, tearing the envelope open. When he pulled out the parchment inside, he found that it had a very short, very simple message.
‘Your detention is this Saturday. Meet in the Trophy Room at noon. Wands won’t be necessary.’
Harry winced at the message and instinctively turned around to find Louis sitting across the hall smiling at him, clutching the same envelope.
***
“Don’t you seem like a right great big ball of sunshine?” Louis remarked brightly as he occupied his normal seat next to Harry in Potions.
“Excuse me?” Harry said a little lightly as Niall snorted into his sleeve. In turn, Harry swiftly kicked his friend in the shin and wondered if he would ever get tired of bruising in the same place each week. Either way, the blond boy frowned and sulked into his notebook.
“You’ve got a frown on your face, Styles,” Louis observed. “You’re still pretty, of course. But I’d prefer it if you were smiling.” He reached out and lightly pinched the end of Harry’s lips, pulling them upward. “Ah, yes. There we go. What a sight for sore eyes.”
Harry pulled away and lightly punched Louis in the side. “Prat.”
“Don’t I know it,” he replied, drumming his fingers against the table. “But really, what’s got you so down?”
“I’m not down.”
“Well, you’re not up either.”
Harry almost choked at that; that was certainly the wrong way to interpret Louis’ words. Either way, he swallowed and kept his gaze off the boy next to him by staring directly ahead at the front of the classroom.
“I’m just – it’s nothing, really.”
When he chanced a look at Louis, he found that the older boy was already arching a brow at him in a manner that was both infuriating and…well, it should really have only been infuriating.
“What’s that look for?”
“You’re lying, Styles.”
He huffed a sigh before whispering as lowly as he could manage so that not even Niall could hear, “It’s just that I’ve never had a detention before, okay? This is my first one and…well, I’m not exactly thrilled to have one. Is that alright with you?”
Louis pulled away from where he had been listening intently to Harry’s words. Then without much warning, he bucked backward into ear-splitting laughter or, at least, what must have been ear-splitting to him because he was so close to him and it was directed at him. Either way, the other students in their row and the row before them turned to stare, and Harry could feel his cheeks growing hotter and redder. Even Niall was looking around wildly, wondering where the attack had come from.
“What the actual fuck,” Harry heard himself muttering under his breath.
Louis blinked back tears that he wiped away with the sleeve of his robe.
“Is that all, then? Merlin, I thought there was something real to be concerned about over here.”
“Real? Excuse me, but this is something very real to be concerned about.” Harry tried softening the edge to his voice.
“Sorry to be a twat,” Louis said, eyes twinkling with mirth, “but I respectfully disagree. Detention is nothing. A piece of cake, a walk in the park, a…” He thought about that for a moment. “A swim with the giant squid.”
“You’re such a – wait, a swim with the giant squid?” He couldn’t hide the curiosity that laced his question.
Louis nodded proudly. “Gentle giant, that one. He’d give Hagrid a run for his money. Took it up as a dare during our second year. And one of my proudest detentions, let me tell you. That thing just wants a giant hug, like any one of us. Look!” And without another warning, he dove straight for Harry and wrapped him around in his lanky arms, pulling him in closer and tickling his sides.
Harry couldn’t breathe, he was laughing so hard against his will. And if the eyes had turned away from earlier, they were all back on the pair of them for the utterly abnormal behavior they were exhibiting. It wasn’t until Niall interjected that Louis reached the right state of mind to stop himself.
“Oi!” Niall said, nudging against their flailing limbs. “Class is about to start, lads, and I’d really rather if Harry didn’t break apart beforehand. Otherwise, I’ll have to give him my notes, and we both know mine are shit.”
Louis blinked, coming back to his senses. He untangled himself from Harry, who collapsed against his desk in a disheveled heap.
“Right. Thanks for that one, mate. Got out of hand there.”
But Niall simply winked at him. “No worries.”
When Harry could breathe easily again, his head rose from where it had been stuffed in his arms. Louis was looking at him with an expression that mingled with an apology and with amusement.
“Sorry about that.”
Harry chuckled. “Just be glad that Snape wasn’t here to see that.”
“Ah, yes.” Then Louis scrunched his face into what Harry assumed was his impersonation of the greasy professor. “‘What…do…you…think…you’re…doing? Detentions for…all of you. Now, off to have a Salazar Slytherin…wet dream.’”
Harry didn’t anticipate the bark of laughter that escaped from his lips. And from Louis’ expression of genuine surprise, he didn’t either. But he did look mildly pleased with himself.
“Er, yeah,” Louis said, putting a hand on the back of his neck. “Anyway, detention. Not a big deal. You’ve lucked out, really, for your first time. Minnie’s a delight.”
He raised a brow. “Minnie?”
“Oh,” Louis said, cheeks turning pink. “McGonagall. She loves me, you see. So detention should go rather nicely for us. She’s much easier than anyone gives her credit for.”
“Ah,” Harry said, contemplating how he’d never reached a level of comfort with Flitwick to ever call him ‘Filly’ or ‘Flitty.’
“Yes, so, don’t fret,” Louis said, leaning forward and whispering in Harry’s ear as Snape entered the dungeon. “You’re in good hands.”
The goosebumps that shot down Harry’s spine seemed to agree.
***
But when Harry walked into the trophy room on the third floor, his heart couldn’t resist its palpitations of nervousness and anxiety. He was always like this about his first try at just about anything, and the fact that this was his first detention ever didn’t help matters.
Once inside, he found that McGonagall and Louis were already there, standing just a little off to the side of the center of the room, engaged in what Harry could only interpret as very lively and animated conversation. He even swore that the ghost of a smile – or maybe it was a muscular dysfunction – had crept its way to the elderly professor’s face.
When Harry took another step into the room, both stopped mid-conversation to turn to where he was standing, caught like an unarmed wizard staring down the tip of a wand.
“Harry!” Louis greeted fondly, waving a little haphazardly.
“Mr. Styles,” McGonagall said, nodding her head. But the way she said his name wasn’t coarse or curt; it had a surprising degree of warmth to it. And Harry wondered if that had anything to do with the fact that she had just been speaking with Louis.
“Hello all,” Harry croaked, and Louis looked like he might have been trying his hardest to stifle more laughter that threatened to burst from him. He really derived enjoyment from Harry’s unfortunate awkwardness; it must have been genetic.
“Anyway,” McGonagall said, flattening the front of her tartan emerald robes. “Yes, you and Mr. Tomlinson will be in charge of cleaning and polishing the trophies on that side – ” She gestured to the half of the room behind her. “ – of the room. Don’t worry about finishing it all. Just remember to stay until three. And as a reminder, no wands. Cleaning materials are over there.” She nodded her head once more in goodbye and she walked out of the room.
With wide eyes, Harry looked over to Louis, who was staring at him with a smirk.
“What?” Louis asked, privy to the mess of questions tugging at Harry’s mind.
“She’s not staying?” He didn’t care how stupid he might have sounded. “She’s just leaving us?”
Louis shrugged. “I told you she liked me. She might drop by to make sure that we haven’t become too distracted from our work, but even then, that’s not likely to happen. She trusts us, so long as we stay here for the designated amount of time.”
“And are we doing that?”
Louis’ eyes lit up. “And what’s this? Harry Styles already conjuring up his next fit of mischief even before serving his first detention? That’s bold of you.”
Harry snorted. “Arse.”
Louis feigned a frown. “I’d like to think I haven’t rubbed off on you in a negative manner. I’m a rather decent role model, if I say so myself.”
“That’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one,” Harry said, slowly walking over to the cleaning materials over by the nearest wall.
Louis thought about that for a moment, and then said, “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“I’m always right,” Harry noted, grabbing a rag and dousing it in the polishing liquid that McGonagall had left behind. “This smells putrid.”
“Not a bad price to pay for a night on the Quidditch pitch,” Louis said, though it sounded more like a question, more like a search for validation.
Harry smiled. “Yeah. Definitely not.”
“Good.”
“Are you going to grab a rag then?”
Louis leaned against the wall and looked around the trophy room. “In a minute. Just a bit strange, isn’t it? Standing in a room so full of history and such? Like, we’ve got centuries of student legacies piled up in this room here, and all it comes down to is a pair of truant students with a rag in one hand and some polish in the other. I’d like to think that I’ll be doing something beyond that.”
Harry thought about whether or not to remark sarcastically, but from the thoughtfulness he could see in the other boy’s eyes, sincerity was the way to go here.
“You will,” Harry said with a degree of certainty that couldn’t exactly be explained. “Besides, you can’t really do anything about that trophy anyway. You’ll be getting your own soon enough.”
Louis looked at him, wordlessly asking for clarification.
“You’re Quidditch captain,” Harry reminded him. “You automatically get your name engraved into some gold plate in here. That’s just the way it works.”
“Ah. Yeah. That’s right.”
Then after a beat, Harry asked, “Rag then?”
“Yeah.”
And so the first hour moved along quicker than Harry imagined, and it certainly wasn’t as terrible as he had been building it up in his head to be. They started off at opposite ends of the room, with Louis against one wall and Harry against the other. The first part of their conversation was surprisingly introductory, surprising given the fact that Harry felt like he had known Louis his whole life when he didn’t even know that the boy didn’t actually live in some wealthy wizarding community like he’d assumed, but in Muggle Doncaster, of all places.
Sure, his family was of pureblood descent, but that was mostly on Louis’ father’s side of the family. Once his parents divorced, he moved to Doncaster with his mum, where she married a Muggle man and had four of his sisters. He learned that his sisters were the light of his life and that the eldest – Lottie, short for Charlotte – had gone to Beauxbatons.
He went on to explain that Liam was in a similar situation, at least in the way that his family was a pureblood one, but not in the typical sense. They’d been disowned, so they moved out to Doncaster where they met the Tomlinsons. It was only by some happy coincidence that the two blood traitor families from the Tomlinsons and the Paynes happened to meet in the same Muggle town.
“So he’s your best friend then?”
Louis nodded from where he was polishing a particularly difficult plaque. “In every sense. I don’t know what I would do without him.”
Harry took those words to heart and realized how much they applied to his relationship with Niall.
As they moved into the second hour of their detention, Harry went on to tell Louis about his life in the Muggle establishment of Holmes Chapel. It was cozy and nothing to brag about, but it was home, and Louis seemed to understand that more than Harry could comprehend. He was Muggle-born, which was something that he rarely ever shared, and yet he had no qualms about telling Louis. Louis didn’t look at him any differently, and Harry wondered why he had expected him to.
He went on to talk about his relationship with his older sister, Gemma, whom he missed ever since he went off to Hogwarts. And though they still loved each other and she would send him letters every so often, it was never the way it used to be when they were younger and he wasn’t a wizard and he wasn’t gone from home for months at a time. It was hard, Harry admitted freely, and Louis echoed his sentiment; being away from family was the hardest part about going to Hogwarts.
McGonagall never showed up, and in the third hour of their detention, Harry and Louis found that they couldn’t quite bring themselves to clean with the same passion – if it could even be considered that – as they had earlier. So toward the end, they were sitting on the floor, each with a trophy in hand and their legs splayed out before them. Harry’s eyes had gone blurry with the sheer intensity of the fumes that came from the polish.
“That’s it,” Louis said, setting his trophy several feet away from him and falling backward, his back resting against the stone floor. “I’m finished.”
“Yeah,” Harry echoed, setting his trophy away as well and leaning against the wall. “I guess we can just wait it out here until we’re free to go.”
“Perfect.”
“What do you want to do?”
Louis laughed airily at that. “I don’t know. Stay here, I guess.”
“Obviously,” Harry said, and he couldn’t understand why he was even the tiniest bit irritated with Louis’ answer.
Louis sat up, looking Harry right in the eye. “And why does Princess Harry sound fussy?”
“I’m not being fussy,” Harry said, though the fact that he folded his arms just then didn’t help his argument. “I’ve just spent the past three hours polishing trophies. I think you’ll understand if I’m not exactly over-the-moon happy right now.”
Louis readjusted himself so that he was on his knees, sitting backward on the balls of his feet. “Why not? I’m happy! Not over-the-moon happy, but happy nonetheless. Aren’t you?”
Harry bit his lip to keep from smiling; Louis didn’t ever have to do much to elicit this sort of reaction from him.
“What’s it to you?”
Louis smirked and reached out to swat Harry in the arm, but the younger boy evaded the movement and fell over in a fit of laughter. Louis joined him, though he made sure to keep his noise to a minimum just in case it drew the attention of a certain head of Gryffindor house.
“You’re a proper twat,” Louis decided as he waddled over to where Harry was sitting up again.
“No,” Harry said quickly. “You.”
“Eloquent. Very well said. Tell me, you’re in Ravenclaw, you said?”
Harry’s cheeks flushed and it was his turn to swipe at Louis. His hand met the side of Louis’ face and sent the older boy careening sideways. Both exploded into laughter.
Louis launched himself at Harry, tackling the younger boy against the wall (Harry muffled his groan as he didn’t want Louis to think he’d hurt him) and digging his fingers into his side in another flurry of tickles that left Harry breathless and groping at Louis’ back for some sort of release.
“You’re helpless!” Louis cried out in between fits of laughter. “I’d love to see what you could do with a wand!”
“I’m – good – with – hexes!” Harry wheezed from under Louis’ grip.
“Yeah, I’m sure you are, pretty boy. Flitwick’s golden child, aren’t you?”
Just then, Harry took advantage of Louis’ momentary distraction to push himself out from under him. He jumped to his feet and tried running away, only to have a pair of arms flay themselves around his waist and tug him back to the ground. When he landed in Louis’ lap, he was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down his cheeks. When he turned to look at the older boy, he found that his eyes had become fountains as well.
And as their laughter subsided, it became all the more obvious that Louis had Harry in his arms and in his lap, pliant in his grip and all too relaxed to be there. They blinked several times at each other, watching as the smiles faded from their faces and the apples of their cheeks, though still rosy, came gently down.
Harry didn’t know how he ended up here with Louis, nor did he remember how his arms wound up wrapped around the older boy’s neck. And yet they were sitting there on top of each other, faces barely inches away from each other with heart rates spiking and breaths shallow.
“Hey,” Louis decided to say first.
Somehow, Harry’s throat had managed to go dry while his mouth filled with saliva – like whenever he got really hungry for something.
“Hi,” he returned in a breathless chuckle.
“Best detention of my life, let me tell you,” Louis said, his eyes looking at everything on Harry’s face but his eyes.
“Same.”
“Not much competition to choose from,” Louis pointed out softly.
“Yeah, but I’m sure if I ever get another one, this’ll be it,” he said. “You were my first, Louis Tomlinson.”
And there was no denying the visible lump in Louis’ throat as Harry said that.
“Yeah – uh – yeah, I guess I was.”
Though he couldn’t explain what was happening, Harry found himself leaning in closer to Louis, which seemed impossible given how close they already were – and even more impossible when Harry noticed that Louis was moving toward him, too.
They were barely a breath away and really, Harry thought that maybe their lips had already grazed each other in a chaste touch before Louis pulled away, blinking wildly and looking like he’d just been doused in cold water.
“Yeah, look,” Louis said, detaching his grip from Harry’s waist. “I’m not – ” He laughed softly. “I…would. I really would, Hazza. But…”
“But?”
Louis blinked again before smiling at Harry gently.
“I’m not going to be the one to ruin you.”
With that, Louis pulled himself up and out from under Harry’s weight, flattening his shirt and pants and robes (and something else that Harry thought he’d caught the outline of) and gathering his belongings that he’d set in the corner of the room. He made to leave, but just before walking out the door, he turned around and flashed Harry a grin and a cheeky wink.
And when Harry returned to his empty dorm that afternoon, furiously pumping himself with one hand and grabbing at his sheets with the other, it was Louis’ name that he gasped into the sweet oblivion of release.
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