Bound by Pages | larry

twenty-nine

"I'm going to tell you the truth okay?" Louis pressed his lips together. "Just please don't get mad at me."

"Please tell the truth," Harry paused before speaking again. "But I can't promise that I won't be angry. This is Liam we're talking about. He is... he was my best friend."

"Okay," Louis sighed. "So, there's been an ongoing investigation with Liam's crash."

"Yea, I know that."

"So Niall was there when he crashed, they've been trying to figure out if Niall was involved in why Liam crashed," Louis explained slowly. "That's why Niall hasn't been at school."

Harry felt his face heat up, and anger start to rise in his chest. "So Niall killed him?"

"No no no!" Louis quickly defended his own best friend. "He was cleared remember? That means he didn't cause the crash."

"They concluded that Liam swerved into the pole with no external causes. He was just drunk. They think there's a low chance that Liam even knew Niall was there. An on-scene breathalyzer even recorded that Niall was sober. That's why he was cleared." Louis continued.

Harry tried to listen, he really did, but he had a hard time focusing on what the smaller boy was saying. The fact that his best friend was dead, and was always going to be dead hit him so fast, but the tears came even faster.

"Please don't be mad Harry," Louis swallowed audibly.

Harry took a shaky breath, "I'm not. It wasn't his fault like you said. I can't be mad at him because he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Thank you so much, Harry. I honestly didn't expect you to be so understanding." Louis bit his lip, voice cracking and wavering. "I don't think I would be able to deal with you getting mad at me again."

Harry smiled lamely, but suddenly he was too tired to do much else.

"I'm going to go to bed. You can do whatever." Harry lazily motioned around the room. He then sighed and crawled under the heavy sheets, facing the wall his bed was adjacent to.

He didn't expect Louis to join him since it was so early, but not a minute later, the bed sunk down with a new weight on it. Harry sighed again as he felt an arm hold him. He let a tear or two escape his eyes with the latest mention of Liam.

~

The morning had gone smoothly since his father had already left the house. They made their way to school, and into English class together.

"Okay class," Mr Wikards started. It had been a while since he had conducted a real lesson. "As you all know, the weather's getting colder and Christmas is approaching."

The class collectively nodded and smiled.

"That also means the semester is coming to a close, and final projects are being assigned. Now, I don't believe in exams, so instead, you will have a large project worth thirty per cent of your final grade. "

The class collectively groaned this time.

"Now, it won't be too bad. I want one essay, seven hundred fifty to nine hundred words." Several other people groaned at the sound of an essay. "Come on guys."

"Tell me what this year has really meant to you. Tell me if the time was worth it, if you regret not doing more, or if you wish you did less." Mr Wikards smiled at the students around the class. "It's an open assignment really, just tell me what this year, or even this class, has meant to you, and how it will affect the rest of your life."

Harry spent the rest of the class writing down ideas. Thinking about it, this year has meant a lot to him. Not the full year, but since school started, his life had really been flipped around. His father, his best friend, his boyfriend. Before he knew it, the class was over.