the royal family of the music industry

10. Over Again

"You know," He starts and Harry's head peaks up interestedly. "It's nice that we can, like, be friends again."

Harry raises his eyebrows.

Wow.

That hurts as fuck.

Harry isn't able to say anything, so he just barely nods, focussing on not crying right now.

He watches as Louis leaves, again.

He watches as the door closes.
The room is as silent as ever, not early birds chirping outside and no Louis Tomlinson talking with his beautiful voice.

Harry rolls over onto his stomach and groans into his pillow. The groan slowly turns into a muffled scream and dies back down in a choked sob.

Harry is so done.

Slowly, he stands up as well and walks over to his bathroom, a hand running through his messed up curls.

As he looks into the mirror, he huffs out an unamused laugh.
He looks like he's had sex.
And Louis just left out of his door, not looking much better.

To any person it would look as if the two had just fucked the whole night.

When in reality, Louis had just fucking friend zoned Harry.

Harry is in the friend zone of the love of his life.

He quickly swallows an aspirin against his headache and pulls back the curtain of his bathtub.
In this castle are no freaking showers, only bathtubs ("For the vibe.") and he freezes.

Oh.

His bathtub is still filled with water and there is a champagne bottle, relaxingly floating over the surface. Inside, there is a sheet of paper, safely tugged and protected against water with a cork.

Oh.

The last events of the night before slowly occur to Harry as he watches to bottle.

He doesn't remember how exactly Louis had came up with the idea to make a message in a bottle, or why he had agreed to it, but they had ended up taking the empty champagne bottle.

Harry wanted to write a letter, but Louis had just pulled out the paper he had in the pocket of his hoodie and stuffed it inside, closing the bottle with the cork immediately.

"Your song? But you'll need that." Harry had said, smiling like an idiot, partly because of the alcohol, partly because he was spending time with Louis alone.

"I don't care." Louis had shrugged.

They had been too lazy to even walk over to the lake and decided to throw the bottle into Harry's bathtub.

And here it is, the song Louis wrote about Harry, swimming right in front of him.
Reminding him that Louis had written at least two songs about him, just to friend zone him.

Who on earth does that?

Harry's fingertips tingle as contemplates his options.

He could read it.

He could read it and he would know where they stand, how Louis sees Harry right now. But that could break his heart and that could take Louis even farther away from him for not respecting his privacy.

After all, Harry and Louis know, most of all songwriters, how personal a song can be and how you can tell someone, or everyone, how you truly feel without really saying it.

They had done it so many times.

Writing songs like if I could fly, home, 18, perfect or even no control and putting them out into the world, they sent everyone secret messages declaring topics they weren't allowed to talk about, hoping someone would catch onto that. And people did. The Larry-shippers as they called themselves grew bigger and stronger. Giving Louis and Harry reassurance that it would be okay and accepted if they came out one day. They proved that their fans were not homophobic assholes as Simon made them out to be.