Louis' house

1. prologue

Harry sighs and turns around, is about to call it a day and grab the plates to put them away again, as the doorbell rings. He frowns in confusion.

Was it just a prank? Did he text him, cancelling only to surprise Harry? Unlikely. He never does anything like that.

Harry turns back around and walks back out of the dining room, the crease between his brows sharpening and almost causing a headache to begin, before he quickly skips over to the radio on the kitchen island and turns his music down a tad. He ruffles through his hair once and walks over to the door, his wool sock clad feet not making a noise on the glistening marble tiles. They're a bit too posh. Too hard and too neat, for his liking, but it's fine.

He wills the frown to go away and puts on a polite smile for whoever might be behind his front door right now. It might be the grandma from across the street, maybe her cat ran away once again and she needs him to help her find her. It might be the post man, but then again Harry can't recall to have ordered anything, and it's quite late as well, on a Sunday, it's probably not the post man. Maybe it's the twin boys that have the house with the garden attached to Harry's, maybe they once again kicked their football over the fence. But again it's quite late, already dark outside.

So, there's only one other possibility, Harry thinks with a chuckle. The ghost that lives in the house right next to Harry, the one he truly believes is haunted. It's not his fault, really, because that house is rusty and disheveled. He might be twenty four, but he thinks he's allowed to be scared of the haunted house next to his own. The paint on the exterior is falling off, slowly darkened throughout the years, making it look like one of these cliché haunted houses in horror movies. The wooden parts of the porch are mouldy and would probably crack if you stepped on them. What once had to be a beautiful small mansion, about the same size as Harry's house, is something Harry would physically drag his kids away from, if he had any.

He prepares himself for a see-through creature, maybe a walking corpse, something that's flying, possibly.

But when he swings the door open and his eyes land on the person standing in front of him, his jaw drops and he freezes, the sight surprising him more than any ghost ever could.

In front of him is a man. Not just any man. A man, slightly smaller than Harry with messy, brown hair, faintly tan, the bluest eyes Harry has ever come across.

A man, whose eyes widen and lips part as well as he looks at Harry. "Wha-" He says, sentence cut off in confusion. His mouth opens and closes several times, before he breathes out, "Harry?"

Harry furrows his brows and nods slowly, one hand still gripping the front door like a vice. This is not possible.

Louis Tomlinson, standing on his porch, in the dark.

At least it doesn't seem like he planned to just show up out of the blue, since he seems equally surprised to see Harry.

"Louis" Harry says slowly and thinks he sees Louis' lips tilting up the tiniest bit, but he's not entirely sure in the darkness. "What are you doing here?"

"I, um" Louis moves for the first time since Harry opened the door, his hand raising to vaguely gesture down the street. "I moved in next door"

Harry's jaw drops even more, though he doesn't think that's possible. "Pardon?"

Louis lets out a small chuckle, and Harry knows him well enough to see right through it, it's the sort of chuckle Louis lets out when he wants to interrupt awkward silences with random noises. He once, at about fifteen, had a phase where he always imitated animals when there had been awkward situations. It was a bad era and Harry had to do a lot of convincing until he eventually stopped doing that- and replaced it with small chuckles. The sort of laugh that ends as quickly as it came, without reaching his eyes.