Bird Set Free || Harry Styles AU

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2 years later

Harry snuck out that day.

It was scorching hot as he tumbled out the front door. At the age of seven, Harry learned that him and his father do not see eye to eye. His eyes were puffy, his cheek stung, and he felt betrayed by his mother and Gemma.

'They didn't do anything to protect me.'

Harry also learned he was forever alone. Alone in his mind that is.

"I don't wanna get married, I don't wanna be a father, I don't wanna have girlfriend, gross." He angrily mutters to himself as he stomped around grabbing his chestnut colored hair.

"They make me so angry! I wanna run away! That's it I'm gonna run away!" At this point warm silent tears soothed his cheek. He sees in a distance, all the darker colored people working hard but singing happily in the back of the big home.

'Why can't I be happy like them' he thinks as he wipes his tears with the hem of his thin long sleeved shirt. Only if he truly knew, but that's why they say, ignorance is bliss.

He stares for a while longer as his crying did not seize and his tearstained sleeve is damp. The ache builds in his chest as his tears scream out for his heart because he couldn't find the words to describe how much he is hurt.

He begins to wander around the house. Not knowing where to go.

"Why would Desmond move us all the way into the stupid woods." He growls as he plops down in a high patch of grass only a couple of feet behind his house. He hides within the greenery as peaks to watch the slaves crowd around and sing. Some carrying baskets on their heads filled to the brim while two two others were lying weakly within the indigo plants.

"Harold! Where are you?" Anne, his mother yells for her distraught son. She grabs ahold of her chest in sadness. She saw the way Harry's eyes begged for her assistance but even Anne didn't have enough power to stand up to Desmond.

"Harry!" She screams much louder, grabbing the attention of many slaves. They too, survey the area for the pale skinned boy on the field but no one caught him watching all of them in contempt.

The sound of a pained mother screaming for a child is enough to summon a whole search. Especially if the child is from the Desmond Styles. Owner of one of the biggest cotton farms there is in the South.

"Just leave him! He cannot go far" Des waves off his wife as he struts towards the fields. The slaves notices his arrival and shuffles into a hushed labor. Even the two lying weak in the indigo hopped back up to their feet to pick at the plant.

Harry huffs, and just like that they forget who I am.

He sees Desmond from afar, towering over the slaves with a firm hand gripping the whip on the side of his hip. Harry's heartbeat quickens as he wonders 'why would he ever need that thing?'

Something in Desmond told him to turn around. Turn around to see if he could shut his wife's hollers by dragging that stubborn, ungrateful boy back into the home. And of course Desmond knows, he knows from his past, to hide in plain sight.

Desmond knew to himself that the incompetent little boy would not dare run into those woods. Eventually his eyes land on an uneven mass of grass near the house. He would've skipped over looking at such a thing until he noticed not just the brown unruly hair peaking from the top. But also his son's green bright irises blending with the red which replaced the whites in his eyes.