A/N: It's showtime.
It didn't matter how many times I performed onstage, I was nervous before every single show. We all were, but we each dealt with it in different ways. Everyone had their own pre-show ritual.
Zayn sat cross-legged on the floor reading.
Eleanor watched TV and ate candy.
Gigi blared power ballads and bounced around her dressing room like a boxer.
I'd never performed professionally with Harry before. I had no idea what his pre-show ritual was. I was curious.
I played videogames. But first I got in full costume. I wanted to acclimate to the fabric before going out on stage. For the first act I wore white tights and a violet tunic with a crepe-chiffon inset and puffed sleeves. It was embroidered with Swarovski crystals and gold piping that made me sparkle under the stagelight.
Harry wasn't in costume yet. He was in plain black tights, pacing the corridor, ordering around the stage crew and terrorizing the corps dancers.
He stopped dead in his tracks at my door. I was leaning back in my chair with one leg up on the vanity, my hand resting on my thigh. His eyes flashed with interest. "Louis, you look so... Princely."
Uh oh. I knew where this was going.
Harry slammed the door behind him. I stood. He picked me up by my waist and threw me against the wall.
"Gently, Harry! I'm not a toy!"
He pinned my wrists above my head, his wide eyes pouring over my body. He kissed me.
Well, I figured out what his pre-show ritual was.
His kisses softened. He hooked my arms around his neck and nuzzled my cheek affectionately. "You're pretty."
I blushed. Harry could be so sweet when he wanted to be.
He pawed at my tights. "Turn around."
"I won't be able to perform!"
"I'll be gentle, I promise," he said innocently.
I arched an eyebrow. "No, you won't."
We both laughed.
He fondled the tunic's gold piping. "Maybe you can bring your costume home tonight?"
"Absolutely not. You'll wreck it," I said haughtily, and straightened myself out in the mirror. He was as much of a menace in the bedroom as he was at work. He'd rip it to shreds! "Why aren't you in costume yet? I want to see your wings."
Harry designed his own costume, naturally. In every production of Swan Lake that I had ever seen, Von Rothbart's wings were made of gauzy fabric—light and easy to move in. Harry insisted that his wings be made of real feathers. The costume designer strongly advised against it. She said they would be far too heavy. But no one said no to Harry. It took three seamstresses to stitch the black raven's feathers into two human-sized wings. They weren't finished by dress rehearsal, so I hadn't seen them yet. Nobody had. Only Harry, who had practiced a few times with them privately.
"We're not on for forty minutes," he said watching the clock. "I still have time..."
I knew what this was about. He didn't want these moments to go by too quickly. Every part of preparing for the show would be his last. The last time he had to get into makeup and costume, the last time he would hear the stage manager say "dancers take your places," the last time he would feel the spotlight warm his skin as he stepped on stage.
I placed a hand on his naked chest. "You have plenty of time."
We heard a knock at the door. Gigi and Eleanor entered in mirroring white and black tutus like two chess pieces. Zayn and Niall followed, carrying a chocolate cake with the word "farewell" in frosted icing.
"For me?" Harry said.
"We had to do something for your last performance!" Zayn exclaimed. He hopped up onto my vanity, his legs in white tights like mine beneath a velvet burgundy tunic. His hair was slicked back and he was in full makeup, his long lashes ten times longer when he wore mascara.
"Yes," said Niall while cutting him a slice. "And we're throwing you a farewell party at the Lowlander after the show. Food's rubbish but pints are cheap. Even Kenneth will be there."
I thought Kenneth was going to drop dead of a heart attack when Harry told him he would only perform in one show of our six-night run. Ticket holders for the other performances were furious and practically murdering each other to snag tickets for opening night. Zayn was Harry's understudy and would be dancing the part of Von Rothbart for the rest of the show's run. It was funny because that was exactly what I wanted many months ago before Harry came back to London. Now the thought brought me nothing but sadness.
Eleanor and Harry were the only ones who had cake. The rest of us couldn't stomach food right before a performance.
"I can't believe your reign of terror is over, Harry." Gigi smirked, adjusting her white, feathered crown.
Harry licked the chocolate from the corners of his mouth.
"Who's going to torture us now?" Eleanor added wistfully.
Just then the first warning sounded over the PA system. They all shuffled toward the door to go back to their own dressing rooms and put the finishing touches on their hair and makeup.
Harry and I were alone again. He was the only one who wasn't in costume yet. He looked at the cake crumbs on his plate.
"You're still you," I said. "Even if you're not a dancer."
He smiled weakly.
I understood that he was losing an essential part of himself. Harry personified dance and was the greatest ambassador for the art form. He didn't know who he was without his career. But I knew. I loved him long before he became a professional dancer and I would love him for the rest of my life.
He got up to go back to his dressing room when we heard another soft knock at the door.
Harry opened it. Léo was standing there nervously beside his mother. He was wearing a suit that was at least two sizes too big for him, a hand-me-down, and carrying a bouquet of red roses.
"For you, Mr. Styles." The boy bit his lip, struggling for the English expression: "Good luck!"
Harry took the flowers and thanked the boy like it was the finest gift he'd ever received.
We gave him a little tour of the dressing room and he wandered around the place in awe. I let him sit at my vanity. He examined his reflection in the mirror, humming to himself and powdering his nose, pretending he was a professional dancer about to go on stage.
If you didn't know what had happened to him, Léo seemed like a perfectly happy young boy. But if you looked closely, that wide-eyed wonder would dull and darken into a guarded skepticism. I saw the same look on Harry's face when he came back from Paris all those years ago, only I didn't understand what I was looking at back then. They were like a painting whose meaning shifts when viewed from a different vantage point.
Léo's mother never took her eyes off him, not even for a second. The boy couldn't move an inch without her fixing his tie or his hair, fussing over him.
Harry watched them longingly. He had been estranged from his own mother for years, his secret creating a gulf between them. Now that she knew the truth he was slowly drawing her back into his life again. She would be at the show that night.
Another warning sounded over the staticky PA system: "Dancers take your places." Harry needed to get in costume.
He ruffled Léo's hair. "You better get to your seat. You don't want to miss the opening scene with Louis. It's my favorite!"
I put an arm around Harry's shoulder. "Really? My favorite is our battle in Act Four."
"Battle!" Léo took his mother's hand and skipped out of the dressing room excitedly.
Harry turned and kissed me. "I'll see you out there."
I winked. "Good luck, Mr. Styles."
I found swans and courtiers chatting and warming up backstage. I rolled my neck, my shoulders, my ankles.
The audience was not normally this loud. It was a packed house for Harry's debut on the London stage. Dancers were buzzing about all the famous names in the crowd but I tuned them out. I was nervous enough without knowing that the bloody queen was out there.
The lights went down. I heard Niall take his place before the orchestra. The audience clapped for him. Slowly, the music swelled.
The stage manager was speaking into her headset and herding us into position. I stood behind a long row of corps dancers. The first scene was a birthday celebration for Prince Siegfried at the palace.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Harry backstage, in costume.
I put a hand over my heart.
He was beautiful.
His wings were majestic, curving just above his shoulders and dipping down to the ground. The black raven's feathers expanded when he stretched his arms and folded neatly behind him when his arms were down as his sides. A strip of black makeup was painted over his eyes like a mask, and he wore a sleek black unitard with a tuft of silver feathers on the breast.
I broke away from the other dancers and ran to him.
The stage manager was hissing at me to get in position, but I had to speak to Harry one last time before the ballet started.
"Your wings!" My fingers skimmed the feathers. "You look like a real bird."
"A flightless bird."
"No." I held his face in my hands. "You fly for one more night."
He furrowed his brow in determination.
I heard my cue and leapt out onstage. The set was avant garde for a mainstream production. The backdrop was painted in the abstract impressionist style that Harry admired. Instead of traditional set pieces, Harry commissioned sliding panels with intricate latticework that became climbing vines in a courtyard, the foliage in a forest, or palace windows, depending on how they were lit from above.
My first solo went well. It was one of those nights where everything magically fell into place: My technique and Harry's choreography. Every dancer was on their game and having a good time. The entrance of the pages and the pas de trois all gained cheers from the audience. Corps dancers, including Zayn, danced around me with gold chalices in their hands, happily celebrating Prince Siegfried's birthday.
At the end of the first act Siegfried is told that he has to take a wife. Devastated that he can't marry for love, he decides to go hunting and chases a flock of swans. I picked up my crossbow from the props table backstage and off I went.
The lighting changed from the bright red and orange of the palace to the cool green and blue of the enchanted forest.
Gigi's Odette in the second act was a technical marvel. Instead of dancing the part with vulnerability, she danced it with a quiet strength. She was often criticized by European critics for her musculature, but her body was what gave her movements such power and control. She was a strong partner and we looked good together but we had the romantic chemistry of a brother and his bossy older sister.
Harry entered to Tchaikovsky's wicked allegro vivo.
Our eyes met.
Together we were electric. You couldn't mistake us for anything other than lovers. We danced and the audience fell away. We weren't on stage. We were back in our dorm room, two crazy kids, crazy about each other, spinning and leaping, having the time of our lives.
I had to keep reminding myself that he was my enemy. I was not in love with this evil sorcerer! I was in love with the swan queen Odette! Yet, Von Rothbart looked so handsome as he preened his feathers... I grinned and aimed my crossbow at him.
Odette intercepted. If Siegfried killed Von Rothbart, the spell that doomed her could never be broken. Nobody knew why Von Rothbart cursed the beautiful maidens, turning them all into swans, but as the folktale went, the 'swan lake' was formed from their parents' tears.
Harry spotted his mother in the audience. His eyes crinkled at the darkened theatre.
Act Three was Eleanor's time to shine. The Black Swan's pas de deux was one of the most popular in the ballet and Eleanor was a crowd favorite. Unlike Gigi, Eleanor had a more traditional ballerina's body, but her theatricality was decidedly untraditional. She was devilishly playful in the role, blowing kisses and winking at the audience. While Gigi's body was hard as ice in my arms, Eleanor's was liquid. She slipped in and out of my grip like water running through my fingers.
During the fourth act, after entr'acte and the danse des petit cygnes, Gigi and I, and all of the corps dancers, left the stage so Harry could perform his final solo.
I held my breath.
Every dancer in the company had crowded in the wings to watch him. Some were excited, others grieving. Gigi and Eleanor had their arms wrapped around each other. Zayn put a hand on my shoulder.
This was the end of an era and we were all about to witness history.
Harry took long effortless strides across the stage, so swift and smooth his feet seemingly hovered above the ground. He moved from cabriolé to saut de basque, his wings fluttering wildly around him. Niall looked up at him from the orchestra, awestruck. As Harry leapt into barrel turn after barrel turn, it didn't appear as though he were dancing to the music but that the music was moving through him. I didn't know if my senses were playing tricks on me or if I was witnessing an honest to god miracle. He swept past me, his green eyes triumphant. There was a beat in the music and he composed himself. I knew what was coming and felt a tear slip down my cheek. Harry ran across the stage and launched into a gande jeté. He soared high into the air and extended his large black wings.
He was flying.
The entire theatre jumped to their feet and broke into thunderous applause until the ground shook beneath us.
I wiped my eyes.
Now came the moment I both longed for and dreaded. I joined him onstage for our battle.
The music intensified.
Turns were punches and leaps were jabs, faster and sharper than what we'd rehearsed. We locked arms and he scissor-kicked his legs in the air. He was supposed to spot me so I could do the same, but instead he threw me to the ground.
He was really fighting me.
The music swelled again and I circled around him, panting.
I reached out to him but he escaped. I chased him 'round and 'round until he was at the edge of the stage, breathless, with nowhere else to turn.
I didn't want to do this.
I wanted to rewrite the story. I wanted Von Rothbart to live and fly high forever!
I came up behind him. "I'm sorry," I whispered.
He bowed his head.
I ran my fingers along the soft black feathers, and in one merciless burst of violence, tore the wings off his back.
Léo stood up in the front row. "Non!" he cried.
Harry fell to his knees.
I held the wings above my head like a trophy.
Harry lay down on the cold hard stage and let his eyes fall shut.
Von Rothbart was dead.
A/N: I had to include the phrase "flightless bird" somewhere in the story. I couldn't resist!
I know I keep saying these chapters will get happier, but I really mean it this time. I swear.
What career do you think Harry will choose now that he's no longer a dancer?
The absence of Harry's mother in this fic probably seems strange but the story was already so long that I thought a subplot with his mother would bog down the narrative. There's hints of her and mentions of motherhood throughout. The way I see it, the reader fulfills the parental role of worrying about Harry.
The Mariinsky Ballet's version of Swan Lake inspired me while writing this chapter.