I don't imagine Harry's real parents in this.
It's totally up to you who you want to imagine them as.
But to me for some reason, they are Robs Heaps and Kelly Reilly
even though it doesn't make any sense.
AUTHOR'S POV:
23/03/2008
It's a cold evening in a small hometown named Holmes chapel situated in Cheshire, England. A warm house with a small family living happily there. Aaron Styles and his wife Ava living a joyous life with their only child named Harry.
Twelve-year old Harry lays on his bed, holding a pencil in his small hands while a journal sits in front of him. He is lost deep in his thought as he tries his best to come up with an idea of a gift for his parents since their anniversary is coming soon. His eyebrows stay furrowed, his feet dangling in the air as he lightly chews on the end of the pencil. His forest green eyes focused onto the page of the journal.
No flowers. Neither can I afford a watch nor a necklace. Oh God what am I gonna do!?
He grunts as he drops the pencil in the journal, shutting it and placing it back on the bedside table. He lays on his back while staring at the ceiling. He loves his parents more than anything in this world and he wants to express his love for them. He wants to give them something which shows them how much they mean to him.
The door of his bedroom creeks open with a slight knock on it. He lifts his head up to look at his mother standing there.
"Sweetheart, dinner is ready!" She smiles at him.
"Coming, mum."
Harry is about to get up but his actions are interrupted by Roger rushing inside his room and climbing onto his bed. He affectionately licks Harry's face as Harry pets him.
"O-okay! Okay! Roger! We have to go downstairs before mum gets mad," he says, trying to calm down the dog and to get him off of him.
When Roger gets off of him, Harry gets up and places the journal under his pillow as he doesn't want his parents to know that he's planning on something.
"Yeah I still don't know what to get them.." he talks to the dog as if it could understand what he's saying. The dog keeps panting and looking up at him while Harry gets lost inside his mind trying to come up with ideas.
After a while, a sinister smile creeps onto his face, his eyes light up and his small dimples showing as he turns back to Roger as he says, "Well I just got an idea for a perfect gift."
02/04/2008.
The door of the room opens, Harry steps inside with a huge smile on his face as his gaze falls to Roger laying on the floor by the wall. Roger sticks his tongue out as he wags his tail but stays at the same spot.
"Hi, Roger. It's time for the gift for Mum and Dad." Harry tilts his head slightly as he talks to Roger and closes the door of his room behind him.
-
After a while of different sounds and thuds coming from upstairs, Ava suggests to Aaron that they should probably check on Harry when the sounds get more violent.
When they reach the stairs, the sounds stop abruptly but they still think that they should check on their son. Harry is their only child and the thought of him getting even a little hurt, physically pains them.
They rush up the stairs and knock on Harry's door. When he doesn't answer, his father twists the door handle to see that it isn't locked.
He pushes the door open and is terrified by the sight in front of him. He stares in shock while his wife gasps and covers her mouth before letting out a scream.
"Oh my god! Harry! What have you done!?"
There stands Harry, covered in blood, holding a hunting knife in one hand and something that looks to be a heart in his other hand.
He stands in a pool of blood and by his feet lays the now lifeless body of their dog, Roger. Blood covers almost half of his room and by looking at the condition of the dog, you can tell that the poor thing had been stabbed countless times and then ripped to shreds in order to get his heart out.
Harry remains totally unaffected by the sight in front of him. He drops the hunting knife to the floor as he wipes his forehead with the same blood covered hand, blood spreading onto it as he turns towards them and smiles brightly.
"Hey Mum and Dad! Look! I got you a gift for your anniversary!" Harry exclaims as he takes a few steps towards them now holding the heart with both of his hands.
"Stop right there! Don't you dare move!" His father yells at him and hurt flashes across Harry's features.
"Why? I got you both a perfect gift! I wanted to show you how much I love you! See! I love you guys more than Roger ever did!"
Ava lets out a whimper as she cries even more at Harry's words. She doesn't know how her twelve year old child managed to kill their dog with his father's hunting knife which he keeps hidden away. But now her son is standing here right in front of her, covered in blood while he offers them the heart of their dog as a gift.
Harry was never a messed up child. He came from a well off family and his parents never even laid a hand on him. He was a happy child who had a pet dog. No one knew what happened to him that he ended up doing it.
2009.
After that night, his parents decided that Harry should get therapy. Over the course of many months, many psychiatrists came and went away with their arms thrown up in defeat. No one was able to help Harry. Once they figured out how his brain worked, they would give up and get away from him as fast as they could.
After a year of trying to get their son back to normal but having no luck in it, they decide to give up on psychiatrists. They want to give him therapy at home and treat him like a normal child. They think that maybe if they start treating him like they used to, like there's nothing wrong with him and forget what he did, maybe that will result in getting their child back.
Maybe Harry will forget what happened as he grows up with time and they will have that happy family again.
So they do just that. They keep him at home, barely ever letting him go out. What they're not aware of is the fact that every other night, the window of his room is open and Harry is nowhere to be seen.
No one knows what happens or where he goes during the night. No one is aware how he's capable of disappearing in the shadows.
But the next morning is always like nothing ever happened.
2010.
A year of giving Harry 'therapy' at home, his parents decide that it would be a great thing to gift Harry a dog as a birthday present on his fourteenth birthday.
Harry had always loved dogs and according to them, he had gotten better as the time passed. They thought that he deserved to continue living as a normal child and to forget what happened in his past. Children mostly forget their past. And if they don't bring that memory up, maybe his brain will lose it forever.
What they don't pay attention to is the fact that even if they don't bring it up to him, they live in a small hometown and word gets around here easily. No one knows what truly happened but everyone is aware of the amount of psychiatrists the Styles family has contacted for their child and the sudden disappearance of their pet dog. Harry's being called a creep and what not by the people around him.
Harry absolutely falls in love with the dog they get him at his birthday and names him Toby. They get along just fine and Harry considers him as his best friend.
2012.
Harry's parents still keep checking up on him every once in a while to calm their subconscious no matter how much Harry gets mad at them. According to him, he is sixteen now and needs some sort of privacy.
Little does he know, the memory of him holding the heart of Roger while being covered in blood is still crystal clear in their mind.
They usually open the door of his room to see Harry sketching something or writing God knows what in his journal and Toby sitting at the end of his bed.
One night they get scared when they hear loud thuds coming from room along with some yelling. They rush towards his room, preparing themselves to see the worst but they open the door not to see blood everywhere but to see a very angry Harry with one of his legs out of the window while the other is caught between Toby's teeth. Harry is in the middle of yelling at Toby to back off and to let go while the dog clearly doesn't budge.
Harry and Toby had formed a very deep bond over the time of two years. Well as deep as you can get with that kind of a mindset. To see that kind of an anger in Harry's eyes especially directed towards Toby which was even closer to him than Roger ever was, felt bone-chilling to his parents.
When asked what exactly was going on, Harry just gives a vague answer about how Toby was being annoying. Ava tries to ask Harry why was he almost out of the window but to no avail. To them Harry has always been a secretive child but something about the small incident worries them to an extent.
The very next day, Aaron gets the window of Harry's room sealed. According to him, there was something wrong with Harry again.
Aaron suspects that Harry isn't getting better but he is actually onto something else. Ava on the other hand, completely opposes him and says that Harry is her child and that she knows him better. She says that Harry seems to have forgotten about the incident and he's a normal child now.
Aaron walks in the kitchen as Ava makes the dinner. Things have been off between them lately; main cause being Harry. He gets himself a glass of water and leans against the counter. Ava sighs and walks towards Aaron. He just puts away the glass and opens his arms, pulling her in for a hug.
"Stop stressing out so much. You know I only want what's best for him," he says as he runs his fingers through her hair.
"But locking him up inside this house isn't going to help and you know that," she looks up at him, her green eyes which are just like Harry's, show nothing but worry clear in them.
"And what about the fact that we just caught him red-handed sneaking out of the house? God knows how many times he has done that already."
"Yeah about that, I asked him the next morning. He said that it gets hard for him. To stay locked up inside this house. We barely ever let him go out on his own. He was just going to climb up onto the roof to lay down for a bit.. He's growing up Aaron. He asked me why we keep him locked up and freak out on the smallest things.. He was just twelve when that incident happened. What if he has forgotten about it? I mean, who's gonna remind him? We avoid mentioning it like the plague. If we want him to move on and be normal, we have to start acting normal around him too."
"But- Honey, I remember the whole thing clear as the day. The look on his face. He didn't even fucking realize that he did something wrong! He was just fine with what he did. How can a twelve year old child do that? All of the psychiatrists gave up on him! Does that mean nothing to you?" Aaron's voice gets a bit louder.
"How long are you going to hold it against him Aaron? He was a damn child! He didn't know the difference between the good and bad! His intentions were never bad!" She pushes herself away from his hold.
"So you're telling me any child in a right state of mind would've stabbed their pet nearly 20 times and then almost skin it only to rip it's hard out just to offer it to his parents as a gift just like some kind of satanic worshiping?" Aaron asks her as a matter of factly only to be met with silence from her.
He makes his way towards the kitchen door but then turns back to say, "I don't want to talk about this anymore. The window of his room is going to be sealed for as long as I want. I'll even tie him down if I get the feeling that he's causing any kind of harm. He's my son, but that doesn't mean he'll not be confronted for the shit he does."
And with that, he exits the kitchen leaving a teary eyed Ava behind. Harry tries coaxing her while she keeps apologizing to him for not being able to convince his father.
Days pass. Harry's father doesn't let him go out. He feels like he's locked up inside his room and it's suffocating him. Ava keeps trying to persuade him into letting Harry out but he never agrees. There are nights when Harry lets out his anger by throwing stuff around in his room. His parents just get used to his fits and check up on him when the noises are over.
Only one night when they come to check if he's done with his outburst but they open the door to see a sight similar to the one they saw years ago. Only this time, as Harry holds the dagger in his blood covered hand, he looks at his parents when his mother lets out a cry as she mutters out his name in a broken voice and then back to Toby's body, a look of guilt flashes across his face. But the look is gone as soon as it came.
Instead of asking him if he was out of mind and to get him cleaned up, his father just looks at him with a cold expression as he says, "Get out. Get out of my fucking house."
It seems like realization hits Harry all over again and he is told what he has done as he still keeps a hold of the dagger.
No matter how much Ava begs, Aaron kicks Harry out of their house while yelling profanities at him and telling him that he was never his son. His son died, the real Harry died when he was twelve.
His words surely hurt Harry, but he doesn't let it show.
After being homeless, he decides to make his way to Manchester. He goes to his grandparents house and tells them that he had been kicked out for no particular reason.
Harry has always been very close to them and they love him with everything they have. They had never liked Aaron in the first place. His grandfather had always opposed his daughter's marriage with him. The story which Harry tells them, just gives him more of a reason to hate Aaron. They take his side and let him move into their house.
Harry's parents on the other hand, don't even know where he went. Aaron doesn't even want to talk about Harry. He denies the fact that Harry exists and keeps repeating the same thing that his real son died at the age of twelve.
Harry never tells his grandparents the truth and makes sure to manipulate them just enough for them to cut off his parents. Time passes and they remain oblivious of it all while Harry keeps disappearing in the shadows whenever he wants.
2013.
In 2013, Harry's grandparents will over everything they own to Harry and are found dead under suspicious circumstances.
-_-_-_-
A/N:
Tadaaaaan!
Well I guess now you know why
everything is the way it is.
DO VOTE AND COMMENT!
Let me know what you think!
Where did Harry really go when he sneaked out of the house?
Stay safe! I love you with everything I have!
-A.S.