Chapter Text
Auradon, Harry has decided, inspires a sort of madness in people.
“You’re not angry because we didn’t get what you think we wanted, Harry.” Uma tightened the corner of her bedspread. Navy corners, Harry thought, miliary tight.
“Please, Uma, tell me why I’m angry—”
“You’re angry because it’s all changed.” She stood to stare him straight in the eye. “You’re afraid.”
Harry’s own bed sheets were left, abandoned in the hall in front of a room too big for him, in a castle, for God’s sake. A castle that, and this was the important bit, that didn’t belong to Uma or to him. Afraid? He was mortified. “Aren’t you? Isn’t Gil?”
“Gil’s leaving,” Uma laughed, motioning to the window, and Harry ignored the same sting he’d felt when Gil had told him as much. “And me? I’m not afraid of change. I’m not afraid of anything.”
Harry stabs his boiled egg. In his room are a pile of postcards he’s read a hundred times from places he should have seen first hand. But he knows what loyalty means, so with Uma he’d stayed.
“You were supposed to rule the Isle, Uma,” he ducked down to whisper. “Rule all of Auradon.”
“When you saw Audrey, did you think that was, what? A life goal?” Uma backed away, hand on his shoulder comforting and solid despite her words. “I wanted to help the Isle, and I did. There’s a whole world out there, makes this look like a speck on a trout. Ship’s sailing, Harry. Climb aboard or sink.”
Harry stares across the lush green grass of Auradon Academy. It smells like honeysuckle and looks like something out of a dream. It feels like he’s treading water.
Breakfast at Evie’s Palace is a quiet affair for Harry. He’s up with the sun, and usually misses the crowd that lives in the many rooms. There must have been a meeting about it, because when he comes downstairs today, they’re waiting for him, looking perfectly innocent, save Uma who’s holding a plate of dried and salted cod and pickled onions, two of his favorites.
He takes the dish with a muttered ‘Thanks,’ and sits across from Carlos, the only spot available, and the only person who at least looks as unhappy as he is about all of this.
“Harry,” Evie switches places with Uma when he’s halfway through his second piece of fish, arranging herself gingerly on the seat. “Some of the students told us you’ve had...trouble. Adjusting.”
Auradon Academy, like Auradon Prep, is close enough to the castle that the King and Queen can spit on it. It looks like wealth and royalty and the people there are as interesting as blocks of soft cheese. “I don’t talk to any of the students.”
“Exactly.” Evie’s expression suggests this might be the issue.
“Ben suggested R.O.A.R. They’re looking for new recruits and, with Jay gone, Lonnie’s the only graduate who’s signed up,” Evie says. “Come on, we all know how good you are with a sword.”
Harry opens his mouth, eyebrow raised, prepared to tell her exactly how good.
“Don’t,” Carlos says around a mouthful of toast at the same time as Uma. It’s a bit impressive; he hadn’t even looked up from his plate.
“Team sport,” Harry settles back in his seat. “No thanks.”
“Harry,” Uma cuts a look towards him.
Harry pokes at his pickled onion, recognizing them for what they are; a silent plea, an olive branch. “Where do I sign up?”
“Carlos will walk you.”
The wrinkle between Carlos’ brow is something admirable. Evie ignores it.
Harry isn’t great with people. He had tried. It isn't his fault all the charm he'd learned on the Isle evaporated in a place like Auradon.
Except...he hasn't been trying hard and had to acknowledge that, even on the Isle, he'd not been considered particularly charming. So perhaps this is his fault to some extent.
With Gil gone and Uma busy diplomating (no room for a First Mate being a diplomat, he thinks bitterly and not for the first time), he was left to...mingle. And 'mingling' is something Harry does largely unsuccessfully.
His gaze slides to Carlos, a step ahead of him, carrying on a conversation with his dog and doing a good job ignoring Harry. It had been easy to imagine someone like him getting into the people of Auradon's good graces. Even had a pretty girlfriend to show for it now. But Jay? Mal? Harry knows Mal--how did someone like her pull off that little trick once the love spell wore off?
Which only leads Harry back to his initial conclusion: that Audrey had the right of it after all. People in Auradon had a madness about them.
"Have you heard from our good friend, Jay?"
Carlos appears to search the question for a barb before answering. "He calls pretty much every morning or afternoon. Ben got us these video cameras--"
"You saw him? And Gil?"
"You'd know if you ate with us."
Harry controls his breath but it still comes out a stutter through his nose. Carlos has something that Harry doesn't, and suddenly Harry does want to hurt him.
"I know you're lonely without him there to hold your hand through every meal, sweet Carlos, but you can't expect me to fill in for him every time. This morning was a special occasion."
Carlos throws him what can only be described as a sneer. He's surprisingly good at it with so little practice, but hey, a VK is a VK. "The practice hall is up ahead. Look for Lonnie, but don’t mess with her. Or do, actually! That’ll be fun for the team to watch. I've done my good deed for the day."
"That's right! That's what we do over here, check the good boxes until we feel warm and fuzzy about ourselves."
Carlos crosses his arms. "If that's how you want to look at it, sure."
“And your one good deed of the day was for my poor unfortunate soul specifically," Harry laughs.
"I'm happy to do good deeds, plural, for people who want to help Auradon or themselves. As many as it takes."
"Ah, but that's not how good works is it though? It's like evil, a bit, where you have to be it all the time to everyone or else you're just...not. So really," Harry looks at him, pouting pitifully. "You're not good. Poor Carlos."
"Go to practice, Harry," Carlos takes a step forward. "And leave me alone."
Harry raises his hands, surrendering, and turns towards the hall.
Harry weighs the practice sword in his hand, listening to Captain Lyr with one ear. Bored and easily angered don’t usually translate to a successful fight, but he recognizes Lonnie across the room as the same stranger who’d kicked his ass on a pirate ship two years ago, and suddenly things don’t look so dour.
Practice is still exactly as difficult as promised. Lonnie’s no pushover, and between blocking and watching her sail over his head entirely, he doesn’t have a lot of time to get in a good insult. By the time Captain Lyr calls it to a close, his butt is sore, his calves ache. He falls on the ground across from Lonnie who laughs at him, dry and loud, takes a great gulp of water from her bottle, and tells him he fights ‘like her father’. He can’t tell if it’s meant as an insult or a compliment.
“I think we can make a spot for you,” Captain Lyr stands over him, hand outstretched. “If you want in.”
Harry stares at her hand and considers, for a moment, taking it. But he’s been in this position too many times; lorded over, looked down on. He balls his fist by his hip and uses it to raise himself. He almost snaps at her. He doesn’t need their charity, their team sports and amazingly soft padded training room. But he looks past her where Lonnie is giving him a thumbs up and some of the fight leaves him.
“...I’ll think about it.”
It’s a safe medium. Because he likes Lonnie.
He does not like lunch. Lunch is food that’s too sweet served on glass dishes with cherubs or smiling couples in miniature. Were Evie’s castle any closer to the campus, he wouldn’t bother eating with the students who milled around, seemingly getting a contact high from their latest class on mushroom cultivation. As much as Harry was enjoying Shipbuilding and Seaworthiness (a class he should be teaching not sitting through a lecture on), he never left it with a smile on his face and he never hoped to.
“Can I sit with you?”
Audrey’s tray is packed with colorful fruits and what looks like chocolate milk. She appears desperate for him to say no and yes, and Harry can't decide which would be more fun. This is clearly one in a long line of items along the ‘Quest To Redeem Herself’ that Jane has been helping her with in her spare time. A few yards behind her, Carlos and Jane notice Audrey speaking to Harry at the same moment and freeze. That decides it for Harry, who motions to the table in front of him.
"By all means," he smiles with all of his teeth. "Hello, Carlos. And Jane, lovely to see you looking as radiant as always.”
“Knock it off, Harry.” Carlos drops his tray with an unnecessary show of force. Harry makes a soft, delighted ‘oh’ noise.
Jane looks at Carlos in what must be a silent warning because he sits without further protest. Audrey surprises Harry, moving around the table to sit next to him.
“Are you having a nice day, Harry?” Jane asks, sitting herself across from him and forcing him to look at her. Harry rolls the unfamiliar orange fruit around the rim of his plate.
“...not bad,” he grants her. “Class. Trained with the jumping, slashing bits, whassit?”
“R.O.A.R,” Jane offers helpfully. “Elan is Princess Eilonwy’s daughter, and after Lonnie became captain at Auradon Prep, she used that as a precedent here. It's just wonderful.”
“Great,” Harry presses his palm as hard as he can. The juice squeezes across the plate. When he looks up Jane is still staring at him, expression open and earnest. Harry considers he may have underestimated the girl. That, or she’s spent so much time around Mal and the others she’s nigh unflappable by now.
Either way, her sincerity is impressive when she smiles and asks, “How did it go?”
“Elan put him against Lonnie, how do you think it went?” Carlos snorts.
“I should have warned you,” he tilts slightly to whisper, in false conspiracy with Audrey. “Your new friend doesn’t like me much. Wait,” Harry redirects, leaning across the table, so close to Carlos’ plate he has to pull his food towards him with an offended hiss. “Did you watch?”
“No, I just—”
“I don’t understand,” Audrey interrupts, resituating Harry so she can delicately fold her napkin across her lap. “You and Carlos are both, not to be rude but--”
“Both Isle kids? Oh, dear, you know better than that.”
“You did seem at odds when I was…,” Audrey stops herself this time. Harry imagines there have been a lot of moments like this, where she remembers what she did, and it becomes easier not to say anything at all. Harry wants to tell her not to be so serious, but he doesn’t think she’ll be so appreciative.
“But at the party you two, well…,” Jane seems, equally, to think better of whatever she was going to say, cheeks a dusty red. Not so unflappable then. “That is you got along very well.”
Harry knows what she means, his mind going back to that night and steadfastly shutting down the events that happened behind a steel door marked Do Not Enter.
“It was a party!” Audrey answers for him, hand wrapping around her milk and moving it in a small circle.
“What she said. We'd just won! Putting aside differences to celebrate is a time honored tradition, even amongst us villainous sorts.”
“So what? You just dance and laugh and the next morning it’s business as usual?”
Carlos and Harry share a look. Carlos breaks the moment with a casual shrug. “Pretty much.”
“I’m sure Evie would have something to say about that.”
“Oh, trust me,” Carlos tears into his burger, elbows on the table because he’s not that proper yet. “She does.”
Harry’s still chewing on what Audrey said when he catches her by the elbow on the way to his Time Management class later that day. Judging by the books she’s carrying, she has a slightly heavier course load.
“Hey,” he whispers, both because he’s never been good at social graces or starting conversations that weren’t some attempt at intimidation.
Audrey stares at the place where his hand meets her skin, then to his face, shocked. He wonders what she sees there. “What...is it?”
He lets her go, takes a step back. “I know what you’re trying to do, not talking about what you did, the penance walk. But take it from a professional. Sometimes, you just have to laugh.”
“I appreciate the advice,” she says, sounding thoroughly unappreciative. “But what I’ve done and what you’ve done, it’s different. No one understands. Except Jane, I guess.”
“Good thing you have her.” Harry can make out Jane’s distinctive blue dress at the end of the hallway, can picture her worried expression. “Just don’t be so serious all the time. You’ll crack down the middle, trust me.”
Audrey studies him until a bell chimes outside. She nods, lips quirking slightly.
“Thanks.”
This is how the first few weeks at Auradon Academy pass for Harry. He takes Captain Lyr up on her offer of joining R.O.A.R, though he spends most of it swaggering around the edges of the training room, hurling insults (which she claims is good for morale). He has lunch with Jane, who lets Harry copy her Time Management homework, Audrey, who introduces him to a surprisingly dark show called The Never Afters, and Carlos who alternates between tolerating him, ignoring him, and accidently laughing at something he says. It's almost effortless to irritate Carlos, and Harry tries often because old habits die hard, but the startled laughter is something he works even harder to obtain.
Climb aboard, Uma had told him, or sink. He finds her downstairs one night, braids pulled away from her face concentrating on some missive from Ben. He wants to tell her he's been trying too, and stops himself short. Trying what? He has no idea what he's been doing it all for. It won't bring Gil back and Uma isn't going out to sea to captain a ship with him. The old dream is dead and the idea of adulthood looms ahead of him like a prescient thing, threatening and vast. It feels like everyone has their hands on it but him.
"Harry," Uma's pen is down now, hands flat on the table and gaze focused on him where he feels stuck to the doorframe. "You okay?"
"Just reporting in, Captain," he pulls himself away from the wood and forces himself to lean against the table beside her. "Grades good, food rubbish."
“The foods great, don't be picky." She studies his carefully blank expression. "All right, maybe this place could use some decent fish," she admits. “Have you called Gil?”
“Been busy.”
“I doubt it.” Her brow wrinkles, hand sliding down the left side of his jacket. "You’ve got a tear."
Harry pulls it in to examine it. "Damn. Must've done it during training.”
“Just leave it on the table, I'll tell Eves to take care of it.”
He flinches. Gil normally patched their coats up. He doesn’t mention this out loud, opting to tease her instead. “Eves?”
"Do you want a functioning coat or not?" She pats the table and Harry obeys without another word, shedding his jacket. "So what about you? You left friends out of your report, which is funny because I hear you and Audrey are spending an awful lot of time together. That why you’ve been so busy?"
On the Isle this would have been the start of an interrogation. A turf war. Harry tenses and reminds himself things are different here. For whatever reason he's being encouraged to socialize. He wonders if Uma secretly hates the transition too.
"She's a fun one, isn’t she?"
Uma holds his gaze for a long, bemused moment before going back to her work. Upside down it looks like a shipping manifest. Harry maneuvers his head to make out the contents; food for the Isle, from what he can see. “Personally I’d love to see you try handling her.”
“If I can handle you, I can handle that princess.”
“You can’t handle me. Never could.” Uma’s eyes dart to him, sharp as her smile. “Be nice to her. She's had a tough time."
"I'm always nice," he says. Uma snorts low in her throat.
“Don’t you have homework?” He does, but he isn’t planning on doing any of it. Still, he backs away from the table, bowing with a flourish. Before he’s made it halfway down the hall he hears her bellow: “Call Gil!”
He heads down the hall to Carlos’ room with every intention to ask for the phone, the other boy’s door open wide enough for Harry to nudge it fully open with his foot.
Carlos pushes back from his computer. “What is it?”
Harry makes his way around the room, touching all of the small treasures Carlos had deemed worthy of displaying. Carlos’ expression contorts from confusion and settles somewhere in the vicinity of offended. There’s two trophies with a series of numbers Harry doesn’t understand, but he can make out by the figurine it’s for something robotic. His fingers dance along a line of projects; a homemade lava lamp, a coral reef sculpture, and a silver substance that moves when Harry comes close to it.
He should ask for the phone now, he thinks. “Standard evaluation procedure,” he says instead, the lie coming easily to him. “Homework for High Seas Boarding and Inspection.”
“Don’t break anything.” Carlos turns back to his computer with a huff of annoyance.
Harry goes back to his examination, stopping when he reaches the couch in front of a television as big as Harry’s bed back on the Isle, and something Harry knows can play video games. He has no idea how to turn it on, but he recognizes the controllers. He falls on the couch with a practiced lack of grace and picks one up, jiggling it uselessly.
“Want to play?”
Carlos is half-turned in his computer chair, looking hopeful beneath his wariness. Harry stares back, equally wary and twice as hopeful (though he prays he hides his better).
“I can turn it on, you just have to ask.”
“Pretty please teach me, o wisest of flea bearers!”
Carlos jumps over the arm of his chair, obviously happy to be distracted. “Sarcastic or not, you still asked.”
“Don’t blame me when you have to copy Jane’s homework later.”