Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Harry grew up in a world surrounded by music. The hum of the wind as it slipped past the large leaves, the twinkle of the silver wind chimes his mother put up on their front porch when he was three, his older sister’s giggle when he managed to do something funny. There was music in every inhale and exhale of the Earth, every beat of a heart, snippets of conversations and nursery lines absorbing into his brain like a sponge with water. He never questioned the music the way a wolf never questioned why the moon shone every night, content enough that it existed. 

In a way, Harry was always aware he shared his head with a stranger. He had music playing in his head from the beginning, soft lullabies that lulled him to sleep as a baby and entertained him when his mother left for work and his sister went to primary school. He learned the alphabet before the rest of his classmates thanks to the sweet voice inside that sang the letters to him. He had memorized Silent Night while coloring outside the lines in his coloring book in 3rd grade, although it would’ve been another two years before his school had their Christmas play and Harry got the lead solo for no reason other than no one else wanted it. 

He was nine when he realized the songs inside his head weren’t normal. There was a subtle shift, where the soft melodies popular on the radio changed into something more rough and raw, heavy drums and long guitar riffs making Harry’s ears ache, but not exactly unpleasantly. He sat at the kitchen table, his maths workbook left open and half-done in front of him, frowning at nothing as he tried to mouth along to the words. 

That’s how Anne found him, her shiny brown hair pulled up in a ponytail as she pulled at her yoga clothes. “What are you doing, baby boy?” She asked him, a quizzical smile locked on her face. 

“Mummy, do you know what song this is? The one that goes -” He tried to imitate the melody, but by the incredulous look on his mum’s face, he failed terribly. 

“Where’d you hear a song like that?” She laughed. 

“Inside my head,” Harry replied, and Anne’s smile dropped. 

Harry was nine when he found out he had a soulmate. Anne had set him on her lap, running her fingers through his hair, which was getting too long now. He relaxed against her as she explained the concept, the melody in his head and her soft voice lulling him into a peace he never knew he could achieve. Harry already knew what a soulmate was. There were enough movies on the telly about beautiful girls with pretty hair falling in love with strong men who would do anything for them. Gemma didn’t like those movies much, but Harry loved watching them get their happy endings, when they would kiss after the man slid the ring on the girl’s finger and they lived happily ever after. He always wanted to live happily ever after. 

And now he could. 

Soulmates were rare. Very rare. The galaxy would expand and a star would die, and their ashes would float to earth and separate into two people. Two people who the universe decided had to be together, and the only way they could find each other was through the power of love. 

“And the music in your head,” Anne reminded him. 

And that. 

“So does that mean they can hear my thoughts?” Harry asked, concerned because he had to do a lot of multiplication tables and he didn’t want to bore his soulmate. 

“No, baby. They only hear music.”

“Just music?” He asked, thinking back to all the songs in his head, wondering if his soulmate thought he was cool when he sang along to the Spice Girls. “When am I going to meet them?”

Anne pursed her lips, the way she always did when she wasn’t sure if she should lie or tell the truth, the way she did when he asked her where his dad went or where babies came from. “Soon, I hope.”

The older Harry got, the easier it was to differentiate between what he liked and what his soulmate liked. For one, their tastes were very different. While Harry could sing every song off the Mamma Mia soundtrack and worshipped the ground Fleetwood Mac walked on, his soulmate had Green Day and Oasis on repeat. Whenever a new song popped in his head, he would scramble for whatever was around him so that he could jot down the lyrics he could understand and search it up later. He had a journal full of all the songs his soulmate listened to, kept meticulously and always within reach. He wanted something for them to talk about when they finally met. 

“That’s creepy,” Gemma said, watching him print the latest song - a Blink 182 song except only the chorus played, “turn the lights off, carry me home”, over and over again - in his journal, his tongue sticking out in concentration because he didn’t want to mess the letters up again. 

“You’re creepy,” he replied, adding a star sticker next to it. It should’ve been annoying, having someone else’s music played in your head every day, but it comforted Harry. He didn’t feel as alone. 

“I’m just saying,” she scoffed. “She’s gonna think you’re creepy for keeping track of everything she listened to.”

“That just means I was listening to her,” Harry shot back, moving the journal closer to him and shielding it away from Gemma’s judgmental eyes. “You don’t get it, you don’t have a soulmate.”

“I don’t want one,” she snapped, eyes narrowed, but her bottom lip quivered and Harry knew it bothered her more than she let on. Guilt swirled in his gut, but before he could feel bad about it, his soulmate switched songs and Harry scrambled to jot it down. 

Harry dreamt about them too, imagined sitting side by side next to a faceless figure, huddled around his iPod and sharing headphones, their heads so close their breaths mingled. He imagined how soft their touch would be on his skin, the way they would hold his hand. Harry was a little in love with his soulmate before he even met them. 

Harry was helping his mum cook dinner when something changed. He was in charge of cutting the tomatoes, carefully slicing through the red skin because he didn’t want another accident and trip to the emergency room, when a song started playing in his head. Up until that point, his soulmate had been quiet, nervously so, the past punk pop songs and occasional obnoxious rap music trickled into white noise, and Harry had been on edge all week. Was his soulmate okay? Did they get hurt and lost their memories and forgot how to listen to music? 

But now, it was something different. Familiar in a way, but different. 

Gemma peered at him when she noticed he stopped cutting. She was in charge of seasoning the meat, although Anne placed her far away from the stove after what happened last time with the fire department. “What’s up, dork-face?”

“Gemma, don’t call your brother a dork-face,” Anne sighed, stirring the spaghetti at the stove. “Also, you’re 18 now, you can be more creative.”

Harry didn’t bother reacting to his family taking the piss out of him, already used to it as the youngest child. He cocked his head to the side, trying to recognize the lyrics, although it was a bit hard when it skipped and went back to the beginning as if someone was trying to memorize the words. 

Gemma’s smirk fell off her face as she realized Harry wasn’t even paying attention. She left her station at the dining table, wiping her hands on a cloth towel before sliding next to him at the kitchen counter, knocking her shoulder into his. “Where’s your head at, H?”

“My soulmate’s playing a song,” he explained slowly, fingers itching to grab a piece of paper and scribble the lyrics he could understand. 

“Aren’t they always?” She snorted. 

He frowned, “Yeah, but it’s different. It goes like - “ He hummed the beginning melody, an expert at it already considering how many times his soulmate replayed it. “And then the first part is like, ‘ summer lovin had me a blast, na na na na, happened so fast ’ or something like that.”

Gemma shrugged, but Anne perked up. “Isn’t that from Grease? I used to love that movie.”

“Grease?” Harry repeated, dubious. 

“I think we still have a copy of it somewhere in the house,” she hummed. “It’s been a while since I watched it, might be nice to sit together and have a movie night.”

“Great, your soulmate likes old stuff,” Gemma snorted, heading back to her seat and the forgotten slab of meat she left. 

“Grease isn't that old,” Anne scowled playfully. “And you’d like it, I think.”

“But my soulmate keeps replaying this song,” Harry complained. “I can’t even hear the rest of it.”

“Maybe she’s auditioning for the musical,” Gemma said. “I’m pretty sure there was a musical for it last year.”

“Or he,” Harry corrected softly.

Gemma’s head snapped up to look at him, her eyes searching his face. Anne stopped stirring the spaghetti. It was quiet for a few seconds, although it felt like hours. He focused his gaze on the tomatoes, carefully chopping them as the tension in the room thickened. 

Gemma, gratefully, broke it. “Or he,” she amended, tone softer than it's ever been when she talked to him. 

“Or they,” Harry added, because he couldn’t help himself. 

Anne placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, and all the tension Harry didn’t realize he was holding disappeared. “Or they,” she said. 

They went back to their respective tasks, but Harry couldn’t wipe the grin off his face, Grease playing quietly in his head as if his soulmate knew that something important just happened. Even after they finished dinner and his mum’s boyfriend came over and asked him why he was so smiley. After dinner, Anne dug up Grease from the basement and they spent that evening watching it. Harry watched with enraptured eyes, wondering if his soulmate was watching the same thing right now. He wondered what it would be like to be curled up next to them as they watched it, hands intertwined, his soulmate singing along under their breath while Harry watched and admired. His heart clenched at how much he wanted it to be true. 

It was becoming increasingly obvious that his soulmate was trying to memorize the songs from Grease as for the next two weeks. They played it so many times that Harry was sure he could duet them if he was given the chance. He wondered if they were actually in a musical, what character they were playing, if they were nervous. If they ever performed before. He didn’t think his soulmate was much of an artistic type considering they mostly listened to songs that were anti-establishment and had more swear words than Harry knew existed. And Britney Spears. They listened to a surprising amount of Britney Spears. 

The urge to be with them, whoever this mysterious soulmate was, grew into something so big and terrifying Harry didn’t like the person he was when he wasn’t with them. It consumed him, this love for someone he had never met, and when Summer Nights and You’re The One That I Want stopped playing in his head and Billy Joel started singing Piano Man again, he made a decision. He was going to find his soulmate. No matter what. It was unfair he had to spend this much time without the love of his life by his side. 

“You can’t find your soulmate at 15, Harry,” Gemma said when he burst into her room and spilled his plan to her. She was applying eyeliner in front of her vanity and didn’t flinch when Harry slammed open the door. She was cool like that. 

He bit back a childish retort because he wasn’t a kid, and if he was going to whisk his soulmate off their feet and, like, marry them or whatever, he had to be cool and mature. “But I can’t just sit here and do nothing, Gems. What if they’re waiting for me to rescue them?”

“Like in Shrek?” She asked, eyebrows raised. 

Harry balked. “That’s not - what does that even - are you calling me an ogre?”

“Where did that even come from?” She laughed. “But I’m not denying it.”

He pressed his lips together, convinced that his soulmate wouldn’t want to see him throw another tantrum because Gemma teased him again. That would’ve been uncool. “Well,” he said after a weighty pause, “Your eyeliner is crooked.” 

Gemma just grinned at him, and Harry was about to stomp back out of his room and listen to Coldplay - sorry soulmate! - as he fumed when she called out, “I got new nail polish, want me to put some on you?”

Harry bit his lip and considered it for half a second. “Yeah, okay,” he finally conceded, cheeks flushing pink. And that was the end of that conversation. 

Harry was going to do it. He was going to find his soulmate, wherever they were, no matter what. He really was. He had a plan written down for once he finished, after his GCSEs, which he had to pass or else his mum would kick his arse. 

But then the X Factor happened. 

He hadn’t planned on doing it. He really wasn’t. But he saw the advert on the telly, and it stuck inside his head like a tattoo, and somehow he found himself filling out the application with his mum, apprehension filling his gut. It wasn’t like he was going to win. There were far more talented people in the U.K. who could win. But it could be fun, maybe? What did he have to lose, really? 

So he applied. And he was accepted. And suddenly he stopped thinking about his soulmate and started freaking out about what to sing instead. He spent so much worrying if “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder was the best song to sing or if he should go with his original plan of the Backstreet Boys that he stopped writing down his soulmate’s songs. He barely noticed when they started playing nothing but “Hey There Delilah”, too focused on getting his friends’ opinion on his voice and improving as much as he could. He rationalized that he would have time for his soulmate again after X Factor, when he inevitably lost and returned back to Cheshire. 

He was nervous when the day arrived and they were ushered into a big building so packed with people Harry felt like an unfortunate sardine. It was loud, people chattering through their nerves or practicing their audition song, and the tension was a taut string, one bad move and everything might snap. Harry swallowed, picking at his name tag, wondering if it was a mistake and if it was too late to change his mind. 

Anne, ever observant, brushed his unruly curls out of his eyes. “Are you okay, sweetie?”

He nodded, throat still thick with fear. “Yeah,” he managed to get out. “Need to, um, need to have a wee.” He left before his mum could see just how Not Okay™ he was and hurried to the nearest restroom, thoughts running too fast for him to understand, the sound of people talking and the cheesy pop music from the loud speakers no longer pretty but overwhelming. Like a bad note on a piano, except it was played over and over again until Harry couldn’t think, he could barely breathe. Thankfully, the restroom was empty when he entered, and he quickly splashed some water on his face. It didn’t do much to stop his accelerating heartbeat or his thoughts, but it did - 

Actually it didn’t solve any of his problems. He groaned, then realized belatedly, he actually did have to wee. He went to the farthest urinal, thoughts so occupied that he didn’t hear the door open or notice someone stand in front of one, leaving an open urinal between them. He wouldn’t have noticed them at all if his brain hadn’t just. . .quieted. It was like someone covered his brain with an earmuff and everything was now muffled. It was so quiet he could hear his heart pounding in his chest and the sound of a zipper going down. Startled, he looked to his right, eyes wide as they trailed up the other person’s body, and then - 

Yeah. 

If Harry could never remember the time he pissed on a pretty boy’s shoes in the bathroom at X Factor like an idiot, it would be too soon. He was mortified, but also a little impressed he managed to get that far. His distance was phenomenal. 

“Oops?” Harry breathed out, his face burning so hard he was sure the fire alarm would go off. 

The other boy - he couldn’t have been that much older than Harry, which meant he had a chance - opened his mouth, wide eyes focused entirely on his pissed on dirty Vans, a half-impressed grunt tumbling out of his mouth. “Um, hi,” he finally said, voice light and higher-pitched than his and Harry would consider kneeling on the ground and proposing right then and there if his prick still wasn’t hanging out. 

Oh shit, his prick was still out. 

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” he blubbered, tucking himself back in and leaping over to where the paper towels were so that he could wipe the stranger’s shoes. “I didn’t mean to - I swear I usually don’t piss on other people, it’s not really a kink of mine, I think-” 

“Woah, mate, s’alright,” the stranger said nervously, eyeing Harry as if he was insane, which was fair. His voice was so pretty, like a song verse no one could ever forget, with a thick Northern accent that made his stomach flutter. The boy took the paper towel out of his hand, the brief skin on skin contact making Harry’s toes curl up.  “Just an accident, yeah?”

Harry nodded fervently, although the stranger could tell him to strip naked and streak through the arena as Simon Cowell watched, flabbergasted, and he would do it no questions asked. What the fuck is wrong with you? His common sense wondered at the back of his head. Harry ignored it. 

“I'm a bit impressed, actually,” the stranger continued, leaning down to wipe at his shoes, a playful smile on his face. “How’d it manage to get that far? Do you practice?”

“Yes!” Harry’s face fell as he registered the question, and if you could search up horrified in the dictionary, his face at that moment would probably pop up. “I mean - no! I don’t practicing pissing on peo-”

The cute stranger laughed and - wow, Harry was never that religious but at that moment, he was pretty sure he met an actual angel. Maybe he had passed out while hyperventilating and died, and now he was heaven, if heaven looked like a water-stained bathroom with an unidentified stain on the wall. But the stranger’s laugh was a symphony, airy and breathless, curling around his heart and squeezing tight. And damn, was he gorgeous. Taller than Harry by a couple inches, but lithe, with shiny brown hair and the most brilliant blue eyes he had ever seen, cheekbones so sharp they could cut glass. 

“I was just fucking with you, mate,” he giggled - holy shit, that giggle could cure cancer. “You look so wound up, you need to relax.”

Harry laughed nervously, suddenly tongue-tied in the presence of this blue-eyed angel. “Yeah, um, yeah. I’m a bit nervous, I think.”

“You think?” The stranger repeated, lips curling up playfully. They were just so pink and nicely shaped, with a thin upper lip and thicker bottom lip, and it looked so soft too. “You’re gonna sing for us, Mr. Popstar?”

Harry rubbed the back of his neck, skin prickling at the attention Cute Boy™ was giving him. “I suppose so. Um, are you gonna sing too?”

Cute Boy gave him a cute smile, his lips quirking up and eyes crinkling at the sides. “I suppose so. Don’t think I’m gonna make it through, to be honest.”

“Me too,” Harry mumbled, ducking his head, although the anxiety from before wasn’t as prevalent. Yeah, he was still nervous, but he didn’t feel as bad as when he burst in. His thoughts were murky but in a good way, most of his focus on the pretty boy in front of him, like they were in their own little bubble. It was also eerily quiet in his head, although he didn’t think too deeply about what that meant. 

“Bullshit, I bet you’ll smash it.”

Harry blushed at the compliment, something warm and fuzzy settling in his chest. “You’ll smash it too,” he said, shyly. 

“How do you know, you haven’t heard me sing yet.”

“You haven’t heard me either,” Harry countered. “I bet you sound like an angel.”

A slow smile spread on Pretty Boy’s face and something that could’ve been a blush in a different light dusted his cheekbones. “M’names Louis. Louis Tomlinson.” 

“Harry,” he said, holding out a hand. “Harry Styles.” Louis raised his eyebrow at Harry’s hand and - oh right. 

He squeaked and rushed to the sink, hiding his burning face and wondering if it would be too dramatic of him if he drowned himself in the porcelain sink. 

“Harry Styles,” Louis mused behind him, making eye contact with Harry through the mirror. “Sounds like a proper rockstar name. You’ll take Britain by storm once you win this thing.”

Harry wrinkled his nose, trying not to smile too much. “I’ll have to get passed the auditions first.”

“You’ll make it through,” Louis said dismissively, as if it wasn’t even a question. “If your singing is as sweet as your voice, there’s no way Simon Cowell could say no.”

Harry wiped his now washed hands on his jeans and turned around and, wow, Louis was a lot closer than he first realized. The sink dug into his back but he didn’t notice as he studied Louis’ face, wishing he could imprint it on his mind like petals in a book. His eyelashes were really long. Really, really long. “Thank you.”

Louis’ eyes flickered in the dim lighting of the restroom. “How about a picture, Mr. Rockstar?”

Harry startled. “What?” 

“A picture,” he repeated with a wide smile. “So that when you’re famous and shit, I can say I was your first fan.” 

“You don’t - I’m not -”

But Louis tugged at his arm until they were pressed tight next to each other. He pulled out his phone and flipped the camera, pointing it at them and taking a picture before Harry could even process the turn of events. He blinked, then looked at it. 

“Hey, my eyes were closed in that one!”

Louis laughed, the sound ringing in Harry’s ears like church bells. There was something musical about the way he laughed, and talked, and existed. It was like all the melodies in the world came together to create him, and now the universe was waiting for someone special to sing it. Someone who isn’t you , a pesky voice in his head said. 

“I’ll take another one then, don’t worry.” 

So they spent approximately three minutes taking pictures together, and the warmth emanating from Louis’ body made him want to curl into his arms and breathe in the scent of mild soap and sweat. Not that Harry was sniffing him or anything. They finally settled on a decent picture, one that had both their heads in the frame and wide smiles from the both of them. They looked so right standing next to each other, like two puzzle pieces that fit. 

“I like that one,” Louis said. 

“Me too,” Harry murmured. “You should send me it.”

“Give me your number, then. And your autograph.”

Harry pressed his lips together to hold back his smile, but from the way Louis’ eyes crinkled, he was failing. “Why?”

“I told you, Rockstar. When you become rich and famous, I need something to sell to eBay to pay for uni.”

“How do you know I’ll be the famous one?”

Louis shrugged. “When you know, you know, right? Besides, I’d rather be the trophy wife.”

Harry giggled but obliged, scribbling something that, if you squinted, almost looked like his name on a paper towel with a sharpie Louis kept in his back pocket for some reason. He then punched his number into Louis’ Blackberry, excitement fluttering in his stomach at the realization that he just gave a cute boy his number.

“I’ll see you around, Harry Styles.” He said it like a promise. 

Harry grinned back at him. “See you around, Louis Tomlinson.”

When he was left alone, again, in the restroom, he just barely stopped himself from screaming in joy. Just barely. Because Harry had never had the attention of a boy before, too awkward for anyone to spare a passing glance at. But somehow, all that changed in the fifteen minutes he spent here, and not once did his thoughts get so loud he got overwhelmed, not once did he get distracted by a new song his soulmate was playing. 

Harry’s smile fell. Shit, his soulmate. What was he doing, preening under the attention of a stranger when his soulmate was waiting somewhere patiently for him, wondering if he forgot about them? He couldn’t get carried away here. His only goal was to sing in front of thousands of people, get rejected, and go home. He didn’t have time for pretty boys with pretty eyes who made butterflies swarm in his stomach. 

It’s not like I’ll see him again , Harry thought. He’s probably going to forget about me once this is done, and I’ll never see the picture. 

A part of him was disappointed, but he ignored it. 

As if on cue, “Hey There Delilah” started playing again and Harry groaned.