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Chapter Text

In all his five years at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, Niall had played approximately 3,457 practical jokes, most of which, actually, were played on his squad (him and four other boys, for a total of five boys, landing their group in 3 of the 4 houses, because fuck the inter-house taboo, really). Not that they really minded. Louis was even his partner in crime a lot of the time (or his sidekick, depending on who you ask). Honestly, Niall would go so far to say that his friends enjoyed his harmless pranks, especially when it wasn’t on them. Even Liam, the only prefect Niall would purposefully talk to, would occasionally come up with an idea for something to pull on any of the other lads (but only when he was sure the other prefects wouldn’t find out, because, after all, he was trying to earn Head Boy in a few years).

This was, apparently, one of those occasions, Niall could tell. There was something glinting in Liam’s puppy dog eyes that morning after a double potions session with his personal favorite Head of House (his house, Hufflepuff), Professor Parsons. Niall walked out the door at the end of class with his arm slung around Liam’s shoulders and a cheerful smile (which honestly was pretty standard for Niall, the Human Ray of Sunshine™), leaving Harry behind to chat with his Gryffindor friends (despite being in a different house because, again, fuck the inter-house taboo), Nick and some other people (Niall didn’t care enough about them to keep track of all their names).

Niall looked up at Liam (curse his leprechaun genetics!) and pulled on the taller boy’s gold-and-red striped tie. “Liiiii,” he cooed, “What’re ya thinking?”

Liam chuckled and looked at the other boy’s grin. “No, Niall, it’s nothing.”

Niall raised a brow (a habit he picked up in his second year). “Nothing?”

Liam smiled. “Just potions, that’s all.”

Niall rolled his eyes (another habit he’d picked up second year) and the pair, having reached the Great Hall, walked in for lunch.

Niall looked around, waving at headmaster Corden up in the center of the head table, and finally saw Louis sitting at their usual spot at the Hufflepuff table (the students around were unperturbed at the Slytherin in their midst, a tribute to both their kindly nature as Hufflepuffs as well as just being used to Niall’s friends). Niall grinned and waved enthusiastically, disattaching from Liam. He slid onto the bench as he reached for a bread roll, grinning at Louis.

“Hey, Lou. What’s for lunch?”

“Hello, Ni, what a one-track mind you’ve got!”

“Just means ‘ve got me priorities in order!” Niall (shouted) loudly responded.

Louis leaned forward on his elbows. “You’d even prioritize lunch over hearing about my fabulous day?”

Niall nodded furiously, talking through a mouthful of food. “Course I would!”

Liam sat down next to Niall. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” (Not that Niall’s gonna let that stop him from his two greatest pleasures in life: food and socializing.)
Louis laughed. “So what’ve you two troublemakers been up to now?”

Niall swallowed and leaned in across the table, wagging his eyebrows. “Liam over here has been scheming.”

Louis raised his eyebrows right back. “Scheming, eh? For the record, I resent that. I’m the only one around here who’s allowed to do any scheming!”

Zayn, the other Slytherin in the group, appeared behind Louis’ shoulder at that moment with Harry in tow. “Who’s been scheming?”

Louis turned around at the sound of his voice, and positively beamed when he saw the people behind him. “Our good friend Liam here,” he said, gesturing at the Gryffindor boy across from him (without turning away from Harry)(and Zayn, too, I guess). “has been up to no good.”

Niall tuned out the rest of the conversation, watching Harry and Zayn sit down next to Louis (with considerable differences in space between). He watched Louis run his fingers through Harry’s curls (they were getting quite long now, actually) and Harry’s responding dimpled smile as he leaned in even closer to Louis. They weren’t dating or anything (although even Niall, as a straight man, can admit and appreciate how attractive they’d be as a couple), Harry was just cuddly by nature (sharing a dormitory had at least taught Niall that!) and would randomly wrap his giant octopus arms around any friend sitting on the same piece of furniture. But, I mean, this seemed different, kind of. Obviously Harry and Louis were best friends, more of a HarryandLouis than two separate units, but that didn’t excuse them from acting like the sun shone out of each other’s ass. Niall decided to delve deeper into this at another time; now was the time for lunch and chilling with his friends.

And he didn’t think about it again until later, in another shared class with the Gryffindors, Care of Magical Creatures, this time. Niall wasn’t even sure why he’s in the class, really, it’s not like it was his absolute favorite pastime to have his hand bitten off by deceptively cute-looking creatures. This class was going to forever fuck with his ability to trust animals, he could tell. It was probably Harry’s fault that he had taken the course.

Harry was on a whole new level of charming; he could make anything (person or animal) fall in love with him with a small smile and a flash of his dimples. Honestly, those dimples were a scientific anomaly. But anyway, it was his love for animals that had compelled Harry to take Care of Magical Creatures and Niall’s love for his friend to take it as well. No one really knew why Liam was in it (but Niall had a theory that it was about avoiding his mum’s wish for his arithmancy career to blossom. He’d taken four years of it and it hadn’t given any signs of showing, but Liam’s mum was the hopeful type).

Harry had gone to grab some food for whatever monster it was they had to deal with this month (Niall preferred to eat animals than feed the bastards), and Niall took the opportunity to spring on Liam.

“You know what I was just thinking about, Liam?”

“What, Nialler?”

“We, you and me, we haven’t done anything to anyone in such a long time!”

“I am a prefect.”

“Ah, who gives a fuck about that, anyways?” Niall waved it off. “We should do something.”

Liam seemed unsure. “Was that… are you asking me to do you, Niall?”

Niall cackled. “Oh my God, Liam, I’m not askin’ for sex! I was talking about pranks! And we both know I wouldn’t be a bottom. But, hey, if you’re up for it…” he leered at Liam jokingly.

“Ugh, Niall, no! No! But, uh, in the way of pranks…”

“I knew you were scheming earlier. I knew it.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t! I only said I was thinking about potions!”

“Potions? Care to be more specific, Li?”

“I dunno… Love potions maybe.”

“Is this how you’re finally admitting to me that you’re in love with Zayn? Honestly, Liam, it’s about damn time! I’ve known for months, but ‘s nice to finally have it in your own words-”

“No, Niall, ‘m not in love with Zayn.” Liam was blushing (Niall knew he’d deny that, even though he totally was, but that was a conversation for another time). Liam rushed his next sentence. “I was talking more about for Louis.”

“For Louis? Why?”

“I just, I mean, he got us two weeks ago.”

Niall cackled. “Glitter in me uniform! I looked like a fuckin fairy for a week! Legendary!”

“Why didn’t you just vacuum it up with your wand?”

“What?”

“Nevermind, nevermind. But, like, Professor Parsons was talking about Love Potions, and as I was taking my notes-”

“Notes, you fucking nerd.”

“Shut up. Anyway, I thought it’d be a perfect way to get him back! Slip him a potion and watch him act like a fool for a few days!”

“Ha! Genius, Li!” Niall laughed, slapping Liam on the back. “He’d be all swooning and writing poetry! This is fuckin’ brilliant!”

A deep voice from behind made Niall jump. Harry must be back with the food. “What’s fucking brilliant?”

Niall turned around (and looked up, what a fucking giant) to see curious green eyes and a tilted head, curls brushing Harry’s shoulders.

“You’re back! And about fucking time, too, ya giant!” Niall barrelled on, ignoring Harry’s question. He grabbed the food and turned to the thing they were supposed to be feeding, whatever it was -- or, rather, the patch of grass where it was supposed to be.

“Well, shit.” Niall stated, and the previous conversation was forgotten by Harry as they ran around, trying to find and catch the creature (? the whatever-the-hell-it-is?).

It was finally time for the last class of Niall’s school day, Divination in the North Tower. Niall had run all the way from his Care of Magical Creatures class (thank God for all the football he plays with Louis in his free time keeping his lungs from collapsing when he does shit like this) because, to be honest, he was kind of very scared of the teacher, Professor Wellington. It wasn’t that the guy was mean or anything, but he was a ghost. And not just any ghost, he was particularly difficult to see for some reason. It was almost as if you were looking through a very thin slice of potato when he looked at the man; you just can’t really focus on him. No one really knows why that happens (well, someone probably does, but they sure weren’t telling), but the grainy quality to his looks paired with his frankly shady nature just creeped Niall out. He always hurried to that class because he honestly wasn’t sure he (or at the very least his trousers) could survive a full-on detention with him.

Niall climbed the spindly ladder up into the classroom and popped his head up into the room. It was a classroom well-suited to the teacher: dim despite the windows, cold, draped all over with curtains (? why?), full of smoke from weird smelling candles, and always had a strange buzzing noise you could feel in the back of your skull (although, Niall didn’t know, maybe the professor just had some really popular social media that got tons of notifications). Niall climbed in and sat down across from Louis at their usual table, which inexplicably had teacups on it.

“‘Lo, Niall, how’s your day been?” Louis’ high voice carried over the buzzing.

“It’ll get a whole lot better once we’re out of this fuckin’ tower, I’ll tell ya that.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Louis nodded, picking up one of the cups and miming taking a sip.

After that, class had started and Wellington explained what they were doing (some shit with pea trees or summat, Niall honestly didn’t care enough to listen more closely), and everyone was suddenly standing up and going to grab something from the back. Niall jumped, having missed whatever instruction had just happened. He glanced around, then saw Louis smirking at his confused expression as he walked over with what looked like some sort of crushed leaves. Well, if he wanted to light up in the middle of this class, whatever. Niall doubted anyone would be able to see the smoke in this particular tower room anyway. He smiled up (the only time anyone would ever have to look up to see Louis’ face tbh) at Louis as he sat down and dumped the leaves into their cups. Ah, so those are probably tea leaves. Although, knowing Louis, they’re just as likely to be weed. Louis then flicked his artfully styled fringe back (Niall can appreciate a pretty boy, even as a straight guy, alright?) and poured some steaming water into their cups from his wand, the leaves staining the liquid a nice caramel color fairly quickly as they both swirled the cups a few times.

Louis leaned down to blow on his tea (and Niall reached up to his own cheeks as he saw those cheekbones, because, damn, those could cut stone!), then tipped his head to Niall before he downed the liquid.

“Personally, I’m more of a Yorkshire man, but this tea isn’t half bad.”

Niall laughed and downed his tea as well, slamming his cup on the table when he finished. His classmates didn’t even flinch, too used to Niall’s tendency towards drinking enthusiastically (although it usually wasn’t tea, I’ll tell you that).

“Alright, time to switch cups!” Louis chirped as he grabbed Niall’s emptied teacup and pulled it towards himself while simultaneously shoving his towards Niall. “Okay,” he said, pulling out his book and flipping through the pages. “I haven’t got a fucking clue as what any of this shit is.”

Niall cackled and looked down at Louis’ tea leaves. “Well, mate, all I know is these leaves are all swirly. Look it up, what does all the curls mean?” He looked up just in time to see Louis hiding a blush in the divination book.

“Obviously it means that I’m the gayest wizard out there, Niall.”

Niall cackled even louder (is it possible to hurt your throat from laughing too much?)(no, laughter is the best medicine!)(how have I already made such a bad joke Harry hasn’t even talked yet). “What a surprise! I never would have guessed you like cock, Lou! Congratulations!”

The boys laughed uproariously, but either that or Niall’s comment was too loud, because Professor Wellington’s head whipped around to glare at them (well, we can’t be sure it actually did; it’s just so hard to see details on him; but it probably happened. probably). They stopped laughing at that one look. Niall wouldn’t put it past Wellington to levicorpus him right here in his classroom.

After that outburst, they carried on attempting to read the tea leaves and learned some interesting facts about each other. For example, the three curvy bird shapes in his cup implied Louis was going somewhere soon (“Yeah,” he chuckled, “a mental institution if I have to read any more fucking leaves.”), Niall had three weird sort of shapes that meant fire of some sort (“It’s ‘coz I’m so hot,” he explained. “No,” Louis cut in, “It’s cuz you’re about to knock into that candle.” Niall quickly moved his elbow to the table after that), and the greater than symbol in Niall’s cup obviously meant he was the best (“But if you turn the cup it’s a less than symbol.” “Let me have this, at least, Lou!”).

Louis and Niall were Divination pros.

Chapter Text

It was just after dinner, and Niall had at least three essays he should have been writing. Instead, he was sitting on one of the cushy couches in the Gryffindor common room (lucky fuckers) with Zayn, Liam, and Harry (Louis was out doing whatever it is Chasers do at the Slytherins’ Quidditch practice). Well, Zayn, Liam, and Niall were sitting. Harry (much like a cat) was stretched out across the couch with his feet in Zayn’s lap and his head in Niall’s. Liam sat on the floor (those rugs were so thick and soft; it was the only room Niall would enjoy passing out drunk in) by Zayn’s feet, leaning his head on the Slytherin’s knee. The four were just chatting casually, talking about homework and classes and magic, just like any normal teenage boys. Niall carded his hand through Harry’s hair and he purred (fucking purred! like a cat!) and opened one sleepy eye up at Niall.

“So what happened in Wellington’s today? Lou said you guys were reading tea leaves?”

Niall nodded. “Today we learned that I am the most attractive man alive.”

There was a pause, then all three of his friends burst out laughing. Niall should probably be offended, but it was just too endearing to be honest, so he just grinned in typical Niall fashion.

Harry smiled softly. “Sorry, Ni, but the most attractive man alive is-” his eyes suddenly widened in the way of someone who almost let something slip they shouldn’t and he snapped his mouth shut.

Zayn raised an eyebrow. “And who would that be, Haz? I didn’t catch a name, there.”

Harry, however, seemed to have recovered. “Why, Zayn, it’s you of course! That stunning hair! Those breathtaking eyes! The mysterious pout! Not to mention your amazayn cheekbones!” Harry grinned as the group all groaned at the pun.

Conversation flowed for a while, even as Harry dropped off to sleep. Eventually it turned to potions class, which reminded Niall. “Hey, Li, when do you wanna make that potion for Louis?”

“Potion?” Zayn questioned. “I’m missing something here.”

Niall grinned. “We’re gonna make a love potion and feed it to Louis! It’ll be great, he’ll act like a fool for a few days and we get to witness it all firsthand!”
Liam frowned. “Wait, though, Niall. Who’s he gonna be in love with?”

Niall grinned even more (how, you ask? I honestly do not know). “Why not Harry?”

“What?” Liam asked. “Harry?”

“Yeah,” Zayn added, “Why Harry?”

“Because,” Niall pulled a long piece of curly hair off of his school shirt. “He sheds like a long-haired cat.”

Liam shrugged. “Okay.”

Zayn looked a little concerned, though. “What if you accidentally hurt someone’s feelings?”

Niall smiled. “It’ll be fine, Zayn. It’s Harry. He won’t mind. He and Lou are so close already, they won’t care when it’s over. They’ll laugh and we’ll laugh and we’ll all start quoting Louis’ sonnets about Harry’s curls and we’ll have all these new stories about how Louis made a fool of himself when we slipped him a love potion. It’ll be great!”

Liam frowned a bit, though. “Isn’t this technically illegal? What if we get caught?”

Niall grins. “No one’s gonna notice, Li. They’re Harry and Louis!”

The other boys nodded. It was reasonable, given how Harry and Louis already acted.

Niall grinned maniacally. “This is gonna be the best prank we ever pull.”

Zayn laughed. “Seems simple enough. I’m in.”

It was not simple enough. Turns out, brewing a secret love potion to illegally feed to your friend so he can fall in love with your other friend for a few days and completely embarrass himself is very complicated.

The first problem was figuring out a place to brew the love potion. Niall’s first thought had been to brew it in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, but that had been famously done by Harry Potter 25 years ago, so if anyone caught wind of an illegal potion being brewed by a student, that’s the first place they’d check. Niall would volunteer his dorm, but Harry was in there and he’d inevitably discover it while looking for a lost sock or some shit. Zayn’s room was definitely out of the question, as Louis (that nosey little shit) lived there as well, and they couldn’t use the kitchens because, as much as Niall loved the house elves and they loved him, he wasn’t sure they’d be cool with secretly harboring an illegal item. It was probably considered a felony in the United States, so this was obviously some big stuff. Liam suggested the owlery. Niall and Zayn looked at him witheringly. That was Liam’s last suggestion. The only real solution was to brew it under Liam’s bed. He was the only one in a totally different house than either Harry or Louis, and everyone knows that if a Gryffindor found someone brewing an illegal potion, they’re more likely to offer help than snitch.

The second problem was how they were gonna not burn down Gryffindor Tower while brewing an illegal love potion. They experimented for twenty minutes, three burnt curtains, and half a head of singed hair before Zayn finally stepped forward with a little smirk and conjured up some sort of blue fire contained in a jar. It was a bittersweet moment for Niall and Liam.

The third problem they ran into was how to get the actual ingredients. The trio had found a potion for a three-day potion that required a strand of “the object of the victim’s affections”’s hair (there’s one part down), some simple ingredients they could just grab from their potions kits, but then there were some more exotic ingredients (like dragon heartstring) which could only be accessed in the potion master’s closet (or by taking it from the inside of someone’s wand, but they weren’t that heartless).

And so began the task of sneaking into Professor Parsons’ potions cabinet to steal some ingredients to make an illegal love potion. They decided that the best way to go about this would be Hermione Granger style: sending a good student (not Niall) to the cabinet to shove whatever they needed into their shirt while a bad student (Niall) made a distraction so they could get away. But, of course, this is Hogwarts, so nothing ever goes completely according to plan.

At first, it went off without a hitch; Niall and Zayn paired up for today’s potion brewing (Louis was confused and a little hurt that Zayn didn’t pair up with him like he usually did, but in the end he just partnered with Stan, a Slytherin friend of his, and it was fine). Niall threw a firework in some cauldron behind him, Zayn snuck into the closet to grab the ingredients in the resulting chaos, and none of the students noticed his mysterious weight gain (who am I kidding, he still looked like a fucking model). The problems arose when one of the powdered skins (fuck if Niall knew what it was) fell out from his uniform. Zayn, always one to think on his feet, quickly swept his cloak over it and stood still for the rest of class. At the end, he simply dropped his pencil and went to pick up both. But as they tried to discreetly walk out the door (Zayn’s posture was clue enough that they were doing something suspicious), Professor Parsons called out to them.

“Niall? Zayn? Could you come here a minute?”

Niall turned to Zayn, eyes wide enough that you could see the bright-ass blue in its entirety. The pair turned around in the doorway to face the empty classroom and the intimidating (skinny, pale) Head of Hufflepuff House.

“Yeah?” Zayn asked shakily strongly, like a manly lumberjack.

Parsons gestured to the weird lump in Zayn’s shirt. “You could’ve just taken that without throwing a Fizzing Firework in Miss Edwards’ cauldron. Would’ve saved me a lot of mess.”

Niall blushed. “Sorry, Professor. Won’t happen again!”

Professor Parsons smiled and Niall grabbed Zayn by the hand and ran to the end of the hallway, where Zayn dumped the ingredients in his bag. They could finally start the potion tonight.

The brewing of the potion itself was surprisingly easy. Niall took on the brunt of that job (despite it being in Liam’s dormitory) and brewed it really easily (with the exception of that one time he accidentally lit part of his quiff on fire, but we don’t talk about that because no one was there to see it). He didn’t even miss any class for it (much to his chagrin) nor any meals (much to his joy).

“Hey Ni. Nice hair.”

It was lunchtime and the potion was almost done. It was Louis who had spoken, and Niall’s hands flew up to his hair. Apparently he hadn’t fixed the fire damage as well as he’d thought. Niall flushed, but he was still grinning. Of course. He’s Niall.

Suddenly, a telephone pole fell on Louis’ lap. Not really, though. It was just Harry.

“Oops,” Harry said, blushing, from on top of Louis, their faces not even inches apart.

Louis, however, was just as red. “Hi,” he replied quietly. “Such a clumsy boy,” he went on with a small fond smile. Neither boy would look away from the other’s eyes, green locked on blue.

Niall watched the exchange from across the table with raised brows and a small smile of his own. (This was the moment Niall became a dark larrie.)

Suddenly, Liam sat down next to Niall.

“Hi, guys!”

Harry and Louis jumped, and Harry fell off of Louis’ lap. The group started to laugh, and just like that, the moment was over.

“So,” Harry started, “The Hogsmeade weekend is coming up soon. Any plans yet?”

“I want to go to Zonko’s,” Louis announced, “and Niall is coming in with me.”

Harry sat up straighter and looked eagerly at Louis. “Can I come?”

Louis smiled up at him gently before disappointing Harry. “Sorry, love, but Niall and I have some business to attend to in the joke shop.” Harry pouted and Louis pulled on one of his curls. “But maybe after that we could meet up?”

Harry brightened considerably at that. “Alright, yeah, Lou, for sure.”

Louis smiled and pulled his curl again. “Awesome.”

And they all simply dug into lunch.

Across the table, Niall was contemplating. If Louis and Harry acted like this platonically, he couldn’t even imagine what Louis would be like under the influence of a love potion. If this was best friends, imagine if Louis was in love with Harry! Niall grinned as he started to eat, imaging how embarrassing Louis was gonna be after the potion was slipped into something. It would be ready soon, anyway, and they were still reading tea leaves in divination. In fact, Niall and Louis had Divination tomorrow morning after breakfast… If Niall could just slip in a small vial of love potion in his tea, Louis would drink the whole thing. The prank could be starting as early as tomorrow. Niall’s grin widened as he contemplated the feeling of the very best prank he’s ever pulled playing out perfectly. This was going to be so great.

After dinner, Liam had changed and left for Gryffindor Quidditch practice to go off and be a Keeper, the group had a “homework” session in the Hufflepuff common room (they rotated rooms each week and their turn in the Gryffindor common room had just ended), Niall was hanging out with Harry, Zayn, and a Gryffindor friend of theirs named Ed in his and Harry’s dorm room. Niall and Harry were lucky enough to have beds next to each other, so of course they took full advantage of this by making a magically held together blanket fort. What was the point of going to a magic school if you didn’t learn how to make the best blanket fort?
“So,” started Ed, “Do you reckon you two are ready for O.W.L.s this year?”

Niall groaned and laid down on the floor. “Don’t even mention those, mate, we’ve still got time until we have to!”

Harry laughed and laid down next to him. Niall smelled a strong vanilla and some sort of leather. It was nice. “I dunno, Ed,” Harry started talking in that slow, deep voice of his. He’d only said three words and it was already like a lullaby to the Irish boy. Niall would buy a 14-hour audiobook of Harry reading the dictionary in a second. “Do you reckon you’ll do well on any of them?”

“Dunno,” stated Ed. “I’m rubbish at all of it, really. My only talents are writing and guitar.”

Niall hit him with Harry’s pillow. “Shut the fuck up, mate, you write songs in class instead of taking notes and you still get good marks!”

“And singing,” input Harry, “singing is another of your many talents.”

“Harry’s good at lots of things,” announced Niall. “He can sing and he’s good in transfiguration and he can cook. I’m mostly in it for the last skill, there, but Professor McGonagall loves him so much in class. Says he’s a right prodigy.”

Harry ignored most of that sentence and only chose to adknowledge part. “Oh, I can cook! Thank God! I can finally accomplish my dream of becoming a house elf and cook and clean for the students of Hogwarts!”

Niall hit Harry with Harry’s pillow. “Shut the fuck up. You’re plenty smart.”

Harry laughed. “Niall, you’re smart. You’re actually one of the smartest people I know.”

Niall snorted derisively. Ed turned to look at him.

“No, really, Ni, you’re smart. You don’t seem like it -- oh, shut up, I’m not being rude, you just don’t seem intimidatingly smart, like Zayn does.” (They had to agree to that.) “You know all these facts that other people wouldn’t remember. You choreograph all these elaborate pranks. Remember back in third year when Professor Cowell suddenly decided we needed to a unit on geography in History of Magic? You beat Louis in the competition thing he set up with that question about roundabouts in Malaysia, innit. You’re smart!”

Niall laughed. “I remember that competition. What did Cowell call it? The X-Something? That was a weird week for me. But, thanks, Ed. That’s really nice of you. You know what, you’re gonna make it big one day. I can see it. I can’t wait to hear your stuff on the Wizarding Network Radio one day. It’s gonna be great.”

Ed grinned and Harry smiled wide, dimples popping.

“This is nice. This is really nice. I’m so glad for you guys, all of you are so smart and talented.” Harry smiled wide enough for Niall to see his sharp white canine teeth. In a nice way, not a scary way.

“This is great,” said Zayn, “really great, very nice, but it’s also so gay. Like, ridiculously gay.”

Niall turned to him. “Aren’t you gay?”

Zayn grinned. “Technically I’m bi with a preference for guys. But I’ll answer to that, sure.”

Niall laughed. “Sure, whatever you say, big guy.”

Zayn scoffed. “I’m taller than you, Niall.”

The group was quiet for a minute. Not an awkward sort of quiet at all, but a comfortable, companionable quiet. It was really nice, much like this whole get-together, and Harry broke the silence.

“Do you want to hear a joke?”

Niall groaned, but nodded anyway.

“So, once, there was this guy who had a problem with premature ejaculation…”

Niall groaned. “Do I want to know where this is going?”

Harry grinned. “He came out of nowhere.”

The entire group groaned, but Niall laughed anyway.

“Wanna hear another?”

Niall grinned at his friend. “Sure, H, let’s hear it.”

“What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?”

There was silence for a second as everyone waited to hear the answer.

Harry grinned.

There was silence again, until Ed let out a tiny, “What?”

Harry grinned wider.

Suddenly, Niall got it, and starting cackling. He laughed and just didn’t stop as it hit the other boys one by one.

“We’re only laughing so much because it’s so late,” said Zayn. “Not because that was funny. Because it wasn’t, Haz. It was just bad.” But he was laughing too, so you can decide what that means.

It was the next day, and Harry and Niall were headed down to breakfast. Well, not down, really, as the Hufflepuff common room was just below the Great Hall, but, anyway, it was the next day, and Harry and Niall headed up to breakfast. It was hard enough to wake Harry up (he only gets up early if he decides to go for a run or do yoga by the lake with the squid or take polaroids or whatever it is hipster wizards do, so basically, if it isn’t his choice to get out of bed, he isn’t), but Niall got him out of the common room fast enough when he promised scones at breakfast. Only now does Niall realize that they forgot to put on actual clothes and are still in their pajamas. Thank god Harry didn’t sleep naked last night… that would lead to some awkward conversations over their eggs and toast (especially as Niall wouldn’t give Louis the potion for another hour). Niall had plans for Liam to bring him the vial this morning, and to put it in Louis’ tea during Divination somehow. It was going to be an interesting morning.

After breakfast, Niall and Louis headed to the North Tower for Divination with everyone’s least favorite teacher, Professor Wellington. Niall hated Divination, but you gotta do what you gotta do to get enough O.W.L.s for your future career (not that he really had a plan for that). This time, Niall knew what to do for their tea-leaf readings.

Louis noticed his new alert state as well. “Someone’s awake this morning,” he commented.
Niall grinned. “Had nice little sleepover last night with Harry.”

He didn’t notice the way Louis’ face contorted at that, but it did. Louis wasn’t jealous though. That would be ridiculous. Louis Tomlinson? Jealous? Over Harry? His best friend? No way! It’s not like he was in love with Harry or anything… That would be crazy...

But, as we noticed, Niall was oblivious to Louis’ inner turmoil. As soon as the instruction ended, he hopped up and grabbed the teacups off the table. Niall brought them to the counter where the tea leaves were placed in bowls, and made some tea. He added in the “secret ingredient” to Louis’ tea and brought the two cups back, setting Louis’ cup in front of him.

Louis raised an eyebrow. “You could’ve just brought the tea leaves back here to our table, Ni. Didn’t have to bring them all the way over there.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess so,” Niall shrugged. He was really nailing this casual thing. Good job, Niall.

Louis laughed a little. “Ah, this worked too, I guess. This classroom’s so fookin weird though. Can’t even see you clearly when you’re just across the room from all the smoke.” He gave a short laugh. “But maybe Wellington was just standing in between us. I wouldn’t know, can’t see a damn detail of that man.”

Niall laughed, and if it was slightly relieved, Louis didn’t notice.

“Well,” Louis started. “Drink up. Read some tea leaves. Happy days.”

Niall smiled and swirled the tea around a little before drinking the cup.

“Wow,” Louis said after doing the same, “Tea’s really good this time. Mine tastes sort of vanilla with some sort of little bitter thing there. Might even consider changing my favorite brand to this one!” Louis laughed.

Niall looked at his smaller friend’s cup. The tea was gone, leaving only leaves. The prank was starting.

“Well,” Louis shoved his cup at Niall. “Let’s see what’s in our futures!”

Chapter Text

It was lunchtime, two hours after Divination, in which Niall had found an “H” in Louis’ tea leaves. Niall and Liam had gotten to their spot at the table first, and were anxiously awaiting Harry from Muggle Studies and Louis from Charms.

Harry got there first, and Niall and Liam tried their hardest to not fall off of their bench from their excitement to see how Louis acted post-consuming a love potion while also coming off as cool and collected.

Niall was just so fucking excited for this, there just wasn’t any other word. What would happen? Would Louis throw himself at Harry? Would proclaim his love right then and there? Would he start singing to Harry? Or would he go for a more subtle approach? Maybe slowly slide his hand up Harry’s thigh before whispering that they should maybe get out of there? That wasn’t a very PG thought for Niall to have about two of his best friends. Niall is the gayest straight guy these is. But, he returned back to his line of thought, it was Louis. Louis never did anything by half; he always went all-out. Louis wasn’t subtle. Louis could even march right up to Harry and kiss him square on the mouth. What a story that would make. How would lunch go now that Louis is in love with Harry?

But also, how would Harry respond? Niall didn’t think he’d be upset, or mad, but Harry’s reaction was part of the prank. Sure, Louis being so obviously in love with Harry would be endlessly entertaining, but that was only half of the situation. There were just so many options! He could push him off, leaving Louis to pine -- no, Harry was to nice for that. He’d probably just go along with it awkwardly. Harry was awkward at the best of times, but this, this, this was going to be great. Niall almost wished he had one of those Muggle boxes that took the pictures that moved the same every time you watched them. This would be something to remember.
Finally (finally), Louis walked up behind their bench and sat next to Harry, the same distance they were usually. Which, to be fair, wasn’t very far. Ah, Niall thought, so he’s going for the subtle approach. Unexpected, sure, but it could happen. After all, people in love are sometimes totally different than their usual selves. Niall watched intently as Louis reached for a sandwich from the platter in the middle of the table. He watched Louis as he put it on his own plate. He watched as Louis poured himself some water. He watched as Louis looked up at Niall and Liam, both on the edge of their seats, waiting for Louis to suddenly turn to Harry and do something drastic and funny as hell.

“You alright, lads?”

Niall cocked his head. “Yeah, yeah, we’re good. Totally fine. I’m just -- I’m, uh, hungry. Yeah.” He elbowed Liam and reached for a sandwich of his own. When Louis was otherwise occupied at the appearance of Zayn at the table (late, as per usual), Niall looked confusedly at Liam, only to see his own expression mirrored back at him.

“Maybe there’s a delay time for it to kick in?” Liam asked more than said.

“Dunno…” Niall shook his head. “Must be.”

Louis turned to Harry. Niall and Liam’s heads snapped to him, but he didn’t notice. Soon he and Harry were caught up in a conversation about their joint Transfiguration class later. It was… disappointingly normal. No declarations of love, no spur of the moment kissing, no inappropriate touching whatsoever.
By the end of lunch, Niall and Liam were swapping confused looks and promising to check the recipe they had used to see if the potion was supposed to have a delay time before it made the victim fall in love.

In the meantime, Niall would just have to keep an eye on Harry and Louis, and send Liam a patronus if anything changed.

Well, you know what they say about matters of the heart.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

Niall burst into the Transfiguration classroom just before class started at 2, having run all the way from the floor below. The stairs had decided to fuck with him and Niall was left jumping up and down and cursing on the steps (after he spent a few more minutes than he should have chatting with Ed in their last class while Harry rushed ahead to Charms as soon as they were dismissed). Maybe he was cutting it a bit close, Niall thought as Professor McGonagall raised her thin eyebrows and (somewhat passive-aggressively) flicked her wand to swing the door shut, bumping him on the bum. And if it made him slide into his desk next to Zayn any faster (jostle into the empty cup resting on the worn wood a little), no one had to know (but if McGonagall’s stern look lightening a touch was any indication, she knew).

“Late again, Horan? Shall I transfigure you into a pocket watch?”

Niall grinned and shook his head. “No, Professor, I just got held up on the stairs.”

She raised a sarcastic brow. “Of course.”

McGonagall was an intimidating woman at her softest of times, tall with a stern face and a bun as tight as the Louis’ dress robes budget. She was a legend around the Wizarding community for what she had done for Harry Potter, and people said that she had actually lightened up since those days. Now, she was known to smile maybe twice a month. Another trait of McGonagall’s was her tendency to pick favorites. For the past five years, it had been Niall and his squad (four of whom were sitting in her class right now).

McGonagall turned to the class and started explaining their lesson for the day, changing white patterned teacups into sparrows (“Kind of a waste of some perfectly good chinaware, if you ask me,” mumbled Louis), and after she finished her instruction, the class had time to talk among themselves as they figured out how to do the spell. Harry turned around to face Niall, Louis following a second later (not that he was distracted by Harry’s profile or anything, that would be just ridiculous).

“So, Niall, got any clue what she was telling us?” Harry asked.

(Louis definitely was not watching closely as Harry’s lips formed the words, and Niall absolutely was not watching Louis even more closely to see if he was staring any more than usual.)

“Yeah, mate, you just gotta wave your wand and say ‘avifors,’” Niall replied, waving his wand in some complicated polygonal motion while focusing intently on the china teacup on his desk. He frowned when it didn’t do anything but wobble faintly.

“No,” Zayn said, “you gotta make your movements more round, see, like this!” He copied Niall, but made his wandstrokes broader and more rounded, and his cup suddenly glowed an electric blue and morphed into a bright little bird with a small popping noise, flying up near his head before settling calmly next to Niall’s teacup.

Niall hhmphed. “Whatever,” he pouted. “‘s not like I was far off.”

The bird pecked at his teacup and Niall hurried to shield the china from its little beak.

Harry chuckled and Louis laughed, a tinkly sort of sound.

“Think I could do it in one?” he asked.

Harry looked at him with wide doe eyes. “I think you can do anything, Lou,” he stated sincerely. Louis blushed and looked away, but Niall could see the small smile playing across his lips and the twinkle in his eyes. Was that different than his normal behavior? Niall didn’t think so. The potion must still be waiting to kick in, even five hours after he’d ingested it all.

Louis turned towards his desk and waved his wand exuberantly, confidently shouting the spell. “Avifors!”

His teacup jumped and grew a pair of wings, but other than that, it didn’t change. Louis made a displeased little sound, and tried again. Niall watched him intently, waiting for the moment when he’d suddenly look up and propose to Harry, waiting for that romance-novel moment the potion had implied.

What Niall didn’t see (because he simply wasn’t looking for it) was the softness on Harry’s face as he watched. He didn’t see Harry scrunch up his nose to contain his fond because he was too busy examining Louis. No one saw, actually, but McGonagall, and she was too used to his gay romance pining to make any note of it. Even Zayn didn’t notice; he was too busy watching his newly transfigured bird hop around on his desk.

Harry turned around and focused on his teacup. He bent in close, brows furrowed, and tried the spell. There was a crack of blue light, and the cup jumped and turned into a small (probably smaller than it was supposed to be) sparrow.

“I did it!” He exclaimed happily.

Niall leaned close. “That's not right,” he said, “birds don't have eyebrows.”

Harry frowned and looked at the little birds head. There was a small pair of round eyebrows over its bright little eyes.

“I like them.” he proclaimed.

There was a sound and a flash from his left and he turned to see Louis, with a delighted face and a bird in his hands. Harry smiled softly, scrunching up his face.

“Aw,” he cooed at the little bird (and the little boy holding it) and leaned in to bump his shoulders into Louis’. Louis looked at the boy next to him and smiled softly as well.

Harry gave a little oh sound. “Look,” he said, “Lou’s has eyebrows, too!”

Niall and Zayn leaned over their desks to see close in, and there they were, a pair of flat, dark lines over the bird’s beady eyes.

“Huh,” offered Niall. “Weird.”

He turned to his own teacup (the only one left in their group) and raised his wand.

“Avifors!”

A crack of blue light burst from the cup as it changed into a bird the same electric color of the spell.

“That,” said Niall, “is not how it is supposed to look.”

“Yeah,” Zayn hit him on the back, “but it looks sick.”

Harry laughed from in front of them. Louis’ bird had flown onto his head. As Niall started laughing, Harry’s joined him. At that point, Zayn started laughing at the indignant expression on Louis’ face.

“Oh, Lou,” Harry said. “I wish I had brought that camera you got me for my last birthday to class!”

“Personally,” Louis started, “I’m very glad you didn’t.”

(After that, the boys all had to help Louis untangle the nest from his hair and McGonagall turned all the birds back to teacups. Harry put the teacups from their group away, and he kept his next to Louis’ in the case because, as he insisted, “sparrows mate for life. It’d be a crime to separate these two!”)
As class ended, much to Niall’s disappointment, the grand total of romantic declarations made by anyone in the room was a firm zero (excepting, of course, those sparrows). As they packed up their bags and walked out the door, he couldn’t help but wonder what he done wrong to the potion to have such little results.

Niall’s chance to finally see some Lovestruck!Louis in action had finally come at dinner.

There was this one moment, when Harry had asked him to pass one of the entrees and a side - chicken stuffed with mozzarella wrapped in parma ham with a side of homemade mash (Niall really knew his food) - and there was this one frozen moment in time where Louis positively beamed at Harry (but not just a regular friend beam, this was more like the sun itself had come down to live in his smile). There must have been some sort of private, shared memory between the two of them or -- no, it was the potion! Finally, the love potion they had given him was working!

Niall turned to look at Liam next to him, and Liam must have been thinking along the same lines, because the two found themselves staring at each other with the same dawning excitement on their features.

Zayn glanced between the two across the table and arched an eyebrow (still looking like a fucking model, goddamn), but remained largely unconcerned in his typical “effortlessly cooler than everyone” manner.

After they’d all finished dinner and shared some friendly banter (that started with Louis comparing Liam’s face to a bowl of peas and ended with a water fight that nearly got them all detention with Professor Cowell), the group headed up to the Gryffindor common room (because those couches were comfortable, dammit) for some squad time. Only an hour in, Louis was sat on Harry’s lap, Liam and Zayn were mysteriously fitting into the same squishy armchair, and Niall was spread-eagled on the floor, laughing at something Louis had said five minutes ago.

Louis was absentmindedly playing with the rings on Harry’s long fingers when he glanced down at Harry’s watch.

“Shit! I have to be at practice in a few minutes! Shit, shit, shit! Gotta run, lads! Bye!” And with that, Louis ran out the portrait hole, leaving a confused and suddenly cold Harry behind. Harry pouted.

Niall popped his head above the edge of the couch next to where Harry was sprawled. “Is this seat open?” he asked, gesturing to Harry’s now unoccupied body. Harry nodded a little sadly and Niall plopped down unceremoniously on top of him.

“Hey, Haz?”

Harry grunted in response.

“How do you kill a vegetarian vampire?”

Harry grinned at him as Liam groaned from the armchair.

“What?” Harry asked, giggling.

Niall started cackling before he even told the punchline.

Zayn looked up from his chair. “Cut its head off?”

“Zaaaaaayn,” pouted Harry, “that’s no fun!” He threw a pillow off of the couch and hit Zayn.

Niall was still giggling. “You stab him in the heart with a steak to the heart!” He cackled madly. “Geddit, Li? A steak!” Niall dissolved (even more) into giggles.

Zayn pretend-pouted. “Or you could cut its head off,” he got louder as Harry started to whine at him again, “like a head of lettuce!”

Harry and Niall started laughing hysterically at that, and Zayn even let out a small snicker.

Liam, for his part, groaned at the pun and dropped on top of Niall and Harry, causing them to groan and giggle even more.
Zayn laughed at them. “Ridiculous. The whole lot of you,” he said fondly, shaking his head.

“Zaayn,” Liam whined from where his face was squished into Harry’s shoulder, “get in.”

Zayn laughed, then stood up and flopped down on his back on top of the pile.

They laid there for a few hours until the common room was empty, only breaking their comfortable silence to make horrible puns and to giggle. The fire was burning low, the room was dark and empty, and Harry had fallen asleep when Zayn broke the silence from the top of the pile (which had shifted to the floor, somehow).

“So, when are we gonna give Louis the potion?”

Niall jerked up. “What?”

Zayn looked at him slowly. “The love potion? When are we gonna slip it in his morning goblet of orange juice?”

Liam stared at him. “But we already did?”

Zayn’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about? Of course you didn’t! Louis isn’t in love with Harry! He’s been acting totally normally?”

Liam gaped at him. “Niall gave it to him this morning! In divination! You did give it to him, didn’t you, Nialler?”

Niall stared at him, wide eyed. “I did, I did! I swear! It must not have kicked in yet?”

Zayn shook his head. “No, you gave it to him this morning? It’s been more than 12 hours! There’s just no way.”

“But he drank every drop!” Niall insisted. “He said his tea tasted like vanilla!”

Liam frowned, puppy dog eyes out in full power. “Then why isn’t he acting any differently?”

Zayn’s eyes widened and he looked away, deep in thought.

Niall spoke up. “You know what we haveta do now, though, Liam.”

“What?”

“We have to test it on someone else, to see if the potion actually works.”

Liam’s puppy eyes furrowed in confusion. “Who, though?”

Niall shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe one of Harry’s friends, to make it a little easier to tell?”

“Who’s he really close with, besides us?” Liam tilted his head. “It would just be weird if one of us were in love with Harry. Might fuck with the prank, too.”

Niall grinned lopsidedly. “Maybe the potion will be more obvious if we make Louis jealous... I know who we need to pick.” He grinned somewhat maniacally.

Liam stared at him. “Who? One of his friends? One of Harry’s?”

Niall grinned wider. “Nicholas Grimshaw.”

Liam’s eyes widened. “The Gryffindor Nick? Tall, skinny, hipster Nick? Nick who is a sixth year?”

Niall looked at him. “Glad to know you’re well acquainted.”

There was a silence for a second.

“We should probably tell Zayn,” Liam said.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, Zayn.”

Zayn stared into the distance dramatically, contemplating something deep.

“Zayn.”

Zayn didn’t notice, eyes unfocused.

“ZAYN!” Niall yelled.

Zayn jumped.

“Shh!” Liam shushed Niall. “People are asleep!”

“What?” Zayn asked, a little spooked.

Niall looked at him gravely. “Zayn. We’ve decided we have to test the potion on someone to be sure it actually works and I didn’t like, fuck anything up. So we can try the prank again.”

Zayn raised an eyebrow. “Is this a good idea?”

Liam nodded. “Makes sense to me.”

Niall smiled. “We’re gonna test it on Nick Grimshaw today.”

Zayn tilted his head. “Louis is gonna be so jealous, though.”

Niall grinned. “We can also tell if the potion’s working, though, if he punches Nick or not.”

Liam laughed. “What time is it?”

Zayn shrugged. “Must be late. Louis’ probably back from Quidditch and asleep by now.”

Niall yawned. “Yeah. We should really get to sleep.”

The boys untangled themselves and stood up slowly, stretching.

Liam laughed. “Yeah. You got H?”

Niall smiled. “Yeah. I got him.”

“Alright,” Zayn said, “Night, guys.”

Liam and Niall said their goodnights, Zayn left through the portrait hole (to some wolf whistles from the Fat Lady in her painting) and Liam headed up to his dorm.

Niall looked down at Harry, sleeping peacefully on the floor, dark curls fanned out around his head. His face was pale, and his eyelashes fluttered a little. Harry was an aesthetic wonder. He was so peaceful in sleep, all dark and light contrast.
Niall nudged his shoulder with a foot.

“Haz,” he sing-songed softly. “Ha-az…”

Harry stirred a little.

“H,” Niall said, a little less soft, “Harry.”

Harry turned on his side and snuffled into the thick carpet.

“Oi, dickhead,” Niall chided. Harry turned farther away from Niall. “Fine,” Niall muttered. He pulled his wand out of his robe. “Levioso,” he whispered.

Harry’s sleeping body floated up, and Niall cracked a smile (ha. that rhymes). He steered Harry through the hallways and down the stairs, ducking around corners to avoid teachers on patrol and sneaking back through the Hufflepuff common room to their shared dorm. Once they made it, Niall dumped Harry on his bed, not even tucking him in (that’s what regular friends are for. Best friends are too close for that).

As Niall climbed into his own bed, Niall went over his flawless plan again. Give the potion to Nick, who either falls in love with Harry, making Louis absolutely crazy with jealousy (and therefore proving the credibility of Niall’s potion), or nothing happens at all, meaning Niall brews the potion again, correctly this time, to get the performance he’s been waiting for. Normally, this is where Niall would say, ‘What could go wrong?’, but it’s already gone wrong, so we’ll just have to say it sarcastically.

What could possibly go wrong?

Chapter Text

It was a great plan. Really, it was. There was just one issue. The only friend of Nick Grimshaw’s that Niall actually knew was Harry, and Harry couldn’t know about the plan for obvious reasons.

It would be suspicious to talk about it when Harry and/or Louis were there, and it would be even more suspicious to make Harry and/or Louis to leave, so the trio of troublemakers (a name Liam, being a prefect and good student, did not appreciate) had to meet secretly, hidden behind tapestries and jumping into empty classrooms. Niall loved it. It was like being in a super secret society of spies, except he didn’t have to make any blood oaths to get in or kill anyone or never contact his family again. So it wasn’t really at all like being in a super secret society of spies.

They’d only met like this twice since last night, when they had come up with the plan to test the potion on Nick Grimshaw, which was quickly nicknamed by Niall “Operation Nick-Tac-Toe.” Not that Liam and Zayn called it that. Only Niall appreciated the pun. (This is what happens when Harry Styles is in all your classes and sleeps in the bed next to yours). But “Team Star Trek: The Potion Picture” (thanks, Niall) had yet to figure out how to actually get the potion to Nick.

“It would probably work if we injected it into his bloodstream.”

“We’re not sticking a needle into him, Zayn.”

“I didn’t say we should, Liam, all I said was it could work!”

“What if we force-feed it to him?”

“Niall, he’s in sixth year.”

“So? He’s a fucking stick! I think we could take him!”

“Niall, we’re not going to hold him down and make him drink some.”

“You don’t get to tell me that; you just said we should give it to him like heroin!”

“That’s not actually what I said at all, Niall.”

“Guys,” Liam cut in. “It doesn’t matter. The only important thing here right now is that we aren’t taking either of those suggestions and you’re both complete idiots. Now, how are we gonna get the potion inside of Nick?”

Niall giggled.

Zayn sighed. “We’re not gonna stick it up his ass, Niall.”

Niall cackled at that. “I know, but it’s still funny.”

Zayn raised an eyebrow. Liam glanced at him and shook his head. It just wasn’t worth arguing over.

There was silence in the empty classroom for a minute as each boy contemplated how to poison -- I mean, slip a Nick a love potion.

“Can’t we just, like, throw it at him?” Niall finally asked.

Zayn looked over at him. “I think you may be onto something.”

Liam looked as surprised as Niall. “Really?”

Zayn nodded, jumping off of the desk he’d been sitting on. “We can slip it to him at dinner tonight. He’s in your House, right, Liam?”

Liam nodded confusedly, pulling the small vial of pale blue potion out of the pocket of his robes. “Sorry, but, what exactly does this have to do with throwing the potion at Nick?”

Zayn laughed. “We start a food fight as a distraction!”

At Niall and Liam’s still confused faces, Zayn continued. “So Liam sits at the Gryffindor table tonight, with Perrie or Ed or someone, saying that he has an essay he needs their help on or something so Louis doesn’t get suspicious. He positions himself by Nick-” (“Positions himself?” Niall muttered, “What is this, a war strategy?) “-and Niall and I will start a food fight. Louis and Harry, and probably Jade and some other kids as well, will join us, and Nick and his friends will be distracted enough that you can pour the vial into his drink!” Zayn finished excitedly.

Liam nodded slowly. “But what if someone sees me?”

Niall cackled. “I’ll hit ‘em in the face with some shepherd’s pie!”

The boys laughed and left to the library (because sometimes they actually did do their homework) to spend the hour they had before dinner productively.

But not before Niall made an attempt at team spirit.

“Let’s do the team cheer, guys!”

“Shut up, Niall.”

“3… 2… 1… Goooooo Walt Disney Studios Potion Pictures! Yeahhh!”

(It should be noted that Muggle movies were about the only Muggle thing Niall knew. Then again, that was more knowledge than many other pureblooded wizards had.)

For the sake of the Great Hall, professors monitored heavily for food fighting. They all sat in a row at the front of the hall with their wands ready to draw in their pockets, and they may have seemed to be eating, but they were really just watching, pretending to be distracted, ready to stop a student trying to cause mayhem with a well-tossed spring roll. Constant vigilance!

Well, no, not really, but all the same, they wouldn’t appreciate it if a nuisance decided to start throwing their diner around willy-nilly. They’d probably use some quickly fired and well-aimed spells to put a stop to it before it really got going. Which is why Zayn, Niall, and Liam had to be fast.

Liam was over at the Gryffindor table, sitting between Perrie and one of Nick’s hipster crew (with his back turned so he wouldn’t have to look at the little fifth year prefect), talking to Ed across the table about something, the third person down the bench from Nick.

Niall and Zayn were at their usual end of the Hufflepuff table, eating dinner with Louis and Harry. Zayn was sat next to Niall in Liam’s usual spot tonight, both for a better food launching position and so he wouldn’t have to squeeze across next to the Big Gays when there was room for Niall to lay down over here. Louis was in the middle of talking when Niall tuned in to the conversation, mouth full of shepherd’s pie.

“-and then the joke has passed and I’m left with a string tied around my ankle.”

It must have been the end of some nonsensical story, and Niall was simply too lazy to ask Louis to repeat the whole thing.
Harry and Louis had gotten enveloped into their own conversation, so Niall turned to Zayn. Zayn nodded at him and turned to Louis, discreetly picking up a spoonful of pudding.

“Hey, Louis?”

“Yeah, Z?”

Zayn flung the pudding at him, and Louis was frozen for a second in shock, pudding dripping down his cheek. Then a twisted grin took over his mouth, and Louis smirked.

“If that’s how you want to do this.”

And Louis leaped up with a yell and slammed an entire meat pie in Zayn’s face.

Niall jumped and and threw a pie at a big Gryffindor, and the Great Hall descended into chaos. Food was flying everywhere, people getting hit left and right. There were students under tables, hiding from the open fire, students running around, trying to avoid getting hit (and largely failing), occasionally throwing a piece of food that just added to the disorder, and then there were the students standing on the long House tables, throwing the biggest foods they could find and directing other kids. Niall was laughing as he pitched a handful of green beans at Harry, who Louis was trying to protect. Harry was laughing, too, and he grabbed a giant bowl of pudding and smashed it on Louis’ head. Niall could hear his startled cry as he got doused in thick liquid, and Niall laughed even harder when Louis used his own body to dirty Zayn, who was also laughing. He’d known it would be a fun endeavor, Niall thought as he ducked under a flying chicken leg as he caught sight of Louis stuffing bread down Harry’s shirt, but this was just about the most gleeful he’d felt in ages.

Just then, as he threw a goblet of orange juice across the table at Perrie (who was currently throwing handfuls of peas and carrots at him and Jade), Niall saw Liam, pouring the contents of a familiar vial into Nick’s (who had ended up on the table then feet away) goblet. Niall also saw as the rest of the chicken he’d seen earlier slammed into Liam’s arm, throwing at least half of the vial’s contents onto the floor and knocking it to the ground, where it shattered on the flagstones. Liam pulled out his wand to vanish the glass, but right before that happened, an entire loaf of sourdough bread hit Niall in the face.
He turned around to see Perrie and Jade cheering, and Niall grinned. He picked up the nearest food (a nice big shepherd’s pie), and slammed it right into the girls. Niall laughed at their yells, and continued warring with everyone around, shouts of his own mingling with the screams and yells of the warring students around, the shadows of flying food changing with the flickering of the candles and the electric colors of the spells teachers were blasting everywhere to get at least some of this goddamn food back on a table and these goddamn students back in their benches, goddammit!

Suddenly, a spell lit up the entire Great Hall. All the food froze in midair and the students all stopped throwing things, the younger ones looking up in wonder while the older ones looked to the professors in the front of the hall.
Headmaster Corden’s voice rang out, tone indecipherable.

“Who started this chaos?”

A few heads turned to Zayn, Louis, Niall, and Harry (which wasn’t fair really, as Harry hadn’t actually done anything until the fight was in full swing). Harry and Niall had sheepish looks on their faces, Zayn looked coolly unconcerned, and Louis was staring accusingly at a first-year Gryffindor, like doing that would cause people to think that it was him and not at all Louis who had started this.

Professor Corden shakes his head slowly. “I should’ve known it was you five,” he looked up at them. “Wait, scratch that, you’re missing one. Alright, then,” he sighed, “follow me to my office. And you know I’m going to have to give all four of you detentions. Seperate detentions.”

Louis groaned. Niall shrugged. “Worth it,” he muttered, glancing at Liam and the mess that used to be the Great Hall. Zayn tilted his head, coolly unconcerned.

“Horan, Tomlinson, Malik, Styles, follow me,” said the headmaster.

As the four of them were ushered out of the Great Hall, Niall looked back to see professors and prefects using magic to clean the Great Hall, some students sitting back down and cleaning up a little as they laughed with their friends, Liam’s nervous chuckle as he looked, wide-eyed, back at Niall, and, finally, he saw Nick Grimshaw laughing with his friends and knocking back his goblet of juice. Juice and, now, a potion to make him fall in love with Harry Styles.

The squad (minus Liam) were all standing in Professor Corden’s office, having followed him all the way from the Great Hall (the password was ‘dodgeball,’ not that Niall was entirely sure what that even was).

“So, boys, we have a few things to say here,” he started. “So, there are some students who say you threw the first pie. Now, honestly, I’m not sure how all four of you managed that, so it’s plausible that you boys may have been framed due to your… past… experiences with these sort of things. And because of that, the only fair thing to do here, I think, is to give you each a week of detentions.”

“Well,” said Louis, “getting right to the point, are we?”

Niall laughed. “Let’s just take what we can and get back to dinner, Lou.”

Harry laughed with Professor Corden as Zayn smiled (he’s super chill like that).

“Trying to get away from me that quickly, eh, Horan? Does my breath smell? Is it something I said?”

Niall laughed.

“Not at all, Professor,” Louis smoothly responded, “but to be fair, you are the bearer of bad news.”

“Speaking of bad news,” Niall cut in, “who are we serving our detentions with?”

“You’ll be serving your detentions under your Heads of House, but not at the same times. Two of you will go one night, two the other, alternating nights until each of you have served three detentions.”

Niall silently thanked the heavens that he wouldn't have to do detention with Professor Wellington.

After they finished working out the details of their detentions and got a stern talking-to about throwing food and causing general chaos, the four boys were free to go. Obviously they had to find Liam and update him on everything (and, when they could get a moment, for Liam to update Niall and Zayn on Operation: Newton’s Laws of Potion, name courtesy of Niall Horan).

The boys were walking down the wide hallway, making wide girths around the statues and suits of armor (Niall and Louis had enchanted so many in the past that they didn't remember which would attack and which wouldn't), when Nick Grimshaw suddenly jumped out from behind one.

“Harold!” he yelled, face lit up. Niall grinned inwardly; he didn't know how much of the potion Nick had drank, but obviously it was working thus far. Niall turned his head from Nick’s grin to see Louis’ reaction so fast that he could've gotten whiplash.

Louis was outright glaring at Nick, eyes narrowed to jealous little slits. He shifted closer to Harry, hand hovering near the small of his back (which, actually, wasn't that unusual between the two of them. Louis would often lead Harry through the hallways like that while Harry talked animatedly to him).

“Hi, Hazza,” Nick grinned, a dopey expression on his face as he stepped in very (very) close. “That's a nice shirt, can I talk you out of it?”

Niall choked. He was not expecting that. He doesn't know quite what he was expecting, but it was not that.
Louis looked downright murderous. He shifted in even closer to Harry, almost pressed up against his back. Nick saw the minute movement and his expression darkened. Nick stepped in. Harry didn't even seem to notice the walls of masochism closing down around him.

“So, Harry, do you want to go to the library with me?” Nick asked, slipping a hand onto Harry’s waist. “I need some help with an essay, and I think a nice, dark, private corner and good company will do it wonders.”

If looks could kill, the expression on Louis’ face right then would've sliced and diced Nick to bits, liquefied his cubed remains, and jumped on what was left.

Harry looked to Louis, uncertain. “Uh, Nick, I was actually just going to go, um, hang out with Louis? We, uh, Niall and Zayn and everyone, we're gonna go maybe find Liam and, uh, maybe just kind of chill?” Harry rambled. Louis was positively beaming, the fond radiating off of him in waves.

“Oh,” Nick said, disappointed. “Well, Harry-”

Louis cut him off there, slinging his arm all the way (up and) across Harry’s shoulders and beaming. “Sorry, Grimmy, but we’d best get going. Wouldn’t want to keep Liam waiting!” And he tried to whisk Harry down the hallway (how rude of him to forget Niall and Zayn)(who were eating up this drama like starving men).

“Wait, Harry!” Nick called. Harry turned, and Louis frowned. Nick continued. “Well, uh, you know how Hogsmeade weekend is coming up in a few days…” he trailed off.

“Yeah?” Harry cocked his head.

“Do you want to maybe go out to lunch with me then?”

Harry smiled. “Sure, Nick.”

Louis froze, and his arm dropped off of Harry. Nick grinned like he had just been given a thousand Galleons. He stepped towards Harry.

Harry smiled and started to turn around. “Well, Nick, I’ll see you later! We really do have to get back to Liam, bye!”

Nick smiled, lovestruck. “Bye, H.” He seemed to gain his smooth enthusiasm back after a second. “I’ll see you and your beautiful princess curls very soon!”

Harry looked at his friends and grinned. “Alright, don’t want to keep Liam waiting!” And he started down the hallway. Zayn hurried to keep Harry company (he had a tendency to get distracted talking to the paintings and end up lost in some remote corner of the castle) with a worried glance back at Niall and Louis.
Niall turned to Louis, who hadn’t moved since his arm fell. His face was frozen in a sort of heartbroken shock, and Niall felt his own grin at the drama fade. This wasn’t how love potions worked. He stepped up to Louis. Louis’ pale face didn’t even register it.

“Lou?” he whispered.

Louis started. “Oh! Oh, yeah, Niall? What is it?”

Niall furrowed his brow. “Are you okay?”

Louis smiled (albeit somewhat weakly). “Yeah, I’m great. Happy days.”

It was weak and Niall knew it, but he stepped next to Louis. “Let’s go, Lou. Liam’s waiting. Probably pacing a hole in the Gryffindor common room floor, waiting for his heroes to return from war.”

Louis laughed at that and followed Niall.

“Alright, Ni, whatever you say.”

Chapter Text

That night, as Harry and Niall lay in their beds (after casting muffilatio so that they didn’t bother their dormmates… again), Harry turned to Niall.

“Is Louis okay?”

Niall tilted his head at the question. “‘m not really sure, to be honest.”

Harry frowned. That obviously was not the answer he had wanted. "He seemed... off, didn't he? Do you think Lou's upset about something?" Harry's small frown deepened. "He didn't tell me anything. He always tells me when something's wrong. Is he upset because of me?" The last words had been spoken in a hurt whisper.

Niall reached a comforting hand to Harry's shoulder. "H, I'm sure he's not upset at you. You haven't done anything. Besides, did he say he was upset?"

Harry frowned. "No, not specifically," when Niall started to open his mouth, Harry hurried to continue. "But I can tell something is! Something's up with Louis!"

He sounded so genuinely upset that Niall almost told him about the love potion. But he couldn't; it would ruin the whole plan. So Niall just frowned back at him and spoke softly, "Hazza, I'm sure it's fine. If it's something important, I am one hundred percent confident he'll tell you. Besides, it's probably something dumb. Maybe he's upset about the detentions, or maybe he's having problems with his love life or something."

It was the closest Niall could get to telling Harry that he'd basically drugged his best friend to make him fall in love with Harry (with questionable results). Well, maybe not the closest, but it was fine. He was doing it for the greater good, anyway.

But Harry only seemed more upset. He turned onto his back, no longer facing Niall. "Alright," he sighed. "Goodnight, Ni."

Niall frowned. "Night, Haz."

He didn't sleep very soundly that night; the feeling that something was wrong here nagging at him all night.

The next morning, their group was being watched by at least four teachers. They really didn't want any repeats of last night's mess. Harry walked in and sat next to Louis at breakfast. Louis brightened and he leaned into the younger boy.

"Good morning, love," he greeted with fond eyes.

Nick plopped down next to Harry. Louis' face hardened and his mouth pursed.

"Good morning, babe," Nick said to Harry.

Louis raised an eyebrow at the nickname.

Harry smiled confusedly at Nick. "Hi?"

Nick smiled at Harry and pulled out a bouquet of violently pink roses from behind his back. "I got these for you, but you're so much more beautiful," he simpered.

Niall tried not to laugh. Zayn raised an amused eyebrow. Louis clenched a fist around his glass of juice.

Harry smiled, even more confused. "Thank you?" he tried.

Nick grinned. "Of course," he said, "anything for you, Harry."

Liam turned to Niall, muttering a "I take it the potion worked."

Niall nodded vigorously, still trying not to laugh.

Louis' hand tightened even more around his cup, staring holes into Nick's stupid quiff.

Harry was trying to figure out where to put the flowers. He thrust them at Louis with a confused head tilt, and Louis took them (though he touched them as if it were a particularly horrible kind of slug he was handling and not a bouquet of sweet-smelling roses) and put them on the bench next to him (and then vanishing them with a muttered spell, but Harry didn't have to know that).

Nick was still talking to Harry. "Did you know I wrote an ode to your curls last night?"

Harry's eyes widened.

"Do you want to hear it?" Nick asked excitedly.

"No, no, it's fine, really, I'm quite alright, thanks," Harry held his hands up between them.

Nick deflated a little. "Oh." Then he perked up. "Maybe I can recite the one about your eyes?"

There was suddenly a loud curse form Harry's other side. Louis had broken his glass form holding it too hard, and blood was coating his hand and the broken glass, pouring form a large gash in his palm.

Harry's eyes widened. "Louis!" he called. "Oh, Louis, are you alright?" He tenderly held Louis' hand, turning it over to see how injured his palm was. He had turned his back completely on Nick, focusing only on the smaller boy next to him.

"We need to get you a bandage, this looks bad," Harry fretted over Louis as Louis stared into his face with wide eyes and hitched breath. "I'll take you to the hospital wing," Harry said, suddenly standing up, still holding Louis' hand gently and stooped to stay face to face.

(Nick's face, in the meanwhile, was glued to Harry's ass, which made Liam frown and Niall toss a fork at his face to get him to stop ogling their friend's pert little bum.)

Louis stood up, hand still being caressed by Harry's much larger one. He looked at Liam. "We're gonna go. Hospital wing, and all that. Yeah," he pointed to the doors with his other hand.

Harry waved and led Louis out with their still-connected hands.

Nick frowned after them, wistfully staring at the door for a minute until Zayn dropped down next to him.

"Morning," Zayn yawned. "Where're the lovebirds?"

Nick huffed and left to go sit with his older friends.

"Dunno what his problem is," Zayn muttered.

"Maybe start with the fact that he's in love with Harry," Liam said.

"Mate," started Zayn, "if he's upset that H isn't here, he wouldn't've up and left all in a huff like that."

"Yeah, maybe," Niall responded, "but Harry and Louis just left hand-in-hand, so make what you want of that."

Zayn raised his eyebrows. "Hand in hand?"

Liam was quick to explain. "Louis hurt his hand when his cup shattered -- speaking of, let's clean up that broken glass --" Zayn did a quick spell and the broken glass disappeared "-- and Harry took him to the hospital wing."

Niall pouted. "It was much more romantic than that."

Zayn laughed. "I mean, if blood is what they're into..."

Niall cackled and Liam choked.

"No!" Liam exclaimed. "No! I am not going to think about that! God, Zayn, why?"

Zayn laughed with Niall. "Sorry, Li," but he wasn't that sorry, or else he wouldn't be laughing.

After they'd calmed down a bit, Zayn turned to his friends with a serious look on his face.

"Seriously, though, why do you think the potion is acting differently on Nick than it is on Louis?"

Liam responded first. "They're different people, it makes sense that they'd act differently in love."

Zayn wasn't convinced. "But Louis isn't acting any differently than he usually does, and this whole fiasco with Nick is just proving that the potion works! Guys, you do know what this means..." he trailed off.

"That Louis' immune system is more resistant?" Niall asked.

Liam considered it. "He is a muggle-born, and they have all those weird chemicals in their food-"

Zayn cut him off. "Louis is in love with Harry!"

Niall rolled his eyes. "Yes, Zayn, we know, Nick is, too."

Zayn growled. "No, I mean like, Louis is really in love with Harry. Has been for a while, probably."

Niall and Liam were quiet.

"It makes perfect sense," said Zayn. "Why Harry didn't notice, why he isn't acting any differently, why he hasn't just made a move already like Nick has!"

"What, the flowers?" Liam asked.

"Flowers?" Zayn echoed.

Niall rolled his eyes. "Liam, last night Nick asked Harry out to lunch and Harry said yes, and, Zayn, this morning he brought Harry flowers. Anyway, what were you saying?"

Liam cut in. "He asked Harry out? And Harry said yes? But I thought he didn't like Nick like that!"

Niall frowned. "Harry probably doesn't even realize it's a date," he put in (not unfairly).

Zayn burst in between them."Guys, we have more pressing things to deal with here. Like the love potion!"

"Sorry," a new voice cut in, "but did you just say love potion?"

Niall looked up to see Perrie, a nice metamorphmagus girl in their year. Today, her face was the same as it usually was, and her hair was long, wavy, and bright pink. She was really a very pretty girl.

Perrie sat down next to Niall. "Aren't love potions illegal?"

Niall spoke up. "Yeah, I guess, but they're fuckin' hilarious if applied right, aren't they?"

Perrie laughed. "Definitely."

"Glad you think that," Niall continued, "because we illegally slipped some to two people without telling them."

Perrie gaped.

Zayn hit Niall over the head. "You can't just tell people that!" he scolded.

Niall shrugged.

Liam was staring wide-eyed at Perrie, probably scared she'd tell someone and his prefect status would be revoked.

Niall rushed to add in, "But you can't tell anyone if we give you all the details."

Perrie nodded. "Naturally."

Niall held up his pinkie. "Pinkie promise?"

Perrie laughed and linked her pinkie with his. "Pinkie swear."

Niall grinned brightly and disentangled his hand. "Good. So, basically, we've given both Louis and Nick Grimshaw a potion to make them fall in love with Harry."

Perrie's pink eyebrows rose. "What? Why the hell would you do that?"

Niall shrugged. "We thought it would funny to see Louis tripping all over himself and making a fool for Harry, but when we gave it to him two days ago, nothing changed. So obviously we had to test the potion to see if it actually works, so we slipped some to ol' Grimmy over there. It was all Payno's idea, really, he should get all the credit here." Niall slapped Liam on the back as Liam started sputtering for words.

Perrie grinned. "And does your potion work?"

Niall grinned. "Nick's sure acting like it."

Perrie smiled wide, baring a pair of sharp canines. "But Louis didn't act any differently?"

Liam nodded.

Zayn tilted his head. "Why do you seem so excited?"

Perrie smiled at him. "I've always thought those two were cute together. Seems to me like Tommo is in love with our good friend Harry."

Zayn smiled. "You and I are going to get along well."

Niall (otherwise known as mr. Sunshine Joy™) grinned brightly."Do you want to join Team EPotional Intelligence?"

Perrie grinned. "I would love to. I can even provide popcorn."

Niall smiled widely, showing off his shallow left dimple. "I think we're going to get along brilliantly."

Perrie smacked him. "We were already friends, you dumbass."

Niall was late to his first class of the day.

Sure, he could've planned better. Sure, he could've not fallen asleep on the common room rug during his free period, and sure, he could've put on shoes so he didn't slip all over the surprisingly smooth floor in his striped socks. But to be fair, what else was he supposed to do when the Gryffindors had Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Slytherins and Harry was in Muggle Studies? When you really think about it, it wasn't really Niall's fault that he was late for Charms with the Gryffindors.

Which would mean Harry, Liam, and Ed were waiting on him, Niall thought as he ran down the corridor, just a few doors down from his classroom. Professor Weasley was probably just finishing instruction; Niall would probably be able to sneak in right through her open door and slide into his normal desk next to Harry.

His robes were flying out behind him and it was a wonder he hadn't fallen yet, with his socks and his bad knee. Niall slid past the door, arms pinwheeling and trying to grab something to stop. His hand caught the wooden doorframe, and he slid in a half circle, sinking lower as he fell. Every head in the class turned to him as he crash landed in a heap a foot away from a Gryffindor girl's desk.

He looked up, somewhat sheepishly.

"Hello, everyone," Niall grinned from his pile on the floor.

The girl in front of him laughed. He looked up. It was Jade, and next to her was Perrie. Niall waved brightly.

Perrie laughed at him. "Nice socks."

There was a small coughing sound from the front of the class. Niall looked up at Professor Weasley. She was standing with her arms crossed, but her face didn't seem cross at all. It looked more like she was trying to be cross, but was really actually amused. Niall supposed she was used to his antics, as well as having a lifetime of dealing with things like this from her own friends, growing up.

Everyone knew about the legendary trio: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, and everyone knew all about what they'd gotten up to when they were at school. Now Niall and his friends were being taught by Hermione Granger (who actually strongly reminded Niall of Liam), learning Charms from a legendary figure and even occasionally hearing her tell stories of things that she'd done when she went here.

But right now, all Niall was seeing was the professor to a class he had just made a late (but very dramatic) entrance to. Niall stood up, brushing his black school uniform off and running a hand through his hair.

"Well, I'd best get into my seat..." he said.

Professor Weasley raised an eyebrow. "Yes, that would be a good plan, Horan."

Niall grinned at her and turned to sit next to Harry in the back of the classroom. Harry, Liam, and Ed were all grinning at him, looking like three very pleased kittens.

"And, Horan," Professor Weasley said, "next time, bring your shoes."

Niall blushed and nodded, finally sitting down in their group.

The classroom suddenly fluttered with motion, students starting to talk and pulling out their wands to do whatever it was they were doing today. Niall didn't know what it was, but as he looked around, suddenly he saw a piece of parchment on Jade's desk spontaneously catch fire. Nobody in the class even batted an eye.

Niall turned to his friends. "What're we doing today?"

"We're trying to light things on fire," Ed responded, waving his wand at his own piece of paper. "It's harder than you'd think."

Harry hadn't even picked his wand up from his desk. "You know there's a Muggle device that does that? It's so weird, it looks like some sort of tube and they take the lid off and it lights up!"

Niall smiled at his friend. Harry had grown up in a wizarding household (like Niall, except Niall was a pureblood and Harry was a halfblood) and was endlessly fascinated by mundane Muggle things. Last year when Louis had given him a muggle camera for his birthday, Harry and hugged him and kissed him all over his face, which Niall had thought was a somewhat extreme reaction. It was a lot like a wizard camera, except it was smaller and didn't smoke when it took a picture.

Liam looked at Harry. "You mean a lighter?" (Liam's dad was a Muggle.)

Harry nodded excitedly.

Ed looked up from where he had just successfully lit the corner of his parchment. "Seems a lot easier than trying to do this shit, innit?"

Niall laughed and picked up his wand. "Wait, what's the incantation?"

Harry picked up his own wand. "Incendio," he said. A fireball flew out of his wand and hit his desk. Harry yelped.

Niall jumped up and raised his own wand. "Aguamenti!" Water flowed from his wand and the flames sizzled out, leaving a burnt black mark on the desk, but also leaving it as a desk and not a charred pile of ash.

Professor Weasley walked over, waving her wand to vanish the puddle of water on the floor and clean the burnt surface of the desk. "Let's be more careful with our aim when we're shooting fire, okay, Mr. Styles?"

Harry blushed and nodded, curls bobbing with the movement. "Of course, sorry, Professor."

She nodded and smiled at him before turning and whisking off to a different part of the classroom.

Niall started laughing as soon as she was out of earshot, as Harry continued to glow pink.

"'S okay, mate," he said though his laughter, "you'll do better next time. Just try again!"

Harry pouted at him. "Don't mock me!"

Niall laughed. "I'm not, I'm not, I swear!"

Harry pouted more. "It's already bad enough with Nick and Louis."

Niall stopped laughing. "Nick and Lou? What's going on with them?"

Harry frowned. "Nick keeps following me and touching me and trying to give me things, and Louis keeps getting upset whenever he sees Nick."

Niall frowned. "I'm sure it'll just blow over, H," he said (trying not to feel guilty for inadvertently causing Harry to be upset).

But Harry shook his head."I hope so," he agreed. "I don't care much about Nick acting so weird, but I hate seeing Louis upset.I - I just-" he cut himself off, with the look of someone who's trying not to say something they want to scream out to the world.

Niall sensed this and put an arm around Harry. "Hey, H, don't worry about it, okay? After class, we can go down to our room and you can tell me whatever it is you need to say, alright?"

Harry nodded. "Okay," he said quietly.

After class, Niall grabbed Harry and his bag and walked straight down to the Hufflepuff dorms. Well, not completely straight there.

"Nick!" Harry hissed and pulled Niall behind a suit of armor.

"I can't let him see me," Harry explained at Niall's questioning look. "He'd stop us, and we wouldn't be able to get down to our dorm for ages."

Niall nodded, and they got the rest of the way to their rooms without incident.

Niall and Harry were sitting on Harry's bed with the curtains drawn, Harry hugging the white teddy bear Louis had won him one summer when their squad had gone to a Muggle carnival with Louis' family.

Niall leaned in and put a hand on Harry's knee. "What's wrong, Haz?"

Harry grimaced. "I'm in love with Louis," he rushed out.

Niall looked taken aback. "You're what?"

Harry's face looked almost regretful. "I'm in love with my best friend, Louis Tomlinson."

Chapter Text

Hearing it another time didn’t help Niall’s spinning head. “You’re in love with Louis?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I haven’t told anyone before. Didn’t think it was really important.”

Niall smacked his leg. “Of course it’s important, Harry! Why the hell would something like that not matter? Your feelings are totally valid! How long?” he demanded.

Harry shrugged, blushing. “Since the summer after second year.”

Niall gaped. “Second year?! You’ve been hiding this from me for three whole years?”

Harry shrugged. “Well, since first year, probably,” he furrowed his brow. “Only realized it just before third year, I guess.” Harry looked like he wanted to say more.

“Tell me all about it,” Niall demanded (softly and politely).

Harry blushed more and his face looked far away. There was a small smile on his face as he started to tell Niall. “When I first saw Louis, at the sorting, I thought he was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen. He was so cocky, do you remember? He put the hat on and laughed, and he was so confident and - and excited, and I just remember hoping so hard that he’d be sorted into my house. But then the hat called out Slytherin, and I thought, that was it, he’d be at the table behind me and I’d be stuck here, and I’d never get to meet him.”

Niall frowned, but didn’t interrupt the story. He probably couldn’t if he tried; Harry had a look on his face that suggested he was actually a thousand kilometers from his bed in the Hufflepuff dormitory. Harry continued.

“But the next day, the first day of classes, we had Charms with the Slytherins, you probably remember, that was when you accidentally lit Zayn’s hair on fire,” he gestured at Niall, grinning as Niall cackled.

“I remember,” Niall said, “Louis sat in front of us and you got so flustered you launched your wand at his head.”

Harry blushed. “Yeah,” he said dreamily, chuckling. “But he’d only turned around and laughed, and then he handed me my wand back.”

Niall was smiling, remembering it all. Small, soft, sweet little Harry, with his wide green eyes in his pale face and his dark, super curly curls just brushing the tips of his ears, accidentally throwing his wand and hitting the boy in front of him on his head, blushing and making a little “o” with his pink little lips (Niall remembered the Fat Lady asking Harry what lipstick he used, when they were in first year), probably despairing and thinking he’d ruined a friendship before it had even started, but the boy had only turned around, laughing with bright eyes, crinkled in the corners, and he’d handed Harry’s wand back to the small boy, to which Harry had said quietly, “Oops,” and to which the boy had smiled and softly responded, “Hi” (which Niall had felt, at the time, was momentous, but he’d since chalked it up to the start of best-friendship).

Harry had squeaked out an “I’m so sorry-” before the boy laughed and waved his hand.

“It’s okay,” he’d said, then he held out his hand. “I’m Louis.”

Harry had grinned wide and took his hand, shaking it. “‘M Harry.”

Louis had laughed and poked Harry’s deep left dimple, making Harry grin harder and turning his pinks cheek. He’d run a hand through his own curls (which was useless, really, because they’d stuck up everywhere and simply couldn’t be tamed) while looking at Louis’ caramel colored hair and his matching golden skin, making his already very blue eyes seem even brighter and bluer. Harry had watched Louis’ long eyelashes, mesmerised, as he’d blinked, only snapping out of it when the cute boy had said something.

Niall laughed. “I remember this,” he said to Harry, who was still sitting on the bed with the teddy bear next to Niall, “and you said ‘Oops’ and he just laughed and said ‘Hi.’”

Harry grinned. “I was so enchanted by him. Still am, really.”

Niall smiled. “I remember; you would always be looking at him and hanging on to every word he said, then you’d deny it when I’d tease you, but you’d be blushing like a tomato the whole time.”

Harry smacked him on the arm. “Heyyyyyy.”

Niall laughed. “It’s true, though, Haz, you were like a little kitten, following him around and curling up on his lap in the common room while he ran his hands through your hair. You know you purr when he does that, fucking purr, like an actual cat?”

Harry laughed. “Oh, shut up, Niall!”

Niall cackled, then he leaned in with curious eyes. “How did you realize you’re in love with him?” he asked softly. “I’m probably more invested in this story than you are, now.”

Harry rolled his eyes but told him anyway. “The summer after second year. I never told the rest of you boys, but Louis and I sent owls to each other every day. Actually, at one point, we had plans to sneak out of our houses and meet up between Doncaster and Holmes Chapel, because we just couldn’t stand being apart for so long.”

Niall was familiar with the whole “Louis and Harry can’t be seperated” thing. He remembered the one time Harry had gone to Louis’ house for the Easter holidays last year, despite them being only three days, because (and no one knew Niall knew this) he had asked his mum if Harry could come over, “as I might miss him,” even though it was only three fucking days. Less than a fucking week. It was ridiculous.

Harry continued the story, unaware of Niall’s line of thought. “So I’d tried to sneak out, but my mum caught me. She wouldn’t let me go, but she took me and Gemma to go to his house the next week, anyway. But that night, as I was storming around in my room because Mum wouldn’t let me sneak out to see Lou, I sat down and I was thinking about it, and I suddenly realized that I loved him. It wasn’t as big a realization as it should’ve been, maybe, but I’d been enamoured with him for two years already, so it wasn’t really shocking when I realized that I wanted to kiss him and marry him and have children and grandchildren with him, and live in a big old house together when we’re thirty, and grow old and I’d cook him dinner every night, and we’d have a big soft bed and-”

Niall cut him off before he learned too much about what Harry wanted to do with Louis (on that bed, in particular). He already had issues from when he’d accidentally learned last year that Harry liked to be tied up.

“Alright, Haz, I get it.”

Harry sighed and dropped backwards to lay flat on the bed. “How stupid is it that my dream is to buy a house with Louis?”

Niall shook his head and laid down next to him. “Not stupid at all, actually, Haz. But you’ll have to be careful, that boy can be so much trouble.”

Harry laughed quietly. “I’d love to get into trouble with Louis forever.”

It was quiet for a minute as the two friends lay on the big, soft bed.

“You could, maybe,” Niall suggested quietly.

Harry laughed derisively. “In my dreams, maybe. I can never actually tell him.”

Niall sat up on one elbow. “What? Why not?”

Harry laughed coldly, a hollow sort of empty laughed that betrayed how not funny this was at all to him. “He doesn’t feel the same way. I can never tell him, Niall. I love him too much, and if he knew how less-than-platonic it is, he’d leave me, and I just can’t deal with that, Ni! He’s my best friend, I can’t handle him abandoning me!”

“That doesn’t really sound like something Louis would do, Hazza.”

“But what if he does? I just, I can’t take that risk, Niall. I need him.”

Niall smiled at him. “Alright, I mean, it’s your choice, Harry, and you don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. But you should really consider it. I think it would probably end well.”

Harry snorted. “It wouldn’t. He wouldn’t be able to be around me anymore. And we both know that he’s too nice to just drop me like that, but if I told him, he’d resent it, and we’d slowly drift apart. It’d be even worse, probably, like some slow, horrible form of torture.”

“...Or you two get married and live in an old house the two of you decorated and painted and you have his babies and you spend the rest of your life picking up his dirty laundry,” Niall suggested.

Harry smiled a bit. “Niall, do you and I need to have a talk about human anatomy? Gay men can’t have babies.”

Niall laughed. “That sounds like you’re saying that straight men can.”

Harry whacked him with the teddy bear. “You know I’m not, Ni, just like you know there’s more than two sexualities.”

Niall cackled. “I know, I know, H, just taking the piss.”

Harry smiled at him, laying back down as Niall did the same. The boys laid side by side quietly, just enjoying the presence of the other as they each thought. The companionable silence filled the space between the two boys for a few minutes before Harry broke it, picking up the conversation as if they’d never stopped.

“But what if, with this whole thing with Nick acting like he’s suddenly in love with me, what if Louis finds out?”

Niall shifted uncomfortably. “I honestly think it’ll work out, Haz.”

Harry frowned. “But if Louis finds out, everything will be ruined.”

“So you’ve mentioned,” Niall replied drily.

Harry elbowed him in the side for his cheek.

“It’s really a shame you think that,” said Niall, “because the two of you would be great together, if you ever get your heads out of your own asses and into each other’s.”

Harry made a choked sort of sound and beat a cackling Niall with his pillow.

They had to go to lunch eventually, though, so Niall and Harry ended up showing up at the lunch table half an hour late to lunch.

Zayn gave them a weird look, but Niall shook his head at him and walked with Harry towards their usual spot at the Hufflepuff table.

Louis and Liam didn't see them approaching, distracted by what seemed to be a very intense game of wizard's chess (which Louis was totally smashing Liam at). They jumped when Niall and Harry sat down, but when they saw who it was, they smiled and greeted them (well, Liam smiled. Louis lit up and grinned fondly).

The first sign that Nick was coming was the smile on Louis' face dropping into a glare.

The second was him dropping down within an inch of Harry and leaning in even closer.

"Are you smelling him?" Niall asked.

Nick blushed and leaned back a little. "...No."

Niall raised an eyebrow and shook his head.

"So, Harry," said Nick. "I've been thinking about our date on Saturday-"

"Date?" Harry asked.

"Yeah," said Nick, "we're going out to lunch, remember? Anyway-"

"Yeah," interrupted Harry, "but it isn't a date. We're just going to - to hang out, aren't we?"

“Uh, no, we aren’t,” said Nick. “We’re going to be on our first date. We’re going to go to a nice place and share a lunch and make out afterwards, aren’t we?”

Louis face seemed unsure whether to be happy that Harry didn’t know he was dating Nick Grimshaw or really upset that Harry was dating Nick Grimshaw and currently discussing a date with Nick Grimshaw.

Harry helped him with his struggle though. “Nick, we aren’t going on a date, though. I don’t want to date you,” (Niall’s pretty sure he saw him glance at Louis for a split second at this point) “I just want to be friends. That’s what we are, right? Just friends?” he said it firmly to show Nick he meant it, but also politely so Nick would be let down gently. (Louis was smirking.)

Nick looked heartbroken. “But, Harry… Harry, I love you! I am in love with you! Why would you… No! I am not letting this happen! I am not letting you leave me for… for him!” Nick threw his arms towards Niall.

Harry looked at Nick. “What? I’m not leaving you, we weren’t dating! And who said anything about Louis, anyway?”

Nick looked hurt and confused. “Louis? Your clingy friend? I didn’t say anything about Louis. You’re leaving me for Niall!”

Harry’s eyes widened as he realized his mistake. He looked back, horrified, at Niall, who was staring at Louis. Harry abruptly stood up.

“I have to go. I have… charms homework to do. See you all later,” and he fled towards the door.

Louis and Nick both stood up to follow him, but Niall roughly yanked Nick back and gently pulled Louis’ sleeve down.

Liam opened his mouth. “But we didn’t have hom-”

Niall silenced him with a sharp look.

“Go sit with your friends, Nick,” he said wearily. “Harry doesn’t want to talk to you.”

Nick nodded with a tearstained face and went sadly to sit with his friends.

Zayn looked piercingly at Niall. “I have a whole list of questions for you.”

Niall slowly nodded. “Alright, give ‘em to me.”

“Where were you? It’s not like you to miss food on purpose.”

“Harry and I had a talk after Charms. It was something important. And private,” Niall replied.

Zayn nodded. “Alright. How long is it going to last on Nick?”

Niall shook his head. “Don’t know. He didn’t get a full dose, so should wear off anytime in the next 24 hours, I guess. It’s the other one’s last day, though.”

Louis cut in, confused. “What did any of that even mean? What is going on?”

Liam put his hand on Louis’ arm. “Doesn’t matter, Lou. We’ll explain later.”

Zayn asked his next question. “What the fuck’s going on with Harry? Why’d he bring up Louis?”

Niall’s mouth tightened. “That’s for him to tell, not me.”

Zayn’s eyes narrowed. “But you know.”

Niall shook his head. “Don’t go bothering him for details. Please. Harry will tell everyone on his own time.”

Niall was thinking about Zayn’s second question. Given the conversation he’d had earlier, it was obvious why he’d assumed Nick was pointing to Louis. That wasn’t the part of it he was turning over and over in his head. Niall still remembered the conversation he and Liam had with Zayn yesterday. Zayn had said Louis was in love with Harry. Niall hadn’t been sure then (maybe hoped he was, both to preserve his good name as a potion maker and because, let’s admit it, he was a larrie), but something had just happened to add to the equation. When Harry had said Louis’ name, Niall had been watching Louis, whose face had looked like his heart just skipped a beat. Skipped a beat in a good way. There was a glimmer of something in his eyes -- hope, maybe.

And suddenly, Niall had more hope for Louis and Harry. He hadn’t been lying when he talked to Harry earlier, and had said all those things about Harry and Louis having babies and a big house, but now Niall started to believe it more.

All he had to do now was wait for the potion to expire, so he could be sure.

There hadn’t been any incidents with Nick since lunch (which basically meant that he hadn’t been stalking Harry in the hallways between the two classes they’d had since, which was really more than Niall could say for the last day and a half), but Niall had found Harry in the hallway outside of their History of Magic class with red-rimmed eyes, like he’d been crying. Niall had tucked him under his arm and sat next to him in their next two classes, until Harry started smiling again (which happened in the middle of their History class, thank God)(Niall was extra proud of himself for that smile, as he doubted Professor Cowell’s classroom had even seen a smile before then).

But their Nick-free afternoon had to end sometime, as Niall discovered when he, Harry, Zayn, and Louis walked out from their last class of the day, Potions, to meet Liam in the Entrance Hall, but instead were greeted by the sight of Nick Grimshaw coming at them from a group of Gryffindors. Niall saw a pink-haired girl and a dark-haired girl break off from the group and rush towards them, carrying a small bowl of something and making a large path around Nick.

Nick rushed forward, probably to greet Harry, but Zayn and Louis stepped in between the two. Niall stepped closer to Harry, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

The two girls, who Niall realized were Perrie and Jade, sidled up behind Niall and Harry.

“Wait, I just want to talk to Harry!” Nick said.

Louis glared at him. “Haven’t you done enough damage?”

Harry stepped up next to Louis and put a hand on the small of his back.

Niall looked wide-eyed at Perrie and Jade, and realized the bowl was full of popcorn. He grabbed a handful and settled back to watch the show unfolding in front of him.

Nick glared right back. “I want to apologize! I need Harry to take me back! I know we had a misunderstanding, but we can work it out-”

Louis grunted in annoyance. “Have you quite finished?”

Zayn rolled his eyes at Nick. “A ‘misunderstanding’? Mate, he didn’t know you two were dating.”

Perrie and Jade were wide-eyed, apparently enjoying Hogwarts’ latest gay soap opera. Niall had to agree.

“Dating without his consent,” said Louis, “doesn’t even count as dating, Nicholas.”

“What would you know?” Nick spat at him. “It’s not like he’d ever date you-”

Nick cut off with a grunt of pain. Because Louis had punched him.

(“Oh!” gasped Jade.)

Nick was a good six inches taller than Louis, but that didn’t matter, because Louis was determined. (Niall cheered, but he’d deny that later.)

Perrie turned to Niall. “We’re gonna go about now, actually. Sorry, babe, but I’m really not feeling getting detention for being involved in a fistfight today. See you later, though! Keep me updated!” And she pulled Jade (and the popcorn bowl) away.

“Lou!” Harry was calling out, stepping forward to grab Louis’ hands. “Why’d you do that? You can’t just go around punching people!”

“He was insulting you, H! We can’t just let him do that!” Louis argued.

Harry’s already soft face scrunched up in fondness and he looked down to the ground. If Niall knew him, his stomach was flipping in joy right now. Niall had to interrupt, though.

“This is really great, guys, but we gotta go before a teacher finds you, Louis. You’ve already got three detentions this week, you can’t just go around punching people to defend Harry’s honor or whatever.”

“It was very noble though,” Zayn added.

“That’s true,” added another voice from behind them, “but I’m afraid I’m still going to have to send all five of you to the headmaster’s office.”

Nick smirked at them, still holding his face as Professor Parsons walked out from the hallway to the dungeons.

“Professor, there’s only four right now. Payne isn’t here.”

Liam walked over. “What’s happened?”

“Don’t worry, Li, we do all the worst stuff when you’re not around, so you can maintain your status as the best prefect.”

Liam looked even more concerned at that.

“Well, I know from experience that the five of you are all or nothing, so, Mr. Payne, please come to the headmaster’s office with us.”

He started walking towards the sweeping marble staircase and the five boys followed him (Harry and Louis were still holding hands, but Niall wasn’t going to say anything).

Parsons looked back over his shoulder. “Mr. Grimshaw, are you coming or not?”

Nick’s mouth dropped as he realized he was included in the initial “five of you.”

They all followed the professor to Headmaster Corden’s office silently.

“Karaoke,” Parsons said to the gargoyle against the wall. It sprung away from the wall, revealing a doorway, and Niall filed into the Headmaster’s office with his friends for the second time in two days.

Chapter Text

Headmaster Corden was a cool dude, when you got right down to it. He was funny, interesting, and genuinely likeable. Niall didn’t know why he chose to be here, leading a school, instead of being a late-night talk show host or something.

But right now, his most important quality was that he liked Niall and his squad.

Going to his office twice in as many days was obviously never a good thing (unless it was, which it wasn’t in this case), but at least it gave Niall even more time to look around and appreciate the decor. The walls were covered in moving paintings of past headmasters, including the famous Albus Dumbledore right above the desk (he was asleep, though, right now). A lot of the time, the past headmasters would act like pricks when they saw you, and usually most of them had a “greater than thou” air about them, but all of them were very wise. The paintings were there for the current headmaster to call council with if he or she ever needed a second (and third, and fourth, and three hundred thirty sixth) opinion, not that anything serious enough to call on the dead guys had happened in quite a while. Little things, like pranks involving exploding doors (Niall had apologized profusely to the third-year who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time) or incidents involving student’s fists and other student’s faces, didn’t warrant anything from the previous headmasters but their utter contempt and judgement, if even that.

Which brings us back to today’s issue.

The five boys were standing in a close line (Louis and Harry’s knuckles kept brushing together), with Nick standing apart and sulking. He wasn’t glaring daggers at Louis’ and Harry’s hands, though, which meant the potion was finally wearing off. If the forming bruise on Nick’s cheek meant anything, though, it meant it was about an hour too slow.

“So,” Headmaster Corden said, interrupting Niall’s line of thought, “let me get this straight. Mr. Grimshaw started harassing Mr. Styles,” he waved his hands at the two boys in question, “and Mr. Tomlinson, here,” he gestured to Louis in the middle of the line, “stepped in and warned Mr. Grimshaw to step back, but he did not.” The headmaster paused.

“And he punched me in the face!” Nick said, somewhat outraged.

“And he punched you in the face,” Corden said, much more calmly. “Honestly, I don’t see why everyone’s here. Grimshaw made a dick move, Tomlinson balanced it out. Problem solved.”

Nick frowned. “But, sir, he hit me! He didn’t even use magic! It was downright barbaric!”

Louis raised his eyebrows and Harry shifted closer to the shorter boy.

Corden smiled wrily. “You harassed Harry,” he pointed out.

Nick shut up pretty quickly after that, not being able to deny it.

Corden stood up. “Well, thank you for this drama, I’m glad to have had an interesting story to distract me from doing this paperwork. Now, if you don’t mind, I have some boring paperwork to attend to. I’ll see you all at the feast,” and the headmaster waved at the door and sat back down, picking up a nice quill.

The students, followed by Professor Parsons, started shuffling out the door to the spiral staircase behind. As Nick approached the doorway, Headmaster Corden called his name out.

“And, Mr. Grimshaw? Go to the nurse and get that bruise fixed.”

Nick nodded and the last person filed out, leaving the professor to his paperwork.

One of the paintings on the wall, of a wizard with a long silver beard and half-moon spectacles centered above the desk, spoke up.

“The Tomlinson and Styles boys do make a handsome couple, don’t they?”

Corden looked up from his paperwork, smiling. “They will as soon as they realize it themselves.”

Dumbledore smiled. “Ah, the bliss of young love.”

Another painting snorted. “The short one punched another boy. Can’t be that blissful, then, can it?”

Dumbledore chuckled. “It seemed to be a noble enough fight, Phineas. He was protecting his love!”

“Ah,” the other headmaster said sarcastically, “his love. You’ve opened my eyes, Dumbledore, now that I know it was out of nobility!” He snorted. “Ridiculous pursuit, if you ask me.”

Dumbledore smiled serenely. “You may be a skeptic, Phineas, but a pure love like that is a beautiful thing.”

Corden laughed from his chair. “If only those two would realize that as well!”

The whole squad was chilling on the floor in the corner of the Hufflepuff common room by a tree. (They’d discussed many times how the trees were alive in a room below the ground, like this, and the general consensus was magic.) They were all piled on each other like puppies, heads on other people’s stomachs and limbs stacked, and it was actually quite comfortable. (Seriously, Niall had to know what supplier this school used for its common room rugs!)

“So,” Liam started, “that was exciting.”

Zayn nodded against his stomach. “Mad how we didn’t get in trouble, wasn’t it?”

Niall laughed. “Well, we really didn’t do anything really wrong, did we?”

Louis cackled at that. “Niall, did you miss the part when I punched a kid?”

Niall yelled indignantly. “That wasn’t bad! You were defending Harry’s honor! It was honorable, and all that!”

Harry laughed. “What am I, some sort of princess?”

Louis smiled and tugged at his hair. “Of course you are, dear Harold! How couldn’t you be, with hair like this and eyes like that? You’re basically a Disney princess come to life!”

Liam turned to look at him. “What’s a Disney Princess?”

Niall sat up, excited. “Oh, I know what that is! Disney’s some sort of organization, right Lou? And they make movies?”

Louis laughed. “Yeah, Ni, it’s a muggle company that makes children’s movies. They’ve got a whole set of princesses with their own castles and princes and talking animals and all that shit.”

Liam looked at him with the expression of a confused puppy. “What’s a movie?”

Harry popped up with a grin this time. “They’re like moving pictures that tell a story, Liam! We learned about them last week in Muggle studies, and I’ve seen some with Lou’s family!” He turned to Louis, seemingly looking for approval from the muggleborn boy, and smiled wide, making his dimples pop.

Louis smiled blindingly at him and nodded, sitting up as well.

Zayn and Liam sat up to complete the circle as Zayn said, “Haven’t we been over this already, Liam? I feel like we discuss what a movie is every few weeks.”

Liam frowned. “I dunno, Muggle stuff is weird.”

Louis laughed. “Mate, it’s wizards who are weird! You have fucking flying broomsticks and you don’t have TV! Who even does that? How do you live?”

The other boys laughed.

Niall was still laughing when he spoke next. “But Muggles don’t even have chocolate frogs!”

Louis grinned. “But they do have football and the FIFA video games!”

Niall grinned wider. “Oh, I remember that! When we all came over for Christmas in third year and you taught us how to do those! Shit, that was so fun.” He shook his head, still smiling wide.

Harry laughed. “I was complete shit, though. When Lou tried to teach us football I spent more time on my ass than my feet! And the game was even worse!”

Niall cackled madly. Zayn smiled. “Liam and I almost got into a fistfight over that game. It was wicked, mate.”

Liam grinned as well, looking in between all his best friends. “We should do that again soon, maybe. Go to someone else’s house over the holidays, I mean.”

“Lou, can we go to yours for Christmas again?” Harry asked eagerly. “The Muggle world is so fascinating! We can watch movies and go ice gliding again!”

“You mean ice skating, love?” Louis asked.

Harry blushed. “Yeah, that.”

Louis grinned. “Yeah, that would be sick, actually. I’ll send an owl to me mum about it tomorrow.”

Zayn smirked. “If you remember, you mean.”

Louis smacked him, then caught sight of his watch. “Shit, it’s time for detention! We’re gonna be fucking late!”

Niall jumped up with him. “Shit, shit, let’s go! Later, lads!”

He ran through the portrait hole, dragging Louis behind as he waved at the group sitting on the floor.

“Shit, where are we even going?”

“Heads of House,” Louis replied as they ran through the corridors towards the Potions room for Niall to find Parsons.

Before they reached the door, though, Professor Parsons stepped out. Niall planted his heels, stopping himself just before he slammed into him, but Louis kept going. He crashed into Niall, and Niall fell like dominoes onto the professor.

“Whoops,” he said, standing up and offering a hand to Parsons. “Nice to run into you, Professor.”

Louis rolled his eyes as he dusted himself off.

Parsons laughed quietly. “Yes, hi, Niall. Cutting it a bit close to your detention time, aren’t you? And, ah, Louis! Good that I caught you; Professor Cowell is busy and asked me to supervise your detention tonight. You’ll be with Niall here, cleaning out cauldrons or something.”

Louis grinned, pleased to evade Cowell for tonight, at least.

Niall grinned too, but what wasn’t new there?

Parsons lead them into his classroom, where a bunch of cauldrons were sat out on the long tables. He gestured to them with a skinny arm. “I’ve got some dirty cauldrons here, and I need you guys to clean them all out for me. No magic, though, this is a punishment, after all. Um, so I’ll check back at midnight, and that should be plenty of time to finish, or get close, yeah?”

Niall nodded. Unsupervised detention was the best. He loved his Head of House. “I love you so much,” he said.

Parsons smiled. “Yeah, you’ve mentioned,” he said. Niall grinned while Louis laughed.

“Well,” Parsons said, “I’m gonna go be in my office and grade papers or something. I’ll check in, eventually. I trust you enough.” He waved and walked out the door, closing it behind him.

Louis turned to Niall and grinned. “Well, I guess we have some cauldrons to clean.”

Niall looked at the cauldrons on the desks. There must have been about thirty in there. He turned back to Louis.

“Are we really gonna do this?”

“Might as well,” Louis shrugged. “It’s not like we’ve got anything else to do.”

Niall looked at him, confused that he just seemed to be accepting it.

A small grin spread across Louis’ mouth as he spoke again. “Buuut,” he drew out the word, “We’ve still got two days of detention after this, and I’m sure we can make it last.”

Niall grinned. “And if we don’t finish tonight,” he started, grinning wider.

Louis nodded. “We’re in here together doing the easiest detention ever until we’re done, and I don’t have to deal with Cowell!”

Niall laughed. “Let’s get started, then!”

Louis shrugged. “What are we even gonna clean them with? He said no magic.”

Niall looked around the room, searching for something to use. The room was large and bright because of the warm torches, despite its lack of windows. It was actually warm in here usually, even though it was underground (but that, like many things at Hogwarts, could just be chalked up to magic), and had a large sink in the back, next to a student supply cupboard. One of the walls were lined with shelves, upon which were stacked jars full of all sorts of things: herbs, slimy things, leaves, brightly colored powder, liquids (with tight lids on their jars), just about anything you could use in a potion, but nothing Niall and Louis could use. He turned to Louis, who was looking at the large sink.

“We could wash them like dishes,” the Slytherin boy suggested.

“But we can’t use magic,” Niall said.

Louis rolled his eyes at him. “No, Niall, I mean the way that Muggles do them. Put the cauldron in the sink and scrub them with soap.”

“Well, where are we going to get soap?”

Louis shrugged. “Dunno. We could probably figure out something with all these jars,” he said, gesturing to the bottles of liquid and gel on the wall.

He started walking towards them, and Niall followed.

“What even is this shit?” Niall asked, looking at a bumpy, roundish thing suspended in a green liquid.

Louis picked up a jar, containing some sort of powder that sparkled in the orange glow of the torches. Powdered Unicorn Horn, said the label. “I think it’s just about everything, actually.”

Niall shrugged. “Well obviously not everything, Louis. There’s no soap.”

Louis rolled his eyes at him. “There could be some dish soap around here somewhere, Neil, you don’t know.”

After a while, the boys had picked up some gloves (“There just no way I’m touching those dirty things with my hands, Niall, sorry.”) and seen all the details biggest gathering of exotic ingredients in a single room that either one had looked at before, but they still hadn’t found any soap.

Niall threw his hands up. “Well,” he said, “there just isn’t any soap. What if we just scrub ‘em with those wire brush things or something? We could use some oil maybe?”

Louis looked up and shrugged at him, placing a jar of blue gel back on its shelf. “Might as well,” he said, doesn’t look like we’re going to find anything here anyways.”
Louis picked up a brush and went to the sink as Niall grabbed the closest cauldron to the door. He carried it to the sink and dropped it in the big stone basin, under the mouth of the dark stone gargoyle that spit water when you turned it on. Louis turned the sink on with a turn of a dial, and water spilled from the gargoyle’s mouth into the basin. Niall stepped back and picked up a cloth from the cupboard.

“I’ll wash, you dry?” Louis suggested. “Normally, I never wash, but I figure it’s best to keep the pureblood as far away from any Muggle activities, lest he accidentally drown himself.”

“Hey!” Niall cried. “I could wash some measly cauldrons!”

Louis laughed and gestured to the sink, handing him the brush. “Go ahead, then.”

Niall huffed and grabbed the brush, stalking to the edge of the sink, where he hesitated. He looked down at the cauldron, trying to figure out the best way to do this. He poked the cauldron with his brush, and water splashed out the full top. Louis laughed.

“Uh,” Niall intoned, “I think I prefer to do the drying bit, actually.”

Louis laughed again and grabbed the brush, stepping forward as Niall stepped to the side, picking up his cloth.

The boys worked in silence to start with, gaining a rhythm, Louis scrubbing the dirty cauldrons until they shone, then passing them off to Niall, who dried them completely before stacking the nice ones in the cauldron cupboard.

It was a slow process, but as Louis had said, it was one that would keep them doing something not bad for their next detentions.

The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, and it wasn’t complete, with the splashing of the water, the scratching sound of the brush on the metal cauldrons, and the thunks on the wood of the cabinet. It was relaxing, really, and gave Niall time to think some.

He paused in between drying cauldrons #3 and #4 (which was still being washed) and leaned his hip against the counter, brow furrowed in thought. He was thinking about the strangeness of the past few days, from the love potion’s affect (or lack of one) on Louis to Nick’s aggressive behavior.

So it wasn’t that surprising, really, when the silence broke by him asking Louis, “So, how long have you been in love with Harry?”

Well, I mean, it was pretty surprising to Louis, who wasn’t privy to the extent of Niall’s knowledge like we are. In fact, he dropped the cauldron he was washing out of shock.

“I - well, I - what?” he stammered, face pink.

The corners of Niall’s mouth lifted minutely as he tried to stay serious. “How long has it been since you realized you’re in love with Harry?”

Louis’ face was becoming increasingly red. “I - erm, I -” he sighed. “It’s been three years.” He looked down at the floor.

Niall was standing still. “So, you’ve been in love with him since third year?”

Louis looked up. “Probably longer, really,” he sighed. “I haven’t really told anyone, but I’m sure you all know. Zayn knows, at least.”

Niall tilted his head. “I get why you didn’t tell us and all, but really? Since before you were even a teenager?”

Louis nodded miserably. “I was half in love with him when he threw his wand at me head, really.”

Louis smiled fondly, head turned down to hide it somewhat. “He was so cute, though, you know? He had those thick little curls just everywhere, and this round, pale face that i just wanted to pinch, and his eyes were exactly the same as they are today, you know? All green and deep and genuine and shit! And today, he’s, he’s just..” Louis gestured wildly, which didn’t really convey what he was hoping it would to Niall.

Niall just nodded, watching they boy. He’d let him gush, Louis needed that. He hadn’t told anyone for years, and Niall could see he just wanted to finally let it all out to someone. And besides, Niall was the perfect candidate. Somewhere down the line, he had decided he wanted these two to get their shit together and be together more than anything else. Which was a big step from not suspecting a thing. Niall was the darkest larrie of all.

Louis continued right from where he had trailed off. “..he’s just, Niall, Harry is so fucking beautiful. He already was, but now -- now he’s tall and broad and strong, and he’s still pale as anything, and he’s like some marble statue of Apollo or something, yeah, just like the god of the sun, he’s so perfect, Niall. And the dimples! Honestly, I wouldn’t mind drinking fucking poison out of those things, I actually think that’d be the way to go. You remember when he came back from summer break before third year? Right after he got his giant growth spurt?”

Niall nodded.

Louis grinned. “He came back a fucking giant, I remember. I used to be taller than him, but then when he showed up at the train station and I felt so short next to him, Niall.”

Niall grinned too. He remembered being dwarfed by Harry for the first time. And Niall didn’t tend to think of himself as small. (Well, in reality, he wasn’t exactly tall. Niall’s just a pretty short dude. Not, like, Louis short. But then again, Louis doesn’t think of himself as short.)

Louis continued. “He’d finally grown into himself, though, even though he was still clumsy as ever. Even clumsier, even. That was when I realized it, probably. I already knew I had a crush on him, but when I saw him at the train station and almost trampled Fizzy trying to get to him, that’s when I realized. Niall, it’s just, Harry is really fucking beautiful, and he just keeps getting better.”

Niall nodded. “Yeah, Louis, I get it, Harry looks like Adonis or some shit.”

Louis shook his head frantically. “yeah, he does, but that’s not even all of it, Niall! He’s so nice! Did you know he baked cookies in the kitchens to give to the first years on the third day of school? Wouldn’t even let the house elves do anything but bring him ingredients! And he’s smart, and he makes all these absolutely horrible puns and these - these knock knock jokes, Ni. And I just, I always laugh! He’s so clever and funny and sweet and I just love every single fucking thing about him, Niall, so fucking much that I just don’t know what to fucking do with it all!”

It was quiet for a minute. Louis seemed to be finished with his rant. He was breathing heavier than usual with all the sharing he’d done so fast, and his blue eyes were open wide.

Niall tilted his head. “And why are you telling me this and not Harry?”

Louis laughed bitterly. “I can’t tell him, Ni. There’s just - there’s absolutely no way he reciprocates this. It can’t be mutual, I know that. And it’s fine, really. As long as he’s happy, you know? And even if I did tell him, I’d lose him. He wouldn’t be able to be so close anymore, knowing that I love him so much in a different way than he loves me. And I can’t lose him, Niall. It’s all fine, as long as I can have him even just this much.”

Niall wanted so badly to just tell him, just shake Louis by his shoulders and shout about what an idiot he is, and how Harry is in love with him, too! It’s mutual! And why isn’t he telling Harry all this! Why is he not just kissing Harry Styles, detention be damned!!!

But Niall couldn’t do that. He can’t tell Louis what Harry confided in him. It’s just not his place. So he did what he could.

“Lou,” he whispered. “You have to tell him. Just think about what could happen with you two, what’s already happened! You and Harry could grow old together! Have babies! Live in a big house in the countryside and spend the rest of your life baking fucking lasagna and painting your fucking master bedroom! You and him could have it all, Louis, really. You just, you have to tell him that, mate.”

Louis spoke slowly and quietly, like this was the most important conversation of his life. It could have been, actually.

“Do you really think we could?”

It was obvious that Louis hadn’t thought it possible. Now, though, there was some hope shining in his eyes, filled with tears, now, Niall realized with a shock.

He nodded furiously. “I think you and Harry belong together.” he said with conviction.

A wide smile split Louis’ face. “I have to tell him, don’t I?” he asked.

Niall nodded. “Do it for your future children.”

Louis grinned. “We could have kids, maybe,” he marvelled. “Harry and I could have a future.” He looked up at Niall, then, and hugged him. The light shining from his face was beautiful, Niall thought. He should always be happy enough to seem like he’s literally glowing.

Louis stepped back, still clutching Niall’s shoulders.

“We have to go,” he said. “We have to go now, Niall. I’ve wasted enough time, honestly. I’ve got to go tell him.”

Louis spun on his heel and started to run to the door.

Niall looked at the cauldrons with wide eyes. He’d have to deal with Professor Parsons later. This was much more important.

Niall ran down the hallway after Louis, trying to catch up with the quick boy as they sprinted to the Hufflepuff common room and Harry.

Chapter Text

Niall caught up to Louis just outside the common room’s entrance. Louis was literally bouncing up and down with anticipation.

“Niall!” he sang when the other boy made it. “I don’t know the thing you do to get in, I can’t even fucking think right now!”

Niall laughed. He walked over to the barrels in the corner and tapped the one two from the bottom, in the middle of the second row, to the rhythm of “Helga Hufflepuff,” and it swung open, revealing a passageway to the common room.

Louis ran past him and flew down the earthy tunnel. Niall had no choice but to follow him into the cozy room.

He saw upon entering that Liam, Zayn, and Harry were still sitting in a circle where they had left him, but their three heads were turned towards Louis and Niall, who were still running towards them, dodging furniture.

“Is detention already over?” Liam asked.

Louis ignored him and pulled on Harry’s arm, making him stand up.

Louis stood very close in to Harry, faces only inches apart as he looked up at Harry’s confused face and Harry looked into Louis’ flushed one.

“I have something to tell you,” Louis rushed, “and it’s really important, so I need you to really listen to me.”

Harry nodded, confused. “Alright,” he said slowly.

Louis struggled for a second to start. Then he took a deep breath, apparently steeling himself.

“I love you, Harry. I’m in love with you. I am so fucking crazy about you, Harry Edward Styles, and I want to be with you and get married and have a bunch of weird overgrown kids with your curly hair and my eyes and I want to have a house with you and all the domestic shit and cook and clean and just everything and I just couldn’t not tell you all this. I love you so much that it scares me, Harry.”

Harry was frozen. He gaped at Louis with a faraway look in his eyes.

Niall wanted to shove him, honestly. He knew Harry loved Louis; Harry had told him himself. Liam and Zayn were gaping, too, probably just as shocked that this was happening right in front of them right now. Not that they didn’t know the two were soulmates, though.

“Louis,” Harry breathed. “Oh my God, Louis. You’re so amazing. I love you, too. I want all of that with you, Louis. I’ve been in love with you since before third year.”

Louis looked up at him in amazement. “Really?”

Harry smiled bashfully. “Of course. Now just kiss me, you fool.”

And that was all the encouragement Louis needed to throw his arms around Harry’s neck and kiss him.

It was a sweet kiss, but obviously full of passion. Not, like, sex passion, but more of a true love kind of passion. They kissed like dying men, like it was the last thing they’d ever get to do. Louis tangled his hand in Harry’s curls, Harry pulled Louis closer by the small of his back, and it was such a pure moment. It seemed frozen in time, like this was all that really happened in time, like there wasn’t anything else. It wasn’t like someone had paused time; it was more that this moment was the only real thing. Niall wasn’t even involved in the kiss and he could feel tears pricking at his eyes. It was meant to happen, anyone could tell, and it was really, truly beautiful. These two were obviously soulmates, two people who were perfect for each other.

And it was perfect, even if Louis had to stand a bit on tiptoe, even if there were other people watching; none of that really mattered when they were finally, finally kissing.

There was a feeling of satisfaction in the air as they pulled apart to breathe, still wrapped up around each other. It was the feeling you get when you finally complete a three thousand piece puzzle, the feeling when that last piece just clicks into place perfectly, that feeling where nothing could go wrong because finally everything was right.

Niall leaned towards Liam. “I did that,” he whispered, wiping his eyes.

“Yeah, but imagine how much worse they’re gonna be now,” Liam whispered back. “They were bad before, but now they’re gonna be absolutely unbearable.”

Niall nodded, thinking of how disgustingly sweet it was gonna be all the time now, when Louis and Harry told each other “I love you” as much as they could, as was bound to happen, when they exchange sweet kisses at the dining table, when they’re even more glued together than they were before.

“Honestly,” Niall grinned, “I can’t wait.”

It was even worth the double detention he and Louis were bound to get for leaving (no matter how many times they swore up and down it was “an emergency” and “for the sake of true love” to Professor Parsons).

In all his five years at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, Niall had played approximately 3,458 practical jokes, most of which, actually, were played on his squad. And of those practical jokes, his favorite was the one that had started with him spiking Louis’ tea with love potion and ended with two of his best friends evolving to soulmate status.

It was a few years after they had all left Hogwarts.

It had been amazing to graduate into the real Wizarding World, it had been amazing to help Louis and Harry move into their own apartment together, it had been amazing to go to Ed’s first sold-out concert, and it had been amazing to land his dream job in the Department of Magical Games and Sports.

But it had been incredible to see Harry and Louis get married today.

It may have taken them forever to get there, and it may have taken some prodding from some very good friends, but seeing them so happy together, seeing them complete each other and finally, officially, legally be each other’s forever, was one of the most magical things Niall had experienced, and he had gone to a school for witches and warlocks.

Niall said as much as he stood in front of the reception, reading his speech as Best Man. He grinned at Harry and Louis in the middle of the table, looking beautiful and holding hands, and he grinned at Liam and Zayn next to them, leaning against each other and grinning at Niall’s speech.

They continued to grin and laugh as he told everyone the story of how he had slipped a three-day love potion into Louis’ tea, and how, four days later, Louis and Harry had their first kiss. It all lead up to him walking right up to them and saying,

“And if anyone deserves a happy ending like that, it’s you two. I’m so glad to see two of my best friends so happy, and it’s so amazing to have grown up with both of you and see you change and develop into who you are right now. It’s been incredible to be around the two of you, and honestly, I can’t wait to tell your kids the story of that one time their dad punched Nick to defend their other dad’s honor.

I know most kids hear bedtime stories about true love. Most kids grow up thinking their parents are soulmates. And the thing about you two is that your kids will be right.”