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When Harry’s six, his parents take him to Manchester for the day. They go on business and Harry spends his time staring out a window. He sees a boy with beautiful blue eyes, but the boy is forgotten.
The man with the green eyes and hair so very like Harry’s, he remembers.
Harry’s ten when he gets up in the middle of the night to make a trip to the bathroom, and instead of stepping into the hallway when he gets up, he ends up in a hotel room.
The same man from when he was six is sitting on one of the beds, on a laptop, and the man looks up at Harry before setting the laptop aside and getting up.
The door behind Harry opens suddenly and in falls another man, who has what Harry thinks is ridiculous hair, and curiously familiar blue eyes.
“Hey, Lou.” The one with the blue eyes and the hair—Lou—glances down and raises his eyebrows at Harry.
“Is that—?”
“Yeah. Louis Tomlinson, ten-year-old Harry Styles. Harry, meet Louis.” Harry smiles at Louis before looking up at the other man.
“Who are you?” Harry asks and the older man digs out his wallet, pulling out his license and showing it to Harry. The name on it says Harry Styles and Harry looks up at him, frowning slightly. “That’s my name.”
“Yeah, I’m you. Nearly ten years older, but I’m you,” the older Harry says, ruffling Harry’s curls and making him squirm away. “I forgot I hated people doing that. Sorry. Anyway. You better get used to this, okay? It’s gonna happen a lot. Last week, I ended up in Manchester when we were six.”
“I remember that!”
“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me,” older Harry replies, smiling and glancing up at Louis. “Come on, Lou, say hi. He doesn’t bite. Unless you scare him.”
“Hi, Harry,” Louis says, and Harry smiles at him again, unsure of what to say. “So, then, what do you like?”
Harry doesn’t stop talking for nearly an hour, and only stops because he ends up back in his room at home.
Between ten and sixteen, Harry travels more times than he can count, always ending up in the same place as the older Harry and Louis. Louis is his best friend, as much as he can be Harry’s best friend when Harry isn’t even from the same year as him.
And then he winds up auditioning for X Factor. And there’s Louis. Younger, smaller, and his hair isn’t in the absurd swoop that it is in Harry’s future, but it’s still Louis.
And Harry wants to hug him, because it’s Louis, his best friend, but it’s not the Louis he knows, even if he will be someday, and much as he wants to, Harry can’t just walk up to him and hug him and call him “Lou” and ask him how his sisters are doing.
But he befriends this Louis independently of the one he still sees when he travels, and eventually three other boys when they’re put together for the group.
When he travels again after that, he asks them what happens and the older Harry and Louis look at each other mumble twin replies of well, we can’t really tell you, but don’t expect to win.
So Harry doesn’t, but he’s amazed when they come in third, and he’s close enough friends with Louis to hug him and bury his face in Louis’s shoulder to yell over coming in third while Liam and Zayn and Niall crowd around them in a group hug. They didn’t win, which still stings, but third was infinitely more than Harry had hoped for, considering how irritatingly cryptic the older Harry and Louis had been.
Harry keeps traveling, although, nowadays, he travels back as much as he travels forward. One day, he can be talking to Harry and Louis at twenty and twenty-two, and the next, be standing in his village in 1996.
He always manages to land back wherever they’re supposed to be, which he considers a miracle.
And one day, three years after X Factor, when he finally thinks he’s getting used to traveling and being in a famous band, does ten-year-old Harry show up in his hotel room. Harry sets the laptop down and gets up, because he knows how this goes, and any minute—
Louis walks into the room, and Harry greets him, and he sees Louis look down at the younger Harry and watches him put together the hair and the smile and the eyes.
“Is that—?”
“Yeah, Louis Tomlinson, ten-year-old Harry Styles. Harry, meet Louis,” Harry says, and digs out his wallet when he’s asked who he is.
“That’s my name.”
Harry explains and watches the younger Harry talk Louis’s ear off for an hour before he travels back, sitting down and burying his face in his hands once the younger Harry leaves.
“I couldn’t tell myself that this was going to be really annoying from both sides, could I?” he says, leaning into Louis’s shoulder when Louis sits down next to him.
“What just happened?”
“Me as a ten-year-old. I travel, back and forth. Last week, when I took that nap on the bus? I ended up in Manchester when I was six. Saw you there too, now that I think of it,” Harry explains, shrugging. “You’ve been my best friend since I was ten years old, and you’ve only known me since I was sixteen.”
“You’ve known me since you were ten?” Louis asks, resting his head on Harry’s and pulling him closer.
“Yeah. This, with me, was the first time I met you. Nearly every time I traveled after that, I ended up with either you on your own, or with you and me. I was never far away—I will never be far away, but his focus, my focus, the thing that his—my—traveling pulls me to is you. It’s not always, because god knows I’ve spent more time wandering around Holmes Chapel in the 90s as I am now than I did when I lived there all the time. But most of the time, you’re there. Or you were. You don’t have to, because timelines aren’t set in stone, but you have been,” Harry says, hoping the explanation makes sense to Louis.
“Well, obviously, if I’ve been your best friend for ten years, that’s not something I want to change. He is you, Harry,” Louis says, nodding and grinning. “Besides, you’ve known me for longer, then. Lost time to make up for.”
Harry grins at Louis and figures everything will probably be alright.
That idea lasts right up until Harry travels again. He travels forward, and the first thing he does when he lands is find the date. When he does, he notes it’s less than a year into his future, and that if the newspaper he’s looking at is any indication, they’re in Brazil.
He glances up when the door to the room clicks and Harry smiles, because that’s probably Louis, and after ten years, smiling and Louis are practically synonymous for him.
It’s Louis and this Harry, who practically fall into the room, attached at the lips, and Harry gapes and mutters holy shit, which attracts their attention.
“Oh, shit. I forgot that this trip was today,” this Harry says, resting his head against Louis’s shoulder. “The next few months are going to be awful because of this, but it’ll get better, okay?”
“Wait, all those months you kept staring at me and giving me sad eyes was because of this trip?” Louis asks and the Harry that’s leaning on him nods. “I swear to god, Harry, you better just, like, go up and kiss me the second you get back, because we could’ve been doing this for nearly a year instead of just since Christmas. You say timelines aren’t set in stone, right? So don’t take forever.”
Harry nods and keeps staring when Louis kisses his Harry, and keeps staring, right up until he travels back, where he stands and stares at the wall backstage until Louis—his Louis—comes along and slings an arm around his shoulders and cheerfully tells him to get his ass ready for the show.
Harry knows he could just kiss Louis, because Louis wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t okay, but Harry’s never screwed with the timelines before like that, and he’s not sure he wants to, honestly.
He tries it once, just once, decides to hell with it, that he doesn’t want to wait until Christmas to be able to kiss Louis whenever he wants. He asks Louis to come over for a bit, to his room, to watch a movie together or something, and then he’s there, and Harry stares, and leans in to kiss him, and Louis isn’t stopping him and then—
And then Liam knocks on the door and tells them that they’d agreed to movie night together, and Harry gets it. He can try to change it, but for all he told Louis that timelines aren’t set in stone for Louis, they are for Harry. Knowing your own future tends to do that, he supposes.
Christmas comes, eventually, after months and months and months of just watching and waiting and ignoring Zayn’s snickering and Liam’s “oh for the love of god, you two” and Niall’s “kiss him already”.
He sees Louis and the rest of the band over their break, and there’s gift exchanges and then, somehow, he finds him and Louis under the mistletoe and Louis is kissing him.
And something in Harry settles and he kisses back.
Harry’s next time traveling after that is just after Christmas, forward a few days, and he lands in the middle of Liam’s living room, with everyone around and discussing what’s going to happen on tour.
And Louis looks up and grins and nudges his Harry, who nods and gets everyone’s attention and says, “everyone, meet Harry Styles,” while pointing in his direction.
Harry waves at the rest of them and lets this Harry explain, and also explain that younger and older Harrys will eventually show up, because after—or before, rather—the time with Harry at fifteen and Zayn at twenty-three with the shoe and the milkshake, he figures that them knowing he can’t control it is probably for the best.
Especially because Harry still has that pair of shoes Zayn ruined.