Now repeat after me:
✨ao3 will be back in one week✨
✨ao3 will be back in one week✨
✨ao3 will be back in one week✨
✨ao3 will be back in one week✨
✨ao3 will be back in one week✨
(I don’t want to wait 3 more weeks 😭)
Some people are born into privilege. Harry was born into a prison disguised as a palace. Or, if we’re being formal, His Royal Highness Prince Harry Edward Styles of Westford. He has money beyond imagination, an invitation to every party worth attending, and the entire British Royal Family on speed dial… thankfully, he isn’t actually related to them.
On paper, his life is perfect. Harry would tell you otherwise though. Because having everything means very little when none of it actually belongs to you.
From the moment he was born, Harry’s future was decided for him. The schools. The friends. The career. The woman he would marry, how many kids he should have. The person he’s expected to become… the life he’s supposed to live.
Now, at nineteen, he’s exactly where his parents planned… at Wellington University, studying business, and it’s close enough to his home at Westford Manor, that even university isn’t really an escape. His parents control the family fortune… which means they control him.
Harry has spent his entire life being taught that wanting something for himself is selfish. That disappointing his family is unforgivable. That the Westford name comes before everything… even before himself.
So he follows the rules… mostly.
But every once in a while, he breaks them. Sometimes it’s harmless. Sometimes it gets him into trouble. And sometimes, behind closed doors and far away from the perfect image his family presents to the world, his rebellion goes much deeper than anyone could ever imagine. He knows he can’t let that side of him ever see the light of day… and he won’t.
Harry has become very good at hiding that part of himself, surviving by living off memories… or so he thought….
That all changes when someone from his past reappears.
There’s a new employee at Westford Manor… someone Harry already knows. Someone from a part of his life that was never meant to collide with the version of Harry the world sees.
Worse yet? This person knows his secret.
He knows a part of Harry that only existed behind closed doors. His secret. His… mistake. The thing that Harry would do absolutely anything to keep buried.
Harry knows exactly what he needs to do…. Get rid of him! Before he talks… before his family finds out… before everything Harry has spent nineteen years protecting, comes crashing down.
There’s just one problem…
Those blue eyes look right through him.
And when they do, he remembers the freedom.
But most dangerously of all…
He remembers what it was like to give up that part of himself… he remembers how it felt… to be so lonely…🖤
imagine if they had just been normal at glasto and got pictured together and said yea it was great seeing my old mate instead of being silent and weird and liking romantic edits of each other in the dead of night