Forbidden.

Chapter Two

**Harry's POV**

My key jams in the lock again. I curse, then kick the door in my usual manner. The moment I step out of the late afternoon sunshine and into the darkened hallway, I sense that things are already a little wild. Predictably, the front room is a tip---crisp packets, book bags, school letters, and abandoned homework strewn across the carpet. Zayn is eating Cheerios straight from the box, trying to throw the odd one across the room into Niall's open mouth.

"Harry, Harry, look what Zayn can do!" Niall calls excitedly to me as I shed my blazer and tie in the doorway. "He can get them into my mouth all the way from over there!"

Despite the mess of cereal trampled into the carpet, I can't help smiling. My little brother is the cutest five-year-old in history. His dimpled cheeks, flushed pink with exertion, are still gently rounded with baby chubbiness, his face lit with a soft innocence. Since losing his front teeth he has taken to poking the tip of his tongue through the gap when he smiles. His short blonde hair scruffy and everywhere, straight and fine like gold silk, the color matched by the tiny studs in his ears. Beneath overgrown scruffs, his large eyes wear a permanently startled look, the color of deep water. He has exchanged his uniform for a pair of jeans and an old shirt, his current favorites, and is hopping from foot to foot, delighted by his teenage brothers antics.

I turn to zayn with a grin. "Looks like the two of you have been having a very productive afternoon. I hope you remember where we keep the vacuum cleaner."

Zayn responds by throwing a handful of cereal in Niall's direction. For a moment i think he is just going to ignore me, but then he declares, "Its not a game, its target practice. Mum won't care--she's out with Lover Boy again tonight, and by the time she makes it home she'll be too wasted to notice."

I open my mouth to object to Zayn's choice of words, but Niall is egging him on, and seeing that he is neither sulking nor arguing, I decide to let it pass and collapse on the couch. My thirteen-year-old brother has changed in recent months: a summer growth spurt has accentuated his already skinny frame, his black hair has been cut short to show off the fake diamond stud in his ear, and his hazel eyes have hardened. Something has shifted in his manner, too. The child is still there but buried beneath an unfamiliar toughness; the change around the eyes, the defiant set of the jaw, the harsh, mirthless laugh all give him an alien, jagged edge. Yet during brief, genuine moments like these, when he is just having fun, the mask slips a little and I see my kid brother again.

"Is Louis doing dinner tonight?' I ask.

"Obviously."

"Dinner..." Niall's hand flies to his mouth in alarm.

"Louis said one last warning."

"He was bluffing--" Zayn tries to forestall him, but he is off down the corridor to the kitchen at a gallop, always anxious to please. I sit up on the couch, yawning, and Zayn starts flicking cereal at my forehead.

"Watch it. That's all we've got for the morning and I don't see you eating it off the floor." I stand up. "Come on. Let's go see what Louis' cooked up."

"Fucking pasta--what else does he make?" Zayn tosses the open cereal box onto the armchair, spilling half its contents across the cushions, his good mood evaporating in a heartbeat.

"Well perhaps you could start learning how to cook. Then we could all three take turns."

Zayn shoots me a condescending look and stalks ahead of me into the kitchen.

"Out, Liam. I said, get the ball out of the room." Louis has a boiling saucepan in one hand and is trying to manhandle Liam through the door with the other.