I Remember You Laughing [Larry Stylinson]

Chapter 20- The Painful Song

Harry's POV

The next day the whole household went to the lake for a picnic at lunchtime. Cord went with them, insisting on taking his fishing poll. Louis had to hide Honey the fish from Daisy, who wanted to carry her everywhere. He begged Harry to help him make up something convincing as she threatened to throw the biggest tantrum if she didn't get her way.

"She'll get scared when she sees the fishes on the hook if you take her!" Harry had offered.

"She'll get nostalgic for the water and want to leave you and join the other fishes in the lake!" Louis himself tried. Harry rolled in laughter at Louis' plight as Daisy did not buy any of it.

Later that evening, after they had fun swimming, and Cord had caught one little fish- only twice the size of Honey (And Cord made everyone swear not to say a word to Murrey as he'd never let him live it down)- they went home and got ready for rehearsals at the Community Center. Anne had gotten the twins roles in the Play, Lottie on for general concert makeup duty, and Fizzie and Gemma to help her sew costumes, and they were all to be there at promptly 6.00 p.m. Harry and Louis were meeting Niall there, and though they hadn't gotten any closer to a song, Harry was just grateful he was even getting to hang out with Niall. Louis also expressed enthusiasm at seeing the blonde haired boy again, who he described as a walking arcade of fun.

Indeed, when they arrived, Niall pranced up to them and pulled both their hands into the large hall where groups of kids and adults were busy preparing for the concert to be held next Saturday. 

Niall lead Louis straight up on the stage and beckoned him to resume their singing. Harry stayed in front of the stage, watching them as Louis took the microphone from Joshua, who was in charge of the sound system for the concert and needed someone to do a sound check. Niall connected his bluetooth to the stage speakers and grabbed a microphone himself.

"Might as well do a proper sound check!" Niall's voice boomed through the large hall.

As the opening keys of the song pulsed through the building, Harry was petrified. There was no way Niall could have known. Maybe sometime in the past, Harry had told him about it. But even so, he doubted telling him about the impact of the song he was encouraging Louis to sing the first lines to. Harry had not heard that song in years. Only now as he heard it being sung by Louis and Niall, he wished he had not. He wished that song immediately cut off and never play again. Because all he felt with it now was excruciating pain. All it ever accompanied was pain.

This was the song he had to constantly listen to whenever his mother refused to leave the house, or even the couch for days. This was the song she would cry to and play over and over again through the house until whatever dumb sentiment it carried had outdone it's duty and overlapped into torture, or was abused to a point where it stuck in their heads, and souls, and left them sick. This is the song that scarred Gemma so bad, she would run away every time their mother played the little cd their father had put together for her shortly before he died.

Their parents' song.

The song they fell in love to while performing together at another community fundraising concert when they were just teenagers. The song they danced at their prom to. The song they danced at their wedding to.

Harry faintly remembered enjoying listening to it when he was little. Listening to his parents' voices singing the duet together on the cd. Listening to his father's voice. It was not the only recording they had of his father, they had videos of him riding horses and winning rodeo competitions, he had family videos of his father holding him and playing with him as a baby. But his mother could never bear to look at the man's face, and he didn't even know where in the house they were kept.