Amaryllis

27

Harry is shaking, and he barely even realises. He knows those eyes, recognises them clear as day when they look in his direction, red and bright like fire. He's stuck someplace between waking and sleep, frozen to the spot; when Louis starts moving next to him, he's jerked out of his state sharply, like flying and being shot back down to earth. Sounds come back to him, laughter outside and Louis's vicious, guttural growling; the pounding of Harry's own blood in his ears, the rush as memories come back to him, as his life of the past few months falls apart and becomes a puzzle he can't quite figure out.

"Louis," he manages, his own voice gruff, like he's spent the night before howling at the moon. It's an instinct, half-human and half-wolf, when he reaches out an arm to hold him back, fingers unusually rough on Louis's wrist. He feels bones shift underneath his fingers.

With a flare of rage so powerful it actually shimmers in the air and pushes Harry back, Louis tears himself out of his grasp. His eyes are alight, fur running up his nape and down his cheeks. He bares his teeth at Harry mid-shift, growls to scare him into submission, and then he's tearing out of the door, leaving it wide open. Harry feels the hole in their defences like a physical ache, right in the middle of his chest.

Time is still for a beat, two, then Harry's running without air in his lungs and spilling out onto the forest floor tangled in himself. Louis is a wolf, legs spread in a defensive stance, head hung low. Greg is standing in front of him, human save for his bright red eyes, and he's laughing.

He looks different now, a different man from the one Harry had seen in Louis's memory. He looks dangerous, devoid of the gentleness that had still lingered around him back then. A scar runs sharply down his face, white and ragged.

Upstairs, Harry hears a window slamming and a chair scraping across the floor, rapid steps rushing down the stairs. The rest of them are coming to put up a front, their ragtag pack of youngsters who'd like to pretend they know what they're doing. The air feels too thin to breathe, and Harry is shaking.

"Louis," Greg says, all his attention focused on the wolf in front of him. He's coming closer, step by step, deathly silent on the forest floor, and Harry tries to blend into the background as he forces his hands to stop trembling.

It had been Greg, the red eyes Harry sometimes sees in his dreams, the darkness that’s been lingering where memories should be. Perhaps it was better when he didn't remember, when he lived in blissful ignorance and went about his days in love with life; now, when he knows, remembers with a sickening swoop of his stomach, he knows without a doubt – he was always meant to end up here. He'd been a pawn, an instrument in a game he doesn't understand.

A game that, through all the disguises, was there to get to Louis. Harry had lead the way, wormed his way under Louis's skin, and been proud.

"Louis, Louis, Louis," Greg sighs. He's standing still now, so close Louis has to tip his head back to see, teeth still bared as he stares into the face of betrayal. "You never learn, do you." He reaches out a hand with sharp claws, fingers a hair's breadth away from Louis's fur when the wolf jerks back sharply, paws slipping in the dirt.

Behind Harry, Niall walks slowly out of the front door and stands still on the porch. When Harry tips his head back to look at him, he's met with wide, shocked eyes and hands that tremble where they're holding a bow at the ready. Liam and Zayn are coming from the back; Harry can hear them, and he's sure Greg can, too, no matter how quiet they're trying to be. Their breaths are both achingly familiar and deafening in Harry's ears, the rush of their blood loud like a waterfall.

"It's so sad," Greg says, mocking, as the hunters behind him chuckle and run their hands over their weapons, expressions aloof. "Poor little Louis Tomlinson. Becomes a legend in the hunter circles by surviving on dumb luck, and he doesn't even care, because his little heart is broken. It's nice to see you're as blind as ever, love."