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The gas powered oven in the cosy little kitchen in the tall and crooked house at the end of Lovage Lane is cursed.
It’s been cursed for almost three years now, and is more of an inconvenience than anything. Thankfully the hob still works most of the time, and if anyone really wants to bake anything, they can use the wood-burning red brick stove that doubles as a fireplace if someone (Niall) accidentally leaves its iron door open.
Up in the draughty attic of the tall and crooked house at the end of Lovage Lane, there is also a cursed fruit bowl. But it’s in storage and no one particularly cares. Sometimes, that’s just how it goes.
The tall and crooked house at the end of Lovage Lane has stood for as long as anyone in the neighborhood can remember - probably for as long as it’s been standing tall and crooked between the neat and orderly row houses that border it. That being said, a copy of the lease for the current tenants sits at the bottom of the kitchen junk drawer, and the following names are signed;
Harry Styles, aged 23.
Liam Payne, aged 108.
Zayn Malik, aged 24.
Niall Horan, aged 863.
Rent is often late. Some say the postbox is cursed too.
—
Niall: Who’s home rn
Harry: Your mom
Zayn has removed Harry from the chat
Niall: So… is someone home tho
Liam: Harry n I r on the couch whats up
Niall: Cool, I’m coming home and I found something important
Liam has added Harry to the chat
Harry: You all just don’t appreciate my unique humour
Niall has removed Harry from the chat
“Guys!”
“In the living room!” Harry calls. He’s not about to get up - he’s in the Perfect Comfy position stretched across the couch with his legs in Liam’s lap and his teacup balanced on his chest.
“I need your help, come over here!”
“No!” Harry shouts back petulantly, but Liam is already dislodging his legs.
“What’s up?” Liam calls, walking through the doorway. Harry hears him go, “Holy shit, why?” and finally gets up to follow.
As he walks through to the front hall, he stops short as soon as he spies Niall. Niall’s signature puffy coat - large and black and big enough to make him look about fifty pounds heavier - is covered in a dusting of snow and a number of long scratches, the feathers from inside poking out. His cheeks are flushed, likely from the cold but also possibly from the effort he seems to be exerting keeping the squirming fox in his arms.
“Aw fuck, shit,” Niall says as the wiggling noodle of a fox snaps his jaws and flops about. “Stop that! We’re the ones who can help you, ya ungrateful furball!”
“Aw,” Harry coos. “He’s scared!” He leans down, putting his hands on his knees. “Hey, you’re okay! We’re not gonna hurt a cute little fox like you.”
He gets a tail whipped in his face for his trouble.
The fox manages to escape Niall’s hold, but the front door is already shut, so it can’t get particularly far. Instead it skitters across the floorboards in a mad dash, disappearing around the corner where the hallway ends and the living room begins.
“That went well,” says Harry.
“Aw fuck,” says Niall.
“Why do we have a fox in our house?” asks Liam.
“Really?” asks Niall, looking at Liam strangely. “You can’t feel that?”
Liam shakes his head, looking confused. Harry decides not to mention that he also can’t feel whatever Niall is feeling. He wants to be cool.
“Maybe it’s because you’re so young,” Niall says, frowning. “I forget how young you are.”
“I’m four times as old as Harry!” Liam argues.
“Still a baby,” Niall says. “But also not the point. Poor guy’s clearly got a curse on him.”
“Sorry,” says Harry. “The fox has a curse?” He looks back toward the living room, suddenly feeling like at any moment some sinister force is going to come rushing through and attack them. He doesn’t like curses. Even the oven freaks him out a bit.
“Correction,” says Niall. “The fox is the curse. He’s human, I can tell.”
“Whoa,” says Liam. “You just let a cursed human loose in our house?”
“Well I wasn’t going to leave him out there, was I?” Niall asks, looking at Liam like he’s daft again. “It’s freezing out there!”
“Alright, alright!” Liam placates, putting his arms up. “Just asking! We don’t know why he was cursed, maybe he did something bad!”
“In the fairy tales I think they generally steal bread,” Harry says. “Or snap peas.”
“I don’t think there’s any fairy tales where someone steals snap peas,” Niall says. “Regardless, he’s harmless at this point. I think the least we could do is break the curse and let him go, yeah?”
“Right,” says Harry. In theory that does sound like a good idea. Except… “Do we know how to break a curse?”
—
“You’re telling me we are a coven of witches and no one has studied curse breaking?”
Harry tries not to make eye contact with anyone sitting around the table. Honestly he isn’t sure why he feels like a kid at school caught without his homework considering he’s the youngest witch in the coven and his specialty is plant magic (which doesn’t exactly lend itself to negative things like curses). To his right, Liam seems to have found something fascinating with the grain of the table, and to his left Zayn… well, Zayn could be thinking about anything. He could be deep in thought about curses or he could still be totally high from last night. He’s hard to read sometimes. Niall, standing at the head of the table, looks pained. As the official-unofficial leader of the coven, Harry really thinks Niall should be the one to know about such things. He’s been around eight hundred years but hasn’t studied curse-breaking?
“Right,” Niall continues. “Well, we’ll all have to look into it I suppose. Take a few seminars at the local gathering next year. Until then, though, we do have a cursed fox running around in our house-”
“I think he’s actually in the attic right now,” Liam cuts in.
“-and I’d like to be able to do something about that. If nothing else find out who cursed him, because we should probably have a word with them.”
Harry nods in agreement. Cursing isn’t exactly acceptable magic these days. Sure, kids do it on accident sometimes, but just going around laying curses? This isn’t the 1600s, people should know better.
“He needs a name,” Liam says. “We can’t just keep referring to him as the fox. It seems rude.”
“He has a name,” Zayn says, speaking up. “He is a human. We just don’t know it.”
“Right,” says Liam. “He needs that name! We should find that out first.”
“Well we can’t exactly go ask him,” Harry points out.
“Sure we can,” Niall says. “Did you learn nothing from your compulsory education? I know they teach classes on communicating with familiars these days.”
Harry huffs. “He’s not a familiar though! He’s human!”
“He should still be able to use a letter board,” Niall says. “Come on, let’s go find our little fox friend.”
—
The fox, for the most part, has been doing his hardest to avoid the four witches. In the past 24 hours Harry’s barely seen him, and when he does, it’s generally only a moment’s glance to see the fox as he dives from below one piece of furniture to another.
Which, honestly makes sense. Being a human cursed, presumably by a witch, would not lend one to a high view of witches. Especially a group of witches who might have semi-kidnapped said fox and let him loose in their home.
Yeah no, it’d be a good idea to maybe sit the fox down and explain to him who they were.
That is, if they can find the fox.
“I dunno why he’s picked my bedroom,” Liam whines as they ascend the stairs. Niall’s grabbed the letterboard from under his bed (the one that has absolutely never been used to contact ghosts because they’re “all a bunch of scaredy cats” according to Niall). Liam is the lone attic resident, and the way his room is decorated really reflects his specialty in elemental magic. The bowl of water on his desk that he’s spelled to cycle like a fountain into the air, the fireplace that’s kept glowing even with no actual chimney, the stone bed frame (that worried Harry so much when he first moved in, because that thing should have gone crashing through the floor immediately).
“Think he’s picked it for the fresh water supply and warmth, mate,” Zayn says. “As far as this house goes it does seem like a bit of a foxy paradise.”
“Foxy paradise doesn’t sound good,” Harry says. “What about woodland animal paradise.”
“Foxy,” Zayn repeats, stubborn,
Harry makes a face.
“So in this foxy woodland paradise,” Niall says. “Does anyone actually see our fox?”
“Should have brought some fresh chicken,” Liam says.
“We should reason with him,” Harry says. “We know he’s up here, he can definitely hear us.”
“Now to be fair, I don’t know how much of his mind his human versus how much is fox right now,” Niall points out. “But we can try.”
Harry walks over to Liam’s bed and stretches out across it (Liam makes an affronted noise). Zayn settles on the edge of it next to him. Niall gets to work setting up the letter board on the floor.
“Hello, uh, fox,” Liam says, turning to the room at large. “We’re the Lovage Lane Coven and we, uh, mean you no harm.”
“We come in peace,” Zayn says quietly and Harry snickers.
“Well you try talking to someone you can’t see,” Liam complains. “It’s awkward.”
“Alright alright,” Niall says. “Hey fox! We’re a bunch of witches and we want to take that curse off of ya because you’re clearly cursed and not a real fox because a real fox would have squirmed its way out the hole in the wall of the kitchen by now. Now come out here and use this board to tell us your name so we don’t have to keep referring to you as fox!”
Silence echoes in the room after his speech, and Harry starts to wonder if the fox really is still up here or if he descended to a lower level while they had all been downstairs and distracted earlier.
But then, but then, the click of little fox nails sound through the room and the fox’s snout appears, sticking out the tiniest bit from under the bed Harry is stretched out across.
“Nobody move,” Liam whispers, staring at the area below Harry’s feet where the fox must be.
“We weren’t going to,” Niall mock-whispers back, then says at a normal volume; “Hey fox!”
Harry hears the scrabbling of the fox as he retreats further under the bed.
“I said-”
“You didn’t say anything about not talking to him!” Niall snaps back.
Zayn sighs, and snaps his fingers. Harry, anticipating what he’s about to do, leaps off the bed just before it begins rising into the air, leaving the fox (and a number of dust bunnies) out in the open below.
The fox backs up against the wall, but there are witches basically on every side of him now, so he can’t dodge under other furniture.
With his foot, Harry pushes the letterboard over toward the fox. He pushes it a little too hard, and the fox has to dodge out of the way, jumping nimbly and giving it a suspicious look when he lands and sniffs at it.
“Just point at your name,” Niall says.
“Can foxes read?” Zayn asks. “Is that something that one loses the ability to do when cursed?”
“Well I guess we might find out,” Harry says.
The letterboard just has a basic alphabet and numbers arching across it in bold fonts. It’s simple and unassuming. The fox eyes it suspiciously, he seems to take his time in evaluating it, as if he hasn’t been trying to dodge and hide from everyone in the room up until this point. His tail swishes back and forth, and his ears flick on occasion.
Finally, he leans down and licks a stripe on the board.
“Oh gross,” Niall says. “I don’t want that anymore. Someone else can have it now.”
The fox licks another stripe, on a different part of the board.
“Is he licking his name?” Liam asks. “Harry, see what he’s licking!”
“Why me- oh, whatever.” Harry steps forward a little, although the fox seems intent on what he’s doing.
“The O and the L are damp,” he informs the room at large. “And the… I , the U… S.”
“Olius,” Liam says. “How distinguished.
“Louis,” says Zayn.
“Oh.”
“Lou-ee?” asks Niall. “Or Lew-is?”
The fox makes a screeching noise, startling everyone.
“He didn’t make that noise at me,” Zayn says triumphantly. “It’s Lou-ee.”
“Maybe he makes that noise when he’s happy,” Niall says darkly.
“No he doesn’t,” Zayn says.
“He definitely doesn’t,” Harry agrees.
The fox, who has deemed himself Louis, seems done with this conversation. He slinks along the wall and right past Harry, who considers reaching out and grabbing at him, but also feels proud that Louis seems to trust him enough to walk right by him.
“Well I guess he’s done here,” Zayn says when Louis disappears behind Liam’s dresser. There’s a concerning thud and subsequent rattling of the walls as he lets the bed land back on the floor.
“I mean he did give us what we asked for,” Harry says with a shrug. “Can’t complain.”
“We can complain,” Liam says. “Now he’s behind my dresser! And the board full fox spit is under my bed!”
Niall shrugged. “Could be worse,” he said.
“How?” Liam shrieks.
“His name could be, like, Blastus or something.”
—
The make a plan to break the curse on Louis.
This is a carefully constructed plan. It’s a plan formed because “Oh my god how do we have no books on curses, are we so incompetent? We’re a terrible coven” and because no one really has any idea what they’re doing. The plan consists of: one person at every house meeting must come with an idea to break the curse.
It’s like homework, except they actually care about it.
“We should kiss him,” Harry says.
Louis snaps his jaws. Harry needs to look up fox body language and what it means.
They’re all standing around the kitchen island, with Louis perched on the edge of the island countertop. He’s been lured into the kitchen with tinned chicken, which Harry has learned is his weakness.
“Why?” asks Liam. He looks startled at the very idea.
“It’s what breaks the curse!” Harry says. “True love’s kiss!”
“No offence to Louis,” Niall says. “But I’m not sure I’m in love with someone I haven’t been able to have a proper conversation with.”
Louis looks affronted, as much as a fox can.
“I dunno,” says Liam. “I mean. I wouldn’t rule it out. Never know where your soulmate is gonna show up.”
Zayn puts his hand on Liam’s arm. “No, babe,” he says.
“Oh,” says Liam. He frowns. “Okay.”
“You all are being wildly unfair,” Harry says. “Fine, I’ll kiss him alone then.”
Louis swivels his head to look at Harry again. He yawns. He gets up and stretches his front legs.
Stretches his back legs.
Jumps off the counter and walks out of the room.
And so no one attempts true love’s kiss.
—
After a long day that includes the explosion of a woven spell Harry has been working on for almost two months, he wants nothing more than a witch to cuddle with while binge watching Parks and Rec off Netflix.
When he comes through the doorway, though, he’s met with a dark and silent house.
With a sigh, he shucks off his snow covered black heeled boots and takes a sprig of lavender from the jar next to the door, rubbing it between his fingers for luck. He shuffles into the living room, not bothering to turn a light on, and collapses onto the couch, gathering the various throw blankets onto himself in a heap.
He turns on the telly and flips robotically to Parks and Rec, continuing from where he left off during his last hard day.
Tears prick at his eyes and he quickly wipes them away - it’s not the end of the world, it’s just a dumb spell that he ruined and -
With an oomph Harry is pulled from his thoughts, interrupted by something landing on his chest, among the blankets.
He’s managed to pile so many blankets on himself that he’s not actually sure at first where whatever it is has landed. It’s only a few seconds though, until a furry white snout appears from under the top layer of pink fleece.
“Oh hi,” Harry says. He stays very still, because Louis doesn’t often approach him like this. After all, he is human, not an animal, as much as he looks like one.
Louis lifts his head up, and lets the blanket fall away. He’s studying Harry, and Harry feels his already blotchy cheeks warm.
“Did I take your spot?” Harry asks. “Do you want the couch back? I can go to my room-”
Louis snaps his jaws. It seems to be what he does when he disagrees, and honestly it is a little intimidating. He has a lot of teeth.
“Or not,” Harry relents.
Louis studies him for another moment while Harry more or less holds his breath, and apparently he finds whatever he was seeking, because he turns his head and dives underneath the top layer of blankets again.
Harry tries to stay as still as he can but it tickles having a fox rearrange himself on his stomach, and he does eventually concede to a fit of giggles. Louis, who at this point seems to have burrowed himself below another two blankets (there are a lot), pops his head up just long enough to give Harry a withering stare, before going back to his apparent nesting.
When he finally settles down, a warm weight on Harry’s chest, he must be separated from Harry by only a layer of blankets. Parks and Rec continues, quietly, in the background as all Harry can concentrate on is that steady weight as he breathes in and out.
It’s incredibly comforting.
“I’m not a fox hole, you know,” he eventually says.
Almost like he was prepared for some sort of comment, Louis’s tail whips out from underneath the blankets, hitting Harry in the face with a soft floomph.
Harry keeps his mouth shut after that. He doesn’t want to risk angering Louis into leaving.
Parks and Rec continues to play, and after a while Harry nods off. Louis is already asleep.
—
Harry’s got Louis in his arms, who seems to be rather wary by the way his tail his puffed up, but he’s not tried to scamper under the china cabinet again yet.
“Okay, who’s got something to try this time?” Niall asks, looking around the kitchen counter at them. “A swift slap to the face has been outlawed because Liam is still recovering from that bite, so if that does break the curse Louis is shit out of luck,” he looks pointedly at Louis. “Even though maybe he would be human now.”
Louis huffs and snaps his jaws. They’re all pretty sure that means no.
“I actually do,” Zayn says, bringing attention to the bowl in front of him that he’s been stirring (which is something that he often does, to be clear. Zayn specializes in gemstones and potions, so everyone is rather used to him absentmindedly stirring things at all times).
“It’s a general clearing potion,” he says. “Should get rid of low to mid level toxins, might break a weak curse.” He shrugs, as if to say don’t blame me if it doesn’t work.
“Sounds worth a shot,” Niall says.
Harry puts Louis down on the counter, and even though Louis is clearly as smart as a human seeing as how he is a human, Harry can’t help but sort of push him in the direction of the bowl, like he would with a cat he’s trying to convince to eat new food.
Louis’ tail swishes back and forth and he tilts his head, looking at the potion with suspicion. It’s a deep purple and rather shimmery, and Harry thinks it looks like it would taste like blueberries.
Louis sniffs it suspiciously, then looks up and around at each of the witches huddled around him. Liam’s right hand goes to clutch his injured one instinctually. Harry nods encouragingly. Zayn purses his lips.
Louis sticks his long, fox tongue out and licks a stripe right across the top of the potion.
The liquid in the bowl begins to bubble and froth at the top.
The liquid on Louis’s tongue begins to bubble and froth.
Louis makes a yelping noise and jumps off the counter, skittering across the floor and smushing himself under the rack of cookbooks and witchy books in the corner.
“Ah,” says Zayn. “It does do that.”
Harry runs over to crouch down in front of the space Louis has wedged himself. His tongue is out and he’s desperately trying to clean it with his paw. He seems fine, although his fur is a little… darker?
“Looou,” Harry placates. “Please come out?”
Louis huffs and backs further under the cookbook rack.
“Please?” Harry asks. If Louis is about to turn human, he’s going to break the shelf.
“Oh you’re too soft on him,” Niall says, getting down on his knees beside Harry. “Come on, Louis, be a big boy.”
He reaches his arms under the rack and grabs ahold of the fox around his middle, pulling him out and up. Louis makes a few strangled yips and wiggles about, but Niall is strong and he’s easily extracted, now with an extra layer of dust.
“Oh look,” Liam says brightly from behind them. “He’s purple now!”
“Yeah,” says Niall. “You sure you got the right potion, Zayn?”
“No,” says Zayn, looking none too worried. “Could be the one for hair dye.”
“Louis looks pretty in purple,” Harry says.
Louis whines again, letting his long, purple tongue hang out of his mouth.
“Don’t worry,” Harry tells him. “When you’re human again, I’m sure you’ll look good with purple hair.”
—
Liam brings to his house meeting The Fire of Truth. Apparently, as he explains to everyone standing around the counter, this fire is truly ancient, the bowl of blue flames is something that has been burning for centuries, and he had to sign a number of wavers to take it out of the local coven coalition library.
Louis, who has been weaving around their legs, takes one look at the fire and clearly decides that it is not for him.
“He just has to walk through it, and only the truth will remain. So, that should get rid of any curses, since those are the opposite of truth.”
“I don’t think we can convince him to do that,” Harry says. Having spent a fair amount of time with Louis lately, what he’s come to learn is while Louis seems to be warming up to each of them just fine, he’s still very wary of any and all magical artifacts.
“Come on,” Niall says, giving Louis a look. “You just have to walk through it. That’s all! Then maybe you’ll be human again!”
Louis looks at him, blinks once, and then yawns, snapping his jaws. He doesn’t move.
“Harry,” Niall says. “Just pick him up and put him in the fire.”
“Oh hell no,” Harry says. “You are not making me the bad guy here. It’s Liam’s house meeting, he should be the one to do it.”
Liam’s eyes grow wide, as if it hasn’t occurred to him that he would have to actually interact with Louis. “Uh,” he stammers. “Well, that is-”
Louis gets up and pads over to Liam. He jumps up on his hind legs and lands his front paws straight on liam’s chest, making Liam go stiff as a board, his eyes growing wide.
Louis opens his mouth and licks a stripe straight up Liam’s face.
Then he hops off the counter and walks away.
Harry laughs. He laughs so hard. Liam stutters some more and then wipes furiously at his face.
“I think that was his way of saying no,” Zayn says. He wanders off.
“He doesn’t like me!” Liam whines. “Why am I the only one he treats like this?”
“Probably because you react like that,” Niall says.
“Are we done here?” Harry asks. “I mean… Louis seems to think we’re done here.”
“Hold on,” Zayn calls from wherever he’s gone. A moment later he reappears, carrying Louis limply in his arms. “At least let’s use the thing Liam worked so hard to bring home.” He lifts up Louis and then unceremoniously dumps him in the fire.
Louis lets out a terrible sort of shrieking noise, although Harry isn’t sure that it’s a sound associated with pain since he’s pretty sure he heard Louis make the same noise when had been sleeping in the shower and Niall had turned it on. It’s more of a surprised noise, he thinks.
Either way, Louis bolts out of the fire, blue flames flicking from his tail for a few moments before they go out.
“Still foxy,” Harry surmises as Louis flees around the corner.
“He’s gonna hate me,” Liam moans.
“Nah,” Zayn grins. “I’m the one who dropped him in the fire. I think he just likes messing with you.”
Liam moans again, putting his head in his hands.
Harry goes for more tinned chicken to bribe Louis into liking him best.
—
Niall’s house meeting comes a week later, and when they all show up in the kitchen Harry is the one to bring Louis.
Louis has actually become pretty friendly with everyone in the house, as much as a fox can be. He’s spent most of the last few days sunbathing on the living room rug and barely even bats an eye when someone comes in to hang out or watch telly. He’s also started getting into the habit of stealing food, no longer relying on the tinned chicken and rice that Harry’s been making for him. He’s gotten bolder, and has stolen several sandwiches (mostly from Liam) when people’s backs are turned.
Still, he’s remained wary of the house meetings called to try to break his curse. Harry thinks this is sensible of him, considering how the last ones have gone.
“Right, I think I’ve figured it out,” Niall says after they’ve all gathered round. “Because unlike the rest of you I’ve been researching .”
Liam looks very put out by this assumption. Harry is used to Niall making wild claims like this and just rolls his eyes.
Zayn ignores what Niall is saying altogether. He scratches behind Louis’s ears. Louis tolerates this.
“So the solution,” Niall continues. “Is simple! We just have to summon the one who did the curse in the first place!”
“That doesn’t sound simple at all,” Liam argues. “Summoning spells are difficult!”
“Maybe for a child like you,” Niall says. “But for all four of us together? Easy!”
“I’m not in charge when whatever we summoned starts asking questions,” Zayn says. “I’m not gonna invite an old world demon into our home and start offering them tea, that’s someone else’s job.”
“Nose goes!” Harry shouts, putting a finger to his nose. Zayn immediately copies the movement, and Liam does too when he catches on.
“You’re all wimps,” Niall says. “Fine. I’m honorary coven leader anyway, I’ll be the grown up here.” He pushes three tupperware containers across the counter. “Now cover your hands in these powders and follow my movements.”
They make an awful mess opening the tupperware containers and coating their hands. There’s powder all over the counter (and Harry has no clue what the powder consists of) and Louis has white patches on his fur from it.
Niall begins a low, monastic-sounding chant, making sweeping arm movements that the other three try their best to copy. Harry thinks he’s not half bad at them, although every time he raises his arms above his head a fine dusting of powder covers him.
Louis sits and watches them, tilting his head this way and that and then dodging out of the way as another wave of powder falls from above him.
Then they are stopped in their tracks by the ringing of the doorbell.
“Nose goes!” Harry shouts, putting his finger to his nose again and then immediately sneezing from breathing in the powder.
“What the fuck,” says Niall. “It’s the middle of the day! Who could possibly be here in the middle of the day?”
“Internet salesperson?” Harry suggests. “I’d take them up on that, our WiFi is shit.”
The doorbell rings again.
“I’ll answer it,” Liam says, clapping his hands together as powder poofs into the air. He leaves, walking into the hallway as the rest of them still stand around, mid-spell.
“Are we going to have to start this over?” Zayn asks. “My arms are tired.”
Louis sneezes, shaking his head and leaving a fine dusting of powder in the air from his coat.
Harry can hear when Liam opens the door, and can hear some sort of conversation but he’s not sure what they’re saying. It’s a man, definitely.
Then, Liam’s voice comes much louder down the hall. “Niall?” he calls. “Have we paid rent yet?”
“Aw shit,” Niall says, and then louder, “No we haven’t, I’ll get the cheques!”
He dusts his hands on his trousers and goes for the drawer of miscellany where the house chequebook inevitably ends up .
Harry can hear Liam continuing to converse with whoever it is, his voice getting louder as they come down the hall. Since it’s someone asking about rent, it must be their landlord. Harry’s not a fan.
“Evening boys,” Mr. Cowell says as he enters the room. He’s never batted an eye at what he’s seem when he’s stopped by the house before, and Harry figures that honestly a room full of tupperware and powder probably just looks like teens and their drug habits to an old man like him. Mr. Cowell often looks sort of like his face is melting, like a deflated beach ball. He wonders if he could get money taken off rent for offering to fix that; a few herbs in the correct brew should fix that up pretty fast.
Still, today when Mr. Cowell takes in the room, he stops short in a way he hasn’t before.
“You,” he says, and his voice is almost a snarl.
It startles Harry. “Us?” he asks. But Mr. Cowell is looking at one person in particular. Or, one consciousness at least.
“The fox?” Niall asks, looking up from his search for the cheque book.
Mr. Cowell, either oblivious or ignoring everyone else, points a finger at Louis, who has jumped off of the island and is crouched down, flattening himself against the floor.
“I knew you couldn’t have made it far,” Mr. Cowell says, his eyes narrowed. “Useless little bastard, probably thought you’d gotten away from me.”
He steps forward just as Harry, feeling anger begin to boil in his stomach, steps between them. He can sense everyone else clustering together as well.
“That’s our fox, Mr. Cowell,” Liam says, sounding much more adult and mature than Harry has ever heard him before. It would probably sound a little cooler if any of them knew Mr. Cowell’s first name, but, well, he just wasn’t that important of a person to them.
“Nonsense,” Mr. Cowell says, looking vaguely annoyed now at the rest of them. “This little pest belongs to me, and he’s been on the loose for almost a month now. Rotten thing needs to come home before I just wring his neck right here.”
Louis begins letting out wheezing breaths, and Harry is unsure whether it’s done out of fear or because Mr. Cowell is working some sort of magic, but either way he’s quickly coming to the conclusion that Mr. Cowell is not nearly as human as each of them once believed.
“We’re actually going to need you to take a step back,” Niall says in a low voice. “We’ll get you the rent cheque but you’re going to need to wait outside.”
“Like hell I will-” Simon says, and he lunges forward, attempting to knock them all out of the way as he goes for Louis.
When he later looks back on this moment, Harry’s not at all too sure who did what spell. It’s likely, though, that the powder Niall had dusted them all with had filled the room with a magical charge just waiting for use, because the separate spells that Niall, Harry, Liam, and Zayn all cast in their various forms hit like a ball of lightning, lighting up the room like a bottle rocket in a fish bowl.
When the smoke clears, Harry blinks and rubs his eyes and looks around. There’s Niall, and there’s Liam, and there’s Zayn, all looking slightly singed but no worse for wear. There, between them all, is a pile of black dust like something out of a cartoon in the 90’s.
“Is that our landlord?” Harry asks.
“I think so,” Liam says. He looks a little shaken.
“I bagsy the house,” Zayn says. “Everyone pays rent to me now.”
“Fuck off,” Niall says. “No one pays rent then.”
Harry looks around. “Guys,” he says. “That pile of ash isn’t also Louis, is it?” Oh no. They can’t have killed their fox. He loves that fox. Man. Fox who is a man.
“Oh god,” says Liam, looking even more shaken.
“Fuck,” says Niall.
“It’d better not be,” says Zayn.
Tears are just beginning to gather in Harry’s eyes when he’s startled by a new and different voice speaking.
“It’s not, but the concern is appreciated.”
Harry jerks his head around, looking for where the voice is coming from. “Louis?” he asks, walking in the direction of the dining room as the others do the same.
“Do not come in here,” the voice says. It’s a nice and melodic voice with a bit of scratch, like the crack of brittle leaves. “I am naked and very cold and would very much like some clothes.”
Without thinking, Harry strips off the jumper he’s wearing (a dark blue with stretched out sleeves because he likes to bury his hands in them when it’s cold) and throws it into the dining room. Seeing it being received as a hand grabs it and whisks it out of view, he begins to do the same with his trousers until he’s physically stopped by every one of his roommates.
“We don’t need to see that again Harry.”
“He doesn’t need to see that.”
“We live here mate, just bring down some fucking clothes like a normal person.”
Niall says something in latin and with a wave of his hand a pair of black sweats appears in his hand. He throws it into the other room as well, and the voice of the person Louis who is no longer fox Louis says, “Thank you.”
“Are you decent?” Niall asks. “Can we come in?”
“Yes fine,” the voice says.
They all crowd into the dining room and Harry spots the man sitting on the table, with a blue jumper too large for him and black sweats.
“Hello?” the man who is Louis says.
“Hi,” says Liam.
“Hello,” says Harry.
“Hey,” says Zayn.
“Hey my plan worked!” shouts Niall. “I win!”
“Why were you cursed?” Liam asks. “What did you do?”
“Don’t be so accusatory,” Harry hisses at him.
Louis makes a face of disgust. “I did the terrible crime,” he says. “Of being the true heir to the throne.”
“The what,” says pretty much everyone.
“The true heir? To the throne of France?” Louis waves it off. “But that was like. Hundreds of years ago at this point. My lineage is long dead.”
“Wait,” says Niall. “Are you human?”
“Well I did think so,” says Louis. “But as I’ve been cursed as a fox for the last eight hundred years, and I seemed to have not aged at all, perhaps not? My father was not exactly of noble birth, perhaps I’m only half of something.”
“My guess is seelie,” says Zayn.
“Nah, he’d have been able to break the curse well before now,” argues Niall.
“Not if he didn’t know what he was doing!” Liam says.
Harry is saddened to find out that he is once again, by far, the youngest in the house. “But you got out?” he asks.
“I didn’t, actually,” Louis says. “Niall here did some sort of spell that drew me to him and half choked me to death as my collar broke off.”
Niall makes a shocked face. “I did?” he asks. “I didn’t mean to, if I remember correctly I was just trying to do a dowsing spell to find a new roommate because I wanted to pay less in rent. You just happened to cross my path.”
The room is silent as everyone digests this information.
“I might still have a small fortune,” Louis says tentatively. “If my catacombs have not yet been discovered you’re welcome to it.”
“As rent?” Harry asks. “Because we don’t really need rent anymore, we toasted our landlord.”
“Ah,” says Louis. “Well. I suppose I can find somewhere else to live.”
“Oh no,” says Liam.
“No, you can’t ignore a dowsing spell that strong,” Niall says.
“Don’t you dare,” says Zayn.
“You can share my room,” says Harry.
Louis looks relieved. “Good god,” he says. “I don’t think I could explain to anyone else how little I know about this world, so that’s an utter godsend. All I know so far is that it’s customary to spend hours watching something called Parks and Rec on the red Netflix screen.” He smiles, and the sun seems to shine from him. “It’s a good play, I must say.”
“I call telling him about airplanes!” Harry yells, sticking his hand high in the air.
“I bagsy the internet,” says Zayn.
Liam pouts. “I guess I’ll do comics,” he says.
“You all have missed the mark,” says Niall, turning to Louis. “I’m teaching you about Deliveroo, and it’s happening tonight. Welcome to the coven, Louis.”
Louis smiles again, a bit brighter. “Thank you,” he says. “I think I’m going to like it here.”