Know: A Harry Styles Fan Fiction

I rip off the last scrap of wrapping paper to reveal an album with the king of 50s swing music on the cover, donning his classic, iconic tux while singing into a mic. It's an image I've grown familiar to because it's Frank Sinatra's Strangers In The Night. I've lost count of how many I have in my collection now. Maybe I can submit myself to the book of world records or something.

"Thanks, Harry. That's sweet of you," I say with a smile, before searching for an empty space in my numerous crates of vinyls.

"Aren't you going to check?" he asks as I stand.

I turn around. "Check what?"

"You said every time you find a copy of Strangers In The Night, you check the inside slip for your brother's message."

A grin plays on his mouth. He glances at the album then back at me, and I feel my eyes slowly widen. I return to my original spot and with trembling fingers, roll out the record and its accompanying list of songs. In the lower corner, scrawled in blue ink, is my brother's unmistakable handwriting.

To my lame sister Andromeda,

You're the biggest dreamer I know, and I'll be damned if they don't take you places. Happy 14th, kiddo.

From your cool brother,
Magellanic

p.s. Forget the ipod. For your next birthday, I'll get you a record player!

But he never made it to my next birthday.

"How'd you find this?" I hurriedly ask, looking up at Harry. We're sitting so close now, I begin to see the faint, microscopic freckles on his neck again.

"I asked around," he vaguely replies.

"Seriously, Harry, how did you find this? You don't know how long I've been looking for it."

"Actually, I do. I knew how much it meant to you. That's why I had to find it."

My heart pounds wildly in my chest as I read the message over and over. This can't be real, I think to myself, running my fingers over the inscription. But I know it's real because Gellan never dotted his i's and every i in the message has been left undotted. Because when I study it closer, I can see subtle indents from the pen. And because there's a faint spot near the center of the album cover, where a tear had fallen from my bratty, frustrated, fourteen-year-old eyes.

You're the biggest dreamer I know...

I can practically hear his lively, carefree voice saying this to me with an affectionate ruffle of my hair that always used to annoy me. I cradle the record close to my body, this ghost of my brother, the piece of him I thought I'd never get back. A warm tear leaks from the corner of my eye and falls on the album's surface, the fresh droplet landing right beside the dried one.

I throw my arms around Harry and whisper, "Thank you," into his hair. The smaller, wispy curls tickle my face, but I don't brush them away. They smell like his room and for a brief second, when I close my eyes, I'm there again.

"My pleasure," he replies. The grin is strong in his voice. No cheekiness, no mischief, just plain joy.

I've missed the warmth of his arms around me, the familiar clean fragrance of his skin and clothes and the way our bodies seem to fit into each other as effortlessly as two broken halves of a vase. We stay like this for a while. He shows no sign of letting go and neither do I. He takes a deep breath beneath me, as if he's been holding it for months.

"Hey," he coos, softly stroking my back. "Hey, don't cry. I hate it when you cry."

"I'm just so happy," I sniffle, pulling away and feeling a bit silly now.

Harry swipes a thumb under my eye, catching a tear before it has a chance to course down my cheek. "Not nearly as happy as you used to make me."

I bite down hard to hold back a new session of crying that I could feel at the bottom of my throat. "I'm sorry I didn't get you anything last Christmas," I shyly say. "I just didn't know what you wanted."

His features form an expression that I can't quite decipher. "There's only one thing I want," he says.

"What is it?"

He gets to his feet and carries the record from the bed, placing it into the player. The disk spins under the needle and the familiar, luscious instrumental crackles from the ancient speakers.

"A dance," he answers.

I've told Harry that I can't dance in the beginning of our relationship and that fact hasn't changed, but suddenly, it doesn't matter to me. When he reaches for my hand, I don't deny him. His arm snakes around me, caressing my waist, and I imitate him. He takes my free hand and clasps it inside his. Then he rocks back and forth, slightly rotating at the same time. My body follows while I'm pressed up against him.

"Strangers in the night," Sinatra smoothly vocalizes. "Exchanging glances, wandering in the night."

I nestle my head against him. His arm tightens around my waist, pulling me closer. For some odd reason, it suddenly crosses my mind I haven't changed yet, and can't help but wonder how amusing I'd look to an onlooker at the moment.

"What so funny?" Harry asks.

I peek up at him, slowly, sheepishly. "Nothing. It's just---I'm slow dancing in sweatpants."

His lips tug into a crooked smile. "And you're still as beautiful as ever."

I bury my flushed cheeks into his shoulder as we continue swaying, stepping in a small imaginary circle on the floor.

His chest rises with a slow breath. "I wish I knew how to make you believe me."

We rotate the same path about three more times before I say something in return. "Have you thought that maybe it's because it was all so fast?" I mumble against his shirt. "I mean, we only dated for, what, a semester?"

He considers it for a moment, then says, "Yeah, but things like this don't work on a fixed schedule. Some people fall in love at first sight, others take years. And some, like me, fall somewhere in between. Every case is different and every person is different."

"You don't actually believe in love at first sight, do you?"

"That's like asking me if I believe in aliens. I've never seen one before, but who am I to say they don't exist?"

That stumps me, and he takes my silence as a cue to proceed. "So who are you to say I can't love you? You can't put rules on something like that, Jules. You can't control love. It's wild."

I release from him for a moment and stare at him with a smirk. "That sounds like an excerpt from a shitty romance novel."

This evokes a grin out of him but it doesn't stray him from the topic.

"But you see my point, don't you?" he says.

"Harry..."

"It's a simple yes or no."

I huff defeatedly. "I don't know because I don't even know what it means."

He gazes at me with troubled eyes. "Have you never been in love, Jules?"

I ignore his question. Instead, I respond with another question. "How are you so sure it's not something else, like you just like me a lot?"

He chuckles, losing track of his steps for just a second. "I stopped 'liking you a lot' a long time ago. Of that I'm sure."

"But how are you so sure?"

"You just know, Jules. I can't describe it to you any other way. When you love someone, you'll know. You might not have a name for it at first, you might even try to deny it, but in the end, you just know."

"God, you have been reading bad romance novels."

Harry's eyes squint while his head hangs, shaking with laughter. I can't help the huge grin that I feel spreading across my face. Only now have I realized how much I've missed the sound of his laugh and the trademark dimples that carve his cheeks as he beams with that contagious happiness.

"Seriously, Harry, what've you been reading?"

After regaining his composure, he replies, "No books. Just this," and pats the slightly left side of his chest.

I wish I could roll my eyes when he did that. My goodness, it would've been the biggest and best eye roll in the history of eye rolls. And I would've, too, if he didn't look so damn adorable doing it.

Admittedly his words permeate me, and my mind wanders back to the musings I had last night of the invisible but very strong something that had been growing between me and Harry. It was wild, like he said, like a plant or even---a tree. A rare species that I don't have a name for, but that I know exists, and I know Harry knows it exists. Could that be what he was talking about?

If so, I feel it right now. It's hanging onto every note of every melody of the song. It's swinging from the gentle back and forth motion of our dancing. It's in the small gap between our faces, the electricity between our eyes and then, the tender contact of our lips.

We keep them there for a while. And amusingly, we're still dancing. I don't know about him, but I would've kept my lips there for much longer if it weren't for the necessity of breathing.

Harry's silent as he rests his forehead on mine, but he doesn't have to say anything. When I open my eyes again, I return his stare with absolute, unquestionable certainty. And in that moment, there is no need for me to say anything, either; it doesn't take words for him to know. Because in that moment, his eyes flicker on. The color returns to them. A deep shade of emerald that shines ethereally in the morning glow of the slightly opened shutters.

"Little did we know," Sinatra's majestic voice flows through the air, "love was just a glance away, a warm embracing dance away."





END

Notes

You guys have been so sweet and supportive and I really don't want to say goodbye to this story :( But it has to end eventually. So did you enjoy it? I hope so. I definitely had fun writing it. A MASSIVE THANK YOU (in Harry's voice) to everyone who voted, rated or commented on my story, and also for voting in the name poll (Samanthora is a pretty ugly name, good choice, everyone).

On the next page, you'll find deleted parts that didn't make it to the full story. Completely optional to read, and probably for the people who have a hard time letting go of a story after it's over (i.e. me).

Please feel free to tell me what you think about Know and/or share it with others. It would mean the world to me! I'll keep checking back and responding to comments but as far as writing goes, I think this is it. At least for a while.

Farewell, beautiful readers.

fuckyouharrystyles x.