Newcastle, England

List of problems in my life right now;

• Belle Marie is flying to England right now and will be arriving tomorrow morning to resume her faux relationship with Harry.

• Louis 'accidentally' let slip to everyone on the tour that I'm obsessed with Harry fanfics (not true)

• Zayn has gone completely AWOL and Lydia has suddenly tasked me with the job of finding him before tomorrow nights show.

• Harry is acting weird. There's secret kissing then hours where he just blanks me completely in front of other people, which kind of hurts. I can't work out what's going on there.

• I relented and asked my mum if my youngest brother Brian could come to the show tomorrow night. She flat out refused... Unless she could meet Harry first.

• Harry accepted her invitation to dinner tonight.

• Harry accepted her invitation.

• Harry Styles is coming to my parents house.

• If I can find Zayn I may join him in his escape.

***

"I told him I felt ill but he just laughed!" I hiss into the phone.

"There's no choice." Glen announces dramatically. "You're going to have to hospitalise yourself. Throw yourself down some stairs or something and break your legs. You can't let Harry meet your parents. You just can't."

"We're due to leave in 10 minutes, what I am going to do? I would have turned it down but now Brian is desperate to come to the show."

"You'll just-" He's cut off by a knocking on the toilet door.

"Are you ok Lennon? You've been in there ages." Harry sounds mildly amused and I realise that I've been in here for 10 minutes.

Great, he'll probably think I've been having a poo, on top of everything else.

"Coming." I say weakly.

Harry beams at me as I enter the room. He's looking incredibly handsome in a black shirt and skinny jeans and despite my nerves I'm blown away by how gorgeous he actually is.

"Are you ready?"

"Look, I've been thinking, maybe this isn't such a good idea, I mean-"

"Hey, it'll be fine. It's just so your little brother can come to the show, right? Let your parents see that I'm vaguely normal and they'll let him come and you'll get to spend time with him. I know you've missed him."

"You don't know what they're like-"

"Lennon, I meet all sorts of people all the time. They can't be that bad. Sure they're a little unique but so are you. I'll admit, I was kinda curious to meet them at the show, but I really didn't mind either way. It's just after you told how your little brother seems so eager to come the gig and spend some time with you... Well I thought it would be nice to do it for him. I know they have their reservations and I don't want to let the kid down, so let's go, get it over with and then we can get back here and have some drinks in the bar." He smiles.

"That's really sweet of you." I say genuinely.

"Don't worry about it. How bad can they be?" 

I decide he's right. I've prepared him as much as I can and like he said, it's for Brian's sake more than anything.

It'll be fine.

***

"This isn't what I expected."

I pull my bag from the back of the car and turn to find Harry staring at my parents house.

"What do you mean?" I frown. My parents live in a small terraced council house on an ordinary, rather rough street. I can't see what's so strange.

"I kinda expected you to have grown up in the Burrow from Harry Potter." He laughs. "You always talk about how wacky it was, this is so... Ordinary."

"Wait until you get inside." I mutter.

I spend an inordinately long time messing on with my bag as Harry waits politely.

Come on Lennon. It's going to be fine.

I mentally run down the list I gave my mum. Dress like a normal person. If I cough over dinner it means shut the hell up. Harry will not want an aura cleansing, nor will he want to see you and dad do your authentic African tribal dance with Brian on drums. DO NOT OFFER HARRY WEED FOR DESSERT.

A polite cough comes from next to me and I realise I'm just stood on the pavement staring up at the house as though it's the home of a mass murderer.

"Shall we?" Harry raises an eyebrow and I swallow the lump in my throat before stepping forwards. His security guard makes to accompany us but Harry waves him away.

"I'll be fine." He smiles.

The doorbell sounds out and with relief I notice that it's sounds like a standard doorbell, rather than the 3 minute Tibetan bells they used to have.

A long minute passes and I start to think that maybe they've forgotten and aren't home, before the door suddenly opens.

I choke.

My dad is standing in front of us wearing a long purple dress.

Actually, it's not quite a dress, it's more of a robe.

Brian races from the living room and to my utter horror, he is wearing a completely identical robe.

"Hey." Harry smiles and holds out his hand, as if my dad and brother aren't dressed like medieval priests. "I'm Harry."

He's just shaking my fathers hand when my mother appears, wearing a white robe and several huge crystal necklaces.

Kill me now.

I shoot daggers at her but she doesn't so much as glance at me.

"Welcome to our home, Harry Styles." She says formally.

For fucks sake. Why does she have to greet him like she's talking to ET?

Harry smiles widely and steps into the door, completely ignoring the weird greeting and mental clothing.

"Thanks for inviting me." He says, as though they have done him some huge favour. My mother nods solemnly snd leads the way to the living room.

Most parents would have embarrassing photos of their kids littering the walls.

Mine have a notice board, a frigging notice board, pinned with printouts of 9/11 and the moon landing. There are various handwritten notes and multi coloured pins, like they have in police stations when they are solving a crime.

Harry's eyes widen as he spots it. He glances at me and all I can do is offer him a weak smile.

***

In the past half hour I've coughed so many times that Harry keeps asking politely if I have a chest infection.

The cough signal isn't working.

In fact, I'm completely ignored by everyone except Brian who seems utterly thrilled to have me home.

Harry has now been briefed on how 9/11 was an inside job, the moon landing was faked and several leading questions about the illuminati that are entirely designed to make him slip up.

To be fair to him, he's listened with interest and acted as though all of this is deeply interesting. Once he caught my eye and winked at me, but it's not enough. I've cringed so hard that I think my skin is now facing inwards.

Finally, just as my dad is beginning a long speech on how 2Pac and Michael Jackson are living in a commune in Romania, my mother enters the room to say that dinner is served.

By this point I've coughed myself hoarse and no one has paid the slightest bit of attention to me.

Harry allows my dad to leave the room first and before leaning back to me.

"Wow. They're a little intense." He laughs. "Don't worry, it's cool."

He grins and follows my family through to the dining room.

I'm in utter despair.

Harry has dated so many famous, stunning girls. I'm trying to compete with them. The worst their parents would have done was some embarrassing baby photos. Mine are wearing matching dresses and trying to convince Harry that the Queen is actually an ancient reptile from a ruling alien planet.

I try to catch mums eye but she doesn't look at me as she brings the plates of food in.

A slice of boiled tofu and some frankly worm ravaged cabbage.

I might have a panic attack.

Oh fuçk how did I allow this to happen? How?

Harry stares down at his plate before smiling.

"I haven't had tofu in a while. This looks lovely, Mrs Lovelace."

My mother nods, still acting like some distant priestess before grabbing her crystals. I roll my eyes as she passes them over each plate, muttering under her breath. Harry waits patiently until she's done before picking up his knife and fork. I don't even bother.

My dad seems weirdly keen on Harry. The conversation over dinner is dominated by him and to mortification, he talks at great length about his martial problems and the time he left my mum in the 80s to live in a hippy commune in Skegness.

"... It was hard work for us both." Dad glances at mum and he chews down his boiled tofu. "We were in different places. Completely spiritually disconnected from each other and in different mediative states."

I down another glass of home brewed wine before liberally topping my glass up again. I'm beyond coughing and secret signals.

"Of course..." Dad reaches out and takes mums hand in his, smiling at her, "What really made the difference for us was discovering the power of tantric sex."

I choke.

I actually choke on my mouthful of wine and Harry is so stunned that he he doesn't notice. He stares at them, wide eyed with a forkful of the gross tofu halfway to his mouth.

"I mean," Dad goes on, oblivious to the reaction, "the power of the deep orgasm during tantric is really the greatest healer. Mind blowing. To really know and feel another human like that from so physically deep within them is otherworldly."

I want to die.

Please god. Kill me now. Send me back to that hallway in just my granny pants, I'll stand there all day rather than suffer this.

"Amazing. I think I never feel more close to god than I do during tantric orgasm. It really brings peace to the soul." My dad gazes upwards with a faraway look in his eye.

I think I'm in the early stages of a heart attack. Harry's fork hasn't moved. He's frozen in shock.

There's a long heavy pause.

"Why isn't Brian eating with us?" I say faintly, desperate to get the conversation away from my parents tantric sex life.

"He's practicing his tarot cards upstairs." My mother smiles proudly.

"Oh that's good." I smile weakly. Harry is still looking at my dad in shock. "What's for dessert?" I ask feebly.

"Avocado."

"Avocado cheesecake or something?" I say, desperate to fill the silence.

"No. Just avocado."

"Right." I nod, glugging at my wine.

Mum clears the plates then presents us all with our own whole peeled avocado and a knife and fork to tackle it with.

"You know.." My dad chews noisily and points his knife at Harry. "I'm glad you came. There's still chance for you to become a truther and see the world as it is. It's been great to meet Lennons new boyfriend, she's told us so much about you."

"Oh." Harry looks over at me. "We're not actually-"

"It's just great to see her so much in love." My dad goes on. "You're a great guy. You fit in here. Lennon talks about you non-stop and we were worried. I'm glad she's dating someone who lives outside the matrix."

Harry nods slowly and I sink further into my chair, downing more wine. My phone buzzes with a text and I glance down at it furtively.

Glen: So how is it going?

***

AN- the reason you haven't had an update in so long is that I had terrible writers block.

I seriously don't know what the hell I just wrote tonight on my nightshift wft  😂😂😂 hope you enjoyed it though haha

Dedicated to @blondelena thanks for reading love xxx

Oh, I've also entered this story for the wattys. So that's cool. 😆