Interlude [h.s]

sixty

"So... sir?" Alouette murmurs after some moments, shooting Harry a hard look. An outer observer wouldn't be able to pick up the sharp edge in her voice, but she knows he can. He doesn't let anything slip by unnoticed.

Harry side-glances at her. "Am I not allowed to have some fun?"

The stubbornness in his reply makes rage blaze in her chest. "You—" She closes her eyes for a second and reminds herself where she is. She has just escaped from the Palace guards bringing their dear President with her, and they're likely being chased in this very moment. There's no time to get mad at him.

He seems to notice the same thing, because the ghost of a smile curves his annoyingly red lips. She isn't sure she'll survive another car ride with him, he'll make her go crazy by the end of the day.

Alouette's hold tightens on the steering wheel. "You know, you had me worried for a second there." For an hour, her mind corrects her. He pretended to be enjoying her demise for more than an hour. She knows it was all a ruse, now—a predictable one, at that. She should've known he would've found a way to play her since they first made their deal. It was only a matter of time.

"I'd never," Harry replies, and Alouette rolls her eyes.

"We both know that's not true."

He hums. "You deem me to be so heartless, Lark."

"That's because I know how you think by now." She doesn't miss the fake outrage that flashes on Harry's face. "Don't pretend to be so innocent, Harry, I know you aren't and you do too."

A troublesome little smile is on his face, now. "I kept my part of the deal."

"You forced me to use your part of the deal," Alouette corrects him, "when it suited you the most."

"You asked for a wish, did you not?"

"You know that's not how I intended to use it."

A wish. In truth, a wish can be a troublesome promise to keep. Most people would never risk getting tangled into something so thorny, so unpredictable. But Harry isn't most people, and he's the only person in the country that has the power to make any wish come true. He knew that, when he accepted the deal. But having power doesn't mean he wants to use it, and he saw how dangerous the bargain he fell in was from a mile away.

In a sense, it was Alouette's fault. She should've known Harry wouldn't have left her the choice to choose her wish. To anyone else, what he's done might look like madness, but to him, it was a simple move of convenience. Letting her escape with him in her power was much better than letting her claim any kind of influence over him, and so he drove her to the brink of desperation. And when she was hopeless, one step away from the edge of despair, he threw her a bone. Maddening, but brilliant.

Alouette hates him.

"There's no telling what the future will bring," Harry says. "If you didn't want me to win, you shouldn't have let me."

"And let myself get dragged to the Palace?" Alouette laughs. "You wish."

"You could've thrown yourself on my mercy then, I can be quite forgiving after a glass of wine or two."

"I'm afraid not even a whole bottle would be enough to wash away my sins."

He smiles. "Then I would've thrown you into the dungeons."

"You actually have dungeons?"

Harry tilts his head. "I don't, but I have a couple of cemeteries. It can't be that different, can it?"

It most definitely can, Alouette thinks, but she doesn't say it. She isn't in the mood to teach a quite spoiled son of royalty that murder and imprisonment aren't quite the same thing—especially when he's the one with three university degrees to his name.