A Royal Pain

Chapter one

Harry walks into the living room after being called down for dinner, wondering if dinner is actually ready or if he's just called down to set the table. When he sees that there are pans steaming on the dining table, he lets out a sigh of relief. It's actually ready for once and his mother hasn't tricked him into doing chores.

The rest of his family is already seated, and with this, he means his father, mother, and sister. He loves both women on the table to bits, even though they're sometimes slightly annoying, but his father was a whole different story.

Des Styles was a man that didn't appreciate Harry. Ever since he came out as a young boy as gay, he had been receiving glares and dirty looks from his father. This made Harry quite miserable, but the support from his mother and sister really pushed him through.

Now that he's nearing the dining table, he once again receives a not-so-pleasant glance from his dad and he quickly looks away toward his sister, who's smiling brightly at him. "Did you hear, Harry?" She asks excitedly, clearly thrilled about what she's about to announce. "The Royal Family is giving a special announcement tonight! Everyone has been speaking about it all day, but you were locked down in your room so you probably haven't heard." She rolls her eyes.

Harry finally takes a seat at the table, scooting his chair forward slightly so he's sitting closer to his plate. "No, I haven't heard about it yet..." Harry admits. He was too busy reading in his room, one of his favorite romance books once again, and was too caught up by it to be social. "Do you know what it's about?" He takes a sip of his water.

Gemma, his older sister by three years, groans. "You really do live under a stone, Haz! You should go out more!" She takes a bite from her food and slowly chews it into smaller pieces with her teeth, adding suspension with her pause. "And no, no one knows what it's about. It wasn't mentioned." She continues when she has finally swallowed her bite.

Harry's eyebrows shoot up in the air. He has to admit that is rather peculiar. Whenever there was an announcement or the Royal Family was on the television, it was always known to the audience, the commoners, what it was about. It makes Harry's stomach twist in knots, not knowing what's about to be announced.

Anne, his mother, must have noticed the look flashing over his face and reaches out her hand to lay it on top of Harry's, comforting him with her touch. "Don't worry about it too much, sweetheart. It's probably something about politics or something else not important."

His mother's words put his worries slightly to ease, but he's still curious and slightly worried about what is going to be announced.

"You must be excited to see Prince Louis again, huh?" Gemma tries to break the silence, but instead of this the tension in the room only grows. Des lets his cutlery fall to the table and stands up to leave the living room, not uttering a single word.

"Did you really have to do that, Gemma?" Anne chides her daughter, glowering slightly. "You know it's a sensitive topic and it's better to not discuss it, especially not at the dinner table."

Gemma's eyes dart away and meet Harry's, a look of sorrow in them. "I'm sorry, Haz. I didn't mean to. I was just trying to break the silence, honestly." She apologizes to her brother. Gemma also sees the looks of disgust on her father's face whenever he perceives Harry and it angers her. "It's not normal for a father to act like this." She looks over to Anne. "I really don't know what his deal is."

Anne shakes her head and lays her fork on her plate. "You know it's a hard topic for him to discuss. He has had a very different upbringing and because of this, his sights on some things are different than ours. All we can do is respect that. He hasn't said anything rude to Harry, so it could have been a lot worse."