An Unexpected Turn

Chapter 8

The rest of the weekend went better than ever. Harry and Mal stayed cooped up in Mal and Evie's room, Evie having spent the weekend with Doug and his family.

Most of the weekend consisted of movies and conversation. Despite having the room to themselves, they decided to take things slow. Everyone, including Mal's father, had already assumed that they had slept together, and neither of them felt it was necessary to correct anyone. Why should they? It was their business, and they didn't want to bring that specific part of their new relationship into the public. After all, Mal still had the press hounding her about every little thing she did.

Harry had just walked in with pizza when he heard the shower turn off. "I'm back," he called out, "So feel free to walk out without a towel." Harry smirked, placing the pizza box on Mal's desk.

Mal rolled her eyes at his comment as she dried herself off before pulling on a pair of shorts and one of Harry's clean shirts. "You know, you may have everyone fooled by this 'More than a pirate' act, but I'm not buying it." She teased as she walked into the bedroom.

"Aye, I am more than a pirate, but that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore my beautiful girlfriend if she chooses to walk around the room without anything on."

She threw her wet towel at him. "You're lucky I love you."

There were those words again. She had said them so much, but Harry hadn't even danced around them. It was always "You mean so much to me" or "I can't imagine losing you", but never those three simple words. It worried Mal. As he said, Harry was more than just a pirate and she believed that, but maybe growing up as one affected his ability to love. What if he didn't love her? She didn't know if she could handle that.

"That I am, Princess. That I am." He said hanging the towel on the hook behind the bathroom door.

—

Later that night, Harry wanted to do something for Mal. Something that would make her happy. After much thought, he had an idea. Her spellbook. She'd told him about how Ben had her donate it to the museum to prevent it falling into the wrong hands. If you asked Harry, it seemed like a way for Ben to further control her.

He told Mal he just had to run to the library for a bit to find a book for class, when in reality, he made his way towards the museum. How hard would it be to steal the book from an Auradon museum? The thing must be guarded by nothing but trust. Harry snorted at the thought.

As he walked down the hallways of the museum, he couldn't help but notice the many villain exhibits. "For a place that hated villains, they definitely honor them a lot." He said to himself.

When he finally found Maleficent's exhibit, his eyes scanned the room before finally falling on the spellbook. "Ah, there ye are." He said, picking up the book and flipping through a few pages. "Hair changing spell, fancy dinner spell, proper etiquette spell...she tried to be an Auradon girl and the bloody king did nothing to help her." He muttered, shaking his head.

"Actually, I didn't know about those spells for a while. The hair was obvious, but I didn't know that she was writing spells to try to be perfect." Ben said, strolling into the room.

"She already is perfect without the Auradon princess bullshit." Harry snapped. "You should've known she'd do that. Here, she was nothing more than a people-pleaser, a shell of who she was on the Isle. Leaving you has started to bring her back."

Ben let out a sigh, sitting on one of the small metal benches. "I know. I should've paid attention more, should've talked to her more, asked her how she was doing. I just assumed she was fine and continued on with my work as king."