The day for Harry to leave for school had finally come.
The morning of Harry’s departure was not the defiant, cinematic exit he had imagined all night long.
Instead, it was a slow, agonizing unraveling between him and his sweet little angel.
The hallway of the McGuire estate was filled with the sound of Lolleta’s inconsolable wailing—a raw, high-pitched scream that seemed to vibrate in the very marrow of Harry’s bones.
She didn’t understand the politics and the dangers of the Mayfairs at St Jude’s; but she only knew that the person who smelled like home was suddenly pulling away from her.
“Dada! Dada, go with Lolly! go with Lolly!…waaaah” she shrieked, her small face flushed in frantic red, her tiny fingers clutching at the fabric of Harry’s coat with a strength that shouldn’t have been possible for a toddler.
Harry knelt down on the floor rocking her stroller back and forth, with his own eyes burning with second thoughts.
He gently unpicked her grip, one by one, finger by finger.
Every time he loosened one finger, she grabbed hold with the other hand.
It was a physical struggle.
“My baby, I have to go, Lolly, come on now let go of dada please” he whispered, his voice thick and broken.
“I’m doing this for you, for us. Do you understand baby?.. I am going to end the ties of that man linked with you, so please calm down Daddy is going to come back soon.”
Lucy stood behind them, her face a map of silent tears, worried about Harry safety instead.
She stepped forward and scooped the thrashing child into her arms.
The contrast was stark: Lucy, the grieving mother trying to preserve what was left, and Harry, the survivor walking back into the fire he barely survived from.
“Go, Harry,” Lucy urged, her voice trembling as she tucked Lolleta’s head into her shoulder to muffle the screams.
“Go before your heart fails you. I will keep her hidden. I will keep her safe from Gerald too… and from them as well so go right now before I also change my mind.”
Harry nodded finally walking away after kissing both of them, he didn’t look back.
He knew that if he saw Lolleta’s tear-streaked face in the window one last time, he would have to stay.
And staying meant waiting for Andrew to eventually come for them both.
******
As Harry’s chauffeur drove toward St Jude’s Academy that was dwelled atop of the mountain hill, the skyline of the East Mountain began to loom over the horizon like a jagged, black tooth.
He felt the pit of his stomach starting to churn.
He wasn’t the same boy who had fled in the middle of the night three years ago.
He was a father, a victim of hypocrisy, and a young man trying to mend the pieces of his life for the sake of his daughter and his own…now he had a lot to lose.
******
The news of Harry’s return hit the campus before his car even cleared the gates.
In the Faculty Lounge, Whispers of the “Bishop’s Prodigal Son” returning to finish his credits began to spread.
The family car dropped him off at the campus and then it left again leaving Harry to face his past right from where he left off.
“Look at that, isn’t that Harry McGuire?…wow he is so brazen to come back here after what happened.”
“No he is not brazen he is just plain stupid, coming back to where he is hated the most by the owners of this school is like willingly walking himself into the gallows to have his head chopped off.”
“His brother just died a few days ago and yet here he is continuing with his life like nothing happened. No wonder senior Andrew discarded him, he has no heart.”
“Well so what?, he has his karma too remember?”
“And talking about Karma, what about his child?, shouldn’t he be taking care of her right now since it seems like he came without her?”
“What if he brings her too after enrolling?, Perhaps he will stay with her at the family housing, who knows?”
“Wait what?, at the family housing?….does senior Andrew know all about his return then?”
“I wonder!”
“My god my god my good god!!!….what if he doesn’t know?, and what if he still can’t stand him?….then doesn’t this mean that Harry is as good as dead already?”
“Shhh!, why are you being so loud?”
The girls exchange glances at him still gossiping at the far sofa across Harry, not even trying to hide the contents of their whispers.
Harry sighs, leaning back on the sofa browsing his phone as he waits for the administrator to assist him.
Just his presence at the campus was enough to stir a frenzy among the students.
Some had even assumed that he came back to avenge Malfoy’s death, or to claim back Andrew the father of his child for himself.
A lot was said behind his back but as usual, he kept his calm and brushed everyone off, minding his own business.
But he couldn’t deny the fact that he was a little nervous about his return to this hell hole, no..more than anything he was anxious.
*******
Up in his office, Andrew sat behind his mahogany desk, watching the security feed of the front gate.
When Harry’s car appeared on the screen, he didn’t frown.
Instead, he leaned back on his chair, and a slow, predatory smile spread across his face with a knowing look.
He couldn’t hide the excitement from his face as he watched Harry’s movements on the screen the entire time.
“No child,” Andrew murmured, a dark, hungry light dancing in his eyes.
“How bold. He thinks he’s coming here to be a martyr. Haha…would you look at that?,”
Andrew murmured to the empty room tapping his fingers on the desk softly.
“I was wondering how long it would take for him to realize that he can’t run from the person who owns his leash and his freedom.”
“This is great…his return is worth a celebration.” A soft chuckle escaped his mouth with a big grin playing out on his face.
Even his heart had accelerated beyond understanding and he loved every bit of how ecstatic he was feeling.
He was beyond excited, he was overjoyed.
Andrew picked up his intercom, his voice dropping into that smooth, terrifyingly calm tone that always preceded a “10th of the month” event.
“Molly, Bryan and Bryson, the ‘Mother’ of my child has finally come back home. So we should welcome him properly, don’t you think?.”
“What?, isn’t Malfoy dead already?” Bryan spun his chair around as he walked to look out of the window watching the students wander about.
“Malfoy lied to us about that because he wanted to warm himself into my life….Harry is the real vessel of my daughter, don’t ever question that again.”
Bryan cleared his throat nodding and Andrew turned to face on the footage once again.
Andrew knows the real truth regarding Lolleta’s birth as well because he had his own suspicions before finding it out, but he preferred believing the lie instead of the truth.
Because after all Harry had cherished the child like his own and even raised her.
And that technically makes Harry the ‘mother’ of his only child.
They are a family.
*******
Back at the foyer of the administration office, where Harry had waited.
A good thirty minutes had passed after being re-enrolled back into the Academy’s system, and now Harry was finally on his way to the common dormitories to find his room and settle down.
Harry stepped further inside the campus grounds looking around, he saw Lucas standing by the fountain, looking like he hadn’t slept in days.
Despite of his surroundings remaining unchanged for the whole two years, the people of the school were the only change while he was gone.
And this very boy in front of him was the very example of that change.
The moment Harry walked towards the dormitories, now with audience watching his every move the atmosphere on the campus shifted.
It was as if the air itself grew heavy, pressurized by the return of the only person who had ever truly defied the Mayfair status quo.
Lucas was standing by the fountain, his reflection in the water as fractured as his mental state.
When he saw Harry, his eyes immediately darted behind Harry, looking for someone then to Harry’s side, and finally to his empty arms.
The relief Lucas expected to feel—the relief that the innocent Lolleta was far away from Andrew’s reach—never came.
Instead, a cold, hollow dread settled in his stomach.
Lucas understood the Mayfair logic better than anyone now.
To Andrew, Lolleta was not only a prize he owned, but she was also the “shield” for Harry, Andrew had to play a certain game of cat-and-mouse to ensure he got what he wanted.
But with Harry now standing there alone, unprotected and defiant, the game had exponentially changed.
Andrew no longer had to be “careful” about harming Harry.
Without the child as a distraction, Harry was simply a target—the ultimate “entertainment” for the tyrant.
Harry walked toward the dormitory, his boots clicking on the pavement with a lethal, rhythmic certainty.
He stopped three feet away from Lucas.
The fountain bubbled between them, a mockery of the peace and friendliness they used to know between each other.
It was a little awkward and uncomfortable.
After all Lucas was more of Malfoy’s best friend instead of his, they were only acquainted, with no bad blood between them as they used to chill together the time Malfoy and Harry got along.
But now with Malfoy gone, their bridge was also burned down, one has to go their own way.
They will greet each other when walking past, but they will never be friends.
“You look like hell,” Harry said.
His voice wasn’t filled with the coldness from the funeral; it was something worse.
It was pity.
A pity for the boy who was so slowly withering away and losing himself.
“Harry, you shouldn’t have come back,” Lucas whispered, his eyes frantically scanning the windows of the administrative building, looking for the glint of Andrew’s binoculars.
“Without the girl… you have no leverage. He’s going to be vicious. He’s been waiting for this.”
Harry adjusted the strap of his bag, his eyes tracking a group of ‘elite’ seniors who had stopped to stare at him from across the quad.
“I didn’t come back for leverage, Lucas,” Harry replied.
“And I didn’t come back to be a ‘victim’ as well. Andrew thinks that he can walk over me, but he forgot one thing.”
Harry leaned in, and for the first time, Lucas saw a flicker of the menacing energy Andrew usually emitted in Harry’s gaze—a dark, cold readiness.
“A creator is always responsible for the monster they build. If he wanted a nightmare, then he has finally got one.”
He smirked.
Before turning around on his heel stepping inside the dormitory.
*******
Later that very same day, just when Harry had finally got a spare time to catch his breath a moment, a bubbly and giddy girl disturbed him by sneaking up on him from behind.
She covered his eyes, smiling expectantly while Harry scoffed for a brief moment before chuckling a bit and decided to go with the flow.
“Alice I know that it’s you sweetheart..”
“Urgh!, couldn’t you just at least pretend to guess before answering abruptly?… you’re no fun.”
Harry laughed pulling down her hands from his face and then he spun around to face his ex girlfriend Alice and she was smiling at him from ear to ear instantly after seeing him look up at her.
She pecked his lips, her heart swelling with expectations, joy and anxiety because of how much she had missed him.
Two years is a long time apart without even the slight of communication.
Every once in a while when she thought of him she believed that she would never ever get to see him again.
After all Harry left in the middle of the night with the newborn baby, without even a single word or a goodbye.
But she never blamed him, in fact she had only learned recently not to blame him because of what he has been through because of Andrew and everyone.
But back then just like everyone else she had turned against him and shunned him, believing that he had cheated on her with Andrew which miraculously resulted him to conceive.
Harry’s life with the child was put on the spotlight worldwide, it was an unprecedented case, for a man to fall pregnant just like how a woman would and actually give birth to a perfect human child.
With him it was possible, the very son of a well known Bishop had committed a sin and resulted into something God had never created but the Mayfairs did.
The Bishop shunned Harry first, then everyone else followed suit.
Including the very same father of the child, Andrew.
Harry became a laughingstock for everyone to scrutinise and humiliate.
He was judged, hated, resented, pushed away, mocked, violated and isolated.
Called a demon and an abnormal being by those who followed the will of God.
But there were also those who revered him as a deity chosen by God to fulfil the unprecedented, but even those fanatics harassed him and stalked him all around.
His life was really chaotic and unsafe…
more so for the miracle child.
But Alice seeing Harry as he is now, she can finally boast out loud that nothing managed to break him and drag him down….he was strong and he will continue to be strong no matter what happens in his life.
For her that was a certainty.
If they have failed to break him now while he is still isolated and powerless, then they will never succeed in the future.
Because Harry’s life is being rewritten all over again, he is about to become even more stronger to protect himself and his daughter.
“Girl you look gorgeous, I see that you have been well and healthy without me here huh?”
“Ow shut up, you are the one who looks the most healthy between the two of us.” Alice awkwardly smiled, she had been unsure about greeting him first earlier.
But seeing Harry was genuinely happy to see her, guilt started to eat down at her.
Probably because she had expected him to push her away and hate her for what she did…even if it’s just a little bit, just for how she had treated him back then.
“What’s the point of dwelling in the past when you did what you thought was right because of how I cheated on you and ‘fell pregnant’ for another man?…you had every right to hate me.”
Harry’s voice pierced through her thoughts startling her, it’s as if he had personally sneak peeked into her head to know what she was really thinking.
And yet even so, he was still smiling so calmly making Alice feel bad even more.
Alice sulked throwing herself at him teary and Harry chuckled, patting her back, knowingly.
“How dramatic Alice.”
“You!…you-, how can you be so kind to me when you have every right to hate me huh?, I claimed to be your girlfriend but yet I pushed you away just like everyone else did and I pushed you in a dark corner while you were so-…”
“Alice…” Harry softly called out, holding her shoulders, positioning her to look at him properly and not move an inch.
“Alice you had every right to feel that way, I am the one who cheated first.”
“No Harry…knowing Andrew Mayfair’s personality I should’ve at least assumed that he forced himself on you at the first place. And judging by how he discarded you afterwards just like everyone else, it seems that’s likely the case.”
Harry sighs letting go of her, as much as he would like clear those absurd misunderstandings from being spread, he had no choice but to follow through because he had admitted so many times that he had truly slept with Andrew Mayfair and fell pregnant for him, Everyone knows him as the one who gave birth to Lolleta.
So withdrawing those claims now would only make him look like a clown.
Anyhow it is all better this way.
“So are we cool again?” Alice asked, a little nervous about Harry’s response but to her surprise Harry was okay with being friends with her again if she didn’t want to continue from where they left off.
It made her really happy.
“Cool then.
But I am really happy to see you though..how is “motherhood” huh?, is the princess treating you well?”
Harry huffs for a moment and then he shakes his head scowling at Alice before pinching her cheeks together.
“It’s fatherhood for your own information and well it’s quite nice because I am raising such an angel. I miss my daughter already and I can’t stop thinking about her as we speak.”
“Aww she must be really big now and really cute.”
“Of course because she takes after his father duh!”
“Which one?, you or the Mayfair hottie?”
Alice winks at him chuckling and Harry huffs pinching her cheeks again making Alice gasp in pain and made it Harry’s to laugh at her.
“You’re so hopeless Alice.” Harry nudges her before walking to get seated at the bench and watch the campus view right next to her.
“Anyway, it seems like everyone is talking about your return in there, as if they are anticipating something big to happen between you and Andrew Mayfair.”
“Leave them be, they will soon all realise that it is pointless anticipating anything from me.”
He smirks nudging her to look at him and Alice just throws herself on his arms to snuggle.
She missed his scent so much.
“You were not supposed to be back at school so soon, you should grieve your brother a little more.”
“I would rather not Alice, after all I am coping just fine like this.”
“Urgh come on Harry I know that you are not fine, you are only putting a mask infront of everyone else.”
“Alic-..”
“He said that he is fine, didn’t he?….what part of that did you not understand young girl?”
Harry and Alice turned to look at where the voice came from, to the female figure that stood behind them glaring at Alice.
Alice quickly jumped up to stand on both her steady feet before bowing her head at 90° to pay her respects to the eldest granddaughter of the Mayfair family…Molly Mayfair….the ice-cold princess.
Even though the summer sun was beginning to dip, casting long, amber shadows across the campus quad, but the temperature seemed to plummet the moment Molly Mayfair stepped into the light.
Alice stood frozen in her bow, her breath hitching with expectation.
In the hierarchy of St Jude’s Academy, a 90-degree bow wasn’t just a sign of respect; it was a survival tactic towards the powerful.
And right now across her stood the one whose family was at the apex of power and wealth.
Molly stood there, draped in a tailored black blazer that looked like mourning clothes for a funeral that hadn’t ended yet.
Her eyes were no longer on Alice; they were fixed on Harry with a terrifying, longing intensity.
“Molly…why are you here?” Harry asked, his voice flat.
He didn’t stand up.
He didn’t bow.
He remained seated on the bench, the very image of defiance.
Molly stepped closer, her heels clicking like a countdown on the pavement.
She looked down at Alice, then back at Harry.
“You always did have a habit of surrounding yourself with people who don’t know when to stay silent, Harry. It’s a dangerous trait to keep.”
She turned her gaze to Alice, her voice dropping to a silk-wrapped threat.
“Dismissed, Alice. I believe you have a lecture to prepare for. Or perhaps you’d prefer to spend your evening explaining to the student council why you’re fraternizing with someone whose family status is… ‘under review’?”
Alice didn’t wait for a second warning.
She cast a single, worried glance at Harry before scurrying away toward the dorms, her footsteps frantic.
Once they were alone, Molly sat down on the bench beside Harry—not close enough to touch, but close enough for him to smell her expensive, floral perfume, the same scent that had filled the hall where Malfoy died.
“You shouldn’t have come back, Harry,” she murmured, her voice losing its sharp edge and replacing it with something even more disturbing: genuine, twisted affection.
“Andrew is in a state of… a heightened expectation. He sees your return as a surrender. He thinks you’ve come back to give him what he’s owed.”
“He’s owed nothing but a grave next to my brother’s,” Harry replied, finally looking at her.
“And you, Molly? What are you here for? More ‘entertainment’?”
Molly reached out, her fingers hovering just inches away from Harry’s hand, tracing the air above his skin.
“I told you once that I loved you. Even after what Andrew did to you… even after Lolleta. I could have protected you. If you had just come to me.”
“Just shut the hell up Molly!,” Harry snapped, his voice a low growl.
“Don’t pretend your ‘love’ has a conscience because believe me, it doesn’t!.”
Molly’s expression hardened, the mask of the Mayfair heiress sliding back into place.
She stood up, smoothing her skirt and then glanced at Harry.
“Fine then, if it’s space that you want then I’ll give it you. I understand that you are grieving Malfoy right now and you’re also anxious about your return to the school, or perhaps you’re even more worried about being without Lolleta but I just want you to not push me away. Hear out what I have to say first.”
“And tomorrow, I’ll come and see you again.”
As she walked away, Harry, he saw Lucas now standing on the balcony instead of the fountain looking down at him with a face full of tears, clutching a black hood in his hands.
Malfoy’s hood.
That’s when Harry smiled…
“He’s still going to suffer, all of them will…and I’m here to enjoy each and every part of it before landing a final blow. And they won’t see me coming, oh trust me they won’t.”