Your Harry Fantasies.

She was small.
He was sure she was the smallest little baby he’d ever seen and held in his life; and he was a sucker for holding newborn babies and toddling around with children who had just found their feet, playing peek-a-boo and taking advantage of cuddling and cosying with them when he had the chance.
His daughter laid nestled into the crook of his arm, eyes wide open and her lips gaped open slightly in her expression, soft puffs of breath leaving her mouth with each inhale and exhale she consistently took. The pink blanket that swaddled her beforehand, that tightly cocooned her and kept her warm as she cosied against Harry’s chest, was torn from her and left her in her pink and spotted babygrow that you’d packed in with the necessities of the baby bag, a few days before you’d gone into labour. His figure perched down in the chair beside your hospital bed as he got to grips with taking over with his child, practising in the most comfortable ways to hold her and soothe her and to keep her satisfied and happy.
He was infatuated.
He’d never seen anything so small, and so beautiful, and so gorgeous, yet so delicate and fragile in his life. She had ten dainty fingers and ten little toes, lungs that had the capacity to lead to a singing career, eyes that would have people weakened by the colour, a face that was enough to break hearts – even at just a few hours old – and a cry that was enough to gain attention to her petite figure when she desired it.
He hadn’t loved anyone more than he loved his little girl; and she was only less than 9 hours old.
With you as an exception, he had fallen deeply in love with the tiny baby that was part him and part you, made from a night of passion and love and words that could only be expressed with actions of intimacy. His heart had burst with adoration and love at the very first sight of his baby, appearing from between your thighs and crying and mewling and wordlessly begging for the warmth and the comfort of someone to hold her close. His eyes had leaked tear after tear with happiness and joy, his nose scrunching as his lips stayed in a permanent curve, a dimple popping on his cheek as his eyes stayed glued to the baby laid upon your chest. Almost as soon as she’d touched base upon your chest, his hands had immediately occupied themselves with something to make him feel useful, shaking and nervous yet soft and mild; a finger was taken prisoner by the tight hold of his daughter’s fist, whilst his other hand stayed situated at the base of your back where his thumb gave soothing rubs to your tense muscles.
His chin sat on your shoulder, eyes hooded with a tired sting behind them but directed down towards the precious bundle that laid noisily upon your chest, limbs thrusting into the air and her tight fist – unoccupied by a finger – pushing at your skin, bright green eyes looking around at her surroundings, catching your face in her vision. Focused on Harry’s face as he gave her a small and fond and affectionate smile, getting a good look at the world she had now been brought into, that would now be her home for the rest of her life.
As he let you sleep in the bed ahead of him, it gave him time to bond with his daughter.
You’d had nine months to nurture her, you’d had nine months to make sure she was given everything she needed in order to stay healthy, you’d had nine months to feel everything happening inside your womb – the kicks, the hiccups, the belly flutters and the movements she’d make to get comfortable in the limiting space she had as she grew – and you’d had nine months to allow her to adjust to you as an individual; she’d heard your voice, she’d become knowledgeable of your mothering touch and she’d become frequent to the soft whispers you exchanged when you felt chatty and lonely during the times Harry popped out to the shops or went to get you both dinner.
He’d never had the opportunity to get the first-hand feel of the kicks; he’d been out with Gemma the day you felt the first nudge to your skin, and it was needless to say that he wasn’t thrilled on missing a big milestone in your pregnancy. Needless to say, he’d spent the rest of the day lounging on the sofa, never leaving your side, keeping a hand on your curve to make sure he didn’t miss the next strong jolt in your belly.
He’d never had the opportunity to feel the perks – and the downsides, as he’d seen with your hormone changes – of pregnancy; he’d read the pregnancy books and he attended all the birthing classes you’d signed the two of you up for, and he’d researched just what a woman was feeling at certain points throughout as a human grew between their hips, but he was unfortunate to have been born a man. Without the womb and the uterus, he was just useless and unworkable in a situation fitting the norm of a woman.
Sitting with his little girl after nine tenuous months of watching your bump grow between your hips, month after month after month, was enough for him to fit 270-something days into just a few hours space. He kissed her forehead more times than he could count on both his hands and both his feet, he’d whispered his love to her more times than he could remember and he’d held her in his arms the entirety of the time you’d fallen asleep.
4 hours you’d been asleep.
Snoring peacefully, wincing subconsciously each time you shuffled upon the bed, mumbling softly every so often as each second passed, catching his attention in case you needed medical awareness.
The little girl tucked into the crook of his arm was just minutes under 9 hours old.
And she’d brought joy, happiness and a whole lot of love into his life.
Joy because he was finally a father.
He finally had the one thing he’d been after since he was twenty-years old; a family. After being surrounded by families on tour and during interviews and photoshoots, and having a split family himself, he wanted one to spoil and come home too after a long day. Cuddling on the sofa when it got cold in the evenings, having family outings to the park or to the zoo on a Sunday afternoon, early mornings started by tiny patters of feet along the hallway and continuing with hefty bodies jumping on the bed and falling between the two bodies, and, celebrating birthdays and festive holidays together.
Happiness because, after tough hormonal months and aches and pains and swollen limbs, the both of you finally became parents.
You no longer had to stay relaxed throughout the day, you no longer had to whine about your swollen feet and sore ankles, and you no longer had to beg and prod for Harry to tend to your cravings when your daughter made you hungry – sometimes for something that seemed out of the ordinary, sometimes for something that had Harry putting his chef skills to the test, and sometimes for something that had him dressing warmly and driving around to find the nearest service station that sold fast food. You had a tendency to wake him through the night when you wanted something made or brought in from the 24-hour store down the street, poking his shoulder or pinching his nose or softly kicking him awake when he stayed stagnant and wheezing beside you.
You finally had the source of all the swelling and all the pain and all of the cravings in your life.
Bringing a whole load of new found love in, not only his heart, but yours as well.
He’d fallen head over heels for you at the age of 18, and he hadn’t ever stopped falling deeper for you. Every day he saw you, he felt his heart skip a beat. Every morning that you woke up beside him, cosied under the covers and sporting one of his t-shirts, he was thrilled you were the first person he saw to get the day started on a high. Every night he kissed you goodnight, he went to sleep with a smile on his face, his mind content with the knowledge that you were beside him, cuddled into his side and sleeping soundly against his chest.
But, by 23-years old and on his wedding day, he didn’t think he could fit any more love in his body.
That was until the September day came around, and he was met with his daughter; one that filled all the voids that sat empty in, not only his heart, but his body too.
“I love you,” he whispered softly, his chin dipping down to his chest as he spoke in a hushed tone, “you have no idea how thrilled me and mummy have been since we found out about you all those months ago.”
His profession of love earned a soft grunt from his little girl’s lips, a breathy chuckle leaving his mouth as her fingers unwrapped from around his finger, removing her tight hold from his digit and retracting her arm away from his body.
“That’s not the sound I was expecting to hear when I tell you I love you,” Harry chuckled, bopping her on her tiny button nose with the tip of his finger and watching as she scrunched her features up at the pressure, “you know something, poppet? Nana can’t wait to meet you this afternoon. She’ll tell you over and over again that you pull the same faces that daddy use to make when he was a baby,” Harry hummed with amusement behind his tone, “she’s coming all the way from Holmes Chapel. S’where daddy used to live when he was a baby. We took you up there so many times to see everyone when you were in mummy’s belly.”
A smile lifted up his cheeks when his green eyes locked with the familiar coloured orbs belonging to his baby.
She had the same eyes as him, so he’d been told by all the nurses tending to you and your daughter. But it was nothing compared to the features she had that resembled you; she had your button-nose, your fleshy yet pink lips and your cheekbones that fit her structure to the complete mirror image of the woman Harry hoped she grew up to be like.
“You look so much like mummy; you know that, poppet? You’re just as beautiful as she is. I’m lucky to have two of her,” Harry whispered, adjusting her body in his arm and setting her on his chest, her chin resting upon his shoulder as one hand of his cupped her bum and one hand cupped and stabled the back of her head, “you’re going to grow up to look so much like her, you know? You’re going to be a mini-mummy and it’s going to be so difficult to tear you from her when I want some cuddles,” he chuckled, “so, you have to promise me you’ll save some cuddles.”
As a promise, she hiccupped. The sound contracting his chest as he heard it up close with his ear, the soft tufts of her brown hair tickling at his lobe.
“You’ve worn mummy out,” he whispered, turning his head and nudging his nose against the skin of her skull that was set above her ear, “m’so proud of her. She’s been a trooper today. All to bring you into the world,” he whispered, his lips brushing over her head and causing her head to tilt at the warmth applied to her, “she’s been amazing for the nine months of making you and keeping you healthy, and she’s stunned me today by how strong she was. Got a few bruises on my arms and some cuts on my hands from her nails, but, you know what? It was all worth it. Because we got you at the end of everything, poppet.”
Behind him, the door creaked open, a set of squeaking wheels and shoes scuffing along the tiled floor entering the room.
“How are we doing?” A young nurse wondered – Kelsey, printed on her nametag upon her scrubs – as she set the portable table at the end of your bed, “you look like a natural, Harry. A natural father.”
“Thank you,” he whispered, a crack in his voice as he sat himself up in the chair and focused on what Kelsey was doing.
“Just another hourly check-up, don’t worry,” Kelsey smiled, removing the confusion lacing Harry’s facial features, “we’ll wait until mummy wakes up fully and we’ll try some breastfeeding and give her a change whilst you both try and eat something yourselves.”
At the mention of breastfeeding, Harry felt a fuzz in his tummy.
He’d always found the concept endearing; being a wild supporter himself, of women breastfeeding in public, because it was a natural activity for a new mother of a new baby to portray.
You were fearsome of having it happen to you when you were finally on the route to being a mother; catching a glimpse of disgusted faces in a restaurant or on public transport as you feed your little girl or hearing tuts and huffs and disgruntled mutters coming from the elderly during their walks in the park had you feeling nervous and embarrassed, and Harry was no stranger to calming you down a promising you that it was something that couldn’t be helped and was beautiful in all of it’s entirety.
“Now, have we discussed breastfeeding?”
Harry gave Kelsey a nod.
“We’ve had some discussions about it, yeah,” Harry smiled, “she’s been a bit nervous about the whole idea, which is completely understandable, considering my status and how public I am when we go out together. She just doesn’t want to be stared at in disgust or spoken about as if she committed a crime.”
“Have you spoken about how normal it is? I presume you have,” Kelsey smiled, “you seem like a daddy who read the books and went to every appointment, am I right?”
He gave a soft laugh to her comment, standing to his feet as carefully as he could and made his way to the end of the bed.
“I promised her that if it happens when we’re out, then I’ll be her shield as best to my ability,” Harry explained, “and if she’s out with my sister or her mum or any of our families, that I’ll pack a blanket in the nappy bag for her to shield herself from the staring eyes,” he added, laying his little girl down on the table, coated with a blanket and a packet of wipes in case she’d excremented in his hold, “I don’t want the paparazzi to catch shots of her and post them all over the papers and magazines without our consent. We managed to go through this pregnancy with minimal problems with photos being sold to the media so we’re hoping to keep it that way.”
“She’s a lucky woman to have someone as great as you,” Kelsey cooed, squeezing his hand as he unbuttoned his daughters babygrow, “now, we’ll change her before we do anything else, I think. Just in case she’s gone to the toilet and it can’t be detected yet. We don’t want her to sit in her own filth, and, you don’t want this to happen in the future. She’ll get rashes and become sore and that’s never comfortable for babies.”
“We’ve stocked up on nappies and wipes and everything possible to keep her clean,” Harry chuckled lightly, “you should have seen her after our baby shower. We had thousands of everything brought for us by all our friends and our families. She was sat in the living room just swamped with boxes and clothes around her, folding up beanies and onesies and t-shirts.”
Leaving the house in your care for a few hours as he popped out to the pub with his dad, consuming just a few beers and a roast dinner through the afternoon, he’d arrived back to piles upon piles of baby clothes set beside you on the sofa, and boxes stacked upon boxes consuming nappies from different brands and wipes and bottles as well as necessities needed to transport her as easily as he could.
“You’re set for the next few years then, hm?” Kelsey laughed, reaching for a clean nappy and passing it to his awaiting hand, “you want to take this one off carefully before tightly closing it and dropping it into a bag. Newborn babies’ faeces seem to be a lot stronger in smell due to them only being fresh from the womb, so, don’t be alarmed if it smells offish.”
A chuckle left Harry’s lips as his fingers, long yet dainty, tugged at the tabs of the nappy around his little girl’s hips, loosening the material and becoming almost alert to the smell his tiny little girl had created.
“I’ve been on a few too many tours with 3 guys that smell awful after a show,” Harry admitted, “our tour bus smelt worse than this. Just ask my missus, she’ll tell you the truth.”
“I can imagine the putridity,” Kelsey laughed, watching as Harry folded the nappy and dropped it into the bag she was holding, “now, you want to wipe around the crevice of her thighs with a wipe. Soft and gentle but get between where the skin folds over because that’s where the bacteria begins to build up and form rashes and sore spots,” she stated, watching as he carefully used the wipe in his hand to clean up the skin from excess excrement, “you’re a natural, I’m telling you. Have you changed a baby before?”
“Not a newborn, no. Our tour hairdresser and stylist brought her baby on tour when she was a few months old and we all doted on her like crazy. As the older teenagers would do,” Harry grinned with a laugh, soon changing into an incoherent babble of words as he caught the disgruntled look of his little girl’s face beneath his towering figure, “oh, poppet. Daddy’s just cleanin’ you up then you can have some snuggles with mummy whilst daddy has something to eat.”
He continued to wipe at her fresh skin, a frown forming on her features and he was sure she was about to cry out in a shrill volume; something he’d been free from hearing for the last few hours of keeping her settled in his hold.
“Do we have a name for her?”
As he was about to reveal the name and keep Kelsey up to date, Harry’s attention turned to the yawn leaving your lips, your figure rousing up and stretching as best as you could from the few hours of kip you’d taken advantage of getting.
“We do,” you hummed, with sleep still evident in your throat, a smile on her lips, “we have a name.”
Disregarding the previous inclination of wanting to know her name, Kelsey jumped right to focusing her attention on you; making sure you were okay, making sure you weren’t feeling dizzy or nauseous, making sure you weren’t feeling any pain where you shouldn’t be feeling pain, and ensuring that you were more than okay and well underway to being released from the hospital later that day – a hopeful yet heart-breaking good riddance to the three of you jotted down and set for lunchtime.
“Good morning, (Y/N). How are we feeling today?”
A grunt leaving your throat was enough for Kelsey to understand you were still sore in some areas; a bearable, but still tough and throbbing ache between your thighs had you wincing as you sat upright and stretched out your dead legs.
But that was normal, so you’d been informed, after Harry had read that section in a book one night in his bath.
“Sore,” you stated, straight to the point and frowning softly, “but I feel so great. She’s finally here. We have a baby. A little, tiny baby that’s me and Harry.”
“We do finally have our baby,” Harry grinned, carefully lifting the baby’s legs up in his hand to slide the cleaner nappy beneath her body, “’ere we go, poppet. All clean now.”
A comfortable silence filled the room, the consistent beep of your heartrate monitor being the only sound heard in the room, an occasional mewl leaving your daughters’ mouth when Harry made a move that had her feeling discomfort.
It was only a matter of seconds before you broke the quiet.
“Did I hear you mention breastfeeding to Harry?” You wondered nervously, picking at the blanket covering your legs and gulping nervously, “I read some babies and women have trouble with that. What if she doesn’t latch to me? What if she never latches to me at all? Will I still be able to feed her in another way? I just, I’m scared about this. I’ve heard so many stories and I researched breastfeeding and loads came up that babies don’t latch sometimes.”
You were panicky.
But it was nothing Kelsey hadn’t seen before with her job.
As Harry tightened the tabs around your daughter’s hips, lifting her gently to ensure it was tight enough not to fall down or undo on it’s own, Kelsey approached your side and took a hold of one of your nervous hands in her own. Her thumb rubbing over your knuckles in a soothing manner, your eyes still focused on the blanket thrown over you, a sigh leaving the gap between your lips.
“We’ll do everything we can to get her to latch first,” Kelsey smiled, “if she doesn’t, we have formula to feed her that you can do yourself. I have hope that she’ll latch on right away.”
“Hey,” Harry whispered from the end of the bed, his hands guiding his baby’s limbs into the legs and sleeves of her babygrow, buttoning it up her chest and adjusting the material over her body, “she’s a Styles. She’s part me, Gorgeous. If she’s anything like a daddy’s girl, she’ll latch on to you as soon as she realises what’s happening.”
A gasp left your mouth in response to his statement, eyes widening as you looked to him in shock, as a muffled giggle left the midwife’s mouth at the scene playing out in front of her.
“Harry!”
It took him just a few seconds before it clicked into his mind; he hadn’t meant it in that way.
“I meant food,” he blurted out, lifting his daughter into his arms and supporting her head with his palm as he shuffled around the bed, “you know I love food. So, if she’s anything like me, she’ll latch on and eat right away.”
Guiding the baby down into your arms, giving his arms a break from being in the same position as the minutes passed, he swiftly pressed his lips to yours in a loving gesture. One that had gone missing in the last few hours, but, only took a brief peck for you to be informed that he was still there and loving you with every fibre of his being.
“I love you,” you hummed, Kelsey’s cold fingers pulling at the strings of your gown and loosening it from around your shoulders, “couldn’t have done this without you.”
“Hey,” Harry cooed, nudging his nose to your forehead before puckering his lips and pressing them to the space between your eyes, “you’ve done so incredible well today, that, I think it’s difficult to fall out of love with you,” he chuckled, looking down at his daughter before catching your eyes, “I love you, too. I’m so thankful for you. I don’t think I’ve ever loved two people so much in my whole life as much as I love you and Persephone. I really do love you both so much, and, I feel like the luckiest man in the world.”
He wasn’t lying.

Notes