The Reinvention of Harry Styles

Harry sat in his dressing room tapping his foot nervously. The pomegranate scented candles he always brought with him were not as calming as he’d hoped. He heard his opening act, MUNA, finishing up, and he knew it was only a matter of time before he would be on that stage, facing his fans in concert for the first time as solo artist Harry Styles.

A quiet knock on the door brought him out of his thoughts. “Come in,” he said without taking his eyes off the spot he was staring intently at for no particular reason.

“15 minutes, Harry,” someone said, before leaving. Molly slipped in behind them and came to stand next to Harry.

“You look nice,” she said softly, and his eyes darted up to the mirror in front of them to meet hers. Molly studied the outfit Rupert had put him in: black skinny jeans (as usual), a v-neck Pink Floyd shirt - with the ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ prism splayed across the front, and a black jacket which had small flowers embroidered on the lapel. “I like the rainbow on your shirt.”

“That’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, you know, Pink Floyd,” Harry explained with a smirk.

“Oh, well I think it suits you.” Molly smiled.

“Thank you,” he turned to face her. “Do you think these are too much?”

“The glitter boots!” Molly squealed and bent down to touch them. “No, I think they’re perfect!”

Harry cracked a smile at her enthusiasm, but it didn’t last long. Jeff opened the door while knocking, and saw Molly kneeling in front of Harry.

“Oh, um, I can come back,” Jeff started, and backed out of the doorway.

“It’s fine,” Harry stood up to talk to him and Molly realized what Jeff thought he’d seen. She smiled to herself and stood up.

“They’re setting up the stage now if you’d like to come out, maybe say a few words to the band,” Jeff suggested.

Harry nodded, but didn’t say anything. He followed Jeff down the hall, with Molly right behind him, to the musician’s dressing rooms. They were casually chatting, not looking nearly as nervous and on edge as Harry felt.

“Hey!” Sarah smiled and hugged him. “You ready for the big night?”

Harry nodded, and they all turned a bit to face him. “I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to say, but let’s give them a good show. We’ve rehearsed enough, and I feel confident in all of you, so I think this should go well.” Harry swallowed hard and wished he felt as confident in himself as he did his band. He didn’t know what else to say, so Molly stepped up.

“We get to show off the ‘new’ Harry Styles tonight, and I think it’ll be well received. Good luck guys!” She smiled at the band and squeezed Harry’s hand, leaving them to warm up together.

As she and Jeff walked toward the stage, where they would be watching the concert from the wings, she could tell he wanted to say something to her.

“This is when we see if all your work paid off or not,” he finally said, sounding a bit ominous.

“I’m confident in Harry and the decisions we’ve made to correct his image.” Molly answered, standing her ground and giving Jeff a stern glance. “But they’re his die-hard fans, they’ll love him no matter what. What really matters is if the reviewers like him, and what they write in the papers tomorrow.”

Jeff nodded in agreement, but didn’t say anything. After a moment, Harry and his band joined them, all joking and chatting about the upcoming show. Harry seemed more at ease now, but there was a palpable nervous energy thickening the air and making it difficult to breath. Molly leaned into Harry to give him a hug, and he brought his hands up to her face.

“You’re going to kill it out there tonight,” she grinned up at him, and he lowered his face to give her a kiss.

“You think?” He said without much enthusiasm. “Then why do I feel like I’m the one who’s going to get killed?”

“You’ll be fine, Harbear. Once you feel that energy again, with the crowd chanting your name, it’ll all come back to you.”

“Harry, the stage is ready for you,” the stage manager interrupted them, and they pulled out of their embrace.

“Go get ‘em, rock star,” Molly added, and Harry winked at her before taking the stage with his band. She wanted to peak out at the audience, but waited for the curtain to open. She couldn’t wait to see the fans’ reaction, and knew there would be a lot of screaming.

The house lights were lowered in the auditorium, and the stage lights went out once everyone was in place. It got very quiet, and Molly thought her heart was beating audibly as the seconds ticked by. The curtain quietly swished open, and the crowd murmured with excitement. The stage lights came on, illuminating Harry with a pinkish hued tone, and the audience erupted in cheers. Molly took a step back, never having been on this side of the screaming fans, and watched Harry as he seemed to absorb all the energy they were projecting at him through photosynthesis.

Harry smiled broadly, and once the screaming had died down a little, the opening of ‘Only Angel’ could be heard. Molly didn’t realize this was his opening song, and stood with her mouth open in shock as the ethereal opening was interrupted with Mitch’s guitar. With those first few notes, Harry completely unleashed and let loose, letting the ‘Harry’ that Molly had always known was there underneath it all take over.

Molly turned to Jeff and smiled, almost as if to say ‘I told you so’ but found he looked just as impressed. “I knew he still had it in him; you just had to let him be himself, and not dress him up like someone he isn’t.”

“I hate to admit it, but,” Jeff turned to her and nodded, “you were right.”

Molly bit her lips to keep from saying ‘told you!’ and just smiled at Harry, doing his best on stage. He seemed a bit nervous before each song, but once he got into it things smoothed out a little. Halfway through the show he slipped his jacket off, and the audience went wild. Molly blushed, but knew if she had been in that crowd, seeing Harry for the first time in nearly two years, she probably would have been screaming too.

The stage lights went down a little, and kept Harry illuminated in a soft blue light as he picked up his guitar for ‘Two Ghosts’. This was the song he always seemed to be most nervous for in rehearsals - it wasn’t clear whether it was the emotional ties to the song, or the balance of playing guitar and singing at the same time without much backup, but Molly assumed it was probably a mix of both. As he turned to pick up his guitar, his eyes met hers for a split second, and she gave him a reassuring smile. She thought she saw the corners of his mouth twitch up for a moment, but whatever it was disappeared by the time he faced the audience again.

After some deliberation in rehearsals, Harry had decided to stick with ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ as his One Direction song, and the fans absolutely loved it. He also covered ‘Just a Little Bit of Your Heart’ (a song he co-wrote for Ariana Grande) and ‘The Chain’ by Fleetwood Mac. Yet, he had one more change-up in the set list, and added ‘Girl Crush’ again, surprising Molly for a second time that night.

He concluded with ‘Sign of the Times’, and spent five minutes thanking the audience, and waving to them, before he finally left the stage, followed by the rest of his band. Molly was so excited she nearly jumped into his arms when he exited the stage, and wrapped him in a tight hug.

“That was fucking fantastic Harry!” She nearly screamed and clung to his side as they walked back to his dressing room.

“Nice work, Harry,” Jeff patted him on the back, and the band talked about the amazing energy from the crowd.

Yet through all of this, Harry was quiet, holding onto Molly as tightly as she was embracing him. When they got to his dressing room, he quietly slipped in as Mitch announced they were getting a drink if he wanted to join them. When the door clicked shut behind them, Molly finally peeled herself off of him to look up at his face.

“Harry,” she said softly, noticing there were tears forming in his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

He was quiet for a moment before a grin formed, crinkling his eyes and causing those tears to slip free. “That was…” he took a deep breath and wiped his cheeks. “I missed that. It wasn’t perfect, but it was much better than what I was expecting.”

“It was beautiful; I think you did an amazing job.” Molly smiled and reached up to clear away another tear as it slipped down his face. “You sounded great, you looked damn sexy, and you connected with the audience.”

Harry laughed. “I’ll let Rupe and Lou know they did a good job with my look.”

“You know that’s not what I mean,” Molly bit her lip.

“I know,” he answered quietly and leaned down to press his lips to Molly’s.

“Did you want to get a drink with the band?” She asked.

“I’m exhausted. Would it be too lame if we just went to bed?” He asked.

“That’s fine. If by ‘going to bed’ you mean like ‘sleeping together’ as in-”

“No,” Harry laughed. “I really am tired, actually.”

“Too tired for sex?” Molly pouted.

“Yeah, it happens sometimes,” he joked, and the pair left to return to the hotel.

Once they settled into bed (to sleep) Molly turned to Harry with a questioning look.

“So, ‘Girl Crush’ again?” Molly asked. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“I knew you liked it, and it got positive feedback after taping the BBC special, so I thought I’d add it for now. We’ll see how it went over tonight, but I think we’ll keep it.”

“I didn’t know you were going to open with ‘Only Angel’. Why’d you change it?” Molly asked.

“We thought it sounded better than starting with ‘Ever Since New York’, since it was more upbeat. And,” Harry added with a smirk, “you know how they say if you’re nervous when speaking in front of a crowd you should picture them naked?”

“Yeah?” Molly was confused.

“Well, I didn’t want to picture the audience naked, but I knew that if I was nervous, I just had to think of you singing ‘Only Angel’ in the bath really off key, and it would make me laugh.” Harry was laughing by the end of his explanation and Molly hit him with her pillow.

“Thanks,” she joked. “Glad I could help.”

“You’ve helped me in so many ways, I can’t even begin to thank you,” he smiled sleepily back at her and rolled over to sleep on his back.

“We’ll see if it paid off when we see the reviews tomorrow,” Molly answered.

Harry shook his head. “No, I didn’t just mean you helped fix my image.”

Molly waited for a moment, as it sounded like there would be more to that statement, but when she turned to look at him she found Harry fast asleep. She smiled and kissed him gently on the cheek. “Goodnight Harry.” She whispered. “Sweet dreams, rock star.” She rolled over and tried to fall asleep, but was too hyped up from his concert, and kept trying to figure out what the heck he’d been saying when he fell asleep.

Notes

This chapter is a bit shorter, but I’m awfully busy this week (happy Thanksgiving to my American readers!) But I have a couple ideas for chapter 28, so once I get time I’ll write it (I think it’ll be fun!) (we might see a couple familiar faces again….)