Summary: Harry had always hated his eyes. His stupid blue eyes that were the same as his mother's. The reason his father hated him. Even once the barrier was brought down and he got away from Captain Hook, he still hated his eyes. But maybe a certain teal-haired pirate captain can change his mind. Huma.
This one-shot just wouldn't leave my mind, and it seemed to flow from my hands. I don't usually write things like this, but I just had to.
WARNING: A bit of mild cursing, nothing extreme.
Harry Hook was a pirate and a VK, he was tough. He didn't let anything bother him, he was untouchable.
At least, that's what people thought.
In reality, he wore a cover of insanity. A shell. But inside...inside he was just a teenager. He wasn't a fierce pirate or the insane son of Captain Hook, he was just a boy who wondered why his father never loved him.
Eventually, he figured it out.
His eyes, his awful blue eyes.
Anyone in Auradon would say they were 'pretty,' but to Harry they were the most ugly and awful eyes ever. They were the reason Captain Hook couldn't look at him without disgust appearing in his eyes.
Because they were like his mothers.
His beautiful mother's. There were no cameras on the Isle, but he didn't need them. Her image was forever carved in his brain. Tall, nearly as tall as his father. Long, straight, blonde hair flowing over her shoulders or in a braid. Dressed in blue and black leather and always with a kind smile for the people who deserved it. She would walk down the street with Harry and Harriet and would be able to make even the most cruel villains smile. Not because she was soft, she was anything but it. She was probably one of the most tough people on the Isle, ready for anything and able to fight fiercely. No, she made them smile because she was a spot of light in the cloak of darkness the Isle covered them in.
Elizabeth Hook, one of the many people unjustly thrown on this godforsaken island. She had been working for the Evil Queen, who had threatened to kill her family if she didn't obey, and Beast and Belle had chucked her onto the Isle just for trying to save the people she loved, when some of their great 'heroes' had done much worse, including Beast.
It was all their fault she died.
Childbirth, that was how it happened. With CJ. Harriet and Harry had been waiting outside the door, shaking as they heard her scream. They had only been kids, Harry four years old and Harriet five, but they knew how this would end. They had heard the stories and the screams. There had hardly been any babies who hadn't come prematurely, due to the lack of food. And over half of those babies and a good portion of the mothers died.
That happened to Elizabeth.
It was one thing to hear stories, but it was completely different to have your father come out holding a little bundle and tell you that your baby sister had survived, but your mother had died.
He fell apart. The great Captain Hook started to drink more and more, and to hit them. Harriet took care of Harry, and they both raised CJ, practically on their own. Uma helped, of course, and Gil once they saved him from Gaston. They were Harry's best friends and CJ considered them her older siblings.
Captain Hook always hated Harry the most, and it was no secret to the Hook siblings why. All the Hook siblings had some of Elizabeth's features. CJ had her golden hair, Harriet had her confidence and determination, and Harry...his damn eyes. Those pale blue eyes that would swim in front of his face when he was on the verge of sleep. Not his eyes, filled with a thinly veiled sadness and the pain that came from everything the Isle had to offer. He saw his mother's eyes. Sparkling with light and hope, but with that deep, hidden sadness that would forever be there.
It was worse than any nightmare he had ever had.
Sometimes, he would curl up and cry at night, his tears silently cascading down his face. Cry for the loss of a mother, a father, and a childhood that had come all at once. Cry about the everlasting pain that would squeeze his chest at his weakest moments. Cry for the misery that encircled him like a cocoon ever since Elizabeth died.
When they went to Auradon, things changed.
They could freely talk about all things, and Harry and Uma finally came out about their relationship. Harry and Harriet didn't have to constantly worry about CJ's safety. They didn't have to worry about Captain Hook.
But Harry still hated his eyes. There were nearly no mirrors on the Isle, so he never had to look at them much. But Auradon was rich, there were mirrors and every time he looked in one he jerked his gaze away, unable to look at those awful blue eyes another minute longer.
Then the VKs were invited to a dinner with Belle and Beast. Every VK. They would be there on separate days, and every day the first four would also be there. Harry assumed it was their way to 'apologize' and 'make everything right.' He scoffed when he got the invitations. As though one dinner could pay for the lives that ended because of them.
The blue eyes swam in front of his vision again, and he shook his head to clear his thoughts.
In the end, he only agreed to go because Harriet and Uma made him. He would be going with Harriet, Uma, Gil, and CJ, which he was glad for. They would keep him calm, hopefully.
But as it turned out, they couldn't. For once they sat at the table and Belle and Beast started asking them generic, polite questions about their lives - never once even mentioning the Isle - he couldn't take it.
"This is ridiculous!" he said loudly, anger filling his voice.
"Harry," Uma hissed, trying to get him to stop, but, for once, he ignored her.
"Are we just supposed to sit here and pretend nothing ever happened? Like you never hurt us?" he continued.
"Now listen here young man, you kidnapped our son a year ago," Beast started, but Harry's anger only grew.
"No, you listen to me. We kidnapped Ben only so we could get off that hellhole you thought we deserved to be on. Well let me tell you something, we didn't deserve it! Do you know what you did? Do you know that half the kids born on the Isle died because of you, or that many of them didn't even make it past childbirth? Do you know that a large portion of the Isle residents don't deserve to be there? Do you know how many kids are abused and tortured by their parents? Used as slaves, punching bags, and a million other things. Our mother died giving birth to CJ because she wasn't strong enough to make it. Harriet and I raised her and we were only kids, I wasn't even five years old. Our father hates us, especially me, just because I have her eyes. And now I'm supposed to sit here and act nice and pretend it's not your fault we and every other resident of the Isle suffered unimaginable pain?" He stood up, and walked out of the room. "I'm done with this."
"Harry!" Uma called, then stood and ran after him, leaving the Hook sisters and Gil alone with everyone.
"He's right," CJ whispered, looking up with tears in her eyes. "I'm only thirteen and I can guarantee that I have suffered more than either of you. It's all your fault I grew up without a mother or father. It's your fault Uma had to watch her mother beat her three year old sister to death in front of her. It's your fault Gil nearly died of starvation when he was eight because Gaston kicked him out." She stood up. "I'm done too. Ettie? Gil?"
They both stood up too and the three went out.
"Should we look for Harry?" they heard Gil.
"No, Uma will calm him down," Harriet responded, her arm immediately going around CJ in a comforting embrace.
Harry stared at his hands. He was sitting by the Auradon ocean, attempting to clear his mind. He loved the water, it always made him feel closer to her.
"I love it here," Elizabeth said, her legs hanging off the docks. Harry was sitting next to her.
"Why?" he asked.
"The water is so smooth and clear, on a good day it's like glass. It makes me feel as though my mind is just as clear as it. And it's beautiful."
Harry looked down at the murky water, filled with dirt and an occasional crocodile. Usually they scared him, but not with Elizabeth. She could protect him from anything.
"Beautiful?" he repeated, the word coming out as though he hardly knew what it meant. And, Elizabeth thought with a stab of heartbreak, he didn't. Though she tried to show them good things, she knew Harry and Harriet would grow up hardly knowing beaty.
"Not here, but it is back in Auradon."
"Really?" he said eagerly.
"Yes, it's so clear you can see the fish. And you can swim in it without fear," she said, hugging him. "And in the winter it freezes over into ice, and you can ice skate. That's where you wear these special shoes that let you glide across the ice, nearly like walking."
"Woah," Harry said, amazed.
After that day he always returned to the docks on the anniversary of her death. The crocodiles didn't bother him, and if they tried he just held out his sword and they ran away.
It felt as though the water protected him, the same way Elizabeth would.
"Harry?"
The voice broke through his thoughts, and he looked up to see Uma.
"Hello Cap'n," he said.
She sat down next to him, her legs curled up against her body and her head resting on her knees. They just sat in silence, each of them being taken over by their thoughts.
"Hey Harry?" she said suddenly. "What was that stuff you said in there...about your eyes?"
He winced.
"It's the reason the Captain hated me the most. My eyes look just like..."
"Elizabeth's."
It was the first time in years that he heard her name from the mouth of someone who wasn't falling over drunk and intent on hitting him and his sisters, and he liked the way she said it. The softness in her voice. The way you could tell immediately Elizabeth was someone she loved and missed greatly.
"Yes. I hate them, my eyes," he added, not knowing why he said it but knowing he had to tell someone. "They always remind me of her, and not in a good way. They're the reason I've suffered so much, the reason every time I look in the mirror I remembered that she's gone and this is all that's left of her. These awful blue eyes."
"I don't think they're awful," Uma said, and he looked at her for the first time since she got there. She was staring straight at him with sincerity in her expression.
"So what do you think they are?" he asked, his voice hollow.
She took his hand and, looking right into those eyes he hated so much, said, "I think they're beautiful."
Beautiful.
He had heard his eyes described as many things but beautiful...that had never been one of them.
"And they don't mean she's gone, they mean she's still here. In you. In Harriet. In CJ. In everyone on the Isle who remembers her smile and the way she always had a sarcastic remark or a kind response. She may be dead, but she's still with us."
He stared at her. He had never thought of it that way.
"Just like everyone that died," Uma added. "I had such a hard time getting over Ulani's death. It broke me, and she was only three years old. But even now I know I haven't lost her. As sappy as I sound, I do know that the people we love never truly leave us. They always stay in our hearts."
They were silent for a moment and then Harry said, "That was sappy."
Uma laughed a bit and leaned into him, and they were calm.
As Harry looked out at the ocean he understood what Elizabeth was talking about when she said it was beautiful. It truly was. And for the first time he realized how the ocean was the same shade of blue as his eyes, as her eyes.
Uma was right, she was still here.
And, sitting by that ocean with her by his side, for the first time in his life those eyes swam in front of Harry's vision and instead of feeling hollow and broken, he smiled.
She's still here, she's always here.
I honestly think this is one of the best things I've written. This was new territory, as - like I said - I don't write about things like this often. But I think it turned out well.
Please review, I would love some feedback.
-Creator of Magic