Ten years earlier

Harry climbed across the slanted roof of the hideout and settled at the apex, pulling a pocket watch out of his pocket. Despite being only eight, he was well practiced in the art of sneaking over rooftops once the sun had set on the Isle. He had memorised the way the droplets clung to the tiles after a heavy rainfall and how some of the tiles would crack and protest under his shoe.

Harry knew the routes over the skyline so that he could escape trouble and beat out the rest of the competition to a target. He knew to avoid the roof of the Inn and that the abandoned church had nesting birds in the eaves so he should step lightly when crossing. He knew which buildings welcomed him with easy passages and flat stones, and which ones were rickety and old and an accident waiting to happen.

"Hook?" a harsh whisper carried up the small crooked chimney he was sat next to, echoing and hollowing the sound of her voice. "Are you up there?" The hideout was frequented by himself and a select few villainous children but Mal was one of only two girls and the other didn't know about the Pirate's circus act above the streets.

Harry ran his thumb once more over the broken timepiece before he slipped it into his coat pocket. He looked down and picked up a conveniently empty snail shell from a clump of moss near the toe of his boot. He polished the shell and then dropped it down the chimney pot, listening to it hit the sides of the chimney, effectively answering the girl inside the hideout without revealing his position to the nosy neighbours on either side.

He only had to wait a few minutes until he saw Mal's pale hands grip the edge of the roof's stonework, the only way one could get to the hideouts roof. He didn't get up to help her, despite how much he wanted to. Instead he let her scramble over the stone lip, holding his breath as her legs dangled precariously from the roof as she shimmied further up the tiles. If the revellers on the cobbled street below had looked up they would have seen her illuminated against the moon.

He watched her effortlessly hook her leg over the stoneware and haul herself onto the roof with a satisfied grin. She was missing one of her bottom teeth; her last baby tooth and the final physical piece that would prove she had once been a child at all. It had fallen out after a fight with another street urchin a few days before.

Mal practically skipped over the tiles and she came to sit on the apex of the roof to his right. Harry never reacted to her, he simply stared straight out over the bay and onto the horizon. The stars were beginning to shine and the noisy, dangerous night life of the Isle was being to crawl out from the cracks in which they hid during the daytime.

"You shouldn't be out here," he told her without looking her way. He knew if he did he would be looking at her smirking face.

"Says who?" They couldn't have a conversation without taunts and teasing.

"My initiation is tonight," was all he said in reply and Mal's playful expression dropped suddenly.

"I forgot." That was the closest he would get to an apology. "Happy birthday," she added as an afterthought.

Harry bit back a laugh and Mal balanced a crudely wrapped package on his folded arms.

"You got me a gift?" he spluttered, finally turning to look at the girl. "Why?"

"Just open it you sap. And I didn't buy it," she told him with a gentle shove to his upper arm.

Harry pulled on the brown string holding the material of the parcel together. The scraps of fabric fell apart easily and revealed a shining silver pocket watch. There were elaborate designs etched into the surface of the cover, swirling like water around a masculine figure emerging from the centre of a whirlpool. Unlike the ancient, broken one in his pocket, Harry could hear the soft tick of the mechanisms as they counted the seconds.

"It's Poseidon, the man in the middle," Mal said shyly as Harry traced over the God with his fingertip. "I got it in a haul a few weeks back and I kept it safe from my mother."

Harry was stunned speechless. Nobody, not even his father or siblings had wished him a happy birthday like Mal had. The pirate crew were too preoccupied with the imitation of the Captain's son into the ranks. He was eight years old now, an acceptable age to truly join a crew. Mal had hidden the treasure from her mother who had first pick on whatever Mal stole, which meant more to him than he thought she would ever know.

Harry swallowed thickly, embarrassed at how close to tears he was. Mal seemed to notice as she scooted closer to him with a concerned look. She could never mask her emotions like her mother wanted her to when she was around Harry Hook.

Gingerly, Mal set a hand on Harry's forearm, amazed when he didn't jerked out from under her touch."What's wrong? Is it the watch?"

Harry sniffed and rubbed his face on his sleeve, making sure to use the arm Mal wasn't holding onto. The action made him seem so young. "No... I'm petrified," he whispered hoarsely and Mal stiffened at the omission.

"Is this about your initiation?"

Harry dropped his head and nodded. "What was yours like?"

Maleficent had trained Mal in the art of crime since she had been born and the girl's initiation into the 'family business' had been carried out the six months ago when Mal had turned seven. Traditionally, girls within Mal's matriarchal family used their magic to complete the gruesome task rather than physically undertake it.

It was Mal's turn to shift uncomfortably. She subconsciously tucked her body in, shielding her torso from the wind. "I was given a task, like the one you've been given," she was slowly turning a pale green and Harry wished he had never asked. Murder was a terrible act to commit when you were seventy let alone seven.

"How did you do it?" he could have kicked himself for talking without thinking but his curiosity was too great. Nobody publicly spoke about the way children were initiation but it was carried out all over the Isle.

"Magic," Mal whispered. "I don't think I could have done it with my hands. I brewed a potion and infused it with a poison spell. Made sure my mother didn't watch me do it as I laced it with pain relief. Slipped it into a customer's order at the apothecary," she said, barely above a decibel and Harry had to strain to listen. Mal had been working behind the counter at the apothecary as an apprentice to the old warlock who ran it.

"Did you know them?" It was a trick question for everyone know everyone on the Isle.

"Just some old hag looking for a sleeping tonic. Mother made me follow her until she drank it but..." Mal trailed off, her eyes glassy and unfocused.

"But?" Harry prompted to far past caring about the way she was nearly in tears.

"She poured it into her tea that night and the pain relief I had slipped into it was dulled by the blend she was using. Stupid hag was addicted to one of the ingredients, that why she needed the tonic, and she drank the entire cup in one. Began to choke slowly I think. Mother arrived after I - I put her out of her misery and she congratulated me for using my magic up close, just like she did." Mal looked as though she was going to be sick so Harry placed his hand over hers on his arm.

"All of the hags on this island are evil Mal, she probably deserved to die slowly," he told her as though it would help ease her guilt about the crime.

"Do you know who is yours tonight?"

"Someone who did my father wrong. He gave me a new sword this morning," Harry said to changed the subject, not wanting Mal to dwell on the old hag's death.

"I brought the vial with me, if you still want to go through with it," she told him as she pulled out a glass bottle from her boot. Inside was a strange gas like substance that looked black under the moonlight. The older child's initiation was all they had spoken about for weeks and so a plan had been formed.

Harry internally debated whether taking it and the drunken cheers emanating from the harbour made up his mind. He took the bottle and pulled the cork out with his teeth. Mal watched the boy pull his new sword from his scabbard. The sharp blade glinted under the stars and Mal could just made out the markings at the hilt.

"What will it do to him?" Harry questioned, holding his sword out, flat and horizontal to his chest.

"Juniper berries and deadly nightshade. If it scratches his skin he will be dead within two minutes," said Mal. "Quick and relatively painless."

Harry nodded and swallowed. He knew whoever his father had procured for the initiation would be evil and worth less that the scum on the bottom of his shoe, but he didn't not enjoy the prospect of battling him for half an hour so that he could bleed out. Harry nodded once and he poured the concoction from the bottle over the blade.

It slid over the metal like thick honey and instead of dripping off the blade or resting like a layer of wax, the sword seemed to absorb the poison and neither spoke as they waited. Carefully, once it had finished impregnating itself with the poison, Harry sheathed his sword.

"This is the antidote. You have to drink all of it and there is a spell to go with it," Mal told him, handing him a smaller glass bottle from the breast pocket of her jacket. She also pulled a sheet of paper out from up her sleeve with the incantation. With an encouraging nod, Harry downed the sour liquid and Mal whispered the spell, her green magic settling over him like mist.

"Any poison with either juniper or deadly nightshade won't kill you now, it'll be painful but it'll pass," Mal said. "But do not scratch yourself Harry, do you understand. You'll wish you would have just died if you do."

Down below on the street, torches were illuminating the crew of James Hook as they stormed the streets for the initiation. The children on the roof could hear screams and shouts of protests from the Islanders, followed by metal clinks and gunshots, plumes of smoke rising between the buildings.

"I better go before they set the Isle ablaze looking for me," Harry sighed, fisting his hands to stop them from shaking. He rose from his crouched position and carefully walked across the roof top to the next building and then to the next. The last thing other wanted was for their parents or rival children to find their hideout.

"You are worth so much more than what ever you are made to do tonight Harry. I promise you that," Mal whisper-shouted with stubborn tears rolling down her cheeks. Harry was climbing over the edge of a roof to reach the fire escape and he stopped dead in his tracks. He kissed the tips of his fingers, sending the sign of affection her way which she caught in her small hands.

As he descended the metal rungs of the fire escape ladder, Harry promised himself that the horrors he would commit tonight would not tarnish him. He would not become a savage pirate. He would remain a boy; happy, mischevious and youthful.

Little did he know that plunging a sword through the soft stomach of a man and watching his crimson blood splatter on the deck of a ship would kill all innocence of childhood.

Harry Hook was welcomed into his father's crew on the night of his eighth birthday with welcome arms. His bloody sword was joined by a sharp silver hook, inspired by his father's own, as a reward for the task.

As Harry tasted his first sips of alcohol onboard a pirate ship, Mal cried herself to sleep on the other side of the bay, mourning the loss of the boy she had known.

Ten years later

The early morning sunshine looked like golden thread as it poured into the cramped room of a forgotten Inn. Dust moats swirled in the shafts of light and the young man in the small cot groaned as he woke groggily with a pounding headache.

"Fuck sake," he muttered under his breath. In his haste to collapse into the bed the night before, the pirate had forgotten to pull the flimsy curtains too and the dawn was illuminating the small room, making sleep impossible.

He looked around the room for a moment. The previous night had been messy after a fight at one of the numerous and seedy docks of the island. An older sailer who was a constant drunk and caused trouble for every captain he worked for, had challenged the pirate, boasting that Harry's reputation was fuelled by his father and crew.

Harry had taken the challenge for the adrenaline rush and the high that came with plunging his hook into his victim's torso. Like always though, he had used the tip of his sword to scratch a thin line onto the man's jugular, small enough that the drunk hadn't even felt it. Just as the poison took affect, Harry had delivered what the spectating crowd had presumed to be the final plunge of his hook.

He had fled the scene quickly and travelled in-land to the most decrepit Inn he could find and payed double for a room with a view of the sea, wanting to forget about the fight all together. After downing several tankards of the house mead, Harry had collapsed into the wooden cot.

As he struggled sat up, he remembered the reason he had drunk himself stupid. A shallow but long wound cut along the top of his hipbone reopened and he hissed at the sudden pain.

"Fuck," he cursed and he staggered out of bed towards the small porcelain basin in the corner of the room. There were several hairline cracks in the base but he clung to it as his sore muscles seized and protested.

Harry looked up into the dirty mirror above the sink and sighed. He looked as though somebody had dragged him up from the bottom of the seabed. Unruly dark hair and smudged kohl around his tired eyes. He ran his bruised hand over the stubble on his cheeks and set to work cleaning the blood from his body.

After an hour of tending to his wounds, Harry redressed slowly, savouring the pain in his sore body. It reminded himself of the mortality he could have lost the previous night.

Lastly, the pirate slung his weapons belt around his narrow hips, careful not to touch the cut on his side as it had only just stopped oozing crimson blood. Without thinking about it, Harry pulled the small metal bin out from the corner of the tiny room and upturned the contents over the floorboard.

He rooted around in his battered satchel and pulled out a worn book and silver lighter. He dropped the wet flannel that was soaked with his blood into the empty bin and ripped handfuls of yellowed pages out from the book. Carefully, he lit the flame of the lighter and ignited several pages until wild flames were flickering. He dropped them into the bin after the cloth.

Harry had had enough trouble with blood magic over the years and he watched and waited until the flames had jumped from the pages to the cloth and it was singed beyond use. He would not allow his father or anyone else to track him down using his blood.

Harry swept around the tiny room and pulled on his boots, jacket and hat before he left. His footsteps made no sound on the creaky wooden floor boards and he descended the rickety staircase without incident.

Down in the bar, the landlady was scrubbing at the floor, sweeping clumpy sawdust and shards of broken glass out of the door. Only one patron was sat in a corner booth with the hood of their cloak pulled up over their head. Harry didn't say anything as dawn had just broke and he didn't think his sore body could take another fight if one were to occur.

Still treading silently, he dropped a handful of coins onto the bar and made his way to one of the exits. The landlady had moved to sweeping in a separate area of the pub so he thought he would be able to slip away without anyone seeing him.

Just as he reached out for the latch on the door, a string of green light wrapped around his wrist and tugged him in the direction of the stranger in the corner.

"Shit," Harry hissed as the magic around his arm pulled him, making him stumble forwards. He dug his heels into the floor and trie to jerk away but it was impossible, the magic was too powerful.

He wished he had his hook but it was buried at the bottom of his satchel. He only had his sword and dagger strapped to his waist but everyone had heard the urban myths about his sword so he scrambled for his dagger.

"You don't need that," the stranger said as Harry was practically dragged several meters to their side. The magical chain around his wrist tugged again and he gracelessly fell into the booth with a huff.

"Let me go," he growled and the magic seemed to tighten for a second but it loosened, however it was still there, looped around his wrist.

"Do you know how long I have been searching for you?" the hooded stranger asked and Harry stiffened.

He had abandoned his father's crew the day he had turned sixteen and in the two years since then, his father and numerous other captains had been hunting for him. He was a ruthless killer and desired by many but his father had been ordering warlocks and witches to use magic to track him. Harry had not been on his side of the Isle since then and he had not stayed in the same place for more than a few days. He was a thug for hire now to pay his way for his own ship and crew.

"Who sent you?" his tone was monotonous and he struggled to keep it that way.

"No one sent me."

He scoffed and leaned back, pretending to be more comfortable than he let on. "What do you want stalker?" He couldn't see any of the person's facial features but he was guessing she was a witch with another agenda.

"Don't play me like that, I can read you like an open book," the witch said and Harry's façade faltered for a moment. He gripped the magic and tugged forwards, sending the witch crashing into the table top.

Her dark hood fell down and he scrabbled to stand up and put distance between himself and the purple haired witch. She had dropped the spell when she was tugged forward and Mal swore.

"What are you doing here?" One question but he had a hundred more bubbling on the tip of his tongue.

Mal had bit her lip when he had acted unexpectedly and a small pool of blood was in the corner of her lip. Her pink tongue darted out and licked at the blood. Strangely, Harry's own lip was stinging as though he had bit through it.

"Will you at least sit down?" Mal asked with a deadpan expression.

"How do I know its truly you?" he countered, still battling the fight or flight repose which made him want to run from the room.

Instead of rolling her eyes like he was expecting, she frowned and a crease formed between her brows which he wanted to smooth with his fingertips.

"They really messed you up," she whispered sadly. "Fine, ask me something only I would know."

"Whats on my blade?"

She scoffed at the ease. "Juniper berries and deadly nightshade but everyone knows that to some extent." Everyone who told the story of Harry's sword claimed that this or that was infused into the blade; the soul of a warlock or lion fish venom or something equally as absurd.

"Fine," he said. "What did you give me on this night ten years ago?" He was eighteen today, he suddenly remembered.

Mal's guarded expression dropped and she looked almost wistful. A shy smile crept onto her bloodied lips. "A silver pocket watch with Poseidon on the case."

Harry took his seat again, accidentally driving the hilt of his sword into his side as it bumped one of the table legs. Through the pain and to his surprise, Mal doubled over and clutched at her side, the same one he was clutching at that moment.

They were silent as they breathed through the pain. When Mal removed her hand from her side, Harry could see her shirt was stained with blood. He looked down at his own side and realised he was bleeding again. As Mal avoided his eye, his flicked his tongue over his lip, sucking in a breath.

"Why have you been looking for me?" He knew Mal despite the years apart and if she was anything like her pre-teen self then she would appreciate his bluntness.

Mal were staring at the single candle stick that was still burning from the night. The wax had pooled and splattered over the tabletop. He snapped his fingers under her nose and she finally looked at him.

"You need to see someone to heal that cut," she avoided the question expertly. "It'll get infected if you don't."

Harry sharped jabbed his fingertip into the cut from over his shirt and he grit his teeth through the pain as he had been expecting it. Mal on the other hand cried out and he reached forward and gripped her chin in his fingers.

"What did you do!" he demanded, shaking her slightly. "Answer me Mal, I demand you!"

"Oh, you demand it of me do you," she scoffed. She could tell that he was about to touch the wound again. "Alright, alright," she said quickly, reaching out and gripping his hand. This was the most contact either had had with another person without a violent undertone.

"Why are you here Mal?" Harry asked her and he sounded exhausted. He released her chin and sat back, slouching in the booth.

Mal bit her lip worriedly. "Happy birthday," she began weakly and Harry hardened his stare.

"I hate birthdays. Don't make me do it again," he threatened, his fingers hovering over the wound at his hip. She fidgeted under his glare.

"Alright. Do you remember when I gave you the poison for your sword," Harry nodded, confused about where she was heading. "Well, the spell didn't make you immune to juniper and deadly nightshade."

"What? So I've been walking around with a blade that could kill me for years!"

"Shush," she hissed, conscious of the landlady who could return at any moment. "You are immune you dolt because I am immune to them."

Harry rested a hand on the jewelled hilt of his sword out of comfort more than anything. "Explain."

Mal struggled for words for a second. "I'm immune to most poisons so I gave a little bit of myself to you that night, and you to me so that if you were poisoned, I would be able to deflect the affects."

"So we're... magically connected," he asked slowly, wanting to make sure he had come to the correct conclusion.

Mal nodded. "Every injury you've sustained, so have I."

Harry snorted. "Right, obviously. It all makes perfect sense."

"It's true," Mal told him as he made his way to leave. "I can prove it!"

Harry was near the door now and he could see the landlady loitering outside. "How did you find me?" His tone was softer than before.

"Do you have a room? I don't just want to blurt it out. You're a wanted man."

Harry's resolve faltered and he led Mal up to the hovel of a room he had spent the night in. He was cursing his hangover, his sore muscles and the cut to his side as she stepped past him into the small room.

There was barely enough room for the cot, the small desk and the basin so Mal sat upon the sheets of the bed. Harry leant against the desk and Mal muttered a spell towards the door.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "It's a privacy spell."

"Are you going to explain yourself properly now?" He said with an annoyed expression. He was finding it increasingly difficult not to wrap his arms around her just to make sure she was real and he wasn't going insane.

She had truly grown into a beautiful woman but there was something still hidden in her appearance and her aura that made him feel safe and innocent. Her purple hair was cut into a shoulder-scraping blunt bob and she had womanly curves that he could finally see when she pulled off the thick cloak.

Mal took a deep breath and ruffled her hair. "You're father and every other high ranking villain has a bounty on your head. Some like Jafar want you to carry out their crimes and others want to kill you to get one over on Hook. When I cast that spell on the rooftop, it became a one way system for me to know if you were okay."

"But why?"

Mal sniffed and refused to answer so she continued with her retelling. "I have every scar you do Harry and I knew where to find you because I felt it in my bones."

As if to prove her point, she knelt up on the bed and pulled her shirt up, showing him the angry red cut and a plethora of other white scars on her pale skin, all mirroring the ones he had on his tanned torso.

"Why didn't you tell me?" his voice no longer held any anger but he sounded wounded and hurt which made Mal flinch all the same.

"I was seven years old Harry. I didn't realise the gravity of the spell. I feel everything the hurts you! I know that you of all people don't need me to tell you how much it haunts me."

She was crying now and it had been the first time she'd properly cried since his initiation a decade before. "Because I was in love with you, you absolute fool. I loved you and I was petrified that you would be hurt so I thought that if I knew when you were hurt, I could come and help you!"

"And I got no say in this!" he knew he was over reacting but the shock of seeing her after all these years and hearing her true feelings made it hard for him to concentrate.

"I'm sorry," she cried.

They relapsed into silence as Mal tried to stop crying and Harry processed the information. He was having a hard time ignoring the dull pain in his side and he now knew Mal could feel it too.

"Let me heal it," she whispered through sniffles.

He stiffened as she pulled him closer to the bed. He sat down next to her on the mattress, feeling stiff and on high alert. He had been with countless women and wenches since he had become interested in the pleasures of the human body, but the feeling of Mal's fingers around his wrist made it pulse quicken.

She carefully peeled the side of his jacket back and lifted the week-old shirt away from his side. With a silent spell of some kind the shirt was pristine white and she pinned it against his pectoral. When her fingers began to probe against the edges of the wound he grabbed her hand and became statuesque.

"I just want to make sure there's nothing in it and then I'll cast the spell." Mal's voice was a breathy whisper as they were sat so close together. It made goosebumps erupt over the back of his neck and he glanced at her pupils which were dilated and wide.

Harry swallowed and slowly released her hand, savouring the feel of her soft skin in his callous palm. Her fingers were feather-light on the wound and he watched in the reflection of the mirror above the sink as she cast the spell.

Her green magic seeped from her fingers and through the wound, stitching the skin together in a way that left no scar. Just to check, Mal ran the back of her fingers against where the wound had been but all that was there was unblemished skin.

Intrigued, Harry forgot himself for a moment as he ripped Mal's shirt away from the side of her body, wondering if it had done the same to her. He twisted on the bed and gripped her torso in his hands to turn her body so he could find the wound or the scar that evidently wasn't there.

In all of the commotion, Mal had been pushed onto the mattress and she lay on the pillow with her hair fanned out and her torso exposed. He had moved her so fast, as though she were a rag doll in his hands.

"Harry..."

The pirate blinked and seemed to realise what he had done. He was rough and he knew it but she was tiny under his body.

"I, uh, I'm sorry," he felt his cheeks redden and he left her go abruptly.

Mal grabbed his fingers and brought them back to where they had been gripping. "It's all right," she soothed. Her own hands were running up his arms and into his hair. "I can't believe I found you. I can't believe its really you," she breathed, as if any sound would disrupt the atmosphere.

He brought his hand up her side and across her collarbones, feeling her heart beat under his palm. Harry then cupped her jaw and looked into her eyes.

"Is this really happening?" he asked, doubting that she had truly found him, and she nodded with a broad smile.

"I thought I would never see you again," Mal told him, tracing the features of his face with her fingers.

"I see you in my dreams," he blurted as her fingers ghosted over his lips. "How can I be sure I'm not dreaming? I dream this same sequence every night. We find each other and I tell you I have always loved you and then I wake up alone and wishing I could go back to the hideout and when we were children."

"If we were still children we couldn't do this," was all Mal said before she pulled his face to hers and kissed him soundly on the mouth.

Harry no longer cared if he was dreaming, if this was a cruel trick of his mind, because Mal's lips were soft and warm against his own and her hands glided over his shoulders and into his hair in a way he didn't think his unconscious mind could fabricate.

He didn't care if his father succeeded in tracking him down, or somebody killed him in that instant. His entire life seemed to have been building towards this crescendo and she fitted into his embrace as though they had been carved that way.

Harry deepened the kiss, forgetting he was sore and that he was still feeling the effects of too much mead. He frantically kissed her and she returned the need. Their hands tore at each others clothes and they kissed as they undid his weapons belt and pulled off their jackets.

Harry never wanted to stop kissing Mal. Every thought he had when he had been with random women in the past had been about her eyes. They were all he could see when they had used a stranger to release his anger and frustration. But this was the real thing and it was so much better than it had ever been.

Their teeth crashed and they missed each others mouths every so often but it was perfect.

"I've been in love with you for as long as I can remember," Harry said as he broke away for air and kissed down the column of her throat.

In that small little bed with a privacy spell on the door, Harry made love to the girl he was sure was his other half. Nobody had ever affected him like she had. Even with the years apart, he felt more connected to her than to any other person he had met in his entire life.

They called out each others names as they climaxed, each clinging to the other so hard that it was difficult to know where woman began and man ended. In the post-coital glow, they remained holding on to each other as they confessed their love.

"Let's you away together," Mal said after some time of just laying in each others arms.

"The island is only so big Mal, and the barrier is still up," Harry sighed, hating the sinking feeling that was settling in the pit of his stomach.

He traced the outline of her curves as she rolled into his chest, throwing a slender leg over his and bringing the small blanket up over their naked and sweating bodies.

"Then lets go further in-land. We'll find a clearing in the forest and build our home from it. Have children and grow our of food and die in each others arms at one hundred, surrounded by our large and loving family," she whispered into his chest.

Harry smiled and kissed the crown of her head. He felt overwhelmed with the events of the day.

His soulmate had found him, sought and tracked him down. She had professed her love for him and they had made love numerous times that morning and now here she was, in his arms, talking about the family they would have together. He felt both elated and defeated as he knew that his father would never stop hunting him down and if Mal were to run off, Maleficent would surely unleash her wrath to find her daughter.

"Marry me first," he asked her, linking their fingers as she looked up into his eyes.

"I'm seventeen Harry," Mal reminded him gently. "Who would marry us this young?"

"So that's a yes then," he smirked and she smiled so brightly he felt winded for a second.

"Of course I will marry you."

"Then I will not rest until we are," he vowed and he stroked her hair until she fell asleep on his chest. He no longer cared if his father killed him or some rival villain kidnapped him, as long as he was the husband of the witch in his arms then he would die without a regret. Making her happy would undo all of the evil sins he had committed.

"I promise I will not stop until we have that family surrounding us," he whispered into her hair, mentally planning his next move.

Ten years later

"Happy birthday," a sultry whisper woke Harry up and he smiled, opening his eyes slowly to see the woman by his side.

"Good morning," he told her, his voice thick with sleep. "What time is it?"

Mal leant over him, her bare chest brushing against his, and she checked the silver pocket watched he kept on his bedside table.

"Barely six o'clock," she told him, placing a kiss on the corner of his mouth as she tucked herself into his side once more. "They should still be asleep."

Mal's hand began to wander below the duvet and Harry hummed happily. "I love birthdays," he said, planting a kiss on her lips with a groan as her fingers found what they had been searching for.

"Daddy!" a scream suddenly broke the kiss and the two turned to see their toddler son running into the bedroom with a large toothless grin, his stuffed dragon toy floating behind him. Following quickly behind was their daughter, trying to catch her little brother and the flying stuffed animal.

"Finn, no, stop," Violet, their five year old daughter cried, her dark purple hair escaping the French braid Mal had tied it back in before they had put her to bed.

"How does he keep breaking my enchantments?" Mal groaned into his ear. Both children displayed signs of magic. They used it to get out of their beds and make their toys fly, despite Mal's numerous spells to counteract the unintentional and accidental magic.

Two year old Finn had waddled over to the tall bed and was attempting to climb up by using the duvet. Mal gripped the quilt tightly to ensure their children remains oblivious to the activity they had interrupted as Harry picked Finn up and set him on Mal's legs.

"Mama," Finn laughed happily, still to young to understand the concept of birthdays.

"Come here Vi," Harry helped his daughter onto the bed as well and set her down between her parents. "Good morning to you limpet," he kissed her forehead. The nickname had emerge when both parents realised that their daughter was a true daddy's girl. She would cry notoriously when Harry put her down and she had remained by his side throughout her infancy to help reduce tantrums from both the little girl and the adults.

"Happy birfday Papa," she yawned, obviously having woken up too early. "I made you somefing," she was struggling to keep her eyes open and the way Harry was tracing her hairline was her yawn again.

"Did you limpet? Well, lets have a nap and then we can go downstairs and see what you made," he told her but she was already fast asleep.

Finn had also fallen asleep onto of Mal, his thumb in his mouth and his hand grasping her fingers. Much like Violet adored Harry, Finn barely had eyes for anyone but his mother despite how much he looked like a carbon copy of Harry.

"Happy birthday," Mal repeated and Harry swelled with a positive feeling.

He felt as though he had completed the promise he had made his wife ten years previously.

Just four months after they had found each other again and been on the run through the villages and forestry of the Isle, the young King Ben had declared that anyone under the age of nineteen would be educated at Auradon Prep as there were only eighty children on the Isle in total at any one time.

The scheme had been met with heavy criticism but the couple had fled to Auradon and sought refuge at the school since those above twenty could not leave through the new magical barrier around the Isle. The scheme had reduced the amount of crime on the Isle as villains were ordering their children to carry out most of the evil deeds and had had a positive impact over time.

Mal and Harry had met and befriended a group of people who they still called their best friends nearly a decade later. They had been married by the ages of nineteen and eighteen by Fairy Godmother in a beautiful and small ceremony with only their closest friends as witnesses. Both had graduated from the Prep School with high grades and clean records, having distanced themselves from the serious sins they had committed. Both sit broke rules and did unsavoury things but they were not looked down upon because of them.

When Mal had left the school, herself and her best friend Evie, another villainous child, set up a fashion company and now the two women co-owned the most popular fashioning house throughout the kingdom.

Harry on the other hand had set up a small business building with another of their friends Gil, a fellow man who had been in a rival crew back on the Isle and they restored ships for the kingdom and had become the most trusted and skilled within the trade and the craft.

At the ages of twenty three and twenty two, the couple had welcomed their first child, a purple haired, blue eyed baby whom they named Violet Eve after her godmother. The family of three settled into parenthood like ducks to water and soon after, the couple had bought a house close to their friends in a small village and most importantly, by the sea. Harry could hear the waves through their open windows.

When Violet had been three, Mal had announced she was pregnant again and Harry's heart, once so damaged and bitter, had swelled with love and pride. They had named the boy Finlay Douglas and he was a carbon copy of Harry. Both children loved the water and the waves. He was thankful everyday for the woman he called his wife and soulmate for tracking him down that day and the life she helped him lead.

"Evie and Doug are bringing Daisy over at ten so we've got till then to sleep in," Mal told him through a yawn. The warm weight of her children and Harry's hand in hers, along with the early hour, was making her sleepy once more.

Harry smiled and skilfully pulled the comforter up off of the floor where it had been discarded the night before, and laid it over the two children without disturbing either of them.

"I love you and the children we have created," Harry said, rolling so that he was curled around Violet's small body.

"Good," Mal was half asleep already, "because I'm pregnant again."

Okay so this is that little one shot thing. It starts a bit dark but ends happily!

In my mind and for this particular AU, Doug and Evie are the couples greatest friends and the godparents to their children, hence the middle names.

Also, Violet because of Mal's purple hair and aesthetic and Finn because of sea creatures and Harry. Kinda where I was going for those.

Anyway, please PLEASe let me know what you think of this by leaving a review. I also had another multi-chapter fir incase you didn't realise for Harry x Mal called 'Hooks and Horns' incase you were new here.

Anyway, tell your friends, spread the word, shout about this ship from the rooftops!

But please, do leave me a review, like, favourite, follow and enjoy XO