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It was the eve of the annual One Direction Global Christmas party, and Harry couldn’t contain his excitement. Every year, the mega-corporation he worked for threw the biggest celebration in town, drawing crowds from miles around for a night they’d never forget. Harry was sure they’d not forget this night for years to come. A rumour had been going around the office that the big boss had really gone all for it this time, with someone hinting that they’d installed pyrotechnics for the grand finale.
Harry had loved fire ever since he was a child. It was so cosy and warm, and he remembered singing classic campfire songs around it as his family tried not to give each other varying severities of food poisoning cooking sausages over the sparks. Part of him hoped they’d give him some marshmallows to roast on the flames since it was Christmas.
The party was in full swing when he arrived. He’d spent too long figuring out what to wear for the event. He’d messaged the work group chat asking for suggestions, but they only replied with unhelpful phrases such as ‘you can wear whatever you like!’, ‘as long as you’re wearing something 😂🤣’ and ‘clothes, babes xxxx’. Harry sighed and flicked through his Gucci suits until he settled on the glitteriest one he owned.
He strolled into the rented venue of some stately house that he didn’t know existed until Dave from HR sent around the company-wide email with the location. It was massive, to say the least. Somehow, his company had managed to decorate the entire foyer with orange and purple decorations. Silver trees were dotted along the entryway, all with golden stars cable tied to the top– probably to prevent them from falling on another unsuspecting partygoer. Harry shivered at the memory of the Great Christmas Party Disaster of ’09 and how his company got away with it; he had no idea, but he was not in the position to question such legal feats.
Anyways, bright purple tinsel was looped through the stair bannisters adorned with shiny neon orange bubals every ten centimetres. Some would say it looked ‘tacky’, ‘clashed’ or was ‘an eyesore’, but Harry loved it. The colour scheme reminded him of Louis’ football shirt ventures years ago. Maybe he’d been part of the planning committee for it? Harry wasn’t sure; he’d have to ask.
“Hazza!” a voice shouted from the doorway into the ballroom. “Nice to meet ya!”
Before fully registering what was going on, he was pulled into a one-armed hug. “I already know you, Niall,” Harry reminded him as he pulled back at smiled at his friend. “For, like, two decades at this point.”
“Yeah, but I want to turn ‘nice to meet ya’ into my catchphrase,” the Irish man explained as if it was obvious.
Harry nodded, knowing it was a losing battle to argue with him and how it would be a really bad catchphrase to adopt out of nowhere. Instead, he patted Niall on the back and followed him into the main party room.
As expected, the room was packed. Everyone who worked at One Direction Global was there, including plus ones’ and anyone else who wanted to come. The company didn’t care about crowd control or health and safety. Why would they? Their motto was “YOLO” despite it being almost 2056 and not being much of a motto that made sense in the energy sector since energy couldn’t be created or destroyed, hence really making the ‘you only live once’ slogan stupid in hindsight.
The speakers were blaring out classic Christmas songs, which only made Harry feel like a fossil when he overheard a Gen Beta intern say that her great-great-grandmother loved listening to Slade when she was a teenager. Maybe he was ancient and should consider retiring, relocating to southern France to never be heard about again. It was the only way, he thought to himself as his mind started to spiral over and over again.
“Nice to meet ya. I found Louis near the buffet filling his plate,” Niall informed him, shouting over Noddy Holder’s distinctive voice and snapping him out of his ageing breakdown. “Have you seen Liam?”
Ignoring the attempt of coining a catchphrase, Harry answered. “He’s not here. Didn’t want to come this year.” Harry stole a mini sausage roll from Louis’ plate as he spoke, much to the other man’s annoyance.
Niall hummed thoughtfully, nodding. "Fairs," he replied, taking the two remaining pastry-covered meat from Louis' plate.
"Aw, my thrice sausage rolls,” Louis whined, pouting a little at the theft of his fun snacks. “You owe me, Horan.” He pointed his finger at the brunette man. Harry eyed them carefully, unsure if Louis was jokingly threatening the other or not. The longer they stood there, the more he thought Louis would genuinely kick off if someone didn’t step in.
Harry cleared his throat, thinking of a way to get the attention away from the pastry burglary. “Did you hear the rumour going around the Renewable Floor that the boss has installed pyrotechnics for the final spectacle of the night?”
It seemed to do the trick as Louis instantly stopped pointing at Niall, uncaring that he was now shoving the final pastry into his mouth. “Wot?” he asked, almost looking alarmed at the information.
Harry pretended the lower his voice, looking around as suspiciously as possible. “Zayn–” he started before pausing. “You know Zayn Malik, right? Works as a powerplant tech.” When everyone nodded, he continued. “Well, he heard off one of the girls who works in the admin office for the geothermal specialist that The Boss had said the night was going to end ‘in a bang’.” He put air quotes around the final words, raising his eyebrows.
Everyone stared at him as if he had lost the plot. He understood why. The house looked to be at least two hundred years old and not an appropriate place to set off a bunch of fireworks in the hall filled with lilac paper snowflakes, satsuma-coloured feathers and more people than Harry cared to put a number on.
Just as he was about to defend himself over something that was none of his doing, Niall shouted, “Nice to meet ya!” as someone walked towards them from the crowd.
Moments later, a very confused-looking Zayn stood to Louis’ right side. “Niall, mate, we’ve met many times, and I’m the one who drove you here.”
“He’s trying to make it his catchphrase,” Harry clarified before Niall could go into his soliloquy about it.
“Right,” Zayn replied after a beat, not sounding convinced in the slightest. “How are you all?”
They exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, moving around a couple of times as people tried to pull them onto the large dancefloor. Naturally, they all refused, not wanting to sacrifice their small talk.
“I don’t dance,” claimed Louis as a guy from Customer Services asked if he was free. Louis was still looking forlornly at his empty plate, making him a bigger target for potential dance partners.
“I know you can,” Harry replied, seeming too enthusiastic. He’d taken Louis to a salsa class at the start of the year. Granted, Harry was under the impression that it was the type of salsa made for eating and not a popular Latin dance. It didn’t seem to matter because Louis took to it like a duck to water and booked more lessons for the following six months. Now Louis was a semi-professional salsa dancer, and Harry had become an avid Wowcher hater. To Harry, they were similar accomplishments.
“Not a chance.” Harry opened his mouth to protest when Louis cut him off. “No!”
“Okay, damn,” the nameless man said, raising his hands and backing off at Louis’ hostile tone.
Niall tutted at him, shaking his head. “You scared him! Look at his sight organs!”
Harry, Zayn, Louis and Nameless Customer Services Man choked on a shared breath of air.
“Look at his what?!” Zayn managed to ask after more seconds went by.
“Sight organs,” Niall repeated like it clarified anything. When no one was getting it, he shrugged. “His eyes. C’mon, lads. It’s not that hard to work it out!”
Harry laughed loudly. “Why did you make it weird? Why didn’t you say eyes?”
Louis held his hand up before anyone could speak again. “Let me guess, you’re trying to make it into a new phrase?”
Niall let out a delighted whoop and patted Louis on the back. “This is why you’re my best buddy, Lou. You getme! For being such a great friend, I’ll grab you some more tiny sausage rolls from the buffet.” He motioned for the other man to follow, which he did after throwing the remainder of the group a pleading look.
“I’m gonna…” Nameless Customer Services Man trailed off, desperately searching for someone to call him over and free him from the group he’d found himself in.
“We get it,” Zayn said with a sympathetic nod. “You don’t need to make an excuse. You can go.”
The man didn’t need to be asked twice, almost running away into the crowd the moment Zayn finished speaking.
“Sometimes I think we’re the only normal friends here,” Harry spoke, mainly to himself, as he watched someone move towards the DJ set. He knew what would happen now – they were setting up the fire display for later. Oh! He was so excited. In his exhilaration, he shoved Zayn, getting his attention and pointing to where there were now a small team of people fiddling with wires that looked older than he was. “Fire’s gonna look so cool.”
Zayn didn’t seem as excited as Harry did. Weird! How could you not be on the edge of your seat with the anticipation? Maybe he was a little too different from his friends, and he’d need to scour the internet for fire enthusiasts to understand and fully share his passion.
Harry made a mental note to look up such groups on the archaic Facebook or Twitter the second he stepped through his front door.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Zayn questioned, still unconvinced, as he saw a small spark from a wire being put into a socket.
“So safe,” Harry confirmed, his eyes – or sight organs – trained on the crowd of people, which kept gaining more members as time passed. “They’re from We Don’t Cause Scary Fires. Biggest pyrotechnics in the North-East.”
Zayn hummed, still not seeing it from Harry’s point of view. “One issue with that, Hazza. We’re currently in the South.”
Just as he finished speaking, a larger spark caught their attention. This time, it didn’t stop but hit one of the decorations, which, granted, were far too close to a location where the organisers knew the fire would happen.
The fire shot up, spreading over the paper-covered ceiling. It made Harry feel rather warm, making him glad he chose not to wear his wool-rich suit to the party. Imagine how hot he’d be if he were dealing with this and luxury sheep hair. He dreaded to think of it.
“Nice to meet ya!” shouted Niall, who was now running back to them, dragging Louis behind him by the wrist as he tried to finish his last sausage roll. “I’m slippin’ into the lava, and I’m tryna keep from goin’ under!” he cried. “Baby, who turned the temperature hotter?!”
The rest of the friend group ignored the term of endearment given and pointed up to the ceiling, which was now engulfed with flames.
“Why hasn’t the fire alarm gone off?!” Zayn yelled, now taking action and pushing people towards the exit.
Harry shrugged. It was an old building; maybe they didn’t have all these fandangled safety features which people raved about. It would ruin the character of the house! A bright white box on the ceiling to alert people to smoke? Ew! It would look utterly out of place in such a grand hall as the one now burning to the ground was.
“Can someone call 999!” a woman yelled, snapping Harry out of his thoughts.
“On it!” Harry called back, taking his phone from his small handbag and typing in the three numbers.
The operator picked up after the seventh tone, and Harry gave her all the details she requested. Apparently, the fire department was busy, so they’d have to send someone from further out. That was fine, Harry had said, as long as they were sending someone as quickly as possible. He needed them to come and stop the fire, taking his favourite part of the house: the chocolate factory. It would be weird to some that a chocolate factory was stuck on the side of the building – where were they? A Roald Dahl 1964 novel? – but it was how the family had diversified their income streams during The Great Chocolate Shortage of 2018, making the owners even more prosperous than they were before.
“We need to get out of the building. Immediately!” Zayn yelled, now forcefully shoving people into the orange and purple foyer and out into the courtyard to safety.
“Thank god you’re here, Zaynie,” Louis said as he was made to leave the fireball room and into the cold outdoors. He was secretly glad that he’d also been the last person at the buffet since he and Niall had managed to demolish 95% of the food there. There was no evidence that they’d been the ones to eat their way through most of the provisions for the rest of the night. Ah, it was the perfect crime, that was for sure.
The whole party stood outside, watching the flames take hold of the building. It was pretty dramatic, Harry thought to himself as he saw a window crack under the intense heat of the inferno. Who’d have thought the night would end like this? He certainly had not.
It took another twenty minutes before the fire trucks turned up, which was almost too late for the building, which was starting to crumble as the fire began its way up one of the pillars.
“You took your time,” Louis said as he watched the firefighters ferry out of their vehicles.
“LAFD! Move aside!” shouted the older one of the group when his feet touched the ground.
Huh? LA? As in Los Angeles? As in Los Angeles, California? As in Los Angeles, California, USA? Harry supposed they did need to get people from outside the county to help, but he didn’t expect them to come from across the ocean for it. He almost started to feel proud of their little fire, knowing the news had spread so far. Maybe he’d be written about in the local newspaper and be called a hero for summoning these men from afar? Perhaps he was about to become mega-famous!
“My name’s Buck and this is Eddie,” one of the guys said to Harry, getting his attention. Harry narrowed his eyes at the man. He somehow looked British despite doing his best impression of a Californian accent. This imposter would not fool Harry! When he came across them, he knew someone from England, and this Buck guy had London written all over him.
Before he could integrate them, Niall arrived out of nowhere. “Nice to meet ya!” he said. Harry was impressed that his friend’s catchphrase actually made sense in this context. “Are you two together?”
“Niall!” Louis snapped, punching his friend’s arm aggressively. “You can’t just go around asking strangers things like that.”
At this question, the two Americans – well, one American and one phoney American – looked like they’d been asked an impossible question. For some reason, they both started to splutter and embarrass themselves before another guy approached them before they could give Niall a solid answer.
“Bobby needs you two,” the man said, much to the other guys’ relief.
“Thanks, Chim,” the real American said, patting him on the back and walking with the other towards the fire.
“Everyone! My name is Chimney,” the man shouted, getting the crowd’s attention. Harry almost laughed aloud at learning this man’s name. Chimney? Buck? What’s next? Were they going to inform them that there was someone else in the LA Fire Department called Horse or Carpet? “Now, we need to get you all away from the building as far as possible. It looks like it might collapse any second.”
Thankfully, they did what they were told and marched towards the back of the property, walking backwards to ensure they didn’t miss anything. It was a hazard at times, as people kept tripping over their feet, but nothing the firefighters could do would stop them from doing it.
They all watched the large building burn down as the firefighters sprayed it with water. Harry concluded there was no saving it, as bricks started falling from the façade. It would’ve been a sad moment, but he didn’t have any claim in the building so he’d not lose any money or investment potential with it. If anything, maybe he’d get another good payout when this inevitably went to court for gross endangerment of life. He’d be able to buy himself a new Gucci suit. Such joy!
Niall came up to stand beside Harry to watch the blaze continue to take over the surrounding area. “Nice to meet ya,” he said, his voice low for once. When Harry nodded, Niall continued to speak. “Those two were def dating, right? The Eddie guy and that man who is absolutely from London.”
Harry could see no two ways about it. Something was clearly going on between them, even if they’d not addressed it themselves. Maybe this was the night it happened? That’d be cute and a nice way to end such a dramatic Christmas party.
Louis and Zayn joined them a minute later, and Harry couldn’t help but notice that Louis had his phone in his hand, Spotify open and ready to go. “I have a perfect song for this situation,” he claimed as he scrolled through his library to find what he was talking about. Before anyone could say something, the very recognisable noise of David Byrne’s voice came from the speakers, alongside something that sounded like bells and a man in a deep voice going ‘ho ho ho!’
“What’s this?” Zayn asked, trying to read Louis’ phone.
“Burning Down the House (Festive Version),” Louis supplied, making it seem like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And, maybe just then and there, it was.