“A Matching Hook” || Descendants short story
Summary: For months, 11-year-old Harry Hook has grown himself a reputation as one of the Isle’s most intimidating youngsters. His secret? Telling everyone the gruesome story of how he had come face-to-face with Tick-Tock the crocodile and lost his hand, just like his father. When he is suddenly exposed as a fraud, Harry becomes the laughingstock of the town. And so he decides that the only way to avoid scrutiny from his father and everyone else… is to turn his lie into the truth.
W/C: 4,000 (give or take a few)
Warnings: blood, dead animals, slight implied child abuse
A/N: I got the idea for this from a headcanon (I think it was a headcanon) that Harry nearly lost his hand to a crocodile on purpose because he wanted a hooked hand like his father. I thought it would make a cool story, and since I’ve been wanting to write more about the Hook family, especially Harry’s relationship with his dad, I wrote this! It’s my first fic ever and I’m very excited.
The air escaped Harry’s lungs as his back slammed against the wet concrete. His eyes went out of focus, and for a moment he thought that he was seeing double, but no, there were two identical faces laughing down at him. This was the third fight in a row that he’d lost against the Gaston twins this week.
“Some pirate you are!” said one of the Gastons. In all his eleven years, Harry had never bothered to learn how to differentiate between the two— they both had the same stupid faces and wide, slanting grins that practically begged for a good beating.
There was no doubt that these fights had started because of Harry. Lately, his thirst for confrontation had been insatiable, and it only kept growing stronger with his ego. He found it most entertaining to pick on other kids, though it was at times like this where he overstepped his game.
“His old man couldn’t beat a couple of kids, and neither can he,” the other Gaston laughed, elbowing the first. His tattered leather boot was planted firmly on Harry’s chest, preventing him from getting up… or breathing much. He struggled and suddenly became aware of the crowd of children that had gathered around them during the fight. Every single one of them was laughing at him.
With a sudden impulse of anger, he made the foolish mistake of slashing forward with his hooked hand, aiming for the second Gaston’s oversized shins, but the first Gaston caught him abruptly by the wrist. Harry began to panic.
“Hey, wait, this is made of wood,” Gaston said, scoffing down at his hook. He pulled it out of Harry’s grip with ease. He felt the clumsily-whittled wooden grip splinter his fingers. His sleeve wasn’t long enough for him to hide the truth. The other children gasped.
“Dude,” the second Gaston said, staring at Harry’s perfectly intact hand. The first one was still laughing about the toy hook.
“Why would your dad give you a wooden hook? Does he even like you?” he said. His brother elbowed him. He elbowed back even harder. The brother sighed and turned the first one’s head towards Harry, and it was then that he finally noticed.
“He’s a fraud!” some kid in the crowd shouted.
“He’s been lying about his hand the whole time!” shouted another. Villain children loved to point out the obvious.
The entire crowd began to laugh. Even some of the adults had snuck over to watch and now they were laughing, too. Harry felt his face burning, but the damage had already been dealt. His reputation was ruined and he wasn’t even a teenager yet. Months of intimidation and respect that Harry had earned for himself had just gone out the window. The second Gaston’s giant boot slammed into his stomach and knocked the breath out of him once more.
“Yeah, some pirate you are,” the first Gaston repeated as he threw the wooden hook down on the ground in front of Harry.
The twins strutted off, and the crowd trailed behind them (no one ever cared about the loser), and Harry lay on the ground alone, desperately trying to remember what inhaling felt like. Droplets of rain splashed onto his face. He curled his fingers around his phony hook, and after a few minutes, he managed to stand up and run back towards his home— the Jolly Roger.
Fifteen years prior, the King of Auradon had been merciful enough to allow Captain Hook’s beloved ship to rest on the shore of the Isle under the dome before it was sealed, and since then it became more of a lodging than a vessel given its great size. With age and immobility, the ship began to grow riddled with mold, but still it stood tall and sturdy even now.
Harry shoved past his crewmates unapologetically and sprinted on until he had bolted himself inside his cabin. In a fit of pure unbridled rage, he destroyed nearly everything in his sleeping quarters. Glass bottles were thrown against the wall, the boards that made up his bed frame and shelves were kicked in and splintered, and his spare shirts were all but ripped to complete shreds. He took his sword and slashed through the curtains, the quilts, and the plastic figurines on the one shelf that had been out of stomping range.
With a final yell, he threw his fake hook— the one he had so joyfully spent weeks carving, sanding, and spraying with golden paint in secret during the wee hours of the night— at the round window on the far end of his room. It crashed straight through the thin glass pane, shattering it entirely, and fell into the water below, gone forever.
With nothing left to destroy he stood there staring at the broken window, heaving. How could he be so stupid? How could he let himself get humiliated like that? Why did he let his secret get revealed so easily, right there in front of everybody?
Such an idiotic lie, Harry thought now. As if he’d really confronted an enormous crocodile. He’d never even seen the beast. What would his father think of all this? Harry stiffened. His eyes widened as he became aware of the gigantic mess around him.
“Ohh no,” he squeaked. He practically sang it. The demolished room would be the least of his worries. His father would be home from a villain’s council later in the evening, and there was no doubt he’d return knowing exactly what happened earlier.
Harry didn’t know what his father would be more angry about— the fact that he had been wearing a fake hook in public for months on end in an attempt to imitate him, or the fact that he had failed to protect such a lie and instead turned himself into a complete laughingstock. He didn’t want to stick around to find out. There was little time. Captain Hook would find out about the incident before the day’s end. Talk traveled fast on the Isle, and even faster among pirates. That would hurt his father’s reputation too, which scared Harry the most.
As he watched the sun sink into the horizon, he turned his focus towards the thought that had been slowly sparking to life in his mind ever since Gaston’s muddy boot collided with his sternum for a second time.
He had an idea that was so mad he was actually aware of how truly insane it was. That never happened. With a sinking feeling, he realized that he had no choice but to go through with it, and it had to happen today. He was going to earn himself that matching hook.
Sheathing his sword, he unbolted his door as quietly as he could and poked his head out into the corridor. No one was there. No one had followed him. Good, Harry thought. Although he was just a child, he still intimidated the other pirates in his father’s crew. Or perhaps they were just afraid of his father.
With that discomforting thought in mind, he rushed down the hall and turned the corner. There, he disappeared behind the closest door— the back door that led to Captain Hook’s quarters. Only Smee had permission to use this door, but given the situation Harry didn’t think this offense would hold any gravity compared to the rest of ways he had completely screwed up today. This week. Every day of his life. Still, entering his father’s room felt like a crime, and not the entertaining sort.
Even when Captain Hook was out, his room was always dimly lit on either end by an array of candles. A normal person might have noticed how much of a fire hazard this was, but on the Isle all it did was indicate Hook’s level of power. Yet despite being the most well-lit room on the ship, and possibly on this side of the Isle, it was still swathed with shadow. Harry crept over to his desk and took a piece of parchment and a pen. He held it near the light of the singular candle in front of him and scrawled in shaky, barely legible handwriting:
“I know I failed you. I’m going make it up to you right now. I won’t be home tonight. I promise I will be like you.”
He left the note there and took off in a rush, wanting to leave the room as quickly as possible. Not wasting a moment, he traveled to the lower decks and into the chicken coop— pirates insisted on raising their own livestock. He opened the small wire gate and hesitated.
Harry clenched his jaw. This was going to be harder than he thought. He remembered that a villain shouldn’t have any remorse and for a brief moment his conscience was locked in a moral quandary. Then his eyes rested on a still form in the corner of the cage.
A dead chicken lay there stiffly, half-hidden within the hay. How it died exactly, Harry didn’t know. He didn’t stop to think about it either. He just grabbed it— grateful that he didn’t have to take out his dagger— and ran.
When he exited the ship, the storm was in full swing. Rain and wind battered against his body as he skirted around the edge of town and ran straight towards the shore on the far side of the island. He trudged up the sand dunes and looked down at the rocky beach. This was where the dreaded Tick-Tock was rumored to be living.
Harry kicked down the wooden “beware of crocodiles” sign that someone had planted in the sand many years ago and made his way towards a tall boulder that jutted out over the mass of sharp rocks dotting the shore. The far end of it hovered above the water. He took a tentative step onto the boulder and figured that it would support his weight, and so he inched his way up to the edge and tried not to slip on the slick surface. The sea crashed restlessly against the shore as thunder rumbled distantly from the sky.
He got down on all fours and raised his left arm, holding the dead chicken by its neck over the surface as far as he could reach. For what seemed like ages nothing happened, and his arm slowly began to ache. And then he heard something.
A very faint tick, tock, tick, tock reached his ears from beneath the water’s surface. The tide seemed to grow stronger, and he could scarcely see anything but the faint reflection of the crescent moon on the rough water that had broken through the thick storm clouds.
The sound of his heart pounding drowned out the roar of the surf colliding with the rocks and the howling wind whipping at his face, but that too became a meaningless ambiance against the repetitive tick, tick, tick that now echoed clearly in his ears. Within moments, it began to rattle through his skull, growing louder as the rain finally subsided. The waves calmed just enough for a brief moment, and then he saw it.
All he could see at first were two soulless blank eyes piercing through the darkness in the near distance, and then the shadowy silhouette of an elongated, scaled face gliding through the water, the smoothness of its movements unabated by the rough waves passing by it. Yet still Harry recognized in an instant the largest crocodile he had ever seen in his life.
The huge creature paused several yards out, as if it were sizing up its prey. For a long, dreadful minute, the two remained still, their eyes locked in a psychological battle. The glow of Tick-Tock’s eyes remained unchanging and cold, and Harry dared not look away. Tick, tock, tick, tock. It was all he could hear. In the midst of his fear, he wondered if the beast recognized him or knew exactly what it was that he wanted.
A drop of sweat fell from Harry’s face— or perhaps a tear— and disappeared into the vast sea of infinite water droplets below him. His feelings were irrelevant, this he knew. This had to happen. His whole body began to shake, and another drop fell, this time from his left hand.
He glanced up and saw that the small chicken corpse he had been holding out as bait was slowly being crushed under his white fingers. His nails had been digging into its neck and its blood had been seeping out over his hand and into the water the entire time. Its lifeless eyes seemed to see straight through into his soul. For the first time, he noticed that the bird was not even fully grown.
He now noticed his left hand drenched in blood up to his forearm— red, warm, and glistening. His eyes widened as and he looked back out at the water, suddenly nauseous and deeply regretting his decision. He squinted. The crocodile was gone. The ticking had ceased.
Relief began to flow through Harry’s veins, but he found himself frozen still, his body unable to move except for the trembling that threatened to overwhelm him. He was still unable to hear anything else through the crash of the tide, or perhaps the sound of his own blood rushing through his ears.
It was as if a muted voice was screaming his name from far deep within his mad conscience. He forced himself to relax, and he lowered his arm slightly and looked down, only to find Tick-Tock’s malice-filled eyes just inches below him.
Harry opened his mouth to scream just as the crocodile launched itself out of the water with the force of a thousand sea monsters, its jaws parted so wide he could see every last one of its dagger-sharp teeth jutting angrily from its maw.
Time slowed down. The ticking sped up. Harry felt his fingers release the chicken’s neck, and he began to pull his arm back, but in that split second he knew he wouldn’t be fast enough. Tick-Tock’s enormous mouth had just begun to close around Harry’s hand when an arm wrapped around his waist from behind and dragged him backwards.
The crocodile’s jaws snapped together with a deafening CRACK! The strength of it sent a shockwave through the air. At the same time, Harry’s back slammed brutally against the boulder beneath him, taking his breath away. He could’ve sworn he had felt a tooth brush against his first finger. For a moment his vision went fuzzy, and then it blurred in and out of focus until at last it began to register an infuriated face glaring down at his own— his father’s.
Somehow, despite the vagueness of the note Harry had left that gave no hints of his whereabouts, the Captain had been able to figure out exactly what his son had been planning to do. The ringing in Harry’s ears ceased just in time for him to hear the words exploding from Captain Hook’s mouth.
“WHAT IN GOD’S NAME DO YE THINK YE WERE DOING?” His voice had never boomed so intensely. “ARE YE TRYING TAE GET YERSELF KILLED? YE TRYING TAE DANCE WITH JACK KETCH, IS THAT IT? BECAUSE YE NEARLY SUCCEEDED THERE. WHAT THE HELL WAS PASSING THROUGH YER MIND, YE DAMN SWAB? MY SON’S GOT GOOSE-DOWN FOR BRAINS, DOES HE? I’LL KEELHAUL YE FOR THIS, BOY. I SWEAR I WILL.”
The Captain roared in his face like this for several moments, his face glistening with sweat and his dark eyes wild with fury and terror. His golden hook flashed at his side.
All the while, Harry never moved. His breath came in small gasps and his eyes were stretched wide, his pupils so dilated that the blue of his eyes appeared black. His body was completely rigid and his left arm still stuck out in front of him, his fingers curled and grasping nothing but a singular feather that stuck stubbornly to his palm.
Hook’s voice trailed off and his rage subsided instantly as he realized the boy was in shock. He took his son’s bloodied hand in his own and examined it, his brows furrowing with concern and then unfurrowing with relief at having discovered that the blood was not Harry’s.
The sight of actual care in his father’s eyes was enough to lasso Harry out of his state of shock. His breathing slowed and the reality of the situation finally settled in. Shame washed over him like a wave of boiling water and he began to sob, unable to stop himself.
“I’m sorry, father,” he choked out, his voice barely a whisper. He couldn’t believe he was crying in front of Captain Hook. What would the other children think now? His crewmates? His sisters?
He turned his head to the left and stared at the deserted beach that stretched out behind them. The rocky ground felt cold beneath his cheek, so different from the tears that burned against his skin. He couldn’t bear to look at his father’s face. At least there was no one else here to witness him in this state.
“I failed you,” was all he could utter. He gritted his teeth, ready to be caught under the fires of his father’s wrath. It’s happened before, but never in response to a situation this bad. He tensed, knowing that he deserved whatever punishment he had coming his way.
But there were no bitter insults, no strikes, nor did the yelling resume. There was just an uncomfortable silence filled only by the deep rumble of the ocean. And then:
“Ye didn’t… You’re yer own man, Harry, and— and that’s all I want ye tae be. I… I’m proud of ye.”
Harry turned to look at his father, unable to mask his surprise. Both of them seemed equally shocked by what he said.
Without another word, Hook pulled Harry up into a sitting position and hugged him tightly against his chest. There was no doubt that this was likely the most confusing moment of their lives, yet neither of them moved for that long minute. Harry stopped shaking.
“We best be going now,” Hook said abruptly, standing up. Using his hook, he dragged Harry up onto his feet by the back of his red leather jacket as if he weighed nothing. As Harry wiped the snot and tears from his face with his clean hand, he glanced to his left and saw Tick-Tock’s face, still peering out from the dark water.
The crocodile’s eyes were trained on him, its bloodstained mouth parted in a rumbling growl. Harry began to back away when a large stone suddenly sailed past his ear and struck the reptile atop its massive head with a loud thwack. The beast hissed and with a violent jerk, it dove underwater with a splash and swam off. Harry laughed hoarsely and turned to look at his father with a newfound sense of admiration.
“Nothin’ but a bloody coward,” muttered Hook at the spot in the sea where the creature disappeared. He lowered his throwing arm around Harry’s shoulder and they began to walk home.
By the time the two rejoined civilization, the grip of Hook’s good hand had gone from Harry’s shoulder to his ear. To everyone else, it seemed that the troublesome Hook boy had finally gotten on his father’s last nerve. Harry knew that his dad was just putting on an act. Neither of them were about to admit to anyone that they had just shared a tender father-son moment half an hour earlier. Still, Harry beamed.
“Wipe that daft grin off yer face,” growled Hook as they reached the Jolly Roger. He pinched Harry’s ear tighter.
“Aye, Cap’n,” Harry said, wincing.
Hook disappeared into his quarters and left Harry on the deck with his own thoughts as Smee rushed over to clean the dried blood from his arm. Harry sat still and stared into space, which was very unlike him.
A few minutes later, he felt something cold and metallic touch his fingers. He snapped out of his trance to find Smee gone and Hook standing in front of him once more— and a shiny, silver hook in his hands.
It shined in the moonlight like a jewel, its point sharper and finer than that of any sword’s. It was a weapon that could strike fear into the hearts of all and pierce them too, for good measure. And it was now Harry’s.
His jaw dropped and he looked up at his father, who leaned down and said, “and if ye ever do lose a hand, it had better not be because ye offered it up as bait or I’ll give ye a good floggin’, ya wee idjit.”
“Aye, Dad!” said Harry, nodding rapidly and slipping the hook onto his hand. His joy was impossible to hide, and Captain Hook shot him a faint smile in return.
Thank you for reading my story! I’d love to hear your feedback :)
