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Chapter - 145
🕑 Added 2025-06-01 19:20:07 +0000 UTC[Title : Right Fit For Harry]
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INT. RADCLIFFE HOUSE – DANIEL'S ROOM – NIGHT
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The window’s open.
The wind rolls in, soft and cool.
The rustle of London outside.
Cars. Distant voices. Leaves scratching the glass. But Daniel’s world is quiet. Too quiet.
He sits cross-legged on his bed, eyes on the ceiling.
The lights are off.
Just the glow of a desk lamp catching the edges of his boyhood - books piled high, some open to half-finished chapters. A chess set frozen mid-game. A poster of The Muppets curling at the corners.
He murmurs. “I think I am done. With all of it.”
No one hears it, not even the walls.
It's not spoken out loud - just thought, buried under a stillness no eleven-year-old should wear.
“People say I was good at acting. Like, really good. Mum says it like it's a fact, like she is telling me the sky is blue. Dad just smiles too much when people bring it up, like it’s someone else they are talking about.”
He looks at his reflection in the darkened window - soft eyes, pale face, hair that won’t sit still.
“But what if it wasn’t real? What if I just got lucky? What if I was only good because I didn’t know what I was doing yet?”
He hugs his knees. The silence now feels like pressure, like waiting in the wings of a stage too big for him.
“I miss being... not this. Not the kid on set, and the one who has to smile even when he’s tired. I want to ride my bike and not care if someone’s watching. I want to mess up and not have it printed in the paper.”
There’s a knock. Gentle.
His father, Alan, peeks in. “You still awake?”
Daniel nods. “Can I come in?”
Daniel shrugs. That’s a yes.
Alan steps in, holding two mugs. Hot chocolate. The good kind, with actual melted bits at the bottom.
Daniel’s nose twitches. His stomach growls a little, but he hides it.
“Didn’t know if you needed to talk. But... figured chocolate helps either way.”
Daniel accepts the mug with a soft, automatic.
"Thanks." They sit in silence for a beat. The kind that only exists between people who know how to be quiet together.
Alan spokes. “So... Danny? Someone is on the phone for Mom. It’s… a producer. Says it is about a film.
Daniel’s face twitches slightly. Not excited. More like: Here we go again.
“Tell them she is not here.”
Alan smiled, but firm. “Daniel.”
He sighs, flops backward onto the carpet.
“Dad, I said I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to be stared at. I don’t want to be famous. I just want to go back to school like normal people.”
Alan spoke softly. “Kido, no one’s asking you to make a decision. Just... talk. That’s all they want.”
Daniel raised a question. “What if I don’t even like acting anymore?”
He kneels beside him, smoothing his hair back.
Alan spoke. “Then we stop. But you might regret not even listening.”
Daniel stares at the ceiling he murmured. “It’s just a movie.”
He smiles gently. “Maybe. Or maybe not….”
.…
Regal leans back, rubbing his temples. His tie is off.
His shirt’s untucked.
He looks like a man who’s fought dragons all day and lost.
Samantha entered with a mug of black tea.
"The casting team says they have reviewed over five hundred boys. Still think this is the kid?"
Regal sipping absently. "Yep no doubt about it."
Samantha sitting opposite him. "Small problem, though."
Regal is already nodding. "He doesn’t want the part."
She raises her mug in mock cheers. "That is one way of putting it. Apparently he told his agent he wants to quit acting altogether. Says he wants a normal life."
Regal dryly. "He is ten. What does he know about normal?"
Samantha chuckles, then sobers. "We could move on. The studio's got a few backups."
Regal slowly shakes his head. "You already know my response."
Samantha asked. “Why do you think he stopped acting?”
Regal doesn’t answer right away. His eyes are still distant, but there’s something in them. Thought. A memory, maybe.
“Well…” He said finally, voice low. “Obviously because he just… loves acting too much.”
Samantha frowns and lowers the papers. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Regal finally turns, a dry, almost tired smile on his face. “It’s the only way it does make sense.”
Samantha waits. She knows that look - he is building toward something.
Regal spoke. “He didn’t stop because he wanted to. Or because he found something better. It’s the opposite. He stopped... because he only loved the acting. Not the interviews and the red carpets that came with it or the way people start treating you like you’re someone else just because they saw you on a screen.”
He walks over, leaning slightly against the table.
“The kid’s was just not built for all that noise.”
Samantha tilts her head. Listening.
Regal continues. “And when your love for something is that pure... that unfiltered… it can scare the hell out of you. Because eventually, you start to see what the world does to that kind of love.”
He looked down, voice steady but quiet. “The kid probably realized that too early. That the world around the thing he loves… isn’t built for people who just want to love it purely.”
Samantha didn’t interrupt. She was listening now - really listening.
“It happens.” Regal continued. “When your love for something is so honest, so intense, that when you finally see how messy everything around it is - how political, commercial, exhausting - it breaks something in you. It doesn't make you stop loving it. No, it does something worse. It makes you afraid of watching that love rot.”
He pauses. “Daniel’s too young to articulate that, maybe. But he feels it. And instead of numbing himself, instead of pretending he didn’t… he stepped away. Before it turned sour. Before the thing that gave him life started to feel like it was taking it.”
“You don’t want to unlove it.” Regal said. “You don’t want to wake up one day and realize the thing that saved you… now just makes you bitter.”
He paused. His eyes drifted back to the window, then narrowed slightly, as if seeing something only he could.
“He saw it coming.” Regal murmured. “Too young. Where most kids would’ve chased fame with their eyes shut, he stopped. Pulled back. Not because he didn’t care - but because he cared too much.”
Samantha swallowed, her arms slowly uncrossing.
Samantha lowered her eyes. “That’s a heavy thing to carry.” She said softly. “For a kid.”
Regal nodded. “Yeah. But maybe that’s exactly why he is right for Harry.”
There was a moment of silence. Outside, a car passed. Down the hall, faint laughter echoed and then faded.
“He’s trying to protect it.” Regal said finally. “Protect the thing he loves before the world gets a chance to poison it.”
He stood a little straighter, but his voice stayed low.
“Sometimes… walking away is how you hold onto what matters most.”
Then, almost to himself: “I guess the saying is true.”
A breath.
“Ignorance is bliss… especially when love is involved.” He looked toward the door. “But Daniel - he saw through the gloss a little too soon.”
Regal wasn’t just tossing out words for the sake of it.
Because he isn’t.
He had read an article ‘once’ - one that stuck with him.
And it wasn’t just the article. He had stood in that same place himself, once.
That moment.
When everything you’re doing suddenly feels pointless.
When you're staring down what feels like insurmountable pressure and wondering if any of it is worth it.
Most people don’t hit that wall until adulthood.
But Daniel Radcliffe? Ever the overachiever in the both world - decided to have his existential crisis before he even hit his teens.
According to that piece Regal read, Daniel wasn’t even interested in playing Harry Potter at first.
The Boy Who Lived… didn’t want to be.
Of course, things didn’t end there.
Eventually, someone managed to talk him into it - maybe a parent, maybe a casting director with silver-tongued charm. Who knows?
And the rest, as they say, is history.
But it’s worth imagining for a moment - One of the biggest film franchises could've had a different look entirely had Radcliffe committed to ending his young acting career.
And we never would have seen the actor play a flatulent corpse…
.
….
[To be continued…]
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