He was no longer invisible. They all saw him now.
But he was further away than ever.

"There was once an invisible man, the monster continued, though Conor kept his eyes firmly on Harry, who had grown tired of being unseen.
Conor set himself into a walk.
A walk after Harry.
It was not that he was actually invisible, the monster said, following Conor, the room volume dropping as they passed. It was that the people had become used to not seeing him.
"Hey!" Conor called. Harry didn't turn around. Neither did Sully nor Anton, though thet were still sniggering as Conor picked up his pace.
And if no one sees you, the monster said, picking up its pace, too, are you really there at all?
"HEY!" Conor called loudly.
The dining hall had fallen silent now, as Conor and the monster moved faster after Harry.
Harry who had still not turned around.
Conor reached him and grabbed him by the shoulder, twisting him round. Harry pretended to question what had happened, looking hard at Sully, acting like he was the one who'd done it. "Quit messing about," Harry said and turned away again.
Turned away from Conor.
And then one day the invisible man decided, the monster said, its voice ringing in Conor's ears, I will make them see me.
"How?" Conor asked, breathing heavily again, not turning back to see the monster standing there, not looking at the reaction of the room to the huge monster now in the midst, though he was aware of nervous murmurs and a strange anticipation in the air. "How did the man do it?"
Conor could feel the monster close behind him, knew that it was kneeling, knew that it was putting its face up to his ear to whisper into in, to tell him the rest of the story.
He called, it said for a monster."

Conor held tightly onto his mother.
And by doing so, he could finally let her go.

Never invisible again, the monster said, finally letting up, its huge branch-like fists curled tight as a clap of thunder.
It turned to Conor.
But there are harder things than being invisible, it said.

Conor got his ass beat.

I knew it,” Conor grumbled. “These kinds of stories always have stupid princes falling in love.” He started walking back to the house. “I thought this was going to be good.”With one swift movement, the monster grabbed Conor’s ankles in a long, strong hand and flipped him upside down, holding him in mid-air so his T-shirt rucked up and his heartbeat thudded in his head.As I was saying, said the monster.

Conor wasn’t stupid. When they’d had the “little talk” the next day, he knew what his mum had done and why she had done it. But that didn’t take away from how much fun that night had been. How hard they’d laughed. How anything had seemed possible. How anything good could have happened to them right then and there and they wouldn’t have been surprised.

"Here is the hardest hit of all, O'Malley," Harry said. "Here is the very worst thing I can do to you."

He held out his hand, as if asking for a handshake.
He was asking for a handshake.

Conor responded almost automatically, putting out his own hand and shaking Harry's before he even thought about what he was doing. They shook hands like two businessmen at the end of a meeting.

"Goodbye, O'Malley," Harry said, looking into Conor's eyes. "I no longer see you."

He had come so far from himself that I don't
think he knew who he was anymore.

The closer he moved, the farther it seemed still.

Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.

"I couldn't stand the waiting anymore. I couldn't stand how alone it made me feel."

And a part of you wished it would just end, said the monster, even if it meant losing her.

And the nightmare began. The nightmare that always ended with -
"I let her go," Conor choked out. "I could have held on but I let her go."

And that, the monster said, is the truth.

"I didn't mean it, though!" Conor said, his voice rising. "I didn't mean to let her go! And now it's for real! Now she's going to die and it's my fault!"

And that, the monster said, is not the truth at all.

"Conor looked down at his hands, finally unclenching them. "Because what I thought was so wrong."

It was not wrong, the monster said, It was only a thought, one of a million. It was not an action."

He was glorified while in hiding, but vanished when he appeared in public.