If Harry really DOES want to head back to the Royals, how the hell could they ever trust him again – and what about Meghan? MAUREEN CALLAHAN on a bombshell claim about the Lost Prince of Montecito

Is the prodigal son really about to return?

In a bombshell report, friends of Prince Harry tell the UK Times that he is seeking a ‘royal return to heal the rift with King Charles’. That he is willing to return to a ‘temporary royal role’ in support of his father during his illness.

And, according to a royal insider, Charles has tentatively welcomed the offer.

Could this possibly be true, after all that has been said and done? Other sources say it’s out of the question.

Either way, one thing seems newly possible: Harry may really want to return in some capacity. 

Would Charles soften here? Would he risk opening this aperture? 

If so, it would represents a massive, tectonic shift in the Windsor dynamics: Charles embracing Harry and vice versa; Prince William still furious and unyielding; and Meghan… well, Meghan is largely unmentioned.

Could this possibly be true, after all that has been said and done? Other sources says it’s out of the question.

A welcome from the Palace would be all the more shocking given the events of last week: Harry rushing, reportedly unbidden, from California to the UK to see Charles, who had just been diagnosed with cancer.

He flew 11,000 miles and spent 21 hours in the air for just a 30-minute meeting.

After he departed, Charles and Camilla flew off by helicopter six minutes later — not even a decent pause for optics.

William, meanwhile, refused to see him altogether, with sources close to the prince saying he had ‘no plans’ for reconciliation. Brothers no more.

Yet now, the Times’s royal source is upending years of estrangement, quite suddenly. Harry’s return would ‘benefit the institution’, the insider said.

‘On all practical levels it makes perfect sense for the family to come together to support the King while he’s sick. Much has been said on both sides in recent years, but that has never diminished the fundamental bond of blood’.

Let’s stop right there.

‘Much has been said on both sides’ is quite the generous statement. It acknowledges that for all Harry and Meghan’s attacks, the Palace has caused hurt as well.

‘There are now pragmatic aspects to consider,’ the source continued, ‘with the King and Kate’s wellbeing paramount in this… the feeling is that this arrangement could work.’

Could it though – really? It’s practically impossible to imagine how the royal family – so consistently insulted, hurt and exploited by Harry and Meghan – could ever think of trusting him with a ringside seat again.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t fantasize about the prospect.

I wrote early last week that Harry, whose self-proclaimed greatest fear is that he has only ever been a ‘spare’ — that the royals have no need for him — must surely now see that the opposite is true.

His 75-year-old father is sick. His sister-in-law is out of commission until at least after Easter. His brother has gone back to work sooner than expected but is unable to carry a full schedule with Kate convalescing and three small children at home.

This slimmed-down monarchy is in desperate need of not just help but star power.

Perhaps Charles’s catastrophic diagnosis — no matter how treatable, cancer is a terrifying one — has jolted this wayward son.

It’s practically impossible to imagine how the royal family – so consistently insulted, hurt and exploited by Harry and Meghan – could ever think of trusting him with a ringside seat again. But that doesn’t mean he can’t fantasize about the prospect.

This slimmed-down monarchy is in desperate need of not just help but star power. Perhaps Charles’s catastrophic diagnosis – no matter how treatable, cancer is a terrifying one – has jolted this wayward son.

But The Times report is also notable for what it’s not saying. Meghan hardly gets a mention.

Charles has always said the door is open to his son. Not, notably, to Meghan.

Curious, too, is Meghan’s largely silent presence in Canada this week, as Harry promotes next year’s Invictus Games.

It was Harry alone who spoke to ‘Good Morning America’ on Friday, and – it must be acknowledged – his interview gave no hint of a royal return.

But it was vintage Harry: by turns confused, conciliatory, provocative, and resentful.

Even as he spoke of his father’s illness and displayed rare discretion in saying that such information would stay ‘between me and him’ and that he planned to visit Charles often, Harry also said he was considering becoming a U.S. citizen.

Such utterances feel almost schizophrenic. It’s in keeping with Harry and Meghan clinging to their royal titles while slinging mud and spilling secrets and allowing their de facto mouthpiece Omid Scobie to trash Charles and Kate as ‘racists’.

Can that damage ever be undone?

And if this delicate repatriation has indeed been in the works for the past two weeks, why would Harry and Meghan relaunch their website and link to SussexRoyal.com — a domain the Queen had ordered shut down?

Why would they lash out at the slightest provocation?

‘They’re still working and pursuing what they believe in, despite being constantly challenged and criticized’, their camp said Thursday. This was in response to suggestions that the Invictus trip was make-or-break for their brand.

‘This couple will not be broken’.

Wow — what an overreaction. That actually sounds like the super-defensive, overcompensating thing a couple who really is struggling might say.

To be sure, the stresses Harry and Meghan have been under, self-created though they may be, would strain the strongest marriage.

Meghan must be wondering: Where is she in all this?

Perhaps she’s content to pursue her Hollywood ambitions while Harry is away. Perhaps she understands, finally, that their only currency is proximity to the King and Queen, and that now is the time to make amends.

If that means she sits back and shuts up – for once! – so much the better. We’d all benefit from that.

The real rift is with William, who – to my mind – made it quite clear last week that under his reign, there would be no way back.

Yet if Harry alone picks up the royal slack, Meghan back in Montecito, and does all he can to regain his brother’s trust – could they slowly find their way to a fragile truce? Does William even want one?

The Times report is also notable for what it’s not saying. Meghan hardly gets a mention. Perhaps she’s content to pursue her Hollywood ambitions while Harry is away. Perhaps she understands, finally, that their only currency is proximity to the King and Queen.

The real rift is with William, who – to my mind – made it quite clear last week that under his reign, there would be no way back. Yet if Harry does all he can to regain his brother’s trust – could they slowly find their way to a fragile truce?

As the late Queen told Harry and Meghan, there was no path for them to be ‘half-in, half-out’.

But that, according to the Times report, sounds exactly like what’s being proposed: That Harry return from time to time to fulfil duties that Charles or William cannot.

And what of Camilla? After last week’s rushed summit, sources said Harry demanded that Camilla wasn’t in the room.

Others, however, tell the Times that the Queen was there.

Could Camilla truly forgive the terrible things Harry has said about her — writing in ‘Spare’ that he and William begged Charles not to marry her, telling another interviewer that she was ‘dangerous’ and had ‘left bodies in the street’ – if a reconciliation were to make Charles happy?

It would doubtless make Harry happy too, or as happy as he’s capable of being.

Even the challenge of winning back the British people, actively soliciting their forgiveness and goodwill, might prove strangely gratifying.

The California experiment has been a struggle. Truly: How does Harry fill his days?

The memoir is written, Netflix was a whingefest, and ‘South Park’ made H&M a laughingstock.

What Harry really needs is reputational rehab.

Coming back in to save the day, a rapprochement with his father and possibly, way down the line, his brother — that’s something Harry would surely relish, whether or not the Palace would ever allow it.

‘I was trapped, but I didn’t know I was trapped,’ Harry told Oprah in that infamous interview. That was, he said, until he met Meghan.

Three years on, and one wonders: How trapped might he feel in Montecito? How much more freedom might there be, ironically, in reclaiming his birthright?