You Take Me Over, You're the Magic in My Veins

chapter 3

The hall is chilly after the warmth of the kitchen, and Harry hunches in on himself, peering up and down the corridor as people bustle back and forth. He feels a hand settle at the small of his back, fights another shiver when Louis' voice says in his ear, "We have time for a bit more before lunch, are you alright? Should we continue?"

Harry nods wordlessly, too weak to put space between them or claim that he's feeling poorly so that he can lock himself in his chambers, away from Louis and the warmth of his touch, the worry in his eyes. Louis leads them toward the right-wing of the castle, back toward the ocean. Parlors and storage rooms fall away, turn to halls that look vaguely familiar, corridors lined with guest bedrooms and small, cozy reading rooms. They pass the corridor to Harry and Gemma's quarters and turn down a wider one, inset with heavy oak doors sporting large iron knockers in the shape of anchors.

"These are my sisters' rooms," Louis explains, pointing at individual doors and naming sisters in turn. They come to the end of the hall, and Louis stops in front of the last door, says, "And these are my chambers."

He pushes the door open without warning and waves them inside. Harry doesn't even realize that Gemma isn't following them until the door swings shut and he hears her muffled voice shout, "Don't be long you tossers!"

He hadn't even considered how improper it would have been, having Gemma in Louis' bedroom, even with him there as a chaperone. But his concern for leaving her out in the hall fades almost instantly when he turns back to face Louis where he's standing at the foot of the bed.

It's a spacious room, flagstone floor covered in a thick, plush carpet. The bed is enormous, even larger than the one in Harry's room, and covered in pillows and goose down blankets. He tries not to notice the way the blankets are mussed, the indent on one of the pillows from Louis' head. Instead, he turns his attention to the wall of windows overlooking the ocean, walks over to them so he can lean out of one of them, and breathe in the rich, salty air, so different from the smells back home.

"It's so beautiful here," Harry murmurs when he can feel Louis' presence at his side. "Back home, the ocean is gray and angry and the air smells of fish and overpoweringly of salt. But here, it smells like sunshine and flowers."

He turns to look at Louis, finds Louis already watching him, a soft expression on his face that makes Harry's heart trip up into his throat. It takes him a moment to catch his breath, too wrapped up in the blatant, quiet adoration in Louis' eyes, and he has to turn away abruptly so that he can focus again, to distract himself before he does something stupid.

Moving away from Louis, Harry walks around the perimeter of the room, brushing his fingers over the intricate woodwork of the small tables beside Louis' bed, the tall bookcase packed with leather-bound volumes with flaking gilded titles, the wide, low desk littered with scraps of parchment and hastily capped ink pots. The walls are covered with paintings and tapestries depicting nature scenes and the castle, and it's not until he's on his second pass of the room that Harry notices the enormous oil painting above Louis' bed.

He stops with a gasp, stumbling toward the bed for a better look. He can feel Louis watching him again, but he can't look away from the painting. It fills the entire space behind Louis' bed and depicts a stormy sea, swipes and swatches of every shade of blue imaginable coming together to form rolling waves topped with foamy whitecaps, gulls swooping low in the background. It's stunning.

"That is incredible," Harry whispers, still studying the painting.

"Thank you. My mum painted it."

"An artist queen," Harry murmurs. He glances at Louis, then back at the painting. "Zayn paints, as well. He's wonderful."