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

chapter 12: epilogue

Louis is going to strangle Harry. This is the third time in as many days that he has taken off when he's supposed to be resting, and, not for the first time, Louis is tempted to just tie him to the bed so that he will rest like he's supposed to.

"It's for his own good," he mutters to himself as he pulls the door to their chambers shut. Two days ago he found Harry in the stables trying to mount Epona while all of the stable hands just fluttered around him helplessly. Louis had never been so angry in his life, both at Harry and at the stable hands for even letting him near the horses in his condition.

"I'm not a child," he had groused, and he'd looked so cute, standing there with his arms crossed as the wind blew his loose, flowered tunic about, a sweet little pout on his face, that Louis' irritation had dissipated in an instant.

Shaking his head, he had cupped Harry's face in his hands and said, "No, love, but you are carrying one. You can't go off riding horses, it's too dangerous. Next time you're bored, we'll go for a walk or sit on the beach. You need to stay on the ground and not do too much bouncing."

Harry had just smirked at that and quipped, "That's not what you were saying last night." At Louis' long-suffering groan, he had sighed, "Alright, alright. No horses, no excitement."

He hadn't kept his promise. The following day, he found Harry in the kitchens, bent over a lit oven watching a loaf of bread rise while the heat curled his hair and soot dusted his face.

"I stayed in the castle," Harry had protested, scowling when Niall lifted his hands and said defensively, "He pulled the pregnant card, sorry Lou. I couldn't say no."

Louis knows better than to revisit the stables or the kitchens this time, but he checks the library and hangs out the window so that he can scan the beach before retracing his steps to the entry hall to think. The front doors open with a gust of bitterly cold wind, bringing with it the scent of winter and, strangely enough, roses. Louis groans. He knows exactly where Harry is, and that he is probably not wearing a coat or even a cloak.

Bracing himself against the cold, Louis slips outside and trudges off toward his mum's garden. It's barren in the winter, wind too strong and temperatures too low for even her hardiest flowers to grow. Despite the lack of life in the garden, Louis finds Harry right in the center of it all.

The wisteria arbor sits in a small clearing, bare but for the brittle, lifeless vines twisted around the wooden frame, weak winter sunlight shining dully through the gaps. The rose bushes that surround the arbor shiver violently in the wind and Louis' boots make quiet squelching noises with every step he takes across the muddy ground. But there Harry is, sitting on the ground underneath the arbor with his legs crossed and his eyes closed. He looks peaceful, if a bit cold, but the temperature is dropping as they approach nightfall and, as he had suspected, Harry is wearing just a pair of low-waisted breeches and a thick cotton shirt that hugs his narrow frame and stretches across his belly, showing off the bump he's so proud of.

Louis comes to a stop in front of Harry and settles his hands on his hips, allows himself to just watch for a moment before saying, "I thought we agreed that you would rest."

"I am resting," Harry smiles. He doesn't even open his eyes, just tilts his head up toward Louis and murmurs, "The plants are happy."

Louis looks around at the bleak winterscape his mum's garden paints, says skeptically, "They look dead."

Harry's eyes slide open, pupils so wide his eyes are nearly black, and he fixes his gaze on Louis. "No," he murmurs, smiling wistfully. "Just sleeping."

Louis sighs. Harry looks so happy, so lovely, sitting in the middle of a winter garden with wind-burnt cheeks and his hair blowing madly about his face, but Louis worries. Shaking his head, he holds his hands out and coaxes, "Come on, love, let's get you inside and warmed up. We can go for a walk amongst the sleeping daffodils tomorrow, while the sun is still shining and you have a cloak on."