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As the morning light sneaks through the curtains and gently pulls him out of his slumber, the first thing Louis notices is the overwhelming warmth. The naked body plastered against his back is sticky with sweat, the man still snoring softly into his ear. He considers, for a moment, trying to move. The thought is fleeting, the arm across his stomach has him locked there, as it has every morning for the past two and a half years.
As much as he’d love to lay here until the world ends, it’s far too hot and he has too much to do to be laying in bed all morning attached to a sweaty man. He lifts a hand, listens for a moment to check that Harry’s breathing is still steady, and waves.
A small crackle in the air, a rush through his body that he’ll never be entirely used to, and the arm around him loosens it’s hold. Harry grumbles, not waking, before rolling over and away from him. Louis sighs in relief.
Keeping his magic from Harry grows harder each day. It was an easy choice at the beginning, not telling him. It’s heavily frowned upon to reveal yourself to non-magical folk, no matter how much you enjoy their cock. It’s simply a risk not worth taking. He could have told him when their relationship went from silly dates and fumbling fucks to morphing into something solid, something real . Maybe revealing himself would have been okay then, in an ideal world. The world he lives in is unfortunately far, far from that.
People with magic – witches – are nothing more than a bedtime story to the rest of the world. A woman painted green on a stage, children running around a castle with ornate sticks of wood written into overhyped novels; a fantasy. Nothing more. In reality, they exist among regular people almost seamlessly. There are fewer witches now than there used to be, a fact that pains Louis greatly. Every young witch is taught about their ancestors, about how witches used to thrive in numbers far greater than there are today. The most vital part of a witch's education is history, the reminder of what has passed and what cannot be allowed to happen again. Whole villages ravaged, witches’ magic pulled from their very cores in barbaric practices that would leave them merely a shell of the person they once were. It was a tragic time, one that eventually pushed so many of their kind so far into hiding that they simply ceased to exist in the eyes of history. A few folktales and their own records are the only proof of their place in time.
The danger didn’t leave when they moved into the shadows – it only took a new form and followed them in. Witch hunters. Like all witches alive today are descendants of the witches who survived then, witch hunters are the descendants of the people who never stopped looking. They know of the existence of magic, are taught all the same lies their ancestors believed, and their goal is simple. Find witches and strip them of their magic. It’s a cruel world and sometimes Louis wonders whether having magic is worth it. If it’s worth knowing that he’s living day to day hoping they don’t find him, if it’s worth seeing his family suffer because they took his sister and she hasn’t been the same since they took her magic away. Even with all that, he knows that he wouldn’t give it up. He’ll fight to his dying breath for the feeling that soars through his veins when he casts a spell. The undeniable rush of power, knowing that the elements are at his command and that the moon will answer his call. He adores his magic, he aches for it.
He can’t lose it. That has never been an option.
So he hides the biggest part of himself from the man he loves and watches as it hangs over them, waiting to drop and burn it all down.
The sharp sting of boiling oil hitting his arm, the startling pop of the toaster, the smell of smoke coming from fuck knows what all work together to overwhelm his delicate senses. He’s about five seconds away from launching the pan of sad looking bacon across the kitchen. Harry would probably kill him if he scuffed up the bright yellow paint they’d bickered over for hours.
Merlin, it would be a whole lot easier cooking breakfast if he could just use his fucking magic.
“Don’t throw the pan, babe,” a deep, sleep-thick voice calls from behind him.
Louis tries and fails to flip the bacon without splashing himself once again. “Wasn’t going to throw it,” he grumbles, twirling a finger discreetly to stop the beans he’s just realised are the source of the burning smell from cooking any further. He probably would have thrown it, if he’s being honest. He’s tired and grumpy and wondering why he chose today of all days to forgo his usual bowl of cereal. Seeing a thick scuff mark and greasy fat dripping down the far too cheerful yellow of the kitchen wall might just have cheered him up.
Harry’s strong arms wrap around his middle and he feels the smile that’s pressed into his neck. “Mhm, I’m sure.”
He smiles to himself but otherwise ignores the weighty lump clinging to him in favour of trying to salvage the meal. It’s an unsuccessful mission, as when he reaches for an egg to add to the frying pan, he’s promptly but very gently shoved out of the way.
“I refuse to eat eggshells again,” Harry says with a cheeky grin as he takes the egg and cracks it open with one hand. There isn’t even a splash when the egg falls into the already crowded pan. “Not even for you.”
“That was one time.”
“Four times. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Well, they’re hurt now!”
Harry doesn’t respond, instead starts to hum some cheery tune Louis has never heard before whilst he continues undoing Louis’ mess. Huffing, the witch moves around his curly-haired boyfriend to get the plates out of the lower cupboard, pulling one of the shoulder length strands out of the hastily thrown up bun as he passes, just to be a dick. Once the plates and cutlery are laid out neatly on the side beside the stove, he steps back to admire the ripples of Harry’s back muscles as he dishes the food up.
He still isn’t quite sure how he bagged someone like Harry. Sure, he knows on a logical level that he’s good looking himself, but Harry looks sculpted by the gods and he has the audacity to be a wonderful person on top of that. It’s unfair. His only real flaw is that he smells a bit sometimes, even if it is from working out.
The man is also frustratingly good at sex, undoubtedly the best Louis has ever had. They’ve hit a bit of a bump in the road on that front as of late, with work and the heat and Louis’ mounting guilt making anything beyond a hand job a bit too much hard work. He adds it on to the long list of things he has to feel guilty about.
“Stop thinking and come get your breakfast, you’re going to be late.”
Blinking, he turns to find Harry moved from his spot in front of the stove and now sitting in his usual spot at the small white table by the window, the steaming plates of food set out in front of him.
“Sorry, love,” Louis says with a tight smile. He makes his way over, plopping down into the chair with little grace and eyeing the food with barely concealed disgust. “I’m not sure this is edible, I did do most of the work.”
“Are you doubting my skills?” Harry asks, grinning. There appears to be nothing wrong with his food, given how he’s shovelling it into his big mouth. A bit of grease dribbles down his chin as he talks. Louis should probably be more disgusted by that, but the fond smile spreads across his face before he has time to.
“Never.”
They eat in relative silence, just the birds chirping outside, the sound of cutlery scraping against plates and the occasional quip about the food passing between them. Louis likes this about them, the ease they have with each other. It’s something they’ve had since the start, when they met three years ago and became almost immediately inseparable.
After breakfast, they head upstairs to get ready for work. They flit around each other, Louis showering to the tune of Harry brushing his teeth, Louis brushing his teeth whilst desperately trying not to join his boyfriend in the shower, if only to stop him singing for a moment and put his mouth to use. The guilt stabs at him again when they dress side by side and he places the fake library employee lanyard around his neck.
“Do you need a lift today?” Harry asks as they stand by the door, as he does every day.
“I like the walk,” Louis replies. Their daily script. Truthfully, he wishes he’d chosen a lie other than the library, given that it’s on the other side of town from where he’s actually headed.
Harry pulls him close with an eye roll and presses a kiss to his forehead. “One day you’ll let me drive you.”
Louis doesn’t respond but wraps his arms around his boyfriend's middle and buries his face into his chest, breathing in the smell of his expensive cologne. Harry works in some office somewhere, doing something he’s explained a thousand times but Louis has never taken in. All he knows is that it means he wears very expensive, very attractive suits. They make saying goodbye in the morning very difficult.
“Come on, we’re already late,” Harry murmurs, trying to pull out of the hold, though the effort is minimal.
“No.”
“Louis.”
“Kiss first,” he demands, pulling apart enough to tilt his face upwards. His hands move to grip the firm biceps, magic tingling under his fingertips.
Harry doesn’t hesitate. Their lips meet and Louis lets the magic flow freely, the protection spell he places on Harry every morning without fail wrapping around him like a blanket. There’s no imminent danger in sitting behind a desk, but the flutter of anxiety in Louis’ heart only eases when he knows Harry will be safe even when they’re apart. Not that he doubts that Harry could hold his own, but it’s for his own peace of mind. The kiss ends, and Louis feels the threads of his magic settle. The spell is complete. Harry is safe.
“I love you,” Louis says.
“I love you more,” Harry replies, and they leave together, separating at Harry’s car with another lingering kiss.
“This is stupid.”
Louis sighs heavily. “It’s not stupid, you just need to focus,” he explains as patiently as he can.
“Yeah, Bella, I can do it just fine,” another one of the kids, Adam, pipes up. The tight grip Louis has on his patience wavers a little.
“Adam, don’t be rude. You barely lifted it off the ground,” he admonishes, making some of the other kids snicker.
Louis loves his job, he really does, but sometimes teaching a class of fifteen kids from the ages of seven to eleven is, for lack of a better word, trying. Children’s magic is temperamental and packed with chaotic energy and it’s his job to prepare them as best he can for the further training they’ll receive from an elder when they reach thirteen. A lot of families choose to prepare their kids themselves, but Louis has worked hard to gain a reputation in the area for putting his heart and soul into teaching kids not only magic but also the education they would miss out on by being too magically unstable to go to normal schools.
It’s hard work, but he wouldn’t want to do anything else.
Today they’re working on lifting things into the air. Calling on the elements is one of the most important parts of training and one of the hardest things to master when your magic is nothing more than a buzz of fizzling energy. He’s already lost count of the amount of times he’s heard the kids jokingly saying ‘Wingardium Leviosa.’ He really needs to speak to their parents about banning Harry Potter.
“Right, everyone, stop messing around and watch me,” he raises his voice just a little to get some of the younger ones to stop talking and turn towards him. One of the youngest, a little girl called Alice, is watching him with unwavering attention. He sends her a wink, her little face cracking into an adorable grin.
“I know it’s hard, especially for you younger ones,” he starts, placing one of the wooden blocks they’ve been using on the floor in front of his crossed legs. “But it’s about will and belief. You have to believe that you can make the block fly, ask the air to help you, and it will.”
With a wave of his hand, the block lifts above their heads, and he smiles at their awed faces.
“See,” he says, letting the block fall. “I’ve seen all of you do harder stuff than this. Now, try again. First one to get it to stay in the air for ten seconds gets a bag of Haribo.”
As expected, they all scramble to get their blocks in place and start practicing. He watches closely as their tiny faces scrunch up in concentration, as the magic in the air thickens with their efforts. Milo, a nine year old with the biggest smile and an affinity for brewing potions, is the first to get it in the air. It trembles and drops soon after, the boy's proud smile dropping right along with it.
“Keep trying, Milo, that’s really good,” he calls softly.
On the other side of their makeshift circle on the floor, the oldest girl Aaliyah holds hers in the air with a determined frown and shaking hands. Louis mouths along with her as she counts the seconds, the block dropping right as they reach ten. She looks to him before it even hits the floor, her face beaming. Heart warm, he smiles right back.
“Well done, Aaliyah,” he smiles, grabbing a bag of sweets from the locked bottom drawer of the wooden desk he’s sitting against and tossing it to her. “Help some of the little ones whilst I get the cauldrons ready for after lunch.”
He heaves himself up off the carpet and crosses the room to the store cupboard. The school is, by necessity, situated in an old shop, which means there’s more storage than they need. The front of the building looks like a book shop, but it’s covered in so much magic that nobody ever looks twice. When he started teaching, he taught from his mum’s living room. Eventually, he started earning enough and making enough of a difference that the elders agreed to buy him this place. He’s extremely thankful; he can’t imagine the shit he’d get off his mum if he had fifteen kids packed into her house, getting burn marks all over her precious throw pillows.
The space they have is lovely and works well for what they do here. There are some things that are harder to teach within the walls of a classroom but for those lessons he will organise a trip to the local forest and with a lot of concealment spells all will be fine.
With the help of magic, he gets the heavy cauldrons out of the store cupboard and sets them up on the tables at the back of the large room, expertly weaving around the kids scattered about the floor. They seem to be getting along well, he notes with pride, all of them having gotten the blocks into the air by now and some of them even practicing lifting other items.
“Poppy, don’t you dare try and lift Milo,” he calls over his shoulder as he sets the last cauldron down. There’s a giggle and a ‘sorry, Louis ’ from behind him and he rolls his eyes fondly.
The kids love him and he loves them in return. He always told his mum that he’d be able to do this job without getting attached, and at first he never quite understood why she laughed at him when he said that. It didn’t take him long to learn why when he cried for an hour straight when the first child he taught completed this portion of his training and moved on. He lets it happen now, the bonds he creates with each child does wonders for their growth within his classes.
His stomach interrupts his thoughts with an impatient rumble. Checking the large white plastic clock on the wall he sees that it’s just a bit earlier than he usually calls lunch. They’ve been good today though, and he’s nothing if not a kind overlord. He turns and claps his hands together and the miscellaneous floating items drop to the floor.
“Lunchtime.”
There’s a cheer and a frantic scuffle of movement as all the kids launch up and run for their bags. Louis grabs his own lunch from his bag, a very boring meal deal he grabbed from Tesco on the walk to work this morning.
He contemplates for a moment letting his boyfriend enjoy his lunch in peace for once, but his clinginess overrides that thought pretty quickly. Perching on one of the desks, he takes his phone out of his pocket and after putting up a spell to block out the noise of the children, he finds Harry’s contact and hits call.
Harry picks up almost immediately. “Hey, babe,” Harry says, and the muffled words give away that he’s talking with his mouth full again.
“Hi,” he replies, holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he frees his sandwich from it’s plastic prison. “Lunch going well, then?”
Harry laughs, and there’s a noise in the background that sounds like someone wrestling with a microwave. “Mm,” he affirms. “Grabbed a salad from the canteen, the air con’s packed in so it’s fucking boiling in the office today and this is very refreshing.”
“I’m sure a McDonalds would be refreshing too,” Louis quips, earning another laugh from Harry. His favourite sound.
“And if I say I'd rather have a salad?”
“I’d tell you to stop testing our relationship by saying things like that. I can only look past so many flaws, my love.”
“Oh, how you break my heart.”
“I’m sure you’ll recover,” he takes a bite of his ham sandwich, chewing and swallowing before continuing. “You’re leaving work early today, right?”
“Yeah, about three, why?”
“Will you grab stuff for burgers on the way home?” He asks.
Harry hums, “I suppose you want me to cook them, too.”
“Well, that goes without saying,” he says with a cheeky grin that he knows Harry will be able to hear. They know each other far too well.
“You’re a cheeky bastard.”
“And you’re whipped.”
“Completely.”
Louis smiles. “Keep it that way,” he says in a near whisper.
“I intend to,” Harry assures, voice full of love and adoration and everything he packs into their every moment together. Louis really doesn’t deserve him. Someone talks in the background on the other end of the phone. “Shit, I’ve gotta run — apparently there’s a meeting I forgot about,” Harry says when the person stops talking. “I’ll have dinner ready when you get home babe, love you.”
The call ends before Louis can reply.
“Love you too,” he says to the phone, ignoring how entirely pathetic that is. He plops his phone back down on the desk and takes a proper bite of his sandwich now that he doesn’t have to worry about talking. It’s really nothing special, he thinks, suddenly wishing he’d gone for the chicken and bacon.
Waving the hand that isn’t holding the sandwich, he dismisses the silencing spell. The wave of sound that crashes into him when he does has him glad he’s sitting down. He forgets sometimes how loud kids can be. It’s something he’s used to, having spent so much time in a house with so many kids he often lost count, but that doesn’t stop him from reaching for a headache potion and a paracetamol or two at the end of most days.
“Less talking, more eating,” he tells them, laughing to himself at how much he sounds like his mother.
They largely ignore him, which he fully expected. They seem to be talking about lessons at least, Alice’s little shout of I practiced at home and turned the puppy yellow rising over the din.
One of the kids, a little blonde girl by the name of Georgia with waist-length hair and a nervous smile, breaks away from the crowd and comes towards him.
“Louis?” Her voice is as timid as she is, her face angled towards the ground.
Fearing a serious conversation, he places the half-eaten sandwich back in it’s packaging and wipes his hand on his leg absently.
“What’s up?” He asks, keeping his voice light.
She’s playing with a strand of hair like she’s not entirely sure what else to do with her hands. The light coming through the window shines on her, glinting off the butterfly charms woven into her hair. She was a lot different when he started teaching her three years ago, just the same as any other excited young witch eager to learn. Six then, nine now, and the change happened overnight. He knows her pain intimately, because her particular brand of trauma is all too familiar to him.
“My mum said the witch hunters are close,” Georgia says then, sending a chill down his spine.
No. That’s not possible – he would know, surely? Any whispers of witch hunters are passed on to every witch in the area almost immediately. They don’t take chances when it comes to this.
“Did she say that to you?” He asks with a confused frown. It’s hard to imagine that her mother would say something like that to her face.
The girl blushes and looks away. Caught. “Not exactly,” she admits. “Her and Jamie were shouting. It woke me up.”
His frown deepens, his heart picking up a frantic rhythm. “What did they say, exactly?”
“I–I didn’t really hear the whole thing, just something about them being close and my mum telling Jamie it’s not worth it,” she murmurs. She’s looking at him again now, but the fear in her blue eyes is all too familiar and has him fighting not to look away. “Do you think they’ll find us? What if they get me like they got Jamie?”
Her older brother Jamie had his magic taken nearly two years ago. The same night as Lottie. They were nineteen, newly dating and high on life until one day they were a little too careless whilst on a weekend getaway in London. One mistake and the hunters found them. It’s something he struggles to think about to this day, the sight of her so hollow and lifeless, bloodied from their relentless attacks. They were both lucky to make it.
It’s not often he’s caught like this, unsure of what to say. “I’m sure it’ll be fine sweetheart,” he says, and it feels a lot like a lie. “We’re all really careful and we’ll know if they come to town, okay? We have magic and they don’t, and there are far more of us than there are of them.”
She’s far too young for this, to have to worry about something so big, but it’s a cross they all bear. She nods, chin wobbling. She’s so small, so fragile.
“Come here,” Louis soothes, sliding off the desk and opening his arms for a hug. She falls into them without hesitation, hiding her face in his chest. On the other side of the room, the rest of the kids have started to take notice but he dismisses them with a firm shake of his head. They look away, because at their core they are all the same; just scared kids living in a world that isn’t kind to them.
They stand there for a moment, a scared child being held together by a terrified adult who has no other choice but to be strong, even when it feels like he might crumble.
“Okay,” he whispers, pulling back and holding her by the shoulders. “Go back to your lunch before Adam steals your crisps again.”
She goes, something about her seeming a lot lighter than before.
He hopes, more than anything, that he handled that right. It’s one thing, to teach them about their history and the all too real threat that still exists. It’s a whole other thing to see the effects of this knowledge hanging over their little heads.
He’d give anything for them to be truly sheltered from this, but no witch can afford to be.
It’s been a long day.
The walk home seems to drag on, each street never ending and the evening sun threatening to suffocate him. As much as he tries to push all thoughts of what little Georgia had said to the back of his mind, he’s on edge.
Every person that walks by is a potential threat and his magic rests at his fingertips, ready to spark out at any moment and protect him. He knows he’s just making himself a target, that if there are any hunters in town they’ll sniff him out in a second given how much nervous magical energy he’s exuding, but he can’t help it. He’s scared.
He turns the final corner, and the fear melts away a little. Home. The rickety brown fence with it’s creaky gate, the slightly overgrown front garden that he really needs to nag Harry about strimming, the charming brick and the lilac front door that they painted together. His safe place.
The protective magic washes over him as he opens the gate, makes his way down the gravel path and climbs up the short steps to the front door. No hunter can get him here, but that isn’t why he feels safe. Harry is inside, and that’s all it takes to calm his pounding heart.
The purple door swings open and he’s greeted by the smell of Harry’s cooking wafting through the house. Along with the mouth-watering scents comes the sound of his boyfriend singing. Louis laughs at his choice of song as he closes the door softly behind him.
Harry is right where he expects him to be when he walks through the airy living room and into their cosy kitchen. His back is to Louis, his suit jacket discarded and the long lines of his back taunt Louis through the tight shirt that clings to him.
“ABBA again? Really?” Louis calls over the music, startling the man currently plating burgers.
“Fuck, Louis! You have to stop doing that,” Harry turns and scolds with a joking tone, holding the greasy spatula to his chest as if it will calm the beating of his heart. There’s a smile playing at the edge of his lips.
Louis makes his way over, turning the music down to a respectable volume as he does. Burgers forgotten, Harry drops the spatula onto the side and opens his arms for Louis to step into.
“Missed you,” the smaller man mumbles as he lets himself melt into the hug.
Arms wrap around him tightly, a hand coming up to stroke his hair. “What’s wrong?” Harry asks, because of course he can tell that something isn’t entirely right. Louis hates it sometimes, how much of an open book he is.
“Nothing,” Louis sighs. “Just missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” Harry replies, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. Louis knows he hasn’t heard the end of it. “Now are you going to let me feed you the dinner you asked for or are you going to cling to me all evening?”
“M’pretty comfy here actually.”
The burgers do smell very good though, he bargains with himself. But on the other hand, Harry. Here, in his arms, he feels truly safe. The stress of his day is slipping away to the back of his mind, no room for it at the front anymore when all he can think about is how solid and real Harry feels.
All too soon, his evil boyfriend is prying him away and gently pushing him down into his chair at the table. He doesn’t say anything, just turns his back on Louis and goes back to plating the food.
A growling from his stomach reminds him of the lunch he never finished, and suddenly every aching moment between him and getting a bite of a burger is torture.
The plate is placed in front of him. He takes a bite before Harry’s bum hits his chair. Refusing to acknowledge the smug look on the other man’s face, he savours the burst of flavours hitting his tongue. He has to admit that he really lucked out in the boyfriend department.
Harry tucks in too, and they eat in silence. It’s a really good meal, he thinks, mentally patting the Louis of earlier today on the back for choosing it. The chips are thick and fluffy and covered in vinegar, just how he likes them, the burger perfect despite Harry sneaking far too much salad into it. Aside from the food, the silence is welcomed. It’s only a matter of time before Harry’s mouth becomes free to pester him about his feelings and he’s going to appreciate every second of it being occupied.
He doesn’t even know what he’s going to say. It’s not like he can tell the truth. Somehow, he’s pretty sure that ‘oh, yeah, I’m a witch and I might be in a lot of danger’ won’t go down well.
“So, how was your day?” Harry’s voice suddenly breaks the silence. Louis curses him and his big mouth.
“Fine,” Louis answers, popping the last chip in his mouth and dabbing at the greasy corners of his lips with some kitchen roll. “How was yours?”
“My day was great. Now, tell me how it really was.”
“It was fine. Really, I’m just tired.”
“You’re full of shit,” Harry says, exasperated. It stings a little.
Louis panics. The table rattles slightly as he stands up with surprising speed, ignoring Harry’s frown as he grabs the dishes. “I’ll wash up,” he declares rigidly. It’s almost too easy to turn his back on the bewildered man and walk over to the sink, dropping the plates and the rest of the dishes in and turning the hot tap on. A squirt of washing up liquid, then he watches the bubbles rise. He doesn’t turn to see if Harry has moved but he can feel the intense gaze on his back.
The bowl fills, the tap is turned off, and the silence stretches on. It’s far too hot, he finds, when he shoves his hands in. In his haste, he didn’t bother putting the bright yellow gloves on. Pushing through the pain of the near-scalding water, he grabs the sponge and dutifully scrubs everything down until it’s spotless.
As he places the last dish on the drying rack, he feels Harry come up behind him.
“Pass me the tea towel?” Louis asks, trying to keep his voice even. He holds his dripping hand out for it.
The towel drops into his hand, and he almost laughs at the absurdity of his life. It’s the tea towel Zayn–his life-long best friend–got them when they moved in, a cruel joke that Louis almost killed him for. Tiny cartoon witches cover the textured fabric, riding stupid little brooms. He dries his hands in record time and drops it onto the side, not wanting to look at it.
“You going to talk to me now?” Harry asks from behind him. He’s close, so close that Louis knows he doesn’t stand a chance of moving past him.
“Probably not, no.”
He turns anyway, finding himself pressed between Harry and the edge of the sink. Braving a look at his face, he’s shocked by the hurt he finds there. The overwhelming guilt comes crawling back.
Arms come up on either side of him and hold onto the counter, effectively boxing him in. “Have I done something?” Harry asks. “Because if I have, I’d rather you just tell me than play silly games with me, Louis. I don’t like it when we fight.”
“You haven’t done anything.”
“Then why won’t you talk to me? If there’s something wrong, we can work through it together. You’ve been weird with me for a while now and I don’t know how much more I can take. I’m worried about you.”
Louis sighs. “I don’t–“
“Is it the sex?” Harry asks suddenly, cutting him off. “We haven’t fucked properly in so long, are you bored? Is there someone else?”
Louis’ blood runs cold. They don’t argue, not really. Petty squabbles and the occasional silent treatment over something stupid, but they never really go beyond that. Louis feels a lot like fighting all of a sudden.
“If you ask me that again, you’re out,” he practically hisses. They’re so close, almost pressed against each other, and Louis doesn’t know if he wants to kiss him just to stop himself saying something stupid or to step on his foot and storm out. “I’m not taking that shit from you. Don’t ever accuse me of being anything but completely in love with you.”
The look of relief that floods across Harry’s face soothes his temper a little. Before Harry can open his big mouth and anger him again, he continues, “I can’t tell you what’s wrong right now, okay?”
“So, what? You want me to ignore the giant flashing warning signs?”
“I want you to trust me when I say that it’s nothing to do with you or us,” Louis clarifies, pleading.
Harry takes a moment to think about that, his jaw clenched. Louis can’t tell if he believes him, and the suspense is killing him.
“I trust you,” Harry concedes, though it looks like it pains him.
Louis deflates, reaching out and running his hands along the soft fabric of Harry’s shirt. “Thank you,” he whispers, holding on tight.
Harry lets go of the tight grip he has on the counter and brings a hand up to brush Louis’ fringe out the way. “You need a haircut,” he says quietly, as if it’s a secret. The change of subject is a breath of fresh air to Louis’ trapped lungs.
Louis laughs, a slight awkwardness to the sound. “You like my hair like this,” he accuses in return. It’s true. It’s not long by any means, especially compared to Harry’s mop of hair, but he does find himself having to swipe it out of his eyes more often lately, and the other man has complimented it plenty.
“You look good with any haircut.”
“Bald?” Louis teases, though he’d drop dead before he allowed himself to go bald. It would not suit him, and there are potions for that, thank fuck.
Harry laughs, “Sure.”
Louis looks at him for a moment, taking in the way his lips curl in amusement, the strong line of his jaw and the curls that escape the bun hastily piled at the back of his head. Something about him, in this moment, with the rawness of their conversation still present and palpable, is so attractive to him it almost takes his breath away.
“Fuck me,” Louis blurts out, loosening his grip on the fabric in his hands to start unbuttoning the shirt. It’s offensive to him, he wants it gone.
“What?” Harry questions, taking his sweet time catching on.
Louis groans. “Fuck me, you idiot.”
“Oh, oh,” finally, Louis thinks. He gives up on trying to undo the buttons, instead pulling as hard as he can and revelling in how easily the expensive fabric gives way.
“That’s an expensive shirt, babe,” Harry scolds, though the smugness is all too evident on his smirking face.
“It was keeping me from touching you, so therefore it is evil and deserves to die in Gucci hell,” Louis replies quickly, hands roaming over Harry’s now bare chest.
There’s something about just touching Harry that he loves so intensely. There’s a connection there, like his magic knows him and thrives off the skin to skin contact. Sometimes it feels like if he weren’t so grounded in the moment, he could take flight. He digs his fingers into the flesh, scraping lightly, causing Harry to let out a groan. Louis takes a deep breath, forcing himself to let go.
“Go get lube,” he demands. Harry raises an eyebrow, looking like he might challenge Louis’ attempt at having control. Luckily, he thinks better of it. “There’s some in the study.”
Harry knows there’s some in the study, from the days when they actually fucked regularly and Louis insisted that they keep some in Harry’s desk drawer because he’s a little shit with a penchant for demanding to be fucked over desks when his boyfriend has work to do.
He watches Harry leave, and laughs when the man reappears only moments later breathing heavily with a small bottle clutched in his fist.
“In a rush?” Louis teases, grinning.
“Fuck off,” Harry replies, coming towards him. He crowds against him, pinning him against the sink once more. Louis finds he rather likes it here, he thinks, sliding his hands back into place on Harry’s torso.
Tilting his head up to look at the taller man, the grin doesn’t leave his face. “You gonna fuck me or do I have to go and do it myself with a piece of plastic that’s bigger than you?”
Harry snarls. “We both know that none of your little toys hold a candle to me,” he proves his point by pressing his lower half against Louis’, the thick bulge in his trousers prominent.
Louis whimpers, moving his hands downwards to get to Harry’s trouser clasp, only to be stopped with a firm hand on his wrist.
“No.”
“Why not?!” Louis groans, petulant.
Cockiness is coming off Harry in waves, and Louis would be appalled by it if it weren’t so fucking attractive. The clench of his jaw and the smirk that plays at the edge of his lips goes straight to Louis’ trapped prick.
“I’m fucking you, I’m not wasting time dealing with you being a little cocktease.”
Louis pouts.
“No, Louis.”
“Fine,” he gives up with a sigh. Harry keeps hold of his small wrist, tugging him somehow even closer and leaning down to fit their lips together.
They kiss hungrily, all the cut short kisses and wasted time passing between them in a frantic clashing of lips and tongues. It’s not slow, or easy, it feels more like a promise of what’s to come. Harry is impatient, and Louis feels it too.
Breaking apart, Louis’ world is a blur of movement as he’s spun around and pressed forward against the sink.
“Jesus, a bit of warning would be nice,” Louis mutters, earning a deep laugh from behind him as Harry’s hands work to tug at his jeans. He wastes no time in pulling the fabric down, Louis’ boxers along with it, and reaching for the lube he’d dropped on the side at some point during their kiss.
Slick fingers prod at his hole, and it’s so unfamiliar after so long without it that it almost startles him. Harry, caring even when impatient, takes his sweet time preparing Louis. He works one finger in slowly, then another, and then a third, until Louis is gripping onto the counter so tightly his knuckles turn white.
“I’m ready,” Louis groans, breath hitching as Harry twists his fingers.
“You sure?”
“Yes, get on with it.”
He doesn’t have to look to know that Harry’s rolling his eyes at him right now, but he gets what he wants anyway. The fingers are eased out of him, and he just barely holds back a whine at the loss. He vaguely registers the soft snap of the lube cap and an intake of breath behind him before he feels the tip of Harry’s cock pressing at his entrance and a firm hand on his hip.
Harry presses in slowly, giving Louis time to adjust. Even with the prep, it’s a tight fit and Louis hisses at the quick sting of pain that’s mixed in with the blissful feeling of fullness. Harry’s thumb rubs back and forth in his hip, soothing him as he finally sinks in fully.
They stay frozen like that for a moment; Louis gripping the counter, Harry gripping Louis, and both of them completely lost in each other.
“Can I move?” Harry asks, ever the gentleman. Louis can feel the way the taller man is trembling with the effort to stay still, to not push too much too soon. It’s a heady feeling knowing you have that effect on someone.
Louis nods, accompanied by a soft affirmative noise.
With a sigh of relief, Harry moves. A steady pace is set, one that allows them both to simply bask in the feeling of being connected again. Louis moans, already wanting more but wanting to savour the feeling of Harry inside him just as much.
He wonders about the picture they paint. Pressed against the sink, the early summer sun streaming through the windows and spilling over them. The yellow kitchen is on fire with golden rays and the heat of their bodies.
Harry drills deeper, making the witch gasp. Louis’ magic thrives off the pleasure, playing at the edge of his fingertips and begging to be let out, and he fights to push away the guilt once again. He can’t think about that right now, about the magic and the lies and the gut-wrenching fear. He just wants Harry, needs Harry to consume his every thought so there’s no room for anything else.
Louis pushes back, fucking himself back onto Harry’s cock and making both of them moan in sync. The pace quickens, the stifling heat and their frantic movements making them sticky with sweat.
“More,” Louis begs, placing one of his hands over Harry’s bigger one and slipping it under his shirt to rest on his stomach. He holds the hand there, whimpering when Harry’s pinky brushes his neglected prick.
Never one to say no to his boyfriend, Harry complies. He’s pounding into him now, the hand that isn’t resting on the soft pudge of Louis’ belly gripping his hip so hard that he knows there’ll be finger shaped bruises in the morning. They stay like that for a while, the sounds of their love-making filling the kitchen, Louis’ constant mantra of Harry, Harry, Harry so loud that if he were in any right state of mind he would be worried about the neighbours complaining. It’s almost too intense, and the blue-eyed man gasps as he feels the almost-forgotten feeling of his orgasm edging closer and closer.
It almost feels too soon, but time has slipped away from them and it’s hard to tell whether it’s been ten minutes or two hours. All he knows is Harry.
He squeezes Harry’s hand. “Close,” he gasps out, the word dying on a moan as Harry slams into his prostate.
“Fuck,” Harry groans. Plastering himself against Louis’ back, he presses a kiss to his shoulder and then plants a trail of open mouthed kisses to the side of his neck. There’s a scrape of teeth below his ear and he melts into the feeling.
“Harry,” Louis moans again, the name tasting sweet on his lips.
“I know, baby,” the low grumble of his voice is spoken between breathless pants into the skin of his neck, causing fire to run through his veins. “You feel so fucking good for me.”
Louis whimpers at the praise, letting go of the counter completely so that he can touch himself finally. Off balance, Harry keeps him steady.
“Touch yourself, beautiful. Make yourself come for me, I want to feel your tight little hole clenching around me. Can you do that?”
Louis nods frantically, lost in the feeling of Harry inside him, Harry all over him.
“Good boy,” Harry praises, hips still setting a wild pace. It’s getting erratic now, like he’s struggling to hold back. “So fucking good.”
Louis is so nearly there, moments away from tumbling off the edge and his magic fizzing inside of him like a firework moments from taking off into the night sky. He wants to fall, wants to explode, wants Harry to follow him right off the edge.
“Come for me,” Harry demands, sensing how close he is.
Louis comes with a gasp that curls off into a high whimper, cum shooting over his fist. Harry follows immediately, coming inside him with a grunt and the grip he has on the smaller man turns almost painful. He holds Louis there as they come down, his face still buried in the witch’s neck.
“Fuck,” Louis whispers, trying and struggling to catch his breath.
“Yeah,” Harry chuckles, pressing another kiss to his neck before reluctantly peeling himself off and gently pulling out.
As he comes back to reality, Louis is struck by how gross they both are. He quickly rinses his hands off in the sink and dries them before pulling his underwear and jeans back up, wincing at the feeling of pulling the fabric over his sticky skin. He hears Harry doing the same, the clink of his belt buckle giving him away.
He’s not sure if he should feel awkward or not. They did just have a semi-argument and then fuck for the first time in fuck knows how long. Do they go back to the fight? Does it get brushed under the rug? He knows what he’d rather. It’s rather poetic, he thinks, witches and brooms and brushing things under the rug.
“Do you want to showe–“ Louis is interrupted by a loud, angry meow from the other side of the kitchen.
He whirls around on a very sheepish looking Harry who is steadfastly looking anywhere but at Louis.
“You forgot to feed the fucking cat?”
Silence. Then, “No.”
Louis groans, “You did! and now the poor thing is probably traumatised because she watched us fuck in the kitchen!”
He runs–limps–over and scoops up the pale ginger cat, ignoring the disgruntled hiss she gives. “I’m so sorry, Lemon. Your dad is a prick,” Louis whispers into the fur, pressing a kiss to her head and glaring pointedly at Harry who has the audacity to look amused.
“I love you,” Harry declares, a fond smile on his stupidly handsome face.
Louis pulls a face at him, before looking at the cat in his arms. “What do you think? Shall we forgive him? Or shall we kill him and chop him up for your dinner?”
Lemon doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t object to being cradled and petted which Louis takes as an answer.
“Sorry, babe, I think it’s pretty clear that you’re on the menu tonight,” he tells Harry, who has moved to the cupboard housing the cat food. Unfortunately, the cat is a traitor to the cause and jumps out of his arms as soon as she notices what her other father is up to.
“Pretty clear,” Harry mocks, dumping the food into the little yellow bowl and smirking triumphantly as the cat curls around his legs before going to town on the hunks of wet meat.
“I hate you,” Louis declares.
“You were saying something about a shower?” Harry ignores his declaration of hatred, a shit-eating grin on his face.
Louis thinks on it for a moment. “Last one in the shower has to clean the dried cum off the floor in the morning,” he shouts before taking off towards the stairs with an evil cackle, Harry’s footsteps coming up behind him.
Louis wins. He always does.
Their relationship is a little easier for the next few weeks.
The guilt is still very much there, sitting in the corner of every room, but Louis tries his best not to let it break them. They talk, and they fuck, and he thinks they might be okay. He can tell that there are moments when Harry considers asking him again, but the moments slip away and Louis can breathe again.
Things outside of the fortress of their home are not quite as easy.
Classes continue, the children buzzing with excitement in anticipation of the summer holidays. Normally, he’d be just as excited as they are, but he can’t quite find it in him to match their usually so infectious elation.
The whispers of hunters grow louder, news of an attack on a witch in the next town over reaching them around a week after Georgia had told him about her family’s concerns. Meetings are held, mostly between the elders of their little community but his mum gets to sit in thanks to her role as their healer and she tells him all about it, of course.
She tells him that they’re scared. Hunters rarely come this close, usually staying in cities where witches tend to live alone and without the protection of large communities. Magical folk are more condensed in towns, but the protection of staying within their circle makes it easier to blend in. They must be getting brave, to risk coming into their territory like this, knowing they’re outnumbered.
Every witch in town is made aware of the situation, and while the kids thrive off the summer sun and dreams of ice creams and pool days, the adults prepare for the worst. Nobody goes out alone, Zayn and his boyfriend Liam pick him up from work and walk him to the end of his street so he doesn’t have to put himself in danger. It’s a pain, if he’s being honest. By the end of the third week since it all started, he’s running out of excuses for why he and Harry can’t pop out for dinner or go for a walk at the weekend like they usually would.
He’s five months away from turning twenty six, two months away from three years with the love of his life who doesn’t know him at all, and he’s scared for his life.
On the first day of the summer holidays, Louis finds himself lounging on a worn, paint-stained leather sofa in Zayn’s art studio.
His best friend is painting on a large canvas, the piece completely baffling to Louis but he’s been told it’s a painting of the feeling of winter. He can kind of see it, he supposes, sharp white lines and light blue hues. It’s beautiful, whatever it is.
Watching Zayn paint is one of his favourite things to do. Just being with him, inside the studio or out of it, brings him out of the darkest places. The other witch exudes calm, and has always been the person Louis comes to when he needs to breathe. Ever since they were children, running rings around their parents and causing mischief wherever they went, Zayn has been his person.
“Do you think it would have been easier if we never broke up?” Louis asks suddenly, causing Zayn to startle and mess up a stroke.
He recovers quickly.
“I thought we agreed never to talk about it.”
Louis rolls his eyes, plucking at a loose piece of thread on the arm of the settee. “That’s not true. We never technically agreed not to bring it up, we just didn’t,” he answers. “I’m not ashamed of it.”
They were teenagers. The dating pool was slim, thanks to being interested in men and not attending normal school, and they loved each other. Their relationship lasted three years, right up until they turned nineteen, and fizzled out just as quickly and unexpectedly as it started. It was awkward for all of five minutes and then they went right back to being the inseparable and unsinkable best friends that they had been before.
“I’m not ashamed of it either,” Zayn says defensively, not turning to look at him. “And to answer your question, it probably would have been easier, yes.”
“But?” Louis replies, sensing there being more to his answer.
“But it wouldn’t have been for the best. Liam is perfect for me, and Harry is perfect for you,” he dips his brush into a darker blue, flicking his gaze towards Louis for a moment with a teasing smile. “I hate cooking, you can’t cook for shit. It was never meant to be. As beautiful as your arse is, and as nice as it would be to be with someone who understands everything that comes with being a witch, we needed more from each other than either of us could give.”
Louis hums in soft agreement.
“What’s got you thinking about this, anyway?” Zayn asks before the lounging witch can speak.
He doesn’t know where to start. If only it wouldn’t be entirely too suspicious to come home from ‘the library’ high as shit, because this conversation would go a lot easier if they could smoke. They don’t smoke together often anymore, because Liam hates it and Zayn gets upset.
“I have to tell Harry about the witch thing.”
Zayn snorts. “No shit.”
Louis ponders for a moment how much shit he would get in if he flung something across the room. He can picture it now, paint splattering across the floor, some splashing onto Zayn’s annoying face and marring his good looks. Maybe he needs to get some help for his frequent fantasies of throwing things across rooms. He quickly decides that it’s not worth it.
“I can’t do it,” he says with a groan.
“We’ve had this conversation a thousand times. You know my opinion,” Zayn says with very little sympathy in his Bradford-accented voice.
Zayn is of the opinion that there’s little use in hiding from the ones you love. He told Liam less than six months into their now five year relationship, and it all went perfectly fine. Louis doesn’t think that’s very practical. They’ve argued about it more times than he can count, Zayn even once threatening to out himself to Harry to make it easier. That particular argument ended in Louis making off with his weed stash and not talking to him for a solid two weeks.
He wishes it were that easy for him, he really really does.
“I’m just so – what if the hunters find me? And take my magic? Or worse? There’s no way I could hide that from him, I'd be in excruciating pain for months, you know how bad Lottie had it. What if they kill me, and he never knows what really happened to me? I can’t do that to him.”
“So tell him.”
“And if he hates me?” Louis asks, voice small.
Zayn turns away from the canvas and looks at him finally, pity in his warm eyes. “That won’t happen, babes.”
“You don’t know that.”
The other man makes his way over to where Louis is lounging. He unceremoniously shoves Louis aside to sit cross-legged next to him, facing him with a fierce determination.
“The way that man looks at you is sickening. I don’t think there’s any part of him that is capable of thinking less of you,” he affirms, putting a tattooed hand on Louis’ leg and squeezing gently. “You can’t be scared forever. At some point you have to get over it, you both deserve to know each other completely.”
Louis tries to hold in his laughter, but it comes out as a sort of pained snort/giggle hybrid that borders on hysterical. “When the fuck did you get so wise? Where was this Zayn when Tilly Wright dosed me with a love potion when we were twelve and you had a panic attack?”
The comforting hand is immediately snatched away and replaced with a light-hearted punch. “It was scary! I’m no good with potions!” Zayn screeches defiantly. “Stop changing the subject, you prick.”
“I wasn’t changing the subject, I just like taking any opportunity to bully you,” Louis corrects.
“So we can get back to you telling Harry you’re a witch?”
“No.”
Zayn rolls his eyes and pushes off the sofa to return to painting.
The silence is welcoming, and it stretches on for an hour or two. Louis doesn’t do anything, just stays in his space on the settee listening to the many sounds of Zayn working. It’s oddly comforting; the soft brushstrokes, the quiet murmurings of the artist talking to himself about the piece, the birds chirping outside the small studio. It helps take Louis out of his head for a time, the burden of the heavy secret becoming lighter as the white canvas transforms.
It’s a warm day outside, the July sun beating down, but in the studio it is almost too cold. Cooling charms are a miraculous thing, especially in a country that seems to have something against accessible air conditioning. His own house rarely ever benefits from his magic, it being too suspicious to suddenly have a cold house in the middle of summer or a warm house in the middle of winter when the heating is switched off. It would be nice, Louis supposes, to be able to cast freely.
It’s hard sometimes, being at Zayn and Liam’s or his mums, and having all the little things he can’t do sticking out like a sore thumb.
He has to tell Harry.
He’s going to tell Harry.
Not today. Maybe not tomorrow, either. But soon. He’s running out of reasons not to.
He makes this decision around ten minutes before he decides that he should probably leave Zayn’s studio and find someone else to annoy. The problem with being a teacher is that he has far too much free time during the summer, and can’t spend all day in his house in case Harry comes home.
Zayn has no problem with his presence but he gets ansty being in one place at once, much preferring to flit from place to place annoying everyone in his life until they’re begging for September to roll back around.
He says his goodbyes and leaves, waving off Zayn’s insistent offer to get Liam to walk him to his next destination. As scared as he is of being caught, he’s tired of being babysat.
Standing outside Zayn’s house, contemplating his options, he quickly decides to bypass annoying people for today and makes his way to the library he says he works at. It’s a relatively big building, and he wastes away the rest of his day getting lost amongst the shelves and reading the first book with a pretty cover that takes his fancy, curled up in one of the worn armchairs dotted about the place.
Louis reads, and tries to forget.
Harry is so fucking ready to go home.
The air con still hasn’t been fixed so he’s spent the entire day sweating in his tiny office, the open window doing nothing to combat the stifling heat and the fan on his desk simply circulating the warm air. His boss has been a dick too, demanding paperwork out of nowhere and making him work through lunch and way past the end of working hours to try and get it done.
He’s hungry, and tired, and his beautiful suit is soaked with sweat. The call of home has never been louder.
The car park is near empty when he finally escapes, only a few left cars dotted about. Despite the lack of other cars in the large enclosed space, his black BMW is boxed in on either side by two white vans. He frowns at the offending vehicles as he unlocks his car and sidles up to the door. He’s not even sure how he’s going to get in, the selfish prick having parked far too close to his precious baby.
Louis is going to kill him for being so late. He didn’t even think to text.
Before he even manages to get the door open, there’s a slam from behind him and the world goes dark.
He doesn’t even have time for the panic to set in before hands are grabbing him and he’s shoved into what he can only assume is the back of the van behind him. It’s not gentle, his knees hitting the floor of the van with a painful thud. Something clasps around his wrists tightly, trapping them behind his back. The slam of the door echoes in his ears.
The van lurches, sending him back onto his bum against the wall. There’s something sharp digging into his side in this position but at this point he’s too afraid to move. It’s strangely quiet, no voices sounding above the noise of the engine.
He’s really panicking now, mind reeling with questions. What could anyone want with him? Money? He earns a good amount but hardly enough to warrant being abducted. His parents? Maybe they have some money, but he hasn’t spoken to them in years and surely anyone looking for ransom would go after his sister rather than the one who got cut off.
Coherent thoughts escaping him, he waits. He waits and he waits and he waits, until eventually the roar of the engine dies out.
Stomp, stomp, stomp. There’s more than one person, maybe more than two. Clanging keys, and then light seeping through the fabric over his eyes.
The hands are back. He goes easily, letting them pull him out onto solid ground.
“Scream and we’ll kill you,” a gruff voice sounds in his ear. It has a distinctly American twang. He nods.
He’s walked for a while, until the light dimming again and the sound of his footsteps echoing makes it obvious that he’s in a building. The man shoves him into a hard chair, securing his legs to it with what feels like a metal rope.
“You going to be good?” The same voice as before asks. Harry nods again, not sure if he’s allowed to speak.
“What if he–“ another voice. Less gruff.
“Shut the fuck up, Craig.”
Suddenly and unexpectedly , the cloth is lifted off his eyes. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, and he’s almost disappointed to find himself in what seems to be an abandoned warehouse. Very cliche.
A man is standing in front of him, bald, white and stocky and exactly the kind of scary looking person who would be grabbing people in car parks. The boy on his left, who he assumes is Craig, is weedy with greasy hair and a terrified look on his face. New at abduction, it seems. Harry could take this one, he thinks. If he weren’t tied to a fucking chair.
Another man is standing off to the side, holding a thick metal rod with some sort of copper coil around it and a huge crystal attached to the tip. A weapon of some sort? He really hopes not.
“What do you want?” Harry asks, maintaining eye contact with the scary one in front of him. “I don’t have money.”
“We don’t want your dirty money, witch fucker.”
What?
“Witch fucker?” The question comes out more to himself than to any of the men.
The man clenches his jaw, a vein popping on his big forehead. There’s a blur of movement and he vaguely feels a fist hitting his cheek, but the pain is fleeting. He frowns in confusion, but the man only looks vindicated.
“You’re covered in protection spells, but don’t worry, their effectiveness is limited. A few more hits and I'll get you talking.”
Spells? What the fuck is going on. He’s dreaming, surely. The heat has gotten to him and he’s passed out at his desk. The cleaners will wake him up soon. There’s no way that any of this is happening.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he admits, panic evident in his voice no matter how hard he tries to sound tough and unbothered.
An evil smirk overtakes the man’s face, yellow teeth peeking past his lips. Harry is terrified.
“So they’re lying to you? I’m not surprised. Lying little snakes, all of them.”
“I don’t–“
“Whoever you’re fucking is a witch. Magic. Nasty spells and potions and all that,” the man explains, taking great joy in the horror dawning upon Harry’s face. “Could be a friend, I suppose. But given how covered you are in magic, it’s more than that. You reek of it, like all of their little non-magic pets do.”
Louis? His Louis? A witch? It just doesn’t make sense to him. His head is spinning, memories of their almost three years together flashing through his mind like they’ll fix this. It doesn’t help, they don’t offer any explanations. It just doesn’t make sense. Magic isn’t real, it can’t be real, and Louis would never lie to him like this.
“That can’t be true,” he says. Pleads.
All three men share an amused look. “It’s true,” the man in the corner with the odd-looking rod pipes up. This one is english. “They’re everywhere, like vermin. They hide among us like they have the fucking right.”
“But my boyfriend–he can’t be.”
“He is,” the weedy one, Craig, says. “And we need you to tell us how to find him.”
“What? Why?”
“So we can take his magic.”
Harry’s eyes flick to the rod. “You can’t have him.”
The big one lands another punch. He feels it a little more this time.
“You’ll talk. You can cooperate and be home before sunset, or you can keep your mouth shut and we’ll beat it out of you. One way or the other, you’ll talk.” It’s a promise. If there’s one thing he believes right now, it’s that these men are determined to get to Louis.
Maybe stalling will work. “You know where I work, surely you know where we live?” he questions.
The man scoffs. “Your house is covered in magic. We can’t even get past the gate with ill intent. Why wait outside until the witch shows his face when you can just tell us where to find him unprotected.”
He considers it. For a terrible, aching moment he considers giving Louis up. If what these men are saying is true, then he doesn’t know his boyfriend at all. The thought goes as quick as it came, with a flash of blue eyes and warm kisses and the sheer truth of the love he knows they both feel. Witch or not, lies or not, Louis is his and he won’t let these men touch him.
“Over my dead body,” Harry spits.
All three of the men laugh. “How cliche,” rod-man says with a smirk.
“And can absolutely be arranged,” weedy Craig adds.
There’s a sick crack as another hit lands across his face. The pain lingers this time, spreading across his cheek and making him wince.
“Look at that, your little witch’s magic can’t protect you anymore.”
Another hit. And then another. It hurts more and more each time, like he can feel Louis’ touch falling away. Someone kicks him, he thinks, but he barely notices through the pain in his face.
He can smell blood, can feel it running down his face. It would be so easy to just say it, but he can’t.
The assault continues. They ask him time and time again to just give in and tell them, but he refuses. Eyes squeezed shut, he thinks of Louis, waiting for him at home. Their cat, probably hungry because Louis is terrible at feeding her. The plants in their bedroom that his boyfriend has never watered once. He needs to get home.
They keep going until he starts to feel his consciousness slipping away. Everything is fuzzy, from the blood or from the force of his brain being smacked around his skull he can’t quite tell. Their voices start to blur, the words they spew no longer making any sense to his confused mind.
Vaguely, moments before passing out, he thinks he hears something that sounds a lot like ‘time for plan B.’
Harry doesn’t wake up for three days.
Their room is a makeshift hospital room with Harry propped up in their bed, covered in bandages and bruises and slowly healing cuts. There are potion vials of varying sizes strewn across the bedside table, runes etched into the wall above Harry’s head. Louis fears he’ll get in trouble for that later, but he can’t quite bring himself to care.
Louis sits by his side the whole time. He cries, cries, cries, and relives the moment he found Harry crumpled outside their gate a thousand times, until he can’t think anymore.
When he’s not crying, he pours potion after potion into Harry’s mouth and casts every spell he knows to try and fix whatever happened to him. He’s not a healer, not by any means, but years of watching his mum work has given him some knowledge. He wishes, more than anything, that he could call her here. Her soft voice and calming hands would do wonders to ease his frightened mind. Something tells him that he can’t, though, so he suffers in silence with Harry’s laboured breathing and the cat’s worried meow’s as company.
Zayn calls. Louis ignores it. He continues to sit and wait. Harry’s hand is warm in his, rarely letting go of it for more than five minutes at a time.
On the third day of waiting, Harry’s eyes flutter open.
Louis is up and alert immediately, eyes fixed on his boyfriend’s scabbed face as confusion etches his features.
“How–“ Harry says, croaky and whispered. Louis shushes him, handing him some water and helping him to drink it.
“You’ve been asleep for three days, your throat might hurt a little,” Louis tells him.
Harry nods and sips the water obediently. Louis can’t help but notice the slight fear in his eyes, the way his gaze flits around the room and over him as if he’s not quite sure who Louis is.
“Do you know me?” He can’t stop the question from falling from his lips. He doesn’t really want to know the answer. Out of all the scenarios he imagined, memory loss wasn’t one of them.
Harry nods again.
Okay, Louis thinks, not amnesia then. He can work with that.
“Do you remember what happened to you?”
Another nod.
Louis isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or not. He knows from his sister’s attack that remembering is a curse he wouldn’t wish upon anyone. He wants to know though, more than anything.
Louis takes his hand again, squeezing it reassuringly. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Harry seems to think about that for a moment, the hand not trapped in Louis’ own fiddling with the edge of the quilt. “Maybe later,” he answers, voice still a little ragged.
“Okay.”
And so they don’t talk about it. Louis can guess, without using too much brain power, that Harry knows about his magic. His eyes had widened slightly upon seeing the potions bottles, but there was a distinct lack of surprise on his face. Whatever happened, it probably has something to do with the hunters. He’s trying very hard not to panic about it right now. Harry needs him, and that’s all he can focus on.
Harry sleeps some more, the cat curled up on the pillow next to his head and Louis dutifully sitting by the bed as he has been for the past few days. Louis finally rests a bit too, managing to fall asleep for more than a few hours now that he knows Harry is pulling through.
They spend another day like that, in and out of sleep and barely talking. Harry manages to get up and out of bed to use the bathroom at some point, which Louis takes as a win, and Louis cooks their meals with magic because he doesn’t care anymore and he’d rather not poison his boyfriend whilst he’s recovering.
On the morning of the fifth day since the attack, Harry makes it downstairs.
The taller man is curled up on their large plush corner sofa, the cat still refusing to leave his side, when he finally says something more than just a quick ‘good morning’ or a ‘thank you’.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” He asks, startling Louis who’s sat on the other end, flicking through a magazine.
Louis closes the book. “I never worked at the library.”
The clenching of Harry’s jaw is a fascinating thing. Louis finds himself staring at it, wishing that there was a spell that could help him read the other man’s mind. Is he scared? Is he angry? Will he ever forgive him for lying for so long? Louis isn’t sure, and that frightens him more than the looming presence of people who can tear his magic from him.
“Are you going to tell me what you actually do, or are there some more strange men around waiting to tell me shit you should have told me years ago and then batter me?” Harry questions, the bitterness seeping into the room and leaving the air between them sour.
Louis plays with the edge of his jumper. It’s Harry’s. “I’m a teacher,” he admits. “I have a class of fifteen kids right now.”
“Witches?”
“Yes.”
“Are your family–“
“Yes,” Louis interrupts. “It’s completely genetic. Lottie had her magic taken by witch hunters when she was nineteen, but everyone else, yes.”
Harry frowns. “Did they hurt her?”
Louis takes a deep breath. He hates talking about this, hates thinking about it, but he gets the feeling that he can’t brush off Harry’s questions about any of this without risking losing him.
“It’s not an easy process, taking a witch’s magic away. It’s like tearing off a limb or pulling an organ out without anaesthesia. It hurts, and it’s brutal, and people have died from it. The hunters don’t care at all. Some groups don’t even bother taking the magic, they just kill any witch they find.” He shifts slightly, avoiding Harry’s intense gaze and continuing to twist the fabric between his fingers. “They hurt you to try and get to me, I’m assuming. Just try and imagine what they’d do to me.”
“I won’t let them touch you,” Harry says fiercely and without an ounce of hesitation. It takes Louis by surprise, forcing him to meet his gaze. There’s nothing but burning truth in his green eyes.
Louis feels hope for the first time since finding the love of his life bruised and bloody on the pavement. Maybe Harry can love him in spite of it all.
He smiles, a little pityingly. “I think only magic can protect me now, my love.”
“Is your magic strong enough?”
Louis shrugs, the too-big jumper slipping off his shoulder slightly. “I gather from the delivery that they know where we live,” he starts, and Harry nods his affirmation. “Then the spells that I have on the house should hold them off the property. All I can do is hide out until they get bored and move on to the next town, and hope that I'm the only witch they have their eye on.”
Harry’s seemingly permanent frown only deepens. “But what if they don’t move on? What are you going to do, stay trapped here forever?”
“I don’t know, Harry. I have no clue what I’m doing, and I’m scared, and I don’t know what I’m going to do,” it comes out in more of a panicked rant than he intended.
Harry turns his gaze to the orange ball of fur resting in his lap, a big hand coming up to stroke her gently. Louis can’t tell if he’s trying to figure out how to respond to that, or figure out how to fix everything. If only it were that easy.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Harry murmurs, so quiet that Louis almost misses it over the low hum of a car driving down the street.
“You would have left me,” Louis says, as if it’s the most obvious answer.
Harry scoffs as if Louis has said something completely ludicrous. “You’re an idiot,” he replies with a quiet smile. “I’m still here, aren’t I? I can’t say I enjoy being lied to, or that I’m not a little bit angry and a lot confused about the whole thing, but I’m here. I love you just as much as I did when I left for work that day.”
“So we’re okay?” Louis can’t help but ask.
Harry reaches across the sofa to lay a hand on Louis’ bare ankle, squeezing reassuringly and jostling the cat off his lap in the process. “We’re okay. For now.”
“For now?”
“I have a lot to learn, and I might need some time to come to terms with it. Is that okay?” Harry asks, moving back into his seat, wincing a little as something pulls. There’s so much sincerity in his voice that Louis doesn’t doubt that he’s willing to try his hardest to work through this.
Louis nods. “I’ll answer any question you have, whenever. We have all the time in the world right now, it seems.”
“Then I think we’ll be fine. Now come cuddle, I’m sick of being so far from you,” Harry grins, opening his arms wide.
Louis does as he’s told, crawling across and settling himself as gently as possible against Harry’s side. Strong arms wrap around him, warmth seeping through his jumper. It’s possibly too warm to sit like this, especially wearing something completely inappropriate for the weather, but he doesn’t care.
For a moment, he debates using magic. There’s no reason why he can’t now, after all. Fuck it, he thinks, raising a hand into the air and twirling his fingers in a delicate movement. A gust of cool air wraps around them and settles between their bodies, wiping away the stifling heat in the room. He hears as much as feels Harry’s surprised intake of breath.
“That’s pretty fucking cool,” he whispers, bewildered.
Louis lets out a genuine laugh. “That’s very basic magic. If that’s impressive, I’m going to blow your tiny mind.”
“Hey, less of the tiny,” Harry says in a near-shout, offended.
“Little tiny pea brain, almost as small as your dick,” Louis teases, turning his face up to grin at the man. Harry looks good from this angle, he notes, cuts and all.
Harry’s expression softens for a moment as he gazes back, seemingly lost in Louis’ smile, before he schools it into one of mock indignation. “Take that back,” he demands.
“If you kiss me, I'll think about it.”
“You’re an annoying little witch,” Harry murmurs, no malice in the words, and then promptly captures Louis’ lips with his own.
Louis lets the kiss wash away all thoughts of the lurking beasts outside their door. Let’s the gentle caress of his hand on his waist erase the images of Harry on the edge of death that have plagued him every waking moment since. The force of Harry’s love and acceptance in this moment is more powerful to him than any magic that flows through his veins.
Harry’s lips are home, and he revels in the knowledge that he won’t lose that today.
“I’m just saying, have you ever even watched Harry Potter?”
Louis regrets everything. It’s been a week of working through things together and he regrets everything. Harry decided to call work and take an emergencytake emergency holiday so he can stay inside and keep Louis company for the start of his potentially permanent house arrest, and it seems to be his mission to piss Louis off.
“No, I haven’t watched it, but I know enough to know that it’s bloody awful!” Louis exclaims, though Harry is clearly not listening from where he is on his knees by the DVD player slotting the first disc in.
Groaning, Louis pulls the soft purple throw over himself and adjusts until he feels comfortable on the sofa. He’s not going to win this argument, so why bother? The past week has been spent, rather uncharacteristically, letting Harry get his way. It’s the least he can do.
Harry pushes himself up with a crack of his knees that makes Louis snicker and flops down right next to him. “This is gonna be fun,” he promises. Louis doubts it.
The film starts. They get through the beginning in relative silence. Louis scoffs at a few points, like when the completely untrained child somehow manages to make an entire panel of glass disappear after talking to a snake. Harry doesn’t ask any questions until it gets to the wand shop scene.
“Do you have a wand?” Harry asks, making Louis jump. He was quite invested, though he won’t admit that.
Surprised this question hadn’t been asked a lot sooner, he laughs. “I do,” he answers, eyes on the boy on the tv as he finds the right wand and the world glows bright around him. “It’s not like that though, not every witch uses one. I don’t use mine that much, and we’re usually taught without one until we do the training with the elders that I told you about. I chose to learn because I thought it would make me look cool.”
“Can I see it?”
“Could you maybe wait until after the film you’re forcing me to watch?” He snaps, trying to pay attention to what’s happening on screen.
Harry doesn’t say anything, though the smugness radiating off him is unavoidable. So the film is interesting, sue him. What is he supposed to do about it?
As the film trudges along, he finds himself deeply conflicted. It’s quite a lot different to the magic he knows and understands, but it’s not entirely offensive. He almost wishes things worked like this, a huge magical school with actual trained professors for different areas of magic and a whole hidden street full of magical shops. Maybe one day they’ll be able to live like that. Though if it hasn’t happened already then he doesn’t quite see how it could now.
He doesn’t really care for the rest of the plot. Evil scary magic man who wants to kill a kid? Trolls? Three headed dog? Magical stone? Boring.
Okay fine, maybe he enjoys the music and the acting and some of the aspects, but that’s just because he appreciates good film making. Maybe it makes him feel a little warm inside, his magic fizzing in his core as he watches the kids discover the joys of magic. It doesn’t mean it’s right or god forbid, he likes it.
The film ends, and if a few tears fall as Harry stands on the train platform and proclaims that he’s not going home, not really, then that’s between him and his boyfriend and their sleeping cat. He wipes the tear away with the edge of the blanket, the fabric soft against his skin. Harry chuckles beside him.
“Not a word,” Louis warns.
The world is suddenly shaken as he’s forcefully pulled into the other man’s lap, arms coming around his stomach to hold him there. “My little stubborn witch, crying at Harry Potter,” Harry teases, pressing a kiss to Louis’ wet cheek. “I’m absolutely never letting this go.”
“I hate you. I’m going to turn you into a toad.”
“You already told me you can’t do that, babe.”
“I said I can’t do it, not that I don’t know anybody who can. Zayn is quite good with transformation rituals,” Louis says grumpily.
Harry had taken the news of Zayn being a witch almost as badly as he had Louis. There had been a very tense moment when Louis told him that Liam is not, and he’d had to admit that Zayn had been open about his magic from so early on. Tears had been shed, a lengthy conversation had, and then they kissed and made up. It’s more than he deserves, but he won’t take it for granted.
Harry squeezes him gently, pressing his lips to his shoulder this time. “Zayn loves me, he wouldn’t turn me into a toad,” he says against the fabric of Louis’ t-shirt.
“He would do it for me,” he counters. He believes it, too.
There’s only a gentle hum in response. Harry’s warm fingers slip under his shirt, stroking the soft skin of his stomach. Louis smiles, heart warmed by the loving touch.
“Shall we watch the second one then?” Harry whispers, clearly not wanting to break the tender moment.
Louis sighs, pretending to be put out. “Oh, go on then.”
The first letter comes the next morning.
Louis wanders downstairs alone when he hears Lemon meowing to be let out, leaving Harry fast asleep and snoring up a storm in bed. They stayed up later than usual last night after finishing the second film, and the evening had ended with some possibly-too enthusiastic riding on Louis’ part. Harry, still technically in recovery, can have all the extra sleep he needs.
He pads across the kitchen, the tiles cold under his bare feet thanks to the cooling charms swirling around the house, and opens the door to let the increasingly impatient cat out.
“Please don’t leave the garden,” he tells her sternly. “There are bad men out there and I really don’t want you to get killed because you ran to the neighbours for second breakfast again.”
She looks at him, her little head cocked as if she’s actually listening. He holds his warning gaze, hoping that somehow, she understands.
With a little meow, she trots out into the morning sun.
“Bloody cat,” Louis murmurs before pushing the door shut. He doesn’t bother locking it, she’ll only be back in half an hour, scratching on the wood like the demanding little princess she is.
Unsure what to do and honestly a little lost without Harry around pestering him, he potters around the kitchen. He cleans the dishes they forgot to do last night, fills the cats water bowl, spends a ridiculous amount of time watering the numerous plants they have and then stands at the window watching Lemon laze in the sunshine while he scoffs down a bowl of cereal.
It’s as he’s standing there, slurping the chocolate-tainted milk off the spoon, that he hears the telltale clang of the letterbox.
He doesn’t think much of it, just drops the bowl into the sink and makes his way through the living room and into the hallway to grab the mail. There’s a pile of it, and as he flicks through it there’s nothing noteworthy. Bills, bills, some weird way too busy online gambling leaflet, another bill, and then oh?
A small envelope with their address written in neat handwriting. It’s not addressed to Louis or Harry, simply to ‘The Occupier’.
Back in the kitchen, Louis puts the rest of the mail down on the counter to deal with later and starts gently prying open the suspicious envelope. He’s not too worried, there’s been mail like this before. Often times it’s some weird request to sell their house, or one time a note from a neighbour about their slightly too loud sex noises.
It shouldn’t bother him, and yet there’s a sickly feeling in his gut that only mounts as he pulls out the paper within. It’s thick, closer to cardstock than paper, and the writing, written in black ink, is just as neat as the address on the envelope.
Witch,
You can’t hide behind your spells forever. You can’t keep your boyfriend hidden away in there with you until you both grow old and die. It’ll be easier for everyone if you just give yourself up. We won’t hurt you, only correct you. Don’t you want to be normal? Harry will never truly love you like this. You’re a monster and we can fix you. Come out and play with us.
The paper slips out of Louis’ grasp, fluttering to the ground and landing without a sound, as his stomach makes the same journey, dropping to the floor beneath him. He should have known, he should have known they wouldn’t let it go. They’re going to get to him eventually, one way or another.
They know there are witches here now, it’s only a matter of time before they catch someone else out. What if it’s his mum? Or another one of his sisters? They’re being as safe as can be, but it only takes one slip up. He stands there, frozen in his kitchen, wondering if it would be brave or stupid to give himself up to protect everyone else.
As he drops his head to take a deep breath, the paper catches his gaze again, from where it lies on the tile almost innocently, the sunlight from the window falling across it. Oddly, there seems to be writing on the back of it.
Snatching it up, he’s not all that surprised to find that it’s an address. He reads it over and over until the letters are burned into the back of his eyelids, and then he clicks his fingers and watches as it bursts into flame and disappears.
Harry can’t know.
He’s not sure what he’s going to do about it just yet, but the one thing he’s completely sure of is that he can’t speak of this. It pains him, more than he can fathom right now, to have to hide something again, but he has no choice. Harry’s still traumatised, the memory of his attack still so fresh in his mind. Beyond the trauma, he’s angry. He’s angry about what they want to do to Louis, and Louis knows he’ll only do something incredibly foolish with this knowledge.
As brave and as strong as Harry is, he’s no match for these people. They’re ruthless, and stronger than any well meaning boyfriend could possibly be. Losing Harry to them is simply not an option he’s willing to consider.
Harry can’t know and he’ll just have to live with that.
He tries his hardest to forget about the letter.
It works for a few days.
The days are spent much the same as the ones before. They lounge about the house, not doing all that much of anything. Harry asks questions, Louis answers them. One of the days is almost entirely spent watching Louis using his wand again after showing it to Harry.
It’s weird for Louis, using it. Once his training finished at eighteen, he’d kind of shoved it into a drawer and for the most part forgotten about its existence. He doesn’t really like it, much prefers to feel his magic in his hands. He feels more tethered to it that way.
At the end of that day, he decides it’s better off left in the drawer. He really is no Harry Potter.
On the third day since the letter, Zayn calls.
He answers.
“Please don’t shout at me,” Louis says as soon as he hits accept, holding the phone to his ear with a slightly trembling hand. He’s sitting on the back step, watching Harry pull weeds at the end of their long garden.
Zayn’s answering sigh says so much. “You really scared me, you know?” Louis can tell.
“I know, I’m sorry,” Louis mumbles. A butterfly lands on top of the cat, disturbing her slumber. He smiles as she looks around, disgruntled.
“Is Harry okay?” Zayn asks, voice full of concern. They’ve texted since the attack, briefly. He’s found it hard to give more than small updates.
“He’s okay,” he starts, sighing softly. “Got a few scars and he’s a lot more traumatised than he’s letting on but he’ll be okay, I think.”
“And you?”
“I want to kill them,” Louis answers, not realising how true it is until that moment.
Zayn laughs, though it’s less in humour and more just acknowledgement. “I know you do, and I don’t blame you, but you can’t, so stop worrying your pretty little head about it,” He says, his voice as calming as it always is. “They’ll leave eventually.”
“You’re being careful, right?” Louis asks. “And everyone else too?”
“Yeah, I spoke to my grandad and he said they’ve informed all the families, and everyone is staying inside for now. My mum is pissed, keeps going on about fucking Zumba as if that’s more important,” he says with a fond, exasperated chuckle. “She rang me last night and told me to tell you to call your mum.”
Louis groans. “She’s been texting me every other bloody hour, Z.”
Harry seems to have noticed he’s on the phone now, and he turns to offer Louis a wave and a comforting smile, checking he’s okay. Louis nods in return, holding back a laugh at Harry’s bright pink, flowery gardening gloves.
Zayn pipes up. “She’s your mum, you really need to call her.”
Louis groans again, because he’s a whiny little shit. “What if she tells me off?”
“Then you suck it up and take it,” Zayn says. No mercy, as always. It’s somehow more comforting, knowing he won’t sugar coat things just because of their years together or Louis’ fragile mental state. “She’s your mum and she’s scared, not only for you but for your sisters as well. It would really help her to hear your voice and know you’re okay.”
He’s right. Louis knows he’s right, but it doesn’t make it any easier. “Fuck, I hate when you’re right,” he admits, though Zayn already knows.
“I know, now call her.”
“Now?!” Louis is really not prepared. He’s in his pyjamas, sitting on the back step with a now-cold cup of tea. He’s not in the right headspace to hear his mum crying.
“Now,” Zayn says, and then there’s nothing but dead air and the faint crackle of static. He’s put the phone down on him. Louis is going to kill him, never mind the hunters. Zayn might just be top of the list.
He pulls the phone away from his ear, rolling his eyes when a text comes through from the man himself.
Z: Love you. Call her x
Louis pulls what is absolutely an immature face at his phone, as if the other witch can see it. He doesn’t bother replying, instead opening his contacts and scrolling through until he reaches his mum’s.
The little contact picture taunts him. Her warm smile, the smile that has pulled him through the darkest moments in his life, only makes him feel guilty. He’s been a terrible son lately, ignoring most of her texts and offering only the barest explanations. She already suffered through one child losing their magic, and here he is under threat of meeting the same fate, making her suffer further.
Without thinking too hard on it, he hits call and brings the phone to his ear once again. As the phone rings and rings, he watches Harry work, the clench of his muscles as he works his hands into the ground. It’s weirdly relaxing.
The line clicks.
“Baby?” His mothers voice, and without any warning, he’s crying.
“Mum,” he chokes out, bringing a shaky hand up to wipe at the unexpected tears.
There’s a sigh, the relief in it so thick he can almost feel it. “Oh, Louis. It’s so nice to hear your voice,” she coos, and there’s a muffled but excited squeal on the other end of the phone that sounds a lot like one of his youngest sisters. “We’ve all been so worried, love.”
“I know mum,” he replies, voice trembling slightly. He’s trying his hardest to stop the flow of tears, but it’s quite difficult. Something brushes his leg, and he looks down to find Lemon curling herself up on the step beside him. He strokes her, letting the soft fur ground him. “I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t.”
His messages since the attack have consisted of quick we’re okay’s and the occasional bored but fine, nothing substantial or even that reassuring. He’s found it so hard to voice how he’s feeling, even to himself.
“Let’s start simple. Are you okay?” She asks.
“Shouldn’t you be asking how Harry is?” Louis replies, confused.
Jay laughs, pitying but kind. “I know Harry’s fine, he’s got you looking after him. I want to know how you are. You’re my baby boy.”
Lemon starts purring beneath his hand, the gentle vibrations making his magic hum beneath his palm. “I’m nearly twenty-six, and I'm fine. Really. You don’t need to worry about me, I’m not going to die from a little bit of boredom.”
There’s silence for a moment, and then, “Put Harry on the phone.”
“Mum–“
“Put him on the phone, love. I know he’s there.”
Louis sighs. He holds the phone away from his face for the sake of his mother’s eardrums before calling Harry over. The man strides down the garden hastily, pulling his garish gloves off as he walks. He gets to the paved patio area and raises an eyebrow at Louis, who just offers the phone without a word.
Harry takes it. “Hello?” He says, confused and polite and far too endearing for Louis’ weak heart.
Louis can’t hear what his mum is saying, but the way Harry’s face lights up when he realises who’s on the other end of the phone almost has him crying again.
“Yeah, of course,” Harry says, nodding seriously. “I’m good, yeah, just getting used to the whole magic thing.”
More silence.
“You know I will,” Harry affirms.
More silence, Louis is starting to feel a little left out. He’s never quite trusted them together, always plotting against him in some way. The first time they met, they had an hour long conversation about Louis’ inability to cook. She’d fallen in love with Harry immediately, just like Louis had.
“Always,” Harry says then, his gaze flickering to Louis. The witch squirms under the intensity of the look.
Louis promptly decides that he can’t be around for this conversation. Startling the cat in the process, he shoots up and heads into the house before Harry can speak again.
He ends up sitting in the living room alone with his thoughts for nearly half an hour before Harry finds him. The man pops his head round the door with a sheepish smile.
“You good?” He sounds more worried than Louis expected.
Louis shrugs. “She didn’t want to say bye to me then?” He asks, trying not to feel put out.
Harry comes into the room then, perching himself on the edge of the sofa which means Louis now has to look up at him from where he sits. “The twins were fighting so she had to run. She told me to tell you that she loves you, and if you decline her call again she’s going to take you out of the will,” he explains with a grin. “She sounded quite serious about that bit, though she said she’d just give your share to our kids anyway. I told her that we’d better get working on the kid thing then.”
“Oh, fucking hell, Harry,” Louis groans, “You basically just told my mum we’re gonna fuck.”
“I meant like, adopt! It’s not like we can make babies!” Harry says indignantly, cringing at the thought of putting that into his future mother-in-law’s head.
Oh no, Louis thinks. He might have missed a crucial part of Harry’s magical education. “About that–“ Louis starts, looking anywhere but at Harry’s face. “We kind of can?”
“We can have babies?! ”
Louis can’t tell whether Harry sounds excited or horrified, and at this point he’s too afraid to ask. “It’s pretty common for witches to have males in the family that can carry,” he clarifies. “I don’t really know why, but I take potions to stop it happening for now. Please don’t ask me to explain how it works because I have no fucking clue.”
“Fuck,” Harry breathes. “Fuck.”
Louis forces himself to look at him, worried about what he’ll find there. What he finds is shock, mostly. The curly haired man is staring at him, eyes wide and mouth ajar. The scar that runs along his cheek looks more pronounced like this, thick and jagged even with Louis’ magical healing. He’s still devastatingly attractive, perhaps even more so now.
“Are you okay?” Louis asks, heart beating rapidly. “I know it’s a bit weird and I should have told you sooner but honestly I kind of forgot and I didn’t think you’d ever want that so I just kept my mouth shut because like obviously we’re gonna adopt because why would you want to see me all pregnant and shit, that’s so unattractive – or we could have a surrogate! Because you’d make really cute babies and—“
His frantic ranting is cut short when Harry all but dives on him, yanking him off the settee and into a crushing hug. Louis’ confusion levels are high, but he wraps his arms around Harry’s middle anyway.
“Are you trying to kill me?” Louis asks, breathless.
Harry loosens the hug a little, enough for the air to fill Louis’ lungs once again. “We can have babies, Lou!” He exclaims, almost bursting Louis’ eardrum in the process.
Louis pulls out of the hug to look Harry in the face. He looks happy — no, ecstatic. Louis frowns, “you want that?”
Now Harry’s frowning at Louis’ tone, so they’re just standing there. Frowning at each other. It’s almost funny.
“Of course I want that, why wouldn’t I?”
“You want to put a baby in me?” Louis repeats the question. He’s not sure why he’s having such a hard time believing that this is something Harry wants. “They’ll be witches too, you know?” He adds, because in his mind that’s what will sway this. He didn’t sign up for one witch, let alone more .
Harry’s grin is blinding, eyes filled with emotion. “Little mini Louis’ running around? Our babies? Of course I want that.” There’s no doubt in his voice. “Do you want that?”
Louis nods, “I do.” And he finds that he does, he really does. It’s not something he’s thought about a lot, always chalked it up as something that would never happen so isn’t worth dwelling on. But thinking about it now, seeing Harry’s unfiltered excitement, he wants it more than anything.
Harry’s big hands come up to hold Louis’ face, pulling him into a quick kiss. “We’re going to make such cute babies,” he murmurs, pressing another kiss to Louis’ lips. “The cutest little witch babies in the whole world.”
Louis giggles at his stupid wonderful boyfriend, letting Harry’s infectious positivity rub off on him. “We really are,” he agrees.
“I better start thinking of names,” Harry says seriously, though he’s still pressing small kisses to every inch of Louis’ face.
“Hold your horses, H, I’m still trying not to get killed here and you have to actually knock me up first,” Louis reminds him. Harry gives him one last lingering kiss before letting him go.
“You’re not going to get killed, and we can absolutely work on the other part.”
Louis laughs, giving him a pitying pat on the chest. “Maybe later, babe, you still have weeds to pull.”
He doesn’t say what he knows he should, that the chances of him making it far enough to have a child are growing slimmer by the day.
It’s kinder to let them both believe in the future they deserve, for now.
The truth can come later.
The next letter arrives a week after the first.
Harry sees the envelope this time, handing it to Louis with mild interest. Louis’ heart is beating so fast he wonders if it’s possible he’ll die before the hunters ever get to him. Luckily, Harry’s interest seemingly fades as he announces he’s going to work out for an hour and promptly disappears upstairs, leaving Louis and his secrets in the kitchen.
He waits for the sound of the door to their spare-room-turned-gym closing before he dares to open the letter.
It’s the same handwriting, same strangely luxurious paper, same threatening aura.
Witch,
I’m going to be generous and assume you didn’t receive our last letter. It would be very foolish of you not to heed our warnings. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. We know there are more witches here. Do you want us to start looking?
Come to us, or we’ll come to you.
Turning the paper over with a trembling hand, he finds the same address as before staring back at him. A part of him wants to watch it burn again, but another, much louder part of him says that maybe it’s a good idea to keep it. If he’s going to do something about it, then maybe leaving something behind as an explanation for Harry would be kind.
The question is, is he going to do something about it?
Louis walks upstairs, creeps past the door to the spare bedroom and heads to theirs. Once inside, he places the letter in the bottom drawer of his bedside table, along with his rarely used wand and a bunch of other forgotten trinkets.
He doesn’t think Harry would look there straight away, if he did leave. Maybe weeks or months later, he’ll decide it’s time to clear things out, and he’ll find the answers he needs to move on.
Louis shuts the drawer.
It’s starting to feel like maybe he’s already made his decision.
He can’t think about that now. He’s not sure if he’s ready to think about it at all. Right now, he just needs Harry.
He finds him in the middle of lifting weights. Their spare bedroom isn’t huge, but it’s big enough for the sofa bed pressed against one wall and Harry’s various pieces of gym equipment.
Harry doesn’t even blink when Louis walks into the room and flings himself onto the sofa. Watching Harry work out is a pretty common occurrence for Louis, though he’d never give it a go himself. He’d tried, once, to run on the treadmill whilst Harry was at work, but he started too fast and almost put a hole in the wall with his magic trying to save himself from flying off. So, all in all, working out is not for him. He’s far too pretty to break a sweat over anything but sex and Just Dance, anyway.
Watching Harry break a sweat, however, is much more his speed. Louis knows fuck all about weights, but whatever he’s lifting now looks big, and if Harry’s heavy grunts are any indication, it’s quite heavy.
Louis drinks him in. From the flex of his muscles, to the splotches of ink scattered across the canvas of his body, to the loving smile he throws Louis’ way when he notices him staring. He tries to commit it all to memory, as if he doesn’t already know Harry like the back of his own hand.
It feels like he’s admiring Harry on borrowed time.
When Harry finishes, he doesn’t even wipe away the sweat before laying himself all over Louis. He’s fucking heavy, and Louis thinks his lungs might collapse, but he kind of loves it.
“I’m really starting to think that you want me dead,” Louis jokes, wrapping his arms around Harry’s neck and patting his damp head.
Harry breathes a soft laugh into the skin of Louis’ neck. They’re in such an awkward position, a messy tangle of limbs with Louis at the bottom getting crushed, but it’s warm and comfortable and he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
“Come shower with me?” Harry asks.
Louis huffs. “Well, I fucking need to now you’ve got your stink all over me.”
Harry snuggles in closer, pressing a kiss to Louis’ collarbone. “Oh no, what a shame, really very unfortunate,” he mocks.
Louis rolls his eyes, but the annoyance is short lived as he feels the smile against his skin. They’re both so disgustingly in love, he doesn’t know how anyone in their life has put up with it for the past few years.
“Can we nap first?” Louis asks, stifling a yawn.
A soft huff of air against his skin. “It’s like ten AM, Lou. You woke up two hours ago.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Louis counters. “I’m sleepy, and we don’t have anything to do today–or any day actually. Is it a crime to want to nap with my boyfriend? The love of my life? Future husband? Father of my chil–“
“Alright, drama queen, calm down. We can nap,” Harry interrupts. He lets out a little yawn himself after, which leaves Louis feeling incredibly smug.
“Mm, nap time,” Louis whispers, eyes already closed.
It doesn’t take either of them long to slip into sleep, comfortable in each other’s arms. Louis dreams of them, teasing glimpses of a future he’s not even sure is possible anymore. They drift in and out of sleep for a few hours, soft kisses and whispered words pressed into the brief waking moments, and Louis doesn’t want it to end. He wants to stay trapped under Harry forever, sleeping and waking and sleeping and waking.
Three days later, Harry leaves the house for the first time.
They argue about it for days. Harry thinks it’s time to go back to work, to stop hiding and move on. He’s not even the one in danger, is his logic. Louis doesn’t agree.
After raised voices and more than a few tears on both ends, Louis concedes. It’s not like he has a choice, to get across the severity of the situation he’d have to show him the letter, and that would only lead to trouble. So he lets Harry win, as painful as it is.
And so Harry leaves for work in the morning, kitted out in his expensive suit and once again covered head to toe in the swirls of Louis’ magic. It’s almost as if nothing has changed, if it weren’t for the scar on his face and the anxious glint in his eye. They share one last kiss, and then Louis is alone for the first time in weeks.
The house is suddenly far too empty. Even the cat has left him, preferring to be lazing about in the sunshine than inside keeping him company.
For the first few hours he sits in the living room, taking in the joys of daytime television. It reminds him a lot of being a kid, getting told off for getting distracted by Bargain Hunt whilst his mum tried her hardest to teach him. He’d broken one of her favourite vases once, because he lost concentration for a moment in the middle of performing a spell and his then chaotic magic had slipped from his grasp.
His mum had insisted on the TV being off, then – at least during their designated class time.
The novelty of unsupervised viewing wears off around lunchtime. Loneliness creeps back in, and more than anything he just wants Harry back. Everything that could go wrong starts to play on a loop in his head, assaulting him with images he doesn’t want to see.
They could abduct him again, this time with the knowledge that Louis knows where to find him. He’d go, if that happened. There’s no doubt in his mind that he would risk it all just to ensure Harry’s safety, and if they figure that out, it’s all over. Even worse, they could kill him and drop him off on the doorstep for Louis to find again, this time with no chance of bringing him back. So many things could go wrong, and here he sits behind layers and layers of protective magic, hiding.
He’s unbelievably on edge, magic sparking right at his fingertips as if ready to lash out and take it all down. He needs to find a distraction, and quickly.
Knock, knock .
Louis jumps up, the magic inside him now buzzing angrily. Calm down, he thinks to himself, taking a deep breath. A few hours alone and he’s ready for war when the front door knocks, it’s pathetic. It’s probably just a delivery man, or a cold caller, or a Jehovah’s Witness.
The door knocks again.
Whoever it is, is bloody impatient. Still on guard, he walks down the small hallway to their purple door. With an unfortunately shaky hand, he takes the chain off the door, turns the lock and opens it.
Oh, no.
“Took you long enough, twat.”
Louis doesn’t know what to say. His sister, the oldest of his younger siblings and once his best friend in the entire world, stands on his doorstep. She looks beautiful, wearing a pretty white sundress with sunflowers dotted across the fabric, her light brown hair neatly pulled into french braids. Her scars are unapologetically on show, a dark, thick line down her neck and out of sight below the neck of her dress. Another on her face, achingly similar to Harry’s. She’s looking at him like she’s ready to call him out on his unnecessary awkwardness.
“Are you going to let me in? Or are you going to stand there watching me all day? It’s fucking warm out here, you know. Not all of us can cast cooling charms,” she quips, the reminder in the statement bringing Louis out of his state of shock.
“Shit, sorry,” Louis apologises, stepping aside to let her breeze past him and into the house.
She heads straight through the living room and into the kitchen, barely giving Louis time to follow. Not saying anything, she navigates the cupboards as if she’s been here a hundred times–which she hasn’t–and sets to making them both tea. Louis, dumbfounded, can only stand and watch.
She places his favourite mug down, a cauldron shaped one that had been another joke gift from Zayn. For herself, she picks one of Harry’s favourites, a plain yellow one that matches the kitchen walls. She makes the drinks, silence still stretching on. Eventually, when she’s done, she turns to Louis with an almost sad smile.
“Let’s sit out the back, you look like you could use some sun,” she says, before grabbing both mugs expertly in one hand and letting herself out of the back door and into the garden.
Louis follows. They have a small patio, with a couple of chairs scattered around a low table. Lottie situates herself in one, leaving Louis’ mug on the table and holding hers to her chest. Louis drops into the chair opposite, bringing his legs up underneath him.
“Do you mind if I–“ Louis questions, swirling his fingers to indicate casting a spell.
She shrugs her acceptance. Louis casts a quick cooling charm, letting the magic settle over them and eradicate some of the stifling heat. He doesn’t miss the way Lottie shivers.
“God, I miss that,” she admits, so quietly he thinks it might have been more to herself than to him.
“I know,” he says, softly.
Lottie doesn’t spend a lot of her time around magic. She’d tried, the first few months after her attack, but it had proven too hard to be constantly reminded of what was taken from her. They’d helped her move out of their mum’s, and she worked to build her new life away from the one she’d been raised in.
She doesn’t go home a lot. When they meet up, it’s usually somewhere neutral and magic free, to avoid any potential breakdowns. It’s why her presence here is so jarring to Louis right now.
“Did mum send you?” He asks, after a few minutes of silence.
Lottie sighs, and at least has the decency to look a bit guilty. “Sort of,” she says, taking a sip of tea before continuing. “She called me crying about how she has this feeling that you’re going to do something stupid, and she sounded like she was about ready to drop everything and come here herself. Obviously, with everyone on near house arrest and hunters waiting to grab you, I’d rather she didn’t do that.”
Louis groans. “Her and her bloody feelings.”
“It’s not like she’s ever been wrong, Lou. She had a feeling about me going to London, remember?”
“It’s called being a mum with undiagnosed anxiety, Lottie.”
Lottie rolls her eyes. “You know we have seer blood in us, you’re only fighting it because she’s right.”
Lemon, with her perfect timing, jumps up onto Louis’ lap suddenly. He absentmindedly runs his fingers through her fur whilst she settles herself, scratching him in the process. As always, her presence grounds him. He feels a lot less anxiously defensive all of a sudden.
“I’m not going to do anything stupid,” he says, meaning every word. Whatever choice he ends up making, it won’t be stupid .
Lottie sighs, fixing him with a look that reminds him way too much of their mum. “Louis,” she chastises. “You can bullshit Harry and mum and even Zayn if you really try, but you can’t bullshit me.”
He hates that she’s right. Despite the age gap, she’s always been so frustratingly in tune with him. He can’t bullshit her, but what else can he do? Sighing, he reaches for his mug and takes a sip of his tea. Unsurprisingly, it’s perfect. She’s staring him down, her blue eyes filled with defiance. This isn’t an argument he’s going to win, that’s for sure.
“Fine,” is all he says.
“Go on, then.”
Louis laughs, a little disbelieving. “Fucking hell you sound like mum.” Lottie laughs too, and some of the tension eases. “I can’t tell you everything, but all I can say is I don’t think I really have a choice anymore–either way they’re going to hurt me. I can’t just sit and do nothing, you know I can’t.”
“You can’t take them on alone, Louis.”
Louis looks away from her, away from the pointed gaze that pierces through him. “I can’t risk anyone else. I just can’t,” he’s trying not to cry, focusing on the gentle purrs of the cat and the soft breeze whistling through the trees. “I love my magic, and I can’t imagine life without it, but if it’s my magic or mum’s or Zayn’s or Harry’s life, it’s the easiest choice I could ever make.”
“They’ll kill you. I know you, and I know you won’t go down without a fight. They’ll fucking kill you, Louis. They hurt Harry, an innocent bystander, without a care in the world. You’re a monster to them, and they’ll enjoy every second of ending your life.”
Louis shrugs, looking back up at her reluctantly. There’s a fierceness in her eyes that tells him that if she still had a drop of magic in her body, he’d be in a whole lot of trouble. He might still be, magic or not.
“Like I said, it’s the only choice I have.”
Her fist clenches around the fabric of her pretty dress. “I’ll tell mum,” she threatens.
Louis scoffs. “No, you won’t, you wouldn’t risk her putting herself in the crossfire.”
Lottie groans, slamming her mug down on the table in frustration. She looks like she might get up and start pacing in anger, but she stays in her chair. Seething. “You’re such a fucking idiot!” She shouts, and Louis wonders if he needs to put up some sort of spell to stop the neighbours hearing.
“I’m not going to argue with you,” he tells her, keeping his voice calm.
“Oh, fuck off, Louis, you’ve babied me ever since I lost my magic and I’m sick of it. Explain to me why I should stand by and let you kill yourself when there has to be another way.”
She doesn’t get it. She couldn’t possibly get it, he tries to tell himself. He takes a few deep breaths before he even tries to respond, to get his own quickly rising temper in check. There’s no use fighting over this, no matter what happens he doesn’t want to leave her with the memory of her brother raising his voice. He’s the eldest, the one who always protected her except for the one time he couldn’t, it’s up to him to keep calm right now.
“If they get tired of waiting for me to come out, they’ll start looking elsewhere. Mum, the girls, Zayn, my students, I can’t let that happen,” he shakes his head to rid himself of the thought of the people he loves so much being targeted. “Maybe I can take them on alone. I don’t know, I haven’t exactly thought this through myself.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I know. I know, but I'm an idiot with very few choices.”
Lottie softens, if only a little. It seems more like the fight has left her body. She levels him with a sad look, one he wants desperately to look away from.
He looks around, at the garden raised by Harry’s hands and Louis’ minimal stylistic input. At the cat in his lap that never leaves his side when he’s sad, that knows his emotions better than even he does. He thinks of the house, and all the little things that will only remind Harry of what’s missing when he’s gone.
“You’ll look after him, right?” Louis asks his sister, voice small with the knowledge that he has no right to ask that of her.
Lottie nods. “We all will. He’s family.”
That eases some of his worries. He knows that Zayn and Liam will do the same, after Zayn has gotten over the betrayal. No matter what happens when he makes his choice, Harry will not be alone. That’s all he can ask for, really. All he truly cares about.
He smiles at her, relieved.
“Okay, can we talk about something else now? I know you didn’t come here just to chew me out,” he jokes, knowing she definitely did.
She laughs, a bit too high pitched to be anything but awkward. “Well, mum did say something about you making babies.” It’s an efficient subject change, if not a bit of a bad choice after discussing Louis’ imminent demise, but he’ll take anything. “Care to elaborate?”
Fuck his gossiping mother and her big mouth.
“Harry might or might not have been unaware of the whole male witches carrying thing, and may have said something that implied we were going to go try to conceive,” Louis explains, face red. He’s skirted around it in all conversations with his mum since, refusing to talk about his sex life with the woman who birthed him. Perfectly reasonable, he thinks.
Lottie laughs for real then, a boisterous sound that rings of childhood mischief and all the times they got told off for being too loud when their mum was sleeping. It’s amazing how much lighter he feels after hearing it. It’s been so long since she last laughed like that.
“That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard,” she gasps out, still trying to calm herself. “Mum sounded way too fucking pleased on the phone honestly, talking about little Lou’s running around. She clearly didn’t consider how horrifying that visual is.”
“Oi!” Louis exclaims, offended.
Lottie rolls her eyes, laughter subsided but the echoes of it still there in the lone tear making its way down her scarred face. “I’m not being rude, Lou, but you’re a nightmare. I can’t imagine mini versions of you toddling about wrecking the place,” she shudders at the thought. “Scary.”
Now, Louis is really offended. Sure, he might be a bit of a mess. And sure, he might have been a little bit of a problem child, especially when he was the only one and everyone around him let him get away with a little bit too much. And okay, maybe he and Zayn had a slight reputation for causing a scene. A few little spillages, one girl ending up with possibly permanent pink hair, and suddenly you’re tarnished for life.
Maybe she has a point. His kids would be different though, he’s sure of it. Plus, there’s nothing wrong with a little mischief.
“That’s offensive,” he tells her. “Plus, they’d be half Harry’s.”
“Mm, true.”
“Not that he’s any better,” Louis muses. “They’d probably be pretentious as fuck.”
Lottie thinks on that for a moment. “Little terrors all round then.”
Louis nods, a small smile on the edge of his lips at the thought of his hypothetical children. He loves them. Even just the thought of them, and he loves them so deeply. He wants the sleepless nights and the back pain and the constant headaches and the screaming and the mess and every little thing they’d bring into his life. He’s never been a patient man, but he knows they would change him. He wants to be a dad, to see Harry be a dad. It hurts. More than he can think about right now.
“Probably for the best, that they won’t exist,” Louis says, half joking, half not.
“Way to bring the mood down, Jesus,” Lottie breathes with a disbelieving huff of laughter. “What’s wrong with you? I only have the emotional capacity for one serious talk a week, you’ll have to come back to me in five to seven business days if you want to have another.”
Louis snorts. He loves his sister, emotional avoidance and all. “I was making a joke, dickhead,” he clarifies.
“Too bloody soon, wanker,” she smiles at him, though, so he’s not in the shithouse just yet.
“I love you,” he says suddenly, and very seriously. It shocks the smile right off her face, her eyes wide and almost comically horrified.
As close as they are–or were, before–declarations of love were never a thing with them. A gentle punch on the arm, letting the other have the last ice cream in the freezer, hiding away from the younger siblings when it got a little too loud, but they’d never say it. Louis has always regretted that, and never more than the night he found out about Lottie’s attack. He could have lost her, and never uttered such simple words, and for some stupid reason he never thought to say it after.
He has to now. If all goes south, which he’s accepting that it will, he can’t leave her without letting her know.
“I do,” he continues, given that she’s made no sign of recovering from her affection induced shock. “I love you a lot, and I’m sorry that I never told you before. I’ve been a terrible brother for longer than I want to think about, and I hope you can forgive me for that.”
A slow blink, and she’s back on earth. Her shocked face morphs into a confused frown. “I love you too, but there’s nothing to forgive you for so get that out of your silly head right now. I may not have magic but I'll gladly smack you one for being dense.” She shuffles on her chair, patting her dress down as she moves. “You’re everyone’s favourite sibling without a doubt. It’s kind of annoying, actually.”
“Oh, do tell me more.”
“Absolutely not, your ego is big enough. Poor Harry will have to roll you out of bed if it gets any bigger.”
He grins. She grins back. Things will be okay.
They talk for a while, about everything. All the good things that ever happened to them, all the little memories that they have made in their time and kept in a little box of treasures. It’s nice, and comforting, and the summer sun bathes them both in light.
Lemon leaves his lap after a while to chase after a butterfly that taunts her from across the garden, so he’s left fiddling with his fingers to quell his constant urge to fidget. Lottie makes him another cup of tea so he has something to hold, and many more follow over the few hours they sit outside under the cool haven of Louis’ magic.
The darker topics, such as Lottie’s condition or Louis’ intention to follow in her footsteps–and possibly die in the process–are left behind. They don’t stray close to them again, which is a blessing for Louis’ suddenly delicate emotions. All in all, it’s a nice afternoon.
They talk for so long, that time slips away and all too soon Louis’ first day of solitude has come to an end. Lottie spots Harry first, as he comes out the back door in search of Louis, suit jacket flung off and shirt halfway open.
“Harry!” She exclaims, rising out of her seat to give him a hug.
He seems confused, but hugs her tightly anyway. “Lottie, what a lovely surprise,” Harry says with a grin, letting himself out of the hug. “Come to keep this one company? I knew there must be a reason he wasn’t blowing up my phone all day.”
They share a laugh at his expense, leaving Louis pouting at them.
“We had a lot of catching up to do,” Lottie offers in explanation, and Louis can see the twitch of guilt in her face. She wouldn’t tell on him, but his heart stutters all the same.
“We’ve managed to run out of tea bags,” Louis tells Harry as Lottie sits herself back down. Harry perches on the arm of Louis’ chair, wasting no time in placing a hand on the nape of his neck. They both let out a sigh of relief at the contact, Louis’ magic humming contentedly beneath his skin. “You’ll have to go to the shop in a bit,” he murmurs, smiling up at his loving boyfriend. “Sorry.”
“That’s fine, I could go to the chippy on the way back? I don’t know if I can be arsed to cook, work was really tiring.”
“That’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever said,” Louis groans, thinking of vinegar soaked chips wrapped in soggy paper. “Marry me?” He jokes, the words so overused in their house that Louis isn’t sure he’d know if it ever stopped being a joke.
“Over a chippy tea? How romantic,” Harry smirks, leaning down to give him a quick kiss, like he’s waited too long and can’t wait any longer. Louis barely resists the urge to melt into it.
An amused snort comes from in front of them, and Louis remembers that they aren’t alone. “You two are disgusting,” Lottie laughs, the fond smile on her face telling an entirely different story.
It should be frightening, how quickly the rest of the world fades away when Harry enters his space. The bashful edge to Harry’s smile tells him that he’s not the only one who has this issue. They’re sick, really. Truly disgusting.
He loves it.
“Actually forgot you existed for a minute there, not gonna lie,” he admits. “And what a peaceful minute it was.”
“Prick,” Lottie spits with a teasing smile.
“Love you,” he bites back, Harry laughing beside him.
Lottie ends up staying well into the night. They send Harry off on a mission, armed with a long list of things they want from the chippy, and then they feast. With full bellies and the burden of the future on their minds, they joke and laugh and tease Harry until he jokes about asking if the witch hunters have any vacancies.
Lottie finally leaves when the sun is just starting to set and Harry’s blinks start lasting just a little too long.
He clings to her at the front door, face buried in her hair. Normally, if the world weren’t ending, she’d have pushed him off. But it is, and so she doesn’t. She holds on just as hard.
“Think about it, Louis,” she whispers, quiet enough so Harry can’t hear where he’s lingering in the hallway behind them. “Really think about the choice you’re making and what you’re leaving behind.”
He sighs. “I will,” Louis promises, just as quiet. He will, it’s all he can think about. The consequences.
She doesn’t believe him. He can’t blame her for that. He lets go first, albeit reluctantly, and takes a step back. Lottie tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, trying to school her expression into something less devastated. It doesn’t really work, but Louis appreciates the effort nonetheless.
“You should come round more often,” Harry says from behind Louis, startling him.
A soft, shaky smile. “I’ll try,” she answers.
And then she’s gone. The dying light of the day hits her as she goes, illuminating her in a way that even magic could never. Harry wraps around him from behind, somehow sensing that he needs someone to lean on right now.
They stand in the open doorway long after Lottie is out of sight. Eventually, Harry gently probes him inside, muttering something about being a target, and shuts the door behind them.
“Let’s go to bed,” Harry whispers, tucking a piece of hair behind Louis’ ear with gentle fingers. It only reminds him of Lottie, who he might have just seen for the last time. He tries not to break. “You must be tired from all the nattering you’ve been doing all day,” he continues.
“Yeah,” Louis whispers back, unable to say much more than that. He tries to, but the words won’t come.
Harry ushers him upstairs, locking the doors and turning the lights off as they go. Louis flops into bed without bothering to change out of his clothes or even attempting to brush his teeth. It’s hard not to miss the concerned frown Harry shoots his way, but he doesn’t explain himself. Can’t explain himself.
Harry joins him after going through his own bedtime routine, immediately smothering Louis the moment he gets into the bed.
He pretends to be asleep.
Harry presses a kiss to the back of his head, whispers an ‘i love you’ and then falls asleep before a minute has even passed.
Louis doesn’t succumb to sleep for a long, long time.
It rains, the day the last letter arrives.
Harry’s already long gone when the post arrives, having left for work earlier than usual thanks to some important meeting or some shit Louis wasn’t paying attention to.
He’s not surprised this time, when he sees the same white envelope lay on the mat by the door. It’s damp when he picks it up, and he wastes no time in ripping it open.
It’s worse than the others. So much worse.
I’ve met your sister before. Strange what a small world it is, when you sit and think about it. It really would be a shame if I had to pay her another visit, I am getting a bit bored of waiting around for you to come to us. Better hurry up and make your choice, or I'll have to stop by her apartment for a little chat.
Tick-tock, witch.
Before he’s even finished reading, tears are falling rapidly onto the paper, blurring the ink. These sick bastards. He hadn’t even considered that these might have been the men who tortured Lottie, and now she’s in danger of having her life ruined all over again because of him. It’s all his fault, he should have given himself up the moment he got the first letter. He’s messed up so badly, and all he can do now is cry.
All the emotions he’s tried so hard to suppress for Harry’s sake are rising to the surface and spilling out with unstoppable force. He’s so fucking angry and so terrified and just upset with the world. Why him? What has he ever done to deserve this?
He’s never wanted much out of life. To learn, to teach, to love. That’s all he’s ever wanted, and right as he gets it it’s all over. For his entire life, he’s worked so hard to make the right choices. And now, at the end, he’s left with one. One choice, no get out of jail free cards.
He has to go. For Harry, for his mum and his sisters and Zayn and those brilliant kids who deserve to have their future, he has to go.
Today. He’s going today.
As soon as he acknowledges that, he switches to auto-pilot. First, he throws the letter away. Second, he feeds the cat, because she’s meowing at him and he can’t leave her like this. Then, he goes upstairs.
He falters for a moment when he steps into the bedroom. The bed is unmade, both of them too tired to make it this morning, and he can almost feel Harry’s lips on his skin when he looks at it. Brushing it off, he heads to the wardrobe to get changed from the threadbare pyjamas he’s wearing into something a little more appropriate for willingly sacrificing himself.
Between them, they have a ridiculous amount of clothes. Most of it is Harry’s, far too expensive pieces that Louis will never understand the appeal of other than how hot Harry looks in them. Louis’ collection consists more of soft jumpers, graphic t-shirts and joggers. Jeans for work, to at least look a bit more professional, though the kids have never given a shit.
Today, he reaches for something of Harry’s. It’s a t-shirt, plain black and not at all special in any way. Harry had worn it on their first proper date, and Louis, against his better judgment, had worn it at breakfast the next morning. He feels bad for taking it, but he needs this piece of him to go through with this.
He dresses quickly, pulling on the too-big shirt along with some jeans and a pair of ridiculous watermelon printed socks one of his sisters had gotten him for christmas. When he’s dressed, he stands in their ensuite bathroom mirror for far too long, staring at his reflection and occasionally adjusting his fringe. Stalling.
His phone rings.
Checking it, he swears. It’s Harry. Does he answer? He doesn’t know. He’s not sure if he can handle it right now, if hearing his voice will only weaken his resolve.
Fuck. He answers.
“Hi,” he says, letting out an awkward cough afterwards to cover up the thick emotion in his voice. “Is it lunchtime already?”
“Nearly,” Harry laughs. Louis might cry again. “I just left the meeting and all I could think about was hearing your voice.”
Louis takes a deep, steadying breath. “How was the meeting?” He asks, avoiding catching his own eyes in the mirror.
“It was good, they’re thinking about promoting me actually. I’ll talk more to you about it tonight, but it’s a huge pay rise and they’ve never had someone so young in the position before.”
“That’s amazing, love,” Louis breathes, turning away from the mirror and leaning back against the sink. “I’m so–“ He stops. “I’m so proud of you.”
“What’s wrong?” Harry asks, voice serious and riddled with concern.
“Nothing,” Louis ensures, trying his hardest to keep it together. He’s not all too sure that it’s working, but he has to try. “I’m just a bit tired, I think I have a migraine coming or something. You know how I get.”
Harry hums sympathetically. “Baby,” he coos. “Get some rest, okay? I’ll bring you something nice home for tea. You have potions and stuff for that right?” It all comes out in a concerned ramble, and Louis would be amused if it didn’t hurt so much.
“I’ll be okay, I think I'm just gonna go for a nap.”
He feels sick. The lies were supposed to be over, and here he is lying again. One last lie, he reasons with himself. Just this one last lie and Harry will be free. He’ll be alone, and he’ll never forgive Louis for it, but he’ll be free from the consequences of being in love with someone like him.
“Call me if you need anything, okay, angel? Promise me,” Harry begs, and it’s almost funny because Louis can hear people in the background and he’ll probably get ribbed for being whipped.
“I promise,” Louis lies. It’s harder than any other lie he’s told in their painfully short relationship.
“Thank you,” Harry says quietly, far too soft. “I love you,” he adds, so innocently, as if that’s not the worst possible thing he could have said right now.
Louis’ heart breaks. “I love you too.”
“I’m gonna let you go, okay?”
He almost laughs. Almost. The fucking irony of the words. “‘Kay,” he replies, because he can’t say much else without breaking down.
“Okay,” Harry sighs. Louis knows he’s not upset with him, he’s just upset because he can’t help. It’s not helping the mounting guilt looming over him, but he can’t blame him for it. “I’ll leave work if you need me, so just—just call, okay? You’re more important than work, than anything.”
He’s officially reached the point of no return. He can’t do anything but make a vague noise of agreement, a pathetic sound that makes it all too obvious that he’s going to cry. The line goes dead as he presses the end call button without waiting around for Harry’s goodbye.
It’s going to be a star feature on the long list of things he regrets.
It takes him three hours to say goodbye.
He composes the letter sitting at Harry’s desk in their study, legs crossed beneath him in the large desk chair. It’s much harder than he imagined, getting the words out. For as long as he’s considered this a possibility, you’d think he’d have planned what to say. What can you say, when you’re leaving someone to go to what very well could be your death? Louis doesn’t know.
By the time he’s finished, there’s paper everywhere. Discarded attempts surround him, in various states of destruction, his hands stained with ink. He might have burned one of the drafts actually, from the smell of magical-tinged smoke that lingers in the air. It’s all a blur really.
Running out of time, he scans the latest letter. It doesn’t quite capture how he feels, but it’s the best he can do. Hopefully, it’ll provide some closure. Harry deserves that. More than anyone.
He doesn’t have time for all the other goodbyes. They’ll understand better than Harry could, they know the true cost of letting this continue. At least he tells himself that, to push away the haunting image of his mother’s broken face that flashes behind his eyelids.
Birds chirp outside the window, far too cheerful for Louis’ swirling thoughts. He needs to clean up; needs to go. His joints are stiff when he gets out of the chair, blood rushing to his lower legs with that awful cold sensation that comes with sitting for too long. With a twitch of his fingers, he vanishes the mess he made. Only the letter remains, his scrawled handwriting mocking him.
He picks it up with a trembling hand. It really isn’t enough.
Harry,
I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. You know by now how terrible I am with words, but I’m going to try. For you.
They started writing letters to me after your attack. I ignored the first one, and by the second one I knew something had to be done eventually. In the third one, they threatened Lottie. Either I go to them, or Lottie suffers again. I can’t do that to her, Harry, I’m so sorry. I don’t have a choice. If I had a choice, it would be you. It would always be you.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m not going down without a fight. I don’t think my chances of making it out are very high, and even if I do I won’t ever be the same again. You deserve better than a broken, empty shell of the man you fell in love with. I think I’d rather die, than let them take my magic. That’s so fucking selfish of me, isn’t it? I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I keep saying that. It’s all I feel right now, numb and sorry. Fuck, this letter is a pile of shit. The picture of us on your desk is staring at me. I want it to stop. I thought about throwing it against the wall.
Is it wrong? That I want you to miss me? Don’t get me wrong, I want you to move on and live your life and find the happiness I can’t give you, but part of me hopes that a piece of me will stay with you when you find someone new. But do move on, please. Don’t sulk for too long. You’re young and hot and someone out there needs a man like you. Can you keep in contact with my mum? and Zayn? Don’t shut them out, even when it hurts. They’ll help you. You’ll help each other. It helps me to know that.
I love you. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. You’ve made the past three years of my life better than I ever could have imagined. I’m sorry that I lied for so much of it. Do you believe in past lives? Not all witches do, but the moment I met you I knew for sure that it couldn’t possibly have been our first meeting. I like to think it wasn’t our last.
I’ll see you again, my love.
I’m sorry.
Yours, Louis. x
Carefully, he folds it in half. Harry will understand. He has to. As he makes his way through the house, he internally debates with himself about the best place to put the letter. The living room? No, Harry rarely goes in there unless they’re watching something together. Their bedroom? Maybe, but he’s not sure he can handle going in there again. The kitchen, he decides. The kitchen table will be best.
He places it down in the center, resting a small vase on the edge of it so Lemon doesn’t knock it off before Harry gets home. The cat seems to notice that something is wrong, meowing loudly and winding in between his legs. Louis ignores her.
He drops his phone on the table too, looking away as it lights up and Harry’s smiling face looks up at him. He has to get out of here quickly, before he changes his mind.
In the end, it takes him nearly twenty minutes to get out. Between the cat refusing to leave him alone and his stomach turning every time something small catches his eye and triggers a memory he doesn’t need right now, leaving is difficult.
It feels so final when the purple door closes behind him and he hears the faint click of the lock. He doesn’t expect he’ll ever see this house again. Doesn’t expect he’ll see much of anything.
Fuck.
He walks away, refusing to turn back until the house is long out of view.
There’s no fanfare when he arrives at the warehouse. No red carpet, no welcoming party. Just a rusty door and silence.
It’s close to the evening now, he thinks. The walk to the industrial estate had been a lot longer than he’d expected, it being on the outskirts of their small town. It’s mostly abandoned, a few of the old buildings up for sale and only one on the other side of the estate still up and running. Nobody noticed him entering, which is either a blessing or a curse.
It occurs to him suddenly that Harry should be home by now. It’s not something he wants to think about, but the pesky thought keeps pushing to the front of his brain. He pushes it down again.
He looks at the door again. Is he supposed to just walk in? As absurd as the thought is, it feels a little rude. They’re going to try to kill him and he’s worried about being rude. Maybe he’s losing it a little.
Pulling on the handle, he’s unsurprised to find that it’s unlocked. There’s nobody in the immediate area when he walks into the building, just empty space and high ceilings. The part that he’s walked into doesn’t seem to be the main room, just some long abandoned storage space.
Now that he’s inside, the signs of life are a lot more obvious. A TV is playing somewhere beyond this room, the faint sounds of a laugh track bleeding through the walls. Someone might be talking, but he can’t tell if that’s just whatever show is on. It’s hard to tell where anything is coming from, with everything echoing in the mostly empty space.
He tentatively opens the door on the other side of the room, only pushing it far enough to peek through.
Three people sit on flimsy fold-out chairs in front of an old box tv. There are no signs that they live here full time, no beds or food besides an empty crisp packet and a coke bottle, which means that they’re only here to wait for him. From what he can see with their backs to him, there’s one significantly large bald guy, and two with smaller but no less intimidating figures. He’s fucked, probably. Magic and all.
Might as well go for it.
He walks right in, head held high.
“Hello, boys,” he calls confidently, then immediately chastises himself for being cliche.
All three heads whip around to face him. It’s oddly satisfying, the fear on their faces. They’re scared of him, when they hold the key to ruining his entire life.
The bald one, clearly the leader, steps up in front of the other two. “Witch,” he says, almost in greeting. “Finally decided to come then?” His American accent is thick but there are tiny giveaways that tell Louis he’s been here a while.
“Obviously.”
The man smirks, twisting his face and somehow making it more unappealing. “Are you going to cooperate?”
“I might,” Louis responds. He has no intention of going down easy. He thinks they know that, given how the thinner man is trembling where he stands half behind his friend.
The last man, still tall and muscled like the bald man but less scary looking and with a full head of hair, doesn’t look frightened at all. He looks predatory, taking in Louis’ small body in a way that makes his skin crawl. He’ll go for that one first when he fights, he thinks.
That man snorts. “You’re tiny,” he spits, a strong southern English accent forming around the words. “Freak or not, you don’t stand a chance. May as well just lie down and let us fix you, hm? I’ll be gentle, you’ll hardly feel a thing. Once you pass out at least.”
Louis feels sick. Something about this man in particular frightens him more than the big guy. “I didn’t come here to just let you take my magic. You’ve threatened me, you’ve threatened my fucking family. You hurt the love of my life. I’m going to hurt you back, even if I die trying.”
It scares him how much he means it. As much as he thought he was prepared to die here today, suddenly the reality of it all is hitting him.
The big guy laughs. “You’re as foolish as the rest of your kind. Your pathetic sister and her boyfriend thought they could fight back too.”
Louis glares, trying to control himself. “Don’t fucking talk about her,” he all but growls. His magic flares inside of him, begging him to fight. It pleads with him to lash out, to hurt them the way they’ve probably hurt so many witches. He’s never been a particularly violent person – besides the occasional thoughts of throwing things – but he wants to make these men scream.
He doesn’t let them open their mouths to taunt him any further. Crossing his hands in front of him and pushing them forwards, a gust of air hits them square in the chest and shoves them back. The weedier one hits the floor with a thud, groaning in pain.
It’s a start.
Everything moves rather quickly after that. The big guy rushes towards him, only to be knocked aside by a crate Louis manages to send flying towards him at the last second.
Skinny guy is off his arse and shaking like a leaf, but he throws something that Louis is too preoccupied to dodge. The metal object hits him in the stomach, sending a wave of pain through him before clanging to the ground, narrowly missing his foot.
Ouch. Okay, skinny guy has to die.
He takes stock of his surroundings. Bald guy is on the floor to his left, clutching his leg and groaning. Skinny guy is looking for something else to throw, clearly too scared to get any closer, like that will help him. The other man hasn’t moved yet. He’s just watching, the ghost of a smirk on his face. Louis doesn’t know what to do about that.
It won’t take much to get the thin lad out of the equation, he doesn’t think. There is one spell, an old spell that he absolutely shouldn’t know and has never dared try before. It’s not something he should do, it really really isn’t, but if he’s going to die, why should he care about right and wrong? Why should he spare someone who would so quickly do the same to him?
Taking a deep breath, he reaches a hand out towards the man and twists it, slowly closing his fist. He says some words he couldn’t even translate if he tried, words he read under the covers in his grandparents house as a child.
A gasp, then a blood-curdling scream.
The thin man falls to his knees, screaming and screaming and screaming. Louis doesn’t stop. He doesn’t see anything but the man, screaming. Nothing else matters but the fact that he is doing this. It should feel bad, it does feel bad, but in those screams he hears the screams of his sister and Harry and every other witch these people have ever hurt.
Suddenly, something presses into his back, and his grip on his magic slips.
An arm slips around his chest, pulling him back against a strong body. “Nasty little witch, aren’t you?” a gruff voice breathes into his ear. It’s the Englishman.
Louis struggles against the hold but it’s no use. He tries to call his magic, to cast something– anything, but it doesn’t work. Only faint whispers of it rise towards his fingertips, hardly enough to hurt a fly let alone save him from this hell.
“Let me go,” he pleads.
The man scoffs. He feels a tiny bit of spit hit his neck and his stomach turns. “You almost killed poor Craig, now why would I let you go after that?” He asks. He squeezes tighter, trapping the air in Louis’ lungs. “As easy as it would be to just snap your neck right now, I think it would be a lot more fun to make it hurt. See, ripping the power from your magical core is actually my specialty, and I do love the sound of you witches screaming and begging for it to stop.”
Fuck. Why can’t they just kill him? He’s having some serious regrets about all of this. Maybe hiding forever wouldn’t have been so bad after all.
Without really thinking about what he’s about to do, he lifts a foot up and stomps as hard as he can on the foot of his attacker. He’s hardly heavy enough to do any damage, but it does make the grip he’s locked in loosen for long enough for him to slip out and run.
The magic floods back, and he uses it to blindly fling anything he can see behind him as he runs across the warehouse, aiming for a large fire door on the other side. He’s always been a shit runner, and the pain still blooming in his stomach isn’t helping. Someone’s definitely following him, heavy footsteps echoing.
“Where the fuck are you going to run to?” An enraged voice screams from behind him. It’s far too close. “You don’t stand a chance!”
Legs tiring already, he keeps running. The warehouse is so fucking big, it feels like the door is only getting further and further away.
His lungs burn, his core aches from whatever was trying to suppress it before, and he just wants to give up. That’s what he came here to do after all, isn’t it? Why is he fighting it so hard? Even with that thought, he doesn’t stop running. He barely lifts a hand to lift another crate in the air and blindly throws it behind him. Unlike all of his other attempts, this time he hears the thud of it impacting someone. There’s an aborted grunt, but his head is pounding too much to tell if anyone else is following, so he doesn’t stop running.
The door is closer now, he just has to get it open and get out and then—well, he’s not sure what happens after that, but not being in this building with these people is his first priority.
Finally, he reaches it. It takes all of his strength to push on the handle and heave the heavy door open, his body so tired. The warm glow of the summer evening bathes him in light, a soft breeze curling around him.
He gets about two whole seconds to appreciate it and attempt to breathe before he feels the looming presence of someone stepping up behind him. He doesn’t even get a chance to react before something is smacking into the back of his head.
Lit by golden light, the world goes dark.
Louis hates clubbing.
Okay, that’s a lie. He hates clubbing when he’s forced to go clubbing by Zayn and Liam who then ditch him five minutes in to snog by the loos. They’d begged and begged him to come and now here he is, sweaty and overwhelmed and completely alone in a sea of people.
He’s quite convinced that gay bars on a Friday night might be his own personal idea of hell. Louis has been sitting at the bar for all of ten minutes and he’s already had to fend off several potential suitors. The first to bombard him was a particularly beefy man with an unfortunate smell, the next a clearly very confused twink who obviously missed the glaring neon ‘bottom’ sign hanging above Louis’ head, and then a very lost bride-to-be on her hen do who could barely walk straight.
As much as he wants to get fucked, this is absolutely not working for him.
Finally, one of the bartenders gets to him and he manages to order himself a drink. Clutching the cool bottle of beer to his chest, he slips away from the bar in search of some part of the dingy club that doesn’t feel so suffocating.
He passes his traitor friends on the way to an empty booth, discreetly sending a spell at Zayn’s perfectly styled hair and pulling it out of place. He gets flipped off in return but they don’t stop groping each other. Disgusting. Why drag him here so they can get off? Do they not have a house? This is why he enjoys being single. Clearly, being tied to someone makes you lose all brain cells.
The booth is blissfully not too close to the crowded dance floor but is placed in the perfect spot to people watch and judge other people’s life choices, so he slips in with his eyes firmly on a woman who looks like she’s trying to impregnate another woman to the tune of Call Me Maybe.
“Excuse me,” a voice calls over the music from right beside him. He turns, startled, to find that the booth wasn’t empty after all. “I’m saving this booth for my friends,” the man continues. Louis is only half listening.
The man is hot. He’s big and handsome and even in terrible lighting looks exactly Louis’ type, big hand dwarfing a pint glass and a cocky smile on his face.
“Well, you’re doing a terrible job of saving the seats if you let me sit down,” Louis replies, far too late. He turns his body to face the man, who’s a lot closer than he thought in the small space. Their knees brush.
“They’ll be here any minute,” the man shouts. “You gonna move?” It’s a challenge.
Louis grins, taking a sip of his beer. “Absolutely not.”
The man leans back, bringing his own glass to his lips and taking a sip. His eyes never leave Louis’, and he feels like he might just melt under the searing gaze. Maybe clubs aren’t so bad after all. “I’m Harry,” the man informs him, seemingly accepting that Louis isn’t a liar and is in fact planning on sticking around.
“Louis.”
A nod. Somehow, they end up shifting closer together. Harry’s hand is on the seat between them, dangerously close to Louis’ leg. Louis is no stranger to flirting in dark corners of gay bars but this doesn’t feel at all like that. There’s an odd pull towards the man, something about him that makes Louis want to get closer and closer.
They don’t speak for a few moments, both of them instead watching the writhing crowd and attempting to ignore the weird tension between them. It should be awkward but it’s not at all.
Louis opens his mouth to speak once he grows restless of the silence but before the words come out, a bubbly looking blond man flanked by two well-dressed women walks up to the table.
“Making friends over here, H?” The man asks with a thick irish twang. He’s giving Louis a very smug once over as he talks, which makes the witch feel vaguely uncomfortable.
Harry shifts beside him, an arm coming to rest along the back of the booth behind Louis. Smooth.
“Piss off Niall,” Harry shouts back over the music, grinning all the while. “This one won’t move so I think you’re better off finding another booth.”
The Irishman gives them both another knowing look. “And you’re not coming because?”
“Well, it would be rude to leave him all alone, wouldn’t it?”
Louis nods beside him, playing along. Part of him really hopes that Harry’s friends don’t force themselves into the little bubble they’ve got going on here. He really wants to get laid all of a sudden and he’ll be damned if he leaves here without Harry. Mentally, he starts thinking of any possible spells he could use to get them to go away. Unfortunately, most of the things he can think of would involve causing too much of a scene. Very, very unfortunate, he thinks.
Harry and Niall seem to be having some sort of stare off. Louis makes awkward eye contact with one of the girls, sending her a smile that gets a stilted nod in return.
The silent conversation between the two men lasts for maybe thirty seconds, yet it feels like forever before Niall nods and turns to the girls. “We’re not wanted here, ladies. Harry’s getting some,” he declares, boldly and with no attempt at keeping his voice down.
Harry coughs awkwardly beside Louis, glaring at the blond man who just throws him a shit-eating grin and walks away with the women in tow. Louis should probably be offended, or worried or something, but he’s mostly just amused.
“Getting some, huh?” Louis asks, the two of them close enough now that they don’t have to shout. He turns his face towards him, raising an eyebrow.
Harry has the decency to look sheepish, a light flush showing on his face when one of the lights hits him for a moment. “Ignore Niall, he’s–uh, he’s spirited.”
Louis hums in acknowledgment, “I can tell. He seems nice though, he did leave us alone after all. Top notch wingman behaviour, honestly.”
“I don’t really do this,” Harry confides.
“Do what?”
“Go out on the pull.”
Louis looks him up and down. He prides himself on not judging books by their covers, and being generally very open and accepting of everyone, but he finds the man’s words hard to believe. Shirt unbuttoned to his navel and exposing far too much inked skin, expensive looking rings on most of his fingers and hair perfectly tousled where it rests around his ears, the man is a sex god. Louis smells a liar.
“I don’t believe that,” he tells him truthfully. “You’re way too fit. Look at you! You’ve probably even had a lesbian or two try to pull you in here.” Louis snorts. “‘I don’t really do this,’ god, what a line.”
The other man fish-mouths slightly at the outburst, looking at him like he’s not entirely sure what to say to that. Louis, if he’s being honest, is immediately a little embarrassed by his behaviour. The gentle buzz of the alcohol working through his system and the excitement in his magic from being in a room packed with so much raw energy has made him a bit too brave.
“I’m sorry,” he says quickly before Harry can say anything. “Can we pretend I didn’t say any of that and go back to flirting?”
Harry laughs, a kind, joyful sound that goes straight to Louis’ heart. “You don’t have to be sorry, I get it all the time. I meant it though, I don’t go out on the pull. I’m perhaps a bit of a romantic.”
Great, Louis thinks. He finds the perfect man to sleep with and he just happens to be a fucking romantic. For a moment, he considers getting up from the booth and finding the smelly man from earlier. Or just anyone willing to top who’s decently attractive. Anyone who won’t want more than he can give, who he can say goodbye to in the morning and won’t have to lie to about who he is.
The thought is fleeting, because Harry’s fingers brush along his shoulder and his magic hums beneath his skin.
“I’m not, really,” Louis lies. “A romantic, that is.”
“Why?” Harry asks, no trace of accusation or annoyance in the question. Just genuine curiosity.
He shrugs. “Necessity, I guess,” he responds, not entirely sure himself why he’s being so truthful all of a sudden. This man is a stranger, he owes him nothing. And yet. “I’m not quite relationship material. Lots of baggage.”
Harry frowns at that, a genuine look of concern taking over his handsome face. Louis is struck by how much he wants to kiss the frown away. So much for not getting attached. Zayn is going to have a field day with this one, he’ll never live it down.
“I’m taking you on a date,” Harry says suddenly.
“A date? Mate, I just told you I have more baggage than Heathrow and you want to take me on a date?” Louis takes another sip of his beer, shaking his head in disbelief. Is this man on something?
Harry, completely unbothered, laughs. “I don’t give a shit about baggage. I’m going to woo you.”
“You’re being awfully presumptuous. What if you’re not my type?” Louis counters, though his body language is firmly in flirting territory. The rest of the club may as well not exist because right now nothing outside of this booth matters one bit to him. His back is to the packed dance floor and all he can see is Harry, lit by dancing lights.
The hand not resting near his shoulder comes up to cradle his face. It’s blissfully cold against his warm cheek.
“You’ve been blushing this whole time,” Harry informs him with a cocky half-grin. “Pretty,” he adds, almost too quietly to be heard over the pounding music, thumb ghosting over Louis’ cheekbone. The smaller man shivers. Harry’s grin widens.
Fuck Zayn. Fuck Liam. Fuck this stranger. Fuck his weird Irish friend for leaving them. Fuck the dimples. Louis is fucked.
Wrong. Everything feels wrong.
He chases the wisps of the dream as they leave his mind, the memory of Harry’s hand on his face still so fresh. It felt so real. It was real. That night three years ago has lived in his mind since. The night he met the love of his life. He wants to slip back into sleep, to grasp on to the fading image and live in it forever, but a sharp pain twists through his body, shocking him out of his head.
For a moment, Louis doesn’t even know where he is. He’s lying on something cold and hard, a gentle but very present throbbing in the back of his head making him feel nauseous. The pain twisting through his body is radiating from his right side, something sharp pressing into his flesh.
It hits him then, with the force of a freight train.
Pushing past the pain, he can’t feel his magic. No gentle hum, no fizzing energy. Just nothing.
No. It can’t be gone. It can’t.
He screams.
Almost as soon as the sound leaves his mouth, a hand clamps over it, silencing him. The skin pressing against his open mouth is salty and he gags against it.
Opening his eyes, he’s greeted with the grotesque sight of the bulkier American man looming over him. He looks smug, far far too smug. Louis knows then that he’s done for. There’s no use in fighting back anymore.
So he doesn’t.
He closes his eyes again, bites down on his tongue to stop from screaming at the pain, and waits. He waits until the man realises he’s not going to scream and moves his hand away. He waits until the sound of them mocking him fades away. Somehow, he clears his mind completely. The pain is still there, pressing persistently. The emptiness that comes with no longer feeling that buzz of magic he’s had his whole life doesn’t go away either, but he ignores it.
Is this what death is? Accepting that it’s over? Louis thinks it just might be. It’ll all be over soon. The pain will stop, the emptiness will go away and he’ll either be greeted with eternal nothingness or whatever comes after.
If he could choose, his ideal after would be reliving the greatest moments of his life. The little things mainly; the late nights talking endlessly with Zayn, his mother stroking his hair whilst she read to Lottie, the faces of his students when they first felt the magic really working for them, every single kiss Harry ever graced him with. He would be at peace with an eternity of that.
Something jolts within him. The pain flares for a moment and with it comes the tiniest flicker of magic. It’s not enough, probably just the dying embers of his core pushing back, but he clings onto it. It feels warm in the pit of his stomach, the feeling of home that comes from so many things in his life. He wills it to come back to him, to defy the odds and come flooding back.
It doesn’t. He doesn’t let go.
Beyond the forced quiet in his head, something is trying to break through. Something is telling him he needs to bring himself back. It’s hard. Another—louder—part of him just wants to slip away, to be done with all of this for good.
Abruptly, the pain lessens considerably.
They’ve stopped. Why have they stopped? The small ball of magic is still clinging on.
It’s not long before he gets his answer. Someone screams, and the whole world spins as he’s suddenly shoved off whatever he was lying on and falls to the floor with a thud. It shocks him back to life, the pain in his side intensifying again from the impact. Everything aches, and with his return to life comes so much noise.
There’s shouting from all sides, grunts of pain and loud clanging. Mind spinning, Louis can’t focus on anything, can’t even open his eyes.
Someone grabs him, dragging him to his feet with little care. It’s hard to stay standing, his legs numb.
“Stop now or he’s dead,” a voice calls, panicked and far too close to his ear. It sounds like the weedy one, Craig? So Louis didn’t kill him then. Unfortunate. Wait—is someone here?
The noise has stopped for the most part. With some effort, Louis forces his eyes open.
Harry. The first thing he sees is Harry. He looks scary, face etched with anger and fists bloodied. He’s looking at Louis like he’ll tear down the whole building to carry him out of there right now. Louis fights not to fall to the floor at the sight of him.
“Don’t you fucking touch him,” a growl comes, but not from Harry. From Zayn. Louis turns his head to find him, holding the big American to the floor with some sort of crushing spell Louis has never seen before. Liam stands beside him, looking almost comical with a bat in his hand. Louis wonders where the fuck he found that.
The other man is missing. The cruel one.
Craig tightens his grip on Louis, sending a wave of nausea through him as the pain blooms again. He can feel the blood dripping down his side at an alarming pace as it gets harder and harder to stay upright even with the man holding him up.
“Please,” Louis croaks out, his voice sounding odd to his own ears. “My magic is already gone, just go.” Harry opens his mouth to protest, but Louis weakly shakes his head. “Please.”
None of them look keen to let this go. Zayn’s grip on his magic is tight, the man squirming and struggling to breathe under the weight of the constant pressure being pushed upon him. Liam’s on standby, ready to take over if Zayn falters. It’s almost sweet.
Harry looks even less likely to back down.
“Let him go,” Harry demands, looking directly over Louis’ head. “You think I’m scared of you? You couldn’t even snap a twig. Do you want the same treatment I gave your friend?” Craig squeaks a little at that, but Harry continues, edging closer with trembling fists. “I swear to fucking God if you don’t let him go this instant I will snap your neck so quick you won’t even have the chance to beg for your pathetic little life.”
Is it wrong that Louis is a little turned on?
Harry reaches them. Louis wants him to look at him, even just for a moment, but his terrifying gaze isn’t leaving the man holding him hostage.
“This is your last chance.” Louis can tell he means it.
The man drops him right as his legs give out. He falls, rather ungraciously, into Harry’s arms. Head fuzzy, he’s not entirely sure where Craig goes. The faint sound of a door slamming somewhere far off tells him that he’s probably long gone. Harry doesn’t try to hold him up, instead gently lowers him to the ground and kneels beside him, holding onto the gaping wound in his side.
Everything is a blur. He’s definitely lost too much blood and it’s not like they can call an ambulance. Vaguely, beyond the pressure in his head, he can hear Zayn and Liam arguing about something.
There’s a hole in the roof. It’s dark outside, the moon taunting him and the sliver of magic still left in his body.
“What time is it?”
Harry shrugs, “Past midnight.”
Louis nods weakly. “You should be in bed, you have work in the morning.”
Harry gives him a look . It would be a lot more effective if Louis wasn’t seeing double. “I just killed a man and you’re bleeding out in my arms. I think I have more pressing issues,” he jokes.
“Mm, true,” Louis breathes. It’s hard to talk without it hurting more. “Kind of a bad plan to be honest, Zayn couldn’t heal a blister. Probably wasn’t worth all the trouble if I'm going to die anyway.”
There’s a gentle, melodic laugh from behind him.
“I see I got here on time for the dramatics.”
Harry heaves a sigh and a barely audible ‘thank fuck’ right as Louis twists towards the voice, groaning when it only jolts the wound. “Mum?” he whispers, voice wobbling.
Jay falls down beside him, gently shooing Harry’s hand away and immediately setting to work weaving spells over the wound. The wash of her familiar magic over him calms him instantly, the pain far from gone but eased simply by her presence. She doesn’t look at him, the deep bags under her eyes and the frown on her lovely face giving away just how much of a toll this is taking on her.
“You’re lucky your lovely man here thought to call me,” she says as she works. “You’re even more lucky that you’re on death's door and it’s bad timing for me to put you on the naughty step.” She stops for a moment to pour a potion into his mouth, the foul tasting liquid sliding down his throat with ease. “I’m so mad at you, Louis Tomlinson. So mad.”
“I’m sorry, mum.”
“Save it. We’ll talk about it when you’re not actively dying, okay? Now shut up and let me do my job.”
He does. Gladly. She pours potion after potion into his mouth, until he has to fight against the urge to throw them right back up. She doesn’t let up with the spells either, muttering under her breath as her fingers draw patterns over his stomach. Zayn comes by at one point and whispers something to Harry, pulling him away to deal with something that Louis isn’t sure he wants to think about yet.
The pain lessens bit by bit, but he knows he’s nowhere near out of the woods yet. His mum is their best healer, and has been since she was too young to handle such a responsibility, but even she can’t work miracles. There are moments where he feels himself slipping, where something calls to him and whispers gentle words of giving up. Her soothing voice always brings him back, the glimpses of Harry looking over at him with so much worry in his face tethers him. He has to hold on.
Harry comes back over and kneels beside him once more, taking his hand and squeezing it. His hands are clean now, Louis notes.
“Sweetheart,” his mother coos. “I’m going to put you to sleep now, okay? And Liam is going to drive us home. You’ll heal better in a familiar place.”
Louis groans. “You know I hate magically induced sleep.”
“Yes, well, unfortunately it’s that or death so take your pick,” she tells him. Clearly the dramatics run in the family.
“Fine,” he concedes with a sigh. “Just not with a potion, I think I might actually be sick if I have to drink another.”
His mother, usually much more sympathetic with her patients, simply rolls her eyes and presses a finger to his forehead.
Sleep comes instantly.
“Please just let me kick him once.”
“He’s healing Zayn.”
“You know you want to, too.”
“I absolutely do not want to kick my dying boyfriend.”
“Your stubborn idiot dying boyfriend who didn’t need to put himself in this position.”
“You’re not kicking him.”
“Jay would kill you anyway.”
“Shut up, Liam.”
“I’m team kick him.”
“Thank you, Lottie. Finally some solidarity.”
“I’m going to kick you all out of my house in a minute if you don’t shut up.”
“Alright, touchy. Merlin, you kill a man once and suddenly you’re a hard man.”
“Way too soon.”
“I killed someone too!”
It all goes quiet then, much to Louis’ dismay. He was rather enjoying the theatrics. With a tremendous amount of effort, he opens his eyes to take in the scene before him. Firmly tucked into his own bed, Harry is perched delicately next to him, clearly trying not to disturb him. Liam and Zayn are sat at the end of the bed, leaning back against the bed frame in what cannot be a comfortable position. Without turning his head to look he can tell Lottie is sitting next to him beside the bed, the smell of her flowery perfume tickling his nose.
Zayn notices him first. “Ah, look, the princess is awake. So, can I kick you?” he asks with a cheeky grin that doesn’t quite cover the cloud of exhaustion over his face.
Louis smiles, a little weakly. “Maybe later, I feel like I’ve been rammed by a lorry.”
Lottie snorts beside him, probably holding back some sort of ‘looks like it too’ comment. Harry’s gone rigid beside him, prompting Louis to turn his head to face the man. As expected, he looks like utter shit.
He’s also not even looking at Louis, face determinedly turned towards Liam and Zayn and jaw locked tight. Ouch.
Louis can’t really deal with that right now. “Where’s mum?” He asks instead, turning back to direct the question at Zayn.
“Made her go lie down in the spare bedroom,” he answers. “Took a lot of convincing.”
Louis frowns. “How long was I out?” he ponders, both out loud and to himself. Given the state of everyone else in the room, he’s guessing it’s been a while.
Liam pipes up instead when Zayn’s attempt at responding gets cut off by a yawn. “Only about twenty four hours. We’ve all had some sleep here and there but you were really slipping away for a bit and Jay refused to stop casting,” he explains, slipping an arm around Zayn’s shoulders and letting him lean into the embrace. “It’s been rough.” Zayn nods in support of his boyfriend’s words.
Louis makes a small noise of acknowledgment and the room slips into silence. He can’t think of anything to say, the guilt of what he’s put everyone through too present.
It feels like he could sleep for longer, like he could slip away for weeks and weeks if they’d let him. It’s an odd sensation really, the feeling of the magic and the potions working through his body to fix him from the inside and out. He wonders if it felt like this for Harry, or if it’s just because Louis is so attuned to the gentle caress of magic. It’s even weirder not being able to feel his own magic within the swirl of his mother’s. If he really pushes, he can sense something, that same flicker from before, but it’s so easily washed away.
It might soon be gone forever. Anxiety lodges in his throat, threatening to choke him. He can’t do this right now, not with everyone already so worried about him.
Louis shoves it down to be dealt with much, much later.
Right now, as awful as it makes him feel, he just needs everyone to fuck off. He needs to talk to Harry, to apologise, to fix what he broke, and he’d rather not do that in front of his best friends and his sister.
“Right,” Harry says suddenly, before Louis has the chance to speak up. “Everyone out. Go home or go downstairs or something, whatever. Louis is fine, you lot need to sleep.”
Zayn looks comically offended. “But what if he—“
“I’ll wake Jay up.” Harry counters, still not looking at Louis at all. “Out.”
Lottie moves first, leaning over to press a tender kiss to the side of Louis’ head before making her way out of the room, giving Zayn a gentle thwack on the shoulder as she does.
Zayn moves then, either from Lottie’s warning or Harry’s no-bullshit tone, and Liam easily follows. They both supply Louis with a look he can’t quite decipher before following Lottie out the door and, he assumes, downstairs to try and fail to sleep.
As soon as the door closes behind them, Harry gently removes himself from the bed, taking his warmth with him. He doesn’t look back at Louis as he walks to the window and looks out into the night.
“You should try and get some sleep too,” Louis tells him. His throat is dry, making the words scratch a little as they come out.
Finally, Harry turns to look at him, leaning his weight against the window ledge like he can’t stay upright without it.
“I can’t,” Harry says with a soft shake of his head. “I tried, but every time I closed my eyes I just thought about you dying while I slept.” Louis wants to hug him right now, pain be damned. “I’d never forgive myself.”
Louis frowns. “And what about the—the whole killing people thing? Can you forgive yourself for that?” It’s not what he meant to ask, and he immediately wants to take it back.
He doesn’t know what happened, and he can’t blame Harry or Zayn for whatever they had to do. It’s his fault, he put them on that path in his own stubbornness.
Harry, surprisingly, laughs. A quick, short, bitter laugh.
“The bastard was killing you, Louis. I’d kill him all over again if I could,” Harry affirms, clearly meaning every word.
Oh.
“Oh,” Louis breathes. “I thought—“
Harry strides across the room and perches beside him on the bed once more, facing him this time. He takes both of Louis’ hands in his and brings them to his mouth to press a kiss to each one. “I could never regret saving your life. Ever. Maybe one day when everything has settled, I’ll feel some guilt, but right now with you still breathing in front of me, nothing else matters to me.”
The truth in Harry’s words is so overwhelming Louis finds it hard to breathe for a moment, eyes darting all around the room so he doesn’t have to meet the intense gaze.
“Thank you,” he whispers, because what else can he say? No words of gratitude will ever be enough for what Harry did for him. For what any of them did for him.
He should have died there. Louis doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to forget that.
“Don’t,” Harry says. “Don’t thank me. Just don’t do that to me ever again. Please.” Another kiss is pressed to his hands.
Louis nods. He hopes he never has to.
“Get in bed,” Louis demands with no real force. “I’m dying and I demand cuddles.”
Harry rolls his eyes at that, unimpressed with the dramatics. He does as he’s told anyway, slipping under the covers and gently manoeuvring them until Louis is firmly in his arms. It hurts a little, or a lot, but Louis fights not to show it, wanting to be held.
Louis settles into the hold, letting Harry’s warmth seep through him. Fingers rake through his hair, making him realise that the pain from the blow to his head is almost gone. Thank fuck for his wonderful mother.
“So,” Louis whispers, fighting sleep thanks to Harry’s soothing embrace. “How much shit am I in, on a scale of one to ten?”
Harry’s laugh jolts Louis, making him grimace at the pain that shoots through his side. “Oh, a solid twenty. The second you’re healed you’re doing some major grovelling,” he jokes, though the underlying truth in the words has Louis planning ways to win his favour back.
“Sounds fair,” Louis agrees with a yawn. “‘m sleepy.”
Lips press to his head, lingering. “Sleep, love. I’ve got you,” Harry murmurs into his hair.
He doesn’t have to be told twice. Sleep comes easily, Harry’s kiss a different and more powerful magic than any spell. Right as he slips away, almost entirely unnoticeable, something stirs within him. The smallest buzz. A sprinkle of magic, more alive than before.
He’s home.
4 YEARS AND A FEW MONTHS LATER
“This tree is ridiculous, mum,” Louis calls through to the kitchen as he stands in the shadow of the ten-foot-tall glowing monstrosity taking up the corner of his mum’s living room. “She’s finally lost it,” he mumbles to himself as he makes eye contact with a horrifying Santa bauble.
“Lottie picked it out,” Jay informs him, turning up beside him with a steaming cup of tea. “As soon as the little ones saw it I didn’t stand a chance.”
Louis hums in thought. “We could always burn it? I mean it would be an awful mess but nothing a little wave of a hand can’t fix, you can’t even see the bloody TV past the thing.” He takes the tea from his mum, taking a sip and continuing to frown at the tree over the rim of the cup.
“Don’t think Lottie will allow that, love,” Jay reasons. “I think we’re stuck with it,” she says mournfully.
“Mm,” Louis agrees, finally looking away from the ghastly thing and towards his mum. “Shame that mine and Harry’s is a little more tasteful. He wanted a bloody white one at first. White! Who does he think we are?”
His mum, ever the supportive mother, only laughs at him. Raising his arm to offer her a light punch in retaliation, the move is cut short when an aching pain spreads across his lower back. Groaning, he sets himself down in one of the plush armchairs.
Jay wastes no time getting into Healer Mode, kneeling down besides the chair and patting his arm sympathetically. “It’s hurting again?” She asks, voice full of concern. It’s something he’s far too used to these days.
Louis nods. “On and off for days now, last night was the first night I didn’t wake up at stupid o’clock crying.”
Honestly, he’s unbelievably sick of it all. The aches and pains, the agonising lack of sleep, wanting to bite Harry’s head off every time he dares to be even slightly annoying. It’s getting on his tits now and he just wants it to be over with, but he has little control over that.
“Unfortunately you’ll have to get used to waking up to crying once the baby’s actually out, love,” his mother reasons, still stroking his arm soothingly. “You haven’t been taking potions, have you?”
Louis shakes his head. Jay had been extremely strict on potion usage and healing spells the moment he got pregnant, the pregnancy itself being a miracle due to the state of his magical core. It had recovered since that night, but the scars that remained were plenty, his magic still trying to settle to this day.
They hadn’t considered that having a child would still be an option, and therefore the potions preventing it were left to gather dust in his potions cupboard. A mistake, really. Louis had known the moment the first bout of morning sickness had hit and had called his mum from the bathroom floor in a complete state, begging for help.
She’d been just as scared as him, though a lot more level headed about it.
“Painkillers are doing fuck all,” Louis whines, running a hand over his bulging stomach. “Do you think it’ll be okay?” He asks, not for the first time.
Jay smiles, a sympathetic edge to the expression, and lays a hand over his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “It’s going to be just fine. Your core should never have recovered and it did, you shouldn’t have been able to conceive and you did. You’re unbelievably strong and I don’t think there’s anything that could happen that would stop that baby from coming out perfectly healthy,” she tells him, voice calm and sure. “You just have to hold on for a little longer and we’ll have every healer the elders could get hold of here to help me with the delivery. Even Lottie is shoving her nose in it and demanding to help now that she’s a trained midwife. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Promise?”
Jay rolls her eyes. “I promise. Don’t doubt me, Louis, I’ve never been wrong.”
It’s true, she hasn’t, but Louis isn’t exactly one to think rationally lately. Truthfully, he spends more time than he’d like to admit worrying about all of this. It’s not something he feels he can share with Harry, not when the other man is so terrified himself.
“Besides,” Jay continues. “The baby is the least of our problems. We need to figure out who’s going to be on ‘keep Harry occupied’ duty. That man is going to be such a pain in the arse if you so much as wince.”
Laughing, Louis agrees. “Don’t even start mum, he’s a nightmare.”
He really is. For the last month or two of the pregnancy, he’s alternated between offering massages and hot water bottles and paracetamol every time Louis shows any slight sign of pain, and talking himself into near panic over the impending reality of being a father. It’s both entertaining and deeply irritating to Louis’ pregnancy-addled brain.
“Have you talked about it?” she asks, a slightly more serious edge to her voice now. “If he can handle seeing you like that—it’s messy, you know? It might stir some unpleasant memories.”
Louis flinches at the reminder. He and his mum don’t often talk about the attack, mostly because any mention of it usually ends with one of them crying. But it’s a valid question, nonetheless. One he’s not entirely sure of the answer to.
Unlike Louis and Jay, he and Harry have had plenty of conversations about that night. Not all of them are easy, but very necessary nonetheless. The trauma that they both experienced managed to leave more emotional scars than physical, for the both of them, and everyone else, but the scars have faded over time.
There are times where Harry will start to panic and will reach out for Louis just to know that he’s there and safe and alive. Times where Louis will wake up in the night with phantom hands holding him, refusing to let go, but he’ll turn and see Harry’s smushed, sleeping face, and the hands will slip away. It’s not always easy, but the past four years have taught them so much about healing and love and life.
He doesn’t know if Harry will be okay, seeing him like that. Bloody, helpless, in pain. He doesn’t know if he himself will be okay with it. At the end of the day, however, they will get through it together. For them. For her.
“He can do it,” Louis says. “He can. I don’t think anybody could stop him from being there with me, magic or not, he’d probably fight the lot of you.”
Jay smiles, a beautiful sight. “I thought as much.”
The baby comes on the eve of Louis’ thirtieth birthday, or Christmas Eve Eve as the kids insist on calling it.
It’s hardly the easiest experience of Louis’ life. It fucking hurts and it’s so overwhelming, the room full of unknown people fussing over him, the air thick with unfamiliar magic. There’s blood and screams and unsavory words and the blissfully disgusting, almost forgotten taste of pain relieving potions on his tongue.
Harry stays by his side the whole time, not that he ever expected any less. Louis does notice, beyond the chaos, that his boyfriend doesn’t ever once look. Those intense green eyes stay on his face the entire time, soft hands pushing hair away from his damp forehead and whispering a constant stream of encouragements, even as Louis curses his entire existence.
He’s not sure how long it takes, from the moment they decide it’s time to the moment he finally holds his daughter, but the second Lottie lays her in his arms, the whole ordeal is as good as forgotten.
“Oh,” he whispers, voice raw. She’s so small, and frankly quite gross, but so lovely. Louis finds himself captivated by her tiny nose, her tiny, slightly pointed ears, the little noises she makes as she settles. Wrapped in a soft purple blanket and so calm despite only being in the world for such a short time, she’s perfect.
“She’s so small,” Harry breathes from beside him. Vaguely, he registers that everyone else has left the room.
Louis nods in reply. “Tiny,” he agrees.
“Can I?” Harry asks, gesturing to the bed. Louis shuffles over instantly, giving him room to slip in beside him.
They’re both being extremely careful not to jolt the baby as they get comfortable, Harry pulling the both of them into his arms with practiced ease. Louis is profoundly glad that he’s so dosed up on potions that there’s only a twinge of discomfort as he settles into the hold. “Is this okay?” Harry whispers, pressing a kiss to Louis’ temple.
“Mm,” Louis affirms, a dopey smile on his face as they hold their daughter together. “Perfect,” he murmurs.
“We do have a bit of a problem,” Harry says then, pondering something.
Louis frowns, unable to think of anything that could possibly be wrong right now. “What?” he asks, turning to face the other man. The smug hint of dimple shows that it’s nothing to be worried about.
“We have to agree on a name,” he laughs, dimple popping fully.
The witch groans, having almost forgotten about that. In all honesty, they haven’t really had the name conversation at all. At the beginning there had been a few suggestions, mostly jokes from Harry that only got scathing glares in return but beyond that, nothing serious.
Now, with a real living human in their arms that they made, the name thing seems like a bit of an oversight.
“Well, shit.”
Harry mock gasps in a show of theatrics that would give Louis a run for his money, “Language!” he cries, though with extreme effort to keep his voice at a respectable volume. “Not around the child,” he admonishes with a shit-eating grin, making a show of gently placing a big hand over the sleeping baby’s ear. “We don’t want her to have a mouth as foul as yours, now do we?”
Louis, unimpressed, levels him with a look. A look that says Dear fucking lord why did I procreate with you. “I hate you,” he tells him.
Harry only grins more, the barely-faded scar on his face highlighted by the expression. “Of course you do. Now, I’ve been thinking, and I’m still team Elphaba.”
Fucking hell, not this again.
“Absolutely not.”
“But you love Wicked! ”
“We can’t name our witch daughter Elphaba, Harry. That’s just asking for trouble, she’ll get bullied and—“
Harry cuts him off, rolling his eyes as he does so. “Who’s gonna bully her? Other witch kids? Who know what Wicked is? I hate to break it to you babe but theatre kids are not that common,” he mocks, and Louis has a feeling that he meant for that to be an insult.
“Okay, maybe not the kids, but I know Zayn will say something. Even if it’s just to bully me for it, he’s a dickhead and I just know he’ll get a right kick out of it,” Louis whines. “Don’t make me go through that, Harry.”
Harry snorts. “Okay, okay, I’ll save you from scary Zayn. What about Elphie? Or Ellie, maybe? She does need a name, Lou.”
Louis hums in thought, turning away from his pressing boyfriend and to the little girl in his arms. Maybe Elphie wouldn’t be so bad. It’s a cute name, one she’ll surely grow into. Zayn will tease, definitely, but he’ll love her too much to keep it up for too long. It’s a compromise, and Harry has made so many of those for him, maybe it’s his turn to repay the favour.
He can get used to Elphie. He can love it, even, just as much as he already loves this child.
“Fine,” Louis concedes. “We can call her Elphie.”
Without even turning to look at him, he knows Harry is beaming once again. Smiling too, he snuggles into the warmth of the solid man beside him, barely suppressing a yawn. Another kiss is pressed to the top of his head, even though he knows his hair must be disgusting from all the sweat, and he fights with everything in him not to fall asleep.
Somewhere outside the room, he hears Zayn’s calm voice and his mother’s melodic tones, Lottie’s laugh and what sounds like Liam, probably making friends with some of the visiting healers.
As much as he loves this moment of peace with his love and their daughter, a part of him wants the company of the people that love them. He can’t wait to see the way they light up when they see her properly for the first time outside of the chaos of the birth.
His mum, even after popping out so many of her own, never tires of the novelty of a new baby. Lottie will pretend to be indifferent for all of five minutes before she fawns all over her, and Zayn and Liam will be the best uncles there ever could be. No matter what happens in the future, Elphie will be the most protected child in town and will surely want for nothing.
That’s all they can ask for really.
For most of this pregnancy, Louis spent more time worrying than actually being excited for her to come. It was hard to stop the thoughts from coming once they’d started, endless nights sat up wondering what would happen if they got caught out by hunters again, but this time they’d have something far more precious to fight for. Between that and the anxiety fuelled by the unknown of his erratic magical core, he’d had so little time to ponder the good parts.
Now, it’s all he can see. Getting to watch her grow, to come into her magic and teach her alongside her peers, watching them bloom. Harry, teaching her to cook because there’s no way he’ll let her turn out like her dad. Giving her a sibling or two, one day, maybe.
He can’t wait for it all, but at the same time he’s already scared of time moving too quickly. Jesus, he needs to sleep.
“Louis?” Harry speaks up quietly, voice oddly thick.
“Mm?” Eyes closing, Louis is so close to sleeping.
Another kiss against his head. His magic fizzes, like it always does when Harry touches him. “Will you marry me?” he asks against his hair.
Louis smiles sleepily, settling in further for sleep. “About time,” he answers with a yawn. “I’ve been waiting for that since you promised to woo me seven years ago.”
Harry chuckles, a tinge of nervousness to it. “Is that a yes?”
“‘Course, dickhead,” Louis murmurs, halfway to dreaming.
THE END.