a/n: for my darling ali (saltzmans), because she is my favourite and i will love her until the end of time, happy very-late birthday, ily bby!

"i'm in love with cities i've never been to and people i've never met"

You meet her in Prague, the city where the buildings caress the clouds and the long, intricately tiled walkways seem to stretch on forever, the city where you inhale dappled aureolin light with every breath you take. You meet her in Prague, the city filled with the traffic that moves to the beat of your heart and the place that feels like it stretches on forever and ever.

You meet her in the place of endless streets and mazes, where you could get lost forever.

(Maybe getting lost is exactly what you need)

.

The first time you see her is at the very top of the Petřín Lookout Tower, which stands, tall and proud on the peak of Petřín Hill, and looks out over the entire city. You climb each step slowly and deliberately, drinking in the panoramic view before your eyes, hoping that the spiral staircase will never end - that you'll eventually reach the sky.

You are surrounded by other people - you can hear snatches of conversation in foreign and unfamiliar languages - you feel like a little boy with a broken heart, awash in a tide of strangers and different cultures.

You climb all the way to the top and, slowly, the people surround you begin to thin out until, finally, you are alone.

At first, you are disappointed that you didn't manage to climb all the way up the cerulean sky, but then you see the view and your disappointment vanishes in an instant.

(Just like your faith in the world vanished when Lily fell and Dominique walked away.)

In front of you, you can see the lively, cultured, beautiful city stretching on as far as the eye can see - you can see the high rise flats fading out in a mirage of silver heat haze; you can feel the throb of the engines and the laughter falling in time with the rhythm of the heart and you can feel the presence of so many other lost souls, roaming the streets, having their dreams made and broken and realised. You can feel the pulse of a city as one, loving, losing and living and you can feel yourself entwining with them already.

Knowing that you're part of this place of majesty makes you feel something you haven't felt in a long time.

Can you feel it, James?

Is the feeling of being part of the sunlight glinting off everlasting cathedrals and the chiming of the city clock what peace feels like?

Are you at peace?

.

You stand at the top of the tower for a long time, simply breathing in the warm air and blinking in the sunlight. You are alone.

You feel like the world is at your fingertips again because you are standing on top of a tower and you swear that you could stroke the buildings of Prague from where you are.

(You know of a certain blonde haired Weasley that would adore this view as well, but you push that out of your mind straight away. You don't want to disrupt your oasis.)

You are alone and you are revelling in the peace you have found – you feel like nothing could stop you right now because it's just you and the rhythm of a city that beats hope and dreams and you can do nothing but pray that it never, ever stops.

You let the faraway noises of traffic and beating hearts drift up to you from your vantage point, revelling in the near silence and the little slice of peace you have found.

But then you hear it.

And you see her.

You are not alone after all.

.

There is a woman – no, a girl slumped against the side of the tower, her hands covering her face. All you can see is tanned legs that stretch on forever and a mane of golden curls. The girl is crying and you wonder how you didn't notice her before.

You realise that you were so captured by the romanticised thought of the heart of the city that you couldn't see beyond the end of your nose. But she must have seen you and you wonder what she saw.

A naïve, broken boy with jet black hair and hazel eyes, trying to find his way in the world and praying that Prague will be his salvation.

You wonder whether she saw herself at all in you.

(You wonder whether she can feel the beat of the city and you wonder what it stirs in her.)

.

You've never been able to deal with crying – at home, you always relied on your mother and father to deal with Lily's sobs and Albus' wails; at school, you left it up to your friends.

After Lily fell and Dominique said goodbye, you experienced enough crying for a lifetime and you swore you wouldn't ever deal with it again: you'd seen enough tears.

So, part of you wants to run away, flee from the tower and from the crumpled figure of a girl that you don't even know.

But you can't – there's something about this girl that magnetises you, that draws you in and you cannot leave her.

(Perhaps it's the in tune thrumming of your hearts and the broken posture you both share.)

You crouch down in front of her and put your hand on her golden arm. She doesn't flinch in the slightest.

"Are you alright?" you ask, and then curse yourself because obviously, she's not okay – she's alone and sobbing at the top of a tower in a city of strangers.

She withdraws her delicate hands from her face and your breath hitches in your throat because you don't think you've ever seen anyone as beautiful as her, with honey-coloured cheekbones framed by thick golden waves of hair and dainty features that wouldn't look out of place on a china doll.

But, it's her cerulean eyes that make your breath truly stop, eyes the colour of the sky you want to one day touch and exactly the same colour as a part-Veela girl you once loved and lost, currently brimming with tears.

(She's so similar to Dominique, you almost feel your heart cracking again.)

"Can you feel it?" she asks, staring at you, "Can you feel the pulse of a city that's moving forwards whilst you're still stuck in motion?"

She's American and her question stuns you for a minute, as you try and grasp an answer from the air.

You respond truthfully, "I can feel my pulse intertwining with the throb of the traffic and the beating of voices and shattering hearts, but I don't feel yet as though I'm truly part of the city. Can you?"

The girl has sat up and she has wiped the tears from her eyes, she has recovered alarmingly fast, "Yes. I can tell that my heartbeat is out of sync with the rest of the world. But, I've always wanted to be different."

You look at her and she looks composed, strong and damaged and you wonder how you ever compared her to Dominique – Dominique the fragile little princess with white dresses is as far from this fiery, strong willed girl as anyone could ever be.

You feel your heartbeat speed up and you feel it mimicking hers, you feel her hopes and dreams and aspirations and you know in that moment that you, James Sirius Potter, are doomed.

You are doomed to love and lose again and maybe, you don't care because this girl has the kind of intriguing smile that you could fall so damn hard for and it would always be there to catch you again.

.

"James," you tell her, offering her your hand.

"You're English, then?" she shakes it and you realise that all traces of sadness have been wiped from her face; she looks composed and beautiful again.

Except for her eyes.

Her eyes betray her: there's something slightly vulnerable and uncorrupted about their clear blue, something that reminds you of swinging to the sky and little yellow dresses.

"Yes," you nod, "and you're American,"

The girl tosses her head back and laughs, a beautiful clear laugh that you could listen to for the rest of forever, "How astute of you to notice,"

You laugh as well, feeling your heart thudding in your chest.

The girl looks across the horizon and alarm suddenly crosses her features, "Oh, I have to go!"

She stands up and brushes her denim shorts off, and begins to head towards the entrance of the staircase – the stairs that will take her back down to Earth and further away from you.

"Thank you James, goodbye," she smiles and begins to rush down the stairs, her sandals echoing against the steps as she runs. You swear you can still hear her beating heart running at the same pace as yours and you wonder why it feels unstable again.

You turn back to the view and you try and summon the feeling of peace you had again, but you feel far too restless. Instead, you pace along the wooden floor and try and assemble your thoughts and wonder why your heartbeat isn't slowing down yet. You think of Dominique and saying goodbye, you think of Lily falling and you think of the girl and her eyes of shattered dreams.

A short while later, you see her petite figure emerge from the bottom of the tower and make her way urgently across the grassy lawn that surrounds it. Only then do you realise that you don't know her name. You consider running after her and asking but you know that you're too late.

Instead, you watch her silhouette slowly walk away from you and disappear out of sight, down the hill and back into the heart of the city.

You are inexplicably reminded of Dominique again and how you watched her walk away from you without trying to stop her.

You just pray that you'll see this mystery girl again.

.

You leave the tower and you try and forget about the girl.

(Maybe)

You buy a cheap tour guide and a battered sketchpad and you wander around the city and you begin to learn its endless winding streets and the shadows that the buildings cast upon the glittering stone. You begin to fall back in love with the way that dawn grows from just a tiny lightening of sky on the horizon and you begin to fall back into the rhythm of you, of James Potter, of the boy that loved and lost and dreamed and dared. You think that maybe, just maybe, you really are at peace.

Your heart still skips a beat whenever you see a flash of blonde hair but, for the first time, it's not Dominique you're looking for. It's the mystery girl.

You always feel the urge to follow the flashes of golden you catch out of the corner of the eye – you feel like the drum of the city is calling you, compelling you to search for the girl you found and then lost – daring you to find her.

But, you never do follow. You've seen where that has got you in life, you've seen how following temptation can leave you with empty eyes and you're not willing to risk all of that again.

(Perhaps Dominique's legacy wasn't entirely pointless, after all)

.

So, instead of losing yourself in thoughts of the girl you'll never know, you try and lose yourself in the city and guess what, James? It works. As you stand in the sun of St Charles' Bridge and close your eyes, you can feel the stretching streets and the glittering buildings twisting around you and at that moment, you know it.

You know that you are at one with the city.

.

One day, you stumble into a rickety old bookshop, located down a back alley of Prague. It's the kind of place that you'd always want to go in, when you were younger, but Dominique would always sigh and roll her eyes.

"I don't read – I'm too busy making a life for myself instead of getting trapped in other people's," she'd sigh, before begging you to come into the city centre with her, so she could stare at the skyline and wonder when her name would be in lights.

As you push open the door, you swear you can almost hear Dom's laughter and smell her floral perfume but, then, you push the thought aside because you are in this city to forget and to heal.

The bookshop is the kind of place you know you could fall in love with. It is filled with golden light and has the distinct smell of paper and opportunities and, you swear you can hear the subtle rhythm of the whispering pages and the characters' thoughts calling out to you in a constant tempest that reminds you of who you are and all you've ever hoped for and everything you could possibly still achieve.

You know you won't have to try hard to find this place again.

.

Every day for the next three weeks, you visit this little place and immerse yourself in fabricated lives, before buying a random book and reading it at sunset on the veranda.

There's something so magical about opening a faded, yellowing book and being engulfed in the paper lives that the characters could have led, something so wondrous about getting lost in the black ink of the words and the punctuation, about falling headfirst into the paragraph indentations and becoming entangled in the labyrinth of their forever.

As you sit in the comfy little window seat of the shop, curled around a novel, the only sounds being the occasional browsing customer or the pattering of the owner rearranging the shelving, you feel at harmony, you feel peaceful.

You feel like this could stretch on forever.

.

One day, the city feels tense, the air tastes of tangibility and the traffic hums with excitement. It feels like something is brewing, like something is going to happen.

You wander into the bookshop, select an old classic novel and take a seat.

You're so lost in the words that you barely notice the gentle thwack of the door opening and closing, or the purposeful, damaged footsteps that echo across to you.

What you do notice, however, is a sharp gasp of recognition from someone nearby.

You look up from your page and there she is, smiling her coy, complicated, heart-melting smile that is imprinted on your memory forever.

It is the mystery girl from the tower.

(You came here to get lost but, it looks like you've been found)

.

"Ali," she smiles, her pulse entwining with yours again, as she shakes your hand, "Alison DiLaurentis."

You smile back, "James Sirius Potter."

And in that moment, it feels like the buzz of the traffic and the distant sound of conversation outside are pushing against the glass windows, trying to get in and witness the stars aligning.

It feels like this was fated to happen

.

"Well, James, what's your tragic story?" she asks, stepping towards you.

You laugh at her bluntness and she smiles back, in that same old smile.

It's the kind of smile that you could fall for pretty damn hard.

.

"It's my family," you admit later, when you're sat at the bar of pub next to her, swigging cheap wine, "that's my tragic story."

She looks at you appraisingly, daring you to continue.

"My parents, they're some kind of war heroes, from a long time ago," you admit, choosing your words carefully, "me and my siblings, we kind of had an… odd childhood. Everyone expected us to be as great as our parents, yet our parents were slowly falling apart. They're somewhat better now but, still, there are some nights where I can hear Dad screaming through the walls and Mum still sobs at certain words."

You stare at the stars above and try to find the courage to continue, you've never told anyone that specific piece of information, especially not a perfect stranger. Ali touches her hand lightly to your forearm and it centres you, it encourages you to continue.

"I acted out a bit. Wanted attention, I suppose. So did my brother. We both fell in love with the wrong people, but my little sister, well, she wasn't as good as dealing with it as the rest of us. On the fourteenth of April, she swallowed a handful of pills. Killed herself. Broke my heart. That's when my girlfriend decided to leave me for the highlife. She wanted to be an actress, so she went to New York. Stamped on all that was left of my heart. She was my cousin, actually. I couldn't deal with anymore disapproving glares, so I ran away to Prague."

You finish and turn to her. You don't know what you're expecting, but you're still shocked when you see that her face is practically expressionless. Not pretending to understand, not trying to be sympathetic; the clear mark of a girl that's been through tragedy herself. You decide that you like her even more; you've had enough sympathetic smiles for a lifetime.

"I know a fair bit about tragedy myself, I suppose," she shrugs, "I'm supposed to be dead. I went missing from a friend's sleepover when I was fifteen. They found a body. My "murder" is still an on-going investigation. No one knows where I am."

Shock echoes around your mind, as she tells her story with such little emotion, her face blank.

"Well," you break the silence, "looks like you need another drink."

She laughs her pure laugh and raises her glass to the sky and you realise that you're just two broken souls, toasting your loneliness together.

.

Later, much later, when you're lying side by side on her double bed in a small flat right in the heart of the city, you turn to her.

She has never looked more beautiful, lying on her back, golden shoulders bared, a shaft of moonlight reflecting in those never ending eyes. You wonder how you look to her, whether you're some dark haired stranger that will make do for a quick one night stand, or whether she finds you as intriguing as you find her.

You wonder if she can feel the fates pushing you together as well.

You hope she can.

.

Days pass by in a blur of aureolin sunlight glinting off buildings that tickle the sky, exquisitely winding streets and Ali's golden hand in yours. Prague is still the beautiful, mysterious city you first discovered, but no longer does it feel like a foreign labyrinth waiting to be discovered.

Instead, it sort of feels like somewhere you know, like somewhere you belong.

So does Ali. When you're with her, you can't imagine ever being without her. Slowly, she becomes your sunrise, moon and stars. She becomes the birds that soar across the sky and the changing of the seasons. Slowly, she becomes the centre of your slowly revolving world.

You've never felt like this before – not even with Dominique – never before has a love like this consumed you until it becomes your sole reason for living.

You suppose it would be so much harder to recover from, if you ever fell apart.

(You pray that you won't every single night)

.

One autumnal evening, you sit in the garden that surrounds the Petřín lookout tower – the place where it all began. The evening air tastes of roses and nostalgia and you can't help but wonder what you've ever done to deserve the hand of this girl in yours.

"This was the start of our journey, Ali," you whisper.

"So it was," she replies, before jumping to her feet and pulling you up, giggling.

She twirls you around and her intention soon becomes clear, so sure enough you comply and you dance with her under the dusky sky, where your fated stars are glowing brighter by the second. You twirl her around and around until your feet are sore and you collapse in a giggling heap on the grass.

Her lips meet yours in one crashing motion of emotion and giddiness and surely, time ceases for a moment as the rustling of the nearby trees silences and the city below you seems to falter, as they gaze upon the history books being written above them.

"I love you," you whisper, and the world seems to take a collective breath in.

She pauses for a moment with a solemn look in her eyes and for one dreadful moment; you think she isn't going to reply.

"I love you James Potter, I truly do," she murmurs, and the world breathes out again and everything looks a little brighter.

.

One night, as you lie entangled in sweaty bed sheets, your hand entwined with Ali's, you hear her sigh. You roll over until you are pressed chest to chest against each other, and she opens her wise blue eyes and begins to speak.

"What's our tragic story?" she asks.

"There is no tragedy to us," you reply, straight away, because, surely there can be nothing tragic about the kind of love that makes the flowers bloom in the morning.

"You're so pure," she laughs, moving back to her side of the bed.

"And you're so beautiful," you reply, as you sink back into your pillow.

A short while later, when you're halfway between lucid dreamland and heavenly reality, you feel her lean over you and plant a soft kiss on your cheek.

"Only when I'm with you," she whispers, before you plunge into sleep.

.

One day, Ali leaves your flat at and returns at dawn with a second hand car in tow.

"We're going on an adventure," she says, her voice filled with excitement, "pack your bags!"

You watch her as she gathers up her possessions and places them in a leather bag, humming happily to herself and you realise that she is the reason the crickets chirp at dusk and the reason that the leaves turn ochre.

You realise you want her forever.

"Ready?" she asks.

"Always," you reply.

.

You drive for hours, out of the bustling city centre and into the countryside, where the rural scenes are so breath taking, that you think you could spend the rest of your life travelling across them.

Ali sings along to the radio off-key and you make jokes about driving on the wrong side of the road, and it feels like some form of paradise.

Finally, in the morning sunshine, you reach your destination, a car park which borders a forest of trees that stretch to the sun. It seems so far removed from the bustling city that you can hardly believe you're in the same country.

"Follow me," Ali murmurs and you have no choice but to obey.

.

You trek through the beautiful woods until Ali has found what she was looking for.

"Close your eyes," she orders and you do, letting her guide you along the twisting path, finding it remarkable just how much you trust her.

Finally, she removes her hands and you let your eyes adjust to the sudden brightness and when you do, you gasp at the scene in front of you.

You are standing in a clearing, surrounded by greenery and it is so reminiscent of England, that you can almost hear Lily's laughter and Albus' footsteps.

But then you take a closer look, and it's slightly different – slightly more foreign, and everywhere you turn, Ali's heart-melting smile radiates off the surroundings.

.

You're reminded achingly of the boy that fled to Prague with nothing but a battered suitcase and a naïve want for freedom. A boy who was looking to get lost in the twirling maze of sky high buildings and get caught up in the raging pulse of the vibrant city.

This small slice of woodland idyll is exactly the kind of place where that boy would not have been content: too few people, not enough noise and inner-city pulse.

But, in this place, the boy you are now feels nothing but happiness. And then you realise.

Do you finally understand James?

Do you finally realise?

You have found so much more than peace with Alison.

You have found heaven.

.

Ali takes your hand in hers and sits you down under the leafy branches of a tall, tall tree. A tree that stretches to the sky, just as the skyscrapers back in Prague do.

"I think we both have to tell each other the truth. Because there are some things that I'm hiding and I know that you're hiding things too and I want to know who you are, truly, I do. Because, well," she pauses, "I love you James, and I want to be with you, but I need you to know the truth."

And that is when she tells you the full story of her disappearance, every grisly detail about A and Ian, Spencer and Toby, Cece and Mona, Hanna and Emily, Aria and Byron. She tells you who she is and what she has done and she looks so raw, so vulnerable that you can't help but love her even more for everything that she has been through.

When she is done, you hold her hand and you take the dusty wand out of your back pocket, and you tell her about the magical world you tried to leave behind and about how a world with mermaids and spellbooks isn't half as magical as your time spent with her.

You talk until the early morning sun is at its peak in the sky and it's a lot for you to both digest, but at the end of the day, it brings you closer than ever.

When you've both finished laughing about your hidden lives, a songbird nestling in the branches above you begins to sing.

"I love you," you whisper.

"Forever," she replies.

.

At long last, when the sun has finally dipped below the horizon, you trek through the woods hand in hand with Ali and finally, reach her- no your car.

She jingles the keys mischievously in her hand and smiles her smile that melts your heart, slowly but surely, and you're reminded of the day you first met.

The day when you were two lost souls, with broken pasts, looking to rectify all your past heartache, who just happened to meet as they tried to clamber towards the sky.

The day when the fates collided.

.

One day you will go back to England and you will visit your family. You will make amends with your parents and even reconcile with Dominique. You will hug Albus and tell him you have missed him and you will place violets on Lily's grave.

But this time, you will not be alone.

This time, Ali will be by your side.

.

"Where to next?" Ali asks, as she climbs in the front seat.

One day, you will return to your childhood with Ali and maybe one day, you'll go and visit her home, but for now, you're perfectly content driving across the Czech Republic, with nothing but the love of your life and a battered suitcase.

"Anywhere," you reply, "anywhere, with you."

For now, you're perfectly content journeying across your own slice of heaven.

(This is what you were looking for James, this is what you were looking for all along)

fin.