A/N: Another fic that has been sitting in my computer since 2011. It's one that I can see the end of though, so I decided to work on it too. Thanks for reading!


Tiny, bright suburban streets.

Harry loves their compactness and simplicity. He does hate how he can't remember life before this, though.


He lives in a presentable quaint house with a girl whose name is Ginny Weasley. He owns a little video game shop just slightly further down the street.

He doesn't know how the respectable amount of money in his bank account came about, and he doesn't really understand why he is living with the girl. He treats her as a casual friend. She's a little too strong-headed for his taste.

Then there are the two people whom he always shares a coffee during lunchtime. They're named Ron and Hermione. They aren't really his "friends", per se, but meeting them has always been a habit, for some reason. It's a part of his schedule, just like how three quarters of a minute in the morning is always dedicated to dabbing concealer over the odd lightning-shaped scar on his forehead.

Harry loves working at his shop. Business is never brisk, but it's lovely to just sit on his chair and observe people. He knows all the faces and all the names.

Life passes slowly and the seasons drag.


There's a flurry of excitement over the town the next week. A newspaper has been delivered to every doorstep. It's something important; because the newspaper's never published unless something happens, and in tiny, bright suburbia, nothing much ever happens.

"Two new faces in town…" Ginny reads aloud to Harry as he makes the toast. He hums pleasantly at the news. Harry can't remember the last time he's met new people. It makes him feel just a little bit nervous, but he hopes they drop by his shop, anyway.


Harry whistles cheerily and plays one of his games without much effort. He eyes the neat rows of his shop with a pleased eye whenever the screen switches to the loading screen.

He has long ago given up trying to solve the mystery of how new stock appears. It just does. It's almost like magic. The thought always amuses him.

The bell over the glass door tinkles daintily, signaling his first customers- though he prefers to call them visitors, really- of the day. He turns the game off and swivels around, smiling, as usual. It cracks a bit as he feels his heart leap in surprise. It's the two new people.

"Hello, my name's Harry," he says cordially, anyway. He lifts his hand in anticipation of a handshake; which is taken.

He studies them with fascination. They look very different from each other, and certainly very different from everyone else in the tiny, bright suburbia. They both wear long-sleeved shirts. The first one who takes his hand is tall, well-built, and dark skinned. The second is much more slender, and he has the sharpest features and fairest hair and skin Harry's ever seen. His eyes glow like the town. Harry is fascinated.

He wants to talk to the second one, but before he can, the first one squeezes the upper arm of the second one gently, and leads him out. The second one follows. Before he leaves, he chances a glance backwards. He smiles, and it's a somewhat awkward expression for his face to hold. Still, it feels like a promise. Harry grins back.


It's very easy to lose track of the days. Harry hurriedly writes down a week's worth of dates into his little red notebook. It's mid-summer now. The streets shine even brighter and whiter. It's almost blinding at times.

He's very grateful for the air-conditioner in the shop, so he spends more and more time there. It's not like Ginny minds that he's barely home. Okay, sometimes he gets the sense that she might like him, but he doesn't like her that way, and so that's that. Things are always just that simple.

The second one wanders into his shop now and then. He looks at the shelves and studies the games, but never buys anything. After a while, the first one will come to get him, and they leave without a word. Perhaps he just likes the air-conditioner, too, Harry muses absentmindedly.

Harry always wants to say something to him, but he can never think of anything.


Change unsettles Harry quite easily.

One day, the second one comes into the shop again. Instead of hovering around the shelves though, he walks to the counter and sits himself carefully onto the chair facing Harry. He places his hands on the glass surface of the counter and looks up at Harry, smiling.

Harry sucks in his breath. He settles himself onto his own chair and places his hands on the glass surface of the counter, as well. He really can't remember what he's supposed to say to someone unfamiliar. Does he ask for his name? Is that too personal?

The second one blends in perfectly with the glaring white outside. It's quite hard to see his outline; and trying to do so hurts Harry's eyes. He moves his hand forward without thinking and sets it over the second one's right hand to make sure he's real.

He has to be, because Harry feels soft, soft, soft, warm skin underneath his rougher palm, and sees cheeks light up with a pink fainter than the first discolourations of an autumn sky.


Harry thinks the first one likes the second one more than he should, because he always sniffs disapprovingly whenever he walks into the shop to see Harry's hand over the second one's hand. It makes Harry feel insecure, because he thinks he likes the second one quite a fair bit too. The second one never seems to notice though.

Harry's come to the conclusion that he likes the second one quite a fair bit, or at least more than he likes the others and Ginny, because he makes his heart pound so painfully whenever he's near. The day they first and finally speak, Harry thinks he might collapse.

"Hello, Harry," the second one says one day, his hand under Harry's as usual. His voice isn't as deep as most men's, but it isn't too unpleasant, as well.

"Um, ah, hello…" Harry finds himself trailing off, but the second one makes the save.

"Draco, I'm Draco," he chimes, nodding.

Draco laughs and flicks his right hand around so that he can fit his fingers into the spaces between Harry's fingers. Harry doesn't know what this motion means, and he doesn't know why his heart won't stop its erratic behavior. Draco doesn't know what it means too, when Harry asks him why they have changed the way they place their hands together. Harry wonders if Draco's heart beats as hard against his chest as his does whenever he's near. He wistfully hopes it does.


Draco tells Harry many things, many things about the little café that he and the first one have set up together. Or rather- Draco's lips twist in gentle confusion- adopted; the café appeared the morning they arrived, and it just sits there like it's meant for them. Harry nods eagerly and brings his face closer to Draco's. He tells him it's the same with his new stock and his shop. Draco stares back thoughtfully.

Draco invites him to have tea the next day at their café. Harry can't refuse.

For today, they play.

He invites Draco to join him behind the counter to play a game. How about the customers?- Draco asks worriedly, and it's a small thing but Harry feels so sappy and useless, melting completely at his concern. No one ever comes by much, Harry soothes.

Draco doesn't even know how to hold a video game controller properly. His pale fingers grasp its edges awkwardly, the wrong way around. Harry laughs, and reaches around from behind him and corrects the fault. His hands stay atop Draco's, fingers pressing the buttons that Draco clumsily misses during the game.

It's not until twenty minutes later that he realises that his body is pressing comfortably against Draco's lighter frame, and his head is lying on Draco's shoulders. Draco's too absorbed in the game to notice. Harry sighs quietly and nudges Draco more closely to him. He's spinning in an emotion he doesn't recall feeling before, and he really, really wants it stop, because it makes him want to kiss Draco so badly, Draco who's caught his heart like this quaint little suburb and its perpetual whiteness.


The next day, Harry finds himself a little too early at the café. He sits next to one of the tables outside awkwardly, his fingers slick with sweat from the heat and his anticipation.

It is then he sees the fault lines on the ground around the café. Minute cracks, but visible enough.

He whistles lowly in worry, but cuts himself off halfway as he hears footsteps pattering towards him.

Draco grins broadly and clutches a platter of brightly coloured food in his hands. The first one shadows behind him, scowling deeply.

"Hello, Potter," he snaps, crossing his arms.

Draco settles the plate down and turns around to look warningly at him, mouthing something furiously to the man.

"Sorry?" Harry muses on, oblivious, "My name is Harry."

The upper lip of the first one curls in distaste, "It's your surname."

"Surname-?"

"Nevermind Blaise!" Draco yelps, running to place himself between them. He grabs Harry by the shoulders and ushers him out of the chair, "To your shop, to your shop…"

Nevermind the tea, Harry thinks, disappointed, but follows, nonetheless.

He hears Blaise storm back into the café and slam the door shut. As they stride hurriedly down the lane to Harry's shop, Harry realises with a little pang of horror that the crack lines around the café have grown deeper and wider.


"What was that?" Harry queries with wide eyes from his seat, watching Draco fiddle with his hair nervously. Draco sighs in response and jerks his hand irritably out of his hair.

"I- I don't know. Blaise has been going on and on about how we were all wizards- can you believe that!- and you were our saviour or something. And we fought in a war, which we won; but They think we've all been mentally scarred and They sent us here to live in isolation," Draco blabs, twisting his fingers around each other. Harry finds himself unable to stand it, and he pulls Draco's hands apart to settle his atop his again.

"You don't believe that, do you?" Harry jests. If anything, he thinks, that Blaise guy is the mentally scarred and crazy one. Magic! Who would have thought of that!

Draco stares at him straight in the eye, as if reprimanding him for not understanding the severity of the situation.

"As a matter of fact, I do; I do, because it explains everything that is happening here!" he whispers.

The temperature of the room drops to even lower than usual. Harry's breath quickens as he realises the little crack lines have found their way to the tiling of his shop.

"It's a lie," Harry shakes his head in fright, and takes his hand off Draco's quivering flesh.

"Oh?"

Draco's breaths are shallow and shaky as well.

"I need a break," Harry says, standing, trying to collect himself.

"See you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow."

Draco leaves meekly, a cloud of distress obviously still obscuring his thoughts. Harry can't help but feel uneasy too. It seems that a piece of the atmosphere of the tiny suburbia has been taken away, and that the entire town, the entire system, is going to somehow collapse upon itself.


Harry sleeps fitfully that night.

He dreams of green lights and green eyes that turn into red. The red grows and grows before melting into torrents and streams of blood. He wades helplessly through the flood until it is past his waist and he has no choice but to swim in the ocean of iron. As he bursts out again to the surface to catch his breath, he bumps into the cold white body of Draco. The blond man's face lifelessly turns and Harry sees those once-bright grey eyes glazed over in sickness.

He awakes; screaming for the first time in his life, his scar feeling like it is trying to split his face apart.