[Warning:] Some mention of character deaths, but nothing too explicit.

Big thanks to AxleBoost for being a beta for this chapter.

"Uh, do you, um- do you want to watch a movie?" Peter asked. "Wait. You've seen a movie before, right? And TV? That's- That's not a new thing?

"It's been a while, but yes I have seen some movies before. We had a VHS player and some old tapes at home, and I used to watch them with my cousin," Harry replied, stretching the truth. In fact he did get a chance to watch some movies and tv shows, but only hiding behind the sofa while Dudley watched. Even then he didn't get to really enjoy it, keeping an ear out for his aunt and uncle as he was.

"Oh good," Peter looked relieved, then his eyes lit up and he grinned. "Oh man, there's so many movies you gotta see! Shit, what do I pick?"

"Honestly, I'd be happy with anything. Why don't you pick something you'd enjoy watching?"

That was how they ended up in the living room, sitting on the floor in front of the TV - bowl of popcorn in between them, watching a movie. Peter had wanted Harry to watch something called Star Wars, which sounded vaguely familiar. He thought Dean might have mentioned it once or twice back at Hogwarts. Peter ended up choosing something different though. Apparently, someone called Ned would be upset if Peter took his "Star Wars virginity alone", so they ended up watching the first Lord of the Rings movie.

Harry actually really liked the movie. The plot was intriguing and he enjoyed the depiction of magic and fantasy, it was like a gentle reminder of home.

They didn't say much throughout the movie, though Harry did notice Peter try to observe him discreetly at a lot of different points, as if trying to gauge his reaction. It was somewhat endearing. Harry usually disliked people staring at him, but in this case he didn't mind.

When the movie was over, Peter sprang up from his seat on the floor and turned to Harry.

"So, what did you think? It was awesome right?"

Harry nodded, busy uncrossing his legs and trying to stand without losing his balance. Two hours of sitting on the floor had done him no good. He replied to Peter, but only managed to get a few words in.

"Yeah it was great, I-"

"I knew it! What was your favourite scene? No, make that your favourite scenes? And how cool is Gandalf yeah?" Peter mimed holding a staff and sword. "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"

"That scene with Gandalf taking down the Balrog was a standout, yes. But I'm not sure I could pick a favourite scene," Harry said diplomatically, watching the excited teen with no small amount of amusement. "It was a fairly long movie."

"Yeah I guess that makes sense," Peter replied. "I'm just glad you liked it. I wasn't sure about starting you off on a two-hour movie, but hey now we can watch the rest of the trilogy! Uhh, not now obviously. But definitely later! If… if you want to, I mean."

"Uh, sure." Harry really didn't have anything better to do. He'd agree to watch paint dry if it meant human company.

Peter beamed back at him. "Great! Can't wait dude, it'll be awesome!"

"I bet," Harry said, faintly amused at Peter's exuberance. "I'm sure it'll be magical."

Peter snickered at the pun, as did Harry - though it was for different reasons.

"Anyhow," Harry rolled his shoulders, trying to get rid of the tension that had built up over the last two hours. "I had better be going back home."

"Oh, let me walk you out then," Peter told him.

"Walk me out of this apartment?" Harry asked, bemused. He appreciated the politeness, but the door was right there.

"Yup, wouldn't want you to get lost."

"Get lost? In the almost identical apartment right across mine?" Harry crossed his arms, looking at Peter in amused exasperation.

"Yup. You gotta be careful." A mischievous smile lit up Peter's face.

"Hmmm, you might be right," the young wizard played along. "But I don't know if you're up for the job. Do you think May's still up?"

"May?" Peter squawked, prompting Harry to burst out laughing.

False outrage instantly erased, Peter joined in on the laughter, and the two boys had a nice end to the night - walking to the front door of the Parker apartment, with Harry making a teasing comment at Peter's reaction, and the surprisingly strong Peter shoving him for his efforts.

"Thanks again for the movie and popcorn, Peter. I had fun," Harry told Peter as he stepped out of the apartment and pulled out his keys.

"You're welcome. I had fun too man, can't wait to do it again." Peter replied, leaning against his own door frame.

"Do you have any plans tomorrow?" Harry asked, entering the flat but keeping the door open as he turned to Peter.

Peter hummed in thought. "Hmmmm... well, I've got some, uh, internship work I need to do, but I got some time, yeah. What's up?"

"I just thought we could, uh, hang out?"

Peter's eyes lit up. He nodded immediately. "Yeah, definitely! Do you wanna watch the next movie?"

"Sounds like a good plan to me. Will your aunt mind me being over again?"

"Dude, are you kidding? She won't mind, like, at all." Peter tried to reassure the young Brit. "Besides with me busy with my, uh, work, she's been nagging at me to spend more time at home and doing other stuff."

"What is it you do anyway? You mentioned an internship?"

"Oh yeah, I'm an intern at Stark Industries," Peter told him, sounding a little off. Harry couldn't place what it was though. "It's mostly just science stuff. I do a bunch of… um, menial work for the research and development department. Oh! And sometimes they let me experiment and invent stuff!"

"Oh that sounds pretty cool! Wait," Harry tried to remember why that name sounded so familiar. "Stark! Isn't that the superhero guy?"

"Yeah. Iron Man! He's so cool isn't he? I actually got to meet him, you know?"

"Wow. I'm still struggling to believe that he's - that any of those superheroes are real."

"Yeah, I guess it's a shock huh?"

"I'll say. Though Iron Man I get, he's just tech - amazing tech that's far beyond my understanding, to be sure, but still just tech. I find myself more surprised by the… supernatural ones. I would have thought people would be panicking a lot more about magic being real?"

"Magic? I guess that's one way to describe some of them." Peter said, gripping his chin in thought.

"How else would you describe that red witch woman?"

"Scarlet Witch?" Peter asked, Harry nodding in response. "I guess some people might call it molecular manipulation. It's a sort of telekinetic force that manifests in different ways. It's physics, but yeah most people probably do see it as magic."

"How is that not magic?" a bewildered Harry asked.

"I'm not an expert dude, but uhhh… look it just isn't. Magic is like witches and wands and fairies and stuff. This is all just really advanced science. Look at Hulk. Show him to someone in medieval times and he'd totally be seen as like an magical abomination, but we know he was a product of gamma radiation."

"What about that Loki fella?" Harry pressed. The Hulk example was true but he was not yet convinced by Peter's logic. By all appearances there did appear to be some examples of magic in this universe, even if not recognised as such. Surely it wasn't all some sort of technology.

"I don't know. Asgardian science?"

Harry gave up. It seemed that the technological prowess of muggles in this world had conditioned them to look to unexplained scientific phenomena first and foremost. He wondered if wizards did still exist in this world, but simply disguised themselves as technologically advanced people. This Asgard had apparently existed for a long time, but a small part of Harry thought that wizarding kind had simply escaped to another realm, such as Asgard.

He didn't have a lick of proof to support such fanciful theories, however, so he shrugged it off.

"And these unexplained powers, like Scarlet Witch's ones, they don't scare people?" he asked Peter.

"Well, it scares some people I guess… There was that whole mess in Nigeria, then the accords stuff, but I think most people are chill with the whole superhero thing." Peter snorted. "Most of them have fan clubs."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"That's… actually not surprising," Harry admitted as he considered the way wizards, when they weren't busy cursing his name, celebrated him for his heroism. Why would actual superheroes not get the same reaction from muggles?

Still, the conversation gave him some things to think about.

Saying goodnight to Peter, and receiving a goodnight in return, Harry stepped back into his apartment and closed the door.

He checked the time. It was 10:40pm.

He supposed it was time for bed. It had been a long day. He thought he'd be out instantly when he collapsed into bed, but it wasn't that easy.

After a week of being trapped in this world, he was finally in the safety of a place he could call home. That should have meant warmth and comfort, but the memories of the dead had been kept at bay for long enough.

At first it was innocent, he thought about the day's events and about the two new people that had entered his life.

May was warm and nurturing, in a way that made him smile even as it broke his heart. She reminded him of Mrs. Weasley. They weren't even that similar, but apparently anyone motherly was enough to bring the deceased Weasley matriarch to mind.

To say nothing of her nephew.

Having only known the other boy for a few hours, Harry was surprised by how quickly he warmed up to Peter. They'd only just met, but Harry honestly felt like they could be good friends in the future. Maybe he was getting ahead of himself - latching on to the first potential friend after several months of isolation followed by the strain of adjusting to a new world.

Still, something inside him told him it was more than that. It reminded him of that day he met Ron on the train - how he knew the scruffy ginger boy was going to be his friend.

'Ron…' Harry winced.

Even three months after the battle, Harry still found his breaths faltering and his eyes aching, heavy with the weight of his feelings. He tried to keep the swelling wave of emotion in check, wanting to just curl up and fall asleep.

But it was no use.

The dam broke.

Harry sat up in his bed, bringing his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

He rocked back and forth, tears streaming down his face. Gone were the ambient noises of the city, giving way to the sound of his heaving breaths and muffled sobbing.

Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Fred, George, Mrs. Weasley, Mr. Weasley, Remus, Tonks, and many more. He could see their faces as clear as day, flickering and changing. One moment it was Remus smiling at him in an empty classroom, the next it was the werewolf's dead body on the battlefield. One moment it was Hermione smiling at something stupid but endearing that Ron had said, the next it was their cold corpses, splayed out on the ground.

It kept going - more and more memories, all tainted with the grief he felt. No matter what, he couldn't stop seeing the dead. It was as though they were reaching out for him and trying to drag him down into the deep dark depths with them. A large part of him wished for that to be the case - wished that he hadn't returned from death at all that night. A small part of him knew he was wrong, though; he knew that his friends and family would want him to live.

If only they could tell him so in person.

Eventually, as the clock neared midnight, exhaustion caught up with Harry. He was so tired and he needed rest.

As he settled into bed, flipping the pillow over to avoid the damp spots where his tears had landed, he found himself thinking. As awful as the last hour had been, Harry found that he was a little glad to be able to let it all out. He had done his best to ignore his sadness over the last week, focusing only on the current challenge, but he was a mess of emotions and he knew it.

Losing his friends, his adoptive family, it… it was crushing, to say the least. Back in his world there were days where he didn't get out of bed, wishing he could just rot away and join them in the afterlife. Then there were days when the grief wasn't so bad, where he could smile, laugh, and pretend that everything was okay.

Even on the good days though, Harry was still lonely.

So, whatever his reasons for warming up to Peter so quickly, he hoped it worked out and blossomed into a true and strong friendship.

Harry woke up the next day, around seven in the morning.

He started his day with a shower, trying very hard not to dwell on the dark thoughts that plagued him before he slept and in his dreams. Under the cover of the scalding spray, he rebuilt his emotional barriers. Even as he went through the motions of cleaning himself, he was gathering all the hurt, the pain, the grief, and using occlumency to clear his mind and shove it all back behind some mental barriers.

Afterwards, he got dressed and had a simple breakfast. With nothing else to do at this time, Harry decided to get back to his reading. He snatched his phone from his bedside table and made himself comfortable in the living room.

Harry followed the events following the alien invasion - going through all the major events, culminating in what was described only as a civil war between the Avengers last year. As he read through the events of the past year in particular, Harry understood what Peter meant by the incident in Nigeria and the Accords.

Personally, it didn't sit well with him that those with abnormal abilities were being forced to register to government entities. Not after those months with the death eaters in control of the ministry.

By the time it was eight thirty, Harry felt reasonably caught up, though he would probably need several refreshers. It was difficult to remember the names of all those superheroes, let alone the other information.

He still had a lot of time to kill, so Harry decided to play around with his magic. He grabbed the elder wand from its place on his nightstand.

"Let's see what makes you tick," he told it.

Casting a few harmless spells, Harry once again noticed how easily his magic rushed through the wand. It felt like it was helping him, drawing his magic out to cast spells more easily, even as it used up less energy than he was used to. And yet, he couldn't detect anything different about the wand, to explain its behaviour.

He felt like he should be more alarmed, but it felt almost right to use the wand. Briefly, he wondered if it was this feeling that made its many previous owners so covetous of the wand. He shook the thought off, reminding himself that people sought it out for its destructive capacity, not because of a strange fuzzy feeling.

He spent some more time playing around. Currently he was stretching his magic throughout the apartment, pushing and pulling, getting used to how it followed his commands more easily. His magic was so much heavier on the air than he was used to.

One could almost describe it as tangible.

Idly, he wondered how a muggle would react to the feeling. As heavy, almost tangible even, as it was, he wondered if even muggles - as oblivious to magic as they were - might sense a hint of something in the air if he let it loose.

Drawing his magic back into himself, Harry decided to go out and do something productive with his day. He and Peter had plans, but they never arranged a time. It was twenty past nine presently, so he figured it was safe to go knocking across the hall.

Transfiguring his clothes into a black sweater and grey jeans, Harry stepped out of his apartment. He locked the door and took the two steps to the Parkers' door, giving it a few knocks.

Less than a minute later, he was greeted by a still groggy Peter. The younger teenager stood in the doorway wearing a pair of nondescript grey shorts and a much too big t-shirt that was almost sliding off his right shoulder. Again, Harry marvelled at how fit Peter was. He had a sort of bookish look and had expressed no interest in sports the other night, but looking at the teenager standing in the doorway, it was clear that he was rather athletic.

"Good morning Peter." he greeted the bloke with a bright smile.

"Mornin'," Peter yawned. "You're not here for the movie, are you? It's sooo earlyyy."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I wake you up with my knocking?"

Peter shook his head. "Nah, I got up like 10 minutes ago. Just not fully awake, you know?"

"Oh. Well, that's a relief. As it is, I just stopped by so we could figure out a time, and maybe we could exchange our phone numbers?"

"Uh, sure. My phone's in my room, so let me just give you my number and you can send me a text or a missed call."

Harry handed his phone to Peter, who was looking more awake at this point. The other teen swiftly saved his contact information on Harry's phone. He took the initiative of sending himself a text right then, then handed the phone back.

"What's with that look?" Harry inquired, taking note of the mildly disgruntled look on Peter's face as Harry placed his phone back in his pocket.

"Nothing!" Peter blurted out. At Harry's sceptical look, Peter sheepishly looked down for a moment and rubbed the back of his head. "It's just that, well, uh, your apps are a mess. Like holy shit dude, I know you're new to this, but this is how an 80 year old's phone would look."

Harry didn't know how to respond to that. What was wrong with his apps? He took his phone out again, and tried to figure out what was wrong with his home screen.

"I don't get it, what's wrong with it?" he asked, feeling like there was a giant 'clueless' sign flashing over his head.

A product of his generation, Peter was quick to snatch Harry's phone and start fixing it for him. Harry watched as Peter dragged apps off screen, saying Harry didn't need them, and rearranged the remaining ones. He also changed some settings to make the phone more convenient for Harry, who nodded along to Peter's explanations even though he was completely lost.

Harry got his phone back from the satisfied looking American teenager, and truthfully he barely noticed the difference. There were less apps, but what difference did it make? But if it made him stand out, he guessed he was glad that Peter fixed it.

"So, what time do you want to, uh, hang out today?" Harry asked.

"How about five-ish?" Peter suggested. "I should have all my stuff done and I'll be free until… like ten? Or maybe… No. Yeah- ten. I'm free from five till ten."

"Perfect, I'll see you around five then."

They said their goodbyes, and Harry made his way out of the building while Peter retreated into his apartment to start his own day.

Outside, the sun was still rising in the bright blue sky, with only a few clouds scattered about. Coupled with the cool breeze, it made for a nice change from that grey British weather he was used to. He wandered for an hour before stumbling into a large shopping mall.

Harry ended up spending a few hours there. He later walked out carrying a bag full of shopping - or rather, he appeared to be carrying one bag.

In actuality he was carrying twelve bags, eleven of which were discretely shrunken down, covered with a stasis charm, and placed in the remaining bag. He had tried to limit his purchases, mindful of his bank account, but stepping into that mall made him feel like his first time in Diagon Alley. Only this time, he was older and not as shy about spending money, so he might have gotten a bit carried away.

In the end, he walked out with a full wardrobe of muggle clothes; Harry also purchased a variety of furniture and knick knacks to decorate his apartment with; and a visit to the supermarket - which was bloody huge - had him stock up on enough groceries to feed the Weasleys for a week.

The clothes shopping was the most entertaining part, to Harry's surprise. He never expected to enjoy shopping in general, uncomfortable as he used to be with spending money. The shop assistants were all quite eager to help him when he told them how much he was looking to buy, particularly one lady at a fancier, more expensive store who whispered to her friend about a 'big fat commission'.

It was around three in the afternoon by the time Harry stepped out of the mall, so he decided to walk back home. He could have apparated there, but he quite enjoyed walking and taking in the sights. They were no breath-taking vistas, but something about the streets of Queens still appealed to him. Despite technically being a resident now, Harry was still very much in the tourist mind-set.

'I should have done this back home,' he mused. He had never considered using the muggle world as an escape back in his world. There, Harry had become a recluse, rarely leaving his house for fear of being mobbed by the eager public. He'd also needed time for his mourning, following the loss of his friends.

He was still mourning, in fact, as last night had proven.

Earlier, in the mall, he saw a stocky, tall man with red hair and his face lit up. His arm twitched and he was about to call out to his best friend. Before he made a fool of himself though, his mind caught up with him and he felt like his body became rooted in place as he heard the sound of Ron's final scream.

And twice today he walked past a bookstore and was reminded of Hermione. Warmth enveloped his body as he remembered her beautiful satisfied smile when she finished a book. Then his memories shifted to her final moments, bleeding out after five death eaters had ambushed her at the battle. The image of her dead body in his mind's eye was awful. He felt like a pit had opened up in his gut, threatening to swallow him whole.

He tried not to think about them too much, aiming to leave it all for the safety of the dark and comfort of his own bedroom. His occlumency barriers helped greatly, but it seemed like those thoughts were determined to slip through.

Thankfully, present events served as a good distraction most of the time, allowing him to avoid sinking into melancholy.

He supposed he was… grateful for winding up in this world.

[AN]: Sorry the long wait, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Thank you so much to everyone who favourited, followed, and especially reviewed! I read every single one and I truly appreciate them.

As always, I hope you'll let me know what you thought of this chapter, and thank you for reading. Cheers!