… When I started this it was supposed to be a oneshot; just something short to get rid of the idea so I could return to my other works soon. I guess that says a lot about my mind and my ability to estimate the length of my stories.

To keep the length manageable, the story will be a bit snapshot-like in a lot of places. Because of this it might be confusing if you haven't read both Harry Potter and Bleach, 'cause I will be skipping a lot of canon stuff.

Enjoy.

It had been a day like any other. Uncle Vernon had demanded breakfast, and had made snide remarks about unfortunate Normal People having to put up with good-for-nothing Freaks. As usual, something had gone wrong and Harry had been locked up in the cupboard under the stairs for the rest of the day.

It had been a day like any other, except that on that unremarkable day, while Harry had been lying in the darkness of the cupboard trying not to cry at the unfairness of it all, something unexplainable had happened.

Meditation had been a constant in little Harry's life long before he ever learned the meaning of the word. He was used to getting locked up for hours on end, and focusing on his own body, his breath and heartbeat, helped soothe the pain of rejection, and turned what would have been mind-numbing boredom into a peaceful floating, dreamlike state of mind.

He had fallen asleep with the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears more often than he could count, but that day had been the first of many when he would dream so oddly.

That day he had been six years old and had, for the first time, been forced to acknowledge his family hated him, utterly, simply because he was somehow different from them.

His grief had inspired a wish, a fervent, heartfelt yearning to be somewhere where he could be something other than The Freak. A place where he could escape the pain of his bruises and his Uncle's harsh words. A place just for himself, were no one would be able to reach him.

It was as if that deep, desperate wish created a path within in mind, leading to a door he hadn't been able to sense before. A door that glowed faintly at the end of a long, dark tunnel, enticing and mysterious, calling for him to come and find what was beyond the dark. For a while Harry had lingered before the tunnel's opening in indecision. It was something unknown, a place in his mind he had never explored before. Far more like a dream than any other hazy images his mind had provided during his meditation before.

A dream about a door, at the end of a long tunnel.

But doors existed to be opened, right? If this was a dream, then there would be something behind it; it would be more than just an image.

Peaceful floating in shadows soothed his pain, yet it paled next to finding something to do. And it had been so very long, since Harry had found something to do that wouldn't get ruined by his family in some way or another.

The Dursleys wouldn't – couldn't – ruin this. It was just a dream after all.

And so, in the end, on an utterly unremarkable day, Harry chose to move down the tunnel, and opened the door at the end.

Some lessons in life you only learn after they have become important. One of such lessons is that sometimes, it are the simple, seemingly insignificant decisions that turn out to be the most life changing of all.

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At first, the door merely seemed to provide access to an even more soothing, quiet darkness. Nestled within that darkness, Harry could forget everything that ever hurt him, if only for a little while. Consequently, Harry found himself climbing increasingly often into the safety of the shadows behind the door, looking for reprieve and finding it in the shadows' embrace.

Yet the more he entered the shadows, the more they became something else entirely.

Slowly, day by day, silent and subtle as the stars moving across the night sky, the odd dream changed.

At first it was just the tunnel. Slowly the roughly hewn walls smoothed to polished perfection, rapidly followed by the floor and ceiling, until the tunnel no longer resembled a tunnel, but instead a long corridor with only one door at the end of it.

Soon after, the darkness behind the door followed. It lightened and started showing colors and variations in brightness. The first time Harry opened his eyes and actually really saw something, he was inexplicably reminded of branches and leaves. He liked the change, since he seldom had the chance to enjoy such a sight. Most of the time Dudley found him before he could.

But the changes didn't stop there. It was many months – almost seven – after Harry had first found the door that he finally managed to truly discern what the darkness had turned into. It was like waking up in a sunlit field of sweet-scented grass. When he sat up and let his eyes take in his surroundings, Harry couldn't keep his jaw from dropping, because honestly, he hadn't expected the dream to turn out like this.

It was a garden unlike any he had seen before.

Once upon a time the place must have been breathtakingly beautiful, with elegant trees, brightly-colored flowers, beds full of small white stones that gleamed in the sunlight, odd lantern-like sculptures, paths made with large, flat stepping stones, and large ponds connected with little rivers that were crossed by bright red, wooden bridges in elegant arcs. When Harry woke up in one of the many fields the garden was still beautiful, but it had grown wild, the beds with white stones overrun by flowering weeds, the stepping stones of the paths almost completely hidden by long grass, and the arched bridges looking ill-maintained, their red paint chipped and faded, revealing the weathered wood beneath.

Frankly, that was the moment when Harry truly fell in love with the dream. He had liked it before, but upon discovering the Garden it became the most important, most treasured thing in his life. It was peaceful, as if nothing in the world could harm him in that place. The surroundings were gorgeous, with a kind of wild, timeless beauty that made him wish to see how it had been before it had been abandoned. Imagination only took him so far.

Harry was alone there, but that hardly ever bothered him. He barely knew what it was not to be alone. He only wished the weather could be better; it was almost always overcast, sometimes with harsh winds and even storms lashing through the foliage, ripping at delicate flowers as if they wanted to shred them. Most of the time the storms happened when he was particularly upset, matching his moods. All he could do was wait them out when they happened, hiding beneath the large trees or the dense bushes, or in little hidden cave he had found near one of the biggest waterfalls. He never feared the storms, finding the violence of nature almost soothing while he lay curled up on the ground, as if the howling winds and roaring thunder gave voice to his own feelings, bleeding of the building pressure within him so he wouldn't have to let it out himself. Crying and screaming never fixed anything.

Unlike in the real world, Harry was never cold, even though he was always in the clothes he arrived in, which were little more than an oversized shirt and pants. Sometimes the storms passed after a few hours, and other times he woke up from the dream with the echoes of the thunder still roaring in his ears.

The Garden was what gave Harry the strength to face his family's ire day after day, to ignore the painful words and harsh blows, to carry on and hope one day they would look past their anger to see Harry. Not Freak, not Boy; Harry.

He just wanted to be their nephew. To be loved.

The Garden was his refuge whenever they proved they didn't.

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It was a few days after he had decided to really do some exploring, that Harry found the House.

It was a house unlike any he'd ever seen before, though it definitely looked like it was built for someone with a lot of money. Maybe one of those film stars Uncle Vernon always complained about. Those people were rich and always lived in ridiculously large, spacious houses. The House looked like it would have suited them. It had ornate, angular roofs, walls made of dark, carved wood, white, plaster and large panels that were made out thin wooden frames covered with of some kind of paper, and what looked like strange woven mats on the floor wherever Harry managed to peer inside. The House wasn't built in a neat rectangular shape like his Uncle's house; instead it almost looked like a lot of smaller buildings of the same design all clustered together.

It was also huge. As in, big-enough-to-be-a-hotel huge. Big enough to be a palace.

Not that Harry had ever seen a real hotel or palace. But a hotel had to have enough room so a lot of people could stay at the same time, and Harry had seen enough pictures of palaces whenever Aunt Petunia was looking for inspiration for the living room to know that those were really big too. Plus the house was pretty enough to be a palace, at least for someone who didn't like flashy decorations.

Or rather, the House used to be pretty enough to be a palace. Time had not been kind to it, and the majestic building had fallen into disrepair, looking as abandoned as the Garden. The wood was weather-beaten, there were tears in the paper of the panels, and quite a few shingles from the roofs were missing. Yet despite the poor state the House was in, it still radiated an ancient, elegant grandeur, and it was still stately and distinguished despite its derelict appearance. It was like an old, wise man on his deathbed, body slowly withering away as the elder graciously accepted his fate, solemn and dignified as a king out of legends. It had a presence to it that spoke of past greatness. Faded, but not yet far enough gone to be forgotten.

It took Harry many visits to work up the courage to go inside, despite that there were at least three places where the wood-and-paper panels were pushed aside like sliding doors to reveal the rooms beyond and he'd never seen an other living soul in this dream.

When he finally did dare to enter he discovered that the floors really were covered with finely woven mats. Harry took care to wipe the dirt from his feet before he entered. Aunt Petunia always got mad when he forgot, and he didn't want to dirty the mats. Something told him that that would be as bad as strewing dirt in Aunt Petunia's clean kitchen.

The insides were empty, not a single piece of furniture to be seen. There were some inbuilt closets and benches, but nothing that wasn't already part of the building. It was kind of eerie.

It was also quick to become his new favorite hideaway during the storms. Which there were a lot of. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had started heaping chore after chore on him, even really heavy ones, and every time he failed to complete them to their satisfaction he was punished. Somehow, his hurt frustration seemed to whip the storms into a seething frenzy.

Harry was very glad he had found the House. Exploring the empty rooms and halls became his new pastime every time the storms raged outside, replacing his old one which had mainly consisted of meditating to the almighty cacophony of the storm and watching how it raged across the sky. He'd already discovered he could get an awesome view of the lightning and the roiling clouds from one of the upper floors, almost as good as standing outside and without the drawback of getting drenched. And whenever Harry got bored with roaming the halls or watching the lightning dance, well, playing alone was nothing new. In fact, he was quite good at it.

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It was during one of his many explorations that Harry found a locked door in a hidden corner of one of the ground floor corridors. It was such an odd thing it had made him pause and stare at it almost incredulously for a while. None of the other doors had been locked. Hell, as far as he could remember the other doors didn't even have locks.

But this one had a lock. An old one, with a relatively big keyhole. It was weathered, but not all that rusted. Harry reckoned he had a decent chance of getting it open.

It took Harry eight days to decide whether or not he would give it a try. On one hand, it had probably been locked for a reason. On the other, the House was abandoned. He'd never seen anything that even hinted at the existence of an owner.

Plus, this was all a dream.

Granted, opening locked doors in dreams might lead to nightmares, but it wasn't as if it would affect him that badly when he was awake. Surely the next time he dreamed the door would simply be locked again?

Seven-year-old Harry wondered why it was even an issue. He loved the dream, really, but he had explored the entire house already and the room behind the locked door was the only place he hadn't been yet. His curiosity gnawed at him and his thoughts persistently returned to the question of what could be hidden behind that lock.

And that was, in the end, what got him to step past his ingrained mannerisms to leave places people didn't want him to go alone. The Dursleys had been thorough in teaching him not to poke his nose in into other people's stuff on the pain of death, but this was a dream. His dream. The Dursleys would never know. They wouldn't even want to. They wouldn't punish him if he decided to try to break in.

It took Harry over a month of daily, active and thorough searching to conclude that there wasn't a key. He'd searched every nook and cranny of the House, and even checked every statue and bridge he could find in the Garden, but he had found nothing.

Harry huffed, frustrated, and glared for the umpteenth time at the lock. If the door hadn't been made of thick, solid wood – which was another unusual thing about it – he would have tried breaking the door down instead of wrestling with the lock. But the door was made of thick, solid wood, and Harry was a short, scrawny kid, so the only way Harry would have a chance of breaking it open would be when he managed to get his hands on an axe or something.

So.

Plan B it was.

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Harry had to admit he felt ridiculous as he entered the Little Whinging's town library. To look up locks and how to pick them just because one in a frequently recurring dream was bugging him... It really was quite silly. But then again, dreams aside, who knew when it might be useful? It wasn't as if he had anything better to look up while he was hiding from Dudley and his gang.

When he finally found the right book he discovered that lock picking wasn't as easy as Dudley's abandoned storybooks made it sound. Just finding a lock that looked similar to the one in his dream turned out to be a chore and a half, not to mention finding a way to open it without modern tools.

Grumbling but no less determined, Harry set to his task.

He swore that if the room behind the locked door turned out to be just another empty space he would find a way to burn the damn thing with extreme prejudice.

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Weeks passed by of checking and double-checking, of experimenting with the different materials that could be found in the Garden, before, finally, something went click.

Harry stared at the lock in his hands, the thick wooden splinter that was his latest tool still buried deep within the lock's inner mechanism. There was just one small but very important difference to the frustrating piece of metal he'd been slaving over for so long.

It was open.

For a moment Harry could only gape, almost unable to believe he finally got it after so much time.

Then he whooped, his cheers bouncing from the walls and ringing through the empty corridors. "I did it! I did it!"

Giddy and proud, Harry needed a few tries before he succeeded in removing the lock from the door. But then, at long last, he was rewarded with the rickety swish of the door sliding aside when he pulled.

Behind it was a small room, maybe two or three times bigger than his cupboard. There were no windows, nor any mats on the floor. It was completely barren and shrouded in deep shadows.

For a moment, disappointment rose like acid in his throat. Almost, almost, he slammed the door closed, screaming with rage over so much time wasted on nothing. Almost.

Just before he actually acted on his anger, his eye caught an odd shadow in one of the corners of the room, just a bit darker than the rest. Hoping it was something worthwhile, Harry approached it quickly, but cautiously. He didn't want to accidentally make his little haven a nightmare after all.

It was a trapdoor. A plain, wooden trapdoor with a big rusty ring at one side.

For a moment, Harry hesitated. Somehow, he had the feeling that if he opened that one he might find something he could not lock away again. He shrugged it off, curiosity and impatience winning from guardedness. It wasn't as if the trapdoor was really giving off a danger vibe. It was more as if opening it was a decision he wouldn't be able to take back once made. Granted, that was a bit creepy too, but at least it didn't feel as if a monster was going to pop out to maul him.

A phrase drifted unbidden through his mind. To open or not to open, that is the question. Harry giggled to himself. One of his teachers had been ambitious and had tried to interest them for Shakespeare just the day before. She had done a pretty good job of making them enjoy it by making them think up variations of some of the most famous phrases, and then letting them read their best results out loud. Despite Dudley's efforts, even Harry had had fun listening to what everyone had come up with.

Serious mood broken, curiosity pulled an easy win over caution. Harry grabbed the ring and pulled.

The door didn't budge.

Huffing, Harry checked whether there was a lock on it, but he couldn't find anything. He scowled. Maybe it was just stuck?

He tried again, pulling and yanking till he was ready to scream with frustration. Finally, Harry was so fed up with things that refused to open, he put all his anger into one last attempt and yanked as hard as he could, nearly dislocating his shoulders with the force he put behind it.

Wood screeched over stone, and the door grudgingly rose an inch. Harry blinked in surprise and grinned. He pulled again, ignoring the pain in his arms. A few good yanks later the door finally shot loose, startling Harry and forcing him to take a stumbling step back from the sudden lack of resistance, the ring almost slipping out of his hands as he fumbled to keep a hold on it. To his relief he managed to steady his grip just before it could slam into place again. Harry smiled, his breath ragged, his chest warm with accomplishment.

Small as he was, it wasn't easy to lift the door away from the opening, but in the end he managed.

And then Harry was looking into a gaping hole of darkness, only the first two steps of a relatively narrow staircase discernible from the surrounding shadows. He bit his lip. He would need a light for this...

He brightened when he remembered the two small lanterns at what he assumed to be the front door of the House. They hung from hooks on both sides of the impressive doors and had been lit every time he saw them. He'd used them before, whenever a storm had made the House so dark that Harry almost tripped over the grooves the sliding doors ran in whenever he entered or left a room. One of those would be perfect for this.

In no time, Harry had retrieved one of the burning lanterns. It was a simple round thing made of wood and white paper with a drawing of a single barren branch on it, but it was easy to carry and gave a soft, even light when the wind wasn't disturbing the tiny flame inside.

Harry took a deep breath and slowly, almost hesitantly, descended the stairs.

It ended in a narrow stone corridor with several doors on both sides. He couldn't see whether it ended after about a hundred feet or just turned a corner. What he could see was that the entire corridor was flooded.

For a moment Harry contemplated the wisdom of touching the water. It looked dark but he thought he could see the floor through it. Tentatively, he poked a toe in the water and was, to his mild embarrassment, relieved when nothing happened.

Gathering his courage, Harry stepped into the corridor and found that the water was a more than a foot deep, rising just past his knees and making it difficult to walk. It was cold, but by now his curiosity was burning hot enough to keep him warm.

To Harry's relief, the doors opened relatively easy. Most of them only needed a good yank and the others required his entire weight, but each one popped open with a satisfying creak when he put enough effort in it, the water sloshing as he pulled on them. At the same time he had to be careful he wouldn't accidentally drop his lantern. He knew which way the stairs were, but he preferred to avoid stumbling around in the dark. He'd probably end up swimming.

The rooms were very interesting. He now knew why the House was empty and why this one door had been locked. Everything had been stored here. It was a pity about the flooding, as a lot of stuff had been damaged by their prolonged stay in the water. Quite a few items seemed to have been already broken when put in here, but he could see that some of the wooden stuff had started to rot from the moisture. There was furniture, clothes, pillows, painted screens, vases, tableware, china- every single piece beautiful and foreign despite the damage. Some things were obviously part of a set – like the china – and other things were odd individual pieces that Harry couldn't imagine buying himself.

Harry laughed. Boy, did he have some exploring to do!

Room after room he opened, each one stuffed to the ceiling with all kinds of interesting objects.

And then he opened a door that let him shed light on some shapes he recognized.

Harry screamed, tripping backwards and landing in the water with a splash, barely able remain upright enough to keep the lantern safe and dry. He backpedaled till he hit the wall.

… Silence, only broken by his own harsh breathing.

Huh?

Warily, he squinted into the darkness. No, he hadn't imagined it. Those were really human forms.

Dolls?

Harry laughed with relief. Stupid, to get worked up over just a pair of dolls! The shadows had been playing tricks on him. Silly, really. He had thought that after the darkness of the cupboard shadows wouldn't be able to scare him anymore, but in the flickering light of his lantern they had seemed to move.

Confidence restored, he wrung out his soaked clothes as well as he could with one hand before he entered the new room. There, right in the middle of the cluttered room sat two life-sized dolls on a couch, Their appearances startlingly similar and their legs dangling into the water. They looked like children, maybe a few years younger than Harry himself, and were dressed in wide, loose clothes, with baggy yellow pants and blue, wide-sleeved... shirts? Jackets? -on top, the sleeves and the long strips of cloth at the back trailing over the edge of their seats and into the water. They had some weird blue hats on, high and without a brim, from under which very pale hair peeked out in messy, playful locks, most of which were tied back in short ponytails. They appeared to be sleeping.

They looked almost alive, so well were they made. Curious, Harry poked one softly in the cheek, wanting to know what it felt like.

And froze.

What? What?

The material beneath his finger was cool to the touch, but way warmer than any of the other items down there. It was also soft and squishy. Like... a real cheek.

And then he noticed the barely-there rise and fall of the chests beneath the loose fabric of the clothes.

Harry almost screamed again. The dolls were alive!

They weren't dolls!

At that point he panicked completely, running back and forth in distress while he tried to come up with a way to wake them. He poked them, prodded them, pinched them, threw water in their faces- but nothing worked.

In the end, after he had tried everything he could think of, Harry finally settled on simply moving them to the ground floor. If he couldn't wake them then at least he wouldn't leave them in the dark, wet room.

Only, as it turned out, moving them wasn't simple at all. The boys were both about Harry's size – hats not included – and each probably weighted just as much, if not more, than him. Harry had to drag them through the water and up the stairs with the handle of his lantern clamped between his teeth, and by the end of it he was more than exhausted enough to join them in their sleep.

And he hadn't even gotten them out of the trapdoor room yet, or gotten them something to sleep on.

Harry groaned miserably, and let his head thunk against the floor.

The only (tiny) silver lining was that pillows and blankets were a hell lot easier to carry than people.

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That morning, Harry had so much trouble waking up that his Aunt screeched and yelled at him, and when he didn't even get up from her pulling and twisting his ear, she finally locked him up to keep him from infecting 'her darling baby angel', as he was obviously sick. Harry didn't bother to correct her and was instead grateful he would be allowed to sleep in. Dragging two kids around was exhausting, and getting enough stuff for a bed together without dropping his lantern wasn't much easier.

At least the weather in his dream had been nice enough to allow their clothes to dry quickly. He really hadn't wanted to dig up a pair of outfits for the boys as well.

Nuzzling his thin pillow, Harry returned to sleep, not even caring that his ear hurt and his Aunt hadn't left any breakfast for him. It was far easier to just let himself slide right back into unconsciousness.

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Harry woke up when something hard bounced off his skull. The door of his cupboard slammed shut before he could check what it was.

Grumbling, he worked himself up on one elbow, rubbing the sore spot on his head while aiming a bleary glare in the direction of the door. That slam had hurt his ears. Clearly his family wasn't happy with him again.

After fumbling around for his glasses, it took him a few minutes to locate the thing that had hit him. It had almost slipped through the narrow gap between his bed and the back of the cupboard, and had been covered by his blanket when he had pushed it aside to sit up. Harry brightened a little when he saw what it was.

A lunch box. Well, at least they weren't going to let him starve when they thought he was sick.

Inside he found four slices of bread and a piece of cheese. He ate his meal by alternating bites of bread with bites of cheese, letting the flavors mix in his mouth. He had long ago accepted that his bread would always be dry, but the cheese made up for that a little. It wasn't worse than the kind of breakfast he usually got, and he even got to eat it in peace.

Absently Harry checked the location and brightness of the spots of light caused by the sunlight that fell through the small grate in his door. He paused. Huh. Midday already. He couldn't remember if he'd ever been allowed to sleep that long before.

After finishing his food he put the lunch box away and lay down again. It would be better if his Aunt and Uncle thought he had fallen asleep once more.

Harry closed his eyes. By now he was so used to seeking out that dream it took less than a minute for him to find himself back where he'd left the last time, half on and half off the thin mattress he'd dug up for the two boys. Getting up from his sprawled position he crawled over to were the duo lay beneath the blankets. Unlike the last time, Harry wasn't tired anymore and could actually take a good look at them.

He blinked, eyebrows shooting up to disappear beneath his messy hair. He had thought the two boys had pale blond hair, but in the clear light spilling through one of the open sliding doors Harry could see he'd been wrong. Instead, their hair was white.

He huffed a laugh. "Man, Aunt Petunia would freak if she saw you," he told the them. He was a little disappointed when he got no reaction, but it wasn't really a surprise. The two boys looked very much asleep, the only difference from yesterday was that they seemed to breathe a little more obviously.

Harry watched them a little longer, noticing that they were flawlessly identical down to their very clothes. Twins? Yes, that seemed likely. He wondered what their names were. Though given how alike they looked it probably would be easier to call them both the same, because he really couldn't tell them apart. That would probably become a bit troublesome once they woke up. Maybe differently colored clothes would help?

After a while he found himself talking to them. "You know, I always thought I was alone here," he told them, hoping that the sound of his voice would draw a response. The twins were so still and silent it was unnerving. "I mean, in this whole place I didn't see anyone. Or anything really. Not even insects, or birds, and I don't know if you've seen outside, but I think there really should have been some. Would have been nice, you know?"

He shook his head, laughing bemused. "And suddenly I find you guys. Scared the hell outta me too. Where you guys there the whole time?"

He paused, giving them an expectant look. After a few seconds of no reaction he continued. "Because I was thinking, it must've sucked if you were. Everything was so dark, I bet you couldn't see a thing down there. Was it scary?" This time he didn't wait for a reply. "No wonder you just went to sleep. If it's so dark you can't really do anything. And the door was locked so you couldn't go upstairs either. Though you really should have found a better place to fall asleep," he told them, a bit cross. "All that water; weren't you cold? If you'd gone to sleep in the little room upstairs then at least you wouldn't have been all wet. And I wouldn't have had to carry you so far."

Harry gave them a contemplative look. "Unless... did the water come after you went to sleep? It has rained a lot here. Uncle Vernon once said that that could flood cellars and such. He wanted one for wine, you see? But then he changed his mind. Said an extra fridge would be just as good. Better even, 'cause you could put meat and such in it as well."

He was silent for a long time. "How can you guys still be asleep?" Harry asked them, seriously confused and quite a bit miffed. "I dragged you through the water, which really was quite cold. And up the stairs, and I know I bumped you guys against the wall a couple of times. Not on purpose, but I'm sure it hurt a bit. How can you sleep through that?"

The twins didn't even twitch.

Harry scowled. "Fine," he muttered. "Be that way." He got up, thoughts turning to the intriguing collection of stuff downstairs. He was sure there would be something he could play with among that mess. And if he gathered all pillows and let them dry a bit, he was sure he could make the House more comfortable with them.

At the door he paused for a moment, looking back where the twins were lying in their mess of blankets, duvets, and pillows. He couldn't help but hope they would wake up soon. Dudley had always made sure no one would want to be his friend, but without him here Harry might just have a chance.

When he descended the dark stairs he did so with a smile.

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It was a week later, on another day that Harry was mindlessly rambling to them, that Harry got his very first response from the twins. It was nothing spectacular, but it gave Harry hope that they would wake someday soon. Somewhere during his endless chatter, the twins had opened their eyes a little, a slit of color peeking from behind their lashes. When he noticed, Harry's mouth dropped.

Their eyes were as green as his.

They were also completely unfocused. Harry was pretty sure they didn't see a thing except maybe some vague light spots, even if they had been awake enough to see in the first place.

Still, it was progress!

Which meant it was time to get more stuff upstairs so at least the House wouldn't look like a squatter had taken up residence in it. Uncle Vernon had very strong opinions about squatters, and while Harry didn't always – almost never, really – agree with his Uncle's opinions, he had to admit that breaking into someone else's house was not right. He didn't want to be associated with such people.

He would start with the small stuff and pick out what was and wasn't too damaged for use. He'd already gotten pillows and a few interesting things to play with, but he would need to get a lot more if he wanted the place to feel a bit homey. Though he couldn't bring up any real furniture yet, since those were too big for him to carry alone.

Ah, well. When they finally woke up the twins would just have to help with that. Harry really wasn't big or strong enough to carry cabinets and tables and other stuff all by himself.

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For once, Harry hadn't entered the dream about the Garden and the House, choosing to fall asleep normally instead. As a consequence, he dreamed about something else; about a great white city with high walls and gold-colored roofs, and buildings big enough to be palaces. A city that felt like he belonged there.

Where am I?

A group of black-clad strangers passed him. They were talking, but he couldn't hear a word they said.

Who are they?

From the corner of his eye he spied something pink, and as far as he could see, the walls were supposed to be white. Did that mean there was someone next to him? Somehow it felt like that.

… What is this place?

It was like watching series of pictures, all sharing the same theme yet at the same time not telling him anything. Loose fragments of the same story. Screen shots of the same movie. All vague and jumbled and somehow important.

Loud banging distorted the visions, and suddenly Harry was blinking up at hazy shapes that he knew were the underside of the stairs.

… A dream?

Weird. Harry rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and decided not to worry about it. After all, dreams were always forgotten within hours. The dream about the Garden and the House was the only exception.

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Two days later, during another mindless talk to the twins while putting flowers from the Garden into one of the many vases from downstairs, Harry realized he could still remember the confusing images. He didn't know whether to be happy or not that he had found another exception.

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There were huge piles of books downstairs, but most of them were utterly ruined by the water, pages having fallen apart and ink reduced to ugly, unreadable stains. He was trying to save some of the ones that seemed the least damage when there was another bit of progress from the twins.

They were moving.

It was only a little bit, pretty much just them moving in their sleep, but Harry was happy they were showing a bit of activity once he had recovered from getting nearly startled out of his skin. Their doll-like stillness had become quite creepy, especially after they had started opening their eyes a bit from time to time, giving the impression that they were staring at nothing. Bit like one of Dudley's horror movies, the one where one guy played catatonic just so he could catch the lead actors off guard and murder them. Boy, had been Aunt Petunia upset that her 'darling Duddykins' had watched such a scary movie.

And oh, that was a bad, bad comparison. Harry really hoped it wasn't like that. He didn't want the Garden and the House to be turned into a nightmare.

He glanced at the two from where he was sitting on the porch, just outside the sliding doors that allowed the room direct access to the Garden. The twins were curled around each other, snuggled into the blankets, looking as harmless as the two baby rabbits one of Harry's classmates had brought along that one time their teacher had made the mistake to have a Bring-Your-Pet Day. Dudley had managed to convince Aunt Marge to let him bring Ripper. Let's just say it hadn't been a good day for anyone.

But that aside, the two really didn't look dangerous. With their eyes closed like they were now, they weren't even a little creepy. They looked like normal kids. Sleeping kids. They weren't scary at all.

Absently, he started turning pages again, one for each book, allowing another part of the books to be dried by the sun.

Harry hoped that appearances weren't deceiving. That would suck.

XXX(xxxx)XXX(xxxx)XXX(xxxx)XXX

It was a nice, bright day when the twins finally woke up.

At first Harry didn't realize anything had changed. He pottered about in the room for a bit, checked the stuff he'd set out to dry during his last visit, and knelt next to the bed to straighten the mess a little, before he finally noticed that the twins' faces were no longer blank.

They were looking at him. Not staring in his direction, but really looking.

"Hey," he greeted, excited. "You're awake."

The twins regarded him through half-lidded eyes, looking so sleepy it was obvious they had trouble processing his words. The two shared a droopy-eyed look before offering sloppy nods.

Harry huffed a laugh. "Sort of, at least," he amended.

They smiled and beckoned him closer, eerily synchronous considering that they were barely awake. Their drowsy smiles made them look as harmless as the young kittens of Mrs. Figg's cats.

Harry stared for a moment, but then he shrugged and shuffled closer, until his knees came in contact with their improvised bed.

Their smiled widened a little and they gestured again. Confused, Harry obliged and leaned forward, unwittingly placing himself within grabbing distance.

Immediately their hands latched on to his clothes, insistently tugging and almost dragging him forward. For kids who looked three seconds away from conking out they were frighteningly strong, and despite his protests he couldn't get them to release him. After several minutes of futile struggling, Harry gave up and allowed himself to be dragged into the pile. In seconds he was sandwiched between them both, the twins clinging to him like a pair of oversized koalas.

Soon, his nervous fear faded in favor of apprehensive exasperation. Harry was quite uncomfortable with his new position, even more so when the twins snuggled closer till their faces were almost pressed against his neck. They were treating him as if he was some sort of living teddy bear, and though there were surely worse ways to be treated, he kinda really wanted to know why. Because, hello, strangers? Who would hug a stranger? And drag him into bed?

Seeing that the twins had nodded off again, their heads resting on his shoulders, Harry didn't think he was going to get his answers any time soon. And from the grip the twins had on him, he wasn't getting free either. All he could do was either adapt or leave the dream, but he really didn't wish to return to the real world yet. He didn't want to wake up to the hunger and the smells of the Dursleys having a lavish dinner, nor did he want to hear the sounds of his family laughing with their guests, wholly unconcerned with the fact that Harry hadn't had anything substantial to eat in almost two days.

Decision made, Harry honestly attempted to release the tension that had taken root through his entire body. After a few minutes he had succeeded a little, despite still feeling utterly confused and quite apprehensive about being this close to people.

Sighing, Harry stared at the ceiling, well and truly trapped – and really, shouldn't he be more upset about that? Then again, it wasn't as if he had to be anywhere important – but he couldn't stop a bemused smile. Awkwardness aside, he decided that cuddling wasn't really that bad, and a hell lot better than some of the other options he had envisioned while waiting for the twins to wake. He shifted a little, trying to stop the twins' skulls from digging into his shoulder without waking them. It took some careful wriggling but he managed, despite that the two boys tightened their grip on him every time he moved. And their grip was strong.

Somehow, the warmth of the two boys and the sound of their quiet breaths was soothing, once he closed his eyes and just accepted the weird situation.

It took quite a while – but hey, as he said, nothing important to do – but in the end, Harry drifted off with the feeling that he wouldn't mind doing this more often, even if it was awkward and embarrassing.

In their sleep, the twins smiled and pressed a bit closer.

Well, by now everyone who has read/watched Bleach should have a good idea just whose reincarnation Harry is, so I don't feel too guilty about the very mild spoiler in the next bit.

As for why Harry is that Ukitake's reincarnation, well, I don't really have a good reason. This story was inspired by the fact that in the manga Ukitake has green eyes, and his hair would have been black had his illness not happened. The bunny ran off from there, and I had to get out of my head before it grew the same size as Ground Fire.