Cicatrices- Marks That Remain

Muggle-Wizarding Electrical Interference

Happy Sunday, fantastic Readers! Here is today's chapter, I think you might like it :)

Please, let me know what y'all think, and, as always...

Enjoy!

Harry never liked the rain.

Growing up, the rain brought bugs into his cupboard. The rain never stopped Petunia from making him tend to the garden.

Then, he got to Hogwarts. He had a proper bed, in a real living space, and was not waking up with a roach inches away from his face. He didn't have a garden to tend to, and, at night, he found that the sound of raindrops against his dormitory window helped him sleep just a bit better.

In Draco's Muggle flat, however, during this time of the year, the rain makes cold seep into the walls and floors constantly, and with the steadily declining temperatures of the outdoors, every rainfall has only fared worse for the flat.

And yesterday, the radiator broke, and maintenance said it needs replacing, which means that Draco and Harry are going to stay cold through the week, at minimum.

"They won't be speedy with it, you know," Draco grumbled, throwing on a second jumper. "The landlord doesn't like me because he was forced to let me live here."

"Forced? What do you mean?" Today, the rain was so intense that the world looked dingy and depressed. Inside Draco's flat, even with the windows open, it felt like it was evening despite being half-past noon.

"This complex is one of a few that has been deemed by the Muggle government as rehabilitative housing in cooperation with our Ministry of Magic. And, just as any other landlord, this one doesn't like to house criminals."

Harry wrapped himself up tighter in his blanket, attempting to bury himself impossibly deeper into the corner of the sofa. The storm raged on outside. You aren't a criminal Harry wanted to say. But he knew that legally speaking, Draco was, for all intents and purposes, a criminal who merely avoided prison sentence on some technicality. Despite how important those technicalities seemed to Harry.

"Isn't that illegal?"

"Isn't murder illegal? Besides, this goes up with the ministry. It's not like they'll do anything about it."

"They will if you complain to the right people," Harry countered. He dug his feet between the sofa's cushions.

"Nobody at the ministry quite cares about a broken radiator in rehabilitative Muggle housing enough to stop what other important things they could be doing.

Harry shifted, slightly put off by the fact that Draco had a point. Part of him wanted to suggest an owl to Hermione since just about half of her work is on being some sort of humanitarian warrior, but he was sure that something else, like Werewolves' rights or Ministry pay disparities, was a much more pressing matter in her mind than Draco Malfoy and his faulty Muggle heating system. He huffed.

"And why can't we use magic to warm up, again?"

Draco, who had just put the kettle on, turned to Harry with an incredulous look to him. " Because of electrical interference? This is third-year knowledge, Potter."

"Harry," he corrected.

"Yes, Harry. It's hard to refer to you by your first name when you don't know the basics of Muggle-Wizarding electrical interference."

"I know about it," Harry retorted, "I just don't think about it all that much. I don't often get sent to work in the Muggle World. They keep me doing the bigger, in-world cases," he explained.