As the twitching form absorbed more of the green light, the strangest detail was the boy’s face: peaceful, and wet with tears.
Another day was beginning, and Vernon Dursley had no intention of ending the “Freak’s” punishment yet.
Every time he looked at the child, something evil seemed to stare back from behind those eyes.
Even Petunia could not explain it.
Sometimes, when the boy glanced in his direction, Vernon felt a second pair of eyes—malicious, watching.
The blackouts were the worst.
Once the devil-child had locked eyes with him and the world had gone dark.
Enormous red eyes had laughed.
When Vernon came back to himself there was blood on his hands and a crumpled heap of rags—no, the Freak—on the floor.
He had never been more terrified in his life.
He was an ordinary man who directed other ordinary men in the making of drills.
Violence had never been part of his nature before that thing arrived on the doorstep.
Petunia insisted those children had flashes of magic.
If that was magic, then magic was pure evil.
Even she had stopped defending the boy after the blackouts began for her as well.
They had no one to turn to, no one who would believe them.
Who would take their side against a child?
Their only possible help had been the wizards—and the wizards were the ones who had dumped this hell-spawn on them in the first place.
The most recent blackout had been the worst.
Petunia claimed he had not merely beaten the child; he had stood in his own bedroom and ranted about “Mudbloods” at the wall.
He did not even remember seeing the boy that day.
He was now afraid to touch the locks.
Guilt would catch up with him eventually.
He could not simply let the thing die in there.
But surely he could wait a little longer.
As long as Petunia never learned exactly what he had done.
Vernon pressed his hands to his head and tried to steady himself.
He had work to do today.
And that Thing would not be a problem for at least another couple of days—not if he had any say in the matter.
The boy with green eyes woke as Harry Potter for the first time.
He still did not know his exact age, but his name was now a permanent part of the world.
He sat up and nearly struck his head on the low roof of the cupboard.
Green eyes widened in shock.
He was larger—much larger than the night before.
He had long ago accepted that he should have been roughly the same size as Dudley; being so much smaller had simply become another fact of life.
Now a fresh grin spread across his face as he listened to the house beyond the door.
Somehow he knew it was late.
The precise hour remained unknown, and he intended to correct that tonight.
Somewhere in Dudley’s room there would be watches, perhaps books, anything that might help him improve.
Help would have to be taken, and motivation was no longer in short supply.
He reached for another bag of jerky and an energy bar, eating slowly while he drank water and considered his options.
Avoiding noise was obvious.
Improving control of the threads was the next priority.
He wanted the same fluid mastery here that he possessed inside his mind—the ability to shape and direct the light at will.
As he chewed, he admitted the colour itself was a powerful motivator.
The green felt like his mother watching over him whenever the threads wrapped his body or when he had floated in the golden light.
It felt like a small piece of her she had left behind, and he was eager to practise.
He held out his right hand.
Almost at once a dozen threads thickened among the thousands of fine green hairs already living in his body.
Now that he could see down to such fine detail, he no longer needed to create new threads from nothing; he only had to empower the ones that already existed.
When they shifted, the surrounding network simply split and rebuilt.
Faster.
Cleaner.
Making the threads leave his hand proved harder.
After several failed attempts he stopped forcing the issue and instead concentrated on thickening a single filament.
It swelled until it approached the size of a thin rope.
Heat flared in warning along his arm.
Frowning in concentration, he moved the rope carefully, feeling the network of finer threads stretch and adjust around it.
Where the larger strand pressed, a brief pain flared as the light expanded; when he drew it back the discomfort faded.
A small smile touched his mouth.
Clearly he needed to enlarge the threads before he could match what he could do inside his mind.
Repeated use seemed the most reliable path.
He turned to his left arm, selected a thread, and increased it to the same thickness.
Sharp pain lanced through the limb.
He had used this arm far less than the right, and the difference was immediate.
Pain, however, was something he understood.
He allowed both arms to fill with ropes of light, deliberately pushing and stretching the connections.
Then he looked down at his legs and started slightly at how long they had become.
The new size would take time to adjust to.
Still—if he was going to do this properly, why stop at the arms?
He found one of the larger threads in each leg and swelled them both to rope thickness at the same moment.
His head cracked back against the mattress as he clenched his teeth.
Cramp seized both legs in several places at once.
It felt as though the muscles were burning.
He should have built up more gradually; he could feel fibres tearing and reforming in rapid succession.
At least the pain was already giving way to the familiar, healing warmth.
Grimacing through the sting, he continued working the threads.
When true night fell, he would move.
Vernon Dursley felt off all day.
It was like an air conditioner that had been running for years suddenly switching off; the silence itself felt strange.
He kept reaching for a presence he did not want to find, and the fact that it was gone felt unnervingly good.
The floors seemed brighter.
The walls looked cleaner.
The constant pressure, the low-grade stress that usually sat between his shoulders, had eased.
It felt so pleasant that he spent the entire day waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Petunia was nearly singing.
Normally, no matter how often she swept, mopped or dusted, everything still felt faintly filthy.
There was always a smell she could not locate, a soft skittering noise somewhere on the floor, and the persistent sensation of being watched.
Today the world had colour again.
Scents were sharper, cleaner.
It was as though someone had finally drawn back heavy curtains.
The perpetual scowl of disgust that usually pinched her face had relaxed for the first time in years.
She might even have time to cook a proper meal.
How long had she been exhausted simply trying to force cleanliness into this wretched house?
She almost skipped as she began rearranging things in the kitchen.
Harry could do little more than grit his teeth.
His limbs were on fire and his joints grew more painful by the minute.
The pain itself mattered very little.
He had something to prove—to himself and to his parents.
He would not allow a temporary discomfort to keep him weak.
Green light from his eyes cast faint shadows on the cupboard walls.
Unable to turn his neck, he began examining the small space more carefully.
A frown settled on his face.
At some point thin red threads had been laid along the wood.
They felt familiar, almost like a kiss from years ago—something that reminded him of his mother.
The problem was the darkness oozing along those tense red lines, slowly thinning and corrupting them.
His expression hardened into a scowl; the green in his eyes sharpened.
All exercise stopped.
Thin threads raced through his body, rapidly repairing joints and muscles as he edged closer to one of the clusters of black corruption.
That evil bastard.
Somehow the demon infant had infected the red network.
How it had managed the feat from inside the scar was beyond him, yet the damage had clearly been done over many years.
He remembered, from the memories in his mental hell, how the Dursleys’ cruelty had grown steadily worse.
The cursed remnant must have been working its way through these threads, trying to seize control of whatever purpose they served.
This was not acceptable.
Focusing on his right arm, he built the thickest rope he could currently manage.
He rested his palm against the old wood and willed the vibrant green strand through his hand until it gently touched the red thread.
Knowledge flooded him.