The world faded to black as he visualised an entire structure of red wire—an intricate lattice weaving through pipes, timber, carpet and stone.
More than half of it was already being eaten away by black threads.
Harry scowled behind closed eyes.
Anything the blackness wanted was automatically a bad idea.
The red network was also already linked to him, a faint connection at the edge of his own green threads, so old he had to concentrate to notice it.
He seized that tiny green wisp and forced it open to full rope thickness.
Scarlet fire raced along the red lattice, surging toward the back of the house.
It paused somewhere beneath the soil of the rear garden—then every red thread in the network suddenly swelled.
As the new ropes expanded, the black corruption gave tiny, sizzling screams and burned away.
The mental image sharpened and stretched; the edges of the network seemed to double in reach, extending so far he could no longer follow them.
He probably ought to worry about what the red threads actually did, but the fierce satisfaction of hurting the black magic drowned out caution.
He reduced the connection back to a single fine thread, sighed, and tried to settle more comfortably.
Time to return to the tedious exercises.
At least the results were visible now.
Changing thread thickness was becoming almost automatic, and he could control far more of them at once.
Still—why settle for merely passable?
Gritting his teeth once more, he opened two full ropes of power in each limb.
He could not yet manage a true cord, but doubling the ropes should push him closer to that stage faster.
Harry suddenly focused again.
Hours of controlling the ropes had made him reach some sort of meditative state a while ago, and he was not sure why he was now paying attention to the pain again.
Trying to feel what had happened, he realized it was a feeling from the red thread.
Apparently Petunia had just gone into deep sleep, meaning he was the only one awake in the house.
Somehow the red system was informing him of what was going on within itself.
Heck, he could feel people in the street for blocks, even if he didn’t know who they were.
Some part of his mind must have wondered if it was safe to try another excursion outside, and the red net had given the information.
He blankly looked at the wall.
It was a good thing probably, but it was too much.
Too many things were changing, too many things to do.
He placed the entire red network issue aside for now, and focused on what he could do at this moment.
He was not sure how long he could stay here before Vernon drug him out again, but maybe he could extend it.
His “uncle” had always been lazy, so if he made it inconvenient to “release” him from this hole, maybe he could get extra time.
Moving quietly, he took his right and and thickened all the threads in his skin. New chapters come out on g.com first.
Feeling the firmness, he again pulled the hinges out of the cupboard and placed them quietly aside.
He reached one thread into the lock and twisted it, breaking it closed.
With Harry controlling the only EASY way in and out of the cupboard, it became much safer.
He crawled out and stretched to his new height.
Since he had not bothered to get dressed since the last excursion, he was ready to go…
sort of.
He was too tall, his arms were longer, heck he felt like he was off balance.
He could barely stand, much less sneak.
A healed body had some apparent downsides.
His objectives had just gotten a major change, and any plans had to wait until he could move again.
Sighing, Harry reached back into the hell under the stairs and grabbed one of the shirts, pants and the torn sneakers he had been allowed to use.
He would have to go outside if he wanted to learn to move, it was far too dangerous to exercise here.
As he clothed himself he thought curses at the over-sized clothing.
As he pulled on the jeans and shoes, he paused.
His shirt was still too wide, but his new height actually made this dirty clothing almost fit.
Maybe…
Harry chose threads in his skin and thickened them, pulling them just slightly out of his skin and into his shirt.
Threads were absorbed like the muscles from last night, and holes in the cloth began to repair themselves.
He grinned like a shark, enjoying the ability to actually fix a problem he faced instead of having to accept once again that he was helpless.
As the threads repaired the shirt, he rewove the extra threads into the cloth itself.
It made the thickness increase, and he could feel the warmth building as it wove tighter.
He thought about how he had pushed the glass out of his hip wound, and began focusing on the dirt in a section of his new shirt.
The name of some band Dudley had liked at some point began vanishing.
He was kind of surprised.
He had hoped to clean the shirt, but apparently his threads did not think that ink was part of the cloth.
He grinned and added a pulsing green rope to the mix.
His shirt began to almost glow white as dozens of threads tore into the ink.
As it finished he had a white t-shirt that was perfectly draped on him, thick and reaching down to his wrists.
But the pure white was a problem.
As the green thread was released from his control, the places the light stayed glittered and faded into a deep blue.
He was a bit surprised.
True, he liked blue, but he had expected the color to match the glow.
Maybe his desire had changed the results.
Deliberately focusing, he watched the shirt change to a deeper green as thousands of hair thin threads leap into the cloth and then faded away.
He pinched the cloth between his fingers and could feel how soft and sturdy it was.
Apparently doubling the thickness had given it some structural support.
His pants quickly resized as well, becoming a dark blue.
Just before he attempted to work on his shoes, he paused.
Reaching back into the hole under the stairs, he pulled out a blood soaked white shirt.
He had worn it less because the blood made his skin itch, but maybe he could get some use out of it now.
Holding it in his hands he focused a rope into the cloth and began pulling.
Blood vanished as the threads began falling apart, heaping into Harry’s palm as the shirt dissolved.
As the soft green glow faded, he held a pile of pure white threads.
He set aside half of the thread and forced the other half into a simple bag, watching green threads pull white ones into the same pattern used for his shirt.
After a fairly thick and long bag was created, he pulled off his right sneaker and pulled the cloth bag over it.
Focusing the threads in his skin again, Harry watched as the white bag became his very first sock.
He felt like he would have to buy a new face, he was smiling so much recently.
Harry quickly repeated his actions for his left food and had two perfectly clean, perfectly formed cloth socks.
He had even doubled the thickness and length, so they almost acted like stockings, warming his ankles and lower leg.
Grabbing both shoes back on, he barely thought about it as they were stripped of color, rapidly began dissolving and reforming, and began fitting his feet.
Harry looked at the white shoes and began shifting them to black.
He had leftover material from this one, since he didn’t want to have platform shoes or something.
He formed the leftover cloth into a ball of string and the rubber into a cube and hid both back under the stairs.
As he admired his new shoes, he realized he had made a minor error.
There were no laces.
In fact, they perfectly fit his foot…
he couldn’t take them off.