5,801Chapter 5: Red Threads and Exercise
The boy with green eyes awoke as Harry Potter for the first time. He still did not know his age, but now his name was now forever a part of the world. He sat up and almost hit his head on the roof of his small cupboard. Green eyes looked up in shock. He was larger, much larger than last night. He knew he was supposed to be similar in age with Dudley, so being such a shorter person was something he had come to terms with. He grinned again as he listened outside.
Somehow he knew it was late. Exact time was unknown, and he wanted to take care of that tonight. Somewhere in Dudley's room had to be a few watches, maybe some books or something else that could help improve himself. Harry knew help would have to be taken, and he now had motivation in spades.
He could still hear movement in the house though, so he decided to try and find a way to improve while still here in hell.
Reaching for another bag of jerky and an energy bar, Harry slowly ate his fill as he drank some water and considered what to do. Avoid doing anything loud was an obvious requirement. Working on control of the threads was another. He wanted the same type of control here that he had in his mind, the ability to move and control that light.
As he chewed slowly on the meat, he admitted to himself that the green color was another big motivator. It felt like his mom was watching over him when he was wrapped in those threads, or swam in that golden light. He felt like it was a small part of her she had given him, and he was eager to practice.
He held his right hand out. Nearly instantly a dozen threads thickened along the thousands of thin green hairs that lived in his body. Now that he could see down to such fine detail, he didn't have to keep creating NEW threads, just empower some existing ones. As they moved from the pattern, the existing ones would simply split and rebuild. Much faster and easier than creating new ones from scratch.
It was much harder having the threads LEAVE his hand though. Finally he stopped trying to force it and started building up the thickness of a single thread. Eventually it built up to near rope size, and he was feeling a warning of strong heat in his arm. He frowned in concentration as he moved the rope around, feeling small changes occur in the thread network of his arm. Where the rope touched he almost felt a pain as the light was stretched and expanded. Still, when he moved the rope back it felt much less sore.
He gave a small smile. Clearly he needed to increase the size of the threads before he could do the things in his head. It seemed that repeated use was a great way of accomplishing this as well. Looking to his left arm he picked a thread and increased it to rope size as well.
A sharp pain went through his arm. He had not used this arm nearly as much as his right one, and he could feel it. Still, pain was something he could understand. He allowed both arms to be filled with ropes of light, pushing and stretching the connections. Looking down at his legs, Harry was slightly started at how long they were. His new size would take time to adjust for. Still, If he was going to do this correctly, why not the legs as well? Finding one of the larger threads in each leg, he swelled them both to rope size at the same time.
His head smacked back into the mattress as he grit his teeth. It felt like he had cramps in both legs, in several places. Harry felt like his muscles were BURNING. He really should have built up to this, as he could feel muscles tearing and rebuilding rapidly in both legs. At least the pain was rapidly being replaced with warmth.
Grimacing through the stinging pain, he continued working the threads. When night really fell, he would move.
~~~Core Threads~~~
Vernon Dursley felt off all day. Something was different in the house. It felt like something was missing, something was changed. Like having an air conditioner switch off suddenly after you already got used to it. He felt like he was reaching for something he didn't want to find, and it felt so good that it was not there.
The floor seemed brighter, the walls cleaner. He didn't feel as pressured, or stressed.
It felt so nice he was waiting anxiously for the next shoe to drop.
Petunia was nearly singing. Normally no matter how often she swept, mopped, dusted, everything felt filthy. There always seemed to be some smell she couldn't find, some noise caused by something skittering on the floor, and the feeling of being watched, always watched.
Her world seemed to have more color. Smells seemed brighter. It was like someone had finally pulled back the curtains. Her face, normally pinched in a scowl of disgust at all the tiny imperfections, had relaxed almost completely for the first time in years. She might even have some time to make some food again! How long had she been overworked, trying to bring some cleanliness to this wretched house?
She almost skipped as she began moving things in the kitchen.
~~~Core Threads~~~
Harry could not do much but grit his teeth right now. His limbs were on fire, and his joints were becoming more sore by the moment. Pain mattered little though, he had something to prove to himself, to his parents. He would not let a momentary pain keep him weak.
His eyes were casting green shadows on the walls. Not able to move his neck, he began to examine his room more closely.
A frown crossed his face. It looked like at one point some red threads had been laid on the wood. The threads felt familiar, like a kiss from years ago. It reminded him of his mom. The issue was some sort of darkness, oozing down the tense red threads, actually thinning it further.
His face was a scowl now, and the green of his glare sharpened. All his exercises stopped, and he used thin threads to rapidly repair his joints and muscles as he moved closer to one of the clusters of black thread.
That evil bastard.
Somehow the demon baby had infected this red thread. How he had done so from his scar was beyond Harry, but clearly it had been done over years and years. In fact, he remembered from his mind hell how progressively more aggressive the Dursley family had become over the years. That cursed mind baby must have been working his way through these threads, trying to gain control of whatever this thread was trying to do.
This was NOT acceptable.
Focusing on his right arm, he built the largest rope he could handle right now. Reaching to the old wood and resting his palm against it, he willed the vibrant green rope through his hand and gently contacted the red thread.
Knowledge. He could feel the world fade to black as he could visualize the entirety of a structure of red wire. It made a strange pattern and wove through pipes, wood, carpet and stone... and over half was being corroded by the black threads. Harry scowled with eyes closed as he decided that anything the blackness wanted had to be a bad idea. It also seemed that the red thread was already tied into him, on the edge of his green thread. The connection was so old he had to focus to even recognize it.
Focusing on that wisp of green light, Harry forced it to open to rope thickness.
Red fire traveled down the red thread and ran to the back of the house. It seemed to pause somewhere under the soil in the back yard, then suddenly ALL the red threads bulged. As the new ropes swelled, the black thread gave tiny screams as it sizzled. The mental image seemed much stronger, and the edges seemed to almost double in distance, so far he couldn't even follow the whole thing. He probably should feel worried about what the red thread did, but the satisfaction of hurting that black magic was rolling through his system.
Reducing his connection into the red grid back to a small thread, Harry sighed and tried to get comfortable again. Time to go back to these annoying exercises. At least he could actually see results. Changing thread thickness was almost an automatic action now, and he could control many more at one time. Still, why stop at being only passable?
Gritting his teeth again, he opened two ropes of power in each limb. He couldn't do one cord yet, but doubling the ropes should help him get to that stage faster.
~~~Core Threads~~~
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. 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. Focusing on the threads, he tried to embed some in the cloth.
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.
Oh well, it would be simple to just rebuild them or stretch them open with his threads when he wanted to take them off. He never liked the laces anyway, it always required complicated knots and stuffing the excess back into the shoe since they were way larger than he needed. He pulled out some food supplies and then closed the cupboard. He reached out a thread through the wood and lifted the hinges, forcing them back into place. Wouldn't want anyone to notice an escape if they woke up late at night.
He moved as quietly to the door as he could, stumbling a bit still due to how badly he was used to the old way of walking with a smaller gait, moving at a slower speed. Using a thread to keep the door hinges silent, he slipped out into the night and began walking.
~~~Core Threads~~~
God he was out of shape. Harry was barely walking fast and his legs were hurting, his chest was tight, and he could barely stand upright. He had gotten used to his new size and had tried to do some running.
Clearly he was not gifted in the field.
Falling to the grass of a nearby yard, he relaxed as his threads examined the most sore muscles. Now that he was so much larger and was wearing form fitting clothing, he was not sure anyone would recognize him. Not that many people even knew he lived at number 4 hell street.
After healing the muscles, he looked at them again. Each muscle had tears in them, and the new ones seemed to be stronger. Well, that was easy to fix. Looking around for a dark spot, he found a place between a fence and a car and lied down, resting his head on the grass. Focusing on his threads, he began rebuilding more and more muscles to act like his newly rebuilt ones.
He actually let out a gasp. He had not expected it to hurt this much. Apparently some muscles had almost never been used, like the ones in his face and near his ears and sides. As more and more muscles began becoming stronger and able to absorb more oxygen, Harry began to feel a deeper hunger than he had ever expected. He had actually eaten two bags of jerky already on this run, but now he was ravenous. He was glad he had grabbed such an amount on his way out of the house, he had almost skipped bringing food in his hurry to get out and get going.
He could almost feel each piece of meat being absorbed before it could make it down his throat. His threads NEEDED protein for this project, it was not simply "Make it work", this was "Make it work better". Harry could probably out eat someone in a competition right now, he felt like hunger was his new favorite color.
As his hunger faded and he looked at what was left of his food, he couldn't help but chuckle. Hopefully half an energy bar would be enough for the way back. He stood, and almost stumbled. He did not feel stronger, but everything else felt easier. Breathing took no effort, and he was breathing MUCH less now. Apparently more efficient muscles required less oxygen, and his enhanced lungs seemed to absorb more with each breath than before.
As he turned back toward his prison, he actually had a bounce in his step... Heck, running felt like a fine idea now. Not like there was any strain right now anyway.
As he left running down the street Harry felt more free than ever before.