She whispered back, "He has already memorized all those books." She grinned at his startled look. "We got him a couple of new books at the bookstore after shopping a bit. Lots of materials, as he calls it... some silk, cotton, so forth. Got the wood for free from the back of a furniture store, you know, the broken stuff." Her eyes drifted back to the staircase. "I... I think this may be good for Dudley too. He always seemed alone at school, and the kids that were starting to hang around him seemed really rough around the edges."
He wrapped both arms around her, his chin resting on her head. "I know this is good, for us. I don't know if this is just some sort of rebound from all the darkness we had fallen into, or if this is the way things will be from now on... but either way, I am really grateful for how this is going."
She nodded against his chin. They whispered ideas about where to go for Harry's first official birthday this Saturday for lunch, since Vernon seemed dead set on getting some steak and Petunia could hardly argue against the thought herself. Maybe a fish and chips place would be best, something simple. Meanwhile, two eight-year olds were sailing the seas searching for treasure in a small room with some fake coins.
Harry decided quickly that hiding who he was to Dudley was a bad idea. Well, he would have decided that, if he hadn't accidentally made the decision within less than 30 minutes of playing pretend. He was so used to using his green threads that pulling a wooden sword back to his hand hadn't even seemed odd until he heard Dudley gasp.
Looking at his wide eyes, he shrugged. "Mom and Dad had magic. So I got some." He grinned. "I am not allowed to show other people, but my favorite cuz is different, right?" Dudley's rapid nods made him smile. "In fact, we can make this room more pirate like if you want."
Dudley was nodding so hard that his head looked dangerously close to falling off.
Harry grinned as he waved a hand, his rope opening the door and pulling in one of the thick wood planks from downstairs. He thought he heard a distant "Eep" from downstairs, but he was busy right now. Pulling the plank into Dudley's room he placed both hands on it and turned to a still wide-eyed but rapidly becoming excited eight-year old. "Do you have a picture of a pirate ship I can see?" Dudley gave up on logic and decided to focus on "PIRATE", diving for his books and finding a pop-up one that showed a cool ship. He watched Harry stare hard at the paper model, when suddenly the wood under his hands began flowing over the carpet like water.
Rapidly white wood coated the floor, under the bed, under his toys. He could actually see his things lifting up a bit, as the carpet rolled up into a corner. Suddenly Dudley felt himself be lifted by an inch, and looked down at the solid white planks. Looking back at Harry, he saw the wood under him seem to age and turn a dark brown, like the tiny book showed. Grains grew on all the planks, knot holes opened up, and they formed into a steering wheel near the back of his room. When Harry fell back, Dudley watched the walls begin to shift colors, looking blue at the back but orange near the font of his "ship". Like in the book, it was sunset and he could see the image of the rest of the ship being painted where the wood of his floor connected into the wall.
Harry grinned. If he was going to go nuts, why not go all out? Waving his hand again, he heard two "Ooophs" at the door. Both boys jumped, and turned to the open door. Vernon and Petunia were covered in some white cloth Harry had summoned from downstairs. Apparently they had wondered why a huge plank of wood decided to fly through their house.
Harry and Dudley paused.
Harry pointed at Dudley. "He did it."
The expression on Dudley's face would be saved in Harry's green room forever.
The two adults watched the kids argue on the deck of an 18th century pirate ship. It was pretty clear at this point that as much power as Harry had... well, age was still an issue. A cute issue, yes. But kittens shouldn't be able to move logs through a house. Or rebuild a bedroom to look like it is at sea.
Well, Vernon actually thought that would have been awesome. But he had been married long enough to know that some thoughts were better kept to himself. Or at least until he got to spin that awesome ship wheel a few times.
Petunia seemed to be holding her head in her hands. "Harry, just... only your room and here, ok? Don't mess with places where people walk around a lot. You need to keep your abilities a secret, remember?"
After a sheepish "Yes Aunty." and a loud "I TOLD YOU IT WASN'T ME", both children went back to the rich old game of "Nuh-huh, Yeah-huh" as the adults retreated from the room.
July 31 was coming up soon. His birthday, again. Harry nervously watched the window. According to Petunia, her letter showed up around when she turned eleven, sometime in July. She still seemed positive that he was a wizard. After meeting a few, Harry was even LESS sure than before.
Young boys and girls with colored threads didn't know what he was talking about. The adults kept laughing him off, or told him to keep it down if others were near. Even when he spied on them, they never did much with their threads like he did.
But he had learned what he could. He now could read, speak, and understand many languages. He had found the section of his mind world where his own language was stored and had expanded it with memories of dictionaries and conversations he overheard in various languages. He had even found a couple of languages he didn't remember that he thought may have come from the scar daemon, one that talked to snakes and one that told how to communicate with something called a "Dementor".
He had a feeling that the definitions and methods of talking to the Dementors was behind in the metal room, in the locked part. The language itself felt so sick that he had moved it into the metal room just on principle. Anything that oily shouldn't be just laying around his mind.
He had learned a LOT about cooking. Even took some classes on it, since the Dursley's really loved his cooking they encouraged it.
But as far as his magic was concerned, he had only increased the number and thickness of his green threads. Jim had made some progress in Snail Quarter, they could now control several ropes and sorted most of Harry's memories for him. He only had to show up each night and verify everything went where he wanted it, and they only rarely made mistakes... well, as long as the memory was not about birds. They could be surprisingly biased for and against various avian memories.
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