A distant 'Quack.' came through the door and team lead for alpha waddled in, saluted with a wing, and began examining the setup. Harry pointed out the parts to NOT touch, then headed out of the snail and stretched back to normal size. He was pretty sure he had overheard that they were going to call this "Snail Quarters", and he was ALSO pretty sure that SQ would be interesting for the teams. Nothing like watching a human stumble through life to entertain the troops.
Somehow Harry felt this had all become complicated. He laid down on the soft grass and resolved to do nothing useful for the rest of the day. Or at least for however long a day felt here. The moon showed only a few minutes had passed, so time seemed to move much faster in his head than in the world.
Harry drifted off to sleep watching the clouds pass. He felt he had made some real progress today, although he was a bit concerned about inter-duck relations at this point. Still, they were all polite to each other, and Jim kept them in line.
He fell asleep and drifted back into the green mist. A couple of nearby rookies were distracted by the sight, but thankfully their team leaders led with an iron wing and got them back on task. There was work to be done.
Harry awoke early the next morning. He realized that he had forgotten to change out of his clothing, which were sticky with sweat. He wondered if it was safe to try and clean it with thread.
"Quack."
He froze. That was probably a bad sign right? He cautiously looked around the dim cupboard.
Thank god, no ducks.
"QUACK."
Harry gulped. "NO Jim, sorry, that was uh... I meant no OTHER ducks. You know, not being infiltrated." So was the quack a thought?
"Quack." Oh. Well, Jim should talk quieter, it sounded like he was in the room and it could have given Harry a heart attack.
'Quack...'
Harry nodded, 'No problem, this is just new is all. Tell you what, just ignore any thought louder or softer than these, alright?'
'Quack. Quack.'
Harry grinned a little. 'Thanks for checking, I am glad it is clear for thread work. I guess since time is faster in there you have lots of time to check it all when I need answers. Let me know if anything happens that I should be aware of, ok Jim?'
'Quack.'
Harry felt relieved. He liked ducks a lot, but if they started showing up EVERYWHERE then he was pretty sure that he had broken his mind all together. He focused threads through his body and vanished the sweat, salt, and other such things from his skin and clothing. He also changed his shirt to a dark blue. Today felt like a blue day.
He opened some jerky and savored each bite. The salt content was almost more important than the protein at this point, especially since he had enough water to help smooth over the edges.
He looked down. His body was much stronger, his mind felt amazing, and his ropes were able to actually reach outside his body now. Not as far as the threads, but almost a third of a meter. Hopefully he would be able to increase that range, and have more than one rope out at a time. Still, this was probably overkill to handle someone like the Loud... no, like Vernon.
One more day. He would practice strengthening all his skin threads to protect himself, he would stretch his rope out to at least a meter, and he would ensure that his mind's hell under the stairs was properly sorted and locked down.
Harry Potter had a lot of questions he wanted... no, he NEEDED answered. And tomorrow he would get those answers.
Vernon woke late. He was very confused.
Time was not an issue right now, today was a Saturday and he had no reason to wake up early. Well, no good reason. But there had been no nightmares. That feeling, the heavily weight that normally oiled down his spine, it seemed gone. To feel at ease in the morning was almost wrong. There had even been days when he felt something had been in the corner, watching him and waiting for his eyes to open to try and...
But not today.
His permanent scowl started to retreat. Maybe today would be different? Everything had started getting better since he had... A cold chill ran down his spine. He knew he had experienced a blackout two days ago. He didn't remember what exactly he did, but he clearly remembered the things arm bending wrong when he shoved it under the stairs. Vernon began to sweat as he tried to think back to when everything had suddenly became better... it hadn't been long after he had locked the "freak" down there.
He started to slide into a slight panic. Petunia would find out. What he had done. Would she believe him? Vernon knew she had experienced a few blackouts as well. Some dark place in his mind whispered, 'YOU were the one who locked him away, not the shadows.'
If... if there was a body... well, he had to do something, right? The smell would tell his crime after a while anyway. Had he even heard noise from the stairs in the last two days? No begging to be free, no whimpering, none of the tricks that daemon spawn used to unleash itself upon his family again.
He knew Petunia would be cleaning the second floor today, she always alternated between the two floors. That would give him over eight hours to check, just quickly verify the thing was still there.
Petunia Dursley was feeling amazing. Without the strange smells and dirty shadows, each room took only minutes to clean! Normally she would have to work four hours or more, with lots of re-working, just to try and keep the horror down. She saw some toys that had fallen outside Dudleykins room and picked them up, opening his door.
She had to blink. It had been over a year since she had been here, and this room was a DISASTER. How could an eight year old make a mess this huge? Piles of things on the ground, scattered everywhere. Her lips thinned. Dudley was a growing boy, but this was not acceptable. She always kept the house as clean as she could, and this room was like a slap in the face. She placed the toys on one of the side piles and moved to wake the large boy.
It was more than time to teach her child the benefit of a clean house.
Dudley was having a terrible day. Mom hadn't let him go back to sleep, even when he told her to go away! Her eyes looked different too. Normally they were slightly glazed, like she was too tired to focus. Now he could actually feel disappointment from her as she glared at his stuff. When she had found his jar of money, her eyebrows had practically left her face! Who cared where he got it from, no one had asked before.