Shift.

One.

Harry was crouched in the shadow of his least favourite tree. If he was being fair it wasn't the tree's fault, it was a fairly nice looking tree, with lots of shade and pretty leaves. The bark never managed to fall down and hit him on the head like some of the other inconsiderate trees he perched under, and it didn't force Harry to take care of it like that god awful rose-thicket bush firmly attached to the curb. But, Harry hated the tree anyway, because this was the tree in his aunt's front garden, and the tree he had the crouch under, even if the undersides of his thighs stung and his legs ached, until the weeding was done. It spanned an enormous silhouette over the garden, shielding him from the merciless sun, but Harry still despised it for its involuntary crime of reminding him of the tedious task of gardening.

It wasn't that Harry hated gardening either, perhaps if he hadn't been forced to do it he would have liked it, maybe if his mother had been there too to help him or make him a cup of water after hours in the sun. Maybe she would sit in the shade, a book in her lap and cup of chilled refreshing orange juice on the veranda, whilst he watered the flowers and softened the soil, reading the book aloud so that Harry could let his mind drift into the world of make believe.

It wasn't like that. Gardening was a chore, a chore that left him with blistered hands, cuts from thorns and rashes from plants he didn't know the name of. Harry gained sunburn on the back of his neck, awful aches in his thighs and behind from crouching too long, and a constant rumbling hunger that was never sated. He was never rewarded for his gardening, never smiled at for the pristine flower beds and petunias that had a better life than him. There was no recognition for his pruned bushes and mowed lawn – other than praises for the beautific lawn directed to his aunt, no food to fill in the hole in his stomach he had made through his activities.

Harry sighed as he mercilessly ripped another weed from its home, adding it to the pile that would then become his job to bag, drag and add to the council mulch tip. It had been a brilliant idea from some of the established females at the Woman of Concept society, to actually have a use for garden waste, since the annual horticulture competition in the region was so well-known and well-grown "and mulch is oh so useful and environmentally friendly". ...Harry missed the days when he simply had to chuck the heaps of greens in the bin, and not have to walk half the block to the huge mulch tip.

At least they left him alone when he gardened. It was worse when he had to complete his inside chores. He hated being surrounded by sickening green floral curtains that shaded the room obliquely and vomit coloured yellow walls he would have to clean up and down and everywhere – dust was most certainly his nemesis, with no stretch of lawn to protect him from his dreadful relatives. The persistent vroom of the vacuum sometimes haunted him in his sleep, its beady beeping red eyes pointed on him until his skin burnt from the laser-accurate gaze, reminding him of the dust he breathed in and that book on asbestos that Harry had read from the local library for a school assignment. He didn't think the argument that the cupboard was actually killing him would help him move house, no, it would probably encourage his relatives to leave him there. Not that he wanted to move, he couldn't quite articulate it, but the cupboard was his safe haven, whether it was killing him or not played no part.

Harry didn't think he would ever grow used to cleaning, that awful smell of disinfectant, the redness of his hands from washing dishes too long, the ache in his feet from standing all day, blood blisters staining his already bloody shoes. Sometimes he wished he could simply close his eyes and not do a thing, but he knew that wouldn't be allowed. When he was younger, he had attempted that. He had stopped cleaning, refused, no matter how many times his aunt threatened him. Harry gulped as he thought of how rageful his uncle had looked when he returned home from work, remembered the with a sickening feeling in his stomach the sound of his belt unclicking, and quiet, rough-textured sound of the leather end wrapping around and around his hand. "Stand by the wall, boy, and don't say a word."

Harry's hands shook slightly as he turned the soil at the other end of the garden. It would do him no good to think of his punishment. It had been well deserved anyway; he hadn't done any of his chores and he had simply stood doing nothing, lazing about the house like his no good alcoholic father. He had a job to do, a quiet job that didn't require much thought and let him be outside in the sun with fresh air in his lungs.

Harry should be grateful.

No, Harry was glad for his solitude, a time away from his melancholy inducing family, so noisy and nosy and painful when he cleaned. His aunt would sneer and smile that sickly smile, her lips turned up fakely like plastic slips slid over her facsimile for a face, eyes stretched back from her constant diets, eyebrows arched tauntingly as she watched him sweep and dust, just waiting for him to mess up and thus give her a justifiable reason to begin her tirade. She would peer away from her latest Women of Concept reading material, with vengeful amusement as her husband returned home. He would begin by studying the rooms up and down for fault, then continue with putting too much salt on the food Harry had spent hours slaving over a stove for, with a finale of threatening his nephew for something Harry had not done. Dudley would sneak a head, curled like a horse's neck, a trait inherited from his mother, around the doorway of the dining room, watching with vindictive glee as his father held Harry's neck like the delicate breakable string it became when Uncle Vernon was in range – in rage.

They would all watch, like the demons they were, as Harry spluttered for breath, aching rottenly in his stomach, curdled and crude, their eyes flashing in smugness as he accepted his fate. ...At least it was better when it was just him and the weeds, and his least favourite tree.

Harry used to hate the solitary confinement he was constantly subjected to, he used to cry at night for someone to hug him or ask him how his day at school was. Sometimes he would drift off into fantasies of friends who cared if he showed up to classes with bruises on his neck, incriminating blue fingerprints which outlined the dangerous going ons within the Dursley residence. Harry dug up a stubborn weed with gritty determination, clenching his teeth against the faint pain in his wrist from where he had burnt himself cooking breakfast that morning. He yanked it brutally as he remembered the taunting he had endured at school from his classmates and the guilty side looks born of the bystanders who didn't step in for fear of being next, for fear of being rude, for fear of being seen as an outcast.

Rip.

It was a pleasant feeling when the weed died in his hand. Harry knew it shouldn't be, but it was. At least he had some flimsy level of control over his- no, his aunt's garden. Harry took a small measure of pride in the fact that he had managed to mould it to be so... messy, so alive and spontaneous as all growth was, lush and green and colourful. Some nights when he awoke in a cold sweat from a nightmare, Harry would imagine himself with his mother, curled up in her lap, gazing out into a huge garden that they had cultivated together. She would rock him gently in her grip, lace kisses in his hair like braids, and whisper to him softly until he would fall asleep. Maybe she would say that she loved him, and that she would whisk him away on a flying motorcycle, that was real no matter how many times common sense said it wasn't.

Harry sat back on his haunches, breathing roughly as he looked up to the cloud-polluted sky. How was it that it could be so big, so endless? Where did it end, if it ever did?

"Boy, get back to your gardening!"

Harry heard the ear murdering screech of his aunt and leant forward once more, this time on hands and knees, knowing he would regret it later when he gained dirt stains on his favourite jeans. These ones actually fit, it was a miracle, especially considering how darn runty Harry was. Well, it didn't matter if they grew dirty, Harry would live with the consequences. He knew it was a dangerous game, one spent balanced, teetering on the precipice, on the edge of pain and punishment, tipping the balance only so much that Harry did not fall, but falter, head hanging over the edge, heart pumping with the sight of freedom and an ending, eyes wide, breathless with adventure. It was dangerous to rebel, but it kept him sane.

Maybe one day Harry would rebel so much that he found himself free.

That would be the day.

Harry lifted a hand to his throat, eyebrow furrowing as he felt the muscles clenching together. It felt as if a hand was clutching his neck and squeezing it like an orange in a manual juicer. His eyes opened wide as the pain escalated, swirling around him dangerously and making his hands shake in fear. What was happening? Confusion and pain and fear turned his stomach around until it was topsy turvy and Harry rocketed up suddenly, gasping for air, clawing at his throat, heart slamming painfully in his chest.

"Hel..."

He rasped, voice clouded with indecision and fear. His lungs wouldn't obey him and Harry felt tears in his eyes as his hands battled against the inevitable. Harry was dying, here, in his aunt's garden, under his least favourite tree, what an awful way to die. He pulled harshly at his hair, beat his closed fist onto his chest over and over, trying to spark some kind of response from his closing neck muscles. Harry spluttered hoarsely, falling to the ground as black dots started to gather in his vision, as adrenalin pumped in his veins and dulled the pain of death.

He closed his eyes, mouth curved into a pained smile, nervous laughter on the fringes of his consciousness. Harry was terrified, of death, of the pain of dying, of an ending to his pitiful life. He longed to see his mother again, but did not believe in an afterlife for her to exist in, could not bring himself to give false hope of such a thing. As his air way closed and vision blacked out completely Harry could only hope that the general consensus of his school had been wrong, and there was such a thing as heaven. Surely they would accept a freak like him...

...

Harry felt reality swim at the edges of his senses. Sounds fluttered down into the dark cavern he was stuck in, the feeling of soft hands brushing his hair gently as if he were a beloved child thrummed in the crevasse of skin and flesh. Harry felt as if he were stationed at the bottom of the ocean, his ears stinging from the depth and bones chilled from the cold. Bubbles tickled his nose, and he scrunched it, fighting to remember what was going on and what had occurred last. Fighting to remember what it was like to be awake, moving, alive. He did not want to forget.

Harry... had been gardening. He remembered as much. And had... There was a blank spot in his mind which ached against the rest of him sharply, a pinching feeling graced his scar as if his uncle was not dragging him by the ear to his cupboard, but by the forehead. Like an idiot. He felt his skin stretching and threatening to tear, pulling so taught that there were bubbles brimming in the gaps of it. Harry curled his non-existent arms, that felt like someone else's arms and weren't in his control, around himself. He hummed lightly, trying to soothe himself, as he blindly floated in the black goop surrounding him, senses dulled to the extreme. Time wafted in and out of certainty, none of this seemed real, and seconds passed into hours. He tried to count the time by his own heart beat, but he couldn't hear it...

Why?

Harry's eyelashes flickered as he opened them, his skin felt sore and stiff, a biting cold eating away at him, and it took a few moments to come to his senses. He could feel his breath roaring in his ears, his heart pounding aggressively in his forehead. His thighs ached from gardening that morning, and his hands still stung... He was still himself, but where was he?

His eyes flashed open suddenly, as quick as a whip. Survival instinct ingrained within the depths of his mind, and Harry forced himself to focus on where he was. It was just like when Dudley and his friends chased him, he needed to know where he was running to and be aware of his surroundings, or his day would end in pain. Harry saw blackness and took a few moments to realise there was some sort of black blanket flung over his head. He flexed his hands and realised he was holding a stick in his grip... a small stick.

Jesus, if he was going to carry a stick with him at least it could have been big enough to whack someone with. What on earth was he going to do with a stick that small and thin, stab someone in the eye? Well... maybe...

Harry's shoes felt too big and empty and when he wriggled his toes they fumbled without constraint. Although, for once he was wearing socks, something that was a rarity within the Dursley's residence.

Sounds pulsed around him, screams, shouts, faint foreign words, and the thrumming in the ground that reminded Harry of gun shots. He held still, hoping that if he was still enough then the noises wouldn't notice him and take him out of his dark cloth. Harry resisted the temptation to clench his eyes shut, and tried to realise where he was.

Slowly, carefully, as if the black blanket were a delicate Japanese orchid flower – why his aunt insisted on them Harry had no clue – he pulled the blanket gingerly from his head so he could see. Harry peeked wide green eyes over the material, holding his tiny stick rigidly in his right hand, and gazed around the... battle?

There was a heavy tension in the air, the same that Harry felt that day when he had refused to do his chores. There was an insanity, an incredulous feeling, the heavy handed thoughts of rage and imminent pain. But, it seemed to be over, whatever madness that had occurred, it had left the large room in a twisted sort of quiet. The room was large, covered in burns and glass shards and... sand. Sand fell scattered all over the floor, covering it in a thin sheen. Harry saw that he was leaned behind a pillar, stood hiding within the shadow of the grand marble support. Perhaps this would become his least favourite pillar, not because he disliked it for what it was, but for where it left him; in the middle of a battle scene. There was a large absence of destruction, where the pillar had shielded the spot, an empty space on the floor free of sand and dirt and glass. The floor was a very dark brown, almost black, the same colour from Marie's hair at school, with expensive looking floorboards.

Harry lifted his gaze and ran his eyes over the huge golden decorations glued to the white marble wall.

He tried not to grow distracted with the majesty of the place, reminding himself that he might not be safe here, and he did not know where he was. But, it was the most magnificent thing he'd ever seen, huge, arching, humbling, and Harry had only ever been more astonished by the first time he'd seen the library, and had been allowed to read and not mellow in the darkness that had become his home.

He strained his ears and heard shuffled footsteps. Harry pressed himself back against the pillar, for once grateful for his tiny frame, and hoped beyond hope that they would not find him... The warriors that had made a mess of this place, the powerful people who had made screams of torment fill the room. Harry felt like crying, from the shock of it all, the fear that he would be captured by the battle, like a prisoner of war in one of those German concentration camps. He regretted reading about the war deeply now, regretted disillusioning himself to the rottenness of mankind.

Harry's breath came hard in his chest as he felt the footsteps sound louder, encompassing his entire quaking being, it was a booming sound in the quiet of the atrium. He winced as the tentative plop of travel continued on closer to his hiding spot, and his heart stopped and breath caught when he felt the faint vibrations in the floor cease suddenly without warning. He begged his lungs to be quiet and not give him away, and Harry pulled his little pointy stick from the pocket he had been groping it through, dipping his hand inside the blanket that looked more and more like a dress as time went on, and holding it up like a weapon.

Harry was a fast runner, if someone came around the pillar he would run and he would escape, there was a certainty in his desperate thoughts.

"Hello?"

The voice was soft, faint, British... and young. It wasn't gruff and collected like the adult voices Harry flinched away from, it was soothing and seductive and... alluring. It was trying to trick him into coming out and being taken as a prisoner and tortured, well, no thank you. Harry was perfectly fine hiding like a baby behind his big strong pillar.

There was a thump, and Harry tensed, preparing himself to race off. He could see a door, if he squinted, at the other end of the room, but the glasses he had on didn't fit his vision, they were even worse than the ones his aunt had him buy from the dollar store off Kings Street. He guessed he was lucky that he had any glasses at all, otherwise he'd be blind in this new strange place.

The footsteps started again and Harry would have laughed at how frightened he was if he wasn't the one who was frightened in the first place. It was pitiful, he knew, that his heart couldn't stay still and his hands were shaking, but Harry knew nothing here, all he could see was there had been some kind of battle, and a lot of screaming... so, it was probably best to stay hidden, scaredy cat or not.

Harry pushed himself even further into the pillar, flattened his back until he was the pillar. A small pale foot snuck past Harry's line of sight, a little black fabric sneaking out above it, and Harry almost stabbed it with his stick on instinct. Common sense calmed him down and made him aware that it was probably best to understand the situation before he went stabbing people in self defence.

...Its not really self defence if they didn't do anything.

A boy, slightly taller than Harry, and certainly just as thin as a rail, just as thin as Harry, walked all the way past the pillar. For a moment Harry thought he was just going to keep on walking past him, without noticing him at all, but he didn't, and the boy turned and looked at him with an unapproving stare. Harry noticed the boy wore a long black dress just like him, except the ends were frayed and it was thin and dirty in some places, the dresses were both far too large for them, and he worried that they were dressed up for some sort of human sacrifice like those cults you hear about on the news. Goodness knows that his aunt and uncle wouldn't have minded selling him to a cult.

The boy was smooth, with fair skin and no freckles, angled cheekbones that were harsh and sharp looking. His eyes were brown, dark brown almost black like the floorboards except darker, and made his pupils look a lot bigger than they were. The boy's lips were thin and a pale pink, almost grey, and Harry thought they looked terribly chapped, as if the boy hadn't drank anything for a whole day like Harry was forced to once. His hair swirled around him in an ordered type of chaos, as if it were gelled back and styled to look that way – he was very fancy looking.

They looked at each other, eyes trailing up and down. Harry unstuck himself from the wall, standing so his feet were flat on the floor and his dress pooled in black folds over his gigantic shoes. Harry stood, gripping his stick hidden by his humongous sleeve, and stared with wide green eyes at the other child. The other boy's mouth twisted into a smile that seemed fake, and ill practiced, as if he was trying to smile but there was nothing to be happy about so he just copied someone else. Harry didn't bother to smile, more interested in what was going on than pleasantries that he never got to indulge in anyway.

"Do you know where we are?"

Harry asked, his voice sounding far too frightened for his liking. He stiffened, digging into a deep place of strength he used for whenever his uncle got into one of his rages, and calmed himself. He was fine. He was going to be just fine. Nothing could harm him now.

The boy replied, an annoyed undertone to his voice which he probably didn't realise existed, as it was not charismatic in the slightest,

"No."

Harry blinked, a little astounded, but not entirely surprised. No one liked him, so it was not a huge shock that this new boy wouldn't as well. Maybe there was just something about him that put people off. His eyes, maybe? They were a very freaky colour. Whose eyes were green anyway? And such a pale green too? He sighed deeply, loosening the hold on his way-too-small stick so that he could have a better job at stabbing someone without a hand cramp. Great, he was thinking like a psychopath now, and it was only a few minutes into this crazy new world.

The boy sighed, as if Harry's existence in itself annoyed him, maybe Harry was thinking too loudly or something, if telekinesis was even possible.

"I'm Tom."

Harry didn't truly understand why they were apparently exchanging names, nor did he understand what he was going to reply with. Did Tom expect his name now? Was that what was going on? Was this some kind of underhanded plot to steal his name? Harry sighed, again, getting a little bored with this stunted conversation.

"Harry."

He stepped out from behind the pillar and took in the damage on the rest of the atrium, spinning half the way around to get more details. Harry gazed over the other half of the hall, looking at the similar burns, glass shards and sand. ...And a dead looking old guy lying on the ground surrounded by flowers... Um...

"Is this hell?"

Tom's voice made Harry spin around again. He quirked his head to the side in a silent question, wondering what brought on that train of thought. Tom simply raised an eyebrow, gesturing at the destruction and the eerie silence.

Harry asked, thinking about his mother and father,

"Why not heaven?"

Tom laughed, a genuine cynical smile lighting up his face. His eyebrows curled pleasantly, laughing with him, and Harry shuffled in discomfort. What was funny?

"Me? Heaven? With what I've done? The matron always said I was a devil's child, it would only make sense to go to hell."

Harry felt a bout of unexpected sympathy well up in his gut like a stomach ache. He was surprised since he never sympathised with anyone since his problems always seemed so much worse than theirs, so much pettier and non-important. They simply couldn't understand the experiences he went through, living sheltered lives with parents who loved them and gardens they volunteered to take care of. But, with Tom here, he couldn't help but remember how his aunt sometimes called him the devil's child, blaming him for things that couldn't possibly be his fault, and Harry thought to himself that some people possibly could understand what his life was like.

Tom saw Harry's expression and shuttered off into a blank look, his eyes still shining with annoyance. Yeah, Harry thought to himself, I hate pity too. They were stuck like that, staring at one another, for an innumerable amount of time, knowing next to nothing about one another yet somehow feeling camaraderie – they were both lost boys and devil's children.

Many loud multiple footsteps broke them out of it, and they both turned, Harry keeping his small weapon hidden in case he needed to hurt someone. He reminded himself that a battle had occurred not so long ago, and that it might be necessary. Three adults, oh the horror, ran into the grand hall. One fell to their knees beside the fallen old man, holding a stick a waving it about like a nutter, the nutter was a woman with bright purple hair and leather clothes that did not look like suitable battle armour. Two other men scanned the hall, a large black man with a serious face, and a disfigured muscular man with a glass eye adorned in flexible sensible fighting clothes.

Harry put his money on the disfigured man – betting on what he did not know, since he had always been superstitious of glass eyes. Could they truly see nothing? Sounded suspicious to him.

It took a moment for their eyes to find Harry and Tom. Harry saw them murmuring to one another and gesturing, and he glanced worriedly at the boy beside him, seeing that Tom was inconspicuously motioning to the door at the end of the hall. Harry knew he had no reason to trust Tom, but felt like he was the better option, since adults failed Harry constantly and they looked more dangerous.

"He's alive!"

The woman said, her hair... yellow? Harry shook his head, he must have registered the colour incorrectly before or something. Tom took that distraction to race towards the far door, and Harry followed, frightened that he wouldn't be able to keep up and would be trapped with the scary warriors.

A deep voice bellowed,

"Stupefy."

And Harry saw a bright red laser race forward and hit Tom in the back before he could warn him. His comrade crumpled in a heap, possibly dead, but Harry didn't stop running. He was close, he could feel the adrenalin in his veins, the heat in his legs from the chase, and knew he was almost at the door.

"Stupefy."

He heard it clearly again and knew he only had a second to dodge before he died. Harry dived to the ground, seeing the laser whiz past where he had been, and clambered to his feet, desperate to escape. He heard someone swear behind him but was already hot in the chase again, heart beating dangerously, he had to get out, they wouldn't catch him, wouldn't kill him, he was-

…

Harry groaned in discomfort. His uncle had been rough last night, he could feel it in his achy muscles and pounding head. He had a headache, damn, and he had to get up in a minute or his aunt would be hounding on him to make breakfast. Harry arched up like a cat, curving his stomach up until he was a bridge before stretching back down and sighing. Sunlight filtered onto his face, and he felt a shiver against the cold stone floor of his cupboard. It chilled him to the bone and-

Stone?

Harry had a mattress in his cupboard, what the hell was going on.

He opened his eyes warily, refraining from making sound as he took in the room around him through squinted sight and blurry vision. He usually put his glasses by his feet, so he wouldn't roll onto them and crush them in the night, or in a fit of nightmares, but as he shifted his leg he couldn't feel them. Harry couldn't see much, as the room was quite dark, but when he brushed his hand against the floor he did feel, not stone as he had first mistaken it as, but ice cold floor boards. They were terribly dusty and he winced as he thought about having to clean it, would he have to clean it? Surely that would be a demand – and in his head thoughts were already whirring over the supplies needed and the amount of time it may take to clean such thick layers of dust. Harry kicked his leg out, searching with wriggly and goose-bump-cursed toes for his glasses. He swept his legs across the floor, ready to do a fancy manoeuvre with achy legs, almost there, surely his glasses were-

Harry's mind caught up with his body and woke up properly. He tensed suddenly, closing his eyes sharply, and remembered the goings-on of yesterday. Harry was dead. He had choked to death and now he was in some sort of war zone, kidnapped by warrior Nazis and everything was spiralling out of control. What had happened to Tom? Was Tom dead? Did they torture him for information on the other reality? And where were Harry's glasses? What on earth-

Muffled voices echoed through the door Harry couldn't see and into the room, silencing his thoughts as Harry forced himself to relax and pretend to be asleep. He could... What was his plan? What did he know? Harry had to stop panicking and over-thinking everything, it was best to just take some deep breaths and try to calm down. Harry inhaled deeply, sighing when the footsteps passed by his room and the danger of discovery dissipated.

Harry started to sort through what he knew. So, yesterday, or... the last time he was at the Dursleys, he had been gardening before he suddenly started choking and lost consciousness. Then he awoke, already standing, in some sort of black dress with a stick in his pocket. There were sounds of fighting, foreign words, and screams of pain. He met Tom, another boy dressed similarly to him, who also didn't seem to know where he was. Then, with red lasers of death- uh, red lasers that knock people out, Harry definitely needed a better name for them, he and Tom were zapped and crumpled into a heap.

Okay, first suspect would obviously be the Dursleys, poisoning him and shipping him away to some foreign country that was fighting a war. It would explain the strange attire, war even, and foreign words. Harry didn't know much about other countries... at all, although he had managed to watch some kung fu fighting movies while vaccuuming when Dudley went through the 'Bruce Lee' movie phase. Then again, the three kidnappers that had zapped him and Tom were speaking English... so... whatever that meant. Harry was pretty certain that there was some sort of conflict going on, and that he was probably a prisoner of war or... a hostage or something. Maybe the Dursleys tricked them, since Harry didn't know anyone who would be willing to pay a ransom or even call the police for him.

Harry bit his lip in worry, unsure of what was going to happen to him, and what tortures he would experience from this point on. Foreign cultures were usually the bad guys in the books he read, but he hadn't read enough books to have a conclusive outlook on it. ...He shouldn't assume they were going to torture him, Harry knew he wouldn't like someone assuming that about him, but at the same time he should be prepared. If they did torture him – and wasn't that a terrifying thought.

Will it be worse than my uncle? Harry wondered.

Harry froze as light fell onto his face, and a door creaked loudly, sound emanating from behind his head. A shadow fell over him, a darkness pooling under his eyelids, and he heard a cloying girl's voice say loudly,

"He's not awake, he should be awake by now. Maybe we should scan him."

Harry breathed deeply, trying not to panic as the strange woman remained. Another voice, a deeper male voice, called out from the other room,

"Leave him be, we have more things to worry about than mini-Potter. Like where You-Know-Who has disappeared to and what to do with Dumbledore... Get back in here! You said you wanted to be a part of the Order, so you need to help with the actually injured not just stand about."

After a few more breaths and a sigh the door shut again, and Harry opened his eyes. Holy mother of god, that was close. Harry smiled insanely, only just restraining himself from laughing, and let out a deep breath. Wowa. Did that really just happen? He had almost been caught, almost but not quite.