I have the first 25 chapters all ready
Summary: Harry grows up working on his Aunts Garden and develops a love for it, meeting Samuel and eventually Max, who gives him a Mark of his own. He finds Magic to be a Wonderful Thing. Rating may change later.
Chapter Thirteen for y'all! Show of hands, who thinks the tattoo is important?
It's Green – Chapter 13 – One Little Green Plant, Two
Harry admired the little sprout and flexed his foot despite the pain to see it move. It seemed to have a bit of a shadow behind it now, and Harry resisted the urge to reach and touch the picture; he didn't want it infected after all.
"Now there's only one more thing, and it'll be done. Cover your eyes and promise to not look." Harry looked at Max for a moment, before doing as he was told. He'd thought for a moment that he'd been joking, or making fun of him.
He'd given him something amazing, and if he said that it wasn't finished, it wasn't finished.
"I promise not to look."
Something small, blunt, and hard was pressed to the Mark, and Harry winced at the answering throb it gave to the poke. He heard Max muttering again, and there was another throb before a nice coolness seemed to blanket the Mark. It was a bit like when his bruises were going away, and Harry had a moment to appreciate it before a sharp pain shot up his leg from the Mark, and he had to clench his eyes and hands into fists to resist the urge to see what he'd done. His bruises going away never felt like that before.
After a moment more of the pain, the hard thing was taken away, and Harry was told he could open his eyes.
He looked at his Mark and gasped.
Before, it had looked good, but somehow it now looked MORE. He didn't know what exactly it was, but it seemed as if it had more presence, as if it had been taken from a picture and pasted on, as if it would be flowering as soon as it got warm enough.
Harry looked up to Max and breathed out the most honest thank you he had ever given out, and thought that maybe, maybe, Max understood a fraction of how thankful he really was.
A patch was taped into place over the Mark, and Harry was told that it would fall off in about 2 hours…. Also, did he have a time he should be back at his Aunt and Uncles house?
Harry glanced out the window, and saw it was much later than he thought it was, and a thank you was blurted out before he ran out the door. He felt so light he thought he might be able to fly home. In fact, he wished he could fly home, as his ankle was still a bit sore.
Max Ritter thought that it would be interesting when he came back, and cleaned up his supplies.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Thankfully Harry came back at an appropriate time according to his Aunt, who decided he'd been seen enough and ushered him inside with orders to start up dinner.
Harry started cutting up the chicken breasts that he'd taken out of the fridge earlier, and took secret comfort in the slight throb that still beat in his ankle.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
For the next couple of days, Harry found himself bearing Dudley's usual torments easier, found himself relishing in his Garden work more than usual, found himself happier than usual.
It was Nice.
He humored his teachers and drew animals, dogs, cats, horses, birds, and went further to draw the bird-horse that he'd seen on Max's arm. He even found himself enjoying drawing the animals, and was putting as much thought into their images as he usually put into his plants drawings.
His teacher was so overjoyed that she didn't bug him until the next week to draw animals again, but then she got distracted when she saw the plants he was drawing.
He didn't draw his Mark, because it was his and he didn't want to share it, but he drew some of the interesting plants he'd seen in the first book.
His teacher particularly liked the teacup flower, the one that tipped over and dumped an endless amount of water every once in a while, and liked his practice drawings of hands for when he wanted to draw the tree with a mouth in it's trunk.
Dudley told on him once they were home, of course, and when he was asked why he was drawing flowers that looked like teacups, he reluctantly said that he thought it would be useful to have a flower that would water itself. He wasn't going to say that he was drawing it after seeing it in a tattoo shop.
Aunt Petunia's mouth pinched and her nostrils flared.
"You wouldn't get out of his chores by drawing ridiculous flowers." She hissed. She thankfully let the topic drop, and it gave Harry something to think about.
Harry decided to talk to his teacher about how he could draw hands in a plant, and made comments like how tree branches were like fingers and allowed her to suggest he draw a tree with many hands and arms instead of branches.
She then went on to suggest that he try adding little bits to the hands, like webbing, or claws. Harry was glad that she still thought he should be drawing more animals.
When Dudley next told on him for drawing a tree with hands and a mouth, Harry admitted that his teacher had told him to draw it, to see if he could.
His Aunt and Uncle retreated, sulking, and ordered him to the back yard to start weeding early. Harry did so, and smiled at the tree in the backyard as it's branches waved in the wind.
Harry waved back.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
It had been a little more than a week since he'd gotten his Mark, and Harry was staring at it late one night when it was decided that he would have to go see Max Ritter once more.
Harry had been sitting cross-legged with his foot in his lap, staring at the little sprout, admiring it wonderingly. It was so life like, no one would be able to mistake it for a blob, even at a distance. It was so life like that it almost seemed as if the sprout had grown, and Harry imagines it as it might be if it was more grown, imagining other sprouts of jagged and smooth-edged leaves, stems turning to vine's crawling strands, working their way up his calf and past his knees. Harry glanced at his chest, and wondered at what it would be like to have vines crawling up his chest. To have them crawling up his face and around his eyes. He tried to imagine what kinds of flowers the plant would have, but couldn't imagine past the buds, little hints of some rainbow colour peeking out if you stared hard enough.
It had bled a little a few days earlier, but once Harry rinsed the blood off whatever bit of skin opened had sealed closed again.
His leg started to cramp, so Harry shifted so that his left foot was in his lap instead, sighing and looking at the net of cobwebs that hung above him and waited for his leg to stop being all tingly so he could look at his sprout once more.
Why Dudley thought he could scare Harry with spiders, he didn't know. He didn't know what leap of logic made Dudley think he could scare Harry with a number of things, spiders being one of a long list, with darkness following.
He jogged his knee a little, hoping to speed the process up a little bit more so he could look at his Mark for a little while longer before doing his pushes for the night.
Harry knew they were called Push-ups now, but the childish name for them stuck in his mind. He thought he might add Sit-ups to his routine, as it seemed like a good idea and it was easier to do in his Cupboard than the pushes.
As he watched a spider make it's way across its web to a mosquito who was stupid enough to get caught, he wondered if this was how it would always be, snatching looks at his Mark whenever he was in his Cupboard, and staring at spiders while he waited for his leg to become less numb.
Though, perhaps he could get one on his left ankle, so that he could look at them in turns…?
He looked down at the ankle in question, and thought his imagination must be very good because it looked like he had a similar image of his sprout on his ankle.
But then he blinked and realized that he did have that image on his ankle, and rubbed at it with his fingers, but it didn't come off, or stop being there.
Harry checked his right ankle, and yes, there it was, and it was bigger than it was before. It was about as long as his middle finger now, and the one on his left ankle was only a little shorter than that.
In the peculiar blankness that seemed to hug his mind, Harry thought it was rather odd that the one on his left ankle had grown so quickly, and the one on his right had grown a bit more than a centimeter.
Harry felt panic bubble up his throat, and took a deep breath and swallowed it down. It wouldn't be good if his Aunt and Uncle came and found him having a fit, two Marks on his ankles. Marks he wasn't 'supposed' to have…
And so it was decided that he would have to go see Max Ritter once more.
Tomorrow.
.-~-~-~~-~-~.
Also, to those of you who wanted longer chapters, this one is at the 4 pages mark… When I realized that, I was about to cut it down, but then that would start a chain of shortenings, and I'm too lazy/unwilling to do that.
To repeat, ALL CHAPTERS WILL BE AROUND 3 PAGES EACH, as I'm doing a chapter/day and don't want to be killing my hands trying to keep up with my usual many paged updates. AFTER November I may start to write longer chapters, but that will be when I start updating weekly, and occasionally biweekly.
To all people who write Nano, 3 pages, that's a little less than 2000 words/day. That means that by the end of this November I should have a little more than 50,000 words in this story.
Thanks all for the reviews!
~Doodled93~