Roseworms Arising!
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Chapter 2. Place of Change
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"A nice house you've got there", a cheerful voice sounded behind Harry, shaking him from his thoughts. He had a snarky reply that would've made Snape proud ready on his lips, but all that came out was an unintelligent "Uhhh... Yeah.." since the previous witty comment was lost somewhere between taking in the speaker's appearance and answering.
Harry wasn't a rude boy by nature, and would have to be forgiven for his staring. He had little doubt anyone living in this world or maybe even other worlds could take in the man before him without a blink. For one, the man was short. Harry's height short. And he was short for his age, 9 and proud of it, to begin with. For another, the man was wearing a dress. And not just any dress, at that, but a frilly, ribboned, lacy, pink dress with neon green sparkles Harry could've sworn were moving and twinkling at him.
Another fact he noted was the goggles the man was wearing, as well as the upturned frying pan on his head, tied to its place with what appeared to be a jellyfish tentacle. Harry wondered absently if it burned. The man seemed to notice how Harry's gaze kept drifting to the baby blue goggles with bottle bottom lenses and smiled proudly, raising them from his eyes.
"They're dead useful for seeing Flinkers", he explained knowingly, as if expecting Harry to understand what he was talking about. Not one to like appearing dumb, Harry just nodded as if he did. There was a long silence of the man beaming at Harry as if expecting him to say something. When the man showed no sign of stopping the beaming or dropping the expectant air, Harry nervously cleared his throat and tried to come up with something to say.
"Uh..." was all he got out before he stopped, but this time it wasn't his own fault – for the Dursleys had apparently chosen that moment to come back. Feeling the sinking feeling of dread dropping in his stomach like the weight of a thousand bricks, the same type cluttering the Dursley lawn at the moment, Harry wondered why they had come back so fast. The trip should've taken several hours, still. His wondering was answered, when Uncle Vernon clambered out of the car, not noticing the state of his house, muttering something about forgetting his wallet – Harry noted idly that there would be no wallet for him to pick up, anymore – turned around and- froze.
Harry feared his Uncle had broken, for a moment, so utterly still he was, almost not breathing. This worry quickly disappeared as Uncle Vernon's face began to change colours in a rapid succession, first to a ghostly pale, then from an ugly pink to green matching the neon spots on the strange man's dress. Harry risked a glance to his way, pondering when Uncle Vernon would notice the oddity standing next to him, and what he would do if he did. His relatives hated anything odd, after all, possibly even more than they hated coming home to find said home a pile of rubble.
"BOY!!! YOU!!! YOU-!!!" his Uncle apparently had trouble getting words out, based on the amount of sputtering he was doing. His spit spattered the ground and Harry flinched away from the range and then reconsidered this move, when his Uncle made to grab him – only to be stopped by the hand of the strange, extremely short man with his pink dress and neon green sparkles, smiling as before, appearing not at all phased by the turn of events.
"Are you the owner of that fine house there? Lovely work you've done with it! And look at all the Flinkers it's attracting! Simply delightful! Would you mind telling me what gave you the idea of blowing up your house like that? I must find out a way to replicate the events! This is just wonderful!" the man spoke fast and happily, shaking Uncle Vernon's suddenly limp hand like a windmill.
"Who are you?" was all Uncle Vernon finally managed to stutter out, staring at the man as if he was a particularly disgusting, overgrown fly worm.
"Oh! Pardon my manners, we're supposed to introduce ourselves first, yes, I remember now! I must have caught the interest of some Liptygroops, they like cooking appliances after all. I will have to remember that the next time I go looking for Flinkers, indeed.. Oh, right, I was introducing myself! My name is Xenophilius Lovegood, lovely to meet you!"
Uncle Vernon was doing a good impression of Harry's staring himself, not that he knew of it and even if he did, would admit it. Seemingly shaking himself out of his stupor and deeming the man not worth talking to or acknowledging, Vernon yanked his hand back to himself – Mr. Lovegood had a surprisingly strong grip – and turned back to Harry, a furious glint in his eyes.
"Explain, boy!" was all he said. Harry swallowed nervously.
"Um, well, you see – it, uh. The cupboard door- I mean, the wii- the- Uh... The house... blew up. It just, uh, exploded. Boom. All of the sudden. I didn't do anything. Honestly."
Harry could tell his Uncle didn't believe him for a second, and for once he was right not to. Usually Harry had no idea how some of the strange things that occurred around him happened, but this time he was quite sure it had something to do with his experiment. He figured he couldn't really blame his Uncle Vernon for what he did next – blowing up someone's house usually ended up with the cause behind the bars, after all. Therefore he wasn't overly surprised when his Uncle simply pointed with one hand towards the street, and harshly breathed out the words: "Go. Don't come back."
Harry glanced towards the car where Aunt Petunia was sitting in stupor, mouth open and gaping, the – really ugly – picture of shock. Dudley was too fat to turn around in the car, and had apparently been playing with Piers Polkiss, one of their neighbours' kids, and hadn't yet even noticed that anything was wrong. His back was turned towards Harry and for some reason the young wizard was glad he wouldn't have to see his cousin's pug face last before leaving. Be thankful for small wonders and all that.
Shrugging his shoulders slightly, Harry started to wander off down the street, wondering where he could go and completely forgetting about the strangely silent Mr. Lovegood, until he noticed the man genially walking right next to him and stopped, a good few blocks from the ex-Dursley residence. Blinking at the man, Harry tilted his head questioningly. Mr. Lovegood tilted his head the other way and blinker very purposefully back. Harry frowned. Mr. Lovegood smiled. Scowling, the teenage wizard was ready to ignore the man when he spoke.
"As delightful as this game is, it appears that you are without a roof on your head, young man."
"Harry", Harry reminded him, feeling somewhat suspicious of what the man was going to say or do about his dilemma.
"Right, Hairy – as you can see, I'm quite bald, so feel free to call me Baldy! Right, right, so since you're without a roof, how would you like to have a floor on your head, instead? Our house is quite lovely, I'm sure you'll like it there, and Luna will be so happy to get a new pet! You can even get the second bed under the porch if you want!"
Harry blinked. Then blinked some more. After getting bored of blinking at Mr. Lovegood and Mr. Lovegood blinking back at him – it took somewhere around 10 minutes before Harry blinked at the wrong turn and Mr. Lovegood exclaimed "Got you!" – Harry tried to think of the offer seriously. While Mr. Lovegood appeared fairly off his rocket and not the least sensible, it's not like he had much choices unless he wanted to become snack for some street thug or get taken in by the police.
Shrugging, Harry offered his hand to the beaming man before him, and had barely the time to say "Sure, Mr. Baldy", when he felt the squeezing sensation of being pulled through a straw and the orderly houses and clean streets disappeared from his sight, to be replaced by a very strange house that looked slightly like a mushroom painted by Picasso. While puking his guts out, Harry sympathized strongly with all liquid beverages of the world. After finally reaching some resemblance of normal skin tone instead of the zombie gray he had been sporting, Harry turned towards Mr. Lovegood who was curiously poking at his former stomach contents with a stick.
"What was that?" Harry asked, after stealing the stick and throwing it away to the disappointment of a pouting Mr. Lovegood.
"That, my dear boy, was apparating! At least that's what the general wizarding population calls it! But we know better, don't we, Hairy? It is most certainly a dimensional hop caused by the disturbance of Hinkletweets with the light particles! Now, shall we go and introduce you to Luna? I'm sure she's already waiting impatiently!"
Harry blinked, did a double take, and tried to get his brain to stop repeating the words "wizarding population", before coming to the conclusion that the things he had done so far were, indeed, the forbidden M-word instead of "Freakishness" – though he was quite fond of that word, it being his name for the longest time and all – and apparently there were enough people of the same nature as him out there to be called a population. Unless Mr. Lovegood had imagined them all up, that is. Finally finding the will to answer the beam on Mr. Lovegood face with one of his own, Harry grabbed the hand offered to him, and followed the dizzyingly sparkling man towards the Picasso-esque Mushroom.
Meanwhile, in an unremarkable swamp somewhere in the forests of Albania, a single morass burped forebodingly, plupping out a pink carrot that proceeded to float around.
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AN: Thousands of thanks to the one review by the lovely Luna Potter - I don't know why this story has had so little hits, but oh well. This chapter is all for you. Sorry that it wasn't Trelawney, but I had already decided on Good-Ole-Xeno. Thestrals is a nice idea, I think I'll use that if you don't mind - I hadn't thought of it myself.
Pairings are still undecided, so do offer suggestions.
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Next Chapter: Luna, learning to be a good pet and Snape makes an appearance! And what's up with the carrot farms in Albania!?