Harry sat on the rough soil, chest still rising and falling from the terrifying fall. Panic gnawed at him, and his eyes darted wildly in every direction. He had no idea where he had landed. The once small and familiar garden stretched endlessly now, a thick and bewildering jungle. For the first time, the boy felt not like the master of his backyard playground but a lost wanderer, tiny and alone.
He knew he needed to get his bearings. The garden was enormous, yes, but somewhere among these towering forests of grass was his home. If he could just see it again, perhaps he could figure out where to go. His eyes fixed on the nearest blade of grass. To him, it stood like a green pillar, smooth but impossibly tall. He swallowed nervously.
"Well… here goes nothing," he muttered under his breath, his squeaky little voice nearly lost in the air.
Climbing was awkward and exhausting. The grass stem bent and swayed under his tiny weight, but with grit and trembling hands, Harry hauled himself up, inch by inch. His fingers clung tightly to the slick green surface, and his bare feet pressed hard against its gentle curve. The wind tugged at him, nearly peeling him off, but he didn't stop. Higher and higher he climbed until, finally, he reached the blade's tip.
There, clinging to the very top, he raised his head. His tiny chest swelled with both exhaustion and relief. Beyond the towering jungle of grass, he saw it—the house. It didn't look like his home anymore. It loomed in the distance, massive and otherworldly, like a strange planet dominating the horizon. The windows shone like suns, the walls stretched like cliffs, and the rooftop was a faraway mountain.
Still, it was familiar. It was his anchor. And judging from its looming position, Harry realized he must have been blown toward the area near the old log, the one he loved to sit on when daydreaming.
With his destination in mind, he began the slow climb back down. Each movement down the blade was even harder than the ascent, the plant trembling beneath him as if eager to throw him off. At last, he reached the ground again, legs wobbling but determination filling his chest. He picked a direction, guided by the looming shape of the house, and began to walk.
The world around him had transformed. Every step took him deeper into a jungle of grass, each blade a towering tree, their stalks so close together that he had to weave between them like a traveler forcing his way through thick undergrowth. Sunlight filtered through the canopy of green, dappling the ground in strange shifting shadows. The air was heavy with the smell of earth and crushed leaves. His tiny feet sank into clumps of soil that felt like hills of rock.
As he pressed forward, movement caught his eye. In the distance, a bright, glossy shape crawled over the blades of grass. At first he thought it was a pebble glinting in the sun, but then its legs shifted, and its round red shell reflected the light. A ladybug. To him, it was the size of a cow.
Harry froze. Its black spots gleamed like dark eyes on armor, its antennae twitching in slow, deliberate arcs. The creature was beautiful—its crimson shell polished to a sheen—but also frightening. His mother's biology books flickered through his memory. Ladybugs, while cute to people, were predators to smaller insects. And at this size… what if he counted as one? His tiny body shivered at the thought of being mistaken for prey. He quickly ducked behind a grass stem, watching silently as the great beetle lumbered away.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Harry pushed onward.
The ground began to tremble beneath his feet, a low rumbling that made his heart seize in panic. The earth shifted, dirt loosening under him. He thought it was an earthquake. His mind raced with terror—had his father's experiments somehow broken the world apart?
Then, with a slow, wet squelch, a rounded head poked through the soil. A pale, slimy creature emerged, its body writhing as it dug. Harry's eyes widened. Not an earthquake—an earthworm. But at his scale, it was monstrous, like a serpent tunneling beneath the ground. The worm's body rippled, glistening in the sun, before it sank back into the soil, leaving the ground trembling again as it burrowed deeper.
Harry's chest pounded, but curiosity fought with fear. He kept walking.
And then, above him, a shadow passed. He tilted his head upward just as the sky exploded with color. A butterfly swooped overhead, its enormous wings blotting out the sun. The patterned scales caught the light, shimmering with blues, purples, and golds, and for a moment it was as though stained-glass windows had been laid across the heavens. Another followed, then another, their wings like great sails, their wingbeats sending gusts of air that bent the grass around Harry.
His mouth fell open. He forgot to be afraid. For the first time since shrinking, wonder replaced his panic. The butterflies drifted above him like living kites, massive yet graceful, their movements slow and serene. He turned in circles, arms outstretched, mesmerized by their beauty.
For a brief, fragile moment, Harry was no longer scared.
He was enchanted.