Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Thanks!

A/N: Thanks to eternity to my beta-reader Steph! This would not be possible without you!

Harry lay on his bed staring at the ceiling trying to remember all the laws and sub laws of Quidditch he had memorized from Quidditch: Through the Ages. He was nearly through the types of penalty shots when Aunt Petunia yelled at him to get up and start breakfast. He rolled off of his bed, sighing. Hedwig hooted unhappily from her cage on top of his desk.

"Sorry girl, you can go outside later."

Harry wandered down to the kitchen. His khaki slacks kept slipping down; he needed to get a belt if he lost any more weight. All of his clothes were evenmore ill-fitting than usual; he hadn't been eating or sleeping properly since the night in the maze.

"And then it's to the gym with you! That nurse at school said you have to lose another 18 kilos before the start of the term if you want to pass the physical inspection. And there will be no more boxing if you don't!" Aunt Petunia rattled at Dudley as she busied about the kitchen. Dudley had found he could get credit for beating people up by joining the boxing club at school. He'd tried to use Harry as practice the first couple of weeks of the holiday, but Harry was faster than Dudley so none of his uncontrolled punches were able to connect so far. Petunia rounded on Harry when he entered, "And you, you are going with him. The man at the gym said it helps for people to have training partners so you'll be going with Dudley every day. I don't want either of you lazing about this summer."

Harry nodded, but he clenched his fists at her insinuation. Laze about? He'd never spent a summer 'lazing about' at Number 4, Privet Drive. There had always been chores and endless lists of things his aunt and uncle wanted him to do. He took over for his aunt in the kitchen making the modified breakfast for Dudley and the rest of the family. He placed the finished product onto the plates on the table and took his seat. His uncle entered the kitchen, sat andstared down at his plate.

"What is this?" Vernon Dursleygrumbled, his upper lip disappearing under his mustache.

"I told you, Vernon. Dudley has to eat healthy again this summer and we're all going to help him out and be supportive. It won't kill any of us to be a bit more conscious about what we eat, now will it?" Aunt Petunia screwed up her face at the unappetizing plate much the same way that they all were, but she made a pursed smile and started to eat. Harry personally thought this might kill him. He was already on the low side of weight for his age and he wasn't sure he could manage on egg whites with spinach, one piece of dry wheat toast, strawberries and a banana. Dudley looked ready to pass out from just looking at the food, or maybe he was thinking about the exercise regimen he was going to be starting.

The Dursley's and Harry ate in silence and when the breakfast was over Uncle Vernon kissed Aunt Petunia, ruffled Dudley's hair and left for work. Harry was tasked with cleaning the dishes while Dudley tried to convince his mother that he did not need to go to the gym AND diet at the same time. One or the other would suffice, according to Dudley. Aunt Petunia was unmoved by her sons pleas; she'd been utterly mortified by the scolding she'd received from the nurse at Dudley's school.

And so Harry found himself putting on a pair of black gym shorts and a grey t-shirt along with his trainers to go to the gym with Dudley an hour later. As Aunt Petunia was pulling away from the curb at the gym Dudley looked at Harry wildly,

"I'll give you my allowance for the rest of the summer if you help me get out of here."

Harry gaped at Dudley in shock. Dudley wasn't much for begging. Yes, he'd threatened Harry and used physical force, but bribing seemed to be a bit beneath him.

"I can't. Your mum would find out you weren't going, and then we'd both get it. You might as well just get it over with, Dudley. At least we're in it together."

Harry never thought he'd see the day that he'd have to give a pep talk to Dudley. They both turned around and walked up to the doors of PT Fitness. The walls were a butter yellow color and the air conditioning was blowing full blast. Someone had tacked up motivational posters on the wall. The one closest to Harry was an obscenely muscled man bench pressing 45 kilos with "STRENGTH" written in bold block letters they walked through the atrium, they passed under a large marble statue with greek battle gear and winged shoes. The plaque underneath read, "Hermes: God of Gyms and the Olympics". Harry thought the smiling Hermes looked sort of like GilderoyLockheart. He shuddered to remember the annoying Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. The blonde woman behind the desk smiled brightly at them. She was slightly orange and her pony tail bobbed as she spoke.

"Hey there! How can I help you, gentlemen?"

Dudley grunted and looked around nervously. Harry rolled his eyes at him and smiled grimly at the girl.

"Err… We're here to meet with a Mr. Fire?"

"Oh sure, his office is right this way. Follow me!" The woman said, still beaming and motioned for them to follow her behind the desk and down a hallway. She knocked sharply on a door and opened it for the two boys, "Enjoy!"

Her ponytail continued to bob with her as she walked and Dudley trudged in and stood facing the most muscular man Harry had ever seen. The man's t-shirt that looked ready to rip right off of his body if he so much as flexed his (clearly visible) peck muscles. Harry gulped and looked at Dudley, who stared back at him with a similar look of panic on his face.

"Hello boys, take a seat!" Mr. Fire said, motioning for them to take the two hard plastic chairs across from his desk, "Now I'm Mr. Fire, also known as Sergeantbecause I was a United States Air Force basic training drill sergeant. That was a long time ago now though, before I moved to England and ended up going Ex-Pat for my lovely wife."

Harry gulped. Drill Sergeant? Dudley seemed to start physically shaking.

"Now I'm going to do some basic measurements of your abilities, before we set up a summer training schedule. By September, you'll both be so used to your routines that you'll want to continue them on your own. And if you don't well there's always the winter holiday and next summer to beat it into you," Sergeant Fire smiled at them, but it was a hollow smile and Harry gulped again.

"Now we'll head out and get started. These sessions are an hour and a half each day and we'll want to make the most of each of them."

Sergeant Fire led Harry and Dudley through the tour of the facility; they stopped to take measurements of their body fat as well as height and weight. He never commented on any of these measurements though Harry was much too thin and Dudley had enough to share with two others.

Finally, Sergeant Fire led them to a square room that had a matted floor with wall mirrors. The mirrors showed their bodiesfrom every unflattering angle. Dudley frowned at his reflection and sucked in his stomach.

"Now, to start I want to see where you both are from a fitness stand point. So I want you to start off and try to do five reps of what I call the bend and reach. Just bend over and reach between your legs, like this." Sergeant Fire showed the boys what he wanted them to do. Dudley and Harry looked at each other and shrugged.

Seems easy enough, Harry thought and started to do the bend and reach. Both of the boys started the reps and finished without needing much coaching from Sergeant Fire. Next, they had to do rear lunges. Dudley had a bit harder time doing the lunges and at several points almost toppled over from overbalancing his large frame. Sergeant Fire took notes during all of the exercises. He corrected their form when it needed and praised them when they got it right. By the end of the 15 exercises, Harry welcomed the burn the ever so slight burn in his , on the other hand, was sweating up a storm.

"Good boys, good. Okay, so next, we're going to go up to the track and I want you to each either run, walk, or any combination of the two, for one mile. I want you to do whatever's comfortable, but also put an effort in."

Harry ran his whole mile, but was definitely winded by the end. Quidditch training only did so much for his physical fitness, but training for the Triwizard Tournament helped. He also hadn't been sleeping or eating for the last couple of weeks, and that had most definitely hurt him. Dudley could barely jog a quarter of a mile before he walked and he never worked himself back into a jog for the rest of the test.

Sergeant Fire nodded when Dudley finally came in, made more notes on his clipboard and copied down each boy's time. Finally he looked up and smiled at them,

"Alright boys! That's it for today. I want you to go through the stretches I showed you before the run and then you can hit the showers for the day. Tomorrow, I'll have your fitness plans all written up for you both. Since you're training together, I'll try to make sure you're both getting a good amount out of the sessions."

Both boys felt tired as they scrambled back into the car with Aunt Petunia to go home for the day. Dudley groaned and grumbled about how he'd twisted his ankle during the run to rationalize why he'd walked the rest of the mile.

"Well you can stop complaining now Dudley, you'll be going back tomorrow and every day thereafter until September and you will pass your physical tests at school this fall."

"Come on Dudley, you hardly broke a sweat. How bad could it be?" Harry said trying his best to give his cousin a pep talk.

-0000000-

Harry hated when he jinxed himself. The next day when they got to the gym the smiling girl was behind the desk but Sergeant Fire was waiting for them. He grinned at them and clapped his hands together,

"Ready for boot camp, boys?"

Dudley and Harry both nodded and followed their trainer towards the stretching area in the square room. Sergeant Fire had them do jumping jacks to warm up and then led them through a serious of stretches and pushed them to dig deeper into them than they had the previous day. Then it started. Sergeant Fire told them to line up against the non-mirrored wall and start doing lunges until they reached the mirrors in front of them. Then they were supposed to do rear lunges backwards to the wall they'd started at. They did that three times and then started on the next exercise. Instead of showing them how it was done like the previous day Sergeant Fire turned into the drill instructor he'd been.

"Do you think that is a lunge, Potter?"

"I can't tell if you're squatting right, because I'm much too distracted by your crying,Dursley!"

By the end of the conditioning exercises Harry was feeling every muscle in his body but they'd only been exercising for an hour at that point and had a half hour of whatever Sergeant Fire wanted to throw at them left. Which turned out to be another run, like the day before, except this time Harry was given two miles to run and Dudley still had only one. Soon, Harry retracted his original indignation about having to run an extra mile, when Fire followed Dudley for his run.

"Are you a quitter,Dursley? Is your mommy making you do this work out?"

"Do you think you can beat Potter here? He blew right by you on the track and he's nothing but skin and bones. Do you eat both your dinner and his, Dursley? Is that why you both look the way you do? A skeleton is beating you,Dursley. A skeleton with no muscle to speak of. Come on. You can do one mile if he's doing two."

The litany of insults mixed with praise followed Dudley the entire mile. Harry looked back to see Dudley's terror filled face.

After they stretched again and then showered they met Sergeant Fire by the door and he handed them their fitness read outs and their week schedule.

"Tomorrow is an off day, so I expect to see you here bushy tailed and bright eyed on Thursday and ready to do some weight lifting and more running. You might want to take some time in an ice bath tonight, or a bath with Epsom salts to make sure you keep your muscles happy. See you Thursday then!"

Harry and Dudley trudged out the car tired and down trodden. Aunt Petunia didn't even ask how it went this time.

-0000-

The summer dragged on in much this same manner. Harry did his chores, went to the gym, and studied his spell books. As June wore on Harry could feel his body start to get stronger and noticed he was eating better and sleeping more hours undisturbed. He figured if nothing else this exercise prepared him for a time when he might not have his wand and he would have to defend himself.

He started seeing Cedric's dead body less in his dreams and more when he was exercising. He used it to fuel his work outs and to push through the yelling Sergeant Fire decided to turn on Harry once he had gotten Dudley moving in a promising direction.

"I can't believe the things he's allowed to say to us," Dudley said, after a day of relentless screaming while they swam swung hisbag over his shoulder and they started towards the door. "I mean, I said something to Mum about it and she said, 'Well I'm sure it's for your own good now isn't it?'"

Dudley's imitation of Aunt Petunia was spot on and Harry snorted in laughter.

"I'm sure she'd have let you quit, if it weren't for the school nurse checking in all the time," Harry said and held the door open for Dudley to walk through.

"I know, I mean I hate him. And I hate the shite he says, but he was sort of right, wasn't he? I mean, at first, you didn't look like you should be walking upright and you were able to run longer than me. Plus, I can't wait to get back to school. I'm going to look great and there's a girl I've had my eye on," Dudley said and puffed out his chest proudly.

Harry laughed and shook his head and they both crawled into the car to head home.

"How was training today, dear?" Aunt Petunia asked after they'd left the parking lot.

"Oh fine… I almost drowned, because Sergeant Fire wouldn't believe that I had a cramp and made me do one lap too many, but it was fine," Dudley said melodramatically from the front seat, but he turned and winked at Harry. Harry shook his head. Dudley had stopped hating the work outs weeks before when he realized he looked better than he had in years, and that he was actually getting in better shape than some of his neighborhood friends he'd always hung out with. Harry and he had a sort of truce when it came to the exercising. While Dudley still terrorized Harry most times and made fun of him for being a wizard, they had come to commiserate about the terror and the pain that Sergeant Fire inflicted.

-00000-

Harry's summer felt relatively boring by this point in mid-July when he'd done all of his summer reading, as well as the essays he'd been assigned, and still hadn't heard anything from anyone about Voldemort's return. The Daily Prophet mentioned strange disappearances every once in a while, but nothing of substance. He scowled and threw the latest edition on his desk in disgust. He couldn't believe there was no new information. He grabbed a quill and scribbled three letters all in the same vein to Sirius, Hagrid, and Ron asking for any scrap of information they could give him. He'd received a letter from Hermione, who was on holiday with her parents in Greece, but it'd been short and mostly said she' d missed him and would be sure to bring him back a gift. She'd also rambled about the history and wizarding culture of Greece, but Harry hadn't really read that part carefully. He'd been worried about her being out of England possibly in harm's way, but Sirius had told him that Dumbledore had been okay with Hermione's trip, so Harry tried not to be anxious about her returning to England safely.

How much longer would they be safe?

His scar hadn't been hurting, and he hadn't had anyone show up telling him of grave danger. He assumed that was good news, but he couldn't help but grow more anxious by the day. Harry stared outside the window at the stars and wished the waiting was over.