Title: The Boy Who Changed, Chapter 1
Author Name: Pippi Longstockings
Email: R
Spoilers: AU. Written Post-Half Blood Prince
Genre: Action, Romance
Era: Hogwarts Era
Ship(s): D/H
Summary: Dumbledore is turning manipulation into an art-form and Harry is once again his unwilling pawn. Harry has been turned into a weapon against the enemy, but in more ways than those immediately apparent.
Disclaimer: This story is all the property of JK Rowling and her various publishers. I'm a merely a poor plagiarist. Have pity.
Author's Notes: I'll accept all reviews including flames (provided they are constructive, not anonymous and impersonal! I'm not a target for abuse.)
WARNING: this story is heading in a SLASH-direction so if that's not your cup of tea please don't read further.
Betas: The lovely and inspiring Angel and MOI – you've been great in telling me when to cut the crap. ;)
Archive: Just ask!
Chapter One – A Warm Welcome
A bead of sweat dropped to the ground between his hands.
Muscles straining with effort, he hung there, suspended for a short eternity as the Room of Requirement stretched boundlessly away from him in all directions, blurring into distant horizons and vaulting, somewhere high above, and out of sight, into a domed ceiling.
It was a featureless space, and meant to be without distractions. The colours: monochromatic; textures: non-existent, and no comfort to be found in the infinite bleakness.
There was light without any evident source, lacking the flickering animation of candles: it was as unwavering and nebulous as the artificial strip lights found on the Muggle Underground networks. The room was also at an exact 24.7 degrees Celsius: a perfect stasis temperature that removed the need for clothing.
He was vaguely aware of his distaste at this Spartan environment as he balanced precariously on his hands. His legs were ramrod straight and pointed at the invisible roof, body naked and gleaming in the effort of maintaining the handstand. Another bead of sweat traced a rivulet down his flushed cheeks before seeking out his eye, which blinked furiously at the irritation.
But he did not flinch from his position.
His muscles tensed and quivered at the effort of keeping himself perfectly above his centre of mass. Slowly, painfully, awkwardly he began to bend his elbows until his hair, free to gravity, brushed the barren flooring in a grotesque parody of a push-up. He held his position for a silent count of one hundred, made difficult by the effort of keeping his muscles from vibrating under the strain. Blood pounded in his ears as it rushed down into his head, until all he could hear was the hammer of his rhythmic pulse threatening his consciousness. He had been upside down for an hour at least.
Then just as slowly, demonstrating perfect control, he extended his arms once more. He never once wavered in his balance though his arm muscles seemed to temporarily bulge and stretch the skin of his upper arms. Veins stood out against his slim fingers as they lay palm down on the floor, a raised etching on his taught skin.
"Now up further." The careful voice of the Headmaster was soft yet authoritative as the old man watched the efforts of his pupil. He commanded as casually as he would offer a Lemon Sherbet.
He could do little more than clench his teeth in annoyance at Dumbledore's relaxed tone. But after drawing in a whistling breath of air, which seemed oddly bland and recycled in this strange room, he summoned his last reserves of strength.
The pain which throbbed continuously in his aching limbs after hours of this physical endurance was nothing compared to the sudden shot of pain from his nimble fingers, his delicate snitch-fingers, as he raised himself onto his fingertips, his entire 12 stone of compact muscle weighing down on the 10 narrow pads of his digits.
His mind screamed at the pain and a part of him raged that he should be forced to do these near-impossible feats in this blank prison, while his friends sat idly laughing and eating at the Welcome Feast in the warmth of the Great Hall. It was his first day back, a time he should be celebrating the commencement of his final year as a Hogwarts student. He should be reunited with friends that he had not seen or spoken to all summer.
He should be anywhere but here, doing anything but this.
He almost growled at his own careless lapse in concentration. Focus on the task at hand, idiot!
He did not know how long he was balancing there but when the "enough" was whispered, he did not hear it at first. He was concentrating wholly on his pain. As much as his muscles screamed to just melt under the pressure, he forced himself to return to his feet with careful precision, no expression betraying the agony blazing in his hands. He returned to upright with the fluidity and easy grace of a dancer – the practised ease that made even the most complex of manoeuvres look as though they could be performed while asleep.
Dumbledore's expression was unfathomable as his calculating blue gaze swept over the young man before him and taking in the numerous boxes, ropes, vaulting horses and weights arrayed in the background. He had worked the boy hard, making him do a century of press-ups with a crippling weight placed at the base of his spine, first two-handed and then with only one. He had even made the handles of the horse blistering hot with a flick of his wand to test the boy's endurance, who had been relentless in carrying out his every order for the full 4 turns of the time-turner he had used to keep his absence unnoticed from the main body of the school.
It was only their first day back from the holidays after all, it wouldn't do to make the boy late…
"Careless, Harry. Very Careless."
It took all of Harry's weak remaining strength to keep him from lunging at the old wizard. Careless! You just try… He mentally clamped down on his errant anger. Instead, he forced his mind to remain cool to the criticism as the Headmaster continued,
"Have you practiced your Occlumency at all? I felt your mind wavering from the task at hand several times." Harry's lip twitched as even under these bizarre circumstances the Headmaster could still make him feel completely in the wrong.
"Surely you understand why all this is of vital importance? We need you at your physical and mental peak when the final confrontation comes." Dumbledore's voice was quiet and shaming.
But then he smiled, allowing his eyes to crease into a myriad of tiny wrinkles. "But you have done well."
Dumbledore took advantage of the pause to look over his young charge, whom he hadn't seen for the long summer months since the end of Harry's sixth year. He was taller. Not as tall as his friend, Weasley, the gangly red-head, but he'd certainly shot up. And unlike his friend, he'd filled out to match in that strange butterfly metamorphosis of adolescence.
No longer was Harry the product of sun-deprivation and starvation rations that he always seemed on his return to school after a summer in the Dursleys' "care". Fresh air and the torturous regime he had been forced to endure at the Headmaster's behest had broadened his chest, corrected his abysmal posture, returned colour to his anaemic flesh and had wrought the distinct pattern of musculature on his wiry frame. Not quite Schwarzenegger, but a step in the right direction.
The sinuous swell of his upper arms rippled as he flexed them, pectorals tensing on his tanned chest which was smooth, hairless and glistening under a thin layer of sweat. His broad ribs tapered gently down into a slender waist beneath the hard contours of his abdominals and the line of his hip bones sloped gently into the dark hair at his groin where his flaccid member lay, thick and unselfconscious.
But the greatest change was in his face – his cheeks had lost the gaunt impression left by the half-a-grapefruits of Dudley's doomed diet. Now his cheeks had hollowed in a way that left him looking rugged, designed. The dark shadow of stubble had appeared along his jaw-line. Harry had never had to bother shaving before, or at least no more than as a token gesture to the baby fluff on his upper lip, but now it was just another change he had had to adapt to.
Dumbledore spoke again, satisfied with Harry's appearance. "The others will barely recognise you, Harry, my boy... Now run along and join the feast, but not a word of all this to your friends, mind?"
Harry nodded his obedience, docile as a dog as his mind snatched at the small praise like a starving man desperate to find meat on a discarded bone. He was partly disgusted at his own subservience to this omniscient, patronising, damned twinkly-eyed old man, but his better judgement prevailed. His guilt prevailed.
Remember you're doing all this for Sirius, Harry. You deal with anything they throw at you. Just need to work harder on the meditation, is all.
Harry's body virtually sighed with him in relief as the first jet of warm water hit him, cleansing him of his fatigue and pain, which had settled into a mild ache in only his very fingertips.
Harry had been surprised at how quickly his body had begun to recover and adapt to his abuse of it. The training programme had only begun that summer.
It had been a year since Sirius' death and Harry still hadn't bounced back as he had been expected to. Harry had been furious: he had been used! They (that 'They' who always knew best, that 'They' who were older and wiser, that 'They' who treated Harry like a child) had kept him in the dark and this time Sirius had paid for his ignorance. When were they going to realise Harry wasn't this Golden Boy they could simply manipulate?
Harry's sixth year had been one of rebellion. Every year the death-toll of sacrifices to the Dark lord had grown and yet Harry had survived unscathed. A bruise here, a lightening-bolt scar there, but nothing that could compare to what others had endured.
He'd had enough.
It was a painful paradox that Harry had had to endure: he was responsible, and yet not allowed to take responsibility. He was guilty, but could not absolve himself. And so he had been forced to make a decision. The only decision, he realised with a bitter pang, he had ever truly been allowed to make without Dumbledore's meddling: it was someone else's turn to be the Hero of the Wizarding World. Harry's contract had run out the moment, the heart-wrenchingly agonising moment, in which Harry's last remaining family, his Godfather, had disappeared through the veil. Harry was going to make his own decisions from now on.
But Harry had been fooled once again. Dumbledore had spotted his Golden Boy's unrest and feelings of futility. He saw Harry's fury and nurtured it: he had given him a year to brood and rage without interruption. If there was one thing Dumbledore had a healthy respect for it was Destiny - with or without his interference Harry Potter could not escape the Prophecy. He was fated to confront Voldemort, willing or not.
And, as predicted, Harry had snapped.
Harry knew as well as Dumbledore that he had a responsibility to those around him. A year of disappointed glances from Ron and Hermione, a well-placed comment about "what Sirius would have wanted from his Godson…" and Harry had broken down.
When Harry had been at his weakest and most desperate Dumbledore had summoned him to his office. There had been words, accusations and tears, but finally the Headmaster had provided the solution - a way to turn Harry's hatred of everything and everyone, including himself, into something useful. Harry had allowed himself to be manipulated one last time.
Harry smiled bitterly as he recalled even the loss of his old glasses to an Opticus Servatus spell that rendered them useless. Perfect vision was a tool, glasses were an impediment. Everything in my life is used to some sort of advantage. Hell, I don't even care anymore.
It was true. Because only one on the edge of despair would have agreed to the rigorous training schedule that had been demanded of the Boy Who Lived for every day since his sixth school year had ended.
He had only managed it with the aid of a few averted eyes at the Ministry, some well-placed threats to the Dursleys and the illicit use of a Time-turner.
Every day began at 5:30am on the dot, forced from his pallet bed that at first had seemed like sleeping on concrete and nails, and into an ice-cold shower. Then he would run without food or drink, enduring the fierce contractions of his empty stomach, every day building up his speed and endurance for hours on end.
A quick flick of the Time-turner.
Then he would go back to the Dursleys' for breakfast, eating only enough to keep himself going and drinking only water. Then he would spend hours in arduous stretches and gymnastics, building his musculature until his slender body lost all its fleshiness and became all the plane lines and slender angles of concealed steel beneath his olive skin.
A quick flick of the Time-turner.
Endurance training meant that Harry kept his hand for arduously long stretches over a candle flame until the skin began to blacken to char and stink of rotting flesh and Harry nearly passed out from the experience.
A quick recovery spell and a flick of the Time-turner.
A sparse lunch followed by meditation in as many varied and uncomfortable positions as Harry could contrive – hanging one handed from a greased bar above a well-trafficked road had become his personal favourite. If he could remain focussed during that, he could remain focussed through everything.
Harry blinked as he stepped out from the steaming jet of water and ran a hand through his water-slicked hair as he used the other to wrap a towel round his narrow waist. He automatically reached for the strange crystalline bottle of opaque fluid that he had been given to keep his energy up and vitamins balanced and took a small sip; Dumbledore had warned him that it was a rare potion. So he licked his lips, collecting any of the last drops of the musky sweet brew.
Absently Harry ruffled his hair as his eyes landed on the time turner to check how long he had left before he caught up with the Present. 5 minutes. Crap.
It was barely a minute of hasty changing before Harry was jogging up to the imposing doors of the hall.
He stood for a moment, a lopsided smirk tugging at the corner of his lips as he contemplated being reunited with his friends, wondering if they would even notice the change in him: the fact that the new Harry could do uncountable back flips in quick succession, best even the magically-augmented equivalent of Jackie Chan with his eyes shut and even the poker-faced Draco Malfoy in the art of aloof disdain. With a sigh, he realised, probably not. And I'm not allowed to tell them either.
Harry shrugged as he pushed the great door open wide enough to step through. It was less than a second before his presence was noticed. The silence was deafening as every eye became fixed on the new arrival.
AN: For those not used to British measurements, 24.5 C is around 76F and 12 stone is 168lbs.