Chapter 2

A week had passed since Harry had lost control over his magic and very little had changed. He no longer was crying but he still kept himself closed off from the world and refused to sleep at night.

He had received letters from Remus, Hermione, Ron, and even one from Ginny. But he let them all go unanswered. In fact he wouldn't write at all if not for the fact that he needed to write the Order of the Phoenix every three days to let them know he was alright. But no letter could ever convey just how much he was not alright.

All his letters to the Order were essentially the same thing,

I'm still alive, and my relatives are being just fine.

Please do not respond I do not need any help.

I'll write again in three days.

The letters from Ron and Hermione were completely predictable and entirely unhelpful,

. . . don't blame yourself . . . gone to a better place . . . everything will be alight . . . he'd want you to move on.

The letter from Ginny was unpredicted in itself so Harry was actually mildly interested in what it might say. He was almost surprised when she said pretty much the exact same thing. Harry thought she might understand him just a little better because of her experience with Voldemort in his second year. But such was not to be.

He didn't really care about whether or not they worried about him. They actually both have families who love each other and will always be there for them. Harry's thoughts had only grown more and more negative with each passing day. The punishment that Harry was enduring was obvious to any who simply looked at him. Black circles like ink constantly hung under his eyes, his face was unshaven and growing ever more stubble. His body, which had always been skinny, could now only be described as emaciated. Such is to be expected as he barely touched any food. His face was becoming gaunt and ever more like Sirius just after he had escaped from Azkaban.

Harry simply passed from day to day trapped in the torture of his own mind. So bad was his condition that even his relatives could not bring themselves to be their usual nasty selves. Indeed they could not even ignore the boy when they saw how serious was the boy's depression. Harry found it bitterly ironic how the Dursleys would pity him and actually try to care about him now that he wanted them, more than ever, to just leave him completely alone.

Thankfully after shattering all the windows for a kilometer, they had backed off and now completely left him to his own devices only just barely checking to make sure that he was actually still alive.

Harry was once again outside in the backyardin the pitch of night exactly one week after losing control and shattering the windows. He laid on his back and let his hands rest under his head with his arms out. He found that being outside and looking up at the stars would keep in a blissful peace that would slowly fade away as the sun rose. But for now he was content to have his mind empty of all emotion and thought as his gaze rested on the heavens.

The bitterness he felt toward the rest of the world had not faded in the slightest and in fact had only sharpened itself. How he hated that he was supposed to save all these people, with their families, and their fun times, and their completely perfect fucking lives. He, a boy who had absolutely nothing to live for was expected to defeat a dark lord who had taken everything Harry had ever truly wanted. And not even once but twice!

But Harry realized that after everything Voldemort had done to him, that there was still one thing that he hadn't taken from Harry, and that was Harry himself. Harry Potter was still here. And that is why Harry felt a hate for Voldemort more passionately than he had ever felt anything ever before.

Harry stood up and pulled a small blade from his pocket. Holding to his hand he said to the world around him, "Everything I've ever wanted you've taken from me. Twice you have taken my family. You are the reason that everything is wrong. I hate you. I hate you for making me hate everything else. But you made a mistake. You left me here. I'm still alive. And I will make you pay for what you have done. I swear that I will have my vengeance on you. If it kills me I swear that I not rest until you are dead. I swear I will have my vengeance on you, Voldemort, I swear it on my blood." And with that last word Harry sliced into the palm of his hand with the blade making a slice about two inches long. Feeling the searing pain of the blade against his hand was almost a relief compared to the pain he felt emotionally the past few weeks. Balling up his fist he squeezed the blood from the wound and watched as the blood streamed from his fist and dripped to the ground making a small patch of red on the otherwise green lawn.

Harry ripped the sleeve off his t-shirt and wrapped his bleeding hand with the cloth to stem the bleeding. Taking one last look to the stars he made his way into the house where he went to his room and fell asleep for the first time in three days.

Another week had passed since the night Harry made his vow. This past week had seen a great change in the life of Harry Potter. Harry now trained himself everyday, pretty much all day preparing for the day when he would fulfill his vow. His days now started with Harry jogging for as long as he possibly could before collapsing. Quite a few times Harry had to drag himself back to the Dursley's as he would collapse away from their property. And upon returning Harry would put himself through a battery of pushups in the backyard and pull ups using a low branch on the tree in the backyard. When his arms could barely lift themselves Harry would stop and make his way indoors to shower. Immediately after he would shut himself in his room and do his homework, which he completed on the fourth day, and now he simply read and reread all of his school books, even the divination books.

Harry was a little more than surprised when on the second day of his training a book was delivered to him that fully detailed Occlumency and Legilimency. According to note attached to it, the book was from Dumbledore asking Harry to read up on the subject as much as he could before resuming lessons with Snape. Harry had other ideas however. With this book he now took it upon himself to fully learn occlumency and legilimency so that he could protect his mind from Voldemort and never have to submit to another humiliating lesson with Snape dredging up all of Harry's bad childhood memories.

Much to Harry's surprise, learning occlumency was far easier when learning legilimency as well. Knowing exactly what happened to his mind in a legilimency attack made it far easier for Harry to defend his mind against one. When Snape had told Harry to clear his mind, what he meant was to control one's emotions so that the person does not concentrate on relieving memories but instead focus's on the task at hand, namely repelling the invading mind. Legilimency only works when the person can't detach themselves from the memory being ripped from their mind. Similarly, Occlumency is little more than a mental discipline to recognize foreign forces within the mind. The more organized and logical the mind is, the more effective Occlumency is. Eventually occlumency can be so developed that no mind affecting magic will work on the person.

Harry's progress with both went slowly but smoothly. Within a week Harry had learned enough that he could sleep at night without having any Voldemort induced nightmares. Not to say that he didn't have nightmares, they were just products of Harry's mind. Harry could also extract recent memories from his relatives minds, through simple eye contact. Harry had little doubt that if he were to actually cast Legilimens on any of them that their entire lives would be bared to him. But that would lead to all kinds of trouble with the ministry that Harry wasn't really in the mood to deal with. But Harry had hope that soon he would reach the point where he would be able to fully penetrate unshielded minds, and be able to lightly probe a moderate occlumens.

One week after had begun training he could scarcely believe the changes his body had undergone. The first thing was that sometime between now and the beginning of summer he had grown several inches and now stood a respectable 5'9", he no longer needed his glasses for reasons he knew not. Just as strange his body seemed to be filling out at an unnatural rate, his body, which couldn't have weighed more than 120 lbs., now weighed at least 145 lbs., and there wasn't an ounce of it that was fat. His appetite had increased dramatically when he began to train, so drastic was the change that his aunt had actually wanted to take him to a physician to make sure he wasn't sick or something.

Harry knew that he would get bigger over the summer due to his training, but he never thought he would get these kind of results, much less in a week! To anyone else this would be seen as a blessing, but Harry barely noticed that in a week he had developed a body that people work years in the gym for. All he ever thought about was the revenge he would take on Voldemort, how he would not let Sirius's death be in vain.

It was on this day, a week after starting to train, that Harry was taking a run midday through the park. The weather of the day was stiflingly hot, the TV said the temperature had risen to over eighty degrees. Because of this Harry was running in shorts without his usual top. A year ago Harry would have been embarrassed to have been seen with so little clothing, now he couldn't care any less. Everyone in the town thought he was a young hoodlum so what did he have to gain by trying to appear respectable? At least he was comfortable.

As Harry ran through the park he noticed that there was a group of three girls walking through the park. Harry would not have given them a second glance except that he noticed that they had definitely seen him and were actually pointing at him.

Great now I have some bloody girls staring at me. Probably laughing at how stupid I must look. Oh who cares? Fuck them. Focus on the run, he said to himself. But he found it almost impossible to do as he could actually hear them begin to giggle. Harry put on an extra bit of speed to try and get away as fast as he could.

He turned around one last time only to be even more surprised at the events unraveling. Dudley and his gang had surrounded the girls and were making all kinds of rather rude gestures and innuendoes. Harry could actually hear Dudley say to one of them, "Come on baby, you know you want it. You know you want it from me."

Harry turned around and started towards the group. If there was one thing Harry couldn't stand it was to see people push other people around, the fact that there was an underlying possibility of sexual assault in this situation further compelled Harry to intervene. As he ran closer he noticed the three girls were all very attractive and, like Harry, had chosen to wear very little due to the heat. Harry actually paused, maybe he was wrong, he knew that some girls actually liked to dress very suggestively and then have guys try and pick them up. Who knows maybe they actually enjoy what Dudley and his gang are doing, maybe it's what they want, Harry thought to himself.

Just then Dudley grabbed one of the girls and she cried out for help, Well that answers that, and Harry ran full speed towards them. No one appeared to have noticed Harry until he was no more than a few meters away and said in a calm deadly serious voice, "Leave them alone."

Dudley and his gang all spun around to see Harry standing there by himself with nothing more than his fists. Dudley's friends laughed at Harry but Dudley himself actually looked slightly frightened. He alone knew exactly what Harry Potter was capable of, and he was in no mood to be on the receiving end of that. Trying to avoid a confrontation he said rather eloquently, "This doesn't concern you, Potter. Just get out of here. Turn around and walk away"

Harry for his part was rather surprised that Dudley had actually come to fear him and was actually backing down from a chance to publicly humiliate him. I guess Moody must have really put some fear in them. "Sorry, but the only people who will be leaving are you and your friends," Harry said in a voice so confident that he surprised even himself. He was trying to tell himself that he should be afraid that he was outnumbered five to one, but something deep down just told Harry that he could overcome these odds.

Dudley clearly was restraining himself trying diplomacy one more time instead of giving in to the urge to simply punch Harry. "Look, Potter, I know about the rules you have to obey, you know that you can't do anything here so just save yourself the time and trouble and leave now."

"Wow, Dudley. I must say that I'm amazed. I had no idea that you could actually speak that well, perhaps if you tried that more often you would have better luck with the ladies. But clearly these girls want nothing to do with you, so save yourself the time and trouble. And I assure you, you want to save yourself the trouble."

Before Dudley could even reply one of Dudley's friends whose name Harry remembered as Malcolm, swung a right hook at Harry's head. Harry moved at an almost unnatural speed and dodged the fist. Harry found his body simply moving on it's own accord as though this was some kind of reflex. His body spun around as his leg kicked out and nailed the boy right in the temple. Malcolm dropped to the ground and didn't move.

For a moment there was a complete stillness. Harry readied himself for what he knew would happen next. Dudley and his three other friends, Piers, Frank, and Nate, rushed him all at once. Harry couldn't quite explain how he did it but he just found his arms and legs moving, kicking, and punching, almost seemingly out of their own accord.

Piers tried to rush Harry and tackle him, Harry simply sidestepped the attack, and grabbing his shirt, he basically threw him to the ground. Nate and Frank were the next to attack Harry, and both of them simply tried throwing every kind of punch know to man trying to hit Harry. To Harry it seemed as though their punches were both slow and weak as he dodged and blocked them until he nailed Nate with an uppercut. Harry felt Nate's jaw clack shut, as his fist smashed into the bottom of his chin, the blow was so strong that Nate was lifted off his feet and sent unceremoniously to the ground. Harry then spun around and jumped off the ground and lashed out his foot in a roundhouse kick that landed directly on the side of Frank's face. Blood flew from his mouth as more than one tooth was dislodged by the kick. Frank fell to the ground and did not move again.

Dudley had yet to make any kind of really aggressive action but upon seeing four of his friends slapped around like they were dolls made him attack Harry. To Dudley's credit he wasn't the leader of the gang for nothing, he must have weighed at least 230 lbs. and now that he was into boxing, most of that weight was from muscle. Harry knew that if his cousin actually managed to land a punch that he would be done for. So Harry dodged every attack until something told him to duck.

He crouched down just as Piers had gotten back up tried to dive on Harry's back. Instead he went flying over Harry and landed clumsily on Dudley. Dudley more or less threw Piers away from him as he resumed his attacks on Harry. Harry began to feel tired and felt his body slowing down. Finally Dudley managed to glance a fist off Harry's side. Although it wasn't even a direct hit, it still knocked the breath out of Harry and sent him back a few feet. Harry dropped to a knee to try and regain his balance and his breath. Harry looked up just in time to see Nate give him a swift kick to his chest. Harry's vision blurred as the wind was once again forced from his lungs.

In an instant Harry knew that he was finished. Dudley, Nate, Malcolm (who had regained consciousness) and Piers were all standing over Harry. "This is what you get for trying to play the hero, Potter," Dudley said.

Harry couldn't begin to describe the effect those words had on him. It was the same thing Snape told him last year. Harry Potter just had to be the hero. And it had costed him Sirius. Harry felt the anguish of Sirius's death and the hate he felt for Snape wash over him. In an instant he was on his feet moving so quickly it seemed like Dudley and his gang were barely moving at all.

Harry gave Piers a roundhouse kick that landed on the boy's temple, Harry knew that such an attack could be potentially fatal, but something in him just stopped caring. Malcolm tried to punch Harry, but Harry simply stopped the fist in his hand as though it was a lightly tossed tennis ball. Malcolm had just enough time to look surprised before Harry twisted his arm violently breaking the arm and dislocating the shoulder and bringing him to his knees. Just as he began to scream Harry brought his hand down in a punch straight to the bridge of Malcolm's nose, the bone broke under his knuckles and he fell to the ground unconscious.

Piers once again tried to run and tackle Harry, but Harry didn't simply dogde the attack this time, instead he stepped forward and jabbed Piers just before he tackled him. Piers had blood streaming down his face from his nose, but he didn't even get a chance to run away. Harry grabbed his shirt and head butted him. Piers cried out as even more blood began to flow, but Harry simply spun around and tossed Piers directly into Dudley once more. This time Piers's head knocked into Dudley's. Piers fell to the ground out of the fight, whereas Dudley staggered for a bit before regaining his composure and made to attack Harry again.

Harry waited for Dudley to come to him, which he did rather quickly, swinging madly. Harry dodged the first two punches but grabbed the next one and pulled Dudley off balance. As Harry pulled with one arm he used the other to punch Dudley's outstretched arm and felt the bone break under his fist. Dudley stumbled forward as Harry drove his knee into Dudley's gut and then brought down his elbow to the back of his neck. Dudley fell to the ground but quickly stood back up. Unfortunately for Dudley, as soon as he was on his feet Harry punched him square in the jaw, feeling for the second time that day a jaw breaking. Dudley stood there for a moment before his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground.

Harry was breathing heavily with sweat running down his entire body. He wasn't really sure of what he should do at this point. He was completely exhausted, he could barely even stand, the pain in his hand told him that the last punch to Dudley's jaw had likely broken something in his hand. Harry stood there breathing for a moment before deciding he should probably get back to Privet drive and ice his hand. He started to walk away when he heard some shuffling behind him.

He spun around expecting to see one of Dudley's gang attacking him but was mildly surprised to see the three girls whom he had completely forgotten about. They were now looking at him wide-eyed in amazement and Harry couldn't help but realize that they were all really quite pretty. One of them had shoulder length dark hair and brown eyes, another had slightly longer blond hair and blue eyes, the other had neck length brown hair and brown eyes. Harry snapped himself out of his reverie, now was not the time to be checking out girls. He did notice they were all looking him up and down giving him very appraising looks. He cleared his throat, which seemed to bring the girls back to reality. Harry opened his mouth to say something, but he realized that he didn't really know what to say so he simply nodded and turned to leave.

"Wait!" one of the girls called after him.

Harry didn't particularly feel like talking with these particular girls, now that he was closer and had recognized all of them. "What do you want?" he said without turning around.

"We just wanted to say thank you," another one of the girls said.

"No problem. If that's all, I'll be on my way," Harry said once again starting to move away.

"Wait!" they called after him again.

"What?" Harry said spinning around now glaring that these girls wouldn't just let him leave.

"You're Harry Potter, aren't you?" the dark-haired girl asked him.

"Yea, I am," Harry responded.

"My name is Sam, these are my friends, Nicole and Beth," she said pointing to her blonde and brown-haired friends respectively.

"I remember you all from school, you all used to laugh at me when those guys over there used to beat on me," he gestured towards the unconscious forms of Dudley and his gang.

"That was a long time ago, Harry," Beth said, "We were just kids."

"But even so it was awful of us to have ever laughed at you. Those jerks over there deserved the beating you gave them, Harry," Nicole said.

"How did you ever learn to fight like that, Harry? I remember you as always being pretty small and well now I didn't even recognize you until Dudley called you Potter, obviously you changed quite a bit, and umm, I must say it's a good change," Sam said giving Harry a flirty smile and eyeing his naked chest.

Harry didn't know what to do, he didn't know how he done any of that himself, thinking quickly Harry said, "Well did you ever hear about the school I went to after primary school?"

"It was that St. Bruto's right?" Nicole said.

"Close, it's called St. Brutus's Center for Incurably Criminal Boys. Well I won't tell you exactly everything that goes on there but suffice it to say that being in there with fellow delinquents has taught me a few things." Harry was rather pleased with that lie. Chances are now they wouldn't ask questions about St. Brutus's and now they think he's some kind of criminal so they should be leaving any moment now . . .

"Wow," Beth said.

"Cool," Nicole said.

"Well that certainly does explain quite a bit," Sam said eyeing him hungrily.

What the fuck?

"Well I should be getting on now," Harry said starting to grow very uncomfortable and confused with three beautiful girls staring at him.

"Before you go," Sam said, "Take this," and she gave him a piece of paper with a phone number on it. Nicole and Beth both gave him their phone numbers as well. Just as Harry was about to go Sam grabbed his arm and whispered into his ear, "I really want to thank you properly sometime, Harry. Give me a call and I'll give you something you'll never forget."

Harry couldn't believe how sexy she sounded just then. He simply nodded his head and left. There's no way that just happened, he told himself. But the phone numbers in his pocket told him otherwise.

It was two days later that Harry found himself on his morning run which was now up to roughly 8 kilometers (5 miles). Not bad considering he had never done any running until just nine days ago. Dudley had told his parents that they had been mugged the park by some really big blokes with chains and clubs. Of course Vernon and Petunia had the police on a wild goose chase trying to find some gang of muggers that didn't exist. Of course had they any kind of sense they would've realized that Dudley hadn't lost his wallet or anything else of value, nor had any of the other "victims". But Harry didn't care, he was glad that he didn't have to deal with his relatives' shit and that incident in the park had proven just the thing to completely get him off of their minds. Except for Dudley who never even looked Harry in the eye again. Harry suspected that it was more a matter of pride that Dudley made up that story, this way he looked like a helpless victim instead of a bully who had the shit kicked out of him by one, skinny kid.

Unfortunately Harry had not been able to live down that day's events as well as Dudley had. Instead for the past two days he had been stalked relentlessly by Sam, Nicole, and Beth. He could barely step foot outside without those three girls practically throwing themselves at him. As any nearly-16 year old boy, he couldn't help but enjoy some of it. Hell, he loved flirting with them, but whenever things would start to get more serious he couldn't help but feel like something was just wrong. And as such nothing more than quick kisses on the cheek from the three of them was all that been done. Harry couldn't help but really wonder why he just couldn't seem to bring himself to just let go and enjoy the company that these girls were offering. Hell, they had pretty much said that they wanted to thank him for the whole park thing and if he so desired they would all "thank" him at the same time. Why in the name of all that's good, could Harry not simply relax and enjoy three girls AT THE SAME FUCKING TIME? Was he gay or something?

Whatever the reason for Harry's seeming fear of intimacy he had taken to running earlier than usual so that he wouldn't have to deal with those girls and his very mixed feelings concerning them. He was running through the town and was just about to turn back when he noticed something very strange. He saw two men pushing a girl into an alley a few streets away. What really caught Harry's eye was that one of the men pulled a gun out just before disappearing into the alley himself.

The rage that flooded through Harry was something that Harry himself was almost surprised by. Harry just found himself so enraged that these petty thugs could just pull out a gun and rob someone, or worse. Harry found himself seeing red, so enraged that two people would threaten the life of another, just like Voldemort.

Just like Voldemort.

Harry did not even feel his body as he ran over to the alley and walked in on the two thugs yelling at the girl. "What do you mean you ain't got no money? Gimme your fuckin purse or I'll blow your fuckin brains out."

Harry saw the other one grab her purse and empty the contents onto the pavement. "She doesn't have any money! She's worthless!"

"Well I wouldn't say worthless. She's quite pretty this one. I can think of something else I wouldn't mind taking. Something I think might actually be worth quite a bit."

"Oh jeez, Charlie! Just hurry it up will ya? That skinny bitch shouldn't be too much trouble for ya. Hmmm . . . I may just take a turn with her myself."

Harry could not believe what he was hearing. Now they were actually thinking of forcing themselves onto her! Harry's rage reached a crescendo and he stepped forward boldly and said in a voice than unnerved even himself. "Leave her alone."

The two would be rapists spun around, one with hands already fumbling with his belt. Harry now found himself face to face with two guns pointed straight at his chest. "Well, well Jim, it would appear as though, we have a hero. Let's show him what we do with heroes."

They both made moves towards Harry, but something overcame Harry at that moment. That swelling power deep in him once again boiled up in him and all of a sudden Harry simply knew what to do. He raised both his hands and could feel the magic in him push out through his outstretched hands and let loose at the two thugs. Harry wasn't sure what happened but it looked as though the two simply ran into an invisible wall. Both of them hit very hard and one was knocked unconscious. The other got up, bleeding from the nose and mouth. Before he could do anything, Harry was acting on instinct he didn't know he had and flung the man into the wall of the alleywith his magic. Harry heard bones breaking, but even more he could almost feel the bones break as though the pure magic he was wielding was like an actual hand. Still grasping his gun the man raised it to shoot Harry, but Harry saw this as though it was in slow motion and felt himself send magic flying at the gun.

The man screamed as his gun suddenly became red hot in his hand, he dropped the gun and looking at Harry fearfully he began to run the other way. But Harry was in the full of his rage and with a cry of vengeance he magically grabbed the thug and flung him like a rag doll back over Harry's head across the street and straight through the window of the shop across the street. He did not get up again.

Harry was about to turn around to help the girl they had cornered when a gunshot went off behind him. Harry felt the bullet rip through his side and spin him around. He had fallen to his knees, blood streaming from the wound in his chest. Harry lost his concentration, and instantly the power he had been feeling simply evaporated.

Harry saw that is was the first man, who had regained consciousness holding his gun and advancing on Harry. He was about four feet from Harry when he stopped at pointed the gun at Harry's head. Harry tried to make his magic work again but as he didn't know how he had done it, it was a futile attempt. Harry braced himself for the sound of gunshot and instead heard a voice yell, "Stupify!"

The man with the gun crumpled to the ground. Harry, completely confused, looked up to the source of the voice. It was the girl that they had cornered. Harry hadn't even noticed the wand drop from her purse earlier. Harry's vision started growing cloudy and he fell backwards.

"Harry can you hear me? Oh, god! Harry please don't die on me! Harry!"

Harry finally saw who it was who was holding him, his voice barely a whisper he managed to say one word, "Cho." And then he knew nothing more.