Harry groaned as he fought the stiffness of his body and then reached out to alternate Harry's memories to find out what was he doing that landed him in this situation. He groaned again when he found out his alternate self had tried to do the ritual to increase his magical core. Unfortunately, Black Grimoire hadn't warned him that he shouldn't do the ritual until his magical maturity. He should have known anyway, after partaking in so many rituals but unfortunately, he was being greedy and didn't think about it much and got turned into a 'vegetable' for his troubles.

He recognised the place as 'The Room of Requirements' and asked the place for a body-sized mirror and checked himself out. He was flagstabbered. Looking at him back, from the mirror was an immensely handsome *cough*pretty*cough* face with partially tamable hair that was of a particularly attractive crimson shade. His face shape looked aristocratic but it wasn't gaunt like purebloods but filled and looked like it belonged to one of Greek Gods. His body was in perfect shape and he had plenty of muscles in his arms showcasing his more-than-average strength. His chest was probably the most muscular part of his body and with his back and shoulders, it provided quite an attractive shape to his upper body. He sported 8-pack abs that looked like it was sculpted from marbles. His eyes trailed down and his eyebrows rose as his eyes fell upon his, ahem, member? It was bigger than he had sported in his old body, which was quite above average in size. His new body didn't only have one that was sizeable in length but also in quite cylindrical shape, with quite a considerable thickness, which would be quite pleasurable for women. Apparently, his alternate self wanted to be the best in everything, and that included his prowess in the bedroom, so he went through a ritual to gain the perfect organ which would be desirable for most women. Harry didn't understand why would he need the ritual. After all, his alternate self, like himself, had been quite skilled in 'Transfiguration', and especially in 'self-transfiguration', enough to be mistaken for a metamorphmagus. So he would have been able to alter his member in any shape and size his partner wanted. He knew it from experience. Hermione had enjoyed this mastery of his quite well when they were 'Horcrux Hunting'. He then continued inspecting his new body not wanting to waste all the time thinking about his bedroom activities with Hermione, no matter how tempting it was. His legs were also muscular, though his calf was more muscular than his thigh, showing that it was modified for speed. Fortunately, he still retained his emerald eye from his mother, a feature he had come to love about himself.

He looked around and found his wand, or what was going to be his wand. He remembered it being made up of Yew with a Core of Dragon Heartstring, 12 inches in length. It was suited for martial magic and Transfiguration. The wand thrummed in his hands, making him breathe in relief. He thought that the wand wouldn't respond to him. Though the thrum of magic was stronger than he felt in any wand. Even Elder Wand being as powerful as it was, had always subtle thrum to it and his Holly and Phoenix feather wand, well it stopped working after his horcrux was destroyed. He first thought it was due to being repaired by Elder Wand, but later understood that while the wand wood had chosen him as its wizard, the core had been attracted by Horcrux in his scar.

Shaking his head, he cast a 'Tempus', to find out the date. It was the 8th of September, 1993. He remembered that it was just a day before Remus had introduced the class to Boggart. He put on his dress, a dark green shirt going with his eyes and black pants, and then moved out of the room of requirement, under his invisibility cloak, going back to his dorms.

Talking of the invisibility cloak, he remembered how he got it in this universe. Apparently, Dumbledore had gifted it to Neville, to help him on his 'quest' to rescue the philosopher stone. Harry had visited Gringotts after his first year and found out that Dumbledore had used his position as Harry's magical guardian to extract a good amount of the Potter family fortune and helped himself with the expenses of the 'Order'. Harry had found out about it and also about the 'invisibility cloak', that was supposed to be his family heirloom. He had also seen Longbottom and Weasley using it and connected the points. Harry had without wasting time sent a notice to Dumbledore through Goblins and blackmailed him to return anything he had taken from Potter vault, for the 'Order' purposes, or he would go to the media and make sure the reputation of the Headmaster would be destroyed. After all, he was sure the parents of his fellow Slytherin would never miss the opportunity to drag Dumbledore through mud. At first, he tried his disappointed grandfather act but Harry was unmoved and reluctantly Dumbledore had to return everything he had taken from Potter fortune till the last knutt. Harry had also warned Dumbledore to keep him out of his mechanisations or his extracted memories of the event would find themselves delivered at particular addresses. Dumbledore had grumbled but agreed reluctantly to Harry's warning and left before Harry could add anything more to it.

He reached the Slytherin Dorms and his body acted as if from some sort of muscle memory and Harry hissed at the entrance of the Dorms- $open$

The eye of the ornamental snake on the entrance glowed green and the entrance opened for Harry, who got in not even thinking about it. He reached his room and fell into a blissful sleep.

--X--

Harry found himself in the Defence against Dark Arts (DADA) class the following morning with his classmates from all four houses, though he kept stealing glances at Hermione.

Remus asked the question about Boggart, which was answered by Seamus Finnegan. The question about what it looks like was answered correctly by a proud-looking Hermione. Harry reminisced about the past when Hermione had answered similarly, only with her wearing a red and gold tie instead of blue and bronze. Yeah, Hermione was a Ravenclaw. He hoped in between studious ravens, maybe she wasn't as lonely as she was before he befriended her after the troll incident.

Then Remus told them the charm that they would be using to defend themselves against Boggarts. They all recited the spell 'Riddiculus!', a few times before he lined the students for them to face their 'fears'.

The first was an unknown student whose boggart turned out to be an accromentula. Harry watched with some amusement as Ron also let out a whimper at seeing it. The second student was Seamus whose boggart turned into a Banshee and Seamus turned it into a mute one with his spell. Hermione's boggart was very similar to one he remembered having. In place of a stern Professor McGonagall, a very disappointed Professor Flitwick was berating her about failing all her exams. Harry winced, knowing it was a side-effect of her using the Time-turner to take all the courses.

The next one to face the boggart was Padma Patil, who had to face a giant King Cobra followed by Parvati Patil who faced a blood-soaked Mummy. With a wave of her wand with the incantation of 'Riddiculus!', it tripped on its own wrappings. Ron stepped up bravely but cowed soon enough as even more fearsome Spider from before made its appearance. Ron's counter-spell had it wearing skates on his legs and slipping on the floor.

Neville stepped forward but before his Boggart could take shape, Remus stepped in between and it turned into the full moon. Remus then banished it and called an end to the class.

--X--

He went outside and saw Hermione moving away with Padma Patil and Su Li. He decided to ask Hermione for a date now, seeing the Hogsmeade weekend was close. He just hoped Hermione would agree. He was missing his friend very much and didn't want to put it out for much longer.

"Herm- Miss Granger," he called.

Hermione turned around to look at him. Harry blushed a bit, seeing Hermione had been very pretty since her 3rd year seeing she was nearly 14 and started developing before most of the girls.

"Y-Yes?" He was surprised at her guarded expression before remembering he was wearing a green tie. Slytherins, mostly, were very nasty to muggle-borns and she had never interacted with him before.

For some reason though, no amount of occumelency was helping to stop his nervousness. He started "H-Hello, I am Heracles Serpens-Potter. I-I wanted to ask you something."

Suspicion made it on Hermione's face like she knew what he was going to ask, but she shook her head as if to get rid of the thought. Harry felt very angry on behalf of her. She was pretty and she deserved to know it. He promised himself that he would do everything to make Hermione how special and pretty she was.

"Yes, I am listening," Hermione prompted him to continue.

"W-Well Hogsmeade weekend is coming a-and I was wondering if you would come with me?" Harry blurted out, his face red.

Hermione looked at him wide-eyed as if she couldn't believe someone would ask her. Her eyes then turned hard as he looked at him or more precisely his robes. Harry understood what she was thinking. He quickly clarified "Herm- Miss Granger, I assure you I am not trying to play some kind of cruel prank on you. I genuinely like you and have done so for a long time. I know we had never interacted before so it's only logical of you to not trust me just like that, but I am honest about asking you on the date."

Hermione looked at him again and nodded a bit shakily. Harry's eyes lit up and it had a relaxing effect on Hermione.

"Let's meet in the great hall, at 2 pm on Saturday." She said and turned around to join Su Lee and Padma Patil, who were waiting around probably not trusting a muggle-born with Slytherin.

Harry too left with a bit of a skip in his steps. After all, he had a date with her bushy-haired bookworm soon.

--X--

Hermione herself was walking a bit dazedly towards her housemates. A boy had asked her for a date. She never thought she would ever be asked on a date, after all, she was just a plain-looking girl with a bossy attitude. Most of the students at Hogwarts thought her to be a know-it-all, and were jealous of her, so they made fun of her. Even in Ravenclaw, where knowledge was valued above all, the seniors didn't like her very much, seemingly jealous of her ability to understand things much better than them. The girl Marrieta, was very nasty to her. If it wasn't for her dorm neighbours- Padma and Su Lee, she would have made her life at Hogwarts miserable.

But now a boy had asked her to date. Hell, he was the most attractive boy she had ever laid her eyes on in her life. He looked like the perfect protagonist from the grey-er books she read. An introverted boy who was very popular and handsome and had taken an interest in the girl who was bullied. It also resembled the plot of those stories so much that she was afraid that she was dreaming about her books and Potter had never asked her. But she knew it wasn't a dream. She had seen sincerity in his eyes when he had told her he was genuinely interested in her.

"What did he want?" Her thoughts were broken by a question from Padma Patil. She also saw Su Lee leaning in interest.

"Uh, he asked me for a date at the Hogsmeade weakened," Hermione answered, still a bit dazed.

"W-What?" "Really?" Both Padma and Su Lee asked/shouted in astonishment.

Hermione just nodded her head in positive.

"What did you say?" Su Lee asked.

"I agreed," Hermione replied.

"Are you sure about that Hermione?" Padma said, "You know how Slytherins are to muggle-borns."

Hermione nodded "I hesitated because of it too, but something tells me he was sincere."

Padma sighed "Alright, just be careful," and Su Lee nodded.

Hermione nodded "I will!"

--X--