Later that day, Severus Snape the Potions professor of Hogwarts strode into the Headmaster's office, curious what would be needed of him. It was rare that Dumbledore ask anything of him during the summer months, after all...
Little did he know that he'd defied both a life debt and a magically binding oath twelve years earlier, when he'd administered that bondage potion to infant Harry Potter. He would have just one chance to live and make things right, and It wasn't going to be either safe or pleasant.
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One Week Later…..
What's been on the agenda lately you may ask? Running… Lots and lots of running.
After several days of effort, Harry had used his newly beefed up Transfiguration skills to turn the edge of the black lake into an obstacle course. He'd built log benches of varying heights every five meters, and he was having an excellent time playing around with them. He would run and leap over one and then roll or crawl through the next for the entire ten miles. Despite the added difficulty, he was really hauling ass these days. Even with the obstacles in place, he was still making as good a time as he'd made running flat out just three weeks earlier.
The rapid time improvement did make sense, at least when you took into consideration the fact that Harry had grown another inch and a half in height, and his muscle tone was developing more and more with every passing day. Well, everything was growing, if he was to be perfectly honest. He'd wake up in the morning and look at his hair which was growing like crazy and was now in a ponytail, then at his chest, which thankfully wasn't too hairy but it was there, then he'd look down his pants. Harry didn't know what to say other than, yeah, he was definitely growing down there (and not just the hair)..
Truth be told, Harry was beginning to get nervous that he was going to look like a freak by the end of the summer, but he decided to let it go since he couldn't do anything about it. One thing Harry was relieved about was that at the very least, he'd never be the bulky type of muscular. He was all lean muscle and fast tensile strength. He was far happier this way. He may never be a seeker again, but maybe he could practice and play chaser or keeper. He'd always had extremely good reflexes.
Another recent development was that Harry's eyesight was improving as time went by. He'd already had to change his prescription two times, to glasses with less strength. Poppy was predicting that Harry probably wouldn't need glasses by the end of the next few weeks!
At first, Harry had secretly held out hope that all of his scarring would also go away, but they were only fading to a silvery white instead of an angry red. On the bright side, all of the puckering and raised bits had smoothed out until his body felt relatively smooth to the touch. Harry was grateful to his magic for changing all of the obscene scarring into merely silvery unattractive flesh.
While he was never going to be a pretty picture, he wasn't a Quasimodo either. It did help that Appoline and Gabrielle had dragged him out and supervised him buying some new clothing. He was actually pretty fashionable now, which obviously felt a little surreal. It was just too bad he was already outgrowing the clothing, and soon enough, it'd all be too small again.
While completing his weight training in the Room of Requirements, Harry listened to the wizarding wireless in the corner and talked to Dobby, who was easily one of the best friends he'd ever had. Dobby was family now and his magic knew it, but that didn't keep Harry from missing his school friends during the quiet hours of the morning or night. What helped in that regard was the fact that he'd been super diligent about keeping Hermione updated about all of his recent developments.
Actually being able to keep in frequent contact via Owl letters was a welcome change, and it meant that Harry didn't feel quite as isolated as he usually did during the summer months. He was making a point of being extremely thorough in his letters, while explaining the changes taking place with his body. The last thing Harry wanted was his sister, Mione, not to recognize him in September and then be all awkward with him... Ron would be jealous because he's Ron, but Harry needed Hermione because she's family.
By the time Harry was finished with his exercise routines it was just before noon, and to spare the Delacour family financial ruin Harry ate at Hogwarts like usual. He was eating an absolutely atrocious amount of food nowadays, in the form of quadruple sized meals for every meal, just to keep from aching too badly the next day. He also drank Dobby's increasingly delicious smoothies like they were going out of business.
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