The start of the hunt for the Diary Horcrux and Leon finally starting to work out and get swole!
After class ended and Leon was confronted with free time.
He immediately called on Gasket.
“I need you to fetch me every copy of the Daily Prophet that has been issued over the last year and a half.” Leon instructed, “On top of that, I need you to bring me everything that you can find about the Malfoy family.
I don’t care if it’s just family tree information or about their business.
You don’t need to be fast with this.
Take your time and place everything in the Undercroft please.”
“Gasket will do their best master!” Gasket said before vanishing.
Leon pulled out the workout schedule that went along with his meal plan… grimacing at its contents.
He’d applied for this.
Paid for it.
And he was going to follow through.
He’d filled out a full questionnaire, given them height, weight, and general physical strength estimates and his fitness goals.
And they’d sent him this finely tuned workout routine along with the meal prep.
Thankfully, the workout plan started with a week of basic calisthenics before everything else.
Alongside a stretching and warm up routine.
If he could stick it out… the results would be worth it.
Swapping out his robes for shorts and a T-shirt.
Leon started the routine out by the lake.
Fifteen minutes later, Leon already wanted to quit.
But he kept pushing.
His body was not used to exertion like this.
But he made sure to keep to the recommended intensity.
Even as his lungs felt like they were rebelling, his legs telling him to stop he kept pushing.
Leon would like to think that Might Guy would be proud of his determination.
But… the results would probably disappoint him.
Two hours in, Leon could barely feel his limbs anymore.
His stomach had been emptied several times as he forced himself to keep going.
At three hours Leon was truly on the verge of just calling it quits for the day.
Surely, he’d done enough?
Did he need to do five more sets of diamond pushups?
Leon paused for a moment between sets then decided that yes, yes, he did need to keep it up.
Stopping just because everything was sore and painful at this point would just make it harder to do the same thing again tomorrow.
If he got in the habit of only doing things three quarters of the way through, that’s all he would ever accomplish.
The fourth hour felt like a blur of pain and near delirium as he kept pushing even though he could no longer truly lift his own weight in a pushup.
Every squat felt like there was a mountain on his shoulders.
Every crunch felt like his core was literally ripping apart.
His eyes stung from sweat, and he couldn’t even see what he was doing anymore.
By the time he finished his daily workout, Leon lay panting on the banks of the Black Lake.
Everything hurt in way that told him he would really regret what he had done tomorrow.
He felt like all of his muscles were swollen.
And he could feel his blood thumping through his body with every beat of his heart.
It was with a deep sense of accomplishment that he finally stood up and wobbled back into the castle on legs that felt like wet noodles.
He wasn’t sure why he felt so accomplished as he prayed that the potions and food would make it so that he wasn’t too sore tomorrow.
But it felt like he’d crossed some kind of milestone by completing the first day’s workout.
The special meal that appeared at the table in the Great Hall for him didn’t seem quite so massive as he scarfed it down ravenously.
His fellow second years were looking at his special meals with a combination of curiosity and envy at the unique dishes that they were seeing.
But Leon ignored them as he practically choked it all down as fast as he could.
That workout was actually insane.
Without the breakfast, potions, and specialized meal plan, that workload would’ve been impossible for a normal person regardless of determination.
Every exercise was taken to failure before moving immediately to the next, with barely twenty seconds of rest between them.
Four solid hours of it.
Without the enchanted nutrition plan and recovery potions, the program would have been suicidal.
If Leon had had doubts about the effectiveness of the meal plan before, they were gone now.
Now he just had to see if the recovery speed was as advertised… and then do this again tomorrow.
Leon sighed as he leaned back in his seat after he cleared his plates and cups that had been presented for him.
With that finished, Leon hobbled over to the Gryffindor Table to chat with Harry and Ron for a bit.
“What were you up to?” Ron looked at Leon suspiciously.
“Working out.”
“We looked for you after class.” Harry said, “But we couldn’t find you, so, we went exploring the castle.
It’s like a different place entirely.
Have you seen the Towers?”
Leon shook his head.
“Bruv, they are like challenge towers.
They have obstacle courses, combat dummies, and timers that record your name and times!” Harry said with excitement.
Leon frowned and pulled out his workout routine again.
It was customized, and it had a series of optional substitute workouts for Gryffindor years at Hogwarts.
None of the Towers were appropriate for his first week, which was mainly cardio.
But the following weeks had multiple recommendations for specific challenge towers, times to aim for.
Number of runs to do… it was fairly comprehensive.
“What’s that?” Ron asked.
“My workout routine.
WBB full package.” Leon said with a pained shrug.
Ron’s eyes went wide, “You mean the guys who run Arcane Physique?”
Leon raised a brow at that, “…yes…”
“How could you afford that?
Which package did you buy?” Ron practically jumped as he asked his questions like a true fanboy.
“The Premium Complete Package.
Changed my meals, and I have this booklet with a whole comprehensive workout routine that I need to follow.
“I’ll bet.
Their products are no joke.
WBB has produced more bodybuilding champions than the next three leading Wizarding Bodybuilding companies in the world.
Some say that they are cheating with Dragons Blood in their recipes.
But Dragons Blood is not banned in any of the competition scenes it’s a natural supplement.” Ron looked starstruck as he suddenly launched into a rant about all the champions that have been touring the Wizarding Bodybuilding scene.
Apparently, even Hagrid was a big name in the strongman competitions globally.
“Ronny…” Leon finally said as Ron finally stopped for breath, “I thought I knew you… Apparently, you’ve been holding out on us.”
Harry nodded vigorously, “Exactly what I was thinking Leon.
I thought that the only thing in his mind was Chess.
And Professor Sinistra.”
“Hey!
You agreed not say anything!” Ron rounded on Harry.
Harry raised his hands in surrender, “Sorry, sorry.
Got a little carried away mate.”
“Anyway, yeah I like to follow the Bodybuilding scene.
I’d never be able to afford any of the packages from WBB.
But… I don’t think I’d actually want to even if I could afford it.
One of their older marketing slogans was something about how their workouts would kill muggles trying to do the same.
Only lasted a month, but I remember it.” Ron explained, “So which goals did you tell them for the package?
Do you want to compete in the Junior League?
Britian doesn’t have any contestants in the Junior League we could use some representation.”
Leon shook his head, “No aspirations to strut around on stages mostly naked from me.
I told them that I want to hit peak human physical performance and maybe beyond that.”
“The Spartan routine then.” Ron said, “That’s actually a category, you could definitely compete.
But the competition is tough in that bracket.
It’s not really about size, it’s about definition and overall flexibility and actual strength.
That bracket has a complicated scoring system.
I don’t follow it as closely because we all know who’s going to win the world championship.
He hasn’t lost in fifty years; man is a super wizard from America.
Stage name is The Sorcerer.
Apparently, he’s also a big name for other reasons over in America.”
“…As fascinating as I’m finding this new aspect of you Ron.
I’m exhausted.
I’m gonna hit the hay early.” Leon said.
Leon found that he was not nearly as sore as he thought he should be.
He was still extremely tired.
But his legs were no longer feeling like wet noodles by the time he got to the Hufflepuff common room and his gait was steadier.
After a quick shower.
Leon collapsed onto the mattress in his dorm room and was out like a light.
∞∞∞
Dumbledore sat in his office thoroughly confused.
For one, the curse over Britain seemed to have peaked the year after Voldemort’s ‘death.’ Resulting in the new first years being entirely female.
Even from the muggle-born side.
He had expected at least a few of them to be male.
And McGonagall’s fears were starting to be realized by the movements he was seeing in the wizengamot.
But the real reason for his confusion lay in the Philosophers stone.
The fact that the trap had been laid and Voldemort only ever tried to get it from within Gringotts was troubling.
More troubling was the disappearances in Britian he had investigated.
Multiple homeless individuals had vanished overnight without a trace.
Neither magical nor mundane evidence could be found of them existing at all.
It was like they had been removed from the world completely.
These disappearances had led him to investigate other unexplained disappearances, not solely focused in the UK but in the wider world.
His network had found something disturbing.
Though seemingly unrelated.
One of his students, Leon McKinnon-Prewett had been present in every location where these strange disappearances had happened.
Except for the ones in London, where he and his mother, Matilda McKinnon, the only surviving member of the McKinnon family, were presumably in Godric’s Hollow.
The authorities that watch over tourists in the MACUSA territories never saw them separate, and the disappearances happened while they were both confirmed to be asleep in their hotel rooms.
Then they went to India and there were no signs of disappearances matching the ones that happened in the MACUSA territories.
The only thing they’d done that was mildly suspect in India was interact with a Vampire Coven that was always under strict surveillance.
But visiting vampires isn’t a bad thing inherently.
Especially not those call center covens that purchase all their blood through legal channels.
The fact that the disappearances happened in conjunction with their travel time had Dumbledore searching for information on anyone else who had traveled the same routes at the same time… which was a major dead end.
There were thousands of individuals.
And hundreds who had previously been in London at the correct time too.
Too many possibilities to investigate without an army of investigators.
“Why the change Tom?” Dumbledore wracked his mind, thinking of every Dark Ritual and magic that might explain this new behavior, and coming up short.
Nearly a thousand confirmed disappearances.
All Homeless, all gone completely without a trace.
No struggle, no magic used.
No indication that the victims were even still in this world.
Dumbledore didn’t know of any magic that could explain this, didn’t know of a single ritual needing that many sacrifices.
If this was Tom’s doing…
Dumbledore sighed and rubbed his temples in frustration before he leaned back and looked over to Fawkes, “I’m getting too old to bear all this weight my old friend.
We can’t all burst into flames and become young again like you.”
∞∞∞
Leon was only mildly sore when he woke up.
And he woke up relatively late by his standards.
7:30 when he was used to a 4:30 wake up time was practically a whole extra days’ worth of rest.
His muscles didn’t protest loudly as he got dressed and headed up to breakfast.
Breakfast was again massive portions, but Leon didn’t feel like it too much.
He was just a little overstuffed.
After breakfast, Leon went to classes.
Charms, Transfiguration and History of Magic today.
Just like Potions and Herbology, the first week was mainly going to consist of review, with just a little introduction to what they would be doing throughout the year.
Once the final class ended for the day, Leon mentally psyched himself up for another intense workout.
Only this time, Ron and Harry accompanied him to the area near the Lake where he was working out.
They weren’t participating… as in working out themselves.
No, they had decided that it would be fun to be hype-men.
“You can do it!
Come on you’ve got five more in you!” Ron practically screamed in his ears as he struggled through sets of pushups and crunches.
The two of them timed his laps and told him that he could do better.
Surprisingly, Ron corrected his form a lot too.
Making him adjust angles while doing pushups and pullups.
It made the workout… not fun… it still sucked.
But it made it somehow easier having his friends push him to do better.
Their enthusiasm distracting him from the pain.
Harry even brought a hand towel so that Leon wasn’t blinding himself with sweat quite as badly.
After the workout, the three of them made their way into the Great Hall for supper.
Leon hobbling on noodle legs and feeling even more wrung out than he had yesterday.
But he was oddly happy as he sat down with Harry and Ron to enjoy their meals.
Even as exhaustion crept through him.
Showering and going to bed were the only things on Leon’s mind as he made his way back to his dorm.
He contemplated transferring over to Coldharbour and doing his homework, but he was just too wrung out.
He didn’t feel like it.
So, he rolled over and passed out.
When the first weekend arrived.
Leon rushed to finish off his homework and get down into the Undercroft.
After Gasket showed up and informed him that they’d retrieved everything they could find on the Malfoys, Leon was eager to start figuring out who had Tom’s Diary.
Though the Basilisk was no longer a threat, whoever had the Diary was still in danger.
Especially if Tom didn’t follow the same pattern that Leon remembered.
If he was more patient in this world, Leon could be looking at a major issue.
Losing the Diary was not an option.
He’d rather it be destroyed and he lose out on another Morty than let it roam the world unchecked.
The first step to finding out who Lucius could have planted the Diary on was to figure out who his political rivals were.
He’d already checked Susan Bones’ possessions.
She had seemed like a likely candidate just based off of his recollections.
But the Diary wasn’t with her stuff, and Leon had almost gotten caught sneaking into the female dorms.
He could only thank the system for providing invisibility potions… even if they were expensive.
Leon started with looking over the Malfoy’s portfolio of businesses.
There was a lot.
Not only did they control House-Elf distribution in Britian and the Continent, they had several Wizarding Hair Product lines, and their fingers were spread across a dozen different wizarding industries in Britian.
Co-ownerships, partnerships, and alliances with all the other sacred 28 that were doing business.
The more that Leon read and learned, the more he realized that Britian was precariously perched on top of an unstable business oligarchy that was maintained by the ancient pure-blood families.
On one wall of the Undercroft, Leon had started placing cutouts from the newspapers, and notes about alliances and other relevant factoids in a visual display that made Leon feel like he was in one of those old school detective movies.
Or becoming one of those crazy conspiracy theorists…
Leon was in the middle of creating a separate section for ‘Stable’ Malfoy alliances when his alarm went off.
Telling him it was time to meet with Harry and Ron for another workout.
They had told Leon that there was going to be a special guest joining them today too…
Leon reluctantly parted with newspaper clippings and headed out towards the usual spot out by the lake.
Upon arrival, Leon was stunned by the sight before him.
Rubeus Hagrid, the grounds keeper.
Leon knew that Harry and Ron were friendly with the gentle giant.
They’d invited him to his hut multiple times the previous year.
But Leon had always been busy.
The movies truly failed to capture how big the man was.
Standing at eleven and a half feet, or three and a half meters tall, Hagrid wasn’t just big.
He was physically imposing to an extreme.
Especially right now, standing beside the black lake in workout clothes that didn’t hide fact that his arms were like pillars of pure muscle.
He had that potbelly strongman build, but supersized.
“This y’er friend?” Hagrid asked as Leon walked up to the group.
“Yeah this is Leon.” Ron said, introducing Leon to Hagrid, “He’s the one that’s doing the WBB complete package, Spartan build.”
Hagrid gave Leon an appraising look, “I can help out on the weekends.
But I’m… more into the big stuff.”
Leon laughed at that, “I’ll bet!” he said and reached out to take Hagrid’s giant hand, “It’s a pleasure to meet you Hagrid, Ron and Harry talk about you all the time.
Sorry I’ve never had time to come visit with them.”
“S’all right.” Hagrid took Leon’s hand and gave it a good shake, “Everyone’s got their priorities.
An you’re at school.
Should be the firs thing you be thinkin bout.”
Leon didn’t know how to feel about a handshake where the other parties hand literally engulfed his own.
Shaking hands with Hagrid was definitely a new experience.
“Well, what’er we wait’n fer.
Let’s get to it!”
Like that, Leon’s weekends now held workout sessions with Rubeus Hagrid.
And… the workouts lasted longer and were more intense than ever.
Hagrid might be a prodigy at Magical Creatures.
But he was also an expert in physical fitness.
He corrected forms, judged posture, and encouraged Leon in equal measure.
Ron and Harry actually started working out with him.
Though they didn’t do his entire routine or keep pace with him.
And so, the first week of Hogwarts second year came to a close with Leon feeling like all his muscles were puffed up and sore as hell.