Chapter 062

His lungs burned with each breath he took. His legs felt like they were made of led. His muscles were on fire, and every movement he made felt like someone was trying to tear his body apart. It was the ultimate form of torture.

And Harry loved every minute of it.

It was the day after the Sorting Ceremony. The sun was still hiding behind the horizon, not yet risen high enough to cast anything more than a pale yellow light into the sky. And like most mornings, Harry Potter found himself exercising before anyone else woke up.

The morning air was crisp and cool as Harry pushed his body much harder than he usually did. Each ragged gasp that left his throat produced a light mist in the cold air of Scotland, though he knew most of it was due to his magic reacting to his overheating body. The cool morning air of Scotland combined with the elevated height made his work out this morning much more difficult than some of his other ones.

Even as his lungs heaved another ragged gasp, a smile made its way to his face. There was something to be said about pushing ones body beyond its physical limitations, of trying to break your previous boundaries. Harry always felt his best when his work outs consisted of this kind of regime.

By the time Harry finished his body was caked in sweat and his shoulders heaved as he gulped in as much oxygen as his lungs would allow.

The cool air of the morning hit his naked torso, and his pectoral muscles twitched from the contrast it presented between the cold morning air and his overheating body.

Walking over to the tree whose limb he had used for his pull ups, Harry grabbed both the towel and water bottle he'd set aside. The towel went around his neck after he used it to wipe the sweat off his body, and the water bottle was guzzled down seconds later. He took one moment to look over at the sun as it continued its slow, steady rise over the mountains, before making his way back to Hogwarts.

Traveling along the path he had memorized from last night, Harry made his way to the Gryffindor Tower. He was forced to stop several times as the stairs moved on him, and sometimes he got sick of waiting and simply worked out a new path to follow. Eventually, he made his to the portrait of the Fat Lady, a very fat woman in a pink silk dress. The Fat Lady was asleep, the deep breaths she took and the her shut eyes told him this.

Despite having seen the moving images on the Chocolate Frog he had eaten on the Hogwarts Express, Harry had been quite shocked to see that the portraits lining the walls were all alive. The people within them moved and talked and acted just like real people. It was an amazing piece of magic—like all the magic he had seen performed—and the ever inquisitive part of his mind couldn't help but wonder how this feat was accomplished.

"Caput Draconis," Harry spoke softly so as not to wake the Fat Lady. The door swung open as the Fat Lady continued to snore, and Harry walked into the Gryffindor Common Room.

The Gryffindor Common Room was a large, circular room where Gryffindor students could relax and study in relative peace. It was full of squashy armchairs, tables, and a bulletin board where school notices, ads, lost posters, etc. could be posted. A window looked out onto the grounds of the school and a large fireplace dominated one wall. The walls were decorated with scarlet tapestries that depicted not only witches and wizards, but also various animals.

Harry recognized many of them, some were magical such as the Griffin, others were not, as was the case with the lion. The room itself wasn't bad looking; it actually was kind of cozy, though Harry was not very fond of the color. He had nothing against red and gold, but those two colors combine were just too bright and loud to have a whole room decked out in them. Still, it was his common room now, and he would be living there for the next seven years. Might as well get used to it.

Without sparing the room a backward glance, Harry headed toward one of the two doors on the opposite side of the common room. Each door led to a spiral stair case which led to a set of dormitories. One for boys, one for girls.

Harry took the one leading to the boy's dormitory.

The boy's dormitory was a circular room, much like the common room, only instead of armchairs and tables it held beds. There were four four-poster beds in total, with deep red, velvet curtains. Once more, the color scheme was gold and red.