Sometimes Bad is Good

Chapter Two

When Harry awoke next with a dull throb behind his eyelids, he didn't remember why he'd even fallen asleep in the first place. He almost believed Aunt Petunia had swatted him over the head with her frying pan and dragged him up to his room, even though that would have certainly been too much touching for her. That was until he spotted the ominous, curled sheets of parchment laying innocently next to him.

It took a full minute of staring for the thundering in his ears to quieten when it all came flooding back.

He'd sat there running his fingers through his incredibly long hair, reminding himself that magic creeps up on the unprepared in sick and twisted ways, so much that any knots that were accumulated during his sleep were long gone and his hair was tangle and knot free.

He was still stuck on the fact that not only did he have creature bits in him, but that it wasn't even mentioned in any square foot of Hogwarts. No witches and or wizards had ever mentioned anything about it or inheritances, that he might be some sort of mixed cauldron of Snape's ingredients.

Did this mean that he was still a wizard? Or was he something different yet again?

Harry inhaled deeply, counting to ten in his head very slowly. Step by step. The first thing he should do is go and see what else was different. Then assess what to do from there. Constant vigilance, cool headed planning.

He stopped running his fingers through his hair and brought his hands up to examine them closely. Yeah, even his fingers were longer and slimmer. They reminded him of Sirius's fingers; elegant, made for playing the ivory keys on a piano or to be wrapped around a flute of champagne. He was curious for what the rest of him looked like, though there was no shortness of apprehension, too. What if no one recognized him?

Or worse yet, what if he didn't recognise himself?

But then, Harry thought, that doesn't sound so bad.

Firming himself, Harry stood swiftly from his bed and strode out of the room, making his way quietly to the bathroom down the hall. He shut the door soundlessly and turned to examine himself in the mirror, bracing himself with a swift inhale that burned his lungs.

His jaw dropped at the person standing opposite him in the mirror.

Familiar green eyes surrounded by long sooty lashes blinked owlishly back at him in surprise, his eyebrows were more arched and graceful above the two. The lightning bolt scar atop his forehead seemed to almost sneer down at him, if that were possible. His nose was straighter and positioned perfectly above full lips, which were slack in shock. His previously round boyish features had matured and shifted; cheekbones higher and more prominent, and his jawline was more square now, not overly so, it merely accented and complimented his other features.

He eyed his face a moment longer, half of him waiting for yet another weird thing to happen, before shifting his gaze down the length of the mirror to peer at his torso. He was still quite thin but his fading Seeker muscles had grown more tone and definition, as if he'd been playing matches against every Quidditch team at Hogwarts for two or three Summers straight, bringing dimension to his usually flat body. It was unfortunate that in all this mutation stuff that the scars remained. The scars from the dragon on his shoulder, Pettigrew and the circular scar from where the Basilisks' fang had punctured on his forearms, were all still there.

He supposed the only thing about that that he wasn't peeved about was that they looked more like tattoos than scars, like Ginny'd been drawing all over him while he listened to Hermione lecturing Ron in the common room about how pathetic his essays were. He forced himself to abandon picking on that to trace the curves of his waist, which pulled in a fragment more under his rib than the stubborn V shape he'd had before, widening at the hips.