Harry Potter stood in front of the mirror taking in his own features. Lifting his chin he traced the lightning bolt shaped scar that set in the middle of his throat.

It had been a parting gift from the Dark Lord Voldemort before the Killing curse rebounded off the Boy-Who-Lived and obliterated his body. It really was a shame that the bastard had refused to die and had been resurrected in his fourth year. It was also a shame that it had left him a mute Harry thought bitterly.

The curse left scar tissue that pressed against his vocal cords and hampered his breathing. Unfortunately the Healers had to take the cords to get to the scar tissue, rending him mute for life.

Letting out a light sigh, Harry thought it better to not dwell on things he couldn’t change. Renewing his self assessment with his right arm, Harry fixed his gaze on the jagged scar circling his shoulder. Pain filled memories flowed as he remembered losing his arm in the final battle. Luck had been on his side and they had been able to reattach it shortly after the battles conclusion. Death had been close all his life, but for the first time Harry had thought his time had been up when his arm had been torn off by another curse Voldemort had thrown his way.

Harry shook his head to clear it from the memories of the dark times that had passed. He continued looking at the various scars he had collected during his years at Hogwarts. Countless scars littered his body. Some of them from burns, some from curses, and a few from fist fights. Very few of the many scars could be claimed as accidental. Most had been from learning experiences in life. The ones on his knuckles brought back memories of his first year, and first encounter with Voldemort.

His first year with Voldemort taught him a lesson. He had no control. That Harry was a child fighting in a grown up world. That he could almost died in a fight he won by pure luck. In the hospital wing Harry broke down, from the feelings of fear, rage, and the pain he had felt when fighting Quirrel, and wept. After Harry came out of it, he resolved that he wouldn’t ever let himself be weak. He would strive to have to strength to protect his friends and himself from Voldemort.

He had never been a slouch in his studies before, but the next year he redoubled his efforts. Being mute had drawbacks on his casting abilities. Having to start out silently casting in the magical world made even the simplest spell ten times harder, but Harry practiced until he got the spells perfect. He never was the first to cast it successfully. In fact, he was almost always last, but once he had the spell down flawlessly, it was incomparable to most other students in a range of years.

Voldemort’s resurrection taught Harry his next lesson; that the body is fragile. Seeing another weakness in himself drove Harry to sculpt his body from what was a skinny boy into a six foot, thirteen stone, ball of hard muscle. Where he was once wiry and small he now stood lean and on the edge of stocky. And while hormones and physiology took most of the credit for his size, it was only accomplished through hard work. Every opportunity Harry had, he would help the Hogwarts Grounds Keeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Rubeus Hagrid, with odd jobs here and there. Moving animals and cages around, helping collect items in the Forbidden Forest, and other sorts of physical activities built him into a rough and physical man.

After the Department of Mysteries and the death of his godfather, Sirius, Harry was taught his third lesson; that the mind could be broken and taken. To his credit Harry took to Occulemency rather quickly. Ecstatic that he had found a branch of magic that didn’t require silent casting, Harry was able to fortify his mind well enough to buy some time by his seventeenth birthday.

Brought back to the world of the living by the soft snoring of his roommates, Harry scratched his head. A blast of fire in the final battle had taken enough off that Harry decided to keep it short. Rubbing his tired face, Harry took a final glance his nude form in the mirror, and walked back to his bed.

Smirking at the form lying on his bed as she breathed lightly in and out, Harry gave her a small shake. The brunette let out a small groan and then continued to sleep. After a couple more shakes with the same results, Harry let out a slight huff, and yanked the covers off the girl. Still nothing happened. Now thoroughly annoyed with the girl that could sleep through an act of God, Harry took one glance at the pert little bottom and delivered a sharp slap to one of her cheeks.

The tan skinned brunette let out a yelp and promptly fell out of bed.

As the girl rose she rubbed her abused rump. “Ow. What did you do that for Harry? I’m not up for another round. Why couldn’t you let me sleep?” Still in the tired haze of being awakened abruptly, the girl didn’t notice that her shout had roused the rest of the rooms’ occupants.

Harry calmly pointed to the clock and jabbed a thumb at the door.

Realization dawned on the girl and she let out a squeak and hurriedly tried to pull on her clothes.

“Hey, Su Li, nice tits!” A voice called out as she was buttoning her pants.

Flushing the Ravenclaw clutched her shirt to her chest and sprinted out the boy’s dormitory, with the sound of laughter and catcalls chasing after her.

The laughter died down and as Harry was climbing into his bed he heard Ernie MacMillan ask, “Hey Potter, was that a hand print on Su Li’s ass?”

Giving a smile and a nod in the affirmative, Harry settled back into the sheets. As he drifted off to sleep he couldn’t help hear a conversation.

“He’s had it pretty rough, but who wouldn’t want to be Harry Potter, twin to the Boy-Who-Lived?”

Letting out a snort of disdain, Harry rolled over. And as he fell asleep he sarcastically thought, “Who indeed?”

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I don't know if I want to make this into a story or not. I gave it the name of Silent Knight, because I cbf to think of something original right now. Give me your feed back on what you like and what you don't like about this idea.

 

* blink *
Well done - you took me completely by surprise at the end.

 

Interesting twist indeed, I would be interested in a slightly expanded one-shot. More than that and it would become cliche I think.

 

I'm not usually a lover of disabled!Harry, which includes sick, mute, deaf, blind, paraplegic and so on but it wasn't actually that bad.

 

Not necessarily. This could become what Unsung Hero could have been, had it not trailed off into realm of fire and failure.

First of all - Thank you for avoiding the whole "wiry with muscle but not too muscular" Abercrombie model bull shit fangirls usually describe Harry as. Also well done the whole "he did a bunch of push ups and he was suddenly not skinny" bs.

Second of all - You've made a truly hard-working Harry. Sometimes I want to read the instant gratification of a magical genius pwning all. Sometimes I want to see Harry work hard, but still have an innate advantage he uses.

And sometimes I want to read about a real under dog. What Harry Potter was meant to be, without the complete pussification JKR put him through. Well done on that.

I say continue it. You're a DLP member, you know the cliches, and you have hundreds of quality betas ready to rip apart your grammar and spelling errors along with your plot and characterization failures. I say continue it.

 

Looking good!
I don't really have enough to say that it will be brilliant but what you have there looks very promising.

If anything, you should continue it. As a one shot or a full blown story. Both would be good.

 

I, like several others, usually don't like Harry with any sort of handicap, but I like what you did with making him mute. I really like the way Harry has to work harder at spellwork to learn each spell silently before being able to cast it. It's more gratifying than super!Harry who automatically casts each spell immediately after learning it, with perfect wandwork, no less. I can picture your mute Harry casting with flawless wandwork for a reason. And years worth of shaping his mind for silent casting would probably make Occlumency easier for him, too, so no problems there.

As long as this doesn't disintegrate into a boo-hoo-my-brother-is-thought-to-be-the-boy-who-lived-even-though-I-have-the-scar thingy like Unsung Hero (and I wouldn't expect it to, based on your start), then I could enjoy reading this. Continue, man. Continue.

 

Hmmm... Mute!Hufflepuff!Harry... I don't know why but I'm liking the combination...

For those of you who don't know why I said Hufflepuff look at that little bit of dialogue where it says Ernie MacMillan.

 

Good eye, I didn't catch that one. Su Li must be used more!

 

Put this in Work-by-author and get to extending it. I enjoyed it- though it was incredibly short- and I want to see more of it.

And you've inspired me to write something like that for my own personal enjoyment. Like always, it won't see the light of day, but it's something I've never written before, and I think it will be fun.

 

I liked it. Again, like most people disabled Harry isn't really my thing, nor brother of the boy who lived. Like the Heir said, it's really short so there isn't a lot to judge from this so I'm going by Mad World. If you can pull off Harry's character as well as you did in Mad World, it should be great. Su Li was a fucking hot addition and Hufflepuff!Harry I've rarely seen and never done well.

Heir speaks truth, WbA it and continue. I want to see where you go with this.

 

I just want to say... the hand print made this ficlet win.

 

Nothing like a giant slap on the ass to make you wake the hell up.

On another note, this seems like a winner for now. I've never seen anyone do a disabled!Harry and Hufflepuff!Harry without messing up somewhere. I'd like to see this continued, because it interests me.