Hey, someone mentioned Catechism in the Religious!Harry thread and it reminded me of a fic I read at about the same time as I did that. It wasn't an especially good fic from what I remember, but I've gotten the urge to read it again.

It featured essentially a Harry training montage over the summer of fifth or sixth year (I think fifth), but taken to the extreme. Harry gives up on sleep, entirely, obsesses over learning things to the point where he can play chess without looking at the board. He also lets his physical well being go to shit, hiding it with glamours when he gets to Auschwitz levels of malnourishment.

Snape plays a big role later on in the fic, and I believe there was strange form of occlumency that Harry attempted to use on Voldemort (and failed).

I expect someone will remember this since it was fairly controversial at the time, I think. Just can't remember its name.

 

That reminds me of Stronger Than Hope. I haven't read it in a while, but it sounds like the one you're looking for.

 

Thanks Vira, that looks like the right one.

 

That does seem to be the winner, but I immediately thought of The Weapon Revised! If Stronger Than Hope turns out not to be the one, then this one has a decent chance of it. I read it when I was around thirteen, so I'm pretty spotty on the details, but I remember Harry working like a machine, starving himself to the point of going to the hospital wing. And I think Snape plays some big role. Eh. I think Ginny does, too. I'm not too sure if occlumency is in there. I don't think I read it all the way through; there's a lot more chapters than I remember reading.

 

I threw up a little in my mouth when I read this.

You've got all the right in the world to start a fic search here and I'm glad that someone knew what you wanted to read and posted a link, but the comparison you used there is fucked up.

Why? Because "Auschwitz levels of malnourishment" means pretty much 'certain death', a gruesome fate that killed tens-, if not hundreds of thousands in that black hole of death.

Don't use holocaust analogies in casual conversation.

 

You're being overly sensitive. The Holocaust was a terrible thing, but in this case the comparison is wholly accurate. I wasn't making light of it, I wasn't using it for a joke. It was just a reference to define one of the primary features of this fic.

 

Never mind. Already mentioned.

 

I second Noxed's reaction, only for another reason. Why the hell would Harry give up food? He's a fucking wizard. "Accio fucking food."

There, done. Starving himself purely for the sake of the emo is retarded and it sounds like that story is too.

What's up with people searching for such crappy fics these past few days? xD

 

It wasn't so much that he gave up on food as that his obsession drove him to ignore hunger to the point of starvation. You've heard of WoW players killing themselves through playing too long without break? Same thing here.

EDIT: He did learn to conjure food, which helped with the hunger pangs, iirc. It's just that conjured food has no nutritional value so he was effectively losing energy every time he ate.

 

Not sure we'd want our hero to strive to be like people so obsessed with a computer game that they die because of it.

 

Heh. Would you mind if playing a game for that long gave you superpowers?