I thought I'd finally write this story after having the idea haunt me for close to a year.

Leave me some feedback, if you want, and if you happen to think this or that character might look or sound like a person in real life, then ... eh, didn't do it on purpose, I swear.

Now! You ready? Chalked up? Hydrated? Good.

In your own time! READ!

Harry Potter always had known he was a very strange child, even without the Dursleys, his aunt and uncle who were raising him missing no chance in telling him so on a daily basis.

Nearly ten years had passed since Harry had arrived in their household, and nothing much had changed, except that the Dursleys kept getting fatter, and fatter and Harry? Well Harry didn't; in fact, he enjoyed the menial tasks he was given, enjoyed lifting, enjoyed getting stronger!

That's how it came to be, that on his eleventh birthday, Harry Potter had been forced to join his family on a dietary cure somewhere far off the coast, on a sodden rock with a storm whipping up the sea.

It was just a few seconds past midnight when the shack they were housed in shook.

"Where's the popcorn?" asked Dudley, Harry's cousin, stupidly when he jerked awake.

There was a loud crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came at what was a fast pace for a lard his size skidding into the room. He was holding something that looked suspiciously like an oversized fork.

Harry guessed he might have been disturbed while eating his secret stache of mayonnaise drenched bacon salad.

"Who's there? We are fasting, nobody's eating here," Uncle Vernon shouted. "I warn you! We are taking this cure seriously!"

There was a pregnant pause. Then the door was smashed open.

A giant of a man was standing in the doorways, his knees bent to allow him entrance. He wore a muscle shirt, his broad, muscular shoulders touching both sides of the frames, slabs of muscles twitching on his chest with every breath; the beard on his face that would have looked on anyone else oversized, seemed like a proper trimming on him. He wore multi coloured shorts made from some expensive synthetic material and a bumbag around his big, muscled belly.

The giant squeezed his way into the hut, bending down to pick up the door. As he stuffed it back into the frame, he mumbled an apology that nobody except for Harry really took note of.

"Got some eggs or milk? It's not been an easy journey."

Harry shook his head, his eyes wide and glued to the musculous arms. He felt envy well up in his belly the moment he saw those muscles work.

The giant sighed, striding over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen in fear, or maybe 'cause he was as fat as a small whale, Harry didn't really know.

"Budge up, yeh great heap of schmalz," said the stranger.

Dudley rolled away to hide behind the frames of his mother and father; that was to say, his father and he hid behind Aunt Petunia, who, compared to them, was very much underweight, as thin as a rake, as the saying went.

"An' here's Harry! Lookin' good. Eatin' yer proteins, stayin' hydrated?"

"I demand that you leave at once!" yelled Uncle Vernon, immediately after gasping for air. "You are breaking and entering! We are on a dietary cure!"

"I see that. Now shaddup," said the giant, nodding towards the stained fork in Uncle Vernon's hands. But when Uncle Vernon took another shuddering inhale for yet another demand, the giant reached over the sofa.

For a moment it looked like his enormous, calloused hand would squash Uncle Vernon's head, and Harry secretly wondered if such a feat was truly possible by human hands, but then the giant jerked the fork out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent and twisted it into a ribbon as easily as if it had been made from rubber, and threw it into the corner of the room.

Uncle Vernon chose that moment to hyperventilate.

"Anyway," said the giant, turning back to face Harry, "great day fer yeh, hm? Happy Birthday, and all that! Got summat fer yeh, promised yer parents I'd make sure yeh'd be on-top."

From inside a pocket of his bumbag he pulled an only slightly squashed box. Harry opened it without a moment of hesitation. Inside was a large metallic cup with PROTEIN engraved all over it.

Harry looked up at the giant; he meant to say something expressing his thankfulness, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, "Who are you?"

The giant chuckled.

"True," he said, "I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid — Keeper of the Gym Keys of Hogwarts, but people jus' call me 'Hagrid'!"

He held out his enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm.

"What 'bout the milk then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together. "Missed a meal on the way here and lost at least a litre of fluids, yeh know how bad that can be."

His eyes fell on a tetra pack on the table before the sofa.

"It's skimmed milk," warned Harry as he extracted his birthday gift.

Hagrid snorted disapprovingly, one hand diving deep into the bumbag. He pulled out a pitcher, and a bucket of whey powder easily as big as Uncle Vernon's head. The table groaned under the weight of it. He gestured from the table to Harry.

"Help yerself; it's me emergency ration." He clapped his hands happily when Harry immediately began to fill his birthday gift with whole milk and whey.

"How d'you know my parents?" asked Harry as he began to work his shaker with all his might.

"Yeh know all about Hogwarts, o' course —"

"Err, no," said Harry, looking up from where he examined the foaming liquid in his birthday present.

Hagrid looked shocked. "Yeh don't know where yer parents learnt it all?"

"All what?"

"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid roared. "Now wait jus' one second!" He leapt to his feet, shaking the whole of the shack, and the Dursley's too. In his anger he threw the sofa back, hitting the door that promptly fell out of its frame. The Dursleys whimpered; Aunt Petunia was still being at the front, her arms spread protectively over her fat husband and son.

"It's unnatural! And those bodies ... disgusting! Of course we kept it from him," said Aunt Petunia nastily in a moment of bravery that faded as quickly as it had come to possess her when Hagrid turned his eyes on her.

"Kept what from me?" asked Harry.

"STOP! I forbid you!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic from behind Aunt Petunia, who began to tremble in horror when Hagrid took a step towards them.

"Ach! Go fastin', the both of yeh!" said Hagrid then before turning to face Harry with warmth in his eyes. "Harry — yer a strongman!"

"I'm a what?" asked Harry.

"A strongman," said Hagrid as he went to pick up the door, stuffing it back into the frame. On his way to the table, he carried the sofa under his arm as though it weighted nothing at all. "And a right good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been fed and trained up a bit. What with yer mum an' dad havin' been great powerlifters, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."

When the sofa was back in place, Hagrid sat down. He leaned back and stuffed his hand deep into the bumbag, pulling out a slightly scrunched envelope.

Harry swallowed a draught of vanilla protein shake, putting down his shaker. He accepted the envelope, pulling out the letter immediately. He read it, his eyes going wide:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WIZARDING POWERLIFTING AND STRONGMANNERY

(Wizarding Britain's foremost facility for Bodybuilding, Macronutrition and Weightlifting)

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Merlin Dumbbell, Gold Class, Carrier of Grand Atlas St., Chief Deadlifter, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizarding Weightlifting)

Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Powerlifting and Strongmannery. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. The term begins on 1 September. We await your letter with proof of your strength by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
(Scotland's Strongest Witch 1959-70)

Harry felt dazed, uncountable questions swimming in his head; almost absently he kept mouthing the words he just read, a small smile forming on his face. After a few long moments of his silence in which only the disgusting puffing and wheezing of Uncle Vernon and Dudley could be heard, Harry asked, "What does it mean, 'letter with proof of your strength'?"

"Flexin' Fairies, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead, the echo of it hitting him rattling the closed window shutters, and yet again from the sheer endless depth of his bumbag he pulled a chicken — a real, live, ruffled-looking chicken — a long quill and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note, visibly troubled by the chance of breaking the filigrane feather-writing-tool. Harry could read it easily upside-down:

Dear Mr. Dumbledore,

Given Harry his letter. Taking him to buy his things soon. Weather is horrible, missed a meal and am dehydrated. Hope you're well.

Hagrid

Hagrid rolled up the note and held it out to the nervous chicken. It took the note, a range of emotions playing over its avian face, something which Harry never thought possible before.

"Now yeh watch me, Harry! Is how we communicate!" said Hagrid, rubbing his hands together.

The chicken closed its eyes, trembling on the spot; Hagrid raised his big hand, swatting down on the chicken with all his might. A thunderous sound exploded and the chicken was gone. The door fell to the ground, a small hole in its middle. The smell of roasted chicken filled the air.

Hagrid grumbled as he went to pick up the door again. "Where was I?"

Aunt Petunia gave a very birdlike shriek upon coming out of her surprised stupor, only falling silent when Hagrid stared her down, his jaw muscles working menacingly.

"He's not going," said Uncle Vernon, having finally gathered enough breath and misplaced courage to speak. His belly gurgled the sound of a hundred starving children.

Hagrid roared a hectoring laugh, not a single trace of mirth in his voice.

"I'd like ter see a porky Muggle like you stop him," he said.

"A what?" asked Harry after wiping away the downy beard from drinking his protein shake.

"A Muggle," explained Hagrid with a grin. "Used to be what we called people who couldn't do magic, yeh kno'? But now's fer people who dun' lift! An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid me eyes on."

Uncle Vernon was about to open his mouth again when Aunt Petunia beat him to it. She pointed her disturbingly thin finger at Harry, shrieking, "Magic! It was not enough that my sister was such a freak, turning teacups into rat! At least she looked normal! After she got that letter, disappeared off to that — that thing! — and came home every holiday with more muscles, looking like a freakshow! But for my mother and father, oh no, no, no. They were proud how strong Lily was! Lily lift this, Lily lift that —"

She stopped herself to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It was very obvious this all that came bubbling out of her had been waiting for such a chance for quite some time.

"Then she met that Potter-boy at school and they left, got married in that freak Gym, and had you! And of course I knew you'd be the same, just as freaky, lifting things without need and purpose —"

Hagrid flexed his muscular arms and the sound disappeared from Aunt Petunia's lips, leaving her to mouth away without uttering a single word. Uncle Vernon too seemed incapable of making any sound at all.

"Best not mention that to anyone, eh Harry?" said Hagrid. "Not s'posed ter use magic here."

"Why not?"

Hagrid shrugged lazily as he began to prepare himself a protein shake on the table, scooping heap after heap of whey powder into the remaining milk in the pitcher. "It's too easy," he said for explanation. "Magic makes yeh lazy, understand? Won't make yeh grow strong, won't make people respect yeh fer what yeh achieve with yer own two hands, eh?"

He closed the pitcher with one hand, the other holding it tight from below, shaking it diligently.

Harry nodded and when Hagrid was done inhaling his protein shake, Harry asked quietly, "What happened to my parents?"

"The Poser happened," said Hagrid sadly.

"Who?"

"Well — I dun' say the name if I can help it. No one does, except maybe Perfesser Dumbledore."

"Why not?" asked Harry.

"Liftin' Leprechauns, Harry, people are still weirded out! Godric's Glutes, this is difficult! See," Hagrid said, "there was this wizarding strongman-prodigy who went ... bad. As bad as you could go. Worse! Worse than worse. His name was ..."

Hagrid's beard twitched, and it seemed his mouth was moving but no words came out.

"Could you write it down?"

"Nah, is some poncy french ... Voldemort! All right? There!" Hagrid shuddered. "Anyways! This ... poser, about twenty some years ago, started lookin' fer followers! Got 'em too. Dark days. Didn't kno' who ter trust, didn't dare share a scoop of whey ... Terrible things happened. He was takin' over, spread his anabolic poison. O' course some stood up to him an' he ... killed 'em. Horribly, axle press? Slipped outta yer hands right above yer head! Only save place wos Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one The Poser was 'fraid of. Didn't dare 'n try lift 'gainst him.

Now yer mum 'un yer dad were as good powerlifters as I ever knew, yeh can be sure of that. Nobody know's why he went after them ... probably 'cause of their records, maybe. Who knows? All anyone knows is he turned up in yer parent's village, his crew mirin'. He came ter yer house, an' challenged yer parents. Killed them. Dropped his fake-weights on yeh, but yeh survived!"

Harry stared wide-eyed at Hagrid, one hand without his bidding reaching up to the scar on his forehead.

"Found yeh in the ruined house," said Hagrid with a wet laugh. "Yeh were liftin' the plastic plate with yer grubby hands."