Chapter- 8 : Hunger Part - 3

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The most bizarre combination of howls and yelps could be heard coming from the edge of the field. An observer would have seen a very strange sight. A young stag was sprawled in the dirt unconscious while a black-furred beast lay rolling on the ground next to it.

Deer can faint?

Harry finally stood up as he fought to get air into his lungs. 'I know that was mean,' he thought, 'and I must be a horrible person because that was really funny.'

The werewolf moved off into the forest just as the deer started to stir. The beast started to howl again a moment later when the stag stood up with a shocked look of disbelief that it was still alive before bounding off to safety.

A short time later the Beast was sitting in a small hidden glen near a small stream. This place was Harry's favourite place away from his relatives. It was sheltered from much of the weather and had plenty of fresh water. But it was also very peaceful and beautiful. It was a great place to escape the Dursleys and the glares from people that believed their lies.

Harry absently removed a rabbit haunch before squatting down to eat. Fortunately his form dictated what he found acceptable cuisine. The Beast had no problem with raw meat for breakfast. Usually he only hunted smaller animals to eat. The deer would have been too much for him to eat in a single sitting and he had no place to store the leftovers.

Sometimes, Harry felt the need to hunt; to get fresh meat and eat his fill. Harry suspected that the Beast needed more protein than the Durley's meals provided. Petunia Dursley made a lot of pasta and Harry always got the smallest slices of meat. Stalking was great fun. It gave new meaning to the old term 'Harry Hunting'. Once he had his fill, he would divide up the animal's remains and leave it for other creatures of the forest. A number of foxes and similar smaller predators now called the forest home due to the abundant, easy food.

Harry had never stalked a deer before. They were skittish creatures and fast so they were fun to chase. But it just seemed wrong to eat them for some reason.

Squatting in the woods eating the rabbit, Harry considered his last two years. Being bitten by the creature was a mixed blessing to Harry. His so-called family was now afraid of him. The first time they had seen the Beast was when Dudley tried to reassert his superiority by throwing the smaller boy down the stairs the night Harry had returned 'home'. A boy started to fall but it was the wolf that landed on his feet at the bottom of the stairs. The Beast was up the stairs in a blink. Dudley found himself suspended above the floor by the giant clawed hand wrapped around his fat neck.

Dudley found himself with a warm trickle running down his leg for the second time that day.

Since that time, Harry and the Dursleys lived in a state of truce. Harry voluntarily helped out around the house, and the Dursleys pretended Harry didn't exist. Harry never ate with the family but there was always sufficient food left over to feed a growing child.

At school, things remained much the same as before the creature bit Harry. The children at school continued to follow Dudley's lead. Even though it was Dudley that regularly stole money and candy from smaller, weaker students, their classmates believed Dudley's stories that small, dark-haired boy was a crazed killer. Even the teachers were wary of the boy and refused to see to ragged, poor-fitting clothing or meagre lunches as anything but what the boy deserved.

Harry accepted this solitude as an improvement though and spent large amounts of time hiding in the library. The librarian glared at him often, but Harry learnt to ignore her. Instead he sought out books that might explain his condition. He suspected the creature that bit him was a werewolf as it fit some of the legends he'd read. He read many books on werewolves and other mythical monsters looking for answers.

Most of these dealt with superstitions that he felt didn't really apply to him. For example, he didn't really turn into a wolf. One look in the mirror while in Beast form told him that. He looked more like a wolf crossed with a gorilla; a wolf's head atop a gorilla's massive furred body but with legs of a wolf. While he could run on two legs, for real speed he ran on all fours. And his clawed hands and feet were adept at climbing and gripping walls and trees. Aside from his appearance, Harry found he was not dependent on the moon's phases, silver (Aunt Petunia hit him with a candlestick), have furry palms, or any of the other classical 'signs' of lycanthropy. So, instead of calling himself a werewolf, he was the Beast. (It sounded cooler to the ten year-old anyway.)

There were a few drawbacks for his new 'condition'. One issue with being a Beast was hearing. Even in human form he could hear what the other children whispered about him to each other. He ignored them as best he could but they felt like constant little paper cuts; painful and annoying but not something you could do much about. The second was his eyes. His green eyes, brilliant before, now seemed to glow. It seemed to scare anyone he made eye contact with. He was able to deal with that by finding a pair of clear costume lenses that were slightly tinted that would fit in his old frames. They weakened the impact of Harry's eyes but few would still willingly meet the gaze of the young boy.

In human form Harry stepped from the forest to walk back to the Durleys. He walked along the farm lane back towards the park when an odd event even for Harry occurred.

An owl landed on his shoulder.

Needless to say, this freaked the almost eleven year-old out. The owl hooted in an irritated sounding tone as it flapped its wings to return to flight after Harry's startled jump dislodged the bird.

Harry watched a moment as the owl circled him. He'd seen plenty of owls the last two years in the forest but had never seen one act quite like this. Carefully he raised his arm to allow the owl to land on his forearm.

The owl immediately landed although it continued its irritated noises. As Harry was looking at the bird in disbelief, he noticed the envelope attached to its leg. Carefully, Harry removed the envelope. He was startled again then when the bird took off again once free of its burden.

Harry stood watching until the bird flew out of sight. 'That was odd,' he thought as the bird crested the trees. It was then he remembered the envelope in his hand. He glanced down at the envelope and read:

Mr Harry Potter

At the Forest's Edge

Little Whinging, Surrey

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