A/N: Alright, new story. Again. I would apologise, but I like darker stories and this will be pretty dark, I think. Back to writing after, what, six months or something? Ick. Better be worth it...kind of Time Traveller's Wife-y.

MAIN CHARACTERS: (I will try to make them seem like human beings, so beware of Ginny-reconstruction, Hermione-reconstruction, Harry-reconstruction, Ronald-reconstruction, Lavender-reconstruction, Tom-reconstruction, Remus-reconstruction, Theo-construction, Seamus-construction, Hannah-construction.)

Harry Potter, Theodore Nott, Seamus Finnegan. Hannah Abbott, Lavender Brown, Hermione Granger. Tom Riddle, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black.

DISCLAIMER: Belonging, as of a certain year and certain date pertaining to the publishing and consequent inking and copyrighting of aforementioned novel, being under publishing rights and ownership laws, to one J.K. Rowling. Other material, from external sources and under plagiarism technicalities of the law, being the intellectual property of one Audrey Niffenegger. Some, also, shamefully, sourced from she-who-must-not-be-named-who-wrote-that-book-which-must-not-be-named-on-pain-of-death, and Maggie Stiefvater.

(Sometime 1998, Harry is 18)

HARRY: I'm in the back of a police car somewhere in England. Exeter, I think.

I am wearing handcuffs and not much else. The interior of this particular police car smells like cigarettes, leather, sweat, and another odour I can't identify that seems endemic to police cars. The odour of freak-outedness, perhaps. My left eye is swelling shut and the front of my body is covered with bruises and cuts and dirt from being tackled from the larger of the two coppers in an empty parking lot full of broken glass. I don't pay attention that much; the pain will disappear as soon as the wounds heal. The coppers are standing outside the car talking to the neighbours; at least one of whom evidently saw me trying to break into the yellow and white Victorian house we are parked in front of. I don't know where I am. I've been here for about an hour, and I have fucked up completely. I'm very hungry. I'm very tired. I don't know where I am.

The upside of this police car is: it's warm and I'm not in London.

Scotland Yard hate me because I keep disappearing while I'm in custody, and they can't figure it out. Also I refuse to talk to them, so they still don't know who I am, or where I live. The day they find out, I'm dead meat because there are several outstanding warrants for my arrest: breaking and entering, shoplifting, resisting arrest, breaking arrest, trespassing, indecent exposure, robbery, burglary, et cetera. From this one might draw the conclusion that I am a very inept criminal, but really the main problem is that it's so hard to be inconspicuous when you're six foot two and quite filled out and naked. Stealth and speed are my main assets and so, when I try to break into houses in broad daylight stark naked, sometimes it doesn't work out. I've been arrested eleven times, I think, and so far I've always managed to get away before they can fingerprint me or take a photo. I think. Fuck, I don't know anymore.

I don't know anymore.

I don't know how long I was wolf this time.

Usually it's around three days before I can come to my senses and drag my head out of the mess that is my thoughts, but recently it's been getting harder and harder to hold on to my human form. (My self?) I hate it, that feeling of losing control. Of not knowing what you're capable of. Huge chunks of time are missing from my life, and I can't do anything to stop them from happening. I suppose that going wolf stops me aging, so that it doesn't matter how much time I lose. But it does. It matters to me. Because I am out of control and my life is out of control and I am dragged along for the ride on four paws and covered in fur, with no rational thoughts or mind, so far as I can tell. Lately it's been longer and longer periods of time disappearing into the void. A week and a day, last time I counted. Sometimes I wonder if one day I just won't come back.

Sometimes I wonder if one day I just won't want to.

(...what – can't feel – so cold, like...don't touch – no, gone...Harry? Who is Harry?)

This time I can only remember a flash of feeling.

That's different, too. Usually I can get a few minutes. But this time it was just intense emotions, all jumbled together and not making any sense. Pity. Destruction. Anger. Fury. Confusion. Devastation. Hunger. Bloodthirstiness. More confusion. I don't know what happens when I'm a wolf – it all blurs into nothing. I'm starting to lose names; I remember my friends, their features, but not their names. I don't know if I even have friends anymore. I haven't seen them in so long. I don't know; maybe I did. Doesn't matter though, if I did. I can't fucking remember anything from when I'm wolf.

I haven't been human for a while now; longer than a week, I think. Maybe the policeman knows the date. I can tell it's been at least a week because there is dark stubble covering my jaw and dark shadows under my eyes and when I came to (naked, in a puddle of water in a dark alleyway in a random city) it took me ages to get my mind back. I sat there, rocking back and forth with my arms wrapped around my knees, for what felt like hours until I could remember my name. It's been taking longer and longer after coming back from being a wolf to think human, to think Harry. It scares me, when I don't know who I am.

But I should be used to it by now.

The neighbours keep peering in the windows of the police car at me. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. This is taking a long time. Fuck, I hate this. I lean back and close my eyes.

It is good that it is still daylight, so that the light shines through my eyelids and the windows. I never used to be afraid of the dark, of small spaces. I don't know what changed; if something happened to make me messed up again. But all I know now is that I panic when I'm trapped in small enclosed spaces, like this police car. But there are enough windows to make it bearable.

Barely. My hands are shaking lightly and my hair (long, matted, neglected) is stuck against my skull, and I can't run my fingers through it because of the handcuffs. This shits me, for some reason.

A car door opens.

Cold air – my eyes fly open – for an instant I see the metal grid that separates the front of the car from the back, the cracked vinyl seats, my hands in the cuffs, my scratched legs, the flat sky through the windshield, the black visored hat on the dashboard, the clipboard in the officer's hand, his pale face, tufted grey eyebrows and jowls like drapes – everything shimmers, iridescent, butterfly-wing colours and the policeman says, 'Hey, he's having some kind of fit –' and my teeth are chattering hard and my entire body is shaking and my skin feels really hot and my head is pounding and I can't hold on to this form any longer and I lose control and before my eyes the police car vanishes and –

MISSING: HARRY JAMES POTTER, AGE 18.

BLACK HAIR, GREEN EYES, CIRCULAR GLASSES, APPROX. 5"11.

LAST SEEN: JULY 31st, 1995.

A/N: Harry has been missing since he was fifteen, for three years, the time of which an incident (to be revealed at a later point) happened, before he went back to school.

NB: HARRY IS NOT A WEREWOLF. HE IS A WOLF. As Maggie Stiefvater says: "When my characters are wolves, they are wolves. When they are human, they are angsty emo teenagers. There is no 'were'. Where is the 'were'?"

I will be continuing to 10000 words at least, because I know that there are people out there who (like me) just set the settings to 'English', '10,000 words'. So, yeah. Voila. Mon merde.

Read et review, s'il vous plait?