Warnings: Starvation, semi self cannibalism??? Not like actual bodies though.

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Harry was starved. He hadn't been given food for a week because he turned the mean teacher's hair blue, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon locked him inside his cupboard.

He knew he could do freakish things, maybe he could make food appear? He held his hands out in a loose bowl shape and closed his eyes, praying that this would work. He knew the freakish things only happened when he was upset or wanted it really badly, but he wants food now! Why isn't it appearing?

All of a sudden Harry began to see a soft light well up behind his eyelids, and when he peeked them open there was a vaguely apple shaped light in his cupped hands.

A suprised giggle escaped him, but he quickly stifled it and glanced fearfully towards the cupboard grate. 'It worked! Maybe? How am I supposed to eat light?' he thought.

Since it looked kind of like an apple (if apples were white and shone like starlight) and was a bit firm in his hand, kind of like a pudding cup, he lifted it to his lips to take a bite. It was a pretty tasteless, but left his tongue tingling pleasantly, his stomach somewhat filled, and his entire body warm.

Maybe he could survive off of this when the Dursleys didn't feed him...

He was going to Hogwarts! He'd been doing magic, not freakish stuff!

But... he'd been eating his magic for years and even gotten good enough at controlling the appearance that it was more like gum or hard candy, stuff that took longer to eat but was smaller and lasted longer, and easy to hide from his relatives. It still tasted bland and made his mouth tingle pleasantly, but maybe magic that wasn't raw would taste different?

He'd seen the wards in Diagon Alley and Gringotts and while he wasn't stupid enough to try to lick them (god forbid he try that with Gringotts, the goblins were terrifying, not to mention what the other shoppers would say if they saw him licking a wall or seemingly thin air), they certainly looked different to his own, all muted greens and yellows while his was silvery starlight.

But... now that he'd been away from Privet Drive and into a magical area where he could see the magic... there were cherry red lines all around the house with a matching circle around his arm that he'd never really paid attention to since it was always there. Maybe that was magic also? He wondered what it would taste like.

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Or, an HP AU where Harry grew up cannibalising his own magic to survive and, now that he's been exposed to different kinds and what they look like, he's curious to see what they all taste like.

Aa, also this can be tweaked a bit to be turned into a Fairy Tale crossover too if you make Harry a magic eater like Natsu eats fire (sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the sake of survival, and I'm saying this because Natsu said p early on that its weird to eat his own flames, but tbh sometimes you do what you gotta do to surivive.)