Chapter 1: Runaway

I do not own Harry Potter so please don't sue. This fic is semi-dark. It's rated M mainly for violence and language. Enjoy.

"Talking"

Thought

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"A fucked-up family's a fucked-up family, whether or not werewolves are involved." .

- Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Takes a Holiday

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Harry's stomach growled as he pushed his way through the bushes. He was used to it growling out in displeasure, but he usually had a cot to lay on in his cupboard as he tried to alleviate his stomachache. Despite his protesting stomach, he felt a bit of exhilaration. He was out of the Dursley house and it felt fantastic. The cool air and shining stars were something new to him. He was thankful for the full moon as it made it easier for him to see where he was going. It wasn't one particular thing that had set him off on this venture. It was a multitude of things. The Dursleys called him freak and boy for years, made him do chores until his fingers bled, encouraged Dudley in his efforts to torment him, and generally held him below them in anything they could think of.

The one thing that may have really gotten his journey going was the epiphany that he was a person. Before he started school, he was only boy or freak. Now he was Harry Potter. Sure, people looked down on him, but he was recognized as a person by the teachers and students at the school. It had taken him until his second year of school to realize this, but it was the fact that these people outside of the Dursley home treated him better than they did. All he needed to do was to find some place where he could settle down far away from Privet Drive and he was sure he could manage to take care of himself. The problem was that he had gotten lost in the woods.

"Hoo-Hoo!" He nearly jumped out of his skin as a nearby owl called out. He needed to get back to the streets. Why had he thought it was a good idea to cut through some woods?

He kept stumbling along through the brush until he noticed that something was odd. Everything had gone silent. No crickets, no owls, not a thing made a sound. He then heard something off to his left. It sounded like a wet smacking sound. He cautiously approached the sound and looked through some bushes to see something large on the other side standing over something on the ground. Whatever it was, it seemed to be eating the thing on the ground.

Harry started to get a bad feeling when the soft squelching sounds stopped and the thing brought its dog-like head up. It started to sniff the air and he could see large white and red teeth glisten in the moonlight. When an eerie pair of yellow eyes appeared as the creature turned its head, Harry ran. Harry wasn't sure what it was, but those eyes were wild and frightening. Every part of his being told him to run and hide in a place where the creature could not get him.

Unfortunately, a small seven year old boy can't run that fast. Harry's first sign that he was losing the race was that he could now hear the creature's heavy breathing getting closer. It was almost like the creature was toying with him. It was fairly obvious that his short legs couldn't match the long strides of the beast.

The beast finally stopped the chase by ramming into the young boy, tossing him into a nearby tree. His vision swam as he looked up into the sickly yellow eyes of the beast. Now that it was closer, Harry could tell that the creature wasn't truly as dog or a wolf. It had a more squat head of scraggly fur and gangly arms and legs. It looked like a sickly dog combined with a human by some kind of mad scientist.

Harry raised his arms to protect himself which only set the beast off as it grabbed one of his arms in its fangs and started shaking him like a rag doll. Teeth tore into flesh and cracked bone as the young boy barely held on to consciousness. Harry was in blinding pain as the thing whipped him around by his arm. He wanted to leave, he wanted the beast to leave him alone, he actually wanted to be safe and sound in his cupboard. He had to get away!

It was then that two things happened. Some unseen force slammed into the head of the beast, forcing it to let go of Harry's arm and Harry disappeared in a loud pop.

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In a castle far away, a silver instrument let out a whistle and a nasty puff of black smoke before quieting down. Everyone was asleep and no one noticed anything wrong.

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Harry hadn't expected to wake up in his cupboard, much less wake up at all. Maybe it had all been a horrible nightmare. He had those on occasion, but they never seemed that real.

He sat up only to fall back on his cot once more. Horrible pain shot through his right arm. It wasn't a dream. Whatever that thing was, it had bit him and none too gently. He could feel the open wound now rubbing against the canvas that made up his cot. He held in a scream as he knew it would only cause him more trouble if he should wake the Dursley's up.

He eventually heard the tell-tale signs of the Dursley's stirring as the floorboards shook. He could now get out of bed and make breakfast. He bit his tongue as he hefted himself off the bed and to the cupboard door. It wouldn't be long before Vernon came down to let him out again. He just hoped that Vernon wouldn't notice that he had jimmied the locks open last night.

His thoughts were interrupted as Dudley jumped up and down on the steps causing dust to fall onto hairy. It only aggravated his bite wound more. A more lumbering gate was heard a few minutes later and the steps creaked and bent as something much larger came down the stairs. Harry could hear the locks being opened and had to blink as light infiltrated his dark home. He stepped out carefully as his eyes began to adjust to the light to come face to face with his uncle Vernon.

"Boy, what's the meaning of this?! What freakish thing have you done to get all bloody like that. You're dripping blood on the carpet." Well, at least his uncle had noticed that something was wrong instead of just telling him to get in the kitchen and start fixing breakfast.

"Vernon, the boy is dripping blood on the carpet and I don't want his blood contaminating the food! I'll just have get something suitable biscuits for Duddykins at the new fast food restaurant down the road. Just take him to the hospital and say a wild dog bit him. Just get him out of the house and fixed up. I don't want the neighbors to start talking and it will take forever to get the blood stains out of the carpet. Make sure you buy some carpet cleaner on the way home so the boy can clean up his mess." Harry wasn't sure if his aunt was concerned or not, but at least he would be receiving some kind of medical attention.

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The Dursley's were not happy that they had to drive him to the hospital to get stitched up. They had told the doctor that it was a wild dog, which was fine for Harry as he didn't think he could do much better describing the monster than to call it a 'wild dog'. He had to get stitches and a cast for some hairline fractures. It made cleaning, cooking, and working in the garden much harder, but the kids at school all seemed to flock around him and want to sign his cast. If he had known that breaking a bone would get him this type of attention, he would have done it sooner.

Of course Dudley complained about his new found popularity, but there was little that the Dursleys could do about it other than keeping him in his cupboard for longer periods of time. People might get suspicious if the boy ended up with any more injuries while he still had the cast.

Things were looking up for young Harry Potter. This was the best time of his entire life.

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It had been several weeks since the incident and Harry was sitting in his cupboard fidgeting around. He felt anxious that evening. It felt like something was stirring in him and he wasn't sure what. Both the scar on his forehead and the one on his arm were itching like crazy. He couldn't bring himself to sleep. There was something wrong.

Blinding pain suddenly passed through his body. It felt like molten steel was being poured through the scar on his arm and a freezing chill was spreading from the scar on his forehead. When the two forces met, it felt like his body was being torn asunder. Both forces were fighting fiercely for control. One was wild and untamed and the other was cold and calculating. In the middle of these forces was Harry. What little consciousness he had, he was wishing with all his might that the two forces would stop. He didn't know what they were but he didn't want either of them to win.

His situation looked hopeless until he felt a third force rise up from his chest. He didn't know what it was but he knew he would rather take his chances with it than the other two forces. He accepted whatever this power was and it sung out in joy. It shot through his body and drove straight into the other two forces. Harry could swear he heard a painful yowl and hiss as this third force pierced through the other two. It was then that little Harry could take no more and passed out.

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Harry awoke in the cupboard, slowly drawing himself up. He felt strange, not bad, just strange. While he knew he didn't have his glasses on, he could see much better now. And wasn't that odd because there was no light in the cupboard. He also felt cramped. He tried moving, but for some reason it caused the cupboard door to buckle outwards and he ended up on the hallway floor. He was scared now. If his uncle found out that he had broken the cupboard door, then he would be in real trouble.

He tried to get up, but found that he could only stand on all fours. He looked down and gasped. He had paws. His hands and legs were now jet black. Harry's mind raced as he tried to figure out what had happened. A mirror! He needed to get to a mirror. There was one in the downstairs bathroom wasn't there?

He raced to the bathroom and nudged the light on with his nose. He then looked at the mirror. He didn't know what was looking back at him though. It had iridescent green eyes, a dog like muzzle with pronounced canines, long dog ears, a skinny dog-like body, a whip-like tail, and dark, jet black scales instead of fur. What on earth was he?

He then heard rumbling from upstairs. It had to be Vernon. He was the only one that could make that much horrendous noise. Harry needed to get out of there and fast. He didn't even think as he raced out to the kitchen and jumped through one of the windows to the outside. He needed to get away.

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Harry was once again lost and hungry. He wasn't even sure of what he was anymore. He was going to see if he could find some place to stay for the night when he smelled something. It smelled delicious. He quietly walked along the forest floor and peered around a tree. There was a rabbit eating some clover just under a street lamp. He could feel his stomach rumble and he began to salivate. The rabbit twitched for a second then looked directly at him. It froze for a second before racing off. Harry wasn't sure why but he raced after it. He needed to catch it.

He ran after the rabbit faster than he had ever run before. Twenty meters, ten meters, he could almost taste it in his mouth. One meter, he had it. He was surprised by the loud scream the animal gave off, but quickly cut it off as he ripped out its throat. He was hungry and he was about to fix that.

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Harry woke up on a park bench. The first thing that he noticed was that he wasn't hungry, which was really strange. The second thing that he noticed was that he was stark naked. He blushed furiously as he looked around for something to put on. He startled when an old man appeared and tossed him a black robe. "Put this on my boy, I think you'll need this."

Harry gladly pulled the robe. He wasn't sure why the man was helping him, but he wouldn't argue about it. "Thank you sir."

The mans eyes twinkled and he smiled as he looked over the boy. "You're quite welcome my boy. Quite welcome. Now I think its best to get you home. Don't you."

Before Harry could say anything, the old man grabbed his shoulder and they were gone with a loud crack.

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A loud crack was followed by two figures appearing at the front doorstep of Number 4 Privet Drive. The older of the two looked down at the young Harry Potter and smiled again. He bent down to meet the eyes of the young man and stared at him for a couple of minutes.

Harry squirmed under the scrutiny of the man. He was staring intently into his eyes and he didn't know why. The old man must have found something problematic as the smile slipped from his face. "Ah, it seems that this is where I leave you young Harry. Not to worry though, you should be seeing me again when you go to Hogwarts when you turn eleven. Now Obliviate!"

The old man had held up a stick and pointed it at Harry. He smiled once more as something hit the boy and the boy continued to just stare at him. Having done all of that, the old man disappeared with a crack.

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Dumbledore sighed in relief as young Harry was once again with the Dursleys. Thankfully the boy showed no signs of being a werewolf. No yellow eyes, the silver thread in the robe did not hurt him, and the new anti-werewolf ward he put on the house ensured the boy had not been afflicted. More than likely the boy had escaped his attacker using accidental magic somehow. It would not go over well with the public if there young hero was a werewolf. It was problematic that he wasn't able to use legilimency on the boy, but it wasn't necessarily an insurmountable problem. Hopefully this was the only problem from here on out. He was a busy man and didn't have time to drop everything at once all the time.

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Harry stared at the old man as he disappeared. Why had the old man pointed a stick at him and said 'Obliviate'? What on earth was that thing where the old man just teleported him to his house? What was Hogwarts? It didn't really make sense to him.

Harry was brought out of his thoughts as the door swung open. Vernon Dursley stared at the boy and looked at his attire with narrowed eyes.

"Look here boy! We'll have no more freakishness inside the house. As soon as I can, I'm having you clear the shed out so you can sleep there. I need to go to the store first to get a better shed for you to put the equipment in. Now get in your cupboard!" Vernon stormed shoved the boy towards the cupboard as he walked out the door.

Harry acceded to his uncles request and went to his cupboard which was miraculously repaired. He almost thought the previous night was a dream until he saw the claw marks on the inside of the cupboard and realized that he could still see well without his glasses.

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Harry liked the shed. Sure it had a nasty gasoline smell that rankled his nose, but he had a lot more space and brand new cot since the old one was now broken. The earth below his feet also felt better than the splintered wood in the cupboard.

After settling down, Harry looked down at his hand. He was human now, but he had been something else before. He just wasn't sure what that was. He concentrated as much as he could on becoming something else, but nothing happened. Maybe he needed to be more specific and concentrate on what he had looked like. It was something wolf-like, but it had scales... Harry watched in fascination as his hand turned into a black, scale-covered paw.

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I know the whole werewolf Harry has been done over and over, but I'll give it a go anyways. I hope that this will be entertaining.