Harry and Dumbledore went their separate ways. Dumbledore to his office and Harry to his dorm room. Little did they know that this would be the last time that they interacted with each other. People always wanted to think that they would feel when something was wrong, but when they said their farewells, not a single warning came to either of them.

Now if Harry had any brains then he probably would have made these critical observations: one, someone was lurking about and bore a remarkable similarity to Draco Malfoy who is a son of a Death Eater, two, it was night time, and he saw strange shadows in the Forbidden Forest (a place that is known for the number of dangerous creatures waiting for a student to wander in), three, the school was left unguarded when Dumbledore left, and there was no one to watch the wards for many many hours since they were tied to the Headmaster, five, it was the end of the school year, and something ALWAYS goes wrong at the end of the school year, and there hasn't been a deviation from that pattern yet, and finally six, it was a full freaking moon! Considering there were many werewolves who are aligned with the Lord Voldemort, it would be smart to monitor the lunar cycles, but as typical of wizards, no one had the common sense to watch them. Of course, Harry's intelligence and observational skills were never the best, and there are many examples where he failed to notice the essential facts of life. For example, Ginny liking him, Cho flirting, that the mysterious creature of Salazar Slytherin was a snake (what else could it have been?) and that his teacher who disappears every full moon was a werewolf. All of those had to smack him the forehead with a bat before he noticed those. All of the Ravenclaws could stalk Harry around and use him like a science experiment on oblivious people, and Harry would never notice. Admittedly, Harry would make a fantastic test subject.

Either way, regardless of whether he noticed or not, those facts were all true, and they were all going to be slapping him in the face for the rest of his long(?) life.

Harry was walking at a sedate pace since he was in no rush to head with all of his nightmares and reached into his pocket to check the Marauder's map for anyone wandering around. He opened the map and said the password when he was distracted by a noise behind him. The sound was a horrible, scraping noise. Harry was then struck by a large body. It was huge and screamed of power. Scrambling on his knees and scraping his knees on the stone floor, Harry twisted his body and reached for his one in his back pocket. Harry regretted more than ever that he didn't have a wand holster. Wand finally in hand, Harry turned around and ended up with his back to the wall. The uneven edges dug into his back and caused him to bleed, not that Harry noticed. His attacker made very little noise, and when Harry caught sight of his attacker, he gasped and froze in fear. A huge werewolf! The fur was dark, nearly black, but what caught Harry's attention was the huge scarred snout. The scars were a clear indication that not only had the werewolf been in many fights, but he had also lived to tell the tale. His teeth were sharp and looked vicious. All thoughts of what the beast looked like fled from Harry's mind when it lunged for him with its mouth open to tear into his flesh. Harry threw his arms up, ready to defend his face, but it bit into his arm and tore into the muscle. Later Harry would begin to suspect that the wolf intended to turn him, not to kill him.

The pain was unbearable, and Harry screamed. His throat ached from the intensity of his fear, but Harry couldn't imagine holding back his scream of pain. The noise seemed to awaken the castle because Harry could hear shouts in the distance. His mind was in a haze, and his vision seemed to blur. Harry vaguely saw someone in the distance running towards him and the werewolf with their wand in their hand. The person was wearing all black and ran with a purpose. The wolf unclenched its jaw, releasing Harry's forearm from its grasp. It growled at the newcomer with a fierceness that only a possessive animal could. It stepped forward a bit, enough to guard Harry against the wizard but also to stop Harry from running away before it was finished with him. Harry gained some of his focus and slightly shook his head. He was trying to gather his thoughts and figure out how to get out of this situation alive and relatively intact. His arm was burning and throbbing, and Harry could see his blood flow from his arm darkly. He put his other hand on the wound and put pressure on the deep gashes trying to stem the blood flow, his wand was long forgotten and lay useless on the floor a few inches from his foot. The wand was too far to be useful, and reaching for it would only put him in danger. He dragged himself up slightly but stopped when the wolf turned slightly to growl at him. The newcomer approached, and Harry could now see who they were. It was Professor Snape.

Of all of the people, Harry was surprisingly happy to see the DADA teacher. Despite his deep-rooted mistrust in the man, Snape had saved his life many times in the past, and Harry begrudgingly admitted it. Snape's wand was firmly in his hand, and he whipped his wand and sent a purple spell towards the werewolf. The wolf dodged it and truly demonstrated the lithe skill of the wolf. His growl deepened. His shoulders tensed as if getting ready to leap, and Snape seemed to pale and took a step back. Harry knew that Snape had an extreme and nearly paralyzing fear of werewolves ever since Remus attacked him because of Sirius in their youth. An incident that left all of them mentally scarred.

The wolf turned his attention away from Snape, and looking at Harry, it leaned forward and lapped at Harry's face and neck until satisfied. If Harry didn't know any better, then he would say that it was marking him. Harry was growing more and more faint with blood loss and couldn't fight the wolf. His arms and head felt heavier than a ton of bricks. It seemed to have nodded its head with approval and ran into the darkness. Snape scanned the distance and cast Homenum Revelio. Satisfied, he pocketed his wand.

Snape approached and scanned Harry with his eyes. He reached into his robe pockets and pulled out a few vials; he forced Harry to drink them. Harry slowly came to attention and looking at Snape; he rasped out, "Thank you, I thought that I was going to die alone...I am one of them now, aren't I?"Harry's voice was rough from screaming, and his eyes were drooping. His hands were shaking, and his breath kept catching.

"Lucky once again, Potter. I was heading to the headmaster, and yes, you are indeed one of...them", Snape seemed to stumble before the word werewolf and ended up using Harry's word: them. Snape was not an emotional man, but he understood Potter's feelings regarding being something that he did not wish to be. However, life gave little choices and took even more choices away, very unforgiving.

Snape asked Harry, "Do you require assistance to stand, or would you rather I levitate you to the hospital wing?"

"... I want to stand, please."

Snape grabbed Harry's arm, being careful to avoid his wound and helped him to a standing position. Harry's legs were shaky, but with Snape's potions, his head cleared and his injury stopped pouring out blood. Harry was leaning against Snape's arm but stopped when he gained his balance. Just because Snape saved him didn't mean that he was going to start fully trusting the man. They slowly headed to the hospital wing and Madam Pomfrey. Harry was slowing them down and he felt the pain in his legs from scraping them on the stone floor.

Thankfully, Harry was near the quad so it was a short trip and not a huge strain upon both of them. Harry turned to Snape, "Do you know why a werewolf was here? I thought that the wards would prevent them from coming here?"

Snape's face twisted into a sneer, "No doubt, the headmaster manipulated the ward stone to allow your pet wolf. Why he didn't change them back is a question that I cannot answer."

Harry turned his away and flushed with anger, but he didn't say anything in response for fear of angering the one man who knew he was injured...and a werewolf of all things. Another question racing through Harry's mind was who exactly the werewolf was and what he was doing on campus. He knew that the wolf could not be Lupin since he was more brown in fur color, but since Harry did not know many werewolves, to begin with, he couldn't guess many options. They were passing the great staircase tower when he heard a rustling of cloth and shadows on the wall. There were about five distinct shapes; all seemed ominous and dangerous.

"Who knew that itty bitty cissy's boy would be the one to make the Dark Lord proud," Harry couldn't help but flinch at the voice. Harry was shaken to the core. Death Eater's have entered Hogwarts.