Freak of Nature
Do you really think I own Harry Potter? If so, I've got this great deal for you on waterfront property for you in Florida and shares on a bridge in Brooklyn.
AN: I'm enjoying writing this, spark, and aspects of death. I have to be in the right mood to write each one of them. If I start feeling that I 'have' to write a story, that's when I don't want to update it. So I'll keep updating as they come to me. Not going to abandon them, going to keep on truck'n. Please note that my Beta reader is unavailable these next two weeks, but I'm going to keep posting. All errors are my own and I apologize in advance if any slip through.
AN: I've received multiple emails and reviews for Freak of Nature suggesting that they don't like Harry evil and want him to do a 180 degree flip in his character or stop acting like an animal. To which I politely respond, what part of "Dark Harry," or "Animal Harry" don't you understand? The part where he kills people, or the part where he eats what he kills? The part where he doesn't understand the definition of an innocent? In the animal world the predators go after the young 'innocents' first because they are easier to catch and taste better. The character details that I started this story out with was that Harry was an innocent child that had the innocent beat out of him; he was about one moment away from a death similar to a concentration camp victim when his magic changed him. He is not a snuggly character, and I don't think I would term him good. On the other hand, I would not define him as bad or evil either any more than you can label a tiger or a lion evil for eating its prey or a deer fighting off the predator that hunts it. As far as cannibalism goes, yes, since he is technically a human it could be termed cannibalism, but he doesn't see himself as a human. I'm not going to go into the philosophical discussion of what makes us human, however Harry doesn't see himself as one and doesn't really feel that he relates to them, wizard or muggle. If you look at him as more of the wolf hiding out in sheep's clothing, it's easier to understand. After all, the wolf is hanging out in the sheep's clothing so that it can eventually eat the sheep… I don't in anyway condone my character, nor think that the way he deals with his problems is the right way to do it in our society. This is fiction. I set the character up with certain situations, character traits, skills/abilities, and lessons and then I allow his nature and the environment around him to shape him. Welcome to Harry Potter evolution style people. I felt it needed to be said again as people keep bringing it up.
[parsel]
/creepy crawly critters/
{Primal Beast Language}
'thought'
Chapter 17: Opportunities
"The only true way to prove that you have lost your inner child is if you don't laugh when you hear the word "poop"."
~Amanda
Poop, magical glow in the dark and make normal plants grown an incredible ten feet over night poop. Harry was sure that the fertilizer that they were using on their devil's snare and spiky bushes was not created by any god or creature of nature that Harry was familiar with, but that was what they were required to use when repotting their plants in their first Herbology class. Ok, so maybe they weren't using quantities of the waste product that would make the individual devil's snare or spiky bush grow ten feet tall, they were only using perhaps a gram of the glowing fecal matter per plant.
After all, who would want to create a ten foot tall semi-sentient spiky bush with a mean streak a mile long let alone a devils snare with ten foot long tentacles whose idea of fun was to strangle passer's by?
'I would!' Harry thought as he smiled to himself, his thoughts on the properties of glow in the dark magical fertilizer and the fun that could be had with plants running through his head. In fact, every time that his partner turned to look at the teacher, Harry took another clump of the glowing fertilizer and pushed it deep into the planter; deftly avoiding the view of the teacher and the thrashing tentacles and spikes of the plants with his inhuman speed.
'He he, I can't wait to see what happens when the Gryffindors and Slytherins come in for their class tomorrow.' Harry smirked to himself.
"Alright class, is everybody finished with their potting?" Professor Sprout asked as she looked around the class. Seeing all of the students' eyes looking up at her, she smiled and nodded before clapping her hands once.
"Good. Well, then please put away your supplies and leave your plants where they are, I will be around to label your pots so that you can see how they grow by next week." Sprout said with a smile as she ushered the students to put away their gloves, spare soil and fertilizer.
Harry smiled, and then quickly switched his potted plants with those of the student next to him while the other boy was putting away his gloves and bag of soil in their allotted places; it wouldn't do for him to be caught in a 'prank' so early in the year.
With that completed, the double period Herbology class was dismissed and Harry departed with his fellow housemates to go to lunch. Along the way his fellow classmates peppered him with questions.
"Where were you last night?" A boy dressed in Ravenclaw colors asked him.
"Dealing with the headmaster, he wanted to consult with me on the state of my adventures over the summer." Harry replied with a smile as he told a half truth.
Several of the girls in the crowd twittered and giggled at his answer, his dashing smile and handsome good looks. It was amazing that he had seemed to grow even taller and more muscular than he had been the previous evening. It was now official, in Harry's mind, the puberty fairy had come to Potterville, and Harry had been elected mayor. Harry now stood a good foot taller than the other first years, and his defined features and 'almost' glowing green eyes captured the hearts and minds of his fellow classmates.
"So what were your adventures this summer Harry?" The Patil sister in Ravenclaw robes asked as she looked up at Harry.
Harry smiled back at her, again contemplating Sirius's comments regarding twins, oil, and twister; the Patil sisters were definitely going to be stunners when the puberty fairy went to their town, and Harry was hoping to be elected 'mayor' of their individual 'towns' also.
"I was playing with Nundus and hunting in the wilds." Harry stated, adding another half truth that sounded almost too wild to be true. However, given that the wizarding world and their belief in the stories of that Lockheart fellow, the students all ended up staring at him and nodding in belief at his wild adventures.
Questions continued to be thrown at him, ranging from whether he really saved a maiden, which he stated yes in memory of Hermione, or if he had ever stopped a robbery, which he also stated yes in memory of his interactions with the thug and the hag in Knockturn Alley. Questions continued, and Harry tried to answer them all, even such mundane questions as his favorite color, (blood red) and his favorite food (meat).
Everything was going well until one overly inquisitive Ravenclaw asked one question too many.
"Harry, do you remember the night you defeated You-Know-Who?" A boy asked; Harry's brain immediately dubbed the boy 'he-who-would-soon-be-lunch.'
Harry stopped, causing the children walking with him to collide with each other at the abrupt halt of forward movement.
Turning a baleful glare at the child, Harry stepped up to the smaller boy, towering over the boy as Harry glared down at the boy.
"You mean do I remember the night my father and mother were murdered in front of me?" Harry asked, the wind starting to blow slightly around him and a shimmering heat started to form in an aura around his body.
The boy gulped and looked up at Harry's now glowing eyes; he could feel the heat that radiated off of Harry. The boy could only slowly nod, unable to break his gaze from the predator crouched over him, and unable to speak for fear that it would only come out as a squeak.
"Yessss" Harry hissed, struggling to keep his anger from turning his voice into parcel. Still, it had the proper result as the stale sent of urine wafted to Harry's nose as the boy lost bladder control.
A wet stain went down the front of the boy's robes, even as Harry took a quick step back.
Closing his eyes and shaking his head to clear the anger, Harry again looked at the smaller boy, and then looked around at the startled first years that had been inching away from the palpable aura of anger that Harry had been putting off.
Taking a deep breath to cleanse the anger from his system, Harry addressed the crowd.
"Yes, I remember the night Voldemort killed my family. I remember my mother pleading for him to kill her but let me live, and I remember that madman killing her anyway before casting the killing curse at me. This is the one and only time I will tell this tale, and spread the word that I will not be kind to the next person who mentions that night or the death of my parents." Harry related, catching the eyes of every student there, staring at them until they averted their eyes from the promise of pain that was present in Harry's eyes.
"Spread the word. I do not want to be bothered about this again, from anybody. Is that clear?" Harry asked, receiving muted nods from the surrounding students.
Realizing that he may be bordering on losing the image he was trying to portray to the wizarding public, Harry purposefully broke the mood.
Smiling, Harry asked, "So have any of you heard the joke about professors Snape, McGonagall, and Dumbledore walking into a pub?"
The children around him almost sighed with relief as they turned to walk with him and started trading jokes back and forth on their way to lunch; quickly separating from the urine soaked boy who ran off to his dorm to change his robes.
Lunch had been interesting, not for anything that had directly happened to Harry, but for what Harry had observed.
Draco Bastard received two owls during lunch, one with a message bearing the Black family crest, and the other the Malfoy family crest.
Nobody in the Great Hall but Harry and Draco knew the contents of the letter from the House of Black. But everybody was able to see Draco's reaction as he read the letter, then proceeded to sneer at it and light it on fire with a candle that was on the table.
Draco made a production of reading the letter from his father, and then loudly proclaiming that he would be Draco Malfoy by dinner that evening. His comments about "wait till his father heard how he had been treated" were still somewhat muted by the general knowledge that the House of Malfoy had been significantly injured by the loss of Narcissa and the dowry from the House of Black. However Harry watched out of the corner of his eye how several Slytherin students made a point of going up to talk to Draco or shake his hand as the boy proceeded to the head table and left the hall with Professor Snape.
As far as Harry was concerned, Draco soon-to-be-Malfoy had sealed his fate to that of House Malfoy and its inevitable destruction at Harry's hands. Narcissa had described to Harry how Draco was turning into a little clone of Lucius Malfoy, however a Mother's love made her plead for Draco's life and for a chance for him to join the House of Black and Harry's protection.
Harry understood that even in the wilds that the love of a mother was natural. However he made it clear to Narcissa that even on the veldts of Africa, a mother would defend her child, but knew when to sacrifice the life of a child so that the mother could survive to raise additional children. The glow in Harry's eyes when he had explained it to Narcissa Black had punctuated his statement, and she had ended up silently nodding in understanding of the message that Harry was giving her; Draco would have one chance and one chance only.
Draco had just wasted that chance, and now the downfall of the House of Malfoy would be Draco's downfall and destruction as well.
Harry's had squinted his eyes in thought as he watched Draco pompously pass down the aisle across the table from him on his way out of the Great Hall of Hogwarts. The puffed up chest had signaled to Harry that Draco was simply asking to be destroyed; even young animals learn that those who stand out in the herd tend to be eaten.
Alas, even Professor Snape looked to be heading quickly towards a second confrontation with Harry, as the billowing bat like man had taken the opportunity to focus his sneer directly at Harry as Snape walked out of the Great Hall while escorting Draco.
'We will have a reckoning Mr. Snape, oh yes we will.' Harry thought to himself, for every predator knew that to gaze into the eyes of another animal was to issue a challenge, and Professor Snape had now challenged Harry twice in twenty four hours.
The last class of the day for the Ravenclaws' had been transfiguration with Professor McGonagall.
Upon entering the classroom with his fellow Ravenclaws, and a smattering of Hufflepuffs who were all bunched up in a herd together, Harry noticed a familiar cat imperiously sitting on the teacher's desk.
Harry internally smirked, as this presented an opportunity for both some fun as well as a chance to establish his position as a leader in the student body; and perhaps the wizarding world at large.
Dropping his books on a desk by the aisle, Harry smirked to himself as he stuck his right hand in the pocket of his robes and proceeded to the front of the class.
"Hello there you cute kitty. How are you today?" Harry asked as he reached out to pet the cat that he knew was the animagus form of Professor McGonagall.
The cat was at first not amused, and if the cat's glare could kill, Harry would have been six feet under. However the cat merely stayed sitting there, not showing any reactions as Harry pet her; McGonagall's thinking was that the entire class was not present yet and so it wasn't time for her to show off her incredible animagus transfiguration skills.
Harry merely smiled, as the glare didn't faze him at all.
"Does kitty want some catnip?" Harry asked with a smirk, removing the catnip stash from his right hand pocket and sticking a ball of it in the face of the cat.
The cat's gaze focused on the catnip with laser like intensity, and then its left eye started to twitch as the children in the class could tell that the cat was trying to resist the temptation of the catnip.
Harry was undaunted, and merely smiled large. "Here. You can have it; I've got more here if you want it also." Harry stated, as he used his hand holding the catnip to rub on the cat's head and over its face, his other hand digging out another ball of catnip and placing it on the teacher's desk next to the cat.
That seemed to do the trick, as Professor McGonagall gave into the temptation and started forcefully pushing her little tabby head into Harry's hand that had the catnip in it.
The cat was now meowing happily, almost drunkenly, as she gave into her addiction.
"Here you go kitty, can't have you going without." Harry stated, as he pulled out another couple piles of catnip from his pocket and laid them across the desk. "I bought these for a friend, but you seem to be enjoying them, so you can have all the catnip you want." Harry finished.
By now McGonagall was rolling in the piles of catnip, and pawing them across the desk, totally oblivious to the class of children that was coming into her room. She was so oblivious, that she didn't even note that the time for class had come and that several Hufflepuff students had trickled in late.
Harry stood next to the teacher's desk, watching the teacher scratch her feline back against the table covered with catnip. He smirked down at the now stoned teacher as things were going exactly as he'd hoped.
A minute passed, and then another minute passed. Finally Ms. Patil commented that the teacher should have been there by now, and that Professor McGonagall was known for always being punctual.
While Ms. Patil was complaining at the lack of a teacher, McGonagall was 'meowing' like crazy, high as a kite and unaware of the students waiting for her to start class.
Nobody else under stood the 'meowing,' but Harry interpreted McGonagall's meowing to say, "[Merlin I love catnip! But oh Maeve I've got the munchies and could really do with some cold cream and something to nibble on.] She meowed.
This statement, and Ms. Patil's complaint, was just the cue that Harry needed.
"Well I see that our teacher is a bit indisposed at the moment. However, I figure that I could probably teach the class seeing as she isn't here." Harry stated with a smile to the other students.
Several students laughed, thinking that Harry was joking. After a few seconds of laughter, the other kids realized that Harry wasn't laughing with them, and their laughs turned into either silence or a few chuckles at Harry's expense.
One Hufflepuff, whom Harry hadn't met yet, scoffed at Harry, "Oy! What makes you think that you can teach us transfiguration? What, just because you're the bloody Boy-who-lived or something doesn't mean you know dick about transfiguration."
The boy and his friend's laughter at that statement were changed to a gasp, as Harry calmly swished his wand, and a saucer of cream was conjured on the teacher's desk.
The gasp was prefaced by the cat letting out a loud 'Meow' as the tabby dived face first into the milk, splashing it all over its fur and causing its face to look a bit rumpled and soaked with the white substance.
Harry smirked at the student's silence, and then aimed his wand at a quill that was on the teacher's desk, effectively transfiguring the quill into a slab of pâté on an ornate gold and jade inlaid china saucer.
The cat once again Meowed loudly at the creation of the pâté and now started to gobble up the pureed meat as quickly as it could, before rolling over again on its back and continuing to happily play with the remaining catnip.
Harry merely smirked and raised an eyebrow at the now silent Hufflepuff boy and his friends . Harry prefaced the look with, "Now, I think I've established that I know a thing or two about transfiguration. I'm happy to show a few more examples if you like, though I must warn you that my next example will be to turn you into a mouse for the cat to play with."
At the mention of 'a mouse,' the cat looked up at Harry and then the boy, licked its lips laboriously, before going back to drinking cream, eating pâté and playing in the catnip.
"Um, uh, no. I think you've made your point." The boy acknowledged a bit fearfully.
"Excellent then!" Harry said with a smile, he pointed his wand at the chalkboard and flicked a spell at it that caused the board to show the notes for the lesson.
Here was another perfect use for Scorpius's memories of his time at Hogwarts. Though Dumbledore had been the teacher at the time of Scorpius's lessons, Sirius had affirmed that McGonagall also started off her first transfiguration lesson by having the children change matchsticks into needles.
The students gave Harry their undivided attention as he walked them through the steps of 'intent' and 'will' as well as the proper wand movements and pronunciation for making the class's first transfiguration.
The students took liberal notes, and Harry made sure to help all of the students understand the theory as well as interspersing some of the lecture and practical work with interesting tidbits about what can happen when people mixed up the words or movements to a transfiguration; making the class laugh and pay that much more attention to Harry's lesson. Harry wasn't about to tell them that Scorpius Black had used the 'transfiguration mistakes' as methods of torture for muggles, but then again the lessons were better served for both the students and Harry's purposes when he made it sound like funny instances of wizards making mistakes.
By the end of the class Harry had labeled it an absolute success as not only had the students all successfully made the transfiguration, but most of all they were all looking at him with awe and a bit of worship.
Harry had smiled politely at the thanks and praise, happy with himself for the completion of a successful ploy. Harry ended up leaving with the rest of the students as the cat continued to mindlessly play with the catnip and food he had conjured and transfigured.
By that evening, word of Harry teaching the class and his seamless conjuration and transfiguration had spread through Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.
Throughout the evening Harry was internally producing an evil chuckle as the older students in Ravenclaw came up to him for advice on their transfiguration projects or homework. The student body was starting to accept him as their leader.
Harry's plans for the wizarding sheep were coming along perfectly.
After spiriting Luna away from her house via the 'Nundu express,' Harry greeted Luna with a hug under the moonlit sky.
"I missed you." Harry stated into her full head of wavy blonde hair, enjoying the feeling of his friend hugging him back. This was the first person who had ever really been a friend to him, and though he was harsh with the rest of the world, there was a certain sort of vulnerability that Harry felt when he thought about his friend Luna.
"I missed you too." Luna stated, not wanting to end the hug with her only friend.
Finally pushing out from one another, they looked at each other. Or really Luna looked up at Harry.
"Wow Harry, you've grown." She stated with a smile and a bit of a dreamy look in her eyes. Stepping back she realized that he was almost a foot taller than he had been when she had seen him a few days ago.
"You've grown a lot!" She continued looking up at him, and admiring the more mature cut of his face.
"That's not fair; I don't want you to mature faster than me." She said in a pout, but then looked down away from him, her curtain of hair covering her face she mumbled, "I don't want you to outgrow me as your friend." She added under her breath.
Of course with Harry's incredible hearing he heard every word of her mumbled addition.
Reaching forward, Harry pulled her head up and hugged her again. "Don't be silly Luna, you're my only friend. I'll never outgrow you." Harry stated with a bit of youthful overstatement.
Luna clung to Harry, her mind was in a bit of turmoil at the possibility of losing Harry like she had everybody else in her life. Her mother had died, her friends had left her, and her father had lost himself in a fantasy world with only small amounts of time for his daughter in between writing articles for the Quibbler.
She wanted to stay Harry's friend forever, she wanted just one relationship to be able to hold on to no matter what. So in a very Luna like fashion, she stated the first thing that came into her mind.
"I want to be like you Harry. How can I be like you?" Luna asked as she broke the hug with Harry and sat down on the log behind her in the moonlit clearing.
Harry cringed, "I'm not one hundred percent sure why I'm growing so fast Luna, but I have a pretty good idea." Harry half answered her request, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck as he averted his eyes from her.
"Well tell me what you do know then." Luna stated with a smile.
Harry's head whipped up to look at her. He'd learned a lot in his few days on this planet, and most of them were not good lessons to share.
"I'm not sure if you'd like to know how I came to be how I am." Harry replied while staring down at the seated Luna, the moon lit her hair and made it glow; helping Harry to imagine that her name was derived from the almost luminescent glow that was upon her.
"Nonsense silly, I'm your friend. Friends share, and I want to be like you." Luna stated with a smile.
Harry crouched down so that he was at Luna's level, and really looked at her. His tone serious, "Luna, I'm not sure you would like me if you really knew about me. Besides, the way I learned to be like this was really really painful. I don't think I could ever cause you that type of pain." Harry answered honestly.
Luna looked at Harry for a few seconds, and then her lip started to quiver as she fought back some tears. "I don't want to lose you like I've lost everybody else Harry. I've lost everything else, and it really really hurts already." She said, at this point the tears were trickling down her cheeks.
"If I lost you too, I don't think my heart could take it." She finished, this time prefaced with a hiccup-sob as she really fought hard not to cry at the thought of losing somebody else she cared for.
Harry couldn't stand her tears. There was just something about Luna that called to him, and to make her crying hit him at a visceral and instinctual level that he hadn't felt with any other being on the planet. Even his relationships with Mutwa, the first being to ever listen to him and treat him as an equal, didn't measure up to how his emotions felt about Luna. Harry couldn't put a word to them, as He'd never felt anything like this since the night his mother died, but he thought that this feeling may be his heart aching.
Harry reached forward and pulled Luna off of the log and onto his lap, turning his crouch into sitting on the dewy grass and twigs of the clearing.
Harry couldn't help but smell her hair as she cried softly in his arms. For some reason, she smelt like what he thought 'home' would smell like. He didn't know what to say when confronted with the crying girl, so he just pulled her close, wrapped his arms around her, and thought for a few second about what to say.
Luna sat there shaking in his arms in turmoil at the thought of losing another loved one. In her mind she was reliving the death of her mother, Ginny telling her that she wasn't good enough to be a friend, and her father's daydreams which led him off into another fantasy land where she couldn't completely follow. Her reliving the nightmares of past memories was interrupted by Harry's voice.
"Ok Luna. Alright I'll help you learn to be like me as much as I can." Harry stated in a muffled tone, his forehead resting against the side of her head and his face in her hair.
Pulling back, she turned in his lap to look up at him. Her smile seemed to light up the night for Harry, and though her eyes were a bit bloodshot from the tears, the moisture on her face made it that much more radiant in the reflected moonlight.
"Really?" She questioned happily.
Harry bit his lip, and nodded to her silently.
Luna squealed in joy, and pulled Harry towards her for a quick kiss on the lips. Harry's eyes were shocked wide open.
By the time she pulled back from him, both friends were smiling at each other silently for the moment.
Harry's thoughts switched to how he would go about helping her make the changes, and figured that working with her 'mind' would be the best way to start. That way Harry could imprint the lessons that he had learned to her directly, rather than watching her learn the hard way like he did.
Harry's smile faded from his face and he turned serious, but he didn't move the girl off of his lap; even though his butt was getting cold from the wet ground.
"Alright, we are going to have to work on your mind first, and I'll be teaching you Occlumency." Harry directed. "Unfortunately, the only way I know how to do this is the fast and painful method, so you have to promise not to hate me if I teach you what I know." Harry darted his eyes away from her, afraid to hear her answer.
"Harry," Luna stated, drawing Harry's attention back to her, "No matter what you do, I'll never hate you. I promise." Luna stated with an honest smile.
Harry looked back into her eyes and grinned, but then the grin faded at what he was about to do to his only friend.
"Ok, well then, tonight you learn Occlumency." Harry stated, as he removed his arms from hugging Luna and moved to place his fingertips on her forehead.
"Now look into my eyes, and get ready, because this is going to hurt… a lot." Harry explained with concern in his voice.
"Legilimens!" He yelled, diving deep into her mind.
The peace of the forest was split by the girlish wails of agony as Luna forcefully relived her life. No animal or human would sleep well in the forest that night.
Elsewhere in Great Britain that night, a half embodied specter of a man with crazy eyes and wild hair, long translucent white robes that disappeared a foot above the ground, and no feet to be seen, slowly floated towards the gates to 'HM Prison and Young Offender Institution Feltham.' The moonlight lit up the silent character, and all calls for the being to stop went unheeded. The terrified guards tried to get the specter to stop, even physical force was repelled as their truncheons failed to gain a response from the specter. All displays of force merely bounced off the being as the specter opened the locked doors and floated inside the prison and the main security station. Screams of agony punctuated the loss of all electricity, phone, and radio service as the prison was cut off from the outside world.
The rest of the night was punctuated by screams as the prison was painted red with the blood of its inhabitants.
AN: So Harry and Luna are beginning to grow together, the destabilization of the world is slowly gaining speed, and Harry's plans are starting to germinate and grow. Hope you enjoyed it. Cheers!