Horror

Time Unknown

Why? What was he feeling? Why did it hurt so much? Why did it feel like someone was squeezing his heart. With fingers of long and sharp nails that dug in deep. Leaving scars and holes. Emotions that he had never felt before made him groan and clutch his head as if in agony. Ten years' worth desperation for attention, for love, for the need to be wanted churned inside him like tiny constant explosions.

"Please," Harry whimpered.

He didn't want to feel this. It took him back to a time, far back in the past, before the discovery of the void. A time after which those emotions had been shut away in a dark hole, forgotten until this moment.

"May I go to the park Aunty?" His young innocent voice echoed from within.

Slap! "Freaks don't show themselves!"

"Look! Miss Ariana gave me an A!"

"Mum!" Dudley sobbed. "Harry took my paper!"

Harry remembered his first lashing.

Freak! Vermin! Good for nothing! Your parents were drunkards! You don't deserve to live!

Every word was a stamp on his soul. Pushing it into the abyss inch by inch. Until the Void found Harry and Harry found the Void.

"Harry turned the teacher's hair blue mum! Everyone knows it was him!"

Whip! Lash! Kick!

The emotions in response to the horror Harry had endured had been buried deep to cope and survive. Now they were brought back to the surface. Emotions long forgotten. The Void was in turmoil. It was a creation of the desire to be empty of pain. Now all it felt was pain.

"Please!" Harry screamed. It hurt so much that he couldn't see. "Please stop this!"

Night was coming and the man was eating calmly, not bothered by Harry's pleas. Creatures of the night stayed away. They could feel the pain of the boy's magic and were scared away by its nature.

"Please," Harry begged. "Please," he whispered through tear stained eyes.

Exhaustion stretched his mind thin.

"Please," he cried.

And then he lost consciousness.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Thirty first March Nineteen Ninety Three

"Beautiful wasn't it?"

"I've never seen anything like it," Remus said quietly. "I've never been outside England before. Even our history books are centered mostly on home. I've never thought what wonders could be outside home."

"Our country is beautiful to those who understand it. Once you understand it, you never want to leave. It's easy to start thinking of it as home no?"

Remus had made friends with Dopender Singh. The man he had met in the restaurant and who had kindly offered him a room in his home until he found Harry. Dopender was a car dealer and had generously offered to lend Remus a car and teach him how to drive once he realised the man couldn't .

The werewolf frowned. He realised he was getting too comfortable being away from responsibility. He had a job to do and that was to find Harry. He viewed it as salvation for all the bad decisions he had made in his life.

"Are you alright Remus?"

"It's going to be a full moon tomorrow," Remus muttered.

"So?'

"Nothing," Remus said quickly. "Do you mind if a take a drive tomorrow and visit the neighbouring villages?"

"Alone?"

"Yes. I need some time alone."

Dopender frowned. "You know the way back?"

"I can handle myself," Remus said with a gentle smile. "Please don't worry. I know your family is having a celebration tomorrow and don't want to be in the way as well."

"Nonsense! You're welcome to join us!"

"Please Dopender. I need to do this."

"Oh alright." He fished in his pocket and removed a piece of paper. He then wrote a number on it and gave it to Remus. "If you get lost, find an STD booth and call me. I will come."

"Thank you."

"Now let's go home. You're going to need money as well."

"Dopender please!"

"I insist," the man boomed in his loud voice leaving no room for argument.

Remus acquiesced and smiled. "You're a kind man Dopender."

The next day before sunset Remus drove as far out of the city as he could without running out of fuel for the return trip and then took off on feet into the wilderness beside the highway.

He didn't have the wolfsbane potion with him. He didn't have a place to hide. The forest was the only option where he could transform. It lacked the thickness of the forests he roamed in back home and he knew there were hundreds of farmlands all around. He prayed he wouldn't run into farm animals or people. He could do a lot of damage as a wolf.

Night began to crawl into the spaces between the light and Remus began to run. The clouds parted and moonlight shone through the trees.

Remus felt his heart beat faster. The transformation had begun. His jaws snapped, deforming to change into a snout. His teeth sharpened and eyes turned yellow. Bones shattered changing shape. Remus howled.

Deeper inside the forest, the howl of a wolf stirred a boy with dark hair and green eyes to the brink of an awakening.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

It was the smell that woke Harry up. A whiff full of wet soil and grass was quite soothing as compared to feeling of sand particles going into his nose.

The crackle and warmth of a fire made his raise his head and look towards the source. The man was there. Sitting in a meditative pose, his eyes closed and hands in his lap. His aura was pulsing and magic was swirling hypnotically all around him.

A small plastic sheet lay next to him with rice mixed with what looked like stew.

Harry's stomach growled.

Shakily, he stood up. His body ached. He felt like he had gone through hell, been trashed over and over again before being spit back out.

He stretched his hands over his head and groaned in pleasure when he felt bones crack. Even though his body ached. He felt good. In fact he felt like something missing had been returned to him and now he was whole.

He sighed and unbidden, a smile came to his face. What had happened?

Suddenly the memories returned and anger rose to the surface. What had the man done to him? He had never felt so much pain before! The sudden urge to kill the man before him rose to the surface but the growl of his stomach made him reconsider. His anger left just as fast as it came and he felt something new. A desire to just let go. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Do you feel peace?"

Harry was startled. The man had spoken! His eyes were still closed and he was still in deep meditation. For a moment Harry thought he imagined it.

A wolf's haunting howl ripped through the still atmosphere and Harry turned sharply towards the sound. The wolf sounded like it was close.

"Eat."

Harry whipped his head back towards the man but again, he was still and unmoving.

Keeping a suspicious eye on the man Harry picked up the sheet and sat opposite the man. Not a sound came from him and the growl of his stomach urged him to eat.

Harry dug in with his hands and for the next five minutes he stuffed his mouth until the tiny plastic sheet was wet and empty. Once he was done Harry thought about the words he had heard.

Do you feel peace?

Strangely he did. He felt whole.

"I… what did you do to me?" Harry asked softly.

There was no answer.

"Who are you?"

Again, no answer.

Harry sighed. His mind still felt scrambled. There was no direction. The obsession of surviving in the desert felt like a vague dream now. What had been the point of that? He wasn't able to make his thoughts connect.

The man opened his eyes and Harry found himself captured by those misty brown eyes. Suddenly Harry realised… the man was blind! And yet he was looking at him like he could see him!

"The question you should be asking… child… is who are you?"

"I…" Harry didn't know. He didn't know who he was. Everything that he was before felt blurry. "I'm..." Even his name wasn't coming to his mind.

"What do you remember," the man asked from the other side of the fire.

"Pain," Harry whispered. "Regret. Longing."

The man stood up. "Your journey is your own. Good bye child." He then turned his back on Harry and started to walk away.

Harry's eyes widened. "Wait! Who are you! What are you? Your magic… what is it?!"

The man stopped. "Magic? There's no such thing."

Harry blinked in shock and in that split second the man disappeared.

In the minutes of silence that followed Harry suddenly realised that not once had the man opened his mouth to speak. A shadow moved within the trees and for a moment Harry thought the man had returned.

He was wrong. It was a monster. A tall hulking, hairy creature, standing on it's hind legs, looking at him with hungry yellow eyes.

A predatory growl rose from its gut and in-spite of all that had happened. The desert. The hunger. The explosions. The emotional awakening. The cryptic man. Harry's primary instinct had not changed or gone.

His instinct to survive to strong as ever.

Harry summoned his magic just as the werewolf lunged at him.