It had separated Harry from his friends, and had singled him out. Why this was so, Harry did not know. Though, Harry thought acerbically, that hardly mattered. He was lost in the dark and alone. He didn’t need to know the reason, he could think of that later. Right now, he needed to survive.
With that thought, Harry steeled himself and pushed himself harder despite the way his legs screamed for rest. He had been pushing himself harder than ever before, his workout routine for football not nearly as rigorous as this.
Harry would have chuckled cynically at the thought, recalling how often he and Ron complained about the way their coach worked them to the bone, if not for the fact that something was chasing him through the woods.
He supposed that running for one’s life was definitely a way to put things into perspective.
Harry yelped when he felt something sharp swipe across the back of his neck, the sting enough to make him stumble and fall into the ground roughly. He pushed his hands out to break his fall, gritting his teeth when the pebbles and tree roots scratched at his palms and dug painfully into his knees.
Harry closed his eyes for a moment to compose himself, staring into the ground below before turning his head up and stiffening.
There were two strangely shaped legs in front of his face. They were pale, almost translucent beneath the full moon over the darkened sky.
Harry was frozen stiff with fear, his bespectacled face refusing to raise higher. He didn’t want to see the creature that had come into the camp and ruined an otherwise pleasant afternoon. He didn’t want to know what this was because this was no bear or wolf. This was already unlike anything Harry had ever seen before.
It hissed, and Harry’s arms broke into goosebumps at the sound. He didn’t know what to think, didn’t know what to do. His arms began to shake, and his knees trembled when he felt a breath fan against the back of his neck, hot and wet as a mouth touched along his ear.
“Look at me.” Harry snapped his head up, and the scream threatening to escape him at the sight. The face he saw robbed him entirely of his capacity to speak.
The monster was entirely naked and on four legs. It looked strangely humanoid, but the way its arms and legs bent was unlike any person was capable of. The elbows were bent backwards and its hind legs were twisted in a fashion that looked more dog-like than anything else.
Harry could not stop staring. Despite the monstrous look of its body, the way its fingers looked nothing like any hands Harry had ever seen with its knobby joints and pitch black claws, its face was very much human.
It looked beautiful, like the face of a boy Harry’s own age with high cheekbones, immaculate skin, and soft-looking black hair. It fell over the creature’s forehead in waves, the curls falling over its slim neck.
Its head did not fit on the body. It looked as if someone had removed the head of a perfectly normal boy and attached it to that of monster. Its shoulders and arms were as thick Harry’s thighs, and Harry could see the way the muscles jumped each time it moved.
He was in trouble. This was obscene.
