“If I told you what I was,

            would you turn your back on me?

            And if I seemed dangerous,

            would you be scared?”

            --"Monster” Imagine Dragons

            Harry chewed his nails as he waited in the hallway in the early morning, hidden under his invisibility cloak. The Wolfsbane Potion had made him feel very nauseous and shaky last night, but then the effects had faded after a couple hours. He was sure that taming the mad wolf inside him came at a cost, and he was very willing to accept the stomach upset and side effects of the potion to keep everyone safe around him, and to keep the monster inside at bay.

            Light was filling the castle as morning dragged on, and slowly, candles lit up in the dungeons, and Harry adjusted himself on the windowsill he was sitting on, watching the office door intently. He wasn’t sure what the professor’s morning routines were, or where his quarters were, but he was hopeful a quick stop at the office was in those routines.

            He wasn’t sure how much longer he waited while gnawing on his fingernails. Finally, he saw Severus, dressed in his usual black teaching robes, walking down the hall with a cup of tea in his hands, and Harry pulled the cloak tighter around him as he slid off the windowsill.

            Severus pulled out his wand to unlock his office door.

            Harry slowly tiptoed toward Severus, not really wanting to startle the professor, nor wanting to announce his presence quite yet. He was almost right behind the professor when Severus spun around and directed his wand right at Harry.

            Harry jumped back, then lowered the hood of his invisibility cloak quickly to reveal himself.

            “It’s just me,” Harry said. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

            “Indeed,” Severus said, not lowering his wand. “Sneaking up on someone while invisible rarely startles anyone.”

            “I’m sorry about last night,” Harry said.

            “For what part?” Severus sneered. “Stealing from my supplies? Refusing to follow an order? Avoiding the infirmary? Or nearly biting me?”

            “I wasn’t trying to really bite you,” Harry said.

            “Oh, that makes it okay then?” Severus lowered his wand to his doorknob and tapped it twice, unlocking his office door. He walked into his office, though he did leave the door open, and Harry took that as an invite to follow the potions master.

            “No, it doesn’t,” Harry said as he walked into the office, pausing just within the entryway and watching as Severus took a sip of his tea before setting it down on his desk. “I just . . . I can’t go to the infirmary.”

            “And why not?” Severus asked as he rummaged through piles of parchment.

            “I think you know why,” Harry said. “But no one else seems to know. They would have come after me by now, wouldn’t they have?”

            “Most likely,” Severus agreed softly, glancing up at Harry’s floating head for a few seconds before shuffling through his parchment again. “I do not know what you think will happen when you go see Madam Pomfrey, but it’s probably nothing like what you are imagining in your head.”

            “Wasn’t the whole health check thing because of me?” Harry asked, stepping further in the office. “You were all looking for someone who was bitten.”

            “We were.” Severus pulled out an old slip of parchment and walked over to Harry. “And now we’re not. The headmaster and I know who was bitten. You are, however, still required to go to the infirmary. The headmaster has actually made it a mandatory protocol. Besides, you’ll need someplace secure for your . . . monthly ailment.”

            Severus held out the parchment slip, and Harry hesitantly accepted it, his hands appearing out from under the cloak. It was a list of potion ingredients with prices listed next to it. Harry frowned at it.

            “What is this?” he asked.

            “After all the research you’ve done, I’d think you’d recognize what potion these ingredients make.”

            “Wolfsbane,” Harry said.

            “Yes. I thought you might like to know what your future expenses will be, seeing as you are so determined to make the potion yourself. And if you continue to refuse to visit the infirmary and abide by the rules the headmaster will set for you, you will be removed from Hogwarts, and you will be on your own figuring out how to control the wolf within you.”

            Harry sucked in a breath at some of the prices for some of the ingredients. Why on earth were they so expensive? Did all werewolves spend this much every month? There was no way.

            “An ounce of dragon’s blood is fifty-four galleons?” Harry asked aloud.

            “You expect such a difficult to collect ingredient to be cheap?” Severus narrowed his eyes at Harry and crossed his arms. “Perhaps you thought the men who risk their lives obtaining it for you would give it to the great Harry Potter for free? Is that it?”

            “No, it’s not,” Harry snapped.

            “No, you’d rather just steal the ingredients instead, wouldn’t you, you impudent little brat?”

            Harry sucked in a breath as he realized that he had in fact stolen very expensive ingredients from the potions master. In all fairness, he knew what he had been doing was wrong, but he had not realized just how expensive the ingredients were. He had only been trying to keep himself from endangering the school.

            “I’m sorry,” Harry said. “I’ll bring them back. I didn’t break anything. And I didn’t know how expensive they were.”

            “Like that would have stopped you. I expect everything that you took to appear on my desk within the next couple hours or you’ll be scrubbing cauldrons and preparing ingredients for the next five years to pay off what you stole.”

            “I’ll bring them back.” Harry hesitated, lowering the parchment slightly as he peered up through his fringe at Severus. “I need more of the potion, sir.”

            “And you expect me to just hand them over to you at your every beck and call? Do you think I just have an endless supply of Wolfsbane Potions to give away like candy on Halloween?” Severus shook his head. “Wolfsbane must be brewed every month as it is a very sensitive potion and does not keep for long. One batch makes a week’s worth supply. Of course, I might be willing to spare a few doses I have left for one werewolf—should he report to the infirmary as he was supposed to.

            “Why? You know it’s me.”

            “You still need to have your full health check up performed, regardless of the fact that the headmaster and I know of your condition. And Madam Pomfrey will need to go over a few things with you, as will the headmaster.”

            “To lock me away? To kick me out of Hogwarts? No, I won’t go.”

            “Then no deal, Mr. Potter. You’re getting nothing from me.” Severus walked back to his desk, shuffling parchment once more as he collected his lesson plans for the day. Severus shrunk the parchment and stuffed them into a robe pocket.

            “You can’t do that.” Harry walked up the desk, setting the slip down on it while glaring up at Severus.

            “You know the stipulations that will change my mind.”

            “You’d be endangering everyone in this whole school.”

            “No, Potter,” Severus said as he rounded the desk, standing in front of Harry and leaning in close so their faces were inches apart. “You would be.”

            Harry felt his hands shake and he lowered his eyes. He took a deep breath and steadied himself before opening his eyes again.

            “Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it. But can I have until the end of the week?”

            “That’s pushing it awfully close to the full moon. You have until the day before the full moon to take yourself to the infirmary and have the health exam performed.”

            “Okay,” Harry agreed.

            “And you will hand over your invisibility cloak,” Severus said, holding out his hand.

            “No!” Harry jerked back a step.

            “Potter,” Severus snarled through his teeth, glaring at the child. “You’ve been abusing it the last few weeks and we do not need an invisible werewolf running around Hogwarts. Hand it over, or you can kiss the Wolfsbane goodbye and find yourself locked up in Magical Creatures Control Unit come the full moon.”

            “It’s all I have of my parents,” Harry said.

            “I am confiscating it for the safety of the school,” Severus said. “I have no plans of keeping it from you permanently. It is your choice: give up the cloak or spend a long night at the Ministry sedated and in chains.”

            Harry bit his lip as he considered his options. If there really was a thing as Magical Creatures Control, it sounded like his worst nightmares come true. He didn’t want to lose the security he felt with the cloak, but he also could not miss his Wolfsbane now that he had started it. He needed to keep his sanity when the inevitable came and he turned into a wolf. Harry swallowed dryly and blinked his eyes rapidly as he stripped the cloak off his shoulders, revealing the rest of his body as he folded up the cloak and held it out to Severus, who took it and set it on his desk.

            “Wise decision.” Severus reached into his robe and pulled out a similar hourglass shaped vial Harry had seen last night. “Here. Take it this afternoon. You don’t want to take the doses so closely together to each other. And remember, the day before the full moon, you will see Madam Pomfrey, or I will drag you there myself under full body binds.”

            Harry nodded, clutching the potion to his chest like a lifeline.

            The next couple of days proved to be very difficult. The Wolfsbane made Harry feel sick to his stomach, and sometimes, he also felt very sleepy. At one point, he had passed out in Transfiguration, which caused him to lose points for Gryffindor. When Hermione had scolded him for not getting better sleep at night, he had snapped at her to mind her own business and worry about her own sleep, which he instantly regretted, especially after seeing her hurt look. Harry was not sure if his sudden irritability was caused by the full moon drawing nearer or if it was another side effect of the potion he was taking. Or a combination of both.

            Every afternoon, Harry reported to Severus’s office to pick up a dose of the Wolfsbane, which the professor usually handed over with only a reminder of their deal, which Harry nodded at before taking off to drink the potion in privacy.

            Every time he drank it, he immediately felt its effects. Weak. Unsteady. Shaky. Sick.

            And those effects seemed to last longer with each dose he took, and he wondered if he would feel this way the entirety of the full moon night. Even if he did, it would be worth it to keep his friends safe. Even if they were annoying him at the moment. Hermione seemed to realize something was off about Harry, and she was always insisting that he go back to the infirmary and have Madam Pomfrey reexamine him. Ron seemed to pick up on Harry’s negative energy and was usually trying to interest him in a game of exploding snap or chess to “take the stress of school off.” But Harry rejected their help. Sometimes kindly. Sometimes rudely.

            His senses were another thing to get used to. His eyesight had greatly improved, and everyone was quick to point out his missing, trademark glasses. His ears picked up every whisper, his nose every smell, and the hair on his skin seemed sensitive to every change in temperature and air pressure. It was driving him insane. After taking his sixth dose, Harry was feeling particularly sick and fed up with everyone’s loud talking. They were waiting outside the potions classroom door for Severus to finish cleaning up from the last class when Malfoy thought it was a great time to remind everyone that Harry did not wear glasses anymore.

            “What’s with the new look, Potter?” Malfoy asked. “Got tired of having four eyes? Wanted to see what normal was like?”

            “Lay off, Malfoy,” Ron quickly said. “No one asked you to open your mouth. It’s really nauseating when you do.”

            “What’s nauseating is that you associate yourself with mudbloods, Weasley,” Malfoy fired back.

            “Shut it, Malfoy,” Harry snarled through his teeth. “Or I’ll do it for you.”

            “Oh, you can see well enough to do that now? I know it was just talk before, but I’d actually like to see you put those broken eyes of yours to use. Go ahead. Just try it.”

            Crabbe and Goyle stepped closer to Malfoy and sneered at Harry, as if daring him to try something.  

            “Guys, just stop,” Hermione said. “It’s not worth it.”

            Ron and Harry turned away from Malfoy, who just had to get one last word in.

            “That’s right, listen to your mummy, you mudblood loving traitors.”

            Heart pumping his body full of adrenaline, Harry felt something deep in his chest snap, and he let out a feral snarl as he spun around and charged Malfoy, shoving the boy into the wall so quickly Crabbe and Goyle were too slow to react. Harry opened his mouth wide and lunged for Malfoy’s neck, wanting to rip the throat out of his nemesis and end his filthy mouth once and for all.

            A hand closed on the back of his neck and yanked him off Malfoy.

            “Potter!” Severus snapped, shaking him roughly by the scruff of his neck. “What in Merlin’s name do you think you’re doing?”

            Harry reached back to grab at Severus’s arm as if to pull the man off his neck, wincing in pain at the tight grip. He looked at Malfoy and ice hit his stomach as he took in the blonde boy’s wide eyes and pale face. Crabbe and Goyle were staring at Harry as if he had grown another head, and even Hermione and Ron were looking at Harry with jaws dropped, though Hermione had her hands over her mouth as well. Everyone else was staring, but they seemed oblivious to what had happened, as if they were just realizing something crazy was taking place and they had missed the show. The rush in his ears died down as Harry realized what he had nearly done, and his own eyes widened, and his knees began to shake.

            “Everyone inside the classroom,” Severus said, still keeping a firm grip on Harry’s neck. “Now.”

            His classmates piled into the classroom quickly, save for Hermione and Ron, who hesitated before following the others into the classroom, shooting looks back at Harry now and then as they did so.

            What did they think of him now? What did anyone think of him now? He really was turning into a monster. His knees shook and his eyes watered, but Harry fought the tears back by blinking rapidly.

“I tried to bite him,” Harry whispered.

“Wouldn’t be the first time you tried that stunt,” Severus scolded. “I think you’re done with classes now. And I believe you promised me you would do something today anyway, something you have not done yet?”       

“The infirmary,” Harry admitted, glancing up at Severus.

“Indeed. Seeing as you cannot control your emotions at the moment, I suggest you head to Madam Pomfrey and get the exam over with. I will alert the headmaster that you are on your way there now. They will discuss what you’ll do tomorrow. I’m sure Albus has a grand idea for his Golden Boy.”      

Severus gave Harry a push in the direction of the stairs leading out of the dungeons.

“And Potter, twenty points from Gryffindor for attacking a fellow student and detention with me . . . to be scheduled at a later date.”

Harry nodded before he started walking down the hall, still feeling very shaky as he climbed the stairs. He really had become a monster. He nearly sunk his teeth into Malfoy’s neck. His teeth. Like some savage wild animal hungry for blood, he had wanted to bite someone and cause as much damage as possible. What if he had?

That thought terrified Harry, and he forced the dark images flooding his brain to disappear. The image of his friend’s terrified looks popped up instead, and Harry felt sick to his stomach. He rushed to a nearby loo and held himself over a toilet, waiting to sick up. He kneeled above the seat for nearly ten minutes while his stomach twisted and knotted, but he never vomited. After a few more minutes, Harry decided he was a bit less queasy and went to the sink to splash cold water on his face. What would Hermione and Ron think of him now? What if they knew the truth—would they still want to remain his friends? Worse, what if they feared the monster he was becoming?

The tightness in Harry chest returned full force, and Harry hissed in pain before he gave into the urge and sobbed over the sink. He couldn’t be trusted to stay around anyone anymore. Even with the wolfsbane, he was a dangerous monster. Madam Pomfrey would see that. The headmaster would see that. They were waiting for him at the infirmary with chains and muzzles. Magical Creatures Control was probably there as well, ready to take him away to some cage in the Ministry.

There was only one thing left to do.

Run.

He had to run away, far away, from Hogwarts.

Somewhere no one would find him. Where he could never hurt anyone ever again. And where he would not be locked in chains.

Harry splashed his face one last time and was about to head to his dormitory and collect his things to do just that when he remembered that no matter how far he ran, he might turn back around once he turned into a mindless wolf and come right back to Hogwarts in search of a kill. No, he had to get the final dose of Wolfsbane before he left. He had to find where Severus was keeping it before the full moon tomorrow night.

New plan: break into Severus’s office and find the last dose.