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Shadows stretched long across the campground as Mr. Weasley poked his head into their tent, his expression alight with the kind of childlike excitement Harry had come to associate with wizards encountering anything remotely Muggle-related.
"Time to head to the stadium!" he announced, practically vibrating with anticipation. "Don't want to miss the pre-match festivities!"
Harry rose from his spot between Hermione and Ginny. His wolf-enhanced senses had been registering their unique scents all afternoon.
"About bloody time," Ron said, springing to his feet. "Been waiting my whole life for this."
"Your whole fifteen years?" Fred teased. "Such a long and arduous wait."
"Practically ancient," George agreed solemnly.
They set off as a group, joining the rivers of witches and wizards flowing toward the mammoth structure that dominated the horizon. Harry had thought Hogwarts impressive when he'd first seen it, but this—this was something else entirely. The stadium rose like a golden mountain against the twilight sky, impossibly vast and shimmering with magic so thick Harry could almost taste it.
"Seats a hundred thousand," Percy informed them with the pompous air of someone who'd memorized the statistic specifically to share it. "Largest temporary magical structure ever built in Britain. The enchantments alone required—"
"Yeah, yeah, fascinating, Perce," Charlie interrupted. "Tell us more about the regulatory paperwork involved while we're at it."
As they approached, Harry felt a curious pressure building in his ears, not painful, but noticeable, like descending too quickly in an airplane. His lycanthropic senses were picking up the combined magical signatures of thousands of wizards, the overlapping spells that held the massive structure together, and the protective enchantments woven throughout. It was like trying to listen to a hundred radio stations simultaneously.
"You alright?" Hermione murmured, noticing his slight grimace.
"Fine," Harry replied quietly. "Just... a lot to filter."
"Remember," she whispered, "right ear if you need a break."
He nodded, grateful for her concern but determined not to need it. This was the Quidditch World Cup, after all. No partial lycanthropy was going to rob him of this experience.
They reached one of the stadium entrances, where a Ministry witch checked their tickets.
"Prime seats!" she exclaimed, examining Mr. Weasley's tickets. "Top Box! Straight upstairs, Arthur, as high as you can go."
The climb seemed endless. The purple-carpeted stairs were packed with excited fans, their voices echoing off the golden walls and multiplying in Harry's sensitive ears. He focused on dampening the auditory input, imagining dial being turned down gradually, a technique Lupin had taught him via owl post.
"Remind me," he said to Mr. Weasley as they climbed, partly to distract himself, "how did you get tickets for the Top Box?"
"Ludo owed me a favor," Mr. Weasley replied, slightly winded from the ascent. "Helped him out of a spot of bother with a lawnmower with unnatural aspirations. Nasty business with the Improper Use of Magic Office."
Harry tried to imagine what a lawnmower with "unnatural aspirations" might entail and decided he was probably better off not knowing.
After what felt like climbing a small mountain, they finally emerged into a small box set at the highest point of the stadium, situated exactly halfway between the golden goal posts. About twenty purple-and-gilt chairs stood in two rows, and Harry's eyes widened as he took in the panoramic view of the stadium bowl spread below them. A hundred thousand witches and wizards were taking their places on seats that rose in levels around the long oval field. Everything was suffused with a mysterious golden light that seemed to come from the stadium itself rather than any identifiable source.
"Spectacular, isn't it?" Ginny breathed beside him, her eyes reflecting the golden glow.
Harry nodded, momentarily speechless. The pitch looked impossibly green and perfect, like something from a dream rather than reality. From this height, the multicolored dots of the spectators created shifting patterns that reminded Harry bizarrely of the time Aunt Petunia had briefly been obsessed with kaleidoscopes, an interest that had died a quick death when Dudley had smashed her collection during a tantrum.
As they settled into their seats, Harry noticed a peculiar sight in the row in front of them: a house-elf, tiny and trembling, covering its eyes with its hands despite the fact that nothing remotely frightening was happening yet.
"Dobby?" he asked, surprised to see the elf he'd freed from the Malfoys, but the smell was off.
The elf peered through its fingers, revealing enormous brown eyes rather than the tennis-ball green of Dobby's.
"Did sir just call me Dobby?" squeaked the elf curiously.
"Sorry," Harry said quickly, "I thought you were someone I knew."
"But I knows Dobby too, sir!" the elf squeaked. "My name is Winky, sir—and you, sir—" Her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as they flicked up to his scar. "You is surely Harry Potter!"
"Yeah, I am," Harry replied.
"Dobby talks of you all the time, sir!" Winky said, lowering her hands slightly.
Harry was about to ask how Dobby was enjoying his freedom when a curious scent caught his attention. He inhaled deeper, letting his enhanced senses parse the olfactory information. Beneath the overlapping smells of excitement, nervousness, and anticipation from the surrounding wizards, there was something else: a human scent with no visible source, coming from the empty seat beside Winky.
His eyes narrowed as he registered what that meant.
"Winky," he asked casually, "are you saving these seats for someone?"
The elf's eyes darted nervously to the apparently empty space beside her. "I is saving this seat for my master, Barty Crouch," she squeaked, but Harry's enhanced hearing detected the slight acceleration in her heartbeat that often accompanied lies or half-truths.
Harry turned to Hermione and whispered, "There's someone invisible sitting next to Winky."
Hermione's eyes widened. "Are you sure?"
"Positive. I can smell them."
Before they could discuss it further, Ludo Bagman bounded into the box, his face flushed with excitement.
"Everyone ready?" he boomed. "Minister—ready to go?"
Harry noticed for the first time that Cornelius Fudge was also in the Top Box, along with the Bulgarian Minister of Magic and several other important-looking wizards. Fudge greeted Harry like an old friend, introducing him to the officials around him as though they were close acquaintances.
"Harry Potter, you know," Fudge told the Bulgarian minister loudly. "Harry Potter... oh come on now, you know who he is... the boy who survived You-Know-Who... you do know who he is—"
The Bulgarian wizard suddenly spotted Harry's scar and began gabbling loudly and excitedly, pointing at it.
"Knew we'd get there in the end," Fudge said wearily to Harry. "I'm no great shakes at languages; I need Barty Crouch for this sort of thing. Ah, I see his house-elf's saving him a seat... Good job too, these Bulgarian blighters have been trying to cadge all the best places... ah, and here's Lucius!"
Harry's spine stiffened as Lucius Malfoy, his son Draco, and a woman who could only be Draco's mother edged along the second row to three still-empty seats right behind Mr. Weasley. Harry felt his canines itch in his gums—a new and disconcerting sensation that had started appearing whenever he felt threatened or angry.
Down, boy, he thought to himself, forcing his jaw to relax.
"Ah, Fudge," said Mr. Malfoy, holding out his hand as he reached the Minister of Magic. "How are you? I don't think you've met my wife, Narcissa? Or our son, Draco?"
"How do you do, how do you do?" said Fudge, smiling and bowing to Mrs. Malfoy. "And allow me to introduce you to Mr. Oblansk—Obalonsk—Mr.—well, he's the Bulgarian Minister of Magic, and he can't understand a word I'm saying anyway, so never mind. And let's see who else—you know Arthur Weasley, I daresay?"
Harry watched as Malfoy's cold gray eyes swept over Mr. Weasley, then up and down the row, lingering momentarily on him. The scent of Malfoy's disdain—like spoiled milk and expensive cologne—made Harry's nose wrinkle involuntarily.
"Good lord, Arthur," Malfoy said softly. "What did you have to sell to get seats in the Top Box? Surely your house wouldn't have fetched this much?"
Harry felt his fingers curl into claws against his thigh. Beside him, he sensed rather than saw Hermione and Ginny both tense, ready to restrain him if necessary. The wolf inside him, normally a distant presence, surged closer to the surface, angry, protective of the Weasleys who had shown him such kindness.
"Look who it is," Draco sneered, catching Harry's eye. "Scarhead and his charity case friends."
A small calm smile spread across Harry's face. "At least my friends don't need to buy their way into box seats or Quidditch teams, Malfoy. How's that Nimbus treating you? Still can't catch the Snitch with it?"
Fudge, who wasn't listening, said, "Lucius has just given a very generous contribution to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Arthur. He's here as my guest."
"How—how nice," said Mr. Weasley, with a very strained smile.
Harry forced his attention to the field below, where Ludo Bagman had cast Sonorus on himself and was beginning to announce the start of the match.
"Ladies and gentlemen... welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!"
The spectators screamed and clapped, thousands of flags waved, and the discordant national anthems blared from all sides. The massive scoreboard opposite them was wiped clear of its last message (Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans—A Risk With Every Mouthful!) and now showed BULGARIA: 0, IRELAND: 0.
"And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce... the Bulgarian National Team Mascots!"
The right-hand side of the stands, a solid block of scarlet, roared its approval.
"I wonder what they've brought," said Mr. Weasley, leaning forward in his seat. "Aaah!" He suddenly whipped off his glasses and polished them hurriedly on his robes. "Veela!"
"What are Vel—" Harry began, but the words died in his throat as a hundred of the most beautiful women he had ever seen glided onto the field.
For a moment—just a moment—Harry felt a strange pull. His skin tingled with an unfamiliar warmth, and a wild impulse to do something impressive, something spectacular, flashed through his mind. Maybe he should leap from the box into the stadium? That would show them how strong he was, how fearless—
And then, as quickly as it had come, the sensation was replaced by a deep, rumbling irritation that seemed to emanate from somewhere in his chest. His wolf side growled—actually growled—internally at the magical manipulation. The haze cleared from his mind instantly, leaving him clear-headed while chaos erupted around him.
Ron had frozen in an attitude that suggested he was about to dive from a springboard. Mr. Weasley, a dreamy look on his face, was absentmindedly removing his Ministry identification card from his wallet. Fred and George were striking heroic poses on their chairs. All around the stadium, men were acting similarly bizarre—standing up, flexing muscles, or making ridiculous promises at the top of their lungs.
"Harry," Hermione's voice came from beside him, sounding surprised. "You're not affected?"
"Not exactly," Harry replied, feeling the internal growl subsiding. "It... tried something, but then it was like my wolf side got annoyed at being manipulated."
Ginny, who had been watching Ron with an expression of mingled amusement and disgust, turned to Harry with interest. "That's a relief. The Veela allure usually works on anyone who could potentially be attracted to women. It's a magical compulsion, not just normal attraction."
"Great," Harry muttered.
The music stopped. The Veela had stopped dancing and were now arranging themselves along one side of the field. Angry yells filled the stadium as the men in the crowd came to their senses. Ron was absentmindedly shredding the shamrocks on his hat, staring open-mouthed at the Veela.
"You'll be wanting that once they're through with their dance," Hermione said with a touch of frostiness, pulling his arm away. She gave Harry an assessing look. "I wonder if your partial lycanthropy makes you resistant to other forms of magical influence too. It could be that whatever makes werewolves immune to certain curses is working in a diluted form for you."
"Useful trick," Ginny whispered, "especially with so many people trying to mess with your head over the years."
Harry had never thought about it that way—as an advantage rather than just another strange side effect. Before he could contemplate it further, Bagman announced, "And now, kindly put your wands in the air... for the Irish National Team Mascots!"
What looked like a great green-and-gold comet came zooming into the stadium. It circled the stadium once and then split into two smaller comets, each hurtling toward the goal posts. A rainbow arced suddenly across the field, connecting the two balls of light. The crowd "oooohed" and "aaaaahed" as though at a fireworks display.
The rainbow faded and the balls of light reunited and merged; they formed a great shimmering shamrock, which rose up into the sky and began to soar over the stands. Something like golden rain seemed to be falling from it—
"Excellent!" Ron yelled as the shamrock soared over them, and heavy gold coins rained from it, bouncing off their heads and seats.
Harry's enhanced vision allowed him to see that the shamrock was actually comprised of thousands of tiny bearded men in red vests, each carrying a minute lamp of gold or green.
"Leprechauns!" said Mr. Weasley over the tumultuous applause of the crowd, many of whom were still fighting and rummaging around under their chairs to retrieve the gold.
Ron was gleefully stuffing a fistful of gold coins into Harry's hand. "For the Omnioculars! Now you've got to buy me a Christmas present, ha!"
Harry noticed something about the coins that others seemed to miss. They smelled... wrong. Not like real gold at all, but like something earthy and organic beneath a thin veneer of metal. He didn't know what they were, but they didn't smell like gold.
The great shamrock dissolved, the leprechauns drifted down onto the field opposite the Veela, and settled cross-legged to watch the match.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, kindly welcome—the Bulgarian National Quidditch Team! I give you—Dimitrov! Ivanova! Zograf! Levski! Vulchanov! Volkov! Aaaaaaand—Krum!"
Seven scarlet-clad figures on broomsticks shot out onto the field, moving so fast they were barely more than crimson blurs to the average spectator. Harry, however, could track their movements without much trouble.
"That's him! That's him!" Ron shouted, following Krum with his Omnioculars.
Harry focused his own Omnioculars on Krum. Viktor Krum was thin, dark, and sallow-skinned, with a large curved nose and thick black eyebrows. He looked like an overgrown bird of prey. It was hard to believe he was only eighteen.
"And now, please greet—the Irish National Quidditch Team!" yelled Bagman. "Presenting—Connolly! Ryan! Troy! Mullet! Moran! Quigley! Aaaaaaand—Lynch!"
Seven green blurs swept onto the field.
"And here, all the way from Egypt, our referee, acclaimed Chairwizard of the International Association of Quidditch, Hassan Mostafa!"
A small, skinny wizard with a large mustache, completely bald, wearing robes of pure gold, strode out onto the field. A silver whistle was protruding from under the mustache, and he was carrying a large wooden crate under one arm, his broomstick under the other.
Harry zoomed in his Omnioculars as Mostafa mounted his broomstick and kicked the crate open—four balls burst into the air: the scarlet Quaffle, the two black Bludgers, and (Harry saw it for the briefest moment before it sped out of sight) the minuscule, winged Golden Snitch.
With a sharp blast on his whistle, Mostafa shot into the air after the balls.
"Theeeeeeeey're OFF!" screamed Bagman. "And it's Mullet! Troy! Moran! Dimitrov! Back to Mullet! Troy! Levski! Moran!"
Harry had never seen Quidditch played like this. The speed of the players was incredible—the Chasers were throwing the Quaffle to one another so fast that Bagman only had time to say their names. With his enhanced vision, Harry could see details others missed—the subtle hand signals between the Irish Chasers, the millisecond adjustments in flight paths, the almost imperceptible feints that set up their spectacular moves.
"TROY SCORES!" roared Bagman, and the stadium shuddered with a roar of applause and cheers. "Ten zero to Ireland!"
Harry watched as Troy did a lap of honor around the field. The leprechauns watching from the sidelines had risen into the air again and formed the great, glittering shamrock. The Veela on the other side looked sulky and subdued.
The match quickly became more brutal. The Bulgarian Beaters, Volkov and Vulchanov, were whacking the Bludgers as fiercely as possible at the Irish Chasers, and were starting to prevent them from using some of their best moves. Twice they were forced to scatter, and then, finally, Ivanova managed to break through their ranks, dodge the Keeper, Ryan, and score Bulgaria's first goal.
"Fingers in your ears!" bellowed Mr. Weasley as the Veela started to dance in celebration.
Harry, immune to their charms, kept his eyes on the game. Ireland quickly regained possession of the Quaffle and racked up more goals. Soon it was thirty-ten to Ireland, and the match was starting to get even dirtier.
When Ireland pulled ahead to eighty-ten, things got heated. The Veela lost their beautiful appearance and started transforming—their faces elongating into sharp, cruel-beaked bird heads, and long, scaly wings burst from their shoulders.
"Now we see what they really look like!" Ginny shouted over the commotion. "Not so pretty now, are they?"
Harry felt a strange kinship with the Veela in that moment, creatures who appeared human but harbored something wild and dangerous beneath the surface. He wondered if someday his own control would slip that dramatically.
As the match continued, Harry was captivated by Krum's flying. The Bulgarian Seeker performed a Wronski Feint so convincing that Lynch, the Irish Seeker, plowed straight into the ground with tremendous force. Harry winced, feeling the impact almost as if it were his own.
"He's spotted the Snitch!" Harry shouted, tracking the tiny golden ball with his enhanced vision. "Krum's seen it!"
And indeed he had. Krum dropped from height like a bullet, racing Lynch toward a point Harry could already see—the Snitch hovering near the Bulgarian goal posts.
"They're going to crash!" shrieked Hermione.
She was half right. At the very last second, Krum pulled out of the dive and spiraled off. Lynch hit the ground for the second time with a thud that could be heard throughout the stadium. A huge groan rose from the Irish seats.
"Fool!" moaned Mr. Weasley. "Krum was feinting again!"
"The Snitch!" Harry pointed. "It's right by Ireland's goalposts!"
And sure enough, the tiny golden ball was plainly visible to Harry, though perhaps not to everyone, glittering in the now-bright stadium lights.
Krum had seen it too. Blood streaming from his nose after a collision with a Bludger, he shot upward, a streak of red against the darkening sky. With a surge of speed that left Harry breathless with admiration, Krum's hand closed over the Snitch.
"KRUM'S GOT THE SNITCH!" Bagman shouted. "But who's won? IRELAND WINS! KRUM GETS THE SNITCH—BUT IRELAND WINS—good lord, I don't think any of us were expecting that!"
"What did he catch it for?" Ron bellowed, even as he jumped up and down, applauding with his hands over his head. "He ended it when Ireland were a hundred and sixty points ahead, the idiot!"
"He knew they were never going to catch up," Harry shouted back over all the noise. "The Irish Chasers were too good... He wanted to end it on his terms, that's all."
"He was very brave, wasn't he?" Hermione said, leaning forward to watch Krum land as a swarm of mediwizards blasted a path through the battling leprechauns and Veela to get to him. "He looks a terrible mess..."
Harry lowered his Omnioculars. Krum, hunched and round-shouldered, was wiping blood from his face. He looked much less impressive on the ground than in the air, but his capture of the Snitch had been masterful.
As the Irish team performed a victory lap, hoisted on the shoulders of their leprechauns, Harry turned to look at his friends—Ron's face lit with pure joy, Hermione smiling despite her earlier concerns about player safety, Ginny leaning forward with a Quidditch expert's appreciation in her eyes, and the twins exchanging what looked like money with Bagman.
This was what he'd wanted—a normal night with friends, watching extraordinary magic.
As they filed out of the Top Box, swept along in the tide of celebrating Irish supporters, Harry felt a strange prickling at the back of his neck—the sensation of being watched. He glanced back and caught sight of Winky the house-elf, still sitting in her seat, but the space beside her—where he'd smelled the invisible person—was now empty.
A tendril of unease worked its way into his contentment. But he pushed it aside. Tonight was for celebration.
The walk back to their campsite was a blur of jubilant faces and victorious singing. Harry trudged alongside the Weasleys, his body heavy with the pleasant exhaustion that follows intense excitement. The taste of butterbeer lingered on his tongue from the celebration drinks Mr. Weasley had purchased, and all around them, magical fireworks burst in emerald patterns against the night sky.
"Krum was bloody brilliant," Ron said for perhaps the twentieth time, his voice hoarse from cheering. "Did you see that dive? I mean, even though Bulgaria lost—"
"Yes, Ron," Hermione interrupted, "we all saw it. We were all there."
Harry smiled to himself. Even Hermione's exasperation couldn't dampen the warm contentment settling in his chest. For once, he'd experienced something extraordinary in the wizarding world that hadn't involved personal danger or destiny.
Back at the tent, the twins launched into a spirited reenactment of Lynch's second crash, with Fred throwing himself dramatically onto the ground while George provided theatrical commentary. Percy kept glancing around nervously, as though worried his Ministry colleagues might witness such undignified behavior, while Bill and Charlie debated Ireland's chances at the next World Cup.
"I think it's time we all got some sleep," Mr. Weasley announced eventually, though his eyes still twinkled with the evening's excitement. "It's been a long day."
Harry followed Ron into their section of the tent, collapsing onto his camp bed without bothering to change. His enhanced hearing picked up the sounds of celebration still echoing across the campground—singing, cheering, the occasional explosion of magical fireworks. To his surprise, the cacophony didn't bother him as it once might have. Instead, it formed a distant backdrop, like waves breaking on a shore.
Progress indeed, he thought drowsily, recalling his earlier observation about his improving control.
As sleep began to claim him, his thoughts drifted between memories of the match and more personal concerns. The strange behavior of the invisible person beside Winky. Mikhail's cryptic warning about blood. The way the Veela's allure had briefly affected him before his wolf side had growled it away.
His dreams, when they came, were a disjointed tangle of images. Veela transforming into wolves with flowing silver fur. Hermione and Ginny standing beside him as they faced something shadowy and menacing. Ron flying alongside Krum, their brooms leaving trails of golden sparks. A massive stadium filled not with cheering fans but with silent, watching figures, their faces obscured by silver masks...
He jolted awake, heart hammering against his ribs.
Something was wrong.
The sounds of celebration had changed. The singing had become screaming. The cheers had transformed into shouts of terror. And beneath it all, a scent that made every hair on his body stand on end.
Blood.
Not the clinical smell of Madam Pomfrey's hospital wing, or the faint copper tang of a minor Quidditch injury. This was different, hot, fresh, and mixed with fear. Blood spilled in violence.
Harry sat bolt upright, his senses overwhelmed by input. His night vision, sharper than any human's, picked out Ron's sleeping form in the bed beside him. His ears caught the sound of running footsteps outside, the crack of spells being cast, the roar of flames.
And then he felt it, a change unlike anything he'd experienced since Lupin's claws had torn across his chest. A prickling sensation spread across his right hand, and as he lifted it before his face, he watched in horrified fascination as dark hair began sprouting from his skin.
"Ron!" he shouted, leaping from his bed and shaking his friend. "Wake up! Something's happening!"
Ron groaned and rolled over. "S'not morning yet..."
"Get up NOW!" Harry growled, the sound deeper and more threatening than his normal voice. He moved to the next section, finding Hermione and Ginny already stirring. "Something's wrong. We need to move."
As if in confirmation, Mr. Weasley burst into the tent, fully dressed and pale with alarm. "Up! Get up! Grab your wands and get outside—quickly!"
Harry turned to follow Mr. Weasley, catching his reflection in a small mirror hanging near the entrance. His left eye glinted red in the dimness, not the familiar green he'd lived with his entire life, but a deep, blood-red iris that seemed to glow from within.
Outside was chaos. People were running away from something moving across the field, something that emitted flashes of light and sounds like gunfire. Loud jeering, roars of laughter, and drunken yells were drifting toward them; then came a burst of strong green light, illuminating the scene.
A crowd of wizards, tightly packed and moving together with wands pointing upward, was marching slowly across the field. They wore hooded cloaks and masks that gleamed silver in the moonlight.
Dark Wizards.
Above them, floating in mid-air, were four struggling figures, being contorted into grotesque shapes. Two of the figures were small, childlike. As the marching crowd passed beneath them, the floating people were twisted into more and more bizarre postures, their limbs bent at impossible angles.
"That's sick," Ron muttered, watching the smallest child, who had begun to spin like a top, his head flopping limply from side to side. "That is really sick..."
The fury that surged through Harry was like nothing he'd felt before, white-hot and overwhelming. He could feel his nails lengthening into sharp points, the muscles in his legs coiling with new strength, his senses becoming preternaturally sharp.
"Hermione, Ron," he said, his voice a rasp, "stay with the others."
Before they could respond, Harry was moving. The scent of blood was stronger now, mixed with the acrid stench of fear and the sickly-sweet smell of Dark magic.
Harry darted between tents, following his instincts more than conscious thought. Ahead, a masked figure had cornered a young witch, her wand lying uselessly several feet away. The Death Eater raised his wand, a curse forming on his lips.
Harry saw it coming a split second before it happened, a jet of sickly purple light aimed at the terrified witch. Without thinking, he lunged, pulling her sideways as the spell scorched past them, igniting a tent where they had stood.
The Death Eater turned, surprised by the interference. His silver mask reflected the flames, giving him a demonic appearance. "Potter," he spat, recognizing Harry despite the darkness. "Always playing the hero."
But Harry barely heard him. His attention had locked onto the scene behind the Death Eater, where more masked figures were suspending a Muggle family in the air. The father spun like a grotesque marionette, his wife upside down, her nightdress falling to reveal her underwear as she struggled to cover herself. The two children screamed in terror as they were flung about like toys.
Something inside Harry snapped.
The world seemed to slow around him. The Death Eater's next curse came as if through molasses, visible, trackable, avoidable. Harry twisted aside, feeling the heat of the spell as it passed within inches of his face.
He didn't recognize the sound that tore from his throat. He could only see the Dark Wizard now.
The man stumbled back, fear leaking through his mask. "What the f—"
Harry launched himself forward, covering the distance between them in a single bound. His hairy, clawed hand shot out, gripping the Death Eater's wand arm with crushing force.
Bone cracked beneath his fingers. The Death Eater screamed, his wand clattering to the ground.
"Please," the man gasped, "I didn't—"
Harry's other hand seized the front of the Death Eater's robes, lifting him bodily off the ground. The silver mask slipped, revealing a face Harry didn't recognize, but it didn't matter; it was not a human, it was just another mask hiding the monster beneath.
Harry felt his lips pull back from his teeth. His mouth watered.
When blood scents the air, your control will be tested.
Harry lunged forward. A sudden rush of iron filled his mouth, hot and liquid; it was everywhere, and he felt the taste of meat, a big chunk of it. Hot, copper-salt flavor flooded his mouth as his jaws clamped down with terrible pressure.
The Monster's scream became a wet gurgle. Harry's head jerked back, tearing sinew and artery. Blood sprayed across the trampled grass. The man collapsed, clutching the ruin of his throat, his life pumping out between his fingers.
Harry stood over him, blood dripping from his chin, the taste of death thick on his tongue. His red eye widened.
What have I done?
Harry staggered back, staring at his hands, hairy, clawed, smeared with gore. He could hear shouting. Ministry officials had arrived, spells were flying, and the Dark Mark had appeared in the sky above the forest.
But all Harry could focus on was the metallic taste in his mouth, the cooling blood on his skin, and the terrible, inescapable knowledge that he had killed a man. Not with magic, but with fang and claw.
The more you cage the beast, the harder it will fight to be free.
Mikhail's words echoed in his mind as he stood transfixed, watching the Death Eater's life drain away into the soil.
Harry began walking away. He didn't know how long it would take for people to find him, but he didn't want to be here when it happened.
One thing Harry knew was that the day Lupin scratched his chest had changed his life forever, but tonight, he was reminded just how dangerous he could be.
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