Throughout history, wizards had discovered countless ways to manipulate magic — just about every material could channel magic and every action could direct it. But, of all methods of magic, it was the soul-spell that was the most revered. A wizard could only ever have one soul-spell in their entire life, but once they performed it once, performing it again was as easy and instinctive as breathing.

The animagus transformation and the metamorphmagus ability were two such soul-spells, as were things like parseltongue, soul-bonds, pyrokinesis, and a myriad of other abilities. You could only ever have one, and getting one would destroy your potential to learn another, but until that time, one could theoretically acquire any of them.

Each soul-spell had a different way of being acquired. Some were merely the result of being born at exactly the right moment or being in the right place at the right time, while others needed a complex series of difficult rituals to acquire.

And then there was the blood demon ritual. It was a seemingly simple ritual, but even the slightest variations created dramatically different results. One practitioner tried it and was turned into the first werewolf. Twelve others throughout history became the progenitors of twelve different strains of vampirism. Monsters, many of whom were lost to history, frequently appeared as a result of that ritual.

All it took was two simple steps done while in the right general mindset: First, the user must drink the blood of a still living human with even the smallest drop of magic. Even squibs had more than enough magic to work with.

Harry snapped. Rage, bottled up from seven years of abuse, exploded out of him all at once. With a feral cry, he leapt at his whale of a cousin. His fingernails clawed at the fat boy while he bit at his cousin with all his might.

Blood gushed into his mouth. Without thinking, the young boy swallowed. His teeth stayed firmly attached, despite the flow of the crimson liquid, forcing him to swallow more every time his mouth filled up.

Meanwhile, his hands clawed at Dudley's eyes. With his magic empowered by his rage, Harry's fingernails dug into Dudley with supernatural ease.

And second, before the blood has been digested, the wizard must kill the person they drank from in the heat of passion.

His nails, sharpened by his magic, slid across Dudley's throat. The strange, gurgling noise Dudley made was enough to snap Harry out of the strongest throws of his rage. It made him let go just enough that when the boot of his teacher collided with him, Harry went sprawling.

Unfortunately, their teacher's intervention came far too late. By the time the ambulance came, Dudley Dursley was dead.

The death was ruled accidental manslaughter. As Harry was only eight, the criminal justice system of England ruled that Harry was too young to be considered guilty of a crime. But, considering the nature of the crime and the Dursleys' on-record statements, a quiet investigation was launched anyway, just to see why Harry's attack on Dudley had happened and what had prompted Vernon and Petunia to act like they had. Harry's living conditions were revealed.

The story briefly appeared on the muggle news but, thanks to the machinations of Albus Dumbledore and the magics he left to protect the Dursleys, the story itself never reached wizard eyes — not even Dumbledore's.

Harry knew none of this. His mind was, at the time, far more preoccupied with the bizarre changes occurring in his body. He'd thought his actions were monstrous, silently agreeing with his aunt's accusing shouts of the same, and so his magic, wild and malleable under the effects of the accidental ritual, decided to make him into a monster.

The blood-demon ritual, in actuality, was something of a defense mechanism possessed by all wizards. Its basic purpose was to give a wizard who was angry and desperate the strength to keep on fighting at all costs. When activated, the ritual's magic scoured the bodies of, its host, the victim, and any souls nearby for useful abilities. Then the magic latched onto its wizard's mindset, and using everything it had found, built a new body and powerset.

The cost of the ritual was steep, but the benefits were far greater.

One year later...

Harry Potter slid open the window of his room in the orphanage. He crawled up onto the windowsill, then slipped out into the cool, foggy air of a London night. But the beast that hit the ground looked nothing like the boy it had been a second ago.

With speed far greater than should have been possible for an animal that size, it dashed off into the night, only stopping once it reached a familiar alleyway a good distance away. The creature, only vaguely feline in shape, shifted. Its hind-legs grew longer while muscles thickened all across its body. Its front paws twisted and elongated until they formed functional but inhuman hands. Its eyes — all six of them — moved across its face while the skull itself rotated vertically relative to the spine it was attached to.

The beast, once quadrupedal, stood up on its hind legs, now well adapted to a bipedal gait. Taking a running leap, it clambered onto the fire escape and quickly scaled the building with surprisingly little noise.

Its eyes, glowing with emerald light, scanned the rooftop while its nose checked for hidden scents. Finding nothing of note, it settled down against the short wall that surrounded the flat rooftop garden. With little more than the barest of thoughts, as if merely flexing a muscle, the monstrous figure shifted back into the form of the nine-year-old Harry Potter.

From the bag strapped to his back — which, like his clothes, had vanished when he'd transformed only to reappear when he'd turned back — Harry pulled out a very peculiar book. He'd gotten it from the library, but he'd had to hide it so that the matron of the orphanage wouldn't take it from him. As a "proud Christian woman," the idea of him — a boy who'd killed his own cousin — having a book on demonology, of all things, had frightened her. The first time he'd been caught with the book, he'd ended up getting spanked and had been burdened with far more chores than before. None were as bad as when he'd been at the Dursley's house, but he still hated it.

Here though, on the roof of a distant building and under the light of the moon, he was free. He could do what he wanted. He could look for answers. Harry had no idea what had happened to him, but he'd hoped that this book, and books like it, had the answers.

As he shifted back into his other form — it was growing more comfortable than his own skin — Harry flipped open the encyclopedia of daemons to the dog-eared page and continued reading. He hadn't found what he was yet, but he was sure the answer was somewhere.

He flipped the page, but he found himself distracted. His aunt's last words to him echoed through his mind. "Your mother was a witch, and married that devil of a man. It's no wonder they had a hellspawn like you as a child." She didn't say anything about his other form, but Harry was struck with the feeling that she knew.

If he was a monster, if he'd always been a monster, just waiting to shed his human skin, that would have explained so much — the hateful looks his "family" gave him, the indifference with which all the adults of Surry had treated him, and how he'd been able to kill without feeling regret. He was a monster, a demon.

The thought brought him some measure of inner peace. He knew what he was, and thus he knew he definitely had some sort of place in the grand scheme of things. As he was only a child, he didn't really ponder the philosophical nature of what he was feeling, and simply was content with being himself.

His musings were interrupted by his stomach growling. Harry was almost always hungry when in his demon form, even if he'd just eaten in his human form. He ignored it and turned his attention back to his book.

The moon had moved a good distance across the sky when Harry's reading was interrupted once more. But rather than his own thoughts or his hungry stomach intruding, it was a pair of loud cracks, followed almost instantly by heated shouting from the alleyway below.

Harry shifted into a quadrupedal form and slunk towards the edge of the roof. He peered down.

Two men in strange clothes were down there, shouting at each other. They drew sticks and pointed them at each other. With a flick of their wrists, both men fired colorful bolts of light at each other. Back and forth, they exchanged barrages of light, and wherever the lights hit, strange things happened.

One of them managed to land a hit with a green spell. The struck man instantly collapsed. He didn't move again. The other man nodded, satisfied. Then, with another loud crack, the victor vanished.

Harry, acting almost on instinct, leapt down from the roof. Despite the several story drop, he landed gracefully on all fours without even a twinge of pain. Around him, the shadows twisted and extended, covering both him and the man, hiding them from view. But despite the darkness, his eyes saw just fine.

The demon-boy slunk closer to the fallen man, then shifted to a smaller, less intimidating form. He nudged the man.

The man didn't respond. He didn't wake.

Harry pressed his ear to the man's chest, but despite his excellent hearing, there was no sound — neither the beat of a heart nor the breath of life. The man was dead.

Harry placed his paw on the man's forehead. But rather than stop upon contacting the skin, his paw started flowing around the corpse's head. Harry's flesh stretched and grew, swiftly enveloping the man in a skintight cocoon that slipped under the corpse's clothing.

The moment the man was entirely enveloped, Harry clenched. There came a sickening crunch as his bones were simultaneously crushed. Several more crunches followed as the fleshy cocoon shrank yet again. Within seconds, Harry's paw returned to its original size and shape. The only trace that there had ever been a man there was his empty clothing, his bag, and the fact that Harry's stomach was no longer rumbling with hunger.

Of all the "demonic" abilities he'd discovered he'd had, that was perhaps both the most disturbing, yet satisfying one in his arsenal. The first time he'd absorbed someone was entirely accidental (and he'd been lucky he'd not been caught), but, after the initial rush of pleasure, it had left him feeling so strong and healthy. His demon form had grown significantly, while even his human form had grown bigger and healthier.

Plus, it wasn't as if this guy was going to be using his body anymore. He'd already been killed by...

Harry realized in that moment that he'd just seen a wizard's duel. It made sense that those flashes of light were spells.

Realizing that the sounds probably would have drawn attention, Harry grabbed up the dead wizard's belongings and dashed away. Taking refuge behind a dumpster in a different alley, he sat down and started going through the wizard's belongings.

The black robes, he folded and set aside. Then he grabbed the wizard's wand. He dropped it almost immediately after and shuddered; the way the wand had cozied up to his magic had felt pleasant in all the wrong ways. He got the impression that the wand was trying to molest him (and yes, he did know exactly what "molesting" entailed).

Harry reached for the bag next. To his surprise, he found that it was much bigger on the inside, and held all sorts of cool things. Gold, silver and bronze coins, strange devices, scrolls of parchment, quills, inkwells, and all sorts of other things came out. But what most caught his attention was the book and the dagger that had been strapped together with thick leather bands.

When he had undone the bindings, he immediately unsheathed the ornate dagger. Almost instantly, he felt the power radiating off the blade — a seductive energy that called out to his very soul. He sheathed the blade once more, deciding to definitely keep it.

As for the book, it took him a second to decipher the strange font on the leather-bound cover, but when he did, he smiled grimly.

Blood Magicks.

He flipped through its pages. Even from the little he read, he got the vibe that it was written by someone evil, but who knew exactly what they were talking about and was passionate about teaching what he knew.

Harry packed up the belongings of the dead wizard, shoving them into the magically expanded bag. Then, stealthfully, he retraced his steps, snuck back onto the roof where he'd been reading, gathered his own belongings, and then disappeared into the night.

The blood demon ritual only had a few paragraphs worth of information in the dark tome. The author confessed that he knew very little about why the ritual did what it did or how it worked. He also confessed that he knew not why it didn't work for the majority of people who tried it, or what made the people who it did work for so unique.

And of what it told Harry, most of that he already knew. But in Harry's mind, aside from putting a name to what had happened to him, it also made him firmly believe in the authenticity of the book. Given the breadth of topics covered in the book and the depth to which it covered them, that was a wonderful thing.

The fight between the two wizards proved to him that magic existed — and that Aunt Petunia was correct. The book, in its discussion on how to best keep the results of its rituals hidden from the eyes of muggles, had confirmed for him that there was a whole society of magical people hidden away from common knowledge.

The mysteries of the world were laid before him, and some of their answers were in his hands. He practically devoured the book's dark secrets. Every waking moment he could, he read and reread the text, memorizing its teachings.

Nearly three months had passed for him in the blink of an eye. It was the third full moon since he'd acquired the book, but the first one for which he'd decided he was ready. He had a notebook packed full of runes, memorized from Blood Magicks, all spelling out the various things he wanted to do for himself. He'd taken great precautions in preparing the rune sequences, having taken the book's warnings seriously, and had memorized them well.

The dagger he'd found with the book, a ritual athame, floated behind his head. A drop of his blood poured into a well inside the hilt had given him control over it; moving the blade felt like moving his own limb.

Having readied everything, Harry assumed his demon form and climbed up to the roof of the orphanage. The shadows twisted and bent around him, shrouding him in darkness as he climbed.

He spread the tarp he'd carried with him and laid down atop it. Eyes towards the moon, Harry focused on the power coursing through his veins. The floating dagger positioned itself above the bare skin between his navel and his groin. He shifted his face to let him speak, then began the incantation.

The first rune, the book had told him, was the most critical one; it and the intent behind it would forever taint all future rituals. According to one book, two wizards had tried the same ritual for improving their endurance, but one had used the rune for combat while the other had used the rune for passion. Both had had their endurance improved, but whereas one had gotten a better body overall, the other wizard's improvements had been strongly focused on his sexual endurance.

So, with his intent in mind, Harry used the knife to carve the rune for vitality into his abdomen. He wanted to be strong and healthy, not the weak little kid that got beat up by his cousin and not the scrawny boy that he was because of his family's starvation campaign against him. The world was big, and he wanted to see it all, which he couldn't if he was weak and sickly.

Then he carved the rune for health, to expand on the vitality rune. Next came strength, power, endurance, durability, and life. Seven runes, all with the intent of improving his body and extending his own life. Those seven, but especially vitality, would be the foundation of his self-improvement.

The demon sat up. Carving into his own skin had hurt surprisingly little. He wiped away the blood and traced the scabs that had been left behind, the blade having rapidly sealed his wounds shut. They would certainly scar.

His magic was already reacting. He could feel it heating up, especially around his abdomen. The pleasant warmth spread across his body, invigorating it. The demonic kid grinned sharply, feeling the results of his work take hold. That was all he could risk doing tonight. And though he wouldn't get another chance to try until the next full moon, for now, it was enough.

Six months had passed since the night he'd carved his first runes. His chest now had three sets of seven runes, all geared towards reinforcing and improving his body. The second set was aimed at strengthening his body offensively, while the third aimed at general defensive measures. He could have done more, but he decided to hold off until he had a better understanding of what he might face in the future.

As good of a book as it might have been, Blood Magicks only contained a tiny fraction of all magics known. There could be better things elsewhere, and he wanted to avoid getting seven sets of seven until he was far more knowledgeable about what was possible.

That hadn't stopped Harry from performing other rituals on himself. He'd used the four other full moons to the best of his ability, picking and choosing rituals that would help him the most. But, without access to exotic ingredients, other tools, or more magical knowledge — especially wand-related knowledge — he couldn't do even a tenth of what the book had to offer.

And so, out of options, the demonic boy started developing his own way of doing magic. He'd considered searching for wizards to learn (or steal books) from, but realized that that was unlikely to work. The orphanage matron kept an annoyingly close watch on him. So, without outsider knowledge to draw upon, Harry reluctantly decided to figure it out on his own.

The muggle library, much to Harry's relief, turned out to be fairly good at giving him ideas, even if very few of them actually worked and fewer still had any sort of instruction at all. But he did stumble across something that worked.

The whole point of the Blood Magicks tome was that blood had power, and the core foundation of Harry's runes was that symbols also had power. Harry figured that runes written with blood, regardless of if they were on his body or not, had the ability to shape the world.

He was right, of course. It would take him a long time to master, but he was right.

Eight Months Later...

Calmly, the ten-year-old Harry Potter walked up to the matron of the orphanage. "Excuse me, ma'am?"

"What is it, Mr. Potter?"

He held out a blood soaked sheet of paper. The moment her eyes fell upon it, the paper disintegrated into ash and her eyes fogged. "You will forget I exist. You will destroy any record of my existence. You will act ignorant of my existence to anyone who mentions my name."

Silently, robotically, the matron nodded as Harry's magic programmed the instructions into her mind.

"You will give me whatever money you can spare without undue burden to yourself, then you will forget giving me the money and not question the deficit."

Again, the matron nodded.

"Dismissed."

Her eyes unfogged at once. She hurried on without a word to Harry. A minute later, she returned with about one hundred pounds worth of cash. She handed them to Harry without question.

Harry slipped the money into a backpack he'd procured to hold and disguise his odd-looking magic bag. He turned around and walked away. The matron didn't acknowledge him departing, and instead moved on to whatever business she'd been up to before.

Harry walked out the door of the orphanage for the last time without a comment from anyone he passed. A similar but reuseable set of blood runes to the ones that had been on that paper were painted on the door to his room. Anyone who came looking for him would forget him and destroy anything that hinted at his existence.

In his mind, it had taken Harry far too long to learn how to do that. But now, he was finally free.

Outside, he ducked around a corner and shifted. Over the two years since he'd awoken his demon form, he'd learned much about his body. He knew that he could shapeshift to a huge degree, but he couldn't add or remove features; only change their outward appearance. But even that was a powerful ability. And while that limitation would never let his demon form ever look truly human — the eyes alone were a dead giveaway — he could adapt.

His skin thickened and stretched in places while changing colors, taking on the texture and appearance of a leather jacket with a hood. The skin on his legs changed to look like pants, while his feet shifted to look like they were in leather boots. The fact that his clothing always vanished annoyed him, but he'd adapted to that too. Inside his body, his bones and organs adjusted to roughly the proportions of an adult human. Behind him, his tail thinned and shrank until it looked like a half-undone leather belt.

He pulled up the skin-hood around his head. His magic stretched the shadows, obscuring the details of his inhuman face. Then, he closed four of his six eyes, leaving two unnaturally bright ones. Harry had practiced this form quite intensively, having grown quite fond of how intimidating it looked.

He picked up his backpack from where he'd set it; anything on him at the time of his shift vanished, and he rather needed the magic bag within it. He drew his stolen wand from the backpack and slipped it into the fold of skin that was serving as his jacket sleeve. It still seemed to kiss and caress his magic strangely whenever he touched it, but the wand was no longer intolerably disgusting with its affection towards him. Considering that he was going looking for wizards, that was a good thing. He'd even figured out a few basic spells using the wand, so if he ever met a wizard, he could probably pass himself off as one.

Everything set, the demon turned in place and vanished with a crack.

Harry teleported to a snow-covered roof on Charing Cross road. Over the last few months, he'd explored the city, looking for signs of magic. The alley below, on the far side of this building, was like a neon sign. He could practically feel the power here, and could tell by the people and things he saw in the alley that it was a wizard haven. He'd never been in there, though. He couldn't risk trouble, not when he was expected back at the orphanage. But now he had nothing holding him back.

He walked towards the edge, the thick skin of his feet unbothered by the snow. Peering down, he watched the hustle and bustle of the alleyway. Wizards and witches came and went, not a care in the world. Some teleported into the alleyway, others teleported out. Deciding that it wouldn't be all that unusual if he did so himself, Harry prepared himself for the jump, only to pause. The clothing he'd emulated with his skin would have passed in non-magical London, but here? It stood out even more than usual.

With a thought, he extended a flap of skin from his "jacket" and turned it into a full-length robe. He sprouted fur from the inside of the hood, and for his own comfort, lined the inside of the robe with fur as well. When he was done, it looked to the world as if Harry was wearing a rather form-fitting wizard robe.

He teleported. Nobody batted an eye when the demon appeared in the alleyway, and for that, Harry let out a silent cheer.

Now, like the kid he was, he eagerly set out to explore the shops. He had some wizard money — sixteen galleons, twenty sickles, and sixteen knuts, according to the inscriptions on the coins — but had absolutely no idea how much that was worth in terms of pounds. He also had no idea how to get more money (aside from thievery) and no idea if he'd get laughed at for using that money (or for using pounds). So, reluctantly, Harry settled for just exploring and not buying anything.

He knew he'd be resorting to thievery eventually anyway, and he knew he'd have to figure out somewhere to stay, so he figured that all he was really doing was waiting to buy, not not buying. That little leap of logic made things better in his mind.

Harry wandered up and down the alley, occasionally peaking in shops. He ducked into a few here and there, including, much to his delight, a book shop. And everywhere Harry went, he watched and observed.

After confirming that the coins he had were indeed the currency used here, Harry strolled into a small pasty shop and bought himself some lunch. As he ate, Harry watched the crowd go by. One witch in particular, a girl he estimated at sixteen or seventeen, caught his attention thanks to her vibrant pink hair.

Without warning, her hair had turned blue and lengthened.

Harry's eyes widened as, for a fleeting moment, he wondered if she were like him. But he dashed the thought. He was a murderer, and had only awakened his powers by killing his cousin and drinking his blood. The odds of that being the case for her and for her to have ended up being nearly the same as him were slim to none. Still, he was intrigued.

As if she felt his stare on her back, the girl turned and spotted him through the window. Her hair turned pitch black and the features of her face hardened in a very abnormal way. An older woman with brown, single-colored hair, noticed, then followed the younger girl's gaze to Harry.

The older woman — the mother, Harry guessed — grabbed her daughter's shoulder. She said something, then pushed on the girl's shoulder. Reluctantly, the girl turned away, her hair turning fiery red in the process.

They didn't go anywhere, as they appeared to be waiting for someone. Harry kept watching them, and apparently she knew she was still being watched, if her occasional glance his way was any indication. Finally, she full-on stared back at him. Without breaking eye-contact, she warped her face and shortened her hair, taking on a masculine appearance.

He gave her a thumbs up.

The girl stomped towards the pasty shop door. Her mother, noticing her leave, trailed after her. The girl entered the building and marched right up to him. "Something funny, mister? Because your staring is creeping me out. Stop it."

"I was just curious." Harry's voice came out rough and warbled, with an inhuman note to it that no amount of shapeshifting seemed able to rid him of. "Is that a spell, or are you able to change your appearance naturally?"

"Naturally. I'm a metamorphmagus." Harry recognized the term from his book, but knew little about what it meant.

"Oh. That's nice."

"And now you know, so you can stop staring now."

"Alright." Making a snap decision, Harry opened his other four eyes, letting their glow punch through his shadows. "I won't stare." He closed the extra eyes again, but by then, she'd seen them. As had her mother, who'd just entered.

He turned back to look out the window, deliberately ignoring their reaction. The girl didn't take too kindly to being ignored like that, and grabbed his shoulder.

Harry looked at her just in time to see confusion spread across her face and feel a pleasurable, inviting warmth from her hand. "Ugh, what the hell is your robe made of?"

"Living skin," Harry replied honestly.

She tried to pull her hand away in disgust, but found it stuck fast to Harry. "Hey! I'm stuck!" Despite her struggling, her hand started sinking into his body.

Harry could taste her through his skin. The salt of her sweat complimented her flavor well, making her one of the better things he'd ever tasted. He wanted to eat her — the little pasty was hardly enough — but reluctantly let her go when her mother drew her wand. His skin, still with an impression of her hand, flowed back into its proper shape.

Her mother gripped her other hand. "Nymphadora, come." The woman dragged the girl away. Harry watched her go.

"Alright, that settles it," a man next to Harry spoke, "you're officially the creepiest bloke I've ever met."

"I admit, I try." Harry chuckled a bit. "I don't like people thinking I'm weak."

The man hummed. He then pulled out a notepad and a quill from a pocket that was too small to have held either, and jotted something down. "That's not a bad reason, all things considered." He finished writing, then stuck out his hand in an offered greeting. "Adam Boot, journalist by trade a but novelist at heart."

"Call me James. I'm new here..." Harry shook the man's hand, deliberately forcing his skin not to stick to the man. He'd known he could taste with his skin in his demon form, but he rarely got the opportunity to touch living people in this body. Nymphadora's unusually good flavor had caught him off guard, and now he was hungry for flesh again. Adam's taste was nearly as good, so it was a struggle to make his skin act like ordinary skin.

"Ah. Well, Diagon Alley is probably the best place in London for everything magical you could need. There's Horizont Alley too, and Carkitt Market, both down that way." He pointed to their left. "And Knockturn Alley that way." He pointed right. "But Knockturn isn't the sort of place respectable people go, and it's basically a deathtrap at night for the average bloke."

"I see," Harry replied, silently noting the name for further investigation. He wondered if there would be things worthwhile for him down that way.

"Anyway, just thought you ought to know."

"Thanks."

"Odd question here, but do you mind if I use your look? I'm writing a book, and, well, the whole 'living skin cloak, face hidden by shadows, glowing eyes' thing is really quite brilliant." Adam smiled hopefully. "It'd make for a good villain."

"Go ahead," Harry replied, flattered.

They talked for a bit, with Harry asking questions about the local area and community expand his base knowledge so he wouldn't end up looking like a fool. But by the time they went their separate ways, Harry had gotten Adam's address and a standing invitation to write him any time.

Somehow, he'd become friends with a human. He chuckled at that. Harry's figured it was a bit like a human becoming friends with a treacle tart.

The evening came, and upon recommendation, he'd gotten a room for himself at the Leaky Cauldron. But he hadn't paid for it. After testing to see if his hypnosis spell worked on the owner, Tom, and confirming that it did, Harry had commandeered a room for himself. With runes of blood painted on the door, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and the windowsill, Harry effectively erased the room from the memory of anyone who saw the door. The other runes were there to give him a degree of privacy.

Now in private, Harry shifted back to his more natural form. His body radically increased in size while his excess skin shrank back into place. Fur spread across his body, while the horns on his head grew back to their proper size and the spines that had been flattened on his back stood to their proper shapes.

The vaguely feline beast climbed up onto the bed and curled around so that his tail was tucked under his head. He fell asleep almost instantly.