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Beast

Harry looked down as he spiraled towards the Black gardens. He had gone flying with Yar this morning and had arranged to be back by dawn. He liked to look in on his parents, and make sure they were sleeping soundly.

But his mother was waiting for him, her face pale. Harry wondered if she was getting enough sleep. She didn't move at all as she watched them land—well, Harry landed, and Yar flew off to her perch on top of the house to get some rest—and her color wasn't good.

"Is all well, Mother?"

"I—wanted to speak with you, Harry."

Harry nodded and slung his broom over his shoulder. Sometimes he regretted his decision not to add wings to his body. However, in the end it probably wouldn't have been worth it. He would have had to give up lots of other benefits, like his stone-hard skin in some places on his arms and the heavy muscles in his legs that let him leap like a kangaroo. And even then, he probably would have had to modify his bones and become more vulnerable in a fight.

Besides, if he did master his Animagus form someday, he would be able to fly without giving up his other gifts.

Lily didn't look as if she had ever thought about wings on a bright morning. She led him to the back door, where a few chairs waited for them with a small table that had lemonade and biscuits on it. Harry looked at Lily in curiosity. He hadn't ever known she liked lemonade.

Lily took a deep breath and sat down in one of the chairs. "Please join me."

"But I make you nervous. You look like you're going to bolt any second. Why do you want to be around me?"

"I can control myself," Lily said, a little sharply. "I'm not a frightened animal."

"Why do you talk about animals with that much contempt?"

Lily shut her eyes and said nothing. Harry sipped his lemonade and broke off crumbs of his biscuit for some of the mice in his pocket. They squabbled over the crumbs until he stroked their backs with a finger and asked them to stop.

"I'm sorry," Lily finally said, and opened her eyes. Harry watched them. They were a lot like his, green, but they didn't reflect light like his did. Harry wondered if he should offer to give his mother a tapetum lucidum. Then again, she probably wouldn't want one if she had never even thought about wings. "I didn't mean to show contempt for animals."

"Okay," Harry said, and ate some of the biscuit himself. He found a lot of them too sweet, but this one was all right, with a little bit of the salt instead of just chocolate everywhere and all the time.

"Just—like that? You would forgive me?"

"I wasn't angry at you." Harry knew he was bad at human emotions. He understood things like fear and anger and hunger. Animals felt them all the time, and some of them better than humans. But on the other hand, he wasn't so bad that he thought people were feeling them all the time when they weren't. It was strange that his parents thought that.

Lily folded her hands harder. Harry watched her. He liked being able to see his mother with her eyes open and intelligence behind them. No one deserved all the lying around in hospital beds that she and his father had done.

Idly, he wondered if those long years away from the world of the living meant they would need to learn how to live again. That would make sense of some of the odd things they'd said and done since then.

"Your father and I want to learn how to love you."

Harry nodded. "I was just thinking that you would need to learn some things."

Lily blinked for a few seconds, then sighed. "I know that you don't mean to be disrespectful, Harry, but sometimes it comes across that way."

"A fact?" Harry tilted his head. He understood disrespect better than some of those other human emotions that he'd been thinking he was so bad at. If you didn't pay the proper respect to an eagle's talons or a snake's venom, it would make you suffer. But he didn't see how words spoken to another human could be like that. "Why is it disrespectful?"

"It—it sounds like you're lecturing me on education. And you're a child and I'm an adult, so it sounds odd."

"I wasn't lecturing you." Harry wasn't going to touch the rest of it. If his parents still thought he was really a child, then things were a lot further behind where he'd thought they would be.

Lily ran her hand over her face, but didn't pursue it. "I just wanted to say that I—I enjoy brewing potions. Would you like to brew some with me?"

Harry nodded. He knew that she was offering it as a gesture of peace, and he was happy enough to go along with that. "I wasn't good at Potions at Hogwarts, but then I didn't care about anything except Transfiguration."

"And now?" Lily looked at him with a fragile hope in her eyes.

"Now I can care about other things, because I have you back," Harry said simply. "Can you show me the potions lab?"

"Minerva said that your Animagus form is a goshawk, Harry."

Harry glanced up. He'd been outside sprawled in the grass and watching his mice run in circles. Harry was thinking about making some new ones that could specifically build towers out of their bodies. It would be useful, and there were some domesticated mice in Muggle science, said one of the books Minerva had got for him in a Muggle bookshop. Harry thought he could have different kinds, and it would be fun.

"Yes, it is, Father." James shifted his weight the way he always did when Harry addressed him, but as usual, he didn't say Harry was doing anything wrong.

"I—I have an Animagus form, you know. A stag."

Harry smiled. "Minerva told me. Would you like to transform in front of me?" So far, his father hadn't done that. Harry thought it might have something to do with being nervous that he would do it wrong. He seemed to want to impress Harry desperately, even though Harry had told him he didn't have to.

"Yes." James flung his head back and closed his eyes, and Harry saw antlers shimmer in the air above his head before he ever transformed. The Animagus form hovered about him like a fire that would only light when he commanded it to. Harry stared in fascination.

In a few seconds, the human was gone and a magnificent stag stood where he had been. Harry smiled. He had never tried to create a stag, just because it hadn't seemed like the kind of animal that would be useful, but he could appreciate the shining muscles and the liquid eyes and the legs that seemed to be on the verge of leaping.

From above, he heard the sound of Yar's wings flapping as she leaned over the edge of the roof. Harry shot her a warning glance. Golden eagles in the wild did sometimes hunt small herd animals, but Harry was not going to let his friend hunt his father.

Yar settled back with a sweep of a talon that seemed to convey she hadn't seriously been thinking about it. Harry snorted and faced his father again, who was watching him with wide eyes and tense ears pointed straight up.

Harry projected calm the way he'd learned to do with the tigers and other excitable animals he made. "It's all right," he said quietly. "I won't let anyone hurt you as long as I'm here."

James's ears drooped for a second, and then he abruptly shimmered and transformed back into a man. Harry admired that. It was as smooth as the way Minerva did it, which was an accomplishment when James had spent so long lying on his back in a bed.

"Why did you do that?"

"I wanted to promise you that neither Yar nor some of the other animals I might create in the future would hurt you."

"No. I mean—" James took a breath that sounded difficult all by itself. "Why did you speak to me more easily as an animal than as a human?"

"That's the way I am," Harry said, with a long shrug. "I relate better to animals than humans." The mice in the grass claimed his attention again, and he leaned down to feed them another crumb of biscuit that he'd kept from the conversation with Lily earlier. The mice ran in delighted circles. Up on the roof, Yar scraped her talons again, but this time Harry ignored her. She knew from long experience not to attack his other animals.

"That's not the way it should be."

"That's the way it is, though," Harry pointed out. He had to admit that he didn't really understand the word "should." There had been a driving ambition in his life as long as his parents lay insane in St. Mungo's, but even then, he had thought in terms of would, not should. He would do this, and it would be accomplished, and other things would happen after that.

"I wanted to—to try and see if you could learn your Animagus form with me."

Harry smiled at James, glad that he had moved on from the issue of "should." "Yes, Father. What's the first step?"

James hesitated once before he sat down. "Minerva never showed this to you?"

Harry was sure, then, that there was some jealousy his father felt towards Minerva. Maybe both of his parents felt? It would explain some of the questions Lily had asked when they were brewing potions yesterday, about what he knew and who had taught him.

"No," he said. "I never wanted to learn it from her."

It was only the simple truth, but it still made his father beam at him and settle down with eagerness to showing him what he meant. Harry listened closely to the advice on meditation and silently congratulated himself. He was getting good at acting human around his parents.

"Why was Severus so awful to you?"

Harry put down the handful of chopped mint leaves he'd been working on for the draught he was preparing with Lily and looked thoughtfully at his mother. She had asked questions like that several times, but Harry hadn't understood them and had let them circle by. This time, she seemed more insistent.

"I don't know," he answered, and then dumped the mint leaves in the cauldron of boiling water that Lily had set up. He peered into the cauldron. Did they look right? Harry didn't know. He thought the smell was right, though.

"But you must have some idea."

Harry glanced at his mother. She was nervously fidgeting with some skinned slugs, but stopped when he looked at her. Both his parents did that when Harry's eyes were fixed on them. Harry thought it was strange. Were his eyes that disconcerting?

"Do you think I'm to blame for his hatred of me?" he asked. "That I did something?"

Lily recoiled and dropped the skinned slugs to the floor. Harry had to concentrate hard to keep Cross, his cat, from running over to investigate them. They would be dirty enough from the floor of the cellar in the Black house without adding cat saliva to them. "No!"

"It's all right if you think that," Harry said. "You can say it."

Lily stared at him with devastated eyes. Then she swallowed and shook her head. "Harry, I would never think that."

"You probably were, though."

Lily covered her eyes with one hand, and then something that sounded like weak laughter came from her throat. Harry listened critically. He thought it could compare with a purr, with time. "You are an impossible child."

"But that should mean that you can ask me questions you want to know the answer to, and questions you wouldn't ask a child." Harry bent down and retrieved the skinned slugs himself, since they were still tempting Cross and Lily didn't seem as if she would do it any time soon. "So ask."

Lily just stared at him for a second, then squared her shoulders. "Why did Severus hate you so much?'

"I think for being James Potter's son. And because he was obsessed with you and he thought I was part of the reason that you spent so much of your life insane."

Lily flinched. Harry watched and didn't understand. She had wanted the answers. She had decided to ask for them, and she knew that he didn't mind responding. So why did she cower from them?

Lily asked in a whisper, "Did you do anything that encouraged the enmity between you?"

"I fought him," Harry said, tilting his head when Lily made a despairing noise. Had she expected something different? Or was she simply upset that she had not guessed the whole? Harry had to admit that he didn't understand all the different twists and turns of humans' minds. "I Obliviated him so that he wouldn't discover my secrets too easily. And I kept fighting him after I left Hogwarts."

"You blinded him. There was—Minerva said something about that."

"One eye, yes."

Lily licked her lips and then said, "And—Minerva said that you held him down and used your claws to blind him."

"Yes." Harry wondered whether he should slide out his claws to show her, and then decided not to. His mother seemed as if she was on the verge of fainting as it was. Harry sighed a little. He was doing his best to make the revelations comfortable for her, but it was clear that it wasn't working.

Lily seemed to steel herself for a second, and then looked at him. "I want you to promise me that you'll never do anything like that again, Harry."

Harry blinked. "Why?"

"What do you mean, why? It's torture!:"

Lily's voice had risen a little, which made Harry watch her. He doubted she was going to torment him or his animals the way the Dursleys had, but it was good for all animals to be aware of a predator.

"But someday, I might need to do something like that again," Harry pointed out. "To protect you, or Minerva, or Neville, or me and my animals. I can't make you a promise because I can't see the future. Sometimes I think it would be useful if I was a Seer, but I really don't think I am."

Lily stared at him helplessly, and then began to abruptly stack the skinned slugs together. "I think we're done with potions for today."

"Okay, Mother. I'll go see if Father wants to do some Animagus practice."

Lily turned and rushed out of the Potions lab, weeping. Harry sighed. He had probably been too blunt and not human enough again. But it was hard to judge what the best thing to do was. He would have to ask Minerva.

"Harry, your mother has told me that you said some—extremely upsetting things to her the other day."

Harry put down the book he'd been reading about Animagus training and focused obediently on his father. They were in the garden behind the house again, which was where they did most of their practice, but Harry didn't think James had come about practice. "What was it?"

"What do you mean, what was it?" James sounded as if he was about to lose his temper. "You told her that you would torture people!"

"If it was necessary to save you, or me, or her, or Minerva, or Neville," Harry said, and nodded. "Did she tell you that part?"

"She didn't need to." James sat down and gave him a hard look. "You must not torture anybody, Harry. Under any circumstances."

"But why?"

James closed his eyes for a second. Then he took a deep breath and obviously decided to approach it from a different direction. "I want you to tell me something. Why did you decide to cut out Snape's eye, rather than do something else to punish him?"

"It was only partially a punishment," Harry said. "I mostly didn't want him to ever try to kill me again. And Regulus said that he should be left alive. But with one eye, he would be less dangerous and he might have thought twice about hurting me again." He shook his head. He thought now that probably wouldn't ever have been true of Snape, but he had believed it was possible at the time.

"You mean—you made a rational decision to blind him?"

Now James looked more upset than ever. Harry cocked his head. "Is this a human thing?" he asked. He could live with Minerva's code of morals, but at least she made more sense than his parents did. She explained things, and she didn't just say pronouncements like, "You shouldn't torture people."

"You are human, Harry."

Harry shot his claws and held out his hands so that his father could see them. Then he turned his head so that his eyes could catch some of the light shining from the kitchen windows and flash red. "Only partially," he said quietly.

"You—you were born human."

Harry nodded. "Yes, and I would be completely different if the Lestranges hadn't tortured you. Or if you'd been killed like Neville's parents. Or if someone had raised me who wasn't the Dursleys. But this is the way I am, Father. Do you want me to be different?"

"I want you to be moral," James said, and gave him a deep, sad look before he turned to go back into the house.

"But this is the way I am," Harry called after him, and James halted and glanced over his shoulder. "You can decide if you don't like me and would rather not associate with me, Father. But you can't ask me to change everything about myself, any more than I can demand that you be more accepting of me because you were the ones who sired and bore me."

James hesitated, then said, "I still have to talk to your mother."

"All right," said Harry, and watched him walk into the house. Then he glanced at Cross, who was stalking a beetle in the grass next to him. His cat gave him an expectant stare.

"They're just being human," Harry said. He thought about it, and about the way that Minerva seemed able to accept him more easily, and ended up shaking his head. "Overly human."

"We wanted to talk to you, Harry."

"Yes, you said that," Harry said. He knew humans repeated things a lot, but his parents seemed to have that habit worse than anyone he'd ever met.

They were sitting at the kitchen table in Grimmauld Place. Lily and James sat on the side of the table nearest the door and Harry sat on the other side. Harry laid his hands on the table but kept his claws out of sight as a kind of compromise, and stared at them, waiting.

"We will ask you not to torture anyone ever again," Lily said firmly, in the tone of voice that Harry imagined members of the Wizengamot used when pronouncing laws.

"If you think someone is a threat to us, come and talk to us first." James leaned towards him and took one of Harry's hands where it lay on the table. He didn't even flinch about the fact that he could probably feel the claws and hard skin Harry had added to it, which Harry noted with approval. "We can find a way to take care of them that doesn't involve torture."

"What if the person becomes a threat anyway?" Harry asked, his eyes passing slowly back and forth across his parents' faces.

"Then we will fight them all together." James hesitated, and then nodded. "We'll be like a wolf pack, Harry. You know the mother and father defend their pups, and they keep doing it even after the pups are big enough to technically be on their own."

"Wolf pups leave to search for territory of their own after a while, though," Harry pointed out. "Does that mean I can torture people after I move out of Grimmauld Place and you won't mind?"

Lily covered her eyes with one hand, but at least the choked sound that emerged from her mouth sounded like a laugh this time. James gave her a smile and Harry a firmer one. "We'll discuss it if we reach that point."

"I'd also like to teach you Potions," Lily said softly. "You left your schooling unfinished, and that's an important thing to tie up, Harry."

"Even if I can defend myself and find food just as well with Transfiguration?"

"Life is about more than defending yourself and finding food," James said, a little sternly. "You aren't an animal, Harry."

"Yes, I am," Harry said, and he didn't know what it was about his voice this time that made them pause and listen to him. "We all are. We have differently-shaped bodies, but mice can run through holes that we can't, and cats can see in lower light than we can, and eagles can fly without brooms. We're different, but we're not special."

Lily and James exchanged more of those silent speaking glances. Harry watched them in interest. It really was like the way he communicated with his mice and Cross. Not so much Yar. She was different, again.

"All right," Lily said. "Then we'd like you to be part of our pack because—we would like it."

Harry blinked. Then he smiled at her. "You just had to say so."

Lily sighed, but she was opening her arms, and Harry came around the table and hugged her. James stood up to place a hand on Harry's shoulder.

Harry happily absorbed their warmth. Cross purred under the table, and he thought he heard Yar shift on top of the house, scraping at the roof with her claws.

He might still have everything, his animals and his parents both.