The Beast Under My Skin

By Hellion Ross

Chapter 1: Where there's a match, there's a fire.

It was on the night of young Harry Potters 13th birthday that something most unusual was about to happen. Harry lie in bed sick with fever, that had yet to break, even after the better part of a week, moaning nonsense and talking deliriously to persons not there, sweating profusely, and white as a sheet he clutched his soaked blankets and convulsed. His back arched at an impossible angle, joints cracked and popped and his body contorted, eyes opened wide, so you could see the whites clearly all the way around the iris as well as his mouth wide open as if he was screaming.

The odd part, though, wasn't the convulsing body, or the fever, or even the delusions. No, the odd part began when Harry's body stopped convulsing and fell back onto his bed still as death.

If any person were to check up on him they would notice that his heart had stopped beating, that no breath crept past his lips, as well as the fact that his eyes failed to flutter behind his lids.

Upon further inspection, a person would notice that as the seconds ticked by, his slightly tanned skin would be beginning to smolder and darken to the color of charcoal as he veins began to look as if a trail of fire was traveling along them. His body began to stiffen and as the seconds turned into minutes his body finally caught fire igniting the sheets around him and the papers lying across the end of his bed effectively setting fire to his room.

Vernon Dursley is a very heavy sleeper. It would have to be something extremely loud and or stinky in order for him to even become aware of the world around him once he was in a deep slumber. As it is, what aroused him was the inability to breath properly. His mouth had somehow become annoyingly dry and no matter how hard he tried to get his heavy tongue to moisten his mouth, it just wouldn't. Finally tiring of the ineffectiveness of his own tongue he opened his eyes and summarily took notice of the smoke coming into his room from under the bedroom door.

Eyes bugging out of his head he turned to Petunia and shook her shoulders. Calling out her name just reduced him to coughing fits as the smoke burned his throat and eyes, so he decided to just roughly shake her in to consciousness and then get the hell out of the house once he woke up his son.

Clambering out of bed he made his way to the door and grasped the doorknob only to let it go with a sharp and angry hiss. It was fucking hot. Backing up a couple of steps he looked around his bedroom for something to break the knob with and once his eyes landed on nothing he turned to the door and hunched down his frame, took a few more steps backwards and took a few more deep smoke-filled breaths before running into the door shoulder first.

The door splintered around him as he barreled into it and since he didn't have enough room to slow down and stop his increasing momentum he continued moving forward and fell into the wall across from his dazed for a second he gathered himself together and told his wife to get outside and wait for him, he was going to get their son. Making his way down towards Dudley's room and his nephews room he noticed that the fire appeared to be worse near his sons and his nephews rooms, even appeared to be much more devastatingly worse in his nephews room. But that didn't matter. What mattered was his son. Harry was a freak and could do magic and could make it out fine. If he didn't, "Oh well, one last freak to walk this earth".

But what mattered was his son. "Dudley!" he rasped out before coughing harshly into his hands "Dudley!?" he called again, and begun to panic when he didn't hear his son answer him, Vernon tried to move closer towards Dudley's door but was impeded by his nephews door when it decided to explode off its hinges and fly right at him knocking him down onto the floor onto his ass.

Vernon looked up at Harry's room as fire began billowing out around the door frame, licking at the walls and jumping onto the carpet spreading much like a fire would on dry dead grass soaked in kerosene. Vernon stood there staring at the fire, eyes going back and forth between the it and his sons doorway, "I can make." he thought to himself. " I can make it." Drawing himself up to his full height he scurried forward wincing at the heat from the fire as it pelted him in the face ducking into his sons room he went over to Dudley and shook him roughly. "Wake up Dudders!" He rasped out in Dudley's ear. "Wake up!" receiving no response he peered closer at his sons face and noticed the darkened tint of his lips. "No!" he growled out. "No!" Reaching down he grasped his son in his arms and slung him over his shoulders, "No." He said again as he made his way out the bedroom door and into the hallway. Peering into his nephews bedroom he glared at the body burning on the blackened bed and ground out through clenched teeth, "Thank god your dead boy. You hear me. Cuz if you had been alive and if my Dudders is actually dead... well there would be no force on earth that would keep me from killing you. You hear me boy. No force on earth."

The fire-trucks arrived right as Vernon was exiting his house. The lights and the sirens from the ambulances, the cops and the fire-trucks were deafening and obscenely loud. The neighbors were gawking and pointing. All appeared to be in a state of shock. Things like this just didn't happen in nice quiet normal suburbs. Vernon just glowered at them all as they strapped his wife, son and him all in gurney's and placed them into the backs of the ambulances before whisking them off to the hospital. Dudley had better be ok, you hear me boy! Vernon whispered in his head. Or your gonna be thankful your already dead boy.

As the ambulances drove away, sirens blaring, the fire chief looked back at the house and watched as it was consumed by fire. It was a miracle that the occupants had even made it out alive. He watched as his men hooked up the hoses and began to combat the fire and he began to maintain the crowd making sure no one got any where near the blaze. As he was walking he noticed there was a disturbance, a frazzled looking woman was trying to get passed three cops, she was protesting rather vehemently at them and appeared to be in an extremely distressed state. "No! You don't understand!" She shouted at them gripping at the cop who was restraining her, shoulders'. "Harry is still in there! He didn't come out!" The cops stared at her as did the fire chief. "Ma'am I personally asked the Dursley's if there was anyone else in the house and the husband said no."

The woman huffed in outrage her face contorting into a look of utter rage and sadness, before she spat out angrily, " They would say that, those wretched, filthy fat whoremongers."

"Ma'am?" the chief questioned, eyes wide in shock.

Turning her sharp gaze to face the cheif she looked him straight in the eye and answered, " Those horrible people have been taking care of, if you could even call it that, their nephew. He did not come out of that burning house." Drawing herself up to her full height she took a deep breath and pulled herself out of the cops grasp. "Why" she proclaimed, "are you all still standing here?!"

The chief dispersed immediately and was about to call out to the surrounding firemen when all chaos broke loose. Suddenly woman were screaming and men were shouting and pointing towards the house and firemen were running towards what was left of the front door and the small figure that was standing in the door way.

The small figure that looked like nothing but a charred corpse.

A charred corpse that was somehow still walking.

The chief stared for a second at the improbability of what he was seeing before his brain shut down the impossibility and went into 'save the patient mode', "Get him to the hospital!" He screamed. "Get him there now god damnit! MOVE!"

There was a flurry of movement as everyone around him responded and gathered up the young boy and placed him on a gurney and placed him into an ambulance. Doors slammed shut and the ambulance whipped out of there.

The chief turned back to the woman, "Ma'am?"

She turned to him after watching the ambulance disappear around a corner and out of sight.

"Ma'am would you like to take a ride with me down to the hospital? I want to discuss some things with you."

"But the house..." she began."

" My men have it all under control. My second in command knows what to do."

She turned back to the house and watched the flames eat away at it, a look of silent resignation and determination swept across her features. "Yes." she finally said. "I have much to tell you."

Vernon and Petunia were placed in the same room together, after they had been cleared for all life threatening wounds and just suffered from minor smoke inhalation on Petunia's part whilst Vernon sustained a few second degree burns along his legs and arms and a sprained rotator cuff in his shoulder, their beds were right across from each other, as they waited on news about their sons well being. Petunia sat there silently sobbing into her arms and Vernon just glowered at the wall muttering every once in a while to nothing in particular.

"Vernon?" Petunia whispered looking up at her husband her brows knit together as she looked at him in confusion.

Stopping his glowering and mutters Vernon turned to his wife.

"Vernon what happened? Why was the house onfire? I don't understand...I've gone over everything in my head. None of the appliances were on, none of the outlets were hazardly crowded...the wiring is all up to date and has been checked..." she told him her words leaving her mouth in a nervous rush.

"Tuney..." he called to her softly, coughing at the strain it caused on his throat. "Tuney I don't know how it started but I know it had something to do with the boy. " taking a sip of cool water he continued. "When I went to go get Dudley I noticed that the fire was worse near their rooms and when his door exploded off the hinges, his room was completely engulfed in flames..." Vernon looked away at the floor and clenched his blanket tightly in his fists. "His body was just lying in what was left of his bed...It was..." He shuddered, and his face went a sickly shade of green..."...It was like looking at a charred log... his body was just so black..."

Petunia gasped in shock."...Ha...Harry is dead?"

Vernon looked at the wall.

"He's dead? My sister's son is ...dead?"

Vernon looked up at his wife, the note of grief in her voice was unmistakable, and that made him irrationally angry, "He is the reason our son is in ICU!" he shouted before coughing up blood. "He deserved to die..." he rasped out.

"No...no...no..." Petunia softly muttered over and over. " No ...no ...no..."

The fire chief sat there in silence soaking up everything that the woman sitting in the passenger seat had just told him. It was quite shocking really. Who would've thought that a family as deplorable as the dursleys lived in such a nice neighbor hood and seemed so normal were anything but. It was sickening.

"So you're telling me that the Dursleys took in their nephew, who was left on their doorstep when he was just a babe, and have been anything but the best of guardians." He stated.

"Yes." she replied. " I cant tell you how many times I have seen him outside maintaining the gardens, drinking from hoses, which in itself is normal, but you would have to have seen it because it was anything from normal. He was out there all day, in the hot sun. I saw him literally stealing drinks from the hose. He would eye the area as if the hounds of hell were watching him. And that kid that you'd call his cousin was just a giant bully. Always chasing him and heaven help Harry if he got caught."

"Why didn't you say anything?" the Chief asked her hesitant to really know the answer, wanting to believe the best intentions really lay inside her.

She was silent for a moment. "I did though." she responded softly. It was hard to not miss the sadness that had crept into her voice. She turned from looking out the window to face him. "I went to them first, you know. I was just worried about his well-being and I told them that I didn't think he should be out in the sun that long and I even mentioned their son and the behavior of his friends...They said that they would talk to him about staying in more often, but that he really enjoyed working in the garden and yard and that it hadn't honestly crossed their minds about the danger of too much sun. They also told me that they would be talking to their son and their son's friends families about being more friendly and the like towards Harry, "But you know boys and their rough housing"" she mocked Petunia's shrill voice, "I really thought that I was doing good..." she trailed off for about a minute before continuing on." I didn't see him for almost three weeks after that, and when I did... oh my God you wouldn't believe what I saw." she turned back towards the window, her hands going up to face to cover her eyes where tears were beginning to form and spill over and down her cheeks. " He looked horrible." she ground out through clenched teeth, "It was as if he had been hit by a truck, he was so black and blue, and the bruises... they were everywhere. All in varying stages of healing but they were everywhere... like some one had tried to squeeze him as hard as they possibly could. I had never felt so bad in my life."

"Jesus." he whispered.

"After I saw that I decided to go to child services instead. I figured they would be able to do something."

" Did they?"

She looked at him and scoffed. " The dursley's are a fine upstanding family and great addition to society and human kind with their generous nature and hard work and brilliant work and home ethics. Young Harry couldn't have been placed in a more warm and welcoming home." She rolled her eyes. " That's what they told me once they were done with their investigation and evaluation of the family. They said that Harry was just an extremely shy young boy and that it was understandable that he should be slightly angry because statistics state that young adults in his position with his back ground are just looking for a place where they fit in and losing both his parents does cause some issues to arise up but none of it is life threatening or hazardous to his mentality and growth."

The chief stared ahead at the road and gripped the wheel tightly. "I think we need to get young Harry out of that house...I just hope he survives long enough to give us a statement and we can put those horrid people behind bars where they belong."

The hospital was thrown into a chaotic state upon Harry's arrival. Doctors and nurses alike were in a state of shock at the extent of the damage done to his body. His skin was burnt black and split open but no blood came out of his wounds. All the hair was burnt off his body leaving an acrid scent to mix with the smell of burning flesh and fatty tissue. His lips were burnt away as well as his eyelids and ears. The fingers on his hands and his toes literally broke off when touched. His eyes once so eerily green were now cloudy and misshapen due to the high temperatures boiling the insides of his eyes. His tongue was just a charred tiny lump of flesh.

The sight and smell of him caused many to lose their stomachs contents, a couple fainted, and more than a few had to leave the room.

A couple of doctors who got their bearing back faster than most rushed up to Harry's gurney and began to rush him into the nearest room with a full body system diagnostic analysis machine and started running tests. What they found completely baffled them. For all intents and purposes Harry was dead. There was no blood flowing through his veins. His heart was not pumping. His internal organs were liquified, including his lungs and yet miraculously his brain was untouched. It was still sending out signals to the rest of his body like nothing was even wrong.

"It must be a fluke." one of the doctors said. "its said that brain activity can last for up to 30 minutes after all functions have ceased."

The other doctor stared in horror at the body on the table. " How long has it been?

"The rest of his family arrived here approximately 30 to 40 minutes ago and based on their testimonies the fire had started about 15 to 25 minutes before their arrival."

"That poor kid." the one doctor said softly.

"I agree." the other one said. "So young, he didn't even get to live yet. Didn't even get the chance."

Both doctors walked over to Harry's body and lifted him off the table and placed him back onto the gurney before rolling him back out into the hallway and towards the autopsy room for safe keeping until his family decided on what to do with his body.

Vernon Dursley laid there in his bed and stared at the ceiling listening to his wife cry. He couldn't believe it. His son, his pride and joy, was a vegetable. He was brain-dead. Turns out he hadn't gotten to him in time and his brain had asphyxiated. The only thing keeping him alive was those damnable machines all hooked up to his poor body.

Vernon was angry, Petunia was distraught and his son, well his son wasn't really feeling anything now was he.

"Fuck." he swore under his breath. "Tuney.." he began, only to be interrupted by a knock on the door and a doctor hesitantly walking into their room.

"What?" He rasped.

The Doctor rung his hands in his jacket and looked at both Petunia and Vernon. " I am sorry, when we got your nephew...there was just too much damage done. There wasn't anything we could do...He passed away on the way up here. I am so sorry for your loss."

Petunia stared up at the doctor, "What?"

Turning to face Petunia the Doctor began to speak. " Your nephew...the damage was too great...he didn't make it. I'm sorry."

"No you don't understand Doctor..." She began, "He can't possibly be dead...he's ...he's a ...a freak like his mother and father. Its not possible for him to be dead! He has to fix my Dudders! HE HAS TOO!" She screamed throwing the blankets off her legs and stumbling towards the doctor, she grasped his coat in both her hands. " He has too..." she sobbed into his jacket. "He has too..."

"Ma'am I'm sorry but we examined him...There's no possible way he can be alive. There's just to much damage." The doctor told her softly.

"...out..." Vernon rasped. "Get out..." "Tuney..." he began.

"NO!" she screamed, whipping her head towards him." NO!"

The doctor began walking her towards her bed, "Mrs Dursley, I think you should lie down, the stress of the tragedy you have just been through...your more than likely exhausted...you need your rest."

"NO! "she screamed "Let me go! I have to go to him! He's being selfish! He's not dead! He's not!"

"Nurse!" the doctor yelled, "Nurse! I need some help in here!"

Three nurses ran into the room and helped pull Petunia off the doctor. Laying her down onto the bed the nurses held her down as the doctor went to retrieve a vial from the locked storage room. "Now Mrs. Dursley this is going to help you sleep ok." he said to her softly as he inserted the needle beevle up into her vein and pushed the plunger down.

The nurses held onto her as she slowly stilled her movements but continued to mumble even as her head lolled to the side and her eyes fluttered shut, finally silencing her as she passed out.

The doctor turned to Vernon and was surprised to see him still sitting there. "Sir?" he questioned.

Vernon shook his head. "She needed it." he answered. "After all this pain she needed it."

"How are your wounds? Is the anesthetic wearing off? Do you have any pain?"

"No."

The doctor turned to go and walked to the door, looking over his shoulder he spoke again,"If you need any pain medicine just hit the buzzer and a nurse will be in here shortly to administer it or to help you with anything you may need. Please don't hesitate to ask for anything."

"Will do Doc." Vernon said.

The doctor looked at his shoes before looking back up at Vernon. "I'm sorry for your loss." and then he disappeared through the door.

"No." whispered Vernon as he looked upon his sleeping wife. "That little bastard is sorry."

The autopsy room was dark, empty and a single living thing moved.

However, there was one thing that was in a flurry of movement. It was a body. Harry's body.

While the Full-body System Diagnostic Analysis Machine read that Harry's body had no life in it aside from the electrical activity in his brain, this could not be further from the truth. Harry like all wizards and witches has a magical core. Harry also like a few wizards born from parents or other direct blood relatives who happened to have relations with magical creatures, for instance: Veelas, also happens to have a creature core, and as such, was not dead, but in fact changing, or coming into his inheritance and he was becoming something more, something stronger, something unfathomablly powerful, something deadly.

As the minutes ticked by Harry's body began to slowly knit itself back together. His organs began to separate back into their original forms with a few minor modifications. His lungs expanded adding on two more lobes to each side. His heart separated into two the other moving to the right side of his body: one for oxygenating his blood the other for receiving the deoxygenated blood. In his throat a sac began to form for holding sulfuric acid, a highly flammable fluid that not only caught whatever it touched unfire but also is a highly corrosive liquid that ate away at anything.

As his organs were changing so was his skeletal system. It was becoming denser and more flexible, more versatile, to allow for more fluid movement, a more supine movement.

Last but not least Harry's skin began to knit its self back together underneath the charred remains of his old skin. The new formation of his skin was completely different from his old skin. It was extremely pale almost luminescent with a slight silverish tint, and if you looked closely at his skin you'd realize that it wasn't really skin but scales.

Harry laid as still as a statue carved in stone before suddenly his body gave a great shudder and he opened his mouth wide to draw in a great lung full of air. He was once again alive and whole.

Turning to peer in to the darkness surrounding him Harry stared at his surroundings. It was tight and cold and completely made out of metal and he was sure that it was completely pitch black, but instead of seeing absolutely nothing he saw everything in a strange purplish tint. Like he was seeing particles in the air and as they moved with the slight vibration coursing through everything and when it vibrated it gave off a florescent light from the left over unused energy that was expelled during the vibration of the particles.

Harry continued to stare at his surrounding, watching the accumulation of lights as they played off the walls and himself before he noticed the rather dense accumulation had gathered in a square at his feet. That must be the door. Harry thought.

Pulling his legs as close to his chest as he could Harry tensed all of his muscles and on the count of three he forcefully kicked out at the door, only to be amazed as it flew off its hinges and slammed into the wall, indenting it before clattering to the floor.

"Holy shit." Harry said shocked to the core as he wiggled out of his little box only to drop a couple of feet to the floor. Straightening up he began to walk towards the door leading out into the hallway and into the main part of the hospital, when a flash of something caught his eye. Turning around slowly, he stared at the thing across from him. It was not something he had ever even heard about, much less imagined having any sort of existence. What stood before him was what appeared to be a cross between a dragon and a human, with the scaly skin, large bulbous green eyes, fingers that had black shiny claws where the nails would be, and it even, upon closer inspection, had black leathery wings hanging down his back.

"Please..." Harry began only to stop speaking as the things mouth opened, and Harry got a look at the elongated canines along its upper teeth and the elongated eye teeth along its lower jaw. They were really quite vicious looking.

Harry also noticed that the longer he stood there staring with his mouth open the dragon man stood there with his open. So he closed his mouth and as he did so did the dragon. Brows furrowing Harry watched as the dragon did the same thing. Harry moved his right hand and as it was crossing in front of his line of sight, he suddenly stopped it and stared at it. His hand, now that he took the time didn't look like his hand anymore, in fact it barely looked human. It looked just like the dragons hand...which was also in front of his face, as he appeared to be looking at it as if it were also and alien limb,... and that was when it hit Harry.

All of it. The fever. The unquenchable thirst. The delusions. The feeling as if his skin was too tight and hot for his body. Like he was going to explode if he didn't get out of his skin, and then the relief after the stars exploded behind his eyes and his head felt as if it were being clamped down in a vice grip slowly getting tighter before it finally popped, and everything exploded around him in a blaze of heat and light and then he was in the box.

"Oh shit." he said. "Oh shit." Bringing his hands up to grip his hair, Harry turned frantically around and peered at the room before him. He couldn't very well go out looking like this. No the way he looked now would cause a stir and he already had enough attention on him as it was. He didn't need any muggles to find him like this.

Looking at the window, Harry walked up to it and looked down, hoping that the ground was only a couple of feet. "Just my luck." he whispered. "Well looks like I get to try these babies out." He said as he looked back at them. "So how do you guys work?" he asked his wings. "Do I just say spread out?" he laughed . "No, I imagine not." He stood there for a second and just thought..."Maybe its like riding a broom, you have to feel them as if they are an extension of your own body..." Lets try this again. He thought to himself and this time he closed his eyes and he thought about all of his body and when he was done with that he added on his wings and imagined they were just like any other part of his body and extended them out away from his back. When he opened his eyes he was pleasantly surprised to find them actually completely extended and away from his body.

Harry again turned towards the window and reached out to open it. Clambering onto the sill he looked down at the surroundings around him. "Oh boy, here goes nothing." he said under his breath as he pushed off and flew off into the night heading in the only direction he knew had a semblance of safety and acceptance towards him and his current condition: Hogwarts.

AUTHORS NOTE: So what do you guys think? This idea came to me oddly enough as I stood watching a 5 foot bonfire and watched as the concrete below explode. This chapter took roughly 12 hours to write nonstop. It's my baby. The plot is mine, any oc's are mine, and the dragon thingy is definitely mine. I don't care if any of it even remotely resembles something you have read or written. This is mine and I mean really, who comes up with ideas after watching concrete explode. So I hope you all enjoy this as much as I have and I expect to update at least twice a week. I make no promises.

Also I do not own Hogwarts or any recognisable characters, such as Harry, the Dursley's and such belong to J.K. Rowling. I'm just playing with her toys.

Also I am terribly sorry for any spelling errors you may and will find. Its three in the morning and I've been working on this for hours. Plus its on word pad, which honestly is really no excuse, but I'm using it so :).

Have a nice day my sweets.