Chapter Text
When he was five-years-old, Harry got to go with Dudley to a birthday party for one of the more well-off children in the classroom who had decided to invite the whole class to his party. It was quite an event, with a bouncy castle, cake, presents, and even a hired magician. However, for Harry, the best part was the “quiet room” where any of the kids who wanted to could go in and sit and watch a movie that the adults had put on. Harry, having never been allowed to go watch a movie, and wanting nothing more than to keep some distance from Dudley’s fists and Aunt Petunia’s watchful gaze, had stayed there for the whole party.
The movie of choice was one he’d never heard of before, about an orphaned boy raised in the jungle by animals, including wolves, elephants, a bear, monkeys, a jaguar, a snake and, most of all, a man-eating tiger. Harry had watched the whole thing with wide eyes, thinking first of himself as the same as that little boy, skinny and confused, alone in all the world, and being tugged from one thing to the next. However, by the end of the movie, Harry didn’t think himself much like Mowgli at all—he certainly wouldn’t have been lured away from his jungle home by some girl at the river. No, the one that Harry liked best was Shere Khan, the man-eating tiger, the one that everyone in the whole forest was scared of.
Harry liked to think that if he were a man-eating tiger, not even Vernon would want anything to do with him because, after all, Vernon was a man and that is what man-eating tigers ate.
From that day on, instead of wishing that his parents would appear magically at his front door and whisk him away, Harry wished instead that he could become a tiger. No one would hurt him then. They would be far too scared and Harry would finally, finally be safe.
Nine years later, when Harry stood, legs splayed in the dirt, with thunder rolling and dry lightning filling the air with static and the shadowy canine figure of his godfather capering around him, yipping with joy, Harry remembered the little boy he used to be and how desperately he’d wished to become a tiger.
Look at me now, Harry thought as he stretched out his long, limber, fur covered legs. He twisted around to look at the golden orange, black, and cream of his fur. His tail lashed through the air. His claws dug into the dirt. He turned ears first and then his head at the yapping of his godfather, once so surprisingly big as a shaggy black hound, but now not so big compared to Harry.
Sirius bowed before him, rump up in the air, tail wagging like a flag in the wind, mouth open and tongue lolling with excitement. An invite to play, to chase and run. Harry shook himself and crouched down, tail twitching, muscles bunching under thick, velvety fur.
Sirius barked and bounded away a moment before Harry pounced. Then they were off, chasing each other, running through tall grasses, down creek beds, among the sparse trees, and up the hill. It was the most glorious day of Harry’s life, filled with wonder and magic and freedom.
He was a tiger, a tiger!
He was free at last.
(He was a man-eater. He was finally safe.)