Questing Beast.
The man slowly pulled his robe aside.
Beneath it… he did not look human.
His body was enormous, far larger than it should have been, as if it had kept growing by force until it twisted into something wrong. His skin was covered in a horrifying mixture of black fur, dark scales, badly sealed flesh, and bony plates jutting out from different parts of his body, as if dozens of creatures had been stitched onto him while still alive.
And many of those stitches… were still oozing.
Grover had to fight the urge to look away.
His neck stretched just a little more than it should, while his face looked almost serpentine. He had no nose, and his head was covered in scales instead of hair. Two large green eyes shone from his face, reptilian and cold.
His arms, large and covered in fur, looked as if they had been torn from some beast like a bear, while his hands, disturbingly enough, still looked human… though far too thin and long, almost sickly, as if they had been forced onto him.
And that was the most disturbing part of all.
Because those hands were the only part of his entire body that still looked like they had once belonged to a man.
His back was deformed with bulges, spines, and what looked like the rotten remains of wings trying to force their way out of his flesh.
But the worst part… was his chest.
His torso moved in an unnatural way, as if something was still alive beneath the skin. Not like a heartbeat, but like something trying to get out.
And between cracks of blackened flesh, exposed bone, and badly closed seams, they could see eyes, fangs, tiny twisted jaws, and fragments of creatures embedded in his body… as if they had never truly died at all.
It did not look like he had only mixed normal animals together.
There were also parts of magical creatures… and monsters.
Every part of his skin showed a different kind of fur, different kinds of scales, flesh joined together the wrong way, as if he had tried to build something impossible out of everything he had hunted.
And every time he breathed…
the howls came from inside his body.
It was such a horrid and unnatural thing that no sane being should have even been capable of trying to create something like this.
Just looking at him made Grover's stomach twist violently as he listened to those pain-filled howls coming from inside him.
As if they were still in there, suffering.
Grover hated it instantly.
Not just because it was monstrous… but because it felt wrong in the way dead things were never supposed to feel.
Remus, meanwhile, frowned deeply. Even he could feel an instinctive discomfort inside himself at the sight of something so deeply wrong. Something deep inside him reacted to it with immediate hostility, as if even the beast within him rejected whatever stood in front of them.
Behind them, the creatures tensed even more, baring their teeth, growling low, and taking slight steps back… caught between fear and hatred.
None of them wanted to go near that thing… but they understood that it was an enemy they would have to defeat if they wanted to get out.
"What are you?" Grover asked, trembling.
The man tilted his head slightly, as if Grover's question struck him as… curious.
"What am I…?" he repeated, his glowing eyes drifting upward for a moment as if he were genuinely thinking about it.
Then he smiled.
And his teeth looked like a serpent's fangs.
"I am the prey that became the hunter," he said with almost sick delight. "I was the only one who survived the hunt."
Then he lowered his gaze and looked directly at Grover.
Grover felt a chill run down his spine and took a small step back.
"That's not… that's not being alive…" he said quietly.
That only made the monster's smile widen.
"What would you know?" he asked, his voice sounding almost amused. "Living while running. Hiding. Being hunted…"
The howls inside his body stirred more violently.
"But now it's different."
He took one step forward.
"Now I am the hunter."
Another step.
"And the whole world…"
The howls rose even louder.
"…is my prey."
His gaze slowly swept across Grover, Remus, and the creatures behind them.
"You too."
Grover felt the howls grow louder for a moment, as if they were trying to scream at them to run… or flee… but at the same time, they also seemed to be begging for help.
That was the worst part of all.
Grover did not fully understand that man's words.
And neither did Remus.
Because what he was saying did not fully make sense.
And maybe that was the most disturbing part.
"Grover. Back," Remus said as he stepped in front of him, gripping his wand without taking his eyes off the monster standing before them.
The man tilted his head ever so slightly at their reaction.
"You asked who I was, didn't you?" he said with a crooked smile. "Once, long ago, I was given a name."
He paused for a moment.
And then he spoke with strange satisfaction.
"Questing Beast."
Before Grover or Remus could even process that name, several of the stitches across the monster's chest suddenly tightened.
Then it opened its mouth.
A roar burst from it, making the animals around them tremble in fear while Grover and Remus covered their ears on instinct.
And in the very next instant, it moved.
The monster charged toward them, and every step of its massive legs made the ground tremble slightly.
Remus reacted first.
He grabbed Grover by the shoulder and shoved him out of that thing's range while at the same time raising his wand.