Book One: Under the Hunters Moon

Full Moon: Part I

Hogwarts, December 4th lunchtime, the Great Hall.
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It's been two weeks since my little episode in the hospital wing, and it has been a strange two weeks. For the first week during class with the Slytherins, I've felt eyes on the back of my head but not the normal glares or curious glances, just looking at me, but every time I turned my head to see who it was, no one was looking. While the next week the looks hadn't stopped, I was starting to be followed by someone. She wasn't very good at following me unnoticed, but the little girl could hide better than Ginny did last year.

It was the girl I had brought to the hospital wing, Astoria was her name I think, she doesn't follow me all the time just in between a few classes during the week. I have no idea why she is doing this but it's weird, I had decided to just ignore it, for now, she'll stop sooner or later.

Atalanta really kicked up training the last two weeks, I had told her about what happened with Astoria and what happened to me in the hospital wing. She wasn't happy that I had done that, and we went back over how dangerous the hunt could be, but now, now I understood. The want and the hunger, the hunt wanted blood, any blood, and was going to use me to get it one way or another. Atalanta had told me she was approached by Professor Snape and he had told her a few things I didn't notice, things like how I had bent the iron bed frame that I had grabbed to support myself and just how fast I had moved, some of the students I had run by had just reported a blur of black and grey running through the halls. She had explained how she thinks the blessing of the hunt works for both of us, she had explained it like a faucet, while she had it open at a drip and could open to a steady stream when she needed it. I was different, it wasn't a blessing from a goddess for me, it was a part of who I was and it would always be opened at a stream, and if I could do what she thought I could, submerging myself completely into the hunt and letting it take me over; I didn't like the thought of doing that.

The bloodlust from doing what little I did had scared me, I had wanted to hunt and kill everything in the hospital wing and it had shocked me out of falling deeper in. Atalanta told me the best way to not fall completely into the hunt and to pull myself out of it was to find something that reminded me that I was human, not a mindless hound on the trail of prey, something to tie myself to my humanity.

I didn't know what that was, she gave some examples like friends, family, or even someone I loved. But all of them didn't feel right to me, I mean, sure I had friends in Ron and Hermione but they didn't feel all that close, the less said about my family the better, and I'm only thirteen, what did I know about love?

When I had asked Atalanta what she used to remind herself, she had shaken her head and told me that she was a bit different than the rest of the hunters, she had been a lion for a long, long time and knew what it was like being a beast of the hunt; so she knew where the hunter and the human side of the line was and could pull herself back from it. It was frightening to know just how dangerous it was, teetering on that line between human and hunter knowing dipping too far one way could turn me into something like that. So, we've been working on controlling how to open and close the valve that controls it. I found out that whenever I wanted it to open more than I'd feel this pressure in my ears, all I had to do was let them pop and it would flood into me like a river. I was, like with everything else, completely pants at it and had gone through a few more full-body cramps before Atalanta said I was making good progress with it.

Though I think she only said that for my benefit, to try and give me confidence instead of telling me what she really felt.

We also went over all the common types of monsters that a Demigod would encounter, their weaknesses, and the best way to fight them. Hellhounds were just bigger dogs, so taking out a leg or two would hobble them. Cyclopsis had notoriously bad eyesight from far away, but with a great sense of smell, a bow is the best bet. From lesser Giants to pit scorpions, chimera's to hydra's, she had gone over the best way to hunt and kill each one with me, telling me to write it all down because she would be testing me on this. No idea if she was serious about it with the smirk she had, but I did so anyway, because as she said; a hunter is always prepared.