I just want to see what people think of this idea. I'll need reviews to see if I want to go any farther, so please, review. I don't own Harry Potter or anything else I may cross it over with.

If the Witch knew the true meaning of sacrifice, she might have interpreted the deep magic differently. That when a willing victim who has committed no treachery, is killed in a traitor's stead, the stone table will crack, and even death itself would turn backwards. - C.S. LEWIS

At age seven, Harry could see Vernon Dursley go mad. It was...an inevitable thing. He could see that beyond the facade the Petunia Dursley showed, she mourned for her sister, pitied him and was deathly afraid of her husband. He could see that under Dudley Dursley's mask of stupidity, there was laziness - for his school studies, regret - for following his father and beating him, and fear - of his father.

The black haired boy with eyes like green death and pale skin riddled with scars under his clothes watched and saw everything. Today was the day that Vernon Dursley finally fell into the black shade of madness.

The first sign was that his face was slowly turning purple. The next was that he gripped his steak knife far too tight, his knuckles turning white under the intense pressure set on them. His eyes grew bloodshot faintly and he snarled out softly, in the type of voice that scared the other three relatives far more than his shouting and spitting,

"You little shit." Harry watched in his silence, the fear seeping into his bones. He did not know what he was going to do, only that he was scared. Dudley and Petunia huddled in their seats and stared down at their plates. "You dare try and poison me." There was faint shock and his other relatives gulped, glancing at their food. Petunia looked up very slowly, trembling.

"V-Vernon, dear, how about we sit down? I don't think that there's anything in the food. If -"

"Be quiet, woman." Petunia flinched and looked back at her plate as Vernon stood up and thrust his groaning chair to the floor with a loud clatter. Harry still watched. There would be no screaming. There would be no spitting or belts, this time. Harry could tell, like prey knowing a predator, this time would be the final time. This time would be the one that meant death for one of them. And then, as Vernon was halfway across the kitchen, with the knife firmly in his hand, Dudley rose, trembling as his mother had. He quivered harder as his father's eyes found him, but he bravely went to stand square in front of Harry.

And Harry realized the masks they all hid behind had dropped. There was no need for them anymore.

There was a low growl. "Go sit down, son."

"No." It was a surprise. But the masks had dropped now and nothing was as it should have been. There was a sharp intake from Petunia and a word uttered from Vernon.

"What?"

"I-I said - no. T-This is w-wrong. Leave him alone." The last was said in raw confidence that he could get his father to see reason. He was wrong.

"You dare defy your father?" Harry listened, as he couldn't see, what Vernon was doing. Dudley was a blob of trembling flesh and Harry heard movement of fabric, the start of a scream from Petunia, the buckling of Dudley's knees as he fell in fear - and then he dodged Dudley and got in front of him as Vernon's arm came down.

And then there was pain.

Harry never understood why he did it - only that he did. Perhaps it was the masks that he showed were similar to the ones he knew were placed on the others. Perhaps he never wanted any others to share his fate. But in the end, there it was. The shade of madness. His dream came back to him, echoed faintly outside his head as it was inside.

A woman's screams - echoed. A flash of green that was not found anywhere else on Earth. Laughing of a madman - echoed as well. Harry could not see, could not breathe, could not do anything but hear screams of past and present rising to greet him. And the blackness took him completely.

Petunia screamed. She screamed loud and shrilly and in horror. Her mask had fallen.

Her sister's son lay on the floor, having taken the knife for Dudley. Crimson soaked the white tiles she had chosen to put in when they had received the house from her parents. She knew the wizards had a spell to make death come to the target with no pain, no hurt - but they were not wizards. They were muggles. And at the moment, Petunia felt powerless. So she screamed.

Vernon turned on her with the bloody knife and time slowed. It slowed and slowed until she thought it would completely stop. She felt her blood pounding in her ears and her heart thudding. But then the thudding became realer. Then she realized there was someone at the front door just before it blew off its hinges.

"Police! Drop your weapons! Down on the ground - you with the knife!" A man snapped, pointing a gun at Vernon. Another man held a rag to her nephew's wounds. So she stopped screaming until Vernon twisted around and lunged at her, knife pointed for her. And she froze as gunshots rang out. Vernon collapsed, the anger in his eyes - every light in his eyes - faded as quick as blinking. The thud shook her from her shock and suddenly a man was in her face, the same one who had just shot Vernon.

"Are you all right? Hey! Are you okay?" Everything grew brighter again, a sense of lightness and relief, even though she knew it was wrong.

Dudley had seen his father raise a knife to kill him. To harm him and make his red blood flow on the ground the same way his cousin's blood was doing now. He had stood up for Harry and had been repaid in kind. His father had taught him one thing: never let your debts be unpaid. And now he owed his cousin a bigger debt for saving his life. There was fear as his mother began to scream.

But he had cradled his cousin's head in his trembling hands, as blood drenched his kitchen floor and saw something strange. There was a pale silver light that etched a series of marks into his cousin's skin, winding, sharp marks that laced up his arms and around his throat. Harry's still body in his arms shivered for a second...and then he breathed.

Surprised and overwhelmed, he could only watch as the police came rushing in, yelling. Dudley felt a man take Harry from his arms and begin to try to stop the sticky red that covered his hands and clothes from coming out more. He saw out of the corner of his eye, his father fall, heard the gunshots ring. And then it all fell silent.