Disclaimer: Yes, I know these are never read, and actually don't mean a damn thing because if J.K. decided she didn't want any of us writing fanfic, we wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Disclaimers are not law. Then again, might as well cover my ass just in case anyone gets uppity about a lack of one. There will definitely be aspects of stuff taken from other works by published authors and there will be so many that I can't be arsed to put them in the disclaimer by name. So, I DON'T OWN ANYTHING YOU MIGHT RECOGNISE.

Summary: When Sirius is fighting his cousin, he falls through the Veil. Harry, full of anguish, leaps after him, with Remus trying to stop him. Except, the weight of a grown man is often not enough to break the power of grief, and the pair tumble through the Veil after the old mutt, into a world that appears much worse than the one he just left - a world of destruction, a world of fire. A world where they are far from home, and they must find any way to get back, for war is brewing.

Author's Notes:
Quidditch:
Well, this really is a turn up for the books. I'd just like to say that I doubted this would ever happen, but now that it has, I'm rather thankful for the fact my Author Name consists of two parts. Put simply, I am the original author of this account, and the only one there was. Please allow me, though, to introduce Lord, my father.

Lord:
Yep, I'm this brat's dad. Don't expect me to beat around the bush much. I'll be writing some much darker stories than him, so have no doubt about that. And, I guess, welcome.

I will be trying to breathe some life into the old trope of Harry following Sirius through the veil. Yes, I know it's an old one. Yes, I know there are a lot of shit stories written based on that idea. Hopefully, this won't become one of those. Hopefully, you should be in for a bit of badassery from a certain Monsieur Potter and my (possibly) favourite character in terms of what he could have potentially been (DAMN YOU ROWLING!), his lovable rogue of a godfather, Sirius, and the odd bit from a particular werewolf. Oh, and I also thought I'd change from the usual story layout/format. Hope you like it.

Now, as much as I hate trigger warnings, this site seems to have a fascination with them. As such, I might as well honour this backwards tradition and indulge this stupid attempt at political correctness and imposing of safe spaces. This story will be really quite dark in places - violence, definitely. Brutality, most probably. Gore, certainly. Dark themes, undoubtedly. There will no doubt be a lot of stuff in this that a lot of you readers out there won't enjoy or want to read, so consider this a heads up. I like to think most of you will have the common sense to stick to the age-old adage "don't like, don't read". It'll stand you in good stead. However, if you do think that you could possibly partake in my particular brand of dark insanity in the world of Rowling's creation (sort of ... very loosely, really) then step on in - if you're fucked up enough, that is. And with that, your little trigger warning is done.

Paint it Black

Prologue
Canis Totus Stercore

No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don't. -Stephen King

June 18, 1996
Unknown Time
The Death Chamber, Department of Mysteries

Only one pair was still battling, apparently unaware of the new arrival. Harry saw Sirius duck Bellatrix's jet of red light: he was laughing at her.

"Come on, you can do better than that!" he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.

The second jet of light hit him squarely on the chest.

The laughter had not quite died from his face, but his eyes widened in shock.

Harry released Neville, though he was unaware of doing so. He was jumping down the steps again, pulling out his wand, as Dumbledore, too, turned towards the dais.

It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall: his body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch.

Harry saw the look of mingled fear and surprise on his godfather's wasted, once-handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil, which fluttered for a moment as though in a high wind, then fell back into place.

Harry heard Bellatrix Lestrange's triumphant scream, but knew it meant nothing-Sirius had only just fallen through the archway, he would reappear from the other side any second ...

But Sirius did not reappear.

"SIRIUS!" Harry yelled. "SIRIUS!"

He had reached the floor, his breath coming in searing gasps. Sirius must be just behind the curtain, he, Harry, would pull him back out ...

But as he reached the ground and sprinted towards the dais, Lupin grabbed Harry around the chest, "SIRIUS!"

Lupin lay groaning on the floor, his nose spurting blood, a huge crunch the precursor to it. Dumbledore pulled his wand up in front of him, a spell on his tongue - Harry dove. Remus threw himself at him.

"HARRY! NO!"

Like Sirius, they did not reappear.

Searing light, the whispers of the Veil ... the whispers of the dead.

Blackness.

That was all there was. All there had been for a while. Just ... blackness. Darker than his jet hair, darker than the midnight sky. True blackness. The blackness of unconsciousness. The blackness, even, of Death. But he was not dead. His eyes flickered, eyelids pulling back and opening.

"Fuck."

He didn't know why the hell he cursed. Reflex, he supposed. He expected light to come flooding in.

There was no light.

There was the glimmer of sight taken from long adjustment to the darkness. Dingy and looming, it shrouded everything. But not light. This was the dull, dirty light of a polluted air, the sun long-abandoning the destruction of the world. And boy, was there destruction. Rubble, grey and shapeless, littered the street. If you could call it a street. Rock lay everywhere, from the no-doubt once pristine houses to the wrecked cars on the road, the thick particles of dust hanging in the breeze, forming a consistency not unlike treacle. Tiny gusts of suffocating wind wafted with them the strong smell of sewage - at least, he assumed it was sewage; it held a sweet, sickly quality to it, but even that was tainted, a rotten stench creeping along in the background, the tang of burnt timber lingering on the nostrils and the tongue. Glowing ashes flickered past his eyes, tiny sparks of life that darted to and fro amongst the devastated walls of man. Scorched stone, molten metal, trickling tar - all were there to be tasted.

Clouds of that bloody dust floated everywhere. It billowed from piles of rocks, it stifled the air, it stilled the weather. Maybe that was why the sky looked so damn grey. So shit. It had that sort of fucked, always shifting darkness to it, one word drifting once again to the forefront of the mind. Grey. Everything was fucking grey. Drab. There was no other word to describe that bloody grey.

The mood was even thicker than the air itself, even darker than the sky it smothered. It hung heavy, weighing down on the already crumbled foundations of a city nearly without colour. Flames danced up and licked at the debris, distorting the nigh flammable ether with a pure, raw heat, blackening the coals of the earth and the man-made bricks and concrete with the soot of the ages, of destiny itself. It was the only light for miles. Occasionally, a fire would emit a lion's roar and engulf its surroundings, or subside and return to the abyss from whence such devilry came. No such thing could be considered right, even for the evil of mankind. Charred bodies added to the smoke, fuelling the fires and burning quicker than any wood. Their stench was enough of a fuel to allow the continuation of Hell's spreading. Tartarus, it seemed, drew ever closer in this place. A dark red, darker than that ever-changing red of blood, stained what little brown earth there was left in this semblance of Hades. The devil's work.

No plants added colour to the desolation. Any that once had existed here were wilted and snapped, their natural green dulled and discarded. Not long ago the screams of children would have filled the ears, the wails of women, and the weeping of men. Now all was silent. No words were shouted, no cries echoed in the night. The only audible screams were those of warping metal and the grinding of stone to sand, to ashes.

His eyes flicked side to side in a panic. Tears welled up, dropping to the rusting floor of muddied blood - or perhaps bloodied mud. He could not tell the difference. A shawl caught on his foot as he stood, his arms screaming all the while in pain, his legs almost giving way. He bent down and swept aside the shawl. A small head lay beneath. So small. Barely bigger than a hand. Even smaller now, with the shape of a steel-heeled boot engraved in the once smooth and rounded skull, dried blood scabbed around the dent. The body had been naked other than the shawl. A baby's body.

He retched. Flies swarmed at the head, buzzing eagerly, lapping at the iron of the baby's blood around the now deformed head. The contents of his stomach heaved up and splattered on a worn stone tile, the pattern of a rose just barely showing through the vomit and bile. "NO!" He flapped his arms in desperation around the corpse, shooing them away. He cried, the tears rolling down his face and wetting the dry wounds, the flies returning again for more. He raged.

Houses burnt beyond repair. Cobbles and tiles split. Bodies of the dead out for all to see. All laid bare. Still eyes outstretched, staring at the sky. He knew not why. What could there have been to see? Heaven? Or another hell?

He gagged again, bile dripping from his mouth, chunks of undigested meat and vegetables scattered everywhere. He moved on, stumbling amongst the ruins, the shawl still clenched in his hand.

The red liquid of life pooled on the ground, a woman face-down on the floor. He turned her over, pain ever-etched upon her visage. Another corpse lay beneath the woman, female again, not a wrinkle on her face. Not a rip-less shred of clothing on her, not an un-bruised section of thigh, or an uncut part of her exposed breasts. A daughter. Shielded by her mother, even in death. Not shielded enough. A maroon trickle between the mother's legs. A veritable puddle between the daughter's. Raped, both of them. No doubt, they had shrieked and cried out, the mother trying to protect her child, the pain of her failure much greater than the pain of her defiling.

An old man lay nearby, sprawled out in a cross, his knees shot in, a single hole in his temple through which daylight - if you could call it daylight - could be seen. It was like he had accepted his fate. An scruffy, long-haired spaniel rested next to him, unharmed but dead nonetheless, killed by a broken heart. Fat and scraggly, flea-bitten and matted, its droopy eyes had lost their light. It had not lost its loyalty. Not lost its faith.

He stumbled away again, this time tripping on the cracked cobbles, legs wobbling in disgust. His bottom lip trembled. He dropped into a crouch, squeezing himself into the remains of a house. A house abandoned, roof-less, wall-less. All that stood where the stairs. The stairs to Heaven? No. His eyes caught on a door, and he rushed to it, the door falling off its hinges as it swung open. A cupboard. A cupboard under the stairs. He backed away violently, slipping and ending up on his back, still propelling himself away with his legs, his eyes aglow with fear. A single thought slipped to the forefront of his mind.

Run.

So he did. He clambered up and soon a sound did fill the air. His feet beat against the ground in a ragged rhythm, leaping over the reminders of rotten, dead bodies. He ran, and ran, and ran. Buildings drifted past in his mind, pointing at the sky in accusation, as if blaming whatever lay there - maybe God. He fled, but at every turn there was more. More broken bodies, more battered buildings, more shattered shelters and more sweating silage. He blocked out the noise of his pattering strides, blocked out the sight of his greatest nightmare. But he couldn't block it out. Not really. It was too real. So he kept on running, set on doing so until he escaped this hell.

There was no escape. Burning pyres and churches lit the way, but no matter where or how he ran, it still stood there in front of him, around him, behind him. Everywhere.

He coughed and panted, his throat sore with effort and raw from the quality of the air. Even that was burnt. He tore off his jacket and threw it to the side. It landed in a head at the base of a wall, next to a couple still holding each other in their death. He walked slowly over, and drew the jacket over their bodies, leaving but the faces exposed to the human eye.

He collapsed, his feet sliding away from him, his back catching on the wall and stopping.

Where was everyone? What had happened? Sirius ... he choked, tears threatening to dampen his cheeks again. Ron, Hermione. Remus. Luna. Neville. Where were they? Where was he?

He remembered diving through the Veil, but nothing else since. He stopped - stopped and gazed. He gazed all around him, looking for signs of life in a long-dead place. A warped and battered iron sign was propped up against the ground. Ash covered and wrecked, but legible. His arms moved of their own accord and grabbed it, before pulling him into an armchair. An intact living room, save for the lack of walls. Or perhaps a café. The tables and chairs would suggest so. They were alone in the area, a red cross on a white flag the only other standing sight for miles around. It was almost normal. He slumped in the floral-patterned suede, and looked at the sign. It was heavy, with a hint of the heat around him.

It might have been legible, but he couldn't read it. Strange letters the size of his forearm - they meant nothing to him. He didn't even know what language it was. He was hardly the most studious of people, after all. Hermione would have known. Ron wouldn't have had a clue, and would have probably agreed with him at that point. "The fuck?"

Shaking his head wearily, he lowered the iron to the floor, and sank back, deep, into the armchair. He wept. He remembered Sirius falling, peaceful, through the Veil; he remembered Remus grabbing his ankle as he made his desperate dive.

If he was in this place because he jumped through the Veil, where were the two Marauders? He leapt to his feet and looked around him. Properly looked. Still, nil. "Well, nothing else for it."

Harry pulled his wand from his pocket and held it tightly in his sweat-dripping hand, wiping away at his cheeks and chin with his free left hand, a dirty trail of soot and ash left behind by the dirty appendage. What he planned would be risky. Who knew what could be lurking in the shadows? How did he know there weren't any Death Eaters around? He was still twitching slightly from the adrenaline of the fight in the Death Chamber and his sprint through the war-torn city and his legs held a small shake to them, not particularly obvious to the naked eye, but making normal walking rather a challenge. He raised his wand high in the air, pointing at the sky much like the lifeless eyes of the dead, only not in accusation but in desperation. He prayed to whoever was above for this to work.

Sparks. Red, they shot out of the tip of his wand in a straight line to the clouds, leaving a solid trail. It lit up the sky. Just as he had hoped. Harry breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Now anyone for miles around could see his location. "Lumos!"

His wand-tip lit up and shone, a beacon of sight for his tired eyes. He looked around and around, searching for someone. Anyone. "What am I doing?" he muttered to himself. "What the fuck am I doing here?"

"Where the hell even is here?"

He wiped away at the grime on his glasses, failing to remove the muck from his weary face. He took a deep breath - nearly choking as he did - and sighed.

Harry made his way back into the myriad of madness, as if a labyrinth stretched out before him. He'd faced a maze before, which had sent his mind in circles. This, in comparison, was an ever spinning wheel. His wand, he kept pointing low, so as to see the ground - though there were times he wished he could not. Silent screams on the faces of the dead, a testament to their horrors. Horrors that Harry could only ever imagine, turning away from each and every body he saw. Soon his neck began to ache from over-use. He cared not. Seeing the looks in their eyes - it nearly broke him. Soundless prayers, pleading.

A good while later, his foot bumped against something. A hand, decaying and rotting, a small handgun lying loosely in what would have once been a firm grip. Now, the man's defiance was over. Defiance was all it could be called, for Harry stared into the very whites of his eyes and saw no bravery, only the strongest desperation, forged from fear. Harry bent at the knees, placing one carefully down next to a ragged piece of wire, barbed and rusted. He reached over the man's body, and with the gentlest of touches, pried it from the dead man's hand.

The grip was worn and used, smoothed by the long hold of death. His fingers shaking, he ran a single digit over the trigger, feeling the harsh cold of the metal beneath the thin, superficial layer of dirt. It rang deep in him, the contrast. By this time, he was sweating from the sweltering, cloying heat, even clad in his tee-shirt. It was probably empty, the revolver, but for some strange reason it made him feel safer, despite his wand. He knew how to use a wand, but not this mechanical contraption; sure, it was simple to just pull a trigger - all people knew how to do that - but that to Harry was no guarantee. He slipped it into his jeans. No, the cool, carefully crafted weight in his pocket carried with it a certain comfort … an uneasy comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

Whatever this place was, and however quickly he wanted to leave it, it now felt just a little safer. The quiet was still more than a little disconcerting, but he could cope with that, for the time being. He just couldn't cope with being alone.

More minute whispers of wind swept the dirt around his feet. An explosion sounded in the far-off distance, muted by the miles of air between it and the city. The sound rang in his ears and smacked his head like a concussion.

Suddenly, a scrabbling noise cut through to him, and a figure rose upon a mound of rubble, silhouetted in the dim light of the flames. It slipped, crashing down to the ground, before pushing itself up and limping towards him, grunting and whimpering all the while. His wand was up in an instant, pointing directly at the shadow. "Don't come any closer! Stop right there!"

Harry's voice was cracking, a stutter creeping in. "I'm warning you! B-back away."

The figure's face entered the light - the face of a man, if you could even call him that; a beard grew patchily along his jawline. In parts that beard reached nearly to his chest, despite the bald spots. Singed, his hair looked black and dirty; whether it was black naturally or not, could not be told. His cheekbones were higher than any Harry had ever seen before … only they weren't high, they were bare. As that light flickered over him, Harry could see the wrinkled skin stretched taught over sinew and bone, the ring around his eyes as deep as the oceans. His arms were worse, and a shard of bone stuck through the surface in his right forearm, old burns discolouring even that. "Pomogi," his scratchy voice called, hoarse and torn, pleading. "Pomogi mne, pozhaluysta."

Harry was bewildered, an exclamation of surprise passing his dry lips. The man lunged forward, eyes blazing. "Pomogi!"

"Stupefy!"

A red light flew from the tip of his wand and struck the skeletal man soundly in the chest, dropping him unconscious to the floor. Harry breathed hard, his heart beating ten to the dozen.

"Harry?"

He whipped round, his wand aimed once again, panic flaring in his eyes. His hand trembled, his face twitched in a nervous tick. "HARRY!"

That voice was familiar. Smooth but with a hint of rasp, it felt like the best thing he had ever heard. "Sirius!"

There was his godfather, looking a little worse for wear, grubby and mucky, but unharmed, another taller figure behind him - Remus. The straggly old mutt sprinted to him, enveloping his shaking body in a crushing hug. A hug full of warmth, full of care, full of love. Sirius clutched him ever tighter to his chest, sobbing all the while. "It's okay, it's okay. It's okay, Harry."

"I've found him, Remus!" he cried out over his shoulder, before returning to his godson, his next words muffled in Harry's jet hair. "It's okay. Shhh … it's okay. Thank Merlin. Thank Merlin you're safe."

"Sirius, we need to get out of here. Bring Harry to the car."

There was an urgency in Remus' voice - a hint of fear. He barely glanced at the reunited pair. Instead, his eyes twitched around agitatedly, watching everything, as if looking for a sign.

Sirius nodded jerkily. "Okay, come on Harry. We need to go." Harry wiped his face on his sleeve and let himself be guided along the dusty street to a running, sputtering car, box-like and beige in colour. "Get in the back, kiddo. Remus is right. This place really isn't safe."

Harry gave a muted chuckle. "I kinda guessed that by now. Where is this place, anyway?"

Remus turned round and pocketed his wand. "We'll explain when we're on the road. When we're out of here."

Harry looked at Sirius, who gave him a grim nod, and climbed into the back.

Okay, there you go. I know, a pretty short first chapter, but it's really nothing more than a taster for what is yet to come. If you want to continue reading this atrocity called fanfiction, then please do. That'd be great. Any feedback would also be appreciated, from flames to religious praise, criticism to marriage proposals.

Over time, it is likely that I will edit chapters, but for now, while I do have a very good beta reader, I am looking to you lot to pick up any extra errors that she couldn't find. Thanks, and toodles all.