Disclaimer; This is the continuation of an AU series. It won't adhere to either series but it will follow some of the facts and story lines of both series. The Harry Potter Characters belong to JR and the Demon Diary characters belong to "Kara". So… not mine, don't sue, this is just for fun.

A/N; This is the start of the sequal for The Years Before; Remake. This is also a remake. Since I didn't have the heart to cover up the old story with this. Either way, this is the prelude chapter to introduce you to it so if it comes out as confusing, I'll explain it as it goes along and please don't expect it to be faithful to the old Eyes of the Lost. I hope you all enjoy this, and hopefully I'll have the following chapter up as soon as I can. I also apologize ahead of time for the lack of really responding to reviews... I just never got used to it, so I want to thank everyone for their reviews in The Years Before and that your encouragement really helped me finish that one, and I'm sure such encouragement will help me pull through on this one as well.


Eyes of the Lost (The Remake)

Prelude: Lost Suffering

"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief."

--C.S. Lewis

His body burned with a fire that he could not recognize. It burns and screamed in defiance and retribution and it burned and burned—and it felt so good at the same time. Power flowed under his skin and his body responded on instinct and he reached up and grasped and watched Professor Quirrell's face melt before he even touched it.

He grasped and held and choked and burned—and power, there was such power…

Harry stared at the veil in silence as he suddenly felt a stirring in his blood; it was the power again. It had always been there, really. Or that was what Harry liked to imagine because the presence within him was always so comforting. When there was no one else, there was always that power that would be able to save him. That power which stalled the Basilisk venom from spreading throughout his body as Fawkes flew to him and dropped his tears on to the wound. The power that allowed him to bat away a werewolf's claws…

When there was no one but himself…

A worried part of himself eased a little bit. The power was here with him now so he would refuse to worry. He hands formed in to fists as he listened to the whispers that came from the veil that he was staring at. They were saying something, but he was too far to really hear it. He glanced to his friends whom all had worried eyes pointed at him.

Harry pressed his lips together, glanced to the veil, to his friends before he murmured, "one moment…" He moved and hurried down the long staircase that led to the bottom of the dais that the giant stone arch was situated on. As he drew closer, the fluttering in the veil seemed to become more violent and Harry didn't dare move beyond the stairs that were attached to the dais. He wouldn't go up there, but he wanted to hear what the arch had to say.

He felt his friends crowd in silently against his back as he cocked his head to the side and listened to it. He power stirred in his ears and the whispered seemed to suddenly space and become legible. They were mournful laments of loss and pain and Harry felt his curiosity ease.

Maybe it was some way of talking to the dead? Harry considered the thought before he froze. To the dead? … if he could talk to the dead… oh, what he would give to talk to the dead. His parents! Harry felt the familiar aching hole of longing in his chest that hadn't been eased by time as he took another step up to the top of the stairs that led on to the actual dais.

Would they be proud of him?

Maybe… maybe… He ignored the way Hermione hissed his name worriedly as Ron muffled a sneeze behind a hand. But he was enamored by the idea and spoke, "Hermione… the voices, do you think… do you think you can talk to the dead with this arch?" He voice came out higher then he meant it to be, but that was fine with him as he removed his eyes from the arch and turned to look to Hermione. Hermione was giving him the look again, the look that said he had just done something abnormal, that he had done something strange.

"Harry… what voices?" Ginny asked, eyes wide as she held on to Neville's arm, her face pale and bloodless with worry that matched Neville's pinched look of nerves and pain. Harry gestured back to the veil. "They're from there. Can't you hear them?" Harry felt that spark of panic that came with incidents like this.

It was like learning that he could speak to snakes yet no one else but Voldemort could.

"Harry…" Hermione tried and failed to say something and Luna spoke softly, her cloudy eyes looking to the veil with a moment of startling clarity… "I can hear them too…"

Harry turned back to the veil and focused again on the voices—they had suddenly meshed together in a sudden flux of sound and it firmly drew his attention from the group. Harry stared, green eyes focused on the veil as a faint win brushed through the chamber and tugged rakishly through his black hair. It took him a moment to hear the words through the sudden pounding of his heart in his ears.

"…sh blood is coming. Fresh blood is coming…" A hungry groan amongst a series of animalistic growls and dreamy laughs. "Fresh and live and squirming… it'll scream, it'll scream so good…"

Harry's blood ran cold despite the power within that was warming him. Harry ignored the fine shake within his body as he stepped back from the veil a little bit, moving back down a step. His friends cleared out from behind him and Harry soon followed as they made their away from the veil.

"… lets just get what we came for and get on." They didn't want to be caught here.

Harry tilted his head back and watched Voldemort rise from the cauldron that he had seen Wormtail drop the bundle in and he knew, deep down inside himself, that something terrible just happened. Something far worse then feeling such terrible pain when Voldemort touched his scar and brought him such pain that it couldn't even be described.

Voldemort came out of the cauldron a monster. And somewhere, deep inside himself, some inexplicable knowledge cried that he should have come out human. That it was his blood that made the man a monster on the outside as well as the inside and Voldemort… Voldemort had gained something terrible because of this. And the power throbbed inside him but did nothing to defend him.

And he was afraid.

"Everyone! A circle, back to back!" Harry cried out as he pulled his friends on to the dais in the center of the room. They all pressed together—friends, classmates and now comrades in arms—and stuck their wands out, tips of spells ready on everyone's lips as they waited for the pursuing Death Eaters to show. Harry tried to ignore the voices beyond the veil but they were going in to a frenzy and Harry knew, he really knew, that they weren't going to be able to match up to full grown wizards.

They weren't all going to make out of this alive and he felt his eyes dart to his left, to Ron, and then to his right, Hermione while he imagined the scared faces of Ginny, Neville and Luna that were behind them. Was this… Was this how things would end for them? Cut down by a Death Eater's spell?

Harry didn't think of it anymore as a black wind scattered them apart and pushed them down, and he clutched the prophecy to his body and wondered if…

… he wondered if he used his power this time, would it disappear entirely?

He'd give anything to make sure that didn't happen.

The words from the blood quill disturbed Harry as he wrote the lines that tore in to his hand.

I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies.

But the blood was not red.

It was black.

The paper scorched and turned charcoal black around the words.

I must not tell lies. I must not tell lies.

But he didn't know the truth anymore, what was left to say but lies?

It seemed to take an age for Sirius to fall. And Harry felt time freeze, he felt the chill run through his body as Sirius's back arched and curved delicately as his body tipped backwards in to the greedy arms of the veil and the veil whispered out—"mine."

The laughter mingled with surprise and a sudden growing fear was all Harry could see as he watched Sirius fall back through the veil and disappear in to the darkness of the ragged arms of the horrible voices that were chanting 'mine, mine, mineminemine'. Harry screamed, it was a name but he was unsure of what it was as he turned and darted away from safety, from comfort, from friends—this was something better then that. His only family had just fallen away from him!

He had said he would give anything, but he hadn't meant it! Not really!

Harry screamed as heavy, strong arms circled around his waist and stopped his forward momentum in to the veil after his godfather. He struggled, trying to push through on mere strength as his fingers tried to pry off the strong bonds of the arms that circled around him and pulled him back against an equally strong chest. He couldn't breath, he could think—and her cold, cold laughter drove in harsh spikes of pain in to his chest as the world blurred and… and…

The power shifted lazily around under his skin.

Useless.

Harry did something he had never done before and grasped the power inside his body, the power he normally waited to act on his own he took the reins and pushed his burnings hands down on to the arms around his body. A touch, or had he really touched those arms?—he didn't know, but the bonds, the arms restraining him released and he stumbled forward as the raggedly black drapes of the veil reached out and welcomed him in.

Ice—ice—ice; everything was ice and darkness within and he heard the power inside take on a voice…

Let me in.

Remus Lupin fell to the floor in a pain that almost equaled a werewolf transformation, he arms held ramrod straight away from his body as he choked on air. The burning was so intense and the smell of the burned skin clogged his senses—he couldn't breath, couldn't think and all he could feel was the pain and his body knew something that he couldn't comprehend. It knew that he had deserved it and the beast inside reared back in anger before its scream lowered in to a soft growl of submission.

Something had happened and no one had noticed. The fight and spells over head continued on without a though. No one tired to hit him on the floor as he writhed in pain. Some part of Remus, the rational side, stated that the Death Eaters probably thought someone had him under some kind of torture curse while the Order was trying to find the one holding him under and stop them. Not that anyone was holding him under.

The energy bled out of his body and he laid limply on the ground, panting. The battle, he saw through tired eyes, was nearly over. Stragglers. They were the only ones left and the Order members in the room really had overpowered the Death Eaters that had come. Remus gasped for air weakly on the floor and tried to think coherently again.

It truly struck him then…

Harry had gone through the veil.

Remus pressed his face on to the ice cold stone and held in the whimper that threatened to come out. The boy that he had been trying to protect had… had killed himself. Remus felt so… so damn tired. He curled his hands in to fists, relishing in the pain that he knew he now deserved that shot through his arms around the burned flesh on his forearms and he slammed a fist against the floor with a sob.

Was this really happening? Couldn't this be a dream?

Like the night that Lily and James had died—everything had felt like a dream then too.

"R-Remus…?" A voice questioned overhead before someone kneeled down next to him, a slender hand placed on his back in a comforting motion. Remus didn't look up from the floor as a sob choked up past his lips. The gentle hand became firmer as another one came and brushed his hair in a soothing motion he couldn't feel as the tears finally poured out of his eyes and on to the floor.

Two in one day, that had to be breaking some kind of law of the universe, wasn't it? There had to be some type of rule that you couldn't take more then one precious person a day, right? Sirius… Sirius had been so precious and Harry had been so young and now they were dead! He and Sirius had finally mended their strained friendship and together… together they had finally started to get to know the son that Lily and James had left behind.

And now they were both gone.

Remus shivered, pain clenching his stomach and he pushed down the need to be sick. They were both gone and all that there was left was the rat that had started everyone on to this path. Remus froze, stiffening and causing the person brushing his hair in comfort to cautiously call his name. Wormtail… Peter, was still alive. Wasn't that some type of cosmic joke? Everyone that was good and precious was dead and that worthless person was still alive!

He almost snapped his jaws on someone's hand when someone jerked his face up from the floor and it took him a moment to recognize Tonks. He blinked at Nymphadora's somber, scraggily black hair and nearly let out a hysterical laugh. She had tears in her eyes too and he realized that this woman was nearly the last descendent of Black alive. There was, of course, Nymphadora's mother and her two aunts to take in to consideration.

At the way things were going, Draco Malfoy would be the last person to have even a sliver of Black blood in their veins and it felt like something precious was going instinct. Sirius hadn't left behind a child. There really had been no time for the other to get around to doing such a thing. And now, look at what happened… there was nothing left behind. There wasn't even Harry.

Nymphadora wiped away the tears from his face and encouraged him to stand. Remus weakly did so as he turned to the veil that fluttered in the nonexistent breeze—and Remus imagined that it moved with contentment. Two lives… two lives…

Two lives that had both, never really had the chance to live. Sirius really had been a teenager at heart.

Remus stepped closer to the veil, shrugging off Nymphadora's hands as he stepped closer, and he ignored as Moody hobbled his way over to where he stood. He wasn't going to follow them in, he wouldn't be able to do that. He wouldn't do it while Peter still lived. Remus stopped in front of the arch and stared up at it. What really was this arch? It was obvious that it led someone to their death…

But where was the rest of the information? What if it was possible to bring someone back from it? Remus didn't let himself hope for it, but he imagined that if it was possible it would have been a lot nicer then simply being helpless in the face of the veil. Moody roughly grabbed his arm with a strong hand grip and Remus couldn't stop the way he collapse with a scream. His arm! The burn!

It was as if a touch was the trigger for the pain to begin again and Moody made sure to drop him as he hit the floor again with a closed mouth scream. He knew that he was being levitated away from the scene, he knew it and he continued to mourn his lose even as he suffered from the pain.

Was the price for love and friendship death?

Let me in.

Let me in…

…let me in… my… de…a…r… one…

…I'll ensure our survival… in the land of horrors…