Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its contents therein. However, any new characters, realms, and certain ideas belong to me. Any unauthorized use of any of the aforementioned items is subject to copyright laws and appropriate action will be taken forthwith.

Additional Warnings: This story will contain the Malfoys portrayed in a grey manner, and will also contain slash (malexmale) scenarios and relationships, along with detailed violence and gore, strong language, and adult concepts. Any vulgarity towards race, country, gender, religion, sexuality, nationality, etc. are products of characterization and is no way an indication of my (as the author's) own views. There will be deep uses of theology, ideology, and psychology, along with philosophical debates that may discredit certain religions for purely plot development. It will also contain powerful characters that may be portrayed beyond the norm, though in no way geared towards Mary Sue. However, if any of these things disturb or anger you, please redirect yourself to another story. Thank you very much.

A/n: Yay~! Deca's back. And with a brand-new, revitalized version of the story you've all been waiting for. I hope you guys like this one better. Enjoy!

Thinking back on things, he'd realized it had been somewhat ridiculous of him to think he had even the remotest chance of any semblance of normalcy: Him, Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, Hogwarts' Golden Boy, and the wizarding world's very own hero? Some would call it naivety, and others would call it ignorance. Harry himself had decided to call it Karma, and that it was decidedly fucking with him in all the wrong kinds of ways.

It had taken a steady slew of torture aimed his way from one of the very few people in the world he had come to trust to bring Harry to such a conclusion. He did not know if the feeling bubbling inside of him was anger, sadness, or simply indigestion from eating drugged scraps off the floor of his cell every day. After the fourth day and some intense skelegrow sessions that came about from a few bone-breaking hexes from his most 'beloved' Headmaster, Harry had come to think it was a combination of all three.

Day after day after day –which soon began to merge into an endless cycle of pain and delusion –Harry suffered at the hands of Albus Dumbledore. The only reprieve he received was when he was either unconscious or in the dead of the night when everyone was rested. Surprisingly, Harry had obtained some warped form of Occulancy that frustrated Dumbledore to no end, as the man found he couldn't suppress Harry's memories nor erase them.

"Years of work…" he'd hissed to Harry one night, after enervating the boy during a particularly painful session, "Years of work and planning and praying that you wouldn't be one of them, gone to waste. If I had known then I would've orchestrated for the Prophesy to have befallen the Longbottom boy. As it is, I'm stuck with you. And until I have broken you, you will not leave this cell."

And Harry had truly believed that he would have been stuck in that cell if it hadn't been for a most improbable savior.

When Severus Snape melted through his cell and removed his magically enhanced shackles with a smear of acrid smelling acidic potion, Harry had been inclined to think this was either another hallucination brought on by the indigestion or an insipid joke. He'd point-blank refused to take a step out of his cell, even at the persistence of the looming black-clad professor. This resulted in a small scuffle that he'd painfully lost, and Harry soon found himself slung over the Potion Master's shoulder with a startling amount of ease.

And then they were fleeing.

Harry, still disbelieving, only realized the escape was not staged when Filch saw the unlikely duo and raised the alarm, flooding Hogwarts with a loud, piercing siren. There'd been a pregnant pause before two distinctly different reactions were heard:

"Shit."

And, "I'm at Hogwarts?"

Snape hadn't the time to sneer in disgust at Harry's evident lack of lucidity before curses were raining upon them, thankfully coming from the direction of the stairs. This left Snape enough time to flee to the Entrance Hall, and then out into the Courtyard. Blocking a nasty looking violet curse, he sent back a transfigured flurry of glass petals towards his rapidly increasing opponents. Snape'd attempted to enlist Potter's help in removing the portkey trapped beneath the boy's legs, it was then he'd realized just how drugged Harry was.

"Potter? Potter! Now is not the time for you to be-" the potions master was cut off abruptly by a sheet of fire aimed at him by McGonagall. He was forced to stop his rant in order to engage her in a furious battle of transfigured weapons.

Harry, on the other hand, didn't even seem to notice as the battle raged around him, so preoccupied he was with staring in open-mouthed awe at the castle he'd schooled at for five years.

"Hogwarts, professor… We're at Hogwarts…" he mumbled, voice strained and slurred by the combination of his diaphragm compressed against Snape's shoulder and the drugs in his system.

It had taken all of Snape's willpower not to curse the boy off his shoulder and leave him to the twisted whims of the Headmaster. Instead, he heaved Harry not so gently unto the floor and pulled three items out of his pocket. One, an inky black pouch embossed with a bright gold emblem, another a raggedy looking grey owl feather, and the third, a spare wand with which he expertly spun and began firing deadly looking curses into the fray with. The first two, Snape shoved hurriedly into Harry's hands, startling the boy enough to pull him out of his dazed gawking at the castle.

"The feather is a portkey, Potter. And, the password is roulette. When I say so, activate it, am I understood?"

Snape might as well have been conversing with a brick wall, for all the recognition his words received from his former student. Instead, Harry replied with another useless remark about Hogwarts, right as raven-haired man had to dive and roll to avoid a nasty severing hex, courtesy of one Filius Flitwick.

Even with his perceptible heightened reflexes and strength, Snape quickly begun to tire and as such had reverted to average dark hexes and mundane tortures such as the Cruciatus. Pivoting on one leg, he placed the other tightly against Harry's side.

"Now, Potter. Activate the portkey now!"

Harry had turned dark green eyes upon him, eyes that felt like they cut through him, and giggled. Of all things: Giggled!

"I didn't know we had dungeons like that at Hogwarts," the boy responded, swaying lightly in his place on the floor. Brow shooting high, eyes widening ever so slightly, Snape didn't know how to respond for all of one second.
"Potter, I know a useful thought has never crossed your vapid skull, but for once in your inadequate degenerate life could you try to adhere to common sense and say the damn password?" he snarled, ducking a sudden fireball.

By this point a sense of urgency should have come about to the boy-who-lived, however Snape felt he shouldn't have expect such a level of intelligence from a Potter, much less a drug-induced one. Before he could begin to set about instilling such a sense, a powerful wave of cloying energy suddenly flooded the Courtyard, and Snape knew without looking that Albus had arrived.

"Potter? Harry… Now!" he gritted out, doubling his efforts at keeping the others at bay, knowing he did not have much time. The bespectacled boy markedly reacted at the use of his given name from Snape, eyes widening with the first signs of acknowledgment of the situation.

As he was about to take advantage of this unexpected breakthrough, the potions master noticed a flicker of light out of the corner of his eye, heaving straight towards Harry, and without thinking, leaped to take the brunt of the curse. At the same moment, the smaller male finally responded, tone questioning through his stupidity, "What's roulette anyways?"

Just as the curse was about to hit Snape, there was a violent tug behind Harry's navel and a bright, firework burst of gold light blinded him before he slipped gratefully into a comfortable darkness; the pain from his torture blissfully slipping away. The last thing he heard was Snape's cry of agony until that too faded into the blackness around him.

-x-

When cognizance finally returned to Harry, he promptly wished it hadn't. His head throbbed with the agony that usually came about when a painkiller wore off –only with twice the intensity. The broken glass sounds he heard when he shifted told him that his glasses had been destroyed, and the soft grass beneath him alerted him to the fact that he was laying outside. Everything else to be learned required him to open his eyes.

When he did, the green eyes promptly vanished behind his eyelids, accompanied by a hiss of displeasure and a soft groan. Slowly, Harry managed to get himself accustomed to the lighting, and even more haltingly moved into an upright position. What he saw shocked him into complete stillness and had his mouth dropping open in wonder –even more so than the fact that he could see clearly without his glasses.

In front of him was a house that looked like it was straight out of a fairytale, thatched roofing and all. The front of the house was a pale cream and burgundy, elegantly done up to look like a bigger version of a cottage. The windows all had wine-red shutters framed with the carvings of unicorns, centaurs, faun, and fae –mostly of the nymph and dryad variety- which were moving in never-ending intricate paths around the wooden structure. An elaborately carved chimney sat on one side of the roof; a phoenix wrapped around the funnel, wings almost immaculately chiseled into detailed flames. The wings themselves would occasionally detach and flap, presumably to blow away the smoke if a fire was going.

All of this Harry drank in, eyes wider than usual, wondering just where he was and how he'd gotten there. Abruptly, memories piled to the forefront of his mind and he glanced around hurriedly, searching for the familiar black-clad form of his Potions professor. He found the man not three feet away from him, coloring normal but unconscious non-the-less, and remembered the light and the screaming he'd heard before.

Checking over the elder male, Harry could find no visible injuries and decided to get them both inside. Considering the portkey had been given to him by Snape, he could only assume that the man had taken them somewhere safe and that he wasn't about to be ambushed upon entering the happy-looking abode. Despite that reasoning, Harry still shifted cautiously towards the house. His movements being labored due to the heaviness of the body he'd managed to halfway sling over his shoulders.

On the way through the petite but populated front garden, Harry marked a most curiously looking plant, nestled snugly between a plantation of strawberries and a small vine of grapes. It looked like a small patch of mint upon which grew blue-lavender fruits with the likeness of miniature raspberries. He soon found that if he wandered too close to the odd-looking plant, the stems grew vines with fangs that hissed briefly and darted in to bite him with a snake-like agility. It took all his seeker-honed reflexes to avoid any possible grotesque injury.

Harry hurried into the house at that point, eager to remove the dead weight from his undernourished shoulders and find out what the devil was going on once and for all. Even though Snape had saved him, he still suspected an ulterior motive behind the other man's actions. Call it paranoia, but the last… however long he'd spent under torture had made him distrusting of those whom seemed to be on his side.

Inside was much more modern in regards to the decoration. In fact, to Harry's great surprise, the interior actually appeared to be more muggle than anything. It was like something straight out of those Home Décor Magazines his Aunt frequently purchased so she'd look normal and homely to anybody who bothered to visit. The hallways were adorned with portraits of beautiful men and woman who were most definitely not human. They giggled at the raven-haired boy as he stumbled past them, the cherry oak floors and deep cream walls providing a cozy atmosphere as he made his way across the foyer and into the living room.

Once in the living room, Harry spotted a couch almost large enough to be considered a small bed and gratefully dumped the unconscious wizard upon it. Slumping next to the soft upholstery, he took the time to survey his surroundings as he regained his breath.

Harry's eyes alighted first upon the brown suede couch Snape was laying on, situation along the back wall of the room. Two other settees faced inwards and opposite each other on either side of the first in the same soft suede, and two matching buttermilk armchairs filled in the corners where all three couches met. It was in one of these that he crawled to and curled up in, continuing with his weary examination as he rested his head on a green and gold silk cushion.

Across from him was what appeared to be a dining room that must have doubled as a conference room thanks to the eight chintz chairs around a mahogany polished table. The room had spade-shaped windows with soft lacy green curtains that fluttered lightly in a breeze Harry was sure was magically created.

Beyond the dining room, Harry could see the kitchen. Immediately, he rolled to his feet and entered, delighting in what he saw. The room was bright and airy, painted a pastel yellow and cream. Everything looked shiny and brand new and the appliances were a mixture of muggle and magical ones. A quick glance in the fridge and cupboards showed that they were stock full enough for a full year long siege; probably longer, he thought after looking in the storeroom. He'd only known there was one because of the cream colored door that said 'Pantry' in a sweet, cursive script across it. Harry didn't look too closely, but he had a feeling that the writing on the door wasn't really in English. He had no idea how he knew that, but his instinct did and if there was one thing Harry knew he could rely on, it was his instinct.

Deciding to leave the mysterious writing alone, the inquisitive teen soon discovered the house was a lot bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. The next room he walked into was a full blown library. And it was enormous. At least four stories high –even though the house only appeared two stories from the outside- each floor was spacious yet packed with books, every bookshelf filled to the brim. Harry could only gape at the sheer size of it all, unable to fully comprehend what he was seeing. Walking in, he navigated his way around, looking at section titles to see what kind of books he would find. A moment later, a tray with a thin book resembling a menu floated over to him, hovering in front of his torso.

A short glance later told him the object was in reality some sort of map to the library, it showed him what all the categories of books there were and where they were stored. And, in addition to that, there was a space where he could write –or send a telepathic message, once he gained the skill– what subjects he was looking for, and the booklet would show him all the books that contained knowledge on what he'd written; it was a very advanced system, one he wished Hogwarts had adopted whilst he was still there.

Immediately, at the thought of the ancient castle, Harry froze and sank slowly into a chair he was pretty convinced hadn't been there before. But he wasn't concerned with that.

He had been tortured, at Hogwarts: His home.

Professor Dumbledore had tortured him in its dungeons, and the other professors had helped the man –stopped him from trying to escape.

Tears stung at the corners of his eyes and rolled hotly down his cheeks, falling onto the floating map until it flew away, possibly to avoid more damage. Harry barely even noticed. The unruly haired teen brought his knees up to his chest and hugged them tightly, willing himself to stop crying. He'd lost his home once again, due to his abnormality; he was no fool. Harry had heard Dumbledore's rants about his tainted blood, about how useless he was, and how he only brought trouble to those who tried to care for him. Hell, Dumbledore even chose to reveal that his two best friends had been mooching from him for years, and that Ron hardly cared for his "heroics" and continuous bids for fame. Apparently, Hermione was just indifferent.

Everything he had thought was safe and definite was gone, and now Harry was left alone in some strange fairytale cottage with his ex-Potions professor of whom he thought hated him, and vice versa. Not only that, but Harry wasn't even sure the man was going to wake up, and then when he did, the green-eyed teen didn't know what would happen to him. Nothing was certain anymore. Had Voldemort done this? Put everyone under some darker version of Imperio?

Harry didn't even care anymore. Just thinking about everything hurt, and made him angry –angrier than he'd ever been, even at the supposed Dark Lord. If whatever had happened was true, Harry wanted nothing more to do with his so-called friends and guardians. They could vanquish Voldemort by themselves. If they would treat him so, why should he sacrifice himself and more people for such corruptness? Sirius had already died for the cause, as had his parents. He wondered if any of them had known of Dumbledore's cruelty.

Drying his eyes surreptitiously on the corner of his dirty, over-sized jumper, he summoned the map-book back and spent the next few hours ignoring the painful thoughts in his mind. Instead, he lost himself in books on topics that intrigued him: Fantasy novels, books on different species, animagus transformation, things he had always had an interest in. There were many other books he had wanted to look at, but knew he wouldn't comprehend, such as Mind Magics, Ancient Runes, and other such complex subjects.

The teen was so caught up in his reading that he didn't even notice Snape's presence until the older man sat down across from him, eyebrow raised in an amused manner Harry had never had the privilege to see before.

"Found something you can comprehend, Mr. Potter?" Snape said, tone one of wry amusement

Harry jumped with a start, lurching up and backwards from the chair until he fell over the side of it, whacking his elbows harshly against the carpeted floor.

"Fuck!" he exclaimed, as soon as regained his bearings, glaring up at Snape who was smirking openly. Harry was incensed when he heard the man chuckle, his expression deepening to a scowl, emerald green eyes glowing brightly with agitation.

"Language, Mr. Potter," Snape said smoothly, completely unfazed by the teen's angry gaze. Harry merely grumbled, picking himself up and eying his professor with distaste. He was surprised to note that his teacher didn't seem as sour as was usually when in class, which was perhaps due to the lack of multiple sniveling brats. As it was, the change was enough to make Harry apologize, though it was curt and hardly dripping with sincerity.

The silence that followed was so oppressive, Harry found himself squirming in his chair out of sheer boredom until a sharp glance from Snape stilled him. A sigh escaped him, and the teen was surprised to hear it echoed by the older man.

"So… Can I assume you know what has been going on, Professor?" Harry asked slowly, awkwardly fidgeting with the hem of Dudley's old sweater.

Snape merely inclined his head, leaving Harry to huff in frustration, already feeling the familiar burn of irritation building for the other man. Before he could begin to mouth-off, however, Snape cut him off with a dismissive flick of his wrists.

"Severus," he intoned blandly, face pinched as if the very effort to say the word was costing him dearly. "I'm hardly your professor anymore after that debacle, so Severus will suffice."

Harry didn't think his jaw could possibly get any lower; it hung unhinged in sheer surprise. Severus Snape had just invited him to call him by his first name. The gangly boy blinked, unsure of what to say, and then merely nodded, head tilted in confusion.

"Alright, then… you can call me Harry, as Mr. Potter sounds far too formal," he returned hesitantly, not quite sure how he felt about their sudden informality. But then again, far worse things had happened to him, so he simply took it in stride. Well, until Snape spoke again.

"Actually, I won't be calling you either of those names for much longer, Harry, as we're about to change not only your name, but your very identity," Snape answered, face blank of any emotion. "It is of the utmost importance if you ever want to finish your education and live free from the worry of Albus capturing you again."

There was a most… pregnant pause.

"What?"

Snape was glaring at him again, but Harry couldn't bring himself to care. All he could think about was that even his identity was being taken from him, on top of everything else. And even though he could see where the potions master was coming from –even agreed– it was still the straw that broke the camel's back.

The bookshelves in the room began to shake and wobble and all the lights flickered ominously. There was a surge of sudden energy within him. Vaguely, Harry could hear a voice calling out to him, trying to calm him, but he ignored it in favor of just letting go: And he had never felt better.

Suddenly, yet ever so slowly, a white glow filled his thoughts to obliterate everything but its comfortable embrace.

'Stay…' it seemed to say. 'Don't leave… stay with me…'

Before he could even agree, a harsh stinging in the side of his cheek brought Harry roughly back to reality. Startled green eyes met angry onyx ones that seemed to glow an unnatural hue of red in the lamplight. A glance around him showed books and paper fluttering madly about the room, whipped around by a wind that appeared to originate from him. With a wince Harry forced himself to calm down, watching with silent wonder as the room quickly and efficiently cleaned itself up, courtesy of a spell from one irate Severus Snape.

"If you're quite finished throwing your little… temper tantrum," the man sneered, eying him with distaste, "then we can return to the topic at hand: I.e. what you want your new name to be."

Unfortunately for Snape, the teen merely continued to gape at with such an expression of absent stupidity that he again questioned his decision to save the boy.

"It's not that difficult a question, Harry. I'm sure even your simple mind can come up with something plausible for your name, though your lineage claims otherwise."

That was enough to snap Harry out of his stupor and right again into a foul mood. He had, of course, caught on to the older man's slight against the Marauders.

"Well, Severus," he replied tetchily, causing the man's eye to twitch in displeasure, "I have always admired the Greek goddess Demeter. So, Demetrius…" he thought on it a second more, "No… Dmitri? Yes, Dmitri."

Snape hid his surprise behind the boy's reasoning and merely sniffed, snapping his fingers sharply. A black, dragon-hide book appeared in his hands along with a foot long, delicate looking golden quill.

"And your last name," he droned sardonically.

Harry paused for a moment before a sudden smile lit his features, "Li, in honor of my mother, Lily."

He whispered the words softly. Severus said nothing, simply writing down the name.

"There, you are now registered in the Second Realm as Dmitri Li. I've also enrolled you in Inverness Academy. It's a school for half-bloods like you, from different realms," the Potions master stated, watching as the book and quill vanished in a puff of silvery smoke.

End Notes: Well, there we are. Chapter one of an improved Verisimilitude! I hope you all enjoyed, and please, if you have the time, review and tell me what you thought of this version compared to the other.

Thank you, as always,

Deca

11/29/10