A/N- Hello everyone. This is a story idea I've had rattling around for a while. I'm honestly not sure how far I'll go with this one, since it's not my primary project right now with Noctis Umbra ongoing, but I decided to post the first chapter to gauge interest in it.

This will be a harmony fic, and fair warning, it will likely be fairly dark if I continue it. There will be lots of emotional trauma and mentions of torture, as well as character death. There will also be adult situations. Rating is M for a reason.

Standard disclaimers apply. I own none of the characters nor the original works they are from.

This horrible, beautiful world

Chapter 1: The beginning of the end

Awareness was difficult for him to find.

He knew it was raining. He could hear the wind howling outside, driving the heavy sheets of water against the window so hard it rattled.

His breath came in short, ragged gasps. His skin was drenched in sweat as he writhed beneath the sheets. All he could feel was pain. Every single inch of his body was in excruciating agony.

He didn't know how long this had been happening. His relatives had been in the room earlier. His Aunt had screamed at him. His uncle had punched and kicked him, but nothing could draw him from the stupor. They'd eventually left, abandoning the whimpering, trembling boy to whatever was happening to him.

What was happening to him?

When he opened his eyes, all he saw was darkness split by the occasional bolt of lightning that bathed the room in brilliant light before vanishing.

Then he heard it.

The voice.

That wretched voice that had been haunting his dreams since they'd gone into the depths of the ministry. Since he'd watched his Godfather die.

"You couldn't stop it." It said. It sounded hollow and somehow, fuzzy. Like it was coming through a torn speaker, but it still echoed within his skull somehow.

"Shut up!" He roared within his mind.

"You couldn't protect him. You couldn't protect her." It said, its voice dropping lower, almost whispering now. "You can't protect anyone, can you Harry?"

Suddenly his mind was filled with visions. His friends, falling all around him. Hermione, eyes wide in shock as Dolohov's curse hit her. Hermione, crumpling to the floor without a sound. Sirius by his side, laughing as they fought. Sirius, the light suddenly gone from his as he went slack. Sirius, falling through the veil. Then it started over again.

Harry Potter screamed.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he finally returned to reality, but the waking nightmare he'd entered had seemed endless. He sat up slowly, so weak he shook with the effort. He fisted his hand into his damp hair as he gasped for breath. He felt nauseous, and so very thirsty. When he finally caught his breath, he rose and went out into the hall. The house was quiet as he staggered into the bathroom, not bothering to flick on the light.

He leaned over the sink, cupping some of the icy water into his hand before draining it in one gulp. He took a few more drafts, panting between them before dumping some of the liquid over his hair and splashing more onto his face. His hands gripped the sink, knuckles white from the force he had to use to keep himself up.

It took him a long time to catch his breath. Every rise and fall of his chest was painful, but not the complete agony he had felt before. Finally, his gaze rose to the mirror. In the blackness of the night, he saw nothing. Then, the room was lit with a flash of light.

In the mirror he saw his own ragged appearance, if only slightly blurry due to his lack of glasses… but behind him, a few feet away near the edge of the mirror's view…

There was a shadow. Then the room was plunged into darkness again.

"Harry." It said quietly, it's voice almost mockingly.

Another flash of lightening lit the small bathroom, and with fresh horror Harry saw it was suddenly right behind him, just over his shoulder.

"HARRY!" it roared. It's voice somehow louder yet still far away. Rougher and more frantic, like it was going mad itself. The sound of it filled his mind, driving out any other thought.

Harry closed his eyes, attempting to block out the presence he felt all around him. He opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out. Then, it was gone again. With something between a scream and a sob he collapsed to the floor, suddenly drenched in sweat.

He was losing himself. Somehow, he knew.

Wearily he made his way back into his bedroom and closed the door before falling to his knees again.

For a moment, there was peace. All around him he was surrounded by the stillness of the night. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to calm himself. Then his green orbs snapped open in a flash, wide and frantic.

It was there again. That presence. It was all around him, pressing against him. It was like he was being suffocated… like he was drowning in it.

"Give in to me." The voice whispered. It was quite again now. "It's no use fighting it."

"NO!" Harry roared. "I'll never give in." He said, but his voice was growing weaker by the moment. He began to tremble. Against his will tears began to fall from his wide, unblinking eyes. In that moment, his terror was extreme.

Without warning pain blossomed in his forehead. Pain like he'd never felt before in his life. It was so intense he couldn't breathe, couldn't think. He couldn't scream. Hot blood ran down his face as his scar tore open, an inky black cloud oozing from it as his eyes rolled into the back of his head and his mouth hung open, stretched sickly in an endless, soundless scream. Slowly he was lifted from his knees until he was floating just above the floor.

The black cloud swirled about the room before it began to convalesce before him. It slowly took shape, forming the outline of a man. A man with a bald head, red eyes, and slits where his nose should've been. Slowly, Voldemort's final horcrux was gaining life as Harry Potter died.

"Foolish boy." He said softly as his body formed. He was still translucent, and surrounded by clouds of his own foul magic, but he was gaining form quickly. "I am Lord Voldemort. I am eternal." He said, savoring every word as his body solidified. In mere moments, he would be fully resurrected, and the boy would be no more. "I am death." He said as he raised his hand towards the boy.

"No. You're just in the way."

The nearly reborn shade of Tom Riddle screamed in sudden and intense agony as a hand erupted from the center of its chest, splattering the boy in gore as it held his own still beating heart in it. Blood sprayed from the shades mouth, and it tried to turn to face its attacker, but it was too late. The hand holding his heart clenched tightly without warning, crushing the organ in a shower of blood. The shade's eyes bulged in agony before turning suddenly to a sickly grey. The resurrection had been interrupted, and the body was suddenly translucent again before fading back into smoke without so much as a sound. Smoke that now swirled around the figure standing in the middle of the room.

Harry's body collapsed back onto the floor, his senses returning to him as he crumpled to his knees. He still couldn't speak, but he gazed at the figure standing before him.

It was shrouded in the black smoke that was Riddle's diseased soul, but the swirling smoke now seemed to be flowing into it. To his own horror, Harry realized somehow what was happening. It was absorbing it. He could make out nothing of its face, as it was shrouded in darkness, but he could see white hair, and glowing red eyes.

When the last vestiges of Riddle's soul had been absorbed, the room fell back into darkness, the only source of light the glow from the figure's eyes.

"That's better." It said, and Harry realized that this was the voice he'd been hearing. It was rough, and still sounded distorted but much less so now. "Three's a crowd, after all."

"W-what are you?" Harry managed to choke out.

"Me?" It asked, crouching down and resting its elbows on its knees, so it could look him in the eye. As it moved, the room was slowly filling with a deep, crimson light and the shadows seemed to be moving all around him. When it was eye level with him, Harry could finally see it properly. The horror he felt when he realized he was looking into his own face was one of the last things Harry Potter ever felt. "I'm the monster that they created." It said softly, as it reached towards him. It's eyes glowed and suddenly the air was so thick magic that the glass in the window began to rattle from the pressure before shattering suddenly, blasted out as the room filled with an unnatural wind. The walls shook with the intensity of it, and shouts could be heard from beyond his door, though they sounded like they were coming from another world entirely. Harry was oblivious to all of it, even to his own pain, which seemed somehow distant and far away now. Instead, he was surprised by how entirely gentle it felt when the monster wearing his face wrapped its hands around his throat. "I'm you." It told him, it's voice nearly a whisper.

In that final moment, Harry thought only of Hermione, and how he wished he could see her smile again. The last thing Harry Potter felt was the sensation of the fingers gripping his throat tightening, and a surge of magical energy like nothing he'd ever felt before as his vision was filled with brilliant light the color of blood.

Despite the deluge of the night before, the remains of number 4 Privet Drive were still smoldering as the sky began to grow light. Firemen worked here and there, picking through the wreckage of the home. The bodies of the occupants had been found and removed as soon as the inferno that had engulfed the home had been put out, and now they were working to determine the source.

Unseen by the eyes of the mundane, an old man also walked among the wreckage. He was dressed oddly, not in the common clothes you'd expect to see on a man his age, but in flowing robes. His long beard swayed unseen in the light breeze as he surveyed the wreckage of what had been the Dursley's home.

His face, though not visible was stuck somewhere between an expression of sorrow and one of anger.

How had this happened? What could have caused so much magic to be expended? Why hadn't his precautions notified him before it was too late? How had they found this place?

Albus Dumbledore had many questions on his mind. There was one that was chief among them, and he asked it of himself again as he disappeared with a crack, startling the muggles around him.

What happened to Harry Potter?

Hermione Granger bolted up, a scream of terror the likes of which she'd never felt before ripping from her chest.

She was no stranger to fear. She'd faced a troll, a basilisk, a werewolf, hordes of hellish dementors intent on stealing her soul, and dark wizards who wanted nothing short of her head on a pike, just for having been born. No, Hermione was no stranger to fear.

Why then, did she wake up screaming? It wasn't fear. It was pure, gut clenching, raw and visceral terror that had done it. Terror not for herself, because at this point, there wasn't much Hermione feared. No indeed, it was terror for the young man she had come to call her friend. The young man that, unbeknownst to him, she was completely and hopelessly in love with.

For a moment she couldn't move, frozen there with her back still arched and fingers gripping the sheets so tightly her knuckles had gone white. She took great gulping breaths of air, trying to still the wild thundering of her heart. When it had finally calmed she doubled over, burying her face in her hands and trying to understand what was happening.

The exact nature of the nightmare was already lost to her, as they often are. All she could remember was quick flashes, random images. Fear, pain, agonizing pain, then a red light, and Harry screaming.

Something was terribly, horribly wrong. She knew it. She felt it with every fiber of her being. Every instinct in her was screaming danger.

Without a moments further hesitation Hermione threw off the sheets that had wound themselves around her body and rose from the bed, snagging her wand from her bedside table as she went.

She'd not gone anywhere without it this summer. Not even within her own home. Moody's mantra had become her own since the Department of Mysteries, and the pain she still felt every time she moved, every time she breathed was the perfect reminder of what her ill preparedness had cost her.

Throwing on the first pair of jeans she'd found, Hermione crept from her room, her ears listening for the slightest sound that would alert her to an attacker. This was far from the first time she'd done this during this particular summer break, but it was the first time she'd been so terrified while doing it.

Somehow her terror hadn't woken her parents, although that wasn't uncommon. Both of Hermione's parents spent so much time at their practice these days that she rarely saw them, even when she was home for the summer as she was now, and they were usually exhausted.

Soundlessly she made her way down the stairs and into the kitchen. When she got there she peered around the corner, and the thundering in her chest returned with a vengeance.

The back door stood open, creaking slightly in the draft it was letting in. Thinking quickly, she realized she was likely walking into a trap, but she had no choice. The trap was already set, and maybe she could fight her way out, or at least give her parents time to escape. The fact that they hadn't immediately set the home ablaze and fired off the dark mark made her at least hope for her parents survival.

She'd raised her wand and was about to fire off a patronus, meant to head for the nearest order member and relay her need for help, when the spell died on her lips. Crookshanks, her beloved part kneazle cat was sitting just outside the door.

Still, she waited several moments before approaching. When she did, she paid attention to the feel of the air around her, searching for any residual magic that might be floating around to warn her of an attack.

Finally, she was fully outside of the house. Her head turned this way and that so fast her brown mane flew about her, even contained as it was in an elastic band. After another tense few moments she looked down at her cat and huffed. She stooped down and picked up the offending animal, but maintained her grip on her wand.

The cat nuzzled into her shoulder as she held it, but Hermione paid it little attention. It wouldn't have been the first time Crookshanks got out at night, but for some reason she still felt the same dismay she'd felt before. The terror had tempered into a constant unease that she couldn't shake.

"Come on then, you." She whispered to him, her eyes still glancing around the darkened yard. She turned and made her way back towards the door, only to stop and look behind herself again. A soft, oddly comforting breeze blew across the yard then, her hair dancing lazily in it. For the briefest moment, despite her own paranoia, she closed her eyes and leaned into it's caress. For that moment, the world around her seemed to fade away.

Then it was gone, and Hermione opened her eyes and cast one last look up at the slowly lightening sky and the wanning moon setting in the west before turning back inside and shutting the door.

High above the Grangers home, a young man with white hair smiled faintly. By all accounts, it shouldn't be possible for him to be standing so solidly in the middle of the sky. But that's just what he was doing, hands resting casually in his pockets as he gazed down.

He was dressed well, in black trousers and a simple white button down shirt with stylish black shoes on his feet. His shaggy white hair floated about him in the soft wind.

"I've come back for you, Hermione." He whispered, his red eyes glowing with power. To the east, the sun broke the horizon, bathing the world in its fiery light. "Nothing will keep us apart this time. Nothing."

The figure vanished as the sun began to rise in earnest, disappearing like a whisp of smoke on the breeze without a sound.

A/N- there we have it. Let me know what you think about the idea. I know I didn't dive into the premise too much, so I may go ahead and write another chapter or two to get a feel for the story. As always, reviews are always appreciated.

Side note- To Noctis Umbra fans, I haven't abandoned it by any means, in fact I'm working on the next chapter now. It will go on until I say otherwise.