Disclaimer: I only own the stuff you don't recognise. Random song about sun is from Annie- it just seemed to fit.

Warnings: Loads! ummm...Past rape and child abuse. Mild insanity. Swearing. Slash. AU. Mightget a bit gory later...that's it for now.

Pairings: Undecided but main pairing will be slash. Past HP/LV

I know I really shouldn't be writing another story since I'm so crap at updating the others but I couldn't help it! I actually like this chapter! Very strange!

Prologue

He laughed. A cold, heartless, senseless laugh that reverberated through the stone fortress. He scraped his dirty, broken finger nails down the wall in an attempt to claw his way up from the ground, but his skeletal arm was not strong enough to lift his emaciated body and he collapsed back down to the dirt ridden floor, unmoving. He drew in a deep, wheezing breath before letting it out in a hacking cough. He moved his hand away from his mouth and stared transfixed at the red that covered it, different shades, some clumped together, almost solid.

He wiped the hand against the filthy rags that hung off his bones, and then crawled back to his corner, curling up against it like a child would its mother. Then, with shallow, shuttering breaths he fell into a deep slumber.

It was dark when he woke up. But then, it was always dark. The suns rays could not penetrate the shadows that surrounded the island, weaving a blanket of everlasting, starless night. He drew his knees up to his chest, hugging them tightly. He surveyed his cell with unseeing eyes, searching for secrets in the shadows. There was nothing. Not even a spider could survive in the desolate fortress.

He hugged his knees tighter as he felt a familiar coldness infect him, sweeping away the blessed numbness that had become his friend. He pushed himself further into the corner. Squeezing his eyes painfully shut he tried to hold back a whimper. One thought went round and around in his mind: Be happy.

"The sun will come out tomorrow, but your bottom dollar that tomorrow they'll be sun."

His voice was hoarse from disuse, weak and out of tune, but the only audience he had wouldn't know the difference.

"Just thinkin' about tomorrow clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow, 'till there's none."

They were drawing closer, he knew. Close enough to sense his fear, to roll it on the tip of their tongues then swallow it whole like a jelly snake that would slide delightfully down their throats.

"When I'm stuck a day that's grey, and lonely, I just stick out my chin, and grin, and say…"

His voice trailed off as his body began shaking uncontrollably, dark thoughts seeping through the cracks in his sanity.

"The sun'll come out…to…morrow, so ya gotta hang…on… 'till tomorrow… Come what…may. Tomorrow…Tomorrow…I love you…tomor…row…Yo…your always…a…da-"

He slammed his hands against his temples with a scream, rocking back and forth.

"Be happy, be happy, be happy…happy…happy…"

And as his terrified emerald eyes saw the ghastly black robed forms coming towards him, he screamed and spun once more into a mix of dreaded memories and sacred insanity.

Harry didn't much like the Dementors.

"Not Harry! Anything but Harry!"

"Stand aside you silly girl."

They were the children of shadows and nightmares.

"This is your fault you freak!"

"No…I-"

"You'll pay for this boy! You won't be able to breath without screaming by the time I'm done with you!"

They delighted in his screams, his fear, his endless, pointless, crystalline tears.

"Kill the spare."

They luxuriated in the way his body writhed as images crashed through his mind, tearing through the last, lingering, threads of occlumency.

"Sirius! No!"

"He's gone Harry, you can't save him."

"Sirius!"

They relished the way he dug his stumpy finger nails into his arms, scratching and tearing so that his nails were caked in blood and dirt, as he tried to find something, anything that would bring him back to reality. He tried to ignore the whispering voice in his head that said this was reality.

"This is all your fault!"

"My dear boy…"

"I hate you! I fucking hate you! You're worse than Him!"

They made him remember things that would never be forgotten.

"Well Harry? Will you join me? Will you fight by my side? Live, breath and die by my word?"

"I.."

"You can never change your mind. If you say no we will be enemies until the end of time. If you say yes you will be mine when every race is dead, when the last star falls screaming from the sky, when the last god drifts weeping into everlasting sleep."

"I.."

"You can never go back."

"-"

"Well? Will you pledge yourself to me or will you fight for the mudblood lover?"

"I am yours my Lord, until death."

They made him remember words he never should have said, things he never should have done, decisions he never should have made, shouldn't have been made to make.

"Kill her Harry. Show me that your mine."

"But…But my Lord, she's a child, she hasn't done anything."

"She's a Mudblood Harry, a dirty little mudblood that never should have existed in the first place!"

"Av…Avada Kedavra…"

"Well done my snakelet!"

They submerged him in a past weaved from laughter and lies. A life he lived in a time when there was more than the darkness, though it was debatable whether he had ever truly lived at all.

"You traitor! You killed him! You killed your best friend! How could you Harry? I thought you loved us. I thought we were your friends."

"Love? Friendship? They mean nothing! There is only power and those too weak to seek it."

They wrapped him in a burning cover of freezing feelings. Filled him with a despair brighter than the North star.

"I can't do this anymore…"

No, Harry didn't much like the Dementors. But really, that was because he didn't much like himself.

He almost cried out every time they left, almost begged them to stay and make him less alone. Almost.

Harry didn't like being left alone. He didn't like the person he was left alone with. He wasn't very nice. Harry told Him to leave but he wouldn't. Harry tried to block Him out, to hide, to pretend that there was only him. But it isn't easy to hide from yourself and he couldn't run from his mind, though sometimes it seemed his mind was running away from him, leaving it's friend Insanity to keep him company.

Harry liked it when Insanity came round to play. They walked on paths of flesh and bones, past houses made of dragons wings, and rivers that ran with unicorn's blood. They sat on hills of rolling eyes, blue and green and brown and hazel and, Oh, red eyes as well. The tree's were black, and in the summer heads sprouted from the red pulsating eggs that grew on the branches. And the heads would laugh and scream as they passed, their red eyes spinning lazily in their sockets.

They watched a battle between the cats and the dogs, the cats growling while the dogs flicked their tails in annoyance. They saw a fish with wings, flying low and skimming the river while wingless birds with featheryscales tried to stay afloat in the silvery blood.

But Insanity never stayed very long, never long enough, and sanity would once again claim him. They would sit in the cell and stare at dirt and blood covered walls, listening to the screams of the other inmates.

Harry didn't know how long he had been in Azkaban. The days had long since blurred into endless nothings, never a sign to show that one day had ended and another had began. It could have been months, years, decades even! Or maybe it had only been a week, a day, a few hours. Who could tell? It didn't make a difference anyway. What would it matter how long he had been there? He was never going to leave.

"Tick, tock, tick, tock, midnight all the bodies rot."

Harry liked to sing to himself. It was a noise other than the screams.

"Eyes fall out and pour out blood, heart is beating in the mud."

His songs were macabre and disheartening but they were his and they took up his time. Anyways, it would have been silly to sing about birds and butterflies and daisy chains. Not that Harry knew how to make a daisy chain, but Ginny had given him one once. It had been delicate and beautiful and alive, but it withered and died and rotted.

He felt his eyes getting heavy and yawned. He slept a lot those days. He didn't have enough energy to stay awake for long. He rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes, succumbing to the numbing weariness that was washing though him. He never heard the whisper…

"Sleep Harry, for the day will soon be dawning, and life awaits you. The gods are not done with you yet…Sleep."