Chapter One:

The moon was full.

Coating the trees around him in slivers of silken white and highlighting each stone it landed on, beneath its light Harry believed almost anything could become clean again.

Everything except for him, of course. His was a dirt that did not wash out easily, a blot on his very soul that prevented him from sleeping and giving in to the happiness that wanted to exist around him. He was surrounded by friends almost daily, their smiles and laughter getting him through each day even though the thought of having to climb into bed every night sent a chill through his blood.

The nightmares.

It was the nightmares that haunted his life, clawing at his mind even while he was awake and making forgiveness an impossibility. Though the war had ended, so too had so many innocent lives; lives he himself had been responsible for. Lives of the ones he had loved and lives of the ones he had hated, it didn't matter anymore. The only thing that mattered now were the faces that peered at him still beneath the darkness of corrupted sleep, their lifeless eyes demanding an answer of the saviour who had not saved them in time.

Cedric. Sirius. Dumbledore. Remus. Tonks. Fred. Lavender. Snape... So many others...

Their faces were never far from the ever-condemning criticism of his own mind. So many twists and turns had his mind taken over the months since the war had ended that, in a warped way, he believed he could have saved them had it not been for tiny, insignificant details.

Green eyes appeared too wide in a small face barely passed the age of eighteen, slender from too many missed meals. His skin itself was a silvery pale beneath the cleansing moonlight, hiding for a moment the scars that littered his arms, his neck, his forehead. Dark hair seemed almost black beneath the bright light and hanging in freshly washed waves to an upturned shirt collar. There seemed little point in cutting it, little point in keeping himself the pinnacle of self-grooming when purple bruises tarnished the pale skin beneath his eyes and his small height drew hardly a glance of interest beyond Hermione's worry that he wasn't eating enough.

Harry's lips flit in a gentle smile. Hermione. How she and Ron could stand his mood swings, he would never know. He could never have wished for more loyal, more brilliant friends than the pair. That they were finally together despite their years of bickering and self-imposed awkwardness only served to brighten his usually dull and drifting mood; seeing their clasped hands and loving smiles bringing a curl to his own lips despite the faint flicker of envy that was sometimes present.

Love was a thing he both longed for and feared like a demon. To depend on someone so wholly as to give them your trust, your heart, your insecurities and your imperfections was a terrifying concept. To offer love to friends, to the Weasley family, to Sirius... That had been an altogether different thing to what had almost transpired between himself and Ginny. Kindness and loyalty where loyalty was due was something he could give to just about anyone willing to prove themselves. To offer up all that he was seemed a burden too big to place on anyone's shoulders. How could he possibly marr another soul so heavily with all that he had been through and expect them to still be capable of loving him? No. He could never do something so selfish. Nobody deserved that.

A howl rent the air; cold and feral and alarmingly close.

Harry snapped his wand from its sheath beneath the snow white of his shirt, black-clad legs bracing where he had been standing in the middle of the forest. Was it a wolf, or a werewolf? The distinction was a vital one. A wolf he could stun, could easily avoid the beast and make his way back to the castle unscathed. A werewolf was a far trickery creature. A werewolf meant possible death and, despite the sadness that often crept against his mind, death was something Harry intended to avoid his final year at Hogwarts. Harry moved, booted feet sounding out heavily against the dry packed floor of the forest. He hadn't wandered too far from the castle, had he?

The howl sounded again, tapering into a ghoulish snarl that had his steps picking up in force. That hadn't sounded like any ordinary wolf.

Harry's eyes stretched into the endless darkness of the Forbidden Forest, the shadows clear and damning against his magically-corrected sight. A lot of good decent vision would be to him if he was caught by whatever creature had silenced the nocturnal sounds of the forest. His thighs protested the movement, had grown lazy in their year spent with no more adventure than wondering what would be for dinner that evening. Harry grasped his wand harder, breathing frantic as he almost stumbled over a series of rocks with a sharp turn to the right.

Had he come that way? Gods, he had been sure he had only taken a ten minute stroll through the dark trees. Hermione would kill him when she found out.

If she found out.

The forest itself seemed to tilt, moonlight spilling over his panicked face as he stumbled through a sudden clearing, definitely unfamiliar. Branches stretched across his limbs for the strangest moment before they fell back into place, wide green eyes taking in the frozen wooden things before he took off running again with a shake of his head. Get a grip, Harry, you've faced werewolves before.

The sharp face of Remus Lupin had him crashing against a solid Oak, hissing when the rough bark dragged the skin from his left arm like a ragged knife, staining his once pristine school shirt with scarlet blood. One year, he pleaded, eyes staring up to catch the snippets of moonlight still filtering through, could he not have one year where he didn't get himself caught up in his own stupidity? Was there no force out there that would prevent him from endangering himself?

"Please..." he gasped, the howl behind him becoming an all too hungry sound.

###

The dark haired Order member groaned, stretching a kink from his back as he stood from the tree stump he had been sitting on for the past half an hour.

"I dunno about you, Sirius, but I'm about ready to call it a night."

Sirius Black glanced up at his friend, dark eyes brooding before they switched back to the pleasantly silent forest spread out before them. A sigh fell from his lips, one hand dragging through his dark curls as he, himself, stood with a cracking yawn. His body was that of an older man, though one in such pristine condition, one would be hard-pushed to find fault in it due to age alone. He kicked the pile of broken debris scattered about his feet with a roll of his eyes. "Someone sent us on a wild goose chase."

James Potter frowned, hazel eyes glinting behind the heavy frames he wore. "Not bloody likely," he growled, fitting his wand back into the holder on his arm before turning his back on the once aptly-named Forbidden Forest. It hadn't been known as such in nearly five years, its once proud inhabitants and terrifying legends long since fled after the battle of Hogwarts had wiped out half the ancient trees with fiend fire. That they had saved even half of the forest was a miracle in itself and had cost Dumbledore his last stand. It wasn't likely they would find anything living in its dark depths, but still, it was their duty to be certain.

"You know well we were ear-marked for this journey." James' voice cut across the memories dwelling in Sirius' eyes, the auror straightening his robes as he cast one last sorrowful glance at the rubble the ancient castle had been reduced to. It had seemed an unbearable sin to tear down what remained of the magical walls to rebuild something afresh. James remembered the day it was decided that the new school would be built elsewhere; Hogwarts remaining forever more as nothing but a heartbreaking reminder of the lives lost. A devastating declaration of war.

Sirius growled, sliding his own wand into his pocket as he shouldered the bag strewn across the damp grass. "I know, routine check to make sure no werewolf clans are trying to settle again. Spare me the Minister's lecture on maintaining Wizarding culture and preserving the landscape, James, the old fart has it damn well drilled into my skull."

James snorted a laugh despite his clouded memories, hazel eyes twinkling. "Maybe if you didn't try and add your own flare to the arurors after years of strict training, he'd go easier on you, Padfoot. You bring it on yourself, like Lily says."

"Oooh, Lily, flower of my heart," Sirius dodged the hex thrown in his direction, cackling, "You know, I'll never understand how a woman like that settled for an ass like you, Prongs. Twenty-six years bonded and she still hasn't left you. It's the Imperious, isn't it, go on you can tell me!"

"Blast it, hold still you mongrel so that I can do some damage to your face," James snarled, lips forming a feral smile as Sirius wrapped an arm around him in a gesture of brotherhood, his white teeth flashing in a handsome smirk. Sirius was Sirius regardless of whether that lost him friendships or grated on people's nerves. It was one of the things James admired about his old friend, to remain so stoically... Himself. James sighed.

"She's invited you and Remus for dinner during the week." James bent to grab the discarded bag, shaking it free of dust, "it makes her happy to have a house filled with noise, she says that's how it should have been if not for... Well," James cut off with a cough, slinging the bag over Sirius' shoulder, "will you come?"

"Don't we always, my friend?" Sirius smiled warmly, only for a sudden blur of movement against the darkened forest to have him spinning back, his dark eyes narrowed. "Did you see that?"

James turned, a questioning hum on his lips, just in time to see a flicker of light before something burst through the forest opening. His wand was raised in an instant, red light flashing as he sent a stunning spell at whatever creature had come from within. There was a cry of pain, distinctly human and non-threatening, before the body crumpled to the ground and silence weighed heavy on the pair left standing.

"One of ours?" Sirius questioned, wand raised as the duo moved cautiously closer, his brow drawing down in confusion when they were close enough to see that this was the body of a boy, not a man or a werewolf. James cursed beside him, hazel eyes frantic as he pocketed his wand and pushed the youth onto his back, grimacing at the protruding bones beneath his fingers that let him know how long it had been since the kid had had a decent meal.

"He looks kinda familiar." James glanced up at his friend's comment, eyes searching the youth's face. A slender face, delicate and pale from lack of sleep. His cupid-bow lips were parted as he took in breath after frantic breath, as though, even unconscious he was not at peace. His midnight dark hair was long for a male, curling and soft. There was something familiar there, without a doubt, in the boy's perked nose and gentle chin. James shook his head.

"I don't know him. We'd best take him back to Headquarters rather than the Ministry though. Those vultures would throw him in an interrogation cell before the boy's even seen a decent meal and from the looks of him, he needs one." Sirius murmured his agreement. The Order was a place anyone could feel at ease, even if the Black house itself was one in desperate need of a coat of yellow paint. Wherever the boy had come from and whatever he had been doing wandering a forest alone at night, all of it could wait for now.

###

Harry woke with a snarl, flinging himself from a bed he was not familiar with even as the scent of something that was not Hogwarts gathered in his senses. The sheets now strewn along the floor were a midnight blue, the room his eyes flickered across a dull shade of pale brown. Unfamiliar.

A sudden movement had him pivoting, his hand leaping for his wand, only to grasp air. Harry let loose a strangled sigh, clutching at his forearm that held no wand holder but had instead been bandaged. The white bindings had him momentarily frozen, his mouth twisting in a grimace as he tried to calm his breathing.

"Hey, kid, you're alright. You're safe. Here, I'll give you your wand if you promise not to hex me?"

Harry staggered to face that voice, green eyes blown wide in his head and his mouth popping open as the image of Nymphadora Tonks sitting on a chair beside the wall filtered across his brain. But, of course, that couldn't be right. Tonks could not be sitting in this unfamiliar room with him with her vibrant pink hair and her cheeky smile, Harry's wand swinging in her hand like a toy. No, no, that wasn't right at all. Unless... Unless he had been...

"Am I dead?"

Tonks' smile melted, her brow drawing down in a line of worry as the kid suddenly swayed, catching himself on the railing of the bed as he stared at her like he had seen a ghost. The kid wasn't that sick, was he? Severus had poured as many nutrition potions down the boy's throat as he could without making him sick, how was it he was still dizzy? Tonks rose slowly, frowning as the boy became a statue, his white skin flushing green as he watched her get up and hold up her hands.

"Relax, kid. Why don't you get back into bed and I'll let Sirius know you're awake and then we'll have someone take a look at you, okay?"

A whine left the boy's throat as she spoke, his hands reaching up to drag at his black curls as though something pained him. Tonks watched him sob dryly, horrified, before stumbling from the bedroom with a gentle command to stay put.

Harry sank against the bedframe, back to the metal railing as he tugged on a fistful of hair, trying to make sense of exactly what was happening. Had he not been at Hogwarts? Fleeing from a bloody werewolf? Where the hell had he ended up and why the hell was this place taunting him with dead people. This wasn't right... No... This wasn't right...

"Hey Champ."

Harry's hands rose to his face, pale hands hiding the grimace he could no longer control as he turned to stare at the man now crouched beside him. Hazel eyes framed by dark glasses smiled back at him, the man's older face smiling softly as he brushed a wayward strand of messy brown hair from his own forehead. Harry's heart stilled inside his chest, his hands falling from his face to land in his lap as his chest heaved one broken sob.

"Dad?"

###

"That's not possible."

James' smile had vanished, his face an emotionless mask as he stared down at the small boy crouched behind his bed like he was hiding from invisible monsters. The auror's heart bled for him, it really did. No child should have to live life so paranoid, so confused. When those green eyes glistening with unshed tears had turned on him and that heartbroken voice called out to him, though, James had felt his insides freeze.

"Not possible..." he whispered, hazel eyes suddenly wide behind his lenses as the small male stared up at him hopelessly, Lily's eyes. Lily's chin. Lily's distressed sobbing as the boy drew away suddenly, his dark hair once again clutched in pale hands as he bit his lips on a grimace. That was his mess of dark hair on this stranger's head, James realised; his stubborn jaw and his slender nose. The only physical things he had known his son had inherited from him. His son.

"What's your name?" James demanded suddenly, pulling the boy's hand from his hair with more force than necessary. The boy glared at him, one moment furious and the next, devastated. Every emotion was on show in those emerald eyes in a way they never were with Lily. The boy grabbed his arm back, his breath leaving him in a sigh and his eyes sliding shut almost as if he was preparing himself for something inevitable.

"Harry. My name is Harry Potter."

James fell back against the floorboards, casting one last traumatised glance at the boy who claimed to be his son, before shaking his head. "This isn't possible."

"Yeah, I've gathered that, thanks!" The boy spat suddenly, drawing his knees to his chest and glaring at James over the top of them. "Unless you haven't noticed, you're supposed to be dead!"

That threw James for a loop. He frowned, glancing around the room until his eyes landed on Tonks' wide-eyed face. He cleared his throat, shaking his head to clear it as he rose to his feet. Clearly, there was something both of them were missing here and he needed to be rational. So his son was... Alive... He could come to terms later. He needed to breathe. He needed to... To let someone take over for a minute.

"Would you go find someone his own age, Tonks, and have them show him to the kitchen for some food or something. A few of the younger Order members are usually floating around in the attic with the bat. Could you just... Take him... Just for a second. I need to find Sirius and Remus."

Tonks was already nodding, her brown eyes melting to green as she turned to face the boy still hunched in on himself behind the bed. James cast him one last desperate look, terrified by the grief of loss that was attacking his mind once more, like new; and yet, at the same time trying to deal with a baffling amount of vicious excitement. His son. His son was alive.

###

They were in Grimmauld place. Harry almost rolled his eyes for not recognising the house sooner. As soon as Tonks lead him towards the creaking set of stairs, he recognised it. Granted, he had never seen it so... bright and airy, but it still held the abject misery that a few new windows and open curtains simply weren't going to fix.

"Sooo... Harry... Wanna tell me where you came out of? I mean, I know they found you at the forest but that place has been abandoned for years." Tonks eyed him warily, prodding him with the end of his own wand before handing it back with a grin, "you're not some strange new creature are you? You really are just a wizard?"

As surreal as the conversation was, Harry couldn't prevent the small smile across his lips as he glanced up at Tonks. "I think so. I mean, I am a wizard, yes, not a werewolf or a vampire or anything... I was just taking a walk, I don't usually go so far from the school."

"The school?" Tonks stopped, her wand paused where she had begun to call down the stairs leading to the attic.

Harry nodded, green eyes flitting about the shadowy corridor. "Yeah, you know, Hogwarts? McGonagall's gonna kill me when she's realised I've gotten myself messed up in whatever the hell this all is. I mean... I wasn't lying, my father really is dead..." Harry puffed out his cheeks, his head spinning as Tonks placed a steady hand on his shoulder.

"One step at a time, kid. Go on up and meet some of the gang. James was right, they usually make a nest up there to escape the drama of home. Poor sods if they feel more comfortable here than with their parents." She shivered, "this place gives me the creeps."

Harry smiled again, chuckling. One step at a time. Right. He could do this. He reached out to grab the ladder, pulling himself up with ease and sliding through the opening silently. They were around his age, right? That could mean Hermione and Ron were here... So this was a strange world he had dropped himself into, by the looks of things. He could get on with those two in any universe, right? What could have possibly changed or been messed around with that would end in him screwing up a simple friendship? Although... Lots of things if his walking and talking and breathing father was anything to go by... Harry stood in the darkly lit room, the open space cluttered with box upon box and abandoned furniture piled almost to the ceiling. He could safely admit that he was far from home now. Merlin but how did he get himself into these messes.

"If you're trying to be sneaky, you aren't doing a good job. I can smell you."

The voice, dark and seductive with a roll of genuine humour sounded... almost familiar. Harry darted forward around a stack of wooden crates, for the moment uncaring that he was about to meet brand new people wearing only a blood stained shirt and his school trousers. That voice, he knew that voice...

The group seated around the corner drew him up short, his frowning face giving way to confusion. One face he simply did not recognise. Male and blonde and with such a curious glint to his dark eyes that Harry ripped his eyes from him before they could even settle. The lumbering hulk beside him could have been none other than Gregory Goyle, the boy's face as unfortunate in this new world as it had been in the last, though his fat seemed to have been replaced by a wall of muscle. Harry blinked at them, twisting to see more.

And there was Ron, his lanky form lounged against an old wicker chair and a female who was not Hermione seated between his parted thighs. He quirked an eyebrow at Harry, his long arms winding around the brunette in front of him.

"You look like you've been through hell, mate, you new to the Order?"

His voice was just the same, his tone concerned and mildly amused as Harry watched him pull the giggling brunette in for a cuddle, her laughter pitchy and lilting and all too familiar. Despite the sweet smile on her face and the gentle curl to her once straight, dark hair; Pansy Parkinson was a face Harry would never forget. She looked at him now with a fraction of curiosity in his brown eyes that was marred only by her contempt at his appearance.

"Oh, sweetheart. Do you enjoy dressing in rags or were Mummy and Daddy too poor to care what you looked like?"

Harry snarled, drawing his wand out and pointing it at a suddenly wide-eyed Pansy. The brunette stood with a growl, "stand down," she shrieked, glaring at him, "Merlin, touchy subject, alright. I apologise, consider it taboo now put down your damned weapon, we do not threaten others in this house."

Harry's arm dropped, his breath catching in his chest. Had the fierce woman just offered a truce and an apology to him? Had the girl who had once offered him up to Voldemort just preached peace? Was she a member of the Order? Gods, did the Order even stand for the same thing here? He had no idea what was going on... what to expect. Harry's scowl fell to nothing, his lips quivering suddenly in a way that had Parkinson stalking towards him slowly as though he were a deer about to bolt.

Harry felt his eyes cloud, his wounded arm lifting to scrub a hand across his face. It should be Hermione offering him that look of guarded sympathy, that innate worry that came with a maternal instinct. It should be her and Ron cuddled at Hogwarts glaring at him as he described how he had just escaped a mauling from a feral werewolf. It should not be this... strange and confusing reality that was enfolding before his eyes; that wiped away the deaths of his loved ones as though they had never happened, as though the trauma and pain in him now had no right to even exist. This wasn't right... Gods, this wasn't right...

"Ah, Pans... You've scared the poor boy half to death."

That voice spilled over Parkinson's gentle murmurings, a pale hand darting out to knock the woman back a few feet. The body that followed was one that could have been a new nightmare all in itself. Sleek and strong and decked in a silk shirt and stiff trousers of black that only served to enhance his snowy white skin. The torso twisted, long legs braced against the old floorboards as wings snapped free of their confinement against the man's spine; jet-black and scaled like a dragon's.

"Oh dear," that familiar voice cooed as Harry dragged what he was certain were huge eyes up that tall body, taller even than the man had been back at Hogwarts. Harry felt his stomach flip horrifically, what little contents it held threatening to rise. A pale, pointed face edged ever closer, staring down at him from beneath a curtain of white-blonde hair that fell to broad shoulders. Pale lips quirked in a familiar smirk that had Harry's blood boiling as he locked gazes with, not the pale silver he had expected, but a deep blood red. Draco's lips split in a genuine smile, the barest point of sharp teeth scraping against his bottom lip.

"Never seen a vampire before, little boy?"

###

A/N: Sooo... I wrote this at one o clock last night while also attempting to watch South Park and I have been squinting at it all day since I woke up. I am unsure if I like it... I am unsure if people will like it but hey, it deserves a test run. If people take an interest and would like a follow up to this... bizarre intro then it will become a new story ^^ So, feedback is a must even by way of following if you're unable to review and we'll see where this goes haha. Happy readings ^^