Disclaimer: don't own the canon at all, but if you want to borrow my OCs or other magical tidbits, please notify me at least.

Summary: An infant, Harry ends up in his parents' time and dashes the course of events completely. He escapes the orphanage, forges friendships, acquires a pub-keeping mentor, spirals into a twisted relationship, forges friendships, makes enemies, and dreams of truths... And pierces the veil between the dead and the living.

Warnings: a Very Long Fic, rather slow-building slash with a lot of kinks once it actually starts (all explicitness will be on lj), Plot, later deaths, torture, gore - the usual (but nothing overwhelmingly graphic).

AN: This story is the re-write of "From the Depths of Darkness". If you're acquainted with it, you can skip this chapter and go straight to the notes below. If you didn't like that story, I'd appreciate it if you still gave this one a shot: it ended up completely different in many way, with only a few coinciding events past the 1st chapter. After I post a bit more, I'll put up a notice in FDD where I'll explain in detail all the differences. Any new readers: you can read that story, but, I repeat it, the events will unfold differently in many ways.

It'd be great if you waited 'til chapter two at least to judge this story. Not least because my writing style here doesn't exactly correlate with the way I write now, and I daresay my writing has improved :)

Enjoy!

(And do review please!)

Chapter 1. Poetic Tragedy

A year passed since the memorable evening when Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall doomed young Harry Potter to living with a human farmhouse. A horse, a walrus and a colourful beach ball, which was slowly but steadily becoming more like a pig, hated their unexpected relative with passion surpassing even that of Voldemort.

Luckily, Harry was still just a baby and physically unable to do the chores he would otherwise be made to do. And the strange happenings around the child prevented most of the abuse.

Of course, Petunia and, consequently, her husband Vernon knew about the wretched boy's magic and what it entailed. The woman, after all, had had to grow up with her freakish sister, and, no matter how much she hated them, the displays of accidental magic hardly stumped her.

The sight of dead and rotting creatures roaming the house, however...

Even with their general disgust and ignorance regarding the Wizarding world, the Dursleys knew that it wasn't normal even for them.

It wasn't normal to wake up to the chirping sounds of the previously dead parrot, which had been bought to their lovely Dudders on a whim and which everyone had been forgetting to feed.

It wasn't normal to have half-rotten mice and other rodents running around the house on their little paws, making small sounds day and night and disturbing whatever guests the Dursleys wanted to invite.

It wasn't normal to see their garden dead and completely grey-coloured one day, only to find it filled with blooming flowers the next morning.

It wasn't normal to feel afraid, no, terrified, of a small child, who could barely walk on his two feet and had a long road ahead of him to reach the table.

They strived for a life of normalcy, yet the existence of that wretch ruined it all, razed to the ground all their efforts at establishing a generic household.

Now, all their neighbours avoided the Dursleys like the plague. Wherever the family went, people whispered behind their backs about the strange occurrences in the household. Petunia couldn't trade gossip with her so-called 'friends', as they were offended and insulted at not being invited to her house anymore. Vernon's job hung by a thread, because he, too, couldn't hold proper dinner parties with investors and all sorts of influential people.

Out of the inhabitants of the house only Dudley evaded all the social assault and led the life of a happy toddler, albeit the dead animals and insects frightened him. They had taken a great dislike towards him and caused numerous accidents, some of which had harmed him. Petunia wouldn't leave his side for days.

All in all, the life of the family changed drastically in such a short span of time, going from peaceful and quiet to chaotic and hazardous. No one knew when it would all stop, but the patience of one Vernon Dursley would collapse any second.

{Tearing the Veil from Grace}

"I'm sorry, Vernon, old friend, but I have to fire you." A note of apology peeked through in the manager's voice as he stared at his emp- ex-employee with pity.

"B-but-" Vernon spluttered, unable to utter a single coherent word. His life was disintegrating. The mortgage, the vacation, the car, the foodstaffs and clothing and presents... He misheard, obviously.

"There are certain rumours," the man behind the desk commented before shaking his head. He was firing one of his best workers, a good lad, but the clients always came first, and their demands didn't leave him with any other alternative. "Some of them are quite entertaining. And amusing. However, when I have to hear about people not wanting to conduct business with a child abuser, it's not something I can easily ignore, you know."

"A child abuser!" Vernon bellowed. His eyes, deranged and muddled, madly shifted, while his hands balled into fists and his shoulders shook with fury.

Impossible.

His family was normal. He justified his deeds, Petunia justified her deeds, and Dudley would agree with any philosophy as long as he attained his toys, and all agreed that their treatment of the freak deserved appreciation and respect for daring to deal with the abomination. They ventured fight against the abnormal, a feat not many boasted and fewer still achieved.

And for his manager to dismiss it so! As if Vernon was in the wrong-!

"-When so many people talk about the matter," the manager looked up to pierce Vernon's eyes. The obese man gulped. "One has to wonder if there is a seed of truth to these rumours, after all."

"Y-you believe this gossip more than me?" Vernon's tiny eyes widened with disbelief. Childhood friends. They had attended school together, had been hiding in their secret bases, had shared their first drinks and cigarettes and football victories- And a single rumour took it all away. "We have known each other for years!"

The freak's fault. It was all the freak's fault.

The manager sighed and rubbed his temples. His entire form hunched in on itself, world-weary and old, reminding Vernon of his own creeping age.

"Our company works with people, Vernon. And if they don't want you here, I'm sorry to say it, but you are of no use to us. I'll have to let you go."

Everything the freak's fault.

Anger dashed the disbelief; Vernon's face was heating up. He knew who was responsible for this. Who was to blame for all their misfortunes. That little shit had spoilt all their perfect normal life and he was going to pay for that. Vernon would see to it.

The manager watched warily as his ex-subordinate's face swelled with red from rage, and piggy eyes filled with deep hatred. He certainly hoped that his old friend wasn't directing all that loathing at him.

"I have to ask you to clear up your workspace now. The money has already been transferred to your account," he said finally.

Vernon nodded curtly and stormed out of the office. The door slammed shut behind him in a dramatic motion. His fists were clenching and unclenching, and he wanted to badly hurt the abomination, which had ruined his life so completely.

{Tearing the Veil from Grace}

Petunia was watching television when she heard Vernon's car pull to a stop at the driveway. She frowned at that. Her husband was usually the one to work till as late as possible to earn more money for their dear little angel, even if it meant working at weekends sometimes.

Coming from work so early was out of character for him and it made her feel wary. Her suspicions only increased as Vernon stormed into the house with the expression of someone ready to commit a murder.

"Dear? Are you all right?" she asked hesitantly. She left the question 'And why are you at home so early?' unsaid, but both heard it anyway.

"Where is the freak?" he shouted instead of answering. His eyes glinted with righteous fury and Petunia thought that he wouldn't hesitate to hit her if she unwittingly obstructed his plans. Still, trying never hurt.

"In the cupboard, where he should be. He won't be able to escape the place, hopefully. And there are no rodents there to gnaw on the locks, like it happened with the second bedroom. Why?" She moved to the front of the staircase.

Sure, she abhorred the boy, to the point of desiring his death, but she wouldn't let her husband go in jail for the little eyesore. She would help Vernon plan the murder so that it couldn't be linked to them in any way. She had to preserve what was left of her 'respectable lady' status.

Now, though, Vernon wasn't able to think about scheming and careful preparations, because the loathing was burning its way in his insides, consuming and stifling, no other thought permitted under its intolerable net of fire.

He roughly shoved Petunia to the floor. In his deranged state he didn't care about his wife's surprised cry of pain or the fact that she could have broken a couple of her bones with the force he had pushed her. He ignored her winces of pain. He disregarded her shrieks.

The man forcefully knocked the door of the cupboard down and froze at what was inside.

The two-and-a half-year-old child was sitting on a dirty mattress and was curiously watching the spiders dance on the floor in front of him. He looked up when he heard the noise, and fascination in his radiant green eyes changed to confusion as he watched his Uncle stand in the doorway.

Vernon's mouth hung open like that of a fish, and he honestly didn't know what to do or how to act. His brain didn't accommodate a vast range of possibilities, so it grasped nothing further than plan A, missing the point of making up plans B, C, and other letters of the alphabet. All his anger evaporated and pure animalistic fear snapped in its place.

He remembered what the boy was. All the abnormalities.

Petunia regained her footing and, rubbing her aching back, scrambled to the door to see what startled her husband. When she clapped her eyes on the insects, she let out a horrified gasp.

"Insects!" she screeched, wildly flailing her hands about. "In my house!"

It wasn't just one spider dancing, no. That would probably be quite ordinary for their unnatural nephew. The tiny creatures cluttered the floor, crawled up the walls, infested the mattress, steadily broke out of the confines of the cupboard. They littered everything,

For the first time Petunia realised that maybe they shouldn't have left the boy locked in hopes of starving him to death. Next time they should place him somewhere with no life at all. Their 'assassination' attempt would have had more chances of success that way.

Well, they would cook up another method after having cleared the entire place of the spiders, which now clustered every inch of the floor. They were on the walls and on the tiles, on the expensive furniture and on the precious frames with the images of a toothless Dudley in them.

Both Dursleys forgot all about the boy as they attempted to kill off as many insects as possible. Vernon stomped on them with his enormous feet, and his face reddened from the physical effort. Petunia wasn't faring much better. She took off her pink fluffy slippers and tried to destroy the spiders swarming the nearest wall, letting out a battle cry with each hit.

All this time Harry was watching his two relatives with enjoyment and childish mirth dancing in his eyes, and clapped his hands. One of his particularly loud giggles drew attention of the winded Vernon Dursley. The man stopped mid-motion and hatefully glared at the boy. The bastard was laughing at them!

"You! Stop it this instant!" he hollered. The walls shook from the sheer force of the cry.

Harry's giggle died in his throat as he stared at his relatives in incomprehension. He couldn't honestly understand why those people didn't have fun as he did. So, with his confusion, eventually the spiders started dropping dead again because no magic and no emotion fuelled them anymore.

The Dursleys were once again preoccupied with dodging the tiny bodies falling at them from the ceiling to pay any real attention to what Harry was doing. And right now the boy tried to escape from the cupboard. He had realized that, somehow, these two weren't happy, and it never ended well for him when they were in such a peculiar mood. Vague recollections of an empty tummy, a dark place, and a train of his own cries knocked on his mind.

"Where are you going, boy!" the horse-faced woman shrieked. As she scrambled to grab him, Vernon beat her to it. He grabbed Harry by the collar of Dudley's old shirt and smashed his fist right in the boy's face.

Harry cried out in pain. He felt as if his face was one huge bruise, not unlike those on his ribs and arms. The obese man punched him a couple of times more before the boy lost his consciousness. Encouraged, Vernon tried to deal the last blows, and his wife's cheers resonated in his ears together with the sound of his rapidly beating heart.

He lifted his hand to punch the freak once more, eager to get rid of this menace. Only…

The fist crashed into the invisible wall right in front of the boy. Vernon howled in pain, cradling his damaged hand. His knuckles ran red, the colour that contrasted sharply with the pale skin of his fist but matched his rage.

"Vernon!" Petunia gasped and rushed to his side. She looked at her husband's red knuckles and moaned about how hurt he must be feeling. "Oh, dear, Vernon! Don't you worry, my sweet, Petunia will take care of your injury, don't worry. Everything will be all right, everything will be okay…"

The walrus slapped her hand away from him and scrambled to his feet. He glared hatefully at the boy he had dropped in his pain.

"It's all this freak's fault! All of it!" He tried to step on the boy, but the wall thwarted hid intentions. He turned to his wife. "This fucking old man told us about these 'wards' or something, didn't he?"

Petunia nodded, uncertain about where this was going. "Yes. When he left it on our doorstep. He wrote about them in the letter."

Vernon smiled sinisterly. "We cannot kill the abomination, but we can get rid of it. Now, I'll take the thing to London's suburbs and dump him there." He frowned when Petunia looked hesitant. "What's up, Pet? Don't you think it's brilliant?"

His wife nodded vigorously. "You will make me the happiest woman on earth if you manage to put him out of our hair. But… don't you fear that the car will get dirty with his dark powers?"

The man patted her back reassuringly.

"Don't worry about it, Pet. After this is over, we will buy a new car and a new home in a different neighbourhood. And we will become the family we have always wanted to be. Completely normal."

He squeezed the woman's hand and she smiled.

Yes, their life would be perfect after that. She was sure of it.

{Tearing the Veil from Grace}

Augustus Rookwood swore loudly as he Apparated to the place he didn't recognise. Well, obviously he appeared in the slums of some city, judging by the shady people around and dirty buildings. The man sneered and covered his brown hair with the hood of his cloak. Luckily, he had remembered to cast a notice-me-not charm on himself so that the muggles wouldn't discern his presence.

Clearly, his efforts were unnecessary. The muggles living there were too engaged in their own dubious activities to give a damn about what other people were doing. Augustus cast a glance at a junkie slut bargaining with a drug dealer about the price of the pills. When the man let out a coarse laugh and grabbed the woman's thighs, the wizard sneered and turned away from the disgusting sight.

Muggles. He couldn't understand how someone sympathised with the creatures sunk so low.

His thoughts drifted to his Master, now presumably dead. Lord Voldemort was the only person in their time that had enough guts to stand up for blood purity ideals, a feat not even the most renowned pureblood families had managed to accomplish. They preferred to stand aside and lament at how unfair things were and about their prejudiced society instead of actually doing something.

The Rookwood family was average enough and none of the members stood out in anything. They were well off, but not outstandingly so. They were smart, but their intelligence didn't cross the boundaries of the general Ravenclaw wisdom. Their looks didn't marvel or astound or bedazzle either; most of the Rookwoods carried a mane of brown hair and eyes to match. They didn't lean towards Light or Dark magic, preserving their neutrality and stepping aside to watch the world burn in wars and conflicts instead of dabbling in heroics like the Weasleys and even Malfoys did.

Until Augustus popped into existence, anyway.

The man had managed to get into the Department of Mysteries and become an Unspeakable to spy for their Lord. Not a sly-high feat for a former Ravenclaw. A mere low-ranker, Augustus's position didn't allow him to peek into the darkest secrets of the Ministry. Nevertheless, he had an access to the underground laboratories, where he had managed to create quite a few useful spells and trinkets that would aid the Dark Side when the Dark Lord would return from his unplanned vacation.

When. Never if.

Augustus had no doubt that their Master would return one day. He prepared for it diligently. He wanted to be different from all those arrogant fools grovelling at his Lord's feet, to be exceptional and highly valued, regarded as the dearest of assets rivalling even that old snake Lucius. The fact that Augustus craved His approval just as much didn't count.

The brown-haired man barely crossed the border of the dark alley when his attention snapped to the roaring sound of engine. A moment later he saw a fat ugly man bumbling out of the car. The man bore an exceptional resemblance to a walrus with his brown moustache, shaky layers of fat, and tiny eyes. In his hands he held a bundle of blankets, out of which strands of black hair peered.

What intrigued Augustus most, however, was the glare full of loathing that the man shot to the child (?) in his arms.

"Now you will die here, freak," the walrus muttered, placing the bundle on the pavement near the wall. He disregarded the puddle nearby and almost kicked the boy, but then froze in fear, watching something in the far end of the alley.

Augustus turned to look in that direction, too. Yet he was disappointed. There stood nothing more than a foul-smelling rat. Its red eyes were fixed on the obese man, who gulped when the rodent crept closer. Bewildered, Augustus glimpsed it missing chunks of flesh.

"W-what?" the walrus stuttered. "A good ratty, good. You will not touch old Vernon, right? Look, there is this freak full of tasty meat for you, just don't touch me, please!"

The man, Vernon, continued backing out until he bumped into the cool stone wall behind him. The sharp material dug into his back. Suddenly, another rat arrived, this time from the other corner of the alley. Then another. And again. Vernon broke out into sweat. Augustus watched with fascination how the events unfolded.

Vernon's strangled outcry seemed to be a signal of some kind. All the rats in the alley attacked him. They pounced on him and bit in, tearing into his flesh, as they devoured chunks of it. The man screamed in unbearable pain and tried to shake them off but didn't succeed. Their numbers overwhelmed him.

A few minutes later the man was reduced to nothing more than a mess of blood and meat and bones. The rats stopped...

And dropped dead all at once.

Augustus was left staring at the pile of flesh and red liquid. How-? He blinked and shook it off. It wasn't his business to know how muggle rats behaved. Maybe, the man had poison in his system. Or, maybe, it was normal for them. Who knew?

The man couldn't help being curious, though, and he knelt in front of the bundle. Lifting the colourful blanket, he gasped in surprise at the child's face. The boy was sleeping soundly, his breathing so soft it was almost inaudible. His eyebrows were furrowed and he shifted and fussed, as if in pain, having a nightmare, probably.

Most prominent, however, was the angry red scar resting against the pallor of his skin.

Augustus felt rage consume him. That was the reason for their Lord's downfall. The reason why he, Augustus Rookwood, had been hiding in the filth since his status as a Death Eater had been discovered. The reason he had lost the only person who saw some worth in him. The reason most of the Dark purebloods were now hunted, and anyone from a remotely Dark family was sent to Azkaban, just for being who they were, for using the magic their ancestors bestowed upon them in the Books of Shadows and ancient family grimoirs and incunabula.

The child was Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Couldn't-Even-Fucking-Die. The cause of all their pain, misery, and unhappiness.

Augustus raised his wand, Avada Kedavra on his lips, but stopped abruptly. No, it wouldn't do for the boy to die swiftly. He didn't deserve it one bit. Augustus Rookwood would make him pay for all the inconvenience the child had caused.

And didn't he know the perfect punishment?

One of the spells he had invented made a person experience pain worse than Cruciatus every second of their life. He had gotten the idea after reading about Norse snakes, whose venom, even a drop of it, caused unbearable pain to the person ingesting it. The wizard had named it the Loki Curse and prided himself on the invention.

True, he hadn't tested it and didn't know whether it would work. Not to mention that it was a recent invention. Still, he had to try.

With a spiteful glint in his brown eyes the man raised his wand and let the spell fall from his lips-

His eyes widened.

The Arithmancy formulae! One of the number chains created a glitch in the entire construction, and if he were correct, the results-

Augustus's world vanished under a blanket of darkness.

{Tearing the Veil from Grace}

Year 1962

Marie let out a contented sigh as she had just finished shopping for the orphanage. The children didn't receive nearly as much nutrition as she would have liked them to, but food remained food in her eyes, and the orphanage didn't afford a greater selection of foods than plain grains, vegetables, and occasional slabs of meat. Sometimes the woman used her personal allowance to gift the well-behaved children with a few sweets or biscuits from her own pocket.

Humming under her breath, Marie ambled to the truck waiting for her, its driver waving at her cheerfully before the man stuffed a cigarette in his mouth. She lucked out this time. The other driver was a nasty man, and the road to Godric's Hollow, long as it was, would be uncomfortable if spent in complete silence without even radio to reduce stress.

When they set off, Marie nested into her favourite shawl, hoping for a shut-eye...

Only to wake up with a start at the driver cussing and angrily gesticulating. She cracked her eyes open to see what that was all about.

A child right in the middle of the road.

Appalled at the person who could abandon their kid in such a dangerous place, she abandoned the truck and rushed to the bundle of blankets.

Determined, she picked up the child to deliver it to the orphanage. It was indeed the blessing from the skies that she found the child before a car ran it over. The driver only shot her a sad look.

"Marie! Why so long?" a plain-looking woman asked when Marie arrived, wearing a displeased expression. "Do you have no shame?"

"Children have been waiting for their food,." another, older woman, joined in. They hardly got any excitement in Godric's Hollow, so when all the oldies received an opportunity to ream into someone else, they grabbed it and bit into it with vigour. "You know we couldn't buy them anything yesterday and they had to eat only bread for a day…" She trailed off, looking at the bundle in Marie's arms.

"I'm sorry; I understand it was selfish of me to take so much time…" Marie smiled hesitantly and gestured at the boy "Umm, we have an addition, as you see."

The old woman, the matron probably, came closer and grabbed the boy. "Such a beautiful child…" she muttered. "Are you sure he was abandoned?"

"I… I don't think any good parent will leave their child in the middle of the road to die."

The matron looked at her sharply. It was one thing to get rid of the child, but she considered it inhumane to kill him. She looked at the quilt and saw the letters HJP engraved in golden stitching.

"HJP?" she read out loud. "Must be his initials." The boy's clothes consisted of second-hand rags, but the blanket was woven of the finest material. Strange.

"Should we name him?"

"Obviously, we can't call him by a set of letter," the matron snapped, irritated.

"How about Hadrian James? Sounds nice enough to me," offered the plump woman who had greeted Marie. Her face showed her disinterest. She was used to getting new kids, after all.

The matron pondered on it. "All right," she finally conceded and tapped her chin with a finger. "Hadrian James it is. Any suggestions about his surname? Marie? Hannah?"

"Umm… Paradis?" Marie timidly offered.

"God, Marie, you are so sentimental sometimes." Hannah sneered. "You can't just go around giving your surname to the orphans."

"It's just that it matches his initials and…" Here Marie's voice lowered into a whisper. "You know I wouldn't live for much longer. I want my father's surname to be passed down."

Hannah's eyes softened as she looked at her fellow caregiver pityingly. Everyone here knew that the woman had some a terminal disease and would live for only a couple of years longer. Marie was pretty useless, but the matron spared her and had provided her with a job here. From that moment they decided to keep her around to do some odd jobs and run errands. And children liked her mild manner and gentle smiles, too.

"Hadrian James Paradis," the matron murmured. "Not bad. Hope he will get along with other children."

Unfortunately, her hopes would be dashed.

AN: The main difference with FDD in this chapter is that the events start in Godric's Hollow. Yes, with all the delightful possibilities that arise.