A/N: A gift fic for mackiechandler. Thank you for the prompt. :)

Unfamiliar with the "Lucifer" TV fandom? To give you a quick spoiler-friendly summary, Lucifer decided to take a holiday from ruling Hell and moved to Los Angeles with his favorite demon, Mazikeen (aka Maze), who used to torture damned souls for him. He nows runs a nightclub in LA and also volunteers solving homicides part-time with an attractive blonde detective, Chloe Decker. Chloe is a divorced mom with a young daughter, Trixie. This story is set in season 2, and Chloe is living in denial about who Lucifer is, despite his regular public claims of being the Devil. She isn't convinced that Lucifer is anything but an odd but charming man with hypnotic powers and a few other abilities she tries hard not to think about too much. Lucifer and Maze have scary demonic appearances that they usually hide, looking most of the time like regular humans.

Harry watched the rubbish bin on the street corner expectantly. It was perfectly positioned near a string of high-end cafés that made takeaway sandwiches, sushi, bagels, and coffee, and people sometimes threw out half-eaten sandwiches or sushi there during the busy lunchtime rush. Some people were just too busy on their phones or in too much of a rush to get back to their high-rise offices to finish their meals, and too affluent to bother saving a quarter of a sandwich for later.

He hated – oh how he hated – Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia for abandoning him in America without a passport. They'd dumped him and gone back to England without even a second thought about how he was supposed to survive. He hated sleeping in doorways, and in dirty alleys behind skip bins. Digging through rubbish bins for food, though? He actually didn't mind that. He was eating better than he ever had in his whole life. He hated having to dig through cigarette butts or spilled coffee to get at the good food, though, which was why he was staking out one of his favorite bins.

As he watched expectantly, a woman wearing tight black leather clothes with tawny skin and long black hair passed by the bin, throwing away a perfectly good bread roll with only a single bite taken out of it.

"I can't believe they left out the pickles!" she muttered to herself as she walked towards where Harry was lurking almost out of sight in the narrow service alley between two towering buildings with cafés on their ground floors. "Bitch deserves bamboo under her fingernails for leaving out my damn pickles!"

She wandered off carelessly, fishing a slim phone out of her tight black leather pants, and Harry seized the moment of general inattention from passing pedestrians, darting past her to the bin. He hungrily dug out the bread roll, still mostly wrapped in thin white paper, and took a bite.

Bliss. Pastrami, swiss cheese, and some kind of fancy lettuce mix, on a seed-crusted bun. He moaned with delight as he chewed, starting to wander off down the street with his prize.

"Hey, spawn!" a woman growled, grabbing at his arm. He clutched the sandwich tightly so he wouldn't drop it, his hand crushing the paper. "What are you doing, getting food from the trash?"

Harry was forcibly spun around, and saw it was the woman who'd just thrown away her lunch. "You didn't want it!" he said defensively. "I'm hungry, okay?"

"You should be at home – it's a Saturday. Get some food there!"

"I'm homeless, not that it's any of your business. You threw it out, why do you care?"

"Decker said kids shouldn't eat food that falls on the floor, or that's gone in the trash. C'mon boy, chuck it in the trash can!"

She started trying to wrestle the sandwich out of his hand, and Harry pulled back against her angrily. "Don't call me 'boy'! It's mine now, let go!"

The roll fell apart, scattering its delicious contents to the dirty footpath.

Harry sniffled unhappily. "Now look what you've done!" he wailed.

He spun away and turned to run, but she yanked him back easily, quick as a striking snake, and held him pinned with fiercely strong hands on both shoulders, making him face her whether he wanted to or not.

"I think I'd better take you to the cops," she said thoughtfully, staring at him. "Decker could help you get home. Young spawn like you should be with their families. I think. Or possibly working as chimney sweeps."

"No!" he yelled. "I hate them! I'm not going back!"

He twisted and flailed in her grip, hitting at her arms and kicking at her legs, but she may as well have been made of marble for all the good it did him. He even bit at her arm, but it did absolutely nothing. The cloth looked thin, but obviously was tougher than it appeared.

She laughed mercilessly at his futile struggles, and a passer-by in a suit stopped to ask uncertainly. "What are you doing with that kid?"

"Taking him to the cops. Little trash-thief street rat!" She said it cheerfully rather than threateningly, as if she found it all deeply amusing, but it provoked a new frenzy of struggles from Harry.

He would not go to the police! Uncle Vernon had warned him what would happen to him if he ended up in prison, and if even half of it was true he wanted no part of it!

No! No! Twisting his head around he sank his teeth into the back of her right hand, with every iota of his being focused on a single goal – he must get free! He tasted the salty tang of blood as his teeth broke her skin, and she let go of him in utter shock. Harry wasted no time ducking under the busybody businessman's grasping arms and running for it at top speed.

Free!

He ran six blocks before he felt safe to stop, including ducking through a mall and hiding behind parked cars to make sure no-one was following him. Eventually he calmed down enough to stay put long enough to get his breath back, hunched over and gasping as he sucked much-needed oxygen into his lungs.

He stretched out his legs and gave himself a shake. Forget the high-end stuff with vitamins. He'd wander through a food court again and pick up the leftover boxes of noodles and bits of burgers and chips abandoned on tables. He was going to get some lunch one way or another.

When Harry settled down for the night in 'his' alleyway in front of a long-blocked doorway with a slight overhang that sheltered him from rain, he was as happy as he thought he'd ever been. His belly was full of burger bits, honey soy chicken noodles, and half a Caesar salad. A nice homeless woman had given him an old green jumper she said was too small for her now in exchange for a half-drunk abandoned bottle of wine he'd nicked when passing by some kind of poncy street bar, and he'd found a new sturdy plastic bag to store his meager belongings in. Life was good.

He woke up in the middle of the night to a foot firmly poking him in the ribs.

"Hey, street rat. Wake up."

Harry rolled over into a ball, protecting his vulnerable face and belly while his hand darted underneath the old t-shirt stuffed with scrunched up newspaper that served as his makeshift pillow.

He came up with a snarl, brandishing a large shard of sharp glass with a strip of fabric wrapped around the base as a handle. "I'm not going anywhere with you, and if you try to grab me I will cut you!"

He bared his teeth and growled at his attacker, who turned out to be the sandwich-woman from earlier that day. How had she found him? Why had she found him? Not a social worker – not in skintight black leather and heels. Probably a prostitute. Well he certainly wanted no part of that! His crazy-vicious-animal act would hopefully dissuade her, like it had others. He was no easy prey.

"Easy, spawn, I won't hurt you. Well, not unless you give me a reason to. I just want to know what you are, and why you're here."

"Don't touch me!" he said, flinching back and waving his makeshift weapon threateningly.

"Why the hell would I want to touch you, you filthy little demon spawn? Now, tell me exactly what and who you are, and why you're here, and why you didn't report in to Lucifer. Or else." The woman whipped a pair of curved daggers out from behind her back and pointed them at him threateningly. "I won't ask a third time. Start talking or I start cutting the answers out of your skin."

Damn, I'm in trouble, Harry thought despairingly.

"I'm Harry. Harry Potter," he said weakly, eyeing her blades. He wouldn't go down without a fight, if it came to that. "I don't report to anyone – I don't have a pimp, or a boss. I don't know those names, unless you count that Lucifer is like the devil in the bible. I don't work for anyone. I'm just… I'm just trying to survive, okay?"

"And you are what exactly? A demon?"

"What? No! I'm just a kid."

"Any relation to Chloe Decker?"

"Who?" Harry asked, bewildered, then yelped and cowered back as the woman's knife suddenly flashed to hover a half-inch in front of his nose.

"Answer me!"

"No! I've never heard of her! My dad's name was James Potter and my mum was Lily Evans! The only relatives I know are the Dursleys!"

"Human names," the woman said, sounding disgusted. "What's your real name? You're not human, you can't be."

"I am, I'm just a normal kid," Harry said, but his body was frozen as he said it, eyes darting back and forth like a trapped animal looking for an escape.

The woman's eyes lit up with glee and her tongue darted out to lick at her lips excitedly. "No you're not. I can see it. I felt it," she said, holding up her right hand to show off the tooth marks that could be seen even in the dim streetlight. "Lies won't work with me. What. Are. You?"

"A freak! I'm a freak!" Harry said, and started to sob. She could tell. How could she tell? "Please, don't send me back. I don't want to go. I'd rather live on the streets."

"Now we're getting somewhere," the woman purred. "And where in Hell did you come from, and how did you get out?"

"England. And I didn't get out, I got dumped here and they left. We came by plane!" he added in a rush, starting to babble as he saw her impatient, frustrated look. Hopefully something he said would give her the answer she wanted. "Uncle Ver... my uncle came here for a conference, and we stayed at the Holiday Inn, and when I ate the food in the hotel fridge my uncle said he didn't want to look after a damn thief and waste of space for the rest of his life, and he took my passport and they just left without me!"

"Before England," the woman said, glaring at him.

"Nowhere? I was a baby?"

"No, you weren't. How did you get out of Hell? Who came with you?"

"I wasn't in Hell, I was in England?" Was this woman completely nuts?

She nicked him with the knife, a small cut on the back of his right hand to match her own injury, and he shrieked and lashed out ineffectually with his glass dagger, which she knocked easily out of his hand. It shattered on the hard concrete.

"No lies!"

"I'm not lying, that's all I know! I don't know where my parents lived before someone took me to Surrey! England! Surrey in England! I swear!"

The crazy woman licked his blood off her knife with a languorous swipe of her tongue, smacking her lips together as if savoring the bouquet. "You know what, little spawn? I believe you. So, your home is in England? As far as you know? Living with humans?"

"Yes… no," Harry said. "Yes to the human part. But I don't have a home! They threw me out! Uncle… He said he didn't want me, no-one wanted me, and my aunt just stood there and watched! She didn't care about me either! And then they got in the taxi and left! Well I don't care, I don't even want to go back!" Harry screamed, angry tears making his grubby face all blotchy.

The woman seemingly ignored his tears and rage, just nodding thoughtfully. "And you say you're a freak? Why? Do you have another face?"

"What? No. It's just… sometimes things happen. Things that… don't make sense. My aunt and uncle-"

"The humans who raised you?"

"Yes. They always say – said – that I'm a freak. Strange things happen, sometimes."

"Like what?" she asked.

"Once I was running away from… bullies. I ended up on a roof. I don't know how. I guess I jumped, and the wind carried me up," he muttered, shamefacedly. "But… it was pretty high. They had to get a ladder to get me down. I got locked up for-"

His lips clamped shut. There was no reason to go into more details than she needed. She didn't need to know how long they'd locked him up in his cupboard under the stairs.

"You flew? Do you have wings?"

"No."

"Do either of your parents have wings? Or have horribly scarred faces? Horns? Weird-colored skin?"

He stared at her. She stared back, face dead serious. "No. That is… I don't think so. But I've never seen any pictures of them. They died in a car crash when I was a baby, and I've lived with my aunt and uncle my whole life."

She hummed thoughtfully, like his answer made sense to her, and Harry relaxed some more. His tears were coming to a halt in the face of her continued calm and odd questions. "Know anything else about them?"

"My aunt said they drank a lot, and that my father didn't work. That he was a 'layabout'. Oh, and I look a lot like my dad, except for my eyes. I got this scar in the car crash," Harry said, sweeping his fringe aside so she could see the lightning bolt line on his forehead.

"Not much of a scar. Demons like to drink a lot. Even Amenadiel likes wine – alcohol doesn't affect our kind like it does humans. Do you get drunk?"

Harry tilted his head. "I'm ten. I'm not allowed to drink alcohol."

"Oh yeah, humans and their weird rules."

"You think I'm not human?" he asked tentatively.

She shrugged. "You shouldn't have been able to hurt me with your pathetic little teeth if you were plain human. No, if you're not a demon or an angel, you're probably a half-breed. Anything else weird ever happen around you, or to you? Talk."

Harry's mind whirled. Were demons really real? And angels? "I turned a teacher's hair blue once. Well, maybe it was me. She was being mean and I was so mad at her then – bam! Blue hair. Not like with dye. Umm… what else… my hair grows back really fast when it's cut, like overnight."

"Fast healing?"

"I guess. It depends how hungry I am. I heal faster when I get to eat."

"And those humans of yours didn't feed you much, did they?"

"No."

She nodded. "Anything else? People treating you funny? Screaming when you look at them when you're angry? Or worshipping you?"

Harry tried hard to remember anything odd. "Sometimes people bow to me? It's happened a couple of times. There was this man in a top hat and a green cloak? I don't think anyone's ever been scared of me. People seem to hate me a lot, though. That's kind of… typical. Everyone back hom… back in England thinks I'm a delinquent. They say I'm no good, even though I never do anything bad. Like they just assume I'm evil."

The woman spun her knives around then sheathed them at her back. "I'm Mazikeen. Does the name ring a bell?"

"No. It's… nice to meet you?" he said. No need to offend the weird woman with knives.

"I'm a demon."

"Uh huh," he said, but his soothing agreeing tones seemed to rile her up.

"You don't believe me? Want to see my real face?"

Harry shrugged. "Sure. Do whatever you want to prove it, that doesn't involve hurting me." He half-believed already, though. It didn't make sense, he couldn't be sure it was true. But… maybe. Weird things did happen around him. Things that shouldn't be possible.

"Okay, but don't panic, spawn. Run and I'll just catch you again – you know I can. There's a lot of people on the streets who owe my boss a favor, and I've got plenty of cash to bribe the ones who don't. You don't fight me or lie to me, and I won't hurt you. Deal?"

"Deal."

He braced himself for something horrible and his fearful expectations weren't disappointed as half her face seemed to melt away to reveal a mass of twisted, blackened scarred flesh and a sightless milky-white eye.

He let out a strangled scream, choking it down as she stared at him. "Sorry. That was… startling. Yes, okay, you're a demon. Or are you half a demon? The other half looks fine."

"Full demon, forged in Hell."

"Okay, okay…" Harry said, taking deep breaths. "And what am I?"

"Almost certainly a half-breed. Nephilim seems unlikely, given that God made angels sterile after the Flood, after that whole mess of breeding with mortal women. Not impossible, but damn unlikely. My money's on you being a cambion – a half-demon. Do you know which of your parents was mortal, if any?"

"Well, I lived with my mum's sister and her husband and my cousin. They are normal. Human, anyway. So, I guess my mum was more likely to be human?" Harry volunteered. He shuffled around on the ground, leaning back against the closed door in his sleeping nook. He felt kind of faint. This night was just so confusing and he didn't know what to feel about anything, his emotions were all in a whirl.

"What are you going to do to me? I don't want to go to prison."

"I'm not going to take you to prison. Or the cops. I think I'd better take you to my boss, actually. There's no-one I've met in a long time who needs a favor as badly as you do, little cambion."

"Harry."

She grinned at him, the cheerful expression somewhat ruined by the garish sight of teeth and gums exposed too far on one side by the charred, sinewy flesh of her face. "You can call me Maze, Harry. Don't worry, I'm going to find you a home. No demon – half-breed or otherwise – should have to scrounge on the street for scraps. Come on, we're going to Lux. Lucifer's curious to meet you too."

Harry gulped nervously. "Is he… evil?"

"Nah, being on earth has made him soft. And as he'll tell just about anyone – at length – he only punishes the wicked."

Maze reached out and pulled Harry to his feet, then grabbed his belongings, all two bags of them. "Let's go." She shifted her face back to its former pristine state before they emerged from the alley.

Harry trailed after her, not sure he really had a choice otherwise. As they walked, and walked, he peppered her with anxious questions.

"Does it count as wicked if you take food from bins?"

"Rummaging through trash is gross, but not wicked, little street rat."

"Why are you calling me that?"

"Because Trixie made me watch Aladdin twice last week."

"Who's Trixie?"

"A human kid. She's a friend of mine. I'm moving in with her and her mum, soon."

"You say you'll find me a home. Does that mean in Hell?"

"No. Unless you want to go there? I know an angel who could maybe take you. I don't think you'd survive, though, unless you know how to fight?"

"Only a bit. Mostly I run. I don't want to go to Hell."

"Fine by me. Do you want to learn how to fight?"

He mulled her return question over for a while. "Yes. Yes, I would, actually." He'd had a few very unpleasant encounters, living rough on the streets. "With a knife. Something easy to hide. Not a gun." No-one in their right mind would sell a ten-year-old a gun or bullets, but a knife should be easy to acquire.

"Good choice," she said, with an approving grin. "Do you like the idea of hurting people? Be honest."

Harry sighed. "Sometimes I daydream about hurting my family. They… they hurt me. Dudley would beat me up. They locked me in a cupboard and didn't feed me, when they were angry at me. Aunt Petunia liked to hit me with the frying pan if I wasn't quick enough in the kitchen. I hated having to work, and work, and work, and no matter what I did, nothing was ever good enough. Nothing ever made them happy. Do you know what that feels like? To work your fingers to the bone and not be appreciated? And they just left me here! Stranded in a strange place! So yeah, I'm mad at them. Wouldn't you be?"

"Yeah… yeah, I would be," Maze said, gazing at him thoughtfully as they walked. "I know what it's like to try and try and not be recognized for everything I do. To be paid attention to only when I'm useful and cast aside or punished whenever dealing with me is inconvenient. And I'm stuck here too. It wasn't my plan."

Despite the woman – demon – being rather terrifying, Harry couldn't help but respond to the heartbreak in her voice. He reached out and gave her hand – entangled in his shopping bags of old clothes and bits and pieces – a brief sympathetic squeeze. She blinked at him wonderingly, and he let her hand go right away.

After a while, Harry added, in a soft voice. "Do you think that makes me evil? Wicked? To be so mad at them I want them to suffer?"

"No," she said. "Wanting vengeance for wrongdoing is perfectly fine, no need to feel guilty about it. You can't kill humans over stuff, but it's alright to hurt them if you get a chance. Sometimes though, the best thing to do is just say, 'Screw them!' and head off to live your own life. A happier life, on your own away from them."

"I've been happier in LA," Harry said.

"Yeah, me too, I guess…" Maze said, looking lost in thought again.