FOURTH book PREVIEW in Death's Master Chronicles. First story is Beowulf.

The Magic Man and the Stone

AN: It's at the end.

Disclaimer: If I owned Kuroshitsuji and/or Harry Potter, they would not be nearly as popular.

Even when he was young, even before Tom began to show signs of strange powers that no one could explain, he knew magic existed.

The Magic Man was proof of that.

Tom was young when he met the Magic Man, only five years old at the time. He had been sitting on the bench outside of the orphanage, shivering in the cold as the deceivingly innocent white snow fell around him as his teeth chattered and black began creeping into his vision.

He had been reading in the meager library of the orphanage when Mrs. Cole found him, demanding to know how he could read such an advanced book. Tom didn't know, he just liked to read.

He did not have anything better to do, anyway.

But one of the older kids - Billy Stubbs, he was 8 - had claimed that he heard Tom saying some kind of spell, using witchcraft and demon magic to gain intelligence. Mrs. Cole had believed him, and kicked Tom out as punishment. If he was alive by morning, she claimed that God would have had mercy on his sorry soul and given him a second chance.

Tom heard the screeching of tires as one of those new cars that the wealthier families had came barreling around the corners. His pale blue, almost grey, eyes widened as he saw a figure dressed in black crossing the street just as the car accelerated. The man was crashed into by the car, which sped off without looking back.

There was no way anyone could have survived that.

But Tom was young, and he was curious, and he had to know. So he got up and cautiously stumbled over to the man, his legs weak with cold and fear. Finally he reached the man, lying there like a black stain against the white road and Tom fell to his knees, one hand tentatively reaching out towards the still form.

Closer...

Closer...

Tom hesitated, his fingers just an inch away. Did he really want to know? Would it be better to just let someone else discover the poor man? Tom made up his mind, and reached forward just a little more...

As soon as his small fingers reached the man, he felt a rush unlike anything he had ever felt before. It was like being hot and freezing all at once, like standing on top of the world and lying at the bottom of the darkest, most desolate pit, like feeling ridiculously happy and overwhelming sad.

The man bolted up, panting as his trembling hand pressed against his heaving chest and huge puffs of white steam came from his mouth. Tom jerked back, scrambling away from the impossibly, miraculously, horribly alive man. Tom stared at him with wide eyes, and the man stared back.

Suddenly, the man began laughing, loud and long and slightly deliriously, to Tom's ears. The man in black fell back onto the snow, arms and legs spread as though he was planning on making snow angels in the fresh powder.

"M-Mister? A-Are y-you alri-alright?" stuttered out the young boy, teeth chattering despite all of his efforts to speak normally. He could feel himself shaking, trembling like a leaf just before it was ripped away from the tree and left on the forest floor, shriveled and dead.

"Me? I'm fine, I'm always just fine," grinned the man, jumping up smoothly and holding a hand out to young Tom. The younger boy stared at him, eyes widening once again. What he had presumed to be a long coat was really some sort of dress - robe - thing that hung open at the top to reveal a silver shirt that seemed to shimmer in the evening night's light.

Pushing aside his doubts, Tom reached out and grasped the strange man's hand, gasping as the rush of something filled him again, only to vanish as soon as their hands parted, leaving Tom shivering and shaking as he stood in the nearly empty street.

The man looked at him strangely, and Tom was sure that the look he was giving the man was reflecting right back. "A-Are you magic?" Tom blurted out suddenly, only to feel his cheeks, already rosy from the cold, heat up as he flushed in embarrassment. "I-I'm sorry, I-it's just th-that Mrs. C-Cole m-mentioned M-Magic Men w-when she s-said I was a d-demon and th-that I was a f-freak and witch demon a-and y-you w-were dead y-you w-weren't breathing...!

The man held up a hand, and Tom immediately sucked in his breath and shut his mouth, fearing the slap that was surely coming for punishment. But the hand simply reached up and ruffled his brown locks affectionately, and when Tom glanced up through the fringe of his bangs, the man didn't seem angry, just amused.

"Not quite, little child. I'm not just a magic man, I'm the Magic Man," smirked the elder of the pair.

"There's more than one?" asked Tom, still retaining some of that childhood innocence. The man chuckled and nodded, steering the young boy back to the bench he had been on earlier, and resting one hand on his trembling knee, filling him with that dizzying rush that filled him from the inside-out.

"Many more. Tell me, child, what's your name?"

"Tom, sir. Tom Marvolo Riddle Jr. - the only thing by Ma ever gave me," said the boy, eyes downcast as he stared at the hand on his knee.

"Tom, or Thomas, perhaps? Either way, it's a good name, a strong name." The young boy grinned shakily up at the man, a bit of light in s eyes.

He had never felt like this before.

He knew something was wrong with him, maybe he had known deep down ever since he was born. He didn't... feel things like the other children did, didn't think like them, either. He saw the others starving, hurting, just like him, but... he just didn't care. Sometimes, he even felt... something like happiness?... every time he saw another in suffering. But he wasn't even sure, because he never felt anything.

He had looked it up, one, in one of the old dictionaries at the orphanage he and found in a dusty little corner. So-ci-o-path-ic, sociopathic, a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

It frightened him.

But here, with this strange Magic Man, the warm rush brought with it things he had never experienced... feelings he had never known.

It was horrible and wonderful, and so very addicting, even to a young boy like himself who shouldn't even know what that word meant, except for maybe about chocolate.

"Why are you outside, Tom?" whispered the man, as if they were going to be sharing a secret.

"I, well, to be honest, sir, I dunno. I was reading in the library, and Billy - Billy Stubbs, he's eight and reeeaaallllly big, said I was doing demon witchy stuff to become smarter, and Mrs. Cole believed him. But I wasn't sir, honest!" explained Tom, unsure of why he was saying all this.

"I believe you, little Tom, and I wouldn't care if you really had. Is this Mrs. Cole going to let you back in?"

"Only if I live till morning, sir," said the young boy truthfully, a bit embarrassed at being kicked out, and more than a bit angry at being abandoned to the cold and the death its touch brought.

"Hmm," hummed the man, staring off into space as if seeing something no one else could. "Go to sleep, little Tom. When you wake, the sun will have risen and the frost have gone, and you'll be surrounded by a warmth you have never known before..."

The boy's eyes slipped closed as he leaned against the Magic Man, lulled to sleep from the pleasant rolling and lilting of the man's voice. Once the boy was fast asleep, curled up in his rags on the bench, Harry sighed and leaned back against the wood bench, staring at the young boy somberly.

Tom Riddle at age five was nothing like he expected. He knew that magic did not begin to show until the age 7, perhaps that was when his mind had fractured beyond help. Harry could feel the slips and the cracks in the boy's mind already, but there was opportunity to heal with only minor scars.

Harry sighed and stood, removing his acromantula silk and dragon hide cloak, draping it around the boy before standing and turning away,eyes downcast and sad. When the morning came, the police would find the body of a young boy, his skin and lips blue from cold, dew drops frozen to his lashes like unshed tears.

Harry sighed, and stopped.

He turned back and saw the young boy, just a child, not yet Voldemort, and could only see Ciel, his little brother, laying helplessly on the floor of a cage as his eyes brimmed with tears and he surrendered to death...

Harry turned back, picked up young Tom, turned on his heel, and was gone.

The next day, a terrible, fast-coming bout of flu struck the orphanage. However, by some miracle, all the residents save one 8 year old Billy Stubbs and the matron of the orphanage, Mrs. Cole, lived to tell the tale.

Their graves were side by side in the church cemetery, but no funeral was ever held, and the only one to preside over there graves was a silver haired Undertaker.

When Tom woke up, he felt himself lying on something soft, surrounded by warmth just as the Magic Man had promised. His eyes blinked open as he sat up sleepily, noting distantly that he was in the largest, fluffiest bed he'd ever seen, and was the most comfortable he could ever remember being.

There was also a man at the foot of the bed, staring straight at him with wide, nervous eyes.

How strange.

"H-Hello, Tom," stuttered the man. Tom's eyes widened as he finally realized that the strange man looked almost exactly like him, just older. "You noticed, did you?" The man seemed to pull himself together, or maybe reach a decision about something, because suddenly his eyes were determined and he had an air about him that had been missing before.

"I'm... I'm sorry, Tom, that I haven't been there for you before. When your mother and I... separated... I hadn't even thought about what would happen to you. I.. Would you rather know how you got here, last night, or why I was a lousy excuse for a man and a father?" questioned the man suddenly, derailing himself.

Tom looked at him with narrowed eyes. "I have to choose?"

"Oh, no, just, uh, which one would you like to hear first?" stammered out the man, picking up confidence as he continued talking.

"How.. How did I get here? The last thing I remember was falling asleep on the park bench next to the Magic Man," stated Tom, deliberately not omitting the man in black from last night.

"Magic Man, huh? Well, that's one name for him," muttered Tom Riddle Sr. "It was late, past midnight, and your grandparents and I were woken up by some almighty banging on the door. It sounded as though God himself were summoning us." Tom sucked in a breath - his grandparents were here? His... father... continued, oblivious to Tom's inner turmoil.

"I opened the door, your grandparents behind me. There was a man there, a type of man I've never seen before and I doubt I'll see another again. He was carrying you in his arms, cradling you as if you were a newborn and he a terrified parent. But the look on his face when he saw me... I have never before seen such righteous anger. He held you out, wrapped up in that cloak," he gestured over to a wooden chair, where some fine material was draped there, shimmering under the light as Tom noticed it for the first time, "and told me, very seriously, that you were my son, Tom Marvolo Riddle Jr.

He said that you were different from your grandparents and I, different even from your mother's people, witches and wizards and the like. Said something was different 'bout you, that I shouldn't be surprised if you didn't understand things, didn't understand feelings like other folks do."

Tom Jr. startled, surprised. How could the Magic Man know that?

"He said that you were also smart, real bright, and powerful in both worlds, magic and... what did he call it?... mundane. I held you in my arms, by Lord almighty was I shocked. You must understand, I didn't know a darn thing that was going on, and opened my mouth to argue that you shouldn't be with me, that I didn't want a magic type of person 'round here, and I don't think I could survive another glare of the level he aimed at me.

He... did something to me, I dunno what... and it was suddenly like I was you, and it was like I had lived your short life all in the span of five seconds instead of years, and I couldn't breathe - I hope you never experience it, my child. And suddenly - an' I know it wasn't some compulsion placed on me by him, because you were my child and you were me, and I suppose I don't make a fair 'mount of sense, do I? - but all of a sudden, I was willing to fight against an army to keep you next to me, and something in me was fixed, the same kinda' thing that is a bit messed up in you, I think, and I also suppose that's my fault, too.

He just looked at me, all serious like, and said he would be back, and that he hoped you would see him willingly when he returned."

Tom stared at his father, open-mouthed. How had anyone known so much about him? How could someone live another's life in seconds? Most importantly...

"I... I know ya' said ya' didn't want me, at first, but then... Do... Can, can I stay with you? I'll be real good, best son o-or servant or whatever please you, but please, just let me stay. I... I promise to work hard and good, and always pray every night, and-" suddenly Tom was cut off as sturdy arms wrapped around him and a face wet with tears buried itself in his hair.

"My son... My son. I was a fool to ever think I didn't want you, and I suppose that man knew that. I expect we'll have problems, and lots of 'em - I'm not father material, and I know things are gunna be tough, 'specially as you grow - and look at me, so worked up I'ma speakin' like a commoner - but I do want you, Tom, if ya'll have me. Maybe ya'll hate me when you're older - coulda' sworn that Magic Man of yours said I would die by your hands, can ya' believe it? - but I don't care. You're mine. My son. And I love ya' even if I've failed at it till now, I promise I'll make it up to ya'."

Tom clutched at his father with both hands, eyes wide and scared that he would wake up at any moment and ruin this beautiful dream. He had begun to be sure that his father would never love him, was growing so sure of it back at the orphanage, and it turns out he was right - his father hadn't wanted a thing to do with him until the Magic Man had meddled.

But now his father /wanted him,/ and he wanted a father so /badly/, and he couldn't bring himself to hate his father for leaving him nor could he hate the Magic Man for changing his father and, somehow, making his father love him. Perhaps when he was older, perhaps once he was over this shock, things would change, but perhaps by then, his father would love him just for being him.

Tom felt something in him shift, as if it was settling back into place, and his thoughts became just a bit more clearer, and a warmth he hadn't known filled him as he clung to his father and felt something he had never known before.

/This/ was what the Magic Man had talked about, not physical warmth as he had though before, and it was /wonderful.../

The Magic Man continued to visit the Riddle manor, showing up whenever he so pleased without any sort of schedule or pattern. The Riddles never asked his name, and he never gave it. He helped Tom learn to control his power that had awoken when he was seven, when his father and he had nearly been killed by the same car that led him to the Magic Man.

This time, it was the car that was crushed.

His grandparents, which had never been changed by the Magic Man and had always kept their distance from him, began to open up after that, seeing that his power was not evil, that he had saved their son, his father.

When his eleventh birthday came, the Magic Man came, not smiling as usual. But looking somber. He had all the Riddles sit together, and he told them magnificent tales of a school of magic. He said that he had to go away for a very long time, and that when they next met, it would be in the afterlife. Then he had turned to Tom and ruffled his hair affectionately, smirking.

"But not you, Tom. Oh no, not you. We'll see each other many times, but not till you're an old man and I'm a young babe. Time travel, Tom, is a very confusing thing." The Riddles had rolled their eyes, by now used to the strange things their occasional house guest tended to get himself caught up in.

"I told you that wands would be a necessity at Hogwarts, did I not, Tom?" asked the Magic Man, and Tom nodded dutifully. The man smiled and pulled out a polished, if gnarled, white stick from his sleeve and held it out, handle first towards Tom.

The youngest Riddle gasped as he grabbed it and a brilliant golden light filled the room. When the light died down, the wand was held loosely in his fingers as if it belonged there and there was a straight, inky black line on the back of his right hand.

"That's a very special wand, Tom. It's called the Deathstick, among other things, and is made out of Elder wood and a Thestral hair. It's very powerful, and was said to be Death's own wand. It's yours, now and forever. Wands pick their masters, Tom, and though it has been used by many, it was waiting for you. You will do great things, little Tom, many great things indeed."

The Magic Man placed a kiss on the top of his head and left without another word, leaving the Riddles with only a magic wand and the memory of burning, brilliant emerald eyes.

As Tom grew, he began to struggle with the scars left on his psyche from his childhood and that thing which was "wrong" with him. His transfiguration professor, Albus Dumbledore, never seemed to like him and believed that the wrongness in him would make him turn to the Dark Arts.

But the Magic Man, had warned him of those, so he turned instead to his family, and they helped him. He left Hogwarts at the top of his year and joined the Ministry, forming a new political party, the Knights of Walpurgis. Eventually the name was changed to Vol de Mort, Flight from Death. They campaigned for the rights of creatures and muggleborns, but clashed with Dumbledore's party simply due to the animosity between the two leaders.

A new Dark Lord rose, dubbing himself Dark Lord Lucifer and his followers the Dark Angels. He killed the Potters, and left their son, Harry, and orphan with the title of the Boy-Who-Lived. Somehow, the Dark Lord had been banished by the little boy, and Dumbledore took him to his muggle relatives, far away from his fame and the Wizarding world.

Tom did not see the Boy-Who-Lived until the young Potter's sorting day at Hogwarts as he sat in his chair at the staff table as the Defense Professor, a position he had finally managed to snag after the fall of the Dark Lord.

He had met the emerald eyes of a young boy with pale skin and inky black hair, and knew instantly that the only one who could have eyes like that was the Magic Man. That belief was only solidified by the young boy's smirk, and the mouthed words, 'Hello again, Little Tom.'

AN: Oh my, I've mutilated Harry Potter plot lines, oh dear oh dear. Oh, and Ciel was next to Harry, Tommy just didn't think he was important enough to mention. I wonder what happened with Sebastian, though...? Guess you'll just have to read to find out, huh?

Thanks for reading, and welcome to the FOURTH BOOK in the Death's Master Chronicles! Next chapter is Harry's life from birth to the Sorting!

HOWEVER, I'd like some unput. SHOULD this be the fourth book the DMC? Or should I make it a one shot, or a new series altogether?