Chapter 1 : A New Beginning

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New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.

- Lao Tzu

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It was curiously black all around. The shadows spilled from every corner and gaped and made up a wide expanse of nullity.

A perfect void.

In the midst of the gloom stood a man, unconcerned of the darkness enveloping him with ghostly arms, leaning slightly into the cold touch like an old lover. He stared into the oblivion thoughtfully, unflinchingly. His eyes could not see a thing but his skin prickled in a way that always preceded his- how shall he call them? Ah, yes- exploits.

He could feel the eventuality of another amusing foray into the human world so acutely, he could almost taste it. It rolled on his tongue, syrupy sweet like honey and he let out a low hum at the rich promise of it.

It had been too long.

~…~

It was a distant cry that wretched him from his sleep.

He had been lounging about in his rooms, warm and cozy, and musing about nothing in particular. His mind was too full of thoughts (all of them intelligent and witty), and his mind flitted between subjects, not lingering on any for any length of time. He felt light and unburdened, thus it would logically follow that he was content. But he was not. His well-deserved serenity was hampered by the fact that he was utterly and absolutely bored.

It had been some years since darling Ciel Phantomhive. Of course, the time spent serving him was interesting enough and the small peeks he got of the changed, but still woefully primitive human mentality was always amusing. And oh, the troubles they could cook up with their petty grudges and beliefs… But finally Angela and Ashe had been defeated, young Ciel had reconciled with his father's death and his soul had been harvested.

End of story.

Thus he was back in the Underworld, bored out of his skull and lamenting the loss of entertainment. With nothing better to do with himself, he was reduced to picking on an imaginary lint on his sleve, letting his thoughts drift from firm grasp. Presumably, at some point his erratic thoughts had slowed down and the shrieks of agony from fields of punishment had lulled him to deeply peaceful sleep.

And now he was awake. Why was he awake?..Ah, yes- the ungodly shriek that was so unlike the tortured screams he was used to, that it pulled him from the pleasant haze of sleep.

Merciful Lucifer, what sort of animal could make such asound?

It sounded like a mad cat about to be butchered, the cries growing louder and more desperate by each second, until the sound was bouncing off the walls of his cave-room and ringing in his skull. Debating whether to get up our not, if only to find out the source of the horrendous noise, he strained his delicately pointed ears for a long moment, until it finally registered that it was not a cat's cry he was listening to but the thundering wail of a human baby.

Ah, well. Nothing worthy of his attention.

Determined to ignore the racket now that he had solved the mystery, he drew in his leathery wings tighter about himself, snuggling into the warmth when the shriek came louder than before, as if the wretched human spawn was demanding his attention.

The enormous swell of energy that came with it that sent him tumbling off his bed and onto the rocky ground of his cave in an undignified heap.

He hissed under his breath and opened ruby eyes, cursing everything above ground but the sound persisted, now accompanied with bursts of energy, steady and rhythmic like a heartbeat, eddying like turbulent waves. He unsteadily rose to his feet (for the even ground was shaking with induced tremors now) and staggered up to a stone basin, chanting forgotten words under his breath. The water inside rippled once, twice, the reflection of his pinched face wavered and distorted in a flash of colors.

A nursery room came into view, plane and unremarkable with its baby blue walls. A neat summoning circle was drawn on the floor and in the middle of it kneeled a woman with hair the color of flames. Her eyes were tightly shut and her hands were clasped as if she was praying to the holly powers of Heaven, although the sigil at her feet was anything but holly. She was intoning something under her breath and although she was trembling badly her voice was strong and sure. Even as he looked on, the whispers reverberated inside his skull and become louder and clearer, until he knew that the woman was weaving the old forgotten magicks of summoning, beseeching for help and protection, albeit in the wrong place as demons were more suited for destroying than defending.

"…I pray thee the power to conceive in my mind and to execute that which I desire to do, the end which I would attain by thy help…."

Absently, the demon noted the source of the annoying wailing; wrapped in a garish maroon blanket, a toddler was screaming his head off, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. He was placed inside the crib in a corner and from between the wooden bars a chubby hand was poking out, reaching towards the chanting woman. Instinctively the mother leaned towards him as if she was going to hug and croon at him, but then she caught herself and righted her spine, picking up the incantation with slightly a falter.

"…truest of magicks that livest and reignest forever and ever. I entreat thee to inspire a Guardian to manifest before me…"

There was a muted thump from below, one that the demon recognized from bloody wars of past as a body hitting the floor. The redhead recognized it too, and her sure voice trembled and concealed a sob. On her finger a lone golden ring glinted in the dyeing sunlight.

"…hear my cry. I summon thee from the other side…"

Now there were footsteps, coming closer, urging her to quicken her pace. Her hurried whispers, were drowned by the toddlers screams, but they were clear as day in the onlookers head.

"…come to me and cross the great divide…"

Dimly, the demon acknowledged, that yes, somehow one of the oldest binding magicks in the universe had chosen him as the one for this task and the redhead's intention was to bind him into a forced contract so that he had no choice but to comply.

"…to protect my blood from his pain and strife…"

The footsteps were close now, ascending the stairs at a leisurely pace, guided by the voice of the little boy. The mother's voice was petering out and there was a desperate pitch to it.

"…a task to do and a soul a payment to thee…"

The demon wondered why was he not intervening- the contract was not yet complete and he could stop it from ever taking place if he were to tug at his magic just so and strike the woman dead where she stood. He need not enter this contract- forced or not, he was still a powerful demon and he could certainly retaliate his say if he so chose.

Maybe it was because he had not had anything remotely of intrest happen to him in years, or the way the redhead's brow furrowed as she started to feel the drain on her magic from the ritual, or the little boy's breath hitching in his throat as the thud-thud-thud of footsteps drew closer, but the demon stood unmoving a second too long-

"…This is my will and so it shall be thyne. So mote it be."

-And it was done. The power that had been building for a while now exploded off her petite form in a great wave that resonated back to him. Her long hair whipped about her face as tendrils of sorcery wound around her like overeager snakes and settled briefly upon her heart before disappearing. The Sigil on the floor started smoking and within a heartbeat it had disappeared as it were never there in the first place.

Weakly, she struggled to stand and stumbled on shaky legs toward the crib, where the toddler sat unmoving and stared at her, mercifully silent, as if he too had understood the significance of what had happened. The mother bent down and gave the child a hug with trembling arms and for a moment looked as if she was going to pick him up but then she swayed slightly on her feet and decided against it. In her arms, the tot gave one last sob that had lodged itself in his throat and fell silent.

Not a moment too soon had she completed the ritual.

The footsteps announced the arrival of the intruder. He strode in, draped in a black robe, looking like a circus monstrosity let loose. His gait was slow and imperious, as if he believed he had already won. His lipless mouth was drawn into a smirk, but his red eyes were guarded and alert. The woman released her boy and slowly turned around and although she was panting from the strain on her magic and soul, her face showed nothing but peace and serenity.

The snake man sneered at her and said something about mercy and commanded the girl to move aside, but she proudly tilted her chin up and planted her legs stronger, standing between the trespasser and her offspring, refusing to even acknowledge the threat verbally. There were no tears and no begging, as she knew that she had sacrificed her soul in the ritual. She was already dead- or would be very soon- and she had ensured with her death that her son would live. She had won and she saw no reason to tarnish her victory with unnecessarily words.

There was nothing but vicious triumph on her face as she peered into enraged red eyes over the green of the Killing curse.

In her last moments Lily Potter was victorious and unyielding.

~…~

Her body hit the ground with a thud.

Even in her death she looked powerful, refusing to crumple like a frail waif, instead lying with her arms spread wide like an eagle about to soar. Her eyes were wide open, trained on the still form of her child, headstrong in her vigil.

She was dead. Her soul had been sacrificed to save another. The Contract was absolute.

The cloaked emissary neatly side-stepped her sprawling body and approached the crib. He scowled down at the toddler, as if it were the reason of all the hardships he had endured throughout his life. Narrow nostrils flared, he spit out something full of venom and low under his breath, that to the demon's ears it sounded as if he were hissing like the snake he vaguely resembled to. But no, soon his brain adjusted to the strangely sibilant way the other spoke and he was able to discern words, then sentences in the disjointed speech.

"..they told me you would be the death of me. You! An insignificant vermin, born of a mudblood and a blood straighter." He raved." Your father fell by my wand, helpless and full of bravado, just like the rest of his pointless life. And your mother? Brightest witch in a decade she was called- and did she do anything for you? No, she even didn't plead for your miserable life"—the demon greatly disagreed; she did do something for her child- she sacrificed her soul to him- but he supposed that the man had no way of knowing that.

"But worry not, poor baby Potter. Soon you will be dead too- killed by the man that orphaned you!" The madman barked a short laugh, equal parts insanity and mirth and raised his wand on the toddler. Deliberately, he aimed it at the child's head and incanted his next- and last- curse.

Green light exploded outward, racing to its target and hit the child with such a force that it toppled backwards. It gave a great tug at the infant's soul (which was how the Killing curse took a life) and just as the soul was about to separate from the body, the magic binding of the Contract snapped in place and tightened their hold upon the demon.

The pressure bore down on the demon in magical waves and forced him to his knees. The chocking hold on his throat tightened and then his own magic, potent and destructive welled up in him and spilled out and away, into the mortal plane, where it swirled and collided with the curse. There was a blinding flash of light as the Killing curse was nullified and the child's soul was pushed back into his body. The remaining energy coalesced in a visible wave of energy backlash and flowed over the snake-man, drowning him in its chaotic currents.

The snake-man's body disintegrated into fine ash and the ashes rose a black specter, shaped vaguely like faces (silently screaming with sweet agony). It did a furious circle in the room, then streaked through the wall and fled into the night. Only then another, much smaller specter emerged from the ashes. It was sluggish and weakened, but it made up for this with its blinding rage.

It screamed and jeered and in one furious leap threw itself against the child, as if to strangle it with transparent limbs but instead of emerging from the other side, it was absorbed into the young one's body, leaving only a lighting shaped scar on the baby as it yelped and started to beat on his head with chubby fists, as if to get rid of the parasite inside of him, waves of his own infantile magic rolling off him until he was too exhausted to do much but to whimper in pain.

~…~

The demon hummed thoughtfully as he looked away from the water basin, absently trailing the shadows on the walls of his cave while his brain worked to connect all the little clues from what he had seen into one logical, if incomplete story.

So.

The humans had possessed magic, so they were wizards. Based on the accent they lived or were originated from England. The snake-man was after the family, so the mother had devised a plan to save her little boy, as it was very probable that she would die, too. The Sigil on the floor was drawn with great precision, but the woman had muttered the contact incantation with slight difficulty that came from doing something new and foreign, so it was a big possibility that the woman had stumbled across the ritual by chance and since the ritual was undoubtedly dark, the devil would wager that nobody else knew about her idea. But that and the precise care that the Sigil was drawn with meant that the woman had some time to prepare, ergo, she had known that their family had been targeted.

And that's when the story got interesting. The man, husband probably, that had stalled his killer long enough for the mother to complete the ritual, but he had fallen quickly. His death was not personal, it was as if the man had stood between the emissary and his true target. But he had also shown that the mother was not the intended victim, as he had asked her to move away from the child and was prepared to spare her life. Thus, the logical conclusion was that the real target was the child. But, why?

His eyes trailed back to the water basin, which was not showing that the child had drained his magic trying to unsuccessfully banish the sprite out of his and was now dosing fitfully. Truthfully, he seemed to be nothing special- he wasn't even old enough to accurately predict how powerful would he be when he grew up, so the mere idea of an accomplished dark wizard feeling threatened by this child was ridiculous. So then, why?

Hmm, it was something worth digging into.

The one who called himself Sebastian Michaelis smiled a dangerous smile and dispelled the water with a neat flick of his wrist. With practiced ease the demon slipped into the shadows, traveling between the planes, his destination England, Godrick's Hallow- he had a young charge to take care of, if he was not much mistaken.

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A/N : So, I have decided to rework the entire thing and move on from there as I reread it and thought it didn't flow as smoothly as I hoped it would and was also a bit too short. I just finished my last A-Level exam, so officially my summer vacation has begun and I will generally have more free time. Sooo, that means longer and hopefully more regular updates for you (hurrah!)

As you see I made it like 3.5 times longer. Yes, the first segment was Seb in his mindscape which is where demons go when they sleep, bc I have a belief that demons can't see dreams. Just to make it clear, this is after season 1 of Kuroshitsuji (I'm in denial that other season exists, cuz the ending of the first one was too perfect). So, pretend that Ciel's soul was eaten and he really died, i.e he did not reincarnate as demon, and no, he won't make an appearance. For that matter very few Kuro. Characters will- only those that I love too much and can't resist.

The summoning ritual is just me Google searching spells and piecing together few parts that I like, and making up few others. So, I also put more about Lily than originaly and I changed how she died, because God, I hated her baing weak and begging to Voldy in her last moments. The two spirits that rose from Vody's ashes were his splingtered soul, one got away (so that one doesn't know about the second one) and the second one made Harry a horcrux.

The Avada K. bit is how I think it works. It doesn't touch the body, just jerks the soul away and separates the two, at least that my theory. The scar appeared after Harry was made into horcrux, as the A.K doesn't leave any physical trace.

Also, when I started the rework the story stood at 11 chapters, the last being the on where the order decides to place spells on the Dursley home. There was a timeskip somewhere in the middle, which was just Harry's toddler years, but I've decided that it was too abrupt so I will also write a couple of (filler) chapters to just show Harry growing up with Seb and their bond, so be on the lookout for that.

Edit: 16/6/16

Disclaimer: I do not own any aspect of this story, except the plot and any o.c I choose to add (which will probably be minimal). Kuroshitsuji and Harry Potter belong to their rightful owners, and this is true for any further installation of this story.