Solomon's Purgatory:

Summary: Ciel starts attending Weston College, an old fashioned all-boys boarding school at the whim of his father. On his first night, his roommate is found dying in the snow. It's up to Ciel to decipher the clues and investigate the secret society that appears to be behind the recent mysterious events at the school. CielxSebastian.

Chapter 1:

Ciel exhaled irritably and was even more disheartened to see how visible the vapour was. Not only was he starting school at a snobby all-boys boarding school, it was coldest winter for decades. It had been snowing on and off all day and the school was surrounded by snow several inches deep. The school was also in the middle of nowhere and was hard to get into.

He shot a dark look at his father who was warm and cosy in the car. Ciel had been sent out the car to open the gates so they could then drive another half a mile to actually get to the school. Fortunately, he didn't have to wait long to get in contact with the receptionist who opened the gates remotely. That would be his only stroke of good luck of that day.

He knocked the snow off his shoes before getting back into the car. Pulling out of the school he had been attending before was not his decision. His father had turned up the day before and told him that Weston College had a vacancy for someone his age and he was going to fill it before some other son of an aristocrat got in. It was an understatement to say that Ciel was annoyed with his father.

Weston College had a reputation for being a very strange boarding school that was still in the Victorian era from its buildings to its values. Ciel himself had attended a private school until yesterday that he had no issues with. The original intention had been for him to attend from Weston College from the start; an untimely skiing accident in France during the Christmas holidays five years ago had caused him to miss to admission interviews.

Vincent Phantomhive chose the half mile drive from the front gates to the actual school to impart some fatherly wisdom and advice. Or rather Phantomhive style advice.

"Weston College don't officially allow fagging anymore. They won't say anything if you actually manage to persuade some lower school boy to clean your room for you though."

Being raised on a range of British literature meant that Ciel actually knew what fagging meant. He was glad that it was not a practise anymore although he was going to be one of the older students so it would have benefited him.

"Did you have a fag?" He asked curiously.

He could picture a teenage version of his father ordering a younger boy to polish his shoes very well.

His father smirked in a somewhat vampiric manner.

"Of course I did. Do you remember Diedrich? That's how we met."

Ciel frowned. Diedrich was a rather large German man that did his father's European based unscrupulous business for him and he didn't carry it out happily.

"…It sounds like you made him your fag for life," he replied.

Vincent practically beamed at him before turning back to his usual stern self.

"I did. You should get one as well. They're really useful."

The conversation was put on hold when the actual school came into view. The photos in the school prospectus hadn't quite done the gothic architecture justice. Unlike other schools that had added onto their original buildings with modern architecture, this school was completely Victorian with statues, turrets and a clock tower. The roof, spires and turrets were blanketed with a thick layer of snow.

The grey sky behind it helped give it a dark atmosphere. Ciel felt that the school wouldn't look out of a place in an old horror film.

"It hasn't changed at all," his father said with a tone of satisfaction. "It's probably still arctically cold inside. Old buildings don't lend themselves well to modern heating."

Ciel was suddenly grateful to his mother for packing him two hot water bottles, a thermal vest and three blankets. He had thought she had been going over the top because he was going away. Now he knew why she had gone overboard.

"You're lucky the uniform was updated a few years ago; I had to wear shorts all year," Vincent explained.

Ciel shuddered at the thought of wearing shorts in this weather. He was feeling the cold enough in trousers.

Being a Phantomhive meant that his father ditched him at the entrance of the school and drove off almost immediately after telling him to make some contacts, the shadier the better. Ciel wasn't too sad to see him go and walked into the dark building without looking back to check for the car.

Soon after he was led to see his head of house and the house prefect. He had been placed in the Sapphire Owl house that was more commonly referred to as the blue house due to the colour.

"The blue house prefect, Lawrence Bluewer here will take you on a tour," the head of house said once the introductions were done. "The Easter term starts next week, some of the students are already back here to study for the mock exams."

The change in school had come at an inconvenient time for Ciel as he was in his final year of GCSEs. Weston College used a different exam board so a lot of what he had learnt was now useless.

"Do I have to do the exams?" Ciel asked.

His housemaster levelled him with a surprised look.

"Of course you do. You have a week to study for them, the relevant books have been left in your bedroom."

Another aspect that Ciel hadn't liked about Weston College was the shared rooms. Whilst it could have been a whole dormitory, he still wasn't looking forward to having a roommate.

"I saw your admission test scores, you should be fine," the prefect said encouragingly. "That's why you were placed in this house."

Did that mean he was in the house destined for nerds?

"This is the humanities department," Lawrence pointed. "Across there is the theatre for drama students- they have to write and perform the annual school production. Here is the science department. The numbering system means that you should find all the rooms easily."

Weston College was definitely an old building. Ciel was feeling a chill and he was still wearing his coat. Lawrence on the other hand was dressed in full school uniform and wasn't showing any signs of being cold.

"The staff's bedrooms are on the floor below our bedrooms so they can hear when someone is up late," the prefect continued. "We are coming up to the canteen."

The first thing that hit Ciel about the canteen was the warmth. It also had a slightly more modern interior compared to everywhere else. That meant no wallpaper, lots of white walls and plenty of radiators.

"This is the new canteen so it's actually warm," Lawrence commented cheerily. "The desserts are good as well."

The mention of desserts made Weston College rise slightly higher in his estimation. Having central heating would have done more, but he would take what he could get with this school.

"The area where the old canteen was located is off limits to everyone because it's unsafe," the prefect explained. "Anyone caught gets worse than a detention."

"What's worse than a detention? Suspension?" Ciel asked.

Old fashioned private schools were known to have strange punishments. His school, a more modern private school had made troublemaking students come into school at the weekends for detention.

Lawrence chose to smirk mysteriously instead of answering.

"Try not to find out," he warned. "Anyway, the last stop will be your room. Your roommate arrived back this week. Unfortunately, we have to walk outside to get back to that building, this school needs more modernisation."

With that the prefect turned away and walked quickly out the canteen. Ciel struggled to catch up with him due to his short legs. They stopped outside a door marked 11 – A.

The prefect knocked on the door and pushed it open when there was no answer. Ciel looked around for his new roommate and found the room empty. His suitcase had been placed neatly by his bed by someone else. Both sides of the room were mirrors of each other except his side looked much emptier.

"He must be in the library," Lawrence explained. "If you don't see him before dinner you'll see him at curfew. Curfew is 11pm until the term starts. It's 10pm after that."

The prefect left him after that leaving Ciel alone to unpack and poke around his new bedroom. He placed his clothes in his slightly mouldy smelling wardrobe and placed the blankets on the bed. Judging by the temperature of the room in the afternoon, it was going to be a cold night. He discovered a radiator underneath his desk that was sadly stone cold. Resting on top of his desk was a stack of textbooks from the curriculum and his new school uniform.

With his luggage unpacked and nothing much to do before dinner, Ciel elected to cross to the other side of the room. The door had no lock on so it was going to be easy to get caught having a snoop. It would be helpful to know a few things about his roommate before he met him.

Luckily his new roommate was neat and tidy from the appearance of his desk and bed. There weren't any posters on the wall to indicate a personality as sticking posters on the walls were banned. There were however a few post it notes with mathematical formulae stuck on the side of the wardrobe. Ciel read the name off the exercise book lying in the middle of the desk.

Sebastian Michaelis.

The name wasn't familiar to him. He knew or had heard of titled males around his age. Ciel reminded himself that he could be a scholarship student. He debated having a deeper search through Sebastian's side of the room and decided against it for now.

Instead he started reading through the textbooks that had been left for him. If he was going to ace the mock exams he had to use any chance he got to revise. He next thing he knew it was six in the evening which was when the dinner period started and his roommate still hadn't returned from wherever he was.

Ciel's stomach rumbled and made his mind up for him. He could judge his roommate after dinner that hopefully involved a good dessert. He was about to leave the room when he remembered that all students had to wear school uniform at all times, including dinner.

He pulled on the uniform hastily. The uniform consisted of black trousers, white shirt, black waistcoat, a tie that was black and blue striped to represent his house and a black blazer with a gold name badge pinned to it. Ciel felt a cold chill once he was dressed and immediately put on his coat.

He looked out the window to check the weather as the route to the canteen involved walking outside and frowned when he saw that it was snowing again. He would have to ask Sebastian whenever he turned up about how to not freeze to death at Weston College. He was somewhat disconcerted and relieved by not encountering any other pupils on his route out the dormitory.

Ciel stepped outside with a shiver as the cold wind and snow pummelled his face making it hard to see where he was going. His shoes were also feeling inadequate due to the fact that they were sinking into the deep blanket of snow on the ground. There were a few old fashioned streetlights casting dim light to illuminate the path.

Suddenly he heard a loud thud behind him and he whirled around. At first he was completely confused and then he realised something had fallen down onto the now.

He bent down and saw in the poor light from the streetlight that it was a person in a Weston college uniform. He stood still for a moment in shock and then lurched into action.

Whoever it was had dark black hair covering his face and had a small pool of blood around his head. Ciel checked for a pulse and found a weak one. He could hear faint breaths coming from whoever it was. The student was still alive, probably due to the snow cushioning his fall. He thought about finding someone else to help and knew it would take too long considering the only pupil he had seen was the prefect two hours ago so he dialled 999 and requested an ambulance. As he talked on the phone he looked up at where the student should have fallen from and thought that he could see a figure standing on the roof. He blinked and the figure was gone when he looked again.

As he leaned down to apply pressure to the student's injury he noticed the name badge glint in the light and let out a faint gasp when he read the name.

It appeared that he wasn't going to be sharing a room with Sebastian Michaelis for a while.

A/N: I'm going to assume that most people reading this are going to know what fagging is. In case you don't it's an obsolete practise at British boarding schools that involved younger pupils doing task for older pupils like polishing their shoes.

In light of something that occurred this week I am going to confirm two things: Sebastian will not die and there is not going to be a plot twist involving suicide.