Title: Mephistophilis, My Mephistophilis
Author: Neko-chan
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: T, eventual M
Pairing: Voldemort/Harry Potter
Disclaimer: Not mine—though now I'm the proud owner of a chibi!neko!Tom Riddle courtesy of Moth Gypsy. :D *hearts*
Summary: [AU] Thinkest thou heaven is such a glorious thing? I tell thee, 'tis not half so fair as thou, or any man that breathes on earth.
Author's Note: …the plotbunnies just keep coming. ;_; Title is a reference to The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, written by Christopher Marlowe in 1604 (and which happens to be my favorite play aside from David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly *English major geek*). Before anyone nitpicks at me about the spelling of the demon's name: it varies on work, reference material, author, etc. I like this spelling best, so there~ :P Summary is actually a quote from Mephistophilis. Forewarning, as well: Just as with Cacoethes, this story will be updated irregularly.
I.
It should have been a cut-and-dry case.
Should have, however, being the key words.
The Auror office never assigned any difficult cases to their first-timers, and twenty year-old Harry Potter, just barely out of Auror Academy, was very much a first-timer. This particular case was supposed to have been simple: a raid on one of the pureblood families that the Ministry believed to still practice the Dark Arts despite the ban that had been put on them in 1999. And while some Dark Arts practicings could be overlooked—tradition was tradition and the wizarding world was based upon tradition (or thus the current Auror head enjoyed to spout)—there were still some rituals that could not be dismissed, no matter how thoroughly one attached the concept of "tradition" to them.
Virgin sacrifices—no matter it being pureblood, half-blood, Muggleborn, or Muggle—was something that carried serious repercussions, and Gawain Robards fully intended on nipping things in the bud before they got too carried away. "Tradition" was one thing, a little harmless Dark Arts rituals was one thing: but here, with this, there would be death and suffering, and the needless loss of life.
There was, as well, the worrying thought as to what the sacrifices would be used for.
That concern was one that Robards perhaps came to too belatedly; by the time that that thought crossed his mind, Harry Potter had already been sent out with his mentor and senior partner, and the Auror head decided to give it no more consideration. The Potter boy had, after all, been a prodigy during his Auror training, and the instructors had said nothing but good things regarding him.
There was always the chance that something could go wrong, but…
What were the chances of something like that happening during standard procedure?
The answer to that was simple:
Very likely.
Harry quickly darted through the room, diving for cover as he aimed for the still body of his partner, Adolphus Aberlaxey, and took a moment to press his fingers against the older man's throat to check for a pulse in the way that all new trainees had been taught. Check on your partner because your partner will always be your second set of eyes, brain, and hands: your partner is your lifeline. Keep him or her safe. Too bad that this lifeline had been cut short, however, and Harry cursed resoundedly when no pulse awaited his slightly trembling fingers.
His partner was dead and—here, the young man winced and ducked further behind the upturned table as a Blasting Curse clipped the very edge—the wizards and witches that they had been sent here to arrest were very much not. Dead, that is.
He hadn't even had time to count their numbers before the curses had gone flying, and so Harry didn't have a clue as to how many entities he was currently faced with. When he and Adolphus had first come calling, Harry had felt the Anti-Disapparition Jinx settle over the wards of the old manor house, and that had been the first indication to the young recruit that this case wasn't all that he had been told it was. By then, though, things had progressed too quickly to back away—
And now his partner was dead.
Still cursing angrily, the green-eyed man pushed away the fear that trembled through his veins and quickly popped up over the top of the overturned table to return his own fire, "Avis Oppugno! Confringo! Conjunctivitus! Impedimenta!" And, just as quickly, Harry ducked back down as he listened to the cries of pain and surprise that came as a result of his volley of spells.
"Ignore him!" a voice suddenly roared, cutting through the outcries of fury and pain and shock. "Half of you finish him off. The other half… we have the ritual to complete. You know as well as I the dangers of leaving it undone!"
The spells once more came towards him, some of them shattering the table that he was using as a shield, and Harry cursed himself and Robards and these people as he dove, absently considering if perhaps becoming a bread maker would have been a much better—i.e., safer—occupation instead of an Auror.
"CRUCIO!" one of the witches suddenly bellowed when Harry once more became an open target, and—unfortunately for the Auror—the spell hit true. Harry abruptly fell, curling into a fetal position as he tried, tried so very desperately, to keep himself from screaming at the pain.
He couldn't.
Pained shrieks soon enough filled the air, and the remaining witches and wizards began to crowd close; each tossed in his or her own Crucio, eyes alight with inner darkness and the gleeful reveling in the newly made Auror's agony. Harry found himself writhing upon the floor, attempting to scrabble away from the pointed ends of too many wands: but where was escape possible when one was utterly surrounded?
Tears streamed from his eyes, and Harry could feel his mind buckling beneath the strain—so this is what it must have been like for Neville's parents, he found himself contemplating from a distance—and his breathing alternated between coming fast and ragged, as well as slow and barely perceptible.
Despite the fact that his gaze was fogged with such incredible amounts of bodily torture, Harry could still see the very moment when he realized that he was truly too late to help: the leader, hooded and masked with onyx, brought up the athame before bringing it down to plunge into the breast of a young Muggle girl. Thankfully, she had at least been Confunded and thus was no longer quite aware of her surroundings. There had been no struggle and—Harry hoped—no accompanying torment.
The moment that the tip of the dagger touched the girl's heart, however, the room suffused with a harsh green glow (My eyes. It's the color of my eyes, Harry thought dazedly) before an incredibly harsh explosion rocked the manor's very foundation. Many of the ritual's participants were thrown across the room, and Harry didn't bother to hide the sense of black satisfaction when he heard the telltale snap of breaking bones.
"Serves the damn bastards right…" he gasped out before attempting to push himself up into a sitting position. The attempt failed epically, but Harry consoled himself with the fact that it was the attempt—the thought—that counted most.
"I couldn't agree more," came an amused voice. "However, they were all fully aware of the risks that would happen should they attempt to summon me. And while I don't necessarily believe in karma—occupational hazard, after all—I do find myself more than a bit disappointed in that you managed to survive the blast. I suppose that it was bound to happen, in the end. After centuries of perfect aim, I was sure to miss sometime."
The last was said with a disappointed sigh, and Harry woozily glanced up to see just who it was that had been speaking to him. He blinked then, gobsmacked to find himself staring into a pair of crimson eyes whose pupils were slitted, just like a cat's—or a snake's, Harry corrected himself, when the being smiled at him.
"You're a bloody demon," Harry said, feeling the need to inform the other.
The man-shaped creature just smiled even more at that, revealing a pair of delicately pointed canines. "Astute observation," the demon drawled, conjuring a settee as it settled itself within the summoning circle, his most recent prison. It seemed as if this new master was rather slow, so the demon might as well make itself comfortable in the meantime. "You may call me Voldemort."