Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series. I also do not own the songs used for my titles. I only own the Salesmen, and what strings are attached to them.

Summary: In Hogwarts, written on the boy's bathroom wall on the sixth floor was an irremovable piece of graffiti. It appeared in the spring of 1991 and its black, spidery letters won't ever fade. It's message: We are Salazar's Salesmen. We will cater to your every need. No matter how unseemly they may be. But all for a fee. Welcome to the underbelly of Hogwarts, where the Salesmen are untouchable, or so they think.

A/N: This fic will take place between CoS and PoA. It will center on one particular Salesman, who is in Slytherin, therefore the canon Slytherins will play a huge part of this fic. I'm writing this fic because I love Slytherin! I wish the wonderful JK Rowling could have developed further characters like Theodore Nott and she could have used Mafalda Weasley (search her on HP wiki) But alas, some times for the sake of the story, some things have to be cut. And she left plenty of gems in the series to inspire this fic for me :D So I hope you will enjoy it too!

Sympathy for the Devil

The day was May 2 1998. A chill settled over us as Hagrid brought Harry Potter's limp body into view across the clearing. Voldemort passed in front of him, and spoke, his voice magnified;

"Harry Potter is dead… The battle is won. You have lost half of your fighters. My Death Eaters outnumber you and the Boy Who Lived is finished… Kneel before me, and you shall be spared…"

I was beginning to feel light-headed, both from the bleeding wound in my side and the turn of events. This was never supposed to be where I ended up. I was a Salesman! This wasn't my style. When did everything start to change?

XXX

I, H. Macavoy, hereby swear under threat of immense bodily pain, never to reveal the conditions or proceedings of my 23 May 1992 transaction with Salazar's Salesmen (the Salesmen). I will not speak of this transaction with anybody, human or beast, not my friends, family, acquaintances or medical advisor. When interrogated by an authority figure of any kind, I will not say any name or describe any characteristics that could lead to the exposure of the Salesmen. I will not state any locations relevant to my experience with the Salesmen. If I am caught with my order of 1/3 litre of Scintillation Solution at the price of 12 Galleons, I will accept the consequences alone. If I try to breach this contract, I will be physically interrupted by magical interference for every attempt. In return the Salesmen will maintain an equal level of confidentiality. These terms extend to 1st June 2017.

X… Heidi Macavoy…..House: Hufflepuff… Date: 23-5-92…

XXX

There was an abandoned outhouse several yards outside of Hogsmeade village. It was slightly crooked. It was old, perhaps as old as the village itself. It was quite remarkable that this outhouse made of wood still stood. Remarkable still was that this outhouse was actually being put to use.

Inside the outhouse were five boys. They were all in their second year at Hogwarts. They were all housed in Slytherin. They were waiting for another friend, also a second year Slytherin boy. Together they were Salazar's Salesmen.

Standing on the wooden toiletseat, one boy peeked out the crescent-moon window. The window faced east, and he squinted his eyes against the rays of the dawning sun. The boy whined, "Where is he? I want to have breakfast."

Another boy sat on the toilet seat by the lookout's feet. At his friend's compliment he pulled out a silver pocket watch to check the time. "Relax, we nearly have an hour."

"I reckon he's rolling around with Madam Rosmerta," a light-blonde boy smiled sheepishly. He stood by the latched door. Another boy with stringy, dirty-blonde hair and dark eyebrows sat on the floor. He was rummaging around in a hatbox.

"Bloody hell, how'd we get so many leeches?" asked the boy with the hatbox. He pulled out his hand. Leeches covered his clenched fist. The boy with the silver pocket watch took out his wand.

"Incendio!" A thin flame jumped from the tip of his wand onto the leeches. They shriveled up and dropped off of his friend's hand.

"Thanks." He shook his hand a bit before reaching back into the box. From the sound of it, the box was a bottomless, cavernous well. Every movement echoed for miles, or so it sounded. The dirty-blonde boy pulled out a handful of something else. "All the lacewing flies are dead. Everything else we can keep stored for next year."

"Good. Dung might try upping his prizes again next year," said the boy with the silver watch. "Not that it really hurt us. Each of us gets away with seventy-three Galleons and fifteen sickles."

"That's only counting the spring right?" asked the boy acting as lookout.

"Do you really think we'd get excited over seventy-three, fifteen for an entire year?" scoffed the boy standing.

"That's a figure only a Weasley could celebrate," sneered the boy with the silver watch.

"Next year we should aim for eighty-five each," said the boy with the hatbox. He used a Scouring Charm to clean his hands.

"All he has to do is tell him what papers need to be written for what student over the summer. He's taking all day," the boy at the window groaned. His mood lifted at once. "Finally! He's coming!"

The light-blonde boy unlatched the door. The hatbox was shut, locked and hidden underneath an empty potato sack that belonged to the outhouse.

The fifth boy entered the outhouse. The boy with the silver watch stood up and lifted the toilet lid. The boys lined up at the toilet. The boy with the silver watch stepped one foot into the toilet, then the next. Slowly he climbed down into the toilet, disappearing into it. His friends followed in an orderly fashion.

X

In Hogwarts, written on the boy's bathroom wall on the sixth floor was an irremovable piece of graffiti. It appeared in the spring of 1991 and its black, spidery letters won't ever fade. It's message:

We are Salazar's Salesmen
We will cater to your every need. No matter how unseemly they may be. But all for a fee.

While the Weasley twins were a force of light-hearted anarchy in Hogwarts, Salazar's Salesmen made up a highly ambitious criminal group. They ran the unofficial underworld of Hogwarts. They smuggled contraband into the school and sold it to desperate students. When they started off in November 1990 only those in Slytherin knew about their services. But now, in the spring of '92, the Salesmen had everything for everybody's dark desires. They could get you an assortment of potions, low-level cursed objects, Dungbombs, Firewhiskey, they even had your class papers written for you…

Gone were the days when the Salesmen took orders and delivered face-to-face. If you wanted their service, you sent an owl to Sal's Guys. The Salesmen will then contact you with an order sheet and contracts for you to sign. They always sent two contracts. One was for payment and the other was for an oath of silence. If you failed to sign either, they refused your business.

It was the last day of school. After three days, Harry Potter was apparently no longer unconscious in the hospital wing. There had been major reconstruction on the third floor. It was open to students again. Oh, and they no longer had a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Quirrell had died. More specifically he had been killed, murdered. Everyone knew Harry Potter was connected. At the end of the year feast, there was an excitement amongst the students...

X

The boy with the silver watch sat at the Slytherin table. His name was Corvus Blackstone. Corvus was a skinny boy with thick, wavy dark hair and grey eyes. His mother always noted that he had his father's eyes. They were grey with specks of green. His father died when he was thirteen months old. Corvus' eyes were currently looking across the Great Hall, at Harry Potter.

"He didn't kill Quirrell," he said. His lip was curled in distain. "No one's born powerful. You have to obtain the skills yourself, and Potter's too dopey to grasp any real power on his own. He's just a famous baby who's grown up."

"But how did he kill You-Know-Who?" asked Jeremy Petzold. He had been the boy acting as lookout in the outhouse. He was a lanky boy with brown hair that fell lifelessly on top of his head. It looked like a bowl on top of his long head. He was leaning across the table whispering, even though Potter was well out of hearing-range. "They say You-Know-Who felt threatened by him. Real Dark Wizards can recognize each other, I reckon."

"Pretzel's going to wet himself over this," drawled Anwar Rajan. He had been the fifth boy the others waited for. Out of them all he was the shortest and stockiest. He had dark eyes and jet-black hair that stood up as if electrified.

"Yeah, I don't want to hear about your Dark Wizard boyfriends, Pretzel," snapped Louis Vaisey. He was the boy who unlatched the door. The most handsome of them, Louis' great-grandmother had been a Veela. He had light, feathery blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes.

"They're not- shut up! This is serious, a few years ago you wouldn't dare dismiss You-Know-Who like that."

"Louis and Anwar are just dismissing you, Jeremy," Maxwell Love pointed out casually. He had cleaned out the hatbox. He had dirty-blonde hair and dark eyebrows hooding azure eyes. Max had a vaguely Americanized accent.

Jeremy frowned and crossed his arms in silent, bitter protest. Corvus and the others snickered.

Corvus picked up a black sketchbook that lay by his plate. Other students were still filing into the Great Hall for the feast. He turned to the last page in the book. The entire book was filled with his drawings and sketches. The last picture he had been working on was of the Whomping Willow.

"Wow, that's really pretty," complimented someone behind him. He turned slightly to find Marietta Edgecombe with Cho Chang. "You're really good, Blackstone," blushed Marietta.

Corvus smirked arrogantly. "Thanks, it didn't take very long. I never spend much time revising my drawings, they're good enough after the first sitting I find."

"Come on, Mari, lets get out of here before his head explodes," warned Cho. She nudged her friend forward to the Ravenclaw table. She cheerfully waved at Max as she left. He gave a half-smirk in reply.

Professor Dumbledore rose at the faculty table and called for attention. It was time to hear the end of the year speech. Corvus sighed, figuring he better pretend to give a damn about what the old bat had to say…

X

Out of the five of them, Corvus was the only one who could see the Thestrals that pulled the carriages. The death he witnessed belongs to another story, one that will be told shortly. The Salesmen got off their carriage and walked the brief path to the train.

Up ahead, Corvus spotted Neville Longbottom chasing after his pet toad. The toad was trying to make a break for it. It jumped into a pile of garbage lying outside the platform. Corvus would've liked Slytherin to win the House Cup. This year would have been their seventh year in a row. But then Potter and his tagalongs ruined it. The Headmaster purposely waited for the last minute to give Gryffindor its points, so Slytherin would have no chance to get ahead again. It was quite shocking to witness such favoritism. And it was very irritating.

Corvus had an idea. Like any group of schoolboys, the Salesmen enjoyed partaking in a little roughhousing. Some might call it bullying. But the Salesmen learned that they had to be careful whom they picked on. They could only single out someone unconnected, unpopular, and unattractive, a loser, a joke, and a waste of space… Neville Longbottom fitted those criteria.

Corvus motioned for his friends to pause and observe Longbottom. He was bending over, rummaging through trash with his round butt shamelessly waging in the air, looking like a real fool. Corvus's eye glinted dangerously. "Shall we test how brave Longbottom is?"

"Dumbledore thinks it note worthy," said Max.

"Exactly," agreed Louis with a cruel smile. "We need to see what the fuss is all about."

"Five Galleons I'll make him cry first," wagered Anwar. They started to deviate from the pathway to the platform, and stalked towards Longbottom.

"That fat idiot cost us the House Cup," Jeremy seethed. Corvus got his wand out first, twirling it between his fingers. He was a bit trigger-happy when it came to his wand.

"Hello, Longbottom."

A/N Next chapter will include Malfoy, Crabbe and I hope this intro wasn't too confusing, the next one is slower, with more details and what not.

Please don't be to sickened by Corvus and his friends, they're just getting caught up in their own image... :(