A/N: Okay, I hate this chapter. I do. But it was a necessary evil.

Disclaimer: Nope.

POLL: Okay so I'm a little torn on which way to take this story. One involves mpreg and the other involves adoption. Which would you rather see?

For those of you who don't vote, you don't get to complain at me later for whichever way it turns out. Enjoy!

Chapter Three..."Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you."―John Green,The Fault in Our Stars

The moment that I met Sebastian's new Master, I knew that I was in trouble. Ciel Phantomhive was tiny and spiteful with a penchant for lashing out. It had been only a week since he had been recovered from his kidnappers but already his caretaker was nearly at his wits end. He would not eat, he rejected touch and he could be cruel at times but I saw through his act for what it was.

He was just a frightened child. A scared kid who had taken on a duty that would have grown men quaking. He had seen so much, suffered so much and for what? The greed of older, lesser men. I would have been a fool not to see the parallels between the Phantomhive Head and my younger, human self. It was like looking into a mirror and it sent a chill of fear down my spine to see that the child had made a deal with the same demon who had ensnared and turned me. The whole situation sent my stomach roiling with pique and bile.

Just another child for Sebastian to exploit.

My fury with him grew. Unfortunately, he seemed to always know when he was on my mind. As I sat watching over Ciel from on top of the little Master's wardrobe, my body half in a shadow, half out like some strange disembodied torso, he stepped from the neighboring darkness.

"See something familiar, my little raven?"

Too familiar. One would think that Sebastian had a thing for young boys given his track record with the two of us. After all, I was barely a breath this side of legal and Ciel was even younger still. I had been turned by a pervert, apparently. My thoughts were purposefully broadcasted out loud and Michaelis gave me a withering look. It faded to an expression that was frustrated and discomfited.

"He will not sleep. Human children need rest, correct? And he spurns my attempts to get close to him. Apparently my efforts to make tea have met with dismal failure as well."

If I didn't know better, I would have said that Sebastian was pouting. A snort burst from my chest, filled with disdain. Oh yes. Because it's so hard to pour hot water over leaves. Pathetic. His sly smirk was suddenly taking up my vision and I pushed him irritably out of my personal space. What was with his obsessive need to invade my peaceful moments? Surely if it was just a matter of him wanting to get laid there were other demons perfectly happy to pass the time with him? I wish he would stop forcing his presence on me and seek out someone who actually cared for it.

"You were British once. Show me how to make it so my young master finds it suitable."

His demand only warranted a sneer and I was glad that he didn't phrase the question as an order I would have been forced to obey. That was one thing I could give Michaelis. For one reason or another, he never forced simple, meaningless orders on me. Perhaps he knew that using the contract against me only fostered resentment. In any case, it only meant that when he finally did give an order, it was one that would prick and sting, one that he knew I would never obey on my own, coming here to the Phantomhive estate being a prime example.

"I'm busy." He watched me return to my silent vigil, contemplating my watch over his new master.

"Indeed." Crimson eyes took me in with a solemn interest, "You remember what it is like to be human and to offer comfort in such a circumstance as this. Would you be willing to approach him for such an end?"

"If I said no?" Although we both knew I wouldn't. It wasn't in my nature and the wanker knew it. I couldn't forgive myself if I left the last Phantomhive to Sebastian's care in the terrible state he was in now. The least I could do is help build the boy back up before the demon could use his misery to manipulate him further. Like he did to me.

"I could always order you to do it."

"There is no need. I'll do as you ask, not for you but for the child. Keep your orders to yourself."

"Of course."

~"Serving your enemies is the fastest way to learn to love them."―Will Davis Jr.

I met Ciel for the first time the following day. The boy was still too weak to get out of bed. His imprisonment had left him in a pitiful, sorry state. He was thin and withdrawn and sat staring morosely at the ring in his hand. What a terrible weight he carried now, to take up his father's sword on the behest of the Queen when he was only a child himself. I knew that burden very well. His one blue eye stared out at my approach filled with suspicion and hidden unease. I gave him a kind smile, pushing a tea cart in with some biscuits for us to share. I didn't know if it would work on him but when I had been in school, the best way to make amends and friends was over something delicious to eat. It had certainly worked for Ron.

"I thought you may be in the mood for some tea. I'm sorry, I'm not an employee of yours so calling you 'young master' would seem insincere and a tad ridiculous."

The boy's suspicion reached a new height with the information and he eyeballed the tray with skepticism. He had a right to be suspicious. His demonic butler wouldn't let just anyone no under his thumb waltz into his little master's chambers while he lay undefended. Unfortunately, that analysis was completely true and it burned me up inside that I was just as under Sebastian's iron tight rule as everyone else around here was.

"Sebastian didn't make it, did he?" He asked lightly, his eye seeming to glow in his pale visage. His question had me barking out a laugh at the demon's expense.

"I can assure you that I would not trust anything I planned on ingesting to Michaelis. I made this myself and as a born and raised Brit, I can guarantee that my tea making skills are far superior to his."

He took a cup gently and we both pretended not to see the way his tiny hands shook as he accepted the porcelain calmly. I sipped at my own beverage silently, watching him as I had continued to do since arriving at the manor a few scant days ago. He was such a small thing but there was strength there too. A need for vengeance melded with a fresh, raw grief. Had I been that small once? I certainly knew the taste of grief. It had filled my mouth like bile, devoured and entrapped me. Its anguished flavor had led a demon to my side at its peak. Or perhaps he had been watching me for some time before that, just as I now watched Ciel. The comparison between myself and Sebastian gave me a bitter pause.

"Earl Gray?" His tone held a stiff, surprised approval and I grinned as much as I was able. My face was unused to making such expressions now. How long had it been since I had properly smiled?

"My favorite."

The silence that lapsed between us was a little easier though still tense and uncertain. It stretched on like an endless road, unbroken and uninterrupted save only by the crackle and pop of a candlewick on occasion. At least until...Ciel's voice broke through the quiet like a breath, a ghost with volume no more than a whisper.

"You're like him, aren't you? A demon..."

I scoffed ever so lightly. As if I would ever be anything like that wretched crow. Sebastian used and manipulated people. I did not. His eye looked on me with keen shrewdness. No doubt he would sense a lie or a bend in the truth. Besides, I wanted his trust and trust could only come through honesty.

"Yes. But I wasn't always. I started out human, just like you." Ciel sat up at those strange words and right away, I knew that I had his attention. There was a curious vibrancy in his sapphire eye that hadn't been there before and I was willing to bet all of Gringotts that he loved being told stories once. Before his whole world evaporated and shattered. I crossed my legs on the bedspread and settled in comfortably to tell my tale to the first person in 150 years who cared to want to hear it, "Harry James Potter is my name and I was raised to be a sacrifice, to die for a community that refused to stand up for themselves. They would rather throw a boy into the snake pit to save their own sorry arses. They just never planned on the lamb falling for the snake in the end. There was a war raging at the time and the leader of the opposition was a man by the name of Tom Riddle. When I was all almost two, he came to my home under the veil of night and slaughtered my only family before my very eyes. My mother was murdered trying to protect me."

I paused in my story to take a deep breath and offer the little lord a biscuit and refill of his tea. Ciel accepted without hesitation, bringing a light smile to my face.

"I was sent to relatives who beat and starved me for the next nine years. Unfortunately, the leader of the so called 'good side' was a meddling old man by the name of Albus Dumbledore, a manipulator but a good man despite his faults. He brought me to his boarding school when I turned eleven. After that, it was attack after attack and one terrible situation after another, all orchestrated by the Headmaster in order to mold me into his perfect little chess piece. But what he didn't know was that I resisted him. When I was thirteen, I met Tom Riddle off of the battlefield for the first time. I was lost in the forest and he...he looked lost too, but in a different kind of way. As if he'd realized that something precious had been lost in his life. When he saw me, it was as if he couldn't decide whether to attack or just let me go on my way but we ended up talking instead. We had both been neglected, manipulated and let down. We'd both been raised outside of the community, viewed as the fickle public wished to see us that day. We'd both been alternately adored and despised and somewhere along the way, I had become just as much of a piece of him as he was of me. Over the next few years we kept up this strange correspondence and eventually, it became something more. Something...beautiful." Emotion clogged my throat once I got to the background between Tom and I. For me, the grief was still too near the surface, too raw and in the back of my sense, I could feel Sebastian hovering outside of the door, listening in. I wasn't going to give that bastard the satisfaction of hearing my grief over my lost lover. Not him.

In an uncharacteristic show of strength and compassion that I chalked up to being our similarities in circumstances and the heat of the moment, Ciel laid a comforting hand on my own and I took his in my calm grasp thankfully. My chest felt heavy with the pain of my loss. Suddenly, I hated Sebastian for not even allowing me to grieve properly. He held that away from me with just his presence. How could I mourn the separation from the man I loved when the one responsible was so near all the time? I cleared my throat of the thick feeling inside it quickly, sipping from my cooling tea.

"Anyways, eventually, we met on the battlefield one last time. We loved each other deeply but we were still on separate sides of the war. When we came head to head against one another, he allowed me to win and...he died. But pieces of his soul lived on. My anguish called out to a demon and we made a contract. I sold my soul to save the life of the man I loved. However, that demon did not consume my soul like I thought. He changed it, changed me for his own ends. I became a demon that very night." My voice was as much of a whisper as his had been before. My whole life had been stripped away from me in the course of a single night and nothing could be done for it.

"It was Sebastian, wasn't it?" Ciel's question hit what had gone unsaid right on the mark.

I nodded at him in acknowledgment, collecting our used cups up and tucking the young lord back into bed affectionately. By the time I left Ciel's side that night, things had warmed up between us and he seemed as if a little of the weight had lifted off of his shoulders. To know that there was someone he could trust nearby soothed his soul. I left him sleeping soundly as a babe, slipping soundlessly into the hallway where I knew my tormentor lied in wait. Sebastian was leaning against the wall, the darkness obscuring him from my sight. All but his viridian eyes gleaming out at me. He said nothing, only watched me with this odd fascination that I recognized from when I watched over his new master myself. Curiosity. The peculiar feeling of excitement when something sits up and does the unexpected right before your eyes. I didn't dignify him with any acknowledgment. His eyes followed me all the way back to the room I had claimed, even after I was far from Ciel's suite.

A/N: Please don't forget to put in your two cents on the poll above and let me know what you want to see in this story!