A/N: Well, well, the newest chapter. A bit of Lucifer's side of the events. I hope you don't find it to dull but this is needed before next chapter the fun can begin. Though I have to warn you that it will be bloody…very bloody…I mean this story is rate M for a reason and that is NOT because of the lemons that will occur later on *devious grin*. However, don't worry if you don't like too gory scenes I will mark them so that you can skip it if you don't like it (not that it is story relevant).

Before the story begins, is it such a sin,
For me to take what's mine, until the end of time
We were more than friends, before the story ends,
And I will take what's mine, create what
God would never design

(A Little Piece of Heaven – Avenged Sevenfold)

Chapter 2: Rise of the Devil

"[…]As you certainly noticed, I'm not an ordinary snake. I…my name is Lucifer."

Sitting in his cage Lucifer could feel it. It was nearly time.

All of the needed seals had already fallen bar one, the last one. It would only take Lilith dying for him to be free. Finally, after millennia of imprisonment, he would be free.

Excitement thrummed through him because he could feel his freedom approach. Only mere minutes stood between him and his freedom. Seconds ticked away and with glee, he felt Lilith his first creation die by the hand of one Sam Winchester his true vessel.

As soon as Lucifer felt the last seal fall, he fled the cage right into the plane of the mortals. At first, he only drifted through the endless sky, savouring the feeling of being free. He shocked a few birds by flying past them, but he couldn't help it, it had been so long since he was last able to spread his wings and do nothing but soar through the sky and over the planet his father created. That was when he passed an aeroplane. Luckily, he was invisible from the mortal's sight, or they would have been dead the second they saw him since he had no vessel at the moment. That, however, reminded him why he had been imprisoned in the first place.

Humanity, the new children in the house he was supposed to love more than his own father. Who disrespected and destroyed the beautiful work of his father. With the return of that memory, his hatred also returned — the hate for humanity. Those hairless apes his father had created.

He knew that he would have to possess one of the easily convinced humans to get close to the Winchesters. So he could convince the younger one to say yes to being his vessel; he was very well aware that this would take some time, blockheaded idiots.

Swooping down to some random city, he nearly crashed into some construct of the humans when he suddenly stumbled mid-flight because he felt a tugging at his very core. After catching himself, he landed on one of the buildings as a precaution, not wanting to crash-land. While he couldn't die just because he crash-landed, it would still hurt nonetheless.

Once he had solid ground beneath him, he began to meditate to see what this tugging was. For the moment, everything was back to normal. He started to think that it was either a one-time occurrence or his stay in hell had had a more profound impact on him than he thought. That was when he suddenly felt another tugging at his core. It wasn't as he first thought, his grace, but far deeper reaching down to his very being, his soul. Opening his eyes with a frown, he looked in the direction he could feel the pulling coming from.

It was pretty clear to him that this was not an attempt to summon him because that would pull at his grace and not his soul. No, this was something else, but he had no idea as to what it was. Was this a trap? If so, who was behind it? Not to mention, how was said person doing it? Right now, he had two options. One, he stayed where he was and went on with his plan of showing his dad what he thought about humanity. Two, he went to the tugging's source and tried to determine what and who was behind it.

Feeling another tugging made the decision for him. He needed to solve this before attempting anything else. Because he knew that should he try to ignore it, it would annoy the hell out of him. Not to mention, distract him more than he was comfortable with. So, he would go to the source, kill whatever idiot was behind it and get back to business.

If only life was that simple.

It took him very little time to reach the island off the European coast known as Great Britain. What made them "great" Lucifer didn't know and didn't care.

Following the tugging that occurred in equal intervals now, he soon found himself flying over a village that made his cage in comparison seem interesting. He had been in it for millennia without anything decent to do, or anything at all as it was.

This little urban dullness, on the other hand, he had to suppress the urge to merely smite the entire place. Why in the name of sanity would anyone here try to summon him, or whatever it was that pulled him here? Swiftly landing on the roof of the house next to the one he could feel the pull coming from, he sat down and began to observe it. If one thing his stay in the cage had taught him, it was patience. He didn't know what the cause of the tugging he was feeling was and he wouldn't rush in and possibly trigger a trap. No, he would observe this house for as long as necessary to find out what was causing it. What were mere days compared to all the time he stayed in hell?

He stayed in this position for the next few days trying to find out the reason behind all this, but the only thing he found out was that it came from a small boy he assumed was eight. Then, continued observation revealed that it was neither a ritual that pulled him here nor the magic the boy had inherited. To his frustration, he drew a complete blank with this.

He learned that the boy was hated by both his family and any other child his age. One evening he was thrown out of the house and had to sleep in the garden, only wearing thin clothes that were much too large for him.

Lucifer watched this with disdain. At that point, he decided to get closer to the boy who pulled at him, well that and the fact that he still had no idea what caused the pull to begin with. However, what surprised him was that he somewhat cared about what happened to the small boy, but why? Perhaps he saw himself in him?

That thought brought Lucifer to an entirely different train of thought. He had always been different from his brothers, he was the one who thought things through and more likely to question orders instead of blindly following them.

Also, there was the fact that he was more inclined to take the sly approach instead of merely rushing headlong into a situation and bulldozing through everything. Which also served to differentiate him from his brothers, there was a reason he was known as the Deceiver.

The only one he had gotten along with was Gabriel, and he had vanished long before he was thrown into the cage.

Ripping himself out of those depressing thoughts, he contemplated what to do next. He always could convince some random human to become his temporary vessel, but that would take the time he didn't want to waste. So, he went back to a neat little trick he had pulled once when Adam and Eve still lived in paradise.

Hopping off the roof, he landed in the back garden and with some concentration, he shifted into the form of a pitch-black snake.

He never bothered with learning how to create a human body for himself because he never thought he would need it. Still, a snake was an entirely different thing – although he was highly constrained while in that form. That might also be because he loved snakes; they were intelligent, patient and relied on tactics to catch their prey.

Slithering through a hole in the hedges, he arrived at the garden of the house the boy lived in.

He waited for an hour when he saw the boy being shoved out of the house and commanded to take care of the garden. Lucifer glared daggers at the woman but unfortunately couldn't do anything. He lay curled up under a bush watching the boy mow the lawn. Once he was done, and the mower was stored away, he saw the boy walk over to the roses to start the weeding.

Lucifer was utterly enthralled by the sight of the boy working, how he tenderly pulled out the weed before covering the patch back up with earth. He did it so carefully as to not damage the roses.

It was a surprise to Lucifer, seeing a human who he always thought could only destroy, caring so gently for one of his father's creations.

Content in just watching the boy weed the rose beds he mused about what that strange pull was that he felt coming from him. Lost in his thoughts, he first didn't realise that the boy had stopped weeding. Instead, he stared directly at him, which should be impossible since he was invisible, or at least he should be. When he looked the boy straight in the eyes though he had the weirdest feeling in his entire life.

It was as if deep inside him, something clicked into place.

The tugging he felt morphed into a soft humming that faded into the background so that it was still there but didn't distract him. Another thing was that he suddenly felt at peace, a feeling he hadn't had for a very long time but looking into those deep emerald eyes…

It was not that he had suddenly turned good because of it, oh no, far from it in fact. Oh, he would gladly show everyone who dared assume that he was good exactly how not good he was, and after he was through with that person…well...Alastair was always glad for new customers.

Luckily, the demon was back in business after that harrowing encounter with the Winchesters and their pet angel. Sure, they thought Sam had killed Alastair, but he had merely exorcised him. As if they could kill him that easily.

Lucifer was ripped out of his musings he had fallen into again when the boy's aunt came out of the house screaming at him for not doing his work.

It was what happened next that surprised him the most though. Once that horrible woman – he would show her what he thought of her in time – was out of hearing range the boy spoke to him, warning him from his aunt. Speaking in the noble language of the serpents nonetheless.

In the next few minutes, he also learned that the boy's name was Harry Potter. His name rang a bell, but for the life of him, Lucifer couldn't quite remember.

That was until they again were interrupted by the boy's…Harry's, aunt who manhandled him and nearly shoved him into the dirt. Lucifer was infuriated by the woman's treatment of Harry but couldn't do anything against it. He also didn't want to ponder why he even cared.

At least he could help the boy out a little, so he pushed a bit of his magic into the ground before him. He let the weeds wither away, and the roses become stronger. Had he known what the results of this small act of kindness would be…he would have thought twice about doing it.

What surprised him, though, were the reasons the boy brought up when he said that humans were only capable of destroying this planet. That made him actually stop and think.

Had someone told him he would not only be thrown off his course, destroying humanity but that he would stop and think about them. He would have called that person insane before skinning him slowly and painfully. But now? Well, now, he didn't know anymore. How was it, that one boy could get him to act so out of character?

It was then that he decided that he would stay around the boy if only to examine what the problem was and why he didn't even want to think about just leaving him in the name of hell. So, it was no wonder that he wrapped around Harry's shoulders when the boy asked him whether he would stay around.

What followed were the most surreal weeks Lucifer had ever lived through. Not only did he have the most entertaining and exciting discussions with Harry while the boy did his chores. But for some reason, he also felt content with the situation. Well, he would be entirely satisfied with it if there weren't those other three horrible human beings residing in the same house.

Them abusing, manhandling, and starving Harry was grating on his nerves. Sure, Harry had confided in him that he wanted to kill them. Still, Lucifer wasn't entirely sure whether he meant what he had said. He didn't want to alienate him by going nuclear on those pathetic excuses of hellhound shit.

However, his hands were forced after what happened once they were back at home on the wobbling mass of fat's birthday.

He observed many beatings Harry received over the last few weeks, and he healed the boy more times than he was content with, but it had never been this bad. As soon as they were back at the house and inside, his uncle beat on him. Once he was back downstairs, also his cousin.

Lucifer knew that he could do nothing.

Oh, how he wished now that he had convinced some random idiot to say yes to him, only so that he could access most of his powers to fry those bastards. But no, it wasn't meant to be. Therefore, he now could do nothing except watch how they beat Harry to near Death before shoving him back into the cupboard.

Quickly following him and assessing the injuries, Lucifer knew that he could do nothing to save Harry in his temporary body. He also knew that he didn't have the time to search for a vessel so that he could heal him.

With no other option left, he made a decision that he never thought he would ever make. He would have to coax Harry into saying yes to becoming his vessel. That was the only option for Harry to live; and for him to be able to fully heal Harry. However, the problem was that he had no idea whether the boy's body would even be able to contain him, especially in his current state. Still, he had to risk it... because otherwise, Harry would surely die.

Pushing enough magic into the boy to wake him up he had to hurry, Harry had mere minutes before it was too late. He saw Harry smile at him when he saw him.

"Harry, you have to listen carefully. You're about to die, and I cannot prevent it…not while I'm a snake, but there is one way I can save you, though you should know something beforehand. As you've certainly noticed, I'm not an ordinary snake. I…my name is Lucifer," he – Lucifer explained but what followed his last statement left him in utter shock.

Harry's smile even under pain widened. "I know…my…fallen angel." he brought out before starting to cough up blood.

That was what brought Lucifer out of his stupor. "We don't have much time. There is only one way I can save you…you have to allow me to take you as my vessel. This is the only way I can heal you," he looked at Harry in fear and trepidation.

He didn't know what he would do should Harry refuse. It was as he said, the only possibility he had because everything else would take too much time, but Lucifer wouldn't…no, he couldn't let him die. He had no idea where this thought came from, but he knew it was true; there was no way he could let Harry die.

"Then…do it." Harry started coughing again before falling unconscious again.

That was all Lucifer needed. He instantly took action as soon as the words fell from Harry's lips giving him permission to take him as his vessel. His snake body vanished. The only sign that showed that something had happened was that Harry's eyes weren't emerald green anymore... when they next opened again but an ice blue.

Throughout this Lucifer let the body glide into a deep slumber. All the while, he kept it alive and healing the damage that had been inflicted by that hopefully soon to be dead son of a bitch and his younger carbon-copy.

It took an entire week before Harry returned to consciousness, finding himself sitting in the garden in the shadow of one of the trees and reading a book about gardening to his utter surprise. The next thing he recognised was that he felt no pain whatsoever, so it seemed that Lucifer was successful.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Lucifer greeted him mentally.

"Okay, that feels weird. How long have I been out of it?" Harry replied, learning that he had no control over his body, even though he didn't really try to regain control because he still felt weak.

"A week," Lucifer replied but couldn't say more because Harry interrupted him.

"A week? What about my chores? Aunt Petunia will surely get angry…" he started to ramble, but quickly was interrupted by Lucifer.

"Harry, calm down, you don't have to do any chores. Do you think I would have done any of them anyways? "Lucifer chuckled.

"What happened?"

"Let's just say I put the fear of the devil into your relatives..." he deadpanned. Harry could feel him smirking before it suddenly hit him.

"Wait, they're still alive?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Why yes, yes they are. I didn't know how you would react should I kill them and I didn't want you to panic either," Lucifer mentally raised an eyebrow. "But don't worry about that for now, you're still weak and should rest."

Harry sleepily agreed before everything went dark again.

The next few days Harry had episodes where he returned to consciousness, but most of the time he still was out of it recuperating from what happened. Lucifer was able to heal the physical injuries. But what Harry had endured mentally he, unfortunately, couldn't cure. So Harry had to do that all on his own.

As more days passed, the longer Harry returned to full consciousness, even if Lucifer still controlled his body. But Harry wasn't overly concerned about it because he was quite glad having some time where he didn't have to do anything but watch. He also had to admit that he found the books Lucifer was reading highly interesting.

All throughout that time, they were left alone by the rest of the family. However, Lucifer didn't even think about leaving them alone.

Vernon and Dudley were out of the house in the morning as fast as humanly possible, Vernon put in overtime to avoid them. At the same time, Dudley went straight to the park after school to escape Lucifer.

On the other hand, Lucifer found diabolical pleasure in suddenly showing up where Dudley was hiding and making him shit himself in front of everyone with his mere presence. It couldn't happen to a better person. Oh, and he threw the wobbling mass of fat out of his bedroom and claimed it for himself. Sure, he had to banish the old bed and instead conjure a new and better one, but it was totally worth it.

On the other hand, Petunia was an entirely different story since she had no plausible excuse to stay out of the house. Visiting a friend all the time also didn't work. Therefore, she was stuck with him, and Lucifer clearly took advantage out of it.

The first thing he asked – read ordered – her to do was to cook something decent for him. Because Harry's body needed the nutrients after years of near starvation. Another thing was that she, for a change, had to do the chores.

At the moment, it was a week after Harry had come back to consciousness for the first time, he once again sat under the tree reading. All the while, Lucifer observed Petunia mowing the lawn…with a nail clipper. He contemplated having her doing it with her mouth, but then she would have something somewhat decent to eat, and that was not something he wanted. Yes, he starved them now.

That was when an old scrawny looking man suddenly appeared in front of him, dressed in a black business suit and holding a cane in his right hand with a skull as a handle. Said hand also was graced by a pure silver ring with a white stone in the middle.

"Lucifer," the man greeted crisply.

"Death," Lucifer replied in a bored voice. "What do you want?"

"I say this once and once only. Get out of him," Death stated flatly.

"Why? What do you care?" Lucifer raised an eyebrow. "What is some random human boy to you of all people?"

"This random boy, as you call him, was marked by me since he was born. Now get out, I don't want you burning him up and killing him eventually," Death growled.

That surprised Lucifer. Usually, Death didn't care about humans as long as it didn't concern his job.

"Interestingly enough, that is not the case. I know Harry isn't my true vessel and that he shouldn't be able to hold me for longer periods, but he can. Don't ask me how or why, but I don't burn him up. Before you complain, I only took him as a vessel to save him. If I hadn't done that he would be long dead and none of your marking him would have changed that," Lucifer deadpanned.

Death seemed to contemplate that statement before he slowly nodded. One of his reapers had alerted him to the boy's condition, but they had to do their job even with someone marked by Death himself.

"True."

The conversation, however, woke up Harry, who took another nap to heal further.

"What is going on here? Who is that man that looks like death warmed over?" he asked aloud with a yawn.

Both Death and Lucifer were shocked about this, although they were shocked for different reasons.

Death mostly because of that entirely accurate assessment of him.

Lucifer because Harry was able to push him aside long enough to make that statement. Usually no human, no matter how strong, should be able to do this, he was an archangel after all.

Pushing his surprise aside, Lucifer answered. "Harry, this is the entity called Death. It seems that he has a problem with me having you as my host," he explained aloud.

"What? Why? I mean, I agreed with it!" Harry exclaimed.

Death stared at him in utter surprise and confusion. Never in his life had he met a living being as complicated as he was, and he knew that Harry Potter was destined to become his master hence why he had marked him since birth.

That was also the reason why the curse that the idiot known as Riddle had thrown at him rebounded.

"I simply cannot allow it. You're destined to become more then you are right now, and that cannot happen if Lucifer is residing within your body," he finally replied.

"Huh, but I don't want Lucifer to leave," Harry moaned.

Fear rose within him. Lucifer had become a good friend over the last few weeks. Sure, he knew who he really was and that he was probably delusional to call him a friend, but that was precisely what Lucifer was to him. Hell, he had even saved his life.

Lucifer, on the other hand, felt the turmoil in Harry and came to a decision. He briefly wondered what was wrong with him, with how far he went to protect the boy.

- Harry, do you trust me?- Lucifer asked mentally not wanting Death to hear this though he wasn't entirely sure whether Death might or might not be able to listen in. Harry replied with a mental nod. -Then please let me handle this. I promise you I won't leave you.-

Harry responded with another nod, this time more fearful, before retreating again.

"Death, it seems that you have a particular interest in Harry. But I also know that you're not able to interact with the world of the living long enough to keep him safe and believe me he won't be, that much became clear for me now.

"I want to make you a proposition. In exchange for me protecting Harry, you create a fitting body for me. I don't want to leave him alone for even one minute to try to convince Winchester to say yes."

It seemed to Death that the surprises of this day wouldn't end just yet. Never would he have ever thought that Lucifer, of all beings, would care for a human enough to propose such a thing.

He was careful, however. The thought that his master was close to Lucifer of all beings didn't sit well with him, because it could mean endless trouble for him.

"And what about your plans to destroy humanity?" he asked incredulously.

"Actually, I found a far more entertaining way to deal with them," Lucifer replied with a devious grin looking over to where Petunia now was staring at them. "Horse-face, stop staring at us and get back to work," he snapped.

Petunia quickly started continuing to mow the lawn not wanting to bring Lucifer's ire down upon her.

Death observing this pinched the bridge of his nose. At least this would keep the death toll at a decent rate, and that was all he really cared about.

"Promise me to keep the death toll on an acceptable level, and you have yourself a deal." he raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"What is an acceptable level for you?" Lucifer sneered.

"No eradication of entire towns/cities, genocides or something else on that scale or bigger. Aside from that, I don't care." Death shrugged.

This was less because he cared for the humans' lives but more because he didn't want the stress of having to take care of so many souls in need of being directed to heaven and hell respectively.

"So, nothing over a thousand in a too short amount of time…" Death nodded in affirmation. "Then I say it's nice doing business with you." Lucifer grinned, holding out his hand to seal it.

Now it was Death, who sported a vindictive grin. He grabbed the hand, pulled Lucifer out of Harry's body before giving him a custom made one that would be able to hold him.

"Ugh, okay, that was unpleasant," Lucifer groaned before jumping forward catching Harry.

He collapsed now that Lucifer didn't command his body anymore, well that he had fallen asleep again.

This slightly rough treatment, however, woke him up again. He looked up and saw a boy around his age. His hair, framing his face and falling down to the shoulder blades, the colour of honey. Then there were also the tell-tale ice blue eyes he knew all too well from when Lucifer was a snake.

"Lucifer?" he asked carefully. "What happened?"

"I made a deal with Death since he was so adamant about me leaving your body. He gave me my own in exchange for me promising to protect you," Lucifer answered with a smile while pulling Harry up. "Everything okay? Can you stand on your own?"

"So, you're not leaving me?" he asked pensively.

Lucifer shook his head when Death suddenly spoke up. "You know I cannot wrap my head around why you care for this boy…" he mused.

"Unfortunately, I cannot give you an answer to this question. The only thing I know is that I'm drawn to Harry and need to protect him," Lucifer replied.

"Wait is this that…bond… I've been feeling ever since I first met you?" Harry questioned.

Both Lucifer and Death instantly whirled around to look at him.

"Bond?" Death asked incredulously before narrowing his eyes. After a long moment, he sighed. "Well, I'll leave you to it now, and remember no mass murder sprees!" he said sternly towards Lucifer.

"Where are you going? Is there a way to contact you if need be?" Lucifer questioned.

"I'm going to have a long talk with Destiny for her…sense of humour," he growled. "Should you need to contact me, use this." With that, he threw Harry his ring who looked at it in confusion. "Circle it three times with your index finger, and I'll come."

With that said, Death vanished, leaving a confused eleven-year-old boy and an even more confused and shocked Lucifer behind.

"Did he really just give you his ring?" Lucifer asked in utter disbelieve.

"Obviously, why?"

"That ring possesses more power than it might seem to hold at first sight. That ring can influence the dead. Ghosts…ghouls…you name it the ring has influence over it. You could raise an army of the dead with it.

"Sure, you couldn't bring the soul back, but you could at least bring back the bodies with how it is at the moment," because what he recognised was that one stone was missing from it.

"Normally, the ring from Death holds two stones, a white and a black one. As I said, the white can raise the dead bodies, and the black one can bring their souls back. So, when combined, the two stones could bring any person you liked back from the dead without having to fear any repercussions."

That was also why you had to pay with your own life and soul when you made a deal with a demon, equivalent exchange was the due because otherwise, Death would throw a fit.

Harry was momentarily shocked speechless "Well it seems like he did…" Harry muttered placing the ring on his left ring finger where it instantly shrunk to his size. "What do we do now?"

Now that he felt well enough again and had his body fully back under his control, he was eager to know what Lucifer planned.

"How about a visit to America?" Lucifer asked with a devious grin. Oh yes, they could give the Winchesters a heart attack.

"Sounds good to me, but first we have something to do here," Harry replied with an equally devious grin. When Lucifer raised an eyebrow in question, he walked over to him and whispered something in his ear. Lucifer's smile broadened even more upon hearing what Harry planned.

Lucifer had to admit that coming here to England might just prove to be the best thing he ever did, Harry was a lot of fun to be around.

A/N: So what has our dear Harry concocted that even the devil himself finds entertainment in it? 'til next chapter!