As mentioned before, many of my fanfic ideas that I abandon fall under the 'it was a good idea at the time' banner. Because I was astonished at the success of my first Harry Potter and Highschool DxD crossover, Fall to Zenith, I immediately wanted to do another such crossover. While it started well, I thought, the truth was, many of the reviewers pointed out that I wasn't doing much new, and while I was depressed, I also knew they were right. One day, I will write another Harry Potter/Highschool DxD crossover, and not just the pending sequel to Fall to Zenith. I think Highschool DxD is a rich series for deconstruction and reconstruction.

So, for archive purposes, I present the two posted chapters of Sympathy for the Devil.


SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

CHAPTER 1:

RIAS

Harry Potter woke up reluctantly. Not just reluctantly, but with a fog over his most recent memories, along with his mind. He wanted said fog to remain: something told him that amnesia was preferable to recollection. Sadly, memory is a treacherous and fickle bitch, not being there when we need it, and being there when we don't.

Soon, like water filling a glass, memory came back to him. The joyful memories of the past year. His friends and Dumbledore keeping him in the dark. The smear campaign in The Daily Prophet. The Dementors and the hearing. Umbridge. Snape and his so-called 'lessons' in Occlumency. The visions from Voldemort's mind, culminating in one with Sirius being captured, or so he thought. The running battle in the Department of Mysteries, all for a prophecy.

Then, Sirius hit by a curse courtesy of his cousin, the insane Bellatrix Lestrange. His staggering towards an archway. Harry rushing to save him, only to get pulled in with him. A moment of oblivion. Then, they were falling, falling through a purple sky. The ground rushing up like some terminal cream pie in the hand of some massive, malicious clown. The realisation he was about to hit a swimming pool. Then, splashdown, like hitting a concrete floor. Pulled from the water, feeling if every bone was broken, by a rather buxom girl with red hair and a skimpy bikini. His last sight, before everything seemed to go dark forever, was of said girl standing over him, giving him a marvellous view of her breasts, as well as of the look of concern on her beautiful face.

Then, in the depths of oblivion, he seemed to hear a tenebrous voice.

"Harry Potter. RISE."

Leading to, it seemed, this. It took him a while to go from cataloguing his recollections to analysing sensations. And as he did so, he came to a number of conclusions, a couple of them rather alarming.

1. He was in bed. Not an unreasonable state of affairs considering he had just been unconscious. But then, you came to the other points, like…

2. He was naked. He NEVER slept naked. The Dursleys would have beaten him black and blue (not that they didn't anyway) if he had at 4 Privet Drive, while sharing a dorm room with others also would have put a stop to such activities, even if he wanted to. Which he didn't. Concerning though that was, it was compounded by…

3. Someone else was sharing his bed with him, someone who was also naked, and, judging by the feeling of two fleshy orbs on his upper back, was of the female persuasion to boot. Said someone had him in a gentle embrace. That was one of the few things preventing him from panicking, if only to avoid waking his captor.

4. The bedroom he was in was somewhat odd. It was plastered with posters of various Japanese franchises, manga and anime of many kinds. Figurines, books, and DVDs were everywhere, albeit organised. And yet, the furnishings were of dark wood and ornately-carved. It had the feel of a bedroom in a mansion, albeit with…what did they call it? An otaku vibe to it.

Deciding that he needed to extricate himself from his current situation before anything further could happen (as compromising as the situation was, he was sure he hadn't lost his virginity to his bedmate, unless she had been nasty enough to do it while he slept, or else used a Memory Charm), he slid out of his bedmate's embrace, and stood up, as calmly as he could.

As he looked around, he heard a gentle chuckle behind him. "Oh, my companion has left the bed," came a voice that was mostly aristocratic, though there was a slight sultry purr to it.

Harry turned to face her. This time, he had a clear view of the girl he had seen in glimpses. Too clear. As he had feared, she didn't have a single stitch on as she sat up, the action doing distracting things to her breasts. Her buxom body was something many a woman would envy having, even if she was about his age. Green-blue eyes twinkled at him in amusement. Her beautiful, aristocratic features were framed by long locks of blood-red hair, hair that reached down to her waist, though it did little to cover her breasts or groin.

Harry stammered, blushing furiously, and feeling aroused, despite himself. Given that his dorm-mates had smuggled in adult magazines on occasion, he wasn't unware of what a nude girl looked like. But it was still embarrassing, all the same. "Umm, we didn't…you didn't…"

"If you think we slept together, we did, but only in the most literal sense of the term," the girl said with a reassuring smile and laughter in her voice. Her accent was very posh, very RP(1). "We didn't have sex. I'm still a virgin, and I'm pretty sure you are too. As for why we are naked, well, I like sleeping like this, to be sure, but you still had plenty of injuries after I saved your life, and my healing magic works best with skin-to-skin contact. Falling from a great height does do a number on you. I'm astonished you didn't die on impact, even when you hit our pool. You and Mr Black." On seeing his astonished look, the girl smiled. "Oh yes, I know who you two are. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, and Sirius Black, the most wanted man in Magical Britain, the supposed traitor to your parents."

"And you are?" Harry asked, trying to keep his mind off her body.

"Rias Gremory. Heir to the House of Gremory."

"That's not a magical family I've ever heard of," Harry said.

"Well, that may be because we're not a wizarding family," Rias said, getting off the bed, and walking over to some clothes on a chair, donning some underwear. "Sorry. Amusing though it is to see you flounder around trying not to look at my body, I know it's making you uncomfortable. I think it's better that we both get dressed before I explain further." She indicated another chair, where some clothes for him were folded up.

Harry did so quickly. Soon, they were both dressed, and Rias indicated for him to sit down in one of the chairs. After he had sat down, Rias, her face becoming more solemn, said, "There's no easy way to tell you this, Harry. You died. Somehow, you ended up crashlanding in the Gremory Mansion's pool, and it was a miracle you were still alive when I dragged you and Sirius Black out. But you died. So too did Sirius. And as astonished as I was to have a couple of celebrities gatecrash a private pool-party I was having for my Peerage, I knew I had to act quickly. I mean, you wanted to live, didn't you?"

Harry nodded, though he got a bad feeling about where Rias was going with this. "…What did you do?"

"I revived you. However, the only way I could do so was by making you my servant. You see, my people can change humans and other entities into our servants, including the freshly deceased. This is going to be a pretty big shock, Harry, so steel yourself." After she gave him a moment to digest the information she had divulged, and to ready himself, she said, "I am a Devil. And as of now, so are you."

Harry's initial response was to stare at her in sheer disbelief. Emotions warred deep within him. Anger. Astonishment. Confusion. Disbelief. Fear. Loathing. But all of those cancelled out, so that all that came from his lips was a rather flat 'huh'. Then, another thought, perhaps a fatuous and also rather bleak one, occurred to him. "The Dursleys always called me a freak. Guess they're right now."

Rias gently reached over and patted his hand consolingly. "Harry, you're not a freak. You're a boy who's gone through a lot of shit in his life. Especially over the past year or so, if The Daily Prophet's little smear campaign is anything to go by." On seeing his look, Rias nodded. "My family gets a subscription. It gets delivered through Gringotts, as they have permanent contact with the Underworld. You have to sift through a lot of garbage to get to the truth. I found myself wincing a lot at Rita Skeeter's yellow journalism during that Tri-Wizard Tournament mess. Anyway, I know that imbecile Fudge has it out for you and Dumbledore. And I know that Voldemort's still alive. More importantly, I know how."

Harry looked at her for a moment, before saying, "As much as I'd like to know how, what do you mean, I'm your servant?"

"Officially, exactly that. You are part of what is known as my Peerage, an entourage of servants who are under my command, and will fight alongside me if need be. But my Peerage are not like House Elves, if that's what's worrying you. Too many Devils treat their Peerages as House Elves, or worse, as harems of sex-slaves, but I can assure you, I don't. I consider my Peerage to be my friends and family. We'll meet them later. I won't ask you ever to do anything I wouldn't do myself, you have my solemn vow on that." Rias then changed the subject. "Anyway, back to Voldemort. Did you know you had a fragment of his soul in your scar?"

Harry blinked. "No. But…that does explain a lot." Like being able to see through his eyes on occasion, or being a Parselmouth.

"Hmm. Well, Voldemort has been very naughty, to say the least. He has made deals with us before, including my own brother, for power. Now, you'll be surprised to learn that the majority of deals between Devils and humans don't involve souls, but rather, money and valuables, and favours. That being said, Voldemort went the full kit and kaboodle. He sold his soul to my brother, one of the Four Great Satans, the rulers of the Devils. The thing is, Voldemort, being a thanatophobic sort, meaning he fears death, made himself immortal so, amongst other things, he could renege on the deal. A Horcrux is a particularly vile way of going about it. You basically undergo a pretty nasty ritual, murder someone, which splits your soul, and you take one of the fragments of your soul and bung it in a container. Ever read about Koschei the Deathless?" Harry shook his head. "Well, he's thought to be a Horcrux user. Now, Voldemort thought he'd be clever, and make multiple Horcruxes."

"…How do you know this?"

"The fragment of Voldemort's soul in your scar was pretty small, frankly. Judging by the size, he's made, besides you, at least five, not counting you or his original soul. He could have made more since. Now, I said Voldemort thought himself clever in making multiple Horcruxes. In truth, it's a very dangerous and stupid thing to do. Besides destroying your psyche and making your body look hideous, it also renders your soul fragile and unstable. I guess he intended to make a Horcrux with your death back when you were a baby, but when the Killing Curse rebounded off you, his soul broke again, and part of it latched onto you like a leech. When I began changing you into my servant, the Horcrux emerged. Thankfully, I trapped it before it dispersed. My brother was delighted when I sent the Horcrux to him. With a fragment of Voldemort's soul in his possession, he can use a special ritual to drag the rest of Voldemort to the Underworld."

"Just like that?"

"Well, the ritual is somewhat complicated, but it'll work. He wasn't the first idiot to try multiple Horcruxes, though the wizards won't remember some of them. Like Ekrizdiz, the ruler of Azkaban centuries ago, before it was turned into a prison island(2)." Rias chuckled. "Apparently my father had some fun with that foul man."

"Huh. So…Voldemort will be dead?"

"After a protracted period. He'll be in the Underworld, though, and unable to hurt anyone. Whether he'll be hurt is another matter."

"…And Hogwarts?"

"Well, I don't know whether you can go back. There'll be wards able to tell if a Devil came through them, and if you're exposed as a Devil, then you'll be in danger from Angels, Fallen Angels, and Exorcists."

Harry remembered something, and then scowled. "And a lot of people must've seen me and Sirius fall through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. They'd think us both dead."

"Then there's another good reason to keep away from Hogwarts. I'm not saying you should keep your friends in the dark, but announcing it to Magical Britain will get people talking. And that'll attract attention you don't need. And knowing you, you've already had more than your fair share of unwanted attention." Rias put a hand on his own, in a gesture that was meant to be reassuring. "Harry, I'm sorry to have put you in this position, I really am. But it was either reincarnate you as my servant, or you die."

Harry wasn't sure what to say with that. He felt his anger stirring again, but before he could say anything, an embarrassing growl emitted from his stomach.

Rias chuckled. "Well, I think we'll need to save this conversation for a different time. Come on, we'll have breakfast…"

CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:

As with Fall to Zenith, this basically shifts canon forward by a decade. So this chapter takes place in 2006, rather than 1996 (as the canon version of the ending chapters of The Order of the Phoenix did).

1. As with Fall to Zenith, I imagine Rias speaking with a posh British accent, hence RP (or Received Pronunciation, aka the Queen's English). She still uses slang and the like.

2. Ekrizdiz, while not mentioned in the novels, was discussed by Rowling for Pottermore. Although the Harry Potter Wiki indicates that Voldemort was the first known wizard to try multiple Horcruxes, I decided that he wasn't the first.