So...my initial attempt at Azrael Rising hit a bit of a block. In fact, the way this revised chapter turned out (which is mostly identical to the original version for the first two-thirds or so) was how I considered doing it originally, but I had dismissed it at the time, only to realise Harry needed a more favourable impression of the Grigori than Raynare being snide at him.

And WearyCurmudgeon, I actually had that scene in mind, of Harry and Raynare having sex on a cloud, though as I can't write lemons well at all, if this gets done as a full story, we'll just have to open on the morning after, so to speak. Oh, and by the title, do you mean the chapter title or the story title? The story title was actually a reference to the Doctor Who novel Lucifer Rising, though this had nothing to do with the Biblical Lucifer, as the story is set near a massive gas giant called Lucifer.

AZRAEL RISING (REVISED)

CHAPTER 1:

DANGEROUS LIAISONS IN DEVIL'S END

He stared up at the one who killed him in shocked betrayal, and anger. "…Why? Why do this?"

"Why? Because I've always despised you. Even after you Fell, Father favoured you, out of all of us Fallen. Besides, given what you did to Trihexa, I don't think I can let a threat to my existence lie."

He laughed bitterly, despite the pain, despite the gobs of blood that were ejected from his mouth. "…You always were hungry for battle. And yet, you stabbed me and our Father in the back, when we were at our weakest. You may live for battle, but only when you can stand proudly on a pile of corpses afterwards. You are worse than most of the Devils, you absolute scum."

"Scum, am I? And yet, here I am, standing over your dying frame. I'm better than you, rising above you. What do you have to say to that?"

"…Well, as the humans say, scum rises to the top…GURK!"

This last strangled noise came about because a spear, seemingly made from light, had impaled him once more in the chest. "Pathetic. All you have left is your wagging tongue. Prepare for oblivion, Azrael. And know that I sent you there…"

Emerald eyes snapped open, and a brief gasp escaped the lips of their owner. It took him a moment to remember the particulars. Firstly, the where. He was currently in a wizarding tent near the Wiltshire village of Devil's End. The village had gotten its epithet because, according to one legend, King Arthur had slain a demon here, though it had taken on some sinister connotations. It seemed like Devil's End's sinister reputation was, lately, becoming more real, with a rash of disappearances and even gruesome murders lately.

Which was why he was here. Harry had tried to join the ranks of the Aurors, but the blatant nepotism and the mixture of hero-worship and resentment for his reputation repulsed him, and he eventually resigned, mere months into his time in the DMLE. Thankfully, Kingsley Shacklebolt had given him a way to do what he did, without having to deal with the DMLE as often, effectively making Harry a freelance Hit-Wizard. In effect, he would be commissioned to deal with the most dangerous jobs (albeit with his consent) that would involve some exposure of the supernatural.

Devil's End was his latest assignment. Rumour had it that Guy Leopold, a rather unscrupulous businessman who was also apparently a Squib, had founded a cult here, similar to one said to have been founded in the 70s by the supposed Reverend Magister. Said cult was a demon-worshipping one…only, it was more than just some idiots in dark robes sacrificing poultry and thumbing their noses at God. The local Auror had disappeared. Whether she was suborned or killed, they didn't know.

The village had a rather patronising or even suspicious attitude towards outsiders who weren't tourists. Harry had decided to pose as a rambler camping away from the village (the pub and any local B&B was full anyway), using the pseudonym of 'James Black', and be careful about his questions. He doubted many of the villagers were in on this, and the impression he got from their gossip was that most of Leopold's followers were from outside the village. But, concerningly, there was some real evidence of supernatural involvement.

He was going to make a move soon. He got a lucky break last night, and overheard a couple of drunken idiots going on about how something would be happening tonight at the Devil's Hump, an old barrow near the village. However, he got to talking with a fellow tourist, a dark-haired woman who called herself Angela Mercury(1). She was a beautiful young woman, with her eyes being a curious shade of violet. Apparently she was on a business trip mandated by her boss, and was complaining about having to go around the various villages of Wiltshire.

She'd come onto him, but he was somewhat wary of having a one-night stand with someone he'd only just met, beautiful though she was. He'd explained this, and while she seemed a little miffed, she let it go. Besides, he had this odd feeling about her, as if she was more than she seemed.

He'd set the alarm to wake him up before the time that this ceremony would take place, though it seemed he'd pre-empted it. He'd set up his wizarding tent and layered it with a shitload of anti-detection charms and wards. And now, here he was, about to enter the lion's den.

Draping the Invisibility Cloak around himself, he exited the tent, before packing it up as quietly as he could manage. Once that was done, he readied himself to head to the Devil's Hump. Already, he could see furtive figures in robes making their way through the darkness. But as he made to follow them, he heard a noise from a nearby tree. He looked, and saw, perched on a branch, what looked like Angela…except…there were quite a few things different about her.

Like her clothing. When he met, she'd been wearing a jumper and trousers that were clearly meant for warmth, even if they accentuated her figure. But now, she was wearing something that belonged in some weird BDSM shop. Leather and latex barely covered her nipples and groin, she had spiked pauldrons on her shoulders, to say nothing of long gloves and thigh-high boots.

And then, there was the pair of pitch black wings, like a raven's, protruding from her back.

She put a hand to her ear, and a small magic circle faded into existence above it. "I'm in position," she said, her voice husky and sultry. "I've seen little sign of the Strays, but their peons are going in. Seriously, you'd think it was a fucking Hammer Horror film shoot, not a serious cult. Got it. And what of the victims? Okay, got it. I'll deal with them once these pests are dealt with."

With that, she waited until the last of the cultists went in, before she flew over to the barrow. Harry was soon in pursuit, coming to a halt as she landed. "Fuck, I'm not a dustman, Azazel," she muttered to herself. "I'd hunt Strays for fun, but doing this sort of thing sucks the joy out of it. Can't play with my victims with missions like this."

Harry wondered what she meant by this. True, if she was targeting the cultists, that was only a good thing. And yet…something about her cruel and dark expression had her on edge. Plus, that outfit she wore just screamed 'evil dominatrix'. To say nothing of those dark wings.

As he followed her into the barrow, he soon realised that the barrow was leading down deep into the ground. Eventually, they came into a chamber, where he heard the cultists chanting down the bottom of the stairs they had been travelling down. About a dozen cultists were gathered, while there were about half as many people in varying degrees of undress and rather less varying degrees of distress. Gargoyles lined the chamber.

"…So, where's the Strays?" 'Angela' remarked quietly. "…Fuck it, no better way to get their attention…" And with that, she flew down into the chamber.

"It's a Fallen!" yelled one of the cultists.

"Wow, points for stating the obvious. So…where's the two Strays you lot have been sucking up to?"

In a blast of fire, a massive figure appeared. Harry's eyes widened. The figure that appeared was a stereotypical image of a devil, horns, glowing red eyes, gangs, cloven hooves on the feet…and he was glaring down at 'Angela'. "Pitiful little Fallen!" he bellowed. "You come before Azal with such impertinence?!"

"…Wow. You're really going for the whole classical Devil appearance, huh? Even though you were just a Pawn in the service of one of the more pathetic scions of the Bael family. Where's your fellow Pawn? Where's Bok?"

A snarl as one of the gargoyles came to life, firing a blast of flame at 'Angela', who promptly whirled, formed a spear seemingly made from blood-coloured light, and hurled it into the gargoyle. As it screeched in agony, and collapsed, disintegrating, 'Angela' sneered. "I guess that answers that questyaaaaaaAAAAAGGGGHHHH!"

The reason why 'Angela' was screaming was because Azal was pointing at her, what looked like electricity crackling from his fingertips and hitting her. "Foolish Fallen!" Azal roared. "You think your single pair of wings intimidates me?! I could strike down even Azazel himself if I wished!"

Now, Harry wasn't sure what he could do about the situation. Trying to take on that thing seemed like suicide. And yet, he couldn't help it. Despite 'Angela's deception, and her darker attitude, she was also in pain, being attacked by a demonic figure. So, he charged up a Piercing Hex, and aimed it right at Azal's eye. He wasn't expecting said eye to be pulped.

"WHO DARES?!" screamed Azal. He reached out a hand, and Harry was yanked through the air, the Cloak flying off him. Harry was flying forward into what was mostly certain death, because of a rather stupid impulse.

A stupid way to die, he realised. He was flying through the air, yanked towards a demon with some sort of telekinetic power. All because he was trying to help some woman who seemed to have something of Bellatrix Lestrange's sadism, and the dress sense of a stripper with BDSM tendencies. A stupid way to die, for someone who managed to put paid to Voldemort.

His anger welled up within him, and he drowned. Not in an endless haze of red, he realised. Rather, it was azure flames…

Raynare recovered from whatever attack Azal was inflicting on her in time to see Harry Potter flying through the air towards Azal, who looked pissed, and quite literally one-eyed in his desire to kill Harry Potter. Now, Raynare didn't really give a crap about humans, and Azal's attack was painful at worst. It'd leave her sore, but that was it. Once Azal finished ripping off Emperor Palpatine, she'd fill him full of enough Light Spears to make him look like the offspring of a goat and a glow-in-the-dark hedgehog. But Harry Potter (and how cute it was that he thought a puny illusion charm and a fake name would fool anyone but the inbred magic users that infested the Earth) had gone to the trouble of attacking Azal. Foolish, yes, but Raynare did have a small and atrophied sense of appreciation, and he had demonstrated that chivalry was only mostly dead.

However, by the time she reacted, by the time she could turn Azal into a pincushion, it'd be too late. Azal could probably squish Harry into the consistency and appearance of raspberry jam before she could do anything. As much as she loathed to admit it, Raynare's power wasn't as great as it could be. Killing Azal would be easy. Preventing him from killing Harry was another matter entirely.

But even as time seemed to slow down, Raynare thought she heard Harry speaking, or rather, roaring…in Enochian, of all languages! He seemed to right himself in mid-air, blue flames sprouting from his back…like six pairs of wings. His emerald eyes became burning sapphires. A chipped, massive sword formed itself in his hands.

"THE EVENING BELL HAS TOLLED FOR YOU!"

Raynare didn't see the slash. All she saw was that the sword seemed to change positions. Azal caught him in his hand as the flames and sword dissipated, and sneered at a now unconscious Harry. "Pathetic."

That was the last coherent word he ever spoke.

Suddenly, a cut opened itself up in Azal's body, and he began screaming in agony as azure flames burst from it, and began to consume him. The flames consumed him quite slowly, despite the fact that Raynare got the feeling that they could destroy anything they touched almost instantly. It was as if the flames wanted him to suffer. It took the best part of a minute for him to die.

Raynare catching Harry's body as it fell and laying it down on the ground gently was almost an afterthought.

As the cultists and their victims stared at her in shock, she rolled her eyes. While she wanted to kill the cultists, if Harry Potter of all people was investigating, then that meant this had gotten the DMLE's attention. Which meant a potential clusterfuck. They could probably weather the fallout if they just wiped these fuckers out, but better to not take chances for now. She waved a hand, casting a wide-ranging sleeping spell on the chamber, and as they fell asleep. She then activated a comms circle, and heard Mittelt, who was manning the communications systems at Grigori HQ for now. "Okay, what's gotten your latex knickers in a twist, Raynare?"

"Ram it, washboard. A complication has arisen. Harry Potter was here for the cultists after all. Long story short, the two Strays are dead, and I've got a bunch of unconscious humans needing a clean-up crew for debriefing or interrogation, depending. And the thing is…Potter was the one who killed Azal. He tapped into some sort of power, but…look, I need someone on Lord Azazel's team who's capable of analysing humans for Sacred Gears. I'm not sensing any, but…"

"Right, got it. Though this wouldn't be yet another attempt for you to try and get Lord Azazel to notice you, right? I mean, given all the putting out you do…"

"Mittelt, this is serious. I just saw the Boy Who Fucking Lived use a power he has never been known to use before. Azal may have been a weakling, relatively speaking, but he could curbstomp a wizard who wasn't prepared for Devils. The way I see it, Potter has a Sacred Gear, or else is not human, not wholly."

"…Okay, I'll get a clean-up crew scrambled to Devil's End now. Bring Potter back, okay?"

Raynare nodded, and then summoned a portal back to Grigori HQ. She then flew up into it. She didn't know it, but this simple action, even if it was born from pragmatism than kindness, would have wide-reaching consequences…

CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:

So, this chapter probably could have been called When Harry Met Raynare. But the one I did choose is good too, right?

Doctor Who fans will notice that this chapter is pretty much a homage to the classic Jon Pertwee story The Daemons. The location of Devil's End (which was filmed in the Wiltshire village of Aldbourne) and the Devil's Hump, the characters Reverend Magister, Azal and Bok, all come from that story (though Magister was the Master in disguise, Azal wasn't a devil but a powerful alien species that looked like them, and Bok was a psychokinetically-animated gargoyle). Even the head cultist, Guy Leopold, is taken from the name of the 'author' of the story, which was actually a pseudonym for Robert Sloman and then-producer Barry Letts, the writers of that story. It's easily one of the best Jon Pertwee stories, and if you're a Doctor Who fan who hasn't watched it, fix that.

A shame I didn't manage to slip in a reference to local white witch Miss Hawthorne. Oh well.

1. Raynare's chosen alias was meant to be an oblique one to her alias as Yuuma Amano, which means 'Heaven's Evening Daze' in Japanese. Mercury is the Evening Star in some traditions, thus fulfilling the evening part, and Angela should be obvious.