Twist by Hellhound15

Chapter 3

Hermione Granger liked to consider herself fairly smart.

And indeed many people agreed with her.

But this ugly feeling of not quite belonging kept twisting at her insides.

Hermione's classmates avoided her and mocked her behind her back. About her short sightedness and her glasses and her clumsiness. Even though they praised her intelligence, Hermione's teachers never interfered to deal with her isolation.

That was until she saw a young boy sitting alone on a park bench. But he looked content, sometimes politely declining an invitation to join in the games of other children or talking well-manneredly to one of the passing adults.

As she gazed at him, Hermione couldn't help but feel this aching familiarity in her chest. This shivering of her soul, goose bumps rising on her arms.

And when he turned around and looked her straight in the eye, words slipped out of her lips before she could stop them.

"Young Master!"

He smiled.

"Maylene."

That month she was transferred to the same public school as him.

Petunia had always preferred her own son to her nephew, but even she couldn't deny that Harry Potter was in no ways abnormal.

He was a quiet and polite child but not too silent to seem out of the ordinary. He would rather be left alone by himself but he was in not antisocial. In fact, practically all his classmates and neighbours adored him.

And most importantly, strange and unusual things did not occur around him when he felt high levels of emotion unlike her freak of a sister.

Actually, the only thing that was not normal about him was his extreme normalcy and that eye patch he always wore.

So, not having a reason not to, she treated him like she would any other normal child. She stuck him in the smallest bedroom and bought him clothes when they were on sale.

That was, of course, until those letters started arriving.

Ciel despised cats.

No, rather he held a mutual hatred for them. This loathing had not at all been helped by the countless albums of photos that had been shoved unceremoniously in his face by the batty old lady down the street who persisted in doings so without fail every time he was forced to her house.

In fact, had a cat been in his reaching distance now, it most likely would have been disemboweled, strangled by its own entrails and promptly drowned in the closest potion-filled cauldron.

Unfortunately for Ciel, no matter how much he wished, the only cat in arm distance of him was the one cat that he couldn'ttorture mercilessly.

The bloody son of a demon bitch was the reason for practically all of the problems in his life.

Ciel glared down at it, projecting as much abhorrence and detestation as he could with a single eye. Being the little fiend it was, it only grinned, lips curled, rows sharp of teeth glinting and scarlet slitted eyes gleaming with mocking amusement.

He scowled. The bastard was fucking enjoying this.

Reigning in his urge to commit feline homicide and replacing it with a mask of polite concern, he turned to face his sickly look accompaniment.

"Hagrid? Are you okay?" Clearly, by the ill green coloring of Hagrid's face, he most definitely was not, but Ciel could only manage border line civility while keeping the murderous intent out of his voice.

"Eh, tha' ride was really rough. Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I'll come back fer yeh later."

Ciel only half listened to Hagrid's mumbling, his attention on the small black cat as it stretched and yawned before it sauntered into a side street marked as 'Knockturn Alley' and merged into the shadows, disappearing from his sight.

Pasting a well-practiced innocent expression, that was frequently used on his teachers and neighbours, on his face, he turned back to his companion.

"That won't be necessary, Hagrid. I feel guilty enough for having taken up so much of your time and I'm sure you have many more important things to attend to." Ciel said, eying the place where the little package had disappeared into Hagrid's cloak.

"Yeh sure, Harry? Yeh got lots'a things te' buy today."

"Don't worry. I'm quite certain that I can find my way around."

"If yeh sure then..."

Ciel nodded quickly, not wanting to have to waste any more time on reassuring his escort.

"Yeh got all yeh money?"

Ciel patted his pouch of galleons and it made a soft tinkling sound.

Hagrid sent a last worried look his way before lumbering through the crowd in the direction of the Leaky Cauldron.

Without a second glance at Hagrid's towering form, Ciel quickly ducked into the backstreet that the cat had disappeared into.

He was extra careful not to step on any puddles (who knew what kind of germs could have developed there?) or touch the grimy walls or bump into dirt caked tramps as he hurriedly followed the feline ball of fur.

Seriously, couldn't it be more considerate of Ciel's general dislike of filth?

Finally, after dodging after the cat through at least thirty different passageways, it stopped and ducked into a barely visible back alley.

By the time Ciel had followed after it, instead of a cat, there stood a man dressed in a butler's uniform, crimson eyes burning with intensity in the dark lighting.

And on his lapel, resting on his chest was an ornate pin of two eagles facing away from each other separated by a crowned shield.

"Potentia Regere," Ciel whispers and looks up to see those lips curl into a smile. "The right to rule."

"Indeed," said the demon, his voice low with a slight purr to it. "And if I am the Serpent, I will offer you power and knowledge. But knowing what I am and what I want, will you still take a bite from this apple of mine? Are you willing to fall into Sin and forever be locked away from Eden?"

And for a moment they stare at each other. The scarlet of spilt blood against emerald tinted sapphires. But then Ciel smiles and slips off his eye patch, a violet glow emphasising the soft and sharp lines of his face, and it made all the difference.

He wasn't the same person anymore.

"Then I suppose I shall be the sinner."