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antihero-writings · 3 years

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His Butler, and the Problem with Magic (Ch2)

Fandom: Black Butler | Kuroshitsuji x Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Crossover

Fic Synopsis: Life at Hogwarts isn’t all bad…usually. But when Valentine’s Day rolls around, and Lockhart throws an extravagant ball, the number of couples at school the next day skyrockets, and Sebastian finds himself a new object of devotion…Can Ciel save his butler from the spell on his own?

Character Focus: Ciel (Edward Midford, Grell, Lizzie, Snape)

Notes: I bet you all thought I forgot about this fic didnt you? SIKE! I forget nothing.

(By the way, I'll definitely repost chapter 1 of this as well, in case you guys forgot about it XD)

I was informed that Valentines day with this coming Sunday and I couldn't believe it. I had been wanting to work on multiple valentines fics and I thought I had weeks left to write them XD So in light of that, I knew I had been slowly chipping away at a chapter 2 of this over time, so I decided to check it out and see how much work I had to do to make it postable in time for valentines day. To my surprise, the chapter was pretty much ready to go! So at long last, here it is!!

I really hope you enjoy it!! If you do, I implore you to consider commenting and/or reblogging!! I assure you its much much more likely this fic will get a chapter 3 if I know that people are interested in reading more <3

@elegantkittycat Tagging you in case you’re still interested in reading more!!

Chapter 2:

Ciel jerked his hand away as the cauldron sizzled, muttering curses under his breath—(the normal kind, not the magic kind). Usually Sebastian managed their clandestine dealings and he didn’t have to worry about burning his fingers off.

His conversation with Tom Riddle had left him with a list of ingredients, and a method of combining them into a potion that would allegedly cure Sebastian and others of this ailment.

He was fully aware trusting strange voices in diaries wasn’t the best decision he could make on the career path of life, but considering he had found no other options, and a whole lot of annoyance, he didn’t have much to lose. Besides, Sebastian was a demon, so even if it was supposed to make your eyes pop out or something, he’d probably be okay.

Ciel looked down the instructions and grimaced, reaching over for the next ingredient, trying not to look directly at it.

Despite the potions classroom being the main place to get potions, and potion making materials, he was not in the potions classroom. This late in the evening, Snape probably would have killed him. He was in a room on the seventh floor which Sebastian had found last May. It seemed to hold within it whatever the person walking by it required.

He dropped the last ingredient in, raised his wand, muttered a very complicated spell and sighed.

The only thing left to do was wait. It had to brew for twenty-four hours, which meant it wouldn’t be ready until six o’clock the next evening. Twenty-four hours was too much time with a love infested school to deal with.

Ciel packed up his stuff and headed out into the hall—making sure to check for Filch first. He was almost back to his common room when—

“CIEL PHANTOMHIVE!”

He nearly tripped and toppled to the ground taking all his supplies and homework with him.

As he righted himself, he jerked his head up to observe the source of the disturbance: a tall, blonde boy, a few years older than Ciel, sporting his Gryffindor robes as if he was the reincarnation of Godric goddamn Gryffindor himself.

Ciel had the displeasure of knowing this boy.

“Edward?!” he growled, recovering his dignity and dusting himself off. “Are you trying to kill me?!”

“That depends,” he said in a low murmur that seemed to hide waves of anger.

He marched up to his future-brother-in-law, stopped far too close, and stared into Ciel’s eyes like he could bore into his brain with his gaze.

“What. Did you do. To my sister?”

“What did I— ?” Ciel blinked, rivalling anger disappearing in the face of concern. “What?”

Edward was the son of the proud, and not to mention handy-with-swords Marquess Midford, and all this noble, virtue-loving, God-fearing, paladin energy was often channeled into being protective of his younger sister Lizzie…who also happened to be Ciel’s fiancé.

“Lizzie. What did you do to her?!”

“Yes, I’m familiar with to whom you’re referring!” He pushed him back, “What’s wrong with her?!”

It was Edward’s turn to blink. “You don’t know?”

“You may or may not have noticed I am otherwise occupied! I’ve been running around trying to save my butler from this hell, thank you very much!”

“Oh,” his eyes flickered.

Ciel looked up at him, then blinked. “You think I caused this?!”

“Well you don’t exactly foster an atmosphere of peace and calm, now do you?”

“I’d thank you to have more confidence in me in the future! For your information, Undertaker caused this!”

“Undertaker?! Oh that slimy bloke hasn’t seen the last of me!” He turned, putting his fist into his palm, beginning to march out of the room.

Ciel lazily grabbed the sleeve of his robe, pulling him back. “Hunting him down isn’t going to get you any answers—and will likely make you more frustrated. Believe me, I’ve already tried. Now, if you’d be so kind, I’d like to know what’s wrong with my fiancé.”

Edward rubbed the back of his head. “Well…”

“Tell me, Edward.” It was Ciel’s turn to stare him down. Apparently it was effective, because Edward couldn’t meet his gaze.

“Well…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I went to go say hi, and I found her sitting in the common room, staring out the window. She barely took any notice of me. And when she did she started spitting prattling nonsense about this man she met,” he said the last words like men were the most revolting things in the planet. “Naturally I assumed this was a newfound appreciation for you, or she simply was admiring Lockhart like she usually does.”—Ciel made a face at this—“But apparently…not.”

Ciel blanched. He was about to speak, but Edward continued:

“When I learned it wasn’t you, I told her to have some decency, but it was as if she couldn’t even hear me!” His air of forced calm broke. “Apparently she’s madly in love with some—some—some idiot!”

“She’s… what?” The words were soft.

“I said—”

“I heard what you said!” He grabbed his robes.

Some third years walked by at that exact moment and stared at them. Ciel released him, and he and Edward paused and waved awkwardly. After they passed, Ciel continued in a shout-whisper.

“How the hell did this happen?! I specifically made sure she stayed away from the punch at that party!”

“The punch? What punch?”

“The punch Undertaker spiked!”

“Undertaker spiked—?! Oh…Maybe she drank some when you weren’t looking? You can’t have been keeping her under constant surveillance, can you?”

“I was watching her very closely, she couldn’t have!” He said, realizing his usually-more-than-adept butler was quite possibly compromised at the time. “When did these symptoms start? The morning after Valentines Day?”

“Um,” Edward put a hand to his chin, thinking, “I…I’m not sure.”

“Oh you’re just useless aren’t you?”

“More useful than you! If you knew it was spiked at the party, why didn’t you tell everyone?! Or try to stop him?!”

“It seemed like a harmless prank!”

“What are we up to?” Snape’s greasy form appeared, cutting the scene.

“Nothing, Professor Snape,” Edward said quickly. “We were just—”

“I wasn’t talking to you.” He folded his arms and stared down his hooked nose at Ciel. “Your detention is to take place tomorrow evening at six o’clock. Meet me in my office. Try not to earn yourself another one before then.”

“Yes, Sir.” Ciel said softly.

Snape’s black robes swished passed them.

“So Lizzie—? Wait, did he just say six o’clock?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Damn it!” Ciel groaned, leaning against the bannister.

“What’s wrong?”

He waved him off. “It’s none of your concern.”

Edward folded his arms and glared at him.

“I’m working on a potion to try to neutralize this whole…love mess.”

“I’d say that’s very much of my concern! You have the antidote?!”

“I said I’m working on it. It’ll be ready at six o’clock tomorrow evening—six o’clockexactly.”

“I guess you’ll have to get it after you get back.” Edward shrugged.

“It’s a very delicate potion I have to—Ugh Nevermind.”

After a pause Edward asked, “…And you’re sure this antidote will work?”

“I’m not sure of much of anything. The only thing I am sure about is if the potion doesn’t kill me, if I’m late to his detention, Snape just might.”

*****

As Ciel sat down to breakfast he made the silent resolve to quickly finish the potion at six o’clock, then speed to the dungeon as fast as possible, taking the bottle with him to his detention, and hurry to Sebastian right afterwards. Snape wouldn’t be happy, but, despite what he said to Edward earlier, the worst he’d do was give him another detention, or take a large sum of house points. And he wasn’t so strict he’d make students empty their pockets, so he shouldn’t notice while he sat sitting for a few hours cleaning viper guts off potion bottles. There was no telling what this potion would do if he left it for however long detention was, so it took priority. And even if his detention went into the night, that would be the perfect time to test it—the demon wouldn’t be asleep anyways.

Ciel was currently trying to make his seat in the great hall a little corner of peace and calm, and block out the chaos in the rest of the hall, setting down his knife properly, trying to ignore the food flying across the hall, when—

“Oh, Brat~!”

Ciel sighed resignedly as his least favorite redhead came swinging into his vision.

“What are you doing back here so soon?” Ciel grumbled, holding his scowling face in one hand, sticking his fork aimlessly into his eggs with the other.

“And when I came all this way to see you, too?!” He turned up his nose in disgust. “I couldn’t possibly get my beauty sleep after I saw my Sebas-chan in such dire straits.” He pulled a scroll out of his jacket pocket, “So I was up all night thinking of ways to get him back to his sexy self!” He unrolled its impressive length, the end landing in Ciel’s eggs.

Ciel couldn’t help but skim through some his ideas, if nothing else for a good laugh.

They ranged from the more simple and reasonable Find the spell, and make a counter curse, and Bash his head in, to the not-so-reasonable Maybe true loves kiss will work~?

“What’s this?” Ciel squinted at a particular line. “‘Put that brat he calls “master” in mortal danger’?”

It was starred and underlined several times.

“Oh you noticed that one did you?” He said in fake innocence. “That’s one of my personal favorites!”

Ciel’s eyes lidded.

“And how exactly would putting me in mortal danger solve the problem of my butler being in love with you?”

“For some reason—can’t see why—Sebas-chan is very attached to you—”

“Sure, it has nothing to do with the contract we made.”

“Yes, yes.” He waved him off. “Well he’s very against you being in any sort of danger. See the idea,”—He put a nail on the table— “is that if we put you in mortal danger his primal demonic—”—he said the word in a way Ciel was not fond of—“inclinations will override the spell and snap him out of it.”

Ciel blinked, staring down at the line of text.

The worst thing was…that actually made some smidgen of sense. You know, in a sadistic kind of way.

“And how would you propose we do that? You know, without actually killing me?”

“Oh all part of the fun. I have a number of ideas as to how we could push you riiight up to the edge! It’ll be delightfully diabolical. Of course, if it doeskill you, well…” he turned away and muttered, “All’s well that ends well, as they say.”

“Not that that doesn’t sound fun…” Ciel stood, pushing the list away. “I’ve found my own way of breaking the spell thank you very much.”

“Oh?” Grell blinked, intrigued. “Have you now?”

“Not that its any of your business, yes.” He brushed himself off, gathering his stuff, “If you’ll excuse me, I have my own business to attend to.”

“Well when that fails don’t hesitate to come crawling back to your favorite reaper Grellypoo ~!” He rolled up the scroll.

“You’re not even my fifth favorite reaper!” He threw over his shoulder.

“But at least I’m on the list!”

*****

Due to the fact that little real learning was happening on either side—unless you count learning too much about various students and teacher’s romantic habits—they had decided to cancel classes for the time being. This gave the teachers more time to devote to finding the cure as well.

Ciel decided to take this time to ascertain the validity of Edward’s statement the night previous and visit Lizzie.

She was a Gryffindor like her brother. Visiting the Gryffindor common room wouldn’t be first, or even last, in a list of things he wanted to do…but he’d half to bear it.

As he walked up the stairs he bumped into someone. At first they apologized and continued walking but soon the other person called back:

“Hey, I ran into yesterday didn’t I?”

Ciel turned to see none other than Harry Potter.

“Yes?”

“Did you happen to see a diary? Like when you were helping me pick up my stuff?”

“The great Harry Potter keeps a diary?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “It’s not my diary. Just a diary.”

“A diary that just so happened to find its way into your bag?”

“Well…yeah.”

“Sorry to say, I haven’t seen it.”

“Hmm…Alright. Thanks anyways.” He waved as he continued down the stairs.

As another Gryffindor left, he slipped into the common room.

Lizzie was sitting in a chair against the window, just like Edward said she would be. She rested her hand on her chin, her elbow on the table, and watched the rain fall.

“Lizzie!” he ran up to her.

“Oh…Ciel…it’s you,” she said in a dreamy, nonplussed tone.

“Yes it’s me. What happened? Have you completely lost your senses?!”

“No I’d say my senses are in tact thank you. And I’d thank you not to ask a lady such an impolite question.”

“Sorry but…what happened? Why are you—?”

“I don’t know. I just, of a sudden, found him to very attractive one morning, and I’m having trouble thinking of much else.”

“Who?” He sat in the chair across from her.

“That’s not really of your concern, is it?”

“It is when I’m your fiancé!” He said a little too loudly, making Gryffindors turn towards him.

“Mm…” She muttered like it wasn’t an issue.

“Lizzie, I tried to make sure you didn’t drink that punch at the party! How did this happen?!”

“Party?” She paused, and for a moment he wasn’t sure she was even going to continue the conversation. “…Oh I don’t know. I seem to faintly recall the most beautiful man I’d ever met saying I simply must try it.”

His eyes widened. “Someone gave it to you directly?! Who?! Why?!”

“I’ve already tried that, I don’t think you’ll get much luck. She won’t tell me either.” Edward arrived at his side, then leaned over and whispered, “I think she knows we’ll come after him.”

“I was going to opt for slow psychological torture,” he muttered back, “but I’d like to hear more about your method.”

Edward tried to suppress a smile.

“And you really love this man?” Ciel asked Lizzie.

“Oh, with all my heart!” She seemed to gain a rush of energy.

He sighed, realizing more questions would be futile, and getting up.

“Alright well…” He ran his hand gently over Lizzie’s fingers. “I-I’ll see you soon.”

“You’ll give me the potion as soon as you can, right?” Edward demanded.

“I’m going to use Sebastian as a test subject, but, if it works, then this will be my next stop.”

“The password is ‘chocolate frog.’ Feel free to wake me up. I can’t stand another minute knowing Lizzie is in love with some-some lunatic!”

“We’ll figure it out, don’t worry.”

*****

Ciel carefully held the porcupine quills, and gingko leaves over the cauldron, dripping them in one at a time, stirring counterclockwise with his other hand, glancing continually back to the instructions.

Finishing off the potion was proving no easier than making the rest of it, but at last, it gave a final sigh, and turned a foggy white.

Ciel gave his own sigh of relief, before using tongs to dip and fill the bottle beside him, making sure to clean off the sides of it—(it was a good thing he used a towel to do so, because the stray drops burned through the fabric).

He held up the bottle, staring at the potion. At long last. Finally, after three days of slow torture, he’d finally be rid of this curse, and the world could return to its normal state—demon butlers included.

He slipped one into his robe pocket and the moment he stepped out of the room, he sped off towards Snape’s dungeon for his detention without a moment to clean up the rest.

He hadn’t intended to burst through the door, but he found himself doing that a lot over these past few days.

Snape’s black eyes narrowed upon his panting form as if he were a worm to bottle. Then they flicked to the clock.

“You’re late.”

“I’m sorry, Professor, I—”

Snape held up a hand to stop him. “The last three days have been longer than the past few months, and am not interested in feeble excuses, Mr. Phantomhive.” He glided around his desk, but instead of setting him up at a desk, he marched past him, swung open, and exited the classroom.

Ciel paused a moment, leaning over to the side, watching him exit, a quizzical look on his face, before deciding he wanted him to follow him.

“Where are we going, Professor?” He asked as he caught up—(not altogether happy that he’d have to do more walking after the run he just made).

“Your detention is to take place in the Forbidden Forest tonight.”

Ciel’s eyes widened.

Snape raised an eyebrow. “Is our dear Mister Phantomhive afraid of the dark?”

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m just a little surprised, that’s all…due to it being forbidden and all.”

Snape smirked. “Most of the time, yes. But on some extra special detentions we may take students inside.”

He was right: The Forbidden Forest wasn’t exactly a common detention spot, though it wasn’t unheard of either. What was more surprising was that Snape taking him there. Usually Snape’s detentions consisted of pickling rat brains, or cleaning octopi suckers off desks. Not that he’d been to very many of his detentions—he’d always been pretty good at potions. It was this godforsaken spell that had reduced him to a less-than-model student.

“Professor, may I ask what exactly will we be doing?” He asked as they traversed the grounds, the trees growing ever closer.

“You will be coming with me to gather a rare flower that lives in these woods.”

Ciel gave a curt nod. It was a moment or two before he asked, “May I ask what it’s for?”

“I am a potions master, Mister Phantomhive. I encourage you to use your brain.”

“I understand that. But what potion is it for, Sir?”

“I am attempting to remedy the spell that has plagued the school.”

Ciel fell silent at that, resisting the urge to tell him he already had the solution in his pocket.

They arrived at the edge of the forest, the trees reaching towards them with gnarled claws, the darkness like curtains for a stage set.

“Lumos.” Snape spoke, and Ciel drew his wand and did the same as they ventured into the shadows.

The trees seemed to taunt them, to whisper about them, to dare them to come any closer, any phantom sound at home here.

After more than a few minutes walk in silence—quite possibly half an hour—Snape stopped and spoke: “They should be around here, nor should they be difficult to spot. Look for a glowing blue flower.”

Ciel made a move to venture off in search of them, but Snape grabbed his arm, warning:

“Don’t wander off where you can’t see me.”

Ciel nodded before venturing into the trees, scanning the ground for anything glowing, or blue, continually glancing back to make sure he could still make out the figure of his teacher.

It wasn’t long before he saw something glowing, and ran up to it. …It turned out just to be a mushroom.

As he sighed disappointedly, and stood back up, he saw two beady eyes staring at him from the darkness.

His heart began to pound as he stared, unsure if he should back up, stand his ground, play dead, or attack, the ghost of a certain name forming on his tongue.

He never had to fear beady eyes, bandits, or bullets with Sebastian around. This was the first time he felt real fear in a long while.

A black spectral horse reared out of the bushes, its eyes aglow with more than just a reflection of the dark.

It stepped towards him in slow, calculated hoofbeats, flaring its nostrils a little too frequently for his liking.

He’d read about these before.

He continued backing up, as the thestral didn’t seem like it planned on stopping its pursuit anytime soon.

“Mister Phantomhive,”—Snape’s voice was low, warning—“I am aware you likely don’t see anything but—”

“I can see it.” He continued his reverse walk.

Snape gave him a short glance like he had a newfound respect for him.

These creatures only appeared to people who had seen death, and he was sure the look in his parents’ eyes that night sufficed. But they didn’t commonly act like this.

Snape lifted his wand, casting a nonverbal spell, and the thestral fell to the ground with a bloodcurdling whinny too much like a scream, ropes binding its legs.

Ciel let out a relieved exhale as Snape joined him.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine…Thestrals…they aren’t commonly…aggressive, are they?”

“No.” Snape muttered softly, gazing for a moment at the now-helpless creature, then turned sharply to Ciel, pointing his wand at him. “Empty your pockets.”

Ciel jerked his head to the professor, saying a little too loudly, “What?!”

The thestral fought against the binds, and Ciel took a step back.

“I said, ‘empty your pockets.’”

“Why?!”

Snape flicked his wand, and his pockets’ contents excavated themselves of their own volition.

Snape grabbed the potion from the air, and let the rest of spare quills and things fall helplessly to the forest floor. He held it up and stared at it, observing the contents, his emotion as imperceptible as always. Then he lifted the cork, sniffing it. His eyes widened and he jerked to look at Ciel, his eyes almost more terrifying than those of the thestral, and definitely not holding a look his eyes had ever contained for him before.

“Where did you get this?” He whispered.

“Excuse me?”

He lifted the potion up, and violently smashed it on the ground, the contents breaking out with a puff of smoke, spilling helplessly onto the forest floor.

“NO!”

Snape grabbed his arm as Ciel made to reach for it, as if to save the unsalvageable.

“I said—” he grabbed both his arms, forcing him to look at him. “Where. Did you get that?”

“Sir…. I don’t understand…”

Snape’s face was far too close to him for comfort.

“Listen to me and listen to me very carefully. That potion is more than dangerous—it’s banned in every major country. It’s not something I could easily mistake. If you were to use it, you wouldn’t just die an excruciating death, it would rot you from the inside, and leave you open to the possession of any vile spirit in the vicinity. A fourteen-year-old boy such as yourself shouldn’t be carrying it around in his pocket,” he spat. “And I’d like to think that you didn’t know what it was when you gained possession of it. Now.” His grip tightened on one of his arms, his nails digging in, as he put his wand to his throat with the other enunciating each word, “WHERE. DID. YOU. GET. IT?!”

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