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"Be careful, dear," his mother had warned him in hushed tones as a babe, "for demons were once the most beautiful angels to ever grace the heavens. And Lucifer, in all his wicked glory, was by far the most beautiful of them all."
Harry meets the Devil.
It can't be anyone else, he thinks, because this man is the most beautiful being he's ever met.
Cousin had always insisted that demons were frightening and ugly, and therefore Lucifer had to be the ugliest of them all. Harry had never believed him.
The man just stares at him as harry freezes up, rags falling out of his hands. He doesn't move to pick them up, even though he knows Aunt will kill him for dirtying them.
A wave of something - dark, bitter, like blood, or the pus that seeps out of the wounds on his back sometimes - comes over him.
"Sorry, Sir," Harry says without thinking about it, "I didn't mean to disgust you."
Bitterness is replaced with something Harry can't decipher and for a lack of a better response Harry angles his head away, neck exposed - the 'T' branded into the soft flesh of his shoulder visible, of which everyone assumes it's the mark of the Lord.
"Why do you not look at me, child?" asks the Devil.
"Because you're so beautiful I fear I'll go blind," answers Harry truthfully.
"I see," says the Devil, and then his chin is grabbed and angled up, and up, 'til his eyes are forced to meet bloody red.
Harry whimpers.
The Devil smiles.
His mother was right.
Demons are always the most beautiful ones.
And the Devil is the most beautiful of them all.

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