A/N: Oh, man. I really haven't been on this site in almost two years.

The idea for this fic has been bouncing around in my head for well over three years, and even though I can't bring myself to update my old stories, I've decided to finally put this story online. (I'm sorry to those of you who've been following my other stories, especially the We Stand Together fics, and wanted to see where they went. Maybe I will finish them some day, but that day isn't today.)

Background on this story: it is centered around an OC, Devon Iverson. He is 10 years old at the beginning. This is set during the same timeline as the Harry Potter books, so those characters will appear (eventually).

This story is rated T for now, but may be changed to M later on. It will contain dark themes and mature language. If this is not the type of story for you, don't read.

Disclaimer: I do not, have never, and will never own Harry Potter. I own the OCs and their story.

Shards of Glass

Chapter 1: Beneath the Dying Sun

November 13, 1990

The heat of midday was scalding, burning his hands and nose, whipping against his face and wrapping him in a web of discomfort. It was the kind of heat that, given enough time, would be enough to drive someone utterly out of their wits, even in mid-November. Then again, Devon supposed, he wasn't exactly in Europe anymore.

This place, with its swirling sand that managed to enter every crevice of his clothes, with wind that felt hot and heavy instead of refreshing, with its air so dry that breathing it in left his lungs cracked like salt flats - this place was high on the list of hellish places Devon's father had taken him. It was the farthest he had ever traveled from home in these past four years of constant moving from place to place. But it seemed that perhaps this was their final destination. Maybe they would stay here for longer than a few weeks.

His Arabic was already decent, he speculated. Just this morning he'd bargained for a piece of fruit in the market and gotten away with paying half the price. He would be able to get along and live in this place, given his semi-fluency in the native language already.

That was his father's fault. Arlo had begun to teach him Arabic as soon as they'd left Germany, all those years ago. But then again, wasn't everything his father's fault?

Now, sitting in a dark alcove in one of the many alleyways of Cairo, Devon munched on the fruit he'd bargained his way into buying cheap (it was sticky and pinkish, and tasted sour enough for him to suspect that it had been rotting in the heat for several days, but he was hungry), trying to focus his thoughts off of his father for once and onto the papyrus scroll in his other hand. His father had handed it to him before he left the tent this morning, telling him to thoroughly inspect it and memorize the spell before they visited the Egyptian wizard ("he's a friend of mine," Arlo had said) tonight. Devon hadn't asked where or what his father was doing today; he had learned a while ago that it was better for him to not ask questions.

Devon unfurled the scroll, setting down the pink fruit to do so, and ignored the distinct feeling of sweat sluicing down his back as he leaned forward to inspect it. It was in a language Devon was not familiar with - not English, not any Nordic or Slavic language, and not Arabic. It seemed to be written in some strange script, occasionally punctuated by what appeared to be Egyptian hieroglyphs. The scroll itself was worn down, faded, with tiny puncture marks and frayed edges that indicated it was either very old, or had been used by many people. Possibly both.

Devon sighed, trying to ignore the beads of sweat rolling down his forehead and the smothering, intolerable heat that managed to reach him even in the shadow of the dark alcove. He phased out the heat as he focused his energy towards the scroll, which was stubbornly trying to curl itself into its original position. Devon opened it yet again, pressing his pointer finger to the center and willing the energy within him to change the strange script into English letters. It was the one magic thing he was well-practiced in, so he was not surprised when the script twisted itself into English. What did surprise him was the three short lines that remained unchanged, still in curling letters he couldn't read.

Devon quickly scanned the now easily readable scroll. What is this? he thought, a spell that changes thoughts? Odd.

A section of the scroll read:

Spelle for binding thoughts. Most commonly used in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. by mages, to remove thoughts from commoners and those considered to be inferior. This spelle requires blood magyk, a ritual knife, and a naturale magyk user. Many of the attempts at this spelle have gone awry, killing those who initiate them in the process. Highly dangerous. Below, the spelle words. Most typical and effective medium is blood.

The spell words themselves were what had remained unchanged when Devon had translated the page. His luck on that matter was out. He inspected the drawings on the left side of the scroll. One was of a man, eyes open in what appeared to be terror and a crescent moon inked in on his forehead. The second was of a second man, wearing robes, his eyes closed and surrounded by a halo of light. His arms were extended, showing hands which both had eyes in their palms.

Devon recoiled slightly, looking at the two pictures. At the bottom of the scroll was one last picture: the same crescent moon, dark and inked in all the way, its tips pointing upward and its body horizontal so that the crescent looked like a smile, or a boat of some sort. He kept glancing at it as he read, feeling uneasy for no discernible reason.

A sudden gust of wind brought grains of sand into his face and onto his paper. He rubbed his eyes and wiped the sand off the scroll. How he hated sand. A month of living in a city that boasted dunes upon dunes of it had fed his aversion to the thing.

When he finally blinked the sand out of his eyes, Devon was surprised to see three cats approaching him. One was a tawny orange one, another wholly gray with oddly bright yellow eyes, and the last a beautiful calico. The street cats walked up to him and rubbed on his shoulders, his clothes, his hands, with seemingly no concern. Devon was dumbfounded. He raised a tanned hand to scratch the calico under the chin, and the cat leaned into his touch and purred.

Devon covered his brown eyes as another hot gust blew sand towards him, and took another look at the indecipherable script that were the spell words. He pressed his finger to them, and willed his magic. Nothing. Well, if he wanted answers (which, given that his father needed them by midnight, he did), he wouldn't find them in this forgotten alleyway. The best hope for figuring out the actual spell words lay in the hidden center of Cairo, in Tariq Sihriun - which was fine, because that was where he should be headed anyway.

He rolled up the scroll, binding it with the leather band it had come with, and tucked it into a fold in his tunic. The rest of the fruit discarded, Devon stood up and made his way through the sand-ridden waste of a street to the center of the city, three colorful cats at his heels.

Devon approached the tapestry-covered shop, the one with the small replica of the Sphinx in front of it. It was empty inside the shop, as it always was, but Devon knew Muggles would see a regularly functioning textile shop. He headed towards the back, where another stone Sphinx watched, then tilted its head at him. He stepped forward, into the Sphinx, and found himself on Tariq Sihriun. Devon hadn't spent much time in Diagon Alley when he was young and lived in Britain, but if there was a Diagon Alley of Cairo, it was Tariq Sihriun.

The square was filled with tunic- and turban-donning witches and wizards, moving from one magical shop to the next. Wands, potions, robes, spells, books - everything could be found here. Devon had become very accustomed to Tariq Sihriun in the month he had lived here. His father was almost always wandering around the square and its side-streets, all hidden from human view.

Devon spent four hours wandering from shop to shop in Tariq Sihriun, but none of the wizards or witches around could supply him with answers about his scroll. The closest he had gotten had come from the lips of an old, toothless wizard with skin the color of cocoa and a pervasive sweet, sickening smell hanging around him. "That's very old magic, boy," the man had told him in Arabic when Devon entered his tiny, crammed apothecary, looking for answers. "I would stay away. Blood magic is not allowed here." Devon looked startled. "Now get out," the toothless man said, "and take those cats with you."

Devon didn't know if the wizard had meant here, as in the wizard's shop, or here as in Cairo - or worse, Egypt. Worst of all, he didn't know where his father had gotten the scroll, so when asked about the source, most people thought he was lying when he said he didn't know where it had come from.

It was getting late, but the sun's descent towards the horizon had done little to dissipate the suffocating heat. It was as the shadows became longer on the streets that Devon entered a tiny shop hung with faded maroon and orange tapestries, the three cats following him as they had since midday. There was a man talking to the witch inside. Devon was thinking about turning back, about leaving Tariq Sihriun and going back to the alcove to try and find more answers, when the man turned around.

It was Arlo. He looked as though he'd had a rough day, his own brown turban slightly unraveled and his face coated with a fine layer of dust. As his father saw and recognized him, Devon wished he hadn't entered this particular shop.

There was no greeting. "Have you collected the information I asked?"

Devon swallowed, the sweat collecting on his palms having nothing to do with the heat in the tent. "I managed to collect the information necessary for the ritual, but no one knows the script in which the spell is written, Father. And I have not been able to find the ritual knife described."

Arlo's eyes narrowed, and it took all he had to prevent Devon from withering under his father's stare. "I have a ritual knife. Come. There is someone I want you to meet." He tilted his head, craning to look around Devon. "Are those… cats?"

Devon risked a glance behind him, where the three cats that had been following him all day sat, licking their paws with small pink tongues. He hesitated. "Yes. They've been following me all day, nothing I do will get rid of them." He winced, realizing the mistake of his words.

"What did I tell you about excuses?" The ice in Arlo's voice sent a chill down Devon's spine, despite the heat.

"That they are never to be used."

"So I ask again, are those cats?"

"Yes."

Arlo eyed him, but thankfully decided to either say nothing further or leave it for a later time. He turned back to the witch that ran the tiny corner shop. "Devon, come meet my friend."

"I am Faruq. It is nice to meet you," said the woman in a heavy accent. She was young - most likely in her twenties or thirties - with thick black kohl lining her eyes, a turquoise tunic and a black hijab wrapped around her head. Devon would have shaken her hand in greeting, but Faruq didn't extend her hand as most did. She smiled at him, a warm smile. "You are Devon, correct?" She pronounced it deh-vohn rather than deh-vinn, which was a common mistake. With his father standing behind him, he decided not to correct her. He nodded instead, plastering a fake smile on his lips.

"You said you could not understand the spell?" she continued. "Let me have a look at this."

Hesitant, but not wanting to say anything because of Arlo's proximity (so close, standing right behind him, a heavy presence he was so acutely aware of), Devon pulled the worn scroll from within his tunic and handed it to Faruq. She unfurled it and scanned it. Devon could tell from the way her face contracted when she reached the spell words.

"Ah, yes. It is a very old language, but I know it well. Come, will you?"

Faruq turned on her heel and strode to the back of a shop, where she pulled aside a curtain. "This leads out of Tariq Sihriun. We'll be in the non-magic world."

Arlo put his hand on Devon's shoulder to guide him towards the curtain Faruq held open, and Devon tried his hardest not to flinch at the touch. The cats followed him, and Arlo eyed them quietly, as though he was debating Vanishing them with his wand. As Devon watched from the corner of his eye, the calico turned to look Arlo in the eyes, its ears drawn back and its mouth opened as it hissed. Arlo looked away from the cat.

Devon looked back at Faruq, only to jump when he saw her form shifting. Her frame grew, hajib replaced by a turban and her face replaced with that of a man's. Faruq noticed Devon's confused expression.

"I am a tahul alshakl, Devon. Very akin to the metamorphmagus of your country." Faruq smiled, the same smile he had given Devon before when he was a woman.

Devon just nodded dumbly. He didn't know what a metamorphmagus was.

Faruq didn't say anything else as he followed Arlo and Devon out of his shop, into the muggle world. The curtain led into a tent, Devon wasn't sure where. The air in the tent was thick with the sweet smell of incense, which was burning around the tent. The inside was lit with candles. By the light outside the tent, the sun was already setting on the horizon.

Faruq walked to the far side of the tent, where he sat down cross-legged upon a tattered, ornate carpet. "Please, sit."

Devon sat on a blue carpet across from Faruq, nearly shuddering with relief when Arlo's hand left his shoulder. He forced himself to stay still as his father took a seat to his left. The three cats lay down between him and Arlo, as if they knew.

Faruq opened the scroll and looked through it, then glanced up at Arlo. "You have the knife?"

From within a pocket in his jacket, Arlo pulled out an ornate silver knife, the hilt decorated with indistinguishable gemstones and carved out with embellishments. Arlo, carefully handling the blade, extended it to Faruq. He smiled as he took the knife, and Devon felt gooseflesh climb up his arms.

Faruq read through the spell on the scroll, held the knife point-down as thought he was about to stab the earth, and began chanting. Devon didn't dare open his mouth to ask what was happening, as curious as he was. Arlo had told him nothing about what they were doing in Faruq's tent, with a spell for "binding thoughts".

Faruq finished chanting, and raised the knife.

It happened so fast. Blackness struck. Devon couldn't see. He blinked over and over, but could not see anything. He could hear, though. A blood curdling scream rang out, so loud and so close that he thought his ears would burst.

The screaming went on, but Devon found he couldn't move. He was completely paralyzed where he sat, blind, couldn't even open his mouth to yell.

Those were his father's screams.

Devon screamed inside. Screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and tried to blink the darkness away, ignored the hot tears that ran down his immobile cheeks -

And suddenly, he could see and move and speak. He opened his eyes, tears blurring his vision as they streamed down his face. Faruq was gone. The cats had vanished. The candles were all extinguished. And Arlo - his father -

Lying, immobile, in the sand on the floor in the center of the tent, his eyes open with terror, his mouth open with his last scream. A crescent moon carved into his forehead, blood spilling out. An ornate knife lying by his side, stained with dark red. Lifeless.

And Devon screamed, tasting wet and salt as the tears found their way into his mouth.

A/N: Please correct me if I am wrong in any of the translations or any cultural practice that was involved in this chapter. I already have the next several chapters started. I'll update within the week.

Arabic translations:

Faruq: one who distinguishes truth from falsehood

Tariq Sihriun: magic road

Tahul alshakl: shapeshifter