His first class was potions. He had managed to lose Green (who clearly hadn't had the benefit of a tour at dawn) and trudged down the cold stone halls. He saw her before she saw him, which was just the sort of normalcy he needed. He snuck up to her, leaning himself casually against the wall by her shoulder. For a moment he had an almost inexplicable desire to lean forward and touch her hair, but it was gone the minute her eyes found his. She gave a little jump and laughed.
"Devlin!" She admonished. "Will you sit with us?"
"Us?" he asked, propelling himself off the wall to spy her companion. It was a dark haired, dark eyed, pale skinned boy. He had a nervous sort of skittish expression across his face, which seemed strikingly familiar to Devlin, even though he could not place him.
"This is Taylor," Maria said, touching his shoulder. "Our Head of house asked if I would show him around."
"I'm clumsy," the boy said, sheepishly. He smiled at him.
"That's a poor thing for a muggleborn to be here," he said, not unkindly, but with as close to sympathy as he regularly managed.
"Yeah, I know," he said and just the word seemed to strike some sort of terror in his face. "I...I'm not good at controlling my magic, though - or my parents wouldn't have made me come. The Headmaster said those things don't matter here, though."
Devlin frowned; he might have said something, except that Green had found him. He did Maria the favor of steering the boy clear of her and her muggleborn companion. He settled himself at the front of the class, and was more than a little shocked when Freddie saw the one empty spot and chose to sit next to him.
"Hey Genius," Freddie said. He seemed intent to ignore Green, which was alright, since Devlin was prepared to mostly do the same. "Help me out?"
"Only if you keep your mouth closed," Devlin muttered back. Freddie flashed him a smile and nodded vigorously, pretending to zip his lips.
Snape swept into the room with a whoosh of his black cloak around his frame. His eyes were narrowed, dark and full of a potency that terrified most. His words were slow and sharp, ploughing into the room with a force his magic exaggerated. The boy Maria had come with was cowering in his chair. All Devlin saw was a man older than his father, younger than his Grandfather; someone so powerful both sides had wanted him, but so methodical and cautious, he had never decided to make his own side. In light of Devlin's experiences, Severus Snape seemed like just a man, trying to be something he wasn't any longer. He was by no means a light wizard, but the darkness in his magic was receding from disuse.
With a flourish of his wand, the directions for the day wrote themselves across the board.
"Here we will learn the subtle science and exact art of Potionmaking," he said, crossing his arms to look imposing. Devlin remembered the first time he had seen the man do that and he still thought the same; Bella could be imposing, Dwalish could make one's skin crawl, Draco had made his blood boil, and he could still remember the way Voldemort could make one feel like the world was crumbling around them and they should welcome death. Snape's play was a poor one (perhaps purposefully so), good only enough to scare normal children. "As there will be little wand-waving here, many of you will barely believe this to be magic at all. I do not expect you will really understand the beauty of a softly simmering cauldron with its shimmer fumes, or appreciate the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses...I can teach you how bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
There was silence, some from intimidation, some from awe, some simply because one wasn't supposed to talk out of turn. Maria had her hand on the muggleborn boy, who looked green with distress. Devlin thought he was much more than clumsy.
Devlin stared ahead with the expected amount of interest and focus etched across his face. Green scratched out notes. Devlin had no need for notes; he remembered everything. Good. Bad. Horrific - he remembered it all.
When Snape drew his arms apart to gesture at the board, students diligently pulled out their potions textbook and flipped to the pages requested.
Devlin had never been picky about knowledge - what it was about or who it was from. Being knowledgable had never hurt him; it had saved him on more than on occasion. There was nothing too foolish, too worthless, too easy to know. In the absence of knowledge was ignorance, of which he had seen and felt the results.
So, when he saw "Forgetfulness Potion" on the board, he did not groan about it's easy brewing process, or the fact that there were only six ingredients and no magic (but a 'wave' of his wand) necessary; he opened the spine of his book and read the words on the page with the same vigor he would have, had the potion been titled Survive-Voldemort-at-all-costs. Frankly, he thought that would be a rather profitable potion; even if it was a hoax.
Many students had pre-crushed snake fangs already in their kit, but he had bought quality ingredients in bulk, and did his own crushing. He pulled the two porcupine quills, dried nettles, and pickled Shrake spines out and set them aside for easy access. He sliced his Pungous Onions finely and crushed his ginger root into a fine powder (a bit of magic on the pestle helped here). Green had already started brewing, but now he was trying to find his ingredients in time, before the mixture became too hot or cold. Devlin filled his cauldron from the ever-filling pitcher on their work table, ignited the flame beneath with his wand, and waited for the water to reach temperature. Freddie followed him like a mirror. If Devlin weren't so busy focusing, he would have frowned more often at the talent to mimic he had never bothered to notice about Freddie before.
Maria was counting the ingredients out at the table next to him. He scribbled a note, tore it silently from his 'notebook' (Harry had gotten him the strange thing, and he was saving his good parchment for essays), and magicked it over to her table where it unfurled itself on her book. Snape was none-the-wiser. Maria smiled gratefully. Green frowned at him.
OoOoOoO
There were cheese pastries on the table at lunch; some of the older pureblood students commented to asked what they were. Devlin looked at the head table. Remus was smiling at him.
He ate three.
No one told him to eat something else, or put his book away, or show an interest in whatever Green was rambling on about. For a moment he thought maybe he felt like a regular boy, relishing in his freedom.
OoOoOoO
Being early, Devlin observed the class, and professor, for a moment from the hallway. She had a stern face that Devlin thought would be pressed to look otherwise and she wore her grey hair in a tight bun. There was a Hufflepuff girl at her desk, looking stricken.
'I don't know where it is,' the girl was saying. Her hands were clenched at her sides and her knee wobbled as she tapped her foot; all things people had a tendency to do when they were trying very hard not to cry.
Harry had spoken about the Transfiguration teacher (his old head of house), as though Devlin had known her, with an expression of both terror and reverence, until Devlin had asked if Harry realized he had never met the professor.
Oh yeah, Harry had said, scrunching his brow up. It doesn't matter though. Remus will have told her about you.
She lifted her wand and pointed it at a bit of dust on the desk, which turned into a spare bit of parchment. Her hand moved as deftly on her wand as Grandfather's own hand did. A moment later, she handed a note to the girl, and steered her out the door and into the hallway with a stern expression upon her face.
That's when she saw Devlin, of course. With the way she looked at him, Devlin wondered if Freddie had given him something odd when they passed in the hallway. Her stern lips went lank, her wrinkled face went very still, and her hand twitched at her side as if it might reach for her wand. He shifted and her eyes followed him with a kind of acute attention he knew only as the sort you give things that worry you.
Perhaps she was one of those people Harry had warned him about. People who would know he was a werewolf and disapprove of him as a result. Maybe he scared her. He hoped she'd keep her fear to herself.
"Mr. Potter?" She said, as if she were seeking direct clarification on his identity rather than simply requesting his attention.
"Yes, Professor?" He rolled his shoulders back and straightened himself. If anything, this seemed to unsettle her more, but then she seemed to shake herself out of her thoughts. Perhaps she had realized he was human too. Perhaps when he had smiled he had reassured her; his teeth were flat, his face charming, his voice just like anyone else's'. He'd never thought this way before, so he couldn't be sure.
"Why are you dawdling in my hallway? Go find a seat." She pinched her lips again, stern and seemingly what he assumed to be normal. He looked around the room. He took a seat towards the back.
Harry had spoken about floating feathers, matchsticks to needles, crying plants, and flying brooms as if, even after all this time and all his growth, such things still mesmerized him. Devlin must lack something that Harry had; or perhaps Harry had lacked something that Devlin had. Either way, Devlin felt no mesmerization.
Don't show off, Harry had warned him; a small part of a larger conversation ringing in his mind.
He looked around the room. A girl to his left had managed to make the matchstick turn silver, a boy right in front of him had made a wooden needle, and a girl across from him that way had made a needle the size of the matchstick. He decided, instead of just doing the task, he would challenge himself to do each of their mistakes. It was harder, he found out, than actually just turning the matchstick into a needle.
"Are you having some trouble, Mr. Potter?" Professor McGonagall asked; she seemed kinder now.
"I don't think so, Professor," he said and he raised his wand to 'try' again. This time, the matchstick turned into a needle - small, shiny, and sharp. The professor nodded, her lips pinched again. Somehow, he thought perhaps she would have smiled at his success.
OoOoOoO
He had thought that at the Library he would have found some peace, so it would make sense that his journey there would be hell. First of all, he managed to get lost. Quickly correcting that, he ran into a group of older students.
"Devlin, right?" One of them asked, stepping in front of him. He had a paper in his hand that he waved in his direction. "Harry Potter's son?"
Never having been kidnapped by Voldemort, Devlin might have blindly assumed his father's name offered him only protection. But Devlin was not a regular boy, and all the blindness had been flushed out of him when he'd been forced to see and survive in the pitch black of the Dark side.
Silently, he curled his hand toward his wrist, pressing his finger against the release of his wand holster. He could sense something tense and ugly in the air.
"Did you hear me?" The boy asked, tall, broad, and wearing a red and gold tie.
"Don't expect him to answer, Will. He's not quite human is he." The second boy was shorter but stronger looking. Of course, they were all quite a bit taller than him. The third seemed a bit hesitant, but he did not step in.
The first boy shrugged, as if in understanding and agreement of his friends assessment, and suddenly Devlin was being pushed up against the wall.
"Where's that pretty boy smile now, huh?"
Devlin had no idea what he was talking about, but he said nothing. The boy's arm pressed against his chest - not too hard, but with just enough pressure that Devlin would have needed to fight to get out. He remained calm. His arms were free at his side and he could still get at his wand; a huge oversight on the older boys part.
The paper the boy had been holding was shoved in front of his face.
There was a picture of him at the station, smiling for the camera man. Devlin looked at the boy. He did not understand why this upset the boy so much.
"Nothing about this is worth a smile," he said.
"Yeah, you're right," Will said. "Nothing about you is worth much at all."
"Will," the third boy said, shifting against the wall. If Devlin were a normal boy, perhaps he would have sought the boy's gaze out and hoped for him to be his savior, but Devlin was not a normal boy, and he did not expect saving. Which was good, because this boy didn't seem up to the task.
"Shut up, Ted." Will turned back to him. "I just want to know why you're fucking here. What did you do for him that made him keep you alive? My dad is dead because of him. He would never have done anything for that bastard, even if it saved him. So what did you do? Why are you fucking here?"
His arm pressed Devlin harder against the stone wall. His eyes were full of something desperate and bitter, tangling and twisting him from the inside. Devlin frowned. He had tried a thousand times since that night outside Harry's house to answer this exact question as well as the one about why Voldemort had left him with Harry.
"You'd really have to ask him," he finally said; the only answer that had any chance of being safe. He was trapped between expectations; surely Voldemort expected he knew the reasoning, and surely Harry and everyone else expected it was far above his level to understand. In this one instance, Harry was probably right, and he'd burned out his anger on that months ago. He felt empty, empty, empty at the topic now and wished he could just expose his lack of knowledge to this boy - to everyone! - but he was stuck between everyone's expectations, and it was not safe to fail anyone.
"Well I'm not, I'm fucking asking you! He had a note about you on him!"
Oh, so it was one of those people. Devlin felt something tight and painful in his chest. He tipped his head and looked out the corner of his eyes at the floor. The boy pressed harder and Devlin could feel his magic in the air; fragmented, frantic, and fierce.
"Did the note say my name? How do you know it was about me?"
This tightness in his chest had always driven him to push back and push away; to sound more certain than could possibly be true. Unlike his father, fear had always pushed him to be more careful instead of more rash.
The boy shoved him onto the floor. Devlin did not move. Normally he would have gotten up and went for the boy, but something about the boy's eyes reminded him of Alexandra's eyes, that day outside his room when he thought she'd break. He scampered back as the boy's face contorted into something full of pain.
Devlin knew that face; older, grayer, more drawn and harmed. He knew which of those men was this boy's father. The one he had only pretended not to know.
He jumped to his feet and sprinted down the hallway, faster, faster, faster, until the stone under his feet and by his sides blended together into a blur of grey, rushing past him. His heart hammered in his chest, his legs pulsed almost painfully beneath him, while his mind moved torturously slow. It was not the first time he wished his recollections were not so viciously vivid.
He was inside the tent.
Somehow, when he had gained entrance, he had thought something terrible would come to grab him. Instead there is a small walkway that stretches out in front of him, and the horribleness is hidden behind shadows that stagnantly cloak what lays beyond this narrow path. His feet seem to sink into the layer of gravel and fine dirt and it takes effort to lift his foot and place it down somewhere other than where it had just been.
Forward, he thinks, and somehow manages. Whispers spill out of the shadows and make him tremble. His eyes flicker and narrow, trying to discern the terribleness he knows is here. He's seen them, being dragged out of here as he had once been dragged by Malfoy. He can hear them breathing, these horriblenesses.
Then, suddenly, there is a sound he hadn't expected. Laughter. He turns terribly slowly to the sound, and he can see one of the horriblenesses pressing itself against the bars that keep it there.
He's seen them before, but he always tries to not to really see them.
It is a man, and he is laughing. Grey hair, drawn face, empty eyes. His face is covered in grime. The mans laughter is nothing he has not heard before; sharp, shrill, and without a smile. He watches the lines in the man's face.
"Come here, come here," the man says, reaching a hand through the bar and crooking a finger at him. There is something in the man's eyes. Something he almost remembers. "Isn't it funny," the man says, looking at him as if there was something beautifully bemusing about him. "I'm here and you're there!"
He didn't think that was funny at all, and his feet falter on their journey closer. He's been there before, and it's not funny. Suddenly the man falls silent and looks at him, as if he really truly sees him. It's been a long time since someone looked at him as if they really truly saw him.
"No, don't laugh," the man says, his whole face changing. His words are whispers now. "Don't laugh. Come here. Devlin, come here."
The name is like an electric tug and even though he knows he shouldn't, he does. It is like proof that the man really does see him.
"You have to get out of here," the man says, licking his lips and spreading the grime across them more. The man's eyes flicker back and forth, back and forth, as if he is trying desperately to put together a thought. There is something frantic about his expression. "Do you remember how you used to write secret messages? Then you'd use your magic to show us the picture? You need to draw a secret picture again, Devlin. Draw one and get it in one of their black robes. They wear the black robes to fight. They get caught-"
Suddenly the hallway is flooded with light, the shadows receding to show more of the horribleness. There are footsteps down the hall and the laughing man draws back, but stares at him.
"You idiot," someone is saying, and he knows it is Geoffrey. "Get the fuck out. I'll deal with this mess. Fucking idiots."
The guard who had been sitting at a table far at the entrance throws a word at Geoffrey as if it is a curse, and then he is gone.
He turns slowly to see Geoffrey wearing that same frantic expression. His eyes go from the laughing man to him, and back again. Geoffrey grabs him across the middle as if he really were just a small pup, and pulls out his wand to point at the laughing man. They stare at each other for a moment, then Geoffrey rounds on him. Devlin wants to shrink back; away from the wand, but he knows better than to show the weakness. The man is watching them, his eyes hungry, his hands in weak fists.
"Look at me," Geoffrey says, and Devlin does, because he doesn't want to look at the laughing man. "I want you to think of the ocean..."
And there is fog inside of his head. Geoffrey's voice drifts through the fog.
"You don't want to think about him. You don't want to think of him. You're not like him. Show me the ocean. Think of the sound a wave makes- yes, that's it."
There is an ocean inside of his head, swelling and overwhelming the laughing man's face. Devlin is drowning under the waves - sinking, sinking, sinking.
Geoffrey shakes him back, and Devlin gasps. There is a man- don't think about the man - watching Geoffrey. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Devlin knows why the man is staring at him, but at the front of his mind, he decides it's not really important.
Geoffrey draws his wand again and points it at the man. There is a blue light, streaming towards the man. He doesn't look afraid, and he takes a deep breath, as if to ensure all of the blue magic makes it into him. He smiles at Geoffrey.
"You were too crazy to tell him anything," Geoffrey says firmly, and the man exhales the blue magic and starts laughing.
Part of Devlin knows the man isn't just laughing because he's insane, but because he's just done something insane. But that something he's done - it's not too important to think about.
oOoOoOo
He found himself not outside of the Headmaster's door to report the older boys behavior, or Remus' door to ask for his father, but Snape's door - the door that the second years feared and the first years would soon enough. The door everyone avoided if they could at all. He banged viciously against it's surface, until it opened and a hand reached out to drag him inside by the front of his robes.
Snape did not say anything in greeting; he stared at him disdainfully.
"Do you not have a class during this period, Mr. Potter?"
He honestly had no idea; time had seemed to churn at a different speed while his feet had raced below him. He shrugged, and Snape's frown etched itself more permanently into his face, if that was possible.
"Why are you here?"
Words, normally something which he used with ease, fumbled on his tongue.
"I don't know," he said, something he detested hearing almost as much as Grandfather. Snape sneered. He looked at the floor.
It was moments like these that Devlin wished he were back at camp. Not because he had been happier, or safer, or it had been better, but because while at camp only one reality existed. No one looked at him as that boy had. No one mourned the lives of those they killed. No one looked at him as if he were something terrible. At camp he played a part and there was just enough surrealism that he managed to survive.
Here, there was no predefined part. No script. No assurance that if he did what one person wanted, all acts would be looked at in favor. Here, there were boys like Will, who shoved him harshly into the other side of reality.
"Sit down," Snape ordered, motioning to his desk. It was crowded with summer assignments. Devlin sat. His heart was still beating frantically in his chest and he mastered the urge to gulp air. He laid his hands carefully across his thighs, instead of clenching them together like he wanted. "Why are you here, Devlin?"
Snape's eyes bore into him, sharp and black. Devlin did not know why had come here instead of rushing to Remus' except there had always been something that had drawn him like a magnet to Severus Snape, world renowned potion master and ex-Death Eater.
"I guess I just didn't know where else to be," he said finally.
Snape sneered thoughtfully.
"You're late for Herbology," he said after a moment. "Is there a reason you did not want to attend your last class of the day?"
"No," he said, scrunching his brow. "I just...I got lost."
Snape made a sound of disapproval.
"I should think you have enough respect for me, as your Head of House, not to lie to me." His voice was like silk, soft and warm, but with an edge of texture that tangled him up and sent goosebumps across his skin. "Now, let's try this again. Why are you not in Herbology?"
"I got lost," he said, clenching his fists. He realized he had come here with the intention of telling Snape all of what had happened, but not now. "It was those stupid stairs."
"Very well. I will write you a pass and draw you a map." When he had the small piece of parchment in his hands, he stood stiffly, trying to control his breathing. Maybe he had foolishly been looking for an understanding savior. Snape stared hard at him as he picked up his book bag and turned toward the door.
"You're playing a dangerous game, child," he said at last, his hands steepled on the table.
He felt a stab of something almost pleasant in his chest at the acknowledgement. He looked at Snape for a long moment.
"I don't really have a choice," and he opened the door and stormed out.
