It was not until the man and the lady and the girl had gone to sleep that he felt safe pulling the book out of the bag. The supple leather heated under his hands as he held it for a moment. He sat down carefully at the desk, fishing around the drawer for the quill he had nicked when the lady had left it out. He had a bit of ink he'd managed to find in one of the kitchen drawers as well and he set both atop the desk gingerly.

He sat for a moment, readying himself. When the Auror had been unlocking his door he had opened the book quickly without much thought. The realization that he had obviously not opened the book soon enough for Grandfather had been heavy against his chest and mind like a physical thing. Now he looked at the book more carefully; knowing he had his own agenda he would need to protect. Keeping Emma safe. The necklace had yet to be ordered and he had yet to have time to tinker with it at all.

Downstairs the clock ticked away and an owl hooted as the final tenth chime rang out. He opened the book, knowing that waiting any longer would just be seen as avoidance.

The writing from before was gone and instead there were words in his hand that he had never written: What can you tell me about the Ministry of Magic? and a beautiful spell-written response detailing the history and founding of the Ministry of Magic with black and white sketches of the Ministers from the sixteen-hundreds until now.

The book looked entirely innocent.

Dubhán touched down his quill under the writing and began something new.

Did you already hear about the tea the Minister had with a boy today?

He wrote smoothly, concentrating on the crispness of the letters. Such things had always bothered Voldemort. When a wizard cannot be seen the letters he has left on a page represent him.

The ink seeped into the page like a fine cotton absorbing water.

He waited. Zee huffed from his bed in impatience, looking up from his paw which he had been nibbling. His ears were quirked and his head tipped, eying Dubhán in an almost human way.

"Shush," Dubhán said to him and he leant down to pick up a toy that had been near his chair to throw it at the dog. The dog allowed the stuffed animal to bombard him, eying it oddly for a moment. Then he huffed again, lifted his head, and pushed the toy off the bed with his snout. Dubhán almost laughed.

No writing swept back onto the page. Dubhán bit his lower lip. Silence left room for doubt to plant it's seed in his stomach, the roots deepening and twisted in his gut. Perhaps Voldemort had not meant for him to win.

He swallowed and got up, knowing that staring at the page wasn't going to help him. He threw the toy at Zee again - a little harder than last time. The dog gave a soft bark - the sound an odd mixture between a growl and a yawn. He checked the book.

Nothing.

He pulled his pajamas out, got undressed, and checked the book.

Nothing.

He changed, even taking the time to fix the seam of his sock so it was perfectly positioned on his toes.

He checked the book.

Nothing.

The doubt seized him hard, growing and maturing into something resolute and ugly. Voldemort had not wanted him to win. The idea echoed in his head, becoming something real.

He laid down in bed. He scratched Zee in all his favorite places, to make up for throwing the toy at him.

Nothing.

He closed his eyes against the doubt and it bloomed in his mind like a nightmare, ready to devour him.

He dreamed of the edge of the woods by the camp. He was escaping, wand clutched in his hands. His brow was hot and moist as he tried to untangle the wards. His voice a soft sigh settling in the surrounding air as he softly spoke the instructions to himself.

There was a scream and he realized he was dreaming of her again. His body moved with a grace he only had when the magic was buzzing beneath his skin - hot and potent and powerfully agitated. The world spun as he spun, raced beneath him as he hurled himself across the landscape, and swept like a blizzard of browns and grays and blacks at the sides of his vision.

He turned a corner, moving deftly through the camp. His feet carried him past the barracks, past the place where he sometimes ate, past 'Headquarters', past everything until he found himself at the back of the camp, where it should be empty for dueling practice but instead a large tent resided.

He knew she was in there. She was screaming. Screaming where he should have screamed. He crept to the opening, pulling the flap aside to reveal silence.

Her pretty blue eyes were like brilliant sapphires with fire burning behind them. She was wearing the soft blue summer dress, dirty, wrinkled, and smudged. Her hair was in tangles around her, like a fire someone had half tried to tame. Her feet were bare. There were tears trailing against her dirty cheeks.

She wasn't in the prisoner cells. He wasn't in the prisoner cells. He was there again, in the place where he had burned inside and almost died. The place that did not exist anymore - that they claimed had never existed.

But he saw it clearly now; the large open tent with the men at the edges, shifting and pointing and cheering - all silently - and he knew this place had been real once.

She was standing next to him and he was behind her and his hand was around her neck, his face by her cheek. The dirt floor of where he had once been tortured was beneath his feet and her feet and everything seemed as colorless as that night.

"You thought you could fool me, child? You thought I wouldn't find her while she ran? You truly thought they would notice her magic before I? Tsk, Tsk - perhaps you're not so clever after all."

He felt fear like it were real. Felt her fear like it was his own. His breath had left him and he felt dizzy with an uncertainty and certainty all at once. And for a moment he understood Potter - feeling too many things at once.

"Help me, Devlin," she cried out and that's when he knew he was dreaming, because she had not known his name. His brain closed around him, walls and curtains and frozen sea water pouring in and drowning him until he shook awake.

He gasped for air.

For a moment everything seemed frozen. His breath came slow and careful. He couldn't remember what he had dreamed; only feel the vague sense of it all on his mind. Then he remembered. His hands curled around the blanket desperately as he tried to push the images back.

Zee shifted on the bed, still sucking at his paw.

Dubhán rose slowly out of the bed, feeling hollow like it were the full moon. Her eyes burned in his mind; her face and his face so close. Haunting him.

He went to the book.

I heard.

Somehow he had been expecting more. Expectation, disappointment and nightmare mixed together to make him do something stupid. He lifted the pen and bit into the page again.

Is that all you are going to say to me?

He was readying to slam the book shut when the ink sunk into the page and new words formed quickly.

Why are you not asleep, child?

Dubhán had not expected a reply and if he thought he would get one, he had envisioned it being scathing. His head spun and he tried to blink away the sleep and fuzz.

I woke up.

He normally wouldn't have told Voldemort - he would have stayed in his room curled up with a book, but he could picture him now, settled at his desk in the living room, pouring over maps and strategies.

Go back to sleep.

He wanted to write 'come get me' but something more than Emma held him back. It wasn't that he was growing comfortable with Potter, or that he was in denial of this fact. It felt different, this hesitation, than something borne from a feel of belonging.

He didn't want to ask. To plead. To beg. To want.

He wanted him to want, and do, and show. He wanted the ultimate show of value - that he would come get him.

Still, there were things his hand itched to write: I can speak to snakes, I remembered how to brew the potion - you did that so I would survive, right?, Potter sometimes brings me to Hogwarts and I've seen the Library, I can see thestral's, I met a house elf, I saw you out my window, I saw you after the Ministry ball - but you looked different, I tried to escape with Malfoy...

All those things lingered on the tip of his tongue, in the ends of his fingers, and at the edges of his mind - but he put the pen down, and he shook his head, and he clenched his hands. He expelled the thoughts.

He left the book open.

He slid his feet into the slippers that had appeared in his room a couple days ago. Whoever had bought them hadn't tried to claim any praise - he suspected the lady. They were a soft green, like his eyes, with an embroidery of a silver dragon, far too intricate to be childish. The tail curled around the heel on one side and out of the dragons snout poured shimmering orange flames. They were charmed to keep him warm.

As he had expected, the man was downstairs. He hesitated by the door and took a moment to recognize that he felt a lot different about this man now than he had the first time he had hesitated at this door in the middle of the night.

"What's a boy your age doing up at this hour?" Harry asked, and he must have been thinking the same thing, looking at him hesitating in the doorframe.

"I dreamed of her," he said, stepping into the room. He shrugged. Harry frowned.

"Is this the first time?" He asked, putting the quill he had been working with down and observing him over the rim of his spectacles.

"No." He didn't elaborate. He spun on his heel to escape the brilliant green eyes and beckoned to the cabinet. A glass brought itself to him, then he went to open the 'refrigerator' and poured himself a glass of ice cold water.

"Did they start since you told me?" Dubhán still didn't turn around.

"No," he said softly.

"When did they start?"

He shrugged. Somehow it seemed entirely too weak to share that he had been haunted by the memory since the act. Then he thought of Geoffrey, telling him he shouldn't.

"I've always dreamed of the real thing," he said after a moment, his back still to Harry to avoid those killing curse eyes. "But now I'm dreaming of things that didn't happen."

"To her?"

He thought. In one way, that was true, but in another it really wasn't. No, Voldemort had never touched her - but that other man had held her jaw, facing her - yelling. He shut his eyes for a moment. She had screamed and begged, but she had never said his name. Did that really matter?

"Not specifically anything different," he said carefully. "Just different places, different people - and that she didn't escape, but I know she did. In my dream she knew my name and when she said it I woke up, because then I knew it was a dream."

"She called you Dubhán?"

He looked at Potter here - because Potter never called him that name anymore. That was a name for his head, like Devlin used to be. It was about something past, and waiting, and not here. "Devlin's" role had been reversed and now it was Dubhán that he dreamed of in his head.

"No. She called me Devlin. But she didn't know either. I didn't tell her."

Potter looked at him closely.

"Want some ice cream?" He asked randomly. He put the quill back into the ink pot.

Dubhán had never heard of 'ice cream' and tipped his head.

"It depends on what that actually is..."

It took Potter a moment to stop looking startled (apparently this was something everyone was supposed to have knowledge of); the expression shifting into one of uncomfortableness (perhaps because of Dubhán's lack of knowledge?).

"It's really good," Harry promised, rising from his chair. Dubhán sat down across from the abandoned chair.

Upside down he could read: Albus, it's interesting that Rufus would call you yesterday. His secretary sent a summons for me this evening but I was a bit preoccupied. Perhaps there is something we can help him resolve together? Let me know if you'd like to talk.

Sincerely,

Harry

Dubhán frowned softly, invisible to Potter.

"What did you dream about tonight? You don't have to answer, if you don't want." The last part came quickly and as an after-thought. Dubhán wondered how easily Emma spilled her own dreams. Of course, they were probably about teddy bears with rips or baby dolls that had gone missing.

He thought for a moment. Geoffrey came into his mind again. Perhaps this was the subject to be open about. Perhaps if he was open about this they wouldn't ask about the other things - wouldn't suspect so heavily that he would hide it from them. He knew Geoffrey was right about some of the things he knew.

"I dreamed I was escaping," he said, his hands wrapped around his cup. The water was warming nicely. "Then I heard her screaming. For a moment I think I knew I was dreaming - you know the way you kinda know but not really-" Potter made an appropriate humming noise behind him at the counter. "So I ran. I knew I was running to her. I ran past everything and then it was there-"

"What?"

He looked up, startled for a moment, until he realized he had done what he had a habit of doing - retellings as if everyone already had all the information he did.

"The tent that Malfoy dragged me into, the first time I met the Dark Lord." Potter frowned - perhaps still confused, so Dubhán elaborated as succinctly as he thought possible: "crucio."

Potter looked like he had understood - an expression of grim comprehension filling his face. So Dubhán continued.

"It was there. It's never-" he shook his head - the upcoming words pausing on his tongue. They tasted funny and he knew this was something he really shouldn't tell Potter, so he changed his details to fit his needs. "It hasn't been there in a long time. I was thinking that, but I still didn't think I was dreaming. She was screaming and I went in, but then she wasn't. She was there - in her blue dress - and so was he - the Dark Lord - and he was behind her, his face by her cheek, holding her jaw. And he told me I was foolish to think that I could save her. She called me Devlin and then I knew and I woke up."

Potter put a bowl of something white and mashed potato like in front of him, except that it was cold. He picked up the spoon and let a bit of it melt on his tongue. It was sweet, and creamy, and ice cold. Suddenly the name made sense.

"That sounds like a pretty terrible nightmare," Harry said thoughtfully. Dubhán shrugged. His cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

"I have worse."

Except he really didn't. He knew about many things, some of them worse, but he did not dream of them. When he thought of them they were more muted than her. Like the boy. Or the man behind the bars. Or Malfoy dragging his knife across his skin. Then there were memories like hers and the curse as yellow as the sun that were there and felt real every time he thought of them. Moments of his life in which the sharpness had not taken over. When it did, it felt the reality of the memories and to him they were like a story the sharpness had told him.

Potter stared into his ice cream, melting slowly.

"I hate that this happened to you Devlin," he said, his fist clenched around his spoon, looking like he wanted to hurl the utensil in his fury.

"What, exactly, do you hate?" Dubhán asked, a little too harshly, his words a little too sharp and brisk. Potter frowned at him, but Dubhán did not look away. What exactly did he hate? What exactly did he even know?

"I hate that you saw someone hurt," Harry said softly. "And I know she wasn't the only one."

"I didn't see her hurt." He said resolutely, since he hadn't told Potter he had.

Potter looked at him, tears at the edges of his eyes, a smile spreading across his face full of sympathy and pity.

"I was there when we found her, Devlin. I saw her for myself. She wouldn't tell us how she had escaped, but it was plainly clear what had happened to her."

"I wouldn't know. I didn't see."

Harry drew circles in his ice cream with his spoon. He shrugged.

"I didn't." He wanted to take back the declaration as soon it had come out of his mouth, because he knew it gave him away as surely as if he had simply said I was there when they made her scream. He licked his lips. Potter drew more circles.

"You were so brave to save her, Devlin."

"Stop saying that," he ground out, because he hadn't been brave. He had been a weak coward. A child, when she had needed him to be stronger. He had let them make her scream. It had been mere luck that he was able to save her before they killed her. He clenched his fists under the table, grinding his jaw together. "Don't call me that."

"Devlin-"

"If you call me that I'll tell you something that will give you nightmares - I swear!"

Potter's eyes were searching his bent head; he could feel him. He kept his eyes on the wood of the table.

"I'd take it. Even if it gives me nightmares, I'd hear anything you want to tell me."

Dubhán made an unrefined shout and it was him who threw his spoon. He didn't even notice which wall or floor or piece of furniture it hit. It missed Potter, he knew as much.

"Did you ever maybe think I don't want to tell you? Did you ever think he doesn't make me talk about it?"

"I didn't think he would, Devlin. He doesn't have an interest in your thoughts. He wouldn't want you to confront the emotions of it all."

"You're an idiot!" He bellowed and he suddenly realized he was standing on the chair, yelling down at Potter. "An idiot!"

Potter simply sat there, seemingly unfazed.

"He does care about me!" The defense rose without real thought into his lungs, hurled past his tongue in the same blindness that made him Dubhán and not Devlin.

"He wanted you to trust him, Devlin," Harry said softly.

"He wasn't lying!" Dubhán shouted and in his anger the ability to rationalize and communicate didn't grow but dwindled, leaving it impossible to say what would have made sense. He wasn't lying because he only loves himself and we're all tangled up in his head and can't you see I'm different to him? But he was only nine (nearly ten) and these things existed as a feeling and a knowings inside of his own head, but not as something that could be wielded by his tongue.

Potter sat back, looking up at him. Dubhán wanted him to stand up - to show Dubhán that he was in control, but he didn't and the something in Dubhán's stomach grew. His heart pounded against his ribs, his breath slow and steady with that taste of bitterness to it as it brushed across his tongue, his eyes narrowed as his vision kilters.

He was used to this - this rage - and he clenched his fists and tried to reel it back into something sensible. Anger is only good if you're using it to fuel something, Geoffrey would often say, his own voice impossibly calm for the situations that warranted the utterance.

And then he could feel it, like a warm blanket over his ice cold thoughts, like a cooling balm to his rage-filled muscles. The sharpness, in his head. Prowling across his mind and keeping them there.

He could almost feel the footfalls of the sharpness in his head, like a shadow prowling silently, burying nightmares, killing his demons.

He opened his mouth to say something sensible, but he was interrupted. The monotone, uncaring, beep of Potter's watch rung out in the kitchen.

Go back to sleep, he had said, and Dubhán suddenly knew why he hadn't been interested in him - he had been getting ready to play with Potter.

Dubhán fell still, the rage suddenly gone, leaving him breathless and dazed in it's absence.

"Devlin," Harry said softly, as if he knew the things going through his head. "It's alright. Remember what I said. This isn't your fault."

Dubhán licked his suddenly dry lips. His mind was frozen, a mush of unfinished and just beginning thoughts.

"Come on - let me bring you back to bed. I-"

"You're coming back." He hated how it sounded like a question.

"Yes."

"I'll wait for you." Potter looked at him, the gaze full of sympathy. "He used to let me wait for him."

That wasn't entirely true, but he hadn't been mad when he'd found Dubhán waiting.

"I'll wake you up when I get home, I promise," Harry said. His jaw clenched and unclenched the way brave mens jaws did when they were trying not to cry. Dubhán had seen it before.

He nodded. He knew he wouldn't sleep.

OoOoOoOoO

It was pitch black outside. If Harry still drove a muggle car, or owned one for that matter, it would have only taken him an hour or two to reach this spot. They were in the woods. The Dark Mark was above them. Voldemort wanted them to find this. Closer and closer to his house.

The note was bloody. There was a picture of a boy in the photograph. Brown hair, brown eyes, freckled - blue and black and all the wrong colors to be alive. His eyes did not open, although Harry stared at the photo half expecting them too. It was not a photo modeled after Devlin's, but he was caught by the similarity in the children's ages, regardless. He thought there was a message here, in the photo itself. But there was also another letter.

Don't you know how the game works, Harry? Give me the boy I'll have an even better surprise for you.

There was no body. Harry could only think the boys death was the surprise. Did that mean Voldemort had surpassed Harry's expectations? Did that mean he was bargaining with life? Arden was eyeing him with worry.

oOoOoOo

He woke Devlin when he came home. The boy was asleep at his desk, his head bent over a book about Ministry History. Undoubtably he had been trying to study what he felt was his new enemy. It looked as though he had been researching Rufus.

He startled awake, looking panicked.

"I really have to put a lock on the library, don't I? I just never guessed I'd have a bookworm beside your mum in the house."

The boy blinked up at him. The book was wrapped in his hands protectively - or more likely with a bit of shame.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Harry laughed.

"It's alright. I'll tell you what - I'll just take out the Dark Art's books and you can have free reign, alright?"

He nodded sleepily. Harry even snuck in a kiss on his forehead. It felt like the best end to a terrible night.

"Did he kill someone?"

Well, almost. Harry hesitated.

"Do you have a picture? I could tell you - before they ask me - I could tell you if I know anything."

"Devlin-"

"You said we need to be on the same page," the boy said, coming awake. "I'm trying to - I'm trying to get there."

Harry closed his eyes, but when he reopened them it was to swish his wand and summon the picture.

Devlin stared at it for a long time and each minute his eyes roamed over the photo, was another bit of Harry that died. He could plainly tell the boy knew something - whether it was the boy or the background or - something.

"He's already dead."

Harry didn't know if this was a fact - so shocking that it had to be uttered aloud, or a question.

"Yes."

"No, I mean - he's been dead."

Harry frowned, stepped closer, felt another piece of him die. Devlin's hands were shaking.

"What do you mean?"

Devlin looked at him - right at him - and Harry could see the desperation to both hold onto this information and release it.

"You buried him. I think you buried him."

OoOoOoOoO

Upcoming:

He wanted to close his eyes, but the fear wants him to see. So he sees. He sees it come closer. He hears the woosh as it is almost against his skin. It will hurt, he thinks.

Then something pulled at his shoulder. Too hard. Too tight. His body exploded in pain. He was yanked to the side by only his shoulder. His back slammed against the wooden floors and the impact made him cry out.