He falls asleep on the floor, in his father's arms and his dreams are punctuated by the sound of his father's heartbeat, calm and steady. Tonight, instead of his dreams seeming so real they seem like dreams – he watches them through his own eyes, as he always dreams, and feels what he felt then, but he also knows, deep down, that he's safe now.

He's slinking around the compound, on a mission. The ground is cold beneath his paws. He lifts them lightly, tensing his body as he crawls forward. His ears are turning this way and that way, listening for the slightest sound. He puts his body fully against the ground and then he has feet and hands with thumbs and a wand in his mouth that he grabs. He is mouthing the words to a complicated unwarding spell. The stick is pointing towards tent-fabric. A small hole is appearing. Now he has paws again bends his head down to pick the stick up with his sharp teeth. It is important not to bite down.

She smells like flowers that have been stomped into mud. She is alone. He resists sighing in relief. He hides under the slim, uncomfortable looking cot that she's sleeping on. Feet walk near then continue beyond and he sneaks out again. Now he has green eyes. He has arms and he slings one around her. He has hands, and one of them is covering her mouth. She wakes up. Her breath is hot and quick against his palm, but she doesn't try to scream.

"Don't scream or I'll leave you here." His eyes are narrowed. He is glaring at her. The footsteps have just made the slight shifting sound that means someone has turned on their heels. "Get up." His words are so soft that he might have imagined he's said them, except that she's following his directions. His finger points to the hole in the tent. He sticks his body through it and waits for her on the other side. He closes it up.

"If you want to live, you'll do what I say." She nods, quaking. "If they catch you and you tell them anything about me, I'll let them kill you, because they'll already have killed me." She is nodding again.

"I'm going to transform. You'll follow me only when I scratch the ground." Her eyes are full of amazement when he transforms. He looks across the gap he must cross. His tail slips between his legs, a sign of fear that he wishes he could control, and he scurries across, low to the ground. Now he turns towards her and scratches with his paw, but she just stares at him, her eyes glassy with fear and exhaustion. He eyes her from across the camp nervously. He feels his four legs quaking in worry – she'll get them both caught!

Once more he finds himself with hands and feet and magic. He lifts the wand in his hand. It is shaking and he tries hard to make it still.

'Imperio', he breathes, a bare whisper. Perhaps it had just been the wind. And her eyes are calm now. And her face is free of that tight frown. And her hands fall lankly at her sides. And all Devlin can think is that it's true 'you have to want it,' because he's failed so many time to perform this spell upon his Grandfather's request.

And he thinks of how he wants her to cross the clearing and she does. She follows him like a gosling follows its mother. He leads them into the woods by the camp. They are thick with fallen leaves and suddenly the air fizzs with magic. He stops and she stops behind him, still under his control.

He leads them into the woods. He stops. There are wards here. He transforms and performs the same spell again. He creates a tiny hole in Voldemort's wards. He calls it his numbing spell, because it seems to 'numb' the wards around it so that they don't notice the tiny hole has been created.

His control over her is slipping and slowly her lips turn down and her eyes stop looking so happy. She has no idea what has happened.

"There is a town about a mile away. Keep walking towards the moon." He shoves a slender wand into her hand, not his own, of course, but it had done for the mission. "Try to make it light up once you're in town. It will alert the Ministry. If you tell them anything about this camp or about me, they'll find you again and kill you. They'd kill me if they knew…"

"Well, run." And she does.

'Goodnight, Devlin," his father is saying and he realizes as his eyes flutter open for the barest of moment's that he's in his bed, the covers draped gently over his body. Zee's head is next to his, the dog's eyes moving back and forth between adult and child. His father leans over and kisses him and a sleepy smile creeps onto his face, quickly vanishing as he falls asleep again.

OooOooOooOooO

Harry Potter turns the knob to his bedroom, the light from the hallway falling upon Alex's face. For a moment happiness washes over him and he feels at peace. But then she moves, just the tiniest bit, and the ever-fragile peace is disrupted. He closes the door silently behind him, but doesn't climb into bed. He knows the instant his body tucks itself under the cover's she will know; her eyes will flutter open, her arms will reach out to touch him tenderly, and she'll ask 'is he okay?' and Harry won't know what to say. So, he wanders over to one of the armchairs instead.

His thoughts swarm like a nest of bee's newly disturbed. Devlin had defied Voldemort. The boy who had come to him swearing he wouldn't betray Voldemort actually already had. The fact that Devlin had used the Imperius Curse was of little importance to Harry. He didn't even think David would much care – it had saved his daughter and the intention behind it had been good.

And he'd managed it, and there it was, the true thought behind all this buzzing swarming mess. Devlin had a great deal of control over his magic. More than Harry had ever had as a child. Even as a youngster, Harry had known Devlin had been more in control than Harry himself had been, but he and Alex and simply dismissed it as a child raised in a magical environment, something neither of them had truly experienced as young children.

Alexandra's mother, of course, had been a Pureblood, but she had run away from the magical world and Tom Riddle while still with child, and had raised Alex as a Muggle, even going so far as to act shocked and bewildered at her invitation to a magical school. She hadn't told Alex the truth for many years. Harry's life – well Harry didn't need to think about that.

It is plain to Harry, however, that Devlin's control is more than simply the product of a child raised around magic; it is innate. It courses through his veins and surfaces easily at his slightest whim.

He has the control of his Grandfather; Harry does not even bother to lie to himself. He carries himself like young Riddle, from Dumbledore's memories. He speaks like him, calm and collected and sharply intelligent. But he hadn't grown up unloved and left in an orphanage.

The things Devlin claimed to have experienced at Voldemort's hands were horrible, not the most sadistic or abusive – Harry could name quite a few Death Eater children, or simply Pureblooded children, who were taught equal Dark Arts as Devlin claims. He was beaten, clearly, but not frequently. Something had stopped Voldemort from being truly cruel after that first incident of Crucio.

He looks over at Alexandra and thinks of how Emma looks so much like her mother, with Harry's spirit, whereas Devlin looks so much like Harry's family (and a bit of Tom Riddle) with a personality so perfectly split between his parents that it is scary.

Alexandra is always calm under pressure, and the way Devlin had dutifully recited his plan had reminded him so very much of his mother. But he wonders if Alex could have ever ignored the risk and took the leap for someone she didn't know. She has always said that is why she never became an Auror – 'I protect fiercely what I know, but can't find it in me to risk for what I don't', but that was okay, because Harry was the opposite and Alexandra often grounded his 'Saving People Thing' which Devlin seemed to have inherited…

Devlin had planned it all.

He must have snuck around the compound (how he hadn't been noticed, Harry wasn't sure), reached the 'prisoner tent' as he'd called it and found someway inside without disturbing guard or ward, and then been able to lay, unseen, under Maria's cot-

He stops his train of thought, frowning. How had he done that? He had explained it, hadn't he? He tries to think of the child's exact words.

'I had to go first … see if there was anyone in wolf form …. she had to come when I said so."Harry sits upright in his chair, eyes flashing. Wolf? Had he said wolf form?

So, who got the slip up right? BTW, it was Maria who called Harry 'Mr. Potter' just in case that wasn't very clear – Harry was remembering what she had said to him. She, of course, thought if she told Harry, Devlin would die which is why she said he didn't want to make her tell him. And also why she broke into tears at the sight of him.

I know this is really short (okay compared to what I've been trying to put out there) but I really really really wanted to end it here. I added Devlin's full 'dream' as a bonus (this is the scene I've had for weeks and weeks waiting impatiently to share). I may come back and edit it, honestly. I usually keep these scenes to myself because they evolve in little ways to help the story. For instance, I KNEW Devlin had to have done something wrong but I didn't know what it was until the day I uploaded the last chapter and then it suddenly hit me – the Imperius Curse! . So, if anything should need adjusting and you're thinking 'but…it didn't say that' check back here, I might have changed it. [insert evil laugh]

In the future: Devlin meets Maria again, Devlin tells about the Bowman attack (the family he thinks was attacked), possible Snape action, oh yeah and does anyone remember – Draco Malfoy handed Devlin SOMETHING.

:)