A/N: Bright-down, this chapter is here because of you.

Hopefully you guys (the some 40 of you that view it every time and the 25 something that subscribe to it) will review so I can post the next bit.

I've started posting over at HarryPotterFanfiction too, because I felt like I needed a restart, so the story is progressing and getting a rewriting as it publishes over there, but I have so much written (55 pages since last update + scenes years from now) that I couldn't help but post the next part.

Soonish (60ish pages from now), I'm thinking of skipping a couple years. I've resolved the issues I want to resolve, etc., and feel it might start to be a little repetitive and not so exciting, but I have so much exciting material for Devlin's first year at Hogwarts!

This is still a draft in my book and will be until the rewriting catches up to it, but I am pretty comfortable with it.

I'd really appreciate a review.

ON WITH THE STORY:

His father heaves a sigh.

"I don't fancy a bunch of Auror's storming the house. They'll make a mess. You're mother will be frantic. Emma will wake up and never get back to sleep. They'll want to question you and then they and I will get into an argument, which I'll win, because I'm their boss, but it will take us hours to have first. Then I'll have to redo all the wards again, which means I'll be tired all week. And Dumbledore will have to come and visit, and I'll have to refuse lemon drops left and right all evening for a week…"

Devlin stays staring at him, blinking. Not one of those reasons had been about him, really. Nothing about Harry being angry with him. Nothing about how he'll be disappointed. Devlin's hand drops.

"Thanks," his father says, as if he isn't talking to a nine year old, but a fellow adult. "I appreciate it."

Devlin is silent. His father holds out a hand, implying he wants Devlin to come to him, but Devlin remains still.

"Lets go inside. We can have some hot coco."

"No," he says, his words whisked away by the wind.

His father frowns and takes a step towards him.

"Devlin, don't do anything stupid," he warns.

"I'll leave your bloody wards alone, don't worry!" He shouts, letting his arms drop to his sides. "But I'm not going back in there."

His father frowns and once more he gets that look of uncertainty, of being in over his head.

"Is something inside bothering you, Devlin?" His father asks, his voice just loud enough for the wind to carry it over to his son.

"Everything," the child whispers, shivering from more than the chill wind. He frowns at his son's expression, so earnest and pained and angry. "Everything bothers me in there."

"Why?" He asks, trying to make his voice more gentle than confused, although it is hard. Everything is bothering him?

"Because every bloody thing is the same!"

He's never heard the child curse before; he is taken aback for a moment.

Death Eaters are adults. Your son lived with adults that didn't treat him like a child.

He opens his mouth to say something about it nonetheless, but then one of Molly's sayings comes to his mind. 'You have to choose your battles, Harry dear. If I had reprimanded George and Fred for everything they did wrong, I would never have been able to say a nice thing too them."

So he takes a deep breath.

"The same as what?"

"As when they bloody took me, that's what!"

Harry frowned. The fact that it was the same had all to do with the boy. Harry hadn't let Alexandra change anything. Once, she'd wanted to paint the living room a pale green but Harry had refused her. In the end he had begged her. 'It wouldn't look the same as the pictures.'

As long as everything remained the same, he could pretend, when he was alone in a room, that Devlin, still four and a half, was right around the corner. In the first months after the body had been placed at the Ministry, Harry had caught himself pretending, in the middle of the night, that it had all been a bad dream and that Devlin was upstairs, asleep. He would never check on the child, of course, because, he'd tell himself, that would surely wake the boy up for no good reason.

Alexandra and he were different in that way. She wanted things to change to mark the change, while Harry wanted them to stay the same to leave it unmarked. In the end, Harry had been less able to cope, so she had given into his coping method.

It had never occurred to him that it would cause Devlin stress.

"Please, Devlin, come with me." He holds out his hand. His shirtsleeve whips around in the wind. The boy is shaking again, crying. It hurts him when the boy cries, but it also makes him happy that he still can. He wondered what Voldemort thought of the boy crying.

"No," he says, his voice tense and hitching at the end.

"Devlin, you have to trust me, please."

He holds his breath. He waits for the words. He waits for the: 'That's the problem, Mr. Potter, I don't.'

But it never comes.

Instead when he opens his eyes, the boy is reaching out for his hand. He grabs onto the boy and leads him slowly inside.

The back door opens up to the kitchen.

Once the door is shut, Harry lifts his wand.

"What shall we change?"

His son is looking at him uncertainly.

"I know Alexandra always wanted to repaint the cabinets. Lets make them wood colored, shall we?"

So the cabinets changed from blue to a dark wood. Devlin's eyes widened.

"The floor…" he said quietly, trying to sound confident.

"What color?"

"Wood…"

So the old fashioned checkers disappear and in their place is a light wood, contrasting with the cabinets.

"How about the living room? We must paint the walls a pale green. Your mother wanted to years ago."

He pulls the boy along with him. They turn the living room walls green, the carpet from a beige to a brown, they completely remove the closet Devlin had hidden in once and replace it with a coat rack instead.

They put new picture frames in the hallway. They change the stairs to wood. Harry fixes the third board that creaks on them as well.

He puts a new nameplate on Devlin's door, and then removes it entirely when Devlin whispers that it is childish. They give him a new knob. In his room, they move the window the Death Eater's had used as entrance. They give him a skylight instead, and a tiny little window over his desk, because Harry says "soon you'll have an owl of your own."

By the end, Devlin is laughing and when Harry spins around to change his bed frame, he finds Alexandra leaning in the doorway. She is smiling and frowning at the same time in the way only she can.

"We're changing things," Harry says, matter of fact. "Devlin thought everything should be a bit different than it always has."

"Oh, indeed. I do hope if you did this downstairs you changed the living room wall color…"

"We did, to pale green." Devlin is smiling, even if it is a bit shadowed.

"Good, I've been asking your father for ages," she says, smiling more fully now.

"How's that for tonight, Devlin?" His father asks and he's smiling too.

"Better," Devlin admits, even though he'd rather he never admitted his weakness to him at all.

OoOoOoOoO

When Harry gets home from work the next day, he is holding a small package. It is wrapped in purple and pink wrapping paper. Devlin knows immediately that it is not for him. He also suspects his mother wouldn't appreciate such garish colors. It must be for Emma.

"Hey, Devlin," he winks and then shouts: "Emma, I have something for you!"

Devlin swears the girl can smell wrapping paper and new toys, because she's already bounding down the stairs. The minute her eyes fall on the package, she grins.

"Is it a new dolly?" She asks, excitement making the pitch of her voice go up.

"Nope, it's not. Here open it." She takes it in her hands quickly and begins to rip it open, until suddenly, she looks up with suspicious, narrowed eyes.

"Why am I getting a present?" She asks softly.

Harry shrugs.

"Donno, just wanted to give you one. It's not that odd, is it?"

Still those narrowed eyes, although she's far too innocent for them to hold anything more than curious suspicion.

"Well no…but Devlin's here now…"

"So? He won't be jealous, I promise."

"But…you gave me presents lots because he wasn't here."

For a moment all the color in Harry's face drains and he looks shocked. Devlin merely tips his head a bit, once more surprised by his little sister.

"Well…this isn't a present like that."

"Okay." She looks back down, the seriousness gone, and rips the paper off. Inside is a box and inside of the box is a shrunk flying broom. It is a child's broom. It has pink kick stands. She jumps up and is just about to scream, when Harry puts a finger to his mouth and she quiets.

"I haven't told your Mum," he whispers. Devlin chortles. Of course he hadn't.

"Oh, okay Daddy." She turns away from him, as if suspecting that is what he'll be off to do, and to Devlin. "Tell me all about it, Devy."

He cringes at her nickname for him. It had started just the day before.

"I will if you don't call me that," he says gently. She nods, but somehow he thinks she'll forget within the hour.

OoOoOo

A couple hours later, they're in the air. Only his mother is down below, worrying her lip.

Potter is staying close to Emma, but Devlin flies high above them. Everything is going fine, until he hears Emma down below saying: "This is fun! Look how fast I can go! If I had this those scary men could never have caught me!"

He isn't sure what happens to his body, but he knows it panics. He knows he loses control of the broom. He knows it begins spiraling downwards. He knows he hears someone scream (he thinks it's his mother). He knows someone is zooming towards him, but they're not fast enough. He's too fast. Falling too fast. He shuts his eyes and sets his jaw, readying for the pain.

His magic is tingling, but it's his wolf at the surface now, and his wolf is slower when it comes to magic. He hears his mother shouting, "oh my God". She is screaming. Emma is screaming. His father is shouting, only he's shouting something different.

"Get your magic under control, Devlin. It's blocking us."

His wolf didn't like being cast upon. It was so afraid. Devlin was so afraid right now.

"Do something! Devlin, do something!"

How do you like that cliffie? What happens to a wizard boy who can't use his magic to cushion a fall, hmm?

Upcoming: There is power in those eyes: not a wizard's power, but rather a mental power. For a moment Severus is thrown aback; he is hit by what must make his potion necessary. Werewolves, he realizes, must have great mental power to overtake a mind.