There was a moment, as his green eyes opened, that Dubhán felt a calmness that was almost as foreign to him as that love in Potter's eyes. His muscles were relaxed and his mind was clear. Zee had snuck into the room overnight and was curled between him and the wall. Outside there was the sound of birds and downstairs a feint chatter of people.

He sat up to find that Potter was still asleep, but he was no longer alone. He had an arm slung over a small redheaded girl that could only be Emma. Her body was burrowed against his chest, one of her little hands under her head and the other clinging to Potter's shirt.

She looked content and Dubhán wondered what, exactly, that felt like. It was yet another thing that gave him a sense of knowing but not knowing. He thought he could half-remember what it felt like to be held by the man that way.

He shook himself, because it didn't really benefit him to recall or wonder or spend hours postulating if it was worthwhile to remember. He could barely stand Potter to touch him, holding him was all together different. Besides, it was love that drove Potter to hold Emma that way, and Dubhán knew if Potter knew, he wouldn't even want to hold Dubhán at all.

He sat up in bed, ran a hand through his hair, gave Potter and Emma one last look before slipping out of bed.

She was probably up already, eating breakfast with that lady and man he'd seen her with, telling them. No, she had probably woken up from a nightmare and told them last night. Or perhaps she had only waited until she was home - away from him - to tell them.

He felt his breath catch in his chest for a moment and his feet swayed beneath him. His eyes felt hot.

Stop sniffling. Stand up straight.

He stood up straighter, and tried to pretend Grandfather was there, circling him. Finally he felt like he could step forward and open the door. The hallway was quiet, but the voices were still downstairs, quietly speaking.

It was Alexandra, Geoffrey, and a not-really-awake looking Sirius. For once, it looked as though Geoffrey had actually slept. It wasn't so much that Geoffrey looked cheerful, or even more alert - because Geoffrey wasn't cheerful and he was alert even without an ounce of sleep. His eyes looked clearer and the dark circles had faded.

It was him that spotted Dubhán first and he smiled smally in acknowledgement to his presence. Alexandra turned around in her chair and smiled warmly - her eyes were darker and there were bags beneath them. She hadn't slept.

"Hello, Devlin," she said, her eyes still locked upon his face. "How did you sleep?"

Don't tell your mother.

He kept on looking at her, kept on blinking and breathing and doing everything that he had before Potter's favor had rung in his ears. Dubhán knew that men changed when they lied - looked away, breathed more or less, blinked faster or not at all - and he had learned over the years that if you didn't want someone investigating something the first step was to look normal.

"Fine," he said, because the other thing men did was speak more than they normally would. Grandfather liked to call that 'rambling' and it was something Dubhán had learned quickly he did not like.

She furrowed her brow a bit, but then seemed to reconsider pursuing the uncertainty and instead asked him if he was hungry.

"Yes," he said, eyeing Geoffrey who was looking at him with a regard of warning should he refuse.

After a bit of coffee, Sirius woke up quickly, talking animately to Alexandra about a motorcycle that he was apparently repairing. Geoffrey would ask a question here or there and Sirius seemed more than comfortable answering. For a moment Dubhán felt that same stab of jealously that he had when Geoffrey had come to the Potter's house - when he had shown how able he was to maneuver in the world outside of the camp as well as he had inside of the wards with Voldemort. Geoffrey was simply one of those people that just knew what to do, and Dubhán wished that along with all of Voldemort's attributes that had slipped onto him, so had this one of Geoffrey's. Dubhán could still hardly speak with Alexandra and Potter. He was a boy who almost always knew what to do, but couldn't always make himself do those things.

"Why do you want it to fly, though?" He asked softly, propelling himself to ask. If Geoffrey could do this, then so could he. He was only curious - Voldemort had never really punished him for asking questions like this. He would be safe, even if it was seen in his head.

"Because...it's cool. And much more comfortable than a broom."

"I want to learn to fly," he said, trying to make himself say what he was thinking. That seemed to be what Emma did. "But not with a bike."

"With what?" Sirius asked, his eyes brightening at Dubhán's inclusion in the conversation. Dubhán frowned.

"With nothing," he replied slowly, puzzled and Sirius' curiosity when he had thought it was plainly clear. Geoffrey had his eyes closed and was shaking his head slowly. "Like a wisp of smoke!"

Alexandra was frowning in her own puzzlement, Sirius was looking intrigued and bemused; as if he thought it was something Dubhán had made up. Standing in the doorway, however, was Harry Potter and there was no confusion in his eyes.

"When you learn how, teach me," Potter said knowingly, chortling. Emma was laughing.

Dubhán had slept better than he had in months or perhaps years and sleep, he thought, had its own sort of euphoria. He stood up on the bench.

"Yes sir!" He said, and Emma was laughing and he wanted her to giggle like she did whenever he did something she thought was amazing, so he jumped off the bench. He tucked his body into a tight ball and used his magic to stay up just long enough to spin in the air and land effortlessly on the ground, on his feet. Geoffrey was looking up, sighing. If they were alone he would have probably called him foolish and asked if he wanted another broken arm.

"Do please remember you can't take pain potions, Dubhán," he said instead, blue eyes regarding him strikingly. Alexandra was frowning at him now, but Emma was giggling and that was enough to tug Dubhán's lips into a proud smirk. There was an almost thoughtful look on Potter's face.

Sirius' house seemed quiet and almost uninhabited - there were rooms, like the living room and some of the rooms upstairs, that felt owned, but other rooms like the kitchen and the 'guest' rooms upstairs had a different feeling about them - as if they were simply there, but not part of the rest. This quietness, however, was merely an illusion.

People seemed to come and go faster than Dubhán could keep track: the redheaded be-speckled man, the flying coach from Hogwarts, the girl that had been with them in Diagon Alley, Shacklebolt, a pink-haired green-eyed woman, and now, glaring at him, Severus Snape. All of them had moved from the fireplace in the living room with a great speed - searching for Potter or Sirius or perhaps someone who lived in the huge house that Dubhán had yet to meet. Severus Snape, world renowned Potions Master and traitor of The Dark Lord, however, seemed rather unhurried.

He had on an outerwear cloak that billowed at his slightest movement, making it easier for him to draw a wand without an opponent knowing. Half compelled by fear and half by curiosity, Dubhán eyed him over the edge of a book. The man's eyes were an eerie darkness. Dubhán recalled reading that eyes weren't really 'black' but he thought whoever had decided that, hadn't ever met Severus Snape.

"The words you are looking for are legilimency," Snape drawled, referring to the intense regard Dubhán had pinned him with. "But then, I doubt you could do it even so."

He had a sardonic laugh, as if nothing were truly funny to him but only bemusing. Jaded. That's what Geoffrey called people like him.

"There is nothing in your head I'd want to see." The words were sincere and Snape seemed almost a tad startled. Dubhán felt a desire to push with this man, unlike he felt with Potter or Alexandra. Perhaps because this man actually meant so little to him, but he shook that from his thoughts, because that would imply he was afraid of losing Potter. "I've seen what you have seen, so why would it interest me?"

He'd seen men screaming. Seen men fall from their feet like a puppet with it's strings cut. He's seen white-robed men crying out just like he'd seen Voldemort punishing a stupid Death Eater. The only thing Snape would have to show him that he hadn't seen before was the personal touch - the doing. But to see that, he felt, would be rather like tempting fate, because he knew when he could do it, Grandfather would demand it of him.

Snape's black eyes were like a sliver of sharp glinting rock, the gaze like the edge of that rock, cutting into him.

"You're an odd child," he said eventually, as if he hadn't meant for the words to exist outside of his head. He swept out of the room ominously and Dubhán went back to reading the book.

A balding man visited, and a man with a wild eye (Mad-Eye Moody?), before someone worth paying attention to once more tumbled through the fire.

He was dressed in a deep blue robe with neon swirls of color across it's surface. Dumbledore.

Those blue eyes were resting on him, but unlike with Snape, he hid behind the book and dared not to look up. Being near Dumbledore was a hundred times worse than being in a room full of white robed men.

"Hello, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said kindly, with that edge of casualty that meant to set Dubhán at ease. It really had the opposite effect and Dubhán thought Dumbledore was probably good at wooing regular children but could definitely see where he had failed with the Dark Lord as a child since he seemed to be failing miserably with him. "Is that book interesting?"

It was a book about the Black family. He had found it tucked under the coffee table. It was about as interesting as reading about the Malfoy family would have been - still, he appreciated the picture of Bellatrix while she had been young. She was ugly now and he'd be sure to tell her next time he saw her.

"Not really," he said dismissively.

"Would you like something else to read?" Dumbledore was motioning to the bookcase against the far wall, but Dubhán had read most of those books at home, already. They were the sort of books any respectable wizard or witch had on display in their house.

"No," he said, pulling his eyes back to the book and hoping Dumbledore would take the hint. After an awkward moment, the elder wizard left.

Now that the danger was gone, all Dubhán could think about was how soon this world would come crumbling down around him, because by now, she had surely told them.

But she hadn't.

oOoOoOo

"You're good," Potter said, frowning down at the chessboard. Dubhán could almost feel him trying to focus.

"I like it," Dubhán answered easily. He still wasn't sure why Potter had requested they play and sent the top of Potter's head a hard questioning stare as Potter bent down to 'look at every angle'.

"Ugh...You're definitely going to get that pawn," Potter fretted.

"Maybe," Dubhán said. He probably wasn't actually, because he had a much bigger kill in mind that required bypassing the tiny figure. "Why did you want to play me, sir?"

Potter looked up to regard him with those eyes the same color as the killing curse. Maybe there was still some of the curse in those eyes from when he was a baby.

"I thought it would give us a chance to talk about what happened at the Ball," he said simply, hesitantly moving a rook. Dubhán took his other rook a second later and Potter whimpered playfully.

"Why would you want to do that?"

Potter's eyes refocused on the board, even as his mouth began to form the answer.

"You ran away because you saw a Death Eater, Devlin." His words were as straight forward as his next move. "I need to know who it was."

Dubhán shook his head.

"No."

He wouldn't tell him that it hadn't been a Death Eater that had caused him to run.

He wouldn't tell.

But she would.

OoOoOoO

"Geoffrey?" His eyes snap open from a dead sleep and they blink - finding and focusing on him for a moment.

"What are you doing in here?" He asked. There was a floating globe that Dubhán had never seen before, illuminating the room - Geoffrey eyed it.

"I couldn't sleep," he said. Geoffrey reached forward and dragged him onto the bed.

This was often were Dubhán fell asleep at home - next to Geoffrey in the werewolf tent on his tiny bunk. Because Dubhán's sleep was often plagued and there was nothing more disastrous than a tired Voldemort kept up by a screaming boy.

He clung to Geoffrey like Emma had clung to Potter, but he never felt content because when he was here, he was always hiding from something else.

Geoffrey roused him bright and early.

"Get back to your bed, little one."

Dubhán obeyed with an air of practice, stumbling out of the room and into the hallway. Geoffrey had hoped that Potter wouldn't notice and Potter did not - but Alexandra was already awake in the room, lying next to Potter with Emma curled up between them.

"Good Morning, Devlin," she whispered and he wondered if she already knew or just thought he had woken up to use the loo before she had opened her own eyes.

"Not awake yet," he mumbled. The sun wasn't even up. He fell face-forward on the bed that was all his own (he had not encouraged the idea of sharing it with Emma).

He couldn't go back to sleep with her watching him and he desperately wished he had used the loo while he was out there, but he stayed very very still and tried to image she was him. It was easier to control his body when he imaged it was Voldemort he was trying to fool - because failing to fool Voldemort was a terribly stupid thing to do.

Eventually she rose from the bed and kissed Emma. He could tell this all from sound. He assumed she next got dressed, but instead the footsteps had been her approaching his bed. He could feel her long red hair tickle his back even through the knit shirt.

"I love you, baby," she said, and her hand was in his hair, brushing his fringe away. She kissed him on the forehead and it took every ounce of control he had not to frown or furrow his brow. "Someday soon, I'll be able to do this while you're awake."

She left through the door, but it was several minutes, or hours later (he couldn't be sure) before he was able to shake the quietness that had crept over him and open his eyes.