It was well past dinner when they arrived back. Potter had them floo into a room that Dubhán could only suppose was his office. The house was hushed, but somehow Potter knew something was the slightest bit off, and took a turn into the living room. Emma was curled up against Alexandra, on the sofa.

"Nightmare," Alexandra mouthed. "She was worried about you."

Alexandra's eyes were dull and tired and when she turned to look at him the smile that was always there shook a bit with exhaustion. Potter came toward her, a soft smile lifting the corners of his lips. He shared a kiss with Alexandra and then he was lifting the bundle off of Alexandra. Emma moulded to his form.

"Daddy?"

"Hey baby, I'm home. Can I read you a story? I want some snuggles."

Emma clung to him.

"I had a nightmare," she whispered into his ear and Potter held her closer.

"It was only a dream - you tell me about it and we'll fix it, alright?" She nodded sleepily against him as Potter carried her upstairs. Dubhán watched them go with a mixture of jealousy and perplexity rushing through his mind.

"How are you, Devlin?" Alexandra asked, stretching. Her words were slow and careful - as if she actually had to think about their formation in her mouth.

"You should really try to sleep," Dubhán said, instead of answering. "You'll stop being able to think properly."

She smiled lopsided at him.

"Maybe I already have," she replied, rising to her feet. Her movements were slow and thoughtful as she came toward the doorway. Her hand reached out and before he could really comprehend what she meant to do, she had ruffled his hair and planted a kiss atop his head. "Come on, Devlin, I'll get you tucked in."

Except it was at that moment that the floo flared to life. Severus Snape's head was floating in the flames.

I'll being calling your wife tonight.

Dubhán glared at the man.

"Alexandra, I wanted to catch you before you put your son to sleep."

His eyes didn't linger on Dubhán like he thought they might have. Alexandra closed her eyes for a moment, as if she had believed for one moment that she might actually get to sleep, before she opened the floo connection and Severus Snape was sauntering through.

Dubhán felt a primal sort of unjustified fear swarm his mind. What had Snape seen? What did he have to tell Alexandra?

"Do you want some tea, Severus?" She asked kindly, motioning to the kitchen. Severus' gaze grazed by his own, before coming back to Alexandra's.

"No, that won't be necessary." She nodded in understanding.

"What did you want to discuss about Devlin, then?" She asked. She was standing by him again and her arm reached up to touch his shoulder - reassuring.

"Might the boy wait in the other room?" Severus questioned, regarding him for a moment.

Alexandra nodded.

"I'll tell you in the morning," she whispered by his ear, leading him by the shoulder out of the room. He thought of arguing, but she simply looked too tired to argue with.

Out in the hallway he knew what she thought he ought to do, but instead snuck around the corner. How she hadn't thought he would, even in her sleepless state, baffled him. He walked carefully and soundlessly toward the other entrance to the living room. He had spent years learning how to be perfectly quiet and statue-still. The hallway behind the stairs was hushed and dark and it made the breath in his chest still.

"You're trying to say that he's lied - that he can defend his mind?" Dubhán poured his focus into the sound of their voices, to keep the confusion and fear at bay. The sharpness in his mind throbbed with weariness that seemed entirely unfounded to him. "What of Geoffrey, then?"

"No," Snape drawled, as if the idea had very little credibility - or a bad taste even. Or maybe like it would have been better if that were the truth. Dubhán was used to decoding peoples gestures and face (that usually gave everything away), but without the visual aid he felt as if he were mostly guessing. "I am saying that there is something abnormal about the boys mind. There is something not quite right."

Alexandra didn't say anything.

"Surely you know what the boys fate should have been - no mere child should have been able to withstand Crucio."

Dubhán waited, wanting and needing, for Alexandra to say something, but she didn't. It was Snape who spoke again.

"Albus has been asking after the boy - I will...leave this out of our conversations. However, I strongly urge you to find a way to understand what is happening. Perhaps the Death Eater can shed some light, as you suggested."

"Thank you Severus," she finally said, long minutes later. "I will look into it."

It was no longer with practice that he kept himself still against the wall, but with a strange concoction of confusion which was rapidly boiling and breaking into a variety of anger he didn't entirely understand. Minutes or hours later, he moved from the wall to climb back around and up the stairs. His mind felt full of wasps.

She was standing at his open door, her face almost ashen, leaning there. Realizing he wasn't where she had sent him. Realizing he had heard.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked on his heel the way Geoffrey did when he was thinking over a situation away from prying eyes. She hadn't yet seen him.

"I'm not insane," he said softly, as he approached. The anger was still there, but there was something about her grey face and trembling lips that urged him not to lash out at her, and he listened to the sharpness today. She spun around and when she saw him, her body seemed to slump with a kind of defeat that he found especially disturbing on her. He'd seen it before, of course. Anyone who had spent as much time as him around Death Eater's serving Voldemort would know what resignation looked like in all of it's embodiments. "He had me looked at. I'm not insane."

She remained supporting herself with the wall, her lip held between her teeth, and tilted her head back for a moment with her eyes squeezed shut.

"I know you're not, honey," she said softly, opening her eyes to look at him with what he could tell she hoped looked convincing. "But I still think it would be a good idea to see a mind healer, like Severus suggested..."

"When I wasn't nothing, he had them look in my head," he said slowly, watching her face - watching her fall apart. He'd seen it before and he wanted to see if she really was. Would he make her break? He couldn't yet tell how it would make him feel, if she did. "The Healer told Grandfather it had something to do with the fact that I was a werewolf - that the wolf had taken the brunt of the torture."

He rocked on his heels again. She took an unsteady breath at 'grandfather' and 'torture'.

"I told the other werewolf that my wolf had saved me." He hadn't told him the rest, because it had felt private. Somehow, he thought telling her might stop her from breaking so he told her, before he could think about it more and realize how much it would hurt if she broke. "Maybe that's the truth. Maybe if those people who become nothing had a wolf in them, they'd still be something."

"I still think-" she was breathless and near-crying and somehow it hurt more to see the tears on her face than it did Potter's - because he had seen girls cry before and the mere association with her and them sent a terrified shiver up his spine.

"I won't see a healer. I won't let one near me that's going into my mind. You don't know what it's like." There was a bit more edge to his voice, now. "To have to prove yourself before you know how. To try and figure out what you did that saved your life because very very soon you'll have to do it again. You don't know what it is like to have him in your head so much that it hurts when he's not there!"

"No...I don't," she said slowly, wiping at her face. "But Devlin - maybe it's something we can fix. Maybe-"

"Maybe I will need it again!" He shouted, and behind him he could hear Potter stepping out from Emma's room, but he had eyes only for Alexandra. "Maybe he isn't through with me. Maybe I'll need to stand in front of him again. Maybe I'll need to prove that I'm worth something again. Maybe you have no idea what you're asking me to do by getting better, because your better is his boring and if I'm boring, what am I worth?"

She was shivering, eyes wide and chest heaving. Falling apart. There had been a rush of power in saying those things, but now that they were said, he wasn't sure he felt the same. He had done this to her. Him.

"Devlin..." Her voice was broken and exhausted and for a moment he was lost in the past, a memory resurfacing involuntarily of a dirty hand reaching through the bars. The one time he had seen someone fall apart in front of him that wasn't being tortured. That person had laughed, sharp and caustic and somehow empty. Devlin, he had said, and Dubhán remembered being terrified of the dirty white-robed man who had known his real name.

"I'm not insane," he said harshly, trying to shove aside the image of the filthy man in his memory. "I don't need to get better. This is me. I don't want to be someone else. If you don't like me, send me back, because he likes me."

She heaved, her windpipes making a whine and a shuttering sound with the air. Behind them Harry said one of those words Emma always tattled on him for. He made himself stand perfectly still, ramrod straight, and tried to imagine the ocean.

"I love you, Devlin," she said, her voice raspy and forced. Her shoulders shook. She hid her face behind her hands and he watched, frozen with something unidentifiable blooming in his chest, as she slumped against the wall and slid to the floor. "More than anything..."

She was strong and calculating. If she had been in his room that night, it would have been different - he'd spent a whole year telling himself so. To see her like this - to realize it wasn't only Potter who felt so deeply, was disconcerting to say the least.

To see that he could hurt her.

Potter came forward, sweeping past him, bumping his shoulder. It was the first time Potter had truly seemed to disregard him and even though it was only a moment, it felt strange. Potter's attention was all for her as he came to her and embraced her, planting kisses into her hair.

Love.

He had never seen anyone kiss, not even like this.

Bella tried sometimes with him. You're getting carried away, Bella. He is mine. Grandfather would say and she would slink away from him, warned of something he did not completely understand.

"It's alright," Potter was whispering to her. If Dubhán was a normal boy he wouldn't have heard, but he isn't and he does. "This is hard. We knew it would be. You're exhausted. This isn't fair - get some sleep. I'll put him to bed. Come on, don't do this to yourself..."

"I just want it to all stop, Harry," she whispered back, sobbing.

"I know, I know - but working like this; you're just going to make a mistake." She laughed and he seemed to understand, because he chuckled too. "Yeah, I know - we're both bad at this. But come on, tonight - sleep."

She nodded against his chest and he led her down the hall. It was just as they were passing him that she suddenly pulled herself away from Potter. She was in front of him and before he could stop her, he was against her.

A hug.

She smelled like lullabies, parchment, vanilla, and kisses. Her heart pitter-pattered against his ear in a familiar-yet-foreign hypnotizing way. For a moment he was lost in that now familiar fog of knowing, but not knowing.

He felt lulled and sedated and in a daze. It was almost as good as Imperio, except that he was aware enough to be embarrassed to feel this away. She kissed him atop his head.

"I love you Devlin. I will never want to send you back. I wish you would trust us that we like you more than he ever could." She left him in the hallway, dazed and with a warm feeling that felt foreign and frightening in his stomach.

Potter came back, led him to the room, and left while he changed.

"I'll wait out there," he had said.

Dubhán undressed himself. Not even Zee watched him anymore. There was a scar on his thigh, not large, where the knife had slipped. He shivered as his hand inadvertently touched it as he slipped his pants off. He stepped out of the pants and lifted off his shirt. He hated being without clothing - even the idea that he might see them made him uncomfortable. He tried to shrug the feeling aside but they remained at the forefront of his mind.

He wondered if she had any scars.

"I'm done," he said, standing in the center of the room, feeling foolish once more in the blue and grey striped clothing that clung to his small frame - making him look smaller and weaker rather than larger and more imposing.

Potter came back into the room. Dubhán still felt full of fog.

"Goodnight, Devlin," he said, in the same tone he did every night - to him and to Emma. "If you need me - or just want me - come and get me, alright?"

He turned off the light, closed the door and went to bed himself.

He dreamed of her screams and was startled into wakefulness, his own scream muffled by the blood filling his mouth. He had bit his lip, sucking it into his mouth. He wiped at the cut with his shirt sleeve and swallowed again.

Don't think. Don't think. Don't think.

He shouldn't be thinking about her; she hadn't told and she probably wasn't going to tell. He should leave it at that.

He couldn't.

He couldn't stop remembering her face, or her screaming, or the way her brilliant blue eyes had been so full of fear and terror. She had been afraid at the ball, even before she had seen him - the tilt of her shoulders, the cautiousness of her walk, the fact that she hadn't spoken. He wondered if she simply lived in permanent fear.

He tossed and turned on his bed. Zee grumbled at all the disturbance.

He pulled the covers over his head, darkness swarming around him.

There are different types of wizards, Geoffrey had once told him, answering his question, Dark Wizards, like Voldemort and Light Wizards like Dumbledore.

What am I?

A Dark Wizard, of course, Geoffrey had said adamantly. No matter what he had said the night of his almost-escape, Geoffrey had previously agreed with Malfoy on the fact that Devlin was a dark wizard. If one were to play the facts out, it would be undeniable. He didn't need Geoffrey or Malfoy's confirmation.

Potter killed those types of wizards.

He hauled the blanket off of himself.

I'll never hate you, Potter had claimed. But was it true? Would it be true in the face of the facts?

He had to know; had to know if he would need to suffer the consequences and from whom the consequences could be the most dangerous. If he told Potter and Potter hated him - he would run to Voldemort.

If he ran to Voldemort and told him - and begged for his mistake to be 'forgiven', he was certain he would at least live. He knew, more than he knew with Potter, that Voldemort would keep him alive at all costs - but being alive with Voldemort was exhausting.

Living was the ultimate goal - a goal Dubhán had been working tirelessly at for years. The motions of weighing survival came with a disturbing ease to him now. He didn't dwell on others lives (except Emma and the girl that had looked like her) anymore.

He could remember the first time he had made sure it was him who had survived over someone else - a Death Eater - and allowed the man to be hurt for what they were both equally responsible for. It had been a strange, intoxicating, feeling to be in control of someone else's survival, but when it was over he had raced out of the tent into the cool air and Geoffrey had found him huddled between two tents, retching.

"She wouldn't be happy," he had said to Geoffrey. He had almost forgotten what she had looked like and it had been her face, frowning and disapproving, that had chased him out of the tent with the screaming Death Eater. He had almost forgotten her - but she had come to the forefront of his mind in that moment - when he was being bad.

Devlin - I thought you could do better. You must not be strong enough yet, her voice had purred, soft and loving but with an edge of finality that had warned him he as making the wrong choice. Geoffrey had simply stood there watching him, confused.

"Pull yourself together, little dark one," he had said. They hadn't known each other very well back then. "You wouldn't want the Dark Lord to see you like this."

Dubhán shook himself from the memory, the command pull yourself together, sticking in his mind even as he willed the memory itself to disperse. Sometimes thinking was the most dangerous thing someone could do, he had learned. Sometimes thoughts were more dangerous than actions.

Stop thinking you foolish child - just do what you need to do!

His grandfathers words shook through his head and solidified what his grandfather surely would have called a "ludicrously appalling" plan.

He took a step forward. Fear swam in his gut and worked it's way into his face until he was sure he was flushed.

Why look at me like that, child? Do you think I care that you are crying? Do you think anyone will care ever again? I'll tell you what I care about - I care that you look foolish right now and I will care if you make a sound - I detest crying.

During their stay at Sirius' house, it hadn't only been Dubhán who had experienced nightmares. One night Emma had woken up crying and Dubhán had watched, bewildered and woken from his own slumber, as Potter had soothed her fears.

Dubhán forced himself to take a step forward.

Fear was a choice. It was his choice to let it control him.

Another step.

He had to know.

It was just one of those things that he had to do, no matter what would happen because of it. Just the same as her, or the book at the Library, or protecting Emma, or right now.

Thoughts were sometimes the most dangerous thing in the world - and having wild uncontrollable thoughts full of fear always in his mind would blind him and weaken him and-

He had to know if Potter would hate him. Had to know if he needed to run away. Had to know if it was only Voldemort to which he belonged. He tried not to dwell on his feelings for his Grandfather too much - tried not to imagine the anger that would be clear in those eyes if he knew.

He took another step.

His hand reached forward and turned the knob on the door.

He opened the door and it glided silently at his small push. He had seen Potter standing in the room once, but never walked inside. It was larger than his room - a door ajar to the right clearly held a bathroom and there was enough room for two wardrobes, two chairs, and a large bed. In the bed Harry and Alexandra were sound asleep.

He tiptoed silently over to Harry's side. It was Harry who must know; Harry who he feared most would never forgive him. Telling Alexandra would be like only half-finishing a job.

He had to know.

"Sir..."

Somehow he had thought it would take more, but Potter's brilliant green eyes snapped open. The Killing Curse color was somehow fitting, since Dubhán felt like he might prefer to be dead right then.

Alexandra shifted beside him, but a light hand on her hip from Potter stilled her. He turned around slowly to whisper into her ear.

"It's alright baby, I've got this one."

She nodded; seemingly without any true awareness and then her body was breathing in time with her sleep again. Potter slipped carefully out of the bed. There were only lounge pants on his body, leaving exposed all those scars Dubhán had glimpsed weeks ago.

He led him, with a gentle hand on his shoulder, out into the hallway and shut the door on his sleeping wife.

"Devlin...are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he said and he thought the phrase was beginning to become as automatic as 'Yes, Grandfather' had once been.

"Alright," Harry said - not in a pacifying manner, but as if he actually believed it. Dubhán knew he didn't - couldn't - because those eyes spoke of something entirely different. "Is there something you wanted to tell me, then?"

"Yes," he said, feeling his lungs collapsing even as his pulse raced out of control. He glanced back at his door, wondering if he could just slip inside and close the door and forget he woke Harry up. Zee was still sitting there, his tail wagging slowly. He felt the sharpness in his head urge him forward. It had always been less attached to Voldemort. Less fearful of him. Less willing to be logical and more happy to be rash. It was probably only a couple days until it was the full moon and already he could feel it stirring, closer to the front of his mind. "I need to tell you something."

He looked at the floor. What a child he must seem; waking Potter up in the middle of the night. When he glanced up, Potter looked more alert than Dubhán thought he should and there was a patience and encouragement in his eyes that Dubhán certainly hadn't expected.

"I didn't run away from a Death Eater," he said, willing his chin to remain up, demanding his eyes to meet Potter's own gaze. He thought of the way he had thrown Snape out of his mind. Quick and painlessly. He had no reason to think he couldn't do it again - he had never needed to learn something twice.

Potter's brow crumpled in his trademark confusion - a look that Dubhán was somehow certain they would share if Dubhán ever dared to allow others to see his confusion. The brilliant green eyes raced back and forth as if showing Dubhán the inner chaos of his mind as he scrambled to make a meaningful connection between Dubhán's words and something that had happened.

"At the dance?" He asked suddenly - voice hushed almost as if he were afraid to know. Dubhán nodded. Potter opened his mouth, probably to ask for further details, but Dubhán beat him too it - had to get there before him because this was something he wanted total and complete control over. His insides shivered.

"There was a girl at the table with us," he said softly, but this time he could not seem to keep his eyes on Potter and instead stared down the hallway in a daze. He felt numb. Nothing good. Nothing bad. Nothing at all. Maybe he wasn't really there at all. Maybe this was what a Death Eater felt like when Voldemort had realized they had betrayed him - like they couldn't possibly be there because this couldn't possibly be happening to them. He meant to say more, but his tongue wouldn't comply - his mouth hanging open uselessly.

"Maria?" Harry offered. "Red hair, blue eyes, couple years older than Emma?"

He nodded, feeling like he was choking on the very air.

"I've met her before," he said hollowly. He could feel his features slipping into the mask of indifference that Voldemort preferred even as all the fear gathered in his chest, making his heart thrum fragilely. Potter's brow crumbled some more, but the confusion was dissipating from his eyes, being replaced by realization.

Dubhán felt himself slip a little bit more as the inevitable knowing hit him - Potter would know soon. He almost turned around and ran - but he knew he had no place to run. He knew now was when he needed to say where and why he had met her, but the words seemed to have become stuck in his throat. "Her parent's must have done something - something bad - because they brought her there and they don't normally bring children."

Potter turned white as muggle paper - a comparison Dubhán had been making for years in his head but never been sure where it had come from. His brilliant green eyes shadowed and there was a wash of something magical in the air that was distinctly dark. Potter's jaw clenched together.

Dubhán felt his own brow crumple as the dark something washed through the air. It was the same thing that he had felt after the bookstore and he was certain it was from Potter, yet it couldn't be, cause it felt too familiar. Felt like Voldemort. He swallowed. Maybe he was already beginning to hate him? But no, he hadn't told the important part yet.

"She was wearing a blue summer dress," he continued, forcing the words out, eyes still staring down the hallway. He could almost see her there, meshing oddly with the dim lighting of the hallway. He had told himself he would just say it but he couldn't - he found himself rambling like the half-tortured men that Grandfather laughed at. "They weren't meant to bring her there - in the open - but they were new and they missed their Apparition point inside of the tent - that's what Geoffrey said. If they hadn't made the mistake, I never would have seen her. She was wearing a blue summer dress and her red hair was in a braid and she had brilliant blue eyes and she looked like I had thought Emma would, when she was older."

He sucked in a breath of air that tasted stale and felt useless. His heart was pounding so quick and fierce that his whole body felt as if it were pounding as well. His limbs were cold and his head pulsed.

"Sir?"

The dark something grew ominously and it was only at his word that Harry's eyes snapped to his own. They were empty. He had never seen them empty.

In some odd way, it almost made it easier. There was no love. In another way, it made it feel as though he were telling Grandfather and that made it horribly harder.

"She was screaming," he said, a feeble excuse to what he was about to tell. "They were dragging her away and she was screaming and Geoffrey - he told me to stop looking, but I couldn't. She was screaming."

Potter shut his eyes. A crackle went through the hallway, washing the darkness away.

"She escaped, Devlin. She is alright. I am so sorry you had to see that." His brilliant green eyes were once more full of emotions, almost impossible to separate in their abundance.

He shook his head.

"I know she did!" He said, more loudly than he should have. The green eyes were on him now, sharp and intent and puzzled and Dubhán wished they would close again and miss this moment of weakness. "I know she did," he said more softly.

Don't think. Don't think. Don't think. Just do what has to be done.

"She was screaming. Geoffrey told me to forget about her, but I couldn't. I lay in bed and all I could think about was her screaming - what they would do to her. Her parents - they must have made Grandfather awfully angry but she wasn't like me - they wouldn't keep her alive. I knew what would happen. I kept thinking of her and she kept making me think of Emma and I knew - knew if they spoke about her being dead the next day that I'd never be able to sleep again. So I did something I shouldn't have. I snuck out of my room, out of Grandfather's tent, out into the camp after curfew."

His chest was heaving, his head pounding, his vision swarming and he felt as if he were disconnected from his limbs.

"You're hyperventilating, Devlin," Potter said, soothing and calm, beside him. He hadn't even seen Potter move. "You have to breathe. First breathe and then we'll finish. In...and out. In...and out..."

He could feel his fingers again. His head stopped pounding so erratically. Colors came back into his vision.

"I snuck into the prisoner tent," he said, swallowing the images that threatened to overwhelm him. Potter surely didn't need the details; didn't need to know that they had already been making her scream. Didn't need to know that Dubhán had been powerless to stop it and too afraid to be caught to even try. He didn't know that Dubhán had failed, again and again, to master the killing curse - that he could only be thankful that there had been a distraction outside that had made them stop before she was hurt too badly, because he was powerless. So he didn't tell him.

"I found her in there and I made her come with me - out the back. I had sent M- a Death Eater on patrol on an errand for me so he wasn't on patrol. We had only a few minutes until the Death Eater was back, only a spare more until they realized she was gone - only seconds before that for me to be back so they didn't know it was me - but she was frozen. She wouldn't move." He felt a keening sound coming from his mouth even now as the memory of the fear raced through his body. Her out in the open, frozen. Visible.

"You must have both been terrified," Potter said, more absently than as if he were really thinking. Dazed.

"She had to move," he said, imploring Potter to understand. "But she wouldn't so I lifted my wand and Grandfather was right - you do really do have to mean it because he'd been trying to make me learn Imperio for weeks but I kept failing. Imperio. Once and she was under my control. It felt more like magic than anything I had ever done before. She came with me, racing just like I wanted and we made it to the outer wards. I broke through them-" he wouldn't tell Potter how "-and I handed her the wand I had nicked to use and-"

His breath quickened and Potter touched his chest, as if to remind him to breathe more slowly.

"She wouldn't run. I told her to run. I told her what to do, but she was frozen again. So I told her...I told her if she didn't run I'd kill her and if she didn't keep running they would find her and they'd bring her back and I wouldn't save her again because as soon as they saw her they would know and I would be dead."

OoOoO

Harry knew Maria Watson well, of course. Her father was an Auror.

Harry had offered up her name and part of him had wondered if Devlin had recognized her as the little girl he had so often played with while Harry and David watched them outside, discussing war strategies under a privacy charm - but he hadn't. Harry had known, when he had said "I've met her before" that he hadn't meant sun soaked summers full of giggles.

His mind always thought of two things when he was faced with David or the mention of his little girl: those sun soaked summers full of giggles and the bruised, tattered little girl flinging herself back into his arms.

Happiness and anger-filled envy.

Almost two years after Devlin had been taken, Maria Watson had been snatched from Diagon Alley while her mother paid for their ice cream. A note with the Dark Mark had been left behind. He would have heard about the case regardless, but because David worked so closely with him, he had been there on the scene mere moments after the girl had disappeared. He had held Maria's mother while they summoned David - told her they would do everything they could - even as his mind reeled with images of Devlin's broken body. Even as he knew it was hopeless.

And then, less than forty-eight hours later a baffled worker from the Misuse of Magic had stumbled into his office, young and uncertain, and broken through the secretary into his office.

Maria Watson just used a wand in a small muggle village, he had said, his tea spilled on the front of his robes and his hands trembling. I have the address - do you...do you want me to send the owl?

Harry had wondered if they would find her dead - perhaps the Death Eaters had planned it all - had a bit of fun before killing her. He had called David regardless and they had sent an owl to the girl, outfitted with a tracking charm. They had hastily scribbled and attached at note to the talon of the owl: 'do not let the owl go - we are coming'. Harry stilled remembered David scratching out his original note 'Maria, please keep this owl with you - we are using it to find you'.

Too many words - she's just reading. She won't be able to read al of that, that quickly.

They had found her in her blue summer dress, tattered and torn, her body thrown over the owl, crying quietly into the animals feathers. When her father had spoken she had jumped up, barefooted and dirty, and flung herself at him, sobbing.

She had escaped.

She had escaped Devlin's fate.

Harry hadn't been able to look at David for months afterwards. Why his girl and not Harry's boy?

But he had known the answer: Maria Watson wasn't as important as Harry Potter's son. It had been like a punch in the gut - like a constant reminder every time he saw his fellow Auror that Harry Potter had doomed Devlin to death. If Devlin wasn't his - maybe he would have had a chance.

Now, while Devlin shuttered in front of him and he recalled the boys words - Her parents - they must have made Grandfather awfully angry - he felt sick. Logically he had known that Devlin would know - the child was too brilliant to miss exactly why he had been kidnapped, but his words hit like a thousand hexes regardless.

She wasn't like me - they wouldn't keep her alive.

He took a breath to stop the whirl of sickness that was eating at every nerve in his body. He didn't want his son to know the difference - had hoped that it would have escaped him. It wasn't right that a nine year old should know he was worth more tortured and abused than outright killed - or that another child would have her freedom whereas he would not, because of his father. No wonder Devlin still looked at him in such a baffled way when he expressed his love.

But then his son had pressed forward and Harry had realized that Maria had had her freedom not because she wasn't a Potter, but because of a Potter - because Devlin had been the difference.

"Devlin..." he closed his eyes against the tears that threatened him even as he felt almost hollow in the face of one more horror his son had endured. "You have been so strong."

Somehow those words seemed like the right thing to say, a shadowing of love on them already that he couldn't quite pinpoint. Maybe he had wished it that night that Devlin had been kidnapped, because the words seem to be lingering at the edges of his conscious like a memory he couldn't quite bring into focus. Be safe. Be strong.

Devlin looked away.

"I love you so much Devlin. Alex loves you so much."

Those green eyes, brilliant in their depth and so unique with those flecks of amber came to regard him again. There were traitorous tears clinging precariously to the edges of his eyes. His face was flushed and his chest was rising evenly and Harry was struck once more, as he still often was, that this was Devlin: he was real and alive and here.

"Why didn't she tell, sir?" Devlin asked, in a whisper.

The question had been on his own mind as well and he found himself shrugging rather pathetically.

"Perhaps she feared that speaking about it would bring them to her," he said softly. "And perhaps when she saw you at the dance she thought telling would get you in trouble."

Devlin nodded, not like a child who agreed or understood, but like a child mulling the foreign idea around in his head.

"If he knew, sir - he'd be mad," he said, without fear but with a certain amount of caution - as if Harry hadn't realized as much - to the edges of his voice.

Harry laughed caustically.

"Just mad, hmm?" Devlin frowned at him.

"He'd hurt me. I lied to her when I said he'd kill me. He wouldn't do that."

Harry searched his face.

"How can you be so certain, Devlin? Can't you see the monster he is?"

"I'm certain," Devlin replied. Harry got the sense that if Devlin knew how to express why he was certain he would have told him, but as it was, Devlin gave him a one-sided shrug. And Harry, almost too afraid of the answer, didn't press him.

"Do you want something to drink?" Harry asked, hoping for a bit of alcohol himself to drowse out all these new worries and wanting to watch the boy for a bit longer before sending him to bed.

"Yes," he said, surprising Harry.

He allowed the boy to step down the hallway and followed him down the stairs. He told Devlin not to tell his mother (even though he knew Alex wouldn't mind) and gave him another Butterbeer. He had rum.

"That's what he drinks," Devlin said, when Harry had put his drink down but hadn't yet retrieved Devlin's.

"Who?" Harry asked, hoping desperately it was Geoffrey but already knowing that it was more likely Voldemort - he seemed to be the only person Devlin consistently referred to as him.

"Grandfather," he said and Harry swore that when he turned around the arch of his son's brow was intentional - that he had chosen 'grandfather' over 'Voldemort' or 'Tom Riddle' for the sole purpose of getting under his skin. "He thinks you're the monster, you know."

"I'm sure," Harry said, sarcasm laid plainly out for Devlin to see. The boy took the offered drink. Harry looked closely at him, noting the tremor still racing up the boy's spine, the deliberately even breaths, and the slight tremble of his hands around the glass. He was rambling, as well.

"Geoffrey lent me a book about chess once. It talked a bit about war too - I suppose because chess is based off of war - and one of the things they said was that to each party the 'other' is wrong. To you, he is the monster and to him, you are the monster - but neither of you really seem exactly like monsters to me."

"I rather think Tom likes to think of himself as a monster," Harry said.

Devlin drew back in his chair abruptly, as if stung by some invisible hex.

"He doesn't like to be called that," he said.

"No, he doesn't," Harry obliged, peering closely at his boy. "But that is his name. Voldemort is just a name he created to forget that he was once like everyone else - but I won't help him forget."

"I will," Devlin said, adamant in a way Harry hadn't yet seen him. Harry had seen him defend Voldemort like a follower - angry for Harry being on the other side - but he hadn't yet seen him like this. "I will help him forget."

Harry was reminded of his first meeting with the Death Eater after Devlin's return, when he (and several other Order members) had demanded to know why Voldemort had kept the boy alive. Geoffrey had cleverly chosen to answer the question in a different way than they had intended. They had already known truth serum would only act as a compeller to him, because he was a master at Occlumency.

He had said that he had heard, 'because I was not there - as I said before' , that Devlin had called Voldemort a name - a mans name - and that Voldemort had punished the child for it. 'Crucio. He obviously meant for the boy to scream, but he didn't. He fell unconscious after a long time. The Dark Lord told the healer to fix him so that he could make him scream the next time - that is all hearsay - I am not responsible for the paraphrasing of others.'

"I call him Tom. He calls me Harry. You can call him what you wish."

Devlin looked at him for a long moment.

"Fine."

Harry drowned his rum.

"Tomorrow lets do something together. We can talk more away from the house. Right now, however, you should be in bed."

Devlin rose from his chair, but paused in the doorway, waiting for Harry to catch up.

"You can't tell her parents what I did."

"They wouldn't be mad, Devlin. Don't you understand you rescued a child?"

"I know what I did," he almost snarled. "Don't you understand what he would think if he knew?"

"If he really cared about you Devlin he would care about you for who you are, not who he wants you to be."

"If he's the monster you say he is, what makes you think he could do that?" Harry didn't respond, but he could tell Devlin hadn't really wanted a response. "Why do you think left me here - that night he was outside - that day he was near us after the party? Because he's not afraid of what you say to me."

Harry wasn't certain what to think or what Devlin meant for him to think.

"You'll never change me, sir. Even if you think you have - it won't last. I know it won't because if he thought it would, he'd have gotten me. He left me here because he's not worried."

He turned on his heel and marched up the stairs. Harry followed after him, but by the time he caught up, the door was already closed.

OooOooO

He dreamed of her again.

She was cowered on the dirty cot in the dirty cell and he stepped out for her to see.

Shh, he said in the dream, holding a finger to his lips. There was a bruise on her wrist where the man had been holding her down, and her hair was tangled and mussed. She was shivering as he approached. I wont hurt you.

She had looked to him like a wild animal. Like the dog that had once stumbled upon the camp, or the fawn that had come out of the woods without it's mother and stood in the middle of the camp, frozen and wobbling on it's too-fragile legs. He had licked his lips and held his hands up to her.

I want to save you.

She had nodded pathetically and turned just enough for the torch light to touch the side of her jaw. He had frowned at the dirty fingerprints on her - evidence of what he had just seen - without truly being able to wrap his mind around it at all. What he had been able to understand was that he would break if it happened to Emma.

He awoke with a start, sweaty, heaving, and sat up ram-rod straight in the bed. Zee turned a bit and whined in his half-sleep at the disturbance. If he could guess by the light coming through his window it was not even close to morning. Nevertheless, he knew if he went back to sleep he would only dream of her more, and so he got out of bed.

He opened Emma's door to find her sleeping soundly. Her skin was pale as a soft cream, clean and unmarked. Her hair was red and soft and spilled out around her like a halo. There were no fingerprints on her. She was fine. Unmarked. Unhurt. Untortured. Innocent.

He closed the door and continued down the hallway.

He wouldn't let that happen to her, ever.

He climbed down the stairs the way he had at Sirius' house - his feet sliding in and out of the banisters. When he had woken from the stillness inside of his own head, there had been so much noise and when he had complained (just once) to Voldemort he had said 'you make to much noise.' He had only been six, but he still remembered practicing for weeks how to be 'soundless' - yet one more thing that would prevent him from being worthless, small as it had seemed. Now being soundless seemed to come easily enough.

The Potter's library was locked, but they hadn't put much attention into the configuration of the charm - it was probably designed to keep Emma out - and he broke it with ease. It seemed terribly inconvenient (and probably inconsiderate) to wake Potter up again just to unlock a door. The inside was lined with books.

He found himself smiling, just a bit, as he moved forward to look at them all.

There didn't seem to be a particular arrangement, so he let his eyes skim the titles for anything mentioning Transfiguration. He found a set of school books and grabbed all of them. He had never had any technical training except to master certain things Grandfather whimsically decided would be interesting to teach him - so a thorough read of the entirety was probably a good starting point.

When he had them all in his arms he realized he would need to start with these, because he simply couldn't manage a taller tower of books up the stairs. He left, relocked the door, and tiptoed up the stairs.

When he was little Geoffrey had hit him over the head after he'd broken his arm and snarled don't you know how to properly think? He hadn't known what to say or how to respond but after that, he started really thinking.

He watched more than he ever had before - the way the Death Eater's spoke to Voldemort, the way Voldemort spoke to them, the way they both spoke to him. He watched their wand movements every single time they cast a spell and if it was appropriate, he'd ask them to show him. Voldemort seemed almost happy with his sudden obsession and consented to everyone at the camp showing him the movement. He hadn't yet had a wand, of course.

When he was almost seven he had picked a stick up off the ground and began to tell everyone it was his wand. They laughed at him, but to him it hadn't been a game. It had been clear to him that one needed a wand to be safe. He hadn't yet understood what made their pretty wooden sticks better than his plain wooden stick.

It had all taught him that one had to have all the knowledge and all the proper tools before making a move. One had to know that there would be ground under their next step before they stepped at all.

So beginning at the beginning seemed like an inviting idea, rather than a daunting one. The idea that he would know all of it felt safest, familiar, and calming.