His heart was frozen feebly in his chest and when he turned around, just for a second, Geoffrey was there too; a look of panic on his face.

"What is she looking for?" Geoffrey asked, too calmly, too nicely, too much of a charming smile on his face. Dubhán's grasp on her hand tightened as Geoffrey approached them. Emma, his Emma, his innocent Emma, did not realize what had just happened.

"A ring!" She said, her lip poking out as if to provide extra evidence to its importance. "It's my princess ring!"

"Ahh, well - why don't we give the living room one more look? Come tell me the last place you saw it. I am very good at finding things."

Dubhán was frozen. Frozen like with Maria. Frozen like with the prisoner. Frozen like with that man screaming. Frozen like with the blond boy. Frozen. Frozen. Frozen!

He could feel his wolf stirring as he fell backwards. Emma's hand gave a tug - about to leave him to go speak with Geoffrey - and he lashed out in his mind, clawing his way back into the forefront of his mind.

"Go find Dad, Emma," Dubhán said. He turned to stare at Geoffrey. Emma stood still beside him, perplexed and still too innocent as to understand. "Now. Go find Dad."

She frowned, the tiniest of lines wrinkling between her eyebrows.

"Devy-" It was a name she had started calling him recently, and he couldn't say he liked it at all, but he ignored it this time.

"Go to Dad." He gave her a hard look and she scampered off, as if he had hurt her.

Geoffrey was rolling on his heels.

"That was an interesting choice, little dark one."

"She's mine."

"Then you should protect her better. That really shouldn't be in her head."

"She isn't going to be like me. I'm like me so she isn't like me. Don't you understand, traitor?" He growled, his hands clenched like fists at his side. Geoffrey stood very still, watching him carefully.

"You are already are better than him, you know," he said, very softly, looking at him with a perplexity that he had never seen Geoffrey wear before. "A man who values those things outside of himself has more reason to be stronger and fearless than a man who can only fear for himself."

"Words like that are what make you a traitor," Dubhán said, but there was no real bite to his words, just facts. He has said enough to Geoffrey to make him a traitor, too.

When he turned on his heel to leave Geoffrey, it was to find Emma in his father's arms, crying about him; mumbling words about how he did not like her and how he didn't like Harry either and how he thought they were both stupid. Sirius was giving him a disappointed look from behind the pair as he entered into the office. It took all of Dubhán's self-control to stay and not to fall backwards and allow the wolf to bear this experience.

"Devlin, what happened?" Harry asked, his green eyes rising to meet his own darker gaze. There was a twist to his lips, a look in his eyes, a sense of his pain at her pain, and Dubhán wondered what that was like to feel or if he ever had. It was so hard for him to judge if he felt the things others did; so difficult to match someone else's and his own together to see if they were the same.

Dubhán would have lied. He would have agreed that he thought they were both stupid if it would have been useful. His mind would have spun with the words and their meanings, and used them to his advantage.

He couldn't stop thinking of that feeling he had experienced when her hand was about to leave his own. How all the frozenness had melted upon something hot and fierce that had bloomed below.

That hadn't been Dubhán. Dubhán had learned to lie and deceive. There was nothing deceptive about what that had felt like. That had been Devlin, clawing his way back into his own head; knowing he would have to be there to protect her. Devlin, who did not know about death. Devlin, who had told Voldemort he was glad his mummy wasn't there, because he didn't want him to hurt his mummy. Devlin, who said what he meant and meant what he said - because he did not truly understand that any one of his words could lead to his death.

He hadn't felt like Devlin since before he had seen the first man die.

Devlin would have looked into this man's eyes and known there was nothing that should come out of his mouth but the truth.

"She heard something she shouldn't have. She doesn't understand. I didn't want her there. I sent her to you."

The muscles across Harry's face went lax and he wished the man would have the decency to hide his surprise that he was telling the truth.

Emma was still sniffling.

"I wasn't mad, Emma," he said, struggling with this point. "I don't think you're stupid you just don't know anything."

Emma reared from Harry's arms, the tears dried into red rings around her eyes, her eyes like a blue angry flame.

"I do know things!" She said, and her magic crackled through the air. Harry's hair stood on end. "I know lots of things! I know you have lots of friends you don't want to tell me or daddy or mummy about! I know someone was mean to you! I know you like Zee more than me! I know it's not fair Daddy lets you have a wand but not me! I know that man brought you back to Daddy and I know you hate him for it because you think everyone here is stupid. I even know you like Maria!"

"Emma-"

"Well I know him too, you know. I've seen him." He frowned, perplexed.

"And he's a meanie! Josephine says he's a stuck up jerk," she looked shocked for a moment that such a word had been released past her tongue and immediately sent Harry an apologetic look. Harry was too busy looking confused, and he couldn't claim to know anything, either.

"I don't know who you are talking about, Emma," he finally said, shaking his head.

"Scorpius Malfoy! I'm talking about him! You know him. I know you do!"

How she had picked up on that but not known he hadn't meant Harry was stupid, he would never know. How she had lingered at the door long enough to see the paper - or seen it before him? - would remain a perplexing notion.

Harry's eyes widened.

"Yes, I knew him," he said, nodding. "I didn't know his name, though."

"You're so weird!" She said, her magic searing across the room with a lack of form or direction that he could barely remember having. His magic had always done what he wanted. Had always been under his control. "Everyone knows people's names except you!"

It was hurled like a curse.

He stared at her. Something feeble and trembling was blooming in his gut.

"I didn't know him," he said, "not like that."

"Then how?" She was still yelling, as if a fire had erupted inside of her and there was no possibility of putting it out. Sometimes she reminded him of that story Voldemort used to tell him at night, the one that was supposed to teach him never to be without his wand. Of the man and the lady and the baby and how they had forgotten their wands, but the lady had foolishly thrown herself again and again against him, even without it. To Voldemort the lady had been foolish to protect someone else when she had known it would be her downfall. Emma always reminded him of that lady's stubbornness and that always frightened him so, because he did not want her to die.

"His dad thought he was better than me. Stronger. And his dad bet that the boy could beat me with magic. And the man who kept me - he decided it would be fun to see. So I fought the boy."

Emma was frowning. Harry's hair had dropped into it's usual messiness and he brought a hand to touch it, as if to make sure it was all still there. His green eyes boring into him the whole time.

"Did you win?" Emma asked, her voice now calmer, although still just as potent.

"Yes."

OoOoOoO

Harry asked him about it when they were home, of course. He had known he would, even as he had wished fervently that he would decide it wasn't really important.

"It's just like I told Emma," he said, hoping to make the conversation short.

"I want the details," Harry said, and there was a firmness that made him think that his shift in that moment from Dubhán to Devlin hadn't been as invisible as he had hoped. The gaze made him feel like the boy all over again, and he sat himself at the kitchen table and nodded.

"I was nine," he began, staring at his own hands. "I had never seen a boy my own age - not since the muggleborn boy."

Harry nodded, and he continued.

"Draco said it-" he paused, trying to figure out how to start all of this. "I don't know the word - there is a word for it - the Death Eater's told me once. When you like doing something that no one else likes. Well, grandfather knew Malfoy and I didn't like each other, but he made Malfoy train me in dueling anyways. So he was that word."

"Cruel?"

He shook his head.

"No, you can be cruel without liking being cruel. Voldemort likes being cruel."

Harry nodded, and he tried to move forward.

"Sometimes, if he wasn't busy in a meeting, or he wasn't away from the camp, he would peek in on a lesson and watch me. Well he did, right after I had turned Malfoy's hair purple. Malfoy didn't like it. Voldemort saw seen, and he didn't like it. So he said it. Said I was a brat who would do well to 'acquire a better attitude' and said his son would beat me in a duel. I wanted to tell him..." he paused, running a hand over his face right before the word had left his mouth.

Harry chuckled, as if it had been clear.

"Yeah, better not say that. Sometimes I think your mum has spells up here to catch people cursing."

"Well anyways, Bella was standing next to him, and I knew she'd like it if I said that to him, so I didn't. I don't know which one of them I hate more. They're very...different. Voldemort said something about how Malfoy was 'suggesting' that his son was better than a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and even though Malfoy tried to save himself, grandfather had that look..."

Harry tipped his head in question.

"The one he gets when he has just thought of something interesting to do."

Harry nodded and he had the sense that they had both been witness to that look before.

"He told Malfoy to bring the boy and that he would see who won. I couldn't believe he had been so...stupid."

"Why?"

"I'm not as powerful as grown ups," he said hesitantly, "but I'm fast."

He fiddled with the hem of his robes.

"So Malfoy brought him a couple days later. He clung to his father like a child. He looked like a unicorn, I thought. His hair as white as it's coat, his eyes like pools of it's blood. I was afraid for a moment - because if you hurt a unicorn you're cursed. That's what my books said. But he wasn't, of course. He tried to fix his hair and I laughed at him."

"Why?"

He looked at the table instead of at Harry. He shrugged.

"Details, Devlin," Harry said, that same firmness creeping into his voice. Dubhán wanted to lash out and scream that the details weren't any of this business, but Devlin felt the pressure and wanted to succumb. The conflicting desires were confounding him. The sharpness sighed in his head the sigh it always did when he 'was thinking too much.' Just tell the alpha - he's making us. Hide what you hid from the Red-Eyed man. Hide what the alpha would not like. Keep us safe by telling this stupid thing.

"Because, it was going to be covered in blood, soon. Why fix it, when you're going to be fighting? I told him that, too. When I was little Malfoy used to tell me that. Stop fixing your robes - if you touch them again I'll cut them off you. Stop messing with your hair - is it getting in your eyes? I'll shave every bit off your head. Don't touch the cut or you will give me enough time to make a bigger one! So I said it to the boy."

Harry got up from his seat. He though maybe he was going to hug him again, but instead he went to the pantry and pulled out a bag of 'crisps' (yet another thing he had not known about until he came here) and poured them into a bowl to share at the table. He was glad, because he didn't think he could stand being hugged right now.

"The boy asked where the 'mat' was, and then they had to explain to me how children dueled and grandfather made the boy stand with him while Malfoy taught me about the mat they conjured and how to greet, back up, and bow. Then they made me do it with the boy, and then Voldemort said 'duel' and we did."

"Did he end up with blood in his hair?"

"Yes, and his face."

"And you?"

He looked at the table again.

"A cut - just tiny. I did worse to him with my fist."

"How did that happen?"

"I guess he was an alright fight for a boy, but he was weaker than the Death Eater's and I was faster. He knew things I didn't but they were weak charms and curses that I knew the better of. I tried knocking him down, but he'd get up. When he blew sparks at me so I couldn't see, I blew smoke so that he couldn't breathe and I hoped he'd fall unconscious like I had the first time when I was seven, but he knew how to vanish it."

Harry's hands clenched.

"He knew how to float stuff, but I stopped him before my feet were an inch off the ground by making his shoes catch on fire - he took them off and threw them off the mat. He cut me, but it was tiny, and I cut his hair like Malfoy had said he'd do to me. I used his own spell against him - I made him float, high and higher, then I let go, and he fell. I did it again. But he kept getting up, and grandfather said he was bored."

He traced nonsense things onto the table top.

"So I went to him, and I told him 'you'd think you would have more intelligence than this' because that's what Malfoy had said to me. I wanted to hurt him so much. He looked like him - just like him. But I knew I didn't want to kill him. Knew I'd just fail if I tried and I didn't want to fail in front of grandfather or Malfoy."

Harry was crunching on a chip very slowly, and his magic seeped into the air, tense and hot. He shifted.

"I brought him close to me, like Malfoy had done when we first met. I said 'If you know what's good, you'll stay down after this. Otherwise, maybe I'll have to kill you.' Then I pulled back my fist and punched him in the nose. There was a crack and he screamed and struggled and I knew he'd get back up again. I did it again, and again, and again-"

He banged the table. Harry reached across the table and touched him, cradling his hand between his two larger. He clenched his enclosed hands until he could feel his nails like knives in his palms, searing with pain.

"And there was blood in his hair and on his face and on my hand. I could feel him go still in my hands, so I let go, and he fell backwards."

He fell silent.

"Then what, Devlin?"

"He liked the blood and I hadn't killed him. He told me he didn't approve of such muggle tactics, but I had done it on purpose and I told him so. I had wanted to hurt him like that. I wanted him to feel like a muggle. I wanted him to know I could do that to him, even without magic. I wanted Draco to see."