The next class he had with Maria was flying. She'd put her hair into a ponytail and that dark eyed, dark haired boy was still with her, asking nervous questions about the brooms. Maria, always steady if she's not frozen, patiently explained to him what they would be doing.
"That's Maria Watson," Green says knowingly. "Her father is an Auror."
As if he didn't know. As if he didn't care. As if his interest simply baffled Green. Malfoy had managed to arrange himself on Devlin's other side, despite much glaring, and he arched a brow at the conversation.
"I know who she is," he said scathingly. "I'm looking at the boy next to her."
"Oh," Green said. "I don't know him. He must be a muggleborn."
"I know," he said again, his tone clipped.
Their instructor was Ginny Weasley. His father said she commented on professional games as well, but Devlin has never been to a real game; partly because he has no interest and partly because his father claimed some previously bad 'experiences' with them that made him not willing to bring Devlin to one. It probably helped that Devlin was never asking.
Her hair was tucked up in a high ponytail, her brown eyes assessing them sharply.
"Alright, listen up," she roared, her voice meant to be listened too. The children's heads all turned. "You wave your wands in other classes, but here you're going to be in the air. Fall off and you'll wish you hadn't. If you don't want to fall off, you will listen to me. I only give directions once."
The boy by Maria trembled. Green and Malfoy relaxed back on their heels, certain of their success.
"See these brooms, all nicely lined up?" They nodded in unison. "Come stand with your wand hand above the broom."
They stepped forward and followed the relatively simple direction, their bodies aligned with all their gazes directed at Ginny. For a moment Devlin was somewhere else, young and curious, watching through his wolf as the Red-Eyed Man walked amongst a rank of Death Eaters that stood like this, eyes only for him. With a mental shutter, he brought himself back into reality.
He's missed a bit of the directions, but cought the tail end 'say it now' and knew she must have meant 'up'. It was an unnecessary word; valueless in itself. The word was just a means through which to shape the magic; a way to begin training these children into manipulating their magic based on a want instead of a need. Devlin never remembered uttered the word to a broom before, because he was told distinctly that if he got the broom into his hand, he would do it without the aid of a foolish word. He did it then, though, and the word was somehow engraved enough in his mind that it was the first possibility that his mind conjured to what Ginny must have meant.
"Up," he said firmly, trying to match the voices of the children around him. But of course he did not need the word, and the broom flew smoothly up into his waiting palm. The handle was worn, the wood nearly splintering in especially used areas and the metal of the kickstands had lost some of there patina where the feet would rest. He could feel the magical charms humming beneath his fingers; beautiful even in their bristled state. He breathed in and out with the magic, feeling it pulse against his skin. Ginny was speaking again, her voice a sharpness trying to penetrate the haze in his mind. There was a spiderweb in his mind, tangled and twisted, and a boy who was him. In his mind he reaches forward and touches the strands, blue, silver, green, and yellow; untangling, untwisting and resetting, until the spiderweb is complete and the magic content.
Ginny was approaching when he finally comes enough back into reality to mount and kick off.
He made it onto his broom and into the air last. Maria was looking at him on her broom. Even the terrified boy had been up in the air before, him.
"Do not let me see you even an hair above those walkways!" She shouted into the air. Her voice had that no-nonsense quality which had the effect of making the children certain they would regret crossing her.
In the air, Devlin felt nothing like the boy who was meant to be like Voldemort. He has always felt like Devlin Potter when his feet are off the ground. Even now he can remember the feel of Harry behind him, clutching him as he gives him a ride on his room. 'Want to go upside down with Daddy?' The Harry in the memory would shout by his ears, and his own voice would shriek in affirmation, laughing until his belly hurt.
He minded Ginny's directions exactly as she had said them; a habit his mother referred to as splitting hairs.
She had said not to go a hair above the walkways, but she hadn't said anything about how fast or far they could go. Probably, she had known the brooms were incapable of going very fast or very far in the state they had been. He chooses not to give this thought too much weight as he brings his feet almost flush to the ground, angling his body. Maria watched him cautiously, Freddie hollered in encouragement, Green's eyes were calculating, Malfoy curious, and the terrified boy looked to be in shock. Ginny shouted after him, but even with his abnormally good hearing, he could not discern the words.
He clung low to the broom and pulled with the muscles across his stomach and between his shoulders; forcing the broom to launch upright almost vertically. He pushed his feet against the kickstands, digging them in for the best grip possible, and clung to the broom to maintain his posture as he pulled at it again, forcing it horizontal once more. He hung upside down, his fingers digging into the wood. His heart pounded behind the bones that protect it like a cage. His head pulsed. His hands sweated until he wasn't sure he could maintain his grasp. Finally, he twisted himself, pulling the broom and himself upright.
His landing was met with almost utter silence and he realized almost immediately that Ginny had already brought her nephew under control; Freddie looked stoic. Ginny was glaring at him, her jaw clenched, her hands on her hips. She was completely silent, which was the only reason Devlin heard him at all. The sound of laughter pulled his gaze away from Ginny to find Harry standing in the shadows under one of the walkways, grinning. He spotted Devlin's gaze and instead of looking admonished, he held up his hands and gave him two thumbs up. Ginny, however, either did not notice Harry or did not care, because she marched over to him with that same no-nonsense regard she had worn when she gave the warning about falling off their brooms.
"Mr. Potter," she said, her lips thinning. "Tell me whether you think that was an intelligent stunt to do in a first flying lesson."
He assessed his options, trying to gauge why she was concerned. She had to know he could already fly; she had seen him play against Freddie at the Borrow. She couldn't possibly know that was the first time he'd tried that stunt with such a height limit. He really couldn't fathom why she was so upset. He had followed her rules perfectly.
"To give you an answer," he said, weighing his choice of words as much as his choice in tone, "I would have had to consider the choice before I made it, but I didn't. I just...did it."
"That's a smart way of saying you have no clue why you shouldn't have done what you did," she said, cutting so close to his thought process that he was honestly a little terrified of her. He quirked a brow. "I know how you think, Mr. Potter," there was a pause and she added, "I know how all of you boys think." She pointed her finger at all of them in turn, but then her gaze returned to him. "Sit out until you can tell me why that was a stupid thing to do."
He dismounted and trudged over to the walkways. At the courtyard here there was a low wall that separated underneath the walkway from the field, and which now separated his father and himself.
"You honestly don't see it from her perspective, do you?" He asked, slinking out of the shadows to lean against the low wall over Devlin's shoulder.
"Why are you here?" He asked, not grumpy, but as way to avoid the obvious disadvantage he had found himself with.
"Officially? To drop off some papers to Dumbledore. Unofficially, to watch your first flying lesson. But you're changing the subject. Don't you get what she wanted you to say?"
He pinpoints and plucks out Harry's word usage. Did you get what she wanted you to say?Harry hadn't asked why he hadn't understood Ginny; he had seemed to dismiss this as a probability. Instead, he had seemed surprised at Devlin's lack of what? Glib? Smoothness? Charm?
He shrugged.
"Nope," he twirled the broom in his hands.
"You couldn't hear her, or see her, and you wouldn't have been able to stop if a newer flier had gotten in your way, Devlin." Harry fed him the answer with a sort of resigned defeat, as if he had already known Devlin wouldn't have found the answer by himself. As if this is one more thing that sets Devlin apart from other boys.
Devlin hadn't thought of any of those reasons and he still didn't think they were especially pertinent.
"She didn't set those as rules," he said, defensively. "She said not to fly above the walkways."
"You know what your mum would say, Devlin."
Devlin groaned at just the mention.
"You do realize you just helped me cheat, right?" He asked, trying to change the subject. Harry laughed.
"Don't tell your mother and for Merlin's sake don't tell Ginny. Now go give her the answer. If she asks about me just tell her I came to tell you how much you acted like me and how stupid that was."
So he told her the answer, word for word. She didn't ask about Harry, but she looked at him again. She looked at him as though she could really see him; all the shadows inside of him, all places in which he had tried so hard to cast light into the darkness, all the places he knew could never be anything but cloaked in the pitch of nothing, nothing, nothing. She looked at him, measuring and judging, and then seeming to try to recoil from her judgments and try again.
"Come here," she said, and reached as he stepped closer. She conjured an almost unnaturally yellow hat, and slipped it over his head. "I'm making you the safety watcher in our lessons. Now you'll have to be aware of their safety. It's part of your grade."
He blinked at her, measuring and judging, and trying to understand her judgement of him.
"Yes, Professor," he said, when he really wanted to ask her if she expected he had an issue watching out for others - if he had something against keeping them safe. She blew her whistle, and the reaction was instant - almost. Everyone except the terrified boy had managed to stop their broom, but he did not seem to know how. He was grasping his broom, his face pale and wet with sweat, his legs trembling.
"DANGER," Devlin screamed, but he did not wait. He did not have a problem watching out for other people. Did not have a problem helping. It was just, sometimes he forgot. Especially when he felt like Harry Potter's son in the air and not at all like the boy who was supposed to see everything. He set up into the air as a way to demonstrate his wholeness to Ginny; to show her how she had missed a part of him, when she'd been looking at him so hard.
The boys broom twisted and turned in slow motion. He had stopped the broom by stopping his magical connection with it, and consequently the broom was racing back toward the earth. Devlin couldn't have pulled his wand out fast enough, even if he had thought of it earlier. The boy was still level with the top of the walkway roofs - it seemed as though he had gone higher before falling. Without really thinking, Devlin anchored his body flush to his broom and sped ahead. He closed the gap between them.
"Hold on!" He screamed, wedging himself into the boy's body and pushing the broom, which was sagging under their combined weight. Just a little bit, just a little bit, he thought, as they crash unceremoniously onto the rooftop in a tangle of limbs. They untangled themselves, breathing heavy on their backs.
There was blood; it took them both a moment to realize to whom it belonged. When the boy realized it was his blood, he screamed, both of them still flat on their backs from where they had separated. Sometimes Devlin thought that pain was not nearly as potent without knowledge of the pain.
That was when Devlin recognized him, of course. Dark hair, dark eyes, a boy the same height as himself. He was the boy on Harry's green lawn, screaming. He was the boy who was supposed to make Harry think Voldemort would have killed him.
Devlin still wasn't sure who had concocted that plan, but he rather thought they had meticulously and viciously chosen a boy exactly his age so that, if he survived, Devlin would have to endure the punishment of seeing him here.
Devlin clambered to his feet as the boy hugged his arm to himself. Devlin had seen blood before. Seen it ooze slowly across dusty dirt, seen it race like a small trickle of water out of a wound that looked more meat than human, and seen it spray from severed fingers...
In that fleeting moment he was entirely Dubhán. He's seen blood. The blood does not make him freeze. He's seen blood. He's made other's bleed. He's bled himself.
And yet, Dubhán had never fixed an injury. Devlin shrunk back, unable to even approach the situation.
"It hurts!"
The shout brought him back into reality and he staggered to his hands and knees, clambering to the edge of the roof.
"He's bleeding!" He shouted down, only to see that Ginny had mounted her broom and was heading their way.
Ginny calls for the nurse and floats the boy down to the ground. The healer brings him to her office and Ginny calls an end to the lesson early. Green and the Slytherins walked away without any real lingering, and Freddie was ushered away by his aunt. Devlin remained still on the green of the field.
"You were so brave," Maria said, coming up to grasp his hand. Her's was warm and steady and he curled his fingers around her fingers, trying to anchor himself in reality.
OoOoOoO
Maria visits the terrified boy in the hospital wing, but Devlin doesn't, simply because he doesn't know if the boy would want to see him. Had the boy known him all along? Did he even remember? He'd been to young for his letter, then. Had they done him the decency and erased his memory? If he did know, does he want Devlin to have recognized him?
Devlin's never been very good at understanding other's emotions; it is something he works through like a tricky puzzle, rather than something that just comes smoothly into his mind like magic or logic.
The next time he saw him, they were in Potion's class. Maria was sitting with him again. Something wide and terrifyingly new blossomed in his chest. He wanted to sit with them; wanted to know this boy who was forced to play his role - even if it had been for just a moment, even if it had only been for the purpose of death and fear. Instead, he quelled the desire like he used to quell the desire to cry when he was small. He sat down next to Green.
One of the reasons he had always loved Potions was because of it's predictability. Mix that, boil this, add this at the proper time, turn three times - and everything will come out as expected. Even the mistakes are predictable - vie from the directions and the wrong thing will happen. The directions were perfectly clear and perfectly stagnant, reliable in and of themselves. Someone had already found the perfect way to make this happen and there was no need for the brewer to stray from the written path.
His potion came out perfectly, despite his distraction. He cleaned the table meticulously as it cooled.
OoOoOoO
When he tried this time to find the Library he took the precaution of keeping his wand in his hand. He'd been there before, of course, with Harry. It had been here that he had seen his own death, printed in black and white. False, he still had to tell himself, even this long after. He wasn't dead. He wasn't going to die.
He found the large oak doors and walked into the library. The tables at the front were packed with groups of studying friends. Devlin bit his lip and trudged forward. He did not intend to look up any of his subjects. Instead, he headed to the section that held old graduation books. Harry had once shown him his own picture in one, next to a much young Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.
Even with a full name, he suspected this would take a while - but he is done with classes for the day.
He pulled down three books, skipping the six most recent, and brought them to the table.
Two hours later, he still hasn't found Leonard Easlick in the books.
"Time to clear up, dear," a quiet woman came to say, looking over his shoulder.
"Oh, ah, okay," he said, feverishly trying to fit just one more glance at the book in.
"You could check two out, if you like," she offered. There was a bit of bemusement in her voice. "Are you looking for someone particular?"
He stood to clear the table of the books he's already looked through.
"Yes, but it's sort of personal," he said. He looked up and around, but he was the last student left. She smiles the smile that always makes Devlin know he's presented just the picture they are hoping for. He's charmed her.
"There is a charm to find specific words in books," she said. "If I show you now I am afraid it will be past curfew. Here, let me have you borrow the book with the instructions."
That night, he read it until he was sure he had memorized every bit.
Afterward, it was much easier to find Leonard Easlick. He stared at the image of the not-quite-boy but not-quite-man and didn't move. He had expected to see a picture of someone he did not know - to put a face to the person who had owned the wand that had chosen him when he was so young - the wand that had saved him from even himself. Instead it was a face he would never forget. The healer who had saved him from the nothingness.
OoOoOoO
Home was small and quiet compared to Hogwarts, and he knew this month it was not just his wolf that felt so acutely the confines of the building.
"We didn't know how you'd feel," Harry said, "so Alexandra took Emma for ice cream. She'll be very happy to see you."
Which was a very nice way of saying she was bound to be very very loud and cling to him. His muscles ached with just the thought.
"Yeah," he said, sighing.
"How are you feeling?" Harry asked, and Devlin realized he had missed the not-really-hidden question in his prior statement.
"Alright, I guess. It's quiet here."
Harry smiled warmly.
"Tell me all about it while the girls are gone," he said. He quickened his steps toward the kitchen. Lingering in the doorway, Devlin watched him get some hot cocoa ready.
Somehow, he had thought something would change in the house while he was gone, but everything was quite the same.
"Sit down," Harry said, eagerly. His green eyes were alight with emotions and he was smiling that smile that was just for Devlin. He felt something in his chest tighten and wondered if he had missed that smile.
Devlin smiled back and took a seat across from him.
"There are six other boys in my dorm," he said.
"Tell me who," Harry said, leaning forward.
"Brennan - he's German, I think -, Kendal -he thinks we're friends-, Morgan -I think he's pureblooded-, Andrew -he's muggleborn-, Demetrius who everyone calls Demi - I'm not sure much about him. He's clever, I think."
"That's five - you said there were six," Harry said, arching his brow.
"Isn't Alexandra always telling me not to say something if I haven't got something constructive to say? I couldn't think of anything constructive to say about Malfoy's boy."
Harry's lips pinched at one corner and he took a long sip of his drink.
"Sometimes I think it's the people you think are worthless that end up being worth the most. Know what I mean?" Harry asked.
Devlin looked at him for a moment. Harry couldn't possibly know how much Devlin knew exactly what he meant.
"I learned what worthless meant when I was six," he said, his voice a bit vehement even though he knew it was just context which had made Harry use the word. "Malfoy said that to me after I threw up on his shoes that first night. I didn't know what it meant then, but I reasoned that it meant I was less than I should have been. Malfoy's boy; he doesn't act like he's ever heard the word."
Harry frowned and turned his cup idly in his hands.
"You know, Devlin...a lot of people would look at how you act and think the same thing. Sometimes certainty is born out of uncertainty - sometimes it's just a mask."
Devlin glared at the table.
"Dad - he looks just like him."
Harry sighed.
"That is unfortunate."
His green eyes were full of understanding.
"Tell me about your classes," he said, changing the subject, "Has Ginny forgiven you?"
He groaned and leaned his head agains the table.
"No! She's making me wear this stupid hat and has said it's my job to watch out for everyone else. As if I loath helping people or something. It's just...can't they help themselves too?"
Harry laughed and Devlin peered up at him quizzically.
"Sometimes you say things that remind me of my friends when I was your age." He pulled himself together. "Ginny might take a bit. She's stubborn. She'll come around to your genuine charm sooner or later. How about Snape - how's that been going?"
"Fine, I suppose."
Harry made a non-committal sound.
"Remus?"
"Fine, too. His class is alright, but I already know most of it." He fidgeted with his own cup. "Actually, it's Transfiguration that's been sort of odd."
He could not believe he was going to do this. Was he really going to tell Harry? Was he going to complain?
Harry's brow drew down.
"Why? Are you having trouble? Minerva sounds mean, but she's honestly really nice, Devlin. She'd help you."
"Yeah, I don't think so," Devlin said, working his finger nail under the edge of a sticker Emma must have plastered on the table at some point while he was gone.
"I don't think she likes me. I mean, something about me. Something I...maybe it's because I'm a werewolf?"
Harry frowned skeptically.
"Nah, that doesn't sound like Minerva at all. Tell you what, though - she might just be worried you'll be like me!"
He smiled charmingly; the rarest smile that Harry ever wore. When he smiled like that, so easy and casual, sometimes Devlin wondered if they didn't look a little alike.
Devlin shrugged.
"Yeah, maybe. Ginny is like that too, I suppose. Does she hate you, too?"
Harry looked a bit awkward at the question.
"No - I think Ginny and I are good," he said, but there was something there that let Devlin blame him, at least a little.
There was a moment of awkward silence.
"I looked him up. The man who owned my wand."
Harry's eyes had widened.
"Oh, Devlin," Harry said, "I wish you hadn't."
Devlin scratched at a sticker Emma must have put on the edge of the table while he was gone.
"You did too, huh?"
"He was a healer..."
"I know," Devlin said and he could feel Harry's frown even though he wasn't looking. Such information had not been available through any resources at Hogwarts. Devlin shouldn't know that. "I think...he was trying to protect me. I wanted to ask you for the wand back. I know...I know it's not really mine, but it's just...I'd like to hold onto it."
"Devlin-"
Harry was going to tell him some rubbish about how some man he hadn't know couldn't have been trying to protect him and he was putting responsibility onto himself that did not belong there. Or something like that. Devlin never replicated it perfectly in his head.
"I knew him, you know. He was a Death Eater." He picked at the sticky residue the sticker had left behind. "He volunteered to save me, even though I think he knew it would mean his death. He kept me alive. He fed me calming draughts so that I wouldn't scream whenever I saw Voldemort. He saved me, and when he was dead, his wand saved me."
Harry turned his cup slowly in a circle, the sound grating on Devlin's too-sensitive hearing.
"Actually, he was a spy." Devlin looked up abruptly. "He worked for me. It was always risky sending a Healer in, because Voldemort disposed of them as often as he recruited them - they're not generally people who stay loyal to someone who so casually harms innocent people. I'm not surprised Leonard helped you; he had a death wish, we used to joke. He wanted to save people, even if they were terrible people." He looked up. His green eyes were full of tears; Devlin watched his face and wished his own eyes would do that now. Surely a regular boy would be crying. Surely a regular boy would feel something beside the emptiness. "If he died protecting you, than he died doing what he wanted. He kept you safe, and I think you're right - his wand understood him."
Harry choked on something as he lifted his hand and made a motioning gesture. Devlin could hear his office door open and close and a moment later Devlin's first wand was in his hands.
"If you'd let me, I'd like to tell Emily that he saved you. That's his wife. She'd want you to have his wand, I think."
Devlin only had time to nod, before the front door opened and he heard Emma's footfalls rushing down the front hall. She pulled him out of his chair only to embrace him almost to the point of asphyxiation.
"Devlin!" She said "I missed you!"
He smiled.
"Missed you too, Emma," he said, and was surprised by how genuinely he felt. Sometimes, in moments like these, he wished he had a mirror to see if his eyes looked like he felt all those emotions Harry and Emma and Alexandra felt so easily.