Devlin had already resigned himself the fact that his absences would prove any rumors true. It was still strange to him, being judged for something that was never true around other people. He was never a werewolf with them; only a boy.

He had expected Malfoy would have said something, but the boy didn't even look at him. Kendal smiled cheerfully, overcompensating - as if he meant to tell Devlin, without saying the words, I know your secret but of course we're still friends. Except, Devlin wasn't really sure they were real friends. Brennan watched him carefully. Demi glanced at him over another book. Morgan wasn't even there; probably after some girl. Sirius' words had ended up ringing relatively true; some of his dorm mates had no idea girls existed, some of them were terrified of them, and some of them wished they were much older than eleven.

It was Andrew who said something. He was at his desk and he turned around to smile at him.

"You look like rubbish!" He said, and Devlin did not miss the concern although it was well hidden behind humour. "Watch out you don't make it a habit or we'll think you're a werewolf or something!"

All around the room, the other boys snuck significant, sometimes warning, glances at Andrew.

Andrew coughed.

"Erm...they're not real, right?"

Morgan, Brennan, and Kendal sniggered. Demi listened curiously.

"Of course they are," Malfoy said, disdainfully. Devlin tried to miss the fact that, despite the tone, it had been Malfoy who helped the muggleborn. "If you keep saying things like that, you may as well stick a 'hex me' sign to your back."

Andrew seemed to consider this new information.

"My apologies for accusing you, Devlin," he said after a minute. "I mean, it was only a joke."

It felt like that first morning again, when he had needed to make a big decision about them seeing his scars. He had to make a decision now, not based on survival, but on conscious logic. Past, present and possible futures spun wildly in his head as he assessed the damage versus the benefit. He couldn't be weak. Couldn't be without value. Couldn't hide. He had to be strong, ruthless, worth their fear and their trust. He had decided long ago that he would be better, and this was something surely small orphaned Tom Riddle could not have done; so he would.

"Perhaps you shouldn't be so quick to apologize," he said, locking eyes with the boy and smiling calmly. He tried to drown out the sense of the other boys eyes on him as he stepped closer to Andrew.

Andrew frowned; he wasn't frightened but there was a tiny dance of concern in his eyes. He put his quill down into the inkwell.

"Whatcha mean, Devlin?"

Devlin narrowed his eyes, pulling that small sense of sharpness forward to color his eyes. Andrew's eyes widened.

"Because, sometimes your gut is perfectly accurate. It's alright - everyone has seen the bite mark, it's just you didn't know enough to recognize it."

Which was true enough. This wasn't admitting something new, this was just informing everyone they couldn't use it against him.

He expected Andrew to withdraw; to pull back physically as well as mentally from him. Instead, the Muggleborn surprised him and leaned forward.

"That is so freaking awesome. Oh man, just wait until I tell my brother. You have to come to my house this summer and show him that!" He smiled. "Well, any day except the full moon, obviously!"

OoOoOoO

Three weeks into school, on the cusp of a new month, he started to finally wonder if perhaps Grandfather had lost interest in him beyond what information he must receive from Green and the older Slytherins. Perhaps Devlin was not doing something right; not doing well enough, not seeming ill-content when he should, not spitting words like mudblood, not impressing his Professors, not- well he wasn't sure what he wasn't doing, but there must have been something.

These thoughts swirled and curled in his mind as Remus lectured on defensive posture and the power in even the simplest spells. He recalled a conversation between Harry and Remus, perhaps last spring, over the changes in curriculum. His father had been pleased about the changes, saying at the time that the world was too precarious a place right then not to equip children with the things they would need, in an emergency.

Remus was gentler than Malfoy or the other Death Eaters who had taught him. He spoke in calm words, slowed his movements down and broke them apart so as to make each memorizable. The children watched, and absorbed, and Devlin watched and wondered if they had any idea what they were really being taught: how to have a sliver of a chance that they would not die.

"Mr. Potter," Remus called, "is something distracting you?"

Remus always did have a keen sense of when he was somewhere else.

"No, Professor," he said, automatically. At home, Harry would cringe when he said 'no, sir,' or even 'no, Harry', and his face would twitch when he softened it further to 'no, dad', because he just knew Harry could hear it there - what had made such a phrase so automatic. No, Grandfather. Yes, Grandfather. Here, the behavior was rewarded with nods and small smiles.

"Good," Remus was saying, "then please come up and demonstrate a disarming spell. Do you remember the spells name?"

He stepped lightly up to the front of the room, eyes following him as he passed.

"Yes, Professor," he was saying, an emptiness overcoming him even as a spark of thrill bloomed to life in his chest. Remus was looking at him expectantly, and he realized that he was meant to say the name. "The disarming charm is Expelliarmus."

Remus nodded gently. Devlin watched him as he shifted on his feet. It was often a body that started a conversation. Devlin shifted too.

"Can you - yes, an offensive posture," Remus said, caught mid-sentence with the fact that Devlin had already read his slight movement into a defensive posture and responded accordingly. "Ready your wand. I want you to try and disarm me."

He curled his hand upward, to push the small silver lever that would release his wand. It slid out of it's holster and he curled his fingers into a loose grasp as the wood passed, his index finger measuring the seconds. His fingers curl around the handle, stopping it from falling to the floor.

He doesn't wait for further directions. Doesn't stop to think. His wand heats beneath his fingers, drawing his magic forward.

"Expelliarmus," he says, firm and sharp, knowing he will succeed even though he can never really know. He does not allow doubt to break into his magic.

Remus' wand soared across the classroom.

"Is that all, Professor?"

Remus' watched him and he watched Remus, and perhaps he had thought that watching him would distract him, because instead of words Remus' draws another wand and tries to pry the captive one away from him. Stares do not distract Devlin. He curled his hand around the captive wand and dug his feet into the ground.

"Protego," he found himself saying, with the same automaticity with which he said 'yes, professor', 'yes, sir', 'yes, Harry', or 'yes, Grandfather' . It was a spell they had covered, but Remus' had not yet made them recreate their own shield. Next week, the Professor had said at the beginning of the class, but obviously he had been teasing them. A blue barrier wrapped itself around Devlin, and Remus' disarming charm rolled off like water against Muggle-made plastic.

"Very good!" Remus cheered, but Devlin only partly heard him. His heart pounded behind it's bone and muscle and cartilage cage. "You can cancel your spell, Devlin," Remus added, his voice that gentle voice again.

Put your wand down first, his wolf wanted to snarl at the other werewolf, even though it trusts Remus almost implicitly, but Devlin stopped the words before they flew from his tongue. He had to be a normal boy and a normal boy wouldn't look for the next attack when their Professor had clearly instructed them that it was over.

His shield crackled and dispersed and he put Remus' wand on his desk.

"Is that all, Professor?" He asked again. His wand was still out and between his fingers.

"Yes, thank you for demonstrating, Mr. Potter."

Something weary came to live in Remus' eyes and all at once Devlin realized how honest Harry had always been with him: he never told anyone, save perhaps Alexandra, the things Devlin had told him. Remus does not know what Devlin has done.

Something tight, as potently bitter as it was powerfully thankful, swelled inside his chest.

oOoOoOoOo

When he saw Will next, it was as the savior instead of the bully.

There was a shout up ahead.

Will's hands were on a Slytherin, the same age as Will, pushing him up against the wall. The terrified boy (Devlin really should just say his name, but something held him back), was wedged against the wall, his book bag tossed to the floor in the middle of the hall. Devlin had a feeling Will did not have a grudge against a first-year from his own house and instead the Slytherin was the bully and Will the terrified boy's savior.

The Slytherin laughed hysterically.

"If you lifted up his left sleeve, you'd think differently of him," he jeered at Will, who clearly now had the advantage. The terrified boy pressed himself further into the wall, tears welling at the edges of his eyes. Will glanced back at the boy, but then his hatred of the Slytherin seemed to overwhelm his hatred of the possible mark on the child's arm.

The boy pushed himself further against the wall, as if he thought there were a possibility he could wedge himself into nothingness. Devlin thought instantly of the boy in the cold stone basement, locked in with him as he transformed. That had been the real decoy - the boy Harry had buried thinking it was him. This was the second boy, but in that moment, the boy reminded Devlin of them both. He lifted his wand and, shielded by the corner, whispered the words that would send magic into the air.

A bit of blue light tinged with yellow rushed from his wand; just around the corner he could see as the Slytherin fell down, unconscious. To leave him simply stunned was not an option, as it would have also left him able to identify Devlin.

As Snape said: Devlin was playing a dangerous game.

"Whose there!" Will demanded, sharply. Devlin turned the corner and was surprised when Will did not attack him just because it was him. "Did you do that?"

"Yes," he said, "He's unconscious."

"I didn't need your help," Will said, nearly growling.

Devlin looked at him, and Will glared at him, and Devlin made a move across his mental chessboard that he hoped he would not regret.

"Your dad helped me," he said - a confession he has never uttered aloud before, not even to Harry. "But that's not why he's dead. He kept my secret and I kept his. He was dead long before he actually killed him; no one is alive there, in the darkness."

Will's brow furrowed in confusion. Devlin took a step closer to them both. Will did not move, and Devlin could feel how frozen he was; frigid realization rushing through his blood. The terrified boy's shirtsleeve hem was clutched desperately in his hand, and Devlin knew then that the boy was marked. He stood before the boy, and he reached out his hand.

The boy looked at him, the same height Devlin himself would be, crumpled on the floor. Their hair was almost the same color, but their eyes were worlds apart. His were a deep brown, like moist earth, and Devlin's were a deep green, like wet floo powder.

He reached forward, and Devlin grasped onto his palm. Their fingers shifted - his more fragile, Devlin's stronger, and Devlin hauled him up onto his feet.

"I'm Devlin," he said to the boy.

"I'm Taylor," the boy said, but his eyes screamed I know, and Devlin knew then that he was like Maria in that way; he wanted it all kept hidden. Devlin never did have that luxury. "You're Maria's friend," he added, even though neither needed the clarification.

"Yeah," he said, because maybe Taylor did need the clarification.

"What are we supposed to do about him?" Will asked, his expression guarded but not especially hard; as if there existed the possibility that he might one day look at Devlin differently.

"I'll undo it, around the corner," he said.

"Is he hurt?" Will asked, wearily.

"No, just unconscious."

It didn't look as though Will really believed him, and Devlin felt a stab of doom in his chest. He looked at Will.

"He kept my secret and I kept his, and I hope you'll keep ours."

"You did hear what the boy said about his arm, didn't you?" Will asked, eying Taylor - as if Devlin's trust in the perhaps untrustable boy proved that Devlin was lying.

"There are lots of things in life that no one asks your permission for," Devlin said. The boy shivered next to him. Will looked at them both.

"Yeah, I suppose not." He picked up his book bag and held Taylor's out to him. Then he turned back to Devlin. "If I'm keeping secrets I figure I deserve to know the whole one. When is your next free period?"

OoOoOoOoO

Today, he turned the matchstick into a needle and the needle back into a matchstick without bothering to figure out a way to delay his success. Today, there was no more room in his head for trivial things such as that. Today, his head was full of anticipation.

The Professor stopped at his table, only for a moment, to nod in acknowledgement of his success. Devlin wanted to tell her that he knew she couldn't stand to look at him. He wanted to know why.

But not today. Not when Will wanted to know about his father.

He'd never even told his father about Will's father.

He's not sure how he'll begin, but possible openings bite and grab at him during class, breaking his focus.

"Are you having trouble, Mr. Potter?" She alway seemed to notice when he was having trouble. She didn't seem exactly happy when he failed, but as though it were somewhat of a relief.

He shook his head. "No, Professor."

She must not have believed him, though, because he heard his name ring clear through the room after she called an end to class. He looked up, toward her. Her face was brushed with uncertainty but firmness, and there was a determination he recognized from so many people around him.

Green shifted with his own uncertainty next to him, and Devlin knew the boy would not want to leave him alone with someone so close to Dumbledore. Being forced to be around him so often, Devlin had at least taken to knowing his first name, and they had begun to exchange pleasantries. Devlin told himself it was all part of the projection that Grandfather would expect.

"It's alright, Kendall," he said, "I'll see you after our free period."

If he played this turn of events correctly, he'd be able to lose the boy more easily than he would have otherwise. Will would be waiting for him.

Green nodded and shuffled out of the room.

When he made it to her desk, she was shuffling the assignments that had been handed in at the beginning of class. He placed himself of her desk and waited; trying to look patient.

"What stupid thing are you planning?" She asked, without looking at him.

"I-" he stumbled on his response to her utterly bare and unburdened question. "I don't do foolish things," he said. He flattened out his robes.

"When did you hear me use the word 'foolish'?" She asked, but she did not really require a response. "I chose to use the word 'stupid', quite on purpose. What stupid thing are you planning, child?"

"I'm not, Professor."

"Do not lie to me," she said, finally looking up. Her eyes were hard, but her face was soft. "Your father looked like that, when he was planning something stupid. After teaching James Potter, I should have known, but Harry seemed like such a sweet boy. Now, I've taught three Potter's - and I do not make a mistake three times in a row."

She stared at him, critically.

"How do you know I'm lying, Professor?" He had meant to lighten the mood and smiled charmingly in accordance, but it had seemed to do quite the opposite of his intention. She gave the stack of paper a hard tap against the flat of the desk.

"Because, I knew him too."

Devlin felt frozen. He wished all the frozenness was borne from fear, but it was not. Intrigue and curiosity came to linger beside the fear and terror, buzzing insistently around his frozen mind. Harry had been wrong. She didn't think he was like Harry. She thought he was like him.

Will, driven by something almost morbid, wanted to know about his father's last heroic move before death, just as Devlin had always been especially curious about The Dark Lord, before he became the monster.

Had there been a moment in which he simply changed? What had that moment looked like? Was Devlin really just like him? Would there be a moment in which Devlin could become a monster? Would he know it when he saw it or would he walk blindly into it?

Her cheeks were flushing.

"I should not have told you that," she said, quick and firm; seeming to realize that he knew precisely to whom she had been referring. She was a person who did not fumble with mistakes, knowing they could not be undone but only acknowledged.

His hand was heating around the leather strap of his book bag.

"He and I, we're all tangled up in your head," he said, the words falling unbidden from his tongue. It was one of those moments in his life that would surprise him when he looked back. A moment where he had managed to put words to something that he had never been able to express before. "I'm all tangled up in his head, too," he said, licking his lips. "That's why I'm still alive, so I don't mind. I tried hard to stay there - to tangle myself up even more. But I'll tell you a secret, just between us: I'm terrified of myself now, and I think that means I'm not just like him, although I'm not sure that will matter."

He stepped away from her desk.

"Was he a monster, even when you knew him? Has he always been?"

She looked at him, her jaw set against something: tears, anger, accusation - he did not know. She was old; wrinkled, worn. She was also sturdy and wise and there was a strength in her eyes that he suspected knew all storms could be weathered. He looked at her and wondered for the first time what it would be like to have a real grandfather.

I wish he were different, Harry had once said to him, I wish he were normal and we could invite him over for your birthday. I wish that's what he wanted to be.

"We should not be talking about him. I should not have said that to you, Mr. Potter. I apologize for making any comparison. You are a child."

Just as she was a woman who knew mistakes could not be undone but only acknowledge, he was a boy who knew righteous anger was not the answer and that conflict did not usually achieve what one wanted. Surviving Voldemort had taught him just the opposite of what Voldemort himself believed. His mother was always telling Emma to treat people as she would want to be treated. Voldemort did not believe that. Perhaps no one had ever told him that when he was young enough for it to sink in. Voldemort liked to be treated with respect, and caution, and fear - but he did not respect or fear anyone else, and he certainly did not feel caution.

Sometimes, without even knowing it, he had made Devlin better than himself.

"Of course, Professor," he said, stilling the anger inside of him. Stilling it all until he felt as close to nothing, nothing, nothing, as he ever got. "It's alright. I understand."

He smiled that charming smile that he had perfected long before Voldemort.

And he left through the door, ignoring her call.

OoOoOoOoO

Green had stuck around, and Devlin felt all that anger he had still inside of him begin to bubble.

"Everything alright?"

"Oh yes, perfectly alright," he said, stalking forward. He tried to hold the words in, but then thought better - what bad would come of telling Green, who reported only to Voldemort? "It's just, she doesn't like me because I look like someone else."

He'd managed to curb his tongue, as reality caught up to him. Did Green know? Did anyone outside of that camp know? It had escaped him as a small child, but not now, how small that camp was. How many Death Eater's made it into the newspaper that he knew nothing about. Old Death Eaters - who the Ministry claimed to have been followers for years.

Harry kept him hidden in plain sight, but he was coming to realize that Voldemort had only been able to keep him hidden in the middle of a forest, surrounded by a select few of his followers. Had it been a mere coincidence that he had been stationed at a camp full of werewolves, or had someone whispered in Voldemort's ear that they would keep him safe?

"Like your dad?" Green asked, scrunching up his face. Devlin rounded on him.

"Really? Like Harry? Do I look like Harry to you?"

Green peered at him cryptically for a moment.

"Nah, not really."

He nodded and stalked closer to the Great Hall. It was lunch; he had to manage to excuse himself early without Green following him.

OoOoOoO

Will met him at the end of a hallway, biting into an apple.

"Get in here," he said, and opened the door to a girls lavatory. Devlin hesitated. "No one comes in here because of Myrtle."

Devlin stepped through the door. It was a large older looking bathroom, with stone sinks and old spotted faucets. He eyed Will, his palm itching with the desire to be holding his wand.

"Did you nick any food? Do you want an apple?" He pulled one out of his rucksack. Devlin eyed the offer, knowing what was polite but also knowing better.

"No, thanks," he said - knowing he would only throw up if he had any food in his stomach.

Will shrugged and tucked the apple back into his bag.

"Well then, lets get started," the older boy said. His words were certain, but his eyes were a blue ocean of uncertainty.

"Are you sure you want to know?" He asked, while Will looked for feet under each stall, feeling obligated.

"Yes," Will said, gruff. As if he thought Devlin were trying to escape telling him. Maybe he was. He nodded.

Will had check for feet, but someone had been hiding. He froze as someone called out "Whose out there?"

Will didn't look half as worried as he should have, and Devlin felt a bite of fear claw it's way up his spine. Had Will been going to betray his confidence?

"Only someone trying to have a bit of a private conversation, Myrtle," Will said; he rolled his eyes in Devlin's direction.

A girl, gray and translucent, came floating out of the stall behind them. Devlin knew everything there was to know about ghosts, and he's seen them in the hallway before, but this was the first time he had ever seen a child ghost. She wore thick glasses and her hair was pulled into to immature pigtails like the ones Emma sometimes wore.

She took one look at him and began to scream hysterically.

"YOU!" She screamed.

Will looked at him.

"This is Devlin, Myrtle. He's a firstie. Stop scaring him."

"YOU! YOU! YOU!" She was crying, bawling, her firsts tucked at her side. "I'll tell Professor Dumbledore you came back!" She said, suddenly floating right up to his face. "I'll tell him! You'll be in so much trouble!"

Her eyes were angry and her face full of fury. But she was also crying tears of terror. He backed up.

If his professor hadn't just jabbed home how much he looked like his Grandfather, Devlin might not have had the inkling he did. He looked at Will.

"Maybe a broom closet would be better, Will."

Myrtle, for her part, glared silently at him - seemingly so terrified that she was content enough to see his backside leaving her bathroom.

"Yeah, I suppose." On their way out, Will told Myrtle that she'd get a worse rep if she started scaring firsties like Peeves. She wailed something almost indiscernible and flew into a stall.

He led them down the hall and into a small abandoned classroom.

Will pulled together some desks and Devlin vanished the dust with a swoop of his wand.

"When did you first meet him?"

Devlin drew invisible doodles onto the surface of the desk.

"When I was six or seven," he said. He measured memories by whether he had a wand in his hand or not. If he didn't, he had been either six or seven, and if he had - well then he knew how old he'd been because Voldemort had started telling him. "I went into the place where they kept prisoners-"

"-so you weren't a prisoner, too?" Will's eyes were a forced calm, but Devlin could see the accusation behind the calm.

Devlin shifted uncomfortably.

"My mum says I was, just a different kind. He never let me go home..."

Will's lips pinched, but he nodded in acknowledgement.

"I saw him in there," he said, and paused. Should he really describe the man as he had been, to his son? Grime and filthy and insane laughter? Will looked at him impatiently. "He was like all of them, dirty and not-quite-right. He saw me and he started laughing. Isn't it funny, he had said, you're there and I'm here. Isn't it funny. Of course, I didn't understand then. I didn't understand until they showed me his picture at the Ministry. Here he was, where they had assumed I would be. I was on the outside, and he couldn't save me, because he was where I should have been. Then he stopped laughing and he told me to come there, and I didn't at first, but then he said my name - my real name - which I wasn't supposed to know anymore. Devlin. So I did. He touched me and he said my name again, and for a moment I almost remembered. He told me what felt like a story then, of how Devlin had been able to write secret messages and then reveal them later. Now I know that's something I did when I was a kid-"

"-Yeah, yeah, I remember. You thought it was all kinds of awesome."

Devlin looked at Will and realized that Will was yet another person who must have at least met him. Perhaps at Ministry functions.

"He told me how I had to do that again. Then the person who was supposed to keep track of me came in through the door."

"Did he kill him then?"

Devlin looked at Will and knew it was only horror and fear that blinded him from the ill-logic of his question. That had been years before the body had surfaced.

"No. By all accounts he should have. He should have killed him and obliviated me, but he didn't. He oblivated your father instead."

Will clenched his jaw.

"If he had known - if he had remembered, they would have killed him right then - and me too. Obliviated there was a chance he would escape or there would be a raid and he would be rescued."

His jaw was still clenched but he nodded.

OoOoOoOoO

He had thought he'd been over-worrying, but instead he hadn't been worrying nearly enough.

He was walking back from Herbology with Maria and Andrew when it happened. Green had been oddly absent. Looking back, he felt entirely foolish not to have been suspicious.

As soon as the hand landed on his shoulder, he knew. He did not need Andrew's frown or Maria's terror. He did not need the nails digging into the muscle of his shoulder. He did not need the tip of the wand as it came to rest against his scalp. The uninvited touch was all he needed to know.

He was going to see Grandfather again.

"Devlin!" There were tears prickling the edges of Maria's eyes. Andrew was frowning, as if trying to piece together a puzzle. Devlin felt the wand shift against his head, and every muscle in his body tightened as agonizing terror rushed through his veins.

"Shhh," he said, shaking his head. "Don't scream, Maria. Don't scream."

He felt the wand steady against his hair, pressing into his skin. Maria would be safe, as long as she didn't make a scene.

"I don't smudge easily, Maria," he reassured. He could not see his kidnapper, but the hand did not shift or tighten at the strange words. Andrew's brow drew down until his eyes were mere slits, observing his world with blooming fear. Maria swallowed and nodded; she had known exactly what he meant.

And then he was small; smaller than an apple, or a piece of grass, or a seed - he was nothing and whole all at the same time. He couldn't be sure if he was conscious or so broken into pieces that no thought could exist. Were the thoughts merely a product of his initial and ending expectations seamed together until, breathing rapidly at the end, he confused them to be a thought he had generated during the portkey travel?

oOoOoOo

The arm was around him like a strangle-hold now, pressing against his throat and hooked under his other armpit. His heart pounded; so erratically and fervently that he wasn't sure if he were going to start seizing or faint. For the briefest moment, the neurons in his brain fired on primal instinct: fight, escape, run. Hastily and full of terror, Devlin retracted the feverish demands. He found himself oddly still, hanging almost limp in his kidnappers arms. He was a tall boy, and even in his kidnappers arms his toes almost touched the ground, but he was also a skinny boy, and he weighed nothing. The arm easily wrapped around his small chest.

"Don't move," his kidnapper whispered in his ear. Felix. He could almost imagine the expression he wore behind him.

Devlin did not move. He looked.

The sharpness clawed and clung to his consciousness as if his fear were it's prey.

Trees, like the ones he remembered from his childhood, were stood like bars around him. From between the narrow spaces they had left, all to familiar shadows shifted and whispered, the moonlight illuminating the glow of their bone-white masks. The sound filled him with a nothingness he hadn't felt in years. Nothing here. Nothing there. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Don't think. Don't feel. Just do what has to be done.

So he did. He clenched his hands and tried very hard to organize the chaos that was his mind. Devlin prayed to the God that Alexandra sometimes did, that he and Voldemort were still tangled up in his head - even a tiny bit. At the same time, he knew he was partaking in something weak and worthless; hope only left one susceptible to inevitable devastation.

Think of the facts, Geoffrey used to tell him, facts are plain. Let the ocean swallow the rest.

In his mind, he stood himself on an island just big enough for himself, and surrounded himself with the wide endless ocean. Waves crested and crashed onto him until he was wet and cold inside.

Typical. Worthless. Next time we play, you will scream for me.

Devlin flung his head backwards, colliding with Felix. It did not matter that he would not win. His only chance was to be the opposite of what Voldemort detested. He fell unceremoniously to his knees. As a child, he would have been terrified to be in such a position and focused entirely on getting to his feet, but he was no longer such a child. He was no longer the boy who hid his scars. He turned on his knees, using his left hand to help him steady himself.

He filled himself with that forceful certainty that he could always muster in the face of death. Nothing else mattered. Don't think. Don't feel. Don't remember. Just do what you have to do.

He could feel the sharpness in the back of his skull, pressing himself against Devlin's consciousness until Devlin could feel both their feelings at once.

"Expelliarmus!"

Remus' words reverberated in his head. Sometimes it is the simplest spell which is actually our greatest weapon. Your magic can make a difference.

Devlin knew better than most boys that his magic could make a world of difference and he had first hand knowledge already that capturing someone's wand was like cutting off their hands.

The wand came soaring across the space between them. Devlin splayed his fingers across the ground and crouched. Felix raised his wand. Devlin tensed his muscles and flung himself into the air. A bit of magic kept him up until he knew he'd land on his feet.

Tricks, Draco Malfoy used to say, are you a wizard or a muggle?

Devlin caught the wand with an ease that often made his father make disappointed remarks about Devlin's lack of interest in Quidditch. It was smooth beneath his fingers. Felix's face was full of revenge, but he did not lunge to attack. That's when Devlin knew; he was there. In that moment Devlin was like his father in the worst way; his head belonged to Voldemort.

He'd never done it before, but not doing it never really crossed his mind. His hand moved across the wood until one was on either side of the wand. Snap. The whole was now two. He let the pieces fall onto the ground at his feet. All restraint from Felix's expression vanished and he was roaring, charging after him and-

"That's enough," someone said, so softly Felix and he should not have heard. The whispers hushed as the shadows shifted toward the clearing; black cloaks, skull-masks, veiling hoods.

Devlin surveyed them, but only momentarily. His gaze bit into the unmasked man as he stepped into the circle.

"My Lord," Felix was saying. Felix fell to one knee and Devlin watched him. Overriding his own fear, was a desire to hurt the older boy who had effectively just killed him. He eyed the boys vulnerable position, hungrily. "I brought the boy for you."

"I do, in fact, have eyes," Lord Voldemort said, as he stepped out into the clearing. He was no longer the red-eyed monster that Devlin remembered so clearly from his childhood, but the handsome man who had chosen to leave him with Harry Potter. He chuckled. It was a collected chuckle, nothing more, but somehow it made that terror coil tighter in Devlin's chest, and the flame that was holding him upright was almost pressed out of existence. "Put your wand down, Devlin."

Devlin.

It was a threat. Devlin felt himself going numb. Devlin Augustus Potter; the name his father had given him.

Terror swept up his spine. Would he be down there on the frigid ground, in a moment? Was he brought here to die? Would he be made to kneel like one of them? He returned his own wand to his holster.

He turned his body to look at Lord Voldemort; handsome and charismatic. Somehow, he thought it would be easier if he were still the red-eyed monster.

"Avada Kedava"