For Dubhán there had never been a bold line between sleep and wakefulness, instead the line between the two states had been fragile and narrow; he was either awake or he wasn't. As Devlin, he woke slowly; to the feel of Zee shifting against him, to the sound of Harry shuffling down the stairs, to Emma's soft voice chattering downstairs. That morning, he snapped awake like Dubhán.

The morning sun was settling warmly onto the polished wood. For the first time, he noticed what lay across from the bed on the far wall: a bookcase. It was painted a faint green - the only color in the room - and looked as though someone had painted over a deep cherry wood (like the floors). Something about the colors the books created on the shelves, felt strangely familiar. He slipped out of bed.

Some of them were children's books: The Stirring of Magic, The Hippogriff who Ate a Fly, 'I want to be a ghost', while others were of older subjects: The Magic in Potions, Magical Creatures and Where to Find Them, First to Third Year spells - From the Ever Updating Encyclopedia Series, The History of Time Turners, A History of Hogwarts, The Art of Dueling, and many more.

Devlin felt breathless. He ran his finger across their familiar spines, as if they knew the old friends they were to him. His first protectors. He had hidden his worries in these many times.

"I saved them," Voldemort said, from the doorway. Devlin just managed to master a jump, and turned around calmly. His feet were only covered by his socks. His clothing wrinkled. His hair must look terrible.

Devlin wanted to ask why, but the question seemed terribly silly.

"Thank you," he said, instead. Voldemort bowed his head in acknowledgement.

"When you have your shoes on, join me downstairs."

OoOoOoO

The grand front room smelled like cinnamon and butter. His mouth watered and his stomach grumbled in happy anticipation, even as his mind made him pause mid-way down the stairs.

Voldemort wasn't being kind, in the sense that he had not truly gone out of his way to reassure, comfort, or explain the situation or his reasoning to Devlin, but he was being nice, and this fact terrified Devlin. All his young childhood with Voldemort, he had wished for only one thing: that Voldemort would be nice to him. Generally, he believed it foolish to wish for anything and be left to the ravages of disappointment later, but since that wish had been something on which his survival depended, he had kept wishing.

There had been moments, of course, where Voldemort had seemed to play the part - but he was playing it to himself. Perhaps Devlin hadn't seen it then for what it was, but sitting at Harry Potter's house away from him, he had recognized the truth. Voldemort had always treated him like he himself would have wanted to be treated.

Voldemort had never been the type able to maintain such niceness long enough to lull him completely.

Instead, Devlin had found comfort in the discomfort of resignation.

Was that what was happening now? Or was Voldemort trying to anticipate what would set Devlin at ease? His books, for instance. They had no importance to Voldemort, yet he had saved them.

The idea terrified Devlin, because Devlin's survival depended on him being the same as Voldemort.

Was this a test? Should he appear as though this was not what he needed? Should he remain unaffected by the gestures? Would little orphan Tom Riddle have felt grateful for something of his being kept safe?

He closed his eyes for a moment - just one moment of weakness - but when he opened them again he knew it had been too much of a risk to take.

She was standing at the bottom of the steps, her black eyes staring up at him with a crazed kind of focus. Her hair was as frazzled as it ever had been and her robes clung against her waist but became looser at her legs. He did not think she was ever someone to wear something that restricted her movements.

There was a sneer twisting at her lips and one of her eyebrows was arched. She face made it seem as though she might tear him to pieces, but her eyes were like they had always been, and he knew she would never dare to treat him as Malfoy once had - unless Voldemort instructed her.

When she looked at him, she missed all the parts that were Harry Potters.

It wasn't like the cruel gleam of a Death Eater as he took something from a girl by kissing her, nor was it the sort of look his mother bestowed upon his father right before they kissed - giving something rather than taking it away. Instead, it was something in-between.

"Are you going to float yourself down the stairs or something?" Her voice was rough and strange, crackling like her magic.

"No," he said, even though he wished he had the mental capacity to throw something cruel at her. It wasn't really worth the effort - cruel people did not feel cruel words like normal people did.

"Well then, move! Master did not tell you to stand on the stairs all morning, did he?"

When he had been at camp, many people had called Voldemort Master or My Lord or sometimes even The Dark Lord, but it has been years since he has heard the reference. For a moment it shocked him; somewhere along the way, the names had lost their normalcy. He had never called Voldemort any of those, and he was not about to start now. He was not a Death Eater. Wasn't, wasn't, wasn't.

She sounded more peeved than he remembered her as a child, but possibly he had just been too afraid of her to notice. He tipped his head a bit and used every scrap of falsehood that lived inside of him to smile at her charmingly.

"Relax, Bella. I was just trying to remember something."

Once more he knew why, and yet did not know why, he had chosen to call her by her nickname. He smiled again, showing his white teeth. There was that something in her eyes that he remembered from when he was a child. He flicked his gaze away from her.

He stepped down the stairs and followed the enticing scent past her.

There was a house-elf in the kitchen.

Voldemort was seated at the wooden table, the newspaper propped up, one of his legs crossed over the other. Devlin thought he looked like any other man.

He'd have to wait until he was under his bedcovers to think about Voldemort's motives, which meant he would have to survive dancing on his toes, today.

"We will be leaving for a day trip at noon," Voldemort said over breakfast. He did not engage in small talk, because that was not the sort of thing he enjoyed. "You will find appropriate clothing in your room."

He supposed the house elf had put it there.

"Where will we be going?"

Voldemort looked over the newspaper at him, his green eyes sharp and alert.

"I have some business to attend too," he said vaguely.

Devlin knew all about what Voldemort's 'business' was. He forced himself to nod. Forced his throat not to betray him as he swallowed. Forced his face to look eager at the cinnamon french toast that the elf magicked onto the table.

In his room was an entirely new outfit. He changed without paying much attention: to the clothing or to his scars which were a warning, etched permanently onto his skin. He only allowed himself to look and acknowledge the clothing in the mirror.

He forced himself to think of Emma. He steeled his collapsing limbs with her face. He was doing this for her. She would never be him. Never, never, never. He was doing this for himself; he did not want to die.

The only missing part was the skull-white mask.

OoOoOoO

He knew that look, distrust, selfishness, and unquenchable control, so well that even a glance at Voldemort's face conveyed the message: 'do not make the mistake of betraying me'.

"You will be on your best behavior," Voldemort said, that underlining tone chilling Devlin. He stepped closer. His hands were behind his back. With a peer Devlin would have called them stupid for such a posture, but with Voldemort he knew it was all carefully-considered intimidation. Voldemort would still get to his wand faster, because Devlin would never draw his own. He leaned over him the way he had when Devlin was six, and seven, and eight, and nine; making it clear who was larger. "This is your one chance. Tell me if your loyalty has shifted."

The word chance conveyed some kind of possibility that he would go unpunished; as though this were an opportunity to be forgiven.

Devlin knew much better.

Voldemort did not forgive, he did not forget, and he felt revenge strongest of all.

He could not steel his mind with Emma's face while he stood before Voldemort, so he steeled himself with a sense of audacity that was entirely fabricated.

"Harry Potter never changed me." Devlin would know, better than most boys, how to create the strongest lie. The strongest lie was always the truth.

"We shall see."

OoOoOoOoOoO

They were in the woods. Trees surrounded them. Leaves had built a thick carpet beneath their feet. Snow felt soon in the air.

They were alone. Voldemort beckoned him onward. For a while they walked in silence. Devlin's new black dragon hide books crunched on the leaves behind Voldemort, assuring the man that his prisoner was still with him.

Voldemort put his hand out to stop them.

"You remember the first time we met, do you not?"

His back was still to him, his arm still out like a bar to halt him.

"Yes, sir," he said, although he had wished he could just have nodded. The acknowledgement was almost as painful as the memory.

Voldemort nodded in front of him.

"Good," he said, and they began to walk again.

OoOoOoO

It was home. The sunlight streamed across the empty ground and around the small magical tents and onto his body, and for the first time since his kidnapping, he felt warm enough to breathe. He had entered through the thick woods from which he had once managed to escape.

The tents were dusty and disused - there were patches of grass where they're had only ever been packed dirt. Small things like this - like the rip in the tent there - stood out to Devlin.

Something was not quite right.

He remembered his books in the room back at the house, and knew this camp hadn't been used for a long time.

Voldemort looked back at him, as if to assess what Devlin remembered. Devlin never forgot anything. There was a gleam of satisfaction in Voldemort as he seemed to recall this aspect of Devlin. It left Devlin weak against mental torture, he knew. Pleasant memories intermingled with terrible ones until all Devlin could taste was the odd combination of them both. This was what Devlin tasted all the time. Nothing was ever wholly good or wholly bad to someone who remembered everything and whose mind worked like a spider web of associations.

"I want you to assist me with something," Voldemort said casually, as they strode across the wide open parts of the camp. There was nothing about the red-eyed man that had ever been casual, and he found that the man Voldemort now resembled wore casualness as unwell as the monster he still was inside. Every part of him was sharpness and angles. Maneuvering around him was like walking on a bed of broken glass.

"With what, Grandfather?"

Voldemort glanced back at him, perhaps as surprised by the name as Devlin had been to hear it roll off his tongue. Their feet hardly left any track in the packed dirt of the camp.

"You will see, soon enough."

He did see.

At the back of the camp was a large tent that was even larger inside. It was not supposed to be there. Not again. He wasn't supposed to be like Maria or Emma or any normal child, but he could not help himself in that mere moment; he was frozen.

"I see you remember," Voldemort said. There was annoyance as well as pleasure, twisting at his face. He did not speak to Devlin, merely reached out and grasped onto his shoulder, pushing him onward.

Inside, Devlin knew what would happen. There would be someone, and they would be thrown to their knees. On their knees, they would be tortured. Perhaps they would be killed. The only thing Devlin did not know was whether that someone was to be him.

Shadows lingered and whispered at the edges of the tent. There were no masks today. Whoever was to be thrown to their knees would die - they would never be able to breathe a word of the Death Eater's identities.

Voldemort's nails dug into his shoulder. Together they paused in the center of the tent. Devlin held his shaking breath inside of his chest. Not afraid, not afraid, not afraid. But he was terrified.

"Be a good boy," Voldemort whispered in his ear, patting his shoulder. It was as though he were trying to play the part but failing miserably. Devlin pushed his eyes to their peripheries of their cages, trying to understand what Voldemort had meant by looking at him. Voldemort smiled charmingly.

He removed his hand from Devlin's shoulder and Devlin had to consciously make an effort to remain upright. Fate seemed to be pushing him toward the ground under the humble guise of gravity.

Voldemort took his seat. A perfect replication of the one he had sat in the first night Devlin had met him. The night he had tortured him. He stared across the emptiness created in the center of the tent and twirled his wand. Devlin felt a fear bloom in his chest that was even more terrible than the one he had felt when he was six. At six, he hadn't known. He wished he was that small, unaware, boy again. Wished he did not know about death or torture or the things that could happen in between the two.

Panic was quickly enveloping him, shutting down his thoughts. Soon, he would start shaking with it. He couldn't start shaking!

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

Just do what has to be done!

His sharpness lunged at him, but the something in Devlin's head that had made him offer to kill Felix, that had propelled him to tell Voldemort about his teachers, that had smiled charmingly at Bellatrix, that had called Voldemort grandfather back there so easily - that part of Devlin was not quite ready to relinquish this fragile situation to the sharpness. The sharpness slunk back, puzzled and afraid. He prowled with agitation, snarling and lunging at the terrifying thoughts that threatened to overwhelm them both.

That part of Devlin that was most like Voldemort and yet furthest from him, all at once, was expanding like something solid inside of his mind. It was this part that Geoffrey had been talking about when he had said Devlin was just a regular boy with a particular talent at becoming great, in the face of death.

"Bring him in," Voldemort said after a moment. Perhaps he had hoped Devlin would beg or show his fear, but no matter how much Devlin wanted, he would never be a fool.

Fear is for lesser beings than you and I.

He would not die.

There was a man being dragged by his arms. His feet had given away and dragged uselessly behind him. His head was bowed and covered in blood. His Auror robes were in tatters around him.

They put him down almost gently, not out of kindness, but because anything more rough would have meant he landed on his face, and they wanted him on his knees - facing Devlin. He had black hair and crisp blue eyes. Whatever his face had looked like before, it was now mostly purple and a sickly grey-green.

"Devlin," he whispered. Devlin knew him, then. The man that had come into his house and dragged him to the Ministry. It'll be alright. You're just going to have a spot of tea with the Minister. You can tell all your friends, afterwards.

He had been a werewolf. But where was his wolf now?

That something in Devlin knew exactly what was happening. He thought of that bathroom and his father and how he had told Harry it didn't matter what he hadn't done, because he would do it eventually. He would do anything not to die. He wanted to be nothing, nothing, nothing but knew right then he needed to be everything, everything, everything.

"Hello, Damian," Devlin said. His voice was clear and crisp, uninviting and unyielding. Inside, his mind was chaos. Past, present, and possible futures whirled wildly like a vicarious beast.

"You're a smart boy," the Auror said to him - his broken face shifted into a smile that was more a grimace. His hands had been bound behind his back. Devlin wasn't sure why he made the effort. Maybe a normal boy would know. "You're so clever. I know you-"

Damian was screaming. His bought arching and convulsing against his bindings as Voldemort aimed his wand. Crucio.

Almost idly, Devlin wondered if his own body had done such a thing.

Voldemort stepped down from his chair.

"Enough talk," he snarled. He pointed and beckoned, and a Death Eater pushed forward into the empty space. "Were you aware that his Auror had previously come in contact with him?"

"No, My Lord."

He hadn't needed to speak at all and if it had been him, Devlin would have just held his tongue. Devlin knew better than most - Voldemort did not accept mistakes. The Death Eater screamed wildly, like a wounded and betrayed animal, and then Voldemort allowed him to crawl back toward the other black-cloaked men. No one helped him. There was a dissatisfied expressed on Voldemort's face as he clenched and unclenched his jaw.

"Kill him. I meant to have you torture him, but I don't feel like hearing his pitiful begging. Kill him."

That something in Devlin had already known, so it already knew, but the rest of him took a moment to realize that the demand had been directed at him. The sharpness lunged again. Devlin wished he could succumb, but the something that was growing inside of him knew that this would need him. Only he could pull off this magic.

There are many ways to kill a man; Devlin would know. Limbs are expendable, but without the head or heart a body just dies. Too much blood pooling onto the ground would render the same result. He could choke him with magic. He could drown him in a bubble charm. He could terrorize him so much that his heart just stopped.

Devlin knew, however, that Voldemort would only want one spell used, and Devlin thought it was strangely also the kindest of all options. Avada Kedavra.

He flickered his gaze to the man. Damian swayed on his knees but somehow remained upright. Devlin wasn't sure how he managed it at all. Devlin wondered if they'd given him just enough healing potions to make him a tiny bit presentable. To make sure he didn't die before Devlin did his part.

Don't think about that, his mind whispered. How are we going to do this?

He thought back to the Knut his father had turned into a rat at Hogwarts. 'Some wizards and witches have learned how to convince their magic a want is a need,' his father had said. What had his father imagined while he had stared at the stupid little mouse on top of Remus' desk?

What could Devlin imagine? He scoured his mind as he drew his wand. Then that part of him that had known what Voldemort had wanted from the moment the man was dragged out, knew what Devlin needed. He knew the only people Devlin had ever wanted to kill.

The men who had kidnapped Maria.

He looked at the man, his gaze so full of pain and hurt and terror. He thought how now they would have every right to judge him for something other than blood or appearance. What would Dumbledore think of him now?

Then Devlin thought of the men who had dragged Maria through the camp. Thought of the rage that had filled him. Thought of the senselessness that had fueled him. Thought of what he had risked and the revenge he would seek. He lifted his wand.

"Avada Kedavra."

Please don't hate me Emma. I'm not your Devy anymore.