Damian was dead. There was no blood, oozing onto the ground as proof. Whatever had tethered him to life had been cut like a marionette's strings and he had simply fallen backwards onto the cold dirt, creating a poor imprint of himself to leave behind.

For a moment Devlin felt dead too. Even in almost-death, something kept him upright, pulling his marionette strings taunt. In that moment he was as close to nothing, nothing, nothing as he had ever been. He had the distinct sensation that he had crossed some etherial line in the sand.

He swallowed the bile rising in his throat, shoving his disgust and fear down together into the mud of his uncertainty. His wand hand ached; as though it were a slab of thawing meat. His chest pounded hollowly. There was a tug behind his ribcage that made it painful to breathe. He had experienced similar sensations before, of course. He'd felt the same haze when he had first made someone bleed. Felt the same pain in his chest when he had first made someone scream. Felt the roar of his blood in his ears and the screech of his consciousness when he had beat Scorpius so completely just because he looked like his father. He had felt the disconcerting comfort of the nothing good, nothing bad - nothing at all. He was not unfamiliar dissociation.

This was different. This was more. This was something terrible and he could feel it in him now, creeping into every cell in his body like a deadly virus that he could not hide from. It terrified him, because he knew, while it wouldn't kill him, it would never completely leave him, either. Like his wolf. Like his seizures. Like the something in Harry's head that did not belong. This would be his something. His darkness.

He took in a breath and allowed the nothing good, nothing bad, nothing, nothing, nothing, to overtake him. Just one more time, he told himself, but he knew it would be the next of many more. He would always do whatever it took not to die.

They were silent before him, surrounding him like the pillars of a jail. In that moment, their humanistic surprise made them seem not quite as powerful as Devlin had always felt them to be. For a moment he saw himself as being able to escape. The nerves in his legs ignited with eagerness. Perhaps he could push through them quickly enough, transform into the wolf-

His eyes found Voldemort, and the fantasy shattered around him. Voldemort was already staring at him, searching his face as if he expected to find something new there. Devlin did not like the look.

"Is he the only one?" He made himself ask, and this time he knew exactly why he was. The something in him that was most like Voldemort and yet farthest from him spread out in Devlin's mind. He made sure his voice was calm and without boast. He wasn't seeking out the thrill. He wasn't asking for the challenge. He was merely assessing whether the task was complete.

Voldemort looked at him again, tilting his head the way he did when they were most tangled up together. Devlin nearly sighed with relief.

'Master'

Devlin's brow flickered downward. Whoever was stupid enough to call out in this silence was bound to be regretful in a moment. Voldemort's own brow drew down, and he stepped forward, toward Devlin. His long limbs carried him with an almost fearsome grace to Devlin. His face was impassive, but his eyes curious. The curiosity made him seem all the more human, but there was still that something lacking that made it not quite right.

"Did you hear something?"

'Blood'

Devlin's eyes escaped Voldemort's regard, just for a moment, distracted by the bizarre choice in word. He tried to scan the Death Eater's, but Voldemort's hand struck forward and grabbed his chin, reeling him back to his face.

"Did you hear something?" The question was more pointed and less curious, and Devlin knew he should answer quickly.

Something was moving through the tent; caught as his head was in Voldemort's grasp, Devlin could only hear it's approach, moving as a continuous soft shifting sound, behind him. Voldemort searched his face almost frantically. His fingers dug into Devlin's jaw, pressing against his bones until it hurt.

"Did you hear something?" His voice was sharper, crueler, and more hungry.

There was something. It was real. Devlin just hoped it was something that Voldemort would be pleased he had heard. Whatever it was, it was coming closer.

"Yes," he managed to say, through the press on his jaw.

"What have you heard?" Voldemort asked, leaning forward as he pulled Devlin closer. There was a spark of interest in his eyes that Devlin knew well. The look filled Devlin with courage.

"It was speaking-"

"Tell me the words!"

"Master. Blood."

Voldemort's lips twitched and then seemed to settle into an almost pleased smirk. Devlin's jaw was released and his head free to turn.

It was a snake. A giant, terrifying snake. Was this the creature that had come from beneath the school? He almost jammed his eyes shut with the horror, but then he stopped himself, almost welcoming it to be the truth.

'Nagini,' Voldemort beckoned; his lips barely moving, his eyes flickering between the giant snake and Devlin's reaction.

Devlin could not be weak. He had to make another one of those decisions now. 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, and worth something to Voldemort. He had decided long ago that he would be better, and this was something surely small orphaned Tom Riddle would have done.

'Hello,'he said, the word sliding off his tongue like something slippery and standard. He took a step forward, feeling each muscle moving along around each joint. He felt the weight of himself, more real than he had ever felt before; conscious that if he misstepped, he would die. Nagini's head tilted, her tongue slinking in and out of her mouth. Her head rose into the air, held up by her powerful body. She swayed there, almost calming. 'I am the blood of his.'

He had meant to convey that he was like Voldemort - that there was a hopefully protective connection - but as always, certain things were limited by the vocabulary and experiences of snakes. They probably did not care if another snake was a son or a grandson, or a brother - it was blood, and species, and whether together they would be compatible. Nagini tilted her head in an almost human way.

'Yes,' she said, 'I smelled you, hatchling.'

She lowered herself to the ground, slinking across the dirt until she had encircled him loosely.

'You smell like a blood speaker,' she said, her smooth scales brushing across his pants. She unraveled herself, slithering over toward Voldemort.

'You did well,' Voldemort said, in that same slippery whisper that clued Devlin into the fact that he was not speaking English. Devlin tried not to look away from the snake who looked large enough to eat him whole.

"It would have been better if it was Potter," he said. The lie came easily onto his tongue and sharply from his mouth. He did not want to die. He did not want to be eaten. He would say what he needed. Somehow, in the face of death, Devlin could finally believe that Harry's small smile, the one that was just for him, would still be there - even after this.

Voldemort stared at him, his regard searching Devlin's face almost frantically. Devlin wondered what he wanted to see and hoped desperately that he was not found lacking.

oOoOoOo

He could feel it in his chest, hollow and new, like a poisoned wound that would never heal. His mind reeled with an emptiness that left no traction on which to move forward, and his body wrenched without his permission. The tea cup he had been carrying to the table crashed onto the floor alongside him. He breathed sharply and quickly, but no amount of air was enough to make him feel normal again. Sirius' eyes snapped to his own at the crash, and he was on his feet, and by his side, before he had even managed to comprehend he was on his hands and knees.

"What's happening?"

Geoffrey forced his mind to operate despite the foreign-yet-familiar feelings. He dragged his gaze toward Black. Potter had not been back, but Geoffrey knew all his words traveled to him.

He just killed someone.

But Geoffrey did not permit those words to travel outside of his head. He snarled at Black.

"What do you think? Someone has hurt him!"

The strongest truths were always those based firmly in reality.

Perhaps he had underestimated the boy.

"Hurt him? How? Is he bleeding? Can you tell that sort of thing? Can you see who did it? Can-"

Geoffrey was not listening. His mind was fuzzy and only half his own. He breathed and breathed, even as he knew that nothing would ever truly rid him of this dull throb.

OoOoOoOoO

There were times in Harry's life when he wished he enjoyed his celebrity status more, or was clever and cunning enough to use it to his advantage. More often than not, Harry detested the idea of running for Minister, but these past few days had been full of the opposite thoughts. There were only so many people who had to listen to him as Head Auror.

He had placed the Auror's, and the few other departments he had any sway over, on high alert the moment Devlin was taken. His men and women understood that it wasn't just a missing child, but a strategic move on Voldemort's part that spoke of a certain level of comfort he obviously hadn't felt for the past two years. They were intelligent enough, well versed enough in criminal behavior and thought patterns, to understand that having Devlin would not appease Voldemort, but put him in what he would feel was a more advantageous position. Criminals who felt they had the upper-hand were a thousand times more brutal in their approaches.

The rest of the Ministry just pegged him as an over-emotional father trying to turn his son's kidnapping (terribly tragic, Mr. Potter - please give your wife my condolences) into something bigger than it was so that he could break protocols and use resources that weren't typically used for a kidnapping case. Harry didn't need their resources; he had the backing of the Order.

People skirted around him as though he were sick with dragon pox. They handed him reports rather than speak to him. If they spoke, it was only about an update on Devlin. Everyone of equal or higher ranking begged him to go home (go hug your daughter, Mr. Potter. Kiss your wife. You're too close to this case. Put your best men on it, Harry).

Harry felt like a ghost.

"Did you hear about the big magical fire, Mr. Potter?"

It was one of his newer trainees, his smile tense and worried as he obviously tried to make small talk. He was waiting for Harry's signature.

"No," Harry said, gruffly. He hadn't slept in days and it was starting to effect his concentration. Damn Alexandra was always right, but Harry just couldn't. He knew he'd see Devlin in his nightmares.

"Yeah. They're not sure who set it. Obviously we took over for the Muggles. It was near Northumberland and Kielder - lots of trees. Terrible."

He was still staring at the line on which he was supposed to sign. Harry James Po-The ink welled and bled onto the paper, slowly consuming his name and the line.

"Near where?" He asked, rising his eyes again. The young man frowned at his sudden interest.

"Near Northumberland and Kielder, Mr. Potter. Is it important?"

He's got good instincts, Harry thought, filing the boys face away for later remembrance. Harry nodded.

"Do you want me to get you more information, Mr. Potter?"

"No, I want you to order me a portkey. Stun the rest of the line if you have to. Tell them I sent you. Go!"

The trainee nodded and dashed away.

Harry stood and flung his cloak over his shoulders.

"Ron!" Ron had been keeping an eye on him, at Alexandra and Hermione's orders, he was sure. He was at Harry's desk far too quickly. Like Harry, he looked exhausted. "Get our best fighters together. We're taking a trip."

All those years ago when Devlin had pushed that report across the table and said 'this was real. This was me.' and told him about his almost-escape, Harry had not had not had much interest in sabotaging a small camp Voldemort had probably erected just to hide Devlin. Whatever would have been left there was likely to be things about Devlin Harry would not have wanted the Ministry to have in their possession, and Harry would not have been able to take the camp by himself. So he had simply let the information sit. Now, he realized he should have informed someone the moment Devlin had gone missing.

Harry called in Hermione as well.

OoOoO

Devlin thought he was finally starting to feel his smudges. The silence of the house wormed it's way into his mind, leaving room for the invisible wounds to fester as his mind played the scene over and over again in his mind. It left room for doubt to plant it's seed and for the seed to hatch and grow inside of him. The air was chill with night and the thin sheet almost worthless in mention. Voldemort did not think of things such as Devlin's basic comforts, because he would assume, if it bothered Devlin enough, Devlin would fix it for himself. You're a wizard, he would have often said when Devlin was smaller, stop acting like a muggle.

Devlin would know, better than most boys, the advantages to a bit of a chill, though. The cold seeped through his skin and into the muscles around his bones, distracting him from his smudges. He rubbed his skin to heat up. He needed a better distraction.

A turn of his head was all he needed to find it.

The books.

He stood before the books, clad only in his underwear and undershirt, and scanned them as a whole, trying to piece together their meaning. They hadn't been thrown haphazardly into the room. They hadn't been left in magical crates. They did not seem damaged at all. Each had been placed carefully on the shelf. There was a chair in front of the shelves, larger and used, that Devlin could not remember coming from his own room. Voldemort had read these books. Visited them. Found something desirable about them.

Devlin scanned them almost frantically.

Why?

The question nagged him and his inability to answer it nagged him even more.

Voldemort had left them here. Then he had left Devlin here.

Every set of things put together inevitably had something in common. The pieces of the puzzle always fit together.

He reached forward and grabbed one at random. A Hippogriff who Could - childish, small, worn. He put it on the floor and grabbed another. Why We Have Wands - older, worn, complex, large. He sat it down on the floor, separate from the other. Magical Creatures and Where to Find Them - informational, older, slim, standard. He set it down. He grabbed another, and another, and another. With fifteen on the floor he stepped back to observe the chaos.

It was simply as though someone had grabbed a random title they thought Devlin would enjoy. He had enjoyed all of them. Perhaps it was all more innocent than Devlin was trying to convince himself. Perhaps Devlin was looking for something that was not there, because the alternative was-

Old.

He glanced at them again.

None of them were new. None of them had ever been new.

Bellatrix had once gotten him a new book for his birthday.

He searched the spines for the book, but found it nowhere.

Draco had once gotten him a book.

Nowhere.

Geoffrey had taken him a handful of times to Diagon Alley for new books, but none of them were there.

Only the books Voldemort had brought back for him were there. He sat down, surrounded by the books he had taken from the shelf, and cracked them open.

Despite tall their differences, each book had one thing in common; a small set of initials written in Voldemort's hand on the upper right corer of the last page. Each book had belonged to someone else and Voldemort had felt it desirable to record each set of initials in permanent ink. Only childishness had hidden the fact from him before.

They hadn't been saved because they were Devlin's, they had been saved because they belonged to Voldemort.

Devlin felt a chill go up his spine. Every set of things put together inevitably had something in common. The pieces of the puzzle always fit together. Voldemort had put the books here. Then Voldemort had put him here.

OoOoOoOoO

The ground was scorched and the whole area still full of smoke when they reached the outskirts of the fire. The Ministry had quenched the flames quickly enough, of course. A complex mixture of glamour and warding now lay over the area, ensuring that Muggle television and news reporting still believed the fire to be happening; 'held at bay and slowly coming under control' was the line they were currently pressing. The Muggle Prime Minister was having a fit, apparently.

"You'll need masks!" Lance Walton shouted across the burning land as he saw them. Lance was a man who had been the head of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, far longer than Harry had been head of his Auror department. Walton came toward them, his strides quick and powerful, his eyes on them like a great hunter. Harry knew if they dare proceed without his consent he would just make things far more complicated - right now and back at the Ministry. He reached them, his face wrinkled with begrudging acceptance. Harry's department often took the glory, ending up in the newspaper, for what Lance's department had played equal role in. "What do you want with this site, Harry?"

Still, they didn't have anything against each other, and Lance was one of those men who trusted Harry simply on Dumbledore's good word. He'd made that clear from the moment Harry had been signed in as head of the department. They were parts of a whole, and Lance understood how things had to function.

"Officially?" Harry asked, arching a brow.

Lance made a dismissive sound at the back of his throat.

"Of course not! Tell me that rubbish last so I'll remember it best."

"I think I might find a clue to Devlin's whereabouts here. I think he was here. Officially, I have a lead that is was a Death Eater camp and I just want to check the scene out and assess whether I can safely send my men in here to sweep the area more thoroughly."

Lance looked him over for a moment.

"Terrible thing he's done to your boy," Lance said. "I saw him at the Ministry with you a couple times. Seems like a sensible boy, Harry." That was about as comforting as Lance ever was. He swept his hand as though to tell them they were welcome to proceed. "I assume one of you lot knows how to cast a bubble head charm for this bloody awful smoke," he said, as he turned and left them to their business.

The smoke clung to their bubble head charms; Hermione had to recast them all, adding a repelling charm into the original charm. The way she understood magic, the way Alexandra or Devlin understood magic, always served to amaze Harry, for whom magic had always been innate but outside of his conscious grasp. He could do things without meaning too that served to amaze everyone around him, or do things while he meant them deeply, but he could never grasp the inside workings of magic so infinitely so as to manipulate them at the slightest desire. His magic was different from Devlin's magic.

"This way," Hermione said, her voice echoing oddly through the bubble and somehow straight into their own bubbles. Yet another advantage to Hermione casting the charms.

Ron and Harry maneuvered through the smoke toward her lit wand. His Aurors followed behind him, their wands drawn.

She had found the camp. It was now a pile of burnt fabric and smoldering wood. The earth had previously been cleared between the tents and was now covered by a thin layer of ash, creating a ghostly effect to the whole area. It was small, compared to others Harry had seen.

"Look, that one isn't burnt at all," Gant, a young by steady Auror, called out, pointing toward the far end of the camp. There was a large magical tent there, the wood and fabric frame untouched by the fire that had devoured the rest. Someone had wanted it to stay in pristine condition.

They dragged me into a big tent, came Devlin's voice, small and uncertain. He threw me to my knees.

Harry regarded the structure, the front flap open and blowing in the breeze. The inside of the tent was obscured by darkness.

"Be careful," Harry said, as he motioned his Aurors forward. They moved quick and steady across the land. Harry felt his magic tensing and coiling, his head throbbing. Voldemort had just been here. It all seemed surreal. Devlin was at the forefront of his mind and he scanned every detail, knowing he wouldn't be here but hoping for clues.

Three of his men threw their wands toward the inside of the tent and whispered the words to light the inside. Three more made the initial sweep, casting revealing charms. Harry swept the outside of the tent with Ron and Hermione.

"There's a body!" One of his men shouted. Reality crushed him under his suffocating weight, slamming his heart against his ribcage painfully.

The world was a blur around Harry as he rushed back toward the opening. Ron raced after him, lunging at the last moment and catching Harry by the back of his shirt.

"No pulse!" Shouted the next, following protocol. Harry should shout back at them. He should tell them it was clear. Instead he tried to throw himself away from Ron.

"Don't Harry," Ron shouted against him, his long ropey arms grabbing at his upper arms. "Don't! We have to secure the scene! Harry!"

Harry wasn't really hearing him. His magic pulsed with his heart as they shattered together. He remembered the day he had found that little boys body, the body he had thought was Devlin's, laid out on the Ministry floor. How broken he had been.

He had foolishly believed that time was in his favor; that Voldemort would not work so hard to get Devlin back if he meant to kill him so quickly. He had thought he would have time. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Voldemort did not bargain with life!

Ron was shouting - at him, at the others, at Hermione. It all passed by Harry.

Was this the final message? Would there be a note, stuck onto his Devlin's chest? Would he be as broken as Voldemort had wanted him to believe last time?

Would he be able to ever believe it?

The idea of never knowing for sure haunted Harry. Fate, under the humble guise of gravity, pushed down on him until he succumbed. Ron stood over him as kneeled in the dirt.

"Maybe it's not really him, Ron. Maybe-"

Hermione was there, looking at him as she had the first time Harry had nearly broken all those years ago.

"Get up, Harry," she said. He shook his head. He didn't want to see the body, he- "Do you honestly think Voldemort would end the game this fast, Harry? He's toying with you! The body in there is a man's, not a boy's. Devlin isn't dead. We talked about this. Alexandra, you, me - the old crowd. He won't kill him this quickly, Harry."

Fate tried to drag him down again, but reality hauled him upward by his heart, and he stumbled to his feet as though he were fighting against an undercurrent.

Harry had brought along a handful of his best men and women, and they had done all the right things to preserve the scene. Covering the ground was a pale blue light, solid but slippery. Beneath the light was the original dirt, all the footprints and smudges preserved. Their shoes made squelching sounds as they maneuvered around. Surrounded by the light, so that there were absolutely no gaps, was the body.

It looked as though he had simply fallen asleep.

His exposed skin was in the condition Harry would have expected; bruised, chapped, and dirty. Underneath his finger nails, one of his Auror's claimed, was dried blood. He was clothed, and that was more than the other Auror's had been left with. Damian.

"Killing Curse," one of his men said and everyone around them sighed with a bit of relief. As infamous as the Killing Curse was and as forbidden as it was considered to be, his men and women were always happier to see the use of the Killing Curse on one of their own than other, more painful, alternatives.

"In my opinion, some of his wounds were healed, just prior to death," said Brent. He had chosen to become an Auror because he was not good at being stuck in a lab, but his eyes were almost as good as Arden's.

But Damian was not what Hermione had wanted him to see. Her brilliant eyes had scanned the whole place and she had found what would take his men half an hour more to find.

Tiny footprints lingering and blending amongst the others.

"They're Devlin's size," she said. She bit her lip, a habit they had shared as children. A light privacy spell wove it's way through the air around them. "And there is a set of them straight across from the body."

"He's only eleven, Hermione. He couldn't have done this. Voldemort...he probably made him watch."

Hermione looked at him as though she wanted to disagree but knew better. She turned back to the scene.

"There was a chair or table over there," she said, motioning. "I found the four points of the legs."

He was sitting in a chair in the center of the tent and he asked me if I knew where I was...

Devlin must have been so terrified.