The morning sun filtered into the room, infecting his mind with wakefulness and filling the shadowed room with light that he did not feel belonged near his body. He had expected his sleep to be plagued, but instead he had found refuge from the tireless shifting of his multi-layered thoughts. To bury the image of green light and Damian's body, his mind filled his head with foolish things; the books among them. Usually, Devlin found it easy to understand someone else's motives, but last night he had been unable to see why Voldemort would have taken the books, or even given them to Devlin - or kept them now, as it were. He thought, if he could just shake Damian's empty eyes from the crevices of his mind, he might be able to finish the puzzle.

The sharpness prowled inside of his mind and everything about the way that part of him felt spoke of how useless it was to think of a dead man or the fact that he had killed him. It had already happened. Devlin had already done it. There is no going back, his mind whispered, this time in Geoffrey's voice.

You have to stop hating yourself. There's no going back, Geoffrey had once said to him, when he had been too little to understand. Sometimes he still felt he was too little to understand most of what Geoffrey said to him in times like that, but other times he felt he was becoming just old enough to begin to comprehend.

For some reason, he thought back to his Professor's regard; the way he had known she was a person who did not fumble with mistakes, knowing they could not be undone but only acknowledged. He thought of how she had looked at him; her eyes so hard but her face so soft. He thought of how even in her mind, someone who had known both Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort, the two were like oil and water - impossible to combine into one person. He stood there and he broke his promise to himself, allowing that nothing, nothing, nothing to consume him like a purifying fire. He felt like ash on the ground, powerless; waiting for the wind to spread what remained of him.

And then, the sun found him in the room and seemed to alight the dry ashes on fire. That part of him that was farthest from Harry and yet closest to him; farthest from Voldemort and yet closest to him; farthest from Alexandra and yet closest to her, burned to life in his mind, spreading through the ashes. Fate tried to tear him apart again, but he pulled himself together as though he were fighting against an undercurrent.

Just as she was a woman who knew mistakes could not be undone but only acknowledge, he was a boy who knew sometimes hatred and regret had to come second to survival.

He got dressed. He parted his hair just perfectly.

He had a game to play, so like any good player, he remembered his game piece. A slim little book.

OoOoOoO

Devlin curled his hand around the bannister of the stairs, feeling the smooth wood across the palm of his hand like a lifeline as he descended. The house smelled like the fizz of cleaning magic. He stepped into the kitchen, expecting Voldemort to be lounging there with a cup of tea and his customary paper. It was strange how simpe things like that became so normal after so short a reintroduction. The kitchen, however, was empty. The great room, which he could glimpse openly from the large archway entrance, was also empty.

He curled his fingers around the book a little more tightly, wondering if he shouldn't just return it to his room.

The house elf did not appear to be anywhere.

Everything was silent.

He had exhausted the open rooms and stood still for a moment, trying to find him that spark of foolishness that his father would have called bravery. The first three doors he opened, an office, a linen closet, a big dinning room, were all empty. It was behind the fourth one that he found Voldemort.

At first Devlin thought the room was a potions room, but then he noticed the distinct lack of cauldron, pestle, or ingredients. The vials lining the walls were small and full of a silvery substance.

Voldemort turned to look at him when he entered. He had the type of regard that made one feel as though he could drag up for assessment everything one had ever done wrong, regretted, or hidden. As a boy, Devlin would have waited to be scolded or invited, but he was not a small boy anymore.

"I was not sure if you were home." Each word was carefully chosen, from his choice to say "was not" instead of wasn't, to home instead of here.

Voldemort tipped his head a bit, eying him. Something silvery swirled in a basin before him.

"And yet, you have not touched the front door." Just as Devlin was prepared to answer, two things happened. Voldemort continued, and Devlin realized that defending himself as a prisoner perhaps wasn't the 'right answer'. "Bellatrix will be pleased. I heard there was a bit of a bet on whether you would try to escape at the first opportunity."

Devlin smirked.

"Bellatrix always did think I was stupid. I wasn't even that foolish with Potter. I never touched his front door and almost escaped once. Besides, you were home."

Voldemort turned around to scoop the silvery substance up with his wand and put it in a vial.

"Yet, you choose not to answer the underlying question."

"I wasn't aware you actually had a concern. I believed we were discussing Bellatrix's underestimation of me." Voldemort was silent, studying a new vial, but Devlin knew the inattention was false. Devlin wanted to shift on his feet, but surely that was a childish movement. Should he divulge some information or wait for Voldemort to say something?

"Regardless, you should know I changed my wards accordingly. You will no longer find the same weakness I have come to realize you exploited."

Devlin frowned and the movement was a mixture of concern from his gut and pure curiosity. He hadn't been aware there had been a specific weakness he had exploited, or what, just recently, would allow Voldemort to identify the weakness. He knew better than to ask what the weakness had been and yet the desire for the information clung to the inside of his mouth, threatening to be thrown into the world the next time he spoke.

"Whatever it is, it worked on Potter's words but not Alexandra's." It was a complete lie. Potter's wards were terrible by themselves and a smart enough Giant could have figured them out. Still, Voldemort cocked his head, curious.

"Interesting," he said.

Voldemort believed him. The difference had to therefore be something only Harry, Voldemort and he shared. There was only one thing Devlin could think of:

"Is it parseltongue, then?"

He hadn't meant to say it. He shifted on his feet. Swallowed. Voldemort looked at him sharply, settling the vial down with a care he didn't show many things. There was no pretended inattention, now. Devlin cursed himself in his head.

"Yes," Voldemort said, his brow drawn down just a bit. Voldemort beckoned him forward with a finger, closer to the bowl. "Do you remember the stories I used to tell you, to teach you why it is foolish to ever put your wand down?"

He nodded; of course he did.

"Let me show you one."

The smirk lacing his lips was cruel and tainted; somehow not directed at Devlin but at something else entirely. Devlin tried to find that spark inside of himself. The part that was farthest from Voldemort yet closest to him, closest to Harry Potter yet farthest from him, most like his mother yet not like her at all, was consuming him, blooming to life inside of him. He found it more quickly each time he sought it out.

He stepped near to Voldemort, so close that he could see the swirl of the something-silver inside of the vial. A memory. He had seen one, once.

OoOoOoO

Tangling in the tension and uncertainty of the room, Geoffrey could sense their hope. It was unlike the typical hope one might expect; these people have learned hope is contingent upon the hopelessness of battle. To them hope is a symbol of fighting rather than a true emotion. Therefore it was a bitter sort of hope, lingering in the air like the sweet-scent from a hidden sleep potion steaming up from a cup of tea. Geoffrey regarded them for a long moment in silence.*

"We're going to skip the part of this conversation where I drag out of you that you know this area," Harry said, tapping a map. Geoffrey was more than happy to skip any portion of this conversation Harry Potter wanted too, although he would have rather skipped it as a whole.

"I'm assuming he wasn't there," Geoffrey said.

Harry looked at him.

"Sirius said you fell down yesterday." The statement hung there like water over his head; Geoffrey was just waiting for it to drown him.

"Yes."

"He said you told him that someone was hurting Devlin."

"That is what I said," Geoffrey replied, clenching his hands beneath the table.

"Was that true?" Hermione Granger eyed him from the other side of the table, her regard intense on his face.

"Yes."

"Put it in as much context as you can. How far does your connection stretch?" That as Granger, but Potter shook his head.

"Don't bother Hermione. He's lying. I'll just have Severus rip it out of his head."

"You won't." Potter hadn't, in the years he had kept him here. Potter would not do that to Devlin - because Potter set an example by Geoffrey for Devlin. The fact that he had let him live, had been for Devlin to see. The fact that they only asked and never tortured had not because the light never did, but because Potter did not want Devlin to think he would do that to the boy.

"If Devlin dies, you have no value to me. Right now, you're not seeming very valuable."

Geoffrey looked at him for a long time. For a moment, son and father did not look so very different.

"How much do you really know about your son, Harry?"

Harry assessed him carefully.

"I know almost everything." Geoffrey looked at Hermione, as if to remind Harry she was there. "Devlin is Hermione's family too. I know almost everything. I know there's only one thing Voldemort hasn't made him do."

"There is nothing he hasn't made him do."

And just like that, Harry Potter had his information. His body succumbed, sitting heavily in the chair, but his eyes were blazing with an irresponsible anger.

OoOoOoO

For a moment he was vapor, or liquid, or a mixture of whatever the contents of the vial had been - a mere additional thought in this memory landscape. His body moulded around his thought until he had the look and sensations of a solid being in a still-swirling vapor-liquid world. Things settled around him in muted colors. Voldemort had not come with him. He was in Godric's Hallow on a street he recognized from the glimpses he had seen when Harry dared to take him past the wards. Little stores littered the sides of the town. He stepped forward.

Around him the distant voices of Muggle children crowded him - he moved around them even though he suspected he could just as well move through them. They were dressed strangely and carried pails in the shapes of pumpkins or skulls or other foolish things. Paper spiders were pressed against the windows of the shops, a gauze like material stretched in the corners as if to be a spiders web. There were clothes full of straw, stood up or sat down like live men. Devlin had never seen anything quite like it and did not understand.

He moved through the streets, somehow drawn toward the familiar and away from the strange. Children giggled and raced around him and through him, rushing to doors and greeting adults inside. For a while he walked, quite unsure why he was here and what he was meant to see.

'Nice costume, mister' a little boy said behind him. He turned around - the voice had seemed so clear, cutting like a knife through the otherwise muted sounds of the memory. The boy was small and brown haired, wearing something dark. He was looking up at a man. A man he thought was dressed strangely for the same reason, whatever it was, that he himself was dressed strangely.

Devlin knew even before the boy that Lord Voldemort was dressed no differently than he would have been any other night. A dragon hide cloak, dyed a deep impenetrable black, hung around his shoulders, the hood pulled up to conceal his face.

The boy seemed unsettled and raced away - across the street to the safety of a lady. Devlin fell backwards, following Voldemort. It seemed as though they were drawn to exactly the same place.

And of course, that was when Devlin knew.

I went to the house. They had thought they were safe, these enemies of mine. Foolishly believing that friends could be trusted without question or concern. The man was making puffs of smoke for the child's amusement...

He could see him through the window, so very much like Harry from this distance. He stood at the gate even as Voldemort proceeded, hiding for a moment behind the hedge. But a memory was not a true reality, and as Voldemort forgot about his previous pause outside the house - as what was inside took over all his thoughts - so did Devlin's ability to remain outside of his experience. Devlin was drawn towards him, like a tug at his naval.

James Potter was shouting, his face so contorted with fear and anger and panic that Devlin could hardly recognize him from the sparse pictures of him that his father kept around the house. Voldemort did not really look at him; why would he have needed too? James Potter was wandless. He lunged forward - as if he could stop Voldemort physically - and Voldemort instead stopped him with magic. A flash of green.

Voldemort wound his way upstairs. Devlin stood for a moment at the fading and muting body of James Potter. His brown eyes were open and Devlin looked at them a couple times, reminding himself this was not his father.

The tug at his naval pulled him up the stairs. Voldemort was standing in the hallway and Devlin nearly caught himself reeling, just to see the man in Harry Potter's home. Except this wasn't Harry Potter's home. The hallway was narrower, there were five instead of four doors. There was no landing.

Devlin clung to these differences, because Voldemort was staring at a door to the left of the hall. Behind that door, surely there was a window that overlooked the front lawn. Just like Devlin's own room.

He could hear the sound of furniture being moved quickly and frantically across the wooden floors. How desperate Lily Potter must have been to resort to such a muggle tactic.

Even from the hallway, he could see her. Hear her. Begging. Pleading. Offering herself as a sacrifice. He could see her, throwing her body in front of the baby - as if she could hide him from Voldemort's eyes and make him forget. Devlin could see her tears and the determination burning in her bright green eyes - just like Harry's. Her eyes flickered to the hallway and for a moment Devlin thought she had seen him, but she must have been desperately wishing that James had only been stunned and would come to her rescue.

For a moment Devlin wished desperately that he could save her.

Voldemort told her to step aside. Devlin's eyes snapped to him. Have mercy on a muggleborn? It was more than he usually offered and for a moment morbid curiosity pulled him a bit closer to the door. She didn't, of course. She begged again. Pleaded agin. Offered herself in his place.

Voldemort pointed his wand, and she fell to the floor. Her red hair was like a fire around her head, falling as she fell, burning even after her death.

The baby clung to the rail of the crib, looking. He wasn't crying and Devlin did not pretend to know why he wouldn't, except perhaps he was just too little to know. Voldemort lifted his wand and-

Devlin was pulled roughly out of the memory. He staggered backwards as he felt true air enter into his lungs. Voldemort was regarding him intently.

Before Devlin allowed his emotions to collide with his mind and truly exist, he cloaked that sense of nothing, nothing, nothing around him like a shield. He stood up straight. Sometimes emotions had to take second place. Sometimes they truly were as worthless as Voldemort had always claimed.

"I've never been in one of those before," he said, pointing coolly at the basin, trying to blame the unfamiliarity as the reason behind his immediate reaction. Voldemort did not say anything, just watched him even more closely. Devlin needed to think of something fast - think of something to say. Something arrogant, cruel, and self-assured. Some witty comeback he would have thrown at Scorpius if he'd been allowed to see Draco killed. "Why didn't you tell me it was them all along?"

"Why would I have done?"

"Because, at least then I could have told Potter that I knew. Could have made him hurt, just a little bit."

That something inside of him grew and spread; more whole than fractured, more clear than sharp, more logical and illogical all at once. He felt a shiver of power race up his spine.

Perhaps being Dubhán again had never been the answer. Perhaps being Devlin wouldn't do. Perhaps the sharpness could not save him. Perhaps the only one strong enough to solve this problem was him. Just him. All of him.

That nameless boy that was everything and nothing, all at once.

OoOoOoOoO

Devlin had changed everything. If he and Alexandra had never been trapped in that safe house, if they had never met, if she had never gotten pregnant - Harry thought he would be out there covered in dirt and grime sleeping in tents and rushing for the battle with Voldemort, all-consumed with any possibility of triumph. He tried hard not to think about that so often - how much value he put in his own children, how little he regretted feeling as though he had to live because of them.

The first time he had seen Devlin it had been when the Mediwitch took him and placed him in his mother's arms. He had seemed so small, yet so safe. Tiny, wrinkled, and almost alien. It hadn't really hit him just then that he was so very fragile. It had not truly changed him until Devlin was in his hands; so small, so fragile, so dependent. When Harry had first seen him cleaned up, he had been wrapped in a little blue blanket and laid in a little bassinet. Harry had looked at him, not in his mothers arms, not under her protection, and seen himself - wrapped in a blanket and set outside the Dursley's home.

That was when Devlin had changed everything.

He had picked him up and held him close and for weeks afterwards he could hardly stand to see him in that bassinet, wrapped in his little colorful blankets. If he was not curled against Alexandra, he was laid across Harry's chest, his cheek next to Harry's heart.

Devlin had changed everything so suddenly.

And then he had been taken and that had changed everything so suddenly as well, in an entirely different way. When Devlin had been kidnapped that first time, Emma had still been there and that had been enough to temper his attempts at becoming that reckless warrior. He had thrown himself instead into finding Devlin, trying desperately to cling the idea that his Devlin was not dead. Because somehow, without truly knowing, Harry had known what his death would do to him.

Emma was older now, almost ready to go to Hogwarts herself, and more aware. She cried and worried and wouldn't eat. She fretted and obsessed and clung to the things that had been Devlin's. She asked why, and where, and when, and what - and is he dead? will he come get me?

She would not be okay if Devlin died, and Harry always hated to see his children hurt, but most of all the ways in the ways he had been hurt himself.

He stopped in front of the Gargoyles that protected Albus Dumbledore's office. They stepped aside at just his sight. The old man was behind his desk, pouring over the maps that Harry had sent him. Trying to help. Sometimes Harry wasn't sure why the old man did; because he cared or because he had to insure Harry would remain on his side. Harry put his palm down on top of the wooded area that had been burning.

"Tell me."

He had to kill Voldemort or he would just keep losing Devlin.

Dumbledore didn't need more. He never did. He opened a drawer behind his desk and put a black diary between them, the hole Harry had struck through it with the basilisk tooth still there.

It was as though Harry and he were simply continuing a conversation - not as though twelve years had come and gone between Harry's last decline and his request now.