"Are you in trouble?"

Devlin looked at his father for a moment, the words on the tip of his tongue, but his mind wandering away from him. He was struck, in the dim narrow hallway, of how alike his father looked to James Potter; how their limbs would sprawl the same, how he could imagine his father's glasses tipped just that smudge on his nose as he fell, how-

"Devlin?"

"I think I'm always in trouble with Professor Snape."

Harry frowned, and Devlin's mind wandered again; to the little baby, clinging at the crib rail, to the monster, looming before him, to-

"Just don't upset him; he's perhaps just a smidgen more stubborn than even you - and he's got more time on his hands than he did when I was a boy!"

"I do try," Devlin said. Harry tipped his head. Harry did not understand; Devlin had Snape under control. Devlin had weapons.

Harry did not understand; Devlin did not want Harry to understand.

"Well, lets get home. You seem tired."

Devlin could not remember the last time he felt so restless and exhausted; he did not have it in him to argue in his defense or wonder how Harry would know. Instead of being jumbled, his thoughts were very linear; he tried not to wander down any new paths as they walked through the hallways.

Albus Dumbledore was mercifully absent from his office, and Devlin was never more grateful for the robes between Harry and himself, to hide the heat of his skin, as Harry wrapped his arms around him and stepped through the floo. Grandfather called floo travel 'undignified', but not many wizards could fly like him, or had mastered the art of making a portkey on the spot, or trusted their immortality to protect them from severe splinching. Devlin was not quite sure how he managed not to throw up on the living room floor as they tumbled out of the fire.

He hauled himself off the beige carpeting and onto his feet. The living room was exactly as he remembered it. He felt like that little lost boy as he stared at it all; certain it should have experienced the same level of change he had. He wondered if he would feel the same, if Voldemort were to have brought him to the camp and opened the door to their tent. Perhaps he felt like this here because he had never truly stopped clinging to the idea of home. Emma often repeated the foolish phrase Molly Weasley was so well known for: home is where the heart is. Devlin had his doubts about whether that could apply to him; he suspected 'the heart' in some way referenced 'love'. Love was not for him.

"Alexandra has just taken Emma to the store. She should be back soon." Harry was watching him quietly.

He nodded. In his minds eye he could see this room through the window, James Potter making puffs of light for an exuberant little toddler. In the kitchen would be Lily Potter, possibly cleaning up from dinner. She would put her wand on the table and wipe her hands, just the way his own mother did.

Was there a possibility Voldemort would ever catch his parents wandless in this house?

"Devlin?" Harry's eyes were as green as when he was a baby and Devlin looked away.

More than any other, he felt the secret of Lily and James' death on his chest like a tightening python; as if Nagini herself were wrapped around his middle, readying herself to swallow him whole. He felt as though by just knowing he was cheating Harry in someway, and yet he did not dare share the burden. Did not dare to make it real enough to speak about it. He knew it was a test, and he had never failed one of them before.

"Let's get a cold butterbeer. I've missed our evening talks."

Harry was smiling and Devlin forced himself to remember he had a face too, and it was under his control. He smiled.

"Yeah, alright," he said. As Harry walked away from him, Devlin's eye caught on the stiff back-up wand by his ankle. Undoubtedly, he had more than one. Harry Potter would never make James Potter's mistakes, just like Devlin Potter would never make Harry Potter's.

The cool bottle felt heavenly against his palm. He resisted the urge to bring it to his forehead.

"Remus told me you snuck out after curfew," Harry said, but he was laughing; his green eyes alight with life, his lips pulling back and revealing the lines that made him older than the young man who had been strewn across the hallway floor. Devlin frowned. Harry waved his hand dismissively. "He didn't tattle on you. He just figured you would prefer he found you, rather than Severus. So he asked for a bit of help, and I gave it to him."

Devlin's brow drew down as the question rose in his mind and propelled itself off his tongue: "How did you…help him?"

Harry tugged the lid off his butterbeer, grinning and wagging his eyebrows in a poor imitation of Sirius.

"I'm afraid that's my secret, just for a bit longer." He winked. Devlin did not like it. Just as he was about to object, he heard the front door open and close, and Emma's body barreled down the hallway.

"Devlin?" She saw him before he even had a chance to respond. He thought she had grown, but perhaps that was because he'd spent so much time with Grandfather, remembering her as a little girl. Her lips drew back into a huge grin. "Mum, they're back!"

Alexandra looked just like Devlin remembered and she still smelled like vanilla and parchment and lullabies - and a little like Harry, too. She smiled softly at him, that look etching itself across her face - as if he were the most amazing thing she had ever seen.

"Hi, sweetie."

"Hi, Mum." If someone at school dared to call him that, there would be blood all over them and Devlin's fist. He marveled at the fact that he had become so accustomed to her calling him that, that embarrassment no longer made his cheeks flush. She came over and ruffled his hair, planting a kiss into his scalp - an area that was hard to guard against her affection.

Emma pulled a cookie out of a pantry and slid herself into a seat, grinning next to him. Alexandra made a cup of tea and settled across from him. He could practically feel Emma's eagerness to latch herself onto him. It made his muscles twitch. He wasn't sure he would survive that experience without throwing up.

"How has school been?" Alexandra asked, sipping at her tea. He noticed, in the way he often noticed with her, that she was exhausted. These things, though blatantly clear, often seemed to escape him with her; when he looked at her he always saw her, his mum, and everything else often took longer to see. Exhaustion made her yawn into her teacup, and lean back against the wooden chair. It made Harry glance at her, almost worriedly.

"Good," he said, because he did not want her to worry. "I've almost made up my assignments. I think I will be fine by the end of the year. I've spoken to every teacher about a schedule, even. Some of my year-mates are letting me have a look at their notes. I got perfect marks, this week."

She put her tea down and frowned, while he frantically tried to figure out what he might have said to make her frown at all. His skin still felt too-hot, his muscles jittery, and his thoughts foggier than he liked.

"A schedule? Devlin - did you need one of us to have a conference with your professors? We haven't been told at all that you would need to make that work up - I could talk to them. I am pretty sure you could pass a test for the whole year-"

"No! I-" He bit the inside of his lip. "I didn't know. I just - I just started doing the work. It's no trouble. It is just some essays and spells. Like you said - I already know it all."

She appraised him for a moment, then simply nodded.

"How have your friends been?"

He couldn't tell them about Green and he didn't want to say Malfoy's name.

"I think there is another werewolf at school," he said, instead. Emma's eyes went big with curiosity. Harry frowned, and his mum smiled.

"Have you made friends?" She asked.

"No," he said, shaking his head emphatically. "He asked to borrow a quill and when we got close, we both knew. I could tell. But, ah-"

"Just because you're both werewolves doesn't mean you automatically want to be friends," Alexandra offered, and Devlin nodded. "I can understand that."

"I'm friends with an older boy named William, though," he said. "His dad was an Auror."

Harry frowned, glancing at Emma as if to remind himself she was there.

"That sounds nice," Alexandra said, smiling.

"Yeah," he said, sort of hoping the conversation would lull and his mother would suggest everyone tuck themselves into bed.

"And your dorm mates? You told Harry about them, but I never got to hear about your friends."

Devlin looked away. Of course - she would steer him toward a difficult topic when he was weakest.

"I'm not friends with a lot of them. Maybe none of them. I don't know. It's hard to…trust them." He fiddled with his cool butterbeer bottle. "I like Andrew well enough, I suppose - but I don't want to be his friend."

"Why?" His mother asked, her head tipped. There was no concern; she did not expose herself as easily as Harry.

"He's muggleborn," Devlin said. "I don't really mind. It's not like he's a muggle. And I don't really mind them, either - they're sort of useless. But…I want him to be safe, and being friends with me - I don't know if he'd be safe."

Silence descended upon the table. His mother's regard was weighty, his father's weary and saddened, and Emma - he was surprised to see it was scrunched up with something like understanding.

"You shouldn't let anyone tell you who you can be friends with," Emma said. "If someone says you can't be friends with someone else, they're not a good friend."

"I don't want that someone to decide to hurt Andrew, Emma." He both wished she would understand and hoped she did not.

She drew herself up in her chair.

"You're pretty scary sometimes. I don't think anyone would hurt one of your friends. It's like when Freddie used to be at my school - no one would be mean to me because Freddie said he'd turn their hair pink."

He laughed.

"Well, I did see one of the Prefects with pink hair this week…maybe Freddie had something to do with it."

Emma giggled, Alexandra smiled, and Harry started to tell a story about Freddie's dad and uncle.

OoOoOoOoOoO

He fell asleep underneath his down blanket, with Zee occupying the foot of the bed.

He is still, standing in the middle of the field. That brittle combination of too-dry-green and almost-dead-amber. It crunches when he steps forward. In front of him, the forest is on fire. The smoke and the heat travel like poisonous gas toward him. He coughs as it envelopes him. His hands clench at his side.

He should run.

But he's not sure he has it in him.

He should run.

But where would he go?

The fire comes closer, the heat making his skin burn. His eyes water and boil. When the first flame licks out of the grey cloud, he runs; because there is no place left to stand.

-woods, woods, woods, woods,- he chants, and they materialize in front of him, born from the nothingness that he fights viciously with every scrap of mental strength he has. This is his world, and he can make of it what he will.

There is a cool pool of liquid up ahead, almost black from the dim lighting of the woods. He rushes into it; feels it as it surrounds his ankles, his shins, his knees, his thighs, his waist and his chest. The fire unfurls around him, licking at the edges of the water but unable to pass.

He stares at it for a moment, at this impenetrable wall of fire, and wishes he could think. His thoughts are sluggish though, moving around his head without the purpose he requires. And then, something moves inside the flames, and his wolf leaps out of them; it's coat the color of the nothingness and it's eyes the color of the flames. Come to rescue him.

It lands with a splash into the water, snarling at the flames as if they were the nothingness. And then his eyes turn upon Devlin, and his body tenses and-

-you have to wake up,- the sharpness says, and he lunges. Devlin is pushed beneath the water - into an abyss.

He awoke with a rush into the boy's body. Muscles shook as he compelled them to follow his command and nerves ignited to send him messages he had to remember how to comprehend. Innate survival seemed to bring everything under his command. That primal part of the brain that they both shared jolted everything and allowed him to fling them out of bed. He was hotter than a summer day, locked in a tent with ten other fur-covered werewolves. Too hot. He staggered toward the door, struggling with the delicate commands to conquer it - grasp, hold, turn, turn, hold, pull.

He tumbled out into the hallway; vision fuzzy, limbs weak, and his lack of mastery over the boy's body helping no one. Finally, he was at the bathroom door. The boy's mind stored this location away like his mind would store the nearest stream. Grasp, hold, turn, turn, hold, pull.

He approached the mirror. He had never seen himself before - and the image disturbed him. The face was pale and clammy. His amber eyes unfocused and glassy. He yanked a the door, making his imagine disappear, while revealing the potions behind.

Fever, the boy said in their mind. So he reached for one that read "fever reducer" and drowned the single-dose vial. At least, he hoped it was a single dose vial. The boy wasn't sure. He hid the vial beneath the trash in the little bin by the toilet, then he stripped his clothes off and climbed into the tub, turning on the tap and welcoming the sensation of cool water pouring down upon him.

Eventually, the potion worked enough that he could think and he climbed back into the clothing, went back to the room, and lay down on the bed again.

Something is wrong, he urged the boy, as he closed his eyes. He awoke into the green meadow. The moon shown brightly in the sky, the temperature cool and pleasant. The air smelled like it had rained recently.

The boy looked at him; settled cross-legged in the grass, but he did not respond.

oOoOoOoOo

Before he even had food in him, he threw up. He wiped at his mouth as he cancelled the silencing charm he had put up at the bathroom door. Behind the mirror were still three bottles of the fever reducer, but he dare not take it quite yet. He wouldn't leave until Sunday afternoon, and that meant that there was still a huge span of time in which Harry or Alex might notice the missing potions. He would just have to deal with this. He could deal with this.

He ate slowly and carefully, and when Harry seemed to notice claimed he hadn't been much for breakfast lately. Alex, it seemed, was away on a job. Homework seemed as reliable an excuse as anything, and it allowed him to hole himself in his room for the afternoon with little disturbance. He put notifying charms on his door and slept most of the time. Harry peeked in around noon and asked if he'd remembered to take his potion, since their stock was 'completely untouched'.

He'd thrown the entire morning dose up, so he shook his head, and swallowed it while Harry watched. Perhaps a dose of his old potion would be helpful, he thought. He did his homework quickly while he had a small bit of focus, came out and played with Emma for a bit, ate lunch, and slept lightly until dinner that night. He wasn't sure how he managed to eat, smile, and talk until it was bedtime. He threw everything up, his muscles shaking as he clung to the toilet. This time, he grabbed the fever reducer, and a bottle for nausea, and hid them beneath his robes. He tucked the empty bottles in his rucksack and crawled into bed.

He is walking down a lined pathway, leaving a gate swung open behind himself. He reaches a door up ahead and opens it quietly with his wand. Inside he hears the frantic response to his appearance, and his dream mind knows exactly why, while his real consciousness is terrifyingly trying to deny the knowledge.

There is a noise, and Harry Potter springs into view. His eyes are like chiseled emerald, fractured and fierce. His body is ready for a fight, and his wand is pointed right at him. Once more he knows but tries desperately to deny. He tries to grab ahold of the dream - to steer it in a different direction - but it is beyond his conscious control.

"Don't do it, Devlin," Harry Potter says, but Devlin hears himself laugh. His own wand rises to level itself with his dad's heart. "Devlin-"

"Did you ever really think it would be alright? It was never going to be alright again. Even I knew it." And there is green light racing from his wand, and throwing Harry backwards. He feels no burn, no pull, no terror. Harry Potter lands, arms sprawled, glasses askew, green eyes open and staring endlessly up.

There is movement, and then Emma is flinging herself at their father's dead body, sobbing into his shirt. She is not a small child locked in her cot. She is not unaware. Her eyes are a blue whirlwind of fury as they look at him. She has no wand and he has no idea why his would be pointed at her.

There is green and-

He shuttered awake, biting down on a scream so hard that he bleeds. The coppery taste of blood rushed into his mouth and distracted him for a moment from the fact that he was having a seizure.

OoOoOoOoOoO

He did not tell Harry that he dreamed of killing him last night. He did not tell his mother that he had a seizure. He did not tell Emma that the reason it took him so long in the bathroom was because he was throwing up, even though he had nothing in him to throw up. He did not tell her what she looked like, moments before she died.

Alexandra handed him his potion at breakfast, just as she used to before he began at Hogwarts. He drowned it in front of her, and did not even ask for a chocolate frog. Grandfather had not offered him such a childish thing when he returned to him. He fought the woozy sensation that filled his head, and managed to eat something.

He only had to make it a couple more hours.

He nicked another fever reducer when he excused himself to use the bathroom, hoping they would not notice. He bit down on the nausea, since there was only one bottle left, and a blank spot was sure to be noticed.

He took Zee into the yard, glad for the cool air, happier for the isolation.

Something is not right, his sharpness said. Devlin knew it, but did not reply.

He ate lunch with his father, while Emma and Alexandra went to Molly's house to 'pick something up'.

"They're coming back with your birthday present," he said, "just to forewarn you. I know you don't like surprises. So just act like I never told you."

He's more glad for the heads up than Harry can ever imagine.

Then Harry slid a box across the table.

"That's from me," he said.

Inside was a dragon-hide backpack that must have cost more than a few galleons.

"I had Hermione do the wizard-space charms for me - she's the best I know at those sorts of charms. Then I had her fill it with her Merlin-knows how long list of 'essentials.' I've never accio'd something out of the bag she gave me that hasn't been there. I just - I want you to be prepared. It has a special tag on it - touch it for more than fifteen seconds, and the bag shrinks itself to fit in your pocket."

Harry must have spent a small fortune on the bag and the contents. Both of them knew it was a gift borne from fear for his safety. Perhaps the acknowledgement that it symbolized was one of the reasons Devlin thought he would treasure it most.

When Emma came through the door, she was carrying a huge box, wrapped in paper he suspected she had chosen: neon green with black dragons that moved and breathed neon-orange flames.

"Happy Birthday!" She shouted, somewhere behind the box. Devlin made himself smile, despite how sick he felt. He tore the paper with false gusto.

Once more, he was surprised. Inside was a potion kit. Not the sort he had for school, but the sort one might buy for NEWT level work. His mom smiled behind Emma.

It was a gift Grandfather never would have given him, since Potion making was not something he encouraged as a large interest. Something to be proficient at, certainly, something to train with the best materials, of course - but to give him as a gift like this? No.

Somehow, it made him feel the same way he had felt the first time Harry had said to Dumbledore he's done being used for anything.

He kissed Emma on the cheek and asked her if she'd help him haul it to his room.

And soon, it was time to go. It was not until he was stepping into the floo that Devlin realized he was no longer eleven; he had turned twelve with Grandfather.

OoOoOoOoO

They tumbled into Dumbledore's office. This time, of course, it was occupied. Devlin supposed his luck couldn't last twice in a row.

"Hello, Albus," Harry said, smiling. Dumbledore was dressed in midnight blue robes with the constellations embroidered across it's surface in silver thread - Devlin rather thought he was going for the Merlin look, this afternoon.

"Good afternoon, Harry," he smiled up at Harry, putting aside his papers, then looked down over his half-moon spectacles at him. "And Devlin."

"Good afternoon, Headmaster."

If anything his stiff-mannered words made the headmaster appear even more delighted to see them. Devlin thought Harry would usher them out of the office, insisting that he walk him to his dorm despite the fact he would know how embarrassing that would be for Devlin, but instead he simply walked him out of the office and down the spiral staircase.

"I won't embarrass you," Harry said, winking. "I have to chat with Albus for a bit, anyways. Will you be alright walking yourself? I bet your friends are outside, playing in the snow."

He shrugged. The dragonhide backpack weighed nearly nothing as it shifted.

"I think I know how to get to my dorm by now, dad," he said, and turned to walk away. Before he could move, Harry pulled him back, planting a quick kiss into his hair. Devlin pretended to be mortified.

He did not go and play in the snow; he went down to the dungeons to sleep until dinner. Maybe if he could just lay perfectly still for a few hours, without having to worry about anyone coming in, he'd feel a bit better.

It sounded reasonable to him.

OoOoOoO

He brushed his hand against the worn stone walls of the castle as his feet carried him through the darkened route. Years of practice now meant that his steps no longer sounded like anything at all. The torches flickered with a magical fire that made even the dozing portraits on the walls cast shadows.

In a few steps, his hand would brush by the corner and he would be one hallway and a door away from his bed. Sleep seemed both welcoming and taunting. Time would whisk by while he slept, which was always appealing. Dreams would haunt him while his mind relaxed; like smoke through a sieve.

He turned the corner, and immediately paused. Even with the poor lighting, he knew something was not as it should be. He withdrew his wand and took a further step.

"Lumos," he whispered, and the hall was lit with the harsh white light, revealing all of the stones imperfections as well as the child curled against the wall just outside his office door. His school robes were a harsh black against the cold grey of the stone, washing out his pale features.

Strides large and purposeful, head full of weariness he so rarely felt when dealing with people so small, he approached the student. The child did not move. For a moment he questioned whether he breathed. He aimed his wand more pointedly at his form, looking for injury. All he could see of his head was the unusually unruly locks that, nevertheless, unquestionably identified him. Then the child blinked awake, and the Devil Snare green seemed to do their magic once more. His chin followed - lifting off his knee caps. Palms pushed against knees and brought him up, with the help of the wall.

Devlin Augustus Potter stood unsteadily before him; pale, sickly, and face smeared with blood. Severus' eyes catalogued all the injuries he could see and weighed the possibility of those hidden.

"Hello, Professor," he said. His lip was swollen. His hair no longer curved at the front; it was heavy against his scalp with perspiration. His hands shook at his sides.

"Hello, Mr. Potter." Even so clearly disadvantaged, those Devil Snare eyes watched him like a small, cunning, predator; ready at all times to battle something twice as large. They were unlike Dumbledore's gaze, which seemed to know things without one really recalling the observation. They were unlike Harry's eyes, which pierced him painfully and made him shut down and wring out all the emotions he owned, so that he knew he would not betray himself. They were unlike Voldemort's gaze, red-hot like coals, quicker to assume than to observe. "What, pray tell, are you doing here after curfew?"

His voice was indifferent; a habit that he found tedious and often down-right impossible to effect change in. And why bother? A normal child would flinch (Severus knew, because most children at Hogwarts were normal children), but of course Devlin did not. Severus watched him with a Potion makers precision.

"Sometimes, in the face of something terrible, what has to be done just has to be done regardless about how one feels about doing it." His eyes shone with forced focus, his chest rising as if only his stubborn will made it do so. "Something is terribly wrong."

"From your appearance, you made a wrong turn, Mr. Potter. You need the Hospital Wing." He wouldn't have Harry Potter over here, pissed off that he hadn't brought the child to the nurse. He reached out as if to direct the boy, but then thought better than to touch him at all.

"I'm not ill with something you can catch," Devlin said, his mind obviously still lucid enough to interpret Severus' movements.

"How long have you been here, Mr. Potter?"

"Clearly you had already left for rounds when I came. Besides that - I do not know. I profess that I probably blacked out more than once." The child looked at him, gaze focused and determined, palms against the stone to hide their shaking.

Even so clearly ill, weak, and injured the child spoke with pointed care. Severus wondered if this was the way he spoke to Voldemort. Like a steadily held wand, pressed with expertise care between the pad of his thumb and side of his pointer. He wondered if he looked at the Dark Lord like this. He wondered, but it was one of those things that one wondered but did not really want to know.

"Clearly," Snape drawled, not quite certain what else to say. He turned on his heel and opened his office door. The boy followed him shakily inside and settled himself down on the chair before his desk without an invitation required. Severus settled himself behind his desk. Tonight it offered him no familiar comfort; this was no unruly child, and he was not just the stern professor. A boy who hated him had sought him out. Lily's Devlin had come to him. "What is so very terribly wrong that you thought it wiser to prevent me from going to sleep than to disturb the healer whose job it is to take care of sickly children?"

Even so ill, Devlin Potter sat ram-rod straight in his chair.

"Because I've not got a sickness she can cure," he said, "and I don't want to explain this to her."

"Were you not just home with your parents?"

"Yes," he said and from his tone Severus could assume he knew exactly the point Severus was making.

"I would appreciate more than a single word answer, Mr. Potter. Speak in complete thoughts."

"Yes is a complete thought, Professor. Yes I was just home with my parents. Yes I chose not to tell them. I thought I would get better-"

"And clearly you have not." Severus' wand twitched with a desire to banish the blood from the boy's face, but he mastered the urge. In such a state he couldn't know if the child knew it was there, and cleaning it might startle him.

"No," he said, his eyes pressing upon Severus.

"So what is wrong? What have you done to yourself?"

"I did not want to take it," the child said, and he was reaching into his pocket. He withdrew a vial filled with a blue potion that Severus' did not recognize. The liquid oscillated inside of the vial with the movement of Devlin's hand. "I knew that he wouldn't give me anything else, and the idea of seizing in front of him was unacceptable. So I swallowed it - every day. It seemed to work, and I believed what he had said - that it is simply a more potent potion, because I am bigger. Then I returned to Hogwarts. Something is terribly wrong."

At school, the staff impressively spoke of how Devlin had overcome the sufferings of his time with Voldemort and become such a brave, strong, brilliant, and determined child. Severus saw all of these characteristics of the child. Certainly there was no denying his brilliant mind, or his sheer determination, or that imagination that Severus still thought was both telling and unnatural, or that the child was brave and strong - but the broken child, though disillusioned and made smaller, was still there. He had not 'overcome' his suffering. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger was true enough, except that survival is a brittle sort of strength; easy to break with the right kind of pressure.Devlin had not left anything behind; this was still the mask of a broken child clinging desperately to survival.

Severus reached forward to grasp the thin glass vial. It had been made to be lightweight but sturdy, and Severus could feel the quality of the glass between his fingers. The potion inside was smooth and well-made, whatever it was.

"What are the ingredients?" He asked, as he peered more closely at the potion. An unanalyzed potion, that the child had been consuming under his watch as Head of House for a week, without his knowledge.

"I don't know."

At nine the child had been able to write the entire potion out, including directions. His lack of knowledge surprised even Severus. But then, at nine the Dark Lord had felt entirely in control of the boy; his body, his world, his knowledge, and his perceptions. This time, he would seek to regain some dependancy.

OoOoOoOoO

Something is terribly wrong.

The thought seemed to hang in his mind like an ethereal ghost, neither his nor definably someone else's, jolting him awake. For a moment he sat there, skin hot, thoughts feverish, and tried to remember the dream. It escaped through his fingers like smoke. His skin cooled and his thoughts slowed, but the etherial thought remained behind.

Something is terribly wrong.

Something in him, something far away, ached like it were crushing and crumbling. He pulled himself out of bed and over to his desk. His limbs responded willingly, but the not-real pain made them heavy and his brain confused.

The sense of one of Devlin's seizures lingered in his body, but when he had fallen asleep he had felt the restless-peace that meant the boy was already asleep. He had felt this way earlier in the week, as well. Had the boy had a seizure in his sleep?

When he had known the child had been kidnapped he had told Black and Lupin without a second thought, but now he paused.

The boy was eleven. Perhaps he had simply had a seizure. Perhaps he had realized something. Perhaps he was fighting with someone. Perhaps he felt he had disappointed Voldemort or Potter. Perhaps he was merely ill.

Geoffrey did not feel it was his place to constantly allow the child's inner-feelings to be known by the entire Order - or even just his mother and father.

When he felt the swell of heartbreak, would he tell on the boy? When he was crushed by the loss of a win, would his father know before he told? When he was near to panic but holding it together - was it really anyone but his own right to be aware of his fragility?

Voldemort had taken that privacy from him by cursing Geoffrey, but it was one mark of which the boy did not know and if he were to keep it that way, he would have to carefully choose what information he passed along.

He sat in his chair and clutched at his head, breathing for the boy - wishing it would make some difference.

OoOoOoOoO

"I did not want to take it," he said and his hollow tone was met with a hollow sense of collapse. Nothing good, nothing bad, nothing at all. He was too weak to pursue any alternative. Perhaps this had been a test and he had moved too late, or not lasted long enough. Perhaps this was simply something Voldemort had not foreseen. As a child, Devlin would have clung to the last, but with more experience, he was not as sure. He felt a kind of defeat he had not since he was truly a boy - weak in front of Draco Malfoy, pleading for his father. And yet, even as he felt it, he knew he could not be it.

He reached into his pocket to grab the potion, his fingers fumbling on the smooth glass vial. He pulled it out, only to realize that he had pulled the coin out at the same time. It felt heavy in his hand, it's magic humming "Morsmordre" into his skin.

But he had made his move too late, or not lasted long enough, and there was no way he was in any shape to sneak across Hogwarts grounds and use a portkey. He had barely managed to crawl to Snape's office door!

He tucked the coin against his palm and dangled the vial from his fingers.

"I knew that he wouldn't give me anything else, and the idea of seizing in front of him was unacceptable. So I swallowed it - every day. It seemed to work, and I believed what he had said - that it is simply a more potent potion, because I am bigger. Then I returned to Hogwarts. Something is terribly wrong."

Devlin had always had a taste for words. When he had been small they had seemed as powerful as his magic, and against Voldemort they had worked better than any spell he could have fathomed. As a boy - a regular boy - it had been hard for him to see where magic and words separated, since people seemed to need both to do it at all. Even when he had been weighed down by blankets and fuzzy from healing draughts - even when he had been terrified of the monster at the foot of his bed for the first time; he had found the right words and they had slid off his tongue like venom. Logic had surely fled him, yet the words crumbled in his mind like sand, even more than they had when he had returned to Harry last week. There was something ill-pieced about them, as though he had forgotten how to pace himself. There was nothing powerful about his words or his tone - he felt as far from a monster as he ever had. Smaller than a boy, weaker than a child.

Severus regarded him heavily. For a brief moment Devlin was not sure the Professor would take the potion from his outstretched hand, but finally he did, and Devlin was released from the burden. His hand fell onto his lap, the coin hidden against his palm and his thigh.

"What are the ingredients?" Snape asked, dark gaze on the vial instead of him.

Devlin's fingers curled around the coin. Anger, strangely muted, rose like heavy smoke in his mind.

"I don't know." The heaviness of unwilling defeat crowded his mind, infiltrating his ability to rise up again.

Severus did not seem surprised that he would not know. In fact, his gaze flickered to his face as though to check that he were a potion and brewing just how he expected.

"Tell me how many of these you have consumed since your arrival to Hogwarts."

Such linear thinking seemed almost impossible. He clenched his teeth against a drowning sense of nausea.

"I came back at night. I had one that morning before leaving. I had a seizure that night. You gave me my old potion while I was seizing?" A nod. "I forgot to take one that morning. I took one that night. I had a seizure while I was dreaming. I took one when the seizure ended. I didn't take one the first night at home. I fell asleep. I woke up with a fever and took a fever reducer. I took one in the morning but I threw it up. My dad asked if I had taken one, since I hadn't used theirs, so I took one of my old ones. I took fever reducers and nausea draughts while I was there, and took my old potion. I thought - if this was the problem, that would help."

His head pounded.

Severus looked at him.

His head pounded even more.

Snape twirled the vial between his fingers and Devlin felt his stomach mimic the movement. He clenched his teeth against the onslaught of nausea.

"When you arrived at Hogwarts, were you not under the influence of Polyjuice?"

Devlin frowned, part of his mind snapping to attention but the rest of it still sloshing around sickly.

"Yes."

"And your draught - did you take it in front of the Dark Lord that morning?"

"No, before."

"Was that typical?"

"I don't know. Nothing was typical. I wasn't there that long!"

"Hmm," Snape said, and Devlin wasn't sure if it was rebuking for his tone or agreeing with his statement. "I will need to analyze the potion."

OoOoOoO

Snape's private lab was small but immaculate. Jars glittered from dark wood shelves, each labeled with neat script and stored by some theme Devlin could not quite put his finger on. Metaphorically, of course; because Devlin dare not take one finger out of his pocket and touch anything.

"Sit," Snape said, and Devlin followed his pointed finger. On the other end of the gesture was a comfortable looking chair with a small side table that held only a notebook, pen, and water-ring from a cup that was currently elsewhere. He sat down. If it were possible, the moment his feet were relieved of their burden, his body felt even weaker. His limbs curled unbidden against his body, and he did not have the energy to force them away from his core. He leaned his head against the soft fabric of the chair and watched as Snape poured the vial into several small cauldrons.

He began boiling some, or cooling others; pouring liquid here, pinches of powder there, a spell by itself or combined. Each was contained by a barrier charm and the different fumes filled the invisible containers. Of course Snape's magic would create precise cylindrical barriers; like a giant vial turned upside down.

"Intriguing," Snape said. Devlin's eyes snapped open and his cheeks flushed at the realization that he had fallen asleep in the Professor's lab. Snape was not, however, speaking to him. He was holding up a small glass vial filled with a clear liquid.

"What's interesting?" He asked, and wished his voice did not sound so soft. There were a row of other vials, settled into a holder. The cauldrons had been vanished.

"I did not say anything was 'interesting,' but clearly you were not listening," Snape said, but after one glare he continued with a more open tone, offense put aside.

Devlin did not have the energy to inquire, but his steady regard must have been enough. Snape seemed to want to explain, anyways.

"It contains a synthetic ingredient," Snape said, still peering at the vial. "Which is most intriguing."

Devlin frowned. The word seemed unfamiliar to him, although it must have been related to synthesis, which was a word he had come across before when reading about creating new magical spells.

"What does that mean?" It was a phrase that seemed second nature to him, so ingrained in his personality that even ill and weak he managed.

Snape looked up at him. The potions lab was lit with white magical orbs that more resembled muggle lights than found anywhere else in the school. The white light cast a strange hue onto the stone and onto Snape - making all his flaws more visible and taking away that mysteriousness. It made him look like just a man - with a few more lines than his father, and a few grey hairs.

"In Potion making we rely heavily on the ingredients and how they react to one another, as well as to temperature. In certain potions, such as Polyjuice, we imbue the ingredients with magic in order to enhance or alter our reaction to them when consumed. Our magic's influence remains, however, on the organic ingredients. This potion is different. Very different. It contains a synthetic ingredient. Someone used their magic to isolate, enhance, and mimic an ingredient, without the potion containing the actual ingredient."

The idea seemed absurd. It was not that he could not imagine using magic to replicate something real - wizards and witches used their magic all the time to create things that were not real. But the idea of creating something with magic that would be consumed went against every rule that the magical community had.

Not that Voldemort had ever truly considered himself part of the magical community.

The idea made him want to retch. His wolf tore in his head, on a rampage.

Something is terribly wrong! It growled, mockingly - because it had sensed this. The most magical part of him, had known something was in them that did not belong.

"What does it mean?" He managed to ask, his throat suddenly dry, his mind pounding. He found himself on his feet, approaching the vials to stare at them. His eyes were transfixed, his mind befuddled, while all his senses screamed with terror. Surely something that went against everything he knew to be possible and right (and there was so little that he knew to be wrong), had to be some kind of poison.

'It rids the world of annoying little boys slowly,' Voldemort had said, once. He had not believed him them, but now he found the words replaying slowly in his mind. Uncertainty rooted itself into his mind, allowing way for fear to plant and bloom in his stomach.

Snape stood beside him. His face was unusually empty of loathing.

You look like her.

'Step aside, silly girl'.

"It means various things," Snape said. Without anger to heat and boil it, his voice was like a cold slow-moving river. "Most significantly it means that the Dark Lord did not design the alternation and also explains your adverse reactions."

Devlin looked at him, his weak limbs shaking beneath him.

"Someone else was trying to poison me?"

The idea that someone could do that, through Voldemort without either him or Voldemort knowing sent a different kind of terror up his spine.

"While possible, I doubt it to be true. Instead, I believe someone envisioned that it would be stronger, quicker to enter your bloodstream, and easier to produce in the quantities a growing child would need…"

His mind zoomed to keep up.

"What - what went wrong?"

"Several things, I imagine," Severus said, voice purely factual. They both stared at the strange clear liquid. "But this is the first synthetic ingredient I have ever worked with, so all of my conclusions would be based on assumptions and imaginations."

Devlin wanted to ask him what he should do, but he dare not voice the uncertainty.

"It isn't poison, then?"

His muscles shook with reminder of their weakness.

Something is terribly wrong.

Snape looked down his hooked nose at him.

"In isolation, no," he said, "combined with other magical potions, I have my reservations. I will need to analyze it more closely, and do some…seek some unorthodox places for research. In the meantime, do not take other potions in combination."

Devlin looked at the vial with a roiling gut.

"Why would I take it at all? My old potion was working!"

Snape smirked and chuckled, and somehow he managed to make the expression and sound vicious and dark.

"Of course you will take it, you foolish child," he said, leaning forward intimidatingly. "Do you know how many poisons I brewed for people I had been a schoolboy with? How many people I killed? Of course you will take the potion he commissioned for you. That he witnessed working. Of course you will, because you have chosen to play a very dangerous game. Foolish boy."

Devlin knew he was right, but his body revolted against the idea. Something in his face must have shown his terror, because Severus sneered, turned, and looked away.

"Tonight, you will take nothing. I will put a monitoring charm on you. You will sleep. In the morning you will come to my office. Before you come to my office you will remove a potion from wherever you keep them and bring it with you. You will withdraw a potion each day, no matter which version you consume. I will give you a vial of potion brewed to the same specifications but without the synthetic ingredient."

Devlin had no better alternatives, and it seemed he remembered never to contradict a Hippogriff when it was being friendly. So he nodded.

"Obviously, when he takes you again, you will take his potion without complaint as you did this previous time."

Somewhere deep in his stomach, laughter bubbled and broiled and came dancing off his tongue. Severus glanced at him, weariness etching itself onto his face.

"What do you find humorous, Mr. Potter?"

"That you think I am just some stupid Death Eater who follows his orders without question. I'm not a Death Eater. I made him tell me about it before I would take it."

Severus stared at him, his face twisted in a sardonic smile.

"And yet, you took it. How powerful you are."

OoOoOoO