Sorry for the delay, everyone. I am absolutely not abandoning this story - I just had to work through a sequence of events in the story. :) A review or two would be really encouraging, though. ;-)
He awoke, bodiless, into the memory.
Normally, when he awoke anywhere he would notice sensations and sounds first; but the person who had originally owned this memory had not awoken like he had, and was not a werewolf. He was slammed into the moment; no context, no pause, no moment to gather his senses. Devlin was not in a Pensieve; Pensieves were designed to allow memories to be brought out of an individual and temporally rewritten into a format viewable to many. This was an unadapted memory, leaving Devlin with the oddest sensation of being two people at once.
And there, sitting diagonally to the memory-owner's righthand side was Tom Riddle. A young man with an aristocratic cut to his handsome features, he wore a sharp smile and a sharper regard. Around Tom Riddle were other young men, all settled around a table.
There was the taste of dried pineapple in the memory-owner's mouth, and the sticky residue was glazed on his fingers. In his chest there was something like crowding-satisfaction. Devlin tried to separate himself from the memory-owner. His own thoughts were contracting and expanding, and either the memory-owner had no thoughts of his own, Devlin could not discern them over his own convoluted ones, or they did not attach themselves to memories when withdrawn. For whatever reason, he was left without the memory-holder's mental opinions and it made him feel as though he were made to wade through chin-high waters rather than being allowed to swim.
For a moment he allowed himself to be consumed by the idle chatter around the room and grow accustomed to the fact that he controlled nothing - from the rise and fall of the memory-holder's chest to which direction he chose to look; the lack of control was more than unnerving, leaving him feeling raw and small. Tom Riddle was silent, regarding everyone else with a detached sort of interest that Devlin, knowledgable as he were on the topic of Lord Voldemort, knew was entirely concocted. Tom Riddle clearly had other things on his mind. Not that his mind was ever empty.
"Sir, is it true Professor Merrythought is retiring?" Tom Riddle's dark green eyes, so very like his own, bore into the memory-holder's own eyes; now Tom Riddle was interested. Devlin wanted to look away.
"Tom, I couldn't tell you if I knew, could I? By the way, thank you for the pineapple - you're quite right, it is my favorite. But, how did you know?"
It was so very strange, feeling the air moving through someone else' throat, the tongue and teeth and breath forming words he had not participated in developing.
There was something like cautious, unrefined suspicion at the edges of the memory-holder's words. Tom Riddle smiled, the lines of his face full of something coy and knowing.
"Intuition," Tom Riddle said, softly - the word smooth and bold all at once; as if it were intended to impart something more potent than just one word possibly could. Devlin thought he could feel a heavy weariness in the memory-holder's mind, but his thoughts were still absent.
The memory-holder, who must be a Professor, did not speak for a long moment. Had Devlin been a normal boy, too busy with childish endeavors and never forced to be so consciously aware of his world, he would not have felt that the pause had been just a smidgen too long, but he wasn't, and he did. He felt, for a moment, as though he could hear the memory-holder's thoughts, but it was as though they were far away or coming through water.
"Good gracious, is it that time already?" The Memory-Holder asked - a statement disguised as a question. There was something jittery at the edge of his voice. He half stood. "Off you go boys or Professor Dippet will have us all in detention."
He rose with the almost-men; shook hands, patted shoulders, bid goodnight and good luck with assignments, answered simple questions about tomorrow's class - a Potion Class, which must have made him a Potion's Professor. When all appeared to be gone, he turned to pour something amber from a large glass bottle. Something was troubling the memory-holder.
In the silence and the emptiness, Devlin allowed himself to ponder what he was meant to do. Did he watch the entire memory before deciding where to alter it? He had expected he would get something simple and mundane - perhaps Snape making potions and he would make him slice instead of crush something, or a group of children walking in the hallway and he would make them turn in a different direction. Even that, he had not known how he would do. This seemed far more important and complex.
He caught them both unaware, lost as the memory-holder and himself were in their own thoughts. The sound of fingers tapping glass rang out, and he turned around to find Tom still there, standing next to an hourglass.
A bubble of weariness, so tricky to conceal, burst; Devlin felt it as if were his own.
"Look sharp Tom, you don't want to be caught out of bed after hours." Tom, however, did not move. His face was that nothing, nothing, nothing that Devlin so often employed. Did it really look like that? It made his skin crawl. "Something on your mind, Tom?"
There should have been a pause of estimation or guestimation, but there was nothing but silence in the memory-holder's head.
"Yes, sir. You see, I couldn't think of anyone else to go to. The other Professors, well, they're not like you. They might…misunderstand."
There was something heavy in the pit of the Memory-Holders subconscious.
"Go on."
"I was in the Library the other night, in the restricted section, and I read something rather odd about a bit of rare magic and I thought perhaps you could illuminate me. It's called as I understand it a-"
But Devlin could not hear what Tom Riddle had said.
"I beg your pardon?"
Tom spoke again, but it was washed out and the memory-holder's vision suddenly blurry.
"I don't know anything about such things and if I did I wouldn't tell you, now get out of here at once and don't let me catch you mentioning it ever again!"
There was fear crowding his chest and terror leaking into his mind. Tom had disappeared and he was alone. The man glanced around the room, almost fugitively - and that was when he saw it.
A sense of realization over-powered his other senses. In the reflection of the hourglass, the memory continued on. Snape had said he wanted Devlin to alter a memory, and Devlin had simply assumed the memory he would work with would be an unaltered original; the assumption had been wrong. Though this was an organic, original memory, it was not unaltered. Snape did not want him to alter the course of this memory; he wanted Devlin to uncover the alteration that had already been made!
Snape wanted to know what Tom Riddle had said.
Devlin had no idea where to start.
-Perhaps we should start by the shiny sand-waterfall cup- His sharpness was the color of the shadows that the torches cast onto the walls. He had appeared, quite suddenly, next to the fireplace. -But first, I think you should make your own feet.-
His sharpness bent his head to casually groom one of his paws.
The memory had frozen around him, seemingly by his command, though possibly simply because of his startle. While part of him had known he was in his own mind, another had just assumed he was without control. His wolf tipped his head expectantly at him, amber eyes darker than he remembered, grey hairs peppering his inky fur.
He imagined himself to have a body - pulled forward that sense of completeness; heart, breath, hot blood in his veins, tingling nerves. He stepped out of the memory-holder's body, leaving him frozen behind him.
He was a short stout man with grey hair that looked as if it might once have been brown or black, and brown eyes. He was not handsome at all, but there was something about his face that made Devlin think he might be particularly clever.
He left the Professor behind and wandered across the floor toward the hourglass. His feet made no sound, his breath felt like nothing in the air, but satisfying in his lungs. He reached forward to touch the hourglass and his fingers did not disturb it, even though he could feel the cool glass beneath his hand. He had the sense that, should he have wished, he could have moved it across the table.
There, in the reflection, was Tom Riddle; facing the Professor, mouth frozen open in mid-speech.
-They want to know what he said,- Devlin said, almost idly. His voice rang strangely in the memory - like a distorted whisper.
-Severus?-
Devlin found it odd that his sharpness referred to most people by their position or characteristics (the father, the mother, the little girl, the old man, the Red Eyed-Man) and yet Severus Snape was simply Severus.
-Yes.-
-Then make the memory go backwards.- Devlin turned to look at him, his body still bent over the hourglass, questioning. -It is in our head now.-
His sharpness always had a way of looking at a problem and searing right to the point.
He had been unsure of how to do this because he had never done it before, but he did not really need to understand how to make this memory move backwards - it was, as the sharpness said, in his head. He moved it backwards the same way he would have moved one of his own memories backwards; jumping to the point at which Tom Riddle had tapped on the hourglass. This time, Devlin was standing right in front of him.
"Look sharp Tom, you don't want to be caught out of bed after hours." Tom stood as still as before. His face remained that nothing, nothing, nothing that Devlin so often employed. Reflected on someone else's face, gave it new perspective to Devlin. "Something on your mind, Tom?"
"Yes, sir. You see, I couldn't think of anyone else to go to. The other Professors, well, they're not like you. They might…misunderstand."
There was something heavy in the pit of the Memory-Holders subconscious - Devlin moved so that he could see his eyes, digging into his mind. This time the feeling manifested itself as weariness and the vague sense that something terrible was about to come out of Tom's mouth.
"Go on." Hesitation. Uncertainty. Morbid interest.
"I was in the Library the other night, in the restricted section, and I read something rather odd about a bit of rare magic and I thought perhaps you could illuminate me. It's called, as I understand it a H-"
But Devlin still could not hear what Tom Riddle had said - the memory seemed to clamp around him, tightening and distorting. Reflexively he pushed into the memory with a sense of stubbornness. For a fleeting moment he was as light as fog and heavy as a boy; pressing upon the memory as if he were invading someone's mind.
The memory folded in on itself for a moment, shuttering and sputtering around him. With forced focus he managed to coax it back to the spot where Tom Riddle started talking about the Library. While he was able to move through it like one of his own memories, it was fragile, whereas his own were resilient.
"-Library the other night, in the restricted section, and I read something rather odd about a bit of rare magic and I thought perhaps you could illuminate me. It's called, as I understand it, a Horcrux."
Something in the memory shattered. It was as if Devlin had pushed past the blurry film that had been created. Tom Riddle looked crisper than ever, each hair on his head visible, his long handsome lashes framing his dark green eyes. Still with that odd sensation of being two people at once, Devlin could feel the Professor tremble beneath his robes.
"I beg your pardon?" His face was ashen and his fingers fumbled feebly as if he wanted to reach for his wand. Devlin wondered what a Horcrux could be, for the mere mention of it to inspire such fear in a grown wizard.
Tom's face was blank, but his eyes were alive in a way Devlin so rarely witnessed.
"Horcrux. I came across the term while reading and I didn't fully understand it." His voice trailed smoothly in the air. He said the word easily, while the memory-holder felt it in his gut like a curse.
"I'm not sure what you're reading Tom, but this is very dark stuff - very dark indeed."
There was a pause. The Professor's face was full of shock and nervousness.
"Which is why I came to you," Tom said.
Even in memory, the Professor had still remembered the feel of Tom's magic, wrapping around him. It was soothing and warm, entering his mind and pressing him to speak. Devlin would recognize the trick anywhere, because he had used his magic just like this, more than once. Voldemort had never needed to teach him this trick.
"A Horcrux is an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul." Devlin felt as if Nagini had just sunk her fangs into him. The concept seemed entirely too overwhelming to even approach, and he felt a mental shutter race through his mind. It took all his strength to keep himself inside of the memory and not lock it away with the other things he did not think about.
"But I don't understand how that works, sir." Tom's magic was like a plume of sweet-smelling smoke in the air. Above it all, the Professor still felt afraid and weary; inside and on his face. The words came from his mouth regardless.
"One splits one's soul and hides part of it in an object, by doing so you are protected should you be attacked and your body destroyed."
"Protected?" Tom could only be pressing the memory-holder for cruel reasons, because even Devlin, at least three years Tom's junior, knew the Professor had meant you don't die.
"That part of your soul that is hidden lives on - another words you cannot die."
The sharpness lingered by Tom too, dark face upturned to watch the young version of their terror.
-We are not like him,- the sharpness said, without malice or sarcasm but as though this very instant the notion had solidified inside of him. Devlin tried not to dwell on anything about himself; because what was revealed here had terrible, horrific, consequences for him already.
"And how does one split his soul, sir?"
"I think you already know the answer to that, Tom."
"Murder." He said it so easily; twirling a ring around his finger. There was a barely concealed smile touching his lips that the Professor could not have seen because Tom had placed himself in front of the fireplace - perhaps the Professor had simply known it must have been there.
"Yes, killing rips the soul apart; it is a violation against nature." The Professor had approached, trying to catch Tom's eye. Fear crippled him; more belonging to the memory-holder than to himself.
"Can you only split the soul once, for instance six and seven-"
"Seven? Merlin's beard Tom, isn't it bad enough to consider killing one person? To rip the soul into seven pieces… this is all hypothetical right, Tom? Purely academic?"
"Of course, sir. It'll be our little secret."
OoOoOoO
He came to feeling like he was drowning. He gasped for air, his limbs flailing, guttural noises arching from his throat. It wasn't until he saw Snape hovering above him that he knew he had come back to reality and not into the Meadow. For a moment he could do nothing; his body felt strangely numb and though he knew where all his pieces were, he couldn't quite find it in himself to command his body - or maybe his body could not find it within itself to listen to his commands. Either way, when he had the sense that the drowning feeling had been a precursor to throwing up, all he could do was instinctively turn his head.
It was Snape, sharp gaze seemingly upon his every twitch, who hauled him suddenly upright. Some of the sick made it onto his shirt, but there was no glower. A moment later there was a cauldron between Devlin's legs. He choked on the bile and the suffocating feeling in his lungs while he heard Snape mutter cleaning spells for the both of them.
"Get it out! Get it out!" He yelled the moment he could breathe - clawing at his head. He knew if it was left there much longer he would lose control of it; and he did not want Snape pulling it from deeper in his mind any less than he wanted it to be absorbed permanently. Snape snatched at his hands, taking them away from his head.
"Be still!" Snape said firmly. Devlin felt insane. His magic fractured with his many needs, searing across his skin, saturating his blood to an almost unbearable extent. Snape's wand touched his head, and he felt the memory being pulled from his mind with precision. It leaving his head was like a drowning man managing to break free of an undercurrent and get air.
"Tell me about the memory," Snape said, wasting only enough time to vanish the disgusting cauldron.
"You have it," he said, motioning toward the Pensieve on his desk. "Watch it yourself!"
"I will," Snape said, as if he were handing out a reassurance. "In addition, I desire your first-hand observations."
"I've seen him before - in memories - so don't expect me to be shocked at seeing him." The words hurled themselves from his mouth. Snape did not react.
"So you have said." Which reminded Devlin of what he had already told Snape, which in turn brought that memory, like lightning, to the forefront of his mind. He wished Snape had not vanished the cauldron. James Potter sprawled in the hallway, steps creaking beneath Voldemort's steps, Lily Potter scrambling behind the door- "What was Horace trying to hide?"
"Who?"
"The memory belonged to Horace Slughorn - the prior Potion Professor."
"I think I have heard about him, before," Devlin said, thinking idly of the stories his Grandfather used to tell him when he was small. "He told Voldemort something he shouldn't have."
"What did he tell him?"
Snape seemed hungry for the information.
"Why don't you just watch the memory?"
"I am not a fool enough to dismiss you without discussing whatever is now in your head."
Devlin frowned, not quite understanding. Then, as one possibility bloomed in his stomach he scrambled to his feet, wand drawn and pointed at Snape's head.
"I won't let you obliviate me!"
Snape rose with the fluidity of a shadow, his own wand held precisely between his fingers, pointed right at Devlin.
"The idea did not cross my mind," Snape said, voice steady, magic like a calming fog in the room. "I imagine obliviating you would have fracturing consequences beyond the typical measure."
Devlin did not understand what he meant, only that he sensed it was an insult.
"You are an intelligent boy," Severus said. It reminded Devlin of the way Geoffrey used to say the same thing. "And you are strong; strong enough to hide something you know Voldemort should not know."
He glared at Snape, but did not speak. Their wands were still drawn, still pointed with expertise at each other's hearts.
"I am only a boy," he said; nothing, nothing, nothing. He hoped it made Snape shiver inside. "One day though I will be better - betterthan Dumbledore, better than Harry, better than Voldemort - and that is why I will keep this secret."
Because he had learned when Voldemort took him that Dubhán could not save him, that Devlin knew too little, and that his sharpness was his protector not his projection. He would do almost anything not to die, and that meant acknowledging he was not limited to the way other people defined him. He was Dubhán, and his sharpness, and Devlin all at once. He was himself, and one day that would be enough to secure his entitlement to say what was going to happen.
He breathed in and out, in and out, feeling his ribcage expanding with each inhale. He waited, half expecting Snape to curse him.
"I believe you," Snape said, almost ominously. He lowered his wand, walked to his desk and sat down. A wave of his wand and a tray of tea had been summoned. "Which is why we should discuss this development - whatever it might have been. You are a boy, as you say. I am not. I infiltrated, deceived, and manipulated the man most of Britain calls a monster. Maybe we can share our war stories and learn something from each other."
Devlin slipped his wand back up his shirt sleeve, approaching cautiously.
"I thought you said I am playing a dangerous game and am a foolish boy."
"You are playing a dangerous game and you are absolutely a foolish little boy, but I can see now that I will not stop you. Instead I will compromise by attempting to keep your foolish self alive."
"Why?" He had yet to sit, and he made no move to do so now; lingering by the empty chair.
"Did your father ever tell you why you are named Devlin Augustus Potter?"
"No," he said. "He only said they came as a pair."
"Indeed," Snape said, looking into his tea. "But it is not my place to explain."
"Then why bring it up?" He growled.
"Perhaps I am encouraging you to ask your father, as I said before."
Devlin crossed his arms.
"He'll wonder why I asked."
"It is your name, is it not?"
"Maybe I'll tell him you said to ask."
"Be my guest; Potter would not understand the connection."
Devlin sneered, but he sat.
"Let's discuss this memory." Snape pointed to the Pensieve. "What did Horace tell Tom Riddle?"