Some mornings later, while retrieving his daily potion, Devlin Potter paused, quite unexpectedly, in front of Severus' desk. They had fallen into a silent routine - Devlin would slide his vial across the desk, and Severus, eyes ever buried (quite purposefully) in student work, would slide a freshly brewed vial within the boy's reach. Devlin would gather it up, drink, and dispose of the bottle in the rubbish bin next to his desk. Then he would leave, and neither would have said a word.

So when the boy's voice floated - softly - into the air, it made him in turn pause. He looked up from his work, eyes sharply critical as he tried to decipher the meaning behind this anomaly.

"Sir," the child said, with the halt of someone who hesitates despite their clear determination. "They'll make sure…at the end…that it is a fair fight, won't they?"

For a moment he did not quite understand. The child's green eyes looked everywhere except at him, his fingers curled around the vial that secured his health above anything else. Severus did not pretend to understand what it felt like to be so dependent upon others. To know that, should someone deny you, death would come slowly and debilitatingly. The words were heavy with meaning.

"I've always known-" the boy began, green eyes shadowed.

Severus understood in a rush: the boy had always thought that the strongest would prevail and now he had realized that, as long as the Horcruxes remained intact, it would not be a question of strength but of immortality against mortality. The fight would never be fair. Potter would always lose.

He did not want to hear the boy say it all - predict Potter's death. Severus knew that if Potter died every bit of Lily that he had always witnessed in Devlin would die alongside him, and he would lose both connections forever.

"We will try."

They had been trying all school year, since Devlin's kidnapping. Before that, they had found and destroyed one. But Devlin did not need to know that his contribution had simply been the name and the number not the knowledge.

The child nodded, uncorked the vial, swallowed the contents, and threw it in the rubbish bin beside Severus' desk. He left without saying another word.

OoOoOoO

Even after all these years, coming to Hogwarts still felt like coming home. When he visited, he liked to Apparate into Hogsmeade and walk up the long familiar path; seeing the whole castle as he approached. Today the walk was made even more beautiful by snowfall; crunching beneath his boots and prickling his lungs as he breathed in the frigid air. The younger children were playing outside the castle; covered head to toe in toasty things. The older children probably had different ideas of fun for a Saturday afternoon - Harry could remember it well.

He was almost to the castle when he saw him. Playing.

His face was split into a grin, his eyes alight with something like certain-triumph and euphoria. His hair was wild and wind-whipped and his cheeks were red. Unlike everyone else, he had forgotten his cloak, and he stood out in only a t-shirt and trousers. At least, Harry noted, he had remembered his snow boots. It had taken Harry until he had nearly graduated to master heating charms.

He was running, his legs carrying him faster and faster. He slid face-first next to a group of children crouching behind a fort, shouting "SAFE!" Like his father, he got to his feet quickly. It seemed like an elaborate combination of a snowball fight and tag. Devlin was holding a maroon and gold scarf triumphantly and his Slytherin friends patted him on his back.

Harry realized he had not expected to see Devlin out in the snow playing like a child. He found himself drawn toward his son, his grin infectious like it had been since he was a small baby tucked in the crook of Harry's arm.

Perhaps the idea was to steal each other's scarves - he noted there was a pile of them in between the two opposing forts.

Most of the children were making snowballs the old fashioned way and then throwing them using their magic. Harry was unsurprised to find that Devlin did not even touch the snowballs - he shaped them and hurled them with seemingly the same flick of his wand.

"You're up, Malfoy!" One boy shouted, and the blond-haired boy, his locks covered in a silver cap, dashed out from the protection of the fort. The Gryffindor's tried to pelt him with snowballs, but he dodged and got to the pile (the children's aim with their magic was probably far worse than it would have been with their hands). Apparently one was not allowed to hit someone who had already reached the pile. Harry watched a Gryffindor do the same thing, unsuccessfully; it had looked like August. Harry was unsurprised; the boy used to fall out of his dinner chair seven times in one meal! He made a dramatic call of anguish and fell to his knees, making an inaccurate but comical 'dead' face.

When Maria raced out from the fort, Harry noticed that one or two snowballs, that might have hit her, swerved. Devlin was looking at them very carefully, at the time.

For a moment Devlin seemed to abandon the idea of throwing snowballs at all; but he kept making them, laying them out in some kind of pattern next to the fort. A moment later, when Freddie was up, he pointed his wand up and the snowballs rose into the air - a giant snake. It slithered through the air, each bit of it made of perfectly-formed snowballs, toward the other fort.

"Retribution for those slime balls!" Devlin shouted. Freddie seemed both terrified and excited. He decided against the scarf - a lone one, it appeared - and instead began to outrun the giant snake, seeking the safety of his fort. The snake flew over the fort then rounded again and curled around the last scarf.

The grin had turned into a smirk, Devlin's whole body relaxed and seemingly content. Harry wondered what it felt like to be so in tune with one's magic. He was sure it felt beautiful; to be able to mould ones magic around their wishes, to understand implicitly how to control the grandest part of themselves without ever appearing to need to learn.

Devlin's friends cheered around him. The children came out to the middle to exchange scarves.

He wanted to cheer his son in his victory, but knew Devlin would only be embarrassed. Instead, he would remember this - this euphoric child - and keep it to himself (he would share with Alexandra, of course). If raising a child so broken had taught him anything it was that you had to take what you could, whether they gave it to you or you selfishly hoarded it without their knowledge, like this.

The castle was warm and smelled of mulled apples and spiced pumpkins. Even in the dungeons, the smell persisted.

He knocked on the door, knowing the Professor wasn't expecting him. He had learned it was better to simply show up, because Severus would always refuse to see him.

"Mr. Potter," Snape sneered, looking as if he would like to chop Harry into potions ingredients. Perhaps he would sell a vial-full as Rare Boy-Who-Lived Bits.

"May I come in, Severus?"

"You do realize that when you ask a question there is the possibility the other party will say no, do you not, Mr. Potter?"

He widened his eyes innocently. It was the one false expression his wife told him he did well.

"I thought you knew how terrible I was at listening, Professor Snape!"

He received a growl - but the door opened. He sat himself on the plain chair across from the Professor's desk, crossing his legs and relaxing. This seemed to infuriate Severus.

"Why are you here, Potter?" Severus asked poisonously. Harry thought his Patronus must be a viper. Then again, perhaps he did not need one. Perhaps the Dementors thought him one of their own. Harry tried not to let the smile in his head infiltrate onto his face.

"I figured you had just forgotten to send me a Parent-Teacher conference letter," he said, fiddling with his Auror badge - he hated sitting on it, and he was wearing Muggle clothing. "Seeing as how often Devlin seems to be in your office, that is."

He watched him carefully, but Severus did not even blink. After a moment Harry realized he did not intend to answer.

"So, what's he been doing wrong?" He asked, half expecting a blank stare in response.

"He punched another boy," Severus said, simply.

Harry sat up straight. He had assumed Severus just did not like Devlin the same way he had not liked Harry.

"He..why?"

Severus steepled his hands, seeming to take great satisfaction in their conversation.

"I'm really not certain why you were not informed. I had assumed Minerva would have written you, with how…disturbed… she seemed by the event. I did not bear direct witness."

"Er…do you know what happened, though?"

"There was no magic involved, which typically would have meant Devlin be brought directly to me. Minerva felt…for some reason…that instead Devlin should be brought to Albus' office. In any case, from what I can discern the boy said something to Devlin about his kidnapping, and Devlin lunged at him. When asked by Albus, Devlin would only say that he had thought the boy was his friend but "he never really was"."

"And…did he apologize?"

Severus arched his brow.

"How soon we forget what it is to be children when we become parents," Severus said - though Harry thought he had little right to do so. "Did you ever apologize to Draco, Mr. Potter?"

Even the name made Harry furious - for much more adult things than the trivial boyhood wars they had fought. Still, he understood what Severus was saying. He nodded in acknowledgement.

"So, how many detentions has he left?" Harry asked.

"Not going to argue that he should not be held accountable for his actions, Potter?" The sneer was almost impossible to ignore, but somehow Harry managed.

"No. He made a choice - no one made him do that. There was no wand at his head. I make distinctions, don't you? I like to think that my mother and my father would have said the same about each skirmish I had with Malfoy and that, their opinion would have helped shape who I became."

Severus' lips pursed sourly the way they always did when he brought up his parents, but they usually managed not to hurl insults at each other, anymore.

"I have not given him a specific number," Severus said.

"That doesn't sound typical," Harry said, getting miffed again. Perhaps Severus really was just taking advantage of his authoritative position the way he had when Harry was a student.

"Your son is not typical," Severus said simply. "He is brilliant, and terrifying, and capable of destroying himself, given enough rope to hang by. Beside which, I have learned that the boy is abysmal at seeking out help. Seeing him often ensures I know if something goes wrong."

"What's gone wrong beside this?"

Severus seemed torn for a moment; an odd expression on his face.

"The boy believes he told me in confidence," Severus said. Harry tried to convey, with a simple expression, that he expected Snape to tell him anyways. "The Dark Lord, feeling he had outgrown his original potion, had a new one made. I am still trying to establish, exactly, why the child had a poor reaction to it. It contained synthetic ingredients. Syn-"

"I was raised as a muggle, Severus. I know what synthetic means. Muggle medicine is full of it."

"Indeed, which is why I know the Dark Lord did not think of using synthetics. I have been analyzing the boy's potion and intended to hand you a full report when I was done. He became very sick though, and I have been brewing him potions daily. Which is why you might have seen him, on that stupid map of yours, here each day."

"He got sick?"

"Is that not what I just said, Potter?"

"How sick?"

Severus sneered.

"Sick enough to look like death at my door when he snuck out of curfew to find me. He could hardly move, had claimed he had blacked out several times, and had a bloody nose. Apparently, he had had several seizures, even during sleep."

Harry swallowed, hating to think of his son in pain. He thought of him suddenly outside - full of life and playing. Whatever Severus was doing, it couldn't be that bad. He had never seen Devlin play with other children.

"Thank you, Severus," Harry said, after a moment. Severus looked taken aback. "Whatever you're doing - he seems healthy and happy now. Maybe we could make this a regular thing - just so I knew what was going on?"

Sneer. Sigh. Rubbing of temples.

"No. I do not hand out weekly, or even monthly, parent-teacher conferences. If there is another incident I will inform you. I have more important things than talking to you."

Harry forced a smile.

"Guess I'll just stop by the next time I'm around, then."

OoOoOoO

Retrieving information from Hogwarts took time and effort, and even then it was never particularly satisfying, conveyed as it was from the eyes of mere children. Dumbledore had been very careful to ensure he no longer had any staff on his side within the walls. Therefore, he usually would not have bothered; such work for something so trivial without the result of quenching-satisfaction went against his typical logic and desire.

He had, though. Because the thirst was stronger than the knowledge that the water was seawater. Because it was about the boy.

The boy who looked more and more like himself.

The boy who had killed a man, for him, at eleven years old. It makes him simultaneously feel a rush of euphoria and a quake of rage. If he had not been raised by muggles, it surely would not have taken him sixteen long years to make his first murder. Seeing the boy's strength only served to prove how the muggles had made him weak.

He fingered the messy scrawl of the student, passed from his father onto Voldemort. His Dubhán's writing had always been better than this - even when he had been small and fragile with sickness. He could hear the stumble in this boy's words, even without ever having met him; Dubhán did not stumble. Even at six, he had read flawlessly.

'When did you learn to read?' Voldemort had asked. Perhaps it had been the very first bit of information he had sought from him. His green eyes had blinked at him, almost owlish compared to his pale and thin face. His brow had drawn down, so full of meaning and emotion - the distinct and deep look of thought. So thin, he had looked more similar to Voldemort as a child than he ever would again.

'It's like talking,' he had said, as if Voldemort had burdened him to explain something the other truly did not understand, 'You want to, so you do. I wanted to, so I did.'

Perhaps someone, someone dissimilar to them, would not have understood. They did not need to cajole information into making sense; such things organized themselves simply and logically for them, without any seeming effort.

The letter spoke of Dubhán's classwork and friends. A boy named Andrew, and a girl named Maria seemed, from the informants perception, to be Dubhán's closest friends. Malfoy hangs around a lot, too. Voldemort had made the boy's mother encourage the young boy to befriend Devlin, but Voldemort had not really believed anything but a fight would come of the encouragement. The child looked just like his father.

Perhaps Dubhán merely left him unharmed because he wondered if the boy's mother still had ties with him; the way he had left Lucius unscathed while identifying Draco as his torturer at the Ministry so long ago. Perhaps Dubhán had his own plans for the boy - some sort of humiliation.

The Andrew boy must have been a mudblood. He must have had his uses for Dubhán to find value in being near to him.

Voldemort would let him have his fun.

The girl concerned him. Maria Watson. The name sounded familiar.

OoOoOoO

Devlin moved in a duel the way James' had always wished, and imagined, he had; like fluid fire. Whereas Harry moved similar to his father - quick and brutal, throwing everything he had into every move, Devlin was calculating, cunning, and relentless.

He flicked his wand almost delicately, and the older boy's spell whizzed off course, slamming into the shield charms Remus had erected around the dueling area. If he won against this boy, he would have the chance to compete this season.

Remus had not even been aware he was part of the dueling club until the rumors spread, and he was quite certain Harry was not aware - he did not think Harry would sign the waver for the boy to travel with the team should he win the spot. But surely one of the older students would best him before that happened.

Devlin cast a sticking charm that missed its mark; the other boy's wand was simply stuck in his wand hand, which did not hinder him at all. It was a bad move, which would make disarming the other boy even harder. Devlin had a grimace of frustration written clearly on his face, and he tried to follow the failed charm up with another - the other student blocked it and sent a stunner Devlin just managed to dodge.

Devlin bombarded the other boy with weak spells - an itching jinx, a head bubble charm, one that would have made him grow fur all over, one that changed his shoe laces into pretty pink ribbons. It seemed as if Devlin was in over his head, trying to bide his time. The other boy was kept almost entirely on the defense, managing only a scant few offensive spells in-between. In the end, the tactic would only tire Devlin out, leaving him exposed.

Devlin sidestepped a more advanced immobilizing spell and threw a sharp tripping jinx. The boy fell forward, onto his wrist, giving a yelp of pain. The grimace of frustration slipped away as if it hadn't been there at all, and a genuine smirk spread across his face as replacement.

Remus realized with a jolt that the earlier sticking charm had never been a failure. The boy's wrist was sprained, and he could not change his wand into his other hand. He could not even cast the unsticking charm to release himself. That was clearly why Devlin had bombarded him with such silly spells - to keep him from realizing that he should have taken the time to unstick himself.

And so, Devlin moved onto the next round.

OoOoOoO

Devlin had known - he always knew it somewhere in his bones. Yet, when he came to Severus' office with a vial to exchange for his daily potion, he couldn't quite understand for a moment why there were five vials instead of one, waiting for him.

"Full moon, Mr. Potter," Snape drawled, arching a brow at him. Devlin nodded quickly.

"Of course," he said. "Is my father here already?"

"I would not know. Your father comes and goes as he pleases, and Albus, of course, sees no reason to encourage him differently."

Devlin let the negative comment slide off his shoulders.

"I suppose he will find me," Devlin said, shrugging. He swallowed one vial and tucked the other four in his bag, turning around to leave.