I hope you enjoy this. Make sure to read the A/N at the bottom. :)

There was a shriek - too inhuman to be anything but magical.

The sound flayed Devlin's nerves, scorched at his ears, and tore at his heart. A moment ago those around him had been chatting idly, now the naive stopped in their tracks, bewildered, while the older and the wiser froze with fear. There was such a distinct difference in the way that they stood, in their eyes - that Devlin could tell at a glance who knew and who did not. Devlin felt his own knowledge like a physical thing; as though he had been stabbed and the wound oozed a vicious terror instead of blood.

The wards around Hogwarts were falling.

His heart pounded. His blood rushed. His mind went numb.

There was movement around him. Prefects and Professors rushing down the hallways, shouting and physically hauling children out of the hallways. Devlin remained rooted.

A sense of wanting to run, run, run filled his body, carried through every ounce of his blood through his heart and into his brain.

There is no place to run, his brain said numbly. He moved slowly through the hallway, watching the chaos. The terrible memory of his first raid - when he had been small and still lived at the camp - surfaced with a vicious vividness in his mind. Fear was rushing in the air around him like something real, but he knew the real terror would happen when the curses started flying and the bodies started falling.

He wanted to sink against a wall and just wait - because what else could be done? - but he did not. He was acutely, horribly, unfairly, aware of the fact that others were around and could not witness his weakness.

And then he heard her. He turned. Her red hair was wild about her face, and she was clutching at someone's hand he had not expected - Andrew. She rushed toward him, and for a moment the chaos disappeared and he relished in her strength. She was not frozen. She was not sinking against a wall, waiting. Her blue blue eyes were burning with life, life, life. Her jaw was set with a fight.

Finally she reached him and he wasn't sure why, but he reached out and drew her into a hug. He had never really allowed himself to grab her without her express permission.

"You have to run," he said into her ear.

"I know," she said. "I'm bringing Andrew to the Gryffindor common room," she said, decisively. Andrew looked bewildered and terrified. "Snape is looking for you."

Snape had probably told her to bring Andrew with her. A mudblood in the Slytherin common room would merely be entertainment while they waited.

Devlin threw his bag onto the floor and dug through it until he found the intricate skull and snake clasp Grandfather had given him before. He held it out to Maria.

"If they find you, show them this. Tell them it belongs to the Little Dark One. Tell him you are mine. If you see him you have to tell him you are like Emma. Just like Emma. Do you understand?"

He could only hope they would spare her long enough for him to save her. Even as he hoped desperately, he knew hope was a foolish endeavor. It just left you more vulnerable.

She did not really understand. He had never told her what it meant to be Emma. He did not even know if she understood being his might save her, or if she knew in what way he meant it, and did not mean it. His hand shook, but he kept it in the air, waiting - pleading. He knew it was her choice. He knew he could not make her and he saw her hesitation; she surely knew that it was the Dark Mark. Something her father, and Devlin's father, and everyone else in her life, detested. Then she snatched it up, and clung to it with white knuckles.

"You should come with us," she said, but the words were empty. Her desire was plain, but so was her knowledge that he would refuse. He shook his head and somehow she knew - knew he needed to hear it. "I will say I am yours. I won't freeze, Devlin. Not even in front of him. I promise."

She should be running past him, but she was still staring at him. He heard a crackk and felt it in the stones of the castle; the internal wards were actively being attacked. She still needed something, and he did not know what.

"I promise not to die," he said.

Andrew made a keening sort of whine at the mention of death. He was pale and looked as if he might be sick. Maria nodded.

"Pretend it is a game," she said. "Everything after a game washes off."

Luis Weasley was rushing toward them from the end of the hall, calling out to students to get to the "nearest dormitory". Devlin felt when his eyes landed on them. Maria turned to see him.

"You better run now," she said - so calmly, so casually - so matter of factly, that it made him feel like all his blood was leaving him through his toes. He felt light and airy; it felt like his soul wanted something entirely different than what his brain and heart knew must happen. Her brilliant blue eyes were locked on his green, burning with determination. "Run!"

Luis was almost there.

Almost.

He couldn't leave her.

Almost.

He-

Luis' hand clasped onto Maria's shoulder, and he could hear him shouting as though through a tunnel, at him. Maria reached out desperately and shoved him.

Blood rushed back into him like a powerful wave. He turned deftly on his feet and raced away from them. His only chance of protecting her would be from the other side. Everyone else would do what they could from here - in their white coats. Devlin would be the Little Dark One, and if she came to his side, he would save her there.

OoOoOoO

Suspicion was one thing.

He had suspected this would happen. Not just hours ago. Not just days ago. Not for months or even a year.

He had suspected for a long time that Voldemort would attack Hogwarts.

Devlin only added to the enticing allure.

Harry had anticipated information - whispers, peeps, anything from his vast network of informants. Not even Dumbledore had heard anything - and his web was finer and older than Harry's. Silence. It was deafening. Just this morning Alexandra had said it was highly implausible for him to take what he had acquired from Thatcher alone and be able to dismantle the wards. 'He will come for me next,' she had said, factually. Because the team tasked to ward Hogwarts had purposefully broken the information into pieces; none could work on them alone because none of them had all the information. Alexandra, as the most protected person of the whole team, held the majority of the pieces.

Voldemort had been faster than them all. He had taken a small piece of the puzzle and almost immediately worked out the rest. In some ways, as the father to his grandson, Harry was unsurprised at his sheer genius when it came to magic. In true form, he did not wait to plan an attack but rushed head first. He dismantled the wards around the outer part of Hogwarts - the ones that specifically kept him out - as easily as he might have snapped the neck of a delivery owl whose message annoyed him.

Harry was in the muggle trousers and knit sweater he had been wearing at home. Dinner was growing cold on the stove. Emma was likely crying into Molly Weasley's shoulder, along with half a dozen other Order member's children. Even he did not know the safe house she and Author would have taken them too.

And all Harry could think of was Devlin and Death.

OoOoOoO

He was running, his breath heaving in his chest, his heart so fast and shallow behind his ribcage that he could hardly perceive where one pulse began and the next ended. His body pounded with the weight and quickness of his body and his thoughts.

There is no turning back now, he thought. It was not the first time, nor the last time, he would think that. He found himself chanting as he did when he was a child: Nothing here, Nothing there, nothing, nothing, nothing. Don't think. Don't feel. Just do what has to be done.

He clamored down the stairs - two or three steps at a time - and then raced across the expanse of the Great Hall. Outside, the air smelled like sizzling magic - charged and electric - biting at the back of his throat as he dragged it in through his nose.

There was a dome of blue-veined magic above his head - encasing Hogwarts. The professors, Aurors, and Order members, had their wands raised. Outside he could see them - like dark pillars of a jail, surrounding them and attacking. He did not see Voldemort - but that did not mean Voldemort did not see him.

He knew he had to go to him. It was always the same. Harry wouldn't kill him, Voldemort always would. Besides, he had an idea.

He clung to the shadows, trying to find someplace that would have a good vantage point. He knew he had to wait until the wards had broken before he could get to Voldemort.

"I thought we had decided you had outgrown your foolishness." His voice was like water rushing over polished obsidian, and his narrowed eyes were like tunnels of the same stone - somehow even darker at his pupils. His wand was pointed, his cloak still blending with the shadow he had just stepped out from. Devlin reached for his wand holster. "Do not offend me by drawing your wand."

"Then put yours down."

"Do not speak to me as though you are anything but a foolish dunderheaded child."

"I could-"

"You could do much, and I can do more." The wand was so steady that not even the shriek of the wards crumbling made it sway. Devlin could not help himself, he looked to the side, eyes drawn toward the chaos.

Battle came sweeping toward them - like a black, ominous wave. Light against dampening darkness, a flame flickering stubbornly.

Severus' face was grim.

"Bellatrix has a real necklace," he said. He did not know who else to tell, and death seemed on everyone's doorstep. "You should know."

Snape looked at him, each of their body's tense and ready for battle. Magic pulsed around them - pulling and pushing, singeing the air with the taste of lightning. Spells ricochet off the blue of shields, blood pooled onto the green lush grass of the campus. The flame flickered. The shadow's danced away and came back with hunger.

"The snake is one. When the time is near, he will know what Harry has done and seek to keep it protected. It can be killed only with the most powerful of magic or an object imbued with basilisk venom - a fang, or the Gryffindor sword."

Devlin realized that they were sharing their missions.

"Will that be all of them?"

"That is all we can do," Snape said.

The chaos reached them. Devlin knew he would need to get to Voldemort, but for a little bit he allowed Snape to pretend to keep him safe. There was a comfort in the flow of Severus' robes, billowing around him as he turned and lashed out against anyone who might harm Devlin.

Because, in some odd, very distant, strange way - Severus Snape loved him; if only because he was an extension of Lily Potter.

It was her scream that made him leave the comfort of Severus' protection. Even though he could not recall a time he had ever heard her scream, let alone howl with pain, he recognized the sound instantly. His body maneuvered itself through the crowd with a fluidness and viciousness he had not known he owned. In Hogsmeade he had avoided using his wand unless absolutely necessary - now it sliced and jabbed through the air almost deftly. He felt, more than he ever had, like a young Tom Riddle; so masterfully aware of the way in which his magic could hurt and over power those around him.

And the power; it ricocheted in his heart, pumped like a searing burn through his blood, and ignited in his muscles. He felt it in his brain like something both buoyant yet sharp. By the time he reached her, it had consumed him.

He aimed his wand at her heart.

"She is mine."

His voice carried across the space, intercepting their argument. Voldemort's only female Death Eater looked at him with a regard all-together different than Voldemort's only daughter.

Bellatrix barked with laughter. His mother was telling him to run. Devlin looked at her only long enough to see that her wounds were not life-threatening.

"My, my, the little dark one has his little wand pointed at me. How terrifying. I'm as white as a ghost! Are you having fun, Devlin?"

"Not yet. Would you like to entertain me?"

He took an advancing step, his wand still level with her heart, her own still aimed at his mother. His mother was still, caught in the middle. Devlin was not yet in danger, yet he could see her urge to protect him above herself as much as her logic to protect herself if he did not need her protection. She was not blinded by emotions, although he knew she felt them just as powerfully as his father.

Bellatrix seemed both enthralled and hesitant. Her teeth flashed with a sudden smile.

"I always want to play with you," she said, something like excitement bubbling up in her eyes, while something like insanity burned like a flame behind it. She took a step forward, but her wand remained on his mother.

Somehow, Devlin knew it was him - his hair, his eyes, his face - which enticed her more than his power or his annoyance. When she looked at him, she missed all the parts that belonged to Potter. She saw only Tom Riddle.

And she hungered.

It made every bit of his insides wince and take frighted flight - like a murder of crows rising as one into the air.

His wand stayed on her heart, and she smiled at it - amused and enraged and all the chaotic emotions that fueled her strange, crazed, mind.

She was closer to him now. He could have lunged forward and reached for her. She could have lunged forward and grabbed him.

At the same moment that Alexandra jumped forward and grabbed her own wand from the ground, rolling back onto her feet with a fluidity Devlin had not known she had - Devlin felt a hand around his chest. His mother's eyes widened and her wand, aimed automatically on Bellatrix, wavered - unsure where to be.

Devlin did not need to see the fear in his mother's eyes to know who it was behind him. He smelled like charged ion, like an impending destructive storm, but also like old paper and clean linen and the coppery scent of blood. Power, power, power reverberated from his very being, overwhelming Devlin's senses like a potent perfume that was meant to conceal a poisonous gas.

"Devlin." His voice was soft, fluid, and charming. His hand dragged, claw-like, across Devlin's chest as he moved to be at Devlin's side; it stopped on his shoulder, nails sinking in. Devlin peered up at the side of his face, full of caution and heady on the power, power, power that undulated like a poison from him.

His face was smooth and sharp, high cheek bones and a mouth that seemed perpetually set in something between thoughtful and amused. His dark hair seemed undisturbed by battle - a little mussed but still falling so perfectly. His eyes, not red, but a deep green that matched Devlin's own - staring with curiosity at his mother.

His daughter.

Standing this close to them both, Devlin could see that she had his nose. His cheekbones - but they were different on her feminine face.

"Devlin has always felt very strongly about your safety."

A lure. A trap.

For him? For her?

Had Voldemort not believed he would come to him of his own accord?

Fear coiled like Nagini around him, hissing in his blood, slithering in his stomach.

Alexandra said nothing. Her wand stayed on Bellatrix. Perhaps she dare not provoke Voldemort, perhaps she knew she could not win, perhaps-

Stop thinking!

Here, here, here!

It was strange how quickly all his childish strategies came back to him.

His sharpness lurked and prowled, but now it housed that piece of him, and Devlin was hesitant to let it take control.

"Yes, he's expressed that to me before," she said, after a moment. Her eyes were hard. Her voice was logical - distant, emotionless, factual. "Devlin has also told me you feel strongly about his life."

Voldemort peered at her, bemused in a demented sort of way. There was a curiosity there too - a hunger. A knot.

His mother. Voldemort's daughter.

It was not good to remind Voldemort that Devlin had a mother who had not abandoned him, even if it had, in Voldemort's mother's case, been against her will. It did not sit well to show him that Devlin's mother was stronger than his own.

Voldemort had to believe that he was the difference in Devlin's ability. That everything that made Devlin strong came from being around him and away from the kinds of people who had been part of Voldemort's childhood; muggles, mainly.

So Devlin lifted his wand and he hoped his eyes betrayed himself to her alone.

A simple shout, hurled powerfully across the chaos, and she was disarmed.

Her wand flew into his grasp and he pocketed it. There were plenty of wands around here on the fallen - and she was, regardless, protected. He aimed his wand at Bellatrix now.

"She's disarmed. Now you put yours down and we can all move along." Voldemort's green gaze turned to him, curious and contemplative. "We have more fun things to do, don't we?"

He said it in the voice Voldemort had always like best - the one he knew now sounded most like Tom Riddle.

Voldemort smirked. A simple motion of his hand, almost dismissive, and Bellatrix unhappily lowered her wand.

"Indeed."

OoOoOoOoO

His magic wound it's way around him - like something physical he could feel slithering against his skin. It made him chest shake, and his jaw clamp tight, and his fingers curl like a vice-grip around his wand. It was freeing and constricting all at once.

His body moved with the fluidity he had mastered with dueling, his mind almost detached from the physical dangers around him. Parry, strike, duck - repeat. The world spun as he spun, raced beneath him as he hurled himself across the landscape, and swept like a blizzard of browns and grays and blacks at the sides of his vision.

In Hogsmeade he had been terrified to raise his wand. Today, there was no space for fear to control him. Today he would not be: the Little Dark One, Lord Voldemort's heir, the sharpness, Harry or Alexandra's Devlin, Emma's Devy, or Severus' foolish boy. Today, he would be him. All of him. There was time for nothing less than everything.

This time, his wand stayed out.

OoOoOoO

Devlin's head pulsed with an uncommon uncomfortable pressure. On the battlefield his world had felt narrow and inflexible. His choices had been fueled only through the slender and distinct need for survival. Now, as his mind opened and his muscles trembled with fatigue, his world widened again.

He was struck not only by the past, and the tremulous present, but of the terrifying future which seemed to span out before him - wide and dark and frightening. His thoughts mingled, united, impregnated, and broke off. Silence left place for doubt to plant its seed; rooting and developing. Growing strong enough to conquer him.

He will come.

Voldemort had declared it softly, like a curse whispered into the wind to be brought upon it's victim. There had been murmurs of respectful agreement around him, but Devlin had stayed silent. The dark expanse of the forbidden forest had felt like it would swallow him whole.

But surely, Harry Potter would not be foolish enough to come.

Surely, he would see that this was a trap. That Voldemort was cheating. Playing Harry so that he knew Harry could not win. Stacking the odds against him. Surely, he would not believe Voldemort - that he had hidden behind Wizard's greater than himself.

Because Devlin had seen Harry Potter the Warrior before, and it was greatness. He had seen Harry Potter the Father before, and it was unfathomable. He had seen Harry Potter the friend, and he did not hide.

He had seen Harry Potter the Savior and if anyone would come, it would be him. He was unrelenting and sacrificial.

Devlin silently wished, and pleaded, and prayed to the muggle god his mother had spoken of when he had been a small boy - that Harry Potter would not come. He forced himself to find that part of himself which 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. Each time he looked, it was easier to find. Him. Just him. Whole - all his flaws stitched together with his own sinew.

In the end, neither hope nor a muggle god was strong enough to keep Harry Potter away.

When he came, he did not look like Harry the Warrior, or Harry the Father, or Harry the Friend, or even Harry the Savior. He looked like just a man - wild black hair, eyes the color of emeralds, face too bruised and beaten to call handsome or homely. His fists were clenched with determination, eyes aflame with life, and face set with a certainty that must be coming from his heart.

For a moment he merely stood there, silent; as if he were no surrounded by Death Eater's or faced with Lord Voldemort. His eyes casually searched the clearing until they found Devlin. Instantly, he smiled; the smile that was always, and would always be, just for Devlin. For a moment every kind of Harry Potter breathed to life in his green green eyes.

"Harry Potter," Lord Voldemort said, a bare whisper that nevertheless seemed to reverberate around them. The trees seemed to rattle with anticipation, the wind still with caution, and the stars seemed to alight in the sky as though peering in with curiosity. Harry's eyes were drawn away from Devlin, becoming something less again.

"Hello, Tom."

He said it casually, as though Voldemort were not important at all.

Fury flamed in Lord Voldemort's eyes, but Harry's remained as they had been - full of a passive sort of determination. And then those eyes snuck away from Voldemort to search for him once more.

"Devlin," he breathed. His body rocked forward, as if he meant to rush to embrace him, but his feet remained rooted to the spot, pulling his torso back again. "Devlin. You should not be here. I did not want you to be here."

That chasm opened up again in his chest and emotions swept from inside of him to fill it.

"I should be here," he said, and the anger he felt was not just for Voldemort's benefit; if this was meant to happen, then he was meant to witness. He, the embodiment of both these men. He, one more reason they had to fight. He, who belonged to both, yet to neither. He needed to see it happen. "I deserve to see this."

Harry said nothing and Devlin could only hope he understood. He looked back to Voldemort, the everything in his eyes vanishing.

"At least this time, I should hope I will not be required to make you stand up straight," Voldemort said, his voice toxic with cruelty, his wand twitching in his hand.

Harry's body was in no way ready for a duel, but Devlin was not yet concerned. Harry liked to play things casual with Voldemort. Liked to call him Tom, liked to speak to him softly and slowly, liked to pretend the monster was the man he had abandoned decades ago.

So Devlin readied himself; for the explosions, for the curses, for the finale. He could only hope that Nagini was the last Horcrux and that Harry's team had a plan for the snake slithering nearby. Perhaps they were sneaking through the trees at the very moment. Devlin stifled the urge to look around.

Harry's shoulders should be tensing. His muscles should be drawing in and preparing to strike out. His wand should be rising. His eyes narrowing on his target. His lips opening to utter some unfathomably powerful curse or hex or jinx.

Instead, he was still. His chest moved rhythmically in calm deep breathes. His shoulders hung loosely. His wand remained in his holster.

"There will be no dueling, Tom."

Devlin thought that Voldemort was as shocked as he. The silence was almost deafening. Voldemort's magic plumed around him, like a leaking gas line that made everything reek.

"What is the meaning of this?" His lip was curled in distain and there was a regard on his handsome aristocratic face that Devlin knew on his own - fury.

"There is no hidden meaning, Tom. There will be no more dueling." He said it almost kindly.

"So you have come to your death," Voldemort spat, and Devlin knew there was an element on his face of disgust and incomprehension. That anyone could come to their death willingly. That Harry would not fight for his life.

The blood in Devlin's body was hot and poisonous, rising and rushing and pulsing. His head thumped. His muscles contracted. His vision swam. But he stayed there, stayed here; his body was unable to fully lapse into a seizure. He had never found himself so grateful yet so mournful of his potions than in that moment.

Voldemort raised his wand.

Devlin could not look away from Harry Potter, and Harry Potter's green eyes suddenly swerved to his own; those Killing Curse green eyes focused on him unwaveringly.

Voldemort's lips parted.

Harry Potter's lips stayed closed.

Devlin could feel the magic moving around Voldemort in great waves, but every bit of fight was gone from Harry Potter. Devlin felt numb.

"Avada"

Devlin watched his father, unable to look away. There was something in his hand that he dropped; Devlin's gaze almost followed the object to the ground, but there was a look in his father's own gaze that he translated as: please pretend that didn't exist. Devlin did not see how he could go against a man's last wish, so he brought his eyes up to Harry's face instead.

He wanted to see everything in him, that war, that wide expanse, those many scars that he had managed to piece together, before death took it all away.

A last wish…

Devlin had thought he could do it. He had thought he would be able to allow whatever was meant to happen, to happen.

He had thought there would be a fight.

Nagini slithered around the edges of the clearing, a soft reminder that Voldemort was still immortal.

Devlin cannot do this. He cannot just watch Harry willingly murdered.

Something rash filled his gut, and he made to throw himself toward Voldemort. The words were on the tip of his tongue. He could, at the very least, make Voldemort hesitate.

Perhaps he could make Voldemort turn against him. He could claim to have told Potter about the Horcruxes.

If Voldemort turned against him, Harry Potter would surely fight.

Instead he was frozen. There was an apologetic look in his father's eyes and the softest of his magic around Devlin's whole body. Keeping him there. Keeping him up.

Devlin did not understand. Harry wanted to die. It was incomprehensible. He felt numb all over.

"Kadava."

There was a rush of green light that hit Harry straight in the chest. He fell down, like a marionette that has just had it's strings cut. Dead.

He looked so much like James Potter, sprawled in the hallway.

The energy was so intense that it backfired on Voldemort, and he staggered backward onto his hands and knees to escape it. Devlin was doubly reminded of that first night - of the way Harry Potter had been thrown back in his crib and Voldemort's curse had rebounded on himself. But he was not dead, or torn apart. His spirit did not leave his body. He was just breathless.

Devlin felt as though he should have fallen down too, but he is still standing. Frozen. Alive.

How strange, to exist while Harry lay there gone. It felt surreal. Implausible. Impossible. Abnormal.

"Astoria," Voldemort called out, after he had managed to dismiss Bellatrix and stand on his feet again, "check him."

Devlin was only surprised he did not ask him. Was it borne out of some sort of kindness or did he not completely trust Devlin? Astoria emerged from the crowd of Death Eater's. She was shaking with terror, her dark hair all out of place. She went to the body, leaning over and checking the pulse in his neck and then in his wrist, and then at his neck again - as though she were afraid to have made a mistake.

"Dead," she declared - softly. Of course Voldemort did not take her word for it. Devlin could practically feel the Legilimency magic in the air. Astoria fell onto her knees, holding her head between her hands even as Voldemort's wandless magic kept her looking at him. He realized that Voldemort picked the weakest member - a young women who had never really made anything of herself except a simpering trophy wife. She could not protect herself against him and her mind meant nothing to him. If there had been any space in him, Devlin would have felt sorry for Scorpius.

Voldemort laughed with cruel glee as Astoria fell to the ground, her nose bleeding so profusely that it soaked into the dirt.

"I have defeated Harry Potter."

He said it as though declaring it to Fate and Death alike, laughing in their faces.

For a moment, and the first time in a long time, Devlin was nothing, nothing, nothing. Numb. He was not his sharpness. He was not the little dark one. He was not Devlin Potter or Emma's Devy. He was not even Snape's 'foolish boy'. He was nothing. Nothing good, nothing bad - nothing.

Harry Potter was dead.

Harry Potter had left him with Voldemort.

He realized, in that moment, that even as a small boy he had never completely given up on Harry looking for him. Because now, that hope washed out of him as though it had been the one flickering flame keeping him alive this whole time.

Harry Potter was gone.

Voldemort lifted his wand and Harry Potter's body rose into the air, as limp as a doll.

A/N: So we end here. Cannon Sounds will have been updated at the same time, so you'll have a double dose of chapters! I'm really glad I could get this one finished out for you in time! I hope I'll have one more update for you after this on Cannon Sounds - but I am having my first baby in January, and it'll probably be at least a month before I have time to write again afterwards. :-)

I'd love some reviews!