You don't want require. You want do. Quoting perlfunc:

do 'stat.pl'; is just like scalar eval `cat stat.pl`; except that it's more efficient and concise, keeps track of the current filename for error messages, searches the @INC libraries, and updates %INC if the file is found.

Assuming some_code.pl is

die +{ foo => 1 };
[download]

you can easily test that it does what you want:

do 'some_code.pl';
print ref $@ if $@;

=output

HASH
[download]

You should not fiddle with pointers. What if a future revision somewhere in a different place, likely made by a different maintainer who is not aware of your trickery, undoes the guarantee for the hash's refcount? There's a reason that module is in the Devel:: namespace. I'd be wary of any production code that uses it.

Makeshifts last the longest.