This wasn't training. This was target practice.

Harry tightened his grip on his wand, which had been given back to him when he'd entered the arena. His heart rate rose as adrenaline kicked in, his senses sharpening with an instinct honed from years of surviving the Dark Lord.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Snape's eyes dart around the enclosed battle area, as though gauging prospects for an escape. It was an action the shrewd man had been repeating ever since he'd also received his wand… and it was utterly pointless, given how heavily warded the arena's glass walls were.

Unlike the rest of the Potter Manor's silver and red decor, the arena was clear and colorless save for the white, high-arching ceiling above. The sunlight streaming in from a large window reflected off of the white ceiling, brightening every corner of the arena. It was vastly different from the dimly-lit rings reserved for Voldemort's Death Eaters.

The watchful crowd of Order members outside the arena was quiet, attentive, waiting… a far cry from the boisterous, crude audience present at Harry's duel against Snape. There were far less of them as well, their numbers undoubtedly dwindled further by Voldemort's ranks.

And as Moody had announced earlier, this was merely supposed to be some "introductory dueling practice" for the new Order members. No stakes at all.

So why did everything about this situation make him feel so much more on edge?

Harry's gaze wandered across the gaunt faces outside before widening abruptly. Two redheaded brothers who looked eerily like Fred and George Weasley were staring right at him, their expressions filled with such burning hatred that his breath caught.

Harry looked away, only to find that same hatred present among the others.

It was not the cold, callous contempt Death Eaters reserved for their victims, passing them around the dinner table like mere playthings (quite literally). It was an intense, burning sort of fury, filled with accusations and deadly promises, as if he had personally done something to them.

Harry bit his lower lip nervously, shuddering as a chill swept across his limbs.

It was like they were waiting for him to lose in the most painful way possible. As if they were readying to relish in his imminent defeat—

"So," Harry muttered, turning his gaze away from the flurry of faces outside. The glass was too clear, the arena almost painfully bright; he rather preferred the dim lighting of the Death Eaters' battle gym. "Do we have a game plan?"

Snape sneered, not even deigning to glance at him. "Survive. Win," he said shortly.

Harry bit his tongue before a corresponding, " No shit, " could slip out.

But there was no time for him to respond anyways, because Snape was throwing the first spell—a diffindo aimed straight for James's neck, incidentally—and all hell seemed to break loose from there.

James dodged, somersaulting ("Effin show-off," yelled someone lightheartedly from outside, making the others chuckle), as Sirius leapt in front of him, casting a Shield Charm that deflected Snape's diffindo.

James rolled his eyes. "Thanks, mate, but I think I can handle him on my own."

The former Black heir hadn't paid his best mate any attention. He was glaring furiously at Snape, the tip of his wand buzzing with an unnameable, chaotic energy.

"If you wanted to go straight to Azkaban, Snivellus, you should have just said so!"

With those words, Sirius tossed a leg locking spell. Snape deflected and cast the stunning spell followed by an Incarcerous, both of which Sirius dodged.

Snape sneered. "The only one who belongs in Azkaban is you lot, for all those ridiculous dangerous pranks you got away with. "

Sirius gave a small huff of laughter as James, back on his feet, began to fire spells at Snape as well.

"Oh, says the one who practiced Dark Magic within school walls!" James retorted, driving Snape back with a blasting curse.

Their duel continued, two against one, with Snape holding his own for a while.

Meanwhile, Harry had his own battle to focus on. After all, Lily's wand hadn't left Harry's form for a moment.

"Incarcerous, Petrificus Totalus, Locomotor Mortis, " The redhead threw spells in quick succession.

She approached duelling the way one might approach potions-brewing: methodical and precise.

Lily's wand always pointed straight at Harry's chest, her unfailingly accurate aim forcing him to shield repeatedly when dodging didn't suffice. What her spells and duelling form lacked in fluidity and speed, they made up in sheer power… perhaps more power than anyone else's in the arena besides Harry's.

And the spells she tended to cast? Rather mainstream, more defensive than offensive.

"Expelliarmus! " Lily tossed back at Harry after deflecting his Stupefy.

"Lily!" Moody barked from across the arena. "What have I told you about overusing the disarming spell?"

In response, Lily clenched her jaw stubbornly and threw another Expelliarmus . Harry sniggered—oh my, what a rebel his mother was—and tossed the same spell back. Twice in a row.

Lily quirked her eyebrows at him, a smile ghosting across her lips, as if to say, Oh really?

Harry smirked back, raising his eyebrows smugly and wordlessly retorting, Bet.

... To everyone's horror, they continued casting only the disarming spell at each other for another minute. Because apparently, they had the same weird sense of humor too.

And when their eyes met, they couldn't help but smile despite everything… unaware of how eerily identical their expressions were.

That was when it struck Harry.

Dueling Lily… was like dueling himself.

"Ridiculous!" Moody growled from the sidelines. "This is practice, not a circus act. Change spells this instant —"

And as for Mad-Eye Moody…

Harry allowed his eyes to wander as he dodged a passing Tarantallegra.

Moody wasn't even in the picture. He was standing away from everyone else, teaching and telling the audience, "Notice how Snape went straight for the offensive. When dealing with such Dark spells, it's better to dodge because deflecting takes a lot of power…"

In actuality, it was a much fairer duel than Harry had anticipated. Three against two… with the team of two being Snape and Harry, older (in his case) and far more seasoned.

No offense to his parents, but it should have been an easy victory for Team Death Eaters.

So why, Harry wondered, was it taking them so long to win?

With a newfound determination buzzing in him, he began to twist his wand in faster, more efficient movements. His nimble wrists—the same ones that had caught him the snitch so many times— flickered spells at a speed most people could not keep up with.

And most people, in this instant, happened to include his dear future mother.

He blasted her back with a quick succession of spells. James and Sirius realized that Lily was losing and tried to help her, shifting their focus from Snape to Harry.

But it was too late. His own, phoenix-core wand was preparing to cast the final blow—a simple Stupefy, just enough to secure a victory on Harry's side—

A Shield Charm cast over Lily's form deflected Harry's stunning spell , and a succession of spells followed by a nicely-aimed Expelliarmus had Harry's wand flying from his grasp.

Wide-eyed, Harry turned in the direction of where those spells had come from. Because they certainly hadn't been cast by Lily…nor by James or Sirius, who looked just as disoriented as he probably did.

Snape stared back at Harry, frozen… the phoenix-core wand dangling from his other hand. His expression was surprised to the point of total blankness, as if he'd acted unthinkingly, unconsciously, unaware of his own self-condemning actions.

Because right as Harry had been about to win, Snape had defended Lily.

Harry stared back at Snape incredulously. What. The. Fuck.

Lily stared at her unwitting savior as well, bewildered, softly murmuring, "Severus?"

That was when Snape snapped out of it. He threw Harry's wand back at him with a rather poorly-aimed throw that forced Harry to dive for the ground to catch it. Shit, that was going to cost him an extra few seconds.

And in those extra few seconds, the tables turned completely.

Everything went downhill from there.

James and Lily ganged up on Harry, who had just gotten up after catching his wand. And while Harry was certainly fast enough to dodge a single spell at a time, quick enough to return a volley of offensive spells, he was only barely keeping up.

From time to time, James would switch over and throw a spell at Snape.

Sirius's attention, however, was fully-on focused on Snape now. He was bearing down on the shaken man more than ever, taking advantage of Snape's distracted state. Because loyalty to Voldemort and loyalty to Lily Evans were mutually exclusive; Snape had to be questioning himself right now. Harry was certainly questioning him…

Sirius caught Snape with a tripping jinx that had the sallow-faced man tripping over his own, swishy cloak. He lay on the ground, breathing heavily, but not getting up.

Snape was not getting up.

Harry gritted his teeth as he put up another Shield Charm, too winded to dodge every spell now. He tried to make his way over to Snape, as if he could help him up, defend him,anything…

Get the fuck up, Severus Snape.

When Snape remained on the ground, Sirius and James snorted simultaneously.

"Look, Sirius, the big bat tripped over his wings!" James called out with a smirk, throwing a blasting spell at Harry with an annoying air of casualness. As if arrogantly assuming victory was already theirs.

Sirius strutted over, his booted heels clicking over the concrete as they settled right next to Snape's fallen form.

"At least it wasn't over his great big nose ," Sirius retorted gleefully. His eyes darkened with a vicious sort of hunger, gaining that same mad glint Harry had only seen once before… back in the Potter dungeons, when he'd burned scars into Harry's wrists with iron-hot chains…

And then Harry thought he heard a sickening crack, like the breaking of bones, followed by his future Potions professor's pained moan.

Harry tensed, unable to tear his eyes from his current opponents even as he clenched his jaw uneasily.

What kind of spell had Sirius used on Snape, to make him to release that kind of sound…?

He threw a series of Impediment jinxes at Lily and James as he backed away, trying to steer closer to Snape. The raucous cheering outside the arena drowned out any other noises to the point that he couldn't hear the names of the spells being thrown at him. From here on out, dueling was purely a matter of instinct.

But then he heard another gruesome crunch, and then this time, a blood-curdling scream.

This time, Harry gave in blasted a powerful spell in his future parents' direction and gave in to the urge to check on his dueling companion.

When Harry's eyes finally fell upon Snape, he paused in horror… forgetting how to breathe.

Sirius was kicking the fallen, completely helpless man. He was mocking Snape, throwing insults at his downtrodden enemy that drove the crowd outside wild . Not with bloodthirsty excitement, but with a quiet, vindictive sort of approval that only egged Sirius on further.

"... And that's for raping Marlene!" Sirius snarled, the heel of his boot grinding into Snape's broken shoulder.

Snape hadn't gotten up all of this time. He had lain still upon the concrete, not fighting back as Sirius continued to abuse him.

But now, he opened one of his puffed up eyes and spoke back.

"That wasn't me, " Snape uttered, his voice hoarse but otherwise calm. Eerily blank. "That was…"

He broke off into a fit of coughs as Sirius's heel pressed against his throat.

Lily, who had also stopped dueling when Harry, was staring at Sirius as well.

" Sirius, " Lily cried, her eyebrows furrowing. "You need to stop. Stop. Stop. Stop... " Her voice trailed off, her eyes still wide with the same horror Harry felt. She looked oddly frail.

James wrapped an arm around his wife, his hand clenching on her shoulder as he looked at Sirius.

"Mate," he said sternly, but with an unmistakable undercurrent of… nervousness? "Padfoot. Control yourself. You've gone too far."

Moody was saying something as well, his gaze trained on Sirius's form… but it was all camouflaged by the crowd, which telling Sirius to, "Kick him harder, " because "Serves him right, that greasy snake bastard… "

Sirius, as usual, wasn't listening. It seemed he only had ears for the praise and approval of the crowd.

"Oh?" He uttered, his voice calm and dangerous. Sirius applied more pressure with his heel, threatening to crush his windpipes. "Well, then. This is for calling Lily a mudblood —"

Snape flinched.

"—and for dragging Regulus down with you, corrupting him and converting him as revenge against us —"

Snape snarled furiously at that, his ugly, bruised face twisting into something even uglier. "Not everything is about you —!"

He broke off, screaming as Sirius shattered another one of Snape's ribs, his eyes rolling back into his head.

And then something ignited in Harry, something that had laid dormant for so many years. An irrepressible fury licked down his spine, sparking something deep within him.

Harry gritted his teeth and pointed his wand at Sirius, shooting a blasting curse at him.

It hit Sirius directly in the chest, right where Bellatrix's killing curse would hit his godfather in the future.

But as Sirius was shot back from Snape's form, Harry found he couldn't focus on anything except the way he'd been acting moments before, the way he'd treated Snape and the vicious glint in his eyes… and then thinking back on all the moments Sirius had treated them like this, from the moment they'd been captured.

Had Harry been blind all these years?

Had Sirius always been this rash, immature, stubborn… this cruel ?

Sirius was staring back at Harry, paying attention to him for the first time since he'd entered the arena. And like clockwork, Harry found himself clinging to that attention, wanting those piercing gray eyes to stay on him despite hating himself for it.

Harry shook his head in denial, even as he strained himself for an answer, an explanation.

This— this attention. Was this perhaps the reason he'd been so blind? Seeking a parental figure's attention, his own godfather's attention… all while remaining completely blind to the man's true nature?

Sirius let loose a dark, amused chuckle, and this time, Harry found himself tensing in response, waiting for the moment the other man struck.

" Incarcerous, " Sirius muttered lowly, imperiously, and with a haughty flick of his wand, ropes were chasing after Harry.

Harry cast an incineration spell at the incoming ropes, burning them before they could touch him, and then they were off, casting jinx upon hex at each other.

There were some things he noticed up-close about Sirius when he fought, characteristics he hadn't been able to see earlier.

Sirius had always been expressive… but here, dueling him, it was clearer than ever.

He always dueled with a taunting smirk on his face, making sure to maintain eye contact with his opponent as much as possible. And the way he looked at his opponent the entire time, looking down on them like they didn't stand a chance… it was distracting, disturbing. It made something in Harry clench, something in him determined to win andwipe that smirk off—

If dueling was merely a psych game, Sirius might have won by now. Because he talked the same exact way too… goading.

"I don't know why we bothered restraining you, you can't fight for shit."

"Were you dropped as a child or were you born with that ugly scar?"

"Where'd you find that wand, a muggle grocery store?"

Harry's jaw ticked irritably at that. " Costco, actually," he sarcastically replied, which only seemed to further encourage Sirius's generally infuriating commentary.

But the other man's body language was at odds with his casual goading. It spoke of a hard, clear determination to win. Sirius tossed spells at Harry relentlessly, backing him into a corner.

Harry couldn't even focus properly. He was barely holding his own because his mind was all over the place. Snape, oh god was he okay ?

And then one worry led into another.

Regulus—where was Regulus? Fuck, Teddy. His amulet, Harry needed it, he couldn't just leave without it even if he managed to find an escape. Because who knows where Teddy had been placed now that Harry had been captured? Maybe the Dark Lord had locked him up… and Harry's only chance of finding Teddy was through the magic he'd imbued into that green-eyed snake amulet… fuck, the amulet…

In short, Harry was thoroughly distracted.

He barely noticed when Sirius disarmed him with an ease that should have put him to shame, finally putting a victorious end to a duel… the crowd cheering as "good" prevailed over "evil."

He didn't notice when Lily helped Snape up, bringing him to conscious, or when everyone started filing out and he merely followed along.

Harry was suddenly, inexplicably overwhelmed, as if everything from the past few months had come crashing down on him, hitting him. It was all finally registering—that this wasn't some long nightmare, but reality.

Harry truly was a Death Eater, hated by everyone in the Order. And what Sirius had done to Snape, with almost no repercussions, could easily happen to him at any moment. For the first time since he'd been captured by the Order, he felt unsafe.

Dumbledore accepting the three of them with open arms, sparing them a lifetime in Azkaban… it hadn't been mercy, because it hadn't even been real.

As the kitchen bubbled with noise during the short snack break, Harry curled into himself on a chair away from everyone else. He should have been actively searching for Regulus, checking on Snape, doing anything else except succumbing to the panic within him right now—

"So, I presume you were a Slytherin at Hogwarts?" Sirius said casually, popping out of nowhere to strike up conversation.

Harry stared at him silently, uncomprehendingly.

Sirius merely raised his eyebrows in question, a wordlessly expectant, Well?

Instead of answering, another memory of a similar situation came to Harry's mind.

"So you were a Gryffindor right?" Sirius said, slugging an arm around Harry's shoulders.

"What's wrong with being a Hufflepuff?" Harry asked innocently, before breaking into laughter as a wide-eyed Sirius began to stumble over apologies.

Harry huffed softly in amusement, fondly remembering.

But Sirius only tilted his head, misinterpreting his good humor. His smile dipped into something more menacing. "I thought so. Your fondness for snakes couldn't have come from anywhere else…"

Harry blinked, still disoriented, and frowned at Sirius.

"Just because I'm a parselmouth doesn't mean I like snakes."

Sirius raised his eyebrows once more, leaning towards Harry and speaking in low tones.

"Oh, I wasn't speaking of the living kind."

Harry froze in confusion. What other kind of snake could he possibly be…?

"Won't be needing that anymore…"

Harry's eyes widened.

The amulet.

In an instant, Harry had stood up, rounding on Sirius and grabbing him by the neck of his shirt.

"The amulet!" he cried. "You have it, don't you? Give it. Give it to me. " There was a panicked, almost hysterical note to his voice, but Harry couldn't have calmed down if he tried, that amulet was Teddy, that amulet was everything

Sirius pried Harry's hands off of him, sneering down at him in disgust. "Oh, as if I would willingly hand you a portkey."

Harry tackled him.

He leapt for the man's neck, bringing them both down to the floor. People began exclaiming around them, shooting spells at Harry. Others tried to stop all the commotion, reasoning that casting at Harry might hurt Sirius instead—

But magic was doing something strange in Potter Manor, and suddenly, Harry and Sirius's entangled forms found themselves in a completely different area of the residence.

They were on the floor of a bedroom upstairs, the window overlooking a luscious garden that seemed to stretch for miles.

"You crazy bastard," Sirius wondered out loud, his voice slightly faint. "You apparated us. How'd you even break through the wards…?"

" Where is it? " Harry hissed, because he wasn't paying attention to anything except where the amulet could possibly be. "Is it on you?"

Harry began to check.

"I'm not—crazy fucker, stop groping me." And with those words, Sirius pushed Harry off of him, turning them around so that Sirius was on top instead, so that he was the one pinning Harry down.

"For fuck's sake—I destroyed it, okay?"

Harry went limp at once.

Destroyed?

A bitter taste arose in his mouth, his throat thick and heavy. A scream, threatening to break out of his own mouth. Harry couldn't think… he couldn't think he couldn't think—

Sirius frowned. "Come on, did you really expect that I'd let a Death Eater's portkey remain active?"

He released Harry and stood up, brushing himself off before staring at Harry once more. His expression seemed to waver, as if he was uncertain about something.

Then at once, Sirius's mouth curled into a vicious sneer as he fell back on old, bullying habits. "Why, someone important waiting for you on the other side?"

Only my fucking godson, Harry wanted to scream despairingly. He wanted to sink down to his knees, curl himself into a ball and forget this, pretend it wasn't real—

But then something in him snapped.

Despair turned into fury. Anger like he'd never felt before rippled down his spine, igniting his blood.

Harry drove his fist into Sirius's jaw, hearing it crack resoundingly, satisfyingly as Sirius twisted back from the force of it.

" Yes, " Harry bit out lowly, advancing on the man. "There was. "

Someone more special than what you and I ever had, he thought viciously.

Sirius wiped the blood from his face and curled his mouth into something ugly despite its attractiveness.

"You'll come to regret that, Scarhead."

Before Harry could respond with something equally scathing, the bedroom door was slammed open. A flurry of Order members were rushing in, intent of subduing and restraining him.

It took several stunning spells to stop him in his tracks, half of them deflected by the strange magic in the manor.

And the last thing Harry saw before losing consciousness was Sirius's face, filled with promises of revenge. An accurate reflection of his own sentiments.

. . .

When Harry awoke, two familiar, concerned faces were hovering above him.

He startled a little at their nearness, reaching instinctively underneath his pillow for his glasses. ("They're on the bedside table, as such fragile items should always be," Snape muttered.) Putting them on, he looked around and immediately recognizes his surroundings as the shared bedroom they'd been assigned.

" Finally, " Snape muttered, moving away as soon as he was fully conscious. "I was beginning to think you'd actually died. "

Regulus craned his neck back to look at Snape. "Worried, Severus?" he asked with a grin, only to receive a scoff of denial.

Then he turned his back attention back to Harry, his grin softening into a smile. "Glad you're okay, mate."

Harry was not appeased.

"Glad I'm okay? Where the hell were you?" he demanded, his hand gripping Regulus's wrist without meaning to.

Regulus tensed up, narrowing his eyes before looking away from Harry. "Private lessons."

Harry paused, incredulous.

"What? With who?"

Regulus's eyes flashed.

And then he smiled. Coldly. It was the kind of smile Harry hadn't been treated to in a very long time by the younger Black brother.

"Oh, it's a secret, " Regulus drawled frostily. His eyes went wide and innocent, his tone mostly lighthearted teasing and part vengeance. "Don't you just hate it when your friends keep secrets from you?"

Harry's fists clenched. He needed to know these things. He had to save the fucking world, he needed to know all the variables and factors so that he could anticipate things.

Then his eyes caught on Snape's figure, and Harry was distracted once more.

"Snape, your ribs. Are they okay?" He continued to stare at the sallow-faced man's form… unfettered, not even a bandage in sight.

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Of course they are. Why wouldn't they be?"

Harry exhaled hysterically. What was wrong with them today? "Oh, I don't know. Maybe because Sirius broke a dozen of them yesterday when he tried kicking you to death?"

"He bruised me, but no, nothing broke." Snape sniffed disdainfully. "I'm insulted that you would believe me so fragile."

Harry frowned.

"Snape, I heard your bones break." Even now, the gruesome crunch of it echoed in his mind's eye. "I saw you lying there, passed out, as Sirius kicked you through your unconsciousness…"

Harry remembered it, He remembered it so well and, oh, the things he was going to do to Sirius Black… his earlier rage resurfacing temporarily at the memory of that mocking sneer.

Snape and Regulus exchanged unreadable glances right in front of him, and he couldn't stand it anymore.

"What?" Harry demanded impatiently. "Tell me, just tell me."

Snape looked back at him, an uncertain, troubled look on his face.

"Harry… we think you may have been hallucinating. "