Sirius and his men had ridden hard to get to their destination. By the time they'd set up camp he was dizzy with fatigue. He let his head sink down onto his pallet, closing his eyes, and considered the last time he'd been this tired he'd told the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes upon that he would enjoy watching her squirm.
Somehow he found himself looking into a looking glass. Before him he saw his reflection looking back at him, next to that of the Princess Marlene.
"I knew you'd seen your reflection, Sir Knight. See? We're the best looking couple at court."
He turned to smile back at her but she'd vanished. In her place was another mirror. This mirror image of himself was alone. Then it became apparent that his reflection's features were twisting themselves just so. Now he was looking at his mother.
"No. I'm nothing like you." Sirius felt cold as he stared back at her.
"You are me. You'll never be able to deny it now. Laying waste to your own lands? You are my son after all. My true heir. The only difference is the man we chose to swear loyalty to." Her face curled into a cruel smile and Sirius fought the part of him that wanted to back away.
"You're wrong. I am loyal to those I love because they are good and decent, not for what they can give me."
The image of his mother walked out of the mirror. Without warning, in her place was a snake wearing a crown. Someone in a suit of golden armor took its head off with Sirius's own sword. As the snake lay limp on the ground, it's crown disintegrated into ash. The hero in gold sheathed Sirius's sword, but upon second glance was not himself but Princess Marlene. She rid herself of her helm and her hair fell in waves down over her armored shoulders, blending in till she looked like a face in a sea of gold.
He woke gasping, before the sun's first light. "What the bleeding hell?" He muttered. "Wonderful, now I'm talking to myself." He had no time to think upon it. Daybreak was near, and there was a battle to be won.
They'd decided that Remus, his trebuchets, and his archers would attack first. This would clear a path for Sirius and his cavalrymen to charge the castle. The only issue had been the time to assemble the lumber. But Remus, brilliant engineer he was, had already made sure every piece was already cut and ready. Then, while he was helping to fortify the borderlands, he had sent soldiers disguised as wood cutters to move the pieces to specific locations. All their pieces were in place and ready when the army marched up to the castle.
"You're certain they'll be ready by noon?" Sirius asked as he watched the four machines being constructed.
"Positive," Remus smiled fondly at the contraptions. "The crews have worked all night and just the last few steps are left. Then it's simply a matter of how quickly the men can dig up Earth. Once the buckets are full, we throw the boulders I've been hiding for the last six months."
"Sir Remus," James turned to Remus with a look of exasperation, "Why are there wheels? You told me the ones with buckets didn't need wheels!"
"So we can move them home, Your Majesty. You didn't plan to just leave these magnificent things here, did you?" Remus looked at James like he'd grown two heads.
James took a deep breath and groaned, "If they do their job then I will consider bringing these monstrosities back with us."
Remus smirked, "Oh, don't worry about that, if Sirius wanted to build a new castle, I could reduce this one to dust."
Sirius grimaced, "I have no idea what the treasury looks like at the moment, so I'm going to tentatively decline the offer of starting from the ground up." Then he smirked at James, "Unless the good King would consider absorbing the cost."
James huffed, "No respect!"
True to his word, all of Remus' trebuchets were positioned and ready by the time the sun sat high in the sky. The hundred or so soldiers that had been tasked with retrieving all the hidden boulders had also finished and Remus looked like a child in the sweetmeats bowl as the they prepared for the first attack on Semprapuria.
"You're sure this is safe?" James looked at the four machines with trepidation.
"Of course!" Remus watched the ox teams cocking the long throwing arms back so the boulders could be loaded in the slings. "Oh, but when we start, I'll need both of you to be a good fifty yards away."
"You just said this was safe!" Sirius raised his eyebrows.
"And it is," Remus nodded as he looked over the drawings and math again. "But if something goes wrong and one of these comes flying apart, I don't need your deaths on my conscious."
"Remus if this isn't safe I won't have it! I won't have you killing teams of men." James face was fatigued and stressed and his voice shook as he spoke.
"Trust me, James," Remus smiled, "you'll never make war without these again."
James groaned, "Please, please don't make me regret this Remus."
"Of course not, James." Remus winked at him.
Once everything was ready Sirius and James walked a good distance more than Remus' requested fifty yards behind the trebuchets and watched as Remus released the first boulder himself. The machine held together, though its creaking made Sirius very nervous, and what's more the boulder hit the castle wall, breaking a good chunk of stone with it.
"Well I'll be damned," James chuckled, "the monstrosities are actually working."
"Which means you're going to have to bring them home." Sirius smirked at James.
James groaned, "Way to ruin a perfectly good moment."
"You're the one who told him if they did their job you'd lug them back." Sirius shrugged.
"Maybe I'll tell him to keep them at his castle," James mused.
"I wouldn't do that," Sirius shook his head. "You'd be giving a brilliant but mildly obsessed man four giant destructive toys. Make him have to come to you to play, that way you can keep him from experimenting where he shouldn't."
James sighed, "Would you consent to keep them here and I'll have Remus use all his oxen to move them one at a time?"
Sirius smirked at his friend, "Of course, I'll even give you a special rate for using my grounds as an extension of your armory."
"No respect," James huffed, and Sirius burst out laughing.
After some adjustments on the length of the slings and the position of the tracks, Remus had the trebuchets hitting the castle repeatedly and with deadly accuracy.
The archers within the castle soon stopped wasting their arrows, as not one could shoot far enough to hit any of the operators. And the small group of archers that had been commanded to try and get closer we're quickly decimated by the archers set to protect the trebuchets and their operating crews.
Within the course of three hours, Sirius' childhood home was certainly looking worse for wear. He found that the sight of it affected him much less than he thought it would. Perhaps he was getting better at leaving his feelings behind when we put on his suit of armor. More likely, it was a matter of having now experienced the true feeling of home with Marlene.