Author's note: Not keeping you all on your toes for long regarding the plan! - I don't normally post chapters this close to one another, but just couldn't help myself :) However, the next chapter may take a little bit, so do expect the next update to be around September, as I update around once a month normally for each of my 5 WIPs.

Just as an FYI, this chapter does get a just little bit gory, so if that affects you in any way but you still want to read, please stop reading from where you see the name of a spell (towards the end, you'll figure it as it's the only actually named spell) until Sirius says 'No...', it should be all good from there! You should still get the gist of everything that has happened.

Also, when this story is done, I may do a little side-story of the interactions between Remus and Magdalena throughout this fic, as Sirius obviously misses a lot of what is happening since his focus is on other things, and I am quite interested in exploring that and what other people think of Sirius throughout his journey and experiences-

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The first act was a blur. He knew it happened, for the second one would not have managed to be reached without it.

Laying in bed the next morning, however, Sirius felt just as confused as the drugged villagers must have felt. He wondered if either Remus or Magdalena must have Obliviated him - Remus, out of mercy, Lena, out of revenge for when he had obliviated her. But he could remember enough snippets to figure that it must have been the rush of adrenaline that led to his fractured memories, and the more he fought with his own memory, the more the fog of it lifted.

He remembered that he had used spells he could barely remember the wand motion for. The words sputtered from his mouth as he cast them, exploding, alighting, transfigurating trees into golems, lifting the earth itself. The plan was for Remus to be playing defensively - they had practised only twice, in a remote forest in the Yorkshire Dales, yet they had not planned their duel, or what spells they would use. They'd tried it the first time, yet Magdalena told them both, after watching them from above on a broom, that it looked too clinical. Too perfect. They had certain spells which would signify the middle point, the end of it, but nothing more was planned.

It was only a false duel, yet in trying to act as though it was a real one, Sirius found himself more and more with a taste for the real thing. Each attack he parried was exhilarating, each offensive he tried made his entire being crave for more. He salivated at each new spell he thought of and enacted. He savoured Remus's attempts to tire him and catch him by surprise, and wondered if his friend felt the same craving that he did. He knew he was not truly out to kill him, yet the duel made him feel more and more alive, craving more action, glee in his eyes as he tried to deduce where Remus, who was still on the defensive, would come from next.

He remembered that Remus threw out a Drowning Curse on him. Even now, just thinking about it, he felt his skin crawling. He remembered it clearly - raising his head, and seeing Remus's eyes staring directly at him. He screamed, and yelled something that he could not remember, but it was enough to cover Remus's incantation, to the point he had not realised what happened until seconds later, as a flash of blue light covered his body, and his mouth started filling itself with salty water.

Water kept pouring out of his mouth as he fell to his knees and opened it - yet his stomach kept filling itself with water, with each movement he took. Each breath he tried taking was useless, as it filled his lungs. He didn't quite know how he'd managed to, but he pointed the wand at himself, trying to use the counter-curse nonverbally. He tried again. And again. Through laborious breaths, he had managed to breathe in enough air that his mind cleared, and it finally worked. As he was fighting with the curse, Remus had started approaching him, merely looking at him.

Sirius raised his head, and noticed something that he had not seen before in Remus. There was a mad look in his eyes. Something that matched the savagery he was feeling. And the realisation came - if they would continue, they would kill each other. They would truly kill one another, false duel be damned.

He watched Remus raise his wand slowly, slowly bringing himself back to reality as he watched him catch his breath, lips thinning. It must have been hours since they had started the duel, they seemed to agree through looks. Remus nodded his head, signing that there was a body of water nearby - if Sirius's spell could throw him there, whatever spell that was, that would be it.

Through a single look alone, Sirius and Remus agreed on ending the first phase. Slowly, Sirius raised himself, wands pointed at one another as they circled each other, until they were both in the perfect position. And as Remus pretended to throw a spell, and Sirius hit him full-on with the Wound Restoration Hex. Enough that the sheer force of the spell, hitting him straight in the chest, was enough to throw him to such a distance that Sirius only realised that he measured the distance correctly when he heard the enormous splash of water. Enough that the hex would open all of his superficial wounds, to the point the water around him would redden enough for any witnesses to declare him dead, drowned and carried by water.

Yet they'd practised the hex before. And the force of it hitting him was not enough for him to be rendered unconscious - he would be able to throw a charm to ensure he would have a pocket of water to help him breathe.

They'd executed the first step of the plan perfectly.

"And then…" he whispered to himself, in a hoarse voice, trying to remind himself of what happened afterwards. He raised a hand up, and a fleeting thought, one that wasn't even his, passed his mind. I can still see the blood… He raised it further, until it met the first rays of the morning sun, but all he could see was his hand. There was no blood anymore, of course there wasn't.

Slowly, the fragments of his memory started to rearrange themselves, like a smashed teacup in reverse. He drank. He had an enormous cloak on, to both hide and pretend to hide. Play at hiding, to have Greyback be able to find him easily. And he was found indeed.

With the bartender bringing them drinks confounded, they drank in peace. And they drank, and laughed, and drank, and Sirius said things that he did not wish to remember, towards Remus, towards James, towards Harry, towards those poor Muggles that Peter killed, that he pretended to have killed. Yet the more he spoke, the more Greyback responded to him, opening up more and more.

"Were you there then, Black? At the Quidditch Cup, were you the one who put the Dark Mark?"

"Don't be daft, how would I have gotten there with all the Ministry?" he snickered derisively, downing his beer. "Heard it was a few of 'em, having a laugh, no idea who though. Do you know?"

"Nah." Greyback puffed his chest out, waving his hand. "They didn't bother to tell me, but I sure have enjoyed my own bite of the fun here!" he laughed heartily, as the drinks continued to be poured.

They continued talking in this manner, Sirius watching him drink, and drink, and get full on steaks, and he drank himself, before he slowly started complaining about the quality of the wine, and the mead, and the beer, and now the bread they served started to be served stale, and the meat too overcooked, and he knew a place.

He knew a place - he'd been hiding there for months, and the villagers were like-minded individuals, and wouldn't Greyback care to join him in celebrating him finishing off the last of his enemies that kept him in Azkaban for all these years, before he'd travel back and finish the job with Harry?

As they climbed up the hill, a rumble was growing louder and louder in his ears, and as they approached the location of the third stage of the plan, the rumble became more distinguishable as music, and violin notes found themselves wrapping around his ears, dragging the both of them closer and making Sirius wonder if the music itself was enchanted.

Like in a dream, beckoned and feeling as if he was pushed from behind, Sirius trudged on with large, victorious steps, and yelled for wine and food for his esteemed guest. Drummers and brass players were flanking an enormous table, as well as cauldrons of food - and when Sirius passed them, ridding himself of his enormous look, their eyes did not change a single bit, which could only mean one thing.

The villagers were all under the effects of the potion by now. All of them, celebrating, playing instruments, serving Fenrir Greyback, who would have taken as much pleasure in being served hand and foot as he would have to perhaps dismember all of the people at the table. Yet he seemed to enjoy being treated with reverence, receiving the treatment of a guest of honour and a king. He noticed one of the witches serving him would linger her hands one second too long, would lean against the table in her diaphanous golden robe that seemed pulled out of textbooks featuring ancient Greek witches.

It was Magdalena, adorned in gold and fine jewellery, whose robe sleeves kept falling down her shoulders as she served more and more wine, revealing the curve of her breast. She would laugh with them, and lift her sleeves back sheepishly, faking embarrassment and a shyness that Sirius knew by now was much unlike her character. Yet, to Sirius's surprise, he found Greyback responding in kind to her laughter, and asking her to drink with them. She refused his offer, however, and excused herself, bowing towards the both of them.

"You know that bird, don't you?"

"In some ways."

"She a good lay?"

Sirius scoffed amused in his drink, turning his head away from her.

"Interested?"

Greyback's answer was covered in howls of laughter, and Sirius was thankful that he could not remember what he had said, or how they have gotten themselves up, one more drunk than the other, declaring not only friendship, but brotherhood to one another, both of them rejects during the war, who would soon achieve glory. How? These details could be etched out later, as now, Sirius Black wanted to celebrate his revenge and duel, and Greyback wanted to enjoy this newfound popularity.

Especially as that dark-haired witch, whose thin robe clung to her body with sweat, came close to him, and he looked at her rosy cheeks, and figured that after his new friend Sirius Black would be sleeping off his drunken stupor, and after these villagers would be back in their homes, and once he'd relieve some of the vapours of alcohol himself, he could dig his claws into those rosy cheeks and plump thighs, and wouldn't she make for maybe more than a good lay?

Greyback found himself looking up at her thighs as he sat down, and down at them as he stood up. In the middle of the brass band and drummers, he found himself imitating the villagers, who'd adopted a sprightly half-walk, half-dance, one behind another. Feelings his belly almost burst from the beer, the wine and laughter, Greyback watched Sirius in front of him repeat their footsteps, just as drunk as him, stumbling in his shoes.

"I'll show you how it's done!" he declared, and followed in their footsteps, minding his left and his right.

Greyback soon enough noticed the pretty witch in her diaphanous robe was behind him, and he soon felt her robe, and her breasts, and her arms against his back, and realised she was climbing on his back. He put himself down, and one of his hands moved to her calf, feeling its tenderness as she seemed to press her thighs on the sides of his neck, and her hand pulled his head back, until he faced the sun, and he faced her eyes, and the curtain of dark hair tickling his nose, before it all turned red.

"Petrificus totalus."

Greyback had managed to grip Magdalena's calf hard, and Sirius hoped that he did not manage to break her skin with his claws - he hoped she was not bleeding, but could not discern it anyway, as everything from her knees and from Greyback's neck turned a bright shade of red. Still Petrified and unable to simply fall from his own sheer size, for a good few seconds he remained a standing static statue of shock, his other hand outstretched towards his neck, as Magdalena, heaving and howling, kept chopping at his thick neck with the dagger with one hand, tightly gripping his hair with the other.

"Let me- let me!" he screamed as Greyback started toppling over. He screamed for her to watch out and grabbed her by the back of the bloodied robe, his voice barely audible as the drums continued on, as the trumpets drowned their voices, and as the villagers continued their feast undisturbed, as they had been instructed and compelled to do earlier by Magdalena.

Yet she herself was not compelled by his pleas, and she continued on, in a state of disturbed euphoria, until Sirius managed to pry the dagger off her hand and actually slash as she was supposed to do, until the both of them remained with their intertwined hands gripping Greyback's head.

They both stopped then, and Sirius threw the dagger on Greyback's chest, watching a pool of dark blood start forming around him.

"We'll have to bury him now. Or burn him." Magdalena stated in a hoarse voice, catching her breath.

"No…" Sirius found himself saying. The plan ended with Greyback's death. "No we won't. We'll send Voldemort a message." He'll send Pettigrew a message. And any other associates of his that had the intelligence to understand his message. He expected her to disagree, but she simply nodded, and turned her back towards him.

All they had to do now was call Remus to come back, and for the three of them to make the two dozen or so villagers forget they had ever been here, instead have them remember a false wedding of two foreign wizards they had all stumbled upon and attended, to explain their absence and their drunkenness.

However simple the clean-up sounded, it took hours upon hours, until the sun started disappearing below the horizon, and all three were exhausted from the complex magic that had been used throughout the entire day. Yet after they had washed themselves and changed their clothes, burning the robes tainted with blood and traces of unsavoury acts, as they reached the house they had left that morning, none of them felt like sleeping.

Sirius sat down at the table, and saw the two cups of coffee he and Remus had left on it in the morning washed and gone, and figured Madam Rona must have come down and cleaned it for them. He looked up towards Remus and Magdalena, who were both as speechless as himself.

What was even there to say?

"I'll go see Harry, then. Tell him we've done it."

As he was at the door to Harry's bedroom, however, he looked through the keyhole, too magically exhausted to do even a simple spell to see what was happening behind the door, and watched him sleeping peacefully, and Madam Rona nearby, reading from a book. He remembered when he was close, so close to killing Pettigrew, and how Harry opposed it. How James and Lily, surely, even if they knew Peter killed them as directly as he could, would still have opposed him killing the traitor.

If Harry was to awaken the moment he said Greyback was dead, Sirius wasn't sure that he could look at Harry's face. He doubted he could look at James and Lily, and spent a long, long time by the door, pondering his next steps, wondering what to do.

He decided, in the end, he'd do it in the morning. He wanted to put it all behind him now, and break the news in the morning, when the memories of killing would be foggier in his head.

"Are you not able to sleep?"

As he sat back at the dining room table, alone and just as unsure of his next steps as he was when in front of Harry's bedroom, he turned and saw Lena, in a light, white robe, float out of one of the bedrooms and join him in the dining room. Sirius realised, to his great amusement, whose room she had stepped out of, even if he had no proof of what he thought had happened - well, apart from certain was something in her content face, as if she were released from the shackles of her own burdened soul, which he attributed to more than Felix Felicis.

He watched her down a glass of water, her nightgown almost translucent in the moonlight. If it weren't for her dark hair strewn across her back and sticking to the nape of her neck, Sirius would have thought that Greyback had killed her and she returned as a ghost, to haunt this little rented villa in the Austrian hillsides.

"I feel like I can still see the blood on my hands." she whispered, more to herself than anything, and put her palms in front of her own face.

Curious, Sirius took her hands, slowly examining them. Even with the moon as the sole source of light, there was clearly not a single drop of blood or reddened skin. Yet he did not tell her that. He did not tell her a thing, deciding instead to guide her hands by the wrist, and place them on his cheeks, against his beard, in the same gesture that she had done at the beginning of the day, when she wiped the drop of Felix Felicis off him.

Sirius could not remember what he must have thought about, or whether he was just staring in the abyss with an empty mind, but he knew that he had kept her hands on his face, until he had found his entire face buried in the fat of her stomach, above her pubis, his hands grasping both at her wrists and at her waist. He smelt her scent, and for the first time, found himself taking in the utter silence enveloping him, as opposed to crawling away from taking notice of his own self.

"Come join me." she beckoned to him slowly with her arm, and for some odd reason, Sirius found the gesture not only inviting, but rather irresistible. He wondered if it was the Felix Felicis, and if it were, if it was the spoonful he took, or that she took - and for a fleeting moment, he wondered if Remus must have thought this as well.

He figured, however, that with the last remnants of the potion dissipating soon, he might as well take advantage of each second of this new, yet, soon-to-be-gone Sirius Black.

As he raised his head towards her, a look in her eyes revealed to him something more about her plea. And it was his turn to whisper now, as he slowly raised himself from the chair.

"You're terified of being alone."