Chapter summary: Sirius Black sees a stranger where his godson used to be.

Author's note: This chapter's working title was "angst-fest, a la Sirius Black style." Because even in an alternate universe, losing the Potters is Sirius's worst nightmare.

Warnings for graphic violence. Harry has a grudge and he's getting his pound of flesh, one way or another.

CHAPTER II / MEMORY AND DESIRE

la petite mort

Sirius Black strangles a man to death every night. Every night he wraps his hands around the man's neck and squeezes until the body beneath him stops convulsing. It is a deeply intimate affair; there is kinship to be found in baser savagery, without the interference of weapon or magic. Like a lover, there are hands fisted in his hair, trying to pull him down, pull him away. He feels the pulse fluttering beneath the fragile translucent skin of the man's neck, feels the sour curl of breath against his cheek as the man screams - first in mocking spite, then indignation, and finally fear - until blood comes through his fingers and a body thuds to the ground. He stares down at the purple face, angry veins standing out at his temples, white foam bubbling at the corners of his mouth, red capillaries peeled open over the whites of his eyes - a sleeping bud burst into bloom. He has completed his final ascension.

When he wakes, he counts the number of rivets in the ceiling. The number never changes. Neither does reality.

The dreams are a constant reminder of his failure. Sometimes he wakes, gagging, his own hands wrapped around his throat. And sometimes it is worse because the dream mutates and it's no longer the man beneath him but James, or Lily, or Jaime…or Harry, watching him with wide fearful green eyes as Sirius calmly strangles him to death. The dreams are a constant reminder that no matter how much he tries to distance himself from his family, his Slytherin background, the cruelness inherent in his blackened blood, they will forever be a part of him. He lets the hatred in his veins fuel cruelty, and each night when the body goes limp and still beneath him there is no remorse in his breast.

The dreams are a constant reminder of his mother as he'd last seen her - ravaged by the family madness, unkempt hair straggling on her face, the whites of her eyes forming a perfect circle that drowns out the iris - and she'd pointed a shaking finger at him and cursed him. "For you were born wicked," she howled, "and everything you ever touched will turn to dust. Everyone you love will die and you will remain until the earth itself crumbles to ash."

And he'd spat back, "Then this is the one time I wish I loved you enough."

She died two months later, and sometimes he wondered if she wasn't right, after all.

"I want to kill him." The confession is breathless, liberating in its sheer intensity, and all air leaves his lungs. "He… he killed James. Lily… I know he did. The way he looked when…"

Remus gazes at him from the side of his eye. He takes a sip of tea, the hot liquid scalding his throat. For eight days now, Remus had shown up in his kitchen and wordlessly kept him company, waiting patiently for the day Sirius would finally crack and spill what was on his mind.

"Then why don't you?" Remus asks simply.

"Because it's not mine to take."

"You're a good man, Sirius."

That's not what I mean, he wants to scream at his oldest surviving friend. I'm not a good person - I'm not, I'm not, how can you look at me and say that? His life is not mine to take because it is already spoken for. It's Jaime's, it's Harry's, and I may want to avenge the death of my dearest friend and brother but James and Lily were their parents, their everything, and how could I rob them of the opportunity to feel their killers' blood spill through their fingers?

"I'm not," he says.

How can you not see how sick I am inside? We are Blacks for a reason. Carve out our hearts and you will find that they are not red.

"We'll find them," says Remus, fierce, determined, and abruptly Sirius wonders how the world can look upon this gentle man and proclaim him a monster for the curse he cannot control; and how they can look at Sirius in the same gaze and not see the beast lurking beneath the surface, gazing back with grim greedy eyes. He feels hands fold over his. Remus is smiling at him, grieving but strong. "We'll find him."

Sirius closes his eyes and squeezes tighter. "We will."

They have to.

.

.

.

But they don't. Not for one week, not for two, and soon an entire month has passed. Then it is two months. None of them have given up the search, but now Sirius yearns yet dreads to find them with equal fervour. With each passing day it is more likely that he will find a decayed shell than the bright, vivacious boys he cradles in his memory. He wants to find them, but fears what is becoming the inevitable truth.

With each day, the bags beneath Remus's eyes grow darker and heavier. With each failed search, Dumbledore's mouth becomes a thinner line. Sirius had long broken his mirror. He knows he looks worse than both of them combined.

"You need to eat something."

"Not now. They're counting on me… I need to find them."

"You won't be able to do anything if you destroy your health and collapse. Jaime and Harry will understand."

When Sirius was nineteen and ran away from home, he swore never to have children. He'd seen how his bloodline had ravaged his family. So he charmed and flirted and led women to his bed but kept his heart locked away. He put on the mask of a roguish immature playboy so well that he fused entirely with it, fooling everyone, even himself - but James had always known. And when Sirius was twenty-three, James had smiled that secret smile and slipped a small bundle into his arms, and oh -

Oh.

Sirius closes his eyes. "I can't lose them," he rasps, his face showing the terror he'd been doing his best to shove away. "If they die I will go with them… Remy, I can't…"

Jaime may be the Boy-Who-Lived, he may have magic, the world may love him best, but Harry had always been his. Sirius was there when Harry took is first steps, his first babbling words, his first fall and the torrent of tears that followed. Lily had forced him to change Harry's diaper so many times that it became rote. "If you're going to be the third parent," she told him sternly, "Then you're going on diaper duty, too."

Oh, sweet Lily, who'd seen the desperate longing in Sirius' eyes, his deep desire for a family of his own and understood. Sweet, brave Lily, who'd died with her arms outstretched, protecting her sons to the last breath.

And Sirius was there when the healers proclaimed Harry a squib, was there when James was forced to strip heirship away from his eldest son because of the Wizengamot's rules. Sirius was there when Harry ran away from home and showed up on his doorstep, face ruddy with tears. For nights afterwards Harry would crawl into bed with Sirius and whisper things when he thought Sirius was sleeping. Angry things: I hate them. I wish I was never born. Jealous things: why does everyone love Jaime? Fearful things: will they still want me? am I defective? why won't they... look at me?

You don't ever have to worry about that, Sirius thinks, and it takes all his willpower not to tighten his hold on Harry and let him know he was awake. You didn't see James bawling his eyes out for a good two hours after you were born, even though Lily was the one doing all the hard work. There's nothing on earth you can do to make him stop loving you… nor I.

But Sirius intimately understands the feeling of helplessness, so the next day he takes Harry to Grimmauld Place, past the screaming portrait of his mother and the stupid troll leg umbrella stand that he still hasn't gotten rid of, past the rows and rows of stuffed house elf heads and into the attic, where the Black family keeps its armoury. "Pick something," Sirius declares. "I'm teaching you to fight."

Harry looked baffles. "But I…don't want to fight," he says, and it comes out like a question. "I don't want to hurt people."

"Fighting isn't just about hurting others." Sirius lays a hand on Harry's head and ruffles his hair, ignoring the indignant squawk and flailing. "The world will look down on you, Prongslet, just because they have something you don't. Use that to your advantage. They will try to hurt you, use you. Knowing how to protect yourself goes a long way."

Harry hesitates but nods slowly. Sirius watches as he brushes his open hand against the hilts of the ancient swords, past the two-handed great swords of the medieval era, past the glaives and falchions and stopped on a pair of long, thin blades slightly longer than his forearm. "Shortswords," Sirius says, surprised. "That's not a usual choice. Most boys want to go for the biggest sword they can find. When I was your age, I - well."

Harry grins, the light of the sun finally breaking through weeks of cloud cover.

"I need something unpredictable, don't I?"

Years in the future, Sirius Black buries his face in his hands and weeps. Where his heart once was lies an empty black void - Harry had forgotten to return it twenty years ago, and it has remained with him hence.

.

.

.

Another month passes. Sirius drifts. Reality is too bright, too sharp, makes it hard to take it at face value… he slips into the depths of his mind, intending never to resurface.

Dumbledore is giving up. It is slow - a small cutback here, a recall there. The number of people looking for the boys dwindles until there is only Sirius, Remus, and a handful of others left. With every dead end, every failure, he feels himself slipping further down that cliff face. When he stares into his cracked mirror he sees his mother's own madness reflected in his eyes. Night brings no peace - he is chased into wakefulness by nightmares he cannot remember - only the feeling of someone screaming in his ear, raw, agonized, and he jerks awake with a yell as Remus bursts through his door in a splintering of wood and gasps out, "They've found -"

"Where?" Sirius whispers. He raises his hands; he sees them covered in blood, dripping through his fingers, down his wrists, his arms. He hears screams in his ears, echoing through a great distance. "They… they're alive?"

Remus's face goes white.

"No… no, no - where are they? Tell me! Remus, tell me!"

Remus stumbles through a brief set of coordinates and Sirius apparates so forcefully that he splinches himself. There is a wrenching pain in his shoulder but it is nothing compared to the thundering of blood roaring in his ears, the deep ache in his chest, the dread rising in his throat. Except now a healer is trying to pull him back, saying something about needing to reattach his arm, Lord Black, sit down, but he needs to see them, he needs to see with his own eyes that it's them, they can't be -

He fights two more steps through the protective crowd of people. And what he sees will haunt him forever.

There are two bodies curled up on top of each other. Flies buzz around them. The body on the bottom is unrecognizable; eyes melted into their sockets, skin flayed off flesh, the chest split open like an overripe melon until organs and guts spill into the grass. Bloody gibbets of meat spray in a meter radius around them.

The second body falls on top of the first, arms outstretched as if to keep the first together. His head rests against the first's throat, face turned towards the side - light gleams over glassy eyes.

Green eyes.

Lily's eyes stare out from a dead face.

Sirius' vision tunnels. The world darkens, mutes. His teeth chatter together. His breath breaks as a sob in his throat, grief cresting the wave of disbelief and denial, sharp with the tang of blood.

"Remus…" he mumbles. "It's not them… tell me it's not them…"

"Sirius," Dumbledore whispers.

He falls to his knees before the bodies. Trembling too hard to touch them, fearing that they will disappear, fearing they are real. Lays his palm against the top body, gently rolls it onto its back. The arm flops bonelessly to the ground, fingers uncurling. A single strand of blonde hair is caught.

The world divides itself into fragments of seconds:

A scar on the right palm (Harry! That's not how you stop a sword!)

Blank eyes staring into the sky, cold and unforgiving (You have your mother's eyes for she looked the same way when I found her dead in Potter Manor)

A thick stripe of blood smeared over his mouth (A small bundle in his arms - hey baby Prongslet, I'm your godfather… nothing's ever going to hurt you when I'm around…)

The first gasping sob tears itself out of his chest - expands in his ribcage and permeates into every cell, leaking through blood and bone until misery is all there is, until agony resonates out in an animal's howl that causes the ground to split, the fabric of reality to rip and form a black hole that sucks anything and everything into it, until nothing matters but that infinite agony and numbness. Something in his chest shakes loose, and for the first time in thirty years he howls into that abyss, flinging his hands out in an attempt to catch the sand that slips through his fingers - take me instead give him back to me please I'll do anything take me instead it should be me give them back give them back -

They slip through his fingers, one by one, pennies into a wishing well.

Just for a second, he feels something behind him - a presence, an immense force crumbling his mental shields - then it is gone, leaving only the faint smell of ice and ozone in the air, a soft whisper…

Sirius collapses. Remus shouts.

Unseen, Harry's finger twitches, a soft exhalation escaping his lips in the form of a name.

.

.

.

When his eyes fly open he's staring at a white-washed ceiling with thirty-nine rivets. One arm is bound in plaster, the other shackled loosely between someone's forefinger and thumb. Remus is slouched in a fitful sleep next to his bed. Tear tracks cut through the grime on his face.

"Remus…" he croaks. Remus' ear twitches. His eyes open slowly, blink and focus.

"Sirius!"

There's a lapse of darkness in his memory. Something has been burned away. He traces idle designs onto his forearm.

Green eyes -

Frost -

"Sirius, listen to me," Remus says urgently, his fingers closing in a tight vice around Sirius' wrist. "Listen to me." He shakes Sirius when his eyes begin glazing over in horror. Grief threatens to drag him back under. "Harry is alive. I don't know what you were thinking - but he's… he's alive."

It takes a few moments before Remus' words make sense. He seizes on it like a lifeline, in the same way a drowning sailor may clutch a rope.

"…alive?"

"Yes," Remus soothes. "The blood was all," here, his voice falters, "all… Jaime's. He had been shielding Harry."

That's not right. Sirius was there - he had pressed his cheek to Harry's chest, pressed fumbling fingers to Harry's wrist, and found the absence there acutely. Just thinking it made bile rise to his throat.

Shock. It must have been the shock. He must not have checked properly.

Alive.

"I need to see him." He begins fumbling with his blankets, shoving them off and trying to swing his legs over the bed. "Where is he? Where are we? Why do you look so… upset? What are you not telling me?"

"There is something you need to know," says Remus. "You've been asleep for two weeks. Harry woke up from his coma yesterday, and he…" Sirius watches with agonizing patience as Remus fumbles around for the right word, his usually calm demeanour nowhere to be seen. "…he's… different."

"He can have a third eye for all I care. Is that all?"

Frustrated, Remus runs his hands through his hair, fisting the grey locks. "No, you don't understand. When I say different, I mean different. Even his scent's changed. He used to smell like pine and parchment and now - there's nothing but winter. It's almost like he's become someone else entirely. And he… he doesn't remember any of us."

.

.

.

Sirius doesn't care, at first. Of course he doesn't - he's spent two months expecting Jaime and Harry to be dead. And Jaime is gone (because Sirius didn't love him enough, because he was too slow, because he may be willing to die for Jaime but he would have burned the world to ash for Harry) but Harry is here, and so what? So what if Harry can't remember any of them? It hurts, but Sirius is just grateful he's alive. New memories can be made, old memories can be remembered. A corpse cannot be reanimated into the same person again.

But when he slams into the one-way window, pressing his palms flat to the glass, and gets his first look of Harry in two months -

"That's not Harry," is the first thing out of his mouth.

The nurse frowns at him at his insensitivity. "Lord Black, Mr. Potter has been through an ordeal. Of course he will not look how you remember him to."

The young man sitting on the hospital bed is a good facsimile of Harry - the hair is the right shade, as is the eye colour. He has the same scars. More scars now.

That's where the similarities end.

Harry was always in motion, even when sitting down. Now he sits with an unnatural stillness; his chest does not seem to rise or fall with each breath, his eerie green eyes don't blink, instead staring straight forward with a blank expression. He could very well be one of those muggle photographs for all the life he seemed to show. Torture had shaved the youth from his face, traced dark furrows beneath his eyes, carved a feral hunger into the sharpness of his jaw and cheek. His posture is likewise different. Where Harry used to hunch in his shoulders as if trying to take up less space, draw less attention to himself, this one throws back his shoulders with a prince's arrogance mixed with an intriguing concoction of pride and self-loathing. Yet his stillness does not feel like indolence or lifelessness - instead, it carries the sharp anticipation of a predator, a lazy panther lounging on a high branch and watching with amused, half-lidded eyes.

And then he moves. Just a little. His head moves a fraction to the side so he can stare directly at Sirius.

"The window is one-way," the nurse assures him.

In his eyes Sirius finds his answer - there is an eternal blankness over the surface, but beneath it he can see grief, terror, hunger, rage.

"Let me in," he whispers hoarsely.

The door clicks. He places his hand on the cold surface, takes a fortifying breath, and walks in.

The first thing that strikes him is the cold. It almost seems to waft off of Harry's skin, curling lovingly around his form before dissipating into the air. He smells of winter, Remus had whispered, and Sirius would be inclined to agree. He smells of ice and ozone and slow death.

Harry has turned his head to look at him, his eyes focusing steadily on Sirius, but the rest of his body doesn't move. He is perpetually frozen in time.

"We are unable to determined his mental state," the nurse murmurs quietly to Sirius. And then she tells him such things. Sirius feels that ugly beast inside of him rear its head.

Repeated exposure to Cruciatus. Fifteen minutes per interval for at least two weeks. Harry's lack of magical core increased his vulnerability. The longest previous interval known were the Longbottoms; they were adults with fully matured magical cores, and still they had died. "It is already a miracle he is awake at all," the healer says gravely. "You must be prepared, Lord Black...his nervous system impulses are highly irregular, when they occur at all. Large sections of his brain have been damaged. It is likely that he will never be fully conscious. His memories are lost."

"Is there nothing that can be done?" he says.

"Mr. Potter was comatose for over one month before being rescued. If we were able to treat him immediately after Cruciatus exposure, we may have been able to reverse some damage… as it is, cell death has already set in."

"It doesn't matter," he whispers. "I'll take care of him. It... it doesn't matter if he doesn't remember me, or if he will need help. He's still my godson."

The next time Sirius comes, Harry is lying flat on his back, spread eagle, three heavy iron cuffs on each limb. He stares blankly up at the ceiling, indifferent. The sight makes all the blood rush to Sirius' head and he cracks the door frame when his hand spasms.

"Get those off him immediately," he snarls.

"I cannot," says the healer. His eyes shift nervously from his bound godson to the wall. Sirius follows his gaze, and that is when he sees the fist-sized hole in the wall, the edges scraped red with dried blood. Right through the one-way window.

One-way, indeed.

"The Aurors are involved," the healer adds hastily when Sirius' expression becomes thunderous. "We are authorized to use necessary force."

"So let me get this straight…" Every lesson on intimidation - who're you trying to scare now, Siri, James used to laugh - comes flowing to the forefront of his mind. He leans forward with narrowed eyes, causing the healer to take an unconscious step back. "You cannot use magic on him because you don't know how his body will react. You don't know what to do to help him. So you decide to shackle him to a bed and hope he can heal properly like that. You might as well throw him into a jail if that's your intention."

"Lord Black -"

"Release. Him."

"Sirius, stop harassing the healer."

He turns.

"A bit late, aren't we? You show up when all is said and done."

To his credit, Shacklebolt doesn't rise to Sirius' sneering taunt. Calmly, "Mr. Potter put his fist through a wall and someone's chest this morning. This is a temporary measure until we find a way to ascertain his condition."

"You're telling me that my godson - who's been tortured for two months and is barely conscious - not only had the strength to get up and punch a wall, but was also able to see your supposedly one-way window?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Right, Kingsley." Sirius smiles with the Grim's fanged cheer, darkness peeling quiet slivers of humanity away from his face. "I always knew you were full of shit."

Harry makes a quiet sound. There's barely a change in expression, but there - the corners of his mouth are curled ever so slightly upwards.

Kingsley clears his throat. "I have Dumbledore's authorization as well. If Mr. Potter doesn't show any more… violent tendencies in the next week, we can remove his bindings. But before that, Healer Garrett, would you administer the test?"

Sirius eyes the large apparatus warily. It is a large box the size of an old television, with wires ending in opaque white suction cups. "What are you doing?"

"We are testing Mr. Potter for any trace of magic."

"Harry is a squib," Sirius says, uncomprehendingly. "He was tested by five of the best magical specialists in the world."

"Even so. Healer, if you will?"

Sirius watches with furrowed brows as the healer carefully attaches the small suction cups to Harry's head, torso, and limbs. The mousy man takes a few steps back and flicks the switch. Old analog green numbers flicker over the display and fluctuate rapidly - before stabilizing suddenly:

"Zero," says Healer Garrett.

"That's… a lot of zeroes. Is it supposed to be like that?"

"I don't know. This is only for adults - children have another procedure. We haven't used this machine in at least five years." Which would explain the inch-thick layer of dust coating the top of the machine. "It is likely just a glitch in the machine."

"Try again."

Beep. Beep. 00000000.

Harry is staring in their direction. In the light, his eyes almost seem to be glowing. He almost seems to be laughing.

.

.

.

If Sirius had his way, he would whisk Harry away somewhere that no one except him and Remus could find him - no Dumbledore, no Aurors, no anyone. But they had deemed Harry a danger to himself and others, and could legally keep him shackled up in Mungo's.

Every day, Sirius sits by Harry's bed, holding his hand through the shackles. He rambles on about everything and anything until his voice goes hoarse, and sometimes he will look down to find Harry staring at him with no expression. But Harry never speaks.

Not until he rips off Lucius Malfoy's hand.

Then again, there was not much speaking involved.

Sirius wasn't there for the actual event, only the aftermath. He had been coming down the hallway to Harry's room when he sees a group of shouting security staff banging on the door. When the wood finally splinters and gives away, he sees:

Twelve broken cuffs, the metal twisted and warped. Lucius Malfoy screaming, clutching his stump of an arm. Blood splattered all over the ground, over Harry's pale, smiling face, over the crinkling paper gown he wears. "This is mercy," he whispers in a cracked voice, and there is a wild glow in his eyes like shattered glass. "Is it not?" He runs his fingers through Lucius Malfoy's long blonde hair, letting it pool through his fingertips until he yanks off a single strand, heedless of the wands sparking in his face.

"Get on the ground, Mr. Potter," an Auror says sharply. Harry giggles. He opens his mouth to say something, but then his eyes slide to Sirius' face. The smile drops.

Harry doesn't kneel, but he lowers his hands, allows the security guards to tug him forcefully back to the bed, lets them knock him out and snap double the number of restraints over slender wrists. Harry watches him until they drag him out of sight.

Is this Harry? Is this my godson? The same boy who cried because he stepped on an ant? The gentle boy who didn't want to fight?

It doesn't matter, he tells himself. He's Harry no matter what happens.

Somehow, the words don't sound as convincing as they used to.

Sirius spends the next day in a daze. He forgets to visit Harry. No, that is a lie - he only wants to postpone the inevitable. And when Sirius finally plucks up the courage to go, the first thing Harry says to him is -

"I don't regret it, Padfoot."

Sirius swallows and says, "It doesn't matter. I don't… it's fine. I don't care."

Harry's eyes are steady and sad, expression more animated than it has been for months. It makes Sirius shudder to think that the only time he's seen Harry look alive is when he was ripping of Malfoy's arm.

"You will," he murmurs, soft, gentle, kind, and it is his Harry staring back now with knowing eyes. "When that day comes… it's okay. I know you tried your best."

When Sirius Black looks at his godson, he sees a stranger staring back. Even now, there is something sinister and cruel beneath his warm smile.

He is the first to look away.

.

.

.

But he tries. He clings to his faith with stubborn resolve. So what if Harry isn't… as Sirius remembers? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. If he says it enough times he will begin to believe it.

It doesn't matter.

And yet that unsettled, nervous voice never quite fades from his mind, and Harry knows it too. Harry looks surprised every time he sees Sirius now, and lingers a bit longer on the goodbye. He expects abandonment like it is all he has ever known. And now, he is beginning to turn towards that Auror of his - Ingemar or something - and even if Sirius can't force himself to be entirely natural around Harry, he resents that his position is slowly being taken up by a stranger. A stranger that stares at Harry like he is something otherworldly, like he is everything.

And so Sirius takes him into the hallway one day and says in a very clipped voice, "If I find out you've been abusing your position to take advantage of Harry, I swear on the Old Gods that I will show you why my family was named the Blacks."

"I - beg your pardon?"

Perhaps it is his resentment talking, and perhaps it is only wariness. Harry was always a beautiful child, with Lily's delicate features and James' regality, but now there is something unearthly in his heartbreak - and damned if Sirius isn't going to protect him this time.

Comprehension dawns on Ingemar's face and his cheeks turn red. "Oh. Oh. No, Lord Black, you misunderstand me entirely. I have no designs. He only reminds me of a good… friend I once knew."

"And who was this friend to you?"

"I was fostered by his family." Ingemar picks his words carefully, a light accent shading the syllables and rounding them gently. "He was the only one to accept me. But he is - dead, now."

It seems truthful. Sirius lets the aggression bleed away from his stance.

"I am sorry for your loss," he says. "And I apologize if I have accused you wrongly."

Ingemar dips his head. "I am glad Harry has a protector in you. He… values your opinion greatly."

"…I know."

They go back in. Harry seems amused by something he won't say, but he treats Sirius with a bit more warmth than usual, and for once, Sirius can forget everything that has happened.

.

.

.

Sirius dreams again of paper thin skin crinkling beneath his thumbs, the press of a delicate neck snapping beneath his hands, the hard arch of a spine uncurling in the release of death. He feels sick. The decision has been seized from his hands. It doesn't matter if Harry has changed or not, because Sirius is going to lose him anyway.

The black robes were once well-tailored to James' body, but swamp Harry in a multitude of black cloth. The contrasting colours make him appear thin and pale. With his hair curling softly around his ears, eyes large and innocent, he looks like a child thrust into a role he is unprepared for. Ingemar looms behind Harry like a giant vulture, yellow eyes glittering with promised malice. For once, Sirius is glad of his presence.

Harry had always been soft-spoken but with a sharp tongue hidden beneath. This situation was not something he would have been able to handle, once upon a time, but now he looks through the glittering eyes staring down at him with boredom. His gaze stays with Sirius' a moment longer, and he gives a brief nod, as if to say: trust me. But how can he? Harry's only armour is the arrogance and scorn he is wearing like armour. Sirius can wrap his forefinger and thumb around Harry's wrist and have room to spare. He can snap those fragile bones without expending any effort.

This is also the conclusion he sees on Lestrange's face as he flings off his outer robes, rising to his feet to step down the stairs towards Harry, towards his prey - and Sirius is rising to his feet too, pleading with Dumbledore, but Harry shakes his head and refuses to back down. How can he watch his last tie to sanity throw his life away for some petty form of revenge?

Lestrange swaggers to the bottom, twirling his wand in his fingers, leering down at the boy in the wheelchair.

"Are you ready to die, Potter?"

Harry tilts his head to the side, smiling gently. He says nothing.

"Dumbledore," Sirius pleads again, but Dumbledore only gives a slow shake of his head. He looks around with indignation. No one meets his eyes. A grown man - a fucking Death Eater - is making a spectacle of killing a young boy who'd been tortured past the brink of sanity. How do they sit here and say nothing at all? How can they look him in the eye with disapproval and tell him to be silent?

"Are the contenders in agreement for the duel?" Dumbledore says. Every word is heavy and pained. Not enough for him to intervene, apparently. In that moment Sirius hates Dumbledore, hates his hypocrisy, hates everything he has ever stood for.

Harry places his open hand over his heart. He has no wand to use. There are a few snickers.

"I, Lo -" he stumbles over the word, "Lord Harry James Potter, nineteenth of the House of Potter, do challenge Lord Rudolphus Lestrange, eleventh of the House of Lestrange, to an honour duel for his slights against the House of Potter. Let the Wizengamot be in attendance as witness. Let none interfere until one is dead. Thusly will our contention be settled."

"Lord Potter, perhaps first blood will -"

The first hint of steel enters Harry's face. "I stand by my terms. Lord Lestrange, what says you?"

"I concur," says Lestrange, his expression one of cruel pleasure.

Dumbledore closes his eyes.

"Then mote it be. Let the contenders take their stands."

Sirius bites down until he tastes blood.

Lestrange takes the closer end. It takes Harry a minute to wheel himself to the far side, each movement looking painful for his injured body.

"Lord Potter, Lord Lestrange - are you ready?" A sneer from Lestrange, a short nod from Harry. "Then begin."

Neither move.

"Won't you stand to face your death, Potter?"

Harry stares back with hooded eyes.

Lestrange sneers and opens his mouth to say something else, but then - then he is keeling forward, unwilling knees bent by some great external force, his entire body strung tighter than a bow. His back arches, fingers digging into his temples, and bellows in pain.

A few gasps ripple through the lords.

"What did you do, you f -"

"Finally," Harry whispers. His voice carries a soft, meditative cadence. The gentility makes Sirius shiver. "I've found you at last. I'm impressed you got this far."

Lestrange staggers back up, howling like a wounded bull, and fires off a dark red spell with unerring accuracy despite his lack of vision. Harry reaches into the voluminous folds of his robes and pulls out a plain, unornamented dagger, and deflects the spell with a flick of his wrist, as easily as if he were cutting the thread of a loom.

"Step aside," he continues softly. "My lord has need of you yet. Your brother, though...it will be better to put him out of his misery. He should have been culled at birth, but James Potter was always weak-willed. I am only doing what he should have done twenty years ago."

Lestrange is still stumbling forward. The distance has closed by half.

"Why won't you move?"

A torrent of fire ten meters tall engulfs Harry and swallows him whole. The flames roar for another few seconds before Lestrange disengages them with a sharp flick of his wand, his forehead gleaming with sweat. There is not even ash left. Sirius feels his knees giving out beneath him, but then -

Lestrange has half a second to feel relief before his right arm explodes into a spray of bloody mist and gibbets of meat.

"Why won't you scream?" comes the whisper from a thousand voices. Lestrange's head jerks up with a gasp - there is a horde of people standing around him in a loose circle. Harry Potter's face stares out from a thousand faces, his voice slipping from a thousand throats. "You always looked prettiest when hurt, pet."

The one directly facing Lestrange takes several steps forward. There are no wasted movements - his arms hang loose at his sides, each step measured precisely. Lestrange tries to retaliate, but then there is a spray of blood and three inch-deep gouges are carved into his chest. No one saw Harry move at all.

"It looks like I went a bit overboard. Well... he wasn't going to last much longer."

When Harry prowls forward, no pain or discomfort in his movements at all, he splays his hands on either side of Lestrange's face.

"The squib? Hah! His brother tried so hard to protect him. How the line of Potter has fallen. Let him go... yes, it will be entertaining to watch him struggle."

Lestrange is trying to move, but he is paralyzed. He struggles vainly in Harry's grasp, his thumbs hovering over his wildly rolling eyes. "Before you killed him, my father taught me two things," he murmurs into Lestrange's ear. "The first..." His thumbs sink into the eye sockets in a sucking squelch of fluid and eye jelly. "...an eye for an eye. If the world is blind to injustice, then it is prudent to take matters into your hands. And the second..."

Harry is smiling, his expression beatific. Someone in the crowd retches. Sirius presses his mouth into a straight line.

"Those that look down on you..."

The dagger is blunted by age, but still gleams as he brings it up.

"- cut off their legs."

It swings down.

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It is no fight but a slaughter. The tides have reversed. He sees the exact moment Lestrange realizes the truth, sees the desperation and viciousness of a cornered mouse that does not accept the futility of its struggle. So he takes his time warming up, enjoys the careless splash of red over pale marble canvas, the rending of clothing in neat tears, goading him on with each flick of his wrist - you are entirely in my mercy, he says with his smile. You live because I want to prolong your suffering. I could have killed you a thousand times over. When your screams are no longer music to my ears, when you bore me -

That's when he carves out the man's vocal cords, skimming lightly over the throbbing veins and arteries intact.

Patience, he says. A work of art takes time.

Working from memory is not difficult, not when the images are seared into his eyes forever. A tear here, gash there - from the left shoulder to the right hip. The ribs spring open like a grotesque flower as he cuts delicately through the sternum, splattering blood outwards in arcs. He licks his lips clean and smiles with blood in his teeth. Removing the skin from the connective tissue below is a slow and arduous task, one made harder by the dulling of his blade from cleaving through bone. But he is faithful in his replication.

The first to go is his voice. The second is touch. The third is vision.

They are lovely eyes. Soft brown flecked with green, like Jaime's, shared blood between kinslayers. There is parallelism there that he does not care to look into. But unlike these mortals who agonize in fear of the monsters staring back from the other side of the mirror, of accepting that darkness inherent within him, he has no such qualms. He knows most intimately that the only truth in this world is the one carved into flesh and bone. The brain is fickle in remembrance; only flesh remembers how it had split and healed imperfectly in gouged trenches and raised ridges. A battlefield mapped in sinew and veins.

So many parts of you humans are unnecessary to baser survival. There is enough weight on your heart. Allow me to free you of some burden. My father taught me a lesson once. Those that look down on you -

I told you I would bring you down to my level, did I not? Look, I did not even have to stand up.

Your legs are not the same length, did you know?

To you I will grant the final gift. It is the one you did not spare to your victims. It is the cruelest of all. To you, I give the gift of life. You will yearn to die but it will be forever beyond your grasp. You can beg to die but without a heart you will live. Without a head you breathe still, but in two pieces. Your consciousness will survive forever.

Did your master not yearn for eternal life?

Now, come. The final touch. Hold still, this will not hurt. I bared my neck for a hammer and was rewarded with these black threads. You, too, will come to know my pain and its transmutation.

You have no mouth, but it will be a long time before you stop screaming.

I never claimed to be merciful.

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There is power in being the one to leave - in being the one to abandon. There is power in being on the opposite side of the coin for once. Instead of waking every morning with the burgeoning dread of being cast behind, he can inflict the hurt upon himself. Slow, methodical, controlled - an incision around a tumour with a scalpel instead of a warhammer. He is only putting a timestamp on the inevitable.

There is a savage, vindictive hurt in Black's eyes, familiar misery reflected there. I could love you with time, he seems to beg, though his lips are pressed into a tight line. Give me a chance.

To which he would reply: you saw what I have done. I do not regret it. With time you can come to love a monster - indeed, you humans are stubborn, resilient creatures. You could come to love and survive anything. But it will also kill you slowly inside. I see the slow agonizing war that would tear you apart. You would love me, but at the death of all you believe in.

He would reply: there is still a part of me that loves you too much to let you do so.

But Black says nothing as he folds his clothing into halves, quarters, eighths, before lining them up in neat little rows into a suitcase. He says nothing as all his books are stacked into the built-in bookcase - muggle subjects, muggle literature. No books on magical theory (his lip curls at the thought of all the mistakes in their fundamental understanding of magic). No books on magical spells (for he has none). And with that, he is done. Twenty years of this life fitted into a small box.

Where will you go, Black finally says. His arms are crossed; he leans against the threshold of the door, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Does it matter?

Damn it, Harry. I'm not joking.

As far away as possible, he says, truthful. I am sorry but I cannot stay.

Black's eyes narrow in contemplation.

America would be a good choice. You-Know-Who's reach has not spread across the ocean, and they are more lax about their Statute of Secrecy.

I will... consider it.

I can come with you, Black offers again, but it's half hearted because both of them know he will decline.

Ah, but then who will keep the council in check? You have four seats now. Use them well.

His eyes are fathomless, dark, infinite. In them is an eternal sunset.

They don't matter to me. You do.

Harry Potter did. But I am no longer the one you remember. Harry Potter died with his brother, perhaps before that - and when you look at me I know you find me lacking. I am but a shadow of what once was. And that is - alright. It would not be fair for me to expect you to discard twenty years of history simply because I have. But this will not be a permanent farewell. I will visit. And one day...

Damn you and your logic, Harry.

I will visit, he repeats, because sometime foreign aches deep in his chest. It is harder to abandon than he had expected - funny, that, because father had always made it look so easy. The council will not harm you. And I... please, do not be afraid of me. I would never hurt you.

Something inside of Black softens. Carefully, like he is porcelain, Black cups his cheek.

I have never doubted that.

There is a lump in his throat. His eyes flutter shut. He raises his hand and brushes it against the back of Black's hand, keeping it there, the lingering of residual warmth pressed deep in his flesh. He wants to remember this feeling. He wants to remember how much it hurts to leave. It means there is something to come back to.

Goodbye, Sirius, he whispers. My name is in the mouths of others. When I return, I will ensure that it has teeth.

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la tristesse durera toujours pur
je meurs d'une mort petite
dans votre attente

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Endnote: Writing Sirius is like pulling teeth. I almost scrapped this entirely, but I figured it's better than nothing at all. It was so much easier writing crazy Harry (does that say something about me? If so, probably nothing good). Next time, Steve wakes up in a strange world and makes a stranger friend.

As a sidenote, I don't reply to reviews nearly as much as I should, but please know it's from a lack of time and not appreciation. Many times when I've felt like giving up writing altogether, it's you guys who've gotten me through - so thank you, so much.

I'll be swamped down by exams for the next few weeks, but I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year! It really doesn't feel like 2019 already, does it?

all my love

night xx