Chapter 142: Going Hard
Sirius stood on the left side of the training room, wand in hand, looking rattled.
He'd been called down here last summer too. Same routine: holiday just started, time to test his magical progress. Except that time, Orion had been his opponent.
It wasn't close. He'd been dismantled, left flat on his back staring at the ceiling, unable to get up for what felt like an age. His father had walked out without a word and gone back to work in the study next door.
This year was different. Orion wanted him to fight Regulus.
Sirius couldn't quite wrap his head around it. Him and Regulus? Dueling?
He knew what Regulus had done at Hogwarts. Beating fifth-years as a first-year. Taking down a seventh-year by spring term. Professors treating him like some kind of prodigy, giving him extra lessons at every turn.
But all of that was secondhand. Stories and rumors drifting through the corridors.
He'd never actually seen Regulus fight, except that one time on the Hogwarts Express at the start of term. And that had been over before it started. James's curse had been frozen mid-air and taken apart, and Sirius hadn't even followed how it happened.
Afterward, James had gone looking for Regulus to settle the score. He came back with a face cold enough to frost glass and refused to talk about it. Remus gave them the rundown later, but the way he described it, it sounded like ordinary first-year stuff. Nothing dramatic. And hearing about a fight was never the same as seeing one.