....JUDE WOULD NEVER forgive Moody for this. In fact, when he had told her that Black would be training with her, shadowing her, she had been contemplating which hex would teach him the best lesson.

Alastor Moody had a long list of adversaries, that was undeniable, but Jude had never made it onto that list. He had taken her under his wing and trained her when everyone else had said that she was too unstable to be allowed in battle. The auror most definitely had a hidden agenda behind agreeing to do this but Jude couldn't bring herself to care. She had been unconsciously searching for a father figure in her life ever since her own father had died and Mad-Eye was the most likely contender.

But that definitely didn't mean that he was off the hook with this most recent stunt.

Of all the people in the world that she didn't want to spend time with, Regulus Black came out on top. He was a haughty, elitist twat and his complete and utter lack of emotion was really starting to get on her nerves. Like really, what kind of person stays perfectly calm and collected with a wand held to their throat?

Secondly, Jude was frankly scared by the unusual show of emotion that the boy had managed to wrangle from her. It had been a long time since her Occlumency walls had failed her and she had been unable to channel her anger rationally. And without her walls, she wasn't just dangerous. She was a ticking time bomb waiting to blow everything around her to pieces. As infuriating as he was, she couldn't allow him to have that effect on her again.

But that wasn't even what bothered her the most. The comment that took that spot was when he had compared himself to her, as if she was anything like him. It had been plaguing her all night.

"You think that because you kill for a different cause than me, it gives you some level of superiority?"

That line had been the one to really irritate her. She killed as retaliation, to make up for what had been stolen from her. Everytime a Death Eater met their demise due to her, it was another favor done to all of wizardkind. So, what reasoning did an eighteen year old boy, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, have for murder? To lay down his life for Voldemort and become a Death Eater?

Jude didn't know why. But she did know he had been right. She did have a level of superiority over him. And she was going to make sure he was aware of it.

True to her word, Jude did arrive at his bedroom door promptly at 7 o' clock on the dot. She knocked on his door lightly at first and then progressed up to sharp raps when she couldn't hear any signs of life from beyond the locked door.

"Black, I know you're in there." Jude called out, banging on the door a little bit harder just out of spite.

She finally heard him wake up and something that sounded eerily similar to a person falling out of bed, followed by a few muffled curses, just for good measure.

Jude wasn't sure if Regulus was lazy or just plain defiant, but when she said seven, she meant seven. She crossed her arms and stood back from the door, leaning against the wall opposite it, nonchalantly.

When the door finally opened and Regulus appeared, looking thoroughly disheveled, she checked her watch.

"I told you to be ready for seven." She commented, glaring up at him sternly. "You weren't even awake."

Regulus scoffed as if she had just accused him of triple homicide. "I don't know what you're talking about." He denied. "I've been up and dressed for hours."

Jude took the time to inspect his appearance. His hair was still mussed from sleep, his shoelaces weren't tied and from the looks of things, they weren't even a matching pair. Not to mention, the label from his jumper noticeably stuck out in the front.

"Your jumper's on backwards." She drummed her fingers on her crossed arms and raised an eyebrow in the direction of his bed just visible from her vantage point. "And your bed is unmade."

"Alright, alright. Keep your hair on, Miss Marple." Regulus muttered under his breath, slipping his arms from his jumper and tugging it the right way around.

Regulus looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to lead him onwards. But she only stared at him impatiently, nodding her head towards the unmade bed once again.

"Really? There's not one housekeeper in this place to make my bed for me?" He drawled, his tone dripping with mockery. "You do know that I'm the heir to the most substantial fortune in Wizarding Britain, don't you?"

Jude finally conceded to rolling her eyes at this point. I mean, really, did he have to be so infuriatingly difficult all the bloody time?

"Right now Black," Jude shot back. "all you are is a substantial pain in the neck."

She turned on her heel and strode down the hallway, faintly hearing the sounds of him quickly throwing the covers up on his bed and scurrying along after her.

If she were being honest, she quite enjoyed the idea of Regulus Black being led around like a dog on a leash. A pureblood taking orders from a halfblood really was the perfect fall from grace.

Jude turned the corner into the kitchen, stopping so quickly that she knew Regulus might've crashed into the back of her if his Seeker reflexes hadn't been so quick. Teddy was in the kitchen too and based on recent events, the two boys didn't mix all that well.

Jude could practically feel the annoyance rising from Regulus when he caught sight of the other boy. Teddy merely smiled at them both, and Jude was eternally glad of his constant pleasantness.

"Mornin' Judy." Teddy greeted, leaning against the kitchen counter. "Do you want tea before training?" He asked, nodding towards the kettle on the stove.

Breakfast? With Teddy and Regulus together? Absolutely not.

Black would surely say something stupid and cruel and end up with a broken nose. And as much as Jude would enjoy giving it to him, Moody had already warned her that she would be removed from The Order if any repeats of yesterday happened and their top informant was injured.

Her loyalties weren't really tied to The Order but more towards what being a member allowed her to do. When an ordinary civilian killed a Death Eater, they were still tried and sentenced for murder. When an Order member killed a Death Eater, they were given a pat on the back. The difference that a bit of privilege got you was astronomical.

So, she had to do whatever it took to stay put in the organization that encouraged her plan. Even if that meant meeting Black half-ways.

"No time for breakfast." Jude replied finally, shaking her head. "You can't fight on a full stomach."

Teddy cracked a grin even wider than the last and raised an eyebrow. "I could eat a five course meal and still beat you afterwards."

"Awfully confident there." She remarked, in what sounded an awful lot like a scoff. "We'll soon see about that."

Jude had almost forgotten Black was behind her until he cleared his throat. He had a terrible habit of blending in with the shadows and making himself practically invisible.

"And what will I be doing?" He asked, impatiently.

Jude's lips curled into a proud little smirk, one that Teddy recognized as the prelude to something that would surely be unpleasant.

She nabbed the mug from Teddy's hand and set it atop the already wobbling pile of cutlery that was waiting to be washed and dried.

"Dishes." Jude announced, looking smugly at Regulus. "Have fun."

Regulus looked as though he had something sour in his mouth when he heard this piece of news. "I'm supposed to be shadowing you. Doing what you would normally do." He argued. "Not cleaning up your messes."

"This is what I'd normally be doing." Jude replied, not at all remorseful. "But since I have a little helper now, it looks like I'm off kitchen duty for the week. Maybe you're useful for something after all."

Regulus just barely caught the pink rubber gloves she threw his way and he set his expression into an intense scowl. "You could at least help!" He protested.

"Of course." Jude shot back, as she turned and left the room, raising her voice so he could hear her departing words. "I'm just off to get my pom-poms and I'll be back to cheer you on then."

"Don't bother coming back unless you've got the little skirt to match." He called out, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he stared down at the gaudy magenta gloves in distaste.

Jude's eyes flashed with indignation, as she turned and tried to rush back into the kitchen and show him exactly where comments like that would get him. But Teddy grabbed her around the waist and lugged her outside, kicking and flailing.

"You have got to learn to pick your battles, Judy." Teddy lamented when they made it outside. He set her down on the grass and picked up a set of thin, light throwing knives in exchange.

Jude picked up one when he offered it to her and glowered at him. With a sharp flick of her wrist she threw it and it landed in the very center of the bullseye on the target in front of them.

"I was imagining that the target was your face." She remarked, as if she had just been making a comment on the weather.

Teddy actually let out a genuine chuckle at that. "Charming."

• • • • • • • • • •

When Jude and Teddy were both finished training, the afternoon had well and truly passed and the sun was sitting low in the sky.

Just as she had promised, Jude had shown Teddy just how far overconfidence would get him. He was by no means an easy fight. In fact, he was actually one of their best, but still just not good enough to beat Jude.

She was as quick as lightning, darting this way and that way, faster than he could keep up with. Usually his height gave him an advantage in a fight but Jude used her lack of it as a pro instead of a con. She kept low to the ground, making her opponent crouch instead of tower over her. Then she would sweep their legs out from underneath them while they were distracted trying to land a solid punch.

Just when he thought he had all her moves down, was familiar with her every tactic, she would throw something new at him and he would be laid out flat on his back once again. She had only been training in hand-to-hand combat for the past year and it was like she had been born for it.

It was impressive as much as it was terrifying.

"Guess what?" Teddy announced, throwing an arm around the girl and grinning when she looked up in disgust.

They walked alongside each other, down the winding path that led away from the clearing in the orchard that the two of them often used to train. It sheltered them enough so that they could still be close to the house in the case of an emergency without catching passerby's in their crossfire.

"Ugh, get off of me Teddy, you're all sweaty." Jude scolded, pushing his arm away with a grimace.

Teddy walked along with his arms shoved in his pockets now instead. "You still haven't guessed." He taunted.

"What?" Jude finally asked.

"I got Fabian to convince Regulus to stop delaying the horcrux information. We're going to call a meeting tomorrow and write up a plan of action." He told her, because even if she wouldn't take anything else he had to offer her, he knew she would take this.

"That's great, Teddy!" She congratulated in an uncharacteristic bout of enthusiasm. Making her happy brought a pleased smile onto his own face. "How did Fabian manage that?"

"From what I heard, bribery and a lot of blackmail." Teddy answered, looking very proud of Fabian in that moment. "He's very talented at what he does."

He earned another one of those sacred smiles from her again and he allowed himself to bask in it for a moment. It wasn't long before she retreated back to her usual blank expression.

"What are you thinking about?" He asked, quietly, questioning whether she would even hear him or not.

She looked up at him and her eyes were wide and thoughtful now, the dark depths of them like whirlpools, threatening to drown anyone who stared too long.

"I'm just thinking about how we've never been this close to winning before." She told him, honestly. "If we can pull this off, then we can end it. We can kill him."

And therein laid the difference. When Jude talked about death, it was usually in the way someone might discuss a puzzle or a game. It was clinical and cold, not a tragedy but an inevitability. She could kill someone and not feel a thing and that worried her teammates immensely. It wasn't normal to think about murder with almost no emotion.

But the topic of Voldemort's death was an entirely different matter. The way she talked about it was filled with rage and vengeance. Her face would light up with anger, her mouth would set into a wicked sneer. It was personal. This one was the ultimate goal, the end of the road. She would finally be able to make peace with her grief and use it as a lesson rather than a compulsion.

There would be nothing cold and detached about how she would kill Voldemort. The fire of her hatred would make him wish he had died and gone to hell before he could've met her.

Nevertheless, this didn't scare Teddy as much as it should have. He understood what it felt like to have You-Know-Who take everything good and pure away from you. He had never been heartless enough to want this revenge for himself. But he would lead Jude to her destiny and watch as she fulfilled it.

"What will you do?" Teddy asked, and this time he was genuinely curious. "When he's finally dead?"

Jude shrugged, looking down at her shoes, crunching over the fallen leaves. "I'll mourn." She answered simply.

It was an impossible task to decipher what exactly that meant. She could finally have the closure she needed to properly deal with her family's death. Laying them to rest didn't stop when their coffins hit cold, solid dirt. Perhaps it would never stop and this would all have been for nothing.

If that was the case, then maybe, just maybe, she would mourn herself. Not the Jude that she was now but the Jude that came before. She could grieve for the sweet little girl that she had once been and would never be again.

• • • • • • • • • •

Upon entering the house again, they diverged to their own rooms to shower and change. Sometime after this, Jude finally remembered that she had been expected to actually keep an eye on their star informant today and decided to check up on him.

He was still in the kitchen, surprisingly enough, and the scenes that she saw next were so unbelievable that she considered getting her vision checked out.

Regulus Black, master of all things dark and horrid, was wearing a tartan apron and pulling a shepherd's pie from the oven, all while chatting amiably with Pandora. It was like something from an alternate reality.

Jude cleared her throat and Regulus whipped his head around, his eyes wide as he was caught in the act of looking somewhat humane. His hands immediately reached around to undo the knot holding his apron closed and he pulled the garment off his body like it was diseased.

The two of them stood and looked intently at each other, waiting for one of them to speak up.

Pandora saved them both the bother and tutted, shaking her head at Jude. "Why'd you have to come in and make him all shy now that we've finally started to get along?" She scolded, while still managing to sound perfectly pleasant.

Regulus glowered and tried to surreptitiously shake flour from his hand. "I'm not shy." He muttered under his breath.

"Of course you aren't." Pandora agreed, with an appeasing smile. "Now you two make yourself useful and set the table for me." She commanded, pushing cutlery into their hands and steering them towards the dining room.

Jude, did as she was told and set the knives and forks on the table while keeping a close eye on Regulus the entire time. She didn't like the idea of him getting any closer to Pandora than necessary. Pandora could handle herself very well but she was always tried to see the best in people.

Regulus would become her new project, someone to befriend, to fix. And when he inevitably pulled the wool over her eyes and betrayed them all, Pand would be shattered. Jude wouldn't allow another Death Eater to come in and destroy the only family she had left. If Black thought he was welcome here just because Pandora was lovely to everyone she met, then he was very wrong.

"I want you to stay away from Pandora." Jude demanded, when he finally met her eyes and raised a questioning eyebrow.

Regulus looked at her as if she had gone mad. "Are you serious?" He asked, with a derisive scoff.

"Do I strike you as the kidding type?" She replied, and her deadpanned expression made the answer to that question very obvious.

Regulus rounded the table now, coming face to face with her, without a barrier of wood between them. "You wanna know what your problem is?" He asked, his tone dangerously quiet.

Jude clenched her hands into fists at his proximity but was far too proud to take a step back. "Oh please, enlighten me."

She saw it then, the spark in his eyes that reminded her of how he wasn't just a boy who made shepherd's pies and witty jokes. He had found his way into the Voldemort's good graces for a reason. He was a monstrosity in a pretty disguise.

"You think that you can control everyone. That you can make them see only what you want them to see." He spat and his lip curled into a nasty sneer. "You think you have everyone in this house fooled. But you don't. And just because they can't see it, doesn't mean I can't."

The butter knife that she had meant to set on the table was now held out in front of her, and it dug into the front of his jumper. Realistically she couldn't do any proper damage with it but if anything, it acted as a barrier between the two of them.

"And what exactly do you see, Black?" Jude asked and her voice was a sharp, cruel hiss.

Regulus really had the gall to smirk then, a full genuine one that took over his entire face.
"A mirror image, Devereaux." He spoke and his voice dripped with hatred. "You stand there and pretend that you're so much better than me when really, we're the same."

He took another step forward and the knife jammed further into his middle. It was bound to hurt atleast a little bit at this stage but his expression of cruelty never wavered.

"I'm nothing like you." Jude told him, but her voice faltered now. The walls that she had built up around her conscious weren't as strong as the ones built around her heart. And with each seed of doubt that he planted in her mind, the bricks steadily chipped away.

"No?" Regulus queried and he tilted his head just slightly as he said it. "But I can hear the lie in your voice when you say that you aren't."

"You've been here two days." Jude shot back, desperately trying to put up her Occlude her insecurities. "So don't stand there and pretend like you know anything about me."

"It's a bit pathetic isn't it? That it's taken me so little time to figure out this mysterious persona you use as a mask." He never eased up on his attack. He could see her walls coming down and he would push her until she broke.

She tried to turn and leave, before she did something stupid, like giving in and showing him just how alike they could be. She could really kill him now, while he stood unarmed and complacent and it would only help prove his point.

She loosened her grip on the butter knife, intent on being the bigger person in this argument. But before the silverware could clatter to floor, his hand shot out and wrapped around hers. His hands were exactly like him, freezing cold and as smooth as a snake.

He gripped her hand in his, forcing her to tighten her grip on the knife once again. His hold was like a vice, making her knuckles ache as she desperately tried to let go, to turn and flee. He guided both of their hands forwards and pressed the knife back to his stomach. He pushed the dull edge into his own flesh harder than ever before, and as much as Jude tried to pull back, she couldn't.

She hadn't been worried that the knife would pierce his skin before. But she wasn't in control anymore.

"Don't back out now. Prove it." He spoke and voice was a soft taunt, so sweet that she almost felt as if she was being seduced. "Prove that you're just as dark and twisted and evil as me. And then I'll stay away from Pandora as soon as you do."

Her eyes were wide and transfixed on the spot where their hands met. Jude had always thought that she was at least a little bit crazy. But Regulus Black was absolutely fucking deranged.

Before she could say anything, he had stepped back and the knife had gone clattering to the floor. His hands were held up in surrender now and the crazed look in his eyes was wiped clean. She didn't know why until she heard a noise from the doorway.

Fabian was standing there staring at them and at first, she was glad to have someone who had witnessed Regulus showing his true colors. She had actually been relieved that she wouldn't be the only one who saw him for what he really was.

Except that Fabian was lookin at her instead. And the look in his eyes was one of fear.

And now she finally realized just how this had looked. She had been standing there with a knife jammed into Regulus' body. And now when she looked over at the boy in question, his expression was one of utter innocence. She looked like the crazy one in all of this.

He had set her up.

Fabian gave her a look of disappointment and she could already feel the anger simmering up inside of her at what she had just allowed Regulus to do to her.

"You know what Moody said, Jude." Fabian scolded, and he looked very unhappy with her. "If this happens again, I'll have to report it to him."

Jude was absolutely livid now. How had she been outsmarted by a silly little boy? How was it that he looked like a saint to everyone but her?

And worst of all, she had almost gotten kicked out of The Order for this lapse of judgement. If Regulus lost her this chance of revenge, he would wish that she had killed him when he had asked her to.

As they all sat down to dinner, word had already traveled quickly. Everyone but Teddy were shooting Regulus little looks of sympathy. As if he was some sort of victim.

And all throughout his little angel act, he would save special knowing smirks for her when no one else was looking.

Her anger burned through her, setting her insides alight and allowing her to boil and bubble with the power of it. Regulus had been wrong throughout that sick villain monologue he had given her. She wasn't just as bad as him.

She was so much worse.

And if he thought he was going to get away with this, he was wrong.

author's note...
you all have no idea how hard it is to write regulus as an absolute twat after writing him as an angel for months on end..but when i say enemies to lovers, i mean ENEMIES to lovers. also?? thank you all so much for such a positive response on the release of this fic?? like seriously i have never had such an influx of supportive comments on the start of a story before and i feel very lucky to have such lovely readers!! thank you all again for all your comments, votes and reads and i'll see you next chapter<33