Harry Potter: Reborn as Regulus Black

The Charms classroom sat on the seventh floor.

Desks stood in neat rows, a few books waited on the lectern, and the blackboard still carried traces of last lesson’s writing.

A Ravenclaw girl had her wand out, working through Scourgify, and the lines vanished one after another.

Regulus took a seat near the back by the window.

A quarter of an hour later, footsteps started filling the corridor.

Cuthbert came in first, talking with his hands to Alex, excitement written all over his face. His voice carried from the hallway before he even appeared.

"I’m telling you, you did it wrong yesterday, but Hermes, those hits were brutal..."

Alex followed beside him, nodding now and then, much more restrained.

Hermes trailed at the back, dazed and puffy eyed, shoulders slumped like he hadn’t slept at all.

Lina and Samuel came behind Hermes, one craning to look toward Cuthbert, the other keeping his head down.

Alex spotted Regulus first. His step hitched and pleasure flashed across his face.

It caught before it could form into a smile, replaced by something awkward, the look of a man caught doing something he shouldn’t.

He nudged Cuthbert with an elbow.

Cuthbert followed his gaze and his whole face lit up. He crossed the room in three strides, dropped into the seat beside Regulus, tossed his bag onto the desk and twisted to face him.

"You’re back! We were betting whether you’d make it today." The words tumbled out without a pause, fast and eager. "Everything all right at home? How..."

"Nothing," Regulus said, looking at him. "Family business."

Cuthbert made a small sound and snapped his mouth shut halfway through the word.

Two nights ago Sirius Black had come back through the entrance hall in funeral blacks and walked all the way to Gryffindor Tower. Half the castle had seen it.

Word had spread through Slytherin that same night. A Black family funeral, and Sirius coming home in mourning robes.

Cuthbert worked his jaw and forced a turn.

"Charms today. Professor Flitwick said last week we’d learn something new, the Freezing Spell. Heard of it?"

Regulus ignored him and looked past him to the others.

Alex was making his way over, lips pressed thin, eyes on the floor, avoiding his gaze. He slid into the seat beside Cuthbert, gave a nod for a greeting, then busied himself rummaging through his bag. He rummaged for a long time and took nothing out.

Hermes did not look this way at all. He went straight to the back row, hands in his pockets, yawned with his eyelids drooping, and stared blankly at the desktop. He was always lazy, but he would at least manage a nod. Today he skipped even that.

Lina and Samuel followed behind Hermes.

Lina met Regulus’s eyes and brightened for an instant. The light died just as fast and she slipped half a step behind Alex, tucking herself behind his shoulder.

Samuel kept his head down, scuffing his heels against the floor as he trailed after Lina, and sat in the very last row.

Regulus pulled his gaze back. He had a good idea now.

They were buzzing and guilty at once.

If even Hermes would not look at him and even Lina hid behind Alex, they had definitely done something, and it had to do with him.

Two nights ago Sirius had run off on his own without a word. Regulus could guess what had been in his head.

Sirius probably thought no one around Regulus was worth looking at, all of them dark through and through.

With that temper, a few nasty words would be normal for him, and with James beside him it would only get worse.

Put four Gryffindors on one side and five Slytherins on the other, two packs whose territories overlapped, and it was cats and dogs baring teeth. It would be stranger if they hadn’t fought.

He looked at Alex.

Alex kept his head down over his notes, fingers worrying the edge of the page like it held the ultimate secret of magic, refusing to look up.

Regulus looked at Cuthbert.

Cuthbert grinned, eyes full of triumph, squirming in his seat like he was waiting to be asked something.

[Go on, ask. Ask and I’ll tell you everything.]

Regulus gave him a glance, then turned to the window and said nothing.

Cuthbert waited a moment. The triumph on his face slipped. He leaned toward Regulus, then leaned a little more, realizing Regulus really did not intend to speak.

He turned to Alex, brows knotted, mouthing silently, What’s wrong with him?

Alex shrugged.

Cuthbert turned back, opened his mouth to start himself, then felt how flat it would fall with no one to play along, and fidgeted in his seat.

By then the room had filled. The Slytherin side was quiet, the Ravenclaws still with their books.

Light, quick footsteps sounded in the corridor and Professor Flitwick came through the door.

He spun his wand in his palm, surveyed the room, and spoke in his high, brisk voice.

"Good morning, everyone! February already, spring is nearly here. Time to wake up those wands. How was Spongify last week?"

A few Ravenclaws looked up and answered in a chorus that it went well, and the Slytherins chimed in loudly that they had mastered it long ago. Flitwick gave a piping laugh.

"Good, good. Today something sharper, the Freezing Spell! Glacius!"

He flicked his wand and glowing letters appeared on the blackboard, jostling for position before settling. The syllables lit up one by one, Gla ci us.

"The root comes from the Latin glacies, ice. Older texts will give you glacio, to freeze, to turn to ice, and both will serve you."

Flitwick pointed his wand at the lectern. A ribbon of water rose out of the jug there and hung in the air, curling slowly in the light.

"It means make it ice. Watch the pronunciation. Gla open at the front, ci thin and cold, us... let the breath out completely, push the magic to the tip with the airflow. The colder you say it, the colder it lands."

He said the full incantation, each syllable neat and sharp.

Then he broke down the movement. "A light tap forward, then a half turn inward at the wrist, release the magic at the bottom of the turn."

His wrist turned nimbly, the tip drawing a small arc in the air.

At the bottom of that turn the ribbon of water went white and hard, a curved blade of ice hanging in midair without a single drop falling from it.

"On objects without will and creatures of low intelligence, the effect is direct."

He waved his wand again and the cup of water on the lectern turned to ice in an instant, crystals spreading from the surface to the bottom, frost blooming on the glass.

He pointed at the drowsy potted plant on the sill. Frost climbed the stem and edged every leaf in white, and the dewdrop on a leaf tip hardened into a bead.

"But note, against beings with some magical resistance, the effect weakens with the strength of the target’s will. An adult wizard can throw off the cold by will alone, which is why in a duel the Freezing Spell is used more to slow an opponent, to glaze the floor beneath him, to seal a doorway, than to encase him outright. For everyday nuisances, though, it is wonderfully handy, for instance..."

He blinked and pointed at the teacup on his lectern. The steaming tea stopped steaming, a thin sheet of ice forming across the surface.

"...when you want iced tea in summer."

A few students laughed.

Flitwick waved his wand again and a cup of water appeared on every desk.

"Practice time. Freeze the water, not the cup, just the water. Begin!"

The room came alive.

Incantations overlapped, wands flicked, water sloshed and bubbled in cups, surfaces stubbornly rippling.

Cuthbert forced it, dragging Gla too long and biting ci like a curse, jabbing hard at the cup. The water did not freeze. The cup burst and soaked his sleeve. He shook his hand with a curse, nearly flinging his wand, while Alex quietly edged half a seat away.

Alex was steadier, sounding each syllable cleanly, tapping lightly at the surface. A thin, cracked sheet of ice formed across his cup.

Flitwick passed by, craned his neck to look, and nodded. "Pronunciation is right, keep the wand steadier."

Hermes glared at his cup like it owed him money. He tapped the tip and the whole thing froze into a solid lump. The cup split with it, a crack running from rim to base, breaking clean in two. He pushed the pieces aside without expression, pulled over a spare cup, and went back to staring.

Lina was doing better. A complete sheet of ice covered her water, hard enough to knock, though the water underneath still sloshed when she tilted it. She cocked her head to check the bottom, tried again, and the slosh lessened. She glanced at Samuel. He was murmuring so softly his lips barely moved, his wand making a smaller motion than hers. His cup had frozen neatly from top to bottom, the surface smooth as polished glass.

Lina pursed her lips and went back to chanting and flicking.

Regulus drew his wand, pointed at the cup, spoke the incantation, tapped the surface and turned his wrist half a circle.

The water seized into ice in an instant, from surface to bottom, clear as freshly cut crystal.

Flitwick passed his desk, tipped his head back to examine the frost, the clarity, the flatness of the surface.

Then he piped, "Perfect! Mr. Black, as ever, five points to Slytherin!"

Regulus lowered his head and inclined it politely. "Thank you, Professor."

No one else looked up.

Points for him were as unremarkable as his walking into the Great Hall each morning.

The charm itself was not difficult. Most of the class managed it, some faster, some slower, some with pretty ice and some with clumsy lumps.

Cuthbert tried again and this time froze the water, cup and all, stuck fast to the desk. He tugged and could not pull it free until Alex tapped the rim with his wand and released it.

A Ravenclaw overdid it and sheeted his desk and chair in ice, freezing himself into his seat. Flitwick freed him with a smile and said, "Control, control. Power matters, but so does precision."

In the back row a Slytherin had frozen a cup with bubbles trapped inside, a string of clear beads sealed in the ice. It was rather pretty.

Regulus looked at the ice before him and his thoughts drifted.

The Freezing Spell came down to a constraint on physical motion.

Magic poured into the target and suppressed the movement inside it until there was none left. Water became ice, a surface locked hard, a creature’s limbs slowed and then stopped.

That constraint was applied from the outside, completely different from the Disintegration Curse.

The Disintegration Curse tore structure apart from within, vibration working layer by layer inward, shaking every joint loose.

Freezing pressed in from without and refused to let it move.

Two paths, one dismantling from inside, one pressing from outside, both ending with the target losing its original physical state.

What if that constraint were pushed to its extreme?

From a pause to a permanent stop.

A young wizard froze a cup of water and it melted in seconds. A master could freeze a lake and hold it for days.

The difference lay in the scale of magic and the strength of will.

The constraint was a sustained pressure provided by the spell structure and magic, but only will could keep that pressure stable.

Objects without will, water, stone, air, creatures of low intelligence, cats, dogs, rabbits, could be frozen outright.

The professor said a wizard with will could throw the cold off, which suggested will itself was the counterforce.

A skilled wizard needed no counter curse, will alone could carry him through, magic only as support, the core was a will strong enough to refuse an external constraint.

It was the same as what he had proven with the Werewolf, will overriding instinct.

Will was not only a defense against mental intrusion, it was a weapon against physical constraint as well.

He reined the thought in and did not follow it further.

The bell rang.