Chapter 393 - Loyal Hogwarts
Back to Hogwarts today. Regulus was up early.
The dining room at Grimmauld Place looked as it always did at breakfast.
Smoked salmon lay sliced thin on white porcelain. The scrambled eggs steamed, the fried ones ran soft in the middle, the croissants had come out crisp, and beside them sat a dish of butter and a small pot of marmalade.
A pot of Darjeeling Tea too, the scent drifting from the spout.
Walburga spoke more than usual.
She set a soft leather satchel by Regulus’s hand. New spring robes inside.
"Season’s changing, you needed new robes," Walburga said, lifting her cup, offhand. "Underthings are in there as well. Throw the old ones out."
"Thank you, Mother." He set the satchel by his feet and smiled. "They’re just right."
She smiled back, mild and unhurried, the corners of her mouth lifting. Then she put down the cup, lowered her head, and went back to cutting her egg.
She was working at being an ordinary mother. Still learning it, but it came far easier than it had before the funeral.
Orion’s hand paused on the newspaper. He glanced up at her.
He’d likely never seen this version of his wife. No display, no insistence on propriety, only a parcel handed over, a few words, and back to her food.
Something satisfied showed in his face, and beneath it a flicker of surprise he hadn’t sorted out yet. He returned to the paper without comment.
Regulus pushed the last of his bread into his mouth, chewing, thoughts sliding back to the study the night before.
He’d come in late, and Orion had still been up waiting.
Kreacher met him at the door and said the master was in the study, so he’d gone straight through and laid out the day.
The werewolves, Greyback, the Hufflepuff, Lucius’s errand. None of it worth much time.
What mattered was the intelligence Lucius had passed across the dinner table, and what Regulus intended to do with it.
Voldemort was moving faster, war was closing in, and Orion had known that already.
The Blacks had been rooted in wizarding Britain for centuries. Nothing stirred without someone carrying word.
So while Lucius believed he’d been sharing an exclusive, Orion had probably heard it first.
Regulus also mentioned his plan to see Dumbledore. The pretext was ready-made, the werewolf intelligence, and the point was cultivating that line.
Contact with Dumbledore was family strategy in its own right.
The Blacks stood with Voldemort in the open, which meant a second road had to be kept in the dark, and someone had to walk toward Dumbledore.
Orion wouldn’t do. Sirius was drifting that way, but Sirius was no use yet.
Count it however you liked, nobody suited it better than Regulus.
And Dumbledore’s interest in him was hardly new. Guidance, direction, shaping. Fawkes’s tail feather, the door to Nicolas Flamel, both threads handed over long ago. An understanding existed between them that neither had needed to state.
Beyond that, he had a Patronus and a soul with light in it, which in Dumbledore’s eyes amounted to a pass.
Orion had seen the shape of it long before. Balance between Voldemort and Dumbledore held only if you had people on both sides. Stand on one and sooner or later you went over.
But politics wasn’t the real object.
Regulus told him he wanted to take the thing he’d just begun working out and test it against Dumbledore. Souls, Will, Light and dark.
Orion followed the words. He couldn’t reach past them.
Back when Regulus was building the Decomposition Curse, the Disintegration Curse, he could still sit in the study and taste the salt of it.
Not anymore. There was no place for his hands in this. He couldn’t help, couldn’t even supply resources.
Dumbledore was a resource. Voldemort was a resource. Neither was one he could manage.
So when his son said he meant to go talk with Dumbledore, Orion gave him a single instruction. Do it however you want. I’ll back you.
Sitting there last night, he’d thought back to what Regulus said before leaving for the werewolf camp. Only that werewolves interested him and he wanted a look.
One day later he was home talking about a new idea, something about souls, unformed, and he wanted to put it in front of Dumbledore.
Orion had gone quiet for a while at that. Then he nodded.
There was wonder in it, and real pleasure. His son had taken another step forward, and this time he couldn’t even see the road.
He couldn’t help. He could at least keep out of the way.
Factions, Pure-blood glory, all of it was air. Power was real. Talent was real. Every step forward carried you further from the noise.
The Blacks had produced one figure like this in several centuries, and he was the man’s father. Nothing more to weigh. Back him with everything.
Magic he’d leave to Regulus, since he had no hand in it.
Everything else was another matter. He wasn’t old yet, the House of Black hadn’t fallen, and the sky wasn’t coming down. If it did, he’d hold it up himself.
Give the boy time to grow and the Blacks would end up somewhere nobody could presently imagine. Of that he had no doubt.
Breakfast finished, Regulus picked up the satchel and said his goodbyes.
Walburga told him to eat properly. Ordinary phrasing, with no additional remarks about Pure-blood glory or the dignity of the House of Black.
Orion said nothing. Everything he had to say had been said in the study, and the rest was Regulus’s to handle.
Outside the front door, the mid-February morning still carried a chill, though the wind had lost its edge.
He took a last look. A crack, and he was gone.
He landed at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Hogsmeade was too far, and from the village you still had to climb a hill to reach the castle. From here it was minutes in the air.
Baruk pushed his head out of the inner pocket, eight amber eyes sweeping the treetops, the dry grass, the distant castle.
Dark red bristles caught a shine in the low sun. He clicked twice.
He’d been shut in that pocket the whole way. Now he hauled himself out, hooked into the fabric, and scrambled up to a shoulder.
The squeeze of Apparition from Grimmauld Place had stopped bothering him long ago, though he still didn’t care for the process.
Baruk waved his pedipalps. "...territory."
Regulus’s mouth curved. "Mm. Territory."
The spider crossed the back of his neck to the other shoulder, braced on his front legs, and spread his pedipalps toward the view.
Another burst of clicking, louder than before, then something longer, syllables tumbling out one after another.
"...Regulus... leader... colony..."
The last word landed and he sprang, vaulting onto Regulus’s head, pedipalps flung wider still. "...Baruk... big spider!"
Regulus reached up, scooped him down, set him back on the shoulder, and tapped his carapace.
The creature had apparently decided this entire stretch of ground, the Forbidden Forest, the Black Lake, the castle, the lawns, and every wizard inside, belonged to him.
Ambitious. But the eye behind it was sound.
Not yet. Later, perhaps. And if that day came, he’d arrange a headmaster’s office for him.
Hogwarts stood off in the distance, tower spires punching up through the canopy.
He brushed a hand through the air in front of him and the improved Disillusionment Charm spread out.
Then the Flight Spell took his weight and carried him low over the ground toward the castle.
A few minutes and he was there.
He went to the dormitory first. The fire had nearly gone out.
He set the clothing satchel at the foot of the bed, put the parcel of dragon meat in a drawer, then turned to the hearth and tapped a hand upward. Flames leapt from between the coals, and the room came back to light.
Baruk launched off his shoulder and shot into the fireplace.
He rolled through the center of the flames, kicked all eight legs at the ceiling, flipped upright again, and swept a pedipalp through the fire to gather a small curl of it, holding the flame overhead and waving it, as though seeing him off.
Regulus turned and left the dormitory.