Chapter 424 - Well Done, But Step Outside First

Chapter 424: Chapter 424 - Well Done, But Step Outside First

The cork began to change.

Its edges softened, its pale brown color darkening toward red as the solid surface became faintly translucent. Then the whole thing melted away, leaving a tiny flame dancing above Sirius’s palm.

It was barely half an inch tall, red at the base and orange-yellow at the tip. Sirius held it steady without being burned.

Then the flame cooled.

The orange faded, the fire collapsing into a small pool of water in his palm. He kept his eyes fixed on it, sweat gathering on his forehead as he continued the incantation.

Regulus watched quietly.

Sirius was unusually focused.

The water soon turned to mist, then disappeared entirely as a current of wind spun through his hand. A loose piece of parchment lifted from the desk, and the fire in the hearth leaned sideways.

Wind was harder.

Fire and water had shapes Sirius could picture. Wind didn’t. He could only think of what it did: bending grass, lifting leaves, pushing against his face.

That was where morphological intuition stopped helping. Now he had to control the magic itself.

Sirius wasn’t quite there yet.

With a breath, he flicked his wand and sent the wind flying across the room. It knocked the dried stems in a vase askew before vanishing beneath the bookcase.

A moment later, the wind collapsed back into the cork.

It rolled across the floor and hit the wall.

Sirius glanced at it, then immediately looked away with an expression of perfect innocence.

Regulus pretended he hadn’t noticed.

Wood to fire. Fire to water. Water to wind.

The stopper itself had never disappeared. Sirius had simply changed its form, using magic as the intermediary rather than conjuring something from nothing.

That was what made this so impressive.

Sirius was only fifteen and in his third year, yet he’d already figured out a direction of transfiguration most students his age wouldn’t even consider.

More than anything, Regulus respected the fact that Sirius had tried it himself.

He hadn’t backed down when it became difficult.

That alone said enough.

Regulus looked at his brother, and meant it. "Impressive."

Sirius grinned wide, shoulders loosening, his breathing still uneven, and dragged a sleeve across his temple.

McGonagall let the brothers finish before she picked up the quill the wind had knocked crooked and settled it back on its stand.

Her eyes went to Sirius, her tone as severe as in class. "The dragon scale is better than last time. Shape, arrangement, texture. You can reproduce those accurately now."

He sat up straighter.

"Your intuition is excellent," she went on, turning the point, "but what you transfigured was surface only. For the next stage, don’t rush to cover more area. Make a small patch solid first. Let the transfiguration soak inward from the surface, into the muscle, into the bone, until it becomes part of your body. And once you reach that..."

She shook her head slightly and let it drop.

Sirius waited for the rest. Nothing came, and he blinked, lost.

Once I reach that, then what?

He turned to Regulus, who was gazing at nothing and didn’t look back.

Regulus knew what came next. Transfiguration of magic itself. A wizard’s, a dragon’s.

Honestly, though, that step was far out of reach for him.

She was right to withhold it. This one had never been obedient, and given a target above his level he’d go after it alone and hurt himself.

Better not knowing. Focus on what’s in front of him, grow into it, and revisit the question later.

"Elemental Transfiguration." Her voice came again, a shade less rigid. "Continuous conversion across three elements. Your adaptability is very good."

The unfinished sentence went out of his head and he straightened again.

"None of those three has a fixed outline, and you held their forms. That tells me your intuition for the formless is beginning to extend." Her tone shifted once more. "But the difficulty in Elemental Transfiguration lies in properties, not appearance. Fire burns. Water flows. Wind is shapeless and never at rest. Your next objective is to make the transfigured element genuinely possess the properties of that element. Fire must be fire, and fire must burn. It cannot merely look like fire."

He nodded, thinking it over.

Some of the severity left her face. "You’re accustomed to understanding a subject with your eyes. The grain in the scales, the color of a flame, the way water moves, all of that the eye can catch. Wind cannot be seen. Holding it at the end there wasn’t visual experience doing the work."

Regulus’s eyebrows shifted.

So in her judgment that counted as holding it. He’d have called the last stage a half-finished product at best, if not an outright failure.

Reasonable enough, on reflection. The boy was fifteen.

He kept his face still and listened on.

Sirius frowned. "Then what was it?"

Rather than answer, she waved a finger and a sheet of parchment lifted off the desk to hang in the air.

"Close your eyes."

He closed them.

"Tell me whether this parchment is moving or still."

He concentrated a moment, uncertain. "Moving?"

"How?"

Faster this time. "Falling. Falling fast..." Then he corrected himself at once. "No. It’s slow. Drifting down, swinging side to side."

"Open them."

The parchment was swaying as it fell, exactly as he’d described.

He watched it land on the desk and sat there stunned.

"That is the direction," she said, satisfaction showing. "Not the eyes. Magic perception, used to catch the way a subject exists."

From a drawer she drew a thin volume, brown leather, no ornament, handwritten notes by the look of it, and pushed it toward him.

"Take this with you. It contains exercises for extending the senses. Come to me when you’ve finished it."

He stood, stepped forward, took it with both hands and dipped his head. "Thank you, Professor."

Back in his seat he leafed through it, and the whole of him went quiet, quieter than seemed natural for him.

Then he tucked it into an inner pocket of his robes, careful about it.

Watching from the side, Regulus found himself thinking of Lily’s account.

Cornering Snape in the corridor. The ambush, the disarming, the Body-Bind, and then leaning against the wall to enjoy the show.

Tasteless in the extreme.

Then again, children fight. Nothing about it was ever going to be honorable.

A fight is a fight. Winning is the point. Nobody ruled that combatants must bow to each other first. It wasn’t a duel.

Nor was there anything wrong with an ambush. Precisely speaking, ambush is an underrated tactical option.

Saves time, saves magic, and works.

He’d rather the boy kept the habit permanently. Never meet anyone head on, open with an ambush, survive longer.

And from another angle, once Snape was petrified nobody hit him again. That curse had shielded Snape from further injury. ℯ

The boy was working hard, his studies weren’t suffering, so where was the harm in a scuffle to blow off steam?

Cornering Snape hardly counted. Call it a break between lessons.

Besides, Lily had disarmed Potter, which settled the score on Snape’s behalf. Nobody came out short.

McGonagall gathered the parchments on her desk, squared the edges, and set them aside.

Then she looked up at Regulus, a question in her eyes.

Anything further? Say it now.

He gave her a small nod first.

Then he turned to his brother, still mild. "Step outside for a bit."

Sirius froze, gray eyes meeting gray eyes. He blinked. Blinked again.

For a long moment nothing registered.

Who do you think you are?

What’s that supposed to mean?

On whose authority?

All three crossed his face in order and settled into a single expression.

Are you taking the piss?

He didn’t move. Beyond not moving, he threw himself back in the chair, cranked his neck to one side, and said nothing.

Last time in this office, when Regulus came to ask about Spatial Transfiguration, he’d sat right there through the whole thing. Nothing had been kept from him.

So what was different now?

What couldn’t he hear? What question needed asking behind his back? Fine last time, not this time?

Something stubborn rose in his face.

The professor hasn’t said a word, and some Black is telling me to leave?

Air shot out of his nostrils. His mouth clamped shut, jaw muscles bunching.

Regulus watched him without hurrying him, without explaining, without coaxing, his expression unchanged and still mild.

Quiet held the office for a moment.

McGonagall took her eyes off Regulus and put them on Sirius.

She’d worked out, more or less, that what came next wouldn’t be about Transfiguration.

"Mr. Black." Her voice returned to its usual severity. "Step outside, please."

His head whipped around. He looked at her, mouth open, then back at Regulus, then at her again.

Nothing extra showed on her face. Her eyes said only that it wasn’t up for discussion.

Disbelief flooded his face.

Since when were you two on the same side?

One of them tells him to leave, and the other tells him to leave, and they’ve got the timing down perfectly.

His mouth shut, opened, shut again.

He didn’t dare take it out on McGonagall. A hundred times his nerve wouldn’t have covered getting mouthy in front of her.

Regulus, on the other hand, he dared plenty.

He stood, huffed hard at his brother, and delivered his line with force. "Fine, I’m going!"

Carrying, underneath it, a certain amount of grievance he hadn’t dared vent while she was watching.

He turned for the door and made slow work of it, dragging his feet a good while.

When nobody took it back, he shot Regulus one last glare and strode out.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor and stopped a few paces along.