Chapter 427 - Regulus’s Freedom

Chapter 427: Chapter 427 - Regulus’s Freedom

Sirius said nothing for a long while.

Some of what Regulus had said made sense to him, some of it didn’t, but it had gone in.

He watched the treeline of the Forbidden Forest stack itself into layered silhouettes under the low sun, turning those three questions over and over.

What his relationship with magic was. How he understood magic. How magic, himself, and the world fit together.

No answers came. But for the first time, some questions struck him as worth the trouble.

His voice pulled Regulus back. "Let me ask you something."

He turned, and the look in his eyes had sharpened past where it had been. His mouth opened, closed, while he arranged the words.

"You said magic’s got something to do with me, and with the world." He came at it slowly, stumbling over it. "So if I wanted to do something, something really hard, maybe impossible... but I felt like it was the right thing, and I went and did it, would magic help me?"

He thought a moment longer, and added it quieter. "Would the world help me?"

Regulus met his eyes and had a fair idea what was being asked.

He wanted to drag him out from Voldemort’s side. Wanted him standing in the sunlight alongside him.

He thought his brother was sunk in somewhere dangerous, and he wanted to put out a hand and pull him free.

The premise of that belief was wrong.

He’d never been sunk in anything. Every step had been his own. Deliberate, clear-eyed, purposeful.

But the power of belief has nothing to do with whether the premise holds.

A person believes something with the whole of himself and acts on it, and that process is how magic works.

Right premise, and it succeeds. Wrong premise, and it fails. Either way, the strength and understanding and experience piled up along the road are real.

He wouldn’t correct the premise. Doing that meant making the decision for him. Direction was all he had to give.

"Then go do it." Regulus looked at the clouds drifting along the horizon, his voice soft. "The answer’s with you, not with me. Try it. If it works, it worked. If it doesn’t, you’ll know why it didn’t, which beats asking me."

Sirius stared at him a long time. Wind came off the lake and pulled at both their robes.

He didn’t rush to speak. He turned instead, fixing on the water in the distance, the light in his eyes dimming.

The silence stretched long enough for the sun to sink further behind the ridge, the orange at the edge of the sky deepening to red, the clouds sliding from dark gold into gray-blue.

Sirius hadn’t followed all of it. Probably hadn’t followed most of it. But he’d committed it to memory.

The things Regulus said always sounded like a runaround the first time. Chew on them afterward, though, and, much as he hated admitting it, they held.

"So," Sirius said, flat, "think about this stuff?"

Regulus shook his head, offhand. "Think about everything worth thinking about."

Sirius snorted and let it go.

They walked on a stretch, hugging the wall, around the west face of the castle to the covered bridge with the Black Lake running underneath.

The water carried a dull gold in the last of the light, and the wind rising off it brought damp and cold together.

"What do you want, then?" Sirius said.

Regulus turned his head.

He’d stopped walking, eyes on the far shoreline, his tone almost accusing. "What is it you actually want? You keep going forward, you won’t stop. Where are you walking to?"

Regulus took a few steps, his back to him, and said it quietly. "Freedom."

The word snapped Sirius straight back to their conversation the year before.

Power, choice. Power first, then choices, and choices made freedom.

He nodded slowly, satisfied that he’d understood.

Regulus saw the realization on his brother’s face and didn’t correct him.

Freedom, of course. Who didn’t want that?

But choosing freely was only the beginning.

Power, choice, consequence. Three stones beneath the foundation of freedom. That had been the point of their earlier conversation.

The first stage was only a precondition.

The second was freedom of space.

Ground to sky, atmosphere to interstellar darkness, this planet to the next. He wanted to break every barrier space imposed and go wherever he pleased.

Those distant stars had traveled thousands of years for their light to reach Earth. Sirius wanted to see them with his own eyes, not as tiny points in the sky. He wanted to cross the darkness and stand before them.

The universe was infinite. So were the places waiting to be explored.

What lay at the edge of space? What lay beyond it? If space had no end, what did infinity even mean?

He didn’t have those answers yet.

That was the point.

The third stage was freedom of time.

To live long enough to see everything he wanted to see.

Exploration took time, and distant places could take lifetimes to reach. A wizard who lived for a century or two would still see only a fraction of what existed.

Whether he feared death, Sirius couldn’t say.

He simply knew it was too short.

He wanted enough time to travel far enough, see enough, and understand enough.

That was the freedom he really wanted.

Transcendence.

Beyond individuals, factions, and eras. Beyond the limits imposed on wizards simply by being human.

Space kept him bound to Earth.

Time kept him bound to a lifespan.

Those were the limits everyone accepted by default.

Sirius had never been particularly good at accepting defaults.

Freedom of space and freedom of time together were the whole of it.

Infinitely far.

Infinitely long.

The sun slipped below the ridge, leaving a thin band of red along the horizon as deep blue settled over the sky. One by one, the first stars appeared.

Far across the grounds, the castle’s windows began to light up.

They turned and started back along the wall.

Sirius had gotten what he came for, and Regulus had said what he was willing to say.

The wind had turned cold. Sirius tugged his collar up and shoved his hands back into his pockets.

At the doors of the Great Hall the noise came pouring through the gap, laughing, shouting, all of it the sound of dinner, cutlery clattering against plates.

Sirius stopped and glanced at his brother, and his brother glanced back.

He bared his teeth, threw a wave at Regulus, and headed off toward the Gryffindor table.

Regulus watched him plow into the knot of people around Potter, then turned for the Slytherin side.

Down that end of the table Cuthbert was craning around, cheeks packed and working on something.

Spotting Regulus, he threw an arm up high and waved, started to speak, and nearly lost the mouthful. His hand shot up to cover it.

Not the most dignified.

Regulus walked over and sat.

The spread ran heavy as always, the long table crowded end to end.

He picked up a fork, speared a piece of Roast Beef, and caught Cuthbert signaling Hermes out of the corner of his eye.

Cuthbert’s eyebrows had climbed almost to his hairline, his chin jerking toward Regulus over and over, his whole face straining with the effort.

Hermes sat directly opposite, head down, jabbing his fork into the mashed potatoes. Jab, turn it over, jab again. Never looking up.

Alex, beside him, reached under the table and prodded him. His shoulder hunched. No other response.

A second prod, harder, and Hermes finally lifted his head, face like a plank, gave Alex one look, and went back to torturing his potatoes.

Lina, next to Alex, held her cup up in front of her face, eyes peeking over the rim.

Samuel sat further along, cutting his meat in silence, head tilted a fraction, ear plainly angled their way.

Every one of them was watching Hermes.

Who sat facing Regulus, head down, saying nothing.

Regulus had a fair idea what was going on and didn’t much care.

They’d clearly coordinated. Get Hermes to apologize over dinner, where the crowd and the chatter meant he couldn’t very well shut anyone up.

By the original plan, tonight was supposed to continue.

Room of Requirement, one on one, Regulus beating him.

An apology, or admitting fault, came down to a single sentence. Open your mouth and it’s done.

But he hadn’t asked Hermes to say it. One sentence and it’s over, and nothing sticks.

He wanted it to stick, which meant the body had to remember.

That was how this one’s head was wired. What the body learned outlasted everything else.

Hermes had no wish to be beaten again, of course. Yet turning it over, those brutal one-sided sessions had produced real gains.

His Occlumency responded noticeably faster. His Magical Manipulation held far steadier under extreme pressure.

Every time he came out of the Room of Requirement he hurt too much to straighten his back walking, but his mind was clear.

Clearer than clear. Ground down repeatedly under that kind of pressure, his mental toughness had grown enough to see.

He’d understood Regulus’s point long ago. Understood it perfectly.

Being beaten didn’t frighten him. It depended who was doing it.

Anyone else hitting him like that, he’d have fought back until he had nothing left. He didn’t take it from his own father.

From Regulus he accepted it, because he was beaten and he knew it, all the way down.

So the beatings themselves raised no objection. He wanted more of them, even. What he didn’t want was wearing the label of a boy being punished for a mistake.

Outside, none of it mattered. Let people think what they liked. He scowled and they gave him a wide berth, which suited him.

But in the dormitory, inside this little circle, he had pride to keep.

He’d tasted what the high-intensity work did for him and wanted it to continue. The reason had to change, though. From punishment to training.

Which meant getting over this hurdle first.

Hermes pulled in a deep breath, and several expressions crossed his face in sequence.

Irritation turned to hesitation, hesitation into squirming discomfort, discomfort into gritted teeth.

Admitting fault, for a wizard of thirteen or fourteen, runs harder than anyone expects.

His mouth opened twice and shut twice. His throat moved. The crease between his brows deepened enough to crush a cockroach.

Finally he flattened his face into a board, looked at nobody, pressed his lips together, gave up thinking altogether, and spoke.

Stiff as timber. "Regulus. I was wrong."

Regulus set down his cutlery, touched his napkin to the corner of his mouth, and raised his head to look at him.

Hermes kept his face blank and his eyes lowered, meeting nobody’s gaze, fixed on the mangled ruin of mashed potato in front of him.

Silence held.

Cuthbert slapped a palm to his own forehead, despair all over him.

That’s the attitude? A boy that age who’d never once gotten into trouble growing up? Couldn’t manage an apology?

Alex reached under the table and tugged at Hermes’s arm, urging him to sound like he meant it.

Hermes stayed exactly as wooden as before.

Lina nearly lost it beside Alex and ducked behind her cup, shoulders shaking.

Samuel kept his head down. The corner of his mouth lifted and got hauled back into place.

Regulus looked away, took a swallow of Pumpkin Juice, set the cup down, and said it lightly. "Eat."

Hermes made no sound. A moment later his eyes came up a fraction, took in Regulus, and dropped again.

A while after that, his fingers scuffed at the tabletop and his throat worked once more.

He dragged it out a long time, then stiffened his neck and finally forced out a line harder than the last. "So... can we keep going?"

Cuthbert’s eyes went wide, swinging from Hermes to Regulus, his fork frozen halfway up.

Alex’s face traveled from shock into something closer to admiration. Lina’s eyes darted back and forth. Samuel looked thoughtful.

Regulus’s mouth curved a little.

He’d tasted the benefits.

If he wanted it, he’d get it. He’d get more of it.

Regulus nodded. "All right."

Hermes flipped back to life on the spot, seizing his cup and pouring down a long swallow of Pumpkin Juice.

Then he grabbed his fork, dropped his head, stabbed a heavy slab of beef and crammed it in, cheeks bulging.

Two chews later he speared a Yorkshire Pudding, gravy and all, and shoveled it after the beef, eating like something starved.

Strength needed restocking. There was another beating tonight.

---

Join my Patreon for early access to Chapters: patreon.com/rivyura