Chapter Summaries

Regulus met with Slughorn after breakfast to discuss Selwyn’s suspicious potion and the danger behind the staged duel. Slughorn awarded Slytherin points for Regulus’s intervention, while both left the larger plot unspoken.

• Hermes got Alex and Avery out of bed, while Regulus encountered Snape, who told him Slughorn wanted to see him after breakfast.
• Slughorn praised Regulus’s guidance during the previous night’s events and warned that others were asking to learn his Shield Charm technique.
• Slughorn asked whether Regulus had found anything else wrong with Selwyn, and Regulus indirectly led him to consider whether the potion had been deliberately designed to provoke the duel.
• Slughorn concluded that the potion’s effects and timing suggested a larger scheme, but chose not to pursue the matter without evidence.
• Slughorn awarded Slytherin thirty points for Regulus’s actions and asked him to offer students occasional guidance.

Regulus learned that the Whomping Willow’s magic used conduction and internal vibrations to shatter objects, giving him ideas for developing a new spell. Professor Sprout refused to let him study Hogwarts’s tree directly but shared what she knew, and Regulus left promising to report any discoveries.

• Students across Hogwarts sought older students for advice on copying Regulus’s Shield Charm demonstration, while family letters told some Pureblood students to focus on their basics.
• James asked Sirius whether he could teach the Shield Charm the way Regulus had, but Sirius snapped at him instead of answering.
• Professor Flitwick explained that Regulus’s technique guided another person’s magic, while Professor McGonagall ordered Gryffindors to practice their fundamentals.
• Regulus asked Professor Sprout to study the Whomping Willow, but she refused to let him approach Hogwarts’s rare tree.
• Professor Sprout described how the Whomping Willow conducted magic and caused internal vibrations, and Regulus realized the process might help him develop a spell for shattering hard objects.
• Professor Sprout asked Regulus to share any discoveries he made, and he promised he would.

Regulus studied magical plants before Lily asked him about his Shield Charm shortcut, and he let her experience the charm’s magical feeling in the Library. Lily left encouraged to practice it herself, while Regulus watched her go and headed off separately.

• Regulus studied a book on magical plants and guessed at the magical properties hidden in their descriptions.
• Lily asked Regulus about his reputation for helping a first-year cast a Shield Charm, and he explained that the shortcut was unsuitable without a skilled wizard’s help.
• Lily grew uncomfortable thinking about the disadvantage of having no wizards in her family, but Regulus told her he trusted her strength.
• Regulus offered to let Lily experience the Shield Charm and sent silver light into the space between her brows so she could feel it.
• Regulus told Lily to practice the feeling herself and said she could share the method with a trusted friend.
• Lily thanked Regulus and ran off with her books, while Regulus watched her leave and walked in the opposite direction.

Regulus decided he needed a mature Whomping Willow and wrote to Orion, asking his father to obtain one through the Black family's connections before Christmas. The next morning, Regulus dismissed a Hogwarts argument over House-elf liberation as futile and left the Great Hall while it continued.

• Regulus considered where to obtain a Whomping Willow and concluded he would ask Orion to arrange a purchase or exchange through proper channels.
• Regulus wrote Orion a letter requesting a mature Whomping Willow before Christmas and sent it with the Black family's Eagle Owl.
• At breakfast, students discussed a Daily Prophet report that the Ministry of Magic had rejected a House-elf liberation appeal.
• A Gryffindor argued that House-elves had been conditioned to accept servitude, while other students joined the dispute.
• Regulus judged the liberation effort unlikely to succeed, then left the Great Hall with Avery and the others as the argument continued.

Orion received Regulus’s request for a mature Whomping Willow and agreed to obtain one, then told him that their cousin Andromeda was getting married in France. Regulus remembered Andromeda’s support and realized he could find the wedding location from Orion’s map.

• Orion returned from meeting Abraxas and heard that the Dark Lord’s demands were growing more urgent among the Pureblood families.
• Kreacher delivered Regulus’s letter requesting a mature Whomping Willow, and Orion resolved to secure one for him.
• Orion wrote back that he would obtain the tree and gave Regulus the date and location of Andromeda’s wedding.
• Regulus read Orion’s reply at Hogwarts, remembered Andromeda’s kindness and promise of help, and recognized the place shown on the map.

Avery, Alex, and Hermes continued training in the Room of Requirement while Regulus meditated on the soul and the glowing figure in his Spiritual World. He found that magic and spirit could not touch the figure, and ended by considering ways to strengthen the soul and explore its relationship with the body and objects.

• Avery and Alex improved enough to withstand the dummies for fifteen minutes, while Hermes practiced chaining powerful Dark Arts with minor spells.
• Regulus observed the six stars in his Spiritual World and reflected on Voldemort’s five Horcruxes and the damage caused by splitting the soul.
• Regulus considered whether the glowing figure represented a standard for a complete soul and whether strengthening it might improve a wizard’s abilities.
• Regulus tried directing magic and spirit toward the figure, but both passed through without affecting it.
• Regulus connected Arcturus Black’s warning about a sturdy container trapping its contents to the possibility of a living soul leaving the body or bearing an object.
• Regulus concluded that his questions all involved exploring and strengthening the self, but decided he first needed to find a way to make the glowing figure grow.

Sirius excelled at Professor McGonagall’s Complex Transfiguration lesson, discovering an instinctive talent for changing an object’s form. McGonagall gave him an advanced book and hinted at Regulus’s unusual abilities, leaving Sirius wondering how to develop his own talent.

• Professor McGonagall taught the class to transform a stone into a cup, animate it, and turn it into a flying pigeon.
• Sirius made his cup walk and dance, then transformed it into a pigeon that flew around the classroom, earning five points for Gryffindor.
• Professor McGonagall explained that Sirius had an innate Morphing Intuition, while Regulus’s transformation of an Oak Match into a Linden Match had changed the material’s essence.
• McGonagall gave Sirius Advanced Transfiguration: The Limits of Form and told him Regulus had once asked whether graphite and diamond could be transfigured into each other.
• Sirius returned to Gryffindor Tower with the book and wondered whether Morphing Intuition was the talent he should develop.

Regulus abandoned his attempt to merge Guardian Images with Hogwarts’s space and explored ideas for Light Magic before riding a Thestral through space into an unfamiliar part of the Forbidden Forest. There, he built a Shield Charm shell powered by Fiendfyre and flew back toward Hogwarts at near-supersonic speed, eager to push the design faster.

• Regulus concluded that Hogwarts’s space would not cooperate with his attempts to combine it with Guardian Images, then imagined several ways to manipulate light through magic.
• Regulus followed James, Sirius, and Peter toward the Whomping Willow, then went to the Forbidden Forest and mounted a Thestral after greeting it with his magic.
• The Thestral flew Regulus across Hogwarts and through space before dumping him in an unfamiliar part of the forest and flying away.
• Regulus formed a streamlined Shield Charm shell, added auxiliary spells and Fiendfyre propulsion, and launched himself through the sky.
• Regulus reached near-supersonic speed, returned to a clearing near Hogwarts, and landed exhausted but excited by the flight.

Regulus reflected on how to improve the Fiendfyre-powered Flying Device he had tested and imagined one day flying alongside Voldemort. At the Forbidden Forest, Dumbledore and McGonagall discussed Regulus’s dangerous use of Fiendfyre, leaving Dumbledore confident that the boy would not be controlled by the Dark Arts.

• Regulus reviewed the Flying Device’s flaws and planned improvements to its shape, propulsion, protection, and control.
• Regulus considered obtaining Muggle flight research through Muggle-born or Half-blood students, and imagined using Fiendfyre to spread destruction before dismissing the idea.
• Regulus noticed that Hermes had not returned to the dormitory, then fell asleep imagining Voldemort flying beside him.
• Dumbledore and McGonagall discussed Regulus’s use of Fiendfyre in the Forbidden Forest, and McGonagall warned that his talent and experiment were dangerous.
• Dumbledore acknowledged that Fiendfyre was Dark Arts but asked whether McGonagall believed Regulus could be controlled by it.

Dumbledore persuaded McGonagall that Regulus had a strong will and a protective heart, despite her worries about him. The next day, Regulus arranged leave to travel to France and learned that the professors had let his nighttime flight in the Forbidden Forest pass with a warning to be more careful.

• Dumbledore told McGonagall that Regulus had a Starry Sky Kite Patronus, had chosen his own path, and showed a powerful will through his attempts to shape Hogwarts' space and tame Fiendfyre.
• Dumbledore convinced McGonagall to give Regulus time and trust his choices, then wondered whether Regulus's flame might one day turn blue before dismissing the idea.
• Regulus woke to find Hermes exhausted and aggrieved after waiting all night for him, but greeted him calmly and went about his morning.
• Regulus asked Slughorn for the weekend off to handle personal business in France, and Slughorn approved his request.
• Slughorn told Regulus the professors knew about his commotion in the Forbidden Forest and warned him not to make such a spectacle or burn it down.

Regulus prepared to travel to France to visit a relative, but Dumbledore joined him and proposed a new Transfiguration approach to improving Regulus’s flying device. They left the journey ahead as Dumbledore explained how animal traits could be combined with Transfiguration.

• Regulus avoided official travel procedures and prepared to use the Starry Sky Kite to reach Wisteria Manor in Provence.
• Dumbledore appeared in the fog and said he was going to France to visit an old friend, then offered to travel with Regulus.
• Regulus offered to take Dumbledore, who mistakenly assumed he meant the Fiendfyre Flying Device and praised the idea before suggesting a Transfiguration alternative.
• Dumbledore proposed borrowing traits from fire dragons, Thestrals, phoenixes, griffins, and thunderbirds to improve strength, navigation, recovery, vision, and flight.
• Regulus asked whether the traits could coexist, and Dumbledore explained that their accompanying instincts had to be fused into him rather than suppressed.

Regulus and Dumbledore discussed Transfiguration before Regulus used his Starry Sky Kite Patronus to take them to Provence. As preparations for Andromeda Black’s wedding continued, Regulus reflected on what Dumbledore believed about him and watched the gathering from a distance.

• Dumbledore and Regulus combined magical and nonmagical ideas while discussing Transfiguration, and Dumbledore praised Regulus’s open-mindedness.
• Regulus conjured the Starry Sky Kite and used it to carry himself and Dumbledore to Provence.
• Dumbledore admired the Starry Sky Kite’s bright Patronus, and Regulus wondered what Fawkes would see in his soul.
• Regulus and Dumbledore saw preparations for Andromeda Black’s wedding at the stone house in Provence.
• Regulus reflected that Dumbledore saw his Patronus and care for Andromeda as signs of goodness, though Regulus had also killed people and mastered dangerous magic.

Regulus attended Andromeda and Ted Tonks's wedding in France, secretly overcoming the family’s absence to stand by his cousin. He left Ted with a warning and a promise to protect Andromeda, while deciding that her future would not end in tragedy.

• Regulus used a Confundus Charm to enter the wedding unnoticed after Dumbledore declined to attend.
• Regulus met Andromeda in her bridal suite, and she was moved that he had come to see her marry Ted.
• Regulus escorted Andromeda through the courtyard and introduced himself to Ted as her cousin.
• Regulus told Ted that Andromeda had chosen him and warned that he would know if Ted made her unhappy.
• Ted promised to treat Andromeda well, and Regulus accepted his assurance.

Regulus escorted Andromeda at her wedding to Ted, offered them his blessing and a Gringotts vault key, and watched them begin their married life. As the celebration ended, he said goodbye to Andromeda and disappeared before dark.

• Regulus escorted Andromeda down the stairs and placed her hand in Ted’s, telling him he was leaving her in his hands.
• Ted and Andromeda exchanged vows and rings, and Regulus reflected on how they and Sirius had chosen their own paths away from the Black family.
• Regulus blessed the couple, gave Andromeda a key to a vault at Gringotts in Paris, and told her someone remembered her.
• Ted promised Regulus he would treat Andromeda well, and the guests celebrated the newlyweds with cake and dancing.
• At the end of the wedding, Regulus told Andromeda he would leave before dark, said goodbye, and disappeared.

Dumbledore visited Nicolas Flamel and described Regulus Black’s exceptional magical talent and apparent desire to leave the world. He brought Regulus to meet Flamel, where Regulus considered whether the meeting was meant to test his response to the Philosopher’s Stone.

• Dumbledore told Nicolas Flamel that Regulus had developed a spatial spell, showed promise in Transfiguration, and was close to taming Fiendfyre.
• Dumbledore said Regulus’s ambition might be to leave the world, and Nicolas suspected he had brought the boy to discuss the Philosopher’s Stone.
• Regulus picked up a waving glove at Wisteria Manor and was pulled through space to Nicolas’s home.
• Regulus met Nicolas Flamel, who noticed Regulus probing him with Magic Perception and gently called him out.
• Regulus studied the strange devices in Flamel’s room and suspected Dumbledore had brought him there to test his attitude toward the Philosopher’s Stone.

Regulus visited Nicolas Flamel with Dumbledore and used the rare opportunity to learn about alchemy, which he connected to his own ideas about destruction and creation. Flamel explained that alchemy converts Magic Power into matter, and Regulus ended by asking whether the soul was matter.

• Regulus considered how alchemy transformed matter and contrasted its ordering force with the Severing Charm’s destruction.
• Nicolas Flamel went to prepare food, and Dumbledore told Regulus he had brought him there to broaden his understanding of magic.
• Regulus shared a meal with Nicolas and Dumbledore, then accepted Dumbledore’s invitation to ask Flamel questions.
• Regulus asked how the Philosopher’s Stone created the mass needed to turn lead into gold, and Nicolas explained that Magic Power could become matter.
• Regulus asked Nicolas whether there was a limit to converting Magic Power into matter, then asked whether the soul was matter.

Regulus asked Nicolas Flamel about the soul and learned how alchemy could help him see, anchor, and nourish it. He left with a new way to understand his soul and its connection to his goal of lighting up Saiph, though he remained unsure whether darkness could nourish it too.

• Dumbledore listened as Regulus asked Nicolas whether the soul was matter, and Nicolas explained that alchemists treated it as matter so they could work on it.
• Nicolas told Regulus that he had sensed Regulus observing him and recognized that Regulus could see his soul.
• Nicolas explained that a soul needed an anchor to keep it from scattering, and Regulus considered his desire to explore the world and his reflections on magic as anchors.
• Nicolas said a soul grew by consuming experiences, choices, and attachments, and connected that nourishment to the brightness of Regulus's Patronus.
• Regulus wondered whether darkness and destructive impulses could also nourish the soul, then concluded that seeing, anchoring, and feeding formed a cycle that could support his goal of lighting up Saiph.
• Nicolas advised Regulus that some answers would emerge through action, and Regulus thanked him.

Regulus reflected on the nature of his Patronus and Nicolas Flamel’s explanation that Magic Power and mass could be converted, then discussed life and death with the two old wizards. He revealed that he wanted to explore the stars, leaving Nicolas struck by an ambition he had never encountered before.

• Regulus considered how his Starry Sky Kite represented freedom and exploration, while recognizing that it was only one part of him.
• Regulus connected Nicolas’s remarks about converting Magic Power and mass to his own magical theories.
• Nicolas asked Regulus how long he wanted to live, and Regulus said he wanted to live for doing things rather than merely staying alive.
• Regulus sensed that Nicolas had lost interest in continuing his life and realized Dumbledore had brought him partly to give Nicolas a new perspective.
• Regulus told Nicolas and Dumbledore that he wanted to discover what lay among the stars and whether other worlds held life and Magic.
• Nicolas laughed, saying he had thought he had seen everything, after hearing Regulus’s ambition.

Regulus left Nicolas Flamel with an invitation to visit again and returned to Hogwarts with Dumbledore, reflecting on their conversation about the stars, magic, and the soul. He ended the night considering how mass might become magic and how experience could nourish the soul, while his six stars remained unchanged.

• Nicolas gave Regulus a rune-engraved Metal Ball that would let him visit again, then sent him away with Dumbledore.
• Dumbledore explained that Nicolas felt he had experienced everything, and said he would be glad if Nicolas still wanted to live.
• Regulus and Dumbledore returned to Hogwarts, where Dumbledore encouraged Regulus to let his Patronus travel through the Castle.
• Dumbledore asked why Regulus had wondered about converting magic power and mass, and Regulus said he wanted magic to feel more like magic.
• Regulus returned to the dormitory, identified mass conversion and soul growth through experience as his main gains, and found his six stars unchanged.

During a Defense Against the Dark Arts practical lesson, Regulus reflected on how to expand his influence before arranging for Slytherins to partner with two half-blood students. The class sparred, and Regulus and Hermes showed Professor Vance that their skill far exceeded the others', even while holding back.

• Regulus considered how to gain enough influence to light up Saiph, briefly imagining the notoriety he would earn by destroying Hogwarts before rejecting the idea.
• Regulus told Avery to partner with Samuel Vance, prompting Avery to reconsider his prejudice and accept the half-blood as his sparring partner.
• Alex paired with Lina, while Regulus and Hermes faced each other for the practical exercise.
• Professor Vance ordered the students to begin sparring, and Avery took the initiative against Samuel while Alex coached Lina.
• Regulus and Hermes exchanged precise, controlled spells without moving, impressing Vance despite their apparent lack of effort.