The undead made decent enemies. They looked more human than Trolls, and without realizing it, Hermione had completed the final step of her basic training: slaughtering living corpses that looked almost identical to actual people.
Kill zombies today, and next time she could kill someone like Voldemort. After all, they both looked so pale and evil.
Under Deathstroke's control, this psychological progression had been very smooth.
"Whew, done."
Slightly out of breath, Hermione dragged an intact corpse over to the two men. Finestra had dispelled the Dark Magic within this Inferius, turning it back into an ordinary, motionless body. She dropped it before them irritably. "Please see whether this is your brother."
Only then did Sirius remember that Professor Wilson had led him off track. They had spent all their time chatting, and he had nearly forgotten why he had come. How embarrassing.
He lowered his head to look at the body before him. Like the other corpses, it had a pale, distorted face, the stench of decay from soaking in water too long, and waterweed wrapped around its skin. It looked completely monstrous.
Yet he still reached into the inner pocket of the suit it wore. This really was fine fabric enchanted with magic.
He knew his mother. Before she went mad, she had always ordered the finest custom-made clothes for the family. If this corpse truly was Regulus, there would be the Black family crest sewn into the seam of the inner pocket.
His hand reached in, searched, then froze. Time itself seemed to stop, before he was overwhelmed by a near-breakdown of emotion.
No one knew what he had found, but Su Ming, crouching nearby with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, suddenly saw Sirius begin to cry. The man clutched the