The Scottish Highlands had lucked into one of those rare, decent days. Sunlight spilled through the tall castle windows and broke into bright squares across the stone corridor.
History of Magic. Shared with Hufflepuff.
Professor Binns floated into the room like always, straight through the blackboard, then drifted behind the lectern as if that was a normal way to start class.
He opened the same lesson plan he'd probably been using for a century and began in that dead, flat voice of his, the sort that could put the living to sleep and still somehow drag the dead down with it.
"Today's topic: the Giant Wars."
"...Taking place in the late nineteenth century, the term refers to a prolonged series of conflicts between wizards and giants. Giants possessed enormous size, immense physical strength, and a natural resistance to magic. Their repeated attacks on wizarding settlements posed a serious threat to the enforcement of the International Statute of Secrecy..."
Almost nobody was listening.
One student was sneaking through a Magical Picture Book under the desk. A few others whispered to each other. Someone in the back had already given up and gone face-first onto the table, fully asleep.
Binns didn't notice. He never did. He was here to deliver the material. Whether anyone actually learned it had never seemed to concern him in the slightest.
"...The Ministry of Magic eventually organized Auror units and used a strategy of expulsion and encirclement, driving the giants into the most remote mountain regions of Europe..."
Regulus listened with half an ear and let his thoughts wander.
Giants were, in a lot of ways, the magical world's way of filling out its collection of humanoid species.
Big bodies. Ridiculous strength. Thick resistance to magic. Enough vitality that ordinary spells barely did more than scratch them.
The really interesting part was that there didn't seem to be a reproductive barrier between giants and wizards.
From a biological angle, that meant they were branches of the same species.
And the magical world had living proof that this frankly absurd crossover worked: Rubeus Hagrid.
That part was honestly fascinating.
Then Regulus cut the thought off. Thinking about it that way was rude.
Professor Flitwick was mixed-blood too, after all. Regulus didn't know Hagrid personally, but he respected Flitwick a great deal.
Still, once his thoughts got moving, they kept moving.
Wizard bloodlines really were strange. They seemed capable of producing viable offspring with almost any intelligent humanoid species.
The known examples were Half-Giants, Half-Goblins, and Half-Veela.
Were there others?
Centaurs? He'd never heard of a half-Centaur. Centaurs existed, obviously, but that only made the origin question weirder.
Merpeople? Same story. Merpeople were real, but there didn't seem to be any half-blood cases there either.
He'd drifted far enough. Back to giants.
That both the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters would try to recruit them was basically inevitable. Natural siege weapons were valuable to anyone planning to fight a war.
And Regulus already knew which side they'd end up choosing.
Voldemort's.
Hatred was efficient. Crude, but efficient.
Then again, the giants had gone from hundreds of tribes to a few dozen survivors hiding in the bleakest mountains in Europe.
So in practical terms, there was a limit to how terrifying they really were.
Being reduced from hundreds of tribes to a few dozen individuals said plenty about this so-called top-tier combat power. Wizards had paid dearly to deal with them, sure. But the giants were the ones who'd nearly been wiped out.
In the wizarding world, no non-wizard race, no matter how individually powerful, could stand against an organized magical force.
And to skilled wizards, giants weren't actually that hard to deal with.
Voldemort's real use for them was obvious. Not dueling elite wizards. Slaughtering Muggles. Spreading panic. Making a mess big enough that everyone had to look at it.
Regulus pulled himself back to the present. Binns was still droning away, voice dry as dead parchment.
"...After these events, the Ministry of Magic classified giants as extremely dangerous creatures and strictly forbade all wizard contact with them."
The bell rang.
Binns cut off in the middle of the sentence, rose from behind the lectern, glided back through the blackboard, and disappeared.
The afternoon class was Charms with Professor Flitwick. Regulus followed the flow of students into the room and sat near the bookshelves.
Flitwick was already standing on his usual stack of books, his thin little voice bright with energy. "Today we'll be learning the Locking Spell!"
He flicked his wand. The classroom door slammed shut.
"Colloportus!"
Something invisible struck the lock. The door sealed itself. A few Ravenclaws immediately tested the handle. It wouldn't move.
Flitwick beamed at them.
"The Locking Spell. Basic, but very useful. When you cast it, you need a clear intention to seal the door. Focus your magic on the lock itself. Go on, everyone, give it a try."
The room filled with overlapping incantations.
Some students got it right. Locks clicked shut one after another. Others got nothing at all. One poor attempt made an entire door vibrate with a low, miserable hum.
Regulus cast almost casually, and the lock sealed at once.
For him, this really was too simple to be worth thinking about. No wand movement. No spoken spell. Just intention.
He still practiced a few more times. No reason not to. Might as well loosen his wrist a little.
After class, he headed to the library.
Madam Pince sat at the entrance like a gargoyle with paperwork. Her hooked nose seemed aimed at every student who walked in. Regulus gave her a nod and kept going.
He took his usual seat, the corner table by the window.
After sitting down, he pulled The Essence of Magic from his bag and opened them to where he'd left off.
He'd been reading for a while when he heard footsteps stop by the table.
He looked up.
Lily stood there with a stack of books in her arms, her expression carefully arranged into stern disapproval.
Regulus nodded. "Lily."
She nodded back, barely. Stiff. Formal. Not a word. Then she sat down across from him.
He looked at her quietly, expression soft.
She was still annoyed, yes, but this wasn't real anger. It was deliberate. The kind that said, I'm upset, and you're supposed to do something about it.
Regulus closed his book. Under the table, his hand shifted slightly, and a silent Muffliato spread around them, wrapping the space in a private hush.
"I was wrong." His tone was completely sincere.
Lily looked up.
The stern look she'd been holding onto almost slipped right then.
She felt a flicker of indignation, sure, but even more than that, she wanted to laugh.
Who started with an apology like that?
Where was his pure-blood dignity?
"The holiday was busy," Regulus said, voice warm. "I didn't forget about you. I just couldn't make time."
He didn't explain what had kept him busy. Didn't mention Germany. Didn't mention who he'd met or what he'd been doing.
Still, the way he said it made it very hard to stay mad.
Lily stared at him for a few long seconds. The corners of her mouth twitched. She forced them back down.
"You always do this."
Her tone was still firm, but the edge had mostly gone out of it.
Regulus considered that. "I don't always do this."
"Have you ever written me a letter?" she asked, eyes widening as she pressed the point.
"...No." Regulus blinked at her, looking absurdly innocent.
"Then it's always."
Her tone made it sound final.
There were probably one or two flaws in that logic, but Regulus didn't bother arguing. He only looked at her with that same calm little smile.
Lily shifted under his gaze, looked away, and began flipping through her book for no real reason.
"I'm not actually angry," she muttered. "I know heirs from families like yours are busy during the holidays. It's not like me, being free once my homework's done."
She was halfway to making excuses for him herself.
"You probably had important things to deal with."
Regulus said nothing. He just kept watching her, gentle and quiet. Lily turned another couple of pages before glancing back up.
"But next time, could you tell me first? Even one line is fine. Just, 'holiday's busy, can't write.' That's enough."
He nodded. "Alright."
Lily blinked at him, then smiled despite herself, the curve of her mouth tugging her eyes along with it.
"Fine. You're forgiven."
Regulus smiled back.
The Muffliato still hung around them. Outside that pocket of silence, the library had gone soft and distant, just rustling pages, muted footsteps, the occasional voice too far away to make out.
Lily opened her book. Regulus returned to his.
The light by the window gradually dimmed. When it was almost time for dinner, Lily finally closed her book.
Regulus felt her looking at him and raised his head.
Her expression was more serious now. "Regulus, I want to ask you something."
He nodded. "Go ahead."
She hesitated. "What do you think about Dark magic?"
Before he could answer, she went on.
"I had a fight with Severus. Because he's... he's been learning things. He says it isn't Dark magic, just deeper magic. But I think it is Dark magic. Those spells look horrible."
She watched him closely. There was confusion in her eyes, and under that, something close to hope.
"I want to know how you... how Slytherins see Dark magic. Is it really like people say? Are all of you studying it?"
Regulus was quiet for a moment before replying.
"Do you want the truth, or do you want something that sounds nice?"
Lily glared at him. "The truth."
He nodded once. "Not every Slytherin studies Dark magic. Most just go to class, take their exams, and graduate like everyone else. Dark magic isn't easy to get your hands on, and not everyone has the nerve to touch it."
Then he continued, "But Dark magic itself isn't what you think it is."
"What do you think Dark magic is?" he asked.
Lily thought for a moment. "Magic that hurts people. Causes suffering. Kills."
"That's one kind of it," Regulus said. "But that's not the whole definition. Dark magic is actually a blurry category. Some spells are obvious, like the Unforgivable Curses. Others depend on who's doing the classifying."
"Take Fiendfyre."
Lily frowned. "Isn't Fiendfyre Dark magic?"
"It is," Regulus said. "But it was originally created to exterminate highly dangerous Dark creatures. It's also used to destroy Dark artifacts that are nearly impossible to break, to defend against large-scale invasions, and to create barriers of flame that are almost impossible to cross. It only got its current reputation later, mostly because people kept misusing it, and most of those people weren't skilled enough to control it properly."
Lily was quiet for a while.
"Have you used it?" she asked at last. "Dark magic?"
Regulus met her eyes. "Yes."
Her expression barely changed.
Like she'd expected that answer.
"Then do you think..." She paused. "Do you think people who use Dark magic become bad?"
"Yes," Regulus said, without any hesitation.
Lily's eyes widened. "Then you..."
He cut in before she could finish. "Some people are controlled by Dark magic. Others control it."
That was all he said.
But Lily understood the meaning well enough. He wasn't talking about himself like someone who had already lost.
And for whatever reason, she believed him.
"As for which kind Snape is," Regulus continued, "I don't know. You'll have to ask him yourself."
Lily lowered her eyes to the books on the table. Silence stretched between them.
"He wasn't always like this," she said softly. "He used to just love magic. He liked digging into strange things, weird things. We'd read together, talk about what we found, we'd..."
She stopped there.
Regulus didn't press.
Some things had to be worked through alone.
After a while, Lily lifted her head again.
"Thank you, Regulus."
Her expression had eased, lighter now than it had been before.
"I should go eat."
He nodded and let the Muffliato unravel.
Lily stood with her books in her arms. She took a few steps away, then turned back.
"Write me next time."
Regulus smiled. "Alright."
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