Over the next few days, Regulus kept to his routine. The Library, the Restricted Section, the Room of Requirement. He didn't rush to the Forbidden Forest.
The Forbidden Forest wasn't going anywhere.
---
A late September afternoon. The Library.
Regulus sat in his usual spot, working through a book on mental magic. He'd reached a key passage when movement flickered at the edge of his vision.
Sirius.
Standing in front of a row of shelves, flipping through some book at speed, pages whipping past in a blur.
He flipped for a while, shoved it back, yanked out another, and resumed the whipping.
The noise carried across the entire Library.
Madam Pince rose from behind her counter, her hooked nose aimed at him like a weapon, eyes cutting.
"Mr. Black!"
Sirius had been absorbed enough in his search that the bark made him flinch. The book nearly flew from his hands.
He turned and met that face. His movements stiffened for a beat.
Then he pulled out a smile. Hard to tell if it was meant to placate or provoke.
"If you don't intend to read in the Library, you may do so outside."
Sirius opened his mouth to explain, then swallowed it. He slid the book back onto the shelf, gentler this time, and stole a glance at Madam Pince to see if she'd moved on.
Regulus looked away. He knew what Sirius was searching for. A way to keep a werewolf company through the full moon.
The answer was Animagus. He'd known it all along. But no one had asked him, and he wasn't about to volunteer it.
Friendship was their business. Let them figure it out.
He thought back to what he'd told Sirius over the holidays. About talent. About finding a path. He'd told him to try every branch of magic he could get his hands on, to watch where progress came fastest, where the work felt most natural, where the urge to dig deeper wouldn't let go.
Whether Sirius had followed through, he didn't know. Whether he'd found anything, he didn't know either.
But if Sirius discovered an aptitude for Transfiguration and started pushing in that direction with purpose... would that shorten the time it took to become an Animagus?
How long had it taken in the original story?
A year or two? Longer?
Regulus wasn't sure. But he knew that whatever Sirius was doing, it was something worthwhile.
Good enough.
He turned a page and kept reading.
---
A Wednesday in late September. The small hours. Room of Requirement.
Hermes was flat on his back again, limbs splayed, chest heaving, eyes half-shut. He looked like a fish washed up on shore.
Scattered around him were several practice wands and the dismembered limbs of wooden training dummies.
He'd never have pushed himself this far.
But he knew Regulus was still in the inner room. Knew that when Regulus came out, he'd see him lying here, cast Wingardium Leviosa, float him upright, and haul him back to the dormitory.
So he let himself collapse without worry. Someone would handle it.
Though he might need to lie here a bit longer.
Regulus paid no mind to Hermes outside.
The boy had figured out that Regulus wouldn't actually leave him there, and the result was escalating audacity. Every session, he trained to total exhaustion. Every session, he waited to be scooped up.
Like keeping a pet of some kind.
But Regulus said nothing. Willingness to train was a good thing, and floating someone took no effort.
He sat in the inner room, turning over what the professors had told him these past weeks.
Professor Slughorn: magic is a partner, not a servant.
Professor McGonagall: some things can't be changed by Transfiguration. Position. Relationships. Points on a timeline.
Dumbledore: the will overwrites instinct. Self-knowledge is the foundation of everything.
All of it still felt distant.
He understood it. Knew it was right. Knew it belonged to a higher order of magic. But turning those ideas into something he could touch and wield would take time. A deeper grasp of magic itself.
The professors had pointed out the direction. Walking the road was his job alone.
Regulus took stock of where he stood.
Mental fortitude. Strength of will. Physical resilience. The stability of his soul. All of it flowed from Star Guided Meditation.
Five stars in orbit, each revolution making him stronger. The progress tangible enough to feel.
It hadn't stopped since the day he'd ignited Bellatrix.
But what the professors described was still out of reach.
Out of reach or not, he had to think about it.
He returned to Dumbledore's words. Mental defense. Self-knowledge.
The protective imagery of Bellatrix had already been woven into his constant Protego. The whole point of constant was that it worked passively, no conscious effort required. He'd maintained it for nearly a year now. The spell had become something close to instinct. Without thought, it was simply there.
What about mental defense?
Occlumency was something he activated when needed. He didn't keep it running at all times.
He could, of course. But that meant a continuous drain on magic and mental energy.
More importantly, it changed something about the person using it. Living behind permanent Occlumency was like existing behind a membrane. Emotions dulled. Connections with others grew harder to form. Wrap yourself too tight, and you couldn't touch anyone.
Regulus didn't think he needed to touch anyone. Not now, at least. But he didn't want that either.
Now, though, another idea was forming.
Bellatrix represented protection. Protecting the self, the essence of who he was. Could that "self" also become part of the barrier?
If the guardian of identity and the defense of the mind could merge, making the self more solid on its own, would that produce Occlumency's effect without Occlumency's cost?
Regulus began experimenting. This was not the work of a day or two, and he knew it.
Each meditation session, at the center of the star orbits, he returned to a single question.
Who am I?
When Dumbledore had asked, he'd answered: I know who I am.
But here, in the deepest layer of Star Guided Meditation, he pressed further.
Beneath the name Regulus Black. Beneath the identity of the Black family heir. Beneath every lesson learned and every experience lived.
What was the irreducible core that made him him?
The thing that would hold no matter how the world shifted. No matter what Dumbledore guided him toward, what gifts Voldemort offered, or what plans Grindelwald laid.
He needed to find it. Make it clear enough to serve as the most unyielding barrier his mind could hold.
Day one... Nothing.
Day two... Still empty.
Day three... A faint outline, blurred at the edges.
Day four... Slightly sharper.
Day five... Six... Seven.
Every day, the same work.
At the deepest point of the star orbits, in the core of his mental landscape, he reached out again and again. Felt for it. Confirmed it. Asked the question once more.
At last, he saw it.
At the center of the orbiting stars, where the light burned brightest, stood a figure.
Tiny. No bigger than a thumb. Standing there, its back to him, or rather, it had no front or back. It simply existed.
Regulus looked at the figure, and something strange welled up inside him.
That was him.
Stripped of appearance. Stripped of identity. Stripped of history. Stripped of everything external. What remained was the thing that made him who he was.
Starlight from the orbits flowed across the figure like water, like wind, like time itself. But the figure didn't move. It only was.
Every ounce of magic. Every thread of will. Every sense, every thought. All of it radiated outward from that single point.
Regulus knew what he was looking at.
His soul. For the first time, he'd seen his own soul.
How long the moment lasted, he couldn't say. In the mental landscape, time held no meaning. It might have been an instant. It might have been a day.
When he pulled out of meditation and opened his eyes, the inner room was the same as always. Light drifting overhead, the four walls still and quiet.
He looked down at his hands. No visible change. But he knew something was different.
In the days that followed, he continued.
Every meditation. Every session spent watching the figure at the center of the stars, growing clearer, growing more stable.
The light that passed through it grew brighter. Purer.
The process was slow. He didn't rush.
By the end of September, he felt the shift. Subtle, but unmistakable.
Perception had sharpened. Things that once required concentrated focus now answered to a flicker of attention. Magical perception: the residual traces of old spells, the faint activity sleeping inside materials, the emotional colors that leaked unconsciously from passing wizards. All of it as vivid as sight. Spatial perception: the boundaries of a room, the thickness of walls, the minute wrinkles in the air, even the rhythmic breathing of the castle itself as it stirred the space around it. Clear as day.
His Patronus had grown stronger. Its silver-white glow blazed brighter than ever, its form more solid and alive than at any point before. It rose unbidden from his chest now, gliding through the narrow room on its own. Each beat of its wings trailed currents of starlight. It circled him, flickering in and out of visibility, its luminous pulses carrying a guardian's will that felt almost instinctive.
Even Fiendfyre obeyed more readily. The orange-red flames curling around him carried a closeness that hadn't been there before, as though the fire wanted to be tamed.
Regulus understood. The gains from igniting Bellatrix had only now been fully absorbed.
Star Guided Meditation had been running all along, lifting him continuously. Magic, mind, will, all growing stronger with every passing moment.
But not until the figure appeared at the center of the stars had those gains truly stabilized.
The star he'd ignited hadn't only lit up one corner of the orbit. It had reached something deeper. The soul.
Now its light had merged completely into his system. Each revolution of the five stars nourished the figure at the center.
It was clearer than before. More rooted. As if it had sunk its foundations into the heart of the star orbits and anchored there.
He could begin the next step. Igniting the sixth star.
Regulus stood, pushed open the door, and stepped out.
Hermes was still on the floor.
Seeing him, Hermes's eyes shifted. Waiting to be scooped.
Regulus flicked a finger. Wingardium Leviosa.