The first Friday of October brought perfect weather.
Sunlight slanted through the Library's tall windows, carving bright lines across the tabletops, warm where it touched skin.
Beyond the glass, the Black Lake shimred. Students dotted the lakeside lawn, walking in pairs, sprawled on the grass talking, chasing each other with the careless energy of a free afternoon.
Regulus sat in his usual spot, the corner by the window, a heavy volu spread open before him.
Illustrated Guide to Magical Plants of Britain and Surrounding Areas.
He turned to the Whomping Willow entry, scanned a few lines, and flipped past.
Standard fare. Native range, physical characteristics, care requirents, danger classification. Year of discovery, known habitats, ideal growing conditions, what to watch for during an attack.
On magical properties, not a word.
That tracked.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them worked the sa way. Newt Scamander wrote about behavior, distribution, husbandry. Never about the magical principles underlying a creature's power.
That omission had to be deliberate.
If Newt had catalogued the magical properties of every beast, so wizard would inevitably find inspiration. Soone like Regulus. They'd decide a particular creature's ability was useful, or worse, develop magic specifically designed to exploit it.
For the animals, that would be a catastrophe.
No demand, no slaughter. No research, no targeting.
The sa logic applied to magical plants.
He'd have to work it out on his own.
Regulus turned pages, eyes sweeping familiar plant nas, cross-referencing their traits from mory before moving on.
The rarer specins got only sparse entries. Na, site of discovery, basic characteristics. But for his purposes, that was enough. Buried in those descriptions were clues to magical properties, if you knew what to look for.
Frostweep Tulip. Blood only when the year's first snow fell. Its petals froze but never withered. In sunlight, it wept drops of ice-cold liquid, and anyone who touched the liquid was flooded with their most sorrowful mories.
He suspected its magical nature related to frozen mory, the ability to seal a specific recollection away. If that property could be extracted, it might be used to lock away painful mories. Or in reverse, to trap soone in grief they couldn't escape.
Silence Moss. Found growing on stone tablets in ancient ruins. Anyone who touched it temporarily lost the ability to speak, and even nonverbal spells failed.
He believed the property related to language itself, or more precisely, to the act of casting. A direct suppression of spellwork. If extractable, it could beco a ans of rendering an opponent unable to cast at all.
Shadowlight Grass. Glowed only in absolute darkness. The darker the environnt, the brighter it shone, but the faintest trace of another light source snuffed it out instantly.
A sensitivity to light, or perhaps an exclusionary magical tendency. It would only exist in pure conditions, tolerating no interference. If that property could be extracted, it might yield detection magic, or inversely, a darkness that devoured all other light.
Regulus filed the nas and his guesses away.
If he ever got his hands on actual specins, he could verify with magical perception and verdant magic. For now, they'd have to wait.
He kept turning pages, hunting for more candidates.
Sunlight crept westward. The bright lines on the table migrated from one edge to the center and on toward the other side.
Footsteps approached. He looked up.
Lily stood across the table, arms full of books.
"Lily." A small nod.
She sat down opposite him and set her stack on the table. "Regulus."
Neither said anything more. They opened their books.
The Library was quiet. The occasional rustle of a page, a footfall, Madam Pince coughing sowhere in the distance.
After soti..
Lily closed her book. Regulus closed his. They looked up at the sa mont and their eyes t.
Lily smiled first. "You've been famous lately."
His gaze was mild. He didn't respond.
She blinked. "Is it true what they're saying? You made a first-year cast a complete Protego, on the spot?"
A quiet sound of acknowledgnt. "If you want to put it that way, yes."
"But you've probably also heard that it's just a trick. Letting soone feel the spell ahead of ti. Not the sa as teaching them."
Of course she'd heard. The professors had all but grabbed students by the ears and told them not to even think about it.
But these past few days, her roommate Marcia Fawley had been going on about it constantly. How incredible Regulus was. How her father had said it was the kind of thing you didn't expect from a young wizard.
Marcia's eyes had been shining when she said it.
Lily didn't entirely understand the fuss.
Protego.
She couldn't cast it either. Couldn't co close, really. The best her wand produced was a thin wisp of silver, a pale film that didn't even qualify as a ford shield.
She'd asked older students about it. The ones who could cast a full Protego told her it ca with age. When her magic grew stronger, when her body matured, when her will solidified, it would co naturally.
Others said you needed a conviction to reject harm. A genuine desire to protect sothing. Ideally yourself.
Lily had analyzed it and concluded she probably lacked that.
Her family wasn't wealthy, but her parents loved her. Her sister... her sister loved her too.
Two years at Hogwarts, and while there'd been the occasional unpleasant mont, she'd never been truly hurt.
She couldn't conjure the feeling.
She looked at Regulus, curious. "I heard McGonagall say that thod isn't suited for younger students?"
"That's right," he said. "At least not for those who don't have a skilled wizard at ho."
Lily went quiet. She understood what he ant.
Resources.
If your family had a skilled wizard, this was an option. If not, you ground through it alone.
Her family didn't have a skilled wizard. Her family didn't have any wizard but her. That was the gap that birth created.
She thought of her parents' last letter, every line full of concern. Did she need anything? Was her money holding out? Was the food all right?
Reading it had made her happy. But sitting here now, hearing what Regulus had said, sothing soured.
Was the gap really that wide?
She didn't say it aloud, but Regulus saw it anyway.
He could sense the shift in her magic. After that last remark, it had dimd, settling into sothing heavier.
He didn't rush to offer comforting words.
These were objective realities, the facts that Muggle-born witches and wizards had to face. He'd talked with Lily about this before. Birth mattered, but so did talent. Pure-blood families produced spectacular failures. Muggle-borns beca powerful wizards.
But those words didn't need repeating. In the end, you had to arrive at the understanding yourself.
He left her alone with it, sitting there, watching her with a quiet expression.
A long ti passed before Lily raised her head.
She looked at him, at that face. Warm and patient. Like soone watching over a child who needed looking after.
She shot him a glare. "Why didn't you comfort ?"
An eyebrow rose.
"You knew my family doesn't have any other wizards. You knew exactly what I'd think when you said that. Why didn't you say sothing?"
A note of complaint in her voice, but the edges were soft.
The corner of his mouth curved. "Because I know you're a strong witch."
Lily blinked.
"You won't be knocked down by sothing like this. You'll think it through on your own, and then you'll keep walking."
She stared at him for a long mont, then broke into a laugh, as if rembering sothing funny. "There you go again."
He had no idea what she ant, but he wasn't going to argue.
A nod, expression unchanged. "There I go again."
Her eyes said, plain as words: Go on then. Tell what you did this ti.
He cleared his throat. "Lily, would you like to feel what Protego is supposed to feel like?"
That got her attention. Her brow furrowed. "Didn't you just say it wasn't suited for young wizards?"
A small smile. "I also said it works if the wizard guiding you is skilled enough."
She dropped her gaze, thinking about sothing. After a mont, she looked up. "All right. Here?"
"Here's fine."
She glanced both ways and lowered her voice. "Do we need wands? I an, the Library... Madam Pince doesn't allow wands."
He shook his head. "No wands. I'm just letting you feel it."
He gestured for her to lean forward.
She leaned in. The distance between them shrank.
Regulus raised his hand, fingertip hovering about two inches from the space between her eyebrows.
A thread of silver light spilled from his fingertip. Gentle, not harsh.
It drifted toward her forehead. The instant it touched skin, it spread and dissolved inward.
Lily's eyes went wide. Her body locked for a heartbeat, then relaxed.
Two seconds later, he withdrew his hand. The silver glow faded.
She held the sa posture, motionless, eyes open but focused on nothing.
A few more seconds. She blinked. Her gaze sharpened again.
She looked at him, eyes wider than before, filled with surprise and sothing close to disbelief.
"Rember that feeling," he said. "Try it when you're back in your dormitory. Practice a few tis."
"But rember, it has to beco yours. What you felt just now only shows you what Protego looks like. The real thing has to co from you."
Lily nodded, kept nodding, then asked carefully, "Regulus, should I keep this a secret?"
"If there's a friend you trust, you can tell her," he said. "After all, these things need to co from sowhere, don't they?"
Lily thought about it and smiled. "Got it."
She began gathering her books. He did the sa. They walked out together.
Past the Library doors, the corridor dimd. Torches were already lit, their amber halos swaying against the stone walls.
"Thank you, Regulus." The words ca out of nowhere.
He shook his head. "Between friends, no need."
A quiet mumble. "It's always you helping ."
He turned to look at her. Lily tilted her face up, smiling.
"Bye!"
She hugged her books to her chest and took off, footsteps quick and light, her braid swinging behind her.
Regulus stood where he was, watching until she disappeared around the corner.
Then he turned and walked the other way.
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