They stood ten feet apart and gave slight bows.
"Begin," Narcissa announced.
Hermes moved the instant the word left her mouth, his wand snapping forward.
"Rictusempra!"
A streak of silver shot toward Regulus. Opening with the Tickling Charm wasn't lethal, but it was abrupt.
Regulus didn't move his feet. He flicked his wand once, casually. Another silver flash met Hermes's spell midair with pinpoint accuracy, bursting into a scatter of glittering sparks.
"Locomotor Mortis!" Hermes followed up at once, blue light skimming low across the floor.
Regulus tapped his wand to the ground. An unseen barrier rose before him, and the leg-locker hit it like a spell striking a slanted plane, sliding off and dissipating against the wall.
"Impedimenta!" Hermes fired a third curse, quick and subtle.
"Impedimenta." Regulus answered with the same incantation.
The two spells collided in the center of the space with a dull, pounding thud.
Regulus's jinx was stronger. It crushed Hermes's spell outright and kept going.
Hermes had to roll across the floor to avoid it, scrambling up in clear disarray.
Nearby first-years widened their eyes, hands flying to their mouths. Upperclassmen nodded, impressed.
Anyone could see it. Regulus's spell power was absurd.
Still, he didn't press the attack.
He calmly blocked or redirected every spell Hermes threw at him. Binding charms were flicked aside. Some curses missed him by inches as he shifted just enough to let them pass.
Throughout it all, Regulus never left the small patch of floor where he'd started.
Every spell he used came straight from Standard Book of Spells, basic defensive and interference magic, each cast with effortless precision.
His expression never changed. It didn't look like a duel so much as a demonstration.
Hermes, on the other hand, sped up. His casting grew sharper, trickier, far beyond what most first-years could manage. His family had clearly taught him in advance.
Yet his face darkened by the second, breath turning ragged.
He wasn't stupid. He could see it.
Regulus wasn't even trying.
That calm, measured response was humiliating.
"Is that all you can do, Black?" Hermes snarled, anger flashing in his eyes. "Just dodge?"
He broke off the rapid exchanges and raised his wand high. His chant dropped lower, harsher, the syllables twisted and difficult. An ominous dark red glow gathered at the tip, the air around it turning cold.
Several upperclassmen frowned. Lucretius Burke stepped forward, ready to intervene.
Narcissa's brow tightened, fingers already closing around her wand.
Too late.
Hermes hissed the final syllables. A beam of dark red, nearly black, heavy with pain and malice, tore across the room toward Regulus.
Dark magic.
It was clearly incomplete, its power greatly weakened, but the nature of it was unmistakable. Gasps rippled through the common room.
For the first time, Regulus's calm gaze shifted.
So this was it. Hermes was skilled in dark magic. Regulus could feel it clearly. This wasn't the first time Hermes had used that spell on a living person.
Family tradition.
Regulus abandoned the basic spells.
He pointed his wand forward.
No gesture.
No incantation.
The motion was stripped to its bare minimum.
A solid silver barrier snapped into place in front of him, crystalline as cut glass, its surface alive with intricate, orderly ripples that flowed without breaking.
The dark red beam slammed into it.
A teeth-aching hiss tore through the air, like metal being eaten alive.
Red light raked across the silver shield, clawing and gnawing at its surface, unable to punch through.
The standoff lasted barely two seconds.
Hermes's face went pale, disbelief flooding his eyes as the beam sputtered and vanished.
The silver barrier remained, flawless.
In the same instant the dark light died, Regulus stepped forward. A pinpoint of red flared at his wand tip.
"Expelliarmus."
The spell was denser and faster than anything Hermes had cast, a bolt of red tearing through the air and striking him square in the chest.
Crack.
Hermes's wand flew upward, spinning in an arc, caught cleanly by Regulus's free hand.
The duel was over.
It was mercy, in its own way. Otherwise, a single leg-locker would've been enough to drop Hermes to his knees.
From the moment Hermes cast dark magic to the instant Regulus broke it and disarmed him, less than five seconds passed. Many students hadn't even finished reacting to the appearance of dark magic.
The common room fell into dead silence.
Hermes stood frozen, his right hand still clenched as if holding his wand.
His body trembled. His face was bloodless, his eyes empty, unable to accept that his most secret, most trusted weapon had been dismantled so easily.
Regulus stepped forward and returned the wand. His voice stayed even, without triumph or disdain.
Just calm.
"Good attempt. But the spell structure is unstable, and your magic supply falters. Next time you use it, you should be thinking about killing me, not hesitating."
The air seemed to freeze.
The word killing, spoken so evenly by an eleven-year-old, sent a chill through the room.
Upperclassmen reacted first.
Lucretius's eyebrows shot up, open appreciation and even delight flashing in his eyes.
Nearby, several fifth- and sixth-year pure-blood students traded looks, murmuring under their breath.
"Did you hear that? 'Thinking about killing me.'"
"Merlin. From a first-year…"
"Elegant. Powerful. And…" A seventh-year girl from the Carrow family licked her lips, eyes bright.
"No moral panic over dark magic. He knows exactly what it is. That's how a Slytherin should be."
"The Black family might really produce someone dangerous this time," a boy from the Nott family said, his tone cautious.
To them, Regulus had judged dark magic as a technique, critiqued its execution, and ignored its inherent evil.
That mindset aligned far more closely with certain ancient pure-blood values than Hermes's half-formed curse ever could.
Alex parted his lips, his gaze flicking from Hermes, pale and hollow-eyed, to Regulus, calm as ever.
He wanted to say something. It was just a match. This had gone too far. Words like killing did not belong here. Neither did spells that felt this dark.
Nothing came out.
The words never came.
When Regulus's calm gaze swept past him, every naive thought froze in place. Alex dropped his head, staring at the tips of his shoes.
Cuthbert felt something else entirely.
After the conflict in flying class, he'd thought the gap between himself and Regulus might be bridged with technique and cleverness.
Now he understood.
The difference was visible, undeniable. He clenched his fists, then slowly let them go, watching in silence.
As for Hermes himself, the emptiness in his eyes snapped into focus. He stared at Regulus, humiliation, shock, fear, and a trace of panic churning together.
He had hesitated. He hadn't dared, couldn't dare, to cast that spell at full strength in front of everyone.
He yanked his wand back, dropped his head, and slipped into the shadows at the edge of the crowd, locking every emotion behind his familiar brooding mask.
"Ahem." Narcissa cleared her throat, breaking the tension.
She and Lucretius exchanged a look. Tonight's welcome had achieved its purpose.
There was no need to continue.
No suspense left to wring from it.
Lucretius stepped forward, scanning the remaining first-years. "Does anyone wish to challenge Black, or Mulciber?"
His gaze moved slowly across them.
Alex kept his head down. The others shook their heads, avoiding his eyes.
Even Cuthbert, who might once have harbored a thought or two, stood in silence.
"In that case," Lucretius said evenly, "the position of first-year chief goes to Regulus Black. Let this be the standard you aim for."