The dormitory was utterly silent.
Regulus drew the heavy bed curtains and layered soundproofing and anti-surveillance charms, sealing off the outside world completely. Praise, whispers, wariness, scheming, even the lingering feverish warmth from Bella's letter were all shut out.
He sat cross-legged on the bed, closed his eyes, and let his consciousness sink inward.
Basic Magic Circulation flowed along familiar pathways, gently washing through his limbs and body, nourishing and strengthening every inch of muscle, sinew, and bone.
Then, on a higher layer of awareness, his mental energy began to gather and weave itself together.
In the dark sea of consciousness, the three stars of Orion's Belt lit up one by one, moving with a slow, nearly imperceptible, yet undeniably real trajectory.
Star Guided Meditation began to turn. The chaos of stray thoughts was soothed by the vast imagery of the stars.
Once his state of mind fully settled, Regulus attempted to light the fourth star.
Things were moving faster than expected. His pace needed to quicken as well.
Synchronizing three stars was only the beginning. It was merely the threshold of Star Guided Meditation.
He directed his awareness toward Betelgeuse, glowing with a dark red halo.
This required maintaining the dynamic model of the three belt stars while integrating this new point into the entire moving system.
Betelgeuse had its own trajectory. Its relative position and motion in relation to the belt stars formed the foundation of Orion's upper-body structure.
The difficulty spiked sharply.
Simulating stellar motion was far harder than constructing a static model, not by a small margin, but by orders of magnitude.
It demanded precise calculation, powerful spatial imagination, and absolute control over magic.
He had to maintain the exact relative positions of all points in his mind.
At the same time, each point needed to move slowly, so slowly it was almost invisible to perception, yet in a way that still obeyed the laws of celestial motion.
It was like controlling multiple points of light at once, each following a different, complex function, while ensuring the overall shape they formed remained intact.
This required extreme concentration and nonstop calculation.
The slightest lapse would cause one point's motion to slip, breaking the entire model's dynamic balance and potentially collapsing it outright.
That slowness did not reduce the difficulty. Instead, because it had to exist continuously and be maintained over time, it imposed an even heavier mental burden.
Simulating this near-still, ultra-slow movement required absolute patience, precision, and constant adjustment.
Regulus began by precisely locating Betelgeuse's current position in his awareness.
A new point of light ignited, dark red and slightly larger than the belt stars, appearing above and to the right of them.
Next came motion.
Betelgeuse's self-motion data differed from that of the belt stars. Even its direction varied slightly.
Regulus had to split off part of his focus to calculate and sustain Betelgeuse's movement while also coordinating its dynamic geometric relationship with the belt stars.
Distance, angle, and direction all shifted slowly as each star followed its own path.
The moment he added Betelgeuse's motion, the previously stable three-star model was disturbed. The trajectories of the three points grew chaotic, and the entire structure teetered on the brink of collapse.
He stopped immediately, reverting to maintaining only the three stars. After stabilizing them again, he made another careful attempt.
This time, he first added Betelgeuse as a static point, locking in its relative position with the three stars.
Then, with extreme care, he began to inject the pre-calculated motion into it, bit by tiny bit, while simultaneously making subtle adjustments to the belt stars' motion to accommodate this new variable and seek a fresh dynamic balance.
It was an exhausting process, both mentally and computationally.
His mind felt like a bowstring pulled taut. A faint, persistent pressure throbbed at his temples.
Maintaining a four-star dynamic model consumed far more mental energy than three. The drain rose almost exponentially.
Time passed in silent resistance and constant adjustment.
At some point, it felt as though an invisible gear finally clicked into place.
Betelgeuse's dark red glow was no longer a jarring addition.
Its motion fell into harmony with the belt stars. The simple quadrilateral formed by the four stars began to move together in the void of his consciousness, synchronized in a unified, harmonious rhythm.
He succeeded.
The four-star dynamic model was complete, at least in its initial form.
Regulus maintained the state, carefully sensing the changes.
The mental cost was immense, but alongside it came a deeper sense of tranquility and a faint fullness, as though his soul itself had been stretched wider.
After lighting the fourth star, the entire meditation state felt more layered and stable. His perception of the ambient magic in his surroundings also seemed just a bit sharper.
He slowly withdrew from deep meditation and glanced at the magical timepiece by his bed.
From his first attempt to light the fourth star to achieving a stable result, nearly two hours had passed.
And that was only the time required to add a single star, building on an already mastered three-star dynamic model.
It was easy to foresee what lay ahead. As the model incorporated more stars, the dynamic relationships between them would grow increasingly complex.
Each additional star would demand exponentially more time, calculation, and mental strain to integrate into the overall system.
At the same time, it was equally clear that as the depth of meditation increased, his mind would be tempered by sustained high-intensity training. It would grow tougher and more vigorous, while his computational ability and spatial imagination steadily improved.
In turn, this would gradually accelerate the process of lighting future stars. It was a spiraling ascent, slow and arduous at the start, faster later once the foundation was firmly laid.
Yet the greatest challenge was not lighting more stars.
It was fixation.
Dynamics were the core of this method and also its greatest difficulty.
Each meditation required him to recalculate, rebuild, and maintain the entire dynamic model. It could not be solidified into instinctive magical pathways the way fixed meditation diagrams could.
To reach a state where this moving star model persisted naturally, whether walking, sitting, or lying down, was unimaginably difficult.
Fixation usually meant immobility, yet what he sought to fix was a system in perpetual motion.
This demanded that the deepest layers of his mind form an active structure capable of automatically processing complex dynamic changes and making continuous micro-adjustments on its own.
The road ahead was long, but the light was already visible.
Regulus closed his eyes again, choosing not to challenge the fifth star.
Tonight's success with four stars was already a breakthrough. He needed consolidation, to make this four-star dynamic model more stable, more natural.
---
News that Regulus had utterly crushed fifth-year Alger Travers spread suddenly and shocked everyone, exploding through Slytherin and even the wider pure-blood circles of Hogwarts.
Slytherin revered power, and it also revered the intelligence to wield it. When the two combined and were displayed in such dramatic fashion, the impact was immense.
Overnight, Regulus's standing within Slytherin underwent a subtle yet fundamental shift.
Upper-years no longer looked at him with the casual appraisal reserved for a promising junior. There was now genuine attention, and even a hint of wariness.
No one said anything foolish anymore. Pure-blood students who had kept their distance from the Black family due to factional politics or the Sirius incident began reassessing the young heir.
"The Black family might really be on the rise this time," a seventh-year murmured to a companion over breakfast.
"Think about the strength he showed, and how unfazed he was by Dark magic. That kind of attitude appeals to certain people."
"What matters is power," his companion replied seriously. "He's only a first-year, and he toyed with a fifth-year like a plaything. What about when he graduates?
Lord Voldemort is at his peak right now. If the Black family produces someone like this, their future standing…"
Similar conversations unfolded in many corners.
Pragmatism was one of Slytherin's survival rules. When the balance of power tilted clearly in one direction, adjusting one's stance and reassessing relationships was only natural.
Over the following days, the owl post grew unusually busy.
Many Slytherin students, especially upper-years closely tied to their families, wrote home in detail about the duel and the overwhelming strength Regulus Black had displayed far beyond his age.
Thursday morning, just after Transfiguration class ended, Regulus was stopped by a seventh-year.
"Black, Professor Slughorn would like to see you in his office," the older student said politely.
Regulus nodded, packed his things, and headed toward the potions classroom.