At breakfast, Cuthbert was still going on about his holiday like he'd been paid by the word.
He waved his fork around as he described the size of Malfoy Manor's ballroom, the enchanted murals on the ceiling that shifted patterns, and the delicate little pastries the house-elves served, the kind with names you couldn't even pronounce.
Alex kept his head down beside him, listening, occasionally chiming in with a question like he was trying to be polite. Hermes only ate, his knife and fork tapping softly against his plate.
Regulus chewed his toast slowly, and for once his mind felt slightly distant.
The holiday days sat behind a thin veil, clear and vivid, and yet far away.
The Malfoy dinner. The Pure-blood gathering. Those meaningful, carefully chosen words he'd exchanged with Lucius Malfoy on the terrace.
The places he'd walked through while inspecting the family's businesses. The short, clean fight in one of Knockturn Alley's dark side streets.
It had all happened in a single break.
He'd done those things with an adult's mindset. He'd thought about those problems like an adult, handled those relationships like an adult.
Then he'd turned around and come back to Hogwarts, sitting in classes as a first-year.
On the Gryffindor side, James Potter was loudly telling the table about racing Sirius on broomsticks over the holiday, while Peter Pettigrew sat beside him with a face full of envy, asking question after question.
Over at Ravenclaw, a few girls were comparing the colors of the hair ribbons they'd bought. Some Hufflepuff boys were complaining about homework, swearing they'd barely managed to finish.
And at the Slytherin table, aside from Cuthbert's show-off storytelling, everyone else was talking too.
Who had a new broom. Who had gone to France and what they'd eaten. Who had picked up some odd little trinket in Knockturn Alley.
The topics were small, ordinary, threaded with childish excitement and childish grumbling.
Regulus suddenly found it all… interesting.
That pure attention to little details. The easy curiosity about something new. The honest chase of simple happiness.
He hadn't felt that in a long time. Long enough that he'd nearly forgotten he was only eleven.
---
The first class of the new term was Charms.
Professor Flitwick stood on top of his stack of books and announced the day's lesson in his high, bright voice. "Rictusempra! A fun little charm that forces the corners of your opponent's mouth up until they're laughing.
It isn't harmful, but if you use it well, it can disrupt someone's casting. It's hard to speak an incantation properly while you're laughing."
He demonstrated the wand movement and pronunciation, then flicked his wand. A pink beam shot toward the practice dummy on the front table.
The dummy's wooden face immediately twisted into an exaggerated grin, as if it were silently cackling.
"Now, pair up and practice!"
Regulus was paired with Cuthbert.
It really was a small charm. Plenty of first-years had learned it before term even started, so there wasn't much difficulty.
Cuthbert managed it on his first try. The dummy's mouth pulled into a grin, but not very wide, like a forced smile. On the wooden face, it looked faintly unsettling.
When Regulus cast, the pink light snapped out from his wand tip, and the dummy's mouth stretched almost to its "ears," the whole face warped into a ridiculous, manic laugh.
"Perfect!" Professor Flitwick bounced up from his cushion. "Precise casting, stable effect. Slytherin gains five points!"
Regulus nodded politely in thanks, but he didn't feel much.
He'd known the charm for ages. He couldn't even remember where he'd picked it up, maybe a book, maybe watching another young witch or wizard practice. It had simply stuck.
It was simple, low on magical demand, and the result was immediate. A classic beginner prank charm.
Still, since it was class and the professor was teaching it, Regulus practiced properly.
After a while, his mind began to drift.
Then a thought surfaced, sudden and sharp.
Regulus lowered his wand. When Professor Flitwick's patrol brought him near their table, Regulus raised his hand.
A few Slytherins and Ravenclaws nearby immediately leaned in, ears pricking. Regulus Black asking a question on the first day back was not something they wanted to miss.
"Professor," Regulus said politely, respectful, "I have a question about Rictusempra."
Professor Flitwick stepped closer and looked up at him with curiosity. "Yes, Mr. Black?"
"Does it only work on humans?"
"It works on most living creatures," Flitwick replied. "Mammals, birds, even some reptiles.
But certain magical creatures have very strong resistance, and a small charm like this might not take. Of course, it depends. If the caster is skilled and powerful enough, the charm can affect most beings."
Flitwick clearly thought that was the end of it.
Regulus did not.
"What if the target doesn't have a mouth?" Regulus asked, calm and steady.
"Or what about creatures where the mouth and the waste opening are the same hole, like cnidarians, jellyfish, sea anemones, corals. How would the charm apply then?"
The classroom went quiet.
What kind of question was that?
Why would something share one hole for both?
Some students stared at each other, blank and confused. A few Ravenclaws frowned like they were honestly trying to work it out. A handful of Slytherins looked like they wanted to laugh and didn't dare.
Professor Flitwick blinked, visibly caught.
He pushed his glasses up his nose, thought carefully, and answered with caution. "That is… a very creative question.
As far as I know, no one casts Rictusempra on cnidarians. In theory, if a target doesn't have a clear mouth structure, the charm may not be able to 'lock on,' or its effect would be greatly reduced, or it might fail entirely."
"Then what about earthworms?" Regulus asked. "They have a mouth and an anus, but they're tiny openings on the body.
Or slugs, where the mouth is on the underside and very small.
Or deep-sea fish where the mouth is in a strange place, or where it doesn't exist in any traditional sense."
"Mr. Black," Professor Flitwick interrupted gently, with the tone of someone offering a warning without embarrassment.
"The examples you're raising are not ones many people study. Charms focuses on what works on humans and common magical beings. For… specialized anatomy, the spell might need adjustments before it functions properly."
Regulus nodded. "Understood, Professor Flitwick. Thank you."
Flitwick gave him a look that carried a bit more meaning than usual. "You're welcome, Mr. Black. Questions are always welcome in my classroom."
Regulus wasn't actually fascinated by which end of a cnidarian counted as a mouth. That kind of curiosity didn't have much practical value beyond being strange.
The point was what the charm had sparked in his mind.
Rictusempra, from the moment it was created, had been built to force the corners of a target's mouth into a grin they couldn't control.
Whoever designed it hadn't been thinking about jellyfish. They hadn't been thinking about earthworms or slugs. They probably hadn't been thinking about anything beyond humans at all.
The charm had one purpose. One effect.
There was no visible principle in the middle.
No complex analysis of magical structure. No deep study of physiology. No explanation of how nerves and muscles controlled a smile.
It was simply this.
Someone had thought, I want to make people laugh.
And somehow, through instinct, or inspiration, or endless trial and error, they found a way to shape magic into that result.
Then the charm spread. It was written into textbooks. Taught and learned, generation after generation.
A Charms text would list the wand movement. The pronunciation. The cautions. Maybe even variations and advanced uses.
But it would not tell you why that movement paired with those syllables created that effect.
Because no one knew, or because the number of people who knew was so small that the knowledge became secret, or it vanished into history.
And through a tiny, silly charm, Regulus understood something all at once.
Magic could not always be understood, not in the way he wanted.
Until now, he'd tried to treat magic like science.
Like reason.
Like logic.
Magic was energy. Spells were code. Wand movements were guidance. Effects were output.
A precise program.
That mindset had let him learn a huge number of spells quickly. He could even improve them, optimize them, invent new applications.
But some magic might never have worked like that in the first place.
The Patronus Charm demanded positive emotion. It demanded the most genuine desire buried in your heart.
A Patronus wouldn't appear because you understood the chemistry of happiness, or could define protection in philosophical terms. It appeared because you truly felt it, because you truly wanted to protect something.
That was the power of the mind. The projection of will. Something more basic, more direct, more driven by belief than logic.
Rictusempra, small as it was, might be the same.
The person who created it hadn't overthought it. They'd wanted to make someone laugh, and they'd done it.
The person learning it didn't need to overthink it either.