Starlight gathered out of nothing.
It poured together above him, weaving into the shape of a vast-winged creature. When its wings unfurled, fragments of silver light scattered like falling constellations. The Starlight Kite swept in a slow circle around Regulus.
He hadn't summoned it.
When the danger crossed a certain threshold, the power buried deep within his soul—the part that longed for freedom and the endless unknown—answered on its own.
The Starlight Kite lifted its head and let out a clear, ringing cry. The sound rippled through the narrow passageway.
Inside the gray mist, every twisted face froze at once.
A legendary creature that fed on starlight and pierced through space itself, its very existence denied confinement and restraint.
Where its body of pure, positive magic passed, the mist began to tremble. It was the instinctive shudder of prey sensing its natural enemy.
The Patronus did not attack.
It simply flew into the gray mist, weaving between the densely packed faces.
Silver-white wings carved trails of light through the haze. Any face brushed by those luminous streaks dissolved instantly. No black smoke. No residue. As though it had never existed.
Regulus watched the Starlight Kite move through the mist.
It flew without hurry. Each beat of its wings stirred a tide of drifting starlight.
The faces tried to retreat, scrambling backward in panic. But the corridor was too narrow. They crowded and crushed against one another, with nowhere to run.
This was the essence of the Patronus Charm: a manifestation of pure, positive emotion, innately suppressing all negative magic.
The despair and agony condensed within the mist melted before the Starlight Kite at a visible rate.
He remembered the state of mind he'd held when he first summoned it—his yearning for a wider world, his stubborn devotion to the idea of freedom itself.
That longing alone was a blade against despair.
And because the Starlight Kite fed on starlight and could pierce space, it could reach directly into the core structure of negative magic.
No brute force was required.
It only had to exist.
Starlight washed over the mist. The faces collapsed like sandcastles stripped of their foundations.
The Patronus circled the outer edge of the Protego barrier. Wherever its wings swept, the gray wist recoiled.
The pressure against the shield dropped sharply, giving Regulus a moment to observe the battlefield.
That was when he saw the problem.
The faces erased by the Starlight Kite began to reform several breaths later, emerging from deeper within the mist. There was no visible process, no origin. They simply reappeared.
He locked onto the nearest one. It dissolved beneath the starlight.
Three seconds later, the same features surfaced elsewhere in the haze.
Understanding settled coldly in his chest.
The Starlight Kite was clearing the symptoms, not the source. As long as the origin remained intact, the faces could regenerate without limit.
And the origin was inside the stone door.
He reinforced the Protego. The barrier thickened again, solid and steady, though the drain on his magic continued unabated.
Each impact weakened the shield a fraction. Each weakening demanded more magic from him.
Maintaining the Starlight Kite also consumed mental strength. If this went on, the barrier's collapse would only be a matter of time.
Another detail caught his attention.
The faces reacted violently to the presence of living breath.
They slammed themselves against the barrier in a frenzy, mouths stretched wide, hollow eye sockets fixed on him.
What were they craving?
Life force?
Fresh emotion?
Or simply existence itself?
These creations, condensed from pain, seemed instinctively drawn to the vitality of the living. There was purpose in their hunger—a desire to assimilate.
Perhaps they needed living beings to fill the emptiness within, dragging more lives into the same abyss of suffering.
Time passed.
Cuthbert and Alex should have made it out of the passage by now.
Regulus calculated quickly. If the professors had been alerted, they ought to have encountered them by now. If not, the two of them could still reach Professor Slughorn in short order.
He refused to stake everything on rescue.
Worst case, he would break out alone.
If it came to that, he would burn the place to the ground.
But not yet.
With a subtle shift of thought, the Starlight Kite responded.
Outside the barrier, it beat its wings sharply. White light erupted outward in a sweeping curtain, clearing every trace of gray mist within ten meters in an instant.
Faces evaporated in the brilliance. The corridor, for a brief heartbeat, was clear.
Then the silver form flashed once and vanished.
Regulus calculated fast. The Starlight Kite's final sweep, combined with his newly reinforced Protego, would buy him about a minute.
One minute before the shield gave way.
He mapped out contingencies. If the Starlight Kite failed to locate the source. If the professors did not arrive in time. He would need an exit.
Space Warp was the last resort. As long as he didn't misjudge direction or embed himself into solid stone, the remaining risks were manageable.
Whether the bodily splitting damage from Space Warp resembled that of Apparition. Whether Dittany would be effective. Those questions had never been tested.
Fiendfyre stood ready as well. Even if control proved impossible, he would burn what needed burning.
He was twelve.
If he'd had one more year, perhaps he could have faced this more calmly, without every option carrying such risk.
He needed to learn more. Train harder.
None of that mattered now.
Everything was prepared.
All that remained was the Starlight Kite's return.
Cracks spread across the barrier again.
Gray mist surged back in. The faces were thicker than before, layered so densely they nearly plastered themselves against the shield.
They opened their mouths in silent screams. Despair seeped through the barrier and struck at Regulus's mind.
The mental barrier held most of the assault at bay, but the weight remained, like something heavy pressing against his chest.
Thirty seconds passed.
The Starlight Kite did not return.
He stopped hesitating.
Space Warp gathered at the brink of release. Fiendfyre coiled, ready to answer.
Just as the spell teetered on the edge of being cast, a cry rang out in his mind.
The Starlight Kite.
The sound of a mission fulfilled.
Regulus froze the Space Warp at its critical threshold. Something light settled onto his left shoulder.
He turned.
The Starlight Kite stood there, meeting his gaze.
Its eyes were the same shade as his, and within them lay entire constellations. They reflected the corridor around them now.
Clutched in its beak was a wand.
A thin layer of silver-white radiance wrapped the wood, but its true nature was still visible.
Black Walnut.
The surface bore deep and shallow grooves, corroded and scarred, like dried blood etched into the grain. A dull, dark sheen clung to it.
Midway along the wand, a segment of hard material was embedded within the wood. The substance was unclear, only a pale yellow edge visible beneath the curling grain.
Regulus reached out with his senses.
Inside the wand was a vortex.
Despair and agony churned endlessly within it. The gray mist. The faces. Every strand of negative energy originated here.
Each face's final moment of pain. Their resentment after death. All of it sealed inside this single wand.
Agony flashed through his mind—joints crushed, skin seared, organs rotting from within.
The pain was so vivid his brows knit tight.
Now he understood.
This was where every face returned.
The condensed despair and suffering were leaking from the wand itself.
When a face was destroyed, it flowed back along some unseen magical tether, reassembling once more.
He had never heard of a wand so dependent on negative magic, capable of generating its own attack forms.
It was less a tool and more a living vessel of pain, spilling centuries of accumulated darkness into the world.
He set aside questions of who had orchestrated this. Whether the goal had been to seize the wand or simply wreak havoc at Hogwarts.
None of that mattered.
Destroy it, and everything would end.
He opened his left hand.
A mass of blazing white fire rose from his palm, the heat warping the air around it.
He could not erase intangible negative energy.
But he could break a physical wand.
The Starlight Kite blinked at him and it released its grip.
The wand dropped toward the flames.
Just as the tip was about to touch the fire, a hand reached in from the side and caught the wand lightly between two fingers.
No warning.
No ripple of magic.
No distortion of space.
The hand seemed as though it had always been there, only unnoticed.
Regulus's pupils tightened. He looked up.
Albus Dumbledore stood beside him, inside the Protego barrier.
He wore deep purple pajamas patterned with stars, a matching robe thrown loosely over them. His long silver hair and beard were slightly disheveled, as if he'd just climbed out of bed.
In his free hand, he still held an empty teacup. A smear of glistening honey clung to its rim.
Between two fingers, he lifted the wand to eye level and examined it.
His blue eyes narrowed behind half-moon spectacles. After a few seconds, as though recognizing something, he flicked his wrist.
The wand vanished.
Only then did he turn to Regulus.
Warm blue eyes regarded him calmly through the lenses.
Regulus steadied his breathing and extinguished the fire in his palm.
The Starlight Kite remained perched on his shoulder, head tilted as it studied Dumbledore with unabashed curiosity, silver-gray eyes gleaming.
"Good evening, Headmaster Dumbledore," Regulus said, inclining his head slightly. His voice was steadier than he felt, though still a touch breathless.