Regulus stood still, running the choreography in his head.
During the Side-Shift Spell's two-second cooldown, maintain speed with the Swiftness Spell. On a straight path, switch to the Sprint Spell for acceleration. Need to turn or brake hard? Cut back to Swiftness. Hit an obstacle or need a vantage point, trigger the Flight Spell to clear it, then immediately chain into a Side-Shift on landing to reposition.
The key was the transitions.
Switching between spells took time. Even a fraction of a second could be fatal in a fight. He needed to drill the changeovers into instinct, so his body was already channeling the next spell's magic before the current one faded.
This wasn't inventing new magic. He was combining old tools into a single workflow.
His mind drifted to Voldemort's unaided flight.
That magic moved like smoke through the air. No broom, no Thestral, operating on principles that defied everything known about flight magic. The first time Voldemort used it, members of the Order of the Phoenix had been stunned. It shattered their understanding of what magic could do.
Moody had spent a lifetime on the front lines against dark wizards. His experience was second to none. He'd been stunned too. Then he'd died.
Every Death Eater, even core members like Bellatrix and Barty Jr., still relied on brooms. None of them could replicate Voldemort's unaided flight.
Someone stated that only a select few inner circle members had been taught, but in practice the only one who'd mastered it was Snape.
Voldemort had deliberately monopolized the magic, treating it as an exclusive privilege reserved for his most trusted. Snape's ability to learn it was partly talent and partly a demonstration of Voldemort's trust.
Regulus didn't doubt he could learn it. If Snape could manage it, there was no reason he couldn't.
The problem was getting Voldemort to teach him. Or getting Snape to.
Too distant a goal for now, but not impossible down the line.
Or he could develop it himself.
Regulus pulled his thoughts back.
Wand up.
First attempt. The Side-Shift Spell ended, his body materialized ten meters away, but his magic didn't begin activating the Swiftness Spell until after he'd landed. That half-second delay was enough for an opponent to finish a Killing Curse.
Second attempt went better. While the Side-Shift was still in effect, he'd already begun channeling the Swiftness Spell's magic. The moment his feet touched down, his speed kicked in.
But when he tried to pivot and switch to the Sprint Spell, his magic couldn't keep up. He nearly slammed into a wall.
Third try.
Then Fourth.
Fifth.
The spells themselves weren't hard.
The Swiftness Spell was fast running. The Sprint Spell was a gliding acceleration. The Side-Shift Spell was a short-range blink. The Flight Spell was a low hover. None of them demanded extraordinary power.
What was hard was using the right spell at the right time with no gaps in between.
But for Regulus, this didn't qualify as difficult.
His magical perception was refined enough to pinpoint the exact moment each spell activated and the precise instant it began to fade. His mind could simultaneously process movement path prediction, spell-switch preparation, and magic output adjustment.
Three things at once. Like playing three games of wizard chess simultaneously. Most people would find it overwhelming. For him, it was routine practice.
An hour in, he was moving fluidly through the training space.
Side-Shift into a Swiftness sprint. Hard stop, cut to Sprint Spell for a direction change. Simulated low wall ahead, Flight Spell to clear it. The instant he landed, another Side-Shift to open distance.
Faster and faster, the transitions growing smoother.
A flash of white light across his skin was the Swiftness Spell. Feet tracing arcs across the floor was the Sprint Spell. A figure blurring out and snapping back into focus was the Side-Shift. A body lifting briefly from the ground was the Flight Spell.
Four effects cycling in rotation, the pauses between them shrinking to almost nothing.
But the system had its ceiling. In a situation like the Astronomy Tower corridor, completely surrounded with nowhere to hide in tight quarters, no amount of agility could dodge every attack.
What it improved was mobility. As long as he never got boxed in like that again, it would serve him well enough.
And most wizarding combat came down to opponents, not killing fields.
Regulus stopped. Breathing steady, energy expenditure minimal.
It occurred to him that combat wizards must have studied all of this. Professor Flitwick was a former dueling champion. Had he won those titles by footwork alone?
Aurors and Hit Wizards facing dark wizards couldn't rely solely on Apparition. Anti-Apparition wards weren't rare. Surviving real combat meant mastering multiple means of movement.
He'd genuinely overlooked this area, too focused on advanced magic, forgetting that practical combat foundations were often built from ordinary techniques.
His father Orion had never brought it up. Perhaps he'd thought it was too early, or perhaps he'd wanted Regulus to figure it out on his own.
At least he'd filled the gap himself.
He exited the Room of Requirement and stepped back in, this time with a combat environment in mind.
The room answered. The training floor transformed into something resembling ruins: cracked stone pillars, collapsed walls, craters and debris scattered across the ground.
Sixteen training dummies stood distributed among the wreckage. They could move. Each gripped a practice wand, and the tips began gathering magic.
Regulus tightened his grip on his wand.
The first dummy fired a bolt of red light.
Knockback Jinx.
He triggered the Side-Shift Spell, displacing three meters to the left. The curse grazed past his shoulder.
The Swiftness Spell activated the instant he landed, propelling him behind the nearest stone pillar.
A second dummy's spell chased him. The Sprint Spell engaged, carrying him through a gliding turn in the narrow gap between columns. The curse struck stone and sprayed fragments.
A third dummy cut in from the flank. Flight Spell. His body lifted half a meter, clearing a section of ruined wall.
Midair, a fourth dummy's spell streaked toward him. His Side-Shift cooldown had just reset. His figure vanished, reappearing five meters away behind cover.
Spells came from every direction.
He kept moving, weaving and dodging through the ruins.
Side-Shift to evade lethal shots. Swiftness to close distance or pull back. Sprint Spell to thread through complex terrain. Flight Spell to vault obstacles.
Four spells in rotation, the rhythm stabilizing, settling into a pattern.
Physical strain was real. High-speed movement generated inertia, and sudden stops and sharp turns hammered his muscles and joints. But a body tempered by Star Guided meditation could handle it, and his magical reserves stayed within manageable limits. Forty minutes of continuous movement before his breathing grew even slightly uneven.
The dummies ceased fire. The training ground fell quiet.
Regulus lowered his wand. The system worked.
Not perfect yet, but functional. The rest was refinement through live combat, adjusting spell order and timing to fit specific situations.
But he was clear about its limitations. At the end of the day, he was still a grounded chicken.
The Flight Spell could get him off the ground, but at its speed, he'd never dare go high. No cover in the air, slow movement, and the moment concentrated fire found him he'd be a sitting target.
This kind of flight was only good for clearing obstacles. It couldn't serve as a primary means of movement.
What he needed was true flight magic. No broom, no magical creature, just his own power carrying him freely through the sky.
Voldemort's unaided flight was the ideal.
Devastating results.
But Regulus had no reason to know the magic existed, and he certainly couldn't reveal any desire to learn it.
Showing that kind of need to Voldemort was dangerous. Regulus was entirely certain that if he asked, the Dark Lord would be happy to teach him.
And then the knowledge would become leverage, and he'd be expected to pay for it.
He couldn't help turning over the magic's underlying principles.
Why did it work?
Was it Dark Magic?
Possibly. Most of Voldemort's spellwork was rooted in the Dark Arts, or more precisely, outside of his younger years, few had ever seen him cast anything else.
But not necessarily. Some powerful magic was merely difficult, not inherently evil.
Even Voldemort had to know legitimate magic beyond the Dark Arts, and his mastery there would run deep as well. Perhaps he'd fused elements from different magical disciplines into something entirely new.
Regulus didn't have answers.
He didn't even have enough information to speculate properly. He'd never witnessed the effect firsthand, didn't know the spell's structure, and couldn't even confirm whether it required a fixed wand movement.
All he could do was file the thoughts away.
But the seed had been planted.
Walking back from the Room of Requirement, his mind was still optimizing details. Could he chain two Side-Shifts back to back? Could the cooldown be masked by layering another spell's effect over the gap?
Back in the dormitory, Cuthbert and Alex were already asleep. Steady breathing drifted from behind their bed curtains.
Regulus lay down and closed his eyes.
Tomorrow was Saturday. Ten in the morning, a meeting with Dumbledore in the Headmaster's office.
The conversation beneath the Astronomy Tower had been rushed, improvised. This time would be the real one. What would Dumbledore ask?
His ideals? His path? The future? His choices?
He didn't know, but he wasn't particularly worried.
Between the Astronomy Tower incident and his frequent visits to the Restricted Section, Dumbledore's stance had been clear enough. He'd chosen not to intervene, but he would nudge things in the right direction when the moment called for it.
If Dumbledore truly intended to control or restrict him...
In the darkness, the slightest hint of a smile touched Regulus's face.
There wasn't much he could do about it. He could hardly drop out.
But the odds of that were low.
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