Regulus nodded.
It was like painting. Rendering a physical object was straightforward because there was something to reference. Painting an abstract concept was harder because the artist had to build the framework of understanding from scratch.
His mind was still turning over what he'd witnessed. One thing was now confirmed that his spatial magic hadn't gone unnoticed either. That didn't surprise him.
It only reinforced what he already suspected. Dumbledore's hand was behind this.
McGonagall had been showing him what Transfiguration could do to space.
Then she continued.
"Truly advanced Transfiguration doesn't rely entirely on understanding, because some things can never be fully understood. The flow of time. The trajectory of fate. The nature of the soul. Yet a skilled Transfiguration master can still exert influence over them."
Regulus snapped back to the present, frowning. "If you don't understand something, how can you transfigure it?"
"Through intuition. Through conviction. Through the mystery inherent in magic itself." Her tone stayed even, but something steady and sure flickered behind her eyes as she spoke. "Transfiguration, taken to its furthest point, touches the essence of magic. The part that can't be fully parsed by logic or captured by knowledge."
Her gaze settled on him, serious.
"But that doesn't mean you can skip the foundations. Quite the opposite. The stronger your base, the greater the chance you'll reach that point at all."
Regulus nodded. He understood the principle. There was no such thing as advanced ability appearing from nothing. Every breakthrough was built on layers of accumulated work.
McGonagall drew another notebook from her drawer. This one was older than the last, bound in dark brown leather that had softened with age.
"Like the previous one, there are no specific spells or techniques in here." She pushed it across the desk. "Only thoughts. Some of the content may be beyond what you can grasp right now, but there's no harm in looking."
Regulus took the notebook. It was heavier than he expected.
"I've emphasized since the first lesson that Transfiguration is both rigorous and dangerous." McGonagall went on. "What the school teaches is safe, filtered, and verified. But Transfiguration itself holds infinite possibility and infinite risk."
A flick of her wand, and a transparent crystal sphere materialized on the desk.
Inside, a small mass of matter shifted ceaselessly. One moment it flowed like water, the next it burned like fire, then solidified like metal.
"This is the product of a failed Transfiguration experiment." McGonagall's expression turned grave. "Fourteen years ago, a sixth-year Ravenclaw student attempted to fuse life magic with Transfiguration. He wanted to create a transfigured creature with a genuine soul. He failed. The product lost stability and began shifting at random, impossible to stop, impossible to reverse. In the end, all that could be done was seal it inside this crystal."
The matter inside kept changing. Cotton became mud, mud became smoke, smoke became something else.
"The student was severely injured. His magic was permanently damaged. He had to leave school." McGonagall put the crystal sphere away. "Transfiguration can help you understand the world more deeply. But there are domains you should not enter lightly. Seek to understand the world, and the world will answer. But its answers aren't always what you want."
Regulus met her eyes, his voice carrying real weight. "Thank you, Professor. You've helped me a great deal."
McGonagall nodded. No pleasantries. But the look she gave him was layered with something harder to name.
Leaving the office, the owl on his shoulder took flight, circled the corridor once, and settled back on his arm.
It had maintained its transfigured state for over half an hour. The magical structure remained stable.
On the walk back to the Slytherin dormitory, his mind kept circling back to what he'd seen.
Spatial transfiguration.
Transfiguration could alter the structure of space.
That opened a door he hadn't known existed.
His previous research into spatial magic had approached it from the angles of perceiving space, utilizing space, and moving through space.
Space Warp brought two points together. The Space Anchor Charm stabilized local spatial structure.
But Transfiguration offered a different approach entirely. He didn't have to work within existing spatial structure. He could reshape the structure itself.
Compress the space in an area to shorten actual distance. Stretch it so an enemy could never close the gap. Warp it to bend a spell's flight path. Stretch and twist simultaneously, applied directly around a target. Fold it so a wand pointed somewhere it shouldn't.
Combined with his spatial awareness, every one of these applications was feasible.
He didn't need to replicate McGonagall's approach of pure Transfiguration to alter space. He could build on his existing spatial magic foundation and use Transfiguration to fine-tune, amplify, or generate effects that neither discipline could produce alone.
Empowering old spells with new theory.
By the time he reached the dormitory door, several experimental outlines had taken shape in his head.
He needed to test Transfiguration's effect on space: range, duration, magical cost, and compatibility with spells like Space Warp.
But the prerequisite was being able to perform spatial transfiguration in the first place.
So the studying couldn't stop.
Knowledge is power. In the wizarding world, that phrase carried weight beyond measure.
He pushed open the dormitory door. Cuthbert, Alex, and Hermes were all inside.
Cuthbert was grinding through a Potions essay. Alex had his nose in a book. Hermes sat on his bed holding an old volume with a black cover.
All three looked up when he walked in.
"Done asking questions?" Cuthbert's quill hovered over the parchment.
"Done."
Hermes closed his book. "McGonagall giving you private lessons again?"
"More or less." Regulus sat on the edge of his bed without bothering to deflect. "Some advanced Transfiguration applications."
"Such as?"
"Such as how to turn your wand into a chopstick." Regulus looked at him.
Cuthbert laughed. Hermes's mouth twitched, and he slid his wand under his pillow.
"Can you really do that?" Alex asked quietly.
"In theory," Regulus said. "But the target has to not resist, or the power gap has to be massive."
He hung up his robes and pulled McGonagall's notebook from his pocket, opening to the first page.
No words. Only a drawing: a geometric shape in constant flux, shifting from triangle to square to circle to polygon and back to triangle again.
The shape rotated slowly on the page, each transformation accompanied by a faint pulse of magic.
It was the concept of change itself, rendered in enchanted ink.
Regulus studied the figure, fingertips resting on the paper, feeling the rhythm of the magic flowing through it.
The road through Transfiguration was long. But at least now, he could see further along it than before.
Outside the window, the sky had gone fully dark.
Deep beneath the Black Lake, the Giant Squid let out a low, resonant call. The sound traveled through water and stone, arriving in the dormitory as a faint, muffled vibration.
Regulus stayed absorbed in the notebook, looking up now and then to think, his fingers tracing wand movements through the air without realizing it.
---
Early April at Hogwarts. Painted eggs adorned the Great Hall walls, and the Easter holiday was approaching.
Regulus, Cuthbert, and Alex went together to Slughorn's office to submit their leave requests.
The professor settled into his wide armchair, accepted three parchment forms, and scanned the reason column through his spectacles. Family matters, all three.
He glanced at them, a knowing smile curling the corner of his mouth.
"Happy holidays, boys." Slughorn signed the bottom of each form. "Do come back on time. Plenty of exciting things waiting for you."
He didn't press for details. A Slytherin Head of House, seeing three pure-blood heirs request leave simultaneously, could fill in the blanks well enough.
Likely some combination of inter-family communication, alignment of positions, or the quiet formation of mutual understanding.
Especially given the Astronomy Tower incident, which had also drawn in two other pure-blood families.
Hermes didn't apply. The Mulciber family was in a delicate position, and facing a pile of complications at home sounded worse than staying at school.
He knew what his three roommates were going home to discuss. The Astronomy Tower affair needed to be reported to the families sooner or later.
Regulus had written to Orion beforehand. One line: "Coming home for Easter."
His father's reply was shorter. A single word: "Good."
The first morning of the holiday, Regulus walked to Hogsmeade station with Cuthbert and Alex.
The platform was nearly empty. The break was short, and few students bothered with the trip. Spending close to two days on the train round-trip hardly seemed worth it compared to staying at school.
Cuthbert and Alex hauled their luggage aboard.
Regulus stood at the platform's edge and watched the train pull away.
He waited until it vanished around a distant bend and the platform fell silent. Then he turned and walked to an empty corner.
Apparition.
The crushing pressure lasted less than a second. When his feet touched ground, he was standing on the front steps of 12 Grimmauld Place.
The house loomed as it always did. Dark, severe, the black door shut tight, every curtain drawn.
---
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