Chapter 8: Echoes of the Universe
In the spring of 1969, Regulus turned eight.
The room on the east side of the third floor of Number 12, Grimmauld Place officially became his bedroom and study. Orion gave him more space, a wall of bookshelves, a heavy oak desk, and a window that faced east.
But Regulus wanted something else.
He wanted to enter the storage room buried in the deepest part of the house.
It sat at the end of the kitchen corridor, locked all year. Walburga called it a pit for useless things, possessions of disowned relatives that were inconvenient to destroy but could never be displayed.
Among those sealed belongings were the items of Alphard Black, locked away in 1960.
Alphard had been disowned a few years earlier for collecting Muggle objects and for being far too friendly toward Muggles. Regulus had only ever heard his name inside Walburga's curses, spoken as if it carried filth.
After years of study, Regulus finally managed to unravel the protective magic on the door. It was nothing like a simple unlocking charm. The warding was layered, stubborn, and written in the habits of paranoid ancestors.
When the last strand gave way, the door opened without drama.
Inside, there were no enchanted heirlooms, no cursed artefacts, no family silver.
Only Muggle things.
An old vacuum tube radio.
Several copies of National Geographic dated 1950.
A stack of The Times.
A few hardcover notebooks.
Regulus carried the radio to his desk like it was contraband. It took him two days to repair it. When the current finally ran clean, the vacuum tubes glowed with warm orange light, and the speaker answered with a soft rustle of static.
He turned the tuning knob.
A voice emerged.
"This is the BBC, broadcasting the news."
Regulus's fingers stilled on the wooden casing.
"NASA has announced that the Apollo 10 mission has successfully completed its lunar orbit, making final preparations for a manned moon landing"
He sat behind the oak desk, hand resting on the radio, and did not move.
The moon.
Muggles were going to the moon.
And most of the wizarding world either did not know, or did not care enough to learn.
To them, the moon was a silver disc. A convenient measure for potion timing. A trigger for werewolves. A romantic prop for poetry and courting. No one treated it like a destination, because no one felt the need to.
They had magic.
But could magic do that?
Real space travel.
Crossing vacuum.
Resisting radiation.
Surviving long stretches with no air, no pressure, no warmth.
Regulus did not know the answer.
He only knew this.
Muggles, with short lives, fragile bodies, and hands that could not conjure a single spark, were doing something wizards had never truly attempted.
Or perhaps something wizards could not do.
Where were the limits of a wizard?
If Muggles could break boundaries through science and engineering, what would happen if magic and science were combined? What if the same hunger that drove Dark Arts research were turned outward, away from cruelty and inward obsession, and pointed at the sky?
He buried the thought deep, but it took root anyway.
July 20, 1969, late at night.
Regulus did not sleep.
He sat by the window, holding the old vacuum tube radio like a heartbeat in his hands. The broadcast crackled with static, but every line carried weight.
"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."
Silence, then cheering, distant and overwhelming.
Regulus tightened his grip.
"Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Now preparing for EVA."
There was a long wait. Instruments. Commands. Snatches of clipped voices.
"I'm at the foot of the ladder. The LM footpads are only depressed in the surface about one or two inches, although the surface appears to be very, very fine grained, like a powder I'm going to step off the LM now."
Then an even longer pause.
Regulus stood, walked to the window, and pushed it open. Warm summer air spilled into the room, carrying London's smell of coal smoke and brickwork.
He looked up.
The moon hung nearly full, its light cold and constant, indifferent to what was happening upon it.
The voice came again, clearer, firmer, as if the words were being carved into history.
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
Regulus stared at the moon.
That silver disc that wizards used for potion schedules and romance.
At this moment, two Muggles stood on it.
Shock hit him first, sharp and honest.
Muggles, limited by time and flesh, had reached the moon.
While wizards, with the power to reshape reality, with spells that crossed distance, with lifespans that could stretch for centuries
What were they doing?
Fighting for profit and pride.
Studying better ways to harm their own kind.
Arguing over which blood was cleaner.
Cursing one another for petty dominion on a small island.
And he was trapped in the centre of it.
Regulus's mouth curved.
If he had been thrown into this world, then he was not here to repeat its tragedies. He was here to change the direction of the gaze.
In late August, Regulus found Orion in the study. His father sat with documents spread across the desk, the candlelight catching the fatigue at the corners of his eyes. The atmosphere at the Ministry of Magic had grown tense, and Death Eater activity was slipping from whispers into something half visible.
"Father, I have a question."
Orion set down his quill and rubbed his brow.
"Speak."
"How high can a wizard fly?"
The question came out sudden, almost strange. Orion paused.
"That depends on the method."
He answered anyway, as if humouring an odd line of thought was easier than wrestling politics.
"The broomstick record is fifteen thousand feet above sea level. Any higher and the air thins. Breathing becomes difficult. Thestrals can go higher, but even they have limits."
He studied Regulus.
"Why do you ask?"
Regulus did not answer directly.
"What if someone wanted to fly higher?" he asked instead. "High enough to leave the atmosphere."
Orion stared at his son for a long moment.
"Why would you want to leave the atmosphere?"
"Curiosity," Regulus said, tone level.
Orion's eyes narrowed, but he continued, choosing the practical argument.
"Ancient stories claim wizards tried to fly to the sun and the moon. They failed."
"Those are myths," Orion corrected. "Muggles have Icarus. The lesson is not to be arrogant."
Then his voice lowered, and the details sharpened.
"Wizards have magic, but magic has limits. Outside the atmosphere there is no air, no pressure, extreme temperatures, and energies we do not fully understand."
"A Bubble Head Charm lasts a few hours at best. Protective charms do not reliably stop certain kinds of radiation. Apparition has distance limits, and you must have a clear sense of the destination."
He paused, looking at Regulus as if he were seeing the outline of a larger idea.
"What are you really thinking?"
Regulus had to bite back the immediate thought.
You know about radiation. You know about vacuum. Since when.
Instead, he chose honesty, or at least the portion of it Orion could accept.
"Muggles landed on the moon this year," Regulus said. "They do not have magic, but they did it."
Orion was silent for a long time. The candle crackled. The house creaked as if listening.
"I know," Orion said at last. "The Daily Prophet mentioned it in a corner. The editor believed it was a Muggle trick, not worth attention."
"But it is the moon," Regulus pressed.
"To a wizard, the moon is the moon," Orion replied. He stood and walked to the window, back turned to his son. "It affects werewolves. It affects potions. It affects tides."
He exhaled.
"But it is not a place anyone wants to go."
"Why?" Regulus asked. That was what made no sense to him. It was there. Visible. Near enough to point at. Why did no one want it?
Orion turned, expression complicated.
"Because a wizard's eyes only see magic. Magic is on Earth, in life, in the soul."
He glanced toward the window, as if the night beyond the glass were an argument he had lost in his youth.
"The stars are too far, too cold, too alien. They do not feel like our domain."
"Domains can be expanded," Regulus said.
"Perhaps." Orion returned to the desk. "But at what cost? What must a wizard give up to chase the stars? How much risk must be taken? And more importantly, who would support it?"
He looked directly at Regulus.
"Tell me your real thoughts. Do not hide one question behind another."
Regulus drew a slow breath.
"I am thinking," he said, "that if wizards poured the energy we waste on power struggles, the intellect used to study the Dark Arts, and the obsession with pure blood glory into something else, into exploring the stars, then how far could we go?"
Orion did not answer at once. He sat down again, fingers interlaced, gaze distant.
"Very far," he said after a long time. "But only if wizarding society solves its own problems first."
His voice became heavier, grounded in the present.
"Voldemort is creating division. The Ministry is retreating through weakness. The conflict between pure blood and half blood is sharpening. In times like this, no one will care about the stars."
"But maybe the stars are the way out," Regulus insisted. "If our vision were wide enough, far enough that struggles on Earth seemed small, perhaps we could rise above them."
Orion smiled. It was tired, and there was sadness in it.
"Idealism," he said bluntly. "I had thoughts like that when I was young."
Then the smile faded.
"The reality is that most people cannot transcend the level they live on. Wizards are trapped on Earth, trapped in flesh and blood, trapped in relationships and obligations."
His tone hardened into warning.
"Also remember this. In the current wizarding world, that idea is heresy."
"Pure blood families will say you have been deluded by Muggle technology. Radicals will call you weak. Voldemort will think you are distracted."
Orion's gaze held Regulus's like a grip.
"Until you are strong enough, keep it hidden."
Regulus nodded, face calm.
But inside, the radio's voice still echoed.
The Eagle has landed.
One small step.
One giant leap.
And somewhere in the silence behind Orion's words, Regulus felt the universe waiting, indifferent and endless.