The magic cost of a spatial fold was roughly the same as a Disarming Charm. That part, he could handle.
What he couldn't ignore was the faint weariness creeping through his mind. It was the aftereffect of inherited magic he still hadn't fully digested. The strain on his thoughts ran heavier than it usually did.
He'd improved, yes.
Not nearly enough.
He was still nowhere close to using it in real combat.
If he wanted a spell to "travel" through space, he'd need precise control over the fold's path and its landing point. The smaller the error, the better, and doing that with a moving spell would be harder than sending an object.
If he wanted Protego to take effect at range, the fold would have to be instantaneous. Ideally, it would have no delay at all.
Because if a fight ever forced him to rely on a trick like this, losing even a fraction of a second could get him killed.
And if he wanted to directly strike a target's internal organs, he'd have to pierce layers of defense: magical barriers, physical tissue, even protections aimed at the soul.
Every part of that required endless practice. Deeper understanding of space. Finer control of magic. A mind tough enough to take the pressure.
Regulus had patience.
The road was visible. All he had to do was keep walking it.
He slipped the Galleon back into his pocket and rose to his feet. Time to go.
Regulus stepped out of the Room of Requirement. The door closed behind him without a sound, and the wall smoothed back into plain stone, as if nothing had ever been there.
He wrapped himself in the Disillusionment Charm again and headed back the way he'd come, toward the Slytherin dorms.
He didn't pass a single person. The portraits were asleep. The castle felt so quiet it was like it had sunk to the bottom of the sea.
By the time he made it to the dormitory, it was nearly one in the morning. Cuthbert and Alex were already out, steady breathing drifting from behind their bed curtains.
Hermes's bed was empty. The curtains were drawn tight, but there was no one inside.
Regulus washed up, climbed into bed, and closed his eyes.
His star guided meditation began to run on its own. Four silver stars turned slowly in the depths of his awareness, and Magic Circulation eased the surface edge of his fatigue.
But the deeper burden, the one caused by too much inherited knowledge flooding in too fast, would take real rest to lessen.
He decided he'd cut back on intense training for the next few days and focus on digesting what he'd gained in Verdant Magic and the Space Anchor Charm.
---
January at Hogwarts was bone-deep cold. Snow drifted down beneath a sullen sky.
Outside the castle, thick snow had piled along the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The Black Lake wore a thin skin of ice, its surface reflecting a dull, gray-white sheen under the heavy clouds.
Inside wasn't much better. The stone corridor walls felt icy to the touch, and condensation fogged the windows. Even with magic maintaining the temperature, students still huddled tighter in their robes.
Herbology was in Greenhouse Three.
Regulus stepped inside and felt the difference immediately. It was far warmer than outside. Magic held the air at the right temperature, damp and rich with the scent of soil and living plants.
The greenhouse was packed with magical flora. From common Devil's Snare to rarities like Venomous Tentacula, each species grew in its own section.
Professor Sprout stood in the center wearing her dirt-stained apron, a small trowel in hand.
"Today we're loosening the soil and repotting Mandrake seedlings," she said, her voice gentle and clear as it carried through the room. "In Pairs. Each pair takes one seedling. Remember the steps. Earmuffs and dragon-hide gloves on first, then you begin."
Students lined up for earmuffs and tools. Cuthbert immediately paired with Regulus, and together they collected a pot holding a Mandrake seedling.
It sat in a black clay pot, no bigger than Regulus's palm. Its leaves were a fresh, tender green, and a tiny purple flower bloomed at the top.
It looked harmless.
It wasn't.
A full-grown Mandrake's cry was lethal, striking at body and mind alike.
In the original history, Neville Longbottom had been so nervous in Herbology that he forgot his earmuffs. When he heard a young Mandrake's cry, he'd briefly fainted.
A mature Mandrake, screaming at full strength, could kill on the spot.
But a seedling wasn't the same. Its magic hadn't fully developed yet. The fatal force hadn't finished forming.
Regulus put on his earmuffs. The world dropped into sudden quiet until he could only hear his own breathing and the steady beat of his heart.
He looked down at the seedling and let his senses spread, brushing lightly over leaf, stem, and soil.
Inside it, he could see the movement of magic, like delicate silver streams slowly circulating through plant tissue.
The flow carried a distinct quality, something he could read much more clearly now that he'd begun to grasp Verdant Magic.
It wasn't so much "emotion" as it was a property. A tendency.
Some plants carried gentle magic, suited for healing, like Dittany.
Some plants carried violent magic, suited for attack, like Venomous Tentacula.
Mandrake was different.
Carefully, Regulus guided a thread of Verdant Magic forward, linking it with the seedling's magic for just a moment.
A response rippled back.
Natural chaos, unshaped and raw, like a forming hiss that never quite became a sound. It was a vibration at the level of magic itself, and it left his soul faintly unsettled just to feel it.
Magnify that a thousand times, add a voice as the carrier and amplifier, and you'd get a scream that killed.
But right now, it was small.
Regulus cut the connection after three seconds.
Even then, even with it being only a seedling and only three seconds, nausea rolled through him, the kind that hit after a long ride in a jolting carriage.
A faint dizziness stirred deep in his skull. It faded quickly, but it was enough to prove the danger.
And he couldn't openly study it. This Mandrake seedling belonged to Hogwarts and it was very valuable and rare.
Every plant here was recorded. One missing would be a disaster.
Professor Sprout wouldn't let him siphon magic from it, not even in a cautious, barely-there way.
Still… the Black family's herb garden in Cornwall had Mandrakes too. Even if the family estate kept strict counts and records, it was his family's property.
And he was the heir.
Using a little of his own wouldn't be a crime.
Regulus steadied himself and began loosening the soil.
He moved with care, using the small trowel to lift and part the top layer, exposing a fine web of roots beneath.
Mandrake roots were a pale yellow, like tiny ginseng, branching again and again. Faint pinpricks of magical light dotted the surface.
Cuthbert helped beside him, passing tools and holding the pot steady.
They worked well enough together. Cuthbert's aim wasn't perfect, and he came dangerously close to nicking a root more than once, but at least he didn't actually do it.
Other pairs weren't as lucky. One Hufflepuff boy shoveled too hard, snapped off part of a root, and lost five points on the spot.
The lesson flew by.
When the bell rang, most students had finished repotting, settling the seedlings into larger clay pots, packing in fresh soil, and watering them with a special nutrient solution.
In the new earth, the Mandrakes looked livelier. Leaves swayed faintly, and the tiny purple flower opened a little wider.
Regulus was just starting to stand when Professor Sprout called, "Mr. Black, stay a moment."
The rest of the class filed out. Cuthbert glanced back at Regulus, eyes asking if he should wait.
Regulus shook his head.
Cuthbert left with the others.
Soon only Regulus and Professor Sprout remained in the greenhouse.
She removed her gloves, wiped her hands on her apron, and came to stand in front of him.
She wasn't tall, and she was a bit round, but she held herself straight. Sun and wind had left their mark on her face, and her eyes were a warm brown.
"We spoke last term," she said gently, "about magical plants, about what you called their emotions and their magic."
Regulus nodded. "Yes, Professor."
"I remember what you asked," she continued. "Whether a Bubotuber feels pain when it secretes pus."
He nodded again.
"I told you then that many magical plants do seem to have simple emotions." Professor Sprout's tone stayed mild, but her gaze sharpened with intent. "But I want to add something now. 'Emotion' isn't quite the right word. Not for magical plants."
She stepped to a patch of Dittany and lightly touched a leaf with her fingertips.
"They grow. They respond. They have magic. They have sensation. But the words we use, pain, joy, anger, those are wizard standards we lay over them."
Regulus listened in silence, thoughts turning. Why was she telling him this now? Had she noticed something?
"But the nature of a plant's magic," Professor Sprout said, turning back to him, "that is accurate."
"Some kinds of magic are gentle and beneficial to witches and wizards. We call that good. Some are violent and harmful. We call that bad.
But magic itself isn't good or bad. It simply has different qualities."
She looked directly at Regulus. "I also told you before that a Mandrake's cry carries a powerful kind of mental-impact magic. It interferes with the listener's soul stability, causes consciousness to collapse, and kills on the level of the mind.
At the same time, that collapse triggers a chain reaction in the body, so what finally kills is the double failure of body and mind."
Regulus nodded seriously. He remembered her explanation clearly.
Then Professor Sprout shifted, as if stepping onto the true point.
"But the deeper reason is that its magic contains a tendency toward decomposition," she said. "That tendency rides on sound, and when it reaches a living thing, it pushes at both flesh and soul until the structure begins to break down."
Something tightened in Regulus's chest.
A tendency.
He'd only just begun to sense that distinction himself, and she'd named it outright, without hesitation.
So she really had noticed something.