Those looks from the upper years. Those glances from the younger ones. He knew them too well.
Longing... calculation... the hesitation of someone who wanted to approach but didn't dare.
He knew what came next.
He'd just helped Rosalie produce a complete Protego, and that was the kind of thing that made people hungry.
Protego wasn't simple. Under normal circumstances, casting a fully formed Shield Charm before adulthood, one actually useful in a real fight, was considered impressive.
And he'd gotten a first-year, fresh off the train, to do it in front of everyone. The effect was too visceral to ignore.
The younger students would think: Could he do that for me too?
The older ones would think: How did he do it? Could he teach me?
And those with agendas of their own would think: Can I use this as an opening?
Every category meant trouble. The kind that never ended once it started.
Regulus had no interest in that scene. He turned and walked back to the sofa section.
Cuthbert was still sitting there, mid-conversation with a second-year. He broke off when he saw Regulus coming and looked up.
Regulus sat down beside him. "Cuthbert."
Cuthbert leaned in.
"The rest is yours," Regulus said. "Remember what I said earlier. Tradition, Legacy, The spirit of Slytherin and frame what just happened as the outgoing Chief rewarding and encouraging the new one. Keep that tone."
Cuthbert blinked. Regulus clapped him on the shoulder and said nothing more.
Then he stood, glanced at Hermes and Alex. Both rose immediately.
Regulus headed for the exit.
The students drifting toward him saw him leaving and parted instinctively.
He nodded to a few of them, cut straight through the crowd, and was gone. Alex and Hermes fell in behind him, and the three of them walked out.
Cuthbert sat on the sofa. For two seconds he stared at Regulus's back as it disappeared through the doorway, then turned to face the room.
His mouth opened. Images flickered through his mind.
His father at home, conducting business. Leaning back on the sofa, speaking in no particular hurry, occasionally lifting a teacup for a sip.
Ministry officials who came to the house. Some polite, some arrogant. His father never changed. Always that same unhurried composure.
Photographs in the newspaper now and then. His father standing in a Ministry corridor, talking to someone.
That bearing. That posture. The more Cuthbert thought about it, the more he felt it click. Yes. Like that.
He stood. A smile settled onto his face. Restrained, warm, not perfect, but close enough.
His voice pitched slightly higher than usual, threaded with a steadiness he was borrowing from memory. "Everyone. Mr. Black asked me to pass along a few words."
The crowd quieted and drew closer.
"Slytherin's traditions live through the people who carry them forward, generation after generation. Tonight, you all saw it. The new Chief's challenge. The former Chief's guidance. That's what Slytherin is supposed to look like."
His gaze swept the room. "Mr. Black wanted you to know that what he did was the outgoing Chief's reward and encouragement to the new one. He hopes this tradition continues." His eyes found Rosalie. "And he hopes Miss Selwyn remembers what tonight felt like, so she can pass that spirit on when her time comes."
Rosalie nodded. Her expression was solemn, almost grave, as though she'd just been handed something heavy.
So this is what responsibility feels like?
She would live up to it.
Murmurs rippled through the room. Some nodded. Some looked thoughtful. A few seemed unimpressed.
A strange feeling rose in Cuthbert's chest. He realized, with mild surprise, that he might actually be good at this.
Regulus walked out of the common room. The door shut behind him, sealing the noise inside.
The corridor stretched empty ahead. Nothing but the dim amber glow of torches, stone steps climbing upward, darkness pooling at the far end.
Alex and Hermes followed. Their footsteps echoed off bare walls.
They climbed to the eighth floor, where that fool Barnabas was still trying to teach trolls ballet in his tapestry.
Regulus paced three times before the opposite wall. A door materialized, and he pushed through.
Inside the Room of Requirement, he turned and looked at Alex.
The boy had been holding something back since they left the common room. That look of wanting to speak but not quite daring to had trailed him the entire walk.
Regulus knew what was on his mind.
That scene. One touch of a wand, and a first-year had produced a complete Protego. It looked so effortless.
Of course Alex wanted the same.
His talent had never been exceptional. The Protego Rosalie cast tonight was already close to surpassing his own.
She was a brand-new student. He was a second-year who'd been training under Regulus for months.
Anyone in his position would think the same thing: If Regulus did that for me, could I become strong?
Regulus kept his voice even. "Alex. Let me ask you something."
Alex raised his head.
"Is power better when it's yours, or when it belongs to someone else?"
A beat of confusion. "Mine. Obviously."
As soon as the words left his mouth, his eyes drifted to Hermes. Hermes was leaning against the door, head down, not looking at him.
"Do you want your safety to rest in someone else's hands?"
Alex faltered again, and this time understanding caught up. What Regulus was really saying.
That kind of power wasn't his own.
His gaze dropped. A pause. "No."
But saying it and feeling it were different things. If Regulus was willing to help him, couldn't he finally catch up? Stop being the weakest one?
He didn't say it out loud. Regulus had already made his point. Pushing further would just be tone-deaf.
He lowered his head and fell silent.
Regulus turned to Hermes. "You?"
Hermes leaned against the door, arms crossed. "No."
Obviously.
He'd been through real combat. When death was on the line, any power that wasn't your own was a liability.
He understood what Regulus meant. That Selwyn girl had cast a Protego of that caliber, but it didn't belong to her.
He thought for a moment, then asked, "That spell. It wasn't hers?"
Regulus didn't answer directly. He countered with a question. "How did Mr. Mulciber teach you Dark magic?"
Something twitched at the corner of Hermes's eye. An unpleasant memory surfacing.
"Demonstrated it himself," he said. "Then made me feel it."
"Feel what?" Regulus pressed.
"The... emotion."
Hermes hesitated. He glanced at Alex, then back at Regulus, and decided to say it.
"What Dark magic requires is rage and killing intent. The impulse to destroy. He made me feel how he channeled those first, then had me try on my own."
Regulus nodded.
Exactly.
Certain magic demanded specific emotions or will to drive it. A skilled wizard could guide a student by letting them experience the feeling firsthand.
But that wasn't handing over power. It was showing someone which direction to walk.
What Regulus had done with Rosalie was similar.
He'd used his mind to guide her magic, letting her feel what it meant to protect yourself, to refuse harm.
Protego had never been about building a wall. At its core, it was the refusal to be hit, to be hurt.
That threshold trapped countless people. Plenty of adult wizards couldn't produce one, because they couldn't construct that conviction inside themselves.
But if Rosalie believed she'd mastered Protego for good, that what she'd cast tonight was what it would always look like, she was wrong.
Without her own understanding woven through it, without her own magical signature, that Shield Charm would only ever be something Regulus had lent her.
The news would spread through the House tonight. By tomorrow, a letter from her family would arrive, telling her exactly what to do next.
As for the Selwyn family...
Regulus ran through what he knew.
One of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. No clear record of joining Voldemort during the First Wizarding War. Some members may have participated, or may have claimed the Imperius Curse as a defense afterward.
During the Second War, they did side with Voldemort, though only one Selwyn appeared at his side. Probably the sixth-year from tonight.
They weren't like the Malfoys, who had political cunning and knew how to hedge their bets.
Nor like the Lestranges, who were fanatical and bloodthirsty.
And nothing like the Rowles, who dealt in raw, blunt violence.
The Selwyns were more like loyal enforcers who followed orders. That kind of family had its uses. Room for cooperation.
Dolores Umbridge later claimed a family connection to the Selwyns, borrowing their name to inflate her own status.
Regulus set the thoughts aside. None of that mattered right now.
Everything he'd done tonight, exposing Geoffrey, tracing the person behind it, accepting the challenge, guiding Rosalie on the spot, giving Snape a chance to shine, putting Cuthbert in front of the crowd, all of it served a single purpose.
He was testing a theory.
After Bellatrix merged into the star system, he'd formed several hypotheses about the conditions for lighting a new star.
One was the need for a first genuinely proactive act of decisive influence on the world around him, rather than a reactive response.
Another was the need to see through something no one else could, and use that insight to achieve an objective.
Tonight, he'd seen through the problem with Geoffrey.
No one else had caught it. He had.
Following that thread, he could trace the hand behind it to Thorfinn Rowle. Not fully confirmed yet, but close enough to be near certain.
That satisfied "seeing what others couldn't."
And achieving an objective?
His true goal was too vast for a single night. That required time, accumulation, a far larger stage.
But he could set a provisional one.
Gaining prestige. Displaying strength. Solidifying his position. Exerting influence. Any of those qualified.
He'd agreed to the challenge and put on a performance that showed the entire room his composure and power.
He'd guided a first-year through an impossible spell, live, in front of everyone.
He'd given Snape a moment in the spotlight and let Slughorn take him along.
He'd put Cuthbert forward, giving his inner circle a public voice.
He'd given the Chief challenge a new meaning.
All of it was outward influence.
No single piece was monumental, but taken together, they were enough to make tonight stick.
In Slytherin, that kind of memory fermented.
Tomorrow. The day after. Over the coming weeks, people would keep talking about tonight.
About how impressive Black was. How generous. How he'd honored tradition.
That was where reputation came from. How standing was cemented.
How far it would spread and how long it would take, he couldn't predict. That required patience.
But regardless of the outcome, the theory would be tested.
If the sixth star showed even the faintest shift, the way Bellatrix had begun to glow when he'd faced that wave of Mental Erosion from the Abyssal Whispers, then he'd know this path was right.
If nothing changed, he'd rethink and try again.
Regulus looked at Alex. The boy still had his head down, hadn't said a word.
He let it go. Some things, you had to work through on your own.
He turned and walked toward his private quarters. "There's still time tonight. If you want to train, train."
Hermes pushed off the door and headed for the training area.
Alex lifted his head, watched both their retreating figures, and slowly followed.