The Hogwarts stone, despite the *Calefacio Maxima* charms Echo had surreptitiously laid on the more trafficked corridors, still exuded a pervasive, bone-deep cold. Echo walked with a distracted, heavy gait, his hands tucked deep into his robes. Sniffles and Shimmer curled inside or on top of his voluminous scarf like two small, portable emotional support blankets. His hair was a deep, turbulent shade of indigo—a visual representation of intellectual frustration mixed with pure, distilled anxiety. The third of the four Triwizard tasks was a mental monolith. He couldn't shake it. He had successfully created a private, permanently charmed hot spring for the Kappa in the Forbidden Forest. He named it, with great flourish, the "Kappa Hydro-Therapy and Anti-Extradition Sanctuary." He had solved the Chromatic Conditioner issue. He had successfully navigated the dizzying, bewildering waters of adolescent sexuality. He had even managed to attend a week of classes without blowing something up or causing accidental chaos. All of it, however, was a frantic, pathetic attempt to outrun the inevitable. The tournament loomed, and the lack of a clear clue for the third task, which was supposed to be the second task, was driving him to distraction.
What was the object with the clue? The fake dragon egg? What was inside it to give him a clue?* The question was a persistent, stinging mosquito in his brain.
He was passing the statue of Gregory the Smarmy—a particularly odious-looking figure who likely had a hand in the Ministry's current incompetence—when a sensation utterly new to him slammed into the back of his head. It felt like being hit with a wet, flat slab of wood, accompanied by a sharp, ringing spike of pain.
"AUGH!" Echo cried out, more in surprise than true agony, stumbling forward three steps. He clapped a hand to the back of his head, feeling the indigo in his hair snap instantly to a brilliant, shocked orange. "Who the bloody—?"
He spun around, wand already halfway out of his robe, his eyes narrowed into furious slits. He scanned the empty corridor. The culprit was not difficult to find. Leaning nonchalantly against the base of the statue, with a look of preening, self-satisfied arrogance plastered on his face, was a boy who looked, for all the world, like a poorly rendered, younger replica of Sirius Black. He had the same aristocratic cheekbones, the same dark, perfect curtain of hair—though his was neatly trimmed—and the same expensive-looking, unearned confidence. He was, however, noticeably shorter, perhaps a year or two younger in appearance, and his demeanor was an oily, theatrical sneer that perfectly mimicked Lucius Malfoy's worst affectations.
The boy lowered a wand he held in a needlessly dramatic, white-knuckled grip and began to speak, his voice a high, precise tenor.
"—and your pathetic display in the Great Hall this morning, with that common mudblood Evans, has once again proven what a blight you are on the noble House of Slytherin. Your lack of respect for tradition, your flagrant disregard for the Sacred Twenty-Eight, and your constant, childish obsession with half-breeds and—"
The boy stopped mid-sentence, clearly expecting a reaction. Echo, however, was simply staring, his brain processing the information with the speed of a sloth on holiday. The orange of his hair subsided to a confused, thoughtful lavender.
"Sirius?" Echo asked, tilting his head. "Is that you? When did you get so small, so young, and so intensely angry? Did a prank go wrong? Did you try to lace Severus's pumpkin juice, and he slipped you a few drops of a Retardation Potion in return? Or have I finally lost my mind with all the Triwizard stress, and am now hallucinating that you're Lucius Malfoy?"
The boy's face, which had been a mask of imperious certainty, instantly turned a furious, mottled red. "I am not Sirius," he hissed, pushing himself off the wall. "I am Regulus. Regulus Black."
Echo repeated the name slowly, tasting the syllables. "Regulus. Never heard of you. Are you a new first-year student? Is this a dramatic entrance?"
"I am Sirius's younger brother!" Regulus exclaimed, his voice cracking with outrage.
Echo blinked, the lavender in his hair flashing to a bewildered, pale blue. "Younger brother? He never mentioned having a sibling. I assumed he was an only child. Considering most pureblood families only manage to produce one extremely inbred, emotionally stunted heir, the existence of a second one wasn't exactly high on my list of possibilities. Although you do have the Black sisters, so I suppose the existence of the Black brothers shouldn't have been entirely outside the realm of possibility."
Regulus spluttered, his face now a magnificent shade of scarlet. "I am not inbred! My lineage is impeccable, you insolent—"
"Oh, darling, please," Echo interrupted with a weary wave of his hand, the bewildered blue in his hair settling into a dismissive, neutral gray. "I spent a weekend reading your family tree, and I know for a fact that your grandmother didn't even have to change her last name when she married your grandfather. You're practically a biological cul-de-sac. Now, if you're not Sirius, and you're not a hallucination, why are you accosting me in the middle of a private thought process?"
Regulus glared, his dark eyes burning with pure, unadulterated hatred. "How dare you! We are in the same grade! How could you possibly not know who I am?"
Echo raised an eyebrow, a slight, scornful twist to his lip. "Ah, yes. We have several dozen students in our year, many of whom have entirely forgettable names and personalities. I don't have time to remember every individual or unimportant detail. Besides, I find that being on a constant low-grade war footing with practically everyone in Slytherin House, yourself included, prevents the kind of intimate acquaintance required to file away your name in the 'relevant data' section of my brain."
Regulus took a shuddering breath, his body trembling with indignation. His voice rose to a dramatic, desperate shriek. "You have sullied and insulted the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black for the last time! Your lack of decorum, your un-Slytherin behavior, and your constant fraternizing with low-born Mudbloods and Gryffindor filth is a stain on our entire legacy! I swear on my sacred blood, I will see you stripped of your house colours and your filthy Beast Magic—!"
Echo listened for a few seconds, his eyes slowly rolling skyward, the gray of his hair a perfect match for the dull stone of the ceiling. He waited for a break in the boy's torrent of pureblood posturing, then pulled his wand.
"I'm sorry, what's your name again? Reginald?" Echo drawled, cutting across the diatribe. He flicked his wand once, sharply. "This has been a riveting, if somewhat derivative, conversation. But I find I have a desperate need to consult a highly illegal information broker about the Third Task, and I simply cannot accommodate any more of your histrionics." A sudden, thin, silver streak of light shot from his wand and impacted Regulus Black's mouth. With a soft WHIZZ-CLINK, a perfect, working, silver zipper materialized, lying horizontally across the boy's lips. It was a Transfiguration of exquisite detail.
Regulus's eyes went wide. He gasped, his mouth sealed shut. He tried to speak, but the only sound that escaped was a muffled, buzzing vibration behind the zipper's seam. He frantically clawed at the enchanted metal, trying to peel it off. Echo—now completely calm, the anxiety of the Triwizard task briefly eclipsed by the thrill of mild, justifiable vandalism—gave a final, dismissive wave.
"Zip it," Echo said, giving the air a gentle tug, as if pulling a loose thread.
The silver zipper slid smoothly shut. Regulus Black's frantic, desperate struggle for speech was utterly silenced. He merely stood there, his face contorted in a silent, furious, and utterly pathetic scream of outrage.
Echo finally tucked his wand back into his robes. "Thank you for the stimulating intellectual exchange, Regulus. I'll send your brother a letter to let him know he has a smaller, younger, angrier clone running around the dungeons. And I'm sure he'll be delighted to hear you've been doing such an excellent job of upholding the family values." He patted the frantic demiguise in his scarf. "Come on, boys. I hear the Restricted Section calling my name." Echo turned his back on the silently raging second Black brother and resumed his distracted walk down the corridor, the Triwizard anxiety settling back over him like a heavy shroud.
The next seven days became a surreal, grinding torment orchestrated by a single, determined, and deeply annoying teenager. Regulus Black had seemingly dedicated his entire existence to being a magical nuisance. He was too cowardly to engage in a direct duel, yet too arrogantly committed to his cause to cease his attacks.
Echo's days took on a predictable, miserable rhythm: wake up, endure classes, and flinch.
The attacks were always the same: weak, poorly cast stunning spells—no stronger than a first-year's effort—that never connected with a major nerve center. Instead, they always targeted the back of Echo's head, causing a jarring, flat spike of white noise rather than pain, momentarily blurring his vision and seizing his muscles. The spells were just strong enough to force a physical flinch, ruin a moment of concentration, or, most infuriatingly, cause the brilliant, analytical colors in his hair to snap into a chaotic, confused kaleidoscope of color.
The first few attacks after the zipper incident were merely registered as a bizarre oddity.
Day 1 (Tuesday): Echo was mid-conversation with Lily about the correct density of a non-Newtonian potion. WHUMP. The spell hit. Echo flinched, dropping his book. Lily's subsequent lecture on the proper handling of rare Transfiguration texts provided more psychological distress than the spell itself. His hair snapped from thoughtful blue to a furious orange.
Day 2 (Wednesday): Echo was in the middle of a complex, silent charm in Charms class. WHUMP. The spell hit. The charm failed, producing a high-pitched squeak and a small puff of sulfurous smoke that drew Professor Flitwick's mild rebuke. Echo had to spend ten minutes explaining that his magical control was "temporarily compromised by a rogue, low-level atmospheric disturbance." His hair was a humiliated pink.
Day 3 (Thursday): Echo was having a quiet, late-night chat with Severus. WHUMP. The spell hit. Echo's head slammed against the stone wall of the dungeon. Severus merely sighed, pulled out a stack of parchment, and began to detail the appropriate counter-curses for persistent, low-level stunning spells. Echo's hair was a defeated gray.
Day 4 (Friday): The first sign of real trouble. Echo was walking down the Grand Staircase, carrying a precarious stack of scrolls and a mug of surprisingly good coffee. WHUMP. The spell hit. He stumbled, sending the scrolls—all of which were priceless, fragile seventh-year assignments—cascading down the staircase. He spent the next three hours retrieving them, enduring a public lecture from Madam Pince, and listening to the faint, muffled laughter of a hidden Regulus. The indigo of his anxiety deepened.
By Day 7 (Monday), Echo was a wreck. He was running on two hours of sleep, his mind too jittery to focus, and the constant, low-level magical assaults had left him with a persistent, dull ache behind his eyes. His indigo hair was now so dark it was almost black, a sign of his immense, barely contained frustration. He had searched for Regulus, his fury a tangible force, but the boy was like a magical tick—always attaching at the worst moment, and never in a place Echo could retaliate without being caught. He was a professional annoyance.
Echo desperately needed a moment of peace. He slipped away from the dungeons just before midnight, heading down toward the kitchens. He knew the house-elves always had a fresh batch of hot cocoa waiting for him when the mood-colors in his hair showed distress. He stopped just outside the hidden portrait of the fruit bowl. He gave the pear a gentle, practiced tickle, and the handle on the door swung open, revealing the warm, bustling, copper-and-brass chaos of the Hogwarts kitchens.
"Pip!" Echo called out softly.
A tiny, familiar house elf with enormous, worried eyes and the little green suit Echo purchased for him immediately zipped over, holding a steaming mug with both hands.
"Mister Echo, sir! Pip knew you needed comforting!" the elf squeaked, holding up the mug proudly. "Pip made it special! Extra dark chocolate, and the fluffiest, sweetest whipped cream, just how you like it!"
Echo managed a strained, grateful smile. He took the warm, heavy mug, letting the heat seep into his cold hands. The sight of the perfectly made cocoa, topped with a generous swirl of cream, was the first genuinely comforting thing he had seen all week.
"Thank you, Pip. You are a treasure," Echo murmured, his voice thick with exhaustion. The dark indigo in his hair softened momentarily to a weary, appreciative lavender. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cold stone of the corridor. "I just need five minutes. Five minutes of peace, and a cup of this."
He raised the mug toward his lips, inhaling the rich, sweet aroma.
WHUMP.
The familiar, flat spike of white noise slammed into the back of his head. His vision immediately went bright white, and his muscles seized in a violent, involuntary jerk. The mug slipped from his paralyzed fingers. It fell, not onto the stone floor, but directly onto Pip. The steaming, dark cocoa and melting whipped cream drenched the small house elf, and the heavy ceramic mug shattered on the stone at Pip's feet with a loud, sickening CRACK. Pip cried out—a sharp, pathetic sound of shock and pain as the hot liquid hit his sensitive skin. He clutched his small, cocoa-covered hands to his chest and began to whimper. Echo, still kneeling, his vision slowly returning, heard the distinct sound of laughter, followed by a high, cutting voice.
"That's for insulting the Noble House of Black, half-breed! And for associating with that verminous family traitor!"
Echo heard the quick, retreating footsteps of Regulus Black, sprinting away from the scene as fast as he could. Echo recovered quickly. He shoved the shock aside, his vision clearing enough to focus. He immediately reached out, his hand glowing with a furious, intense green—the color of life-saving, urgent magic.
"Pip! Are you alright? Evanesco! Scourgify!"
The powerful spells hit Pip, instantly banishing the cocoa, the whipped cream, and the glass shards. The elf, though clean, was still shaking violently and sobbing. Echo didn't wait. He gently wrapped Pip in his scarf, scooped up the trembling elf, and held him close, projecting a torrent of healing, calming emotion from his Beast Magic directly into the elf's mind.
\
Pip slowly quieted, clinging to Echo's robes. Echo set the elf down gently, then looked at the spot where Regulus had been standing. The fury that had been building over the last week—the frustration of the Triwizard task, the self-loathing, the stress, and the constant, ignoble harassment—suddenly crystallized into a single, terrifying thought. Echo stood up, slowly. The light green of his protective magic drained away, leaving his hair a deep, solid, pitch black—a color of absolute, cold, lethal resolve. He looked down at the shattered mug, then at the trembling house elf.
"That," Echo whispered, his voice dangerously low and steady, "is the last straw."
Echo did not bother with his wand. He didn't need one. He let the cold, focused rage—the first truly clean emotion he had felt in weeks—burn away the last of his anxiety. He didn't run; he stalked. He knew exactly where Regulus Black would be: the Slytherin common room, smugly telling his cronies how he had finally broken the "Half-Breed Slytherin."
Regulus, entirely unaware of the lethal shadow closing in on him, was strolling back to the dungeons from the portrait of the Fat Lady—a long, solitary walk after a brief, self-congratulatory sneer at the Gryffindor common room. He was humming a triumphant, off-key tune to himself, enjoying the quiet echo of his own footsteps on the stone. He was on a deserted staircase in the sub-levels, a stretch of steps rarely used after curfew, where the air was thick with the faint smell of damp stone and forgotten spells.
He reached the last few steps, ready to step onto the flat landing before the passage to the dungeons, when the sound of his own footsteps was suddenly, profoundly, gone. A primal instinct—the same instinct that had been hammered into the Black lineage for generations—screamed at him to turn around.
Regulus whirled.
He didn't see Echo standing. He saw a pitch-black blur of motion, a body already fully committed to the attack. Echo was in mid-air, a silent, streamlined missile of lethal intent, his face a mask of terrifying, emotionless calm under the completely unmoving, pitch-black curtain of his hair. Regulus couldn't even manage a whimper, much less a curse. The sheer, overwhelming speed of the lunge robbed him of the physical ability to react.
CRACK.
Echo's shoulder slammed into Regulus's chest with the force of a low-grade Bludger. The impact was violent, instantaneous, and sent a spike of white-hot agony through the younger boy's ribs. Regulus let out a strangled, breathless cry as they tumbled, a tangle of robes and limbs, down the remaining stone steps. Echo was a trained, lethal fighter; Regulus was a spoiled rich boy.
As they hit the flat landing, Echo executed a single, brutally efficient maneuver: he used Regulus's momentum, rolling his own body over the smaller boy's torso, using him as a fulcrum to stand. With a final, explosive shove fueled by adrenaline and his own natural strength, Echo flung the flailing Regulus laterally.
Regulus sailed across the short landing, impacting a dusty, century-old suit of medieval armor that stood sentinel in a shadowed alcove. The armor did not give way gracefully; it crumpled, the heavy, rusted metal plates protesting with a loud, sickening shriek of tearing metal and smashing ceramics as the suit's internal padding and enchanted supports disintegrated under the force of the throw. Regulus landed in a heap, buried under a pile of dented greaves and a cracked iron helm, a sound halfway between a cough and a sob escaping him.
Echo did not pause to admire his handiwork. He marched the few steps toward the downed boy before Regulus could recover his breath, let alone his wand. Echo reached down, grabbed a fistful of the boy's immaculate, curtained dark hair—pulling so hard that Regulus's head snapped back—and hauled him upward, off the floor. Regulus dangled, eyes wide with terror, the sheer, crushing reality of his mistake hitting him harder than the suit of armor had.
"We are going to have a little talk, Regulus." Echo's voice was a low, terrifying monotone, utterly devoid of the usual sarcasm or humor. "And since I find your little games of harassment and psychological warfare completely unacceptable, we are going to have it somewhere private. Where I won't be interrupted by your screaming, or by the presence of any authority figures who might object to a minor altercation."
With that, Echo began to drag Regulus Black, like a sack of trash, across the cold, dungeon stone. Regulus finally found his voice, a high-pitched, desperate shriek that echoed uselessly in the empty sub-level. He kicked out wildly, his expensive robes snagging on the rough stone floor.
"Let me go! You can't—! My father—! Sirius—!"
Echo ignored the desperate pleas, his grip on the boy's hair iron-hard, his face a mask of cold, unbreakable resolve. He dragged Regulus up the stairs, past the suit of armor—now a mangled, metal ruin—and out of the immediate vicinity of the dungeons. Regulus continued to kick and scream as Echo pulled him through the silent, late-night corridors of the castle and toward the massive, oaken doors leading outside.
The last sound heard before they reached the front doors was Regulus Black's high, frantic wail of pure terror, slowly swallowed by the vast, suffocating silence of the Forbidden Forest ahead. The silence of the midnight corridor, which had swallowed Regulus's frantic screams, was shattered by a soft, horrified gasp.
Across the landing, near a forgotten classroom, a door had been left ajar. Peering out from the crack, eyes wide and fixed on the brutal spectacle, was a student. It was a seventh-year Ravenclaw prefect named Mandy Brocklehurst, who had been conducting a final, dutiful perimeter check. She watched, paralyzed by shock, as the notorious Slytherin, Echo, hauled the screaming and kicking body of Regulus Black, heir to the Noble House of Black, toward the front doors. The dark-haired boy was being dragged by his hair, his body bouncing sickeningly off the worn stone floor. The black of Echo's hair was terrifyingly still and dark, radiating an aura of cold, lethal purpose that made the hairs on her neck stand up.
Mandy didn't hesitate. Her prefect duties—which usually involved issuing detentions for misplaced books—were utterly irrelevant now. She knew Echo's reputation and that Regulus's father was a man of frightening influence. This wasn't a prank. This was a kidnapping, possibly a murder.
She sprinted through the silent castle corridors, her heart hammering against her ribs, heading straight for the only person in the school she knew had a relationship with both Black brothers: Sirius Black.
She burst into the Gryffindor common room, ignoring the two first-years playing Exploding Snap and the faint, smoldering smell of banned fireworks. She spotted Sirius Black and James Potter, both lounging by the roaring fireplace, surrounded by half-eaten trays of food filched from the kitchens.
"Sirius!" Mandy gasped, her voice raw and breathless, leaning her hands on her knees to suck in air. "Sirius, you have to—you have to come quickly!"
Sirius looked up, a half-equine, half-curious grin on his face. "Well, look what the cat dragged in. Everything alright, Brocklehurst? Did Pince finally turn into a basilisk and eat a Hufflepuff?"
"It's Echo!" she panted, straightening up, her face pale with terror. "He's… he's dragging Regulus! By his hair! He's dragging him out of the front doors, toward the Forbidden Forest!"
Sirius froze mid-bite, his eyebrows shooting up. He and James exchanged a look of bewildered amusement.
"He's dragging Regulus by the hair?" Sirius repeated, a flash of pure, wicked delight in his eyes. "Really?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He vaulted over the back of the sofa, ignoring James's confused shout, and dashed toward the large, ornate window that overlooked the main lawn and the dark fringe of the forest beyond. He threw the window open, letting in a blast of icy midnight air.
Mandy rushed to the window beside him, pointing a frantic finger. "Look! Look, he's almost at the trees! He's going to kill him, Sirius! He's going to kill your brother!"
Sirius leaned out the window, his dark hair whipping in the cold wind, his eyes tracking the lone, dark figure moving across the snow-dusted lawn. Even from this distance, he could see the slight, kicking figure being hauled across the ground and the terrifying, cold stillness of Echo's entirely black hair.
"Echo!" Sirius bellowed into the night, his voice echoing off the stone walls. "Echo, you glorious bastard! Trash him to fifth!"
Mandy grabbed Sirius's sleeve, shaking it violently. "Sirius! He's going to murder him! He's going to torture him in the Forbidden Forest and bury the body! You have to stop him!"
Sirius, however, was still fixed on the scene below, a wide, fascinated grin splitting his face. "Nonsense, Brocklehurst. Why would he do that? A good, thorough beatdown? Absolutely. A few broken ribs? Likely. But death? Echo's not a killer; he's just… emotionally volatile and easily enraged due to the Triwizard Tournament. Unless…"
Sirius stopped, his expression suddenly thoughtful. He turned to Mandy, his tone shifting to one of focused inquiry. "Has my younger brother been doing something to him? Regulus has been an utter menace to a lot of people since he was sorted. What's he done this time?"
Mandy stared at him, bewildered by the casual cruelty of his question. "He—he's been attacking him! For a week! Low-level stunning spells, always hitting the back of his head! He knocked a mug of hot chocolate all over one of the house-elves just minutes ago!"
Sirius's face clouded over instantly. The flippant amusement vanished, replaced by a sudden, protective anger. He knew how important the house-elves, and Pip in particular, were to Echo.
Sirius thought for a moment, his gaze sharp and calculating. He didn't want Echo to go to Azkaban, but he also thought Regulus had earned a lifetime of therapy.
Sirius took a deep breath, cupped his hands around his mouth, and leaned out the window again, bellowing one last time toward the silent figure approaching the tree line. "ECHO! Just mostly unalive him! No permanent damage to the skull! Don't kill the good looks, mate!"
The figure of Echo, however, didn't stop. He didn't flinch. He didn't even turn his head. He continued his cold, relentless march until he vanished into the suffocating shadow of the ancient, twisted trees, dragging the crumpled form of Regulus Black into the Forbidden Forest.
The cold silence of the Forbidden Forest closed around Echo and his captive. The snow-dusted ground gave way to patches of damp, frozen earth and thick, gnarled roots. Echo's boots made heavy, rhythmic thuds against the frozen soil, the only sound accompanying Regulus Black's desperate, muffled sobs and the sickening shick of his robes dragging across the ground. Echo's grip on the boy's hair never loosened, and the pitch-black of his hair remained a terrifying, unwavering color of pure, unmixed rage.
He marched deeper into the trees, past thickets of ancient holly and silent, frost-covered pines, until the winding tributary he had charmed—the Kappa's new sanctuary—came into view. A faint, low mist hung over the stretch of water, a ghostly curtain of steam rising from the constant, eighty-degree heat of the river.
Echo stopped abruptly on the riverbank, the sudden halt nearly pulling Regulus's head from his shoulders. With a single, sharp motion, Echo twisted his hand and flung the boy forward.
Regulus landed hard on the damp, melted earth near the water's edge, rolling once before coming to a stop in a miserable, tangled heap of black and green robes. He lay there, gasping, clutching his bruised ribs, and frantically scrambling to check for his wand, his eyes wide and wild with a panic that finally eclipsed his aristocratic fury.
He found the polished hawthorn in his sleeve, his fingers closing around it like a lifeline. He scrambled to his feet, breathing heavily, his dark hair disheveled and his face smeared with dirt. He pointed the wand at Echo, who stood a few feet away, perfectly composed, the picture of cold, lethal stillness.
"You… you did it now, half-breed!" Regulus choked out, his voice hoarse with fear and adrenaline. "You brought me out here! You assaulted a student! I will have you expelled, you maniac! The Ministry will have you in Azkaban by morning!"
Echo didn't move. He merely crossed his arms over his chest, his robes rustling softly, the dark, icy river steam swirling faintly around his boots. The pitch-black of his hair gave way to a cold, razor-sharp deep blue, the color of focused, predatory amusement.
"Is that all you've got, Regulus?" Echo drawled, his voice a mocking, velvet soft whisper. "Threats? That's utterly boring. I've heard better threats from a first-year who misplaced his favorite quill. You're supposed to be a Black. The self-proclaimed heir to a thousand years of pureblood dominance. I expect a little more dramatic flair, frankly. Now, put your wand where your mouth is."
Regulus, his self-control utterly gone, let out a frustrated, animalistic cry and lunged. "Stupefy!"
The red light of the stunning spell shot toward Echo. Echo merely shifted his weight a few inches to the left, a subtle, almost imperceptible turn of his shoulders. The spell sizzled harmlessly past, striking a nearby willow tree with a dull thwack.
"Poor form," Echo commented, his voice flat. "See how you're telegraphing your intentions? Your wrist flick is a dead giveaway. You might as well send me a handwritten invitation to dodge."
"Incarcerous!" Regulus screamed, firing another curse.
Echo let the spell come at him, then raised his hand—his wand still tucked away—and slapped the incoming rope with the flat of his palm, using a simple, non-verbal Transfiguration charm. The magical ropes instantly dissolved into a shower of harmless, inert sawdust.
"Ropes?" Echo scoffed, shaking the sawdust from his hand. "You choose a restraining spell against someone who routinely fights fully grown magical creatures with his bare hands? That's not a challenge, Regulus, that's a cry for help. And look at your power output! That Stupefy spell wouldn't even stun a house elf. You couldn't knock over a moderately sturdy garden gnome."
Regulus's face was now a mask of pure, humiliated fury. He began firing spells in rapid succession—mostly low-grade hexes, stunning spells, and jinxes, all poorly aimed, rushed, and severely underpowered.
"Densaugeo!" "Tarantallegra!" "Stupefy! Stupefy!"
Echo stood his ground, a picture of infuriating calm. He casually leaned back, ducked, and side-stepped the barrage, his movements economical and precise. He blocked the few that came close with the lazy ease of an adult batting away Styrofoam peanuts.
"Oh, darling, really?" Echo sighed, projecting an aura of immense boredom. "You're spraying spells like a faulty water fountain. Try focusing your intent! You are the younger brother of Sirius Black, the scion of the Ancient and Noble House of Black. You have access to a thousand years of dark magic textbooks and familial training. And yet, this is the best you can manage? Your brother could hit me with a full-power Expulso while he was distracted, drunk, and having a nervous breakdown over a bad haircut. You can't even graze my shadow."
He allowed a stinging hex to strike the protective charm on his robes, creating a small, visible spark.
"And that pathetic stinging hex? Did that tickle? I get a stronger zap from static electricity when I take off my scarf. Where is the Black blood, Regulus? Is it so diluted by inbreeding that your spells now come out in pastel colors?" Echo took a step closer, his voice dropping in dangerous, cold mockery. "You walk around Hogwarts like you own the place, spouting pureblood nonsense and insulting everyone who doesn't meet your pathetic standard, yet your magical ability is that of a moderately talented Hufflepuff second-year. You are a fraud. All noise, no power. Just like your precious pure blood lineage."
Regulus shrieked, a sound of absolute, incandescent humiliation. "Shut up! Shut up, you monster! I'll kill you! I'll send you to the grave with the rest of your mudblood friends!"
"No, you won't," Echo said simply, the mocking amusement vanishing, replaced by cold, final resolution. He took one last step, closing the distance between them. The deep blue of his hair sharpened to an icy, metallic sheen. "Let me show you, Regulus, what a real stunning spell looks like."
Echo finally pulled his wand, the motion a blur of speed and focused intent. "Expelliarmus!"
The spell was a devastating, concentrated bolt of crimson light, not merely a disarming charm, but a violent, concussive blast of pure magic. It struck Regulus's hawthorn wand so hard that the wood screamed before it flew from his grip. The force of the counter-attack sent Regulus flying backward at the speed of a cannonball.
He didn't stop until his back slammed against the thick, frozen trunk of a nearby oak tree. The air rushed from his lungs in a painful WHOOSH, and he crumpled to the ground, momentarily stunned and gasping for breath, the shock registering even through his robes. His wand lay thirty feet away, glinting uselessly in the pale moonlight. Before Regulus could even begin to scramble for his discarded weapon, Echo snapped his fingers. The sound was sharp and sudden. The warm, steaming water of the tributary erupted in a geyser.
A moment later, a squat, scaly, greenish-yellow figure—the Kappa, Puca—leapt from the river with an astonishing, silent agility. Puca landed on the riverbank, its large, reptilian eyes fixed on the struggling boy. The small creature let out a high-pitched, excited chirrup—the sound of an eager hunter.
Puca moved with the low-slung, powerful bulk of a seasoned fighter. It waddled quickly toward Regulus, and when the boy tried to push himself up, the Kappa launched into a low, wrestling-style lunge. It didn't bite or scratch. Instead, it used its powerful, surprisingly dense body, slamming its shoulder into the stunned boy's torso with the force of a magical sumo wrestler.
"OOF!" Regulus cried out, the wind knocked from him again as the Kappa pushed him relentlessly backward. The creature drove the boy across the ground until his back was pinned firmly against the frozen bark of the oak tree.
Puca then wrapped its thick, webbed arms around Regulus's chest, pinning him in a powerful, inescapable wrestler's restraint. The Kappa leaned its head back and shrieked—a high, wet, clicking sound of sheer, reptilian outrage—directly into Regulus Black's terrified face.
Regulus Black, despite the crushing weight of the Kappa pressing him against the oak, managed to force a scornful, breathless cough. He spat a mouthful of dirt and leaves onto the ground.
"Go on, then, half-breed!" Regulus rasped, his voice tight with pain but fueled by a desperate, maniacal zeal. "I'm sure it warms your Gryffindor-loving heart to hide behind your filthy pets! Let your creature do your dirty work. I don't care! I will not stop! Not until the Dark Lord's commands are met!"
Echo froze. The predatory amusement on his face evaporated, replaced by a cold, analytical stillness. The icy, metallic blue in his hair snapped to a focused, sharp, deep indigo, the color of urgent, profound realization.
"The Dark Lord's commands?" Echo repeated, the velvet softness of his voice gone, replaced by a hard, demanding edge. He stepped closer, planting his boot inches from Regulus's knee. "What do you mean? Explain yourself, Regulus."
The Kappa, Puca, sensing the shift in the target's focus, emitted a low, continuous growl, its grip tightening on Regulus's chest. Regulus, seeing the crack in Echo's composure, the sudden leap from personal vengeance to political intrigue, let out a choked, triumphant chuckle.
"The Dark Lord has been... dying to get his hands on you, you arrogant fool!" Regulus hissed, his eyes glinting with feverish devotion. "He knows what you are! He knows your potential! And I am the one who will deliver you!"
"I know that much already," Echo said flatly, his indigo gaze burning into the boy. "Lucius tried and failed. He had his chance in the castle last summer, and he lost his nerve. He went home with his tail between his legs and a permanent Transfiguration spell on his trousers."
"And that," Regulus spat, ignoring the fear now thrumming through his body, "is precisely where I will succeed! I will gain the Dark Lord's favor where Malfoy has faltered. Or at least... taken a step back from what I've heard." A flicker of genuine disbelief crossed Regulus's face, overriding his bravado. "I can't believe someone like Lucius Malfoy is actually intimidated by you."
Puca growled again, its razor-sharp claws digging lightly into Regulus's robes.
"Lucius may be a spineless, decorative tool," Echo conceded, his voice quiet. "But he's a tool with common sense. So, that's it, then? That's why you've been attacking me nonstop all week? To force a confrontation?"
"That's right!" Regulus proclaimed, though his voice was little more than a breathless wheeze. "If I can't bring you to the Dark Lord as Lucius should have, then I will take his place! I will force you to meet him and join him, and then I will finally take my rightful place in the Dark Lord's ranks!"
Echo looked down at the boy his age, his expression shifting to one of profound, utter bewilderment. The indigo in his hair fractured, turning into a dizzying swirl of conflicting colors—shock, confusion, and a deep, mortifying embarrassment.
"Let me get this straight," Echo said, the quiet monotone returning. "Your master plan to achieve this momentous feat—to secure the most powerful dark wizard of the century's favor by delivering a student he already wants—was to hit me in the back of the head with weak, low-level stunning spells like a common coward? For a week? You do realize the only reason I said 'Augh!' or flinched at all was because you consistently caught me by surprise, not because your pathetic spell-work was actually strong?" Echo paused, raising a perfectly sculpted, sardonic eyebrow. "I was flinching at the sheer, overwhelming annoyance, Regulus. You were less a threat and more a magical mosquito. I just wanted five minutes of peace to drink my cocoa!"
Echo stepped back, the intensity of his rage replaced by a crushing disappointment. He snapped his fingers again, and Puca, hearing the sharp command, instantly released the boy, waddling a few steps back toward the warm river mist.
Regulus, now free, scrambled away from the oak tree, coughing and rubbing his bruised ribs, his face a mixture of fear and confusion.
"You... you were faking it?" he whispered, his aristocratic certainty shattered.
Echo merely sighed, the colorful maelstrom in his hair settling into a heavy, frustrated gray-black.
"Faking? No, I was annoyed. Severely, profoundly, magically annoyed," Echo corrected, his voice flat. "But if you think that a week of low-grade harassment, which nearly cost my house-elf his life savings in hot chocolate, was going to make me suddenly go, 'Oh, my goodness, I must join the Dark Lord immediately!' then you are even more of a delusional imbecile than your brother makes you out to be. Consider this a lesson, Regulus. If you want to impress a dark wizard with a reputation for merciless, terrifying power, perhaps next time try using a curse that won't make a kitten yawn."
Regulus's eyes were wild, his muffled snarls barely contained by his withering composure. He stamped his foot on the frozen snow-covered ground, his entire body rigid with unreleased fury. The movement forced his silent words into being, the meaning clear through his panicked gestures: he pointed to himself, then dramatically to the ceiling, then made a sweeping gesture of triumph and dominance.
"You will fail, Echo. You will be nothing! I will succeed! I will become a Dark Wizard, and one who the Dark Lord himself favours! My tale will be legendary, a true Black legacy!" Regulus's eyes screamed the threat, his whole posture one of desperate, pathetic defiance.
Echo blinked slowly. He reached into his magic satchel and, with a soft rustle of silk lining, pulled out a large, perfect cucumber. He knelt for a moment, not looking at Regulus, and directed his voice to the kappa. "Yes, yes, I know. I woke you up in the middle of the night, Puca. Don't worry, your hard work is appreciated." He tossed the cucumber, and the creature jumped up, caught it in mid-air, and squatted by the river, enjoying its treat.
Echo groaned, the sound theatrical and profoundly bored. He stood up, running a hand over his tired gray hair, and mimicked Regulus's intense, theatrical posturing with an expression of utterly empty exhaustion. "'*Favoured by the Dark Lord himself! My tale will be legendary!*'" He dropped the parody, his voice returning to its normal, dryly curious tone. "Regulus, with all due respect to your, shall we say, aspirational lifestyle, can you even cast a basic Dark spell? Can you, for instance, successfully use one of the Unforgivables?"
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Because every time I hear a pureblood say that—and, granted, I haven't met a lot of purebloods—it's all talk. At least Lucius backed up his claim with proof when he successfully tricked me into using one. You, however, are a sputtering monologue of impotent rage."
Regulus managed to shake his head violently, a high-pitched, desperate *Mmmph!* escaping his lips and angrily admitted, "No, not yet, but I'm practicing, and I will learn, so just wait and watch."
Echo's expression darkened. The natural black in his hair snapped to a cold, heavy black, and his lips curved into a slow, utterly humorless smile. It was a smile that didn't touch his eyes, which had suddenly turned flat and cold.
"You have no idea about true Dark Magic, Regulus," Echo said, his voice dropping to a low, cold timbre that was more an agreement between predators than a simple statement. The sound made the air in the corridor feel thick and heavy. "I've already learned and mastered all three of the Unforgivable Curses. I did that all within my first year at Hogwarts."
Regulus froze. His eyes, fixed on Echo's face, were wide with shocked incomprehension, the color draining from his mottled cheeks. All the theatrical rage had vanished, replaced by sheer, dumbfounded disbelief. He could only manage a weak, muffled "Wha… What?"— The words fell off his tongue like sand through a sieve.
Echo stepped closer, his shadow somehow falling over the taller boy. As he did, his entire demeanor shifted. His hair, heavy black only a moment ago, began to bleed into a toxic, brilliant green—the same evil, luminous shade his eyes took on when he was about to unleash truly devastating magical power. His pupils seemed to dilate, the dark center swallowing the light, and his voice was no longer flat or cold, but smooth, cruel, and laced with a terrifying, absolute certainty.
"How about I give you a demonstration, Regulus? Since you clearly need a lesson."
Echo leaned in close, his luminous green eyes boring into Regulus's terrified face. The Kappa, Puca, watched from the riverbank, its head cocked, chewing slowly on its cucumber.
"The first lesson, Regulus, is on true mind-control, the Imperius Curse. A spell that, in the hands of a true master, is far more subtle and terrifying than the cheap obedience potions you Dark Lord wannabes probably pass around like firewhiskey." Echo spoke the word Imperius with a soft, clinical precision, as if dissecting a particularly interesting specimen.
"Most people think it's just a way to puppet a person, full stop. A complete blackout. But that's amateur hour, darling. The truly terrifying aspect of the Imperius is that a skilled enough caster can maintain what I call 'partial cognitive awareness.' Meaning I can grant you the privilege of watching your own body act against your will. You will be fully aware, fully present, locked behind the bars of your own skull. Every desperate thought, every terrified shriek, every plea for me to stop will be perfectly clear in your mind, even as your body executes my commands."
Echo straightened up, pulling his wand up to point directly between Regulus's eyes. Regulus's own wand lay out of reach, its dark wood glinting mockingly in the moonlight.
"It's the ultimate violation, Regulus. Because you aren't just suffering; you are witnessing your own annihilation of control. You get to be the horrified audience to your own degradation."
Regulus, despite his terror, made a desperate lunge for his discarded wand. The movement was a blur of fear-driven adrenaline. But Puca, the Kappa, was faster. With a snap of its tail, the creature whipped its prehensile appendage out and tripped Regulus, sending him sprawling face-first onto the muddy bank. The curse hit the back of his head with a shock that felt less like a stunning spell and more like a high-voltage surge.
Echo's voice, smooth and commanding, instantly filled the space where Regulus's free will had been. "Get up, Regulus."
Regulus, despite his mind screaming No! And Fight!, found his muscles obeying instantly. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the throbbing pain in his ribs and the mud coating his face. He was up, standing rigidly straight, his limbs feeling strangely light and unattached, his eyes wide and burning with desperate, terrified comprehension.
"Good," Echo said, his tone utterly devoid of emotion. "Now, I want you to run around the Kappa's lovely, warm pool of water. Run as fast as you can. Do not stop. You are running for your life."
The command was absolute. Regulus's legs, despite his own mind pleading for them to lock, shot into motion. He began running a tight, frantic circle around the steaming tributary, his expensive robes billowing out behind him. He ran with a desperate, all-out speed that his pampered body had never before experienced.
Stop! STOP, you freak! My lungs are burning! His mind shrieked.
But his body didn't slow. The cold air hammered into his lungs, his throat seized with pain, and his thighs began to burn with a white-hot agony. Tears streamed from his eyes, not from physical pain, but from the raw, humiliating terror of being utterly out of control. His feet pounded the damp earth, never stumbling, never faltering, a perfect, tireless machine. He could hear Echo's faint, amused sigh.
After what felt like an hour of ceaseless, agonizing motion, Echo's voice finally returned. "Stop."
Regulus instantly slammed to a halt, panting so hard he felt he might pass out, his legs shaking violently, but still perfectly obedient.
"Excellent cardio, Regulus. Now, let's see the artistry. I want you to dance," Echo commanded. "I want you to dance the most humiliating, ridiculous, flamboyant dance you can imagine. No holding back."
Again, the compulsion was immediate. Regulus's body twisted, his arms flailing above his head in an impossible parody of a balletic maneuver, his legs kicking out in a chaotic, spastic jig. He twirled, he jumped, he clapped, his entire performance an agonizing affront to his sense of pureblood dignity.
Stop! Please, I beg you! This is humiliating! His mind screamed, tears of shame mixing with the sweat and mud on his face.
He was dancing uncontrollably, and he could do nothing but watch. Suddenly, his foot struck a hidden, frozen divot in the earth. The ankle twisted, sending a blinding spike of pain up his leg.
AUGH! My ankle! Stop! But the dance didn't stop. Regulus, under the curse's thrall, continued his frantic jig, now hopping on the newly sprained ankle, the movement a grotesque, painful rhythm of agony and forced enthusiasm. The pain was excruciating, yet the body was forced to treat it as a minor inconvenience.
"That's enough," Echo said finally, the cold amusement clear in his voice. "Stop."
Regulus stopped, standing on the mangled ankle, trembling violently, his entire body heaving.
"Did that hurt, Regulus?" Echo asked, taking a leisurely step closer. "I hope so. Because you haven't seen anything yet."
Echo turned and walked to the thick, ancient oak tree where Regulus had just been thrown. He pointed a finger at the tree's rough, frozen bark. "Walk over to the tree. And I want you to slam your face into that trunk. Repeatedly. Full force."
NO! NO! I can't! My face! Regulus's mind was pure, unadulterated panic. Please, I'll tell you anything! Just stop!
But his legs carried him to the tree. His head drew back, and with a sickening THWACK, his forehead and nose slammed into the bark. He felt a sharp, cracking sensation in his nose. Warm, coppery blood instantly gushed down his face. The pain was blinding, but before his body could register the agony, his head drew back and slammed forward again. And again. And again.
STOP! STOP IT! I BEG YOU! MERCY! Regulus internally wept, the sounds of the impacts echoing sickeningly in the quiet forest.
"Stop," Echo commanded, his voice sharp and final.
Regulus leaned his bloody forehead against the bark, gasping, his body still, blood dripping steadily onto his robes and the frozen ground.
Echo then walked over to a thick, gnarled bush covered in sharp, frozen thorns. He gestured to the bush. "Go over there."
Regulus, despite his mind screaming No, no, no, the pain!, walked to the bush.
"Take your right hand, and grab a tight fistful of those thorns. Squeeze. Hard."
NO! PLEASE! I CAN'T!
Regulus's hand shot out, grabbing a handful of the wicked, frozen barbs. His fingers closed tightly, embedding the thorns deep into the flesh of his palm. He let out a loud, raw, uncontrollable cry of pain—a sound that was pure, physical anguish, finally breaking through his silent terror. Blood immediately blossomed across his knuckles and palm.
Echo merely watched, his face impassive. "Do you see, Regulus? You can beg all you want. You can scream all you want. Your body is mine. Your suffering is my performance."
Echo raised his wand, the luminous green fading instantly. "Finite Incantatem."
The curse broke.
Regulus's body, finally released from the iron grip of the spell, instantly gave out. With a desperate, choked cry, he tore his hand away from the thorny bush and collapsed onto the frozen earth, his mangled, bloody hand clutching his nose. He curled into a fetal position, his whole body shaking, deep, raw sobs wracking his chest as the full, delayed wave of pain and humiliation crashed over him. He was a defeated, broken, crying mess. Echo stood over him, his expression one of bored contempt. The heavy black returned to his hair, overlaying the remnants of the cold, metallic blue.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake, stop your bitch crying, Regulus," Echo drawled, rolling his eyes dramatically. "It's unbecoming. You're staining the Forbidden Forest with your tears and snot. I barely even started."
Regulus flinched violently, his head snapping up. His eyes, wide with absolute, primal terror, fixed on Echo's face. He knew exactly what the words meant.
The next curse.
The Cruciatus Curse.
"The second lesson, Regulus," Echo continued, his voice regaining its smooth, sinister cadence, the toxic green in his hair intensifying to a cruel, luminous glow. He leaned down, placing the toe of his boot gently against Regulus's ribs—a point of contact that made the younger boy flinch and whimper. "Is the Cruciatus Curse. The curse of physical agony. A favourite among those with low creativity. Most pureblood idiots think it's a simple switch: on or off. You scream, or you don't. Again, amateur hour."
Echo nudged Regulus with his foot, forcing the boy to roll onto his back, exposing his tear-streaked, bloodied face to the moonlight.
"A true master," Echo explained, his voice taking on the detached, pedagogical tone of a university lecturer, "understands that the Cruciatus is less a switch and more a rheostat. A volume knob. Or, to use a simpler metaphor, a stovetop. Low heat is excruciating, but survivable. Medium heat is debilitating, agony that burns itself into the memory. But a true master can crank that knob too high, Regulus. To the maximum intensity. A level of pain that not only breaks the body but shatters the mind—a pain so absolute that the victim forgets everything else. They forget their name, their principles, even the pain of a broken nose or a sprained ankle. All that exists is the sensation of being torn apart from the inside."
Echo lifted his wand, the gnarled black wood pointed straight at Regulus's chest. The luminous green in his eyes was almost unbearable.
"You, Regulus, only know low heat. You know the threat of the stovetop. Now, observe."
Regulus, paralyzed by the residual shock of the Imperius and the sheer terror of what was coming, couldn't move. He could only lie there, his body trembling, his eyes wide and fixed on the glowing wand tip. A single, raw, choked sob escaped his throat.
Echo's voice cut through the silence, sharp and clear.
"Crucio."
The curse struck.
Regulus's body arched immediately, snapping into a rigid, impossible bow off the frozen ground. His hands—the one that thorns had crushed, the other a bloody mess from grabbing his nose—balled into fists, his fingernails digging into his palms. A sound tore from his throat, a high-pitched, thin shriek that was instantly swallowed by the night. It was pain, pure and absolute, burning through his muscles, his nerves, his very bones. His mind was instantly consumed by white-hot agony.
"This, Regulus," Echo's voice was a distant, dispassionate drone above the storm, "is the normal sensation. The low-to-medium heat. Notice the screaming? Standard. Now…" Echo's focus sharpened, the green in his hair flared, and the wand tip pulsed with blinding light. "Maximum."
The pain intensified instantaneously. It was no longer a fire; it was an internal explosion. Regulus's scream became a terrifying, animalistic howl—a raw, sustained noise that tore at his vocal cords, echoing through the silent forest, the sound of a mind being utterly, irrevocably shredded. He forgot the cold. He forgot the Imperius. He forgot his broken nose and his bleeding hand. He forgot the Forbidden Forest. There was only the pain, a searing, absolute sensation that demanded total and complete awareness. Echo held the curse for a long, agonizing moment, then, with a flick of his wrist, he cut it off.
"Finite Incantatem."
Regulus collapsed back onto the earth, a whimpering, twitching pile of mud and robes. The raw, guttural screaming instantly dissolved into deep, racking sobs—the sound of a child who had endured unimaginable suffering. He was panting, choking, his entire body convulsing, the memory of the absolute pain eclipsing every other humiliation.
Echo allowed him a moment to writhe, then walked the few steps over to the prone boy. He leaned down, his pitch-black hair—which had instantly drained of the toxic green—falling forward to brush Regulus's ear.
"Do you know the third curse, Regulus?" Echo asked, his voice a low, cold whisper of finality.
Regulus, despite the lingering, phantom flares of internal agony, stopped his sobbing just long enough to look up at the dark figure looming over him. His eyes were red, tear-stained, and wide with a desperate, primal terror.
He managed a single, choked word. "No."
"Yes," Echo corrected simply. "The third lesson is the simplest, and the most final. The Avada Kedavra."
Echo straightened up, his wand held loosely at his side, its tip still smoking faintly. The dark, analytical black of his hair began to bleed into the icy, metallic blue of supreme focus.
"The Killing Curse. It's a clean break. No pain, no torture, no mind-control. It simply extinguishes the spark of life. It cannot be improved upon in the conventional sense, as its goal is binary: death. But I, myself, have found a small tweak to make it more useful. Something that perhaps even the Dark Lord hasn't quite figured out yet—or perhaps it's just a me thing."
Echo turned his gaze from Regulus to the ancient, looming trees.
"I can hit a target, implanting it with a fraction of my magic—a magical mark, if you will—a marker that makes it incredibly easy for me to find it again. And if I were to be aiming for something more practical, say, hitting multiple targets at once and clearing a crowded room in seconds with the killing curse, it is a very useful technique."
Echo trailed off, his icy blue eyes slowly returning to Regulus, who was still gasping, his body braced for the final blow. Regulus's fear was now so absolute that he couldn't even scream. He only managed a high-pitched, desperate whine.
"No, no, no," Regulus pleaded, his voice a strangled whisper.
Echo only smiled, a cold, utterly humorless expression of final contempt. He raised his wand, the tip instantly blazing with a brilliant, neon-green light—the unmistakable, lethal color of the Killing Curse.
"Avada"
Regulus screamed, a final, ragged sound ripped from his shredded throat, and squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the instantaneous, painless oblivion.
"Cadavra."
The word was a whip-crack in the silent air. Regulus waited. He waited for the cold release. He waited for nothingness. Instead, he heard a sound—a dull, fleshy THWACK—followed by the light thump of something small and soft hitting the frozen ground nearby. Regulus's eyes snapped open. He was still alive. He was still curled on the cold, muddy earth. Echo was still standing over him, his wand tip smoking gently, the lethal green light gone, replaced by a lingering wisp of pale-green smoke.
Echo smiled, this time a genuine, if terrifying, smile of self-satisfaction. "See, Regulus? No crowd. So, no need to waste a perfectly good killing curse on you."
Regulus stared up at him, bewildered, the pain and terror of the last ten minutes suddenly colliding with the confusion of the present. Was it a dream? Was it a hallucination brought on by the torture? Just then, something fell from the thick branches of the oak tree he was leaning against. It was a large, dead raccoon. It fell onto the frozen earth with a soft thud. The green light had struck it perfectly, its fur unruffled, its eyes wide and staring. The life had simply been extinguished. The target, Regulus realized with a horrifying jolt, had not been him. It had been the creature hiding in the tree above his head.
Echo glanced down at the dead animal, then back at the terror-struck boy. "Now that, Regulus, is a perfectly executed killing curse. You," Echo said, turning his back on the crying boy and the dead creature, "are merely a pest."
Regulus, utterly broken, began to weep again, the sound raw and thick with pain and sheer horror. He pushed himself back against the oak, trying to create distance from the figure towering over him. His bloodied hand reached out, pointing a trembling, accusatory finger.
"You… you are a monster!" Regulus choked out, his voice a cracked whisper of absolute conviction. "A filthy, self-righteous beast! The Dark Lord was right about you! You're just a dangerous, unhinged lunatic—a monster!"
Echo paused, his gaze fixed on the spot where the Kappa, Puca, was now contentedly gnawing on its cucumber by the gently steaming river. He let out a long, slow, profoundly tired sigh, the sound more of a weight shifting than a release of air. The icy blue of his hair softened, melting into a deep, heavy, exhausted gray.
"'Monster,'" Echo repeated flatly, the word sounding hollow and worn out. He lowered his wand to his side, his posture slumping slightly. "You know, Regulus, I really hate that word."
Regulus, despite the throbbing pain in his ribs and the agony in his hand, stared at Echo with a new mixture of confusion and fear. He had expected denial, or more cruel mockery, not… weariness.
"It's not the word itself," Echo continued, running a hand over the messy, gray curtain of his hair. "I stopped being hurt by the name-calling a long time ago. It's what everyone in this castle thinks of me anyway. No, I hate it because I've heard it so many times—from Malfoy, from the press, from Dumbledore's disappointed glances, from the looks on students' faces after every bloody task—that I've actually started to believe it myself."
He stepped back, crossing his arms and fixing Regulus with a distant, strangely empty look.
"It's no different than repeating a lie, over and over, until it sounds like the truth, even to the liar," Echo explained, his voice taking on the detached tone of an academic observation. "You see people flinch, you see them recoil, you see them constantly expecting the worst, the magical outburst, the beast, the monster… and eventually, that expectation becomes your reality. Your actions begin to conform to the role they've cast you in."
Echo shrugged, the movement small and heavy. "And for what it's worth, Regulus, I really, really am starting to believe it. Not because it's true—I know that monsters aren't born, they're created. But from how everyone acts around me, from the constant fear, to the constant attempts to use or control me, that almost seems to be what everyone wants. And who am I to disappoint the audience?"
The air, already thick with the scent of pine and frozen earth, suddenly grew heavier, charged with a potent, ancient magic. A terrifying, liquid black instantly swallowed the deep, exhausted gray of Echo's hair. It was the same shade of pitch-black he had worn moments ago, but this time, it was not the cold resolve of a fight; it was the color of a primal, untamed void. The shadows around Echo's feet seemed to deepen, coalescing into an impossible shape. His personal shadow—the one cast by the pale moonlight—stretched and peeled itself away from his body, rising like a column of dense, inky smoke. It did not stand behind him; instead, it warped and expanded, plastering itself across the ancient, gnarled tree trunks thirty feet away, blending seamlessly with the forest's natural darkness.
This was no ordinary shadow. It was a Beast, a creature of pure, conscious darkness, a form so absolute it seemed to cast a shadow on the surrounding night. Two points of light—a pair of enormous, hungry eyes—blazed into existence within the blackness, glowing with an internal, hellish crimson. Between them, a thin, jagged line of electric-blue light appeared, widening into a grin that revealed a mouth full of needle-sharp, spectral teeth. The beast was vast and silent, its presence alone a crushing weight of pure predatory power.
Regulus Black, still convulsing from the aftershocks of the Cruciatus and the terror of the Imperius, stopped sobbing instantly. He pushed himself further back against the oak, his eyes—wide, bloodshot, and frantic—fixed on the terrifying shape in the darkness. He had seen fear tonight, but this was something else. This was a glimpse into the monstrous power Echo held in reserve, a power that answered to his emotions, a power that could annihilate the forest without a sound. Echo looked from the monstrous shadow to the broken boy at his feet, the deep gray of his weariness returning, overlaid with a faint, cold blue of final resolution.
"Speaking of being told a lie over and over, Regulus," Echo said, his voice flat, the weariness now laced with a cold, almost paternal pity. "How about I just tell you the truth about something, once."
Echo leaned down, his face inches from Regulus's bloodied, tear-streaked mask of fear. Regulus flinched violently, expecting a final, cruel strike.
"You are no dark wizard," Echo stated, the words clipped and absolute. "You will never be a dark wizard. You're living in a world of delusional fantasy that is far more La La Land than anything I've ever experienced, if you truly think you possess the raw magical will to be a competent Dark Wizard. Let alone a high-ranking member of the Dark Lord's army."
Echo straightened, gesturing with a single, dismissive wave toward the vast, dark creature looming in the shadows. "Do you see that? That is power. That is real dark magic. That is the thing I have to fight every single day just to keep from being consumed by. You have the magical ability of a rusty teaspoon, Regulus. You won't be a rook, or a bishop, let alone a knight in his little war. You'll be a pawn. You'll be cannon fodder. An expendable piece of inherited aristocracy to be sacrificed the moment he needs a distraction."
Echo's voice hardened, becoming dangerously quiet. "And if you think what I did to you tonight was bad—the Cruciatus, the Imperius—just think of what the Dark Lord will do to you. I may not know a thing about the man, but I can take a gander and guess that he doesn't take failure well, and that failure isn't without consequences in his ranks. You will fail, Regulus. You've already failed tonight. And he is not a man who gives second chances."
He took a final step back, his eyes fixed on the boy, the pitiless truth echoing in the silent forest. "So, do yourself a favor, Regulus. Choose a more realistic goal. Get back to Hogwarts, find a nice girl, and join a book club. And for the love of all that is sane, stop following someone called the Dark Lord into whatever abyss he'll inevitably fall into. Because when he falls, he'll be dragging all of his pawns down with him."
Echo gave a final, bored sigh. He didn't wait for a reply. He simply turned and began to walk away, his boots crunching softly on the frozen ground, heading back toward the warm, distant lights of the castle. As his body moved, his shadow stretched out behind him. The massive, terrifying shape plastered against the distant trees instantly detached, folding itself inward with a soundless rush of air, dissolving into a stream of pure, dense blackness. It flowed across the ground like a river of ink, quickly coalescing back into Echo's small, normal shadow, trailing faithfully behind him once more. By the tributary, the Kappa, Puca, let out a final, contented chirrup as it finished its cucumber. It sank slowly, silently, back into the constant, comfortable eighty-degree water, the steaming surface closing over its head without a ripple.
Regulus Black was left sitting alone on the cold, damp earth, surrounded by the silence of the Forbidden Forest, the shattered pieces of the ancient armor, his bleeding nose, his mangled hand, and the heavy weight of a terrifying, absolute truth. He had nothing but his terror, his agony, and the new, horrific thought: What if the monster was right? No, that's not right, he is no monster, he had to play the part of one to make his point. What if Echo was right?
The heavy oaken doors of Hogwarts groaned inward with a sound like a ship settling in still waters, allowing Echo to slip back into the castle. He stepped onto the flagstone floor, shaking the last vestiges of frozen earth and pine needles from his boots. The cold, empty silence of the late-night corridors was a welcome change from the charged atmosphere of the Forbidden Forest, and he allowed the immense, heavy gray of his exhaustion to settle back into his hair, a visual sigh of relief.
He took three steps, his mind already drifting to the prospect of a hot shower and a full eight hours of sleep, when a figure detached itself from the deep shadow cast by the main staircase.
"Mr. Echo," a voice cut through the quiet, sharp and laced with an immediate, unmistakable tension.
Echo stopped, a tired sigh escaping his lips. He slowly turned to face the figure. It was Professor Minerva McGonagall, her severe, emerald-green tartan dressing gown pulled tightly around her, her expression grim and utterly unamused.
"Professor McGonagall," Echo said, his voice flat. He ran a hand over his tired, messy gray hair. "A pleasure as always. And before you ask, no, I haven't set fire to the fifth floor. Not yet, anyway."
Minerva ignored the attempted humor. She marched toward him, stopping a few feet away, her eyes fixed on the mud streaking his robes and the lingering darkness in his hair. "Don't be flippant, Mr. Echo," she commanded, her voice dropping to a low, serious octave. "I have just had a highly distressed seventh-year prefect report to me, claiming she witnessed you dragging a student, Mr. Regulus Black, to be precise—by his hair, out of the castle, and into the Forbidden Forest. She seemed convinced you were going to murder him."
Echo remained perfectly still, a single, sardonic eyebrow slowly rising.
"And you, Professor," Echo asked, his gaze unwavering, "do you really think I'd go that far? Murder? It seems a bit messy for my tastes. I prefer things neat and intellectually satisfying."
Minerva met his eyes, and a profound weariness, an expression Echo rarely saw in his unflappable Head of House, crossed her face.
"Under normal circumstances, Mr. Echo, I would dismiss the accusation as hysteria," she admitted, the words heavy and difficult. "But with the Triwizard Tournament—the constant magical volatility, the public pressure, the stress you have been under, and what I've witnessed of your Beast Magic—yes, it is a possibility. It is a possibility I wish I could deny out of hand, but one I cannot. I have seen the darkness in the magic you wield, and I have seen the sheer exhaustion in your face. It is a frightening combination."
Echo sighed again, the sound one of deep, soul-weary frustration. The gray in his hair deepened to a heavy, frustrated black.
"Then you clearly don't have the full story as to why I dragged a student into the Forest," he stated flatly. He gestured back toward the massive doors. "But for the record, Regulus Black is not dead. He is, however, still in the Forbidden Forest, and whatever state he comes out of those woods in—that is not my fault."
Minerva's eyebrows shot up, a sudden spike of alarm in her stern features. "What do you mean by that, Mr. Echo? 'Not your fault?' Did you leave him injured? Did you bind him? What precisely did you do?"
Echo gave a small, cold half-shrug, pulling his hands out of his robes. "I only dragged him out to have a private talk about the unacceptable use of low-level stunning spells on school grounds and the etiquette surrounding house-elf harassment. I merely wanted to impress upon him the seriousness of his behavior, a seriousness that apparently only the threat of certain, absolute magical power could convey."
He paused, his voice dropping to a dry, explanatory monotone. "However, the Forbidden Forest is dangerous, Professor. You can get hurt out there. The ground is uneven, the trees are gnarled, and there are creatures. I, myself, get injured despite how often I know those woods. Suppose Mr. Black chose to run around, flailing his arms in a dramatic display of aristocratic indignation, and perhaps tripped over a root or two; that's simply the environment doing its job. I am not responsible for the natural hazards of a place I did not force him to remain in." He met her gaze, the black in his hair unwavering. "He is free to come back. When he's ready to walk."
Minerva's expression hardened, but the underlying look of weariness did not fully dissipate. She took a deliberate step closer, her voice losing its sharp command and softening into the firm, low tone of a Head of House who genuinely cared.
"Mr. Echo, this is beyond a mere disciplinary matter now. You are right; he is free to walk back, and I will ensure he receives the appropriate medical attention and subsequent punishment for assaulting you throughout the week. But we need to talk. We need to talk, truly talk, about you. About what the stress of this Tournament is doing to you. And about the darkness you project into the Forest. I didn't see it, but I felt it."
Echo's heavy, defeated black hair snapped back to a pure, exhausted gray. He held up a hand, a gesture of profound, weary surrender.
"Don't, Professor," he said, his voice quiet and flat. "I know the spiel. 'I'm doing my duty,' 'I'm worried about your well-being,' 'Albus is concerned.' I know you are all just trying to keep the highly volatile magical nuke with decent grades from going off in the middle of a third-year Transfiguration lesson. It's your job, and I don't blame you for it."
He lowered his hand, running it over the rough, gray curtain of his hair. His eyes, fixed on a point just past her shoulder, were empty and desolate.
"And yes, I will admit it. I am crashing out. I am going off the rails. And honestly, can anyone really blame me for it?" A raw, wounded quality entered his voice, and the exhaustion in his hair pulsed with a deep, aching indigo. "All I wanted was one normal year. One year where I could stay in the shadows, do my work, keep my head down, and hope that any rumors about me finally die off. That was the goal. To become a non-entity."
He gave a harsh, humorless laugh. "But no. Not only are the rumors back, but they're in full swing, and they're not confined to the school anymore. Before, it was just Hogwarts, and that was manageable. Now it's all of Hogsmeade, and soon it will be the entire Wizarding world watching this spectacle they call the Triwizard Tournament."
His composure finally frayed, and his chin began to tremble. The indigo deepened, pulsing with suppressed pain. "I can't go anywhere. I can't be anywhere. Every single public movement I make, every word I say, every magical anomaly that happens within a hundred yards of me is twisted, analyzed, and magnified. Where in this entire bloody world," he pleaded, his eyes filling with unshed tears, "do I belong where people don't immediately judge me for things that are either not my fault—like being chosen by the Goblet—or are mere happenstance—like having an unfortunate magical affinity?"
He looked directly at her, his eyes glistening. "Professor, with all due respect, unless you can somehow, right now, get me out of the tournament—have me be just another face in the crowd instead of the center of attention and controversy—then I really don't want to hear it. I can't. Words are cheap, Professor. Actions make things happen, but no matter what action I've taken—the legal challenges, the protests, the polite letters—it has all led to nothing but failure, frustration, and the inevitable return to violence."
Echo dropped his gaze, his shoulders slumping completely. The tears finally spilled onto his cheeks, mingling with the mud and sweat. He didn't bother to wipe them away.
"I need to sleep. I need to stop thinking," he whispered, a defeated sound.
He didn't wait for her reply. He simply turned his back on the Head of House, his footsteps heavy and slow. He began the long, silent walk down the corridor and toward the dungeons, leaving Professor McGonagall standing alone in the cold, empty silence of the late-night castle, the immense, soul-crushing gray of his exhaustion trailing behind him like a physical cloak.