The Wailing Wand was infused with the dying screams of battlefield souls. Its wielder would hear those screams without pause, day and night, until the mind finally shattered.
The Covenant Wand was steeped in the regret of betrayers at the moment their treachery was exposed. It amplified suspicion in everyone nearby, turning doubt into paranoia and driving groups into vicious internal strife.
The Relic Wand drew on the ecstasy of martyrs at the instant of execution. Those who carried it developed an overwhelming urge to sacrifice themselves, sometimes even seeking death of their own accord.
There was no mention of the Resentment Plague Wand.
Regulus considered that for a moment. That probably meant the examples in this book were not obscure enough. Different aberrations, recorded in different volumes.
He kept turning pages, reading slowly, pausing often to think.
All of these wands shared one trait. They strayed from the norm.
They were no longer simple tools meant to help a wizard cast spells more effectively. They were constructs with built-in effects, and those effects always came at a price.
He reached a chapter discussing the mutual influence between wand and wielder.
The author wrote:
"…The wand chooses the wizard, but the wizard also shapes the wand. With prolonged use of the same wand, a wizard's magical traits, casting habits, and even personality inclinations leave subtle imprints upon it.
In extreme cases, a wand will gradually adapt to its bearer, undergoing minute transformations…"
Regulus thought of his own wand.
Blackthorn, Dragon Heartstring, Twelve and one-quarter inches.
He had used it for over half a year now. Had it changed?
His casting style emphasized control and precision. His magic flowed steady and fine, measured rather than explosive.
Would those tendencies leave marks as well?
It seemed likely.
Outside the window, the sky darkened. He closed the book. Time for dinner.
Afterward, he did not return to the library. He had no intention of going to the Restricted Section, nor the Room of Requirement.
He needed rest.
His body lay flat against the mattress, but his mind kept working.
Eyes closed, he began to take inventory.
Protego, Reducto, Expelliarmus, Wingardium Leviosa, Reparo, Incendio, Confringo, Accio....
He could list a hundred foundational spells without effort.
Apparition and the Patronus Charm. Higher-level magic, mastered as well.
In Transfiguration, he could complete single-substance reconstruction. His exploration of spatial magic hovered at the threshold of fold-shifting. In Star Guided Meditation, he had lit four and a half stars.
Verdant Magic allowed him to guide plant life force. Occlumency had built a mental labyrinth.
In the Dark Arts, he had mastered the three Unforgivable Curses. He had even studied variations, analyzed structure and theory.
He understood the incantation, gestures, and techniques of Fiendfyre. He had never cast it. But if he chose to, he could.
The list stretched long in his mind. Each entry replayed clearly.
Yet the scene beneath the Astronomy Tower refused to fade.
Gray mist, Faces.....
All he had been able to do was raise Protego and stand there.
His wand in hand, spell after spell flashing through his thoughts, yet none felt usable.
Impedimenta? Incendio? Confringo? Reducto?
Or summon Dumbledore?
Fiendfyre would burn it, certainly. But once released, if he failed to control it, that would become a different disaster.
And the real problem was numbers.
One face crashed against the shield, and Protego consumed a measure of magic. His mental barrier bore a measure of pressure.
Every face screamed, radiating despair and agony. The negative emotion itself eroded the barrier.
His magic was a dam. The gray mist was a rising flood. No matter how solid the dam, water would eventually crest the top.
Destroy them?
Of course he could.
Each face that struck Protego dissolved on impact.
But the next one surfaced immediately from the mist, as though nothing had been lost.
The source lay beyond the stone door. Inside that wand. As long as the source remained, every attack was meaningless.
Only then did he recognize what he had overlooked.
Attribute suppression.
Darkness, Despair, Pain.
When something is built entirely from negative magic, conventional spells lose efficiency.
Protego forms a magical barrier. It blocks physical force and spell impact. But against emotional corrosion, its defense weakens.
Reducto can shatter stone. It cannot disperse condensed resentment.
Water extinguishes flame. It does not erase the superheated currents of a wildfire.
When Dumbledore introduced the Resentment Plague Wand, Regulus remembered every detail.
Northern Italy. Bolzano and its surrounding villages. The Black Death compounded by the Resentment Plague Curse, twisted by Dark Magic.
Each infected victim endured weeks of torment before death. Valentino Solito extracted every ounce of their final suffering, compressed it, condensed it, sealed it.
Seventy thousand strands of despair twisted into one force, infused into a wand body crafted from Black Walnut and finger bone.
Of course it was powerful. Seventy thousand portions of negative magic could sustain a curse field for centuries.
It was practically seventy thousand lesser Dementors bound together.
And yet, it was not invincible.
Dumbledore had caught it between two fingers as easily as plucking a fallen leaf.
There must have been something in his sleeve. Or some spell isolating the wand from the world. Perhaps his own magic functioned as the ultimate vessel, wrapping it whole.
A world map surfaced in Regulus's mind. On that tectonic convergence of two continents lay an island nation, prone to earthquakes and volcanoes.
In 1973, how many people lived there?
One hundred million? More?
Seventy thousand souls had produced the Resentment Plague Wand.
What would one hundred million create?
The thought rose and was crushed immediately.
Too abstract. Too dangerous.
And against the natural order.
Another idea followed.
To confront something of extreme attribute, one must either counter it with an equal extreme or override it with a higher principle.
The only extreme-attribute magic he truly commanded was the Patronus Charm.
He could feel its purity clearly. A yearning for freedom. A longing for the vast world. An instinct to break every shackle.
It was the ultimate condensation of positive emotion. A natural counter to negative magic.
The faces feared it. The moment silver-white light touched them, they dissolved.
The Patronus Charm was profound.
In the original accounts, many adult wizards never managed to summon a corporeal Patronus in their lifetime. Even producing mist was considered commendable.
It demanded more than a happy memory. It required conviction. A luminous core strong enough to illuminate darkness.
His starry dome could disperse the mist. But dispersion was not destruction.
The faces regenerated because the source remained.
His Patronus was more like a lamp, pushing back the dark within its radius.
To purify an entire sea of gray mist with a single ray of light, as Dumbledore had done, would require not a lamp, but a sun.
The gap was obvious.
The other path was Fiendfyre.
Fiendfyre did not care about attributes. It devoured everything.
Black or white, it burned all to ash.
Perhaps that revealed a deeper magical philosophy. When opposing attributes fail, override the conflict with existence itself.
What does Fiendfyre symbolize?
Regulus considered it. Pure destruction. The primal impulse to return all things to nothing.
It stood above attribute opposition because it belonged to no camp. It was simply termination.
That was why it was dangerous. It consumed the enemy. It consumed the caster as well.
Thus, it was classified as Dark Magic.
Regulus did not believe it was dark at all.
He opened his eyes and stared at the patterns woven into the canopy above his bed.
Dumbledore had chosen light to resolve the crisis. And he had made sure Regulus saw it.
That beam had been gentle and natural. Wherever it passed, the gray mist vanished without sound.
The headmaster certainly possessed other methods. He could cast Fiendfyre. He knew Dark Magic. The Patronus was nothing to him.
Yet he chose the most restrained and the most correct option.
Light.
Regulus's lips twitched, though his expression did not change.
He understood the message.
There are countless paths in magic. I chose this one because I believe it is worth choosing.
Dumbledore had not displayed power.
He had displayed choice.
Methods needed expanding.
Extreme-attribute magic required research. Higher-level override concepts like Fiendfyre needed deeper understanding, but not recklessness.
Star Guided Meditation remained his foundation. Verdant Magic and spatial magic were direction. Everything else would follow in rhythm.
Rushing would achieve nothing. He was only in his first year. There was time.
---
The next morning, Regulus went to the Hospital Wing with Cuthbert and Alex.
Hermes was awake. Madam Pomfrey said the curse had receded, though he remained weak.
When they entered the ward, Hermes was propped against his pillows. His complexion was gray-white, eye sockets hollow. He looked as though half his bones had been removed, his robes hanging loosely from a frame that had shrunk.
Regulus stopped at the bedside.
Hermes lifted his eyelids to look at him. There was no emotion in his gaze. Only fatigue.
"Focus on recovering," Regulus said.
His tone was even. Not overly concerned. Not distant. Just a straightforward greeting.
Cuthbert stood slightly behind him, his back straighter than usual.
When he looked at Hermes, his chin tilted up a fraction. He said nothing at first, but the message in his eyes was unmistakable.
Whatever almost killed you, I flattened it.
He remembered Regulus's warning not to say too much.
He failed.
"You're not that impressive, are you?" Cuthbert said quietly, each word crisp.
Hermes's eyes shifted toward him.
He did not argue.