The first Friday of October brought perfect weather.
Sunlight slanted through the Library's tall windows, carving bright lines across the tabletops, warm where it touched skin.
Beyond the glass, the Black Lake shimmered. Students dotted the lakeside lawn, walking in pairs, sprawled on the grass talking, chasing each other with the careless energy of a free afternoon.
Regulus sat in his usual spot, the corner by the window, a heavy volume spread open before him.
Illustrated Guide to Magical Plants of Britain and Surrounding Areas.
He turned to the Whomping Willow entry, scanned a few lines, and flipped past.
Standard fare. Native range, physical characteristics, care requirements, danger classification. Year of discovery, known habitats, ideal growing conditions, what to watch for during an attack.
On magical properties, not a word.
That tracked.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them worked the same way. Newt Scamander wrote about behavior, distribution, husbandry. Never about the magical principles underlying a creature's power.
That omission had to be deliberate.
If Newt had catalogued the magical properties of every beast, some wizard would inevitably find inspiration. Someone like Regulus. They'd decide a particular creature's ability was useful, or worse, develop magic specifically designed to exploit it.
For the animals, that would be a catastrophe.
No demand, no slaughter. No research, no targeting.
The same logic applied to magical plants.
He'd have to work it out on his own.
Regulus turned pages, eyes sweeping familiar plant names, cross-referencing their traits from memory before moving on.
The rarer specimens got only sparse entries. Name, site of discovery, basic characteristics. But for his purposes, that was enough. Buried in those descriptions were clues to magical properties, if you knew what to look for.
Frostweep Tulip. Bloomed only when the year's first snow fell. Its petals froze but never withered. In sunlight, it wept drops of ice-cold liquid, and anyone who touched the liquid was flooded with their most sorrowful memories.
He suspected its magical nature related to frozen memory, the ability to seal a specific recollection away. If that property could be extracted, it might be used to lock away painful memories. Or in reverse, to trap someone in grief they couldn't escape.
Silence Moss. Found growing on stone tablets in ancient ruins. Anyone who touched it temporarily lost the ability to speak, and even nonverbal spells failed.
He believed the property related to language itself, or more precisely, to the act of casting. A direct suppression of spellwork. If extractable, it could become a means of rendering an opponent unable to cast at all.
Shadowlight Grass. Glowed only in absolute darkness. The darker the environment, the brighter it shone, but the faintest trace of another light source snuffed it out instantly.
A sensitivity to light, or perhaps an exclusionary magical tendency. It would only exist in pure conditions, tolerating no interference. If that property could be extracted, it might yield detection magic, or inversely, a darkness that devoured all other light.
Regulus filed the names and his guesses away.
If he ever got his hands on actual specimens, he could verify with magical perception and verdant magic. For now, they'd have to wait.
He kept turning pages, hunting for more candidates.
Sunlight crept westward. The bright lines on the table migrated from one edge to the center and on toward the other side.
Footsteps approached. He looked up.
Lily stood across the table, arms full of books.
"Lily." A small nod.
She sat down opposite him and set her stack on the table. "Regulus."
Neither said anything more. They opened their books.
The Library was quiet. The occasional rustle of a page, a footfall, Madam Pince coughing somewhere in the distance.
After sometime..
Lily closed her book. Regulus closed his. They looked up at the same moment and their eyes met.
Lily smiled first. "You've been famous lately."
His gaze was mild. He didn't respond.
She blinked. "Is it true what they're saying? You made a first-year cast a complete Protego, on the spot?"
A quiet sound of acknowledgment. "If you want to put it that way, yes."
"But you've probably also heard that it's just a trick. Letting someone feel the spell ahead of time. Not the same as teaching them."
Of course she'd heard. The professors had all but grabbed students by the ears and told them not to even think about it.
But these past few days, her roommate Marcia Fawley had been going on about it constantly. How incredible Regulus was. How her father had said it was the kind of thing you didn't expect from a young wizard.
Marcia's eyes had been shining when she said it.
Lily didn't entirely understand the fuss.
Protego.
She couldn't cast it either. Couldn't come close, really. The best her wand produced was a thin wisp of silver, a pale film that didn't even qualify as a formed shield.
She'd asked older students about it. The ones who could cast a full Protego told her it came with age. When her magic grew stronger, when her body matured, when her will solidified, it would come naturally.
Others said you needed a conviction to reject harm. A genuine desire to protect something. Ideally yourself.
Lily had analyzed it and concluded she probably lacked that.
Her family wasn't wealthy, but her parents loved her. Her sister... her sister loved her too.
Two years at Hogwarts, and while there'd been the occasional unpleasant moment, she'd never been truly hurt.
She couldn't conjure the feeling.
She looked at Regulus, curious. "I heard McGonagall say that method isn't suited for younger students?"
"That's right," he said. "At least not for those who don't have a skilled wizard at home."
Lily went quiet. She understood what he meant.
Resources.
If your family had a skilled wizard, this was an option. If not, you ground through it alone.
Her family didn't have a skilled wizard. Her family didn't have any wizard but her. That was the gap that birth created.
She thought of her parents' last letter, every line full of concern. Did she need anything? Was her money holding out? Was the food all right?
Reading it had made her happy. But sitting here now, hearing what Regulus had said, something soured.
Was the gap really that wide?
She didn't say it aloud, but Regulus saw it anyway.
He could sense the shift in her magic. After that last remark, it had dimmed, settling into something heavier.
He didn't rush to offer comforting words.
These were objective realities, the facts that Muggle-born witches and wizards had to face. He'd talked with Lily about this before. Birth mattered, but so did talent. Pure-blood families produced spectacular failures. Muggle-borns became powerful wizards.
But those words didn't need repeating. In the end, you had to arrive at the understanding yourself.
He left her alone with it, sitting there, watching her with a quiet expression.
A long time passed before Lily raised her head.
She looked at him, at that face. Warm and patient. Like someone watching over a child who needed looking after.
She shot him a glare. "Why didn't you comfort me?"
An eyebrow rose.
"You knew my family doesn't have any other wizards. You knew exactly what I'd think when you said that. Why didn't you say something?"
A note of complaint in her voice, but the edges were soft.
The corner of his mouth curved. "Because I know you're a strong witch."
Lily blinked.
"You won't be knocked down by something like this. You'll think it through on your own, and then you'll keep walking."
She stared at him for a long moment, then broke into a laugh, as if remembering something funny. "There you go again."
He had no idea what she meant, but he wasn't going to argue.
A nod, expression unchanged. "There I go again."
Her eyes said, plain as words: Go on then. Tell me what you did this time.
He cleared his throat. "Lily, would you like to feel what Protego is supposed to feel like?"
That got her attention. Her brow furrowed. "Didn't you just say it wasn't suited for young wizards?"
A small smile. "I also said it works if the wizard guiding you is skilled enough."
She dropped her gaze, thinking about something. After a moment, she looked up. "All right. Here?"
"Here's fine."
She glanced both ways and lowered her voice. "Do we need wands? I mean, the Library... Madam Pince doesn't allow wands."
He shook his head. "No wands. I'm just letting you feel it."
He gestured for her to lean forward.
She leaned in. The distance between them shrank.
Regulus raised his hand, fingertip hovering about two inches from the space between her eyebrows.
A thread of silver light spilled from his fingertip. Gentle, not harsh.
It drifted toward her forehead. The instant it touched skin, it spread and dissolved inward.
Lily's eyes went wide. Her body locked for a heartbeat, then relaxed.
Two seconds later, he withdrew his hand. The silver glow faded.
She held the same posture, motionless, eyes open but focused on nothing.
A few more seconds. She blinked. Her gaze sharpened again.
She looked at him, eyes wider than before, filled with surprise and something close to disbelief.
"Remember that feeling," he said. "Try it when you're back in your dormitory. Practice a few times."
"But remember, it has to become yours. What you felt just now only shows you what Protego looks like. The real thing has to come from you."
Lily nodded, kept nodding, then asked carefully, "Regulus, should I keep this a secret?"
"If there's a friend you trust, you can tell her," he said. "After all, these things need to come from somewhere, don't they?"
Lily thought about it and smiled. "Got it."
She began gathering her books. He did the same. They walked out together.
Past the Library doors, the corridor dimmed. Torches were already lit, their amber halos swaying against the stone walls.
"Thank you, Regulus." The words came out of nowhere.
He shook his head. "Between friends, no need."
A quiet mumble. "It's always you helping me."
He turned to look at her. Lily tilted her face up, smiling.
"Bye!"
She hugged her books to her chest and took off, footsteps quick and light, her braid swinging behind her.
Regulus stood where he was, watching until she disappeared around the corner.
Then he turned and walked the other way.
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