Chapter 26: Foundation
Thursday night's Astronomy lesson took place atop the Astronomy Tower, the highest point of the Castle.
Late September had cleared the sky of cloud, and the Scottish Highlands air was cold and sharp, as if it had been washed clean. Stars glittered with an almost unfriendly clarity.
"Tonight," Professor Aurora Sinistra said, her voice as soft as a night breeze, "we shall learn to locate the dominant ruler of the sky, Sirius."
She was an elderly witch with silver hair pinned neatly back. Her robes were embroidered with tiny constellations that seemed to catch starlight as she moved.
"Sirius is not only the brightest star visible from Earth," she continued, "but in magical tradition it is also a symbol of guidance and loyalty. Many ancient seafaring spells and long range communication charms rely on its observation."
Pairs of students took their places beside brass telescopes mounted on sturdy stands. Regulus was paired with Alex Rosier.
Avery had declared he possessed absolutely no interest in staring at a few points of light all night. He had long since folded himself into a corner with several other Slytherin boys, yawning dramatically and pretending the stars were personally insulting him.
"First, calibrate the level on the base," Regulus murmured, watching Alex fumble with the fittings. "Keep the bubble centred. Then release the vertical lock and point the tube towards the southeast, elevation about twenty degrees."
Alex followed the instructions and peered through the eyepiece. "It is all blurry."
"That's because you haven't adjusted the focus." Regulus reached out and turned the knob with a careful hand. "Slowly. Look for a very bright star with a blue white tint."
Alex adjusted for a moment longer, then let out a soft, surprised sound.
"I see it," he whispered. "It's so bright. Like a blue white gemstone. It's actually… beautiful."
"That is Sirius." Regulus leaned over his own telescope.
He calibrated and focused with practised ease, and the star slid into crisp clarity.
Under the magically enhanced instrument, Sirius was not merely a point of light. A hair thin halo surrounded it, pulsing faintly like breathing.
A Muggle telescope would never have shown that.
The wizarding world called it a star's magical glow.
"Very good, Mr. Rosier."
Professor Sinistra drifted to their side, her gaze moving between their charts and eyepieces.
"Now record its position using the coordinate grid on your star map. Pay attention to the ecliptic reference line."
When she moved away, Alex whispered, "How are you so skilled? It's like you've used one a hundred times."
"There is a similar telescope at home," Regulus replied, which was technically true. The Blacks possessed an antique astronomical telescope. He had simply never bothered to touch it.
Alex bent over his parchment, recording coordinates with visible effort, then muttered, "What is the point of Astronomy anyway? Besides the stars being pretty."
"It's more useful than you think," Regulus said, keeping his eye to the lens.
"The brewing of many advanced potions requires precise lunar phases and stellar positions. Some key ingredients for Felix Felicis must be harvested under specific lunar and astral alignments."
He spoke as if reciting a plain fact, not a secret.
"Certain variants of Ancient Runes fluctuate in strength with the positions of constellations. Not to mention ancient contracts, family rituals, and even parts of the Castle's protective magic. Their power levels can rise and fall with the cycles of the stars."
Regulus's voice stayed calm.
"Understanding the sky is, in a sense, learning to read the hidden clock of the wizarding world."
Alex stared at him as though he had just announced the stars were grading their essays.
"Those things are not in the textbooks," he said slowly.
"Because that is material for higher years," Regulus replied, "or it is part of certain family inheritances."
Professor Sinistra clapped her hands, drawing every gaze.
"Now, shift your telescopes about fifteen degrees to the left and lower the elevation by five degrees. You will see three bright stars lined up, almost equally spaced. That is Orion's Belt. Record their positions and relative angles."
Regulus obeyed.
When the three stars slid into view, his hands paused.
Not because they were beautiful, though they were.
Because of the alignment.
Three points: Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka.
To a Muggle, they were simply three distant stars, hundreds of light years away, aligned only by the accident of perspective.
Under the enchanted telescope, Regulus saw something else.
Their halos were not entirely separate.
Spider silk thin streams of magic drifted between them, so subtle he might have missed them if he had not been looking for patterns. The streams formed a faint triangle of energy, delicate as a sketch drawn in air.
Regulus recorded the coordinates quickly. He connected the points with dashed lines and marked the angles.
Orion's Belt looked almost perfectly straight, yet there was the smallest arc, negligible on a cosmic scale. In magic, however, negligible was sometimes another word for decisive.
His mind ran ahead of his quill.
Stars moved. Slowly, yes, but they moved.
Each of the three belt stars had its own motion through the Milky Way, direction and speed as real as any river's current. Regulus found himself calculating, without meaning to, how their relative positions would shift a century from now, based on remembered star data and known proper motion.
Was that motion part of the magic he had just seen?
Was the sky's power tied not only to where the stars were, but to where they were going?
He decided, in that instant, that he would incorporate actual stellar movement into his meditation. Not a static model, not a still picture, but a structure with direction. A slow, relentless trend.
Professor Sinistra's voice cut across his thoughts, carrying over the scrape of parchment and the quiet mutters of students.
"I see many of you have already finished your recordings. Remember, the significance of Astronomy lies not in memorising a few names, but in understanding the eternal rhythm contained within the movement of the stars."
She glanced across the class, and her eyes briefly rested on Regulus, as if she could see the way his attention sharpened at the words.
"Class dismissed."
Eternal rhythm.
Regulus packed away his chart, the phrase echoing inside him as he followed the others down from the tower.
In the early hours of the morning, the Slytherin dormitory was silent.
Regulus sat cross legged inside his four poster bed with the curtains drawn. A Silencing Charm lay over the space like a thin veil.
He closed his eyes and sank into the deeper layers of his mind.
He began his guided circulation and his star meditation at the same time.
Inside his body, magic flowed like a gentle stream, cycling along familiar paths, nourishing every inch of flesh. It was physical tempering, the foundation beneath every other foundation.
At the highest level of his consciousness, he constructed a model of Orion's Belt.
Not merely the points of light, but the subtle offsets he had observed through the telescope. The measured angles. The calculated trajectories. The motion itself.
He gave the three points a movement so slow it was almost still, yet unmistakably directional. A static framework carrying a dynamic trend.
Then he attempted the difficult part.
He tried to make the rhythm of his internal circulation match that trend.
It did not work at first.
The magic within the body was tangible, a current that could be felt. The movement of stars was abstract, a tendency stretched across time. They seemed to exist in different dimensions.
Regulus did not force it.
He held the model steady and poured his focus into it, feeling for the faint tension of motion, the pressure of direction, the quiet insistence that something was changing even when it looked unchanged.
Then, with patience bordering on stubbornness, he made minute adjustments to his circulation. Not a sudden shift, but a subtle change in the overall tone.
Slower.
More constant.
More solemn, as if the stream in his body had learned to respect time.
Ten minutes passed.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Then, without any dramatic surge, something aligned.
The magic did not trace constellation shapes through his veins.
It went deeper than that.
The state of his circulation, and the essence of the stellar model's movement, reached a harmonious resonance, not in the flesh, but on the level of spirit.
In that instant, Regulus felt two distinct improvements take hold at once.
The circulation that had always felt gentle and nourishing gained a firmer, weightier quality. Wherever it flowed, it brought not only warmth, but consolidation, as if muscle fibres and bone density were being reinforced more effectively through the resonance itself.
A new strength rose slowly from the depths of his limbs and bones.
At the same time, the mental strain of maintaining a moving model had always been extreme. Yet the moment he truly synchronised with the star track, his consciousness seemed to anchor.
Clearer.
Steadier.
The day's cluttered thoughts, the constant messy whispers of magic that clung to Hogwarts like dust, even that quiet detachment and loneliness that lived in the heart of a transmigrator, all of it smoothed under something vast and calm.
It felt as if his soul had found a pedestal of stone, becoming tranquil, difficult to shake.
It was a qualitative change.
Regulus remained in the state, breathing evenly, testing each nuance with care.
As the cycle continued, his recovery speed increased, and the magic itself seemed to condense. It became more disciplined, less wasteful, as if it had been taught to hold its own shape.
He realised, with a flash of almost reluctant satisfaction, that he might have brushed against a deeper truth.
Body, mind, and magic were never meant to be three separate pillars.
They could interlock.
They could drive each other upward.
They could be refined together.
He named the method silently, imprinting it in his memory with deliberate clarity.
Star track Guided Meditation.
From this point on, physical tempering and mental discipline would no longer be split into separate practices. They would become one complete path, a method of seeking synchronisation with the self as a whole.
With that, the foundation was complete.