Chapter 30: A Crushing Victory
Travers's words grew uglier by the second, facts twisted into something petty and spiteful. He kept calling Regulus's strength a collection of obscure tricks and luck, as if that would make it true.
Regulus stood with his head slightly lowered, silent.
He knew exactly what Travers was doing.
Travers wanted him to strike first. If Regulus attacked, Travers could play the righteous victim, a fifth year forced into self defence. Whatever happened after that, he would have a story that sounded clean enough to repeat.
And Travers was confident now. Confident that if he stayed alert and took it seriously, he would not be humiliated again.
The murmurs in the common room thinned until they were nothing. Eyes fixed on Regulus, waiting for him to bite.
Regulus listened without reacting, but the cold irritation from Bellatrix's letter was still in him. It did not fade. It fermented, quiet heat building behind his ribs.
He looked at Alge Travers's face, so pleased with its own malice, so busy calculating a victory it had not earned yet.
It was suddenly laughable.
And tiring.
Why were there always people who could not see what was right in front of them?
Slowly, Regulus curled the corners of his mouth.
It was a smile, but it was colder than the lake at midnight, sharp enough that it made people who knew him stiffen.
Avery and Alex traded an uneasy glance. Something about Regulus's mood had shifted.
Even Hermes, half hidden in the shadows, seemed to go still for a heartbeat.
And in a far corner, Severus Snape watched with narrowed eyes, his gaze pinning Regulus as if he were trying to take him apart and put him back together in his mind.
Regulus did not shout. He did not fling an insult in rage. He did not look at the older students waiting for a show.
He took two steps forward and spoke in a flat, cold voice.
"Save your clumsy provocation, Travers."
Travers's smirk twitched.
Regulus continued, unhurried, as if he were stating an obvious fact in class.
"You want me to attack first so you can claim self defence and salvage your pathetic pride. It is a childish trick, and you are working very hard at it."
Travers's face tightened, colour draining and flooding in ugly waves.
Regulus's voice did not change.
"Like a clown."
The words landed lightly, but they struck like three clean slaps.
Then Regulus lifted the hand holding his wand.
"So let us stop wasting time."
He raised his chin by a fraction, finally meeting Travers's eyes directly.
"Draw your wand."
The common room fell into a silence so complete that the fire's crackle sounded loud.
Travers's face turned a sickly mix of pale and red, shame and fury twisting together. He had not expected Regulus to expose him so openly, in front of everyone, without giving him the comfort of hidden motives.
"Fine," Travers snapped, yanking his wand out and pointing it straight at Regulus.
"If you want to be arrogant, I will show you the gap between a first year and a fifth year, and teach you how to respect your betters."
Students shifted back automatically, clearing the centre of the room again. Whispering rose like water, eager and restless.
"Travers is an idiot. He thinks everyone else is an idiot too."
"The Black kid is vicious. He ripped the mask off in one sentence."
"Fifth year against first year. Even if Black beat him last time, that was a surprise attack, was it not?"
"Not necessarily. Did you see him block that Dark Arts spell earlier?"
"That was Mulciber, and Mulciber is also first year."
"Still, Travers has had five years of proper training."
"This is going to be good."
Avery's hands clenched into fists. Alex shut his eyes as if that would keep the scene from becoming real.
Hermes leaned against a stone pillar, dark eyes locked on the open space, unreadable.
Lucretius did not intervene. In Slytherin, private duels were tolerated when both parties consented, as long as no one did something that forced Madam Pomfrey to appear in a rage.
"Start," someone called, delighted.
Travers attacked immediately, lessons learned, wand already aligned.
"Stupefy!"
A brilliant red bolt shot at Regulus's face.
Regulus flicked his wand once.
The Stunning Spell shattered in front of him, intercepted so neatly it was as if it had struck a wall.
"Incendio!"
Travers changed tactics, a snake of fire whipping forward with a hiss.
Regulus did not move from his spot. His wand lifted slightly, calm and economical.
An extinguishing charm.
The fire vanished, not fading, not sputtering, simply gone. Even the heat dispersed, leaving nothing but cold air.
Regulus's voice carried across the silence.
"Is that all?"
Travers's mouth opened, ready to cast again.
He did not get the chance.
Regulus's wand snapped forward.
A Jelly Legs Jinx hit Travers cleanly.
Travers's legs went slack at once. His balance collapsed, his body pitching forward, and before he could even try to catch himself, another spell struck.
"Impedimenta."
The force hit his upper body.
Bang.
Two spells in quick succession. Travers lifted off the ground, flipping awkwardly, robes flaring.
Before he could land, a second Impediment Jinx slammed into him.
Bang.
Travers flew again, tossed like a doll.
The watching older students winced. It looked painful in a way that did not need imagination.
A sixth year girl sucked in a breath and rubbed at her own shoulder as if she could feel it.
"That must hurt."
"Pain is not even the worst part," someone muttered. "It is what it means."
A fourth year stared, voice half admiration, half alarm.
"His spells are non verbal. Fast. The transitions are smooth."
A few students exchanged looks that held an unspoken question.
Could you dodge that?
Maybe.
Could you handle the next one?
Regulus did not pause.
"Muddy ground."
The floor beneath Travers liquefied. When he hit, he did not slam into stone.
He sank.
Mud swallowed him to the waist, thick and dragging, stealing movement like a living thing.
Travers's mind was blank with shock. Then pain caught up, and panic followed it.
"Reducto!"
He fired the Blasting Curse at the mud beneath him, trying to explode his way free.
The spell barely left his wand before an empty armchair near him shifted.
Wood twisted. Legs stretched. The back elongated. The structure reorganised with horrifying speed and precision.
In moments, the chair became a giant python, nearly ten metres long, its body thick as a tree trunk.
Gasps broke through the silence like splinters.
The python moved without sound, coiling around Travers's waist, yanking him out of the mud with a violent jerk.
Then it tightened.
Travers screamed, terror ripping all control from him.
"Diffindo!"
The Severing Charm struck the python. Scales blasted away, and beneath them there was flesh, wet and red.
It was not an illusion.
It was a real transfigured creature.
The python only tightened further.
Travers's breathing hitched. His face turned bright red. His arms flailed, wand shaking uselessly.
"Let go. Let go of me."
He struggled, but it was useless.
Regulus walked towards him at an unhurried pace, composed, eyes empty of emotion. Not triumphant. Not angry.
Simply cold.
He flicked his wand lazily.
The python began to move.
It dragged Travers in a slow circle around the centre of the room, coils firm, control absolute.
One lap.
Two.
It looked like a display, as if Travers were a prize being paraded, ridiculous and helpless.
A sixth year boy who seemed close to the Travers family stepped forward, face tight.
"Enough. Let him go."
Regulus turned his head slightly.
He did not speak.
He only looked at the boy.
Whatever that look carried, it stopped the words in the boy's throat. His mouth closed. He stepped back.
Only when Travers began to roll his eyes, half from lack of air and half from humiliation so intense it became physical, did Regulus seem to lose interest.
His wand twitched.
The python loosened at once, wood reforming as if time ran backwards. The creature collapsed into an armchair again, fabric torn, one arm bent at an awkward angle as it hit the floor.
Travers fell like a fish thrown onto shore.
He coughed violently, dragging in air as if it were the only thing in the world. His robes were smeared with mud. Saliva streaked his chin. Tears ran down his face, and his wand was nowhere in sight.
The common room did not move.
No one laughed.
No one cheered.
They simply stared at the black haired boy who stood there as neat as ever, as if he had returned from a short walk.
Regulus had used basic spells, chained with ruthless timing, then finished with a precise piece of transfiguration so imaginative and controlled that it made a fifth year look like a child.
Travers had not touched a corner of Regulus's robes.
Some students wondered, silently, whether Regulus would have killed Travers if the room had not been full.
Everyone had seen the python tighten. Everyone had seen Travers's face change.
This was no longer a simple win.
It was a statement.
Regulus did not look at Travers again.
He did not acknowledge the stunned, reverent, or fearful gazes around him.
The irritability that had been burning in his chest seemed to have cooled, bled off by the sheer one sidedness of what he had done. But beneath that, something colder remained, a settled urgency that did not leave.
He slid his wand back into his robes, turned, and walked towards the corridor to the dormitories.
Avery opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Alex stood frozen, eyes wide.
Hermes watched Regulus's back, expression unreadable. Then his gaze flicked briefly to the broken shape of Travers on the floor before he melted into the shadows once more.
After tonight, the name Regulus Black would mean something different in Slytherin.