Chapter 51: Space Magic
The library was the last place Regulus needed to visit before leaving Hogwarts. He had a few books to return.
It was so quiet that even the softest turn of a page sounded loud. Most students had already packed and were ready to go home, leaving only a handful hunched over reference texts as if the holidays did not exist.
Regulus moved slowly along the shelves, spine straight, steps measured. He had just reached the return section when a hesitant voice came from behind him.
"Regulus?"
He turned.
Lily Evans stood between two rows of shelves, arms full of heavy books. The one on top was Advanced Potion Making.
"Lily." Regulus stopped and answered gently.
She took a few steps closer. Her voice was slightly nervous, as if she had rehearsed the words and still did not trust them.
"I wanted to send you a Christmas gift," she said, "but I do not know your home address."
Her green eyes held on his, expectant.
Regulus was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his tone remained polite, but there was a careful firmness beneath it.
"I am sorry, Lily. The Black family address is protected by old magic. I cannot speak it. There is a constraint."
He watched her expression shift, then continued before misunderstanding could settle in.
"Also, correspondence from outside channels cannot be delivered directly. If an outsider knows the address, it triggers the defences. Even relatives can be cursed if they reveal it carelessly."
He did not mention the simplest truth, the one that mattered most in practice. Walburga Black despised anything that came from the Muggle world. A gift delivered from a Muggle household would not merely be rejected. It would be destroyed, and Lily might be dragged into trouble she had never asked for.
The brightness on Lily's face dimmed. She lowered her head, and her red hair fell forward, hiding her eyes.
After a long pause, her voice came out small.
"Is it because my family is Muggle?"
"It has nothing to do with that," Regulus said at once.
It was true that Grimmauld Place rejected Muggle delivery methods. It was also true that there were ways around it if one was determined enough. He simply could not tell her how.
"The defences do not make exceptions," he added, steady and matter of fact. "They screen bloodlines automatically. If something unapproved arrives, the package will be destroyed, and the sender may be caught in the backlash."
Lily exhaled quietly, as if a weight had shifted off her shoulders. Hogwarts lessons did not teach things like family wards, address curses, or bloodline screening. Those belonged to old houses and older habits, guarded like heirlooms.
And she understood something else, too.
Most pure blood students would never have explained any of this. They would have let her blunder into a taboo and then called it proof that she was uneducated. Lily did not curry favour, and she certainly did not beg for scraps of acceptance. She had simply decided that Regulus Black was worth respecting, and that his friendship was worth offering.
If he was not disgusted by her gift, if he was not rejecting her, then the address did not matter.
She tightened her grip on the books and turned to leave. Then she paused, looked back, and the nerves in her face softened into a small smile.
"Then can I bring the gift to you after the holiday?"
"You can," Regulus said, without hesitation this time.
Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he added, "If you do not mind, tell me your home address. I would like to send you something as well."
Lily blinked, surprised. Then she smiled properly, warm and real.
"My home address is Number 4, Lilac Road, Cokeworth."
"Merry Christmas, Lily," Regulus said.
"You too, Regulus."
He watched her disappear at the end of the aisle and let out a quiet sigh.
Goodwill alone could not bridge the gap between their worlds. Still, that did not mean the friendship was meaningless. It meant it was fragile, and therefore worth protecting.
---
Early the next morning, the Hogwarts Express pulled in on time. Platform Nine and Three Quarters was loud with laughter and shouted goodbyes, the hooting of owls cutting through the chatter as trunks were hauled and parents waved.
Regulus carried his suitcase with one hand. Hermes was staying at school. Avery and Alex walked with him, keeping close as they moved with the crowd.
Avery leaned in, lowering his voice. There was a glint of open satisfaction in his eyes.
"That Lestrange fellow did not manage to leave," he murmured. "I heard he was caught by Professor McGonagall yesterday, doing Dark Arts experiments in an abandoned classroom. He was injured, too. He has to spend the holiday in the Hospital Wing, and he will have detention after the break."
Regulus raised an eyebrow but did not ask for details. Rabastan's outcome was well within expectations. Hermes and Avery were not subtle, but subtlety was not required when the target was careless.
Alex tugged lightly at Regulus's sleeve.
"Is that Potter and his friends?"
Regulus followed his gaze.
James Potter stood near the train entrance, laughing with Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Sirius Black leaned against the carriage door, still wearing faded jeans, Gryffindor robes thrown on like an afterthought.
When Sirius saw Regulus, the smile on his face locked for an instant, then vanished. He turned away as if Regulus were an inconvenient draft.
Not far off, Lily stood saying goodbye to another girl. When she spotted Regulus, she lifted a hand in a clear wave, smiling openly. Regulus gave her a small nod in return.
The whistle blew.
Regulus climbed aboard and took a window seat. Avery and Alex sat opposite him, already talking over each other about their plans for the holiday, Diagon Alley, the newest brooms, and the tempting promise of a newly opened shop in Knockturn Alley.
Regulus did not join in. He watched the world outside the window retreat, fields and forests and snow covered farmhouses sliding past like a still painting being slowly unrolled.
When the train finally arrived at King's Cross, the snowfall was thicker. Flakes landed on his shoulder and melted at once, leaving a brief chill against the fabric.
Regulus said goodbye to Avery and Alex and walked alone to a quieter corner at the edge of the platform.
"Young Master."
Kreacher's voice appeared beside him as if it had always been there.
The house elf wore tattered linen and bowed so deeply his nose nearly touched the ground.
"Master sent Kreacher to fetch you home."
Regulus nodded once.
"Let us go."
Kreacher lifted a withered hand. A faint silver glow appeared at the tip of one finger.
There was no wand, no incantation, and no dramatic flare of magic. Instead, an invisible boundary wrapped around them both, neat and absolute.
The world twisted.
The noise of the platform cut off as if someone had simply removed sound from existence. The crowd, the whistles, the owls, all of it fell away. Space did not stretch or resist. It folded.
Regulus had the sudden impression of stepping into the crease of a piece of fabric and emerging from another fold a heartbeat later.
When his vision steadied, they were standing in the entrance hall of the Black family home.
Indigo ritual flames burned in the fireplace. Portraits turned their heads in unison, eyes tracking him, whispers rising and falling like a tide.
Regulus did not move. He was still feeling what had happened, the imprint of it pressed cleanly into his mind.
It was nothing like Apparition.
He had read the descriptions in the family library and heard Orion recount it in the blunt language of experience. Apparition felt like being forced through a tight tube, compressed, twisted, then spat out at the other end. It demanded total focus on the destination. A slight deviation risked splinching. It was violence against distance, a brute insistence that the world make room.
Kreacher's magic had none of that.
There was no compression, no resistance, no discomfort. Space had not been fought. It had yielded.
Or perhaps it had not even yielded. Perhaps they had simply ceased to be in one point and begun to be in another, without any meaningful in between.
Regulus let his fingertips shift slightly. Magic flowed over the surface of his skin, quiet and controlled, as he began to think.
House elves cast complex magic without wands. They appeared at their master's side across great distances. More importantly, that movement seemed untouched by many wards that stopped wizards. An anti Apparition jinx did nothing to it.
He remembered the cave from the fate he had seen. The place that Dumbledore could not enter by direct Apparition.
Kreacher had gone in and out freely.
If Regulus could understand the essence of this kind of spatial magic, he could break the inherited limits of wizarding spellcraft. He would no longer be bound by a wand, by a spoken spell, or by distance measured in miles. Perhaps he could even loosen the grip of gravity itself.
And if he ever intended to leave the ground, to pierce the atmosphere and touch the wider universe, then space magic was not a curiosity.
It was a foundation.
Once the thought existed, it refused to be ignored.