Chapter 70: Crucio and the Killing Curse
Regulus watched in silence for a moment, then tapped his wand again.
The werewolf suddenly found that he could breathe.
He dragged in air greedily. It rushed into his lungs, oxygen flooded his blood, and the dizziness in his head began to recede.
He collapsed on the ground, gasping like a man hauled out of deep water. Every inhale was desperate and deep, every exhale trembling with the relief of survival.
But the werewolf did not notice what was happening inside him.
After the air he inhaled completed its exchange and the carbon dioxide was expelled, the residue left in his alveoli began to change.
What should have remained gaseous condensed into something solid.
What had been invisible became tangible.
Tiny crystalline particles formed, each with razor sharp edges and a hardness close to quartz. In essence, it was the same rubble from the ground earlier, only ground finer and made deadlier.
The first wave of pain struck on the tenth breath.
The werewolf convulsed and coughed violently, trying to force the foreign matter out, but the crystals had already lodged in the walls of his lungs. Every cough drove them deeper.
It felt as though his chest had been packed with broken glass. Every breath tore at him.
Regulus cancelled the sustained Transfiguration.
The werewolf was still coughing. The fresh air he drew in had returned to normal, but the crystals already inside his lungs remained.
They would remain there forever.
Unless someone removed them through magic or surgery, and a werewolf in Knockturn Alley clearly could not afford either.
He curled up on the ground, clutching his chest as blood began to streak the saliva he coughed up. His nails bit into his own flesh.
Regulus observed him calmly, satisfied.
That was the point of actual combat.
To test hypotheses.
When he saw the werewolf go down, the cold faced wizard's expression changed.
He snapped his wand and called up more than a dozen shadow tentacles from the ground. They rose out of the darkness, their surfaces lined with suckers packed with fine teeth.
The tentacles lunged at Regulus from every direction, sealing off every route of escape.
They were fast enough to reach him in a blink.
Regulus did not move.
He merely lifted his left hand and gave it a light sweep, as casually as if brushing dust from the air.
Magic surged through him, and his whole body seemed to turn luminous. A silvery white radiance shone through his skin and spread before him into a barrier that looked soft but felt absolute.
The shadow tentacles crashed into it and began to sizzle.
Wherever they touched that silvery white light, they broke apart.
The solid forms unravelled, collapsed back into shadow, and vanished.
In less than two seconds, all of them were gone.
The cold faced wizard's eyes flew wide.
For the first time, there was genuine horror on his face.
He tried to retreat, but his legs were pinned to the ground and would not move.
"This is impossible..."
Before he could finish, Regulus Apparated.
With a soft crack, he appeared directly in front of him.
He put away his wand.
Then he extended his right index finger. A point of piercing crimson light gathered at the fingertip, vivid and unnatural in the dim alley.
Crucio.
Regulus certainly was not going to use his own wand to cast it on a living person.
At least not yet.
He touched the cold faced wizard lightly on the brow.
The crimson light flowed from his fingertip into the man, sinking through skin, through bone, and deep into the brain.
The cold faced wizard went rigid.
His eyes bulged so hard they seemed ready to burst from their sockets. His pupils shrank to pinpoints, and the whites of his eyes filled with bursting red veins.
Every muscle in his face twitched.
His mouth twisted sideways.
His left eyelid fluttered wildly.
Tiny wave like ripples wriggled beneath his skin, as though countless insects were crawling between flesh and bone.
He tried to scream.
No sound came.
His throat gave only a wet rattling from somewhere deep inside.
Saliva spilled from the corner of his mouth, ran down his chin, and spread into a dark stain across the front of his robes.
Regulus held the pose for three seconds.
In those three seconds, the full tide of pain from Crucio tore through the wizard's body. Every nerve shrieked. Every bone seemed to be crushed. Every cell seemed to burn.
Then Regulus withdrew his hand, and the crimson light disappeared from his fingertip.
The cold faced wizard crumpled to the ground.
His body twitched in jerks. His limbs spasmed at random. His fingers curled into clawed shapes.
Saliva, mucus, and tears smeared across his face.
His eyes lost focus and stared blankly up at the leaden sky. His pupils spread wide, and whatever coherence remained in his mind seemed to have shattered.
Regulus glanced down at his right hand.
There was no mark on his fingertip. The skin was smooth, the nail neatly trimmed. The crimson light from a moment ago might have been a hallucination.
A standard Cruciatus Curse.
The effect was excellent.
Although Crucio was an Unforgivable Curse, it was not especially hard to cast. Harry Potter had managed to use it on Bellatrix while still a fifth year, so there was no reason Regulus could not do the same.
He looked across the battlefield and assessed it quickly.
Four enemies.
All incapacitated.
From beginning to end, the fight had taken less than two minutes.
Regulus stood in the middle of the alley with steady breathing and immaculate robes. Not even a strand of hair was out of place.
Orion stood at the entrance of the shop, hands behind his back, watching in silence.
From the moment Regulus stepped out alone to the moment all four attackers fell, he had seen everything.
He was very satisfied.
Regulus's performance in real combat was even better than expected.
His spell work was skilful, his choices flexible. His use of terrain, timing, and pressure all far exceeded Orion's estimate.
And yet Orion did not lower his guard.
His attention remained fixed on the four fallen figures, especially the cold faced wizard who had taken Crucio.
Crucio caused agony, but agony alone did not always erase a person's ability to fight.
Some wizards endured it. Some were trained to endure it.
Some could counterattack while in pain.
Carelessness killed people everywhere, especially in Knockturn Alley.
Regulus stood in the centre of the alley and looked over the results of his work.
The tall wizard was still struggling inside the mirrored wall, but his movements had grown weak. The barbed rope had already drained most of his vitality.
The short, stout wizard clutched his ruined wrist, eyes unfocused, muttering under his breath.
The werewolf remained on his knees, each breath followed by a violent cough and bloodstained spit.
The cold faced wizard lay paralysed on the stones, twitching from time to time, his eyes fixed on the sky with blown pupils.
Regulus waited for about ten seconds.
Then he looked towards Orion, still standing at the shop entrance with his hands behind his back, neither speaking nor approaching.
Watching.
Only watching.
Regulus understood.
Real combat had not been the only lesson.
Orion also wanted to see how he handled defeated enemies.
How to judge whether a target was still a threat.
How to deal with prisoners.
How to make the final decision.
Those were part of real combat too, perhaps the most important part.
In that case, there was nothing more to discuss.
Regulus raised his wand and pointed it at the nearest target, the cold faced wizard who had just been hit with Crucio.
He took a slow breath and spoke in a clear, steady, emotionless voice.
"Avada Kedavra."
Green light gathered at the tip of his wand.
Just as it was about to fire, there was a soft crack.
Orion Apparated to his side in an instant.
He seized Regulus's wand wrist and forced it down.
The green light shot wide, grazing the cold faced wizard's shoulder and striking the wall behind him.
Where it hit, the stone turned a dead grey at once, then burst apart.
Orion kept hold of Regulus's wrist and stared at his son, confusion and unhidden shock in his eyes.
Was there something wrong with this child?
The Killing Curse?
He did not care where Regulus had learned it. The spell existed in books, and the Black family had no shortage of books.
What he could not understand was why Regulus was so decisively willing to use it.
Then he saw Regulus's expression.
There was a faintly teasing look on his face, almost amused.
A light in those grey eyes.
The slightest curve at the corner of his mouth.
Orion froze for a heartbeat.
Then he understood.
He had been played.
Regulus had never intended to kill anyone with the Killing Curse, and certainly not with his own wand.
The movement had been real.
The incantation had been real.
The green light gathering at the wand tip had been real.
But it was all a performance.
For Orion.
For no grand reason at all except that Regulus found it amusing.
It was only the Killing Curse. So long as he did not aim it at a person, there was no harm in practising the casting process.
Orion released his wrist.
His face returned to its usual expressionless calm, but inwardly he felt an odd flicker of pleasure.
His son had played a joke on him.
In eleven years, this was the first time.
Regulus was too mature, too steady, too unlike a child. To see even a trace of mischief in him, even in a place like this and in a form like this, made Orion feel that it was, somehow, good.
"The Killing Curse is not cast like that," Orion said, trying to sound calm.
His voice revealed little.
"I know," Regulus said, lowering his wand.
Then, after a brief pause, he added, with deliberate precision, "The family library has records, and the Hogwarts Restricted Section has them as well. If someone wants to learn it, they can."
"And the spell itself is not the difficult part. The difficult part is having the resolve to kill."
.....
[Check Out My Patreon For Advance Chapters On All My Fanfics!]
[[email protected]/FanficLord03]