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The setting sun slowly lowered its vibrant, rose-red fingers across the distant horizon, bleeding the sky into brilliant shades of bruised purple and burning gold.
While the breathtaking evening glow had not yet fully sunk below the jagged Scottish mountains, crowds of young, exhausted, but entirely happy little wizards streamed steadily out of the quaint, snow-capped cottages and cozy shops of Hogsmeade. They clustered together, their boots crunching on the gravel as they began the long, winding trek back to school along the main carriage road.
Amidst the bustling crowd, three Gryffindor boys walked incredibly closely together, subtly shifting their shoulders to actively avoid bumping into the chatting students around them. As the sun dipped lower, their three long, stretching shadows trailed behind them, painting dark marks onto the orange-lit dirt road.
As they passed through the towering, wrought-iron main gates of the Hogwarts grounds, one of the little wizards excitedly pointed a finger up at the massive, weathered stone statue of a winged boar perched atop the pillar.
"Indeed, Regulus was absolutely right," James Potter noted happily, pointing out the architectural detail. "This entire geographic area is completely obsessed with and full of 'Hog' related decorations."
As he spoke, James kept looking around, his hazel eyes darting sideways, seemingly searching for something entirely invisible in the empty air right beside him. James had, after all, highly generously lent his priceless family heirloom—the Invisibility Cloak—to Regulus so the younger boy could safely and secretly make the return journey to the castle without triggering any alarms.
"Hey, James. Keep it down, would you?" Remus reminded him, his voice dropping into a harsh, nervous whisper as a group of Ravenclaws passed them. "Regulus is standing right here with me."
"I'm here," Regulus said softly, his disembodied voice floating from the empty space directly between Remus and James.
Beneath the shimmering, completely transparent fabric, Regulus was aggressively suppressing his sheer, fanboy excitement. Wearing a literal "legendary item"—one of the mythical Deathly Hallows—he genuinely felt his physical steps become miraculously lighter, as if the cloak itself defied the laws of gravity.
Because Regulus personally enjoyed obsessively studying the theoretical mechanics of advanced Invisibility Charms, he understood far better than James exactly how flawlessly perfect this ancient magical item truly was. The enchantment was impenetrable. If the looming wizarding war aggressively escalates in the future, Regulus thought grimly, I absolutely have to remind James to keep this cloak locked away safely at all times. One extra, legendary life-saving item is vastly better than none. And he absolutely shouldn't lend it to Dumbledore to study.
Old Dumbledore possesses terrifying, god-like magic. He can easily protect himself. James cannot.
"I actually have a brilliant idea," Regulus's voice floated from the air, shifting the heavy topic. "How about when Remus fully recovers from his next 'illness', we organize a massive roast of a whole suckling pig down at Hagrid's place?"
Looking up at the stone winged boar on the pillar, Regulus had suddenly felt his stomach rumble with an intense, gnawing hunger.
He instantly began to quietly, vividly paint the highly detailed "big picture" he imagined in his mind to the Gryffindors:
"Just imagine it for a second—the rich, specially flavored smoke rising from burning, high-quality dry wood harvested straight from the Forbidden Forest. The thick 'Hog' fat sizzling and popping loudly as it drips hot oil directly onto the glowing coals. We'll aggressively sprinkle the skin with sweet cooking wine, brush it with thick honey and spices—specifically making a perfect, mouth-watering thirteen-spice rub—and carefully, slowly roast it for hours until the entire edge of the forest is filled with the intoxicating aroma. And then, tearing off a massive, steaming piece of good leg meat, the skin cracking as you chew it heartily..."
The three little lions immediately stopped walking. They swallowed hard, their faces simultaneously showing that specific, desperate look of primal longing that could only be truly understood by starving teenage carnivores. They all nodded their heads vigorously up and down like pounding garlic.
"We can all absolutely bring our friends," Regulus added smoothly, cementing the plan. "I'll formally send out secure invitation posts to you all when the time comes."
"Brilliant! Then I can finally invite Lily to a proper party!" James—who clearly hadn't yet realized exactly what the social implications of that sentence meant—blurted out immediately, his eyes shining with romantic determination.
"Mate, if you desperately want to invite a girl you like to a meat-roast, don't forget you absolutely have to invite her best friend too, otherwise she won't come," Sirius added faintly, dragging his hand through his hair.
Regulus wasn't entirely sure if James actually heard the advice, but he was impressed. Perhaps because Sirius naturally received a suffocating amount of romantic attention from the older girls in the castle, his intuitive, tactical talent for navigating complex interpersonal relationships was actually considered remarkably high among this group of emotionally stunted, silly boys.
As expected of my devastatingly handsome brother—he inherently knows to strategically utilize the 'best friend' route to secure the target, the invisible Regulus nodded in deep, cynical approval.
Some things in life, remaining entirely silent and moving as deep as still water, can often become the warmest, most powerful hands protecting a person's fragile heart.
Severus Snape's physical and social changes this term were slowly becoming obvious to anyone paying attention. But if a student were asked to specifically describe what had changed about the greasy dungeon bat, many might not actually be able to articulate it. It was entirely in the subtle details.
For example, Regulus absolutely didn't tell anyone, not even Severus, what he had done. He simply, quietly summoned the school's kitchen house-elves and strictly instructed them to automatically give Severus Snape some daily, discreet help that the proud boy wouldn't immediately notice. His worn bedsheets were suddenly always washed and pristine; his chaotic dormitory desk was magically tidied; and his frayed, second-hand clothes were silently mended, ironed, and subtly tailored overnight for better outfit coordination.
For example, Regulus would sometimes casually gather his friends—specifically aggressively dragging along the burly members of the Slytherin Quidditch team—to do early morning, high-intensity physical fitness exercises around the freezing perimeter of the Black Lake. Simply by being the wealthy pureblood heir, Regulus effortlessly, accidentally led a brand new, highly competitive trend of physical fitness among the little wizards of the entire Slytherin House. Severus, refusing to be left behind by his business partner, joined in, slowly losing his sickly, undernourished pallor.
And for example, Regulus had sent a highly formal, demanding owl to his father, Orion Black. He explicitly asked the patriarch to discreetly, anonymously donate several hundred complete sets of incredibly high-quality, heavily enchanted standard Hogwarts uniforms—covering everything from the inner wool sweaters to the outer silk-lined winter cloaks, from top to bottom—directly to all students in the third year and below, across all four Houses.
Because of this massive injection of Black family wealth, the little wizards experiencing crushing, systemic financial hardship at home no longer had to constantly worry about their frayed clothes not being presentable or warm enough for the brutal Scottish winters.
Anyway, Regulus reasoned pragmatically, wealthy pureblood families like ours have always maintained a long, highly political tradition of aggressively "donating money and charitable contributions" literally everywhere to buy influence—the Ministry of Magic, the Daily Prophet media, St. Mungo's, Hogwarts... I'm just directing the slush fund.
This is exactly how a highly funded, elite boarding school should actually look.
Of course, a massive, unprecedented donation of this sheer, staggering financial scale absolutely could not be kept entirely hidden from the faculty. Even Albus Dumbledore, sitting in his high tower, was forced to quietly reflect on his own administrative budget, wondering if he should aggressively increase Hogwarts' financial support for impoverished students. Because regardless of whether the young Black heir was deliberately, politically trying to win the hearts of the populace... the undeniable fact remained that the Hogwarts operating under Dumbledore's leadership had somehow become a place so impoverished that even a notoriously prejudiced Black Family child couldn't stand to look at it.
And from Regulus's highly morbid, modern perspective: since there were literal mountains of gold Galleons rotting in the Gringotts vaults at home, they might as well aggressively donate them now. Otherwise, exactly like in the original, tragic timeline, the entire Black Family would eventually be violently wiped out with absolutely no one left to inherit the estate. What possible use would a mountain of cursed gold be then?
After all, as any modern gamer knows, the absolute most painful, agonizing thing in the world is reaching the final boss screen and realizing: the player character is dead, but the hoarded money hasn't been spent.
Since the absolute, terrifying uncertainty of life and death couldn't be entirely controlled in this looming war, he, Regulus Arcturus Black, was determined to at least ruthlessly spend every single knut of his family's money before he went out.
(But honestly—there's really, genuinely just far too much gold in that vault. I physically can't spend it all. I truly, literally cannot spend it all...)
Brilliant, golden afternoon sunlight streamed beautifully through the tall, arched stained-glass windows of the Hogwarts library. The warm light caught the dancing dust motes in the air, falling gently upon the endless rows of strange, ancient book spines, and ultimately illuminating the quiet study table where Regulus and Severus sat.
"Don't stress, Sev. It's just eating and drinking meat by a fire. I'll absolutely always be there to buffer the Gryffindors," Regulus said warmly, patting Severus's tense shoulder. "Besides, I highly guess Lily will definitely come too."
"Just don't let James and his gang bother you," Regulus continued smoothly, shifting his posture. "Look exactly at how I treat Rabastan Lestrange in the common room. If I actively, visibly cared about his pathetic insults, wouldn't that simply prove to everyone that I actually think he's on the exact same social and intellectual level as me?"
Sitting inside the quiet library, Regulus elegantly sat up perfectly straight, pushing his chest out. He smiled slightly, a flawless, terrifyingly aristocratic arrogance naturally rising to his features—
"Let's just go to Hagrid's and have fun together. That's the only thing that's actually important."
Severus, whose baseline social confidence had recently increased massively due to their secret Alchemy group, no longer hesitated. He took a deep breath and nodded firmly.
Piled dangerously high on the wooden table in front of Snape were several massive, highly advanced career reference books, bearing titles such as: Beautiful Potions and the Perfect Complexion, Household Potions: A Witch's Essential Guide, and the highly complex Potion Enhancements: A Hundredfold Miracles!
Not to mention the various, beautifully bottled cosmetic beauty product samples that their mothers, Eileen Snape and Walburga Black, had recently received via owl post for human trials. Especially the latter, Walburga, who was now officially the primary, incredibly demanding major financial backer of their entire corporate business. She was the actual, terrifying owner of their startup.
When it came to efficiently, ruthlessly spending money to corner a market, Regulus was an absolute professional.
Their finalized cosmetic products were currently aggressively scheduled for a massive, school-wide trial release right around the lucrative Christmas holiday season. And because of the projected volume, they desperately needed to quickly identify and recruit highly talented, upper-year students with excellent practical Potions skills to rapidly expand their manufacturing workforce.
With the heavily paid, highly enthusiastic administrative assistance of another greedy Potions Master—Professor Slughorn—the recruitment progress would undoubtedly be greatly, phenomenally beneficial.
Soon after, a small group of giggling, lower-year Slytherin girls casually drifted over and sat down at the empty tables directly surrounding them, pretending to study. Several of these little witches clearly had massive, highly obvious ulterior motives. They kept blushing behind their heavy textbooks, constantly, shyly stealing longing glances at Regulus's handsome profile.
Regulus, on the other hand, was flawlessly, charmingly friendly towards every single one of the girls. He offered them warm, polite smiles. After all, Regulus thought like a ruthless CEO, these girls are highly valuable, primary future demographic users of our beauty products. Once the glowing serums were officially launched, he would seamlessly, charmingly hand them some free "exclusive" samples, hook them on the results, and then aggressively encourage them to owl the products to their wealthy mothers and older sisters... rapidly starting a viral marketing campaign from the United Kingdom and eventually covering the entire wizarding globe.
Honestly, when Sirius finally matures a bit more, I should absolutely hire him to be the primary, shirtless male spokesperson for the brand— Regulus was suddenly deeply amused by his own ridiculous, highly lucrative marketing idea.
A little witch sitting diagonally opposite them completely mistook Regulus's sudden, amused smirk as him looking directly, romantically at her. She let out a soft squeak, blushed a violent, brilliant scarlet, and immediately buried her face deep into her Charms textbook.
╮(╯∀╰)╭
The future. Oh, the incredibly wealthy future, Regulus sighed happily.
Before opening his next massive, upper-year Charms textbook to study, Regulus began meticulously sorting through his mental, highly complex to-do list.
Tomorrow evening is the very first, highly anticipated points tournament for the Dueling Club. And I still absolutely have to prepare a suitable, highly respectful birthday gift for the incredibly helpful Professor Flitwick...
Thinking vividly of the sheer, terrifyingly immense, blinding magical power Professor Flitwick had casually displayed on the stage during the exhibition match, Regulus couldn't help but wonder with a shiver: Just how unfathomably, terrifyingly astonishing would the raw combat magic of wizards truly called 'generational geniuses'—like Tom Riddle, Albus Dumbledore, and Gellert Grindelwald—actually be in a fight to the death?
Regulus didn't have the mental bandwidth or the time to dwell on the terrifying power-scaling of the universe right now. Nor did he humbly realize that, because of his flawless academics, his Dueling Club, and his terrifyingly quick wand work, he was rapidly, undeniably becoming a highly feared, budding 'generational genius' in the eyes of everyone else in the castle.
He heavily pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his dark eyes for a long, quiet moment, and took a deep, centering breath.
When he opened his eyes again, his gaze was utterly, terrifyingly calm and razor-sharp, exactly as if he had physically reached into his brain and violently flipped off the biological switch for fatigue.
Magic itself has absolutely no theoretical ceiling, Regulus thought fiercely, dipping his silver quill into his inkwell. Only an individual's own crushing inferiority and lack of ambition is a bottomless pit!
Rather than blindly, foolishly placing his hope on the uncertain timeline of the future, or relying on the wavering strength of others... at this exact moment, today, and every single grueling day forward, he absolutely had to aggressively, violently grasp his own destiny in his own two hands.