Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Regulus didn't speak, but simply met Aragog's compound eyes at the top of his head, looking straight ahead, and did nothing.

Aragog was stared at by those gray eyes and suddenly remembered the orange-red fire from last time.

It moved all eight legs backward at the same time, its shell scraping against the rock with a crisp sound, its chelicerae retracted slightly, and its head lowered slightly.

Regulus withdrew his gaze, his tone remaining the same: "You may make a request."

Aragok hesitated.

The topmost eye, the left one is marked with surprise and doubt, the right one with fear, and the six eyes below are looking in different directions, as if each is making its own judgment.

After a moment of silence, it asked, "Can we bring this up later?"

Regulus looked at it and said calmly, "Okay."

Then he looked at Baruch.

Baruch remained huddled behind Aragog, his body low to the ground, his eight legs tucked in, and his chelicerae closed.

When Regulus's gaze swept over, its chelipeds twitched so slightly that it was almost imperceptible.

Aragok moved to the side.

Baruch crawled out from behind it and stood in front of Regulus, its eight legs firmly planted on the ground and its chelicerae slightly open.

It only looked at Regulus, not Aragog.

Aragog's uppermost eye was fixed on Regulus, while the lower pairs of eyes moved down to Baruch. Aragog's chelicerae twitched, then stopped.

Something seems off about this offspring.

Regulus looked at Baruch: "Shrunk you down, it'll be a little uncomfortable."

Baruch glanced at the spot where the goblin had turned to ash. The clump of ash had been blown away by the night wind, leaving only a faint trace on the spider silk.

It then looked at Regulus, its chelipeds opening and closing with a click.

Regulus drew his wand.

Transfiguration is based on the principles of human transformation techniques, which involve compressing the entire body while maintaining the original structure.

The size decreases, but the proportions remain the same, the organ functions remain the same, and the hardness of the shell remains the same.

Strength and speed will be reduced proportionally; a palm-sized spider will only have the strength of a palm-sized spider, but the strength of the venom and spider silk will remain unchanged.

Furthermore, the eight-eyed giant spider's own magic will cause the spell's effect to gradually fade, requiring periodic replenishment.

He tapped his wand.

Baruch's body began to shrink, his eight legs pulled inward, his abdomen shrank, and his eight eyes shrank into even smaller points of light.

A few seconds later, it shrank to the size of a palm, and then it used all eight of its legs to jump onto Regulus's palm.

It's so much smaller, but it's kind of cute. It's all fluffy, with its eight legs curled up, like a shrunken ball of fur.

Baruch paused in the palm for a moment, then his eight legs sprang up at the same time, leaping off the palm and landing on Regulus's shoulder.

Its claws hooked onto the fabric of his robe, and it settled down, its pincers gently pinching the edge of his collar.

Regulus looked up at Aragog: "I'm taking Baruch with me."

Aragog didn't speak, but opened and closed its chelicerae as a response.

Regulus Apparition.

The wind from the forbidden forest swept in, scattering the last trace of that clump of ash.

Apparition landed at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The moment Regulus touched down, he heard a series of rapid, thin clicks coming from his shoulder.

Baruch's eight little legs kicked wildly near his collar, his chelicerae opened and closed rapidly, his body curled up into a ball, and the whole spider rolled over on his shoulder.

It's dry heaving.

Regulus had never seen a spider gag before, but now he had.

Its abdomen contracted and expanded, its chelicerae extended outwards, and it made squeaking and creaking sounds, interspersed with a few clicks, all intermittently.

The squeezing sensation of Apparition is unpleasant even for wizards, and it would probably be even more unbearable for a spider the size of a palm.

Regulus stood there and waited for a while.

After about ten seconds, the thumping on his shoulder lessened, Baruch's voice slowed down, and his abdomen was still rising and falling slightly, but the convulsions stopped.

Regulus stretched out his right hand, opened it, and placed it beside his shoulder.

Baruch flipped himself over and wobbled toward his palm, his eight legs slipping in turn, as limp as noodles that had just been soaked in water.

It crawled to the center of the palm, curled up into a ball, closed its chelicerae, and narrowed its eight eyes, clearly still recovering.

Regulus placed his other hand over it, and a natural magic condensed in his palm—a pale green light, not large, warm, carrying the gentle scent of growing plants.

He brought his hand close to Baruch, and magic seeped into it.

Baruch's legs slowly loosened, stretching out from a curled-up position. One by one, his eight eyes opened, and his chelicerae tentatively opened and closed.

"It hurts...I want to...spit spider silk..." Its voice shrank and became high-pitched and thin, like the sound of fingernails scratching glass being suppressed to the lowest setting.

"Bear with it," Regulus said.

Baruch's chelicerae opened and closed again, but he didn't spray.

After it recovered, it became active, moving its eight legs back and forth in his palm. The tips of its claws pricked Regulus's palm, making it a little itchy. Then it climbed onto his fingertips and poked half of its body out to look outside.

Its head turned back and forth, its eight eyes scanning in different directions. After just one glance, the entire spider froze.

It tucked all eight legs in, closed its chelicerae, and remained motionless.

The spider's stillness.

Before it lay the open ground at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid's cottage in the distance, and beyond that, the outline of Hogwarts Castle, with scattered lights shining from the tower windows.

There were no tree canopies, no cobwebs, no damp fallen leaves, and no smell of humus.

Baruch never left the Forbidden Forest.

After a long while, it finally spoke, its voice high-pitched and thin: "Aragok... Father... won't... let... me come..."

Regulus held it up to his eyes, the palm-sized spider less than twenty inches from his face, its eight small eyes meeting his gray eyes.

"You're out," he said. "You're free."

Baruch's claws opened and closed, and his eight eyes circled his face, it was unclear whether he understood or not.

Regulus put it back on his shoulder and strode forward.

Baruch lay on his shoulder, his claws hooking into the fabric, and said nothing more, his eight legs spread wide, clinging tightly to him.

Regulus cast a flight spell, his body levitating and drifting towards the castle.

Baruch initially lay prone, his claws gripping the fabric tightly, his body pressed very low.

After a while, it slowly straightened up and poked its head out to look down.

Hagrid's hut shrank, the Black Lake shimmered in the gaps of moonlight, and the Forbidden Forest spread out below, its dark canopy forming a single expanse.

Baruch's eight eyes were wide open, his chelicerae outstretched, emitting a series of rapid, dense, excited clicking sounds.

Regulus flew towards the castle at a slow speed.

The Black Lake glides past below, leaving only the skeletal outline of the Quidditch stadium stands in the night.

Baruch became increasingly restless as it looked around. It leaned out from its shoulders, half of its body hanging off the edge, with only its hind legs still hooked onto its robe.

It lifted its rear end, sprayed out a strand of spider silk that stuck to the back of Regulus's robe collar, and then it loosened its legs, its whole body swinging out.

A spider the size of a palm, suspended by a thread thinner than a human hair, swayed back and forth in the wind, its eight legs spread wide, its chelicerae extended, making a squeaking sound as it faced the wind.

Regulus turned his head and glanced at it.

Baruch was swinging at the highest point, his posture relaxed, a stark contrast to when he was just curled up on his shoulder.

Then it silently crawled back along the spider silk, climbed to the collar, removed the spider silk, and lay back on the shoulder, hooking its claws, its eight eyes obediently looking ahead.

It's quiet now.

Regulus looked away, a slight smirk playing on his lips.

He deliberately slowed down, letting it look at the screen a little longer.

After a while, Baruch started peeking out again. This time he didn't swing out, but instead perched on his shoulder and looked down, turning his head from left to right and from right to left, his eight eyes too busy to keep up.

Regulus was thinking about something else.

Aragog prevents its people from approaching the edge of the forbidden forest, let alone leaving it.

The reasons are not complicated.

There are plenty of prey in the Forbidden Forest, so the giant spider doesn't need to go far to find food.

But beyond the Forbidden Forest lies Hogwarts Castle and the surrounding open ground, where students and faculty reside.

Dumbledore allowed the Aragogs to inhabit the Forbidden Forest, provided they did not venture out.

Aragog may not know who Dumbledore is, but he knows that a wizard lives in the castle.

It knew those wizards were more powerful than it, and it knew what those wizards would do if the clan posed a threat to the wizard cubs in the castle.

Therefore, it kept its people confined deep within the Forbidden Forest, preventing them from venturing out, showing their faces, and giving the castle no reason to attack.

There is another reason.

Basilisk.

The Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts is inhabited by a basilisk, which nearly led to Aragog's execution, and Hagrid was expelled after being suspected of opening the Chamber.

Basilisks are the natural enemies of the eight-eyed giant spider because the spider has too many eyes.

Aragog's greatest fear was right beneath the castle, so of course it wouldn't allow its tribe to head towards it.

Regulus recalled some accounts of the basilisk.

He's always been interested in the basilisk, but hasn't seen it yet.

He knew where the entrance to the secret room was—the women's restroom on the second floor, the one belonging to Madam Myrtle. To get in, one needed to speak in the parselocks, which he didn't know, but he had other solutions.

What truly interested him was the basilisk itself.

The basilisk's birth method is the most outrageous of all magical creatures: an egg laid by a rooster, which is then hatched by a toad.

Roosters don't lay eggs under normal circumstances, so that egg requires magical intervention. It's either a deformed egg laid by a rooster affected by magic, or the product of some deeper magical effect.

Toads are cold-blooded animals and do not have the instinct to incubate eggs. Making a toad incubate an egg that should not exist would require magic to forcibly rewrite its biological instincts.

The whole process was more like a ritual, and an extreme one at that.

Two completely unrelated species, chicken and snake, are forcibly merged, with a toad as the medium, directly rewriting their biological attributes from the embryonic stage.

Two completely unrelated species, chicken and snake, are forcibly merged, with a toad as the medium, directly rewriting their biological attributes from the embryonic stage.

This is different from the approach of human transformation, which borrows the magical properties of other magical creatures.

Transfiguration is an addition to an existing organism, extracting magical properties from a living body and implanting them into another living body, allowing two sets of magic to coexist.

It alters the finished product; it tampers with something that has already been formed.

The basilisk's incubation ritual alters the raw materials, rewriting the content before life even begins, creating a new species from scratch.

The two sets of logic seem completely unrelated, but Regulus believes that at the most fundamental level, they may point to the same thing.

The magical structure of life can be rewritten by humans.

One is changed after birth, and the other is changed before birth.

One adds, the other creates from scratch.

The methods may differ, but the premise remains the same: both require understanding how the magic of life works.

I'll have to look into this further when I have time; maybe next semester I can go into the escape room to see that snake.

Then he thought of the basilisk venom.

The basilisk's venom is the most potent corrosive substance in the magical world.

Only two things are known to be able to destroy Horcruxes: basilisk venom and Fiendfire.

In the original destiny, Harry Potter used the Basilisk's fang to pierce Tom Riddle's diary, and later Hermione Granger used it to destroy Hufflepuff's golden cup.

This alone was enough to pique Regulus's interest.

It shares a characteristic with Fiendfire: destructiveness.

But upon closer examination, there are differences.

Fiendfire is utter destruction; once burned, it's burned to ashes, obliterating both the material and magical realms simultaneously, with no possibility of restoration.

The basilisk venom is different; it is reversible.

Harry Potter was bitten by the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, and the venom was injected into his body. Everyone thought he was doomed.

Then Fox flew over, his tears falling on the wound, and it was healed.

What does this tell us?

It might be due to restraint. The phoenix is ​​simply more powerful than the basilisk. The phoenix's abilities naturally suppress those of the basilisk, so there's not much to say about it. Being at the top of the food chain is being at the top.

But what if it's not simply about restraint?

What if the phoenix's magic level is higher than the basilisk's?

Phoenix tears can cure the basilisk's poison; in the presence of the phoenix, its destructive potential can be reversed.

Perhaps some forces are qualitatively superior to others.

Does his own magic system contain something of sufficiently high quality?