Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 369 Inside and Outside the Walls of Hogwarts

January is almost over.

The hustle and bustle of the first month of school has slowly subsided, but the aftershocks of the Christmas dinner are still spreading within the purebred community.

Weeds are said to have begun to grow on the ruins of Lestrange Estate. Rodolphus Lestrange has not made a public appearance since, nor has Bellatrix Lestrange.

But inside Hogwarts, life has returned to its normal rhythm.

Classes continued as usual, meals were eaten as usual, and the little wizards in the hallway shifted their worries back from holiday gossip to homework and Quidditch.

Dumbledore only made occasional appearances in the Great Hall dining room.

During meals, I would sit in the center of the faculty and staff table, chat with Professor McGonagall or Professor Frivi, sometimes laughing heartily, sometimes listening with a furrowed brow, and often leaving halfway through the meal.

The Daily Prophet remains a picture of euphoria, with the new minister Harold Mintham's photo appearing on the front page twice a week.

In an editorial, the Ministry of Magic emphasized that it was paying close attention to the current situation and would take all necessary measures in accordance with the law.

On one occasion, in the international edition, I attended the annual reception of the International Department of Magical Cooperation and shook hands and smiled with the French Minister of Magic.

The newspaper's third page occasionally featured short news reports of werewolf attacks. These reports were brief, restrained in their wording, and emphasized that the incidents were under investigation, urging wizards to remain vigilant.

The editorial published on the same day was titled "Peace and Order in the Magical World: We Are on the Right Path."

Reporters surrounded him, their flashes going off everywhere, and the captions were filled with words like stability, order, and peace.

"The Ministry of Magic will, as always, safeguard the peace of the magical world."

"The current situation is generally stable, and individual destabilizing factors are being dealt with in accordance with the law."

Individual destabilizing factors.

A briefing was tucked into the family letters last week: a Muggle wizarding family in the Cotswolds had been wiped out—seven people, the youngest being two years old.

When the Aurors arrived at the scene, the body was still warm, and the Dark Mark floated above the house. The snake emerged from the skull's mouth and glowed green in the night sky for a long time, seen by Muggles from half the town.

The Department of Magical Accidents and Disasters dispatched a team of more than twenty people to cleanse memories from house to house, and they were busy for two days.

But the newspapers didn't mention it at all; the front page of the same issue featured a photo of Mintham donating a batch of potion cabinets to St. Mungo's.

The situation isn't much better on the Muggle side; the aftereffects of the oil crisis are still unfolding.

Although the three-day work week was abolished, coal miners staged another strike, Heath's Conservative government teetered on the brink of collapse, and the whole of Britain was shrouded in the shadow of inflation and unemployment.

Factories cut production, stores raised prices, and long lines of people queuing to buy bread stretched from one street corner to the next.

But none of this has anything to do with Hogwarts. The castle's stone walls block everything, or rather, everything is not big enough to get over the stone walls.

The young wizards in the corridors were discussing the Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw Quidditch match, how to reach the word count for their Transfiguration papers, and which shops to visit at Hogsmeade on the weekend.

The first-year students were running and playing in the corridor when they knocked over Mischief's ink bucket and were chased up three floors.

Fifth-grader Hufflepuff was practicing his summoning spells by the Black Lake when he summoned a fish onto the shore. The fish hopped around on the grass a couple of times before being thrown back.

They don't know what's happening outside, nor do they need to know.

Someone is shielding them.

Dumbledore was out running around, McGonagall was inside the castle, and the professors were maintaining order in the classroom.

The young wizards felt no wind or rain, only the warm sunlight streaming in through the corridor windows, just like any other January.

But Slytherins are different; pure-blood wizards never just read newspapers.

Their messages came from home, from snippets of conversation between their parents at the dinner table, from family gatherings during the Christmas holidays, and from conversations that adults thought children wouldn't understand but actually took in everything.

Who is getting close to the Death Eaters, who is watching from the sidelines, who has already fallen, and who is still holding on.

These messages circulated in the Slytherin common room, not openly, not loudly, but very quickly.

The atmosphere was changing, and it was gradually becoming restless again.

Unlike last year, no one publicly shouted slogans, and no one waved their fists and shouted "Pure Blood Glory" in the common lounge.

After Arnold Belmont was taken away, the overt fervor was extinguished. Everyone saw what happened that day, and everyone knows who cut it off.

But the fire on the surface was extinguished, while the embers remained underground.

The voice of pureblood supremacy has never disappeared; it has simply changed from shouting to whispering.

A few seventh graders were chatting in a corner, their voices deliberately low, glancing at Regulus whenever they talked about certain topics.

Someone mentioned the name of a certain alumnus, saying that he is now working for that official. Someone else said that their family received an investigation letter from the Ministry of Magic, and their father cursed for half the night in his study.

Some fifth and sixth graders started wearing a small silver snake badge on their cuffs, which they said was a traditional Slytherin ornament, but no one had ever seen wearing it before.

A fourth-grader said "Mudblood" to a Muggle-born Hufflepuff in the hallway in a foul tone, which was overheard by someone nearby.

There was no fighting, no conflict. The Hufflepuff walked away with his head down, and his fourth-year classmate patted him on the shoulder.

That's the right consistency, lukewarm water, slowly heating it up.

Professor Slughorn is clearly more attentive than he was last year.

Of course he knew what was happening in his house. An old Slytherin who had been head of the house for nearly fifty years couldn't possibly be unaware of the restless atmosphere.

He increased the frequency of his patrols, often spending more time in the common room, chatting with a few upperclassmen, always smiling, and avoiding any sensitive topics.

He will simply keep an eye on things and will not directly intervene to suppress them.

These voices, originating from within the purebloods and emotions conveyed by changes in the external situation, cannot be suppressed by the Dean. Even if they could be suppressed, he would not forcefully do so.

Slughorn is a shrewd old man who knows what he should and shouldn't do.

Fortunately, everything is still under control.

Regulus did not make any public statements or say anything biased, but his very existence was a form of suppression.

He was the one who quelled the fire last year. As long as he doesn't side with the extremists, those within Slytherin who want to cause trouble under the guise of pure-blood honor won't find a standard-bearer.

Everyone knows that the Black family heir is a good fighter, and everyone knows that he won't fall for any manipulative tactics.

As long as he's there, as long as he doesn't speak, the restlessness won't reach its peak.

Because nobody knows which side Blake will be on if it catches fire.

This uncertainty is more effective than any explicit statement.

The last Saturday of January was sunny and had a rare good day. The wind was blowing from the direction of Black Lake, carrying some moisture, but it wasn't cold.

At noon, Regulus came out of the auditorium and walked along the stone path toward Greenhouse No. 4.

It's not easy to see this kind of weather in the Scottish Highlands in January. After dinner, with nothing much to do, I went to see the Beating Willow.

Ever since Professor Sprout said that the tree recognized him, he has been going to the greenhouse every few days.

Check on the growth and recovery, and incidentally, transfer some natural magic.

The professor said that when you give back, the tree remembers what you give.

There's nothing more to say, here you go.

He wanted to see if the Willow Tree would grow into his shape if he continued to channel natural magic into it.

Now it only recognizes him, and won't fight when it encounters him.

But if the magic of nature seeps deep enough, the tree's path will be full of its traces. When it recovers its strength, it will still whip others when it encounters them, but when it encounters him, it might help him whip people.

Professor Sprout welcomed his frequent appearances near the greenhouse.

In her view, little Blake was finally starting to take an interest in plants themselves.

The professor knew in his heart that he had no fondness for the magical plants themselves; what he cared about was the magic they represented, the magic that could be extracted, replicated, and transformed.

He didn't care about the life of the plants.

This made her admire his talent, but also feel a little worried.

But things are different now. The child will take the initiative to give magic to a willow tree that is used to hit people, squat down next to it to observe the growth rate of the new shoots, and ask if watering it too much will affect its own cycle.

The professor felt that what he said that day had an effect.

He has taken to heart the principles of giving back, connecting, and contributing, and is putting them into practice in his own way.

She was very pleased, for this was, of course, learning how to care for magical plants, and of course, moving in the direction she had always hoped for.

Her gaze toward Regulus grew increasingly gentle.

Regulus knew what the professor was thinking, but he didn't intend to correct him.

He was indeed tending to the tree, observing its growth, and also thinking about how to make it part of a pre-planned base.

These two things are not contradictory; in fact, they complement each other.

He walked along the stone path toward greenhouse number four, and stopped when he was about twenty meters away from the greenhouse.

The wind blew in from the direction of greenhouse number four, carrying a strong smell so rich that you could almost see the color of it.

The strong, pungent stench, a mixture of sulfur, coke, and rotting vegetation, spread out in the air like an invisible wall under the midday sun, making it exceptionally blatant.

Dragon manure, fresh.

Regulus suppressed his nausea and took another sniff.

The first thing that comes out is the pungent smell of sulfur, followed by a deeper, musty stench from the fermentation of decaying organic matter, similar to the smell of wet peat, decaying leaves, and animal excrement piled together for months.

Because of the dragon's own characteristics, it also has a metallic, scorching aftertaste, like scorched iron.

It has distinct layers and tastes excellent.

The professor was squatting next to the willow tree, his fingers stuck in the soil, muttering to himself.

Three wooden buckets were placed on the ground beside me, their lids askew, and brown, pasty substances dripped from the rims, steaming and glistening in the sunlight.

Regulus held his breath.

He originally intended to go over and say hello, and perhaps infuse some magic into the Man-Beating Willow.

But the smell was so strong that he felt it was disrespectful to his nasal cavity to take even one step forward.

He watched the professor squatting there, busy and excited, and silently turned away.

The professor didn't like being interrupted while he was squatting down and working.

He was about to turn back when he glanced to the side.

Behind the glass wall of Greenhouse No. 3, there were two figures, blurry but their outlines were still discernible.

One of them was taller and made bigger movements, gesturing wildly.

The other one, he squinted at first, looking at it as much shorter, but upon closer inspection, he realized it wasn't short at all; it was squatting, squatting in front of the planting trough.

Regulus didn't look at it intentionally; his gaze simply fell on it, and his magical senses automatically swept over it.

The taller one was full of magic, lively, and carried a familiar restlessness, like a flame jumping around in a cage.

Sirius Black.

The one crouching down possessed stable, tepid magic, carrying a somewhat familiar aura.

Eleanor Borns.

Regulus became interested and, having already turned around, turned back.

The smell of dragon dung fertilizer is still overwhelming, but the head-soaking spell can solve everything.

He raised his right hand and gently brushed it across his body. The modified Illusion Spell spread out, and a cool, watery film washed over his head, flowing from his hair to his feet.

The light distorted, the figure vanished, the sound, body temperature, magic overflowed, the air currents stirred by breathing, the breeze stirred by the robes as one walked, the vibrations caused by stepping on the ground—all were swallowed up.

In the perception of a regular wizard, it would be considered completely invisible.

A sufficiently skilled wizard could not be kept in the dark, but it was more than enough to secretly spy on two young wizards.

He walked along the outer wall of the greenhouse to the glass of greenhouse number three and stopped there.

Through the glass and the mist, the figures inside were clearer than before. I couldn't quite hear what they were saying, but the image was quite clear.

Both of them wore earmuffs, thick leather wrapped in cotton, covering their ears completely.

The cries of the mandrake are deadly; wearing earmuffs is standard practice, and Sirius Black didn't forget.

Regulus nodded in satisfaction.

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