Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Delacroix saw the three men cast the Killing Curse, and the last trace of color drained from his face.

A death curse was being cast around him.

He personally selected these people. Although the outsiders were greedy and rough, could these people really unleash a deadly curse that made people's scalps tingle? Could they really unleash a deadly curse that made people feel the aura of death even from dozens of meters away?

impossible.

That means someone has tampered with it.

That British woman had everything planned out from beginning to end.

She planted something in these people.

Delacroix had been in the smuggling business for twenty years, and he knew the principle behind the triggering of the curse: the person was still alive, but their body was no longer their own.

The woman had planted a hidden weapon on his man without telling him, waiting for this moment.

That's why she so readily agreed to all the conditions: the magical creatures in the manor, the vintage wines in the cellar, and the British market.

It was all bait; she never intended to fulfill any of her conditions from the beginning.

He thought he was hired to pull off a heist, but in reality, he was just her tool, as were all his subordinates.

He was dragged into the infighting among the British, a game of madmen.

But Delacroix had been in the business for twenty years, and faced with death, he made more than one choice.

He took a deep breath, put away his wand, and slid the wand along his forearm into his sleeve, leaving his hands free.

He straightened the front of his robe; the collar was burning hot from the heat, and the eagle-shaped brooch was also hot. He pressed his finger against it and it burned.

Then he looked up and stared at Regulus from a distance of thirty meters.

He spoke in a steady tone, using English with a French accent, "Mr. Black."

Regulus's wand hung naturally, looking down at him from above.

The magic that burned the sky was still in effect, magic surged within his body, and his body temperature was several degrees higher than usual.

He unleashed such flames.

He had read the description of the flaming lasso that Dumbledore wielded in the Infernal Cave, and now he knew what it felt like.

So he was a little excited, wanting to see what the smuggler boss lying at his feet could say.

Regulus tilted his head, and Baruch, perched on his shoulder, followed suit.

Delacroix spoke frankly, his gaze sincere: "What happened tonight was my misjudgment. The information I received was incorrect, and I didn't have a sufficient understanding of you and the manor."

I am willing to pay reasonable compensation, using my personal assets and the existing resources of my team. I also have some information about the behind-the-scenes arrangements of this operation that may be valuable to you.

As he spoke, his demeanor became more composed.

Severed limbs littered the ground, and flames still burned overhead.

Behind him lay Luke's collapsed body, his severed arm still bleeding. In front of him lay several core members lying haphazardly, three or five peripheral members engulfed in flames and occasionally twitching, and a corpse afflicted by the Killing Curse.

He maintained the dignity of a businessman amidst all of this.

Delacroix continued, "I was misled by false intelligence; the other side used promises from the British side and internal conflicts within the Black family as reasons to persuade me."

I made the wrong choice and paid the price, and I'm willing to do everything I can to make up for it.

Regulus listened, initially finding it somewhat intriguing.

This person is really negotiating.

The severed limb was still bleeding on the ground, the sky was still burning, and he stood there straightening his collar, discussing compensation.

He actually believed that there was still room for negotiation.

For centuries, Britain and France fought each other, from Tracy to Agincourt to Waterloo. The French always tried to win back the battles they lost on the battlefield at the negotiating table.

This Frenchman is the same; even after being reduced to a rout with flames raging overhead, he can still talk about compensation and intelligence in this tone, as if it were just a business misunderstanding.

It got boring after a while; what compensation, what intelligence.

Do you think I can't use mind control? I can see what's in your head whenever I want, without you having to make a deal with me.

As for the ransom, the Black family has plenty of money. You've saved up for twenty years, could you afford a Beating Willow?

Regulus looked into Delacroix's eyes, his face offering no response in the firelight, he simply stared.

Delacroix recognized that expression; he'd seen it far too many times. Buyers were completely uninterested in your offer, not even bothering to haggle.

His composure crumbled, he swallowed hard, and his voice grew urgent: "Behind all of this is an English woman—"

"bel—"

Before the uvular trill could even be uttered, the throat suddenly swelled up from the inside, the vocal cords were squeezed into a slit, the trachea expanded, and the entire larynx was blocked.

His mouth was still open, and the shape of his mouth for the next syllable was still in the position of his tongue touching the roof of his mouth, but he could no longer make a sound.

Delacroix's face flushed instantly, the veins on his neck bulged, and the blood vessels on his forehead throbbed beneath his skin.

He reached up and grabbed his throat, his fingers digging into his skin, his nails scratching several bloody marks on his neck. His mouth opened wider, his tongue sticking out, but no air went in or out.

Regulus watched the whole process.

A person tried to say a name, and then choked on something in their throat.

The pre-installed curse, triggered by that name, was meticulously crafted.

The same method used to trigger the Killing Curse earlier is undeniably ingenious.

Delacroix knelt down, his knees hitting the ground, his hands still clutching his throat, and the red on his face began to turn dark purple.

His eyes bulged out of their sockets, and the blood vessels on the surface of his eyeballs were clearly visible. His mouth opened and closed, silently repeating the same syllable.

Then his body fell forward and he landed sideways on the ground.

His fingers loosened from his throat, his legs kicked twice, straightened, then curled up again, the suffocating spasms continuing.

A decent person's last shred of dignity was stripped away in suffocation.

Regulus had a pretty good idea of ​​who he was talking about.

England, women, internal conflicts within the Black family, and that syllable that had just been uttered.

But we need to verify it again.

Regulus appeared in front of him, crouched down, and pressed Delacroix's head upright with his left hand.

Delacroix's eyes were already rolling upwards, with more white than pupil, and the edges of his pupils were blurred.

But he saw the boy's gray eyes looking down at him, and there was nothing in them.

This feeling of having nothing at all was even more unbearable than the curtain of fire overhead.

He had lived a respectable life for twenty years, but he lost, and he was unwilling to accept it.

From the Cassis Tavern to these ruins, from red wine and olives to the fiery curtain of severed limbs, every step he took was orchestrated by others, until in the end he didn't even know what he had lost to.

With his remaining strength gathered on his eyelids, he forced his eyes open, his pupils meeting Regulus's gaze.

His eyes were still trembling, but his gaze was fixed.

At this moment, all he wanted was to maintain his last shred of dignity.

Regulus looked into those eyes, but felt nothing.

Capture the spirit and focus the mind; let your will sink into the other person's memory and swiftly traverse between the formed images.

Cassis Port, second-floor private room, backlit window, red wine and olives on the table.

A dark-haired woman sat by the window, half her body in sunlight and half in shadow, and her accent, as I recall it, was a standard upper-class southern English accent.

The face gradually came into focus: high cheekbones, thick black eyebrows, gray eyes, and disproportionately large pupils.

Bellatrix Lestrange.

In Delacroix's memory, she looked in Regulus's direction, staring straight ahead.

She knew it when she planted the memory, just by looking at the person revisiting it.

Sunlight shone on half of her face from the side, while the other half was covered by shadow. The corners of her mouth turned up slightly, but the movement was very small, and the corners of her eyes did not move.

She was smiling, but the smile was cold, carrying a neurotic smugness that was deliberately suppressed yet still seeping out. She was waiting for someone to come to see her, and she knew who it would be.

Regulus's lips twitched slightly.

It was unexpected, yet not entirely unexpected. Lucius had mentioned at the family dinner at Malfoy Manor that Bella had become quieter, spoke less, and was quite still.

At the time, he thought he had become more restrained after being defeated at the Christmas dinner, but now he realizes that it wasn't restraint, but rather a transformation.

Voldemort took her in, then modified her, perhaps putting something into her body, or perhaps taking something away from her body.

She became quieter and more patient.

The method of the curse was very clever, and the scheme was quite well set up. Bella didn't have these abilities before.

But is she still herself?

A person actively chooses to change themselves, versus being reshaped into another person by external forces.

Delacroix's memories suddenly exploded.

Starting from the center of Bella's face, the image resembles a mirror struck by a heavy hammer, with cracks spreading outwards from the center and fragments flying outwards.

Delacroix's consciousness, memories, personality, everything crumbled amidst the cracking sounds.

Regulus was pulled from his memories.

The Delacroix before me had unfocused eyes, his pupils so dilated that the color of his irises was almost invisible, drool dripped from the corners of his mouth, and saliva that had been squeezed out when he was suffocating was still hanging on his chin.

His spirit was dead, and soon after, his body died too.

Curse, another curse, three now.

Regulus stood up and suddenly turned to look in the southeast direction.

Two miles away, on a rocky slope, half-lit and half-dark under the starlight, there was nothing there.

But he felt there should be something there.

He looked in that direction, paused for a moment, but saw nothing.

He looked away.

......

The Aurors' Apparitions echoed repeatedly on the outskirts of the western slope, a series of crisp sounds exploding in the night sky.

The estate of the pure-blood Black family in England was invaded and destroyed by local wizards in France, prompting the French Ministry of Magic to dispatch an entire Rapid Response Auror squad.

Including the senior officials from the International Magic Cooperation Division who are specifically responsible for transnational pureblood security affairs, there are a total of twenty-seven people.

The Aurors who landed immediately scattered, wands in hand, in standard battle stances.

Then they saw the sky above them, still burning.

A female Auror took two steps forward from the point of Apparition, looked up at the sky, and her expression froze in the blue and white firelight.

A middle-aged Auror next to her had just raised his wand to cast a spell when his hand froze in mid-air.

The senior Auror leading the group, in his fifties, with short gray hair and a dark blue uniform, was standing below the curtain of fire, his gaze shifting from the flames above to the people lying haphazardly on the open ground.

A fallen corpse, a severed arm, blood on the rubble, and a human figure charred by a fireball.

A young Auror ran up from behind, his voice a little unsteady: "Mr. Gaston, this is—"

Gaston ignored him and fixed his gaze on the only boy standing there.

Above the sky, the blue and white curtain of fire is slowly dissipating.

The flames began to dim from the edges, extinguishing piece by piece, fading from blue-white to pale blue, from pale blue to gray-white, and then disappearing into the darkness high above.

The lingering heat still distorted the air, and the last few wisps of flame drifted down from mid-air, landing on the scorched ground, flashing briefly before going out.

The sky darkened, and the stars reappeared.

Regulus stood in the middle of the battlefield, with Baruch on his shoulder. A few drops of blood, whose identity was unknown, were splattered on his light-colored robe, and his hair was slightly disheveled by the heat.

With his wand hanging in his right hand, he looked at the person looking at him and slightly raised his chin.