Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Regulus, relaxed and with a slightly teasing tone, asked, "How many places have you been to these past few months? How many people have you recruited?"

Dumbledore looked at him with his blue eyes, his tone gentle, neither disappointed nor particularly surprised: "I've been to quite a few places, met some old friends and colleagues, retired former Aurors, reclusive scholars, and a few solitary wizards who have a distant relationship with the Ministry of Magic. I've been to a few places in the south and also to the northern coast."

He counted on his fingers, then reached into the pile of cockroaches: "Few agreed, many observed, and even more refused outright."

"Everyone has something they want to protect," the old man said with understanding. "There aren't many people who can put everything aside to fight a war that hasn't even started yet."

This wasn't the first time he'd faced this situation. Decades ago, when Grindelwald rose to prominence, he did the same thing, persuading people one by one.

History repeats itself, and he is still doing the same thing.

“It’s not that they don’t want to fight back,” he said, picking up another swarm of cockroaches, holding it between two fingers and watching it struggle on his fingertips before popping it into his mouth. “Fighting back doesn’t always involve picking up a wand and going to war. Some people fight back by guarding their own door, some by saying a few more words in the Ministry of Magic, or by raising their children well. All of these count.”

Regulus nodded. "What about the rest who agreed?"

"A few old friends, men of character, agreed as soon as they heard about it. There's also a retired potion master who lives on the north coast of Scotland and agreed to keep an eye on things over there," Dumbledore's blue eyes gleamed. "Not many, but enough. Seeds are sown, not all of them will sprout, but a few will grow."

Regulus picked up the teacup and took a sip. It was too sweet, so sweet that it made his throat feel tight. He put the teacup back on the saucer and pushed it forward.

Dumbledore, watching from behind the table, found it amusing. He picked up his teacup, took a large gulp, and then hissed in satisfaction.

The blue eyes blinked behind the half-moon shaped lenses, revealing an inexplicable sense of superiority.

Regulus was speechless.

Dumbledore put down his teacup, took his glasses off his nose, wiped the lenses with his robe, put them back on, and looked at Regulus with his blue eyes, his tone slightly different.

"The French Ministry of Magic's report on your night at the Provence Manor only gave a vague conclusion, but I heard about the specific details."

Regulus raised an eyebrow.

The old man didn't explain how he heard about it, nor did he ask. Just as he thought, the old man had been paying attention to him all along, so there was nothing unexpected about it.

The old man continued, "There were more than forty people, and a thirteen-year-old wizard faced them head-on. In the end, he set off a blue and white fire above his head."

His tone was somewhat cryptic: "That fire was very special."

Regulus saw the old man's eyes, which held a faint trace of reminiscence. His focus momentarily shifted, still looking at him, yet simultaneously seeming to be looking through him at another scene from long ago.

The blue eyes lingered on his face for a moment, then looked away, landing on Fox before returning to their own.

After a moment, Dumbledore's tone returned to normal: "The scale of the flames and the magical output are astonishing. The will directly drives the elements without going through the spell structure. There are not many wizards who can do this."

Regulus knew what the old man was thinking.

Blue Flame, Paris, 1945.

"Professor, you flatter me," he said, bowing slightly in his chair with a respectful and humble tone. "Compared to that person, I am far inferior."

Dumbledore blinked his blue eyes, then blinked again, his gaze refocusing, a hint of helplessness in his voice: "Did you have to bring him up at a time like this?"

Regulus's lips curled up slightly, he leaned back, placed his hands on his knees, his posture upright, his expression even more so, but his tone less so: "Oh, I apologize for my intrusion."

"Hehehe." Dumbledore was amused by his antics, shook his head, and his white beard swayed.

After a moment of silence, the old man withdrew the reminiscence from his eyes and regained his clarity: "How long did you hold the fire that night?"

Regulus thought for a moment: "The fire curtain takes about thirteen or fourteen minutes to form and dissipate."

"Tired?"

"A little."

Regulus did not deny that during the ten or so minutes when the blue and white fire curtain covered the sky, his will was constantly being pulled against the flames.

The fire wanted to expand outwards, but he held it back; the fire wanted to burn things on the ground, but he limited its range; the fire wanted to change from blue-white to a purer white, but he pushed it back.

"You have accomplished what many adult wizards cannot do in their entire lives, and have even crossed the boundaries of conventional magic," Dumbledore nodded, offering a word of praise before placing his hands on the table and leaning slightly forward against the edge. "But what I see is that you are using your will to suppress the flame, making it act according to your intentions. You are restraining it, doing a very good job, but it is still being suppressed by you."

Regulus nodded as well.

He did indeed do that, restraining it with willpower and guiding it with spirit.

"You use Fiendfire very well," Dumbledore said casually, taking a detour when talking about Fiendfire. "But you're doing the same thing as that curtain of fire, using the will to protect to suppress Fiendfire's destructive tendencies. It wants to burn, and you don't let it burn indiscriminately. You're constantly in a power struggle, and you win every time, but you're still struggling with it."

Regulus seemed to be deep in thought, having already guessed what the old man was going to say. He didn't interrupt and listened quietly.

As for the old man knowing how to use his Fiery Blaze, that's not surprising.

"The kind of explosive fire magic you used when you were Geralt," Dumbledore said, his blue eyes fixed on him. "The fire spell combined with the will to explode. That approach is different. The will to explode and the fire are in the same direction. If you want to go for it, it wants to go for it too. You don't need to suppress it; you just need to synchronize with it."

"You've found a door," Dumbledore said. "In the direction of the outburst, your will and the flame are aligned, and you've succeeded. But with Fiendfire, you're still using a different approach: the Guardian Will suppresses the destructive tendencies."

"You've separated protection from destruction," he said, holding up two fingers. "Have you ever considered that protection and destruction aren't necessarily opposites?"

Before he could answer, the old man continued, "If Fiery Blaze wants to burn everything, then tell it what to burn. The way to protect a person is to burn away all threats that come near him. Destruction itself can become protection."

When what you want to protect and what it wants to burn overlap, there's no need for a power struggle; you're on its side, and it's on yours.

His tone softened: "Do you know what Fiendfire was originally created for?"

"Clear out the high-threat dark creatures," Regulus said without hesitation, "and construct a fire barrier to defend against a large-scale invasion."

"They're all protective in nature," Dumbledore said, looking at him with satisfaction. "The oldest use of Fiendfire was for protection, but it was later abused and used as a pure tool of destruction, which is why it has become something that needs to be suppressed before it can be used."

He picked up his teacup, took a sip, and said softly, "You've got the direction wrong when you tried to suppress Fiery with your Guardian Will. The Guardian Will shouldn't be Fiery's chain; it's Fiery's nature. When your relationship is no longer one of confrontation, all Fiery needs is a target."

Regulus frowned slightly, the image of taming Fiend for the first time flashing through his mind.

Orange-red flames surged from between the staff, rolling and scorching, carrying a strong destructive impulse, wanting to burn everything.

His protective will pressed down, and the flames quieted down, dancing on his fingertips.

At that moment, he felt an inexplicable sense of closeness.

He always thought that the feeling of closeness came from his strong will, which had subdued and tamed the raging fire.

But Dumbledore's words gave him another perspective: Fiend was waiting for him, waiting for him to discover that they could be the same thing.

The old man's meaning was clear: from suppression to unification, Li Huo didn't need to be suppressed; what it needed was direction.

The guardian imagery of Betelgeuse, the explosive imagery of Rigel, and the self-destructive tendency of Fiery Blaze—three systems, three directions—can be unified in their underlying logic.

Protecting and destroying, taking and releasing, are originally two sides of the same coin.

His brow relaxed, and a slight smile appeared on his lips: "So that's how it is."

Dumbledore looked at his expression, and the light in his blue eyes softened.

A smart child.

Fox shifted its position on the perch, pulled its head out from under its wing, turned its bright black eyes to look at Regulus, then at Dumbledore, and then shoved its head back in.

The principal's office was quiet for a while.

Regulus's gaze lingered on Fawkes for a moment before returning to Dumbledore.

The old man mentioned France, saw his magic, saw his choice, and that more than forty people fell at his feet, yet no one was killed by him.

Dumbledore saw that he hadn't killed anyone.

Just right.

He was silent for a moment, then looked up and said directly, "Professor, there's something I'd like to ask you."

Dumbledore nodded and looked at him quietly.

What are your thoughts on murder?

Dumbledore was putting a pile of cockroaches into his mouth when his hand froze in mid-air, hovering there, before he slowly put the pile of cockroaches back into the dish.

Blue eyes lowered, looking at the table, falling into silence.

Every time someone mentions the word "murder" in front of him, the same image flashes through his mind.

In that three-way battle, Aberforth's spell, Gellert's spell, and his own spell intersected, and Ariana fell to the ground.

More than a hundred years have passed, but this scene has not faded.

But this calm is not entirely due to Ariana.

The one who asked this question was Regulus.

If someone else asked, he could give a standard answer: the weight of life, the price of the soul, the cycle of violence.

But Regulus doesn't need a standard answer.

From the moment he saw the blue and white flames and the forty-odd people who had fallen at his feet but hadn't died, he knew that this child would come to ask this question sooner or later.

A person who can refrain from killing in that level of combat, a person who already possesses that power, a person who can guard their own soul—when asked about their attitude towards killing, they are certainly not asking for permission, much less a moral judgment.

The way Regulus asked this question was not the way a hesitant person would ask it.

Hesitant people ask whether murder is right or wrong, while those who don't hesitate ask for your opinion. The former wants an answer, while the latter wants confirmation.

"You ask me this question," Dumbledore's blue eyes refocused on Regulus's face, his voice soft, "is it because you haven't decided yet, or because you have already decided?"

Regulus's eyes met without flinching: "It's decided."

After returning from the holiday, there are some things I need to do. I've already decided on them, so there's no need to put them off any longer.

"Then don't hesitate," Dumbledore said. "Hesitation is more dangerous than murder. Hesitation slows you down, and slowing down will cost you or those around you."

He looked at Regulus gently, his eyes showing neither judgment nor permission, but simply the gaze of a young man he trusted: "After you're done, if you can't sleep, if you need someone to sit with for a while and talk, you know how to find me."

Regulus looked at the old man, his gray and blue eyes separated by a desk and an age difference of nearly a century.

He grinned, his eyes sparkling, and then nodded.

The conversation didn't go any deeper, and the atmosphere suddenly relaxed.

Dumbledore said he would continue to travel during the summer vacation, as there were several werewolf camps whose movements needed to be monitored, and a few old buddies on the North Coast were willing to help keep an eye on that area.

Then he asked Regulus, "What are your plans for the holidays?"

"Stay home," Regulus said earnestly. "Study hard, read books, and do your homework."

Dumbledore stared at him for a long time, then sighed softly. The boy was talking nonsense again.

After sitting for a short while, Regulus stood up and bowed slightly: "Have a pleasant holiday, Professor."

Dumbledore smiled. "Have a nice holiday, Regulus."

Regulus turned and walked toward the door, deliberately slowing his pace as he passed Fox's perch.

Fox had already pulled its head out from under its wing and was preening the feathers on its chest with its golden-red beak. Sensing his gaze, it turned its bright black eyes to look at him, then continued preening.

Regulus's lips twitched slightly.

It's just a bird, isn't it?

He'll be able to have one someday.

Pushing open the door, the spiral staircase slowly descended, and a clear, loud hooves came from the office behind me.