This was bad. The darkness targeted him alone. For Orion, this was home turf.
Orion could see him, sense him, move freely through the black, and cast from any angle he pleased. Regulus was blind, reduced to taking hits he couldn't predict.
His mind raced.
The Shadowstep Charm worked by melding with shadow. This darkness was Orion's creation, one massive, weaponized shadow blanketing the entire room.
Two ways to break it: overpower it with stronger light, or find the caster's real body and interrupt the spell.
His light wasn't strong enough. The Starlight Kite's silver glow had only cleared two meters before the dark crushed it back. A stronger source... maybe some spark charm amplified with the supernova visualization, but building that mental image took time. Time Orion would never give him in here.
That left finding the body.
He kept moving, adjusting the frequency of his magical perception as he went, probing for gaps in the darkness's interference. Spatial awareness cranked to maximum. The Shadowstep Charm merged with shadow and used it for short-range teleportation. It wasn't true spatial displacement, but in theory, it should leave residual spatial fluctuations behind.
How long he searched, he couldn't say. Time warped in the dark. One minute. Five. Then a faint anomaly registered.
Spatial fluctuation first. Subtle enough to miss under normal conditions, but in absolute darkness, with every other signal stripped away, it stood out. Four and a half meters ahead and to his left.
Magical fluctuation followed, same position, intensity climbing fast.
Orion was preparing a spell.
Regulus didn't hesitate. His wand came up, Space Warp and spatial anchor primed simultaneously.
To bypass any passive defense Orion might have running, something like a constant Protego, he decided to open the spatial channel directly onto the man's skin.
He'd considered opening it beneath the skin. Dismissed it instantly. One, this was his father. No killing blows. Two, living magical tissue would destabilize the channel before it could fully form.
The channel snapped into existence four and a half meters to his front left.
His wand thrust forward. The scarlet thread of the Cruciatus shot through the channel, landing precisely where Orion's chest should be.
The instant the curse left his wand, a flicker of anticipation rose in his chest.
This fight had been grueling. Smothered by darkness, unable to do anything but dodge and endure. The frustration had built, quiet but real.
The Cruciatus wouldn't necessarily cripple a wizard with Orion's willpower. But half a second of disruption, even a flinch, and Regulus could follow up, crack the stalemate wide open.
Nothing happened.
The spatial and magical fluctuations were still there, hanging in the dark ahead of him, but the Cruciatus had punched into empty air. No impact. No feedback of hitting a body.
His stomach dropped.
Then agony detonated through every inch of him.
White-hot needles driving into skin, boring through muscle, scraping against bone. Thousands of them, all at once. But the pain wasn't coming from outside. It erupted from within, tearing him apart at the cellular level.
His body seized. Breath locked in his throat. Vision went black.
Though it had already been black.
Recognition hit immediately. He'd been baited. Worse than baited. He'd been hit with the Cruciatus.
The fluctuations he'd sensed were a trap. Orion had planted them deliberately, a lure to draw his attack, while the real strike came from...
No time to finish the thought. Pain dragged his mind through mud, slowing every reaction by half a beat.
He fought through it, trying to sink his consciousness deep, using Occlumency to peel away the layer of awareness that registered the suffering. Separating the pain from the self. But it needed time.
A hand settled on his shoulder.
Not hard. The grip was measured, almost gentle, but the placement was precise, landing exactly where it would block the kinetic chain for his Swiftness Spell.
Cold pressure touched his throat.
The darkness lifted.
It peeled away like a curtain drawn back from a stage. Light flooded the training room. Wall runes blazed to life. Torches roared back into flame. Everything returned to normal.
Orion stood in front of him, wand pressed to his throat, left hand on his shoulder.
Less than a foot apart. Close enough for Regulus to see the fine sheen of sweat at his father's temple. Close enough to smell the faint scorch where fire spells had singed him during the fight.
Orion didn't look quite as composed as he had at the start.
His dark gray combat robes bore several char marks and patches of corrosion. The left cuff had been sliced open, exposing the protective lining underneath. His hair was slightly disheveled, a few dark strands plastered to his forehead, and his breathing came just a touch faster than usual, his chest rising and falling with a subtle rhythm.
But he was upright, steady. His hand didn't shake. His eyes were clear.
Regulus looked worse by comparison.
His training clothes were torn in several places. His left shoulder still carried the stiffness from the earlier Body-Bind. Every cell the Cruciatus had touched was still protesting, phantom pain rolling through him in waves.
His face was pale, but he stood straight. His eyes were tired, not unfocused.
He looked at his father.
The pride in Orion's gaze was barely contained.
The corner of his mouth twitched upward, fighting against itself. He tried to press it down, failed, and finally stopped trying. A clear, open smile broke across his face.
He withdrew his wand and clapped Regulus firmly on the shoulder.
"Well done," he said, satisfaction bleeding through every word. "Regulus. Well done."
Regulus dipped his head slightly, drew a breath, and when he lifted his gaze again, he was smiling too. He didn't speak. Just nodded, putting some weight behind it.
They stepped apart, each catching their breath.
The duel hadn't lasted long, but the intensity had been relentless. Every nerve had been stretched taut for the duration, and now that the tension broke, exhaustion crashed in all at once.
Regulus rolled his left shoulder.
The Cruciatus pain was already fading. His father hadn't put real force behind it. That strike was meant to create an opening, nothing more. At full power, Regulus would have been on the floor, convulsing.
His mind was still picking apart that final trap.
Everything about it had felt genuine. The spatial fluctuation, the magical buildup, the position, the intensity. All of it identical to the signatures he'd learned to associate with Orion's pre-cast tells.
But it was fake.
Orion had simulated the fluctuations somehow, drawn out Regulus's attack, and closed in from a completely different angle. Ended the fight with a single Cruciatus.
And his father had clearly anticipated the possibility of spatial magic. He might not have known the specifics, but decades of combat experience had taught him to keep contingencies ready for sudden, unconventional strikes.
The trap was probably designed for exactly that. Force Regulus to play his trump card, then counter it.
The old man's the real deal.
The thought passed through his mind with a twinge of resignation and a much larger measure of respect.
His father was his father. Decades of combat experience, an instinct for controlling the flow of a fight, an ability to read his opponent's psychology. All of it sharper than anything Regulus could match. Not yet.
They both turned toward the doorway.
Sirius was still standing there, mouth open, eyes glazed, looking for all the world like someone had hit him with a Body-Bind.
He stared at Regulus. Looked at Orion. Looked back at Regulus.
His brain was probably still processing what he'd witnessed. The darkness descending, their father vanishing without a trace, the sudden appearance of a wand at Regulus's throat, and then the two of them standing there, smiling at each other.
Regulus and Orion exchanged a glance. A quiet amusement passed between them.
Orion walked toward the door. As he passed Sirius, he clapped him on the shoulder.
"Follow all that?" he asked.
Sirius nodded mechanically. Then shook his head. Finally managed to squeeze out: "...Not even a little."
The smile left Orion's face. His tone went flat. "Then think on it."
He crossed to the training room door and pushed it open, pausing to look back at Regulus. "Rest for half an hour, then come to the study. We need to discuss your holiday plans."
The door closed.
The training room held only Regulus and Sirius.
Sirius finally snapped out of it. He walked up to Regulus, looking him over head to toe like he was meeting his brother for the first time.
"You..." He started, stopped. A long pause. Tried again. "At school, is it... like this?"
"No." Regulus shook his head slightly. "Can't do this at school."
"But just now, all that... the movement, the spells, and that darkness at the end..."
Sirius was stumbling over his own words, and the stubbornness that usually lived in his eyes had given way to something lost.
"Practice." Regulus headed for the door. Sirius stepped aside without thinking.
Then he jogged a few steps ahead, turned around, and blocked his path. "Do you and Father do this often?"
"Second time." Regulus took a drink of water from the glass a house-elf had left waiting, then said, "I lost last time."
"And this time?" Sirius pressed.
"Also lost."
Sirius went quiet.
He watched Regulus drink, set the glass back on the tray, and push his loose hair back from his forehead.
Ordinary movements. But somehow they carried an effortless composure, a kind of understated grace.
Sirius didn't like that rhythm. It felt rehearsed to him.
But standing here now, watching his brother, the anger that had been coiled in his chest all day had nearly dissolved. What replaced it was something he couldn't name.
He thought again of the Regulus inside that training room. Moving at speed, spells firing in rapid chains, devastating force, eyes cold and locked in.
And the person in front of him now, unhurried, measured.
They looked like two completely different people.
He couldn't tell which one was real.
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