Regulus descended to the second basement level, the small dedicated training room where he'd practiced Fiendfyre over the Easter holiday.
From inside his robes he drew a book: Advanced Occlumency: Cognitive Structures and Defense Strategies, pulled from the family's private collection.
He needed the mental partitioning technique.
The goal was to split his consciousness into two independent segments, each governing one Fiendfyre bird without interference from the other. Occlumency contained the relevant methods.
Advanced Occlumency went far beyond repelling external intrusion. It encompassed constructing mental labyrinths, fabricating false memories, and dividing the mind into isolated zones.
His earlier practice had focused exclusively on defense. Now it was time to pivot toward partition.
He opened the book to the chapter on consciousness segmentation.
The theory was straightforward enough. Imagine the mind as a great hall containing multiple rooms. Normally, all thoughts flowed freely through the hall, mingling together. The purpose of segmentation was to lock each room, confining specific thoughts to specific spaces, preventing any cross-contamination.
Simple to describe. Far harder to execute.
Regulus sat cross-legged and closed his eyes.
First, the star guided meditation. Four and a half stars of Orion ignited in his consciousness, their light steady. The meditation didn't directly grant the ability to partition his mind, but it elevated mental stability, making consciousness easier to shape.
Following the book's method, he began constructing the first room inside his mental hall.
The walls were imaginary, built from willpower alone. He visualized the room's outline, the thickness of the walls, the material of the door.
Visualization came easily. The room took shape in moments, but it held no real function. A single surge of thought and the walls shattered.
He tried again and again, pouring will and mental energy into the structure, forcing the walls toward solidity.
Two hours later, the first room stabilized.
He started on the second. Faster this time. One hour to completion.
Then came the connection: a corridor between the two rooms, allowing his primary consciousness to shift focus freely while keeping each room independent.
This was the hardest part.
Too wide a corridor and thoughts from both rooms bled together. Too narrow and switching carried a delay.
Seventeen attempts before he found the balance.
When his eyes opened, a fine sheen of sweat dotted his forehead.
The construction had drained him, left his mind fatigued, but it had worked.
Half an hour of rest. Then he raised one hand, palm upward.
An orange-red flame kindled and rapidly shaped itself into a small Fiendfyre bird.
It perched on his palm, cocked its head, and made the motion of preening its feathers.
Though Regulus controlled it, the precision felt finer than before. This strand of consciousness had been isolated inside the first room.
Its own door, its own dedicated purpose.
He activated the second room.
The instant consciousness split, the sensation was strange. Like watching two screens at once. One showed the Fiendfyre bird on his right palm. The other was blank, waiting to be filled.
He directed the blank frame toward his left hand.
A second flame ignited on his left palm.
Fiendfyre began to take shape. Wings, tail feathers, head.
A second bird formed and perched on his left hand.
The two birds regarded each other, tilting their heads in mutual appraisal. Regulus felt the two frames overlapping yet never interfering.
No devouring. No temperature spike. No surge of aggression. Both forms held steady.
He sent the right-hand bird into the air, circling overhead, while the left-hand bird stayed put, pecking at its plumage.
Two actions, simultaneous, independent.
It worked.
Regulus maintained the state for fifteen minutes, then released it. Both birds guttered out, the mental rooms dissolved their isolation, and thought flowed whole again.
During the rest interval, his mind wandered. Mental partitioning shouldn't be limited to Fiendfyre.
Spatial magic could benefit too. Maintaining a Space Warp and a spatial anchor simultaneously was, at its core, multitasking.
Occlumency defenses could be refined the same way. Bury authentic memories in a deep room, fill the surface room with false information, and let any intruder wade through the decoy. Or go further: weaponize the contents of a room, let an invader probe freely, and without lifting a finger, hit them with an assault born from consciousness itself.
He could hide other things in those rooms as well. Perhaps it was time to explore soul magic.
After all, soul and consciousness sounded like a natural pairing.
He rested for thirty minutes, then resumed.
Over the next three days, he spent six hours daily in the training room.
The Fiendfyre birds grew from two to three, and the mental rooms matched. Three was his current ceiling, but it was enough.
By the afternoon of the third day, three Fiendfyre birds flew freely through the training room, chasing one another, occasionally letting out thin hisses, all entirely under his command.
Regulus was satisfied.
The exercises served as practice, but the birds' form carried its own advantages: concealment, agility, suitability for ambush or delicate operations. Send a Fiendfyre bird covertly into a room, then have it erupt into a beast at close range. Or deploy multiple birds against separate targets at once, precision-guided.
---
That evening, Regulus left the dedicated training room and went to check in on the main one.
Sirius was sparring with Gerald Hawke, and the scene had shape to it.
Sirius cast on the move, using the Impediment Jinx to cut off angles, the Disarming Charm as his primary offense, and the occasional Jelly-Legs Jinx to disrupt. Hawke defended with Shield Charm and countered with simple Knockback Jinxes. Nothing fast, but every strike landed at exactly the moment Sirius found most uncomfortable.
Regulus saw through it at a glance. Hawke was feeding him openings.
He was guiding Sirius into the rhythm of a fight: the feel of chaining spells, the instinct of casting while moving. Every counter was calibrated to force a response without ever connecting.
The training was paying off. Sirius was improving.
His spells hit harder than three days ago.
Combat instincts were beginning to sprout. He'd started using the environment deliberately, ducking behind training dummies for cover, knocking over equipment racks with a Knockback Jinx to create obstacles, even attempting to Transfigure a rope to trip his opponent.
It didn't work. But the attempt said something.
This was the advantage of a Pure-blood family. Children from ordinary wizarding households didn't have access to resources like these. They couldn't hire a former Auror as a private instructor, couldn't train in a fully equipped facility, and certainly couldn't draw on a family library for extracurricular knowledge.
Muggle-borns had it harder still. They learned from scratch, groping in the dark for things Pure-blood children absorbed as common sense.
Talent mattered, but resources mattered more.
Sirius had the Black family's talent. Now he was tapping the Black family's resources. As long as he was willing to put in the work, his rate of progress would dwarf anything Hogwarts alone could provide.
Regulus watched for a while, then turned and left.
The study sat right next to the training room, separated by a single door. Orion was behind his desk, reviewing documents.
"Father." Regulus kept his voice low.
Orion looked up. "Finished?"
"Yes. I'd like to go to the herb garden in Cornwall tomorrow. Stay a few days."
A nod. "Fine. I'll notify them. Do you need anyone with you?"
"No. I'll go alone." Regulus shook his head.
"Be careful."
Orion delivered the reminder offhandedly, then his gaze drifted to Regulus's shoulder.
At some point, a small orange-red bird had settled there. No larger than a sparrow, its body finely detailed, wings folded, head tilted as it studied the furnishings of the study.
Orion stared at it for several seconds, unable to place it. "What is that?"
"Fiendfyre." A short answer. The bird chirped as if in agreement.
Orion's eyebrows rose.
He knew Fiendfyre well enough, but he'd never seen it this quiet.
The little bird looked almost endearing, if you could set aside the fact that it was cursed fire given form.
"You can control it to that degree?" He kept his tone level, but his body leaned forward against the edge of the desk.
"Still practicing."
The bird on Regulus's shoulder lifted off, circled the study once, and returned to its perch, letting out a soft hiss.
Orion drew a quiet breath and nodded, asking nothing further. Knowing that Regulus could tame Fiendfyre was enough.
Control this precise meant the real thing would be no less devastating in practice.
As for the specifics, anyone on the receiving end would find it an unpleasant surprise.
"Go on, then." Orion waved him off. "Remember to eat on time. The house-elves at the herb garden aren't the best cooks. If there's anything particular you want, tell them in advance so they can prepare."
"Understood, Father."
He left the study and returned to his room.
When the bedroom door swung open, the Fiendfyre bird lifted from his shoulder and circled the room once before settling on the bedpost. It folded its wings and closed its eyes like a real bird roosting for the night.
Regulus hung up his outer robe, then lay down on the bed.
Tomorrow, the herb garden.
He hoped the Mandrakes wouldn't disappoint.
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