The next two days passed without incident.
Freya never brought up her question again. It was as though she'd forgotten it entirely.
Regulus didn't ask. He treated the whole affair like an open script, content to wait and see how the next act unfolded.
For him, this was a novel experience.
Since birth, he'd known what lay ahead.
Voldemort would rise. War would erupt. His family would fracture, and he'd walk straight into the teeth of it.
He believed that given enough time, even if he couldn't surpass those few at the very top, he'd at least be close enough to see their backs.
Maybe then he'd have freedom. The kind that let him chase what he actually wanted.
But he didn't have that strength yet, and freedom wouldn't arrive anytime soon.
So the urgency to grow stronger never left him. Every increment of power was another sliver of insurance for the future.
While other young witches and wizards his age fretted over homework, got giddy about Quidditch, or lay awake because some boy or girl had glanced their way, something was always chasing Regulus.
It had a face. Voldemort's face. But more than that, it was a feeling.
A sense that if he didn't move faster, he'd miss something critical. That if he didn't grow stronger, something would swallow him whole.
He couldn't afford to ease up. He knew exactly what was coming.
Voldemort's gaze. The Death Eaters' probing. The weight of a family's survival. And somewhere down the line, a moment of choice he couldn't avoid.
Those things had been there since he was old enough to remember.
Now he stood in this town on Germany's North Sea coast, and the mountain was still there. It just seemed further away.
No eyes and ears of Voldemort here. No tangled alliances among Pure-blood families. No factional knives in the Slytherin common room.
Only the sea. Only the wind. Three patrols a day, and a quiet German witch who was easy company.
Regulus realized he'd loosened up.
He smiled more. Cracked the occasional joke with Freya during patrols. Offered opinions on dinner, which dish was worth having twice.
Sometimes he'd take his broom out over the open water and come back with stories. A pod of dolphins. An enormous sea turtle. A rainbow arcing off the distant surface.
Freya's expression stayed neutral when he talked, but he could tell she was listening.
Relaxation aside, the work didn't slip. He trained every day, same as always.
When he thought about it, the reason he could relax in Germany at all was that his strength allowed it.
Otherwise he'd be like Sirius right now, cooped up in a training room, grinding through fundamentals on repeat.
Without that strength, without proving himself capable, Orion would never have given him the leash. The freedom to set his own schedule, practice what he chose, pursue magic on his own terms.
The Black family needed a worthy heir. Sirius had already gone the way he'd gone. That left Regulus to carry it.
He wasn't powerful enough yet. But he was, at the very least, enough.
Still, he knew this was only an interlude. A brief pause between chapters. Time here was short.
He'd return to England eventually. Back to a place that demanded constant vigilance.
That was where the Blacks had their roots, everything their ancestors had built over a thousand years. Status, influence, wealth, knowledge, holdings.
Someone had to guard it. Someone had to inherit it. Someone had to make sure it survived into the new era, maybe even thrived.
But for now, at least, he could have this.
His Patronus seemed to sense it too, straining at the boundary, wanting out, wanting to fly.
Regulus stood at the cliff's edge and felt the impulse rise.
A flicker of intent, and silver-white light poured from his chest, gathering before him into that familiar shape.
Starlight Kite spread its wings and lifted its head, loosing a bright, ringing cry. There was joy in that sound, something close to celebration.
He smiled and raised a hand.
The Flight Spell caught, and his body left the ground, drifting forward, drifting upward.
Sea wind rushed past his collar, cool against his skin, but the sun lay warm across his shoulders.
Starlight Kite circled above him. Each wingbeat scattered silver light like falling sparks.
It blinked out of existence, reappeared thirty meters away over open water, blinked again, and landed on his shoulder.
Another pulse of intent.
A small bird of orange-red flame coalesced at his fingertips, beat its wings, and settled on his other shoulder.
Fiendfyre bird.
Two birds. One white, one blazing orange. Perched on either side.
Starlight Kite cocked its head, regarding the newcomer with open curiosity.
It extended one wing and prodded the Fiendfyre bird, cautious, tentative.
The Fiendfyre bird didn't flinch. It turned its head and looked back. Regulus was controlling it.
Starlight Kite prodded again, bolder this time, pressing more of its wing against the flame.
Where orange fire met silver light, the air crackled with a faint hiss.
Starlight Kite recoiled as if scalded, wing snapping back, its whole body lurching so hard it nearly tumbled off his shoulder.
It flared its wings and shook itself, scattering silver sparks in every direction.
Then it leaned in again. Smarter this time. Watching from a safe distance, wings tucked firmly against its sides.
The Fiendfyre bird sat still, unbothered, letting itself be studied.
Regulus watched the scene and felt his smile deepen.
Starlight Kite was a reflection of one side of him. Freedom, curiosity, the hunger to explore.
The Fiendfyre bird was an extension of pure will. His will, given shape and motion.
Both present at once. Two facets of himself, laid bare side by side.
Starlight Kite made a few more cautious attempts, then gave up on engaging its stoic companion and launched itself into the air, wheeling in wide arcs around him.
In the distance, Freya stood at the window of a small cottage, watching.
From this far away, Regulus was little more than a silhouette, but the silver-white point of light circling him was impossible to miss.
She watched the boy fly freely above the sea. Watched the silver and orange glow weave together at his shoulders. Watched the unguarded smile on his face, the kind that came from somewhere genuine.
Her own face, stern even when she was alone, softened into something quiet and gentle.
It changed her entirely. The warrior edge remained, but something else surfaced alongside it.
The expression faded as quickly as it had come.
She thought of that person's arrangement. Thought of the magic she'd asked about in her own voice, the kind that was so strange it made everything you'd learned feel juvenile.
Worry crept through her.
Before, she hadn't cared. He'd been someone she'd heard of, read about, but didn't actually know. If that person said he had a special destiny, fine. Let him have it. None of her concern. She was here to do a job.
But things were different now. Over the past ten-odd days, they'd become something. People who could discuss magic together, talk through politics, sit across a table and share a quiet meal.
Thirteen, fourteen years between them. She towered over him by a head and then some. And yet she kept forgetting his age, in conversation, in the way they spent time together.
She didn't want to see him get hurt.
Freya lingered at the window, watching the figure soar above the water a while longer.
Patronus and Fiendfyre, manifested simultaneously, interacting like living creatures.
A skilled wizard could cast a Patronus. Normal enough.
A powerful wizard could control Fiendfyre. Difficult, but still within the realm of the expected.
But sustaining both at once, letting them behave like real animals around each other, that was something else entirely.
The two forces were fundamentally opposed. One was the purest condensation of positive emotion. The other was the most destructive flame in existence.
To hold both in balance, to keep them coexisting without conflict, meant the boy's understanding of magic had moved beyond mere usage.
He wasn't just wielding magic. He was living alongside it.
Freya decided to trust him a little more.
That evening, after patrol, they found themselves at the same small pub.
Their usual window seat. Two glasses of Pumpkin Juice. A plate of grilled sausages. A bowl of potato salad.
Freya set down her fork and looked up. "Something's happened with the family."
Regulus set his down too and met her gaze.
"An important member was injured," she said, her tone unchanged. "The head of the house issued orders... Retaliation."
She drew her wand and swept it lightly over the table.
Silver light spilled from the tip, weaving itself into a three-dimensional map hovering above the surface.
The coastline took shape. Town's position. The sea stretching northward. The outlines of several small islands and one point marked in deep red.
She pointed to it. "This is a major stronghold of the Abyssal Whispers. Roughly a hundred and twenty nautical miles from this town."
Regulus studied the map, running the numbers in his head.
"We're going?" he asked.
"We are." Freya nodded. "Tomorrow."
She watched him, waiting.
Regulus just nodded. "Alright."
A trace of anticipation crossed his face. Naval combat. He wanted to see what that was like.
Freya wasn't surprised by how readily he agreed.
When they'd first met, she'd had real doubts about the boy's strength.
That person had spoken of a special destiny, of what he'd become in the future. But all of that was the future.
Right now he was twelve years old. How much could he really do?