October twenty-first. Early morning. Hogsmeade.
Regulus followed the cobblestone path to the edge of the castle grounds, stopping on a low hill.
Silence surrounded him, broken only by the occasional gust of wind and his own footsteps.
He stood there for a moment, watching the castle.
He turned. Time to go.
His father's letter had included the address. Provence, France. The Luberon Mountains. Wisteria Manor.
The map had been crude, but those few lines had already resolved into a precise location in his mind.
Apparition could get him there, but not in one jump.
Hogwarts to Provence was roughly a thousand kilometers in a straight line. For an average wizard, Apparition maxed out at a few hundred. Beyond that, targeting grew unreliable, the space between grew unstable, and one wrong calculation could leave you stranded or splinched.
The proper way to travel internationally meant filing with both countries' Ministries of Magic, applying for a Portkey, wading through a swamp of paperwork.
He had neither the time nor the patience for that.
More importantly, the moment he filed an exit request, France would be fine, but the British Ministry was riddled with Voldemort's people. A sieve, really.
And he was someone Voldemort was watching closely.
The instant that application landed on a desk, someone would report it. A little digging, and they'd know exactly why he was going to France.
That wouldn't just bring trouble to himself. The real problem was Andromeda.
She'd fought her way free of that world. Stopped being watched. Built a quiet life.
If his actions put a target on her back again, if she got hurt because of him, that was something Regulus refused to see happen. Something he couldn't accept.
So the official route was out. But the Starlight Kite was perfect. All it needed was a clear destination in his mind, and it could carry him there.
Regulus drew a deep breath, about to summon his Patronus, when movement flickered at the corner of his vision. A shape in the fog.
He turned.
Someone stood there. Moon-white robes. Silver beard. Half-moon spectacles.
Dumbledore. Hands clasped behind his back, smiling placidly in his direction.
The fog seemed to have parted for him deliberately, carving out a pocket of clarity that made his whole figure unnaturally sharp against the haze.
Spotting Regulus looking his way, he raised a hand and waved.
Regulus stood where he was, mildly exasperated.
He'd known he was being watched, of course. He'd gone through the proper channels, his Head of House had approved the leave, and the Headmaster knew.
Given everything he'd displayed over the past year, it would have been stranger if Dumbledore weren't paying attention.
But he hadn't expected the man to be here. Waiting for him, no less.
It wasn't irritating, though. Not really.
He liked spending time with Dumbledore. The old man had a way of offering perspective, of pointing out directions from a height Regulus couldn't yet reach on his own. That night outside the Shrieking Shack during the last full moon, their conversation had stayed with him. Not long after returning, he'd ignited his soul.
That kind of gain couldn't be measured in spells learned.
Still. Mildly exasperating. He couldn't pinpoint why. Just that familiar feeling of, right, of course. This again.
Regulus Apparated. His figure vanished and reappeared at Dumbledore's side.
The instant he materialized, the fog around him blasted outward in a rolling wave, then slowly crept back in.
He looked up. "Professor."
Dumbledore beamed at him. "Good morning, Regulus. Lovely weather today."
Regulus glanced at the wall of fog surrounding them. "...Lovely."
Dumbledore followed his gaze, eyes crinkling until they nearly disappeared. "Off to France?"
Regulus nodded. "The Luberon. Visiting a relative."
"Ah." Dumbledore's expression was perfectly casual. "What a coincidence. I'm heading to France myself, to see an old friend. Same direction, really."
He continued, "If you don't mind, we could travel together."
Regulus nearly laughed.
Same direction?
For a wizard who could cross space at will, especially one at Dumbledore's level, everywhere was the same direction. If Regulus were headed to the South Pole and Dumbledore to the North, the old man would still call it "on the way." Just a quick lap around the globe.
So technically, yes. Same direction. But standing here waiting had nothing to do with convenience.
A thought turned over in his mind.
Old friend. France.
If "old" meant old enough...
The legendary alchemist who'd lived for six centuries. Nicolas Flamel. Based in France. Dumbledore's friend. Almost certainly him.
Regulus kept his expression neutral. "Professor, this old friend of yours wouldn't happen to be..."
Dumbledore blinked. "Perhaps the one you're thinking of. Perhaps not."
The corner of Regulus's mouth twitched.
Riddle-speaker.
"So?" Dumbledore asked again. "Together?"
What was he supposed to say?
Dumbledore had laid it out like that. Refusing would be absurd. And truthfully, he was curious. He wanted to know what the old man had planned.
Another thought surfaced as he considered it.
A few days ago, when he'd filed for leave, Professor Slughorn's words came back to him. "Last night was quite the commotion." "Minerva and the others all knew."
The faculty knew about his Fiendfyre in the Forbidden Forest.
But Regulus was confident Dumbledore wouldn't see that as a problem.
Fiendfyre was dark magic, yes. The most dangerous kind, by common agreement. Cursed flame with a will of its own, capable of devouring everything in its path, and if control slipped, even the caster couldn't escape.
But that depended on who was looking. To Dumbledore, Fiendfyre was... manageable. He'd suppressed Voldemort's Fiendfyre before, and he'd witnessed flames far more powerful. Compared to those, Fiendfyre barely registered.
So Regulus wasn't worried.
Then again, he was a second-year wielding Fiendfyre at this level. That alone said things worth noting.
Since Dumbledore had already seen that much, perhaps it was worth showing him something else. Pulling any skewed impressions back into alignment.
The idea formed. "Professor, why don't I take us there?"
Dumbledore blinked.
Then his expression cycled through something wonderful. Surprise first, then keen interest, and finally a look of mild apprehension.
"Regulus," he said, choosing his words carefully, though his eyes had gone bright and his beard was practically quivering, "that method of yours seems rather... inhospitable to the elderly."
Regulus blinked too, then caught up. Dumbledore meant the Fiendfyre flight rig.
He suppressed a smile. Nice try, old man. Don't think I can't tell you actually want to ride it.
But that wasn't what he'd meant. What he wanted to show was the Starlight Kite. The advanced application of his Patronus.
A mode of spatial travel that was bright, pure, the kind of magic that no amount of Fiendfyre or dark magic could taint.
He was about to explain when Dumbledore, already animated, spoke first.
"That said, your concept is fascinating. Shaping a frame with Protego, driving it with Fiendfyre, combining magic with Muggle principles of flight. But I've been thinking about another approach. From a Transfiguration perspective."
The words died on Regulus's tongue.
Transfiguration?
Dumbledore went on. "The human body wasn't built for flight. Bones too brittle, muscles too weak, blood flowing too fast at speed and you black out. But we can borrow."
He raised a hand, sketching shapes in the fog.
"Borrow from dragons. Dragon-bone resilience. A dragon can fly at tremendous speed, endure enormous wind pressure, and the skeleton is the key. If you could use Transfiguration to weave that quality into your own bones, no wind would break you apart."
Something sparked in Regulus's eyes.
"Then there are Thestrals," Dumbledore said. "You've ridden one. You know the sensation. A Thestral's body carries an innate perception of space. If you could borrow that quality..."
He looked at Regulus. "That flying contraption of yours wouldn't need you to navigate at all. Your body would know where to go."
Regulus's mind was already racing.
Everything he'd considered before had been on the physics side.
Dumbledore had skipped past all of it. Gone straight to biology.
Not fighting physics. Making the body fit physics.
"What about a phoenix?" he asked.
Dumbledore's eyes glinted with amusement. "What are you thinking?"
"Regeneration," Regulus said. "The impact of high-speed flight. Even if the skeleton holds, organs take damage. With a phoenix's healing ability, repairing itself the instant injury occurs, you could fly indefinitely."
Warmth filled Dumbledore's gaze. "And the Griffin. A Griffin's vision. That night you flew, you couldn't see clearly, could you?"
Regulus thought back to the previous night.
True enough. At peak speed, the world had dissolved into smeared light and shadow. He'd navigated almost entirely by sensing magic.
"Borrow a Griffin's eyesight," Dumbledore said, "and you could see. No matter how fast, you could see."
Regulus turned the idea over in silence.
"Thunderbird?" he asked.
Dumbledore smiled. "Your approach is brute force. But a Thunderbird's feathers can pull the wind along with them. Borrow that, and you wouldn't have to fight the air so hard."
Regulus listened, images of each creature flickering through his mind.
Each one a different quality. If those qualities could be borrowed, woven into the body through Transfiguration...
"These traits," he pressed. "Can they coexist?"
Dumbledore's tone stayed easy. "In theory, yes. Complex Transfiguration. Human-body Transfiguration. Combining traits from different creatures into a single frame. The difficulty lies in preventing conflict. A dragon's ferocity. A Thestral's solitude. A phoenix's detachment. A Griffin's pride. A Thunderbird's wildness. Those qualities carry instinct. When you borrow them, the instincts come too."
Regulus considered. "Suppress them with will?"
Dumbledore shook his head. "Not suppress but integrate. Make them part of you. The same way you tamed your Fiendfyre. You didn't force it into submission. You made it willing to listen."
Regulus fell quiet, thinking.
The two of them stood there in the fog, trading ideas back and forth, sentence by sentence.