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"I'll owl you the finalized business plan tonight."
Regulus waved casually to Severus, standing in the bustling, soot-stained hearth room of the Leaky Cauldron. He watched as his friend stepped into the fireplace, tossed down a handful of Floo powder, and vanished in a roaring pillar of emerald green flames.
Regulus stood there for a moment, letting out a long, heavy exhale that ruffled his bangs. He had just successfully pitched a massive, multi-tiered corporate conspiracy to a twelve-year-old potion prodigy for the very first time. Playing the charismatic 'sales leader' was exhausting work.
With his newly established business partner safely dispatched, Regulus stepped back out into the sunlit cobblestones of Diagon Alley and made a beeline for Flourish and Blotts.
The air inside the bookstore was thick with the comforting, heavy scent of old parchment, leather bindings, and faint traces of dried ink. Regulus navigated the towering shelves, quickly plucking a heavy copy of Professor Viridian's Curses and Counter-Curses and tossing it into his brass shopping basket.
Sirius should absolutely love this one, Regulus thought.
Moving to the advanced Transfiguration aisle, his eyes scanned the spines until he found a highly technical, dry-looking textbook that casually detailed the theoretical mechanics of the Animagus transformation. He added it to his basket. He knew Sirius, James, and Peter hadn't yet conceptualized the brilliant idea of using the Animagus transformation to help Remus through the full moons. Regulus had absolutely no intention of stealing that canonical glory from the Marauders—he would simply leave this specific book lying around Sirius's bedroom and let the fiercely loyal Gryffindor gang naturally figure it out themselves.
"Excuse me, sir. I require a copy of The Invisible Book of Invisibility," Regulus said politely, approaching the frazzled store manager who was currently balancing precariously on a rolling wooden ladder.
Like any self-respecting wizard planning to aggressively operate in the shadows on dark and stormy nights, Regulus desperately needed to study the advanced theory of magical concealment. The Disillusionment Charm was merely the absolute baseline; he needed to master various complex methods of evading magical detection wards, tracing spells, and thermal charms. He had seen this specific, highly elusive book highly recommended in an old issue of Transfiguration Today.
"Oh, dear Merlin..." The manager's shoulders slumped, his face contorting into an expression of sheer, exhausted helplessness. "Someone actually wants to buy that wretched book... Listen here, young man. We stocked exactly two hundred copies of that title last month, and it was the absolute worst financial decision of my life."
The manager gestured wildly at an entirely empty section of shelving. "Those books were obscenely expensive to import, and we've never sold a single one! We can't find them! I've tried absolutely everything—Revelio, Accio, sweeping the floors with a net... nothing works. Tell you what, lad: if you can actually manage to find one in this shop, you can take it entirely for free."
The manager aggressively shook his head, looking as though he were physically trying to shake off deeply unpleasant, traumatic retail memories. "I swear on my wand, I will never, ever stock those cursed books again," he muttered bitterly to himself. "Never again..."
Regulus stood at the base of the ladder, looking down the sprawling aisles of bookshelves that reached all the way up to the vaulted ceiling. He couldn't help but aggressively rub his temples.
Well, it seems the author's anti-theft charms are functioning perfectly. The book is indeed highly, effectively invisible...
Since he was already here and the manager had essentially issued a free-loot challenge, Regulus decided to game the system. He walked slowly down the empty aisle. Taking a deep breath, he consciously activated his maxed-out 'Stealth' skill. His physical presence muted. Simultaneously, he intensely focused his mind, silently and repeatedly chanting the exact title of the book, hoping his newly acquired Assassin senses could detect the magical anomaly.
Perhaps his earnest, hyper-focused gamer intent managed to pierce the localized magic, or perhaps it was a direct, bizarre side-effect of his active 'Stealth' state interacting with the book's concealment charm. Suddenly, Regulus noticed a sharp, rippling distortion in the ambient light on the bottom shelf directly in front of him—it looked exactly like the shimmering air above a hot London street.
A heavy, leather-bound book violently squeezed its way out from the invisible gap between two massive encyclopedias, fully materializing before his eyes.
There it was. The Invisible Book of Invisibility.
Regulus knelt and picked it up. As he cracked open the heavy cover, a single line of elegant, silver cursive script on the flyleaf caught his eye:
"Congratulations on finding this tome. The very first foundational element in successfully seeing through invisibility... is to embody invisibility itself."
When Regulus suddenly materialized out of thin air at the checkout counter holding the book, the manager was so violently startled he nearly tipped his ladder backward into the Herbology section.
As it turned out, the book was an absolute, flawless masterclass in the art of concealment.
It detailed everything: aggressively rendering oneself invisible, masking the physical presence of other objects, actively hiding the residual magical traces left behind by invisibility spells, and critically, how to systematically hunt and find the traces of other invisible entities.
It was exactly like simultaneously training to wield an unstoppable spear and an impenetrable shield, and occasionally smashing them together to test their contradicting limits. Or, in Regulus's modern terms: it was exactly like training a top-tier programmer to execute devastating cyberattacks, while simultaneously forcing him to build the ultimate, impenetrable cybersecurity firewall.
The only downside? Every single time Regulus finished reading a new chapter, the cursed book would inexplicably vanish from his bedroom desk, forcing him to aggressively rack his brains and utilize every single tracing method he had just learned to hunt it down again.
Eventually, Sirius caught on to the bizarre phenomenon, and a highly competitive new game naturally evolved between the brothers: they would ruthlessly play magical "hide-and-seek" with the book, trying to steal it from each other's rooms without being caught.
One rainy Tuesday, both brothers were standing in Regulus's room, completely baffled, staring at his desk. The book had suddenly, miraculously appeared right in the center of the blotter.
"Kreacher saw the tricky book hiding under the young master's bed, so Kreacher brought it up," the ancient house-elf croaked, bowing low.
Regulus and Sirius exchanged a look of profound shock. A house-elf's brand of magic was truly terrifying! They seemed to possess a highly peculiar, almost symbiotic contractual relationship with the physical architecture of the house itself, knowing the exact location of almost every single item within its walls like the back of their own wrinkled hands.
"Alright, warm-up time for today's dueling session," Regulus announced, smoothly drawing his hawthorn wand. He stepped back, adopting a flawless duelist's stance. "You have to admit, Sirius, Kreacher is incredibly cool. Look at his raw magic! Half the adult wizards in the Ministry couldn't bypass that book's concealment charms." He flicked his wrist sharply. "Expelliarmus!"
"He's literally just a House-elf," Sirius retorted noncommittally. He effortlessly sidestepped the scarlet jet of light, lazily waving his carved oak wand. "Protego!"
"I honestly cannot believe you," Regulus said mercilessly, pivoting on his heel to flank his brother. "You sound exactly as incredibly heartless and bigoted as Mum. You're like a cold, prejudiced stone. Petrificus Totalus!"
"He doesn't even possess his own independent thoughts! He just blindly, fanatically obeys orders—" Sirius shouted, violently deflecting the Body-Bind curse into the ceiling. "Stupefy!"
"Who on earth says he doesn't have his own thoughts? He treats me infinitely better than he treats you!" Regulus ducked nimbly beneath the stunning spell, rolling gracefully to his feet. He even had the sheer audacity to spread his empty left hand in a taunting gesture. "Accio Wand!"
Sirius clamped his hand down hard on his vibrating wand, his grey eyes flashing competitively. "His ultimate, literal life dream is to have his own bloody head chopped off and mounted on a plaque in the hallway! Depulso!"
"That is simply his deeply misunderstood, traditional way of showing absolute devotion!" Regulus parried the Banishing Charm with a sharp upward flick. "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The levitation charm caught Sirius completely off guard. It hit his ankle, violently yanking his leg upward and dumping the elder Black unceremoniously onto his back on the carpet.
Sirius, officially defeated.
Laying panting on the carpet, staring up at the ceiling, Sirius was struck by a deeply puzzling thought.
At Hogwarts, and when interacting with virtually anyone else in the world, Regulus was the absolute picture of a humble, impeccably polite, intensely quiet aristocratic heir. So why did his younger brother suddenly possess an endless, highly lethal arsenal of sharp, cutting remarks every single time it was just the two of them in a room?!
Furthermore, how was it completely, physically impossible for Sirius to win a single verbal argument against his own twelve-year-old brother?
(Do not ask. If you ask, Regulus will simply emotionally devastate you by casually quoting a modern Muggle philosopher.)
Lately, Regulus had been dropping terrifyingly profound logic bombs on him during their duels. Phrases like, "Books are the ladder of human progress," or "Everything we hear is an opinion, not an absolute fact," and "Simply do your own thing and stop obsessing over the toxic opinions of others." They all sounded incredibly logical, completely bulletproof, and deeply profound.
It seems, Sirius thought grimly, I am absolutely going to have to sneak into London and start reading these bloody Muggle books just to keep up with him.
But despite the bruised ego, Sirius had to admit: he was experiencing an incredibly, unbelievably happy summer.
Ever since he had secretly eavesdropped on the explosive, rebellious dialogue between Regulus and Snape in front of the family tapestry, Sirius was absolutely, one-hundred-percent certain that Regulus was fundamentally different from their bigoted parents. His little brother was someone who secretly, genuinely shared his own progressive ideals.
And the political benefits of their alliance were staggering. With Regulus—the undisputed new golden child and favorite son of Walburga and Orion—actively covering for him, and with Regulus—Kreacher's absolute favorite human—constantly speaking well of him to the elf... Sirius suddenly found that his overall quality of life at Grimmauld Place had more than doubled in comfort. He hadn't triggered a single screaming match or grounding punishment all summer. (Though he highly suspected the massive, transfigured diamond necklace they had gifted Walburga was heavily subsidizing this era of domestic peace).
Well. If he was being entirely honest with himself, his absolute favorite person in this miserable house was also Regulus.
At a certain, quiet moment during the sweltering month of July, Sirius's stubbornly rebellious mind finally learned to change its rigid direction. He finally, grudgingly admitted that Kreacher did possess a few microscopic redeeming qualities and wasn't entirely an inflexible monster (mostly because Kreacher now actively helped Regulus by conveniently turning a blind eye to Sirius's rule-breaking).
He also realized that Slytherin House wasn't entirely an irredeemable cesspool of dark wizards. After all, his brilliant, fiercely loyal brother was a snake. Sirius's own deeply entrenched, black-and-white prejudice against Slytherin was officially no longer mathematically valid.
Up on the windy, slate roof of Number 12.
"You really, truly are a Slytherin to your core," Sirius commented, his tone laced with a highly unusual touch of genuine respect. He had just spent twenty minutes listening through the floorboards as Regulus expertly, flawlessly manipulated their mother into actually agreeing to let his 'highly inappropriate' Gryffindor classmates visit the house before term started.
"And exactly what is wrong with being a Slytherin?" Regulus replied shamelessly, lounging back against the brick chimney. "Sure, I wear green robes. But think about it practically, Sirius. My name is literally Regulus—the brightest star in the Leo constellation. That is peak Gryffindor lion energy! Even according to Muggle astrology charts, my birth date places my sun sign squarely in Leo."
Regulus smirked, gesturing grandly to himself. "My Gryffindor lion stats are absolutely maxed out! Honestly, wouldn't it have been completely unsurprising if the Sorting Hat had just tossed me into Gryffindor with you?"
???
As soon as those absurd words left Regulus's mouth, Sirius's face completely blue-screened. He stared at his brother, his expression full of visible, flashing question marks.
"Hell, maybe I'm secretly a direct descendant of Rowena Ravenclaw herself? The physical evidence is literally perched right over there," Regulus continued slyly, using a delicate stream of wandless magic to gently comb through the massive golden eagles' feathers. "Furthermore, I personally consider myself to be highly loyal, deeply honest, kind, and incredibly friendly. Hufflepuff absolutely shouldn't refuse me either—"
Regulus spread his hands innocently. "Just tell me, brother. Where exactly in the castle would the Sorting Hat putting me be considered unreasonable? I belong everywhere."
I have never, in my entire life, seen a human being this aggressively, unapologetically shameless, Sirius thought, utterly dumbfounded. A second later, he completely broke character, burying his face in his hands as he couldn't hold back a massive, barking laugh.
The two brothers looked at the bright, burgeoning amusement shining in each other's eyes, and as the London wind whipped around them, they burst out laughing together.