Arnold Belmont's name hung in the silence of the common room like smoke that refused to dissipate.
Everyone held their breath. The younger students shrank back until their spines pressed against cold stone, eyes wide, staring at the empty stretch of floor in front of the fireplace.
The upper-years stayed seated, gazes flicking between Regulus and Arnold, waiting for what came next.
The sharper ones were already running calculations.
They understood Arnold's play. Pressure through consensus, coercion through collective will, forcing Regulus into a public declaration. It was an old trick in Pure-blood circles. Someone always fell for it.
What they hadn't expected was this counterattack.
Regulus had taken a disagreement over ideology, a simple matter of whether to endorse the purge, and twisted it into a question of the Belmont family disrespecting the House of Black.
That single pivot changed everything.
Pure-blood society had a hierarchy.
The Blacks stood at the apex. The Belmonts occupied somewhere around the lower middle.
On the surface, everyone maintained civility, honorifics and social graces. But everyone knew where the invisible line was drawn.
You could compete with the Blacks. You could do business with them. You could even disagree with them politically.
But you could not publicly posture yourself above them. You could not address a Black in a tone that bordered on command.
That was a line you did not cross.
Regulus had drawn it in the open, in the most direct way possible.
You, a Belmont, presume to speak to me like that?
The younger students who'd been swept up in Arnold's rhetoric, especially those from Sacred Twenty-Eight families, felt their expressions change.
During the speech, they'd agreed. Pure-bloods should act like Pure-bloods. The impurities needed cleansing.
But now that Regulus had cracked it open, they realized what they'd just witnessed. Had Arnold been giving orders to the Black heir?
The thought curdled in their stomachs.
They could support the ideology. They could not accept a Belmont adopting that posture toward a Black.
Because it dragged their own standing down by association. If a Belmont could treat a Black that way, what stopped them from doing the same to my family next?
Several seventh-years exchanged glances. One shook his head. Another's lip curled into a smirk. Arnold had overplayed his hand spectacularly.
Thorfinn Rowle stood in the shadows, hands buried in his sleeves.
His gaze moved between Regulus and Arnold. The flicker of anticipation that had been there moments ago was gone, replaced by the look of a man watching a promising show collapse in the first act.
The expression lasted only an instant before he smothered it, but Regulus caught it.
There you are. Think I'm going to let you slip away?
He shelved Rowle for now and brought his attention back to Arnold Belmont.
Arnold stood rooted to the spot, looking like he'd taken a fist to the face.
His complexion cycled through white to red to a sickly grey-green. His lips trembled. He tried to speak, but his throat seemed stoppered shut.
His eyes darted across the room, scanning the faces around him. The people who'd been clapping moments ago now wore expressions of detached distance. A few had physically stepped back, putting space between themselves and him.
The killing force of Regulus's words had finally registered.
Once he accepted the charge of disrespecting the Black family, this stopped being a squabble between two students.
It became a conflict between the Belmont family and the Black family.
And the moment it rose to that level...
Cold sweat broke across Arnold's back.
It didn't matter how large the Belmont operation was, how wide their network stretched. Next to the House of Black, they were dwarfed.
The depth of an ancient Pure-blood family wasn't measured in Galleons alone. It was centuries of accumulated political capital, magical heritage, marriage alliances, and industrial control.
The Blacks held a seat on the Wizengamot. They had influence inside the Ministry of Magic. They maintained channels that extended beyond the borders of British wizarding society entirely.
The Belmonts? They survived on cunning, on doing dirty work, on flexibility.
If it came to open conflict, the Blacks could strangle them through legitimate channels alone. Frozen assets. Severed supply lines. Targeted votes in the Wizengamot. Or they could lean on their influence and have the Ministry investigate the Belmonts' smuggling operations.
That class barrier was invisible most days, but it was real, and it was absolute.
And if the Blacks chose more direct methods... the Belmont family would cease to exist overnight.
Arnold opened his mouth. His voice shook. "Regulus, I..."
"I don't want to hear my name in your mouth."
Regulus flicked his left hand. He didn't even draw his wand. A silent Langlock jinx shot out from his palm.
Red light flashed. Arnold's throat seized as though an invisible hand had clamped around it. His mouth moved, but nothing came out except a thin, reedy hiss of air scraping past his vocal cords.
Only then did he seem to remember he was a wizard. His hands scrambled for his wand, the panic making him clumsy, fingers catching on the fabric of his robe pocket and warping its shape.
The wand finally came free. He gripped it, the tip shaking, but he didn't know where to point it.
At Regulus?
He couldn't.
If this were a simple duel between housemates, he could fire back. But Regulus had elevated the stakes to a matter of family honor. Raising his wand now would confirm the accusation, proving he truly held the House of Black in contempt.
Arnold's wand hand froze in midair.
Trapped.
Regulus didn't give him time to think his way out.
He drew his own wand, slowly, deliberately, as though performing the opening step of a ritual.
The tip rose and leveled at Arnold's chest.
"Expelliarmus."
Red light struck Arnold dead center. His wand ripped free from his fingers, spinning through the air before clattering to a stop at Regulus's feet.
Regulus nudged it with the toe of his shoe. It slid across the floor and tumbled into the ash pile at the base of the fireplace.
The force of the spell threw Arnold backward. He crashed through a low stool, and his knees hit the stone first with a dull, heavy crack.
He knelt there, palms braced against the ground, trying to push himself up. But Regulus was already standing over him.
The crowd pulled back in a widening ring. No one intervened.
Stepping in now would be unwise.
Regulus had framed this as a family dispute. Anyone who intervened was choosing a side.
Siding with Arnold meant declaring, I also believe a Belmont can treat a Black this way, and risking your own family being dragged into the fallout.
Siding with Regulus was pointless. The outcome was already clear. He held every advantage. Jumping in would only look desperate and servile.
Others were simply watching Regulus.
This first-year Chief had demonstrated magical power before, crushing a fifth-year without breaking a sweat. But that had been raw strength.
Now he was showing something else entirely. Command of the situation. Mastery of the rules. And a ruthless, ice-cold decisiveness.
They wanted to see how far he'd take it.
Arnold lifted his head. Fear swam in his eyes, but deeper down, something vicious lurked.
His throat still locked by the Langlock, he couldn't speak. He could only glare up at Regulus, as though trying to sear that face into permanent memory.
Regulus looked down at him, his expression blank. But the indifference was colder than rage, and far more unsettling.
His wand rose again.
Blue light struck Arnold's shoulder. His body went slack, the arms bracing him against the floor losing all their strength. His torso pitched forward, but his knees remained planted.
Regulus pressed his wand downward. Arnold's back straightened as though an invisible hand were forcing his spine rigid, but his head drooped low.
"Locomotor Mortis."
Another spell. Arnold's arms snapped together behind him, yanked back by unseen bonds, wrists crossing at the small of his back in a position of restraint.
An invisible force tilted his head upward. His chin rose, his neck stretched taut, exposing the vulnerable line of his throat.
The complete posture resembled some ancient rite of penitence. Kneeling. Arms bound behind the back. Head thrown back to bare the most defenseless part of the body.
The only sound in the common room was the snap and pop of burning wood.
Everyone watched. Among the younger students, someone clapped a hand over their mouth, not daring to make a sound.
In the upper-years, several girls looked away, then turned back almost immediately, drawn by something in the scene's brutal elegance.
Narcissa's lips had parted, but she said nothing.
Lucretius raised his cup and took a sip. The sound of him swallowing was startlingly loud in the silence.
Thorfinn stepped half out of the shadows, studying the arrangement of Arnold's body with a connoisseur's eye. There was a thread of appreciation in his gaze, but far more regret.
Regulus put his wand away.
He didn't need to do anything more. The posture said everything.
Humiliation, Domination, and the implicit message: I could end you whenever I choose.
He scanned the room.
Some met his gaze with polite nods, acknowledging his handling of the situation.
Others stared with something feverish in their eyes, the look of people conquered by a display of absolute authority.
Others dropped their heads, too afraid to hold his stare.
"Arnold Belmont." Regulus's voice carried no inflection. "You'll kneel here until morning. No one lifts the spells. No one notifies a professor. If anyone breaks either rule..."
His gaze swept across the handful who had clapped loudest for Arnold.
"I'll know."
They flinched. Their heads dropped.
Regulus turned to Narcissa and gave her a nod. She returned the smallest inclination of her head.
He walked toward the common room exit.
Cuthbert, Alex, and Hermes moved to follow, but a look from Regulus stopped them. A slight shake of his head. The three halted and stayed where they were.
Regulus pushed open the stone door and stepped into the corridor.
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