Chapter 4: Lord Voldemort Is Approaching
In the spring of 1965, the garden at Number 12, Grimmauld Place was beginning to wake. The beech trees had just started to push out tender green buds, fragile and bright against old stone.
"Regulus!"
Sirius burst out of the house, a toy sword in his hand. He was five now, fast and loud and certain the world existed for him to conquer.
"Look! I can make the sword glow!"
He focused. A faint silver light flared at the tip, held for two seconds, then died.
His control had improved.
It was still unstable.
"Not bad," Regulus said, closing his book and offering a serious but utterly perfunctory approval.
Sirius stabbed the toy sword into the dirt with dramatic satisfaction.
"Let's go explore the basement! Kreacher says there are biting boxes down there!"
"I'm reading," Regulus replied, and shook his head.
"What's so interesting about a book?" Sirius leaned in, peering at the illustrated guide. "It's all fake. Real dragons are way bigger than this. Cousin Bella says that Great Personage has a dragon as a pet!"
Regulus looked up.
"Which Great Personage?"
"That one." Sirius lowered his voice as if the garden itself might gossip. "Bella says he's gathering followers to restore the glory of pure bloods. And Dad says he's a dangerous element."
Regulus's heart missed a beat.
Lord Voldemort. Tom Riddle.
So it had begun.
He ran the timeline through his head. In the original story, Voldemort's first rise exploded into the open in the early 1970s, but recruitment and groundwork would have started long before anyone dared say his name loudly.
1965 meant the machine was already being built.
Quietly.
Using pure blood revival as a banner, and ancient families as fuel.
"What else did Bella say?" Regulus asked.
"She said that Great Personage has powerful magic that makes people see miracles." Sirius dropped onto the stone bench, swinging his legs.
Regulus stayed silent for a moment.
Sirius poked his shoulder, impatient.
"Regulus, what are you thinking about?"
"I'm thinking…" Regulus glanced at the book in his hands. "Knowledge is power. So that Great Personage must have read many books."
"No way!" Sirius protested, instantly animated. "He's just naturally powerful!"
Naive, Regulus thought.
All power had a source.
Voldemort's talent, his knowledge of the Dark Arts, his research into Horcruxes, it was not born from air. It was taken from books, from experiments, from theft, from ruthless trial and error.
A cold urgency pressed in on him.
Time was running out.
Once Voldemort rose fully, the pure blood families would be dragged into his orbit whether they wanted it or not. And the House of Black, one of the Sacred Twenty Eight, would not be permitted the comfort of neutrality.
In the original story, most of the Blacks joined the Death Eaters. Only Sirius and Andromeda broke away.
And Regulus himself would always fall under Voldemort's gaze, especially if he continued to display talent that did not behave like a normal child's.
He could not afford to stop displaying it.
Which meant he had to prepare.
Now.
That afternoon, Regulus carried three finished children's picture books to Orion's study and knocked.
"Come in."
Orion sat behind a massive mahogany desk, reviewing Wizengamot documents. He looked up, surprised to see his youngest son.
"Regulus? What is it?"
Regulus placed the picture books on the corner of the desk, neat and final.
"Father, I've finished these. I want to read real books."
Orion set down his quill.
"Real books?"
"Books with words. With knowledge. With magic."
Walburga entered at that moment, carrying tea. She paused when she heard him.
"He is only four," she said sharply. "Orion, do not spoil him. He should study the Pure blood Family Etiquette Manual first. He must learn how to uphold the family's honour."
"Honour requires strength to support it," Regulus replied, calm, and utterly convinced. "If I am not strong enough, how can I uphold the Black family's status?"
Walburga stared.
Coming from a four year old, the words landed wrong. Not incorrect. Not insolent.
Just unsettling.
Orion nodded.
"Starting tomorrow, you may spend one hour a day in the library. Kreacher will accompany you."
"Yes, Father."
Regulus left at once.
He showed no excitement, no childish triumph. This was not a gift. It was a necessary step, and necessity did not deserve celebration.
Walburga opened her mouth, but Orion lifted a hand, stopping her.
"Walburga," he said quietly, "our son needs a special education. Times are changing. That Great Personage is gathering strength, and the Black family needs more than an heir who understands etiquette."
"You know about that Lord too…" Walburga's expression shifted, excitement creeping in as she thought of rising influence and promised glory.
"The entire British wizarding world knows," Orion said, voice heavy. "He recruits supporters, tempts followers with power, and coerces enemies with fear. The Lestrange family has already sided with him. The Malfoy family is watching. And the Black family will have to choose, sooner or later."
The next day, at ten o'clock sharp, Kreacher led Regulus to the double wooden doors at the far end of the third floor.
They were black oak, inlaid with silver patterns of constellations. There were no handles. Only two symmetrical keyholes shaped like open raven beaks.
"It requires two keys turned at the same time, Young Master," Kreacher whispered.
He drew two antique keys from his apron pocket. One was silver white, a sun carved into the handle. The other was jet black, a moon carved into the handle.
The keys slid into place.
They turned together.
Click.
The doors opened inward without a sound.
Regulus's first sensation as he stepped into the library was oppression.
Not fear.
Density.
The magic in the air was astonishingly thick, pressing against skin and lungs like humid heat. Fine silver dust drifted through the space, visible in the light.
Shelves rose from floor to a ceiling ten metres above. A moving ladder ran on a rail to reach the upper rows.
Magic would not retrieve books here.
The edges of every bookshelf were carved with magical creatures. Goblins and fairies along the bottom. Centaurs and merpeople in the middle. Gryphons and dragons near the top, where dust never dared settle.
In the centre of the room stood a giant orrery, an intricate brass mechanism modelling the motion of the solar system, with a few additional celestial bodies that only wizards acknowledged as real.
"The open section is on the left, Young Master," Kreacher murmured, as if the room might be sleeping. "The right side is the family heritage section. That requires the Master's permission. Straight ahead is the restricted section. Do not go near it."
Regulus walked to the open section first.
He pulled out a pure blood family genealogy and scanned it quickly.
Malfoy. Lestrange. Nott. Carrow.
Names that would become the spine of the Death Eaters.
Once those families committed as a group, half the power and resources in Britain would tilt into Voldemort's hands. And the truth was simple.
They were going to commit.
Regulus needed power before that happened.
An hour passed.
Then Regulus drifted toward the family heritage section.
The shelves there were deep red mahogany. Every book was wrapped in its own protective barrier, each warded like a private vault.
Kreacher hovered close, growing nervous.
"Young Master, this needs permission…"
"I'm only looking at the titles," Regulus replied.
Then his gaze lifted, straight ahead, to the restricted section.
There were no shelves visible from the entrance. Only a black iron wall set into a stone archway. In its centre was a barred gate, the iron rods as thick as a baby's arm.
Through the gaps, he could see darkness.
A lock hung on the gate: a bronze skull, jawbone slightly movable. The keyhole sat in the skull's left eye socket.
Regulus narrowed his eyes and looked into the gloom.
Bookshelves stood faintly inside, and the gilded titles on spines shimmered like bait in the dark.
The Darkest Arts: Origins and Advancement of the Unforgivable Curses
Blood Curse Studies: Bloodline Magic and Eternal Binding
Necromantic Communication: Forbidden Rituals for Conversing with the Other Side
Each title struck his mind like a heavy hammer.
Voldemort would have read these.
More than these.
Horcruxes. Dark rituals. Experiments on the soul.
How far had he already gone?
Regulus's fingers curled slightly, then relaxed.
I must understand at least the methods he is using.
But he could not enter.
Not now.
The timing was wrong, and his clearance was nonexistent.
He turned away before his eyes lingered too long and gave something away.
"Time's up," Regulus said to Kreacher. "Let's go."
As they left, he looked back once more at the barred gate, at the skull lock, at the darkness that waited on the other side.
…
Back in his room, Regulus went to the window and stared out at the street.
London was already full of Muggle cars, headlights weaving red and yellow patterns through the night. Light pollution drowned the sky, smothering the stars until only the dimmest suggestion remained.
But Regulus knew the stars were still there.
Voldemort's coming war. The power games of the wizarding world. The glory and madness of pure blood families.
On a cosmic scale, it was all dust.
And yet Regulus was trapped inside that dust, forced to move carefully within it.
He watched the street and imagined a man somewhere in a forest, or an ancient ruin, turning pages and learning how to tear the world apart.
Tom Riddle.
The future Lord Voldemort.
Time was running out.