Chapter 35: a brief history of soul magic
"The family is exploring some ancient external Potions," Regulus replied after a moment's thought.
"Something reminiscent of old sacrificial totems, but safer and more controllable. We are trying to find a potion medium that can adhere to the skin safely, carry effects stably, and release them slowly over time."
"It involves compatibility of materials," he added, "magical penetration, and long term stability."
Lily's eyes brightened at once. Academic curiosity came off her in waves, clean and eager.
"So it is taking Potions beyond drinking them," she said, leaning forward, "turning them into external application. And it has to be compatible with the caster's own magic. That is fascinating."
She hesitated only a heartbeat.
"Can I help? If you need someone to analyse formulae with you, or test basic material pairings."
Regulus met her gaze. There was no prying, no games, only the hunger to understand.
He nodded.
"If you are interested, and willing to put the time in, then yes. I do need a reliable collaborator."
He did not sugar coat it.
"It may take up much of your spare time. We might see no meaningful results for quite a while."
"It does not matter," Lily said immediately. "Working on something like that is a reward in itself, and…"
She paused, sincerity softening her voice.
"Thank you for telling me all of this. About magic, about the situation outside, and about the way you think through things."
Her cheeks coloured slightly, as if she was surprised at herself for saying it.
"It makes me feel like we are friends now, does it not? Friends help each other."
Regulus inclined his head, and his tone eased by a fraction.
"Yes. Friends."
Then, with the same calm precision he used for spells, he made the exchange fair.
"I am grateful for your help. If you ever need my insight, or assistance with magic, or anything else, you only need ask."
Friendship, to him, was not charity. It was trust, and value, moving both ways.
Lily understood that more easily than most. She nodded hard, smiling brightly.
When they parted, Regulus added one final instruction, quiet but firm.
"There is no need to repeat what I have said to anyone else."
Lily's expression sobered. She understood what was at stake.
"I promise," she said.
That night, Regulus prepared for something he had planned since the moment he learned the Library's rules.
The Restricted Section.
An Invisibility Cloak would have been ideal, but he did not have one.
So he chose the next best thing.
The Disillusionment Charm.
It was advanced magic, far beyond what most first years could manage. But the House of Black kept meticulous notes on useful, difficult spells, and Regulus had already studied them until he could recite the principles without looking.
The charm was not true invisibility. It was closer to optical camouflage.
It demanded fine control and sustained concentration, and those were the two things Regulus lacked least.
He found an abandoned broom cupboard on the seventh floor, slipped inside, and locked the door.
On his first attempt, he focused, spoke the incantation, and let his magic spread across his skin.
Light warped, but the effect was violently unstable, like looking through water in a storm. His outline blurred and flickered, doing more to draw attention than hide him.
Failure. His output was uneven, and his manipulation of light was crude.
On the second attempt, he adjusted the flow, forcing his magic to cover him more smoothly.
Better, but still wrong.
His body became a patchwork of distorted colour, a chameleon gone mad, clashing against the surrounding stone. Any movement would betray him at once.
Failure again. He was not matching texture or tone precisely enough.
Third time.
Fourth.
He refined everything, from wand movement to the timing of the incantation, then the shape of the magical output, then the harder part: how to perceive the environment accurately enough to imitate it.
On the fifth attempt, Regulus closed his eyes.
He guided his magic like the finest brush, painting light and shadow across his skin to mirror the background, not roughly, but faithfully.
When he opened his eyes, his raised hand had almost vanished. What remained blended with the brick behind it so well that the boundary between skin and stone was difficult to find.
When he shifted his fingers, the texture shifted with them.
Success.
But success, to Regulus, was a floor, not a ceiling.
Madam Pince relied on her eyes, yes, but what of magical detection? What of other methods, Muggle or otherwise, that relied on heat or scent?
A new idea formed, sharp and immediate.
Could he weave a second layer, thin as paper, that did not simply bend light, but dampened the heat and scent he gave off, and softened the magical ripples his body naturally produced?
That was significantly more difficult than a simple Disillusionment Charm. It required multiple layers of different magical properties woven together precisely, with no interference between them.
He tried again.
Failure twice.
On the third attempt, he used the light bending layer as a base, then threaded a second lining beneath it, so fine it felt more like intention than magic.
The lining had no offensive strength and no defensive bite. Its function was simple: absorb and neutralise faint thermal radiation, and blur the surface fluctuations of magic that might give him away.
He felt it immediately.
His presence, in terms of magical perception, thinned further. It did not vanish, not completely, but it dropped below the threshold most ordinary detection would notice.
Regulus released the charm and exhaled, only slightly winded.
The improved Disillusionment Charm was, at least for now, complete.
Late night settled over the castle like a blanket. Corridors quieted. Portraits dozed.
Regulus returned to the Library doors.
The improved charm slid over him without drama. His form merged with the dim corridor, nearly indistinguishable from stone and shadow.
He passed sleeping frames, slipped around patrol routes, avoided Filch, and reached the Restricted Section without so much as a scrape of attention.
Perhaps it was imagination, but the air inside felt colder.
It smelled of parchment, dust, and something old that had been breathed on by too much magic.
Regulus went straight to the spot he remembered and found the book tucked in the bottom corner.
A Brief History of Soul Magic.
A defensive charm lay over it. Forcing the cover, or trying to remove it, would trigger alarms or damage the volume.
That did not concern Regulus.
He did not need to take it.
He held his hand an inch above the spine and closed his eyes.
His spirit, already stronger than most, had been tempered further by his recent training. He spread his magic outward in a slow, careful sweep, like an invisible instrument passing over each page.
He did not read ink.
He read what magic had left behind.
The author's intent, the weight of their knowledge, the lingering impressions formed while writing, all of it pressed into the parchment by years of handling and spellwork.
It was not perfect. It could not reproduce every flourish of style, every precise turn of phrase.
It was also punishing.
The strain on the mind was immense, like holding open a door that wanted to slam shut.
But Regulus did not need literature.
He needed information.
And it came.
The nature of the soul, and the source of magic.
Factors that influenced stability.
Manifestations of damage, and what followed when a soul began to fracture.
Then he reached what he had truly come for.
The theory of soul splitting.
His magic tightened, dense and cold, as it brushed those pages.
The book described the feasibility of the act with the detached cruelty of a scholar recording a disease.
A soul could be torn by ritual, by powerful Dark magic, by the ultimate desecration of life and death. A portion could be stripped away and sealed into a chosen vessel.
As long as the Horcrux endured, even if the body died, the primary soul would not truly pass on. It would remain, twisted and persistent, and might one day regain form through further dark rites.
The warnings that followed were severe.
A split soul did not become cleanly divided. It became unstable, fragmented, haunted by pain and craving.
The act of creating a Horcrux corrupted the caster irreversibly, hollowing them out until coldness and madness replaced humanity.
Worse, the book noted a subtle connection between the Horcrux and the remaining soul, a link that could be exploited, and so become a vulnerability.
Regulus felt a chill settle in his chest.
So Voldemort had chosen the most dangerous path possible, and then walked it repeatedly.
It confirmed what Regulus already suspected, but confirmation had a different weight. It made the threat sharper, more immediate.
And yet, another thought rose alongside the disgust.
Soul stability.
If the soul was the foundation, then perhaps stability was the key to touching darker magic without being eaten by it.
If the soul was a fortress, then the Dark Arts were a corrosive storm. A weak structure collapsed. A strong one endured.
The book mentioned that a few powerful Dark wizards had supported something like this idea. They used Dark magic frequently, but did not show the typical erosion of mind and self.
Regulus's thoughts flicked, inevitably, to two names.
Dumbledore.
Grindelwald.
At that level, what was Dark or Light? They used what they used. Magic obeyed, and consequences bent to the will that wielded it.
Voldemort was different.
He had pursued immortality too early, too greedily, and too many times. By tearing his soul apart again and again, he had destroyed the very stability that might have protected him from the rot.
The monster he became was not only choice. It was also self inflicted collapse.
Regulus pushed onward, skimming the remaining chapters.
Soul attachment, possession, and the transfer of curses.
Soul imprisonment, and the roots of hauntings.
The formation of ghosts.
Finally, he withdrew.
Tonight's harvest had exceeded his expectations by a wide margin.
He had confirmed the nature and danger of Horcruxes, and clarified the importance of soul stability for any attempt to approach Dark magic safely.
And beyond that, the additional knowledge opened paths he had not even named yet.