Chapter 349: Chapter 349: The Loyal Roommates
The dormitory was quiet.
Alex reached his bed and let his shoulders drop at last, releasing a long breath.
The scene out there had been too much for him. Too many people, too many eyes, too much of the eager attention he’d never learned to handle. Now the door was shut, those gazes locked on the other side, and the tension finally bled out of him.
Hermes stared at Regulus for a moment, then walked straight to his own bed, didn’t bother removing his robes, and dropped flat onto the mattress. The curtains swayed twice. The frame let out a dull groan.
He lay there, hands folded on his stomach, eyes fixed on the canopy overhead, motionless as a corpse.
Alex glanced over at him, turned back, and was about to speak when something launched off Regulus’s shoulder at the edge of his vision.
Dark red, palm-sized, eight legs splaying wide in midair. It landed on the floorboards with a barely audible pff and scuttled toward the desk.
Baruk darted beneath it, hooked his front four legs into the seam between two drawers, braced the back four against the lower one, and hauled until a gap opened. He squeezed inside.
A flurry of clicking and scraping rose from within, wood on wood, like an inspection, or a creature confirming its territory was intact.
A few seconds later he emerged, hooked the drawer’s edge with his forelegs, shoved with his body, and pushed it shut.
Then he bolted for the bed, scaled the sheets, and settled beside the pillow, all eight legs curling inward until he was a dark red ball of fuzz.
Regulus watched the whole routine and let him be.
Baruk had been sleeping on the bed since Grimmauld Place. No reason to banish him back to the drawer at Hogwarts. He didn’t shed. He could sleep wherever he pleased.
Alex’s gaze trailed Baruk through the entire circuit. Only once the spider had tucked himself in on the pillow did Alex come back to himself, murmuring, "Hey, Baruk. Long time."
Baruk stirred. Two front legs slid out from under his body and waved once in Alex’s direction, a gesture that may or may not have qualified as a greeting, before retracting.
Alex smiled. His mind was probably elsewhere, because he didn’t notice that Baruk had changed color.
Regulus hung his cloak on the bedpost, crossed to the desk, sat, and turned to look at Alex.
He’d seen it coming. Alex had something to say.
Had been holding it in since the train, never finding the right moment.
Alex walked over and stood beside him. His tone wasn’t rushed, but it was serious. "Over the holiday, the Rosiers sent someone."
Regulus raised an eyebrow, signaling him to go on.
He knew Alex meant the main branch.
Alex’s family would never call themselves Rosiers in public. That name belonged to the main branch alone. For a cadet line to claim it would be a breach of etiquette.
None of this was surprising.
At the Christmas banquet, Mr. Rosier had sought Regulus out specifically to discuss Alex, thanking him in person.
The Rosier family treated Alex as a bridge between their house and House Black. Flexible, and positioned with care.
"His name was Fien Rosier," Alex said. "The Head of House’s nephew. Handles external relations for the main branch. Early thirties. He spoke with my father for an entire afternoon."
Regulus nodded.
He’d heard the name. Fien wasn’t part of the inner decision-making circle, but he carried enough weight to represent the Head of House on official business without making it too formal. A well-calibrated choice.
Alex continued. "He said he could arrange a better position for my father. The Department of International Magical Cooperation. Administrative role. Filing and records."
Another nod.
Alex’s father worked in the Department of Magical Transportation at the Ministry of Magic, handling Floo Network maintenance and broomstick registration approvals. Low rank, middling salary, tedious work, but stable.
What Fien was offering sat a grade higher, paid noticeably better, and broadened the scope of contact.
Alex hesitated, then pushed on. "He also talked about what happened over the holiday. At the Christmas banquet."
He watched Regulus’s face. Nothing changed.
Alex felt something that was half relief and half apprehension.
Regulus hadn’t denied it. Which was the same as confirming it. Everything Fien had said was true. Regulus really had fought someone, and burned down their house.
Regulus looked up at him. Alex continued. "They told us about the banquet first, then said the transfer was being offered because I’m with you."
"Fien was upfront about it," he added. "Laid it all out in the open. No hedging."
The corner of Regulus’s mouth moved.
Upfront, indeed.
No veiled implications. The logic placed squarely on the table.
Because you’re close to the Black heir, we’re willing to help your family. Nothing to do with blood ties or old friendship. It’s exactly this.
But that very openness was itself a strategy. Packaging goodwill as pragmatism. It kept Alex’s family from feeling like charity recipients, and left Regulus nothing to object to.
He looked at Alex, tone even. "How did you know to come tell me?"
Alex looked slightly embarrassed. "My father told me to."
"The night Fien left, my father sat at the dinner table for a long time. Then he told me, when you’re back at school, let him know."
He met Regulus’s eyes. "He didn’t explain why. But I understood what he meant."
Alex was done. He watched Regulus.
Regulus gestured at a nearby chair. "Sit."
Alex pulled it over and sat down.
The moment he settled, someone appeared behind him.
Hermes had risen from the bed at some point, ghost-silent, and now stood at Alex’s back. His expression was blank, eyes slightly glazed, fixed on Regulus. Whether he was still half-asleep or deep in thought was anyone’s guess. He just stood there.
Regulus ignored him. The boy had been out of it all day. Whatever he’d been doing over the holiday, it had left him vacant.
He looked at Alex. "What’s your family leaning toward?"
Alex shook his head, his tone sincere. "Father sent me to ask what you think."
Regulus understood. They had their own inclination.
Sending Alex to ask wasn’t truly seeking advice. They were letting him know their stance.
We’re inclined to accept. But you’re the reason this offer exists. We respect your view.
A form of deference. We didn’t decide without you, even though this doesn’t require your permission.
Alex’s father was a man with survival instincts.
Over a decade at the bottom of the Ministry. Never took sides, never stuck his neck out. Read the newspaper, sighed, then went back to dinner. But when the moment called for a gesture, he knew how to make one.
Regulus didn’t care about any of this, but since Alex had come to ask, he’d say a few words. A gesture of his own.
"Your father’s current position. The Department of Magical Transportation. The work doesn’t matter."
He looked at Alex. "And because it doesn’t matter, nobody’s watching."
Alex listened. Hermes may or may not have been listening, but he looked like he was.
"You’ve seen the state of things." Regulus’s voice was flat, stating what anyone with half an eye could see.
"War hasn’t come yet, but it will. When it does, the important departments get infiltrated first. The people sitting in those chairs are the first ones forced to pick a side, and once they do, they’re marked. Both sides come pulling.
Your father’s position? Nobody pulls. Nobody watches. When the fighting starts, no one’s going to hunt down a clerk who stamps broomstick registrations."
Alex lowered his head.
What Regulus had said was nearly word for word what his father had told him.
His father had spent over a decade as a low-level clerk at the Ministry. No one had ever courted him. No one had ever threatened him. His name had never appeared on a promotion list.
But in all those years, how many officials ranked above him had gone down? Transferred, demoted, dragged into murky affairs and vanished without a trace.
His father still sat behind that same old desk. Clocked in every morning, clocked out every evening.
He wasn’t foolish. He knew the position didn’t pay. But it was safe. The question was, someone had just arrived with a ladder, and all he had to do was nod to improve their lives.
Regulus glanced at him, read his thoughts, and went on. "That said, don’t worry too much."
Alex looked up.
"The Rosiers didn’t come to make enemies. They’re not going to shove anyone into a fire pit. An administrative role in the Department of International Magical Cooperation is a step up in respectability, nothing more.
It’s not a real power center. It’s not the Department of Mysteries, not the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. When the Ministry starts choosing sides internally, that position won’t even be on the board."
His mouth shifted. "The Rosiers are here to cultivate a relationship. What they want is for your family to be a little more comfortable, a little closer to House Black. That’s all.
If they stuck your father in a dangerous post and something went wrong when the war came, the goodwill turns into a liability. The Rosiers don’t make that kind of mistake."
People who’d survived for centuries knew how to leave room on every side of every move. The Rosiers had that much sense.
Alex was quiet for a while, thinking.
Accepting meant his family would formally enter the main Rosier branch’s network. The tie to Regulus would deepen another layer.
His father’s work would improve. More respectable, better paid. His mother wouldn’t have to spend half an afternoon haggling with a stall owner in Diagon Alley over the price of fabric anymore.
Refusing, the Rosiers wouldn’t hold it against them. Goodwill returned was goodwill returned. The main branch wouldn’t turn hostile over a cadet family’s refusal.
But the signal would be poor. The people around Black won’t even accept a favor? Do they think it’s not enough? Or is something else going on?
The Rosiers would read into it. Other families watching from the sidelines would read into it too.
As for Regulus, Alex knew him. Even if he refused, Regulus wouldn’t overthink it. A thing this small wouldn’t register.
But Alex’s father didn’t know Regulus. His judgment was simple: accept. Good for everyone. Refusing would be hard to explain to either side.
Alex raised his head and looked at Regulus, voice earnest. "Thank you, Regulus."
Regulus waved it off with a slight shake of his head and said nothing more.
Alex stood, carried the chair back, and went to his bed to sort through his luggage.
Regulus turned to Hermes.
Hermes was still standing there, gaze locked and unblinking. Through the entire conversation with Alex, he hadn’t moved once, eyes pinned to Regulus’s face the whole time.
Regulus gave him a look that said, if you’ve got something, say it.
Hermes spoke without a beat of hesitation. "My father told me to stop practicing Dark Magic. Follow you. Watch how you train, what you train, how you make decisions under pressure. Write it all down."
Pure recitation. Every word exactly as Abros Mulciber had delivered it, unpolished, unprocessed, dumped out raw.
Regulus looked at him and nearly laughed.
Regulus could see what Abros was thinking, though.
The Mulcibers were different from other Pure-blood families. They had little aptitude for politics, little enthusiasm for socializing, and zero interest in strategic marriages. What they cared about was magic itself.
The strongest Mulciber heads across the generations had been the ones with genuine skill in the craft.
Abros had likely learned of Regulus’s progress through some channel or another. Maybe word from after the Christmas banquet. Maybe Hermes’s own account.
Hard to say exactly how much he knew, but it had been enough for a Mulciber Head of House to order his son to drop Dark Magic and train under someone else.
As for Hermes, Regulus had never hidden anything from him. When he practiced, he didn’t send Hermes away. During training sessions, Hermes came along. When he gave instruction, nothing was concealed.
Watch if you want. Learn if you want. He’d never stopped him.
"Nobody’s stopping you," Regulus said, casual.
Hermes shrugged. He knew that. He was just relaying his father’s words. Message delivered, mission complete.
Then he asked a second question, blunt, no preamble. "So how do you train?"
Regulus looked at him and gave it real thought.
How do I train?
Nobody had ever asked that before.
He’d been born with an abnormally acute sense for magic, perception that dwarfed anything normal in both range and precision.
His mind contained something like an innate modeling system. Any foundational spell, in his hands, automatically broke apart into structure, parameters, operational logic.
He’d started practicing magical control at five. Before he ever set foot in school, he could cast a wandless Protego.
Star Guided Meditation had begun last year. Magic, mind, body, all three dimensions strengthened in parallel for a year and a half.
Layer onto that a previous life’s worth of scientific understanding, rational thinking woven into every facet of how he learned magic.
How do you explain any of that?
You don’t.
He looked at Hermes and said what he’d once told Sirius. "Think."
Hermes blinked. "...Think?"
"Right." Regulus nodded, his tone light. "Before you practice, understand what you’re practicing and why. Why does the spell work the way it does? In your hands versus someone else’s, where’s the difference? Beyond raw magical power, is there something else at play?
Figure that out first, then act. It’s worth more than grinding a hundred repetitions with your head down."
Technically flawless advice. Practically, it told Hermes nothing. Magical control, on the other hand, he could teach. Nothing rare about it. He’d taught Alex. He’d taught Lily. One more student made no difference. It was a fundamental skill with endless applications.
Hermes looked thoughtful. He nodded, then his brow furrowed.
Think?
You have to think to practice magic?
He was genuinely trying to think about how to think.
About five seconds in, his gaze drifted. His brow slowly smoothed. His pupils lost focus. He stood there like a machine that had locked up.
He’d given up on thinking.
Alex watched from the side, the corner of his mouth twitching as he fought not to laugh.
Hermes snapped back, caught Alex looking, and a flash of irritation crossed his face. He huffed, turned, walked back to his bed, and fell face-first onto it. The curtains swayed twice.
The dormitory settled into quiet.
Alex continued sorting his luggage. Hermes lay staring at the canopy. Baruk was curled in a tight ball beside the pillow.
The light from the Black Lake crept slowly across the ceiling. A luminous jellyfish drifted past the window, its pale blue glow circling the room once before fading.
After a while, the door swung open.
Cuthbert walked in, and his face was a masterpiece: elation, satisfaction, and the lingering afterglow of a man not quite ready to come down from the high. He radiated the heat of someone who’d just completed a mission of great importance.
He dropped onto his bed. The frame creaked. His eyes found Regulus, his mouth opened, and there was clearly a flood behind it.
He’d been wanting to talk since the train, but there’d been no chance. People kept interrupting. Now, finally, behind a closed door, he could speak.
He’d been to Grimmauld Place.
Over the Christmas holiday, his father, old Cuthbert, had taken him there personally. The heir of House Cuthbert, paying a formal visit to House Black.
He’d worn new robes, a silver brooch, and combed his hair like a grown man.
At 12 Grimmauld Place, the house-elf had answered the door. The Head of House Black received them in the parlor. They’d had tea and discussed the Wizengamot proposal and the year’s Pure-blood Alliance summit.
Everything formal. Everything proper.
But Regulus hadn’t been home.
Cuthbert drew a deep breath, preparing to launch into it.
Then his expression shifted. The excitement drained. His lip jutted out, replaced by a look of pure, wounded grievance.
"Over the holiday," he looked at Regulus, voice thick with accusation, "my father took me to Grimmauld Place"
Regulus glanced up.
"And you weren’t there."
Cuthbert’s eyes held the exact expression of a dog whose owner had left it at home and gone for a walk without it.
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