Harry Potter: Reborn as Regulus Black

Chapter 352: Chapter 352: Slughorn Talks History

The afternoon Potions class met in the dungeon classroom, Slytherin and Gryffindor together.

The air carried the permanent residue of years of simmering brews. Green flames burned in the hearth, making it marginally warmer than the corridor, but only marginally. The young witches and wizards pulled their robes tighter.

Long tables ran from the lectern to the back wall, each fitted with two cauldron stands, a basic tool kit, and a pile of ingredients. Slytherin sat on the right, Gryffindor on the left, several empty tables between them. Same as last term. Same as the term before that.

Something was off on the Slytherin side.

Several Pure-bloods still hadn’t recovered from the morning’s class. Cuthbert sat with Alex, muttering under his breath. His expression carried the same knotted tension from earlier, brows pinched, mouth pulled down at the corners. In the row ahead, another Pure-blood boy had his arms folded across his chest, staring at the desk, weighed down by something he couldn’t shake.

The entire Slytherin half of the classroom radiated a brooding, serious energy. Nearly every face said the same thing: We are contemplating matters of real importance.

Gryffindor had no idea what was going on.

They hadn’t been in that History of Magic session; the schedules were different. All they saw was a cluster of Slytherins looking grim, whispering to each other like some kind of secret council, the air around them thick with tension.

A Gryffindor boy cocked his head at the Slytherin side and muttered something to his deskmate, who snickered.

Another, bolder, spoke up loud enough for both sides to hear, his tone deliberately brash: "Who died in Slytherin today?"

Someone next to him tugged his sleeve before he could say more.

Nobody on the Slytherin side responded. Not out of restraint. They couldn’t be bothered.

Gryffindor exchanged confused looks but let it drop.

Slughorn emerged from his office door, his round belly straining against a green velvet waistcoat, buttons pulled tight, the lowest one looking ready to launch at any moment. His customary smile was in place.

He swept the classroom with a single glance, his gaze lingering on the Slytherin side.

He was old Slytherin himself. He could read his own students at a look.

He strolled to the edge of the lectern. "What’s all this, then? Who stepped on your tails?"

Several Slytherins exchanged glances.

One girl couldn’t hold back, anger and confusion tangled in her voice. "Professor, this morning Professor Binns lectured on the witch hunts. Muggles burned wizards. Bamberg alone burned more than nine hundred people."

Before she’d finished, a boy beside her jumped in, voice urgent, openly skeptical: "Professor, could Muggles really kill wizards?"

Slughorn listened, his expression unchanged, still wearing that easygoing smile. He nodded a couple of times and tapped one finger lightly on the edge of the lectern.

"Ah, the witch hunts." His tone wasn’t grave. He was still smiling, loose and reassuring.

"You think medieval wizards were anything like you?"

The room quieted. Even the Gryffindors pricked up their ears.

"Seven years of formal education at Hogwarts, wands in hand, systematic spell training, walking out the gates ready to trade blows with an Auror?"

He straightened from the lectern, hands clasped behind his back, belly thrust forward, his manner relaxed, as if telling a mildly entertaining history.

"Most wizards in the age of the witch hunts were self-taught. Apprenticeship system. One old witch or wizard taking on a pupil or two, the curriculum depending entirely on luck.

Some people spent their whole lives knowing three or four spells. Hogwarts did have its Book of Admittance and the Quill of Acceptance, automatically recording every magically gifted child in Britain from the day the school was founded. But recording names was one thing. Notification and enrollment were another.

Before the Statute of Secrecy, there was no Ministry tracking system. How far could an owl fly? What happened when a Muggle with a slingshot knocked it out of the sky halfway there? A wizarding family in a fishing village at the northern tip of Scotland, hundreds of miles from Hogwarts, mountains and dozens of Muggle towns between them... who was going to spend weeks in a horse-drawn cart to send a child to school?

Those who couldn’t come, those who never heard, those whose families refused for fear of exposure... the Book of Admittance might record a hundred names, but fewer than half would ever sit in these halls.

And wands? The Ollivander family has been crafting wands in Britain for over a thousand years. Fine work. But a hedge-witch living in a Muggle village... where was she supposed to buy one?

Standardized production and wide distribution came after the Statute. Before that, plenty of wizards used old wands handed down through the family, wand cores replaced three or four times over and still in service. Some had no wand at all."

He looked at the boy who’d asked the question.

"Those wizards lived in Muggle villages, neighbors with Muggles, doing business with them. Some barely understood how they were different from the Muggles around them. And when they were caught..."

He spread his hands, a trace of resignation in his voice, but mostly the warmth of you have no idea how lucky you are.

"A wizard who knew two spells, dragged from bed in the middle of the night without ever touching a wand, was no different from a defenseless Muggle widow when it came to the stake."

Silence held the room for a beat.

Then Slughorn smiled. "But you’re different."

He swept one hand through the air, drawing an invisible circle around the entire classroom.

"You’re at Hogwarts. Every one of you, second years, a year and a half of Charms, Transfiguration, Potions under your belts, carrying Ollivander wands. Drop any of you into the Middle Ages..."

His grin widened, carrying a flicker of genuine pride. "Every single one of you would be a top-tier wizard of that era."

Young witches and wizards were easy to reassure.

Tension broke across the room. Someone exhaled. Others nodded. Cuthbert’s brow finally smoothed, color returning to his face.

The girl who’d spoken first tucked her hair behind her ear, picked up her wand, and spun it between her fingers with an air of composure.

Lina and Samuel shared a glance. He gave a slight shrug; the corner of her mouth twitched upward.

They were Hogwarts students. Properly trained. Not medieval hedge-wizards who couldn’t get their hands on a wand. No Muggle mob was burning them.

The Gryffindors had caught enough to piece together that it was about the witch hunts.

A few of them curled their lips in disdain. This was worth getting worked up over?

"At least Gryffindor’s not afraid of Muggles," the bold boy muttered under his breath.

The person beside him shot him a look.

Regulus hadn’t said a word the entire time.

He sat in the middle rows on the Slytherin side, against the wall, and listened to everything Slughorn said.

The professor’s facts were correct. Medieval wizards were weak. Education was sparse. Equipment was primitive.

But the core problem of the witch hunts was never about individual strength.

Scattered sand was scattered sand. Even a reasonably capable wizard couldn’t hold off ten thousand organized Muggles.

Slughorn’s reassurance worked. On children.

He chose not to add anything. This wasn’t the moment for him to speak.

"Right, right." Slughorn clapped his hands, his smile snapping back to its usual warmth. "First class of the new term. Eyes up here, everyone."

He turned to the blackboard, tapped it with his wand, and several lines of glowing text appeared.

"If you’re interested in that stretch of history, pop into the Library after class and look up Medieval Wizarding Villages: A History of Forgotten Settlements, and Before and After the Statute of Secrecy. Two books, two different angles. Read them side by side and you’ll get more out of it than a term of Professor Binns. Or try Chapter ten of Bathilda Bagshot’s A History of Magic. She writes it far more vividly than Binns teaches it, probably because she’s alive."

He turned back to the class with a grin. "Of course, Professor Binns’s class has its own value. Pay attention, and you’ll earn yourself an O."

A pause. Slughorn cleared his throat and added, "I’m not suggesting that Professor Binns’s lectures are dull. In fact, when I was a student, he was my professor too."

He blinked, spread his hands, the picture of innocence.

Laughter erupted across the room, and the tension finally dissolved.

"New term, new knowledge. Today we’re brewing the Calming Draught."

Slughorn clapped again, pulling every eye back to the front, then tapped the blackboard. Another line of glowing text appeared: formula and procedure.

"Recipe’s on the board, ingredients on your tables. Valerian roots, cut into segments. Three Lavender buds. Porcupine quills soaking solution as your base liquid. Glass stirring rod, seven clockwise, three counterclockwise. This is second-year proficiency. Nobody gives me purple smoke. Gentlemen of Gryffindor, I’m looking at your side."

Several Gryffindors ducked.

His finger rapped the blackboard. "Begin."

The room filled with the sound of chopping, cauldrons clanking onto stands, flames flickering to life beneath them.

Cuthbert’s knife cut twice through the Valerian roots, then his mind wandered. The third stroke went crooked, and the root crumbled across the cutting board in uneven pieces.

Slughorn passed behind him and rapped his knuckles on the desk. "Mr. Cuthbert, Valerian root is not firewood. You’re chopping kindling."

Cuthbert mumbled something incoherent and bent back over his work.

Beside him, Alex quietly slid half of his own supply across.

From the Gryffindor side came a muffled boom. Someone had stirred in the wrong direction, and a plume of purple smoke shot from the cauldron, sending the student into a coughing fit.

Slughorn ambled over, wand flicking casually. The smoke dispersed, and the liquid in the cauldron settled back to its proper color.

"Seven clockwise, three counterclockwise. Not the reverse. Check the recipe next time. Stirring direction matters more than wand technique."

The student’s face went scarlet. Muffled laughter rippled through the nearby seats.

Regulus worked quietly in the back row.

He didn’t use his usual method: extending his magical perception to map the finished product’s structure, then bypassing the steps entirely and guiding the ingredients to fuse on their own.

Today he followed the recipe.

Valerian roots cut into even segments. Three Lavender buds, cleaned, dropped into the cauldron. Porcupine quills soaking solution poured in. Low heat, slightly weak. Glass stirring rod, seven clockwise, three counterclockwise.

Simple. Mechanical. No thinking required.

For him, this was the equivalent of clearing his mind. No analyzing the magical flow patterns in the ingredients, no constructing the finished potion’s arcane architecture in his head. Just hands moving.

On the final rotation, the liquid shifted from pale green to light purple with a blue tinge, stable, even. Exactly right.

Slughorn passed his table, peered down into the cauldron, scooped up half a spoonful with a small silver ladle, brought it to his nose, sniffed, and set it back.

Color perfect. Scent clean.

He nodded with satisfaction. "Mr. Black. Not a step out of place. This is what standard procedure looks like. Ten points to Slytherin."

Regulus gave a polite nod. "Thank you, Professor."

Nobody around him batted an eye. Shrugs all around, back to their own brews.

Regulus earning points was like the sun rising in the east. Not worth remarking on.

The bell rang, and most of the class exhaled in relief.

Cuthbert tossed his cauldron into the sink and stretched. Alex packed up his tools in silence, carefully rewrapping the unused Lavender buds. Hermes was already at the door.

Slughorn’s voice drifted from behind the lectern. "Mr. Black, stay a moment."