Harry Potter: Reborn as Regulus Black

Chapter 353: Chapter 353: A Rare Opportunity, an Ambush [bonus]

Regulus gave Cuthbert a nod and told them to go ahead.

Regulus had expected Dumbledore to be the first to pull him aside after the holidays. Slughorn beat him to it.

He walked to the front of the room and gave a polite nod. "Professor."

"Come. Let’s talk in my office."

Regulus followed.

The Potions office door stood to the right of the lectern. It swung open onto a rush of complex scents, a dozen rare ingredients blending into something unidentifiable but unmistakably expensive.

Shelves along the walls held rare materials. Regulus recognized a few. Others he couldn’t place.

Slughorn settled into his oversized chair, his round body sinking into the cushion with a soft creak. He pulled open a drawer, produced a box of Crystallised pineapple, popped the lid, took one for himself, and pushed the box across to Regulus.

"Try one. Christmas gift." His voice was muffled around the sweet, his tone pleased. "A former student in the Department of Magical Games and Sports sent them. Probably hoping I’ll remember when his promotion letter comes up next month."

Regulus sat in the chair opposite, posture upright with a touch of ease. He picked up a piece and bit into it. Too sweet. Same league as Dumbledore’s Sherbet Lemons.

"Thank you, Professor."

"Not at all, not at all."

Slughorn helped himself to another piece, then leaned back, fingers laced over his belly.

He regarded Regulus, his smile relaxed. "How’s the family? How’s Orion’s health?"

"Everyone’s well, Professor." Regulus rested his hands on his lap, then added, "Father asked me to send his regards. He said I should learn as much from you as I can."

Slughorn’s eyebrows rose, his expression one of exaggerated gratification. "Orion is too kind."

Then he put on a mock-stern face, pointing a finger at Regulus. "Well then, learn! Your potions talent is good enough to make me sigh, and yet you have no interest in the subject whatsoever. Gifted but indifferent. I’ve complained to Albus about it more than once."

Regulus dipped his head, managing a sheepish look.

Slughorn studied him for a moment, then broke first, chuckling and waving his hand. "Never mind, never mind. I know where your mind is."

You don’t, Professor, Regulus thought. Tell you, and you’d fall out of that chair.

"I heard this year’s Christmas banquet was quite the event." Slughorn’s tone stayed light, tinged with gossip. He pinched another piece of Crystallised pineapple and popped it into his mouth. "And Lestrange Manor these days... rather dramatic, I gather. Burned down to the foundations?"

Regulus held his teacup and didn’t rush to answer.

The professor knew what happened that night. Of course he did.

The Slughorn family. One of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

Slughorn himself was the head of the family, Head of Slytherin House, one of the foremost Potions Masters of the age, founder of the Slug Club, with connections spanning half the wizarding world.

His standing in Pure-blood circles was, in some ways, higher than Orion’s.

Lestrange Manor burned. Bellatrix crippled. Voldemort himself appearing in person. The version of events Slughorn had obtained was probably the most complete outside of those who’d been there.

The smiling old man looked easygoing. His reach ran deep.

Regulus took a sip of tea and set the cup down.

Slughorn’s smile dimmed slightly. His tone stayed relaxed but turned more serious. "You’re all right?"

Regulus looked at the professor.

Slughorn had his own angles, of course. He’d steered the conversation here with more than one purpose.

But looking at that round face, the concern was genuine too.

Regulus met his gaze and smiled. "I’m fine, Professor."

A pause, then he added, "Family matters, that’s all. I’m sorry to have worried you."

Slughorn studied him, gaze lingering on his face, dropping to his hands, rising again.

Regulus didn’t flinch. Nothing to hide. Let the professor look.

He sat there, relaxed, breathing steady.

Something brushed against him, a kind of perception making contact. Not intrusive, nothing hostile. Like the thinnest net settling over him for an instant, then withdrawing.

A wizard of this caliber had his own methods.

Professor Slughorn was more than a Potions Master. In the final stage of the Battle of Hogwarts, he’d stood alongside McGonagall and Kingsley against Voldemort himself. A wizard who could hold his own in a fight at that level ran far deeper than what he showed day to day.

A breath or two, and Slughorn finished his assessment. He nodded. "Good. As long as you’re all right."

He picked up his own cup, drank, then sighed.

"Bellatrix..." He shook his head. Regret and helplessness in his voice, layered with something only a teacher would feel. "Ah."

Regulus said nothing. He lowered his head slightly.

What was he supposed to say? That it wasn’t a shame? That she’d performed well? That she’d served her purpose?

Nothing worth saying. He sat in silence and waited for the professor to continue.

Quiet settled between them.

The fire in the hearth flickered. The mead bottle on the side table caught the light.

Slughorn set down his cup. His fingers turned the ring on his other hand.

His gaze drifted to the photographs on the office wall. Among those identical smiles, some of the faces hadn’t been seen in public for a long time.

Then his eyes came back to Regulus.

He was hesitating.

Regulus could see it. He didn’t prompt him.

Then the professor spoke, his voice quieter than before, almost cautious, as if he wasn’t sure what answer he wanted to hear.

"Regulus... you saw him?"

Regulus kept his eyes lowered. He didn’t answer immediately.

He knew who the professor meant. And he knew the knot at the center of it.

Tom Riddle. Slughorn’s proudest student. His favorite.

The brightest jewel in the Slug Club’s collection. An orphan. Extraordinarily gifted. Handsome, well-mannered, everything the professor looked for when collecting future luminaries.

Slughorn’s admiration had been real. It had nothing to do with bloodline or family name. The boy had been that exceptional.

Then, at a gathering, the professor drank too much, and Riddle coaxed the knowledge of Horcruxes out of him.

Riddle asked with precision, framing it like a gifted student posing a deep theoretical question.

The professor answered. He explained that splitting the soul could let a person transcend death. That murder was required. That seven was a magically potent number.

Afterward, Riddle became Voldemort.

It was the greatest stain on Slughorn’s life. The deepest source of his fear.

He knew what he’d given that young man. He knew what that knowledge had been used for. But he couldn’t face it. Couldn’t admit it.

Later, he tampered with the memory, gave Dumbledore an altered version in which he’d told Riddle that the soul should remain whole.

This was 1974. Voldemort was still rising. No fall yet. No endgame of the First Wizarding War.

So he asked.

He wanted to know what Voldemort had become. He wanted to know how far those words, spoken over drinks all those years ago, had been taken.

Regulus worked through all of this and decided to answer.

No reason to be cagey. He’d seen Voldemort. He could say so.

But what to say, and how much, required care.

What he could share was limited to what his eyes had observed, perhaps what his senses had picked up. Judgments and deductions couldn’t leave his mouth.

The professor waited, patient, no longer fidgeting with the ring. Just waiting.

The office went quiet. Only the low crackle of the fire.

Regulus raised his head and gave a slight nod. "I saw him."

Slughorn shifted forward, belly pressing against the edge of the desk.

Another stretch of silence before the professor spoke, his tone carefully offhand, though his eyes hadn’t moved from Regulus. "What did he... look like?"

Look like?

Too broad.

Regulus knew the professor wasn’t asking about Voldemort’s wardrobe or complexion.

They were talking about the most powerful Dark wizard alive.

That Slughorn would put this question to him meant the professor wasn’t treating him like a child. No reason, then, to play naive or dodge.

"He doesn’t look like a normal person anymore." Regulus began describing, clinical and precise. "The color and texture of his skin have changed. Waxy white. You can see the veins beneath. His nose has flattened, reduced to two narrow slits. Lips nearly invisible, dark purple, blending into the skin at the edges. His eyes are a deep red with vertical pupils that contract slowly in firelight. He moves without sound. All noise around him dies."

Slughorn listened without interruption.

Regulus continued.

"Through magical perception, standing in front of him returns nothing. Visually, someone is there. To the senses, there’s a void."

He knew the professor understood his perceptive ability was sharper than most. He’d demonstrated it last year. Saying so wasn’t a risk.

"There’s also a physical sensation." His pace slowed. "A tremor deep in the bones. Faint, but distinct. Standing near him, it starts in the spine and spreads outward along the ribs."

He stopped there.

Slughorn hadn’t interrupted once. The smile had long since vanished, replaced by focus and gravity. The Crystallised pineapple forgotten between his fingertips, sugar syrup trailing down his fingers unnoticed.

Silence. Nothing in the office but the hearth.

Slughorn’s gaze drifted, aimed somewhere past Regulus, maybe at one of the photographs on the wall behind him, maybe at something much further away.

Then his voice came softer still, barely above a murmur, as if speaking to himself. "When he talks to people... what’s his expression?"

He paused, fingers squeezing the sweet, then releasing.

"When he sees someone injured... how does he react?"

Another pause.

"I mean... Bellatrix... did he... when he saw Bellatrix, what was his expression?"

Regulus knew what this question was reaching for.

The professor had pieced together the scene on his own. Voldemort arriving. Bellatrix on the ground, gravely wounded. He had all the pieces.

What he was asking was whether Voldemort, seeing his most loyal follower broken at his feet, had shown anything at all.

Voldemort and Bellatrix. Both Slughorn’s students.

Two students. One became the Dark Lord. The other became the most faithful dog at the Dark Lord’s heel.

Regulus considered. This question touched on judgment.

If he answered no reaction at all, he’d be saying Voldemort had lost the capacity for normal emotional response. That was a conclusion. Subjective.

He chose not to answer.

A beat of silence. Then a slight shake of his head.

The gesture was ambiguous. The professor could read it as reluctance to speak, as uncertainty, or as confirmation that Voldemort had shown nothing.

How he interpreted it was his own affair.

Slughorn’s fidgeting fingers went still. His entire body stopped. No visible change crossed his face, but every trace of motion ceased.

Regulus lowered his head.

A moment later, he looked up. Rare opportunity.

The mood had arrived at the right place. Letting it pass without asking something would be a waste. If he wanted to hear anything from the professor, the time was now.

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