Chapter 26: Foundation
Thursday evening's Astronomy class was held at the top of the castle's tallest tower.
The late-September night sky was crystalline, the Scottish Highland air sharp and transparent.
"Tonight we shall learn to locate the sky's dominant star — Sirius." Professor Aurora Sinistra's voice was as gentle as the night breeze.
She was an older witch, silver hair pinned neatly at the back of her head, her robes embroidered with tiny constellation patterns that seemed to carry starlight when she moved.
"Sirius is not merely the brightest star in the night sky. In magical terms, it is also regarded as the symbol of guidance and loyalty. Many ancient navigational charms and long-range communication spells rely on observations of it for calibration."
Students worked in pairs at brass-mounted telescopes. Regulus partnered with Alex Rosier.
Avery had declared he had zero interest in staring at a handful of luminous dots all evening and had retreated early to a corner with a few Slytherin boys to yawn.
"Start by leveling the base," Regulus instructed, his voice low, guiding the slightly flustered Alex.
"Right — keep the bubble centered. Now release the vertical lock and point the barrel southeast, elevation roughly twenty degrees."
Alex obeyed. He peered through the eyepiece. "It's all blurry." "Because you haven't adjusted the focus." Regulus reached over and turned the knob. "Take it slowly. Look for a very bright star with a blue-white tint."
Alex fiddled for a moment, then let out a soft gasp. "I see it! It's so bright — like a blue-white jewel. It's beautiful."
"That's Sirius." Regulus moved to a second telescope.
He completed the calibration and focus with practiced ease. The star appeared sharply in the field of view.
Through the magically enhanced astronomical telescope, a faint halo was visible around it — an ethereal luminescence that seemed to breathe and pulse.
No Muggle telescope could show such a thing. Though there was no scientific proof, the wizarding world accepted it as the magical radiance emitted by the stars.
"Well done, Mister Rosier." Professor Sinistra drifted beside them. "Now, record its position using the coordinate grid on the star chart. Mind the ecliptic reference line."
Once the professor moved away, Alex whispered: "How do you know all this? You act like you've done it dozens of times."
"There's a similar instrument at home," Regulus answered. The Blacks did own an antique astronomical telescope, though he had never actually used it.
"So what's the point of Astronomy, anyway?" Alex muttered as he clumsily recorded coordinates. "Apart from the stars being pretty..."
"More useful than you'd think." Regulus gazed at Sirius through the eyepiece, recalling what he had read in the family library.
"Many advanced potions require precise lunar phases and stellar positions for preparation. Several key ingredients of Felix Felicis, for instance, must be harvested according to specific lunar phases and star alignments.
Certain ancient runic variants see their magical potency wax and wane with constellation positions."
He continued: "Not to mention that many ancient magical contracts, family rituals, and even castle defense wards have their power cycles tied to stellar movements.
Understanding the sky is, in a sense, reading the hidden clock of the magical world."
Alex stared. "None of that... is in the textbook."
"Because it's upper-year content. Or," Regulus said lightly, "part of certain families' transmitted knowledge."
Professor Sinistra clapped her hands to draw attention. "Now, shift your telescope approximately fifteen degrees left and lower the elevation by five degrees.
You will see three bright stars arranged in an almost perfectly straight line at nearly equal intervals. That is Orion's Belt. Record their positions and relative angles."
Regulus complied. When the three stars appeared in his field of view, his movements paused for the briefest instant.
Not only because of their beauty, but because of their arrangement.
Three stars — Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka.
In Muggle astronomy, they were merely three stars hundreds of light-years from Earth and from each other, aligned by visual projection into an apparent line.
But through the magically enhanced telescope, Regulus saw something different.
Despite the vast distances separating them, the magical radiance emitted by the three stars was not entirely independent.
Infinitesimally fine threads of magic — gossamer-thin — flowed slowly between the three, forming an extraordinarily thin energy triangle.
He quickly recorded the three stars' coordinates on his chart, connecting them with dashed lines and annotating the angles.
The belt stars' alignment approached a perfect straight line but retained a negligible arc — cosmically insignificant, but potentially critical in magical application.
Regulus could construct precise constellation models in his mind, simulate stellar positions, even compute orbital trajectories.
Just now, instinctively, he had used the three stars' current positions and their known proper-motion data to project their relative positions a hundred years hence.
He thought rapidly. Stars move — slowly, but Orion's belt stars each have their own direction and velocity within the galaxy.
Could that motion itself be part of their magical nature?
He decided at once: he would incorporate the constellation's true motion into his meditation with absolute computational precision and spatial visualization.
Just then, Professor Sinistra's voice broke into his thoughts. "I see many of you have finished recording.
Remember — the significance of Astronomy is not memorizing the names of a few constellations, but understanding the eternal rhythm contained in the stars' motions.
Class dismissed."
'Eternal rhythm.' Regulus tucked away his star chart. The phrase echoed in his mind.
The small hours. The dormitory, silent.
Regulus sat cross-legged within the curtains of his four-poster bed, privacy secured by a Silencing Charm.
Eyes closed. He sank into the depths of consciousness.
He ran the magical circulation and starlight meditation simultaneously.
Within his body, magic flowed like a gentle brook along well-worn paths, nourishing every inch of flesh.
This was the tempering of the body — the most fundamental of foundations.
At the same time, at the uppermost layer of his awareness, he constructed the model of Orion's Belt.
Drawing on memorized astronomical data, the minute deviations he had observed, the computed orbital trajectories, and the stars' inherent motion, he imbued the three points of light with an infinitesimally slow but directionally specific tendency to move.
A static framework and a dynamic tendency.
Then he attempted to align the rhythm of his internal magical circulation with the dynamic tendency of those three points of light.
It did not go smoothly at first. Magic circulating through the body was tangible and perceptible — a concrete flow.
The stars' motion-tendency, by contrast, was abstract and nearly stationary — a directionality. The two seemed to exist on different planes.
But Regulus was patient. He poured all his focus into the dynamic model, feeling that barely-there-yet-undeniably-real tension of motion.
Then, with exquisite subtlety, he began adjusting the speed of his internal magical circulation — shifting its fundamental character toward something more solemn, slower, more constant.
Time passed in silence. Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty.
Then, suddenly — alignment.
Not that his magic was literally drawing constellation shapes inside his body.
It was something deeper: the state of existence of the internal circulation and the essential nature of the stellar model's motion achieved a harmony at the level of the spirit — a resonance.
In that instant, Regulus felt two distinct improvements occur simultaneously.
The once-gentle, nourishing magical circulation seemed infused with a more substantial, weightier quality.
Where the magic flowed, it no longer merely nourished — it brought a strange sense of consolidation, as though muscle fibers and bone density were being strengthened far more effectively through this synchronized resonance.
A wholly new sensation of power rose slowly from deep within his limbs.
And maintaining the dynamic model was already an extreme exercise in mental focus — but the moment he truly synchronized with the stars' motion-tendency, his consciousness felt anchored. It became clearer, more solid.
The daily clutter of thoughts, the ambient murmur of stray magic pervading the castle, even the deep, private sense of alienation and loneliness belonging to a transmigrator — all of it was smoothed away by a vast, serene vision.
The soul felt as though it had found a firm pedestal, growing stiller, harder to shake.
This was a qualitative shift.
Regulus held the state, savoring every fine-grained change.
In this synchronized mode, magic not only recovered faster — it seemed to grow more condensed and tractable.
He realized he might have inadvertently touched upon a deeper magical truth.
Body, mind, magic — they had never been an isolated triad. They could be unified, each promoting the others, ascending together.
He gave this integrated method a private name: Star-Orbit Guided Meditation.
From now on, physical tempering and mental meditation need no longer be practiced separately. They would merge into a single, holistic discipline — an active pursuit of total synchronization.
With that, the foundation was laid.