Chapter 33: Poor Potter
Thursday afternoon. After History of Magic.
Regulus walked alone along a quiet corridor toward the library, books in hand.
Professor Binns's soporific drone still lingered in his mind. He was mulling over the records of seventeenth-century goblin metalwork combined with magical runic inscription.
Suddenly, three figures stepped from around the corner ahead and blocked his path.
James Potter stood in the center, wearing that grin that sat halfway between mischief and malice.
Remus Lupin flanked him slightly behind and to the side, brow furrowed. Peter Pettigrew cowered at the rear, eyes darting.
"Well, well — look who it is. Slytherin's little Head." James drawled the words out. "All alone? Where's the Head's entourage?"
Regulus stopped. His calm gaze swept across the three, lingering a fraction longer on Lupin.
The brown-haired boy's brow was creased, his stance carrying an almost imperceptible stiffness. He lacked James's aggression and Peter's trembling; he was more like a reluctant bystander.
Or, rather, like a vessel straining to contain something within. Regulus let his magical perception brush lightly past Lupin. He could clearly sense it: something inside the boy, forcibly caged yet instinctively restless — inhuman, primal, reeking of blood and the cold gleam of moonlight.
It crouched. It lurked. It clashed entirely with Lupin's gentle temperament.
Werewolf.
Regulus couldn't help the stray, faintly absurd thought: 'Why couldn't it be a werepig, a weredog, or a weresheep?
Perhaps on full-moon nights it would just shift form, root around in the Forbidden Forest, chase its own tail, or quietly munch some grass. That would be rather entertaining.'
The thought flickered and passed. He knew Lupin's secret, but he assessed it as just that — a werewolf, nothing worth excessive attention.
He had no intention of exposing it. Let them keep playing their little game called friendship.
Sirius was not with them. Regulus noted the absence with amusement and a trace of impatience.
It was like being in a hurry to get somewhere and finding a handful of children playing in the mud in the middle of the road, trying to throw rocks at you.
"Potter," Regulus spoke, his voice devoid of emotion. "If your intellect were as impoverished as your magic, I'd suggest you report directly to the Hospital Wing instead of wasting what little brain you possess on this uninspired provocation."
James flushed crimson. "You—!"
"I what?" Regulus cut him off, faintly mocking — almost pitying. "You think this is some sort of courage contest?
Picking fights, brawling, proving who's tougher? Is your entire existence really reduced to Quidditch, pranks, and these childish stunts?"
He regarded James as though looking through the indignant boy to the man he would become — one who would confront Voldemort and Death Eaters with the same blunt, straightforward approach.
Brave, certainly. But crude and idealistic in method — even reckless, unwise.
As if the whole world could run on a single rule: 'good guys should hit bad guys.'
That brand of optimism — grown in love and sunlight, untested by genuine cruelty — was sometimes naive to the point of outrage.
James, scarlet with fury, whipped out his wand: "Rictusempra! Locomotor Mortis!"
Two spells — one high, one low — fired simultaneously. He had clearly practiced the combination; the speed was noticeably above a typical junior student's.
To Regulus, however, they were still agonizingly slow.
He did not even shift his feet. His wand traced a half-circle before him.
"Protego." A solid silver barrier unfurled in an instant.
James's two spells struck it and disintegrated into twin bursts of sparks. The shield did not so much as ripple.
"What—?!" James faltered.
In that heartbeat of hesitation, Regulus's wand flicked forward. "Expelliarmus."
James reacted fast — in physical agility he truly lived up to his reputation. He was already throwing himself into a dodge-roll.
But it was useless. Every intention of his was transparent to Regulus.
A bolt of dense, concentrated red light struck him square in the chest like lightning.
"Argh!" James cried out, body thrown backward, wand flying free. Regulus caught it with a Levitation Charm, suspending it in midair.
"Petrificus Totalus." A third spell chained seamlessly, striking Lupin's shoulder just as he moved to act.
Lupin's body went rigid. He froze mid-step, unable to move, shock flooding his eyes.
Peter had already locked up in terror. Seeing both companions dispatched in an instant, he let out a shriek, didn't even reach for his wand, and simply bolted.
"Incarcerous." Regulus did not bother looking at him. A careless wave, and invisible magical bonds materialized around Peter, pinning him in place. He could only whimper in fright.
The entire encounter had lasted under ten seconds. The corridor fell silent again, occupied only by James clutching his chest and gasping, Lupin standing stiff as a statue, and Peter struggling noiselessly.
Regulus held James's wand. He walked forward and looked down at the face contorted by pain and disbelief.
"Your confidence was built on tricks this fragile?" He tossed the wand back into James's lap. His tone was that of an adult scolding a misbehaving child: "Go back and read more books, Potter.
Or better yet — look at what the people around you are doing. Why not learn from those who are actually good at this?"
He turned to leave, but just then hurried footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor.
He paused only briefly before releasing the spells on Lupin and Peter. Lupin staggered, bracing himself against the wall. Peter slumped to the floor, gulping air.
"James Potter! What have you done now—!" Lily Evans came running, red hair flying, green eyes blazing with fury.
She had caught wind of it and come to intervene.
But when she saw the scene — Regulus immaculate and calm, James and his trio in disarray, wands on the ground — she froze for a beat.
"It seems you arrived a touch late, Miss Evans." Regulus gave the stunned Lily a nod. His tone was level, without being stiff.
He turned and looked down at James Potter once more. Those grey eyes held nothing — only indifference.
"This is the last time, Potter." His voice was quiet. "I don't care about your childish games, and I have no interest in indulging your pointless ego.
This is the second time you've come after me. It will be the last. I will not give you a third chance."
James jerked his head up, eyes practically sparking. He wanted to argue, to curse—
But the ache in his chest and the reality of having been utterly steamrolled in a matter of seconds — no resistance whatsoever — lodged in his throat like twin stones.
He had heard Regulus's warning. If he tried again, the consequences would not be so mild.
Regulus finished, then turned to a visibly conflicted Lily. "As it happens, I was heading to the library to look up some Potions references. Walk together?"
Lily looked at James — defiant yet visibly cowed, no longer speaking — then back at Regulus, composed and at ease. She hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
"All right. I have a Potions essay to write anyway."
They walked side by side toward the library, leaving James Potter in the corridor, staring after them, face alternating between ashen and livid — feeling, for the first time, a total, comprehensive, and utterly thorough defeat.
Remus Lupin leaned against the wall, gazing in the direction Regulus had gone, complex emotions churning — shot through, even, with a thread of guilt.
Both times, they had been the aggressors.
And Regulus Black — Slytherin through and through — had never been rumored to bully the weak or resort to underhanded schemes.
Their own side, on the other hand — James especially — took advantage of numbers and genuinely superior casting ability to torment and humiliate anyone who displeased them, laughing and jeering afterward.
He stepped forward and hauled the still-dazed James to his feet.
Peter picked himself up from the ground, small eyes still brimming with fright — plainly shaken by how cleanly and swiftly they had been dismantled.
James's expression was ghastly — he looked as though Sirius had just died. He gripped his recovered wand, knuckles white.
His mind replayed those few seconds on a loop: his spells batted away like nothing, wand ripped from his hand, Remus petrified, Peter bound.
He had taken Regulus's warning fully on board.
But even so, he absolutely had to reclaim his pride; the humiliation of today had to be washed away.
That would require... a more thorough plan. Greater power. Or a better moment.
At the very least, no more head-on charges as reckless as today's. The thought was profoundly galling. His face darkened until it looked ready to drip water.
"Let's go." James ground out two words through clenched teeth, shook off Lupin's supporting hand, and strode toward Gryffindor Tower without looking back, footsteps heavy and rapid.
Lupin and Peter exchanged a glance and hurried after him.