Chapter 44: The Bloody Baron
The Halloween feast arrived on schedule.
The Great Hall's ceiling had been bewitched into a roiling mass of thunderclouds and lightning — yet not a drop fell upon the banquet below.
The long tables groaned under the weight of food: sausages that leapt into your plate, fizzing purple drinks, and an array of ghoulishly shaped desserts that tasted absolutely divine.
Regulus sat at the middle of the Slytherin table, eating in silence.
Avery was beside him; Alex a little farther off; Hermes sat opposite, wordlessly cutting his steak.
The mood was reasonably peaceful — until a second-year Slytherin ambled over, goblet in hand.
Rabastan Lestrange. Younger brother to Rodolphus Lestrange. Bellatrix's future brother-in-law.
The Lestrange family's unwavering devotion to Voldemort was an open secret.
Rabastan wore it as a badge of honor; his face permanently carried a look that mingled fanaticism with hauteur.
He had clearly had plenty of pumpkin juice — possibly spiked — and his face was flushed as he bore down on Regulus's section of the table. "Well, well — the first-year Head." Rabastan's voice was pitched at an obnoxious whine, deliberately intimate and condescending. "Happy Halloween, Black.
Bella wrote just the other day — mentioned you. Said you've done well, haven't disgraced the family.
My brother Rodolphus says there might be a chance for you to... serve a greater cause together, someday."
Avery's brow furrowed immediately. He set down his knife and fork.
Alex dropped his head in nervous reflex.
Hermes, too, paused mid-motion, his dark gaze sweeping to Rabastan.
Regulus raised his eyelids, gave Rabastan one look, said nothing, and dabbed his lips with a napkin.
But one look was enough. Avery caught the signal at once.
"Lestrange, it's dinnertime." Avery interjected — cool, not cold — his voice noticeably steadier than usual.
"Discussing family correspondence and private affairs might be better suited to another occasion."
Rabastan hadn't expected the first to speak up to be Avery — a mere hanger-on. He blinked, then bristled. "I'm talking to Black, Cuthbert."
"Black is eating." This time it was Hermes, voice low and gravelly, carrying his signature chill.
"And this great cause of yours — a lot of people here probably won't understand a word. Flaunt it too early, and you might trip over your own tongue."
That remark drew blood.
Rabastan's face darkened. Of his two companions — both pure-blood, but of lesser family standing — one looked inclined to defuse the situation while the other watched the drama with detached amusement. The atmosphere turned awkward.
"Come on, Rabastan. It's a feast." The peacemaker tugged his sleeve.
Rabastan looked at Regulus — still expressionless, still eating — then at Avery's unfriendly eyes and Hermes's sullen stare. He understood he'd gain nothing here and would more likely embarrass himself.
He snorted and turned on his heel.
Regulus never spared him another glance, as though a buzzing insect had simply drifted past.
He sliced his food and analyzed swiftly. The Lestrange brothers — Rodolphus especially — were Voldemort's hardliners. Bellatrix's future husband. A frenzied executioner-to-be.
This Rabastan, heavily influenced by his family, was zealous enough yet intellectually shallow, impulsive — the textbook disposable enforcer.
In certain specific scenarios, such a person could be put to good use: steered toward dangerous assignments or tasks that drew enemy fire.
In the end, he would find his own destination.
For those destined to plunge into the abyss and drag others down with them, Regulus would waste no sympathy.
The feast went on, the Hall alive with laughter.
Tables heaped with food. Toasted pumpkin pasties wafting sweetness. Sugar-frost spiders crawling between the plates.
Dumbledore rose. Tonight he wore deep purple robes embroidered with silver stars, his eyes twinkling warmly behind the half-moon spectacles.
"A Happy Halloween to all," his voice boomed, magically amplified. "Tonight, we have invited a very special troupe."
He clapped lightly; a door at one side of the Hall swung open.
Three wizards in bright theatrical costumes marched in, followed by several well-trained small magical creatures.
Leading them was a short, plump witch who bowed to Dumbledore, then flashed the students a wide smile.
"The Moonlight Circus, from Wales," Dumbledore announced. "They will be performing some entertaining magical feats for us."
The show began.
First act: a color-changing-lizard dance. Small lizards shifted hue at the flick of a wand — emerald to gold to silver-white — and arranged themselves on a tabletop into the shape of a jack-o'-lantern.
Students gasped in delight.
Regulus sat at the Slytherin table, watching quietly.
His gaze swept across the Hall, and he noticed the Bloody Baron drifting past the Ravenclaw table, robes stained with those dark smears that would never wash out.
Regulus recalled the contents of "A Brief History of Soul Magic." Ghosts were residues of obsession — remnant forms of the soul.
A ghost like the Bloody Baron, existing for close to a millennium, must harbor an obsession of unimaginable depth.
He and Ravenclaw's Grey Lady were among Hogwarts' most ancient ghosts — powerful wizards in life, keepers of countless secrets in death.
The show hit its climax. The circus wizards conjured a swarm of glowing magical butterflies that formed the words "Happy Halloween" in midair, then dissolved into golden dust drifting softly downward.
Under the cover of the spectacle, Regulus slipped from his seat.
He found the Bloody Baron in a corner, gazing toward the Ravenclaw table.
The Baron's eyes pierced the festive crowd, fixing on the Grey Lady's hovering form. The emotion in them was indecipherable.
"Baron." Regulus stopped at a respectful distance.
The ghost turned his head slowly.
"The Black family's child." The Baron's voice was dry and hollow.
Regulus noted inwardly: the Baron knew him — or perhaps recognized his bloodline?
Either way, recognition served his purpose. He had many questions for a ghost of such seniority.
"I've come across certain records in my family's archives and would like to ask your counsel." He opted for directness, pressing on before a refusal could form.
"Regarding the nature of ghosts. The texts say a ghost is the obsession a wizard left behind in the world — a crystallization of memory and emotion.
But I don't understand: why do some wizards become ghosts and others don't? It doesn't seem to be a choice."
The Baron's lips trembled — something between a smile and a grimace of pain.
"Choice?" His tone held an indescribable bitterness. "You think becoming a ghost is a choice? No, child. This is not a choice. It is failure."
"Failure?" Seeing the Baron willing to engage, Regulus pressed while the iron was hot.
"The inability to let go." The Baron's gaze drifted back toward the Grey Lady. "The inability to finish. To accept. Or to... face certain truths.
And so we remain — trapped in the seam between life and death."
Regulus thought of "A Brief History of Soul Magic" and its discussion of soul integrity.
A whole, healthy soul ought to pass smoothly into the next stage — whatever that stage was, no living person knew.
A lingering ghost was, in a sense, a failed form of the soul.
"Then what, essentially, distinguishes a ghost's soul from a living person's?" Regulus pressed. "Beyond the absence of a body?"
The Bloody Baron turned to face him squarely. Something seemed to stir within his hollow eyes.
"You are very direct. Not like other young wizards... they either fear me or ignore me." His cadence was slow, like dry leaves scraping stone.
"A living soul is complete and fluid — it changes. A ghost's soul is frozen. Like an insect in amber — fixed in the shape of the moment of death, forever unable to change."
Regulus caught the crucial point. "So a ghost's power derives from the frozen state of the soul itself? And that freezing confers a certain quality?"
The Baron was silent for a long time.
"Yes. Frozen means stable. Means difficult to destroy.
A living soul can be wounded, can shatter, can be torn.
But a ghost's soul has already broken once — broken just enough. Not so far as to dissipate entirely, yet past the point of change.
That is why it is hard to harm."
The words sent a tremor through Regulus.
Soul torn apart — that was precisely the process of creating a Horcrux.
Voldemort had ripped his soul to pieces and sealed them in separate vessels. Did that mean, in some way, a Horcrux-maker and a ghost were alike?
Both unnatural states of the soul?
Regulus chose his next words with care, divulging only a fragment of truth: "I have read certain books. About the soul. About how to tear it apart and seal the fragments."
Then he asked: "What I want to know is — if someone's soul has already been damaged, how can they protect what remains from further harm?"