Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

At breakfast, Avery was still rattling on about the holiday.

He waved his fork around describing the Malfoy Manor ballroom's dimensions, the enchanted ceiling murals that shifted patterns, and the exquisitely named confections that house-elves carried in on silver trays.

Alex sat beside him, head lowered, listening, occasionally chiming in to ask for details. Hermes just ate, head down — knife and fork clicking quietly against porcelain.

Regulus chewed his toast slowly, mind uncharacteristically adrift.

The holiday days felt shrouded behind a thin veil — vivid yet remote.

The Malfoy banquet. The pure-blood gathering. Those loaded exchanges with Lucius on the terrace.

Touring the family holdings, place by place. That brief, sharp skirmish in the dim alleys of Knockturn Alley.

All compressed into a single break — dense and rich.

He'd done those things in an adult capacity, pondered adult questions, navigated adult relationships.

Then, in the blink of an eye, he was back at Hogwarts — attending lessons as a first-year. Over at the Gryffindor table, James Potter was loudly recounting a holiday broomstick race with Sirius, while Peter Pettigrew peppered him with awestruck questions.

A few Ravenclaw girls debated the colors of hair ribbons they'd bought over break. Some Hufflepuff boys complained about nearly not finishing their homework.

On the Slytherin side, apart from Avery's show-off narration, others were swapping holiday stories too.

Who'd bought a new broomstick, who'd vacationed in France and tried such-and-such delicacy, who'd picked up a fun trinket in Knockturn Alley.

Trivial. Ordinary. Tinged with childish excitement and grumbling.

Regulus suddenly found it all rather charming.

That unfiltered attention to life's small details. The curiosity about new things. The pursuit of simple pleasures.

It had been so long since he'd experienced that feeling — so long he'd nearly forgotten he was, in fact, only eleven.

......

The first class of the new term was Charms.

Professor Flitwick stood atop his stack of books and shrilly announced the day's content: "Rictusempra! A fun little charm that forces the target's mouth into an uncontrollable grin — sustained laughter.

The charm itself is harmless, but used well, it can effectively disrupt an opponent's spellcasting. After all, casting while laughing is rather difficult."

He demonstrated the wand-movement and pronunciation. A flick — a pink flash struck a training dummy on the dais.

The dummy's wooden face immediately split into a wide, silent grin.

"Now — pair up and practice!"

Regulus teamed with Avery.

It was indeed a minor charm — many first-years had already learned it before the term. Nothing challenging.

Avery succeeded on his first try, coaxing the dummy's mouth into a grin, though the amplitude was small — more like a forced, slightly eerie smile on the wooden face.

Regulus's wand fired a pink flash, and the dummy's mouth stretched ear-to-ear instantly, the entire face contorting into a comically exaggerated laugh.

"Perfect!" Professor Flitwick bounced on his cushions. "Precise casting, stable effect — five points to Slytherin!"

Regulus nodded politely in thanks, but felt no real stir inside.

He'd known this charm for ages — picked it up somewhere, some book or some student's practice session; it had simply stuck.

Basic charm. Low magic cost. Direct effect. A textbook entry-level prank spell.

But since they were in class, and the professor had taught it, he practiced diligently.

Wand flick. Flash fired. Dummy grinned. Cancel. Repeat.

Smooth. Effortless.

Halfway through, his mind began to wander.

Then a thought surfaced, abrupt and sharp.

Regulus lowered his wand and waited until Professor Flitwick's patrol brought him near their table — then raised his hand.

Several Slytherin and Ravenclaw students nearby perked up. Regulus Black was asking a question — the first of the term.

"Professor," Regulus's voice was courteous, carrying a touch of deference, "regarding Rictusempra — I have a question."

Flitwick walked over and peered up, curious. "Go ahead, Mister Black."

"Does this charm only work on humans?"

"It works on most living things." Flitwick replied. "Mammals, birds, even some reptiles.

Certain magical creatures with strong magic resistance might shrug off such a minor charm, of course.

Then again, it depends — if the caster is a powerful, skilled wizard, the charm's potency could be sufficient for most organisms."

He assumed the question ended there. But Regulus didn't stop.

"What if the target has no mouth?" Regulus pressed.

"Or the mouth and excretory opening are the same orifice — like in cnidarians? Jellyfish, sea anemones, coral polyps and the like. How does the charm take effect?"

The classroom went quiet. What kind of question was that?

Why would any creature share a single opening?

Students exchanged baffled looks.

A few Ravenclaws furrowed their brows, earnestly mulling it over.

Several Slytherins wore peculiar expressions — wanting to laugh but not quite daring.

Flitwick was visibly taken aback.

He pushed his spectacles up his nose, thought carefully, then answered with measured caution: "That is... a very creative question.

To my knowledge, no one has ever cast this charm on a cnidarian.

Theoretically, without a defined mouth structure, the charm might fail to find a target zone — or the effect would be drastically diminished, perhaps entirely null."

"What about earthworms?" Regulus continued. "They have both a mouth and an anus, but both are small openings on the same body segment.

Or slugs — mouth on the ventral surface, quite small.

Or certain deep-sea fish — mouths in bizarre locations, or arguably lacking a conventional mouth altogether."

"Mister Black." Flitwick interrupted gently, tone kind but pointed.

"The examples you raise are, indeed, rarely studied. Charms scholarship primarily concerns effects on humans and common magical creatures.

As for those... structurally unusual organisms, one would probably need to modify the charm specifically."

Regulus nodded. "Understood, Professor Flitwick. Thank you for the explanation."

Flitwick gave him a meaningful look. "You're welcome, Mister Black. Questions are always welcome in my classroom."

Regulus, of course, had no genuine interest in which end of a cnidarian was mouth and which was waste-gate. That sort of trivia had novelty value and nothing else.

What the small charm had sparked was a sudden realization. Rictusempra, from the day it was invented, was designed for one thing: force the target's mouth open, prevent closure.

Its creator hadn't considered cnidarians. Hadn't considered earthworms or slugs. Probably hadn't considered any organism beyond humans.

One purpose. One effect. That was the entirety of the charm's conception.

No underlying principle in between.

No complex analysis of magical-energy architecture. No deep study of the target's physiology. No scientific explanation of the neuromuscular control behind a grin.

Someone simply thought: 'I want to make another person laugh.'

And through some process — intuition, inspiration, maybe countless rounds of trial and error — found the method of channeling magic that made the thought real.

Then the charm was handed down, written into textbooks, taught generation after generation.

Charms textbooks recorded the gesture, the pronunciation, the precautions — even variants and advanced applications.

But they didn't record why this gesture paired with this syllable produced this effect.

Because nobody knew. Or the few who did were so rare that the knowledge became arcana — or was simply lost to history.

Through this trivial charm, Regulus suddenly grasped: magic couldn't always be understood or deconstructed.

He had been trying to approach magic through science, reason, and logic.

Magic was energy. Incantations were code. Gestures were routing. Effects were output. Like a precision program.

That framework had let him rapidly master a vast array of spells — and even improve, optimize, and create new applications.

But some magic might simply not work that way.

The Patronus Charm demanded positive emotion — the truest longing of the innermost self.

A Patronus didn't materialize because he understood the neuroscience of happiness or the philosophical definition of guardianship. It came because he genuinely felt joy — genuinely wanted to protect something.

That was the power of the heart. The projection of will. Something more fundamental, more direct, more idealist.

Rictusempra, trivial as it was, might work on a similar basis.

Its creator hadn't overthought it — just wanted to make someone laugh, and did.

The student learning it didn't need to overthink it either — memorize the gesture and pronunciation, practice the magic control, and it worked.