Chapter 231: I Want to Reach the Stars, So What? [bonus]
Flamel's last words hung in the air, and the room went quiet.
A log popped in the fireplace. Sparks leapt and fell back. The alchemical instruments continued their work, tick-tick-tick, like some ancient clockwork.
Regulus finished processing what he'd heard, but other thoughts were already rising to take its place.
Flamel had said his Patronus was so bright because there was light inside him.
True. But not the whole truth.
His Patronus was bright, yes, but not for something as simple as inner light. The protective image of Bellatrix, the stars spinning ceaselessly through his mental landscape... those were the real source of its radiance.
He hadn't given it much thought since that first time on the Irish cliffs, when the Starlight Kite had burst into existence.
The Patronus's significance to him had never been about the glow. Never about what it could drive away.
Its greatest meaning lay elsewhere.