Chapter 274: Mutual Trust [bonus]
Dumbledore didn't dwell on why Regulus did these things.
He'd lived too long. Seen too much.
People did the right thing for the wrong reasons. People did the wrong thing for the right reasons. Motives shifted. Today's calculation could become tomorrow's sincerity, and tomorrow's sincerity could curdle back into calculation the day after.
But actions left traces, and traces changed reality.
Those two half-blood students now had a place in Slytherin. Lily Evans's magical ability was climbing fast.
These were real changes. Whatever the motive, the changes had already happened.
And Dumbledore saw something deeper.
He remembered the morning mist in France, the idle conversation with Regulus on the way there.
They'd talked about Transfiguration and flight, but what Dumbledore had taken away was something else entirely: Regulus's attitude toward magic itself.