Harry Potter: Reborn as Regulus Black

Chapter 291: Using Bella as Feed

Orion’s gaze settled on the wand. He studied it for a moment, then shifted to Sirius.

Frozen mid-rise, arm suspended, finger still pointing at Regulus, mouth open, eyes locked wide in the same direction.

Orion looked at Regulus.

Regulus had already turned back, posture relaxed, a trace of ease on his face, the air of someone who’d tidied up a minor matter and was ready to move on.

Orion looked at Kreacher.

Beside the desk, the house-elf stood with head bowed, hands at his sides, both enormous ears drooping nearly to his shoulders, his whole body curved in the same arc he wore every time he was summoned to receive instructions.

Orion had long since stopped noticing.

The house was saturated with Kreacher’s presence.

Every morning the fire in the hearth was Kreacher’s doing. The books in the study, organized by Kreacher. The food on the table, prepared by Kreacher.

Stairs, corridors, floors, walls, windows, door handles. Every visible surface in this old house bore his work.

Orion had seen house-elf magic, of course. Kreacher used it dozens of times a day around the manor, and it was quiet, docile, filling every corner of the house like air.

But it had never occurred to him that Kreacher could do anything else. He’d never tested the idea, because the thought had never crossed his mind.

Pure-blood families had operated this way for generations. Hand the manor to the house-elf. Hand the children to the house-elf. Outsource the entire fabric of domestic life.

Centuries of it, without incident.

But a moment ago, Kreacher had snapped his fingers and Sirius’s wand had flown free.

Sirius was far from powerful, granted. Third year, combat experience close to zero. But he had been disarmed.

By a house-elf, in the sliver of time before his hand even reached the wand.

For centuries, pure-blood families had built their sense of security on an assumption: house-elves obeyed absolutely, remained loyal absolutely, and would never pose a threat to their masters.

No one had ever tested that assumption, because no one had recognized it as one.

It had been treated as fact. As natural law. As certain as the sun rising in the east.

Orion pulled his gaze from Kreacher and returned it to Regulus.

He didn’t ask how Regulus knew Kreacher could do it. He didn’t ask Kreacher anything at all.

He filed the observation into a quiet corner of his mind, alongside the things that didn’t need examining yet but shouldn’t be forgotten.

He raised a hand and waved once.

Kreacher bowed and vanished without a sound.

Green flames leapt twice in the fireplace. The study settled into silence. The portrait on the wall dozed.

Orion watched Regulus, waiting.

The petrified Sirius remained locked in place. Neither of them spared him a glance.

Regulus didn’t speak right away. His eyes lingered on the wand for a few seconds, then he lifted his head, expression calm, voice to match.

"I ignited my soul at school."

A pause. Then: "I can see it now."

The teacup in Orion’s hand stopped halfway to his lips. He set it down without drinking, and said nothing.

Silence.

Regulus continued: "After Andromeda’s wedding in France, Dumbledore took me to see Nicolas Flamel."

Orion shifted, leaning forward, hands clasped, forearms resting on the desk.

Nicolas Flamel. The furthest reach of Alchemy. A wizard who’d lived over six hundred years. Creator of the Philosopher’s Stone.

Dumbledore’s old friend, and the name that sat at the very top of any list of living legends.

The weight that name carried in the wizarding world required no explanation.

Orion himself had only heard of the man. Knew he was still alive. Knew he lived somewhere in Paris, in seclusion.

Never imagined that name would one day intersect with his son’s.

"Flamel told me the soul needs to be fed. That it can consume." Regulus’s voice filled the study. "It eats experiences. Choices. The things you refuse to let go of, no matter what."

Orion listened.

"I thought about it for a while. Interacting with the world, exerting influence... that’s feeding it. And it shouldn’t be passive. It should be pushed outward. Every time I affect someone’s judgment, change their actions, alter an outcome, the soul feeds. The more it eats, the stronger it becomes."

Orion was quiet for a long time.

Regulus said he’d ignited his soul. Then he had. Said he could see it. Then he could.

This son never claimed things he hadn’t done, and never reported results he hadn’t achieved.

The soul.

Orion understood what the soul was.

In magical tradition, the soul had never been treated as a standalone subject, because it was everywhere, threaded through every spell, impossible to isolate and discuss on its own.

Hogwarts taught seven years of spellwork, first through seventh year, hundreds of spells, Transfiguration from matchstick to human transformation, Potions from boil cures to Polyjuice Potion.

Not a single lesson covered the soul, because it couldn’t be taught.

Knowing the soul existed was one thing. Perceiving it, seeing it, touching it, actively feeding it, was something else entirely.

Most wizards lived their entire lives with the soul sitting like a stone at the bottom of a lake. They knew it was there but couldn’t see it, couldn’t reach it, let alone haul it up and nurture it.

Orion was the same.

He knew the soul could grow. That wasn’t a secret. But the distance between knowing and doing stretched further than Grimmauld Place to Hogwarts.

What he could do was protect.

Keep the soul from being eroded. Keep it from warping through contact with darkness.

That was what the main branch of the Black family had done for generations. Study the Dark Arts without drowning in them. Navigate pure-blood politics without being consumed.

Stay lucid. Maintain distance. Refuse to be changed.

Toujours Pur.

Though not everyone managed it.

Bellatrix hadn’t.

She’d embraced the Dark Arts, thrown herself in whole, let her soul be stretched into whatever shape Voldemort wanted.

But the main branch, generation after generation, had held the line. Guarded the boundary. Guarded themselves.

And that was what nearly every established pure-blood main line did as well.

Dark magic corroded the soul. Common knowledge, as basic as knowing fire burned skin.

You could touch the flame, but you didn’t leave your hand in it.

Most pure-blood families chose to walk around the fire altogether, avoiding the deepest Dark magic, keeping the soul safe by default.

But there were exceptions.

Some Heads of House died before they could teach their heirs. Young wizards took over without anyone to show them where the boundaries lay, plunged in headfirst, and never came back out.

Others had too much talent, too much ambition. Convinced they could take it. Convinced the cost to the soul was negligible. They went deeper and deeper until they became someone else entirely.

So protecting the soul was consensus, but consensus didn’t guarantee compliance. Every family tree had its Bellatrix.

This was Orion’s skill, and also his ceiling.

He could guard his own soul, keep it from corroding, keep it from warping.

He didn’t know how to make it stronger.

Regulus had done it. At twelve, he’d walked to a place Orion had never reached.

Orion didn’t ask how.

Questions like that had no standard answer. Or perhaps they did, but it would be Regulus’s answer, and knowing it wouldn’t help. The path wouldn’t open for someone else’s feet.

There was another thing.

Dumbledore had been involved. And Nicolas Flamel.

A man who’d lived six centuries had been willing to meet a twelve-year-old Black, willing to hand him the framework for feeding the soul.

That alone said more than enough.

Setting Dumbledore aside, someone like Flamel, six hundred years old, had seen every kind of wizard there was.

That he’d chosen to speak meant he’d seen something in Regulus worth speaking for.

Orion sat in silence for a long while. A log in the fireplace burned down a notch, ash falling from the grate, crumbling to powder on the iron bars.

He lifted his gaze, studied Regulus, and raised his chin a fraction. "Go on."

Regulus continued.

"At first, sheltering those two half-bloods was incidental." His tone was casual, almost light. "Alex Rosier wanted to do it, so I let him. He’s been managing those two. Running errands, passing messages. Decent enough at it."

"Later it became something else. Bella noticed. Sent a warning letter. I wrote back."

Orion listened.

"Wrote ’SO.’" Regulus said.

Orion looked at him.

"Question mark." Regulus added.

One of Orion’s eyebrows moved.

"In ketchup." Regulus added again. "Breakfast. Spur of the moment."

Orion said nothing.

Spur of the moment?

Writing "SO?" in ketchup and sending it to Bellatrix Lestrange, Voldemort’s most devoted follower.

Nothing about that sounded spur of the moment.

But Orion didn’t dwell on it.

He set this detail alongside what Regulus had said about feeding the soul, and considered.

Pushing outward. Exerting influence.

Bella was at the core of the Death Eaters. Provoking her meant pushing against Voldemort’s side.

From any ordinary Black heir, those moves would look impulsive, reckless.

From Regulus, they were positioning. Soul-feeding.

He was using Bella as feed.

Orion decided Regulus had done the right thing. Done it well, even.

He nodded once. "Go on."

"Rabastan Lestrange got involved. Had Snape dig into the two half-bloods, trying to find out why I was protecting them, whether I’d assigned them some task. Snape turned around and brought the information straight to me."

Orion listened.

Snape. The Prince family half-blood. One of Regulus’s people at school.