Helios’s Awakening Interlude II

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Helios’s Awakening

Interlude II—
Catch me or I go, Houdini.
—Houdini, Dua Lipa

Regulus closed the letter from Andromeda.

It was all set.

Helios, according to prophecy, was supposed to usurp the Dark Lord—become more powerful than him one day.  He was set, if one read the prophecy correctly, to become an even more powerful figure in magic.  Another dark lord perhaps, more pervasive in society, one who might actually rule magical Britain?  Who, exactly, could tell?  But the prophecy said nothing about who could defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort—if he could be defeated at all.  Prophecy was a fickle thing.

Regulus had destroyed five horcruxes, and they believed those were all the horcruxes that were made.  Now they just needed to kill the Dark Lord himself.

The Dark Mark on Regulus’s arm was a smoky grey showing that the Dark Lord was back but not at his full power.  He knew from speaking with Lucius and Severus that their Dark Marks were similarly a smoky grey.

They had been like this since the summer of 1994, a year and a half earlier.

This was the perfect time to kill the Dark Lord, when he was alive, corporeal, but weakened.

Regulus had already rendez-voused with Sirius and gotten the vault key to their parents’ side vault.  He had taken a dark athame that was tinged with a dark potion that would stop the heart immediately and suck a person’s magic into the athame, instantly killing them if piercing the heart did not actually kill the wizard or witch.

He set it in his boot where he could easily access it.

There was a chime in his office, telling him that he would soon have a visitor.

He quickly snicked his wand up his sleeve and sat down behind his desk, looking busy.

There was a knock at the door. He called out to whoever was on the other side.

It was Miss Granger.

Hermione Granger was a more than competent Muggleborn student with bushy hair and light brown eyes.  The only problem is that she had stolen her magic from another wizarding child sometime before she had attended Hogwarts.  Other than being a magic-stealer, she was perfectly amiable, if a bit of a know-it-all.

Regulus kept a small book detailing each and every Mudblood student in his classes, their capabilities, the strength of their magic, and where they lived in England or Ireland.  He was in the process of trying to track where each and every one had stolen their magic.  Hermione Granger was a peculiar case.  He couldn’t trace her at all.

He had his suspicions that she had stolen her magic from a French wizard child when her family was in holiday in the South of France every August.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t expand his investigations quite that far with his limited resources.

Regulus believed he was very close to tracing who had stolen Neville Longbottom’s magic.

Unfortunately, there was no reversal process.  Once a wizard child’s magic was stolen, there was no way to siphon it back—so far.  More research had to be done.  He left that to more scientifically inclined wizards.

He looked up and put a pleasant look on his face.  “Miss Granger.  How may I help you?”

She blushed.  Miss Granger unfortunately had a bit of a crush on him, which he was trying to discourage.  It was inappropriate given she was a student and completely undesirable given that she was a Mudblood.

“I have a favor to ask of you.”

“A favor?” he asked, setting aside his quill.  “I’m afraid I don’t do favors for my students.  It would be unethical.”

“It’s not that kind of favor,” she assured him.  Miss Granger came and sat down in the seat in front of his desk without him offering it to her.  She was completely without manners.  “It has to do with your nephew.”

“My family is none of your concern,” he warned her, his blue-grey eyes flashing.

“It is only that Helios is a close friend of mine.”

“I doubt that.  If there is nothing else—”

“Please,” she hedged.  “Helios and I came to Hogwarts together.  We were sorted into Gryffindor together.  He now no longer talks to me because he was resorted.”

Regulus looked her over once.  “We both know that’s untrue, Miss Granger.  Ten points for lying to a teacher.”

She flushed.  “I’m not lying.”

“Another ten points from Gryffindor.  You stopped talking to Helios because he put his name in the Goblet of Fire and you were jealous.  He’s not speaking to you because your friendship is fickle.  Do not misrepresent yourself.”

“I thought, if I proved to you what a good student I am—”

“You are an average student, you may get Exceeds Expectations, but nothing special,” he argued, “but that has nothing to do with your relationship with my nephew, and you should know better than to inquire into my personal life.  I do not inquire into yours.”  He looked at her hard.  “If there’s nothing else.”

She hesitated.

“Would you like to lose more points?”  He hoped that that put her off.

“No—”  Unfortunately, he seemed to be incorrect.  She was pressing the point.

“Then I suggest you leave.”

She quickly got up and opened her mouth to speak, but he lifted his finger in warning, and she shortly left after that.  Mudbloods were all the same.

Regulus checked his boot.  The athame was still secure.

He took out a map of Northern England which had three markings on it.  Harrogate, Little Hangleton, and Marchbanks.  Those were the three possible locations for the Dark Lord’s manor.  He would start with Harrogate. 

He put on a cloak and left his office, shutting it up not ten minutes after Miss Granger had left.

He walked through the castle and out toward Hogsmeade so he could find an apparition point.

Regulus didn’t find Riddle House in Harrogate.  He searched the outskirts of Harrogate, but there was nothing.

When he returned to Hogwarts, there was an owl waiting for him.  It was well past two in the morning, but he took the note and opened it.  It was from the Dark Lord.  Regulus quickly looked at the owl to see if he would recognize the bird, but he did not.

It seemed, as Helios’s closest male relative, the Dark Lord wanted to set up the parameters of Helios’s apprenticeship.  Perfect.  There was a floo address attached to the letter.  He flooed out almost immediately.

When he flooed back in, it was the Gaunt Ring, broken, in his hand.  The Dark Lord was dead, the athame having done its work.  Helios was safe—from that quarter.

Somehow Regulus felt like the danger was only beginning.