Chapter 322: The Wise Man's Hour [bonus] |
At 12 Grimmauld Place, in Orion's study, the letters lay heaped on the desk in stacks.
Every half hour Kreacher brought in another batch, set the newcomers on top, then bent and shuffled out backward.
Orion sorted them.
First stack on the right, the probing ones, polite in wording with meaning underneath, concern on the surface, in truth feeling out where the Black family stood.
Second stack on the right, the friendly ones, warm in tone, returning again and again to the Blacks' long history and the goodwill of former days.
On the left, those speaking up for the Lestranges, only a few, the wording careful, asking no favors, more an attempt to gauge which way the wind blew. How the Blacks meant to handle the matter from here, whether they intended to crush the Lestranges into the ground for good.
A few he set apart on their own, letters that carried nothing sensitive in their phrasing but were, between the lines, fishing for one thing. How last night had truly ended, and whether something from a higher level had stepped in.
These people were fishing for Voldemort.
Orion looked at the few letters at the corner of the desk and tapped the wood twice with a finger.
Regulus had shown no real injury, but his state was plainly off, his gaze, on a closer look, unfocused, his step steady but slower than usual. The classic aftermath of a high-intensity intrusion into the mind.
Home again, Regulus had laid out what had happened, not in great detail, but the crucial parts were all there.
Voldemort had appeared after the Fiendfyre was loosed. The two had exchanged a few words, and Voldemort had used Legilimency on him. Inside the Legilimency, Regulus had shown him what he wanted shown, and kept hidden what could not be seen.
Orion had listened, and stayed silent a long while.
Then he asked one thing. "Was he satisfied?"
"He should be," Regulus said.
Orion gave a nod, and each of them went to his own room.
Now he sat in the study, looking at those few letters fishing for Voldemort, his mind on something else.
That they were fishing meant they'd already guessed Voldemort might have stepped in.
The guess held up by logic. But within it there might lie another layer.
They believed some direct contact had passed between Orion Black and Voldemort.
The guess was wrong. The one in direct contact had been Regulus, not him. But there was no need to correct it.
Letting the outside world believe the Black family had drawn closer to Voldemort did the Blacks no harm. It might even do them good.
In the pure-blood camp the Black strategy had always been to hold the greatest possible independence at the edge, to be no one's direct line, yet never seem distant.
If the outside world believed he'd dealt with Voldemort face to face, then in the political maneuvering ahead the Black hand would grow heavier on its own, and he'd have done nothing at all.
Let the misreading ferment.
But these letters fishing for Voldemort were also using the moment to probe how the Blacks stood, and some might be fishing on another's behalf, pushing the guess of Voldemort's involvement outward on purpose, getting more people to take it for truth.
When things were in turmoil, everyone wanted a grab while they could.
He opened a few of the important ones, read them through, set them back on the desk, and answered none.
No hurry.
Wait a few days, see who couldn't keep his nerve. The first to come knocking were the ones that truly needed handling.
---
Regulus lay in his bedroom, on the bed.
From last night's return until now, save for those few words with Orion, he hadn't left the room.
The curtains were drawn, the room dim.
He lay on his back, eyes open, thinking of nothing.
His body was fine. The fight with Bella had cost him strength, but a single sleep had brought it back. A twelve-year-old's body took punishment well.
The drain on his mind was another matter.
Voldemort's Legilimency couldn't be read as an ordinary contest of sealing off the brain.
It had been a wizard standing at the summit of the magical world entering his mental territory directly, turning it over, scanning it, touching it.
Through the whole of it he'd held a finely precise operation running, which memories to let through, which to hide. The hiding had to be natural enough not to look like hiding, the parts let through made to seem passively exposed rather than deliberately shown.
To do such things in front of Voldemort cost the mind dozens of times the usual.
The Star Guided Meditation kept turning, six stars each tracing their own orbit, the light of Bellatrix burning steady behind the little figure of his soul.
Magic moved through its circuit, a portion of it drawn off to the mending of his mental structure.
The defenses in the core region had thrown a few cracks when the Containment Room resonated, not serious, no impairment to function, but the cracks needed time to knit on their own.
He wasn't in a hurry. What needed doing was done.
Bella beaten, Fiendfyre loosed, the manor burned, Voldemort come and gone, the Legilimency weathered. He'd held what had to be held and given up what had to be given.
What came next needed time. He had only to wait, wait for the pure-blood circle's reaction to settle, wait for the news to spread further.
There'd been gains on the level of the soul, too.
Last night's ordeal, face to face with Voldemort, crossing wands with one of the most dangerous wizards alive in the realm of the mind, holding his boundary at the very edge, all of it was feed for the soul.
Saiph was answering.
From the end of last night until now he could feel faint shifts deep in his mental world, something loosening at Saiph's position.
No transformation yet. But it was gathering.
How it would change, to what degree, he couldn't say now. He'd have to wait. The seed was in the ground. It would grow in its own time.
All of that was the reasoning part. Outside it, what he had right now was a single feeling.
No wish to move, no wish to do anything, and in terms of action that came to lying perfectly still.
The magic was recovering, the mind mending, but the drive to do things wasn't coming back yet.
No breakfast eaten, no lunch eaten. He was hungry too, only more unwilling to move.
Walburga hadn't come to call him. On an ordinary day, if he overslept, his mother appeared in the doorway at eight on the dot. Not today.
Kreacher hadn't brought food up either.
His father had likely given the word. Let him rest.
He lay in bed the whole day, from morning into midday, from midday into afternoon.
In between he turned over twice, switched the pillow end for end, kicked the blanket down to his feet and dragged it back, rested a hand on his stomach, and stared at the crack in the ceiling, lost in nothing for a long time.
A strand of spider silk hung down from the ceiling, very fine, near invisible in the gloom, only the small fuzzy bundle on its end swaying faintly to give it away.
Baruk dangled from the silk upside down, rear to the sky, eight legs curled along his sides, lowering himself by slow degrees.
He came to rest about a foot above Regulus's face, drew his rear in tight, and stopped, limbs spreading slightly, eight eyes fixed on him, head tilting once.
Regulus looked at him, and he looked at Regulus, and then Regulus blew a soft breath at him.
Baruk swung on the silk, out and back, out and back, a furry pendulum.
"Reg-u-lus... tired..."
His voice was as it had been, broken, clipped, mostly single syllables.
The language was still coming. Better than a few months ago, at least able now to string more than two words together.
Regulus didn't nod. Lying down made it awkward. He made a small sound. "Tired."
Baruk's eight legs gave a light kick at the air, hauling himself up a length, then lowering again.
"...strong... no hurry..."
Regulus watched him, the corner of his mouth tipping up. The spider grew more human by the day.
"Don't worry. A few days and I'll make you strong."
The quiet held under a minute.
"Baruk... hungry..."
Regulus shut his eyes a moment. He was hungry too. He didn't want to move.
Then he looked at the light coming through the gap in the curtains, warm, leaning toward orange. Evening.
"Kreacher," he called.
A crack, and the elf squeezed out of the air, bowing, nose tip nearly to the floorboards. "Young Master called for Kreacher."
"Get a piece of meat," Regulus said. "Raw. Any dragon meat?"
Kreacher thought. "There's half a rack of Romanian Longhorn ribs in the storeroom."
"Cut a piece off."
Kreacher vanished again.
Regulus pushed himself up to sitting, reached down, and scooped Baruk off his chest onto his shoulder.
Kreacher was back fast, a silver platter in his hands, a slab of dark-red raw rib resting on it, the cut close-grained, threaded with the deep purple veins peculiar to dragon meat.
Baruk leapt from the shoulder to the desk, eight legs scrabbling across, chelicerae spread, and set to tearing.
Dragon flesh ran tougher than ordinary meat, and his chelicerae couldn't sever it at once. He braced all eight legs against the slab, hauled, ripped off a thin strip, and gulped it down with a crunch.
Then more tearing, more swallowing.
Regulus sat beside the desk and watched him eat, chin in his hand.
By the time he'd finished, only a scrap of shredded meat and a film of blood were left on the platter.
Regulus flicked a finger, a Cleaning Charm, and lifted the blood from the silver, then aimed another flick at Baruk, and what clung to him came clean too.
Baruk gave a shake, the fine bristles trembling.
Regulus stood, crossed to the wardrobe, and changed into a dark house robe.
"Stay here."
He left the spider on the desk, pushed the door open, and headed downstairs to eat.
---
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