Astronomy
The spindled shape of Hogwarts sits firmly atop the hill, completely veiled from the world, a sanctuary, or perhaps a prison. Regulus had never much minded for it, but there was no denying, from its highest peak, and latest hour, it was beautiful.
The green expanse of forest in all directions was like moss collected on a sleeping giant, a land so ancient that even the trees had learned to breathe. It was the way the moon ricocheted across the Great Lake its surface so smooth that it became a second sky. How far below the transfiguration courtyard spiraled into an abyss of shadows, the fall tempting enough.
This had once been a Watchtower, in the days of the school’s founders when even then there had been a war waged over whether or not such a place should exist.
Centuries later standing on the same stones. A reflection of the same dispute, students stood around the astronomy tower divided by those who were pure and those who were not.
It is clear in how red, purple, and yellow ties hang undone, uniforms worn slackly and crumpled. In the proud swarm that Regulus stands amongst, chins raised and eyes challenging that of their peers.
There is power in numbers, His father would say, that is the value of a family.
Regulus considers them in the dark, aware of how they watch him back. It is a strange waiting game, one weighted with the possibility that in years not all that far away from now their wands would be aimed at one another.
Something inside him twists because isn’t sure if he is capable enough to kill them, not because he’s scared of doing so, but because he has never been skilled at duelling, something his mother would never let him forget. Especially now in the absence of his brother, when he was something more than second, and still insufficient to her even at that.
Maybe that was why Regulus hadn’t been as irritated as Evan about pulling himself up the long winding steps of the astronomy tower sometime after midnight because Barty had made them late once again.
He’d always had an instinct for the sky, he was named after a star after all.
Regulus, the heart of the lion.
A noble name, his mother had always said. It was Latin.
There had been times in his youth when his father would call for him, Où es-tu petit roi?
‘Where are you, Little King?’
Regulus was in the large branches of an oak tree at the park, in the small nooks around the house that a child found amusing to crawl into, and in the kitchen with Kreacher, a place rarely sought out by anyone at all.
He’d cry out in delight when his father would finally discover him.
There were also times when Regulus knew not to hide under the bed or in the wardrobe, Orion knew those places.
There were times when he sat in Sirius’s room while his brother charmed the door shut and told him to be quiet.
There were times when his father brought them to a dark rocky beach, smiling at how Regulus refused to dip his toes in the baltic water and at how Sirius's hair blew about in the wind.
There were times when he yelled about James Potter, and taught Bellatrix to hit them too.
He had been imperfect, harsh at times, but he had been a father, a pillar of sorts.
Now Orion was sick, barely a shell of the man he used to be. He was dying, Regulus knew this reality, he just wished his father was not so much decaying, as he was breathing.
Feeling much darker than even the night that surrounds them Regulus’s attention is pulled away from the sky, stars winking behind Evan's silhouette where he stands against one of the arched columns rubbing sleep from his eyes,
“Rosier, your attention if you will.” it is Professor Kirkorian who strides back around the large Armillary sphere that sits on its axis in the middle of the tower, Regulus can feel Evan jolt beside him at the sound of her voice.
“Now, This is the celestial equator, the great circle in which the plane of the terrestrial Equator intersects our celestial sphere,” Kirkorian contiunes, the only thing Regulus can discern from her willowy figure in the dark is the angle her wand points at the model. “Or in layman's terms an extension of Earth's equator into space that bisects the sky into two hemispheres.” She moves her wand along the several elaborate rings that encase the sphere intended to represent the earth.
“These hemispheres are the North and South Celestial poles, as referenced in your textbooks. These are terms I’d like all of you to familiarise yourselves with, as such concepts are the very basis of Astronomy.”
Next to him, Barty’s sigh is warm against the shell of his ear, echoed by the rest of those who’d been dragged out of bed at such an hour to talk about the philosophical and outdated relationship between the earth and the cosmos.
Kirkorian allows them to settle, “This may come as a surprise to many of you but there is much significance to glean from the stars, as proposed by the great wizard Anaximander. Not through whim like divination but by simple observation, these are the very objects that have guided your ancestors so know this before you discredit such a field.”
Such things seem to go over fourteen-year-olds' heads at midnight on a Wednesday.
“Coincidentally.” Kirkorian goes on, “These values are shared in Muggle society, we have all evolved from the same teachings, perhaps centrally we aren’t all that different from one another.”
The proposal is slyly nuanced and instantly grasps everyone’s attention, tugging on the string of tension among them.
“Do you disagree?” Her tone is innocent enough, but Regulus knows the fact that she is turned towards them is no coincidence.
Unsurprisingly Barty bristles at this, Evan can only mutter a low warning in his ear, whether Barty hears it or refuses to head it Regulus can’t be sure.
“Matter of fact, I do Professor, we’re nothing like muggles and it’s bullshit to suggest otherwise.” He pronounces proudly.
Murmurs of agreeance float around the tower and it doesn’t fall past Regulus how a few quietly hang their heads, no doubt muggle-born.
“And why do you think that is Mr Crouch?” Kirkorian questions in mock intrigue.
Barty looks as if he’s been asked why the sky is blue,
“Well, we have Magic.” He scoffs.
Kirkorian smiles eagerly, and Regulus for reasons he can’t explain finds himself leaning forward,
“Oh, how you all forget yourselves; magic is a fundamental part of both you and me, a tool that manipulates the world around us if we will it so. But Magic cannot make a heartbeat, it can only build off what is already alive. Do you know what it is magic cannot exist without?”
There is a stunted silence that floats around the tower, everyone is either too tired or too stupid to entertain such a statement.
Then in a small airy voice, coming from nowhere and still existing despite this,
“Science.” Somebody offers, a girl, Regulus strains his eyes into the shadows where a Ravenclaw sits by herself, he doesn’t know her name, doesn’t care much if he’s honest.
There's something unmemorable about her, so that he has to force his eyes to stay trained on her outline in the dark, the borders of her not all that different from the shadows.
“Precisely.” Kirkorian grants her, “We are all human, composed of the same moving parts, despite our magic, without acknowledging this we become flawed.”
Barty mutters under his breath, Evan once again nodding off against the stone archway, as Regulus turns her words over in his head.
Muggles were tone-death, senseless to the world around them. The insinuation that Kirkorian was trying to make was that Magic could not exist without science, but why was it that science could exist without magic?
And together what did they make?
Half-blood.
Regulus grimaces, there was nothing beautiful in that, incorrect and begging to be unmade.
Having made her point Kirkorian continues on about the teachings of Anaximander for the rest of the class, seemingly happy with the discourse she’d rippled amongst them.
Regulus doesn’t follow her words anymore, this is pointless, to pretend like any number of lessons could matter, how could they?
There was nothing but the Dark Lord and his war.
Regulus has known this fact since he was five years old, he had practically been spoon fed on the idea that he was born to be a soldier. From birth, he and Sirius had been placed on an invisible chess board, existing and advancing all at Walburga’s will.
His mother and her politics, Kirkorian and her own, they both had something to gain.
In the sky moon looked just as wilted as Hogwart’s future, as if somehow someone had sullenly poked a hole in the blue with their fingernail, allowing liquid light to seep in through the thin crack.
Finally, after about the longest lecture Regulus had ever had to endure, Kirkorian concludes the lesson, assigning them homework on the Greeks and their ludicrous theories about Jupiter.
Barty as it seems glad to be rid of them all, pushes through the huddled crowd of students and disappears down the staircase, Evan sluggishly in toe.
Regulus takes one last look out across the grounds to where the quidditch pews hang desolate and empty, nails fisted in the palm of his hand.
He doesn’t feel like going back to the dormitory. Not when his head is as loud as this, he needs time to compose himself, sort it, his mother never liked it when he left his head messy.
So he hangs back, allowing the rest of the Slytherin herd to move on without him. Ensuring his absence won't be missed, and feeling exposed without the green-swathed presence they all became together.
When he is sure he is alone he lets out a wave of frustrated breath, or at least he had thought he was alone.
Jumping when Professor Kirkorian speaks to the empty room,
“Pandora, that was very brave of you dear.”
Instinctually Regulus steps back into the long shadows, trying to seek out who it is Kirkorian is talking to.
Half expecting to find some kind of ghost or specter present with them.
Then he sees her, the unmemorable Ravenclaw, skin as pale as her hair.
“What would it make me if I were not truthful to myself?” Her voice was full of everything and yet entirely empty.
The professor takes a moment to consider this clearly taken aback, “The worst kind of liar I suppose. A follower.”
The Ravenclaw whose name is Pandora features curl apprehensively in question, “I want to be an individual, something of my own.” She whispers as if she isn't quite sure that it's possible.
Kirkorian remains silent for a moment, taping her wand anxiously along the metal rings of the sphere,
"Science as you said is what powers the brain, not magic." Kirkorian eventually answers, "We all own minds but not many of us know how to use them. Be sure not to let others dictate yours.” She says with gravity.
Regulus doesn't realise how hard he's biting his cheek until he tastes the metallic heat of blood against his tongue, he forces himself to swallow it still holding his breath until they begin to descend the tower, voices low and leaving him alone to the still night.
He allows himself to breath again once footsteps sound far away down the stairs.
In the myths Pandora's curiosity had doomed them all, humanity had paid for her itching mind.
Regulus couldn’t help but wonder why Professor Kirkorian would desire to breed such a thing.
Curiosity is for the thirsty, the dreamers, and the ones who wanted to die.
Regulus had never been curious.