Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

By the time the Hogwarts Express had dragged itself free of London, every sensible arrangement of students had already collapsed.

Compartments had filled first.

Then the larger carriages had filled.

Then the corridors between them had become clogged with students sitting on trunks, leaning against walls, arguing over seats, trying to wedge owls beneath benches and discovering that no amount of magical education prepared anyone for the reality of spending eight hours trapped beside somebody else’s furious cat.

The last available carriage was one of the older ones: broad rather than private, with faded red booths fixed along either side, narrow tables beneath the windows, and paired rows of seats occupying the centre. Brass luggage racks ran overhead. The upholstery had been repaired in patches so many times that no two stretches of fabric were quite the same shade. At the far end stood a sliding door leading to the next carriage; at the front, another led through a short passage towards the staff compartment and the engine beyond it.

It might have been comfortable.

It might even have been pleasant.

Unfortunately, it contained all eleven Gryffindors and all five of Regulus Black’s friends.

No one had planned this.

That was obvious from the silence.

Sirius sat in the left-hand booth nearest the rear door, one boot planted against the table leg and both arms folded across his chest. James occupied the seat beside him, sprawled with his knees angled into the aisle, while Peter had been squeezed against the window and looked as though he had accepted that his role in life was to serve as padding whenever either of them shifted.

Opposite them sat Remus, Lily, and Mary.

Marlene had claimed one of the central seats and turned it around so she could sit backwards upon it. Alice and Frank shared the pair behind her. Fabian and Gideon had taken the next booth, though they had somehow managed to occupy it as if six people lived there.

Regulus and his friends had settled at the opposite end.

Regulus sat by the window in a dark green jumper, charcoal slacks and black boots polished to a shine. His prefect’s tie—green and silver, knotted neatly despite the heat—lay perfectly centred beneath his collar. One hand rested against the closed cover of a book upon his lap. He had been staring out at the countryside for twenty minutes without turning a page.

Barty Crouch Junior sat opposite him with his feet on the seat and his head hanging backwards over the edge, watching the carriage upside down.

Evan Rosier sat beside Regulus, immaculate and faintly bored.

Pandora had opened a small wooden case upon the table and was arranging objects that looked suspiciously like beetle wings around a polished piece of quartz.

Dorcas Meadowes occupied the aisle seat, one elbow resting upon the table, silently daring anyone to comment on the amount of space her boots took up.

The two groups had established a policy of mutual nonexistence.

It had lasted nearly half an hour.

Then Barty said, “Potter’s been looking at us.”

James’s head snapped around. “I have not.”

“You have,” Barty said, still upside down.

“I was looking past you.”

“At what?”

“The wall.”

Barty lifted his head enough to inspect the wall behind himself.

There was nothing upon it except a scratched wooden panel and a crooked brass hook.

He looked back at James.

“You’re fascinated by walls, are you?”

“They’re quieter than you.”

“Most corpses are quieter than me. It isn’t an achievement.”

“Barty,” Evan said.

“What?”

“Stop encouraging him.”

“I’m not encouraging him. I’m investigating his architectural interests.”

James leaned forward. “You’re the one who spoke first.”

“You were staring first.”

“I was not staring.”

“You were,” Peter murmured.

James turned slowly.

Peter pressed himself closer to the window. “I mean—you did look over there.”

“Traitor.”

“You’ve looked six times,” Remus said without lifting his eyes from his book.

“Seven,” Lily corrected.

Mary glanced between them. “Eight if we count the reflection in the window.”

“I was checking whether Black was still alive,” James said.

Regulus remained motionless.

Sirius snorted. “Unfortunately, yes.”

Regulus’s gaze moved away from the countryside at last.

It settled upon Sirius with the flat, cool weight of something dead at the bottom of a lake.

“Unfortunately,” he echoed.

“See?” Sirius gestured. “Still alive.”

“You appear disappointed.”

“I’m trying not to let it ruin my term.”

“Then try harder.”

Marlene made an appreciative noise.

Dorcas’s mouth twitched.

Sirius sat up. “I was having a peaceful journey until you lot invaded.”

“There were five empty seats when we entered,” Evan said.

“They were spiritually occupied.”

“By what?” Pandora asked, genuinely interested.

“My patience.”

Pandora considered that. “I don’t think it would require five seats.”

Mary coughed into her fist to conceal a laugh.

Sirius pointed across the carriage. “You keep out of this.”

“I haven’t entered anything,” Pandora said. “I’m sitting down.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No.”

“You do.”

“I frequently don’t.”

“She really doesn’t,” Dorcas said.

“That’s not better.”

At the centre of the carriage, Fabian leaned over the back of his booth.

“Are we going to do this all the way to Scotland?”

“Yes,” Gideon said. “I’ve brought sandwiches.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“No, but it is the solution.”

He produced a paper-wrapped sandwich from beneath his cloak.

Fabian stared at it.

“You sat on that.”

“I did not.”

“It’s flat.”

“It’s artisanal.”

“It has a crease from your arse.”

“That adds character.”

Frank reached forward and gently lowered Fabian back into his seat before the argument could spread.

Alice smiled at him.

Frank looked pleased with himself for approximately two seconds, until Marlene reached over and stole Gideon’s sandwich.

“Oi!”

“You said it had character.”

“It was my character.”

“It’s ham.”

“It had a rich internal life.”

“Not anymore.”

Marlene bit into it.

The countryside streamed past the windows in broad, late-summer colours. London had faded into distant villages, then fields, then long stretches of rolling farmland split by hedgerows and old stone walls. Sheep scattered across green slopes. Patches of woodland flashed between hills. Above them, the sky had settled into a pale blue interrupted by slow drifts of grey-white clouds.

For all the hostility in the carriage, the rhythm of the wheels was soothing.

Clack-clack.

Clack-clack.

Clack-clack.

The steady vibration travelled through the seats and tables. The brass fittings rattled softly. Somewhere farther down the train, students shouted over an Exploding Snap game. A trolley bell rang faintly, several carriages away.

Summer stories began to escape despite the cold truce.

Lily and Alice discussed a bookshop Lily had found near her parents’ house.

Frank admitted that Augusta had arranged a month of “character-building outdoor pursuits,” which apparently meant waking before dawn to run through wet grass while carrying stones.

“What sort of stones?” Alice asked.

“Large ones.”

“That was not the useful part of the question,” Remus said.

“Granite, mostly.”

“Why?”

“My mother said granite builds resilience.”

“Granite builds back pain,” Mary said.

“She said that was part of the resilience.”

Marlene had spent three weeks with cousins in the Highlands and had returned with a scar across one knee, a broken watch and an unreasonable hatred of geese.

Fabian and Gideon refused to explain why they had both lost portions of their eyebrows in July.

“It was a controlled experiment,” Fabian insisted.

“It stopped being controlled,” Gideon added, “when the shed caught fire.”

“There was a shed involved?” Lily demanded.

“Briefly.”

“Did your mother find out?”

Gideon looked offended. “We have survived to sit before you.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“It answers it completely.”

James had spent most of the summer practising Quidditch and complaining about Sirius eating everything in the Potter house.

“I did not eat everything,” Sirius said.

“You ate a pie Mum made for twelve people.”

“It was a small twelve.”

“There were twelve slices.”

“I had been through emotional hardship.”

“You’d lost a card game.”

“Exactly.”

Peter had helped his mother redecorate the sitting room and had discovered that wallpaper paste could adhere a person to a ladder for a surprisingly long time.

Remus had spent the summer working through a stack of books tall enough to injure him if it collapsed.

“Thrilling,” Sirius said.

“It was,” Remus replied.

“You are deeply unwell.”

“Says the man who ate a family pie in one sitting.”

Across the carriage, Barty had been thrown out of three libraries.

“All in the same week?” Dorcas asked.

“All on the same day.”

“How?”

“The first accused me of making a disturbance.”

“You released moths into the reference section,” Evan said.

“They were educational moths.”

“The second?”

“They had rules against climbing the shelves.”

“They had rules against swinging from the chandeliers.”

“The shelf route was blocked.”

“And the third?” Pandora asked.

Barty’s expression darkened.

“They were prejudiced.”

“You bit the librarian,” Regulus said.

“He grabbed my coat.”

“You bit him through his sleeve.”

“I showed restraint.”

Regulus turned another page of the book he still had not read.

Evan had spent most of his summer travelling with his parents and Pandora.

Pandora had spent most of that journey collecting dead insects and asking customs officers whether they believed memories could ferment.

Dorcas had attended a football match with her father, started a fight with three men twice her age and emerged with a team scarf that had not belonged to her when the day began.

No one asked how she had acquired it.

Regulus contributed nothing.

James noticed.

James always noticed when Regulus was refusing to contribute.

“What did you do all summer?” he called.

Regulus did not look up.

“Survived.”

“That’s not a story.”

“It has a beginning, middle and end.”

“What did you actually do?”

“Things.”

“What things?”

“Private ones.”

Sirius made a face. “You don’t want to know.”

“I wasn’t asking you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Regulus shut his book.

The sound was quiet.

It nevertheless carried through the carriage with the unmistakable warning of a door being locked.

“I read,” he said. “I trained. I attended seven dinners I did not wish to attend, three galas I despised, one wedding between strangers who loathe each other, and a charity auction during which a man purchased a decorative vase for enough money to feed a village.”

“Did you bid on anything?” Alice asked.

“A dagger.”

That made several heads turn.

“What sort of dagger?” Fabian asked.

“Sixteenth-century Italian. Narrow blade. Silver hilt. Mother-of-pearl inlay. It once belonged to a cardinal who was poisoned by his mistress.”

Gideon leaned over the table. “Did you win it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Regulus stared at him.

“It is a dagger.”

“That,” Barty announced, “was the most sensible answer anyone has given today.”

Sirius rubbed both hands over his face.

“Of course you bought a cursed murder knife.”

“It is not cursed.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I checked.”

“With what?”

“A rabbit.”

The carriage went silent.

Pandora looked up from her beetle wings.

“The rabbit was already dead,” she said helpfully.

“That did not help,” Lily replied.

“It helped the rabbit.”

“How?”

“It remained dead.”

Mary pressed her lips together.

Marlene dropped her head against the back of her seat and began laughing.

Even Remus had to lower his book.

The train continued north.

Clack-clack.

Clack-clack.

Clack—

The sound changed.

It was not loud at first.

A metallic grinding shudder rolled beneath their feet. Every glass pane in the carriage vibrated at once. The luggage racks gave a violent rattle.

Regulus’s head lifted.

Frank frowned. “Did anyone else—”

The train lurched.

The entire carriage pitched forward.

James was thrown out of his seat and landed shoulder-first in the aisle. Peter struck the wall with a yelp. Lily grabbed the table as Mary collided with her. Fabian’s knees slammed beneath the booth. Gideon’s flattened sandwich flew from Marlene’s hand and stuck briefly to the window before sliding down the glass.

At the opposite end, Pandora’s beetle wings scattered across the table.

Barty rolled off his seat completely and disappeared beneath it with a furious shout.

Evan caught Regulus around the chest before he could be thrown into the table.

Dorcas’s boots hit the floor.

Trunks crashed in the luggage racks overhead.

Somewhere beyond the carriage came an explosion of screams.

The train ground against the rails with a shriek so sharp that everyone covered their ears.

Sparks flashed past the windows.

The landscape outside slowed abruptly.

Field.

Trees.

Stone wall.

Open sky.

Then nothing but sky.

The carriage stopped with a tremendous jolt.

For one impossible second, everything hung in silence.

Then the train settled.

A low metallic groan travelled from beneath them.

James pushed himself onto one elbow.

“What the bloody hell was that?”

“Emergency brake,” Frank said, breathing hard.

“Why?”

“No idea.”

Sirius grabbed Peter by the shoulder. “You all right?”

“I think so.”

“You hit your head.”

“I know. It told me.”

Remus was already checking Lily and Mary.

Alice leaned across the back of the seat towards Frank. “Are you hurt?”

“Only my knees.”

Fabian looked down.

Gideon followed his gaze.

The remains of the sandwich were smeared across Fabian’s trouser leg.

Fabian said, “This is your fault.”

“The train stopped.”

“You created a structurally unsound lunch.”

Barty emerged from beneath the seat with his hair in his eyes.

“I’m going to kill the train.”

“You may need a larger knife,” Pandora advised.

Evan released Regulus slowly. “You good?”

Regulus was staring out of the window.

Evan followed his gaze.

His face changed.

“Oh.”

“What?” Dorcas asked.

She rose and looked past them.

The carriage sat in the middle of an iron railway bridge.

The land had fallen away beneath them into a steep, forested ravine. Far below, a river twisted between rocks, narrow enough to look like a black ribbon from this height. Old steel beams crossed one another beneath the tracks, their riveted frames rusted dark by decades of wind and rain.

The front half of the train curved slightly along the bridge ahead. The rear vanished behind them around a bend cut into the hillside.

They had stopped almost precisely in the middle.

“That,” Dorcas said, “is unfortunate.”

Marlene came to the window.

“Oh, brilliant.”

James climbed to his feet and joined them.

“Why did we stop here?”

“Perhaps the train wished to admire the view,” Regulus said.

Another groan rose from the bridge.

This one lasted longer.

A vibration shivered through the floorboards.

“No,” Remus said, standing. “That wasn’t the train.”

Everyone became still.

Farther along the carriages, voices rose. Doors slid open. Students began crowding into passageways, calling questions that nobody could answer.

“What happened?”

“Why aren’t we moving?”

“Can anyone see the engine?”

“Did we hit something?”

“Someone get a prefect!”

Regulus glanced at the badge upon his own chest as though it had personally betrayed him.

Barty pointed at it.

“Your subjects summon you.”

“They may perish.”

“Excellent leadership.”

Lily stood. “We should check whether anyone was injured.”

“We should stay inside until we know why we stopped,” Frank said.

“We are inside,” Marlene replied.

“I meant this carriage.”

“Then say that.”

“I did.”

“You said—”

A sound cracked through the train.

Sharp.

Violent.

Unmistakable.

Every conversation stopped.

James looked towards the front door.

Peter whispered, “Was that—”

A second crack came.

Then a third.

A woman screamed from somewhere ahead.

Sirius’s expression emptied.

Remus slowly closed his book.

No one moved.

The sound came again, muffled by walls and distance but clear enough now that there could be no mistake.

Gunfire.

Lily turned pale.

“Down,” Dorcas said.

It was quiet.

It was also absolute.

Everyone dropped.

Students threw themselves beneath tables and behind seats. James dragged Peter into the narrow space beside the booth. Sirius seized Lily’s sleeve and pulled her down as Remus pushed Mary behind the seat. Alice crouched beside Frank. Marlene flattened herself along the floor. Fabian and Gideon ducked below the table.

Evan shoved Pandora beneath the booth.

Barty dropped beside her, one hand reaching automatically towards his wand.

“Don’t,” Evan hissed.

Barty’s fingers froze.

“We can’t use magic,” Lily whispered from the other end. “Not here. Not unless—”

“Unless someone is about to die?” Barty muttered.

Another shot rang out.

Closer.

Footsteps hammered along the passage beyond the front door.

Not steady footsteps.

Stumbling.

Dragging.

A shoulder struck the wall.

Someone swore.

The door handle jerked.

Once.

Twice.

The lock snapped open.

The carriage door flew backwards with such force that it struck the wall.

The man who entered looked as though he had been assembled from several different disasters.

He was perhaps forty. Perhaps younger. It was difficult to tell beneath the bruised shadows under his eyes and the grey pallor of his skin. His coat hung open over a sweat-stained shirt. Mud streaked one knee of his trousers. His hair was plastered to his forehead, and his face shone with sweat despite the cool air moving through the passage.

The smell reached them before he spoke.

Alcohol.

Sharp and sour and soaked so deeply into his clothes that it seemed to radiate from him.

He carried two pistols.

One in each hand.

Both shook.

His gaze swept the carriage but did not settle properly upon anything. It snapped towards empty corners. It followed movements no one else could see. His mouth moved silently as though he were answering someone speaking beside his ear.

Then his eyes found the students.

“Stay down!”

His voice tore through the carriage.

Someone gasped.

The man fired into the ceiling.

The flash was blinding.

The report in the enclosed space struck like a physical blow. Glass cracked. Dust and splinters rained from the panel above them. Pandora flinched beneath the table. Peter covered his head. Alice pressed both hands over her mouth.

“Stay down!” the man screamed again. “I know what you are! I know what they sent you for!”

“We’re staying down,” James said quickly.

Sirius grabbed the back of James’s robes.

“Shut up.”

“I’m just—”

“Shut up.”

The man swung one gun towards them.

“Who said that?”

No one answered.

“Who said that?”

His breathing came too fast. His pupils were enormous. His eyes darted to the empty seat beside Marlene.

“No,” he snarled at it. “No, you don’t get to tell me. You said the bridge. You said they’d be here. They’re here.”

He kicked the front door shut behind himself.

The key remained in the lock.

He twisted it.

Then he staggered down the aisle towards the rear door and locked that too.

The carriage became a sealed box.

Students in the next carriage had crowded near the glass, their faces pale and confused. The man saw them.

“Back!”

He fired at the door.

The glass exploded outward.

Screams scattered down the corridor as the students beyond fled.

The man spun back towards the carriage.

“Eyes down! Nobody looks at me!”

Every head lowered.

Almost every head.

Regulus remained where he had landed beside the table.

He was kneeling rather than lying flat, one hand braced against the floor. Evan reached for his sleeve.

Regulus did not seem to feel it.

His face had gone blank.

Not frightened.

Not brave.

Empty.

The expression was so complete that it looked less like calm than absence.

Evan’s fingers tightened.

“Regulus,” he whispered.

Regulus did not answer.

The man paced between the seats, both pistols moving with him.

He muttered under his breath.

“No wires. No wires. Cut them out. They said they’d cut them out, but they put them back. I heard them. Heard them in the walls. Heard them under the floor. You hear me?”

His head jerked sharply to one side.

“Stop.”

Silence.

“I said stop.”

He fired into the luggage rack.

A trunk split open. Clothes spilled onto the floor.

Mary strangled a cry against Remus’s shoulder.

The man laughed suddenly.

It was not amused laughter.

It was thin and breathless, the sound of someone standing upon a ledge only he could see.

“You thought I wouldn’t find the gate,” he said. “But I found it. I found your red train. I found your children.”

His gaze shifted to the windows.

For an instant, terror flooded his face.

He stepped backwards.

“No. No, they’re in the river.”

No one spoke.

“There are faces in the river.”

The river lay hundreds of feet below them, barely visible through the ironwork.

The man’s eyes followed something rising from it.

“You stay down,” he told the floor. “You stay where you belong.”

His condition was more than simple intoxication.

The alcohol had worsened everything, but the disordered speech, the auditory hallucinations, the persecutory beliefs and the absolute conviction that unseen forces were hunting him belonged to something deeper: alcohol-induced psychotic disorder, a substance-induced psychosis sharpened by exhaustion, fear and whatever had happened before he stumbled through a barrier he had never been meant to find.

He was not pretending.

That made him more dangerous.

He could not distinguish the carriage from the delusion consuming him.

He could not distinguish terrified children from enemies.

He could not distinguish silence from conspiracy.

Regulus watched him.

Not his guns.

Not at first.

His face.

His eyes.

The moments when he listened.

The names he used for things no one else could see.

The man paced towards the centre aisle.

“They marked me,” he said. “Put the black mark under my ribs. I can feel it moving. Every time I sleep, it climbs higher.”

He pressed the barrel of one pistol against his own chest.

Lily shut her eyes.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

The man’s head snapped towards her.

“Who spoke?”

Lily froze.

“Who?”

Nobody moved.

The gun lowered from his chest.

It swept across the students.

Sirius shifted in front of Lily without lifting his head.

James moved with him, placing himself between Peter and the aisle.

Frank angled his body towards Alice.

Fabian’s hand found Gideon’s wrist beneath the table.

Dorcas crouched before Pandora’s hiding place.

Evan’s hand remained upon Regulus’s sleeve.

Barty had gone terrifyingly still.

The man took another step.

“I know one of you has it.”

No one answered.

“The key.”

His gaze skipped between them.

“The silver key. The one for the door above the river. Give it to me.”

“We don’t have a key,” Marlene said.

The pistol swung towards her.

Frank breathed, “Marlene.”

“What?” Marlene said, her voice remarkably steady. “He asked.”

The man advanced.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“You have red in your mouth.”

Marlene’s lips parted.

Confusion flickered over her face.

“I—”

“You swallowed it.”

He raised the gun.

Regulus spoke.

“No.”

The word was soft.

It stopped the man more effectively than a shout.

Every eye in the carriage turned towards Regulus.

Evan’s face drained of colour.

The man looked at him.

Regulus slowly lifted his head.

His expression remained blank, but something in his posture had changed. His spine straightened. His shoulders settled. He was still kneeling upon the floor, still dressed in a school jumper and slacks, still small compared with several of the boys around him.

Yet he looked, suddenly, as though the carriage belonged to him.

As though the train belonged to him.

As though the bridge beneath them had been built because he had once desired a path across the sky.

The man stared.

Regulus said, “She does not carry the red.”

The pistol wavered.

“What?”

“The red is beneath you.”

Regulus’s voice had altered.

Not dramatically.

He had not adopted an accent or shouted or attempted some theatrical imitation of divinity.

He merely slowed each word until it seemed to fall into the carriage from somewhere much higher.

His tone was quiet, distant and coldly certain.

The voice of a figure painted into the ceiling of a cathedral.

The voice of a star speaking to someone who had spent years pleading with the dark.

“The river has been calling you falsely,” Regulus said. “You should not have listened.”

The man’s mouth opened.

Barty stared at Regulus as if he had gone mad.

Evan gripped his sleeve hard enough to wrinkle the fabric.

Regulus gently pulled free.

The man whispered, “You hear it too?”

“I hear all things.”

Sirius’s head jerked up a fraction.

Remus shot him a warning look.

The man took one unsteady step towards Regulus.

“Who are you?”

Regulus rose.

Slowly.

Every movement was deliberate.

His palms remained visible. His arms rested loosely at his sides. He made no sudden gesture that might trigger the guns.

The man did not tell him to stop.

Regulus’s grey eyes fixed upon a point just above the man’s shoulder, as though he too could see the invisible presence whispering there.

“You know who I am.”

The man’s breath caught.

“No.”

“You called for me beneath the black water.”

The gun in his right hand lowered by an inch.

“I called—”

“You called until your throat bled.”

“I didn’t—”

“You promised obedience if the doors were opened.”

The man began to shake more violently.

Behind the booth, James stared openly.

Peter’s lips formed a silent question.

What the hell is he doing?

Remus had understood.

His eyes moved from Regulus to the man, tracking every change in posture.

Regulus was listening.

The man had given them pieces.

A bridge.

A river.

A gate.

Voices in the walls.

A mark beneath his ribs.

Something above.

Something below.

Regulus had taken those pieces and stepped directly into the centre of them.

The man’s delusion had left a throne empty.

Regulus had sat upon it.

“I knew you’d come,” the man whispered.

Regulus tilted his head.

“Did you?”

“They said you wouldn’t. They said you hated me.”

“They lied.”

The man’s face twisted.

Tears rose suddenly in his bloodshot eyes.

“They always lie.”

“Yes.”

“They put things inside me.”

“I know.”

“They watch through the lamps.”

“I know.”

“They made my wife leave.”

“I know.”

“She said I frightened her, but that wasn’t me. That was them.”

Regulus took one step forward.

Evan looked as if he might be sick.

“Regulus,” Sirius whispered.

Regulus ignored him.

The man’s attention had narrowed completely.

The carriage disappeared for him.

The students disappeared.

The guns disappeared.

There was only Regulus, standing in the aisle with the pale light from the window behind him, composed and still and apparently unafraid.

The man breathed, “Can you take it out?”

Regulus’s gaze lowered to his chest.

“The mark?”

The man nodded frantically.

“It moves. It bites. It tells them where I am.”

“I can remove it.”

A sob broke from him.

Lily’s hand closed around the edge of the seat.

Regulus moved closer.

The man raised one pistol—not towards Regulus, but beside his own head, gesturing wildly with it.

“Do it. Please. Please, I did what they said. I found the train. I stopped it over the gate. I brought you the guards.”

The guards.

The conductors.

Remus went white.

Regulus’s eyes flickered once towards the front door.

Then back.

“You have spilled blood upon my threshold,” he said.

The man crumpled inward.

“They tried to stop me.”

“They served the road.”

“They had faces under their faces.”

“You were deceived.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

The man’s panic surged.

“No, no, they changed. They changed when I looked at them.”

“Because you looked through the wrong eyes.”

The man stared at him.

Regulus raised one hand.

“Give me what you carry.”

The pistols twitched.

Around the carriage, everyone stopped breathing.

The man looked down at them.

Then at Regulus.

“They’re mine.”

“They belong to the lower voices.”

“They protect me.”

“They keep the mark alive.”

That struck him.

His face changed with horrifying speed.

Disgust.

Fear.

Betrayal.

He looked at the guns as though they had become snakes in his hands.

Regulus stepped closer.

“Give them to me.”

“What if they come?”

“I am here.”

“What if they crawl out of the river?”

“I will cast them back.”

“You promise?”

Regulus’s expression remained remote.

“I do not make promises.”

The man’s eyes widened.

Regulus continued, “I make laws.”

Barty’s mouth fell open.

Pandora slowly turned her face into the underside of the booth, shoulders trembling with silent, hysterical laughter that she was desperately trying not to let escape.

Dorcas covered Pandora’s head with one hand.

The man began to cry properly.

Not quietly.

His face folded. His shoulders shook. He lowered both guns until they pointed towards the floor.

“I’m sorry.”

Regulus stopped directly before him.

“You will kneel.”

The man obeyed.

His knees hit the carriage floor.

Gasps rippled around them.

Regulus looked down at him, pale and expressionless.

The man held both pistols out.

“Take it out,” he begged. “Take the thing out of me.”

Regulus reached for the guns.

His fingers closed around the grips.

The man released them.

For one perfect second, the entire carriage remained frozen.

Then Regulus moved.

The angel vanished.

He stepped in, turned and used the man’s forward balance against him.

The movement was brutally fast.

The man left the floor.

His body flipped over Regulus’s shoulder and struck the aisle with a crash that shook the nearest seats. Before he could recover, Regulus drove him flat, kicked one gun safely beneath the booth, trapped the man’s arm against his back and pressed a knee between his shoulder blades.

The second pistol remained in Regulus’s hand.

“Do not move!” Regulus shouted.

It was the first time he had raised his voice.

The sound struck through the carriage harder than the gunshots.

The man bucked beneath him.

Regulus twisted his arm higher.

“I said do not move!”

“You lied!” the man screamed.

“Yes.”

“They’ll eat me!”

“Then lie still and be unappetising.”

The man thrashed.

Barty exploded from beneath the table.

“Reg—”

“Stay back!”

Barty stopped so abruptly that his shoes squealed.

Regulus reached one-handed for his tie.

His fingers tore the knot loose.

He yanked the green-and-silver strip from beneath his collar and looped it around the man’s wrists.

The man kicked wildly.

Dorcas grabbed one ankle.

Marlene seized the other.

“Got him!”

“Careful,” Frank warned, moving forward.

“Frank, get the gun,” Regulus ordered.

Frank dropped to one knee, reached beneath the booth and retrieved the pistol by its grip. He held it at arm’s length as though it might bite him.

“What do I do with it?”

“Give it here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Frank.”

Frank passed it over.

Regulus secured both weapons against his body, then pulled the man’s wrists and ankles together behind him.

“Evan,” he said.

Evan was already moving.

“What?”

“Your tie.”

Evan stared.

“My tie?”

“Now.”

Evan ripped it loose and handed it over.

Regulus folded the dark silk into a thick band and forced it between the man’s teeth, knotting it behind his head.

The man’s screams became muffled, furious sounds.

Barty pointed.

“Why his tie?”

“Mine is restraining his limbs.”

“You could have used mine.”

Regulus looked at Barty’s tie.

It was already torn halfway down the centre and bore a stain of uncertain origin.

“No.”

“My tie is perfectly serviceable.”

“It appears to have been eaten.”

“It was a difficult summer.”

Regulus tightened the restraints.

The man jerked once more.

Regulus leaned down.

His voice returned to that same terrible, divine quiet.

“If you move again, I will throw you into the river you fear.”

The man went completely still.

Regulus sat back upon his heels.

Silence filled the carriage.

No one seemed capable of deciding what to say first.

Regulus picked up both guns.

He inspected them with a brief, cool glance, secured them, and then rose.

His hair had fallen across his forehead. His jumper had ridden up slightly at one side. Without his tie, his collar sat open and crooked.

He looked mildly inconvenienced.

James stared at him.

Marlene stared at him.

Frank stared at him.

Alice stared at him.

Fabian and Gideon stared at him.

Mary stared at him.

Peter stared at him.

Lily stared at him.

Remus stared at him.

Sirius stared hardest of all.

Barty broke the silence.

“That,” he said reverently, “was the most attractive thing anyone has ever done.”

Evan rounded on him. “He nearly got shot.”

“Yes, and he was magnificent.”

“He nearly got shot.”

“Those statements do not contradict each other.”

Evan seized Regulus by both shoulders.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Regulus blinked.

“Several things.”

“You walked towards him.”

“Yes.”

“He had two guns.”

“I counted them.”

“You pretended to be God.”

“An angelic higher power,” Pandora corrected from beneath the booth. “Not necessarily God.”

“Thank you,” Regulus said.

“That was not support,” Evan snapped.

“It felt supportive.”

Sirius shot to his feet.

“You absolute fucking lunatic.”

Regulus turned.

“You’re welcome.”

“I didn’t thank you!”

“You were about to.”

“I was about to strangle you.”

“That would be ungrateful.”

“You walked towards an armed man!”

“So did he,” Regulus said, nodding at the prisoner.

“That is not—” Sirius stopped. “That isn’t a defence.”

“It is technically a comparison,” Remus said.

Sirius spun towards him. “Do not help him.”

“I’m not. I’m identifying the rhetorical structure.”

“Stop identifying things!”

James looked between Regulus and the bound man.

“How did you know that would work?”

“I did not.”

Evan’s hands tightened on Regulus’s shoulders.

“You did not?”

“No.”

“You could have died.”

“Yes.”

Evan made a strangled noise.

Barty reached towards Regulus.

Evan slapped his hand away.

“Do not encourage him.”

“I was going to check for bullet holes.”

“You may check from there.”

“Regulus, are you perforated?”

“No.”

“Excellent.”

Lily stood slowly.

Her legs shook.

She gripped the seat until the trembling passed.

“You listened to what he was saying,” she said.

Regulus nodded.

“He thought something was inside him. He believed the river was part of some gate, and that someone above it would come. You made yourself into that person.”

“Yes.”

Mary stared.

“You made yourself into something from his hallucination.”

“Delusion,” Remus said quietly. “The voices were hallucinations. The belief system around them was delusional.”

The man made a muffled sound against Evan’s tie.

Alice looked at him, pale.

“He’s ill.”

“He’s dangerous,” Dorcas replied.

“He can be both,” Lily said.

Regulus glanced down at the prisoner.

“He is experiencing a psychotic episode. Most likely substance-induced. Alcohol can cause hallucinations and persecutory delusions in severe cases, particularly after prolonged use, withdrawal or sleep deprivation.”

Fabian stared.

“How do you know that?”

“I read.”

“Of course you do.”

“You read about convincing armed men you’re an angel?” James asked.

“No. That portion was improvised.”

“Improvised,” Peter repeated faintly.

Regulus raised one of the pistols and turned it once around his finger before catching it neatly by the grip.

Every person in the carriage recoiled.

“Stop doing that!” Lily shouted.

Regulus looked at her.

“It is secured.”

“I do not care.”

He twirled the second gun with his other hand.

Lily pointed at him.

“Black.”

He stopped.

Barty leaned towards Evan.

“He’s showing off.”

“I know.”

“It’s working.”

“I will throw you off the train.”

Sirius strode forward and grabbed Regulus’s wrist.

“Give me those.”

“No.”

“You are sixteen.”

“So are you.”

“I’m not holding two guns.”

“Correct.”

“That was not my point.”

“You rarely have one.”

Sirius’s face reddened.

James moved between them before either could escalate.

“Can we perhaps save the family argument until we are no longer stopped on a bridge with a dead engine and an armed hostage?”

“The hostage is no longer armed,” Regulus said.

“He is also not the hostage,” Remus replied. “We are.”

Regulus considered that.

“Former hostage-taker, then.”

“Speaking of the engine,” Frank said, looking towards the front door, “why has no one come?”

The carriage quietened again.

Beyond the locked door, the passage was empty.

No conductor.

No driver.

No member of staff.

Only broken glass scattered across the floor and the pale flicker of daylight through the next compartment.

Gideon rose.

“I’ll look.”

Fabian caught his sleeve.

“Look where?”

“Through the window.”

“Which faces the place he came from.”

“Yes.”

“The place containing whatever made all the shooting noises?”

Gideon swallowed.

“Yes.”

Fabian stood beside him.

“Fine.”

“I didn’t ask you to come.”

“I know.”

They approached the front door together.

Marlene moved to follow.

Frank stopped her.

“Three people looking through one window will not improve the view.”

“It might.”

“How?”

“We’ll have a range of opinions.”

Gideon carefully stepped around the shattered glass.

The man on the floor made another muffled sound.

Regulus nudged him with one boot.

“Quiet.”

Gideon leaned towards the surviving pane in the door beyond the passage.

He looked through.

His face went still.

Fabian noticed.

“What?”

Gideon did not answer.

Fabian moved beside him.

He looked.

His hand flew to his mouth.

“What is it?” Alice asked.

Neither brother spoke.

Frank approached.

“Gideon?”

Gideon turned around slowly.

There was no humour in his expression now.

“The conductors.”

Lily gripped the table.

“What about them?”

“They’re in the forward compartment.”

“Are they hurt?”

Gideon looked at Regulus.

Regulus did not look away.

Gideon said, “They’re dead.”

The words landed softly.

That made them worse.

Peter shut his eyes.

Mary sank back into her seat.

Alice pressed one hand against Frank’s arm.

Fabian rested both palms upon the doorframe, head bowed.

James looked down at the bound man.

“You killed them.”

The man twisted and shouted through the gag.

James stepped forward.

Sirius caught him around the chest.

“Don’t.”

“He killed them.”

“I know.”

“They were just—”

“I know.”

Regulus moved between James and the prisoner.

James’s eyes flashed.

“Move.”

“No.”

“He murdered them.”

“And if you strike him while he is restrained, you will have accomplished nothing except injuring your hand.”

“I don’t care about my hand.”

“I do,” Regulus said. “You play Quidditch badly enough with both.”

James stared at him.

The anger cracked.

Not enough to disappear.

Enough to breathe around.

Remus came forward.

“Are you sure there’s no one alive?”

Gideon shook his head.

“There were two. Both—”

He stopped.

“You don’t need to say it,” Alice whispered.

Dorcas looked towards the front.

“The driver?”

“That compartment leads to the engine,” Fabian said. “Door’s open. Nobody moved.”

“Maybe they ran,” Peter offered.

“Where?” Marlene gestured out of the window. “We’re over a ravine.”

“The train did stop,” Frank said. “Someone must have applied the brake.”

“The man said he stopped it,” Lily replied.

Regulus looked down at him.

The man’s eyes were squeezed shut.

“He may have forced them,” Regulus said. “Or interfered with the controls during the struggle.”

“Can someone else start it?” Mary asked.

No one answered.

Sirius looked around the carriage.

“There must be another staff member somewhere.”

“The trolley witch?” Peter said.

“She was several carriages back.”

“She’s staff.”

“She sells sweets,” Marlene said. “I’m not sure that qualifies her to drive a steam engine.”

“Perhaps it should,” Gideon muttered. “Would make the trolley more exciting.”

Lily moved to the rear door and peered through the broken pane.

Faces watched from the next carriage.

Terrified students.

Some crying.

Some calling questions she could not hear through the closed barrier.

“We need to tell everyone what happened.”

“We need to keep them away from this man,” Frank said.

“We need to get word to someone,” Remus added.

Sirius reached for his wand.

Lily immediately said, “We cannot start firing spells through a train full of panicked students.”

“I’m not suggesting that.”

“You were holding your wand like you were suggesting exactly that.”

“I was thinking.”

“With your wand?”

“It helps.”

“It really doesn’t,” James said.

Sirius glared at him.

Regulus moved to the front door.

“Where are you going?” Evan demanded.

“To inspect the engine.”

“No.”

Regulus looked over his shoulder.

Evan planted himself in the aisle.

“No.”

“You are not in charge of me.”

“Someone needs to be.”

Barty raised his hand.

“I volunteer.”

“No,” Regulus, Evan, Dorcas and Pandora said together.

Barty lowered it.

“I think I would be excellent.”

“You think arson is a form of negotiation,” Dorcas said.

“It often is.”

Regulus glanced through the window.

“We cannot remain stationary indefinitely.”

“Why not?” Peter asked.

The bridge groaned beneath them.

Everyone looked down.

A faint tremor passed through the floor.

Dust sifted from the wooden panel beside the window.

Regulus’s gaze sharpened.

“That,” he said.

Frank moved towards the nearest pane.

“Is the bridge damaged?”

“Possibly.”

“Possibly?”

“I have not inspected it.”

“And you are not going to,” Evan said.

Regulus turned fully.

“How do you propose I examine the underside of the rails?”

“From inside.”

“That would be ineffective.”

“Then be ineffective.”

“We have no driver,” Lily said. “No conductor. We don’t know whether the train can move. We don’t know whether the bridge is stable.”

“We do know there’s an armed murderer tied up in the aisle,” Mary said.

“Formerly armed,” Regulus corrected.

Mary looked at him.

“That distinction is doing very little for me.”

James stared towards the front.

“Could one of us drive it?”

“No,” Remus said.

“How difficult can it be?”

“Very.”

“You put coal in, pull something and it goes.”

“James,” Lily said, “you once trapped your sleeve in a desk drawer.”

“That desk was badly designed.”

“You pulled it towards yourself.”

“It was an instinctive response.”

“You screamed for ten minutes.”

“The drawer had me.”

Gideon turned from the window.

“Can anyone here actually drive a train?”

No one answered.

Fabian slowly looked towards Regulus.

Everyone followed.

Regulus frowned.

“What?”

“You have secret skills,” Fabian said.

“I have skills.”

“You threw a grown man over your shoulder.”

“Yes.”

“You convinced him you were a wrathful celestial being.”

“Yes.”

“You know about psychosis.”

“Yes.”

“You can apparently handle guns.”

Regulus twirled one once.

Lily made a furious noise.

He stopped again.

Fabian spread his hands.

“Can you drive a train?”

“No.”

The hope in the carriage collapsed.

Gideon rubbed his face.

“Wonderful.”

Regulus looked towards the window.

“But I can do this.”

Before anyone could ask what he meant, he stepped onto the nearest booth.

Evan stared.

“What are you doing?”

Regulus climbed onto the table.

“Regulus.”

He crossed to the red-painted emergency window at the end of the carriage.

A small brass hammer was fixed beside it.

Regulus ignored the hammer.

He drew one leg back and drove his boot into the lower corner of the glass.

The window burst outward.

Wind tore into the carriage.

Everyone shouted at once.

“What the fuck?”

“Are you insane?”

“Regulus!”

“Black!”

“Get down!”

“Stop him!”

Regulus kicked the remaining shards from the frame.

The open space beyond revealed nothing but sky, the edge of the train and the dizzying plunge into the ravine.

Evan climbed onto the table after him.

“What are you doing?”

“Going outside.”

“No, you are not.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Regulus secured both guns inside his belt, beneath the hem of his jumper.

Evan’s face went slack with horror.

“Those are loaded.”

“They are secured.”

“You keep saying that as though it makes any part of this acceptable.”

Regulus took his wand from his pocket and placed it between his teeth.

Barty’s eyes lit.

“Oh, this is going to be excellent.”

Dorcas seized the back of Barty’s robes before he could follow.

“You stay here.”

“I can help.”

“You would jump.”

“I would land.”

“In the ravine?”

“Possibly.”

Regulus put one hand on the window frame.

Sirius crossed the carriage in three strides.

“Regulus, don’t you dare.”

Regulus looked at him.

His wand remained between his teeth.

“Get down,” Sirius ordered.

Regulus lifted one eyebrow.

“Now.”

Regulus turned away.

Sirius lunged.

Regulus slipped through the emergency window.

Evan caught the back of his jumper for one awful second.

The fabric stretched.

Regulus hung outside the train with his boots searching for the narrow iron maintenance ledge beneath the carriage.

“Do not let go,” Evan said.

The composure had vanished from his voice.

“Regulus, do not fucking let go.”

Regulus found the ledge.

He shifted his weight onto it and prised Evan’s fingers from his jumper.

Evan looked ready to drag him back by his hair.

Regulus removed the wand from his mouth.

“I need both hands.”

“You need a functioning survival instinct.”

“I have one.”

“It is defective.”

“I will return it.”

“This is not funny.”

“I am not laughing.”

Regulus lowered himself until only his head and shoulders remained visible.

Sirius reached the window.

“Get back inside!”

Regulus looked up at him from beneath the frame.

“No.”

“Regulus!”

“If you shout, I may lose concentration.”

Sirius clamped his mouth shut so abruptly his teeth clicked.

Regulus disappeared.

The carriage erupted.

James shoved past the seats towards the window.

“Where is he?”

“Outside,” Evan said.

“I gathered that.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“I was hoping the answer had changed!”

They crowded around the broken window.

Regulus stood upon the track beside the carriage.

The rails were barely wider than his boots. To his left, the train rose in a wall of black iron and red-painted wood. To his right lay empty air.

The ravine plunged beneath him.

Wind pulled at his jumper and tossed his hair across his eyes.

He put the wand between his teeth again, spread both arms slightly for balance and began walking.

Every person in the carriage watched.

So did the students behind them.

Word travelled along the train faster than any messenger could have carried it.

Windows opened.

Heads appeared.

Students leaned out from compartments and carriages, calling to one another.

“Someone’s on the tracks!”

“Who is that?”

“Is that Black?”

“Which Black?”

“The small one!”

“Regulus?”

“What is he doing?”

“Has he lost his mind?”

“Probably!”

Sirius leaned so far through the broken window that Remus grabbed the back of his robes.

“Regulus!”

Regulus raised one hand without turning around.

“Was that meant to reassure me?” Sirius demanded.

“Yes,” Remus said.

“It didn’t.”

“I don’t think it was designed very well.”

Below the windows, Regulus moved one careful step at a time.

Boot.

Rail.

Sleeper.

Boot.

Rail.

Sleeper.

The iron bridge sang beneath him.

Not musically.

A low, strained hum vibrated through the beams as the weight of the motionless train pressed upon the structure.

Regulus crouched once, gripping the side of the carriage while a gust swept through the ravine.

Several students screamed.

Regulus waited.

Then continued.

He passed the front of their carriage and reached the narrow compartment beyond.

The door stood open and he briefly climbed inside to check.

He stopped.

The bodies lay inside.

From the carriage window, no one could see him clearly.

They couldn’t see the way his shoulders changed.

A small withdrawal.

A stillness.

He crouched beside the nearest conductor.

Pressed two fingers to the man’s neck.

Waited.

Moved to the second.

Waited again.

Then stood and exited the carriage, walking again forward along the tracks.

He continued towards the engine.

“Why does he know how to walk on a railway bridge?” Peter whispered.

“Why does he know how to do anything he does?” James asked.

Sirius’s hands tightened around the window frame.

“He used to climb the roof.”

Everyone looked at him.

Sirius did not turn.

“When we were little,” he said. “At home. He’d climb out of the attic window and walk along the gutters.”

“Why?” Alice asked.

“He said the house was quieter from above.”

Remus watched Sirius’s profile.

“You followed him?”

“Once.”

“What happened?”

“I fell through a conservatory.”

James blinked.

“You never told me that.”

“My mother told everyone I broke it throwing stones.”

“Why?”

“She preferred vandalism to incompetence.”

Outside, Regulus reached the engine.

The locomotive had stopped with its front wheels beyond the centre of the bridge. Steam leaked from a valve in thin white bursts. The smokestack exhaled only a faint grey plume.

Regulus climbed onto the side platform and peered into the cab.

Empty.

He disappeared inside.

Evan swore.

Barty leaned farther out of the window.

“Can anyone see him?”

“No.”

“Regulus!”

No answer.

“Regulus, if you’ve been consumed by the machinery, say something!”

Dorcas pulled him back by the waistband.

“That sentence made no sense.”

“It made emotional sense.”

Pandora had climbed onto the table and was gathering the broken glass into a neat pile.

Evan looked at her.

“What are you doing?”

“Preventing cuts.”

“Regulus is outside the train.”

“I am aware.”

“You seem calm.”

“He prefers it when people do not scream while he is doing dangerous things.”

Barty pointed towards Sirius.

“Tell him.”

“I am not screaming,” Sirius said.

“You sound like a wounded peacock.”

“I will wound you.”

Regulus reappeared in the window of the engine cab.

He leaned out, examined something along the side, then climbed down again.

He crouched upon the sleepers near the front wheel.

The wand came out of his mouth.

He touched it to the rail.

A thin line of silver light travelled beneath the train.

It passed under each carriage in sequence.

The floor tingled beneath the students’ feet.

Lily inhaled.

“He’s using magic.”

“Good,” Marlene said.

“We’re not at school yet.”

“Someone has murdered the staff and stranded us on a collapsing bridge.”

“We don’t know it’s collapsing.”

The bridge groaned again.

Marlene pointed down.

“It is expressing concerns.”

“The Ministry can hardly object,” Frank said.

“The Ministry can object to rain,” Alice replied.

Regulus moved slowly along the front rails.

He touched his wand to one, then the other.

Silver lines sank into the metal.

The warped sections shuddered and straightened by fractions. Broken bolts lifted from the sleepers and twisted back into place. Hairline fractures in the iron supports sealed under glowing seams of magic.

Regulus knelt at the edge of the bridge.

He looked down.

The wind pushed at him.

James whispered, “Back up.”

Regulus leaned farther.

“Back up.”

Sirius gripped the frame.

“Regulus, move away from the edge.”

“He cannot hear you from here,” Remus said.

“Then why is everyone else shouting?”

“Panic.”

“It’s a useful emotion.”

“It usually isn’t.”

Regulus drew a circle in the air with his wand.

Light ran down through the iron framework.

It revealed the damage beneath the train.

The bridge had not simply aged.

One of the central load-bearing braces had buckled during the emergency stop. The weight of the locomotive had shifted unevenly. Three riveted joints had torn almost completely free. Farther beneath, stone at the base of one support had cracked away from the cliff.

The entire structure sagged by inches.

Regulus stared at it.

Then, very carefully, he looked back at the train.

From the windows, hundreds of faces looked back.

His expression did not change.

“That is not a good face,” Gideon said.

“He always has that face,” Fabian replied.

“No, that’s the face beneath the face.”

Regulus raised his wand.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then a deep pulse of magic rolled outward.

The air around him shimmered.

The damaged iron screamed.

Students clapped hands over their ears as the central braces dragged themselves back towards alignment. Bolts twisted into place. Broken joints sealed beneath bands of silver-green light.

It did not repair the bridge completely.

It held it.

Temporarily.

Regulus lowered his wand.

His arm shook.

Evan noticed.

“He’s exhausted.”

“He’s used three spells,” Barty said.

“On a railway bridge.”

“That does complicate the arithmetic.”

Regulus climbed back into the engine cab.

When he emerged again, he carried a battered clipboard, several sheets of paper and a stub of pencil.

He sat upon the narrow front platform of the locomotive, legs hanging above the ravine, and began to write.

James stared.

“What is he doing now?”

“Possibly leaving a will,” Mary said.

Sirius went rigid.

“I was joking,” Mary added quickly.

“Do not joke about that.”

“I immediately regret it.”

Regulus wrote three short notes.

He folded each one tightly.

Then he stood.

His wand rose.

The air around him went cold.

Not winter cold.

Moonlit cold.

The pale, clean chill of deep water far from shore.

A silver glow gathered at the wand’s tip.

Regulus spoke, but the wind carried his words away.

Light erupted.

It poured from his wand in a broad, curving arc and struck the air before the locomotive.

For one instant, it seemed formless.

Then a great dorsal fin cut through the silver mist.

A vast shark emerged.

Not a small reef shark.

Not something elegant and decorative.

A great white, enormous enough that its body stretched nearly the width of the bridge.

It swam through the air.

Its silver tail swept from side to side. Its jaws opened, revealing rows of luminous teeth. Its black eyes reflected the entire train in miniature.

Students screamed.

Several ducked away from their windows.

Barty climbed halfway through the broken frame.

“REGULUS HAS A SHARK!”

Dorcas dragged him back inside again.

“You cannot go after it.”

“But it’s brilliant!”

The Patronus circled the locomotive once.

Its body passed through the smoke without disturbance.

Then it turned north.

The shark plunged through the air above the tracks, moving faster and faster until it became a streak of silver racing towards Scotland.

Everyone stared after it.

James slowly turned towards Sirius.

“Did you know?”

Sirius appeared personally offended.

“No.”

“Your brother’s Patronus is a great white shark.”

“I saw.”

“That’s the best Patronus anyone has ever had.”

“Prongs is good.”

“Prongs is a deer.”

“A stag.”

“It eats leaves.”

“It has antlers.”

“The shark has several hundred teeth.”

“Not several hundred.”

Remus looked thoughtful. “Possibly around three hundred, arranged in rows.”

Sirius glared at him.

“Why do you know that?”

“I read.”

“Everyone needs to stop reading.”

Pandora watched the silver light disappear beyond the hills.

“It suits him.”

“Because he bites?” Dorcas asked.

“Because people think sharks hunt noisily. They don’t. They travel beneath what everyone can see.”

Evan looked out at Regulus.

“Also because he bites,” Barty said.

Regulus tucked one folded message into his pocket.

The other two remained in his hand.

He turned towards the countryside.

There were no houses nearby.

Only trees climbing the ravine walls, patches of scrub beneath the bridge, and fields beyond the far end.

Regulus lifted two fingers to his mouth.

He whistled.

The sound was not especially loud.

It carried anyway.

For several seconds, nothing changed.

Then the woods moved.

Birds rose from the trees.

Not in one great flock.

One at a time.

A rook swept above the ravine.

Two jackdaws followed.

A kestrel left the cliff face.

A pair of crows emerged from the distant field.

A barn owl appeared despite the daylight, pale wings beating silently as it crossed the open space.

They converged upon Regulus.

The rook landed upon the locomotive.

One jackdaw settled on the smokestack.

The kestrel landed upon Regulus’s raised forearm.

Its talons closed around his jumper without piercing the fabric.

The entire train fell silent.

Regulus tied one message to the kestrel’s leg.

He spoke to it.

The bird watched him.

Then launched north after the Patronus.

He gave the second letter to the barn owl.

It took the paper gently in its beak.

“Where are they going?” Alice asked.

“Hogwarts, hopefully,” Frank said.

“He said his magic works strongly with animals,” Evan murmured.

Everyone looked at him.

Evan kept his eyes outside.

“When we were children. He found a wounded fox in the Rosier gardens. It bit three gardeners and my father.”

“What did it do to Regulus?” Peter asked.

“Climbed into his lap and fell asleep.”

Dorcas nodded. “Of course.”

“Animals like him?” Mary asked.

“They adore him,” Pandora said. “Most creatures do.”

Sirius looked at her.

“People don’t.”

“People are poorly trained.”

Outside, Regulus sent the owl away.

The remaining birds did not leave.

They gathered around him.

Two crows perched on the engine railing. The rook hopped along the platform until it stood beside his boot. The jackdaw on the smokestack began pecking experimentally at the metal.

Then something red appeared among the trees.

A fox.

It picked its way along the narrow strip of ground at the far end of the bridge, stepped onto the sleepers and began trotting towards Regulus.

Marlene pressed both hands to the window.

“Oh, you have got to be joking.”

The fox crossed the bridge without hesitation.

It reached Regulus and sat upon its haunches beside him.

He looked down.

The fox looked up.

Regulus scratched behind one of its ears.

Barty made a wounded sound.

“He is petting a wild fox while standing on a broken bridge.”

Evan looked exhausted. “Yes.”

“I want his life.”

“You would die within ten minutes.”

“I would die fulfilled.”

A stoat appeared next.

It emerged from beneath the bridge itself, scrambling up an iron brace with impossible speed. It ran along the rail, climbed Regulus’s trouser leg and disappeared beneath the hem of his jumper.

Regulus froze.

The stoat’s head appeared at his collar.

Its whiskers brushed his jaw.

Pandora smiled.

“He has been chosen.”

Regulus removed the stoat and placed it upon the engine.

It climbed him again.

He removed it once more.

It climbed him again.

On the third attempt, Regulus gave up.

The stoat settled across his shoulders like a living white-and-brown scarf.

Barty pressed a hand over his heart.

“I cannot bear this.”

“You are doing remarkably well,” Dorcas said.

“There is an animal in his jumper.”

“Not anymore.”

“There could be more.”

A blackbird landed upon Regulus’s head.

Regulus closed his eyes.

James began laughing.

Not because anything was funny enough to excuse it.

Because the alternative was screaming.

The laugh escaped, cracked and helpless. Mary joined him. Then Alice. Fabian leaned against Gideon, both of them shaking with strained, breathless amusement. Even Lily covered her mouth.

Regulus stood upon a failing bridge with two guns in his belt, a stoat around his neck, a blackbird upon his head, a fox at his heel and several crows arranged around him like an audience.

His expression suggested that the day had become mildly tedious.

He lifted the blackbird from his hair.

It moved to his shoulder.

Regulus allowed that.

Then he began walking back.

The fox followed.

The crows followed.

The rook hopped behind him until it seemed to realise walking was unnecessary and took flight.

The stoat remained wrapped around his neck.

Every window along the Hogwarts Express tracked his progress.

Students called to him.

“What happened?”

“Can you fix the train?”

“Is help coming?”

“Why do you have a shark?”

“Is that fox yours?”

“Black, are we going to fall?”

Regulus ignored them all.

At the carriage nearest the middle of the train, a third-year Hufflepuff leaned so far out that another student had to hold her legs.

“Regulus!”

He looked up.

“Are we going to die?”

Regulus considered the question.

The entire train waited.

“Not immediately,” he called.

The student vanished back through the window.

“That did not help!” someone yelled.

“It was honest,” Regulus replied.

He continued along the tracks.

The bridge creaked beneath him.

A bolt dropped from somewhere below.

It struck one of the iron braces with a ringing clang and disappeared into the ravine.

Everyone inside the carriage stopped laughing.

Regulus looked down.

Then walked slightly faster.

He reached the broken emergency window.

The fox stopped beneath it.

Regulus looked up.

Fifteen faces crowded the opening.

“Move,” he said.

No one moved.

“We are trying to see whether you’re alive,” James said.

“You can see me.”

“We can see half of you.”

“The relevant half.”

“Which half is relevant?”

“My head.”

Barty shoved between James and Evan.

“The stoat is on your neck.”

“I am aware.”

“Can I have it?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“It dislikes you.”

“It has never met me.”

“It has instincts.”

Evan reached both arms through the window.

“Give me your hands.”

“No.”

“Regulus.”

“I can climb.”

“Give me your hands or I will come down there and break your legs so you cannot do this again.”

Regulus stared up at him.

“That appears counterproductive.”

“Hands.”

Regulus passed one of the pistols up instead.

Evan recoiled.

“Not that.”

“You said hands.”

“I meant yours.”

“Hold it.”

“I do not want it.”

“You wanted me to stop carrying both.”

“That was before you tried to hand me one over a ravine.”

Sirius snatched the weapon from Regulus and placed it carefully upon the table behind him.

“The other.”

Regulus passed up the second pistol.

Sirius took it too.

“Now climb.”

Regulus caught the bottom of the window frame.

Evan and James each seized one of his arms.

Sirius grabbed the back of his jumper.

Together they hauled him upward.

His boots struck the side of the carriage.

The fox barked below.

The stoat scrambled onto Regulus’s head.

The blackbird flapped wildly into the carriage.

Pandora raised one hand and allowed it to land upon her finger.

“Careful!” Lily shouted.

“I am being careful,” James grunted.

“You’re pulling his arm the wrong way.”

“There are only so many ways an arm goes.”

“That is precisely why you should be careful.”

Regulus was dragged through the window and deposited unceremoniously across the table.

He rolled onto his back.

The stoat sat upon his chest.

The rook landed on the window frame.

The fox remained below, staring up.

Regulus looked at the ceiling.

Evan stood over him.

“Never do that again.”

“No.”

“That was not a question.”

“It was phrased as an order.”

“Obey it.”

“No.”

Evan shut his eyes.

Barty leaned over Regulus.

“Your Patronus is a shark.”

“Yes.”

“A great white.”

“Yes.”

“It could eat Potter’s stag.”

“It is not real.”

“It could spiritually eat Potter’s stag.”

James pushed Barty aside.

“It could not.”

Barty looked delighted. “You’re defensive.”

“I am not defensive.”

“Your deer is prey.”

“Stags can be vicious.”

“They’re forest horses with decorative branches.”

Sirius pointed towards the tied man.

“Can everyone remember the murderer in the aisle?”

The man had been watching them.

His eyes were enormous above the silk gag.

The brief calm vanished.

Regulus sat up.

The stoat climbed from his chest to his shoulder again.

Lily folded her arms.

“What did you find?”

Regulus slid off the table.

Everyone turned towards him.

He brushed dust from his slacks.

“The engine cannot move.”

James frowned. “Why?”

“The emergency braking system has locked. Several controls were damaged during the struggle. The boiler pressure is falling, one feed line is ruptured and I do not know enough about steam locomotives to repair it without risking an explosion.”

Fabian raised one hand.

“Could you repeat that with fewer reasons to panic?”

“No.”

“Fair enough.”

“Did the Patronus go to Hogwarts?” Frank asked.

“It went north along the railway. It will search for someone who can receive the message.”

“What message?”

“That the train has stopped, two members of staff are dead, a Muggle gunman is restrained in carriage three, and immediate assistance is required.”

Remus nodded. “And the birds?”

“One to Hogwarts. One to the nearest Ministry office if it can locate one. I sent another with the kestrel towards the last station we passed.”

Mary looked out at the birds still gathering around the window.

“And all of these?”

“They misunderstood the assignment.”

The rook cawed.

Regulus looked at it.

“I did not ask you to stay.”

It cawed again.

Pandora stroked the blackbird’s chest with one finger.

“Perhaps they are moral support.”

“I do not need moral support.”

The stoat crawled beneath Regulus’s collar.

He reached inside his jumper and pulled it out.

Marlene pointed.

“You plainly do.”

Regulus placed the stoat on the table.

It darted back up his sleeve.

He stopped trying.

Alice stepped closer.

“You reinforced the tracks.”

“Partially.”

“Partially?”

“The rails beneath the engine had warped. I realigned them and sealed the worst fractures.”

Frank’s relief was immediate.

“So the bridge is stable.”

Regulus did not answer.

Frank’s relief vanished.

“Regulus.”

“The bridge is old.”

“We noticed.”

“The sudden stop transferred a significant amount of force into the central structure. One support has cracked at its foundation. Several braces are failing.”

No one spoke.

The train creaked beneath them.

A faint metallic pop sounded below.

Peter looked at the floor.

“What does that mean?”

Regulus went to the broken window.

The fox remained on the track beneath them.

He crouched upon the table and reached one hand down.

The fox jumped.

Regulus caught it beneath the forelegs and hauled it through the frame.

It landed upon the table, shook itself and immediately sat against his side.

Sirius stared.

“Did you just bring a wild fox onto the train?”

“It was on the bridge.”

“So?”

“It should not remain there.”

“Neither should you have.”

“I am no longer there.”

Sirius looked momentarily defeated by the logic.

Dorcas folded her arms.

“What does the damaged support mean?”

Regulus stroked the fox once between the ears.

“It means the bridge is not stable.”

Lily’s voice came carefully.

“How unstable?”

Regulus glanced at the small watch beneath his cuff.

“Assuming the temporary reinforcement holds and the train remains entirely stationary, we have approximately forty minutes before the central supports are likely to fail.”

No one reacted.

Not at first.

The sentence was too calm.

Too ordinary.

It entered the carriage and waited for understanding to catch up.

James blinked.

“What?”

“The bridge may collapse.”

Mary stared at him.

“You said forty minutes.”

“Yes.”

“From now?”

“No.”

Her face went white.

Regulus looked at his watch again.

“From when the train stopped.”

Every person in the carriage looked towards the clock mounted above the rear door.

The hands had continued moving throughout the hostage situation.

Throughout Regulus’s performance.

Throughout the struggle.

Throughout the inspection.

Nearly eighteen minutes had passed.

Fabian stood slowly.

“So we do not have forty minutes.”

“No.”

Gideon looked at the ravine.

“How long do we have?”

Regulus counted silently.

The fox leaned against his leg.

The stoat’s head emerged from his collar.

The rook cawed from the window.

Regulus raised his eyes.

“Twenty-two minutes.”

The bridge groaned beneath them.

This time, something deep below answered with the sound of iron beginning to tear.

Regulus looked at the clock once more.

Twenty-two minutes.

Perhaps less.

The temporary reinforcement beneath the engine had never been intended to bear the weight of an entire stationary train. He had repaired what he could reach, forced damaged iron back into shape and persuaded fractured rivets to remain where they belonged, but persuasion was not permanence.

The bridge groaned again.

The fox at his leg flattened its ears.

Regulus made his decision.

“We are not waiting.”

Lily stared at him. “Waiting for what?”

“For help.”

The carriage swayed faintly beneath them.

Regulus stepped back onto the table.

Evan’s expression darkened at once.

Regulus ignored it.

“The Patronus may reach Hogwarts in time. The birds may reach someone in time. Someone may Apparate near enough to assist us in time.” He placed one hand against the broken emergency-window frame. “I am not staking several hundred lives upon the repeated use of the phrase in time.”

Remus looked towards the rear of the train.

“You’re evacuating everyone.”

“Yes.”

“Across the bridge?”

“The rear carriages extend beyond it. Part of the train is still on solid land.”

Frank glanced through the window towards the long curve behind them. “How many?”

“Six carriages are entirely over land. One is partly over land. The rest of us are suspended over the ravine.”

“And the engine?” James asked.

“Lost if the bridge fails.”

The bound man writhed against the floor and made a wet, furious sound through Evan’s tie.

Regulus looked down at him.

“You will be moved last.”

The man stared back at him, bloodshot eyes still jumping towards spaces where nothing stood.

Barty leaned over the back of a seat.

“He seems offended.”

“He may submit a complaint when he is imprisoned.”

Regulus climbed through the broken window again.

Wind caught his jumper immediately.

He lowered himself onto the narrow track and landed in a crouch, boots balanced across one rail and the timber sleeper beneath it.

The fox remained inside the carriage now, paws upon the table, staring down after him.

The stoat was still hidden beneath his collar.

Its small claws shifted against his shoulder.

Regulus reached inside his jumper, removed it and placed it on the window ledge.

“Stay.”

The stoat stared at him.

“Stay.”

It darted back towards his sleeve.

Regulus caught it in one hand and set it beside the fox.

The fox lowered its head over the stoat as though physically preventing it from following.

“Thank you,” Regulus said.

Then he turned and began walking towards the rear of the train.

There could be no mass movement over the bridge.

Not yet.

Hundreds of students scrambling along the same failing rails would add sudden, uneven pressure to an already damaged structure. They would block one another. They would panic. Someone would fall. Someone would turn back for luggage. Someone would decide that their trunk of robes was worth delaying everyone behind them.

Regulus needed order.

Order required a route.

He moved beside the train rather than through it, one hand trailing along the carriage walls whenever the wind surged through the ravine. Faces appeared at windows as he passed.

A Ravenclaw girl leaned out.

“What’s happening?”

“Back inside.”

“Is the bridge—”

“Back inside.”

His voice was not loud.

It did not need to be.

The girl vanished immediately.

Regulus continued.

At the next window, two boys were shouting over one another.

“Are we evacuating?”

“Has someone been killed?”

“Is the engine broken?”

“Silence,” Regulus snapped.

Both mouths closed.

“Remain in your carriage. Keep the aisle clear. Locate your wand and any living animal in your care. Leave everything else.”

“My trunk—”

“Leave it.”

“But my father—”

“Your father would prefer to replace your trunk rather than identify your body.”

The boy went pale.

Regulus moved on.

He repeated the instructions at every carriage.

“Wands and animals only.”

“Remain where you are.”

“Do not enter the corridors.”

“Do not open external doors.”

“Do not attempt to cross the bridge.”

“Do not retrieve luggage.”

“Do not argue with me.”

His prefect badge flashed upon his jumper whenever the sunlight caught it.

The badge helped.

His voice did more.

Regulus had spent years speaking quietly because he had learned early that people leaned closer when they feared missing what he might say. He rarely shouted in classrooms. He did not need to shout across Quidditch changing rooms either.

As captain, he could cut through fifteen competing conversations with one command.

As prefect, he could stop corridor fights by saying a surname in precisely the correct tone.

Now that voice travelled through the stranded train like a blade.

Students who would ordinarily have challenged him took one look at the bridge below and obeyed.

The train curved towards the hillside.

More ground became visible beside the tracks. The final carriage over the ravine hung only a few yards beyond the cliff edge. Behind it, another carriage rested partly upon the bridge and partly upon solid railway bed.

Beyond that, six carriages sat safely over land.

Regulus stopped at the coupling between the last carriage endangered by the bridge and the first one secured upon the hillside.

The coupling assembly was old.

A broad iron link joined the carriages beneath reinforced buffers. Bolts locked the mechanism in place. Brake hoses and connecting chains ran alongside it.

If the bridge collapsed, the falling front half of the train could drag the rear carriages after it.

The weight alone might rip them from the rails.

Regulus crouched.

He drew his wand.

“Lumos.”

Cold light collected at the tip.

The coupling shuddered around him while the bridge settled another fraction.

He examined the bolts.

The main link could not simply be severed immediately. If the carriages shifted before evacuation, the gap might widen and make movement through the train impossible.

But he could weaken it.

He could prepare it to separate under the correct force rather than drag the safe half of the train towards the ravine.

Regulus touched his wand to the first locking bolt.

“Dissolvo cautus.”

Metal glowed beneath the wand tip.

The bolt rotated slowly backwards through its housing.

Once.

Twice.

Regulus stopped before it came free.

He moved to the second.

The wind shook his sleeves.

“Dissolvo cautus.”

The second bolt loosened.

He left enough thread to hold the coupling steady for now.

Then he placed his wand against the thick iron link and carved a narrow line of controlled weakness through its centre.

Not a break.

A fault.

Something that would snap when the front carriages fell, allowing the rear section to remain behind.

The coupling gave a low, unhappy creak.

Regulus looked at it.

“You will hold until I am finished.”

The iron did not answer.

“Good.”

He rose and moved onto solid ground.

The change beneath his boots was immediate.

No open air visible between sleepers.

No entire train trembling through the soles of his boots.

Gravel crunched around the railway bed. Heather and coarse grass covered the hillside to either side. Beyond the tracks lay a broad, relatively flat stretch of ground, far enough from the ravine that it would not be struck if debris fell.

That would be the evacuation point.

Regulus lifted his wand.

“Flagrate.”

A line of green fire sprang across the grass.

It burned without consuming anything, forming a bright boundary nearly sixty feet from the tracks.

He drew a second line farther back and connected the ends.

A broad rectangular safe zone glowed against the hillside.

Several students watched through windows.

Regulus pointed towards the marked ground.

“When you leave the train, you will go directly inside that boundary. You will not return to the tracks. You will not leave the marked area. You will not attempt to recover belongings.”

A seventh-year boy called from a window, “Who put you in charge?”

Regulus looked up.

“I did.”

The boy hesitated.

Regulus raised his chin.

“Would you prefer the position?”

The bridge groaned behind them.

The boy withdrew from the window.

“No.”

“I thought not.”

Regulus began walking back towards the endangered carriages.

This time, he moved along the centre of the tracks rather than the narrow outer edge.

He pointed his wand down.

“Planum ferrivia.”

Magic spread from his feet.

The ballast shifted.

Loose stones rolled into gaps between the sleepers. The wooden beams broadened fractionally, their edges extending until the empty spaces between them became narrow enough for careful footsteps. Iron along the outside of each rail lifted and flattened, forming low ridges that would help prevent shoes from slipping sideways.

The spell travelled ahead of him.

Sleeper by sleeper.

Yard by yard.

A temporary walkway formed between the carriages and the drop.

It was still narrow.

It was still terrifying.

It was safer than it had been.

Regulus tested one altered sleeper with his boot.

It held.

He moved to the first carriage over the bridge.

Students crowded the windows.

“Move away from the door,” he ordered.

A path opened inside.

Regulus climbed onto the rear platform and forced the outer door open.

The carriage contained mostly older students, with several younger children crushed among them after being unable to find seats elsewhere.

Fear had made the air thick.

A tiny boy stood in the aisle clutching a square travelling cage against his chest. Inside it, a brown rat trembled beneath a pile of straw.

The boy’s face was wet.

Regulus looked through the carriage.

“First years.”

Several heads turned.

“Come forward.”

Nobody moved at first.

Regulus’s voice sharpened.

“Now.”

The small boy with the rat shuffled towards him.

Behind him came a girl hugging an owl cage, another boy with a tortoiseshell cat bundled inside his robes, and four more children carrying nothing except wands they had only owned for weeks.

They gathered near the door.

One girl stared past Regulus at the ravine.

She began to shake.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“I’ll fall.”

“No.”

“It’s too high.”

“Look at me.”

Her eyes snapped towards his.

“Not the bridge. Not the river. Me.”

She swallowed.

Regulus crouched upon the track below the door.

The first-year boy with the rat looked down at him.

“What do I do?”

“Give me your free hand.”

The boy hugged the cage tighter.

“He bites people.”

“I was not asking for the rat.”

“Oh.”

He reached down.

Regulus caught his wrist and guided him onto the outer step.

The child froze.

His small shoes barely fit upon the metal.

“I can’t move.”

“You do not need to.”

Regulus placed both hands around his waist and lifted him from the step.

The boy made a startled sound and immediately wrapped one arm around Regulus’s neck.

The cage remained crushed between them.

Regulus adjusted his grip, settling the child against his hip.

“Do not choke me.”

“Sorry.”

“Hold my shoulder instead.”

The boy obeyed.

Regulus began walking.

The child buried his face against Regulus’s jumper.

“Is the train going to fall?”

“Possibly.”

The boy whimpered.

“Not while you are inside it,” Regulus added.

“That didn’t make it better.”

“You are no longer inside it.”

The boy lifted his head slightly.

“That made it a little better.”

“Good.”

Regulus carried him across the final stretch of bridge and onto solid ground.

The moment his boots touched gravel, the child’s grip loosened.

Regulus took him into the marked safe zone and lowered him onto the grass.

The boy did not release his shoulder.

Regulus waited.

The boy looked embarrassed.

“Sorry.”

“It is all right.”

“Can you stay?”

“No.”

The child’s face crumpled.

Regulus raised his wand.

A rustle moved through the grass.

Three rabbits emerged from beneath a hedge farther up the slope.

They hopped towards the marked area, ears high.

One stopped beside the boy.

The child stared.

The rabbit sat on its hind legs and placed its front paws against his knee.

Regulus looked at him.

“This one will stay.”

“Does it have a name?”

“No.”

The boy sniffed.

“Can I call it Gregory?”

“If you wish.”

Gregory climbed into his lap.

The brown rat poked its nose between the cage bars.

The boy managed a shaky smile.

Regulus returned to the bridge.

The girl with the owl cage was next.

She clung to the doorframe.

“I can walk.”

“No.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“I did not say you were.”

“You carried him.”

“Yes.”

“I can walk.”

“The bridge cannot support groups of people walking back and forth unnecessarily. I can move faster while carrying you.”

The girl looked unconvinced.

Regulus held out both arms.

“Your pride weighs less than your body. Put it down.”

She blinked.

Then she passed one arm around his shoulders while keeping the owl cage clutched to her chest.

Regulus lifted her.

She gave a startled squeak.

“I thought you’d be weaker.”

“So did many people.”

He carried her to land.

When he set her down, she looked at the rabbits gathered around the first boy.

“Do I get one?”

“No.”

Her face fell.

Regulus whistled softly.

A red squirrel shot down a tree and ran across the grass.

It climbed the girl’s robes and perched upon her shoulder.

She went completely still.

The owl inside its cage stared at the squirrel.

The squirrel stared back.

“Do not allow them to kill one another,” Regulus said.

The girl nodded solemnly.

The third child had a cat.

The animal had clawed its way almost entirely inside his jumper, leaving only its tail and hindquarters visible.

Regulus reached the carriage.

The boy looked down.

“His name is Marmalade.”

“I did not ask.”

“He’s frightened.”

“So are you.”

“No, I’m not.”

Marmalade yowled inside his robes.

The boy burst into tears.

Regulus lifted him without commenting.

The child clung at once, face pressed into Regulus’s neck.

Marmalade’s head emerged beneath the boy’s chin and hissed at the ravine.

“Your cat has good judgement,” Regulus said.

“He hates trains.”

“He may soon be pleased.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

He carried the boy to safety and summoned a pair of sleepy badgers from the hillside. They settled near the first years like broad, warm sentries.

The children stared.

One whispered, “Aren’t they dangerous?”

“Yes.”

The child looked alarmed.

Regulus added, “Not to you.”

That was enough.

He returned to the train.

Again.

And again.

One child at a time.

Some carried cages.

Some had owls balanced on gloved hands.

One girl had a toad tucked into the front pocket of her robes and shrieked every time it moved.

One boy carried a kneazle kitten so young that it fit beneath his chin.

Another had no animal, only a wand clutched in both hands and a face drained entirely of colour.

Regulus carried each of them.

Across the temporary walkway.

Off the bridge.

Into the marked safe zone.

Some clung so tightly that their fingers hurt his neck.

Some talked without stopping.

“My mum said trains were safer than broomsticks.”

“I left my sweets.”

“My brother’s in another carriage.”

“My owl bit me.”

“Do you think the teachers know?”

“Are the conductors really dead?”

“Did you fight the man?”

“Is that blood on your sleeve?”

“Can sharks really fly?”

Regulus answered only what mattered.

“Your brother will come.”

“Leave the sweets.”

“Hold your cage upright.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Do not look down.”

“Breathe.”

“Again.”

“Slower.”

“You are safe here.”

The final first year in the carriage was a tiny girl who had gone silent.

She carried nothing.

No wand.

No animal.

Regulus looked at her empty hands.

“Where is your wand?”

She pointed towards a seat.

“It fell.”

“Retrieve it.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“It’s by the window.”

Regulus looked inside the carriage.

The wand lay beneath a bench.

He reached through the doorway, summoned it and placed it into her hand.

She stared at it.

Then at him.

“What if I drop it?”

“I will pick it up.”

“What if you drop me?”

“I will not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I have not dropped anyone yet.”

“That doesn’t mean you won’t.”

Regulus considered her.

“You are annoyingly logical.”

She began to cry.

“I’m sorry.”

“It was not criticism.”

He lifted her.

She locked both arms around his neck and both legs around his waist.

Regulus nearly lost his balance.

“Loosen your knees.”

“No.”

“I require the use of my lungs.”

“No.”

He carried her anyway.

By the time he reached solid ground, she had buried her face completely beneath his collar.

Regulus set her down.

She refused to release him.

He crouched.

“You must let go.”

“No.”

“I have more children to collect.”

“You’ll come back?”

“Yes.”

“You promise?”

Regulus paused.

Then said, “Yes.”

She released him.

He summoned a large shaggy dog from a farmhouse somewhere beyond the hill. It bounded over the grass with a broken length of rope trailing from its collar, entered the marked area and immediately lay down beside the girl.

The child buried both hands in its fur.

Regulus stood.

His arms ached.

His shoulders burned.

He ignored both.

He had cleared the first endangered carriage of its youngest students.

There were many more.

He moved through the next.

And the next.

The routine became brutal in its simplicity.

Open the door.

Call the first years forward.

Lower them into his arms.

Carry them.

Return.

The bridge complained beneath every journey.

Iron clicked.

Timber cracked.

Dust fell from the stone supports below.

The minutes passed.

At the safe end of the train, the first years gathered inside the green boundary with their animals and the wild creatures Regulus had called from the surrounding countryside.

Rabbits sat beneath children’s hands.

Badgers lay in the grass.

A fox curled beside a sobbing boy.

Birds filled the branches overhead, watching the train with bright, sharp eyes.

When the final first year was safely on land, Regulus climbed onto the rear platform of the first carriage resting wholly upon solid ground.

He unlocked the external door.

It opened towards the hillside.

Students crowded behind him.

Regulus turned.

“Everyone in the carriages entirely over land will evacuate now.”

A murmur began.

He raised his voice.

“Wands and animals only. Luggage remains aboard. You will walk directly to the marked area and remain there.”

A sixth-year girl hugged a leather case to her chest.

“My violin—”

“Leave it.”

“It was my grandmother’s.”

“Then allow it to remain your grandmother’s violin rather than the object recovered beside your corpse.”

She went pale.

Regulus pointed back inside.

“Leave it.”

Her hands shook.

She placed the case upon a seat.

A boy behind her held a heavy school trunk by one handle.

Regulus stared at him.

“No.”

“It has all my clothes.”

“You may attend Hogwarts naked if necessary.”

Several students laughed nervously.

Regulus did not.

The boy dropped the trunk.

Students began filing through the rear door.

Owls.

Cats.

Toads.

Kneazles.

A small snake wrapped around one student’s forearm.

One girl carried a cage containing two mice and a furious canary.

They stepped onto the gravel and moved towards the safe zone.

Regulus stood beside the doorway, counting.

“Keep moving.”

“No running.”

“Do not stop beside the tracks.”

“Inside the green boundary.”

“You, leave the bag.”

“It has food.”

“The rabbits will survive without your biscuits.”

“They’re mine.”

“Then you will survive without them.”

A prefect from one of the rear carriages reached the doorway.

She was a tall Ravenclaw seventh year with tightly braided hair and a silver badge pinned neatly to her robes.

Her face was pale but controlled.

“What do you need?”

Regulus looked at her.

“Name.”

“Imogen Vale.”

“Take charge of the safe area. Separate students by year. Keep the younger children towards the centre. Count everyone entering.”

Imogen nodded immediately.

“How many should there be?”

“Count by carriage first. Record missing names. Do not send anyone back.”

“What about injuries?”

“Place anyone who cannot stand near the northern edge of the boundary. Summon blankets from the train only if they are within arm’s reach of the door. Nobody re-enters for supplies.”

She looked towards the bridge.

“How long?”

“Not enough.”

Imogen’s jaw tightened.

“Understood.”

She hurried towards the marked ground.

Another prefect appeared, a Hufflepuff boy with a broad face and trembling hands.

Regulus pointed at him.

“Name.”

“Daniel Moss.”

“Control the exit. Check every student carries a wand. Pets remain contained where possible. Nobody brings trunks, cases or loose baggage.”

Daniel swallowed.

“All right.”

“If anyone argues, remove the object.”

“What if they won’t let go?”

“Ask whether they would like to be buried holding it.”

Daniel stared at him.

Regulus stared back.

Daniel nodded.

“Right.”

A Slytherin prefect from another carriage emerged next, a girl named Selene Carrow whose usual expression of aristocratic contempt had been replaced by open fear.

Regulus gave her no time to speak.

“Check the rear carriages after evacuation. Toilets, luggage racks, beneath seats, every enclosed space. Do not go beyond the carriage partly resting upon the bridge.”

“Alone?”

“Take Vale when she finishes the first count.”

Selene looked towards the train.

“What if the coupling breaks?”

“Then you will already be on the safe side.”

That did not reassure her.

Regulus did not need her reassured.

He needed her obedient.

“Go.”

She went.

The students in the rear section streamed from the train.

Regulus monitored until the flow became orderly.

Then he turned back towards the bridge.

“Where are you going?” Daniel called.

“To collect everyone else.”

“You’ve already been carrying children for—”

Regulus kept walking.

The temporary path waited.

So did the carriages still suspended above open air.

He reached the rear-most endangered carriage.

The older students inside had watched him carry the first years out.

They knew the procedure now.

Regulus opened the door.

“Second years.”

A cluster moved forward.

One girl had an owl cage in one hand and an enormous stuffed toy dragon beneath her other arm.

Regulus pointed at the toy.

“Leave it.”

Her eyes widened.

“No.”

“It is not alive.”

“It was my brother’s.”

“Leave it.”

“He gave it to me before he died.”

Regulus stopped.

The girl clutched it harder.

The bridge shifted beneath them.

A faint scream rose from farther along the train.

Regulus looked at the toy.

Then at the owl cage.

“You cannot carry both safely.”

“I’m not leaving him.”

Regulus took the stuffed dragon from her.

Her face twisted with panic.

He compressed it with a spell until it fit inside his palm.

The girl stared.

Regulus placed it into her pocket.

“You are still not permitted luggage.”

She threw one arm around his neck before he could object.

“Thank you.”

“Do not make this emotional.”

She cried harder.

Regulus lifted her and carried her to land.

The second years were heavier than the first.

Some could walk the safest final stretch once the bridge ended beneath them. Others froze at the carriage doorway and needed to be carried the entire way.

Regulus did not debate with fear.

He lowered them into his arms and moved.

A boy with a cat cage.

A girl with two toads.

A child holding an owl beneath one arm because its cage had broken.

A pair of twins who refused to leave separately.

Regulus stared at them.

“One at a time.”

“No.”

“We go together.”

“You do not.”

“We’re twins.”

“That is not a medical condition.”

The girls gripped one another’s hands.

Regulus looked at the bridge.

Then at them.

He crouched.

“One upon my back. One in front.”

The twins obeyed immediately.

One locked her arms around his shoulders from behind. Regulus lifted the other against his chest.

“This is humiliating,” he said.

The twin on his back whispered, “You’re very strong.”

“I know.”

He carried both.

On solid ground, they refused to stop thanking him.

Regulus left before they could embrace him again.

The second years exited carriage by carriage.

He carried them across the most dangerous sections and placed them upon the hillside.

Other prefects directed them into groups once they reached safety.

Regulus did not remain to oversee them.

Back to the train.

Third years next.

Many insisted they could walk.

Regulus allowed it only where the altered sleepers were widest and the bridge beneath that section showed no visible buckling.

“Single file.”

“Hands against the carriage.”

“Three paces between each person.”

“No running.”

“Do not look over the edge.”

A third-year boy looked over the edge.

He stopped moving.

Regulus caught the back of his robes before his knees gave way.

“I told you not to look.”

“I didn’t think it would be that high.”

“Did you expect the ravine to become shallower for your convenience?”

The boy made a strangled sound.

Regulus turned him towards the train wall.

“Hands here.”

“I can’t move.”

“You can.”

“My legs won’t.”

Regulus lifted him.

The boy clung instantly.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologising and hold on.”

The next student carried a long glass tank containing a lizard.

The creature slid frantically over sand as the carriage shook.

Regulus took the tank in one arm and the student in the other.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered.

The student looked offended.

“Her name is Cleopatra.”

“Cleopatra is adding six unnecessary pounds.”

“She needs her heat lamp.”

“No.”

“She’ll get cold.”

“She will get colder at the bottom of a river.”

The student considered that.

“Good point.”

Regulus transported both student and lizard.

The fourth years came after.

More of them could cross independently.

Regulus stood upon the tracks beneath each doorway, controlling the pace.

“Next.”

“Wait.”

“Now.”

“Keep moving.”

“Do not stop.”

A group emerged too quickly.

The bridge trembled under their combined weight.

Regulus’s head snapped up.

“Stop!”

Every student froze.

The iron beneath them gave a long, bending groan.

Someone began to sob.

Regulus kept his voice level.

“Nobody moves.”

The shaking eased.

He pointed to the first student.

“You. Three steps.”

The student obeyed.

“Stop.”

Regulus waited.

“You. Follow.”

He released them one by one.

The load shifted gradually instead of all at once.

When the final student reached solid ground, Regulus turned on the carriage.

“You will follow my spacing instructions exactly. The next person who crowds another will be sent to the back.”

A fourth-year girl protested, “But the bridge—”

“Will fail faster if you stampede.”

No one crowded again.

Fifth years.

Then sixth.

The sky had begun to change.

Clouds moved over the sun, turning the ravine grey. Wind rushed harder beneath the bridge and carried the sharp scent of rain.

Regulus’s boots slipped once upon an iron rail.

He caught the carriage handle before falling.

A collective scream erupted from the windows.

Regulus pulled himself upright.

“I am fine.”

“You nearly fell!” someone shouted.

“I did not.”

“You slipped.”

“And then I did not fall.”

He continued.

His breathing had become heavier.

His arms shook each time he lowered another student from a carriage doorway.

He had lost count of how many children he had carried.

Forty.

Fifty.

More.

Most older students could manage the walkway, but panic made age unreliable. A sixth-year boy twice Regulus’s width stepped onto the track, saw the ravine and collapsed against the carriage.

Regulus stared at him.

The boy stared back.

“I can’t.”

“You are enormous.”

“I know.”

“This is inconvenient.”

“I’m sorry.”

Regulus turned his back.

“Climb on.”

The boy blinked.

“What?”

“Before I reconsider.”

“You can’t carry me.”

Regulus looked over his shoulder.

“Would you like to remain aboard and test that theory against gravity?”

The boy climbed onto his back.

Regulus nearly sank to one knee.

The student made a horrified sound.

“Get off.”

“I knew it.”

“Your confidence is unhelpful.”

The boy slid down.

Regulus cast a lightening charm upon him.

Then turned again.

“Now.”

The student climbed back onto his shoulders.

Regulus carried him across.

The boy kept whispering apologies into his hair.

“Stop speaking.”

“Sorry.”

“That was speech.”

“Sorry.”

“Again.”

The boy covered his mouth.

Seventh years were last among the ordinary carriages.

They moved in disciplined lines.

Some helped calm younger students once they reached land, but Regulus permitted none to return.

The other prefects continued counting.

Imogen Vale met him beside the safe boundary.

“Rear carriages cleared.”

“How many?”

“Two hundred and eleven students from the land section. One hundred and eighty-three from the bridge section so far.”

“Missing?”

“Four names unaccounted for, but they may have been listed in the wrong carriage.”

“Names.”

She gave them.

Regulus recognised two.

He had seen one during the fourth-year evacuation and another carrying a kneazle cage from the sixth carriage.

“Cross them off. The remaining two?”

“Edmund Pike and Samuel Avery.”

Regulus’s expression hardened.

“Avery was in a toilet when the train stopped.”

Imogen looked towards the bridge.

“Which carriage?”

“Four behind mine.”

“I’ll—”

“No.”

“You told me to check—”

“Not across the coupling.”

“We cannot leave him.”

“I did not say we would.”

Regulus turned.

Imogen caught his sleeve.

“You need to stop for a moment.”

“No.”

“You can barely lift your arm.”

“I do not need to lift my arm.”

“You’ve been carrying students for nearly twenty minutes.”

“Then I have had sufficient practice.”

“Black—”

Regulus pulled free.

“Keep counting.”

He returned to the bridge.

The altered walkway had begun to decay.

The sleepers were shrinking back towards their original shape as his spell weakened. Gravel slipped into the ravine through widening gaps.

Regulus renewed the charm while moving.

“Planum ferrivia.”

The path widened again.

His magic flickered.

He clenched his jaw and forced more power through the wand.

The spell stabilised.

The fourth carriage behind his own stood nearly at the bridge’s centre.

Regulus reached it.

“Edmund Pike!”

No answer.

He struck the door.

“Pike!”

A faint voice answered from inside.

“Here!”

“Where?”

“Lavatory!”

Regulus opened the outer door and climbed into the carriage.

It was empty.

Abandoned cages sat upon seats. Luggage had fallen into the aisle. A trunk blocked the passage.

Regulus blasted it aside.

The toilet door at the far end had jammed in its frame.

A hand struck the other side.

“I can’t open it!”

“Stand back.”

“Where?”

“Away from the door.”

“It’s a cupboard!”

“Crouch.”

Regulus waited.

Then kicked the lock.

The door splintered inward.

A seventh-year boy was wedged beside the basin, clutching a wand and a small jar of water containing a snail.

Regulus stared at the jar.

Edmund looked defensive.

“He’s aquatic.”

“Of course he is.”

The carriage tilted slightly.

Both of them caught the wall.

Regulus seized Edmund’s robes.

“Move.”

They crossed the carriage.

Edmund looked through the open door at the walkway.

His face blanched.

“I’m not good with heights.”

“You are a seventh year.”

“That does not make me taller.”

“That is unfortunately true.”

Regulus cast the lightening charm and pulled him onto his back.

Edmund wrapped both arms around his shoulders, still holding the snail jar.

“I’m heavier than I look.”

“You look heavy.”

“That was rude.”

“So is delaying an evacuation because you became imprisoned beside a toilet.”

“It jammed.”

“Be silent.”

Regulus carried him from the train.

Halfway across, the bridge lurched.

A support below snapped.

The sound cracked through the ravine like thunder.

The tracks dropped several inches beneath Regulus’s boots.

Edmund screamed.

Regulus slammed one hand against the carriage wall.

“Do not move!”

“I’m not!”

“You are strangling me.”

“Sorry!”

“Loosen your arm.”

Edmund loosened it.

The train continued settling.

Metal shrieked.

The carriage windows filled with students still awaiting evacuation farther forward.

Regulus took one careful step.

The bridge held.

Another.

Another.

He reached solid land.

Edmund slid from his back and collapsed onto the gravel.

Regulus pointed towards the safe zone.

“Go.”

Edmund ran.

Samuel Avery remained missing.

Regulus checked the next two carriages himself.

Empty.

The third contained only scattered luggage and an owl cage whose door hung open.

He found Avery in the luggage rack.

The small fifth-year had curled himself behind two trunks and refused to come down.

Regulus looked up at him.

“What are you doing?”

Samuel pressed farther against the wall.

“I couldn’t go out there.”

“You can.”

“No.”

“The train is going to fall.”

“I know.”

“Then come down.”

“No.”

Regulus stared at him.

Samuel’s entire body trembled.

His face was streaked with tears and dirt.

“I can’t,” he whispered.

Regulus climbed onto the seat.

The carriage creaked.

He reached into the rack.

Samuel recoiled.

“Don’t.”

“I am removing you.”

“I’ll fall.”

“You are currently in a luggage rack.”

“It feels safer.”

“It is not.”

Regulus caught him beneath the arms and dragged him forward.

Samuel kicked in panic.

One heel struck Regulus’s shoulder.

Regulus nearly lost his grip.

“Stop fighting me.”

“I can’t go outside!”

“You can either go outside with me or go outside with the carriage when the bridge collapses.”

Samuel went still.

Regulus pulled him completely free.

The boy clung at once.

Regulus lowered them both to the floor.

Samuel buried his face against him.

“I don’t want to die.”

“You are not going to.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” Regulus said. “But I am becoming increasingly irritated by the possibility.”

He carried Samuel out.

The child kept his eyes closed the entire way.

When they reached land, Regulus placed him beside Imogen.

“Final missing student.”

Imogen caught Samuel before he collapsed.

“We’re still short by carriage count.”

“How many?”

“Fifteen.”

Regulus looked towards the front of the train.

His carriage.

The Gryffindors.

His friends.

The bound man.

Sixteen.

Everyone else was off.

Imogen followed his gaze.

“That’s all?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

Regulus checked his watch.

The hands had moved far too quickly.

“Four minutes.”

Imogen went white.

“Black.”

Regulus was already running.

His boots struck the altered sleepers.

The bridge swayed.

Wind tore at his clothes.

He passed empty carriage after empty carriage, each one abandoned with trunks, robes, sweet wrappers, books and broken cages scattered across the seats.

The train looked dead.

Steam drifted from the engine ahead.

The carriage behind the conductors’ compartment remained occupied.

Fifteen students watched Regulus approach through the broken emergency window.

The man lay tied in the aisle.

Regulus reached the carriage and climbed through.

The fox leapt from the table and struck his chest.

Regulus caught it automatically.

The stoat launched after it and vanished down the front of his jumper.

The blackbird flew onto his shoulder.

Regulus stood amid them, breathing hard.

Sirius looked at his face.

“How many?”

“Everyone.”

“All of them?”

“Except this carriage.”

The bridge groaned beneath their feet.

A lamp swung overhead.

Regulus set the fox down.

“Wands and animals. Nothing else.”

James glanced at his trunk.

Regulus looked at him.

James looked away from it.

Peter picked up his wand and tucked it into his sleeve.

Remus closed his book.

Regulus held out one hand.

“Leave it.”

Remus looked down at the book.

“It’s from my mother.”

“Then she will be pleased to lend you another.”

Remus set it on the seat.

Lily pulled her wand from her bag and left the bag behind.

Mary released the clasp of a small case, removed a photograph and slipped it into her pocket.

Regulus noticed.

“Only wands and animals.”

“It weighs nothing.”

“Fine.”

Marlene took a packet of cigarettes from her coat.

Regulus stared.

“What?”

“Leave them.”

“They’re in my pocket.”

“They are not a wand or an animal.”

“They are medicinal.”

“No.”

“They calm me.”

“They kill you.”

“Slowly.”

“The bridge is attempting something faster.”

Marlene threw them onto the table.

Alice held her wand in both hands.

Frank stood close beside her.

Fabian and Gideon each had their wands and nothing else.

Dorcas drew hers from her sleeve.

Pandora gathered the blackbird into her hands.

Evan had already removed the second tie from his luggage and fastened it around his neck.

Regulus looked at him.

“You replaced it?”

“I was not evacuating improperly dressed.”

Barty opened his robes.

Three knives, two chains, a silver flask, several packets of unknown powder and what looked like a small crowbar were strapped inside.

Regulus stared.

“What?”

“Essentials.”

“Leave them.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

Barty looked personally wounded.

“The knives are nearly animals.”

“They are not.”

“They bite.”

“Leave them.”

Barty began unloading his coat onto the table.

Knife.

Knife.

Chain.

Flask.

Powder.

Crowbar.

A small jar.

Regulus pointed at it.

“What is that?”

“Teeth.”

“Whose?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Leave them.”

Barty put the jar down.

Sirius stared at the collection.

“You travelled with all of that?”

Barty looked at him.

“You didn’t?”

The train shifted.

The rear of the carriage dropped slightly.

Alice gasped.

Regulus turned towards the bound man.

“Three minutes.”

James looked at the door.

“How do we get him across?”

Regulus pointed his wand.

“Mobilicorpus.”

The man rose from the floor.

His body remained rigidly bound, arms and legs secured behind him, Evan’s tie still gagging him.

His eyes flew open.

He began struggling in the air.

Regulus tightened the spell.

“Do that again and I will suspend you upside down.”

The man stopped.

Regulus moved to the door.

The passage beyond led through the conductors’ compartment.

Blood darkened the floor.

The two bodies remained where they had fallen.

Regulus did not look down for long.

He forced the exterior door open.

Wind struck the carriage.

The temporary walkway had narrowed again.

Regulus renewed it.

The spell sputtered.

He tried once more.

“Planum ferrivia.”

The sleepers expanded only halfway.

Enough.

Barely.

Regulus looked back.

“Single file. Exact spacing. Do not stop.”

Sirius opened his mouth.

Regulus’s voice cracked through the carriage.

“That was not an invitation to speak.”

Sirius shut it.

Regulus stepped onto the tracks.

The levitated man floated behind him.

The others emerged in order.

Regulus controlled the pace with clipped commands.

“Move.”

“Wait.”

“Now.”

“Three steps.”

“Stop.”

“Next.”

The wind battered them.

The train leaned towards the ravine.

The metal wheels pressed against the inside of the rails with a slow grinding scream.

Regulus guided the bound man ahead of him, keeping the floating body low enough that the wind could not catch it.

Behind him, the others followed the wall of the carriage.

The fox moved along the sleepers with its belly low.

Pandora carried the blackbird.

The stoat remained tucked inside Regulus’s jumper.

The first empty carriage passed beside them.

Then the second.

The bridge shook again.

A section of railing tore free beneath the train and plunged into the ravine.

It struck rock far below with a distant clang.

“Do not look down,” Regulus ordered.

Barty looked down.

Regulus did not turn.

“Crouch.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know you.”

Barty looked back at the carriage wall.

They reached the middle of the bridge.

The damaged central support groaned beneath them.

Regulus’s spell flickered.

One of the widened sleepers shrank beneath James’s boot.

His foot slipped between the beams.

He caught himself against the train.

Regulus stopped.

“No one move.”

James dragged his leg free.

“I’m fine.”

“Silence.”

Regulus pointed his wand at the track.

Green light spread along the timber.

The walkway widened again.

A vein in Regulus’s temple throbbed.

His wand arm shook.

He lowered it.

“Continue.”

They moved.

The man began thrashing against the levitation charm.

His muffled screams rose through the gag.

He stared down into the ravine, eyes wild.

The delusion had changed again.

Whatever he saw below terrified him.

Regulus swung him sideways, pressing his floating body against the outer wall of the carriage.

“Stop.”

The man shook his head violently.

“Stop moving.”

He screamed through the tie.

Regulus leaned closer.

“The river cannot take you while I hold you.”

The man froze.

His eyes locked upon Regulus.

Regulus lowered his voice.

“It is waiting for disobedience.”

The man went limp.

Regulus continued walking.

Sirius stared at the back of his head.

“You’re doing the angel thing again.”

“Be quiet.”

“I was only—”

“Quiet.”

Sirius obeyed.

The land seemed impossibly distant.

Carriages stretched beside them.

Empty windows stared.

The train settled another inch.

Somewhere ahead, glass shattered.

Steam erupted from the engine in a great white plume.

The bridge gave a deep, concussive boom.

Frank looked towards the supports.

“What was that?”

“One minute,” Regulus said.

Mary’s voice rose. “One minute until what?”

“Move faster.”

The careful spacing collapsed into controlled urgency.

Regulus increased the pace.

“Next sleeper.”

“Now.”

“Keep your hand against the carriage.”

“Do not pass anyone.”

“Move.”

They crossed the final endangered carriage.

Solid ground began a few yards ahead.

The coupling Regulus had weakened waited between them and safety.

He levitated the bound man over it first.

The prisoner struck the gravel beyond and rolled onto his side.

Regulus lowered him fully to the ground.

“Stay there.”

The man made a muffled sound.

Regulus turned back towards the bridge.

The others crossed the coupling one at a time.

The rear carriages stood steady over the railway bed.

The moment the final student stepped onto land, Regulus pointed towards the marked safe area.

“Run.”

Nobody argued.

They ran.

Across gravel.

Through the grass.

Away from the tracks.

Regulus remained beside the coupling.

He raised his wand.

The central link was still intact.

The bridge behind it shrieked.

Regulus struck the loosened bolts.

“Expulso.”

The first bolt blasted free.

It spun across the gravel.

The second followed.

The coupling dropped.

Brake hoses tore loose with a hiss.

The front half of the train separated from the carriages upon land.

Regulus turned.

The bound man lay several feet away, writhing weakly.

Regulus levitated him again and moved towards the safe zone.

The first crack opened beneath the bridge.

It was not one sound.

It was hundreds.

Rivets firing loose.

Iron splitting.

Stone breaking away from the cliff.

Students screamed from the hillside.

Regulus crossed the green boundary.

He dropped the man onto the grass several feet beyond everyone else.

“Do not approach him,” Regulus ordered. “He remains armed only with poor judgement, but that has already proven dangerous.”

The man glared over the gag.

Regulus looked towards Imogen Vale.

“Count.”

She held a sheet of paper in shaking hands.

“Already done.”

“And?”

“All students accounted for.”

Regulus looked over the field.

Hundreds of students crowded inside the green boundary.

First years sat among rabbits, foxes, badgers and birds. Older students stood behind them, pale and shaking, some holding owls or cats against their chests. Several had blood upon their robes from broken glass. A few cried openly.

Every face turned towards the bridge.

The remaining back carriages rested upon the tracks over solid land.

Empty.

Still.

Safe.

Beyond the severed coupling, the front portion of the Hogwarts Express remained suspended over the ravine.

For two minutes, nothing happened.

The silence became unbearable.

Steam curled above the engine.

A crow circled once over the train.

The bridge sagged.

Slowly.

Almost gracefully.

The central iron span bent downwards.

The front wheels of the locomotive shifted.

Metal screamed against metal.

One carriage tilted.

Its windows flashed in the grey light.

Then the primary support broke.

The bridge folded.

The engine dropped first.

Its front plunged into the ravine, dragging the conductors’ compartment after it. The carriage where Regulus and the others had been held hostage twisted sideways as the rails tore free beneath it.

Windows burst.

Doors ripped from their hinges.

The sound struck the hillside like an explosion.

Students screamed.

The great locomotive fell through a storm of iron, timber and shattered glass. Carriages followed one after another, dragged into the widening collapse.

The severed coupling snapped exactly along the fault Regulus had carved.

The falling train tore away from the rear section.

The carriages over land jerked forward less than a foot.

Their brakes screamed.

Then they stopped.

The rest vanished.

A red carriage struck one side of the ravine and broke open.

Another turned in the air before crashing through the trees below.

The engine hit the riverbed with a thunderous impact that sent water and steam surging hundreds of feet upward.

The bridge collapsed over it.

Iron beams rained into the ravine.

Stone supports split apart.

Dust rolled through the valley in a vast grey cloud.

The ground beneath the students shook.

Regulus stood at the front of the marked safe zone.

Wind from the collapse struck him.

His hair whipped across his face.

The fox pressed itself against his boots.

The stoat dug small claws through his jumper.

Around him, hundreds of students watched the Hogwarts Express disappear into the ravine.

Trunks split open upon the rocks.

Clothes and books scattered through the trees.

Owl cages tumbled empty through the air.

Steam climbed from the wreckage.

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

The noise faded.

Metal continued settling far below.

A wheel rolled loose from the wreck and struck the river with a distant splash.

The rear carriages remained upon the hillside.

Their severed coupling hung uselessly above the gravel.

Safe.

Someone began crying.

Then someone else.

The sound spread.

First years clung to one another. Older students wrapped arms around younger ones. A cat escaped its owner’s grip, ran three feet and then returned immediately.

Regulus looked at the wreckage.

His face remained blank.

Imogen approached him slowly.

“All accounted for,” she repeated.

Regulus did not answer.

“Black.”

“Yes.”

“Every student.”

He looked towards the crowd.

Every student.

He counted the nearest groups automatically.

First years.

Second years.

Third.

Fourth.

Fifth.

Sixth.

Seventh.

Prefects at the edges.

Pets held close.

No one upon the tracks.

No one inside the fallen train.

The bound man lay apart from them, still gagged and tied.

The two conductors remained below.

Regulus’s jaw tightened.

The fox whined.

Regulus looked down at it.

The animal placed one paw upon his boot.

James’s voice came from behind him.

“You did it.”

Regulus continued staring at the ravine.

“The conductors are dead.”

James stopped.

Regulus’s voice was flat.

“I did not save them.”

“You couldn’t.”

“I did not.”

“They were already dead when we found them.”

“When I found them,” Regulus corrected.

James did not challenge it.

The wind pushed steam across the treetops below.

Sirius came to stand several feet away.

For once, he had nothing dramatic to say.

Nothing sharp.

Nothing cruel.

His face looked strange without performance.

“You carried all of them?” he asked.

Regulus glanced at the students gathered across the hillside.

“Not all.”

“How many?”

“I did not count.”

Evan did.

“Sixty-three.”

Regulus turned.

Evan stood with his loosened replacement tie hanging crookedly beneath his collar.

His expression was unreadable.

“You counted?”

“I watched.”

Barty appeared beside him.

“He carried two at once.”

“The twins were unreasonable.”

“They were eleven,” Pandora said.

“They remained unreasonable.”

Dorcas looked towards the wreck.

“You severed the train.”

“Yes.”

“Before evacuating us?”

“I weakened the coupling.”

“And if it had broken early?”

“It did not.”

“That was not my question.”

Regulus looked at her.

“It did not.”

Dorcas stared for another second.

Then released a short, breathless laugh.

“Fine.”

Peter stood with both hands clenched around his wand.

His face remained pale.

“You carried that massive seventh year.”

“He was temporarily less massive.”

“How?”

“Magic.”

Peter nodded.

“Right.”

Marlene looked at Regulus’s boots.

One sole had partly separated from the leather. Blood darkened the edge of his sock.

“You’re bleeding.”

Regulus looked down.

A shard of glass had cut through one boot near his ankle.

“I am aware.”

“You weren’t limping.”

“I was occupied.”

Alice stepped nearer.

“Sit down.”

“No.”

“Regulus.”

“No.”

“You’ve been running across a collapsing railway bridge.”

“Yes.”

“You carried dozens of people.”

“Yes.”

“You used enough magic to reinforce iron tracks.”

“Yes.”

“You need to sit.”

Regulus looked towards the sky.

No silver shark had returned yet.

No teachers.

No Ministry.

No rescue.

“We remain stranded.”

Frank followed his gaze.

“We’re alive.”

“That is not the same as safe.”

“The bridge is gone,” Fabian said. “It cannot collapse on us twice.”

Gideon pointed towards the bound man.

“He could still be a problem.”

“He cannot move,” Regulus said.

The man made an indignant noise through the gag.

Gideon nodded. “He disagrees.”

Regulus stepped towards him.

The man recoiled.

His eyes fixed upon Regulus with a mixture of terror and desperate faith.

Regulus crouched several feet away.

“You are not to move.”

The man stared.

Regulus lowered his voice into the cold, angelic cadence again.

“The gate has closed.”

The man’s breathing slowed.

“The river has taken its due. You will remain upon the marked earth until those appointed to judge you arrive.”

The man’s eyes filled with tears.

He nodded.

Regulus stood.

Mary stared at him.

“Are you going to keep doing that?”

“Until qualified healers arrive.”

“That is probably sensible.”

Lily looked towards the wreck.

“Could the train catch fire?”

“Yes.”

Everyone turned towards Regulus.

He continued, “The boiler may rupture. Burning coal may ignite timber or spilled oil. The ravine is damp, but the wind could carry sparks uphill.”

Remus looked around the marked area.

“Then we need to move farther away.”

“Yes.”

The gathered students began murmuring.

Regulus climbed onto a broad stone at the edge of the safe zone.

His legs nearly failed beneath him.

He locked his knees.

“Silence!”

The word carried across the hillside.

Hundreds of voices stopped.

Regulus looked over them.

“The immediate evacuation is complete. The train has collapsed into the ravine, but the engine and fuel may remain dangerous. We will move farther uphill in organised groups.”

A student called, “What about our things?”

“Gone.”

“My trunk was in the back carriage!”

“Then it remains aboard and may be recovered later.”

“But—”

“No one approaches the train.”

Another student raised her voice.

“My owl flew off during the stop!”

“Describe it to the prefect nearest you. Birds in the area have been instructed to locate missing animals.”

A Ravenclaw boy stared at the creatures surrounding the first years.

“You can instruct wild animals?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Later.”

“Are teachers coming?”

“A Patronus and three animal messengers were sent.”

“How long?”

“I do not know.”

The crowd stirred.

Regulus raised his voice again.

“You will not panic.”

A fourth-year shouted, “The train just fell off a bridge!”

“I noticed.”

Several strained laughs broke through the crowd.

Regulus continued.

“You are alive. You have your wands. You have your animals. You are together. Panic will not improve any of those facts.”

The laughter died.

Students listened.

“Seventh years will form the outer line. Sixth years behind them. First and second years remain in the centre with animals. Prefects will count at every stop. Nobody leaves their group. Nobody approaches the prisoner. Nobody returns to the tracks.”

A first year raised her hand.

The same girl who had refused to let go of him.

Regulus looked at her.

“What?”

“Are you coming with us?”

“Yes.”

“You promised.”

“I remember.”

She lowered her hand.

Regulus looked towards the older prefects.

“Vale, lead the first-years’ group. Moss, count the rear. Carrow, take the eastern edge. Keep everyone at least one hundred yards from the railway.”

The prefects moved at once.

Students began rearranging themselves.

The bound man remained several feet away, watched from a distance by terrified older students.

Regulus stepped down from the stone.

His injured foot struck the ground.

Pain flashed through his ankle.

His knee buckled.

He caught himself before falling.

Sirius’s voice came sharply.

“Regulus.”

“I am fine.”

“You are limping.”

“I have been informed.”

“You’ve got glass in your boot.”

“Yes.”

“Take it off.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because we are moving uphill.”

“You can’t walk uphill with glass in your foot.”

“I walked across a bridge with it.”

“That is not a defence!”

Regulus turned towards the organised groups.

The first years were already moving.

The shaggy dog remained beside the tiny girl. Rabbits hopped around their feet. The badgers followed with surprising calm.

Regulus began walking.

Slowly.

The fox stayed at his side.

The blackbird returned to his shoulder.

The stoat’s head emerged from his collar.

Behind him, the ruins of the Hogwarts Express smoked in the ravine.

Ahead, hundreds of students climbed towards higher ground.

And across the valley, far beyond the broken bridge, something silver appeared in the sky.

A dorsal fin.

Then the enormous shining body of Regulus’s Patronus surged above the trees, racing back towards them with another light following behind it.

Then another.

Then dozens.

Patronuses.

A stag.

A wolf.

A swan.

A great bear.

Silver shapes swept over the countryside in a gathering tide.

The teachers had received the message.

Regulus watched them approach.

His shoulders lowered by less than an inch.

Then he looked towards the students still climbing the hill.

“Keep moving,” he ordered.

And they did.

The higher ground was not especially comfortable.

It was, however, solid.

That made it precious.

The hillside levelled out above the railway into a broad stretch of rough grass bordered by low stone walls, thorny hedges and a scattered line of wind-bent trees. From there, the ruined bridge was visible only in pieces through the treetops. Smoke climbed from the ravine in long grey ribbons. Every few moments, something far below shifted with a distant metallic crash.

Regulus kept everyone moving until the wreckage was well behind them.

“Past the wall,” he ordered. “Keep going.”

A cluster of fifth years slowed.

Regulus pointed uphill.

“I did not say stop.”

“But we’re far enough away,” one of them protested.

“You do not know that.”

“The train’s already fallen.”

“The engine contains fuel, heated metal and a damaged boiler. Sparks can travel. Smoke can change direction. The cliff edge may have been destabilised by the collapse.”

The student glanced back towards the ravine.

Regulus’s voice hardened.

“Move.”

They moved.

His injured foot struck uneven ground.

Pain climbed from his ankle to his knee.

He did not limp this time.

Not visibly.

The first years remained near the centre of the procession, surrounded by summoned animals and older prefects. The shaggy farm dog trotted among them as though it had been employed for years. Rabbits moved through the grass beside small shoes. A pair of badgers followed at the rear, pausing occasionally to sniff at crying children.

The fox still shadowed Regulus.

It moved so close that its shoulder brushed his damaged boot.

“Stop that,” Regulus muttered.

The fox looked up at him.

“You are making me look approachable.”

It continued walking beside him.

The stoat remained inside his shirt.

Every few steps, a small head appeared through the open collar and surveyed the hillside before disappearing again.

The blackbird had left Pandora’s hands and now flew from student to student, landing briefly upon heads and shoulders as though conducting its own count.

At the top of the rise, Regulus stopped.

He turned.

Hundreds of students stood scattered across the hillside in a loose, frightened mass.

Some were embracing friends.

Some were searching desperately for familiar faces.

Others had simply dropped onto the grass wherever their strength had failed, clutching pets, wands or each other.

The injured were mixed among the unhurt.

First years had become separated from the animals comforting them. Siblings were shouting names across the crowd. Several students were already attempting to wander back towards the lower slope for a better look at the wreckage.

Regulus climbed onto the stone wall.

His injured boot slipped against the moss.

He caught himself.

Then he drew his wand and pressed it against his throat.

“Sonorus.”

When he spoke, his voice rolled across the entire hillside.

“Stop moving.”

The effect was immediate.

Students froze.

Several who had been climbing the wall stopped with one leg raised.

A seventh-year Ravenclaw turned slowly away from the ravine.

Regulus looked over the crowd.

“We are reorganising.”

Someone near the rear groaned.

Regulus’s head turned towards the sound.

“Do you object?”

“No.”

“Then suffer silently.”

A strained laugh moved through the nearest groups.

Regulus lifted his wand.

“First years, remain where you are.”

A tiny boy near the centre raised his hand.

Regulus recognised him as the child carrying the brown rat.

“What?”

“Gregory left.”

Regulus looked at the rabbits.

There were at least twelve of them now.

“Which one was Gregory?”

The boy pointed uncertainly.

“That one.”

The rabbit he indicated was halfway beneath a hedge.

Regulus clicked his tongue.

The rabbit stopped.

Its ears rose.

“Return.”

Gregory hopped back and sat beside the boy.

The first year hugged it.

Regulus looked away before anyone could interpret his expression.

“All first years will form one group in the centre of the field. You will remain together until Hogwarts staff arrive.”

The children began moving.

A few went in the wrong direction.

“Centre,” Regulus repeated. “That means the middle.”

One girl pointed at the ground.

“Which bit is the middle?”

Regulus stared at her.

She stared back.

Pandora, standing several yards away with the others, slowly lifted one arm and pointed towards the centre of the open grass.

“There,” she called.

The children followed her direction.

Regulus continued.

“Everyone else will separate by house and year.”

The hillside filled with confused murmuring.

“Sixth-year Gryffindors to the western side. Sixth-year Slytherins beside them. Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs beyond. Repeat this arrangement for every year.”

A boy shouted, “Which way is west?”

Regulus closed his eyes.

He turned and pointed.

“That way.”

Another voice called, “My brother is in Hufflepuff.”

“Then you will be placed together after the initial count.”

“What if we don’t want to separate?”

“You are not being abandoned at sea. You are walking thirty feet.”

A girl near the first-year group began crying again.

Regulus lowered the amplification slightly.

“Prefects.”

Imogen Vale, Daniel Moss, Selene Carrow and several others turned towards him.

“Take one year each. Sort by house. Record every name.”

A Hufflepuff prefect raised her hand.

“We don’t have parchment.”

Regulus flicked his wand.

Several broad leaves tore themselves from a nearby tree, flattened in the air and transfigured into stiff sheets of pale paper.

Twigs snapped from the hedge.

They became quills.

Regulus sent them flying towards the prefects.

“You do now.”

The Hufflepuff caught hers awkwardly.

“Oh.”

“Begin.”

Students shifted into rough formations.

Nothing about it was graceful.

Gryffindors called to other Gryffindors.

Slytherins attempted to remain dignified while climbing over a stone wall.

Ravenclaws argued over whether Regulus’s directions had been geographically precise.

Hufflepuffs repeatedly stopped to assist crying students from other groups and had to be redirected.

Regulus stood upon the wall, watching the disorder.

“First years in the centre.”

“Fourth-year Ravenclaws, you are not fifth-year Hufflepuffs.”

“Stop climbing the tree.”

“Put the ferret down.”

“It’s mine!”

“Then hold it without swinging it.”

“Second-year Slytherins, form a line rather than a decorative knot.”

A girl yelled from the crowd, “We’re waiting for our prefect!”

“You have a prefect.”

“He’s crying.”

Regulus found the boy.

The prefect was indeed crying.

He looked approximately fourteen and had blood on one sleeve.

Regulus stepped down from the wall and crossed the field.

The fox followed.

The younger prefect scrubbed furiously at his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I’m supposed to know what to do.”

“You are fourteen.”

“I’m a prefect.”

“You are still fourteen.”

The boy’s face twisted again.

Regulus took the sheet of paper from his shaking hands.

“What is your name?”

“Oliver Beckett.”

“Year?”

“Fourth.”

“House?”

“Ravenclaw.”

“Are you injured?”

Oliver looked at the blood.

“I don’t know.”

“That is not a useful answer.”

Regulus pushed the torn sleeve upward.

A long cut ran from the boy’s wrist towards his elbow. It had already begun drying at the edges.

“Glass,” Regulus said.

Oliver nodded.

“Hold still.”

Regulus touched his wand to the injury.

“Episkey.”

The skin pulled together.

Oliver flinched.

Regulus cleaned the remaining blood with another flick.

“Can you stand?”

“Yes.”

“Can you count?”

Oliver gave him an offended look.

“Yes.”

“Excellent. You are now more qualified than half the people on this hillside.”

Oliver laughed weakly.

Regulus returned the paper.

“Organise the fourth-year Ravenclaws. Names first. Injuries second. Missing pets third. If anyone begins panicking, make them sit.”

“What if they don’t listen?”

“Use my name.”

Oliver blinked.

“Just say you told me?”

“No. Tell them I will come over.”

Oliver glanced towards a group of students who were already arguing over positions in line.

His shoulders straightened.

“All right.”

Regulus turned away.

Behind him, Oliver called, “Fourth-year Ravenclaws! Lines now, or Black is coming over!”

The argument stopped at once.

Regulus continued through the crowd.

He moved between groups, correcting formations and redistributing prefects.

The Gryffindors and his friends had ended up together near the western wall while the organisation took shape.

Sirius stood with his arms folded, watching Regulus stride from group to group.

James followed Regulus’s progress with an expression that shifted between admiration, worry and disbelief.

“He hasn’t stopped,” Peter said quietly.

“No,” Remus replied.

“He nearly collapsed before.”

“I noticed.”

Lily watched Regulus bend over another injured student.

“He’s limping again.”

Marlene squinted.

“He’s hiding it.”

“Badly,” Mary said.

“Better than most people could,” Frank added.

Alice stood with both hands around her wand.

“He’s healing everyone else before himself.”

Fabian looked at Gideon.

Gideon looked at Fabian.

Neither said anything.

Barty was less restrained.

“He is being an idiot.”

Evan turned towards him.

“You encouraged him to climb out of the train.”

“I encouraged the aesthetic. Not the self-neglect.”

“That distinction is useless.”

Pandora watched the first years gather around the summoned animals.

“The animals are keeping the children calmer.”

Dorcas nodded.

“And he knows it.”

“He always knows.”

Dorcas glanced towards Regulus.

“No. He doesn’t always know. He simply decides he does and makes reality feel embarrassed enough to agree.”

Across the field, two seventh-year boys began shouting at one another.

One wore Ravenclaw colours.

The other was a Slytherin.

“You shoved my sister!”

“She was blocking the line!”

“She’s twelve!”

“She was screaming in my face!”

The Ravenclaw shoved him.

The Slytherin swung.

Regulus’s amplified voice cracked across the field.

“Stop.”

Both froze.

Regulus approached them.

The fox trotted beside his injured foot. The stoat’s head emerged from his collar like a second, much smaller witness.

The Ravenclaw pointed.

“He pushed my sister.”

The Slytherin snapped, “She was trying to run back towards the train.”

“Because her cat was missing!”

“And I stopped her.”

“You threw her down.”

“I caught her before she fell!”

“You bruised her arm!”

Regulus looked from one to the other.

“Where is the sister?”

A small Ravenclaw girl stood several feet away, clutching a furious tabby to her chest.

Regulus looked at the cat.

“Missing?”

“I found him,” she whispered.

“Are you hurt?”

“My elbow.”

Regulus examined it.

A purple bruise had already formed.

He healed the swelling.

Then he looked at the older boys.

“You.”

The Slytherin straightened.

“Did you stop her from returning to the train?”

“Yes.”

“Did you deliberately injure her?”

“No.”

Regulus looked at the girl.

“Is that true?”

She nodded.

“He grabbed me because I was running.”

Regulus turned to the Ravenclaw.

“You attempted to strike someone for preventing your sister from entering a dangerous area.”

“He hurt her.”

“Accidentally.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You did not ask.”

The boy’s face flushed.

Regulus looked at the Slytherin.

“You shouted at a frightened twelve-year-old.”

“She wasn’t listening.”

“Neither are you, apparently.”

The Slytherin lowered his eyes.

Regulus pointed towards opposite ends of their groups.

“You will stand at least twenty feet apart. You will not speak to each other. You will not approach her unless she requests it.”

The Ravenclaw opened his mouth.

Regulus raised one eyebrow.

The boy closed it.

“Good.”

They separated.

Regulus turned to the girl.

“Remain with your year.”

She nodded.

The tabby cat reached one paw towards the stoat peering from Regulus’s shirt.

Regulus stepped back.

“No.”

The cat hissed.

The stoat hissed back.

“Neither of you.”

He walked away.

The organisation slowly began to resemble order.

First years sat together in the centre.

Second years formed four groups around them.

Third years beyond those.

The older students created wider outer rings, each divided by house. Prefects moved along the lines, recording names and checking injuries.

Regulus drew a large diagram upon the grass with his wand.

Four coloured sections appeared for each year.

Red.

Green.

Blue.

Yellow.

He directed students by pointing at the glowing sections rather than repeating himself.

“Sixth-year Slytherins there.”

Barty looked down at the green light.

“It’s very small.”

“It was designed before accounting for your ego.”

“I can fold it.”

“Do.”

Evan caught Barty’s sleeve before he could deliberately lie across three sections.

The Gryffindors moved into their own marked space.

Sirius remained near the edge.

Regulus looked at him.

“Inside the boundary.”

“I can stand here.”

“You can obey.”

“I’m older than you.”

“Then this should be less difficult.”

Sirius stared.

Regulus stared back.

Sirius stepped into the marked section.

James coughed into his fist.

Sirius swung towards him.

“Not a word.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking loudly.”

Regulus moved to the first-year group.

He knelt at the front.

“Names.”

The boy with Gregory raised his hand.

Regulus looked at him.

“You do not need to raise your hand.”

The boy lowered it.

“Elliot Harper.”

“Siblings?”

“A sister. Third year. Hufflepuff. Maisie Harper.”

Regulus wrote the name on the transfigured parchment.

“Animal?”

“Percy.”

He lifted the rat cage.

The rabbit Gregory remained in his lap.

Regulus looked at it.

“And Gregory.”

Elliot nodded seriously.

Regulus wrote, temporary rabbit.

The next child stepped forward.

“Clara Finch. Eleven. My brother is in fifth-year Ravenclaw.”

“Name?”

“Thomas.”

Regulus recorded it.

“Animal?”

The red squirrel sat upon Clara’s shoulder.

“My owl is in the cage, but this is Juniper.”

“It is not.”

Clara hugged the squirrel protectively.

“It is now.”

Regulus looked at the squirrel.

The squirrel began combing its tail with both front paws.

Regulus sighed.

“Temporary squirrel.”

He went down the line.

Name.

Age.

Siblings.

Animal.

Injury.

Name.

Age.

Siblings.

Animal.

Injury.

Some children spoke clearly.

Some whispered.

Some began crying halfway through their own names.

Regulus waited for them to finish and asked again.

A little boy could not remember his surname.

Regulus sat opposite him.

“What is your first name?”

“Henry.”

“What did your parents write on your trunk?”

The boy’s face crumpled.

“I left it.”

“I know.”

“I wasn’t supposed to.”

“You were.”

“My dad said not to lose it.”

“You did not lose it. A bridge did.”

Henry blinked through tears.

“That’s different?”

“Yes.”

The boy breathed shakily.

“My name is Henry Cole.”

Regulus wrote it down.

“Siblings?”

“No.”

“Animal?”

“No.”

A small grey hare emerged from the grass and sat beside Henry.

The boy looked at it.

Regulus added, “Temporary hare.”

Henry smiled faintly.

The list continued.

Regulus reunited siblings as he found them.

“Maisie Harper.”

A third-year Hufflepuff came running.

Elliot launched himself into her arms.

She dropped to her knees in the grass and crushed him against her chest.

“You’re alive.”

“So are you!”

“I thought you were still on the train.”

“Regulus carried me.”

Maisie looked up.

Regulus had already moved to the next name.

“Thomas Finch.”

A fifth-year Ravenclaw pushed through his group.

Clara ran to him with the squirrel still on her shoulder.

Thomas caught her so hard that both nearly fell.

He kissed the top of her head repeatedly.

The squirrel climbed onto his hair.

“Clara, why is there a squirrel?”

“Her name is Juniper.”

“Why?”

“She likes me.”

Thomas looked towards Regulus.

Regulus said, “It was not my decision.”

Siblings were placed together wherever possible.

A fourth-year Slytherin girl sat with her first-year brother in the central group.

Two Hufflepuff from different school years refused to release one another, so Regulus shifted both groups closer.

A seventh year Ravenclaw discovered that his second-year sister had been scratched by an owl during the evacuation and became so frantic that Regulus had to order him to sit.

“She’s bleeding.”

“It is a scratch.”

“She could be scarred.”

“It is healing.”

“She hates scars.”

The younger sister said, “I don’t care.”

Her brother turned.

“You cried for a week when you cut your chin.”

“I was eight.”

Regulus healed the scratch.

“There. No scar.”

The brother exhaled.

Regulus pointed at him.

“You are more distressed than she is.”

“I’m her brother.”

“That is not a diagnosis.”

The sister laughed.

Regulus moved on.

He healed burns from the engine steam, cuts from broken windows, twisted ankles, bruised ribs and fingers crushed beneath falling luggage.

A boy had a lump on his forehead the size of a walnut.

Regulus touched it with his wand.

The swelling vanished.

“Can you see clearly?”

“Yes.”

“How many fingers?”

Regulus held up three.

“Four.”

Regulus paused.

The boy squinted.

“Three.”

“You guessed.”

“I panicked.”

“Sit down and remain awake.”

Another student had dislocated her shoulder during the emergency stop.

Regulus examined it.

“This will hurt.”

She bit her lip.

“Do it.”

He repositioned the joint with magic.

She screamed.

Every student nearby flinched.

Regulus steadied her until her breathing slowed.

“Move your fingers.”

She did.

“Again.”

They moved.

“Good.”

She looked at him with tears on her cheeks.

“Thank you.”

Regulus nodded once.

By the time he reached the last groups, sweat had soaked the back of his clothes.

The afternoon had grown warmer despite the clouds. Adrenaline, exertion and constant magic had turned his jumper into an unbearable weight.

The Gryffindor group watched him approach.

Lily’s gaze dropped immediately to his boot.

“You still haven’t healed that.”

“I am aware.”

“You keep saying that.”

“It continues to be true.”

“Sit down.”

“No.”

“You’ve finished checking most of the injuries.”

“I have not finished the count.”

Remus looked at the transfigured parchment in Regulus’s hand.

“You’ve been through every group except ours and your own.”

“Yes.”

“Then sit while you do it.”

Regulus looked at him.

Remus held the gaze.

Regulus exhaled through his nose and lowered himself onto the grass.

The fox immediately curled against his thigh.

The stoat climbed from his collar and sat upon his knee.

The blackbird landed between his boots.

Marlene watched the gathering.

“You look like a cursed princess.”

Regulus pointed his wand at her.

“You have smoke damage in your lungs.”

Marlene’s grin vanished.

“What?”

“Take a deep breath.”

She did.

Halfway through, she coughed.

Regulus cast a clearing charm over her chest.

Marlene coughed again, expelling a dark wisp of soot.

She stared at it.

“Oh.”

“Sit.”

“I am sitting.”

“Then remain so.”

Regulus looked down at his boot.

He untied it and pulled it free.

The heel had partially separated. Glass had sliced through the leather and into the skin above his ankle. His sock was soaked dark with blood.

Alice made a small noise.

“That is worse than you said.”

“I did not describe it.”

“You called it a cut.”

“It is.”

“It’s deep.”

“It is also a cut.”

Regulus peeled the sock away.

The shard remained embedded.

Frank looked away.

Peter looked and immediately regretted it.

“Should you pull that out?”

“Yes.”

“Will it bleed?”

“Yes.”

“Should I look away?”

“Yes.”

Peter did.

Regulus gripped the glass with two fingers and pulled.

Blood welled instantly.

Sirius swore.

James’s hands clenched against his knees.

Regulus placed the shard upon the grass.

“Episkey.”

The wound closed.

He cleaned the blood from his skin and sock, then turned his attention to the boot.

“Reparo.”

The split leather drew together. The sole reattached. Torn stitching rewove itself.

Regulus flexed the boot.

Then pulled it back on.

Lily’s eyes narrowed.

“You could have done that fifteen minutes ago.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Other people were bleeding.”

“So were you.”

“I was functional.”

“That is not the same as fine.”

“I did not claim to be fine.”

“You repeatedly claimed to be fine.”

Regulus paused.

“That was strategic.”

Mary stared at him.

“You lied?”

“Yes.”

“Without pretending to be a divine sea entity?”

“Yes.”

“Less impressive.”

Regulus removed his green jumper.

The fabric clung to his skin before peeling away. Beneath it, he wore a short-sleeved uniform shirt, already damp with sweat and wrinkled from hours of climbing, carrying and spellwork.

He folded the jumper once and placed it beside him.

Then he began unfastening the short-sleeved shirt.

Sirius looked at him.

“What are you doing?”

“It is too hot.”

“You have a shirt on.”

“I am aware.”

“You’re taking it off.”

“Yes.”

Regulus removed the outer shirt.

Beneath it was a plain white T-shirt, fitted closely enough to reveal the tension in his shoulders and the rise and fall of his breathing.

His forearms were marked with scratches.

A dark bruise had begun forming along one side of his left arm where he had struck the carriage.

Evan’s expression became lethal.

“You said you were uninjured.”

“I said I had no bullet holes.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“I was precise.”

“You were deliberately misleading.”

“Yes.”

Barty leaned closer.

“You have a bruise.”

Regulus looked down.

“I have several.”

Barty’s face changed with startling speed.

“Who did that?”

“The train.”

“I will kill it.”

“It is in a ravine.”

“Convenient coward.”

Dorcas sat cross-legged nearby.

“You cannot threaten wreckage.”

“I can threaten anything.”

Pandora reached towards the bruise.

Regulus shifted away.

“No touching.”

“I was checking the shape.”

“No.”

“It resembles Iceland.”

“Pandora.”

She withdrew her hand.

Regulus healed the bruise, then several smaller cuts along his arms.

When he finished, he picked up the parchment again.

“Names.”

James stared at him.

“You know our names.”

“I am recording them.”

“You know our years.”

“James.”

“Fine.”

Regulus listed them in order.

“Sirius Black. Seventh year. Gryffindor. Sibling?”

Sirius stared.

“You.”

Regulus held the quill above the page.

Sirius’s expression flickered.

“Regulus Black.”

Regulus wrote his own name in the sibling column.

“James Potter. Seventh year. Gryffindor. Siblings?”

“None.”

“Peter Pettigrew.”

“None.”

“Remus Lupin.”

“None.”

“Lily Evans.”

Lily hesitated.

“Petunia. Older. Not at Hogwarts.”

Regulus wrote it anyway despite it being useless.

“Mary Macdonald.”

“Two younger brothers at home.”

“Marlene McKinnon.”

“Three cousins who might as well be siblings. None here.”

“Alice Fortescue.”

“One older sister. Left school.”

“Frank Longbottom.”

“None.”

“Fabian Prewett.”

Fabian pointed at Gideon.

“Him.”

“I had noticed.”

“Gideon Prewett.”

Gideon pointed back.

“Him.”

Regulus wrote both names.

Then he moved to his own group.

“Barty Crouch Junior.”

“No siblings. Tragically unique.”

“Evan Rosier.”

Evan pointed at Pandora.

“Twin.”

“Pandora Rosier.”

“Twin.”

“Dorcas Meadowes.”

“Older brother. Not here.”

Regulus wrote the names, some with increasing annoyance at the sibling fiasco.

Barty leaned over his shoulder.

“Regulus Black. Sixth year. Slytherin. Sibling: emotionally unstable dog.”

Sirius looked over.

“I heard that.”

“It was intended.”

Regulus wrote, Sirius Black, without comment.

James watched the quill.

“You actually put him down.”

“He is my brother.”

The sentence was simple.

Sirius looked away first.

A bell rang somewhere in the crowd.

Every head turned.

The sound came again.

Bright.

Familiar.

The trolley witch emerged from behind the seventh-year Hufflepuffs.

Her hat was crooked. Flour dusted one sleeve. One lens of her spectacles had cracked, but she stood upright and carried her small brass bell in one hand.

Students began calling at once.

“Are you all right?”

“Did you get off?”

“Where’s the trolley?”

“Do you have food?”

The witch raised her bell.

Regulus was already moving towards her.

He reached her before the crowd could close in.

“Are you injured?”

“Nothing serious, dear.”

She touched the cracked lens.

“The stop threw me into the chocolate frogs.”

Regulus glanced over her.

One sleeve was torn. A bruise marked her temple.

He healed it before she could object.

The trolley witch looked surprised.

“Thank you.”

“Where were you when the evacuation began?”

“Near the rear. Some seventh years helped me out.”

“Your stock?”

“Stored magically.”

Regulus lowered his voice.

“How much proper food?”

She understood at once.