Saturday at noon, Regulus went to Professor Slughorn's office.
He was leaving the grounds that afternoon and needed to file for leave.
Sprout would be with him, and the Head of House wouldn't object, but rules were rules. A word had to be said.
Slughorn sat behind his desk with a cup of tea, half a plate of crystallized pineapple, and the day's Daily Prophet spread before him. He spotted Regulus in the doorway and set down his cup with a beaming smile.
Regulus didn't sit. He stated his purpose outright, because otherwise the professor would trap him with sweets.
Too sweet. And he'd already eaten.
"Going to Cornwall this afternoon with Professor Sprout. Herbology matter. Back tonight."
Slughorn nodded, asked nothing further, and waved him off with a cheerful grin. "Pomona mentioned it. Be safe, off you go."
Regulus thanked him and left.
He'd also written to Orion. Sent the letter two nights ago.
Professor Sprout was coming to Cornwall, to the Black family's herb garden. Someone had to receive her.
Orion didn't need to appear in person, but Agnes had to know a guest was coming. Preparations couldn't be skipped.
And it was, after all, a matter concerning the Whomping Willow. Half-dead or not, it belonged to the Black family. A heads-up was in order.
Two o'clock. The entrance to Greenhouse Three. Professor Sprout was already waiting.
Her pointed hat sat crooked as ever. Her robes were cleaner than usual, though "cleaner" was relative. The mud stain on her cuff she'd apparently decided counted as dealt with.
She carried a tool bag now, stuffed full, the contents clinking against each other.
She saw Regulus approaching and smiled. "On time."
"You're earlier." He inclined his head.
They walked across the castle grounds toward the Forbidden Forest, past the boundary of the Anti-Apparition Charm.
Regulus stopped at the forest's edge and glanced at the professor.
She raised an eyebrow, then nodded.
He placed a hand on her shoulder. Crack. Apparition.
The instant his feet hit solid ground, sea wind slammed into him.
Cornwall.
They'd landed at the entrance to the herb garden.
Agnes emerged from behind the wall, same outfit as always.
She smiled at Regulus first. "Young Mr. Black."
Then she turned to the professor beside him.
"Professor Sprout," Regulus shifted slightly to one side, "this is Ms. Agnes, manager of the herb garden. Ms. Agnes, this is Professor Sprout, Herbology Professor and Head of Hufflepuff House at Hogwarts."
Agnes extended her hand. Thick fingers, dirt permanently embedded under the nails. "Professor Sprout, a pleasure. Young Mr. Black has mentioned you."
Sprout clasped it firmly. Neither grip was gentle. Both pairs of hands had spent years in soil, and pressed together, it was impossible to tell whose were rougher.
"Pomona Sprout. Call me Pomona." The professor's smile was warm. She'd felt it immediately: the woman across from her was cut from the same cloth.
Agnes released her hand and gestured north. "Mr. Black's letter arrived yesterday. He said you'd be coming to see the Whomping Willow."
The professor nodded and hefted her tool bag, testing its weight.
Agnes swept an arm inward. "I'll take you."
The two witches fell into step side by side, neither one slow, and began to talk.
Agnes asked first. "What model temperature charm do you use in your greenhouses?"
"Hogwarts runs a modified Third-Generation Temperature Charm," Sprout said. "Covers a large area, but the precision suffers. Smaller greenhouses can use a more refined version."
"Ours has been running for decades. Still works, but the coverage isn't even. The southeast corner always runs two degrees cooler than the northwest."
The professor nodded, her tone definitive. "That's almost certainly a degradation issue in the spell's attenuation path. The magical anchor points probably need recalibration. I could take a look."
Agnes's eyes lit up. "That would be wonderful. Thank you."
Their conversation flowed easily. Similar styles, both practical women. No pleasantries, no small talk. Straight to the technical.
Regulus trailed behind them, walking in silence.
Along the way, the professor asked, "How long has the Whomping Willow been here since transplant?"
"A little over a month." Agnes glanced back at Regulus, then turned to the professor again. "Transplant day, it injured three wizards. Two broken ribs on one, a dislocated arm on another, and the third got flung into a stone wall. Spent two days at St Mungo's."
She jerked her chin northward. "The healthy one is still vicious. The damaged one's wilted. Barely lashes out anymore."
Sprout hummed, glanced back at Regulus as well, then turned forward and picked up her pace.
They reached the northern clearing. Inside a perimeter of short wooden stakes and coarse rope, the two Whomping Willows stood roughly twenty meters apart.
The one on the right was full of vigor. Its branches swayed lazily in the sea wind, hooks glinting under the sky. Every so often a limb would lash at empty air, stretching like a yawn or issuing a warning.
The one on the left drooped. Its bark had cracked and faded to grey. A wound ran along the thickest main branch, edges blackened. But at the tips of the limbs, new buds were pushing through, pale green against dead brown. Impossible to miss.
Sprout set down her tool bag without opening it, didn't draw her wand.
She walked to the edge of the stakes, raised both hands, palms facing the trees, fingers spread.
Then she closed her eyes, her lips moving without sound.
Regulus stood a few paces behind her and opened his magical perception.
Sprout's magic was flowing outward. Not the directed output of a spell. This was diffuse, seeping from her palms in every direction, into the air, into the soil, toward both Whomping Willows.
Slow. Gentle. Carrying a languid warmth.
Verdant magic.
But different from what the ancestor had passed down to him, and different from what he used himself.
The ancestor's gift was innate. The ability to see verdant magic flowing, to share existence with plants. Something written into the blood.
A native language. No translation needed.
Regulus didn't have that gift. Didn't have those eyes, and certainly didn't have that luck.
What he could do was perceive the magical pathways in plants and extract their magic directly, converting it into something of his own.
No hierarchy between approaches. Whatever fit was what worked.
The professor's method was different from both.
Hers had been ground out inch by inch, over decades crouching in greenhouses with magical plants. Sensing, testing, adjusting. Again and again and again.
Until every species' response, every method of calming, every channel of communication had become bodily instinct.
This wasn't talent. This was observation after observation, attempt after attempt, sting after sting, lash after lash, venom splash after venom splash. Skill forged from countless failures and countless pains.
This was craft.
Talent could give someone a higher starting point. Craft could carry them further.
Professor Sprout had gone very far.
The two Whomping Willows responded.
The healthy one moved first. Its branches slowed, the hooks softening their angle, the sudden lashing at air ceasing. It settled, growing still.
Vitality remained, but the aggression had drained away. Like a wary animal that had been murmured to, no longer baring its teeth but keeping its ears pricked.
The damaged one reacted more slowly. After a long moment, its drooping branches lifted slightly, fell back, lifted again, fell again, then went quiet.
Sprout opened her eyes, lowered her hands, stepped over the rope, and walked in.
Inside the attack range, the healthy tree didn't strike.
She approached the damaged one. First the whole picture: the posture of the branches, the colour of the trunk, the shape of the canopy, the placement of new growth.
Then she pressed her hand to the bark, fingers tracing downward along the grain, pausing at certain spots, pressing, reading the flow of magic beneath the surface.
A branch twitched instinctively, swatting toward her hand with almost no force behind it.
She caught it and held it still. The touch was light, like soothing a sick child.
Then she crouched, scraped away the soil around the roots, and worked her fingers along the root lines, probing deeper bit by bit.
She began muttering. Low, indistinct.
Regulus couldn't make out the words. Maybe she was talking to the tree. Maybe to herself. Probably both.
She crouched there, fingers buried in earth. Her world had narrowed to this tree and nothing else.
Regulus watched for a while, confirmed she'd entered full working mode and didn't need him.
"Professor, I'll walk around over there. Call if you need me."
She didn't look up. One muddy hand waved him off, then went straight back to digging.
Baruk poked his head out of the inner pocket, eyed the Whomping Willow, clicked his pedipalps twice, and managed a single syllable: "...tree."
"Mm. Tree."
Regulus patted the shell and turned toward the cliffs.
Regulus stood at the edge. Dead grass underfoot, windbreak shrubs at his back, the ocean before him.
Open and empty. The view stretching endlessly in every direction.
He started with the spatial work.
All those attempts last term at Hogwarts. Every single one a failure.
On the Astronomy Tower, in the Room of Requirement, pulling his will out of the mental plane and feeding it into the surrounding space.
The space refused.
Merging didn't work. Seeping in gradually, letting it permeate slowly... still nothing.
The castle was alive. A thousand years of magical accumulation had given it habits, a temperament of its own. If it didn't approve, it didn't budge.
Regulus had no answer for that. He could hardly blow up Hogwarts.
Though the Disintegration Curse's chain-reaction self-sustaining theory could manage it in principle, he couldn't think of a single good reason to demolish the castle.
In fairness, doing things without a reason wasn't entirely off the table, but...
Never mind. Not a thought for right now.
This place would do. This wasn't Hogwarts. The space here was natural, open, empty. No will. No judgment.
He released the Starlight Kite first.
Silver-white light spilled from his chest, vivid against the overcast grey.
The Starlight Kite spread fully, its wingspan wider than Regulus was tall.
It beat its wings and rose, circling once above his head.
Then it called out.
A clear, ringing cry that cut through the sky, caught by the sea wind and scattered, echoing briefly over the cliffs.
It was happy. It had been inside for a long time.
Regulus watched it fly, and the corner of his mouth curved upward. The tension in his face eased.
The Kite spiraled overhead, faster with each pass, silver light drawing arc after arc across the overcast sky.
Then he sent it toward the space, inviting the space to cooperate, to open a passage.
The Kite tucked its wings, body straightening, silver light condensing into a single line along its form as it surged forward.
The passage opened.
No resistance. No tightening. No invisible fist shoving it back.
The space yielded. The passage unfurled before it, silver light trailing behind as it plunged through and burst out the other end dozens of meters away, wings spreading wide, carving an arc above the sea.
Just that simple.
Of course it could do this. It had always been able to. The castle had been the one saying no.
Change the location, and it was just that simple.
Regulus watched the silver trails still drifting through the sky and tilted his chin at the Kite.
"Go fly. Don't wander too far."
The Kite cried out once, beat its wings, and soared off toward the open sea. The silver glow shrank and shrank until it disappeared.
It had been cooped up long enough. Let it fly a while longer.
Now it was his turn.