Chapter 267: Chapter 267: Spatial Transfiguration Means Twisting Heads [bonus]

The second weekend of December. The Room of Requirement.

He was practicing Spatial Transfiguration.

He’d been at it since last term’s holiday break. Nearly five months now, and he was still far from anything usable.

The preparation time was too long. The fluctuations in spatial energy and magic were too violent. Before the transfiguration could complete, the opponent would already know what he was doing.

Too easy to dodge, or to shatter with a single spell. The moment his magical equilibrium broke, the space snapped back on its own. Wasted effort.

Even if he reached Professor McGonagall’s level, able to shred incoming spells inside a transfigured zone, the practical value was limited.

For neutralizing spells aimed at him, Space Warp was the obvious better tool. An opponent’s curse halfway through the air, and he could open a channel, redirect it elsewhere, or send it straight back into their face. Far less trouble than maintaining a transfiguration field.

Spatial Transfiguration at its current stage looked impressive and felt clumsy.

Regulus leaned against the wall, staring at the spiral of warped air hanging before him. This wasn’t what he wanted.

What he wanted was instant transfiguration. The target didn’t need to be large. A small area on a person’s body would do.

The head. Or an arm. Or a leg. Other areas worked too, if he thought about it.

Twist the space, and the head twists with it. Bones snap. Blood vessels tear. Muscle wrings into a knot.

No spell flying across the distance. No worrying whether Protego could block it. The transfiguration acts directly on the target. No interval between.

The day McGonagall demonstrated, she’d given him a direction. He knew where to go now. But knowing and doing were different animals entirely.

He began another attempt. Spread his perception outward, fixed on the palm-sized patch of space in front of him.

He could feel its structure. A tension so faint it was almost imperceptible, like a net stretched to its limit, constantly straining to contract.

That was spatial elasticity. A real, tangible thing, right there in front of him, touchable by his magic.

But perceiving it was one thing. Grasping it was another.

He extended his magic, trying to wrap around that elasticity, to isolate it as a discrete target for transfiguration.

It slipped free. As though its nature was exactly this: the harder you gripped, the less you held.

A dozen attempts. All failures.

Regulus stopped and thought.

McGonagall could do it because her magical strength, transfiguration precision, spatial comprehension, and mastery of transfiguration itself all vastly exceeded his.

She could pin that elasticity down with raw power and force the transformation. He couldn’t. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

So he changed his approach. If grasping wouldn’t work, he’d try parting it instead.

He condensed his magic into a thin filament, threaded it through the center, and pushed outward to both sides.

It worked. The elasticity split apart along a narrow seam.

The gap was tiny. It lasted an instant so brief it barely registered.

But in that instant, the space lost its urge to snap back. It went slack, soft, pliable. His to shape.

Regulus seized the opening. Magic surged in, and he wrenched the space to the left.

It transfigured smoothly. No resistance at all.

Then the elasticity returned, and the space sprang back to its original state. The whole thing lasted under half a second.

Regulus leaned against the wall, eyes closed. His temples throbbed and pressure built behind his forehead.

That single attempt had drained him.

Magical perception, spatial perception, magical control, mental focus. Four things running simultaneously, each one essential.

Perception had to be fine enough to locate the elasticity. Control had to be precise enough to part it. Willpower had to be strong enough to complete the transfiguration in that sliver of time.

The cost was absurd.

He sat there for roughly ten minutes before recovering, then continued.

Faster this time. Part, transfigure, done. Still under half a second before it snapped back, but the degree of deformation was greater than before.

Again.

The parting came quicker. The transfiguration smoother. The gap in the elasticity seemed fractionally wider, holding fractionally longer.

Again.

The entire afternoon, Regulus stayed cooped up in the cabin repeating the cycle. Part, transfigure, recover. Part, transfigure, recover.

By the end, he could complete the full sequence in under a second. The transfiguration held stable across a fist-sized area, twisting through half a rotation.

From the outside, nothing looked different. Still Spatial Transfiguration. But the elasticity had been dealt with, leaving enough give for external magic to act within.

He stopped and leaned back against the wall.

His head still ached, though less than at the start. He rested with his eyes closed for a while, then stood and pushed through the door.

On the training floor, Cuthbert and Alex were going at each other.

Ten meters apart, trading spells, filling the space with noise and light.

Cuthbert’s casting was fast and relentless, one spell hammering after another.

Alex didn’t meet him head-on. He sidestepped two, tanked a third with Protego, then whipped an Impediment Jinx from the flank.

It clipped Cuthbert’s shoulder and sent him staggering two steps sideways. He caught his balance, swore, and fired back.

Both faces were slick with sweat, sleeves rumpled, but their eyes burned bright.

Hermes sat in a corner at the edge of the training floor, legs crossed, arms draped over his knees, head down. He looked asleep.

He wasn’t watching them fight. Wasn’t practicing magic. He sat there, breathing steady, magic steady, his whole being in some low-power standby state.

When Regulus stepped out of the cabin, Hermes stirred.

His head came up, eyes opening. The magic that had been running flat and quiet inside him flipped like a switch, surging active, cycling through his body, ready to erupt at a moment’s notice.

Standby to combat-ready in an instant.

Regulus glanced at him and understood. Hermes wanted another bout.

These past months, he’d trained harder than anyone. When his magic ran dry, he drilled instinct. When his body gave out, he waited for his magic to recover and started again.

He wanted to get stronger. More than that, he wanted to know how wide the gap still was.

So he’d waited there, holding his edge, waiting for Regulus to come out.

Regulus looked away and didn’t respond.

He walked to the bench at the edge of the training floor, sat down, and pulled his wand from his pocket, turning it in his hand.

Hermes rose and took two steps toward him, then stopped. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.

Cuthbert and Alex noticed Regulus too and broke off their duel, walking over.

Cuthbert wiped sweat from his face with his sleeve, still catching his breath. "Done for the day?"

Regulus nodded. "Mm."

Alex dropped onto the bench beside him, unscrewed his water flask, drank, and offered it to Cuthbert. Cuthbert swatted it away, face scrunched in disgust.

Hermes still stood a few paces off, eyes fixed on Regulus’s face. Saying nothing. Watching.

Regulus glanced at him. "Give me a bit."

Hermes nodded, retreated to the wall, leaned against it with his arms crossed. His gaze never left Regulus.

Cuthbert looked at Hermes, then at Regulus, mouth opening to ask something. Alex tugged his sleeve, and the question died unspoken.

About twenty minutes later, Regulus stood and walked to the row of wooden training dummies at the center of the floor.

The dummies stood roughly six feet tall, carved from wood, their surfaces etched with magical circuits that could simulate basic wizard reactions.

Normally used for practicing aim and force. When they broke, a quick Reparo put them back together.

Regulus stopped in front of the leftmost dummy. Three meters away.

He raised his wand, tip aimed at the dummy’s head.

Perception spread outward, locking onto the small patch of space around the head. Found the elasticity. Magic condensed to a filament, threaded through, pushed apart.

The gap appeared.

The space around the dummy’s head lost its elasticity in an instant. Regulus’s magic flooded in and wrenched the space to the left.

The dummy’s head followed the twist, rotating most of the way around. Wood shrieked as cracks shot from neck to skull. Splinters exploded outward, fragments scattering in every direction.

Under half a second. The space snapped back. The head was gone.

Regulus lowered his wand, stepped back, and sank onto the bench.

Cuthbert stood nearby, mouth slightly open.

He’d seen Regulus point his wand, seen the space around the dummy’s head seem to ripple, and then the head shattered. But he hadn’t understood what happened.

Alex hadn’t either. He wasn’t even sure Regulus had cast a spell. When the wand pointed at the dummy, no light left the tip. Nothing visible at all. Then the head exploded.

They exchanged a glance. Blank confusion mirrored in both faces. But neither asked.

Regulus looked drained, sitting on the bench with his eyes closed, a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead. This wasn’t the moment for questions.

They walked over and sat down on either side of him.

Alex stole a look, saw the closed eyes and silence, and turned away, spinning his wand between his fingers.

Cuthbert couldn’t sit still. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, fingers laced together, shifted positions, then shifted again.

They started poking each other.

Cuthbert jabbed Alex with his wand. Alex jabbed back.

Alex glared. Cuthbert grinned. Neither made a sound.

Regulus didn’t open his eyes. Didn’t move. He sat there, breathing even, maybe resting, maybe thinking.

Hermes stood a few paces away. His pupils contracted.

He hadn’t understood what Regulus did either. No spell-light. No magical fluctuation. Not even a proper casting motion. A single point of the wand.

But he’d felt it.

The instant the space around the dummy’s head warped, something lethally dangerous washed over him.

Even at that distance, with only the faintest echo reaching him, a chill crawled up his spine and his hand found his wand grip on its own.

Cuthbert and Alex understood Regulus’s strength in terms of skill.

Fast casting. Precise aim. Raw power. Combat instinct. Things you could see, imitate, and close the gap on through practice.

They thought Regulus was formidable because he knew more, trained harder, and thought sharper.

Hermes sensed something else. Regulus’s magic operated on a different plane entirely.

He walked to the bench and sat on Regulus’s far side.

Four of them in a row, no one speaking.

At the far end, Cuthbert and Alex kept up their silent poking war, stifled laughter, movements small enough not to disturb.

Hermes sat at the edge, arms on his knees, gaze lowered, thoughts elsewhere.

Regulus kept his eyes closed, running through what had just happened.

If he wanted to use this in actual combat, the problems were still stacked deep.

Distance, first. He’d stood three meters from the dummy, and locking on through completion had taken close to two seconds.

In a real fight, no opponent would stand within three meters and wait. No one would give him two seconds to prepare.

Then targeting. The dummy was stationary. Easy to lock onto. A living person would move, dodge, throw spells to disrupt.

Locking onto the spatial coordinates of a moving target multiplied the difficulty several times over.

And then the cost. That single twist, enough to destroy a wooden head, had left him like this.

Against a real person, the drain would at least double.

But if he could solve all of that...

Regulus opened his eyes and looked at the headless dummy.

The value of this technique was that it had no process. Once Spatial Transfiguration acted on the target, the opponent had no chance to dodge.

The only limitation was his own ability. More practice. That was all.

Twenty minutes later, he stood and rolled his shoulders. His focus had mostly recovered.

Hermes rose with him. He said nothing, but the light in his eyes was impossible to hide.

Regulus looked at him, the corner of his mouth lifting. "How do you want to do this?"