Being a Greengrass after all should sound pretty serene.
But being a part of "the Emeralds" should not, especially when hearts become entangled with the infamous Regulus Black.
Goodness, lawfulness, or evilness. Which path will they tread in the ti...
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May 11th, 1979
The Room of Requirement greeted them with oppressive silence as the door slid shut behind them. Gone were the usual comfortable chairs and dusty bookshelves; tonight, it had transformed into a cavernous stone chamber, wide enough to contain disaster and cold enough to remind them of consequence. The walls were blackened—charred impressions of past magical exercises—and above, the ceiling vanished into shadows.
Regulus paced the perimeter, wand gripped tightly, jaw tense. The air crackled faintly around him, as though it too sensed what was coming. He had always possessed a certain elegance in his magic, but Fiendfyre was not elegant. It was monstrous. Ravenous. Unforgiving.
Avery stood at the far end of the chamber, dark hair tied back, face pale but determined. The weeks of preparation had changed them both. Tomes in Latin, curses scribbled in margins, repeated whisperings of the counter-curse until their voices gave out. They had watched old accounts, read warnings, and scoured the Restricted Section.
Neither had slept well since the decision.
"Are you sure?" Regulus asks, voice low, threading the silence with its smooth doubt. He turned to face Avery, eyes sharp. "We don't need to prove anything tonight."
"It's been a hundred times we've stood in this room with the same intention, Reg," she says at last, voice low and flat, the edge of exhaustion tucked just beneath the surface. "If we wait much longer... we'll never do it."
She didn't say we'll lose our nerve, but it hung between them anyway.
Regulus looked at her—the firelight from a conjured torch dancing across her cheekbones, casting her in flickering gold and shadow. She looked like someone sculpted from steel and will. But he knew better. They'd studied together every night, memorized the incantations, poured over every account of what went wrong when others tried this spell.
And still, here they were, at the edge of something wild and irreversible.
"We have to be faster this time," he murmurs. "If it resists again—"
"I know."
Avery stepped toward the center of the chamber, where their chalk runes glowed faintly against the cold stone. She exhaled, centering herself. The spell wasn't the problem—it was her. The spell would obey if she had control. And if she didn't...
The thought refused to finish itself.
"Three seconds, then you end it," she calls out, not looking at him.
Regulus raised his wand in response. "And if it turns on you?"
"It won't," she lies.
He didn't believe her, but he didn't argue. There was no room left for that.
