Chapter 415 - Hermes on Edge

Chapter 415: Chapter 415 - Hermes on Edge

Afternoon, seventh floor, the Room of Requirement.

Regulus paced three times past the blank stretch of wall opposite the Barnabas the Barmy tapestry, and the door appeared.

Inside, the familiar training hall had already formed: dark wood floors, runes carved into the stone walls to absorb stray magic, and leather-wrapped practice dummies standing in the corners.

Cuthbert, Alex, and Hermes were already there.

Alex fell in beside Regulus first.

"Lina and Samuel are progressing well. They’ve been practising magical manipulation and magic perception in an abandoned classroom." He paused. "Lina wants to work on duelling. I haven’t told them about this place. They don’t know about the room, so I thought I’d ask you first."

"Bring them."

Alex went back out.

Regulus didn’t mind. The Room of Requirement wasn’t some great secret, and their circle was small enough that two more people made little difference.

Besides, he’d already seen what was happening.

Lina had started drifting toward Alex after their detention in the Forbidden Forest. She wanted to learn duelling, but she also wanted an excuse to stay close to him. Alex, meanwhile, had a defined role among the half-bloods, and attaching herself to him would strengthen her own position.

Samuel was taking a different route. He wasn’t chasing people. He was learning the rules, quietly figuring out how the group worked so that when it grew, those who established themselves early would naturally hold their ground.

Neither approach was particularly clever, but with a group this size, people were easier to influence than systems.

Whether Alex had noticed Lina’s intentions was another matter. He was observant, but he was thirteen. Missing something like that was hardly unusual.

Cuthbert raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth.

One glance from Regulus shut him up.

He’d noticed it too. Alex’s report had mentioned Lina but not Samuel. Lina had suggested it; Samuel was simply following.

The difference between them was obvious. Alex stood at the edge of Pure-blood society. Cuthbert stood near its centre. Inside this group, Cuthbert liked playing the fool because nobody paid much attention when he acted otherwise.

Hermes hadn’t spoken at all.

He stood against the wall, his usual lazy expression gone. His body was rigid, like a dog waiting for the next blow.

Regulus had been taking him apart lately.

Every training session, nobody else was touched. Only Hermes.

He never complained. He simply endured it until he could no longer stand.

The door opened again.

Alex returned with Lina and Samuel.

Both slowed when they entered, looking around carefully.

Lina recovered first. "Black."

Samuel dipped his head. "Black."

Regulus nodded.

Lina’s eyes brightened. She understood what being allowed inside meant.

The room was nothing extraordinary, but it was theirs. A hidden place where the group trained away from everyone else.

She couldn’t help looking around. The floor had a little spring beneath her feet, the stone walls were smooth, and carved runes became visible up close. Practice dummies stood in one corner while books and protective equipment rested on a wooden table.

Samuel tried to be less obvious, hanging back behind her, but his eyes wandered just as much.

They followed Alex toward the edge of the floor.

Regulus turned to Hermes.

"Here."

Hermes’s face twitched. He straightened and pushed himself away from the wall, walking over on unsteady legs.

At ten metres, he drew a breath, raised his wand, and settled into a textbook duelling stance.

Regulus lifted his own wand.

Lina had crouched beside a dummy, Samuel standing behind her while Alex explained something. Their attention was still scattered when the first crack split the room.

A thin white beam shot from Regulus’s wand.

Hermes threw himself aside.

That curse grazed his shoulder and punched a fist-sized hole through the stone wall.

Before he could recover, the floor heaved up. Stone spikes spun out from beneath him, glowing with heat.

Hermes rolled clear. One scraped his robes, filling the air with the smell of scorched cloth.

He raised Protego.

Regulus flicked his wand.

Diffindo.

A curved silver arc slashed downward. Hermes caught it on his shield, which shattered instantly. He threw himself backward as the spell skimmed his chest and cut several strands of hair from his head.

Lina slowly straightened.

Samuel took several steps forward and stopped.

Hermes ran.

Against Regulus, his Protego was barely worth using. He’d learned that already. Block what couldn’t be avoided. Dodge everything else.

So he ran.

He cut across the floor, stopped short, rolled, and fired spells into the boards to throw himself back upright. Curses chased him across the room. A Blasting Curse exploded beside his heel and sent him stumbling forward.

Reducto tore apart the dummy behind him, filling the air with stuffing. Lina dropped into a crouch.

A dozen white fireballs came next, each trailing flame.

Hermes ducked between two, his shoulder brushing one as his robe blackened with a hiss.

Regulus finally gave him some distance before snapping his wand sideways.

Flame Whip.

The burning lash carved through the air with a sharp crack.

Hermes flinched and dived aside.

The whip missed, but the tip still swept across his back. Half a step slower and it would have caught him.

Hermes knew Regulus wouldn’t kill him.

His body didn’t care. He kept moving. And he kept watching.

The order of the curses. The wand tip. The angles.

In a normal duel, watching the wand gave you the direction of the spell.

Hermes finally caught Regulus’s wand drifting left and immediately broke right.

The curse appeared on his right.

It struck his shoulder, and half his body went numb.

He stopped trying to read the wand.

That was another trap.

Every time he thought he’d found a pattern, Regulus changed it. Spells appeared from impossible angles, striking somewhere other than where the wand pointed.

A Diffindo came straight toward Hermes’s face. He tilted left.

The spell vanished halfway across the room.

Then it appeared beside his left ear.

The exact direction he’d moved.

Cold sweat ran down his back.

The more he calculated his escape, the more accurately he calculated his own defeat.

Spatial manipulation.

Regulus was using his control over space to distort the trajectories.

Hermes had no time to think about it.

The next curse was already coming.

He dodged it.

The floor gave way beneath him.

The wooden boards had become quicksand. One leg sank deep.

No time to cast.

He shoved Magical Manipulation into his trapped leg and forced it free.

It worked... barely.

Then an oppression curse slammed down on him.

Dark Magic crushed his body from above. Hermes buckled, knees nearly hitting the floor.

He clenched his teeth, circulated his magic, and forced the pressure away.

His chest heaved.

And he still had to keep something in reserve for Legilimency.

That was the worst part.

Without warning, something would press into his mind, turning the world hazy and making his body refuse to respond.

Hermes immediately raised Occlumency and followed the three steps Regulus had taught him, forcing the intrusion out.

So that was being tested too.

Curses drove him to his limit. Legilimency tested whether his mind held.

He held.

Barely.

The last few weeks hadn’t been wasted.

Regulus simply decided that wasn’t enough.

Cuthbert winced from beside the wall.

"...that’s going to kill him."

Alex covered his face.

Lina and Samuel stood frozen.

So this was how the core members trained? One at a time, they faced Black and got dismantled?

Lina edged closer to Alex until her hand caught his sleeve.

Samuel didn’t move at all. He stared at the fight without blinking.

Neither of them could imagine surviving even one exchange against Regulus.

They didn’t know he was holding back. Without that restraint, Hermes would have been finished almost immediately.

What they saw was enough.

Hermes was exhausted, injured, and still running.

That made him more frightening, not less.

The room looked as though it had been shelled. The floor was pitted, the walls cracked, and several dummies had been destroyed.

Fortunately, the Room of Requirement repaired itself.

Hermes stumbled and rolled through the wreckage. Counterattacking had long since left his mind.

Dodge.

Run.

Block when he couldn’t dodge.

And even that barely worked.

Regulus never moved his feet.

He only raised his wand.

Finally, he stopped.

The last curse dispersed in midair.

Silence returned, broken only by Hermes’s ragged breathing.

He slumped against a cracked wall and stayed there, completely spent.

Regulus stood several metres away, breathing as evenly as if nothing had happened.

"I haven’t even touched myself."

Hermes knew exactly what he meant.

The modification.

He’d understood the message since the first time Regulus had beaten him half to death.

I’ve never modified myself, and taking you apart is still easy.

You want a shortcut. You want someone else to do the work. You don’t want to put in the effort yourself.

That was why Regulus kept beating him.

Eight times in one week.

Hermes had understood it long ago.

He simply hadn’t been given the chance to say so.

No chance to admit fault.

No chance to prove himself.

Just beating after beating.

Hermes slowly slid down the wall and lay on the floor.

He stared at the dust drifting from the ceiling and squeezed the last breath from his lungs, long and slow.

---

Join my Patreon for early access to Chapters: patreon.com/rivyura