The instant the scroll opened, a set of coordinates materialized in both their minds.
No process of acquisition. No reading, no decoding. The knowledge simply appeared, as if it had always been there, waiting to be switched on.
No geographic description accompanied it. No mention of which sea, which island.
But they knew. Where to go, what to look for when they arrived. All of it, clear as breathing.
The sensation was familiar. Like the Fidelius Charm. Like 12 Grimmauld Place. Only those permitted to know could know.
And once known, the information carved itself into consciousness. It couldn't be taken. It couldn't be read.
They raised their heads at the same moment and looked at each other.
Regulus understood. This was likely the answer.
The magic he'd been searching for. The thing that made everything he'd learned feel juvenile. The answer to the question Freya had asked him. The final catalyst to ignite Bellatrix.
He raised an eyebrow. Freya nodded.
Go? Go.
The ship turned and set course.
Freya beckoned him below deck.
The cabin door swung open onto a modest room. Wooden bulkheads, light streaming through a porthole, a bolted-down table, a few chairs.
Food covered the table. Roasted fish, bread, cheese, fruit, a jug of Pumpkin Juice.
Regulus noted it without comment. All pre-arranged, obviously. Otherwise they could have eaten back in Scorchstone.
He sat down, picked up a piece of bread, and started eating.
Freya took the seat across from him and reached for her knife and fork.
The voyage stretched on. He didn't track the time, only checking the heading now and then, confirming the ship held its bearing toward the coordinates.
When they returned to the deck, everything had changed.
Sea. Nothing but sea. No islands, no ships, no trace of human presence in any direction.
Their ship sat in the middle of it, the sole object in existence.
Regulus stood at the bow and looked down.
The water was deep.
The coordinates pointed here. Yet nothing was visible.
He tested the feeling in his mind. The inner certainty confirmed it. This was the place.
The ship had barely settled when another piece of information surfaced.
The Slumbering Abyss. That was its name.
Like the coordinates, the knowledge arrived fully formed.
Regulus and Freya leaned over the bow together, peering down.
Black. Only black.
He cast a Flight Spell and drifted upward, circling the ship once. Freya mounted her broom and followed.
They flew out several hundred meters, then looped back.
Nothing. No magical signatures, no entrance, no barrier, no anomaly of any kind.
Magic permeated the air and the water, the same ambient hum found anywhere on Earth. But there was no way in.
Back at the bow, Regulus turned the name over silently. Slumbering Abyss. Abyss...
It had to be beneath the sea.
He looked down again. Still nothing.
But the moment the thought formed, another pulse of knowledge confirmed it.
Correct.
Below.
He glanced at Freya. She'd reached the same conclusion at almost the same instant. Their eyes met.
His look asked: Down?
She nodded. Down.
No argument there. They'd come this far. But preparation first.
Bubble-Head Charm. Transparent spheres expanded from their heads, encasing their skulls, sealing out the water while allowing normal breathing.
Over that, Protego. A translucent barrier unfolded around each of their bodies, capable of deflecting impacts and pushing seawater aside.
Preparations complete, they shared a final look and leapt from the ship together.
The descent began.
For the first ten meters, light held. Plankton drifted past. A few fish glided by, eyeing them with fleeting curiosity before darting away.
Fifteen meters. The light dimmed.
Twenty...
Something shattered against his skin.
The Bubble-Head Charm burst. Regulus held his breath on instinct, then realized the Protego beneath it still held. No water rushed in.
A heartbeat later, the Protego shattered too. The translucent shell cracked like glass, its fragments dissolving into the current.
His Protego was far stronger than any ordinary wizard's, and it hadn't bought him an extra second.
Freya fared the same. Every spell stripped away, leaving nothing but the clothes on their backs.
Regulus didn't panic. He raised his wand and tried Transfiguration.
Transform seawater. Produce air.
The wand tip flickered. The spell activated, but no air appeared. The water remained water. Something suppressed the effect, or twisted it.
He tried other spells.
Lumos, Lit.
Wingardium Leviosa, Functional.
Apparition. He reached out to feel the spatial structure. Still intact. Possible.
Freya tested it herself.
Her body flickered, appearing at his right, then flickered again to his left.
The two vacuum bubbles left by her Apparitions collapsed and flooded, the sudden current rocking him sideways.
He shot her a look. Now's not the time to play around.
She pretended not to notice.
Then, almost simultaneously, they both registered something strange. There was no sensation of suffocation.
At twenty meters the water pressure was mild, but an ordinary person holding their breath wouldn't last long.
Yet neither of them had drawn a breath. They'd been consciously holding air in, and still felt no oxygen deprivation whatsoever.
As if oxygen was generating inside their bodies on its own. Continuously.
Regulus probed the sensation carefully. It was true.
Blood still circulated. Gas exchange still occurred. But not through mouth or nose. It was as though the skin absorbed something directly from the seawater, or some independent system inside them had taken over.
He looked at Freya. She'd noticed too. A shared glance, and they sank a little deeper.
The same. No need to breathe.
Then they could keep going.
Regulus tested several more spells unrelated to diving.
His Patronus.
Silver-white light surged from his chest. The Starlight Kite unfurled its wings in the water, its glow illuminating a few meters of ocean around them.
It seemed curious, brushing a wing against the water, then nudging Regulus.
No problems there.
Apparition remained available at any time.
The pattern was clear: only diving-assistance spells had been nullified. Unrelated magic, or spells whose primary function wasn't submersion, mostly still worked.
But Protego, a general defensive charm, had been stripped too.
Regulus didn't dwell on the mechanics. Not the time. They continued down.
Thirty meters. Light vanished entirely. Only a faint grey smudge remained far above.
Forty meters. The water temperature plunged. Cold bit through to the bone.
Fifty.
Sixty.
The pressure here was immense. Regulus felt his body compressed, eardrums pricking with pain, joints stiffening.
He channeled magic to simulate internal pressure, and the sensation eased.
Then, without warning, everything changed.
It was like passing through an invisible membrane. The physical pressure vanished.
What replaced it was something else entirely. A pressure on the mind.
Absolute darkness. Absolute silence.
The water still pressed against him, but it had transformed into something different. Mental weight.
It was formless and traceless, yet everywhere at once, bearing down on his thoughts, his spirit, and his very soul.
Cold and vast, it warped and bent his sense of time and space.
He couldn't tell how long had passed. Couldn't tell where he was. It felt like being hurled into the depths of the universe, surrounded by nothing. Only darkness, and himself.
His mental defenses activated instantly.
The Star guided meditation blazed to full power. Four and a half stars of Orion ignited in his mindscape, their cold, steady radiance flooding every corner.
The labyrinth of Occlumency walls unfolded layer by layer, sealing the pressure out.
The weight remained, but it felt manageable now. Enough breathing room to check on Freya.
She'd felt it too. Her brows were drawn, lips pressed tight. But her eyes stayed calm. No panic.
She looked back at him.
In the murky water, he caught a flash of blue in her eyes. Faint, but unmistakable in the dark. Like two burning stars.
They exchanged a nod and kept descending.
Regulus still had the bandwidth to think about her.
Her reactions earlier proved she hadn't known what waited here. When the spells shattered, surprise had crossed her face the same as his.
But watching her now, even without foreknowledge of what lay below, her ability to handle the unknown was formidable. Thoroughly prepared.
Training from that person.
He didn't linger on the thought. The depth increased, and the mental pressure grew with it.
He adjusted the density of his mental barriers. Recalibrated the layers of Occlumency. Shifted how he processed the weight bearing down on him.
His mind was resilient by nature, and he adapted fast. But the pressure scaled faster.
Comfortable became less comfortable. Less comfortable became strenuous. Strenuous crossed the threshold of what any ordinary wizard could endure.
Regulus held. Freya held.
This was a gate, clearly. A filter to stop anyone unworthy from going deeper.
He lost track of how long they'd been descending. Time blurred here. All he knew was the direction: down, down, down.
The pressure mounted until it consumed his full concentration. The light of the Star blazed brighter and brighter in his mindscape, but the encroaching shadow thickened to match.
He couldn't say how long it lasted.
Then, all at once, the pressure vanished.
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