Regulus woke before dawn on the fourth day.
He sat at his desk, his wand at hand.
Everything was ready. The next step was to set the magical model into a spell that could be cast at will.
The process matched the Decomposition Curse, and it took two things.
A Latin root gave the vocal anchor, the gesture gave the magical guidance, both bound to the internal model so the manual modulation could be skipped. Speak the word, swing the wand, and the finished product came straight out.
That first time he'd spent a while on adjustment. This time should be faster.
He picked the syllables first.
The spell needed a word the throat could hold, one that let the magic run the model on its own as it was spoken, no correction needed midway.
He sounded out a few Latin roots, rolling each syllable slowly in his mouth, feeling the throat and tongue vibrate, while the magic flowed through the model in his mind's space, keeping the rhythm.
Concutio. To shake, to rock, to set a repeating sway inside a structure.
He lifted his wand and spoke it. A thread of yellow-brown light rose from the tip, then scattered in the air, never holding shape.
Disrumpo. To break, to burst, to tear from inside.
He spoke it. The light at the tip firmed for a moment into an unsteady knot, trembled, and broke apart.
Closer in meaning, but Disrumpo put its weight on the rupture, the end state, missing the process of oscillation conducting, stacking, taking the inside apart layer by layer.
He split the two roots and ran the magic through each on its own.
Concutio handled the opening, the magic beginning a fine quiver in the vibration of the syllable.
Disrumpo handled the close, the magic compressed at the release mouth and flung out, the sense of rupture clear, but lacking the buildup of oscillation in the front half.
He joined the two. Concutio's trembling open, Disrumpo's rupturing close.
The magic began to shudder in the trunk, then ran down the whole length, struck again at each fork by the stress of the syllable.
By the time it reached the release mouth at the tip, the syllables had hammered it three times over, its compression density far above Disrumpo alone.
But two words strung together ran too long. Cast aloud, it knotted the tongue.
He folded the roots into each other, took the shake of Concutio and the split of Disrumpo, and pressed them into a single word.
Quassare. To shake, again and again, until the structure came apart entirely.
He spoke it at different tempos, slow then fast, fast then slow.
"Quassare."
The yellow-brown light gathered at the tip into a short, sharp ray, held in the air for about half a second, then faded on its own.
Stable.
He spoke it a few more times. The light formed steady at the tip each time, the density and duration of the ray scaling with how much magic he put through. More magic, brighter. Less, dimmer.
The syllables were set. Next, the gesture.
The gesture didn't need to be complex. Its job was to drive the magic into the target, then let it find its own path of travel. No elaborate arc required.
He stood, wand in his right hand, and tried it against the stone wall a few times.
A straight chop, top to bottom. The magic went in along too narrow a line, the oscillation running a single straight track through the object, its path of conduction thin.
A horizontal sweep. The magic forked the moment it touched the surface, the arc of the tip too wide, the magic spreading thin across a broad face, its depth of penetration too shallow. The surface shook out nothing but a layer of stone dust.
He worked through wrist angles, from a forty-five-degree slant to sixty. The depth grew steeper with the angle, but too steep and the magic jammed at the release mouth, refusing to fly.
He rolled the wrist inward half an inch, the wand falling from upper right to lower left, the wrist turning at the lowest point.
The turn carried the magic into its final gather at the tip, the wide swing of the fall narrowing to a needle-point output, mimicking the willow's tip drawing in, compressing, releasing.
The reverse-hook.
He swung it through empty air at the wall.
Fall, turn, the tip carving a tiny arc at the lowest point, the yellow-brown light firming there before it flung out and struck the wall.
Too much force. The wrist had turned past its mark, the magic spinning too far at the tip, the output scattering.
Again.
Fall, turn, this time the wrist drawing in only enough to bring the magic to one tight gather at the tip. No more, no less.
The light firmed harder, the ray that shot out finer and brighter.
Again. Again. Again.
Twenty-some swings, and the angle of the wrist, the speed, the depth of the turn all locked into muscle memory.
It took no real effort, only the wrist for control, letting the magic spin itself at the tip, then release at the lowest point of the fall.
He put the root and the gesture together for one try.
Quassare, wand falling reverse-hooked, wrist turning half an inch at the bottom.
A few repetitions showed the real trouble was timing.
The syllables ran ahead too fast. Before the wand had reached the bottom, the magic had already burst at the release mouth, the spell going off as a dull thud in open air.
He slowed the syllables, let the fall of the wand finish before entering the final syllable.
After a few tries he found the best fit. Wrist loose through the first two syllables, then a half-beat of speed on the last, falling to the bottom and turning half an inch, the magic completing its compression and release at the release mouth right on time.
By noon the casting held steady.
The yellow-brown ray shot from the tip and struck the granite slab in the corner true, a delay of about three-tenths of a second, then a fine crackle from within, the stone breaking into uneven pieces.
Single-point shattering. Done.
He gave it a name. The Disintegration Curse, set beside the Decomposition Curse.
One to decompose, one to shatter. One ran on concept, one on the physical.
Regulus pushed the door open and Apparated to the shore.
Great rocks lay scattered along the shore, scoured smooth by centuries of water, worn round.
He chose one as tall as a man, raised his wand, and cut the gesture. "Quassare."
The yellow-brown ray shot from the tip and sank into the stone.
The surface stayed whole, but a fine crackle came from inside, the cracks spreading outward, crawling across the face in a web.
The stone gave. It broke from the inside out, into dozens of uneven pieces, tumbling down the rocky slope and dropping into the sea with a spatter.
He looked down at the heap of rubble. No blast.
A Blasting Curse hit with a roar and a scatter of debris. Reducto turned a surface straight to powder and dropped it.
The Disintegration Curse broke the inside first, the shell collapsing last, the whole thing far quieter. The spell itself made no noise.
He lowered his wand.
Same as the Decomposition Curse. Once set into a spell, the effect went past the stage of drawing the magic out and using it raw.