A Fighter Against the Dark Lord, A Deserving Hero!

Ivan, however, threw cold water on their parade. "Professor Lupin, this new and improved potion requires a lot of precious ingredients, and I'm afraid it won't be available for a while!"

Ivan was not going to sell the improved Wolfsbane Potion just because Lupin said so.

He was well aware that while there were good and orderly werewolves like Flan and Lupin, there were many more who had fallen to the dark side and were living off robbery, murder, and petty theft.

During the two previous wizarding wars, most of the werewolf wizards were firmly on the Dark Lord's side, spreading fear and causing chaos. Ivan did not want to strengthen his enemies.

Lupin was disappointed to hear this, but he did not take it to heart. It was normal for new potions to be unavailable for a while.

The speed with which Ivan improved the potion also gave Lupin confidence that it would not be long before Ivan developed a potion that would cure werewolves completely.

"We'll talk about the Wolfsbane Potion later. The most important thing now is to settle Regulus!" Ivan said, changing the subject and looking at Regulus, who Sirius was carrying on his back.

Lupin looked at Sirius apologetically; he had been so caught up in the wolfsbane potion that he had forgotten about his duties.

Sirius, of course, didn't care, and left Ivan and Lupin to wait while he retrieved a coffin from the basement.

Many burial mounds had been left untended for a long time. The gravestones were covered in dirt and fallen leaves, but the inscriptions on them showed that they belonged to the Black family.

Ivan turned his head just in time to see a familiar name on a nearby tombstone — Phineas Nigellus Black.

He had seen a portrait of him in the Headmaster's office, in which he was described as the most unpopular Headmaster in Hogwarts history, and was rumoured to have been hated by all the students and teachers at the time.

However, the members of the House of Black apparently disagreed, and so the column beneath the inscription which read "Phineas Nigellus Black", the most distinguished Headmaster of Hogwarts and a recipient of the Order of Merlin, first class, was inscribed with the words "Phineas Nigellus Black".

Sirius did not look at the tombstones, nor did he pay his respects to any of them. Instead, he started digging in an empty space with a shovel.

Lupin and Ivan offered to help, but he refused.

Sirius worked through the night and into the next morning, digging the pit with his shovel without any magic, carving Regulus's name on a blank tombstone, and then writing Regulus's honour as usual.

Sirius wrote a lot, even small things like receiving praise from the Head of Slytherin in Regulus' fourth year.

This is nothing compared to the accomplishments of the Blacks on the other gravestones, but Sirius does not care about these rules.

He was not so much writing Regulus's honour as slowly reliving his younger brother's past.

When he could write no more, Sirius solemnly stated that Regulus was a champion against the Dark Lord, and a worthy hero!

After writing the inscription, Sirius stood up and turned his attention to Regulus, who had been disarmed and was now tied up.

The soul of an Inferius is trapped in a shell, so there is only one way to free Regulus.

After a long hesitation, Sirius gritted his teeth and waved his wand.

A tongue of fire shot from the tip of the wand and slammed into Regulus, setting him ablaze.

Regulus, having been turned into an Inferius, struggled to his feet, his mouth wide open as he screamed in pain, but to no avail.

Kreacher fell to his knees, covered his face, and cried, mumbling Regulus's name over and over again.

Regulus's struggles in the light of the fire were diminishing, and his wails were dying down. Ivan could just make out Regulus's contorted face softening.

Sirius stood still, his back to the crowd, hiding his current expression.

When the fire died down, Sirius went to collect Regulus's remains, placing them in a coffin along with all the other items he had found in the house.

After dealing with this, a depressed Sirius took them back to the Black family mansion.

Everyone present had stayed up all night, especially Ivan and Sirius, who had dived into the cold bottom of the lake to retrieve their corpses. Their stamina and magic were almost exhausted, and they had only managed to hold on by sheer willpower.

Therefore, after returning to the mansion and eating a few pieces of bread to fill their stomachs, no one was in the mood to chat. They all went back to their rooms to rest and slept until the next morning.

As they ate breakfast, Harry asked Sirius about his experience with the Inferi the day before, but Sirius did not want to worry Harry, so he simply explained how they had dealt with them.

Even ignoring the most thrilling scenes, the fight with the Inferi in the dark lake made Harry's skin crawl, and he wondered if he would have made it back alive if he had followed them.

Lupin duly filled in the details of how he and Dobby had been attacked by Inferi while waiting on the shore of the lake.

Presumably because Sirius hit Regulus with a Petrification Charm at the bottom of the lake, which triggered some sort of restriction, they were attacked by Inferi onshore.

With the Fire Charm greatly weakened, he and Dobby were only able to use alternating fluorescence to disperse the Inferi, and when his magic was almost exhausted, he remembered the potion that Ivan had given him.

"After I drank the potion, I tried to disguise myself as a werewolf to defeat the Inferi that were in my way, and followed the flames to find you," Lupin explained.

"So Ivan conjured a fiery phoenix in that cave and burned a thousand Inferi to death?" This was Harry's main interest after listening to the whole story, and he wondered how much magic was involved.

"That's the Fire Incantula. I read about it in the book while I was looking for information on Horcruxes. I thought it might work on Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes, so I wrote it down," Ivan explained, in case Lupin misunderstood.

Ivan then turned to Harry and warned him, "Scorching Fire is a very dangerous type of Dark Magic, and it is easy to lose control of it. Even some powerful wizards and witches are unable to control it completely, and if we hadn't teleported in time, we would have been burned alive by it!"

Harry nodded hesitantly.

Ivan didn't comment further, as it was almost impossible for a thirteen-year-old wizard like Harry, who didn't like to study, to go into the library and learn about magic.

After a quick breakfast, Ivan greeted Sirius and went into the Black family library, where he found the copy of Secrets of the Dark Arts again, and successfully found the counter-curse that corresponded to the Fire-Wearing Charm!

This was also the reason why the Fierce Fire was not listed as an Unforgivable Curse. As long as one knew how to counter-curse, they could use magic to bind the Fierce Fire and destroy it!

However, this counter-curse was only effective against small-scale flames. If a Fire Phoenix as large as the one in the cave was formed, even the counter-curse would be completely useless.