Corvus stepped into the Great Hall and stopped. Three Aurors sat at the Slytherin end where the torches threw long light across the benches. They had the look Arcturus liked. Hair cropped. Boots polished. Wands close. The leader rose when Corvus crossed the aisle.
"Master Black." A shallow incline. No flourish. "The Minister invites you to an early breakfast at his office. If you would be kind enough to come with us."
A brush of Memory Mapping skimmed the surface. Orders folded neatly as letters. Bring him to the Minister. If he resists, use force. Do not use the school floo. Do not involve the Headmistress. The seals on the orders wore Alliance marks. Durmstrang pens, Alliance ink.
Corvus let the corner of his mouth lift. "Of course."
They did not linger. No one went near the gargoyle stair. They cut through the Entrance Hall and down the steps into the morning cold. The wards hummed where stone met air. Outside the line, the four of them turned on the spot, and the castle dropped away.
They landed in the stark corridor that led to the Minister's office. Ignatia Travers was already on her feet. Crisp robes. Quill set aside.
"Breakfast is ready. The Minister is waiting." She matched his stride and opened the inner door with a touch.
Arcturus stood on the far side of a wide table. Silver domes breathed steam. Two cups waited, already poured. There was a glint in his eye that had nothing to do with tea.
Corvus closed the door behind him. "Grandfather. To what do I owe this early invitation?" He crossed to the table and took the right chair.
Arcturus waved him to the food. "Eat. Then talk." He took the opposite seat and watched Corvus serve himself eggs, grilled tomatoes, rashers, and toast. The old man took a sip and set the cup down without looking away.
"First," Arcturus said, "your mastery work. Transfiguration. What have you done?"
Corvus set the teapot down and reached for the honey. "We have a thousand sets of ingredients for Wolfsbane Potion." He stirred once and tasted. "Does that answer your question?"
Arcturus went very still. "How many?"
"One thousand."
The chair scraped. He left the table and crossed to his desk. A flick of his wand pulled a ledger from the side cabinet. Another flick summoned a folder thick with growth reports from the Ministry gardens. He scanned, turned a page, scanned again. His jaw worked once.
"Ignatia." He raised his voice. The outer door opened. "Bring the last three months of yields from all Ministry plots. Include private contracts with St Mungo's and the other supply houses." She vanished and returned within a minute. Papers changed hands. Arcturus checked totals, checked dates, checked signatures, then looked up.
"Which country did you rob?" He came back to the table and sat. "Tell me it was France."
Corvus pressed a hand to his chest as if wounded. "Grandfather. What a vicious question. I would never stoop."
One silver brow climbed.
"The source is my own gardens," Corvus said. "And a handful of magical beasts you pulled 'from the old reserves you found'. All legal, unless those old reserves are a lie and you simply smuggled the poor animals, of course."
Arcturus cleared his throat and ignored the jab. "'Your gardens.'" he drew his wand again. A map of Britain unfurled in the air, coast to coast. Counties breathed into place. "Be kind, boy. Show this old man which half belongs to your gardens." A dry bite on the last words.
Corvus drank and set the cup down. "No half, a method."
The map rolled itself away and vanished over the mantel. Arcturus waited.
"Essence work," Corvus said. "Three steps. First, revelation. I've developed a spell to show a living subject's essence, traits, and skills. Whatever you want to call it. It is a field of moving patterns formed by runic arrays. Each pattern holds a trait. Regeneration. Growth rate. Resistance. Strength. Second, a controlled state. I hold both subjects in a temporary phase where the essence can accept a foreign pattern and then return to baseline within a finite period. Third, script. I draw a copy of one trait's pattern onto the target."
Arcturus listened without blinking. The steam from his cup drifted between them.
"I tested on a mature mandrake with a troll as a source for regeneration," Corvus went on. "Trolls have a considerable regeneration pattern. I wrote a tuned version of the plant. Then I harvested leaves. They regrew within seconds. I repeated until the temporary state began to destabilise and ended the effect with a simple finite."
The old man set his elbows on the table and laced his fingers. "How many leaves from a single plant?"
"Ten cuts. Two leaves each time. Twenty per plant without stress."
Arcturus leaned back. The lines at the corner of his mouth deepened. He looked past Corvus for a long moment, as if he could see the potion wards, the stockrooms, the ledgers, the waiting orders. He looked back. How long did the procedure take, and how long does the plant need to settle back to normal?
"The procedure took about ten minutes in total. The plant was ready to be harvested the next day."
"And the beasts."
"The same principle. You sent them to me. I used them well."
"You did not tell Vinda."
"Not yet."
A small satisfied sound came from Arcturus. "She will be furious."
Corvus buttered toast. "You sent Aurors to pull me from under her roof at dawn. I imagine that was the point."
Arcturus allowed himself a thin smile. "You are as sharp as ever, Corvus."
They ate for a minute in silence. Plates shifted. Cutlery tapped porcelain. At last, Arcturus tapped the edge of the ledger with one finger.
"We can dose the entire werewolf registry for a year," he said. "Twice over if we ration. And that is from one week of your work."
"A week is generous," Corvus said. "Three days. It could have been more if not for the full seven years of DADA classes."
Arcturus stared. Then laughter shook loose, dry and brief. He sobered after a while. Corvus continued. "I will teach the method to some of the druids we got from the department. The yield will increase severalfold. In the meantime, Grandfather, I want you to contact the Conclaves and make them stop their trade with ICW at once. Additionally, I want a team of experts to sabotage the greenhouses and Magical Reserves of some of our near and far neighbours. Once I get my mastery over Transfiguration, I will need to leave for Russia. Hence, I suggest you arrange for an Auror to take over my DADA classes. I will talk with Master Flitwick and Greengrass for the other lessons as well."
"Would it not be better to share the method with more of our people?" There was no rise in Arcturus' tone.
Corvus met his eyes and let the moment sit. "I will not hand this to any board. Not even ours. Only the hooded druids, whom I bound. They cannot even breathe wrong. I highly suspect you or Aunt Vinda will allow me to do the same to the people you approve of."
Arcturus, for the first time since he met this young man, noticed one thing. Their relationship was not what it was before. Corvus has started to hold more and more cards every day.
"I will, however, watch you count the crates with a smile on your face, Grandfather. Oh, if you start to feel 'old' again, all you need to do is arrange for some undesirable persons from here or any other country we have connections with. I'm ready to extend the same to Uncles Sigibert and Grigori if they will agree to the same terms."
The old man's gaze settled. "I choose to trust you, Corvus. Not just today, be sure of this, my son. I will back you with whatever strength I have." He reached for the teapot and refilled both cups. "Now. Tell me how your method avoids the law on conjured life."
--
To the northeast of Britain, across the Norwegian Sea, on Svalbard, the new settlements grew busier by the day. Weather wards pressed the cold back from streets and roofs. Greenhouses breathed warm air. Long sheds held feed for creatures that did not tolerate the arctic wind. Each village shared the same plan across the other Scandinavian Conclaves. Homes sat under layered wards. Work crews tended wide magical gardens. Small reserves held breeding pairs under watch. Every settlement specialises. One shipped potions plants. One cured hide. One raised beasts. They traded along warded routes and kept clear of Muggle eyes. Vampire covens lived underground in dry stone halls. Werewolf clans had ringed commons and reinforced basements for the full moon. Sacred forests housed the herds of Centaurs.
-
Liv Nilsen was four, a tangle of pale hair and quick hands. The accidents began the winter before. If she wanted something with her whole heart, it came. When her mother hid the cookie jar on the top shelf, the jar slid into Liv's arms the moment tears filled her green eyes. Her mother steadied the jar with shaking fingers and scolded her for climbing when there was no chair in sight. Her father rubbed grease off his knuckles with a rag and said the wind had knocked it loose. Only Farfar listened. He lifted Liv into his lap, set his wool cap on her head, and called it the Nisse. He told the old tales by the stove while the kettle clicked. Little house spirits who watched children and kept them from harm.
The incidents grew. A stuck latch opened. A fallen cup stopped before it broke. The cat that hated everyone curled on Liv's legs and purred itself to sleep. At bedtime, Farfar tucked the quilt to her chin and made the sign of a secret promise over her forehead. Liv whispered, Thank you, Nisse, into the dark.
Days were small and bright. Her mother counted coins and cut bread thin. Her father came home smelling of cold iron and sea. Farfar carved a tiny figure with a red cap and left it by Liv's plate. She carried it in her pocket and showed it the places she loved: the window ledge where the sun sat in the morning, the step that creaked, the square of floor that stayed warm.
The last ward in Norway settled at midnight and found her, as it found every magical child inside the borders. The pulse went from stone to stone and came back with her name and the little house by the birches. Two days later, a pair from the local Conclave sat at her kitchen table. Tea steamed between them and her parents. That day, they took Liv away.
They travelled in a way Liv had never known. One moment, she stood in her house. Next, she was squeezed onto a flagged square under a hovering candle. The air inside was soft and warm. Smoke rose from chimneys. A bell called a shift to start. Wizards and witches crossed the square with baskets and tool bags.
Days passed in the new home Liv had been moved to. After the third day, a man and a woman came. The woman asked permission to caress Liv's hair. She gave it with a nod.
She asked the woman if she could take her back to her Mamma, Pappa and Farfar. The woman sat on the ground to be on the same level as little Liv and started to talk with her. She asked about her home, her family, and her parents. After a while, she asked if Liv would like to live with them. She shook her head. Little Liv wanted her home and her Nisse back.
The woman turned to the man and said something in hushed tones. A small creature popped into the room after a while and bowed so low its nose brushed the floor. Liv giggled at the scene.
"This is another Nisse, same as the one who helped you all this time," the woman told her. "You can call her Nisse if you want, or name her something else. She will keep you safe."
Her new home waited at the edge of a lane. The man and the woman had the same pale hair as Liv did. Their eyes were not the same as her mamma and pappa had been. They were calm and steady. The woman crouched to Liv's height again.
"If you would like to live with us, we will care for you," she said. "You will have friends and lessons. Your Nisse will stay with you all the time."
Liv looked up at the elf. The elf nodded. Liv nodded back.
Liv smiled, because the elf's hand was warm and dry and sure. The elf squeezed once and stood straight.
-
Back at Liv's home, after the first team took the magical child, memory wipers pulled two chairs into the old kitchen. The mother's brow smoothed, father's fists loosened on the table edge as the memories were carefully found and erased. From the parents, the team went to grandparents, to neighbours, to friends. When the workers left, the house kept a quiet gap no one could name. Her mother stood in the doorway of a small room and frowned at a shelf that seemed too empty. Her father set a plate on the table and did not know why he set a second beside it. Her farfar sat by the window and watched the dark pool under the birches. He folded the little carving of a red cap into his palm and felt only the shape of wood. A child laughed in the lane, and his chest lifted and hurt for a beat. In the morning, he told a story about a Nisse and could not say why it made his throat tight.
-
Svalbard settled around Liv. The lane had three families with children near her age. She learned to wear boots that did not slip on the packed paths and to keep gloves on a string. Her Nisse taught her where her new mamma kept the biscuits loved in the kitchen and how to fold laundry with a snap. She liked the greenhouses best. Warm air and wet earth. Rows of mandrake, aconite, and dittany seedlings in clean flats. In the distance, a reserve fence rang as a keeper walked past with a bucket.
The ritualist arrived the next day. She wore the badge of the Conclave on her robe. She checked the adoption parchment with the new parents and opened a leather folio. The table in the front room moved itself at a gesture. The ritualist set chalk and a vial. She looked at Liv's face, then at the faces of the adults who had sworn to keep her, protect her and love her for as long as Mother Magic allowed them to breathe.
"This will make the records and the blood agree," she said. "It will not hurt."
Liv stood still as the runic circle formed on the floor. The elf took her hand again. The ritualist pricked a finger on each adult. Three drops fell into the same small vial and turned clear. She asked Liv to drink it and close her eyes. The elf squeezed her hand one last time and popped out of the array.
The rune line warmed. The air smelled like rain. Liv's cheekbones shifted a little. The set of her mouth matched the woman's for a heartbeat and then settled. The ritualist checked the colour of Liv's hair and nodded.
Outside, the bell marked the hour. Inside, the quill wrote the new entry and filed it with a snap. The ritualist dismantled the array until the floor was clean.
In a warded room a town away, two Conclave workers sealed the family records. One file vanished into the locked cabinet that held new magical households. Another file in the Muggle office gained a stamp and a line that closed a story. No alarms rang. No one argued on a telephone. The world moved on.
Liv ate stew with bread that night and fell asleep with the elf caressing her hair. In the greenhouse, a warmed pane sighed and shed hoarfrost back into the night.
The ritualist stood a moment on the lane and watched steam rise into the light. She spoke once, barely above a whisper, and turned toward the next house on her list.
"For the greater good."