The Great Hall had been loud all day.
Not the usual loud that came from a castle full of teenagers. This was sharper. Focused. Hungry.
Students had spent breakfast dissecting the cup. They spent lunch pretending not to look at it. They spent dinner welcoming their parents.
The cup sat on the dais on a black velvet cushion, dark stone polished to the point it held reflections like still water. The silver band around its rim carried runes of the three schools.
No one below the fifth year tried their chances. That alone said enough about the shift in Hogwarts culture. On the eve of the second of November, the heads of the three schools approached the cup.
The Hall fell quiet with a speed that would have made Snape suspicious and impressed at the same time. Hundreds of eyes fixed on the dais. The air felt tighter, as if the castle itself wanted to hear the result.
Karkaroff moved first.
His robe hem swept the stone with deliberate care, theatrical without being childish. He placed his wand tip near the rim and traced a slow circle above the cup. The runes brightened by a fraction and settled again.
A thin ribbon of pale light rose from the cup, spiralled once, then snapped into the shape of a parchment.
It shot upward like something eager to be seen.
Karkaroff caught and unfolded it in one motion. His eyes flicked down, and his mouth curved with pride that did not bother being subtle.
"The champion of Durmstrang is Viktor Krum."
Applause broke out across the Hall.
Durmstrang made it a performance of unity. Chairs scraped back in a line. Hands clapped in rhythm. A few Hogwarts students joined with honest excitement because of who Krum was.
A red-headed fourth year forgot every rule of dignity he had ever heard and shouted Krum's name with enough force to make the candles flicker.
Krum rose from the Durmstrang table.
He walked to the dais with the calm of someone used to a crowd looking at him and waiting for him to fail.
He stopped beside Karkaroff and held still, posture straight, gaze forward.
Madame Maxime stepped next.
Her height made the movement look slower than it was. She raised her chin and lowered her wand toward the cup. The runes responded to her magic with the same restrained pulse.
Another parchment sprang from the rim.
Maxime caught it, unfolded it, and looked down.
"The champion of Beauxbatons is Fleur Delacour."
The Hall applauded again.
Beauxbatons looked elegant even while cheering. Hogwarts clapped with fascination and a large measure of appreciation.
Fleur rose. She moved with the kind of grace that made simple walking look like intention. Her hair caught the candlelight and turned it into gold. Her smile stayed polite and controlled, yet her eyes flicked once toward the staff table where Corvus had sat the day before.
He was gone. The absence did not lessen the pull.
Fleur reached the dais and took her place beside Maxime, hands folded lightly, shoulders back.
Vinda approached last. She treated the moment like a procedure.
Her wand hovered above the cup, and the air trembled as the runes listened. The silver band brightened, then dimmed, then brightened again as if arguing with itself.
The cup vibrated on the cushion. A few students leaned forward. The parchment did not rise immediately. It hesitated, then it erupted.
It shot upward, spun once in midair, and dropped into Vinda's hand as if it had decided resistance was pointless.
Vinda unfolded it, and the Hall held its breath.
--
Faraway from the excitement in an old castle, Corvus Black was in London, in a ritual room at Grimmauld Place. The room remained old and suffocating in a way the Black Mansion had never bothered with. The house creaked as if it resented being useful.
Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, Islington, London, England, was not a deed under House Black. Not after the Black Mansion was completed. It was one of Corvus' personal heavens. It was not a place to be left for people to know and visit. Especially with the Black Library. The house was under Fidelius, Medusa kept the secret, and the wards held everything secure.
In the rituals room that had once vitnessed to the death of many unsavoury rot, Corvus held the sphere inside a soul prison.
The orb looked harmless at first glance. A globe of darkness, smooth, almost delicate.
Shadowy tendrils tapped and stroked the inner surface of the prison as if searching for a seam. They moved with the persistence of something that had never been told no.
Corvus watched it without blinking.
His replication brushed it once, careful and precise.
The feedback hit his mind like cold water.
His excitement doubled. The options presented themselves with brutal clarity, yet without any indication to it's identitiy.
- Shadow Tendrils.
- Soul Drain.
- Void Cloak.
- Dimensional Passage.
Corvus's gaze moved across them with hungry calculation. He chose Shadow Tendrils first.
He replicated the ability and halted the process of absorption. The sensation of it already started to overflow. This was different from everything he had replicated before. It was pressure, as if a new limb had been grafted into his soul and expected to obey immediately.
He allowed the pressure to settle.
Then he etched an array on the floor with controlled psychic motion, lines appearing without a wand or a gesture. The array locked around the prison like a collar. It was a soul prison. Ancient Egyptians were really very bad enemies. Not even souls were safe from them.
He dropped his own soul prison and watched the orb's tendrils hit the boundary and recoil.
Satisfied, he teleported to the master bedroom.
The bed was heavy, old wood, sheets too fine for a house that pretended it hated comfort. Corvus lay back and stared at the ceiling for a moment, forcing his mind into stillness.
He allowed Speed and Agility to mould reality and started the absorption.
--
Andromeda Tonks watched the Daily Prophet as if it were a venomous creature that had crawled into her sitting room and expected tea.
Her home smelled of ingredients and clean glass. The shelves held jars with proper labels and seals. Her cauldrons stayed polished.
She was a potioneer. One of the best, in her honest and unbiased opinion. Her life had once been uncomplicated and simple.
She had married Ted upon her graduation. The family was not invited naturally. She could not imagine what would have happened to invite her dear father and mother to the wedding. Yes, it was a wedding. Ted did not want the ritual of the Binding of Hands. He was a Muggleborn, and she understood that.
They had built a home, a life and had the most colourful daughter possible. She always wanted to know her dear parents raction when they learned that the signature of House Black's trait was living in a Halfblood girl with buble gum colored hair.
She had raised a daughter who treated hair colour like mood and treated authority like a joke.
Then the world changed.
Three years had passed since Nymphadora graduated.
Three years since Arcturus Black had taken the Minister seat, and everyone pretended the word interim meant anything when attached to a Black.
Andromeda's mouth tightened at the thought.
First came laws.
Regulations that claimed public safety and delivered public control.
Then came more laws.
Then came the great segregation that forced a choice. No dual citizenship. No bridging life between the Mundane and Magical. Pick the magical world or lose it. Ted had watched his parents forget him. Ministry obliviators had made them forget her. They had made them forget their granddaughter.
It was not dramatic, at least not on Ted's family's side. They have no idea; they forget.
It was surgical. They became orphans overnight while still eating breakfast at their own table.
Then came the settlements. Contracts disguised as voluntary measures, sign or become suspicious. Refuse, and you are questioned.
Andromeda had signed, just like Ted. Nymphadora had signed with fury shaking in her fingers.
Later came the behemoths called Bastion guards. They started to appear everywhere as the new security force.
She never understood who was securing who from whom. Andromeda could not decide if the question mattered anymore. Then Grindelwald returned, and with him war followed.
Then the world learned how far the magical side would go when it stopped pretending it needed permission.
Albus Dumbledore went to Azkaban, and that was where she stopped calling Arcturus Black her grandfather.
He was not there physically, not for a very, very long time. But Dumbledore was the last drop; she became an orphan in her mind.
Behind all this devastation and forced change stood one name. A man, the magical world was still learning about. A prodigy, a calamity.
Corvus Black.
It was because of him that her daughter, a half-blood carrying the legacy of House Black, had been rejected from entering the Ministry. She was sure of it.
She had kept quiet, head down. She kept brewing potions and survived the day.
Until the Prophet arrived that morning and sat on her sofa like an accusation.
The headline stared at her.
MOTHER MAGIC BLESSES THROUGH CORVUS BLACK
Andromeda's fingers tightened.
"This is the last drop."
She crossed the room, snatched the paper, and flicked it open.
Rita Skeeter's byline gleamed.
Andromeda read.
The Daily Prophet
MOTHER MAGIC BLESSES THROUGH CORVUS BLACK
By Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent
Last night, beneath a sky that looked almost ashamed to watch, Hogwarts witnessed what can only be described as a public correction.
Those who still insist that the recent transformation of our society is a temporary fever, a passing political trend, or a personal theatre staged by old families should consider updating their vocabulary. Fever breaks. Theatre ends.
Samhain did neither.
Master Corvus Black conducted the rite with Master Isolde Nacht at his side. I use the word side deliberately, dear readers, because what occurred was not partnership in the usual sense. It was a demonstration.
This reporter was there to witness the flame of the veil in twenty-five altars. A central flame that began as ordinary fire before shifting into emerald green with a precision that looked less like tradition and more like command. Souls, hundreds, then thousands, gathered as if called by name.
And yes, before anyone writes in, this reporter is aware that some readers find talk of souls distasteful and recommends they continue finding it distasteful in silence.
The more pressing matter arrived at dawn in the Great Hall.
Corvus Black announced a development. Not a ministry project. Not a confederation initiative. His very own discovery.
For those who do not know, Corvus Black is an accomplished Academic with mastery over Charms, Potions, Transfiguration, Alchemy, Dark Magic, Ritual, and he is still twenty years old. If this refined gentleman is not a blessing from Mother Magic, this reporter does not know what can be.
Back to his work, Master Black developed a process that forms a magical core in a Muggle.
Let those words settle. Yes, a Muggle.
Not a squib. Not a magical child missed by birth records. A man born outside our world, now standing inside it.
Adam Mounts entered the Great Hall and cast Lumos. The simple spell has never looked so magical.
If any of you are wondering who decides which Muggles can ascend, the answer is as predictable as it is convenient. Corvus Black.
Some will call this mercy, some will call it conquest.
For years, we were told the divide between Magical and Mundane was unnecessary, barbaric and a result of fear. We were told to embrace the foreigners. Embrace their disregard for our culture, embrace their insults to our sacred rites and ancestors.
With House of Black taking the rains things changed. We, the Magicals of the world, took control and behold, dear reader, see where the simple act of cleansing the traitors brought us.
Now the divide is being...
Andromeda threw the paper; she couldn't read anymore. Especially her usual barbs at the end of her articles.
Rita's quill had always been sharp, but this was not a gossip piece.
This was a declaration written in ink.
The only person who could agree or disagree with it was the same person whose name sat in the headline. Andromeda felt anger, then something colder, fury.
She stepped to the hearth and grabbed a handful of Floo powder.
The fire flared green.
She held the powder above it and set her jaw.
"Ministry of Magic."
Green flames swallowed her.