After the tournament, Fleur went with Elizaveta and Corvus to his chambers on the third floor of Hogwarts.
The corridors had finally gone quiet enough to hear one's own thoughts. That, more than the cheers, the staff speeches, or the endless handshakes, made the day feel finished. Outside, the castle still carried the last pressure of the tournament. Students drifted through the halls in tired clusters, replaying scores, arguments, catches, and mistakes as though the evening would change if they named it differently. Inside Corvus's chambers, the air was still.
Fleur was grateful for that.
She was also miserable.
Losing hurts. Losing in public hurts more. Losing after coming that close while knowing she would now be separated again from the two people she most wanted near her made the whole afternoon sit badly in her chest. She kept her back straight anyway. No one had ever improved defeat by slouching under it.
Tibby appeared the moment they entered.
He had somehow improved his chicken obsession into a full ceremonial display. Painted feathers covered him from head to toe. One green feather stuck out over his left ear at such an angle that it looked deliberate, which was highly possible.
"Supreme master returns," Tibby announced, then turned to Fleur and Elizaveta with equal solemnity. "Mistresses also return. One won. One nearly won. One watched winning with a wolfy face."
Elizaveta's mouth twitched. Corvus ignored the commentary with the ease of long practice and took the tea Tibby had already prepared.
Fleur stood near the table for a moment, fingers brushing the pendant at her throat before she stopped herself. She had rehearsed what she meant to say while walking up the stairs. Now that the room had closed around them and the day had no more noise left to hide behind, the words felt embarrassingly personal.
She said them anyway.
"I could not reach you for some time now."
Corvus paused with the teacup in his hand and looked at her properly.
"No owl could locate you," Fleur continued. "And when I asked Tibby..." She felt the heat climb into her face at once, which only made the memory worse. "He told me you were busy making small foggy ones."
Elizaveta's eyes widened.
Fleur, already committed, pressed on with all the dignity available to a woman about to discuss house elf vocabulary and whatever depravity it had witnessed.
"I strongly object to such intimacy being watched by innocent creatures. In Tibby's exact words, there will be no foggy in front of anyone."
Corvus froze.
Elizaveta burst into laughter so suddenly and so helplessly that Fleur turned to her in genuine outrage.
"Oh, how I love the names he comes up with." Elizaveta laughed harder, one hand going to her mouth far too late to make the gesture useful.
"Elizaveta." Fleur frowned. "This is not something to laugh at."
That only ruined Elizaveta further.
Corvus set the teacup down with great care, which was usually a sign he was either about to correct someone or about to enjoy it. Fleur, in that moment, feared both possibilities equally.
"Fleur, dear." He gave Elizaveta one brief look that did absolutely nothing to stop her laughter. "Did you not, even for a second, consider that Tibby might have meant something other than what you understood?"
Fleur's frown deepened.
Foggy sounded suspiciously close to a crude word. It was also precisely the kind of broken English an elf might use while accidentally telling the truth. No, she had not considered another meaning. Not even for a moment.
Corvus extended one hand toward the empty air.
"Tibby."
The elf appeared with a soft pop, feathers wobbling. "Supreme Tibby is here."
Corvus gestured toward him with the solemn patience of a man establishing evidence for a court.
"Tibby, do me a favour and tell me what you think of Albus Dumbledore."
Tibby turned serious at once. "Fuckface fucking cooknose."
Elizaveta made a small sound and bit it back too late.
Fleur's eyes widened. She had known House Black's elves possessed a rich vocabulary. She had not understood the full scale of the cultural treasure.
Corvus leaned back in his seat. "So."
Fleur looked from him to the elf, then to Elizaveta, who was still fighting laughter and losing.
"Foggy," Corvus continued, perfectly calm, "has something to do with fog and nothing to do with what you imagined. Though I do appreciate where your mind lingers. Fleur, defender of elven innocence."
Elizaveta laughed again, softer now, though no less sincerely.
Tibby turned toward her with sudden concern. "Mistress Wolfy got Black madness?"
That earned him a fresh look from Elizaveta, a dangerous one made less effective by the fact that she was still amused.
Throughout the rest of the sitting, Fleur remained crimson. She hated that the warmth would not leave her face, no matter how perfectly she arranged her posture. Corvus, entirely too pleased with himself, drank his tea as if nothing improper or absurd had happened at all.
After a while, he stood.
"I need to go back."
Fleur rose as well before her better judgment could stop her. She crossed the space between them and hugged him tightly.
"I apologise," she murmured against him. "It was improper of me to jump to conclusions."
Corvus's arms closed around her with easy certainty. He bent, kissed her lips, then stayed close enough that only she could hear what followed.
"I reserve the right to discuss the no foggy part later."
He looked over her shoulder at Elizaveta and winked with the sort of calm wickedness.
Fleur stepped back and wished the floor would take her.
A portal opened beneath Corvus's feet.
He dropped through it with complete indifference to conventional departures and vanished.
Fleur turned to Elizaveta. That was a mistake. Elizaveta was nearly as red as she was, which only made the whole thing worse by proving the line had landed on both of them.
Elizaveta gave in to one last laugh, wiped quickly at the corner of one eye, and shook her head. "I needed that."
Fleur drew herself up, then looked away with as much dignity as one could manage after being corrected on elf obscenity in front of a future sister wife.
Silence sat between them for a short while.
Fleur broke first.
"Can I come to wherever you two are going?"
Elizaveta's attention sharpened at once.
Fleur steadied her voice and continued before hesitation could weaken it. "I believe it is somewhere under a Fidelius. The owls could not locate you. I do not think you and Corvus were ignoring me. I think I simply know nothing of the life he disappears into."
That was more honesty than Fleur usually offered anyone. Elizaveta heard it for what it was.
She had told herself she would stay neutral about Fleur and Corvus. Neutrality, however, grew difficult when the girl in front of her looked proud enough to suffer in silence and intelligent enough to confess what she did not understand.
Elizaveta sighed, the sound carrying resignation and a small sisterly affection both.
"Come with me, sister."
She stood.
It was time Fleur saw the original Nest and understood that absence had not meant neglect. It had meant scale.
--
While Elizaveta prepared the route, Corvus had already returned to his own realm.
He stood before two separate racks of crystal vials. Twelve vials occupied the first rack. Three more stood apart on a separate tray.
The twelve held blood taken from fifth-generation hybrids whose lines had been strengthened through repeated couplings of the same patterns. The three on the separate tray held original blood for comparison.
Corvus lifted the first vial from the hybrid rack. It was a vial of blood from a Thanatos hybrid.
He uncorked it, took one measured sip, and let the blood settle. Its effect moved through him with familiarity now, not comfort, but the kind of recognised pressure one might feel from a blade one had already used often enough to trust. After the first reaction passed, he took a second sip from the original Thanatos vial on the separate tray.
He stood in silence for a while and measured the difference.
The effect was close but still not there.
The hybrid line had climbed impressively. It still lacked the exact density and potency of the original blood. He repeated the process with Hades. Again, the result was close and again, not there. Juracán followed with the same outcome. Still short of the true source.
Corvus returned the vials to their places and revised the schedule at once.
Another six generations.
That would be enough to see whether the line was merely approaching the elder model or whether it was capable of reaching it. The previous generations, meanwhile, would not be wasted. They would be trained.
That thought settled another into place. He was not merely breeding stock anymore. He was building an organisation.
The idea became clearer while he worked on embedding the next set of soul patterns and traits into the fourth-generation embryos. The Black Bastion and the Spire had already proven the value of absolute devotion matched with structure and discipline. What he wanted now would serve a different future purpose.
They would be governors.
Not today or tomorrow, but soon.
When they reached elder-level power, they would govern in his absence.
Corvus moved down the row and checked the hybrids with Replication once again. That part continued to satisfy him. Many of the desired talents had already become visible and stable enough to appear in the replicable lists. He had taken Life Leech repeatedly from the Thanatos hybrids over the last two generations. The gain had not been dramatic in a single extraction. Repetition had done the real work.
His own grey mist had darkened noticeably now. Though not as black as Thanatos's yet.
Soon, the Architect would find resistance much less comfortable than before.
He set the last vial down and turned toward the wider halls of the research complex.
Researchers kept their tables in order. Surrogates lived and died according to function. The lines were advancing. The realm answered him. The towers grew fuller each week.
It needed time.
Time, fortunately, belonged to him more than it belonged to most men.
-
Elsewhere, Arcturus stood inside the last active section of the London Ministry and watched a piece of an age close in front of him.
The final offices were being sealed.
From the Department of Mysteries to the DMLE, one department after another had already moved into Octis Bastion. Clerks, curse breakers, file keepers, bureaucrats, Unspeakables, Aurors, and the quiet armies that kept government alive had been lifted out of London and placed in the sky. The old Ministry no longer mattered except as stone waiting for the order to die properly.
Arcturus approved of proper endings.
The last seals were fixed to one office door, then another. The Unit and Bastion guards began stripping the building in sections, destroying it methodically rather than theatrically. There would be no shrine left for sentimental fools to gather around and call tradition.
He looked up through the high, broken line of the atrium and imagined the next part with satisfaction.
Corvus decided to send the Veil to space.
That decision had pleased him more than it should have.
Manard had already begun working on a rocket large enough for the task. Octis Bastion would leave the atmosphere first. Once in space, they would launch the rocket and send the Veil where it could enjoy deep silence and no audience worth whispering to.
Let Death look out upon the void.
The new era of magical rule over the planet had already begun in practice. Today only made it official.