M1E13 — Witness at the Treeline
January's last week arrived with that particular kind of cold that makes the castle feel older. Not cruel—just honest. The sort of weather that reminds children they have bones, and reminds stone it has memory.
Corvus left Ravenclaw Tower after dinner with the quiet intent of someone who wasn't sneaking, wasn't showing off, and wasn't about to be surprised by anything he could help. The bronze eagle asked him a riddle—something smug about time and truth—and he answered it without the satisfaction of victory. Tonight wasn't for victory. Tonight was for procedure.
The coin sat warm against his sternum. The locket rested at his throat like a promise with a heartbeat.
In the corridors, Night Lines glowed low and civil at knee height, guiding late feet home without scolding them for wandering. Warm Step kept the main landings dry. Somewhere far away, Peeves shrieked with the energy of an unpaid actor and then—blessedly—moved in the opposite direction. The castle was behaving. That, Corvus had learned, was not an accident. It was maintenance.
He met Professor Dumbledore at the base of the steps leading toward the Entrance Hall, just as the lamps were deciding whether to flicker. Dumbledore didn't arrive with drama. He simply… appeared, like a candle deciding it had always been lit.
"Good evening, Mr. Black," Dumbledore said, voice soft as cedar and twice as stubborn.
"Headmaster," Corvus replied, and nodded once—not deference, exactly. Acknowledgment. Witness secured.
Dumbledore's eyes flicked to the corridor's silver lane, to the way the stair held itself like a polite spine, to the absence of slipping shoes and shouted panics. "Your lanes continue to be… sensible."
"I'm trying to keep children from becoming stories that end with 'and then I fell,'" Corvus said.
"A noble ambition," Dumbledore murmured. "The world has quite enough falling."
They walked together through the Entrance Hall and out onto the grounds. Snow creaked underfoot with the crispness of a fresh page. The castle behind them hummed with Warm Quarters—hearths balanced to occupancy, a living, breathing comfort system that refused to indulge melodrama.
Ahead: the Forest.
The Forbidden Forest did not need to loom. It simply existed with the weight of something that didn't care how many rules the school wrote on parchment. Trees stood like judges. Dark pooled between trunks like ink. Somewhere inside, something moved—slow, patient, and too comfortable being unseen.
Corvus stopped at the edge, exactly where the Forest Edge Lullaby was woven into bark and path. He didn't step over. He didn't even angle his boots toward it. The difference between bravery and stupidity was often a single toe.
Dumbledore stopped beside him, not in front, not behind. Witness, not shepherd.
"You asked for this," Dumbledore said, gentle. Not warning. Reminder.
"Yes," Corvus answered.
He breathed in once. Twice. Three times.
The coin cooled—absence temperature. The kind of cold that wasn't weather but intention.
The Forest, at the boundary, made a decision to notice him.
The Lullaby responded the way a well-trained bell responds to a hand on rope: quietly, and without argument. It didn't block. It didn't trap. It simply suggested—to the paths, to the roots, to the idea of wandering—that bedtime mattered.
And for a heartbeat, Corvus felt it: pressure against the edge of his charm like a thumb testing a bruise. Something inside the Forest didn't like being redirected.
The coin warmed again. Not fear. Not alarm. Just a steady, low you were right to bring a witness.
Dumbledore's voice came softly. "Do you feel it?"
"Yes," Corvus said. "It's… patient."
Dumbledore nodded, as if that was the most dangerous answer possible. "Patience is a predator's virtue."
Corvus kept his hands at his sides. "I didn't build the Lullaby to stop predators."
"No," Dumbledore said. "You built it to stop children."
"Exactly."
Silence stretched between them. Snow fell in tiny, lazy verdicts.
Then—there. A flicker. Not a sound, not a shape. Just the sense of attention turning its face toward them. The Forest was looking.
Corvus's instincts—those sharp, clever, lazy instincts that preferred not to run unless absolutely necessary—wanted to do something dramatic. Investigate. Identify. Reduce uncertainty. Solve the puzzle.
But puzzles had teeth.
He remembered his own doctrine: witnesses or walls, not thresholds.
He chose wall.
He lowered his voice, speaking not to the Forest but to the charm stitched into the boundary. "Hold," he murmured—not the staff command, not the staircase phrase. Just the intention. "Keep the edge polite."
The Lullaby tightened its manners. The paths subtly realigned. The suggestion of "go back" became firmer—not force, but a strong hand on a child's shoulder.
From deeper inside, the attention withdrew… and then returned, as if annoyed by losing an argument it hadn't expected to have with a first-year.
Dumbledore's wand was still in his sleeve. Not hidden. Not raised. A promise in reserve.
"Mr. Black," Dumbledore said, quietly, "Hogwarts has always had borders. Some are walls. Some are agreements. Some are… older bargains."
Corvus swallowed. "And some are just… neglected?"
Dumbledore's smile was small, sad, and sharp. "And some are neglected, yes."
The coin cooled again. Corvus tasted it in his teeth this time, like metal on winter air.
"Headmaster," Corvus said, "something is testing the edge."
"Yes."
"And it doesn't feel like a spider or a wolf or… anything that eats like animals do."
Dumbledore didn't answer immediately. When he did, his voice stayed calm—the calm of a man who has already decided what he would do if it came to it.
"Sometimes," he said, "what hunts does not eat bodies first."
Corvus didn't move. He didn't step forward. He didn't step back. He simply stood and let the Forest realize: this boy is not entering, and he is not alone.
The attention in the trees sharpened for a second—tight, narrow, disappointed.
Then it eased. Not gone. Just… deferred. Like a plan postponed.
The coin warmed in response, and Corvus understood the message with irritating clarity:
You can be correct and still be watched.
He exhaled slowly. "So the Lullaby works."
"It does," Dumbledore agreed. "And it has done something else, too."
"What?"
"It has made whatever lives in there notice that the castle is being cared for," Dumbledore said, eyes on the treeline. "That is not always comfortable for things that prefer neglect."
Corvus couldn't help it—he let a thin smile show. "Good."
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled faintly. "Yes. Good. But remember, Mr. Black: when you clean a room, you sometimes discover what has been living under the furniture."
Corvus nodded once, sharp and practical. "Then we keep cleaning. With witnesses."
"Precisely."
They turned back toward the castle. Snow creaked under their steps like an approving page turn. Behind them, the Forest settled into stillness that was too deliberate to be peace.
Halfway back, Hagrid appeared near his hut, lantern in hand, beard full of weather. He looked from Dumbledore to Corvus and didn't ask questions he already knew the answer to.
"Yeh didn't go in," Hagrid said.
"No," Corvus replied.
Hagrid nodded, satisfied. "Good."
Corvus held Hagrid's gaze and said the thing he knew mattered. "How often do you patrol the edge?"
Hagrid scratched his beard. "More'n I used to. Forest's… been shiftin'."
"Then we'll schedule it," Corvus said. "Not heroics. Patrols. Lanterns. Routine."
Hagrid blinked—then smiled like a man watching a boy choose the right kind of brave. "Aye," he said. "Routine."
Dumbledore watched the exchange with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had just seen a future he didn't need to rescue.
Back inside, the castle wrapped warmth around them. Warm Quarters adjusted as they entered—firelight rising a degree, as if Hogwarts itself had exhaled in relief.
Corvus paused at the bottom stair and pressed his palm to the rail. "Thank you," he told it.
The banister hummed back, smug and pleased to be respected.
He climbed toward Ravenclaw Tower with the coin warm and the locket steady, feeling the odd, heavy comfort of knowing two truths at once:
He had built something good.
And something old had noticed.
At his window, frost had already started to write. The letters formed slowly, neatly, as if the castle took its time choosing words.
GOOD.
Then, after a pause:
KEEP GOING.
Corvus set coin and locket side by side on the sill. Two moons. Two promises. He didn't open either. Tonight wasn't for opening. Tonight was for foundations.
He looked out over the grounds—snow, treeline, dark—and said softly, to himself and to the stone and to the future:
"Steady."
The coin warmed in agreement.
And Hogwarts, civilized and watchful, kept the night.