Chapter 26: The Last Horcrux, The Final Battle, and The Great Silence (1997-1998)
The period following Albus Dumbledore's death was the darkest the wizarding world had seen in generations. Lord Voldemort, with the Ministry of Magic now firmly under his thumb via an Imperiused Pius Thicknesse, and Hogwarts controlled by his loyal (or so he believed) Headmaster Severus Snape and the brutal Carrow siblings, unleashed a reign of terror that was systematic and pervasive. Muggle-born registration, disappearances, public examples of torture and execution – fear was the currency of the realm.
Corvus Blackwood, within the inviolable sanctuary of Blackwood Manor, was an unwilling, yet intimately informed, audience to this grim spectacle. The multiplier, tethered to a triumphant and increasingly unhinged Voldemort, delivered a constant stream of the Dark Lord's machinations: his strategic directives to his Death Eaters, his paranoid efforts to secure his existing Horcruxes, his obsession with capturing Harry Potter, and, with growing intensity, his quest for the Elder Wand, the legendary Deathstick he believed would make him truly invincible.
Corvus experienced, with tenfold amplification, Voldemort's relentless pursuit of the Elder Wand's bloody history: tracing it from Gregorovitch to Grindelwald, then to Dumbledore. He felt Voldemort's cold fury as he desecrated Dumbledore's tomb in the dead of night to claim the legendary wand, his triumphant belief that he now wielded the ultimate weapon. Corvus, with his profound understanding of wandlore (gleaned partially from Voldemort's own earlier research and his own vast studies), noted with detached interest that Voldemort seemed oblivious to the true nature of the wand's allegiance.
"He seeks power in objects, Tom always did," Corvus mused, observing the activation of a new phalanx of his Blackwood Sentinels, their obsidian forms gleaming under the soft light of his alchemically enhanced workshop. His own Philosopher's Stone, secure and potent, was a testament to power earned through intellect and creation, not theft and desecration. "He never understood that true mastery lies not in the tool, but in the wielder, and the wholeness of their intent."
His children, Orion and Lyra, were now fully established in their respective fields, their safety ensured by the Blackwood name, resources, and the subtle protective enchantments Corvus wove around their lives. Orion, navigating the treacherous corridors of the Voldemort-controlled Ministry, became an invaluable, if discreet, source of direct intelligence, his reports often confirming or providing nuanced context to the amplified information Corvus received from the Dark Lord himself. Lyra, from her research haven in Geneva (which Corvus had ensured was as secure as any embassy), occasionally corresponded on matters of arcane theory, her letters a welcome intellectual diversion.
The turning point, Corvus sensed, began when Harry Potter and his companions embarked on their desperate hunt for Voldemort's Horcruxes. Though Corvus did not receive direct information from the 'Golden Trio', he felt Voldemort's dawning awareness, then his escalating panic and rage, as his soul anchors began to be destroyed.
First, the locket. Corvus experienced Voldemort's sudden, violent psychic shock as a distant part of his soul was extinguished. The Dark Lord's thoughts became a maelstrom of fear and fury, his focus momentarily shifting from hunting Potter to desperately trying to ascertain which of his precious Horcruxes had been found and how.
Then, Hufflepuff's cup. The amplified agony and violation Voldemort felt as another piece of his soul was ripped from existence was even more profound. His paranoia became palpable, his trust in his remaining Death Eaters (save Snape, whom he still inexplicably trusted due to Dumbledore's intricate plan) plummeting. He began to obsessively check on his remaining Horcruxes, his thoughts providing Corvus with a veritable map of their locations and defenses. He felt Voldemort mentally visit the Gaunt shack, the cave by the sea, and then, with dawning horror, Hogwarts itself, realizing Ravenclaw's Diadem, hidden within the Room of Requirement, was vulnerable.
"The boy is surprisingly resourceful," Corvus commented to himself, observing Voldemort's amplified mental descent into near madness. "Or perhaps, Dumbledore's guidance from beyond the grave is more potent than even I anticipated."
Voldemort's decision to move Nagini, his final, living Horcrux, to his side, keeping her within a protective magical bubble, was a clear sign of his desperation. His focus shifted entirely to Hogwarts, where he believed Harry Potter would inevitably go to find the last known Horcrux associated with the school's founders.
The Battle of Hogwarts, on May 2nd, 1998, was an event Corvus Blackwood experienced with an unparalleled, terrifying intimacy. From the moment Voldemort and his army of Death Eaters, giants, and Acromantulas descended upon the castle, Corvus was a silent passenger in the Dark Lord's mind. He felt Voldemort's strategic commands, his cold fury as Hogwarts' defenders, led by the remaining Order members and professors, mounted a surprisingly fierce resistance. He experienced the duels, the deaths, the flashes of desperate courage and unspeakable cruelty, all amplified tenfold.
He felt Voldemort's shock and rage as Ravenclaw's Diadem was destroyed within the Room of Requirement by Fiendfyre. Another piece of his soul gone. His control was fraying. He ordered Snape to his side in the Shrieking Shack, his paranoia now fixated on the Elder Wand's perceived failure to perform to its full potential for him.
Corvus then experienced one of the most pivotal moments: Voldemort's murder of Severus Snape. He felt Voldemort's cold, mistaken belief that Snape was the true master of the Elder Wand and that by killing him, he would gain its full allegiance. He also received, in that instant, Voldemort's contemptuous dismissal of Snape's dying plea for him to look at Harry – a plea whose true significance was utterly lost on the Dark Lord. The amplified echo of Snape's final thoughts, as perceived by Voldemort, was a chaotic mess, but Corvus, with his own intellect, pieced together the tragic tapestry of Snape's loyalty to Lily Potter and Dumbledore.
Then came Harry Potter's brave, solitary walk into the Forbidden Forest, his willingness to sacrifice himself. Corvus felt Voldemort's unholy glee, his absolute conviction that he was about to achieve his ultimate triumph. He experienced the Killing Curse striking Potter, the boy falling like a puppet with cut strings. Voldemort's triumphant roar of victory echoed in Corvus's mind, a raw, primal sound of perceived absolute power. He felt the Dark Lord's examination of Potter's "corpse," his casual Cruciatus Curses on the unresisting body, his complete failure to understand the true nature of what had just occurred – that by using Harry's blood in his rebirthing ritual, he had tethered Harry to life while he himself lived, and that by striking Harry with the Killing Curse, he had destroyed the accidental Horcrux within the boy, not Harry himself.
The subsequent procession back to the castle, with Hagrid carrying Potter's supposedly dead body, Voldemort's arrogant monologue, Neville Longbottom's defiant stand, and the destruction of Nagini by Neville's Gryffindor-sword-wielding hand – Corvus experienced it all. With Nagini's death, he felt the final Horcrux, save Voldemort's own tattered main soul piece, extinguish. Voldemort's amplified terror and rage at this ultimate violation were cataclysmic. He was mortal.
The final duel in the Great Hall between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort was, for Corvus, the culmination of a lifetime of one-sided observation. He felt Voldemort's fury, his disbelief as his curses failed to harm Potter, his complete inability to grasp the deeper magic at play – the Elder Wand's true allegiance to Harry (having disarmed Draco, who had disarmed Dumbledore), Lily's lingering protection, and his own fatally flawed understanding of power.
"Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort shrieked, pouring all his remaining power, all his hatred, into the green bolt.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry Potter countered, his spell simple, honest, fueled by conviction.
Corvus felt the collision of magics, the Elder Wand refusing to kill its true master, Voldemort's own Killing Curse rebounding upon him with absolute, final force.
In that instant, the universe inside Corvus Blackwood's mind shattered.
The connection, the thrum, the lifelong multiplier that had bound his magical perception to Tom Riddle's, snapped with the violence of a dying star. There was no amplified pain this time, no echo of a spirit fleeing. There was only an absolute, profound, and utterly deafening silence. Voldemort's consciousness, his magic, his very existence – simply ceased. The final, tattered fragment of Tom Riddle's soul was gone, extinguished forever.
Corvus gasped, a hand flying to his chest, not from pain, but from the sheer, sudden emptiness. It was as if a sixth sense he had possessed his entire life had been abruptly, irrevocably amputated. The world felt… muted, smaller, devoid of the constant, complex undercurrent of another's powerful, dark magic.
A final, massive wave of residual knowledge washed over him – the dying echoes of Voldemort's shattered mind, the last dregs of his arcane understanding, the ultimate confirmation of his Horcruxes' destruction, and the mechanics of his final undoing. It was a chaotic, fragmented data dump, but Corvus's mind, honed by decades of processing such information, absorbed and began to catalogue it with practiced efficiency.
He stood in his laboratory, the newly created Philosopher's Stone pulsing gently on its plinth, the Blackwood Sentinels standing silent guard. Lord Voldemort was dead. Truly, finally, irrevocably dead.
A slow, thoughtful expression settled on Corvus's features. The primary, if involuntary, source of his accelerated learning for over sixty years was gone. The dark gift had run its course. What remained was the colossal edifice of knowledge he had built, the unparalleled power he had cultivated, and the secure, unassailable future he had forged for his House.
The wizarding world would celebrate, heal, and rebuild under a new Ministry, likely led by Kingsley Shacklebolt. Harry Potter would be lauded as the savior he undoubtedly was. Dumbledore's complex, sacrificial plans had come to fruition.
Corvus Blackwood, Lord of an ancient and neutral House, Master Alchemist, and perhaps the most knowledgeable and secretly powerful wizard left alive, felt a profound sense of… completion. He had his Stone. He had his Sentinels. His family was safe. His House was secure for generations to come. He was beholden to no one, his power his own, his secrets inviolate.
The great, terrible game he had observed from his unique vantage point was over. A new era was dawning. And Corvus Blackwood, the silent scholar of a Dark Lord's rise and fall, would shape his own destiny, and that of his House, with the wisdom and power he had so uniquely, and so secretly, acquired. The silence in his mind was vast, but it was not empty. It was filled with the quiet hum of his own immense, self-made power, ready for whatever the future might bring.