Hermione straightened in her seat, trying to keep her voice from wavering. "Yes, Professor. Last year I went to Egypt with my family."
Corvus tilted his head, his tone measured. "The Muggle side, most likely. The pyramids through tourist guides, the museums with plaques in English."
Hermione blinked, then nodded slowly.
"Tell me, Miss Granger," Corvus continued evenly, "Egypt today is heavily influenced by one of the Abrahamic faiths with Coptic and north African cultural impressions. Did you ask the locals why they dislike British habits? Did you demand to know why they do not live according to European customs, why they do not eat as you eat or speak as you speak?"
Hermione frowned, a little defensive. "No, Professor. Why should I? It is their country, with their own traditions, customs, and culture."
One eyebrow arched, Corvus let a faint smile tug at his lips. "Oh? And what makes you think that we, residents of the wizarding world do not also have our own customs, traditions, and culture? What gives you or anyone else in your… situation, the right to spit on a sacred rite of ours? Look around you." He gestured toward the half finished, garish decorations strung across the Great Hall. Paper bats, pumpkins and orange streamers, childish mockery. "This parody of Samhain is a perfect example. A sacred night reduced to a costume party."
Hermione's lips parted, but Corvus raised his hand before she could speak. His voice dropped, heavy with conviction. "You are a witch born to Muggles, Miss Granger. Fortunate enough that Mother Magic has graced you with this gift. Instead of reverence, you sneer. Instead of respect, you trivialize. Let us then return to your question. Do I hate Muggles? Allow me to answer with the words of a great wizard, whose speech still unsettles rotten among us."
His eyes swept across the hall, his voice clear and resonant as he quoted slowly, each phrase deliberate: "It is said that I hate le Non magiques. The Muggle. The No Maj. The Can't Spells. I do not hate them; I do not. For I do not fight out of hatred. I believe that the Muggles are not lesser, but other. Not worthless, but of other value. Not disposable, but of different disposition. Magic blooms only in rare souls. It is granted to those who live for higher things. Oh, and what a world we could make for all humanity..."
The words settled like lead in the Great Hall. Several older students, Slytherins and Ravenclaws mostly, shifted in their seats. Some exchanged furtive glances, clearly recognizing the source. Whispers rose, uneasy and sharp, swelling until they sounded like a restless tide. Across the staff table, Flitwick's brow furrowed, Pomona's eyes widened in dismay, and Snape leaned forward, a thin smirk playing on his lips as if savoring the chaos on one hand and blaming the black for the need to be the center of attention. Even Quirrell, his absurd turban shadowing his expression, was watching with hungry interest, fingers twitching slightly on the table.
But it was Dumbledore's reaction that stilled the room. He had risen quietly, his eyes no longer twinkling. His face was unreadable, though those closest to him noticed the faint tightening of his jaw. In his thoughts, the words thundered: How dare the boy wield Gellert's rhetoric so brazenly, here, in front of the children. How dare he... It was as though the past had crawled out of Nurmengard and laid itself across the Hogwarts floor.
Corvus, unperturbed by the weight of the silence, turned back to Hermione. His gaze was unrelenting. "Consider this carefully, Miss Granger. You have traveled to a new world. The world of magic. Are you here as a tourist, who disrespects and mocks what she does not understand? Or will you choose to live here, to settle, to adapt to its ways and its truths?" His voice sharpened, his disdain now plain as he gestured once more toward the muggle decorations. "This question is not only for you, but for every person who dares spit on our traditions and call it celebration."
He paused, letting his eyes sweep the hall, pinning students beneath the weight of his words. The Slytherins sat with thin, satisfied smiles; the Hufflepuffs exchanged worried looks; the Gryffindors bristled, torn between pride and shame. Even the ghosts of the four house seemed to lean forward. His final question cracked like a whip, cutting through the uneasy silence: "Tell me, Miss Granger, why do you hate wizardkin?"
---
The Great Hall fell into a heavy silence, the kind that seemed to press down on every shoulder. Corvus' words hung in the air like a blade. He let the quiet stretch before continuing, his voice calm but sharp as steel.
"You, and all who share your mindset, who sneer at our ways, who call our culture archaic, barbaric, backwards. What do you imagine would have happened to you if our world had not opened its gates to you? Do you think your so called modern and civilized muggle society would have welcomed you with open arms? Think, Miss Granger. Think carefully. When my ancestors were shaping the very bones of the earth with magic, muggles were selling one another in chains based on their skin color. When my kin crafted potions to heal the gravest of wounds, muggles were lighting pyres to burn those they called witches. Ask yourself, who here clung to superstition?"
He swept his hand toward the ghosts drifting along the tables. The Bloody Baron with his hollow stare, the Grey Lady's melancholy form, Nearly Headless Nick's half severed grin, and the Fat Friar beaming softly despite the tension. "Do they look like superstition to you?" he asked, his tone cutting but steady.
No one dared answer. Not a whisper stirred among the students, not even from the usual Gryffindor troublemakers. Even the faculty held their silence, though their faces betrayed a mix of discomfort and thoughtfulness. Snape's lip curled in something that might have been satisfaction, Flitwick frowned in deep contemplation, and Dumbledore's eyes had lost their habitual twinkle, replaced by something hard and watchful.
Corvus turned back to Hermione, his composure never faltering. "Does that satisfy your curiosity on your baseless accusation, Miss Granger?"
She swallowed, cheeks burning, and nodded once. "Yes, Professor Black. Thank you."
He inclined his head briefly, then turned on his heel and left the hall without another word. One by one, the entirety of Slytherin House rose to follow him out, their robes whispering against the flagstones. Half of Ravenclaw soon did the same, and a scattering of Hufflepuffs and even a few Gryffindors trailed after, leaving behind a hall divided by silence and unease.
The days that followed carried the weight of that night. Corvus' reputation hardened further: to some, he was a defender of tradition and dignity; to others, a dangerous reminder of the old blood supremacies. Yet none could deny the force of his presence or the facts he put forth.
It was during one of these tense afternoons in the Great Hall, as students ate their lunch, that Ronald Weasley finally snapped as he was called bloodtraitor.. again for the umpteenth time that day alone. He leapt to his feet, freckles standing out starkly against his flushed skin, and pointed at Hermione across the table.
"You!" he barked. "You're the reason dark wizards get away with it! You gave them an excuse, parading about like you're better than them. You're nothing but a collaborator for Death Eaters!"
There was a correcting force, Corvus noticed. As Weasley was not able to upset the muggleborn girl with the drama of a levitation charm, that correction forced another way to the same outcome. He wondered How will the Potter enter this frey.
Gasps rippled across the hall. Even Gryffindors stared at him as though he'd grown a second head. Hermione froze, tears threatening to spill, while whispers surged like wildfire. McGonagall's fury was immediate. She stormed over, robes billowing, and in a voice as sharp as a whip declared, "Twenty points from Gryffindor for disgraceful conduct toward a fellow student!"
Corvus, sitting alone, gasped in fainted shock, "Twenty points! How would her house will ever come back from such devestation."
Truly twenty points meant nothing. Gryffindor's hourglass was already barren, a hollow vessel of failure. The punishment was a formality, and everyone knew it. Hermione fled, head bowed, vanishing through the doors toward the girls' lavatory. A few sympathetic eyes followed her, but none dared intervene.
From the staff table, Corvus watched with expressionless calm. His hand dipped into his pocket, withdrawing the folded parchment of his improved map. He laid it flat upon the table, eyes narrowing as inked names scurried across the surface. He confirmed that Granger wen to the lavatory. He hissed softly in Parseltongue, the sibilant syllables curling through the air. At once, the map turned blank, obedient to his command. He folded it shut and slipped it back into his pocket, eyes glinting. The game was moving into its next act.
---
The student body gathered in the Great Hall for dinner, and the contrast in the room was stark. Half of the hall glowed under bright, gaudy Halloween decorations. Pumpkins with carved grins, bats charmed to flutter overhead, and floating candles shaped like cartoonish skulls. The other half stood bare, its long tables untouched, stripped of what many of the older students considered a mockery. Ravenclaws and Slytherins, beginning with their upper years, had quietly removed the "Muggle inspired nonsense," as one seventh year Slytherin had muttered, leaving their side of the hall dignified and solemn. The Gryffindors and most of the Hufflepuffs left their tables decorated, though a scattering of students two sixth year Puffs among them, chose instead to sit beside their Slytherin yearmates in silent solidarity. Between the Ravenclaw and Slytherin tables stood a small, narrow table, bare save for flickering candles. A symbolic altar for the departed, the traditional table of Samhain.
When Corvus entered, the hall rippled with murmurs: "Heir Black," "Professor Black." He inclined his head in acknowledgment, his expression calm, before moving to his usual place beside Flitwick. Conversation stilled when the dinner began, silence weighing heavier than the enchanted ceiling overhead.
Then the heavy oak doors slammed open, echoing like thunder. Professor Quirrell stumbled in, panting heavily. His ridiculous turban sat askew, sweat gleaming on his pale brow. "T.. Troll," he stammered, his voice shrill and broken. "Troll in the d.. dungeons!" With a dramatic gasp, he pitched forward in a fake faint. The hall erupted in chaos. Shouts, gasps, and frightened whispers bouncing off the walls.
"Silence!" Dumbledore's voice cracked like a whip, his arms spread wide. The Headmaster's presence imposed order as he commanded prefects to escort their Houses back to their common rooms. "You will all return to your common rooms immediately. Prefects, organize your students."
A soft chuckle, deliberate and clear, cut through the hush that followed. Heads turned. Corvus had not moved from his seat. His eyes gleamed faintly with amusement.
"Professor Black?" Dumbledore said, the mildness of his tone failing to hide the edge of rebuke.
"Oh, do continue, Headmaster," Corvus drawled smoothly, leaning back in his chair. "I would very much like to hear your reasoning. A rogue troll is loose in the castle, and your solution is to scatter students into the corridors? Truly inspired." His tone, calm yet cutting, echoed in the silent hall. Then his eyes narrowed, voice sharpening. "And have you also noticed, Headmaster, that Slytherin's common room lies in the exact direction the troll was said to be? If I were not so certain of the purity of your heart, I might suspect you were arranging a convenient… encounter."
Gasps rippled through the hall like a cold wind. Faces paled; some students glanced at Dumbledore with unease, others with open suspicion and hostility. The tension was sharp enough to taste.
At the Gryffindor table, Harry Potter frowned, scanning the benches. His sharp green eyes searched, then settled with a start. Hermione wasn't there. One of the girls leaned toward him and whispered, "She's in the lavatory… since Weasley..."
Harry's jaw tightened. He couldn't just sit there. Hermione reminded him, in an odd way, of himself. Isolated, trying too hard, bearing the weight of being different. He stood from his bench and slipped away silently. No prefect noticed.
But Ron Weasley did. His face flushed, torn between stubborn guilt and a strange desire to be friend of the boy-who-lived, Ron scrambled up and hurried after Harry, vanishing into the shadows of the corridor. Just as the debate between Dumbledore and Corvus simmered to a dangerous boil behind them.