The schism at Hogwarts did not end with Samhain. It settled into habit. At meals the house tables showed fault lines that did not match the banners. Blocks of students drifted to sit beside friends from other houses. Ravenclaws gained the most. Griffindor lost more than pride.
Potter chose his ground. He sat mostly with Ravenclaws and a few Hufflepuffs who liked quiet and books. He kept his back straight and his elbows in. He stood when a professor addressed him and he used surnames unless invited otherwise. The older students noticed first. Then the rest.
Granger did not like the change one bit. She wanted the book he was reading, thinking it was the reason. When he refused, she threatened to take the issue to Professor McGonagall. His answer was very polite. He advised her to do what she thought was best. She left in a huff and spent the next hour telling anyone who would listen that Harry Potter was reading an illegal book. He did not care enough answer. Soon though he was going to teach her magic was alive. with some hints from Corvus of course.
Weasley had a different complaint. He did not care about books. He cared that Potter no longer laughed at the same jokes and no longer sat at the same places. The new posture, the old names for the holy days, the way Potter called him Weasley in the common room, all of it made him itch. After the incident with Professor Black, which he used to call brat at least in his own mind. Now though, he could not even call the man a dark wizard in his own head. It took the fun out of things. He and the twins kept trying anyway. It ended in more detentions.
Filch had the pleasure of most of them. McGonagall took her share. Snape took his. The twins lost their edge. They were caught twice in one week by staff who used to roll their eyes and look away. The common room stopped clapping when pranks landed. The nickname that stuck was not prankster. It was detentionee.
Potter's days turned simple. He woke before the others and read in the common room where the fire burned. He practiced the forms from Wizarding Etiquette. How to sit. How to stand. How to turn a corner without looking like a lost tourist. How to hold a quill and keep ink where it belongs. In class he kept his questions short and his notes neat. At meals he tried not to wince when someone said Christmas in a voice that made it sound like a charm. He was changing for the better and the process was fast.
The book made other things clear. Wizards and Muggles did not quarrel because they were confused. They quarrelled because their worlds did not fit. He had looked up the lines that drove it home. 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'. He read the commentaries. He read other creeds and other laws. The polite words changed. The edge did not. He did not hate Muggles. He did not think wizards were saints. He did think that mixing the two was a dream for people who liked to wake up disappointed. Past, present, and what comes next all said the same thing.
On the morning of the break a small package waited beside a neat stack of cards. He did not open it. He levitated it with a careful charm and tucked it in his trunk. He had learned enough to know that 'gifts' can bite. It could contain any spell or compulsion. He was not the naive idiot he once was.
He worked through the cards and letters. One from Professor Flitwick with a note about a charm to practice. One scold from McGonagall that read like praise if you tilted it. One from Hagrid that mentioned rock cakes and did not mention anything that mattered. He set that one aside. He was feeling anger towards the polite half giant. It was because of him he was wearing the colors of Griffindor and not the green and silver of Slytherin.
One package had a writing he knew. Sharp curves. Black ink cut thin. He broke the seal. Inside was a short letter and a wrapped holster. The leather fit his wand like it had been measured on the stick. The letter was shorter than the holster.
Potter,
Yule is the old turn of the year. Sunrise is late, sunset is early and the dark is honest about what it is. We mark it with green boughs, beeswax candles, and a quiet room. At midnight, stand and be still for one minute. Think of what you owe and what you guard. Then light a single candle and say nothing more. Some houses tie a ribbon to the holly and keep it until the equinox. If you light a second candle, make it for the dead.
Do not show the holster in class unless you enjoy attention. Wear it all the times you are awake and practice with it unless you want your wand to fly off your hand. The quill is a tail feather from a shadow raven. It will dry fast and it will not blot. Treat it like a living thing and it will last a decade.
Learn the forms. Learn the words. You are a wizard. Act like one.
C. Black
Beneath the letter lay a long feather as black as midnight. The black parts was shimmering like the night sky. It had a faint sheen under the window light and sat heavy for its size. Later that day a Ravenclaw sixth year leaned over, whistled low, and offered fifty galleons for it. Potter shook his head. A gift from kin was not for sale.
He spent the next hour copying passages from Wizarding Etiquette with his new quill. The lines came out clean. No blotting. No smears.
Weasley came by once and tried again. "You coming to Christmas, Harry. Mum is making pudding."
"Yule," Potter said. "And I have work."
Weasley stared as if the word itself were an insult. "You are turning into Malfoy."
"I am turning into myself," Potter answered, and went back to his page.
Granger tried a different approach. "You cannot sit there," she said at lunch when he took a seat at the Ravenclaw table.
"Surprisignly, I am sitting," he said. "I would have invited you as well if you were not the disturbing witch you are."
"You can not talk to me like.." she started getting angrier by the second.
"Go away girl." One upper year cut her rant, getting annoyed by her constat nagging, and passed the salt to Potter who nodded shortly with a silent thank you.
By evening a second envelope was waiting under his pillow. The script was strong and careful. The name on it, Alice Longbottom.
He held it a long moment before he broke the seal.
--
Corvus felt as if he could breathe for the first time since his transmigration. A year. A year since the end of one life and the start of another. He counted what the year held. Exams succeded. Chairs moved. Plans planted. Fires tended. It had been busy. It would not slow. He had a few days before the next turn of the wheel. He chose to spend some of the hours in Little Hangleton.
The Gaunt shack waited on its hill. He had argued with himself about what to leave and what to take. In the end he kept the traps as they were. The ring kept its curse as well. Sentiment has its uses after all. Some relics deserve to bite the hand that reaches for them.
Knowledge makes arrogance easy. Slytherin's Locket had given him a map of the old wards. Hufflepuff's Cup had given him the method to thread and unthread the traps set in ward stones. Between the two there was no puzzle left in the shack that he could not solve.
He used fire travel to the edge of the village. The air was damp. The lanes were quiet. He followed the memories he had and the wards he could feel around him. Parseltongue formed the bones of the place. England treats the language like a stain. India does not. In India a speaker of snake tongue heals bones and blood. He made a note to talk with Arcturus and bring in two parselmouth healers he had heard so much of. Put results in the public eye and a taboo will crack in a month.
The shack was what the name promised. A roof that sagged. A door that did not sit right. Glass like dirty teeth in the windows. He tasted the wards and spoke the counters in a low hiss. Layers unhooked. A last thread flickered and went still.
The ring sat on a stone table as if it had been placed there that morning. The setting caught the dim light in a dull way. The stone itself did not shine. It drew the eye anyway. He did not touch it.
He draw a circle with care. Three rings. Bind, separate, contain. Four anchors marked with sigils to keep the flow steady. Incantation spoken in an old cadence to wake the net and tell it what to hold. He kept his voice even and his mind still.
The shard rose like smoke pulled from damp wood. It peeled itself from the ring with a ragged sound and tried to escape. The circle did not let it. It shrieked. It failed. He guided the thread to himself and took it in slow. Cold and sharp. Memory flared. A boy mocked under this very roof by his blood. A man with red eyes and a laugh that had no heat. A slight magical power settled in his limbs the way winter settles on a field. He breathed and sighed as the job was nearly done.
When the last of it had gone, the circle dimmed. He lifted the ring with a charm that never let his skin near the metal. A second set of lines bloomed around the setting. He teased the stone free without a touch. It dropped into his palm with the weight of something older than the house that hid it. Transfiguring a pebble to the exact shape and letting it stay where the original was took seconds. The transfigured copy will hold for years with how much magic he channeled in it.
He studied the ring, then spoke new bindings into the old curse. Stronger. Meaner. A lesson dressed as a trinket. The next greedy hand would learn something about reach and about price.
He walked the room and scrubbed his signature from every corner. The shack smelled of wet dust and old breath again. He set the wards back with the same hiss that had opened them and then thickened two of the outer lines so that the place would not tip over in a strong wind.
Outside, he held the stone a long moment. The pull was clear. Names walked the edge of his thoughts. He closed his fist and tucked it into a pouch that did not open without blood and a spoken key. No experiments today. Not here anyway.
Three down. The locket and the cup in hand. The ring cleared and left to bite. The diary would move soon. He can pull Lucius' leash. The diadem was safe for now in the castle. He would wrap it in fog and shift its place at the end of the term. That would leave the snake and the boy. The last two pieces would require care and patience. He had both.
He turned once and looked back at the shack. A mean place. A useful one. He stepped into flame and was gone before the wind could rattle the door.
--
Arcturus waited in his room on the first floor of the Ministry, a file open and a clock ticking toward ten. Today was for housekeeping of the sharp kind. Lords Avery and Selwyn had been summoned.
At the stroke of ten the knock came. Both men entered together. They inclined their heads.
"Minister Black."
Arcturus returned the nod. "Welcome. Sit. We have work."
They took the chairs in front of his desk. Arcturus did not waste the first minute.
"There are laws that must be amended and others that must be enforced as they were written. Corruption has burrowed into departments and into habits. I intend to pull it out by the roots. I also intend to review trial files from the last war, in particular the cases that relied on the Imperius defence."
The words were quiet. The meaning was not.
Avery folded his hands and tried to look harmless. Selwyn kept his eyes on the grain of the desk.
"You will prepare drafts to repeal or trim the measures our Chief Warlock has shepherded through this chamber over the last two decades. I want those drafts before the next sitting of the Wizengamot. In return I may choose to delay my inspection of certain files. I may even forget where they are for a season if the work is done with care."
Silence held for a count of three. Then both men nodded.
Arcturus turned his gaze to Selwyn. "You will also arrange a meeting with our new Lord Rosier. You and your circle allowed a nameless upstart to brand you like cattle. It will be discussed. It will be addressed."
A muscle jumped along Selwyn's jaw. He nodded again.
"One more thing," Arcturus said. "Not a whisper of this leaves this room. I will have your vows now."
They rose without protest. Wands to palms. Old words spoken. Magic took hold with the small click a good lock makes.
"Good," Arcturus said. "You may go."
They made their bows and left. The door closed on their heels.
Arcturus sat a moment and let the quiet collect. He remembered when each bench of the chamber held men and women who could stand a storm without bending. Rivals with iron in their backs. Charlus Potter among them. They had gone for each other's throats across the rail and then shared a drink when the gavel fell. Even after Charlus married Dorea, which he did not liked even an ounce, there had been respect and force on both sides. It had been a fight worth having.
He looked down at his notes and shook his head. Now the benches were loud and thin. A circus in good robes.
His thoughts slipped to the mark that still sat on too many forearms. There was leverage in it. There was risk in it. Corvus would find a way to turn the thing into an advantage or excise it cleanly. The boy.. he corrected himself. The young man was the best ritualist Arcturus had seen. He had the patience to lay a net and the will to pull it tight.
He closed the file, rang for the next appointment, and allowed himself one small smile before the door opened again.