Potter fetched the nameless parcel from his dorm and walked to the quiet corridor that held Heir Black's rooms. He knocked once and waited. A house elf in a neat butler's uniform opened the door and gestured for him to follow.
The first thing he saw inside was a glass terrarium set opposite the entry. A green snake lay along a branch like a ribbon placed by a careful hand. The leaves made its scales look as if they had grown there. Potter could not name the species, nor he knew if it was magical or mundane. What he knew though, it was beautiful. The slit pupils found him and held a moment. The serpent flicked its tongue and turned its head away.
A raven on the top rail gave a short caw that sounded like a remark. Umbra, was the name. 'Best wingman one could ask for' was what Heir Black told him. Potter lifted his hand in a small, awkward wave. The bird tilted its head as if accepting it.
Heir Black sat on the sofa and pointed to the armchair opposite. Potter crossed the room and sat.
"Thank you for agreeing to meet in a notice,"
"A short notice," Corvus corrected, with a small smile.
"A short notice," Potter repeated, a little red in the face.
"You are most welcome, Heir Potter," Corvus said. "How is the etiquette work settling into your daily life."
"It helps," Was the answer. "I stand straighter. I wait to be asked to sit. I'm always polite and think before speaking. Though, some people in my house do not like it. They say I act different. I am trying to do it right, I am a wizard after all not a muggle."
"Good," Corvus said. "Etiquette is a shield first and a language second. It keeps you steady when others are not."
Tibby served the tea and set the cups. The room felt calm.
"So," Corvus continued after taking a sip, "how may I be of assistance."
Potter set the wrapped parcel on the low table. "This arrived during the Yule break, I had cards and your letter and gifts. Thank you. The holster fits perfectly. I do not know why Hagrid did not tell me to buy one. There was also another letter. I want to ask what to do with this package first and I want to ask about Alice Longbottom. She says she is my godmother."
Corvus's wand was in his hand before Potter finished. A run of diagnostic charms fell one after the other so smoothly they looked like one spell. The paper shimmered, flickered and cleared. He already knew what sat on the table and who had sent it, but the forms mattered.
"You may open it," he said.
Potter peeled the paper back with care. Cloth the colour of deep water caught the light and seemed to drink it. The air in the room felt a little thinner for a heartbeat.
"An Invisibility Cloak," Corvus said.
"There is a note," Potter pointed. He smartly, did not touched the slip beside the Cloak. "Can you teach me the spells you used on the parcel, Heir Black."
"Of course," Corvus nodded. "We start with a general reveal, then a charm that lists foreign magics. The runic residue work is advanced. You will learn it later." He guided Potter through the wand work. On the second try the turns were right. On the third the cast had the weight it should.
Potter swept the charms over the note and frowned. "There is something wrong," he said. "It feels.. not right. I do not know how to describe it."
"Trust that feeling," said Corvus and levitated the card. "It is a compulsion in the parchment. It nudges you to do what it asks without thinking."
Potter drew his hand back from the slip as if it was fire.
"Now try the Cloak," Corvus said.
The boy breathed out and cast. Nothing showed. He tried again, stronger. Still nothing he could read. He lowered his wand. "I do not understand," he said.
"Things of real power do not speak easily," Corvus said. He aimed his wand over the fabric. "Diagnostic. Residue. Trace. Integrity." The Cloak gave back only a whisper. He raised the strength by a notch, then another. The whisper sharpened.
"There," he said. "A tracking charm, tied in very carefully. The note is meant to put you under the Cloak and push you to go out with it. The charm rides the fabric while you walk and reports where you are to the person who put it there."
"Can we clean the note first," Potter asked.
"We can." Corvus bled the compulsion out and floated the slip across.
Potter read aloud. "Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well."
Corvus looked at the Cloak. "It may be a family heirloom. I am willing to buy or trade it, Heir Potter. In return I will provide you with another invisibility cloak. Additionally, you may choose galleons or private lessons."
Potter's fingers tightened once on his knee. "I would like the lessons," he said.
"Detention, Mr Potter," Corvus said, and there was a hint of humour in it. "You will report to Potions after dinner on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays until the end of term."
Potter blinked, then smiled. "Of course, Professor."
"How should I proceed now," he asked.
"You will ignore the note," Corvus said. "Your new cloak will arrive tomorrow. In the meantime you will act as if you have not opened the package. Now think before you answer. This is a Potter heirloom. If you are certain, state your intent clearly when you hand it over."
Potter looked at the Cloak as if it might speak. He has nothing left of his family, so one cloak was not going to change that fact. In addition it was tampered with. He lifted his chin. "I, Harry Potter, give this cloak, which is a Potter heirloom, to Corvus Black in exchange for private lessons given as detentions."
Corvus inclined his head once, formal and satisfied. "Good. We will talk about Lady Longbottom next."
--
Arcturus Black was enjoying the best stretch of his long career. The new bills moved from draft to clean parchment, tidy and sharp. Land agents worked from dawn, buying wide tracts well away from Muggle roads and lights. Corvus had argued for settlements built by and for wizardkind, and Arcturus agreed. Fewer collisions. Fewer compromises. Stronger wards. Clear lines of authority.
Inside the Ministry he cleared names from doorplates without ceremony. Budgets were cut where coin had gone to favourites, then raised where work had gone hungry. Trade desks were staffed with clerks who knew how to count and how to read a ledger that did not lie. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement received proper coin and a mandate to professionalise. Training, equipment, recruitment. Standards would rise or uniforms would be turned in.
Two of the most important bills on his desk concerned werewolves and vampires. For decades they were pushed to the edges and then blamed for living there. Arcturus wanted that to end. The bills offered licensed settlements with strong ward perimeters, Potion stipends tied to verified brews, work charters with guild oversight, and a clear path to civil contracts. In return the Ministry would receive disciplined auxiliaries who could be called in crisis under DMLE command. Not pets. Not outlaws. Trained units with pay and rules, a place to live, and a reason to hold the line. It would cost gold, but gold had been found, and order was cheap at the price.
He allowed himself a small smile. Selwyn and Avery were useful when pointed at parchment instead of people. They would do what he wanted before the next sitting. If they failed, he would find others.
--
Far from the Ministry, Albus Dumbledore broke the blue seal of a letter and felt his jaw loosen. Nicolas Flamel had written at last. The old alchemist agreed to receive and tutor Corvus Black for one month. A private course. No fee. Albus weighed the manner of delivery. To hand the letter to the young man himself meant another room filled with air that did not move. To send an elf showed courtesy without conversation. He chose the elf.
He sat back and stared at the ceiling. The castle did not feel like his castle lately. He should have argued to keep the boy at Durmstrang instead of bringin him. Every hour the young professor remained under his roof, something tilted that ought to have stayed level. The avalanche had started in the Wizengamot and gathered speed. Arcturus held the votes and held them with a bare hand. No velvet. No silk. The old wolf had always seen through him.
Albus rubbed his temples. Hogwarts felt like a smaller chamber of the same war. Another Black walked the corridors and the school shifted to his pace. That was the thought in his head when the little silver needle on his desk moved. The tracker stirred. A thin whisper of magic ran across the instrument and drew a line from the Gryffindor common room toward the stairs.
He smiled. The parcel had been opened. The note had been read. The boy was moving under the Cloak. There are days when the world remembers how to behave, he thought. All that remained was to reach the unused class where the mirror was and wait.
He rang for an elf and held out the Flamel letter. "For Professor Black," he said. "Put it in his hand." The elf nodded and vanished with a soft pop.
Albus rose in a better mood than he had worn in weeks. He took his wand, adjusted his robe, and left his office. The needle on the instrument had shown the right movement, he allowed himself the pleasure of certainty. He would stand by the mirror. The boy would come. The lesson would be gentle, and the boy would remember who warned him first and who forgave him after.
He did not know that the line on the needle told only part of a truth. It stopped moving while was still stepping down the stairs.
--
Rufus Scrimgeour was standing outside an Azkaban cell again. He let the cold bite through his sleeve. Sea spray hung in the air. Far down the gantry a Dementor drifted, slow as a falling leaf. From inside the door came a sound that could not choose a shape. Laughter. Then a cackle. Then a child's thin sob. Then nothing at all.
"Bellatrix Lestrange, stand. Hands out." His voice stayed level. She did not move. He tried again. Stillness. On the third call she turned her head. For a breath her eyes found him. Then they slid away.
She rose as if pulled on strings. One shoulder hit the wall. A foot dragged, then skipped, then stamped. She lacked natural rhythm of movement. When her hands came forward he clipped the iron on and felt the bite of the locking rune through his glove. His wand was already in his palm. "Walk."
They took the stairs in a slow spiral. Twice she jolted sideways as if some other pair of hands had shoved her. Twice he steadied her without thinking. At the quay he lifted his wand. The little boat pushed off. Wind worried the hem of her prison dress. She giggled at nothing and shivered when the air went colder as the black shapes passed.
The crossing ended. Stone underfoot again. The ledger took his name and the time. A turn in place, a pull through the dark, and Ministry brick wrapped around them. In the holding cell he stunned and levitated her to a bench. He raised a hand to the pair waiting in grey healer robes.
Chairs scraped. The senior wands moved constatnly. Diagnostic charms cast again and again. A dicta quill recorded their findings. After a while his colleague lifted one eyelid with a thumb. Both men leaned in and whispered with their wands in their hands, "Legilimens."
The room tightened. Minutes stacked into quarters. Once her lips moved, forming a word that had no sound. The younger healer flinched and steadied. At last they broke away together, drawing breath as if they had surfaced from too deep a dive.
Rufus kept her stunned and locked the cell. The trio moved towards the Director's office. He knocked once. The command came immediatly as Madame Bones was waiting for that moment. "Enter."
Amelia Bones had a single folder open and a clean sheet beside it. She pointed to the chairs. "Report."
The senior healer rubbed his temple before he spoke. "Two patterns, Director. Not a ruse. Not simple madness. The original personality is present. Bellatrix Black knows what has been done with her hands. She watches it and cannot stop it. What moves the body is a construct bound to the marriage articles. It answers to the name Lestrange."
His colleague set his wand down with care. "The contract is not a metaphor. It is a lattice of compulsion. Rodolphus Lestrange holds her life between his lips. He can literally tell her to die and her heart will stop."
Amelia's mouth thinned. "Can you hold her?"
"Yes. A simple Coma Curse will hold her stable. At least that way she will not suffer. No visitors. No contact with anyone who has ever served under Who He Must Not Be Named. We can keep the construct quiet for now. To remove it we will need nullification of the original contract. After that, mind healing and Aetherveil to repair the damage and vanish the last fifteen years of her life."
Rufus shifted his weight. "She was… wrong on her feet," he offered. "As if two souls were fighting over her body. One laughs. One begs. It changes as fast as a blink."
Amelia nodded once. "Your observation is noted. You will remain lead on custody. No one goes near her without your consent or theirs." She tapped the empty sheet with her finger. "I want your notes in affidavit form before you leave the building. Names, dates, the phrase 'terminal clause' in plain ink, and a copy for the Minister's docket."
The senior healer folded his hands. "We will draft it now. One more point, Director. If the contract get nullified, the compulsion will not simply fall away. There will be recoil. We will need time, at least a month and quiet to bring her to reality."
"You will have both." She closed the folder and looked past them to the wall, she wished she could have some private talk with the scum named Cygnus Black. May Mother Magic torment his soul forever she whispered as the healer were leaving.