Grigori Volkov sat in the old leather chair that had belonged to his father and his father before him. The study breathed winter even with the hearth lit. Snow pressed its face to the casement and slid down in slow sheets. Seven kinsmen stood in a half circle before the desk, boots damp, shoulders squared, eyes set. Volkovs did not slouch when they brought a report.
Grigori lifted a hand and the room stilled. Each in turn gave numbers and locations. Apartments in the river quarter ready within a week. A mill house outside Tver wards raised and stocked. The farm near Rybinsk now under notice, two families moved in already, three more on the road. He asked for names, not only counts. He asked for ages, skills, languages, and whether the children had been seen by a healer. Pens scratched. Memory chests opened. By the time the sixth finished, a steady shape had formed. Squibs gathered without noise. Papers arranged without a Ministry shadow. A web drawn tight and clean.
Vasily Volkov, last to speak, held the ledger as if it weighed more than oak and brass. He gave his totals without flourish, then closed the book and stayed standing when the others bowed out. The door shut on a draft that smelled of iron and smoke.
Grigori leaned back, fingers steepled. His gaze did not soften.
"Speak."
Vasily's jaw locked, then eased. He placed the ledger on the desk with care that bordered on defiance.
"I do not approve," he said at last. "Oksana does not approve either. This letter of intent. This boy. Corvus Black."
A corner of Grigori's mouth moved, not quite a smile.
"I doubt your wife has opposed, she has sense. You should try listening to her." He turned a page, then looked up again. "Tell me the true reason."
Vasily's hands curled once at his sides and opened again.
"He carries a name that ran with Gellert. I will not see my daughter tied to Black blood."
"The old argument," Grigori murmured. "Still breathing after all these years. How persistent foolishness can be." He closed the ledger with a soft thud. "I have watched him long enough and from close ground. He is not the echo you fear."
Vasily's chin lifted. "A name is not only sound. It is history."
"And history is a blade that cuts both ways," Grigori answered. "You hold it by the wrong edge and you bleed."
A knock came. Grigori's voice sharpened. "Enter."
Elizaveta stepped through in a winter dress of charcoal wool, hair caught at the nape with a ribbon the color of frost. Her face might have been carved from ice for all the room could read in it. She sank into a perfect curtsy.
"Grandfather. Father."
Grigori's hard lines broke for her. "Snowflake."
"I wish to send a letter to Corvus Black."
Grigori inclined his head. "Give it to me. I will see it delivered."
Vasily half stepped forward. "No." The word sharp enough to cut steel.
Elizaveta did not look at him. She placed a sealed envelope on the desk. "Thank you, Grandfather." She turned with the same poise and left.
Silence settled. The clock on the mantel clicked once and then again.
Grigori rose. The chair sighed as if relieved to be rid of him. He came around the desk and stood close enough that Vasily had to meet his eyes.
"You remain as irritating as ever," he said in a tone that would have passed for mild to anyone who did not know him. "Yet, I am not as patient as I was. Be careful with your temper, with your pride. You are not as safe as you think."
Grigori slipped the envelope into the inner pocket of his coat. He picked up the ledger, handed it to Vasily and moved past him to the door.
"See to the northern farm," he added without turning. "They will need wardstones before the thaw. Use the men from Rybinsk. They do not complain in the cold."
Vasily drew a breath. "Yes."
The door opened on another draft and closed behind the patriarch. The study felt larger and emptier at the same time. Vasily stood alone with the ledger under his hand and the taste of warning in his mouth. He looked at the chair and then at the window. For a moment he saw his daughter's face as it had been when she took her first steps on the parquet, all cheeks and light. The image broke same as the icicles falling down the windowsill.
In the corridor, Grigori's stride did not slow. He called for a runner, gave quiet instructions, and felt the wards answer as the messenger crossed the outer gate. The letter would be in London within days. The work in Moscow would go on. Squibs would have roofs and work. The old men in ICW would hear nothing until it was too late to hear anything useful at all.
He smiled without warmth and turned toward the next meeting. There were more lists to hear. There were more houses to fill. Muggles of Russia has build an empire on illegal trade. Hence there was a future to build for the wizardkin.
--
Amelia Bones read the report twice, then once more for the places where anger tried to fill the gaps that evidence already covered. Robards had done the work as he always did. Every page carried dates, names, intersections of Muggle and magical records, and the small, cold confirmations that make a prosecutor breathe slower. None of it leaked. All of it cut, deep enough to bleed.
A boy left on a doorstep in November. A squib across the street with a hearth open to a single name. School files that listed "accidents" and "discipline," then a nurse's notes about bruises and poorly healed breaks. Neighbours who remembered shouting. A cupboard under the stairs measured in inches. Every thread tied neatly to one office. Every monthly report went to the same pair of spectacles.
She poured a measure of firewhisky and did not drink it. Edgar laughed at her once for keeping good bottles on her desk. She tilted the glass, watched the amber catch the lamp, and set it down. Grief did not serve in rooms like this. Law did. She held the memory anyway. Edgar's hand on a map. A plan that relied on stunners against men who carved their names in bone. Terrorists with killing curses do not negotiate with the stunned. The old fury broke the surface, bright as a forge. Someone had taught children to meet knives with lace.
The name on Robards' routing lines waited at the top of her mind like a verdict written in chalk. Albus Dumbledore. The same hand that took credit for victories had signed for monthly missives about a child starved and beaten. The same voice that preached restraint had sent young men and women against masked murderers with rules that fit a classroom debate. She pressed her thumb to the paper until it left a pale mark. Revenge asked to be fed. Justice asked to be obeyed. She chose the second and promised the first its day. Shackles would do. He would wear them.
--
Across the castle, the instruments on Albus Dumbledore's desk pulsed and puffed. He watched them the way a man watches a kettle and expects it to boil out of respect. The cloak should have moved toward the West Tower. Feet should have followed. A boy should have stood before a mirror and asked for guidance he did not need. None of those things happened.
He paced the carpet, hands moving through empty air as if they held threads he could pull tight again. The boy landed himself in detention. As if not enough he ignored the compulsion of the letter. Dumbledore's mouth thinned. Patience was an art, and he was an artist when the canvas cooperated. Lately the paint refused the brush. The boy would look. He would look soon. He only needed a nudge and a quiet room. The mirror waited. So did Albus.
--
In the castle's North Wing, a dummy spun on its iron base and caught another red flash square on the chest. The impact drove it back two steps. The charm dissipated. Corvus extended a hand without looking up from the book he was reading.
"Again."
Harry drew breath, squared his shoulders, and raised his wand. The air snapped with another Expelliarmus. The dummy shuddered. Sweat gathered at his temple. He reset his stance and sent the charm again.
Tea steamed on a side table. Tibby refilled cups. Umbra watched from the mantel with a bright eye. Viridith coiled in his terrarium and flicked a tongue once. Corvus moved behind Harry and adjusted an elbow with two fingers.
"Hips under you." A nod toward the target. "Now."
The charm left the wand cleaner. Harry felt it. Confidence settled a fraction deeper. He held the line and worked until his wrist trembled. Corvus took the wand, ran a quiet diagnostic, and returned it to the boy's palm.
"Protego," came next. A barrage of stinging hexes rang off the shield in quick succession. The shimmer held. When it failed, it failed honestly, and Harry learned where. He rebuilt it. He learned the difference between panic and posture.
Between rounds, Corvus uncorked a vial and tilted it toward the light. The brew held the colour of new leaves.
"Nutrition and bone knit," he set the vials in order. "Then a tonic for the nerves. You drink them here. Unless you want me treak some of your bones again to set them correctly. Do not miss a dose."
Harry grimaced and swallowed. Warmth spread along his ribs and down his legs. The ache in his forearms backed away. He rolled a shoulder and blinked when it moved without the usual twinge. The scars on his back were gone. They had disappeared under a steady hand and a cool wand in minutes, as if shame could be erased by craftsmanship. He stood taller without noticing when it happened.
They sat for Occlumency after the last shield fell. Corvus closed his eyes and drew a slow breath. Harry mirrored him. The boy had picked a structure that fit his memories and not his fears. The zoo took shape more clearly now. Pens formed with clean gates. Paths laid themselves in straight lines. The snake house stood in a corner where light and shadow met.
"Walk it," Corvus tapped his own temple. "Walk it until your feet know the stones."
Harry did so. He set fences. He wrote labels for things he would not think about until he wanted to. He practiced shutting a gate and meant it. He held the doors closed when he imagined eyes on him. A pressure at the back of his mind tried the latch once. He recognized it. The feeling was no longer nameless. He turned his gaze away inside the exercise and watched the pressure ease.
"Eye contact starts it," Corvus rested a palm on the table. "Breaking it will break the connection. If you feel the pry, choose a wall, a shoe, a teacup, anything that is not a face and cut the connection shut. "
Harry nodded, then caught himself and answered with a clear, "Understood."
They finished with catalogues that Hogwarts never printed. A charm to trip wards without waking them. A detection weave to discover nearby magicals. A cleaner counter curse for bindings that like to hide under glamour. And another two dozens of house hold charms. Nothing flashy. Everything useful.
At the end, Harry wrapped a new cloak across his knees and traced the hem with a thumb. The fabric answered his size as if it listened. The smile that came was small and private.
"End of week," he folded the cloak once. "I will go to that room with the mirror."
Corvus lifted a brow.
"I want to know who wrote the note," Harry set the cloak aside and reached for his tea. "And why they needed a child to be invisible to read it."
The raven clicked a beak. The snake settled. The cups emptied. The clock on the mantle marked the lesson done. Outside, the castle moved through winter. Inside, the boy's spells landed heavier and his mind held its shape a fraction longer. The lessons accomplished what detentions rarely do.