The chamber did not breathe so much as bristle. Robes dragged. Wands hissed back into sleeves. The Progressive benches burst first, voices up like kennel dogs. Neutrals leaned in with narrowed eyes. Traditionalists watched from stillness, the way wolves wait at the edge of a field.
Arcturus rested one hand on the arm of the Minister's chair. Not a flicker out of place. Curiosity lived at the corner of his eyes. His gaze moved to Corvus from time to time to measure his reactions.
Corvus sat a step up along the side rail, posture loose, eyes bright. Months of work crystallised into this moment. Amelia followed the stink in the Potter file all the way to the back of the cupboard and then through the Gringotts doors. He had counted on that spine. From the time between his first letter to her to this very moment was well spent as well. Potter was coming along well. He smirked at the thought of that correcting force. Let the Fates try to pull the thread back to some tired old canon. They would find their fingers pricked.
Greengrass watched him from the Traditionalist seats. A measured gaze, the look of a man who tallies risk with the numbers of a ledger. House Black wanted an order that could last. And somehow they were doing it. The young lord looked the part to be at the helm. Sharp mind. Terribly calm against odds and names much older. He was quite sure Corvus Black was the person at helm when it comes to House Black's policies lately. Before him Arcturus Black was waiting for his meeting with the reaper. Now he wore the reaper's cloak. A dangerous combination, very dangerous. Greengrass folded his hands and waited to see if danger would bite the right throat first. He will make some changes in his strategy accordingly.
From the Neutrals, Abbott's gaze went to visitors' bench to meet his wife, then to Amelia and lastly to Corvus Black. The law would have to carry this event. Though he was convinced the chamber would never be the same after today's session.
Madam Marchbanks tapped her ring once against the rail. Dumbledore on the benches and not on the dais. That alone rattled her teeth. She kept her chin high. She would listen. She would weigh. She would not be hustled by boys with sharp smiles. She had seen enough to be sure Albus was right. Wizarding Britain was safer because of him. Yet even after all the sacrifices of that man some people were stubborn and ignorant.
Frank Longbottom occupied the Warlock's chair for one case alone. Yet it seems history was in the making and his name was going to be etched in it. The last hour had emptied him of any taste for speeches. He glanced once to the Minister. Arcturus Black was reading each bench in turn.
A Progressive lord tried to force the moment back to comfort. "This is a farce." His voice cracked on the stone. Greengrass did not turn his head. "It is a reckoning," he murmured for the two Lords at his elbows.
Arcturus lifted two fingers. Silence arrived. Even the echo seemed to sit down.
Albus Dumbledore rose from the benches as if drawn up by wire. There was no twinkle nor warmth in his eyes. His mouth was hard behind that ridiculous beard, behind the mouth a man who had grown used to choosing other people's roads. For six months his carefully woven web had frayed. A boy in black robes stepped into his castle and the place began to come apart stitch by stitch. He had invited the wolf in. He had shown him the doorways and the keys. It had seemed wise at the time. As 'The Greater Good' so often did.
"Amelia," came soft in tone from his lips, and for a heartbeat he reached for old grace. "There must be a misunderstanding."
Amelia did not blink. "You will address the Department by its proper title or I will add contempt of chamber to your charges." The quill at her elbow scratched. The sound was a knife on bone.
A ripple of noise. Traditionalists settled deeper in their seats. Neutrals watched to see if the mask would crack. Progressives began to mutter about process. The clerk stacked three parchments with neat, fatal care.
Arcturus turned his face a fraction toward Corvus. A grandfather's question lived there. Was it too much to tell me, at least allow me to expect some trouble. The answer waited in the boy's easy poise. A sucker punch you never see coming does not require a second swing. Arcturus was already trying to find a gift he would press on the boy when the dust cleared. Vinda would try to outdo him. Grigori would try to outspend them both.
Corvus watched as Dumbledore's gaze reached him. The old man's hatred flashed for a brief moment like a stone and twice as cold. The thought pleased him more than he let show. He held the smile to a faint breath. He let the chamber do the shouting for him.
On the Progressive bench, Elphias Doge leaned toward Dumbledore with hands that trembled. "There is still time," he breathed, eyes glassy with belief. "A statement. An appeal to continuity to your posts."
"Continuity," Frank smirked into his hand that was holding the gavel, not for anyone to hear.
Amelia lifted the charges again. The list spoke in the cool voice of ink. Blocked will. Bloodline theft. Endangerment of a magical minor. Record tampering. Abuse of office. Diversion from a main vault. Each syllable laid out like a brick in a road that led to iron doors on an island in the North Sea.
Dumbledore's fingers flexed on the bench rail. The room tilted against him. These were not peers. These were children with knives. The Ministry could not be trusted. It never could. The chamber needed a hand on the tiller that did not shake. His. Always his. He had held the line while the naive praised progress, foolish played at trade or purity and the wicked wore masks. He had carried the weight so they could sleep. And now they stared as if they did not know better.
His eyes shifted to Corvus and stayed. You. The thought rang like a struck bell. That wild piece on the board he had thought he could ride like a storm now tore the sails loose. He collected himself, pulled breath through teeth, and stood straighter.
"Enough," Amelia cut, voice clean. "Aurors will escort Mr. Dumbledore to a holding cell. No visitors. No correspondence. He will be stunned only if he resists."
Progressives leapt to their feet. A snarl of voices. Neutrals moved without speaking. Traditionalists did not move at all. Wands lifted in mirrors of caution across three benches.
Arcturus remained seated. The weight of office sat on his shoulders the way an old cloak sits on a broad back. He let the room see that he did not need to stand to rule it.
Dumbledore's face emptied of the last of its gentleness. The years fell off him the way frost falls off iron when struck. He turned to Amelia and found no purchase there. He turned to the Minister and saw only stone. He turned to the disaster he brought on himself and found a smile that boiled his blood.
"You," he breathed. The word tasted of ashes. His hand lifted. Cloth fell back from old wood.
Corvus did not blink. The wand rose in the old man's grasp, pale, pitted, and alive in the light. The Elder Wand knew its stage. Corvus's gaze followed the lift, a glint kindling in his eyes as if the sight pleased him.
--
Corvus moved the instant the mask cracked. Extreme speed took the world and thinned it. Sound stretched. Light slowed. Albus' face went bland and cold and the Wand began to rise.
A smile touched Corvus's mouth. The third Hallow was coming to him as if walking of its own will.
His wand was already working. Four shield of Veruscut Maxima leapt from his tip and grew as they settled. One wrapped the dais in a clear shell that locked around Arcturus and Frank Longbottom. One swept the Traditionalist benches and set like glass, stopping at Lucius Malfoy's seat with a clean edge that did not touch him. One ran the length of the Neutrals and sealed them in a bright pane. The last sprang up around the visitors where Rita Skeeter hunched with her enchanted quill scratching like an insect as well as other prominent figures were sitting. The wards met stone and bit in, each face smooth as a mirror, each edge neat as a blade.
He stepped down two treads toward the floor, slow as a man out for a stroll. In his sight the Elder Wand was still climbing. Green began to gather at its tip.
Amelia's breath hitched. She saw the wand a heartbeat late and went for her own, but events had already broken loose. A wall of light curved over the dais. Two more swept the benches. The old man's curse glowed sickly green. Corvus slid off its line, avoiding the curse. It fizzled behind him, hitting the shield covering the Traditionalist's wing. Lord Avery's eyes were as large as saucers as the curse hit the shield and showed clear cracks. Corvus has already set his heel in a hearthbeat. This speed could not be natural. A bolt of lightning big as a beam cracked from his wand, struck the stone of the floor at an angle, and ricocheted. Blue violet arcs rushed towards Albus' chest in the blink of an eye. The impact lifted him like a rag and threw him toward the dome.
Flame burst above him. A phoenix tore into the air with a single beat.
Corvus's free hand barely lifted. The second killing curse of the session raced from his wand and met the bird in the heart. The sorrowful screech made each and every witch and wizard to feel weak for a heatbeat. Fire fell. The body folded in on itself, burned white, and left a weak chick that tumbled and fell. It rolled, dazed and small, its cry thin and shocked.
The moment Albus began to fall. Corvus hooked him with a brutal levitation. His arm fell fast and with force. Dumbledore followed suit, hard. The chin struck first. The floor welcomed his face. The loud crack turned stomachs. The body bounced once, twice and lay wrong. Blood ran thick and bright. Teeth skittered under the nearest bench like chips of porcelain.
The final spell was simple. "Expelliarmus." A red spark, a tug, and the Elder Wand leapt free and spun, handle first, into Corvus's waiting palm. He caught it and stilled it with a twist of his fingers. His eyes half closed for a count as the wood woke to him.
Recognition bloomed. Power hummed along his bones and settled. The wand felt him. It felt what he carried. In his pouch, the Cloak slept against the Stone. The Elder Wand found them and the three notes nested. The resonance deepened, clean and sure, and sat in his hand like a promise.
The chamber broke.
Aurors rushed through, boots loud on stone, wands up. Most aimed at the Progressive benches where the first curse had come from. Gawain Robards went to the fallen man at once, rolled him with care, and stripped charms and trinkets with fast, neat taps, hunting for spare wands or a hidden portkey. Rita squealed when a stray stunner slapped into the visitor shield and spread harmless light across its face. Doge tried to climb the rail, panicked, and took a clean stunner between the shoulders. He folded and slid down like laundry.
Traditionalists stood as one behind the Veruscut walls, wands drawn, voices hard. Neutrals rose slower but rose, eyes cold, bodies angled to shield their own. A half dozen Progressives threw jittered hexes and were dropped in answer. Griselda Marchbanks went down in a neat heap. Tiberius Ogden followed with a grunt and a clatter of ringed fingers.
Arcturus rose on the dais. Two sharp bangs from his wand cracked like hammers. Frank was already up, jaw tight, wand leveled towards his old benches, measuring threats.
"Enough." The word rode a Sonorus and filled the room. It hit the shields and echoed. It rolled along the vault and came back heavy. Noise died.
The Veruscut panes stayed up, bright and clean. The lightning burn on the floor still smoked faintly where the bolt had glanced. The chick made a small lost sound and tucked its head under a ruined wing. Albus lay on his side, breath shallow, face a mess of blood and swelling, eyes rolled back to white.
Amelia moved first. She crossed the floor in three long strides, checked pulse with two fingers, and looked to Gawain. A curt nod: alive, but broken. Her gaze flicked to Corvus. He stood calm on the step, two wands in hand, his own low and ready, the other wand held like an artefact he'd been expecting for. Was he somehow into older men's wands. This was the second today.
She was lucky Corvus was too busy feeling high as the Elder Wand was bonding with him.
"Drop your shields, Lord Rosier," Arcturus called from the dais without raising his voice. "Slowly."
Corvus inclined his head once. The four Veruscut walls dimmed from the top and slid down the air in steady inches, edges clean, faces clear, until they vanished with a soft breath. Wands on every bench tracked the motion. No one fired. Not one person sat.
Gawain lifted his hand. "Stabilizing," he called for the record, voice clipped. An Auror conjured a field stretcher with a flick and fixed Albus to it with a restraint web. Another pair collected the chick and boxed it in a padded crate that shut with a glow.
Before they could take it, Corvus cleared his throat. "I will take it, as it was me who stopped it from fleeing with that dark wizard." He motioned to Dumbledore on the strecther.
The Auror turned to Director Bones, then returned the box at her nod.
A third team began to tag and mark spent magic, their quills scratching labels while the Dicta quill on the clerk's rail kept up in a clean, tireless hand.
Rita's quill darted and stabbed and drank the room. Her eyes never left Corvus. She saw the second wand in his grip. She licked her teeth like a cat at cream.
Arcturus swept the room with a flat look. "The chamber will stand down," he ordered. "Benches will resume their seats. Aurors will hold their lines." He waited while it happened. Chairs scraped. Robes settled. The visitor rail exhaled.
Frank shifted his stance but kept his wand level. He watched the Progressives over the sights. He did not blink much.
Corvus rolled the Elder Wand once in his fingers and felt the tone of it again, the way it reached for the old power in his pouch. He tucked it into his sleeve with a thought and let his own wand rest easy against his leg.
Arcturus let the Sonorus drop and spoke in his normal voice. "Now," he said, calm and hard, "we will have order."
The room obeyed. The smell of hot stone and ozone hung in the air. Somewhere under the benches a tooth crushed as a Lord stepped on it.
Arcturus's gaze cut once across the floor to Corvus, then to Amelia, then to Frank. "The record will note an armed attack by a recused party on the floor of this chamber, countered and contained. Proceed."
The word struck like a gavel.