Lucius led Corvus into the study and shut the door. No tour. No drink. He took the chair by the hearth and kept his hands still.
Corvus sat without waiting. Eyes on Lucius.
"About my request," Lucius began. "To remove the mark I took in a season my present self finds unwise. What will it take?"
"Tell me, Lucius Malfoy," Corvus said. "What do you know of that mark on your forearm? Do you know it leeches life, soul, and magic from you?"
Heat pressed at Lucius' shins. He gave nothing back. The mark burned when called. It tugged when the Dark Lord rose and fell. Did it take more? The young man wanted him to believe it did. If that were true, this would not be a simple negotiation.
"I can place coin, land, and votes on the table," Lucius said.
"Votes are set," Corvus said. "Yours will not change the tally. Coin means nothing to House Black. We could buy the isles twice. Deeds have teeth. If the sites have value to me."
Cold settled under Lucius' ribs. The diary waited in a hidden drawer. Would that convince Heir Black?
"You know he is not dead," Corvus said, gaze dropping to Lucius' arm. "You felt it. A pull in the mark. A stain that will not clean. You are feeding him. You and others who took the same brand."
Fear flickered across Lucius' face.
"Tell me what you value more," Corvus said. "Your arm. Your line. Your seat." His tone cooled. "Your freedom. Your family. Your life." He let it sit. "As of this moment, you have offered nothing of value, Lord Malfoy."
Lucius counted what he could surrender to secure the rite. Not Draco. The Manor could go. Some vaults. The holdings in France. The south road parcels. The web of favors. He could part with half and live. He could part with more if relief followed. If Heir Black could lift the curse in Malfoy blood, even Draco could be weighed. He pushed that thought away.
"Bloodline relief," Lucius said. "You hinted you might reach that lattice. I am ready to part with an old object of the Dark Lord. Will that interest you?"
Corvus laughed once. "You have not listened. Those objects deepen and strengthen any curse near them. You offer a cursed thing in return for service." He rose. "You are not taking this as seriously as you should. Or worse, you still do not grasp your position in this..." He motioned to the space between them. "Negotiation." He turned toward the door. "Find someone else to help you with both problems, Lord Malfoy. Others who share your mark will know a fair deal when they hear it."
Lucius stood. "You misunderstand, my lord." His tone stayed soft. "I ask first for your help with the mark. Name a price."
"I do not think so, Lord Malfoy." Corvus did not turn back. "You had your chance."
Before he reached the latch, Lucius crossed to a shelf, pressed a rune, and slid open a hidden drawer. He took out a black diary. Corvus watched without comment.
"This object," Lucius said. "I can feel dark magic in it. Is this the type you meant?"
Corvus tilted his head. "Wrong on the nature, Lord Malfoy. Not dark magic. Black Magic. And I doubt you understand what you are holding. You kept it long enough for it to link to you. It is already siphoning your life. Come. I will show you the joys of Black Magic." He moved to the desk and sat without asking. "Place it here."
Lucius set the diary on the blotter.
"Watch closely, Lucius Malfoy," Corvus said. He opened the cover and ran diagnostic charms. No chant. His wand moved like a scalpel.
As the spells flowed, he used extreme speed to lay a faint thread from the diary to Lucius' chest. To any eye it looked as if the line had appeared by itself.
Lucius watched in silence. Half the charms he did not know by name. The ones he knew all touched cursework. A thin line brightened between the book and his chest. His breath caught. He stepped back. The line stretched with him.
He stopped and looked at Corvus. The thread dimmed and faded.
"Help me," Lucius said. His eyes held what Corvus wanted to see there. Fear.
--
Amelia Bones stacked the folders. Edges flush. Each file carried the same stamp in the lower right. Approved.
Ignatia Travers set a leather case on the desk, slid a memo across, tapped the latch, and left. Door shut. Quiet held.
Amelia opened the first folder. Isle born. Clean wand record. Outstanding in Defense and Charms, Exceeds Expectations in Potions and Transfiguration. A field note in a tight hand marked 'ward work aptitude' and 'steady nerve.' She signed it and moved it to the pile of names to start training.
Next file, another one with a runner's stance, again signed and moved.
Fifth batch this month for DMLE alone. Other floors were taking their own waves. Transport. Records. Treasury. Old names went out on quiet notices with a clerk escort. New names arrived with that signature in the corner of their files.
Some of the old staff had tried to fight. A man from Accounts swore innocence and failed a truth draught. A woman from Licenses moved a cousin's permit for coin. A records clerk sold a roster abroad. Chains settled the arguments. Azkaban took them all.
Another file turned. Nine in this wave. Three flagged for special skills. Ward casting. Healing support. Residue tracking. She circled the last with a hard stroke. Robards would have that one as his junior to be trained.
She continued, Stamp and sign. Names from isles, farms, fishing towns, and a handful from the north. Almost none from the old families that had choked these floors for years. That part she welcomed. A few surnames brushed shoulders with families that supported Grindelwald. Yet there was nothing to hold their entry.
Arithmetic that no one wrote down played in her head. Minister Black was cleaning the house. Two out. Four hires in. Two with House Black's quiet mark on the cover sheet. If he keeps that pace for six months the Ministry would look like an extension of house Black.
She wrote a line to the training instructors. Use the Live dueling space to be used; she especially ordered to not go for soft drills. With the new budget and continual intakes, the weak wash out before a badge touches a coat.
She set her quill down and let the thought form where no ear could twist it. Arcturus called it cleaning house. The method was simple. Walk the corridor with Corvus Black and some other lords and ladies. Speak to staff. Leave with a smile. Notices followed each and every visit to each and every department. For every clerk lost to chains, two of his walked in on time and saluted. The new entries were formidable. They did not steal, even when she created the perfect scenario. They did not leak; she arranged for a civilian to offer five thousand galleon to one of them. The civilian was in custody now.
The ministry was changing; it was changing for the better.
--
Vauxhall Cross wore the winter like a wet coat. River smell in the vents. Sodium lights in the car park buzzing in a tired rhythm. Two levels down from the lobby a corridor bent behind blast doors to a room with no plaque and no code on the frame. Inside, a steel desk. A green lamp. A wall map with pins that did not match any published grid. Gareth Glenross waited with a folder open and a pen, he from time to time think is much better than a quill.
Across from him, two men in off the peg suits sat too straight. Squibs.
"Again." Gareth closed the folder with two fingers and let the lamp hum fill the pause.
The older one cleared his throat. "The interview was done at a room of a warehouse near Tilbury. Young bloke in dark robes under a cloak. He was kind enough to offer tea. Asked about work we have done. Then said the vacancy was already filled. Thanked and walked us out."
"You never saw a badge." Gareth kept his tone dry. He did not reach for the pen.
"Nothing official. He sounded young though." The man rubbed the bridge of his nose as if it ached.
The younger one stared at his own hands. "Felt pushed along. Like we were already out the door before we stood up."
Gareth watched their pupils contract under the lamp. Memory shear at the edges. Not Obliviate. More the gentle nudge of someone trained. Or born to it. He took a note.
"You told the same story upstairs." He let the words hang, then flicked his eyes to the map. Red pins followed the Thames east to the docks. Yellow pins sat over three boroughs where police had logged a quiet drop in petty violence and a rise in vetting for warehouse jobs. Little ripples where a net had been thrown and pulled tight.
He was a Hufflepuff, a Badger and he was smelling something foul.
He had worn that yellow and black tie for seven years while whispers crawled the back of his neck. Mud in the mouth. Mud in the blood. The badge at his lapel now had no crest and no Latin motto. Only the Crown at the oath and a room without a name.
He turned a page. "You two were not the first. Nor the last." He slid a photo across the desk. Grainy capture from a long lens. A robed figure at the mouth of a service alley in Whitechapel. No face. Only the line of a posture that did not belong on that street. "You see him at Tilbury?"
Both men leaned in. Both shook their heads at once, then winced as if something tugged in the back of the skull.
"You feel it?" Gareth watched them flinch. "Someone wrapped your memories. Not a wipe but a softening. You are not compromised. You are not useful to them either." He tapped the folder. "That is why you walked out with a thank you and no job."
Silence took the room for a count of five. Above them the building murmured as lifts moved and the river pressed against the piles. Gareth let the rhythm settle his breath. He thought of a different ceiling, the stone arches of the Hufflepuff common room, the low fire, the way faces closed when talk turned to lineage. He had learned to carry his anger like a holstered wand. Use it, but never let it use him.
The pen rolled once under his palm. "You work for me now. Observation works only. You will go back to the same places at the same times. You will note the changes. Who lingers by the doors. Who never looks up. Who looks up too much. You will not talk to robed men in alleys. You will walk past and count your steps to the nearest bus stop. You will meet my watcher at the cafe with the blue awning. If someone tries to move you along again, let them. I want to know how it feels. Where it catches in the head. Understood."
Both men nodded. The do not remember much of their life before their own families abandoned them. They grow up as orphans. The oath they took before they went to that interview was to block their memories of Mr. Glenross, at least this was what he told them. Gareth on the other hand took a different oath. The Crown kept its own secrets. So did Gareth. The department had no name in any book. It had six field officers, all muggleborn, who worked under him. It had two analysts who could read a wand log as cleanly as a phone bill. It had a ward crafter who had once stood first in Ancient Runes and now cut silence into safe houses with a carpenter's square.
The Statute existed on paper and in theatres where men made speeches. Down here it bent. The Crown required eyes in places where no policeman could walk. Gareth gave those eyes shape and pay and a long rope. He never pretended it was tidy. He pretended it was necessary and made it true by doing the work.
He sent the two men out through the service door and watched the corridor until the latch caught. Alone again, he opened a second folder. Police summaries. Customs notes. A pattern of nothing. The constabulary saw routine. That meant someone with a wand wanted them to see routine. Syndicates that rrecruited dozens of squibs had gone quiet lately. Fewer clashes with other crime organizations, cleaner ledgers and better, much better lawyers. Someone had put money and discipline into the gutters.
He traced the red pins with a blunt nail. Houses of Nobility, the so called Sacred Twenty Eight. He did not write the names. He let them float and pick at the back of his mind. Robes in docks and whispers in borough councils. A young voice at Tilbury with manners enough to pour tea and magic enough to herd minds toward the exit.
A memory rose unbidden. First year, History class. A girl with a neat plait and a pureblood name refused to share a bench. The professor did not even noticed, nor did the housemates. Gareth had learned how to look back without blinking. That look lived in him still. It looked out now at the map and found the line he wanted.
He tapped the pen twice. The nib glowed once, then cooled. Orders went up the wire to his small team. Covert watch at Tilbury and Port of London Authority offices. Collection on shell companies that had taken long leases near the river in the last six months. Quiet pulls on police informants who had felt a change in how the docks behaved. A request to Treasury for names behind a cluster of charitable trusts that had bought property around King's Cross under nominal muggle owners. He did not sent any letters to the Ministry. His department answered only to the crown. His only purpose to inform her majesty of the wizards doing.
He rose and set his hand on the map. "When I find your patron," he told the pins. "I will pull him out by the roots."
Gareth took the stairs rather than the lift. The river thudded against the embankment like a slow heart. Somewhere east a bell marked the hour. He felt the old anger settle under his ribs and hold steady. The pure blood houses thought the Crown would never look their way. The Crown was looking. Through him.