The Portkey took hold, it squeezed the breath out of him, yanked him sideways, then let go with the manners of a drunk.
Corvus landed on sun baked stone and did not move for a few seconds, until his stomach stopped trying to climb into his throat. Heat pressed against his skin. Salt sat on the back of his tongue. Waves kept their own rhythm behind him, steady and indifferent.
He straightened his robes and took stock.
A narrow lane, white stone walls, a hedge trimmed with care. In front of him, a villa that looked modest on purpose. Two stories, cream plaster and blue shutters. A small garden with lavender and something sharper beneath it that did not belong to any herb bed next to a beach.
A parasol shaded two sunbeds. Someone had left a book face down.
Corvus glanced over his shoulder. The sea glittered. The air shimmered. The Portkey ribbon was still in his hand.
So the immortal alchemist was living here.
"Why not," he muttered, and started toward the gate.
The wards touched him at the fence. Not a shove. A slow wash, like a hand checking his pockets. They were old and layered. Subtle, polite, and ready to bite.
He did not step through.
A thin thread of his magic slid along the array. Not a push. A tap, like knocking on glass.
A window on the second floor opened, and a woman leaned out with the easy confidence of someone who did not expect to be surprised in her own home.
She looked in her early twenties. Red hair caught the sun like copper.
Her eyes landed on him and held.
"You must be Corvus," she called down. The words carried a French accent.
She disappeared from view.
The door opened after a while.
"Come in," she said from the threshold. "I lowered the wards." The smile on her face was warm.
Corvus stepped across the line.
The wards slid over his skin again, then settled as if satisfied. He let his expression stay neutral and, in the same breath, let Memory Mapping reach.
The world sharpened.
Perenelle.
Not a girl and definitely not a young woman. An old power, wearing youth like a well cut dress. Perenelle Flamel, born in the fourteenth century, seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, the kind of lineage that made most pureblood genealogists go quiet.
His Replication stirred on instinct, eager. He pushed it down.
He felt her turn her head a fraction.
"That," she said lightly, "is a strange magic." Her gaze stayed on him, calm as the sea. "It tingles on the inside of the skull." She tilted her head. "I have felt something like it with Dementors. Not the same, but close enough to make my hair want to stand up."
Corvus stopped the mapping as if he had been burned.
For a moment, he did not have a line ready. That was rare.
Perenelle stepped aside and waved him in as if she had not just slapped his magical hand away.
"I am sensitive," she added, still in that casual tone. "To magic. To intent. To people trying to rummage through my head as if they misplaced their wands."
Corvus inclined his head, precise. "Lady Flamel."
Her brow rose. "Do not make me older than I already am. Perenelle is fine. Nell, if you must. Nick calls me Nell when he is pretending he is not terrified of me."
She shut the door, and Corvus took a look at the 'small' villa.
From the outside, it had been two stories. From inside it was… more. Space folded cleanly. The sitting room was wide enough to host a duelling ring. Sunlight poured in from windows that should not exist. The air smelled of lemon.
"I will fetch Nick, Corvus." She glanced back. "May I call you Corvus?"
He gave a small nod.
"Lovely." She opened the door, then looked over her shoulder again. "And Corvus? Next time you wish to take a peek, ask. It is more civilised."
The door closed.
Corvus remained where he was, in the centre of the room, and let himself breathe once.
So she had noticed. Not guessed or suspected.
His mind ran through the memory fragments he had caught before she shut him out. Nicholas Flamel was a bookseller in Paris in the fourteenth century. He had two shops. A book that arrived like a curse wrapped in ink changed their life. They roamed the world for over ten years to decode it. Book of Abraham the Mage, also known as the Codex. Nicholas focused on Alchemy from what they could decipher. He was talented on the branch. They created the Philosopher's Stone based on the Codex.
Perenelle had not been a silent wife in the shadows. She was strong, extremely so. Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, Mother Magic has blessed her in nearly every magical branch. From Enchanting to Charms, from Necromancy to Black Magic.
And she was standing here looking twenty.
'The movies had lied,' he thought, and nearly laughed at himself. Of course, they had.
The door opened.
Nicholas Flamel walked in, like he had been expecting Corvus for a month, not a day.
He was not ancient and brittle. He looked late twenties at most. Broad shoulders under a simple linen shirt. Strong build and dark haired. He stood about five feet seven, give or take. Shorter than Perenelle by a fraction. It made him look even more compact, like a clenched fist.
He stopped a few steps away and offered his hand.
"Corvus Black." His voice carried. Just a clean assessment. "Seventeen, and already a Master of Potions, Charms, and Transfiguration." His mouth twitched. "You forced Albus to bargain for a month of my time. Amusing, when considered It was another person who bargained for Albus himself."
Corvus took the hand. The grip was firm, warm, and full of warning.
"Master Flamel."
"Nicholas."
Nicholas released Corvus and gave a quick, almost theatrical bow. "Nicholas Flamel. Alchemist, Mage, Old and bored."
Corvus kept his face straight. "An honour."
"Yes," Nicholas said, and made it sound like a judgment.
Perenelle drifted to the side of the room and settled into a chair with her legs crossed.
Corvus adjusted his stance by half an inch. Subtle, but it opened his balance.
"As you put it," Corvus said, "I am Corvus Black. Lord of House Rosier. Heir to House Black. Proxy to House Malfoy."
The last title left his mouth with a faint smirk. He could not help it. Being Proxy to Malfoy felt like being handed a leash and told you now owned the dog.
Nicholas laughed, short and sharp. "Good. You can joke. That means you still have a spine." He looked Corvus up and down again.
"You are also naive," Nicholas said.
Corvus did not flinch.
"It is accurate." Nicholas turned slightly, as if speaking to the room as much as to Corvus. "Those titles mean nothing to me. They mean little to anyone worth impressing." He glanced at Perenelle. "Except my wife. She enjoys a good title. Gives her something to sharpen her teeth on."
Perenelle smiled without showing any warmth.
Nicholas stepped closer, close enough that Corvus could smell sun on skin and the faint edge of potion smoke clinging to him like a second layer.
"What intrigued me was your speed." Nicholas kept his tone calm, but his eyes were bright now, alive with the kind of interest that ate men alive and called it study. "Not your politics, even though I applaud your movements over multiple countries. The reason I agreed to teach you was not your titles, not even your masteries. It was the speed of your learning."
Nicholas took a step back and focused on Corvus more intently.
"And I see more than speed." Nicholas' gaze did not leave Corvus' face. "From the Temporal Magic in your aura, it is clear that a day was not enough for your studies or political manoeuvres."
Corvus did not answer.
Perenelle watched him take that in. No flinch. No defensive smile. A small pause, measured, as if he had learned long ago that silence was sometimes safer than a clever sentence.
Nicholas stayed in front of him, still as a post. His posture looked relaxed. It was not. Perenelle knew how he held himself when he was thinking through a reaction.
Corvus shifted his weight by a fraction. His balance stayed perfect. His eyes went to the room, then to the windows that did not match the outside, then to the floor where the wards lay under stone and plaster like veins.
He was cataloguing.
Perenelle let her senses open, slow and wide. The usual noise of a house was there. Sea air slipping in through windows. Warmth sitting in the walls. A thread of lemon that clung to the sitting room as if it had been scrubbed by someone who did not believe in dust.
And Corvus.
His aura was not bright. It was dense. It sat close to the skin, disciplined, as if every inch was supervised. Most young men his age leaked emotion through their magic even when they tried not to. Corvus did not.
Temporal residue lay around him like fine grit. Perenelle had seen it before, on fools who thought time could be bullied. They came out with tremors, with headaches, with eyes that could not focus on the same distance twice. Corvus looked steady.
That was the first wrong thing.
The second wrong thing was the taste of life magic, faint but present. Not a healer's gentle touch. Not plant work. Something closer to a seam being stitched.
Transmutation sat under it all, clean and sharp.
Perenelle kept her face calm. A month, a month in this house would tell her what Corvus was. Not the boy on paper. Not the titles. Not the propaganda that already started to crawl through Europe. The structure under the skin.
Corvus remained standing in the centre of the room, hands relaxed at his sides, gaze steady.
Perenelle left him there and stepped into the kitchen.
Nicholas was already at the sink, washing his hands. He dried them on a linen cloth and looked at her.
Perenelle leaned her hip against the counter and let her senses settle again. She spoke quietly, not for secrecy, for habit. Nicholas listened, face blank, eyes sharp.
The Dementor edge, the way Corvus had touched her mind and stopped the moment he realised she had teeth. The Temporal residue sits clean on him. The thread of life magic. The transmutation that felt practised, not learned.
Then she reached into a cupboard and pulled out a thin leather ledger. The cover was worn, the spine repaired more than once. She set it on the counter and opened it.
Names and places. Six lines that mattered. Herself, Nicholas and four others marked with old ink and newer notes. Greece. Portugal. China. India.
The old council had been larger once. Perenelle could still remember their voices, the way immortality made men and women either patient or cruel. Most had been both. Now the list was short. Perenelle tapped the page once and closed the ledger.
A month was enough. Not to know everything. Enough to know what sort of disaster walked through her door. She crossed back into the sitting room. Corvus had not moved. He did not sit without invitation. He did not wander. He did not touch the shelves. Good manners, or good training.
Perenelle walked past him and opened a door that had not been there a moment ago. A guest room unfolded behind it, clean and bright, bed made with military corners.
She stepped aside and called for the young man.
Enough time to decide whether Corvus Black was a student.
Or a problem.