Corvus arrived at the Nest with the taste of Flamel's cellar still in his mouth.
The wards allowed him without ceremony. The air in the nest felt different from the seaside villa, cleaner and sharper.
Tibby's crack came from somewhere behind a stack of crates.
"Master back," the elf announced to the corridor as if the walls needed the news.
Corvus did not slow. His boots clicked over stone that had been transfigured to look like it had always been this way. The Nest had grown in his absence. Especially the nursery.
He pushed through the laboratory doors and met Rookwood's eyes at once.
"Heir Black." The man dipped his chin. Respectful and tired.
Corvus glanced over him, then past him towards the Temporal bubbles. "How is the situation?"
"Two teams in rotation. The Druids do not sleep the way the rest do, but they have been ordered to rest regardless. Doctor Wilmut has been arguing with me about it."
The lab looked like a compromise between a hospital ward and a ritual chamber. Glass, steel, runes; it was a strange combination of both worlds. The time bubbles stood along the far wall like clear domes someone had forgotten to finish. His eye tracked one of Wilmut's assistants, a woman, as he blurred between hospital beds.
He stopped in front of the largest bubble.
"Any change to the ratio?" Corvus asked.
Rookwood did not need to check his notes. "One to twenty and stable."
Corvus nodded once. He was gone for seven weeks. Thirty five months in the Nest have passed. Over two and a half years.
He stepped through, and the world snapped.
Sound came first. The steady rhythm of footfalls. The hiss of a kettle. The faint wail of an infant that ended too quickly. Air came next, warm and too dry, like the bubble had eaten the summer and left only heat.
Corvus stood still for a breath and let his body adjust. He had learned to do that. Everyone in this place learned fast or broke. Wilmut turned at his name as if he had been waiting for the syllables.
"Corvus." No title, because the man still clung to his own habits even after he had stepped into a world where habits got you killed. He had dark circles under his eyes.
Campbell stood at the bench behind him, shoulders tight, reading a sheet covered in neat writing that did not belong to him.
Corvus walked past them and went straight to the bassinets.
They were shallow cradles of rune scored glass set into padded frames. Each cradle had a charm net over it to monitor and record every detail.
He looked down. Blankets were in colours of blue and pink to show the gender of their owner.
One had a fist jammed into his mouth, sucking like he would win a war by biting it. Another slept with her face shoved into the blanket like she had decided air was optional. Corvus went to her and corrected her posture. The chubby cheeks of the infant reminded him of the thin line he was walking on. A third stared at the ceiling with the hard focus of someone who had already picked a target.
A house elf hovered at the far end, rocking one cradle with tiny, precise movements.
Corvus lifted his hand and cast multiple diagnosis charms on the girl. Warm, stable and healthy. The core was there. He felt it like a low hum, faint but present.
He turned his head toward Wilmut without taking his eyes off the infants. "Any late failures?"
Wilmut's jaw worked once. "None. No new complications after the first week. The feeding schedule is stable. The growth curves are within what we expected."
Campbell took a step closer, careful not to crowd the cradles. "They are not fragile glass ornaments. They are infants. They respond to touch. They respond to voice. We need to treat them as such. We need caregivers, many of them."
Corvus looked at her then and nodded his approval.
"I can not be sentimental," Corvus said. "I will arrange for the caregivers."
"Good." Campbell's tone stayed flat. "Then stop acting like you are checking the quality of products."
Corvus turned to her. "You were aware of what you would be working on when I contacted you, Dr Campbell. I do not have time for your theatrics. Your next outburst will be your last. You will find yourself back at your apartment without any memory of the time spent before I met you and the moment you are kicked out of here."
She was not expecting such an outcome.
He moved down the line and checked another two cradles. One child had a faint mark along the back of his hand where a needle had been.
The lab door opened, and a Druid crossed the bubble's edge without flinching, carrying a tray of vials. Her hair was tied back with a strip of leather. Her robe had been cut short at the sleeves so it would not dip into anything.
She nodded once to Corvus and set the tray on the bench.
Rookwood stepped aside to let her pass, then spoke low. "The second batch results are ready for your review."
Corvus followed him to the table where the logs were laid out.
No stacks of parchment. Someone had learned. Someone had bound the pages and labelled the binders like they were in a Muggle archive. The irony did not escape him.
He opened the first binder.
"Batch Two," Rookwood said. "Wizard fathers, pure and half blood. Muggle mothers."
Corvus ran his eyes down the first page. Numbers, notes and annotations in Wilmut's hand arguing with annotations in a Druid's hand. He respected that. Disagreement meant they were still thinking.
"How many?" Corvus asked.
"Thirty live births," Wilmut answered, stepping closer. "No post birth collapse."
Corvus looked up sharply.
Wilmut did not gloat. He looked too tired to gloat. "We expected more failures. We prepared for them. They did not happen. If you want my guess, the fathers mattered more than we thought. Or the mothers mattered less."
Campbell's mouth tightened. "Do not guess. We are not out of the risk zone yet."
Corvus tapped the page with one finger. "Did you clone every egg and label them as I've asked?"
Rookwood nodded. "As you ordered. Each is tied to the recorded potential markers we can observe so far. Core response, reflex speed, sensory response, and early magic discharge."
Corvus closed the binder and opened the next.
"Batch Three," he said.
Wilmut's voice dropped a shade. "Pure blood mothers with documented traits. Muggle fathers."
Corvus turned a page. Then another. This was a list he got from the Ministry. List of Magical Houses and their traits.
He saw the word Black once. Metamorphmagus was written beside it. There were notes about the trait.
His mind went to the available females in House Black. An average female has around 300.000 eggs at puberty. This number goes down as the age goes up. He turned to Wilmut and asked to do research based on the Witches in their custody. Magicals have longer life spans afterall.
Against these numbers avarage birthrate of magials was around two. The rest of those eggs were wasted. Hence, he decided to start a project and start to collect eggs from bloodlines known for useful traits. Starting from his own houses. Vinda, Bellatrix, Narcissa and Nymphadora. Metamorphmagus gene was not something he would or could give up on. Plus, there were many other magical houses. Some of them had their traits known, like House Black or Bones. Most, however, do not. It seems he needs to visit the hospitals and start to train some healers to start Egg collections, despite it not being Ostara.
He swallowed the satisfaction before it could become pride.
"Where are they?"
Campbell jerked his chin to the next time bubble. "Inside. Monitoring is constant. The mothers are stable. The staff rotates every two hours."
Corvus watched the bubble for a long moment. Inside, a nurse leaned over a bed and spoke to a woman in a low voice. The woman's face twisted with pain. An elf pressed a damp cloth to her forehead. A Druid traced a rune in the air, and the pain eased.
He had asked for criminals. He had asked for prisoners. He had asked for bodies like a butcher asking for meat.
Seeing a woman on a bed, breathing through a contraction, made the request feel exactly like what it was.
He turned back to Wilmut and Campbell and caught their eyes one by one.
"You did well," Corvus said.
Wilmut's laugh came out once and died. "I am not sure if I can return to work in a lab without these bubbles to accelerate time."
Corvus smiled. "Then why return. I will always need people with your expertise."
He did not extend the same courtesy to Campbell. Her ticket was already issued. Now he just needs a magicals to implement her memories.
Wilmut shrugged, then winced as his shoulder protested. "We need more data, more samples, more time. We also need you to stop appearing and vanishing like some phantom. I do not know how you were not hunted by any Institution with this much knowledge and experience, but we need you here as much as possible."
Corvus leaned a hip against the table and folded his arms. "I will arrange for more experts."
His gaze went to Campbell again. "Some additional labs and more Temporal Arrays will be arranged within days.
He picked up a page from the binder and held it between two fingers. "You have seen what this does. You have seen what it can become."
Wilmut watched him, careful now. "You did not bring us here to make a medical miracle and sing songs about it."
"No."
Campbell's gaze narrowed. "Then say what you mean."
Corvus let the silence stretch long enough to make the staff at the far end stop pretending they were not listening.
He kept his voice even. "Tell me, doctors. What is your honest and professional opinion on the term and application of eugenics without the fog of morality?"
--
Corvus Flame Travelled to the outer edge of Black Mansion after his conversation with the doctors.
The mansion did not announce guests with a butler and a bell. The wards tested, recognised, and allowed him passage. The ironwork on the gate ran cold under his palm. A raven on the closest gargoyle shifted its feet and tracked him with its black eyes.
He took the path in, boots quiet on gravel, and let his senses do their work. Incense from the dining room. Pine smoke from a hearth, fresh wax and new parchment from the studies.
There were voices inside. Guests other than the residents.
As he stepped into the main hall, the old guard was already waiting for him in the place they had claimed as a centre. Arcturus stood in front, straight backed, robes cut like a statement. Vinda kept to his left, hands folded, posture perfect. Grigori filled the space on the right without trying. Elizaveta stood slightly behind him, the angle deliberate, the face calm.
Arcturus closed the distance first.
His arms came open. Corvus returned the gesture. The old man's grip was tight, his pats hard, checking without looking if he was whole.
"How have you been, son?" The word came out with sincerity
"I am fine, grandfather, thank you." Corvus kept it simple.
Arcturus released him and held him at arm's length for a moment, eyes sharp. Satisfaction flickered. Then approval settled, quiet and heavy.
"You are getting taller and wider." He smiled.
Vinda waited. She did not step forward.
Dark Arts discipline had teeth. It demanded order and detachment.
He moved anyway.
He stepped in and gave Vinda a light hug, careful of her robes, careful of the fact that she would never admit she wanted it. Her hand touched his shoulder once, brief and precise.
A faint smile surfaced and vanished.
"You look less stupid than you did when you left," she offered.
"That is generous," Corvus answered. The dry edge was there, controlled.
Her eyes stayed on his face. He gave her a small nod.
Grigori did not wait for his turn. He surged in like a storm given legs.
"Uncle Grigori." Corvus got the words out before he was enveloped.
The Russian did not care. He wrapped Corvus in a bear hug that had no right to exist inside a polite hall.
Bone creaked. Cloth pulled. Breath left Corvus's lungs.
Grigori laughed. "I don' thinl I'll be able to do this next year if you continue to grow like that, Corvus."
Corvus kept his hands at Grigori's back, careful not to shove and make it a contest. He had fought trolls with more elegance.
After a long moment, Grigori finally let him go. Corvus took a silent breath and adjusted his collar without making it look like he had been assaulted.
Grigori grinned like a man who had stolen time itself and was still surprised by the taste.
The ritual had shaved decades off him. Not just the lines, but the heaviness. His shoulders sat higher. His eyes had that bright cruelty youth gave men who had never learned to fear consequence.
Grigori slapped his shoulder. Hard.
Corvus absorbed it. He refused to rub the spot.
"You disappear for weeks," Grigori started, then cut himself off when he noticed Elizaveta watching. The grin shifted. Less loud. Still sharp. "We'll talk later. Properly."
Corvus turned to her.
Elizaveta did not smile first. The same cold outer layer was there on her sculpted face.
Her hair was arranged to perfection. Her dress robes sat without a wrinkle. No jewellery that could be grabbed. No softness that could be mistaken for weakness.
She offered her hand, palm down, as etiquette demanded.
Corvus took it with care. He felt the cool of her skin, the steadiness of her fingers. A controlled person. Not cold, controlled.
He bent and pressed a featherlight kiss to the back of her hand.
When he lifted his head, his expression changed. It was not a grin or a mask. It was the closest thing to relief he allowed himself.
"Lizaveta." The name came out quietly.
Her gaze held his.
Elizaveta's mouth curved, just enough to prove she had the option of warmth.
"You have kept me waiting for three weeks, Corvus." She let the accusation hang, polite and lethal. "This must be a new record. You are also forgiven, given the circumstances. I am not sure if I would have returned on time." Her fingers stayed in his for a second longer than required, then she took her hand back at her own pace. "In return, I want private lessons from you."