Corvus held Elizaveta's hand a heartbeat longer than etiquette required, then let it go.
Private lessons.
He watched her face for the joke that was not there. Her eyes stayed steady. Too steady for a flirt.
She moved first.
"Your absence was useful," Elizaveta said. Her voice carried across the entrance hall without effort. "I had spent time with our grandfathers' friends. They were generous enough to teach me. One of them had a suggestion."
Corvus kept his expression mild. The old wolves did not make suggestions. They pushed.
Elizaveta angled her chin toward the drawing rooms. "Lord Grindelwald praised your control over Fiendfyre. He thinks I should take lessons from you. His wording was… colourful."
Corvus glanced past her to the cluster of familiar faces. Arcturus at the centre, as always, Vinda a pace to his left, calm in a way that always meant she was above the situation.
Elizaveta did not give him the chance to speak.
"Aunt Vinda agrees," she added. "She also said, if you refuse, she will convince you."
Vinda's eyes met his. There was no apology in them.
Corvus exhaled through his nose.
"There will be no need to bother anyone," he said. He let the courtesy sit on the words like a lid. "It will be a pleasure as the mansion is crowded. I will take you somewhere else for the lessons."
A beautiful smile bloomed on Elizaveta's face.
Grigori stood behind her shoulder. He did not speak. His look landed on Corvus and stayed there, heavy as a hand on the nape.
Be kind, be careful and remember whose blood that is.
Corvus gave a short nod, respectful enough to satisfy a Volkov.
They moved deeper into the Black Mansion. The corridors had that new stone smell that had not yet decided whether it was warmth or threat. Torches burned clean. House elves slipped between doorways.
Corvus kept his pace matched to Elizaveta's.
"Grandfather," he started to address the issues in his mind. "I need personnel."
Arcturus looked at him over his shoulder while walking, not slowing. "You always do."
"For the toddlers." Corvus kept the word flat. He did not dress it up. "Many of them."
That stopped Arcturus for a fraction. Not in his feet, but in his face. His brows moved, small and sharp.
Vinda's head turned, quick as a wand hand.
Grigori's eyes narrowed in calculation.
Elizaveta also turned, a step hitching. She did not ask. Her pride would not let her look ignorant in front of these people.
Corvus kept going. He did not like pauses. Pauses became interrogations.
"There are some delicate matters as well," he continued. "I will need some time from the females of the family. As for personnel, priority is Healers, Wet nurses and Caregivers."
Corvus continued despite the questions in their eyes. Especially Elizaveta's. Who knows what she was thinking now? He turned to Grigori.
"I will need women from House Volkov as well. The ones with potent magic, especially."
Elizaveta's eyes flashed, quick heat and the warning of teeth. She checked her grandfather's face, then Aunt Vinda's. Neither reacted as if Corvus was not asking for females to impregnate. Either they were all mad, or it was a subject she did not understand yet. That did not soothe her.
They entered one of the larger drawing rooms. A table already set with tea.
Arcturus took the chair that faced the door. Old habit. Vinda chose the one with a line of sight to everyone. Grigori did not sit until Elizaveta did.
Corvus took the edge of the group, not the centre. He could feel the shift in the room anyway. Everyone was waiting for him to explain.
Arcturus lifted his wand and sent a Patronus without standing. A dark canine shape ran through the air and vanished through the wall.
Vinda followed. Hers was an eagle, pale, cutting the room like a thrown blade.
They did not announce who they called. In this circle, it was not needed.
Elizaveta settled into her chair with careful posture, hands placed, eyes steady again. Corvus caught her watching him as if measuring the shape of his future.
He forced his mind to stay where it needed to be.
Arcturus leaned back. "It seems your project was a success. What are the numbers?"
Corvus answered while nodding. "Eighty five toddlers between the ages of two and three."
Silence.
Corvus added, "Another two hundred younger than that."
The silence changed. It stopped being a surprise and became a problem.
Grigori's hand tightened around the arm of his chair. "Two hundred and eighty five."
"Yes."
Vinda's voice stayed even. "Where."
Corvus let his eyes slide away. Not a tell. A choice. "Safe."
Arcturus gave a small, humourless huff. "That was not the question."
Corvus kept his tone practical. "I have elves and the mothers to nurse. Yet, it is not enough. I need witches who can heal, feed, soothe, and obey contracts. I need them yesterday."
Elizaveta's eyes widened just a notch. The number finally hit her as more than words.
"Those children," she said. "They are…"
"Mine," Corvus answered, then corrected himself because no sane man would like to face an angry woman. "Under my protection. You will know the details later."
That was as much as he gave.
The door opened without a knock.
Gellert entered first, moving like he owned any space he stepped into. Abernathy followed with McDuff, then Carrow and Nagel. They looked better than men and women should after a half century of stone and damp, but rejuvenation did not erase everything.
Gellert's eyes moved across the room and sat next to Vinda, took the tea she served, and gazed towards the posture and the tension; his gaze found Corvus.
"Ah," Gellert said. "You look like a man who has been busy and enjoyed every second of it."
Corvus did not rise. He gave a respectful incline of the head. "I have been productive."
Gellert's smile showed a hint of teeth. "That is not what I said."
Vinda leaned toward the newcomers and spoke low, quick. Corvus heard numbers, heard the word toddlers.
Carrow's face tightened. Abernathy looked away, then back, as if he wanted to make sure he heard correctly.
Nagel's eyes went to Corvus with a different weight.
Arcturus watched them all, then fixed on Corvus again. "This project of yours."
Corvus waited.
Arcturus continued, voice firm. "It has outgrown secrets whispered in corners. We have signed contracts. These people in this room, I trust them with my life."
Corvus kept his hands still. He did not like the direction this went.
Arcturus leaned forward a little. Not pleading and pressed more.
"If it is credit you do not want to share, it is already yours. If you fear betrayal, you have your oaths, contracts and your wards. But I am asking you as your grandfather, as head of your house and as your Minister."
He let the titles sit there.
"Take us to the base," Arcturus said.
--
It took longer than Corvus wanted.
Arcturus did not push with volume. He pushed with that calm, grinding patience that made grown men feel like children. Vinda backed him without raising her voice. Grigori watched, eyes narrowed, and did not interrupt. Gellert lounged on the edge of the drawing room like he owned the air, amused by the whole thing.
Corvus calmly listened while they spoke. The request was simple. Take them to the Nest.
The problem was not logistics. The problem was ownership.
The Nest was his. His work. His mistakes. His monsters, if any ever crawled out. It was the one place where his plans were not filtered through old alliances, old friends, old grudges.
When Corvus finally gave a short nod, it felt like signing away a piece of skin.
"You will not speak of it outside this room," Corvus warned. He did not bother to dress it in politeness. "Not to your clerks. Not to your portraits. Not to your owls. Not even to your own bloody pillow. If you want to keep secrets, you keep them in your soul."
Gellert's smile widened, bright and wrong. "Such an affectionate invitation, young Black."
Corvus ignored the jab. "Do you want to go there or not?"
He shared the secret, name and location. The words landed like a key turning in a lock. The room did not change, but the air did. Arcturus' expression shifted by a fraction, the way it did when a plan clicked into place.
A minute later, they were gone.
The arrival was clean. The world snapped into focus with the faint taste of cold iron at the back of the throat.
The Nest sat in front of them like a bruise made into architecture.
Black stone. Tall angles. Arches that looked like ribs. Window slits that did not pretend to be welcoming. The wards were not decorative. They pressed against the skin, a constant quiet reminder that the place could bite back.
The first thing Arcturus noticed was the level of lethality of the wards.
Magic clung to the air here, not like perfume but like smoke that had soaked into wood for years. It was clean, sharp, and a little too hungry.
Gellert stepped forward, boots crunching on gravel, and let his gaze travel up the façade. He tilted his head, considering.
"Tell me, Arcturus," he drawled, voice smooth as cut glass. "Are you sure this is an aesthetic devotion and not a symptom of Black madness? Your new seat has the same taste in architecture."
Arcturus puffed his chest like an old soldier being complimented. "It looks beautiful."
Gellert gave a soft laugh that was not friendly. "Of course you would say that."
They moved in.
The grounds were not like a manor garden. The path was stone, straight, and bordered by plants that looked designed to punish the careless. Hellebore, wolfsbane, and dark flowers that leaned away from the sun, even though the sun was there. There was a pond at the far edge, half hidden by a curve of hedges and tall trees.
Corvus kept his eyes off it.
The main doors opened without anyone touching them. Warmth spilt out, carrying the faint smell of disinfectant.
Inside, it was worse in the best way.
Gothic lines continued through the entrance hall, but the place was not a shrine. It was a working base. Cables ran along one wall and vanished into warded boxes that hummed quietly. A set of double doors had been reinforced with metal bands and a charm that tasted like blunt force.
A faint pulse, like a clock beating too fast, came from deeper within.
Time chambers.
They were still walking when Augustus Rookwood stepped out from a side corridor and stopped with the crispness of a drilled habit.
His robes were plain, his posture not. He took in the group, and his gaze paused on Gellert and the acolytes with a flicker of something that could have been curiosity or an old reflex.
He inclined his head to Corvus first. "Heir Black."
Then, with the same motion, he acknowledged the rest, respectfully.
Corvus kept moving. "Report."
Rookwood pulled a parchment from inside his robe and scanned it without hesitation. "Doctor Collins and Doctor Sulston have been asking for you. They have a development in their project." He tapped the page once. "Human Genome Project."
Corvus nodded, the name landing in his mind like a weight. That work mattered. It was one of the quiet knives.
"In a moment," Corvus replied. He gestured toward the corridor that led into the heart of the Nest. "Give them a tour. Keep them away from the pond."
Rookwood's eyelids twitched, almost imperceptible.
"Medusa does not like visitors," Corvus added, as if remembering to mention it.
That did it.
Arcturus stopped dead and looked at Rookwood as if the man had just climbed out of a grave. "You are Augustus Rookwood. I thought you perished with the rest of your Death Eater friends."
Rookwood did not flinch. He did not defend himself. He only shifted his attention from Arcturus back to Corvus, as if checking which reality applied today.
Corvus let the silence stretch.
Rookwood chose his words carefully. "Heir Black mentioned his deed, Lord Black." He offered nothing else, then stepped aside and motioned for them to follow.
Gellert drifted closer, eyes narrowing with interest. He did not ask like a polite man. He asked like someone testing a lock.
"Medusa," he murmured, tasting the word. "And a pond. In a fortress full of Muggle scholars and advanced arras. Tell me, is that a pet name, or are you finally confessing to collecting monsters like trophies?"
Corvus kept his gaze ahead. "You are not here to be entertained, Uncle Gellert."
Gellert's lips curved. "I rarely am."
Corvus nodded and went to see Doctors Collins and Sulston.
Rookwood glanced back, then forward again. "The Medusa Heir Black mentioned is a basilisk, Lord Grindelwald."
The acolytes stiffened. Carrow's hand went to her wand with the reflex of someone who had survived too many rooms.
Gellert's interest sharpened. It looked almost like delight.
Rookwood continued in the same tired tone. "I doubt anyone other than him can converse with that serpent."
Vinda cut in before the corridor swallowed them. "When did he bring it here?"
Rookwood looked as if the question cost him a small piece of his patience. "Before his absence of nearly two months, Lady Rosier."
They were still processing that when they stepped out into a broader stretch of the grounds.
A moose wandered across the lawn.
It was not a conjuration nor a charmed object. A real, breathing animal with dull eyes and a slow, confused gait.
Two cows followed behind it, also real, also wrong for this place.
Tibby ran after them with frantic purpose, arms windmilling as if he could physically herd the universe into order.
Vinda exhaled through her nose and looked at Arcturus like she had just been handed a fresh headache. "Let us help him and see what is going on."
Arcturus flicked his wand. The moose slumped first, then the cows, neat and quiet. The animals hit the grass with soft thuds.
Tibby skidded to a stop beside them, eyes bright, grin wide, as if this was the best day of his life.
"So many guests," Tibby blurted, voice too loud for the setting. "Tibby will prepare tea. But first, a meal for the big snake."
Arcturus leaned down slightly, gaze hardening. "Why are you chasing these animals, Tibby?"
Tibby's grin did not fade. "Master asked Tibby. Games big and small for the snake. Snake comes soon. Snake will be hungry."
With a sharp snap of his fingers, the animals vanished one by one, the air folding and popping as if the lawn swallowed them.
Arcturus' eyes narrowed.
He turned toward the stone path that led to the pond.
Rookwood's voice cut across the garden. "Lord Black. Stop."
Arcturus did not; he was not going to be pranked again by Corvus.
Tibby's eyes went wide in genuine fear. He spun, then vanished with a crack that sounded like panic.
Rookwood's wand came up, and a patronus burst from it, silver and fast, cutting through the air toward the heart of the Nest.
The group moved after Arcturus, wands rising. Even Vinda's hand had tightened around hers. Grigori's stance shifted into something protective, and the acolytes spread without discussing it.
They turned the corner.
The pond lay ahead, dark and still, bordered by stones etched with runes that radiated heat.
Bubbles broke the surface. Then the water swelled as if something enormous shifted beneath.
Flame travel lit the air beside the pond, and Corvus appeared with a snap of heat.
He took one look at the bubbles.
His body blurred.
In the space of a heartbeat, Corvus was no longer a man in robes.
A massive serpent occupied the garden.
Heavy, gigantic and thick. Built like a siege engine. Scales that looked like dark stone polished by water. His head rose above the pond's edge, and the air shifted with his weight.
He hissed, low and commanding.
The bubbles intensified.
Medusa broke the surface.
She was sixty feet of muscle and ancient irritation, her body sliding out with wet, scraping sounds, water sheeting off her scales. Her head lifted, and for a single dangerous moment, her eyes were open.
Corvus snapped a hiss at her, sharp and clear.
Medusa's lids slid shut. She opened her eye again with the transparent lid over her eyes. Sealing her gaze behind a layer.
Then Arcturus reached the pond's edge.
He took in Corvus first and scoffed; the old fool in him was pleased at the sight. A moment of vindication, as if he had finally caught his heir in a ridiculous trick.
Then he saw the second basilisk.
His foot completed its step.
And his body froze in place.