Corvus rolled onto his side and stared at the ceiling until his mind stopped replaying last night like a bad habit. Lizaveta's gift sat at the top of the pile for private reasons.
He pushed himself upright, donned a robe, and walked past a table full of boxes and sealed cases. They were tasteful. Some were expensive, some were simple. The living ones were out in the gardens.
A knock came from his door.
A house elf appeared without waiting to be invited. The creature bowed low, hands pressed to its chest.
"Master, the one you asked for is in Reception Three."
Corvus's mouth twitched. "Good. It means he has done what I've asked for."
He crossed the corridor with his mind already on the only gift that mattered.
Reception Three had guards, like all the other meeting rooms.
Two Nestborn stood on either side of the door, both tall enough to make it look small, both in plain black. Rifles rested against their chests like they were part of their skeletons. They were not using wands anymore.
Corvus stepped in.
He thought of his first meeting with HekAnwdn. It was over five months ago.
The Portuguese stood in the middle of the room, hands behind his back, eyes drifting across the wards around the pond in the garden. He was a short-haired, sharp-jawed fellow.
He slightly bowed, clean and controlled.
"Heir Black."
Corvus accepted the greeting with a nod. He stopped in front of the Portuguese man and held his gaze until the man's shoulders tightened.
"Please, have a seat. I heard you have something to report," he motioned.
"Seeing the time arrays. I assumed speed would be appreciated."
"It is, very much so." Corvus angled his head. "I am listening."
HekAnwdn slid a leather folio from under his arm and opened it on the table without asking permission. The parchments were filled with runes, calculations, observations and reports on the results of his work.
Corvus read one paragraph. Then, another, his eyes narrowed.
"You used Essentia Transitoria."
HekAnwdn nodded. "I used it on the fetuses; the timing of the spell can make the additional traits permanent."
Corvus looked up. "Explain."
"The soul does not settle in one clean moment," HekAnwdn replied. He spoke like an instructor. "It wavers, it stretches and absorbs the added traits. It can create space for the added traits on repeat. That stretch is where the work happens. If you force the change too early, the soul rejects it. If you force it too late, the body rejects it."
Corvus tapped the page once. "You found a window."
HekAnwdn's eyes sharpened. "I found the repeat. It is not one operation. It is a series of them. You do not graft a trait once. You introduce it, you anchor it, you let the soul grow to adopt it."
Corvus's mind moved ahead, already slotting this into the Nest's production lines.
"Here is your new task," Corvus started, a plan already shaping in his mind.
HekAnwdn turned to him, listening.
"I want you to anchor three traits," Corvus continued. "First, natural Legilimency, copy it from the Wampus Cats."
Corvus's gaze stayed on the diagram.
"Second, Metamorphmagus, I'll provide the trait to you. I will personally train them."
"And the third?" HekAnwdn asked, voice already excited.
"Demiguise. I do not want invisibility as a spell, I want them to have it as a trait."
Corvus closed the folio.
HekAnwdn watched his hands. "When will you give me the trait for Metamorphmagus?"
"Open your mind," Corvus replied.
-
Corvus walked in the same way he did months ago.
"Mater Magica Aeterna, Heir Black." HekAnwdn greeted him.
"Sit please, I am eager to see the results," Corvus replied.
"You will be pleased to know we have over three hundred successfully engraved with the traits you asked," HekAnwdn replied.
He walked to the door and opened it.
"Bring in Subject Seven," he called.
The guards moved.
A minute later, a boy at the age of ten entered. His robes were plain, Posture relaxed. Eyes too steady. The moment the boy entered, Corvus felt a tendril over his shields.
When the boy looked at Corvus, everything changed from stares to his posture.
He looked at him like a prayer.
Corvus studied the stance. The breathing. The lack of hesitation.
"How many times did you run the sessions?" he asked.
HekAnwdn answered in a monotone voice. "Enough."
The Sessions they were talking was the Loyalty program special units going through.
Corvus stepped close to the boy and lifted his chin with two fingers.
The boy's eyes did not resist.
He met a mind that opened like a door that had been waiting for him. There was structure. There was discipline. There was a fanatical centre that did not wobble.
Not to any flag, nor to any court.
Only Corvus.
He withdrew and let the boy breathe again.
"Show me what you can do," Corvus ordered the boy.
First was the change with extreme speed on both skin, hair and eye colour. Next was the change in body shape, taller, shorter, bulkier. Last was the invisibility. The boy vanished from his sight and reappeared after a while.
"Did you think of a name yet?" The Portuguese asked.
"Black Spire. I'll increase the capacity of your Lab. Let Rookwood know if you will need anything." Corvus answered as he moved towards the door.
HekAnwdn bowed slightly.
Corvus left Reception Three with a satisfied smile.
-
After he met with the sharp-minded Portuguese, Corvus walked towards the dungeon. Once there, he stopped in front of a cell. It was in a time array.
Akingbade was in there. A day outside was twenty inside.
He had been captured nearly a month ago. It was enough to lose track of the rhythm of his own mind. Corvus had made sure of that.
Albus had been taken from the next cell at regular intervals. Scientists liked routines after all. Akingbade was shocked to see the young form of his former friend. He pretended he did not care or fear what was happening. Corvus enjoyed watching him fail. He especially let them see each other every time Albus was taken for harvest.
Akingbade's time will come. Corvus was going to make sure the whole Magical World knew his betrayal.
But not today. Let the man stew.
Corvus turned away, entered his private lab, and shut the door behind him.
Wards locked, and silence returned.
He stood in the centre of the room and let himself breathe once.
Then he let his magic act.
The main workbench slid from the wall and settled in front of him. Smaller tables followed, aligning as if they had learned manners. Tools rose from drawers and hovered at shoulder height, waiting.
A month ago, that would have taken a wand. Now it took a thought.
His fingers flexed.
The sensation still felt unreal. Too smooth, too immediate, it was perfection.
His mind slipped back to the day he talked with Master Ollivander.
-
...
"Now," he said, "tell me what you see and if it is repeatable."
"Cast with the Elder Wand, Master Black, I need to see how it interacts with your magic."
Corvus chated, "Draconifors."
It was a transfiguration spell; the target to transfigure could be anything, even the air itself. Seven small dragons appeared, flying in a circular pattern.
"Now do the same with your own wand, please." Ollivander kept his gaze on Corvus as he cast the same spell with his thestral Hair and Basilisk Scale wand.
"The Elder Wand is interacting differently," the old Wandmaker said. "I doubt anyone can replicate it."
Corvus nodded; he was expecting such an answer. He opened his drawer and took an empty parchment. He started to write on it. Corvus slid a contract across the desk.
Ollivander did not touch it. He read it silently.
"A secrecy agreement."
"A boundary," Corvus corrected.
The wandmaker's gaze lifted. "You do not trust me."
Corvus shrugged. "Do not take it personally, Master Ollivander, but your former loyalties are making it hard to trust your judgment in some topics."
Ollivander scoffed.
Corvus tapped the parchment. "You will keep what you see, what you hear and what you understand between the two of us and not a soul other will hear a word about it. Not by intent, writ, thought, meaning or any other way you will come up. In return, I will give you time to study the Elder Wand."
Ollivander's eyes sharpened. "The Death Stick."
The old man signed. I want a full set of materials, from wood to cores.
Corvus nodded and invited him to the Nest. There, the materials were ready.
Not a handful. A catalogue. Wand woods, cores, and rare substances that should not have been in one room together.
Ollivander supervised like a surgeon. He watched Unspeakables place each piece in a separate containment, wards layered until the air itself felt divided.
Corvus stepped forward.
"Touch," Ollivander instructed, voice calm.
The usual method for a custom-made wand was letting the Witch or the wizards touch the woods and cores. Let the material decide.
He touched a Maple Wood sample.
It reacted.
He touched Rosewood.
It reacted.
By the sixth, Ollivander's eyes had widened. Watching this was like staring at a key that opens every lock.
Corvus moved down the table, palm to container, container to palm.
Yew, reacted.
Phoenix feather, reacted.
Demiguise hair, reacted.
Nundu fang reacted.
Dementor cloak fragment, reacted.
All of it.
Ollivander exhaled slowly. "You are a skeleton key."
Corvus's mouth twitched.
They did not pretend that the old wand logic applied.
They grouped the materials by function and type. Ollivander laid out four separate trays.
The first tray held materials aligned to life and healing. The sort of components that resisted corruption even when pushed.
The second held craftsmanship and disciplines from Alchemy to Charm, from Potions to Rituals.
The third held the dangerous things. Venom sacks, Fangs. Substances that carry violence as a default.
The fourth held the materials linked with Mind Arts. Hair of Wampus Cat, Sphinx Brain, Veela Hair were among other materials.
Ollivander tried to bind them. The first attempt failed. The materials rejected the mixture.
The second attempt failed harder. The mixture bucked like it was alive.
Ollivander's jaw tightened. "Your magic is ruining the Alchemical ratio."
Corvus leaned over the tray, cut his palm, and let blood fall into each tray. Afterwards, let his core reach and channel his mana flow to the trays.
The mixture settled like it had been waiting for him. Ollivander stared at it, and fear visibly crossed his face. Four alchemical mixtures formed, each no larger than a fingernail. The hard part, they thought, was done.
They were wrong.
Keeping Corvus still was not a matter of will. The traits he replicated were making it hard for him to be stunned or to keep sleeping.
Stunners slipped off him too fast. Sedatives failed within minutes.
Muggle doctors argued over dosages, eyes hard with the kind of caution.
Corvus sat on the edge of the operating table, His chest bare and demeanour calm.
"Increase it," he ordered again.
One of the surgeons shook his head. "Find another way. The medical approach is not working for you. We are already on overdose limits. It will kill you."
Corvus gave him a look that made the man stop speaking.
"That kills normal people."
Ollivander stood back, hands folded. He looked like he hated being useless.
The solution came from potions.
A draught of the living death and a timely cast of coma curses by four Unspeakables.
Corvus's breathing slowed, his body stilled. Rookwood gave the signal.
The surgeons moved, the ribcage opened.
Ollivander leaned in, and the wandmaker who had made thousands of wands finally saw the thing wands served.
A magical core.
Not an organ.
An ethereal vortex sits behind flesh, above his heart. The colours he saw when he used his ability on Corvus were churning within the Vortex.
Colour, yes, but also function. The vortex pulled at the air, pulled at the light, pulled at anything magical in the room.
The first alchemical unit was lifted with forceps and brought close to be etched on his ribs.
The moment it approached his Core, it was sucked in and vanished.
Corvus jolted on the table. The surgeons froze. One of the unspeakables swore under his breath.
Ollivander's eyes locked on the vortex. "Continue."
Two more units went in the same way. The fourth followed.
Corvus's core settled, then surged, as if it had swallowed food after starving.
The surgeons closed the rib cage and were getting ready to stitch.
His bones knit, muscle reattached and skin sealed. All of it happened in seconds.
Rookwood reached for a bezoar.
Corvus's eyes opened before that.
He dragged in one breath, sharp, then forced his body to go still again.
"You should all leave," he said, voice low.
No one argued.
Ollivander stayed until Corvus's gaze met his.
The old man swallowed once. Corvus sat up. He lifted a hand. The Elder Wand lay on the desk in the corner of the room, untouched. Corvus did not reach for it.
Ollivander followed his gaze.
"Will you honour your word, letting me study it?"
Corvus nodded. "You have a week, Master Ollivander. You will not leave the Nest for that time."
Corvus stood. The room felt smaller with him upright.
He glanced towards the door of the lab where the Healers, Surgeons and the Unspeakables were.
"I can feel you," he whispered. I can sense your minds.
-
Back in his private lab, the memory faded. The tools still floated. He reached, pushed his perception outward. He touched minds. Not with effort, but with the ease of a simple charm.
People in the corridor outside. People in the upper labs. They were all in his range.
He pulled back before habit became indulgence. Corvus called up his status screen with a thought.
[Status]
Physical: S+
Magical: SS+
Both had jumped by two scales after the operation.
He stared at the numbers until they stopped feeling like a novelty. Then he smiled.
He turned toward the sealed map on his wall. France was marked, 'The Codex' was written over it. Question Marks were in Portugal, Greece, China, Egypt, Japan, Norway and the USA.
He had work to do.