Corvus did not celebrate after the temple. He did not even sleep properly.
Two months passed with the frigate sitting quietly on the sea like a predatory animal waiting in ambush. The crew rotated watches. Unspeakables came and went through controlled routes. Tibby kept the elves of the ship in check, and life settled under wards.
Corvus kept working.
He replicated the Nereids in layers, one trait at a time, then tested each one in water and in air before moving on. Water Manipulation came first. It felt cleaner compared to elemental manipulation. The level of control was out of the charts. There was no mediator between the element and himself. It moved through his bones like instinct. He could pull a current with a thought, push pressure into a shape, and hold it without strain without spending an ounce of Mana. Water Meld followed. That one felt unnatural, the way Phase used to feel when he first replicated it. He could slip into water and become one with it. Travel through it without friction.
He worked through the rest without ceremony.
To call Shape shifting an upgrade from Metamorphmagus would be the understatement of the century. Pressure and cold resistance, darkvision, the little practical edges that made a civilisation possible under a sea that wanted to crush them.
He left Sacred Blood for last.
It sat in his mind like a line he did not want to cross, not because he feared power, but because he understood what it would mean. Absorbing it was not a stat change. It was a declaration. It would make his body accept kinship with elder stock.
His trait list already looked like a nightmare for this world. A cruel joke yet to land.
He still took it.
On the night he decided, he dismissed the crew from his deck and took the cloak into his cabin more out of habit than need. The bed still smelled like Elizaveta. That became the only comfort he allowed himself.
He lay back and let the absorption start.
Pain came first.
Sharp and full of judgment. It was the feeling of his blood being told it was insufficient, then forced to become something else. His muscles tightened. His bones felt denser, like someone had poured metal through them. Heat pulsed through his veins in waves that did not match his heartbeat.
He clenched his jaw and did not move.
The cabin's wards trembled.
For a moment, he wished he had absorbed Sacred Blood first, because the trait did not simply add. It broke and rebuilt him.
His body grew again.
Not in a slow, gradual way, but in ugly jumps that made tendons ache. His shoulders widened. His muscles become denser. Even his hands looked different, longer fingers, heavier knuckles, the kind of change that made a man look like he was built for violence.
The mana pool behind his ribs expanded like a lung taking in more air than it should. Magic pressed outward, seeking a place to go. His Rapid Regeneration and Longevity fused with his Immortality.
His stat line shifted in the only language his mind now trusted.
Magical moved past SS+ without hesitation. Breaking the Wizarding limits.
When the absorption finished, he was not changed; he was an evolved being. His status screen has some minor changes.
Name: Corvus Black
Age: 20
Race: Ascended Human
Titles: Heir to House Black, Lord of House Rosier
Intended spouse: Elizaveta Volkova
Masteries: Potions, Charms, Transfiguration
Physical: SS+
Magical: SSS-
His gaze drifted to the new abilities he had replicated from different Magicals.
Invisibility and Precognition from Demiguise, enhanced strength and speed of Vampires, intelligence and wisdom of a Sphinx and of course the Legilimency from the Wampus Cats. There were others as well. He travelled the world to find these creatures to make sure he has no weaknesses. He focused on different Magical resistances from multiple sources, which were included as well.
He stared at the ceiling of the cabin and let that settle.
He was not a wizard anymore.
He rose from the bed, and the floorboards complained. The room felt smaller, not because it had shrunk, but because he had stopped fitting into ordinary proportions. He was over three meters now, and that was definitely not a practical height, at least for the vessel. Though he understood why the depictions of the old gods in myths were always huge.
Shape-shifting saved the day. He washed, dressed, and walked out to the deck.
The sea air hit his face and did not calm him. He looked south, toward Crete, and then further, toward the coast that would lead him to Egypt.
The Nereids were done. Before he captures them for research and sacrifice, he will 'visit' other locations.
His route shifted.
Other settlements existed, other artefacts. Alive or dead did not matter. He would take what he needed.
--
The world kept grinding while he was busy ascending.
The provocations continued, as they always did when old structures sensed their end. Groups formed in the cracks, men and women who believed history would repeat itself if they screamed enough.
They attacked clinics. They vandalised hospitals. They tried to bait Unit teams into public overreaction. They waved slogans and scripture and pretended they were defending civilisation.
Their governments did not tolerate it.
In country after country, police cracked down hard. Leaders disappeared into cells. Organisations lost funding, then lost their voice, then lost their courage. The new order did not reward chaos. It punished it.
The radicals kept thinking backlash would save them.
The politicians had become smarter. They kept themselves first, and they kept lunatics away from the Magicals' attention. Not because they cared for them. The healing and magical manipulations were the cute face of the Unit. No one wanted to see the other side.
-
Summer bled out, and the Hogwarts Express returned to its routine.
Platform Nine and Three Quarters carried the same noise as always, trunks scraping, owls hooting, parents pretending they were calm. First years stood in tight groups with eyes too wide and hands too full.
Harry stepped out of the heart. He never used the Train station to reach there after his first year. Neville, as always, was beside him and felt the familiar pressure in his chest ease.
Alice and Frank Longbottom waited near the edge, close enough to see Neville and far enough not to embarrass him.
Frank pulled Neville into a hug with the blunt strength of an Auror. Alice hugged Harry as well, gentle and warm, then stepped back and looked at them both like she was checking they were still intact.
"Work hard, we are proud of you," Alice repeated with a soft smile.
Harry nodded, and Neville gave his parents a grin that looked braver than it was.
They boarded the train.
The new Aurors stood on the magical side of the station like an insult. They did not hold wands. It has been some time since Harry saw these new giant type units use wands. Rifles rested against their chest with casual competence. Pistols sat at their hips. Silent casting sat in their eyes.
Harry watched them for too long.
His dream of becoming an Auror took a step back and then fell down a staircase.
He climbed into a carriage with Neville and tried not to look as if the world had shifted under his feet.
They had barely settled before the door slid open.
Michael Nacht stepped in first. Luna followed like she owned the corridor.
Michael looked different.
Not only taller, though he was. Something in him had sharpened over the summer. He moved like someone who had been training with people who did not accept excuses. Luna looked the same, with her dreamy expression, bright eyes, hair slightly messy as if she had forgotten it was meant to behave.
Harry greeted them. "Ready for your second year."
Luna giggled and leaned into the carriage as if she were about to share a secret. "He is starting his third year, Harry. Not second. If he keeps his schedule, he will be in his fourth before the year ends."
Michael's mouth twitched. "You should worry about your own exams."
Luna's eyes went wide with innocent offence. "I do. That is why I am ahead."
Michael scoffed and turned his attention to her like the rest of the compartment had stopped existing. "Hurry, Luna, or you will not catch me."
Neville lifted both hands like he was surrendering to a hostile force. "Just a moment. Michael. You are in our year."
Michael gave a single nod.
Neville stared harder. "And Luna, you are already at the second half of the second year."
Luna nodded with simple certainty. "I could have finished my exams, but daddy and I went to Sweden to search for Crumple Horned Snorkack."
Her mood dipped at the end, as if the words tasted bitter.
Michael reached for her hand without looking. His fingers closed around hers with the casual ease of habit. Luna's mood recovered by force of contact.
Harry watched and felt tired.
Not jealous, just tired.
He muttered under his breath. "I am feeling as dumb as Weasley."
Neville's shoulders slumped in agreement. "Do not say that out loud. Percy will find a way to hear you."
Harry exhaled a laugh he did not fully feel.
He thought of the children of houses like Black, Rosier, Volkov, and Krafft. Fourth years already, moving ahead like time was afraid of them.
He looked at Neville with sudden resolve. "We focus on nothing but our studies this year."
Neville nodded too fast. "Yes. We do."
Michael's scoff came quietly and sincerely. "Good luck with that."
The train started to move towards another year in the castle.
-
At the political end of the elections, England held blue. The celebrations in the streets of London, though, were not for the elections but for the end of a terror wave which cost over three thousand souls.
The IRA problem solved itself.
A leaked dialogue appeared on television, ugly words spoken by ugly men, captured clean and undeniable. Public support collapsed within weeks. People who had once muttered excuses stopped doing it. Funding dried up when international actors saw the end was near. Recruitment stopped looking romantic and started looking stupid.
John Major did not know how to react anymore.
He sat in his office with the report on his desk and felt as if the country had become a stage, and he had lost the script. The Magicals had reached into his world, rearranged a problem, and done it without asking his opinion or permission.
What bothered him more was quieter. The Magicals wanted segregation, and they established it absolutely. There were no connections other than the official channels. Which, in his case, came with mismatched eyes.
Major had expected some degree of leak, some accidental births, some muggleborns slipping through because biology did not respect politics.
Not one was reported.
Not last year.
Not this one.
The message was clear. The Alliance could clamp down on bloodlines, on births, on migration, on information. They held muscle and reach. At the very least, this was his interpretation. McColl agreed on this regard. Latey, the man, shifted from his aggressive stance to a passive and defensive one. Major could not blame him.
Major rubbed his forehead and felt the weight of the responsibility Corvus put on his desk.
Meeting Grindelwald again sounded like punishment. The mismatched eyes threw Major out of rhythm every time. It felt like speaking to someone who lived in a different time and did not care for it.
Still, it was better than meeting with Corvus Black.
The thought sobered him in a way Grindelwald never did. That young man did not posture. Major was sure he was the overmind behind the propaganda lately. When he consulted McColl and Rimington about it, McColl clearly warned him to think more before even thinking about his options.
Major wrote a short note; he folded and sealed it. He walked to the rarely used room with the hearth and found the falcon waiting like a grumpy official who had been assigned to babysit him.
The avian's head turned. Its gaze locked on the note.
Major offered it with careful hands.
-
Outside Britain, Europe shifted into the same controlled pattern.
France leaned into the Alliance model with bureaucratic enthusiasm, as if paperwork could replace faith. Germany followed with cold efficiency. Scandinavia adopted the healer and Unit presence with less drama; their populations were practical enough to accept results.
In the Balkans, old tensions tried to surface and found hard policy waiting. The Alliance did not allow local feuds to become headlines.
The Middle East remained unstable.
Some tried to copy the healer model and withdrew when mobs turned hostile. Others chose silence, fearing both their own radicals and the new powers watching from shadows.
Russia stopped its aggressive stance over the Balkans. Not because Moscow had become kind.
Because power had changed shape. The old intimidation games risked Alliance intervention, and even Russia understood what it meant to invite that attention. The border stayed quiet. The rhetoric stayed contained.
The world adjusted.