Corvus did not take the door to his right or left. The hub turned and stopped a black slab straight ahead. He put his palm to the seam and let it open.
Speed and Agility flared again. Bloodsight washed the threshold and came up hot with layered work.
Stone rose in high walls. Crystals stood everywhere, stacked on top of each other, some were floating whil others looked as heavy as lead. Some were clear as water, some smoked with grey, some carried a dull iron shade. A few burned white or gold from the inside as if a small sun had been trapped there and taught to be still.
A bench ran along the near wall. Five hooded figures bent over a man strapped to a stone bed. The runic array under him held a neat geometry. Lines for paralysis. Lines to keep the heart steady. Lines to stop the throat from finding a scream. The man's eyes were open. His gaze was on the ceiling with tears sliding down his face. He watched nothing. His ribs were spread like a book. Each bone broken to form the shape of bloody wings. Viscera kept to the side in a clear charm. The wand tips worked inside the cage with the care of men tuning a clock.
Corvus crossed the space in a breath and stood at the man's head. Memory Mapping let the situation to flow to his mind the moment his gae landed on the nearest Unspeakable. Understanding dragged cold across his skin. He did not dive. He skimmed, the Sould Room. Procedure written in habit, crystal harvest at the instant between last breath and the first moment of death. Gold for innocents, and there were no innocent between humans. Magicals or Mundane. Only infants. White for those who died with clear conscious and cleaner souls. Grey for men whose lives had make them put on some black on that white. Iron for killers who never felt a thing. Black for those who willfully hurt, maim and kill.
His gaze returned to the field of crystals. "So this is what you do," he murmured silently. "Capture souls and file them in rows."
He looked at the man on the slab. Corvus was not a saint nor he ever wanted to be. Yet there were some lines. Lines no one should cross. The gold in the crystal was one of those lines. Slaughtering infants to confirm a theory. Cutting a man open to see if a principle could be weighed, this was not about being selfish, good or bad. This was pure evil. And evil should face consequences.
On this particular example the consequence came in the form of a sledgehammer as the item was forming in his free hand. Long haft, heavy head and no ornament. The first hooded figure began to turn toward the door that had closed after his entry. Too slow he thought.
The hammer moved. The swing started low and climbed in a clean arc. Impact met the centre of the pelvis. Force travelled through bone to softer targets that was not happy to bear it. The body started ascend slowly. The sound stretched thin in his ears. He turned on his planted foot and put the head flat into an elbow of the second. A short cut into the shoulder followed. Joints failed. Wand fell free of it's hold. He caught it and pocketed it without looking.
The third was finishing his turn towards the door at that moment. The hammer met the knee before the last movement finished. The leg folded. He laid the head into the other arm and felt some bones give in. The fourth received the face of the hammer in the ribs. Air left the lungs and did not come back fast enough to matter. The fifth was raising his wand the first lights of a shiled forming slowly. The hammer clipped the wrist and continued towards the elbow. The body twisted and started the roll destined to end on the stone floor, with a slightly unnatural pose.
Speed ebbed and sound snapped back. Five men learned how to breathe around pain. Corvus stood still and watched how physics works in real time. as the first was lifted towards the ceiling as if thrown, second buckled same as the other three. All of it happened nearly at the same time.
As a mercy a sickly green set the man on the slab be free of this nightmare.
He stripped the five of their robes and collected the remaining wands. He rolled each robe tight from hem to collar and stored them next to others. Coma curses followed.
He mapped the memory of the rest. He took the theory they had memorised like catechism. How to knit crystal in a moment. How to bind a knot of targeted soul at the edge of death and make it form the quartz as a cacoon. He took their ledger of colours and their conclusions about what each meant. He took the practice to be examined later.
Soul Magic, different from any oher was a must for him. He was a person from another realm occupying a body. Soon he will findout what exactly happened. The original Corvus' memories were clear, he made a mistake, a mistake on a ritual allowed the Officer a Corvus to inhabit the newly emptied body of another Corvus of this new world. Yet not for a moment he believed this was a coincedence.
He straightened and looked at the gold in the corner. A crystal the length of his forearm burned with a quiet, steady light. An innocent. Someone had killed a child to capture it's soul and called it necessary to test a teory.
He lifted the sledgehammer and set the head over the crystal with care. The drop was only a handspan. Stone kissed stone. The quartz sheared and broke into pieces. The golden light unspooled in small motes and lifted like dust in a library caught by sun. The air tasted sweet for a breath and gone the next.
He let the hammer hang by his side and turned back to the bed. The man's eyes were dull now. The runes holding him ebbed.
--
The black door eased shut behind him. The hub was no longer still. Arcturus stood with one hand behind his back. Vinda held the square of parchment Corvus had left on the stone, her eyes on the turning ring of doors.
"Welcome, elders." Corvus crossed to the centre and let his gaze take the room. "You found my note."
Vinda lifted the note a finger's height. "Evidently." The hall shuddered. Twelve doors rotated on their axis and settled.
Corvus stepped towards the four Unspeakables propped by the threshold. He took out one of the robes from his pouch. "Their robes is their trick," he said, voice for the whole hall. "Woven and layered with runes. It turns spellwork to charge it's defenses. It is however ineffective against force."
He opened a hand. Iron answered in the air around him. War hammers thumped into palms up and down the line. Volkov men tested the balance with short, neat swings. Krafft's lot checked the hafts and grinned like boys in a yard.
Corvus went on. "Use environmental transfiguration, conjure items and banish them towards the hooded ones. Do not wait for a clean lines to duel. If they show in the hub, bury them under it."
Arcturus inclined his head by a fraction. Grigori's mouth twitched, pleased. Sigibert rolled a shoulder to set his cloak and watched the doors with open interest.
Corvus pointed with the Elder Wand as he spoke. "This hub holds twelve doors. Each opens to a chamber reasearching an aspect of Magic. The Hall of Prophecies, focused on foretelling, prophecies and destiny. The Death Chamber, centered on the mysteries of mortality and the veil between worlds. The Time Room, devoted to the study of temporal flow and its manipulation. The Brain Room, exploring thought, intellect, and consciousness. The Space Room, examining the cosmos and the fabric of the universe. Love Room is studying the cocept as a force, do not let your minds roam the gutter."
This got some chuckles from the group. "They test it here from blood relations to bed fellows, how it forms, at what point it becames a binding force. The Fate Room, concerned with inevitability, probability, and the threads of destiny. The Soul Room, focused on recollection, the energy that keeps the identity, and the preservation of experience and self. The Creation Room, studying biological and magical genesis and the origins of matter and life that is conjured, born, resurrected or otherwise. The Destruction Room, devoted to entropy, decay, their nature and relation with life and of course how to control and wield it as a weapon. The Dream Room, exploring visions, imagination, and the ability of seers. Lastly the Chaos Room, investigating disorder, unpredictability, and the correlation Magic has as a force with all the above."
He let the wand drop to his side. "Death and Soul rooms are secure. Doors rotate when you exit and close them, so treat every threshold as new."
A Volkov captain lifted his hammer, approval in the tilt of it. Krafft traced a simple anchor in the floor as if to test how quickly it would take shape under a cast.
Sigibert turned just enough to catch Grigori's eye. "You sly fox," he said, dry as a winter road. "Already picked his bride, have you."
Grigori did not blink. "You would waste time planning when work waits. Typical Krafft."
Sigibert ignored him. He moved closer to Corvus and smiled. "You will visit Berlin, Corvus. We owe you for what you did against Dumbledore."
"After we finish this rai.. this lawful correction of a rebel office against Minister Black," continued Sigibert, mouth edged with humour.
Corvus coughed lightly and repeated the line again. "You hold the hub. If one of them appears, you do not debate. You break bones and take their robes. If a door fights you, step back and reset.
Sigibert patted Corvus' shoulder. "Call me Uncle Sigibert from now on," he said, smiling like a knife kept clean.
Across the ring Arcturus' smile thinned. The look he sent Krafft would have frosted glass. Grigori's laugh broke free, loud and honest for once.
"Later," Vinda said, eyes never leaving the doors. "We have a department to put back in its place."
Corvus answered with a small nod. He checked the ring once more, listened to the hall breathe, and chose his next door.
--
Clearing the rooms turned into a rhythm. Open, strike, strip, put them under some heavy spells and move. The hub learned their footfalls and gave them new faces each time it turned. On the second run Corvus stepped out of a chamber that smelled of incense and spirits. Dream Room was easy to name. Phials littered the benches. One Unspeakable snored into his sleeve. The rest lay where the hammers had taught them to rest.
He wiped glass dust from his glove and looked to the ring. Arcturus and Vinda was not there. Two doors eased open at once and gave them Grigori with Volkov elite behind him and Sigibert with Krafft men in neat order. Hammers hung easy in their hands. Both lines took the centre and watched the doors settle again.
Someone had tried to score a mark into the nearest door with a charm. The wood showed clean after it's shift. They tried multiple other ways to mark the doors. All ended up in failure. The hub did not keep souvenirs.
"We tried to hold one open," a Volkov captain said while he set his hammer head down to rest. "The ring would not turn."
"Rooms we cleared would not open when a door is kept open." Krafft's right hand added.
"How many?" Corvus asked as he checked the four bodies by the threshold. Still breathing. Coma held.
"Nine," Grigori answered. He did not look pleased.
Sigibert rolled his wrist as if to ease a catch. "Arcturus and Vinda went together."
"How many hoods we took down in total?" He asked.
The count came in fourty five in total.
Corvus stood at the centre stone and watched the slow rise and fall of the men's chests. The hub turned once more and came to rest.
He sent a Patronus into the nearest door and waited for the faint return of his own magic. Nothing came back. The room beyond was not empty. It simply did not want to talk to him.
They tried marks again. Carved lines with conjured steel. Chalk. A glass bead pressed into a seam. Each shift wiped the work clean as if the hub disliked vandalism.
"Let us stop wasting time," Corvus said. "Open the door in front of you. If it is locked, that room is done. If it opens, we go."
Grigori took the first. Locked. Krafft the second. Locked. Three more gave the same answer.
They waited. Patience has a shape in a place like this. It sits in the muscle and watches the ring do what it will. They gave it half an hour by Corvus' count. Men drank water. A Krafft man cleaned a blood line off his hammer with the edge of his robe. Volkov's second checked his team's boots and laughed low at something no one else needed to hear.
When the ring stopped again, Corvus looked from face to face. "Try them all. Closest first."
Hinges moved in clean order around the circle. Locked. Locked. Locked. Open and then shut. Locked.
"Nine hold," Sigibert said. "Two are erady. One is acting strange. It is slowed down to a crawl."
"Which one took them?" Grigori asked.
Corvus turned his head and listened for anything at all that would give him the seam of the thing. The hub breathed like a patient beast. "You two take your men and clear the rooms with open doors. I'll take the 'slowed one' It must be the Time Room. Bring the Unspeakables with you when you are done. Start killing and blasting everything in sight If I will not return within an hour."
No one argued. Boots set, hammers were cleaned and ready again.
-
In the command room Croaker watched the movement map breathe. Bright motes had gone to amber across half the board. From sixty the department has only fifteen was still standing. Six of those numbers were already with him in the command room. He should have been angry. He found the silence in himself instead.
He leaned on the brass ring and let the lens drop over a quadrant of the hub. One chamber printed a soft glow that was not heat and not light. A bubble sat inside it like a glass bell. Two figures moved within at a pace that made the ink creep. Minister Black and the new Headmistress. They were trapped in one of the bubles. Seven times slower. There was no escape for the two.
He smiled without teeth. "Good," he said to the empty air. "Come now Corvus Black. Let us see if you are good at negotiations as well."
He set the tip of one finger to the rune for Time Room and held it there until the map stopped trying to give him the old names it liked to use. Then he watched the bubble hold while the rest of the hall kept time for them.