--A/N
There's a poll running on Patreon to choose Corvus's fourth form. It wraps up on 29 January 2026, so if you've got a notion, give it a tap.
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--
The answer arrived with a raven at Downing Street. The bird acted like it was royalty, and Major was some pest. Sending a reply with a Raven was a statement in itself. In Celtic and Germanic cultures, ravens were linked to battlefields, blood and death.
It landed on the window ledge of the Major's office. It did not tap. It did not flutter for attention. It simply stared through the glass with a patience that felt learned and not instinctive.
Major froze with his hand still on the curtain cord. The bird's eyes tracked him, unblinking.
Behind him, the room held the faint stale warmth of old paper and switched off monitors. On the desk sat the government's best attempt at pretending this was still the same country it had been a year ago. A folder marked with security stamps. A spare pen. A blotter that had seen too many late nights.
Major opened the window. Cold air slipped in. The raven did not startle. It waited until Major's fingers were close, then extended its leg with the smooth certainty of a trained messenger. It flew in and landed on his desk, looking at the documents and files as if it could read. To be honest, he would not be surprised if it could.
A ribbon of parchment was fastened to it. Not an owl band, not a brass tube. A strip of leather, cleanly cut.
The parchment unrolled in Major's hand. He read it once, then again, slower.
John Major, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,
Your government's attempt to raid and seize members of Wizarding Britain is an act of war.
You have demonstrated that you will not keep faith with the separation agreed in 1692. You have also demonstrated that your security services will act without restraint when given a list of names and a map.
Henceforth, we will not enter your premises. Nor are you and yours welcome in ours.
If you seek terms, you will do so at Stonehenge. At Midnight seven nights from the moment you read this.
Attend in person, with your principal security chiefs.
Bring what you require to feel safe.
I will match your caution.
Lord Arcturus Black, Lord of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black
Minister for Magic of Wizarding Britain
Major's jaw tightened. He read the word again. War.
It sat on the page like a loaded weapon.
He folded the parchment carefully, as if creasing it wrong would make it worse. The raven hopped once, impatient, then settled again.
Major looked at the bird.
"You could have used the owl," he muttered.
The raven stared at him for a while and took off.
Major shut the window and walked straight to the phone.
Within minutes, Dame Stella Rimington and Sir Colin McColl were in the room. Rimington read the letter without changing expression. McColl's mouth pulled tight at the words about maps and lists.
Neither of them pretended that the phrase "act of war" was empty.
Rimington's finger rested near the line about principal chiefs. "He wants us there."
McColl leaned closer to the paper, eyes narrowing. "Neutral ground, my arse. It is a ritual site. Location itself is a slap to our face."
"And how would you like to contact them to convey such concerns?" He asked with a mock innocence. The owl did not return, which effectively means there will be no further contact unless they send another avian.
Major stood up and started to pace. "We will attend, we need to. But we will not go alone."
Rimington's gaze held his. "We can close the area in a tight cordon. A quiet cover story, such as a military drill, will do the rest."
McColl nodded once, already turning the angle in his head. "I will arrange two SAS teams. They will cover the outer ring only. No one steps into the stones except us."
Major watched their faces. He did not see fear, not the kind that makes people freeze. He saw calculation, the grim kind.
"Clear the area two days beforehand," Major ordered. "Keep the tourists, the mystics and the press out."
Rimington gave a faint, humourless breath. "The press will arrive anyway."
Major's gaze went to the window to see if the raven was still there. "And they will not be the only ones watching."
-
Seven nights later, Stonehenge looked like it had been scrubbed of everything human.
The roadblocks started miles out. Military signs warned of live training. Vehicles were turned away. A helicopter passed overhead at intervals, lights off, a dark presence against a darker sky.
Major stood near the inner circle with Rimington and McColl. Their coats were heavier than the weather needed. The SAS, even though not know who they were going to meet with, insisted on bulletproof vests. The wind came in thin knives across the plain. The stones loomed, ancient and indifferent, slick with damp.
Two SAS teams held the outer ring. They did not cluster. They did not chatter. Each man had a sector, and each sector had an overlap. Rifles stayed low, ready. Eyes swept, paused, swept again.
Major stepped closer to the altar stone and felt something shift. A pressure, like the air had decided to become less forgiving.
McColl moved half a step nearer, voice low. "I do not think we are alone, Prime Minister."
Major did not look away from the stones. "Then we behave as if we already know that."
Midnight struck on Major's watch.
The space between two stones shimmered, the way heat shimmers above tarmac. Then it stopped, as if someone had simply decided to be visible.
Three figures stood where nothing had been a heartbeat earlier.
Silent and efficient. No theatrical entrance. Some of the SAS operators focused on the new arrivals even though they did not understand how they arrived.
One was tall, broad in the shoulders, with the bearing of a man who had never learned to ask permission. Another stood to his right, younger, taller than the last time they met and definitely broader. Major wondered if there was a magical medicine to get such a body. He was also composed with cold eyes that did not need anger. The third wore a faint, amused smile that did not reach his mismatched eyes.
The disillusionment charms fell away like a curtain.
Major held his ground.
Rimington's gaze flicked over their hands. The cursed sticks were there, carried like a gentleman might carry a pen.
McColl's attention landed on the third man's face, then stuck.
Major took the first step forward. It was deliberate, measured, and it kept him inside the inner ring.
"Minister Black. Lord Rosier." Major nodded to Arcturus, then to Corvus. His voice stayed level, the tone he used in Parliament when the chamber was ready to tear itself apart.
His eyes moved to the third.
"I do not believe we were introduced, sir Wizard."
Arcturus inclined his head with a politeness that had edges. "Prime Minister Major. Dame Rimington. Sir McColl."
He turned, palm opening, not quite a gesture of welcome.
"Allow me to introduce a friend of mine. Lord Gellert Grindelwald."
McColl's breath caught.
The name hit the air like a slap.
Rimington's eyes narrowed by a fraction, the same way they did when she read all the available files that should not exist on their magical neighbours.
Major kept his face still, but his stomach tightened. "A pleasure, Lord Grindelwald."
Grindelwald's smile warmed by a degree, and it made him look worse, not better. "Is it?"
Major did not answer that.
Corvus's attention drifted past the three of them, beyond the stones, beyond the inner ring.
"I see you brought soldiers," Corvus observed. He did not raise his voice. "SAS, I presume. Truly, they are the pride of the nation."
Rimington held his gaze. "You are well informed, Lord Rosier."
Corvus's mouth curved in visibly fake kindness.
He looked at McColl, then at Major.
"Hostem scire," Corvus murmured, then finished in clean Latin, "hostem vincere est."
McColl scoffed despite himself. "Cicero."
Corvus nodded once, as if granting a mark on an exam.
McColl's chin lifted. "I assumed you would bring Aurors."
Arcturus's hand moved in a casual arc.
"But we did."
The night tore open above them.
A roar rolled over the stones, deep enough to vibrate through Major's ribs. Wings beat the air with slow, brutal rhythm. Three enormous shapes circled the monument, barely visible against the clouded sky until the moon found scales.
Hungarian Horntails.
They were not myths on a page. They were living siege engines.
Their bodies cut through the air. Barbed tails whipped behind them. Horned heads turned. Yellow eyes caught light and gave it back.
Two riders sat on each dragon. One forward, leaning with the creature's motion. One behind, wand arm ready, posture trained for killing.
The SAS teams reacted on pure muscle memory.
Rifles snapped up. Safety catches clicked. Shouted commands started and died when the men realised they were aiming at something that did not care about bullets.
Major heard his own heartbeat. His breath came short and controlled.
Rimington's face went pale under the flood of shadow and scale.
McColl's mouth parted, then closed with a hard swallow.
One dragon dipped lower. The wind from its wings hit the ground and shoved at coats and hair. Dust lifted, spun, vanished.
The second dragon answered with another roar, louder, closer.
A rider shifted, wand arm lifting by a fraction. It was not a threat yet. It was a reminder.
Corvus raised his hand.
The dragons blinked out.
One instant, they filled the sky. Next, there was only wind and the echo of sound, as if the night itself had been fooled.
SAS rifles remained aimed at empty air.
Corvus looked at Major with a calm that felt engineered.
"Now that your sincere concern about our safety is addressed," Corvus continued, "shall we talk, properly, about what we are?"
"And what are we, Lord Rosier?" McColl asked.
"Enemies, of course. Why would you send your forces to the only known locations otherwise? Why would you try to capture or kill our people if we are anything but your enemies?" Corvus' tone got colder with each word. At his last word, the air around him felt colder.
Major's eyes stayed on the place where one dragon had passed. "We do not consider the citizens of Magical Britain our enemy."
Grindelwald let out a low, amused breath. It was not laughter. It was what came before laughter.
Corvus's gaze hardened. "You have a strange way of proving that, Prime Minister."
Arcturus took the next step forward. The air seemed to tighten again.
"After you attempt to seize our people," Arcturus said, voice even, "we do not consider ourselves subjects of Her Majesty's Crown."
The words landed.
Major's mind flicked through consequences at speed. Constitutional crisis. Military panic. The terror of invisible assassins. The simple question of what happens when a hidden nation declares itself separate.
He forced his voice to stay steady. "Minister Black, think carefully before you speak treason in my hearing."
Arcturus's expression did not change. "Treason requires loyalty."
Rimington's fingers tightened around nothing. She looked from Arcturus to Corvus and back, measuring.
McColl's eyes went back to Grindelwald. Mismatched eyes, now clear in the dim light. One pale. One dark. A face he had seen in photographs that were supposed to be propaganda.
"It's him." He murmured.
Grindelwald's smile widened by a fraction.
Major watched McColl's reaction and understood what he was conveying.
This was not a relative of the former Dark Lord. This was the man who plunged half of Europe into chaos.
Grindelwald stepped half a pace closer, hands loose at his sides. The casualness was its own insult.
"Maybe," Grindelwald offered, voice soft, "you should have thought twice before you decided to attack the Magicals of the Realm."