Chapter 11: The Reign of Terror and the Sanctuary of Shadows (The 1970s)
The 1970s descended upon the British wizarding world like a suffocating blanket of fear, woven by the increasingly audacious and brutal hand of Lord Voldemort. The tentative whispers of his name gave way to shrieks of terror as his Death Eaters, a grotesque collection of pure-blood fanatics, power-hungry sadists, and dark creatures, unleashed a campaign of violence that shattered the fragile peace of the post-Grindelwald era.
Corvus Blackwood, now a man in his forties, observed this reign of terror with the chilling intimacy only his unique gift could provide. From the impenetrable sanctuary of Blackwood Manor, he felt every strategic decision Voldemort made, every dark curse unleashed, every new piece of forbidden magic mastered by the self-proclaimed Dark Lord. The thrum connecting them was a constant, electrifying torrent of tactical genius, battlefield savagery, and profound, terrifying arcane knowledge.
Voldemort, Corvus sensed, was in his element. He commanded his Death Eaters with an iron will, orchestrating attacks on Ministry officials, Muggle-born families, and anyone who dared to openly defy him. The Unforgivable Curses became commonplace. Villages were razed, families disappeared overnight, and a climate of paranoia seeped into every corner of wizarding society. Corvus experienced, tenfold amplified, Voldemort's mastery of fear as a weapon, his ability to turn communities against each other, and his increasingly sophisticated use of Inferi in his assaults – knowledge that Corvus meticulously catalogued and analyzed.
One particularly brutal campaign involved Voldemort's subjugation of the giant clans. Corvus felt Voldemort's arduous negotiations, his displays of overwhelming power, the dark pacts made, and the subsequent unleashing of enraged giants upon wizarding settlements. The amplified experience was a masterclass in inter-species diplomacy (albeit a dark, coercive form) and the strategic deployment of overwhelming force. Corvus also learned, with chilling clarity, the specific enchantments Voldemort used to control or influence such powerful, inherently magic-resistant creatures.
While the wizarding world trembled, Blackwood Manor remained an island of imperturbable calm. The Aegis of Blackwood, perfected over years, shimmered with barely contained power, a silent testament to Corvus's mastery. No Death Eater dared approach; no dark curse could find purchase. Within its wards, life continued with a semblance of normalcy, though Corvus ensured his family – his wife, Isolde, and their two young children, Orion and Lyra (named in tradition) – were under constant, discreet protection. His children, he noted with satisfaction, were already showing signs of considerable magical talent, a legacy he intended to nurture and shield.
"The world outside descends into madness, Corvus," Isolde remarked one evening, her usually composed face etched with worry as she read the dire headlines in the Daily Prophet. "Are we truly safe here?"
"This house, this land, is warded by magic that Voldemort himself would struggle to comprehend, let alone breach," Corvus reassured her, his voice calm and steady. He did not elaborate that much of his understanding of such wards was, ironically, amplified from Voldemort's own research into protecting his Horcruxes. "Our concern is not the chaos without, but the continued strength and prosperity within."
Indeed, Corvus found opportunities within the turmoil. As businesses collapsed under Death Eater pressure or families fled the country, Corvus, through carefully insulated intermediaries, acquired assets at drastically reduced prices – land, properties, even struggling enterprises that he knew, with his foreknowledge of Voldemort's strategic blind spots, would survive the conflict or become valuable in its aftermath. He was not profiteering from suffering, he reasoned, but merely exercising sound financial judgment in a volatile market, ensuring House Blackwood's resources grew even as the world burned.
Dumbledore, now Headmaster of Hogwarts and the de facto leader of the resistance, formed the Order of the Phoenix. Corvus was aware of its existence almost from its inception, sensing Voldemort's frustration at this organized opposition. He even received a discreet, heavily warded owl from Dumbledore himself, a carefully worded invitation to lend his "considerable talents and resources" to the cause of light.
Corvus penned a polite, equally warded refusal. "My primary and immutable responsibility, Headmaster," he wrote, "is the safeguarding of House Blackwood. We shall remain neutral in this conflict, offering sanctuary to none and offense to none. Our wards are absolute. I wish you fortitude in your endeavors."
Dumbledore, he knew, would be disappointed but not surprised. The Blackwoods had a long history of pragmatic neutrality. What Dumbledore couldn't know was that Corvus's "neutrality" was armed with an unparalleled understanding of the enemy.
This understanding deepened daily. When Voldemort, in his quest for ever more potent magic, unearthed an ancient Sumerian ritual for animating shadows into sentient, quasi-corporeal assassins, Corvus received the knowledge tenfold. He spent weeks in his private laboratories, deconstructing the ritual, understanding its terrifying power and its subtle weaknesses, not to replicate it, but to ensure he could counter it or anything similar, should the need ever arise. When Voldemort invented a new curse – a particularly insidious one that caused a victim's magical core to slowly unravel – Corvus instantly grasped its mechanics, its casting parameters, and, after a few days of intense theoretical work, several potential counter-curses and shielding enchantments. He was becoming a living grimoire of Voldemort's darkest innovations.
Voldemort's physical transformation continued its horrifying progression. The handsome features of Tom Riddle were now almost entirely gone, replaced by a waxy, snake-like visage, with crimson eyes that glowed with malevolent power. Corvus felt Tom's fleeting moments of distaste for his altered appearance, quickly suppressed by the conviction that it was a necessary sacrifice for power and immortality.
On one occasion, a particularly ambitious Death Eater, Antonin Dolohov, overeager to impress his master, planned an attack on a Ministry official whose route unfortunately passed close to a minor Blackwood trading outpost. Corvus, sensing Voldemort's approval of Dolohov's plan, knew the attack itself was irrelevant to him, but the potential for collateral damage to Blackwood interests was an annoyance. Days before the planned ambush, an anonymous tip, delivered via a complex series of untraceable magical relays Corvus had designed years ago, reached a low-level, habitually nervous clerk in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. The tip spoke vaguely of "unusual Dark activity" in that specific sector, with no names and no specifics. The clerk, eager to seem proactive, raised a minor security alert. The increased, albeit unfocused, Ministry patrols were enough to make Dolohov's planned ambush less appealing, and he shifted his target elsewhere. The Blackwood outpost remained untouched. Corvus had protected his interests without firing a shot, without revealing his hand, his actions utterly untraceable.
As the 1970s wore on, Voldemort's reign of terror reached its zenith. The Ministry was in disarray, its officials either assassinated, under the Imperius Curse, or too terrified to act. Hope seemed a dwindling commodity. Corvus, however, began to sense a subtle shift in Voldemort's preoccupations. Beneath the arrogance and the strategic planning, a new undercurrent was forming – a thread of paranoia.
Voldemort, despite his Horcruxes and his formidable power, was not entirely without fear. He feared death, of course, but he also feared anything that could challenge his dominion. Corvus felt Voldemort's growing obsession with prophecies, with any hint of a future threat. He tasked his followers with scouring ancient texts, with interrogating Seers, searching for any word, any whisper, that might pertain to his ultimate downfall.
This new obsession intensified in the final years of the decade. Corvus didn't yet know the specifics, but he could feel the change in the tenor of Voldemort's thoughts, the almost feverish hunt for information concerning a potential prophesied enemy. The name "Sybill Trelawney" began to surface in the periphery of Voldemort's awareness, linked to Dumbledore and a recent hiring at Hogwarts.
Corvus stood on the battlements of Blackwood Manor one cold, clear night, looking out over his silent, warded lands. The stars were brilliant in the dark sky, indifferent to the turmoil gripping the wizarding world. He was now a man approaching fifty, his power at an unimaginable peak, his knowledge a terrifying blend of ancient lore and the cutting edge of Dark Arts, all filtered through the dark mirror of Lord Voldemort. He had created a sanctuary for his family, a fortress of power and knowledge. He had played no part in the war, yet he knew its every secret, its every move.
The winds of change were blowing. Voldemort's paranoia, Corvus sensed, was leading him towards a specific focal point. A prophecy had likely been made, one that the Dark Lord believed pertained to him. The coming years, Corvus knew, would be critical. Voldemort, driven by this new fear, might become even more reckless, more dangerous. Or he might make a fatal mistake.
Corvus Blackwood would be watching, listening, learning. His loyalty remained singular: to the House of Blackwood. Its survival, its prosperity, was his only concern. And in a world dominated by the shadow of Lord Voldemort, the greatest weapon he possessed was the intimate, amplified knowledge of the Dark Lord himself. The future was uncertain, but Corvus was prepared. The silent sentinel of Blackwood Manor would endure.