Corvus did not bother with the old ritual dance of wills.
He had done it before. Back when an Animagus form was a battle with an animal mind and a lesson in patience. That would not be the theatre here. This place was not the surface world. This was the afterlife of magical beasts, a cemetery with an appetite for more souls.
The air tasted wrong. Dry as sand, sharp as ash, and threaded with the faint tang of old magic that had nowhere left to go.
The Thunderbird saw him.
It circled once, banking on storm-wide wings that carried a faint crackle through air that had no weather. The bird's eyes fixed on him with the clean certainty of a predator that had eaten a thousand souls and never once been refused. It was not curious. It was hungry.
Corvus stood still and let it commit to the mistake of confusing their roles.
Necromancy rose in him without wand or word. Soul magic, precise and intimate, wrapped around the Thunderbird like a net thrown from inside its own shadow. The spell did not look like anything. It felt like a hand closing, encasing the majestic animal's soul.
The creature screeched.
The sound did not travel like a normal cry. It pressed into Corvus's skull and tried to split his thoughts open. The Thunderbird drove forward anyway, talons extended, beak aimed for the throat. A simple mind running a single plan.
It met pressure.
The air thickened around it as if the whole realm had turned to deep water. Its wings folded against its will. The great body pitched, then stalled, held in place by an invisible force that did not resemble chains. Its talons raked at nothing and left no marks.
The Thunderbird fought with everything it had. Electric threads snapped along its feathers, brief flashes in the empty sky. It tried to strike out with storm instinct, to call lightning. The magic answered, but it answered Corvus. The sparks crawled along the net and died, swallowed before they could become spectacle.
He pulled. He did not yank, he did not rush. He drew the soul toward him with the same control he used when bending a ritual to his will. The Thunderbird's resistance turned from violence to panic. Its eyes grew heavy. Its movements slowed in jagged stutters.
The simple mind could not comprehend siege. It could only feel danger. Corvus tightened his grip. The Thunderbird began to deform. Like an object approaching a blackhole it started to dissolve and drift towards him.
It stretched more in thin wisps, dragged out of its own shape like smoke pulled through a narrow keyhole. The creature thrashed once more. The sound of it was silent, yet the realm shuddered all the same. Then the thrashing stopped.
The last of it slid into Corvus's magical core.
Silence returned.
Corvus drew a deep breath and held it for a beat, not because he needed air, but because it let him measure the change.
It was not a hearty meal. It was structural. His soul did not feel fuller. It felt reinforced, as if another wing had been added to an already vast design. The sensation carried weight without pain, strength without heat. He could feel the edges of himself more clearly, like lines drawn with a steadier hand. He was... more.
He tested the shift the way he tested anything new. He reached for the Thunderbird as an Animagus form. The concept was there. Every detail. Every moment of the creature's life he devoured, laid out in perfect recall. The instincts sat ready like a tool. The taste of storms, the hunt, the pride, the contempt for smaller things.
Yet it was not an Animagus form. It was an option, and Corvus chose it.
Feathers burst along his arms and back, not from skin becoming feather, but from his whole being selecting a different template. His frame expanded in a single, brutal second. Bone reshaped. Mass built itself with authority.
A Thunderbird stood where Corvus had been.
Bigger than the one he devoured.
The world responded to it.
Corvus flexed his wings and felt the desert wind curl around the feathers. He launched, rising with a single powerful beat. The sky opened. The air peeled away from him as if it had been waiting for the moment.
He screeched; the sound came out clean, sharp, and satisfied. To his surprise, his abilities from the Shadow Raven or Spellcraft were available.
Blood Sight responded on instinct. He turned in mid-flight and tasted the realm with new awareness. Souls moved here like lights in a dark sea. Some were distant. Some were close. Some were heavy enough to warp the fabric of the dimension around them. A few carried a hunger that matched his own.
His screech changed. Joy became hunt.
Corvus angled his wings and cut toward movement. The realm offered resistance, thin at the edges, thicker near whatever counted as paths. He pushed through anyway and felt the fabric quiver.
"Let us see what else wanders this place."
-
Seven hours earlier, Menkara al Zahur had been smiling.
Not the warm sort of smile. The kind a ritualist wears when he knows he is witnessing something rare and intends to profit from it in memory and method.
He sat beside the shamanic circle in the ritual room, the old markings etched into the stone by sheer will of the young man at the centre of it. Corvus sat cross-legged, eyes closed, posture relaxed, like this was a ride rather than an ordeal.
Menkara watched the boy's stillness and felt a familiar mixture of admiration and irritation.
This was the fourth ritual. He will gain his final form. This was not a ritual every magician could complete. Subduing the soul of a beast and merging with it was not easy, let alone if the said beast was magical. Soul was not something flexible to accept all forms. It must be extremely strong not to shatter under all that pressure.
Menkara had expected the hunt to take time. A soul must be courted, tested, beaten, then bound. That was the logic.
Hours passed. Corvus did not return.
Menkara's patience thinned, then reformed out of stubborn pride. He had lived long by refusing to be rushed and refusing to die out of boredom. He stood twice to stretch his back, paced once around the circle, then forced himself to sit again. The markings were stable. The chant had been correct. There was no fault to fix, only waiting to endure.
The room remained quiet. Then Corvus's magical presence shifted. It did not flare. It sank. Like weight being added to a structure that was already too heavy for the world's taste.
Menkara sat straighter. Another shift followed. The magical presence became denser. Menkara's eyes narrowed. His fingers tapped once on the arm of his chair. He stared at Corvus's still face and tried to decide whether he was witnessing mastery or madness.
Three more hours dragged past. Menkara drifted into a doze, chin lowering, breath slow. He woke to pressure. Corvus opened his eyes. Menkara blinked at him once, then twice, and the irritation returned like a friend.
"You have had a party on the other side."
Corvus's mouth curved. The expression was almost polite.
Menkara stood and followed him out, too curious to hold onto anger. Corvus returned to the sitting room and found Elizaveta already seated.
She rose and crossed to him without hesitation. The hug was brief and close, her arms firm around his waist as if she were checking that the world had not stolen him while he stepped elsewhere.
Corvus's hand settled on her back. He did not speak.
Elizaveta poured tea and placed the cup into his hand with the same casual care she used when correcting someone's pronunciation. The gesture carried a quiet claim. She watched his face as he drank, eyes tracking for the smallest change. When she found none, her shoulders eased.
Menkara wandered in a moment later, eyes fixed on Corvus with the look of a man who did not believe in miracles but believed in method.
Elizaveta started to rise to serve him. Corvus's hand settled on her thigh.
He filled a cup with psychic magic. The tea swirled, rose, and settled. He let the steaming cup hover beside Menkara's chair.
The Ritualist's mouth twitched.
Elizaveta was Corvus's indulgence. Not anyone else.
The old Egyptian sat, took the cup, and let the show pass without comment. The tea's scent relaxed him, and he approved of the choice even while pretending he did not.
His eyes stayed on Corvus. The young man tilted his head slightly. Menkara pointed with the cup as if it was a wand.
"Are you going to sit there all day?"
Corvus settled into the chair opposite him.
Menkara leaned forward. "Tell me what the new form is."
Corvus smiled.
Instead of shifting, a tail feather appeared in the air beside him.
It was enormous.
Over three feet long, dark with storm sheen, edges fine enough to look sharp without being sharp, the quill thick as an arm. It carried a faint static that raised the hair... or whatever was left on Menkara's head.
Menkara forgot about tea.
He stood abruptly and reached out. His fingertips touched the feather with reverence, then traced along the edge as if reading a text.
"This is…" His voice dropped. He swallowed and tried again. "Just how large is your form, Corvus?"
Corvus finished his tea and stood.
He stepped closer, towering over the frail old man in a way that would have been insulting if Menkara had any pride left in height.
"I am not sure when or if I will return here, Professor."
The words carried weight without melodrama.
Corvus's hand lifted and settled briefly on Menkara's shoulder.
"Allow me to thank you again, not only for this ritual, but for being one of the names who sculpted my understanding of Rituals."
Menkara's eyes sharpened. He did not pretend he was not pleased.
"I have given your name to be registered as a Master Ritualist to the guild, Corvus."
Corvus's eyebrows rose.
Menkara's grin turned sharp. "It has been over a month. I reported the Samhain ritual you conducted at Hogwarts as proof. I am quite sure you have already surpassed my understanding of this craft, so consider this my parting gift."
He lifted his cup in a mock toast. A grin appeared on his face. "Isolde will have a seizure over this."
Corvus's mouth curved with genuine amusement.
"Thank you, Master Al Zahur."
He paused, then let the next line land like a knife pressed into velvet. "I will make sure to inform Master Nacht that it was you whom I trained under for this mastery."
Menkara barked with laughter, rough and delighted.
"You little monster-" He sobered up and looked at Corvus from head to toe. "Not little, but still a monster."
The next morning, Corvus left Durmstrang after breakfast and another sincere speech from Karkaroff.
The castle watched him go. The Bastion guards moved with him like a tide.
Corvus's destination shifted to Spain.
He wondered, with mild curiosity, if Diablo would enjoy the company.