"Magic does not forget. It lies buried in stone and silence, waiting for the brave—or the foolish—to dig too deep."
Dreams in the Wall
The walls of Hogwarts had begun to hum.
Not audibly, not to most—but Albus could feel it like a low, vibrating pressure beneath his skin. In the early morning hours, when silence held the corridors still and moonlight crept like smoke through the high windows, he heard them: voices folded into the mortar, speaking in dead tongues.
The rune on his wrist responded, glowing faintly whenever he drew near certain places. Archways he had walked beneath a hundred times now sparked with a new, hidden energy. One night, standing just outside the library's oldest wing, he touched the stone wall—and his vision went white.
In that moment, he wasn't in Hogwarts anymore.
He was standing on an endless plain of white ash, beneath a sky of violet flame. Before him stood the ghost of a tower, half-formed, woven from bone and shadow. At its base, a woman screamed—a sound not of fear, but grief.
Then he blinked, and he was back.
The wall was cool beneath his palm. And his wrist burned like fire.
Fiona's Discovery
Three days later, Fiona Greyback uncovered something impossible.
"It's not just a root," she said, laying the brittle, rune-marked parchment across the table in the Room of Requirement. "It's a web."
The map showed Hogwarts not as a floorplan, but as a living network—ribbons of ley energy snaked under the castle, crossing at key points: the Great Hall, the Astronomy Tower, the Library... and one place lower than all the rest. A junction marked with a forgotten sigil: a twisted tree bleeding upward into fire.
"The magical heart," she murmured. "Or a wound. Maybe both."
Scorpius frowned, tracing the lines. "It's beneath the foundations. Lower than the Chamber of Secrets. I don't even know how we'd reach that deep."
"We don't reach it," Albus said quietly. "It's already reaching us."
The rune on his wrist flared.
Descent
They prepared for three days.
Fiona assembled charms older than English, harvested from banned Black Forest tomes. Scorpius brewed a distortion elixir, one that would allow them to slip through magical spaces not bound by traditional geometry. Albus, restless, spent each night in the Library's Shadow Alcove, where books read themselves aloud, and time folded differently.
At midnight under a waning moon, they descended past the dungeons, through the pipe-strewn ruins of the old Slytherin dormitories, and finally, through a doorway that had not existed the day before.
The passage beyond was narrow, wet, and cold. Not just cold in the skin—but cold in the soul. Fiona shivered visibly. Even Scorpius, normally quick with a smirk, said nothing. Albus led.
The air changed as they moved down. It grew thicker. Older. Their breaths misted as if they had walked into a tomb untouched by the living.
Eventually, the stone walls gave way to roots.
Not vines, but roots—living things, veined and pulsing, wrapped tightly around the walls like muscles under skin. The tunnel throbbed with a pulse of magic far older than the castle above.
At the very end, a narrow stairway curved down into a great circular vault.
The Chamber Beneath Roots
The cavern stretched farther than their Lumos spells could reach.
The ceiling vanished into darkness. The walls were lined with countless roots, each as thick as a man's body, all glowing faintly with red and violet light. It was not the light of fire or charm—it was the internal, alien glow of something not meant for the surface world.
In the center stood a monolith of obsidian. Silver vines wrapped around its base like barbed wire. Suspended just above it hovered the object that had haunted Albus's dreams.
The Root Heart.
It was a teardrop-shaped crystal, blacker than night, but refracting flickers of silver when it pulsed.
Albus stumbled. The rune on his wrist surged.
"It's… it's alive," Fiona whispered.
Scorpius stepped forward. "No. It's sentient."
A voice, low and thick like roots pushing through soil, echoed across the chamber.
"You have returned."
It was not Morrigan.
This voice was older. Hungrier.
The Echo of Founders
On the surface of the monolith, shapes began to appear—moving carvings like moving pictures burned into obsidian.
Four witches. Their faces shrouded in flame.
They surrounded the crystal, casting a spell. Lines of power wrapped around the Heart. But something went wrong—one of them faltered.
The image stuttered. Flickered.
Then words bloomed across the stone in runes that burned bright as starlight.
Here was the Root chained. Here the Silence began.
Fiona inhaled sharply. "It's the original binding."
Scorpius shook his head. "They didn't build Hogwarts above it. They built Hogwarts to contain it."
Albus's eyes locked on the floating crystal.
He didn't move. He simply whispered, "Morrigan wasn't the gate. She was the sacrifice."
The Memory of Fire
When Albus stepped closer, he was pulled violently into another vision.
He saw the land before Hogwarts existed—wild, unclaimed, sacred.
A lone woman with eyes like fire knelt at a stone circle, whispering to the earth. Shadows twisted from the ground in answer. The Root was listening.
Four figures appeared: Rowena, Godric, Helga, and Salazar—young, not yet legends, still human.
They argued fiercely. Rowena's face streamed with tears. Godric raised his sword but hesitated. Salazar alone did not speak.
The woman—the one who would become Morrigan—offered herself.
She placed her hand to the soil. And the Root came.
It rose, and it devoured the sky.
The Bargain and the Binding
"She didn't defeat it," Albus gasped, pulling back. "She made a pact. Bound herself to it. That was the only way they could seal it."
Fiona's face was pale. "She was the gate. Her soul became the barrier."
"But it's breaking," Scorpius said grimly. "It's hungry again."
The crystal pulsed violently.
"You are the new root. The new gate. Born in her shadow."
The ground trembled.
Roots surged from the walls.
The Attack
Chaos erupted.
Fiona threw up a shielding charm, but the roots smashed through it like parchment. Scorpius blasted them with fire, but for every one he scorched, two more emerged.
The monolith cracked. The Heart flared. And Albus heard it whisper:
"Let go. Become the seal."
He saw flashes—visions of himself alone, bound in stone, trapped beneath the world forever. Peaceful. Silent. Forgotten.
He almost said yes.
But Fiona's voice broke through the madness.
"You're not her! You're not Morrigan!"
"You don't have to be the gate!" Scorpius shouted.
Albus turned, eyes wide. "Then what do I do?"
The Choice
He remembered the incantation from the vision.
Words written in the monolith.
Not to bind.
Not to contain.
But to divide.
"Obvolvo veritatem. Tegere sanguinem. Frangere radicem."
The crystal cracked.
The roots screamed.
A shockwave of light burst from Albus's chest.
The spell was one Morrigan had never dared to use—one that would sever the link between the bearer and the Root. Not to trap it—but to separate it forever from the bloodline.
Collapse and Escape
The Heart shattered.
Shards of obsidian scattered across the vault.
The monolith exploded.
The chamber walls trembled as roots shriveled, turned to ash, and disintegrated.
The way back began to collapse.
They ran.
Through collapsing halls, through howling winds, through screaming shadows of Morrigan's fractured memory. Albus felt her weeping inside his mind—and then, slowly, finally… silence.
They cleared the final threshold as the vault sealed behind them.
And the castle fell still.
Aftermath
Back in the Room of Requirement, none of them spoke for a long time.
Scorpius finally broke the silence.
"You broke the link."
Albus stared at his wrist. The rune was no longer glowing. Only faint, silvery scar tissue remained.
"I don't feel her anymore," he said.
Fiona looked uncertain. "But the Root itself isn't gone."
"No," Albus agreed. "But it's sealed from me. From the bloodline. It'll have to find another way."
She met his eyes. "And it will."
He nodded. "Then we'll be ready."