The Choice
Albus stood at the edge of the frozen grove, his fingers hovering just above the shimmering bark of the silver birch. Its memory-leaves glittered in the unmoving air, each one a moment long since lost—buried by centuries, made immortal only by the Root's hunger for remembrance.
The Warden's eyes watched him carefully.
"You are bound to the Root already. A shard beats beneath your skin. If you plant this one…""…the Root will grow," Fiona whispered. "Inside you."
"And if you burn it?" Scorpius asked.
"Then you fracture what remains," the Warden replied, voice low. "You sever memory from place. The Grove dies. But so does the connection."
Albus looked at Fiona and Scorpius.
"I don't want to become what Morrigan was," he said. "But we don't know what happens if we destroy them either. The Root isn't just some dark force. It was part of Hogwarts. It was part of the Founders' work."
He took a step closer to the tree.
"The shard beneath the lake—Leora didn't resist me. The catacombs didn't try to fight back. It's like… it wants to be gathered."
He laid his hand against the bark.
"I'll take it," he said. "But I won't let it grow wild."
"Then bind it with memory," the Warden said.
"Bind it with choice."
Binding the Third Shard
The grove rippled.
The silver birch melted into mist, its trunk folding in on itself, and from the light left behind floated the third shard—small, jagged, trembling.
Albus reached out and touched it with his right hand.
His wrist burned—this time not with pain, but light. The shard slid into his skin like ink into parchment. The silver lines of the Root mark spread further up his forearm, branching out like veins. His breath caught in his throat as whispers filled his mind—fragmented voices, laughter, screams, the names of spells he'd never learned.
Then it stopped.
His heart slowed.
He was still himself.
Barely.
The Warden's Farewell
The grove faded, revealing the chamber once again—the bones, the roots, the cold hush.
The Warden stepped back.
"Three roots claimed. One remains. The final is the Crown."
"The East Wing," Fiona murmured. "The sealed hallway."
The Warden nodded.
"It lies beyond the Mirror Gate. Behind the spells no student has passed in two centuries."
He turned to Albus.
"If you gather the fourth shard, the Root will awaken fully. Its cycle complete."
Albus swallowed. "And then what?"
"Then you choose again."
The Warden stepped into the root-veined wall and vanished.
The Warden's Farewell (Continued)
The Warden's pale figure shimmered like dew evaporating in sunlight. His rooted hands slowly uncurled, wooden fingers fracturing into dust. The last guardian of the Grove—the man who had once been Osric, Helga Hufflepuff's apprentice—gave a final nod.
"It lies beyond the stone door, in the Crown of the East Wing. Four pieces for one root. One root for one gate. One gate for all memory."
His voice echoed as his body dissolved into a swirl of silver pollen, caught on a wind that no longer existed.
Albus, Fiona, and Scorpius stood in silence.
"He gave up everything," Fiona said finally, her voice tight. "For this place. For the Root."
Scorpius placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Maybe he wasn't just a guardian," he said. "Maybe he was a warning."
Albus looked down at his wrist.
The third shard's integration had left more than another sliver of silver. It had formed a new symbol—a branching crown, etched just above his pulse point.
"One more," he murmured. "Then it ends."
Retreat and Reflection
They left the Grove just before moonrise, slipping past the Willow's still limbs and back into the edge of Hogwarts' night.
The castle loomed like a slumbering colossus—watchful, wise, but wary. Its corridors seemed narrower, the stone a little warmer, as if the building itself sensed the power Albus now carried.
In the Room of Requirement, Fiona placed the enchanted map on the table. Three of the four shard-lights had darkened—absorbed into Albus's arm.
Only one remained.
The final shard.
"It's deeper than we thought," Fiona said. "The East Wing Crown isn't just a metaphor—it was a ritual chamber. Used only once. Hundreds of years ago."
Scorpius frowned. "Wasn't that whole section sealed after the Blackwell Collapse?"
"Yes," Fiona said. "Collapsed. Then covered up."
Albus leaned against the windowsill. "We'll need help."
The Raven and the Scroll
Help arrived in the form of a raven.
It tapped at the window just after dawn. Fiona let it in with a flick of her wand, and it dropped a scroll bound with wax: the crest of the Department of Magical Archives.
"Elinora," Albus said.
He broke the seal and unrolled the parchment.
Inside: a diagram of the East Wing's substructure, including the sealed Crown chamber. Scrawled beneath it in spidery script:
"Your blood has stirred the Old Gate. You must decide: seal or open. But know this—she watches from the threshold. The shards are not yours alone."—E.V.
Fiona exhaled sharply. "She knows we've gathered three."
"And she's watching the final one," Scorpius said. "Of course she is."
Albus rolled the scroll again.
"Then we move fast. We go before she does."
The Toll of Magic
That night, Albus dreamed again.
But this time, there was no tree. No frozen grove. No voice.
Just himself—standing in the Great Hall alone, watching as the four long tables turned to ash, the ceiling cracked, and portraits screamed in silence. The castle bled silver from the walls. Magic leaked like water from ruptured veins.
In the center of it all: a door.
Black. Featureless. Breathing.
He stepped forward and reached for it—
And a hand grabbed his wrist.
Leora.
"You must not open it," she said.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because you'll become her," Leora said softly. "Not Morrigan. Not me."
"You'll become the Root."
Threads Unraveling
He woke with a gasp.
The Root rune on his wrist was glowing—not just faintly, but actively, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. It was no longer a passive marking—it was a living tether.
Albus threw on his cloak and ran.
In the Scriptorium, Fiona and Scorpius were already there, woken by the same pulse. The map on the table was glowing blood-red. The fourth shard's beacon was no longer still.
"It's moving," Fiona said. "Someone's activated the seal."
"Then we go now," Albus said. "Before they get there."
Descent into the East Wing
The East Wing had been locked for over a century.
Originally a private research wing for Hogwarts' earliest magical architects, it was said to contain dangerous spell residues, failed charm experiments, and fragments of forgotten enchantments. After the Blackwell Collapse, the Ministry ordered it sealed.
But there were always ways in.
Beneath a tapestry on the third floor, Fiona revealed a bricked archway. She used a combination of runes and dragonfire ink to melt the seal. The stones hissed and parted.
They descended into darkness.
The air smelled of dust, ozone, and old memory.
Albus held the front with wand raised. The Root magic beneath his skin prickled.
They reached the final threshold—a chamber door of black iron, shaped like a closed eye.
The fourth shard pulsed behind it.
So did something else.
The Broken Crown
They stepped into the chamber.
It was enormous—larger than any they'd seen before. Walls lined with arched runes, floor inlaid with an enormous sigil of the Hogwarts crest—cracked and faded. At the room's center floated the fourth shard, suspended above a broken throne carved from stone and root.
And standing beneath it…
Elinora Veil.
She turned slowly, her eyes like pale fire.
"You're too late," she said. "The Crown has remembered."
Albus raised his wand. "Step away."
She smiled.
"You don't understand, Albus. The Root doesn't want to be destroyed. It wants to return. And so do I."
The walls shook.
Runes lit.
And the door behind them slammed shut.
The Final Test
The fourth shard flared like lightning, and a beam of Root magic struck the chamber floor, raising phantoms—shadow-forms of the Founders themselves, etched in pure silver.
Godric Gryffindor. Salazar Slytherin. Rowena Ravenclaw. Helga Hufflepuff.
But twisted. Incomplete. Their eyes hollow.
"You must face the memory of the Crown," Elinora whispered. "Only one may take the final Root."
The shadows attacked.
Fiona and Scorpius threw shields—Protego Maxima sparked against ancient magic. Albus faced the echo of Salazar, its wand a blade of crackling green.
"You are not my heir," it hissed. "You are her mistake."
"No," Albus said. "I am my own."
He cast Reditus Lux, a spell of reversal.
The shadow shattered.
One by one, they fell.
And when the last phantom fell, Elinora stepped back.
"Then take it," she said.
"But know this—when all four are bound, the Gate will open."
All Four Shards
Albus reached for the final shard.
It leapt into his hand like lightning.
The moment it touched his skin, the rune across his wrist and forearm exploded in silver light. Symbols bloomed across his skin, wrapping around his elbow and vanishing under his robe.
He fell to his knees, gasping.
And in the distance—through the stone, the wards, the roots—they heard it.
A door unlocking.
A gate stirring.
Elinora turned, smiling.
"It begins."