Chapter Text
Albus Dumbledore sat in his office, sorting through his missives. Their numbers had decreased in recent years. He was almost done.
His knees banged against the table as he felt something at his very core rip apart. He felt helpless as his magical core was ripped as he slumped over his table.
The pain he felt was nothing compared to the overwhelming fear he felt in his bones. He wondered who had found out about his leeching from Hogwarts. He could barely move as another wave of pain hit him. Exhaustion was now more prominent as he didn't have another source of magic to use.
Slumped over in his seat, he stared at the door as if willing himself to get up and walk towards it.
He had spent years figuring out how to attach himself to the wards and channel their power to himself. The first time he had attempted it, he had passed out from magical exhaustion and hadn't tried it in fear of the magical backlash stopping his heart.
After months of pouring over the theory of matching yourself to sentient wards, most of which were detailed descriptions of feeding the wards your magical energy to make them stronger, he finally had the courage to attach himself and slowly leech the magic.
At first, it had mainly made him age slower. Then it had made him healthier and gave him substantially more energy. Then it had allowed him to access wandless magic, a very basic level of magic, but an impressive feat nonetheless. He had been overjoyed the day he had lost his first candle without his wand.
His wandless magic had progressed over the years, getting easier to use but not moving up the beginner’s level. He had wanted more, of course, he had. But he had been too afraid to push the wards too far, lest they shatter.
He wondered who had extracted him from the wards and what would happen now that he was no longer blocking Hogwarts from reaching out to the heirs.
Now she was free and the heirs were coming.
Harry sat in shock as Hogwarts trembled. He felt afraid. Dumbledore was the leech. He didn't like the old man, sure, he didn't like many people. But he had never expected the man to be stealing magic from Hogwarts.
That was just plain insane. Maybe he was dreaming or had made a mistake. It couldn't possibly be Dumbledore. But he had felt the magic and nobody else in the castle had such a heavily light-oriented core.
In fact, it was unhealthy to use only one type of magic, it slowly made your core weaker. But it wasn't like he could tell the headmaster. The man didn't like Slytherins and especially hated Malfoys. How was he supposed to explain seeing magic, which was considered a trait lost to time?
So he had said nothing, and it wasn't like the headmaster had been particularly kind to him. He had been an asshole to Slytherins, just like they had been warned in their first year, and he had taken somewhat of an interest when it was discovered he was a Potter. But that quickly faded when Harry showed no interest in contacting his estranged "family".
What Harry didn't understand was the man's reasons for leeching off the Hogwarts wards. In no situation was it a good idea. If the castle was attacked, the wards would crack easily due to their weakness, which would jeopardize the students. Which he was sure the headmaster didn't want.
Perhaps it was a spell gone wrong-
Nevertheless, he hoped the headmaster did not realize he was the one who had removed him from the wards. That would cause an unnecessary number of problems in Hogwarts.
He watched as Madam Pomfrey rushed back in with a sigh of relief. He hadn't even noticed her leaving, probably to check what had caused the castle to shake like that.
He stayed quiet as she quickly wrote out his reports and did her tests at a quicker pace than normal and smirked. He should make the ground shake for every appointment if he was going to get him out quicker. He was all for it.
He hoped nothing too bad had happened and prayed nobody found out it was him.
That's when he felt a tug in his gut.
It had taken Marvalo an embracingly long amount of time to figure out how to stop repeatedly being thrown into the wall for no reason
Nevertheless, he had accomplished it in the end, and that was what truly mattered. His robes flared as he strode into the floo.
He walked into Severus’s quarters to where he had flooed from his home. This was his easiest access. He wondered why Hogwarts had chosen now to alert him. Perhaps now all the heirs are of age...
He wondered who the other heirs were. He knew the Smiths and Diggory were related to Hufflepuff. He knew the Potters were related to Griffindor. He himself was a Slytherin, but he had no idea about Ravenclaw.
He stalked down the halls and up the stairs, searching for his destination by pure instinct. He hoped he was going the right way. As he neared where the room of requirement was located, the tugging got tighter.
As he opened the door that was already in place, he walked into what appeared to be a meeting room. There were eight chairs around the table, seemingly two for the heirs of each house.
It seemed foolish to hope that there was another heir to the Slytherin line, yet he couldn't help but wish for a family.
He sat in his seat as he waited for the other heirs to show up. The door creaked open and Gerald Smith, along with his son Zachariah, if he remembered correctly, walked in.
It seemed they were the main line and the Diggory was a branch line. That was good news, because the Diggorys were predominantly light, whereas their families had been neutral for generations.
He wasn’t surprised to see James Potter walk into the room next and watched him carefully as he sighed in apparent relief before taking a seat on the opposite side of the table.
Pandora Lovegood and her daughter Luna were the next ones to walk into the room. Luna nodded at him in a show of respect as he nodded back. The girl was perceptive and smart, and overall was a good friend to Harry, so he did not have a problem with her.
Those qualities, along with being a prophet, were the only reasons she had threatened him and Harry and was still alive and breathing. It seemed she was the heir to Ravenclaw as well. He wondered how she had been so blessed along with her genealogy.
He was surprised, however, when Harry, along with Charles Potter, whose name made him want to sneer, burst through the doors.
"Harry," "Jamie," he and James Potter said at the same time.
"Marvalo," Harry said in relief.
"What are you doing here? You were disowned, "James asked coolly.
"It seems your magic wasn’t strong enough to disown me completely ", Harry spat back face twisting in rage.
"You little-"
"Dad, that’s enough," Charles said, interrupting whatever argument they were about to have.
Marvalo pulled Harry to sit next to him as they all sat down around the table, waiting for someone or something to tell them the reason for being summoned. As they sat around the table, a loud bang echoed across the room, and magic rose in the air.
Welcome Heirs of Hogwarts", a female voice echoed around the room as they looked around startled. "You have been summoned to right a wrong done unto me and punish those who have to be punished."