24 24. Plundering!

Ryan let Hogwarts work on healing herself while he first teleported to Filch's office. Ryan put all dark items in storage for analysis, but he had Aria analyze one right then. The Maruder's Map. She analyzed the map and fed all details to Ryan while synthesizing a better one herself. He was sure that the map should have been with the twins by now but decided to ponder over it later.

Within seconds Ryan held a black disc in hand with a hologram Hogwarts above him sending all information in real-time. Maruder's map was made by students, so the castle had given them some permissions, but Ryan was the one with the most authority over the castle, so he had all permissions available to him. Aria had also keyed it to his mana signature to prevent anyone from getting their hands on it, and if anyone manages to kill him and get it, well, they are more than overqualified to launch a direct attack than infiltrate Hogwarts.

Ryan sent the new map to his storage while placing Marauder's map back with a tracker attached. Aria showed him around with the new 3d map and he teleported around, getting all the dark items he could. Ryan left Headmaster's cabin for last and swept the Room of hidden things. He swallowed everything and made the huge hall clear of everything in it. Cackling at the successful haul, he had Aria sort out the found money to store it for Hogwarts fund and sort the diadem.

Ryan was surprised to find that the diadem wasn't the only soulbound item in the room, but he suppressed his curiosity and had Aria devour the soul shard from the diadem. He then sneaked into Dumbles's room and looked around with mystic eyes. Ryan found the entire room hold a ward to detect truths and lies as well as intentions, magic levels, and other things. He also detected a faint whiff of Calming Draughts and Veritaserums, something he had memorized from his days in Bulgaria. While calming draughts were known to be odorless, his sensitive nose was still able to detect them.

Ryan followed the scent trail and noticed different sweets laced with them. Ryan chuckled at the thought of Dumbles being exactly the man most parents told to not take candy from. He noticed that the headmaster seemed to have a fetish for all things blood, with nearly all devices using blood in some form. Blood trackers, blood wards, blood suppressants. What Ryan found odd was the Phoenix stand too having multiple blood arrays on it, all with markers about submission and suppression.

Ryan immediately guessed that the old fool had forced the Phoenix to bond with him, and the story of Fawkes appearing to save his life was probably a hoax. But the next moment when he tried an in-depth analysis using magic, his instinct went haywire, making Aria immediately take over and enter battle mode. For the first time in his new life, his heart had started beating so fast and he started sweating.

His mystic eyes had not indicated any danger, but the moment he wanted to scan the array, he received the scare of his life.

"Aria, what the hell was that?" He asked, still on edge.

[Data is inconclusive to reach a definitive answer. The highest probability is of the particular magic is related to someone stronger than you master. All symbols observed by your Mystic eyes have been memorized and searched through the database, but no match has been found. But considering that many symbols seem to have similar placements to runes, it is likely they are related to a hostile being.] Aria spoke to him.

This increased the danger level of Dumbles in Ryan's eyes to the maximum. He thought he was dealing with some old fool, but the Dumbles of his timeline seemed to be much more dangerous than he had thought.

Ryan clicked his tongue in annoyance. He was thinking of messing with Dumbles and enjoying seeing the fool panicking around but those objects proved he was not dealing with a normal wizard. Now Ryan also had to consider the consequences of his actions.

First, the disappearance of the death stick, and then all his plans for Hogwarts would push Dumbles to the edge, and with access to magic that could affect himself, his play could easily backfire. It was all going so simple, with him being OP and enjoying playing around, and now a problem has shown itself.

"Yare Yare... " Ryan muttered, checking off another entry on his list. Ryan decided to leave and think about his discoveries at his home, rather than make another idiotic decision on a whim.

Leaving multiple shadow critters around the office to report to him, he decided to finish his job and moved towards the room having Hogwarts Book and Quill. These were another set of objects touched by magic. Ryan asked permission from Hogwarts to show his name, which he noticed had 'Harry James Potter' written there.

Taking Hogwarts' permission, Ryan had his name shifted around to somewhere else and made it 'Ryan Black', and made sure to not show any other titles he would go to acquire later, then left the room back to the heart of Hogwarts. He linked himself back and found most of the castle was healed and it would soon start to update according to new knowledge. Ryan didn't know why Dumbles moved all knowledge to the forbidden section and did not erase it, but didn't question it. Unfortunately, his current priority was to think about his new discovery than study the books, so he would come back later.

*A Few Hours Later*

A burst of fire erupted in the middle of the Headmaster's cabin of Hogwarts, and it faded down to reveal a man with a long white beard, dressed in eccentric, yet gaudy blue robes and half-moon glasses with a phoenix above his shoulder.

"Ah, back home. Thank you Fawkes" He spoke in a jovial tone. But to the phoenix, it seemed to be filled with mockery. It didn't respond and sat down on its perch silently, as it didn't want to go through torture due to disobeying his 'master'.

Dumbledore looked at the Phoenix with a cold gaze for a moment before he switched back to his cheerful grandfather persona and took out a lemon drop to eat it, but his hand just stopped midway. The expression on Dumbledore's face vanished as he took out his wand and tried using all forms of spells, but found what he had felt before was indeed true.

All his modifications to Hogwarts had disappeared, and even while having the authority as the Headmaster, he could not access the wards of the castle. Dumbledore couldn't make heads or tails of his predicament. How could it be possible? He quickly took a lemon drop laced with calming draught and began brainstorming.

The only ways Dumbledore could think of which could cause his current trouble was either the castle had a reset option in case too much harm was done... or there was someone with greater control over the wards than him.

'But that's impossible.' Thought Dumbledore. Ravenclaw line died with the founder and her daughter, the Hupplepuff line died due to him making Tom kill the last heir, and Tom himself was the Slytherin heir, but he shouldn't be anywhere near Hogwarts, and the Griffindor heir, which could only be someone from the Potter line, were in his control.

Dumbledore kept thinking and found that the only way this had happened is if Tom had claimed lordship of Slytherin's house, but that raised too many questions. How did Tom get himself a body? How did he get to Grignotts when goblins should have attacked him right after they had realized his identity, and how did Tom gain knowledge of Hogwarts's ward scheme? The curse Tom had attempted to put on the DADA position was there only because he had allowed that. Dumbledore started having a headache due to constant musings.

"No no no, this can't be happening. Not when Marcus is about to appear for the new semester." He thought, pacing around. He paused, then his eyes wandered to the portraits and tried to connect to them. He felt his connection and didn't find anyone else connect to them, making him confused.

Dumbledore quickly brought a parchment and Quill, and pricked his finger with the quill, applying some blood to its tip, which made the quill turn red. The quill scratched the paper, but no words appeared on it. Closing it and putting it in a letter, Dumbledore brought out a stamp and sealed it. The letter suddenly started turning into black liquid and seeped into a puddle, disappearing.

Dumbledore sat down, lost in his thought with a serious expression on his face, unaware of small eyes looking through the shadows, seeing his every action, much like the hat near him.