Thousands of years had passed since the Age of Men began.
The Elves had long since faded into legend. The Dwarves had all but vanished from the world above. The whole of Middle-earth belonged to humanity.
Human footprints had traversed every corner of the continent, crossed the oceans, discovered new lands, and completed the great feat of circumnavigating the globe. Civilization had entered the Steam Age; the ancient kingdoms of old had crumbled and fractured into countless nations.
But in the places humanity overlooked, a hidden magical world endured.
Its inhabitants were primarily human wizards, alongside small communities of Dwarves, Hobbits, and various other magical races and creatures.
Millennia of historical upheaval had scattered wizardkind across Middle-earth, and some had even crossed the seas to establish themselves on distant continents. In time, independent magical nations formed, each with its own Ministry of Magic and its own distinct schools of wizardry.
Yet regardless of where a witch or wizard hailed from, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the oldest school of magic and the very birthplace of the wizarding tradition, held a place of unmatched reverence in the hearts of all.
And Sylas was there.
He appeared, quietly and without fanfare, in the city of Hogsmeade.
Hogsmeade had been shrouded in protective enchantments for millennia, undiscovered by ordinary folk, a city inhabited purely by wizards.
This ancient settlement, steeped in history, had grown into the world's largest wizarding community, home to nearly one hundred thousand souls. It was a sacred place, a pilgrimage site for wizards the world over.
The entire city thrummed with magical energy. Diagon Alley, recognized as the oldest magical street in existence, had been renovated countless times over the centuries, yet certain landmarks remained standing as they always had.
Ollivanders wand shop still occupied its original storefront. Gringotts Wizarding Bank still towered over the alley, its white marble facade weathered but unbroken.
Among the Gringotts employees, many were Dwarves, a race long extinct in the ordinary world. They had signed perpetual magical contracts with wizardkind, cooperating in banking, excavating precious underground minerals, and forging enchanted items. In this way, the Dwarves had carved out a lasting foothold in the magical world.
Sylas wandered through the wizarding streets, gazing at the city around him, at once deeply familiar and strangely altered. Nostalgia tugged at something ancient within him.
His aura was entirely restrained, no different from that of an ordinary person, and no one spared him a second glance.
It was the start of another school year, and Hogwarts Castle, perched on the far shore of the Black Lake from Hogsmeade, once again prepared to welcome its newest students.
Hogsmeade's recently appointed Minister of Magic was a progressive figure who enthusiastically embraced the innovations of the non-magical world.
He had purchased a steam locomotive from ordinary manufacturers and established a railway line connecting the city of Bree to Hogsmeade. Bree had grown over the centuries into the largest city west of the Misty Mountains and now served as the capital of the Eriador region.
Under the Minister's decree, all Hogwarts students were required to travel to Bree, board the Hogwarts Express, and ride the train to Hogsmeade before proceeding to the school for enrollment.
The rule drew no shortage of criticism from wizards who lived in Hogsmeade itself, it seemed absurd to send their children away only to bring them back, but the Minister insisted it was a necessary ritual.
Furthermore, by a tradition whose origins no one could quite recall, all first-year students were required to make the crossing of the Black Lake.
They gathered at the lakeside pier, boarded enchanted boats, sailed to the base of the castle cliff, and then climbed a steep stone staircase to enter the Great Hall and participate in the Sorting Ceremony.
The boats themselves were exquisite, elegant vessels of crystal, crafted long ago by Sylas himself. After thousands of years, they showed not the slightest sign of decay or fading.
Once a year, they carried a new generation of students across the dark water to begin their new lives.
Sylas watched the first-years tentatively clamber aboard, their faces lit with nervous excitement as the boats glided toward the castle. Silently, he stepped onto the last boat and followed them across the lake toward Hogwarts.
He could hear the children gasping in awe at the sight of the enormous castle, its towers blazing with torchlight against the evening sky.
But Sylas's gaze drifted downward, to the lake itself. His eyes pierced the deep, dark water with ease, and at the very bottom he saw it, a giant octopus, ancient and vast, sleeping peacefully in the silt.
A pang of nostalgia stirred in his chest. He trailed his fingers through the water and murmured, soft as a breath:
"Wake up, old friend."
His voice was so faint that even the first-years sitting in the same boat heard nothing. But deep below, the giant creature's eyes snapped open, and something like joyful recognition flickered within them.
The calm surface of the Black Lake erupted.
Water surged and churned as something colossal rose from the depths. Amidst the students' shrieks of panic and bewildered cries, a gigantic octopus, vast as a small island, broke the surface, its enormous tentacles waving through the air.
It let out a piercing, jubilant cry that echoed across the lake, and with surprising gentleness.
The groundskeeper, equally startled by the spectacle, stood at the prow of his boat, utterly at a loss. He had always known a gigantic octopus dwelled at the bottom of the lake.
The creature had been there for as long as anyone could remember, sleeping soundly in the depths year-round, never troubling a soul.
Even mischievous first-years who tumbled overboard would find themselves caught by a gentle tentacle and deposited safely back into their boat. The groundskeeper had always considered the beast perfectly harmless.
But he had no idea what had provoked it now. The Kraken thrashed with such excitement that every boat on the lake pitched and swayed, threatening to capsize at any moment.
"Stop! Stop immediately, you overgrown...!" The groundskeeper clung white-knuckled to the gunwale, bellowing at the creature over the shrieks of terrified first-years behind him.
Sylas regarded the agitated Kraken with a look of fond exasperation.
"Settle down, Kraken. You're scaring the children." He sighed softly. "This fool has never understood how enormous he is. Even the slightest twitch sends waves across the entire lake."
At the sound of Sylas's voice, the wildly flailing Kraken froze mid-thrash. It lowered its tentacles obediently into the water, going still, though its enormous eyes brimmed with unmistakable reproach, as if to say: You left me here for thousands of years, and now you tell me to behave?
The staff and first-years alike exhaled in collective relief as the lake gradually settled.
On the trailing boat, a small boy sat alone. Once the chaos subsided, he mustered the courage to peer over the side at the giant octopus looming at the far end of the fleet. Then, with a child's sharp instinct, he noticed something peculiar.
The Kraken wasn't looking at him.
It was looking at something behind him.
Those enormous eyes, each one larger than a carriage wheel, radiated an almost human warmth, a closeness and excitement that reminded the boy of nothing so much as a dog greeting its master after a long absence.
A chill crept down the boy's spine. His face went pale. He was quite certain he was the only person on this boat. So what, exactly, was the octopus staring at behind him?
His imagination ran wild, each thought more terrifying than the last. His expression shifted through several shades of fear before, at last, he summoned every scrap of courage he possessed and whipped his head around.
The force of the turn nearly wrenched his neck.
A man sat behind him.
Tall, impossibly handsome, radiating an aura of quiet nobility that the boy had no words to describe. He looked mysterious, ancient even, yet not old. His deep black eyes were like a bottomless abyss, and the instant the boy's gaze met them, he felt his very soul tipping forward, as though it might fall in and never surface.
His mind went blank.
It was only after the stranger looked away that the boy's awareness came flooding back, like waking from a dream. Shaken, he turned to face forward again, not daring to look a second time. His face was taut with tension, and his voice came out in a trembling squeak:
"S-sir... are you... are you human?"
A flicker of amusement crossed Sylas's eyes as he regarded the boy, the child's every thought written plainly across his face.
"Human?" Sylas repeated gently, then shook his head. "Not exactly."
After all, he was something closer to a god now. The word "human" hardly applied.
But the boy clearly misunderstood. His face went sheet-white, and tears welled instantly in his wide eyes, his lower lip trembling as pure childish terror overtook him.
Seeing the boy on the verge of sobbing, Sylas relented. He hadn't meant to frighten the child. From somewhere within his robes, he produced a pearl, small, luminous, glowing with a soft, ethereal light, and held it out.
"Easy now. I didn't mean to scare you. Here, consider this a gift. A token for our first meeting, little one."
The boy accepted the pearl numbly, its gentle radiance warming his small hands. He stared at it, then looked up...
But the man was already gone. His form had faded like mist in morning light, dissolving into thin air as though he had never been there at all.
At the same moment, the Kraken slipped silently beneath the surface of the Black Lake and vanished into the depths.
...
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