The little boy stood frozen, head tilted slightly, eyes unfocused in the direction where Sylas had vanished. For a moment, it felt like waking from a dream. Only when the ground's keeper sharp voice cut through the air did he blink back to himself.
He looked down again at the pearl in his palm.
It emitted a faint, gentle glow.
'So it had not been a dream.'
Before anyone noticed, he slipped the pearl into his pocket.
Meanwhile, Sylas had already returned to the castle.
He did not head toward the great assembly hall where voices and movement echoed in celebration. Instead, he walked quietly through the corridors, letting his fingers brush along stone walls that felt both familiar and distant.
This had once been his home.
The pearl he had given the boy was nothing rare by Valinor's standards, merely one of the countless pearls that washed upon its immortal shores. Yet anything born in the Undying Lands carried with it a trace of purity and vitality. Even a common shell from those beaches possessed subtle properties beyond mortal craft.
Hogwarts Castle had changed.
Across thousands of years, it had been repaired, expanded, reshaped. Here and there, faint scars remained, stone once split by magic, sections rebuilt after fire or steel. Even this ancient fortress had not been spared the turbulence of history.
Wizards were human.
They loved and hated. They rose and fell. Light and darkness coexisted in their hearts. It was inevitable that dark sorcerers had walked these halls. Perhaps even those who called themselves Dark Lords.
Sylas passed the entrance to the ceremonial hall without pausing and descended instead toward the lower levels of the castle.
At last, he stopped before an unremarkable stretch of wall.
With a soft gesture, silver light shimmered across the stone. A massive silver door emerged, engraved with elegant lettering: Sleeping Dragon. Do Not Disturb.
The door had not opened in ages.
Sylas placed his hand upon it and stepped inside.
The chamber beyond was vast, far larger than the castle's foundations should have allowed, expanded long ago through layered spatial enchantments.
In the dim glow of protective runes lay a colossal dragon, nearly a thousand meters in length. Its golden-red scales reflected faint light like banked embers.
The dragon stirred.
Massive eyelids lifted. It's eyes locked onto the intruder.
For a heartbeat, suspicion flared.
Then recognition.
"Master…?" The voice rumbled like distant thunder. "Is it truly you?"
Sylas smiled and stepped forward, resting his hand gently against the dragon's snout.
"It's me," he said softly. "You have slept long, old friend."
When Sylas had departed for Valinor, he could not bring his companions with him. They had remained in Middle-earth, entrusted to the care of his daughter. Through contract and oath, they had accepted her authority.
But in Smaug's heart, there had only ever been one master.
For ages, the dragon had watched the world change.
Kingdoms rose. Kingdoms fell. Wars passed like storms. Occasionally, Sylas's daughter would visit, and Smaug would comply with her requests out of loyalty.
Yet loneliness had crept in over centuries.
Dragons were proud, and patient. But even pride could not silence memory.
Now, seeing Sylas once more, something stirred within him.
After his master departed Middle-earth, Smaug had believed it to be a farewell without return.
Dragons understood time differently than Men. They could wait through centuries as others waited through seasons. Yet even for him, the passing of ages had grown heavy.
He had watched kingdoms crumble into dust. Forests rise and fall. Wizards come and go like flickering sparks. The world shifted endlessly, but his place within it did not.
Aside from the occasional visit from Elseth, the long years had been empty.
Boredom had slowly turned into something far rarer for a dragon.
Loneliness.
Before Sylas left Middle-earth, a binding contract had been forged. Smaug and the other creatures had acknowledged Elseth as their master in name and authority. By oath and magic, he obeyed her commands without hesitation.
But in the depths of his proud and ancient heart, there had only ever been one true master.
Sylas.
Authority could be transferred by contract.
Loyalty could not.
It was not obedience that bound Smaug to Elseth.
It was bloodline.
The oath Sylas had forged before his departure ensured loyalty in form, but in truth, the dragon's heart had never transferred. Even his instinctive hunger for gold, once a roaring fire, had dulled with the passing of centuries. Treasure lost its brilliance when there was no one worth hoarding it for.
Gradually, Smaug withdrew from the world.
He spoke less.
He stirred less.
At last, he chose sleep.
A sleep so deep that even the students and professors of the castle knew him only as a legend, a "sleeping dragon" beneath the foundations, a presence not to be disturbed. Only in the gravest crisis, should Hogwarts stand on the brink of ruin, would he awaken to burn invaders to ash.
Such moments had come only a handful of times across the ages.
And so the dragon slept.
Originally, he had intended to remain in that state until the slow fading of his life.
He had not expected to see his master again.
Now, as overwhelming joy radiated from the ancient creature, Sylas's expression softened.
Smaug had once been forced into servitude by oath, bound by unbreakable will. Yet over long companionship, compulsion had long ago turned into mutual respect, and something deeper.
Still, there remained a truth Sylas had never ignored.
Dragons were born of Morgoth's corruption. Creatures of fire and pride, shaped in darkness.
Such beings were not welcome in Valinor.
But things had changed.
Sylas now commanded the currents of time itself. His standing in Valinor was no longer fragile. As long as he did not threaten the harmony of Arda, few would dare contest his decisions.
He had come and gone from the Undying Lands freely. And this time, he did not intend to leave Smaug behind.
Sylas did not remain long within Hogwarts.
As silently as he had arrived, he departed.
In a place unseen by mortal eyes, the great dragon beneath the castle vanished.
So too did the serpent hidden in distant ruins.
And the colossal giant squid that slumbered within the Black Lake disappeared without a ripple.
Days later, the castle fell into quiet confusion.
Professors and students alike noticed the absence of the lake's ancient guardian. Search spells were cast. Divinations attempted. Nothing was found.
It was the little boy, the one who had received the pearl, who spoke up at last. He remembered the mysterious man.
Later, in the Headmaster's office, he saw a portrait.
Recognition struck him like lightning.
Shock rippled through the faculty as realization dawned.
But by then, Sylas was far beyond their reach.
After gathering Smaug and the others, he traveled directly to the Dark Valley.
Once, it had been breathtaking, hidden beneath layers of enchantment that shielded it from ordinary sight. Few humans had ever known of its existence.
Now it stood quiet.
Only a handful of house-elves remained to tend its halls and gardens. Overhead, the great Thunderbird Thorondor and its descendants nested among the cliffs.
Their numbers had grown steadily over the centuries.
Nearly a hundred thunderbirds now nested along the sheer cliffs that flanked the hidden valley, their nests woven not of twigs alone but lined with veins of gold and shining ore gathered from the mountains. When their wings spread, lightning flickered across the canyon walls, illuminating the stone in blinding flashes.
Sylas's arrival stirred the air itself.
Thorondor let out a piercing cry as arcs of lightning rippled across his vast wings. Sparks crackled uncontrollably along his feathers, bright and restless with emotion. The patriarch of the thunderbirds circled once overhead before descending, unable to conceal his excitement.
From Thorondor, Sylas learned that Elseth had long ago relocated the thunderbird clan into this secluded valley. With the passing of ages, the dominion of Middle-earth had become firmly that of Men. Supernatural beings no longer walked openly beneath mortal skies.
Thus the thunderbirds lived in seclusion.
They hunted in the high reaches of the Misty Mountains, rarely descending into lands frequented by travelers. On occasion, a distant explorer might glimpse a flash of lightning against storm clouds and return home with a tale of a great winged spirit.
Such sightings only became legend.
Elseth herself, however, was not in the valley.
Sylas did not linger.
With Thorondor insisting on accompanying him, he turned his steps toward Lórien.
Lothlórien remained as beautiful as memory. Golden leaves shimmered beneath filtered light. The air thrummed with quiet vitality. Wood-spirits moved like living wind between the trees, and unicorns ran lightly across moss-covered glades.
From high branches, phoenix-song intertwined with ancient elven hymns.
This forest had become the last true sanctuary of spirits in Middle-earth.
Its guardian was Elseth.
She ruled not as a tyrant, but as a luminous presence. The spirits loved her, and she in turn sustained the forest with patient strength. Under her guidance, Lórien had become more than refuge, it had become preservation.
She had even granted shelter to the Ent people who had once dwelt in the southern forests, protecting them from destruction at the hands of Men and from the slow fading of their own magic. Under her care, they flourished again, becoming both guardians and gardeners of the woodland realm.
Upon entering the heart of Lórien, Sylas beheld her.
Elseth stood upon a raised platform woven from living branches, her bearing mature and composed. The carefree child he once knew had grown into a sovereign presence, gentle, resolute, radiant.
Pride and tenderness filled him at once.
He stepped forward, revealing himself fully.
"My daughter," he said softly, warmth in his voice, "you have surpassed even my hopes."
She turned.
For a heartbeat, disbelief crossed her face.
Then recognition.
"Father?"
...
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