Looking at the owls, Hermione suddenly said, "I think I ought to buy an owl too. That way I can write to you during the holidays."
"You could also come visit my house. It's only a two-hour drive. My home is... fairly large."
For some reason, a line drifted through Altair's mind.
My bed is big and comfortable too.
"Then it's settled."
Hermione nodded happily. School had only just begun, and she was already thinking about visiting Altair's home during the holidays.
Across from them, Ron received a copy of the Daily Prophet. He looked it over, and a look of deep feeling came over his face as he said to Harry beside him, "This is really terrifying."
"Harry, look. First Gringotts was broken into, then Knockturn Alley was looted, and now there's news saying that someone slipped silently into Azkaban."
"You'll see. The wizarding world isn't peaceful anymore."
Ron said this with complete certainty.
Harry took the paper and read it carefully, then inhaled sharply.
"The thing inside this Gringotts vault... Hagrid took it away. He said it was a Hogwarts secret. And after he removed it, someone broke in..."
Ron gnawed on a chicken leg and said unclearly, "Do you think it was the same group that looted Knockturn Alley?"
Harry asked curiously, "How do you know it was a group?"
"Knockturn Alley is full of Dark wizards. Don't tell me you think one person could loot the whole place by himself?"
Ron's twin brothers leaned over and joined the discussion as well. Hermione shifted closer to Altair and asked softly, "You don't seem interested in any of this."
"Because I don't go looking for trouble. I'm only an eleven-year-old wizard, after all. It's not as if the Ministry of Magic is going to ask me to investigate it."
Altair looked at Hermione as she leaned closer. Her eyes were very beautiful, and her features were fine and delicate.
When Hermione noticed Altair looking into her eyes, she felt shy for no reason at all and quickly turned her head away.
Across from them, Ron and Harry exchanged a glance.
In a low voice, Ron said, "I swear, there's definitely something going on between them."
"I think they match quite well," Harry replied.
Ron gave a couple of little huffs. "Obviously. They're both from Muggle families, both top students..."
After lunch, Altair and Hermione went their separate ways. Hermione had to attend History of Magic, while Altair had no class. His History of Magic lesson was tomorrow afternoon.
Altair returned to the Slytherin common room in the dungeons.
To be honest, he did not care much for the room.
There were silver and green serpent motifs everywhere, and the whole place felt gloomy and sinister.
And beyond the windows there was not the slightest trace of light, only pitch-black water, with the occasional strange fish swimming past.
That was right. Outside the Slytherin dormitories was the Black Lake.
Altair returned to his dormitory. Malfoy and the others were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps they knew Altair would be coming back and did not dare return yet.
Which was even better.
Altair opened the System shop.
After completing the quest to enter Hogwarts, Altair had received 100 Story Points. Those 100 points were not enough to exchange for something valuable like Narsil, or one of the Silmarils, but some of the smaller items from the world of the Ring were still within reach.
Using 20 Story Points, Altair exchanged for an ancient quill.
This quill had a special property. Anything written with it would appear ancient and weathered, and would also carry a trace of magic, as if it had been passed down for hundreds or even thousands of years.
Altair took out the parchment he had summoned earlier, the one that had originally recorded weather conditions.
It had probably belonged to some Elf, who had used it to document the effects of weather on plant growth. The parchment looked rather old, and it also carried a kind of magical power that Altair could not quite explain.
Altair raised his wand and erased the original writing from the parchment, then controlled the quill with his thoughts.
The quill wrote by itself, and the handwriting it produced was in an ancient script, entirely different from Altair's own.
[Recorded in Middle-earth, Third Age 3019, January 25.
On January 15, we escorted "that thing" into Moria. There, we encountered a terrifying creature of darkness, a Balrog.
...]
From Gandalf's perspective, Altair wrote a journal entry describing his clash with the Balrog and how, after ten days, he had finally defeated it.
At the end of the entry, Altair, still writing in Gandalf's voice, explained that one of the members of the Fellowship had been injured, and that the flames of the Balrog contained a terrifying form of dark magical power that ordinary spells could not heal. So he had created a spell of his own.
After the journal entry, Altair left behind one of the advanced healing spells of holy magic: Hymn of Light.
Altair himself could not cast this spell either. First, because Sauron's dark affinity rejected holy magic. Second, because the spell demanded a fairly large amount of magical power.
Of course, he had not only written about the Balrog.
He had also made a careful note of a creature that lived in the tunnels of Moria: the Cave Troll.
The troll was already in the Forbidden Forest, and sooner or later Hagrid was bound to discover it. If Hagrid found a new magical creature, he would certainly report it to Dumbledore.
When that happened, the existence of Hymn of Light and the evidence of the troll would make the contents of this parchment seem far more credible.
Altair intended to let the tales of the Ring slowly spread through the wizarding world, piece by piece.
That way, he could solve most of the World Acceptance problem for the characters he wanted to summon.
And besides, one day in the future, he would absolutely summon Sauron and kill him.
So why should he not use this opportunity to create a legend?