On the shore of the Outer Ring, beside a silver campfire, Ilúvatar listened to a melody played on the harp.
He taught Skyl and Moonshadow how to catch hold of fate through the echoes of the Great Music.
Every note was like a prophecy, telling the story of a person, a blade of grass, a drifting cloud.
Skyl had once studied the laws of gods and caught a first glimpse of destiny's tracks, but what he gained now ran deeper. Fate, in his eyes, had once been like a spiderweb, like tangled roots—coiled and chaotic. Only after hearing the Great Music did he understand: destiny could be woven as lightly and regularly as a song.
This was a lesson from a true Creator.
Skyl listened, entranced. The epic of this universe unfolded before him in another form. His gaze moved from the headwaters of history and flowed downward: he witnessed the world's making, the age of the great lamps of Middle-earth, the age of the Two Trees of Aman, the wars of the Silmarils, the shifting of seas and lands, the clashes of gods and mortals, the vast chapters of light against darkness—and, threaded through it all, the love and hate of ordinary beings. It all stood vividly alive.
He felt like an unseen spirit, drifting through the mountains and rivers of history, tasting ten thousand years of joy and grief as if it were his own.
The music ran clear as a stream, the harp rang bright—and the experience was so intoxicating it made his mouth water, his body and mind blissfully at ease.
Past the First Age and the Second, into the present of the Third, he caught something wrong. An off-key motif twisted and wrestled with a long-born dissonance, the two locked together, each trying to crush and assimilate the other. The off-key motif belonged to Dumbledore. The dissonance was ancient and deep: the dark theme of Sauron.
Then Skyl's gaze stretched forward into what was to come, and he saw a fragment—Headmaster Dumbledore putting on the One Ring, standing atop a great tower in Mordor, looking down over a hundred thousand Orcs.
Dumbledore turning into a Dark Lord… that would be one hell of a spectacle.
Skyl shot to his feet, already about to open a portal to Middle-earth.
Moonshadow stopped him. "Wait. You have to trust my warrior."
"He's only mortal. He can't withstand corruption on the level of divine power." Skyl was mortal too; he knew exactly how heavy a god's influence could be. If a mortal mind was like a paper castle—flat and fragile—then a god's mind was a three-dimensional pyramid: massive, dense, and steady, unmoved by time's scouring or history's tides.
When the two collide, the outcome is almost certain.
Too few people can resist the One Ring's temptation. The older you are, the more you've lived through, the more easily you can be twisted. And the closer you draw to Sauron, the heavier the stain becomes. Not everyone can be as upright and clean as Bilbo or Frodo. Dumbledore had his own obsessions, his own regrets—soft ribs, exposed joints.
Moonshadow still held to her view. "My star will protect his fate. He won't fall. And besides—can you really save him every single time a crisis comes?"
Ilúvatar spoke softly as well. "It is because darkness exists that light appears purer still. Only after crossing the wall of night can the sun rise."
Skyl had his own reason. "Term's about to start. I don't want Dumbledore spending the new school year recuperating in St Mungo's. I have to save the Headmaster."
Ilúvatar's expression turned strange.
Moonshadow suddenly realized it too. "Oh—right. I'm still Hogwarts' Defence Against the Dark Arts professor."
Ilúvatar's expression grew even stranger. In a low voice he asked, "Are the students and professors at that Hogwarts all like you two?"
"No," Skyl said. "But maybe, in the future, a school like that will exist. Would you be willing to serve as a guest professor?"
Ilúvatar shook his head with a smile and didn't refuse. He reached out and gently plucked the strings, playing a bright, cheerful phrase.
The roaring Running River became a barren stretch of desert.
Just moments ago, under the siege of nine Ringwraiths, the old wizard had been stumbling and struggling—yet now he carried an untouchable air.
A blade steeped in dark sorcery stabbed through Dumbledore, releasing venomous magic that could drag a person into the shadow-world and turn them into a wandering wraith. Wounded like this, Dumbledore instead allowed Sauron's divine power to pour smoothly into his body.
As the strongest wizard among humans, his strength now surged again—surged and surged. Such blazing magic churned around him that he felt omnipotent.
Silver hair streaming, cursed eyes blazing, the very air around Dumbledore seemed to whisper and murmur.
He lifted a hand lightly, almost absentmindedly, and cast a spell that was supposed to be nearly harmless: Impedimenta. He only wanted to stop them from drawing closer.
The spell took hold. Half an acre of ground ahead turned into a vast swamp, unstoppable in its pull, swallowing more than two hundred soldiers. They screamed as they sank faster and faster, until, like rainwater seeping into soil, they vanished without a trace.
The Ringwraiths retreated in panic. The Orc host stopped short as well.
One side of the wooden tower sank into the mire, tilting and collapsing. The swollen monster at its top jumped early, crashing down before the wizard possessed by divine power. The shadow it cast completely covered Dumbledore.
What had once been a small, pale creature now rivaled a troll—its body warped and thickened under magic, its eyes drowned in the fire of greed.
"Give it to me! Give me the treasure!"
The creature swung a massive palm at Dumbledore.
The old wizard's wand reshaped into a shield and caught the blow, but the sheer force punched through the guard and snapped his wrist. Dumbledore's eyes burned with red light, yet his expression grew only graver. He stood his ground and did not strike back.
"Hand it over! Hand it over!"
A thing driven mad by the Ring, darkness deeper than night flowed inside it, battering the silver old lion until he was covered in wounds.
Dumbledore said nothing, and he did not retreat a single step.
Behind him lay a dry riverbed. There was nothing there worth protecting.
The boiling magic in his soul was enough to raise earthquakes, split the earth, and swallow these servants of darkness whole. Dumbledore still chose not to do it, even though he ached—ached—to use his wand. Even the forbidden curse fidgeted at the tip of his tongue.
Avada—
One word, and the noisy, brutal monster in front of him would be solved.
But Dumbledore remained silent.
Not everyone touched by darkness becomes a monster, an empty shadow, a Dark Lord.
Dumbledore looked past his shield and met the creature's eyes.
The Ring-bearer's eyes were pale and bright—almost with a childlike air—though now they were veined with blood.
Dumbledore caught a flash of hesitation and fear there.
A portal opened in the bed of the Running River. Skyl flew out and hung in midair.
"Professor—hold on a little longer." Skyl opened Mora's Black Book in his hands. On its pages appeared a chaotic eyeball and oily green tentacles. A whirl of black mist rose around the corrupted creature; the instant it touched the mist, its skin began to slough away. It was pinned in place at once.
Dumbledore turned and saw Skyl. "Do not kill, Skyl. It is innocent."
"You always insist on the most troublesome way." Skyl's voice held the same steady fondness he'd always had for Dumbledore's goodness. "But that's you—the greatest wizard of the twentieth century."
Half of Dumbledore's face was calm, half was a cold sneer, like an alien learning how to operate facial muscles.
Skyl poured the Draught of Living Death into his mouth. The magic-light in Dumbledore's eyes went out, and he collapsed.
Before sleep took him, the old Headmaster gripped Skyl's hand hard, as if on his deathbed, and whispered weakly, "Skyl… I have two things to ask of you."
"Say it. What's the first?"
"No time. I'll tell you the second."
"Ahmm, Ok?"
"In my pocket… there's a contract. That one fourteenth of the Lonely Mountain's gold—you have to bring it back for me."
"Alright. Don't worry, Headmaster."
"And also… Thorin… Thorin's father…"
"He isn't dead. He's with Radagast the Brown, right?"
Dumbledore nodded, smiled, and fell asleep. Not long after, he started snoring.
After settling the Headmaster, Skyl looked to the evil creature trapped in the black mist. It took him a moment to recognize it—this thing was Gollum, a hobbit twisted by corruption in the original story, a pale little freak.
So this was what Ilúvatar meant when he said there only needed to be one Dark Lord. Once Sauron was taken, whoever held the Ring became the new Dark Lord. Wasn't that… a little too "assigned by fate"?
Skyl understood what Ilúvatar intended. There still had to be a Dark Lord—otherwise the plot of The Lord of the Rings couldn't be performed. Since he was a guest in someone else's house, Skyl didn't casually destroy the Ring.
He summoned Mora's tentacles to bind Gollum, then went up and tried to pry the Ring off Gollum's finger. Gollum clenched his fist so tightly he refused to let go, muttering the whole time, "My precious… my precious…"
"Alright, alright—shut it."
No wonder, in The Lord of the Rings, they used knives or teeth to get it off. Skyl forced it—snapped the finger—then took the Ring. Once the Ring left him, Gollum's body deflated like a punctured ball, shrinking hard and fast. He was barely alive; Skyl would have to find a way to save him.
The priceless One Ring—Skyl weighed it in his palm, then tossed it casually into the dry bed of the Running River. Before long, the river would refill, and the Ring would drift away again, seeking its next chosen bearer.
The nine Ringwraiths looked like they wanted to retrieve the Ring, but Skyl simply stared at them, calm as still water.
The Ringwraiths exchanged looks—and then, as if their house had caught fire, they turned and ran without a word.
To the north, the allied host of Elves, dwarves, and Men charged in, launching a final battle against the remaining Orcs.
After driving the Orcs out, Thorin Oakenshield restored the Lonely Mountain and arranged a victory feast to reward the three armies. That was when a human wizard came calling.
"Thorin. It's time you paid what you owe."
//Check out my P@tre0n for 20 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810.
Names (English — raw name — canon/non-canon)
Ilúvatar — 伊露维塔 — canon (Tolkien)
Skyl — 林德 / 德·林 — non-canon (fanfic character name rule)
Moonshadow — 月影 — non-canon (fanfic character name rule)
Albus Dumbledore — 邓布利多 — canon (Harry Potter)
Sauron — 索伦 — canon (Tolkien)
The One Ring — 至尊魔戒 / 魔戒 — canon (Tolkien)
Nazgûl / Ringwraiths — 戒灵 — canon (Tolkien)
Orcs — 奥克 / 半兽人 — canon (Tolkien)
Gollum — 咕噜 — canon (Tolkien)
Radagast the Brown — 褐袍拉达加斯特 — canon (Tolkien)
Thorin Oakenshield — 索林·橡木盾 — canon (Tolkien)
Bilbo Baggins — 比尔博 / 比尔博·巴金斯 — canon (Tolkien)
Frodo Baggins — 弗罗多 — canon (Tolkien)
St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries — 圣芒戈医院 — canon (Harry Potter)
Mora (Hermaeus Mora, implied) — 莫拉（莫拉之书 / 莫拉的触手） — canon (The Elder Scrolls), crossover usage
Moves / spells / abilities / items (English — raw name)
the Great Music — 大乐章
portal — 传送门
Impedimenta (Impediment Jinx) — 障碍重重
Avada Kedavra (begun, not completed) — 阿瓦达——
Draught of Living Death — 生死水
Defence Against the Dark Arts — 黑魔法防御术课
Mora's Black Book / Black Book — 莫拉之书
Mora's tentacles — 莫拉的触手
Chinese references
Yes. "Master Tang / Tang Shiye" (汤师爷) is a direct pop-culture reference to the film Let the Bullets Fly, used here as a meme-style joke ("Yes, Master Tang" / "Headmaster, you're still Tang Shiye"). The line about "owing money" at the end also has a modern Chinese punchline vibe rather than Tolkien/HP narration.