This is how the story ended:
The hobbit, Mr. Bilbo Baggins, returned to Bag End with a sack full of gold, silver, and jewels. He even brought back the freshly recovered Gollum, and kept him at home.
Thorin Oakenshield went off to a monastery in another world to study the Way of the Voice, overcoming the dragon-sickness in his heart.
The rest of the expedition's Dwarves lived peacefully in the Lonely Mountain.
Dáin Ironfoot returned to the Iron Hills, and from then on caravans and mining parties traveled frequently between the two lands.
The people of Lake-town gathered among the ruins of Dale, intending to rebuild the wreckage.
The Elven prince Legolas took the jewels back to the Woodland Realm; it was said that after the Battle of the Five Armies, his father grew increasingly gloomy and gradually stopped managing the kingdom.
All returned to quiet. Every fallen body was buried or otherwise dealt with. At the confluence of the River Running and the Redwater River, travelers identified the wreckage of the dragon Smaug. Word reached the Lonely Mountain, and the locals could finally sleep easy, no longer fearing that the beast might return.
Later, a group of people built an inn on the riverbank where the waters met. They called it the Dragonrest Inn. Tourists came every year to look around, and business was booming.
One autumn morning in some later year, there came another knock at Baggins's door. Gandalf had brought the Dwarves to visit the solitary Bilbo, and everyone was together again—sighing over that long expedition, and also missing their wizard friend.
They all knew it: mortal lives were brief. Perhaps, from now on, they would never see that good wizard again—the one who looked uncannily like Gandalf.
Dwarven pipes, fiddles, and drums sounded once more. They sang lively, hearty songs, spreading Dumbledore's tale far and wide.
In the last few days of summer holiday, the owl Kaia delivered the back-to-school notice, along with the results of the O.W.L.s. As expected, Skyl earned ten Outstandings, one Acceptable, and one Troll (the very worst grade). All in all, a model student with a future that still looked limitless.
Skyl returned to London and helped out at Marika's bakery. At his age, it didn't count as child labor anymore, so there was no need to worry about the legal system coming after him.
Marika insisted on paying him wages. She told Skyl that labor deserved compensation. Skyl said she'd adapted to this world pretty well—at least in terms of mindset, she wasn't that far off from modern people.
Meanwhile, lying in a bed at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Dumbledore's greatest daily pleasure was counting money—and then spending it.
The Daily Prophet ran a front-page story about how Dumbledore had discovered treasure from a Spanish Armada shipwreck. The accompanying photo showed the old wizard standing on the deck of the North Sea Ghost. On the second page, there was also a tender advertisement for bids on an expansion project for Hogwarts Castle.
St Mungo's was in London, hidden inside an old-fashioned red-brick department store. When Skyl went to visit the old wizard on the weekend, the ward was packed so tightly with people who'd gotten wind of the news that there was barely any room to breathe.
There were managers from magical construction companies on the Continent, alchemical craftsmen from the Americas, rare-curio merchants from North Africa, tapestry wholesalers from South Asia, and magical creature dealers from Southeast Asia. Every kind of specialist you could possibly need to build a magical castle from the ground up had converged into one tiny hospital room.
When Dumbledore was first admitted, he'd been in a standard ward. But with too many visitors, the staff ushered him into a private room.
"Professor." Skyl pushed open the door. The curtains were drawn wide; sunlight blazed in, glaring and bright, and the roar of conversation hit him full in the face—busy enough to rival a stock exchange.
He saw men and women of every skin tone and style crowding around the old headmaster, fussing over him with concern. They looked so much like devoted sons and dutiful grandchildren that it was hard not to laugh. The old man wore sunglasses. A pile of tempting gold coins was stacked by his bed. He held a thick sheaf of business contracts, signing at breakneck speed—putting on the air of a West Coast rapper.
"Skyl! I'm so glad to see you. Give me a moment—I'm just signing a contract with Mr. Bernini. His ancestor, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, was a renowned architect."
An Italian man in vintage attire gave Skyl a very proper bow.
Seeing how busy the headmaster was, Skyl could only shake his head. "Please, go on. I'll let you work."
He wandered the corridors. Most of the hospital's patients were odd beyond imagination. Some had ordinary bodily injuries—missing arms and legs and the like. For Muggles, that would be a life sentence; here, it was one of the simplest, easiest things to treat. Far more common were bizarre conditions caused by magic and magical objects going out of control, as well as damage inflicted by magical creatures.
If anyone wanted to gawk at curiosities, they only needed to go to the main waiting reception—there were strange patients every day. When Skyl stepped in, he saw a blonde beauty with a squirrel's tail sprouting from her neck; the tail kept smacking her in the ears.
He saw an elderly witch who'd used the wrong spell: her left arm had bulged up as powerfully as a Hagrid-sized club, and she'd accidentally flipped over a hospital bed with an injured patient still on it. And there was a wizard who'd mistakenly eaten some kind of magical creature—when he opened his mouth, a train whistle blared out. The receptionist trying to take his symptoms fainted on the spot from the sudden noise.
Most of the family members sitting in the waiting area looked miserable. A few heartless types, though, laughed outright at the ridiculous conditions.
Dumbledore's room was on the ground floor, where the Artefact Accidents ward was—usually treating injuries from things like cauldron explosions, broom malfunctions, and Bludger impacts. Skyl asked the receptionist and learned that there was a tearoom and shops on the sixth floor, so he happily went upstairs.
The fifth floor was the Spell Damage ward. As Skyl passed by, he glimpsed—through the double doors standing open—a boy crying quietly in the corridor. He looked a little closer and realized it was someone he knew: Neville Longbottom.
"Hey." Skyl crouched down in front of him. "Hello, Neville."
"H-hello," Neville managed. He stared blearily at Skyl's face for a moment. "Oh… Mr. Skyl. Hello." The boy wiped at his tears and forced out a shy but sunny smile—yet the tears kept sliding down anyway. He was like a machine that had learned to please others, his smile and his crying running as two unrelated programs.
"Are you here to visit someone too?"
"Yeah." Neville didn't want to say more. His face flushed purple, and his smile turned strained. Skyl asked if he wanted to go upstairs and have some tea together, but Neville hurriedly shook his head, eyes darting around as if he couldn't wait to find somewhere to hide.
In the fifth-floor corridor, the groans and screams of pain echoed faintly.
A healthy person walking into a hospital can feel out of place, as if they've stepped into a foreign country. The language everyone speaks here is suffering; their sentences are bleakness. Only they can truly talk to one another—outsiders can't understand.
Skyl went up to the sixth floor, bought some fruit and snacks, and brought them back to share with his classmate.
Just then, Neville's grandmother came out of the ward. She was an exhausted old witch, like an aged wooden carving—every trace of vivid color left behind in years long past.
"You're Neville's classmate, aren't you? The model student Skyl—I've heard of you. Merlin Order recipient at such a young age." Mrs. Longbottom was kind to strangers, but severe with her grandson. "If Neville had even a fraction of your ability, I wouldn't have to worry about him so much."
When she noticed the gifts in Skyl's hands, her tired face brightened with real pleasure. "Come in."
The room was dim and heavy with stale air. Personal belongings were piled everywhere—clearly a long-term ward. Neville's parents were here too. Back then, they'd been tortured by Death Eaters with the Cruciatus Curse until their minds broke; now they lived in madness, babbling and lost.
Mrs. Longbottom guided Skyl as he observed her son's and daughter-in-law's condition. Neville leaned against the doorframe, arms hugged tightly around himself, head lowered as he sobbed without a sound.
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