After dinner in the Great Hall, Altair made his way back to the dormitory.
Malfoy and the other two were in the middle of a conversation, going over that day's Quidditch match. Without Harry on the Gryffindor team, Gryffindor had lost to Slytherin.
Seeing Altair walk in, Malfoy greeted him warmly. After a month of getting used to each other, the three little Death Eaters in training had mostly lost their fear of him by now.
"Evening."
Altair answered, then went to his own bed.
He cast a small spell around himself so Malfoy and the others couldn't see what he was doing.
"System, summon an item from the Ring world."
Altair laced his hands behind his head, not particularly excited. He'd already braced himself for pulling something worthless.
"Ding! Congratulations, Host, item successfully drawn: Vilya!"
"Ding! Congratulations, Host, One Ring unlock progress increased by 5 percent!"
Wait.
The moment he heard the words ring out in his mind, Altair's whole body went rigid.
Vilya?
The Ring of Air, Vilya?
The mightiest of the Three Elven Rings, the Ring of Air itself!
Vilya's bond to the One Ring wasn't as deep as that of the Nine Rings of Men, only enough to unlock five percent of its seal, but its raw power was in a class the Nine could never touch.
The instant the thought crossed his mind, a golden ring set with a blue gemstone appeared on the ring finger of his right hand.
A power beyond words surged through his entire body at once.
For a moment it even gave him the illusion that he could stand toe to toe with Dumbledore himself.
Altair raised his hand and studied the ring closely. Under the system's power, a pane of light unfolded before him.
[Elven Ring of Air: Vilya]
One of the Three Elven Rings, governing the principles of understanding, creation, and preservation, representing the power of sky.
Note 1: Wearing Vilya grants immediate and flawless mastery over related elemental magic.
Note 2: Sharpens the wearer's intuitive grasp of magic across every school, with an especially dramatic boost to comprehension of magic tied to creation and preservation.
Note 3: The wearer draws upon Vilya's own power, substantially increasing their magical strength.
"Incredible. No wonder it's the mightiest of the Three."
Altair let out a breath of amazement. At his current stage, the Ring of Air would be an enormous asset, and with it in hand, plenty of his plans could finally move forward.
"Creation and preservation, in this world that maps onto Transfiguration and defensive spellwork. With the Ring of Air on, my grasp of Transfiguration has already reached a level I've never touched before."
Altair had always carried a strong natural gift for magic of every kind, Transfiguration included, thanks to Sauron's talent as the Necromancer. Add the power the Ring of Air now granted him, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call him the most gifted Transfiguration wizard in this entire world.
With Vilya's power behind him, Altair's magical reserves still didn't quite match Dumbledore's, but they were now closing in on the other Hogwarts professors, which, in the wizarding world, was nothing to scoff at.
And his gift for Transfiguration meant he could master its highest forms in record time, closing in on Grindelwald's level before long.
Once he got there, he wouldn't need Polyjuice Potion at all to take on anyone's appearance. He could simply transform himself into Gandalf or Saruman and move about as either of them directly.
After taking a moment to feel out the Ring of Air's power, Altair drew it back into the system's space.
Vilya had been forged by the Elves out of gold and sapphire, and wearing it openly on his hand would draw far too much attention. Better to keep it put away.
"Summon a creature from Arda."
Once he'd settled himself, Altair decided to strike while he was ahead.
"Ding! Congratulations, Host, successfully summoned: Great Oak!"
"Great Oak? That name sounds..."
Altair checked the system space, and sure enough, there in its holding space slept a tree-like figure standing some seven or eight meters tall.
"An Ent, just as I thought..."
Shepherd of the trees, one of the oldest races in the Ring world.
Ents carried tremendous strength, more fearsome even than trolls. Saruman's own stronghold of Isengard had fallen to an army of Ents led by Treebeard himself.
"I'll hold onto it for now."
Altair hadn't quite worked out where to put it yet, so he simply let it keep sleeping in the system space. It could stay stored there for up to a month regardless.
Thoroughly satisfied, Altair drifted off into a deep sleep. The next day, once classes let out, he slipped quietly into the Restricted Section of the library and, without alerting anyone, made off with every book it held on Transfiguration and the Dark Arts.
From then on, Altair went into full study mode, always bringing Vilya along whenever he brewed potions in the Room of Requirement, using the time to teach himself Transfiguration on the side.
With Vilya's boost, his progress was nothing short of frightening. In just half a month, he'd already absorbed everything those restricted books had to offer.
Not only that, he found an opportunity to sneak into the Gryffindor dormitory and made off with the Weasley twins' Marauder's Map.
The twins kicked up a fair bit of fuss over it afterward, but since the Map itself wasn't exactly something they could report without questions being asked, the whole matter never reached any of the professors. After searching around for a while, the twins eventually let it drop.
Later, Altair took advantage of a weekend, brought the One Ring along, and tagged along with some older students on a trip to Hogsmeade.
After scoping out the layout of Honeydukes and the Shrieking Shack, he made his way back into Hogwarts through the passage beneath the Whomping Willow.
Altair meant to come back this way over Christmas, so he wanted to map out the terrain ahead of time. With Vilya on, he could now Apparate, though Hogwarts itself carried wards that blocked anyone from Apparating directly in or out.
Hogsmeade, however, had no such wards, so Altair could simply Apparate there first, then slip back into the castle through the underground passage.
And so time rolled forward to the nineteenth of December.
Hogwarts' Christmas holiday ran from the twentieth of December through the fifth of January the following year. Students could go home to spend Christmas with their families, or choose to stay behind, in which case the school would host a grand feast on Christmas night.
With the holiday about to begin, the school had already taken a count of who planned to stay. Neither Altair nor Hermione chose to remain, both of them heading home for Christmas.
Still, Hermione and Altair had agreed to visit each other over the break.
Ron and the Weasley twins were also planning to go home. Harry alone chose to stay behind, and he'd been in a sour mood the whole day.
Altair felt a strange flicker of something off in his memory, some sense that Ron was supposed to have stayed behind with Harry, that the two of them were meant to open presents together on Christmas morning, and that Harry was meant to receive an Invisibility Cloak. He couldn't say why Ron was suddenly heading home instead.
But Altair didn't dwell on it. It had nothing to do with him either way.
That afternoon, classes were cancelled for every year, and everyone pitched in under the heads of house and the professors to deck out the castle for Christmas.
As one Christmas tree after another and gift boxes were set in place, the festive cheer inside the castle grew stronger with every passing hour.