Hi, everyone! I had actually finished this last week, but I decided to keep it around as back-up if I couldn't finish my first fic for the Countdown to Wintertown, luckily I did (it's called Missing Christmas if you're interested), so I'm publishing this today.
This goes to biohazard603 in AO3, who prompted me on my other fic – Different (it's the same world, but you don't need to read it to understand this one) – asking for "Rhaegar wanting to go after the three deathly hallows and Elia has to save his butt when one of his attempts to get one backfires" – and come on, how perfect is Rhaegar obsessed with the Deathly Hallows?! So here it is – ENJOY!
Ohhh… Also the Elder Wand's place is based on movie canon and not book canon – it just worked better that way…
And also thank you to xv12 on tumblr for suggesting a goblin for the creature I needed :)
Elia always knew Rhaegar was a bit crazy. She could perfectly recognize the abandoned and crazy look he sometimes got in his eyes when he was reading his books and his prophecies, how deep he got into them – how he started ranting and his mind went a thousand miles per hour, and she had to kiss him to bring him back.
But Elia had never thought he would go this far... she hadn't seen him the entire weekend, but she didn't worry – the N.E.W.T.s were coming up and they had a lot to study (probably the reason why she had missed his crazy eyes in the last few weeks as well). But on Monday he didn't show up for class – she worried for just a bit, sometimes he would skip class, especially during exam time so he could study for other subjects. But then Lyanna showed up at the Ravenclaw common room door, yelling to let her in, while the bronze eagle kept asking her riddles.
"Is she here for Benjen or Catelyn? Can someone call one of them? She's throwing me off my chest game," one of her house mates said.
"Catelyn is not here," one of her and Catelyn's roommates answered.
"And Benjen is in class," a first year boy answered.
"But can someone get her to shut up?!"
"I'll go," Elia said, putting the book she was reading down, and standing up.
"Elia! Finally!" Lyanna exclaimed when she opened the door. "I need you to come with me."
"Lyanna, I'm finally making a small break from my studying. A twenty minute break, I would really like not to waste it," Elia answered as politely as she could.
"Rhaegar is in trouble. I barely escaped." Only now Elia noticed the dusty and ripped clothes Lyanna was wearing, and also the scratches on her face.
"Let's go," she said, following her and then asking her to fill her on everything that had happened.
Lyanna started speaking then. It seemed that Rhaegar had first come to her when he suspected that the Cloak of Invisibility was somewhere in the Gryffindor common room, and he needed a way in, so he started talking to her. The Cloak of Invisibility hadn't been that hard to find, they had find it somewhere under the floor.
"Yeah… finding the Deathly Hallows sounds like an awesome adventure. But it's mostly boring work, Rhaegar did the reading and stuff, and when he had a lead, he would find me and we would search for it," Lyanna told her.
It seemed they had quite a few failed missions, searching for the Elder Wand, in the last few weeks, but Rhaegar had been sure about this new location.
"And it was there, Elia. I saw it, Rhaegar saw it too, that's how he was taken."
"And why weren't you taken?"
"I'm little. I stayed under the Invisibility Cloak. Rhaegar couldn't."
"So why didn't you come up earlier?"
"Locked inside. I could finally leave today, and I still had to climb over the cliff."
"Locked inside by what?" Elia asked her.
"I can't remember. I knew it before…" Lyanna said, making weird faces, trying to remember.
"Okay, Lya. Shouldn't we call a teacher?" Elia suggested, and Lyanna stopped walking for the first time, and Elia noticed they had made it outside.
"No, no teacher, Rhaegar made me promise. He told me to get you if anything ever went wrong."
"Lya… that's not very smart."
"You and Rhaegar are the smartest people I know. If anyone can figure it out, you can."
Elia started searching for a piece of paper and one of Catelyn's pens in her pockets, when she finally found some, she asked for Lyanna to turn her back to her, so she could use it to write.
"Okay, this paper will find Oberyn if I'm not back tonight."
"Elia…"
"My brother probably won't get the teachers either. But he'll probably get your brother, and some other people to help."
"Okay… I think that would be acceptable. But Rhaegar would still prefer if nobody else was involved."
"Where are we going?"
"To the Whomping Willow. I thought you would prefer the tunnels than climbing down the cliff."
"How will we enter the Willow?"
"Not sure… Rhaegar touched something and it worked."
"The immobulus spell may work," Elia suggested. "Come on," she told Elia. "Do you at least know the way to Rhaegar?"
"Of course," Lyanna told her. "So just do the magic and we can go look for him."
Elia did the spell, and they stepped into the tree, before she turned off the spell, and there Lyanna walked around easily, stepping deeper inside the tree.
"How many times have you been down here?" Elia asked, as Lyanna felt the walls, trying to decide where to go, while Elia used lumos to light up the place.
"Quite a few times, both with Rhaegar and alone. I like it here."
"How do you normally get in? You just said you didn't know the way-"
"I just fight and jump the tree – normally after awhile I can get in," Lyanna told her. "Be careful. There are a lot of tunnels here – the oldest is to the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade, according to some book Rhaegar read. And he doesn't really like for us to use light here, he fears it will call for attention."
"I would like to not twist my ankle," Elia told her. "I'll be careful with the light," she said, covering it with part of her robe, dimming it.
"But turn it off when I tell you. And step where I step."
"How do you do that without light?" she said, starting to follow Lyanna like she exactly told you.
"I kind of take Rhaegar's hand, and move exactly with him – he doesn't move his foot until I put mine there," she answered and the light was bright enough to see that she was blushing. "But it's purely professional, I promise, Elia."
"I believe you." She knew Rhaegar would only see her as a girl, and that when he was clouded by his prophecies it was almost like he didn't see any limits. "Don't worry. Let's just find Rhaegar."
Elia continued to carefully follow Lyanna's steps, still not sure of what would happen if she stepped on the wrong place, and when she asked Lyanna, she told her she didn't know either, but Rhaegar always told her it was better to be safe than sorry.
"Okay, it's time to turn off the lights," Lyanna told her, stopping her, as they reached the end of a long stairway. Elia waited as Lyanna searched for something inside her robes. "Get under here with me."
"Is that the…?"
"Yes, it is the Invisibility Cloak. Now be quiet." Who would have thought that Lyanna would be telling her to be quiet? Elia was amazed at the ability of the cloak, they had completely disappeared.
Now, Elia was close enough to Lyanna to be able to step where she stepped without needing a light, she held on to her waist as they walked.
"We're almost there. You set Rhaegar free, and I get the wand."
"You're still worried about getting the wand?!"
"If I don't get it now, Rhaegar will just insist we come down here again," Lyanna answered, and Elia couldn't help but agree.
"I need to check the creature before we go in. We don't want to get caught too."
"It's a Goblin. He's little, we are two, we can overthrow him."
"A Goblin?! You could have told me earlier, Lya," Elia yelled at her. "I don't care that he's small, they are strong, mad and we don't want to start a wizard and goblin war… you should have told me, Lya…"
"What would that do?"
"I could have brought something to negotiate with him. He won't give us the Elder Wand, that's for sure, but I may be able to make a trade for Rhaegar."
"You make the trade. I steal the Wand," Lyanna said, starting to walk again, as Elia pulled her back.
"Lya, we need to have something worth enough. I have the muggle pen Catelyn gave me, do you have anything muggle with you? Anything Ned gave you? Goblins are smart beings; they may be interested in muggle culture."
"No, I don't think so…" she said patting herself. "Just my phone… but I need it."
"Rhaegar will buy you a new phone," Elia answered. "A phone may be a good enough thing to make a trade."
"Okay… but I want a really new phone. Just let me save my numbers and shit," Lyanna said, and Elia looked in as Lyanna pushed all those strange buttons very quickly, before taking off a small thing from the back. "Okay, here you have it," Lyanna said, sadly and without really wanting to, put her phone on Elia's hand.
"You stay under the cloak, okay. I'll enter the cave alone, and make my offer. If you're right and he's alone, I can distract him. Hopefully he will be too busy with his products to notice that he has lost the wand, until we are very far away from here."
Lyanna nodded at her, before letting Elia leave the protection of the Invisibility Cloak, as Lyanna completely covered herself, as they stepped closer to the end of the tunnel. Elia could now hear a grumbling voice, and see a light, she new she was close, very close to Rhaegar; she looked around for Lyanna so she could give her a final sign, but realizing she couldn't see Lyanna, she just hoped Lyanna could still see and hear her, and told her.
"I'm going in. Count to fifty, slowly… before following me."
Elia hoped Lyanna listened, and stepped into the sound, the Goblin was looking over his pretences, organizing and moving them. Rhaegar was near a wall, tied with what seemed very strong and magic rope, and he was also passed out – so they would never move him alone, and he could never help them – and the Elder Wand was on the bench, next to all kind of object, some seemed as precious as well, but others that seemed rather useless.
Elia cleared her throat, calling for the goblin's attention, who looked at her with hatred with his eyes.
"What are you doing here? Who are you?"
"I'm Elia Martell, a student at Hogwarts. I'm here to offer you trade for his life," she said pointing to Rhaegar.
"How can I know this is not a trick?"
"I put my wand before you," she said, taking it from her robes, and putting it in the floor. "I'm harmless. I offer you a fair trade for a teenage boy, with no special skills or importance.
"He is important," the Goblin said, and she feared that he knew he was a Targaryen – he could ask for a higher price if he knew. "He is important to you."
"He is. He's my boyfriend. Emotional importance shouldn't have any accounts in a trade," Elia answered him.
"What do you have to offer for his life?"
"A pen," she said, taking it from her robes. "It's a muggle writing object. It works on its own, you don't need a pot of ink – the ink is inside," she said, clicking on the top, showing the tip. "You can try it if you want."
The Goblin took the pen, and looked at it, turning it on his hand, he clicked on the top, and listened amazed to the sound it did, and then he took a bit of parchment and started to write.
"It writes well. Very light. Good colour. And no smudges," he said the last part after passing his fingers through the writing. "Very useful," he said.
"So can you give me my boyfriend back?"
"Not so fast girl. I know this is a common object in muggle society – it's very easy to acquire. It can't be enough payment for a human life, especially when he deserves to be punished by trying to steal from me."
"I have another offer. A more expensive piece. Very essential to muggle life – it lets you connect with people very far away – through talk, and written messages, simpler to use than ravens or floo powder. It lets you write, play games, organize your life,… It rules muggle life."
"Where is it?" he asked, looking around, probably looking for something bigger, that was what she had expected too when she first heard about this invention – even the computer which could do even more was really small.
"It's here," she said, taking it from her robes.
"Are you playing with me, girl?!" the Goblin exclaimed mad, moving closer, and already muttering something under his breath – maybe a spell – and Elia could see Lyanna showing herself.
"No, I'm not… I'm telling the truth," she said showing the light in the screen – for some reason she wasn't being able to call anyone – but she could turn in a game. "See, chess – you can play chess here."
The Goblin took it, still mistrusting her and the object, but the light and sounds intrigued him, and so did the chess game. He was a good player, but he did some fateful mistakes – Elia had only learned chess when she came to Hogwarts, but she had grown up playing cyvasse, a similar game, with her older brother, who was a master at the game; Elia had to wait for the entire game, for the Goblin to lose, before any other word was spoken to her.
"The machine beat me."
"It did. But if you keep playing you will beat it soon."
"I will," he said, hovering over the play again button.
"So you accept the exchange? The pen and the telephone for my boyfriend?" and the Elder Wand, Lyanna had taken it a long time ago, she must be waiting for them for long.
"Yes, take him," the Goblin said, shooing her away.
"The rope?" she asked, and the Goblin still looking at the screen, snapped his fingers and the rope unwounded from his body. "And his state?"
"He'll wake up in a few hours."
Elia moved to Rhaegar, kneeling to where his body had fallen when the rope unbounded him.
"Love… Rhae… are you okay?" she whispered, but he didn't move or anything. She searched for his pulse, and he still had it, at a normal rate. "Okay, let's get you out of here."
Elia went back for her wand on the entrance of the cave, and now she stood in front of Rhaegar's body, ready to conjure the locomotor spell to move him, before she realized that maybe was not the best idea, since the tunnels were really dark and she had to be careful in them. She started trying to remember other possible spells to move him, she thought about using avifors, changing him into a bird would work, but there was the possibility that the spell he was under would be too strong for a bird and kill him, so she ended up choosing diminuendo.
"Dim-in-YEW-en-DOUGH," she pronounced, and Rhaegar dropped to the size of a small doll. She checked his pulse, which was still normal, and holding him against her chest, left the cave, looking one last time at the Goblin, still entranced with the game.
When Elia felt she was far away enough from the cave, she started whispering and calling for Lyanna.
"Lya… Lya… are you here? Lya…" it took her quite a few steps before she ran into the Stark girl.
"Where's Rhaegar?" she asked, pushing the cloak off her.
"Here," Elia said, opening her hands to show him to her. "I shrank him – it's easier to carry." Lyanna laughed at that, scratching Rhaegar's face. "You got the Elder Wand, right?!"
"Yes," she said, pulling her the two broken parts of the wand from her pocket. "I can keep them until he wakes up."
"I should keep them. You need to go to the hospital wing with Rhaegar."
"Why?!"
"There are scratches all over your body. You probably haven't eaten or slept all weekend – so exhaustion, and starvation…"
"We ate. We brought food for Saturday – we were just here for longer than we thought."
"See, I'm taking you to the hospital wing. So you can get some fluids and rest, and feel better. Don't argue," Elia warned her, leaving Lyanna muttering and cursing under her breath.
Elia used lumos to light up the tunnel, and followed Lyanna, still redoing every step she made, and after a good while walking they started to see the tree's exit; Elia used the same spell to stop the branches of the Willow tree. Finally out, she undoed the spell on Rhaegar, and both her and Lyanna took each side of his arms.
As they moved Rhaegar back to Hogwarts, the night fell, and the sky was suddenly dark. It wasn't easy to move Rhaegar into the hospital wing, maybe it would have been smarted to keep small for longer. Things were easier when they reached the walls of Hogwarts, there were people everywhere, since it was almost dinner time. She ran into a house mate, who then ran off to get help; so soon after her house mate disappeared, she had both the Starks and her brother with them.
"Lyanna! What happened?!" her oldest brother came up to them, yelling.
"Someone help me carry, Rhaegar, please," Elia asked, and Oberyn took Lyanna's place. "You two help your sister," she told the Starks.
"What happened?" her brother asked.
"Rhaegar got into some trouble with Lyanna, and she got me today to help them."
"Doing what?" Brandon asked, and Lyanna shook her head, so she answered that it was nothing. "Really nothing."
"Just help me getting them to the hospital wing."
"Are you okay?" Oberyn asked her, as they carried Rhaegar.
"Yes, just worried about him."
"You shouldn't. He was the one stupid enough to get hurt," her brother replied.
"Oberyn…" she warned him. He was always insulting and criticizing Rhaegar – according to her brother, there was always something wrong with him.
"Okay… okay…" he answered, and she and Oberyn didn't talk anymore, only listening to the three Starks blabbering on. They finally got to the hospital wing, the nurse immediately took Rhaegar.
"What happened?"
"Someone used a spell on him, to fell asleep. He said he would wake up after some time."
"Which spell? Who did that?"
"I don't know," Elia lied, giving Rhaegar over to the maester in charge, he looked over Rhaegar, checking him for vitals: his pulse, his airway… and everything seemed okay. The maester ripped some of his clothes, before remembering of her presence and asking her to leave, since it wasn't proper for a lady to see an half naked man.
"I'm staying," she insisted, before her brother added,
"It's not like she hasn't seen it before." The master didn't think it was funny, but he let her stay, but closed the curtain around them. He continued to strip Rhaegar, and found bruises and cuts on his arms and legs (but not as much as in Lyanna), at least not until, they took a look at Rhaegar's back – it was all cut, probably due to his position in the Goblin's cave – the maester applied some smelly cream on his cuts.
"This will help heal the cuts faster. For the bruises, I will use a spell, but I want to wait for him to wake up first. I'll get you a potion in a moment. Let me just check on Miss Stark."
He applied the same cream to her cuts, and immediately used the spell on her, before giving her a potion for her health – to make up for the lack of food for the previous days – and then telling her to sleep.
"Okay. I'm not going to stay here looking at you sleep," Brandon told her. "Come on, Benjen. Let's let Lya sleep," the oldest brother said pulling the youngest' arm, and only moments after Catelyn Tully ran in, holding a mobile to her ear.
"She's sleeping, Ned," she said to the phone. "Wait a second. I'll ask the maester."
"She's okay," Elia stepped in. "She just needs to rest."
"Ned is asking what happened?" she asked, after she relied what she told her to Ned.
"She and Rhaegar just got into some trouble."
"How is he?"
"He should be up in a few hours. I'll be here to look after him, and I will let the guys know if anything changes with Lyanna."
"She's just sleeping, Ned. But Elia will be here…" she whispered on the phone. "Yes, your brothers or I will let you know if something changes," she continued. "Yeah… Talk to you soon. Bye," she said, finishing the call. "Sorry… Ned was worried."
"That's understandable. They will be okay – they just did too much."
"What really happened?" Catelyn said, coming closer, and as her roommate for years, she could read her face. "You can't tell me…"
"It's not my story to tell," she said, moving her hand to the wand in her robe. She liked Catelyn, because she never insisted about knowing more, and her friend only nodded.
"Do you need anything? Can I do anything to help?"
"Can you get me my books? I was studying before Lyanna came to get me, and I have a DADA test tomorrow. I left them in the common room; if no one moved them, they are still there."
"Okay, I'll go get them," she said moving backwards to the door. "Anything else?"
"Can you bring me some food after supper?"
"Sure, I'll get you a plate," Catelyn said with a smile. "And I'll be back with your book in a few minutes."
Catelyn did as she said, and less than five minutes after, she came back, giving Elia her book and notes, and a kiss on the top of her head.
"I hope they wake up soon. Good luck with the studying! I'll be back with the food later, I'm already late for dinner."
"Bye. Thank you so much, Cat."
"No problem," she told her with a smile.
Elia now alone in the hospital wing, with only the patients and the maester, she sat back on the chair, and pulled her book, opening it, and reading over her notes in the margins, making sure that her afternoon adventure hadn't made her forget anything.
She still remembered all the creatures they had covered in the last few classes and were coming up in the test, and the spells as well. From the twenty questions in her exercise sheet, she only got two wrong, and after a bit of research she found the right answer.
Catelyn showed up during the thirteenth question, with a plate filled with food, and to check once again on Lyanna, in the name of the Starks. Her roommate left soon after, wanting to study a bit more before going to sleep. Once again alone, Elia continued answering the questions, finishing the twenty, and then correcting them.
"How's the studying going?" a very familiar and weak voice asked her as she read over her final notes.
"Rhaegar!" she exclaimed. "You're awake."
"What happened?"
"What happened?! You put yourself and Lyanna in danger, because of one of your crazy obsessions," she complained, in a quiet yelling.
"Did I get the Elder Wand?"
"Yes, Lyanna did. But you can't keep putting yourself in these crazy situations… I was worried."
"But I'm so close. I'm sure about the position of the stone."
"Rhaegar…" she warned him, but she knew he wouldn't give up, and since she preferred she wouldn't lie to him again. "I don't even know why I'm fighting you – you're going to do it, right?"
"Elia…" he said taking her hand. "I'll be more careful next time I promise. And I took Lya, I wasn't going alone."
"She's full of bruises and scratches, Rhaegar," she warned him. "She's so young, Rhae. She could have been really hurt."
"She's smart, and she was good at helping me. And she got you like I asked her to do if I was ever in trouble."
"You were lucky I was able to help," she said, smiling, and squeezing his hand, enjoying the fact that he was actually alive.
"Can I see the wand?" he asked.
"No. We have a test tomorrow, and I'm pretty sure you didn't study one thing this weekend, so let's get studying," Elia warned, taking a seat on the end of his bed, pulling her legs closer, and opening her book. "You can start by telling me everything you know about Goblins, since you didn't know how to deal with one this weekend."
Rhaegar tried to kick her with his foot, but the tight covers in the bed didn't let him move.
"It's was not my fault," he argued. "The wand was right there," he whispered. Elia knew how he was when he had something in his mind, when he saw the wand, he probably couldn't see anything else.
"So prove me, and answer my question."
"Goblins are creatures that…"
"Miss Elia," the maester said, joining them. "Mr Rhaegar, I'm glad to see you awake. I need to check on him, before he can do anything else."
"Of course," she said, standing up from his bed. "Now you have a few more moments to think of an answer." Elia once again took Rhaegar's hand, and the chair next to him. "Prepare it may hurt. Your back has a lot of cuts," she warned him, as the maester pulled his clothes out of the way.
"Mr Rhaegar, how did you make these cuts? These are really deep," the master asked, and Rhaegar looked at her, asking for help.
"He's probably too tired to answer any questions for now," she told the master. "Maybe it's better to leave the questions for later."
"Of course. But the principal will be here tonight still, he was just waiting for Mr Rhaegar to wake up."
The maester applied more creams in his back, and then brought him some food before leaving them alone. Elia helped Rhaegar eat, since his arms were still hurting from his adventure, and they talked in between bites.
"What am I going to tell the principal? I can't tell him about the Talismans."
"Didn't you think of something?" she asked him.
"Not really. I thought I would get the Wand, and get back to school right after."
"Now you can't," she pointed out the obvious. "So a plan… Lyanna can say it was a quidditch accident… she was training in the grounds and she fell."
"I could say that to," Rhaegar told her.
"You've never been interested in quidditch before…" she said. Even Elia had played more than him, since Oberyn loved the game, and he needed to train with someone.
"Ravenclaw is in last place this year, with really low points… so I could say I was trying to help." It was true, the other teams had great players this season, Hufflepuff was kicking ass with their new player – Davos Seaworth.
"You help with quidditch?!"
"Come on… my family has had great players."
"Okay, maybe… if the principal isn't too worried – you may pass by with that… But why is someone from another house helping you?"
"I'm giving Lyanna my notes, and helping her with a class."
"Yes, that's believable. I'll talk to her, when she wakes up," Elia told him, climbing up to his bed again. "I know you're kind of a genius, but let's study now."
Rhaegar rested his arm around her waist and she found a comfortable position resting against his chest, after moving his hair of the way – it was quite annoying when his hair ended up in her mouth when they were sitting or laying together – and picked up her book, resting in her legs, out of Rhaegar's vision range.
"Can't we just stay here for awhile? Maybe kiss for a bit?" he said reaching for her hair. "And maybe you can show me the Wand…" he suggest.
"Rhaegar… you will get a kiss if your answer is anything good," she said, turning to him. "Now tell me all you know about goblins?"
"Globlins are…"