Thorin stared distastefully at the ledger that sat in front of him. Their funds were dwindling yet again. Cursing under his breath, Thorin shut the book with more force than was strictly necessary and stood from the table. The hour was late, and every so often he could hear the muffled booms of thunder as the storm raged over the Blue Mountains. Thorin paced over to the fireplace and tossed on yet another log. He doubted he would sleep much tonight.

The limited communal funds of Ered Luin had been a continual problem for as long as he could remember, but over the past year, it had seemed to grow even worse. He and Balin had met frequently, trying to determine the root cause of the problem, and they had settled onto one main reason. The dwarves of Ered Luin were leaving. It was not in droves that they left the small settlement, but every few months for the past number of years a family would move out, many of them making for the more prosperous Iron Hills. This year however, one of the more successful families had left, leaving a noticeable hole in Ered Luin's income.

Thorin knew there were those, loyal Erebor dwarves, that would never leave the place that the Durin folk resided, but he could not force any of the dwarves to stay. Ered Luin was failing and Thorin did not know what he could do to save it. They needed funds in order to buy the much needed agricultural products from the men and hobbits that lived to the south. They continued to mine, but the materials that they were able to pull out of the Blue Mountains was only enough to cover the cost of the food. There were other things that the dwarves needed; leathers, cloths, herbs, and medicines. The list went on and on. In short, they relied too heavily on trade, and did not have the skilled labor needed to avoid the cost.

Come spring, there would be nothing for it. Thorin, himself, would have to go back out onto the road to sell his talent as a blacksmith once again. Dis would not be pleased. She would be left to running Ered Luin by herself, yet again.

Thorin settled himself down onto his bed, and lit his pipe, trying to relax himself enough that he might be able to sleep. It was no use worrying endlessly tonight. There would be plenty of time for that as winter was fast approaching, and it would seal them off from the outside world.


It was a cold winter morning like any other, and Thorin was just finishing his meal from the communal kitchen when a guard approached him.

"Do you have a moment, sir?" the guard asked. Thorin looked up from his plate at the young man. Thorin thought his name might be Fonri, but he could be mistaken. He was young, maybe only five years older than Fili. It made Thorin's chest ache to think that so many of the young ones needed to work out of necessity, when in Erebor many had not needed to work until they were older and had a far greater number of occupations to choose from.

"Of course, what is it?" Thorin asked him.

"Dwalin sent me for you, said you would want to see her for yourself," the guard explained. "He didn't tell me much about it, just to find you. They're in the guardhouse."

Thorin frowned, wondering what sort of trouble was in store for him. There were few dwarrowdams here at Ered Luin, maybe only twenty percent of the population. They could truly not afford to lose any of them to any sort of trouble. Standing from the table, he nodded to the guard. "I will go to him at once," he said, his voice sounding grave, even to his own ears.

"Very well, sir," the guard replied. "If you will excuse me, I am scheduled for watch soon."

"Of course," Thorin replied. Thorin watched the guard leave, before beginning his own trek to the guardhouse.

Despite having been occupied by dwarves for close to one hundred years now, Ered Luin had still not grown to be of any great size. Thorin could still remember when his father had first lead them all here, and they had begun digging out the mountain to suite their own purposes. For those first ten years, there had not been enough room inside for everyone to live beneath the mountain. Today, everyone lived inside the mountain's stony halls, but what had once been a space overflowing with dwarves was now beginning to feel too large for the numbers left.

The guardhouse sat towards the front of the small underground city. It had been carved into the mountain and only the front of the guardhouse had any entrances, the rest of it being encased within uncarved mountain. It consisted of barracks for the guards that did not have family homes of their own, as well as a few cells for any dwarf that had tested their luck against the law one too many times.

Dwalin oversaw the guards when he was in residence at Ered Luin, and Thorin was glad to have a guard master that he knew he would never have to second guess. When he reached the guardhouse he quickly stepped inside, and found Dwalin waiting in the main room for him.

"Dwalin," Thorin said by way of greeting. Dwalin turned from the fire and nodded to him, his face unhappy. They stared at each other for a moment before Thorin spoke again. "The guard you sent said you had a problem?"

"Aye," Dwalin grumbled, unfolding his arms. "It ain't so much of a law-breaking problem either. Come on, let me show you."

For a fleeting moment Thorin had a ridiculous notion that maybe Dwalin had gotten a dwarrowdam with child. The guard had said it was a problem with a female, and he had trouble thinking of any non-law-breaking problem Dwalin would ever get himself involved with. His curiosity spiked, Thorin followed Dwalin up the stairs and into the barracks. There was a guard stationed in the hallway, and when Dwalin turned back to make sure Thorin was following him, Thorin raised his eyebrow in question.

Dwalin just shook his head though and stopped in front of one of the rooms furthest down the hallway and knocked.

There was the faint sound of someone calling them in, and Dwalin opened the door and stepped in. Thorin turned into the room, and stopped in surprise.

This was no dwarrowdam. It was the woman that he had traveled with very briefly the year prior. She was sitting by the fire, a cup of tea clutched in her hands.

"We found her wandering in through the main gates last night," Dwalin said by way of explanation.

"Hello," she said, a small smile making its way onto her face.

Thorin was at a loss as he stared at the woman. How in the world had she managed to make it to Ered Luin in the middle of the winter. There was at least five feet of snow on the ground in all directions, and it had even been snowing last night. All of the roads were blocked off, and the closest settlement was well over thirty miles away.

"Those were my thoughts exactly," Dwalin muttered, knowing Thorin well enough to know exactly what was going on in his head. He moved closer to Thorin, bending his head close to Thorin's. "I don't know how she did it, but she is here now, and we can't very well just send her back out into the snow," he said quietly, his displeasure quite apparent.

Dwalin was right. They could not send her back outside, but never before had they let an outsider dwell within the halls of Ered Luin. In Erebor, it had been unavoidable. There would be convoys of men and elf alike that would come to see Erebor's splendors. In Erebor, however, there had been specific guest quarters close to the surface. Here, there were none as they had never had a need.

It was one thing to travel with a woman of the men-folk for a short time. It was another to invite her into their home for the next three months.

There was also the question of how she had gotten here.

Her disappearing act from over a year had been shocking enough. She had quite literally disappeared in front of his eyes. During the month long trip back to Ered Luin, he and Dwalin had ample time to discuss what had happened. Dwalin was dead set on some sort of sorcery being involved, and Thorin had little reason not to agree. The woman had been eager to meet with Gandalf, and she had made quite the dramatic exit. Now, she was making a dramatic entrance. Something wasn't quite right, and Thorin was more convinced than ever that Dwalin was probably right. She was either in league with a wizard or she had her own type of magic.

His gaze shifted from Dwalin and back to the woman, his eyes studying her face. She was older of course, but she looked like she had aged more than what was common for the men-folk, not that Thorin ever paid the quick lived folk much mind.

"Our paths cross again, Miss Granger," he said as he stepped further into the room and closed the door behind him. It would be no good to have the guard stationed outside hearing more than he needed to.

"Quite unexpected," she agreed with a nod. She looked tired to Thorin.

"Unexpected indeed, and yet you have found yourself at my door twice now. Not a coincidence, I think. Tell me, how is it that you disappeared when we were traveling together," he asked, trying to keep his voice calm and even. There was no reason to beat around the bush here. He needed answers, and she would give them to him if she had any wits about her.

She stared up at him, her hands still clenched around her tea cup and her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Obviously there was something that she was not keen on telling him.

"Did you ever hear if the wizard, Gandalf, I think you said his name was, was in the shire?" she asked, completely ignoring the question.

"He was, but he is gone again. Off on some errand of his own design, most likely. That, however, did not answer my question."

There was a long drawn out silence, before she finally spoke again. "It was magic," she said quietly, her face unable to hide her worry.

Thorin could almost feel himself deflate at that. Dwalin had been right all along, not that he had doubted him that much. He cast a glance over at where his friend was standing, and could see that his face had darkened as well. To play host to a guest that was involved in magic was always a tricky and dangerous thing.

"Some incantation cast by a wizard, or something of your own making?" He found himself asking, before even fully turning back to her. It had been an argument of his and Dwalin's all the way back to Ered Luin.

"A curse, from a wizard in my homeland," she admitted easily, before taking a deep breath. She straightened her back, and looked straight into his eyes before speaking again. "I am a witch, though. It is why I was originally excited to learn that there was another wizard potentially in the area."

Thorin nodded. It all made more sense now. Why she had disappeared in the middle of the night.

"And you made it here by your own means, or was it this so called curse?" Dwalin asked his voice thick with distrust.

"The curse," the woman huffed. "Trust me. I did not intend to leave my bed last night to wander through a snow storm."

And Thorin found that he did trust her. Well, at least more than Dwalin did. During the few short days that he had known her, she had never done anything to make him distrust her.

"I imagine that, similarly to last time, you have no means of traveling back to your home?" Thorin asked.

"None. But I always intended to seek out the wizard you spoke of, if I was back here," she explained, the grip on her tea cup having loosened a bit as her story progressed.

"You will be unable to do that for some time," Thorin replied quickly, bringing a hand up to rub against the headache he felt coming on. "The roads will be impassable until the spring, and even then the roads are torturous with the amount of mud that is created."

A frown graced her face as she stared up at him. "Then it seems that I will be indebted to you once again, if I am allowed to stay," she said, and he was unable to help but notice the way her eyes flickered over towards Dwalin who was all but glowering at her from the corner. Thorin wondered what he might have said to the woman before he arrived.

"She will have to stay," he said, more to Dwalin than to Hermione.

"Aye," he muttered gruffly, before turning his head to look at Thorin. "But where. We don't have the guest quarters..." Thorin could hear the unfinished thought continuing on. We don't have the guest quarters to keep her away from the rest of the dwarves. To keep her away from the dwarrow secrets, the dwarrow way of life.

Thorin was unable to contain the sigh that escaped through his lips. "There are plenty of homes that now stand empty," he said unhappily. "Find a suitable one closest the main gate. She can stay there, and we will have someone bring meals to the house."

Dwalin only grunted in acceptance, not even waiting to hear more before he opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. There was no doubt in Thorin's mind that he was off to complete the task himself, rather than trust it to one of his underlings to complete the task for him.

"I hope that this won't be too much of a trouble for you," Hermione was saying, breaking Thorin away from his thoughts.

"It is not ideal," he admitted, "but there are few other options open to us at this time. Come spring you can travel with one of our caravans to Hobbiton. Gandalf seems to pass through there often enough that you should be able to make his acquaintance there."

"Thank you," she said her voice sincere. "Really, you have been very kind to me. Not just this time, but before. I never got a chance to properly thank you then, but your kindness probably saved me. I don't know what would have happened if I had not stumbled into your workshop that night."

Thorin could feel his cheeks begin to flush, and he had to fight the urge to shift uncomfortably. It had been a long time since anyone had thanked him in so many words. Ever since his father had disappeared, it was just expected that he would put the needs of his people before his own. No one ever thanked him for the work he did, though he was sure they were grateful.

"You're welcome," he said gruffly, unable to tear his gaze away from the brown eyes that stared up at him. "Have all of your needs been attended to? The guardhouse does not frequently host visitors."

With the harder questions behind them, her shoulders seemed to relax and a grateful smile made its way back onto her face. "I have everything I need, and the guards were," she paused, obviously struggling for the right words, "accommodating," she finished with a small shrug. Thorin could only imagine how accommodating Dwalin had been. At least he hadn't put her in a cell, although Thorin wouldn't have put it past him.

"Through your stay here, if there is anything that you need, please let us know," Thorin said, his manners not forgotten.

She looked slightly hesitant for a moment before asking. "Where exactly is here?"

"Ered Luin," Thorin replied, although slightly exasperated. A year had clouded his memories of her, but now that she was back in his presence the memories began to come back to him more clearly. She was a person that had more questions than all of the gold in Erebor. "It is the current home of my people, the ones displaced when we lost Erebor. It is the same place that I was traveling to when we first meet."

"Ah," she said, nodding her head. "Are there many people, um, dwarves that live here?"

"Close to two hundred now, there were more before," he said with a sigh. He would have to make his escape now, or he would never be able to pull himself away. "If there is nothing else that you currently need, I would take my leave of you," he said quickly.

"Oh," she said slightly surprised, "Of course."

"Dwalin, I expect, will be back within the hour to accompany you to your new quarters, and I expect that I will see you again soon as well." He gave a small perfunctory bow and left, not waiting to hear her reply.


He was out of the guardhouse, and walking down the street back towards his own offices his mind quickly trying to analyze how this would be taken by the dwarves that lived here. They would most likely be outraged that an outsider would be living in their halls for the winter months.

Rubbing again at his brow, trying to fight the headache that was making itself know, he did not notice the two younger dwarves until they flanked him.

"Is it true, Uncle Thorin? A woman wandered in from the snow storm last night?"

Thorin turned his head as he continued to walk, Kili keeping pace with him. Mahal damn the rumor mill of Ered Luin.

"I saw Dwalin going into one of the abandoned homes near the front gates," Fili added from his other side.

"And where did you hear such a rumor," Thorin grumbled, his pace quickening despite knowing he would be unable to shake his nephews.

"Well I heard it from Ori, who heard it from one of the kitchen hands, who I think might have heard it from their father, but I am not sure," Kili trailed off.

So by now, everyone had most likely heard about it. Perfect.

"Yes," he bit out in exasperation.

"Really? It's true? I just thought Kili was making things up," Fili exclaimed.

"I was not!"

Thorin stopped in his tracks, the boys stumbling to a stop ahead of him. "I will not have you spreading any more rumors about this. The facts are these. Yes, there is a woman that wandered to our gates during the snow storm. Yes, she is going to be staying here until the roads clear, and yes, she is going to be staying in one of the houses near the front gate."

"Fili," Kili said a huge grin upon his face, "I think this might turn out to be one of the most interesting winters we've had in years!"

Throin could not help but groan. More like one of the most exasperating, headache inducing winters yet.


Note: There you go. Hermione is back in the care of Thorin, and has all of Ered Luin to explore! We will see more of her perspective on things in the next chapter!

Thank you guys for sticking with me through the two chapters that were back with Harry & Co.

As always, hope that you guys enjoyed this installment.

Any dwarves in particular that you guys would be interested in Hermione meeting?