"So you are Legolas?" Harry asked the elf, who was still standing baffled in front of him. He could see that there was sorrow and pain in his eyes. The wizard didn't know how old this creature was, but he was sure he must have seen a lot of pain in the world. He understood Hermione's fascination about the elf. Legolas reminded Harry of Luna, who had equal traits and had the same color of hair. The only difference was, that she had been smiling all day long, while the elf-prince hadn't smiled since the trio had arrived to their camp.
"Yes." The elf answered. "And you must be Harry Potter. I've heard a lot about you."
"Only good things I hope." The wizard smiled.
There was no mimic in the elf's face and Harry didn't know what else to say so he reached Legolas his hand, but the blond was still cautious.
"Elves do not shake hands." He said.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to disrespect your culture." Harry now was a bit unsure about how he should talk with the blond and handsome creature in front of him. There was clearly aversion towards him on the elf's side, which wasn't really surprising for Harry, but he had hoped the relationship with Hermione had changed the elf's opinion about wizards.
"Did you know that in our world we have the name Lego as well?" Harry laughed carefully. "Though it's a name for a toy for children."
Legolas only looked at him confused and uninterested. It was clearly not the smartest thing to say, but Harry never was good in breaking the ice with people he had just met. It would have been helpful if Hermione would come out of her tent and introduce them to each other, sadly she was still mad and she wouldn't let anybody talk to her. Not even Harry.
"Do you live in the same house as your friend?" Aragorn saved the awkward moment, before it would get unpleasant.
"With Hermione you mean? Yes I do." Harry answered Aragorn's question. "Why?"
Harry couldn't help but catch a glance of the grimace on Legolas' face when Aragorn said the word friend. He knew why, Legolas knew about their arrangement to get married, which meant they were no friends instead they were betrothed. Harry now understood the elf's hatred towards him. Legolas didn't know, that Hermione and Harry had called off the wedding, but before he could tell him the blond already barged in:
"Something happened." He said. He turned away from Harry, so the wizard couldn't see his expression anymore. Something happened? What did the elf mean with that?
"Your house got burned down." Aragorn added, before Harry could ask.
It took him a while to completely understand what they were saying. Their house got burned down? Burned down? That couldn't be what they had said.
"Sorry what?" He asked confused.
"Your house was on fire and is now burned down to the ground." Gimli talked to Harry as if he was a little child and the dwarf was his supervisor who explained the world to him in slow and easy words. Normally that would have offended him, but now he was too busy with building up a rage.
"WHAT?!" He yelled. "Our house got –WHAT?" he gasped. How could they even do that? And why? And for what? He couldn't believe it. His kind was even worse than he had feared.
The wizard was really angry now. He couldn't live anywhere in peace. He had fought on Earth for his life, now he had come to Middle-Earth to apparently do the same. Since Voldemort's death, Death-eaters searched for him and his friends to take revenge. It wasn't uncommon, that he was fighting for his freedom and peace, even after the war. Going to Middle-Earth was his last hope to live in anonymity, which worked fine until now, because the sorcerers now had other enemies to fight: the natives.
But why would they be so stupid to burn down his house, only because Hermione had a relationship with an elf? He took his wand out of his pocket and smashed a stone and bushes, which he found were in his way. He never got rid of the fury he had learned to know from Voldemort. It was something deeper inside of him than just a curse, so sometimes he had to get rid of it in an outburst.
Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas let him rage for a while, but tried to stay as far away from Harry as possible. All three of them knew the pain spells could cause, they certainly didn't want to get in his way.
"Harry would you stop vandalizing our campsite?!" Hermione's voice came out of nowhere. Harry turned around to look into her angry eyes. "I cannot even hear my own thoughts and by the way you're not the kind of person to get angry so easily, what the hell happened?"
Before Harry could say another word Legolas had already arrived by Hermione's side. He took advantage of the moment she showed herself and got out of the tent. "I'm really sorry Hermione, but it was my fault this happened." He tried to break the fight between them, but Hermione did not spend any view on him.
"What happened?" She asked Harry, even though the question was more addressed to Legolas and the thing he had just said.
"Your house got burned down." Legolas answered before Harry could. "I am truly sorry."
Hermione took a deep breath to calm down, although she looked even more stressed then before. "Harry what did he just say?"
The wizard sighed. Did he really have to repeat that? He was sure Hermione had heard what the elf said. Sometimes she could be a pain in the – well – behind.
"Our house got burned down." He repeated irritated.
"Well great!" She screamed, which made Legolas shrug, because the scream came out of nowhere.
"You can tell the dumb ass next to me that it is indeed his fault!" Hermione yelled at Harry. "If he hadn't gone away and had left me all to myself, I could have at least lived my life further like a normal person. Only because that dumb ass disappeared in thin air, people started to question his motives and they came to me for answers, because some stupid witch had seen us together. So they started to threaten me, if I wouldn't tell the truth. But I didn't, instead we fled into the forest, hoping they would leave us alone, when we would come back after a few weeks, telling them we were gone for some holiday or honeymoon or something like that. But no, they had to burn down our house." Hermione now turned her face towards the elf and looked directly into his eyes.
"They burned down our house only because some dumb ass couldn't stay in Minas Tirith to talk to me like a grown up person and explain to the people, that the stories about us, that were going round, were only rumors." Hermione had whispered the last sentences, still looking provocative at Legolas.
If looks could kill, then that was the moment an elf would have exploded into a thousand pieces, Harry thought to himself.
Before Legolas could say another word, Hermione turned away from him and vanished into the tent again to be alone with her thoughts. Women! Harry thought, rolling his eyes, maybe she has her period or something like that. At moments like this he missed Ron, who would always come up with some funny thing to say, to make the situation less dreadful.
Not so Legolas, he was shocked. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. Hermione had really given him all the fault of her burned down house. She must've been madder than he thought.
Harry could only guess what the blond was thinking. "Don't worry, it wasn't your fault, they would have set fire to the building either way, even if you would have tried to convince them that they were talking rubbish."
Harry had tried to tell the wizards and witches, that he and Hermione were getting married, but they didn't believe them. If a story was making their rounds, it was useless to fight against it.
Legolas wasn't in the mood to bond with Harry, so he just nodded at him and turned away to walk over to the other side of the camp and sit on a branch to think about everything.
"I'm sorry." Aragorn said. "He once was a more cheerful man, back in the third age, now despair has taken over him." Harry only nodded at the former king; he couldn't imagine a cheerful Legolas anyway.
"So, since when have you been hiding here?" Gimli asked.
"I don't know exactly," Harry admitted, "but it should be two weeks at last. The days just flow into each other, when there is nothing to do."
"Well it was probably the best you could do."
"Gimli." Aragorn said indignantly, "Don't be rude."
"What?" Gimli frowned at his friend. "I only meant – "
"It's okay." Harry interrupted. "You are right, if we wouldn't have fled into the woods, we would probably be ashes by now. "
"Yes exactly, that is what I meant." The dwarf turned up his nose at Aragorn, who couldn't hide a little smirk. He knew, that Gimli would never stop saying directly what he thought.
The man, dwarf and wizard were sitting awkwardly in front of each other. They all had heard from each other's past. Hermione had told Legolas all about Harry and his heroic days and Legolas had told his best friends about that. In return Hermione had told Harry all about what she had read at the library about the fellowship of the ring.
They knew a lot about each other – thanks to Hermione – and they were really curious about some things, however they didn't know if there were boundaries to the topics they wanted to talk about, so they would rather not ask about their past.
"I'll just search for some more fire wood." Harry quickly said to escape the uncomfortable silence.
"Alright, then I will look around, to look if the coast is clear." Aragorn added and walked the other way, clearly relieved about that.
Harry and Aragorn both walked away from Gimli, leaving him behind alone. "Great." he called after them. "No problem! Just leave me here!"
Oh come on Hermione, forgive that poor Legolas already! Can't you see, he's in pain!
Hoooraayyy! Another chapter! For all the people, who are still reading this: I'm really sorry it took me so long, but I have a lot of projects on youtube I have to finish and I'm quite busy at the moment with my life xD! Hope you don't mind and hope you still like the story. If so please leave a review! If not leave a review as well so I know what to change ^^!
Well have a nice day! :)