I'm sorry that I didn't update this earlier today, I've been...well...distracted today, first it was my video game, then youtube and then Say Yes To the Dress Atlanta...hey, it's my day off today, don't judge!
I don't own Harry Potter or The Hobbit
The first night that they camped out, still almost a days ride from Bree, Thorin assigned the Company different things to do so that everything was done in an orderly fashion. Harry had remembered Gimli tried to do the same thing, but the only ones that seemed to switch out their jobs, were the ones going to go do the hunting. Balin and Dwalin were to go out and catch dinner, Fili and Kili went out to scout the areas. Ori was to set up the bedrolls, Nori was to watch the ponies, Dori was to cook, Bifur and Bofur were to go and collect wood, Bombur was to sharpen the weapons for emergency purposes, Oin and Gloin were to light the fires (as it were their normal duties), Bilbo was chosen to go and get the water.
Thorin, who was going to be keep watch and also sharpen, tossed Bilbo several large skins for water and pointed him in the direction of the river. Harry noticed how heavy those were going to be full of water and looked to Gandalf after he piled a few coals over the large pan that was full of dough, might as well treat them to some bread the first night, see if it met their standards.
"Gandalf? Would you like some tea?" asked Harry sending a small nod to Bilbo.
Gandalf, who was beginning to light his pipe lowered his lit finger in slight shock. He still wasn't quite used to the lad being at his almost beck and call and seemed to almost forget him completely whilst on the road. They hadn't even taken the opportunity to start his training, having other things on his mind "Oh, yes, thank you, Fainas...give Bilbo a hand while you are at it."
Harry took a skin from his own pack and followed Bilbo to the nearby river. As he neared the struggling hobbit, he took a few of the larger skins off his hands. "Let me help you."
"Thank you, Fainas, my lad." said Bilbo gratefully, but then he heard Thorin snicker. "B-But I'll have you know that after a while, I'll be able to do my share."
"And I don't doubt that, Mr. Baggins." said Harry as he shrugged the skins higher up on his shoulder. "But until that time comes, indulge me."
Bilbo nodded and he and Harry made their way down to the river. Harry took Bilbo's walking stick and placed it carefully against a large elm tree and waded down to a slightly deeper part of the river, he noticed that Bilbo did not join him.
"What's wrong?" asked Harry waving the hobbit over into the water.
"Oh, it's...it's nothing...I just thought I could get the water on the shore here and stay a bit drier." said Bilbo nervously.
"But, those skins are pretty big, you won't be able to fill them if you don't...oh..." said Harry faltering slightly when it dawned on him. How could he have forgotten all those months traveling with the Fellowship. "I forgot, hobbits can't swim all that well can they?"
"How do you know that Hobbits can't?" asked Bilbo confusedly staring at the young man.
"I heard tales...or would they just be rumors?" asked Harry quickly.
Bilbo looked slightly uncomfortable, and didn't even want to even look at the river laying before him. "We can...well alright we can't, not all that well." said Bilbo softly. "A stream is one thing, but a raging river...we try to keep away from them. We tend to sink very easily in water too deep."
"Well, than let me take care of this then." said Harry with a smile, not wanting to debate what defined a raging river and a small stream in the eyes of the hobbit. "You just toss me the skins and I'll fill them up...hold on, let me try something..."
He came back to shore and raised his hand, mentally he brought the Sapphire closer to the front part of his mind and streams of water rose into the air and filled the skins to the brim. As the skins filled up, Bilbo capped the ends.
"That was easy!" said Bilbo with a relieved smile. "I'm sorry I couldn't be more help, but I never thought it was going to be this easy!"
"Oh, you'll be a big help, if you don't tell Master Gandalf about the magic." said Harry in a whisper.
"Doesn't he want you practicing? Isn't that what an apprentice should do?" asked Bilbo with a frown.
"Not without him watching and seeing my technique, I suppose. We haven't really done much...teaching lately, he saw the sword trick and saw the result of growing of a meadow of flowers...but other than that, not much else he's seen." said Harry. "But the big problem here is, if you're not all that comfortable going into the water, we'd better tell Thorin."
"What? But why?" asked Bilbo quickly. "I'd rather not tell him, to be perfectly honest. I cringe at just the thought of what he will say."
"If he 'volunteers' you to get the water and I don't come with you or any of the other dwarves, you're going to have to go in a bit farther than what you're comfortable going to." said Harry. "It could end very badly, if you sink and there is no one to throw you a rope. I was lucky, the people that couldn't swim didn't even have to tell the leader of the group I was in. He already knew and he made provisions for them. I was one of them, but a few swimming lessons in a lake and river and that got me all fixed up."
"Lessons won't help me, hobbits are too dense." Bilbo sighed in a defeated tone. "You're right though, I know you are...but...I just don't want to give him more of a reason to scorn me."
"He may not be willing to accept you or be responsible for your fate, but, and despite not knowing him all that long, I can't see him being comfortable sending you out to drown. I'm sure if he had known, he wouldn't have sent you."
Bilbo looked down, and then looked up into Harry's green eyes. "You're very wise, for someone who appears so young."
Harry laughed softly. "I just listen and learned a lot in a short period of time. In both dwarf and hobbit years, I suppose I should be out crawling around in the rocks and dirt, and nicking things from the pantry."
Bilbo smiled as well. "That's true, just on how young you look right now, if you were a hobbit, you would scarcely be allowed out of your mother or father's sight."
Then Bilbo fell silent, his eyes wide with horror."I'm sorry."
"What for?" asked Harry inquisitively.
"I didn't mean to bring up your mother and father...it must be painful for you." said Bilbo, his eyes betraying a hint of pity.
"Not really, I never really knew him or my mother. They were murdered before I even got the chance to learn how to walk." said Harry absently, as he lifted the now full skins on his shoulder using Bilbo's stout stick as a yoke. "People that knew my parent's personally mention them all the time, so I'm used to it."
Bilbo and Harry walked back to the camp in silence, but Harry could see that the small hobbit was trying to find a way to still apologize, despite that there was no need for it. When they got back, Bombur looked up from the stump he was sitting on, a pile of weapons waiting to be sharpened.
"'Bout time you both got back, I'm hungry." said Bombur rubbing his rather large stomach.
"Sorry Master dwarf," said Harry putting the water down by Dori and sending the round dwarf a cheeky smile. "We were hurrying back just as fast as we could, but we ran into a lovely old widow handing out cakes and pies. We were about to go and get some for you all but we stopped. We thought 'No, Bombur wants his water,' and so we came right back."
The rest of the dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf included but minus Thorin, laughed loudly, the dwarf in question tried to remain scowling, but soon began to laugh along with them.
After the laughter had died down, Balin and Dwalin had come back with some rabbits they had managed to flush out of some bushes. Dori became hell bent on making them some rabbit stew and set up the cooking fire right away.
After Harry had set his tea kettle down to brew up some hot water, Bilbo came over to ask him to spare him a cup. Seizing the chance, Harry leaned over and whispered into the hobbit's ear.
"Shall we go and tell Thorin?"
Bilbo sighed heavily and looked up at Harry with pleading eyes and a straight determined back. "Will you go with me? He seems to not want to speak all that...waspishly...around you."
"If you want." said Harry with a smile.
Thorin was sitting on a large stone on the outskirts of the camp, slowly sharpening his axe. He had a look of fierce determination, but turned a bit lax when Harry and Bilbo came up to him...well, lax as in he didn't look like he wanted to test the sharpness of his ax by cleaving their necks in half.
"What is it?" asked Thorin putting down the sharpening stone. "Problem getting the water?" he added with a smirk.
"Yes sir, there was." said Fainas, placing a hand behind Bilbo's back.
Thorin looked up at the pair of them quickly. "What? What was it?"
"Nothing life threatening sir, not in the small run, but..." said Fainas.
"I can't swim." said Bilbo quickly.
Thorin blinked between the two of them. The other dwarves in the camp were working quietly, trying to listen in.
"And that has...what do to with me or the Company?" said Thorin slowly.
"Best to let you know before we go much further, isn't it?" said Fainas. "Hobbits can't swim, so..."
Thorin rolled his eyes and fixed Bilbo with a patronizing gaze. "Well, we'll just have to find something the Burglar can do."
Bilbo frowned and opened his mouth to protest, but Fainas stopped him.
"Don't we have a bucket or a pot? We can tie some rope to the handle, fling it over a branch and haul the water up that way. Use another robe and pull the bucket towards the shore." said Fainas pleasantly. "That's what my fellow travelers did when four of them couldn't swim."
Thorin looked up at Fainas. "And if our enemies hear the splash of the bucket hitting the water?"
"IS there any other enemy but the dragon?" said Bilbo with a wide eyed gaze.
Thorin did not answer.
"I-It's alright if it cannot be done, I'm sure I'll find something I can do." said Bilbo trying not to think of any other enemy but a giant fire breathing dragon, that was enough to worry about all on it's own!
Thorin sighed. "We will rig something up for Master Baggins. Until we do, he will go and collect firewood with one of the other dwarves, when it comes to be his turn to fetch water."
"I can go with him to fetch the water, just...don't let him go alone..." said Fainas.
"Are you telling me what to do, boy?" asked Thorin with a low growl.
"No sir...just some third party thoughts." said Fainas with a smile and holding up his hands in a placating manner.
I'll give you a thought, you little upstart. thought Thorin with a frown and vainly tried to stop the twitching of his lips into an amused smile.
Harry took Bilbo by the shoulder and led him over to the fire before Thorin could respond. "That went pretty well, he didn't cleave our necks..." said Harry.
"Somehow, I think I it would have gone very badly if I had told him alone." said Bilbo.
"I'm sure that the results would have been the same, but you would have had to put up with a little jeering." said Harry.
As their chore was for the most part done, unless someone wanted more water, they went to go and wait for dinner. Dori, the chosen cook for that night, stirred a large pot, with the meat of the rabbits and a few wild vegetables thrown in.
"Are you sure about adding all that?" asked Bilbo looking into the pot as he dumped more and more things into it. "It might be a bit too much for that pot to..."
"Don't badger someone who does his own work." came Thorin's growl causing Bilbo to blush faintly.
"Don't be too hasty with that, Thorin...Dori's never cooked rabbit before." said Nori from where he was standing watching the ponies. "Fainas, you should really think about keeping that horse of yours tethered...she keeps wandering off."
"Does she come back?" asked Fainas as he poured a cup of tea for Gandalf and Bilbo.
"Aye...but I don't want to keep thinking about going after her all the time." said Nori.
"If you gave her name a shout, and make it sound urgent, I'm sure she'd come a running. Or you could do what I always do." said Fainas.
"What's that?" asked Nori.
Fainas came over to where he was standing and held out a good-sized carrot. "Bribery."
"We don't have the money or the food supply to keep your horse from wandering off." said Dwalin sending him a frown as Will-O-Wisp came cantering up to get the carrot.
"I've always given her a treat for working so hard, and just for being such a sweet and beautiful girl...hang on...she's got burs in her hair..." said Fainas as he bent down, reached into his satchel and took out her curry comb and began to work the burs out of her hair. "Besides, I can pay for her treats, and once we get too far into the wild, I think I would just gro...er...look for the things she wants to eat."
"Does it take long to comb out the hair on her legs?" asked Ori coming up and watching him.
"Not too long, I've lately been doing it every night I'm with her so that she doesn't have such a gnarled mess come weeks end. The first time I had gotten a curry comb to her, nearly took four hours...didn't it girl?" said Fainas patting her leg gently. "There we go...all the burs...that didn't take long, did it?"
Suddenly a shout jolted everyone's attention back towards the middle of the camp.
"Ackk! Dinner!" came Dori's voice.
Nori and Fainas turned to see the pot of stew boiling over, it's contents churning within and a few of the vegetables spilling onto the ground. Bilbo rushed forward and used the thicker parts of his jacket to take the pot off the fire and onto the ground.
"Told you, Thorin. It takes him a few tries to get a new thing right..." said Nori with a smirk.
"Quiet, Nori!" scolded Dori as he fussed over the boiling pot.
Harry had to stuff his fist in his mouth so that he wouldn't make Dori even more upset, but Nori and Dwalin weren't all that subtle in their loud guaffaws. He saw Bilbo and Bombur work on the stew to salvage what they could with what they had, though their grim faces meant to him that dinner was going to be a while. He walked away from Will-O-Wisp and went over to the cooking fire.
"Need a hand?" said Harry.
Bilbo looked down at the pot and then up to him. "Think you can help us get the burned pieces out of there, without us having to chip away at the pot and ruining the stew further with the burnt bits?"
Harry looked down into pot and with a wave of both his hands, raised a palmful of flames and the contents of the pot flew into the air. The flames took purchase in his hand and heated the stew swirling around in a ball just above it's heated tongues. Cooking it in midair, Harry used his right hand to stir the contents.
The dwarves and Gandalf stopped what they were doing and stared at the boy. Bilbo took a knife and began scraping the burnt bits out of the pot, having already seen his unusual cooking method and the means he used to get water into the skins, he was the least shocked by it.
With a flick of his finger, a small teaspoon amount of stew flew out of the swirling ball. He blew on it, and sucked it into his mouth.
"What do you think Bombur?" said Harry as he slipped a similar sized amount out for the dwarf to taste. The dwarf was unsure as how to taste it, it was just a small circle of stew...floating in the air!
"Pretend you're sipping water...or in this case stew." said Harry with a smile. "I'll do the rest."
Bombur tentatively did what the lad wanted and took a breath. The stew slipped into his mouth without issue and he closed his eye.
The dwarves were silent. Till Bombur opened his eyes, "Needs salt," and he went to his pack and gathered up his spices.
"Almost done Mr. Baggins? I can only do this for so long." said Harry, trying not to allow himself to be shocked by Bombur's acceptance of that little bit of magic.
"Just about done, Fainas." said Bilbo as he chipped away the rest of the burnt rabbit and vegetables. He tipped the pot over and tapped the residue out with knife's handle. "There you go, it should be clear."
Harry poured the stew back into the pot and threw the fire back on the cooking fire.
"Happy to help, oh I think it's done." said Harry as he moved to the other side of the cooking fire.
He didn't notice that Thorin was sending an almost accusing look towards Gandalf, who in turn was looking at Harry in wonder.
"What else can you do, boy?" said Thorin suspiciously, Dwalin took a defensive stance, with his hand firmly on his axes.
Harry flinched but recovered and pretended to have a think as he pulled the pan out of the embers and left it to cool just a bit. "Well, I haven't actually took account of what I can do, I know what I do most often, and a few things that I've done on accident, and then practiced them till I could do them when I wanted to..."
"You're his Master, Master Gandalf, what can the lad do?" asked Dori trying to regain his composure.
Gandalf looked a bit taken a back for a moment, but regained his composure before most of the dwarves could see. "I have only been his mentor for a few days, Master Dori. I myself am not all that sure on where he is, or the type of magic he wields. I have never seen the like before."
"Then what use are you as a mentor, if you cannot even train him?" spat Thorin.
"He's hoping that we can find some middle ground..." said Harry standing up and putting himself between Gandalf and Thorin.
"Fainas lad, yeh have to understand," Balin said coming over to Harry and leading him away from being in the middle between Thorin and Gandalf, it was not the safest place for him to be, especially if they began to yell at each other. "We just...are not quite used to sorcery...it took a long time for dwarves to trust Tharkun...or Gandalf as you call him."
"So you don't trust me yet?" asked Harry quirking his brow. Granted it took Boromir to die for him to finally seem to trust him, but still, Gimli...
"You seem to be a good lad, and a fair number of us are quite warming up to you, but it may take some time for the entirety of us to get used to you. In fact, other than your name and what little you've said, we know little about you, though that can be said about us to you."
"What do you want to start with?" said Harry with a smile, "I'll tell you anything you want to know that I have an answer to."
"You're age would be a start." said Gloin with a frown. The young man looked far younger than what Gimli was, the story behind his name and the age of the man were the two top questions that he had on his mind.
Gandalf turned slightly pale. Harry was considered a child in every race in Arda. If the race of Men were to hear of him being out on the road, they would surely keep him in a house, allowing some family to raise him till he had passed his tweens (and this Gandalf didn't know how lucky that both the people of Rohan and Gondor didn't ask for his age). Hobbits would be of the opinion of not letting him out of the Shire let alone Hobbitton till he had turned thirty. Elves and dwarves, they were of the same opinion; he would not be allowed out of sight of an elder, but not until he was either over two hundred or seventy at best.
What were these dwarves going to say to the knowledge of his age?
"I'm fifteen, I'll be sixteen in ten days." said Harry with a smile.
Silence was thick in the camp, only the noise of the crackling fire and the horses eating and shaking their manes could be heard. Harry noticed that the pan was cool enough, walked over and removed the lid.
"Freshly baked bread anyone?" said Harry as he looked around at the dwarves, and Gandalf.
He didn't expect the dwarves to all to gape at him and look at him with storms of emotions bursting through their eyes and Gandalf covering his in defeat.
Thanks for reading please review!
Sorry no Question of the Chapter, just...yeah...nothing negative...just can't come up with something