Harry glanced around the campsite, looking for any clue as to where the company had gone. It was starting to get dark when when he saw hoof prints. Now that he had seen the hoof prints, he took in the site with new eyes, the grass was trod on. Hmm, we are close to where the elves are. I wonder if they took the company? But why?
Continuing to sniff around, Harry walked around the site. However, he picked up the scent of the hobbit, which was still here, though he couldn't see anything. Shifting back to his human form, he cast a spell that would allow him to see anyone or in this case hobbit that was here. How did Bilbo go unnoticed by the dwarves or for that matter the elves? I don't remember anything about hobbits that could become invisible. Harry finally located Bilbo, who was lying on the ground, unconscious, but moaning. Though, he was a bit blurred to Harry's eyes, which was probably caused by whatever thing he was using to become invisible.
"Bilbo?" Harry questioned, while gently shaking him, but the instant that Harry touched the hobbit's hand, he felt the fever that had taken Bilbo. He extended his magic and scanned the hobbit for any injuries and found a big bump on his head and a gash on his arm.
Finally, Harry heard more than saw Bilbo stirring. "Harry?"
"Yeah, it's me. What's keeping me from seeing you? Is this a new development?" Harry asked quietly, "I need to tend to your injury; would you cease your invisibility?"
"Oh, I forgot." Bilbo croaked and then the next second, Harry could fully see him again and then Bilbo promptly passed out. The wizard pulled out his bedroll and stretched it out and picked up Bilbo and placed him on it. Next, Harry gently lifted Bilbo's head and placed his blanked under him for a pillow. Harry then cast a spell that would tell him his patient's temperature, which was quite high.
Harry quickly conjured a bowl and pointed his holly wand at it and cast the spell to produce water to pour into the bowl. Then, conjuring a cloth, dipped it into the bowl of cold water, and placed it on Bilbo's forehead.
The hobbit looked worse for wear; he was sweating and pale. He was also shaking and whimpering at every movement of his arm.
"Shhh... it's okay. You're safe." Bilbo slowly quieted after that. Harry pulled out his potions and laid them out on the forest floor and then cast a diagnostic spell on Bilbo, which would be able to tell him what kind of poison he had been infected with and what kind of antidote it would take.
Hopefully, he had an antidote with him that would work. Harry had a feeling that Thorin and the others, but especially Thorin, would kill him if anything happened to the hobbit. Harry would hate himself if anything permanent befell Bilbo, so hopefully that wouldn't happen.
Harry figured that the poison had come from one of the spiders and he was right. The diagnostic spell named the poison and the antidote in his mind and then Harry got to work. The antidote would take not more that five minutes to work, but then Bilbo would still need to get through the fever that had already taken him and that gash would need to heal.
Harry pulled out the specific potion that contained a ground up bezoar among other ingredients and an ingredient that would put Bilbo straight to sleep. He then stretched an arm under Bilbo's neck and raised him up to a sitting position up against Harry's chest. Harry then gently coaxed the hobbit into drinking the antidote. Then after drinking that, Harry laid him back onto his bedroll and got to work on healing that gash on his arm.
It took three days for Bilbo to finally wake up after the peak of his fever. Harry had stayed right by his bedside for all three of them, only going to sleep when he was tired and had warded the small site. It was mid afternoon when Bilbo eventually stirred from his deep sleep.
"Ah, good. You're awake. How are you feeling?" Harry asked the hobbit.
"Like I had just run a great distance," Bilbo replied in a dry voice.
Harry reached over and grabbed the mug that he had conjured and filled it with water that he had found in a nearby stream(he had cleaned it with a spell he had used, just in case) then handed it over. "Take slow sips."
Bilbo slowly started to sip at the water, relief at finally drinking some water showing in his body.
"Your fever went down a couple of hours ago; are you feeling up to getting up and stretching your legs?"
"I'm feeling okay. I think I should be able to get up now. What happened to our dwarves? How long was I out?" Bilbo asked, anxiously.
"Well, it's been three days since I found you here and the battle with the spiders. I think from what I've seen a group of Elves dragged the dwarves off. However, I don't know why. I stayed to take care of you."
"Thanks. I am feeling well enough to go after them, though," Bilbo said.
"You sure?" Harry asked.
"Yes, I'm quite sure."
"Okay, then. Here, take this to take care of anything else," Harry handed over a pain-killing potion. "Is that how you escaped from the goblins?" Harry said, curiously, "How did you become invisible? Is that something hobbits can do?" Bilbo drank the potion all down and relaxed easily enough after that.
"No, hobbits can not become invisible, thankfully. There would be much more mischief in the Shire if hobbits could do that."
"However, I had just found this," Bilbo pulled a gold ring out of his pocket and showed it to Harry. "I keep forgetting that I have it, too." To Harry, it radiated a small darkness, as if it was just biding its time for something. It was like it was sentient, similar to Voldemort's horcruxes. Harry reached out a hand and folded Bilbo's fingers over it. The hobbit put the ring back in his pocket and glanced up at Harry, with a weary look.
"You should probably keep that safe. Also, you should tell Gandalf about it. I don't know anything about any possible 'Rings of Invisibility', so I'm no expert." Harry murmured. Hopefully, Bilbo wouldn't have to use it too often. "So what happened after the spiders were finished?"
"Elves came and took everyone! Though, I had put on the ring earlier just in case. But, I guess I had gotten knocked over the head since I don't remember anything after that." Bilbo replied with a worried glance to where the hoof prints led.
"I'm sure they're fine," Harry said. Hopefully...
"Well, we shouldn't leave our dwarves alone to the elves for much longer, shall we?" As it was the morning of the fourth day since the spider battle, they were both anxious about getting back together with their company. Harry pulled out his wand and flicked it once and their things packed themselves. Within a couple of minutes, there was nothing left but Harry and Bilbo. And with that, Harry shifted back into his wolf form and kneeled. Bilbo got up onto Harry's back and off they went.
It took a couple of hours to finally follow the trail to its' destination, which turned out to be the Elven city of Mirkwood. Once Harry and Bilbo arrived at the outskirts of the city, Harry shifted back to his human form once Bilbo got off. Harry then pulled the invisibility cloak on, covering both him and Bilbo then cast a point me spell that would direct them to Thorin.
The two of them skirted by the elves that were walking around, following the spell. The spell led them to the Elven king's hall, which was a big building that had trees growing around and in it, just like the other buildings they had passed. Harry had been to Mirkwood in the past, but hadn't really explored it. If they ran into trouble getting the dwarves out, then Harry had decided to find Legolas, who would hopefully help. They couldn't afford to spend more than a couple of days in Mirkwood since Durin's Day was just five days away. Harry had struck up a friendship with the elven prince while he had been teaching Harry archery.
Harry and Bilbo both quietly walked past the throne room. Apparently, the dwarves had been thrown in the dungeons, according to the loud talking going on in the room. As the two of them crept into the dungeons, they started to hear loud angry voices coming from the cells. It appeared that the dwarves were yelling insults at the elves that were guarding them, insults such as "tree-hugger!" and other insults not mentioned in polite company. Once Harry picked out Fili and Kili's voices, he gave a quiet sigh in relief and heard Bilbo give the same sound of relief at Thorin's voice. As the wizard and hobbit turned a corner, they saw two cells.
The elves had apparently saw fit to separate Thorin from the rest of the company. Perhaps they thought that it would have lessened the chance that they would try to escape and be successful about it. But when Harry glanced into the cell that held the rest of the company, the dwarves were busy looking around their 'lodgings' to see about an escape. Though they looked distressed and downcast, as if they had given up hope about escaping. Fili, Kili and Thorin seemed more sorrowful, like they had thought Harry and Bilbo had been lost to them. Wanting to remove those looks on their faces, Harry quickly pulled Bilbo aside in a small corner.
Harry cast a privacy ward around their vicinity to make sure no one would see them or hear them and then removed the invisibility cloak. He had been forming an escape plan during their walk to the dungeons, though it would require him to cast a relatively big notice-me-not spell, but he did have a plan. His plan would really amuse the dwarves, too, if he managed to pull it off. He told Bilbo about his plan and it had made the hobbit grin.
Harry gave a quick look around to make sure that there were no other elves around other than the guards. He told Bilbo to stay put, under the invisibility cloak. He quietly slipped out from under the cloak and walked up to the two guards, who looked very startled to see this human just appear out of nowhere.
Once he had come out from under the cloak, the dwarves had gone silent and then started to cheer and yell and clambered up to the cell doors. "Harry!"
"Who are you? What are you doing here?" asked one of the elven guards.
"Well, I've come to get these dwarves out of here. We have somewhere to be," Harry said in a dry voice, like it was very obvious what his goal was. Then he quickly cast a silent sleeping spell on the two guards, dropping the two immediately to the ground. He signaled to Bilbo that he could remove the cloak and heard the rustling of cloth. "Bilbo!" Thorin joyfully yelled. Summoning the keys to the cells, he unlocked the doors which resulted in him being hugged by two very enthusiastic dwarves.
Harry wrapped his arms around both Kili and Fili and rested his head on Fili's shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Thorin pull Bilbo into a hug and then place a kiss on the hobbit's forehead. Bilbo then pulled Thorin down for a kiss. "We thought you were dead!" Kili exclaimed and then tucked his head onto Harry's shoulder. Fili pulled Harry down for a quick kiss and then Harry turned around and pulled Kili into a kiss.
Once done with getting reacquainted with everyone else, Harry explained their plan to Thorin and the rest of the dwarves. And like Harry had thought, they all laughed in amusement.
"You will catch up with us, right?" Ori asked.
"Of course I will. I just need to make sure the Elvenking doesn't notice the dwarves that he was holding are gone. At most, you will be without me for an hour. No more than that though." Harry replied, "And yes, I will show you what happens. I suspect that you will you want to see it."
"You okay with leading the dwarves out?" Harry asked Bilbo.
"I think so. I will just take the route that we just took in." the hobbit replied.
"Okay, if you have trouble, just..."
"Hoot twice like a barn owl and once like a brown owl?" Bilbo teasingly finished. At that Fili and Kili looked embarrassed. Harry grinned; Bilbo had told him about what the two dwarves had told him to do in case of trouble during the troll episode.
"Okay, so your signal to lead them out of here will be loud noises outside. I shall go start my side of the plan," Harry said and then cast a big notice-me-not spell net that encompassed the dwarves and the hobbit, though since he had cast the spell, he could still see them and the dwarves could see themselves.
Just before leaving the dungeons, Fili and Kili pulled him aside. "Be careful." Fili murmured.
"I will; don't worry about me."
