A/N: Thank you everyone for your patience and your lovely reviews!

One Hundred Years in Rivendell

They stayed in Imladris for decades. Hermione apprenticed under Elrond as a healer, and took him as a student in turn in the art of potions. Legolas trained under the great Glorfindel of the House of the Golden Flower, he who had slain a balrog and returned to tell the tale, as well as being the only elf Hermione had ever seen who glowed as brightly as she did.

Tauriel was never far from the Twin Sons of Elrond, for a profound bond had sprung up between her and them, fed by a love of fighting, hunting, and the wilderness. Tauriel was happiest when she was working to protect those around her, and since their mother sailed the twins felt most alive when they were tracking one of the creatures that had harmed Celebrian so.

At first the prince and princess stayed in order to keep their promise to Celebrian to watch over her family. But as time passed and Elrond smiled more, and the twins began to laugh and flirt with Tauriel in turns, that became less and less true. Soon it was not concern for the Elf Lords of Imladris or desire for knowledge of the world outside Greenwood that held Hermione in place, but fear of facing Thranduil.

The Elvenking had written letters, though he had carefully addressed them only to Legolas. Legolas took to leaving them in conspicuous places in the guest quarters Elrond had so generously provided them. Unable to hold herself back, Hermione read the elegantly penned missives, noting that they included paragraphs of information that would bore Legolas, but Hermione found interesting. There were updates on the various projects to improve the quality of life in the wood that she had proposed and enacted herself, mentions of the doings of Hermione's old teachers in the healing arts, and long dissertations on whatever Thranduil was currently reading. One letter described the palace's reconstructed dungeons that now met every standard of fair treatment Hermione could come up with, and in fact were comfortable enough that Thranduil had plans to use them as a hideaway if the Greenwood came under attack from an enemy the Royal Blood Wards couldn't stop.

In return Hermione would mention things to Legolas that he should include in his return letters as if they were his own observations, completely oblivious to the smirk her husband wore as he considered how alike Hermione and Thranduil were: both stubborn, proud, and utterly immovable when they believed themselves to be right. Both despairing of recklessness in others, but each likely to charge through fire for what they considered a worthy cause. The Elvenking and the heir of his spirit.

The Council of the Wise met again, attended by Hermione, Elrond, Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White, and the Lady Galadriel. Through the far sight of Galadriel and Elrond, the magic of Gandalf and Saruman, and Hermione's ability to commune with the trees, they determined that for whatever reason the darkness in Dol Guldur had lessened for the time being, and declared a Watchful Peace. Saruman, intrigued by Hermione's powers and how she'd slowly taught the trees around Imladris to sing as they did in the Greenwood, invited her to Orthanc. He wished to see if she could wake the Tree Herders.

But while Hermione was very much interested in meeting the Ents and seeing Fangorn Forest, she felt that she could not go anywhere else before returning home to her father - which she still could not bring herself to do. She was ashamed of her actions even as she was resolute that she would do the same thing again. She refused to be caged or ruled, even by a king. She missed her Ada. She was confused.

She felt as she did when she had gone to retrieve her human parents from hiding after the wizarding war of her first life - full of hope for forgiveness, and yet equally sure that she did not deserve it.

It was when they had been in Imladris for a century, almost as long as Hermione and Legolas had lived in the Greenwood, that Legolas put his foot down and told her they were returning home.

"We have done what we came to do," he said, his blue eyes piercing. "We have traveled and learned. You have grown wise and I am stronger than I was. We have seen evil, and done our best to cast it out. It is time to go home."

Hermione ghosted her knuckles across Legolas' cheekbone, watching as he closed his eyes and leaned into the caress. Extending the motion, she brushed tender fingers along the curve of his ear and down the length of his hair, so bright and golden when compared to her dark brown locks. Standing close, so close that her lips brushed her husband's, she said, "I don't know that I'm strong enough to face him."

Legolas kissed her, chastely, sweetly. Then he said, "Then I shall be your strength."

And that was that.

-l-

The Greenwood they returned to was not the Greenwood they had left, even as the Elvenking they stood before was not their same old Ada. Hermione was surprised, and then wondered why she had thought that nothing would change while she was away when she herself was not the same. She knew things now, and she was not only referring to the healing techniques taught to her by Elrond. She had re-learned lessons from her old life about darkness and loss and hardship, lessons that she had forgotten swaddled as she was in the embrace of Thranduil and the Greenwood.

Legolas too was not the young ellon who had followed his wife from the wood. He was still young in years for an elf, but stood straighter, his shoulders broader, the training he had received from Lord Glorfindel marking him in ways that Hermione could not pinpoint, but sensed all the same. He had seen the world beyond their kingdom, and fought for that world, and sometimes failed. He had grown.

Thranduil, on the contrary, seemed to have retreated into himself. Hermione and Legolas stood looking up at him as he sat on his throne, a statue of marble and ice. His eyes were heavy lidded and he moved as if it were a bother, as if his limbs were too heavy for his body. And yet his brightly shining skin showed that he was not fading. In the absence of his children, he had become cold and hard and ever more formidable, an aura of barely restrained violence surrounding him. Hermione struggled to see anything of her stern but loving Ada in the Elvenking that regarded them as a snake waiting to strike.

"So," the king said, after Hermione and Legolas had bowed. "The prodigals return."

"Adar," Legolas responded, taking Hermione's hand after she found herself unable to speak.

The forest sang of buried sorrow and indomitable will and worry never ending.

"Leave us," Thranduil commanded. Tauriel gave them a sympathetic look as she and all the other guards exited the room. "Approach," came the next command.

Together Hermione and Legolas climbed the winding stairs that led to the Great Throne of Greenwood, with its back of tree limbs twisted into the shape of antlers. Together they stood before their father as he rose to his feet and looked each one of them up and down.

Quietly, Thranduil said, "Welcome home, my children."

Then his mask of apathy cracked, and he grasped each of them by one shoulder, pulling them to him and holding them there, his head bowed. Hermione bit her lip in an effort to fight back tears and wound her arms around Thranduil's waist, while Legolas silently pressed his forehead to his father's. And there they stayed for several long moments, their spirits dancing around them as their parental bonds were renewed, surging with love and anger and worry and regret upon regret, for elves feel nothing so keenly as the regret they have no end of time to contemplate.

"Ada," Hermione whispered, yet still loud enough for elvish ears to hear. Thranduil moved to lay a kiss upon the top of her head, and Hermione knew then that all would still be well, and she would not willingly leave the Greenwood again for a good many years.