So, um, I haven't updated this since 2014 apparently? I got really into Avengers and then after 2017 I haven't had time or motivation to write anything (after work I just want to sleep to be honest), but this last week I have really, really wanted to try to finish this story – it might not be quite what everyone expected, and I am not particularly happy with it [I have forgotten most of the Elvish I forced myself to learn when I started writing this], but I hope you like it anyway. Thank you for your patience!
Refresh: Thranduil found them in the woods, Smaug took Harry with him to "oust the Dwarves from the mountain" and they watch from the sky while Bard essentially attacks Thranduil, then called Harry a whore.
Words: 3,016
Chapter 09
"I still think I should go in first and warn them," Harry said, for the fourth time since Smaug left Esgargoth behind them. Smaug's neck twisted, so that his head was turned towards Harry, who was perched at the base of his neck legs hooked down around the barrel of his chest. One golden eye narrowed and a puff of smoke escaped from the one nostril Harry could see. "Look, I'm just saying! If you go charging into the mountain, the Dwarves are going to panic, I might get stabbed, so I think it might be better to err on the side of caution."
Smaug snorted loudly, the sound like the first crack of thunder before a storm. "Istari," he drawled, that sly-smugness creeping into his voice, "if anyone were to kill you, it would be me. Fear not, I will protect you from the thieves."
"I really, really think you should let me go in first," Harry sighed, head hanging low with exasperation. Below them, the mountain stretched out into the distance; a carpet of broken and charred trees gave way to rock and ruins of Dale, before eventually the Lonely Mountain appeared before them between the clouds. Smaug twisted to the right, body tilted and wings arched as he turned and began to glide lower and lower until he was hovering over the hole he had created when he, in his earlier rage, tore through the mountain in search of the invaders. Rocks and detritus shook as Smaug's feet hit the ground, claws clicking and creating grooves in the mountainside. Harry waited, tense and nervous, for Smaug to charge through the opening in the rock and start spraying fire. His tail whipped against the ground behind him, twisting and turning like Nagini used before she struck her prey.
Teeth appeared over Harry's shoulder, catching him by the back of his Unspeakable robe again. "As you wish," Smaug drawled, after he had flicked his head and gently tossed Harry up into the air. "Warn the thieves that I am coming for them".
Harry wobbled to his feet, rubbing his aching backside. Flying on the back of a dragon was not particularly comfortable, especially given Samug's apparent habit of tossing him to and fro without warning; nor was landing on his arse in a pile of rubble without warning. "Ok, ok, just… give me a few minutes. If I get stabbed because you startle them, I will tell my mate and he will overreact and then who will you tell more stories to if I am locked in a room and never allowed to come see you?"
Smaug didn't respond, but his lipless mouth curled back over his teeth, in amusement Harry realised, and his eyes slid shut as he made himself comfortable closer to the entrance of the mountain (blocking any of the Dwarves from escaping). "Here goes nothing," Harry muttered to himself, as he carefully climbed in through the ragged gap in the wall of the mountain, hoisting himself over jagged rocks and around stone and what looked suspiciously like shattered bones.
"Hello?" He called out, and then listened to the echo that called back to him.
"Bilbo?" Harry tried again, thinking of the pleasant Hobbit he had met within Thranduil's halls. Bilbo had been the more reasonable of the group, while not the eldest he had seemed the more down to earth and less prone to overreacting – Harry would prefer to speak to him before running into some of the others, like Fili and Kili whose tendency to egg the others on and engage in physical tomfoolery once got Harry punched in the fact and the entire part of 12 Dwarves imprisoned beneath the Mirkwood. "Hello?"
The sound of an arrow notching in the distance had Harry pressing his back to the nearest wall, ignoring the dust and dirt that filtered down onto his head at the sudden movement. His eyes narrowed, and his wand slid out of his sleeve and into his hand; long honed instincts preparing him for anything that might come at him from the dark.
"Harry?" A soft, hesitant voice whispered, "Harry is that you?" the voice came, louder, closer. Several sets of footsteps came towards him, the soft pitter patter of what must have been Bilbo almost drowned out by the heavier footfalls of the larger of the Dwarves.
Dwalin reached him first, axes in each hand, though the grin on his face kept Harry from raising his wand. "Laddie, how did you escape!" It was less a question, and more of an exclamation of awe, and it was followed immediately by Ori and Kili cheering about Harry's skills at allegedly evading Thranduil's grasp. Gloin and Oin nudged each other and Bofer reached out to drag Harry into a hug, patting him heavily on the back. Balin stood, silent, contemplative, and watched the others celebrate the arrival of the one who had helped free them from prison behind the Elven-king's back. Bilbo offered a soft smile, standing at the back of the group with one hand held in Thorin's own, and the other clenched tight inside of his waistcoat pocket.
"Oh hello, you must be Thorin," Harry said offering a hand to shake.
Thorin came forward, eyes narrowed, mouth a tight lipless line of disapproval. He did not take Harry's hand, but dragged his eyes from head to foot and then huffed loudly. "You are not what I pictured." Thorin snorted. He could have been amused but Harry got the impression that he was just disappointed. He, like many people in Harry's own world, must have been very surprised that Harry wasn't the built-up image in the minds of his fans.
"I assume you overheard the gossip, huh. What was it, Thranduil stabbed someone for looking at me, or did you hear that I got caught fucking one of the servants in the woods, or…" riotous laughter interrupted him and the Dwarves almost fell on top of themselves laughing, jostling shoulders and slapping backs. "Or were you expecting a long beard and a pointy hat, because I've heard that one too."
Thorin's face flushed across the cheeks and he ducked his head, a little embarrassed over his reaction. "Master Istari it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance at last. I have heard much from my friends about how you have assisted them, and I am in your debt." His free hand came up to his, clenched in a fist over his heart as he bent forward into a short bow.
Harry laughed lightly, waving the gratitude away. "You might want to wait until you hear why I'm here first, Master Dwarf," he mused as he came closer to them. The Dwarves looked intrigued (Balin shot wary looks at the gap behind Harry, the light dimmer than it should have been; spotty and interrupted as if something had tried to block out the sun) and came closer, talking over one another, asking question after question faster than Harry could answer.
"Harry?" Bilbo called softly, fingers clenching around the Arkenstone in his pocket, comforted in his sudden nervousness by the brush of the One ring against his trembling fingers. Harry's eyes focused on the movement, narrowed – he shifted uneasily, the call of dark magic humming in the air between them, reminding him suddenly of Voldemort in his head, voice speaking through Harry's mouth, tempting Dumbledore to kill them. He glanced over his shoulder quickly, then took three quick steps forward past Thorin and towards the hallway the Dwarves had appeared from. Ahead of them, in the darkness, glinted gold and a quick lumos lit the room up like a thousand torches had been lit all at once; gold shone brighter than the sun, reflecting all around them, and Harry had a momentary panic thinking he was trapped in a vault at Gringotts again, the gemino curse multiplying until he was drowning in cursed gold. A hysterical thought burst into his mind, slipping out of his mouth before he could think it through: "you could definitely share!"
As if summoned by Harry's words, heat burst across the Dwarves' backs as they watched Harry walk away from them, and the voice which haunted most of their nightmares hissed menacingly, "I do not share with thieves, I eat thieves, Istari."
Just as Harry predicted, the Dwarves (understandably) started screaming. There was some running, a little bumping into one another and knocking them flat, Bilbo turned invisible just as Kili tried to loose an arrow at Smaug's eye and ended up getting blown eight feet backwards by a puff of huffing laughter as the arrow bounced harmlessly off of the floor. Dwalin's axe was knocked aside by the crack of a tail, and it bounced, less harmlessly, towards Harry who disapparated with a loud crack.
Thorin's terrified expression, from what Harry could see of the Dwarf where he huddled behind an outcropping with Oin, shifted to incredulous rage as Harry apparated directly into Smaug's path, hands on his hips, and shouted, "I asked you to WAIT!"
XXX
Bolg might have been dead and eaten by a dragon, but Azog continued unaware of his son's demise. He travelled around the Mirkwood, avoiding the Elves within, sending scouts to tease out Shelob's descendants and bribe them with the very many bodies they could feast upon once Azog's forces finished with the town of Men on their way to the Mountain. The King under the Mountain belonged to Azog – the pale Orc had claimed him the day Thorin had cut through his limbs and dared to stand back up every time Azog put him in the dirt. The orcs and goblins and trolls who followed behind Azog did not care either way who they were allowed to kill; only that they would be allowed to kill. Their teeth ached in their gums, eager to chew into flesh, and their swords almost vibrated out of their hands with the need to bury themselves in wriggling trembling bodies. They could already hear the begging, the screaming, the crying; their ears were eager for it, impatient. They were hungry.
Azog watched them from the back of his warg, a grin full of broken and yellow teeth like razors, the spike on the end of one arm raised in threat and imploring patience at the same time. He was eager for battle too, for the end of Oakenshield, but he knew to be patient. They needed the dragon and the Istari out of the way (or on their side) – one Istari was trapped in Dol Guldur and out of the way but there was another, a younger one, and his Master warned them all of the very real risk he posed to their plans. They would wait, just a little longer, until they were sure that nothing would interfere and then they would swarm into Lake Town like a tsunami, destroying all in their path, and the terror of the Men who dared to face them would be almost as sweet as the taste of the flesh of their children when his army feasted with vigour.
Spiders crept out of the trees behind them. Each a shivery spot of darkness that dwarfed the trees around them, until from a distance all that could be seen were legs and legs and legs and fangs that dripped with venom each time a spider screeched with hunger.
Azog bared his teeth wider, his snarl stretching his mouth across his face. He turned his warg back around and waved his army forward. The Defiler threw his head back and released a battle cry. From the North, a cry echoed across the sky towards them, and the Orcs of Dol Guldar who had left their fortress at the behest of their Master marched towards the Gundabad army who were less than three days from the valley beneath Erebor.
XXX
In the Ministry for Magic, in the Department of Mysteries, the head of the Unspeakables was rubbing the sides of his heads trying in vain to ease the tension headache that had been building over the past 7 days since Harry Potter disappeared. Three others, the head Auror, Ron Weasley, and the Minister for Magic, talked over one another and at him, each of them becoming louder and louder the longer he stayed silent but this was the 16th time this had happened and Croaker had given up trying to make them shut up. He had spoken to Hermione Granger three days ago (when the Unspeakables were no longer able to keep the Aurors out of their business) and she was in the process of investigating the strange orb that had been rolling across the floor of the room with the Veil on the day of the inspection. Lightening crackled within the orb, black and purple swirling like a hurricane, or two lovers caught in an endless dance, but nothing much of interest had happened other than giving her an electric shock and hair-static.
Croaker was out of ideas; at the same time, he refused to accept that Potter was dead. If he-who-must-not-be-named could not destroy Potter, a little orb and a fight between friends would not be capable either. Weasley had, following a screaming match with his wife where she screamed and he mostly cowered, admitted to pushing Harry during the fight but he couldn't remember if Harry fell towards the Veil or through it. It had been fast, unexpected, the orb had flashed as Harry had fallen, and Ron had reached to pull him back but couldn't reach him and then he was gone along with one of the orbs. They had been a matching set, found during a raid, and passed to the Unspeakables to discover their purpose. Croaker had an idea – had a vague thought, just a notion – that they were still a matched set and until someone returned the second orb to Harry Potter he would be forever out of their reach.
Arguing amongst themselves in the Ministry did nothing but give Croaker a headache. Unnoticed, he slipped out of the room, with his dragonhide robes laced tight across his chest and his hood pulled down low to hide his face, and made his way to the Undersecretary's office where Hermione (who was pregnant and cranky) rolled the orb across her desk pensively. "Do you think he has the orb?" Croaker asked as he shut the door behind himself. "Do you think it went with him?"
"It must have, we've searched the Department and there was no sign of it. Unless it went through the Veil, I'm not sure what other possibility there is aside from someone picking it up, and no one has. The Aurors searched everyone who has here that day and the homes of anyone who went home between then and when Ron informed the Aurors. No one has been allowed to leave since day 3 until now. If the orb was in the Ministry, I think we would know. It has to be with Harry. It needs to be with Harry." Her voice cracked at the end, both hands resting lightly over her stomach with fingers tapping nervously, but she tried to stay resolute and calm. Panicking wouldn't help anyone, and Harry's name on the Weasley's clock had moved from "at work" to "out" but had not yet dissolved as it should have if he were dead [like Fred's clock-hand had] and so she allowed herself to have hope and reminded herself of the many, many times the odds were against him and how Harry always seemed to defeat even the worst odds. "Harry will be back before we know it, but in the meantime I think I will run some more tests on this orb," she said firmly, right hand leaving her belly to roll the orb across her desk again.
Two of Croaker's long fingers stopped its progress, holding the orb still with a light touch; he picked it up and frowned as a bolt of lightening arched across the surface on the inside. The lightening looked strange, curved and red, and in Middle Earth Smaug's tailed cracked against the wall of the Mountain as he shrieked and shouted that he would never, ever suffer a thief to escape him and live.
XXX
When Smaug screamed, the Men of Lake Town paused and trembled, and when he fell silent the Men muttered amongst each other, growing bolder and bolder in the time it took for the Elves to fetch backup and inch closer to the town and the lake, away from the safety of their woods. The dragon had not returned. The Istari had not returned. Bard the Bowman had been taken to the jails and imprisoned behind metal bars, the Elves and the jailers that Alfed appointed grew deaf to his pleas for release.
Lanolar (at Novourion's request for he recalled the story of how Harry and Prince Legolas were sheltered at their home) ensured that Bain and Sigrid were looked after and fed, their possessions safely put away inside of their home, and protected from the more vigorous townsfolk who had taken it upon themselves to 'relieve' others of the burden that was food and gold. Thranduil had ordered his people to set up a makeshift camp in the valley that stretched between the lake and Dale, and some of the Men came to join him, the ones who had convinced themselves that the dragon was dead and that they could eventually escape from the narrow-eyed gazes of the Elves to claim the gold for themselves.
Thranduil had tried to be patient, had tried to wait and trust in his Ifea-meldor/I but the longer Men whispered of his death the harder it was to ignore them. On the 2nd day that Harry had flown away on the wyrm's back, Thranduil led his guards towards Erabor. Novourion rode at his side, face still pale and knuckles white around the grip on his mount, but he was ready and willing to drag his liege-Consort back to the Mirkwood kicking and screaming if he had to.
XXX