Just a note: originally the fell winter lasted from November to March (If you use our terms/names). In my version it'll last until June. There are also gonna be other differences for story purposes.
Every hobbit in the shire had prepared for winter. Their connection to the earth had warned them that it was going to be worse than usual. Everyone had bought extra layers, food brought out of storage and mothers had fed their children more to try and fatten them up while also keeping enough saved for the snowy season.
The Baggins family of Bag End had prepared just like everybody else. Even though they were more cautious and had to prepare more thoroughly, they still only expected it to be a slightly harsher winter.
Everything went as expected for all the hobbits. Temperatures dropped and gardens snowed over. For a few days there were few that could go out because their doors had been snowed or frozen shut. Those days passed and faunts were playing out in the snow. People were having fun and celebrating the time that the earth rested. Parents had to bring children inside earlier than usual and thicker coats had needed to be worn, but they had known the winter would be slightly harsher. They had known what would happen and what to expect. They had been prepared and ready for what they expected. Things were perfectly fine because everything was going as expected.
Everything was going as expected.
Until it no longer did.
When the snow was supposed to have already reached it's peak, it still kept piling up. When temperatures were meant to even out, they kept dropping. It became colder and colder as food became less and less.
The young were the first to go. Gradually, every faunt under the age of twenty-three died. Some were lucky and died peacefully in their sleep. Whether that sleep was natural or because the cold and hunger had prevented them from waking didn't matter to many. They had died painlessly; it was something to be thankful for. The children who had died in their sleep had been spared a lot of pain. Other faunts were fighters and survivors, it was something usually encouraged and nurtured. The winter made it something to pity. Those faunts were forced to feel as the cold either seeped away their lives or their bodies slowly started eating away at themselves.
The thin and the old had started to go when the Brandywine froze.
The snow had trapped some of the less fortunate in their homes as their smials were located in lower areas. They were unable to escape as the wolves dug through their thinner, weaker walls and devoured them whole. Anyone unlucky enough to be within hearing distance had heard the tortured screams and the tear of flesh as their neighbors were eaten.
Worse than the screams and sounds of pain, however, was the silence that followed. The silence was proof that they were gone, that another family was dead. The silence also meant that you and your own were safe for another night. Or it meant the wolves were choosing their next meal.
The Brandywine had still been flowing when Iris died. She had become weaker and weaker, sicker and sicker. The constant coughing had worn away at her throat and lungs until she was hacking up blood. Her skin was as pale as the snow outside, her hair greasy and filthy from sweat and their inability to wash it. Her frame was far too thin and her bones much too pronounced, yet she had still smiled lovingly at her family as the life and light drained from her eyes. It took the four remaining hobbits a full day to clear enough snow and dig deep enough to burry Iris Baggins next to the eight unmarked graves.
The Brandywine froze and what was left of the Baggins family were lucky in how far up the hills their smial was built. However, they were in the perfect position to hear what was going on throughout Hobbiton. Even what their neighbors couldn't hear was carried up by the wind to them. They heard everything.
The wolves didn't stay with the lower homes, though. Eventually white wolves were roaming the streets, searching for smials weak enough to break or the lone hobbit desperately searching for something to protect or feed their family.
Slowly the number of hobbits that risked going out became larger even as the number of hobbits in and of itself became fewer. Bungo and Belladonna didn't know how long they had before their small family joined either of those two groups.
The time they were so scared of had come. Their food had run out days prior and they were out of wood to burn. Frost already coated half the interior of their home and non of them had felt warmth in so long. They had run out of options, they had to leave. So, they had prepared as much as they could to leave for the great smials.
Bluebell was weak and struggling to stay awake as her family tried to walk through the snow and remain undetected by the wolves. Bilbo had her tied to his back, the blade she had designed him in one hand and one of their older axes in the other. Their mother had armed herself with her elvish sword (little more than a dagger to an actual elf) and their father had their other two axes in either hand.
The snow was still falling down heavily on them when they heard it. A howl was the last thing Bilbo can remember clearly. Screams, blood, pain after pain, the snapping of bones and the soft squelch of what little flesh they had being torn apart, it all blurred together. The first clear memory Bilbo had was watching the wolves being run off or killed by elves and rangers.
An elf was at his side, tending to the wounds he had gotten in the attack. "No." His voice cracked as he tried to talk. "No, Bluebell. Help Bluebell, help her!" Bilbo was struggling against the elf as he tried to hold him down.
"I'm afraid there's nothing we can do!" the elf tried to calm him and get him to stay still. Bilbo absently noticed he was getting blood on the elf's expensive and regal looking armor. He managed to struggle himself into a half upright position when his toe touched something wet and relatively warm for the freezing temperature. Looking down he caught his own eyes looking back at him lifelessly. He stared down at the more effeminate features of his own face that belonged to his siter. His gaze shifted to his toe, the tip of which was red with the blood it had touched, the blood that coated his siter's head. His gaze lifted up further and landed on the rest of his sister's body where it had been torn apart. Slowly his eyes raked over the area. Once pristine and pure white snow was now stained and covered in the red of his family's blood. He could see the body of his father next to the body of his mother. He turned his head back to his sister and realized it. He was alive because she had been on his back. Bluebell had taken the brunt of every attempt to get to him.
He wasn't aware of anything around him, wasn't aware of the elf tending to all his wounds. He wasn't aware of his family's pieces being gathered together as he was carried to medical tents. All he saw was the lifeless faces of his family staring at him. Bilbo was now the last Baggins of Bag End.
With the arrival of the Rangers, the elves and Ghandalf the hobbits of the shire no longer had to worry about the wolves. Instead, they started to finally burry the dead, if there was anything left to burry at least. Mass graves were dug with the names of those buried in them carved on a single plaque. A single funeral was held for all the dead, for any time that could be spared had to be dedicated to guaranteeing the survival of the living. No songs were sung, no dances performed and no happy stories were shared. The death toll was too high for the living to even celebrate the lost lives as they usually would.
Bilbo, however, buried his family behind his home as his mother would have wanted. He dug each grave and carved each gravestone. He wrapped each body, or the gathered pieces of them, in a memorial cloth and laid each one to rest with his own hands. Behind him stood his mother's family and a few elves, the only ones who had put in the effort to be there despite their own struggles. His aunts, uncles and cousins helped him cover the bodies and the elf who had tended to his wounds placed an old and dried flower crown on his mother's grave.
Tears once again overwhelmed his eyes when he realized that the elf who had healed him had been the same elf who had befriended his mother. The elf who had healed him was the elf who had fought by his mother's side, taught his mother Sindarin, who had received his sister's designs and had personally forged them for his mother simply because she had asked. The same elf who she had taught about the meanings of flowers and had gifted with a crown to bless him. The tears cascaded down his face as he looked at the flower crown, a crown that had been lovingly saved and cared for despite losing its beauty, a crown that now sat upon the grave of its weaver.
One by one, the members of his mother's side of the family left to tend to their duties and ensure that their families would survive. His grandfather, Gerontius, turned to him once the last of his cousins was out of sight and only they and the three elves remained. He held out his hand to him and Bilbo obediently placed his own hand in his grandfather's. He felt as his grandfather placed a small leather pouch in his hand. "This is usually only given to a hobbit once they come of age." The frail hobbit said sadly. "I am afraid, however, that to give it to you now is the only way we'll have a fighting chance at keeping Bag End in your hands." The two embraced for a long moment before his grandfather left too. It's a miracle really. Bilbo thought sadly. Grandfather is now the oldest living Hobbit.
He looked up as he heard the soft footfalls of the three elves approaching. The one who had healed him, his mother's friend, was in the lead with the two identical ones walked a single step behind him. He realized they were twins and his heart ached in longing for his sister. They stopped a few steps away from him, but before any of them could utter a single word he spoke in perfect Sindarin. "Thank you for coming despite how busy you are. I know mother would have appreciated it." He smiled at them sadly. Instead of looking shocked or surprised by his use of the elven language, they simply smiled at him. A reflection of his grief, though dulled, shone from their eyes.
The healer at the front strode the last couple steps (though his height made it a single stripe) forward and sank down to one knee in front of Bilbo. "Your mother was a great friend to me and my children, though my daughter could sadly not come" Bilbo nodded at this, he understood the desire to keep your children safe. Besides, the girl (perhaps woman) probably had to supervise whatever responsibilities her father and brothers had left behind. The elf lifted and placed his hand on Bilbo's shoulder. "Your mother was welcome in my home at any time she so needed or desired. You always have and always will be as well." The elf took another look deep into Bilbo's eyes and, as if seeing something, spoke again. "Do not let their deaths dull your spirit. The best way to honor their lives and their sacrifices is to live as they would have wanted you to." He then stood, recognizing that Bilbo would need some time to himself. "Farewell, master Baggins."
"Bilbo, please. You were a friend of my mother." Neither mentioned how his voice hitched on the confirmation that she was now gone. Instead, the elves only inclined their heads.
"Then to you I am only Elrond." With that final farewell, the three elves left. Completely unaware of how that single conversation would change the life of the young hobbit.
Bilbo stood in his back garden for another minute, simply taking in the absolute silence. He already hated it, for it wasn't the silence of a quiet family. It was a silence of a single hobbit having to occupy an empty family's smial.
Gently, snowflakes started to drift down from the sky. Bilbo was slightly awed that something that had caused so much destruction could come down to the earth so calmly now. He looked up and could tell that, for the first time in such a long time, it wasn't going to become another blizzard or storm. He watched as another snowflake fell and gently landed on the leather pouch in his hand.
The pouch in his hand. He had forgotten about that.
Slowly, hesitantly, he pulled at the string keeping the thing closed. It opened and there, in the palm of his hand, lay twelve wooden beads and a black string.