Extended summary:
It took Harry one slightly more successful assassination attempt to realise she was immortal.
It took Luna one question to persuade Harry to help with an old research.
It took the dwarves of Erebor one meeting with an Easterling thief to change the course of history.
Welcome to this new little adventure of mine!
As always, I'm attempting to write an adult and somewhat competent Harry.
For the first time, I'm writing a fem!Harry. I felt like weaving a story from a female perspective for once.
Adventure is the main genre, then fantasy and a bit of drama. Only lastly, some romance.
As is my habit, I'm throwing you in at the deep end, sprinkling hints as we go and only slowly uncovering the layers of the story, one chapter at a time. I invite you to read attentively and enjoy the path to discovery.
Oh, one more sin to confess before I can let you in: the first part of the story (some 35k words) follows the Hobbit film storyline, with all of P. Jackson's embellishments and even the transgressions. I needed you to have the visuals, and the fast pace for Harry's rather turbulent entrance. I'll get back to my senses soon afterwards, I promise.
Chapter 1
There wasn't much one could observe whilst rushing on slippery walkways and avoiding guards, but Kíli still managed.
He had long learnt what to expect from settlements of Men and in many ways, Lake-town had not surprised. It had still greeted him with the smell of an absent sewer system, persistent even through the load of fish piled upon Kíli's head in the barrel he'd entered the city in. The architecture was as haphazard as any settlement lacking the careful planning of dwarven builders. Lanterns, not lamps, hang only one swing away from spreading their flames to the wooden houses.
And yet.
There were inconsistencies among the rotting buildings–stones and pillars carved with dwarven touch for esthetics. Properly forged oil lamps broke the stride of the hazardous lanterns. Tapestries weaved with the patience of long-lived craftsmen hung above the water, molding from the bottom.
This was a decaying town that was built on something greater, something its current citizens were too ignorant to remember and treasure.
Five minutes in, and the town was already putting Kíli into a foul mood. Though, if he weren't currently adamant on ignoring the arrow wound in his thigh, he'd admit the insistent throbbing might also sour his humour.
Dwalin, who he'd been following up until now, abruptly stopped, and Kíli only narrowly avoided crashing into his back. He quickly grabbed for the wooden pole on his left, knowing what was coming next–and indeed, a beat later, Fili did bump into Kíli, nearly pushing them both into the ice-littered water next to the narrow pathway.
His balance restored, Kíli looked over Dwalin's shoulder, searching for the cause of the sudden halt. Up ahead, the bargeman–Bard, as Bilbo'd informed them–stood in the middle of the pathway, his back stiff as a board.
"My house's being watched," he hissed, face half turned back at them whilst his eyes stayed focused up ahead.
Kíli cursed under his breath, already tired of this chase through the town. Beside the sharp burning in his right leg, he was perfectly aware of how spectacularly their group of thirteen dwarrows and one hobbit was failing at staying inconspicuous in the town of Men. He'd liked to find a cover soon, thank you very much.
Before anyone could make any suggestions, a kid rushed at their guide. "Da-"
Bard hushed the boy and grabbed his forearm to drag him fully around the corner. He looked at the kid's face–his son, Kíli surmised–and stood frozen for a moment, and then another. Just when Kíli saw Dwalin and Thorin exchanging an impatient glare, the bargeman finally moved–he nodded at the boy, the gesture short and decisive. "Go back home and tell your sisters I'll be awhile still. If anything happens, we'll be at Harry's."
"We?" the boy repeated, glancing around his father's shoulders, his eyes widening upon finding the group of dwarrows there. "Da, what's going on?"
"I'll explain later. Now, go."
"Who's this Harry?" Uncle asked the moment the boy rushed away.
"A friend. Let's go. We've pushed our luck on these streets for long enough."
Uncle didn't move, though. "We're not paying anyone else for the services we've already bought from you."
"Well, Master Dwarf, my only other idea was to smuggle you inside my house through the toilet. We can still go that route, if you'd prefer."
Kíli grimaced upon hearing that, glancing at his uncle in alarm. Luckily, Thorin seemed equally unexcited about that plan. In front of him, Kíli felt Dwalin's back shake with a growl.
"Or, you can try to believe I'm a man of my word," the bargeman continued. "If my friend charges anything for his help, the debt will stay between me and him."
Four minutes and several streets later, they arrived almost at the northern edge of the town, if Kíli's sense of direction didn't get confused in their mad rush through the maze of streets. Bard stopped in front of a house as shabby looking as all the rest they'd passed that day. He climbed the stairs to its front door two at a time and knocked loudly.
A few moments passed without a sound from the other side. Kíli shuffled his feet, keenly aware of the stares they kept gathering, stood high up on the first floor landing as they were, like waterlogged dummies lined for target practise.
Bard knocked again but waited only for a short moment before his patience seemed to have found its end.
"Oh, curse this," he swore and proceeded to drive his shoulder into the door. It burst open already on the second shove, the rotting wood around the latch readily giving in. The dwarrows were quick to pile inside after the bargeman, finally leaving the streets and the Men's stares behind.
Kíli quickly scanned the place they'd just entered–large room, no exits but a staircase, surplus of light, no dark corners and hopefully no occupants hiding in them, either–and turned back to the door, not willing to let Bard out of his sight for too long.
The bargeman shut the door behind Ori. He kept it closed with his shoulder, guiltily pawing at the broken lock.
"Let me," Bofur grumbled, a plank of wood he'd pilfered from who knows where already in hand. It would suffice to patch up the door frame. Bombur and Bifur stood by his side and Kíli felt it safe to leave Bard to their guard. Instead, he turned back to the room to explore at large.
He was surprised to find himself in a workshop. For some reason, he'd assumed Bard had led them into someone's home. This cluttered space obviously served for work instead, but for what craft, Kíli couldn't tell. A tinkerer, maybe? There were certainly enough miniature tools, and parts of origins Kíli couldn't even attempt to guess at. A small forge with the basics of smithing tools supported the idea. But their host might as well be a healer, with the amount of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, their combined fragrance driving even the smell of streets and fish oil away.
But then, he noticed a rack with drying dishes amongst a pile of flower pots, and a teapot sitting by the forge. A desk littered with parchment stood basking in the light from the windows, a bench piled upon with pelts and blankets lining the walls of the alcove. This was a home after all, and their host lived among the clutter.
Nori and Dori had gone up the stairs, to check the upper rooms. Gloin and Ori had disappeared to the floor beneath. Kíli crossed the room to check the windows. Back at the door, Uncle returned to questioning Bard.
"Are you in a habit of breaking into all your friends' houses?"
Kíli understood Uncle's hesitance to trust the bargeman–he could be spinning any tales and they would hardly be able to tell. Judging by his tone though, the very edge of Uncle's animosity seemed to have been curbed. After all, Bard had just led them under the noses of half the town's guard and helped them knock out the ones they hadn't managed to avoid. It was obvious there was no love lost between the bargeman and the Master of the town. A sentiment shared by many of the men they'd met, if their unwillingness to help the guards was anything to go by.
However, there was no way to know whether a friendship with Bard would turn out more profitable than the friendship of the Master of the town. After all, it was Bard who'd claimed the Master would not look favourable at their stay in Lake-town.
"Would you rather I hadn't?" the bargeman replied. "We'd still be standing outside."
Kíli stopped by the windows. They offered a generous view of the open lake and its southern banks, away from the Lonely Mountain. So there were no walls surrounding the town. Instead, the outer houses must have served as the only line of fortification. Their host's windows were barred off, strong iron poles crossing the view so densely that not even a child could climb through.
He made to turn away, when he noticed the window's latch. It was open, although the wings themselves were shut. Guided by the intuition bred from many years of successful troublemaking ventures, he opened the windows, stuck his head out and had a closer look at the bars. And indeed, the very tops of the poles were not nailed to the walls but rested on tiny hinges instead. Clever.
He turned back to the room, searching for his brother. "Fili," he called under his breath. "Have a look. The bars open."
Fili joined him by the window, his eyebrows raising at the sight of the miniature hinges on the bars. Kíli could translate his brother's expression easily enough. Yes, it could prove very useful later. And when the second eyebrow joined the other a beat later, Kíli smirked at Fili's predictable thought. And yes, it would have made their entry into the town that much smoother.
"Do you think Bard knows?" Fili asked in a whisper.
Kíli shook his head. "I don't think he'd let himself be seen strutting with us through half the town if he had a different choice."
Fili inclined his head. "He does have three bairns to think of."
"You promised us provisions. And weapons," Dwalin's growl carried to them from the front of the room.
"That I did. Once Harry comes home, I'll get on with that."
"What if your friend refuses to help us?" Balin asked.
Kíli turned around to see that the door frame had almost been patched. Bard was shaking his head at the dwarrows surrounding him. "Harry will help–maybe not you, but he won't refuse me his. Either way, I'm certain any convincing will go smoother if we don't abuse his hospitality before he arrives." His eyes glanced guiltily at the broken lock. "Well, no more than we already have."
Thorin exchanged an uneasy look with Balin. "We can't wait long. If your friend doesn't show soon, you'll have to think of a different plan."
"What of the weapons?" Dwalin asked. "We'd like to have those presently."
Bard frowned. "I could leave to fetch those right away. Or, I could stay and make sure I'm here to explain your situation when Harry arrives and finds out that fourteen dwarves broke into his house."
"It was hardly us who did any breaking!"
Bard nodded. "And I'm sure Harry will believe it slightly easier if I'm here to say so."
Dwalin grumbled in impatience, but held back at the truth of it.
With that, it was apparently decided they would wait for this Harry to return home. That left them all standing in empty silence, wet and smelling of fish, the rush of the chase not yet leaving their bodies but now with no way to spend it.
Unsurprisingly, it was their burglar who first broke under the awkwardness of the moment. "Master Bard," the hobbit stepped forward, "I'm the last person who would ever dream of imposing on their host uninvited."
Kíli let out a snicker when he recognised the obvious effort it took Bilbo not to shoot them all a glare at that. They all knew the Hobbit was still smarting from their first dinner, back at his home in the Shire.
"But even so, surely there are ways we could all get more comfortable whilst we wait, without straining your friend's home inordinately. We could perhaps stoke the fire? Heat up some water and attempt to wash? After all, I'd hate for your friend to come home to a house reeking of fish, as we currently do."
They hadn't met many decent people who could resist Bilbo's persuasive practicality. Bard proved to be no exception. "There shouldn't be any harm in a wash," he relented, albeit hesitantly. "He has this contraption that lets water shower onto you. Let me show you where he heats up the rainwater for it."
A short while later found them in much better spirits. An order for washing had been established, a few hot-blooded dwarrows braving the cold water before it had heated up enough for the gentle hobbit in their midst.
Waiting for his own turn, Kíli was quite content to sit by the fire, his leg propped up on a crate of strangely half-charred wood, letting the rest of his kin conduct a more thorough investigation of their current lodgings, as covertly as they could under the watchful eye of the bargeman.
Nori was walking along the perimeter of the room, seemingly admiring the tapestries and rugs hung skewed over any stretch of the wall, so densely that Kíli could almost forget they were staying inside a wooden trap of a building. The ridiculous amount of fabric kept the draft at bay, maybe even the ever present damp, making the warmth of the fire linger in the room much more pleasantly than what anyone could expect from a house built on water. Nori appeared to be studying the designs on the tapestries from up close, but Kíli saw the way his fingers kept tapping along the walls, his ears twitching in attention.
Dori was eyeing the kettle resting away from the fire, his gaze twitching at the herbs above. He must have found some leaves good for a cup of tea; Kíli knew it was only a matter of minutes before Dori broke and asked to make a pot.
Balin, freshly washed, clad only in his breeches and wrapped in a pilfered blanket, was scanning the titles of the two shelves of books that created quite a sizeable library for one of the common folk.
"Histories and tales of old, mostly," he reported softly. "None of them younger than two hundred years. These were pilfered from the Dale of old."
He carefully took out one book and leafed to the very last page. "Property of Lake-town library," he read. "Is your friend a thief, Master Bard?"
Bard sent him an exasperated frown in reply. "Those were borrowed–or even more likely, traded. This is a small town, Master Dwarf, with any valuables long accounted for. Even something less noticeable than a book would be easily traced to the thief, if it were to go missing."
The bargeman's words rang with a warning, and Kíli bristled at the insinuation.
"Well, someone got up on the wrong side of a barrel today." Fili's voice startled Kíli back to his corner of the room. "Is the wound giving you grief?"
The question was spoken softly enough that it wouldn't carry further than his ears. He appreciated that, whilst also bemoaning the fact he'd failed to hide his discomfort long enough for Fili to show concern.
"We've done a lot of running today; the leg's determined to punish me for it," Kíli said dismissively. "I'll be alright by the morning."
Fili, Mahal bless him, didn't care much for coddling and likewise did not impose it on others, and only patted Kíli's shoulder in sympathy.
Uncle and Dwalin came to stand close by, leaning over a map they'd noticed peeping through a pile of rags.
"It seems to have been revised, and not that long ago," Dwalin grumbled out excitedly. "Thorin, just the paths to the Iron Hills-"
Dwalin never finished that thought as that was when a new voice cut through the familiar rumble of the dwarrows.
"Well, if this is a- a robbery, you are making quite a mess of it."
A/N: Many thanks to my amazing sister who gave me her ear, her time and her advice as a sounding board for this new insanity of mine.
And on top of that, even agreed to be my second set of eyes and make the text all the more understandable for the rest of you.
I'm so glad we can share this adventure together, Ája!