-Chapter Two-
Harry Potter arrived in Middle-earth naked and drowning. Only the first part had been expected, so he cursed Death and Oromë as he forced his mouth shut and surged instinctively in the direction of the light. He was going to haunt the bastards for eternity if they'd shoved him through a portal to the middle of some ocean and left him to die.
His brain, starving for oxygen, was forced to stop plotting revenge. It was brighter now, the rippled sunlight on the surface only a few feet away. Harry was fighting towards it, but he hadn't been prepared for the submersion and his lungs and throat were burning, his mouth clenched around the desire to open. He couldn't find his wand, couldn't feel the holster on his forearm.
At last, the view splintered and he gasped, bursting into the air and gulping at it. Harry coughed and cleared his eyes. When he'd recovered enough to take in his surroundings he discovered he was not, as he'd feared, at sea, but treading water in the middle of a small lake. It was roughly circular, the whole thing barely a hundred feet across and completely surrounded by thick vegetation.
He was relieved, though also annoyed, to discover his wand floating a few feet away, apparently unharmed. He should have realised that the holster would be lost in the crossing. A slight distortion in the surface of the water allowed him to locate the cloak. The third and final thing he'd brought with him was easier to find. The snitch he'd caught in his first year at Hogwarts, left to him by Albus Dumbledore, was struggling futilely to free itself from the surface of the lake. Its sodden wings flapped pathetically, like a caught insect, until he curled his hand around it and coaxed it to retract them.
After that, he made for the shore. It was practically a jungle he found himself fighting through when he reached it; thick-snarled roots wrestling with each other for access to the water and heavy, snakelike vines stretched between the branches of the trees. It was also hot, hot enough that he was sweating rather than shivering even wet and naked. He jerked his wand, and felt a jolt of relief that his magic was functioning as cool air surged around his body to dry him.
It was not a large jungle. It turned out, in fact, to be a fairly narrow band of greenery surrounding an oasis in the centre of much less hospitable-looking terrain. When he'd made his way through the thicket, he found a seemingly endless expanse of dry scrubland and gritty sand. The sun was high in the sky and blazing down unmercifully, so he ducked back beneath the cover of the trees and followed their line round. Ten minutes later he found himself back where he'd started.
'Fuckers could have told me where I was going to land.' He muttered. 'Just my luck to end up almost drowning in the middle of a fucking desert.'
He had no idea where he was. Oromë had sketched a map one night in the sand of the beach where they met, but it had hardly been detailed and Harry had sneaking suspicion that it was a little out of date. Oromë hadn't actually visited Middle-earth since the 'Years of Trees', which Harry had worked out took place at least ten millennia before the time he was being dropped into. Precisely how useful a roughly drawn map of the world during the last ice age would prove to a visitor to Earth, he didn't know, but that was effectively what he'd been shown.
In short; he was naked, and hot, and lost. Fortunately, he was also a wizard. A spray of cutting curses and vanishing charms cleared a space by the water, and he soon had an expanse of conjured canvas stretched above his head between the trunks of several trees. As he made camp he wondered guiltily whether he was supposed to be rushing off in the direction of some emergency. The price of his new life had, after all, been his wand arm in the service of a war. He reasoned that if he was supposed to make an appearance at some battle immediately then he'd have been deposited somewhere nearby. There was no smoke on the horizon, though, no sound beyond the gentle hum of nature. A couple of bright red birds flitted over the water and Harry watched them gather up the insects hovering at the lake's edge.
He slumped back against a tree and allowed relief to overwhelm him for a moment. He didn't know where he was or what lay in store, but he'd come to a final accord with Death and survived the crossing to another world, both of which he supposed counted as successes. It was weirdly freeing, relaxing naked by the oasis with a whole new existence stretching out in front him. It was also a bit boring. After so long being forced to isolate himself he yearned for company. On a whim, he summoned Prongs. He told himself it was just to prove that he could, that his Patronus had made it intact as well, but he grinned slightly as his long-time companion bumped his head gently against his shoulder and echoed his affection back to him.
It wasn't long before he began to feel hungry, which was something of a worry. It wasn't like he'd been able to bring lunch with him, so he examined the inedible-looking greenery nearby with annoyance. It was all unrecognisable, and most of it was probably poisonous. He wondered idly what one of the crimson birds would taste like. They seemed to have disappeared, though. It was only after a few minutes of staring at the glassy surface of the lake that he began to wonder about its contents.
'Accio fish!' he thought, stabbing his wand at the water. It took a couple of seconds before he felt his magic grasp onto something, and then there was a fat dark grey victim flopping around on the ground at his feet. He ended its life with a twist of will before leaning over to examine his prize dubiously. It didn't look much like any fish he thought he'd eaten before. He tried again with the summoning charm, dragging out the lake's inhabitants in search of a more recognisable meal. It was with his fourth cast that he felt something new. His spell slipped past the fish to alight on something that echoed against it, oddly familiar. Curious, he reeled it in.
'I'm fucking King Arthur now.' He muttered as the blade embedded itself in the sand.
The sword of Godric Gryffindor glittered cheerfully in front of him.
'Where did you come from?'
Harry inspected the blade cautiously. A couple of diagnostic spells told him it wasn't cursed, so he grasped the cool metal of the hilt and pulled it from the beach. Rubies the size of pigeons' eggs caught the sunlight and he could see the name of the sword's first owner inscribed on the blade.
Intellectually, Harry knew it could only have travelled through the same portal that had brought him. Why it was here, and who or what had sent it, he had no idea. He wasn't even sure whether the sword had ended up in the hands of the Ministry or the goblins after the Battle of Hogwarts. It was with him now, though. Harry wondered whether it was some cosmic joke about his having ended up in a world where people still used swords to kill each other.
He swung it experimentally a few times, feeling a bit ridiculous. It wasn't like he'd ever taken fencing lessons, and he was pretty sure that getting a lucky thrust at a massive snake a few hundred years ago didn't automatically make him a master swordsman. Still, it probably wouldn't hurt to keep it with him. He wondered idly whether goblin-forged silver and basilisk venom would prove as effective on Dark Lords in this world as they had in his last.
He deposited his new weapon on his conjured bedding and returned to the fish. Selecting the most appetising of the three, he gutted it with magic and set it turning slowly above his campfire. It was after only a few mouthfuls of the muddy-tasting creature that he began to regret this whole adventure. He was going to need to find some kind of city, with proper food and people who knew how to cook it.
Hunger temporarily sated, he lay down in the sun and closed his eyes. With his bare body against the earth, he extended himself into his surroundings. His power hummed curiously, immersing itself in the place. He could feel the heartbeats of the birds he'd seen over the lake, now perched nearby, and the drowsy coils of a sunning snake on a rock across the water. It felt wilder than he was familiar with. More than that, his senses, too, seemed more acute. Already amplified in his semi-comatose state, he slowly realised that he could reach beyond the birds and reptiles, could feel the the steady strength of the surrounding trees, the slow crawl of sap through roots and branches and the catalytic sunlight collected by their uppermost leaves. It was an altogether strange sensation. He burrowed deeper into the earth, through the worms and insects and damp, into the bedrock. He began panicking, suddenly filled with visions of being buried alive, of accidentally entombing himself in granite, never to be seen again. He flailed around, grasping for the living, breathing body that supported him.
His eyes flicked open, and then immediately shut again as he winced against the light. He lay panting, fingers clawed into the dirt at his side. He calmed himself slowly, pulling his magic back to him, sucking in the air that told him he was was safe, was free.
Once he'd centred himself, he contemplated what he was going to do next. There was nothing obvious to keep him there, save for a lake full of disappointing dinners. He stood, wondering, as he focused on a spot a few feet away, a stretch of bare ground just beyond the edge of his camp. He was used to apparating without thought, folding space with a casual push of his will. That didn't happen. He didn't splinch himself like a nervous fifth year, he just… stayed. It was strange sensation, like his magic was pressing against a possibility that had never existed, like the physics of this place were invulnerable to that particular manipulation. Did that mean he'd have to travel on foot? Or use a horse? How fast could a horse without wings go?
He began to wonder whether there was some significance to the place, a reason he had been set down here, or whether Oromë was just shit at aiming a landing. There was still so much he didn't know about his new situation. There were questions Oromë hadn't been willing, or able, to answer, things he'd been told he'd have to discover on his own. Once of the most disquieting things to learn hard been that the five wizards who'd been sent before him had arrived three thousand years earlier. Even if only two of them had abandoned their task, the others seemed to be going about their work with the urgency of tectonic plates. Somehow, Harry doubted he'd get another few millennia to prepare before things kicked off.
For the moment, though, he got to watch the sun slowly dip below the trees on the far side of the lake and paint the clear sky above it red.
When he woke, it was still dark. He sat up and tugged at the humming strand of power that had pulled him from sleep, following it to the edge of the ward-line he'd sketched around the camp. It had been a gentle alert, not the vicious jolt that would have warned him of a serious threat. Expecting some kind of animal to have stumbled across the line, he frowned when he discovered nothing.
Shivering as he pulled himself fully from his bedding, he summoned the cloak and pulled a curtain of stealthing spells around his naked body. His frown returned when he oriented himself and registered the warning had come from where his ward met the edge of the water. Had someone started throwing more magical swords through the portal in the middle of the night?
There was movement on the far side of the lake. He could see dim globs of light through the trees; lanterns, he decided, carried by what he hoped were human hands.
It wasn't until he'd edged his way carefully around the water, and stood silently at the edge of the strangers' encampment for a few long minutes that he realised what he'd discovered. He'd realised, of course, that this new world would be alien; violent and archaic and barbaric by his standards. Caught up in dreams of immortal equals, though, he hadn't given much thought to the darker implications.
The caravan had been on the road for months. Now, just a few days' hard travel from their destination, the owners had left control of the merchandise to their overseers and sat around a carefully tended campfire toasting the profit that would soon be theirs. The fighting in the western forests had forged opportunities for those willing to bear the risk.
'And a drink to the wizards,' a thickset man roared out, raising a heavy silver goblet, 'who will give us gold enough to bathe in!'
His companions echoed the movement as Harry froze.
In truth, there was nothing he could do. It was the conclusion he'd been coming to even before the toast. Sprawled out in the moonlit desert beyond the tree-line, there must have been at least a thousand slaves, chained together hand and foot in the lines of their coffles. The overseers were settling them in for the night, working their way along the rows to check bindings and give out what Harry assumed was food.
Was this a test? A moral hurdle laid out by Oromë for him to leap or stumble over? He'd been sent to fight against tyranny, oppression, and all the other standard Dark Lord-threats. This was a pretty clear example of a bad thing and, flippancy aside, the sight of that weirdly silent, huddled mass was curdling a knot of fury in his stomach.
If he released them though, if he slaughtered their captors and broke their chains, as he could feel his magic and most of his heart snarling for, what happened next? Would he become some kind of wizard Spartacus, raising an army of freed slaves against their oppressors? From what he could tell, most of the captives were half-starved. If he released them, in all likelihood he'd finish the process. He had no idea where he was. Even if he found a city, he'd be turning up with a thousand starving refugees they'd probably expected to arrive in chains and ready for market.
The caravan broke camp early the next morning, a bare few hours after its arrival. The owners took to their mounts as the overseers kicked their charges into motion and the whole operation began to clank and rumble slowly in the direction of the rising sun.
Given the fact that Harry was invisible, it was hardly surprising that no one noticed their convoy had grown by one in the night.
AN: Thank you all for the lovely reviews on the last chapter (and for all the favs/follows etc.) I can only apologise that it's taken me so long to do the next one. There were a couple of questions brought up in reviews, but from what I can see they'll be answered in the story. I tend only to answer review questions directly if something isn't going to be directly addressed in the main text at some point (or if something that's already happened needs clarifying).
Re the person who commented on being a little uncomfortable with the slash nature of the story (although making it clear it's the potential for smut rather than the homosexuality itself that's a concern); I am not Tolkien. This story will be more explicit in terms of both sex and violence than the Lord of the Rings; which sets a pretty low bar for both by the standards of modern fantasy. Tolkien was a mid-20th century academic and practising Catholic. Almost inevitably, homosexuality was not something he was particularly interested in representing in his work. As far as I'm aware he was never particularly homophobic, but he was also to a great extent a product of his times.
Equally, I hope I can promise not to put too much undue emphasis on sexual/romantic elements at the expense of plot and world-building.
Anyway - I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I'd love to know what you all think.