A/N Hey again!

Just to note, Newt uses the ferula spell for the splint in this chapter, but apart from that the healing sequence is just my speculation on treating a broken bone in HP-verse.

Also if anyone who knows more about Tolkien's linguistics than me wants to tell me what English would sound like as spoken by a Quenya/Sindarin speaker, I would be forever grateful! Am doing my best with what I know but I could definitely use some help on the accuracy front.

Hope you enjoyed and see you next week!

Chapter Four: Revelations

These 'wissards', apparently, in the newest revelation of an eye-opening day, could fly.

On brooms.

The hypothesis that he was catatonic on a beach somewhere, and this was all just a hallucination created by his broken mind, was growing more and more plausible with each new development. Although the concept of his brain combining a household cleaning device, which he hadn't needed in millennia, with a power reminiscent of the terrifying Thuringwethil evaded any kind of psychological explanation; it wasn't like he had a shortage of trauma he could have drawn on, after all. He was also, rather worryingly, not waking up.

The unfamiliar sound had driven him wild until he worked out what it was: a kind a whooshing, like the wind but with more of an edge to it; it gave him the very uncomfortable sensation of being followed but unaware of what exactly was pursuing him. Then he had seen a light in the sky too close to be a star, glimpsed a floating figure silhouetted against it as he ducked away, and witnessed Newt descending from the sky at a stomach-churning angle atop the most incongruous object imaginable. Never in all his solitary wanderings had he found himself feeling completely and utterly out of his depth. At least he could set his mind at rest about one thing: Newt had somehow escaped and was safe from the other sorcerers.

Whether or not he was sane was another matter.

Was he seriously suggesting that, after a long day of doing whatever these magical humans did in the North Sea, being captured/rescued by an unfamiliar being, then confronting bandits, his first thought was to track down said being just to return a cloak?

No, that couldn't be it – there had to be something more to this, some game he was playing, something he wanted: but what? What could Maglor possibly give him? Once again, he returned to the possibility that he had misread the situation earlier and Newt was in league with the bandits- perhaps they'd sent him after Maglor to lure him back with kindness. It could be the case, but like his earlier assumption that Newt was Maia, something about it didn't quite fit with his observations. He studied Newt for a moment. He was entirely still, one hand proffering the cloak and the other to the side and clearly visible. He wasn't making a single attempt to advance on Maglor, simply waiting for him to close the distance. He could run, if he wanted, right now, and get a decent head start; although that golden light must be some sort of enchantment enhancing the human's tracking abilities, so there was nothing to stop him simply finding Maglor again if he wanted to. The stalemate extended over a long, tense moment as they regarded each other.

Eventually, the cold decided it for him. It was seriously bad news if an Elf felt changes in temperature: Maglor must have lost more blood than he first thought. The cloak suddenly became sorely tempting, and he was so tired of running away: fatigued both from the day and the five ages which preceded it. Perhaps Newt would leave him in peace if Maglor gave him what he wanted now. Attempting not to show fear now that he had made his decision, he strode over to the crouching figure, picked up the cloak with the back of his hand and shrugged it onto his left shoulder, then took a step back as he watched for what Newt would do next.

The man glanced up very briefly and his eyes immediately flew to Maglor's right arm. He pointed to it, then to himself, then rubbed his own arm and mimed winding bandages around it, turning his expression from a theatrical grimace to a relaxed smile. Maglor's eyes widened in understanding. He was a healer, then – now that explanation fit much better with what Maglor had already seen of him. Perhaps he had simply noticed Maglor's injury as he ran away earlier and wanted to treat it. Maglor's mind was boggled at the thought, but he reminded himself that Newt seemed a decent man, and he couldn't possibly know what kind of monster he was offering to help. His insides twisted uncomfortably at the idea that Newt had mistaken him for a mistreated innocent. Surely it would be wrong to take advantage of that.

But then again, Maglor had known healers, encountered them regularly after battles, and if human healers were anything like elvish ones, then they could be extremely insistent when they decided that your health was their responsibility. He had no way of communicating that he deserved every agony that came his way, and besides, if he got treatment for his arm now, he may just be able to carry on with his penance as he originally intended. Maybe that would make up for exploiting the goodwill of someone who would never come near him if he knew the truth. He nodded as he made up his mind, sat down cross-legged and pulled off the blood-soaked strip of his shirt which he had hastily applied to his injury earlier, mainly for the purpose of avoiding a blood trail.

Newt beamed and said something that Maglor vaguely recognised from their encounter earlier. He guessed it to be an expression of thanks, and he justified memorising it with the rationale that thanking Newt in his own language was the least he could do – it wasn't as if he could imagine using it again after this night. Newt picked up his miniature staff and flicked it so that the ball of light at its tip floated up above them like a personal star; Maglor was beginning to think that the powers of these 'wissards' were closer to those of the Valar themselves, than those of the Maiar at this point. Newt kneeled at his shoulder and inhaled sharply when he saw the damage. Then, very slowly, he pointed the stick at his own arm and muttered an incantation, which summoned up a three-dimensional model made of shimmering green light, depicting the internal structure of bone and muscle and nerve. It was utterly mesmerising and made Maglor instantly revise his assumption that however much they developed, humans would never be able to reach the high standards of the elven healers of old. It seemed that they'd surpassed them. The model dissolved into a puff of smoke and Newt gestured to Maglor's injured arm, seeking permission. He gave it with a nod, and watched, entranced, as the jagged multiple fractures appeared in blue outline in the night sky. With a series of complicated movements, Newt guided the bone fragments in the image back into their proper place, then undid it and repeated the process. He was practising, Maglor realised with awe, practising on the model so he could be sure to get it right with flesh and bone. For the first time in many, many years, he remembered healer friends he'd had in his youth in Valinor who would have given anything to learn a technique like that. He'd been a decent enough healer himself, before he was a warrior. He didn't often think about that, these days.

Having banished his practice tool, Newt placed a steadying hand on Maglor's left shoulder, rubbing twice before tightening his grip, as if in apology for what was to come. Maglor had come out of enough battlefields to know what to anticipate and how to prepare for it in situations like this, so he took a deep breath and did his best to relax his muscles. It wasn't a hard task: he'd survived the combined onslaught of physical, mental and emotional pain as the Silmaril blazed through his soul and his skin. Setting a broken bone wouldn't faze him after that.

The expected peak of white-hot agony came, and he gave a sharp cry, but it subsided sooner than he thought he it would. Each of Newt's incantations flowed seamlessly into the next, and as he recovered from the shock, Maglor looked on, fascinated, as his skin knitted itself together before his eyes, the blood on his skin siphoned itself away, and then splints and bandages materialised, securely immobilising his arm. That last happening confirmed it: in a bizarre turn of events, humans were now more powerful than the Maiar. The Maiar could bend the world around them to their will: only the Valar could create, and that through the will of Ilúvatar. But now it seemed that Ilúvatar had willed that humans share this ability, and Maglor was overwhelmed by the possibilities afforded by such a gift. If Newt was any indication, at least some of them were using it well. He realised abruptly that he was staring open-mouthed, and that Newt was now kneeling directly in front of him, wearing that beautiful and heart-breaking concerned expression, trying to catch his gaze. With a jerk of the head as if to clear it, he smiled and decided that now was the best time to try his new phrase, in order to reassure his healer.

"Sonkyur," he ventured clumsily, bowing his head as he remembered Newt doing earlier. After an initial moment of confusion, his meaning must have filtered through since Newt's entire face lit up and he gently patted Maglor's left shoulder again in response. He sat back on his heels and studied Maglor appraisingly, then removed his yellow-and-grey scarf and folded it into a sling, gently sliding the splinted arm to rest in it and then tying it at the back of his neck. Why he would do that when presumably he could simply conjure a length of plain cloth was a mystery to Maglor, but the feeling of the soft wool from the donated scarf against his skin warmed his insides in a long-forgotten way, almost enough to combat the chill weather. Oblivious to this, Newt drew Maglor's cloak more snugly around him over the makeshift sling, then paused, frowned, placed a hand under Maglor's chin and tilted his head towards the hovering light. He'd spotted the head injury then, and Maglor decided he was going to pick his battles with this persistent healer who seemed intent on helping him. The head injury he didn't mind having tended, though he would have simply left it were he on his own. His hands, however, were a different story entirely. His cursed Oath, the silent wrath of the Silmaril's light rebelling against his own mutilated soul's attempt to possess it, the destruction of his family and kin, were all written across his hands in angry scars. Such wounds, such reminders, he would not allow to be healed.

The feeling of the swelling on his forehead shrinking under Newt's magic was a rather strange sensation, although it barely even ranked on the scale of strange things that had happened this day. He looked straight ahead as Newt called yet another light into being and used it to examine his eyes; funny how methods for checking for concussion had been essentially the same for five entire ages, when so much else had undergone such drastic change. The initial examination didn't get far though. Newt recoiled with a gasp the moment his eyes met Maglor's. This was not surprising: it was well known that ancient elves, whilst retaining their bodily strength, showed the burdens of their history only in their eyes. Maglor understood very well how painful a single glance at his must be.

Newt had learnt long ago to trust his instinctive assessments of magical creatures, even if he was unsure of why he had come to a certain conclusion. He knew when to snatch his fingers away from teeth that would snap a second later, when a firm tone and stance would calm a creature and when it would make her roar, whether a creature's agitation stemmed from thirst or irritation or fear. Usually, though, if he thought about it in detail later on, he could break down the myriad tells and tiny movements which his brain had subconsciously processed and work out how he knew what he knew.

The instant he looked into the creature's eyes, Newt knew that he would never be able to explain how that single glance communicated so much, not if he analysed the structure of the eyes and their miniscule movements for weeks on end. But he knew to trust his intuition: and what it was telling him was deeply disturbing.

This person was old. There was something about the fathomless depths of those eyes that made him feel as though he were falling backwards through the centuries. And those centuries had not been kind: that solemn gaze belonged to someone who had suffered, someone who carried an enormous burden of regret, someone who was terribly, heart-breakingly lonely. Whatever else he made of that, Newt knew one thing: healing his new friend would take far more than setting a broken bone and healing a head wound.

Doing those things would, however, make a good start, so he gathered himself after the emotional blindsiding and returned to his investigations. He could see no signs of lingering concussion, though he would have expected some with a goose egg that size, but that piece of evidence fit with the general resilience which appeared to be endemic to this species. His patient had been very co-operative so far, after he had chosen to approach Newt. That ended the moment he reached for the left hand to start studying the burns. Assertively shaking his head, he moved the hand out of Newt's reach and practically glowered at him.

"Sorry, I'm sure they must be very sensitive," he sympathised, then cast one of his curse damage diagnosis spells on his own hand, wiggling his fingers and smiling to demonstrate its benignity. "But look at this. See? It doesn't hurt, nothing to be worried about. I won't even have to touch the burns at all."

Another shake of the head, and in a surprisingly childish move he hid the contested appendage behind his back. This behaviour was inconsistent with the extremely high pain tolerance Newt had already observed, and he didn't look at all anxious; more mutinous, if anything. It was almost as if…

"But they must be so painful for you, don't you want them to be healed?" he asked, and whether or not he understood that, the creature gave another firm headshake.

"Alright, then, have it your way," he capitulated with a sigh, sitting back on his heels. He knew when to respectfully retreat, and though it pained him to leave such horrific injuries untreated, his patient clearly had some reason other than nervousness for refusing treatment and he had to allow him that. He conceded the battle, but he had no intention of letting it go in the long run. And there was going to be a long run, Newt would make certain of that: whatever else was going on, this person deserved someone to understand him, pay attention to him, and help him face whatever terrible inner demons he was battling. He needed a friend. And Newt was more than happy to provide one.

"Now, it's getting late, you're injured and it's very cold. You can stay with me tonight, if you like," Newt began, pulling over the suitcase, about to carry out the delicate procedure of coaxing him in; resilient he may be, but Newt wanted to keep an eye on his friend after the day's trauma. He could return him to his home and his people as soon as possible- once he'd worked out where they were, of course. As he did so, however, the creature startled and leapt to his feet, wide-eyed with an expression of mounting panic.

This time, Maglor knew what the sound was. That miniscule adjustment in the sound of the wind, that slight whisper of air whipping past an object advancing at high speed through the sky. Knowing that there were more broomstick riders approaching, however, did not make the question of what to do about it any easier.

Newt was making concerned inquiries, his tone gentle and his body language submissive; the broomsticks were still beyond his range of hearing so he was evidently trying to work out the cause of Maglor's alarm. The situation was delicate: if, after all, Newt was in league with the bandits then revealing that he'd heard them approaching would throw away any marginal advantage that might help him escape. On the other hand, if Newt had escaped from their captivity as well, then it would be prudent to communicate to his only ally that they were threatened by pursuers. Essentially, he had a big and complicated question to answer and very little time to answer it in.

Did he trust this 'Newt'?

Newt was incredibly powerful. He wielded one of those sticks which could throw and restrain with invisible forces, and yet all he'd seen him do so far was dry his clothes, start a modest fire, and heal some injuries. Perhaps he was just the kind face employed to entrap the victims of these thieves, but Maglor had spent enough time navigating the toxic world of First Age politics to be able to spot an ulterior motive when there was one. It wasn't just the healing but the way he'd done it: the attempts to communicate what he was about to do despite the language barrier, the willingness to respect Maglor's 'no' when it came to his hands, turning his scarf into a sling. There was a sort of genuineness to this human, a sort of purity; not like the harsh, unattainable purity of the Silmaril which burned when touched, but a gentle purity of intent that suggested that his tenderness went all the way to his heart. Maglor realised that his millennia-old choice to seclude himself from society was no longer in his control. Like it or not, trusting Newt was a better option than the mysterious anonymous sorcerers he could faintly hear on the wind.

Decision made, he locked eyes with Newt, ignoring the man's flinch at his intense gaze, then tugged on his ear, pointed to Newt's broomstick and then to the sky, north-east to where the sounds were originating from.

Finally understanding Maglor's alarm, Newt cursed in his language and then positioned himself between Maglor and the north-east, his stick raised to the sky and his other arm spread wide in a shielding gesture. In battle, such a position would have been supremely ineffective given that Maglor was at least a foot and half taller, but Newt's meaning was crystal clear: I will protect you from them. He twisted to look over his shoulder at Maglor, eyebrows raised questioningly as if to check he'd understood. Maglor nodded, Newt nodded back, and then turned to steer him back towards where he'd left his bag: a strange contraption halfway between an expanded satchel with stiff sides and a compact trunk with handles. Perhaps Newt had something useful in there? Weapons, maybe? That would be a difficult call to make, if Maglor had to choose whether to use violence to defend himself and Newt. The dread he felt about that prospect, though, was nothing to the utter shock when he peered into the trunk and saw that it was…bigger on the inside?

He yelped and jumped back, he couldn't help it, narrowing his eyes at the utterly ridiculous thing which he was struggling to wrap his mind around. He would have thought it was a trapdoor but he had literally seen it descend from the sky and be moved around several times, so he had to believe what his eyes were telling him, as nonsensical as it sounded: there was a field inside a trunk.

Newt was talking to him earnestly now, crouched down at the opening of the luggage, gesturing to Maglor and then to the trunk, indicating that he needed to get inside. When Maglor stayed there, frozen in not exactly panic but sheer surprise, Newt bent over and dangled his entire torso into the case, righting himself with a grin as if to prove he was unharmed, and extending his hands to show the dirt and grass on his palms from the fields within.

The whistling on the wind grew louder and Newt's head whipped round to the north-east: now that he could hear it too, they really had very little time. All the arguments for and against getting in the case raged, stormlike, in Maglor's mind: it would be cowardly to leave Newt to fight the thieves alone; he's managed without my help twice already, I'd only be a liability; if I'm wrong and he is with the thieves then I'm condemning myself to their captivity; if I'm right and he's not with the thieves, then what in Arda am I getting myself into?

But his warrior instincts were still there, so it only took him a few seconds to make a decision that he didn't know would be a turning point in his long and convoluted existence. The man who appeared to be his closest ally was offering him sanctuary from unknown elements, who might attempt to weaponise him again, so there was really only one viable option, however terrifying it might seem.

He took a deep breath and a step into the unknown, collapsing onto his knees in the middle of an enchanted grassy field as the lid thunked shut behind him.

Heart hammering wildly, Newt slammed the lid of the case down and set it to 'Muggle worthy.' It wouldn't help against most wizards, but it made him feel safer anyway. That had been far more rushed than he had hoped: he had wanted to slowly introduce the concept of the case and go in with him for the first time to ease the transition, but with the threat of discovery by escaped smugglers, passing wizards or worst of all, the Ministry, there had just been no time. Had his charge hesitated any longer, Newt would have had to simply close the case over him and ask forgiveness later- he was very glad that hadn't been necessary.

He squinted up to the sky, seeing a group of five figures flying in formation and groaning as he began to suspect who they were. They accelerated towards his hovering bubble of conjured light and one of them let out a commanding shout in Norwegian. Inferring its meaning, Newt stepped into the pool of light and raised his hands in submission. They landed and dismounted sleekly, and a man strode forward, wand drawn. Seeing Newt, he exclaimed in English,

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, not you again!"