Shadow of a Doubt
Chapter Seven - Spirits of the Dead
by Capella no da
Got the next chapter out, finally...geez....took me long enough.
I've had a few complaints and a few suggestions about Harry and Ron and Legolas...and who all should get together...but I wanted to say that the FINAL idea of who's with who and how, came from the AWESOME Jaela Noble.
I'm such a Poe dork. But his stuff is so beautiful...this poem fit the chapter somehow. *is a geek* Hooray for being morbid!
___________________________
"Thy soul shall find itself alone
'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.
Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness- for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood
In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee; be still."
-- Edgar Allen Poe, "Spirits of the Dead"
___________________________
Harry trembled. He honestly couldn't help it.
But it wasn't with fear -- he'd faced harder things than trolls, more difficult and desperate creatures than these -- but his hands faintly shook from anger, this time. He couldn't remember a time he'd felt like this, but whatever it was that was making small red sparks fly out of the end of his wand made his eyes glint red also. Merry looked at him, and looked away quickly, a stunned look on his face. Harry couldn't help but smile a little; did they think he'd be a helpless burden forever? He looked at the rest of the company, never taking his attention totally from the door.
The blue iridescent light that issued from Frodo's sword made the angles of Legolas's face stand out, shading his eyes except for a green glint. His face was serene and calm, a lot calmer than Harry felt. The bow and arrow were steady in Legolas's deceivingly delicate white hands.
Suddenly Legolas turned his fierce gaze from the door, eyes resting on Harry for a moment, shining eyes seeming to say everything that he could not. Harry smiled faintly back.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
It sounded like something was being thrown against those old doors, which were groaning against the weight. The bolt that Boromir had secured across those door splintered until it seemed that it couldn't take any more.
Harry's eyes narrowed, hands flexing around his wand, more than ready to do harm. Just wait til they come through those doors. Just wait. Wait.
Finally with a decisive crunch and an outcry of barbaric words, the doors swung inward and what seemed like a moving mass of hairy limbs, horned heads and sharp weapons swarmed into and over the Company.
Something whistled by his ear, missing by about a fingerwidth and went right into the head of the thing about to dismember him. He swiveled around in time to catch the next arrow fly out of the shining bow of Legolas. He stepped quickly out of the way --
-- and suddenly a great hairy monster was baring down on him, snarling teeth glinting along with the decidedly wicked curved blade that was about to slash through him. All Harry's abilities seemed to leave him, and the only spell he could remember was that one spell five years ago, at the Dueling Club. He raised his wand up and bellowed "SERPENSORTIA!" at the top of his voice.
For a moment all movement ceased. A small fog gathered above Harry's head. A giant snake that was easily half the length of a classroom dropped in front of the Orc, huge fangs ready.
Knowing that this might mean his death by the rest of the Company, Harry looked straight at the Orc and hissed, "Kill him."
The snake became a blur, moving faster than Harry could see, latching onto the Orc's neck with frightening precision. The Orc shrieked, blackish blood oozing from his neck to pool on the floor in a sputtering puddle. It dropped to the floor with a loud thud, the snake still latched on to its neck. Harry waved his hand and the snake disappeared.
All of a sudden he was glad that the fighting was going on. The only people who had watched him were Aragorn and Pippin. For a moment he met the calculating gaze of Aragorn, who's wise eyes made him shudder a little. He wondered if that snake had not been such a good idea after all.
Then a new wave of monsters swarmed toward him, and time seemed to go in a blur, as much as it was going slow earlier. It was all Harry could do to not get slashed into a thousand pieces, his wand going in a blur and spells flying out of his mouth. He didn't even notice anyone else.
Suddenly Harry felt cold stone behind his back. The two Orcs he had been fighting had backed him into a corner, snarling and lifting their swords to attack, drool dripping from their mouths. Harry lifted his wand, a plan forming in his head that would probably get him killed. He didn't care.
"Frodo!"
Harry's head whipped around to the source of the frantic scream, and his eyes widened when he saw Frodo hanging on the rough wall, pinned by a spear that was going through his side. The little curly haired hobbit struggled for a moment, feet kicking out, before going limp.
"Frodo!" Sam cried out desperately again, voice cracking as he tried to fight his way to his master. A swarm of Orcs that were obviously too much for the hobbit to handle blocked his path.
Harry narrowed his eyes at the Orcs who were closing in on him, bloody weapons at the ready. It had to work now.
"Crucio," he whispered, pointing his wand at the Orc on his right. When the Orc collapsed, he rushed through the opening it had left him, hoping against hope that the other Orc didn't follow him.
He had made it five feet from the little hobbit when suddenly his leg was on fire. He barely caught the scream that tried to escape his lips as he fell to the stone floor, his leg useless. Landing in a ball on the ground, he looked at the back of his thigh to see a gash slicing down from the top of his leg to his knee. It burned with a passion. He closed his eyes and tried to stay conscious. Oh bloody hell -- Frodo!
Squinting his eyes and barely making out anything besides the dots dancing in his vision, he saw Sam finally reach Frodo and hack away at the shaft that held him pinned to the wall. Frodo tried to get up, gripping his weapon even tighter. Harry hoped the hobbit would be alright.
Harry heard a voice shout something that he couldn't make out and he saw Aragorn run by him without noticing, picking up Frodo in his arms and rushing toward the east door. Dimly Harry realized he was going to die.
As his vision began to fade, he saw someone enter his sight and reach gentle arms toward him to pick him up. Delirious, Harry reached out his hand and touched the person's cheek. It was rough with a beard.
"Hold on, Harry," said the suprisingly soft voice of Boromir, "you will get through this." He stroked Harry's hair with the love of a brother.
Then Boromir picked him up, jarring his leg, and finally Harry slipped into blessed blackness.
He remembered nothing after that moment, not even the death-defying race for time through the maze of broken stairs and crumbling bridges, not even the recovery of Frodo and the heroic sacrifice of Gandalf. He didn't wake until they were outside of the horrible caves, resting in the sunlight.
Harry's eyes opened, bloodshot, and he squinted up at the sun in bemusement. Then all of his aches and memories came rushing back, and his leg throbbed angrily at him from where it rested on a sharp bit of rock. Even that much was enough to make him want to pass out again.
"W-wha-" he croaked, voice hoarse. He coughed, red flecks decorating his lips, and the company's attention immediately shifted to him. Legolas rushed over and cradled Harry's head in his hands.
"Legolas....wha' happened? he slurred. The elf's eyes shuttered off and he stood back up.
"You remember nothing?"
Harry shook his head a little. Aragorn looked over from where he stood on the edge of a rock cliff. "An Orc felled you. You would have been killed if it wasn't for Boromir. He carried you out of the cave and protected you."
As his vision began to clear up, blurry figures began to come into his vision. But there were only eight...
"Gandalf?" said Harry slowly, a little trail of blood escaping his mouth and running down the side of his head. "Where's Gandalf?"
The temperature around the company seemed to drop twenty degrees. Legolas turned his head away. "Please," Harry said with a little tremor in his voice, "where is he?"
"He is dead," Aragorn said shortly. "He fell in the pits of Moria." He turned to face the mountains and held up his sword. "Farewell, Gandalf! Did I not say to you: if you pass the doors of Moria, beware? Alas that I spoke true? What hope do we have without you?" He hid his face in his hands.
The warm air and the pain in his thigh finally became to much to handle. Harry's vision wavered and finally went dim.
_________________________
Harry woke up to find the pain in his leg suprisingly faint. He felt it and found that all that was there was a rough scab, still tender and red. He looked around to find no one there, not even Legolas or Frodo. The trees around him seemed threatening and dark. Getting to his feet slowly, he noticed a clearing in the woods. The clearing suddenly came rushing up to meet him, so that Harry found himself standing in it sooner than he could blink.
"What's this?" he mused, bending down to pick up a small glass ball filled with a red fog. No sooner than he had touched it then his scar seemingly exploded in pain, so great that Harry whimpered and fell to the soft, grassy floor, curling into a tight ball. With great effort, he reached his hand and touched his scar, his hand coming back bright with blood.
"That's what you get."
Through his pain induced haze, Harry looked up and saw the beloved face of his Ron. "Ron?" he whispered, tears clouding up his voice.
"That's what you get, Harry. You forgot me."
Ron reached out his hand and touched Harry's forehead with his palm and new pain erupted in Harry's head, until he couldn't see and his body had gone numb. Harry twisted and writhed on the ground, his head tossing from side to side in pain, fists clenched.
As soon as it had started, the pain stopped, the aftershocks still running through his body. He raised up his head with some difficulty to look through grayed vision at his lover. "Ron?" he said softly, tiny prickles in the back of his throat.
"It's too late. You lost me. Didn't you love me?" Harry watched in horror as Ron faded out of sight.
"NO! Ron! Come back!" He ran toward the spot where his lover had been, falling to his knees when his legs turned to jelly. "No...come back!"
________________________
"Please...come back....Ron!" Harry bolted up, cold sweat on his forehead and his hands trembling. Hands were on his shoulders then, pushing him back onto the grass covered ground and smoothing back his damp hair. "Shhh...it was a dream, Harry, shh..."
He looked up into the gray, caring eyes of Legolas. The words of Ron from his dream came back to him.
"No!" Harry said in a weak voice, trying his very best to shove Legolas off. The elf leaned back, gave him an unreadable look, and stood up.
"We leave for Lothlorien in the morning. I suggest you get more sleep, Harry." And with that he was gone.
Harry, trembling, settled back onto the ground and realized that he didn't even know where they were. At the moment, however, the lure of sleep was too strong and he closed his eyes, hoping he wouldn't dream.
____________________________
Chapter Seven - Spirits of the Dead
by Capella no da
Got the next chapter out, finally...geez....took me long enough.
I've had a few complaints and a few suggestions about Harry and Ron and Legolas...and who all should get together...but I wanted to say that the FINAL idea of who's with who and how, came from the AWESOME Jaela Noble.
I'm such a Poe dork. But his stuff is so beautiful...this poem fit the chapter somehow. *is a geek* Hooray for being morbid!
___________________________
"Thy soul shall find itself alone
'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.
Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness- for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood
In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee; be still."
-- Edgar Allen Poe, "Spirits of the Dead"
___________________________
Harry trembled. He honestly couldn't help it.
But it wasn't with fear -- he'd faced harder things than trolls, more difficult and desperate creatures than these -- but his hands faintly shook from anger, this time. He couldn't remember a time he'd felt like this, but whatever it was that was making small red sparks fly out of the end of his wand made his eyes glint red also. Merry looked at him, and looked away quickly, a stunned look on his face. Harry couldn't help but smile a little; did they think he'd be a helpless burden forever? He looked at the rest of the company, never taking his attention totally from the door.
The blue iridescent light that issued from Frodo's sword made the angles of Legolas's face stand out, shading his eyes except for a green glint. His face was serene and calm, a lot calmer than Harry felt. The bow and arrow were steady in Legolas's deceivingly delicate white hands.
Suddenly Legolas turned his fierce gaze from the door, eyes resting on Harry for a moment, shining eyes seeming to say everything that he could not. Harry smiled faintly back.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
It sounded like something was being thrown against those old doors, which were groaning against the weight. The bolt that Boromir had secured across those door splintered until it seemed that it couldn't take any more.
Harry's eyes narrowed, hands flexing around his wand, more than ready to do harm. Just wait til they come through those doors. Just wait. Wait.
Finally with a decisive crunch and an outcry of barbaric words, the doors swung inward and what seemed like a moving mass of hairy limbs, horned heads and sharp weapons swarmed into and over the Company.
Something whistled by his ear, missing by about a fingerwidth and went right into the head of the thing about to dismember him. He swiveled around in time to catch the next arrow fly out of the shining bow of Legolas. He stepped quickly out of the way --
-- and suddenly a great hairy monster was baring down on him, snarling teeth glinting along with the decidedly wicked curved blade that was about to slash through him. All Harry's abilities seemed to leave him, and the only spell he could remember was that one spell five years ago, at the Dueling Club. He raised his wand up and bellowed "SERPENSORTIA!" at the top of his voice.
For a moment all movement ceased. A small fog gathered above Harry's head. A giant snake that was easily half the length of a classroom dropped in front of the Orc, huge fangs ready.
Knowing that this might mean his death by the rest of the Company, Harry looked straight at the Orc and hissed, "Kill him."
The snake became a blur, moving faster than Harry could see, latching onto the Orc's neck with frightening precision. The Orc shrieked, blackish blood oozing from his neck to pool on the floor in a sputtering puddle. It dropped to the floor with a loud thud, the snake still latched on to its neck. Harry waved his hand and the snake disappeared.
All of a sudden he was glad that the fighting was going on. The only people who had watched him were Aragorn and Pippin. For a moment he met the calculating gaze of Aragorn, who's wise eyes made him shudder a little. He wondered if that snake had not been such a good idea after all.
Then a new wave of monsters swarmed toward him, and time seemed to go in a blur, as much as it was going slow earlier. It was all Harry could do to not get slashed into a thousand pieces, his wand going in a blur and spells flying out of his mouth. He didn't even notice anyone else.
Suddenly Harry felt cold stone behind his back. The two Orcs he had been fighting had backed him into a corner, snarling and lifting their swords to attack, drool dripping from their mouths. Harry lifted his wand, a plan forming in his head that would probably get him killed. He didn't care.
"Frodo!"
Harry's head whipped around to the source of the frantic scream, and his eyes widened when he saw Frodo hanging on the rough wall, pinned by a spear that was going through his side. The little curly haired hobbit struggled for a moment, feet kicking out, before going limp.
"Frodo!" Sam cried out desperately again, voice cracking as he tried to fight his way to his master. A swarm of Orcs that were obviously too much for the hobbit to handle blocked his path.
Harry narrowed his eyes at the Orcs who were closing in on him, bloody weapons at the ready. It had to work now.
"Crucio," he whispered, pointing his wand at the Orc on his right. When the Orc collapsed, he rushed through the opening it had left him, hoping against hope that the other Orc didn't follow him.
He had made it five feet from the little hobbit when suddenly his leg was on fire. He barely caught the scream that tried to escape his lips as he fell to the stone floor, his leg useless. Landing in a ball on the ground, he looked at the back of his thigh to see a gash slicing down from the top of his leg to his knee. It burned with a passion. He closed his eyes and tried to stay conscious. Oh bloody hell -- Frodo!
Squinting his eyes and barely making out anything besides the dots dancing in his vision, he saw Sam finally reach Frodo and hack away at the shaft that held him pinned to the wall. Frodo tried to get up, gripping his weapon even tighter. Harry hoped the hobbit would be alright.
Harry heard a voice shout something that he couldn't make out and he saw Aragorn run by him without noticing, picking up Frodo in his arms and rushing toward the east door. Dimly Harry realized he was going to die.
As his vision began to fade, he saw someone enter his sight and reach gentle arms toward him to pick him up. Delirious, Harry reached out his hand and touched the person's cheek. It was rough with a beard.
"Hold on, Harry," said the suprisingly soft voice of Boromir, "you will get through this." He stroked Harry's hair with the love of a brother.
Then Boromir picked him up, jarring his leg, and finally Harry slipped into blessed blackness.
He remembered nothing after that moment, not even the death-defying race for time through the maze of broken stairs and crumbling bridges, not even the recovery of Frodo and the heroic sacrifice of Gandalf. He didn't wake until they were outside of the horrible caves, resting in the sunlight.
Harry's eyes opened, bloodshot, and he squinted up at the sun in bemusement. Then all of his aches and memories came rushing back, and his leg throbbed angrily at him from where it rested on a sharp bit of rock. Even that much was enough to make him want to pass out again.
"W-wha-" he croaked, voice hoarse. He coughed, red flecks decorating his lips, and the company's attention immediately shifted to him. Legolas rushed over and cradled Harry's head in his hands.
"Legolas....wha' happened? he slurred. The elf's eyes shuttered off and he stood back up.
"You remember nothing?"
Harry shook his head a little. Aragorn looked over from where he stood on the edge of a rock cliff. "An Orc felled you. You would have been killed if it wasn't for Boromir. He carried you out of the cave and protected you."
As his vision began to clear up, blurry figures began to come into his vision. But there were only eight...
"Gandalf?" said Harry slowly, a little trail of blood escaping his mouth and running down the side of his head. "Where's Gandalf?"
The temperature around the company seemed to drop twenty degrees. Legolas turned his head away. "Please," Harry said with a little tremor in his voice, "where is he?"
"He is dead," Aragorn said shortly. "He fell in the pits of Moria." He turned to face the mountains and held up his sword. "Farewell, Gandalf! Did I not say to you: if you pass the doors of Moria, beware? Alas that I spoke true? What hope do we have without you?" He hid his face in his hands.
The warm air and the pain in his thigh finally became to much to handle. Harry's vision wavered and finally went dim.
_________________________
Harry woke up to find the pain in his leg suprisingly faint. He felt it and found that all that was there was a rough scab, still tender and red. He looked around to find no one there, not even Legolas or Frodo. The trees around him seemed threatening and dark. Getting to his feet slowly, he noticed a clearing in the woods. The clearing suddenly came rushing up to meet him, so that Harry found himself standing in it sooner than he could blink.
"What's this?" he mused, bending down to pick up a small glass ball filled with a red fog. No sooner than he had touched it then his scar seemingly exploded in pain, so great that Harry whimpered and fell to the soft, grassy floor, curling into a tight ball. With great effort, he reached his hand and touched his scar, his hand coming back bright with blood.
"That's what you get."
Through his pain induced haze, Harry looked up and saw the beloved face of his Ron. "Ron?" he whispered, tears clouding up his voice.
"That's what you get, Harry. You forgot me."
Ron reached out his hand and touched Harry's forehead with his palm and new pain erupted in Harry's head, until he couldn't see and his body had gone numb. Harry twisted and writhed on the ground, his head tossing from side to side in pain, fists clenched.
As soon as it had started, the pain stopped, the aftershocks still running through his body. He raised up his head with some difficulty to look through grayed vision at his lover. "Ron?" he said softly, tiny prickles in the back of his throat.
"It's too late. You lost me. Didn't you love me?" Harry watched in horror as Ron faded out of sight.
"NO! Ron! Come back!" He ran toward the spot where his lover had been, falling to his knees when his legs turned to jelly. "No...come back!"
________________________
"Please...come back....Ron!" Harry bolted up, cold sweat on his forehead and his hands trembling. Hands were on his shoulders then, pushing him back onto the grass covered ground and smoothing back his damp hair. "Shhh...it was a dream, Harry, shh..."
He looked up into the gray, caring eyes of Legolas. The words of Ron from his dream came back to him.
"No!" Harry said in a weak voice, trying his very best to shove Legolas off. The elf leaned back, gave him an unreadable look, and stood up.
"We leave for Lothlorien in the morning. I suggest you get more sleep, Harry." And with that he was gone.
Harry, trembling, settled back onto the ground and realized that he didn't even know where they were. At the moment, however, the lure of sleep was too strong and he closed his eyes, hoping he wouldn't dream.
____________________________