A/N: Sorry it took so long to update this. I had a really hard time thinking of what I wanted to have happen and how closley to the book I wanted to follow. Not to mention the fact that I moved and had my computer go on the fritz. But I think I got things worked out and will try to update more frequently. So enjoy the story. As always I beg and plead for suggestions and also want to know if you would like me to put any other LOTR characters in the story. More cameo parts than anything and as always thanks for reading and reviewing.

Chapter 6

Day One

The first day of a very long second year of Hogwarts did much to take away from the excitement that Harry and Ron had felt upon entering the Gryffindor tower amidst the cheers of their classmates. In addition to not having Hermione helping them or even really speaking to them as she was still flustered over their disregard for the rules not to mention bringing a psychotic schizophrenic house elf…thing, to school with them. They soon found other troubles.

As hard as Harry tried he could not get Gollum to stay in the dormitories and soon the creature was creeping along side the boy-who-lived in the halls, eliciting mutters and stares from other students. The night before he had been able to avoid questions due to the party in the common room. The queries soon became unavoidable and Harry soon found himself bombarded with questions about the strange "house elf".

Harry could not decide who was redder in the face by the end of breakfast Ron or himself! Ron had received a howler in the middle of their meal, causing several Syltherins to snigger at him and generally causing a ruckus amongst the other students. Unfortunately for Harry, Gollum seemed determined that he would humiliate Harry even further than Ron's howler.

The moment Dumbledore made the food appear on the table the creature pounced upon it and began devouring everything he could get his withered hands on in a very Dudley like fashion. Pavarati and Lavander both looked ill and had to excuse themselves from the table and walked away quickly holding their hands over their mouths. Gollum even went so far as to sip Dean Thomas' Pumpkin Juice and then promptly spat it in Neville Longbottom's face as the creature called it 'nasty sweetness'.

All this happened much to the delight of the Slytherins, with Malfoy leading the way in mocking Harry and his friends. To make things go from bad to worse Gollum had fallen as if dead in the middle of the table when he received the blinding flash of white light in his eyes from young Colvin Creevey's camera. After being revived the creature had moaned to Hermione about some 'evil, cruel' wizard that was hunting him. The humiliation finally culminated when Gollum who had already stuffed himself, attacked the mail owls even breaking Pansy Parkinson's owls neck, and causing Malfoy to sick Crabbe and Goyle on him. The two would have pummeled the poor creature if he had not leapt out of their reach…directly on to the staff table!

By the time the whole mess had been sorted out ten points had been taken from Gryffindor and Mr. Filch was covered from head to toe in pudding. Only Dumbledore's intervention prevented the caretaker from stringing Gollum up by his toes.

The three friends marched glumly to their first class, herbology, with Gollum trudging behind them pleading for forgiveness. The only one of the group that seemed to be in somewhat good spirits was Hermione who seemed much friendlier toward her friends as she felt that the morning's embarrassments had thoroughly chastened them. When they finally reached Professor Sprout's greenhouse, Gilderoy Lockhart took Harry aside to talk to him about "not abusing his fame", Gollum was left aside with Hermione who tentively took the creature's hand so that Harry could receive his "advice" in private.

Professor Sprout took Harry aside the moment he entered the classroom and made him swear that he would control Gollum. Harry for his part nodded and could only roll his eyes when Gollum had leapt happily when he returned.

"Master!" he cried, "We have been nice while you were gone, yeeeesss, very nice Preciousss!"

Harry could only roll his eyes as Malfoy mocked him across the table, "Oh Master!" he almost sung, while he mimicked Gollum's voice "we love our Master!"
"Piss off!" Gollum hissed, causing several gasps from nearby students especially when Gollum made an offensive gesture toward the rich Slytherin youth. However before anyone could react one way or another Professor Sprout took everyone's attention by beginning her lesson, the teacher was soon talking about mandrakes, and asked if anyone would be able to give a suitable definition of the plant.

With a raised hand, and a head nod from Sprout, Hermione launched into a verbatim definition of mandrake as if she had been reading from a textbook. When she finished Gollum was at her side, beaming brightly up at her with his disturbing smile.

"You are smart Precious...yes," he cooed.

"What's this?" Malfoy smirked at the witch while Professor Sprout continued with her lecture. "Got yourself a boyfriend Granger?"

Gollum looked as if he was about to pounce across the table but luckily for him, the creature was pulled away to Harry's side as Professor Sprout began explaining about the need for ear protection and what they were going to do with the mandrakes. As the instructor finished all the students fastened their earmuffs over their ears. Harry had quite the time forcing Gollum to wear his and finally had to clamp them over the creature's head with both hands. An act which earned him much derision from Malfoy and his cronies. Without warning Professor Sprout then ripped a mandrake from it's pot. Even though they were all protected by earmuffs the cry that the plant shrieked caused all the students to wince and even Gollum finally understood the purpose of the earmuffs clasping his hands tightly over them and wailing himself. Neville fainted causing momentary alarm with Professor Sprout. Thankfully the shrill cry was silenced as the Professor repotted the plant, and then instructed the students to do the same. Almost instantly the room was rent with the cries of several mandrakes and Harry found himself looking to the greenhouse windows wondering if they would shatter. The young wizard pulled his eyes away just in time to see Malfoy get bitten stupidly by his own mandrake when he daftly stuck his finger in it's mouth. Then to Harry's horrible realization he noticed that Gollum had disappeared.

"Harry!" came Ron's barely audible voice. Harry looked to where his friend was pointing to see in a mixture of shock, horror, and excitement, two spindly pale hands creeping up behind Malfoy's head. The trio of friends all gasped in another mixture of emotions as Malfoy's earmuffs were suddenly ripped from his head and the young wizard collapsed, unconscious from hearing the cry of the few mandrakes that had been potted yet. Fearing that this would get him in trouble, Harry looked around trying to see in Professor Sprout had witnessed this, to his great relief the Professor was busy dragging Neville away from the table so Seamus Finnigan could get closer to his pot.

"Oi, Harry," Ron said getting his friends attention. "I think I might like Gollum after all."

The rest of the day went on without further incident. Harry was finally able to get Gollum to stay in the Gryffindor tower. Though it was more due to the fact that the creature didn't want to go down to Snape's dungeon than anything else. Which suited Harry just fine. Though he didn't like the idea of leaving Gollum in the dormitories alone he was too relieved to be momentarily free from the burden to really care.

Harry was not so lucky for his next class. Gollum had made a terrible mess in the common room and Hermione insisted that they bring him along to their DADA class so he couldn't do anymore damage.

"Please," Harry cried looking to Gollum as they walked, "Try to behave! I can't get into anymore trouble. Just try to sit quietly and don't do anything unless I tell you to." Harry could feel a vein in his head pulsating and quietly mused that this was what Uncle Vernon felt like twenty-four hours a day.

Gilderoy Lockhart's class was dismal. They spent the entire first part of class taking a quiz about the teacher all the while he smiled stupidly causing all the girls in the class to sigh anytime they looked up from their quizzes. Even Hermione was not free from this spell and she to would gaze at their teacher dreamily, which caused both Ron and Gollum to scowl angrily.

Professor Lockhart almost seemed crestfallen by the results of the quiz. Chiding the students for not knowing stupid oddities about himself. Though he took special care to complement Hermione for getting correct answers. Harry had to put his hand on Gollum's shoulder and scowl at him to make the creature stay in his spot.

Then almost as if someone had hit a switch Lockhart's attitude changed from attention seeking, stupid git to business-like stupid git.

"Now ---be warned!" He said as he bent down behind his desk and lifted a large, covered cage onto it. "It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourselves facing your worst fears in this room. Know only that no harm can befall you whilst I am here. All I ask is that you remain calm."

Lockhart now had the entire classes attention. Even Harry and Gollum were staring at him in rapt interest while Neville was cowering in his front row seat.

"I must ask you not to scream," said Lockhart in a low voice. "It might provoke them."

As the whole class held its breath, Lockhart whipped off the cover. There was a gasp and a small shriek from Neville, then only the sound of children holding back their laughter. Seamus Finnigan seemed to be having the hardest time at it.

"Cornish Pixies?" He choked.

"Freshly caught Cornish Pixies!" Lockhart clarified idiotically.

"Well, they're not---they're not very---dangerous, are they?" The young wizard chortled.

"Don't be so sure!" Lockhart defended with a smile on his face as if he knew something that no one else did. "Devilish tricky little blighters they can be."

Harry noticed that Gollum seemed to be transfixed by the small electric blue creatures and was again talking to himself.

"What are they Precious?" He asked, "are they tasty? Are they nice? Are they crunchable gollem, gollem!"

"Right, then," Lockhart boomed enthusiastically, "Let's see what you make of them!" and with that he opened the cage.

If chaos could be a personified object it would have been that room. The pixies shot in every direction like rockets. Pulling hair dumping over ink jars, ripping papers, breaking anything that they could get their hands upon. Even pulling Neville by the ears until he was hanging from a chandelier. All the while Gollum leapt laughing nastily, caught up in the pandemonium.

"Come on now--round them up, round them up, they're only pixies," Lockhart shouted.

"Grab them! Smash them! Eat them!" Gollum sung cheered trying to catch a pixie in his hands.

In the midst of the chaos Lockhart finally decided that his students had suffered enough and after rolling up his sleeves he loudly bellowed, "Peskipiksi Pesternomi!"

The only effect that the spell had was to make Lockhart the Pixies primary target and soon they had ripped his wand away from him and tossed it out a broken window. Lockhart dived under his desk to avoid being squashed by Neville who was coming crashing down with the iron chandelier.

Miraculously the bell rang and the students practically trampled each other to exit the room. Lockhart straightened up and spotted Harry, Ron, Hermione and Gollum who were almost at the door and said, "Well, I'll ask you three to just nip the rest of them back into their cage." he then swept past them and quickly slammed the door.

"Can you believe him?" Ron roared while trying to fend of on of the remaining pixies that hadn't flown out of the window.

"He just wants to give us some hands-on experience," Hermione defended using a freezing charm to immobilize two of the pixies.

"Hands on?" said Harry as he tried to grab another pixie, "Hermione he didn't have a clue what he was doing--"

"Rubbish," said Hermione. "You've read his books---look at all those amazing things he's done---"

"He says he's done," Ron muttered.

Finally they had stopped what pixies had remained in the cage and then realized that Gollum had gone missing. To their relief and disgust they found him underneath a desk, chomping on the remains of a few of the pixies.

"They are nice precious!" he beamed as he savagely ripped into one, "they are juicy and sweet!"

"I think I'm going to be sick," Hermione said, Harry could only roll his eyes after all it was the only thing he could have suspected that Gollum would have done. Things were shaping up to be a hard year.