Harry Potter woke up with a pounding headache and a very very very dry throat. He opened his eyes slowly and looked up at the tall canopy of trees overhead. Where am I?

"Hello Draco. Are you all right?" Gimli asked, seeing Harry's fright.

As soon as Harry heard the word Draco he sat up quickly and glanced around, looking for an attacker. He saw a fuzzy blob with something glinting with light and moving. A shiny… probably sharp weapon…

"Who are you? Where am I? Where are my glasses? Where is my wand?" Harry spewed out quickly in nervousness. None of the blobs looked at all familiar.

"I am Gimli son of Gloin, you are in middle earth, Fangorn forest, on a mission to carry our luggage for us to Lothlórien, and then to Mirkwood. But we've already been over this, Draco." Gimli handed Harry his glasses. It was the only thing Gimli had taken from him, so it was likely they were either his 'glasses' or his 'wand'.

Harry put on his glasses, confused about almost everything. He found a man resembling Hagrid, except 1/5th as tall, red hair instead of black, and a glinting ax hefted over his shoulder. "Okay, I'm not Draco, I'm Harry. Harry Potter."

Legolas dropped down from the tree about 20 feet from Harry. "You change names faster than the seasons. Only a day ago you clarified that your name was Draco Malfoy."

"Yesterday I was at Taski's house…" Harry realized that Slytherin had probably moved him. Hm, Slytherin must have taken care of any possible hangovers too during the ride. Probably this is the beginning of the journey he has planned for me. "Well… has Salazar talked to you about helping me?"

"The soul that brought you told us that you would fight a great evil and we should help and train you as best we could. We accept this duty, to protect the good of the world. This world is currently at peace, we have destroyed a great evil these past few days. There is much you can learn here. If you are still as weak as you were yesterday, then you will gain greatly from our help," Legolas told Harry.

Weak!?! He felt for his wand, and found it in his sleeve, and got it so he could fire it at a moments notice. "I am not weak! I'll have you know I'm a powerful wizard."

"Wizardry cannot always help you." Legolas drew his sword from its sheath, charged at and hit Harry in the stomach with the flat of his blade, knocking Harry unceremoniously onto his rear end, while ignoring Harry's futile hissing and waving. The three bright bolts of red light were vaguely disconcerting when they landed on him, but no more than that.

Legolas whipped around his blade and stopped it millimeters before Harry's throat.

The next instant the blade was in its sheath and Legolas' hand was extended towards Harry.

Harry took it and stood up.

"Magic is good in its place, but not always does it prevail against other powers. Elves and most eleven made items are not affected by ordinary magic. To be strong against everything, you must give all your potential assets strength."

Gimli chuckled, "And while you are trying to gain that strength, you can carry our gear. In the evenings, I will show you how to swing an ax properly. Dropping it in the dirt…" Gimli trailed off, muttering about the proper treatment of fine axes.

I didn't even touch his ax before! This is going to be a long journey. I wonder what Lothlórien will be like.

For the longest time, all the trees looked a like, he was too tired with carrying the luggage for miles during the day, and then getting in ax lessons every evening for as long as Gimli would allow, to spend the time to differentiate between the trees. There wasn't that much luggage; Gimli and Legolas were very light travelers. But in this way, much time passed. Harry hadn't thought to keep track, so it could have been a week or weeks of wandering, and exploring the forest.

But now, through the parted branches, the beauty of the intertwining bows of the trees ahead amazed Harry despite his weariness. Their trunks were silver, and their leaves, a varying gold. "Are we in paradise?"

"Lothlórien!" cried Legolas. "Lothlórien! We have come to the eaves of the Golden Wood. This is the most majestic time of year, these woods in the fall are by far the most beautiful."

"I wonder if the fairest Lady will be present," Gimli sighed with longing.

"Who?"

"Who? My lad, the most beautiful Lady, Galadriel. Her fair voice is lovelier than the sound of gold being wrought; She is more lovely than Frodo's mirthril vest. She is the Lady of Lothlórien and Caras Galadhon," Gimli proclaimed. "She is not only fair of word, she is fair of gift." He showed Harry the three strands of hair that Lady Galadriel had given him when he last departed from Lothlórien.

Harry was slightly confused on why these strands of hair were being treated with such reverence by the nominally terse and cranky dwarf. The dwarf had seemed cranky whenever Legolas would sing a song of the past of the vast middle earth. Harry wondered if the history of Middle earth had anything to do with his world, but the songs were so beautifully spoken (unlike any history lesson by Professor Binns,) that Harry could not help but feel awe, pity, joy, reverence and sadness for the great heroes of the songs of Legolas. Most of the songs, Legolas said were new, created by someone named Bilbo Baggins, about a brave ring bearer named Frodo Baggins. But Gimli did not seem moved to many great speeches as Legolas did.

Despite Harry's confusion, he wouldn't have dreamed of ever being less than respectful towards something the dwarf was so fond of. And they were pretty hairs. "What are you going to do with them?"

"When we get to the Lonely Mountain, the mineral rich home of the Dwarf-folk of Erebor, I will set in imperishable crystal as a pledge of good will between the Forest and the Mountain." At Harry's blank stare, he amended, "between the elves and the Dwarves."

It was a few more days of walking before they reached Caras Galdhrim. A guide met them only a day's walk from the city. Except the word city isn't quite right in describing such a place that blends so well with it's surroundings, like it's meant to be there, always has been there and always will be there. Legolas and Gimli seemed to know the guide, Haldir.

Harry enjoyed the walking now. Perhaps he enjoyed it out of the fact that if he didn't enjoy it, he would have gone crazy with misery by now. Or perhaps he enjoyed it because he, like Legolas and Gimli, could feel the love and understanding this place radiated. It seemed as if there was never any danger here, and everything here was needed as it was and belonged and complimented the whole. Harry also enjoyed the tales of the guide. A few jokes were made about blindfolded dwarves and elves. A little random perhaps, but even these felt right in this fair place.

Harry saw fire and torture and muggles screaming and green light and skulls with snakes through their mouths and gatherings of cloaked men with a serpentine leader with red slit eyes in the middle and sieges on Hogwarts and the ministry and Grimwald Place and the despair of the good and dark armies marching of vampires and giants and dementors and house elves and… real elves…

Harry's heart was pounding and his eyes were wide as he stepped back from Galadriel's pool and looked at her in horror. "This pool shows the future?" Galadriel searched his eyes for the second time, looking for something. Harry felt for a moment that if he gave up, curled into a ball and cried he would instantly be home, with Hermione and Ron at Hogwarts, going through their normal courses.

The feeling passed as she released his eyes and looked away and replied to his question. "Yes. Walk with me." Galadriel led Harry through the gardens. The calmness and the eternal beauty of the flowers and plants released some of Harry's shock and unease. "Yes, that was a future, but the future can change; there are many different futures, on many worlds. This may be the future of your world; this may only be the future of a parallel to your world. I have seen many great battles, and if the leaders of those battles are true of heart and use all their potential allies, the fair has reigned for generations after. However, if the leaders are not strong enough to band the forces of the fair together, the world will fall into evil for millennia.

"I have heard little of your quest, but the pool has shown me for the goodness of your world, it is necessary that you are that leader, with the strength to bind together the good of your world. I saw your current leader, a hero of past wars, is getting stretched to thin with his advanced age to undertake this next war.

"I saw elves in your world marching with the evil and not with the good. Do you know why?"

Harry frowned. "I've never seen, or even heard of a true elf in my world, other than in Muggle stories. We have house elves that have been servants to Wizarding families for generations. Now a few of them are being freed, but not many." The memory of Hermione's SPEW on house elf rights made Harry smile for a minute, before he was brought back down to Middle Earth by Galadriel's conjecture.

"We are fading here even now. The third age is beginning. It is age of Human Kings! We have fought many wars against evil side by side with mankind; but we Elves must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic fold of dell and cave, slowly to forget and be forgotten. Perhaps in your world, the race of Elves departed long ago. I will think more on the matter, and speak later. For now, do not let you're heart be troubled. Tonight you will eat and sleep in peace! Let us go rejoin the others for dinner!"

One Week Later

"I regret we must take our leave of you, my Lady. Our young lad is impatient to go," Legolas said, teasing Harry with a smile.

"I am not. I appreciate all that I've learned about your elven culture. I hope it is not too late a date in my world to use my knowledge to gain an ally and loose an enemy," replied Harry defensively. "Besides, you cannot linger here forever either."

"Ah, but that we could stay in my Lady's fair presence. I will treasure these memories" Gimli said eloquently. Harry had been quite surprised that all Gimli's surliness seemed to disappear when he approached the boarder of Lothlórien. Now, having met Galadriel, he was not at all confused by this dwarven change in temperament.

"Harry Potter. You will be the hope of your world someday. I would like to give you all the help I can. Any time you need an elf, use this phial. Any elf that sees you carrying this will know that you are a friend of an elf. This should help you talk to the elves in your land, if you can find them. In it is caught the light of Earendil's star, and it is set amid the waters of my fountain. It will shine brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out. Remember Galadriel and her Mirror!" Galadriel stood, great, beautiful and fair as Harry took the phial from her as it shone.

To join Legolas and Gimli, Harry climbed into the sailboat that Galadriel's maidens had prepared for their journey up the river. "You know, I've never really sailed before."

"If you've never sailed, you've never lived," Legolas said. "The sea is one of the most…"

"I'll agree that he's a ninny, but sailing isn't a great bit either. It's a little shaky if you ask me."

"Don't pay any attention to him, dwarves have a notorious dislike of water," Legolas whispered.

"And famously good hearing," Gimli called out from the other side of the swoop.

This is going to be some voyage.