The Whirlwind 4: Harry


So far, the morning was going rather well.

Even the three-pointed star of a Dwarf that had accompanied Harry to the armory seemed to think so. She could hear him whispering to his friends from where they were boarding her boat.

"Clever as a fox, our host is," the Dwarf—Nori, they'd called him last night—said softly. "That stutter of his gets even more pronounced outside the walls of his house. People think him a dimwit for it. They're quite ready to ignore a lot, in their pity."

The Dwarf was observant. They'd barely spent half an hour in the town this morning, her rowing, him hiding underneath a bundle of fishing nets at the front of the boat. And yet, he managed to clock on her strategy, whilst with the townspeople, it'd been working without a glitch for the past four months. It reminded her how feeble this disguise was, bound to collapse completely upon the first mistake. Harry wondered if this morning would prove to be such a blow.

After all, she had walked into the armory in full sight of the guards, with a rather transparent excuse of Alfrid's orders. If anyone bordered to count the weapons in the coming days, the missing swords and axes she'd passed through the window to Nori would be discovered. The Easterling dimwit would be the first suspect and the innocuous persona she'd been so carefully weaving for the past months would shutter altogether.

Harry was rather stunned by how little she minded that possibility.

Up until last night, she'd thought herself perfectly happy spending this insanity of a dream in Lake-town, dealing with the disaster of her botched-up arrival and finding her way back to Luna in the dubious comforts the town offered. Before last night, Harry had thought that learning the language and navigating the ways of this strange medieval world, as well as finding why most of her magic seemed to malfunction, would prove a satisfactory adventure for their first test run.

And yet, when she found a group of dishevelled Dwarves in her home with powerful names and grim determination following them like the putrid smell of fish oil they'd been coated in, she felt her heart twitch and its beat quicken in excitement at the thought that this dream would prove to have an actual plot, after all.

"The sounds carry on the water, my dear dwarves," she called softly at the whispering bundle of her passengers. "Especially on a foggy morning. I'd caution against speaking from now on. We have no way of knowing whether we have company."

She smiled when they jumped in alarm, caught in their discussion of her, but the amusement quickly faded when she peered at the thick fog hovering above the open lake. They would have to venture in soon.

No matter the amusing effect of her warning, it was also very much genuine—there was no way of knowing what lay in the white mass around them. And it wasn't only eavesdropping fishermen she was afraid of. The lake was vast but the waters around Lake-town were littered with stone ruins of the Esgaroth of old, and she didn't know her way through them as well as she'd made Bard believe, having flown over many more times than navigating a boat through.

Well, there was nothing to it now. She stood by her decision to be the one to ferry the Dwarves across the lake. Bard had insisted on doing it, of course he had, that selfless hunk of a man; but there was a pack of orcs closing on the town and he had his children to protect in it.

On the deck in front of her, the Dwarves were now distributing the stolen weapons, whilst the last of them were climbing out the window of her house, the bars now propelled up on a spare iron poker she kept on the windowsill just for that purpose.

She'd nicked a sword for herself, absurdly heavy and unwieldy, the sheath now scratching the planks of her boat as it was obviously too long for her. Alas, she might be needing it in the coming days, so she'd better get used to hauling it around.

Thorin was the last Dwarf to climb through her window. He landed gently on the boat, rocking it only slightly.

"There's no need for your son to go," Thorin said when Bain made to climb onto the barge as the Dwarves' surety against Bard raising the alarm before they were far enough from the town.

"As he said, the trust must start somewhere," Thorin added.

Bard stood on one of the poles underneath her window, holding the boat anchored. He nodded solemnly. "You have my word that I won't raise the alarm before noon."

"That is all I require."

With another nod, of farewell this time, Bard made to propel the boat away from the wall, but Thorin stopped him still. "When the orcs arrive, tell them that Thorin Oakenshield has already left. They might leave your town alone, to hurry after us."

Bard slowly blinked at the Dwarf. It took him a moment to reply, but when he did, his chin was raised high and proud. "Orcs are a plight that we all face—you shall not be the only ones to bear their viciousness. This town is several hundred men strong, against your thirteen. When the orcs come, we'll do our best to stop them."

Harry's chest swelled in pride at the man she chose for a friend in this strange world. It felt nice to have it confirmed that her instincts had not led her astray.

Bard spared one last look at Harry and paused in rather adorable confusion at her expression, which must have leaked some of her thoughts. "Take it easy," he only said though, as he pushed the boat away, propelling it onto the open lake and the thick fog above it.

Harry felt the smile slip from her face. She locked her jaw instead, squinted her tired eyes at the white mass in front of them, and tried to prepare herself for anything that could emerge from it.


The dwarves seated on the deck in front of her made for a bothersome distraction. With the sails folded, they were rowing, faces turned towards her as she stood back at the tiller.

No matter how hard she tried to focus on the waters, her eyes kept slipping, meeting the curious and distrusting glares of her passengers.

They weren't the first Dwarves she'd met, or talked to. She made the effort to fly over to the Iron Hills every so often, opting to make her more conspicuous purchases out of sight of her neighbours in Lake-town. But Thorin and his friends were the first Dwarves she'd exchanged more words than haggling.

She couldn't help but like them.

She refused to throw around words like fate and purpose, those always left a bad taste in her mouth, but even so, she recognised the company's determination as the kind that held that special potential to make a difference. Life had taught her to respect such courage. She'd seen it work wonders, even against higher odds than a group of sword-wielding Dwarves had against an ancient and intelligent dragon. She couldn't help herself but want to aid them along their journey.

She'd known Bard would come to see it similarly. After all, like recognises like, even if people sometimes needed a bit of a nudge to move the process along. Harry didn't need Legilimency to see that both the bargeman and the Dwarf King had their hearts in the right spot. No indeed, she couldn't begrudge herself for wanting to aid these strangers in this strange world, even if it postponed her search for a safe way home. There was no rush when it came to that, after all.

"You're going to hurt yourself with that," Bofur spoke up, scoffing at the sword now tied to Harry's belt.

Yes, she'd carry on offering her aid even though the Dwarves were certainly circumspect in showing their gratitude. Bofur was now wearing one of her baggy tunics, let out underneath the shoulders, of course, and donned one of her blankets, fashioned now into a cloak. No wonder people here took Dwarves for greedy, ungrateful creatures.

"Possibly. But I'll sure hurt you first if you don't keep your mouth shut in this fog," she readily bit back. Oh, it felt good to be able to return rudeness with its like. She'd definitely spent too much time playing a demure boy.

She hid the yawn of the sleepless night into her elbow, unwilling to let go of the tiller even for a moment. She adjusted her grip, squared her shoulders and with eyes locked onto the fog the bow was piercing through, she carried on portraying the experienced sailor she'd proclaimed herself to be.


Harry decided a long time ago to treat this experience as real and save herself the headache of constantly mulling that question over.

Even if Luna failed to prove that Harry would be transported into a real plane of existence; even if she failed repeatedly and utterly, during all the discussions Hermione had insisted on having on the topic.

Merlin bless the brilliance of Hermione's scientific mind, but Harry chose other ways to preserve her sanity. She observed, she felt and she trusted her gut instincts not to lead her astray.

No matter that she fell asleep to get transported to Middle-earth, the place felt real and not at all like a dream. When Inge's small boy had slipped on the pathway in front of Harry's home and broken his leg, the pain on his face had looked real. When the split had gotten infected and the child had died a week later, his mother's grief had looked real.

What didn't just seem or look real, but very much hit Harry with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, was the shock of guilt she'd felt after witnessing the whole incident. Had there been something she could have done for the boy? She had treated infections before, and although she didn't have the potions or the charms at her disposal in this world, surely there was some memory of twenty-first-century medicine that could have made a difference?

After that incident, the decision had been made to avoid the very real guilty conscience, no matter how adamant Hermione had been at disproving the existence of this world. When she'd wake, her memories would probably stay with her—even the guilty ones, and that was all that mattered.

After all, of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?

The trouble was, avoiding guilt often meant doing her best to help. And her best was rather a lot, even with her magic currently acting up in a way she was still cataloguing. That was a very narrow path to walk—magic threatened attention she wasn't at all willing to bear. She knew how quickly this dream could turn into a nightmare.

In Lake-town, she worked diligently on her reputation as an eccentric foreigner, a persona that could hide most of the oddities her aid sometimes caused. Well, frankly, at first, she had been an eccentric foreigner, balking even at the simplest of tasks. No surprise she'd been quickly taken for a simpleton when even laundry had proven a challenge with neither cleaning charms, nor electricity. It'd been only natural to feed the impression into a disguise.

With a group of strangers, though, she had very little ground to build her excuses on. Especially if these strangers were thirteen grumpy Dwarves and one odd Hobbit, who all already seemed wary of her for some reason.

That was why she decided not to step in when Kíli's injury had taken a sharp turn for the worse; at least not until the Dwarves ran out of all other options to help him.

The young Dwarf had been fighting a fever throughout the whole night. He seemed to have broken through by the morning—at least he'd been fully conscious when they'd set out of Lake-town, and seemed still alright when the morning sun finally chased the fog away and to Harry's great relief (and admittedly, a bit of surprise) they found themselves on the right course to the firth of the Mountain River.

Her boat was a small vessel, with very little privacy. With Harry sat at the back by the tiller, she had a prime view of everything happening on her deck. She couldn't miss the sudden sweaty sheen of Kíli's rapidly paling face, the way his teeth clenched to muffle the gasps of pain. Nor could she have missed the worried glances that his friends kept sending his way. Most foreboding, though, was the frustrated look of the company's healer.

By noon, they made it onto the river proper and finally decided to stop for lunch at its bank. The lad was once again falling in and out of feverish consciousness. It was then that Oin finally decided to speak up.

"Thorin."

His voice was rather loaded with meaning, and Harry immediately put down her cheese and biscuit.

"The wound is infected," Thorin preempted. "What do you need us to do?"

The healer frowned. "I need you to find that bastard of an Orc who shot the arrow and ask him what sort of Mahal cursed poison he'd coated it with."

"What are you saying, Oin?"

"I'm saying I'm out of my wits here. Something else festers in that wound, and it's not responding to the treatment as it should. I can't think of anything else to try."

"Then, we need to send him back to Lake-town, surely they-"

"I don't think Men will have the answer, either. This isn't a natural wound, Thorin. Something dark makes it resist the herbs, something that could be combated only by equally unnatural means."

Harry narrowed her eyes at that sinister answer. At the same time, Balin, the only polite Dwarf, took a sharp intake of breath. "Thorin. A Morgul blade would explain-"

"It wasn't a blade, it was an arrow that struck him," Thorin shot back so quickly that it was clear his thoughts were running along the same path as Balin's, although the rest of them were left staring in confusion. "Tales never mention Morgul-made arrows. Even if there should be any, they wouldn't be given to mere orcs."

"Not just any orcs, but the Pale Orc, who swore to end the line of Durin. How are we to know what tricks he can employ?"

"Gandalf!" the Hobbit breathed out, his higher voice breaking through the concerned rumble of the dwarves. "Gandalf promised to meet us at the Overlook today. He would- he would surely know more."

They cut their lunch short after that, hurriedly piled back onto the boat and started their mad dash up the Mountain River. Whilst the Dwarves kept rowing with strength and zeal that left Harry staring, Harry surreptitiously let out a weak Banishment Charm or two into the sails. If anyone commented on the sudden burst of speed, well, then she was ready to claim to be an excellent sailor. No one did, though, so focused on the unconscious Dwarf in their midst.

And yet, the current was strong and they moved up against it at a pace that left the Dwarves swearing in Khuzdul in impatience. Above their heads, the sun started its decline.


They found no wizards at the Overlook.

Besides her acute sympathy for the company's frustration, Harry felt her own selfish disappointment. Meeting one of this world's wizards- well, that could have certainly proved interesting, if nothing else.

What they did discover though, was that black veins now trailed up Kíli's leg, pulsing like little worms under his skin.

Thorin bowed over the side of the boat, down to the boards where his nephew twitched in feverish dreams. He touched Kíli's forehead with his, and stayed still for a long moment, before he straightened up towards his other nephew.

"Take Oin and go back to the Elves. Fíli- whatever they ask, we'll give it."

With one last look at the unconscious Dwarf, the King clasped Fíli's shoulder. "Make haste."

He turned to Harry, then, as in an afterthought. "Will you take them?"

Harry shot a futile glance at Lake-town in the far distance that could very well get attacked by Orcs any minute now, but knew there was only one possible answer to give. She nodded at the Dwarf, quickly turning away from him to board the boat, but the look in his eyes lingered in her mind for a while longer. She safely recognised the despondent certainty in them, the certainty of sending them onto a fool's errand. She was also rather familiar with the stubborn hope that warred with it.


The journey down the river proved the opposite of their arduous rowing against it. In a fraction of their time upstream, they were back to the open lake. They slowed down considerably then, not only because they lost the current, but because the two dwarves had to let go of the rows and held onto the third one, who started thrashing violently on the boards, making the whole boat wobble dangerously.

Harry abandoned most of her caution and fed the sails with a nearly constant stream of weak Banishment Charms, to propel the boat as much as to stabilize it through the worst of the rocking. She noticed Oin look up from his charge at one point, eyebrows raised at the calm water of the Lake streaming past them, but he made no comments.

"There are currents under the surface if you know where to find them," Harry provided her prepared answer anyway, maybe a bit too earnestly.

He just furrowed his brows and got back to applying the paste he'd made from tiny white petals. Harry had seen him stealing the herb from her drying racks.

And yet, even with the boat soaring ahead on a windless day, they didn't seem to be fast enough for the quickly deteriorating state of the young Dwarf.

"Laddie, let's make for the shore. There's no point in going further," Oin mumbled gently when dusk had fallen and they were only three quarters of the distance to the Forest River. There were still many hours away from reaching the borders of the Woodland Realm, and who knew how further yet from reaching any Elven healers. Foam had now started dribbling from Kíli's mouth, and pathetic keening choked up from his throat in between his seizures.

"No," Fíli commanded. "We keep on going."

The old Dwarf sighed but did not argue further.

"What's happening to him?" Harry asked into the heavy silence, watching Kíli heaved his painful breaths in utter exhaustion. His last fit had almost flipped the whole boat over.

"If Balin's right, he's fighting shadows and darkness that's leading him away from us," the old healer explained in a grave whisper.

Harry suspected something as such. She could sense the foul tendrils of dark magic tethering around the lad, even without any detection charms at her disposal.

She also suspected she just, just might have an answer to it.

This was it then. She couldn't not act any longer.

"What would- I mean, what will the Elves do to help him?"

"The wonders of Elven magic are a privilege to witness. Only few have."

That was a rather useless reply. Harry glimpsed into his eyes briefly, and tapped into his mind for even a more fleeting moment, stealing just one surface thought of pointed ears and light and chanting. She could work with that.

She threw one last silent Banishment at the sails, aiming first at the top of the mass and then flicking her palm down to the base, as she'd practiced for the last many months, to make the charm land as gently as possible. The boat still surged forward.

"Take over the steering for a moment," she told Oin. "Let me try something."

The Dwarf only shot her a dubious glance and did not move from Kíli's side. She rolled her eyes at his distrust; she'd already faced his scepticism once when he couldn't fathom she'd picked the apparently poisonous herbs in her home not for thinking them medicinal, but for their strong fragrance that could hold back the stench of the town.

"I'm no healer," she once again acceded. "But there's a chant my… tribe uses to keep away the shadows. It might help."

She was hesitant to offer more hope than that.

"Oin, do as he says," Fíli ordered when the old Dwarf still hesitated.

The healer shot her one last look of warning, as if she could make the situation any worse, and went to grab the tiller in her stead. She stepped around him to kneel at Kíli's side.

Harry gently swiped away the sweat-matted hair off his forehead and laid her palm on his clammy skin, careful so the tip of her wand hidden in her sleeve would touch Kíli's temple. She closed her eyes and frowned in concentration for several long seconds, knowing they were unnecessary for her sake, but willing to put up a believable show for the conscious Dwarves in the boat.

She knew the complex charm would take. She knew it would take for the same reason she knew most less complicated ones wouldn't: due to hours and hours of experimentation. What she couldn't know was whether it was the right tool to use against this world's dark magic—after all, today was the first time she'd ever crossed it.

But she refused to believe there was no reason behind the seemingly random selection of magic this world permitted her to use, and the magic it wouldn't let take effect. It wasn't a matter of complexity; rather the opposite. All her education failed to explain why Patronus would work but most first year charms wouldn't; the same way it left her in the dark as to why the simplest of transfiguration wouldn't take, not even a needle from a toothpick, but she could go ahead through her animagus change as smoothly as back home.

She had to force down a smirk then, laughing in self-deprecation at how desperate she found herself for the Patronus to react to the dark magic of this world. Besides already wanting to save the life of the Dwarf, of course. However, it would also be a clue to this magic conundrum that had been baffling her since the very start of this adventure.

She took one last calming breath and turned her focus back onto the Dwarf currently dying at her knees. With the memory of Ron catching the bouquet at Luna's wedding, Harry felt the spell already springing from her wand, as her magic followed the familiar intentions faster than her mind could walk through the process. She still pronounced the incantation for her audience, though.

"Expecto Patronum."


A/N:

The very first Hobbit fanfiction I read was

Fate be Changed by Araceil.

Coincidently, it's also a Harry Potter crossover, with Harry reborn into a Hobbit lass that joins the guest instead of Bilbo. It's a classic AU of the quest, very well written, with major divergences and Harry's past life coming into play only at the end, but I remember enjoying the dynamics of the Company throughout their whole adventure (maybe just skipping through some angsty parts on my second read).

Sadly, Araceil pulled her stories from all sites. But maybe the Internet hides a copy somewhere?

.

(I'd like to give something back to the authors that have directly or indirectly inspired me in my own writing. At the end of my chapters, I'll be mentioning stories that I'm more than happy to recommend for your further reading)