Scars of the Future

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, both Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Theywere created by the amazing minds of J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien.

A/N: This fic was not created by myself alone. It was done inscript format over Instant Messenger by myself and Animagus-Spirit. This fic and most of the events in it are her brilliant ideas, I have just taken the task to write it. Therefore, this fic is dedicated to her. You're the greatest!


Chapter 24: The Truest Form of Sadness

Frodo awoke in a daze.

A thick fog obscured his vision, and a monotonous buzzing rang in his head. He blinked a few times, trying to clear the mist, and the world transformed into a large, colorful blur. It took several minutes for him to focus, but he became aware that he was lying on his bed, and that no one else was in the room.

Then, Reality in all of its harsh truth came crashing down upon him like waves on sand, and Memory enveloped him.

Sam was dead.

It had never seemed possible to Frodo that he would lose Sam in this battle. He had left home with a growing suspicion that he wouldn't return, but not Sam. Never Sam, who had a wife and children and an established reputation in the Shire. Sam who was the finest mayor Hobbiton had ever seen, who had nearly restored the Shire to its original beauty since the coming of Saruman. It wouldn't be fair.

No one ever told him that life was fair.

He slid out of the bed and moved to sit on the window seat. He looked out at the grey sky and welcomed it. Grief had settled on his heart with such a weight that it felt hard to breathe, yet his eyes had run out of tears to cry.

Why?

Why?

Why?

He remembered the year his parents died so vividly, although it had been years ago, when he was young. The days after had passed in a blur, and the only clear thought he could voice was, "Why?"

His relatives coddled him, held him, brought him in, fed him, clothed him, made him more or less comfortable….they told him what had happened, or at least most of it. There had been a boat. There had been a river. Something had gone wrong, and his parents hadn't come home.

The only thing they didn't tell him was why. Oh, they told him how. The boat had tipped, they said, and his parents didn't know how to swim, so they drowned. Drowned? Yes, they went under the water and couldn't breathe. You see, Frodo? But why?

He later realized that if in the entire world there was an answer, no one knew it.

And now, if he asked anyone, they would tell him how. There was Voldemort, and he had a wand, a magic wand, and he tried to kill you, Frodo, but you see, Sam saved you, and he died instead.

Why?

For the first time in several months, Frodo cursed the Ring.

Why?

It prolonged his life, of course, even after its destruction. Reason said Frodo had no right to still look so youthful. He was what, seventy-five? Eighty-five? He'd stopped counting, cursing the soulless life he was forced to endure each and every day. It used to be that life would throw small obstacles into his path that he was forced to pass, and those were difficult enough, yes. But now the hardest thing for him to do was to live. He thought that time would heal him, that if he continued living the pain would diminish, and for awhile it had, but now….

Why?

Now it would come back. His tourniquet had been torn from him and he lay bleeding, at the mercy of his mind, his phantoms, his misery.

Why?

The door opened and closed, and Frodo glanced up to see Gandalf walking across the room. He looked away as the wizard sat down beside him.

"How are you feeling?"

It was a stupid thing to ask, Frodo thought, and the look he gave Gandalf clearly expressed that thought.

"Very well," said Gandalf. "Aragorn tells me you earlier expressed a desire to speak with Voldemort. Do you still wish this?"

Somehow, Frodo managed to speak. "Yes." His voice was low and raspy.

"I will have it arranged. Are you hungry, Frodo?"

"No."

Gandalf nodded, but didn't make a move to leave. "Frodo, I know—"

"Don't," Frodo interrupted. "Please, just…just go."

Gandalf sighed. "As you wish," he said, standing and moving to the door.

Frodo stopped him. "Gandalf?"

The wizard turned around.

"What happened to everyone else? I can't—I can't remember."

"We have all returned now. Voldemort is currently in a cell in Azkaban, and Tonks was taken to St. Mungos earlier this afternoon. The Ministry has, of course, been informed of all that has happened."

Frodo nodded, and continued staring out of the window. Gandalf gazed at him sadly a moment, and then he left.

Merry and Pippin were waiting for him in the hallway.

"Leave him alone for now," Gandalf said. "If he wants your company, he will invite you."

"Is he alright?" Pippin asked.

"No, Pippin, and I'm afraid he may not be for quite some time."

Gandalf left them standing there, and after a spell they followed him.


Harry sat alone in the room he shared with Ron. It had taken awhile, but he had finally managed to slip away from everyone else to find some quiet.

Voldemort was gone.

The thought kept running through his head over and over, and Harry thought he would go mad if it didn't stop. Because Voldemort wasn't gone, not yet. He kept thinking of everything that could go wrong between the time Voldemort was taken to Azkaban and the time he received the kiss. Most of his ideas were crazy enough to almost be deliriums, but Sirius had escaped, and Voldemort could too, right?

Still, a peace lay over him that hadn't in a long time. He connected it to the days before he knew he was a wizard, before he knew about Voldemort, when the only thing he worried about were the Dursleys and school—a normal, Muggle school.

But this was far better, because he wouldn't be returning to the Dursleys, because Pettigrew had been captured at last, and he would be testifying before the Ministry, and that would prove that Sirius was innocent. Harry could finally live with his godfather.

Beneath all this bliss was sadness, though. Harry hadn't known Sam, but he knew Frodo, and he knew what it was like to lose someone close.

He somehow felt, no matter how farfetched it sounded, that he was responsible. It was unnecessary guilt, he knew, and stupid too, but he tended to blame things on himself anyway, and he felt bad that he had lost nothing, and Frodo had lost his brother.

But, he thought, hadn't he lost something? He had lost his parents, and even though Sirius lived again, he'd lost him as well.

Still, he had no fresh wounds, and that was more than he could say for many.


Frodo had to get out. The walls were closing in on him, cutting off his source of air. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't reason.

He opened the window and climbed out, dropping to the pavement below. He took a few moments to look around, and then he ran.

He didn't know where he planned on going, and didn't care. The position of the sun told him it was late-afternoon, and it wouldn't be long until darkness crept up and consumed him.

When Frodo finally lacked the strength to continue, he stopped running. He found himself standing outside of the cemetery. The gate had been locked, even though the sun hadn't yet set. The cast-iron bars were wide, though, and he easily slid through sideways. He let his feet take him back to the trench, the only evidence that Voldemort had ever dwelt there. The rain of the last several days had filled it with water—the ground was too moist to hold it anymore. Authorities had stretched yellow tape around the area, prohibiting passage. He ducked under it and walked around the perimeter, then settled beside it and leaned back against a crooked tombstone.

Sam was dead, and it was his fault. Voldemort may have struck the final blow, but that blow had been aimed at Frodo.

Frodo clenched his eyes shut tightly against this realization. It couldn't be…

But it was, and he knew it. He didn't want it to be true, but it was, and nothing in the world could change that, and nothing could bring Sam back, either. He could try to fool himself, tell himself that maybe, just maybe there was magic deep enough to wake the dead, but even if there was, and even if it was possible, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Sam, he knew, was at peace, without fear, without pain, and to pull him from that would be selfish and cruel.

"I should be dead," Frodo said aloud. "I should be dead….I'm so sorry, Sam."

He let sorrow and guilt consume him. He wished so badly that he could go back, change the outcome. He had longed for death for so long. It hadn't surfaced for a long time, this desire, but it had still existed, lying within what remained of his soul. He had come so close to freedom, and it had been torn from him and given to another who didn't deserve such a fate.

And such was his torment that Frodo withdrew into himself, becoming shrouded in a cloak of darkness in which he knew and felt nothing.


"Frodo's gone."

Aragorn, Sirius, Legolas, and Arthur Weasley looked up and saw Merry standing in the doorway, struggling to remain calm.

"What do you mean?" Aragorn asked, panic rising slowly in his chest.

"Gone, Strider, gone! I mean he opened his window and left!" Merry's panic was surfacing now too.

Sirius glanced out of the window over the stove. Rain pelted the glass and the wind was rising to a gale. "We'd better find him then, and fast," he said, rising.

Aragorn rose as well. "Yes. We'll have to move quickly. Even without the storm, in his state—" he trailed off as he donned his cloak and headed to the front door, followed by the others. Gimli met them in the hall.

"What's happening?" he demanded gruffly. "You don't intend to go out in that, do you laddie?" He directed the last at Aragorn.

Aragorn nodded, shoving his feet into his boots. "Frodo's run off."

Gimli's eyes widened. "Frodo's gone? Half a minute, Aragorn, I'll be joining you."

Aragorn turned to Merry. "Come if you wish, but I fear you will only hinder us, and I'd advise you to stay here."

Merry nodded. "We'll wait for him in case he…in case he comes back."

"Are you coming, Arthur?"

"Yes," he said. "You'll need all the help you can get, I'm afraid."

They trudged out into the storm, heads bowed against the wind and rain. Lighting crackled overhead, followed by a resounding crash of thunder. Cloaks pulled tightly around them, the group split and meandered in opposite directions, shouting for Frodo above the storm.


Sirius wiped water from his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time that night. He squinted through the rain, which seemed to slant in the direction of his eyes, no thanks to the wind, every way he turned. His wand light was pathetic in the gloom, and didn't do anything for him. His senses were drowned in a never ending sea of wet misery. He walked another block and then stopped suddenly. He blinked and grinned.

"Bugger this," he said, and transformed into the great, black dog.

His vision didn't improve, but his hearing and his sense of smell did. As a bonus, the thick coat turned out to be water resistant. He was warm and not permanently drenched. He'd gotten a good deal when he became an Animagus.

He put his snout in the air and sniffed. He inhaled an ocean of water and sneezed. He couldn't smell anything, anyway. He relied then on his ears, and as he trotted along he kept them alert for the slightest of sounds.

He heard it, finally, an almost mute cry, and when he moved towards it he found himself blocked by a cast iron fence. The sound had definitely come from behind it, which didn't do much for his situation, as it was too high to jump. He growled and trotted around it until he found the gate. Locked.

Exasperated, Sirius transformed back and unlocked in with his wand, pushed open the gate and became the dog again. Much more comfortable. He stood still, listening.

Again, there was the silent cry. He broke into a run, stopping only when he reached the trench.

It had filled up with water almost to the brim, and the ground around it, barren of grass since the cave in, was slick with mud that ran like water into it. On the other side was Frodo, sitting with his knees pulled up and his arms wrapped around them tightly. He'd had enough sense to move back from the trench to avoid sliding in, and it was apparent that he'd tried to find some sort of shelter; he was crouched on one side of a fallen log, not that it helped any.

Sirius pushed past the tape and trotted quickly around to the other side. He had nearly reached the Hobbit when he slipped, falling into the muddy water.

It wasn't dangerous for him, the big dog that he was, but it was cold, and at first he struggled to catch his breath. He pushed against it and made it to the side Frodo was on, and with the aid of a protruding tree root pulled himself out of the water.

He stood there, dripping and frozen, staring at the Hobbit who was the cause of all this, and felt such a rush of pity that it almost knocked him over.

He hadn't seen anything like it in his entire life.

Frodo looked like one who had carried the fate of the world on his shoulders and had failed to save it. He sat staring blankly ahead, rocking back and forth, a quiet, absent-minded whimper escaping his lips every few seconds. His eyes were red-rimmed pools of sorrow, and to look into them made it seem as if the world had ended. It wasn't a pathetic sight by far, it was a fierce sight. Here was sadness in its truest form, and that anyone, especially one so small, could bear it was astounding. There was passion lying within the Hobbit, there had always been, but this anguish, this despair, brought it to life, and it sprang forth like a hungry beast, adding to the desolation and heightening it. It was terrifying to behold, because how could such emotion exist? How could it be born?

Sirius had, without noticing, become human again, and he shook his head and gathered Frodo up. He stood and carried him from the cemetery and into the streets. When they finally arrived back at Number Twelve everyone else had returned.

Frodo was dried and swaddled in blankets when Molly came in. She took one look at him and bustled into the kitchen, returning shortly with a mug of Pepperup Potion, which he spoon fed him until it was empty.

Frodo slept on the couch in the parlor, where a roaring fire was built. He was watched over all night, Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, and Sirius alternating shifts. He was closely monitored for signs of a fever, but Molly's potion had done its job, and remained more or less healthy.


Deunitnoc Eb Ot