T.A. 1956
Fleur packed mounds of snow into a wooden transfigured tub the size of a shoebox. They upended it, and began piling them beside Harry, who was arranging into a dome, the straight and angled blocks used to hold each other up. As the dome rose to the height of a man (at least, a man who lived their entire life in a frozen wasteland without proper nutritional balance) Harry began arranging the less and less regular shapes so they leaned on each other to prevent the dome from collapsing inwards.
Fleur handed him the last piece, the keystone, and Harry patted into the final opening. Meanwhile, Fleur masterfully arranged the hole she'd ended up digging in the snow while making bricks, into the entrance for the igloo. Harry helped her create an arch of snow that covered the entrance to prevent it from being buried in and suffocating the occupants while they slept.
All the while, the northerners watched in fascination. Eventually, Fleur and Harry popped their heads out of the new construction and stared at the tribe. "And that is how you build an igloo," Harry said, casting a warming charm on his fingers. "Not a permanent home, mind you, the inside will melt until the walls become structurally unstable so long as you stay inside it. But useful for hunters if they get trapped in bad weather."
"Incredible," the elder Fish murmured.
"We didn't invent it, a people called the Eskimo did," Harry shrugged, then turned to Fleur. "Or was it the Inuit?"
"Both?" Fleur shrugged back.
"You have aided our tribe greatly, wanderers," the chief elder, Water, said. He was a little pompous and the wanderers in question had long since decided they didn't like him. "This, and the 'goggles' you have introduced… they will be of great use to the tribe." He held up a pair of ivory goggles, with thin slits where the pupils would be; a type of ancient sunglasses used by arctic tribes.
"I know," Harry said simply.
"Are you certain that you wish to leave?" Fish, the man who'd proposed a marriage between Harry and his daughter Scallop, asked.
"We're wanderers, like you said," Fleur smiled.
Yeah, that proposal hadn't gone down well. Scallop was headstrong, stubborn, and had insulted Harry to his face more than once. Not that it bothered Harry, though it was amusing the way Fleur had snarled like her beastly alter ego and threatened to rip into Scallop's guts and choke her with her own intestines. Since then, the poor elder had decided to keep his newest friends and his daughter as far apart as possible.
"We can't stay in one place forever. We're not bound to any gods," Harry said. "We need to explore and learn of the world."
"Very well," Fish said sadly. "And here I thought you and Scallop were finally getting along."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Never going to happen, old man."
Fleur didn't mind Harry having sexual relationships with other women or men. After all, they had been together for several thousand years; it was difficult for the two of them to find something new to do, especially with the amount of libido Fleur had in her younger days due to her Veela nature. However, the one thing that Fleur did take offense to, was Harry having partners who weren't attractive enough for her standards - made her seem unattractive by association, she said. And Scallop, being part of a malnourished and heavily inbred tribe, did not meet those standards of beauty.
"Can we perhaps offer you a gift before you leave?" Water asked.
Harry snorted. "What do you have to offer to us?"
Water let that slightly degrading comment slide - a surprise, since he was anal about that sort of disrespect in his presence most of the time. "Food, perhaps? A cloak made by our best tailor? Name it, and you shall get it."
"We can hunt our own food," Harry said dismissively. "And the cold doesn't bother us that much."
"I understand," Water said, seeming a little disappointed.
"Well, I guess we'll be off now," Harry said. The people in the conversation looked around rather awkwardly, before Fleur snorted at Harry's surprising lack of people skills and they began to leave.
It had only been a minute before the sound of hurried footsteps could be heard behind them.
"Master Harry! Mistress Fleur!"
The two sorcerers turned around to find Wolf, a seventeen-year-old youth who Harry had taken under his wing for the past two years for his magical affinity. It was small and barely noticeable, but it was there, possibly as a result of being the current shaman's grandson. Harry and Fleur had taught him guardian magic, which was self-explanatory; all sorts of magic to protect from the cold, darkness and evil, as well as magic to nourish and ensure health. The redhead approached, whatever was visible of his face tinged red.
"Well, hello."
"You decided not to say goodbye to the person you'd miss the most?" Wolf asked accusingly.
Fleur laughed. "You flatter yourself, don't you?"
Wolf shook his head in exasperation. He then held out with a gloved had a small item. "This is our farewell gift to you. My wife and I made it together."
A bracelet made from plant fiber braided into cords, adorned with ivory beads. They had carvings etched into them with incredible dedication and precision one couldn't usually expect from bone needles. Images of wolves, bears, Wasteland Cats, huntsmen, fishermen, the shaman wielding his feathered staff, and images of their deities. The deities' image was supposedly used to bring about good fortune by channeling a little bit of the deities' power into the wearer, and such beads were considered sacred. Neither Harry nor Fleur needed protection from the cold or fortune on the hunt, but the gesture was touching.
"Thank you, Wolf," Fleur said. "And you said your wife made it as well? Thank her too, from us."
"I will. And it was the least I can do," Wolf replied. "You taught me magics that have never been known to this tribe, and will help the tribe long after I die. Something like that cannot ever be fully repaid."
"It was nothing," Harry said dismissively. "Not doing so would be a waste of magical talent. But thanks."
"If you return, you will always be welcome," Wolf said firmly.
Fleur smiled. "Thank you, child. We'll return eventually. Won't we, Harry?"
"Sure," Harry shrugged. Knowing them, though, it might be a few centuries until they did.
After that farewell, Fleur and Harry truly left. As with the time they first arrived on this frozen land two years ago, they met nobody as they hiked through many miles of snow-covered land. As the approached the mountains, the snow gave way to soil - albeit cold and hard - into a more tundra landscape. Grass managed to grow here, and they encountered populations of deer-like creatures. They must be related to the shaggier elks further north.
"Alduin," Harry said. "You hungry?"
Alduin poked her head out from Harry's breast pocket. The creature was magical enough that it could go long periods of time, even decades if it wished, without food. After all, Slytherin's basilisk had survived a millennia without eating. The black dragonlord leaped out of his pocket, expanding before their eyes to the size of a large car, unfurling her leathery wings and taking off into the air.
The dragon lunged at a group of deer that were milling about. They noticed the dragon, and froze in terror. Only a few managed to break the spell and flee before the dragoness was on them, bathing them in green fire, green the color of the killing curse. Harry and Fleur continued walking as the smell of charred meat - and it smelled a little like bacon cooking, actually - mingled with the smell of ash.
Alduin had received some of her basilisk heritage, and the original plan was to have petrifying eyes. However, Fleur argued that those eyes were more of a liability than an advantage; Harry downgraded it into petrifying terror. Those with a strong enough will or motivation could break free of Alduin's death glare, but it would also mean any allies that accidentally looked into her eyes would not be turned into stone or drop dead.
The next several months went by in a blur. There wasn't all that much to report, except that they were simply making their way south to the Lonely Mountain. They hiked up one of the unnamed peaks in the Grey Mountain range, made easy with the usage of warming charms, lightweight charms, and bubblehead charms that gave them a supply of oxygen-rich air. The scenery, untarnished by the development of industry, was truly beautiful. Harry's camera was brought out once more.
It was during their hike down that things got a little more complicated. Harry got bored and created hyper-realistic snowmen, and when he overpowered the animation charms he accidentally created a sentient species that ate ice and shat snow and reproduced to create little snowbabies. Fleur could only shake her head in exasperation. A long time ago, creating life from nothing was believed to be one of the impossibilities of magic, but after so long, they were creating life by accident. Well, traditional animal life had to come from somewhere, right? Magic was just as good an explanation as any other.
Harry, channeling his lackluster paternal instincts, wanted to abandon the population of snow-people before they got dragged into creating a functioning society for them. Fleur, though, was a more responsible person - always had been - and denied Harry completely. Every society needed a leader, though, and Fleur knew how to do that. She transfigured a beautiful female sculpture from the snow, gave it greater intelligence than the other normal snowpeople. In a process similar to creating a sentient painting, she gave the Queen, whom she named Gabrielle after her little sister, a selfless personality and a little magic to protect her people.
The snowmen were friendly creatures, especially since Harry and Fleur were their creators - less like parents and more like Gods, actually. It was their twentieth night as guests of the Snowfolk, in their surprisingly comfortable beds made of snow, where Harry and Fleur lay, that they discussed the implications of what they'd actually done.
"As far as we know, Arda and everything within it was sung into creation by Eru and the Valar, essentially what we would call divine entities," Harry said. "They created the races of men, elves, dwarves, et cetera. But we, foreign entities and not quite Gods, came here and created a new intelligent species by complete accident."
"Do you fear reprisal from the Valar?" Fleur guessed.
"A little. Although it is unlikely because frankly, they haven't intervened in the history of this world for a while now. The last time they did must be, what, the destruction of Númenor? And that was only after the Númenoreans tried to sail to the Undying Lands. It's also not as if we've created dark creatures. They're naturally friendly, they're so far up their own asses in veganism that they don't even eat plants, and we're their Gods, meaning they'll listen to us. They won't cause any harm to the other races."
"If you're certain," Fleur murmured. "I've gotten rather fond of them, even if they were accidental creations."
"I have as well," Harry admitted. "They're not like the other kids we had. They're not needy, they're respectful to their parents…"
"Indeed," Fleur smiled. "We should give them a few more means to protect themselves, though. They're still made of regular snow, and except for the Queen, they're extremely fragile. If the other races try to eradicate them…"
"What, so you want me to give them magic, like with the Queen?" Harry asked.
"No, I wasn't thinking that. It will bring unwanted attention if there's a needlessly high magical presence here," Fleur said. "No, I propose giving them sturdier bodies. Whether this be by charming the snow, or by creating a life-anchor that they ingest."
"That sounds like a better idea," Harry mused. "A life-anchor, hm? And I'm guessing you're proposing making it out of ice?"
"It's only fitting."
"If not for the fact that they crap it out."
"Please, Harry. If I recall correctly, the Inuit and Eskimo people, thes who live in permanent winter, have several dozen words to describe different types of ice," Fleur harrumphed. "I'm sure they'd be able to tell the difference between waste product and a holy orb that determines their existence."
"You're making this a lot of work for me, you know?" Harry complained. "You're talking about a magical anchor that provides life-energy to abiotic organisms that can allow them to mimic the functions of life, including growth and reproduction. And you need to make sure that their children also pop out with an anchor of their own…"
"It's not as if you've never done it before," Fleur snorted. "You created a race of dryads for that endangered species sanctuary that poachers wouldn't stop sticking their noses in."
"Yes, but trees are already living things with working methods of growth and reproduction," Harry said.
"I'll do it myself, if you're so averse to it," Fleur muttered, rolling over to face away from her husband. Harry chuckled.
Over the next three weeks, Fleur dedicated herself to creating a better form of life for the snow-people. It took her several trials, but she was able to come up with an anchor that could convert the ambient magic of the atmosphere into its own; this would be used for reproduction and ensuring the race survived. It would also give them resilience against heat and blunt force; they people wouldn't crumble like the average snowman at the slightest of shocks, nor would they melt if they went a little further south. It gave them close to the same amount of resilience as an average human.
Meanwhile, Harry was busying himself with organizing the quickly-developing society of Snowfolk. He named the currently under-construction palace 'Niflheim' (and like hell he was going to let Fleur change that) and decided to create a succession system based on the legends of Arthur and the sword in the stone. He started to forge a sword of ice, but there was a small problem, namely that forge and ice were mutually exclusive.
He had to settle for creating a special, magic-infused block of ice, and whittling it down into a blade. The enchanting process left the blade tougher than steel, though unfortunately nowhere close to the strength of goblin-steel. He'd never managed to get the knowledge of goblin-smithing in all his lives, those secretive buggers. Once he was done, a rune-chain carved into the side of the bastard sword would keep it indestructible to anything but the hottest flames. Frankly, the only things that could produce enough heat for that would be Alduin and fiendfyre, so Harry wasn't too worried.
He finished the hilt and crossguard, simple but pretty, and picked up the finished blade. He put it to his lips, and whispered softly, in the Tongue of Trees, in the Words of Truth. "Let only the worthy wield this sword."
The universe acknowledged his request with a sound that mimicked a soft sigh, or a whispering breeze through a copse of trees. Delicate ribbons of raw magic wrapped around the sword to protect itself from evil and darkness. As soon as the process was done, the sword weighed significantly more in Harry's hand. He grunted, but was still able to carry it without much trouble. Apparently he was worthy, but only barely.
His next task was to create a simple stone pedestal in the throne room, and drop the sword into a specific gap he'd created, until the sword sank halfway down its blade into the floor. A few negligent flicks of his wand later, a throne made of stone and ice rose behind the pedestal, overlooking the hilt of the sword. There. Now his part was done.
Fleur was unimpressed.
"You spent the past three weeks making an ice sword and naming the palace," she said flatly. "You couldn't have just helped me with creating the life anchor?"
"It's important," Harry argued. "By creating an effective system of succession centered around one's capabilities as a leader, it forces the best people to lead the race."
"And what if someone just decides not to use the sword to rule his people?"
"They won't if I create some mythology around the sword."
Fleur only sighed and shook her head. "What else have you accomplished?"
"Er. Nothing, really. Although I've been teaching the Snowfolk a few words from the languages of our home, so they can get started on creating their own."
"I see." Fleur narrowed her eyes. "If I hear the Snowfolk use a curse word once, I will not be pleased."
Harry swallowed.
Fleur introduced her life anchors to the Snowfolk. They were wary, despite having warmed to the two 'deities' over the course of a month and a half. In the end, the Queen decided to lead by example and ingested the first anchor.
A bright glow surrounded her body, increasing in intensity until even Fleur and Harry were forced to avert their eyes; when they were able to open their eyes again, a tall, beautiful young woman stood before them, looking more lifelike than ever before and surrounded by a muted glow, much like the elves were rumored to be. The Queen looked at her own hands in wonder; the white snow had turned into smooth, pale skin. Her eyes, once merely sculptures, became true eyes with piercing azure irises; her hair was silver, much like Fleur's, and flowed down to her hips.
She looked to Fleur. "…mother?"
Fleur's eyes widened in shock, and turned to Harry to demand an explanation. However, she didn't get far before the Queen of Snow rushed into Fleur and embraced her. Fleur gasped slightly, before awkwardly squeezing her back. Harry only watched on in amazement. After all, the Snowfolk had not had proper voice-boxes or lips or teeth or tongues before, so they could only vocalize basic sounds and sounded more like animals than humans. Now, though… he was impressed, truly. Even his dryads had not been able to speak properly. But Fleur had evolved snowmen into anatomically modern humans in just three weeks.
"Who… who taught you to speak?" Fleur asked, even as her eyes glanced to Harry.
"Harry did," the Queen smiled. "He taught us many words. Including a few bad ones."
Fleur glared at Harry, but the infuriating man shrugged. "It was going to happen eventually."
"How do you feel, Gabrielle?" Fleur asked with motherly concern. She was fitting into the role quite well, Harry thought with a snort.
"I feel… alive," the Queen said softly. "I can see many colors, and feel the wind on my skin. I can hear your voice properly. It feels good."
"I'm glad to hear that," Fleur said with a relieved smile.
After that, several dozen bright flashes of light lit up the mountaintop. With the Snow Queen's magic, there shouldn't be too much that could harm them - a dragon might, but frankly there was no reason for a dragon to attack, considering there was no wealth in this kingdom so far. And what would orcs possibly gain from attacking Niflheim? It was hardly a strategic location.
Fleur was not very good at water or ice magic, considering her nature as a fiery demon, but she knew the theory of it well enough to pass the knowledge along to the Queen. If only Ron were here - Ron had a powerful affinity to water magics, and his mastery of water was unparalleled. Harry occasionally helped out though, and though he didn't have as much control as Ron did, he did have the most latent magical power out of the four of them by a long way.
In the next two months, the population of the Snowfolk doubled, as Fleur put her energy into creating more of them. Harry taught them how to protect themselves, and the Queen, as well as the Priestesses that Fleur had created, were given training in magic. After all, swords and shields, especially those made of ice or snow, would be no good if they were attacked by dragons or other magical beasts. The others also began to train in the way of war. Each of the Snowfolk soldiers received a spear and buckler. Walls were constructed strategically and hardened with magic. Watchtowers were built along the walls armed with scorpions in case siege trolls ever decided to visit.
Without the need to gather food, the Snowfolk turned to trades and crafts. A large majority of feudal populations were peasantry, but that class was practically eliminated within the Snowfolk nation due to their unique diet. This gave rise to large groups of artists, sculptors, smiths, healers, scholars, and warriors.
Harry tried to ignore the fact that he was getting worshiped even more than the time he'd been Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived. He wasn't adverse to attention, not after so long and even being president of the USSR as well as a popular actor playing himself in a world where Harry Potter referred to a book series, but it did make him slightly uncomfortable the way they were singing praises about him, literally. Oh, well. At least Queen Gabrielle, First of her Name and Protector of the Snowfolk seemed to be just as infatuated with him as the rest of them, with the added bonus of having the most delicious, minty-cool lips - both pairs - he'd ever encountered.
Great thing was, having been created by Fleur with no input from himself, Gabrielle was one of the few Snowfolk that actually weren't a son or daughter of his, so he didn't even have to use the prepared Oedipus complex excuse yet.
Fleur, though, seemed to revel in the attention. Though Harry had created the Snowfolk in principle, Fleur was perceived as the greater deity because she was the one who ascended the Snowfolk to the state of living they were in. As the mother of the Queen, she was also given a royal status as well. Fleur was described as the most beautiful woman to exist - and to be fair, she was certainly one of the most beautiful, if not the most - while Harry was described as merely 'rugged and devilishly charming'.
Alduin's ego seemed to be inflating to dangerous levels as the Snowfolk myths developed and the great, black dragonlord was included. He was given the role of 'the World-Eater' because no mythology was complete without an apocalypse. Supposedly, once the chains that bound Alduin as Harry's mount were broken, the dragon would devour Harry and eat the world in its hunger, thereby bringing the end of time. It was a pretty cool story, all things considered. Certainly better than some of the dumb Boy-Who-Lived propaganda bullshit that he got.
Fleur wanted to stay and take care of her people. She was in full goddess mode at this point. Harry frankly didn't give a shit. They ate snow, for God's sake, they would survive anything short of global warming. They already had a mythology, a language, and a rudimentary alphabet after having existed only for about three months. They had a society (courtesy of Harry, obviously) and while trade wasn't big yet, Harry believed that barter systems, then currency, wouldn't take that long to develop once Durin's folk settled in these mountains and later the people of Dale founded their lakeside town. These people didn't need any more coddling.
Of course, this disagreement led to a rather interesting argument between Harry and Fleur that would likely end up on the Snowfolk mythology as well.
"You were the one who created them, Harry," Fleur growled, the low, reverberating noises created not by her but rather her fiery, demonic alter ego. "Are you so unreasonable that you will not spend a few years with them, nurturing them, helping them get on their two feet? Your own children?"
"These children seem to be awfully advanced for their age," Harry replied coolly. "You yourself made sure of that. They now also have means to protect themselves, if anyone even bothers to challenge them for this high-altitude shithole in the first place. I came here to learn, not spend my time dawdling about teaching people what they already know."
"You've never been responsible, have you?" Fleur's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Would you have abandoned Paige and Marcus if you could? Do you only keep Alduin around because of her tactical advantage? This conversation has seen a long time coming, Harry. But this time, you are not going to walk away. Do you understand?"
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
Fleur's flames crashed into him. A maelstrom of fire, reminding him of something Dumbledore did to drive off Inferi so long ago, coiled around itself like a serpent and charged at Harry. Harry, of course, gave a lazy wave of his wand for a conic shield to shimmer into existence in front of him; the flames struck the shield and charged over it, trying to swallow Harry as it regrouped behind him like air passing over an airplane.
"We can speak about this like adults, you know," Harry said dryly.
"I always speak! You never listen!"
By now, most of the Snowfolk had arrived to the scene; the warriors stood their ground as best they could, even as they shook from the knowledge that none of them could hope to match the power that the two warlocks controlled. Others fled. The Queen watched warily; the destruction was angled away from their new settlement, but it might spill.
"You're scaring the kids," Harry said drolly. "Aren't you the irresponsible one?"
The flames stopped. Although… it continued to whirl around Fleur like a deadly halo. She was like an angel, at least if angels didn't particularly care whether you were dead or not before they whisked you off to heaven. Her form shimmered; her angry yet beautiful face was replaced momentarily with a cruel visage, a cross between a harpy and a voracious fire-demon; tongues of flame became feaethers, sprouting over her flesh and creating demonic wings.
Holy shit. She was fucking angry.
Harry barely had time to raise his arms over his head and conjure triple-layered shields before he was struck by Fleur's outstretched talons. He was literally thrown off the top of the mountain - it felt like getting hit by a bloody freight train - and he allowed himself a peek. Fleur was chasing him through the air in all her hellish glory, the air around her warping due to the immense levels of heat she was generating.
Harry gave another brief moment to wonder what the hell he'd said wrong before Fleur crashed into him. She snarled, and Harry panicked, and then the two of them crashed into the snow like a meteorite, significantly lower in altitude than they had just been.
"Harry…"
"…Fleur?"
She'd calmed down enough to no longer appear in her demonic form, but her aquamarine eyes were still dull with leftover rage.
"What happened to you?"
It was a conversation they'd had many times. Every time, though, Fleur had broken off halfway through leaving Harry confused, and after so many times, annoyed. It got to the point Harry became annoyed as soon as Fleur mentioned that phrase; eventually she stopped bringing it up at all, even if her facial expression undoubtedly signaled she was thinking it. Today, though, was the first time Fleur had gotten so angry; Harry pushed away all of his irritation and exasperation to adopt a perfectly neutral expression.
"Will you explain what you mean by that?"
"It means…" Fleur took a shuddering breath. Nobody went three thousand or so years without fighting, and fighting massively; all three other pseudo-immortals knew full well as a result that Harry could do whatever the fuck he wanted and none of them could stop him, power-wise. "It means you don't seem empathetic anymore. You don't seem human anymore. Do you care about anyone? Do you ever consider anyone else more than just… an extra, or background noise?"
There was such raw, unprocessed emotion in Fleur's voice that Harry stopped breathing briefly. She was scared. Of him. Holy shit. How had he missed that? Was this why she never brought this up, ever? And Ron treated him with uncharacteristic caution whenever he was even slightly upset?
"I'm going to have to think about that," Harry admitted slowly.
Fleur grunted, her dissatisfaction evident. "Do come up with a good answer."
T.A. 1956, July
"Did you hear?" Katie crowed, bursting into the tavern with a wicked glee on her face.
Since arriving in Minas Anor a year ago, there was not a single patron of the tavern that did not recognize Katie's face or voice. The tavern was the man's haven - a place to get away from nagging wives or rowdy children. It was not a place for women, even one who dressed in trousers and was uncharacteristically loud and confident such as Katie. More than once, a few men had tried to get her to leave. Katie refused them in the rudest manner possible.
Nobody could do anything about it because Katie was frankly the best damn brawler that had ever graced this tavern and its three-hundred-year-old history. More than once had she been accused of cheating in drinking contests, and more than once had she been forced into a drunken brawl, and more than once had she expertly broken jaws and fingers and noses with her fists, elbows, forehead with enough force behind each strike that she may as well be a human battering ram.
Since then she'd gained the respect of Gondorian soldiers who most often frequented the establishment. A few had tried to flirt with her - if they weren't immediately turned off that idea by the steely look that the giant, redheaded man gave them, that is. If one did catch her fancy, she did occasionally spend the night with him - but while the man came out in an ecstatic daze, Katie herself seemed rather disappointed in the skills of the man she'd bedded.
"What happened?" Ron sighed. His drinking partner, a certain grey-hamed wizard known in these parts as Mithrandir, looked up at Katie with a mischievous twinkle underneath his bushy eyebrows, one that reminded Katie of a certain bearded headmaster.
A jaunty wave of Katie's hand produced extensive privacy wards surrounding their table. The Grey Wizard's eyebrows rose in surprise as he examined the magic weave itself into an intricate net. Katie sat down next to the old wizard and grinned at her husband.
"Harry created a new race of people from snow," Katie said in a conspiratorial whisper. "The thing was, he was just trying to animate the snowmen he'd made, but he overpowered it… he accidentally created life!"
Katie wondered if Mithrandir planned to pick up his jaw off of the floor even as Ron sighed in exasperation and ran his palm over his cheek. The past year he'd been growing a well-kept beard in the Gondorian fashion. "How did he manage to accidentally create life? I understand he's the magically strongest of all of us, but still…"
Perched on the brim of Mithrandir's hat, Fawkes the phoenix looked more amused than anything. He let out a beautiful trill full of amusement and curiosity.
"That is a very dangerous magic that you friend is dealing with," Mithrandir said gruffly. "All life on Arda was sung into creation by Eru and the Valar - until now. Has your friend considered the consequences he might experience from the very creators of this world?"
"Obviously not. Like I said, he did it on accident," Katie giggled. "Apparently Fleur created a life-anchor for them that gives them a more true form of life. The Snowfolk, as they call themselves now, have settled in the Grey Mountains surrounding their capital, Niflheim."
"Niflheim," Mirthrandir hummed. "What does that mean, I wonder?"
"It means 'World of Fog'," Ron explained. "A myth from our homeland. It features a realm of primordial ice, darkness and cold. I can see why Harry would have found that name fitting." He turned to Katie. "I assume Harry wanted to bail and Fleur wanted him to take responsibility for his accidental creations? Is that the cause of what we felt yesterday?"
Mithrandir blinked. Yesterday's magical tremor was caused by an argument between two friends? He had felt this event clearly, having been startled awake from his sleep by what could only be described as a sudden tension in the air, an angry pulse of magic through the atmosphere. He had no doubt that any magic-sensitive being in Middle-Earth had felt it. Just how powerful were Ronald and Katherine's two friends?
He knew the two of them were significantly more powerful than the two sitting with him. Ronald and Katie were warlocks - powerful, but mortal - while Fleur had 'veela' ancestry which supposedly gave her a great boost in strength as she matured, as well as affinity to elemental flame; Harry was the 'Master of Death', which sounded ominous, and both Ron and Katie were very vague about, but Mithrandir gathered that this Master of Death business was what gave Harry such immense power.
"How much stronger are these two compared to the two of you?" Mithrandir asked cautiously. If either of them turned to darkness, they might become a Dark Lord to rival or perhaps even triumph over Sauron.
"Fleur was about two-and-a-half times stronger than myself or Katie," Ron shrugged. "We figured out that much. Harry, though… we're honestly not certain."
"But power isn't everything," Katie winked. "Even Harry can be defeated with a treacle tart."
Mithrandir chuckled, recalling the unforgivably sweet pastry that Katie had made for them once. He didn't know this Fleur or Harry so well yet, but if they were similar to Katie and Ron, then he had no doubts about their allegiance to the light. For all the gruff exterior Ronald tried to project, he was a good man at heart who would not easily be swayed by Sauron's false promises. Ronald and Katherine would be very useful allies to have - and for Mithrandir, a man who was immortal and thus did not have true friends beyond the elves, possibly a pair of good friends.
Even if they did curse more than drunk dwarves.
From above him, Fawkes playfully pecked at his eyebrows. Mithrandir grumbled as he tried to shoo the bird away. Even the bird had an attitude! Katie was giggling, wrapping her arms around her waist and clutching at her sides, as Ron sat with an insufferable smirk. Then again, he'd never had anyone treat him with such insolence before - it was refreshing.
It made him feel young again, helped him forget the dark thoughts that lingered at the back of his mind. His worry, his terror, his anxiety was all smoothed away in that moment at the sight of Ronald and Katherine's smiling faces and the beautiful birdsong of Fawkes.
A/N:
Hello all. This is the sequel to Through the Veil. I should let you know that this one is less humor-oriented than the first story. I know not many people liked the deviation from humor around Ch 11/12 of Through the Veil (and looking back, I didn't either) so I've decided to shift the focus rather than trying to force myself to be funny.
Update schedule is fairly irregular (as with all of my works). I write whenever I feel like it, and that obviously fluctuates. I'll try to update at least once a month, but I can't promise anything. Also, while I am a big fan of The Hobbit/LotR, I am not the most knowledgeable of Middle-Earth lore. If you do find minor irregularities, please try to ignore them - any major irregularities, though, I'll do my best to fix.