Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of Ilúvatar to a great music;
And a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Ilúvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.
Never since have the Ainur made any music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Ilúvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Ilúvatar after the end of days.
Then shall the themes of Ilúvatar be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand his intent in their part, and shall know the comprehension of each, and Ilúvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased.

- Excerpt from Tolkien's Morgoth's Ring, the tenth instalment of The History of Middle-Earth. A piece from the Ainulindalë, the Great Song, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

Chapter 4: The Last Homely House

Solana was in a haze; she didn't know where she was, how she came to be there, what the haze was; all she knew was that voices were calling her, but she couldn't come to them.

"Wake… Up… Solana… Up…" Several soft voices said, not loud enough to understand more than a single word at once. And then, just like with her dream a few weeks earlier, someone shouted clearly, "Erinqua! Wake up, Manwë damn it!"

With a gasp, her mind returned to her body, her eyes shot open, and she stared into the worried face of Gandalf, the other dwarves looking at her from a slight distance.

"What happened?" Solara asked groggily, rubbing her eyes and sitting up. Gandalf frowned.

"From what I understand, three trolls had spotted your fire, and had come to investigate, and, should there be anything edible – like humans, dwarves, and ponies – eat. You were knocked out by a hit to the head, and the Dwarves swiped up before they could do a thing. They were about to eat Bombur when dawn came; I had held them off long enough, imitating William the Troll, so that they didn't notice how much time had passed. They were turned to stone immediately."

Solana sighed, relieved that nobody got hurt. Gandalf wasn't done yet, however.

"Unfortunately, they ate all of our food first. We managed to find a lot in the troll's stash, though, so we have more than enough. We also found a few weapons; mostly dwarf- and hobbit-sized, but there was a single human-sized one that wasn't broken. Here." The wizard handed Solana a sword; she gasped upon seeing it. She recognized it from the Chamber of Secrets, and the Horcrux hunt; it was the Sword of Gryffindor.

"Wow," She whispered, accepting the handle with a grateful nod. She gave it an experimental swing; exactly the same weight as she remembered it to be, from when she had trained with it during the Horcrux hunt. There wasn't much else to do during that time, after all.

She pricked her finger on the end of it experimentally, and felt the sting Basilisk venom gave her. Apparently the coating was still there; that would help a lot.

It was during the Chamber of Secrets incident that Solana found out she was immune to Basilisk venom; she'd wanted to pick up the basilisk fang that was injected in her arm and, subsequently, in the diary, but accidently pricked her finger on the end. She'd been prepared to call Fawkes to give another tear, already preparing her 'I'm sorry' speech in her head, but she found that all it did was sting a bit.

"Don't do what I just did." She told the assembled dwarves and Gandalf, who all looked curious. "I'm immune to the poison, but anyone else will die within a few seconds. I had this sword before, but lost it." It was, indeed, lost during the Battle of Hogwarts at the end of the war. Neville had chopped Nagini's head off, but the force made him lose his grip on the sword; it tumbled off the edge of the bridge, and though many tried, nobody could find it.

"We shan't. Now, let us eat before we go any farther; on my journey, I met a few riders from Rivendell. It is but a few days away."

This brightened everyone up considerably, and, after half an hour of breakfast, they set off again, accompanied by Solana's singing.

"Travelling the road, last known is where I want to be,

"My compass directing, electing, an open road with golden trees.

"But there's an old man in need on the ground, I try not to make a sound,

"He holds out his hand as I walk away, I hear him say,

"Please don't be a stranger in my place,

"Please don't be, a stranger in my place."

Oo0oO

They did not sing or tell stories the next day, even though the weather improved; nor did they the day after, nor the day after that. They had begun to feel that danger was not far away.

One morning, a week after the Troll incident, they forded a river at a wide shallow place full of the noise of stones and foam. The far bank was steep and slippery. When they got to the top of it, leading their ponies, they saw that the great mountains had marched down very near to them. Already they it seemed only a day's easy journey from the feet of the nearest. Dark and drear it looked, though there were patches of sunlight on its brown sides, and behind its shoulders the tips of snow-peaks gleamed.

Thorin sighed upon seeing it, talking for Solana's benefit. "That is only the beginning of the Misty Mountains, and we have to get through, or over, or under those somehow, before we can come into Wilderland beyond. And it is a deal of a way even from the other side of them to the Lonely Mountain in the East, where Smaug lies on our treasure." He shot a glance at his female companion, whose eyes were big. "Come, we must keep moving. I have a feeling that whatever is pursuing us isn't far behind."

Oo0oO

It was a tiring path, filled with many hobbles, stones, hills, and vales. Then, just as Solana's pony began to stumble over roots and stone, they came to the edge of a steep fall in the ground so suddenly that Gandalf's horse nearly slipped down the slope. "Here it is at last!" he called, and the others gathered round him and looked over the edge.

There was a valley far below; there was the noise of the running water at the bottom; the scent of trees was in the air; and there was a light on the valley-side across the water. When they entered the little cave, Solana felt wards, extremely powerful ones, pass over them; they were benevolent, though, unless you supported Sauron or his beliefs, so she didn't mention them to the others.

Ward-sensing was something she had learned from Bill Weasley after the war, and luckily, it wasn't difficult to learn to someone who had mastered Occlumency – Bill himself wasn't a master Occlumens and it had taken two years for him to learn. It was the same as the Fidelus charm, really, only much weaker; if you didn't know what wards feel like, you wouldn't feel it, but if you did, you would feel it every time you crossed a ward line.

Solana would never forget the way they slithered and slipped in the dusk down the steep path into the secret valley of Rivendell, and she was reasonably sure the dwarves wouldn't either, hating elves as though they may. The air grew warmer as they got lower, and the smell of the pine-trees made the dwarves drowsy, so that every now and again one of them nodded and nearly fell off, or bumped his nose on the pony's neck, to the laughter of the others.

Their spirits rose as they went down and down. The trees changed to beech and oak, and there was a comfortable feeling in the twilight. The last green had almost faded out of the grass when they came at length to an open glade not far above the banks of the stream.

The Dwarves suddenly sat a bit straighter, as a new smell wafted in, one that Solana couldn't place.

Just as she was trying to – place it, that is – a burst of song-like laughter came out of the trees, and really large Malfoys with pointed ears were singing in a language Solana didn't know, but it seemed a jolly tune and she began to hum along with recurring tunes. When Thorin ground out "Elves," as if it hurt him, she suddenly realized that the Elves of Arda weren't anywhere close to House-Elves; these Elves were elegant and stylish, unlike House-Elves, which looked like overgrown naked mole-rats with long ears, and wore pillow-cases as if they it didn't make them look like babies. It was one of the few things Solana had found irritating about her fellow Ravenclaw, best friend, and once-upon-a-time crush Hermione Granger; her drive to liberate the ugly things.

The elves laughed and sang in the trees, and sometimes one would fall down, making the others laugh even harder, and the older dwarves smirk as if they were glad that they hurt themselves, which, knowing the elves' and dwarves' feud, might have exactly been what they were smirking at.

The elves seemed to make fun of the dwarves; pointing at their beards, and laughing; but strangely enough, they didn't do the same with Gandalf, even though he and Dumbledore could both compete for the spot of the Longest Beard on Earth and Arda together. The one time an elf tried to make fun of Solana, they got hit upside the head by another, before going back to Dwarf-mocking.

It took a few songs, sang in ridiculous tunes, but at last one, a tall young man, came out from the trees and bowed to Gandalf, to Thorin, and – to the surprise of the Dwarves and Solana, though Gandalf wasn't fazed – to Solana.

"Welcome to the valley!" the elf said.

"Thank you." said Thorin a bit gruffly; but Gandalf was already off his horse and among the elves, talking merrily with them. "You are a little out of your way," said the elf, "that is, if you are making for the only path across the water and to the house beyond. We will set you right, but you had best get on foot, until you are over the bridge. Are you going to stay a bit and sing with us, or will you go straight on? Supper is preparing over there," he said. "I can smell the Wood-fires for the cooking."

Solana couldn't even understand the elven language, but she would happily hum along with a tune if they thought her. Unfortunately for her, the dwarves were all for supper as soon as possible just then, and would not stay. And so on they all went, leading their ponies, till they were brought to a good path and so at last to the very brink of the river. It was flowing fast and noisily, and there was only a narrow bridge of stone without a parapet, as narrow as a pony could well walk on; and over that they had to go, slow and careful, one by one, each leading his pony by the bridle. The elves had brought bright lanterns to the shore, and they sang a merry song as the party went across.

"Don't dip your beard in the foam, father!" they cried to Thorin once, when he was bent almost on to his hands and knees. "It is long enough without watering it."

"Hush, hush! Good People! and good night!" said Gandalf, who came last.

"Valleys have ears, and some elves have over merry tongues. Good night!" And so at last they all came to the Last Homely House, and found its doors flung wide open.

They had arrived at last.

Oo0oO

The company stayed a fortnight in Rivendell, and they found it hard to leave. Solana would gladly have stopped there for a long, long time – even supposing a wish would have taken her right back to Hogwarts without trouble. Yet not many things happened while they stayed, and that might be the very reason Solana liked it that much. The tranquillity, the calming noise of the waterfalls, the birds that were chirping cheerfully; if she could've bought a room to stay in later, she would've.

The master of the house was an elf called Elrond. His house was just about perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.

Their clothes were mended as well as their bruises, their tempers, and their hopes. Their bags were filled with food and provisions light to carry but strong to bring them over the mountain passes. Their plans were improved with the best advice. So the time came to midsummer eve, and they were to go on again with the early sun the next morning.

Oo0oO

Two days after they had arrived, Solana was talking to Elrond on one of the balconies overlooking the water below. It was then that she asked a question that would lead to many, many other conversations.

"What is the language the elves were singing in, when we arrived?"

Elrond raised an eyebrow. "Why would you want to know that?"

Solana smiled slightly wistfully. "Back from where I came from, we have a lot of languages that are used in different parts of the world. I always liked learning them; mostly the widely-used languages like Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. But the names don't tell you anything, so I'll refrain from telling you them all."

"Oh no, by all means; I'm interested in how many languages you know."

Solana blushed slightly. "Well, I was a bit of a bookworm, and the thing I liked to learn most was languages. So I know like – eight, or nine languages. English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, French, and the dead – no longer spoken – languages of Latin and Ancient Greek." She counted them on her fingers as she spoke. "So that's nine."

"Impressive. And you wish to learn Sindarin, the language of the elves as well?"

Solana nodded. "Yes, along with Quenya and the Black Speech of Mordor, if Gandalf will teach me."

Elrond raised an eyebrow. "Why would you want to learn the Black Speech, child?"

"Well, if I'm correct, I won't be able to find my way back home for a long, long time, and I might as well learn what my enemies will be saying to each other while I'm here."

Elrond smiled slightly and nodded. "Very well. Come to me every night at seven, and I will teach you for an hour or two. You will most likely be able to convey what you want in Sindarin when you leave – which is good if you meet an elf that does not speak Westron. For now, your first lesson; Mae Govannen. It translates to Well Met, a traditional elven greeting."

"Ah. Mae Govannen, in that case."

Oo0oO

On the last night of their stay, Thorin and Gandalf confronted Elrond with their map. Solana was studying Sindarin at the time, so she missed the entire conversation.

According to Bofur, who had relayed the entire conversation to her after hearing about it from Gandalf, Elrond had discovered some moon-letters on the map; they were invisible runes, only visible when the moon shone behind them. There were even kinds that were only visible during specific times of the year, with specific kinds of moons, and those were on the parchment. Someone, a long time ago, had written them on the parchment on a midsummer's eve with a crescent moon, apparently.

The runes told them that the last light of Durin's day would shine upon the keyhole. Durin's day, Bofur explained upon further questioning, was the first day of the dwarves' New Year. The first day of the last moon of Autumn on the threshold of Winter, until when the last moon of Autumn and the sun are in the sky together. It was good that they found out when they did; if they hadn't, they would most likely have been forced to go through the main entrance of Erebor, and would just as likely get incinerated by Smaug before they could do more than blink.

Also, the swords that were brought with them from the Troll's lair – not including Gryffindor's sword, which was strapped on Solana's side at all times, and a large, elven dagger called Sting – were famous, ancient blades from the High Elves of the West, forged in a long-destroyed city called Gondolin to fight in the goblin-wars. One, Glamdring – Foe-Hammer – was once worn by the king of Gondolin, and the other, Orcrist – the goblin-cleaver – had slain multiple goblin kings. Elrond theorized that they were most likely pillaged from other plunderers, who had pillaged from other plunderers, and so on.

The next morning was a midsummer's morning as fair and fresh as could be; blue sky and never a cloud, and the sun dancing on the water. After a "Farewell," or, in Solana's case, "Novaer," they rode away amid songs of farewell and good speed, with their hearts and bellies ready for more adventure, and with a knowledge of the road they must follow over the Misty Mountains to the land beyond. And, somehow, Solana knew she would see the Last Homely House again, either in a coffin or with her fourteenth share of the gold from the Halls of Erebor.

Review Replies!

RealityInk: You are absolutely correct. What you're describing is how I wanted it to happen – possibly make two or three chapters that show the important events in between the Hobbit and the LotR – but only without a few of my ideas that I got after reading up on the elves' culture in the LotR wiki. I thank you for your idea anyways; had I not already thought upon the matter, I would certainly have found your review extremely helpful.

And I would like to correct you; Legolas was in the books. Both there, and in the film, did he join the fellowship.

HomeByTwilight: I can understand the part about men having a hard time writing female characters, being male myself. However, I find it quite easy to write them, as long as they are not the main character in a series. You forgot Bard's children, though – even though they don't have a large role, they are female. And I didn't know about Tauriel, but that makes her practically an OC, which is great, because that means I can build her character from the ground up.

Liedral: Exactly my point – and, FYI, it's the same with regular LotR fics! And it's even worse for me, because my mind registers any Fem!Bilbo called Bilbo as male, and they always pair them up with one of the dwarves! It's extremely irritating!

Siegfried01: I know, and those are the reasons I write this story the way it is – to balance out the slash, even though it is only a single story. Well, that, and femslash is appealing to every teenage male, and I myself am one.

SpikeySugarBomb: The wand is an essential part of this fic, so no, I'm afraid that the wand will stay. I did say, after all, that she kept it in its holster just in case something snapped it. Are you on crack, by the way? RainbowScaled!Smaug? Really?

And… I… Just – what. That was my exact plan with the souvenir. How? You ******* telepathic piece of ****** ******* **** cabbage-****** ******** mindless **** brown ******* ********* of ****.

6UnTalentedArtist9: Yes, I do. But why should that matter?

LordPeverell: …No I didn't. I checked with the book; it's exactly the same, save for the last verse, which I wrote myself.

OI: Thank you for pointing it out, but I'll refrain from editing it; just assume he was given it earlier, and that it goes back to Elrond somewhere during the coming chapters. That way he will receive it again in the first book.

To the rest of the reviewers, as always; Thank You!