Yeah, I know, it's been a while since I updated this story. BUT I HAVE AN EXCUSE. I'd almost finished this chapter and I was just getting ready to wrap it up… when my computer was stolen.

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AAAARRGGGGGGGH!

I moped around for about a week because, hey, my friggin' laptop had just been nicked, and this story wasn't the only thing I had saved on it. Thankfully, I was able to retrieve the previous chapters, 'cuz I'd posted them online (I love you internet), but I had to start this one again from scratch.

I haven't finished retyping the chapter (my studies keep getting in the way) but I since it's been ages since I updated this story, I thought I'd split it into two parts.

So here you go. Enjoy!

Azog's Interference

"Bilbo?" Gandalf strode forwards to the center of the clearing. "Where is our hobbit?"

Silence. One by one the dwarves rose to their feet, looking slightly dumbfounded as they realized the company was a member short.

"Where is our hobbit?" Gandalf asked again, worry lacing his tone.

When no one answered him a wave of nausea flooded through me.

I had every reason to panic. In a rapid chain of ill-fated events my budding sense of stability had suffered a series of crucial blows. My magic was proving to be volatile, responding to erratic emotions with unpredictable results. A fresh source of trouble had appeared in the form of Fili, who had witnessed firsthand the full extent of this power. Worse still, the dwarf prince had caught a glimpsed something in the dark underbelly of the mountain that no one should ever have seen – something malevolentthat had very nearly escaped my control.

But in that moment, none of those things mattered.

Because Bilbo – naïve, exasperating Bilbo – was missing.

Dwalin's gruff voice cut through the silence like a hot knife through butter. "Curse that Halfling!" he growled. "Now he's lost!"

His irritated comment put an end to the tension.

"I thought he was with Dori!" someone exclaimed.

"Don't blame me!" Dori's face was flushed from running and he was breathing heavily, yet he still managed to convey his indignation.

"Well, where did you last see him?" Gandalf urged.

The clogs were whirling in my brain, fractured images of our escape flashing before my eyes. Bilbo had been present when the goblins had dragged us to their king... hadn't he? What about during the fight? My stomach dropped at the thought of the tiny hobbit clutching his toothpick of a sword in the mist of all that bloodshed. What if he'd been injured? Or if a goblin had struck him down? What if – ?

"I think I saw him slip away when they first cornered us," Nori supplied, wrenching me away from my thoughts. The dwarf shrunk back as Gandalf spun to face him, looming over him threateningly.

"What happened exactly?" he barked. "Tell me!"

Nori blanched at the wizard's tone and was about to reply when a deep voice rang out across the clearing.

"I'll tell you what happened."

Thorin strode to the centre of our clustered group. I felt my heart sink as I recognized the cold look in his eyes – the same detached expression he'd worn in Rivendell when he'd informed me I was being left behind.

"Master Baggins saw his chance and he took it. He has thought of nothing but his soft bed and his warm hearth since he first stepped out his door." He rotated slowly on the spot, holding each of our gazes. "We will not be seeing our hobbit again," Thorin concluded harshly. "He is long gone."

No one spoke. Even Gandalf, who had always been Bilbo's most ardent defender, seemed lost for words.

Disgust rose up like bile in my throat.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

The words had jumped out of my mouth without warning and I instantly regretted them as fourteen pair of eyes swivelled in my direction.

Warning bells went off in my head. My immediate impulse was to back down. Stay out of this Cass. You're in enough trouble as it is without adding the hobbit to your list of concerns. But at that moment the memory of Bilbo's brass buttons came bubbling to the surface of my mind. Screw it, I thought. I locked gazes with the dwarf king and threw caution to the wind.

"So you're just going to leave him behind? How the hell do you expect him to find his way out of the caves by himself?"

Thorin's eyes flashed and he started to speak but I cut across him, too caught up in my rant to care. "And even if he does find his way, what next? Do you seriously expect him to figure his way back home in one piece?"

"Rivendell is but a day's walk from the mountains," Thorin snapped. "I am fairly confident Mister Baggins remembers the way –"

"Fairly confident?" My voice rose in pitch, anger hastening my pulse. A small part of my mind cringed in response, half-expecting another surge of homicidal rage to overthrow me, but I needn't have worried; the indignant fury coursing through my veins was entirely my own. "Merlin's beard, this is Bilbo we're talking about! He won't last five measly seconds on his own!"

Something stirred in my peripheral vision. "Uncle," Fili began to say, watching me closely as he strode to Thorin's side.

My attention wavered, anger rapidly giving way to alarm. Fili's eyes were unreadable as he positioned himself ever so slightly between Thorin and me, and with a jolt I realized my secret was mere seconds away from being revealed. My mouth went dry and I cast around frantically for something more to say – anything to distract Thorin from his nephew – but panic caused my mind to freeze.

And then a miracle occurred.

"Actually," piped a small voice from somewhere to my left, "I'm right here."

My eyes snapped to the side. Bilbo was standing at the edge of our band, covered from head to toe in grime but otherwise looking very much unharmed as he shifted awkwardly from foot to foot.

The company's response was instantaneous.

"Bilbo Baggins!" Gandalf exclaimed, "I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life!"

Kili pushed passed his brother in his haste to address the hobbit. "Bilbo!" he cried, "We'd given you up! How on earth did you get passed the goblins?"

Thorin watched, unmoving, as the dwarves all gathered closer to listen. Bilbo chuckled nervously, a little embarrassed to be the centre of attention.

My relief for the hobbit was overshadowed by apprehension as Fili hesitated, clearly thrown by this turn of events. He shot a wary glance in my direction and I held my breath, watching closely as the dwarf prince struggled to straighten his priorities. I could see the war raging behind his eyes, the dilemma he was forced to face. We could not afford to linger so close to the mountains after sunset, and the sky was getting darker by the minute. Alerting his uncle of what he'd seen in the caves would only cause an uproar and waste precious time in our escape.

"Well, what does it matter?" Gandalf said. "He's back!"

Fili's mouth formed a tight line as he caught me watching. I could feel the frustration pulsing from his every pore but he remained mercifully silent – for now.

"It matters," Thorin said, jolting me back to the present. "I want to know... why did you come back?"

Bilbo stared at him for a long moment. "Look, I know you doubt me," he finally said. "I know you always have. You're right, I often think of Bag End. I miss my books. And my armchair, and my garden. See, that's where I belong. That's home." He flushed slightly, glancing down at his feet before continuing, and I wondered how much of our argument the hobbit had overheard. "That's why I came back," he admitted. "Because...you don't have one. A home. It was taken from you. But I will help you take it back if I can."

Bilbo glanced past Thorin, scanning the clearing until his gaze found mine. I saw gratitude in his eyes and knew the hobbit had heard me object to Thorin's opinion on his disappearance. A tiny weight lifted from my chest. At long last, I had managed to even our score.

Then the horribly familiar howl of a warg split through the silence. Answering yowls echoed in the distance. I spun in direction of the slope. Dark forms were racing down the mountainside, coal black against the evening sky. Glowing green eyes shone bright and deadly through the gloom. The hunt had begun.

"Out of the frying pan..." Thorin growled, unsheathing his blade in one swift motion. The dwarves mirrored his gesture, edging away from the advancing warg pack. My stomach flipped and I tightened my grip on the goblin sword.

"... And into the fire," Gandalf finished. His sword was already in his hand as he turned to face us. "Run!" he cried.

We didn't get far. The slope grew narrower and narrower until finally it ended abruptly into the top edge of a cliff. A couple of hundred feet below us, the pine forest stretched on out of sight. The baying grew louder as we skidded to a halt at the edge of the steep drop. There was nowhere left to run. Nowhere left to hide.

"Up into the trees!" Gandalf shouted. "All of you!"

I lunged for the nearest low-hanging branch and heaved myself upwards. The rough bark scraped at my midsection, aggravating the bruise, but I forced myself to ignore the pain, biting down on my tongue until I tasted blood. Hot breath blew past my ankles. I pulled up just in time. Snap! The warg's powerful jaws clamped shut around the space where my legs had been only moments before. My breathing came out in ragged gasps as I peeked over my shoulder at the scene below.

Over a dozen wargs were prowling under the trees. They threw themselves against the thick trunks, swiping the air with their claws and howling their rage as the dwarves scrambled higher and higher out of reach. The branches creaked and groaned beneath me – something was clambering up into my tree. I almost dropped my sword in surprise when Bilbo hoisted himself into sight. His clothes were stained with fresh blood and his eyes were wide with shock.

"Higher," he gasped.

I nodded in wholehearted agreement and was about to take the hobbit's advice when the warg pack suddenly fell silent. Distracted, I glanced down.

A massive white warg had prowled into sight. Its smaller kin fell back, clearing the way for the monstrous creature. The warg paused atop of a jagged rock protruding from the earth, its muscles tensed as if to pounce. Clouds parted, moonlight steaming down from the sky, and I was able to get a clear sight of the figure astride the white warg's back. Pale as milk, the orc's skin was marred with crisscrossing scars. It leered and raised its right arm – a hideous prosthetic claw – and I suddenly realized who he was.

"Oh shit," I moaned, just as Bilbo whispered, "Azog the Defiler."

It seemed the Great Goblin's message had reached the Pale Orc after all.

Azog sniffed the air with deliberation and rasped a few curt words to his fellow warg-riders. I strained my ears but did not recognise the language he was using. It didn't matter – the speech was obviously not meant for me. Branches rustled in the tree closest to ours as Thorin pushed aside the thick foliage obscuring his view. The dwarf king looked as though he'd just seen a ghost, which, judging by his persistent belief that the Pale Orc had been slain in battle, was not very far off the mark.

"C'mon," I muttered, elbowing Bilbo in the ribs and gesturing to the much safer-looking branches overhead. "Keep going."

Barely had we resumed our climb when we were interrupted yet again by Azog's rasping voice, this time raised in command. I had just the time to latch myself to the thick trunk before the entire warg pack lunged into motion. They leaped at the trees, claws shredding the rough bark. The whole tree started shuddering violently as the wargs attacked again and again. Frustrated snarls resonated from below, mingling with the dwarves' shouts and the groaning sound of roots ripping free from the earth. A leather boot slammed down onto the branch above my head and I glanced up to see Dwalin hanging on for dear life.

"Confounded mutts!" he cursed. "The trees won't hold their weight much longer!"

I hugged the trunk with all my might and prayed he was wrong.

A creaking groan shuddered through the wood, followed by a load snap. Our tree began to tilt, slowly toppling towards the next tree. I saw Bofur scrambling out of the way as our two trunks collided. The resulting shock caused me to lose my hold and I dropped several feet before crashing onto a lower branch belonging to the second tree. The goblin sword fumbled from my grasp, slipping through my fingers. Someone gripped me beneath the armpits and pulled me to my feet.

"Get ready!" Bofur shouted over the sound of snapping branches.

"For what?" I shrieked.

With an almighty groan the second tree tilted in turn, unable to support the extra weight. Again we collided with another, this time concealing Thorin and Balin in its foliage.

"That!" Bofur answered, and sprang from our tree into the neighbouring one. I hastily followed his lead.

We repeated the operation five times, springing from tree to tree as fast as we could before they yielded to gravity and collided with the next. Something like a domino effect began to take place. Very soon only one tree remained standing – the one closest to the cliff's edge. Most of the company had caught on to Bofur's idea and were scattered along its branches, waving us over and shouting encouragements as our tree toppled nearer.

I watched the branches, measuring the distance, and flung myself towards the final tree, landing awkwardly next to Ori. At this point my hands felt raw from scraping the rough bark and my arms felt as though they were about to be ripped from their sockets. I closed my eyes, allowing myself a second of relief.

Crack.

I peeked down to see that the wargs had all gathered around our last refuge and were throwing themselves against the trunk. We teetered at the edge of the cliff, a pack of bloodthirsty hounds on one side and a thousand foot drop on the other – and no means to escape either.

Something whizzed past my eyes and landed in a shower of sparks at the foot of the tree. The wargs yowled and scattered as the dry grass caught fire.

"Catch!" Gandalf shouted from somewhere above. I watched in open-eyed amazement as the old man flung a flaming pinecone into Ori's lap.

Oin caught the pinecone out of reflex, yelped, and lobbed the burning cone at an approaching warg. It hit the creature square in the eye. The warg howled and scurried away with its tail between its legs. Another pinecone fell to the ground and I glanced up to see that several dwarves were launching them at our attackers. Gandalf lit one with the end of his staff and threw it over to Fili, who then held the flaming thing out to Kili, allowing his brother to light his own projectile. Soon the sky was alight with balls of flame. The wargs circled the ground below, snarling and snapping but unwilling to breach the barricade of rapidly-spreading fire.

Something itched in the back of my mind as I watched the wolf-like creatures running from the flames, a shiver of excitement coursing up my spine.

Then our tree snapped away at the roots and began lurching backwards into the abyss. I grabbed for the trunk as the dwarves' cheers morphed into cries of alarm. The tree slammed to a stop, hanging by its last roots onto the very edge of the cliff. My legs dangled dangerously over nothingness. All around I could hear shouting and groaning as the dwarves gripped onto whatever solid branch they could find to prevent them from toppling over the edge. Ori hung down from Dori's feet a short distance away. The tree cracked and Dori lost his grip, only just grabbing hold of Gandalf's extended staff in time.

I swung my right leg and tried to hoist myself onto the trunk, to no avail.

The tree creaked as weight shifted and the thud thud thudding of heavy boots reached my ears. A stout figure was marching with slow deliberation along the trunk of the downed tree. "Hey!" I shouted as he passed me by, but Thorin had eyes for no one save for the Pale Orc. Azog was just visible across the veil of smoke – there was nothing to prevent the dwarf king from claiming his revenge. Without sparing us a glance Thorin raised his sword and charged through the wall of flames and out of sight.

The tree cracked yet again, wrenching a cry from my lips as I felt my hold slacken.

"Cassie!"

I started at the sound of my name. Bilbo was hanging across from me, also clinging to the trunk as his legs dangled over the cliff. He stared wide-eyed at the space where Thorin had disappeared. "We have to help him," he breathed.

I burst of hysterical laughter shook me, causing my stomach to shake painfully against the hard wood. I could feel myself slipping despite my iron-grip on the bark. "Are you serious?" I spluttered. "We have to help ourselves."

Roots snapped. The tree wasn't going to hold much longer.

"Here!" Bilbo tightened his grasp around the trunk and flung out his arm. "Take my hand," he gasped.

I grit my teeth and tried to reach, but another tremor vibrated up the tree and I missed his outstretched hand by an inch. The fire had spread to the base of the tree. Smoke clouded my vision, filling my lungs. I was seized by a violent coughing fit.

From the cliff-edge came the sound of steel clashing with steel. Wargs howled their excitement. I felt dizzy.

"Cassie!" Bilbo's voice held a note of desperation.

I shook my head against the wooziness and tried again. This time, I was able to clasp my hand around the hobbit's sweaty palm.

"Good!" he encouraged. "Now don't let go!" With a few short tugs he pulled himself towards me and swung his legs over the thick branch, straddling it like a pony. "Hold onto me," he instructed.

Inch by inch we dragged my aching body away from the abyss. Bilbo assisted me as best he could, voicing encouragements and pulling my arm until, finally, we were both astride the trunk. My heart was beating so fast I thought it might burst from my chest. I savored a grand total of five second's respite before a blood-curdling cry echoed through the night.

Bilbo's eyes went wide. "Thorin!"

The wind shifted, clearing some of the heavy fog. From our position we could observe the scene quite clearly. Azog sat upon his white warg, clawed hand raised in victory. The dwarf king hung limply from the beast's maw. In one swift movement the warg tossed him aside like a rag doll.

Bilbo leapt to his feet, short sword pulsing blue in his hand.

I made a grab for his sleeve, "Wait!"

He didn't have to do this. He didn't have to die for Thorin Oakenshield. The dwarf king had been prepared to let Bilbo rot in the goblin caves, for Merlin's sake! We were nothing to him – just two misfits amongst his band of precious dwarves.

But too late – my fingers closed around air and I watched in silent dismay as the hobbit sprinted headlong to his doom.

Not a Gryffindor.

Not a hero.

Bilbo reached the end of the tree and leaped over the flames.

"Fuck," I growled, and tore off after him.

Rest assured, I haven't forgotten about this fic and I will get round to posting part two of the final chapter. Really sorry about the delay. Your reviews are, as always, very welcome.