A/N: Ok! I know a lot of you really loved the last chapter so here is the next one! Enjoy!

Okay, let me know what you think: Should Harry have had a lover before he came to Mordor?

Disclaimer: Nope! I own nothing.

~~Chapter Twenty Two~~ Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising …To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking

In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl. A great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair. In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.

Valo watched Aragorn saddle Brego with a heavy, fearful heart. His arm stung beneath the bandage still but he paid it no mind. He hesitantly approached the Ranger, secretly fearing another rejection. Legolas had rejected him after all. He simply couldn't understand why Aragorn did not. He looked up at his keeper with tired, desperate eyes.

"You are leaving." It wasn't a question.

Aragorn sighed as he turned to the teen calmly. His own eyes were filled with a regret that weighed heavily on him. Valo knew that he would not leave the men depending on him if he didn't have to.

"I am."

His small hands were shaking and even as Valo tried to stop them, they would not obey his command. The voice in his mind whispered a soft warning. He would likely die if something did not change.

"Take me with you." Even as the words escaped his lips, he could see Aragorn's answer in his eyes, "Please don't leave me alone…"

They did not notice the pair of eyes watching their conversation from a few short yards away.

"No, Valo. Not this time."

"Please-"

"No. You will stay here with the men." The Ranger said firmly.

His tone brooked no room for argument and his words were absolute. He did not understand. Aragorn could never understand the terror he felt at the prospect of being left here with their mistrustful King and the men whose dark whispers followed him like mist. He could feel that familiar dark presence approaching on the eve of battle. The Witch King's power called to him like a beacon in the dark even from this long distance. If he were left here alone, he feared he may never see their return.

"It's because I'm a monster, isn't it…Because I am this thing…This terrible thing." His whispered question brewed with fear of being left behind, his thoughts of Aragorn's true feelings for him and the anguish of his true purpose.

These emotions swirled in his like a storm, chipping away at him more and more each day. He wished Gandalf was here. The Istari would know how to advise him. Aragorn touched his cheek with a tenderness that brought tears to his eyes. Valo feared for a long moment that this would be the last time he would ever see this man that he had come to love as a friend and father figure. Aragorn had always stood by him even when all others turned their backs on him.

"You are not a monster or a thing, Valo. You are a kind, loving person that was forced under the rule of a monster. Never doubt that."

Despite his kind words, Aragorn left a fond kiss on his forehead and turned to go. Valo was being left behind and there was nothing he could do about it except go back to the tent and hope for the best.

~ o ~

Legolas could see the interaction between the two people he held in such fond esteem. Despite his distance and coldness towards Valo in the past few weeks, he had not failed to notice the youth's steady decline in health. Valo wasn't sleeping, he wasn't eating and often times, his emerald eyes seemed as if he were suffering a slow decline into madness. He had been told about the wounds the Dark Lord had inflicted on the teen through his own dreams. It was a cruel existence Valo was leading. Against every ounce of affection he had for the boy-wizard, Legolas often found himself wondering if it wouldn't be kinder to end his beloved's suffering himself. He had more than once found himself standing over Valo as he slept, his hand on his blade about to do the fell deed. He had always managed to fail his purpose though. He could never do it. Despite his repulsion to what Valo had been made into, he still loved him. Despite being the human half of the Dark Lord, Legolas still held him close to his heart. That was why he stayed away. He couldn't trust himself not to give into those precious eyes and fail to accomplish their goals. He would fall into those dear emerald depths and forget all else, sending the entire world into ruin and despair. He had to think of Valo as a monstrous entity, an extension of the Dark Lord himself, otherwise he feared falling into darkness all for the sake of love. That he could not allow. So even as he watched Valo slowly begin to waste, he stood firm and cold. He was a cold tower, a solid rock, and rocks did not love the enemy.

~ o ~

Valo knew that the men were marching to battle now. The sounds of horses neighing, swords being strapped on and the tromping of many hastened feet echoed around the encampment. War was upon them and Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas had yet to return. He sat on the back of a horse in the very back of the troop as he had been ordered. He had been assigned a keeper, one of the Rohirrim he thought, a large gruff muscled man who took no nonsense and had no desire to be assigned "wet-nurse of the abomination child" during the battle. As it were, Valo had been once again blind folded and his hands bound to the horn of the saddle in front of him. Obviously Theoden did not care much if he lived through this battle or not. It was just as well. If he were dead before the Witch King arrived to find him then, it would make no difference to him. He felt half dead already. His body was heavy with exhaustion and he could barely even lift his shaking limbs enough to be of any use at all. His head was bent over the neck of the horse, seeking some sort of relief for the sudden cold that was coursing through his body. The feel of darkness was a sickly sweet scent on the wind as the Dark Army approached.

The voice in his mind hissed in fury.

'Wretched human King. He will have you cleaved in two within minutes in this state! Does he intend to use you as a bartering chip while your human is away?'

It was a possibility that was not a stranger to Valo's thoughts. Would Theoden be so reckless as to try to haggle with the enemy in exchange for him? He would only meet his end that way. The Witch King of Angmar did not suffer fools to live, especially fools of Men. Valo only wished he had told Aragorn how much he appreciated his affection and faith in him before he'd left. If that was the last he would ever see of him, he only regretted not telling the Ranger how grateful he was to him for treating him like a person and not just like one of the enemy. He could hear Theoden's call and a horn blow loud and clear through the air.

"Make haste. We ride through the night!"

The ride was not a terribly long on but Valo shook through the chill of the night with only the hard uncaring man behind him to warm his pale, shaking flesh. It reminded him much of his Master. He was cold and cruel even when they lay together, entwined in the large bed chamber in Barad-dur. When he was whispering to him what a treasure he was, how precious his life was to him and that's why he had to Sleep. When he hurt and bled him for his own amusement. It brought to mind many voice and half-memories that he seemed to be engulfed by the swell.

"You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no...anything. There's no chance at all of recovery. You'll just exist. As an empty shell."

"The dementors affect you worse than the others because there are horrors in your past that others don't have."

"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."

"You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself plainly when you have need of him."

It was the first time a name had ever been mentioned in all of his visions. Harry. Who was Harry? It seemed such an odd name after all. Who would want to be named for being hairy? Had it possibly been…his name?

"Hello, Harry Potter, my name is Tom Riddle."

Harry Potter. Harry Potter. Harry Potter. Was that who he had been in that Other Place? Had he not been created after all but born into another name, another place altogether? Had he had parents after all?

The sound of the cries of battle shook him from his daze. All around him, the Rohirrim were lined up, the King riding in front of him, marshalling his forces for the War of the Age to begin.

"Ride now, ride now! Ride! Ride for ruin and the world's ending! DEATH!" Theoden cried, riding out before his men.

The soldiers all echoed his cry and for a moment, Valo thought he had heard Merry's voice lost amongst the crowd.

"Forth Eorlingas!"

The horns sound in the day and the army as a whole slowly begins to march forward, urging their steeds on towards the army of orcs growling and roaring ahead. The sound of many hooves hammering the earth was a din unlike any he had ever heard. When the two army's collided, though he could not see it, Valo felt the force of it quake his very bones in his flesh. The man who he rode with must have been a great warrior for he slaughtered orcs left and right. Valo could hear their dying shrieks as they fell under his blade. His blindfold was suddenly torn away and he faced the now snarling man.

"I want you to watch this! We will kill every one of your orc brethren and then you will be next!"

Well that was nice. He got stuck with the homicidal rider. At this rate though, he imagined there weren't many of the Riders who weren't aiming to have him meet some tragic "accidental" death before Aragorn could return from the Dimholt. Perhaps he would get his death wish after all. Valo took in his surroundings with a weary eye. Colossal Haradrim Mûmakil stormed their way into the fray, swinging their enormous, spike lined tusks as they marched into the line of soldiers. He watched a whole man and horse crushed in a single step from one of the giant beasts with a wince. Well at least it was quick. That was the way he would wish to go as well. Maybe his new keeper would just toss him beneath one of the things and make it easy for him. The King's nephew, Eomer, stared down one of the Haradrim boldly. He raised his spear and with deadly accuracy, launched it at the rider. The Haradrim went down within seconds, his death grip on the controls steering the Mûmakil he rode into the one next to it, felling both great beasts in one blow.

"Rally to me! To me!" The King cried from a ways to their left.

A familiar shriek was heard and Valo's back bowed in sudden pain and ecstasy. He was here…The Nazgul flew above on the backs of Fell Beasts. One in particular circled the battle. Valo could feel him sniffing him out. The Witch King took note of the King below and looked as if he would ride down to meet him. Valo released a cry at last, making the Witch King halt in mid-air. Instead of meeting Theoden himself, he sent another Nazgul in his place. He knew that Valo was here. Damn. His Rider had apparently had enough. At the sight of the Nazgul, the man cut his bindings and tugged him off of his steed immediately.

"Go now! Join those monsters or run, whatever you wish, but I will not carry your burden any longer!" With that the man rode away, leaving Valo standing in the middle of the battle alone.

He couldn't say he was surprised at any rate but no matter. It was perhaps better this way. A distant cry of horror was heard and just as he turned to discover it's cause, a wave of glowing green soldiers spilled from the Corsair ships along the river. They were headed by none other than the three men he had been waiting for. A wash of relief flooded over him, so complete that it shook his entire frame. Maybe he would make it after all. Maybe he would live. Legolas and Gimli were counting their kills as usual, each aiming for the highest number. They were all three cutting their way through the orcs, slowly making their way towards Valo's unprotected spot in the field. It was Legolas who saw him first. He had just finished off an orc and had caught his eyes for just a moment. Legolas frowned at the sight of him just standing in the middle of the battle, unarmed yet unharmed and alone.

"Valo?" The sound of his name through those blissful lips sent a small miniscule thrill of joy through his weal body.

It didn't last long though. Legolas's eyes filled with a sudden terror that grounded Valo in place. Even as the elf began to run towards him, using every ounce of his elvish reflexes to reach him, Valo could hear the sound of enormous wings behind him.

"Legolas?" He whispered in fear, knowing that the elf would hear his words no matter how quietly they were spoken.

Legolas never reached him in time. Valo felt himself snatched up into the air before the elf could get close, the shriek of the Witch King's triumph sounding throughout the battle field. Below he could glimpse the King's slow death and the spill of the Dead Army over one of the great Mûmakil. Valo never knew despair and terror as he did in that moment.

"Legolas!" He shrieked as if the Elf could someone protect him from the grip of the Witch King.

His cry only served to draw the attention of Aragorn, Gimli and far off, Gandalf as he was carried away from the battle and into the sky. Even as his terrified tears spilled down his cheeks, he could feel the Witch King's spell fall over him and a heavy sleep overcame his senses. Valo fell into the cursed Sleep even as his comrades yelled unheard for him from below and Theoden took his last breath on the ground.

R&R!