The battle in Balin's tomb. I admit it, I'm intent on torturing Hermione.
- xHx
Gandalf led them further into the mines, following the scent of clearer air. Hermione could not help the sense of foreboding she had for the way they went. She walked side-by-side with Legolas; again, they spoke of tactics and methods for fighting the various beings Sauron and Saruman were sure to throw at them.
"With trolls," he muttered, "avoid the feet and arms; fire for the head and, if you can get to it with a knife, slice the throat. Might try to bite off your arms, but I've heard it can be done."
Hermione laughed. "I've met a troll before. I was eleven," she whispered. "Hitharn and Rothrandir had to save me from it. I was too shocked by it to do anything other than cringe and hide."
The pair shared a quiet laugh, looking around in wonder as Gandalf lit the place further. Dwarrowdelf, he said it was. The columns were an architect's dream to gaze upon, carved purely of stone and reaching what seemed to be a hundred feet above them.
Hermione glanced at Luna and Ginny. Luna wore her usual dreamy smile, and Ginny looked amazed. It was a beautiful place.
"I doubt we'll ever come here again," Luna said dreamily, "so take in all you can of the place." Every male in the company gave Luna an odd look; Gimli threw her a glare. Sam, however, was the only one in agreement with her.
As the company walked, Hermione's gaze turned from wondered and bright, to sharp, alert, and wary. She didn't focus on any of the details of the cavernous room; she now sought signs of danger.
She was second to notice the skeletal corpses, the open door. With a gasp, she realized that the worst was yet to come.
Gimli's shout got her moving again; she followed right behind him as he ran for the door.
The room was probably the most lit place in Moria. White light filtered through a square cutout in the wall, illuminating the carved lettering on the marble. Of course, she couldn't read it, even if she tried; these letters were nothing like the ones she knew.
As the rest of the company filled the room, she looked around. More bodies inside the tomb, for that was what it was. She could feel that. The white light somehow made it all the more somber for its brilliance.
Gandalf's voice was the background for her careful inspection of the pages covering the floor. Despite not being able to read the runes, she could see that they were records of some sort.
The bodies had spider's webs over them, for the most part. Hermione, in her quest for knowledge of this world, inspected one of them, the one who had held the large book Gandalf now read from.
A clattering interrupted her. She whirled around and upright, a hand on her wand, before she saw Pippin's expression. She relaxed, but Gandalf did not.
"Fool of a Took!" he said, slamming the book closed. "Throw yourself in next time, and rid us of your stupidity."
Hermione just shook her head. Pippin was far more curious than she was; it would only be natural for him to be a bit foolish.
And then the drums began.
They were soft, at first, barely audible. They echoed through the room, filling her head. Her hands pressed to her temples, trying to make it hurt less with each thudding of the drums.
Drums...blue-glowing blade...a shout...and monsters, she thought. This part of her dream was incredibly clear now.
"Mr. Frodo!" Sam said. This drew Hermione's attention. Frodo half-drew his blade; it did glow, a brilliant blue, much like that of a Patronus.
"Orcs," Legolas said. Hermione, reacting quickly, pulled her bow free and held it in front of her as Boromir dashed to the door.
Two arrows, barely missing, she thought just as she heard the whistle of the arrows and the thunk they made into the wood.
"Get back! Stay close to Gandalf!" Aragorn shouted. All four Hobbits clustered behind the grey-haired wizard. Luna and Ginny both drew their wands, twisting them a little, as Hermione and Legolas tossed axes from within the room to Boromir and Aragorn. They were trying to barracade the door, trying to give them time.
Something Boromir said finally reached her half-numb brain. A cave-troll. Without really wanting to, she thought back to the very troll she'd told Legolas of not fifteen minutes ago. But she could not focus on that; she had this battle to attend to.
The four backed away from the doors, taking places around the marble grave of Gimli's cousin Balin. Hermione, Legolas, and Aragorn drew their bows. Hermione shut down all emotion; she did not want to find herself repulsed by anything she did today.
Hermione stood between Aragorn and Legolas, just behind them. Breaking through the wooden door, she thought to herself. Blades broke through the wood in a couple of places. Legolas fired for one and struck; she could hear it screeching. She herself fired for the other and connected.
As the Orcs converged on them, Hermione clung to her bow with her left hand, with the other drawing one of her knives. She slashed and whirled and ducked and sliced, every once in a while bringing her foot up to kick an Orc in the face. It felt oddly good, fighting like this; she felt more alive than she ever had.
Coming to a momentary stop beside Sam after having sliced an Orc across the throat, she froze, her eyes drawn up.
As she watched, the thing's club came slamming through the top of the door. An Orc pulled it along by a large-link chain. It looked like a cross between a zombie and the troll she'd met in her first year of Hogwarts, except that it wore only a loincloth and its head was huge. Its grey skin looked tough.
Her ears told her of Legolas's arrow before she saw it embed itself in the creature's right shoulder. It roared and grabbed the shaft before lumbering toward her and Sam, swinging its club. She ducked beneath its club-arm, while Sam scrambled under its legs. They'd confused it!
Gimli's axe was the next thing to connect with its flesh, while Hermione grappled with an Orc only a few feet behind the troll, wand to blade. She had tried three spells already against it; they didn't seem to care. Without thinking, she jabbed the tip of her wand into its neck, intending to use a Stinging Jinx to get it away from her. Instead, it fell to the ground, a red starburst on its flesh marking where she'd struck. The Stinging Jinx was deadly against Orcs.
She ducked around a dozen more Orcs as something distracted her from the goal of destroying as many of these disgusting creatures as possible. The troll was focusing on Legolas now. She could not explain the incredible need to stop it from attacking him. She also knew it was illogical, and that Legolas could take care of the problem himself, but he had more than one enemy assailing him.
The troll was using the chain like a whip.
She vaulted herself onto the space Legolas stood, only to duck and avoid the troll's improvised whip. She struck two Orcs with her wand-tip and paralyzed another with a short incantation, while Legolas trapped the chain around a column, ran across its length, and fired an arrow into the back of its neck. An Orc attempting to take advantage of her temporarily distracted state was dispatched with a green-fletched arrow only a second after Legolas jumped free of the troll.
A loud -clang!- filled her ears. She knew what that had to be; Sam, hitting an Orc over the head with one of his pans. It sounded again, and again. She couldn't help but smile. And then a loud squelching noise could be heard. Luna had dropped a Dungbomb, and an Orc had stepped on it. For a moment, Hermione found herself paralyzed by the stink.
Shaking herself off, she ducked beneath an Orc's blade, elbowed it in the stomach, and struck its neck with her wand. She could not allow herself to be distracted from her fight any longer.
Finally, with no Orcs left to distract her, she aimed her wand at the troll. Ginny and Luna did the same, and, all sharing a short glance, they shouted in unison, "Incarcerous!" Large, thick ropes flew from their wands, wrapping around the troll. But they were ineffective; it ripped right through them.
The troll roared, reaching for Hermione with one hand as it pulled Merry off its back with the other. Just when I thought I was done being grabbed by weird creatures, another one picks me up, she thought. It gripped her by the arm, swinging her around. She was sure her shoulder would be dislocated by the time it let her loose.
Ginny and Luna both let loose a barrage of spells, but Hermione knew that they would be ineffective. This thing was impervious to them. Finally, she could only think of one thing, and she shouted it with her wand aimed at the troll's torso.
"Sectumsempra!"
Several deep gashes appeared in its flesh and it dropped her and Merry, but it still wouldn't go down. From where she lay, clutching her arm, she saw Legolas line up a shot and loose an arrow just as the thing roared. The sound turned to a piteous moaning. It grabbed its lip, stumbled for a moment, and crashed down, its head an inch from her.
Luna was the first to speak, helping Pippin up and dusting him off.
"I think that went rather well."
Ginny muttered something about Luna, helping Hermione to stand before whispering a soft incantation to repair her shoulder.
Hermione lifted her arm experimentally. No pain. She nodded.
Loud shrieks could be heard beyond the tomb.
Something else was coming.