A/N: I own nothing save the plot, that which isn't taken from LoTR.
On the homophobic reviews (a notable minority). I don't like the content of them much. I only stated it was none slash to avoid people asking me if Harry was going to be shipped with Aragorn/Legolas/Boromir, though I think that it was quite clear by now that Harry is still very much in love with Ginny. I like reviews, each and every one of them, but please, keep the homophobic prejudice out of it.
RE: netscape: The reason Harry volunteers so much information is, one, Boromir is human, two, Boromir reminds him a bit of Ron (Large, strong, occasionally tactless, and like Ron, not completely resilient to the blandishments of an object housing a Dark Lord's shattered soul) and sometimes even mystery wizards need someone to talk to. However I will admit it was a tad OOC.
Also, Harry mentions the resurrection stone showing Sirius. However in my interpretation, it is just a copy of his personality, and only thinks of falling through the Veil as death because it cannot remember anything further.
As they trekked southwards, keeping the Misty Mountains to their left, heading south towards the Gap of Rohan, Harry felt uneasy. Like he was being watched and assessed. Not by something far away, but something uncomfortably close to him. Harry. He jerked and then, spotting the source of the psychic whisper. Of course, he thought, as followed the feeling and ended up looking at where he knew Frodo was keeping the ring.
Sod. Off. He replied firmly in the confines of his head.
You could have great power…Even the power to return to your homeland, far from affairs and wars not your own, to make those you have loved and lost breathe once more. How long has it been since you saw them, 4 years? All you need to do is take me, and I will grant you that power, to do all that and much more.
Before he had a chance to tell it where to get off, it showed him a vision of himself, clad in pure white robes, stepping through what he recognised to be a portal to his world, the distinctive green flames of a floo trip edging it, not needing pitiful things such as fireplaces, even ones with properties such as the one in the Headmasters office, emanating raw power, and in his wake, the dead came to life with a gasp, wounds healing, having the power to do anything, be anything, live and love Ginny forever, destroy any remaining Death Eaters, all cowering before his might…
Harry shook his head stubbornly, trying to shake off the seductive mind voice of the Ring. Now I know how Boromir feels, Harry thought grimly. Those visions were not him. Never.
The dead stay dead. Even you could not grant me that power and…I would not, no I could not, accept it, Harry thought stubbornly at the Ring.
The Ring changed tack, Take me, and you can relieve the hobbit of his burden, your friend the Steward's son of his temptation. Take me and you will be able to take me to your world, heal only those who would not have otherwise died in the war, those who died for you, even making it so that they had never died, far away… Suddenly another image formed in his mind, a room in the Burrow, Ginny holding a black haired sleeping baby boy while he stood beside her looking proud, with Sirius, Lupin and Tonks watching and smiling, Lupin holding a squirming toddler who Harry presumed was Teddy in his arms. And it could all be his, Middle Earth would have its peace…
"I could make it right." He muttered aloud, still stuck in the reverie. Yes. All this I could give to you. Now take me!
"Harry!" He blinked and looked up to the sight of a worried Aragorn shaking him. Of course, he thought bitterly, even if the Ring was far away, it would not be enough. Elrond himself had said that.
"The Ring…It was tempting me." Harry said in slightly broken tone of voice, in response to Aragorn's unasked question.
"What with? OW!" Pippin asked, immediately being whacked around the back of the head by Merry.
"If he wants to say he'll say! Don't pry Pip!"
"A future I could never have. Half the people in it are dead, and I can't reach the other half." He said hollowly and trudged on ahead.
"Now look what you've done!" Merry hissed at Pippin, who looked thoroughly guilty. He hadn't meant to hurt Harry, he'd just been curious.
Boromir drew level with Aragorn and Gandalf, while Harry strode on ahead, Legolas and Gimli were guarding the rear, and very emphatically not talking to each other. Gandalf suspected that that would change as Gimli would likely want to know what was being talked about, having bonded with Harry over beer in Rivendell. Gandalf also wondered whether Legolas would tell him, and be slightly smug about his superior senses, or be mysterious and not say anything.
"What did the Ring show Harry?" Boromir asked quietly after a moments silence.
"Harry left a lot of people he cared about behind when he came to Middle Earth, and he didn't intend to come for long, so he has spent much of his time since he arrived trying to return." Gandalf stated, watching the darkly dressed figure up ahead.
"As he told you, he had just fought a war Boromir, and he lost a lot of people. The Ring probably showed him them, claiming it could resurrect the dead and return him home." Aragorn added, then by way of explanation in response to Boromir's look of surprise, added, "I saw you two talking in Rivendell. He likes you, and for all his power and bravery, he is still young and in pain."
The implication being, 'treat him like you would a traumatised young soldier', thought Boromir. He looked at the thin black figure up ahead, and thought that would be easier said than done.
Pippin was thoroughly miserable. He had discovered that adventures, great stories as they made for impressing fine hobbit lasses, were little fun to experience. Especially when they were experienced barefoot in the snowy mountain passes. He was cold, wet, tired and hungry. However, Pippin was a particularly stubborn Hobbit, and the youngest of the Fellowship having decided Harry didn't count, despite being several years younger than him. The big folk aged faster, and Harry was a powerful wizard and a war veteran to boot, not a naïve and foolish hobbit like him, he reasoned. He was not going to give in.
At that moment, Harry stopped and shouted, "Merlin! How could I have-" Then busied himself by drawing his wand and tapping each member of the Fellowships packs twice, muttering under his breath several choice imprecations aimed at himself. When he tapped Pippin's pack, the weight practically disappeared. Once all the packs were dealt with, he paused for a moment, then muttered, casting another couple of spells at the Hobbits, making them feel warm all of a sudden.
"Featherweight and warming charms." He said by way of explanation. "They should last for a while yet."
Boromir, seeing the Hobbits look at Harry in wonder and stop shivering, complained jokingly, "Why can't I have one of those?"
Harry grinned at him and replied, "Surely the brave and mighty Captain-General of Gondor doesn't need to worry about the ordinary problems that afflict us mere mortals, such as getting cold?"
Playing along with a falsely indignant snort, which drew amused looks from the rest of the Fellowship who had decided to indulge in free entertainment, Boromir said, "Not all of us are powerful wizards who are far too aloof to deign to share their secrets with us mere mortals."
"It was much colder when I was patrolling with Eomer and Theodred in Rohan, and they didn't complain once." He said with a smile, then suddenly he clapped his hand to his heart in mock horror. "Surely you haven't gone soft on us Boromir?" Harry said.
"Not all of us are ridiculously stubborn Rohirrim either." Was the equable reply.
"No, I will allow that…" Harry said with a dramatic pause, "You're a soft Gondorian instead."
Without warning, Boromir leaned down, grabbed some snow and hurled it, all in one smooth movement, displaying years of warrior training in one childish moment by hitting Harry square in the face.
"And you're a slow wizard." Boromir pronounced with satisfaction. This earned him a small snowdrift to the face. As Boromir toppled over, he not-so-randomly hurled the next snowball he had made into Aragorn's midriff. Aragorn let out his breath in a surprised "Ooph!", stumbling backwards then instinctively returning fire. Wayward snowballs caused teams to form, Boromir, Gimli and the hobbits versus Aragorn, Legolas and Harry, Gandalf laughing as he watched.
After a while, when it became clear that having a wizard taking part seriously unbalanced the teams, and since Gandalf did not intend to balance things out, the Hobbits shared a look and let out a war cry, "For the Shire!" and tackled Harry as one, realising that they were unable to match his rate of fire from levitated snowballs.
And as the company laughed, Gandalf realised that was the first time he had ever seen Harry actually laugh, and one of the few times he had seen him smile. It seemed that the shadow cast over him by the Ring had been at least temporarily broken. Still, Gandalf was worried. He knew he would have been too strong if he had accepted the Ring, but he shuddered to think of the power Harry might wield if he took up the Ring. Maybe Harry's friendship with Boromir would help, he thought. Hopefully. The alternative did not bear thinking about.
As they climbed up the mountains towards the Redhorn pass of Caradhras, Harry noted that both Aragorn and Legolas kept a more careful eye on their surroundings. Worried, Harry asked Gandalf why they were so edgy.
"It was around here that Celebrian, wife of Lord Elrond, mother of the Lady Arwen and Lords Elladan and Elrohir was captured by an Orc raiding party. She was tortured for many months, and it broke her mind. It was beyond even Elrond's skill to completely heal, so she was sent to the Undying Lands to be healed, and to wait for her family." Here Gandalf paused for breath briefly.
"This caused both Elladan and Elrohir to have an undying hatred for Orcs, even by elven standards, and Elrond to be much more protective of Arwen. It was over 500 years ago, but it is possible the faintest echoes of her fear and torment remain to be felt by Legolas. And Aragorn would have heard the tale growing up in Rivendell. Also, the mountain of Caradhras which we are climbing seems to have a fell and fearsome nature of its own." Gandalf finished grimly.
"Then why not take the route through Moria? I know that it would impossible to move secretly through the Gap of Rohan. For one thing," Here Harry chuckled, "I doubt the entire Fellowship would fit under my invisibility cloak. It had enough difficulty covering I and my two friends."
Gandalf, who had sat down, as the Fellowship were setting up a brief camp for lunch, and had retrieved his pipe, stopped and looked very carefully at Harry. Harry caught the look, and understanding it, said reassuringly, "It is not like the Ring, Gandalf. It does not reveal one's presence to Ringwraiths for one, and it does not think for itself, despite children's stories about its previous owner being Death himself. It is a family heirloom that Dumbledore kept for me until my first year of schooling at Hogwarts." Harry briefly looked troubled.
"Maybe it could have saved them, though I think it's unlikely. By the time my father knew he was there, all he could do was tell my mother to save me and try to hold off Voldemort without his wand."
"A brave man." Gandalf said quietly. From what hints Harry had let slip during his time in Middle Earth, he knew Voldemort to have been a skilled and terrible foe, one even he, one of the greater Maiar and a contemporary of Eonwe, herald and General of the Valar, would not have chosen to face in his mortal form. In his Maia form, that was a different matter, however his Maia form would not be one he could assume until he returned to Valinor, which was unlikely to happen any time soon. Besides, he had grown attached to both his mortal form and Arda Marred, for all their flaws and problems, which added a certain lustre to their glories. Unaware of Gandalf's internal monologue, Harry continued.
"I'm always told I look exactly like him, right down to the messy hair, but that I have my mother's eyes. I spoke to them twice, after they died, once a sort of imprint of their consciousness, like a ghost except temporary and sort of solid as a side effect of a duel I had with Voldemort when I was 14."
When he heard this, Gandalf nearly swallowed his pipe. 'While it was not unheard of that men learned how to fight young, even a pitched battle was not on the scale of a full on magical duel!' He thought, as Harry smacked him a couple of times on the back in sympathy. When Gandalf retrieved his pipe, and Harry cast one more look at him to see if he was listening, he continued.
"The second time, I got hold of something called the resurrection stone. It was part of trio of magical objects, the stone, my cloak and a wand renowned for being the strongest in existence, the Elder Wand. Holding all 3 objects was meant to make you Master of Death. My friend Hermione told me that the wand was the best known and most sought after, leaving a trail of death and destruction behind it, being called the Wand of Destiny, the Death stick. Unlike your Staff," here Harry gestured at Gandalf's gnarly wooden staff.
"Wands can change hands through defeat in a duel. Voldemort used the wand for a while, taking off the body of my mentor Dumbledore, who looked more than a bit like you, actually. Dumbledore had won it in a duel with another dark lord, Grindelwald, and so on. Anyway, the stone showed me my parents, my Godfather, my guardian and their best friend," Harry added in response to Gandalf's mildly confused frown, "He was my former teacher and another of my parent's friends. He and his wife died fighting in the battle, but not before he had me his new-born son's godfather." Harry looked a little morose at this point. "I shirked my responsibilities in that area. He'll be about 4 now, and I think his grandmother is looking after him, so he should be well. And he wasn't the only one I left behind." He stood up, and walked away, the snow crunching under his feet. Only Gandalf and Legolas heard what he said next, before it was whipped away by the wind. "Oh, Ginny."
Yep, you can expect Harry to do a fair bit of angsting every now and then. Thank you to all my lovely reviewers, and all I ask is you keep reviewing. Click the little button down there, you know you want to…