A/N: And now for a sort of action chapter! And I was happily shocked by the unprecedented number of reviews and their speed for the last chapter, thanks! All of you! Oh, and due to Harry's spells, the fire incident may or may not happen. Just with a different spin on it.
This is where the tale makes its first serious divergence from canon. Enjoy!
The Fellowship trekked further across the snow, never ceasing, never flagging, with no change. Until, that is, Frodo tripped and fell face first into the snow. Aragorn quickly grabbed him and set him up right again, brushing snow off of him and checking if he was all right, while Frodo checked for the Ring in a panic. It wasn't there. It was easily spotted lying not 10 feet away in the snow, when Boromir picked it up and stared at it. Harry and Gandalf had turned round at all the commotion having been walking at the front of the group, conversing in low voices, and Harry now slowly and quietly walked up behind Boromir.
"Boromir!" Aragorn barked as Boromir continued to stare at the Ring.
"It is a strange fate that we should suffer such fear and doubt over such a small thing." Boromir whispered, with both awe and hatred in his voice as he stared at the Ring on it's chain.
"Such a little thing…" He repeated softly.
"Boromir!" Aragorn barked again, more forcefully this time. Harry noticed with unease that his hand was on his sword, and Boromir appeared to snap out of the Ring's hypnotic charm at the sound of his voice. "Give Frodo the Ring." Aragorn said calmly.
"As you wish," Boromir said, with a falsely jocular smile and a falsely jocular tone, as Frodo snatched the Ring and replaced around his neck. "I care not." Then he jumped slightly as Harry laid a hand on his shoulder and drew him away. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Aragorn slowly release his grip on the hilt of his sword.
Despite Harry's magic, the cold was ever a malevolent presence as the wind began to pick up, and Legolas paused and listened. A deep and melodious voice chanting was being carried on the wind.
"There is a fell voice on the air!" he said, worried.
"Saruman!" Gandalf bellowed and Harry hissed, both starting up chants and spells of their own, while Aragorn cried "He's trying to bring down the mountain!", and he, Gimli and Boromir backed themselves and the Hobbits up against the mountain wall. For a few moments it seemed as if the combined magic's of Harry and Gandalf would triumph, as the voice seemed to recede, then it came back stronger. Then, Harry yelled, clutching his head, and retained only enough composure to fire off another spell with a roar of, "Finite Incantatem!"
There was a massive bang as the spells collided, causing snow to collapse on the Fellowship in a small avalanche.
"Caradhras is too dangerous Gandalf. The little ones are freezing." Boromir stated flatly. "We should take the Gap of Rohan! We would be well treated once we reached Edoras and the terrain is flat. I, Harry and you are all well-known there! We can expect good treatment and time to recover and plan our next move."
"As tempting as it sounds Boromir, Saruman has it under close watch. Remember the Crebain." Harry replied dully. He was in shock. He hadn't thought that the confrontation with Saruman would be easy, but to be so overpowered, with Gandalf by his side, was shocking.
"Then there is Moria! My cousin Balin rules there will give us a royal welcome!" Gimli interjected.
"I have been through Moria once. I have no wish to do so again." Aragorn said quietly.
"That was before my cousin ruled there!" Gimli replied hotly. Before an argument developed, Gandalf spoke.
"Let the Ringbearer decide." He said, looking troubled. Harry wondered what there could possibly be that was worse than a corrupted wizard in Moria. He had heard rumours of the place, but surely, with a whole dwarf nation by their side, nothing could compare to the risk of being caught by Saruman, especially after fighting him in a contest of arcane power and losing.
After some deliberation, during which Gandalf could almost see the young Hobbits' thoughts, he said, "Let us go through Moria." He sighed inwardly. He understood the appeal from Frodo's point of view. Warmth, food, drink and a warm welcome by Gimli's people against the cold and terror of Caradhras, or the exposure of the Gap of Rohan under the eye of Saruman, when even the seemingly invincible Harry and the famous Gandalf the Grey had failed to best him.
It seemed obvious. Until, that is, you factored in Durin's Bane. He would have to tell Harry. He cast a glance at the young wizard, who was looking at his hands as if he didn't know what they were. Then he thought of something. "Harry!"
"Yes Gandalf?" Harry replied dully.
"You can transport yourself across vast spaces in the blink of an eye, can you not?" Gandalf inquired, a spark of hope kindling in his chest.
"Like he did with Frodo when he was poisoned?" Pippin asked curiously, the rest of the Fellowship slowly catching on to what he meant.
"Could I apparate with the Fellowship you mean?" Harry asked rhetorically. "Not all at once, but maybe one at a time. However I have never tried over so great a distance." He thought for a moment, then nodded decisively. With a whirl of his cloak as he turned on his heel and a loud crack, he disappeared. The Fellowship waited with bated breath.
A couple of moments later, Harry reappeared swaying, a massive wound in his chest. A wound in the shape of a great hand.
"I…guess that means…no." He croaked, then staggered and collapsed, unconscious before he hit the ground.
"Aragorn, Boromir, quickly!" Gandalf said, moving with a speed that belied his appearance and gently lifted Harry with assistance from Boromir, and carried him to a small overhang.
"Gimli and Legolas, find a way to light a fire and do it fast. I do not know what else Saruman did to him, but even if it is only the wound itself, he will still need to be warm." The elf and dwarf looked at each other in distaste, and then, to Gandalf's mild amusement, gave him identical looks that said clearer than words, "you expect me to work with him?"
However there was no time for levity. "Move!" he bellowed, and after a fraction of a second they did. He turned back to Harry. "I am so sorry my young friend." He murmured, then looked up at Aragorn. "How is he?"
The ranger sighed. "He has lost a lot of blood and is in shock. Both from the wound and at the fact he has been confounded twice, and so easily. Meaning no offence, Gandalf." He hastily added, glancing up from tearing up strips of cloth which Boromir was laying carefully on Harry's wound.
Gandalf smiled grimly. "None taken old friend. Saruman was always stronger than I. Now he is more so. I had not thought he would be this strong though." He muttered as he turned to see how the Legolas and Gimli brains trust was doing in the fire lighting. About as well as you would expect from two beings whose fathers openly disliked and distrusted one another and that was before you took into account the ages old enmity between the two peoples. He sighed as both looked up at him from a pile of kindling that was the closest they had got to a fire.
"While we dwarfs are far superior in the making of fires Gandalf," here Gimli paused as Legolas waited serenely for his chance to speak. Robbed of his amusement, Gimli ploughed on. "Even we cannot make this pile o' damp twigs burn, much less the blonde elven princeling over here."
"I say and with all due respect to the dwarf, that the elves are far better at such fire making, but I must agree with him when I say that even I cannot make it burn." Legolas and Gimli stared at Gandalf, and he did not need his millennia of wisdom to work out what they were thinking.
"Oh no, Thranduilion and son of Gloin, I will not be coerced into this." He said firmly.
"Why? Saruman already knows we are here." Legolas replied, nodding in the direction of Harry's battered body.
"Aye, and the laddy will die if he isn't warmed up." Gimli agreed.
Gandalf sighed. At least they were working with one another, rather than bickering. He motioned them to move away, and muttered something in Valarin. A tongue of flame leapt from the end of his staff to the desultory pile of kindling and wood, causing it to burn merrily. Immediately the two failed fire starters clustered around it, admonishing one another about getting too close and smothering it.
About 5 minutes later, Sam's small cauldron was bubbling with hot water, and new bandages were being applied to Harry's chest, while he was being kept wrapped up in various furs. The hobbits were most anxious about his welfare, Pippin being of the view that because he had been involved in suggesting that Harry apparate the Fellowship to Rohan, it was at least partially his fault.
"Is he going ta die?" He whispered to Aragorn.
"No, little one, he will be fine soon enough." Aragorn said reassuringly, wishing he could be confident of that. As soon as Pippin seemed somewhat calmed down, Aragorn nodded to Boromir and stood up, walking to where Gandalf was standing, cloak wrapped around his shoulders, staring grimly into the snowy skies.
"Gandalf, we must move him down to Moria, if that is where we are going to go. He has not woken up yet, and I cannot guarantee that he will survive if we stay here. We can build a small litter and carry him down, until he is capable of walking at least." Aragorn said urgently, keeping his voice down. Gandalf nodded slowly.
Suddenly he sounded very old. "Tell the rest that we move in an hour. We will take the path through the long dark of Moria."
Eomer walked through the doors to the Golden Hall of Meduseld. No longer was it remotely golden, he thought sadly, or even particularly warm. It was a place of cold, dust and shadows, with shifty men on the edge of sight. His beloved uncle ensconced was on the throne, swathed in dirty furs, seemingly senile and barely capable of speech let alone movement, with that greasy snake Grima Wormtongue sitting beside him and ever dripping poison into his ears.
His ponderings where interrupted by a loud and familiar crack, and then an unpleasant sounding noise of the kind that Eomer associated with a blade chopping into flesh. At the same time, a familiar black haired and robed figure appeared, then promptly collapsed on the floor, then struggled to his feet and disappeared with another crack. As he turned and disappeared, he recognised the surprised and agonised green eyes of his friend, the Wizard in The Shadows, Harry Potter.
He strode across to where his friend had so recently fallen. A large pool of blood was on the floor, in the rough shape of a hand, outlined in a hand shaped piece of black cloth. He glanced up, and saw Wormtongue with a vindictive smile playing on his lips. He clenched his fist. Saruman and his lapdog would pay, he swore that on the blood of his ancestors. With Theodred and Eowyn by his side, he had faith that the King would be able to see reason.
As he stood, he saw his sister by one of the entrances to the hall. She had gone very pale, and he just shook his head briefly, as if to say, 'not now'.
"Did you seek an audience with the King?" Wormtongue asked in his oiliest tone of voice, the triumphantly evil smirk still in place.
Eomer simply stared at him, with all the anger he felt coalescing in his hawkish features. He waited for a moment, letting Wormtongue truly appreciate his expression, and then said flatly. "No. The matter can wait."
He bowed briefly to his Uncle, and with a quiet, 'My lord', followed his sister down the corridor. He had some thinking to do, rendered all the more urgent with Saruman's apparent increase in strength, as he sought out his cousin Theodred's chambers. Theodred had been reluctant to move against his father's chief advisor. Maybe this would convince him to act against the snake at the heart of Rohan.
Eomer will be turning up a bit more, don't you worry. And don't forget to click the little button just down there…