SF552014: Hello and welcome to another chapter of Dark Time, Bright Hope but there are a few things that need to be cleared up before I continue with the story.

1st In the first chapter I made a mistake with how old Harry was supposed to look. To the hobbits he was supposed to look 18 not 16. I apologize for that confusion.

2nd I would like everyone to know that I have not taken any powers that Harry uses from some other source except my own mind and the Harry Potter books.

3rd This story is slash-able, that means people that Harry will fall in love with Legolas and vice versa though I might wait to develop it fully in the next story book 2. There is also Out of character-ness as well. Also AU since Harry is 18 and Old Tom is still around. This story is not HBP or HD compliant.

It has also come to my attention via review that I have made Harry "Gary Stu" I have absolutely no idea what that means so I would like people who know what this means to review on the issue please. And according to the same person that posted that review has told me that they have a problem with the way I have made Harry in my story.

I, personally, enjoy Harry knowing what he wants and going after it. I like him to be powerful and have a special kind of power. That is how my Harry in this story is. He is powerful, and has a special power that allows him to (for example) walk on snow, and strives less to be normal by other people's standards. He feels that as long as he's happy what does it matter if he's normal or not?

Most of his original traits are still present however. But if my current Harry is that much of a problem for more than half of my readers then I will tweak him and the chapters I have already written to make him more like the Harry in the books. I will not change his height however. That is not an option.

Also to the person that posted the review I apologize if I came across as being negative in my reply to your review and yes I take constructive criticism. But you were telling me to change my character just because (in my opinion) he is out of character and instead of being more of someone he isn't by trying to fit in, he should be himself himself (the 2 himself's are there purposely) by not trying to fit in.

Also I don't remember mentioning anything about "Imladris" or a castle in it. And not to be rude or anything but if you don't like to read my story then don't read it. I'm not forcing you too. It would be nice if alot of people read my story and loved it but if you don't like my story don't read it. That simple. Instead of complaining that Harry isn't to your liking to me don't read the story and find a different one were he is the way you like him.

To all my other reviewers and readers I am sorry it took me so long to update but I was in an accident recently which rendered one of my hands basically useless so I took some time off, I can now type with my hand though it still causes pain but thanks to pain killers I am able to post this chapter. yay pills! And doctors!

Now! Please enjoy the fourth chapter of –

Dark Time, Bright Hope

Book 1

Chapter 4: Laughter, Losses, Blame

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The Fellowship had been sitting in the same spot for over and hour waiting for Gandalf to remember which way to go. Everyone looked bored and slightly antsy so Harry came up with a brilliant way to distract the group from the seemingly moving shadows. The young red haired streaked wizard placed his right hand behind his back and gathered a small amount of his magic into his hand. He willed it to take the form of a mini unicorn and then silently asked it to trot over to the hobbits. The small silver colored magic made unicorn happily made its way over to the three big footed hobbits while Harry created another animal. This time he created a bird, and asked it to fly above Boromir and Aragon.

When the others noticed the small silver creatures they immediately became fascinated. Harry created more and more animals, beavers, dear, tigers, bears and even some monkeys, until everyone had some type of animal trying to get into their hair or climb on their legs and arms.

Gandalf seemed particularly happy with the animals and his eyes twinkled in a way that reminded Harry so much of Dumbledore. The old wizard must be so worried about where he'd disappeared to, but he could do nothing about it for the moment. Right now his first priority was to help these guys and find Voldemort who was probably making connections with the evil here. So if he stayed with this group he was bound to find the snake like man.

Harry pulled himself from his thoughts and turned his attention back to those around him. Everyone was laughing and smiling, making them all look so much more carefree, as if they all weren't walking straight into the heart of danger and death. Harry preferred this kind of situation. He knew that all of this was very serious and would decide the fate of every single person in Middle Earth, but he didn't want this to be a journey filled with sadness. No defiantly not. Even if they got separated or if someone died he didn't want this journey to be filled with fear and sadness. It would have its moments of joy and laughter.

Harry looked at each person in the group examining their expressions carefully and memorizing anything about them he could from physical and aura. If Voldemort was rallying with the evil here then there was a possibility he would have someone kidnap anyone of the Fellowship and try to replace them with a spelled Orc that was meant to look like the supposed Fellowship member.

Gandalf suddenly jumped up when a monkey grabbed his nose and pulled with a quiet exclamation of: "ah ha!"

"We must go this way," Gandalf said as he stood in front of the tunnel that led seemingly down.

"You've remembered the way then?" Legolas asked

"No, but this way smells entirely less foul!" Gandalf smiled showing all of his white teeth before walking down the tunnel expecting the others to follow. The rest of the group gave one another hesitant looks but followed after the graying wizard. After coming to another fork in the road they decided to go down the left tunnel with led them to a large circular room.

It was the only room they'd seem so far will its own light source with came from an opening at least 70 feet up. The sun light shone down upon a coffin in the middle of the room with more dwarven bones sitting against the pillar that held it up. While they explored the room Gimli went to the coffin and stared down at the stone top while Gandalf read from a large dusty book that held record of what happened to all of the other dwarves residing in the mine. Gimli was in tears once Gandalf had read the rest, his helmet covered forehead against the coffin top repeating a mantra of "no, no, no". The others looked upon the dwarf with understanding sadness. They had all lost someone at some point in their lives.

They all decided to give the dwarf a moment to greave and studied the room, except Gandalf and Legolas who attempted to console the short male. Both their words of comfort and Gimli's cries were cut off by a loud sliding sound and then a crash. And multiple ones after that. Every eye in the room flew to Merry, who stood next to a well looking extremely guilty.

Gandalf walked toward the hobbit, his face flushed with anger, his stance rigid. "You fool! Next time just throw yourself in and save us all the trouble!" Gandalf spoke in a voice so quiet and deadly that the other eight people in the room were glad they were not on the receiving end of Gandalf's anger. Merry looked down completely ashamed of himself. Sadness rolled off of him in waves. But no one made any move to comfort him. What he did gave off their position and now they could be attacked. And not even ten seconds later the beat of drums sounded and it be came louder and louder. Frodo pulled the sword he was given while they were in Rivendell.

"Bard the door!" Boromir said as he found the brace for the door. He, Aragon and Legolas slid it into place. Aragon who was in the middle and saw there was a small gap between the two doors looked out and saw something that irritated him and was just down right exasperating.

"Of course they have a mountain troll!" He chuckled at this why, though, he had no idea. The hobbits, Aragon, and Boromir drew their swords, Legolas his bow and Gimli stood upon the coffin half screaming "Let them come!"

The drums had stopped but a new beating had begun. The mountain troll had begun punching the door to break it open. The old rotten wood gave way after five hits, small pieces of wood flew in every direction and before the pieces had even the chance to land the room was immediately flooded with skinny ugly little mutated creatures.

Within the first few seconds of the fight Harry discovered that these creatures were resistant to some spells. Their weapons also carried a bit of magic because if a shield of his was put up the Orcs would beat at it until it cracked and broke. Normal non-magical weapons couldn't do that. Of course if he wanted to keep the shield up he could just put more power into them but if he continued to feed power to the shields it would diminish his magic more than necessary and judging by the events they had been met with recently he wouldn't be surprised if he would need to use all of his magic on something far worst than these creatures.

The fight was lasting a longer than he anticipated, it was also more difficult because the creatures were resistant to lots of his magic and he had to protect the hobbits when too many Orcs would go near them. But eventually he was forced away from the four short big footed creatures, and then they were separated from one another.

More and more Orcs flooded the room as their comrade's fell. Everyone but the hobbits and Gimli, who was too blinded by his rage and sadness, noticed that the number of Orcs attacking had dramatically increased. Either more had arrived or the ones already there were trying to stall them so their reinforcements could arrive. Either way they needed to quickly kill the Orcs before they were the ones killed.

A loud cry alerted everyone that Frodo had landed himself in a sticky situation. The hobbit had his back to a wall his sword held shakily in front of him, glowing a bright but slightly dull blue. Before him was the large Troll. Its face contorted into an ugly snarl.

'Though I doubt that his face would look much better anyway' Harry thought as he attempted to make his way over to the frightened hobbit. Harry fired curses left and right of the non-lethal verity in case he hit a member of the fellowship, in his attempt to reach him before the Troll stuck. Harry began calling upon the magic hoping against hope that he would be able to mold it in time.

The large beast drew back its spear black eyes glistening with anger and murder. The creature thrust its arm and spear forward but it hit something before it hit the small hobbit. Harry stood before the shaking hobbit his eyes cold as ice. His hands were outstretched in front of them was a large wall of 4 foot thick rock. However despite the thickness of the rock the mountain trolls' spear managed to cut almost completely through the rock.

Harry could see the others as they attempted to reach them in time before the Troll struck again, killing off the last of the Orcs as they ran. The wizard and hobbit watched almost in slow motion as they party attempted to attack the Troll from behind.

The creature however, determined to reach its target drew back its arm and thrust it forward with speed not expected of something its size. The spear aimed true and burst through the large wall of rock but it didn't get to far after that because of both the distance and that Legolas had shot eight well aimed arrows through the beasts' neck and head effectively killing it.

Once the troll was dead Frodo moved from behind Harry when he noticed something odd. The red streaked haired wizards' cloak was drawn around him completely. Frodo didn't know why he found it odd but he did. The wizards cloak was closed completely around him when before it always opened just enough to see his shirt. 'Maybe he's just standing differently?' the hobbit thought but even that would have been odd. Harry usually if not always stood straight up, said it was easier to react to a situation if he was standing straight up. Frodo didn't have anymore time to dwell on it for Harry moved toward the door and checked to see if any more of the Orcs were coming.

"We have to get out of here now. There are more of those for sure and I doubt we'll be able to fight them all. Come, we leave." The others agreed and hurried to flee the room. Legolas made sure to grab the arrows of his that weren't broken or too deep into a body without being taken out easily and quickly.

Within minutes they had made past the second fork in the road and into a large hall with hundreds upon hundreds of pillars. The Fellowship ran as quick as their legs would carry them Gimli flat out refused to be carried so he had to run twice as quickly to keep up with everyone else's slightly longer legs. More Orcs had appeared and were trying to block them in by climbing down from the columns or running toward them from different directions from the shadows of the many columns. But just when they had finally managed to trap the Fellowship in a ring of Orcs something far worst made its presents known.

BAM!

The sounds of something heavy hitting stone sounded around the impossibly large hall. Orcs panicked and scattered in every direction trying desperately to vacate the area where the Fellowship now stood. A sense of complete foreboding covered the group of men.

BAM!

Down the hall the echo of loud hitting sounded. The group didn't even bother to look at each other. Harry grabbed Frodo and hosted him on his back, Legolas grabbed Merry hosting him up across his shoulder, Boromir grabbed Sam and held him to his hip with his left arm while Aragon grabbed Pippin and held him similar to Boromir and before the dwarf could protest Gandalf grabbed him as well and then all took off running as fast as possible to where they prayed they would find the way out.

BAM!

The echo impossibly became louder and louder the farther away from the original position of the sound. The sounds only pushed the Fellowship to run faster, to not look back, to ignore the presence that screamed evil and death. The walls of the underground city shook and the few pillars they now passed.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

They all gave a sigh in relief at seeing the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. That relief was short lived as they could see something very large and very bright coming toward them. With renewed vigor the four began running once again across the bridge. The ceiling and walls of the building continued to shake from the footsteps of something most certainly evil.

The group had made it half way down a set of large stone stairs before they heard it. The source of evil had finally caught up with them. The group had managed to make it across the large gap but Gandalf stopped once he reached the other side. He place Gimli down who huffed indignantly and then he turned back to face the being that could only be described as a demon. The creature was large easily 4 people high. It had two large horns that erupted from the front of its head and curled up and back on the sides of its head. The demon also held a whip, but what was really intimitading was the creature and its whip seemed to be made of pure fire.

Gandalf turned back to the bridge they had just crossed and walked a few feet back onto it as the demon attempted to cross the bridge. Gandalf raised his staff and told the creature. "I shall not let you pass!" The white ball upon the top of the spear glowed brightly before he brought the staff back down and into the bridge. It destroyed the section of bridge in front of him and as it collapsed the demon was dragged down into the depths of the darkness below where even his body made of fire did not give off a glow.

But as Gandalf turned back to the group the demons whip sprang from below the bridge and wrapped around the old wizards ankle and pulled him over the edge of the bridge. He managed to grab the edge of the bridge and with a strength that no normal man would had been able to exhibit Gandalf held onto the edge of the bridge long enough to give them one final message.

"Run! Take everyone and run as far and as fast as you can! Harry I know that you have another mode of transportation that is not as dangerous as the one you used earlier to bring Frodo to us. Use it now! Run you fools run!" And with that Gandalf the grey slipped from the bridge and down to the abysmal darkness below.

It took a few seconds to really register that Gandalf was not longer alive, that they would not longer be able to listen to him tell outrageous stories around a campfire or be surprised by his subtle wise knowing life talks. Frodo moved to spring forward to try and bring him back from the darkness below it seemed but before he had the chance he was dragged back by Aragon.

But they weren't given the time to grieve as it seemed that not that the demon was no longer a problem the Orcs were more than happy to reappear and attempt to kill them. Aragon turned and ushered the others away from the large gapping hole and outside into the fresh air and day light. The large door they exited took all of their strength to open and closed of its own accord once they were out.

Once they weren't in any immediate danger everyone broke down in their own way. The hobbits cried though silently, Boromir sat upon a rock and ran his hands through his hair looking as if he was on the verge of crying as well. Gimli stared unseeingly at the hard rock floor, Aragon and Legolas gazed around the area both attempting to hold back their tears while keeping watch out for any danger. Harry stood impossibly still staring straight at the door they had just exited. Guilt and sadness etched itself into the young wizards face. The scene they had just witnessed played over and over in his head, except each one instead of standing and watching the old wizard be pulled to his death he, Harry, did something to prevent it.

After a minute of everyone being off in their own little world Frodo stood from his position on the floor and walked toward Harry. Everyone watched him go. They could sense that he was not about to say something comforting but they didn't really have the energy to stop it.

Once Frodo was in front of the only remaining wizard in the group he brought his fists up and pounded on Harry's chest. He was crying again. "How could you let Gandalf die?! You have the power and the reflexes! You could have saved him! You let him die! It's your fault he's dead! It's your fault he died!! You did nothing to help him!" Frodo exclaimed as he cried and beat at the wizards' chest, who did nothing but stand and take it. After a moment or two Harry gently grabbed the distraught hobbits wrists placed them back at the hobbits side and walked around him but not before saying a quiet.

"I know." That the rest of the Fellowship heard. Harry then walked off toward the lake that lay not far away from the group. No one saw the pained expression on his face or the tears of grief, sadness, guilt and slight self hatred that slipped down his cheeks to land into the small body of water.

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SF552014: Sorry everyone this took so long. I'm not too good at writing fight scenes so this took alittle longer than expected to finish. But I reached my goal of 3,000 words! I'm currently working on the next chapter and shooting for 4,000 this time so bare with me if it takes a while to come out.

Up next Harry and Legolas have a talk; we discover Harry's animagi form and they meet the creepy lady in the forest, possibly. All in all a more talkative chapter than the ones so far.