Previously:
For when Gandalf opened the door instead, she was caught completely off guard.
No one could truly blame her then, that in her utter shock, she fell back onto her reflexes and attacked, flinging a knee-jerk Banisher at the perceived danger.
Uncharted Waters 13: Harry
Luckily, Bilbo's hall ran deep and Gandalf had almost a full second to fly before he would crash into the wall at the opposite end. A gust of
wind rose in the tight place, swirling around dust and the Hobbit's unattached clutter. It seemed to heave a great effort as it rushed to the wizard's aid.
Harry, who had by then shaken off her surprise, stepped up to help the wizard herself, a spell half formed to soften his landing. She dismissed the charm when she saw Gandalf was about to cushion the fall on his own. Instead, she uttered a soft sigh and started forming a reluctant apology. A confrontation with her unrelenting pursuer was not what she had planned for today, and an apology was sure to invite a conversation. Even annoyed, though, she had her manners.
She opened her mouth to speak, only to pause. The air was still getting sucked out of where she stood, as it kept rushing to power Gandalf's spell. A moment later, Bilbo's heavy door was slammed shut with the hurried draught, clashing into her back with brute force and making her stumble inside.
She easily cushioned her fall with a soft Banisher. Using its slight bounce, she propelled herself into a half-roll, eyes following a dwarven shield that swished through the space she had just vacated.
Lifting her head, her gaze landed on the now firmly shut door looming over her, and a terrible suspicion entered her mind. Had Gandalf closed her in on purpose?
She pushed herself off the floor, a spell getting her upright in a blink of an eye. Then she turned on her heel to face the inside of the Hobbit-hole and the wizard at the other end of the hall, an altogether different disposition taking hold of her.
Gandalf had been in the process of brushing off his robes, rather ostensibly so, when he halted and looked up, as if sensing the sudden shift in tension in the room.
She gave him a courtesy second, a moment to read her expression and the anger in it, before she launched her next spell. A rudimentary Expelliarmus rushed quickly through the distance between them, but the old man turned surprisingly springy and managed to side-stepped its beam. Never mind, she was already sending Bilbo's possessions that had only just settled down back into the air, and careening towards the wizards from all directions. She even added several candle holders for emphasis, levitating them from their mounts on the walls, though she did leave a pair of daggers out of the mix.
Gandalf's voice boomed through the hall in an unfamiliar command, as a ball of light erupted from the tip of his staff, pulsating once, twice, and reflecting her first and second volley of domestic projectiles.
As she kept the wizard thus occupied, she glanced behind him, at the oak roots growing through the roof of the smial. A quick thought animated them, several polished arms of wood coming to life. She sent one to whip out along the floor, sweeping Gandal's feet from under him. A thinner branch yanked his staff from his surprised fingers.
She sent the staff through the air towards her, even as she imprisoned the wizard's empty arms in shackles of two animated roots. A third one, much thicker, softened down his fall, curling behind the wizard in a crude seat.
Harry turned her back to the bewildered wizard, shooting him a look over her shoulder as she used the tip of his staff to nudge the bolt and push the door, swinging it open. She walked out and then, her point made, she slid the staff on the tiles back towards Gandalf.
She found him with eyes closed, murmuring under his breath and his palms laid on the wood of her animated roofs. With some surprise, she could already feel her control slipping, as if the magic of her charm was waning. She left him to it, her head tilted, curious to know how much time his counter-spell would need.
It was several long seconds later when her control was fully snapped away and the branches dropped to the ground, listless, releasing the wizard. Gandalf jumped onto his feet, once again showing more agility than what could rightly hide in a body as apparently old as his was, the wooden staff flying into his grasp.
"Who is it that I remind you of, dear Harry? And what horrible slights they committed, to vex such ire off you?"
It was the very first words they had ever exchanged, spoken with a casualty that belied the spells thrown in the seconds before. Harry scowled in reaction, annoyed at his presumption, especially so when it was partly correct. Only partly though. "I don't need to confuse you with past grievances to find you vexing, Gandalf."
"And how have I accomplished such a feat, if this is the very first time we meet?"
"Certainly not by any lack of trying on your part! You chased me across Middle-earth for several decades; forced me out of my home several times. I believe I'm allowed to be rather vexed because of that."
Gandalf didn't reply right away. Instead, he somehow dimmed the sunlight in the room, and seemed to have grown in size and magnitude. Harry raised her browns at the sight, sensing Gandalf's magic underneath the impression, assaulting her senses and warping them to his wishes.
It was a heady feeling, being the target of such an onslaught, of a directly cast magic instead of the innate heavy presence she was used to sensing from Círdan. A part of her wanted to close her eyes and bask in the attention.
Harry startled at the silly wish. Only now did she realise how much she had missed this, how isolated as a magic user she must have become over the years. She'd encountered enough of dark magic and its nauseating stench when scouting Sauron's henchmen, but it had been long decades since she'd last stood in the immediate attention of another wizard.
It wasn't exactly a friendly piece of magic. It was trying to make her cow under the might of the caster, but interestingly enough, it wasn't mind control, and neither was it portraying an illusion. If she were to describe its mechanics as it appeared to her, she'd say it was so confidently highlighting a notion as if any listener should find it the unavoidable truth.
Was Círdan correct in his suspicion of the Istari? Was Gandalf letting slip through some of his true existence now, as one of the Maiar?
She left him to it; content to feel and contemplate the touch of his magic.
"What I have done, I have done with good intentions. Out of concern for your wellbeing, too," he postulated, his back ramrod straight as he seemed to push the roof of the smial with his head, to tower over the space so. "You have always known I was mistaken in my worries; with a single conversation, you could have saved us both many years of this pointless chase. Instead, you took a long time to send a letter. Rightly, it should be me who despairs over lost time."
The pressure on her senses intensified, as if his magic was growing impatient with her lack of response. So she gave him one. Mindful of the smial and Bilbo's well-known love for his home, she once again stuck to party tricks, and simply conjured up several Lumos bulbs, to hover close to Gandalf's head, obscuring his vision. For the heck of it, she made them whirr around a bit, to annoy the wizard further.
The diversion worked a bit too well. Evidently unfamiliar with the harmless nature of the Lumos spell, frankly something she should have predicted, Gandalf took great fright for bright illuminations of her power appearing so close to him. She could feel his panicked response building in the air, a minuscule inhale of static before it seemed to gather around the fingers clasping his staff, and then exploded in a fire with his shout.
With such little warning, she didn't quite manage to contain the crimson flames before they spread to Bilbo's plastered walls. But an instant later, her Protego arrived, encircling the globe of flames; and then their spells touched and Harry felt her knees almost buckle at the vehement force of Gandalf's charm, the strength of it surprising a physical reaction from her. Her eyes widened with further shock; the shield charm protected the smial, but the flames inside it were still hurtling her way, not diminished in their volume or velocity, towing her shield with it.
So Harry did what she needn't in a long while. She whipped out her wand and slashed it in a wide half-circle, regaining complete control over her approaching Protego. With precise casting and no room for compromise, she commanded it to shrink rapidly. The spell listened, the ball compressing with zero regards to what resided in its centre, smothering Gandalf's flames. But not fast enough. She still had to step aside and let the fiery missile fly past her, now the size of a fist and yet still deadly.
It rushed into the open air in front of Bag End, flying over the fields underneath the hill, until finally, Harry's shield charm shrunken to the width of its walls, making the flames inside fizzle out. The shield, now but a grain of light, landed on a meadow, ruffling the nearby tuft of grass with a breeze of disturbed air. It disappeared from their sight, but Harry still felt a connection to her charm, and knew it was travelling under the force of Gandalf's magic still, burrowing its way through the ground, ever shriveling in size, but still speeding with the same velocity it first shot into the air. Bewildered and intrigued, Harry cancelled the remnant of her charm, finally ending its path and the tiny tunnel it had left in the soil.
She slowly turned around, stashing her wand back into its holster, and found Gandalf studying her movements with utmost fascination. In return, she zeroed in on the fingers clasping his staff. They appeared ringless, but Harry's mind still came back to Círdan's stories of Narya, the ring he'd given Gandalf. The Elf Lord insisted the rings weren't a weapon, nor a conduit of magic. Was this strength all Gandalf then? Did it mean her shield wasn't up to par with an Istari attack? What did it say about the rest of her spells?
By an unspoken agreement, a truly startling event for the two of them, neither asked the other their questions. Instead, Harry glanced at the halo of charred walls in front of Gandalf. "Where's Bilbo?"
"With any luck, quite far away from here still," Gandalf answered, his tone as casual as hers was. "There is still time to prevent the worst of his shock. Would you be willing to give a helping hand?"
She suppressed her sigh, and acceded. "I believe some of this mess is mine."
As she entered the smial again, Gandalf went to rest his staff against one of the beams and then bowed low to begin rightening the furniture. She watched him with her eyes narrowed. Would this be a good moment to introduce the wonders of a Reparo?
Inwardly, she chuckled at the idea. She was hardly ready to help with cleaning, let alone attempt to teach the wizard the complicated workings behind the notion of making objects remember how they once stood. A part of her was still tempted, though, and she knew why—it would be marvellous to gain the possibilities of a Mending Charm in this world.
No no, she would once again make do without it. Taking quick stock of the mess of the room, she picked up the furniture and objects cluttering the floor with a Levitation Charm and started putting them back where she vaguely remembered some standing.
Gandalf straightened up, halting in his efforts in order to follow her progress with sharp eyes. She paid him very little mind.
"Your precision is remarkable."
She hummed, unaffected by the praise. "Wouldn't have it any other way. Where does the basket go? And the umbrella stand?"
She continued to point out various objects whilst Gandalf was content to stand aside, providing her with directions. When the furniture seemed quite ordered, she once again animated the roots in the back of the room and guided them to settle where they had once rested. It wasn't quite perfect but luckily, they didn't seem to have any structural purpose.
At last, only the scorched walls remained as proof of what had transpired. Harry eyed them in speculation. From the corner of the room, she felt Gandalf's gaze bore into her in expectation.
That miffed her a bit, and she gave him a side-eye. "Any ideas?"
"None, my friend, beside a simple bucket of paint."
"Well, shall we go fetch it, then?" She frowned at the charred plaster. If they could find a brush, she might be able to detach the singed particles with her Levitation. She still struggled with removing stains of any kind, but she did much better when she partly deluded herself with some mechanical cleaning being done.
Next to her, Gandalf cleared his throat. "Or we shall perhaps hope the gentle Hobbit will forgive us this little transgression? I believe Bilbo would prefer to do any painting on his own rather than have me attempt it."
Harry was genuinely unsure whether the wizard was being truthful, or lazy, now that he believed her magic show was over. She shrugged. "He is your friend; you know him best."
"I am afraid I have tested our friendship with graver hardships than a simple paint job to his hallway. Now, Harry- would you accept some tea whilst you wait for our host?"
He very pointedly did not ask for the reason behind her sudden visit, nor any other question he usually pestered her friends with; evidently, he was trying to keep the mood light and Harry found herself appreciating it.
Gandalf led them to a study just off the newly cleaned hall. A fire merrily popped in the fireplace, a Men-sized wooden chair planted in front of it. Gandalf's hat, a still smoking pipe and a tea service rested on a table beside it.
"I arrived just this morning myself," Gandalf was saying as he snatched a cup from a nearby shelf. A decorative piece, Harry was sure, but she didn't stop the wizard as he scowled at the dust inside the porcelain and then snatched a doily to wipe it clean. "Took the liberty of Bilbo's study, instead of waiting in the inn. My travels made me weary and I did not feel up to facing the merriment of the Green Dragon. I am sure he is not far away now, though—he's hardly in the habit of staying away from his home for the night."
Harry took the plush Hobbit armchair Gandalf pointed out to her, her bottom fitting into the seat rather snugly, whilst her knees bent high. Gandalf had obviously taken the liberty of not only Bilbo's hearth, but his pantry, too—the tea was very much a Shire blend, strong yet full of taste, and Harry felt herself relaxing deep into the cushions with her first sip of the hot beverage, a content sigh escaping her. There was even a footstool, and she quickly took advantage of it.
It might have been the almost British-like comforts of the smial that put her at ease; but more likely, it was the fact that the dreaded encounter with Gandalf, which had grown into a disproportionate bungle of anxiety in her mind with the passing years, had finally come. She felt almost giddy with relief, akin to having a long-festering tooth finally pulled out. It was probably that relief that had her side-glancing at Gandalf now, feeling all mellow, her disposition surprisingly charitable. Releasing their pent-up frustration right at the door certainly helped, too. The silence that now settled between them could even be called companionable.
Even the suspicious timing of Gandalf's visit to the same Hobbit couldn't fully dim Harry's good mood, it seemed. Their simultaneous arrivals could mean that she was well and truly entangled in the strings of this world's fate now, but you know what? She'd deal with one inconvenience at a time.
"You don't remind me of a single person, you know," she offered, coming back to his accusation now that her ire was spent and she was willing to speak with more honesty. "If anything, you remind me of the years of my life when I had to make friends with people who would rather see me and mine contained and enslaved for powers they didn't understand. I, perhaps, tend to overreact when I'm reminded of that chapter of my past."
He scoffed around the hem of his pipe. "I thank you for the explanation, even if put in the most masterfully vague manner." He paused. "I do hope you have never thought me intending to contain or enslave you."
They returned to silence.
"I have just returned from a long joint in the East," he spoke up again, volunteering honesty himself.
"Oh. I had been wondering where you disappeared off to. I had not heard of you since the Orcs marched out of Dol-Guldur. That was what, more than fifteen years ago?"
Gandalf nodded. "The East is a vast place to search through, especially for one old man."
She let out a tired sigh, exasperated by his stalking efforts; though beside that, she also felt a surprising pang of sympathy for the wizard. "You should have given up on my secrets a long time again, Gandalf."
"It wasn't for traces of your origin that I had been searching the East," he objected. "I was following the trail of my two long lost colleagues, the ones who became known as the Blue Wizards."
She frowned into her cup. "You didn't actually suspect me to be one of them, did you?"
"No. I might have forgotten their current names and faces, but I didn't forget who they once were; I would have recognised you for them right away. Though, I will freely admit one of my theories was inspired by this thought; what with you and your sister being so similarly unique."
He paused and she watched him puff on his pipe, finding something frantic in his movements. Narrowing her eyes in thought, she made an easy guess at the source of his discomfort. "You have thought me a child of one of the Blue wizards! Oh, that is- well, that is actually quite inspired," she admitted, before halting, sending a contemplative look at the wizard. "Can you actually conceive?"
He choked on his next inhale, a great cloud of smoke escaping through his nose and by his cheeks. To hide her smirk, Harry took a sip of her tea.
"Well, that is- No, that was not the purpose for which we were sent here, so I would have thought it impossible. But, other truths and fates have been bent and altered in the past, and I couldn't dismiss the theory entirely. However, I had hoped to find the other wizards regardless of my suspicions towards your origin. They had long been lost to our Order; we would like to have their wisdom and power to aid us again."
"Well, how do they fare, then?"
His eyes flicked towards her. "You do know them."
"Not as parents, that's for sure," she said, a belated chuckle escaping her at the prospect. "I have observed their work, but I have never met the men themselves."
"Much of that work seemed to be diminished now," Gandalf replied, his brows furrowing. "I had followed their trail for many years, but I also failed to draw near them."
"It is a vast place," she argued. "As large if larger than the whole West."
"And it is growing darker once again," Gandalf said. "The Enemy's power seeps through the tribes that could have once perhaps welcomed a different path."
It was the perfect invitation to share her tidings from Dale, Erebor and the Grey Havens, yet Harry hardly felt ready for it. Her cup was still half-full of delicious brew and the settling sun painted the walls of the study in warm twilight colours. The night would come soon enough.
"What is your next theory of my origin, then?" she asked instead.
He glanced at her, bushy brows furrowed and pipe clamped between his teeth. "Your confidence makes me want to dispense with all of them. Have I truly no chance of approaching the truth?"
She smiled. "How would I know without hearing any of them? But actually, dispensing with the search and guessing altogether sounds like the best idea."
To her surprise, he gave her a ready nod. "I do believe it is time. My curiosity has hardly waned, but I believe I will soon become too busy to pursue your mystery further." He paused, turning back towards the flames, as his wrinkled face scrunched into a deep frown. "It troubles me greatly that this is the first place my feet had rushed me to after my return west. To find you on Bilbo's doorstep is also greatly unsettling, even as it is encouraging, to see you adopt an interest in the fight against the Enemy."
For once, Harry would gladly keep playing guessing games with Gandalf about her origins. Instead, she heaved a great sigh and confirmed the obvious. "I've come for the ring."
Gandalf indeed didn't look surprised. "I assume you have heard the Dwarves retell Bilbo's story of Gollum."
"As must have many other ears," she confirmed, not hiding the reproach in her tone.
Gandalf puffed on his pipe, not chagrined. "There are many such trinkets in this world; I believed no one would suspect a Hobbit of talking so openly of an actual ring of power. You have once again proved me wrong. How did you make the connection?"
"I felt the ring's presence," she volunteered, "the first time I met Bilbo, in my old house in Lake-town. I didn't know back then what it was; for some time, I actually suspected all Hobbits of having a rather foul disposition to them. It was much later, when I first travelled through the Shire, that I discovered only Bilbo carried such a singular stench."
Gandalf seemed impressed. "Your senses do you credit. Yet, my concerns remain true—any of Sauron's rings are dangerous, and especially so in our hands, as beings of power. You will get corrupted."
"I'm hardly planning to just put it on," she argued, as a distant memory of another ring from another world, with a cracked stone set in its middle, flashed through her mind in a clear warning. "I intend to study it. It is wrought with Sauron's power; I need to learn about his magic and its limits, and this is still one of the safest ways to do so."
Her head swam with questions she could soon get answers for. What were Sauron's methods behind the corruption Gandalf so feared? Was it a puzzlement of senses, possession of free will, or an altogether different type of ensnarement? Whatever the technique, she'd rather encounter and study it now, from a spectre of Sauron's power, than when faced with the dark lord directly. Furthermore, there was the matter of the rings themselves. Were they Horcrux-like, keeping Sauron tethered to life? Or just a conduit for his power? Or, would destroying them directly weaken him? Were they sentient?
"You don't intend to use it?"
Startled from her musings, she looked up to find genuine surprise written in the wizard's expression.
"I intend to destroy it. That is, eventually. Not before I've confirmed there are other avenues that could hurt Sauron more."
Surprise swiftly slipped into concern. "Let us take the ring to Saruman first; his insight could prove valuable to you in these studies you talk of."
Harry scowled, not liking the idea of more wizards thrown into the mix, let alone the time it would take to travel to Isengard on horseback.
He must have read her expression quite easily. "To Riverdell then, or even the Grey Havens."
She realised two things at that point. Firstly, Gandalf was genuinely suggesting options, not throwing orders at her. Somehow, over the years, she must have gained a speck of his respect. Secondly, there was a strange apprehension in the way he twitched on his chair, leaning closer to her in urgency. Recognising it as fear, she huffed; feeling rather insulted. "How feeble minded do you think I am? Clearly, your opinion is piss poor, if you worry I'd succumb to the ring's influence immediately, before either of us spots it!"
He straightened in his chair, made aware of his body language perhaps. He didn't deny her observations, though. "And yet, the danger exists. I fear I alone would not be able to subdue you, should you turn against me with the ring on your finger."
"It took Sauron years to corrupt the minds of the original Nine."
Gandalf's guarded stance did not change. She waited, letting the tense silence portray her impatience.
"What if Bilbo's ring is not just one of the nine?" he said at long last. "Nor one of the lost seven?"
Oh. Oh.
"What makes you suspect otherwise?" she asked after a loaded pause.
"It is but a possibility I haven't managed to rule out," he said. "Before my journey to the east, I had been trailing the last ring bearer, the creature from Bilbo's story. Gollum, as Bilbo named him, seemed to have ventured out of the Misty Mountains upon the loss of the ring, following Bilbo's tracks, all the way through the Wilderland and Mirkwood, even to Dale. He had stayed in the forest for a while, causing trouble among the Woodmen and Elves; I asked Thranduil to help me hunt him."
Something in that story sparked Harry's memory. "That was Gollum?" she asked, remembering the creature she had read about in one of Bain's reports, many years before.
Gandalf nodded. "He had left Mirkwood before the Wood-elves could capture him and I could learn more of his story; but what I suspect fills me with-"
He fell abruptly silent; Harry heard the voice, too.
Faint singing reached them through the open windows, coming up the hill. Harry recognised the baritone; their host was on his way. Gandalf did not return to his explanation. She agreed it was too sensitive a topic to discuss with listening ears nearby; though she herself was still free to keep her disapproving glare directed at the wizard.
He had learned of the possible danger, yet he let the matter rest, openly leaving what could possibly be the One Ring in the hands of a Hobbit?
"What news of Círdan? And your sister in Dale?" Gandalf idly inquired a moment later, voice raised, probably to alert Bilbo to their presence. "Long have I been gone from their cities."
His questions only reminded her of the tidings she couldn't rightly share now either. Momentarily, she struggled to find something safe to reply. "Círdan shaved his beard off," she said at last. "And Bard died at the ample age of seventy-three. Bain has now been crowned the King."
"Lord Bard has left this world? That is grievous news indeed; he was a great man. What of your sister, how does she fare?"
Harry looked up at the honest concern she'd detected in the wizard's tone, and her ire melted a bit.
Although she had seen Gandalf several times, for him, this was their true first meeting. He didn't know her, neither as Harry nor Hattie, though she supposed he had devoted enough years to chasing her across Arda that he might have grown to genuinely care. She remembered having her favourite recidivists, too, well back in the Auror Office.
"She had time to say her goodbyes," Harry replied, truthfully, and then chose to stay silent, for her voice threatened to tremble at the unexpected show of compassion.
The door opened in the hallway.
"Gandalf!" Bilbo entered the study with a broad smile and arms opened wide. "It had been too many years!"
Harry watched the two friends embrace, the ridiculous difference in size making the ordeal even more endearing.
"I see you have helped yourself to some tea; good, good. It is well past supper time, but I think I have ham and cheese in the pantry, let me just plate it for you. Now, who is your friend, Gandalf?"
If Bilbo had noticed the charred walls or minded them barging into his home in his absence, he was hiding the ire very deep under the heaps of excitement.
"You have met Harry before, Bilbo—many years ago, in Esgaroth, when it was still called Lake-town."
Harry rose to greet their host. No matter how many times she had visited the Shire, the experience of meeting a Hobbit was always a novelty in the first moments, until her perception adjusted and she could see the adults behind the childish figures. It was a rather hypocritical reaction from her, considering her own modest height; yet, even after years of visits, she had to keep going through the same exercise.
"Master Harry! The elusive Easterling wizard, and now in my home! Well, that certainly calls for a better feast than just a leftover ham and cheese!" With that, the Hobbit disappeared somewhere deeper into the bowels of the smial, only his voice carrying through its halls back to them. "And you, Gandalf, you can tell me how you have finally caught your troublesome charge!"
"Troublesome charge?" Harry repeated, arching a brow at the wizard.
"I might have vented my frustration once or twice over some Longbottom leaves," Gandalf admitted, though he didn't look nearly as sheepish as Harry would like.
"Oh, trust me, he has called you much more inspiring names over the years," the Hobbit's voice carried to them. "Seeing Gandalf in such a fit was an excellent source of entertainment for the rest of us."
Harry glanced into the gloom of the rooms beyond theirs. "Shouldn't we follow?"
Gandalf shook his head and sat back down. "I believe we'll be served shortly."
She didn't return to the plush seat, now that the master of the house was back. Instead, she stepped to the desk, attracted by the sight of maps, scrolls and notebooks that clattered its surface.
"Well, then," the Hobbit stood there suddenly, in the entrance of the study, a large tray held by both hands. "What takes you to my doorstep, master Harry?"
Harry viewed the pile of food and their fluttery host. Then, she levitated the tray out of Bilbo's grasp. With another charm, she nudged a stool closer to the fire, placing their supper over it, and lastly, she brought a chair for herself to settle down.
The Hobbit stumbled forward after the tray, the sudden lack of weight throwing away his balance. He didn't straighten up, transfixed and frozen mid-step, staring with awed eyes at her casual show of magic; thus, he didn't bolt back to the kitchen to start putting on a feast, as Harry feared he planned.
"I've come to have a look at that fascinating ring of yours," she said into the resulting silence. "Would you permit me a study of it?"
"Ah! Why, mister Harry, I certainly would if I could. I do not have it, though."
Of course he didn't; Harry knew that well enough. She'd noted the lack of the ring's oppressing mien the moment the Hobbit had entered the room. "Well, shall we go fetch it?"
Gandalf, meanwhile, sat up in his chair. "What do you mean, Bilbo, that you do not have it?"
"Oh, it got lost, just a few weeks back, actually. A peculiar thing, that ring," the Hobbit remarked, ignorant of the stillness that had taken over both of the wizards in the room. "Even now, I sometimes reach into my pocket, as if the ring should still be there. Or I wake up in the night, overcome with the sudden urge to search for it, although I tell you, my friends, I have, thoroughly and repeatedly. It was a pity to find it gone; such a useful little trinket!"
"Gone? That is not possible," Gandalf repeated in a confused whisper. "Bilbo Baggins, for the love of all the Bradybooks and Tooks, tell us exactly what happened!"
The Hobbit looked startled at Gandalf's sudden vehemence, and a bit miffed, but he answered readily enough. "I used to carry the ring in the pocket of my waistcoat, you know that. One day, it wasn't there anymore, nor in any other of my vests and jackets. I searched through the whole house, from the last pantry to the front garden, but the ring was gone."
"What did you do on the day you first noticed it missing?" Harry asked.
"Oh, that was a terrible weekend on its own, I remember it distinctly. I had to go to Brandy Hall for a wake; a dear cousin of mine and his wife had died; drowned in a boating accident, of all things! Left a small lad behind, too, barely a fifteen year old tween. I went to see if there was anything I could do for little Frodo, but the Brandybucks seemed to have everything well in hand. For now, at least."
"Did anything unusual happen during your time there? Or on your journey over?" Harry kept asking. "Did you meet any strangers that stood out to you?"
"Have you ever travelled to Buckland, master Harry? Their roads and inns are full of Bree-folk, traders and craftsmen, and they all do stand out quite a bit amongst the Hobbits."
"Well, did any of them approach you that day?"
"No, not that I can remember."
"And you would have, had it been someone with ill intentions," Gandalf interjected, though he was looking at Harry, not the Hobbit. "Sauron's ilk and his henchmen cannot move undetected; their foul nature stenches the very air. Had they truly been sent to the Shire, we would have known about their intrusion well in advance."
Gandalf spoke with absolute certainty, Merlin bless him, but Harry knew these standards no longer applied.
"No; much more likely, the ring simply slipped away on its own," Gandalf mused on. "Saruman always claimed that the rings had a mind of their own; it is possible it had tired of residing in Hobbiton and went in search of a new, more exciting bearer."
"Are you suggesting that the ring just jumped out of my pocket, Gandalf?"
"Not necessarily. It could have perhaps attracted the attention of some common thief, who could skillfully pick it from your pocket without you taking notice. Do you remember anyone bumping into you?"
The two speculated further, but Harry stopped listening. She got up from her chair and walked to the window, mind awhirl.
"Regardless of the way it left you, my dear Bilbo, we need to track it down; combing through the whole of Buckland and Bree if need-"
"When was this wake?" Harry interrupted from across the room, eyes still locked onto the view behind the window, on the hills and meadows and disappearing sun, and seeing very little of it.
"Dear Drogo's and Primula's?" Bilbo paused to count. "Today is Thursday, isn't it? In that case, three weeks and four days ago."
She closed her eyes momentarily, her head falling into a low bow.
"The ring can still be tracked down, especially if you can sense its lingering presence, as you claim," Gandalf was saying behind her back, though wariness had now seeped into his tone, too.
She ignored his attempts at assurances; her mind busy connecting the few remaining dots.
"Gandalf- remember when I sent you my letter, informing you I had no rings?" she asked distractedly, still half-buried in her own thoughts, but knowing she should start informing others soon. "You have shared the news with the rest of the White Council, and soon after, the Orcs and the Witch-King marched out of Dol-Guldur. The timing seemed too conspicuous—everyone assumed there was a traitor in your confidence, who had let Sauron know the contents of my letter and that was why he stopped so fervently chasing me. I knew better, of course—I knew he had never been chasing me for any rings of his. But I simply assumed the timing was a coincidence. Now I wonder—did anything else happen during that time that could have made Sauron lose interest in me?"
"You speak of years long past," Gandalf rumbled. "Whatever it is you want me to remember, you need to help me along."
"Oh, but you just spoke of him this very evening—not even an hour ago. Wasn't it around that time that you were also tracking a certain creature through Mirkwood?"
She flicked her eyes towards the wizard, to gauge his reaction. He had gone completely still.
She nodded. "So my idea is this—what if Gollum didn't disappear into the wilderness as you assumed, but what if others were simply faster at capturing him? After all, Mirkwood was festering with Orcs and vigilant Nazgûls and others of Sauron's ilk, raiding out of Dol-Guldur at that time."
"You fear the Enemy has captured Gollum."
Harry shrugged. "It is one possible explanation for how Sauron could have learnt of his ring being in the Shire."
The room behind Harry's back fell into silence for one long moment, before Gandalf spoke again. "We do not know for sure that the ring was taken, let alone by Sauron's men."
"Oh, but we do."
A whisper of cloth and heavy footsteps, and then, Gandalf was by Harry's side, grabbing her shoulder and spinning her to face him. "What is it that you know and we don't?"
"Five days ago, Umbar corsairs burned down the harbour in the Grey Havens. Three days ago, Sauron's assassins attacked Bain, Thorin and Kíli," she reported. "Sauron let his many traps sprung on us, and finally, we know why it happened just now. He had launched his war."
Gandalf's eyes widened at the news, but thankfully, he managed to stay on topic. "Sauron's servants do not move in hiding," he kept insisting. "Were his influence to reach this far west, into a place like the Shire, we would have known. It can't be his servants who took the ring."
And here came the lowest of blows. "Gandalf- Sauron now wields the same power I have once used to turn dozens of Trolls against each other," she said, intoning each word carefully. "Its influence is undetectable, unless you look into the cursed one's mind. He could have sent a perfectly innocent looking lass or laddie, to snatch the ring of Bilbo, and the Rangers or the Hobbits would never find anything amiss with the thief."
She reached the end of her explanation, uttering a great sigh, and added, "He played us all so very masterfully."
A change came over the wizard. In one moment, he was completely still; next, he was a whirl of movement. Gathering his staff and hat, he marched out of the room and then out of the smial.
"We need to warn Elrond and the Dúnedain," he was saying on his way, and Harry found herself following him out. "All the passes to the east must be blocked; the wilderness searched."
"They are three weeks ahead of us, Gandalf," Harry objected, though rather meekly in face of the wizard's stormy determination.
"Even if you're right, a lot can happen to a laddie or lass in three weeks."
Harry frowned; they both knew the ring was most probably well out of their reach now. Sauron would have not likely started with his attacks on Dale, Erebor and the Grey Havens had he not held the ring in his possession, or very nearly so. Gandalf must be aware of that, though, so she left him to his stubborn hope and said nothing.
"Until the ring crosses the Mountains of Shadow, we shall try to intercept it," Gandal said next. "Will you join me?"
They were standing outside the smial by then. Dusk had fallen across the Shire, and Gandalf was now facing the vast view, whistling a short tune into the wind.
Harry contemplated the question, keeping her silence until Gandalf impatiently turned his eyes to her.
"I won't," she said then. "You go on to fight the way you know how, Gandalf." She meant to add, and let me do the same, but at the last moment thought better of it, wary of making even this feeble pledge in front of the wizard.
Instead of arguing the rejection, he seemed oddly reassured when he gave her his nod. She stifled a scoff; he probably gleamed the part she left unsaid.
He made to leave through the garden gate, but hesitated at last. "It could still be just one of the nine."
Harry gave him a flat look. "Would Sauron launch a war over one of the lesser rings?"
"No, he would not," the wizard said around a great exhale. With a final nod of farewell, he launched himself down the path.
Harry stared at his grey cloak until it merged into the darkening shadows of the dusk, and then turned to the Hobbit behind her, who had witnessed the whole exchange in stunned silence.
She paused to speak, meaning to say something wise in parting, but found herself uninspired. She closed her mouth and glanced through the doorway to the study, at the untouched tray of food. Slowly, as not to startle her host, she levitated the cheese and meat towards her, packing it up in its wrapping paper as it flew past Bilbo.
"Thank you for the tea, Master Baggins. Unfortunately, I'll have to enjoy the rest on the go." Her eyes landed on the back of the hall. "You have a truly lovely home. If you by any chance come upon some new defects tonight, say a spot or two of charred walls, you have my apologies—though I assure you, they're all Gandalf's fault."
Next, she was also on her way. She changed into a peregrine the moment she rounded the first bend of the Bag End's hill, and swiftly took to the skies.
A/N: Huge thanks to the wonderful Rose who had beta-read this chapter. All the remaining mistakes are mine and mine only.