Delusional
Jessylane318
Making fire would defiantly be the last thing he did.
Harry shifted through the shadows, green eyes locked against the curling crimson locks. The dwarf moved forward with a confident gait, arrogant movement betraying his simplicity. This would be easy, perhaps a little to easy. The young wizard glanced a moment at the hazardous axe upon the dwarf's broad shoulder.
Just a moment... A moment...
He sprang forward then, as the unsubtle creature neared the corner, jumping from the darkness and upon the man's shadow. He tugged a hair, quickly slicing it away as he ducked a wild swing. The dwarf gave a loud, crusty shout and Harry spouted an impish grin, sliding into the shadows once more. Or, at least he would have if not for the hands that caught him.
"That was hardly nice Harry," said a voice. Harry could have sworn he heard amusement in it but when turned about face, saw only an annoyed scowl over Stri—Aragorn's expression. The young wizard matched it with one of his own. "Gimli may not have wished his hair cut in so spectacular a fashion."
"He looks better with it short," Harry scoffed pointedly, only to squirm under the dwarf's black glare. "Fine. I'm sorry I cut your hair, but I need it!" Aragorn was glaring now, not that he ever seemed to not glare, really; and Gimli looked to not believe a word he said.
"And what, pray tell, would you need with my hair?" asked Gimli.
"For my wand of course," he answered without pause. It really was the truth though, his wands would all burn up without a core, just useless twigs that randomly caught fire. Ollivandar had made mention of them once, about two years ago. So, without any other ideas, he'd taken to helping remove stray hairs from the guest and noble people's backs. And once even, he managed to pull one from Elrond.
Luckily the elf had yet to notice... He hoped.
"You are here as a guest in Lord Elrond's home..." He only listened with a half ear as Aragorn lectured, thinking about all the different wands he could make with the fine red strands. Holly worked best, of course, but was hardly ever available. It had taken him a week to even find one, but the small tree could hardly support all the wands he needed made to discover the right combination. He'd saved his last stick of it for when he found the right hair. Pine worked alright, of course, though it tended to make burping noises and break apart after a few tries; willow was more easily channeled, though it tended to prefer water, and Mahogany more supportable to the flames.
"Is that agreeable Harry?" asked the ranger. Harry blinked in surprise, having not heard the last part. Or rather most parts in particular.
"Er... Sure?"
"Wonderful," smirked Aragorn, obviously well aware Harry hadn't heard a word said. "I'll expect you to arrive at the practice fields at sunrise. You can help clean the elven armor—without any of the magic."
Harry frowned, but kept tight hold on the hairs.
He would make the fire! He would!
The young wizard gave an involuntary groan at all the arrows and swords, armors and boots, mud and grime glimmering beneath the dull gray rays of the nearly risen sun. How could anyone truly clean all of these? It was worse than the huge amount of chores the Dursleys gave him back home!
The place looked as though it hadn't had a good scrub in decades, what with dust dredging up the corners, mud and grass and something that may have been molded blood stirring the surface. He sneezed when he entered.
This would suck.
Rolling back the sleeves of the strange tunic like outfit with a resigned air, Harry got to work, dragging out all the armor and swords and arrows and bows. He took down the maps of what he supposed was the world he now accompanied. The words were unreadable and it looked long out of date, like much of the things he saw, but it fascinated him all the same.
By the time he had unloaded the room, the sun had already fully risen, it's heat leaving a red imprint on the back of his neck. He wondered vaguely if the people of this world got skin cancer as much time as they spent outside. But then, the mortality rate was what, thirty?
"What are you doing young wizard?"
With a frightened yelp, Harry turned at once, holding out the first thing in his grip—a dusty arrow with the feathered end pointing towards a pair of people that could have been one. Elven twins. Laughing elven twins.
"What do you want?" he asked angrily, and yet, somewhat happy. He had lacked company almost the entire time he'd been in Rivendell; the hobbits needed training and rest, the elves passed him with contempt, the dwarves busied themselves with their selves, Aragorn could hardly be spared a moment, especially for someone so insignificant and vexing as him, and Harry could hardly part with any moments as he tried to find hairs and wood to make his wand.
"Little, perhaps, beyond a want to satisfy a curiosity," replied the elf to the left. He wore muddied boots and dark shades of trousers and tunics. He kept a face of neutrality guarded only by a sensitive smile and shifting eyes filled with wisdom and an aged sadness. Long black hair drifted around his angelic face that shone with a radiance of velvet and ebony black beyond even the darkest nights. "I am Elrohir, and my brother Elladan."
"Harry," introduced the young wizard as he dropped the dusty arrow and wiped his dirty hands on the trousers, or what he hoped were trousers, they could be those strange undergarments that the elves were known to wear on occasion. He, of course, much preferred robes.
"Brother," confided the elf on the right, Elladan, with a disdainful look towards Harry, "father expects us, I expect we should not keep him waiting." He then turned and walked off, parting with a slight nod. Elrohir followed his wake with dark eyes.
"Yes, Elladan is correct. Good day, young wizard, I suspect we shall meet again." Elrohir bowed swiftly, a fluid motion tempered with a superfluous grace and style. He gave a slight wink and walked away as well, the same direction his brother had just tread.
Harry watched on with something akin to amusement and curiosity. Why had Elladan left so quickly? Surely their was a reason beyond what was being said? Harry could feel the unspoken truth behind the words. Could their be an actual rationality for the elves scornful looks beyond just that of divergence? He had never seen them look at the hobbits like that, though they did tend to cast dark looks at Boromir. But Aragorn seemed immune to such treatment. Aragorn seemed almost one of them, though not quite. Almost, like an off shade of white and gray.
Sighing, Harry ate a small package of food he'd brought with him before returning once more to his work.
The scent of pine and small shreds of wooden shavings clung against the elven fabric despite the many attempts to remove and banish them. The coat of sticky tree sap is easily removed with the acidic soap or a long, sharp flicking motion of a (oak and elven-haired) wand. The smell, however, not so easily.
Harry pressed the almost needle, transfigured from a match-stick donated from the cook, into the middle of the wand, digging out the center carefully and with as much precision as possible. The last two tries had terminated terribly with the red dwarf hair poking out the end in a useless fashion. The effect tended to light the entire wand on fire, which Harry had discovered was not good...
"Harry?"
The needle went astray and Harry cried out in pain, as blood began to leak from his palm.
"Sweet Merlin and everything magical!" he quoted in anguish, remembering the phrase Ron had used so many times. The red liquid had already pooled about his hand, dripping onto his trousers and the knife and the wood. He looked over to see a slightly green Pippin, standing in the doorway.
Getting up Harry found his old, overgrown shirt from his home world and ripped it apart. He used the shreds to cover the wound and turned towards the hobbit with an inquisitive glare. He could hardly be so mad when he hadn't had a visitor in days. Of course, he hadn't left his room in a couple days either, except to eat, drink, and relieve himself.
"Yes Pippin?"
"Oh... Um, well..."
"Oh do hurry up," called another voice. Harry noticed then, that there wasn't one figure there, but actually two."Yes, you've been standing there like a fool for ages, Pip! I thought you were hungry." Or maybe three?
"How many of you are there?" Harry asked, coming around and fully opening the door to see four individuals lined up outside his door. Merry and Sam both stood a little outside his door while Frodo was in the back, his somewhat shy smile friendly and confused.
"What happened to your hand, Harry?" inquired Sam at once upon seeing the crudely wrapped appendage. "Are you hurt or ill?"
"No, no of course not!" replied the young wizard with a sharp smile as he glanced at the bandage. It would have to do for the moment. He would fix it later, when no one was watching, no reason to worry his friends. "So why are you all here?"
"Why would we not?" said Merry, who seemed oblivious to the odd looks, which Harry was quite thankful for. "You've been in this room for an eternity! Come outside and join us, we're to play a bit of a hobbit game."
"Most likely you've yet to hear of it with your bigness and all such," added Sam with a wide smile. "We hobbits like simple games though, not like that quill-nitch of yours. Utterly confusing and strange, not at all hobbit like."
"And you think your games aren't confusing and strange?" Harry asked, joining in the friendly banter easily as he had when they journeyed through the harsh wilderness to Rivendell. Sam tended to argue in simple terms, dividing people into groups and rarely moving them, lest they proved themselves worthy of such a change. The stereotypes usually ended with Harry in the strange category that all wizards fell under, not that Sam had actually met many wizards. "I specifically remember some strange family game where you count the number of times your related to one person! I still think your all crazy, intermarrying between families like that. People who do that in my world end up with eleven toes and three ears."
Of course, he'd learned some ended like that anyways, with a wave of the wand; or belching slugs.
"Not nearly so queer as riding broomsticks. Made for sweeping, not riding, I say."
"And so we've heard, a good many times," cut in Pippin with a cheeky grin. "Why not a game of old fashioned Brandybuck's fox and duck?"
"Why not?" replied Frodo, grinning widely. Harry got the impression something secret was going on. "Not fox!"
"Not fox!" echoed the other hobbits as they scurried away. Harry shouted and grinned as he chased after them for the rules they so often tended to neglect. Ridiculous hobbits.
Harry chased each of them all, discovering the game actually resembled tag, only when the person was caught, he had to do some ridiculous notion that the "fox" deemed to escape. So Harry chose outrageous choices for them all, making Sam act like an overzealous lion. Pippin was forced to waddle and roll at the same time, an interesting feat in itself that allowed Harry to capture Frodo, who was the most wily of them all. Frodo was made to flop about like a worm and Merry made to join him, while making throaty noises that resembled some cross between a whale and a goat.
They all then turned and attacked Harry, tickling him mercilessly.
"For the Shire!" they each screamed launching themselves in a chaotic order all at once. He managed to fend back Merry at first, but Sam used his small size to pass between his knees and knock him over. After that, all was futile.
"Incendio." Carelessly flicking the wand (Oak, hobbit-haired) towards bowl of mead before him, Harry watched it begin to burn. Just another testimony to the number of endless hours he'd spent practicing that specific spell. His wand curled with smoke and Harry carefully extinguished the fire, with a bit of a wave as he pulled back against the flames.
He'd learned it when he'd accidentally missed his target, catching a passing elf's garments alight.
Perhaps that was why the elves all tended to avoid him, or glare whenever he entered the same room. But then again, Elrohir didn't, so maybe not. Perhaps he'd ask when next he saw the elf?
He sighed, he needed the perfect combination. But how? The elven wands were more prone to subtle spells, they lacked the spontaneous effect of fire. The dwarf hairs did better, but it was much too stubborn, refusing to create a fire unless it was some large, backwash of dragon-breath, as Sam had so adequately named it.
He need something else, something closer to a phoenix. Harry wondered if Gandalf would possibly give up a few hairs. The wizard had so much, it could hardly be a bother to lose a few, could it? But even that, Harry doubted would work to much. The wizard was powerful, far more powerful than Harry. After all, everyone revered him as such! His wand would probably make the dragon itself, and not it's breath.
He stood silently, a headache forming as he did. He looked towards his hand, still bandaged and red. He had cut it open a few more times, and despite his washing and dressing of the wound, it seemed to refuse to get better. Normally, he would have simply found Hermione and asked for the spell, as Hermione knew almost everything (almost simply because she had made that one mistake with the cat hair!), but without his know-it-all friend, he didn't have too many options.
He could find Lord Elrond, but he had already shown himself not so happy with Harry after their initial meeting. And then there was Aragorn, who could heal almost anything with the exception of the Nazgul. But Aragorn had been unhappy with him since Gandalf's inability to send him home. Nothing seemed to appease the ranger, that is, besides the she-elf Arwen, Lord Elrond's daughter.
Sighing, Harry decided on nothing. Preoccupied by the sudden need for food.