Chapter 5: Back to School

There a giant of a man called Hagrid escorted them to some boats which were to get them to the other side of the lake.

"No more'n four to a boat." Hagrid called. As the Hobbits went together in one, Legolas, Aragorn and Gandalf took another.

"Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself, "Right then – FORWARD!"

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle ahead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff, they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy which hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbour, where they clambered out onto the rocks and pebbles.

When the group was being let inside and to McGonagall, who be giving them a welcoming speech, Aragorn and Gandalf followed Hagrid, who took them to the Teacher's table.

Legolas followed Aragorn's retreating form until he rounded a corner. He sighed softly, before turning his attention to McGonagall. She explained to them that a hat would sort them into their houses. Legolas thought it was strange that a simple hat would be deciding about the houses, but remembered that it was probably a magical one.

When she had finished her speech, she let them into the Great Hall, where they all stood in front of the head table. Professor McGonagall silently placed a four legged stool in front of the first years (and Legolas) On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty.

The first years whispered excitingly. Legolas looked up at the head table in search of Aragorn, when he found him he smiled relieved. His being here made him a little more comfortable. Aragorn smiled at him reassuringly and Legolas couldn't help but smile back broadly.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted." She said.

"Baggins, Frodo." The hobbit stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down his eyes, and sat down. A moments pause –

« GRIFFYNDOR !! » shouted the hat.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Frodo went to sit down at the Gryffindor table.

Legolas saw the ghost of sir Nicholas waving merrily at him.

When all the first years were sorted – The hobbits were all in Gryffindor – Legolas was the only one left.

As he was called forwards all the girls were staring at him in awe, whispering excitingly to their girlfriends. They had never seen such a handsome guy.

"This is Legolas Greenleaf." McGonagall told them. "He will be in the seventh year, for his parents moved to England this summer." She put the hat on top of Legolas' head and waited expectantly.

"GRYFFINDOR!" it shouted almost immediately.

Legolas sighed relieved and walked over to the Gryffindor table where he received a loud applaud. Most of the girls giggled when they looked at him or blushed furiously.

Great, he thought. Just when I thought I had finally left all those irritating girls back home behind, I find a whole lot more over here. When he looked around he saw that only one girl wasn't staring at him. She was seated in between the redheaded boy called Ronald Weasley and his friend Harry. She seemed to have only an eye for Ron, who was apparently telling a very funny story. Then his eyes drifted towards the High table where Gandalf and Aragorn were seated. Gandalf was talking animatingly to Snape, while Aragorn was just staring in front of him, looking a little lost. When Aragorn felt someone staring at him he looked up to see it was the one he loved. He gave him a small secretive smile, before engaging into a conversation with professor McGonagall, who just sat down beside him.

When everyone had finished eating, they were let to their dormitories by their House Prefect, who was the girl who had been sitting next to Ron.

At the very end of a corridor hung a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.

"Password?" she said.

"Caput Draconis," said the girl, and the portrait swung open to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it and found themselves into the Gryffindor common room, a cosy room full of squashy armchairs, which were almost immediately filled by older students.

When she had directed the first years towards their rooms, she focussed her attention on Legolas. "Hi, I am Hermione Granger." she said, extending her hand.

"Legolas Greenleaf."

"You will be sharing your room with.." she pointed her finger towards some boys, who sat in a corner talking happily. "Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter. Then you have Neville Longbottom and Dean Thomas and then last but not least Seamus Finnegan." They all looked up when they heard their name's and when they saw Hermione pointing them out to Legolas, they motioned him to come forward and sit down with them.

"So, you're the new kid, hah?" Dean Thomas stated.

"Yes, that is me."

"So where are you from anyway?"

"I am from Australia."

"Cool!! Was it nice there? Don't you miss your family and friends?" Ron asked.

"Of course, I do, but we had to move because of my father's profession, so there was not much I could do."

"Bummer! Well if you have any questions, just ask us." Ron smiled.

"Thank you."

"I think I'm going to bed." Hermione said. "I'll see you all in the morning." She kissed Ron lightly on the cheek, but when she tried to turn away, he pulled her close to him and started to kiss her passionately.

"Gross!"

"Yak!"

"That's disgusting, man. Just go and find yourselves a room, will you." Harry laughed.

Legolas smiled a little sad, how he wished he could be in Aragorn's arms right now. Wait a minute I have to patrol tonight. We'll have plenty off time then.

"Right." Hermione said flustered. "Legolas if you will follow me, so I can show you where your room is."

"Good night." He said to his roommates and followed Hermione upstairs.

He had almost fallen into sleep, when he heard a soft knock on the door.

"Come in."

It was Dumbledore.
"Hello Legolas, I wanted to tell you that you won't have to patrol tonight."

Legolas looked at him surprised. "Why not?"

"Galadriel and I still haven't found a spell to stop you from glowing, besides I think it would be better if you waited for a week or so to start patrolling. This way you won't arouse too much suspicion with your roommates."

"How so? They will not hear me leaving or entering the room when I am going to patrol. I can assure you that. Elves have the ability to walk silently."

"I realize that, but still I would prefer that you waited for a week."

Legolas lowered his gaze in defeat. "If you say so." He murmured.

"Well, now that's settled I wanted to ask you, if you have time to come after your classes to me, so we can start practicing on the spells and enchantments."

"Yes, sir." Legolas said, a little angry.

"Legolas, you have to realize that I'm only doing this to ensure your own and your friends' safety. If they find out about your true identities , you will all be in great danger and you wouldn't want that to happen, now would you?"

Legolas reluctantly agreed. "I suppose you are right." He sighed. "I, …. Well, I was just looking forward to spending some time in the forest. It has been a while since I was among the trees."

Dumbledore laid a hand on his shoulder.

"I'll try to find a solution as soon as possible." With that he walked out of the room.

Legolas let himself fall onto the bed and stared at ceiling.

There goes my only time to spend with Aragorn alone.

With Aragorn in his mind he entered the Dream Realm.

The next morning at breakfast he sat next to Ron Weasley, when the new schedules were handed out. "Great." He heard Ron say. "Potions with the Slytherins again! I am really starting to think that they are just doing that on purpose, to torture us, you know."

"Are they that horrid?" Legolas questioned.

"Yep, especially Draco Malfoy and his two gorillas of friends. Plus Snape teaches Potions class, what only makes matters worse."

"Hmmm, I met Snape and he seemed nice enough."

"Thrust me, he isn't. At least when you're not in Slytherin." The redhead huffed, glaring at the teacher in question.

"Hey, we have Herbology the third hour. I'm curious to find out what that new teacher is like…. Professor Strider." Hermione popped in.

"He is very nice." Legolas smiled.

When they all looked at him surprised, he quickly added: "I know him from my former school. He was the best teacher I had."

"That sounds promising." Hermione smiled. "What about Professor White?"

"Well, he is very nice too, but a little strict, I think. I never had him as a teacher though."

"We have him tomorrow after lunch." His female classmate informed him.

A loud bell rang announcing that it their first lesson was about to start. They packed their bags and headed for their first class: Care of Magical Creatures, with the Slytherins

"Good mornin', class." Hagrid said smiling. "For our first class after the summer, I've arranged something very special for ye."

Groans could be heard, as they all expected the worst. Hagrid had quite a history of letting them work with horrible and dangerous creatures, which he considered to be harmless pets.

He guided them towards the edge of the forest and what he revealed there let them all astonished. There were two unicorns, a baby and his mother behind a wooden fence.

"Don't get too close, 'cause the mother won't appreciate that. They may seem innocent, but they can get quite dangerous when they're mad." Hagrid told them.

Harry, who stood next to Legolas, turned around to watch Draco whisper intimately with his two friends Crabbe and Goyle. Clearly they were up to something, as usual.

They approached the unicorns slowly. Legolas had seen a unicorn before, of course. But he was always overwhelmed by their beauty and knowledge. He couldn't talk to them now, for it would draw too much attention to himself. So he just patted the creature's back soothingly. When he turned his back to Draco and his friends, they quickly pushed him on top of the baby and ran for it. The mother unicorn reared angrily and was about to attack Legolas, when he put a hand on top of the unicorn's snout, speaking to her in Elfish, softly. She soon calmed down and started to talk back. Legolas had asked her to keep an eye out for Aragorn and if anything strange had happened lately. She told him that some evil creatures had been dwelling in the woods, but that she hadn't seen them for over a week.

Legolas thanked the unicorn and turned towards the others, who he saw were all staring at him in disbelief.

Uh-oh, what have I done?

"You handled that very well Legolas, where have you learned to control unicorns like that?" Hagrid finally spoke, clearly impressed.

"I have my own horse back home, so I do know how to calm them down." He shrugged, staring at Hagrid with a small smile on his face. He hoped he and the others would buy his lie.

"Well, you'll get ten points for handlin' that situation so well. And as for Mr Malfoy," he said looking around angry at the boy in question. "there will be taken 20 points off of Slytherin for such a foul prank!"

After Hagrid had explained more about the unicorn, he dismissed them and they started to walk away towards their next lesson: History of Magic, which was the only class taught by a ghost.

Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff-room fire and got up the next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates and got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up.

Legolas let out a sigh of relief when the bell rang. At last! I would rather fight a hundred Orcs, then being in this class for much longer! By Elbereth, I thought it would never end. His bad mood quickly subsided as he realized that the next class would be Herbology. He couldn't wait to see Aragorn.

He quickly packed his bag and headed towards Greenhouse three.

"Damn you're in a hurry." Harry remarked as he walked up to him.

Legolas immediately slowed down, blushing slightly. "I only want to get as far away as possible from Professor Binns." He lied.

Harry laughed. "He really is boring, isn't he? I wonder how he was before he died…" Harry pondered.

"Probably just as bad." Legolas replied as they entered the Greenhouse.

When he saw Aragorn his heart enlightened with joy, his first reaction was to walk up to the Man and kiss him passionately, but he quickly suppressed his urges and only smiled broadly.

Aragorn smiled back at him, longing showing in his eyes.

"Good morning class." He started, tearing his eyes away from Legolas. "I am Professor Strider and I will be your Herbology teacher for this year. You work quite differently here in comparison to my old school, so my classes might seem a little strange to you at the beginning. But I will try my best to follow Mrs Sprout's helpful notes as much as possible."

He then divided them into pairs, lightly brushing Legolas' arm as he gestured him to work with Harry. A shiver went down Legolas' spine as he did so. Why does this mortal man, have so much affect on me? The elf wondered. He did not even have to think hard as he found the answer was already in his mind. He loved him. He loved him as he had never loved anyone before and as he never would again. He loved the way his hair glistered in the sun, how he could drown into the depths of his beautiful greyish eyes, how he could feel a wave of electricity passing through his body as his lips touched his, how he could make him laugh even when he was angry or sad and how his body……

He was quickly turned back to the present, when someone shook him roughly. He looked up to see it was Harry, looking at him amused. "Wow, you were far away."

Legolas only smiled and soon they were focussed on their tasks.

Each pair had gotten a small delicate flower called a 'Madeliefje' and were given the task to take care of it, not knowing how or what to feed it. At first it seemed like a very easy task, but soon they realized the flower's beauty was only a cloak. As a small fly planted himself on top of the flower's heart, it suddenly opened and a huge tongue could be seen for merely a second as it dragged the little fly back into its heart. Legolas and Harry gasped in surprise. Then they looked around carefully to see if anyone had noticed what just had happened. When the pair realized that no one was watching, they looked at each other smiling. Now the boys knew what and how the plant could be fed, the rest was easy. As the class ended they were told that their homework was to take care of the plant for a week and study it closely.

When Legolas had finished packing his bag reluctantly, he looked up at Aragorn and walked passed him, as close as he could, as he made his way towards the door. Aragorn let his hand brush the Elf's waist nonchalantly as he past by, making Legolas shudder in delight.

As soon as he was outside he realized that he would go insane if he didn't feel Aragorn's lips pressed against his right this moment, so he quickly made up an excuse to head back to the Greenhouse. "Oh, I totally forgot." He said to Harry. "I was supposed to set some dates for a few private lessons."

"Why do you need those?" Harry asked.

"Well, you know. We used a completely different book at my former school and Ara.. I mean Professor Strider told me that he would help me if I asked him too." Legolas really surprised himself, each time he seemed to be able to make quicker and more plausible excuses and lies.

"I see. Well, hurry up then. Potions starts in about fifteen minutes and you don't want to be late, thrust me!" Harry warned him.

"I will not, trust me." the Elf said, before quickly turning around and racing back towards his lover.