Chapter 2: The High King of the Noldor

SA 3428

Mithlond, Lindon

Their landing was not quite as pleasant as the arrival atop Mount Taniquetil. Sirius's landing was unfairly smooth, but Harry and Hermione crashed to the ground with grunts of discomfort and scraped shins, and Riddle, unfortunately, regained consciousness.

Naturally he immediately reached for his wand, but Hermione had had the good sense to tuck it inside her own trousers back in the Halls of Mandos. The three wizards immediately brandished their wands and pointed them threateningly at Riddle, who rolled his eyes and sneered.

'Don't even think about it, Riddle,' spat Harry, fuming.

'Bloody hell, Potter,' Voldemort scoffed lazily, standing and brushing down his black robes and flicking back his recently re-acquired dark locks. 'Do you really think I'm dimwitted enough to dispose of the only allies I have?'

Sirius, Harry, and Hermione stared at him as though he had grown three heads.

'A-allies?' Hermione choked out in disbelief.

Riddle smirked and crossed his arms, innocently raising his eyebrows. 'What? Or do you prefer the term lackeys?'

'Enough with the games, Voldemort,' barked Sirius. 'What are you playing at? You're the reason we've been exiled to this godforsaken alien planet in the first place.'

Although he had no wand, and although he was facing three very hostile adversaries, including his sworn nemesis, Tom Riddle casually began to walk hither and thither as he looked down, appearing deep in thought. In spite of themselves, the trio watched him as though in thrall.

'The stakes have changed,' he began, finally. 'As much as I've been painted as a Muggle-hating pureblood supremacist, I'm not utterly daft as to isolate myself from the only other links to my own world. Besides, the question of blood is a non-issue here. Pureblood, half-blood, mudblood - they're all the same.'

Harry blinked. Was Lord Voldemort actually making sense?

But Hermione was not convinced. Her hair audibly crackled and she snorted with derision. 'It's not up to you whether we allow you to parasitise us. What's in it for us?'

Riddle's lip curled in amusement. 'How very Slytherin of you, Granger.' Hermione bristled. 'I propose a bargain. A quid pro quo, as it were,' he said sibilantly.

'Go on,' said Harry.

'Harry!' admonished Hermione.

'Power for power. Knowledge for knowledge. Protection for protection. It goes both ways, children. You don't return to Earth without me and I won't return without you.'

'And what then? Once we return to Earth, we go back to being mortal enemies, where you try to murder me at least once a year?' snorted Harry, rolling his eyes and trying to not start bellowing. 'You're up to something, Riddle.'

'Look,' Riddle snapped, appearing to lose his patience, 'you heard the Vala. The odds of ever going back are slim, if not non-existent. My proposition is simple: Dark Lord or not, I am the most powerful wizard since Salazar Slytherin himself. Face it, Potter. I am more of an asset to you than you are to me.'

Harry narrowed his eyes. He could not tell if Riddle's snappy impatience was simply good acting to build rapport with hot-headed Gryffindors, or whether he truly found himself at a loss without power or connections in the face of an entirely new world.

Deciding on a whim, Harry bit out, 'Fine.'

Sirius and Hermione gaped at him. Riddle's eyes glimmered in satisfaction.

'Harry, let's think reasonably about this-' began Sirius, holding up his hands carefully, but his godson cut him off.

'I don't like this any more than you do, but we're better off knowing where he is at all times, aren't we?' he snapped. Then, he turned to Voldemort once more and added, 'But we're keeping your wand, Riddle, until you've proven your… reliability.' He had considered the term 'trustworthiness', but swiftly binned it.

Riddle's dark eyes flashed in annoyance and he sneered some more, but he finally inclined his head in agreement.

Hermione spoke up, her wand still pointed directly at his heart. 'You were knocked out while we talked with the Valar - how could you possibly know what they told us?'

Riddle laughed aloud, and his voice echoed robustly in the open air. 'Oh for God's sake, put your wand away, Granger, before you poke somebody's eye out. You Gryffindors are so charmingly naïve. Let me tell you a little secret. Not everything is as it appears.' He ended in an exaggerated whisper that could be heard from far beyond their little circle. He grinned mockingly, revealing his dazzling teeth.

She glowered at him, despite the flush that suddenly burned in her cheeks. 'You're not helping your case, Riddle,' she muttered, but she asked no more questions.

Sirius, meanwhile, had drawn Harry aside. He placed his hands upon his godson's forearms and studied him in concern. Harry squirmed. 'You're absolutely sure about this, Harry?'

Harry looked away, feeling annoyed even with Sirius. Instead of replying, he clenched his fingers tightly around his wand. 'Let's go,' he muttered, shrugging away his godfather's grip. It was then that he took note of their surroundings. They stood in a thick wood. To the north, the wood became denser and darker. To the south arose a woody hill, steep but not impossible to climb. Not meeting the others' eyes, he began to march in a crooked line up the hill, if only to see what could be observed of their surroundings from its pinnacle.

Not far away, in his halls of white stone, the High King of the Ñoldor suddenly raised his head from his study of the maps scattered around the circular table. He lifted his right hand and stared at the ring of sapphire glittering upon his finger. Beside him, Elrond Half-elven stopped speaking.

'Is there something amiss, my King?' he queried, furrowing his brow in concern and flicking his own eyes to the ring called Vilya.

For a moment, Gil-Galad was silent, but his face was like graven stone. When finally he spoke, his voice was icy and full of dread.

'Someone has breached our borders,' he said softly. 'Someone - or something - with power I know not. GUARDS!'

Followed by the others, Harry at last crested to the top of the hill and drew up short. He was looking down upon a beautiful port city. The buildings shimmered white and silver, and there gleamed aqueducts and tall, pearly towers that thrust into the sky. Graceful white ships bearing the necks of swans were tethered to the docks. The water itself was glassy and glittered a steely blue unlike anything he had ever seen in England.

'Harry,' panted Hermione right behind him, 'what -'

Her jaw dropped when she caught sight of what had arrested him, and her question changed mid-thought.

'- What is this place?'

For several moments, nobody moved as they took in the scene below. Not even Tom Riddle had anything snarky to add. But the hill from which they looked down upon the city dropped away before them, and the only way to enter was through a pearly gate erected several furlongs southeast of where they stood. It was barely visible from their position upon the cliff, but after little deliberation, they decided unanimously to make their way toward it.

But as soon as they turned around to re-enter the wood and make their way northwest, they were looking down the shafts of more than a dozen arrows, aimed directly at them.

'For Merlin's sake,' Tom drawled, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms as the others whipped out their wands. 'If you'd let me have my wand back, all this moronic posturing already would be a thing of the past.'

'Shut up, Riddle,' said Harry, who did not take his eyes off of the graceful creatures who stretched more tautly the strings of their bows and narrowed their eyes.

They had approached so noiselessly and swiftly as to be uncanny, and from their impressive height, ethereal looks and ancient bearing, Harry doubted they could be human. They were fair and fell to look upon, and for a moment, he wondered whether they were related to Veela.

Then, one of the creatures spoke, stepping around the deadly archers. His flowing hair was a silvery black, and upon his brow rested a circlet of mithril, not unlike that of Mandos and the other Valar. He wore a cloak of kingly shroud, and he studied the intruders through eyes narrowed with suspicion.

'What's this?' he demanded coolly. 'Whence come you, mortals? Whom do you serve? Who has sent you?'

Harry barely managed to process that he could understand the tongue he spoke, before the king, coming closer, suddenly froze. In the blink of an eye, he was directly in front of Harry, clutching his arms in an unyielding grip and staring, head tilted, into his eyes. For a moment, he almost believed the next words out of the king's mouth would be, 'You have your mother's eyes' - but when he next spoke, his words were full of astonishment.

'It cannot be,' he breathed, suddenly releasing him and turning to peer directly and just as intensely into the eyes of Hermione, Sirius, and Riddle in turn. Hermione squirmed under his ancient gaze, but refused to look away.

The others behind him faltered and lowered their weapons, as they also saw what their king saw. A murmur of unease arose in their own tongue.

Harry, Hermione, and Sirius exchanged glances, uncertain how to proceed.

The dark-haired king turned his back on them and the archers parted to let him through.

'A hat te mandor!' he said. (Throw them in prison)

As one, the archers moved in the blink of an eye to surround them.

'Stupefy!' Harry cried out. The red spell erupted from his wand, but even he could feel it was weakened and slow. The nearest equivalent to how the spell travelled would be that excruciating, slow-motion running that is the mark of the dreamworld, as though one is running underwater. The creatures easily dodged the red light and the next moment, Harry and the others were without wands. Riddle made snorts of derision, not appearing concerned at all.

'They are not Istari,' said Gil-Galad as he paced back and forth in his great throne room. His ageless face was contorted with worry. 'I fear the worst.'

Elrond watched the Elvenking, his expression bright and shrewd. He cupped his chin with his fingers in thought. 'Did you not say the light of Aman glistened in their eyes? None of the Second-born race has stepped upon the shores of the Undying Lands without grave punishment. I would not believe the blessed Valar would permit them safe passage back to Middle-Earth…'

Gil-Galad swirled his cloak as he turned to face Elrond. 'And did not Morgoth deceive the blessed ones long ago? And what of Annatar, who deceived our own so recently, and even now mobilises his dark forces against us! We can never be too cautious, mellon nin.'

But Elrond looked doubtful. 'Although I am of your mind, my King, it would not do to keep imprisoned these… children of Men. We both discerned the treachery of Annatar, long before he revealed himself as Sauron. I do not see these children as a threat, nor their guardian.'

'You did not feel the power I felt, Peredhel. You bear not the ring as I do. I do not believe they are children of Men, for their power surpasses that of the Dunedain.'

Elrond's hand dropped from his chin and he stood, his palms cupped outward, silken sleeves streaming down his robes.

'You are certain of this, Gil-Galad?' he said sharply, his eyebrows furrowed deeply.

Gil-Galad shot him a meaningful look.

Elrond clasped his hands and spoke. 'Then we shall question them. If they are as powerful as you suppose, then we shall make use of them as we may. This is an opportunity, not a disaster. If indeed they are the servants of Sauron, let us use them to our advantage. They are our prisoners. If the Dark Lord has sent them to hinder us, we shall be one step ahead of him.'

The High King narrowed his eyes at his herald and counsellor. 'You still do not believe they are a threat.'

Elrond rearranged his features. 'Your caution is to be commended, mellon nin. But I do not believe the servants of Sauron, if they be so powerful, would walk straight into a trap. It was too easy. Unless they are some new form of orc. And furthermore, their attire leaves something to be desired. It is almost amusing.'

Gil-Galad collapsed gracefully into his throne, tracing his lips with his finger, but for a while he said nothing.

'Very well,' he finally spoke. He looked to the guards who stood silently and motionlessly on either side of the arched entrance. 'Bring the girl.'