All Maglor had been doing was roaming the beach.

It had been centuries, nay, millennia, and yet, he continued to roam. Sometimes, when he felt like it, he participated in events, like that one concert where he got to sing. Occasionally, he even played in bars and inns, earning himself some money that way.

It was a nice, sustainable way of living.

No one bothered him, no one asked him to hang out, no one questioned him too much. He could essentially do whatever he wanted, and as long as he remained alive, there was nothing that could burst his little bubble.

Over the years, he had seen how civilizations evolved. The line of Elros, and Aragorn after him had died out and the people had scrambled after a civil war had broken out in Gondor. But even despite that, the Edain hadn't been wiped out of existence. They had merely split themselves into groups, and travelled far and wide - to the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia. And the loss of Gondor had cost them their language and their culture, but they had learned during their travels and they had invented their own customs, and continued to evolve as men were wont to do.

Maglor had seen how Magic as the people called it, had come into this world. And in those magical people, he could recognize some of the characteristics of the people of the first age - the Edain who had lived and died and known of the Song. He had seen Luthien reborn as a woman called Morgana, and Beren as her contemporary and arch-nemesis - Merlin, had seen Elros as a man called Godric Gryffindor and Turin as his shadow - Salazar. Haleth as the ever strong Rowena in that era, and Andreth as Helga.

The men he had once known well were ever reborn, always with magic in their veins - whether accessible or not - and eventually, he had realized that Magic as the people called it, was likely the power of a Valar sent by Eru to ensure that the world thrived. Arda marred it might be, but it was still alive and awash in the triumphs and downfalls of empires and civilizations and people.

Yet, in all these centuries, he had not once met a wizard who had remembered the origins of their souls. Occasionally, they would stray down the path of the 'dark' or they would remain as virtuous as he had known them to be.

And all it boiled down to in the end, was that Maglor was surrounded by the fea of people he once knew, people who wouldn't have even an inkling of who he was. Every time he walked down one of their magical streets, he saw someone he recognized and he would brighten up, and then would be let down when they barely paid a hint of attention to him. He wondered sometimes, if this was his true punishment - walking beside his son, Elros, once again, but not being recognized.

It was with those thoughts plaguing his mind, that he walked into one of the bars on the beach.

He had enough money saved up that he could drink himself into oblivion - a difficult task since he was somehow more naturally resistive to the drinks they served these days - and still have money left over, enough to spend on four generations worth of family luxury.

Nonetheless, it wasn't his first time drinking at a bar, and it likely wouldn't be the last.

And his head had thumped onto the table well into the night, much after it had started pounding.

Which is why, when he jerked up to the feeling of Magic weaving around him and pulling him into a fold in space, he was extremely shocked and barely had the time or energy to extricate himself from the fold. With his sleep deprived state and pounding head, he was not in the mood to be dragged through space for any reason.

Unfortunately, Eru or whatever Valar was playing with the fabric of space, did not let go of him that easily, and he was pulled through with minimal protest on his part. Landing unceremoniously on a stone floor, he forced his legs to cooperate and pushed himself to his feet, and then nearly proceeded to fall onto the floor face first.

Standing around him, on the edges of a runic circle that looked shockingly similar to a summoning circle - he absently wondered if the boy in the middle was trying to start a cult - were six other people. It wasn't just that fact that shocked him though. No, the thing that was most absurd were that they looked suspiciously similar to his own brothers.

There was a blond one that had a twisted, sneery expression on his face; a dark haired one with the same sneery expression; another dark haired one who looked like he was snarling or scowling at the world; a tallish redhead with a scar on his cheek and twin red-haired boys who looked like clowns with the expressions on their faces.

Maglor blinked, and pinched himself lightly.

This was definitely a hallucination.

His brothers were long dead, and thoughts about them never led anywhere nice. The last time he had even considered going down the path of his family, he had ended up bawling in the middle of a battlefield, and not even behind one of their little trenches at that.

Shaking his head, he kept his ears open to listen to whatever the boy was saying.

English was not and would never be his first choice of language, but he had learnt it well enough to know what the boy was mumbling. The child, for that was what he was, opened his eyes then and as Maglor watched, the six other people's expressions smoothed out into polite interest and nothing more. Any hint of their resemblance to his brothers were gone, but for their shared appearance.

"Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?" The boy demands, pointing his wand at them as though he isn't the one who summoned them. Maglor was tempted to point that out, but for the Ambarussa look-alikes speaking up first. They clearly knew the boy.

Maglor nearly tuned out the explanation, but for the fact that the glint in the redheads' eyes were starting to look a bit too familiar. They had that expression that the Ambarussa always had, when they were planning something inadvisable. The expression that told Maglor to evacuate the room without any questions whatsoever, and the other people around the circle seemed the have the same burning itch, for they clenched their hands into fists and moved towards the wall, sitting patiently there.

Belatedly realizing that he should probably do the same, lest the twins take him as their victim, Maglor followed, choosing to sit a bit further apart from the three other men, who were looking at him with yearning and horror and guilt in their eyes. He hated it, but he couldn't do anything to get out of the hallucination either.

He turned back to the conversation when the one who looked a lot like Carnister spoke, with a smile on his face. He had never seen Carnister smile that nicely before, face always marred with either indifference or annoyance. It was slightly reassuring that he wasn't hallucinating his brother. "Do you want our current names or those from our memories?"

Maglor blinked. He would have to introduce himself to whoever this child was, and he no longer went by the name Maglor, choosing instead to give whatever name came to mind first. Sometimes, he named himself after famous musicians that he liked, other times, it was after some of the mortals he befriended years ago.

"You see, we don't actually have all our memories yet," the Curufin look-alike said, and Maglor fought to keep his expression neutral. Curufin lied. He had been a liar since he was young, and none of them had bothered to care, since they had their own secrets. It was his defining feature almost, something that kept him apart from their father - who was honest to a fault. "I'm Regulus Black, by the way," the man continued, but Maglor had the suspicion he wasn't saying all that he had to.

The introductions continued, but Maglor didn't bother remembering their names. He only kept track of the boy's name, Harry, since that was the person who had summoned them. If he was reading the runic circle correctly, then the boy could order them to do his bidding, and they would have minimal choices about it. Not that it looked like the boy knew that.

"And who are you?" Harry asked, turning to him with a half-wild look in his eyes.

Maglor scrambled about for a name, latching onto the man he had met at the bar. "Von Brandt."

Then, realizing he needed a first name to go with it, he picked one of his most used names. "Elvis Von Brandt. It's a pleasure to meet you, Harry Potter," he said, and then to get the attention off him, he continued, "Malfoy, Black, Lestrange and…"

Immediately once the attention was off him, he pinched himself again. The guarded, hopeful, utterly torn expression he had seen on the faces of his brothers were not real, he reminded himself. His brothers had died when the world was young, by their own folly and were doomed to the Everlasting Darkness for their deeds, should he fail to accomplish their Oath and die.

"Von Brandt was it," the Maedhros look alike said, and Maglor couldn't bring himself to meet his eyes. They shone the same way Maedhros' had, and it was not real. He just didn't have the energy to face his brother now, not when he was barely coherent half the time and hadn't seen Maedhros for ages. "I've never heard of your family name before. Are you from Britain?"

Maglor glanced up, focusing his eyes on not-Maedhros' scar. It made him look even more like his brother, and he winced at the thought. "I am not from Britain," he said, wondering which place he was going to identify with. He hadn't done this in a long time, not since the second world war that had ravaged Earth. "I suppose I'm from Norway."

Not-Maedhros lit up, and it was like seeing his brother transformed back into Nelyo from the Years of the Trees.

Maglor couldn't do this. He had to get away. He needed to leave.

The others were talking around him, and the boy looked like he was going to bed. Maglor couldn't weave the Song when the boy was there. They were keeping up the appearance of not knowing their past lives yet, which Maglor knew was a lie (Curufin was a liar) and if there was anything Maglor was good at, it was keeping up appearances.

"Oh! I've heard that's a nice place to visit, but my work hasn't taken me there yet," not-Maedhros continued. Maglor glanced at him distractedly, and then nodded.

"Yes, it's fascinating," he muttered. "I think we should send that child to bed."

Mae- Not-Maedhros nodded. "He's looking a little sleep deprived, isn't he?"

And then, like the mother hen he was (but he wasn't. Maglor didn't even know this man. Although if this was a hallucination, he supposed they would be similar to his brothers.), not-Maedhros ushered Harry out of the room they were in and presumably to wherever he was supposed to sleep.

Maglor glanced at his surroundings and peered out of the lone window. He could take a guess as to where he had arrived, and he desperately wanted to be anywhere but there.

Closing his eyes, he did something he hadn't done since the Years of the Trees, he prayed to Eru.

"Please, please, let me leave. I can't do this."

But the silence was far more damning than any sort of response would have been.

Maglor had resigned himself to his doom, but he still couldn't help the anger and desperation and fear that clawed through his body. How could he even deal with this hallucination, if that's what it was? How was he supposed to face people who had been his brothers millennia ago, without proving himself as the coward and unworthy of his lineage?

How would he face them with not a single one of his father's jewels in hand?