Ballad of Dusk and Dawn
Disclaimer: Definitely don't own any of this.
Warnings: AU, Crossover, Slash
AN: Based on a prompt by NaTeO11 on AO3. This also has some very strong influences from The Wizarding Prince of Twilight by Marsflame18 and Scion of Somebody, Probably by Drag0nSt0rm.
The forests south of Tirion are summer-warm even close to the lake. As a human, Harry would've found them intolerably hot without cooling charms, but now, he's dressed in layers and barely notices the difference.
They set out before dawn, before the temperatures rise, when the sun is still sleeping and dew clings to the leaves. Fingon has turned this particular venture into a hunting trip, though Harry can't fathom why. He's out front with Aredhel just behind on her impossibly white horse. Harry and Gil-galad are in the center, near level with each other, as he's the only one Indilwen comes close to tolerating. Finrod is next, oddly enough playing a lyre as they ride. Angrod and Argon bring up the rear.
Celebrían has declined this undertaking along with most of ladies; Harry isn't given that option.
The trip itself is pleasant enough, and they pass the time singing to him silly hunting tunes and telling him childish tales from their youths. Harry knows that he makes for a good audience, and he's too practiced at this game, redirecting any questions about himself before they can even form. He learns more about the antics of the House of Finwë than an outsider should ever know, and it's a blessing to them that he isn't prone to blackmail.
Gil-galad didn't grow up with them though and wasn't born in Valinor, but he's spent more time in Endor than any of the others. It shows in his narratives of dwarves and Men, of the island of Númenor and the mines of Moria and the Haves of Sirion. He's an excellent storyteller with perfect dramatic timing and a wry sense of humor. He pauses at all the right intervals, but the mischievous sparkle in his stormy eyes usually gives his plot away.
By some mutual signal that Harry misses, they come to a stop with the lake peeking through the trees. It's turquoise and sparkling in the dawning light. If given a choice, he'd much prefer a simple ride or a swim or even a picnic, but this is Fingon's show.
There's so much game around that they have their choice of it, but Aredhel spots one in particular, and that's that. Harry usually goes after predators, so this is a bit novel. But hunting isn't a passion, more a duty. An obligation to keep the roads around Formenos safe for travelers and to prevent more aggressive animals from settling in on their doorstop.
The elves seem to enjoy the thrill of the chase. They laugh at the rush of it, galloping at breakneck speeds and pursuing their quarry. Harry much prefers the freedom of riding Indilwen. Of her fast gait as she dodges around trees and whips through paths and bushes.
He could make a broom, he supposes, but he'd have to layer it with so many concealment charms and ride far away from prying eyes that it isn't worth it. Besides, if he wants to fly, he has other, less obvious methods.
The first stag is impressive enough, and Gil-galad brings it down with a single arrow. Their second is felled by Fingon and the third by Finrod as Aredhel shoots a pheasant mid-flight. Angrod and Argon opt for rabbits for a challenge. Harry only goes for the fox when he hears the ducks shrieking for help.
The next part is the most tedious. Oromë always makes him do this by hand and never by magic. He's seen enough blood over the years that he isn't even squeamish anymore. Harry just works methodically through without complaint while Gil-galad hands him anything he needs before he can even ask.
The stream he uses for cleanup is small, barely more than a trickle of water over rocks, but it's enough to scrub down all the knives and equipment. Gil-galad is kneeling next to him as they work. He's seemed very interested in watching Harry this entire time from downing the fox all the way to now; though it occurs to Harry they've never seen him so much as touch an arrow prior to this so maybe the attention shouldn't surprise him. They admittedly don't really know very much about him, which is by his own design, so they were in all probability stunned that he had his own bow.
"You certainly do know your way around a knife," Gil-galad comments almost idly, watching as Harry inspects each one separately, dries, and then sheathes it. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone so efficient but meticulous. I'd ask if you do the same for all your blades, but you never use anything else."
Harry can't help but snort. He uses his sword only because Eönwë makes him. He has the calluses to prove it.
Gil-galad lets out a ridiculous laugh then. He seems perhaps overly intrigued in Harry's hands afterwards.
"So I can see," the older elf says, a touch too surreal.
Harry blinks at him. Replays that in his mind.
He said that out loud then.
Bother.
Gil-galad shakes his head. Bemused but ultimately pleased that Harry is revealing something of himself.
"I suppose you learned the bow from Oromë then."
It's said almost in jest, but there's a gleam in the other elf's eyes. Harry stays silent only because he isn't sure how to answer and not make that awkward or a lie.
Gil-galad chuckles again. It's half-absurd and half-thrilled. Like he's recovering after being hit by an overly powerful Cheering Charm.
He doesn't have a diadem today, and his hair is braided in a more practical style. His clothes are as simple as the Ñoldor get, pants gray and tunic cream with blue stitches and a single jay embroidered on the high collar. There's dirt underneath his fingernails and a grass-stain on his knee from earlier. He'll never have wrinkles, but his eyes crinkle when he laughs and means it. He seems realer this way, less the depiction of some heroic king and more an actual person.
Harry finds he rather prefers him this way.
Gil-galad's smile is gentler now, but he isn't turning away. He just looks at Harry.
"You aren't like any other elf I've ever met."
It's softer but no less delighted.
Harry freezes for only a heartbeat, but they're far too near for Gil-galad not to see. This is… too much. It's getting a little too close. He understands that he isn't really like the other elves; he isn't one of them at all. He just hadn't realized it was that obvious.
Gil-galad watches him, glow falling away. His gaze is assessing, searching.
Harry keeps his face neutral, but he feels exposed. Open like a book when the breeze has fluttered it to a random page.
He peeks back at the others. To see if they've noticed. To see if they've also figured out his lie.
Fingon doesn't even glance their way, too engrossed in his sweet murmurings to Indilwen as he attempts to coax her with an apple. Finrod has his head turned down as he tunes his lyre on a nearby log. Aredhel and Angrod are too busy arguing about the proper way to bundle deer to his horse to notice anything short of a dragon, while Argon does the actual work of sorting everything out.
The touch on his elbow is light, and Harry's eyes are drawn back. Gil-galad studies him again before he leans forward and pitches his tone low.
"Peredhel?"
It's only a single word, a question. It's even one Harry's considered himself more than he'll ever care to admit. It's accurate enough, he supposes. He'll never be a true, real elf, and they seemingly use this term to cover everyone that has a drop of non-elven blood.
"Yes," Harry admits, and it's halting, stilted. "I'm not fully elven."
This isn't a lie; it doesn't even feel like one. But he's laid bare by this honesty more than anything else he's said or done on Valinor.
It's liberating. It's terrifying. Both together all in one. Dizzying even. He feels like a broomstick in a tempest, spiraling in the winds.
This is the closest he's come to the truth to anyone who isn't an Ainu - or already in on the secret; he isn't entirely sure that they all know aside from the three he first met.
Gil-galad puts a hand on his wrist as if to catch him. A thumb rubs on the vulnerable skin there. Strokes steady and slow.
"There's no shame in this," the older elf murmurs, eyes such an intense storm-cloud blue that Harry half-expects lightning. "You don't have to hide what you are. Truly, they wouldn't care."
His gaze doesn't return to the others; it's fixed on Harry's face. His touch is tender, and his hold never turns to a shackle. That more than anything calms Harry, steadies him as he circles for a safe spot to land.
"One of my truest and dearest friends is peredhel, and I gladly await the day he sails here." Gil-galad's tone is strong with affection and remembrance. "I should think he'd very much like to meet you."
His fingers are warm on Harry's wrist, touch soft, almost delicate. He's very close, Harry recognizes. His hair is a very deep brown, but his lashes are black. His eyes are so near that Harry can see there's actually a darker ring around the pupil. He smells faintly of rain and treacle and the woods and…
Then, there's a chortle from behind them. It's quickly followed by a groan as Argon is hit by something that may've been a lyre.
Harry blinks and inhales as the spell is broken. He pulls away first, moving to stand and turning away deliberately.
Fingon is still near Indilwen, but the pair of them are now sharing a very strange expression. Aredhel and Angrod have stopped arguing and are instead gaping at Finrod. He is, in turn, towering over Argon. Who is dazedly sitting on the forest floor, clutching at the steadily blossoming bruise on his forehead. The lyre is right next to him.
Harry sighs and goes over to tend to Argon.
He very carefully doesn't look at Gil-galad for the rest of the day.
-o.O.o-
-o.O.o-
They think they're so clever.
Harry mentally shakes his head at that. At this very obvious set-up. At the convenience of a party with Celebrían and her uncle pulled away by nobles from the rebuilt Gondolin. While Fingon, his siblings, and their cousin speak to others from Nargothrond. With Findis and Irimë conspicuously absent for the last hour. Gil-galad… Harry isn't sure where he's gone. There one minute and not the next. And poor Harry left all alone now on the balcony.
He knows who this is without even needing to hear her name. He's seen her sketch tucked away in a drawer in what he can only assume was once Fëanor's desk. It certainly doesn't do justice to the vivid copper gleam of her hair or the warmth of her eyes, like clear water that can be seen all the way through.
"Lady Nerdanel," he greets softly. He doesn't sigh or wish very unfortunate things on the House of Finwë; he doesn't.
"Lord Marcaunon," she says back, and it's unexpectedly formal.
Her voice is surprisingly deep, lower in octave than he'd anticipated, but intense. Like a stream over rocks. Like she's used to calling out over the cacophony and making herself heard.
Nerdanel isn't the most beautiful elf he's ever seen – that title currently goes to Finrod though he admits Celebrían is a not so distant second. Her face is rounder than most, and he can see the roughness to her hands even from here. There's something about her that's captivating, nevertheless, and Harry finds that he can't look away.
Her dress is a soft pearl and shimmers as she leisurely walks up to him. She stops to his left – not in front – and leans on the banister much like a schoolgirl as she gazes down at the fountain below. It's an odd, dissonant picture. Especially with the soothing aura she projects. Rather like staying up late with Molly at the original Burrow drinking hot chocolate in the kitchen when all the others are asleep.
Harry exhales at that thought. At the sting of memory. At a vision of an orphaned boy whose only recollection of his mother is her screams. At a wonderful woman who had opened her home and arms to him but could never quite fill that void.
Molly had only outlived one son though. Hadn't had to deal with her brood turning to murderers and then knowing what came after.
Hadn't had to deal with an imposter who everyone tried to shove at her.
He's avoided Nerdanel for years; Harry admits that in the safety of his own mind. Everyone in the place is determined to make him their relative, but he couldn't do that to this woman who's lost everything. To pretend. To steal a place in her heart that will never be his. That's never even existed in the first place.
His heart beats painfully in his chest. It's tight and squeezing. She's as opposite from Molly Weasley as possible despite the hair, but somehow, she looks just the same as she stands beside him. Shadow long and empty for the people who should be there.
She looks at him then. As if she's sensing his thoughts. Her eyes are blue pools, so deep he might drown.
She hides it well, he realizes. Hides it so far down that only someone truly looking can hope to catch a glimpse. Buried beneath the sweet layering of the surface and the lake-calm of her soul, but Harry can hear it like she's shrieking it from the rooftops.
Her grief is so immense, there isn't even tears. But Harry's seen this before. First, in Cedric's mother after he died. Then, Molly herself when she buried first a son and then later a husband. Next, in the faces of others when they'd lost everything and everyone and were only hanging on by the thinnest thread.
He's shamed even by association that he played any part in this deception. In this farce.
"I'm sorry that I'm not who you wanted," he murmurs to her and means it with everything he is.
She smiles at him then, and it's not bitter or broken. Instead, it's lovely.
"What I want will come back to me again in time," Nerdanel replies.
It's very certain. She says it like there's absolutely no doubt in her mind. Like there can't be any other possibility.
Her husband and sons are still in confinement after two ages. Her only grandson by blood was tortured to death by Sauron and is still being healed from that horror. She's never met her foster grandsons; already, one chose humanity and is lost to death forever while the other's still on Endor with return date unknown. There are great grandchildren she may or may not ever meet.
Perhaps this needs to be true for her sanity.
"I'm very sorry for everything," Harry apologizes again. "I never meant for any of this…" He waves a vague hand at himself, the party through the doors behind them, and then entire building. "None of this to happen."
She's silent to that. Glancing from his eyes to the curve of his cheek and over his face. He doesn't know what she's searching for, but he knows she won't find it here.
"A mother knows her children when they stand before her," Nerdanel states, voice clear and sure, "and you're not my son."
Harry stops breathing. His mouth is suddenly dry; he honestly didn't think she'd believe him. None of the others have, after all.
He blinks at her once. Twice. Three times.
Nerdanel gives a little laugh but doesn't look away. She's nearly two heads shorter than him, but he feels smaller than her. Like a little boy clutching at apron strings.
"My husband has always been brash and impatient," she says next, a non sequitur. "My sons, even the gentlest of them, have always been far too much like him. You're of a different sort, I think."
She takes his hands in hers before he can even think to pull away. For all that Harry's seen him practice his sword almost daily, her grip is as strong as Fingon's. She squeezes his fingers until they're white and bloodless.
"You are very kind."
It's a declaration. An absolute confidence.
The blue of her eyes is almost glowing in the moonlight, and her hair is a metallic halo that flutters in the breeze. She's the only other Ñoldo with so little ornamentation, wearing only a simple silver ring that bites into his skin as she holds his hands.
"Don't let them take that away from you."
The hand that moves to cup his face is gentle, tender. She smooths his hair before pulling back.
"Now, let us go back inside, yes."
Only, it truly isn't a question. Her smile is wider now, happy in a way he can't quite describe. Settled, he supposes. Like she's figured out the truth, and it's eased her heart.
She releases his second hand but only to turn and slide into position like he's a proper escort. The top of her head brushes his arm, and he has to keep his breathing steady. He thinks of the final task of a tournament and funerals when another woman refused to let any of her sons and only a dark-haired orphan see her cry. Of other soft hands that offered him a place at her kitchen table but of promised-family that fell away with the weight of time and distance of association.
The color isn't quite right, and he was never this much taller than Molly. But Harry allows himself this illusion, this lie, for just a moment.
-o.O.o-
-o.O.o-
The nicest thing he can say about it Formenos is that at least it's dry inside. That's it's far from prying eyes, hushed whispers, and judging looks.
Fingon is so nice it's painful, but Harry can't stay there. His inner Hufflepuff won't allow him to freeload indefinitely off of such generosity. The Gryffindor in him agrees, informs him this isn't honorable, that he can't pretend to be the son of a man – elf – he's never met and probably never will. He knows he isn't part of this family, and he tells them as much.
They don't believe him.
Oh, they listen.
They make all the appropriate noises and give nods, but he knows they don't believe. Not the first time. Not the tenth. Not the hundredth.
He leaves Tirion behind and breathes a sigh of relief. He doesn't tell them where he's going. Despite their best efforts, he isn't followed either.
The chill of the north isn't any worse than a Scottish winter. It's a nostalgic thing as he and Indilwen head further into the snow. He can see her become increasingly more nervous as they grow closer though. Watch her eyes dart to each shadow, and it's only her trust in him that keeps her from galloping back south.
The old road up the mountains is treacherous in places but in remarkably good order considering. Harry slowly takes Indilwen up and uses magic to reinforce everything as they go. It isn't as winding as he'd expect, as it would've been had humans made it, but the fortress itself is still a surprise when he crests the last rise and sees it towering above them.
It's dark, foreboding even in the afternoon light. A gray stain on top of the mountain like a black cloud crossing the sun. The stronghold itself is a geometrical marvel, a genius of engineering, and considering the Muggle wonders he has seen in his last life, especially at the end, that's truly saying something.
But it's stark. Cold. Haunting. Worse than a deathday party gone horribly wrong. There's a wrathful feeling here, an anger and a terrible, aching loss. Like some giant monster had reared up and torn out its heart.
It honestly looks like someone – or several someones – died here.
Ancient blood is still stained on the walls, and he can hear the echoes of screams when he presses his palm flat against the stone.
It's a terrible, foreboding place. Shaded hallways where insects and small animals haven't even dare come inside from the cold. Where the predators give a wide berth and evergreens refuse to grow too close.
It's his new home.
The second nicest thing he can say about Formenos is that since he's basically alone, he can cast as much magic as he wants. Harry uses that to his full advantage.
The structure has held up amazingly well. Say what people will about Fëanor, he certainly built things to last. Harry comes here because it's abandoned. Because he can be far away from elves and their history and their feuds and their otherness. He expected a ruin tucked away in the northern mountains. The truth is anything but. The water needs to be cleaned, but the pipes are unbroken and baths still fill perfectly. The hearths are cold with traces of ash, but a swift Scourgify has them ready; even the glass in the windows is still intact. The Ravenclaw in him wonders at it all.
The aura of the place is the true issue. The echoes, the memories of pain and despair all but crying from the walls.
He cleanses the entire structure with seven different rituals tied together over seven full moons. Scrubs the blood away by hand even as he sings an old Veela hymn that Victoire taught him so long ago. Crafts a rite that purifies the very stones themselves, which washes them all a dazzling white even purer than the surrounding snow.
Harry adds towers to the fortress to turn it into a proper castle. There's one for the four cardinal directions with another set in between each of those. The final and largest tower is in the middle, which will house him, a study, atelier, and whatever else he later decides to add.
The great hall is stripped down to its bones and reworked from the literal ground up, and he already knows how it'll be remade before he starts. The ceiling is the finishing touch, and he toils on it for nearly a year. A mix of magic and handcrafting, painstakingly painted with love and longing of a home gone but never forgotten.
The books in the library have survived to a degree. Magic restores them fully and encases them in further protection. The library itself is expanded and opened up with glass ceilings, airy walkways and arbors alternating with the shelves. His few ventures into civilization are only for new tomes and scrolls. Everything else he can make or obtain himself.
The rest of the castle is still a work in progress but coming together with his own desires and designs. He takes his time; he has plenty of it. All the time in the world to make it just so, to make it perfect, the embodiment of every childish whim he's ever had. Perhaps he'll add an owlery in one tower and train birds just to fill it. Maybe he'll enlarge the conservatory and have it take up the entire northwest tower. Or he could change another to an observatory.
It's terribly indulgent. He hasn't had this much leisure time, this much opportunity to do something for himself and no one else in so long. It's a nebulous happy thing. Waking up when he wants to do what he wants.
Harry hasn't felt this alive since… since… He doesn't even know.
Teaching had been a joy, but as the headmaster, that was limited. He'd had paperwork and meetings and politics. All things he despised. He'd only put up with it to ensure that the students had the very best. That none of them ever had to have a school experience like he did. That there would always be enough faculty, supplies, protection for them.
Harry had grown to empathize with Dumbledore more over the years and even Severus Snape and Minerva McGonagall – all of them with their multiple positions and conflicting responsibilities. He learned from their examples but even more from their mistakes. He was the headmaster before anything. The students were his top priority, and his duty was to them first always. Followed by his staff and then the castle itself. The board and ministry were far down on the list.
But this, what he does now as he builds Formenos into something new, is something for Harry only.
It keeps him busy, more absorbed than he imagined he'd be when he first awoke here. He doesn't have the time or idleness to be lonely, and he isn't alone, not truly. Indilwen is still his best companion, and a sunny, green area for her to roam and graze is a high priority. Harry finds that he likes it so much, however, that he expands the zone into a proper oasis that encircles Formenos. It's naturally charmed to be forever spring.
That isn't to say Harry is without frequent guests, even before the Eldar make themselves known.
Nienna visits regularly. Harry thinks it's mostly to make sure he isn't without non-equine company. Especially when she insists – read drags – him back to see Námo and even to the Gardens of Lórienfor her other sibling and his wife.
Vairë comes less often but still drops by routinely as if checking on everything. And it goes without saying that there's a mysteriously appearing but no less impressive tapestry that he always finds hanging up in some strategic location after she departs. His wardrobe is usually fuller, too.
Oromë is there periodically, and Harry suspects it's mostly to see Indilwen. Though he does insist on taking Harry on multiple hunts to thin the local bear and wolf populations, and Harry's cellar is so full with magically preserved food between he and Vána that Harry has to double it in size three times.
Eönwë comes whenever he feels like it, allegedly to further Harry's martial knowledge. In reality, Harry largely suspects it's because no one else is willing to spar with him.
Other Ainur appear randomly and sometimes without obvious purpose.
Harry can't decide if he's their charity case or just some type of fascinating organism that they can't quite figure out what to do with. He could almost consider them friends if he hadn't been left on their doorstep like an abandoned Kneazle kitten.
A knock sounds in the background.
Harry is in the library brush in hand as he traces out a perovskia flower. He's never them seen in Valinor, but they'd grown in greenhouse one and were the key ingredient in the potion he always made his first-years brew in their starting class.
There's another thump then, and the harp playing next to him pauses. The notes drift away as he straightens.
"Whatever could that be?" Harry inquiries as he looks around.
The harp strikes a single chord as if to question, "Why are you asking me?"
The Ainur never knock; Harry isn't sure they even know what it means. He often looks up from one task or another to find them poking around. Sometimes, he can hear them coming, feel the soft strum, but it depends on how hard he's concentrating.
Harry finally stands as he hears yet more tapping in the distance. The knocker is a novelty and only kept because it came with Formenos, undoubtedly some work of Fëanor or one of his sons. It takes Harry a moment because he's never actually heard it from inside
He tilts his head and listens not with his ears but with something deeper.
There are elves at his door. Hovering in the front courtyard, mildly anxious and… awed?
How peculiar.
Indilwen is nearby, undoubtedly drawn by the noise. She's also very territorial, so it's probably for the best that Harry goes to save them.
He puts down his brush and apparates to the entranceway. A wave of his hand refreshes his robe and wipes away stray paint droplets.
Harry exhales and takes a minute to compose himself before opening the side door. It puts him to the right of the group. Indilwen is on the left, nearer to the fountain that opens to the bamboo garden. She's glaring at the lot of them and tossing her head. Two are close to her, reaching out and speaking in soothing voices as she paws the ground. Their own mounts are on the far side of the courtyard, being tended to by other members.
This isn't a small group, he realizes. It's perhaps more than seventy.
The pair closing in on her jerk back as she rears up, and Harry decides it's time for the rescue.
"Indilwen," he calls.
Her answer is immediate. She goes from nothing to a full gallop in seconds and is through the gap between elves before they can do more than leap out of her way. She's behind Harry then, curving to stay at his flank. She stops on a Knut, perfectly positioned beyond his shoulder and looking over.
The elves stare for a second at the spectacle, but they recover soon enough and very gradually come up to greet him. The spokesman in front is the only true blond of the group with pale golden hair braided in an unusual style Harry hasn't seen before. The others are all dark-headed in variations of brown and black save for three with red – two bright and one auburn – and another six in shades of silver that range from metallic to almost gray. They all have weapons, mostly swords or daggers with some bows and spears. None are drawn, which's good for them, or they would've had a very bad time of it once his wards are through.
The blond – ostensibly the leader – offers a bow.
"Well met, I'm Inglor."
He studies Harry, but his expression says that he already suspects the name he'll be given before he hears it.
Harry inclines his head.
"Hérion."
There's a wave of quiet whispers amongst the others.
"So truly this is Findekáno's cousin?"
"All the way out here?"
"In this forsaken place?"
The last is loudest and from a woman just to the right. Harry glances to her, but she's quick to duck her head. The other elves fall silent
"Forgive us. Your disappearance was a matter of note." Inglor redirects attention to himself, and his tone is strange. "No one knew where you'd gone."
"Well," Harry replies nonchalantly, "as you can see, I've been here."
Inglor looks from the courtyard to the castle and back. His eyes trace the ivy curling up by the castle entrance and over to the myriads of butterflies flitting from the roses to the lavender. To the apple and cherry trees both blossoming and full of fruit. To the berry bushes with chirping birds stealing their prizes.
"Yes, I can certainly see that," Inglor says. It's half-bemused, half-wonderous.
Harry studies him for a long moment, studies all of them. He's Slytherin enough to see what they don't say. Their clothes are sturdy but have an aged quality, like an outfit worn and washed too many times. Their horses are drooping as they stand, lulling off to sleep, and even Indilwen has stepped out from behind him now to peer that direction. The elves themselves seem… tired. Frayed. Tattered and discarded.
It tugs at something inside Harry, and he doesn't have the heart to push that feeling down.
Every elf he's seen in Valinor is clean, tidy, and seemingly happy.
This lot looks anything but.
Inglor undoubtedly can feel the weight of his attention. Of his eyes examining every little detail.
"We're wanderers," the blond admits then like it's a shameful secret. The same way a prefect would admit to cheating on a test. "Most of us don't have set homes in Valinor and drift. We found ourselves in the north and thought to seek shelter, but this…"
Inglor hesitates. He gazes at the sunlight streaming down from the cloudless sky.
Outside the wards, it's a blizzard, a whiteout of snow and wind. Harry can feel it howling against the barrier, gnawing and snapping.
Within, it's a beautiful spring day.
"None of us ever dreamed Formenos would look like this."
Inglor laughs then like he can't believe he isn't dreaming.
The lost gleam in his eyes decides Harry more than anything. He would've offered them simple shelter to wait out the storm, but he knows that look. Recognizes it from years ago when he was an unwanted stray, a destitute orphan in rags, a discarded piece of rubbish shoved in a cupboard and forgotten about for a decade.
"Come inside," Harry says, and it's a turning point.
He can feel the weight of doors both opening and closing. Of future paths shifting and rearranging. Things won't be the same after this.
He turns and beckons them into the entryway. He doesn't have to glance back to know that all of them are following. He doesn't have to be a seer to know that all of them will stay.
Outtakes (Or Bits Don't Fit Anywhere Else)
Angrod – So what're they doing back there?
Aredhel – Whispering to each other.
Finrod – I can't hear what they're saying, but it seems promising.
Fingon – I'm looking at this horse very intently and nothing else.
Indilwen – Neigh.
Argon, who's the only elf in this group without a sweetheart – Teehee!
Everyone – ARGON!
-o.O.o-
-o.O.o-
Námo – Your grandson is doing such a good job out there.
Fëanor – Grandson? Celebrimbor?
Námo, secretly laughing to himself – Not that one.
Fëanor – Elrond? Elros?
Námo – Not those either.
Fëanor – ?
-o.O.o-
-o.O.o-
Inglor – What the holy hell happened to this place? Are a hoard of Maiar living here now?
Random Elf #1 – Yeah, I thought this was supposed to be a fortress of gloom?
Random Elf #2 – Isn't that supposed to be-
Random Elf #1 – I stand by what I said.
Inglor – Hey, isn't that Maglor? He cut his hair.
Random Elf #2 – And changed his eye color.
All The Elves – Wait just a minute! That's the guy that Fingon totally sent us on this wild goose-chase to find... (cough)... told us all about!
-o.O.o-
-o.O.o-
The House of Finwë, probably – Oh, look. Let's shove Fëanor's wife at him. What could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile, Harry in Formenos, building his barbie elven dream castle, while having his Elsa montage, and the Valar looking on and sipping tea.
Perovskia – Russian sage. Symbolizes wisdom and knowledge.
-o.O.o-
-o.O.o-
Hérion – chief (one of the meanings of Cedric).
Marcaunon – ruler of the home (Henry/Harry).
Indilwen – lily.
Ever Hopeful,
Azar