Harry Potter and the One Ring of Power

Chapter Five---Into the Doors of Durin

As soon as they were out of the worst of the mountains, the Fellowship considered what to do next. The question of returning to Rivendell was brought up by Gandalf before anybody else could, only to be decisively shot down. "If we return to Rivendell, having set out, we could not leave again, and soon Rivendell would be under siege." He stared into everybody's eyes in turn. "The Ringwraiths are terrible foes now, but they're shadows of what they'd be if their Master got the Ring back."

"Very well," drawled Draco, "but we can't go over the mountains, at least not this late in the year. Granger, you're right---when we get back to Britain, remind me to accompany you when you throttle Frodo for setting out so late." He smiled rather nastily. "You're a Gryffindor, after all---we Slytherins know how to throttle." Hermione looked at him carefully, then nodded solemnly. Harry had the impression that Hermione had re-evaluated Draco, and come to a different conclusion about him than she had before.

"If we can't go over the mountains, can we go around them?" asked Ron. "According to this map I was looking at, we can get into the lands of the Lords of Rohan that way, and I was told they're friendly."

Boromir perked up at this idea. "The men of Rohan are friendly, and we would be passing close by Gondor that way. I like this idea!"" Gandalf shook his head.

"It takes us too close to Saruman, and since he's turned evil, I don't want the Ring getting near him. Also, we're pressed for time pretty badly. There is a short way through these mountains---the old dwarven road through Moria."

"Moria!" gasped Boromir. "Moria's not much better than the Dark Lord's own dungeons! There are orcs there, thousands of them, or so I've been told."

"You don't know what you're talking about, Boromir," said Gandalf. "I'm the only one here who's been in the Dark Lord's dungeons, and that was only in Dol Guldur in southern Mirkwood---even I wouldn't try going into Barad-dur itself. Also, after the great battles of Azanulbizar and the Lonely Mountain, there shouldn't be nearly as many orcs there as formerly. We might even meet Balin, Bilbo Baggins' old comrade, there---he was going to try to set up the old dwarven kingdom in Moria, and he may still be there, in his ancestors' halls."

"Well, I'd like to go there," said Gimli, looking more enthusiastic than Harry had ever seen him. "I'd like to see the halls of Durin, if you can find the doors."

"Excellent!" said Gandalf. "A dwarf will be less confused in dwarven ruins than men or elves would be---and I have been in Moria before, looking for Thrain, years ago."

Aragorn looked very bleak. "I've been there, too, but I don't like thinking about it, and I'd rather not go back."

Legolas voted against going to Moria, and finally it came down to the Hogwarts students. "The Ringbearer and his companions should decide. What do you think, Mr. Potter?" asked Gandalf. The others awaited their decision respectfully, which was a little strange to Harry---even Dumbledore usually did not treat him as an adult, much less an equal. Harry stood a little straighter, and gathered his friends with a gesture.

"First, I want to hear from Hermione---she's the one who's got the best head for facts. Hermione, what do you think? Do you think Moria's a good way to get through the mountains?" Hermione looked very thoughtful as she got out one of her books and began leafing through the notes she had scribbled in hours of research at Rivendell.

"It looks to me like unless we run into serious trouble in Moria, we should be able to get through in a few days. There was a dwarven road through the Lands Under The Mountains in the old days, and in those days it was a major trade artery." Gimli smiled at her praise of his people's work. "If we can get into the place, we can at least see if we can get through. If nothing else, we'll be out of the weather there, and light will be no problem with four of us carrying wands. We've also got magical torches that we brought from home."

Draco and Ron had nothing to say, deferring to Hermione, and Harry turned to Gandalf, saying "Moria it is, then. How far is the nearest gate?"

"Fifteen or twenty miles, depending on whether you mean in a straight line or going over land," said Gandalf.

In the distance, they heard the howls of wolves. At this, the whole party came to full alert. "The hunt is up!" snapped Gandalf. "The wargs---the evil wolves of Sauron---are west of the Mountains, and on our trail! The nearest door into Moria is fifteen miles away as the crow flies, twenty or so by land."

"We'll have to start as soon as it's light," said Boromir. "We don't know if there are orcs out, but we now know that the wolves are."

"Where there's wargs, there are orcs," said Aragorn.

At Gandalf's command, the company set up a defensive position on a small hilltop. Since the wolves could track them easily by smell, Hermione was permitted to build a fire, and the ones not on guard dozed off around it. Harry was on guard when eyes started shining out of the night, reflecting the fire. "Wolves!" he cried, and the others turned to as the wolves' leader, a huge he-wolf, howled long and dismally. Gandalf stepped forward.

"Gandalf is here! Fly, Hound of Sauron, or I will fry you!" he shouted. The wolf snarled, and leaped---and fell, with Legolas' arrow through his chest. The rest of the pack fled, but the Fellowship kept careful watch nonetheless. The night wore on, with the waning moon setting, shining through the scudding clouds. Harry drew his cloak closer and shivered. He was sleepy and homesick; he thought he'd cheerfully ask Professor Snape for a permanent detention in the Potions lab, if he could just let this burden go and be back at Hogwarts. Beside him, Draco, Ron and Hermione watched the night, their faces set and grim, wands ready in their hands.

Toward morning, the Wargs gathered and attacked. Suddenly Harry was startled to full wakefulness by a chorus of dreadful howls, as the company was attacked by long gray shapes leaping out of the night. Legolas' bow twanged again and again, and Gimli's axe struck home on Warg after Warg, while the two men struck at their tormentors with their long swords.

The four from Hogwarts had their hands full, even with the help of the others. Hermione struck one wolf with a Conjunctivus curse, causing it to break off its attack and paw at its eyes in pain as it howled, until one of its pack-mates attacked it. Ron used Binding Charms to tie several wolves up as they leaped for him, while Draco stood firm as a rock, watching a huge she-wolf coming for him. When he judged the moment was right, he raised his wand, screamed "Avada Kedavra!" and the wolf died in a green flash of light. Harry Levitated a wolf far into the air before ending the spell, sending the beast crashing to the ground and breaking its legs.

Gandalf strode forth to meet the wolves, a burning brand from the fire in his hand. Throwing it into the air, he spoke words of power, and the tree above him burst into flame, the fire lighting the night as the fire spread to the other trees around them. Legolas' last arrow burst into flame as it sped to its target in the throat of a wolf. The other wolves, having had their fill of combat, fled.

In the morning, they couldn't find any sign of the bodies of the ones they'd killed, and all of Legolas' arrows were scattered around in pristine shape, save only one that had lost its head. Gandalf shook his head at Harry's questioning glance. "These weren't just hungry beasts that thought we were easy prey," he said. "Let's go on." Harry shuddered.

* * * * * * * *

As they travelled, the weather cleared. Harry looked up at the light-blue sky, wondering if the weather was clearing so that someone---or something---could track them more easily.

"How far is it to Moria?" asked Ron.

"Not far, but the road may be winding. Aragorn's never been here, and it's been many years since I've walked these lands," said Gandalf. He pointed into the distance, to a line of cliffs. In the middle of them, Harry could see a great grey wall.

"I'm not sure if I hope that the doors to Moria are lost for good, or that we can get into them," muttered Boromir. The Gondorian had been unhappy about the road the company was taking, and Harry could tell that he wasn't happy about going into the dwarven ruins. Legolas and Aragorn also looked uneasy. Gimli, on the other hand, was so eager to get there that he was out in front of the rest of the company, right alongside Gandalf.

By the side of a dried-up stream, they found a ruined road. Gandalf was pleased. "We're on the right trail. This is---or used to be---the Sirannon river. I don't know what's happened to it."

Finally, several hours later, they found themselves standing by the shores of a dark, still lake. "Well, now we know what happened to the Sirannon," said Ron. "I wonder how the stream was blocked, in the first place?" Harry looked out at the lake. For some reason, he just didn't like the look of it.

"We'll have to go around, unless we want to swim," said Draco. He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering slightly. "I don't know about you, but I don't fancy that idea above half." Out in the middle of the lake, a bubbling noise and ripples disturbed the still waters.

Some time later, after going around the north end of the lake, they were standing in front of the cliffs, among several dead holly-trees. The path they had had to take was tricky; narrow and often choked with rock. Gandalf, at least, was pleased. "We've found what we were looking for. This is the end of the elvish road. Holly-trees were one of their symbols."

"So where's the door?" Ron looked at the cliffside curiously. Harry examined it closely, and couldn't see any sign of a door, or anything like one. To his eye, it was utterly untouched by the hand of man---or elf, or dwarf. Curiously, he took out his wand and muttered "Aparecium!" The party gasped as silvery lines appeared on the side of the cliff, outlining a door. Above the door, words were written in an alphabet Harry couldn't read.

"The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter." read Draco. Harry, Ron and Hermione were no less startled than the others. Gandalf looked closely at the lines of writing.

"You're precisely right, Mr. Malfoy. Apparently they weren't lying when I was told that you knew the elvish tongues." Gandalf turned back to the doors. "Now, the question is---how do we open them? There's probably a password, if we just knew it."

"Let me try," said Ron. Pulling out his wand, he shouted "Alohomora !" to no avail. Harry, Hermione and Draco stepped up, and they all tried at once. Nothing happened.

"Let's think about this," said Hermione. While Gandalf tried several spells of his own, she gathered the other Hogwarts students together off a little to one side. "Now, this password would have to be something that could be figured out---they wouldn't want to leave their people trapped outside, if the gates were shut and they needed to get in right now . So-o-o, I'd bet almost anything that the password is out there, if we can just figure out what it is." She looked closely at Draco, who returned her gaze with a slight smile. "Can you tell me exactly what it says on those doors?"

"I already said 'The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter.'" Draco jumped up onto a rock by the side of the lake, balancing easily on the top despite the fact that it was slippery and very narrow. Harry wondered if Draco did have a streak of elvish ancestry in him somewhere; of course, the elves of Arda and the house-elves he had known in his own world were as different as night and day.

"Is that all it says?" asked Hermione. Harry could hear Gandalf, still trying various opening spells and words, while the doors stayed stubbornly shut. Most of the others were still beside him, watching expectantly, except for Boromir, who got up and came over to see what Harry and the others were doing.

Draco looked thoughtful. "Well, below the part about the Doors of Durin, there's a line about the person who made the doors and the one who drew the signs. Narvi made the doors themselves, according to what's up there, and somebody or other named Celebrimbor---'Silver-tree,' in Elvish---drew the signs. I don't know what 'Narvi' means, so I expect he was a dwarf. At Rivendell, I found out that the dwarves' language is not taught to non-dwarves."

"How do you know Elvish, anyway?" asked Ron. "I've been meaning to ask."

"As have I," said Boromir, coming up and sitting down as though he was assured of a welcome. Harry gave him a measuring look; he did not quite like or trust the big Gondorian, for reasons he couldn't quite figure out. After questioning his and his companions' right to their roles, Boromir had generally been very quiet, but Harry had felt the Gondorian's gaze on him, more than once. There was also something or other between him and Aragorn, and that made Harry slightly uneasy as well.

Draco hopped easily down from the rock, keeping his balance effortlessly. "I couldn't answer that if my life depended on it, Weasel," he replied to Ron. He smiled broadly. "For all I know, it's the same way Potter speaks Parseltongue." At Boromir's questioning look, Draco explained: "Parseltongue's the language of snakes. Somehow or other---it's a long story and I don't know all the details---Potter, here, can speak it if he's looking at a snake." Draco smirked. "However, I prefer to think that it's just another manifestation of my natural genius."

"Really? How interesting!" said Boromir, looking closely at Harry. Harry was uncomfortable with the way the Gondorian was looking at him, and turned away to look out over the lake. Boromir looked out, too, and his lips twisted. "How I detest this foul pool!" Stooping down, he picked up a stone and threw it out into the water.

The stone splashed into the murky depths, and Harry heard a bubbling noise. Far out, beyond where the stone had hit, a disturbance began roiling the water. Ripples formed on the oily-looking surface, moving slowly toward the shore.

"What did you do that for?" snapped Harry. "Leave the water alone! I don't like the look of it!"

Suddenly, Gandalf stood up and laughed. "Of course! I have it! It was on the door all the time!" Pointing to the doors, he shouted "Mellon !" The doors began to creak slowly open. Turning to the others, he said "They were more trusting then---all you had to do was to say the elvish word for 'friend' and the doors would open! Of course, you could expect that no goblin or Orc would know that word, or would say anything in an elven tongue, so they weren't completely trusting!"

Draco turned to Hermione. "You were right all the time, Granger. My hat's off to you," as he mimed doffing a hat. "That word was written up above the door, in Elvish. If I'd read the actual Elvish inscription, it might have been all that was needed to open the doors." Hermione smiled in triumph as the four Hogwarts students lined up to enter the Doors of Durin. Behind them, the ripples reached the shore, and suddenly a fingered tentacle, glowing faintly green, had Harry by the ankle and was dragging him back toward the water. The water seemed to be boiling as more and more tentacles came out of it, wriggling toward the Company.

Ron pointed his wand toward Harry, howling "Expelliarmus!" as Harry yanked out the Japanese short sword he had brought from Earth and hewed at the tentacle. Whether it was the spell or the bite of the steel, the tentacle released Harry, but others were reaching for him and his companions. Hermione and Draco flung Impediment Curses at the nearest tentacles, while Harry scrambled to his feet and away from the edge of the water. A horrible stench filled the air.

"All together now---Wingardium Leviosa!" screamed Draco. He waved his wand at the point where the tentacles seemed to be coming together, and a spherical body began to heave itself above the surface of the water. As Hermione, Ron and Harry joined their spells to his, the owner of the tentacles was forced into the air. Harry cried out in horror and loathing at the sight. It was a perfectly spherical body, with no eyes that he could see, but hundreds of long, thin tentacles sprouting from the top, and covered in a translucent skin, through which one could see alien-looking organs pulsing with horrible life.

"The Watcher in the Water!" shouted Gimli. He had been hacking at the nearest tentacles with his razor-sharp axe, but the sight of the Watcher rising from the waters had distracted him. "The creature that built that dam and dammed the Sirannon!"

"Truly did Gandalf say that there are other evil powers in this world than Sauron," said Legolas, sending arrow after arrow into the pulsating side of the Watcher. Revulsion was written all over his delicate-featured face as he pulled his bowstring back to the ear, sending yet another arrow on its way to bury itself into the Watcher's hideous soft flesh.

"Gandalf! We can hold it up, but we can't do anything else to it!" shrieked Hermione. Horror and wonder were in her eyes as she poured every bit of her power into the Levitation spell. Harry thought that the contact with the air was itself damaging the Watcher; it had ceased to try to grab members of the Company, and it was twitching convulsively throughout its body and tentacles alike. He closed his eyes to concentrate on his spell.

Stepping forward, Gandalf raised his gnarled staff. He shouted words in a language Harry didn't know, and a bolt of incredibly intense light leaped from his staff to impact the Watcher with a roar like a thunderbolt. The Watcher convulsed, and its body burst open, spilling its entrails into the dark lake. As the Watcher's body fell apart, Harry could feel the weight he was holding up lessening; the Levitation spell had fastened onto the Watcher's outer skin, which had to have been tougher than it looked to hold up under the strain. He let the spell die, and as the others followed suit, the remains of the Watcher in the Water fell into the water with a splash and sank. There were still a few tentacles reaching onto the land, but the greenish glow they had had was dying, and they did not even twitch.

"Well? Get in while the getting's good! That spell told everybody with the right sort of eyes to see for five hundred miles around where we are!" Gandalf's sharp voice startled Harry out of his paralysis, and he bounded up the stairs into Moria, the others right behind him. When all nine Companions were inside at last, Gandalf pushed at the doors, and they shut as smoothly as though they had last been used yesterday. In the sudden darkness, Harry remembered his Everlight ™ torch, and he pulled it out and lit it. The Company was standing in a large, long-disused room, with a large flight of stairs at the opposite end from the Doors, going up into a dark hall.

"I don't know about you, but I'm hungry. Let's get outside some food." commented Ron. Harry suddenly realized just how hungry he was; he thought longingly of Hogwarts, with its huge banquets of carefully-prepared food appealing to all tastes. Sitting crosslegged on a dirty stone floor sipping stale water and gnawing on jerked beef and dried fruit wasn't the same, but he was so hungry that he didn't much care; it filled his stomach and soothed him after the horror outside. After their meal, Gandalf gave everybody another sip of miruvor, which Harry found wonderfully reviving.

"I wonder if Professor Snape could make this stuff?" mused Draco, after his sip of miruvor. "When we get back to Rivendell, I should ask Elrond how this is made; I'd bet that Professor Snape would be very interested." At Harry's incredulous look, Draco went on: "Look, Potter---I know you don't like Professor Snape. I've seen how he rides you in Potions class. He hated your father; my father told me how those two got along like cats and dogs. On top of that, he really does think you have a swelled head from being 'the Boy Who Lived,' and he thinks that he's the only one who tries to keep you humble." He shrugged his shoulders. "It so happens, Professor Snape and I get along fairly well. None of those factors apply with me---and I'm also in his House, and he's quite partisan, you may have noticed."

"So that's it," said Harry. "Believe me, after ten years with the Dursleys, I have no problem with being humble. I didn't even know I was the Boy Who Lived until Hagrid found me and got me my letter. I didn't know anything at all about the wizarding world---I'd never heard of Quidditch or Hogwarts or Voldemort or any of that." He smiled slightly. "Do you remember the first time we ever met? I didn't understand half of what you were on about---the various Houses, Quidditch, and all the rest of it."

Draco nodded. "I didn't quite know what to make of you, Potter. On the one hand, you said you were pure-blood---not that that matters to me any more---and on the other hand, you didn't act at all like you were familiar with the magical world." He smiled ruefully. Sighing, he went on: "I really, really regret a lot of what I did back then. Back then, I believed everything my father told me. I wonder what he would have said, if he'd known that Lord Voldemort would kill him and my mum on nothing but suspicion that they were planning to take his place?"

Harry's eyes widened. "You were there for that, weren't you?" he asked, his voice low. Draco nodded.

"We were at dinner in Malfoy Manor. The Manor's Unplottable, of course---can't have just anybody able to drop in---but Voldemort knew how to get there. We were just beginning to eat, when Voldemort appeared with a gang of Death Eaters. He was raving---livid. I've never seen the like in all my days. He screamed that his greatest chance of power had been lost, and that he had proof that Dad had been responsible."

"Oh, gods," muttered Hermione, her eyes wide. "He killed them?"

"Yes, and I think he'd have killed me, but one of his spells set off a booby-trap that Dad had set up, long ago, to ensure that in the event of a successful attack on Malfoy Manor, the Manor would be destroyed. Too bad it didn't catch Voldemort, but he Apparated out just in time. I remember---the floor heaving under my feet---" Draco paused, sweat starting on his brow, his eyes staring at nothing, "I---I can sort of remember getting through the French window, as my mother was screaming under the Cruciatus Curse---and then the next thing I remember was waking up in St. Mungo's, with Professor Dumbledore by my bed. He broke the news that my family was dead. The Aurors had been close on Voldemort's trail, but hadn't been able to get to Malfoy Manor in time to stop him. When they arrived, the last of the surviving Death Eaters were Disapparating, and the Dark Mark was in the sky over the ruins."

Harry had listened to Draco's tale with horror. It sounded as bad as what had happened to his parents, with the additional fillip that Draco, unlike himself, had been easily old enough to remember every bit of what had happened. They were opposites in temperament and in approach to life, but they truly had a great deal in common, as well. Harry remembered all too well what experiencing his parents' death had been like, under the influence of the dementors, and he wouldn't have wished it on anybody. He peered at his two best friends in the gloom. Hermione's face was pale and set, and Ron looked horrified.

Draco sighed. "In any case, that's what happened. The irony is, Dad was a devoted Death Eater himself---yes, I can say that now---and would no more have betrayed the Dark Lord than he would have broken his wand and gone to live as a Muggle. Thanks to the man he swore loyalty to, I now have no home but Hogwarts. Professor Dumbledore's going to see about finding me somewhere in Hogsmeade to stay over the summer holidays." He shook his head. "Right now, I wouldn't mind being back at Hogwarts."

Hermione sighed. "Gods and goddesses, I wish I was back at Hogwarts. This trip's been fascinating---and educational, the gods know---but right now, I'd give almost anything to see my old room in Gryffindor Tower, and the library---and even Professors Snape and Binns."

Ron grinned, reaching out to feel Hermione's forehead. "You want to see Professors Snape and Binns? Are you sure you're all right?" Hermione smacked lightly at his hand, and Harry thought she was blushing, but in the dim light it was hard to tell for sure.

After they finished eating, they went on. Nobody, even Gimli, wanted to stay in Moria longer than they had to. With the Hogwarts students' Everlight torches, light was no big problem, but the Mines were incredibly intricate, and Harry knew that without Gandalf and Gimli, none of them had any chance of seeing the outside world again. It put him in mind of things he had learned from ancient mythology, about the great Labyrinth in Crete. As Gandalf walked at the head of the group, he held a long straight sword in his hand, and occasionally would look at the blade.

"Glamdring, Gandalf's sword, glows if there are orcs close by," murmured Aragorn, when Hermione asked him what the wizard was doing. "It was forged by elves long ago, and their weapons have that power, to ensure that they won't be taken by surprise." Harry thought that a sword that glowed when enemies were nearby was much more useful than a scar that hurt when enemies were thinking of one.

They marched for a long time, deep into the bowels of the mountains. Around them, all was dark and quiet, save for water dripping here and there---except that Harry thought he sometimes heard soft bare feet pattering along behind them. It was difficult to tell, but when the group would stop for a minute, Harry would hear the footfalls behind them going on for a few seconds before stopping. Somehow, he didn't think it was an echo.

As the company went deeper into Moria, conversation slowed and ceased. The going was often quite difficult, with the path narrowing as they passed wells and chasms; worse was when the path itself was divided by deep holes. The widest of these was nearly seven feet wide, and as Harry leaped across, he could hear a noise far below, as of a water-wheel turning.

Several hours after they had entered, even Gandalf had to confess that he was stumped. "I'm not at all sure which direction to go from here," he said, as they paused for a moment at an intersection of several tunnels, "and I think we all need a rest. Outside, night is wearing on. When we get to the City proper, we'll be able to guide ourselves more easily; the dwarves of Moria built their city more regularly than they did these mines. Also, there'll be inscriptions saying where we are, and between me and Gimli, we should be able to find our way out."

Near the intersection, there was a large room with a well, where the Company took refuge for the night. Spreading out his bedroll, Harry looked uneasily at the well. He and Ron had shone their Everlight torches down into it, and still couldn't see the bottom. He wondered just how big Moria was---and whether it was still inhabited. He had seen droppings here and there, and there had been scratchings on the walls that did not look like accidental damage.

"Gimli," murmured Harry, "weren't there orcs or something like that in here after your people were forced out?" Harry knew that whispering, with its hissing, carried a good way farther than murmurs would, and he also knew that sound carried a long way underground.

"There were, Mr. Potter," murmured Gimli. In the light of the one torch they kept to see by, his face looked grim. "Durin's Bane drove us out of our city, and welcomed in orcs and all manner of evil creatures---trolls, and worse. We slaughtered them in the Battle of Azanulbizar, some decades ago, but Durin's Bane still may lurk here. I hope we can pass through without meeting it---best would be if we find Balin has met with success, and has set up the old kingdom in our ancestors' halls."

A little later, Harry heard noises from the well, as of a hammer knocking. It tapped out a regular rhythm several times, then stopped. Sitting up, he peered suspiciously toward the well. Gandalf and the others had heard as well, and Gandalf looked worried.

"That may have nothing to do with us---but on the other hand, it may be a signal. Sound travels very well in this place, and we could have been being tracked from the minute we entered, if the people tracking us knew the place well." He turned to the others. "Get some sleep, everybody. I'm going to take watch by myself, and think about where we should go next." As Harry rolled himself up in his bedroll, the last thing he saw before dropping off was Gandalf's face lit from below, as the old wizard lit his pipe.

* * * * * * *

When Gandalf awakened everybody, he said they'd slept about six hours. "I've decided which way we're going to go next. The left-hand way smells like there's bad air down there, and I don't like the feel of the middle way. We'll take the right way---it's time we started climbing up again." Harry was glad to hear it; he had had enough of Moria to last him a long time. His friends felt very much the same way.

"No offense, Gimli," said Ron, as he rolled up his bedroll, "but this place is giving me the creeps. Endless miles of dark, dark tunnels. Dwarves may like them, but I'm not a dwarf."

"That you most certainly are not, Mr. Weasley," said Gimli, a smile barely visible behind his beard. ."Also, keep in mind that we're in what were the mines; the city itself was very well-lit, and was the capital of Durin's folk for thousands of years. It's been abandoned for over a thousand years, unless Balin's managed to refound a colony here, so you have to expect that it would be dark." He began to chant a song, in a deep, rolling voice, detailing the glories and treasures of the great city of the dwarves.

"Tell me more about the history of this place," begged Hermione, as they left their resting place. Nothing loath, Gimli began filling her in, telling her of Durin the Deathless, who had founded Khazad-dum many centuries ago in the First Age of Middle-earth. "He was one of the first seven dwarves ever created, and the eldest. He lived for centuries and centuries, which is why he is called the Deathless. Nonetheless, he did die at last---only elves do not die---and he's buried somewhere in Khazad-dum. Were it possible, I would pay respects at his tomb."

Hermione drank in every word, her eyes shining with her love of knowledge, and Gimli went on as they walked, telling her more about the history of the great dwarven city. "For centuries, we worked on this place, Miss Granger. Until Durin's Bane came and drove us forth, our city was impregnable. We had gold, silver, iron, and mithril---and the last was by far the greatest source of wealth."

"What's mithril?" asked Ron and Hermione together. Harry was listening with half an ear; the other half of his attention was on the sounds that he thought he heard behind the party. Once or twice, he had turned suddenly and shone his torch down the dark tunnels they had just traversed, but he hadn't seen anything moving or shining back at him yet. Still, every time they paused, he was certain that he heard faint footsteps behind them, footsteps that were not an echo. Up ahead, Gimli was explaining that mithril was a wondrous metal, as shiny and beautiful as silver but stronger than steel when properly worked. Unfortunately, he said, the dwarves had disturbed Durin's Bane by mining too deeply for mithril-ore, and as a result, they had lost their great city and been forced out as wanderers.

Around them, the walls of the tunnels had changed; instead of the rough surface of the mines, they were now walking in areas where obvious care had been taken with even small details. Although the place showed the signs of long abandonment, under the dirt and neglect Harry could easily see how fine the work was; the dwarves' reputation as master-craftsmen was apparently well-deserved. They passed endless lines of dwarven living-quarters, standing there sadly with their doors long since torn off and carried away, and at one point they passed a long hall lined with the doors of dwarven crypts. The doors of most of these were also gone, and Harry shone his torch into one, illuminating several rock sarcophagi and rock-built cairns. Those had long since been broken into; their lids were on the floor and the stones were scattered. Harry carefully did not inquire into who could have done such a thing---he thought he had a pretty good idea. Behind them, he still thought he could hear soft padding feet, every time they stopped for a moment.

Finally, they came into a large, empty open space. The Everlight torches couldn't pierce the darkness as far as the outer walls, so Gandalf took a hand. He raised his staff, and for a second, in the huge flash of light that came from it, they saw that they were in an enormous hall, with walls that looked like they were made of onyx. There were three huge arched entrances, one on either side and one straight ahead to the east.

"We're nearly through," said Gandalf. "There were once huge windows on the side of the mountain, with shutters over them; it's night outside now, but when day comes, if I'm right about where we are, we'll see the sun peepiing in. This is a good place to stop for now, though." It was Harry's turn to be on watch, so he propped himself up against one of the walls while the others stretched out in their bedrolls.

Sitting awake in the enormous, uncanny darkness, Harry peered back the way they had come. It was quiet enough that he could hear his own heartbeat, and he thought he could just about hear the others' heartbeats as well. For some reason, the place they were in gave him the creeps; he didn't like Moria much at any time, but this place, that had once been full of light and life, seemed worse somehow than the depths of the mines. Toward the end of his turn on watch, Harry was watching the western archway when he saw two points of light twinkling, almost like luminous eyes. Jumping to his feet, he grabbed for his wand, and the lights disappeared. Until Legolas relieved him of his duty, he remained standing, peering around, his wand at the ready.

When Harry lay down to sleep, he dreamed of a whispering voice and the two pale points of light approaching. Awakening, he found the others talking softly, and to his surprise, he saw that the chamber was dimly lit, with light filtering in through long shafts. Gandalf led them down a hall as soon as they'd breakfasted.

Harry found himself walking beside Gimli. "So, what do you think of this place?" Harry asked curiously. The dwarf looked at him sadly.

"Khazad-dum is great---greater by far than I had imagined---but it is dark, and terrible. I don't think that Balin ever even made it here." The dwarf looked around. "Still, it does my heart good to see how great our mighty ancestors were."

After some time, the Company found themselves in a chamber lit from the outside by one of the light-shafts. Harry squinted against the light, which he found dazzling after so long underground, although by normal standards it was rather dim. There was a thick coating of dust on the floor, covering things Harry couldn't identify. In the center of the room, the light from the shaft fell squarely onto an oblong block two feet high, covered with a squared-off white stone.

"Is that a tomb?" asked Hermione. She crossed over to take a closer look. "Yes, it is---it says 'Balin Fundinul Uzbad Khazadumu,' and below that, 'Balin son of Fundin lord of Moria.'" At this, Gimli pulled his hood over his face; Harry guessed it was so that none of his companions could see him cry.