Harry Potter and the One Ring of Power

Harry Potter and the One Ring of Power

Chapter Nine---On the Anduin River

by Technomad

The next morning, after emotional farewells, the company set off again, in boats provided by the Elves. Their clothes had been repaired or replaced as needed, they had been given a great deal of the Elves' standby for long journeys, lembas-wafers, which were as good as a whole meal in themselves, and each of them had been given a gift by the Lady Galadriel. As they set out, Harry remembered the gift-giving. Legolas had been given an elven-bow of the Lorien make, which was longer than the ones his own people used, and a quiver of arrows for it; Gimli, after making a very graceful speech disclaiming any need for a gift beyond the privilege of having seen the Lady, had been given a tress of Galadriel's own hair; Aragorn had gotten an elvish jewel, and Boromir, a golden belt.

Draco and Ron had also received belts, although Draco had protested that the hospitality they had received in Lorien was already beyond his wildest expectations. At this, Ron had blushed nearly scarlet, sending Hermione into a fit of giggling that nearly had her choking. "You never said a truer word, Draco," she finally managed to sputter out, which made both Ron and Draco---and Harry---blush even more. The belts they had were silver, and had buckles on them that looked like leaves.

"For you, Miss Granger," said the Lady, distracting Hermione from the pleasure of embarassing her friends, "I have this." She held out a big, thick book, and Hermione squealed with pleasure. She reverently accepted it, and began paging through. She looked up at the Lady, her eyes glowing with happiness.

"A comprehensive history of Middle-Earth? Oh, Lady, thank you!" She stuffed the book into her bag. "And it doesn't weigh anything or slow me down? This is wonderful!" Her face shone with such happiness that Harry wished he had a camera to record it. She radiated such pleasure that the whole company felt it, like the heat coming off a radiator. Even Aragorn, whom Harry had seldom seen smile, had to crack a grin.

"To give a gift that is so welcomed gives the giver pleasure, Miss Granger. After your dangerous journey is over, perhaps you will want to share the book with your fellow students at ---Hogwarts." Harry noticed that she was careful to pronounce the name of the school correctly; most elves he had met tended to pronounce it rather like Fleur Delacour's ''Ogwarts.' The Lady then turned to Harry, who felt slightly uncomfortable with those glorious eyes focussed entirely on him. "And what would the Ringbearer ask of the Elves?"

"Nothing, Lady," said Harry. He had been thinking about it, and he honestly couldn't think of anything he needed much. Particularly with a long, dangerous journey on his hands, he didn't want to be burdened down. He swept a hand to encompass the Fellowship of the Ring. "With friends like these, can I ask for more without being greedy?" Ron and Hermione both gaped at him, and Draco looked slightly abashed.

"Oh, listen to him, you Elves!" cried Galadriel. "The most deserving of all asks for nothing! But I can't let you leave without a gift, Mr. Potter." She handed him a crystal phial. Harry could feel that it was full of magic. "It contains a bit of the light of Earendil's star, as you saw it in the waters of my fountain. It may be a light for you when all other lights fail." As Harry held the phial, he saw Galadriel with other eyes, as he had by the Mirror; a great, queenly figure, far more impressive than any veela, but not to be feared.

On top of everything else, they had all been given cloaks woven by the Lady and her waiting-women. The cloaks were grey, and they were told that those wearing them would be very hard to see, unless the eyes seeking them were friendly. The boats had been stocked with everything they needed, including coils of elven rope, thin and strong. They arranged themselves in the boats, with Harry and Ron sharing one with Aragorn, Draco and Hermione with Boromir, and Legolas with Gimli. The dwarf looked uncomfortable at being in a boat, and Harry himself wondered how he'd handle it; he'd never been in a boat before he had come to Hogwarts, although Dudley, of course, had been in many---and been horribly seasick, at least if his uncle and aunt's accounts had been correct. As they pulled away from Lorien, Harry felt a wrench of sorrow, knowing that whatever happened, he would almost certainly never see that beautiful place again.

None of them were glad to leave, but Gimli, in particular, was down in the dumps, moaning to Legolas about how wonderful the Lady was. Harry tuned out his complaints, thinking instead about what they were to do next. There were basically two choices: to head directly for Mordor itself, or to go to Minas Tirith, as Boromir urged repeatedly. Many of the Company wanted to go to Minas Tirith; they were weary of travelling by night, and of the wilderness. Harry, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. They had agreed that when they came to the Rauros Falls and the Tindrock, they would decide what to do next. Harry wished Gandalf had been able to be there. The responsibility that had been laid on him felt like too much for him to deal with.

* * * * * * * *

The first few days of their trip were uneventful. The lands they passed through were deserted, and the only living things they saw were birds. Once they saw a huge flock of black swans, flying across the sky. Everybody was uneasy, and their minds were obviously elsewhere. Boromir, in particular, seemed to be twitchy, and several times he paddled his boat up close to the one Harry rode in, staring at Harry with an odd look in his eye. Harry fingered his wand, wishing he knew a spell to tell if somebody was planning to do him harm. Unfortunately, that would have been covered in the studies for the N.E.W.T. in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and before he had been called on this journey, he had just been getting ready to study for his O.W.L.s

On the evening of the fourth night out from Lorien, they camped on a small islet in the middle of the River, for greater security. As Hermione made a fire and Aragorn prepared some fish he had caught, while Legolas dressed a woodcock he had shot, Ron took Harry aside.

"Harry---I had an odd dream last night, when we were going along by night. I dreamed I saw a log---with eyes!" He looked pale, and not at all amused by his dream. Harry sat down on a tree-stump and motioned Ron to continue. "I was dozing, and I must have dreamed this, but I thought I saw a log, following us. That's nothing unusual, except that this log had legs, paddling it along, and eyes!"

Harry felt a ripple of fear along his spine. "Go on, Ron," he said, quietly.

"Well, it was like it had two pale, glowing eyes, and it was catching up to our boats. It got up to Gimli's boat, and peered in. I sat up to see it better, and it vanished, but I thought I saw something slipping onto the shore. I didn't say anything before because I thought you might think I was cracking up."

"No, Ron, you aren't cracking up," said Harry. "Remember that thing the elves were chasing in Lorien? Not to mention, I've seen and heard things too---in Moria, I sometimes heard footsteps following us, and once I saw eyes in the dark. I think I can put a name to your dream---a nasty name. Gollum." Harry fingered his scar absently, although it didn't hurt. "I think he must have been hiding out in Moria, and picked up our trail there. I'd have thought that going into Lorien would throw him off the scent, but he was probably watching us set out from some vantage-point."

Ron shuddered. "That's all we need, isn't it?" he asked bitterly. "On top of wondering if servants of the Enemy are on our trail, we've got to be wary of his nasty fingers around our necks one night." Harry got up and led him back to where the others were getting ready to eat dinner.

That night, Ron and Harry quietly agreed among themselves to share the watch. Ron took the first watch, and Harry awoke to Ron shaking him gently. "Sorry to wake you up, Harry, but it's your turn now. I heard some snuffling and splashing, but that could have been all sorts of things." Ron lay down and went to sleep, and Harry sat up, wrapped in his blankets against the cold, and fought sleep.

Some time later, he saw something float up, something dark, and grab onto one of the moored boats. A pasty-pale hand grabbed the boat's gunwale, and Harry could see two cold, lambent eyes as they gazed into the boat, not more than a yard or so away. Pulling out his wand, he whispered "Lumos!" and in the sudden light, he saw something small and man-shaped and horribly pale staring at him for a second, before diving into the water with hardly a splash. Harry whispered "Noctus!" and the light went out.

The light had awakened Aragorn. "What are you doing, up? Not only that, why were you showing a light?" The Ranger was rather irritated, if the tone of his voice meant anything. Harry pointed toward the river.

"I saw something fooling with the boats, Aragorn. It looked a lot like the way I've heard Gollum described." Aragorn stared at Harry shrewdly.

"Oh, so you've figured out that he's on our track?" The Ranger rubbed his chin in thought. "He started following us in Moria, and he's been after us ever since. I had hoped that taking to the River would throw him off our scent, but he's much too experienced around water to be stopped. I'd like to catch him; he could be useful. He's very dangerous, though. Even aside from the chance of him murdering some or all of us, he could put our enemies on alert that we're here. Any servants of Sauron that see him will know what he wants."

* * * * * * * * * *

For the next few days, as they paddled along the river, they all kept a sharp watch, but they didn't see any sign at all of Gollum. If he was there, he was being very careful indeed; even Legolas' keen elven vision could detect nothing, and there were no sounds at night that could have been made by him. They travelled harder than they had before, and mostly at night. By day they lay up in what shelter they could.

Seven days out, they saw an eagle; Legolas wondered what it was doing so far from the mountains. The country they were travelling through was bleak and bare, and there would be little of the game eagles subsisted on to feed the great bird. Hermione couldn't believe how big the eagles got.

"You mean to tell me that they're big enough to carry people off easily, and to fight dragons?" Her eyes went wide. "But---but how do they feed themselves?"

Legolas smiled. "There's a great deal of game about, Miss Granger, if you know how to look. Deer are very thick on the ground in some areas; if it weren't for the eagles and other hunters, they'd be starving to death in multitudes every winter." He shrugged slightly. "An eagle can see a rabbit from a mile up, fairly easily."

Harry tried to imagine a bird big enough to carry him; a bird big enough to fight one of the dragons he had faced during the Triwizard Tournament with a fair chance of winning. "Are they evil?" he asked. Legolas shook his head, and Aragorn snorted.

"Evil? No! They're proud, and they don't often meddle in the affairs of the lesser races, but when they do give help, the help they give is decisive. If Gandalf were here, he could tell you about how when he was on his trip with Bilbo Baggins, the Eagles rescued him and his companions when they were cornered by orcs near the Misty Mountains." Legolas smiled rather grimly. "It's a good thing for those of us of the speaking races that the eagles do not care to eat us; they could easily swoop down on people and take them, if they were so inclined. However, they do go after farm animals sometimes, which makes them unpopular with rural Men."

"I can imagine!" said Harry. He was quite glad that Hagrid wasn't along. Hagrid would have been scheming to get a giant eagle egg or chick to take back to Hogwarts, and somehow, Harry doubted that the eagles would have had any sense of humor about that project at all. He grinned at the thought of Hagrid trying to raise such a bird at Hogwarts, and at what the Ministry of Magic would have had to say about it.

"Can you imagine what Hagrid would want to do?" murmured Ron. Apparently he had been thinking along the same lines as Harry had. Hermione, Harry and Draco all nodded.

"I think stealing a giant eagle egg or chick would be beyond even Hagrid," said Draco. "He'd want to, there's no doubt about that, but when the nest-owners came back, he would have a sudden attack of sanity and common sense." He chuckled. "Hagrid displaying common sense about 'interesting creatures'Â…isn't that one of the signs that the world's about to come to an end?" Hermione let out an unwilling giggle.

Aragorn came up. "We're going to travel by night tonight, so turn on in and get some sleep while you can." Harry rather doubted the wisdom of travelling by night, since it threw a lot of advantage to the other side, but he decided that Aragorn probably knew best; he'd been surviving in the wild places of Middle-Earth for a very long time.

* * * * * * * * *

That night, they went on. Aragorn planned one last journey by night, and then they would have to go by day. "We should be quite a few miles from the rapids of Sarn Gebir, but we'd still best go carefully. There are rocks and islets in the stream that could rip the bottoms out of our boats, so keep a sharp eye out."

Harry was resting at the bow of the boat, peering ahead, when he began to hear a different noise from what he had been accustomed to. It was a dull mutter, that slowly grew into a roar. Behind him, he heard Hermione shriek: "Those are rapids!"

"That's Sarn Gebir---we went farther than I thought we had!" shouted Aragorn. "Paddle for shore, as fast as you can! We can't shoot those rapids by night!" Harry grabbed a paddle and paddled as hard as he could, regretting bitterly that while Dudley had had plenty of chances to learn how to paddle a boat, he, Harry, had never been allowed to learn. What a laugh if Uncle Vernon's wish came true, and I was drowned here, he thought, as the keel of the boat finally scraped stone.

Just then, bowstrings twanged and arrows began flying at the company. One struck near Harry in the bow of the boat, quivering; another flew close enough to him that he felt it part his hair. Just a couple of inches lower, there, and Voldemort would have his dearest wish, ran through Harry's mind crazily. Up on the bank, he thought he saw dark shapes, crouching and aiming bows.

"Yrch!" shouted Legolas. After Lorien, Harry needed no help to know that that meant "orcs," as his companions shouted with surprise and, in one or two cases, in pain; Harry hoped fervently that none of his friends had been hurt. Raising himself slightly, he shouted "Petrificus Totalus," waving his wand at the shadowy figures on the bank. To his delight, he saw many of them topple over, stiff and still. Shouts of rage greeted this development, and the standing orcs redoubled their shooting.

From the other boat, Harry could hear Hermione and Draco casting Banishing Charms, sending the arrows back at their tormentors. Ron cried "Expelliarmus!" and the orcs shouted in surprise as their bows and arrows flew out of their hands.

"There are times I forget what wizards you and your friends are, Mr. Potter," said Aragorn quietly. "Then you do something like this, and I'm reminded yet again." He guided the boat skilfully through the foaming water, pushing them to the opposite bank from where the orcs were waiting. When they finally got there, Harry, Ron and Aragorn leaped out, pulling the boat up so that it wouldn't float away. A little ways away, the others were doing the same thing.

Legolas went up on the banks, the Lorien-made longbow in his hands. From the South, Harry could see clouds boiling up, covering the night sky. "Damn that bloody Gollum, for leading our enemies to us!" he muttered.

A darker shadow, one that was not a cloud, appeared in the night sky. Harry felt his scar twinge, and then begin to hurt, as it got closer. Soon he could see that it was no cloud, but a great winged creature of some sort. Closer and closer it came, and Harry could hear gasps of fear from all his comrades.

There was only one thing for it. Drawing his wand, Harry pointed it into the air, summoned up the memory of winning the Quidditch Cup for Gryffindor, and screamed "Expecto Patronum!" At the same instant, as a silvery stag erupted from Harry's wand and soared into the air, Legolas' bow twanged, and Harry heard a croaking scream as the winged thing was struck, a second before the stag arrived, lowering his antlers and charging through the sky. The winged creature fell on the other side of the river, and a chorus of wails and howls arose. The stag flickered out, and Harry wiped his brow; the pain was gone.

"Praised be the bow of Lorien, and the wand of Mr. Potter!" muttered Gimli. "Whatever that was, I didn't like it one bit!" He shook his head. "It reminded me of Durin's Bane."

"That wasn't a Balrog," said Harry. He didn't know just how he knew, but he knew. "It was something else, something colder." He shivered. "Thank Professor Lupin, back at Hogwarts, for teaching me the Patronus Charm."

"Whatever it was, it wasn't friendly. I'm glad it was shot down," said Ron, looking across the river. Hermione shuddered, huddling in her cloak.

* * * * * * * * * *

They stayed there for the rest of the night, and nothing could be heard of their enemies. When dawn came, it came in foggy, grey and sad, and Harry felt a twinge of homesickness; the weather was so like Britain that he almost expected to see familiar sights. Instead, he was in a strange place, in a whole strange world, among people who were alien, except for his three friends from Hogwarts. He looked at them as though he had never seen them before, noting everything.

They had all been changed by their days and days of travel, mostly for the better, Harry thought. They were all tanned by the sun and wind, except for poor Ron, whose skin was much too fair to tan, and who could not seem to escape burning; at the moment he wasn't suffering, but Harry knew that he had been quite uncomfortable. None of them had been fat before they set out, but the endless marching through rough country had hardened all of them. Their boots were well-broken-in by this time, and they could all hike for hours without trouble.

Harry felt a rush of affection for them, which he carefully kept to himself. He knew that without the need to support him in this lunatic quest, they'd be back at Hogwarts at that moment, probably replete from a huge house-elf-cooked breakfast, with nothing worse than a Potions or History of Magic class facing them. Instead, they were huddling in what little shelter the river bank offered, gnawing on dry sausage and hardtack and washing it down with river-water, dirty and bedraggled. And to think that I used to think I'd never have friends, he thought.

Aragorn and Legolas scouted ahead as the rest of the Company ate. Harry worried as they disappeared into the mists, but they came back after a few hours, none the worse. Aragorn reported that there was a usable portage-trail around the dangerous part of the river, and the rapids themselves were not long, but much too dangerous to traverse in their boats. "Maybe the boats of Lorien would survive, but we wouldn't; nobody's ever shot the rapids of Sarn Gebir and survived."

Accordingly, they emptied the boats and repacked their packs, and then set off down the trail, carrying the boats over their heads, Indian-style. It turned out to be an endless, tortuous task, slipping and sliding along the path, burdened with heavy backpacks and holding the boats overhead. If the boats had been heavier, they wouldn't have been able to do it, but they were very light. Even Legolas didn't know what they were made of, but Harry was glad of it, whatever it was, and wished he could bring samples back to Hogwarts for his teachers to study.

At the end of the trail, it was getting dark, and they settled down to camp again. All of them were worn out; even Gimli, who was probably the toughest of them all, was about done in. The night passed uneventfully enough, which Harry thought was a wonderful thing, after their ambush. He wondered where Gollum had got to, and what evil he was up to.

At first light, they started again, through the thinning fog. Soon they were paddling along through a rock-sided ravine, as the river picked up speed. Harry began enjoying the ride, although it would never, in his opinion, compare with flying. In any case, it beat tramping for miles through the wilderness, footsore and thirsty. As he leaned over to dip a cup of water from the river, he saw two towering things ahead, one on either side of the river.

"What are those?" he asked Aragorn. Aragorn cracked a rare smile as he steered the boat for the middle of the river.

"Those, Mr. Potter, are the Pillars of the Kings---the Argonath! Steer for the center of the river, and keep the boats apart!" he roared to the others, as they drew nearer and nearer to the Pillars. As they got closer, Harry was more able to see them than before; they turned out to be huge sculptures of kings, weathered but still recognizable. They were terrifying to contemplate from up close, and Harry fought an irrational desire to cower and cover his head as they passed between them, where they half-blocked the river and forced it to go faster.

The sight of them put new life into Aragorn, though. Harry couldn't believe the change in his attitude as they passed the statues. It was as though years had dropped from him, and he suddenly seemed regal and proud, sitting in the stern of their boat. "In the shadow of Isildur and Anarion, their heir Elessar has nothing to fear!" he called to Harry, catching Harry's eye and smiling broadly. Then a sad look came over his face. "I wish Gandalf were here; I'd love to go to Minas Tirith, my own ancestral city. Right now, I'm not sure where we should go." A little later, they came out from the chasm and back into the light.

Some little while later, they came out into a good-sized oval lake. Harry could hear a waterfall in the distance. Aragorn waved his arm around. "This is Nin Hethoel," and, pointing to three peaks in the distance, "and those are Tol Brandir, with Amon Hen and Amon Lhaw---the Hills of Hearing and Sight. In the old days, they had watchers on them, but nobody's ever climbed Tol Brandir itself, or so they say. Tonight we'll have to make camp---I can hear the Rauros waterfalls from here."

Harry nodded, looking unseeingly at the scenery. This was where he knew he would have to make a choice, whether to go to Gondor or to Mordor. This was the place where decision would have to happen, since the paths to Gondor and Mordor diverged here.