Harry Potter and the One Ring of Power

The next morning, the four friends awoke to find Faramir still awake; he had not slept since they had come to the Gondorians' hideout. After washing, they ate breakfast with Faramir. "We've stocked you with food; you were running low. While you're in Ithilien, you should have no trouble finding streams to drink from, but on no account drink from any stream that flows from Imlad Morgul---we call it the Valley of Living Death," warned Faramir. Hermione pulled out her precious map, and Faramir and the wanderers examined it together, as Faramir pointed out the road they would be going.

To Ron, it looked fairly straightforward---down the road, turn at the crossroads, sneak past Minas Morgul, and up through Cirith Ungol, and they would be in Mordor itself. Next to Moria---a memory that could still make him shudder---it looked fairly easy, or at least, as easy as things could be expected to be here, on the borderlands of Mordor.

He noted, uneasily, that the Gondorians themselves did not seem to think their road would be easy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw several of the Gondorians give them pitying looks when they didn't think Harry or any of his companions could see them. He remembered Faramir's warning about an evil thing that seemed to live in the passes above Minas Morgul, and shivered. What are you getting into this time, Ronald Arthur Weasley? he asked himself. Something evil was up there---something that could scare even these tough Gondorian soldiers, men who were by no means unused to danger.

Hermione folded her map, stowing it carefully in her pack next to the strange weightless book the Lady of the Golden Wood had given her. She ran her fingers over it longingly, then closed her pack with a sigh. "I wonder when I'll be able to read that?" At Faramir's questioning look, she explained: "It's a comprehensive history of Middle-Earth, from the First Age onward, given to me by the Lady of Lorien---Laurelindorenan, as you call it. It doesn't weigh anything, and takes up no room in my pack." She smiled, and Ron saw that Faramir couldn't help smiling back---her happiness was incandescent, shining off her. "The Lady healed my injuries, that I took in Moria, and spent quite some time talking with me."

"That would mean that you were greatly honored, Miss Granger," said Faramir. "But anybody who would take on the task you and your friends have taken is worthy of the highest honor. In Minas Tirith, bards and minstrels would fight to sing your praises." Hermione blushed. Draco watched this byplay with a quizzical smile, while Ron felt himself beginning to steam. Harry looked on impassively; Ron couldn't figure out what, if anything, he thought.

Faramir held out four staves. "Take these, as our parting gift." The staves were the right length---about six feet apiece, shod with iron at both ends. "They are made of lebethron, a wood we use in Gondor, and they have a virtue of finding and returning. May that virtue not wholly fail in the Shadow you must enter!"

The four from Hogwarts examined the staves. "Yes," murmured Draco, "I can see how the spell---a weak spell, but difficult to disperse---was put on. Rather like the Summoning Charm, I think---if we get out of this alive, Professor Flitwick will want to look at these." He bowed to Faramir. "Your hospitality and generosity to four strangers exceeds my capacity to praise, but know that we thank you from the bottoms of our hearts." Faramir was visibly quite pleased at Draco's old-style courtesy, and Ron envied him his fluent tongue.

"Bring Smeagol," commanded Faramir. Two tall Gondorian soldiers appeared, with Gollum cowering between them. He grovelled to Harry, all but wagging his nonexistent tail, as Ron suppressed an urge to smack him a good one.

"Ach, sss, nice masster and his friendses! Smeagol is glad, glad to see masster!" Harry accepted Gollum's cringing as his rightful due with lordly unconcern. Draco caught Ron's eye for a second, and they both shook their heads slightly. Ron made a mental note to keep a sharp eye on Harry. He did not always like the changes he saw in his friend. When he got the chance, Ron decided, he wanted a long heart-to-heart talk with Draco; Draco had seen far more evil and corruption up close than he ever had himself, and would be better-placed to recognize ominous signs.

When the Gondorians made as if to blindfold Gollum, he squealed and whined so much that Harry finally drew his wand, and with an exasperated sigh, snapped "Stupefy!" Gollum went as limp as overcooked spaghetti, and a Gondorian stuffed him into the same leather sack he had ridden into the hideout. Ron thought wistfully about getting the soldier to add a few big rocks, tie it shut tightly, and throw it into the deep pool---but knew that he would never be able to live with himself if he did any such thing. The curse of an active conscience, he told himself.

Once the perennial Gollum problem was dealt with, the Hogwarts students suffered themselves to be blindfolded, and they were led out along what felt to Ron like the same route they had taken into the Gondorian hideout. When the blindfolds were removed, Ron found himself standing with his friends in the woods. He couldn't hear the waterfall, and figured they had come some distance from it. To the west, the light seemed to shine more strongly through the trees, as though the woods came to an end there.

"Well, this is good-bye," said Faramir. "You shouldn't go east just yet; keep straight on; you'll have the forest to cover you. To your west is the edge of the forest, where the land drops off into valleys. Keep close to this edge, and you should be able to travel by daylight, at least at first. It's very quiet out there---nothing evil is stirring." He shook hands with Harry, Ron and Draco, and after a moment's hesitation, accepted an embrace from Hermione. Then he and his men turned and vanished into the forest, and Ron couldn't see where they had gone.

Ron found himself swallowing a lump in his throat, and he could see that Harry, Draco and Hermione were sorry to see the last of Faramir. "Well, I suppose it was too good to last," murmured Draco. "Back to our weary road, people. Floreat Hogwarts!"

Harry cast an Ennervate charm, and Gollum came out of his coma. "Are nassty wicked men gone?" he muttered. "Smeagol's neck still hurts him, where they grabbed him, yess, it does!" He squatted down and began scrabbling in the roots of a nearby tree, obviously looking for something to eat.

Draco's expression went very grim, and he reached down and hauled Gollum up by his throat. Gollum squealed and hissed in protest, but the look in Draco's eyes stopped him, and he dangled there, shaking in terror, as Draco snarled: "They spared your life when they could have killed you, as easily as this!" with a good solid shake for emphasis. "You---will keep a civil tongue in your head, do you hear me?" Shivering, Gollum nodded his head as hard as he could. Draco threw him aside, tight-lipped and eyes blazing, as though he were so much trash, and ostentatiously wiped his hand on his cloak. Gollum cringed away, hiding behind Harry and peering fearfully at Draco. Ron understood just how Draco felt.

"Enough of this nonsense!" snapped Harry. He gathered them to him with a cold glance. "Let's get on with this!" He stepped out, heading south, and the others followed, with Gollum bringing up the rear. Ron was very uncomfortable with Gollum behind him, but he knew that he and his friends were more than able to handle anything Gollum might do, at least while they were fully conscious.

For the rest of that day, they marched along. The forest was strangely quiet; Ron couldn't hear any birds, or see any, and they didn't see any small animals. When they halted for a breather, they ate of the food that Faramir had provided, concentrating on the bread, since it would soon go stale. Gollum wouldn't touch any of the food, which suited Ron fine; as he tore into a strip of delicately-spiced dried meat, he decided that any of this going to somebody like Gollum would constitute a criminal waste.

That evening, they settled down to rest as night fell; they had found a good spot sheltered by an ancient tree. Harry slept the night away, but the other three, without needing to say anything to each other or Harry, took turns keeping a watch. Gollum disappeared as soon as they were settled, only to return with the dawn. Ron wondered idly whether he had been rootling through the forest for something he liked to eat, or had crawled off to sleep by himself. In either case, he had returned, hissing: "Get up! Wake up, sleepies!"

The next day was much like the previous one, except that it was hotter and felt closer. Ron thought that a thunderstorm was brewing. Gollum was uneasy; he sniffed the air repeatedly. "Must make hasste, make hasste!" he hissed. "These placess aren't ssafe, not ssafe for masster and pretty girl and their friendses!" They tried several times to get him to tell them what had spooked him, but all they got was hissing and muttering that they couldn't understand; Ron caught a few syllables here and there that sounded very like what he had heard the orcs using to speak to each other in the depths of Moria.

Draco also recognized what he heard. "Here---do you speak the orcs' language?" he asked. Gollum looked up, his face a mask of cunning. They had stopped for a quick breather, despite Gollum's urging to speed.

"O yes, O yes, we speaks the orcs' language---and so do you, and so does masster. Orcses speaks many many languages, and some are almosst like what masster and his friendss speaks, but others---others are very very different, with different wordses. Before we met the Baggins---" a spasm of rage crossed Gollum's face for a second, to be wiped away before they could react to it---"we lived under a big mountain, with orcses not very far away. Sometimes we caught little goblin-imps to eat. They sspoke this language."

"So you can't necessarily understand orcs?" Ron asked, feeling a bit of disappointment. Draco Malfoy's unexpected ability to speak the elvish tongues had smoothed the foursome's way several times, in Rivendell and Lorien, and since the land they were travelling to was known for its orc population, Ron had hoped that Gollum might justify his presence by being able to translate.

"O no, O no!" Gollum shook his head violently. "The orcses of the Black Land, they speaks a very very different language. In it, 'orc' is 'uruk.'" Gollum covered his face for a second, peering at them through his long prehensile fingers. "We couldn't understand them at all, O no we couldn't---and we could just barely understand what orcses were saying in the Black Pit, the one the dwarves dug."

"He means Moria," explained Draco with a sigh. "I suppose it makes a good deal of sense; orcs live tribe-by-tribe, and don't like orcs from other tribes much. Still and all, I had hoped that our Dear Little Fiend---er, Friend, here---" Hermione let out an involuntary giggle---"would be able to tell us what orcs were saying among themselves, if we got the chance."

Hermione looked at her map, which she had fished out of her pack. Ron, Draco and Harry came to look over her shoulder. "Now, let me see," she muttered. "We were here when we met those Gondorians. Now, where are we?"

Gollum pointed off into the distance. The daylight was fading as they sat under the shelter of the edge of the forest, overlooking a valley. The mountains of Gondor were lit with a reddish glow from the setting sun, off to the right, while to the left the mountains of Mordor were already wrapped in darkness. Off in the distance, Ron could see what looked like the tops of the towers of a city, and he could hear water flowing below them. Beside the stream, he could see a road winding along, right past where they were.

"These are dangerous places, dangerous places, pretty girl," said Gollum. "We've gone far, far from the pathses we should have taken. This road below us---it goes from the ruined city to the Tower of the Moon. We musst go easst---easst. We musstn't use the road---cruel, bad, wicked people uses it." Hermione nodded, and put her map away.

"I can't really see it anyway, but I think I know where we are now. That off there should be Minas Morgul. That stream's the one that Faramir warned us about drinking. I'm glad we're well-found for food and water." She sniffed the air. "I can't smell anything wrong with that water, but I'd as soon not take chances. Faramir's been working in this part of the world for a long time, and I would bet he knows what he's talking about."

At that time, nothing was moving on the road, at least as far as Ron could see. Harry, Draco and Hermione all looked down on it, and none of them were able to see anything. Still, that didn't mean it was safe; Ron had to reluctantly admit that Gollum had a good point about the road---it would be dangerous, particularly by day.

When he said so, Gollum agreed quickly, having apparently forgotten his mistrust of Ron. "O yes, you must hide by day now, hide by day and travel by night."

"So be it," said Harry. "We'll have to rest up for a few hours now---I don't know about you, but I'm knackered---and we'll still have hours of dark left to travel in." At his command, they got away from the side of the road, and finally found themselves a place where they could lie up. Ron threw himself onto the ground, but although he was tired and knew he should sleep if he could, he couldn't manage to drop off. Perhaps it was knowing that they were so close to Mordor, or perhaps it was because Gollum was nearby, although Gollum was dead to the world, breathing deeply and evenly in his sleep. None of the other three were asleep, either.

Around midnight, by Ron's estimate, Gollum awoke. His eyes snapped open and he sniffed the air, as though he could tell the time from the smell of the air. Ron wondered if he really could, or if he were sniffing for enemies.

"Are we rested? Have we had beautiful sleep? Let's go!" whispered Gollum. Draco got up, stretching until his joints cracked audibly. Beside him, Harry and Hermione tried to work the stiffness out of their muscles.

"No, we aren't, and no we didn't, but you're right---we've got miles to make," grumbled Draco. He began to do some exercises to limber himself up that Ron had seen his brothers doing before Quidditch matches, and Harry and Ron joined him.

"Ah, yes, must keep in hard training for Quidditch---mustn't let the side down, old bean, old top, old chap," drawled Harry, in such a perfect "upper-class twit" accent that Ron had to suppress a snicker. Hermione did a few deep knee-bends to get her circulation going.

When they had limbered up, they followed Gollum, across country. The path they took led them through trees, where it was so dark that more than once Ron only saw a tree barely in time to keep from ramming into it. The country tended to rise in the direction they were going---although they went downhill again and again, they always ended up climbing much farther than they had descended. When they stopped for a breather, Ron looked back the way they had come, to see the forest they had been in spread out below them. Above them, it looked as though a huge cloud-bank was bulging out of Mordor, blotting out the stars themselves. When the moon appeared, it was sickly and yellow-looking, far to the west.

Gollum didn't like the moonlight. "Must make hasste, make hasste! These places aren't ssafe!" They followed on, up onto a large hog-back of land. It was covered with gorse-bushes and other thorny plants, with charred patches here and there. As they moved on, the bushes grew taller and taller, until they were tall enough to walk under easily. The bushes were putting out yellow flowers, and Ron inhaled, enjoying the smell while he could.

When they stopped, they found a place to rest under a large gorse-bush, in a sort of hollow formed by the thornbushes. Exhausted, too weary even to eat, they peered out, looking for the dawn.

No dawn seemed to come; instead, there was a dull red glare under the clouds to their east. The mountains themselves seemed to lower at them, resenting their presence in this haunted land. Gradually, the red glare died away, and Ron felt himself drifting off to sleep.

When he awoke, from a dream of home, it was hours later. He checked his watch, to see that it was mid-morning, but it looked a lot darker than he'd have expected at such a time. "Blimey! Why's it so dark?"

"I don't know. Gollum's gone---I fancy he's looking for food," said Harry. He looked up at the sky. "I don't like the look of that weather, but it doesn't quite look like a regular storm, somehow."

:"I'm not so sure that it is a storm," said Draco, yawning. "I can feel the earth itself rumbling, and feel a deep rumble in the air. What with that red light we saw earlier, I think Mount Doom is warming up to a right old eruption." He scratched his ribs. "Bloody, bloody gorsebushes! I detest them!"

"You and me both, Draco. Guess great minds think alike," grumbled Hermione. "I wonder where Gollum got to? Maybe he won't come back."

"We still need him, I think," said Harry sternly, and the others subsided. "You all forget the Marshes. I hope he hasn't come to any harm." The rumbling began again, audible to all of them and making the ground itself shake beneath their feet. "That's all I need to cheer me up," said Harry, "a reminder that we're going to be visiting an active volcano."

"Some active volcanoes are safe enough," Hermione remarked. "From what they told me at Rivendell and Lorien, Oroduin's a cinder cone, though, and those aren't as predictable as, say, Mauna Kea or Mauna Loa in Hawaii on Earth."

The hours passed slowly, and Ron dozed off and on until Gollum came back. Ron didn't hear him coming, but suddenly he was there, his eyes aglow. Harry, Hermione and Draco were asleep, and Gollum pawed at Harry's arm, startling him awake. "Wake up, sleepies! No time to lose!"

"Oh, Lor'lumme," groaned Ron. "What's the big hurry? What's got your knickers in a twist?"

"Silly! We doesn't wear knickers, no we doesn't!" hissed Gollum. "Wake up, masster! Wake up, pretty girl!" He pawed at Harry, and Harry snapped awake, grabbing Gollum before he could get away. It would have gone ill with the gangrel creature if Harry had been a millisecond slower in coming fully awake. As it was, his sword was out and he was beginning to slash with it when he stopped himself just in time. Gollum cringed, whimpering.

"Easy, Harry, it's just our Dear Little Fiend---er, Friend," said Draco. Reaching out to the cowering Gollum, Draco said gently: "Sorry, Smeagol. You just startled Harry. He won't hurt you---he promised not to." Ron stared at this apparition. Draco Malfoy, being gentle, and kind? He'd have been less startled by Ginny announcing that she was in love with Professor Snape---and was expecting his twins.

When he said as much to Hermione, she giggled, shuddering theatrically. "I can just imagine how you'd like knowing that your new little nephew and niece would be 'Snapelets.'" At this, Ron, Draco and Harry all laughed, as they got ready to go. "Imagine---Severus Snape as your brother-in-law! A fate worse than death!"

When they were moving again, the light had dimmed enough that they would have been difficult to see even without their elven-cloaks. They crossed another ridge, and then they found themselves standing beside the road, winding along the foot of the mountains until it disappeared into the forest.

"Yess, the South-road!" whispered Gollum. "We musst follow it, follow it! No paths beyond, but we musst make hasste! Be silent!" Awww, and I was planning to have a brass band playing and let off some Filibusters' Fireworks, thought Ron sarcastically. They got out onto the road, and slipped along it, quietly as though they were sneaking out of their dorms at Hogwarts after curfew.

When they got in among the trees, they found themselves in a huge round clearing, where the crossroads was. Behind them was the road to the Morannon, before them the road to the distant southlands, while to their right was the road to the sea, and the road they would have to take stretched out to the left, up into the darkness. As they stood there, light suddenly came to illuminate the scene, as the westering sun finally peered through the edges of the cloudy pall overhead.

Before them, Ron saw a huge stone statue of a seated king, which reminded him of the great stone king-images he had seen on the River Anduin, back when the Fellowship was still almost whole. But this king had fallen on hard times, it seemed. The head of the statue had been hacked off long ago, to be replaced by a rough-hewn round stone, painted with a grinning Jack O'Lantern mouth and a red eye where the forehead would be. The statue itself was covered with foul symbols that Ron recognized from his briefings in Rivendell, as well as crudely-carved and ill-spelled inscriptions in several tongues---mostly names and boasts, from what Ron could make out.

Harry stared at the statue, his lips a thin line. Ron could see that he was angry. He gripped his wand, and raised it, just as Hermione called: "Oh, look! The king has a crown again!" Curious, Harry lowered his wand, and came to see what she was on about. She pointed to the fallen head of the king, and Ron could see that a trailing plant with white flowers had bound itself around the stone brows, and that golden mosses were growing in the crevices of his hair.

Harry smiled grimly. "Well, let's put things to rights here, shall we?" He raised his wand, and pointed it at the grinning orc-carved head, shouting "Reducto!" The head shattered, crumbling into rubble around the base of the statue. Ron, Draco and Hermione got into the spirit of the moment, casting spells to cleanse the statue of its defiling graffiti, and then all four of them collaborated to Levitate the rightful head back into its place. When it was in place, Harry shouted "Reparo," and the statue looked as good as new, as though it had just come from the sculptor's hands. "I just purely can't stand vandals," muttered Harry, as he looked with satisfaction on their handiwork. "Let this be an omen to Sauron, that he cannot conquer forever!" As he said the words, the sun finally set, and darkness spread across the land.