Harry Potter and the One Ring of Power

Harry Potter and the One Ring of Power, Chapter 26

Endgame in the Shadows

As Hermione watched, Ron and Draco dug a hole; all they had to dig with was their hands. Use of their swords to loosen the dirt had been rejected in horror when she brought it up; "Why," Draco had gasped, "that would be like serving cheap butterbeer in a fine crystal goblet!" Hermione decided that it was a male thing, and left her friends to it.

Harry was sitting off by himself, his knees tucked up under his chin, staring out at the Mountain. Hermione felt her heart go out to him---she had borne his terrible burden for a little while, and had faced the Wheel of Fire herself, in her dreams. She could easily imagine what was going through Harry's mind. "Harry?" At her voice, he looked up, startled out of his reveries. "Mind if I sit with you for a while?"

Harry nodded and smiled at her, the old sweet smile that she loved. Even here, even now, with the Ring getting its claws deeper and deeper into his mind, the old Harry Potter was still there. She wondered if he'd go back to normal once the Ring was destroyed---assuming they survived the magical backlash that its destruction would set off.

That thought turned Hermione's mind toward the last stages of their journey. Ahead of them, Gorgoroth stretched, bleak and barren, its blackened soil supporting no vegetation. While the ground was rough enough that they could find cover, she wasn't looking forward to the trip at all. And at the end of it loomed Oroduin itself. Draco's mountaineering skills, she feared, would have to come into play for them to get up the volcano's slopes.

"There," said Ron, behind her. "The hole's deep enough, Draco." Reminded of her friends' existence, Hermione turned to see what they were doing. Carefully, Draco unpacked his pack, taking out the ropes, the one remaining roll of duct tape, and other things they'd agreed they would certainly need, and put the rest into the hole. Ron then did the same with his own gear, sorting through to get the things he'd need, and putting his pack in on top of Draco's.

"Uh, may I ask a question, boys?" Hermione got up and came over to where Ron and Draco were working. "Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to just throw the stuff away?" Draco straightened, sweeping his hand across his forehead and leaving a grimy smudge to go with the layers of grime he'd accumulated already. He fixed Hermione with a piercing look, reminding her somehow of Professor Snape.

"First, Hermione, I'm not sure that we won't survive the Ring's destruction. If we do, we'll have a new problem, namely, getting out of Mordor alive. When and if that occurs, we'll need this stuff." He suddenly looked very, very weary, and much younger than he usually did. "Secondly---Professor Snape brewed up those potions himself, when he found out where I was going and what I was going to do---and I do not want to just throw them away or pour them out! He worked hard on them, and I don't want to waste them!"

Hermione was slightly startled. Draco Malfoy, of all people, sentimental? Well, she thought, he is probably a lot closer to Professor Snape than we are. She found herself warming to him. She knew it would just about tear out her heart to leave her own gear behind for the last push.

She suddenly remembered something. "One thing that we do not abandon, boys---and that's my gift from the Lady of Lorien." Fishing in her pack, she pulled it out. Even after riding in her pack for so long, along with increasingly-ripe used underwear and other things, it still had the smell of Lothlorien on it. "Remember this? A comprehensive history of Middle-Earth, enchanted so that it doesn't weigh anything." She clutched the book to her chest, staring defiantly at Ron and Draco. To her relief, Ron smiled, and Draco chuckled softly to himself.

"As you say, Hermione, it doesn't weigh anything." Reassured, Hermione sorted quickly through her things, separating them into things she knew they'd need---and her precious gift---and things she could spare for the last dash. With a sigh, she shoved the excess into the hole. Then she turned to Harry, who was still wearing his pack.

"Harry? We're getting rid of stuff we won't be needing. Can I have your pack?" Harry reflexively grasped at the Ring, gripping it through his shirt, before her words registered with him. Giving Hermione a rueful smile, he stripped off his pack.

"Sort away, Hermione. I won't need my spare clothes---they're all filthy. I could try throwing them in the faces of attackers, but orcs would probably think they were yummy orc-snacks, if your accounts of what they had available to eat back at Torech Ungol are right." He fished in his shirt, and brought out the phial the Lady had given him. "I heard what you said about the gift the Lady of Lorien gave you. I feel the same way about this, and it doesn't weigh more than a few ounces. Anybody trying to take it will get hexed---got me?" His green eyes flashed coldly behind his glasses.

"Nobody'll take that, Harry. We promise." Ron's words mollified Harry, and he permitted Ron and Hermione to go through his pack. Hermione giggled softly, not loud enough for the boys to hear, as she fished out Harry's old clothes. He hadn't been kidding or wrong about his old clothes. She pictured using them to distract orcs with, and the orcs breaking off their attack to chow down on Harry's stinky old socks.

When they had stripped themselves of everything but what they'd need on the last dash to the foot of the Mountain, they began filling up the hole. As the ashy soil of Mordor covered their possessions, Hermione shivered, seeing it as though it were a grave for one---or all---of them. "Absit omen," she muttered, spitting very carefully so as to not waste any more moisture than absolutely necessary.

"May it not be an omen, indeed," said Ron, putting his arm around Hermione's shoulders as she leaned against him. She relished the feeling of being under his protection, even though she knew full well it was illusory; in a fight, they all had to pull their own weight, and she knew that if she had actually been the sort of shrinking-violet she had read of in Muggle-written adventure tales, she'd either have never been along or would have been dead a dozen times over already. Ron shook his head. "I just hope Gollum doesn't find it. I don't think there's anything there he could use." Hermione turned to face her friend as a ghostly grin flitted across his face. "And I don't think even he would want our old used clothes, do you, Hermione?"

Hermione wrinkled up her nose. "You think of the oddest things, Ron---not that that's a bad thing, in and of itself." She bent over, blinking and crouching, hissing "Ach, sss, nassty mageses leaves us their old clotheses! Nassty! Icky! We doesn't want them, does we, preciouss, gollum? They stinkses!"

Ron and Draco, who had come up to see what she was doing, laughed and laughed. Then an unexpected sound startled all of them. Whirling, they saw that Harry had been watching, and he was laughing as hard as any of them. As they watched, he took off his glasses to wipe tears of laughter from his eyes. "Oh, Hermione, that's hilarious!" he sputtered. "When you came to Hogwarts, the Muggles lost an incredible comedienne." Wiping his glasses absently, he slipped them back on, still chuckling. "Don't ever change, Hermione---I like you just the way you are." Hermione felt warm and comforted at his words. She had always felt slightly insecure, all her time at Hogwarts; she had never been able to shake a feeling that it was all too wonderful to be true, and that any minute Professor McGonagall or Professor Dumbledore would tell her that there'd been a mistake, and she'd have to leave. Being told that one of her favorite men in the world liked her just as she was made her feel wonderful.

Shaking her head, Hermione dragged herself back to present reality with an effort. They were an immeasurable distance from Hogwarts, and the only way back that offered any chance of safety and security once they were back stretched out ahead of them, across the barren, blasted plain of Gorgoroth---to the top of Mount Doom. "Well, boys, as Draco would say, it'll get no shorter for us looking at it. Shall we?" She stepped off, down the hillside toward Gorgoroth, not looking to see if the boys were following her.

*

For several hours, they were able to make fair time. Hermione was grateful, in an odd way, for Mordor's very dryness; she knew that had it been as damp as England, the friable soil that crunched under her boot-soles would have been slippery, gooey mud, and they'd either have had to plough through the stuff with it up to their shins, or beyond---or they'd have been slipping and losing their footing. As it was, they were able to scramble up and down, over the low hills, for some time.

When they paused for a moment, Hermione noticed that Harry looked very bad. She thought she knew the symptoms of the Ring's influence, and it didn't look like that. It looked to her more like he was in dreadful pain. "Harry?" At her voice, Harry looked up warily. "Harry? Is there something wrong?" Harry nodded, his lips white with the effort of keeping his composure.

"My leg---I thought it was okay, but it's been getting worse and worse, these last few miles." He thrust out his leg, and Hermione hissed; she could see that it was swollen and red and angry, through the holes that Harry hadn't bothered mending.

Draco snapped: "Roll up your trouser leg, Harry. Let's have a look at that lot." When Harry had managed to get his leg bared, Draco looked it over, his face grim. Harry's leg was swollen and red, and Hermione didn't think that was a good sign. "I don't like the look of that, Harry. I don't like it at all. How long has it been bothering you?"

"Some time," Harry gasped, as Draco gently prodded the puffy flesh. "Several hours. I don't know just how long." Draco wordlessly began to take Harry's boot off, and when that was off, he rolled Harry's sock off, wrinkling his nose at the smell. Even through the sulfur-laden air of Mordor, Hermione could smell Harry's foot, but she paid the smell no mind. She was far more concerned for Harry.

Draco probed at Harry's leg, making him gasp in pain. "You shouldn't have been walking on this, Harry. I should have thought of that earlier." He looked up, eyes full of self-reproach. "I should have had you wrap up your leg before we left Torech Ungol. Damn it," he suddenly exploded, in a fury of frustration, "why, why couldn't this have waited till we finished Hogwarts? Madam Pomfrey could put you to rights with a few quick spells, or potions, but I only know a little of what she knew!"

"Don't blame yourself, Draco," Harry replied. Reaching out, he took Draco's hand in both of his. "If I wasn't a stubborn ass, I'd have said something earlier. Is it too late to do anything?" Draco's narrow, clever face twisted as he thought about Harry's question.

"We can wrap your ankle and lower leg tightly with duct tape---one of the great Muggle inventions, and thank you, Hermione, for insisting we bring it," Draco concluded, as Hermione smiled at his acknowledgement of her contribution. "I don't know if we can get your boot and sock back on, but maybe we can modify your boot." Suiting action to words, Draco took the remaining roll of tape and began systematically wrapping Harry's foot up, starting below the ankle and moving upward.

When Harry's ankle had been taped up tightly, the next step was seeing if his boot would still fit. As it turned out, it would, albeit with the laces removed to get it on over the tape, and then re-laced as tightly as they would go. "Thank the gods for small favors," muttered Harry. "I wasn't looking forward to doing without my boot, or to having to cut it about so it would fit." He stood up experimentally, swaying slightly as he tried to become accustomed to his bandages. "I may need help up ahead, but I think I can go on."

Ron stepped forward, and Harry leaned on his arm, using his staff to support his other side. "My oldest friend of all," muttered Harry, as Ron blushed scarlet. With Ron helping Harry along, they moved out again, Draco in the lead to watch for danger, and Hermione behind everybody else to keep an eye out for anything following them.

*

They now made slow progress; the ground was uneven and rough, and Harry could only get over it with a great deal of help. More than once, the other three had to come to his rescue, sometimes resorting to spells to get Harry over a particularly rough patch. Harry's endurance also wasn't what it had been; more than once, they had to pause while he lay there, gasping in the parched, sulfur-stinking air, his face pale and drawn under the deep tan he had acquired in their time on the road.

Hermione was worried. She hadn't seen any sign of Gollum, but she knew that the creature was a very good tracker. The soil was loose enough that they left footprints behind in many places, and even without that, she knew that Gollum could probably trail them by smell.

Even as slowly as they were travelling, forced to go no faster than Harry could limp along, and having to move from cover to cover, they did make progress. Ahead of them, Mount Doom loomed, larger and larger, a black cone rearing up against the eternally overcast skies of Mordor. As they approached, Hermione found that she could also see a great castle in the distance, perched on a tongue of mountain that extended out into the plains of Gorgoroth.

"Yeah, I see it too, Hermione," muttered Draco when, during one of their rests, she mentioned it. Ron nodded in agreement; Harry was lost in a haze of pain, thirst and exhaustion, lying back with his eyes barely open, his breath coming in gasping sobs. "That has to be Barad-Dur itself---the Dark Tower, the home of Sauron." Draco managed to leer at Hermione. "Ever wonder what's in there, Miss Curiosity?"

"No!" Hermione shook her head emphatically, careless of how the motion made her head throb with pain. "The Muggle writer H.P. Lovecraft liked to talk about 'things Man was not meant to know,' and I think a lot of those things are probably in that damned---and I use the word in its theological sense---castle!"

"You and me both, Hermione," Ron mumbled, trying to get a bit of lembas down his throat without dipping into their precious water. "Besides, getting a look inside's probably synonymous with 'captured by Sauron,' and we all know what that would entail, don't we?" The three friends shared haunted, haggard grins. Hermione knew full well what sort of torments Sauron had in store for his enemies, and decided, yet again, that going out by Draco's Avada Kedavra would be infinitely preferable to capture by Sauron. If I were captured, would that make me 'Miss Taken?' she wondered, for a second, before dismissing such silliness with a shake of her head.

When Harry came to, groaning, they prepared to move on. Hermione bled inside at the sight of Harry's face when he stood---even with the help of his staff, and Ron's unstinting support, his face was set in a mask of pain, twisted and awful to see. There didn't seem to be anybody at home behind his green eyes, when Hermione took a close look; Harry stumbled forward like a drunk, or a zombie in a Muggle movie, and only Ron's guidance kept him from wandering off in a random direction.

Ahead of them, Mount Doom crouched, like some unimaginably huge beast of prey waiting for its dinner to come traipsing up. The mountain belched forth fresh clouds of sulfury-smelling smoke now and then, and ever and anon came the rumblings from deep underground, rumblings that Hermione could feel through the soles of her boots.

And not just vibrations---when Hermione touched the ground, she noticed that the soil was warmer than it had any business being. "Draco?" she called out softly. "Do you think the ground's warmer than it should be?"

Draco squatted down and touched the ground. "I think you're right---as usual, Hermione," he added, as Hermione felt a rush of gratification. She liked to think she had very few weaknesses, but pride in her intellect had always been one of the ones she did acknowledge. "I just hope that bloody volcano doesn't pick right now to erupt."

As they straightened up, a rock whistled past them, and they hit the dirt by pure instinct. The rock got Ron right in the head with a sickening klok sound, and Ron crumpled, as Gollum leaped from ambush and threw himself on Harry's throat, grabbing at his shirt-front over where the Ring was hidden.

"Nooo!" hissed Gollum, his eyes glowing with madness. "Wicked masster cheatss uss! Musstn't hurt Preciouss! Give it to uss! Give it to uss now!" Hermione was busy trying to see to Ron, but she gaped in horror at Gollum. Somehow or other, he'd grown! He was now nearly of a height with her, and apparently possessed of strength she'd never known he had. He overbore Harry and threw him to the ground on his back, hissing insanely.

Instinctively, Hermione grabbed for her wand, but Draco gripped her by her wrist. "No! They're too close together! You might hit Harry!" The two were rolling over and over each other on the ground, and then Harry was up on his feet, gripping the Ring through his shirt-front with one hand and pulling his wand with the other. He looked more lucid than he had in some time; Hermione figured that an attempt to grab the Ring from him would be the one thing that could get through the fog he'd been in.

"Get down! Get away from me, you filthy, creeping thing!" hissed Harry, his green eyes seeming to glow with rage. "You vile thing! You tried to kill my friends! I should kill you where you lie!" Cowering before him, Gollum raised a hand as though to shield himself from a terrible light. With a perception that she somehow knew had come from her brief time as a Ringbearer, Hermione suddenly saw them as they truly were.

With her Inner Eye, the same one, she now realized, as Professor Trelawney had been yattering about in her useless Divination class, she saw a mighty wizard who chose to hide his power, holding a wheel of fire before his chest. In front of the wizard, a creeping thing grovelled, whimpering like the whipped, starved dog it somehow resembled, as the wizard intoned: "Leave me! Never touch me again, or I will personally cast you into the Cracks of Doom!" Or had that voice come from the wheel of fire itself? Hermione shook herself, and the vision faded; now she just saw Harry, standing over Gollum and giving him a terrible glare.

With a final sneer, Harry turned his back on Gollum, as though daring the creature to attack him again, and began limping off toward Mount Doom. Gollum, though, had apparently had all he wanted from Harry. He turned, cowering and hissing---and found himself facing Draco, Hermione and a groggy, angry Ron.

At the expressions on their faces, Gollum broke completely. "Let uss live, O let uss live!" he whimpered, crumpling back onto the ground and stretching out his hands in appeal. "Losst, losst in thiss dreadful desert, we're losst! Thirssty, we are! The drinkses you buried didn't tasste good, did they, preciouss?"

"So that's it," Hermione heard Draco mutter. "There was some Skele-Gro left, and some Pepperup Potion. No wonder he grew!" He pointed his wand, looking very like the old Draco Malfoy at his very worst. Then he lowered it, sheathing it and drawing his sword. "No. I won't dishonor magic by using it on you, you treacherous piece of filth. Remember what I yelled at you, back where the spider was?"

At the mention of the spider, Ron moaned. His eyes weren't focussing, and he didn't seem oriented, but he did remember the spider, all too well. Hermione slipped over to his side, unobtrusively offering her shoulder to support him.

Draco was going on, his voice ominously calm, his eyes glittering with hatred: "I yelled 'You are dead, dead, dead! I'm going to kill you myself until you're sorry!' And a Malfoy always keeps his word---particularly when it's about doing someone harm!" Faster than a striking snake, he grabbed Gollum by the throat and brought back his sword for the killing blow. He towered over the cringing Gollum like an avenging angel.

Time seemed to go very slowly for Hermione, as she suddenly heard voices from the past. In particular, she heard Harry, saying that he couldn't hate Gollum, because he understood Gollum, all too well. She could also remember what it had been like for her, in the few hours that she'd held the Ring herself. How would I have been, she asked herself, if I had been burdened with It for five hundred years?

All of that ran through her mind in less than a second, and before she quite knew what she was doing, she'd drawn her wand, and levelled it at Draco's head. "Put down that sword, Draco Malfoy!" she heard herself snarling, a snap of command in her voice that had seldom been there. "I forbid you to kill him!"

Draco whirled, his eyes blazing. At the sight of Hermione covering him with her wand, he gaped in pure amazement; his hand slackened and Gollum squirmed free, grovelling up to Hermione in almost the same way that Peter Pettigrew had in the Shrieking Shack, in a past that seemed as long ago as Professor Binns' goblin rebellions.

"Hermione?" Draco's voice was faint, suddenly, as he slowly, carefully sheathed his sword. "Are you barking mad?" He no longer looked like an avenging angel to Hermione, but like a lost little boy. The rage that had blazed through him like sunlight through a stained-glass window, and transformed him, was gone.

"What he is, the Ring's made him. He can't help himself. Besides, Harry didn't kill him---he just told him to go away." Hermione slowly lowered her wand, looking at Gollum with mingled pity and loathing. "I didn't want to kill him, back below the Emyn Muil---remember? Even now, I can't do it."

"Ach, sss, pretty girl savess uss," Gollum whimpered, wriggling like a dog whose owner has petted it. "Ssshe won't let nassty elf-looking wizard kill uss, will she?" He dared to peek at Ron. "Or nassty bad-tempered red-headed wizard?"

Hermione had forgotten Ron, even though she was still more-or-less holding him up. "Draco! Go catch up to Harry! He can't get far on his own!" Reminded suddenly of Harry's existence, Draco paled under his tan, nodded and headed down after Harry. Freed of worry about what Draco might do, Hermione concentrated on Gollum. "And you---you heard what Harry said! Get away from us and never bother us again! You're lucky I didn't let Draco kill you!" As Gollum whimpered, Hermione lashed out with her boot, catching him in the ribs and evoking a whistling shriek. "Get out of here! Sod the hell off!"

As Gollum scampered away---and Hermione made well sure that he was going in a different direction from Harry, who was being helped along by Draco---she turned her attention to Ron. Ron was rubbing his head, moaning "Twice! Twice in the same spot! What is it with his rocks and my head?" Hermione grabbed him by the sides of his head, peering into his eyes. To her relief, his pupils were the same size.

"Can you walk?" Ron nodded, but when he tried to walk, he nearly fell flat on his face. Hermione ran to him, and fitted herself under his armpit, using her staff to steady herself. With that, and his own staff, Ron was able to walk, and they set off after Harry and Draco.

When they caught up to their friends, Harry had paused for a rest, lying back on the ground as Draco squatted beside him. Draco looked up as they came up, and Hermione noticed, as if for the first time, how haggard and drawn he looked. He'd never been fat, but she thought he was almost like a skeleton covered with deeply-tanned skin, with bright grey eyes peering out from under a wild mop of dirty blonde hair.

"What a long, strange trip it's been, Hermione," he muttered. "But---do you notice anything?" Hermione looked around, and she suddenly saw that they were sitting right on the edge of the Mountain itself. Before them, it loomed up into the sky, dominating everything around them. "We made it this far. We made it across Gorgoroth. Now all that's left is the climb."