rbi

It took only a single day for Harry to begin to regret his decision to carry on alone. After so long in the dungeons of Carn Dûm, and so many lonely years before that, he had thought the separation would be easy to manage. He was wrong.

His early childhood had been so utterly devoid of friendship or real emotional connection that when he looked back upon it in later years he often found himself wondering how he'd managed to make it through quite so well. If not for a well-meaning young teacher at his primary school he would not have been able to claim even one person as a friend during those years.

Yet he had been delivered from that life by a new life at Hogwarts, much as he had been delivered from the darkness of Carn Dûm. He had met Hermione and Ron, Fred, George, Neville, Ginny, Luna and so many more. Often he'd been blind to them, instead he had believed in the gossip and rumour mongering that had followed his every step and allowed it to drive a wedge between them all too often. It wasn't until he had to endure a year of unbearable hardship that he'd truly come to appreciate what they'd all done for him over the years.

He had to return to them. Even if it was too late to help them, even if Voldemort had won and the world had been crushed beneath his insane need for power. He could not accept defeat if there was even the slimmest possibility that he could yet help them.

Yet he already felt he might have found a friend in this place. That was something that actually concerned him; he missed her company. She may have found him uncomfortable to be around but she was at least better than the near silence and sighing winds of the dales below the Misty Mountains. Even so he couldn't allow himself to get too close to any of the people here. He had to remain focused on his most important task. He had to return to his friends. Each night he saw their blurry faces and heard their voices. He was willing to do whatever it would take to see them again, hear them again.

That was why he'd continued on without Daewen. Had he remained in some comfortable place among kind people it would surely have made his task that much harder, not easier. He couldn't allow himself to become attached to the people or places of this world. They could be nothing more to him than a temporary distraction. He had set himself a task, to find a path home, and he would see it completed. If the sorcerers of the East had no knowledge that could help him then he would look elsewhere. It was that simple.

Day after gruelling day disappeared beyond the Misty Mountains now sitting heavily upon the western horizon at Harry's back. He stopped counting them after a while as without anyone at his side they ceased to have any real meaning. Each morning the sun rose bright over the eastern horizon and was greeted by a sparse chorus of birdsong from amid the low scrub and ever present heather. He would then awaken to a sight more beautiful than any he'd seen a long year as the sky was painted in hues of vibrant red, orange and pink.

The sunsets over Hogwarts had also been breathtaking in their beauty, he remembered. A few nights he'd sat atop the Astronomy Tower just to see the rolling green hills of the Scottish highlands bathed in an impossible riot of colour and slowly advancing shadows. Each morning that memory would be thrust upon him and he would, for a short few minutes at least, feel like he was home again.

Sometimes in the brief periods when he'd been left alone within his cell at Carn Dûm he would try and remember the peace and happiness he'd felt on those nights. When finally the sun set below the hill west of Hogwarts and the stars had sparkled like diamond dust in the vaults of the sky he could look out and feel his problems ebb away. They would always seem so insignificant in the face of the eternal beauty that shone above his head on those nights.

The light of those stars followed him even into the blackest of darkness far beyond the reach of the sun. Even after a day of unspeakable torture he could close his eyes and feel the shadow over his spirit lift as the stars glimmered in his mind's eye.

As he awoke each morning to the bright dawn of Middle-earth he hoped he would be able to see his own stars shining overhead once again.

Once awoken, he would walk. At long last his strength was mostly returned and he made good time each day in his journey towards the East. He had far to go before his recovery would be complete as much of the damage done would surely require magic to heal. Despite that, he had become accustomed to those injuries that remained. As he moved he did so in a way that reduced the pulling of his scars and as he ate he was able to chew carefully with a few of his undamaged teeth. It was a sad thought that he might get used to the situation and accept it, but for the time being he had little option.

For more than a week he followed the winding path of the Langwell river and rested each night upon its banks. The cheerful burbles of the clear water were a constant companion at his side through each of those days.

A few days into his journey he encountered a small village built upon the banks of the crystalline Langwell waters. He saw it from a distance, a collection of turf buildings similar to some of the pictures he remembered from the early Goblin Rebellions. Each was roughly circular and built of earth and wood with a high conical roof. Around the cluster of dwellings was a simple palisade of wooden stakes driven into the ground.

As he drew slowly closer he noticed that all was not right with the scene before him. Parts of the palisade had been blackened by fire or torn down. Within the settlement smoke curled from blackened sod atop the roofs of two of the buildings. A another three had collapsed completely and all that remained was a low outer wall of scorched earth. Of the buildings he'd seen only one had survived whatever disaster had come to this place without significant damage.

Harry found himself entering the ruined settlement despite knowing what he would find there. All about the settlement was death. More than a half a dozen bodies lay between the few buildings, each had been hewn cruelly by their attackers.

The attackers were clear enough to Harry, Orcs. A few lay where they had been felled by the desperate defenders. Orcs had no concept of respect for the dead, it was only by some fortunate chance that the victorious Orcs had not consumed the dead where they lay. They would not have differentiated between the bodies of their own and the bodies of their victims.

The attack could not have been that long ago, perhaps the night before last by Harry's reckoning. It had been long enough for the word to be spread among the ravens of the North and many had converged upon the ravaged settlement.

Harry shooed them away from the human bodies and left them to worry over the foul Orc corpses. It was a pointless battle though, each time he would move away the birds would again converge upon the remains. They almost completely ignored the bodies of the Orcs, Harry did not blame them.

He looked through the few buildings that were still standing and found much the same within each. The scorched and blackened remains of now ruined or ended lives. He did not know how many people he should expect in a settlement of this size but he came to a count of 11 bodies before he finally made his way to the last hut. It was largest and he had left it for last as he was concerned about what he might find in there.

The cloying stench of death assailed him as soon as he crossed the threshold and he was met by a scene of barbarity.

Orc corpses lay across all the floor and at last answered the question of why they had no consumed the killed men and women outside. In all more than two dozen Orcs had died in the attack, and most of those had died within this hut.

At the far end of the single room was a powerful giant of a man with long bloodied dirty blond hair. It was obvious to Harry that he was no longer alive as he sat slumped in his own dried blood, sword still gripped strongly in his hand. Beside him was a woman who was alive though.

The moment he saw her Harry rushed to her side and tried to look at her injury. She was grey, thin and willowy and looked so fragile that Harry was amazed she had survived so long with the injuries she had. Her grey eyes were fuzzy and unclear, focussed on something Harry could not see and her pale golden hair fell in a mess about her face and front. Her hands lay cold at her belly, covering a bloody wound that had become black around the edges.

He carefully raised her hand so that he could get a better look at the wound but before he could she gasped in pain and Harry heard a young voice shout angrily behind him.

"Fortholian wierdan modor!" Harry felt something long and heavy strike him across his shoulders painfully.

He spun around and was confronted by a boy of no more than seven years of age. Short but stocky he had the same hair as the man whom Harry assumed was his father. His blue eyes flashed with anger and stubborn defiance. In his hand he held a sword much too large for him, one of the heavy serrated blades carried by the Orcs. Harry was glad that the boy had been unable to control the ill-balanced weapon and had only struck him with the flat.

Behind the boy came an older girl, maybe twelve or thirteen years old and who looked very much like her mother. "Brothor!" she cried and pulled him back and away from Harry. She then fixed Harry with a look of such fire that Harry was impressed. Even here, amid the ruin of her people and her family she possessed a courage that left Harry genuinely awed.

"I'm going to try and help her," he said calmingly. He tried to inject some confidence into his tone but it did not look like the girl was much impressed.

"Helpan?" the boy asked hopefully from behind the girl. "Thu helpan modor?"

"Helpan?" echoed Harry. The sounds of their language were not completely alien though he knew he couldn't really communicate. "Yes, I help... helpan modor." He pointed at the woman sat on the floor.

"Audofleda," said the boy as he turned anxious blue eyes towards the girl. "He con haelen hire."

The girl did not look convinced but a weak grunt from the mother broke down the last of her resistance and she nodded at him apprehensively. "Lician, haelen hire," she said at last.

Harry nodded and immediately set about his work. A thin tin bottomed pot was over the cold fire-pit in the middle of the room and he quickly emptied it of the cold gruel held within.

He looked around for water, the stream was nearby but he didn't want to have to run to it. "Water?" he asked the girl hopefully.

"Water?" she asked with furrowed brows before understanding dawned. "Waeter?" She jumped quickly over to what Harry quickly realised was the family water but.

He filled the pot and called for the boy and girl to get the fire re-lit. "Fire," he said as he pointed to the cold ashes. The boy immediately moved into action and in a few short seconds had kindled the beginnings of a fire in the earthen hearth.

Harry instead focused on his own task, healing the external injury and possible infection. Here he saw an opportunity to experiment with the herb that Daewen had mentioned when they had discussed his potion craft. She had left him a small amount in the pack gifted to him. It was supposed to fight corruption in some way though Harry did not know the specifics.

For the rest of the potion he mixed together ingredients with a healing association. A simple wound like that inflicted upon the woman was relatively easy to heal using a potion. Regrowing things that would not naturally heal was where the real difficulty lay in healing potions. Regrowing flesh or blood was no hard task, the body would do it without aid eventually.

Nonetheless it was important that the potioneer balanced the undesirable qualities of each ingredient. They then had to ensure that the mixing was done correctly to direct the results in the right direction, towards the prefered application for the potion. Anyone who paid attention in their OWLs could probably manage a workable healing potion if those steps were followed.

He opted for a salve as the woman was hovering at the edge of consciousness despite the constant encouraging words from her daughter. It took nearly twenty minutes to thicken the salve enough to use and by that point the woman had at last succumbed to unconsciousness. A panicked cry from the boy had almost caused Harry to knock his potion into the fire and he immediately shuffled over to the woman to check that she still lived.

She still had a faint and ever so thready pulse and Harry knew she wouldn't have much longer. under the ever watchful eyes of the woman's daughter he began daubing the thick and surprisingly pleasant smelling mixture on the wound. The effect was immediate and miraculous even to Harry.

The flesh regrew quickly and in seconds the gaping hole had closed up entirely. The black foulness that had taken root in her injury melted away immediately upon contact with the salve. The two children gasped in wonder as they watched colour visibly return to their mother's face.

When after a few short minutes her eyes fluttered open and focused on her children sitting before her the boy and girl leaped upon her and hugged her fiercely.

Harry sighed in puzzled relief and turned to tidy up his ingredients. He would need to take a much closer look at Daewen's Athelas if it could produce such effects in such a short time. He decided it would be for the best if he kept the remaining mixture for as long as he could. It was possibly even more effective than the potions he'd seen administered by Madam Pomfrey.

He was pulled from his thoughts when small arms wrapped around him. "Thancian thu!" he cried joyfully. "Min feorh belimpen to thu."

"Hsh Audovald," said the girl and she dragged him off Harry. "Thu sie samod geonglic." She turned to Harry and bowed to him. She grasped his hand and placed it upon her head and said, "Eall se is ure is thin."

Harry felt uneasy with the gesture, though he did not know what it meant or what her words said. He carefully pulled his hand from her grip and tried to brush his actions off as nothing. "There's no need to thank me," he said pointlessly. They had just as much comprehension of Westron as he had of their language.

"Bearnen!" spoke the voice of his patient much stronger than she should have been able given her recent injury. "He ne forstandan thu."

She pushed herself painfully upright though only the tightness of her features betrayed her discomfort to Harry. "Thanking you," she said in passable Westron. "Owe life to you. All is yours."

"You owe me nothing," he said as he attempted to speak as simply as possible. "You have nothing to give." He waved his arm about to indicate the destroyed village and lives that surrounded them.

"Have swords," she said firmly, a proud light shining in her eyes, Harry could see where the daughter got her fire. "Lives yours. Lodihilde, Audofleda, Audovald, yours."

Were they swearing fealty to him? "No!" he cried in dismay, "I can't protect you."

"Already saved us," the woman pointed out before her eyes turned sadly to her dead husband. "Clodowig dead, others dead. Audovald not old enough."

"Then go to another village." Harry said as reasonably as he could manage. "You would be protected there. You must know one?"

"There is," she allowed slowly though it was obvious the thought was unfamiliar to her.

"I am travelling, I cannot bring you with me," he said in an attempt to drive home his advantage. "If you stay safe I will be happy."

She did not look at all happy about Harry's attempts to weasel out of a life debt. It was obvious they treated them with the same solemnity as wizards did. Finally, though, after a long minute of thought they decided to accept his argument. Harry supposed they really had little choice in the matter.

"When you stop to travel," she said eventually. "Come here. Blood of Clodowig will always give aid, payment."

Harry could accept that, at least it meant he would not be responsible for their lives. "Then I accept."

They offered him the chance to stay and he turned them down. It was yet morning and he knew he still had many leagues to cover in his journey east. Instead he took from them a little of their food and went on his way. They promised to leave too once the village had been laid to rest. Harry had offered to help them but they had been adamant in their refusal and so he had bowed to their determination.

He had little desire to perform that grizzly job anyway. His journey continued eastwards, behind him a slow lament was sung by Lodihilde over the bodies of the dead and her two children began to prepare them for proper burial. He felt a pang of guilt at the thought of leaving them alone in a land ravaged by Orcs unleashed by the destruction of Angmar but he knew that there would be little he could do to protect them. There was little enough he could do to protect himself.

Days later he came to the join between the Langwell and another river running down from the dark and grey mountains to the North. He followed the river back up its route in the hope of finding a place where he might cross it in safety. It him a day of travel before he found a place where the river was shallow enough for him to consider crossing.

The grassy banks dipped low towards the water and the river was edged by thin strips of sand and pebbles. The river was wider and shallower here than anywhere else he'd seen that day though the waters still ran fast down its channel. Nearby upon his bank was a small stand of gnarled pine trees, each near bare of needles and bent by the winds that must surely howl across the lowlands in the depths of winter.

Despite this place being the best option yet for a crossing point he was still not confident of his ability to make the cross safely. To help him in the crossing he found a long thick branch to use as extra support against the flow of the water.

Upon entering the frigid water he was immediately glad he had opted for the aid. The water swirled in eddies about him and on a couple of occasions threatened to topple him when the loose gravel and sand of the riverbed shifted beneath him. Upon reaching the far shore he realised the mistake he had made.

The small pack gifted to him by Daewen had been kept above the water and any splashes were easily turned aside by the Elvish cloth. Unfortunately his own clothes were not of similar make and became heavy with the freezing mountain runoff. The heavy woolen clothes worn by the Men of Eärnur's army were cold and leaden with the weight of the river water.

He cursed and thought wistfully of the simple drying charm he'd learned in his time at Hogwarts. He quickly pulled himself out of the garments, gifted to him by one of the Quartermasters of Eärnur's army and wrung them out before setting about making a fire. He had become adept at it over the weeks and soon the warm dancing flames were crackling merrily upon the banks of the river.

It would take some time to dry his clothes out even with the fire and he found his mind wandering as he watched the flames lick at the wood he piled upon them. As it so often did his mind turned to his still untouched magic. Just as before he could feel it, that pleasant warmth playing beneath his skin and he still couldn't find a way to release it. In the weeks with Daewen he'd made a few half-hearted attempts at producing spells without his wand. He never found any reason to have much real hope and nothing resulted from his token efforts.

His problem was that he was aware of the possibility in very general terms. After all he'd done a lot of magic of some form as a child, he'd even seen Voldemort controlling that magic when he was a boy. He simply couldn't work out how to make it happen.

The spells he'd learned could never work wandlessly. From what he remembered of the theory the wand motions were integral to the formation of the spell and the focus point was needed to direct the result.

Wand magic was an order of magnitude more complicated than potions. Much as potioncraft could be reduced to a complex cookbook of sorts, a series of instructions to be followed to reach a singular result, the greater craft of magic was distilled into spells.

He was sure that those spells must express some deeper meaning, much as the ingredients of a potion did. But he could not fathom how that meaning came about. A flower symbolised life, beauty and mortality, that much was clear. What deeper meaning could you glean from a wand movement or some words in a language that was almost, but not quite, latin?

He'd had some time to think about it over the last weeks and still did not feel he'd come to a satisfactory answer. He needed to experiment if he was to have any hope of understanding it and yet he was without a wand, and without a wand he had very little to work with indeed.

But he'd been without a potions textbook too. Perhaps it was merely a question of need and determination.

He fixed his mind on the fire before him and tried to understand just what it truly was. He knew he was flying blind in this for he had little real appreciation for what he even meant to attempt. He wanted to try somehow and combine the heat of the fire with the moisture in the clothing to drive the water from them.

Heat, how could he describe heat to someone who had never known the feeling? That was what he needed to do, he needed to appreciate the warmth as more than just a by-product of the fire but as a thing of its own. Heat was life; it gave life, it sustained it, and it was produced by it. There was no line between the two things, where life was, so too was heat, warmth. He had to know that and project it fully into his wet clothes.

Heat was passion, a drive and determination to see a task through to the bitter end. Just as a fire burned until its fuel was completely gone, he had to understand true determination if he was to achieve his goal.

He focused on those two ideas until they became almost physical entities. He could feel the magic within him roiling sympathetically as he focused those thoughts upon the wet clothes before him. Finally he slowly released his gathered magic into the air about him and opened his eyes to gaze upon his handiwork.

His hanging clothes still lay heavy and sodden upon the ground by the crackling fire. Was there perhaps slightly less of a chill in the air? Did Harry feel just a little warmer? He was not sure. In all likelihood if he was feeling less of a chill it was most likely to be from the fire and not his most recent magical failure.

He swore quietly in frustration. He needed to find some way of accessing his magic. He was as good as helpless if attacked by a party like that at the village days before. He felt sure that he would not easily come by the knowledge of how he came to be here, he would almost certainly have to fight someone.

With an annoyed sigh he pushed himself upright and decided to try and make the best of the situation. Perhaps a warm lunch would allow him to temporarily forget his current magical inability.

o-o

The weather began to deteriorate as Harry travelled further into the East. Winter was drawing in and brought with it wind and rain. Harry's progress was much slowed by the conditions as the clothes gifted to him quickly became soaked through in the wind-driven rain. Throughout the week the days never came into full brightness as the steely clouds hung firmly overhead.

Even in the cold and dismal weather he was always on the hunt for his next meal. Daewen had gifted him most of her remaining supplies along with her pack but he was determined to use them only for emergencies. The Elvish supplies would keep for many months and would keep him moving for many weeks thanks to their seemingly magical ability to sate his hunger.

He was glad that they had stopped burning him some time ago, neither he nor Daewen had understood how that had come to happen but it stopped a short few days after Daewen had joined him openly on his travels. Another strange ability of the Elves. He dearly wished he had the time to remain and understand their magic in more depth. It seemed to be a part of them, as natural as breathing and he couldn't imagine how much he might learn from them.

Surely Hermione would be most interested to hear of them. Harry smiled fondly at the thought. Knowing Hermione she would seek a way to return to Middle-earth purely for the opportunity to study the new and unfamiliar magic.

It was those infrequent thoughts of home and of his friends that pushed him ever onwards. The wind and rain grew worse for a time and there was little enough shelter to be found on the northern marches through which he walked.

More than a week of increasingly wet and cold days later he noticed a shadow brooding upon the horizon. A great dark wood filled with ancient trees and deceitful whispers. The huge trunks were packed close and the canopy was so thick and impenetrable that Harry could see no more than a few meters into its shadowy depths. The air of the forest felt heavy and dead, the smell of rot and decay came to his nose.

He moved beneath the shelter of its twisted branches even despite his misgivings for the rain was again coming down heavily upon him and had been for some time. He was willing to put up with the hushed silence if it meant he could dry his soaked clothes for a time.

The air beneath the eaves made his skin crawl, it as if there was something there that hated him beyond all else. It was the feeling he felt when looked upon by the likes of Voldemort or his Death Eaters. There was something about it that burned within the mind's eye.

To the north the wood curved slowly towards the east and it looked to Harry as if he might be able to skirt by the sea of trees that way without having to enter wholly within. No doubt the land to the north was just as barren and joyless as all the land he had crossed in the last week but he would accept that if it would lead him closer to his goal of returning home.

As so many things did the wood reminded him of home. It felt to him somewhat similar to the Forbidden Forest upon the Hogwarts grounds and yet at the same time he noted the differences. Where the Forbidden Forest was dark and ominous it had also been home to many things both fair and good. He could not imagine a unicorn surviving long within the confines of the murky wood before him.

He journeyed then to the north and east along the boundary of the wood. Usually he walked outside the wood, away from its stifling influence but each time the weather rolled in he would take reluctant refuge within the thick and noisome forest. He never went beyond sight of the forest's edge.

Long days of wet and dismal travelling brought Harry eventually to another river. This one much broader and faster than the last. It flowed out of the north and ran under the dark boughs of the murky forest. Before resigning himself to travelling upstream to find a crossing point Harry searched a short way down the river's path into the wood.

He was careful, always, to keep his eye upon the feeble light filtering in from beyond the boundary of the wood. He felt sure that if he stepped beyond the sight of his bearings in this place he would surely be left wholly lost within the dark depths of the suspicious wood. His senses prickled and something itched in the dark recesses of his mind.

It seemed that luck was with him on this occasion for not far into the wood a huge forest giant had been felled by time and rot. It lay across the shallow gorge cut by the swift waters of the forest river. So broad was the trunk of the great oak tree that Harry was able to walk across it easily with only his stave at his side for balance.

When he reached halfway across the river he felt the burning presence that had been licking at the back of his mind grow so much that it felt almost a physical thing. He spun on the spot and held the wooden stave out to ward off the dark shadow that he could feel clinging about him.

The darkness was thick and seemed to ooze into his mind as it whispered unheard promises of power and vengeance in his mind. His knuckles went white on the stave he brandished as he tried to force the whispers away. He had no idea what he was trying to do but he did know that he did not want the dark whispers to gain a new foothold within his mind.

Quite suddenly he felt a shock run through him and a momentary burst of power tore from him. It was weak and completely undirected but for the first time since he'd been brought to this place he felt his magic released if only for a moment. A pale flash of light flared in his eyes and the darkness was pushed back and he could feel it retreat south.

Harry quickly completed his crossing of the river and leapt gratefully onto the far bank. He immediately felt much recovered, as if a heavy weight had been removed from about his neck. The feeling of the forest was not unlike Voldemort's locket Horcrux when it had hung around his neck on those days now so distant. North of the stream, though, the feeling weakened. No longer could he feel a dark presence twisting the woods against him, now it felt like the natural wariness of a long untouched forest.

He still had little desire to remain under those dark boughs, however. The memory of the cloying darkness was altogether too familiar to him and he would not wish to tempt fate by remaining within its domain. He took a short moment to appreciate the much greater beauty and liveliness of the northern wood before moving quickly back out of the forest so that he could carry on with his journey.

o-o

It had been more than two months since his release from the dungeons of Carn Dûm, and more than a month since he'd parted from Daewen in the foothills of the Misty Mountains. The huge dark wood had finally given way to more open plains to the south and there upon the distant horizon in the hazy south stood a single lonely mountain. It thrust up from the low heathland around it and brushed the white clouds that swelled around it.

But that was not what drew Harry's immediate attention. Instead his eye was drawn to a faded column of smoke rising over a hill not far to the east of him. The day was completely still and clear after so much rain. His breath hung in the air and the sky overhead was a crisp icy blue. He was grateful for the clear weather for without it he might never have noticed the smoke and as it looked like it was coming from a dip between a number of hills he might have walked by and never known any better.

He had come to realise that he knew very little of the land into which he was travelling. Daewen had known in the vaguest sense, from stories or histories passed down to her, and she had told him what she knew. He still knew too little. He did not not how far the journey would be nor the lands he would have to cross.

He did not know much of the people he might encounter. Daewen believed the East to be riven by war between the servants of darkness and those who had the aid of Curunír. Daewen had told him that one hundred years ago a group of Men whom she called the Grachron in Sindarin, the 'Wain-ones' in Westron, had attacked Gondor from the east. Very little had been heard of them since but she'd heard rumours that they had splintered into a thousand small warring tribes.

He hoped they were not aggressive.

When he crested the final low rolling hill he came to a sudden stop as he laid impressed eyes upon what was beyond.

Perhaps twenty or more large wagons drawn up into a defensive circle around a dozen large fires. Though they were of a rude, boxy make each was large enough to house an entire family. They were covered in skins and furs and a few had huge antlers adorned upon their roofs like trophies.

The fires in the central area were spread out and each had a small group surrounding them. He could see men and women sitting clustered close to their warmth as children ran back and forth their pure voices raised in excitement and laughter as they chased each-other across the ring. He could hear the distant melody of a stringed instrument and a deep male voice sang a slow lament. He could not recognise the words but the sentiment was clear, it was a song of sadness and loss and his mind wandered for a moment to all the friends he had lost in the war against Voldemort.

Outside the perimeter wagons dozens of huge heavy set horses covered in thick formless hair grazed upon the sparse grass and he could see two men standing watch over them atop one of the other surrounding hills.

Almost the moment he saw them they too saw him. One raised an arm and pointed towards where Harry stood exposed atop the hill and the harsh cry of a horn rang out across the encampment. Immediately the women herded the children into the middle of the camp before joining the men at the perimeter. Men and women both hefted rough weapons in their hands and stared up at him in what he imagined to be suspicion.

Harry could see that they were very nervous indeed and so began walking slowly towards their camp with his free arm raised and his hand open in a gesture of peace. In his other hand he held his ever reliable stave, he was careful not to use it threateningly. It felt like it took an age but eventually a small group of five men came out to greet him, each carrying an assortment of their crude looking weapons.

He thought for a moment that perhaps he should have thought this through before-hand. If they chose to pit themselves against him then he would not find himself in a good position.

Each of the men was tall and broad, with dark hair and heavy ragged beards. There was a wild look about them that dredged up now distant memories of his very first friend Hagrid. He held close the hope that they would be as affable as he had been.

"Beliva-der!" called one of the men in deep gruff tones. Harry could not understand them and so he stopped cautiously where he was, he did not want to aggravate them if he could avoid it. He kept his unoccupied hand raised as he gripped his stave firmly, he found the presence reassuring.

"Hello?" he called hopefully. "Do you speak Westron?"

The men, who had continued to advance upon him weapons at the ready glanced at one of their number. He was the largest and hairiest and carried a huge heavy cudgel in both hands. Now that he was close enough Harry could just make out the sparkle of light blue eyes held within the tanned and wrinkled face.

"Why you come here?" he said. His accent was strong and barely understandable but Harry could at least comprehend the meaning.

"I am travelling east," he explained and he began to drop his arm in relief that they were willing to talk. "I hoped to learn more of those lands from you."

Three of the men talked quietly to each other in their language while the other two watched him warily and did not relax. The discussion went on for some time and Harry noticed many significant looks that were shot his way. Eventually, after what seemed to Harry to be an interminable age, they broke up and the leader nodded at Harry.

"You come," he said as he gestured for the men around him to lower their weapons. "I am Thiadulf of Rethlapa. Rethlapa will welcome you."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief as bow-strings loosened and he was no longer looking down the shaft of more than one arrow. "I am Harry Potter," he said and lowered his head respectfully. They still looked tense but at least they were not now openly hostile. The leader took a few steps closer to Harry.

"Harry Potter is a Wizard?" Thiadulf asked as he pointed at the stave Harry carried.

Harry was unsure how to respond. By his own measure he was now barely a wizard. More than a squib, certainly and with potions he could apparently do magic unknown to even an Elf.

"Yes, a little." He settled for downplaying any abilities he still had.

It was the right answer, Thiadulf relaxed as did one of the others who had come with him. A short whispered conversation among the others and they too relaxed finally.

"Then you will be known to Frodrinc!" Thiadulf smiled and slapped his chest. "More aid against the Dark Men, no?"

Harry's brow furrowed as he tried to remember that name from the seemingly never ending list provided to him by Daewen. "Frodrinc?"

"The White Wizard!" said Thiadulf enthusiastically. He started to lead Harry towards the circle of large Wains. "He freed us from the Dark Ones."

As he followed Harry grasped at that information. He hoped that Frodrinc would be able to help him with his problem. Perhaps they would also know Curunír of whom Daewen spoke. After months of making no true progress to his goal there was finally a possible light shining at the end of the tunnel.