Chapter Text
Dying, stepping on a train, and waking up in the middle of total mayhem in a smelly cave, was not conductive to self-inspection.
So, maybe Harry could be forgiven for not noticing he had kind of shrunk back to a teenager and switched species sometime between the last life and this new adventure. He had at least made sure to check if he had a wand – which he did not have. Nor could he feel his magic like before, but that was a Mystery for another time.
Yeah, waking up in the middle of a large, fire-illuminated cave, overrun by nasty looking creatures screaming bloody murder as they chased a group of small, hairy people – accompanied by a tall, old man wearing an unmistakable pointy hat of a wizard – around the cave system, could be quite distracting. Not to mention that they had been heading straight for Harry. The recently deceased wizard had done what he had done best for over two decades, made it up as he goes, and proceeded to go with the flow.
This meant that he joined the group of very short people – as in clearly shorter than Harry who had never been the tallest of men – fleeing for their lives without saying anything. They were all far too busy focused on all the enemies that someone obviously not one of the creatures rated maybe a glance to confirm that he was not hostile. Though they did double-takes aplenty for some reason and exclaimed about “where did the tree-hugging bastard come from!?” Harry had no idea what it was about him screamed tree-hugger, but he decided not to comment but rather focused on running, Not Thinking of the interior decoration tastes of the goblin-like creatures, hitting or kicking any goblin-lite – who came too close to him – straight off the creaky bridges without handrails, avoiding flying arrows, falling debris and miscellaneous thrown objects – really, was that a sock?
As Harry had once upon a time escaped on dragon-back from a bank – run by goblins who, now that he noticed, actually looked pretty similar to the creatures chasing them – and outflown a dragon on a broom years before, so it was saying something that Harry thought the following chase was one of the most Epic ones Harry had ever been part of. The people who he was following, as he had no idea how to get away from this place, were ingenious at using their surroundings to their advantage. Many sticks long and wide enough became deadly weapons at their hands, with the terrain being thin bridges with no railings at all, resulting in many, many falling goblin-lites. Crossroads seemed to be especially hazardous to the goblins’ health. But they also happened to divide the fleeing group onto many different walkways.
The little people proceeded to Hack and Slash with Style. It was a very unrealistic style, in Harry’s humble opinion, but no one – to his knowledge - was dead, or seemed seriously wounded yet, and they were making good time, so Harry probably had no room to judge. It was not like he was any better to be honest. His sword skills were mediocre at best, he had taken lessons in sword fighting after the war for the kick of being able to do so for fun, but he was very, very good at improvising. And with his longer legs he could run ahead or catch up as necessary. So, Harry had picked up a long knife, or maybe a short sword, from a fallen goblin and proceeded to run around cutting ropes and pushing levers as the group passed, creating unholy mayhem and confusion as platforms rose or fell randomly and parts of structures fell entirely, taking many unlucky creatures with them. And surprisingly even his mediocre skills allowed him to best goblins when necessary. In the end, Harry concluded that the goblins’ weapon skills were simply that awful.
The others of Harry’s fraction of the divided group had not been idle either and similarly used whatever they got their hands on. Harry almost needed to do a double take at the sheer incomprehensible coincidence slash luck that unfolded in front of his eyes as few of the group used a ladder to keep goblins from reaching them and simultaneously pushing them back. There was a long gap in the walkway in front of them that they pushed the goblins to fall down from and – look and behold – the ladder was just the right length to work as an impromptu bridge for their group over that same gap.
Harry proceeded to shake his head in disbelief even as he ran across the makeshift bridge with the group, reuniting with the rest. And for the final laugh, the last over the ladder-bridge made sure to kick it off, cutting the way from the pursuing goblins. Harry could not hold back a bright laugh which drew a few baffled stares from his ad hoc companions. He had not felt so alive in years.
The wizard was in the lead after that and they followed him to a demented seesaw-bridge which swung back and forth two times, after it was cut loose with their group on it, since not all of them managed to jump off one the other side at the first try. After the second swing, yet another bridge was cut off and dropped to deter their pursuers.
Harry was starting to like this. He could feel a savage grin on his face. He always had been an adrenaline junkie, a matter of survival really, without that trait he likely would not have survived to adulthood.
So, he went wild and started doing tricks alongside the others. A flip over a goblin here, swinging from a rope there as the walkway he had just been standing on crumbled. Improvisation and making things up on the fly was very familiar and even nostalgic.
There was a flash of light and Harry’s attention was drawn back to the wizard. The old man had cut a boulder from the ceiling that cleared their way before falling of the ledge. Magic was awesome!
Suddenly, Harry had a sad, foreboding feeling that he would not be able to do such things anymore. He might be alive right now, but the wizard who he had been had died. It would be odd if there were no side-effects to dying and losing his magic was not an unreasonable consequence to suspect.
The wooden walkways seemed endless though. They had been running around like headless chickens for a long time by now and it Harry was not entirely certain that the group knew where they were going. Oh well, better to be lost in a group than lost alone with their pursuers about, and the wizard was still with them, so they would not be totally lost if the man had skills similar to the wizard Harry had been.
Then a big fat goblin with an ugly bone-crown and a skull-staff burst up through the walkway cutting their way for a change. Was that the goblin-king or something? Their pursuers caught up both front and back as they stopped. Seriously, why had they stopped? Why didn’t that overgrown goblin get the same express-drop-kick treatment that the others received?
Then the fat goblin started speaking… were they going to listen to a monologue? It started with the general ‘you thought you could escape me but think again’ -drivel that was so familiar from the dark lord Harry had defeated as a teenager that he rolled his eyes and started to completely ignore it in favor of observing their surroundings. The goblin-king or whatever was so outmatched when it came to menace compared to lord Voldemort that it was simply hilarious.
The wizard’s answering strikes – the old man could really fight, with a sword even – were almost poetry in motion. That’s more like it! So long, overgrown goblin!
Then the walkway cracked and fell… Here they go again. They started falling, but – how novel – their patch of walkway remained almost intact. Such bizarre luck, it even almost beat the Potter luck that had seen Harry survive through his teenage years. That was all time Harry had for idle musings though as he needed to concentrate on keeping his balance as they were slide-falling down the steep cave wall crashing goblin-made structures they hit as they fell. Surprisingly, the walkway remained mostly horizontal – against many laws of physics Harry might add – as it crumbled under their feet, little by little. It almost reminded him of the Gringotts carts. He was screaming alongside the others as they hit obstacles after obstacles, but his screams were half fear and half exhilaration, though he was probably the only who could tell.
Well, maybe not. The wizard was not screaming, and he had given Harry a surprised glance before focusing ahead again. Maybe the wizard was what kept the stable? Without some interference, their platform should have been rolling every which way instead of a relatively slow slide-crumble into (mostly) one direction.
Then they reached the bottom and their walkway segment fell apart into logs and ropes as it slowed their fall to non-lethal levels for the final drop.
“That was fun,” Harry voiced cheerfully – at the same time as one of the others decided to tempt murphy – and made sure to jump off immediately as he realized they had come to the end of the ride and went to stand next to the wizard.
And not a moment too soon, as the body of the fat-goblin fell right on top of the remains of the walkway, and on top of the unfortunate people who still sat within the ruins where they had been as they fell, and had not managed move away in time.
Harry winced and pointed out to a chorus of groans and swears, “you really should not say things like that until you are completely safe, and maybe not even then. The world might take your words as a challenge…”
As they fought their ways from the ruins, one of the people – whose names were still a complete mystery to Harry – screamed in alarm, “Gandalf!” was that someone’s name? At least it should not be some language he did not know as he had been able to understand the speech the others, and even the goblins, had used so far. It sounded like English to Harry’s ears but so had parseltongue, so who knew what language they were speaking. Harry followed the face of the person who shouted and saw a massive number of the goblin-creatures swarming down the cave wall towards them. Well… that explained the alarm. There were more than dozen of them down there but thousands of the goblins heading their way.
Harry wholeheartedly agreed with whoever said that there were too many to fight against, and followed the wizard’s words with all due haste, speeding for the glimmer of sunlight visible in the distance. Somehow they had made it almost to the exit in their mad scramble? But he was confused, daylight could save them? He did not know goblins were scared – vulnerable to, wounded by, or whatever – of daylight…
Well, he would take it. With the luck they had had so far, they were probably running out of the frying pan and into the fire, but what was life without a little risk? And if their luck held? They would all survive, few interesting experiences richer. Harry almost couldn’t wait!
He may have hated his boring life after the war. Just a bit. At first, peace had been a novelty he had not quite known what to make of it. But as years passed and they all adjusted to peace, Harry had grown increasingly restless without noticing it. That, combined with him being hounded by the admiring public wherever he went, might have been what led him to his death in the end.
They made it out to sunlight and kept running for a good few hundred meters away from the cave entrance. Harry glanced backwards and saw they had exited from a very tall mountain into woods. He could hear the wizard starting to take a head count and slowed down to a stop alongside others.
As this was the first time they were not in active danger, Harry finally took stock of his own state. He was uninjured, slightly (yet not too seriously) exhausted maybe, still wearing the white clothes – simple tunic and pants yet no shoes –that the limbo had provided him when he did not wish to go naked. His hair had had a growth spurt at some point and was around shoulder length now. Weird but not the weirdest thing to have happened to him. Not by a long shot. A quick check by hand revealed that it not gotten over his eyes and distracted him because his side bangs were braided back and tied together with some string. This was holding the rest of his hair away from his face even as it was left free.
More important than the state of his hair, however, was the fact that Harry had been scrambling around underground – with all of the hazardous materials, filth and debris spread all over the cave floor – barefooted? And got not a single wound to his feet, nor a single splinter from all the wooden walkways? He double checked discreetly and yes, there were no wounds whatsoever. A few small bruises from where something had been hit hard, but nothing else. Was this due to Potter luck, or was this group’s strange luck contagious, or was he just protected by association?
Finally, before Harry could delve further into speculation, the wizard – called Gandalf, maybe, at least that was what the others seemed to call him – gestured to Harry and rounded off his count with, “and there is our new friend.”
Then the wizard seemed to realize something, took another look around and seemed confused enough to scratch his head. The wizard questioned the group, “but where is our hobbit?”
Hobbit? What, or maybe who, is a hobbit?
Then the group of people became agitated and their leader besides the wizard started to snap and accuse the missing person (?) of abandoning them all and returning home. All right, Harry had no idea what this was really about, but it had the flavor of a long held disagreement, and he wanted no part in it, so he remained silent.
Luckily, before the situation could devolve any further, the missing hobbit came and announced himself. Harry did a double take. He should have noticed someone that close to them, but it was almost like the hobbit had appeared from thin air. Also, the hobbit, named Bilbo Baggins, was apparently a small person, like the others, but this one had no beard whatsoever, and his hair was a reasonable length as well. The hobbit was also only other person alongside Harry to have no shoes. Since all the others in the group had boots, Harry assumed it was by choice, as it could hardly be because he did not have the possibility to have his own. The hobbit also had a confusing amount of hair on his feet of all places. Harry decided not to comment or ask about it.
The reunion was extremely touching even without context and Harry also learned that the small people – who Harry started to realize looked like extremely stereotypical dwarves – had lost their home and were attempting to regain it with the hobbit’s – and presumably the wizard’s – help.
“Now, you are rather far from your minders, young master elf,” it took Harry a few blinks to realize that he had been the one the wizard had spoken to.
Young master elf? Elf? First he had been called tree-hugger and now an elf? He had not lost any height since he last checked and was still as tall as the human-height wizard, so he could not be a house-elf. So, what did the wizard mean by elf? Well, there were those ageless, beautiful and wise fairytale elves too, Harry guessed. They were usually associated with nature too, so that would explain the tree-hugger comment.
He had felt like he was younger and slightly shorter than what he could recall, from before his death. Now, was not the time to check for pointy ears, however, whether he had such ears or not, it would make him look insane.
“What do you mean, master Gandalf?” Harry asked to delay slightly, testing his assumption of the wizard’s name at the same time, as he was debating on his answer. No one reacted like he had said anything outrageous. “I have not had minders for a long time.”
The dwarves had started paying more attention to him as well. “An elf-child?!” the leader exclaimed.
Rude! Harry was over thirty years old, had almost turned thirty-one before he went and got himself killed. He was not a helpless child. Not even when he had been an actual child, had he ever been helpless.
“No elf I have ever met would let a child your age wander the wilds alone,” Gandalf frowned.
Even Gandalf was saying such things. Harry rolled his eyes, “I am over thirty years old. I am not a child.”
Harry was slightly incredulous when everyone else shared almost begrudgingly indulgent looks. The kind solely directed at precocious youths, as if the former-wizard truly was a child who had done something cute.
The following question, that the hobbit – Bilbo – asked of Gandalf, enlightened Harry to the facts he had been unaware of which had apparently made him act ‘just like his age’ in elven years.
“I thought that elves become physically fully grown at fifty years old, and are considered full adults after passing their first century, am I correct?” Bilbo asked tentatively.
Harry closed his eyes as he took in this information. He did not even need to hear Gandalf confirm it. They all had assumed him to be a child. Assuming that the elf-children still grew mostly linearly when compared to human aging, just slower, and let’s say that physical maturity was man at twenty-five years old, Harry’s thirty years would make him the equivalent of a fifteen-year-old human teenager… which actually fit decently well into what Harry remembered of his body at that age, just without the chronic malnutrition, going by his height and that there were no familiar aches in his limbs.
At least this had not happened when he was seventeen. At seventeen he might have shrunken to an actual toddler. Ending up in this situation in the body of a young child would be a nightmare.
“What was an elf-child doing in Goblin Town?” another dwarf asked. Oh, good to know that those goblin- creatures actually are called goblins. Harry did not need to worry about slipping and calling the creatures a name no one would understand. “And in clothing like that?”
“I have no idea why I was there, I woke up there in the middle of the ruckus your escape was causing with no idea how I got there,” Harry answered the first question before registering the second. He glanced down, they looked normal enough to him, “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
“They seem surprisingly unscathed, like they had been just worn, not traveled in, yet how could you have gotten there without traveling somehow. I also doubt clothes like that could be found anywhere in that town,” surprisingly Bilbo was the one to answer Harry’s question. “In addition, I understand that lacking footwear is a problem for people other than hobbits.”
“What is the last thing you remember before waking up in goblin-town?” Gandalf asked.
Harry tilted his head. There was no way Harry would be able to come up with a believable lie or some plausible story, so why would he even bother? The truth was fantastical enough. Not one of them was likely to believe him, anyway. Maybe it would be an obvious enough ‘lie’ that the others might accept that Harry was not going to tell them the ‘truth’ no matter what.
“Dying,” Harry answered simply, silencing the clearing instantly, “or that’s what I assume happened. That’s what happens when your throat is slit, I suppose.”
“I died, did my best to accept it happened and was moving on from the whole matter,” Harry explained briskly, “then I woke up right as your group was heading towards me with the whole goblin-nest after you. I had no desire to stand there waiting for death to find me again and following you all seemed like the best option for that.” Then as if it just occurred to him, Harry added, “Oh, and these clothes are what I remember wearing just before I was going to move on.”
“Why were you not reembodied in the West?” Gandalf murmured confused. In the silence, however, everyone heard. Harry could hear there was some serious capitalization to the ‘West’, Harry wondered what that was about… “Even Lord Glofindel, Lord of the House of the Golden Flower, was reembodied in Aman before being sent to Arda.”
Wait a minute!? This had happened before? Well, obviously in a somewhat different manner, but still, what the hell? Harry’s guaranteed to be unbelievable story was actually plausible!? With a precedent at that even?!
“What is coming that the Valar would return a youth to Arda in such a way?” and oh hell, that sounded like some Fate and Destiny B******t. Maybe even divine intervention level destiny, if the classic fantasy setting vibes Harry had been reading from between the lines were worth anything. Hopefully no prophecies would be involved, thought that might be a futile hope…
“What is your name?” Gandalf asked in all seriousness.
Luckily, or perhaps unluckily as they had to flee yet again, Harry was saved from having to answer by a menacing howl echoing through the air. The group, including Harry, were instantly on alert. Cries of “Wargs!” came from many of the companions. Harry had no idea what animal had been howling, though after that he could guess the name at least, but it did remind him of the few times he had heard a werewolf howl. So, he was not inclined to remain waiting for whatever creature was coming. Fortunately, his new companions were of the same mind and they all proceeded to flee as one disorderly group.
They were not fast enough. Warg cries soon abounded every few seconds and were joined by war cries of creatures that Harry had no name for, until one of the dwarves exclaimed, “orcs!” to the derision of the closest dwarf who answered with “we know! Don’t waste your breath!”
The breath was not wasted and Harry silently thanked the dwarf in his mind even as they ran, chased by the newly identified orcs. These creatures were even uglier than goblins, so Harry would have no trouble telling them apart. Conveniently, their leader seemed to be color-coded. It was odd to see so far without needing glasses – another upgrade from his death-experience or merely becoming an elf? Harry could almost hear the pale-white orc, who was standing back upon a great warg, giving orders to those chasing Harry and his companions down. He could not understand that language though… and neither did he want to. The words sounded awful, dripping with strong malice and evil, if words could be described like that.
With only his knife, Harry could not attack from farther away, but when one warg-rider came close, they learned that the elf-child was not easy prey. Harry jumped upon the warg’s back, killed the rider by slitting it’s throat – the orc armor was a thing of brevity – and then struck his knife into the warg’s eye, stabbing it’s brain. He learned from the Basilisk experience; no putting his arm into a beasts throat! Piercing the eye worked just as well.
“Up! Onto the trees!” Gandalf shouted as their flight was stopped by a cliff and the dwarves and Bilbo started climbing. Harry took a moment to see if anyone needed help, but they all seemed to have the matters well in hand. So, Harry chose a tree of his own and started climbing. Climbing was surprisingly easy for Harry, as if the tree itself was helping him find grips and holds to climb, and he was as high as he could go in no time at all.
…
The mad, mad wizard decided that setting a fire to the forest floor was a grand idea. With them stuck in the trees... where the fire would have spread even without the orcs eagerly fanning the flames their way.
The following events were dramatic and all but does the dwarf leader have a death wish? From the comments of the others, Harry realized that the orc had killed people dear to Thorin – if he managed to get the name correctly? – and Harry certainly had been hotheaded when faced with Bellatrix after she killed Sirius. But he was a teenager back then – and teenagers basically invented impulsive bad decisions. This Thorin did not seem to be a youngster…? At least going by the beard. And there were actually clear youngsters in the group, so Harry was probably not too off about his estimation of the dwarf’s relative age.
Anyway, Harry was not going to get involved in that grudge match, both out of his rarely used self-preservation – he could tell that the orc leader was far better warrior than the goblins or his underlings, Harry would not have it easy were he to try to intervene, besides he had only just met the group, not even he got attached so fast – and respect for the dwarf’s wish for revenge – interrupting would be quite hypocritical of him.
The hobbit apparently didn’t quite get the memo, or just thought that it was all foolishness, and went ahead and interrupted, saving the dwarf’s life in the process. Well, Thorin had a quite good friend in Bilbo there. Good for him.
Then the eagles came.