Categories > Books > Harry Potter > The Boy and the Ring
The Boy and the Captain
3 reviewsRituals are delicate things. So are Dark Lords. Harry learns this the hard way, along with the true meaning of companionship.
5Original
-=-=-=-
There was little they could do for the boy, beyond flush his wounds clean with water and lightly bandage his burns. Faramir ordered a guard kept on him at all times, though he didn't seem to be dangerous, given that he hadn't so much as an eating knife on him. The wire contraption he had found to have collapsible limbs, and he placed it within his saddlebags, along with the stick they'd had to pry from the boy's hand.
By morning, the lad had done little more than twitch a bit in his sleep; when his rest had gone from unconsciousness to slumber the Gondorian didn't know, but Faramir knew it meant his condition was improving. He ordered Anador to take the boy up on his horse, knowing the guardsman would make sure nothing happened to, or because of him.
It was only as they were stopping for a brief, hurried lunch that his eyelids flickered and he moaned in pain. Faramir's head turned at the sound, and he strode over to where Anador was making the boy comfortable with a bedroll beneath his head. "Bring a water-skin," he ordered, crouching down. A thought passed through his mind. "And one of the wineskins." They had no true painkillers with them, but hopefully a few swallows of wine would dull their guest's pain.
Assuming he was a guest and not an enemy, of course, but Faramir doubted that anyone at the boy's age could truly be considered an enemy.
They waited in silence for the boy to wake up more fully, an event heralded by further groans and twitching as the pain in his limbs registered. Soon enough, though, green, pain-watery eyes were peering blearily back at them, and their owner tried to sit up.
"Easy, lad," Anador told him, putting a hand on his chest and keeping him down without much effort. "You'll not be dancing just yet."
The boy's head swiveled to look at him, his face full of confusion. He tried to speak, coughed once, and then for the first time they heard him speak. And what he said...
Was utterly incomprehensible.
"What language is that?" Faramir wondered out loud. He'd never heard it before in his life, though in sound and cadence it had something in it of Westron, and even Rohirric. The boy turned to him, now, his confusion joined by a touch of fear.
The guardsman shook his head. "Not one I know, milord," he answered. "Doesn't much look like he knows Westron, either."
Without much hope, Faramir tried those few words of Elvish he knew, though he doubted what he said made any sense when strung together. The boy showed no signs of recognition, though, only spouting off a few more meaningless words in response. Faramir swore to himself, not bothering to keep it quiet. Without a language in common, there was no way they could question the stranger to find out where he'd come from, and what he was doing inside Gondor's borders.
The Steward wasn't going to be at all happy about that.
Holding in a sigh, the young lord unbound the water-skin and held it to the boy's lips. The lad tried to take it himself in reflex, only to cry out in pain as he moved his hands. He stared down at them, bewildered, until suddenly recollection passed over his face and he looked back up at the two men so quickly they heard his neck pop.
They could no more understand the ensuing wave of panicked babble than they could before, but one word sounded often enough that Faramir picked up on it. "Vol-de-mort?" he repeated carefully, and heard his confusion in his voice.
The boy stared at him for a long moment with wide eyes, and then slumped as a great tension went out of him. He said something, very quietly and with much relief, and then looked back at them with a new curiosity.
Faramir gave him a tiny smile. "Faramir," he said, gesturing towards himself, "son of Denethor."
The boy started to repeat all of that, only to be waved to a stop. "Faramir," the man said again, cutting off his patronymic this time, and got an understanding nod in return.
"Anador, son of Hanadin," the guardsman added at his superior's pointed glance.
"Anador," the boy murmured, nodding again. "Harry," he said simply, starting to gesture towards himself and then subsiding with a wince.
Reminded, Faramir leaned forward again with the water-skin. Harry drank docilely, making no protest when the man pulled it back to keep him from foundering. "We'll need to ride faster, if we want to get him to the healers before infection sets in," he thought out loud, and out of the corner of his eye Faramir saw Anador nodding his graying head in agreement.
He started to rise, only to pause as Harry said something, sounding alarmed. As he turned back to him, the boy grimaced and slowly lifted his bandaged hands to his face, resting them above his eyes. He asked a question, and Faramir stared for a moment before he realized what he wanted.
Harry smiled gratefully at him when Faramir slipped the contraption he'd pulled from his saddlebags onto the boy's face. Almost immediately his eyes, which had seemed very unfocused all the time since he had woken up, focused on Faramir, studying him carefully. The green eyes, now looking surprisingly larger than they had before, turned to Anador, and then the two men had to help him sit up before he collapsed as he looked over their small company.
All of whom were watching in interest. "Who, I wonder, is keeping watch?" Faramir asked mildly, eyeing them with more than a trace of impatience. Immediately, three or four men turned their backs, scanning the grasslands around them while the others returned to their meals.
He nodded with satisfaction and rose to his feet. "Look after him until we reach Minas Tirith," he ordered. "Care for him, but keep him near you at all times."
Anador bowed his head. "Yes, sir." He accepted the skins Faramir held out for him and held the one full of wine to the boy's lips. Faramir could hear him urging the boy to drink as he walked away.
No, his father wasn't going to be happy at all...
-=-=-=-
Eighteen hours.
Eighteen. That was how long it took, to bring them to this point. An hour to realize something was even wrong in the first place. Not quite another, to scour the Maze and find there were no traces of two Champions, and to realize the Cup was gone as well. A third hour, to bring an expert from the Ministry and for him to decide someone had turned the Cup itself into a Portkey that whisked two of Hogwarts' students away.
And then fifteen, /fifteen/, hours spent painstakingly tracing the Portkey's trail, while anything at all might have been happening to Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory. Until the trail led them here, to a graveyard just outside a small muggle village lit obscenely by the noon-time sun, and to young Diggory's long-cooled body.
Amos Diggory had been led away by a sympathetic Minerva, his face long and drawn, but not yet far enough through shock for there to be tears. Albus Dumbledore felt for the man, but was far more concerned that the only sign of the Boy-Who-Lived was his wand, discarded near his classmate's body. Under numerous glares, Aurors cast Priori Incantatem on Harry's wand, and quickly declared it was not the wand that had cast the Killing Curse that had ended Diggory's life.
They could only guess that wand was the one that had belonged to Peter Pettigrew, who had been half-dead by the time they arrived; only his quick thinking in thrusting the stump of his hand into the flames had kept him from bleeding to death. They couldn't know for sure, though, because it was no more to be found than was Harry Potter. He could only hope that, wherever Harry was, he at least had Pettigrew's wand to defend himself with.
Assuming, of course, that the boy was alive, but Dumbledore refused to believe otherwise. It just didn't seem right, that Harry not survive at last destroying his greatest enemy.
Yet again, the old wizard gazed over at the multitude of Aurors and specialists who were buzzing around the remains of the homunculus Voldemort had used to house his soul. Minister Fudge had already rushed to meet with the press, declaring that the Boy-Who-Lived had once again defeated You-Know-Who, and then befallen an unknown fate. Questioning Pettigrew had brought to light that much, as well as Sirius Black's innocence, but he very much doubted that Sirius would be enjoying his freedom after the situation that had brought it about.
Dumbledore had used Legilimency on Pettigrew as well, well-hidden from the Aurors around him, and as soon as he returned to Hogwarts planned to place the stolen memories within his Pensieve. They would be invaluable when they began their search for Harry Potter. Severus would have to analyze the potion Voldemort had used, once he recovered from his collapse, right around the estimated time of the Dark Lord's demise.
The Headmaster's thoughts derailed ever so slightly at the unpleasant reminder that Alastor Moody had collapsed as well, and after half an hour unconscious in the Hospital Wing had revealed himself to be Bartemius Crouch Jr. under Polyjuice. They were still searching for the real Moody, but at least they need not look far for the wizard who had charmed the Triwizard Cup.
With a weary sigh, the aging wizard shook his head and stepped away from the gaggle of Aurors. "Auror Williamson," he hailed the Auror in charge of the site, "there's nothing more I can do here. My school is undoubtedly in chaos at the moment, and I should be there to take care of my students."
The pony-tailed Auror that Dumbledore vaguely remember to have been a Gryffindor nodded, looking only a little less stunned than most of those present. "Of course, Headmaster. Oh, sir?" he called, as Dumbledore began to walk away. "Minister Fudge left a message for you. He'll be sending someone to inform Potter's family, and hoped you might accompany them."
The Headmaster nodded. "Of course."
-=-=-=-
Frodo leaned his cheek against the wooden door, feeling its coolness as he watched Gandalf's patched grey robes fade into the night. He needed it; the sensation lent him a bit of stability to counter the whirlwind his life had become in the last hour.
"D'you think he meant it, sir?" Sam asked from behind him. "Things being so dire and all, I mean."
The Hobbit's lips tightened as a thrill of dread curdled in his guts. "You know, Sam, I think he did." He fell silent for a long moment. "And what's worse, I think he was trying not to frighten us too badly."
Frodo heard the gardener move to his side. "...Well, once we reach the Elves they'll be able to handle things, won't they Mister Frodo? The Elves can do anything!"
A smile briefly pulled at his lips. Bless Sam and his love of tales and all things Elvish. Downright un-Hobbitlike, but then Frodo himself had never quite managed proper Hobbitness himself, being raised mostly by the first Hobbit to travel so far from the Shire in centuries.
It was a very brief smile, though. "You'd best get home and pack, Sam," he said quietly. "Anything you think we'll need, and then return here. We leave for Bree before dawn."
-=-=-=-
A/N: I had some trouble uploading the first chapter of this story, and there are now two copies showing on my profile, but only one on my Edit page. Does anyone know how I can delete the second story? I'm not sure whether this chapter will post to one or both...
There was little they could do for the boy, beyond flush his wounds clean with water and lightly bandage his burns. Faramir ordered a guard kept on him at all times, though he didn't seem to be dangerous, given that he hadn't so much as an eating knife on him. The wire contraption he had found to have collapsible limbs, and he placed it within his saddlebags, along with the stick they'd had to pry from the boy's hand.
By morning, the lad had done little more than twitch a bit in his sleep; when his rest had gone from unconsciousness to slumber the Gondorian didn't know, but Faramir knew it meant his condition was improving. He ordered Anador to take the boy up on his horse, knowing the guardsman would make sure nothing happened to, or because of him.
It was only as they were stopping for a brief, hurried lunch that his eyelids flickered and he moaned in pain. Faramir's head turned at the sound, and he strode over to where Anador was making the boy comfortable with a bedroll beneath his head. "Bring a water-skin," he ordered, crouching down. A thought passed through his mind. "And one of the wineskins." They had no true painkillers with them, but hopefully a few swallows of wine would dull their guest's pain.
Assuming he was a guest and not an enemy, of course, but Faramir doubted that anyone at the boy's age could truly be considered an enemy.
They waited in silence for the boy to wake up more fully, an event heralded by further groans and twitching as the pain in his limbs registered. Soon enough, though, green, pain-watery eyes were peering blearily back at them, and their owner tried to sit up.
"Easy, lad," Anador told him, putting a hand on his chest and keeping him down without much effort. "You'll not be dancing just yet."
The boy's head swiveled to look at him, his face full of confusion. He tried to speak, coughed once, and then for the first time they heard him speak. And what he said...
Was utterly incomprehensible.
"What language is that?" Faramir wondered out loud. He'd never heard it before in his life, though in sound and cadence it had something in it of Westron, and even Rohirric. The boy turned to him, now, his confusion joined by a touch of fear.
The guardsman shook his head. "Not one I know, milord," he answered. "Doesn't much look like he knows Westron, either."
Without much hope, Faramir tried those few words of Elvish he knew, though he doubted what he said made any sense when strung together. The boy showed no signs of recognition, though, only spouting off a few more meaningless words in response. Faramir swore to himself, not bothering to keep it quiet. Without a language in common, there was no way they could question the stranger to find out where he'd come from, and what he was doing inside Gondor's borders.
The Steward wasn't going to be at all happy about that.
Holding in a sigh, the young lord unbound the water-skin and held it to the boy's lips. The lad tried to take it himself in reflex, only to cry out in pain as he moved his hands. He stared down at them, bewildered, until suddenly recollection passed over his face and he looked back up at the two men so quickly they heard his neck pop.
They could no more understand the ensuing wave of panicked babble than they could before, but one word sounded often enough that Faramir picked up on it. "Vol-de-mort?" he repeated carefully, and heard his confusion in his voice.
The boy stared at him for a long moment with wide eyes, and then slumped as a great tension went out of him. He said something, very quietly and with much relief, and then looked back at them with a new curiosity.
Faramir gave him a tiny smile. "Faramir," he said, gesturing towards himself, "son of Denethor."
The boy started to repeat all of that, only to be waved to a stop. "Faramir," the man said again, cutting off his patronymic this time, and got an understanding nod in return.
"Anador, son of Hanadin," the guardsman added at his superior's pointed glance.
"Anador," the boy murmured, nodding again. "Harry," he said simply, starting to gesture towards himself and then subsiding with a wince.
Reminded, Faramir leaned forward again with the water-skin. Harry drank docilely, making no protest when the man pulled it back to keep him from foundering. "We'll need to ride faster, if we want to get him to the healers before infection sets in," he thought out loud, and out of the corner of his eye Faramir saw Anador nodding his graying head in agreement.
He started to rise, only to pause as Harry said something, sounding alarmed. As he turned back to him, the boy grimaced and slowly lifted his bandaged hands to his face, resting them above his eyes. He asked a question, and Faramir stared for a moment before he realized what he wanted.
Harry smiled gratefully at him when Faramir slipped the contraption he'd pulled from his saddlebags onto the boy's face. Almost immediately his eyes, which had seemed very unfocused all the time since he had woken up, focused on Faramir, studying him carefully. The green eyes, now looking surprisingly larger than they had before, turned to Anador, and then the two men had to help him sit up before he collapsed as he looked over their small company.
All of whom were watching in interest. "Who, I wonder, is keeping watch?" Faramir asked mildly, eyeing them with more than a trace of impatience. Immediately, three or four men turned their backs, scanning the grasslands around them while the others returned to their meals.
He nodded with satisfaction and rose to his feet. "Look after him until we reach Minas Tirith," he ordered. "Care for him, but keep him near you at all times."
Anador bowed his head. "Yes, sir." He accepted the skins Faramir held out for him and held the one full of wine to the boy's lips. Faramir could hear him urging the boy to drink as he walked away.
No, his father wasn't going to be happy at all...
-=-=-=-
Eighteen hours.
Eighteen. That was how long it took, to bring them to this point. An hour to realize something was even wrong in the first place. Not quite another, to scour the Maze and find there were no traces of two Champions, and to realize the Cup was gone as well. A third hour, to bring an expert from the Ministry and for him to decide someone had turned the Cup itself into a Portkey that whisked two of Hogwarts' students away.
And then fifteen, /fifteen/, hours spent painstakingly tracing the Portkey's trail, while anything at all might have been happening to Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory. Until the trail led them here, to a graveyard just outside a small muggle village lit obscenely by the noon-time sun, and to young Diggory's long-cooled body.
Amos Diggory had been led away by a sympathetic Minerva, his face long and drawn, but not yet far enough through shock for there to be tears. Albus Dumbledore felt for the man, but was far more concerned that the only sign of the Boy-Who-Lived was his wand, discarded near his classmate's body. Under numerous glares, Aurors cast Priori Incantatem on Harry's wand, and quickly declared it was not the wand that had cast the Killing Curse that had ended Diggory's life.
They could only guess that wand was the one that had belonged to Peter Pettigrew, who had been half-dead by the time they arrived; only his quick thinking in thrusting the stump of his hand into the flames had kept him from bleeding to death. They couldn't know for sure, though, because it was no more to be found than was Harry Potter. He could only hope that, wherever Harry was, he at least had Pettigrew's wand to defend himself with.
Assuming, of course, that the boy was alive, but Dumbledore refused to believe otherwise. It just didn't seem right, that Harry not survive at last destroying his greatest enemy.
Yet again, the old wizard gazed over at the multitude of Aurors and specialists who were buzzing around the remains of the homunculus Voldemort had used to house his soul. Minister Fudge had already rushed to meet with the press, declaring that the Boy-Who-Lived had once again defeated You-Know-Who, and then befallen an unknown fate. Questioning Pettigrew had brought to light that much, as well as Sirius Black's innocence, but he very much doubted that Sirius would be enjoying his freedom after the situation that had brought it about.
Dumbledore had used Legilimency on Pettigrew as well, well-hidden from the Aurors around him, and as soon as he returned to Hogwarts planned to place the stolen memories within his Pensieve. They would be invaluable when they began their search for Harry Potter. Severus would have to analyze the potion Voldemort had used, once he recovered from his collapse, right around the estimated time of the Dark Lord's demise.
The Headmaster's thoughts derailed ever so slightly at the unpleasant reminder that Alastor Moody had collapsed as well, and after half an hour unconscious in the Hospital Wing had revealed himself to be Bartemius Crouch Jr. under Polyjuice. They were still searching for the real Moody, but at least they need not look far for the wizard who had charmed the Triwizard Cup.
With a weary sigh, the aging wizard shook his head and stepped away from the gaggle of Aurors. "Auror Williamson," he hailed the Auror in charge of the site, "there's nothing more I can do here. My school is undoubtedly in chaos at the moment, and I should be there to take care of my students."
The pony-tailed Auror that Dumbledore vaguely remember to have been a Gryffindor nodded, looking only a little less stunned than most of those present. "Of course, Headmaster. Oh, sir?" he called, as Dumbledore began to walk away. "Minister Fudge left a message for you. He'll be sending someone to inform Potter's family, and hoped you might accompany them."
The Headmaster nodded. "Of course."
-=-=-=-
Frodo leaned his cheek against the wooden door, feeling its coolness as he watched Gandalf's patched grey robes fade into the night. He needed it; the sensation lent him a bit of stability to counter the whirlwind his life had become in the last hour.
"D'you think he meant it, sir?" Sam asked from behind him. "Things being so dire and all, I mean."
The Hobbit's lips tightened as a thrill of dread curdled in his guts. "You know, Sam, I think he did." He fell silent for a long moment. "And what's worse, I think he was trying not to frighten us too badly."
Frodo heard the gardener move to his side. "...Well, once we reach the Elves they'll be able to handle things, won't they Mister Frodo? The Elves can do anything!"
A smile briefly pulled at his lips. Bless Sam and his love of tales and all things Elvish. Downright un-Hobbitlike, but then Frodo himself had never quite managed proper Hobbitness himself, being raised mostly by the first Hobbit to travel so far from the Shire in centuries.
It was a very brief smile, though. "You'd best get home and pack, Sam," he said quietly. "Anything you think we'll need, and then return here. We leave for Bree before dawn."
-=-=-=-
A/N: I had some trouble uploading the first chapter of this story, and there are now two copies showing on my profile, but only one on my Edit page. Does anyone know how I can delete the second story? I'm not sure whether this chapter will post to one or both...
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