Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

‘Do you think we could try St Pancras next time, you know, just for the sake of variety?’

He didn’t get a response. Harry looked around the now familiar ghost-white platform.

‘And maybe some clothes? I know it supposedly gives you an edge in negotiations if you keep me naked and vulnerable, but by now I’m half convinced you just want to see my cock.’

He couldn’t quite conceal his surprise when he found himself suddenly dressed in a plain grey robe. He’d made the request before, and it had always been ignored.

‘Will that do?’

‘Uhh, yeah, thanks.’ He answered, stiffening as the speaker emerged from the mist in front of him. He looked ordinary, as he always did; a random, average body clothing an immortal, immutable spirit far beyond any human ability to comprehend.

Harry endured the silence, the blank stare from those dark and empty eyes, for as long as he could bear.

‘So…’ he began, ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.’

‘In truth, I had not thought to make another approach at this time.’ The words were flat, the voice carried by neither lips nor tongue.

‘Okayy, so why are we here?’

‘You were invited at my request.’

The second figure to come from the mist was anything but ordinary. He must have been close to seven feet tall, broad-shouldered and well muscled with it. He moved like a predator, a hunter on familiar territory, no matter how alien he and his outfit seemed in the confines of the Limbo King’s Cross. His features were sharp and eerily androgynous, his hair long and an impossible silver in colour. His clothing was dark green and mud brown in a strange sort of camouflage pattern, archaic in style. The curve of a huge longbow arched up behind his shoulder and there was a long, bone-handled knife at his belt.

Harry returned the startlingly blue stare uneasily. Since he’d met his old headmaster and Voldemort’s dying foetus all those years ago, he’d only ever encountered one other here, the other who was now examining him and the stranger with what looked suspiciously like amusement.

‘Can I ask who you are?’

The…man? smiled slightly, and Harry noticed that he seemed to glow in the bright white light of the halfway place.

‘In the old elf tongue I am known as Oromë, and in the new as Araw.’

‘Elf tongue?’ Harry asked, confused. ‘Like house elves?’

‘House-elf?’ The man repeated, turning his mouth around the words. Harry realised suddenly that there must be some kind of translation spell in operation, doing its best to bridge the gap between their languages. ‘An elf in a house? An elf of the city rather than the forest?’ The stranger asked curiously.

‘House-elves are of no relevance.’ The flesh puppet inhabited by Death declared. ‘We are here to make you an offer.’

‘I’d guessed as much,’ Harry said, ‘though it’s the first time you’ve brought a friend.’

Death ignored him.

‘How would you feel,’ he began, ‘about a new world?’

‘A what?’

‘Another life, a new beginning.’ The stranger said. ‘Perhaps a world more suited to your nature.’

‘My nature?’

‘The nature of the Firstborn. Those who do not age.’ He clarified.

‘Consider this.’ Death said. ‘A world of souls not burned by time, unburdened by the stoop of years and failing mortal flesh. A land beyond the sea, protected from the endless griefs of parting.’

‘What do you mean by a new world?’ Harry asked suspiciously. ‘I know of no other immortals, let alone a society of them.’

‘You would not.’ The stranger answered. ‘It is a different…’ here he frowned and tried a few words which magic seemed unable to translate, ‘earth? Planet?’ Came the eventual suggestions.

‘You want to move me to another fucking planet now?’ Harry asked Death. ‘I know you’re desperate to get rid of me, but space travel and immortal aliens has got to be your least convincing argument yet.’ He forcibly suppressed the memories of all the emotional manipulation he’d been subjected to over the years as Death attempted to persuade him to give up the Hallows and release his mastery over him. The passing of almost every friend he’d ever made had been an opportunity for Death to drag him to Limbo in his dreams and suggest that Harry join them… well, wherever they ended up. The nature of that place had never been made clear.

The stranger was frowning at him.

‘Come,’ he said, turning, ‘and I will explain to you.’

He began walking away and didn’t look to see whether Harry was following.

‘I cannot lie to you.’ Death reminded when Harry didn’t move. ‘And in this place, neither can he.’

‘You can still deceive. Tell half truths and mislead.’

‘I can.’ Death acknowledged. ‘But in this case I need not do so. It is an offer advantageous to both of us, and you would be a fool not to take it.’

Harry considered the words carefully.

‘I will listen.’ He began, eyes involuntarily turned in the direction the stranger had walked. He was now invisible, enveloped by the mist, but Harry could sense his presence just out of sight. ‘But if I decline this offer—’ he continued, ‘then you will agree to make no further approach to me for a hundred years.’

‘Done.’

-

‘It’s beautiful.’

The stranger, Oromay as Harry thought he’d called himself, turned his head with a faint smile.

‘Thank you. I thought it easier to speak to you out here in the free air than beneath that great cage of iron.’

‘What is this place?’ Harry asked. Even wrought from the strange white fabric of Limbo it was breathtaking. A broad lake sprawled out in front of them, edged by a pale beech that ran into a forest of unfamiliar trees. The two of them were stood at the shore, ghostly water lapping at their feet.

‘It was called Cuiviénen. This is as it looked in the earliest days. It is here that the Awakening of the Elves, as it has become known, took place. The Firstborn. They were the earliest inhabitants of Middle-earth to possess both soul and flesh.’

‘You say ‘they’,’ Harry observed, ‘as though you do not count yourself amongst their number. And yet you remember this place, for it is only you who can have brought its image here.’ He found himself mirroring the other man’s formal, slightly stilted idiom.

The head inclined in acknowledgment. His hair shifted to expose a long, pointed ear and Harry wondered just how far from human this creature was.

‘Indeed, I am not one of them. My soul and spirit are not confined to earthly flesh, and neither time nor place can bind me. I am one of the Ainur, as we are known in the elvish tongues. We are the first and greatest of the creations of Eru, xe who is known as Ilúvatar. We were willed into existence to join and weave the immortal chorus, to aid in singing the fabric of Eä from the Void. We were given jurisdiction over this creation, and offered the chance to live within and play steward to our work.’

The words were softly spoken, reflective, for all that they made little sense to Harry. Something else was happening, he realised. He could feel the translation spell loosening its grip, fading in the space between them, and yet his comprehension remained. If he concentrated he could hear the strange, lilting sound of the original words and still somehow discern their meaning.

‘We thought ourselves alone.’ The… angel? spirit? god? continued. ‘The Ainur, although natural divisions in our ranks had by that time split us into the greater and the lesser; the Valar and the Maiar. It was here, whilst hunting in the Forest of the Night, that I discovered those who would become our companions and followers.’

The milky water in front of them rippled and Harry watched as first one and then two, three figures emerged from the depths. They were tall, though not so tall as Oromë, and they shared his strange beauty. They were naked, two men and a woman, lithe and clean-limbed. Their image faded into nothing before they reached the shore.

‘And we, the Valar, regained our hope, for one of our number had turned from us and torn the world asunder, taking dominion over the land of Middle-earth, where Cuiviénen lay…’

And Harry stood and listened, and tried to keep pace with a tale that spanned eons and civilisations and battles for the fate of a world. He struggled, for much of what was mentioned seemed alien to him, and Oromë did not tell his tale in a linear fashion, rather skipping between times and places and events as the connections occurred to him.

Eventually, after the elves and dwarves and (thank Merlin) men had fought their battles against the darkness and one another, Oromë turned to a subject that made the back of Harry’s neck prickle.

‘Learning that Melkor’s most loyal lieutenant was gaining in influence, Manwë decided to send reassurance to the peoples of Middle-earth, and so he asked amongst the Maiar for volunteers to cross the sea and provide aid and counsel. Those chosen were known as the Istari. There were five dispatched: Curumo, who would become Saruman; Olórin, who was given the name Mithrandir; Aiwendil, known as Radagast; and the friends Morinehtar and Rómestámo, who would be Alatar and Pallando.’

He paused.

‘Three have performed valuable service, but two… two have wandered beyond our sight. I know they have not turned from us as Sauron did, for Morinehtar and Rómestámo were bound to my service and I would have sensed such a betrayal, but they have strayed, and I fear their dedication is no longer what it was. Our ranks have thinned, and the Sauron’s strength has only grown, deeper and more rapidly than we had imagined.’

‘Why don’t you just send more of your servants, more of these Maiar?’ Harry pressed suspiciously. He thought he had an idea where this conversation was heading.

If it had not been beneath his dignity, Harry thought Oromë would have sighed.

‘There is a balance to these things.’ He said. ‘When we sent the Maiar into the East they were forbidden from using their power to bend others to their will, from matching their strength directly against Sauron. Melkor has proved that almost all can be corrupted, and we feared replacing one tyrant with another. The Aratar have decided that to send others from amongst the Maiar would pose too great a risk.’ He hesitated and gave Harry what looked like a wry smile. ‘And yet, as I suspect you have identified, a problem remains. The peoples of Middle-earth are divided and unprepared. Should the coming war be lost, souls uncountable will die or be enslaved. The rescue of Middle-earth could not be achieved with anything less than an invasion on the scale of the War of Wrath, a conflict that left half a world beneath the waves.’

‘And what solution do propose to this?’

The expression that faced him was inscrutable.

‘I have told you that Morinehtar and Rómestámo were my servants, and it is their absence that has upset the balance. As such, the task of redressing it has been set at my feet. I’m sure you have guessed by now that you are my solution.’

Harry turned away from the unbearable intensity suddenly burning in those eyes, eyes that were no longer blue and human, but colourless and crystalline, bright and unearthly as stars.

‘Why me?’

There was a pause before the answer.

‘I do not fully know.’ The voice sounded surprised at the admission. ‘This place—it truly does not allow one to lie.’ He mused. ‘I had thought to flatter you, but I see now that that will not be possible. A force beyond even my understanding brought me here, to this place, at this time, and set you before me. I have been allowed to see enough of your life to deem you fit for the task I would give you, but no more. All I know is that the immortal chorus desires your voice, and even I am but a servant to its will. The rest will become clear in time. You are the Chosen One, and that is all there is.’

Harry stiffened, a finger of rage tracing its way down his spine at the words. He’d been called that before, a long time ago.

‘I am no longer the simple tool of fate I once was.’ Harry informed the Vala coldly. ‘Your “immortal chorus” will not take my will from me. My decisions are my own.’ Privately, he wasn’t nearly so certain, but if fate was determined to toss him around again then the least he could do was test its pull a little.

‘Perhaps, and yet what is there for you there?’ Oromë’s head tilted in the direction of King’s Cross. ‘A world of men cursed to die, and only you to bear witness to the sorrow of their fate. A society you have withdrawn from, and which has no place for one such as you. You do not live, you merely exist.’

‘Spare me the shit philosophy. Who are you to judge me?’

‘I do not judge: only Eru can do so.’ He paused. ‘But I know that you do not belong where you are.’

-

It took three days, in the end. The decision that was to change everything. Three days of contemplation and doubt and, in the end, only one answer. With Harry’s permission, Oromë returned to his dreams to talk to him, to explain this new world. Harry still wasn’t entirely sure that this wasn’t some trick of Death’s to get him to hand over the Hallows, that he wasn’t being sold on some fantasy. His trust was growing, though, and he could feel something in him, somewhere, yearning for this Middle-earth.

It took another week after the decision had been made for him to be ready. He’d sent letters to the few people he was still in touch with, none of whom he could really consider friends. His affairs had been settled with Gringotts: assets sold and wealth transferred into various charitable trusts. It had all felt weirdly final, like making arrangements for his own death. He supposed that wasn’t too far from the truth. He didn’t plan to take much with him. Oromë had informed him that anything that was’t bound to him inextricably, by blood and magic, would be lost in the crossing.

-

It was to the Highlands of Scotland he was taken, a place not so many miles away from Hogwarts, where his life’s journey had begun. It felt almost like an execution, standing next to Death on a windswept hillside in front of a crumbling arch of stone. It didn’t murmur with the souls of the departed like the artefact in the Department of Mysteries, but he could feel the weight of magic in the air, almost intoxicating in its strength.

‘The Hallows, if you please.’

Harry turned to Death and stared at his current avatar.

‘You need only one to break my power over you. Take the ring.’ He told him, pulling the cursed stone from his finger.

The empty eyes narrowed.

‘That is not what was agreed.’

‘Nothing was agreed, beyond my relinquishing my status. With one of the Hallows returned to your care and the remaining two removed from this world, you have no reason for concern.’

‘Very well.’ Death acknowledged eventually. ‘Go, then, and slip my grasp a final time.’

Harry smiled, bowing his head slightly before turning to the arch. From a distance it had appeared to open merely onto the far side of the hill, but the pale sky and dry grass beyond faded as he approached. The gap filled with fog, darker and thicker than the mist of Limbo. He took one final look at the almost familiar landscape, remembering his days on a broom in the sun, and stepped out of the only world he’d ever known.

AN: For those of you not familiar with London, St Pancras is a station just over the road from King’s Cross (it’s also a much prettier building).

Chapter Text

Harry Potter arrived in Middle-earth naked and drowning. Only the first part had been expected, so he cursed Death and Oromë as he forced his mouth shut and surged instinctively in the direction of the light. He was going to haunt the bastards for eternity if they’d shoved him through a portal to the middle of some ocean and left him to die.

His brain, starving for oxygen, was forced to stop plotting revenge. It was brighter now, the rippled sunlight on the surface only a few feet away. Harry was fighting towards it, but he hadn’t been prepared for the submersion and his lungs and throat were burning, his mouth clenched around the desire to open. He couldn’t find his wand, couldn’t feel the holster on his forearm.

At last, the view splintered and he gasped, bursting into the air and gulping at it. Harry coughed and cleared his eyes. When he’d recovered enough to take in his surroundings he discovered he was not, as he’d feared, at sea, but treading water in the middle of a small lake. It was roughly circular, the whole thing barely a hundred feet across and completely surrounded by thick vegetation.

He was relieved, though also annoyed, to discover his wand floating a few feet away, apparently unharmed. He should have realised that the holster would be lost in the crossing. A slight distortion in the surface of the water allowed him to locate the cloak. The third and final thing he’d brought with him was easier to find. The snitch he’d caught in his first year at Hogwarts, left to him by Albus Dumbledore, was struggling futilely to free itself from the surface of the lake. Its sodden wings flapped pathetically, like a caught insect, until he curled his hand around it and coaxed it to retract them.

After that, he made for the shore. It was practically a jungle he found himself fighting through when he reached it; thick-snarled roots wrestling with each other for access to the water and heavy, snakelike vines stretched between the branches of the trees. It was also hot, hot enough that he was sweating rather than shivering even wet and naked. He jerked his wand, and felt a jolt of relief that his magic was functioning as cool air surged around his body to dry him.

It was not a large jungle. It turned out, in fact, to be a fairly narrow band of greenery surrounding an oasis in the centre of much less hospitable-looking terrain. When he’d made his way through the thicket, he found a seemingly endless expanse of dry scrubland and gritty sand. The sun was high in the sky and blazing down unmercifully, so he ducked back beneath the cover of the trees and followed their line round. Ten minutes later he found himself back where he’d started.

‘Fuckers could have told me where I was going to land.’ He muttered. ‘Just my luck to end up almost drowning in the middle of a fucking desert.’

He had no idea where he was. Oromë had sketched a map one night in the sand of the beach where they met, but it had hardly been detailed and Harry had sneaking suspicion that it was a little out of date. Oromë hadn’t actually visited Middle-earth since the ‘Years of Trees’, which Harry had worked out took place at least ten millennia before the time he was being dropped into. Precisely how useful a roughly drawn map of the world during the last ice age would prove to a visitor to Earth, he didn’t know, but that was effectively what he’d been shown.

In short; he was naked, and hot, and lost. Fortunately, he was also a wizard. A spray of cutting curses and vanishing charms cleared a space by the water, and he soon had an expanse of conjured canvas stretched above his head between the trunks of several trees. As he made camp he wondered guiltily whether he was supposed to be rushing off in the direction of some emergency. The price of his new life had, after all, been his wand arm in the service of a war. He reasoned that if he was supposed to make an appearance at some battle immediately then he’d have been deposited somewhere nearby. There was no smoke on the horizon, though, no sound beyond the gentle hum of nature. A couple of bright red birds flitted over the water and Harry watched them gather up the insects hovering at the lake’s edge.

He slumped back against a tree and allowed relief to overwhelm him for a moment. He didn’t know where he was or what lay in store, but he’d come to a final accord with Death and survived the crossing to another world, both of which he supposed counted as successes. It was weirdly freeing, relaxing naked by the oasis with a whole new existence stretching out in front him. It was also a bit boring. After so long being forced to isolate himself he yearned for company. On a whim, he summoned Prongs. He told himself it was just to prove that he could, that his Patronus had made it intact as well, but he grinned slightly as his long-time companion bumped his head gently against his shoulder and echoed his affection back to him.

It wasn’t long before he began to feel hungry, which was something of a worry. It wasn’t like he’d been able to bring lunch with him, so he examined the inedible-looking greenery nearby with annoyance. It was all unrecognisable, and most of it was probably poisonous. He wondered idly what one of the crimson birds would taste like. They seemed to have disappeared, though. It was only after a few minutes of staring at the glassy surface of the lake that he began to wonder about its contents.

‘Accio fish!’ he thought, stabbing his wand at the water. It took a couple of seconds before he felt his magic grasp onto something, and then there was a fat dark grey victim flopping around on the ground at his feet. He ended its life with a twist of will before leaning over to examine his prize dubiously. It didn’t look much like any fish he thought he’d eaten before. He tried again with the summoning charm, dragging out the lake’s inhabitants in search of a more recognisable meal. It was with his fourth cast that he felt something new. His spell slipped past the fish to alight on something that echoed against it, oddly familiar. Curious, he reeled it in.

‘I’m fucking King Arthur now.’ He muttered as the blade embedded itself in the sand.

The sword of Godric Gryffindor glittered cheerfully in front of him.

‘Where did you come from?’

Harry inspected the blade cautiously. A couple of diagnostic spells told him it wasn’t cursed, so he grasped the cool metal of the hilt and pulled it from the beach. Rubies the size of pigeons’ eggs caught the sunlight and he could see the name of the sword’s first owner inscribed on the blade.

Intellectually, Harry knew it could only have travelled through the same portal that had brought him. Why it was here, and who or what had sent it, he had no idea. He wasn’t even sure whether the sword had ended up in the hands of the Ministry or the goblins after the Battle of Hogwarts. It was with him now, though. Harry wondered whether it was some cosmic joke about his having ended up in a world where people still used swords to kill each other.

He swung it experimentally a few times, feeling a bit ridiculous. It wasn’t like he’d ever taken fencing lessons, and he was pretty sure that getting a lucky thrust at a massive snake a few hundred years ago didn’t automatically make him a master swordsman. Still, it probably wouldn’t hurt to keep it with him. He wondered idly whether goblin-forged silver and basilisk venom would prove as effective on Dark Lords in this world as they had in his last.

He deposited his new weapon on his conjured bedding and returned to the fish. Selecting the most appetising of the three, he gutted it with magic and set it turning slowly above his campfire. It was after only a few mouthfuls of the muddy-tasting creature that he began to regret this whole adventure. He was going to need to find some kind of city, with proper food and people who knew how to cook it.

Hunger temporarily sated, he lay down in the sun and closed his eyes. With his bare body against the earth, he extended himself into his surroundings. His power hummed curiously, immersing itself in the place. He could feel the heartbeats of the birds he’d seen over the lake, now perched nearby, and the drowsy coils of a sunning snake on a rock across the water. It felt wilder than he was familiar with. More than that, his senses, too, seemed more acute. Already amplified in his semi-comatose state, he slowly realised that he could reach beyond the birds and reptiles, could feel the the steady strength of the surrounding trees, the slow crawl of sap through roots and branches and the catalytic sunlight collected by their uppermost leaves. It was an altogether strange sensation. He burrowed deeper into the earth, through the worms and insects and damp, into the bedrock. He began panicking, suddenly filled with visions of being buried alive, of accidentally entombing himself in granite, never to be seen again. He flailed around, grasping for the living, breathing body that supported him.

His eyes flicked open, and then immediately shut again as he winced against the light. He lay panting, fingers clawed into the dirt at his side. He calmed himself slowly, pulling his magic back to him, sucking in the air that told him he was was safe, was free.

Once he’d centred himself, he contemplated what he was going to do next. There was nothing obvious to keep him there, save for a lake full of disappointing dinners. He stood, wondering, as he focused on a spot a few feet away, a stretch of bare ground just beyond the edge of his camp. He was used to apparating without thought, folding space with a casual push of his will. That didn’t happen. He didn’t splinch himself like a nervous fifth year, he just… stayed. It was strange sensation, like his magic was pressing against a possibility that had never existed, like the physics of this place were invulnerable to that particular manipulation. Did that mean he’d have to travel on foot? Or use a horse? How fast could a horse without wings go?

He began to wonder whether there was some significance to the place, a reason he had been set down here, or whether Oromë was just shit at aiming a landing. There was still so much he didn’t know about his new situation. There were questions Oromë hadn’t been willing, or able, to answer, things he’d been told he’d have to discover on his own. Once of the most disquieting things to learn hard been that the five wizards who’d been sent before him had arrived three thousand years earlier. Even if only two of them had abandoned their task, the others seemed to be going about their work with the urgency of tectonic plates. Somehow, Harry doubted he’d get another few millennia to prepare before things kicked off.

For the moment, though, he got to watch the sun slowly dip below the trees on the far side of the lake and paint the clear sky above it red.

-

When he woke, it was still dark. He sat up and tugged at the humming strand of power that had pulled him from sleep, following it to the edge of the ward-line he’d sketched around the camp. It had been a gentle alert, not the vicious jolt that would have warned him of a serious threat. Expecting some kind of animal to have stumbled across the line, he frowned when he discovered nothing.

Shivering as he pulled himself fully from his bedding, he summoned the cloak and pulled a curtain of stealthing spells around his naked body. His frown returned when he oriented himself and registered the warning had come from where his ward met the edge of the water. Had someone started throwing more magical swords through the portal in the middle of the night?

There was movement on the far side of the lake. He could see dim globs of light through the trees; lanterns, he decided, carried by what he hoped were human hands.

It wasn’t until he’d edged his way carefully around the water, and stood silently at the edge of the strangers’ encampment for a few long minutes that he realised what he’d discovered. He’d realised, of course, that this new world would be alien; violent and archaic and barbaric by his standards. Caught up in dreams of immortal equals, though, he hadn’t given much thought to the darker implications.

-

The caravan had been on the road for months. Now, just a few days’ hard travel from their destination, the owners had left control of the merchandise to their overseers and sat around a carefully tended campfire toasting the profit that would soon be theirs. The fighting in the western forests had forged opportunities for those willing to bear the risk.

‘And a drink to the wizards,’ a thickset man roared out, raising a heavy silver goblet, ‘who will give us gold enough to bathe in!’

His companions echoed the movement as Harry froze.

-

In truth, there was nothing he could do. It was the conclusion he’d been coming to even before the toast. Sprawled out in the moonlit desert beyond the tree-line, there must have been at least a thousand slaves, chained together hand and foot in the lines of their coffles. The overseers were settling them in for the night, working their way along the rows to check bindings and give out what Harry assumed was food.

Was this a test? A moral hurdle laid out by Oromë for him to leap or stumble over? He’d been sent to fight against tyranny, oppression, and all the other standard Dark Lord-threats. This was a pretty clear example of a bad thing and, flippancy aside, the sight of that weirdly silent, huddled mass was curdling a knot of fury in his stomach.

If he released them though, if he slaughtered their captors and broke their chains, as he could feel his magic and most of his heart snarling for, what happened next? Would he become some kind of wizard Spartacus, raising an army of freed slaves against their oppressors? From what he could tell, most of the captives were half-starved. If he released them, in all likelihood he’d finish the process. He had no idea where he was. Even if he found a city, he’d be turning up with a thousand starving refugees they’d probably expected to arrive in chains and ready for market.

-

The caravan broke camp early the next morning, a bare few hours after its arrival. The owners took to their mounts as the overseers kicked their charges into motion and the whole operation began to clank and rumble slowly in the direction of the rising sun.

Given the fact that Harry was invisible, it was hardly surprising that no one noticed their convoy had grown by one in the night.