184Summary: Harry Potter chased a former death eater into a portal to a new world. Now his issues have grown. This is going to be Harry/elfling, just 'cause I love them. Likely M for violence.
My life will be chaotic for the next few months; updates will be sporadic, and on no set schedule as I also have no idea where this story is going yet. If you have ideas, please let me know.
I haven't forgotten my promised education sequels either. (Yes they have been started.)
Disclaimer:
I don't own Harry Potter, any of J.K. Rowling's recognizable universe, or characters. I also don't own Lord of the Rings, any of J.R.R. Tolkien's recognizable universe, or characters. Speech will be some LoTR movie verse, which again, I don't own.
Unbeta'd Harsh criticism welcome. Effusive praise too. ;-)
…
Chapter 1 Size issues
Harry was having a good day. Today was a day of action.
After the 2nd wizarding war with Voldemort, he had spent the next year back at Hogwarts working on his NEWTs. Hermione had insisted. For the first time, there had been no adventures.
The Auror department had already approved his admittance before his grades were final. It was hard for them to deny him entrance with 'I defeated the dark lord' on his resume; something they failed to accomplish.
He discovered why after joining. Apparently catching dark wizards wasn't the point of the department; documenting that they caught dark wizards was. In triplicate. Paperwork was the bane of his existence. And he had thought Snape's essays were horrible.
He luxuriated in the infrequent adrenaline filled days he was allowed out into the field to chase dark wizards. Most of the easy Death Eaters had been caught in the year he was back in Hogwarts. That left cunningly insane wizards and witches still dedicated to the fractured cause, but clever enough to hide from both aurors and former compatriots turning over information for more lenient sentences.
Thoughts returning to the present, he cried "Halt" before chasing Travers down a long portrait lined hallway into a room at the far end. The door slammed shut behind Harry. "Incarcerous" he cried.
"Avada Kedavra" Travers returned.
Harry ducked behind a sofa, leaving Travers enough time to grab a handful of powder, throw it in the fire set in the center of the room with a shout of "Arda", before diving into the flames now occupying the center of the room.
Quickly following, Harry grabbed the powder and repeated Travers's actions, registering that the powder wasn't flue powder only after his own shout of "Arda".
…
His eyes opened to blinding sun. Slowly they adjusted to let him see he was in a forest clearing, blue skies clear above, mountains peaking over the tops of the trees in the distance.
He shook his head, carefully looking for the dark wizard he was chasing. He raised his hand to perform a standard tracking spell, only to notice his sleeve had grown, now covering his hand and most of his wand. Even Dudley's clothes didn't fit this bad. He glanced down. His pants were drowning his shoes. He'd been shrunk! He was house-elf size!
Fearfully, he felt his face. His nose felt normal. No overwhelming honkers to put Snape's to shame. His hands slid to his ears. Nope. No elephant ears either. He breathed a sigh of relief, patting his normal ears in gratitude.
Except…they weren't. His hands froze for a moment in horror. Finally, he dragged the sleeves out of his way, allowing his fingers to feel his pointed ears. He probed them, giving them a slight twist. With a yelp, he released them, giving them another pat in apology.
'Just my luck' he thought.
…
It was cooler now as darkness approached.
He had been wandering about the trackless forest for what seemed like hours. Both his trousers and pants had been abandoned as useless. He had tried to shrink them, but apparently had applied a bit too much magic to the process. Both ended up doll sized, not Harry sized. So he had resorted to a severing charm instead to cut down his shirt sleeves, leaving the shirt length to cover his nakedness below.
His robe was not altered. The tails of his robe were now tied in a knot behind his head. Molly had given him the robe on his graduation from Auror class with Ron. Hermione had further enhanced it with a series of additional spells, including protective shields and hidden pockets with undetectable extension charms. His invisibility cloak was supposed to have permanent residence in one pocket, while another was supposed to hold gear she thought would be useful. Their 'camping trip' had inspired an unbelievably long list of essentials Hermione hadn't accounted for, but should reside in his cloak. But this was Harry. Harry, unfortunately normally forgot to replace everything but food after cleaning the cloak.
Hungrily, he searched his pockets. Apparently he had been lazier than normal; his pockets only yielded a couple of granola bars grabbed from his desk when the report of Travers's location came in. Sighing, he resolved to only eat one of them. He was too familiar with hunger not to know he'd long for more in the near future.
Glancing around at the descending gloom, he determined that he needed to focus on finding a place to spend the night. Up a tree was likely going to be the safest place in the forest. Trying to cast a dim lumos over the area to find something scalable, he was startled again when his magic didn't react as expected. Instead of a dim glow, his wand flared with the brilliance of a sun.
Quickly he throttled back his magic until he reached the smallest trickle he needed to maintain the light. It still illuminated the entire area, but at least now was no longer blinding. Feeling pressured by the sudden increase in forest noise, his eyes rapidly scanned the nearest trees for low branches.
A tree branch behind him groaned in warning. He spun as something darted across his peripheral vision. He saw shadows darting in the forest. Tree noises now were joined by weird chattering. It grew louder as his brain frantically tried to place the sound. He knew this was a bad thing; it was starting to feel familiar. Kind of like…kind of like…like meeting Aragog's children!
He retreated backwards down the path he had come from, firing rapid stunning and severing hexes at the inky shadows. High pitched screams echoed through the forest as his spells connected to arachnids unfamiliar with his brand of magic.
After twenty minutes the spiders retreated, scuttling noisily away from the boy who conquered. Exhausted, Harry collapsed into a seated heap, breathing heavily. He hadn't had a fight like that since the last battle at Hogwarts.
His breathing bellowed in and out, as silence once again descended in the forest. His exhausted brain badgered him with Moody's "Constant vigilance" motto until with a shake of his head, he again looked around, raising his wand to cast a lumos.
Wondering about the sudden silence, he looked up to see the gleam of arrows pointed in his direction. Harry breathed out. He was surrounded by a group of veela. Eyeing the arrows, he rephrased. Primitive veelas.
…
Legolas wasn't having a good day. Early this morning came the report that Gollum had escaped the prison. Another embarrassment for their lack of security. His father had worked himself into a rage when he heard.
Legolas was now leading a group of a dozen elves hunting the evasive creature in the forest. If he didn't succeed in finding him, he would be forced to travel to Lord Elrond, and confess his kingdom's shame. The sly taunts from the dwarves escape nearly 60 years ago still hadn't tapered off. This would be sure to reignite them with new fire.
It had grown too dark to continue searching. The tracks could easily be trampled over in the descending dark. He had made the call to setup camp for the night. They would resume searching at first light.
…
Half an hour into first watch, a brilliant light had flashed in the forest. Legolas knew of few things that could cause such a light. One was Gandalf, who had demonstrated the light in battle.
He signaled half of his patrol to remain, as he led the others to investigate.
…
The light was gone, but as he heard the distinctive sound of spider chattering, he raced forward. Hearing the feared whistle of arrows, the spiders gave up, weaving a quick retreat through the trees. In the center of the furor, he found a strangely dressed short being shooting lights from a stick that was severing spider limbs or freezing the spiders in place.
Legolas signaled two of his smaller group to continue to chase the spiders away. Quickly he gestured to one elf to have the kills confirmed, even as he approached the center of the clearing with the remaining elves, their weapons held ready.
Whatever it was now sitting on the forest floor, was breathing like a Dwarf. 'Perian? (Sindarin, Halfling)' he thought in concern.
The breathing evened out, before the stick once again rose. The child looked up, emerald eyes captivating his.