6,603A/N: In an un-me-like fit of actual effort, I have made some updates to the 'Cheat Sheet' document which previously existed. The new document, which some brief chapter descriptions can be found here: bit．ly/SoACheatSheet
Alternatively, I'm going to try out putting a link to it on my profile (or, rather, I will link to a Twitter post, which points to the document) if you're not happy typing links in blind.
The Shadow of Angmar
Chapter 35: Fought Hard the Light that was Spreading
The first night in Lothlórien was a long one, but Arwen remained with Harry at Daewen's side, and the knowledge that he was not alone in his self-appointed watch was a balm for his worries. The music which drifted through the canopy lured him to sleep more than once over the course of the night, but every time he awoke, he found Arwen there, as alert as ever, crowned by shadows.
Then, when the stars faded from the sky, chased away by the rising sun, so too did Arwen take her leave for a time, to be replaced by her grand-mother.
Galadriel, the Lady of the Golden Wood, slipped in through the open doors, and she was trailed by the welcome warmth of the morning sun. So too was she joined by a gentle wind which spoke of early autumn. It was as warm as the sun at her back, but carried with it the scent of distant rains and succoured thirsts. Harry had met her but a few times before, and in none of their meetings had he come away unchanged by it.
Her grey eyes were placid, but it was the calm of the deep ocean. He was not sure that even Saruman truly knew what those depths held. She was crowned with spun gold, or so it seemed, so magnificent was the glow of her hair in the morning light. She wore a deceptively simple raiment of shimmering silver.
"Harry Potter comes once more to Caras Galadhon," she said by way of welcome. Her voice was deeper than one might have expected of one of the Noldor, but it was no less beautiful for all that. "It has been too long since you have trod in the shade of the Mallorns."
Despite the long years of his exile in Middle-earth, Harry still felt a child before her. Saruman and Gandalf were both old and learned, of that there could be no doubt. Yet it was when he stood before Galadriel that Harry truly felt young.
He was reminded a little of the Silver Lady of Culfumar, Enelyё Aminilyё, though even she lacked the fierce light which burned within Galadriel. She was not merely old, for that was a word that held little meaning amongst the Elves. She had seen the Two Trees in the full bloom of life, and she had watched darkness fall across the world when that life had been stolen from them. She had watched kin turn upon kin at Alqualondë, and walked the dark and frozen path over the Helcaraxë to return to Middle-earth when Fëanor had made his ill-fated oath.
Menegroth and Nargothrond and Gondolin all rose and fell, and Galadriel remained. Kingdoms of Men and Elves rose and fell, and yet still she was counted among the most beautiful, wise, and compassionate among the Elves. Even Saruman was willing to defer to her judgement, though Harry had seen how much it might occasionally pain him.
Harry pushed himself upright from his seat at Daewen's side so that he could bow before the one who was called the Lady of Light.
"It has," he allowed. "My travels often take me far afield. It is good to be returned, though. I wish only that it could have been under better circumstances."
"Daewen is strong," said Galadriel. She swept across the floor with lithe grace, and regarded Harry's friend with a sharp gaze. Apparently pleased with what she found, she looked back to Harry. "Though the path you took to bring her here was a perilous one. It seems you have been taking a great many more risks of late."
"Daewen needed my help," he said simply. "It was not a choice I made through deliberation." He remembered the pain of the Apparation, and shivered. "It is not something I would seek to repeat."
Galadriel nodded just slightly. "I am glad of it. Your passage through the Halls of night was a rapid one, and you escaped the worst of what might dwell there, but now they will be vigilant. Not only was the power you used like a beacon amid the darkness, but it opened you to it in a way which caused me to fear for both of you."
She met his eyes then, and he felt her presence within his own thoughts. It was a form of communication that Harry still found to be passingly peculiar. No words were spoken within his mind, nor did he see visions of days long past upon the stage of his memories. Instead, he felt like he was being weighed upon a scale of no earthly make. The very heaviness in his soul, which had long weighed him down since it had first seeped into it in Angmar, was being assessed by the Lady through nothing more than a meeting of minds.
"Damage was done," she said eventually, but her gaze remained warm, ", and a shade lies still over both of you, but I think it will heal in you, and Daewen both. If you would allow it."
The way she spoke that last brought Harry up short. "What do you mean?"
"A wound cannot heal if not cleaned and cared for," she replied. "A cut will scar if worried, and the unseen injuries you have sustained in your fight with the servant of Morgoth will remain to trouble you for a great count of years if you will not allow them the peace they need to heal. I would have you remain here, or perhaps in Imladris for a time. War is wearying to the soul unlike any other act. Rest, and recuperate."
"I can't abandon them," Harry said, before he realised that was exactly what he had done, even if it was not his intent. His gaze drifted back over Daewen. "I cannot leave them alone against such a foe."
"The foe is already fled, into the deep darks beneath the mountains, and your allies will not pursue it there," said Galadriel. Harry's eyes snapped back to hers. "The war is over."
"They're not going to try to retake Khazad-dûm?" Harry asked her. "After all the loss, and all the sacrifice. They came so very close, to the gates of Khazad-dûm itself, and they will go no further?"
"Too great a cost has already been paid for that place," said Galadriel, and Harry wondered just how much she knew of what went on beyond the boundaries of her realm. Had she been watching his travels too? She smiled at him. "Only occasionally. You ramble more widely than even Gandalf."
It took him a moment to realise that she'd answered a question he hadn't even asked. He shook his head ruefully. "I am not sure I will ever get used to that." Then he frowned. "Why would Gandalf counsel Thráin to retreat?"
"Thráin's forces were sorely bloodied. The Men under Haleth took a great many casualties in their efforts to follow their King, and with the loss of so many, the Dwarves of the Orocarni quit the campaign too. The armies of Moria were far greater in number than any had foreseen, is that not true?" she asked him then. "And bolstered by Black Uruks of Mordor, and Orcs of Dol Guldur."
Harry well remembered the much larger Orcs which had attacked his group which had been hidden upon the mountainside. He hadn't had much chance to consider their presence.
"You think that an alliance has been forged between Mordor, Moria and Dol Guldur?" he asked, realising what she was suggesting. "The Witch King has not been seen abroad since my battle with him. Who else could hope to bring about such an alliance?"
"The Witch King hides, and yet the shadow over Mirkwood continues to deepen. The Necromancer in Dol Guldur is ever increasing his power and reach, and they are readying for war. Storm clouds are gathering."
Gandalf had said as much. He had also said that Saruman did not place much store in rumours, or in the word of Radagast who kept watch over much of Mirkwood. Harry searched Galadriel's face for any indication of what it was she was thinking, but found nothing.
"You disagree with Saruman that we should wait until he has investigated the Necromancer more fully?" he tried.
"Saruman is more distant from Dol Guldur," she replied, "and his gaze is often drawn elsewhere. The Witch King has not been seen since you battled him, but Minas Morgul grows in strength with every year. Gondor is sorely pressed, and they cannot afford an enemy to their West as well as to their East."
"Gandalf said that Beregond, who is Steward in Gondor, had allied with the Green-men," said Harry.
"The Green-men have no King, nor single Lord," said Galadriel. "Beregond is allied to the strongest of their tribes, thanks to the influence of Saruman, but Ghrângic-buri-Hrâk himself is beset by lesser chiefs." The harsh, guttural names of the Green-men sounded wrong upon her lips. "Saruman knows this, and would have us focus our efforts on ensuring the Green-men stay allied to the Stewards."
That at least sounded reasonable. For all the fear that the name of the Necromancer produced, his influence was seldom felt beyond the borders of the Woodland Realm, and Thranduil had withdrawn all his own people to the old forest road. "And what would you have us do, Lady Galadriel?"
She was silent for a short time before finally answering. "The nations of Men and Elves both are paralysed. The forces sent to aid in your battle were as many as could be spared from my realm, lest Dol Guldur seek to take advantage of our weakness here. Imladris is greatly reduced, though it is more free to act than I. Haleth brought what forces he could spare to Thráin's war, and many of them are now lost, along with Haleth himself. His son who is now King, Elfnoth, will surely be loath to commit to another war with the passing of his father. Gondor is distant, and though Saruman has secured their northern border for now, they remain pressed, Ithilien is much contested, and Umbar once again builds its forces in the south.
"There is little we can do. And yet I feel a change is coming." She walked to the window, and gazed out over her domain, lost in thought. "I feel it in the wind. I feel it in the water. A piece is moving now, of which all of us are unaware. So small a thing, and yet I fear it is a piece which may come to dominate all of our fates, given time."
Harry stepped up next to her as she fell back into thoughtful silence. He tried to sense what omens had left her so troubled, yet there was nothing. The warm timelessness of Lothlórien caressed his senses, and blinded him to whatever subtleties might reside in the world beyond.
"What kind of piece?" he asked her.
"I know not," she replied. "I can see but the shadow of a falling leaf, yet the tree from which it fell is invisible to me, even though I know it must hang over us all. I fear it damaged and rotten, and ready to fall upon us in our ignorance."
"You want me to try and find this… piece?" Harry wondered. How could he hunt something down when he didn't even know what he was looking for, or where to start?
Her eyes came to rest upon him once more. "It is a task which you believe to be hopeless," she observed. "Yet it is precisely because you are here to undertake it that I have hope this thing might be found."
"Why?" Harry asked. "Why me?"
"Not you alone," said Galadriel. "Others too will surely have felt what I have felt. Saruman already searches, and Gandalf has long crossed this land in pursuit of something which he would not name. Yet it is to you I would entrust this task.
"Arwen spoke to you before I came, did she not?" she continued. "And she explained some little of what your presence means to some among the Eldar. You are a Man apart, Harry Potter. The gift of men is to be free. Free of the Doom of the Elves. And for that my people have long envied them, yet here are you, and it seems that with your every act you strike a blow against that Doom. It is for that reason that you must be more careful with your power. The Witch King did not know that which he possessed when he held you, and now your power is great enough to defy even him, but there are greater powers in this world than he."
"The Balrog," said Harry.
Galadriel shook her head, and her hair rippled like a sun caressed sea. "Sauron."
"No mention of him has been heard since his shade was driven from Dol Guldur," said Harry. "Saruman believes him to still be working in the shadows in the East. Darkness is rising there once more. Isn't his power broken since his defeat to Gil-Galad and Elendil?"
"Broken?" Galadriel asked. "No. There is not a power that exists in Middle-earth now that could break Sauron's power. Not while his Ring remains hidden to us. It has surely been a long recovery, but he is no less now than he was then, and yet who now among the Eldar has the strength of Gil-Galad? Who among men has the valour of Elendil? What nation has the might of their armies? And all while we wither upon the vine, weeds grow ever in the fertile soil left by Sauron's ruin. Mordor grows in power, and the Necromancer has taken up Sauron's old fortress. Darkness gathers."
"There are some with the strength to fight," said Harry. "Glorfindel. Elrond."
"Perhaps." The Lady did not sound convinced. "Yet the Dark Lord is nothing if not calculating. Once he was bested in combat upon the field. He would not risk a second such defeat. Neither Glorfindel, nor Elrond, nor any among the Eldar or Men could hope to turn aside his armies once they are mustered."
"Then we must take the fight to him," said Harry. "We must find him, and defeat his armies before Sauron is ready. The realms of Men and Elves are sorely pressed, yes, but we must find some way of fighting back before it becomes too late."
"So it already is," Galadriel said with a meaningful look. "Though the war for the Misty Mountains was not a complete victory, a victory it was still. The Riddermark's western border will be secured for generations, and they will be able to focus their efforts elsewhere."
Harry nodded, at least somewhat mollified, and they lapsed into silence then. Harry lost to his thoughts, and Galadriel as calm and placid as a woodland pond. Harry thought back on what she said, and he frowned.
"The Ring," he muttered, only realising when Galadriel turned to look at him once more that he'd spoken out loud. There was a flash of something in her eyes when he spoke the word, but it was gone before he could identify it. He cleared his throat. "Could the Ring be the piece of which you speak?"
She was quiet for a moment then, and brought her hands together for a moment before they fell back to her sides. "If it is the Ring which is soon to enter the stage once more, then our peril is only deepened."
"But this is good," said Harry. "We could use the Ring against him. Break his power once and for all!"
"Would you then set it aside?" Galadriel asked, then, turning to look back out at the dawn-drenched boughs of Caras Galadhon. "Once Sauron was broken, and his armies destroyed, would you lay the weapon of the Enemy down. Could you?"
Perhaps as a younger man, Harry might have bristled at her suggestion, but he had lived a long life, and he had seen the best of intentions turned bad. "I'd like to think so," he said eventually. "Do you think otherwise?"
She said nothing. Instead she continued to stare out over her golden domain in silence.
"Do you fear it?" Harry asked.
It was a bold question, and one which he never would have asked had he been in a more public setting. The Lady of the Golden Wood was wise and kind, but she was a ruler of her people too. He knew the burden that such a thing must be in ever darkening times.
He had to wait a few more seconds before she at last answered his question.
"I do not fear it," she said finally. "Yet I know I should. It is not the Ring anyone should fear, but instead ourselves. Do you fear the power of the Ring?"
Harry thought on all he'd heard of the Ring, Sauron's greatest craft, and all the ruin it had brought down on the people of Middle-earth. But it was still only a Ring. It was Sauron who was the power, it was he who was the danger. Sauron was the Great Enemy. The Ring was merely his most potent weapon.
Galadriel nodded, once more seemingly able to discern his thoughts without the need for crude words. "Perhaps you are right," she said. "Perhaps it is simply a Ring, yet I do not believe it is so."
"I do not doubt it has power," said Harry. "Even a kind of personality or native malice that would make it as like to turn against me as work with me, but it is a craft. It is touched by Sauron. It is not Sauron himself."
"Is it not?" Galadriel asked him then, before following it with another blunt question. "What is Sauron?"
Brought up short, Harry floundered for a moment as he sought a response.
"He is one of the Maiar," said Harry eventually. "One of the servants of Morgoth, who was born when the world was brought into being."
Galadriel shook her head. "You have answered the wrong question," she said. "I did not ask you who Sauron is. I asked you what he is."
"But—" Harry stopped, and tried to work out what it was she meant. "He is a Maia. Is that not—"
"You think of them as beings like you or I." Galadriel cut through Harry's confusion. "They are not. At least, that is not all they are. Arwen once said that some among your people could turn themselves into animals. Dogs, cats, and other creatures, is that not so?"
Harry nodded, though he was surprised that Galadriel spoke of him with Arwen. "It is." What connection did that have to the topic of Maiar?
"Maiar may weave for themselves a body, into which they place their being and though I cannot claim to know the process, either that of your people, or that of the Ainur, it does not reduce them. Your kin did not become beasts in truth, did they?" She didn't wait for Harry to respond. "They were Men, only in the shape of a beast.
"Sauron may walk upon this world in a form which seems similar to our own, though it is a terrible one, but that is not his nature."
Harry thought he understood. "You're saying that I shouldn't assume that the Ring is like an item of mortal craft," he said slowly. "That Sauron's powers extend beyond my own understanding."
"Sauron has woven for himself many forms over the years," said Galadriel. "Though it seems that he has lost the ability to take for himself a fair form since the Downfall of Númenor, the Ring was forged before that. The Ring was not merely touched by Sauron, it is Sauron. It contains much of his power, and a great part of his will. Would you meet Sauron, alone, in battle?"
"I am not sure I would stand a chance," said Harry. "I could not even best Durin's Bane."
"Yet when you speak of taking the Ring for yourself, that is exactly what you would be doing."
At last, Harry understood her purpose. "Oh," he said slowly.
"And yet still the idea is tempting, is it not?" Galadriel asked. "What if you could wrest control of the Ring from him, take Sauron's power as your own? I know the folly of such thoughts, and yet still I would fear my own weakness if ever I came to be tested by the chance to take up ownership of the Ring."
"I think I understand."
She looked at him then, and once again Harry felt like he was being assessed to his very deepest parts. It lasted but a moment, and what Galadriel found in those dark spaces, she did not say, but any further discussion was forestalled by the sound of Daewen stirring in her slumber.
Harry hurried back over to her, and saw that a paleness had come over her. It was not so bad as when she'd lain in his arms, her life blood leaking onto the blasted earth of the mountainside, but much of the colour she had regained had fled.
Despite the warm sun which was spilling through doors and windows into the Healing Halls, she was cold to the touch, and upon her face was a pained frown. As Galadriel joined him once more at her side, Harry closed his eyes and tried to reach out to her in mind.
It was as if a black fog hung around her, yet it had form. Like a hand, huge and black, it clung to her with taloned fingers. Harry gathered himself and tried to drive the thing off, but its impermanent shape swam easily around him, reforming without losing its grip.
Then a voice was within his mind, and he recognised it as the same voice as he'd heard when he'd gone wandering upon unseen winds on the night before the Battle of the Cliff. It was Galadriel's voice, and yet it was not. It came not from a throat, but from a mind, and it was only because he could hear her speaking the words, even as his mind and ears heard them through different voices, that he realised whose voice it was. He drew strength from the calm weight of her words.
"Only you may drive this power off," she said, and her words were accompanied by a knowledge of the urgency of his task. "It is a darkness which is older than years, and I have heard of only one power which may drive it back for a time."
"What power?" Harry asked, and he realised his own words came only from his mouth, and not his mind. Yet Galadriel heard him still.
"That which caused a forgotten light to bloom in the furthest dark reaches of Arda. That cleansed a valley of the desolation of one of Morgoth's most terrible creations." Along with the words came images of the white tree of Gundabad, and the green forest of Níweald. Had they come from his own memories, or had Galadriel seen them herself somehow?
"You mean my Patronus."
No words were needed, but he could feel from her that he was right. He drew back, and opened his eyes, and as he did so he saw Arwen run into the Hall, dismay clear upon her face. She was soon followed by others, whom Harry recognised as Healers from his long vigil.
He ran over to where his wand had been left upon a table beside his own bed, and snatched it up with all haste. He felt the fierce warmth of it running through his fingers as something in its fiery core reached out to the now unseen darkness which held Daewen in its grip.
"Expecto Patronum!" Harry called, thrusting the wand forward towards his friend.
The familiar stag, huge and silver, burst forth from his wand once more, and filled the Hall with a cleansing light. Few shadows could survive in the golden realm of Celeborn and Galadriel, but those which had clung on were banished in whole. Harry closed his eyes and reached out to the dark cloud but it was already melting away in the face of the Patronus' brilliance. When the last wisps of darkness were consumed, Harry opened his eyes once more, and saw the stag still standing at the foot of Daewen's bed.
Then she stirred once more, only this time it was not the stirring of a troubled, anguished sleep. Even as he watched, colour seemed to return to her skin. She was still pale, and surely she would remain so for some days or weeks until her injuries were fully healed, and her body recovered, but there was a glow of life in her that had not been there mere moments before.
Her eyes flickered open, and a moment later the pale stag faded, scattering into uncountable glittering motes which lingered in the air for the span of only a breath. The weight which had lain heavy upon Harry's chest, a weight of worry and guilt, was lifted, carried off by the wave of relief her awakening brought. He let out a long, grateful breath.
When Daewen spoke, her voice was raw, and less seemly than Harry had ever heard from her. "Where—" she began, before her gaze sharpened, and she took in the scene around her. "I am in Caras Galadhon?" Her eyes locked on Harry's own. "How did I come to be here?"
"You need to rest more," said Arwen, and another of the healers came up at her side bearing a slim jug, no doubt filled with water taken from clear Nimrodel, long said to be healing to the weary, and the hurt. Arwen took the jug and filled a crystal glass, and offered it to her friend. "You should drink too. You were greatly injured."
Daewen took the glass, and drew in a long grateful sip. Her eyes did not leave Harry, however, and at their unspoken command, he moved closer once more. The other healers backed away, though Harry was not heedless of the looks they sent his way as they did so. No doubt he had added another to the list of tall tales which travelled the world with even greater speed than he.
"It is good to see you awake." Harry kept his voice low lest it betray him. "It was a close thing for no short time."
"How is this so?" she asked him, glancing to Arwen for a moment, before looking back to Harry. Suddenly she realised that Galadriel too was present, and her eyes widened a fraction. "Lady Galadriel, I am honoured that you would attend me."
"No thanks are necessary from one who has fought such darkness as you have and survived to speak of it," said Galadriel with a small smile. She caught Harry's eye for a moment and in that second he thought he caught a glimpse of the memory of the stag, before she looked back to Daewen and it was gone. "I will leave you now to your rest."
With that, and one final glance at Harry and in which was contained an unspoken request to speak more on their earlier topic, she left them alone, departed surely to be about her business as Lady of the Galadhrim.
"I have never before seen your abilities on display in such a spectacular way," said Arwen, once her grand-mother was gone. "What was it doing? I felt a darkness, which was driven away by your power, but I have not the wisdom of my father to recognise it."
"It is a wonder," Daewen agreed. "Once it is safe to travel once more, you must visit Gundabad. I do not think there is a more magnificent sight in all of Middle-earth."
Harry cleared his throat. "How are you feeling?" he asked. Perhaps his desire to move away from that topic was obvious, but neither Daewen nor Arwen pressed him on it.
"Better than I have any right to feel," she said. "Her eyes narrowed as she peered up at Harry with open suspicion. "I felt the cold seep in. I felt my spirit ready itself to depart to the Undying Lands, and yet I awaken here, in a comfortable bed, beneath golden boughs. How long was I asleep?"
"Not long," Arwen supplied. "Harry used some sorcery to bring you from the battle directly into Caras Galadhon itself. It greatly worried the healers, but there is no doubt it saved you from your injuries."
Deawen frowned. "You have regained that ability of your people?" she asked him. He could not remember talking of it with her, but it was clear that he had. "You thought it impossible in Middle-earth."
"It seems it is not impossible, but it is fraught with more danger and discomfort than I ever knew before," said Harry. He thought back to the cloying feeling of the darkness he'd experienced, and the dark hand which had been grasping at Daewen. The sense of them had been the same. "I would not do it again, I fear. Even in direst need." The evil of that darkness was not something he could risk gaining a foothold within him, and he would never allow his friends or allies to experience something so foul.
It seemed to Harry as if there was something Daewen wanted to say then, but she held it back. Instead, when she spoke, she changed the subject once more. "And what of the battle?" she asked. "The Balrog, was it defeated?"
"It fled," said Harry. "Though I am told Thráin did not pursue. Khazad-dûm remains in the hands of our enemies."
They lapsed into a glum silence then. Harry did not regret saving his friend. He could never regret that. Yet he could not silence that dark voice which told him that it was only his weakness which had allowed her to be injured in the first place. When he met Daewen's eye, he could see similar thoughts within them too.
They were drawn from those melancholy thoughts by the sound of Arwen's voice. It was raised in song, and the tone and timbre of it seemed to shine every bit as brightly as his Patronus had but a short while before.
Canya Findekáno i linda astaldyë,
vantë valatëa ohtanna.
Híni Lóminóro, esteluvë máralyë,
hilyë pícë quentya carehtë.
The words, which Harry recognised as those of Nainië Findekánon, the Lament for Fingon, washed over him as she continued to sing the tragic song.
It was a curious thing. As he listened to the sad words, his own spirit began to lift from the dark depths to which they had sunk. He was buoyed up by the words which, though sad, held an improbable beauty. It was a lament, yes, for brave Fingon who fell in battle with Morgoth, but it also was a memorial to him, and a celebration of his valour, and the bravery of those who had fought with him.
He had been felled by Gothmog, the Lord of Balrogs, but even in his death there was a kind of beauty. He had fought, and he had died, yes, but that was not all he had done, nor was it all he was. The Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, was a scar which ran deep in the Eldar, even after the separation of millennia. It had claimed more Eldar lives than any other battle, before or since, but even as Arwen sung sad words of loss, there was joy too, for the lives they had led.
For even in death, their actions in life were not lessened. Many fell choices, many mistakes, and many evil dealings had brought them to that place, to that time, to that end, but none of those lessened their valour in the face of death. Tears were shed for them, a river of grief within the hearts of the Eldar as wide as any ocean but from those tears came life.
As the lament continued, Harry thought back upon all those who had died in the recent battle, and he remembered them. He remembered their triumphs and their failures. He smiled for their strength, and he cried for their loss.
He could not save them now, but he could do better in future.
He had to do better.
A/N: Elfnoth, or Ælfnoþ means Elf Courage in Old English.
The Lament of Fingon is not a canon song, and what little I have written here is probably both wrong and just bad, but sometimes a guy needs to try, right?
It is in Quenya (or something approximating it anyway) and is meant to mean something like:
Bold Fingon, the bright and strong,
Walked proud to war.
Children of Dor lomin, full of hope and goodness,
Followed upon his command with spear.
Not exactly Tolkien, but then neither am I.
As mentioned earlier, I have made some updates to the long-forgotten cheat-sheet document, which can be found at: bit．ly/SoACheatSheet
Additionally, I've been asked before if I know of any LotR-themed fanfic Discords, and one has been set up recently. It's still early days, and 'The Prancing Pony' is very small, but it's the only LotR fanfic Discord I know of, so why not pop in and say hi? The Prancing Pony: bit．ly/PrancingPonyDiscord
Both links should be copy-pastable thanks to the wonders of unicode.