Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Middle Earth.

Warning for this chapter: Blood (Like always...)

The Dark Wizard and the Curse of Immortality

Chapter 5 – Many Meetings

Ignoring the tense silence the vampire surveyed the strangers he had picked up. The group looked around the beautiful room with incredulous looks, probably thinking this was just displaced in a cave. They probably had if anything expected another dark, damp stone-chamber, when he had shoved them through the entrance. Just to unsettle them a little more he smirked wickedly, saying cheerfully and mock-conversationally, "I hope you like it. It's my favourite room. It took me years to make all this. Or rather I think it was years. It's kind of hard to keep track of time when you are underground."

Groaning internally at their lack of reaction, apart from a few scattered, raised eyebrows from those, who had even comprehended what he had said, he used the time to study them more thoroughly as they did the same to him.

Noticing that some had their hands dangerously close to their weapons again and were only waiting for a signal from their leader, he quickly counted them, trying to judge how stupid he had been to take them here. There were nine of them. It worried him a little that he was so seriously outnumbered, but he reasoned with himself if anything went wrong, he would be able to use their current confusion and the fact that they knew nothing about his abilities to his advantage. His patience growing thin he finally made another attempt to break the silence, this time not even bothering to beat around the bush. "Would anybody bother to explain, just who you are and why you are here?" He demanded in a still more or less polite tone.

It was the dwarf that replied in a tough, threatening voice, which most likely only served to hide his fear, "We could ask you the same question, stranger."

"Oh, really?" the vampire's former rather civil manner had slipped and was replaced by one just as menacing as the dwarf's, "Well, considering this is my home, I do think I should know whom I had to invite in to save their heads from making the unpleasant acquaintances of some rusty swords."

Bushy, red eyebrows sunk down to turn a suspicious frown into a fierce, insulted glare and Harry was sure he had not only angered the dwarf with his prediction of what would have happened had they not sought refuge, but before a fierce fight could break out someone said, "You may call me Gandalf – Gandalf the Grey."

Harry turned to face the speaker a little baffled that someone in this group had finally shown some manners. His gratitude was cut short when he realised what this old man was and the vampire had to keep himself from showing too much of his inner turmoil. He feared this man and wasn't ashamed of it. Wearing a blue, pointed hat, a long grey cloak and a silver scarf, that was half-covered by his long beard, he held a long staff in his right hand, as though to erase any doubt left in Harry's mind that he stood in front of another wizard. It was so obvious that he could only wonder why he hadn't noticed this far sooner. Harry gulped nervously, as he realised that this might be a friend of Saruman whom he had not managed to forget during his peaceful time in the mines.

Deciding not to give anything away, Harry remained silent and tried to keep an expressionless face.

The wizard waited for a few moments for someone else to take over the introduction, but nobody followed the old man's example. Everyone seemed to only want to stare at him, which made Harry conscious of his ragged, dirty and most likely stinking state. It was obvious by the grey-clad wizard's slightly disgruntled tone that he had expected at least his companions to show the maturity of trying to evade a confrontation. Continuing with Harry's new, least favourite person in the group, although this didn't mean all that much considering he didn't know the others at all, the old man said, "This is Gimli son of Gloin."

Harry had to resist the urge to roll his eyes at the pompous way these people introduced themselves and again when once these words were spoken a thick silence hung in the air once more. The vampire, quite sick of this game, was about to speak up, when another man decided to take over, "I am Boromir, Captain of the White Tower." 'Yeah. Good for you. Whatever that means...'

A very tall man with grey eyes and a hard face, whose shaggy, black hair was beginning to sprout its first silver strands, muttered, "Call me Aragorn." 'Wow, finally someone down to the point. I like the guy already. All this flashy speech is seriously getting on my nerves.'

A pretty-faced man, who towered over him like his serious friend and who was almost unnaturally clean, as though he had just stepped out of the shower and not a dirty mine, bowed out of what could only be years of enforced etiquette rather than true politeness, because his eyes spoke volumes. He knew. The man had felt it. As the brown-haired man spoke his voice was musical, but far too cold to be called pleasant, "Legolas of Mirkwood. It is a pleasure to meet you." The man had managed to impress Harry by saying the word "pleasure" without the barest hint of sarcasm, although it was obvious that he was anything but 'pleased'. 'Not that a sarcastic tone would be needed to get his point across,' Harry reflected shuddering. 'That man's voice is like ice!' Harry frowned. The man was acting as though he had tried to shoot him for no reason whatsoever and not the other way round.

The children, who were safely guarded by the dark-haired archer and his friend Aragorn, who still seemed to be itching to draw his sword, took this as their sign to tell him their names.

The tallest of the boys, who was quite thickset, said bravely, "Samwise Gamgee is my name, mister." Harry stared at the little guy for a long moment, which seemed to make him uncomfortable, despite his earlier courageous front, but the stunned man hardly noticed this. The little boy's voice was not the squeaky high-pitched voice, children usually have. It was deep like an adult' the man noticed that all the kids had rather mature features, bare feet with thick hair, that they had the proportions of grown ups and the slightest point at the top of their ears.

Blinking when a restrained chuckle filled the room, the vampire turned to the foreign wizard, "I take you it have never encountered a hobbit before?"

"A what?" Harry asked annoyed that the man was right.

"A hobbit or halfling as the race of men often calls them," the man repeated, his eyes twinkling in an all-too familiar fashion. "Quite fitting as they are a people about have of our size, when they are grown up." Harry decided to ignore that at the 'our' some of the room's occupants couldn't help but snicker or smile, because the vampire was, in contrast to the other man in the room,not twice the little ones' heights.

Realising that the 'kids' were in fact only not human, Harry cursed inwardly, because he had on a big part decided to help them, because he didn't have the heart to let children die. Deciding to keep this to himself, Harry raised an eyebrow at the last three, unnamed men in the room.

The shortest hobbit, who had blond, curly hair and some kind of aura about him that spoke of a lack of maturity introduced himself cheerfully, obviously already having decided that he was no threat, "Peregrin Took, at your service, although everyone calls me Pippin."

Harry couldn't help stare incredulously at the seemingly obvious being that offered him, a complete stranger and not to mention possible enemy his nickname and on top of that choosing an introduction like 'at your service'.

The slightly awkward moment was broken by a hobbit, who had an intelligent glint in his eye, sending the other one a scolding look, as he said, "My name is Meriadoc Brandybuck."

Harry's eyes fell on the last member of the group and he noticed that all others tensed when his eyes landed on the nervous being who was the second tallest of the halflings and had bright eyes and a distinctive scar on his chin. The dark man, who had a hard fate himself, couldn't help but note the way the little one carried himself. It looked as though the world rested on his shoulders and the boy-who-lived had to wonder whether this was actually the case. In a surprisingly bold act the little man sought his eyes before speaking in a clear voice, "Frodo Baggins. Thank you for helping us."

Eyebrows shot up in surprise, as the vampire had not expected to be thanked for helping them. He had long ago realised that most people were ungrateful by nature. Smiling slightly at the virtuous little fellow, he extended his hand for the first time and received a startled but warm and surprisingly strong handshake, as he said, "Harry Potter, pleased to meet you."

The tall man's eyes lit up in realisation. "So you are from Bree." It was not really a question; more like a slightly doubtful statement.

"What is Bree?" Harry asked confusedly.

The man looked close to groaning. "It is the only place where men use last names and are about your size."

"He is not a child of men Aragorn," the older man told his friend sighing slightly, while he gave the dark creature a penetrating look. "At least I have never encountered one, whose eyes penetrate the darkness with an inner red light."

Harry winced suddenly sure this would end really badly. He had forgotten how suspicious his vampire-form looked to the forces of the light. Suddenly grateful for the dim light that had obviously been enough to cause his body to change, he tried to think of a believable excuse. "I have no idea what you are talking about..." 'OK, not really a great excuse, but maybe the other guys will believe the old man is starting to see things?'

Frowning at him in anger, the old man responded, "Is that so? Then if you are of the race of Man, how have you been able to find your way here? Or as you said make this?" He made a wide gesture around the room.

"I-Erm..." Harry cut himself off. Looking around the room he searched for an excuse that would at least serve to shut the man up. Since he found none, he simply put on an annoyed front and played his although small trump card. "I won't let myself be interrogated in my own home!" He hissed more annoyed than he really was, as at the moment nervousness dominated his feelings. He walked past the hobbits and plopped himself down on the couch in front of the fireplace. He snarled at them with his back to them, "If you want to question me, well, just go away and get eaten by some Cavians!"

Not having expected any of them to be dumb enough to take him up on that offer, Harry flinched, spinning around when he heard one of the man opening the door forcefully. Boromir all but slammed it shut, as a surprised grunt was heard, hissing, "Orcs! A great troop of them!"

"Great," Harry congratulated the idiot sarcastically, "Now we can wait a jolly few days for those persistent little critters to finally give up, because you showed yourself to them... or not. Wait a second in here, please. I'll be right back and this isn't going to be pretty."

Harry opened the door and was immediately confronted by a bunch of stunned Cavians. Not losing a beat he stepped fully out of the gap in the cave wall and feeling the change, drew his fist back, slamming it into one of the surprised beasts. The vampire was disappointed, when there was no satisfying crack of broken bones and he had to note that the change was taking more time, because light still fell out of the open room.

He had no time to check whether he was fully changed now, as a great deal of roughly forged weapons or simply bare fists were swung at him and he heard the unmistakable sound of arrows flying.

Using his superior speed, he ducked under the blows. Using the crowding of the mass of enemies against them, he let those, who had formed a tight circle around him, hit each other instead of him. A moment later he heard many beasts grunt in pain and the sound of weapons drawn from long sheaths of the kind the Cavians didn't use.

A moment later he caught a glimpse of one of his guests decapitating a rather big and muscular monster, before everything disappeared in the surging masses of bodies. He started slamming his fists and feet into anything that dared coming too close to him.

When the ranks were finally thinning, he could see one of the humans again every other moment, but there was no sign of the hobbits or the old wizard.

Finally the last one of the beasts was felled by the beautiful blade of the tall man, whose name Harry had forgotten by now.

He had to admit that he was impressed. While he himself had received various 'lethal' blows, the other men had at worst received a few nasty scratches, some fast-colouring bruises or in Boromir's case a rapidly swelling, sprained ankle, who was trying to keep his weight on his other foot, as he stared at Harry like the others in ever growing suspicion. Only Legolas was breathing normally and didn't refrain from yelling at him how stupid an action this had been - which he was quite ready to admit - for the sole reason that he just didn't have the breath left to do so.

It was the once more nameless tall man with the serious demeanour, who caught his breath enough to voice everyone else's thoughts, "A sole arrow was enough to sent you into a panic and lure a small battalion of them here and then you suddenly decide to start a skirmish that had probably been heard in all of Moria, you fool!"

Rolling his eyes and giving everybody a prompting look, he grabbed the man's shoulder more roughly than would have been necessary, pulling him back into the room. He was quite sorrowful to let so much blood go to waste, but saw no other way. After making sure someone closed the door properly, he proposed, "Why don't we all just sit down? Then we are going to answer each other's," here he gave them a pointed look, "questions."

Although he was relieved to see the hobbits had stayed in the room and hidden behind the sofa, he couldn't help, but frown at the filth the old man, who had obviously stayed behind to guard them, had produced. Five Cavians littered the entrance, getting the carpet dirty with their black blood.

"Well, how about you just sit down? It wouldn't be advisable to go out any time soon." The taller, more disciplined men, seemed content on remaining in their standing position, in which they could be ready to start fighting on a second's notice, but the obviously tired little ones took him up on his offer and scrambled on top of the couch that was a great deal too big for them, so he was quite sure that their feet dangled above the floor.

Stepping around the couch, he settled in one of the armchairs, giving the still standing men, who had yet to move, a look, that stated: 'Come on, what could I do against the nine of you?' They all knew now though that he could hold his own against many enemies though.

It was quite surprisingly the silken haired man, who picked a seat first. He was fixing Harry with such a stare that the undead creature became uncomfortably conscious of his state. It wasn't just that he was soaked in blood, but he had to realise a long time ago, why the Weasleys didn't just repair their clothes magically, when they started to look old. After having so many repairing- and cleaning-charms placed on them, they had become immune to them, so his robes were literally falling apart.

"So who is going to start?" he asked innocently when the other men had all followed Legolas example. He received piercing glares that answered his question. He fiddled with his fingers for a while, trying to decide how much he should tell them, when he finally settled on the truth, just not the whole truth. "Well, erm... As you can tell I have... certain abilities other people don't. You probably know that people fear what they don't know, so after a while I was persecuted by a great many of people, mainly because -as you most likely already noticed- I look very frightening in the dark and they therefore assumed I was evil. Well, to make a long story short I found an entrance to these caves and made myself at home."

Ignoring the dwarf's outraged cry of "Caves!" the others simply looked at him disbelievingly.

Surprisingly it was one of the hobbits, whose name he had forgotten as well, that voiced their disbelief, "How did you to survive and how did you make this?" He made a motion that encompassed the room."What a perceptive little fellow... I might have I underestimated the little ones a bit."

He again decided to tell the partial truth. "Well, I told you, I have certain 'gifts'... and well have you ever tried eating those things?" He asked motioning towards the dead things on the floor. At their disgusted looks, he shrugged. "I admit that they don't exactly taste very good, quite the opposite actually, but you get used to it, if there is nothing else."

It was the older wizard, who changed the topic. "What are those gifts, you speak of?"

Now it was Harry, who gave the group a calculating look, before answering, deciding how much he should tell them, "As you have seen I am faster and stronger, than is quite normal." The vampire was quite amused to see looks in their eyes screaming, 'That is the understatement of the year,'although they would never say something like that out loud. "And erm... Well... This room was made by magic over the course of a long time."

A lot of them gave a disbelieving snort and Boromir yelled, "You expect us to believe that you can use magic and waste it to furnish a room with it!" Harry noticed that Gandalf, Legolas and Frodo had contemplative looks in their eyes. All of whom were probably dangerously good at picking up on a person's inner darkness.

Knowing he needed to show them that this was the truth, because if he gave them enough reason, there was no doubt in Harry's mind that he would find himself at the wrong end of nine sharp swords.

He placed his hand into his grimy pocket, revealing his wand that was now black with the Cavian blood, that had either been spilled on it or been smeared on it, when he touched it with his dirty hands. In the beginning he had tried to clean it, but it was just a losing battle, as this blood was horribly sticky substance. Thinking for a moment what would suffice to get his point across, but wouldn't be too costly, he pointed his wand at the pile of carcasses, banishing them. It was amusing how everyone jumped, startled.

The presumably youngest hobbit came over, poking the startling the surprised vampire's wand obviously fascinated by it, as he smiled at him and simply breathed, "Wow, that's great! Can you do any more of this."

Harry couldn't help return the smile, although he responded apologetically, "I'm sorry, but that isn't really something I like to use unnessecarily..."

"A wise decision," Gandalf murmured gravely, seemingly deep in thought, as he suddenly eyed him with a shadowed look in his eyes.

Harry looked at the others and noticed that all, but the dwarf and the hobbits, had suddenly quite similar looks on their faces.

Legolas gave him one of his usual hard looks, hissing, "You are the Dark Wizard..."

Instantly everybody, but Gandalf and the hobbits had their weapons at hand. Harry, who was by now highly irritated by the groups constant aggressive behaviour, snarled back his patience having reached its end, "No, I'm not a dark wizard! I cannot help being what I am, dammit! I have never used the dark arts!"

Surprisingly Boromir was the one to respond to this. "What do you mean a dark wizard? There is only the Dark Wizard. One of the vilest creature in existence. A creature with the face of a boy, that drinks blood to preserve its youth." "Oops, that is too close for comfort..."

"You should lower your weapons," came a gentle yet strong voice from the couch. Seeing that Harry was not going to answer any time soon, when threatened, Frodo had obviously decided to have pity on him and laying his hand on Boromir's arm he made him lower his sword. Surprisingly a look from Frodo made everyone else put their weapons away as well and sit back down grudgingly. They kept there hands on the handles of their respective weapons though. It astonished Harry that the little one seemed to hold power in this group. "What exactly is the Dark Wizard? I have never heard of him," he directed this question at his friends and Harry silently thanked him, as he still didn't like to be the centre of attention.

Gandalf seemed to finally snap out of his deep brooding and opened his eyes, "The Dark Wizard, who was given this name, because he always wears dark-coloured wizard's garb," here he made sure to give the younger wizard a look that told him, the other knew that the rags he was wearing were the remains of his robes, "appeared twenty years ago near Isengard, where Saruman found him. He immediately sent out word to all races endangered by him, warning them of a beast with the deceptive features of a young man, which held great powers. Yet... Although this creature has kept my interest for quite a while, I have never heard of him actually killing anybody. On the contrary... Haldir is certain that the creature saved his life, when his younger brother Rúmil, who had just reached adulthood, panicked. It might just be that this creature had been denunciated by Saruman, because he was his enemy and not, because he was aligned with the Dark Lord. "So they aren't friends of Saruman?"

Seeing Gandalf suggesting, that Harry was most likely on their side anyway, convinced the others to simply let the matter drop. In retrospect the vampire felt guilty for never having quite the same trust in Dumbledore.

"So...", he said drawing the "O" long, "What about you? What are you doing here?"

The nine unlike friends gave Gandalf a look obviously trusting him to cut the truth. Harry wasn't naive enough to expect them willingly tell him more than he had given. "We need to cross the Misty Mountains and every other path was watched or barred for us," the man said nonchalantly and although Harry felt there was a little more to it than that, he decided not to pester the man for their reasons for wanting to make their across the mountains. He was beginning to rapidly tire of those little games they were playing, as he was quite rusty after -as the old wizard had claimed- twenty years of not using his skills in human interaction.

"How long do you think it will take for the orcs to stop searching for us?" one of the hobbits inquired.

"Not long. Now we only need to wait for the rest of the Ca-...orcs, that heard the battle to come and assume that a fight broke out among a few rivalling groups." Realisation shown in the taller mans' eyes and Harry could see some kind of grudging respect forming. "How long could you wait out?"

Again it was Gandalf who answered. "I don't want to linger here any longer than necessary, but we are not short on provisions, so we could probably spare a day."

The vampire understood perfectly that they did not want to spend any more time than they absolutely had to in the deep, dark mines, so he nodded, shrugging. "That should more than do it. By then they should have found their fellows and well, filled their stomaches..." He hid his amused expression, as their faces were twisted with revulsion.

It quickly became apparent that his guests were all extremely tired, which was a good thing, because it put a stop to the uncomfortable silence that had spread over the room for the umpteenth time since they had met. As the others settled down to sleep, Gandalf volunteered to take first watch. Of course Harry did know that they were quite aware of the fact that nothing could enter the room, which showed that they were still wary of him.

As everybody had lay down and fallen into deep sleep, as Harry could tell by their deep, even breathing, the old man asked softly, so he wouldn't wake the others up, "Don't you want to sleep?"

"No," Harry answered curtly, but he did keep his voice down as well.

Silence filled the room once more and the old man looked away pointedly. It took Harry a very long while before he understood the silent offer the other was making him. Contemplating this for a very long time, he finally stood up and silently padded over to the door, opening it very slightly and checked, whether there was a Cavian anywhere near. Having to depend on your luck in hunt to survive taught you to never expect to be lucky the next day, so he drank the cold blood of the beasts nearest to the entrance, although he disliked having to squish even the slightest doubts the man might have had left in his mind concerning his identity. After a while Harry's thirst was stilled and he went back to the armchair he had sat in before.

The other wizard finally looked up from the spot on his robes that must have been highly interesting to keep his attention for so long. Opening his mouth, he spoke once more in a low voice, as though he had stopped speaking only a second ago, "You may want to consider coming with us. This self-imposed solitude," here Harry had to stifle a loud snort as his solitude was hardly chosen by him, "is not doing you any good. You need to face the world outside one day. Rather now, when you are not feared by the people, who are going to judge you, haven't grown up with their mothers telling them foolish stories about you to scare them into behaving."

Frowning Harry crossed his arms in front of his chest. He had never considered that waiting all this out may not solve his problems, but increase them.

When it was the next person's, Legolas', turn, things became a lot more tense. Despite having been woken up in the middle of the night, the man was wide awake and his sharp eyes examined him like a scientists' would study something under a microscope. Something like the bacteria of a nasty illness they are trying to find a serum for example.

To hide his discomfort Harry returned the favour.

For a while the two simple stared at each other, until the brown-haired man finally averted his gaze, sighing. Satisfied the vampire looked away as well, fixing his gaze on some point on the ceiling instead. "How ironic," a musical voice breathed.

Harry regarded him out of the corner of his eyes and saw that the other's face was veiled by hair as his head was bowed. One could still tell easily that the other man was deeply troubled though. His eyes suddenly landed on something parting the curtain on either side of the man's head, but the dark creature simply filed this away to ponder at a later date.

"Your heart is tainted by darkness, yet..." Harry gave Legolas a guarded look. "Your soul is a child's."

He hissed, glaring at him, "What is it with all of you and calling me a child! I am almost two-hundred years old!"

Legolas made a silencing gesture, as some of the other guys stirred and turned over, but only one of them actually woke up. The tall, rugged-looking man gave him an annoyed glare, sent his friend a questioning look and after receiving a pacifying nod, that confirmed that Legolas had everything under control, the man went back to sleep.

"I amnot a child," Harry finally repeated, although this time in a silent voice.

The taller man stared off into space, as he spoke, "Yet you act like one."

Red-faced due to his injured pride, Harry remembered Hermione telling him similar things. Keeping his mouth shut, because he knew that protesting, especially if he lost his temper in the process, would only prove the other man's words, he sat in a huffy silence for a while.

"Elves are not too fond of the dark," the man continued. Once more his musical way of speaking was at odds with his words. "We love the stars and thus the night, but the dark is a thing we abhor."

"Why, what a nice fellow," Harry commented silently, although he outwardly acted as though he had not heard the other man.

"Still..." the man continued now with unconcealed loathing in his voice, "Gandalf wants to give you a chance to redeem yourself. If you spoil that chance I suggest you do not hope for my mercy."

The rest of Legolas watch was spent in relative peace and when the other man went to wake the third watcher, Harry found out, why the tall, gruff man was so disgruntled at being woken up by him earlier.

The long-legged man sat up, one of his hand acting as additional support, propped up on the ground, while the other lay on his angled knees.

He like his predecessor stared at him and Harry would have yelled at him in annoyance if that wouldn't have only served to deepen the conflict.

Finally he decided, that since he was in the one place in the mines where he could take a bath he might as well get the grime of the past month off himself. This was the only one of the small chambers that he hadn't secured for himself for the sole reason that in a great area for hunting. Under the watchful gaze of the stoic watcher, he went past the other men towards a spiralling staircase, careful not to step on any stray limbs. In contrast to the staircase in the real Gryffindor Common Room, it lead down deeply and at the bottom didn't wait a round dormitory over-looking the grounds. The reason he had picked this specific room to be decorated with such care was that he had found a small river under it.

He hadn't bothered to take too many precautious steps in the tunnel, that the stairs into lead into, as nothing could possibly squeeze through the tiny hole the water flowed off through a little farther ahead. This had a second nice effect for him: The water was dammed there and a pool was created that was most of the year deep enough to bath in comfortably.

After he had followed the torch-lit tunnel for a while, he came to the small pool. Discarding his grimy clothes the vampire stepped into the water cautiously, shuddering slightly, since the water was very cold. When he had spent a little while rubbing the blood and dirt off he heard the foreboding noise of footsteps over the gurgling water.

Stepping out of the water he peered into the darkness, but couldn't really see anything, as he was in the shine of one of the torches.

An amused chuckle made him relax slightly, as he suddenly recognised who had followed him. It was just his nine guests, who had probably been informed by the tall man that he was doing something suspicious. It was then that the information sank in that he was still naked though and he all but jumped back into the shallow pond.

Harry gave the on the most part very amused men a withering glare, descending deeper into the water in embarrassment. "Can't someone have a moment of peace, here!" he snarled at them. Sadly his obvious show of embarrassment only served to sent Pippin ultimately into a fit of giggling and those of his friends in whose behind nothing seemed to have crawled up and died into dissolved into chuckles.

"You blush like a maiden, lad," the dwarf managed to guffaw out and finally even his two stalkers couldn't keep the restrained smiles completely off their faces. It didn't make Harry any less furious that he had helped cheering the two up though.

So with an angry scowl he sent them off with an imperious gesture and the semi-command, "You can take a bath after I'm finished if you want to. Now go!" He had actually not intended to tell them about the spring until now, because he had simply not thought of it, but he couldn't find a different way to tell them more or less nicely to get lost.

After Harry had washed the blood off his robes and heated the rock under them to make them dry faster, he was soon back with the others.

He couldn't deny that he was quite glad to find that the tension had somewhat lessened between them, the exception of course being who he rediscovered was Aragorn or Strider as the hobbits sometimes called him before correcting themselves and Legolas. Both were still watching him like hawks and although it was still uncomfortable, he learned to ignore them quite fast.

The group had by now realised that he had not really paid attention to the introductions and most were friendly enough to let their names slip inconspicuously, when they talked, so he wouldn't have to embarrass himself by having to ask again what they were called.

When it was finally time for the group to depart, after every member of the group had taken him up on the offer of washing themselves, Harry was given a lot of prompting looks, but he had no intention of going with them. He had done for them what he could or rather what he was willing to do and they would most likely make it without problems to the exit.

As they disappeared behind the corner at a brisk tempo, Harry smiled somewhat sadly. It had been nice for a change - for a short while. Having company after such a long time was sweet in retrospect, although he wasn't too sorry for never having to see Legolas and Aragorn and on some level Boromir, who while not really out-right hostile had been fearful of him, again. But the fact remained that he was content living in the mines. He even found out what it was called; Moria. A beautiful, dark-sounding name that fit the mines perfectly.

After a moment silence settled over the caves once more. The absolute silence when there was no living being around. After a while it was broken by the echo of a tentative step, then another and another, until Harry fell into a fast-paced walk, until he saw the group once more.

He tailed them for a few minutes until Legolas finally turned around, which caught the attention of the others, making everybody stop surprised.

Harry did not stop, as he passed the first few of them, keeping his eyes straight ahead, so he wouldn't have to see their broad grins. "I will accompany you for a while. There will probably still be a few Cavians, I mean orcs, near and I will notice them a long time before you."

Gandalf nodded humouring him. "Yes, we could certainly use your guidance, young wizard."

Harry narrowed his eyes at him, hissing, "I am not young!"

"Of course not, lad," Gimli placated him, not really sounding as though he meant it.