Chapter 5 – Secrets Kept and Secrets Shared

"Miss Andromeda!"

Andromeda paused in her circuit of the garden, turning to wait for Bilbo to catch up with her. "Good morning, Mr. Baggins."

Bilbo chuckled. "Oh, do call me Bilbo, Miss Andromeda. No need to be too formal." He smiled at her. "After all, we are all to be friends here, are we not?"

Andromeda returned his smile, nodding her head. "Quite true. But if I am to call you by name, than you must call me Andromeda. Not Miss Andromeda." She started to walk along the path again, enjoying the morning. "I haven't been a simple miss in years. More than twenty, now."

"Twenty?" Bilbo frowned, a puzzled expression on his face. "That can't be right."

Andromeda looked down at him, her brow furrowing. "Why's that, Bilbo?"

"It just doesn't make sense, unless time passes differently for where you came from than it does here." Bilbo looked up the path, and chuckled again. "Ah, Dúnadan! You are off to see to your journeys once more, I see."

"Soon, Master Bilbo." Aragorn smiled in greeting to the hobbit. "But first, I have a matter to discuss with the lady, as you so kindly reminded me last night."

"Yes, yes, of course." Bilbo nodded. "I shall talk to you again later, perhaps, Andromeda? I should like to hear more of your tales of Britain, if I might impose."

"It would be no imposition, Bilbo." Andromeda waved as he wandered off down the path before turning to Aragorn with a puzzled expression. "What is it you wish to discuss with me, Master Aragorn?"

Aragorn began to walk, Andromeda falling into step beside him. "Nearly ten years ago now, a stranger appeared in Mirkwood. No one knew where he had come from, and he spoke a language unlike any on Middle Earth." Aragorn spoke slowly, choosing his words with care, and Andromeda frowned in puzzlement.

"Who…?"

Aragorn held up a hand, a slight smile crossing his face. "Patience, Lady Andromeda. This stranger carried a simple stick which gave him power similar to those wielded by the Wise, though it is not the same." He looked over at her with amusement in his eyes. "Indeed, it is most like the power Gandalf spoke of you wielding when he brought to you your wand that had been dropped at the gates."

Andromeda tilted her head. "A wizard of my world? But there are none that I recall missing, not ten years gone now. Further back, and more recent, yes, but not a decade ago."

"Perhaps the time does not pass so quickly here, or it passes more quickly, which, it matters not." Aragorn paused near the courtyard, turning to look at Andromeda. "He gave his name as Sirius Black, and he has been in Mirkwood these ten years, for as much as we looked for a way to send him home, we could find none."

Andromeda blinked, her jaw dropping slightly. "But Sirius is dead. And Remus would not lie to me about something like that. And it has only been a month since he fell through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries." She shook her head. "I don't know how it is possible. Yes, it could be that time passes differently, but all that we know of the Veil tells us that those who pass through it are dead. That they cannot return."

Aragorn shook his head. "That would be a question for someone other than myself, Lady Andromeda. I merely know that Sirius lives now in Mirkwood, and that he has spoken of his world, your world, with regret that there is no return for him."

"And if there is no return for my cousin, it is likely there is no return for me, or for my nephew, if he indeed was brought here as I was." Andromeda chewed on her lower lip, her brow furrowed in thought. "You will tell my cousin I am here, will you not? I should very much like to see him again."

Aragorn nodded. "I intended to do so, Lady Andromeda, as I have business that will take me by Mirkwood once more."

"Thank you." Andromeda smiled at Aragorn. "Safe journey, Master Aragorn." She watched as he left, before turning to walk back down the garden path, her brow furrowed in thought. She didn't even pay attention to where she was going until someone touched her forearm, startling her out of her thoughts.

Arwen shook her head when Andromeda opened her mouth to apologize for not noticing the elven woman. "Do not apologize, please. You were deep in your thoughts, and I doubted you would have noticed much anyone coming up the path, barring a band of orcs."

Andromeda chuckled weakly, trying to calm her racing heart. "I ought to pay more attention to my surroundings, even when I think I am safe. Life is not always so lenient on those who do not pay attention."

"True." Arwen gestured to the garden path. "Might I walk with you? You looked as if you needed to talk with someone, and there are few people here I care to speak with. Too many forget that I am a person, not just the Evenstar."

"That must be disconcerting." Andromeda began to walk again. "You are welcome to walk with me if you wish."

Arwen matched Andromeda's pace, watching the human woman carefully. "Would you like to talk about what is on your mind, Andromeda?"

Andromeda shrugged her shoulders slightly. "What is there to talk of that hasn't been discussed to death?" She paused, sighing. "Master Aragorn told me my cousin was here, in Middle Earth, when I had thought him dead. And only a bit more than a month dead, when he has been here ten years. I do not understand it, and if there has been no way home for him, I don't know if I shall ever go home."

Arwen nodded. "And you have missed him, have you not?"

"He was the only member of my family that still cared about me." Andromeda rubbed her arms, shaking her head. "I had felt as though he betrayed me during those years while he was in Azkaban. Thought he was no better than the rest of my family, with their arrogance and their hatred. A mistake that it took his death for others to see for what it was. Even I didn't fully trust him, or fully believe his innocence until Remus told Ted and I that Sirius was dead."

"What is Azkaban?"

Andromeda shook her head. "It is a place that no one wants to be sent to, and a place I would prefer not to discuss. If Sirius wishes to tell people of that evil place, and his time there, I will not say he may not. But I shall not speak of it."

Arwen nodded. "If it is such an evil place as you say, someone ought to know, but I would prefer not to. There are enough evil places in this world to worry about, without adding worries about other worlds."

"Quite enough." Andromeda smiled, though the expression didn't reach her eyes. And I recall too much of them. Isengard, Moria, Dol Guldur, and Mordor, in this Age. Utumno, Angband, Avathar and Ered Gorgoroth in Ages past. Strongholds of those that are worse than any Dark Lord that the wizarding world has seen. One of whom has yet to be defeated.

"Are you all right, Andromeda?" Arwen was giving her a concerned look. "You went suddenly pale."

"I will be fine. I think I just need to rest a while." Andromeda turned towards the main structure once more.

"If you are ill, you should see a healer."

"No." Andromeda shook her head. "It is not that. There are simply things that I cannot speak of, and they make me ill at ease."

Arwen nodded. "Than I will not press you to tell me. I should only hope that you speak with someone about them, and perhaps then you will not feel so ill at ease because of those matters that weigh on your mind."

Andromeda smiled again, a more genuine gesture this time. "Thank you. Perhaps I might have the chance. But not yet." She turned down one corridor, while Arwen went in another direction, leaving her to her thoughts. I cannot speak to anyone of what I know, or I risk changing what may be. Perhaps for the better, but it could as easily be for the worse, and I would not wish that on this place.

---

Elrond looked up at the knock on the door to his study, smiling when he saw his daughter. "Arwen."

"Ada." She returned the smile, slipping into the room, and going to perch on the window frame, like she had when she was very young. There was a long moment of silence before Arwen spoke, and then her voice was very quiet. "There is something she is hiding, ada. Something that frightens her, very much." She turned her head to look over at him. "And whatever it is, it is here, in Middle Earth."

"It may be that she fears the unknown, and that this world is very much an unknown to her." Elrond doubted it, and the annoyed look he received from Arwen told him she knew it as well as he did. He raised an eyebrow in return. "And what would you think of it, Arwen?"

"That what she fears is the same Enemy we all fear, and that she has never lived without this fear, and so hides it, and never speaks of it." Arwen frowned, her expression troubled. "That perhaps the Enemy we fear has spread its influence beyond Arda, and into worlds beyond the reach of the Valar."

Elrond frowned, weighing Arwen's words against his own meager observations of Andromeda. "Perhaps." But I do not think the Enemy would be waiting, as it appears he is, for something to happen. Or something to be found. He would have sent his armies out already, to seek what he desires, and to conquer and kill.

"But you think it unlikely." Arwen sighed, the sound one of frustration. "Even if the Enemy has not spread his influence, ada, Andromeda knows who he is. And she knows something of our world, enough to fear the dark and fell places where evil makes its home."

That impression Elrond too had picked up from watching Andromeda. And perhaps Thranduil's problems with Sirius stemmed from some sense that the wizard too knew of more than he let others discover. But Elrond did not think Andromeda had the same wary and standoffish nature that many of the tales of Sirius suggested that wizard had.

"She will tell us what troubles her in her own time," he said, quietly. "When she is no longer so wary of where she is, and when she feels that it is no longer quite so needful to keep what she knows secret."

Arwen remained silent for a long moment before she stood, and padded out of the room. Elrond watched her go with a slight smile on his face. And you will think on what I said, and you will try to find a way to put our guest at ease. To convince her the sooner to reveal her secrets, even if it does nothing but cause frustration.

---

Andromeda wandered the halls long after the sun had set, avoiding the Hall of Fire, even though she knew she could easily find quiet there. If quiet were all I cared to find. But quiet is not going to quiet my thoughts. Only give them more strength and fearful form in the night.

She spotted the balcony on which she had eaten dinner with Elrond and the others the night before, and drifted towards it, looking out at the falls, their roar soothing, though muted by distance.

All this beauty, and I thought it merely the entrancing creation of one man's imagination. Beauty, and beyond the safety of these walls, a danger that rises all too soon. Unbidden, her gaze turned towards the east, and Andromeda shivered, drawing the cloak she'd brought with her close about her shoulders. Except that the chill she felt couldn't be warmed by clothing.

"There is always a warm fire and quiet in the Hall of Fire, if you wished it."

Andromeda spun, her wand dropping into her hand reflexively. She drew in a deep breath to try and calm her pounding heart when she saw who was standing there. "Lord Elrond."

Elrond raised an eyebrow at her wand. "Do you always expect an enemy, even when you are someplace safe?"

Andromeda smiled wryly, tucking her wand back into her sleeve. She turned back to look towards the falls, leaning her arms on the rail before she replied. "There is no such place in the world I came from. Unless one has disconnected the Floo, has anti-Apparition wards, and has warded their house to the rafters. It is rather more trouble than most are willing to go through to have some illusion of safety that can be breached merely by one's attacker being stronger in magic than oneself."

Elrond came to stand next to her, his gaze following her out towards the falls, but he remained silent, the silence encouraging her to continue.

"Ted and I were going to go into hiding, use the Fidelius Charm. It's the only way to be completely safe, and then, only if you are sure your Secret Keeper is trustworthy." Her lips twisted in a grimace. "But that is now rather a moot point. None of those who would wish me dead in my world can find me now. And no doubt Ted thinks I am dead."

She let out a frustrated sigh, glaring at the eastern horizon as if it was the source of all her troubles. "For all that I know, I may well never see home again. For one reason or another." Andromeda bit her lip before she could say anything more. He would already know the Enemy is rising again. And I have no clue what telling them about Tolkien's work will do to effect the future.

"Tell me of these enemies of yours who would desire your death." Elrond settled himself on a bench that was to one side of the balcony, watching Andromeda.

Andromeda turned, leaning back against the rail as she met his gaze. "Not just my death, and more the death of my husband and daughter than mine. Along with the deaths of many who were not born of those who have traced the magic of their family back a millennia and more. More of a kind that have existed for centuries. They call themselves Death Eaters, and they hate all that do not follow their philosophy, and their leader. Voldemort."

She shuddered at the name, though she knew there was nothing to fear in it any longer. He is far away, in time and distance. There is nothing he might do to harm me, nor can his followers find me.

"And you have fought this enemy for all your life?"

Andromeda gave him a sharp look. "Not for all of it. He had not risen until I was nearly finished my years at Hogwarts. But once I had left, I fought him, as best I could. By living, and loving, and raising my daughter. He fell almost fifteen years ago, because of an infant, a boy named Harry Potter. And he was brought back little more than a year past, using that same boy. And now, my daughter fights him, as best she can. Better than I, perhaps."

"An enemy perhaps much like the one we face here?" Elrond asked softly, watching her with an almost knowing look in his eyes.

Andromeda sighed, looking back towards the falls once more. "Not nearly as fearful. Voldemort is but a pale shadow compared to Sauron."

"And how would you know of Sauron, Lady Andromeda?"

"A man named Tolkien." Andromeda wrapped her arms around herself, the fear she had been looking to rid herself of welling up inside, and chilling her to the core. "He wrote stories of this world. Stories that tell of the past, and of what the future might hold. A future I dare tell no one of." She met his gaze again. "You have the gift of foresight. What does it tell you of the future?"

"I cannot see far, and what I see is shrouded in shadow, and doubt. What may pass, I do not know." Elrond stood once more, placing a hand on the railing. "But you know one path it may take."

Andromeda nodded. "But if I tell of that path, who is to say what may happen? It may change all that I know for the better, or it may change all that I know for the worse. And I cannot know which, nor would I wish the worse for this world, when already it shall be hemmed about in shadow ere hope might shed light into the hearts of all once more."

She paused, giving him an amused look. "And I did not intend even to say that much, but this place has a quality about it unlike any I have encountered before. It compels one to shed ones fears, no matter how great they may be. Or how difficult to be rid of."