Authors Note -
Chapter Three - In Which Harry Acts His Age
For the past year, Harry had seen nothing beautiful. He hadn't truly been searching - considering such a mission was laughably useless when compared to the struggle for life that consumed his every deed - but his heart had thirsted for a tiny break in the hideousness that filled his days and nights. A friendly smile, a blossoming flower - anything except his withered, blood-stained memories. Anything except monsters, pain, death, grief, and despair.
The first glimpse of his captors was the one true, beautiful thing his heart had hungered for. Their dark hair fell loosely across their shoulders. Their eyes watched his every move with a tenderness and concern he'd never before seen. Their twin faces would be entombed in his mind for all time as the single most gorgeous thing he'd ever glimpsed.
Perhaps his own expression gave away how dazed by them he was, for they each dropped to their knees at his side and grasped his hands. They murmured to him, endearments and other such nonsense, while his mind attempted to kick start back up again.
Glamours, his very first gasping thought was. For some reason, the enemy was using glamour-magic. They'd never bothered before - perhaps even gloried in their terribleness - but Harry knew that no human could be so beautiful. He wrenched his arms away and reached for his wand holster on instinct. His face burned when he realized again that not only was his wand gone, his cloak and robe were missing as well. The only thing keeping all of him from those perfect eyes was a thin, very soft coverlet.
He gritted his teeth and snapped out a spell to get them to back off, but instead of the desired shock-and-awe bursts of light and color to warn his captors that Harry still wielded power, there was only a tiny pop-and-fizzle ball of sparks - complete with a high-pitched whistle - that zoomed around their heads, sputtered out after a few measly seconds, then plopped down upon the floor with a wheeze before going utterly dead.
"Damn," and to top it all off, Harry's voice squeaked at the end.
But they did go completely still beside him, each looking like he'd managed to conjure up a hippogriff out of thin air instead of failing miserably to protect himself. Perhaps they were surprised he hadn't done more.
"What…" the one to his left spoke in a voice barely above a whisper.
"… was that?" the one to his right finished, appearing breathless.
A vein popped in Harry's forehead.
"Alright! I'm obviously a little stressed out right now, being a prisoner and all. If you're not impressed, you've only yourselves to blame."
He was not sulking. But he did feel his lips move into a tiny pout.
His captors managed to compose themselves, then looked at him again. Harry felt intensely uncomfortable being the focus of their attention, even if he repeatedly reminded himself that they were probably incredibly horrendous under all the cosmetic magic.
"Little one," the captor to his left breathed, placing his hands near but not touching Harry's arm, as if he were afraid to frighten him. "I am Elladan, and this is my brother Elrohir."
He nodded towards his twin, who mimicked his position and caught Harry's gaze with his own.
"You are not a prisoner any longer, miluir."
The name - an endearment, Harry somehow knew - sounded familiar. Someone had called him that before… the weeping woman. Were the two men connected to her?
Doubt began to stir in his mind. He couldn't bring himself to believe the woman had evil intentions, and he was usually incredibly capable of believing such things about anyone.
"I…" he glanced between the two of them. "You… freed me?"
Had he been captured by the enemy, only to regain consciousness once the men rescued him? As far-fetched as it seemed, a huge part of Harry was ready to trust the men completely, as if they were kin. He attempted to shake off the strange feeling of being safe with them.
"We found you," Elladan spoke, slowly reclaiming Harry's hand as he did so. Harry allowed him, though his discomfort increased. "You were unconscious, severely wounded, and alone in our woods."
"We are not healers," Elrohir continued, his eyes intense upon Harry's face. "We were convinced you would eventually succumb to your injuries, but…"
He looked as if he wanted an explanation, but had no intentions of forcing Harry to give one. Harry began to relax minutely, reaching up his free hand to scratch the back of his head as he thought about trusting the men.
"Well," he began, then hesitated. "The last thing I remember is entering Old London with my squadron. We were trying to be stealthy about it, you know, but one of us managed to alert a group of orcs and -"
He was cut off by their sharp gasps and narrowed eyes. They looked magnificent in their obvious wrath, but Harry fell quiet as he blinked at them.
"Orcs? You fought orcs?" Elladan hissed.
"A squadron!" Elrohir repeated in angry disbelief. "An elfling - going to battle! I cannot abide it!"
They looked adamant, and Harry wondered what he'd said to set them off. But… had Elrohir called him an elf? As in oh-no's-Master-I-must-be-punishin'-myself-now-for-burnin'-your-toast house elf? He must have, because that was the only type of elf Harry knew about.
"Wait a bloody second," his brow furrowed and he glared at them. "I may not be as pretty as you two, but I'm not an elf! And yes, I fought orcs! What else do you expect me to do?"
There was no such thing as a non-combatant in Morgoth's world. And Harry would never willingly choose death, no matter how desperate things became. He'd already died enough times - through his own fate in a time so far away it might as well have been a different world - through watching each of his friends meet their own end on the battlefield - through mastering all of the Unforgivables and even creating a few new ones, then not hesitating to use them on whoever he went up against.
He'd been told by his fellow soldiers that though he might be small and wiry, he had the eyes and the instincts of a War Mage. Harry had taken pride in that, and certainly didn't appreciate the seemingly derogatory term Elrohir used to call him.
After he'd simmered in his own anger for a long couple of moments, he finally noticed that they were staring at him again. When he opened his mouth to give them an old fashioned telling-off, Elrohir held up his hands in a peaceful gesture.
"I meant no offense, young one," he placed one hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was naked - and both of them apparently had no problem touching him. He felt his cheeks flare with heat, but Elrohir continued to speak. "But certainly, you must have a very strange tale to tell."
The gentlest of nudges to change the topic, and Harry felt helplessly as if he'd already forgiven them. Who were these men, that he reacted to them so?
"Little one - young one," he repeated as he rolled his eyes, "I'll be twenty in a week, mind you. My name…" he grew quiet, wondering if giving them his true name would be the most intelligent thing to do. Regardless of his confusing desire to trust them, he didn't know what side they were on.
While he silently argued with himself, the twins shared a look.
"Twenty," Elrohir mouthed to his brother, sadness evident in his gaze.
"So young," Elladan responded silently back, shaking his head slightly.
"Well. You can call me Harry," the elfling finally said, then looked at both of them sharply as if expecting a reaction of some sort to the name.
"Harry?" Elladan blinked, then rolled the name a bit on his tongue. Indeed, he'd never heard anything like it. He put a slight lilt to the pronunciation, so that that is came out more like 'ah-ray'.
"Yeah," the elfling gave the warrior a crooked glance, then continued. "Well. As I was saying, we were making our way into Old London, when orcs sounded the alert. We were in the middle of fighting our way out when…"
The child scratched the back of his head again, this time coming back with blood upon his fingers. The elves hissed in surprise, each of them reaching for the wounded elfling. Elrohir gently clasped the child's head in his hands while Elladan inspected the cut beneath the ebony hair. It was shallow, but looked as if it had opened only recently. There was no blood on the pillow, so where had the wound come from?
"Oi!" Harry grasped Elrohir's arms and shook himself free. "It's only a curse. Give me a second to break it."
Apparently when his magic had returned, so had any lingering curses. Harry sighed in annoyance and closed his eyes, concentrating on the wrongness that the curse felt like. Not a very imaginative piece of magic, it could still be nasty when used correctly - a physical incarnation of the forget-me-not spell with a sinister edge to it, meant to keep wounds open long enough to drain the victim of their blood before a proper Healer could see to them.
Harry's magic responded sluggishly to his commands, only just able to break the curse and begin the healing process before it was utterly exhausted. Harry swore out loud, tenderly poking at the cut.
"Could you heal this for me?"
He glanced at the twins a little hesitantly, frowning when both of them slightly shrugged.
"We are not healers," Elrohir said, then reached for a basin of water and some plain looking bandages. Harry kept still while the men cleaned and wrapped his wound, wondering again why they made him feel so safe.
"You've got to know a few spells for this," Harry muttered, but not loud enough for them to truly hear him. His magic's sleepiness was rubbing off on him, and he realized just how long the day had truly been.
The men must have noticed his energy wavering, for they gently laid him back down on the bed and whispered that he was safe - that he would never have to fight again - that he was beloved and precious.
Their words were both confusing and comforting, but Harry was too far gone to question them. As he lost his will to stay awake, he heard one of them say one last thing.
"Welcome to Rivendell, Harry. It has been centuries since it has housed an elfling, but it will cherish you as we do."