Summary: Harry sacrifices himself to Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest expecting to die. Instead he wakes up in the Third Age of Middle Earth, lost and confused. Realistic crossover with canon Harry. No power-ups, elfling Harry or tenth walker. No slash.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. The Lord of the Rings belongs to the Tolkien Estate. I write this parody work for pleasure, not commercial gain, and claim no ownership of copyrighted materials belonging to others.

Format: The paragraphs in this story have been formatted to be read using the 1/2 reading option, which narrows the text in the centre of the page.

The Next Great Adventure

By Taure

Chapter Two: Duirro

Andorn and Mireth rose with the dawn, stirring Harry with the sounds of their bustling activity. He was feeling amazingly refreshed, though hungry again, and he entered the living room with a cheery wave. Mireth curtsied and pointed towards the now-extinguished fire, where Harry saw his clothes hanging.

He nodded to her in thanks before taking them, returning to his room to change. His clothes smelt of smoke, but Harry was simply glad that they were dry and clean. His trip to the privy was less welcome, as it was nothing more than a hole in the ground within a ramshackle shed, but he held his breath and finished up as quickly as he could.

Andorn was waiting for him when he returned to the house, and after some miming Harry understood that he was to accompany him. Where they were going Harry couldn't guess, but he was keen to reach a proper road so that he could summon the Knight Bus.

Harry had been expecting to head back the way they had arrived, but instead Andorn led him out of the clearing by a different path. It took them downhill through the woods, the way becoming increasingly steep as they went. They didn't even try to speak, and Harry took the time to enjoy the peacefulness of that place, full of the sounds of nature.

Soon enough they came to a larger road, though it was little more than a ledge cut into the side of the hill, a steep drop on the other side. From that vantage point Harry could see for miles around. The river made its appearance again, now running rapidly at the base of the slope, and the road snaked its way down the side of the hill towards it.

And there, where the road and river met in the distance, a small village sat. It was a quaint place, the kind you might see on a Christmas card. At its end was a bridge, before which were arranged thirty or so buildings, and on the other side of the river there was a squat tower made of stone.

At last, Harry had found true civilisation. The dirt road barely deserved the name, but Harry flung his right hand into the air, hoping the Knight Bus would come. But there was no loud bang and no purple bus appeared.

Andorn seemed to take Harry's gesture as a question, for he nodded in response. "Duirro," he said, pointing to the village.

"Duirro?" Harry asked, "I'm guessing that's its name…"

"Duirro," Andorn repeated, seemingly satisfied.

"And what country is this?" said Harry, waving his arm across the vista before them. Andorn frowned in confusion and Harry sighed.

"Andorn," Harry said, pointing at him, then he pointed at the town. "Duirro." Next he repeated his previous gesture, trying to indicate the whole country.

A look of realisation crossed Andorn's face. "Lebennin," he said, copying Harry's movement.

"Lebanon?" Harry asked, "isn't that in the Middle East?" He would be the first to admit that his geography was quite rusty, but even he was moderately sure that the Middle East was not so green as this place.

Oblivious to Harry's confusion, Andorn started towards the village, moving now at a brisk pace. Even so it was at least an hour's walk before they reached the bottom of the hill, then another twenty minutes to the village. It was as they passed the first house that Harry realised something truly strange was going on.

Everyone in the village was like Andorn and Mireth. They were dressed simply, the women in long dresses with low-cut bodices, the men in shirts and breeches. A few men were leading horses down the thoroughfare, which was lined on both sides with crooked timber-framed buildings made of wattle and daub. They were two stories tall, with slate roofs and glass in the windows, but nonetheless this place was far from the modern town he was expecting.

It seemed that Andorn and Mireth were not, in fact, a strange, rustic couple who rejected technology. It was Harry who was strange here, with his denim jeans and cotton t-shirt. Even his robe was out of place, far too impractical for this rustic life.

Understanding came upon Harry with the gradual inevitability of the rising tide, though he resisted it. There was no comfort in this knowledge. The lack of technology, the strange clothes, even how tall he was compared to many of the villagers… somehow, he had travelled backwards in time, and not just a few hours but centuries, all without a time-turner.

He was screwed.

Andorn brought him to a large building, taller and longer than the others. Its three stories leaned slightly over the road and it had many windows. A worn sign hung over the sturdy oak door, a silver crown painted upon it with an unfamiliar runic script below. Andorn jabbed his finger towards Harry's pouch, then at the inn.

Still dazed from the thought of time travel, Harry merely nodded. He couldn't have expected Andorn to take care of him, though he now realised he needed it more than ever. But he had imposed on their kindness long enough. He had a few coins, and valuables he could sell if need be, though he was loath to part with the only connections to his past. He would stay at the inn until he figured out how to find the wizards of this time.

"Thank you," he said, bowing his head as these people seemed to do. Andorn returned the bow, clapped him on the arm and walked off.

Harry opened the door and entered the front hall of the inn. There was no one at the welcome desk, but a small bell sat on the bar, which he picked up and rang. A door swung open behind the desk and a middle-aged woman stepped out of a large, smoky kitchen.

She said something to him, a welcome no doubt, then turned to a large ledger and picked up a quill.

"I don't speak your language," Harry said, getting used to the routine, "but I have money and I'd like a room." He took a sickle out of his pouch and showed it to the woman, before miming sleeping and eating.

The innkeeper shouted something back into the kitchen, then took the coin and weighed it in her hand. She held up three fingers.

"Three sickles?" Harry said, despairing, for three sickles was all he had left. Not seeing any other option, he went to get another coin, but the woman shook her hand vigorously. Harry frowned. She let out a sigh of frustration, then copied his mime for sleep, then repeated it twice.

"Oh," said Harry, "one sickle buys me three nights? That's better." He nodded his acceptance just as a young woman came out of the kitchen. Red-haired and pale-skinned, she looked to be a couple years younger than him. She curtsied with a quick bob, said something then started walking towards the staircase.

Harry followed her hesitantly, looking back to the innkeeper to check he was doing the right thing. At her nod of encouragement he hurried to follow his guide, the wooden stairs creaking with each step.

The girl was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. "Hi," he said, then tapped his chest. "Harry."

She blushed and ducked her head, before pointing at her own chest (on which Harry's eyes only lingered a moment) and saying "Roseth."

She led him down a long, narrow corridor, pulled out a key and unlocked a door. The room was small but comfortable-looking, with its own fireplace and a large bed with a proper mattress.

"Looks good," said Harry, more to fill the silence than anything else, and he nodded to get the message across. Roseth curtsied again, put the key on the mantelpiece and left.

Harry slumped down on the bed as soon as she was gone, putting his head in his hands. Time travel… it was impossible, but undeniable. He was stuck in the past, for he knew of no way to get back to the present other than to live your way there. Wizards lived a long time, but not that long.

He briefly entertained the notion of finding Nicolas Flamel before dismissing it as foolishness. For all he knew Flamel was yet to be born… he had no idea when he was in time. He suddenly wished that he had paid more attention in History. If Hermione had been with him, she could have simply looked at the feather-filled bed and said something like "Of course, feather beds weren't invented until the seventeenth century," but Harry had no such skill.

Even if he found wizards, what then? If the Department of Mysteries still existed in this time, did they have the ability to send people hundreds of years into the future? Harry doubted it. He would never see his friends again. He would never see Ginny again. He would never see Voldemort defeated.

"Stop it," Harry said, clenching his fists and taking a deep breath. He would not fall apart, not now. He needed to keep a cool head and come up with a plan. He didn't know what powerful wizards existed in this time - maybe one of them could help him. Who knew, Rowena Ravenclaw herself might still be alive. Surely she would know what to do.

Calmed, and deciding that his hunger was affecting him, Harry went downstairs in search of food.

The inn's common room was near the front entrance. It was a spacious room with several hearths, a stone floor and tables that looked like picnic benches. There were a surprising number of customers too, most of them clustered around the bar. The majority were men dressed like Andorn, no doubt farmers of some kind, but one or two of them had finer clothes, with colourful waistcoats and smart coats. Others were dressed for travelling, their dark cloaks wrapped around tunics.

All of them paused when Harry entered, turning to look at the strangely dressed foreigner. He took a seat at one of the tables and looked around, wondering how he would go about ordering food. He needn't have worried. A serving girl bustled over with bread, ale and a bowl of soup.

He ate slowly, wary of overeating on an empty stomach, and pondered his location. As if being sent back in time was not enough, he had also been displaced in space. Harry had no idea how a Killing Curse could do such a thing. Had Voldemort done something else to him while he was unconscious? Yet that made little sense: Harry could think of no possible motivation for Voldemort to send him into the past, where he could potentially wreak havoc on the future. If he had truly been at Voldemort's mercy, why not simply kill him?

Harry sipped at the ale. He decided that thinking himself in circles about the how was a lost cause. In many ways it didn't matter. He was here, and his priority was the future. He needed to know where he was before he could move forward. He was fairly sure he was in Europe, but if he was outside of Britain he would need to return there, where he knew the lie of the land. Diagon Alley was ancient, as was Hogwarts. Even centuries in the past they should still exist.

A flash of red caught his eye and he looked up to see that Roseth had appeared at the bar, pulling another pint for one of the patrons. Harry caught her eye and she blushed again. An idea occurred to him and he waved her over. She came out from behind the bar and approached him, wiping her hands against her dress.

"Hi, Roseth," Harry said, and he pointed to the seat opposite him.

She sat down. "Hi, Harry," Roseth replied, and Harry grinned. It was only a single word, badly pronounced, but it was a powerful thing to hear your own language. Still, if he was going to be among these people for some time then it would be helpful if he learnt a few words.

He pointed to the bread. "What do you call this?"

Roseth moved to stand, maybe thinking Harry wanted more, and he waved his hands quickly for her to stay. "No, not more bread," he said, frowning. "How about this…" He pointed to himself. "Harry." He pointed at her. "Roseth." Then he pointed to the bread.

Roseth giggled, covering her mouth with her hand, but she seemed to realise what he wanted. "Bastun," she said, pointing to the bread. Then she pointed to the ale. "Hîm."

"Bastun," Harry repeated, "hîm."

"Ma!" Roseth said, clapping happily, before teaching him more words: for soup, for table, for cup and bowl. Each time he got a new word Roseth would again exclaim "ma!"

Then Harry mimed a writing action, scribbling an imaginary quill across the table. Roseth said a word, but Harry shook his head. He didn't want to know the word, he wanted to do it. He pointed to himself, then repeated his pretend writing.

"Ai!" said Roseth, and she rushed off back towards the entrance. She returned not a minute later, carrying a sheaf of parchment, a quill and some ink.

"Ma," Harry said when she put them down in front of him. Roseth grinned at his developing vocabulary.

Fortunately, Harry was well-practiced in the use of a quill and he was quickly able to draw a crude but recognisable map of Europe, labelling a few major cities in English. Roseth watched him in fascination. When he was done, he waved his arm in a grand gesture and said "Lebanon."

Roseth giggled and shook her head. "Lebennin," she corrected, and made Harry repeat it until he got it right.

"Lebennin," Harry said, then he showed her the map, moving his finger around it. "Where Lebennin?"

She cocked her head and frowned, then moved the map this way and that, even turning it upside-down. Finally, she looked at him and shook her head. "Ú Lebennin sí."

Harry sighed, his good idea coming crashing down around him. Clearly Roseth had never seen a map of Europe before. He shouldn't have been surprised - when had the first good maps appeared? Even when they had, no doubt they weren't available to barmaids.

Someone shouted Roseth's name. Her eyes widened and she scurried away with a hurried wave. Harry watched her go in amusement, the goings on of the inn distracting him momentarily from his worried thoughts.

Just where was he?

The comfort of the inn was a welcome relief from Harry's days in the wilderness. A servant came in the evening to light the fire in his room, and the next morning they brought a tub followed by buckets of steaming hot water. After that he dressed and went back down to the common room, where he was given a breakfast of buttered bread, an apple and some water.

He was halfway out the door, intending to explore the village, when he heard his name.

"Harry!" Roseth called, making a racket as she ran down the stairs. She followed him outside and said something to him in her language, then held out her left arm.

"Er, okay," Harry said, hesitantly looping his arm through hers. It was all rather old-fashioned, and he was worried that Roseth was getting the wrong idea, but she was the closest thing to a friend he had in Duirro. He didn't want to offend her.

She led him off with a tug on his arm, speaking to him cheerfully, though she surely knew he couldn't understand a word. As they walked down the thoroughfare she pointed to the various houses, many of which doubled up as shops. One had a sign outside bearing a picture of a candle, another was clearly a carpenter's workshop.

Soon enough they approached the bridge and the road broadened out into a cobbled semi-circle, home to Duirro's market. The nicest houses in the village lined its edge and the air was filled with the sounds of bartering and children playing. Most of the stalls were selling vegetables and grains, but here and there Harry saw meat and fish, herbs and spices. There was even one dark-skinned merchant who looked like he was selling coffee beans and oranges, though few approached him.

People must have come from far and wide to attend, because the crowd was larger than such a small village could have provided. Roseth let Harry wander around the stalls, satisfying his curiosity, before she pointed to the bridge.

"You want to go over?" Harry said, raising his eyebrows. There wasn't much on the other side, but she insisted and so Harry followed, noticing a blacksmith's sitting right next to the river, its water wheel turning steadily with the echoes of hammering coming from within.

The road turned to the right on the other side of the bridge, following the river south, but before the turn it passed beneath the stone tower Harry had seen on his first approach to Duirro. It was only five stories tall yet quite wide, the result making it look like it had been squashed. There were no windows on the first two floors, and only narrow slits above that.

Roseth took him towards it, chattering all the way up the slope towards its arched entrance, a very solid wooden door reinforced with metal bars. It swung open as they approached and a man came out, his arms spread wide in greeting.

This man was not like the other villagers. He was tall, well over six feet, with long black hair and a clean-shaven face. He wore dark blue robes beneath a fur-lined cloak, which spread grandly behind him as he raised his arms. A pair of men followed behind, both of them lightly armoured and carrying swords at their sides.

Roseth curtsied deeply, far more than she did for Harry, and he followed her lead, bowing and hoping he didn't look too ridiculous. The man said something, waving his hand, and he embraced Roseth with surprising warmth. Then he turned to Harry and held out his arm. Harry went to shake hands, but found himself clasping forearms with the man, who rested his free hand on Harry's shoulder. He said something as he stepped back, possibly a question, and Harry was forced to once again explain.

"I'm afraid I don't understand you," he said, and the man's eyebrows rose when he heard Harry's words. He turned to Roseth in question, and she said something to him, no doubt explaining that Harry was a foreigner.

He turned back to Harry and tried speaking again, this time using a different language, one with much softer sounds. Harry grimaced and shook his head again, making the man frown. He paused for a moment, then gestured for them to follow him into the tower.

The entrance hall was airy and high-ceilinged, lit by a huge fire and a number of torches in wall-brackets. There was a painting of a noble-looking man above the fire, and opposite them a wide staircase curved out of sight. Weaponry of all types hung on the walls, interspersed with shields of varying heraldry.

They followed their host through a side door beneath a mounted stag's head. He took them through a long dining room where a maid was polishing cutlery, then a portrait gallery, before finally they entered a small room filled with bookshelves, cabinets and a finely carved desk. It would be an overstatement to call it a library, yet it was more than a study, holding close to two hundred finely-bound volumes. There was no fire in this room, but rather a large number of candles inside lanterns of metal and glass.

The man said something to Roseth and she pulled out Harry's map from the day before. He took it and held it up to the candle light, frowning as he examined it carefully before shaking his head and placing it on the desk. Then he opened a cabinet and took a large scroll from within, unrolling it to cover the entire desk and placing stones on its edges to keep it down.

It was a map, artistically hand-drawn but highly detailed nonetheless, annotated in a strange yet elegant script. The man waved Harry to his side and gave him a moment to look at the map.

"Gondor," he said, using his finger to circle a large area between a line of mountains and the coast. "Lebennin," he continued, now indicating the eastern part of Gondor, its frontier marked out by a large river. He then tapped his finger on a city sitting at the junction of the great river and one of its tributaries, close to the river's mouth. "Pelargir," he said, before tracing his finger up the tributary until it came to a small dot. "Duirro."

He looked to Harry, perhaps expecting a eureka moment, but Harry was at a complete loss, searching the map for any hint of a familiar landmass. There was nothing. He wasn't in Britain, that was for sure. He wasn't even in Europe.

Wherever he was, it wasn't on Earth.

Two days passed, during which Harry didn't do much of anything. He would stay in bed until the late morning, rising lethargically to wander the village and the surrounding countryside, before returning several hours later to the inn. His evenings were spent in the common room, watching and listening.

Roseth would sit with him after she had finished her chores, talking nonsense and teaching him new words. The innkeeper - Roseth's mother, Harry soon realised - did not much approve of her daughter's association with this strange foreigner, but her father took every opportunity to push them together. Harry was baffled by the whole affair, not least why Roseth continued to find him so interesting. He was hardly a stimulating conversation partner.

Each night, when the fires began to burn low, he went outside and watched the stars in the cool night's air. The sky was as clear in Duirro as it was above Hogwarts, but he couldn't find a single familiar constellation. The change in the stars convinced him more than anything else: he truly was on a different world.

He had no idea what to do next. Being lost without a wand was one thing. Even time travel, though a significant challenge, was something familiar to him. But Harry had never even contemplated the existence of other worlds, nor did he know how to even begin returning to his own. There were no wizards to help him here, no Hogwarts or Diagon Alley to find. He had no plan or purpose.

A dreadful possibility had occurred to Harry the night after visiting the tower, a possibility which had since become fixed in his mind. He had assumed, when he woke by the river, that he had survived Voldemort's curse. But what if he hadn't?

What if he was dead?

Harry knew better than most that death was not the end, having spoken to his parents' spirits only days ago. Though he didn't know what form the afterlife took, he was quite certain of its existence. But this was not what Harry had expected. In those all-too-short seconds preceding his death, he had imagined opening his eyes to find his parents waiting for him in a place of peace and rest.

This world was not peaceful, and certainly not restful. He still needed to eat and drink. He still felt exhaustion and pain. He was lost and alone. Harry had not thought Dumbledore so literal when he called death an adventure.

If this place was the afterlife, it felt remarkably like being alive. The other people here were not ghosts, nor did any of them seem to think they were dead. And yet, Harry could think of no other explanation. It even explained the broken magic of the Marauder's map and two-way mirror, for the barrier between life and death could be breached only by the most potent and arcane magic. The snitch, on the other hand, required no connection to the living world to function - its magic was entirely self contained.

Harry might have continued thinking on the matter endlessly, had he not begun to run out of money. After spending his third night at the inn, Roseth's mother had demanded another sickle from him, which left him with a single silver coin in his pouch, plus a handful of knuts. Existential doubt gave way to practical need, and Harry began worrying about a different matter entirely: how he was going to survive. Selling his possessions was one possibility, but that would not solve his fundamental problem. He was spending silver but earning nothing. He needed a job.

It was on his fourth evening at the inn that an opportunity presented itself.

As usual, Harry was in the common room. A loud group of patrons was congregated by the bar; another group, this one gambling, occupied the tables directly in front of the fire. Harry sat near the second group, as close to the fire as he could get before he risked becoming involved in their games.

Most customers were regulars, now used to Harry's quiet presence, but each night would see two or three travellers arriving on tall horses and bearing messages. Sometimes the travellers would try to include him, but when it became clear that he spoke little of their language their enthusiasm dimmed rapidly. Harry preferred to avoid such embarrassment, so he kept to himself, eating quietly and waiting for Roseth.

He waited for quite some time, and had almost given up on her when she came thumping down the stairs and burst into the room with a wild look. She didn't even glance at Harry, but hurried behind the bar and whispered something to the maid there, who gasped with wide eyes. Roseth shushed her, took a bottle filled with a golden liquid from beneath the bar and ran back upstairs.

Harry raised his eyebrows and looked around, but if any of the other patrons had noticed they clearly did not think it worth worrying about, because they continued their games like nothing had happened. It seemed, however, that Harry would not be getting a language lesson that night. He tried not the feel glum, but with nothing else to do he found himself ordering another flagon of ale, spending one of his knuts to pay for it.

It wasn't wise to spend his money so loosely, but the long evening suddenly stretched before him without company or entertainment. As he sipped, Harry's mind turned back towards employment. If he'd had his wand, he would not have had any problems, for a wizard had many uses. Without one, however, he had few skills. He could read and write, but not in the language these people used. He could take care of plants, but he didn't have a garden or greenhouse. He could read the stars, but the sky here was different.

He was pondering the possibility of working as a cook when Roseth returned. At first Harry thought she had come to join him, but she walked past his table to a pair of travellers by the fire. She stooped down to speak with them privately, and whatever she said caused them to cry out in dismay. They rose quickly and followed Roseth out of the room, their drinks and game forgotten.

Harry's curiosity was piqued, that same insatiable need to know that had led him to unravel the many mysteries that surrounded his life. It was both his bane and his most commendable quality. Something was going on, and Harry wanted to know what. So he followed at a distance, looking as if he was strolling casually back to his own room, but when he came to his own door he kept walking down the corridor, heading towards the hubbub of hushed conversation around the corner.

It turned out that Harry was not the only guest cursed with curiosity, for a small crowd had gathered around the open door to one of the bedrooms. Harry, fortunately, could see over them into the room, which held the innkeeper and her husband, Roseth and the two travellers from the common room.

A man was lying in the bed, blankets piled high on top of him, but even with the fire lit he was shivering and pale, a cold sweat on his brow. The travellers shared a grim look when they saw their companion, and they knelt down beside his bed to speak with him. As they did, Roseth pressed a damp cloth to his forehead.

The man was dying. Harry couldn't say how he knew, but there was something almost corpse-like to the man's pallor, and the air of the room was heavy with a feeling of decay. When Roseth met his eyes he could almost feel her trepidation and fear. The crowd outside the room had fallen silent.

That was when Harry had an idea.

"Don't let him die!" he called, and then he was off, running back the way he came, tumbling down the stairs and slamming open the door to the kitchen. It was a long, rectangular room of stone, its centre dominated by a pair of fire pits, above which large cooking pots hung. Two chimneys acted as ventilation, but even so Harry's eyes stung as he entered the smoky room.

A maid cried out in protest but he ignored her. He walked around the kitchen, opening cabinets and looking into the larder, muttering and nodding to himself.

If only Snape could see him now. "This might actually work," he said to the maid, who of course could not understand him. She was jabbering at him in her own language, pointing angrily at the door, but Harry didn't have time to explain. "I'm afraid I don't speak your language," he said distractedly, before grabbing a spare pot and placing it over the fire.

He searched his memory, closing his eyes in concentration. "A base of boiling water," he said to himself, dipping a jug into a barrel of water and transferring some to his pot. "And blood." A half-butchered rabbit was resting on one of the counters, its blood on the wooden board. Harry took the knife and flicked five drops of blood into his pot.

The mixture hissed and turned a deep, dark red. The maid gasped, her hand to her mouth. The kitchen door opened again and the innkeeper came through, gesturing wildly and shouting as soon as she saw Harry. Roseth followed, saw her mother advancing on Harry and grabbed her arm, holding her back.

"No time for this!" Harry said, and he left them to their argument. He looked at the herbs. Obviously they didn't have dittany, but that wouldn't have stopped the Half-Blood Prince. He could find a replacement. His eyes fell upon some dill and he remembered that it was supposed to have healing properties. "It'll have to do," he said, and he added it to his potion, stirring it clockwise with a ladle until the green plant dissolved. As it did, the potion lightened in colour.

Harry nodded in satisfaction. Next in were some lavender flowers and mint leaves, which he tore with his fingers and dropped from a height. The potion turned a light pink.

Harry relaxed, allowing the mixture to simmer for five minutes. The kitchen had gone quiet. Roseth was watching him with wide eyes, and her mother had stopped shouting, though she still looked highly suspicious. The maid was leaning against a counter with her hand held to her chest.

"Muggles," Harry said, his lips twitching, before he started to mix honey and water. It wasn't true honey-water, but it was close enough. More problematic were the porcupine quills - there was no way the kitchen would have any.

He looked around, hoping to find a similar animal like a hedgehog, but he had no such luck. Harry grimaced. Porcupine quills had a protective quality, without which he would simply have a moderately potent poison. They were essential. He could almost hear Snape's gloating voice in the back of his head, mocking him for his futile attempt.

"I'll just have to find something else," he muttered, and his eyes landed on a pile of nettles destined for soup. Like porcupine quills, a nettle sting was a defence mechanism. It wouldn't be as strong, but Harry thought it might just work. A glance at the bubbling potion told him it was time to add the honey-water, and he poured it in bit by bit, rapidly preparing the nettles between stirs. He was just about to add them when a memory of Snape's voice once again intruded.

"Idiot boy! I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"

Harry hauled the pot off the fire with a rueful grin, setting it down on the stone floor before slowly adding the nettles, alternating clockwise and anti-clockwise stirs. Each stir lightened the potion further until it was mostly transparent, with just a slight pink cloudiness to it. It was finished. He grabbed a goblet from a shelf and ladled the steaming potion into it.

He smiled at Roseth in a way he hoped was encouraging. She was looking at him like he was an alien. "Please tell me you don't burn witches," he groaned, the possibility not even occurring to him until that moment. "Too late now, I suppose."

He shrugged, then set off with the goblet in hand, leaving the kitchen and heading back upstairs. Roseth and her mother followed, the maid trailing behind them.

The crowd was still gathered outside the room, and had in fact grown in the twenty or so minutes Harry had been away. Roseth shouted something as he approached and they parted to allow him entry. The sick man was even paler than before, if that was even possible. His two companions still sat by his bedside and one of them holding a scroll of parchment and a quill, recording his friend's final words.

"Out of the way, please," Harry said, surprising them, and for a moment he thought they might stand in his way, but after a long moment they stepped aside, their eyes lingering on the steaming goblet in Harry's hand. He lowered it to the man's lips, and Roseth stepped forward to support his neck. "Drink," Harry ordered, his voice firm. The command carried across languages, and the man took a large gulp of the potion.

If it had been a true Pepper-Up potion, steam would have burst from his ears with the whistle of a kettle, a single swallow enough to destroy a fever. But Harry had made many compromises in the brewing process, and so the reaction was rather more subdued, light wisps of steam curling up from the man's pale skin. Even that was enough to make Roseth gasp.

"More," Harry said, and he tipped the goblet further. "You have to drink it all." The man drank deeply, more steam rising up from his pillow, and with each swallow colour seemed to return to his face. Finally he took one last gulp and Harry stepped back.

They waited. Minutes passed and nothing more seemed to happen, but finally the man blinked sleepily and sat up, saying something in a surprised tone. He held a hand to his forehead and spoke again, the crowd gasping at whatever he said. Then he threw the covers off his bed and moved to stand, his companions helping him. He wobbled slightly, but he was clearly well on the way to recovery, his eyes clear and his gaze sharp.

Harry was surprised to find himself looking up at the man. Now the fever had broken it was clear that his patient was a man of great strength, tall and broad-shouldered. Something about him reminded Harry of the man in Duirro's tower.

He knelt down, took Harry's hand and kissed it.

"Istar," the man said reverently. The crowd whispered and lowered their eyes.

And that was how Harry found himself a job, gratefully accepting a gold coin from the travellers later that night. Word spread like wildfire, and from that evening onwards he became known as the healer-wizard of Duirro.