Big thanks goes to my faithful and ever patient beta HaloFin17! This time she even prevented a blunder where I confused two characters from the Silmarillion. Thank you my dear!

This story is part of my Lingering series. Although it's not essential to have read the other parts, you may find yourself confused if you haven't. The Lingering series is set in an Alternate Universe where Maedhros and Maglor survived the First Age. "Dol Guldur" is set in T.A. 2941 and is mostly complient with the last Hobbit movie.

"So now, nearly a hundred years later, you decide to act?" Maedhros demanded incredulously.

"The Council has decided to act," Elrond corrected him with a sour expression. Even at the previous meeting of the White Council a hundred years ago, when Gandalf had urged them to attack Dol Guldur immediately, the half-elf had favoured Gandalf's position, as Maedhros had.

"Better late than never?" Glorfindel offered with an exasperated shrug.

"It was a mistake!" Maedhros argued.

"So it was," Erestor agreed. "But we can't turn back time; we can only act in the present or plan to do so in the future. Anyhow, now that the White Council has finally made that unanimous decision, we're not going to waste any more time."

Maedhros turned away from them to look out over the valley.

"What is he planning? Why now?" he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.

"Who?" Glorfindel, who sat closest to him, asked.

"It matters not," the redhead replied, not answering the question. Glorfindel narrowed his eyes. Clearly unwilling to elaborate, Maedhros said: "Whoever this Necromancer is, this battle will likely require magic and strength of mind more than strength of arms."

Elrond nodded. "That is also the belief of the Council. We will travel with a small army anyhow, and Galadriel will join us with more Galadhrim."

"So it is to be you and Galadriel, I assume?"

"Saruman and Radagast as well," Elrond replied. Nodding to the balrog slayer, he added: "Glorfindel will come, obviously."

"And so will I and Makalaurë," Maedhros decided.

Elrond stilled. "Makalaurë, too?"

"He is better at magic than I. He may not have the talent and knowledge of Galadriel, but he can clear a mind hampered by darkness."

"I trust he can still wield a sword as well?" Glorfindel asked.

Maedhros sent him a look. "Of course. Even in this Third Age he has felled many orcs with me."

"I only ask because I wish him to return from this endeavour."

"Neither one of us will be a burden, nor do either of us plan to die."

Glorfindel regarded him calmly. "I didn't think you would."

"It's settled then," Elrond concluded. If he had any doubts, he did not insult Maedhros by voicing them. But as he would for any other friend, he worried.

The path through the Misty Mountains had unfortunately become ever more unpredictable, and Elrond had mentioned that a group of dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield had travelled westward with Gandalf not too long before. Below the ground, the mountains were always teeming with goblins, but if the dwarves had caused a stir with them, they did not dare come out even at night to hack away at their army. Small it may have been, but too great a force for most lowly goblins. Perhaps they even sensed that some of the greatest elven warriors alive were among them and considered it safer to remain in their holes.

Not long past the Gladden Fields, the elves of Lórien joined them, and among them, the wizards Saruman and Radagast, as well as Galadriel. Her husband remained behind, and Maedhros was tempted to fault him for it. Galadriel greeted him and Makalaurë, and rode with them, Elrond, and Glorfindel in the lead of their army, while the warriors of Lórien and Rivendell came behind.

Only a few days after, they arrived within sight of the tower of Dol Guldur. There their armies would remain unless called on to fight against orcs, for the fight against the Necromancer was one the Council would fight on their own.

"I will go in first," Galadriel said. "I will go find Gandalf."

Since the rest of the Council didn't argue, Maedhros kept his mouth shut. They followed her at a distance far enough that they would not reveal themselves immediately, and yet close enough to come to her aid immediately if necessary. They had only set one foot into the ruins of Dol Guldur when Maedhros could feel the evil it emanated. Some barrier prevented this evil from becoming too obvious from afar, but in here it was hard to remain steadfast. To Maedhros, it also seemed too powerful to stem from a human necromancer. He could feel the evil on his skin and in his mind; he knew it was an illusion. But the foul air was too strong to be an illusion, and it would take long for it to dissipate. Everything around them was made to induce feelings of fear, despair and insanity, but also strife, conflict and anger. Had Maedhros not withstood worse during his imprisonment, he would be tempted to leave instead of bother fighting or, even worse, turn on his allies.

Maglor poked him in the ribs, wordlessly pointing out Galadriel with his head. She was returning and bore Gandalf in her arms, a sign that the wizard was in bad shape. It was further proof that the wizard had not fought an ordinary enemy. As Galadriel walked across the stairs and slender stone paths, a dark voice filled the air.

"Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,…"

The language was the Black Speech, but all of them knew what the voice said, and Galadriel finished:

"Nine for mortal man doomed to die."

Her voice trembled, but Maedhros thought it was due to surprise more than fear. Seemingly from thin air, the nine ringwraiths appeared, surrounding her. They closed in on Galadriel, and Maedhros did not dare take his eyes off them for even a heartbeat. She laid Gandalf down.

"You cannot fight the shadow," one ringwraith taunted her in its fell voice. "Even now you fade. One light alone in the darkness."

"I am not alone."

Finally, Maedhros thought. Elrond went first, drawing his sword as he stepped out into the open. Saruman came out second to Elrond's right, and Maedhros to his left. Glorfindel and Maglor were last, taking positions between Maedhros and Elrond, all with their swords drawn.

"Are you in need of assistance, my lady?" Saruman asked in what Maedhros thought was an overly polite and not to mention entirely unnecessary question.

Galadriel did not answer, and instead, two of the wraiths appeared in front of Saruman.

"You should have stayed dead," Elrond spoke up, striding forward and almost immediately being met by a wraith. Elrond reacted on instinct and slashed through the wraith with his sword without breaking stride. Maedhros felt some satisfaction at his foster-son's ability, but it was dampened by the fact that fighting the wraiths in this way was little more than a way to waste their time and defend their own skin. Three wraiths took it upon themselves to come at Maedhros, and from the corner of his eyes he could see the others being assailed as well.

As they dealt the wraiths futile blows and the wraiths came at them again and again, Radagast burst out of the trees on his rabbit-pulled sled.

"Gandalf!" the brown wizard shouted. "Climb on!"

"He is weak," Galadriel quickly informed him. "He cannot remain here. It is draining his life! Go, quickly!"

Unfortunately, she was right, and Maedhros could feel the darkness weigh on him as well. Memories of his own torture and hanging off Thangorodrim without hope flashed through his mind, no doubt conjured to weaken him. But he also remembered Fingon, his dear and best of all friends, who fell against Gothmog, and his uncle's ultimately fatal fight against Morgorth, and he shook the threatening paralysis off. He bared his teeth challengingly and laughed loudly, mocking the darkness around him for their failure to bend him to its will. He must surely have appeared insane in this moment, but in his long fight against enemies of all kinds, he had found that as much as the terrifying masks of the dwarves had a daunting effect on their enemies, it was even more frightening to face an enemy who laughed in your face.

He could feel Maglor next to him gain strength, and even Glorfindel on his right seemed to be heartened. Radagast retreated, pulling Gandalf with him, but Galadriel lay prone upon the ground as if all her strength had been sapped from her. It was Glorfindel who stabbed what turned out to be the last appearance of the wraiths, for suddenly, they stopped assailing them.

Each of them glanced wearily around with searching eyes, but nothing moved except the leaves. Maglor and Elrond went over to Galadriel.

"Cousin?" Maglor spoke to her, laying a hand on her shoulder. As Elrond was about to do the same, the stairs behind them and the tower they led up to burst into flames and burst apart.

"It has begun." There he was, Sauron, as Maedhros had believed for years. "The East will fall! So shall the Kingdom of Angmar rise. The time of the Elves is over. The Age of the Orc has come."

Behind Him, in a sea of flames, His nine servants appeared once more. The game of cat and mouse, of hide-and-seek, it was over.

Elrond, Saruman, Galadriel and Glorfindel stood protectively together, while Maedhros and Maglor flanked them.

Galadriel rose, and her face was so changed and dark, yet also filled with such an unholy light that Elrond backed away from her. With all her might, she sought to banish Sauron, drawing upon whatever power she could summon. Her dark look warned Maedhros that within that power lay also Mirkwood with much of its evil.

"You have no power here, Servant of Morgoth!"

Sauron flinched, cursed her in both the common language and in the dark tongue, but His words were indistinguishable.

"You are nameless! Faceless! Formless! Go back to the void from whence you came!"

An earthquake-like trembling of the ground followed, and Sauron and his servants were banished, their spectres thrown far into the distance where they disappeared. Immediately afterwards, Galadriel staggered and collapsed into Elrond's and Maglor's arms. The banishment had drained her.

"We were deceived," Elrond said.

"The spirit of Sauron endured," Galadriel gasped.

"And has been banished," Saruman said.

"He will flee into the east," Galadriel replied.

"Exactly," Maedhros agreed. "An inhospitable place where he won't find much opposition to his presence, and once he has rebuilt his defences there, it will be much harder to enter it and defeat him once more."

"Gondor should be warned," Elrond added. "They must set a watch on the walls of Mordor."

"No," Saruman denied. "Look after the Lady Galadriel. She has spent much of her power. Her strength is failing. Take her to Lothlórien."

"My Lord Saruman," Elrond protested. "He must be hunted down and destroyed once and for all."

"He's right," Maedhros agreed.

"Without the Ring of Power, Sauron can never again hold dominion over Middle-earth. Go now." The white wizard turned to where the darkness had disappeared. "Leave Sauron to me."

They trudged back to Lothlórien—and trudge was exactly the right word, in Maedhros mind. This time, he held himself at the back of the group. Galadriel had regained enough strength to hold herself on her horse, but they had the animals walk slowly. Maedhros was mulling over everything that had been said and done in Dol Guldur and could not find it in himself to be satisfied with the result.

"What do you think of Saruman's words?" Glorfindel asked.

To Maedhros' surprise, Elrond's captain had joined him at the rear of the column.

"It is true that Sauron cannot regain his previous power, nor his shape, as long as he does not have his Ring. If we knew where to find it, we would stand a chance, even easily so at this time when he has not yet amassed his force."

"We don't know where to find it. All we can hope is that we find it before he does. Yet if it is never found, then the hunt will keep replaying, for who is to say it will appear at all?"

"It will be found. He has poured much of his own spirit into it; the fact that his shape is dependent on it is proof of that. The Ring must therefore have some kind of… mind, a will. Its highest desire will be to return to its master, and it will entice others to do its bidding."

"So it's more likely to fall into the enemy's hands," Glorfindel concluded darkly.

"Don't lose hope before the end. There is always a chance. We had less of a chance against Morgoth."

"True. But we, or rather, the elves of Middle-earth, didn't defeat him either."

"Sauron doesn't have his might. And Valinor has already sent representatives; whether they will send any more is doubtful, unless our need becomes truly so great that the survival of all the races is threatened."

Glorfindel gazed at him measuringly. "Do you still mistrust Saruman?"

Maedhros frowned. "Yes."

"Do you have a reason?"

Maedhros smirked. "My wisdom." Then his expression abruptly darkened. "And my experience."

Glorfindel remained silent to that. The betrayal Maedhros and his brothers had suffered before the Battle of Unnumbered Tears had cost many lives, and Glorfindel believed that Maedhros regretted it deeply and was bitter about it.

"It's a harsh accusation," he pointed out.

"But not one made carelessly," Maedhros replied. "My opinion aside, Saruman is at the very least foolish to assume that he can handle Sauron alone, and he implied as much when he sent us off."

"I will consider your words," Glorfindel replied, and he meant it. Glorfindel had noticed that Saruman had approached Maedhros several times in the past since they had come together, and even Maglor, but neither of the brothers had been receptive to his company. It made him all the more uneasy that the brothers mistrusted the strongest wizard and head of the White Council.

Maedhros threw a look to the south with a contemplative expression. "I think, I will go on an errant," he said.

"An errant?"

"Gondor. I will warn them myself. Namarië, Lord Glorfindel! I will go say my farewells to Elrond and my brother, and will likely return via Imladris."

And with that he spurred his horse to a trot to catch up with the head of the column.

Author's comments

I don't enjoy copying and repeating dialogue from the movie or the books, but in this case I felt it was necessary. I hope I did the scene in the movie justice. I decided to gloss over/leave out the almost romantic exchange between Gandalf and Galadriel; Maedhros would not have taken it well. While he doesn't approve of Celeborn, he wouldn't approve of Gandalf mooning over Galadriel either.

I also increased the size of the party at Dol Guldur. I find it hard to believe that Galadriel, Elrond and Saruman would go into Dol Guldur alone. Since Maedhros and Maglor were coming along anyway, I sent Glorfindel as well. Seeing as he had proven himself against the ringwraiths in the Battle of Fornost (Third Age 1975), it seemed obvious to me that he should come along even if it wasn't clear who the necromancer in Dol Guldur was. Bringing an army was in the end a formality, but, again, I find it hard to believe that Elrond or Galadriel would just go into a fight without some backup, and crossing the Misty Mountains isn't always (if ever) safe. In order not to change the scene too much (and because ordinary weapons wouldn't really be of any use anyway), I had the army stay behind.

And finally: although the relationship between Glorfindel and Maedhros has clearly improved, they are not friends. They do, however, have common interests, namely Elrond's safety and the safety of Middle-earth.