The Legacy

By Isis Malfoy

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or the Lord of the Rings, but I own Alathea (whose name is pronounced like Galatea, without the "G") and Margery (whose name is pronounced exactly the way you think it is.)

Summery: After her best friend is kidnapped, Alathea turns to the one place she knows can help her and the one man she trusts… her father.

Rating: so far PG

A/N: Lord of the Rings is mentioned in this story only in the context of it being a book that people have read; this is not the cross-over I spoke of.

Chapter 1: The Nazgul Return

Alathea Dunmoor was walking across the pretty fields of her best friend's Grandpa when she first felt them. She reached her pale hand inside the pocket of her midnight blue dress, feeling for her wand, praying that her books had been enough for her to use it properly if it came down to it. She scanned the wheat fields for the scout, and saw a figure in a black hood, looking disturbingly like one of the Nazgul in her favorite books, bending over her unsuspecting best friend. "Margery!" She screamed. The blonde head lifted in confusion as Alathea ran over. But by the time she had reached her friend, the girl was gone. She sat down in the fields and cried.

Her waist-length black hair hung down in a curtain, hiding her guilt-ridden, pain filled eyes from the world. She choked back a sob at the sound of her birth father's voice in her head. "Don't cry little one." He crooned softly. "You're a powerful girl. Make it better."

Competing with her father's words of comfort was the nightmare she'd lived over and over again since she was six. The words of a concealment spell, the whispered warnings, the battle, the screaming….

She closed her eyes and forced her mind to connect her to her only hope, her godfather.  'Uncle Albus?'

She felt his presence with in her even before he answered her call. 'They've found you Alathea?'

'Yes.'

'I will send your father for you. Stay where you are.'

She nodded and lay back in the field. She stared up at the sunny, cloudless sky and remembered the last day she'd seen her father.

She was six, and she had just lost her mommy, step-daddy, and baby brother, all in one shot. But she was her daddy's little girl and she could be brave. She knew you didn't have to big to be brave. Frodo and Bilbo hadn't been big, and they'd both been very frightened on their adventures, but they'd been brave and they'd become heroes. Daddy said this was her adventure, so she would be brave as well.

He told her that one day when she returned home people would tell her that he was bad. That he was like the Nazgul. He was honest with her, and told her that he had been like the Nazgul, but now he worked with Uncle Albus and he was only pretending to be a Nazgul. She understood.

Then he handed her a wand. Mr. Ollivander had helped her pick it out only a week before. Aunt Minerva had taken her to get it, because Daddy said she was like the ring of power and he was like Frodo and if the real Nazgul had found out that he had her then she would be taken to Sauron. Aunt Minerva had kept the wand and given it to Daddy, now he was giving it to her.  "You can't ever let anyone know about your wand, Thea," He stressed as he knelt down to her eye level. "Not even Mr. and Mrs. Dunmoor. Keep it secret, keep it safe."

She nodded and wrapped her arms around him tightly. He held her to him, stroking her hair and she felt a warm tear on her neck from where he was crying. He kissed her cheek and her forehead, and then gave her an Eskimo kiss like mommy used to before handing her off to the Dunmoors.

There were tears in her eyes as she opened them from her day dream. He'd compared everything that day to the Lord of the Rings. It had been her favorite book, they'd read all of them, many times. A chapter a night every night she stayed with him. Over and over again, until she'd had most of the story memorized. He'd given her copies of the books to take with her and at this point they had all but fallen apart. She turned her shining jade eyes to the moon rising in the dusk. And she waited.