Two Stories Intertwined

"Garshhh... explained the first Nazgul.

"Narggggg...." elaborated the second.

"Grraggg...." continued the third, fourth, and fifth in unison.

"Oh," said Harry, "in that case..." he struggled to think of something to say after that. While he thought, all the hobbits took off in the direction of Rivendell.

"Gark!" cried the black riders.

"Urrggg?" moaned Strider.

"...and you know, I just had the most awful time at Isengard," complained Gandalf the gray, who was standing over Strider.

Harry was dumfounded.

"Oh, hello," said the wizard politely, "I suppose you want a bit of help?"

Harry nodded empathetically. With a twirl of his staff and a flurry of cries, the old wizard ignited all five of the Nazgul on fire. They screeched and ran back to their horses, who ran away from them. Harry watched them sprint off towards the nearest river.

"...so, as I was saying, that Saruman is a dirty traitor and he made me horrendously late. I could scream."

The old wizard pouted and then paced back and forth. Strider looked groggily at Harry and moaned. Harry shot him an apologetic look and then headed out into the brush to look for the hobbits.

The next day they came to a ford. Strider was in a huff about some elf who was supposed to meet them. Apparently he had been cut out of the story and replaced with an elf princess, who never showed up. Strider also had a nasty black bruise on his forehead and spent most of the day's walk glowering at Harry while Gandalf twittered on about prophecy and doom and whether or not he should change the color of his robes.

"After all," he explained, "gray is such a dull color."

They had barely gotten to the water's edge when they heard the sound of hoof beats cantering swiftly up the path.

"Oh no," grumbled Gandalf, "not these guys again."

Indeed, it was the nine black riders. Five of them were quite charred and smoking, but this just added to the evilness of their appearance. The leader reined in his horse just feet from Strider and Gandalf.

"Give up the halfling, she-elf," he rasped. Looking around, he realized that there were no elves present, and definitely not any female ones.

"Damn," he croaked, "someone's been messing with the plot."

All eyes turned to Harry who tried to shrink into his cloak. He had given up all hope of being in England by now, and he just prayed that he was still on the same planet.

"Never mind," growled the horrible black apparition, "give up the halfling, you guys!"

"Never!" cried Strider, drawing his sword and realizing at the last minute that it was broken. Hastily he tried to back away, but the wraith plunged his sword into the man's shoulder.

"Damn!" cried Strider, falling backwards into the river and hitting his head on a rock.

"Across the river Frodo!" cried Gandalf, "and do not put on the ring!"

Little did Gandalf realize that Frodo and the other three hobbits were already across the river safely on the bank. In fact, they were munching on dried fruit under the shade of a willow. When Gandalf noticed, he too fled across the ford.

Harry turned to face the Nazgul. He felt like it would be a good idea to flee at this point, but he was feeling bad about Strider who was lying facedown in the river. He turned to the wraiths, summoned up all his courage, and yelled-

"Expecto Patronus!"

A silvery shape flew out of the end of his wand. It formed into a beautiful stag, with a full head of antlers and a proud, graceful step. It galloped at the Nazgul, head down and snorting with rage.

Much to Harry's dismay, the riders ignored it. They galloped past Harry and into the river, running over the limp form of Strider in the process. The hobbits on the bank of the river began to look alarmed. Gandalf was nowhere in sight. It would be months before Strider could walk again. And Harry did not know what to do.

But the river had other plans. As soon as the ring wraith's feet had entered its waters, they had begun to swell, and now around the bend came a cascade of water, with the shapes of white horses in the froth. The Nazgul did not notice until the water was upon them. Away the water flowed, bearing away the Nazgul and Strider.

Chapter 3: Rivendell

Harry had decided that he definitely liked Rivendell and would be quite content to stay there until something would start making sense. First of all, there were elves all over the place. While they were not small, ugly house elves, they made Harry feel quite at home. He never once caught them banging their heads against anything or ironing their fingers.

Three days after the disaster (from Harry's point of view) at the fords, Strider stumbled in with a broken leg, two broken arms, a concussion, and several stab wounds.

"Good gods," Gandalf said softly, "you should be dead."

Whereas Strider collapsed and almost was dead for two weeks (all hail the power of suggestion). Fortunately, he could not die because he was essential to the plot. This made Harry feel a lot better until Frodo explained to him that he was expendable. Harry Potter may have been important in his own plot, the hobbit clarified, but in this one, he was zilch.

For two weeks Harry hung around and talked with the inhabitants of Middle Earth. A guy called Boromir showed up from a place called Gondor. He was shifty eyed, relatively unimportant to the plot, and quite certainly expendable. This cheered Harry up enormously. A couple dwarves showed up, and an elf too.

Then one day, as Harry was sitting under an elvish tree reflecting on the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, Hermione apparated into the air above him.

"Ouch!" yelped Harry

"Not again!" squeaked Hermione

"What new devilry is this?" demanded Boromir, who was also reflecting on the meaning of life and its length.

"Never mind. Go away."

Hermione was quick to explain that something had gone terribly wrong with the wizarding world's favorite method of transportation. At least one out of every two wizards who had apparated in the past month reappeared in another epic battle of good against evil.

"You see," she explained, "the plots have become so similar that the fabric between the novels has worn thin. Eddies in the story line continuum, you know. I have already found myself in a Star Wars universe. But you know, the plots get horribly screwy and you just have to ride them out till the end."

"So no one's missed me? What about Voldemort? Has he unloosed his evilness on all of creation while I've been away?" Questioned Harry.

"No, as far as I know, he had some trouble apparating a couple weeks ago. No one's seen him since he disapparated to visit some distant relatives.

"That could explain a lot," said Harry, before marching off to find Strider.

Harry found him in a sick room with casts on most of his limbs and a disgusted look on his face.

"Do you know," he asked as Harry entered the room, "what sort of part I had in this story before you came along?"

Harry shook his head no.

"It was a nice part, I think. I was king of something, had a nice girlfriend, a lot of respect, you know? I mean, I was a top protagonist. I never got a scratch on me. Even though I battled millions of monsters and risked my life and such, I never got hurt. Not once. Then you show up and I find myself stampeded on, drowned, stabbed, knocked out. Even my girlfriend has disappeared, cuz of plot complications. I'm a little unhappy about this, you see?"

"Uh, yeah, uh huh," replied Harry, who hadn't really been listening, "can you tell me a bit about this Sauron guy?"

"Sure, why not, as long as we're talking about my miserable life, let's go deeper."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, so I spend my whole life dodging this guy's minions. I believe he's responsible for the deaths of several of my relatives. Just a generally nasty person, I believe."

"Sounds like Voldemort," commented Hermione, who had come in behind Harry.

"What?"

"Never mind. What does this guy look like?" pressed Harry.

"Oh, he doesn't look like anything. He doesn't have a body, you see. Last I heard, he was a giant eye," said Strider, "But he will have a body once he gets his ring back from that half wit hobbit. It's his life force, you see?"

"Thanks!" grinned Harry, knocking Strider's leg out of his sling as he left the room.

"Do you have it in for me or something?" reverberated down the hall as Hermione and Harry made for the Council of Elrond.

"This doom belongs to all of Middle Earth," announced Elrond the head elf, motioning towards a gold ring lying on a stone slab. All the beings seated around the slab peered at it, while Harry peered at them. Next to Harry was Boromir, who was greedily eyeing the ring. Harry saw it reflected in his eyes and also reflected was a black dog. The grim, thought Harry.

On Harry's other side was Hermione, taking notes into a spiral notebook. A few seats away was Strider on crutches. He met Harry's gaze with a look of hatred before returning his eyes to the ring. Across the circle from Harry were an elf and a dwarf. Harry noticed that they kept trying to kick each other when Elrond wasn't looking. In a bush behind Elrond was Pippin, off to the right in another bush was Merry, and Sam was watching from behind an arch. Frodo was sitting calmly down muttering and referring to himself in third person. Gandalf was looking noble, and Elrond was looking prophetic.

Boromir stood up suddenly, and Harry noticed that the shadow he cast on the ground was in the shape of a grim.

"Can't you see?" he urged, "It is a gift, a gift to the foes of Mordor! Lets us use the weapon of the enemy against him!"

"You cannot wield it," insisted Strider, trying to hobble to the center of the circle, but tripping over the edge of Harry's cloak, "none of us can," he continued as he stood back up again.

"And what would a ranger know of these matters?" persisted Boromir, "Particularly a crippled one?"

"Hey," interrupted Hermione, looking up from her notes to speak to Strider, "you're a king right?"

"Yes."

"He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn, heir to the throne of Gondor," announced Legolas the elf, dodging a kick from the dwarf Gimli, "you owe him your allegiance."

"Put down the brush, Legolas," insisted Elrond.

"Hey, it's hard to look beautiful all the time."

"Put it down."

"So wait, this guy is Isildur's heir?" asked Boromir.

"Yeah, that's what I just said."

"Shut up Legolas and put down the brush," said Aragorn, looking embarrassed.

Someone sneezed loudly. All eyes turned to the bush behind Elrond.

"Shut up, Pippin," said a voice, "you're going to give us away."

"Come out of there, you scoundrels," growled Elrond

They came out of the bush looking disheveled and unhappy. Sam came out from behind his arch and Elrond hid his face in his hands.

"I want you all out of my house!" he cried. "Listen, this is your problem entirely. Frodo, get rid of that ring and take your horrible hobbit friends with you."

"What?" objected Legolas, "you're trusting these idiots with the single most powerful object in history? Are you mad?"

"Fine, you can go to."

"But, my nail appointment..."

"I will die before I see the ring in the hands of an elf!" yelled Gimli, standing up to his full height of three feet.

"Then you can go too! Seriously, all you guys get out of here. I'm getting a migraine."

Then Elrond shoed them all out the door and into the single most unpleasant adventure any of them had ever experienced.