shattered • A Lord Of The Rings Tale

15- YOU KNEW ABOUT THE DAMN STEW, DIDN'T YOU?

*MARÍA'S pov*

I sat quietly, bouncing my leg up and down on the wooden floor, thinking deeply.

"What's up Ría?" Aragorn said, as he walked towards where I sat.

I shook my head and motioned for him to sit near me. "nothing's up," I said looking at the ground.

"Ok, that's a lie," he said and jokingly punched my arm. "Seriously, what's going on?"

I sighed and began to explain myself. "I just can't stop thinking about Merry and Connor and Lily."

"I get why your worried about Connor and Lily, but you know that Merry is going to be fine. So why are you worrying about him?" Aragorn asked and turned his face to look at mine.

"What if Lily screwed things up? What if it didn't happen like it did in the movies because she was there? What if they did things different? What if I never get to see him again?" I whispered the last sentence and looked right up into his eyes, trying to decipher what he thought about it all.

he grabbed my hand and in one and covered it with the other. "Ría, Merry is fine. He will be fine. You know that you can trust me. And I trust that he won't die, without saying goodbye to you. I know that for certain,"

I smiled up at the ranger and leant into his side.
"thank you," I whispered and we sat like that, leaning on each other for an few seconds before He left to go to bed. I didn't. I hadn't really slept since the breaking of the fellowship. It was too much -Connor and Lily leaving, and not being with Merry- to even think about sleep. And on top of all of that, I had to remember what Boromir wanted me to tell Lily. I felt horrible for letting him die. And I felt even more horrible that Lily see him get shot. And on top of that again, I promised Lily I would look after him, and everyone else, because I knew the storyline.

The morning came, and people began to rise. Aragorn and Legolas woke first, and brought me some bread and warm tea. Food was not something that I loved so much in this world. I munched on my bread, and explained a bit about Hogwarts to them.

"-And I was the first in my year to master apparation, which is where you can just disappear and reappear somewhere completely different."
"Then why don't you just apparate us to Mount Doom?" Legolas asked and I shook my head.
"It sounds easy when you say it like that, but in reality, it's really dangerous. If you've never learnt it, and you disapparate with someone who does know, there is a risk of part of your body being... left behind."
"Left behind?" Aragorn asked, looking horrified.
"There was this girl in my class, Mary, who was the first to actually apparate, ended up with her legs and an arm in one spot, and the rest of her in another. It's called splinching. It's pretty intense. Only happened to me a couple of times. First time I lost three fingers, but Dumbledore fixed that. And the second time, my eyebrow didn't quite make it. We never did find that, either. Had to grow a new one." I said, chuckling at the memory.
"Had quite the list of injuries, while at school, I must admit. Some a little more strange than others."
"Strange, how?" Gimli -who had just joined the conversation- asked.
"Well, when I first turned into an Animagus, I got thrown by Remus, who was an uncontrollable werewolf at the time, so I don't blame him, and I couldn't transform back. Since I was unregistered, meaning the ministry didn't know I was an Animagus, I couldn't go to the teachers for help. Slowly bled out for a couple hours until I managed to turn back. Was in the hospital wing for a week."
"What's an Animagus?" Aragorn asked interestedly.
"It's.. easier if I show you." I stood up, grinning broadly, and transformed into rather small, almost baby giraffe sized, brachiosaurus baby. I honked loudly at them from inside my thick skin, and stomped on the ground a little. I ran a few laps around them, and then turned back.
"Wow." Was all they said.
"A dinosaur?" Legolas managed, clearly thinking back to my patronus.
"Ya! A persons Animagus takes the form of whatever animal or beast they feel most protected by. I guess mines a dinosaur. My patronus is the same." I'd already explained what a patronus was, so they understood that much.
"It's a whole new world." Aragorn said in wonder. I just grinned.