Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings. They belong to J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien, respectively. This is an amateur attempt. One which I am not making any profit over.

Oneshot: a Black Wizard future excerpt.

Summary: It is years and years after the events of The Black Wizard, and Eldarion can't find his Omnioculars . . .


My Lost Gift


It could not have happened.

"Rongath!" Eldarion called, throwing his pillows about the room so that feathers fluttered gently and came to descend everywhere, even on his own hair. Eldarion was not concerned. A broken pillow was nothing compared to what was truly lost. He continued searching, even lifting his mattress, but still finding nothing. "Rongath!" he called again.

His door opened violently. In the threshold stood his Paige boy, panting and clutching his chest, eyes wide. "Sire?"

Eldarion straightened. "Rongath. Thank Eru. I need your aid."

"Anything, Sire."

"I have lost something very precious to me," said Eldarion, in his gentle way. "It was a gift. A very valuable gift from an old friend of my Father's. Yester eve did I leave it near my looking glass, yet now it is missing." The prince pointed to his cabinet. "It has always been your responsibility to put away all of my trinkets and valuables. Can you explain this happening at all?"

Rongath weaved his fingers together and bit his lip. "Is it a very . . . odd looking device, my Lord?"

"Yes, yes. I borrowed it from the treasury . . . I know I should not have without permission, but — yes it is very odd! Beautiful. Like nothing you would have ever seen. On it is quite a confusing number of little knobs and buttons positioned atop two tiny golden casks holding thick glass. Is that what you saw?"

Rongath nodded. "I put it away, my Lord."

"Where?" Eldarion asked, patiently, now that the mystery appeared to have been solved.

"In the usual place."

Eldarion threw his hands in the air, unconcerned that Rongath drew back at the gesture. "But I have looked there already!" He could not believe it. Lost! He refused to believe it. Twas such a treasured object, and there was none like it anywhere in all the lands of Middle-Earth. It had been his begetting gift; none more precious a gift did Eldarion think there was than his Omnioculars. "Who could have taken it? No one, for who would dare to steal from the royal chambers?"

Rongath watched his prince pace back and forth and back and forth. It was very unusual for the Paige boy to see his Lord acting so, for Eldarion was ordinarily very patient and gentle despite being only a young man of ten and five winters. To see him acting his age now stunned Rongath so completely that he could simply do nothing but stare. The device must be precious indeed for Prince Eldarion to so loose his renowned composure. He even muttered under his breath now as he paced. Rongath strained his ears . . .

". . . it is not as though my Father can get me another one. No one knows where Moristar is these days. The last anyone saw of him was at my birthing. For all we know he could have gone back to his own world. . ."

If Rongath were certain it would not draw Eldarion's attention, he would have uttered a startled noise. The Black Wizard? His meagre grasp of Elvish (taught him by Eldarion himself), and the fact that he had been in Eldarion's employ since boyhood had helped him decipher the foreign word.

Everyone had heard legends of the feats of that wizard conjurer. The old folk told tales of dark sorcery and shape shifting and heroic deeds, remembered from their time in the Great War against Sauron. But who would believe that one wizard could destroy an entire orc army? Most stories were pure fancy, embellished perhaps by the veterans whose fame had all but diminished now. Some believed that The Black Wizard had been working under Sauron, but switched sides in the last minute. Others still believed he had come from another world; another time maybe . . . this last idea was laughed at the most.

". . . could do, Rongath. You must help me search my room. It could not have gone far."

"Of course, Sire."

And so they searched. Long hours past, the sun set, and still they found nothing. Eldarion, in desperation, even gutted his mattress with the blade sitting upon his wall in its elf-made holding. This, also, had been a begetting gift; this time from his father's other dear friend, Legolas Thranduillion.

"Nothing," Eldarion sighed, sitting on his rump on the floor. "Nothing."

"Forgive me, my Lord," Rongath ventured, "but I would not think it could have got in that mattress."

"But it is magicked," Eldarion explained. "Perhaps it has a mind of its own? That is why I looked. I could not in good conscience overlook any part of my room. I remember one time the device had become so tiny that it could fit on a brass coin — and all because I turned a knob a certain way and at a certain time. It took my Father and me weeks to work out how to bring it back to its former glory."

"I see." Inside, Rongath was astonished. He had never heard of such a thing. It sounded very much like dark sorcery to him. Objects changing size. Why, twas unnatural! "I hesitate to mention, my Lord, but if this device is as precious and valuable as you say than perhaps we should inform the king?"

Eldarion sighed and stood. "Common sense comes to you most easily, my friend. Would that it could come to me just as easily. Best I tell him now, instead of putting it off longer. He will not be pleased."

The prince smiled sadly and left.


Eldarion dithered hesitantly in front of the great hall; sweet muffled music met his ears but he paid no attention. The king and his Lords should be returned from hunting and were no doubt already enjoying their bountiful wares for supper. He would simply sit in his chair, lean over his father's elbow, and tell him. After all, it had been Eldarion's gift, and Eldarion's responsibility. He might have taken the Omnioculars without permission, but surely he would not be punished so much? Surely the loss of the gift would be a sufficient enough punishment?

The vision of Moristar had taunted him earlier as he had walked to the great hall; the wizard's image was painted on the wall in the Hall of Heroes with his wand held aloft and fierce determination settled in those green, green eyes. Eldarion knew not what had drawn him there in the first place. Perhaps he had wanted reassurance from the image — there was often a time, when he was younger, when he used to think the painting of The Black Wizard could move. He had even thought at one point that it had winked at him. But that, he had convinced himself, was nothing more than the imagination of a five-year-old child awe stung with the thought of his hero, whom he had never met but who had met him.

Harry Potter was Eldarion's godfather.

Eldarion did not precisely know what this meant, except that it now made the wizard Eldarion's kin. He was certain that his parents did not precisely know what it meant either — whenever Eldarion asked they would say something about responsibility and honour, none of which the prince had gotten to experience first hand from the wizard.

He had never seen his godfather, but his father assured him he would when the time was right.

Eldarion sighed. If he were to see Moristar now, he was certain that the wizard would not be pleased with him. Such a precious gift, either misplaced or lost or stolen . . . he had dallied enough. It was time to tell his father. Eldarion breathed deeply, and entered.

Instantly the smell of suckling pig and roasted venison meat filled his senses. His stomach growled but Eldarion ignored it. He was too nervous to eat.

His mother, beautiful and still young, clothed in a purple gilt gown, sat beside his father. He greeted her first with a kiss. Then moved to sit in his seat

His father leaned sideways a little. "Eldarion."

Eldarion nodded back. "Father." How young he still looked! Yes, his hair at the temples was greying, but that merely added to his majesty. The prince often emulated his father, and wondered, hesitatingly, if he would ever be a good a king as he.

"You are late."

"I know. I have something to tell you." Better to get it over with quickly.

"If it is about the Omnioculars, I have put them back in the treasury," said Aragorn, taking a sip of wine. "We are going to have to speak about your taking things without permission, Eldarion. Not now, though. A feast awaits and I am hungry. Close your mouth, my son."

Eldarion snapped his mouth shut, nearly sagging.

Of course. His father. "You took them. Why?"

His mother was quiet as the dead, but Eldarion knew she listened to every word. His father, on the other hand, was watching him with smiling eyes. "You needed to learn that some things are better off left where they stay. You knew the consequences of playing with the Omnioculars when you were younger. You are still young and were not supposed to touch them again until later. Much later."

"I understand."

Aragorn kissed him, beard comfortingly rough as it brushed his temple. "Never fear, my son, Harry will come soon. You do not need the seeing device to feel a piece of him." His father chuckled. "It bewilders me. I cannot understand how you can so love someone whom you have never met."

"He is one of my heroes, Father," Eldarion explained. "Just as you are. And Lords Legolas and Gimli and Boromir. It is wrong that I have not met him."

"But you know how wizards are, pen dithen, they come and go through the years whenever it pleases them. It will please Moristar to come back soon. He cannot stay away forever."

Eldarion smiled.


A/N: This story is complete.