Angsty Bilbo dying Bagginshield art giving me another story idea~ 😂😭💕
But no, seriously? A play on the popular time travel fix-it, but one where Bilbo dies protecting Thorin during the Battle of Five Armies? And Thorin is inconsolable, I can’t even. And he might pull himself together long enough to stabilize Erebor, but there is No Way he can be a good ruler in his grief, so he has to pass it on. (I was going to say to Dain just to twist that knife a little harder, but actually there are reasons hinted below on why Fíli & Kíli must have lived.) And Thorin just… he wanders, probably. A shell of himself for the rest of his days.
And yet, when he inevitably passes away, he awakens on the road to the Shire. And he’s younger. And he’s so confused, quickly suspecting he must be dead and this is nothing like what he was taught to expect. But then his instant impulse to check Bag End has him walking in on that same meeting from so many years ago, his Company intact, the wizard smiling at him, introducing him to… to…
Bilbo. His Bilbo. The sight of him makes Thorin want to weep and hold him and never let go again, but he is instantly terrified to do anything, because is this a dream? Will he wake? What happens if he says something new, will ‘this’ be ruined somehow? He doesn’t want that, doesn’t want to change anything, save for the end. The very end.
But, even as he strives to mimic himself, he knows something is wrong. He’s off-script from the start purely due to his shock, but he tries to recover, get back on track, and within words, he’s managed it. The discussion is righting itself, and no one there could possibly know the difference, right?
And yet, Bilbo stares at him. From the instant Thorin walked in, Bilbo was staring, looking lost. As he had before, that first time, but it wasn’t the same. Bilbo had been confused then as well, but it had been a light, anxious uncertainty then. This time? He was frowning, his expression tense.
His eyes haunted.
Because Bilbo has also lived that night before. Just once as far as that night was concerned, but it was familiar to him. So familiar. That first night had haunted him for decades, to the very end of his long, long life, when he thought he might know rest, and perhaps — if he was truly as lucky as some once claimed — he might get to see his friends again. See Thorin again.
Instead he had slept, drifted away, and awoken to a battle about to start.
And he had questioned it, had stumbled that first time, but he adjusted. He tried to save Thorin. To save them all.
And he failed. Again.
Then, when he finally slept for the first time afterwards, he awoke to the battle starting again.
And again.
And he tried, over and over, day after the same horrid day to find a way to get through. And sometimes Thorin lived. Sometimes the princes did. Sometimes, new people died. The wrong people.
Once, in his darkest moments, he thought that perhaps someone was trying to teach him humility, teach him to accept fate as it was and not try to fight it, not change anything. And so he went through the motions as well as he could remember them after all those years, following them to the letter, save for when he sobbed all the harder when it was done.
He sobbed again, the relief bone-deep, when he awoke again the next day, the battle still awaiting him.
He lost count of his attempts, and no one could rightly vouch for his state of mind when he finally resorted to the one thing he had refused to try: Not since that fourth (or fifth?) time, when he managed to be there for the fight and threw himself in Azog’s way, but Thorin pulled him out of the way, and screamed at him with such outrage and fear and despair in the few beats he bought by pushing Azog over, that Bilbo never attempted it again.
Until that final day. And that time, Bilbo didn’t give Thorin a chance to stop him.
And it broke a heart Bilbo thought long since shattered to hear Thorin scream, to feel him pick him up and hold him close and hear his voice like that. But the words faded soon enough, and he couldn’t feel anything, nothing except for regret and acceptance, because this was different. He felt it. This time, he would not awaken again, and that was fine. He had saved his king, kept all of his dwarves safe that last time. If that was to be the last, then that was all he could ask for. It was alright. He could sleep.
Then he woke up.
Not outside Erebor, but inside a hole. His hole. Bag End.
He walked outside, stood in the sun, and watched a wizard walk up the road to his door.
He did not understand.
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You know... you know when Percy goes missing Harry is jittery. Inconsolable. Aching to join the search.
I'm not sure if they COULD convince him to go back to Hogwarts while his brother is missing from camp, from home, from his whole life.
I had to google the timeline and ooooh boy.
Percy goes missing in December when Harry is in the middle of the Triwizard Tournament. Harry already can’t go home for the holidays for the first time ever and then he gets news that his brother is missing.
It’s a mess. Harry keeps trying to leave Hogwarts but is essentially trapped by the magical contract and Hecate herself stopping him because she can’t bear to lose another child after having lost so many. Harry is trapped knowing his brother is missing for months only for him to be found right around the time that Voldemort comes back and Harry… cant anymore. He runs off and gets swept into another prophecy. The wizarding world is in an uproar because Harry Potter, the boy that claims the dark lord is back went missing right after that announcement and no home has seen him in months.
Harry almost doesn’t go back at all, but Percy convinces him that he has to. That he needs all the training he can get for the third war they know is brewing all too soon. He is met by Umbridge on his first day back and things go… poorly to say the least.
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