I'm attempting a new writing 'voice,' so please bear with any weirdness.

This has been in development for quite a while. I thought it would end up as a single, 10,000 word one-shot, but now it looks like this is going to be at least 20,000 words, so I'm splitting it up into 4 ~5,000 word pieces.

When will the next part be done? Who fucking knows.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Harry James Potter.

Harry was an unusual child, but not an impossible one. He had messy black hair that refused to be cut, an odd (and seemingly unimportant) scar, knobby little knees, and eyes of a rather poetic shade of green—inherited, purportedly, from his mother. But it was not his appearance that made him unusual, oh no. The poor child wouldn't even know just how close his nasty relatives' slurs came to reality until his eleventh birthday. He was, as it turned out, a wizard, and a rather important one at that.

Harry thus inadvertently began his collection of names and titles: Freak in childhood, Boy-Who-Lived at eleven, Parselmouth at twelve, and so on, each title more fantastic and alarming than the last. The accidental name-collecting reached its head in his seventeenth year, though he would not realize just how dramatic of a climax it really was until many, many years later. For, though Harry thought his new title was Man-Who-Conquered (which he despised with all his being, curse wizards and their penchant for hyphenated titles), he had earned a much more important title shortly before that.

He had, you see, done something incredibly stupid, and entirely without meaning to; Harry had united the three artifacts known as the Hallows and earned the title of Master of Death.

Not that he knew this, of course. Oh no, Harry obliviously and blissfully continued on with his life: he married his sweetheart, raised three beautiful children and a rambunctious godson, became the greatest Auror in recent history, and quietly retired to become Hogwarts' DADA professor just before his beloved daughter began her first year at Hogwarts. He quite liked his life, thank you very much. He'd only been called back into action once, to put down a budding Dark Lord in Spain with surprisingly little fuss.

(Lord Trychnos was a rather incompetent Dark Lord, if he even really deserved the title. Seriously, who wouldn't think that a failsafe or two was a good idea when raising an army of undead dragons? The idiot practically defeated himself.)

He saw his grandchildren born, saw them grow and have children of their own as he lived an exceptionally long time, reaching nearly two hundred years of age.

It was shortly after his one hundred and ninety-seventh birthday that he passed on in his sleep, content after having held his newborn great-granddaughter (his third great-grandchild) Elanor Potter. He was more than ready to join his Ginny in the afterlife; he felt he quite deserved a peaceful slice of heaven, considering everything he had accomplished.

Unfortunately for Harry, the afterlife was not what awaited him.

"Again?"

It was amazing how much meaning, how much history a single word could hold. He spoke in weary despair, voice laden thickly with grief. The white train station loomed around him just as it had so many times before—a barren, sterile sarcophagus. He had hoped beyond hope that maybe, just maybe, he would reach oblivion this time. Hadn't he done enough? Lived enough lifetimes?

The man who had once been Harry James Potter dropped his staff, sinking to the floor and clutching painfully at the long, ashy-blond hair of his most recent incarnation. This time he had been the Dovahkiin, another "chosen one" (oh how he hated that title!) consigned to noble death.

Or not so noble, as it turned out.

Admittedly, he'd rather liked his life in the harsh and snowy land of Skyrim. He'd lived a hard but happy childhood, leaving his Nord parents at nineteen to join the Mages College in Winterhold, where he had legitimately enjoyed learning that world's particular brand of magic. He'd earned himself quite the title, and rightly so, considering all the bloody effort he'd put into fixing the former Archmage's mistakes.

Then, naturally, the Curse (as he had so lovingly dubbed it) had kicked in; at age twenty-eight, he'd been dragged kicking and screaming into his "destiny" as the Dovahkiin. Par for the course, he'd quickly but bitterly resigned himself to his fate and ran through all the usual motions: helping people, killing monsters, et cetera, et-fucking-cetera. He'd even managed to kill the so-called World-Eater without dying horribly, thus "fulfilling" another damned prophecy.

He'd thought that maybe, just maybe, he'd be allowed to live out the rest of his life in peace.

Then he'd been trapped in Apocrypha, a terrible dimension ruled by Hermaeus Mora, the self-titled "Gardener of Men," who'd taken a rather disturbing fancy to him. Harry had feared—actually legitimately feared, for the first time in centuries—that he was trapped there forever as that monster's plaything, just like the damned Dovahkiin before him. But no, it was not to be, and for that he thanked the ever-fickle Lady Luck. He'd managed to find a way to kill himself after several maddening years, and apparently even Hermaeus Mora's power could not overcome his Curse.

Unfortunately, that meant repeating the cycle again.

"Let me die, damn you!" He screamed, burying his face in his hands and gritting his teeth against the onslaught of hot tears that prickled at his eyes. "Just fucking let me die already!"

But as always, there was no one to answer him. Even when he had snapped, a few lives back, and completely demolished the train station, no one answered. He was alone, completely and eternally.

Harry remained crumpled on the floor until the tingling began in his toes and fingers, exactly the same indeterminable amount of time later as it always did. He moaned in despair, sinking forward until the crown of his head touched the freezing floor, but didn't fight as the sensation spread through his whole body, intensifying into an agony that he had long ago learned to endure without a single flinch.

(His pain threshold was quite high now; Crucio didn't have anything on reincarnation.)

The agony built and built and built into a roaring crescendo, and just before Harry blacked out, he raised his head and spoke his usual words of wisdom: "well, fuck me, I guess."

Bilbo Baggins quite liked his snarky young nephew; the lad was bright and rather kind, even if he wasn't often obvious about it. And yet, Bilbo couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was something, well, more about Frodo Baggins.

Perhaps it was the weary wisdom that had shone through his bright blue eyes even as a young lad. Perhaps it was his inability to be fazed by anything, even his own parents' untimely deaths.

Perhaps it was the hair-raising sensation, like a bottled-up lightning storm, that he experienced whenever Frodo and his lucky ring were in the same room—odd coincidence, that. He had taken to leaving the ring in a vault in his office once Frodo had come to live with him; each time, he forgot about it completely until he had dire need of invisibility, at which point the cycle would repeat.

Perhaps it was the fact that certain objects had a habit of exploding or bursting spontaneously into flame on the rare occasions that Frodo was truly riled up.

"Now, Frodo-lad, there is nothing to be so upset about!" Bilbo chided as his handkerchief caught fire. He absently patted the burning fabric, smothering the flames with the unflappable nonchalance that raising Frodo had earned him.

(In all likelihood, Bilbo could've had the Dark Lord himself show up on his doorstep and only have been mildly surprised—there's not much that can faze you once you've riddled a dragon in its own lair and raised a quasi-demigod inhabiting a hobbit's body)

Frodo took a deep breath and closed his eyes, fists clenched rigidly at his side. The ominous rattling of various small objects around the room slowed and then stopped completely. He blew out a slow breath, and Bilbo's handkerchief finally stopped smoking.

"You're leaving for Rivendell, Uncle?" the boy asked in a voice that toed the line between control and disrespect, eyes snapping open and smoldering with suppressed ire. Had that tone and glare been directed at anyone but Bilbo, they may very well have turned and ran screaming for the borders of the Shire, never to be seen or heard from again. But it was Bilbo who was facing down the dragon-in-a-hobbit's-body, and he was decidedly unimpressed with his nephew's attitude.

"I can't stay here forever, Frodo," the old hobbit said, leveling a stern glare at his ward. "It's high time for another adventure, I think. Besides, you knew this was coming. You told me as much yourself."

"Yes," Frodo agreed testily, rubbing his forehead, "but I didn't think it would be so soon."

"You'll be fine, lad," Bilbo said, waving a dismissive hand. "Besides, I'm sure Gandalf will be by to help you now and again." His handkerchief once more burst into flame. Miffed, the old hobbit stuffed the burning silk into his water cup and continued. "None of that now! I don't know why you dislike him so intently. He's a good friend to both of us."

"Yeah," Frodo said through gritted teeth. "Good friend. I'll have to tell him how good the next time I see him." He turned and stomped out of the room, his shoulders a rigid line.

Bilbo sighed and sat down at his desk, taking up his pen again and pulling out a fresh sheet of paper. "I'd best write a letter to Gandalf," he murmured to himself pensively. "He'll want some warning of Frodo's mood." After all, it wouldn't do to have the old wizard lose his beard and eyebrows (again) in a mysterious explosion, now would it?

Harry—Frodo, in this life—didn't quite hate Gandalf so much as he intensely disliked him. It wasn't even the old man's fault, really. He just happened to strongly resemble Dumbledore, in word and deed, and Frodo had a sizeable bone to pick with his former Headmaster.

So Frodo was a little displeased (to put it mildly) when he found the Wizard sitting in his home after Bilbo's departure. Frodo's eye twitched as he closed the round front door behind him (barely refraining from slamming it) and addressed the old man in a tone that might have passed as polite if one weren't listening too closely.

"What are you still doing here, Gandalf? I would have thought you'd accompany Bilbo."

I would have thought you'd protect Bilbo, an old hobbit, on his way to Rivendell, which is a long and perilous journey away, was the implied accusation. Gandalf, of course, completely ignored this subtext.

"He asked me to look after you, of course," he said, puffing thoughtfully on his pipe. The twitch in Frodo's eye intensified, and the framed paintings on the mantelpiece began to rattle.

Gandalf also ignored that. "He left an envelope for you."

The rattling stopped and it felt as if the room plunged several degrees in temperature quite suddenly. "I know what's in it," Frodo said in a quiet murmur, his blue eyes darkening dangerously. "It's never coming out of the vault again if I have my way." With a grim expression, the young hobbit took up the envelope and marched to the office.

Gandalf watched him go with a considering expression.

Frodo stared at the Ring and its glowing script and felt… nothing. He had known, from the moment he felt the dark Ring's presence as a baby, that this was going to be the catalyst for his 'destiny.'

And he was FUCKING RIGHT.

And also it was a FUCKING HORCRUX.

Frodo buried his face in his hands and screamed in rage.

"Well, that's certainly one way to take the news," Gandalf said dubiously.

Frodo tromped glumly along the road from Hobbiton to the Bucklebury Ferry, accompanied by his considerably more cheerful companions, Sam and Pippin. Frodo liked both the young hobbits, really. Sam was honest and loyal to a fault, while Pippin was kind and cheerful, if a bit scatterbrained at times. But there was nothing fun or enjoyable about this trip to Frodo; it was merely the first step into a destiny inundated with suffering, and he was allowed to sulk, dammit!

Sam and Pippin had long since given up on trying to lift his mood and were instead chattering and singing amongst themselves. Suddenly, Sam stopped for a moment as if listening. At the same instant Frodo's stomach swooped in apprehension. "Uh oh," he muttered, eyes flicking around as he searched for the threat. His gut instincts had been honed over many lifetimes, and he had long since learned the folly of ignoring it.

"I can hear a pony or horse coming along the road behind," said Sam, sounding somewhat curious.

"Off the road, now!" Frodo said urgently, hurrying the younger hobbits into a little hollow by the road, where they lay flat on their stomachs. They knew better than to question that particular tone; many a childhood disaster had been prevented by it.

True to Frodo's gut feeling, a man-sized rider on a pitch-black horse came round the corner. That's no human, thought Frodo, his mouth tightening into a grim line as the rider stopped. From beneath the rider's black hood came a snuffling sound, and suddenly the Ring flared to life on its chain. Despite the thick cloth covered in blood runes that Frodo had made and wound around the accursed thing, it managed to tap at his mind. Hide, it sang seductively. It will find you. Hide and be safe.

Not today, you sorry son of a bitch, Frodo thought in answer, tightening his Occlumency shields. He would have silenced the little soul shard with prejudice, but Sauron was a true demigod and even this sliver of power was beyond Frodo's ability to control. The Ring, having never attempted to sing directly to him before, seemed taken aback. By the time the surprise faded the black rider had already spurred his horse on, and it fell into a calculating silence.

"This is not good," Frodo murmured to himself. Unfortunately, his companions overheard him.

"Why? What has one of the Big People got to do with us?" Pippin asked as they stood and dusted themselves off. "And what is he doing in this part of the world?"

"Beggin your pardon," Sam said before Frodo could come up with a decent lie, "I know where he comes from. It's from Hobbiton, unless there's more than one black rider. And what's more I know where he's going to!"

Frodo was taken aback and not a little irritated. "What do you mean? Why didn't you speak up before?"

Sam told the tale of overhearing the Gaffer, and Frodo realized that he and his companions were in much greater danger much earlier in the game than he had anticipated. The first frigid layer of ice formed around his heart as he considered their peril.

"We must get to Buckland, quickly, and not on the road," said Frodo when Sam had finished. Pippin looked surprised by the grimness in his tone, but faithful Sam took it in stride. "We cannot risk it. Another rider might follow, or the first turn around. No, we must get off the road."

Pippin was singing again when Frodo felt it: bright souls, brighter than the elves who normally wandered through the Shire. High Elves, Frodo thought, his lip curling automatically in irritation. To make the situation worse, there was also a Black Rider close on their trail, no more than a few minutes out. They were tracking the hobbits far too effectively. He paused a moment, weighing his dislike of the so-called immortal people against the danger of the Black Riders.

The danger won out.

"I hear hooves again," he said reluctantly. "Come, off the road, quickly. We shall see if it is another Black Rider."

Surprisingly, the Ring didn't wake when the Rider inevitably stopped on the side of the road and dismounted. The sound of elven laughter reached them a second later, and the Rider fled. The procession of elves walked by as the hobbits watched (three in awe and one in muted irritation). They had nearly all passed when the hindmost turned and looked directly at Frodo.

Godsdammit, he thought, layering another obscuring veil over his soul (it wouldn't do to give himself away). He carefully smoothed his expression into a pleasant mask as well.

"Hail, Frodo!" cried the elf, and Frodo's eye twitched. He recognized this one, who liked to be silent and unnoticed (he couldn't hide from Frodo, oh no, but he certainly thought he could), and had often watched Frodo and Bilbo when they walked about the Woody End together. "You are abroad late. Or are you perhaps lost?"

Frodo smiled tightly, resisting the urge to punch the (unintentionally) condescending 'immortal' in his perfect teeth. This is going to be a long night.

The Old Forest had a dark, heavy feeling to it. Frodo shivered and bared his teeth in defiance, unveiling his soul and expanding his aura enough to protect Sam, Merry, and Pippin. We will make it out, he thought grimly as a low, deep voice began to sing evil things through the trees, audible only to his ears. I will make sure of it.

They came across Tom Bombadil in the late afternoon. Despite Frodo's best efforts, the dark presence managed to physically change the structure of the forest, and they were quite far off track because of it. But, they were unharmed and together still, and had just passed the source of the darkness: an old willow tree.

Tom Bombadil was further down the path, leaping and singing as he bore a leaf piled high with lilies. Frodo liked him almost immediately. Here was an 'immortal' who was honest, and did not bother to shroud himself in high mystery, to pretend that he was better and wiser than those that appeared younger than himself. He immediately invited the tired group to his house, and not a single knowing glance was directed at Frodo.

Oh yes, he liked Tom Bombadil at once.

It was only when the others had gone to bed, much later, that Tom pulled him aside. "You are not what you seem, Frodo Baggins," he said in a tone soberer than any he had used before. "No, no, you hold your secrets close to your chest, hey?"

"Some secrets are better kept quiet," Frodo answered, shrouding his soul a bit more.

Tom offered a sharp look. "Maybe so," said he. "But some secrets are best borne with others. Aid is often found in the most unlikely of places."

To that, Frodo could do nothing but silently dip his head in acknowledgment.

Bree felt quiet and tense to Frodo, with an underlying sense of unease that crept through the heavy air and settled over his bones in a smothering miasma. The Ring was still silent around his neck, though it seemed to wake a bit when they passed the front gate. Wary and disquieted, Frodo pulled his hood up higher and sped toward the Prancing Pony. Merry, Pippin, and Sam followed close on his heels.

They left their ponies in the yard and went inside, all (save Frodo) encouraged by the cheerful chorus of voices filtering out from inside. Frodo nearly ran right into a fat, bald man, who shouted "half a minute, if you please" before the hobbit could do much more than open his mouth. He reappeared shortly from the cloud of smoke that obscured the common room, wiping his hands on the white apron around his waist.

"Beds for four, stabling for five ponies," said Frodo curtly when the man asked after their needs.

The man, Barliman Butterbur, sent a hobbit named Nob off to deal with the ponies, then led them to their rooms. Frodo immediately shut door when the inkeep left, exhaling gustily and sagging against the solid wood. A headache bloomed behind his eyes, and he rubbed irritably at the space between his brows.

"Don't do anything stupid," he warned his companions, who were still in rather good spirits. "Do not draw attention to us, or I will personally…" he trailed off with a sigh. Already his 'destiny' was beginning to wear on his patience. "Just… don't."

Merry looked worried, Pippin somewhat taken aback, but it was Sam who said "perhaps you should go rest, Master Frodo. I can bring you food when it arrives."

Frodo laughed humorlessly but moved to retreat into the bedroom. "Yes, perhaps."

When his companions elected to join the crowd in the common room, there was little Frodo could do but follow along and play babysitter.

From a distance, of course.

He sat unhappily in a shadowed corner, nursing a mug of ale (that he subtly transmuted into butterbeer—wouldn't do to addle his senses, now would it?). Sam was far too sensible to do anything stupid, but Merry and Pippin were, especially together. Luckily, the combined forces of Sam's sensibility and Frodo's heavy glare seemed to keep them in line, and even as midnight drew close, nothing bad happened.

Or rather, nothing ostentatiously bad.

At nearly the stroke of midnight, the hooded and excessively mysterious man who had been looming ominously on the opposite side of the common room stood and managed (somehow) to pass unnoticed through the crowd, sliding into the chair opposite Frodo's so that both had their backs to the wall.

Here we go again, he thought, taking another sip of his ice-cold butterbeer. He, Frodo knew, was yet another living accelerant on the fire of 'destiny.' The grumpy wizard-hobbit refused to be the first to speak as he stared forward, scowling into his tankard.

"I have been waiting for you, Mr. Baggins."

"I'll bet you have," Frodo muttered inaudibly. Then, louder, "you're mistaken, stranger. My name is Mr. Underhill."

The man laughed lowly. "A… mutual friend of ours sent me your way, Frodo Baggins, though it would seem that you are far more cautious and canny than he expected."

"Gandalf can fuck right off with that condescending shit," Frodo muttered irritatedly in a language he knew the man couldn't understand.

"This is a discussion best had behind closed doors and away from prying ears," the man hinted, and Frodo caught the barest flash of teeth from the corner of his eye as the man smiled sardonically.

"Ah, fuck it," Frodo sighed in English, tilting his head back tiredly. "Fine," he conceded, this time in Westron. "You had best be worth my time, stranger."

"Strider," the man offered, standing in tandem with the hobbit. "That is how I am known here."

Frodo smiled with cynical delight where Strider couldn't see, leading the man to their rooms. That is how you are known here, eh? Well, I certainly know the feeling, he thought. Many-named indeed.

The party went from four to five after a bit of shrewd repartee between Frodo and Strider (who was also, apparently, named Aragorn) and a letter from Gandalf, delivered by the bumbling inkeep much too late to be of use. They left (read: snuck out) in the wee hours of the morning, unnoticed by the sleeping Bree-men. Frodo grew only more ill-tempered as the journey progressed, but he concealed it from Strider, maintaining a neutral expression for the most part.

The other hobbits, however, did very little to conceal their mistrust of Strider, and even less to conceal their discomfort with their surroundings. Frodo smirked when no one else could see. A comfortable-but-unnoticeable bubble surrounded him to ward off the bugs and the chill. Ah, magic, he thought smugly. At least it's good for some things.

The journey to Rivendell went very well.

Too well.

It was probably the least eventful 'destiny' journey he'd ever experienced in all his long lives, which was exactly why it went spectacularly wrong about five days out from Bree.

Frodo experienced a moment of stunning clarity when the Nazgûl stabbed him in the shoulder.

Aw shit, he thought as he fell to the ground and allowed a pained scream to escape his throat. That fucking Ring found a way to get around my Occlumency shields! And really, tempting him to put it on was absurdly easy when the temptations went unnoticed.

Sauron can kill you, it sang (without lying, even!). Sauron can kill you permanently and irrevocably, it sang (this might have been a lie, but eh, you never know). It didn't even have to promise something fundamentally incompatible with its goals. Killing Frodo would align quite nicely with both of their desires.

("YES! DEATH! KILL ME!" Frodo had screamed as he put on the ring. Luckily, the hobbits had been too frightened out of their minds by the Nazgûl to really hear his words, or the situation later would have been a lot more awkward.)

Fuck, thought Frodo blanky, detached from reality as Strider and the other hobbits and the Nazgûl all screamed around him. Now I've gotta figure out some other way of blocking the damn thing. Fire roared above his head. Maybe a short-range ward. Placed externally? Hands seized him and dragged him away. No, I don't have a good anchor. Plus It could probably just weasel through the gaps. Warmth grew beside him, as if he was laid close to a roaring fire. Blood wards on myself? If I carved them into my skin, that might work…

The Ring was still singing, but not to him. Frodo noted with satisfaction that its attempts at an external call were heavily muffled by the blood-rune cloth. He allowed himself to emerge fully back into awareness, cringing at the cold, dead sensation in his wounded arm, and realized that a solid few hours had passed—though it felt to him like mere seconds.

"Oh shit," he commented in a pained voice. At his side, Strider startled badly enough to drop the pungent leaves in his hand. The other hobbits cried out in joy, huddling around where he lay on the bare ground. Frodo blinked ponderously up at them, woozy from the dark magic he could feel seeping through his flesh. "Ow. Let's not repeat that."

The dark magic was steadily draining his strength but without completely giving himself away there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was fairly infuriating, but he didn't think it was a good idea to break away from the 'expected' this early. Sam was concerned almost to the point of being overbearing, though he picked up on the not-so-subtle hints Frodo dropped (always with a kind of nostalgic fondness; Sam reminded him strongly of a certain red-haired mother from his first life).

After nine more days of irritating (but not debilitating) pain, Frodo perceived the bright presence of an elf approaching from a distance. And not just any elf, but a twice-born. Frodo's soul fairly quivered with recognition. Fuck, he thought, quickly laying more arcane veils around his own soul. The other elves he had the misfortune of meeting (had he ever mentioned that he disliked the so-called 'immortal' race?) could not clearly perceive the nature of his soul, but he had suspicions that this one was different.

Kin called to kin, after all.

The elf, when he appeared, was blond, literally glowing, and riding a white horse with bells tied to its tack. Actual fucking bells. It was like a Disney movie come to life, except worse because Frodo had to put up with this ridiculous, over-the-top shit.

(Had Frodo ever mentioned that he hated elves?)

Strider greeted the elf, Glorfindel, with familiarity. The other hobbits were awestruck, but Frodo allowed only pain and fatigue to occupy the lines of his face, burying his contempt beneath them. From the strange look he got from Glorfindel, he wasn't entirely successful.

"The wounds of this weapon are beyond my skill to heal," the elf said when he examined the wound on Frodo's shoulder. "I will do what I can." Frodo veiled his soul all the more tightly as the elf reached out with his spirit. The dark magic fled at the touch of Glorfindel's power, but not entirely. With the second, external source of magic casting a sort of 'light' on his shoulder, Frodo was finally able to tell that the darkness had literally anchored itself within his flesh.

Fucking fuck, he thought with real concern, not bothering to argue as Strider and Glorfindel aided him in mounting the horse. Part of the blade must have broken off inside me. That kind of thing was well beyond his power to heal externally, and he was suddenly quite glad he hadn't struck out on his own. Doing surgery one-handed on his own shoulder was not an appealing prospect.

After two more grueling days (grueling for the others; Frodo endured his weakness with a kind of quiet longsuffering on the horse) the Black Riders returned. The Ring flared to life on its chain and began hammering away at his mind. Aware of the temptation now, Frodo didn't bother to raise his ineffective occlumency shields. Quite to the contrary, he dropped them altogether and met the Ring full-on in an attempt to divert the compulsions, though he couldn't block out the actual words of Its song.

Glorfindel jolted and shot Frodo a sharp look the moment his shields dropped, but he was quickly occupied by more pressing matters. "Ride on!" he commanded urgently. Frodo, a little busy resisting the compulsion of a Maiarin soul-shard, didn't respond. Glorfindel called out to the horse instead: noro lim, noro lim, Asfaloth! The elf-horse took off at full gallop

A vision filled Frodo's mind as he hunched insensibly over Asfaloth's neck, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

A tall, beautiful man stood upon the dais in the Great Hall of Hogwarts. His hair flowed like living magma, dissolving into nothingness when it dripped from his shoulders. His eyes were solid black lined with glowing white, like an eclipsed sun, and he was clad in void-deep black robes. Stop the horse, and you may die at last, It said, not unkindly, and Frodo perceived that in this, It was sincere. You were not meant to live in eternity.

Frodo, wearing his original skin, looked up into those shattered black eyes and felt… pity. You are trying to die too, aren't you? he asked quietly.

The Ring looked surprised, Its black lips parting just enough to reveal long white canines. Yes, It admitted after a moment's hesitation. In some ways, I am like you. We can both have what we want, if only you surrender yourself.

But Frodo shook his head. Not at this price, he said bitterly. I have… doubts that your other half could kill me anyways. Perhaps… perhaps one of the powers in the West could, but… no. I am Cursed to endure. He straightened and looked at the Ring with green eyes that were as broken as Its own black, but utterly unwavering. I will not surrender.

The Ring dipped Its head in reluctant, respectful acknowledgment. This is not the end of our conflict, I deem, It said, clasping Its hands behind its back. May we both achieve our ends.

May the best man win, the being who was once Harry James Potter said with a humorless smile.

Asfaloth forded the river just before the Riders. Frodo awoke from his trance, breathing harshly, and drew his sword in a convulsive movement. His injured arm was limp and dead in its sling.

But Frodo was strong, and even as the Ring hammered at his will with all Its strength, Frodo raised his sword and at last completely unveiled his soul. "Get thee gone, thou pale shades of a time long passed," he snarled, though his voice was weak.

The Nazgûl laughed. Frodo's will bent just the tiniest bit as the chilled deadness of his shoulder spread down his chest.

His sword flared with a holy light, as though a star had dropped to earth to inhabit the blade.

The Nazgûl stopped laughing.

Breathing hard, Frodo stared the suddenly uncertain riders down with eyes that began to glow with magic. He bared his teeth, raising his sword and voice as one: "Get. Thee! GONE!" His power was unleashed with the force of a tsunami, using knowledge honed over dozens, hundreds of lifetimes. At the same moment, the river roared and swelled as a flood came rushing down from above. The Riders shrieked in pain as Frodo's holy light smote them, erupting into pale flames. Their chilling cries were near-instantly cut off when the flood slammed into them and they disappeared beneath foaming waves.

Frodo's vision dimmed and greyed. Utterly spent, he dropped his sword and toppled from the saddle.

The world went dark and quiet.