C2: I would like to ask everyone, who likes Lord of the Rings / Harry Potter crossovers to help me with my C2. I want to establish a complete list of the LotR/HP x-over stories (Not all parodies though, maybe only the best of those), so if you want to suggest one or maybe even become a staff member please mail me.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Middle Earth.

Warning for this chapter: BLOOD and cruelty to poor beautiful animals! T.T I can't believe I really saw this through, I love horses! Ughhh... I even had a worse version, where I explained how he managed to tear off the skin and that was anatomically more correct, but I thought that gave you guys too many graphic scenes, you didn't really want to see...(Neither did I actually...)

The Dark Wizard and the Curse of Immortality

Chapter 3 – Thirst

Hiding in a bush not far from the black tower he started from, Harry tried to make no sound at all. It was on rare occasions like this that he thanked his lucky stars that he no longer had a heart or breath to calm. The deep wheezing was coming in his direction and Harry became aware of a strong odor, gradually assaulting his sensitive nose. A grunt made the boy wince and he cursed himself a hundred times for first being so inattentive not to notice the loud, fetid thing, that was now searching for whatever made the rustling noise it had heard a moment before and then ducking under the scrub in such a way, that he couldn't see a thing.

Not that he really needed to, he reflected. The thing did nothing to hide its presence from him. He could almost see it whipping its head from side to side, letting greasy felted hair fly and thus spreading its smell everywhere. Its nostrils would flare widely, trying to pick up the faint scent, he still carried, although being dead, he didn't sweat any more.

Luck was on Harry's side as the creature lumbered in the opposite direction.

He had decided though that he should try to get out of there in case the thing came back with some friends of his.

He risked shifting and raising his head a little to get a look at the creature's retreating back. He had never had the chance to see one of those monsters up close. From what little he could see its body seemed to look as nasty as it's exhalation and what he had guessed from a distance.

Calling it ugly wouldn't be accurate, he decided, because something ugly can actually be a pure creature on the inside, like most houselves were. Furthermore is 'ugly' something that varies with the point of view. These creatures on the other hand looked for lack of a better word 'evil', if anything can look that way.

It had blackish skin, that hung off it in thick, leathery crinkles. Its hair that had a grayish, blackish, brownish and in certain places even greenish mildew-like tint to it sprouted not only from its head, but seemingly random places all over its body in uneven lengths, as though it got ripped out in brutal fist fights on a regular level. It wore only some kind of leathery loincloth, that almost went past his attention as it looked exactly like the creature's skin. A wicked-looking sword hung crookedly at the beast's hip dangling from the same leatherbelt that held the cloth in place. The whole sword was encrusted with a dark substence his senses told him was dried blood, although he knew it was too dark in colour. It staggered off as though it had broken the bones in its legs and hip joint on various occasions and they had never properly healed. He had the bad feeling that it was faster than it looked though.

'One more reason to get going', Harry thought, heading in the general direction he believed the way out of this region to have been in.

This encounter had started a very difficult game of hide and seek, in which he soon noticed he had to not only keep his body, but also his scent hidden from the beasts, as they had a very fine sense of smell.

Despite the creatures' rather ungainly attempts of finding the intruder, they undoubtedly knew was there, but simply couldn't find, Harry made good time. He worried though what he would do once the sun rose. He would lose all advantages he had over a normal human, that had saved him from being captured by the beasts before and he knew he still had a lot of ground to cover and wouldn't find a safe shelter until he was out of Isengard. 'Maybe even never,' he thought depressed as he remembered Saruman's stone, that could be used to spy on other people seemingly all over the planet.

His dilemma solved itself though. As the sun began to rise, the beasts retreated. This allowed Harry to cover far more ground by day than he was able to at night, although his almost-human form was far slower, than his vampiric one, that used to be normal vampires' preferred hunting-form. It took him two more days to get to the gates that were the only way out of the bowl-shaped area, apart from the portcullis the river used and Harry was sure he didn't fit through the spaces between the bars.

It was midday and Harry was hiding in the last row of bushes before the big field began that stretched from the walls to his hiding place.

Harry bit his lip in frustration, realising the very reason the field was bare was to make an unnoticed trespassing through these lands impossible, so it was safe to assume that if they left this much bare land inside the ring then there was an at least as big ungreened ring on the other side. On top of the walls he thought he saw the shape of men, but from this distance it was difficult to tell. For all he knew it could have been one of the monsters, but then again, why would the ones patrolling the grounds all leave by daybreak if those were allowed to stay out in the open?

Cursing he pondered the situation. There had to be a way for him to get through there unnoticed. Should he wait for nightfall and use his vampire-body's advantages?

He let the bag fall to the ground as he got more comfortable. He fingered the wand in his pocket, wondering whether the answer to his problem was magic. He rarely used it, as it cost him too much blood to use lightly, so unsurprising he pondered a good half hour, until his eyes snapped open and he cursed himself for needing so much time to remember such an elementary spell as the disillusion charm. He tried not to think too much about what would happen if one of the guards had good eyesight and noticed his mimicry, preferring to wreck his brain for the incantation and wand movement needed to perform the spell.

By the time he was sure he knew how to cast the spell again the sun was setting. He could hear the faint voices of the impatient creatures in the distance, as his hearing improved very slowly. He remembered a time when he thought the slow gradual change was almost worse than the agonic, fast one. It hadn't really been the constant dull pain, that accompanied even the slowest change, but the uncomfortable shifting of his very being. "Or was it the itching in my eyes?" he reconsidered dryly, as he rubbed them in an attempt to rid himself of the familiar, but none the less irritating sensation.

Harry waited impatiently for the sun to sink below the mountains and when finally even the last rays stopped setting the sky alight in blood-red colours, he was only dimly aware of the cries of the monsters, hunting these lands.

He took out the from constant touch over the course of more than a hundred years almost blackish, but really rather ugly grey holly wand. He carefully tapped himself on the head a little awkward in his movements from the long time of not performing a spell, as he muttered the incantation, hoping he made no mistake in the pronunciation. He was pacified when the distinctly familiar feeling of having an egg cracked on his head came over him. He shuddered, watching as his hands and wand started showing the ground below.

Without further ado he grabbed the bag and started running as fast as he could over the grassy field separating him from the wall, distractedly noting as he approached it that the shapes on it were indeed human. That he could now easily make them out did nothing to calm his nerves, because it made him feel as though they should be able to see him as well and more than once he found himself stop almost dead in his tracks as he thought one of them was staring directly at him. He felt far safer when he was standing in front of or rather when he found himself pressing himself against the wall, rather than in their line of vision. After a few seconds of rest to calm his nerves and assure himself that they had yet to notice anything was amiss, he made for the gate a short distance away.

The so-called gate was fortunately only a half-round opening in the wall. More functional than safe at the moment, but he was sure in a few weeks it would be covered by a thick door or something like that if the rest of Isengard was anything to go by. He briefly thought about the fact that this had been far too easy, which meant he could only hope Saruman had either pitied or seriously underestimated him, despite knowing him so well. He doubted both, but didn't want to think of any of the other possible reasons. It was too late to rethink his almost non-existent-to-begin-with plan, so he slipped around the edge of the wall, running from there, half expecting something to come crashing down to block the exit that was now so tantalisingly close, but he made it out unhindered. He just kept on running, still unable to believe he had made it out of Isengard alive, uncomprehending that he had really been successful.

The nightly scenery blurred past him as he ran without looking back. He knew he was tempting fate the way he was pushing himself to his speed-limits and wasting the precious liquid he was running on, but for the moment he didn't care.

He stopped dead in his tracks, when a faint odor reached his nose and became aware of the primitive-looking settlement only a few hundred meters away. He scrunched his nose up frowning at nothing in particular, in annoyance with everything in general, because the lack of nutrition made him irritable, so the fact that he had not seen the houses or become aware of the rather nose-stinging odor sooner was enough to make him angry with himself for his lack of attention.

The musky scents of domestic animals lured him to the grange.'Nobody will ever find out. I won't kill them just satiate myself a little and be on my way again with nobody being the wiser. It would have far more dire consequences if I didn't drink anything for too long and kept running like I have done,' he tried to justify his plans.

Harry licked his lips nervously. He had never drunk blood from an unwilling target. He had never even drunk from a body - while he was truly concious of it that is. The times he had he was in a bloodlust, but the vampire didn't want to think about that.

He followed the smells unaware of how he crouched down a little as the impulses grew stronger. He noted with relief that everything was dark and silent, indicating that the humans were sleeping.

He followed his nose until he arrived at an old paddock with a few big strong-looking horses. He frowned deeply. He was by no means an expert on horses, but he could tell that the stupid tamed animals had sensed the presence of a predator of a far more serious kind than they usually encountered and that their masters could save them from. It didn't take a particularly intelligent biologist to make this conclusion, as they were now on their legs, prancing nervously with their heads held up high and inhaling deeply, shielding their young.

One of them, a very dark brown, almost black giant of an animal, raised its nostrils to bare its teeth in a peculiar way and held its tail high in the air, while galloping around the others obviously searching for him, but since Harry had followed their scent, meaning the wind blew towards him, he could be pretty sure the blasted beast wouldn't be able to in this to both humans and most animals complete darkness with its over-cast sky and the lack of light-pollution.

Harry began to realise that this whole affair would be far more difficult than he had first anticipated.

Knowing that being as inexperienced as he was he would need a good strategy he started with the most elementary thing a wizard did before he used magic in a muggle-populated area. He placed a silencing and light-absorbing charm around the area, so the horses' owners wouldn't be alerted to his presence.

After a while Harry came up with a simple, but as he hoped foolproof tactic.

He frowned, eyeing the horses wondering whether they were worth such a blood-loss, but he still couldn't think of a better plan, so quickly going over the still fresh in mind spell, he muttered annoyedly, "Stupefy." He watched a light brown mare fall to the ground unconscious and saw with dawning horror that the rest of the herd dispersed into chaos, running around in blind panic. Cursing Harry sped up, realising that they would try to escape their entrapment and with the slightest twinge of worry, that in their panic they would probably not care or even notice if they trampled the fallen one. In quick succession he felled the fifteen or so animals, trying to take down one after another those that were coming too near to the barriers or to an unconscious conspecific. He winced in sympathy, as the last one made a mad dash and a big leap, that would have carried it cleanly over the fence, had the stunner not hit it dead-on in mid-jump. It crashed painfully into the fence and Harry hoped he hadn't hurt it too badly.

He looked at the herd, wrinkling his nose suddenly a little disgusted with the prospect of closing his mouth around one of the horses' hairy, stinking and probably very dusty neck.

Out of nowhere a furious black shape, that was even to him hard to make out in the - thanks to his charm - darker than natural area, threw him to the ground, while it's teeth tore off a big chunk of skin and flesh from Harry's forearm, which he must have raised instinctively to try to shield his face. Before he had the time to recover from hitting the ground, the shape he recognised as the enormous wild beast he had noticed earlier, had raised itself to its hind legs and in the last moment he managed to duck out of the way, as the creature tried to smash his head with its heavy hooves.

In a motion of old instilled instinct Harry picked up the wand he found under the fingers of his left hand from where it must have fallen during the action, twisting it swiftly, albeit clumsily in the monster's direction, yelling, "Petrificus Totalus!" It froze in a new attack, its momentum throwing it heavily to the ground.

He snarled angrily at his surprisingly resourceful foe, whose eyes were still rolling in fury and panic. Cradling his injured limb close to his chest, Harry noted with fury, that it was leaking precious blood in little but steady rivers.

'It must have taken the fence, while I was distracted with one or more of the others.'

The vampire knelt by the beast's side fully aware and quite content that the horse would feel the whole ordeal. A memory of him at Malfoy's mercy surfaced and for the briefest moment he would have almost been able to hold back, but the stupid animal shouldn't have made him lose even more blood.

He lowered his head and bit down into the neck, the sharp scent the horse emitted tingling uncomfortably in his nose. Only a few dirty droplets rained into his waiting mouth. He snapped his head back angrily, spitting out hairs. He had bit into thick muscle, but he knew that wouldn't be an issue much longer. His humanity was already almost gone and he knew he couldn't keep a hold of it much longer.

Sitting back the dark creature, cocked its head at the large creature before it. It had never tried to drink from anything but humans and it was just as unsure on how to approach this rich feast as its more human counterpart, but finally it smirked viciously tearing off the skin protecting its victim's neck, until it could see where the carotid was. It drank more than its body had ever been given the chance to take and waited a little more to see the wide, rolling, agony-filled eyes still. Then it left to find a place, where it could rest until its wound healed and the blood settled in its body.

Harry never knew that later red eyes snapped open to fix on the beast's fallen herd. He never saw the once beautiful dark brown stallion brutally feast on the geldings, its mates and offspring and take flight when it became aware of the way the rising sun seemed to unsettle it. The dark wizard had not heard the peasants' cries of anguish, when they beheld their loyal and beloved horses lying in mangled heaps on the blood soaked grass. He didn't know how much the people of Rohan valued their horses.

Harry was obvious as he leaned against the rough surface of a boulder, coming to his senses. He wondered what the press would say if they found out a simple farm-animal had been able to almost defeat him and get him to the same point Voldemort had. They probably would make society even more afraid of him. Not that that was an issue any more.

He didn't feel much remorse for what he had done. His arm, which was still prickling with the sensation of fresh accelerated healing, was a good indication, that the horse was not one that would be missed direly in the world - at least by him.

He picked himself up from the ground, very aware that he no longer had any idea, in which direction Isengard lay and therefore a little worried that he would run right back to the place he was running from. Survival skills were not something Harry was schooled at, so to him everything in this country, aside from the single boulder in the wide area he could overlook from his position, looked the same.

If Harry did sigh he would have done so in that moment, but since it was something he avoided doing, because it reminded him too much of breathing, he simply settled for frowning at nothing. He should have taken a closer look at the countless confusing maps of this country he had found in Isengard, but they had been just that to him, confusing maps, not something he had thought he'd ever need knowing. He hadn't intended to ever leave the other wizard. His scowl deepened, but he decided he might as well start while it was still day, as he was less likely to get into trouble, if he ran into humans. Picking a random direction, he started running again.

It took Harry two more days to find another human-built structure. It could be seen from far away, as it was built on a hill. It stood out breath-takingly against the mountains behind it.

As he drew closer a speck, parting itself from the buildings, started to draw his attention. It looked like a hord of people or maybe the things from Isengard and it was moving – in his direction if he wasn't mistaken. Harry gulped. From the distance it was hard to tell, but he thought it was moving quite fast, which usually wasn't a good sign, especially for him at the moment, since it was just past sun-down. To add to this bad situation they were in a plain, which meant there was very little cover he could seek.

As his would-be attackers neared he could make out that they were a battalion of savage-looking riders all had their spears pointed forward – at him. At least they were seemingly human.

In spite of the situation Harry smirked, when he saw what effect he had on horses once more. Some of the riders were beginning to have trouble controlling their mounts properly. One was thrown off his horse and almost trampled as the creature bolted, which did nothing to calm those left behind. 'One down a whole lot still to go.'

Deciding to use the mounts' fear to his advantage, Harry started acting his part of a predator, running towards the now uncontrollable horses, showing off his needle-like fangs and narrowed red eyes boring into his mock prey, while snarling like his House's mascot. He had to bite back the laughter rippling up inside him, as the first of the previously fearsome-looking horsemen turned tail and ran after their fleeing mounts or a few of those still on their horses' back stopped resisting the more intelligent half of their partnership and let it take its course, terror plain in their eyes.

Others didn't show any signs of falling off or fleeing any time soon though. Harry singled out the one that had not wavered from his course in the slightest, sitting on his gorgeous white horse in an armour far more intricate and beautiful than his friends'. 'The guy deserves some praise for his and his horse's bravery,' Harry decided.

The wizard knew it would be very painful, but he halted, only having a second to question his thinking and didn't step out of the way of the running horse, simply being galloped over and immeadiately darkness overcame him.

He had never anticipated the pain he woke up in.

He hurt all over, but he was not dead and the riders' didn't know that. This was another advantage to not breathing or having a heartbeat. There was no real way to tell the difference.

A negative side to his plan was his location though. He had been buried. Panic settled in and he kicked and trashed.'Or rather covered with ten centimetres of dirt', Harry thought dumbfounded, as he looked around realising he had already freed himself from the thin layer of earth, previously covering him. He still seemed to be in roughly the same place he had been trampled over in, as the view of the city seemed to be the same.

Fortunately it was night and the people in the city would have a harder time spotting him now. He decided to take his leave, before this advantage left with the darkness, although now that his robes were a dusty brown, instead of it's usual black, he probably wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb any more, he noted annoyedly.

He took off at high-speed, noting approvingly, that apart from the stiffness and pain in his bones, which indicated he had broken and mended a lot of them, he didn't feel any difference to earlier this morning. He wondered how he had been able to store all this blood he had taken from the horse, but shook his head at the stupidity of trying to make sense of a corpse, who could still walk and talk by drinking blood. 'A century in the Wizarding World and I still think like a muggle...'

Harry couldn't help but let his head hang realising that he had just found another place he should avoid in this world. He could only hope he would find people worth his trust soon, because he didn't want to become like the monsters he exterminated in his world. He feared he was on his best way there.