Lord of The Rings: The Return of The Dark Lord

The Beginning of The End

Hogsmeade, The Shire

Six Months Previous

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When Minerva Baggins of Bag End announced that she would shortly be celebrating her eleventy-first birthday with a party of such magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hogsmeade.

Minerva was a well off hobbit with riches that far surpassed any other resident in Hogsmeade. The Baggins family had always been more fortunate than others with their ownership of Bag-End, a much larger hobbit hole than the rest of the villagers were accustomed to. Though the fortune that the villagers spoke of was not from the family, no, the fortune they spoke of was that which she acquired from her long absence and mysterious return some 60 years previous.

It had long been rumoured that there were tunnels beneath the hill at Bag End, stuffed to the brim with treasures from wherever Minerva had gone in her absence. Another rather peculiar thing the villagers of Hogsmeade had come to notice was the seemingly youthful hue Minerva continued to have, even well into her 90's. Many of the people shook their heads in envy, watching on as the woman contained both unchanging looks at 99 as if she were 50, to the seemingly inexhaustible wealth that she owned. Though once she started to distribute some of said wealth the neighboring hobbits began not to mind as much.

However, though the villagers were all kind to Minerva (for the most part) she did not find herself worried over whether they accepted her or not. No, she was fine on her own; or rather, she was. That was before she met the one hobbit that would change her existence for the better. The young thing that came into her life rather unexpected but proved that surprises in life truly are some of the most magical things.

Hermione Granger-Baggins came to Hogsmeade when she was a young thing; not more than eleven or twelve at the time. The girl had lost her parents in a boating accident that same year. Tragic, truly. She was set to move in with the Umbucks of Umbridge (Wendell Baggin's side of the family) but when Minerva heard that that was where the child, (her brother's daughter) was to go, she couldn't let that happen. For the Umbuck-Bagginses company was something she would not wish upon even her worst enemy.

What started out as a charity case quickly turned into something else all together. For the young Granger-Baggins girl had grown on the woman. Hermione had a thirst for knowledge that could only be rivaled by Minerva's own. Knowledge was something greatly celebrated in Bag End, and it was the perfect environment to grow up in.

The two hobbit women had another thing in common, perhaps one that proved just how right they were for each other; for they both shared the same birthday. Each year they had found themselves falling into the same routine of throwing lavish parties to celebrate the coming year together. This birthday however would be even more special. This party would not just be a celebration for a hobbit reaching their eleventy-first birthday, this would also be a party to celebrate a young lady hobbit's coming of age, for Hermione would finally be thirty-three, leaving behind the troublesome twenties affectionately dubbed "tweens".

Sitting perched on a high bench leaning over her desk, Minerva flipped through the now filled parchment that lay bound in it's leather casing. The story she had struggled with for so long, the story that demanded to be written was finally complete.

The crinkled edges of the pages folded beneath her fingers with each turn. The book held within its leather binding the true reason she had disappeared all those years ago. The reason she had gone on a rather unexpected journey (with a group of beings that were the true definition of misfits) only to return months later to her fellow gentlehobbits who acted as if the atrocious acts and senseless death of those she had grown to view as her friends she had endured while away never happened.