I was going to submit this as one story, but after seeing it was over 4,000 words long, I decided to split in half: Part 1 is Chapter 1, and Part 2...you get the idea.
One small note; this is quite canon, with a bit of dialogue acutally taken from FOTR, Book 1, A Shortcut to Mushrooms. The story in-between is my wild imagination running amuk again. I hope you enjoy this...