Well, I'm not dead. Still working on this, a little bit at a time. Eventually, this is meant to cover the entire LotR trilogy, so there's a long way to go. Settle in and get comfortable. This chapter covers a lot of time at once, and the next one will, as well. But then the one after it will actually get into the canon plot, and things will start to heat up.

For now, enjoy!

Hendgelin

Mourning

Their family was happy for the next two years. Gelin's accidental magic didn't get too out of hand because he was happy and healthy, with no threats to use his magic against. He did manage to knock himself into the creek one morning, and automatically cast a Bubblehead Charm, but the bubble covered his whole body, and it took him three hours to get out of the creek. But that was really the worst of it. Both he and Frodo did well with their lessons, and all seemed right in the world.

But then their world broke apart.

It was a sunny day in May; Frodo and Gelin were playing on the hills over their Hobbit hole with Samwise Gamgee while his Gaffer supervised from the garden. Their parents were off for a romantic picnic, including a boating excursion, and they wouldn't be back until the next day. Gelin was showing Sam and Frodo how he carved a toy rabbit from a small log of maple, when Uncle Bilbo came up the hill.

Frodo and Sam knew something was wrong, because he had been crying. But Gelin recognized the look on his face, having much more familiarity with it. It was the look of someone who had to inform a child that their parents weren't coming home. He'd worn that look himself. His eyes welled up, and he yelled, "No! You're wrong! They're just lost or something!"

"What's going on?" said Frodo, his eyes gone wide with fear.

Bilbo took a shuddering breath, and said, "Your parents-there was an accident with their boat. They-I saw them myself, Gelin. I wish I could tell you boys something different."

Soon, the brothers were a quivering ball of tears as they clung to each other for support. Sam and Bilbo embraced them as well, trying to support the boys through this initial shock. Soon, though, Gelin's magic reacted to his state of mind. The carving in his hand was green wood, and it started sprouting branches. Realizing he couldn't stop it, he broke away from everyone and ran, trying to find a place to put it.

There! Just down the road from Bag End, which was Uncle Bilbo's Hobbit hole, there was a bare spot where three roads crossed each other, a triangle where nothing grew. He sat the newly-growing tree down, and it began thrusting its roots into the earth. Gelin knew what the tree was doing, and he let an image sit in the front of his mind while the spell drained off all his excess magical energy. When it was done Gelin was completely exhausted, physically, emotionally and magically, and he passed out.

Bilbo and Frodo found him there at the base of the new tree, unconscious. It had grown thirty feet tall, with wide, comforting branches, and it had grown as if carved into a sculpture of their family. Frodo and Gelin were in the front, with Drogo and Primula standing behind them, each with an arm around the other. It had limbs perfect for climbing, and there was a good place for a tree house to be built as well. It was beautiful.

Frodo touched the sculpture. The new maple tree was a living memorial, and the faces were so real! Fresh tears gathered in his eyes, and he looked down at his brother's still form. They were the same size right now, even though Gelin would soon get much bigger. And their parents wouldn't be there to see it. With a very shaky breath, Frodo sat down next to him, and Bilbo pulled him up into his lap.

They just sat that way for a while. Then Bilbo started talking. "You know, it's easy to forget how young Gelin really is. He has all this history behind him, and the power to make things like this happen, and he's so big for his age because he's a child of men and not a Hobbit. But he's still just a boy, three years younger than you, and losing your parents is hard, no matter how old you are. He's really going to need your help, even if he tries to focus on helping you."

Frodo nodded, and tearfully said, "I won't forget, Uncle. He's my little brother, and he'll always be my little brother, no matter how big he gets."

Soon they were taken to Primula's relatives in Buckland, and Gelin was understandably wary of them at first. After all, he'd not been lucky with relatives in his first life, and it was hard to withhold judgement when you were grieving. This was made worse by his lack of control over his accidental magic, and he and Frodo had a time trying to keep his talents secret from said relatives. But they both agreed it was best not to allow knowledge of Gelin's abilities to spread, and so did their utmost to hide them from the rest of the world.

Eventually, as Gelin's emotions leveled out, holding on to his magic came easier, and Gandalf started bringing him possible wand cores. At first, he brought various stones, but none sang to him. Then he tried feathers, since Harry Potter's wand'd had a feather core, but even the feather of a Great Eagle did not work. Leaves of the Malorne trees and tail hairs from Mearas were close, and he could have made a wand from them, but they weren't quite right, and he didn't want a wand that wasn't perfect for him. Finally Gandalf brought him three hairs given by Lord Elrond of Rivendell, and when they fell into his hand, Gelin knew he had his wand core.

On his eleventh birthday, he asked Frodo to follow him into the woods around Buckland, and they found a holly tree. "What are we doing, Gelin?"

"I'm building a wand. Once I get it done, I'll have a focus, and I won't be accidentally turning anyone else's hair green."

Frodo grinned. That day had been fun. When Frodo had woken with green hair that morn, they had raced to the river's edge and started a mud fight, covering themselves in muck to hide the color and making it look like a natural children's game. Eventually the green had faded, but they'd kept throwing mud just for the fun of it. Kurbity Ashwod had come to see what they were up to and ended up getting a face full of it, then joining them in making more of a mess. Their guardians tried to look stern, but not a one of them wasn't secretly grinning when they thought no one was looking at the sight of the three boys covered in mud.

Gelin took a fairly straight branch off the tree, and with Frodo's help, he braided the elf hairs together into a thin, strong cord. Then he wound that cord around the branch, spiraling from the thin end to the end that had been attached to the tree.

Frodo said, "Now what?"

But rather than answering him, Gelin started pouring his magic into the nacent wand, and it responded, glowing as the hairs sunk into the wood. Then the wood began to take shape, the grip carved in intricate knot designs, and the shaft long and straight. Though he had never learned the language, in that moment, steeped in the magic of making, he said, "Hendgelin, galad o Arda, istaradan." The words sank into the shaft as Elvish runes, and upon completion, the wand emitted red and gold sparks into the air, choosing its maker to wield it.

The light faded and Gelin staggered. Frodo grabbed him to keep him from falling. "Is there ever going to come a time when working great magic doesn't cause you to nearly pass out?"

Gelin grinned at him as he helped him to his bed. "Yeah. Now that I have a propper wand, I'll be able to control my magic a lot better. I'll have to thank Lord Elrond some day."

"You think you'll really go to visit the elves?"

"Someday, I think we both will." A tremor of prescience shimmered down his spine. Someone had once told him that divination seemed very woolly, but the truth of the matter was he'd always had a talent for it, and Gandalf had mentioned that Lord Elrond had the sight. The feel of a coming storm had been pestering him for years, but the moment he'd finished his wand that feeling had intensified. But at the same time, it was more focused, and he knew that there was time. He would be a man when the storm broke, and he would be a wizard of his kind at full power.

"Gelin?"

Frodo was looking at him with concern, and he realized he had gotten lost in that feeling of the future. He let it fade away and grinned. "Come on. It's my birthday, and I want to make it a special one."

Every child who came to Gelin's birthday party got a carved toy, just as always, but this time the carvings were of special beauty and intricacy. He had found in himself an artistic bent, and a talent for transfiguration that meshed with that creativity beautifully. They were still toys, but they were also art.

Gelin began to practice his craft in earnest the next day. He and Frodo went into the forest and began building a workshop of sorts. To the ignorant eye, it looked like a play house built by two young boys, but inside it began to take on a different shape as time passed by. They put in two desks with comfortable chairs and Gelin began to write down his knowledge, writing it in English so that it would be illegible to anyone he had yet encountered. Hobbits spoke a language called Westron, and according to Uncle Bilbo, it was the most common language among the younger races, so common it was a trade language over most of the continent. Writing in English would protect the knowledge from ill hands.

Nor was writing the only thing he did. He began learning his spells again, beginning from the beginning once again and learning how things were different on Arda now that he could more accurately sense and control his magic. He also learned his lessons with Frodo, and from Master Brandybuck he learned how to hunt and fish. He had become that one thing that Harry Potter had never been allowed to become: a well-rounded person.

He had even decided on a career, choosing to become an artisan. On his twelfth birthday, he presented himself to Matin Took, a local carpenter, and asked to learn the craft of making furniture. It proved to be a fine skill for Gelin, one he excelled in and enjoyed. It wasn't but a couple of years, and he had made his first sale, a beautiful chair that was carved with an intricate leafy vine so that the chair almost looked as though it had been grown. The feet of the chair even had roots, because he had, indeed, grown the chair from four acorns that he magically sprouted and caused to twist into their final design.

Gelin tried to forget that feeling of future unrest. It was a long way off, perhaps coming only when he was an old man. But he knew, deep down, that no matter when it came, that storm was going to envelope him. It was very hard to imagine this peaceful world embroiled in that kind of conflict, the kind that had killed Harry Potter and his family. But every time he thought about it, Gelin turned toward the east, and he knew that it was Mordor that was triggering his gift. He just had to make sure that he was ready when the storm broke.

Frodo was twenty-one years old when Bilbo came and declared him to be his official heir, partly because he thought Frodo would do well with him and partly to keep the Sackville Bagginses away from Bagend.

"Gelin, what's wrong?"

Gelin sighed and looked down at his brother. "Frodo, I can't come with you. I think the time has come for me to leave the Shire, strike out on my own a bit."

Frodo wanted to be shocked at this, but truthfully he had seen it coming. "Why aren't you content with us? I know something has been bothering for years, but you'll never tell me what it is."

"Did you know that men younger than I are considered soldiers? That in Gondor they stand on the lines against the darkness awakening in the east? And I have yet to leave the boundaries of this, my childhood home. For all that I love them, and that you are my family, I am not a Hobbit. It's time I made my own living, seek out others of the race of men. Perhaps even time to start a family of my own if I can find a woman willing to have me."

Frodo smiled a little. "I doubt you'll have problems making a living with your skills in wood, nor with finding a lady for a wife." His face clouded again. "But this darkness in the east? Why is that any of your concern? Surely you're not going off to fight for Gondor?"

"No. But one day the darkness will come against us, and when it does, it should meet a man, an Istaradan, and not a coddled child." He looked Frodo in the eye. "Make no mistake, my brother. We will both of us be involved in the next fight against the darkness."