Whom Thou Namest Friend, Part One by ElrondsScribe

Chapter 3: How To Overturn an Established Order

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.

The weeks that followed were very busy for Pengolodh.

He kept in touch with both the Hollowells and with the other Ingolmor, who were of course only just beginning to form their ideas about the logistics of this new curriculum. He gave the college where he had been an instructor notice that he was leaving, and began to consider what he might charge Richard for tutoring. He had to in large part figure out for himself what he would teach and how he would teach it, as he was the first to have found a child to instruct.

True to his word, he got straight to work. He gave the college where he taught notice that he was leaving, and that weekend was back at Lauretta Hollowell's house. That day he outlined the beginnings of his plans for Elijah.

Both parents took some convincing. "You're planning to come to the house every day, six days a week, to play with Elijah?" asked Richard incredulously.

"I certainly am," said Pengolodh. "And you are going to play with him too. You will play him music, sing to him, read aloud to him, tell him stories, and play games with him. With both the children, really."

And because he was the first person who was actually helping them understand their freak children, they did exactly as he said - Lauretta, predictably, being rather more involved than her husband because she was home with the children more. Pengolodh really had to hand it to the woman; she was taking everything in stride much more readily than he had expected her to.

Some of the "games" Pengolodh played with Elijah were counting and letter games, as the Elf wanted the boy to be very familiar with numbers and letters by the time he began with real reading and counting the next year.

Some of the games were designed to help the little boy gain subconscious control over his magic. For example, Pengolodh would sit on the floor with Elijah in his lap, with a desired toy or snack sitting a few feet away, and challenge him to get it without moving. Or, he might get the boy to pick a handful of grass and try to turn it different colors with a thought. Sometimes he would even throw Elijah into the air, knowing he could fly, and dare him not to come down again. (These kinds of games made Lauretta very nervous; but she bit her tongue and consoled herself with the knowledge that the strange man with the long black braids never allowed her son to come to actual harm.)

And sometimes Pengolodh would sit and sing to Elijah in an Elvish tongue or tell him stories of Arda Marred of old - to the whole family really, as Lauretta would sit in with the baby whenever she could, and Richard, if he was home, usually found a way to stop whatever he was doing and listen. Every so often, one or other of the parents would shoot the Elf a questioning look; but they would not ask their questions aloud, and the Elf did not address them. All in good time, he said to himself. They will ask me when they trust me more, and then I will speak the truth, but not before.

Just when Lauretta was starting to worry that her children would have no friends, Pengolodh got word from Findis of a little girl about Elijah's age named Rosie Saunders, an only child who lived in Pittsburgh. Her parents had been at their wits' end; little Rosie liked to change her hair color and the shape of her nose to suit her mood, and lately she had begun turning random blades of grass into dandelions too. She was of course a Metamorphmagus, and thus from birth it had been evident that something was unusual about her.

The week after that, Valandur came across four-year-old David and Daniel Graham, two of three little boys being raised by their teenage mother and grandmother in a desperately poor district of Philadelphia's inner city. Darius, the youngest child, was a year younger than the twins, and he was not magical. This had caused him to become much more readily accepted by other people, and even his parents (mother and grandmother) favored him a little over the twins. That in turn had caused Dave and Danny to withdraw from the rest of the family into a tight, toxic little Gang of Two who used their unexplained powers to fend for themselves against their unfriendly surroundings. As a result, they had rather more control over their magic than is normal in children so young - much more than did Rosie Saunders or Elijah Hollowell. Valandur had indeed found them none too soon; the pair were becoming almost criminal.

Then there were the three Chase children, Heather and Hailey and Brian, whose extremely well-off suburban parents had like the Hollowells spent a great deal of time and money trying to ascertain what exactly was going on with their children, without success. Andreth the younger had a very hard time convincing them that their children's magic was something they ought to encourage and cultivate, rather than suppressing and punishing for. George and Angela Chase didn't want to have children with talents that would set them apart from 99% of humanity; they wanted children who would go to the best of preparatory schools and the best of Ivy League universities and after that have their own part of the family business, a chain of five-star hotels across the country. It took Andreth a lot of sweet-talking to convince them that the last goal at least would still be possible if they allowed her to take over their children's education.

And finally Faramir came across two-year-old Liam Wong, whose father Justin was so pleased at finding out there was a formal study of the odd things his little son could do that he promptly hired Faramir on the sport. Emma, the child's mother, was just as eager to begin at once, and would very much have liked to know the specifics of what lessons would look like if Faramir could have possibly told her. Faramir then called Pengolodh in a hurry for ideas, not that Pengolodh was much help. All Pengolodh had was ideas for games and stories, which of course was not sufficient for Faramir's needs. Liam could already recite the alphabet quite fluently, and count to twenty.

Altogether, there were only seven magical Muggle-born children in Pennsylvania who were not already enrolled at magical school, aside from Elijah and baby Deborah - not most people's idea of a healthy social circle, perhaps, but certainly better than nothing. Pengolodh arranged with Findis, Valandur, Andreth, and Faramir to have all the families meet one another during an upcoming holiday weekend, which was difficult to manage, as the Chases in particular had very busy schedules.

But in the meanwhile, the Ingolmor were in general very busy, for they were going all around the States in the search for Muggle-born children. There were three children (a brother and two sisters) in the country about fifty miles out from Chattanooga. There was a family with eight children in Alaska, all of whom were magical. There was a boy in Georgia who had been kicked out of his local preschool for inadvertently burning part of it down in a fit of rage.

Altogether, they only found about five hundred magical Muggle-born children (who were below middle school) in the whole of the country, and never more than fifteen in any given state. There were only nine in Pennsylvania where Pengolodh was. Oddly enough, it was the state of Maine which had the fewest magical Muggle-born children: only five total from three families.

The parents of the young wizards and witches were not all quite as readily accepting of their children's magical powers as the Hollowells had been. In fact, two families were so angered and afraid that they actually put their children out of their homes. Many other parents told the visitor who had informed them of their children's magic to leave and never return, on threat of calling the police. But for the most part, parents remained somewhat nervous and skeptical but also able to entertain a willing suspension of disbelief. There aren't many lengths to which most parents will not go for their children's benefit.

The children who were in foster care, as well as those who were being abused or neglected, had to be rescued and adopted at once. A few people ended up in prison by the time all was said and done that summer.

The Ingolmor then had to petition the magical government for permission to "cover for" the children's underage magic until they came of age, mainly so that they were allowed to handle any magical accidents themselves without government interference. After much debate and deliberation, they got permission - on the condition that if any of the children covered by the Ingolmor compromised the safety of the magical community in any way, the Ingolmor were to be held legally responsible and expected to "deal with any problems", whatever that might mean, without official assistance.

They also had to make sure that everyone who was going to do the actual tutoring all had valid Muggle state licenses to tutor or teach in their respective states. This of course was done to ensure that the Muggle state law would let the children alone as well; and it was much easier than dealing with the magical government.

And after that came the question of money. A number of the Muggle-born children were from affluent or comfortably middle-class families (like the Hollowells and the Chases); but some of them were from broken, desperately poor homes whose parents (if they were alive) had all they could do to keep the lights on and food in the children's mouths at the same time, or whose fathers or elder brothers were gang members and drug dealers. Of course, these families could hardly manage things like wands and books and magical supplies. It became plain that in addition to permission to do this work, they would need significant funding.

Now the Ingolmor (about two-thirds of whom were Elves) were not for the most part independently wealthy, but a few of them were (most of them Noldor, as you can imagine). They insisted on funding everything from the poorer children's wands and books to the "salaries" for the tutors, which was good news for those who had found children to teach, as they all had to put their day jobs or businesses on the back burner to give their young charges the necessary time and energy. The wealthier parents were asked to chip in as well, and they were not particularly happy about it. But after a lot of persuasion and sweet-talking (on the part of Elrond, Finrod, Curufin, Olwe, and Arwen for the most part), the money was gathered and the project officially began.

All this in the course of one summer.

Chapter End Notes

*Ingolmor - improved version of Nolmengolmor.

I don't know how the magical educational system works in America yet, and probably won't find out until that Newt Scamander movie comes out. For the purposes of this story I have the American system function like the English one, where they track magical births and then send the kids their school invites the summer before secondary school, or in my case, before US middle school (which incidentally starts about the same year that secondary school begins in the UK). This means that none of the children the Ingolmor are going to tutor will be any older than fifth grade (age ten if you don't repeat a year), as most US middle schools start at sixth grade (at least in the '80s).

Valandur is another OC who is not mine. He belongs to Fiondil (used without his express permission, but I can hardly ask him now and I don't think he'd mind too much), and he is Findis' husband. He's Vanyarin and he's pretty cool. But you should read some of Fiondil's stories to learn more about him. You should read some of Fiondil's stories anyway, even though he's died. They're just that good. Most of them are on a website called Stories of Arda, but a couple of them are on FFN.

About the numbers: I have seen all kinds of contradictory estimates, some of them given by J. K. Rowling herself, on just how many wizards there are in Britain, and by implication, the world. Now I would like to refer anyone who's interested to the writings of Whitehound, a fanfiction author with a very serious understanding of the cultural background of 1990s (and 1960s and 70s) Britain and how it influences the Harry Potter books (she is also, thank heavens, much better at math than JK). She theorizes that in Britain the wizarding population is something like a little more than ten thousand, which would put the Muggle to wizard ratio at something like 5,566 to 1. If that ratio is the same worldwide, then that puts 1980 US magical population at between 40,000 and 41,000. Now if about ten percent of that number are under the legal adult age (that is, age seventeen), that's about 4,000 kids. I've decided to make about an eighth of those children Muggle-born and under sixth grade, which is how I got 500 elementary school age kids in the US.