Harry Potter Morgendorffer FF Part Two
Daria is the creation of Glenn Eichler and is the property of MTV Viacom. Harry Potter is the creation of JK Rowling and is the property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers. I own neither, and neither expect nor deserve financial compensation for this story. I am writing for my own amusement and for ego gratification.
Molly Weasley had been crushed by the news about the Potters. Nevertheless, that Prewett part of her that allowed her to survive the devastation of her own family was still strong enough to agree to take in Harry for a few days. She supported Minerva's decision to place Harry with someone other than the Dursleys. Despite the fact that she hadn't met either Petunia or Vernon Dursley, she knew enough of Lily's wishes to know that Lily would not have wanted to place Baby Harry with her older sister.
Minerva McGonagall's contacts soon turned up leads as to the identity of Allen Barksdale and where his family resided. Kenneth Spaeth, a Ravenclaw she'd fondly remembered, assisted her search; he had gone to ground in the Muggle world rather than openly defy Lord Voldemort. Kenneth had had the natural curiosity of a Ravenclaw, and Minerva was not surprised to learn that he was working as an investigator for a Muggle detective agency. Despite his withdrawal from the wizarding world, however, he was willing to quietly do favors for his old transfiguration teacher. Using both Muggle and magical means, he was able to confirm the identity of Allen Barksdale and discover his last known whereabouts.
Kenneth Speath sent his report to his old Transfiguration professor by a trusted courier. Professor McGonagall learned that Allen Barksdale had two siblings: an older brother, a bomber pilot who had perished in the Pacific during the Second Great Muggle War, and an older sister. After Allen Barksdale had returned from Europe in the mid-1940's, he married a Lillian Heath. He had since died of a stroke, but not before he and his wife Lilian had had three daughters: Rita, Helen, and Amy. Professor McGonagall chose to approach Allen Barksdale's widow first. She worried that Mrs. Barksdale might have died or become incapacitated herself; Muggles so often died of ailments that wizarding healing could have cured. Taking an unscheduled leave of absence from her teaching duties and from her duties as head of Gryffindor House and deputy headmistress of Hogwarts, Minerva packed a checked suitcase and a large carry-on bag filled with scroll-work, Minerva took a red-eye flight across the Atlantic aboard a Muggle airliner.
She did not travel alone. Her companion was Della Braden, one of Alice Longbottom's cousins. Della, unlike her cousin Alice, did not have the courage to openly defy Voldemort and the Death Eaters during the Wizarding War. Instead, she had argued that she would best serve the cause by remaining in the background and providing supplies and, when needed, hiding places and healing for Order members. What with the Dark Lord now defeated and his Death Eaters captured, killed, or in hiding, Della felt safe enough to assist Minerva's search as a sort of amend for failing to protect her cousin from the death eater attack that drove her cousin and Frank Longbottom into madness. Despite the fact that she herself had married within the wizarding community , Della had some faculty with Muggle travel, money, and technologies, thanks to instruction by a Muggle brother-in-law.
Despite her limited North American contacts, Minerva McGonagall was able to draw on the resources of Ilvermorny, the principal magical school for the eastern United States and eastern Canada. Making use of Ilvermorny's alumni network, Minerva was able to find a place to stay near Richmond, which she and Della used to establish a base of operations for her search. Minerva didn't tell her Ilvermorny alumna hostess the whole truth, that she was trying to place Harry Potter with blood relatives; instead, she said that she was trying to place the baby of Wizarding War-casualties with family as a final favor to old family friends.
Minerva was relieved to learn that Lillian Heath Barksdale was still alive and in good health. Surprisingly, Lillian Barksdale was aware that the wizarding world existed, even if she was woefully under-informed as to the details. She did, however, inform Professor McGonagall that she wasn't interested in raising another child. Mrs. Barksdale suggested that the Professor should canvass her three daughters to see if they might be willing to take on another infant.
Minerva's setback and her continuing grief over the loss of the Potters and so many others cause Minerva to spend the next day or so in a state of depression. Despite Professor Dumbledore's reassurances, she worried that the Barksdale daughters' ties of blood would be too weak to allow the protections while trying to contact Allen and Lillian Barksdales' children. The first Barksdale daughter Minerva was able to contact was Amy Barksdale, who told her that while she appreciated the honor, she was still unmarried and not yet ready to adopt and raise a child.
The second Barksdale daughter was Rita. Rita was married, had a daughter of her own, but balked at adopting another child, even with the stipend that the Potters had provided in their final instructions. Minerva was less than sanguine about finding a suitable adoptive parent among Alden Barksdale's older sister's family; she worried that Baby Harry might yet have to go live with the Weasleys. She hoped and prayed that Helen Morgendorffer, the middle Barksdale daughter, might make a suitable adoptive mother for Baby Harry.
Austin, Texas November, 1981
Hyde Park neighborhood, underneath a parked Chevrolet Silverado pick-up truck
Professor McGonagall had been running the stake-out at the Morgendorffers' rented house. She had thought that observing Lily's American relatives would be no more dangerous than surveilling the Dursleys in Surrey. She was quickly disabused of that notion. Despite being well within the city's boundaries, there were not only dogs, but several different species of wild creatures with scant regard or tolerance for cats, even transfigured cats like she was. She quickly learned that raccoons were more than willing to bully the incautious feline that impinged on their territory or presumed to eat or drink pet food or water they desired for themselves. Minerva scarcely escaped being attacked by another creature with a long snout and long pink tail that she devoutly hoped wasn't a rodent. There were also several species of snake that made their appearance at odd moments, and she wasn't too sure which were poisonous and which ones weren't. She didn't see them but she certainly smelled with her cat's senses a horrid smell that she feared must be some variety or other of skunk.
Still, her stake-out, mostly conducted from underneath a neighbor's parked automobile, had produced results. Helen Morgendorffer did exist, and she was indeed married to Jake Morgendorffer. The Morgendorffers had a child of their own, a one and a half year-old named Daria. There was also a strong family resemblance; Helen's hair was the same shade of auburn as Lily's, and her face looked far, far more like poor Lily's than did Petunia Dursley's. The resemblance was even stronger in little Daria's case; she not only shared the same hair color and complexion, but also Lily's green eye-color.
But if Minerva was satisfied with the physical resemblance between Helen Morgendorffer and poor Lily, she was concerned with the Morgendorffers' emotional stability. The father was definitely a bit tetched, and Minerva was concerned that Helen might be letting her work distract her from child-raising. Still, Minerva could tell that they loved and cared for their eldest daughter, Helen was blood-kin, and somehow Professor McGonagall knew that little Harry would fare far better with these people than he would with Lily's horrid sister and her horrible husband.
Alive, but feeling that she'd had multiple hair's-breadth escapes from serious injury or worse at the hands of suburban Texas wildlife, not to mention Muggle automobile traffic, she retired at the end of her shift to her hotel room. She poured herself a stiff drink, and sat down holding the whiskey glass and trying to steady her nerves.
"Rough day?" asked Della. Della was waiting for her in the hotel room. Della had spent most of the day minding little Harry and in conversation with officials from MACUSA about the legal ins and outs of placing a British Wizarding War orphan with an American family. Thus far, Della's conversations with American officialdom had concerned general adoption question; she hadn't had to mention that the baby in question was THE Harry Potter, the Boy That Lived. For that matter, she and Minerva didn't want to mention that the baby she was minding was THE Harry Potter, at least not until Minerva was satisfied that the Morgendorffers would make tolerable adoptive parents.
"Aye," said Minerva, stressed emough by a final confrontation between a calico tom cat under another parked automobile on one side of her post and a threat by a large wild creature with a long pink tail on the other, that her childhood Scots idiom reappeared. "It wasn't the neighbors so much as the wildlife. I knew about cats and dogs before I left Britain, of course. I also had heard of raccoons, but I thought those were only found out in the country. But these parts not only have those, but also creatures that look like overgrown rats with even pointier snouts."
"I think those are called opossums," said Della. "They're not rodents. They're actually marsupials, like kangaroos."
"What are they doing here?" asked Minerva.
"Obviously they've adapted to city life," replied Della. "Aside from the animals, how did your observation of the Muggles go?"
"The da is a bit tetched," said Minerva. "I overheard him ranting about his own father several times. I think that the mother doesn't pay enough attention to her children. I fear that she neglects her child in favor of her work. If she doesn't mend her ways, I fear that she could well become what the Americans call a work-aholic."
"Well, do you think we should place little Harry with these Morgendorffers?" asked Della.
"In an ideal world, I'd say no," said Minerva. "I fear that the Morgendorffers are dottier than I'd hoped. But Albus insists that Harry's home would need magical protection, and that the protections would only work if the master or mistress of the home has close ties of blood with him. Helen Morgendorffer is Lily Potter's aunt. I don't see the Morgendorffers as being a good choice, but it may be the best choice available. And, for all the Morgendorffers' faults, l think that Baby Harry's chances for coming out of childhood as a happy and loved adult are better than they would be if I'd given in to Albus' wishes and placed him with Petunia Dursley."