Harry Potter Morgendorffer FF Part Five
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.
What if Minerva McGonagall had been able to persuade Professor McGonagall to place baby Harry Potter with different blood relatives instead of with Petunia Dursley and her husband: the Morgendorffers from MTV's Daria?
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I don't have either," said Helen. "We do have a telephone and I've recently gotten an e-mail account set up. Can you get these MACUSA people to use either one of them?"
"I don't know," said Minerva. "We can set up another meeting tomorrow, if that's convenient."
Helen thought about her schedule. "I'd be willing to talk again tomorrow, but I'm not sure we can do much business. It's a weekend, and I suspect that this MACUSA takes the weekend off like everybody else."
Helen Morgendorffer's comment made Minerva pause. She'd not done kept track of the days of the week while she was here in Texas. Lily's great-aunt was probably right. The weekend was just about upon them, and they probably wouldn't be able to get more business done until Monday.
"Perhaps you could bring Harry by and he could visit," said Helen. "I'm sure that Daria would enjoy his company."
Minerva gave her a nod of approval and a smile. Helen had a good idea. She could almost imagine Lily cheering on her older relative from the hereafter.
The witches and Baby Harry left a short time later. Helen thought over the visit and and the things she'd learned. Magic was real (at least some of it), there really were witches and probably wizards. Her father had had another, older daughter, and that daughter had had daughters of her own. Young Harry was her great-grandnephew, at least assuming that all of this was true. Was it? Helen still wondered if this might be one bit giant scam effected for reasons unknown.
"Well, Jakey, what do you think?" said Helen.
"I think my mind's about as blown as yours is," said Jake. "I do like the baby. He seems to be a nice kid and I wouldn't mind taking him in."
"Helen, what worries me is that this is a little too much like a fairy tale," said Jake. "I'm not sure this is a happy ending. I think there's a hook somewhere that nobody's telling us about."
"I'm thinking the same thing," said Helen.
Helen hoped this was real. It would hurt if the old woman and her sidekick were using little Harry to play on their emotions to work some sort of scam. Helen hated con artists. One of her internships for a legal clinic a couple of summers ago was to help some older and poorer residents sue a fraudster who'd posed as an insurance agent. The fraudster had handed her clients paperwork, which they'd dutifully filled out, then arranged for them to make payments on their non-existent insurance policies. When the time came that these "clients" to make insurance claims, it was only then that they'd learned that they'd been duped, that they had no insurance policies, and that they wouldn't get paid.
Minerva McGonagall and Della Braden brought Harry by the next morning while Helen and Jake did chores. Minerva didn't stay long; at Della's suggestion, she left Della and Baby Harry with the Morgendorffers and went off to do some belated sight-seeing. Della was pleased to see that little Daria and Harry decided that they could deal with each other.
Della, Jake, and Helen were able to make some small talk and some not-so-small talk. Della came supplied with some addresses and telephone numbers for MACUSA officialdom. Helen learned that MACUSA had an office in downtown Austin, an office that by serendipity was located three blocks from where she worked.
Professor McGonagall came by with little Harry the following day, which was a Sunday.
The following morning, Helen told her boss that she had to take an extended lunch break to take care of some personal matters and set out to find the MACUSA offices. The building was a seven-story Art Deco-style building that must have been impressive back in the days when Austin was a growing college town whose main industries were the university and the state government, but looked small and dowdy compared to the newer high-rise buildings that had sprouted in the decades since then. Once upon a time it had been the headquarters for a local newspaper, and still had its publisher's statement of purpose inscribed in stone next to the entrance. The paper must have ceased publishing decades ago; Helen had never heard of it.
She wondered if such a dowdy old building could still be occupied or even unlocked. She walked up to the entrance and pressed her hand against it; the door was unlocked. She entered the lobby; it looked very much like an older office building that had lost renters as it aged and had fewer amenities to attract new renters as newer buildings. Still, there were little details did not quite add up, thought Helen. Why would this shabby old building still have a desk with a pair of security guards?
She walked up to the front desk and told the senior guard that she had an appointment to discuss an adoption. The security guard handed her a laminated card he said was a pass and pointed her over to the second door on the right, and everything changed when she cleared the doorway.
The interior was brightly-lit and as bustling as any bank lobby or busier lobbies of Austin's newer, taller high-rises. The contrast was that many people here were dressed in either floor-length dresses or exaggerated men's coats, vests, and trousers that looked like something copied from history books. There was what looked like a second receptionist's desk in front of her.
She looked at her blouse, jacket, and skirt. It was proper business attire at work, as well as respectable on the streets of downtown Austin, but she felt very much out-of-place here.
I doubt anybody is going to comment about my clothing while I'm here, she thought.
She was watching the fashion parade when a woman suddenly called to her. "Helen? Helen Morgendorffer? What are you doing here?"
It was Jillian, a woman that Helen recognized from her days at the commune. Jillian lived on one of the other Iowa communes, and Helen hadn't seen her since she and Jake had reluctantly pulled up stakes and left. Jillian was dressed in a dress that looked something like a cross between a long-skirted women's hippie dress and something from the Victorian era.
"I didn't know you were a witch," said Jillian. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I'm not," said Helen.
"You're not?" said Jillian. "But you're in here."
"I'm here on business," said Helen. "I'm adopting. I just learned that I've got a grand-nephew I know nothing about and the authorities want to place him with family, whether they're magical or not."
"Oh," said Jillian. She was disappointed. Was Helen one of those no-maj-born witches who couldn't find a place in the wizarding world, then rejoined the no-maj world? She hadn't thought that Helen was the type. A memory came up. She remembered that there'd been some sort of dust-up at the commune where Helen had been living. She'd forgotten the specifics of the quarrel, but Helen Morgendorffer had been the leader of one of her commune's factions. Helen clearly wasn't a shrinking violet.
"So like do you have any experience at being a Mom?" asked Jillian. "Is this going to be your first—"
"No, I already have a daughter," said Helen. "My daughter Daria is about the same age as the nephew I'd be taking in."
"No kidding!" said Jillian. "How old is she?"
"Daria is a year and eight months old," said Helen.
"I'm glad to know you're in town! Let's keep in touch!" said Jillian. "See you around!"
"Mrs. Morgendorffer?" said the receptionist.
"Yes," said Helen.
"Could you state your business here?" ask the receptionist.
"I'm here to see about where I should go to handle a legal adoption," said Helen. "I work nearby, I learned that this office building was close, and I'm using my lunch break to scout it out."
"Adoptions are overseen on the sixth floor," she said. "There's a waiting area on the fifth floor. Thank you for stopping by the MACUSA offices for Texas and the South Central Region and have a nice day," finishing with a saccharine smile.
Helen found the elevator with little help. To her bemusement, the MACUSA building's elevators had live operators. They weren't humans, at least as far as Helen could tell. They were short, light-skinned beings with big eyes and large pointed ears.
She rode the elevator up to the sixth floor, walked up to one of the secretaries sitting in front of several offices, and confirmed that what the downstairs receptionist said was accurate. She hoped to being moving the adoption process forward beginning right then and there, but learned that the official she had to talk to was out that day. She made an appointment for the next day and, having done so, she took another elevator back downstairs, left the building and went back to work.