Minerva waited until Remus had gone through reception and then approached the desk.

"Professor, how may I help you?"

"Good afternoon, Mr. Rafferty. I will be visiting the Department of Child and Family Services."

"Yes, ma'am, just a moment," the wizard said, quickly creating a badge he passed on to her. "Here are you. Have a wonderful day."

"You as well."

Once again she made her way through the ministry, this time to a department she had never before visited, had never needed to visit.

"Professor? Is that you?" asked a squinting wizard.

"Yes, Mr. Mitchell. I assume you have once again misplaced your spectacles," she commented with a smile. "They're on the top of your head, by the way."

The wizard's cheeks flamed as he chuckled, reached up, and slid them back down to rest on his nose. "What can I do for you?"

"I have a few questions that would best be answered by your department."

"Okay," he said slowly. "Please have a seat and ask away. I'll do my best to answer. I'd imagine, having worked here at the Ministry ,that you are aware this department normally has very little to do, but right now-"

"Right now, you are as busy as the rest of the Ministry in the aftermath of the war," she finished his sentence.

"Unfortunately, yes. There are quite a few children who were orphaned. They have all been placed, mostly with other family members. We still keep track of them. Someone from the department checks in at least once a month for the first six months, and then we check in at 9 months and a year after placement. After that, we simply make sure the support funds are issued as they're supposed to be."

"Well, that answers one of my questions already, or at least part of one. First, however, have any of the children been placed with Muggle or Squib relatives? I know that may seem a strange question," she said.

"It's not," he quickly responded. "We were fortunate in that all of the orphaned children had magical families they could be placed with. What other questions do you have?"

"If a child were placed with a Muggle family, how would you monitor their status and send the care payments?"

The wizard paused, turned, and began ruffling through a pile of parchment. "I apologize; I have personally never encountered that situation, but I'm sure we have in the past. The documentation of the rules for that situation should be right here."

"Alexander, those parchments were to be filed. Why are you creating a bigger mess of them?" asked an older witch as she entered from a back office. Then, noticing they had a visitor, she said, "I'm sorry, Minerva. I didn't see you there. Do you need assistance?"

"Madam Larkin," Alexander said. "Perhaps you can answer the professor's question. You know the history of our department better than I do."

Minerva spoke quickly before the other woman could work out that she had just very politely been called old. "Margaret, I do hope you can answer the question, though I don't know if it's something that's ever happened before or recently enough to be recorded."

"Well then, I'll do my best. Ask away."

"If a magical child were orphaned, and the only living relatives were Muggles, how would that be handled? I'm speaking specifically regarding monitoring the status of the child and care payments," Minerva clarified.

"That hasn't happened during my tenure, and I don't recall ever hearing of it happening, but I have to believe that it has occurred at some point," Margaret replied.

"Then could you tell me how you would handle the situation, please?"

"I would first want to make sure there were no wizarding families that would take the child, perhaps someone close to the parents. If that wasn't possible, I'd need to know if the Muggle family members were aware of the magical community. If they are, it would be much easier. We would place the child and conduct our normal check-ins. If not, well, I don't know. There is always the possibility that any child born into a magical family could be a Squib. I would recommend continuing the check-ins longer than usual to watch for accidental magic on the part of the child and then explaining it to the family."

Minerva nodded. "And the funds for those children? How does that work?"

"The child does inherit from their parents, but we prefer not to use their funds for the child's support. We would like the child to have that money when they come of age to help them start out in adult life. The ministry has a fund from which we draw support. In the case of a Muggle family, we'd have Gringotts issue Muggle money and deliver it to the family," Margaret said. "Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you aren't merely asking these questions out of curiosity. I'd assume there is a magical child you know of that has been placed with a Muggle family, but that it wasn't done through our office."

"Yes."

"Oh my," Margaret breathed. "Really? With Muggle relatives?"

"Yes."

"Wait," Alexander said. "I don't understand. I thought we knew of all of the orphaned children and had placed all of them. You're saying one of them slipped through the cracks and someone else placed the child."

"I wouldn't say, 'slipped through the cracks, '" Minerva responded. "Your office wasn't ever notified about this child."

"How on earth did that happen?" he asked.

Margaret shook her head. "Think about it, just think," she told him. "There should be only one child that comes to mind."

He pursed his lips, squinted, and cocked his head to the side. Both women watched as his eyes suddenly widened and his jaw dropped. "You mean?"

"Yes."

"Harry."

"Stop!" Minerva held up a hand. "He may yet come through your office, as I fully expect his godfather to challenge the custody placement. In the meantime, he was placed with his maternal aunt, his only living relative."

"Which is customary in both our world and the Muggle world, as I understand it," Madam Larkin commented.

"Wouldn't that be in cases where another guardian hasn't been designated by the parents?" Alexander asked.

"Yes," Margaret replied. "We always take that into account in our world, and I would think they do in the Muggle world as well. Both worlds have wills that should include guardianship papers."

"So, why hasn't he been placed with his guardian?"

Minerva sighed. "That's a rather long story that I'm not going to share right now. Suffice it to say, I do believe the guardian will be fighting for custody. In the meantime, the family could use extra funds to take care of the child, especially as they have another child of the same age. How do I go about doing that?"

"I'll get the paperwork; just a moment," Margaret said. "I assume you want to keep this quiet."

"That would be preferable."

Alexander considered and grimaced. "It would be bad enough if he were with a wizarding family and people found out, but Muggles… Yeah, that would be really bad."

"It was bad enough when everyone was celebrating. The owls and showers of sparks made the

Muggle news," Minerva told the other two, taking the parchment Margaret passed to her. "I understand the celebrations, but it was risky. I'm sure the Minister had some explaining to do to her Muggle counterpart. Now, do I need to do anything beyond filling out this paperwork?"

Margaret nodded. "If we want to keep this as quiet as possible. You fill it out. I'll notarize it with Alexander as a witness. We can send it to be saved at the highest level of secrecy. Then we need to arrange for the funds to be sent. I can do that, or if you'd rathe,r you can go to Gringotts with a letter from me."

"I'd like to handle that myself."

"I thought you might," Margaret smiled knowingly.

"I also should tell you I promised the family that I would keep other witches and wizards away," McGonagall said, then went on to explain how she was monitoring the boy and asked for any suggestions they had to adjust the charm.

"Excellent idea," Margaret said. "I've heard of such a charm but never used one. I would suggest changing the time; however, considering the family has a child of their own of the same age, it does make sense that he would go longer without being attended to. I suppose we don't need to check in with the family if you are.

"I'll be sure to let you know if there is a concern, and as I said, I do believe his guardian will petition for custody as soon as he is able. In the meantime, I'll complete this and be on my way.

Minerva was soon on her way with a piece of parchment in hand. She decided to make a quick stop at the DMLE to pick up Remus first for support at Gringotts.