AU where Minerva McGonagall has a little less faith in Albus Dumbledore so she does agree to leave Harry at the Dursleys.
But then proceeds to move right in next door with her wife because Albus never said that she couldn’t.
So Harry grows up with two grandmalike aunties next door, who basically finnagle him into living with them in all but name. It’s great, until he gets to Hogwarts because he keeps accidentally calling McGonagall Aunt Min instead of Professor.
The more I think about this the better it gets because suddenly a small biracial orphan appearing on the Dursley’s doorstep is less scandalous and gossip worthy in the
pasty ass white suburbia of Privet Drive, when it’s compared to the elderly lesbian interracial couple who moved in next door.
Okay this has an amazing amount of potential for Harry, but I am very filled with curiosity about Minerva’s wife.
1) Who is she? and more importantly
2) How did this marriage come to pass?
I mean I am all for Minerva McGonagall having had a wife already at this juncture in her life, but consider
1) Utter BAMF who is acknowledged to be out of everyone’s league Minerva McGonagall walking into a Ministry break room full of lady Aurors and the like and saying, “I have a child that needs looking after and a neighborhood full of prats who need scandalizing and will marry the first woman to say yes” and there is a moment’s shock and then the verbal equivalent of half a dozen bridesmaids diving for the bouquet with one clear winner who was a split second faster on the uptake and they end up in love by the time Harry is old enough to toddle properly.
2) The house next door is being sold by the daughter of its occupant who just inherited it and wants nothing to do with Little Whinging except to inflict herself on all the narrow-minded bastards long enough to get a good price for it; when Minerva walks in the door there is a mental adjustment that leaves her swooning (or maybe that’s Minerva) and after tea, dinner, and certain other activities she invites Minerva to live with her instead of selling it.
3) Minerva specifically tracks down the schoolmate she knows to be best at making stupid people regret everything, and asks her to pretend to be her wife, share a house in Little Whinging with her, and help keep an eye on Harry Potter. Both of them solidly overestimated their ability to keep the relationship fake.
I still say the most unrealistic part of Harry Potter was that there wasn’t a scene where Hermione found 16 year old Harry in a shopping cart on top of the Astronomy Tower while 16 year old Ron stood by with Colin’s camera because if the prophecy says that he has to die via Voldemort then that means nothing else can kill him ergo there’s no way this could possibly go wrong…
the older i get the more i realize what it meant for lily and james potter to die at 21. when you’re 11 and you’re reading the books, watching the films, 21 feels ancient. it did to me. even the actors they picked looked like they were in their thirties, because actual 21 year olds standing next to harry in the mirror would have been an excruciating sight i think. actual 21 year olds lined up in the photo sirius shows harry would have been horrible to see. they weren’t adults. i look at 21 year olds now and most of them are still teenagers. and i’m so sad because you know harry turns 21 and then 22 and then 28 and 29 and realizes how terribly young his parents were, how brave they were, how exceptional they were, GOD I’M SAD IM GETTING A BEER
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