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.
• Because Minerva McGonagall isn’t gonna let an eleven year old kid beat her at sudden death chess and get away with it.
• Ron is a really good president just ‘cos all he expects from members is that they try. You can be horrible at chess (Harry) or extremely good at it (Dean Thomas and his deft hands), and it doesn’t matter in the end because Ron’ll clap you on the back anyway and say, “Good game, mate.”
• Meetings are held in the library because Madam Pince has always had a softness for wizard chess and trusts Minerva when she promises that no one will [probably] get blown up. (Seamus Finnigan whistles innocently somewhere in the background.)
• The library is actually the perfect place for it. The atmosphere is charming. Books are floating around their heads all the time—some leaning down curiously to watch, others being plucked lovingly from the air by Hermione. The usual quiet is exchanged for whispered exclamations and barely stifled sniggers, and just this once, Madam Pince doesn’t mind. Oh, and the light coming in through the colored windows shines on the pieces in a really beautiful way, I tell ya—reds, blues, and golds flickering off kings and queens like badges of honor. (Everyone kinda loves it.)
• THE GOOD: (i.) Dean Thomas: Vice President. His games are works of art. Dean Thomas is a work of art. (ii.) Justin Finch-Fletchley: He used to play chess all of the time with his muggle grandpa. It took him a little bit to get used to all the moving pieces, though. (iii.) Susan Bones: She learned precision from her aunt and applies it nicely to the chessboard. (iv.) Astoria Greengrass: Boredom and a desire to do something interesting has bred a mean chess player out of little Miss Greengrass. (v.) Cho Chang: Cho doesn’t get to attend all of the meetings because of Quidditch, but she’ll pop in occasionally and make fools out of anyone who dares to cross her. #RavenclawPride
• THE OKAY?: (i.) Hermione Granger: Hermione’s not bad per say. She’d be better if she would stop overthinking every, single move. (ii.) Michael Corner: He’s a bit of a sore loser. (iii.) Neville Longbottom: He’s actually a pretty decent player—just needs a bit of polishing around the edges. Neville likes the patience of chess, how he can sit and think a little while before he has to make a move. (iv.) George Weasley: In many of his and Fred’s wonderful schemes, he’s been responsible for the finer details of the prank, the complexities and the nuances. His attention to detail makes him a player to contend with.
The UGLY:
(i.) Harry Potter: Harry J is constantly distracted by everything and everyone in his tragic life to be any good at chess, but he wouldn’t miss a meeting for the world. Ron gets this big, stupid grin on his face when he’s playing that’s worth every second of it. (ii.) Draco Malfoy: “Did you see the way Potter moved his chess piece? It wasn’t very graceful, was it? I’m much better than Potter. Besides, chess is for inferior people. LIKE POTTER. Have I mentioned that I’m better than Potter?” “Oi, Draco, you lost.” “Oh.” (iii.) Daphne Greengrass: She only joined because her sister made her. Most of the time, she just sits in the corner and reads a wizard comic. Nerd. (iv.) Ernie Macmillan: Brags ceaselessly when he wins. Threatens to quit when he loses. Finally acts on his words when Astoria creams him with many pawns to spare.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: (i.) Seamus Finnigan: Did not blow a single person up. (ii.) Fred Weasley: Isn’t really interested in the chess part, but enjoys alternating between cheering his brothers on and pranking them. (iii.) Hannah Abbott: Her weary apologies for Ernie’s pompous behavior should be duly noted. (iv.) Luna Lovegood/Dobby: Their collaborative banners for the club are lovely.
• In light of Dumbledore’s Army, the Hogwarts Chess Club is later renamed Dumbledore’s Pawns. Too on the nose?
• Over the course of the club, there are certain match ups that everyone gets really hyped over: Dean vs. Ron, Draco vs. Harry (even though both of them are horrible at it), Astoria vs. Ron, etc. But no game is more anticipated than the occasional one that Minnie McGee and Ron play. It’s epic. The pieces are all but broken by the time they finish up. At the end of Ron’s sixth year, the record is in his favor, but only just.
• (Quite a few Weasleys have come and gone in Minerva’s time at Hogwarts—many of them extremely gifted and well liked by her—but for this, for his prowess at a game that she loves, she will always have a particular fondness for Ron.)
• Other teachers stop in to play, too. Flitwick and Pince have a delightful rivalry. Snape has never beaten Minerva McGonagall for all his sneering. Lupin is okay, but his main contribution to the club is giving chocolate to unsuspecting members. (Where does he get his supply??? Does it just randomly appear up his sleeve?????) Dumbledore himself once popped in, won against Ron and Minerva alike with a twinkle in his eye, and then Apparated out of the library just because he knew Miss Granger’s mouth would fall open.
• You have to admit, that man has style.
• Just Hogwarts chess club, y’all.
• I think Ron would love it just as much as his Chocolate Frog card. (Okay, maybe a little less.)
Okay but I kind of feel like Luna would be in the top five players, at least. Here’s why.
A lot of what makes a player good at chess is knowing your openings and knowing your lines. I think Luna would know hundreds of obscure variants, generally considered inferior and therefore neglected to the point that, at the school-age level, most players wouldn’t know how to play against them. It’s a long time before you get past “Queen’s gambit is bad” to “Here is why nobody plays Queen’s gambit, this specific response to it leaves you hopelessly devastated by move 20″ to “well actually it turns out if you both play the best lines, Queen’s gambit is a bit of a toss-up” and Luna would play things like Nimzo-Indian that the chess world has largely moved past but that only McG and Dumbledore (and maybe Snape) really know how to play against. Ron doesn’t actually know the lines, but can usually play her to a hard fought draw or a very narrow victory or loss just by his good instincts for the game.
In short, Luna’s the player that the older students watch her and think “what is she doing, she’s so awful, ow do you people keep losing to her” and the teachers are thinking “here is a dangerous person who is going to get a lot of mileage out of making people underrate her” and Luna’s thinking “no, that move isn’t pretty enough, because the Knight doesn’t get to dance with the Queen.”
Headcanon that McGonagall is offended on a personal level that Umbridge loves cats.
This literally got 600 more notes just while I was at dinner what the fuck
How has nobody thought about this before tbh
Ok but imagine McGonagall in cat form prowling around the castle, in strategically chosen places so that Umbridge will come across her.
Umbridge takes the cat back to her office and feeds it a little saucer of milk. The cat starts coming back to Umbridge’s office around the same time every night, until eventually Umbridge gets into a little routine of setting out a saucer of milk for the cat before bed.
McGonagall now has all the best secrets on Umbridge, all of the results of the evaluations, and most importantly, is in a perfect position to spy on the ministry for the Order of the Phoenix.
All because Umbridge is obsessed with cats.
The mental image McGonagall lapping up that milk while full of burning hatred for Umbridge amuses me in ways I can hardly describe.
It comes for her, as it came for her husband, so many years ago. It comes for her, as it came for her Headmaster, the price of his ambition. It comes for her, as it came for far too many of her friends and students, in one war then another.
Death comes for her.
Minerva McGonagall Looks at Death, and raises an eyebrow.
Death pauses, then nods and backs away. “We’ll call this number three then, shall we?”
She smiles as she turns back to her paperwork. There is a reason her animagus form is a cat.
You know, this is interesting. It actually ties in really well with this theory I have: the three major professors in Harry’s life are representative of the three brothers.
Dumbledore is the first brother, albeit with slightly more forethought and self-awareness. He has the Elder Wand, he has a strong sense of self-importance and hubris, and his actions (however noble they may have ultimately been) catch up with him in the end.
Snape is the second brother; fixated on the past, particularly a lost love. He’s obsessed with holding onto whatever piece of Lily that he possible can (remember, kids: if Harry hadn’t had Lily’s eyes, Snape wouldn’t have cared about him at all and he would have let Harry die when he was 11 years old and Quirrell was trying to kill him during the Quidditch match!). It’s this obsession that ultimately leads him to his demise. Because, let’s be clear, Severus Snape knew that Voldemort was going to kill him one way or another. Everything he did, he did in spite of that. Does that make his actions heroic? No, his motivations preclude that. But that’s something else entirely, I could write a whole Essay on the complexities of Snape. Let’s get back to the theory.
McGonagall is the third brother; constantly evading death, riddled with humility. And OP is right: there’s a reason her animagus is a cat. She’s constantly evading Death, but not by being nimble and clever. She leads her life in relative peace, when you look at it. She never tried to make herself into a power player in the war against Voldemort. She never used her magic to bolster her own importance. She stood and fought when it was called for, but she never sought out the glory of being a key figure in the grand scheme of things. Instead, she is the only one of these professors who actually focused her energy on teaching. Minerva McGonagall was dedicated to living her life in a more straight-forward manner than the other two. It’s because of this that Death never comes for her over the course of the seven books. She never goes out of her way to put herself in its path and, instead, fights Voldemort in a way that nobody else even thought to do: by imparting knowledge.
The Tale of the Three Brothers was the very foundation of these books. It was there from the beginning.
Also McGonagall is the absolute best out of all the Big Three professors.
McGonagall: Yes, that’s what we’re doing. In our very limited free time, we took a class on a very outdated, very unnecessary form of communication just so we could talk about you in front of you.
[later]
McGonagall, to Flitwick: That’s… exactly what we did.
WHAT A FUCKING ICON i feel like the movies and some of the latter books made her seem much less cool than she is and like. what an interesting and intriguing and dynamic character. what a great character for us to sink our teeth into.
we don’t get the opportunity, but we fucking could, is what i’m getting at.
minerva deserves her own book series and WHILE I’M FUCKING AT IT she deserves a happy ending. this whole her husband died and she spent the rest of her life alone and sad thing is bullshit. give minerva a fucking wife you cowards!!! her and pomfrey are fucking, actually. i’ve decided. she and minerva get down in the supply closet every other tuesday, and in minnie’s office evety other friday. they fuck beneath the stars on a quidditch pitch. their relationship is Epic and Sweet and Fluffy and love flows between them as easy as anything. they keep it on the dl because the students would lose their fucking minds if they could bug the wife of their professor just because. it’s to avoid the jokes more than anything else.
“is she this rough with you?”
“what’s her beside manner like?”
“does she use that restraining charm on you?? i didn’t enjoy it, personally.”
Headcanon that McGonagall is offended on a personal level that Umbridge loves cats.
This literally got 600 more notes just while I was at dinner what the fuck
How has nobody thought about this before tbh
Ok but imagine McGonagall in cat form prowling around the castle, in strategically chosen places so that Umbridge will come across her.
Umbridge takes the cat back to her office and feeds it a little saucer of milk. The cat starts coming back to Umbridge’s office around the same time every night, until eventually Umbridge gets into a little routine of setting out a saucer of milk for the cat before bed.
McGonagall now has all the best secrets on Umbridge, all of the results of the evaluations, and most importantly, is in a perfect position to spy on the ministry for the Order of the Phoenix.
All because Umbridge is obsessed with cats.
The mental image McGonagall lapping up that milk while full of burning hatred for Umbridge amuses me in ways I can hardly describe.
I’m sorry but all I can think of is the snake anecdote from Thor: Ragnarok, but with McGonagall and Umbridge and I’m crying
wupacing 