Chapter Text
“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved with anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.
Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which she used to spy on the neighbours. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley, and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.”
Little Harry James Potter never met any of them, that he could remember.
“We simply cannot leave him with those awful muggles, Albus!” Minerva McGonagall said heatedly, pointing a sharp nail at the headmaster’s crooked nose. “I won’t have it!”
“We also cannot simply leave him with a wizarding family, he would be pampered and revered all his life. He would be far too full of himself,” Dumbledore responded smoothly. Minerva could swear he’d rehearsed this.
She, to his dismay, had also rehearsed this. Or, at least, she had considered her options thoroughly. “You don’t want him pampered and revered, then? Alright, fine! Give the boy to me. I’ll raise him.”
Dumbledore floundered briefly, sputtering something along the lines of, “What in the name of my best woollen socks did you say?” and then regaining his composure, looking to the small bundle curled in his favourite easy-chair. He thought for a while, stopped momentarily, then thought some more. Oddly enough, he seemed to agree with Minerva on this. What a phenomenon!
“Alright, then,” Albus nodded.
“Now, with all due respect, Albus, if you send him into that house, you’ll be making him the boy who lived and th-” she stopped. “What?”
“Go on, then, take him.”
“I- alright?” Minerva stepped sharply towards the chair, scooping the bundle up into her arms and cradling it softly against her. She gave Albus a last curt nod, and practically scurried into her own office, making a mental note to tell the headmaster off more often.