Chapter 2
Making the decision on where to place Harry Potter was going to be a lot harder than Dumbledore had initially thought it would be. James had no immediate family, and Lily’s all lived in America. The boy had to go to Hogwarts when he turned eleven and wouldn’t be able to if he lived across the sea. So, he consulted their will.
Now, usually, if not immediate family, the child(ren) would go into the custody of their Godparent(s). But seeing as Sirius was currently in Azkaban, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
Interestingly enough though, they hadn’t listed Sirius as their go to guardian for Harry like he thought they would. How peculiar.
Rereading the line it said, “We trust in either Joey or Martin Murphy to care for our son in the case we are no longer able.” He knew they had wanted Harry to go to Hogwarts as well. So why chose to have him go to America?
Well no matter, the only one who currently had access to these papers was him, so all he had to do was a little fibbing and he’d be able to find the young savoir a nice, less than perfect household in England to grow up in. Currently, until a proper placement was found, Harry was under the care of Madam Pomfrey, their school nurse.
Before the old professor could continue his scheming, Minerva Mcgonagall rushed into his office.
“Albus!” she cried and rushed to where he was sitting at his desk.
“Minerva?” he asked, concerned, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Harry!” She exclaimed, "Madam Pompfrey was getting his bottle, but when she came back he was gone!"
Dumbledore's eyes widened in alarm, "Gone?"
"No one can find him!"
"Quickly," he stood from his desk and started fast walking out of his office, Mcgonagall at his heels, "We must find him."
Try as they might, however, there was no locating Harry Potter, for he was long gone by then, but there were clues left behind. A whole mess of clues.
About ten minutes prior to this, the one year old was peacefully dozing off in his crib. It was a nice baby blue color with high bars so he wouldn't be able to roll out. Madam Pompfrey had tried putting up a magical crib mobile to add decoration twice before, but the first time it had fallen, nearly hitting him as he slept. The second time it had caught a flame suddenly and she had stopped putting them up since.
Harry's eyes blinked drowsily, about to fall completely asleep, but a sudden loud clanking sound was heard in the otherwise silent room.
The noise startled him and he was just about to start crying, when he noticed that the noise came from the bars of his crib falling off and onto the floor.
Now interested, Harry rolled his little body until he was onto his arms and legs. He then slowly crawled out of the crib, surprisingly not injuring himself or making much noise in the process.
Harry crawled and crawled and crawled. And before he knew it, he was lost in the vast hallways of Hogwarts. Unknowingly he was also leaving a trail of destruction behind him. Nearly anything that could break did, like vases. Some sleeping portraits were even startled awake by falling face first onto the floor.
It wasn’t long before the small baby started to get tired. He stopped crawling and sat down. Looking around, Harry didn’t recognize his surroundings. All he really wanted was his Mummy and Daddy, but they had disappeared and he didn’t know where they went. He started tearing up, then started full on crying when a window behind him shattered.
Outside the window, a rather large bird was perched on a tree branch. It peaked it’s head into the castle curiously. The bird looked around for a bit and noticed a crying infant just sitting alone on the floor.
The bird flew into the castle through the now open window and landed beside the weeping child. Harry took no notice of this and kept on wailing. The bird tilted it’s head in concern and made a decision.
It flew up into the air again and used it’s claws to grab the back of Harry’s onesie. He lifted the baby up into the air and flew out of the castle and into the night. Harry stopped crying and sniffling. The bird made sure to fly slow enough to that soon enough Harry was having fun, giggling and making other cute baby noises.
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John Greenwood had only lived here for about a month now. A little neighborhood on the very edge of town. He liked it there. It was calm, peaceful, nothing much happened. And tonight, as he sat on his porch in a rocking chair he soaked up the sound of the night.
Staring at the stars, he noticed something particularly peculiar. A rather large bird flying towards the neighborhood. Now, normally this wouldn’t be anything special, but John squinted his eyes as the bird got closer and noticed that it was carrying something about half it’s size.
When it got closer, John’s eyes widened and he ran into the street. The bird was carrying a baby!
He stood in the middle of the street, trying to get a better look, and got ready in case the bird dropped the child so he could do his best to catch it.
To John's shock though, the bird seemed to spot him and when it did, it started circling above his head. It got lower and lower until it finally landed at John's feet, lighty plopping the infant down.
The baby clapped his little hands and laughed. It was so cute that John cracked a smile even through the absurdity of the current events. He peered at the bird, and to his surprise the bird peered back, making eye contact.
When John failed to do anything, the bird used it’s beak to nudge the baby towards him.
“Huh?” he questioned, “Do you want me to take care of him?” He almost laughed at the thought that he was talking to a bird, but kept it in when he saw the bird nod in answer.
Quickly, John scooped up the baby who cuddled into his chest.
“Uh,” he said awkwardly, “Thanks, I guess.”
John could’ve sworn he saw a smile grace it’s beak and an indescribable glint in it’s eyes. Then, without warning, the large bird took off, not looking back.
John stood there in silence for a moment before looking down at the child in his arms. He noticed a small scar on the baby’s head shaped like a bolt of lightning. “Weird,” bouncing him a little, John smiled, “Not how I thought I’d spend my night, but guess it’s time to go to the police station.”
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Back at Hogwarts, Dumbledore, Mcgonagall, and Pomfrey were following the trail of destruction Harry had left behind. They didn’t know that the destruction was actually caused by Harry and feared the worse. And the worse got even worse when they interrogated one of the fallen portraits.
“Oh it was horrible!” cried a painting of an old woman, “I was just falling asleep when my frame started to shake! Then the next thing I know all I see is the floor!”
“How unfortunate, but did you see any babies?” pressed Dumbledore.
The painting gave him an irritated look for dismissing her woes, “Well, no, only floor.” She paused, then added, “But after I had fallen, a few moments later I heard the sound of crying. I’d guess from a baby.”
The three not-paintings shared anxious glaces. From what they could tell, someone had broken in, kidnapped baby Harry, and fled off into the night. The destruction must have been Harry’s accidental magic trying to protect him. And it had obviously failed.
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John sat in a hospital waiting room anxiously. He sat on the edge of his seat and twiddled his thumbs. He had gone to the police station and told them that he had found a baby on the road (not mentioning the bird, he didn’t want them to think he was crazy). They had made a case file and offered to take the baby out of his hands to go get a DNA test. He had declined and went with them to the hospital, wanting to know the results.
After a long while a doctor came out into the waiting room and called in John and a police officer he was with.
They went into the doctor's office and sat down.
"So we got the DNA test results just finished and right here in this file," she pointed to the file in front of her, "But I could tell who that kid was without it easily."
John looked at her in confusion, and the officer asked,"What do you mean, Doctor?"
She folded her hands on her desk, "Well you weren't with him for that long, but I don't know if you noticed the trail of calamity that follows that child. That's a Murphy if I've ever seen one."
"Calamity?" John questioned.
"Murphy?" The officer asked confused, "I feel like I've heard that name before."
"Well, while we were taking the test, nearly all our equipment broke, was misplaced, fell, etc," she shook her head, "Back, say a little over 22 years ago, a strange American couple and their children started frequenting this hospital. And I mean frequenting. They would be in and out of the hospital constantly."
"The Murphy family, you mean?" John asked for clarification.
She hummed in agreement, "Bad things constantly happened around them. Or, well, the men in the family. And when I asked why their family had such bad luck, they said Murphy's Law."
"Oh!" The police officer said in realization, "All this was long before I started working here, but I've read case files about the Murphys. There's hundreds of them."
John bit his lip, "So you're saying that there's a family with an intense bad luck and this is their missing baby?"
The Doctor nodded and finally opened the result file. "He's registered as Harry Milo Potter. His mother's maiden name is Murphy."
"Well I'd guess that Harry ended up there by some Murphy incident. We'll return him and move along." The officer stood, ready to leave.
"I'm afraid it's more complicated than that," the doctor confessed, "The Murphys moved back to America a few years ago, I was one of the people who said goodbye to them."
"Then how did Harry end up in England?" John asked, "Maybe they were visiting?"
The police officer furrowed his brows, "Well I guess we'll just have to call them."
It took about an hour but they tracked down one Martin Murphy's number and called. The phone was out on speaker phone so they could all hear.
It rang four times and then clicked, "Hello?" Came a man from the other side.
The police officer answered, "Hello, is this Martin Murphy?"
"Why, yes it is! What can I do for ya?"
"Well you see, we have a bit of a problem regarding your family."
"Which is?" He didn't sound surprised.
"Firstly, do you have a sister? A sister with a son?"
It was silent on the other end of a few moments, and when Martin spoke again he sounded significantly less cheerful, "Yes. She passed away not long ago."
"Oh," everyone glanced at each other awkwardly, "I'm sorry for your loss."
Martin cleared his throat, "Well what's the problem?"
"I'm a police officer, you see, and tonight a citizen found a baby on the road. We did a DNA test and found that the baby was your nephew."
"You found Harry?" Martin exclaimed, "After Lily and her husband died we tried to get into contact with her friend Sirius, Harry's godfather, but we weren't able to."
"Sirius? Sirius Black?" The officer raised his eyebrows. The mass murderer was that kid's godfather? They decided to keep quiet, as Martin didn't seem to realize who Sirius really was.
Martin hummed, "That's the one. You see, usually the kid would go to the family first, like me or my brother, but there's this boarding school in England that Lily and James wanted Harry to go to, so they had Sirius and their go to guardian in case of anything. But a few months ago, she called me and said they changed their will so that Harry would be in either mine or our brother's custody," Martin rambled.
"What made them change their minds?"
"Well Lily said that they weren't sure that Sirius would be able to handle Murphy's Law."
"Ah yes. We had Dr. Patrick tell us about that."
"Dr. Patrick? Oh, she was my childhood doctor!"
She smiled and spoke up, "Hello Martin."
"Hello!"
"Well, back on topic. I suppose it makes sense for the Murphys to be the best at raising each other. But why haven't you or your brother come over to get Harry yet?"
"Well traveling is really hard for us and like I said, we’ve been trying to call Sirius, because that’s who we assumed he was being taken care of by.”
“Unfortunately,” the officer looked uncomfortable, “Sirius Black has been arrested for charges of murder.”
“Wait, seriously?” pun not intended, “Sirius would never!”
Dr. Patrick interrupted, “Regardless, Harry wasn’t with Sirius. So where was he? And how did he end up in Mr. Greenwood’s neighborhood?”
‘Via bird,’ John thought, but didn’t say out loud.
Martin sighed, “I think I might have an idea on who he was with, but that doesn’t matter now. I’ll talk to my brother and we’ll decide who’ll take Harry. Joey and I both already have children just a few years older than him so we’ll be able to handle it.”
“Alight, for now we’ll let him stay at the hospital.” Dr. Patrick smiled.
Before hanging up Martin quickly said, “I’ve got to go, but thank you to Mr. Greenwood for finding my nephew.”
John blushed, “It was really no problem.”
The call ended and the three adults said their goodbyes. John asked to be updated on the case if anything new happened, then went back home for a much deserved sleep.
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Back in the trees of the Hogwarts grounds, a bird sat on a branch, feeling content with itself now that that young boy was in good hands now.