Let’s all play . . .
Who’s the Orphan? (or “half-orphan”)
Which of the following Resolving a Misunderstanding characters has at least one absent or deceased parent before reaching the age of seventeen?
(Base your answers on RaM or well-known canon “facts.”)
Robert Crouch
Aberforth Dumbledore
Albus Dumbledore
Deborah Dumbledore
Gertrude Gamp
Rubeus Hagrid
Lucius Malfoy
Aileen Gamp MacAirt
Aine MacAirt
Alroy MacAirt
Egeria Egidius McGonagall
Malcolm McGonagall
Melina McGonagall
Merwyn McGonagall
Minerva McGonagall
Morgan McGonagall
Murdoch McGonagall
Carson Murphy
Robert Pretnick
Tom Riddle
Dorcas Tyree
Maisie Tyree
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Feel free to post your answers here in a comment, if you like. I will add the answers to this post later, so you can come back and check to see how you did. (Remember that RaM completely disregards DH, but is otherwise canon-compliant.)
Correct Answers:
Albus & Aberforth Dumbledore: Father vanished when Albus only nine and Aberforth, four.
Rubeus Hagrid: Mother abandoned family when he was three; father died during Hagrid’s second year at Hogwarts.
Lucius Malfoy: Father died of dragonpox when Lucius was still a child; it is canon that Abraxas Malfoy died of dragonpox; in RaM, we learn that little Lucius is already fatherless.
Aine & Alroy MacAirt: Mother died when Aine was a baby and Alroy was a toddler.
Melina McGonagall: Mother absent or dead since Melina was a toddler (we haven’t learned which yet).
Merwyn McGonagall: Father died from falling from cliff and boulder crushing his skull when Merwyn was around two years old.
Tom Riddle: Father abandoned family before his birth; mother died shortly after giving birth to him.
Dorcas Tyree: Absent father (Egeria expresses the opinion that the family may have been better off without him).
Tricky ones:
Deborah Dumbledore: She was Albus’ cousin; her father, Christopher Dumbledore, died close to the time that she married and moved to Canada with her new husband, so she grew up with both parents.
Aileen Gamp MacAirt: Her father, Gertrude’s brother, was killed during the war, before she met Quin, but after she was already an adult. (Clue that she was an adult: absence of any mention of Aileen being at school with Minerva at the time her father was killed in December 1941, and as she was a Gamp, it is surely something Minerva would have noticed, since Gertrude was teaching at Hogwarts in 1941. In fact, Aileen overlapped Murdoch’s last year at Hogwarts and Minerva’s first year, but neither of them were acquainted with Aileen. Gertrude began teaching during Minerva’s third year.)
Robert Pretnick: He mentions that his father recently passed away, but his mother is still alive; hence, he grew up with both parents in his life.
Maisie Tyree: She is Merwyn’s half-sister; her father, Herbert McKenna, is still alive and well in RaM, and Maisie is older than Minerva, with a grown daughter, Dorcas.
Everyone else:
Gertrude Gamp: Parents both still alive in RaM; Gropius Gamp, her father, was a teenager when survived the paralytic morbilliac fever epidemic that also struck Albus’s mother when Albus was a young man.
Egeria Egidius McGonagall: Kind of a tricky one, since it isn’t explicitly mentioned, but both her parents were alive right on through Minerva’s childhood. Minerva does mention to Carson once that she never knew one grandfather (Collum McGonagall) and rarely sees the other one, which means at least Egeria’s father was still around when Minerva was a child.
Malcolm, Morgan, Murdoch, and Minerva McGonagall: Siblings; parents still alive during RaM.
Carson Murphy: After Carson’s death, Albus delivers his letter, which was written to both his mother and father.
Hope everyone enjoyed this — there’s another one posted 13 November that might be a little easier and may elicit a couple of chuckles!
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MMADfan's Blog & Fanfic Site 
Great idea to give us a game to play while waiting for the next update!! Now, I’m going to take a stab in the dark and these are my answers (in no particular order):
Albus Dumbledore (sniffles…losing his Dad at such a young age…cuddles him since Minerva isn’t at that stage yet..wink wink)
Aine MacAirt
Alroy MacAirt
Merwyn McGonagall (what a tragedy to lose his Dad that way…eeek)
Melina McGonagall
Lucius Malfoy (do I really need to leave a comment here??? ugh)
Tom Riddle (again…do I need to expound on my feelings??? lol)
Dorcas Tyree
Robert Crouch (brutal slaying of his Dad and then left alone with his Mom…yikes…sorry…anti-Gertie rant there…won’t happen again…well, yes it will but you’ve come to expect that…moving right along…tee hee)
So, there are my guesses! Thanks for the brain teaser, even though only part of my brain is working at the moment. The other part is busy fighting this nasty head stuff and wishing I had a potion to knock out the germies.
Toodles,
The GLM
D’oh…slaps head and tries to hide the blush…
I need to add Aberforth Dumbledore to my list of orphans…honestly didn’t see his name there…Apologies to old Abe…
And add Hagrid to my list…sorry there old mate!
Okay, just going on memory here:
Robert Crouch
Rubeus Hagrid
Aine MacAirt
Alroy MacAirt
Melina McGonagall
Merwyn McGonagall
Tom Riddle
JKMcGonagall here. Been enjoying your RAM universe and thought the game sounded fun. Here are my guesses:
Robert Crouch
Aberforth and Albus Dumbledore
Rubeus Hagrid
Aine MacAirt
Alroy MacAirt
Melina McGonagall
Merwyn McGonagall
Tom Riddle
Since it seems that some people are enjoying this little game, I’ll come up with another one and post it later in the week.
I’ll have the answers up sometime in the next couple days. People are doing pretty well, though!
Robert Crouch
Aberforth Dumbledore
Albus Dumbledore
Deborah Dumbledore: probably older than 17 when her father Christopher died, as she married w/in the year and left for Canada, but possibly not.
Rubeus Hagrid
Aileen Gamp MacAirt: depends on her age–if born 1925 or later, yes
Aine MacAirt
Alroy MacAirt
Melina McGonagall
Merwyn McGonagall
Tom Riddle
Dorcas Tyree
Ah, add Lucius Malfoy to the list.
Strike Aileen from my list. She was surely older than Minerva….
Okay, so I just reread the ABSENT or deceased part.
Add Albus and Aberforth to my list. =)
Good Grl! *grin* (I wondered about that — I thought it might still be your cold!)
But I did forget Dorcus and Lucius.
Oh well…
But those two were hard — Albus and Aberforth, well, I thought they were the easiest, along with Tom Riddle and Hagrid. So I think you did really well! I mean, Dorcas was mentioned ONCE! And Lucius, even the canon part is really pretty obscure trivia. So, don’t feel bad!