Chapter 1
Ursula is doing some last minute transfiguration reading when Hero plops down across the table from her. She closes the book and looks up, smiling. “Nice hair,” she comments, and Hero ruffles a bright purple pixie cut.
“Thanks,” Hero says. “It’s not exactly the color I was going for but I didn’t have time to fix it before breakfast.”
“So, what kind of Hero are you today?” Ursula asks as she does every morning.
“Girl Hero,” they reply, pouring cereal into a bow.
“I like that one.”
Hero grins. “You like all of them.”
“Fair enough.” And Ursula does love Hero regardless of gender, but she has a bit of a soft spot for girl Hero. Besides, it’s more convenient if they want to make out in Hero’s room. The staircase won’t let them through on Hero’s boy days. They can sometimes get away with it on agender days, but not consistently. Hero has written numerous complaints to the board of governors about this, and most of the replies have been along the lines of, “We don’t completely understand your gender and the architect who cast the spell to block boys from the girls dorm definitely didn’t understand your gender.”
“So,” Hero says after a few bites of breakfast. “I was thinking since it’s so nice today, we could go out and have a picnic by the lake after classes.”
“That sounds nice,” Ursula says. She’s a little mesmerized because Hero is doing the cute thing where they talk while chewing but cover their mouth with their hand. Really it shouldn’t be cute, but it’s Hero so it is.
Hero looks up at the ceiling of the Great Hall, which today is blue with just a few wispy clouds across it. “I’m so glad it’s finally spring,” they say. Ursula notices that they’re wearing the uniform shirt that they’d embroidered little flowers onto the collar of a few months ago. She can also see, with Hero’s head tilted back, a little floral tattoo on their neck, matching the embroidery. It’s the kind of extra touch that takes Hero a fair amount of time to make, and Ursula always likes to watch them work when she can. On lazy Sunday afternoons they’ll set up a mirror in the Ravenclaw common room and Hero will spend half an hour making a tattoo of a vine creeping along their collarbone or a line of text across their shoulderbone. It’s like watching at artist at work.
“Did you hear what I just said?” Hero asks and Ursula starts a little, realizing that she hasn’t been listening.
“No, sorry, I got distracted. I like your tattoo.”
Hero smiles and bring their hand up to touch it. “Yeah, me too, I think I’ll keep it around for a while. “Anyway, I was saying I could get food from the kitchen and we could go study and eat outside while it’s still so lovely and warm.”
“That sounds good,” Ursula says.
“And afterward we can go back to my room and I can show you the rest of the tattoo,” Hero goes down, pointedly looking down into their bowl of cereal and not at Ursula.
Ursula bites down a smile. “That sounds really good.”