“I have soooo much to tell you!” Blaise sighed flopping down on the childish rug next to Draco in the Malfoy library.
Draco hugged him before responding, not used to being away from his best friend for so long. They usually saw each other every other day, sometimes more, but hadn’t been able to for a couple weeks.
“Are you okay, Dray?”
“I’m okay.” Draco nodded, pulling away. “I just missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
“What happened? Why couldn’t you see me?”
“Mama was busy handling daddy’s funeral and stuff and she said we needed to have some family time.”
“My mommy told me about your daddy dying. Are you sad?”
“No….Well, yeah, kinda, cause he was my daddy. But, I also kind of felt happy.” Blaise admitted.
“Why were you happy? I hate when my daddy even leaves for a business trip; I can’t imagine him being gone forever.”
“Your daddy is nice, though.” The brunette explained. “Mine wasn’t.”
“Your daddy was mean to you?”
“And mama.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, he just never seemed very happy.”
“Well, then, I’m happy he’s gone too. No one gets to be mean to my best friend.”
Blaise giggled in a way only young children know how to do. “What about when we’re big and go to Hogwarts? What if people are mean to me then?”
“Then I’ll curse them!”
More giggling. “What if they’re more powerful than you?”
“No one is more powerful than me!” Draco giggled too. “I love you, K.”
Blaise stopped laughing, shifting uncomfortably. “I love you too, Dray….But, please don’t call me by my old name anymore.”
“You mean Ke—”
“Yes!” He panicked a little, cutting in. “No more of that name.”
“So, what do I call you?”
“Blaise.” The elder six year old grinned, lifting his head, in pride.
“Like fire?”
“....I guess so, but it’s spelled differently.”
“How is it spelled?”
“B-L-A-I-S-E. It’s French.”
“I’m French.” Draco nodded. “But, my name is Latin.”
“I know! It means dragon.”
“What does Blaise mean?”
“It means stutter.”
“Why’d you name yourself something that means stutter?”
“Well, I didn’t know what it meant until I picked it. But, I don’t care; I like what Blaise sounds like.”
“I like what it sounds like too. But, Blay?”
“Yeah?”
“Why do you need a new name?”
“Because I don’t like what my old one sounds like. How it makes people think I am.”
“How does Ke—it make people see you?”
“Like….Pink and princesses and dresses and makeup and tea parties and all that.”
“But, you do like things like that? Your favorite color is pink and when we play you always want to play dress up or have a tea party or have a dress up tea party.”
“I know, but I don’t want people to guess that I like stuff like that.” Blaise tried to make him understand.
“Why?”
“Because people think of girls when they think of stuff like that, and I don’t want people to think about me as a girl.”
“But, you are a girl.”
“No, I’m a boy.”
“You are?”
“Yeah.” Blaise nodded for emphasis.
“Oh, okay.”
“Is that okay?”
“Yeah, why wouldn't it be? I’m a boy too.”
“It’s different for you.”
“Why?”
“We have different types of bodies.”
“I already knew that?” Draco squinted in confusion. “We don’t look anything alike.”
“No, I mean biologically.”
“I don’t know what that means.” The blonde admitted.
“It’s like genes and stuff.”
“Like family?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, yeah. I’m French and English and you’re Italian and English, and we’re not brothers or cousins or anything. Why would we be the same bilogcly?”
“Biologically.” Blaise corrected. “Biological sex is a different thing, though.”
“What’s bilogical sex?”
“It’s your chromosomes and genitals and secondary sex characteristics.”
“What?” The more Blaise explained the less Draco understood.
“Whether you have a penis or vagina when you’re born, and if you have a period or grow a beard and stuff like that when you’re older.”
“Oh….And cromzone?”
“Chromosomes. I don’t really know, it’s not important.”
“Okay….So does that mean that you’ll get a period and stuff when you're older while I get a beard and stuff?”
“Yeah, unless I take medicine that will make me get the same stuff as you. Or you take medicine to get what I do, except not a period. But, the only way to change your genitals—whether you have a penis or vagina—is surgery.”
“Oh, that’s cool!”
“I think so too. Mama gave me lots of books about it. She says they’re meant for big people, but that I deserve to understand my body and stuff. But, we only read them together, which is good because there’s a bunch of big words I don’t understand. Well, not until mama explains them.”
“If you’re a boy then why has everybody always called you a girl?”
“Because when you’re born people guess what your gender is based on your body. So, if you have a penis they say you’re a boy, and if you have a vagina they say you’re a girl. And usually they’re right, but sometimes they’re not. And when they’re not right, that’s called being transgender.”
“That’s what you are?”
“Yup.”
“How do you know if you’re transgender?”
“I don’t know….I just feel like a boy.”
“There’s not a boy feeling?” Draco really seemed confused. “Boys and girls feel the same.”
“Uh-uh.” Blaise shook his head. “It’s different.”
“Well, Idon’t ‘feel’ like a boy. I just am one.”
“Well, then, how do you know you’re a boy?”
“Because everyone says so.”
“Everyone said I was a girl, but I’m a boy.”
“Yeah, but….It’s different.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Well, it could be different, or you could not be a boy like how I’m not a girl.”
“I can’t not be a boy.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Why don’t you think so?”
“‘Cause everyone says I’m a boy.”
“Everyone said I was a girl, but I’m a boy.” Blaise repeated, not sure how else to convince him.
“It’s different.” Was, again, the only disagreement Draco could think of.
“Why?”
“It just is. I’m not a girl.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re a boy.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Mama says there’s other genders too, I just don’t know them. Anyway: you can be whoever you want. It doesn’t matter if there’s a word for it yet, or not.”
“I just….Gender makes no sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just don’t get it. It seems like boys are quidditch and blue and action figures, and girls are dancing and pink and dolls. Except boys can like pink and dolls and dancing, and girls can like quidditch and blue and action figures. It makes no sense! What’s the point?”
“I don’t know. Being a boy just makes me happy.”
“Being a boy doesn’t make me happy, but neither does being a girl….I mean: it’s fine, I don’t care if people call me a boy or a girl or whatever, but….It doesn’t feel good.”
“What does make you feel happy?”
“I like the idea of just doing stuff, without gender. I don’t want to be a boy seeker or a girl artist, I just want to be a seeker or an artist. I just want to like whatever colors and toys and clothes and whatever without being seen as a boy or girl doing it.”
“Maybe you don’t have a gender.” Blaise suggested.
“Is that possible?”
“I don’t know, probably….Do you feel like you don’t have a gender?”
“I can’t imagine having one. Being a girl or a boy or anything.”
“Then it must be possible.”
“Do I have to change my name?”
“Do you want to?”
“No! I like being called dragon; it’s cool!”
“Then stay Draco. You can have whatever name you want. All that matters is that you’re happy and comfortable with it—that’s what mama told me when I decided to change my name.”
“Okay, then I’ll keep Draco.” The blonde seemed relieved, scared that he would either have to stop being ‘dragon’ or stay a boy. “But, what about pronouns? I don’t want he or she, then people will think I’m a boy or a girl.”
“What about They/Them?”
“They/Them?”
“Didn’t your mommy tell us about some people using They/Them instead of He/Him or She/Her?” Blaise knew she had just a couple weeks ago during an English lesson. Both of Draco’s parents, Blaise’s mama, and Draco’s godfather all worked together to get the kids a good pre-Hogwarts education. Uncle Sev, as the kids called him, less as he was away being a teacher most of the year, but he helped during the summer.
“Oh, yeah!” Draco remembered. “Do you think I could be one of those people?”
“Do you like the idea of being called they instead of he or she?”
“Yes.” The blonde nodded as hard as he—they—could; liked the idea of anything separating him—them— and binary gender.
“Then of course you can.”
“Do you think my mommy and daddy and Aunt Anastasia and Uncle Sev will be okay with it?”
“I don’t see why not.” Blaise shrugged. “My mama will be, I know, and Uncle Sev, 'cause he said so last summer when I asked about me being a boy. I asked him if I was a boy he'd still love me, and he said he didn’t care what my gender was, that nothing could make him stop loving me or you.”
“But, what about my mommy and daddy?”
“Why not? Aunt Cissa is the one who told us about They/Them, and Uncle Lou is always trying to get us to do stuff that people say is for girls and stuff people say is for boys so that we really know what we like.”
“That’s true.” Draco conceded. “I’m still kinda scared though.”
“That’s okay. Mama says being scared is good because it helps us stay safe. It’s just sometimes our brains get scared about things that won’t really hurt us.”
“Like how I don’t like the dark?”
“Exactly. And how I don’t like being high up.”
“Do you think I’m being scared of something that won’t really hurt me?”
“This is a complicated case.”
“How?”
“Well, it’s safe for you to tell them—mama says that’s called coming out—so yes, but also, it’s not safe for other people. So, some people need to be scared to come out so they don’t and so don’t get hurt, but some people will not get hurt if they come out, so their fear is unnecessary. You’re part of the second group.”
“That is complicated.”
“Even more for me.”
“Why?”
“Well, mama and Aunt Cissa and Uncle Lou and Uncle Sev are all safe to come out to, but daddy wasn’t. He was really mad when I told him I was a boy.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“Only a little. Wanted to more, but mama stopped him.”
“Oh.” Draco sighed. “That’s good.”
“Yeah, that’s why he’s dead now.”
“Your mama killed him?”
“Just to keep me safe, she’s not a bad person.” Blaise insisted.
“I don’t think she’s bad. I think she’s really good. I love Aunt Anastasia.”
“I love her too, but we can’t really talk about it in public, okay? She could get in trouble. We gotta pretend he had a heart attack in his sleep.”
“Okay.” The blonde nodded. “But, how did he die?”
“Mama poisoned him.”
“Isn’t that traceable?”
“No, because Uncle Sev invented the potion just for her to use this time. So, even if they do find the potion, they’ll just think it’s some strange liquid made by his body. It doesn’t match anything on record.”
“Oh, that’s good.”
“Very good.”
“So, should I tell everyone? Come out?” Draco brought them back to the main conversation.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I would. If you want to tell them, it’ll be safe. No one will be mad, I promise.”
“....Okay.” They finally agreed. “But I wanna play princesses first….Do you still want to pretend to be a princess since you’re a boy?”
“Yeah, I do. Just ‘cause I’m not a girl doesn’t mean I can’t be a princess. You’re not a girl either.”
“True.” Draco nodded. “Okay, come on, then.” They nodded, offering Blaise a hand.
The boy grasped his younger friend, half-pushing himself up, half-being pulled up. “Thanks, Dray.”
That meant so many things.