Year One
Harry was perfectly happy with herself, mostly, thanks.
Sure, her relatives didn’t like her and confused her for a maid, but Harry made the best of what she had.
Harry cozied up her cupboard and enjoyed occasionally making ghost noises in the vents to spook Dudley when she could hear his video games at night. Harry wore Dudley’s hand me downs and compensated by brushing her hair four times a day to make sure she didn’t lose her femininity to Dudley’s baggy clothes. Harry was ganged up on Dudley and his friends, but they tended to leave her alone when she threatened to tell their mum’s that they were sexually harassing her.
Sexual harassment was such a fun term that Harry’s best friend, Elise, taught her one day. None of the boys minded being a bully, but their mum’s would be so ashamed if they were perverts.
So all in all, Harry was perfectly happy being Harry Leo Potter, a perfectly normal girl with a perfectly abnormal life.
And then a giant man named Hagrid showed up on Harry’s eleventh birthday and told her that she was a ‘wizard’ and the ‘Boy-Who-Lived’.
Aunt Petunia gave Harry a startled look, but Harry was more interested in hearing about her parents and magic than she was worried about something as silly as being misgendered.
Harry asked him about it on their way to the magical outlet mall the next morning.
“Hey, Hagrid?”
“Hm?”
Harry pulled on a lock of her long black hair pointedly when Hagrid looked down at her.
“Why did you call me the Boy-Who-Lived?”
Hagrid’s dark eyes went sad and soft when he looked down at her and he told her about an evil wizard named Voldemort, Harry’s parents dying, and Harry somehow surviving a killing curse.
None of which explained why Harry was being called the ‘boy’ who lived.
“So… that bit about me being a boy?” Harry asked again once they’d made their way through the Leaky Cauldron and away from her rather rabid fans.
Elise would be so jealous that Harry had a fanclub, it was such rubbish that Harry couldn’t tell her. Elise was always bragging about her sleepovers with her cousins and the new dresses her mum brought her from her international business trips.
Who needed fancy dresses from Asia when Harry apparently was famous?
“Oh, nobody’ll mind yer hair being a bit longer than a boy oughta,” Hagrid grunted with a twinkly eyed grin for Harry that made her smile.
And then frown.
Did… did these people simple assume Harry was a boy because of her name?
Harry was a perfectly androgynous name and Harry was rather fond of it. She was also rather fond of her hair… it was long and just curly enough to be ‘wavy’ but not so curly it looked frizzy. While Harry couldn’t help the clothes that she wore, she could make sure her hair was brushed neatly every day, a habit Aunt Petunia firmly approved of.
But then Harry had a wicked idea… an idea that Elise would roll her eyes at but also grin evilly about.
“Hagrid, is there a salon in Diagon Alley?” Harry asked innocently after they obtained an entire bag of galleons from Harry’s own vault.
Harry was famous and rich, the only way her day would get better was if Elise was also a witch and Harry could brag.
Hagrid stroked his tangled beard and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to peer around the bustling shopping center around them.
“I reckon there is,” he said in a soft growl. “Ya know what, Harry? Why don’t you go scamper down to get yer robes and I’ll look for a barber. Maybe find me a drink too,” he added with a cheerful wink.
Harry was more than happy to skip— no, she forced herself to slow down to more of a heavy walk, imitating Dudley and his wanker friends. Giggling mentally to herself all the while, Harry made her way to the robe shop where she was immediately greeted by a kind, but harried, seeming shop keeper.
“First year at Hogwarts?” she guessed keenly when Harry stepped in the store. At Harry’s nod, she waved to an open area in front of a wall of mirrors where a boy was on a stool with fabric wrapped around him. “Head over there, dearie, I’ll be right with you.”
Harry gave her a polite grin, not a smile, boys rarely smiled, and then walked slowly with her head held high in the room with the boy standing on a stool.
“Hello,” the boy said, eyeing Harry from the corner of his eyes, his pointed nose aimed up at the ceiling. He was kind of cute, Elise would be giggling ridiculously if she were there, but Harry didn’t like the gross way his hair was all slicked back.
“Hey,” Harry said, trying to speak a little duller, not chirping as she was prone to do. Not that Harry thought she ‘chirped’ but Misses Francis did and she winced when Harry spoke in class sometimes. “‘Sup?” she asked, slouching her shoulders after climbing on her stool, imitating Dudley.
The boy turned fully toward Harry and his light blonde brows rose high on his pale face.
“‘Sup?’” he repeated, crinkling his nose in obvious disgust. His grey eyes trailed slowly up and down Harry before he scoffed, apparently unimpressed with her. “You’re a muggleborn, aren’t you?” he accused, sounding nasty and rude.
“Absolutely not!” Harry cried, mimicking the boy’s outrage. She had no idea what muggleborn was meant to mean, but it sounded rude the way the boy said it. “How dare you? With manners like that I think you’re a muggleborn!”
“I am no such thing,” the boy hissed, pink patches appearing on his cheeks. “My name is Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.”
Harry smirked, suddenly excited to share her name to see if this boy responded like the people in the Leaky Cauldron had.
“And mine is Harry,” she drawled slowly, internally giggling as Draco suddenly didn’t look so haughty. “Harry Potter,” she stressed.
“Oh,” Draco pulled himself back and his angry flush suddenly seemed more embarrassed. “Apologies, Potter,” he said sheepishly. “You’re certainly not a muggleborn.”
“I’m not,” Harry sniffed, sticking her own nose up. She watched Draco from the corner of her eye, judging his reaction, “I’m the Boy-Who-Lived.”
When Draco didn’t question Harry’s gender, except to eye her hair skeptically, Harry grinned.
“It’s considered fashionable to have long hair,” she said musingly, inspecting herself in the mirror rather than watching Draco. Harry thought she looked feminine, she certainly didn’t have the thick boy-ish features that Dudley had, but it wasn’t like she had boobs yet either.
Not like Natalie Argot, that rotten brat. She’d gotten boobs last summer and loved wearing tight shirts and flaunting them in everyone’s faces.
“Maybe I’ll get a trim,” Harry said firmly, picturing her new identity and game while she studied the green-eyed girl in the mirror. With some trousers and shirts like Draco’s, a haircut, and until she finally got boobs of her own…
Harry could be the ‘Boy-Who-Lived’, it certainly sounded like a riot.
After getting her robes, and a few sets of standard boy uniforms to wear beneath them, Harry met back up with Hagrid and let him lead her to the salon.
It nearly caused her to cry, cutting her beautiful hair until it was a short and shaggy cut, similar to a cute boy in her neighborhood Harry used to fancy.
“Ya look just like yer dad now,” Hagrid said, beaming at Harry and drying her eyes with his lovely declaration.
“I do?” Harry asked, staring hard in the mirror at her face that just looked so different with her hair not even long enough to reach her shoulders. She rather liked the bangs the barber gave her, but still…
“Yep,” Hagrid told her with an enthusiastic nod. “Just like James, but with yer mum’s eyes.”
Harry’s heart swelled with affection for the large man and pestered him for stories about her parents while they finished their shopping.
And by the end of the day, Harry had a head full of stories about James, the prankster with a heart of gold, and Lily, the brilliant girl with the hot temper. Harry also had money and fame, which was so brilliant. Hagrid got her a birthday present, her first ever, and the sweet snowy owl was better than any jewelry or new shoes that any of the other girls in Little Whining got for their birthdays.
Best of all, Harry had a shining new wand - mahogany, 10.5 inches long, unicorn tail core, pliable, just like her father’s was according to the creepy wand maker - and a fun game she would be playing on all her new classmates come September first.
Oh, and she had Aunt Petunia who seemed to be equal parts disappointed and furious when she saw Harry’s haircut, but Aunt Petunia simply never understood the excitement for a good prank.
Harry kept herself from dancing when she got on the Hogwarts Express, but she still let out a quiet squeal while she looked around the beautiful and magical train.
It was all just so grand and amazing, Harry felt like a princess traveling to a new world.
… a princess traveling to a new world while pretending to be a prince.
“Aww, Freddie, were we ever so excited to go to school?” a boy behind Harry cooed, causing her to jump and spin around, her wand held out like a weapon she had no idea how to use.
The boy was a tall redhead, one of the ones from the family that helped her find the platform, and Harry narrowed her eyes. The boy’s twin stood beside him, and Harry didn’t forget the way they played a prank on their mum, mixing their names up.
“No, Fred,” Harry guessed slowly, smirking when a small tick in the boy’s lips confirmed her guess that they routinely called each other by their own name. “But I doubt if the two of you care much for school, do you?”
It was meant to be an insult, but maybe the little catty things Harry and her friends quipped at each other during disagreements didn’t hurt the feelings of teenage boys. Fred laughed and his bright blue eyes glimmered when he leaned against the wall of the train, his elbow propped up confidently.
“We love school,” he said with a wide smile. “It’s the best place to test pranks.”
“Pranks?” Harry brightened up immediately and looked between the two boys quickly. “In that case…” Harry held her hand out, raising her chin and offering what she hoped was a very manly smile. “I’m Harry, mind if I sit with you two?”
The twins both offered a hand, causing Harry to laugh and hold both of hers out as well after sticking her wand between her teeth. She crossed her arms at the wrists and shook their hands, snorting at their goofy handshakes.
“A fellow lover of pranks?” George said. “How can we say no? C’mon, Harry, we’ll introduce you to our friends.”
Harry drug her trunk along with Hedwig in her cage beneath her arm and followed the twins to the compartment where they swore their best friend had a giant tarantula.
“I can talk to snakes,” Harry bragged when she settled in and met Lee Jordan, Angelina Johnson, Oliver Wood, Alicia Spinnet, and Katie Bell. She ignored their looks of surprise while the tarantula crawled all up and down Harry’s arms, causing her to wish rather desperately that she could talk to spiders as well.
“You’re a liar,” Oliver snorted. “There’s no way the Boy-Who-Lived is a Parslemouth.”
Actually, there was no way that the Boy-Who-Lived was a boy at all, so Harry just raised a brow and smirked at Oliver’s skeptical face.
“I can prove it,” she said. “Does anyone have a snake?”
“George does,” Lee snickered, elbowing George, and grinning cheekily.
“Oi! Don’t turn Harry into a gross teenage boy already,” Angelina cried, reaching across the compartment to whack Lee on the head with her wand playfully. “Here, Harry, let’s see! Serpensortia,” Angelina said, swishing her wand and causing a orange and black striped snake to fall from the end of her wand.
Katie shrieked and pulled her feet away from the snake, but Harry slid from her seat and crouched on the floor.
“Hello,” Harry hissed, smirking victoriously when she heard multiple gasps of surprise. “Would you do me a favor?”
The snake flicked its tongue out in what seemed to be a neutral response, so Harry went on.
“Do you see that boy there?” Harry asked, nodding subtly to Oliver. “Would you mind crawling up his leg and scaring him, please?”
The snake flicked its tongue again and lifted its head from the floor, bobbing quickly.
“It would be my pleassssure,” the snake hissed back.
By the time the train arrived at Hogwarts, Harry had firmly established herself with the group of older kids, all of them laughing and trading jokes about her prank on poor Oliver who had looked like he was going to wet himself when the snake crawled up his leg.
“If you get Gryffindor, come sit with us,” Lee said, holding a fist out to Harry for a bump before running off to the carriages.
“He’s Harry bloody Potter, where else would he go?” Katie rolled her eyes, waving once more to Harry before running off with the others. It never failed to make Harry laugh to herself every single time everyone just assumed so easily that Harry was a boy.
If it wasn’t part of her current game, she might be offended.
Harry had no idea what Gryffindor was meant to mean, but she did want to talk more about helping the twins use snakes in their pranks, so she really hoped she could sit with them during dinner.
“See you later,” the twins said, giving her identical goofy salutes before rushing away with their friends.
Harry was happy enough to climb in a boat with the twins’ younger brother, the boy with the dirt on his nose, and a boy with a round face and blonde hair.
“You’re friends with Fred and George?” the twins’ brother asked, eyeing Harry warily.
“Yup,” Harry said, mimicking the boy’s own flatter and more ‘boy-ish’ tone. “What’s your name?”
“Ron,” the boy muttered. Harry glanced at the other boy who nodded and said, “Neville.”
“Harry,” Harry told them.
The boys grinned and then they fell quiet while their boat approached Hogwarts.
It was magical.
It was even better when Harry was sorted in Gryffindor, which was apparently a house within the school, and she sat down with her new group of friends and happily continued their discussion from the train.
The Sorting Hat really wanted Harry in Slytherin, and that could have been fun, but Harry had plans that included the twins and pranks would be easier to coordinate from the same dorms.
“Uh…” Ron stood beside Harry in their new dorm and looked around at the four beds inside of it. Harry glanced at herself, Ron, Neville, Seamus, and Dean and frowned at the lack of a bed for herself.
“Whose stuff is missing?” Dean Thomas asked, finding his own trunk and climbing on the bed in front of it.
“Mine,” Harry frowned. “Why don’t I have a bed?”
“No idea,” Ron shrugged. “You can borrow a pair of my pajamas if you want and we can track down Professor McGonagall in the morning?”
“And where am I going to sleep?” Harry asked shortly. She’d sort of assumed that coming to Hogwarts meant she would have a real bed for once and wasn’t exactly thrilled with the prospect of not having one for the next seven years.
“You can take my bed, I’ll take the floor,” Neville offered quietly with a kind smile. “I don’t mind.”
Harry eyed him carefully, her eyes narrowed and thoughtful.
“You’re not very tall and I’m short, we can have a sleepover,” Harry declared. Then she hastily added, “A dude sleepover… between two dudes…”
Seamus snickered, but Neville smiled and nodded so Harry accepted the pajamas from Ron and then climbed in Neville’s bed.
“Goodnight,” she called cheerfully, forgetting to try and talk slower and duller.
Neville laughed quietly beside her and rolled on his side getting comfortable. “Night, mate.”
Sure, Harry didn’t have a bed, but she did have friends and she made it to the boys dorm in the castle, so all in all Harry considered the day a complete success.
“Excuse me.”
Harry and the twins looked up from their breakfast when another first year, Hermione Granger, tapped Harry on the shoulder and got her attention.
“Yeah?” Harry asked, too bemused to be properly polite.
Hermione smiled, looking rather nervous. “Your belongings are in our dorms,” she explained, gesturing to where the other first year Gryffindor girls, Lavender and Parvati, sat with their heads bent together and giggles spilling freely. “We also have a bed for you.”
“What?” Fred frowned at Hermione. “You’ve got a mistake. Boys can’t sleep in the girls dorm.”
“We’d know, we’ve tried,” George added with a grin and waggle of his eyebrows.
Hermione looked at the twins like they were gross slugs, causing Harry to bristle defensively. The twins were gross slugs, but they were her gross slugs.
“I just thought that Harry would like to know where his belongings were,” Hermione said stiffly. She tossed her frizzy brown hair over her shoulder and stuck her nose in the air. “Since boys aren’t allowed in the girls dorms,” she glared at George down her nose, “I can ask one of the older girls to move Harry’s things down to the common room.”
“You do that,” George chuckled. He rolled his eyes when Hermione strutted away. “Snotty little twit, isn’t she?”
“A bit,” Harry agreed idly. She jumped up when she saw her Head of House, Professor McGonagall, leaving the Great Hall. “I’m going to go ask McGonagall about it,” she told the twins. “I need a bed of my own.”
“We’ll come with,” Fred offered, pushing away his food and snatching his schedule. “C’mon, Freddie, let’s go remind Minnie that we exist!”
Harry and the twins jogged from the hall and caught up with Professor McGonagall just outside the doors. McGonagall was in a conversation with the professor with the lank black hair and sour looking face.
“I believe your attention is already required,” the professor sneered, giving Harry a filthy look. Harry smiled brightly, unimpressed by the man.
“Yes?” Professor McGonagall asked them, turning to stare down at Harry and the twins over the top of her glasses. “Surely you haven’t had time to create chaos yet, boys.”
“There’s always time for chaos, Professor,” George said cheekily. “But it’s Harry, ma’am, he doesn’t have a bed.”
“‘He’?” The black-haired man snapped to glare at Harry with piercing eyes. Harry lifted her chin and clenched her jaw, refusing to back down from her claim at this point.
“Yes, sir,” Fred said, moderately more respectful. The twins didn’t seem to notice anything amiss and Harry was grateful. “His stuff all got put in the girls dorm on accident.”
“Hogwarts doesn’t make mistakes,” McGonagall said, sounding completely confused. “Potter, you’re quite sure your things aren’t in your dorm? The trunks all do tend to look alike.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Harry said politely, turning away from the black-haired man to give McGonagall a terse nod. “I had to sleep with Neville last night and Hermione told me my stuff is in her dorm.”
“Preposterous,” McGonagall huffed. “Hogwarts simply doesn’t—”
“Minerva.” The man touched McGonagall’s arm while his eyes still bore in Harry’s. “I believe it is a… Regulus Black situation.”
McGonagall frowned at Harry while Harry and the twins exchanged mystified looks.
They didn’t seem to know what a ‘Regulus Black situation’ was so Harry assumed it was some sort of secret code.
“Ah.” McGonagall nodded and pushed her glasses up while she gave Harry a small smile. “Yes, well then Mister Potter, I’ll have the house-elves move your belongings and add a bed for you, shall I?”
“Thank you,” Harry said politely.
McGonagall turned to the man, “And I presume you will handle the… potions?”
The man sneered, but he seemed to not have near as much disgust in his eyes when he looked at Harry.
“If I must,” he growled before he turned on his heel and strode away, his robes flowing behind him.
“What do you need potions for?” George asked Harry.
Harry shrugged, “No idea.”
“What’s a Regulus Black situation?” Fred asked her.
Harry rolled her eyes, “No clue.”
The three of them were headed up the grand stairs where Harry had her first ever magical class, Charms, and the twins had Defense Against the Dark Arts.
“We’ll see you at lunch,” Fred gave Harry a silly salute when Harry lined up with the other first years outside charms.
“Don’t cause too much mischief!” George added with a wink before he ran off with Fred.
Ron, who was standing in front of where Harry was lined up, sighed heavily and gave Harry a searching look.
“You’re like them, aren’t you?” Ron asked flatly.
Harry raised a brow and looked at Neville, who seemed as confused by Ron’s question as she was.
“Brilliant, hilarious, and effortless charming?” Harry smiled brightly at Ron. “Yes.”
Ron rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and muttered something rather flattering about the possibility of Harry being a triplet with the twins. Harry just shrugged him off, more interested to start learning magic than worrying about some silly boy.
It wasn’t until Harry’s last class of the day, Potions, that she got some answers to her mysterious encounter that morning. The unpleasant looking man with the sallow face and crooked teeth told Harry to stay behind after class so she waited patiently for her classmates to all give her sympathetic looks before Professor Snape stood in front of her with his arms crossed tightly against his chest.
If he thought Harry would be intimidated by a little verbal abuse then he had clearly never met Uncle Vernon. Calling Harry an insufferable celebrity was likely the kindest insult Harry had ever heard.
“Are you taking any current medications?” Professor Snape snapped at her after nearly a minute of the two of them merely staring at one another.
“I- what?” Harry blinked in surprise at the man. “No?” she said hesitantly, feeling wrong footed by the question.
“You’ve not began hormone blockers or testosterone treatments?”
Harry didn’t even know what that meant.
“No, sir,” she said slowly. “Um… should I?”
Professor Snape sneered at her, looking distinctly unimpressed by her. “What doctor is Petunia taking you to for your transition?”
Harry smiled slightly at the image of Aunt Petunia wasting her time taking Harry to any sort of doctor. Since Harry was never sick, it suited the Dursleys quite well to keep her ten meters away from any healthcare professional who would be required to report suspicious bruises or signs of mild starvation to the authorities.
“None, sir,” Harry said, terribly amused. “I’ve never been to a doctor for anything.”
Professor Snape seemed to be the one taken aback for a moment. His eyes betrayed a flash of surprise before he blinked and the surprise was replaced by anger.
“Do not waste either of our time by lying, Potter,” he hissed. “I will speak plainly and you will fill in the blanks, understood?”
Harry nodded, intrigued by what the conversation was meant to be about.
“You were born with female organs, correct?”
Harry grimaced, both unhappy with her prank being caught so quickly and hearing her disgusting Professor refer to her ‘female organs’.
“No,” Harry lied breezily, averting her eyes from Professor Snape’s. “I’m a boy.”
Snape sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in what seemed to be rather common exasperation when dealing with Harry.
“I understand that, Mister Potter, I am asking what stage you are at in progressing from a female body to a male.”
“You are disgusting!” Harry cried, jumping quickly to her feet. “You can’t- you’re not allowed to ask about… about my body! This is sexual harassment!”
Harry felt vaguely like she was going to be sick and she turned and fled the classroom as quickly as she could, horrified by the entire encounter.
Aunt Petunia had warned her that there were creepy men who would be interested in a child’s body before and Harry thought she’d just said it to scare her.
Honestly, Harry was just as disgusted to have Snape asking about Harry’s body as she was to have Aunt Petunia proven correct.
Harry was still uneasy when she arrived at dinner and she wasted no time in filling her new friends, Fred and George, Lee, Oliver, Angelina, Katie, and Alicia, in on what Snape said to her. She omitted the part about her not being a boy and just told them that Snape had asked about her body.
“I always knew he was a creepy bastard,” Fred whispered venomously. He wrapped a reassuring arm around Harry’s shoulders and hugged her for a brief moment. “You should report him.”
“You should!” Angelina agreed, outraged on Harry’s behalf. “He can’t go around preying on pre-pubescent boys! It’s vile!”
“People complain about Snape all the time though and Dumbledore never does jack about it,” Lee said, not unkindly. He gave Harry a biscuit off a nearby platter and she smiled gratefully for it.
“Reporting him might just make Snape target Harry more,” Oliver mused quietly. His eyes were hard as stone when he glared up at the Head Table where Snape was sitting. “It’s your call though, Harry, we’ll back you either way.”
Harry was so pleased when the others all made loud agreements that Snape suddenly didn’t seem too terrible. What was one gross pervert when Harry had a whole group of friends ready to defend her honor?
“I’ll be fine,” Harry said with much more confidence than she felt. “I just won’t be alone with him again.”
“And we’ll warn the younger kids,” Katie said, Alicia nodding in agreement. “Just in case he tries anything with any of them.”
If Professor Snape didn’t want the rumor to get started through all the grades in all the houses that he was a pervert, perhaps he shouldn’t get students alone and start asking inappropriate questions about their bodies.
Harry was vibrating with excitement for her first flying class when she finally got a chance to bother the boy from the robe shop, Draco.
“Draco, how’s my favorite muggleborn?” Harry asked brightly, sliding up beside the blonde boy.
Draco turned pink while his Slytherin friends around him snickered at him.
“I am not a muggleborn,” Draco hissed at Harry. “I’m a pureblood.”
“Oh, ugh, as if that’s any better,” Harry said dramatically, having no idea what that was meant to mean either. One of the boys with Draco, a cute boy with dark brown skin, laughed especially loudly and Harry barely caught herself before she winked cheekily at him.
Winking was a girl thing, Harry never saw boys winking at each other.
“You’re an embarrassment to wizards everywhere,” Draco muttered to Harry hatefully.
Harry smiled dazzlingly at him. “I’m a celebrity, that’s what Professor Snape says.”
“Ugh, don’t even mention him!” A girl with a little pug nose and bobbed black hair cringed from beside Draco. “Did you know he’s a child molester?”
“What?” Harry blinked at her, disgusted. “I knew there was something sick about him!”
“I heard he molested two first years,” the dark skinned boy chimed in quietly. “He should be fired.”
Harry nodded in vehement agreement. “He tried asking about my body and I just ran from the room.”
“Lucky you got away,” the girl said with an approving nod. “Imagine the press if the Boy-Who-Lived was molested by a teacher!”
“Plus my friends would kill him,” Harry said calmly, confident in her assessment. Fred especially had seemed to take Harry’s safety personal and had taken to walking her to and from her potions class, even though Harry knew it meant that he was late to his own classes.
Their little cluster fell silent when Madam Hooch arrived and called for order. Harry stood between Draco and the girl who whispered her name was Pansy and prepared to learn to fly.
And flying was the most brilliant thing to ever happen to Harry! Her battle with Draco to catch Neville’s little trinket was just as fun.
Getting caught by McGonagall was not fun.
Being added to the Gryffindor quidditch team with all of her friends was amazing.
In fact, Harry was in such a good mood about being put on the team, that she even smiled politely at Professor Snape the very next class she had. Even if he was a pervert, he had stopped insulting her during classes.
But then he held her back, again, and Harry was quite worried until he held Hermione Granger back with her and left the door open.
Snape sat at his desk with his hands folded on his desktop and his wand no where in sight. He took a deep breathe while the girls stood there and watched him.
“Mister Potter,” Snape focused on Harry, “I am asking this once with a witness and entirely with professionalism. Do you require medical assistance with any medical conditions you may be dealing with at present time?”
“No, sir,” Harry said. She tried to smile at him, but she was sure it was nervous. “Is that all?”
Snape seemed let out a relieved breath and he nodded shortly. “Yes, go.”
Harry and Hermione scampered from the room as quickly as possible.
“Ugh, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I heard he’s a pervert,” Hermione whispered to Harry when they were making their way to the Great Hall. Fred caught up with them just outside of the potions classroom and wrapped a friendly arm around Harry’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Hermione, just start screaming about sexual harassment if he tries anything,” Harry told her seriously.
“And if that fails, punch him in his ugly beak,” Fred quipped.
Hermione gave them both a disdainful look, but Harry thought it had been good advice.
“Some people,” Fred shrugged when Hermione stormed away from them. “Anyway, Harrikins, team building exercise after dinner tonight, you in?”
“Are we flying?” Harry asked hopefully, thinking fondly of the Nimbus 2000 that Professor McGonagall sent her.
“Nope.” Fred grinned mischievously and Harry’s excitement grew. “We’re playing hide and seek.”
“Hide and seek?” Harry asked slowly, confused. “Why?”
“Team building,” Fred said solemnly, guiding Harry in the Great Hall. “You’ll see.”
“This is brilliant,” Harry laughed quietly. She was shoved behind a suit of armor on the third floor with Oliver while they waited to see if they’d be found or not. The game they were playing was a far cry from the hide and seek that Harry’s classmates played in primary; playing at Hogwarts added entirely new challenges to it.
They couldn’t get caught by the portraits because they’d tattle to the seeker. They couldn’t get caught by Peeves, because he’d give away their location. And they couldn’t move locations or else it was cheating.
“It’s team building,” Oliver said with a grin. “Wait until we play tag in the Forbidden Forest.”
Harry’s eyes were surely as round as her fist while she imagined how much fun that would be.
When it was Harry’s turn to be the seeker, she had a fabulous time of running all over the castle, looking for her teammates.
She found George and Angelina in an alcove, snogging, and then she found Katie behind a tapestry, Oliver was hiding behind a mirror that Harry knew was a doorway to a secret corridor, Alicia had squeezed herself between the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw house point tubes. With only Fred left, Harry upped her game and began sniffing out all the unused classrooms for him.
“Ooh, what’s this?” Harry stepped in a classroom and saw it was empty except for a large mirror right in the middle of it. When Harry stepped up to it, she was confused by what she saw.
Harry looked over her shoulder, looking for the people in the mirror that were standing just behind her, and found no one. She waved her hand, but only felt air. Harry stepped closer to the mirror and lifted a hand to touch the glass.
“Mum?” Harry whispered, recognizing the green eyes sparkling in the reflection. Harry looked from the beautiful young woman with the green eyes and red hair to the young man with the playful smile and messy black hair. “Dad?”
Harry had never seen them before, but they had to be the famous James and Lily Potter. In between them, with a sparkling smile and hair long and beautiful, laying on shoulders covered in a girly red dress, was Harry.
The Potters, all reunited.
Time somehow stopped meaning anything and Harry didn’t even think of the game she was playing; instead, Harry sank to the floor in front of the mirror and stared hard at the two people she’d always wanted to meet the most.
Some time later, the classroom door creaked behind Harry and quiet footsteps snuck up on her.
“Harry?”
Harry couldn’t look away from her parents and chose to hum in a careless reply.
“Harry?” the voice was familiar and Harry felt a warm hand shaking her shoulder. “Harry? What’s— oh.”
Harry glanced over with tearful eyes to see that Fred - it was definitely Fred because George had a star shaped freckle in the center of his forehead that Fred didn’t have - was staring at the mirror as enraptured as she was.
“Do you see your parents?” Harry asked him. She swallowed roughly and looked between Fred and the mirror. “Fred?”
Fred shook his head and tore his eyes from the mirror to stare hard at Harry. There was something in his eyes, something unsettled and confused.
“My parents? No,” he said. Something seemed to click for him and his gaze softened. “Is that what you see?”
“Yeah,” Harry breathed. She reached out for her mum again and tried to hold back the very girly tears that were threatening to spill over. “My mum, Fred, she’s right there.”
So close that Harry could almost touch her but her fingers were stopped by glass each time. When Harry reached out again and was stopped by glass again, the tears won and Harry broke in mortifying sobs that echoed around the room and shook her entire body.
Poor Fred, he was such a chivalrous lion, he reached over and pulled Harry against his side and let her sob until her body was too weak to do it anymore.
And then, for no reason at all, Fred stopped being Harry’s friend.
Harry couldn’t figure it out and it was making her angrier and angrier. Fred seemed set on avoiding Harry at every turn. Even during quidditch practice and games, Fred avoided her.
Fred’s mum sent Harry a warm and cozy sweater for Christmas with a card wishing her a happy holiday and Fred didn’t say two words to her.
“Is Fred mad at me?” Harry asked George one morning. She stopped him and jabbed her wand in his throat, fed up with being ignored by one of her best friends.
George put his hands up, properly intimidated by Harry while Neville and Ron were flanking her. Harry hadn’t intended for them to step up with her, but she was pleased when she glanced over her shoulder and saw them both holding wands as well.
“No,” George said, so guileless that Harry sagged with relief. “But he doesn’t want to be your friend anymore.”
Harry’s temper flared and she jabbed her wand a little harder in George’s neck.
“Then you tell him that he gets what he’s got coming to him,” Harry hissed. She turned on her heel and stormed away, headed to the one place she typically avoided.
“Where you going?” Ron asked, panting slightly as he tried to keep pace with Harry.
“The library,” Harry said angrily, a plan already forming. “If Fred doesn’t want to be friends because I cried, then he’s in for a terrible surprise.”
“You cried?” Neville asked, sounding surprised.
“No,” Harry snapped.
“But you just said—”
Harry spun around and pointed her wand at the two boys tailing her. “Either you’re with me or you’re against me,” Harry told them. “Decide now.”
“With you,” Ron and Neville said simultaneously with properly terrified looks on their faces.
Harry nodded at them. “Excellent. Let’s go ruin Fred Weasley’s life.”
And for the rest of the year, Harry made a good go at it.
Classes, quidditch, and the other students were all pushed to the back of Harry’s mind while she used all the resources available to her to make Fred as miserable as he was making her.
The invisibility cloak that someone delivered to Harry for Christmas was especially helpful, but the map that Harry stole from Fred’s dorm was even better.
“Why are you pranking Fred Weasley?” Draco asked Harry one afternoon when she was waiting for Fred to leave transfiguration so she could jinx him with a new spell that Hermione Granger showed her. It was funny, it would turn Fred’s hair rainbow colored and Fred couldn’t reverse it without the counter-spell.
And Harry checked out all the books in the library that contained the counter-spell.
“Who says I am?” Harry asked Draco.
Draco raised a blonde brow at her. “Everyone,” he drawled. “What? Do you have a crush on him?”
“You’re standing in an alcove right up against my side, do you have a crush on me?” Harry demanded sarcastically.
Draco turned pink and leapt as far away from Harry as was humanly possible.
“No! I’m- I’m not gay!” he spat, looking just as adorably flustered as he always was when he and Harry interacted.
“Congrats, go away,” Harry murmured as the class began to dismiss and the first of the third years filtered out of Professor McGonagall’s classroom. She raised her wand and waited for the red head she wanted to jinx to step out. As soon as she was confident it was Fred and not George, Harry hit him with the spell.
“Oi! What the hell?!” Fred cried when the students around him immediately began laughing. Harry stepped out of her hiding spot and smirked at him after Angelina quit her giggling long enough to offer him a pocket mirror.
“Pretty,” Harry quipped dryly, catching Fred’s attention.
“Did you do this?” Fred demanded, looking from his shaggy rainbow colored hair to Harry. To Harry’s surprise, he looked much more embarrassed than Harry thought he’d be.
“I AM NOT GAY!” Fred screamed at Harry, his words like a punch to her chest.
“I DONT CARE!” Harry yelled right back, fed up with boys announcing their sexuality to her. “YOU ARE A SELFISH PRAT AND I HATE YOU!”
“AND I HATE YOU!” Fred screamed, his voice cracking midway through his harsh words. “JUST LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE, POTTER!”
“GLADLY!” Harry shouted shrilly. She sent a stinging hex at Fred for good measure then ran away, her chest aching at the cruel words they exchanged.
Harry sprinted blindly, her stupid feelings hurt, and wound up tripping down a staircase and landing in a lump on the floor where she chose to just curl up and cry.
Boys were so stupid and Harry couldn’t remember why she wanted to pretend to be one. The boys’ dorm smelled stinky, like socks, and the only thing that Harry had gained so far was nothing.
Pranks were so stupid and boys were so stupid and Harry hated them both in that moment.
“Potter? Potter, are you crying?”
Harry lifted her face to see Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson staring at her in horror.
“No!” Harry snarled, embarrassed to be caught doing something so silly as crying in a corridor. “Go away!”
Pansy snorted and then dropped gracelessly on the floor beside Harry.
“Did the weasel get rude with you?” Pansy asked her, almost sounding sympathetic. “I know some very good curses.”
Harry wiped her nose on her sleeve and hid her face in shame. “I hate boys,” she muttered.
Pansy laughed and Draco dropped down to sit on Harry’s other side.
“Boys are the worst,” Pansy assured Harry with a soft sideways hug. “You should have been a girl.”
Harry looked at Pansy’s perfectly serious expression and then over to Draco’s uncomfortable and pinched expression and she began laughing.
Really laughing.
Harry began laughing until her stomach hurt and she thought she might cry.
That night, Harry was determined to use her upcoming summer holidays to create a master prank plan for her successful infiltration in the boys dormitory.
And Harry was going to get Elise to help her come up with incredibly hurtful pranks to use against Fred Weasley.
It was a dim spot on Harry’s joy at the end of the year to find out that Professor Quirrell had been fired for inappropriate comments made to a student.
“But they didn’t fire Snape for the same thing,” Alicia scoffed when their group was discussing the firing on the train ride home. Harry was sitting between Alicia and Angelina and was very firmly ignoring Fred, who sat across from her between George and Lee.
“Yeah, but we won the quidditch cup,” Oliver said brightly, his enthusiasm for quidditch not marred by any of the tension happening between the members of his team.
Just for that, Harry and Katie spent the rest of the ride home sicking snakes on their oblivious quidditch captain.