Chapter Text
Ever since he could remember, Harry Potter had always felt…wrong somehow. Like he didn’t belong in the body he was in. It wasn’t the scar that bothered him. No, ironically, that was the only part of his body that didn’t feel weird and awkward and out of place. Before he had learned he was a wizard, he liked it because it made him feel unique and special. And even now, he still liked his scar. But the rest of him? There had been something…off.
Maybe it was connected to the way Uncle Vernon kept calling him boy, though Harry couldn’t be certain, as he figured anyone wouldn’t like being called that in the tones Uncle Vernon used. Yet every single time it happened, even when Uncle Vernon wasn’t shouting, it made Harry feel…strange. Like ants were crawling under his skin. And it wasn’t just Uncle Vernon. It was just about anyone who called him a boy. Sometimes, even the words he and his applied to him made Harry feel unclean.
But that was life, Harry supposed. It wasn’t meant to be fair. Even magic couldn’t change some things.
He’d resigned himself to the fate of always being uncomfortable in his own skin by the time he’d decided – in one of his less stellar decisions – to explore the castle after hours using his new Invisibility Cloak during the holiday break. If Hermione had been there, she would have chastised him for his recklessness, and she assuredly would have been right. Harry supposed it was just the Gryffindor in him.
His hairbrained decision had led him to enter an empty classroom in an attempt to escape from the potential wrath of Snape and Filch. (Not that he didn’t deserve their wrath, but Harry still wasn’t about to subject himself to it.) And in the corner of that classroom was a mirror. Really, a beautiful looking mirror. A work of art, actually, like the mirrors in the palaces in those documentaries Aunt Petunia liked to watch. Harry looked into it, interested to see the novelty of there being no reflection, but then he took a few steps backwards, because he wasn’t alone in the room.
There was a girl in the mirror.
The girl was wearing the exact same clothes as Harry and she was the exact same age. She had long dark red hair, piercing hazel eyes, and was wearing glasses identical to Harry’s. Harry knew for a fact he had never seen her before in his life, yet for some reason she looked hauntingly familiar to him. Harry looked around him but saw no one.
“Hello?” Harry called out. “I’m not going to hurt you! You can show yourself!”
The girl moved her lips but no sound came out. Harry realized with a start she had been moving her lips the exact same way he had been, like she was mimicking him. A suspicion took hold in his head and he moved his hand. The girl did the exact same thing. It was him, Harry realized. This was what he would be like as a girl. For some reason, some very odd reason, the idea filled him with excitement and an emotion that felt suspiciously like longing.
“I…I want…” Harry whispered, but he had no idea how to end that sentence. Or maybe he did and he just didn’t want to admit it.
A memory popped in his head all of a sudden, one he’d nearly forgotten about…probably deliberately now that he thought about it. It was back when he was six. Aunt Petunia had bought a dress for a distant cousin of the same age as him at a charity shop and Harry had sneaked out of his cupboard and tried it on. And it felt incredible. So much more comfortable than anything he’d worn before, or, frankly, since. But Aunt Petunia had discovered him. Aunt Petunia rarely let her anger turn physical, but she’d smacked him across the face, sent him back to the cupboard, and withheld food for him for two days.
Shaking his head to drag away the bad memories, Harry decided it was probably best if he left the whole matter behind. Men were men and women were women and him wanting to be the latter probably made him just as much of a freak as his relatives thought he was. Right? Not that he wanted that, of course. Though that lie felt weak even to himself.
When he told Ron the next day about the mirror, he seemed actually quite amused for some reason Harry couldn’t comprehend. “Yeah, I don’t think I need to know what I’d look like as a girl, Harry,” he said with a slight smirk. “You should eat some more food; put some meat on those bones of yours.”
But food was the last thing on Harry’s mind. Seeing what she’d he’d look like as a girl had lit a fire in his mind, a fire that didn’t seem like it was going to be extinguished anytime soon. He finally persuaded Ron to join him the next night. Ron seemed rather smug about the whole thing. It felt like he knew something Harry didn’t know, though Harry, for the life of him, could not figure out what it might be.
Harry ran over to the mirror as soon as he entered the room and gazed wonderingly at the girl version of him. He wished he could touch her. He wished he could be her...uh, be her friend, that was! He looked over to Ron, who was looking at him like he’d lost his mind. Harry flinched. Of course Ron thought he was being weird. Real men were not meant to behave this way.
“Harry, I don’t see myself as a girl,” Ron said slowly as he approached the mirror. “I see myself as Head Boy. With the House Cup and the Quidditch Cup and I’m the Quidditch captain!”
“But…that’s impossible,” Harry muttered. “I don’t see that.”
“Maybe the mirror shows the future!” Ron said eagerly.
Harry stared at him, anger flowing through him. “What are you talking about, Ron? I’m not going to be a girl in the future. That’s not possible. And not right either. Don’t give me…” Hope, he nearly said, but stopped himself in time.
Ron looked confused. “Well, sure it is, Harry. I mean, we’re mages. A lot of things are possible that aren’t for Muggles.”
“Just stop it, okay?!” Harry shouted. “Just stop it!” Before Ron could say another word, Harry stormed out of the room, trying his best to stamp down the treasonous feeling of hope flowing through him. He was only going to be disappointed in the end. He’d gotten lucky enough becoming a wizard. He was pretty sure he’d run of luck long before he could ever become a witch.
By the next morning, Harry could barely think of anything but the girl in the mirror and how much he longed to be her. But since that wasn’t possible, he would settle for looking at her as much as possible.
“Harry, this is starting to become a problem,” Ron said, sounding uncharacteristically serious. “It’s like…it’s like that thing put a spell on you. Look, if you want to transition, talk to Professor McGonagall, don’t spend your whole life in front of a bloody mirror!”
“I don’t know what that means, and I don’t care, Ronald,” Harry snapped. “And how I spend my life is none of your business.” Ron tried to say something else, but Harry stormed out of the room without listening to a single word.
The next night, Harry had expected to once more spend the night before the mirror, but came face to face with a most unexpected individual instead: Headmaster Dumbledore. Harry’s heart sank. His deepest, darkest secret was about to be revealed in front of the headmaster, the one everyone said was the most powerful wizard in recent memory.
“But I expect you’ve realized by now what it does?” Dumbledore said.
“It…” Harry was tempted to lie to spare himself, but something about Dumbledore’s powerful yet wise aura made him reluctant to do so. “It showed me as a girl.”
Dumbledore blinked. Harry had a hunch he was rarely surprised, but Harry had managed to do it. “Truly?” he whispered, and then laughed. “Oh, my. Fate does play strange tricks, does it not?”
“Professor? I don’t understand.”
“Ah, nothing to worry about, Harry,” Dumbledore said distractedly. “Just an old man realizing he’s not quite as smart as he believed. Mark him as his equal…” He sighed, looking every bit his age for a few seconds. “Suffice it to say you’ve given me something to think about.”
Harry had absolutely no idea what was going on and he wasn’t about to ask questions either, not when Dumbledore held the power to expel him in the palm of his hand. “Sir…why didn’t my friend Ron see himself as a girl?”
“The mirror shows us nothing less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts,” Dumbledore explained, gently and kindly. Harry took a step backwards. That couldn’t mean…no. No, it couldn’t. “The happiest man in the world would look into the mirror and see only himself.”
“I don’t want that,” Harry said frantically. “I can’t want that.”
Dumbledore shook his head. “Harry, the magical world is not the same as the Muggle world. In some cases, the Muggle way of doing things is superior – though I would of course deny saying that – but in other cases, you will find that mages are more enlightened on certain topics. Such as the potential of transitioning to your true gender, the one you were destined to be.”
Harry backed up towards the door. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
“Do I?” Dumbledore asked. “I have been known to be wrong before – but rarely on matters such as this. Harry, regardless of your feelings about what you see in the mirror, you must not continue to search it out. You will waste away chasing a dream you can have in real life. What a tragedy that could be! I will be moving it to a safer location tomorrow, and tomorrow, I also encourage you to talk to people about this. You will find them to be surprisingly understanding, Miss Potter.”
“That’s not my name,” Harry said automatically, trying desperately to ignore the thrill and absolute rightness he felt at being called Miss Potter.
Dumbledore arched an eyebrow. “Indeed?”
Harry didn’t want to talk about this any longer, so he decided to change the subject. “Professor…what do you see in the mirror?”
Dumbledore sighed, a weary look on his face. “Do you know, for a second there, I was tempted to lie to you? But…you showed true bravery and courage – the kind your mother often showed – by telling me of what you saw in that mirror. It would be dishonorable of me to repay that with a lie. So instead I will refuse to answer the question.”
Harry nodded again. That was fair. In retrospect, it had been a hideously personal question, not the kind he ever should have asked a near total stranger, even if he trusted Dumbledore with his own life despite that.
Harry had been tempted to keep the strange feelings and the alien desire to become the girl in the mirror to himself. But for some reason, when Hermione returned, he felt compelled to tell her what he’d seen in the mirror and how it made him feel.
Much to Harry’s immense shock and equal relief, Hermione didn’t laugh at him or mock him or tell him that he was a sick, disgusting pervert. In fact, she looked quite intrigued by Harry’s story. “You know, this reminds me of something I read in a book I checked out from the library,” she mused, an indecipherable look on her face. “Would you mind fetching it for me from my dorms? It’s the one with the red cover.”
“Why can’t you get it?” Harry asked.
Ron seemed to instantly get what was going on, which must have been nice for him, because Harry was absolutely lost. “Just do it, Harry. We’ll explain when you get back.”
“But what if someone’s in there?” Harry asked nervously.
“Just knock on the door, Harry, and ask to be let in,” Hermione said patiently. There was a knowing glint in her eyes.
Harry had absolutely no idea what was going on – he had the distinct feeling he was missing something – but he gamely walked up the stairs to the girls’ dorm and knocked on the door. Angelina Johnson, two grades above him, answered the door, looking supremely shocked to see him.
Harry’s ears flushed with embarrassment. “I am so sorry to interrupt you!” he said quickly, hoping that by rushing through, he could have this humiliating circumstance over with faster. “It’s just Hermione said I had to fetch a book for her, and I told her she should get it herself.”
“Guess the Boy Who Lived is no more, right?” Angelina said with a smirk. “You know, I kind of had a feeling.”
“You don’t have to threaten me,” Harry said coldly. “I said I was sorry.”
Angelina tilted her head and burst out laughing. “Oh, gosh, I just realized how that sounded. You’re still not quite there, are you? Eh, you will be. Ron will help out, I’m sure.” She stepped into the room and returned with the book in question and ruffled his hair like one would do to a younger sibling. “I’m looking forward to seeing more of you around here,” she added, as she closed the door.
“Okay?” Harry said, thoroughly bewildered as he walked down the stairs.
Both Ron and Hermione were grinning like lunatics when he returned. “Okay, that’s enough! No more riddles, no more jokes, I want to know what’s going on!”
“Harry, I think you’re a girl,” Hermione said bluntly. “And what’s more, the castle does too. There’s an enchantment on the staircase leading to the girls’ dorms that makes it impossible for boys to go up there.”
“That’s impossible,” Harry said. “I have a…you know…” He gestured vaguely at his groin area.
“I didn’t always use to have one,” Ron said. Harry stared at him. Could that mean what he thought it meant? “When I was born, the healers thought I was a girl. I was born as Roberta. But I always hated my name, wearing girls clothes, being called a girl, you name it. I was a boy, so I told my parents, and they gave me potions to change my body, and bam, my body matches who I am.” Was this all some dream Harry was happening? Surely this wasn’t happening in real life.
“It’s called being transgender,” Hermione explained. “At least that’s the term for it in the Muggle world…”
Harry’s eyes widened. “There are people like me in the Muggle world?” He clapped his hands over his mouth before he could say another word? “I mean…I’m not…”
“Okay, you’re not,” Hermione said quietly. “But can we just pretend for a minute you are, Harry? What would you say if I said, this is my friend Harry Potter; she’s a very brave and talented girl?”
Tears started to fall down Harry’s cheek. “I…I think I’d like that…but…but if my relatives found out…”
“There’s no reason they need to know,” Hermione assured him. “Muggle relatives…really don’t get informed of anything at Hogwarts. In my opinion, that’s a big problem that needs to be addressed, but this time, it works in our favor.”
Harry looked his – no. No, she looked her friend in the eyes. “I’m a girl,” she whispered. Then she gave a huge grin. “I’M A GIRL!” Ron and Hermione immediately swept her up in a hug. “I must be the luckiest girl in the world to have friends like you.”
“Not half as lucky as we are to be friends with you, Harry,” Ron assured her. “Hey, it’s gonna be fine. We’ll talk to McGonagall – er, Professor McGonagall,” he hastily corrected himself at Hermione’s glare. “And we’ll get things fixed up for you.”
“It’ll be perfectly fine, Harry,” Hermione assured her. “This is entirely normal for the magical world. Madam Pomphrey will put you on a potion regimen to change your body and you’ll move into the girls’ dorm and you’ll be the Girl Who Lived. And no one’s going to care. Not even Malfoy will say anything.”
It all seemed too good to be true, but Harry wanted to believe it anyway. “Let’s go talk to the professor now,” she decided. “Before I change my mind. Would you go with me?”
“Like you even have to ask,” Ron scoffed, looking offended there was any doubt.
The three of them knocked on the door to Professor McGonagall’s office. Helpfully, she had office hours at that point. “Mr. Potter, Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley, do come in. What can I do for you?”
Harry cringed at hearing mister out of Professor McGonagall’s mouth. Now that she had realized the truth of herself, she didn’t want to hear the lie anymore. “Actually, that’s why we’re here…it’s Miss Potter now.” Professor McGonagall sighed, looking somewhat morose.
Harry cringed, looking over at Hermione accusingly. “You said she wouldn’t have a problem with it!”
Professor McGonagall put up a hand. “You misunderstand me, Miss Potter. I am merely sad Lily and James are not here to witness this moment, the moment when you finally became your true self.” She smiled at her. “You may rest assured, they would be quite proud of you.” She reached into her drawer and pulled out a bunch of paperwork. “We’re in for a long afternoon of filling out paperwork, I’m afraid. Bureaucracy is as much of a curse as the Cruciatus sometimes.”
She moved her quill to a part of one of the forms. “Is there a particular name you’d like to change to? You don’t have to decide now. The paperwork can be changed later.”
Harry considered the question. Another memory floated back to her, one of watching a sitcom called Keeping Up Appearances through the crack between the door and the wall of the cupboard. It was about a snobbish woman named Hyacinth like Aunt Petunia whose attempts to social climb were always comedically thwarted. Though Aunt Petunia obviously liked Hyacinth the most, seeming to ignore the fact one wasn’t supposed to like her, Harry had always been more fond of Hyacinth’s poorer but much kinder relatives. Especially Daisy, who had always seemed sweet and nice, the kind of person she wanted to live with.
“Daisy,” Daisy Potter announced. “I want to be Daisy Potter.”
“Great choice, Daisy!” Ron said with a thumbs up. Hermione nodded approvingly too. Daisy felt a warm feeling flow through her upon hearing her friend call her by her true name.
Professor McGonagall had not been lying about the paperwork taking forever, but Daisy didn’t mind. It felt more solid and real the more forms she filled out. Professor McGonagall gave her a spare girl’s uniform and when Daisy tried on the uniform when they were finally done, she loved the way it looked on her. She wasn’t quite the girl she’d seen in the mirror yet, but she was far closer to her than she’d ever dreamed of being.
Hermione led Daisy up the staircase into the girls’ dorm. Despite the rampant speculation of Daisy’s former dormmates, it really didn’t look any different than the boys’ dorm…but it felt different. It felt right. It felt…
“Ladies, may I introduce you to our newest roommate, Daisy Potter?” Hermione said with a mock formal, grandiose air about her. Everyone rushed to shower Daisy with welcoming comments, not a single one of them making the slightest fuss about having her room with them, and Daisy couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever been so happy.
It felt like coming home.