Hogwarts Reimagined

Content warning for: Discussion of bullying and threats of outing, homophobic slurs, deadnaming (semi-intentional to actively intentional), misgendering (intentional), bullying, panic attack, meltdown, oh wow how do I describe dumbledore... disregarding testimony of abuse, blood purism, blood family supremacy, denial of abuse, intent to return her to abusive home, transphobia, homophobia, manipulation and probably a little gaslighting. Then after that there's some vulnerability, safety risk and panic due to neurological sensory disorder -building that as a thing, know how to write it not word it.

“You’re joking.”

Harry hadn’t told her friends at dinner – the hall was too crowded for her to be able to form any sort of coherent thought train. So they were all settled around on couches and beanbags in a corner of Gryffindor Tower studying when Harry relented and shared her news with her friends. Neville had returned by now from the Hospital Wing, and he shared a couch beside Harry along with Hermione, his Remembrall safely returned.

The comment was Ron’s, echoed by a similar comment from Faye. Their minor commotion attracted some other Gryffindors Harry didn’t recognise, bringing with them a flurry of congratulations from most, from others some consternation as to whether a first year could really hold up as Seeker. Percy congratulated her in his rather pompous manner, ‘on behalf of Gryffindor’ to a chorus of groans, and Harry was introduced to the rest of the team by a pair of redheaded twins who introduced themselves as Fred and George, Ron’s older brothers. A Quidditch team was made up of seven players – one seeker, Harry; one Keeper, Oliver Wood; two Beaters – the twins; and three Chasers – Alicia Spinnet, Angelina Jordan and Katie Bell, three older girls of whom Harry was simultaneously terrified and admiring. The seven of them, with a handful of others Harry was informed filled in from time to time as spares, huddled around and talked strategy and skills until her head spun.

Eventually, with some intervention from the prefects, the celebratory throng dispersed and Harry returned to her study with Ron, Neville and her dorm-mates in peace. The common room quieted slowly until the only sounds were the scratching of quills and the occasional low mutter. Harry was absorbed in her History of Magic homework, the first years tended to collaborate on the dreadfully dull subject in an effort to get something out of it. This term they were covering the Statute of Secrecy and the events that precluded it, and ordinarily Harry would have been fascinated with a discussion of the insular nature of magical society and the ways in which it was hobbled developmentally by its’ own laws, but Professor Binns had no tolerance for deviating from the lesson plan which always covered only the events of the past, with little to how they shaped modern events and society. He had made it clear that his was a history class, not a sociology one, and while some simply saw it as something to slog through; Harry, Hermione and their more studious friends were frustrated by the style of teaching, feeling that it hindered creative and analytical thought, as well as the clear bias in the subjects and how they were handled.

“Harry, what did Malfoy have to say?” someone asked, startling Harry from her focus as she helped Neville break down a testimony given to the British magical government in favour for the need for the statute at the time of its’ original formation.

The speaker was Parvati, and Harry blinked fuzzily for a moment as she processed what had been said. “Um he, he knows.” she mumbled, eyes downcast. She’d had no particular discussion with Ron or Neville about her trans identity, and Ron was confused until Faye explained briefly to him, while Neville just nodded – not vacantly, she got the feeling her timid, scholarly friend didn’t need to be told. Hermione’s eyes narrowed, and Parvati gestured for Harry to go on. “H-he knows and um, he’s... he was... you know, Malfoy, y-you know what he’s like please don’t make me say it, he know’s that I-I’m – and he’s upset that I-I showed him up and he’s going to tell people unless I duel him t-t-toni-ght and I’m scared.” she burst out, her glasses fogging a little as her face heated with shame.

A cracking of knuckles broke the silence, and Harry caught a vicious glance shared between Faye and Ron. Hermione pulled her into a sideways hug while Neville squeezed her hand, spelling against her wrist as she’d done for him. “You don’t know any proper spells yet, you can’t go,” Hermione reasoned quietly. This was met with a nod from Parvati and Neville squeezed Harry’s hand again, emphatically; while Ron and Faye disagreed. “We’ll come as seconds. Malfoy deserves his pointy Prod ass kicked.” Faye contributed with a scowl, to Ron’s emphatic agreement. Harry shook her head, disjointed images of the few times she’d attempted to stand up to the Dursleys blinking against her closed eyelids. “N-no I c-can’t, I can’t, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m scared,” she mumbled, hugging her knees to her chest and curling up against Hermione’s side. Parvati and Hermione shared a look, and Harry nodded assent for them to help her up to bed. “I’ll be up later,” Faye replied at their questioning, remaining behind with Ron and an uncharacteristically furious Neville.

Harry lay awake in the dark long after her roommates’ quiet snores filled the still air, eyes tightly closed and nails biting into clenched palms as sleep eluded her. She heard every thunderous chime of the Hogwarts clock tower as the hours blurred together – eight, ten, eleven. Midnight. No lightning struck, the world’s shape didn’t change. But Harry never noticed Faye come back to bed that night as she lay awake until well past two.

As it turned out, the two boys and Faye had slipped out of Gryffindor tower and gone to meet Malfoy. The lot of them were now under threat of detention, the loss of a hundred house points tempered only with the knowledge that Malfoy and his two hulking cronies had also lost fifty points apiece. They were all sternly informed that the teachers had marked their detentions, and the lot of them would serve a joint detention to be planned for some time in the Christmas holidays – none of them were to be permitted a home visit as a result. Harry was strangely relieved that some of her other friends served under the same onerous sentence as she and Hermione did, at least whatever awaited them would be shared.

Soon another week passed and Harry settled into a rhythm at Hogwarts as they began their regular timetable. They were introduced to Astronomy class which was held from 8-9pm Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays; and Care of Magical Creatures which was taught by a jovial Scotsman by the name of Professor Kettleburn, who possessed a remarkably fewer number of bodily appendages than most, having only one hand and leg, and a missing eye. Harry supposed his profession did lend itself to unusual injuries, and though it was less academic than her usual classes, Harry enjoyed the time out near the forest and she resolved to ask Hagrid more about the creatures they discussed in class when she saw him next, having seen books on the subject taking up precious space in his cabin.

Outside of academia, Harry found a new passion in Quidditch. Flying was as thrilling as it had been the first time, and even on a borrowed broom she held her own on the Quidditch pitch. Aside from Seeking, her quick reflexes and caution served her well against the Bludgers and Harry thrived on the camaraderie the team brought – despite Draco Malfoy’s threats, it seemed rumours about Harry hadn’t changed from when she was first Sorted, and the team made absolutely no issue of Harry or her gender.

To Harry, though, the issue still weighed on her. The name Harry was inherently tied to the Boy Who Lived, and ten years of abuse by the Dursleys. And it prodded at the back of her mind insistently, until she spilled her anxieties to her friends while they studied. Some – Parvati, Emilia, Daphne, Neville and Megan Cassidy – empathised, but they had little idea on how to help. Others – Ron, Tracey, Padma and Morag – didn’t entirely understand the pain a name could cause, having no frame of reference for the issue and so while they sympathised they were even less help than the former. It was Hermione, Faye and Sally-Anne who had the simple solution the others missed – if Harry didn’t feel right, why not look for something that did? And so it was that the four girls along with Neville found themselves in the library, distracted from their extracurricular study of early magical culture in the British Isles by a hunt for Harry’s new name.

Their search didn’t take them far from their extracurricular work, as Harry found herself fascinated by the names and culture of what they were already studying. Her mother Lily had been Welsh, and Harry was drawn to the names of the characters and legends of that part of her heritage. One reoccurred over and over, in local legend and historical canon of the magical community. And on seeing it, she knew immediately it was hers.

Rhiannon.

This knowledge brought with it the first break into the rhythm she had found at Hogwarts, as on the Sunday morning of her third week at Hogwarts, Rhiannon reintroduced herself to her friends as her new-chosen name – with the condition that they address her as such only in private for her safety, at least until she had found a stronger footing at Hogwarts. A couple of her friends had concerns for Rhiannon's safety when she eventually came out, several others – Hermione, Neville, Sally-Anne and Faye – expressed discomfort at the idea of having to call Rhiannon something they knew caused her pain. Rhiannon – now Rhi for short – appreciated their concern on that front, but assured them that she would bear it – that it was safer to.

The hushed deliberations of the group were interrupted by the arrival of the post towards the end of breakfast. Ordinarily this was of little interest to Rhiannon, having no-one to write home to, but this morning her attention was caught by a pair of owls, large and freckled brown with ear tufts and yellow eyes, as between them they carried a long parcel wrapped in brown paper. Further to Rhi’s surprise, this was deposited on the table before her, narrowly missing upsetting a goblet.

Attached to the parcel with twine was a small card, bearing Rhiannon’s old name and a short note. She grimaced, but was immediately glad that she had checked it first – given that it instructed her not to open the parcel at the table and that it contained – Rhiannon could barely believe her eyes – a broomstick. An entire broomstick. For her. She was almost too floored by the gift – for it was a gift, the card said as much – to be excited by it.

But only almost. Rhi squealed, the sound a little muffled as she hid her beaming face in the itchy fabric of her school jersey, knocking her own glasses off as she flapped excitedly, tripping over the bench and crashing to her hands and knees as she got up to retrieve them. Her broomstick, still wrapped, rolled across the aisle between the tables and stopped under the lifted toe of someone’s polished shoe. Rhiannon looked up and her heart sank as she recognised the characteristic sneer of the blond boy who’d made himself out to be her rival since day one.

“That’s a broomstick, Faggy Potter – don’t get all freak about it, now.” he drawled, a vicious sort of glee brightening his usually sullen tone, as if somehow Rhiannon’s good fortune was a windfall to him. “First year’s aren’t allowed broomsticks – not that you’d know, raised like a Mudblood and all.” At those words, there was a scuffling among the tables and in her periphery Rhi saw Angelina, Katie and Alicia holding back a livid Fred and George. Rhi didn’t quite understand the insult’s magical context, all she could hear in the back of her brain were the vindictive children at her primary school, asking if her blood was as dirty as her skin, if she ever bathed, were her parents filthy too. In the face of that, the insult Draco led with slipped to the back of her mind, and she found her wand clutched in a shaking, pale-knuckled hand without knowing she had even drawn it, the murmuring of the crowded room fading to a muted hush and a black curtain flickering again at the edges of her vision.
“That’s enough, Malfoy. Five points from Slytherin, and another ten for that word in particular.” a familiarly stern voice interjected, coloured by the warm accent that was becoming comforting to Rhiannon as so often it signalled her rescue and cutting through the haze of flashback and fury. “Fa- Potter’s got a broomstick, Professor. First’s not allowed those,” Draco Malfoy repeated, a sickly yellow-green tone of jealousy creeping into his insistent statement at the professor’s nonchalance. “Yes, yes, she’s the new Gryffindor seeker, special provision and all. Thought it might be good for team-building and camaraderie – something you might do well to consider as well, young man. Now be off before I make it a round twenty points taken.” Professor McGonagall snapped, taking the broomstick from Draco and turning to Rhiannon, her face creased with concern. Harry shook her head mutely, a dull thrum of resentment beating deep in her chest at how the snide bully had managed to ruin even the experience of the best gift of her life, combined with a feverish mortification at having been so open in her joy – she let her new friends see what a freak she really was.

Once again, it was Professor McGonagall’s patient voice that roused her from the bitter spiral she had begun to flounder in. “Wood, take Potter out for a spin on that, may as well run an early practice. Here’s a note if anyone’s using the field.” she instructed, Rhiannon vaguely noticed that she was surrounded by a mixture of her own year-level friends and the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Professor McGonagall stooped a little, and Rhi prided herself that she didn’t flinch as the tall woman placed a hand gently on her shoulder. McGonagall nodded silently and squeezed Rhiannon’s shoulder, patting it briefly as she released her. If nothing else, the silent comfort and support was appreciated, and Rhiannon left the hall still fuming, but at least with the knowledge she had her teacher’s support.

Out on the Quidditch Pitch, Rhiannon could think again. Something about the enclosure of the stands helped focus her mind, and the sensation of the light autumn breeze as it teased at her hair was a calming one. She sat cross-legged on the slightly damp ground, displeased with the sensation but seeing no other way to set about unwrapping her broomstick, and quietly busied herself with the knotted string and infuriatingly stealthy packaging tape edges, slowly revealing the warm polished teak handle of her very own broomstick.

Even Rhiannon, as a relative novice, could immediately feel the difference. The connection in her hand wasn’t as strong as she had felt when trying wands, but there was a degree of similarity in the way it connected to her magic, more an instrument than a vehicle. As ever, part of Rhi’s mind nattered away analysing the structure and principles of the magic involved even as she admired the broom on a more surface level, running curious fingertips over the label plated on the end of the handle – Nimbus 2000.

Awkwardly she stood, wiping her muddied palms on her robes and then twisting them anxiously on the broom’s grip as she made her way over the rest of the team, fizzing with anticipation. Sometime in her studious unravelling of its’ wrappings, Rhiannon had missed the arrival of a tousle-haired runner and she tilted her head curiously as they retreated from the field, Rhi having also missed whatever they had come to say.

“Alright, Potter, let’s get you up in the air on that thing, yeah?” Oliver said with a grin, rubbing his palms together. “A Nimbus, good Seeker’s broom – they’ve improved in their recent models. Mount up, everyone.” he mused, then concluded with a good-natured order, clapping his hands sharply to conclude any chatter among the rest of the team.

Unlike usual games, Quidditch practices

It was well into mid-day by the time Oliver called an end to the practice, and the team congregated at the edge of the field, all sharing matching grins when Rhiannon joined them, her own grin a little crooked in her shyness. “Slytherin won’t know what hit them,” one of the Weasley twins said, ruffling Rhiannon’s hair. It was another private testament to her healing that Rhi took pride in, as she ducked away laughing and swatting playfully at the offending Weasley with her broomstick, that the action caused her only a moment’s startlement and not the blood-freezing panic of mere weeks past.

“Sorry to chase you away, Potter, but the runner asked me to send you up to the Headmaster after practice so I figured we’d best wrap it up.” Oliver apologised. Another of Rhi’s teammates, a dark-haired second-year girl named Katie Bell held out a hand to Rhiannon, beckoning. “I’ll take your broomstick and pads back to the dorms if you like,” she offered. Gratefully Rhiannon passed her equipment over, offering some muttered thanks as she scurried off back towards the castle.

The trek up to the third floor was, as ever, exhausting; but Rhiannon made her way there without so much as a switching stair case only to realise she had no idea how to get in. Defeated for the moment, she leaned against the tarnished bronze statue of a gryphon to think, and was promptly sent sprawling as the statue in question shivered and began to turn on its’ plinth, the alcove shifting into the wall to reveal a short staircase up. “Come in, Harry,” an old man’s thin voice sounded from somewhere inside, out of Rhiannon’s field of view.

Rhi stood and dusted herself off, taking a moment to straighten both her clothes and her nerves before she faced Professor Dumbledore. As with any authority figure she thought of him with a degree of wariness, but there was the added complication of his role in the decade of abuse she had faced at the hands of her relatives – abuse, according to Professor McGonagall, he had not been overly concerned with. Rhiannon pushed these thoughts down until they simmered like a bank of sullen violet embers in her chest, and with her hands clenched inside her slightly overlong jumper, she took the few stairs and crossed an internal sort of foyer to reach the desk where the wizard in question had addressed her from.

A chair was pushed out from the chair by some unseen spell, it bumped against Rhiannon’s knees gently. “Sit, Harry,” the grey-bearded professor remarked. He was clearly aiming for a kindly tone, but it came off more as patronising, an impression certainly not helped by the uncomfortable use of her old name – not that he could know of her new one, she reminded herself, determined to be charitable until the professor proved himself undeserving.

“This is the end of your third week at Hogwarts, Harry. I have been patient and allowed this to continue far too long, but it is simply unacceptable. Of course, given your circumstances, you cannot know of the full importance you hold to the wizarding world, my dear boy, but there are ways in which you must conduct yourself. This... mockery of yourself and your station cannot carry on, and these tales that have reached me of your aunt and uncle – your mother would be ashamed, truly ashamed, to hear such rumours spoken of her own sister, and by her son no less.” Dumbledore continued, a beatific smile upon his creased features. Those embers of resentment in Rhiannon’s chest flared, until it felt as if her very bones creaked under pressure of the fire she held back. Never had she wished more to punch an octogenarian.

“I- No-” She stammered, the words sticking in her throat, held back by the choking rage that suffused her. The tips of her ears reddened, and tears prickled in her eyes. Condescension, hatred, she was used to. But never from someone who was so convinced he was doing her a kindness. Professor Albus Dumbledore paid her furious stutter no mind. “I’ve half a mind to send you back to your guardians until next year, young man. I will not tolerate any expectations of special treatment or inflated importance.”

“They nearly killed me.” Rhiannon choked out, as the traitorous tears began to fall. “Ask H-Hagrid. Or P-Pro-Professor M-McGonagall. Ask Hermione’s parents-” she carried on, her words flooding together in a sickening combination of fear and rage – and, most bitterly, a trace of self doubt, as again the grey-bearded man held up his hand for silence. Something twisted Rhiannon’s vocal cords, she was unsure if it was her own speech impairment or some silent spell from the headmaster.

“Voldemort nearly killed you, Harry Potter, a fact Miss Granger’s parents as... non-magical citizens cannot fully appreciate the scope of. And do not speak to me of Hagrid, the man would try to save a dragon even as it burned his home. The only reason Lord Voldemort’s supporters haven’t found you yet, my boy, is that the same protection that saved you that night, lives in your very blood. Your blood, Harry boy – the very core of your being. Without the reinforcement of that protection, you were vulnerable to the retaliation of the Dark Lord’s followers.” he continued, as if explaining to a small child. “Certainly, they may have struck you – any parent does, you know. It’s simply a part of growing up – you’re in no danger with your family. And for your own safety, you will return to them at the end of the year. I would insist that you return during holiday time, but for your dear aunt’s advice that school would do you good.”

The telltale dusk curtain glimmered at the edges of Rhiannon’s vision and it was slowly swallowed by stars, leaving her blinking in the dark and too furious to speak.

Harry, boy, your dear aunt, my, my – Over and over, snatches of Dumbledore’s speech repeated in her mind even as her real hearing faded into the numb haze it always did under stress. Rhiannon moved her – his, Harry’s, the boy’s her brain insisted viciously, nudged on by a voice so like that of the man before her – hands on the arms of the narrow chair she had been allocated, grasping them firmly to ground herself in reality. She was Rhiannon Hestia Potter. She was sitting in a chair on the third floor of Hogwarts Castle. The buttons of her shirt were undone beneath her jacket.

But unlike usual, this grounding didn’t lift the stubborn curtain over her vision. Her ears burned, her mouth felt too dry, all she could hear was the relentless repetition in her head and the erratic tattoo of her own heartbeat. She couldn’t stay. Dumbledore couldn’t know, he couldn’t, he’d send her back, he’d send her away – she had to leave. So Rhiannon rose unsteadily from the chair and shoved it aside, one foot knocking against Professor Dumbledore’s desk served as a guide as she scrambled for the shape of the rest of the room in her tattered memory. Blue carpet, bay window – foyer, the foyer. Rhiannon turned away, feeling as subtly as she could with each footstep, her hands for once still at her sides as she extended them as much as she could without giving herself away.

Rhiannon had forgotten the single stair that separated Dumbledore’s office from its’ foyer, and she stumbled to her knees at the unexpected drop. Her forehead hit her upright knee, hard, and she took a moment to breathe. Didn’t matter. Had to get out. Now on level ground again, she stumbled in what she hoped was the direction of the door. Her angle was slightly off and she knocked against the doorjamb, freezing for a moment, raising her hands desperately to the doorway, to claw at it if she had in fact been shut in – no, no, it was empty air, she could get out and the sudden claustrophobia receded as quickly as it had come on.

Rhiannon sagged against the wall outside, feeling the vibration in the rough stone wall as the guardian statue rotated to its’ original position barring what was now in Rhi’s mind a source of terror second only to the Dursleys’ front door. Numbly she crawled into the alcove behind the statue, clinging to its’ legs as she sobbed helplessly into the uncaring bronze.

Rhiannon could not have told anyone how long she spent curled in that alcove, tears drying in the front of her hair. Her glasses were long-lost, either somewhere in the alcove or in the office, and even the lack of the familiar pressure had Rhi feeling adrift and tattered, hugging her knees to herself as she bit one wrist, hoping the pain would shock her vision back, her hearing, some sense – nothing. Nothing, until a gentle hand was on her shoulder, even that contact had Rhiannon curling in on herself, a dull copper taste in her mouth as she bit down on her wrist again, helplessly frightened by the contextless touch. Someone crawled into the alcove behind Rhiannon, and she threw out a hand desperately to stop whoever it was as they took her into their arms, her own not restrained as whoever the person was rocked her gently, a low vibration in their chest told Rhiannon that they spoke or hummed or something, she shook her head and buried it in the unidentifiable person’s bony, wool-clad shoulder, tears soaking the fabric until some sort of awareness returned.

It was Rhiannon’s hearing that returned soonest, at first painful high frequencies that had her choking on sobs and struggling to cover her ears, then slowly the rest. With hearing she could identify her rescuer now as Professor McGonagall, but she was too exhausted to feel embarrassed for the meltdown, only bone-deep relief that someone was there, that the kind Scottish professor had heard, that she’d stayed instead of, any of the things that had happened during such times in the past. Rhiannon’s vision was still mostly black, but there were sparkling gaps now in the previously impenetrable field, she could just barely make out the red of the professor’s tartan scarf that her face was currently buried in.

While able to recognise Professor McGonagall, she couldn’t yet discern words and she shook her head numbly at the featureless jumble that was all she understood of the woman’s voice. A bitter smell like electrical burning, Rhiannon wrinkled her nose – a smell she would later come to associate with direct magics, as the professor summoned help.

It would be some time before the Rhiannon could speak, could think clearly, and her eyelids fluttered dazedly. Her thin body sagged in the professor’s wiry embrace, and blissfully the Girl Who Lived was afforded the peace of unconsciousness.