A/N: This was written for a challenge. More info about that is at the end of the story.
The main character here, Felicia, is an OC that makes an appearance in my Scorbus fic The Selfsame Yearning. She's dating Harry's son James, who is the James she refers to in this story.
"It is time to effect a revolution in female manners — time to restore to them their lost dignity — and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners."
― Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
A shiver travelled down Felicia's spine, and she tugged her heavy winter robes tighter about her. She fumbled inside her bag for her wand before whispering a warming charm to herself. The soft light of the surrounding candles had warded off the chill for a while, but it was October in northern Scotland. Now that night had come, there was only so much their soft glow could do.
Felicia tugged at the end of her braid as she stared down at the parchment. When she'd settled into the library much earlier in the evening, she'd had high hopes of finishing before supper time, but supper had come and gone long ago.
Though she was thankful for what food James had managed to smuggle in for her under Pince's watchful eye, she was starting to feel the familiar pangs in her stomach that reminded her it hadn't quite been enough to keep her satisfied until breakfast. Her concentration was only further tested by the way her eyes kept wanting to flutter shut after the long hours spent gazing at ink on parchment.
The day had been too long, and it would have been wise for her to call it quits before she fell asleep at her table. Surely anything she wrote would be better tomorrow, after a full night's rest, than it would be if she continued pulling it out of her frazzled brain.
She almost gathered her things, but she hesitated before she'd snapped the book closed.
Sleep meant going back to her dormitory on the seventh floor, and that meant facing the others. She'd much rather be alone. Almost no one was left in the library, and Madam Pince was more than happy to tend to her own business. Felicia had been careful over the years, and it had placed in her Pince's good graces. As long as her boyfriend, whom Pince didn't trust nearly as much, wasn't with her, she wouldn't be bothered.
She wondered what her classmates would think when they realized that Luna Lovegood had recruited her to write a column in The Quibbler about her experiences as an openly trans student at Hogwarts. If she thought too much about it, her heart beat faster, and it was harder to get the words down on paper.
But, she reminded herself, it was likely that no one would realize she'd even written the articles. The Quibbler wasn't the Daily Prophet, and Felicia couldn't attest to having read an issue before Luna's offer. She liked Luna, but some of the stuff she published was out there. She'd considered turning the woman down with the argument that people would take her less seriously if she was published in such a magazine, but the Daily Prophet certainly wasn't going to give her the same opportunity. She had considered pushing for Witch Weekly, but even that felt like a stretch. She'd have had to use her relationship with Harry Potter's son to get their attention, and the thought of that left her a little nauseous.
All she could hope for was that people would read what she had to say and realize that her article was far different from the one on the next page arguing that vampires were the ones running Gringotts while the goblins had fun with their abundant wealth.
That was why she was insistent on doing thorough research. She had plumbed through every piece of writing on gender and sex that the Hogwarts library possessed, which was not nearly as much as she would have liked. If the Muggle world was only newly exploring gender as separate from sex, then the wizarding world hadn't even begun yet. But the Muggle world also had plenty of writing by ignorant men explaining why they were a superior sex. Felicia, with some relief, couldn't find much of that in the wizarding texts. It was there, she was sure, but those weren't texts Hogwarts had bothered to preserve for the sake of their students.
The tome she was currently trying to read was so thick that she was sitting on one of her legs to better see the page as it laid on the table. It must have taken its author their entire lifetime to complete, and much of it was tangents about topics unrelated to the supposed point of the book. Sometimes Felicia found that trait charming in old books, but in her exhaustion, she was only frustrated and hoping that Anonymous could get back to their point already. She didn't care about what tip they'd learned about tending to gardens.
She was about to give up on the text, sure that Anonymous would never get back to what they'd been saying about women's place in society, when she felt a presence in her corner of the library. She looked up, expecting to see Pince preparing to shoo her out of the library.
Instead, she found herself looking at Headmistress McGonagall, who carried five rather large books in her arms. She was watching Felicia with a slight grin on her lips, as if nothing made her happier than finding a student taking education so seriously that they were doing research that hadn't been assigned to them in class. Felicia hoped McGonagall never realized that she had yet to begin her Charms essay that was due in several days.
"Headmistress, hello," Felicia greeted with a slight nod of her head.
Though some of her friends, especially her boyfriend, felt comfortable greeting the headmistress rather informally, Felicia had always been a little intimidated by the woman. McGonagall topped the list of women whom Felicia admired and hoped to be like one day. Perhaps that was why she always began to feel nervous and stumble over her words when she was in her presence.
It had made coming out to the headmistress and requesting that Hogwarts treat her as a girl all the more harder than it would have been had it been anyone else she was speaking to.
"Ms. Blair," McGonagall returned. "Pleasure to see you this evening."
She sat the books down on the table, and Felicia noticed that all five of them appeared brand new. It contrasted sharply with the books she'd been looking at, which were, for the most part, at least a hundred years old.
"Madam Pince spoke to me about your research," McGonagall said. "She was upset that you couldn't find more of what you were looking for. We spoke for some time, and I gave her the funds to search for books that might be useful to you. I also sent some owls out to friends, and these were the recommendations I got in return." She motioned at the books on the table. "One of them was even recommended by Luna Lovegood, and I was pleased to see that it appears adequately researched."
Felicia bit back a smile at the way McGonagall tried to sound as if she hadn't been horribly worried that Luna would send her a book as out there as many of her Quibbler articles. Though she knew that McGonagall had once taught Luna, she'd never heard either woman speak of the other, and the idea of them talking was enough to make her want to giggle. Somehow, she refrained.
"Thank you, Headmistress," she said instead.
How touched she was by McGonagall's gesture could be heard in her voice.
McGonagall's smile grew softer.
"You're welcome. Two of them are Muggle books, but I guess we could use more of those in this library anyway."
She glanced around at the books that surrounded them, and Felicia wondered how many memories the woman had of this place after her decades at the school.
McGonagall took a step away from the table.
"You'll do great work, Ms. Blair," McGonagall said with a sense of finality. "It gives me great pride to see one of our students doing so much before they've finished school, but as your teacher, I must insist that you head to bed. There are few things in this world of greater importance than academics, but I'm afraid that adequate sleep is one of them."
The sternness in McGonagall's voice made it clear that there was no choice for Felicia in the matter. WIth a sigh, she nodded. She began shoving her parchment, quill, and ink into her bag. When she stood up and lifted the bag over her shoulder, McGonagall spoke again.
"Do take those books with you."
She motioned at the new books still stacked neatly on the table.
"Consider them checked out in your name. I'll inform Madam Pince of it."
Felicia offered her a small smile and gathered the books into her arms. She had yet to look inside, but a quick glance at the titles left her optimistic. She could only hope they didn't let her down.
A/N: This was written for the International Women's Day 2018 event at the Golden Snitch forum.
School: Mahoutokoro
House: Mizu
Prompt: Mary Wollstonecraft
Additional Prompts: (word) witch, (word) ignorant, (word) education, (object) quill, (object) tome, (setting) the library, Hogwarts