"I am a female writer. And what's interesting about the wizarding world is when you take physical strength out of the equation, a woman can fight just as well as a man can fight, can do magic just as powerfully as a man can do magic, and I consider that I've written a lot of well rounded female characters in these books. As an author, none of the women ever gave me trouble, actually. It was always the men that gave me trouble, never the women. But Harry came to me as Harry, and I never wanted to change that. Because switching gender isn't simply putting a dress and a pretty name on a boy, is it? A lot of the preoccupations and expectations are different on men and women, and so the books would have been incredibly different, I think."
- JK Rowling, The Women of Harry Potter
Chapter One: Seven Moments That Defined Esmeralda Potter
1.
Esmeralda was always aware of a keen difference between her and Dudley. The problem was that for a long time, she thought it was a simple difference of parentage.
Right at the start of her living memory, she became aware that Dudley called them "Mum" and "Dad" while she herself called them "Aunt Petunia" and "Uncle Vernon." When she was about five, she walked up to her Aunt Petunia one day while she was dusting - Uncle Vernon was at work - and asked, "Why do I live with you? What happened to my Mum and Dad? And where did I get the scar on my forehead?"
She pointed at the lightning bolt shaped mark, so distinctive underneath her messy dark bangs.
Aunt Petunia's lips pursed and whitened. "You got the scar in the car crash when your parents died," she snapped. "And don't ask questions!" She bustled away.
So that explained it, Esmeralda thought at first. Dudley was treated so much better because he was their child and she wasn't. That must explain everything - the fact that he got a full bedroom and she slept in a closet even though their house had four bedrooms, the fact that she was restricted from every piece of imagination and creativity and every indulgence, the fact that her food was limited, the fact that she was sometimes confined to the closet and yelled at and punished for things that were not her fault. It hurt, though she never let it show, but that must explain it.
"You cost a great deal to keep around, you know," massive Uncle Vernon would boom in his more temperamental moments. Yes, Esmeralda thought, her parentage would explain everything.
Then school came.
Esmeralda was delighted. She got perfect grades while Dudley got lousy ones. In this one tiny way, she started out better than him. School was good in other ways, too - Dudley was charged as the big brother figure with defending her from bullies, and with her stern and cold aunt and uncle out of the way, there was simply Dudley with his teasing protectiveness. He'd never been allowed to pick on her, and he'd always seemed kinder and the better off for this restriction. He protected her and like a small, growing plant sheltered from the storm she was allowed to grow. She was allowed to make friends. School was wonderful.
And she was excited to show her aunt and uncle her wonderful grades. Surely, she thought, at this at least they would be proud.
But she went home and showed them the report card and they barely gave it a glance. Then they went off to coo over Dudley and help him with his homework around the kitchen table. Esmeralda was left standing in the entryway, confused, clutching her perfect report card.
Maybe her grades just weren't good enough, she thought. So she worked harder.
She would give them this much, they seemed increasingly surprised each time she came through with better grades. It was almost like they hadn't expected any sort of grades at all, like that had been a blank space in their perfect plan. Realizing she was being underestimated, Esmeralda rallied herself to work even harder, pushing herself to ever-further levels of achievement and accomplishment. She was proud of herself. She could be cut-throat when it came to grades and despite occasional taunting from other children about being a tattle-tale, she glared sharp-eyed and let no one stand in the way of her top marks - especially not someone who was cheating.
Finally, when she came home with 100's in everything, Uncle Vernon pulled her aside. "You know," he said knowledgeably, "it's wonderful that you're trying so hard. Intelligence is a virtue. But you should know up front: Women become things like secretaries, nurses, grammar school teachers, and housewives. They don't become doctors or computer programmers, and they certainly don't become artists."
He'd taken to looking through her school notebooks, ripping all the pages out that had doodles and drawings on them, and tearing them into pieces before her eyes.
"None of that," he would say. "Not from you."
2.
After that, everything began to grate on Esmeralda.
She was more keenly aware, now, that other little girls weren't required to know how to cook, clean, and flower garden. They weren't expected to have perfect manners or learn how to hold themselves with grace and comportment, books balanced on their heads. They weren't always expected to wear neat and perfect dresses, never getting dirty or scraping their knees. They weren't yelled at for playing football with the other boys or for having the fastest running time in phys ed. They weren't treated coldly at every turn, the only exception being getting yelled at.
Not even the other girls in their suburb were required to learn these things, she realized over time, and none of them were barred from drawing or from aspiring to something greater.
This was significant because Esmeralda had always felt like a bit of an alien in their city suburb anyway. She loved the bustle of the city itself, taking the bus into Surrey whenever she had the chance, but in the suburb of Little Whinging she constantly felt like the odd one out.
All those long rows of spacious, boxy white houses that all looked the same, housewives sunning themselves on carefully green lawns sipping lemonade, tanning with sunglasses. The jealousy, the gossip, the backstabbing, the need for perfection. The lack of creativity, the defined gender roles. The dinner parties with Uncle Vernon's corporate big business clients that were so carefully scripted, in which she played the perfect little orphan adopted daughter beside smarmy Dudley in the same play every single time.
Sometimes it felt like a prison. But nowhere, she realized, was as much of a prison as her own home.
3.
Esmeralda began calculating a way around these restrictions. How to get what she wanted? Biting sarcasm aside, at first it seemed she had no weapons at her disposal.
But she was clever. That was something.
She started looking at after-school activity flyers at her primary school. Two caught her eye: One was a running and track club that was specifically created to run and gain money at charity events. The other was an advertisement for young girls to get into maths and science - more particularly, computer programming, that thing Uncle Vernon had told her she could never do.
She went home and showed her aunt and uncle. "The charity running would make me look good," she argued intently. "Women do that all the time. And it's not creative, just as you asked. The computer programming isn't creative either. Also… I was thinking about buying some books. What could be more innocent than a girl quietly reading? And it would keep me a straight A student, which would also look good."
It wasn't strictly true that computer programming wasn't creative. She knew that. She was counting on her relatives not being particularly bright. With computers, she could do everything forbidden: combine logic with creativity, and set herself on a road to becoming more than a secretary or a waitress.
The charity running would still be her keeping fit and participating in a sport. And she was genuine about wanting to get more into reading - Esmeralda had become rather attached to the idea of her own intellect, and books sounded like just the thing for her.
Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon looked at each other for a moment. "It's true," said Aunt Petunia finally. "It would all look good, and none of it's creative."
Uncle Vernon looked forward and scoffed. "Intense running and computer programming? High level book reading? A little girl like you won't last ten seconds. Alright." He smirked. "I'll give it a try, if only to show you just what I mean when I talk about where women are allowed and where they're not."
Lips pursed in her long, bony face, everything else carefully perfect to make up for her lack of beauty, Aunt Petunia's lips pursed in disapproving silence. Though she never treated Esmeralda kindly, exactly, she would begin to help her in subtle ways with her pursuits.
4.
Esmeralda was determined from the beginning not to give up, if only to prove both herself and Uncle Vernon wrong about women.
Luckily, so much of it was enjoyable. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail and turned out to be an excellent runner, one of the fastest on the team, a tiny, thin little jet speed around the track. The rush of energy, the wind whipping through her hair, there was nothing like it. Even when she was hurt, she barely flinched before getting right up again. She never missed a single practice or charity event. She made a great deal of money for various diseases and there she realized she felt good too. She even started watching sports on the telly, cheering and making calls with her friends and bowls of popcorn and crisps, safely out of sight of her uncle. One thing she discovered through snacking was a horrible weakness for chocolate. This led indirectly to her love of scented bubble baths and chocolate, which ended up being two of her favorite things.
She forayed into the world of books, and found a love. Here was creativity her aunt and uncle had not thought to take away. Here she could transport herself into other worlds, immerse herself in other characters' lives. In a way, it was truly beautiful. And sure enough, as her reading levels increased, her good grades came easier.
But in computers and technology, she found her calling.
It was wonderful. She might not be able to draw cartoons, but she could design programs and draw up schematics. Her love for logic, maths, and science combined with her love for creativity and critical thinking. She moved from computer software design and into app design. She got onto a local all-female robotics team and they went to competitions together, afterwards exploring London as one big, excitable, giggling group.
She also found friends. At school, of course, she'd been friendly with many people, but the more clubs she joined the more close friends she made. She found friends both in running and in programming, a few boys but most of them girls. She began being invited to pool parties and slumber parties. She gained a reputation for being quiet, kind, and intelligent, but level-headed and with a warm, teasing sense of humor and a natural sympathy. She was also fiercely and almost silently competitive, proudest of her accomplishments, sharp tongued and clever minded.
"You know, short stop," said Dudley with friendly curiosity, "I don't have to defend you as much anymore. No one calls you a loser the way they used to."
"I wonder why," said Esmeralda curiously. "I work on computers and I'm a straight-A student bookworm. Isn't that nerdy?"
"Yeah, but you're also a jock runner and you're socially connected now," said Dudley, who preferred boxing, wrestling, and video games to school, what with his massive size, but who in being cool among macho guys was quite clever. "You're not easy prey."
5.
Esmeralda made the local paper.
She'd just gotten a children's award for app design, and she was the youngest on an all-female robotics team. An impressed female reporter came by and interviewed her, seeming delighted by a little girl's interest in talking about computer software design. Esmeralda was asked lovely questions like how did things work and how did she come up with her ideas. She was as delighted as the reporter.
"Nine years old," the reporter marvelled at the end, her eyes bright. "Thanks for the scoop, audiences will love this." She was practically gushing.
And they did. Pretty soon it was like a dream. Esmeralda Potter was seeing photographs of her face pasted all over the school. Dudley teased her about it, but he didn't really care. They'd never competed in the same areas of interest.
At home Uncle Vernon always seemed to be in a bad mood. He wanted to be upset because she'd proved him wrong, but he couldn't criticize her over something so modern and scientific that made his family look so positive.
When he wasn't looking, a reserved Aunt Petunia handed Esmeralda a copy of one of the newspapers her article came in. "Why do you have two?" Esmeralda asked in confusion, seeing another copy in Aunt Petunia's other hand.
Aunt Petunia's lips pursed, and for a moment she seemed sad there, so intelligent and sharp tongued but reduced to feeding off of gossip and taking pride in common household accomplishments. "... The other one's for me," she said.
It was the closest she ever came to paying her niece a compliment.
6.
Finally, a girlfriend of hers got a big group of her girlfriends together and they insisted - many of them from wealthy families, being at St Grogory's - that they all take Esmeralda out shopping for new clothes.
"What's wrong with my clothes?" asked Esmeralda, confused. "They're perfectly nice dresses."
"Yes," said the girl primly. "Very expensive and extremely hideous. You're pretty and unique and you deserve some better clothes, damnit."
Not telling her relatives, she let her friends take her out shopping and help her pick out a wardrobe. She picked clothes she knew her relatives would hate - because she'd like them, but also just annoy her uncle in particular. She mixed pieces together in eccentric trendsetter style, picked whimsical and shockingly colored accessories, but it was all in soft and sometimes glittery fabrics like silk, chiffon, and velvet. She particularly favored skirts, sparkly gauzy off the shoulder sweaters, tights, platform shoes, and costume jewelry like bangles and dangling earrings. All in absurd colors, of course. She added a bit of mermaid and alien style makeup, let her hair fall loose around her, and it was like she was a tiny little woman.
She gazed in the fitting room mirror at herself in the mall. The blue, purple, and green somehow enhanced the fey sense to her features. Her messy dark waves fell softly and naturally around her, her almond shaped bright green eyes popped with the new colors and gleamed, and her lightly freckled skin with a heart shaped face, high cheekbones, and small features together with her tiny, slim form made her look like a little fairy.
She came home and her aunt and uncle just about had a coronary. "You can't go out like that!" they said, almost as one.
"But if my clothes end up ruined or I don't wear them," said Esmeralda with carefully planned innocence, "wouldn't that be rude?"
And so, no matter how they hated it, they had to let her dress the way she pleased. She paused on the staircase.
"Oh, by the way," she said. "My friends have been asking to come over for a while. They want to see my room."
Her aunt and uncle froze as she passed up the staircase to the bathroom. Because Esmeralda didn't have a room. She had a closet.
And so at last, Esmeralda was given her own full upstairs bedroom. Dudley watched in exasperated, good-natured amusement as she decorated it herself. Lots of modern technology, a memory foam mattress, shimmering metallic painted walls, fanciful postmodern mirrors, retro deeply colored quilts, and everything everywhere was soft and luxurious and cashmere. Ethereal and dreamlike painting copies, carefully chosen to be classical and fit with her aunt and uncle's delicate tastes in artistry, adorned her walls.
She set her books, odd and colorful clothes and makeup brushes, running equipment, and programming equipment in there and it was hers.
She started having birthday parties with friends every year on February nineteenth, her birthday, and they all loved her strange and wonderful single room, the soft, luxurious white bedroom window curtains opened to allow sunlight onto the space.
And sunlight onto Esmeralda's life. Her life wasn't perfect - her aunt and uncle still cold, her chores still frequent and entirely feminine (she actually had to ask how to fix things or how cars worked), she was still left behind with local little old cat lady babysitter Mrs Figg during fun family functions, and she had to trick her aunt and uncle into giving her every bit of happiness.
But in spite of it all, she was happy.
7.
One of her richer friends invited her one summer to a seaside villa.
Esmeralda had fun there, splashing and laughing in the water with friends, picking shells and mussels from the tidepool. She was on a green, rocky cliff overlooking the sea once during her stay, and she heard whispering in the grass around her. She looked down - and paused in surprise.
Little snakes were there at her feet, whispering to her - and she could understand their words. She kneeled down to them. "Hello," she whispered to them.
"Hello, hello," they whispered back.
Esmeralda found over the following days that she could carry on whole conversations with the snakes. That no one else could, she had no doubt. Strange things had always happened arouns Esmeralda. When she was little, she was prone to being around weird accidents: things growing or shrinking, changing size or shape or color, randomly being pushed into the air by gusts of wind that didn't seem to exist, occasionally even exploding. Unluckily, they only ever happened when she was around, when she was most upset. She didn't cause them, but had been locked in that dark childhood closet many a time - no one had ever believed her.
She was upset less these days, so the strange things happened less often. But now here was this thing. She could talk to snakes. And for the thousandth time, she wondered why.
Esmeralda Potter wondered about a lot of things, she thought as she stood on the green cliff, wind whipping her hair back, looking over the sparkling sea. Why no one ever talked about her parents. Why the first thing she remembered was a flash of blinding green light and a burning pain on her forehead. (Why would a car crash cause blinding green light?) Why strangely dressed people in purple and green, homeless so her furious aunt said, often came up to her in the street, to wave or to bow or to kiss her hand like she was some sort of princess.
Why those people always seemed to vanish the second she tried to get a closer look.
Esmeralda wondered about a lot of things. But more than that, she knew more than ever as primary school ended, she parted sadly with her first friends, and plans were made that summer to send her off to a private secondary boarding school, an old fashioned finishing school - more than that, she wanted more. She wanted to enjoy sports, books, odd fashion and design, technological imagination in peace. She wanted creativity and adventure and fulfillment of something she didn't understand that she had inside her.
She didn't want to be a wealthy suburban girl at a finishing school. She didn't want to be the housewife of some boring man. She wanted so much more than what they had planned.