Author's Note: I can't guarantee that this doesn't leave plot holes in the parts of canon not covered. I wrote this to cover events that were important to this story and that differed more significantly from canon. With that said, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I, of course, do not own Harry Potter

Harry Potter, The Girl-Who-Prevailed

When James and Lily Potter gave birth to a baby girl on July 31st, 1980 and named her Harry, they thought nothing of it. The name that is, they thought a great deal about Harry herself, but little of the identification marker they had bestowed upon her. They were in the middle of a war and had had a new baby to coo at after all.

When Sirius was introduced to Harry, he was of course informed of the baby's gender, but few others were. Her parents did not think it important. They simply introduced her as 'Harry'. Even when introducing her to the other marauders pronouns were used seldom enough that they could be thought to have been misheard. Perhaps if Remus had not been busy infiltrating the werewolf underground, and Peter hadn't been preoccupied being a traitor, one of them would have clued in. No one bothered to ask the baby's gender either, Harry seemed like proof enough that the child was a boy. None of them, not James and Lily, nor anyone else suspected that the baby would soon be an orphan whom the entire wizarding world would know the name of.

The Dursleys hated Harry because of her magic, but they couldn't very well tell her that. So they pretended that they hated her solely because of her gender and the colour of her skin. They called her 'Girl' instead of Harry, made rude comments about 'Her sort', and frequently told her that she should be grateful they took her in instead of sending her 'Back to India'.

The Dursleys kept telling Harry that she was inferior because of the way she was born, and everybody else seemed to agree with them. The boys often made fun of the girls at school, especially her, and she had overheard people making rude comments about her skin more than once. Perhaps it was the Dursleys constant abuse, maybe it was the fact that everyone else seemed to think the same way about her, but as much as she tried not to, she started to believe them. Despite everything, she knew, deep down, that she was just as good as everybody else. But that knowledge was buried under doubts, hopelessness, and depression.

The summer that Harry Aster Potter would turn eleven, a letter arrived in the mail addressed to her. She knew that the letter was a prank, or perhaps a letter from the school. Though she couldn't think why either the school or the prankster would send a letter on such strange paper. She left the letter with the rest of the letters for her uncle.

Harry placed a stack of mail next to Uncle Vernon's plate and walked to the other side of the table to deliver a letter to her Aunt Petunia. No sooner had her aunt taken the envelope than she heard a shriek so loud she jumped. She looked to the source of the noise to see her uncle glaring at her and holding the strange letter angrily. Had the prank letter told incriminating lies about her? Maybe she should've just thrown it in the bin. Her uncle wouldn't believe her if she told him whatever the letter said about her wasn't true. She wondered if he would even care. But she didn't have much time to wonder, because before she knew it Uncle Vernon was yelling so loud she couldn't have understood him if she tried.

Later, in the dark solitude of her cupboard she thought about the fact that Uncle Vernon didn't care about anything she had to say and decided that the feeling was mutual.

Harry soon realized that the letters hadn't said anything bad about her, if her uncle's reaction to them was anything to go on. He boarded up the fireplace, door, and windows trying to keep them away, and Harry couldn't for the life of her figure out why. What could the letter possible have said that would warrant this kind of response. Or, indeed what kind of person, prankster or not, would send the letters, because they just kept coming.

Eventually Uncle Vernon lost it, packed the car, and drove Petunia, Dudley, and Harry towards the countryside. Even Aunt Petunia didn't know where they were going, though not for lack of asking, and neither apparently, did Vernon. He would get out of the car only to get back in again and keep driving. Two days later and they were in a shack seemingly halfway to the middle of the ocean.

The letters managed to find them still though, and as Harry slept under Hagrid's coat she found it was almost as hard to sleep as it was to think.

Hagrid seemed to think that Harry was a boy. He referred to her as 'him' several times when yelling at the Dursleys and at the time Harry was in too much shock to correct him. Even the next day she found she couldn't tell him, every time she was going to something interrupted her and eventually she felt like it was too late and that if she was going to tell him she should've already done it.

The boy in Madame Malkins seemed to think Harry was a boy too. She didn't much care what the boy who reminded her of Dudley thought of her, but the implications were troubling. If she really was famous like Hagrid said (and the handshakes in the Leaky Cauldron assured her she was) then it would stand to reason that if Hagrid and the boy from Madame Malkins thought she was a boy, so did everybody else in the wizarding world.

The 'Boy-Who-Lived' thought that maybe everything was going to be okay when she sat in an empty compartment on the Hogwarts Express. Until a boy sat in the compartment with her. He asked of course, and she said yes, but he clearly thought she was a he, and clearly had high expectations of her. Ron, as she learned his name was, expected things from her. No one had ever expected anything from Harry before, not her teachers, not her classmates, and certainly not her family. It was disconcerting.

It was when they arrived at Hogwarts and everyone was wearing their Uniforms that Harry realized she had the boy's uniform.

Whispers filled the Great Hall when her name was called. She tried not to panic as the Sorting Hat dropped over her eyes. To her great surprise the hat started to speak to her through her mind.

"I know you may not think so, but you're one of the bravest people I've ever sorted,"

Harry didn't know what to say to that, and a few long minutes later she was sorted into Gryffindor.

After the feast was over and the first years had been led to their new common room, the boy from the train grabbed her arm and dragged her towards the boy's dormitory, where she found her trunk sitting at the foot of one of the beds. At this point she began to feel sick and quickly excused herself before racing back down the stairs to talk to Professor McGonagall.

"Professor McGonagall, I have some concerns about the dormitories."

"Mr. Potter. I know you may be accustomed to special treatment, but in Hogwarts everyone sleeps in their assigned dormitories. No arguments, no exceptions. In Hogwarts you will be treated just like every other student."

"But-,"

Professor McGonagall turned away before she could finish her sentence. No exceptions. That meant she would have to stay in the boy's dormitory. Harry marched back up the steps feeling even sicker than when she walked down them. When she got to her new dormitory her roommates gave her odd looks as she climbed onto her bed, still in her uniform, and drew her curtains. She buried her face in her pillow and waited for the hollow feeling in her stomach to go away. It didn't.

Later at night when all the boys were already asleep, Harry went into the bathroom and changed into her pajamas, her very plain, very androgynous pajamas. She couldn't decide if that was a blessing or a curse.

She avoided the Gryffindor boys in her year as much as possible. Which wasn't very much since they shared every class as well as a dormitory, but she sat next to girls in her classes whenever possible and made sure to avoid them during free time. She felt kind of bad, mainly for Ron, who she had been forming a friendship with before she realized she had to sleep in the boy's dormitory. But she just couldn't bear to look at them knowing that people expected her to be one of them.

All her avoidance of her housemates and general reclusiveness in order to do so led her to form a tentative friendship with a Gryffindor girl in her year named Hermione Granger. She was Harry's saving grace as far as avoiding the boys went, no one seemed to want to sit next to her and so there was almost always a free seat not next to one of the boys in her year. Harry felt a little bit badly about her reasoning for sitting next to Hermione, but while Hermione did tend to nag her and boss her around quite a lot, Harry was better off for it more often than not. She was usually one of the first people, if not the second person, in the class to cast spells correctly, and Hermione was also her saving grace in astronomy.

Even though they sat next to each other in every class, it wasn't until Halloween rolled around and Harry saved Hermione from a troll that they truly became friends.

In Harry's second year she met Ron's younger sister, Ginny. Ginny clearly had a crush on Harry and Harry was quickly realizing that there were no limits to how uncomfortable she could feel. She thought it couldn't get worse than sharing a room with four boys, she was wrong.

Hermione didn't seem confused when Harry was uncomfortable around Ginny. Harry was normally pretty uncomfortable with attention and Ginny certainly paid a lot of attention to her. Some might say an unhealthy amount but that was neither here nor there.

Harry wanted to tell Hermione about her gender, so much so it was sometimes painful to lie to her, but she worried she had waited too long. She worried it would damage their friendship. She worried Hermione would think her stupid. Oh God, did she worry.

Ultimately, she would never get to choose whether or not to tell Hermione. In third year Harry met her godfather in the shrieking shack. Her godfather. Her godfather who knew her gender and Harry felt hopeful for the first time in a long time. Hermione and Professor Lupin were surprised, she could hardly blame them, but she was buzzing in euphoria and her mind could hardly keep up with its own thoughts. Her excitement was quickly doused though, as the hope of living with her godfather was dashed and the reality of impending explanations she owed hung over her.

The moment that stressed and panicked her the most in fourth year was not as one might assume, her name coming out of the goblet of fire or the realization that the two people she had a crush on were going to the Yule Ball together. Rather, it was a terrifying moment before the second task when she was given a men's swimsuit. The only solution she could come up with that moment was to play dumb and pretend not to see the swim trunks, instead taking off her shoes and socks and going into the lake with her clothes on. She must've looked very silly, unprepared, and/or stupid next to the other champions clad in swimwear but she didn't have much of a choice.

She thanked any gods that might exist that she was wearing muggle clothing, but it was baggy in an attempt to hide her figure. Certainly not ideal for swimming, but nothing about this competition was ideal.

Of course, that incident was only the penultimate instance of stress and panic that year, but Harry considered the other to be completely separate from the rest of the year. Incomparable. Incomprehensible.

Harry would have thought she'd be happy after kissing Cho Chang under the mistletoe. instead she found herself conflicted and confused. The former because Cho thought she was a boy, the latter because Cho had been crying the entire time.

Their date only served to reinforce these feelings in Harry. Cho was clearly still grieving for Cedric and thought that Harry would be able to understand, and she did. She couldn't help but wonder though, if Cho only liked her because they were both impacted by Cedric's death.

When they fell out, Harry guiltily felt a sense of relief along with her melancholy.

Harry was upset because Dean Thomas and Ginny Weasley had kissed. To put it more frankly, she was jealous. This was in itself a problem. She had more pressing matters she should be wanting to decipher rather than thinking so much about how two people that she had never been romantically involved with had kissed. What was more confusing to her, even than when these feelings had developed, was who exactly is was she liked. She was pretty sure she only liked one of them, god forbid she had a repeat of fourth year. But she had never felt this kind of jealousy for Cedric or Cho. So, which was it?

In an effort to unravel her feelings Harry approached Ginny at the next Slug Club meeting. They talked for the rest of the meeting, about schoolwork, Quidditch, and a great number of other things. By the end of the meeting Harry felt like she was floating, and she and Ginny were becoming something like friends. On one hand Harry had her feelings figured out, on the other it seemed that she only liked Ginny more and more as time went on. The person who had once made her feel the most uncomfortable how had the complete opposite effect.

Harry came to talk to Ginny at every Slug Club meeting, attending almost solely so that she could spend time with her. They began spending time together outside of meetings. This caused animosity to be directed at her by Dean, and Ron. She cared little of what they thought of her, she herself had made an active effort to alienate herself from them. But they alerted her to the fact that she didn't want Ginny to get, not the wrong idea exactly since she very much did like Ginny, but for her to become romantically interested in Harry as a boy. Goodness knows she didn't want to feel the confliction she had with Cho again.

One weekend, when Harry felt like the two of them were definitely friends, she invited Ginny to spend the afternoon exploring the castle with her. She tried not to seem jumpy or nervous, but she knew from the look on Ginny's face that she was failing. Ginny probably thought she was going to ask her out. This was going terribly so far. Oh well.

"Do you want to go up to the astronomy tower?"

"That wouldn't really be exploring would it? We've all been up to the astronomy tower,"

"The view is pretty though, don't you think?" Harry looked at Ginny nervously. Ginny definitely thought she was planning to ask her out, likely wondering how she could let down easily. She was already dating Dean after all. Evidently Ginny figured it would be more considerate to reject Harry at the top of the astronomy tower where no one would be around to see them.

"Harry…" Ginny started once they got to the top.

"Can you keep a secret?" It came out hurried and panicked, not altogether inaccurate.

"Sure… Harry, what is it?"

"Can we, maybe, sit down?"

"Okay,"

They were seated, but Harry still couldn't find the words to say what she had been building up to. She had planned out what she was going to say, but nothing about this excursion was going as planned really, and her prepared sentences seemed inadequate in the moment.

"So… I don't really know how to tell you this," Damn, now it sounded like she was going to ask her out again, "I'm a girl,"

Silence. Harry tried to look up, honestly, but she couldn't seem to focus on anything but her twiddling thumbs.

After the final battle Harry lay on a couch next to the invisibility cloak in the Gryffindor common room as everyone else celebrated downstairs in chaos. Hermione had agreed to cover for her there temporarily if need be and Harry was dreading going back. People wanted so much from her, she still had so much to do even after she had done everything. A single set of footsteps approached, but Harry didn't move.

"You look exhausted," Ginny told her.

"I wonder why," replied Harry.

"You should take a nap, they're still going to be there when you wake up,"

"They want me to do things,"

"And those things can be done once you're not shattered,"

When Harry awoke she was in her dorm, except she wasn't on her bed, and it smelled a lot better than the last time she had been there. As she regained coherence, she realized it was, in fact, the girls' dorm. She sat up and saw that Ginny was sitting on the floor reading a book.

"How long was I out?"

"About five hours. Surprisingly short considering you just won a war,"

"We won a war" Harry corrected. Ginny smiled.

Ginny walked over to her and sat on the edge of the bed. She brushed Harry's hair out of her eyes with her hand.

"I should go down there and talk to them,"

Somehow Ginny ended up kissing her instead of saying anything.

"Do you want to tell them?" Ginny asked. Harry drew her legs up to her chest and Ginny ran her fingers through Harry's hair again.

"How would they react?"

"They'd grow to accept it. A lot of things are going to change, it would only make sense to them that you'd be one of those things after they get past the confusion,"

She kissed her again.

Harry walked down to the great hall wearing one of Ginny's skirts and holding one of Ginny's hands.

Everything was going to be okay.