A/N: This is not written in "story" form, but in tumblr- bullet-point - headcanon style. I am working on turning it into a proper story, but that could be awhile. So here's this for now.
So, I've been thinking a bit about the 19 Years universe lately, since it's been getting some attention / comments on Wattpad. Specifically, I've been thinking about the throwaway mostly-for-comedy scene at Madam Puddifoot's, where Headmaster Neville Longbottom, professors Minerva McGonagall and Teddy Lupin, and Poppy Pomfrey are having tea and scheming to get the lovable idiots (Harry and Draco) together.
Anyway, Pomfrey is explaining about the back room at Flourish and Blotts, where they keep all of the LGBT+ fiction, nonfiction, romances, information, etc. Muggle and Magical. (Mostly muggle, as the Wizarding world is still backward in many ways.) And all the information on kinks, sex ed, etc.
So I got a commenter who was all, "Pomfrey reads gay fanfic!" which is funny, but I was thinking about it, and… yes. And it's amusing and all, but here's the thing:
-Where else do all of the kids at Hogwarts go for sex ed?
-What about the trans kids, the kids struggling with their identities?
-Hell, the kids who had (mostly) figured out their identities in the muggle world, while kids or over a summer break, only to find there were no resources for them at Hogwarts
-the kids who smuggled books and condoms and birth control from older siblings at home, or stocked up over the summer
-the kids who binge-read fanfiction on the internet at home, just to see themselves represented in stories that didn't always end in tragedy
-At first it was only a few, bashful and shy, mumbling their questions to Pomfrey
-and she had to admit she didn't know anything, but it weighed heavily on her because these are *her* kids to care for
-so she does some research of her own, contacts some former students she suspected of having more-than-plain vanilla straight sex lives
-and she learns about the secret back room at Flourish and Blotts, the one you need a password to get into (because the Wizarding world is less than progressive or tolerant)
-and she spends a summer reading everything they have, and then, with help from former students, puts them in touch with people who can get them a lot more
-for research, of course, for the children, but also because it's so refreshing a change from her normal guilty pleasure romances
-and she starts her own small back-room collection in her rooms, which then spills over into her office in the hospital wing
-and word spreads that she can actually help, and more and more kids start coming to see her, blushing and dragging their feet and stammering, and leaving with a sparkle in their eyes and a spring in their steps because now they know they're not so ALONE
-and students - former students, even - start stopping her in the street in Hogsmeade, on her vacations in the summer, wherever she is
-and she never judges, and always either knows how to help them or sends them to someone who can
-and she takes all the gentle ribbing from fellow staff-members because she's helping them, dammit, and she's proud of that
-and then, somehow, someone at the Ministry gets wind of it
-some pompous know-it-all official, bigoted and righteous and pure-blooded
-and he storms into her office and threaten to expose her, get her fired for reading such filth
-and small, quiet, sweet Pomfrey GLARES at him and says how dare you
-how DARE you
-because yes, she reads gay fanfiction, and fiction, and nonfiction, and every other flavor of LGBT+ all of them and it's MORE than just something she reads for fun, dammit
-she's HELPING these kids - so many, by now - who don't know where to go, who to turn to, who they can trust with this wrong, broken part of themselves
-and she reads all this to be able to show them they're NOT wrong or broken. That there is SO MUCH MORE to the world than the old bigots can see
-and if she can help ONE confused child accept themselves for who they are… well. then every bit of it is worth it
-and the Ministry official goes away cowed-but-grumbling, and suddenly it's not just students coming to her for help anymore, which is puzzling but welcome
-and it turns out the Ministry official's secretary overheard him bitching about it and was one of the kids Pomfrey helped once, and she spreads the word throughout the Ministry
-and suddenly all of the younger officials are pushing for new laws and regulations, for more openness and equality and tolerance
-and at Pomfrey's next birthday, she walks into the hospital wing to discover a sea of flower bouquets stretching from her office door to span the entire room
-one from every student and former-student and non-student she ever helped
-and she sits down, overwhelmed, right there on the floor, because she'd no IDEA there had been so many
-and so many of them drop by, over the next few days, with chocolate and gifts, that she doesn't stop crying for a week