This is my fifth piece for the 'Rubik's Cube Challenge' - Genderbent!AU.
Harry had never really paid much attention to the gender of his friends in his original world. They were his friends- Ginny and Hermione were girls, Ron and Neville were guys, and that was just how it was.
The final battle came, he died, and he was put into an unexpectedly sticky situation as the Master of Death.
Die and go on to the afterlife with his parents and his dead friends, be reborn in his current life or be thrust into an alternative reality which laid on top of his. He wondered if the two realities being so close meant that they had much in common.
Death reassured him there would be the same souls in this new world.
And so he chose to desert his world; the world in which he had lost so much, had given up so much to people who never gave thanks and only ever asked for more.
At his decision he was gently pushed onto the nearby train, and he fell asleep on his way to wherever he was heading.
He awoke to a sharp pain in his arm, and he opened his eyes to see he was in a place he has sworn he would never see again; his cupboard.
"Well, screw."
His arm felt broken from where it rested against his chest, and he could feel the bruises on his back pressing into the mattress. He arched away in pain only for it to increase at the movement.
This was not what he thought it would be, but that was okay- he could change that. He could work with it and help the people he had not managed to before.
He spent the early hours of that first day fighting to not whimper and cry from the pain.
Hours later when he had been allowed out of the cupboard he escaped swiftly to bathroom. He stared back into the mirror in shock, having never quite realised exactly how cunning death was until that moment.
His bright green eyes were the same, and they stared back into his as he gazed upon the petite frame, the delicate structure and the longer hair of his reflection.
He was a girl.
He felt faint and swayed, reaching out his hand to find some purchase on this new development in the twisted reality of his life.
Months later, when he had managed to capture Pettigrew and free Sirius, he stood staring into his reflection again. Still disbelieving he ran a hand through his long hair and traced a thin finger over his fragile features, as he did whenever he just couldn't quite wrap his head around his gender.
When he rescued a male Sirius from a male Pettigrew he assumed he was the only one who was changed in this new world he had found himself in. He believed he could grow up and befriend Ron and Hermione again, and relive his life the way it could have gone- much better. He could wait, that was fine. As long as he could change what happened after.
When Sirius finally got his final release papers from his hospital visits they escaped and travelled the world, something Harry had never had the chance to do and Sirius was all too happy to do since he wanted nothing to do with the British ministry.
When he turned eleven and his Hogwarts letter came, he was excited to know that he could finally get his friends back.
He didn't, needless to say. Ron was the same- to the point where at eleven he still thought girls had cooties. Girls including Harry.
What was worst was Hermione, the smartest witch of his age, who was not a witch at all. Still book smart, as a boy she had been sorted into Ravenclaw where she- he- thrived with intelligent non-Gryffindor friends who encouraged her- him- to be all that Hermione could be. She wasn't even called Hermione anymore. It was clear to him that that was another friend lost to him in this reality.
He stood staring up at the head table, dumbfounded to know that his two best friends- the two people he could count on to be with him always- would not be the same in this reality.
He breathed in slowly, trying to get a hold of himself as the pain of loss wracked through his body.
"Harriet Potter."
He trembled, and then stepped forward knowing his life would never be the same.