Disclaimer:This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Notes: This story spontaneously spawned from my contemplating the confusion about Blaise Zabini's gender (which, irritatingly, is still a problem for some people, despite HBP). Other than that, I've not much to say about it. Oh yeah, and transphobia is a bitch. Comment is appreciated.

Warnings: Transgender!Girl!Blaise

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Call Me She

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Blaise liked elegant things. She liked red roses and cool, sleek silks and classical music played on her third stepfather's phonograph. She liked high-end charity balls with swirling gowns and red wine and strange food with even stranger names. She liked art museums and architecture with gold detailing and very expensive jewelry.

Blaise's mother was also very fond of beautiful things, but for some reason she didn't seem to like it that Blaise appreciated them. There had been one afternoon before Hogwarts when Blaise had sneaked into her mother's room to look for pretty things in her drawers and extensive closet. Blaise found a lovely velvet dress with gold thread at the hem and plunging neckline, and a pair of black stiletto heels, and a long string of pearls. She put them on reverently, relishing in the feel of the smooth velvet that nearly swallowed her up in its cascading richness, and admiring the way her dark skin set off the shining white of the pearls. She saw a stick of sultry red lipstick on her mother's vanity and couldn't help but put it on, though she smeared it a little due to lack of experience. Then she stood in front of the mirror, wobbling slightly on the tall heels, and smiled. She looked beautiful.

Then Blaise's mother walked in.

Mrs. Zabini didn't shout, she simply wasn't that sort of woman. But she did walk briskly up to Blaise, rip the string of pearls from her neck, and slap her so that her head snapped sideways and her ears rang.

Blaise couldn't understand what she had done wrong. She had only wanted to be beautiful like her mother. But when she told her this, Mrs. Zabini slapped her again and said in a tense, dangerous voice that boys did not wear dresses and they certainly were not beautiful.

So Blaise didn't try to wear her mother's things again. And when she went to Hogwarts a few years later, she didn't say anything when the Slytherin prefect called her Mr. Zabini and put her in the boys' dorm, even though it made her feel sick.

Now that she was at school, Blaise soon began to notice that she wasn't like the other girls. The other girls had long, shiny hair and delicate features. Her close-cropped black fuzz and solid build looked vulgar and rough in comparison. It became even worse as they moved into second and third year, because the other girls began to grow breasts that stretched the fronts of their robes, and soft hips that curved like hourglasses. But Blaise was given none of these things. Instead, she had only hard angles and flat planes. Even worse, she began to grow hair on her face that itched and scratched like sandpaper when she touched her hand to her cheek. The hair, at least, could be removed, but the foul thing that hung between her legs, which she had hardly noticed before, began to make itself known at the most inopportune moments, as if to mock her. She hated it, wished that somehow her body would reject it, that it would simply fall away and shrivel into nothing. Once, she tried to remove it with a spell, but because she couldn't stand to look at it, her aim was off and she ended up nearly severing her toe.

In fourth year, Draco Malfoy took an interest in Blaise, and suddenly, for the first time in her life, she had a real friend. It was not as if she was antisocial before, just alone. She didn't like to talk to the boys, because they talked to her as if she was one of them, and it made her want to throw up. And she didn't like to talk to the other girls, because she couldn't stand their normalcy and hated that they had everything she couldn't. But Draco was somewhere in between. He didn't make crass jokes and punch her shoulder, and he didn't giggle flirtatiously and try to press his breasts against her in a gesture that filled her with jealousy. Well, obviously he couldn't do the latter, seeing as he didn't have any breasts. But that made Blaise like him all the more.

She and Draco sat up late on weekends, and sometimes even weeknights, and ate sweets while Draco poured out his soul to Blaise. In all likelihood, she knew more about him than anyone else, yet he knew almost nothing about her. Sometimes she felt she should share something in return, but then again, it was very likely that Draco didn't care about her innermost thoughts and simply wanted someone to listen. But Blaise didn't mind. She liked to hear him talk.

One night, Blaise had a dream that she was at a Ministry ball in a flowing velvet dress with gold embroidery, and she was dancing gracefully with Draco, her head resting on his chest. In the dream, she had long hair that flowed down her back in tight curls and round breasts that filled out the front of her dress, which showed just a hint of cleavage. The dance floor was lit with soft candlelight and playing violins washed the scene in gentle sound.

After this first dream, Blaise became acutely aware of everything about Draco Malfoy. In classes, she drank in the sight of the silk-soft hairs that clung to the back of his neck, and watched him roll his quill absently between his elegant fingers. At mealtimes, she basked in the scent of his subtle cologne, which mixed with the smells of whatever they were eating in an intoxicating blend. And after dark, when they whispered together in their dorm room, she laid back with her eyes closed and let the soft tenor of his voice flow over her and through her.

Blaise began to have more intimate dreams about him. She remembered one in particular, in which she laid on silk sheets covered in rose petals, wearing nothing but a delicate pearl necklace, and he lowered himself down onto her and, kissing her softly, slid himself inside of her. In this dream, there was no foul, unwanted thing between her legs. Only pretty, wonderful female parts and him, gentle and loving.

When it came around wintertime and the Yule Ball was announced, Blaise had a moment of sheer, perfect joy. She imagined herself dancing with Draco, just like in her dream, and maybe he would even kiss her! But then she remembered. She remembered that Draco was seeing Pansy, and actually liked her very much, and would no doubt be going to the ball with her. So when Draco asked her the night of the ball, Aren't you going to come? She said, No, that's all right. I'm feeling rather ill, thanks. But you have fun. And Draco, looking altogether wonderful and sophisticated in his black dress robes, gave her only the briefest of sympathetic smiles before heading down the stairs to meet Pansy.

When he was gone and the dorm was empty, Blaise went to her trunk and took out a pair of silver kitten heels and a sleek, black dress with a twirling skirt and slipped them slowly on. She pulled a diamond necklace out of a small pouch in her trunk and clasped it around her neck, and then carefully applied lipstick, blush, and mascara. Then she moved to stand in front of the mirror. Her broad, flat chest stretched the top of the dress out awkwardly, her large feet looked unnatural in the dainty heels, and there was a shadow of rough hair on her cheek. Blaise looked at her reflection in the mirror, at the gross caricature of a woman staring back at her, and she cried. However strongly Blaise knew she was a woman, she knew just as strongly that the rest of the world would never see her that way.