Title: The Staircase
Summary: Eleven-year-old Lily Luna Potter has a concern about being sorted into Gryffindor. She talks to Rose about it.
Rating: T for vague sexual references
Word Count: 1023
Other Chapters: No.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related trademarks belong to J.K. Rowling. I do not in any way profit from the use of these trademarks.
Pairings: Gen
Contains: trans headcanon!, Hogwarts sorting,
Warnings: talk of transphobia

"Can I tell you a secret?" Lily asked.

Rose turned to Lily and blinked for a moment, trying to keep her expression neutral but letting some of the concern slip through.

"It isn't... I don't think it's a huge deal," Lily said. The last time Lily had said the words 'Can I tell you a secret?' to Rose, Rose'd had to stop calling Lily 'Remus.'

Rose shrugged. "Let's hear it."

Lily swallowed hard and grasped at the scarlet blanket on Rose's bed. This family could be silly about some things. Lily had no doubt that her family would still love her, no matter what happened this coming September, but she didn't want them to tease her, and she didn't want to explain to them, save Rose, why she felt the way she did. "I don't think I want to be in Gryffindor."

"...Oh," Rose said, and the lack of reaction was not particularly encouraging. When Lily had come out as trans, Rose had immediately showered her in love and support and make-up, like the older sister that Lily had always wanted and narrowly missed having. No reaction at all to a confession like that meant that Rose needed time to process it, which meant she wasn't immediately sure how she felt about it, which meant there was a chance that she was going to be angry. After all, it was one thing to just not be sorted into Gryffindor, but it was another thing entirely for the child of a two Gryffindor parents (The grandchild of four Gryffindors, and the great-grandchild of three more.) to not want to be in Gryffindor. There was more than a little bit of an insult in it. "Well... why not? Don't you want to be with the rest of the family? We won't get to see each other nearly as often if we're don't share a common room."

"Well, I do, but..." Lily wasn't actually entirely certain she did, but there was no point in admitting to that. Lily loved her family dearly, and it wouldbe hard to be separated from Rose and Hugo for most of the day, but Lily wasn't actually sure she wanted her protective older brothers breathing down her neck all seven years of Hogwarts. Her mother had more than enough stories about the problems that had caused for her to scare Lily from wanting to share a common room with her brothers, no matter how much homier their annoying antics might make the place feel. Hogwarts seemed to inevitably feel like home to all of its students anyway.

"Is it the staircases?" Rose asked quietly.

"Yeah," Lily said honestly. "A little bit. What if they don't let me up?"

"They'll let you up," Rose promised.

"Are you sure? What if..."

"They'll let you up," Rose said again, and this time she sounded and looked a bit more sure of herself. "You're a girl. The castle will know that. It's just like your letter: Who was your letter addressed to?"

"Ms. Lily Luna Potter," Lily said with a small smile. She'd been dreading receiving her letter as much as she'd been looking forward to it, because she hadn't been sure it would use the right name. Her parents had told that they were sure it would, and that if it didn't they'd floo up to the school and speak the the Headmistress about it, but Lily hadn't trusted their assurances until she'd seen it in ink before her. Her parents would probably speak to the Headmistress about it if the Gryffindor staircase didn't let her up into the girls' dorms, too. They'd insist on getting it charmed to work correctly. Sometimes it helped to have famous parents. Other times—well, Lily was mentioned in enough old newspaper articles that she was sure everyone in the country must know that she's trans.

"So they know. And they're going to be ready for you and make sure that everything is set up to make you comfortable. Trust me."

Rose sighed. "Other houses don't have that staircase problem, you know. Teddy says he went into the Hufflepuff girls' dorm a couple of times. Aunt Luna said she never really had visitors of either gender, but some of her roommates had a lot of visitors in the dorm, and some of them were male. The whole staircase problem was just Godric Gryffindor being silly."

"Oh dear," Rose said, but her tone was teasing rather than legitimately shocked or worried. "There's the culprit. You've been talking to Teddy about houses! He'll say Hufflepuff's better than Gryffindor for any reason! I think he's tired of being the Hufflepuff in the family."

"I asked him!" Lily said. "Don't worry. He's not trying to steal me away or anything. I just... want to be somewhere where I know I'm going to be welcome. That's all. And nobody can remember the last time Gryffindor had a trans girl, but Teddy said there was one in Hufflepuff in the year ahead of him, and the Hufflepuffs always protected her. I've just been thinking that maybe there's a better place for me than Gryffindor."

"That's for the hat to decide," Rose said, and then she sighed slightly. "I think you're as brave like a Gryffindor. Like your dad. And I think—I know—that housemates protect each other. That's what we're there for. And family protects each other, and that's about half of Gryffindor, for you. If anyone in Gryffindor gives you any trouble, we'll chase them out of the common room with pitchforks. And if the castle itself or anyone in it tries to make you sleep in a boys' room, I'll go right in there with you. And I bet you that Molly and Lucy and Roxie and Dominque all would, too. We could just kick the boys out and make it into a new girls' dorm."

Lily smiled a little at the suggestion. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Can I sit next to you at the Gryffindor table on the first feast of the term?"

"I don't know," Lily said, staring down at Rose's bed again. "We'll see what the hat says, won't we?"