Harry was starting to get really tired of feeling nervous all the time.
The five of them were standing in a place Sirius had referred to as the informal reception hall. Deep in the back of the ground floor, a wide, high-ceilinged room made up in soft greens and oranges, fading to white granite tile around the large, rather ornate stone and silver fireplace at one end. A Floo-connected fireplace, actually — this room was designed to be where members of the House of Black who didn't actually live here were supposed to be welcomed into the building. Sirius didn't usually enforce what Harry gathered used to be something of a strict rule, letting the Tonkses floo or even apparate in wherever — there was an anti-apparation ward over the property, but people who were specifically keyed into the wards could just pop through wherever they felt like — but he'd decided to stick with the minor bit of tradition for this particular occasion.
Today, a slew of Sirius's cousins — and Harry's too, he guessed — had been invited over to be officially admitted (in some cases, readmitted) into the House of Black. In the span of a single day, the official population of House Black would expand from just Sirius and the Tonkses to he thought a couple dozen, he wasn't sure. Well, plus Harry himself, but that was difficult: Melantha Black was a member, but Harry Potter wasn't — mostly because he was already Lord of House Potter, and wow if that wasn't a huge fucking surprise when Sirius had explained that — and since the legal person of Melantha Black was only a semi-legitimate fiction and didn't actually exist, he...technically wasn't? He didn't know, it was complicated.
And, come to think of it, he wasn't sure if it was technically appropriate to call the Tonkses the Tonkses anymore. Since Sirius had signed the paperwork to bring them into House Black a couple weeks ago, he was pretty sure that meant their legal last name was now Black. Dora still insisted everyone (excluding family) call her Tonks, and he was pretty sure Ted was still using the name professionally — he thought Uncle Ted was a solicitor or something — but he'd more than once caught Andi telling people to use Black instead. It was confusing.
And he was, again, nervous. He had never been all that great with meeting new people, for quite nearly as long as he could remember. He thought he might have been more open to it when he'd been very young, but any real enthusiasm he might have had for it must have been beaten out of him years ago. Blame that one on Dudley. Anyway. He guessed it probably didn't help that there was the whole being a girl situation that was still going on, and was still unspeakably uncomfortable on a level he couldn't really put words to. Like, his internal commentary just got really confusing. Oh, hey, nice to meet you! Except, you're not actually meeting me, just this random girl I'm pretending to be right now for some insane reason. But also kind of not pretending a little maybe? I don't know! Isn't this confusing?
Yeah, it was really fucking weird to be inside his own head sometimes.
He'd been out a couple times recently, mostly to Diagon Alley — though Hermione had dragged him down the street one day to have lunch in a nearby muggle restaurant, no idea what had been up with that. And he'd been noticing something lately that gave him a whole new reason to be nervous. He wasn't even really sure if it entirely made sense, if it was even a reasonable thing to be nervous about? See, he expected to still be incredibly uncomfortable all the time. And, yes, he still did have very uncomfortable moments. Whenever he was undistracted from his own thoughts for more than a couple seconds, or explicitly talking about this whole suddenly being a girl now thing with anyone — Hermione was getting really good at making him uncomfortable these days — or whenever he had to take off any of his clothes for any length of time for any reason. But he'd thought being out in ordinary situations, with people who had no clue who he was, treating him like he was a girl, talking to him like he was a girl, he'd thought all of that would make him dreadfully awkward. But it really didn't. At least, not any additional awkward on top of just being in public where people were looking at him, or could be looking at him, just the baseline awkwardness. And just that that didn't make him uncomfortable made him inexplicably nervous. He really wasn't sure why. It was just so weird.
It wasn't all bad, though. For one thing, the way nobody instantly searched his forehead for a scar that was no longer there the moment they first met him was very nice, he thought he might enjoy even that small bit of normality to a degree that was frankly silly. He honestly loved it how people entirely failed to react to his name in any of those ridiculously overdramatic ways he'd been tolerating to the best of his ability over the last few years. He was used to it with normal people, but now sometimes even mages hardly gave him a second glance. It was very nice. Honestly, even if should the time come he decided he completely hated being a girl, he'd probably consider staying this way just so he wouldn't have to deal with all that shite anymore.
Though, now that he thought about it, it would most likely have to come out eventually, so this anonymity was probably temporary anyway. Might as well enjoy it while it lasted then, he guessed.
What had he been thinking about again? This was happening far too often recently. Ever since right around his birthday last week he'd been more scrambled in the brain than usual. Made it rather hard to concentrate on anything. He blamed the occlumency practice sessions he'd been having with Sirius. It was his godfather's fault, yes.
At least his scrambled thoughts being all scrambly had managed to distract him from how nervous he was. So. That was something.
Before he could really gather himself again, the floo was spitting green fire, and one person after another was stumbling into existence. They all gradually came up to introduce (or reintroduce) themselves to Sirius one by one, while Harry felt himself retreat further inward. Sure, he was still standing right there. Even nodding and attempting to smile at people talking to him as appropriate — he wasn't sure exactly how well he was doing at the smiling part, but he was trying, at least. Just too many people in here, people he didn't know, but people he was technically related to, and he wasn't used to being related to people, so, yeah, it made him a little awkward. And he didn't like being awkward. He doubted he was even remembering anyone's names, hardly paying attention.
It had only been a few minutes, but he was already hoping this would just be over with already.
He thought it was maybe fifteen people later or so — he wasn't really counting — when he suddenly heard Sirius, who he was still standing right next to, let out a stream of muttered curses. He glanced over at him to find his godfather covering his face with his own hand. 'What is it?'
'It's nothing.' Sirius dropped his hand, shaking his head a little, and straightened back to his full height from where he'd slumped a little. 'I forgot until just this second my cousin had triplets, is all. This should be interesting.'
Frowning to himself a little, Harry turned to the newly-arrived group of people approaching them. Leading the family was an older man — Harry was complete shite at guessing the ages of magical people from their physical appearance, but he thought maybe sixties? He looked much like Sirius, actually, with the same dark hair and same grey eyes and even same face, only with a few more lines. But, then, most everyone here looked pretty similar. Just at his side was a younger woman, he thought probably in her thirties, maybe a little older. She mostly looked like everyone else again but, to his surprise, he thought he saw hints of freckles on her face. He hadn't seen a Black with freckles yet — at least, excluding Dora giving herself some for fun. Trailing behind the two of them were three girls, right around his own age. They had the same shining black hair as practically everyone in this family, but they seemed to have hazel eyes instead of grey, their completely identical faces, wearing completely identical grins, a bit softer and more rounded than usual.
He guessed he was about to find out if how frustratingly confusing the Weasley twins were was typical of multiple births with mages. By how Sirius had reacted, he was hedging yes.
The older man was just getting up to him, and Harry prepared himself for yet another repetition of the same conversation — people all humbly thanking Lord Black for inviting them back, Sirius awkwardly asking they not use the titles, a few more moments of discomfort while everyone gets used to everyone. And was instead surprised when he said, 'Sirius, my boy!' in a cheerful voice and with a huge grin on his face, and abruptly yanked his godfather into a tight-looking hug.
Huh. Maybe they'd run into Blacks who had actually met Sirius before. Finally.
Hugging the man back, chuckling under his breath, Sirius managed, 'I missed you too, Uncle.' He couldn't see it from this angle, but Harry could hear the smile on his voice perfectly fine.
'I about assaulted Azkaban single-handed when they dragged you off.' The man pulled away, and Harry could see his smile had turned a bit crooked. 'Probably would have if Terri hadn't talked me out of it.'
Harry could see Sirius's posture tighten at the mention of Azkaban, but he replied easily enough. 'Well, she always was smarter than you. And is she not coming? Did— Oh, damn, I completely forgot she wouldn't be able to get through the wards, I'm sorry, I should have—'
'No.' The smile on the man's face was still there, but all the cheer had suddenly vanished, the expression looking very much forced. 'She passed three years ago, I'm afraid.'
'Oh.' There was a short, awkward silence between them as Sirius processed this — if Harry was following correctly, the death of an aunt he'd actually liked, which he didn't think there'd been very many of — Harry trying to ignore all the while how the three girls were staring at him with open curiosity. 'I'm sorry to hear that. I always did like her.'
'Yes, well.' The man shrugged a little. 'Life goes on.' Harry could tell the man was trying to act like it wasn't a big deal. Trying, and completely failing.
Silence for a few seconds — Harry could practically feel Sirius holding himself back from saying something, probably an attempt to offer comfort the man obviously didn't want. Eventually, he said, 'Anyway,' turning to look at Harry. 'Mel—' Sirius had picked up the nickname Hermione had started using recently almost instantly. '—this is my Uncle Alphard, who I think I told you about. He was expelled from the House before I was even born, I think. Aunt Terri's a muggle, you see. When I got expelled myself, I stayed with them for a few weeks before moving in with your, ah, uncle James instead.'
Harry was pretty sure Sirius had been about to say your father before catching himself at the last second. He'd already heard the story. Right around the same time Sirius had been expelled from House Black, during winter break his sixth year at Hogwarts, Harry's father's parents had both been found dead. Most suspected Death Eaters had killed them — Harry's grandfather had been a vicious opponent of their people in the Wizengamot, and Harry's grandmother had been considered to be something of a blood traitor in certain unpleasant circles — but there had been no solid evidence one way or the other. If James hadn't been visiting Remus that night, Sirius had said, he probably would have been killed as well, and Harry wouldn't even exist. As Sirius had told it, he'd gotten along perfectly fine with the uncle and aunt he'd spent the rest of winter break with, but got in frequent fights with his cousin — who Harry guessed was this woman right here. So, when summer came around, he'd gone home with James instead, to keep his newly orphaned best friend company.
Sometimes he thought it seemed like this family just got all the bad luck.
But anyway, Sirius was talking to Alphard again, reciting the abbreviated version of their little cover story. 'And this here is Melantha. Aunt Cassie's granddaughter, tracked her down shortly after I was released. She, ah, didn't have anyone, so Andi and I have been looking after her since.'
Alphard had been giving her a warm sort of smile, but had immediately broken off to give Sirius a look when he mentioned Aunt Cassie. When Sirius finally petered to a stop, the older man said, frowning to himself. 'I was under the impression Aunt Cassie was, ah, not exactly partial to the menfolk, so to speak.'
She was a lesbian. Just say she was a lesbian. Sirius had said at one point that it was well known his great-aunt Cassiopeia had had no interest in men at all. In fact, negative interest — she'd been so vehement in her disgust with the idea that the Lord Black of the time had eventually relented, and cancelled all plans to marry off his already infamous granddaughter. When Harry had pointed out this was an obvious problem with their cover story, Sirius had disagreed. While he didn't think it likely, it was possible Cassiopeia had had a male lover at the time she knew her family wouldn't approve of, and the whole thing had been an act. Of course, it was also possible that it hadn't been an act, but she'd still had children. While marriage between two people of the same sex was not legal in magical Britain — though apparently it was in some other magical nations, which had come as a complete surprise to Harry — the very same magicks to induce pregnancy used by couples having trouble conceiving still worked just fine if the couple were both women. That nobody had known about it was the bigger problem than anything. The story wouldn't hold to close scrutiny but, should Harry decide to stay Melantha in the end, they would be coming out with the truth anyway, long before anyone should care enough to put that much effort into it. So they were fine.
This was the first time someone had actually pointed the problem out, though. Sirius was having trouble stringing a sentence together, so Harry decided to take care of it. 'I don't really know much about it,' Harry said, keeping his voice smooth and casual. 'My father never really liked to talk about his family. But I think I had three grandmothers.'
Sometimes, Harry wondered if it was a bad thing how good he could be at lying when he really tried. But, then, the Hat had wanted to put him in Slytherin.
Understanding visibly came over Alphard, the frown vanishing as he nodded to himself, then he again took up his smile from before. 'Well, it's nice to meet you, Melantha.' After a couple more pleasantries back and forth, the introductions went on. Harry was introduced to Sirius's cousin Ailís, who seemed nice enough, he guessed. And then they moved on to introducing her daughters to both of them — the triplets had been barely a year old when Sirius had been sent to Azkaban, so they'd never met.
It almost immediately got weird. Ailís had pointed out the one wearing wizarding-style trousers and tunic (similar to what Harry was wearing, actually) as Artemis easily enough, but then had hesitated over the other two. They were both wearing knee-length, sleeveless dresses in that shimmering cloth magical people seemed to like — though in different colours, one green and gold and the other black and silver — and that was apparently enough for Ailís to forget which of her daughters was which.
They didn't seem to mind at all, identical faces splitting into simultaneous grins. The girl in green pointed to the girl in black, saying, 'Selene.'
A second later, the girl in black mirrored her, saying, 'Persephone.'
A finger tapping at her chin in a picture of thoughtfulness, the one named Artemis said, 'Or was it—'
The girl in black again pointed at the girl in green, saying, '—Selene—'
The girl in green mirrored her, with, '—and Persephone?'
With a playful sort of grin on all their faces, the three girls gave a helpless shrug in perfect unison.
With a similar shrug, Ailís said, 'It doesn't really matter so much, to be honest.' Her daughters didn't seem to mind that comment at all, just kept smiling.
Harry guessed that was an answer to his question — yes, Fred and George were typical of multiple births with magic involved. Or, he supposed it was possible the two Weasleys and the three Blacks were all just weird. They were technically related, after all — he'd been mostly confused to learn Sirius and Missus Weasley were first cousins — so these weren't exactly isolated samples. Still.
Then Sirius and the three of them were talking — mostly about what Ailís had told them about him, by the sound of it. Apparently, Ailís hadn't believed for a second Sirius was actually guilty either. The girls claimed their mother had said something to the effect of, '"Yes, your uncle Siri may be an enormous prat—"' (They traded who was speaking.) '"—the word insufferable seems a bit light, really—"' (Switch again.) '"—but I doubt he'd ever kill someone who didn't bloody deserve it."' Which really got Harry thinking: most everyone he'd heard mention it who actually knew Sirius at all hadn't believed the Ministry's claim that he'd betrayed Harry's parents and killed all those people. From what he'd heard, even a fair number of perfect strangers hadn't either — he hadn't been aware of this at the time, but when Sirius had been on the run there had been hundreds of letters sent to both the Ministry and The Daily Prophet demanding they stop being such arseholes to a probably innocent man. So...why had he ever gone to Azkaban?
Oh, right. Because magical Britain was a third-world country. That was why. Obviously.
The girls and Sirius were still bantering back and forth — their mother seemed to be growing progressively more annoyed, and their grandfather progressively more amused — when Harry spotted Dora over Persephone/Selene's shoulder, staring at the triplets with wide eyes, head slightly cocked. She pulled out her wand, tapped the drink in her hand a couple times before letting it go, the glass floating on its own in the air. Even as her features started shifting, she gave her wand a sharp flourish. And suddenly he could see four completely identical girls, Dora now in a dress much like Persephone and Selene's, save for the different colouring — unsurprisingly, she'd chosen shades of red and black with silver accents perfectly matching the Auror uniform.
For a moment, Harry wondered why she'd needed to use her wand at all. She could do all sorts of crazy things with her own appearance without even touching the thing. He felt a little stupid when he figured it out — her shapeshifting abilities obviously didn't affect her clothes. Good job, genius.
Then Dora was darting forward and, with a little leap, threw her arms around Persephone and Selene's shoulders from behind. Even though Artemis hadn't been touched, she started with surprise suspiciously quickly. Dora didn't even look at them, though. Instead, she looked off toward the side of the room, where most everyone was gathered in little conversation clumps talking. 'Mum!' she shouted in the triplets' voice, far too loudly for the volume level in here. 'Look how adorable we are!'
'Yes, honey, I see that.' Aunt Andi didn't seem at all phased by her daughter's strange behaviour. But, then, she should be used to it by now.
The triplets were giving Dora odd, confused looks — which was rather awkward for two of them, what with how Dora's grip was nearly forcing their foreheads into her chin — but the expressions all cleared with three, simultaneous nods. Since she was probably the only one at the moment with an unconstricted airway, Artemis spoke for them. 'You'd be Cousin Dora, then.'
Dora pulled on an exaggerated pout. 'Aww,' she said in a long, drawn-out whine, 'how did you know who I was?'
Harry noticed Sirius silently waving to Alphard and Ailís, then gesturing they leave to join the rest of the House. For a second, he was tempted to follow them, but he ultimately decided to stay where he was. There were less people this side of the room, for one thing, less annoying that way. For another, he had to admit he got a little bit of perverse pleasure watching Dora bother people who weren't him.
'I really think that should be a bit—'
'—obvious, don't you think?'
'Also?' either Selene or Persephone said, raising one finger at something of an awkward angle. 'Maybe let go?'
'No fun.' Dora lifted her arms, both of the girls immediately set to rubbing at the back and sides of their necks. Must have grabbed them pretty hard. Harry knew from experience Dora could get a bit rough when she was excited. Weirdo didn't know her own strength at all. Which wasn't surprising when he thought about it — the way she kept changing her body at such a fundamental level all the time it'd be almost impossible for her to. 'Nobody ever likes it when I look like them,' she said, sounding almost grumpy.
Still giving her something of an odd look, Persephone/Selene said, 'It was more the grabbing that bothered us, honestly.'
'But,' Artemis said, shrugging a little, 'now that you mention it—'
'—that was a bit of an odd thing to do. Not surprising, I guess—'
'—pretty sure oddness is genetic around here.'
Dora seemed to be following the skipping sentence easier than Harry was. He'd even had a fair amount of practice with Fred and George, and it was still leaving him a bit unsettled. 'I just like looking like people.' Suddenly Dora's wand was in her hand again, her features were shifting again, and she transfigured her clothes again with another sharp flourish, and—
For a couple seconds, Harry could only stare. Dora had turned herself into...well, he wasn't entirely sure how to word that. He still sort of thought of that particular set of increasingly familiar features as the girl in the mirror, which was kind of a silly thing to do, because it was himself. Obviously. But at some level it was still kinda, you know, really fucking weird to think of that girl as himself, weird enough that until about a week ago he'd still been having quick moments of confusion catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror before finally realising, Oh, right, that's me. By now, he thought he was mostly used to seeing it. When it was himself. Looking at someone else looking like him was...weird.
And for a couple seconds after that, he was still stuck staring, but because of an entirely different thought. Dora — well, both of them, he guessed — they were...well...
Fuck, he couldn't believe he was honestly thinking this thought right now. This was so insane.
He heard Ellie's chiding voice in his head almost instantly. 'Harry, I really think you need to stop, well, thinking so much. Stop automatically shifting to considering what you think you should feel, getting all worked up about that, and just let yourself feel whatever comes, as it comes.'
Ergh, fine! They were really fucking cute! He somehow hadn't realised until this very moment that he actually looked sort of nice and that thought was weird and confusing in one of those what-is-wrong-with-me ways but also sort of he thought maybe gratifying was the right word maybe but that was such an odd thought that this whole situation more than anything was just making him feel uncomfortable! There! Happy?
He was perfectly aware he'd just shouted in his head at someone who wasn't even present at the moment.
Jesus Christ, this was, just, so very, very fucked up.
He'd managed to distract himself long enough that, when he finally dragged himself back to reality, it was to find his suddenly identical cousin was standing at his side now, linking one of her arms with his. 'See?' she said, grinning at the triplets. 'Aren't we cute?'
Yes. Yes, they were.
Not entirely conscious of the decision to do it, he started rubbing at his face with the hand unclaimed by an eternally hyperactive metamorphmaga.
God.
Within a couple minutes, he was standing alone, Dora and the triplets faded off to go talk to other Blacks around the room. Harry just floated around for a while — sipping at a drink he'd swiped from the table, mostly standing off Sirius's shoulder, saying nothing and listening only intermittently. He was just too distracted. His brain was a weird, jittery mess right now. It certainly didn't help his concentration that he didn't really know most of these people, had very little interest in most of the things they were talking about. It all seemed to be mostly people he didn't know catching up on the last couple decades with each other, a little gossip about even more people he didn't know, a bit about current events and politics that was mostly boring. He didn't care.
His brain kept flicking back to what Dora had looked like a few minutes ago.
And the knowledge that that was exactly what he looked like right now.
It was quite literally impossible to focus on anything else.
Before too long, an idea crossed his mind. A rather strange idea. He managed to convince himself it was a terrible idea, he definitely shouldn't do that, but it just wouldn't leave him alone, continually niggling at the back of his mind. He couldn't make it go away. He kept unconsciously scanning the room for Dora — most of the time, she was wearing that familiar pink-haired form of hers, so she wasn't hard to spot. After a couple more minutes, he had quite effectively untalked himself out of it. Not that he'd convinced himself to do it yet. It was such a ridiculously stupid idea, really another insane moment of his, and he just shouldn't be indulging these weird sort of impulses whenever—
Yeah, he was doing it.
Before he'd even entirely made up his mind, he'd already walked across the room to Dora, tapped her shoulder to draw her attention from...some cousin, he couldn't remember which. 'Can I talk to you for a second?' She gave him a weird look, but followed him without protest off into a corner of the room, as far removed as he could get from the rest of the Blacks hanging around. Which wasn't very private at all, but he guessed it would do for now. He stared at her for a moment, his arms crossed under his chest. And now he had to actually say this crazy idea he'd had. Aloud. Great.
Giving him a little crooked grin, Dora just said, 'There a reason you dragged me away, now? Cause, just so you know, if you're planning on snogging me, everyone can still see us here.'
And now Harry was completely speechless for a different reason. Dora was really good at doing that. He finally managed to get his mouth working again, but all he managed for a second was, 'What?' A moment later, 'We are cousins, you know.'
Dora shrugged. 'Second cousins. I can't even count all the married—' He was pretty sure that ghrk sound came from his own throat. '—second cousins I know of. Relax,' Dora said, suddenly sounding a bit exasperated, 'I'm only teasing. You really need to loosen up a bit. You're far too easy to tease.'
Maybe Dora had a point there. She'd had him halfway between fleeing — he'd actually already taken a few steps back away from her — and breaking down in an abrupt panic attack. Colours hadn't started leaking out of the world quite yet, but it had suddenly gotten quite hard to breathe, his heart jammed rather far up his throat. He took some long seconds to try to force his breath normal, to get his brain to stop being such a fucking piece of trash. When he was finally mostly calm, he snarled, 'Was that really necessary?' At least, he tried to say it in a snarl — it ended up sounding just tired.
Dora smirked at him.
'Right, of course it was.' Well. At least she'd managed to make his crazy idea seem not really that crazy at all anymore. Dora was pretty good at doing that, too. 'I was just wondering if you could, er. Look like me again.'
The smirk twisted into a confused sort of look for a moment, a single eyebrow tracking up her face, but after a moment she just shrugged. 'All right.' An instant later, her wand again appearing from nowhere, Dora had again taken on the appearance of Melantha Black, her clothes transfigured to match Harry's. 'Was that it? I can do that any time, you know. I don't mind looking like you. Don't much mind who I look like at all, to be honest. Mostly just play around with it like I do because it's fun, and I can.'
And because she was quite possibly insane, but never mind that right now. Harry took another moment, a couple breaths, to gather himself — which wasn't easy, because looking at someone who looked like how he knew he did now was still making him feel really weird. After a couple seconds, he'd gotten himself level enough he was sure his voice wouldn't be wavery. 'Could you, ah—' Well, not too wavery, anyway. Get it out, stupid, just say it, god. '—put us in something, erm, pretty?'
Dora gave him another weird look — with Melantha's face now, and wow that was strange to look at — both eyebrows drawing up this time. 'Something pretty?' she repeated, her voice thick with blank confusion.
His eyes sliding away and to the ceiling, Harry said, 'You know what, never mind. I'm just being crazy here. Forget it, I'll just—'
'No, no.' He glanced back to see Dora was still staring at him, her head slightly tilted to the side. 'Not crazy. Just give me a second to pick something.' For a moment, Dora stood there, eyes closed, wand pointed toward the ceiling, drawing little absent circles in the air. Then, with a sharp downward flourish, her clothes shifted in a rapid wave.
She'd put herself in a dress. Black cloth of some smooth-looking diaphanous substance making up a skirt falling to her ankles, above the waist a thicker, more solid-looking cloth hugging close along her stomach and chest, this part more a deep purple with patterns of black lace splayed across. Looked a bit corset-like, but he didn't think that's what was actually going on up there — not that he was an expert or anything — and the neck curved low enough to make Harry almost positive Dora had added a little, ah, around there. Though he guessed he'd probably be a bit creeped out if she managed to copy him with perfect accuracy everywhere. Thin straps over her bare shoulders were partially hidden by her hair, but Harry thought it looked like the lace-like bunches along it were stitched into the shapes of little black flowers.
Fingers absently running downward from her sides to her hips, Dora said, 'Used to have one just like this, back when I actually wore dresses. Now that I'm an Auror, I could be called in at any time, so my clothing options are a little limited. But, anyway—' She made a sarcastic little curtsy, pulling her skirt out to the sides, letting Harry notice the skirt was actually semi-transparent, multiple layers of the sheer fabric forming an illusion of depth. '—how do we look?' Complete with a little, cocky smirk on Melantha's face.
Harry barely even noticed the question. He was having other problems. 'I, er, I have to go.' Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away. And since he managed to forget his back had been facing the wall, that involved an awkward moment of stuttering to a halt, then turning a direction he could actually go more than a few steps. He aimlessly wandered over to a table in the corner, covered in little glasses filled with drink, platters bearing weird wizarding finger-food things, both of which Sirius had insisted the occasion called for. His breath unusually harsh in his throat, loud in his ears, he planted his hands against the surface of the table, bowed his head, struggled for long moments to not go completely crazy surrounded by people he'd barely just met and happened to be related to.
Okay. That had been a bad idea. He shouldn't have done that. There were all these new people he'd just met. He'd already come to the distracting, uncomfortable realisation that, yeah, he looked kinda rather nice now, okay. That should have been enough for him to deal with for one day. He already had enough things to be getting on with, he didn't need to keep piling more onto himself like an idiot. It wasn't helping.
Yes, that had been a rather pretty dress. And, yes, Melantha-Dora had looked rather nice in it. But that wasn't what he was having a crazy person moment here about. At least, not directly. This was another one of his oh-my-god-what-is-wrong-with-me-I'm-such-a-fucking-freak moments, inspired by what his own initial reaction had been to seeing Dora like that.
It wasn't at all a mystery that he wasn't exactly comfortable in his own skin right now — not that he'd really ever been, honestly. He hardly had the self-assurance to just have an ordinary conversation with someone he didn't know already — again, not that he'd ever been that great with that kind of thing, not the point. He knew, he'd known right away the instant he'd seen it, that he'd never be able to actually wear that. Not as he was now. At least, not where other people could see him. He'd known that, and his first reaction to that realisation, looking at Dora looking like him, the first thing he'd felt had been—
Fucking hell, this was so messed up!
He felt jealous. He recognised it instantly, it was a feeling he was very much familiar with. He felt jealous of Dora, because she could walk around wearing that kind of thing without a second thought. He felt jealous of Dora, because she'd probably done exactly that dozens and dozens of times. He felt jealous of Dora, for being a perfectly ordinary person — other than the shapeshifting and related personality quirks, anyway — with her perfectly ordinary life, her perfectly ordinary un-fucked-up childhood, her lack of a constant enemy in the form of her own brain.
He felt jealous of Dora for girly things.
What the fuck was wrong with him? Jesus Christ...
He was starting to get tired of thinking that to himself, having these stupid, stupid moments in reaction to involuntary thoughts and feelings. But he just couldn't stop himself. It kept happening before he could even try to head it off. Though, he guessed at least now he was aware he was doing it, and that it was stupid, and he should stop. So, that was progress.
Right?
Maybe. Ellie would probably say so, and she was the closest he had around to an expert on this brain stuff, so he'd go with that.
But, anyway, he should stop standing here staring at the table like a crazy person. He was starting to suspect from things Ellie said and the way his own brain worked that crazy people never actually got better, the more functional ones just learned to manage their neuroses to the point that few noticed. But that depressing thought wasn't important right now. Trying his best to give off an air like this had been the whole point all along, he swiped a drink from the table, and then a random thing from a random plate and popped it in his mouth. And immediately pulled his face into a half-involuntary grimace, forced himself to keep chewing — he didn't think he'd ever get used to how sweet so much wizarding food was. He was pretty sure even straight honey wasn't this sickening. Blech.
A few minutes later, he found himself standing at Sirius's shoulder again, listening to him talk with a couple cousins whose names Harry couldn't remember at all. Not that he was participating, or even really listening all that much. If he were, he probably would have picked up at least one of their names by this point. Maybe partially so he could find a moment to unobtrusively ask Sirius if it was okay if he left, but it was mostly an effort to, he didn't know, be less obvious in how much he wasn't enjoying himself. He figured if he was standing alone against a wall somewhere it'd be really obvious he didn't want to be here, and he guessed he didn't want to make too bad of an impression? He was related to most everyone in this room, after all, they'd presumably be around a lot in future. Of course, if he ended up going through with that ritual thing, they'd probably never know this was him right now anyway.
But then, lately he'd been seriously considering, well, not, so.
Maybe it was better not to even casually think of what he might or might not be doing months or years from now. It was weird and confusing.
But he'd hardly been standing here for a few moments before someone had walked up to him, trying to get his attention. Definitely Dora — she'd gone back to that same tall, pink-haired form she liked so much. 'Hey, can I talk to you for a second?'
Harry could only blink at first. Dora sounded almost...awkward? A little uncomfortable at the very least. That was...odd. Had he ever seen Dora the least bit uncomfortable? He managed to shake the thought off after a moment. And then hesitated for another second, considering whether whatever Dora had to say was something he'd want to hear. 'Ah, sure.' He'd actually settled on probably not, but that it would be unnecessarily mean to say no, so he kinda had to. After giving Sirius something between a shrug and a wince, getting a smirking shrug in return, Harry let Dora lead him off, far enough away from the others they wouldn't be easily overheard. Actually, Harry thought they might be standing exactly where they'd been when he'd pulled her away and—
Yeah, never mind, don't think about that.
The second they were alone, Dora came to a sudden stop, spinning around to face him. What was this, now she even looked uncomfortable, arms all awkwardly crossed over her chest, eyes down at the floor rather than his own. This was very strange, starting to give him an odd feeling. 'Yeah, er, I think I kinda have to apologise here.'
Ah...
Now Harry was entirely lost. Nope, too many weird things had happened in just the last hour. He had no idea anymore.
Dora kept talking while reality left him completely behind. 'I guess I haven't really been making this whole situation of yours easier. But, like, it's not my fault exactly. I'm pretty sure it's just one of those things about normal people I don't really get.'
Well. At least Dora was acknowledging she wasn't exactly a normal person. That was something. But she wasn't making a whole lot of sense, so he had to ask, 'What do you mean?'
'Ah...' Her voice trailed off for a moment, while she kept staring at the floor, shifting slightly in place. 'Okay,' she said, voice suddenly more like herself, arms unfolding to plant her hands on her hips, 'let me put it this way. I can be a woman or a man or any combination of the two whenever I want, ever since I was, er, I think six is when I figured that out. I prefer being a woman, sure, but it doesn't particularly bother me to be a man for, really, any length of time.' Her lips twisting into a playful smirk, 'I've actually gone out as an intentionally handsome young fellow a few times to pick up muggle women just for fun.'
Harry stared at her. He wasn't sure if he should be touching that one. All he could think to say was, 'Er...'
'Off-topic a bit there. What I mean to say is—' She shrugged. '—I really don't understand most of the time how people make such a big deal about gender. They're like, say, wearing two different styles of clothes to me. One might be more comfortable, but I can wear the other if the situation calls for it, or if I'm in the mood.
'So,' she said with a long nod, 'that's why I've been I guess not as gentle with this stuff as I maybe should be. It just doesn't click for me why you should be having any difficulty with this at all.' Wow, if that wasn't the strangest thing he'd ever heard his very strange new cousin say. 'But, why I'm doing this whole apology thing is because that's not really an excuse to be a bitch or anything. So I'm, er, resolving to be nicer. And sorry about all that.'
Harry couldn't help but let out a short sigh. He really hadn't expected her to apologise. Partially because he wouldn't have thought she had it in her — that was probably a really mean thing to think just there — but also because, to be honest, it hadn't really bothered him that much? Well, her teasing did bother him, but no more than nearly anything else these days. Anything related to the suddenly-a-girl-now thing, anyway. He didn't think she was really adding anything. All the buttons she kept pushing were things he'd have to get used to eventually one way or the other. So, no, it wasn't that big of a deal. But it was nice of her, so he decided to say, 'Apology not entirely necessary, but thanks.'
'Ah, good, then.' She nodded inwardly. All of a sudden, she looked quite a bit inordinately pleased with herself. But, really, most everything she did was inordinate in one way or another, so he should be getting used to it by now. 'Anyway, I'm supposed to be telling you that Mum wants to talk to you.'
'Oh. Okay.' He was about to turn around to look for her when a thought suddenly occurred to him. He said it before he could second-guess himself. 'That whole apology thing was because she yelled at you, wasn't it?'
Dora's face scrunched into an almost comically exaggerated pout. 'I wouldn't use the word yell.'
Before he even realised what was happening, Harry was already laughing.
It turned out the something Andi had to talk with him about wasn't just for him, but also the Black triplets. The topic of discussion was an invitation to what Dora called proper prissy pureblood princess bootcamp — she mispronounced the first sound of the last word to preserve the alliteration. Basically, a crash course in high society culture and manners. The four of them would spend two of the few remaining weeks before the next term started at Andi's house, where she said she'd work day and night to try to make proper young ladies out of them (odd thought, there) as well as she could in so short a time, so they hopefully wouldn't embarrass the newly-restored House of Black too badly (she said somewhat sarcastically).
Which definitely sounded like something Harry had vanishingly little interest in participating in. But, while the language Andi used suggested the whole thing was voluntary, Harry was half-positive she was just being polite. He had the distinct feeling that, if he didn't consent, she'd talk Sirius into requesting he go, which would probably be good enough to guilt him into it, or shanghai Dora into straight kidnapping him or something. No, it'd probably be safer to just agree. So he had.
So here he was back in the Tonks house. Actually, back in the same guest room he'd used when he'd temporarily been living here. He was sharing it with Artemis now, since the place really wasn't meant to hold this many people. The triplets had told Andi they'd be perfectly comfortable sharing Dora's old bed — which had been a very weird thing to say, since the thing certainly wasn't meant to fit three people, but the triplets were rather consistently weird, like most of this goddamn family — but Andi had vetoed the idea instantly, putting two of them in each room. He'd quickly decided he found Artemis, for as little as their personalities seemed to differ, the most agreeable of the three, so he didn't mind so much. The specifics of the arrangement were a little awkward. Instead of bringing up a cot from somewhere as Sirius had for Hermione and Ginny, the two of them had just been told to share the bed, which had been extremely uncomfortable the first couple nights, but there was enough room for them to both lie there without actually touching — if only barely — so he grudgingly got used to it.
Honestly, after a couple days, he thought the whole routine before bed was more awkward than the actual trying to sleep part. Once his partially-undressed state was concealed by sheets, though, he mostly stopped caring.
Many of Andi's lessons were awful and boring. A lot of it involved things like proper etiquette — how and when to address who, the proper phrasing in certain formulaic exchanges, what were and weren't appropriate topics for conversation in what contexts. Or noble family politics — everything from which Houses historically got along with which and general rules about how they went along that business, to the proper forms for honour duels when called for, which was apparently a thing people still did. Even down to table manners. It was just terrible.
To be completely honest, he didn't think he had it in him to care about most of that.
Even the things that were less awful he ended up feeling mostly conflicted about. One of those was the dancing. Yes, Andi took the time to teach them how to dance, those fancy archaic ones mostly only the rich people still did. Apparently, she felt that was important. Maybe she did have a point — he probably would have made less of a fool of himself if he'd had lessons much like these before the Yule Ball — but still. The dances she taught came in two basic styles, which she called formal and intimate. The formal ones, their partner could be absolutely anybody — relatives, friends, acquaintances, complete strangers, anyone. As an example, most of these insufferable high society parties he'd probably start being dragged to started with one of these, and it was something of a tradition for girls around their age to be led out by their father or other appropriate relation. The ones Andi called intimate, however, were only supposed to be done between two people who were involved, or were on the way to becoming so. Or sometimes just flirting, but generally speaking.
Somewhat to Harry's surprise, Andi taught them multiple dances of both kinds, practising leading and following for each. Apparently, they would most likely have to know how to do both. The leading dynamic was in principle the same as Harry understood it was with the muggle equivalent, complete with slightly different steps between the parts — though exactly how different varied dance to dance — but deciding who led was a bit more complicated. It wasn't as simple as man leads, woman follows. For one thing, it wasn't at all uncommon for a dancing pair to be the same sex — usually the formal dances, but sometimes the intimate ones too. But even when they were opposite sexes the man didn't automatically lead. It varied depending on the individual personalities of the two people involved, and how the two of them meshed. Far as he understood from Andi's explanation, it mostly came down to who was more comfortable doing which with that specific person. Or even how they felt that particular day — apparently, Ted and Andi switched off according to their moods.
He suddenly had the thought that, back at the Yule Ball, Hermione probably should have been leading. He was, well, himself, and she was Hermione, after all. He had to smile a little at that.
At least at first, the whole dancing lessons thing was unspeakably awkward. For one thing, he still wasn't at all comfortable with people touching him, which this required. For another, it just made him feel oddly...exposed. Until one time he was dancing with Ted — Andi had recruited her husband for the formal dances, she said mostly so they'd have someone taller to practise with — listening to him muttering sarcastic little responses to Andi's instructions, low enough she couldn't hear. Each one slowly broke down his barriers of awkwardness, until he was quite suddenly giggling so breathlessly he was pretty sure he would have collapsed to the floor if Ted hadn't been holding onto him. After that, he wasn't so uncomfortable anymore, and he...well, he wasn't having fun, exactly, but it wasn't horrible either.
Though even by the end, he still felt a little weird practising the couple's dances with one of the triplets — usually, Selene. Not that he could visually tell Selene apart from Persephone without being told, and could only identify them by minor personality differences very inconsistently, but not the point. Holding a rather cute girl dressed all pretty, complete with the knowledge that what they were doing was a dance intended for couples, would be awkward enough without the added bit that she was his cousin — second cousin, but still. And he still wasn't used to the idea of having cousins in the first place. It was all just so weird.
And, yes, dressed all pretty. Because Andi's ridiculous lessons on how to be a proper lady — please — included how to dress like it. Andi had taken a moment before they left Grimmauld Place to warn him about this part. She'd known from the time he'd spent at her place and the clothes shopping they'd done shortly afterward — though she'd had to ask to confirm if it were still true — that Harry had been wearing the same underthings he had before. That had been an awkward conversation. She'd said continuing to do that for those two weeks would likely lead to some uncomfortable questions, so it'd probably be best to switch to women's under- and sleepwear, preferably of wizarding make. Not too dissimilar from what he'd been wearing before in some ways — cut slightly different, but same basic idea — but they were, ah, definitely not made from cotton. That same soft and smooth cloth they seemed to use for nearly everything, though they apparently made it a bit thinner, almost sheer, when purposed for, ah, undergarments. Which felt, erm, weird. Not bad, exactly. Just...weird.
To be completely honest, even a couple weeks before it probably would have been a bad sort of weird, but by now he'd mostly gotten used to the idea that, yeah, he was a girl under here now, so it didn't bother him to be slightly more conscious of it anymore.
But that led to a whole new awkward experience. Multiple awkward experiences, really. For one thing, these lessons in proper dress involved how to put all this shit on. Which ended up being something of a, erm, group activity. Which meant Andi and the triplets — and Dora, when she randomly decided to drop by — ended up seeing him in that partially-undressed state a fair bit. He'd nearly had another fucking panic attack the first time Andi had told the four of them that they'd be changing, so just go ahead and strip down to their underwear. Yeah, just go ahead and do that! Jesus. And, since the vest thing he'd been wearing above the waist didn't really go with either of the styles they were working with, he and the triplets ended up spending some spans of time standing around almost completely naked. Yeah. He wasn't having fun with that. At all.
He had noticed before that, at least in this particular part of the world, mages didn't have nearly the same hangup over nudity that muggles did. Especially between people of the same sex, but even in mixed groups they didn't seem to care as much. The Gryffindor quidditch team (excluding himself) would change and even shower together, for example, and no one but him seemed to think that was unusual. Much like the team had, Andi and the triplets all seemed to think how awkward he was about the whole thing was the only weird part. But he managed to make it through these moments every time by just aggressively not thinking about what was going on.
Much like the dancing, the proper clothes came in two different styles — though they had nothing to do with the other, it was coincidence. One of them, what Andi called the traditional style, was dress native to the wizarding culture of Britain, required for certain official functions, and sometimes specifically called for by a host. The women of House Black, apparently, had had something of a uniform for this purpose for centuries. Harry hadn't known this, but it was apparently Black tradition for the girls to be trained in both magical and physical combat from a very early age and, should the need arise, it was the women who did the fighting on the House's behalf. Counterintuitive from his own strongly muggle perspective, but he still wasn't entirely surprised when he'd first been told. Bellatrix. Dora. Andi was primarily a healer, did it professionally and everything, but apparently even she could be deadly vicious when she wanted to be. So, yeah, not surprising.
What Black women wore for these kinds of events reflected that. It was, basically, what he immediately recognised as duelling clothes. Loose trousers of that same damn cloth they used for everything. Unfortunately, the top half had to just go and be awkward — the wraparound tunic sort of thing, with an extra trailing bit extending all the way down to the ankle like a thin cloak, only draped over one shoulder. He was not at all comfortable with one entire shoulder being bare like that. The forearm the same side as the bare shoulder got a rather fancy wand holster. Usually, it was considered polite to use one charmed invisible instead — Harry now had one of those, actually — but Andi said this was one of the few exceptions. The thing was rather pretty, actually. Made of dark leather, mostly, soft bands with twisting lines of silver worked into them, extending up over the back of their hands, where a larger plate of silver was embossed with the House crest. Apparently, there were a couple dozen of these things sitting in the Black vault, waiting on any daughter of the House to have need of them. He kind of thought the whole thing was over the top, but he didn't mind being dressed up like his too much. And at least he got to wear trousers.
Which was not a luxury he got for the other style. For women, this mostly involved big, fancy dresses. Not as ridiculous as those wide, ridiculously ruffly, archaic old ball gowns he'd seen pictures and stuff of — though Andi had said they might catch sight of a few people dressed like that, it wasn't common anymore — but, still. Dresses. Awkward, awkward, awkward, awkward, awkward. Though, a bit to his surprise, not as awkward as he'd expected. He'd expected he would be a complete mess. And, well, he honestly had been a little bit just with being told that's what they'd be doing here. Just seeing the thing had made it even worse.
Eventually, Andi had him calmed down enough — which involved sending out the other three girls — that she could actually talk him into changing. Honestly, he felt a bit embarrassed looking back to how much of a baby he'd been being about it. After much whining on his part, she'd managed to get him into the thing. And promptly shoved him in front of a full-length mirror she kept in the room. The dress itself was, actually, not too different from the one Dora had transfigured. A little nicer, he thought. In full punning fashion, members of the House usually wore plenty of black more often than not. The long skirt that same sort of cloth again, but probably treated slightly different, set to gleaming in the light like burnished metal. Unlike Dora's, Harry was pretty sure this was what a corset was, this thing going on here, or at least something much like one. Again, not an expert. All he knew was Andi doing the laces up the back hadn't been at all fun. Instead of little lace flowers for straps, his shoulders were covered with soft, thin fabric, sheer enough skin was indistinctly visible underneath, fanning out only across the very top of his arms, the rest bare. Save for the roughly elbow-length gloves which apparently went with the whole thing, that is.
Most of the writhing discomfort consuming him — most, not quite all — vanished the second he saw himself in the mirror. For long seconds he could only stare, his eyes following how his hair curled along his shoulders and chest, sliding across the skin between where dress ended and neck began, following the graceful swishing of the skirt with the slightest shift in his balance, tracing the curve along his side from the bottom of his ribs to his hips — not much of one, as thin as he yet was, but still. His fingers started roaming, mostly unconsciously, trailing across the cloth tightly hugging his stomach, down to the looser, thinner cloth over his hips, then up again to trace the line over his chest, his gloved fingers feeling a little peculiar on his bare skin. Reminding him, forcing himself to consciously acknowledge, that was himself in the mirror. Him, Harry Potter, right there.
Even in the privacy of his own head, using the name Harry in this particular situation seemed a bit inappropriate. But that was a thought for later.
He... Well, he looked rather nice, didn't he? Yes, that was certainly a pretty girl in the mirror just there, and that pretty girl was him. There was literally no difference between them, they were the same person. He was — ergh, it felt weird even thinking that sentence. He was pretty. He was a girl, and he was a pretty girl. So there.
Somewhat to his own surprise, he suspected that thought would be much easier to get used to than he would have expected. If only because, well, it felt rather nice. Forcing himself to stop being a fucking psycho and just let it be, let himself acknowledge what was just fucking true, god dammit, was like something tight in his head he hadn't even noticed was there suddenly uncoiling, and he was filled head to toe with a weird, tingling warmth that nearly set him to laughing. He did notice he was grinning at himself like an idiot, but that one he couldn't stop.
A glance over his shoulder after a while, he wasn't sure how long, showed Andi still standing there watching him, a self-satisfied smirk on her face. In that second, he wasn't sure which he wanted to do more: hug her or slap her.
So instead he just rolled his eyes.
And thanked god Ron wasn't around — he would probably have had to hit him.
Ailís — Irish equivalent of Alice. I apparently disagree with the internet on how this should be pronounced. A couple places I checked said it should be like "ey-lish" [e:ʲ.lʲɪʃ], but both my admittedly incomplete knowledge of Irish orthography and the word of someone I know who is actually named Ailís agree it should be more like "uh-leesh" [ʌ.lʲi:ʃ] — somewhat like Alicia, but with the last syllable dropped. So. Use whichever you want, I guess?
metamorphmaga — Not sure if I mentioned this yet, but that would be the feminine inflection of metamorphmagus. Technically, this is an adjective, not a noun — in case any nerds out there were about to correct me on that. The convention came about from, basically, misunderstanding Latin grammar. The phrase "Nymphadora is a metamorphmaga" would be something like Nymphadōra metamorphemaga es (ha ha, tried to put it in Attic too, since it's originally Greek anyway, and nope nope nope Ancient Greek is surprisingly hard), and English-speakers just kept the same word while inappropriately inserting an article, if you follow.
[back at the Yule Ball, Hermione probably should have been leading.] — Might have mentioned this already, but in this continuity Harry and Hermione went to the Yule Ball as friends. And, no, Ron wasn't entirely pleased with this arrangement either, but he'd still been walking on eggshells from their recent spat, so he struggled not to be an arse about it, and at least partially succeeded.
