a/n; Welcome, welcome to this intense project of mine. It is quite long already; I hope you hang on with me for the rest of the ride. I hope I hang on myself! Discovering Harry Potter genderswap fanfics and reading several of them—along with wondering about a variety of wizarding world questions—inspired me to write this. I hope I can answer the questions I've thought up accurately.

As stated in the summary, I have no clue what pairings I'll have. We'll find out, I suppose. OCs will be a big part of this story. This story will also be incredibly long. That's about all I have for now; read and enjoy! Constructive criticism, of course, is always welcome! Ah—and if anyone's done something like name a Harry Potter genderswap Holly or have her interested in manners, I'm sorry, I don't intend to copy!

disclaimer; I don't own Harry Potter!

the fabulously vintage world of holly potter

April 2014

part one: a philosopher's absurd invention

—first: how to be a lady; also entitled the reptile house incident

Privet Drive was a bright suburban street. There were splashes of flowers sprouting on windowsills and in beds by the windows. The lawns were lightly green and lightly brown-yellow; most neighbors tried to compete even in the drought for the best-looking lawn.

No. 4, Privet Drive, is the most critical for our story, although an interesting story could also be found in House No. 16. However, House No. 16 will never be brought up again and should be forgotten henceforth. No. 4 was a neat little house. In the small backyard there was a lovely little garden and a dry birdbath; in front of the house there was the usual car in the drive, alongside the slightly-greener-than-the-neighbor's lawn.

Inside was just as neatly put together. The walls were mostly floral print or yellow; all the color schemes were perfectly matched. The matriarch of the house tried very hard to make everything look well-done, even if the people in the house felt stressed or frazzled. Appearances were very important.

The matriarch of the house was Petunia Dursley, nee Evans. She was tall, thin, bony, and brunette, and she was a proper lady. She kept well-read copies of classic hardcover novels on the coffee tables and wore lovely skirts and only gossiped about the neighbors when in secret confidence. She stayed at home and raised the two children of the house, both of whom will be explained in two or three paragraphs.

The patriarch of the house was Vernon Dursley. He went out to work every day and made drills with an engineering company; he was a manager, and in his opinion, he took good care of his employees. He had only very recently become a manager and remembered very distinctly what the old manager was like. He was larger than Petunia, rather a beefy man; however if one cared to look you could see the handsome young man he used to be. He tried to be a gentleman but he much preferred being himself.

Now, it must be taken into consideration that of the two children in the house, Dudley Dursley was very much Vernon's son, and Holly Potter was very much neither Petunia's daughter nor Vernon's. However she was closest to Petunia.

Dudley was a robust and healthy boy who ate too many sweets and never learned that sharing is caring. He could be sufferable on most occasions, although he tended to talk too much of things only he cared about, and when angered he struck out at the nearest person with no qualms. He did, however, love bonding experiences with his father, which meant he enjoyed going fishing and mowing the lawn. He also loved video games and old sci-fi movies, none of which anyone else particularly cared for.

Holly had been unceremoniously dropped on Petunia and Vernon's doorstep when she was a baby, with only a letter from a presumptuous old man to justify it. She had long light red hair, hazel eyes, and creamy pale skin, very opposite from her dark-haired and vaguely tan cousin. She was athletic and healthy, and she loved everything Petunia concerned herself with: she was raised to be a proper lady as well. She only wanted old-fashioned and vintage things for her birthdays, if anything at all, and she was always unerringly charmingly polite to everyone she met. If angered she would remain polite but also sound frosty about it.

Holly was the daughter of Petunia's deceased sister Lily, and Holly looked very much like her mother. This was the majority of the reasoning behind Petunia's affection for the girl. Although Petunia had never gotten along with her sister when they were younger, now Lily was dead; and Holly felt very much like a second chance. Vernon did not like Holly nearly as much and tended to think of her as a freeloader, but it was hard to dislike her when all she did was read quietly and clean when asked to without complaint.

However, Holly always seemed to be involved in some very strange events. Although Dudley managed to start trouble on the playground at school on occasion, that was only to be expected, especially since his temper flared so easily. Holly was a charming and intelligent girl who avoided trouble—except on notable occasions. Once she was found the only one in the room with a particularly disagreeable teacher, whose beloved hair had turned a violent shade of blue. Another time, when on the run from a vicious but well-loved Rottweiler, the poor dog disappeared, and was later discovered two streets over, looking quite confused.

There were other incidents of similar bizarre manner. This could only mean one thing: but Petunia and Vernon both refused to consider the possibility. It was all coincidental, of course; that was what was happening. Not that other thing.

Our heroine, Holly Potter of the charming qualities and strange circumstances, presently slept in her bedroom, the second one upstairs. It was wallpapered with a blue-and-cream floral pattern. It was very neatly put-together; the messiest part was the desk, with piano notes spread out on it and a pencil still lying out. There was a crucifix on the wall directly across from the bed, and Holly was asleep under a quilted patchwork blanket. Her wardrobe door was closed, but inside there were mostly clothes she and Petunia had picked out together. She had a hat rack beside the wardrobe. On it there were her three favorite straw hats.

Holly was dreaming about a flying motorcycle. Because it was a dream this did not strike her as odd. Instead she laughed and tried to take control of it; she had no idea who else was on the motorbike, but she didn't care. She was flying over the English Channel in the direction of Paris because she would really like to eat several chocolate éclairs.

Just as Holly and the other motorbike passenger landed on a cobblestone street in Paris, a rapid knocking on the bedroom door woke her up. "Holly!" Petunia called through the door. "Come downstairs, Dudley wants to open his presents!"

"Be there in a moment," Holly called back. She quickly struggled to climb out of bed and stumbled over to her wardrobe. She remembered that Dudley wanted to go to the zoo for his birthday—which was today—and she picked something she thought would be appropriate. She fixed her hair with the assistance of her tall mirror on the back of her door, and then made her bed before heading downstairs.

Dudley had another smattering of gifts this year. They were all settled in front of the fireplace on the living room floor. Dudley was shaking one present in particular and holding it to his ear when Holly entered the room. "Happy birthday, Dudley," said Holly in passing, already on her way to the kitchen.

"Shut up, I'm trying to listen," was Dudley's response. This was no surprise; Dudley was always astonishingly rude.

Vernon was sitting at the head of the kitchen table, observing Dudley's proceedings with a small smile. He had the newspaper set in front of him, currently unopened. "Hello, Holly," said Vernon to his niece. He looked over to eye her somewhat suspiciously. "You're going with us to the zoo today, are you?"

"May I?" Holly asked.

Vernon looked like he might want to say no.

"Please?" Holly added hopefully. She loved animals of all kinds—more than once she'd had to come to Dudley's rescue, scooping up a spider and setting him outside while Dudley jumped on the bed and shrieked.

"Well, all right," said Vernon. "But no funny business. It's Dudley's special day."

"Yes, sir," Holly said respectfully. She flashed Vernon a smile and fairly skipped into the kitchen, where Petunia was making quick work of breakfast. Petunia set her on the bacon and scurried about, trying to make sure everything was perfect for Dudley.

Holly never received such attention on her own birthday, but she'd learned not to mind. In her own opinion she was lucky to receive any attention at all. She knew that, for whatever reason, her own parents had been on bad terms with the Dursleys. It was mostly, she thought, due to Petunia's obsession with being a proper lady that had kept Holly around long enough to grow up with the same ideals.

When they all sat down to breakfast—well, Dudley sat and ate on the living room floor, and Petunia watched him in grim apprehension—Dudley started counting his presents. "There's only thirty-four," said Dudley, looking up at his parents and Holly at the kitchen table. "I had thirty-six last year."

Holly wasn't surprised he remembered the exact number. When Dudley decided things were important to him, they were very important. "Well, you haven't counted Aunt Marge's present—she said it'd be arriving soon," said Vernon calmly.

"That's still one less," Dudley reported.

They all studied each other for a moment. Dudley was starting to look somewhat upset. Holly wanted to offer him a switch; he could have her total number of presents from last year's birthday, which was four, and two of them had come from her friends from school. The longer the moment of silence went on, the happier Holly was. She rather thought someone ought to teach Dudley the meaning of the word abstinence. (She'd just learned it herself. She almost exclusively read classic novels.)

Then Petunia said, "We can buy you another one while we're out today, popkins." She smiled at Dudley, who nodded seriously back before returning to eating.

At least Dudley cheered up as much as he ever did on the way to the zoo. Holly watched the other cars pass by and wondered about the people in them while Dudley chattered away with his irritating, weedy little friend Piers Polkiss. In the driver's seat Vernon muttered about motorcycles cutting him off. Petunia barely managed to change the subject to her friend Yvonne vacationing in Majorca instead.

Piers turned to Holly. "Hi, Holly," he said, smiling at her with his misaligned teeth. "What do you want to see at the zoo?"

"Everything," said Holly, looking back out the window.

"She's boring," Dudley accused. Holly assumed Piers agreed, because in a moment they were talking about howling monkeys again.

The zoo was jam-packed full of people. Like sardines, Holly thought. There was a group with a lot of little kids running around, and a few with angry-looking teenagers. Holly smiled, though, when she caught sight of an elderly couple sitting together by the elephants.

Outside the entrance—before Holly caught sight of all those people and wondered about their stories—Vernon bought Dudley and Piers ice creams. Holly was too invested in looking around to bother to ask for one; she considered herself somewhat lucky to have been allowed along at all. Vernon was still rather upset about those motorcycles.

The ice cream lady, though, looked directly at Holly and asked what she wanted, before they could all walk away. Holly glanced at her uncle, who shrugged half-heartedly. A moment later Holly happily walked away with a vanilla ice cream in hand.

It was a hot, sunny summer day, and Holly was glad for the hat she'd put on today. The shade of the reptile house was still a welcome change—as was the air conditioning inside. Holly headed off on her own to check out the garden snakes, as she considered them rather adorable. The only animals she didn't really like all that much were boa constrictors and anacondas; it probably had to do with the nightmare she'd once had of one wrapping around her and squeezing her to death. She also associated them with the Fall of Man story she'd heard many a time in church on Sunday mornings.

Holly had stared at several green snakes for a while when she finally moved on to the larger cages. Dudley had his face pressed against one of the largest cages. Piers was standing beside him, one hand on his hip. "It won't do anything," Piers was complaining as Holly wandered into earshot.

"Make it move," Dudley whined at nobody in particular.

Piers rapped on the glass of the cage. Neither boy jumped up, so Holly decided the snake must have been sleeping. "Boring," Piers decided, moving on. Dudley walked off with him, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Holly took a few steps closer to peer inside, her hands clasped behind her back. She read the informational plate beside the exhibit first. Naturally Dudley and Piers had sought out the biggest, nastiest snake in the place: it was a boa constrictor, apparently from Brazil. Holly thought that at least the Brazil part seemed interesting.

She looked into the exhibit and saw the snake immediately. It was massive, with oodles and oodles of brown curls. It was also staring right at her with startlingly golden eyes. It flicked its forked tongue out.

"Hello," Holly said slowly to the glass.

The snake seemed to study her. Then it winked.

Holly stared at it. She considered the possibility that she had imagined it. Then she looked around for a second to make sure nobody was looking before winking back, just in case.

The snake pointed at Dudley and Piers, several paces away now with Petunia and Vernon trailing behind them, with its head. Then it raised its head to the ceiling. Holly wondered what on Earth it was trying to say. The likeliest idea was that it was complaining about her cousin; most people did.

"I know," Holly muttered. "He's really very irritating." She twisted her lips. "Don't tell anyone I said that."

It was a positively absurd idea that the snake could tell anyone anything, but Holly didn't mind. Then it occurred to her that this was probably what had happened with Eve in the Garden of Eden. She imagined she was not nearly as important as the first woman in the world, but she was still wary of overly animated snakes. Holly took a small step back. "Have a nice day," she told the snake.

That was when Dudley made his smashing return. "What'd you do?" Dudley demanded, rushing up and cramming his face into the glass. He knocked into Holly's shoulder along the way, making it throb painfully for a moment. "It's moving! Piers, look! Dad!"

Holly rolled her eyes. She started to take another step back, reaching up to rub her shoulder. Dudley was staring at the snake and positively salivating. Holly frowned at him, annoyed; in the next moment, Piers was joining her cousin, and they were both jeering at the poor animal inside the cage.

Quite suddenly they both jumped backward. Holly did too, out of surprise at their abrupt movements. The glass on the front of the cage seemed to have completely vanished. Holly wondered wildly if it was retractable—but there was no place along the bottom of the cage for the glass to retract into.

The massive snake began to slither right out of the cage. Holly yelped and scrambled up onto the windowsill of the nearest cage behind her, while Piers and Dudley screamed. Several other people caught sight of the snake and began to shriek as well. The snake slithered right by—and then, alarmingly close, it looked right at Holly and hissed, "Thankssss, amigo…"

Holly stared as it slid onward toward the exit. Ridiculously, the only thing she could think was How absurd.

The rest of Holly's day was very unlike the start. Dudley's birthday was positively ruined by this life-changing and, evidently, life-threatening experience with the Brazilian boa constrictor. He whined the entire ride home, and Piers just sat there in silent shock. Petunia was clearly upset, wringing her hands together. And Vernon was so furious that he said nothing at all, which was as scary as Uncle Vernon ever got.

After they dropped Piers off at his house, Vernon asked, "What happened, Holly?" His voice was quiet and lethal.

Holly knew these were the critical moments. "Dudley and Piers were looking at the snake, and I think the glass broke," she offered, with a confused little twist to her voice. "Do you think they caught the snake?"

"Are you sure that's what happened?" Vernon demanded, his voice rising. "I told you this morning no funny business!"

"It wasn't very funny," Holly pointed out. "That was dangerous. It could have killed someone."

"That's the point!" Vernon shouted.

Holly was grounded for the remainder of the week.