Swapped (pt. I)
By Lucawindmover
"You can't be serious!"
Professor Severus Snape rolled his eyes and sneered at the outburst of a certain red-haired Gryffindor. He moved around to the front of his desk, crossing his arms and looking down his long nose to the student at the table before him.
"I assure you, Mr. Weasley, that I am completely serious. Ten points from Gryffindor for the interruption. Now, as I was saying," the foul tempered potions master continued. "This is a gender-altering potion."
Snape pulled from his robes a medium-sized vial of a viscous, blue liquid. The students, both Gryffindor and Slytherin, shuddered at the idea that their teacher was proposing. A quiet murmuring broke out among them at the thought of swapping genders.
"Sir," Pansy Parkinson said, raising her hand. "Why would we need to learn how to make a gender-altering potion?"
Snape smiled, though to the Gryffindors it looked more like a grimace. "You will not be brewing this particular potion because, regrettably, it is closely regulated by the Ministry. It is used mostly for disguise, not unlike the Polyjuice potion. However, the misuse of this potion is the reason for its regulation. There are a few individuals who would prefer to remain…in a transgender state."
Draco Malfoy let out a cough which sounded suspiciously like "Potter!" amid the snickers of his housemates.
Snape cleared his throat loudly, regaining the attention of his pupils. "What you will be making today is the antidote. At the end of the period your potions will be tested."
"Tested how?" Ron blurted out before he could catch himself. Harry ribbed him hard with his elbow. Ron glared back at him, rubbing his side, well aware of the trouble he had likely just brought upon himself and possibly his friends.
"Interesting that you should ask, Mr. Weasley. And thank you for volunteering yourself and your housemates. I will be giving the potion to the Gryffindors to test the Slytherins' antidotes," Snape said, causing half the room to protest and the other half to cheer. "I will be testing the Gryffindors' antidotes as well, so you had all better get started. The instructions are on the board."
With a wave of his wand, the instructions appeared on the board and the students scrambled to retrieve their ingredients. Everyone on the Gryffindor side of the room feared for their genders at the thought of taking a Slytherin antidote.
"Harry, what are we going to do?" Ron whispered across the table as he sorted out his supplies.
Harry gulped. "I dunno, mate. This is going to be bad. Surely he knows the Slytherins won't make decent antidotes on purpose. They all want to see us swapped!"
The antidote proved to be a tricky potion indeed, and most of the class toiled with great effort throughout the period. Hermione's potion, to no one's surprise, was the only one that looked like it could remedy anyone, much to the Gryffindors disappointment. It looked as if most of them were going to be stuck in a transgender state for the rest of the day.
"Now, when you are through, please bring a vial of your remedy to the front to be tested," Snape said as class was nearing the end. He watched as the students each brought their samples to the front and left them on his desk. After they had cleaned up their work spaces and packed their belongings away, he made his way to the front of the classroom with the vial.
"Unfortunately, I do not have enough of this potion to change the entire Gryffindor House, as amusing as that might have been. I'll need three volunteers then," He narrowed his eyes and acted as if he were actually thinking intensely about who to choose. In the end he said "Granger, Potter, and Weasley. I believe you'll do."
Hermione, Ron, and Harry gulped in unison and each made dark looks at their teacher. Reluctantly, they moved to the front of the classroom. Snape forced them each to drink a large mouthful of the liquid, which was surprisingly tasty. The transformation was nearly immediate.
Hermione's hair shrank quickly to become a short nest of curls. She grew nearly six inches to become as tall as Ron. She suddenly seemed to be off balance and nearly fell forward as her center of gravity moved from her hips to her chest. 'Speaking of chest,' she thought to herself as she brought her hands up to said location. It had been years since her chest had been this flat and it was quite unnerving. Though this wasn't the only surprise she was going to find. Her robes were now terribly too small for her and she was incredibly embarrassed. She did feel a little better though, as she looked to Ron and Harry.
Ron had suddenly shrunk to the size of his sister. He hadn't been this short since he was eleven. His hair grew out to the length of his waist and was surprisingly wavy. His nose was smaller, his hands were smaller, everything was smaller. 'Well, not everything,' he thought as he realized he now had breasts. His robes hung off of him like a dress and revealed more cleavage than he was comfortable with. He pulled them closely around him in an attempt to hide himself from his fellow students.
Harry was the most incredible transformation. Even the Slytherins had to admit that Harry was a beautiful girl. His hair shot down to his shoulders and was more tame than he had ever remembered it to be. His eyes didn't change and were far more noticeable with his high, female cheekbones. His height didn't change much, making him very long-legged and curvy. His robes still didn't fit him correctly, however, and he found that they clung to him in awkward places.
The room was in an uproar. The Slytherins, and even most of the Gryffindors though they were trying to hide it, laughed hysterically. Finally, the Golden Trio had gotten themselves into a situation that they couldn't argue their way out of!
At this moment, the bell tolled for the end of class. The three potion testers turned to their teacher in hopes of receiving the antidote. They were to be disappointed.
"Since that is the bell, you are all dismissed. We will have to test the antidote next class period. I will be expecting a foot of parchment on the effects of gender-altering potions on human emotions, due at the end of the week," And with a foul grin, he turned to Hermione, Ron, and Harry. "And I hope you have a very nice day."
The trio stared at each other in complete disbelieve. Snape had to clear his throat three times to get their attention. "I want you out of my classroom, NOW!" he finally bellowed.
They each grabbed their belongings and took off toward the Gryffindor common room, determined to get there before anyone else should see them. This was the start to a very confusing day.
Ginny found she had to breathe very deeply several times to keep herself from falling on the floor and laughing herself into a coma. Her brother was a girl! She could not get over it. Here he was now, in her dormitory, begging her for a spare set of robes.
"Ginny, stop being a git and please give me something to wear! I can't wear these boy's robes!" Ron shouted in a much higher, female voice. He stopped his pacing around her room as he realized what he had just said. "Oh no, please don't tell me I'm starting to think like a girl! Oh no, oh no, what are the others going to say?"
"Ron, chill out. Breathe and don't start pacing again. Just, here, sit on my bed and I'll find you something decent," Ginny said, leading Ron by the hand and practically forcing him to sit down. Ron seemed to be on the verge of hyperventilating, his lightly freckled cheeks stained pink and newly formed chest heaving.
Ginny crossed the room to her wardrobe and pulled out an older set of robes. They would be about Ron's size, for Ron was a little smaller than Ginny now. Ron looked at the robes in dismay.
"But those are old! Ginny, what are you trying to do to me? I'll be the laughing stock of every girl in school!" Ron fussed, wringing his hands in desperation. A moment later, he seemed to come to himself and hear what he was saying. "Oh bloody hell, what is wrong with me? Since when do I care what other girls say? Wait, NOT OTHER girls, I'm NOT a girl. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not!"
He paused and locked eyes with Ginny. "I'm not, right?"
Ginny could contain herself no longer and fell to the floor as silent laughter overtook her.
Meanwhile, Lavender had loaned Harry, who was nearly the same height as her, a set of robes that fit him rather well. Harry was having similar problems with his thoughts becoming too, well, girly for him to handle. He decided it was too much when Lavender began fussing with his hair and he asked her about highlights. He rushed off to find Ron and Ginny before he could let Lavender talk him into something he would later regret.
He came into the fifth year girls' dormitory to find Ginny laying in the floor, laughing. Ron had changed into his sister's robes and was sitting on a bed, brushing his long hair over his shoulder. The male inside of Harry couldn't believe how incredibly attractive Ron was as a girl, which grossed him out beyond belief because he KNEW that Ron was a boy on the inside.
'Wow,' Harry thought. 'This is incredibly confusing and will scar me for life.'
Harry cleared his throat and Ginny and Ron noticed him for the first time.
"Oh, Harry! Why, you're beautiful! Those robes fit you perfectly!" Ginny exclaimed, wiping tears of merriment from her eyes.
Harry twirled around once, holding his robes out. "Oh, these old things? I've seen much better on that Lucy Billings of Ravenclaw. Just last week, she wore these incredible navy blue robes to Hogsmeade and-"
Harry stopped mid-sentence as he noticed how Ron and Ginny were looking at him. Both had their mouths agape and glanced at one another from the corners of their eyes. "What?" Harry demanded.
Ron swallowed hard. "Harry, can you hear what you're saying?"
Harry groaned and grew rather pale. He ran his hands through his hair as he made his way across the room to sit next to Ron. "Mate, this is terrible. I don't think I can handle these girl thoughts."
Ron snickered. "I know what you mean," he said. He laid the brush down in front of him and began braiding his hair, vaguely aware that he hadn't known how to braid hair before.
Harry watched him passively. Ginny gathered herself up from the floor and joined them on the foot of the bed. "Man, if the two of you are behaving like this, I wonder how Hermione is coping."
Ron and Harry exchanged startled looks. Before Ginny could comprehend what was happening, both girls had dashed off in the direction of the sixth year boys' dormitory.
To say Hermione was coping poorly was definitely an understatement. Everything she did embarrassed her beyond comprehension. Dean had been no help either, snickering at her every question and every move. Ron had told Dean to go into his trunk and get Hermione a set of robes that fit, since Hermione was now the same height that Ron had been. Dean had done so, but not without a few jabs at his housemate. Hermione remained scarlet as she dressed and discovered things about her new body that she would rather have never known. Every time she thought of what would happen when she had to go to the bathroom, she flushed a whole new shade of red. It wasn't that her body embarrassed her. It was the thought that she now knew what male anatomy looked like close up that embarrassed her. Before, she had been blissfully unaware and now wished she had remained that way.
'Ah, if wishes were fishes, we'd all have a fry,' Hermione thought one of her mother's favorite sayings as she ran her fingers through her short hair. She watched herself in the mirror with a mild fascination. The female in her had to admit that the male she had become was very attractive. She shook her head in an attempt to clear the thoughts and was surprised when it worked fairly well.
A moment later, she heard what sounded like a heard of hippogryphs coming up the stairs. She turned around in time so see two very beautiful girls throwing themselves through the door and slamming it shut behind them.
"Well, well, to which of the gods do I owe my gratitude for this?" Hermione said in an overly cocky, newly masculine voice. Her face suddenly drained of all color and she dove into Ron's bed, throwing a pillow over her head.
"Hermione!" Ron and Harry gasped at the same time.
"I swear I didn't mean it!" Hermione called from under the pillow.
The two boys, or girls rather, moved over to the bed and sat down next to Hermione, who pulled her head out from under the pillow. She rolled over on her back and stared up at the curtains around the four poster bed. "There has got to be something we can do about this."
The trio sat in silence for a few moments, deep in thought. Ron's eyes finally lit up after a bit of thinking. "Guys, why didn't we think of this before? Let's go to Professor McGonagall! Remember what how she reacted when Moody turned Malfoy into a ferret? Surely she'll put us right!"
Harry and Hermione nodded in agreement and the three teenagers made a mad dash down the stairs toward the common room.
Unfortunately, they had to cross the common room to get out, a very crowded common room due to the fact that classes were over for the day and most of the house was waiting to go down to dinner. Harry and Ron had to endure several catcalls along the way as Hermione was the topic of many whispers and giggles. They finally reached the portrait hole, much to their housemates' disappointment, and darted toward the office of the deputy headmistress.
Professor McGonagall was furious at the state of her three students. She flooed Professor Snape to her office, immediately, and ordered him to bring the antidote with him. Harry, Hermione, and Ron looked at one another with sighs of relief, knowing that in a few short moments they should be back in their original bodies before dinner.
When Professor Snape arrived, however, they were disappointed again. For according to Snape, the remedy took nearly an hour to take effect.
"What!" Shouted the three students.
Ron placed one hand on his hip and pointed at his professor with the other. "Now wait a minute. The first potion worked like that-" he said, snapping his fingers. "Why does the antidote take so long?"
Professor Snape rolled his eyes. "If it did not, Mr. Weasley, or shall I say Miss Weasley, your body would be thrown into shock and the three of you would need a week in the infirmary."
Hermione shuddered at the thought of missing a week's worth of classes. Ron and Harry both sighed in a defeated manner. It seemed as if they would have to endure dinner in front of the school like this after all.
A/N: Thanks for reading so far. I'll have the second part up shortly. This was meant to be a one-shot but it got too big for its britches! Please leave a review!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. J.K. Rowling is the genius behind Harry Potter and those things related to Harry Potter. I just enjoy tormenting the wonderful characters she has created for us.