Chapter 9

Are You a Chaser, Now?

Note

This chapter has been lightly edited to comply with fanfiction maturity guidelines. To read the original, go to Ao3, same title/author.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Green light lanced through the darkness as Harry watched, helpless. Cedric Diggory fell. To his horror, the body began to twitch on the ground - it rose, staggering, head at an unnatural angle, a terrible, rotting face, flesh dropping from jutted bones, coming closer and closer and the yellow, stinking teeth were pointed like fangs, and there was nothing he could-

Harry hurtled upward and bashed foreheads with Ron, who was, like Diggory's corpse, looming over him.

"Ow!"

"Fuck!"

"What the hell, Ron?" Harry said, clutching his head (a disturbingly familiar motion).

"Godric - you were yelling bloody murder. Jus' came to check you were OK, s'all," Ron said. He had one eye closed and was also holding his hand to his forehead.

"M'goin' back to bed..." he added and disappeared back behind the curtains. Harry heard him mutter the incantation 'Amato Animo Animato Animagus' under his breath, as he had done every day over the last month.

He patted the bedside table for his glasses. He shoved them on his nose and checked his watch - it was a bit early yet, but he figured he might as well get up and head to Pomfrey's.

Pleased with his promptness, Madam Pomfrey tasked him with slicing, to a variety of depths and lengths, the skin of several oranges. When he finished, they looked as if they had been mauled by a ferocious beaver.

When Padma arrived, they both set about repairing the cuts as neatly as possible. After, Harry felt pleased, certain his patients had survived their ordeal. Though they had suffered no inconsiderable blood loss - or juice loss - as his robes and hands remained noticeably citrussy even after a round of cleaning spells.

He arrived at the Great Hall to find most of the school had left already. There were just a few people finishing their breakfast - not entirely unusual given it was ten minutes before the start of class. However, Professor Collins was stood by the Dumbledore table. He waved at him. Today, he was sporting a checked blazer worn in what Harry thought of as 'wizarding style', this time meaning: inside-out. With a fringe along the hem. And a popped collar.

"Got a note for you."

Harry raised an eyebrow as he handed him a small scroll of parchment. It read, in neat calligraphy:

NOTICE: Due to the time-sensitive activities of the Animagus programme, the services of Transfigurations teacher, Dr Khatri, and Potions Master, Professor Tang, are required to assist myself, Headmistress McGonagall, and the eighth year students involved. This will be to prepare the ingredients needed for tonight's potion-making. And, to practice the delicate process that will define the movement to the next phase. Congratulations are in order for those who have managed to complete the first stage of their journey.

As such, if you have morning classes in either of the above subjects you are permitted private study for the duration. Please spend this time wisely.

Headmistress McGonagall

Harry had known Ron was getting his morning classes off, but he hadn't realised he would benefit, too. He cheered internally.

Excellent. Maybe I could get a nap in...

"Finished? Yes?" Collins asked.

"Your friend, Finnigan was just here. He asked me to let you know that he'd be in the library if you'd like to join him. Something about a 'Freakishly Impossible Transfiguration essay' that you are both required to submit by Wednesday?"

Ah. Yes. The essay that was only a quarter done, and that was sitting on his desk still. The essay he had intended on working on last night, but then he'd spent the whole evening reassuring Ron about his... 'little issue.'

He blushed.

"Oh, uh. Thanks, Professor."

"Most welcome. Good luck with your assignment." The Muggle Studies professor pottered away.

Harry decided, at the very least, he was going to enjoy a leisurely breakfast rather than his usual rushed affair on a Monday.

Half an hour later, and feeling somewhat sleepy after consuming a large portion of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, and toast (he hadn't touched the orange juice; somehow, it felt wrong after a morning healing the damned things), he made his way up to the Dumbledore Den intending to fetch his Transfiguration homework and, begrudgingly, join Seamus in the library.

The place was deserted. He headed up the stairs, pushed open the dorm-room door, flung his bag to the side, and looked up to catch an eyeful of sweat-soaked, writhing, naked flesh.

Eyes screwed shut, Dean Thomas was leaning against a bedpost. His head was thrown back. The curve of his neck, accentuated. His dark, muscular shoulders and chest revealing - with his shirt torn open, his tie hanging loose - raw purple marks that trailed down towards his navel. His trousers were around his ankles... and a familiar red-head was kneeling at his feet.

Harry slammed his eyes shut. Unfortunately, he'd let go of the door, which, too, slammed shut behind him.

"So good whadidya stop f-" Harry heard Dean start to say.

Then: "Oh FUCK. Oh fucking. Fuck. Shit. SHIT."

He couldn't see anything already, but he pressed his palms over his closed eyes anyway. Then had the thought that he should probably leave. Like right now. So he backed towards the wall, trying to feel his way to the door, pawing at the stone blindly with one hand while covering his eyes with the other.

Dean was still swearing. Harry could hear the swift rustling of fabric and the clink of a belt being pulled up.

Where the fuck? A-ha the doorframe. Now to find the bloody handle...

"Harry?"

Nope, nope, nope...

"I'M JUST LEAVING. DIDN'T SEE A THING. SORRY!"

"Ha... Merlin's sake, Harry, to your left. For crying out loud," Ginny said, then burst into hysterical giggles. "Oh fucking hell. Sorry you had to see that."

"NOT TO WORRY. DIDN'T SEE, GIN," he continued yelling as he groped for the handle. Finding it, he opened the heavy wooden door just wide enough to sidle through.

"And maybe knock next time!" she shouted as he slipped out onto the balcony.

"YEP, CERTAINLY WILL," was all Harry could manage in reply. Or, I dunno, LOCKING THE DOOR was surely an option here, right?

Minutes later, Harry sat down in the library, empty-handed.

"Hey."

"Oh have you not started any of it yet? Phew, here I thought I was in trouble, like," Seamus said. He was surrounded by balled up sheets of discarded parchment.

Harry turned to him, eyes glazed as if in a dream.

Let's go with: no. File that under: not worth going back up there for a thousand sickles.

"Harry?"

Obliviating myself is sounding better and better, he mused.

"Yeah. No. Really gotta focus on it, for sure."

And purge my mind of all other thoughts, like the way Thomas' hips had rocked against Ginny's eager mouth and...

"Hey, err... can I borrow some parchment?"

The next weekend, Harry, Ron, Dennis Creevey and the fourth year named Ursula had their first Friendly against a group of younger Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, who went under the team name 'The Mighty Skrewts'.

Ursula clearly knew a couple of them, so she spent as much time batting the bludger their way as she did hurling increasingly personal insults. The game ended with a clear victory for Colin's Clan, though Harry felt the win was a bit hollow given one of the other team's Chasers had started to cry after his bolshie teammate had mentioned something to do with her body odour and an embarrassing incident with a boy called 'Wishaw'.

It was fun, in any case. Even if he was playing as a Chaser and not a Seeker. In a way, it was enjoyable to be so involved throughout the whole game, instead of spending most of it searching for a tiny golden ball. Still, he missed the intensity of the chase. Especially to be up against another Seeker, battling with skills and wits in a one-one-one race. And that feeling of reaching out and grabbing that elusive snitch - there wasn't much that could compare.

Once everyone had left, he and Ron packed up their equipment and headed up to the castle. During the week, Ron had spent a lot more time in Hermione's company again, thank goodness. They were talking with one another, finally, for which Harry was very grateful. He wasn't sure exactly where they stood, given he wasn't involved in their boyfriend-girlfriend chats, but it was a definite improvement on the fighting. And, for now anyway, given he didn't feel obliged to escape the castle at any chance, Ron had decided not to go to the shop that weekend. That was why they'd put their team forward for one of the hour-long matches that were running that Sunday, even though it was still a bit soon for the two new fliers.

And when it came to discussing... certain topics... well, it was like the floodgates had opened since their initial chat. In fact, sex was pretty much all Ron wanted to talk about. So much so, that what had started as an awkward conversation was now so routine that Harry felt almost like he was talking about the weather or... gardening.

He did, however, try to err on the side of the mechanics, as it were. Details, without specifics. Actions, not feelings. There was an unspoken agreement that when they referred to 'girls' neither of them - of course - meant Ginny or Hermione. Just anonymous, hypothetical girls. And what exactly you were meant to do with one of them. They were casually discussing this as they headed for the Den.

"Do girls actually like sucking cock?"

Then again, there were questions like that.

Harry, having vowed to never, ever, tell Ron about the scene he'd walked in on in the dorms, nevertheless used it, along with memories of his own experiences, to assure him, that yes, they very much did. And one day, when I'm ninety and senile, I'll finally be able to look Dean Thomas in the eye again...

"Huh. Can't see the appeal, really. I mean, it's not a very attractive thing, is it? And, like, surely that gets uncomfortable after a while..."

They arrived at Vance's portrait.

"Wysteria. Oh no it's changed, hasn't it? Uhh..." Harry rubbed the back of his head.

"Crepuscular," Ron remembered.

"Lovely stuff," the witch said, approvingly.

The portrait swung open and they climbed through. The Den was relatively busy. The Patil twins and Lisa Turpin had enchanted a small statuette of a knight and were giggling away to themselves as it professed its love to all three of them in a gravelly yet squeaky voice. Terry Boot and Michael Corner had monopolised the seating area by the fire for a game of wizard's chess. And the ex-Hufflepuff girls were studying at the table in the corner.

Harry and Ron went upstairs and changed out of their gear. As they came back out onto the balcony, however, they found their route down the stairs blocked. Blocked by a black trunk and a teetering pile of bags.

Ron peered over the top of them, and, seeing no-one, shouted down over the banister.

"Oi! What's this all doing here?"

Others were also staring up at them, games and other activities paused.

Have we missed something? Harry thought.

Terry Boot waved. He cupped a hand around his mouth and yelled back: "Well. Looks to me like one of the Slytherins are moving out!" He sounded like he couldn't be more delighted.

"Malfoy?" Ron whipped around to Harry. "D'you think?"

Harry shrugged.

Just then the door beside them opened - the door to the boys' dorm where Malfoy, Zabini and Nott slept - and the blonde himself emerged, holding yet another bag.

"Brilliant!" Ron said, grinning. "Finally. Oh this is Christmas come early. Here, can I help you with that?"

"What?" Malfoy frowned at him. "I don't have time for your stupid games, Weasel."

"I'm not even mad. Call me 'Weasel' all the way out the damn door. Hear you're leaving. Get expelled then, did you? Death Eater past caught up with you did it? Or did you try something naughty and McGonagall caught you, eh? Bet that was it. Thought you were clever. Thought you were off scot-free."

"No."

"Wonder what 'father' will think? Or will he disown you? I reckon he might. Or wait, is he still in prison? I haven't been keeping track. Was it five months? Or five years he got?"

Malfoy dropped the bag and advanced on Ron with his wand. Harry, unthinking, stepped between them, stopping him short. He held his gaze. Saw the storm brewing in his ice grey eyes as Malfoy glared at him. He spoke through gritted teeth.

"Tell your fucking lackey, Potter. To back. The fuck. Off."

"He's not my lackey."

Harry felt Ron side-step behind him and held out an arm to hold him back as well.

This... is not good.

"Don't start something you're not prepared to finish," Malfoy shot over his shoulder at Ron.

"Oh I'm ready when you are."

Malfoy growled. Then, to Harry's shock, he lowered his wand and straightened. Closed eyes, pained expression, open eyes. The grey became more like a winter sea: still, vast, cold.

"I am not leaving. I am simply helping my friend. Get out of the way. Please."

"Helping with what?" Harry blurted.

Malfoy sighed.

A voice from inside the room said, "Helping me move, is what, Potter."

Zabini emerged, holding himself straight like a matador about to enter the bull ring. Harry and Ron backed away a few steps so he would have room to stand beside Malfoy. And Harry could feel his brain trying to comprehend a dozen tiny differences in the boy's appearance. Differences that had been stacking up...

Didn't he used to be... taller than Malfoy?

"Move? Where?" Ron asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

Malfoy's whole attention pivoted towards the Italian. His tone lowered.

"Are you certain about this?"

"Not the people I'd care to know, but everyone will soon enough, Draco. It's what I want. Not to mention it's inevitable." Zabini smirked at the pair of ex-Gryffindors. "If they can handle it. They may faint, what do you think?"

"The fuck you say?" Ron bristled. He raised a fist.

"Shut up, Weasel. Grown-ups are talking."

Something clicked in Harry's head. A feeling like lightning ran through his whole body. His heart pounded. Shit. Not good. Not fucking good if-

"Are... are you really Blaise Zabini?" Harry asked. He pulled him wand from his sleeve and trained it on them. "Polyjuice? Like Crouch? Don't move a goddamn muscle, by the way."

"Fucking hell, yeah. Nice one, Harry," Ron said, also pulling out his wand. "I thought there was something different about him. Jig's up, fuckers. Whoever you are, you're definitely not meant to be inside bloody Hogwarts that's for sure. You've got about five seconds before I stupefy the pair of you slimy gits."

Instead of drawing his own wand, Malfoy - strangely - smiled.

"Oh yes. Genius you are, Potter. I'm only sorry I come second in bowing obsequiously to your intellect behind the drooling half-troll here." He laughed, a short, sharp bark.

Zabini was laughing, too.

"Oh, well we should give it to them, really. I am not Blaise Zabini."

"Of course," Malfoy sneered. "Points for effort. Medal for showing up. Participation prize."

The pair of them sniggered together, seeming not to care that they were at wandpoint.

Harry became impatient. "Just tell us what the hell you're talking about, or we'll hex you into next week."

Just then Pansy Parkinson called from across the room. She was stood on the girls' side of the balcony with Nott and Greengrass lurking behind her.

"Yoo hoo, darlings, would you please hurry up with these idiots? We're all ready here." She waved.

"When did the Slytherins grow their balls back?" Ron whispered in Harry's ear.

He was right - they'd been very quiet the last month. And now... now it was like they were back to their old selves, strutting about the place, insulting people, being loud and obnoxious and rude. What was going on?

"There in a moment, Pans," Zabini called.

"Look," he said. "I don't expect you to understand, nor do I care if you do, but it seems like unlike you two, we've actually moved on with our lives. I'm about as preoccupied with carrying on the legacy of the Dark Lord as I am with Hufflepuff mating rituals.

"We've all got our scars. We've all got our nice little box of trauma that we can open up and show to the class. We've all got fucking regrets, and might I remind you, we are all innocent in the eyes of the law. And I've been told what to be and who to be and what to think for quite long enough. So you can excuse me for exercising my right to choose, for once. So no. This is for your information so you don't actually do something idiotic, though it's absolutely none of your business. No. I am not 'Blaise Zabini.'"

He sucked in a breath. Harry saw Malfoy's hand reach to close the gap between them, as if to touch his wrist, before falling to his side again.

"I am Blair Zabini."

There was a pause. Harry could feel the listening ears of half the eighth years trained on their tense conversation. He didn't let his wand drop in any case and was just considering what to say when Ron jumped in.

"What? Like his cousin or something?"

"No you moron," Malfoy shot back. "This is the same Zabini. AND her name is 'Blair' now. And if you have anything to say about it please mind the ruthless and skilled witch to your left."

Harry chanced a glance. Parkinson was indeed casually pointing her wand directly at them.

"So... that's not an imposter?" Ron asked.

"No."

"It's still Blaise Zabini?"

"She's Blair Zabini, yes."

The cogs in Harry's head were turning. Slowly. "You've been taking something, haven't you? At the hospital wing?"

Zabini looked puzzled that Harry knew this, but nodded. "Yes. I have. The Transgenus Personas potion. I need to take it twice a week for nine months. It's already started to change my body, so Pomfrey, Tang and McGonagall agreed that I should move to the girls' room this week."

"And if anyone has a problem with this news, they'll have to go through every one of us," Parkinson announced to the room. "If I hear one fucking word insulting Blair I will personally hex your ears off and feed them to Draco's owl."

Harry was pretty sure he had read about that potion, he remembered. Vaguely. Somewhere in his Advanced Potion-making textbook - a potion to transform a man to a woman, or a woman to a man. Permanently.

"Oh. OH. Oh bloody hell," Ron said. Abruptly, he stuffed his wand back in his sleeve.

Harry stared. What is he doing?

He raised an eyebrow at him and Ron shrugged and blew air out his cheeks. He eyed the ceiling as if he were trying to distance himself from the whole thing.

"Mum had an old friend... um. Same deal. Nice lady. Bred rats. Err. So. I get it. Seriously," he said. "Good luck with... yeah. And um... sorry."

Harry was starting to wonder if Ron was a polyjuiced imposter.

"That is... that's fine," Zabini said.

She too, clearly wasn't expecting Ron Weasley to react so... calmly. Malfoy seemed similarly stunned.

"You're still a fucking suspicious, V-Voldemort-loving, criminal fuck though. Don't care if you're a girl," Ron finished.

And he sticks the landing...

Zabini crossed her arms.

"Evidently," she said, with an almost playful smirk.

Malfoy and Harry shared, for the briefest of seconds, a glance that said, in simple terms: 'Is this seriously happening?' This in itself was also insane, so Harry broke eye contact to put his wand away as well. No-one seemed much inclined to add anything further. To avoid the brief civility degrading into a violent duel, Harry figured they should both be leaving. As soon as possible.

"Uhh. I think I left my homework in the room. Ron?" was about as subtle an attempt to escape as he could muster.

Ron nodded, as eager as he was to leave, and they both marched off to their dorm. Behind them, the Den burst back into life, with chatter and movement filling the air once more.

As the next few days passed, the news about Blair Zabini spread through the castle like wildfire. That evening, Harry had managed to locate the page in his potions textbook and the ex-Gryffindor boys - Neville, with his own book in his lap - all gathered as he read it aloud.

The potion was designed to make the transition a permanent thing, operating by working back through the cell memory to switch the body's natural make-up not just to the opposite gender, but to the version of oneself that the body would have grown up as, if it had been born that way. It was related to time magic in that sense, and to the progress of gestation in the womb. As such, it would provoke gradual changes over the same gestational period, nine to ten months, before the whole transformation was complete. There was also a note saying that a person could stop taking the potion at any time and the transformation would not revert, but would leave the body in an in-between state of genderlessness or as 'multi-gendered' - whichever way one viewed it - on a sliding scale that allowed for all preferences on the spectrum from male to female.

It was a time-intensive potion to make and involved some ingredients Harry hadn't even heard of, but was, technically speaking, a Healer's medicine. He assumed Tang had been making it for Zabini. He wondered if it was something she'd teach him and Padma at some point.

By Friday, after Harry had an after-lesson check in with his career counsellor, Professor Hadley, the whole subject had lost its initial spark of interest and people were moving onto other things. A contributing factor was just how Zabini was acting - in fact, all the ex-Slytherins were acting. It wasn't quite back to how they'd been before, but they were no longer skulking and secretive. The new normal had settled to the point that Harry even found he was remembering to think of Zabini as a girl, now, though it took a bit of thought to switch the pronouns in his head and the potion had yet to make more than subtle changes. They hadn't spoken once, after that time on the balcony. Malfoy and the others still kept to their own, by in large.

And, if anything, Zabini seemed to have relaxed. No longer an anomaly, despite the constant changes to her face, her hair, her voice. Just... ordinary. It was funny what you could learn to just get used to in the wizarding world. Hats talk, broomsticks fly, people change.

Harry tramped up the steps to his dorm to find Neville reading a dusty old potions book by the small fire. He joined him.

"That for next week's assignment?"

"'Fifty-two varieties of bioluminescent mushrooms can be used in the making of the Cumulus Elixir, but one must refer to Gorginski's Mushroom: a memoir for the further seven semi-suitable varieties and the methods by which the mixture can be adapted'," Neville read out, then rolled his eyes. "So now I need to find that tomorrow."

"I think I might have it. You can borrow it for a bit if you like."

"Thanks."

Neville looked around. "Um." He paused.

"Hmm?"

"Well, uh... seems like there's a lot of people, em, talking a bit more about this sort of thing these days what with all that's been going on and err. I've just... I've overheard you and Ron talking a bit. About girls. And I just wondered if I could ask you something?"

Harry blushed. "I'm not a like.. expert or anything. Like at all."

It was true enough, what Neville had said though. It wasn't just Ron who had sex on the brain. The eighth years were all starting to realise the perks of being one House. Like there were no twelve-year-olds that might be scarred for life if they stumbled in on you doing something you shouldn't on the sofas in the Den. And that the only reason they couldn't enter the opposite genders' rooms were spelled locks on a doors that could be opened to any visitor if the occupant wanted them to be. And they were of age and had survived a war together, which had left them all with some tension to release. It was mostly talk now. A few make-out sessions that had gotten a little handsy and so on. But given what he'd seen already, Harry was pretty sure soon the whole place would be heaving with horny teenagers who'd forgotten the meaning of indecency, privacy or boundaries by Christmas.

"I - I know. But I though you could help with this. I uhh, just wanna know, how can you tell if you fancy a girl? Like when you knew you liked Cho. Or Ginny?"

"Oh. I um."

He thought about it. Who does Neville Longbottom have a crush on?

"Well, I don't know that I do know that, really. I felt..." He put his hand to his chest, remembering that roaring inside him when he used to look at Ginny. "I felt like I... had to have them? Like possess them? But I think maybe that's... not right? 'Cause I didn't want that, really. I think that was just stupid male hormones or something. And maybe it's things like... you notice details about them. You find yourself thinking about them and looking at them all the time. And you want to know about dumb stuff, like how their day was and what they had for breakfast."

"And you want to kiss them? Like you... picture it sometimes? Think about it?"

"Well, yeah. For sure." And do other stuff...

He wondered if it was maybe Luna? Or, hell, Ginny? The two of them were close these days. But then did he know about Dean? Harry wasn't sure if it was his place to say. Probably Neville didn't want to tell Harry if it was her he fancied, in any case, given their history. Should he reassure him? Was that his place?

Just as he was chewing over what to say next, the door opened with a bang. Neville jumped a litte. Already on edge, Harry leapt to his feet.

Ron stood there. The burbling noise of muted conversations drifted in. His face was pale, eyes wide and blood-shot. He'd clearly been crying.

"That you, Harry?"

"Ron? What's happened?" Harry asked, heart in his mouth as he headed towards him.

Ron took a step towards him.

"Harry," he half sobbed.

Harry reached out a hand and gently touched his arm, which was shaking.

"'Mione and me... we..." Ron gulped.

"We... we broke up."