After breakfast Pomona returned to the hufflepuff dorm, followed by just about the whole house. Once everyone was in, Jamie sealed the entrance and moved to the front of the house.
"Professor, I think I speak for everyone here. What was that?"
Pomona sighs, "That was me drinking a potion of youth that I bought with reward points for completing an aspiration. I gained the interface, rather forcefully as you may remember, at Christmas. One of the things that it allows for is aspirations, and I have been rather successful as a herbologist over the years. So, in order to better support everyone, I was going to find someone to make me some ambrosia. Which would have done the same thing as the potion, just without the unfortunate side effect. However, with Harry discovering the feature that has allowed her to switch sex just by looking in a mirror, I felt that I needed to distract from the fact that what she's using isn't polyjuice. I did this by making myself a target."
She takes a deep breath and surveys her students. "There is something that I know but I cannot share the information. Suffice to say that it is better that I'm in the spotlight than for any of you at this point in time. Especially Miss Potter there.
"Does that answer your questions?"
Jamie nodded, "One of them. What's going on with the first years? I saw that you had a year only meeting, and it's a rare enough occurrence that we'd like to know if there's anything we need to keep an eye out for."
Harry speaks up, a quaver in her voice, "Professor Sprout wanted to find out if I was going to use the option to change my sex to that of a girl again. Because I am, we're all going to get Deportment and Etiquette lessons for both sexes. There were some personal questions that needed to be asked of my friends. So please don't pry further."
Jamie crouches down to eye level and puts their hands on Harry's shoulders, "I'm sorry I brought it up and made you nervous. We're all in this together, the only difference between the 7th years and you guys is that we've already been through most of the schooling that you have. Although, it is something that I would be very interested in learning myself. I'm sure that there are others here too."
Sophie wends her way through the crowd and puts a hand on Jamie's arm, before saying so quietly that Jamie can barely hear her, "You're not helping her, can't you see how nervous she is? We're supposed to be the house of Loyalty and Hard Work, not the house of Conformity and Unity. By confronting her in front of everyone, you're trying to make her conform. I had enough of that growing up, and I thought I'd got away from it here. Come on Harry, let's get you ready for later."
As the first years file out after Harry and Sophie, Professor Sprout turns to look at the rest of the house, "I'm ashamed of all of you, especially you Jamie. You could all see how much it cost Harry to answer a question that I couldn't answer without betraying her trust. Did none of you think to tell Jamie that she'd gone too far? You who are their peers? You who have all benefitted from Harry's generosity? In the past I have allowed peer pressure to take place, because it's a fact of life outside Hogwarts. But it's gone too far if none of you are willing to stand against your peers in defence of someone that is too young to be put under that much pressure?
"Instead, it took the quietest person in the first year contingent to step forward and say enough. Are we only churning out sycophants and conformists here? Or are we a house that will give it's loyalty to the right people, the people that stand up for those like Harry? Do we stand together against those that would oppress those those who can't defend themselves? Or do we stand by and say, 'Well they should have just kept their heads down.'? Well, guess what? This old lady's just got a new lease on life, and she's not going to let that behaviour slide anymore. I want 24 inches from all of you for next weekend on Nazi Germany and how they were allowed to come to power. Use the computers and the TV to do your research, but you must do the research yourselves. Work together once you've done it if you wish, but do the research yourselves. Many of you have already studied the magical side of that particular travesty, this is the muggle side."
She sweeps off through the door to the first year dorms, and almost trips over the assembled first years who were listening at the door.
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Once Harry gets through the door Sophie lets go of her arm as though burned. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, but you seemed so scared."
"Sophie, thank you. And you did nothing you need to be sorry for."
"Thank you for saying that."
"I mean it. Look, the first time I remember getting a hug, ever, was around a year ago in Sainsbury. I'd just spotted a chicken that was reduced with a sell by of that day, but still had 5 days left on its spoiling timer. Aunt Petunia gave me a hug then. She's been doing better since she got the interface and magic, but she's still not great at showing emotion to me. I'm still not great at being touched, as my uncle was a little free with his fists when I was younger. Hermione might be my first and best friend, but since I've come here I've made more friends than I've ever had before. None of you laugh at me for being so bookish, or for enjoying spending time in the library or reading a book. And last Sunday, and last night to this morning, I've had more friendly contact than I ever remember having.
"So, no, I'm not just saying it."
Hermione's voice comes from behind Harry, "Harry's right. You did the right thing. Why don't the three of us head into my bedroom, it's just over there, and we can sit on one of the beds and just chat. Does that sound OK?"
Sophia looks uncertain, so Hermione adds, "If you don't want to chat, you can ask Lin to put on some music instead."
Making up her mind for her, Harry gently takes her hand and tugs her into the bedroom. Not firmly enough to pull her along, but enough that Sophie would have to actually take her hand back. Once in the room they spend the next ½ hour just sitting on the bed listening to music, and being close to Sophia.
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Soon enough it was time for Harry to go shopping with Professor Sprout. Reluctantly, she got up from the bed where Sophie had started to cry. When she got to the door she tugged on her bond with Sunbeam. Who arrived in her trademark flash of light.
"Sunbeam, would you mind looking after Sophie while I go shopping? Also, do you know where to find any familiars that would be able to take care of her?"
Sunbeam flies over to land in Sophie's lap and turns her head to nod at Harry before nuzzling into Sophie's chest and letting out a song that sounds a lot like a lullaby. After waving goodbye to Hermione, she leaves to go shopping with Professor Sprout.
Pomona leads her out of the gates of Hogwarts and then stops.
"Harry, until we get back I'd like to refer to you as Dani. Is that ok?"
"Erm, why?"
"You are rather famous, and it's almost certain that a few students have written home about you turning up as a girl twice now. Your features won't be well known, but along with your name, some of the public might put things together. As it stands, we're going to visit the Farmers Market first to buy the basics for you. Only once you've got your own casual clothes will we go to Diagon to buy you a new uniform and beauty essentials."
"Beauty essentials?"
"I'll point it out while we're at the Farmers Market, if you don't see it yourself."
"Ok?"
"I'm going to side-along apparate us to the market, we can take the Floo to Diagon afterwards. This is going to be very unpleasant for you." She takes Harry's arm tightly and with a pop they disappear down a tube that would be considered tight for a straw, let alone two people. When they appeared at the other end, Harry clutched her stomach and fell to her knees, eyes tightly closed as the world kept spinning in her vision.
Once she'd recovered to stand up again, she saw that the Farmers Market was a large low warehouse that could have been taken straight out of the late Victorian era, with 6 or 7 peaked corrugated iron roofs over a yellow brick façade. As Professor Sprout leads her in, it becomes clear that this is neither a market, nor does it have any farmers. Between each set of wrought iron support that holds the troughs of the roof up a pair of small shops open up, little more than stalls with a small storage area. Their wares spilling out onto the walkway as the owner sits or stands nearby working on some project or another. Occasionally they can be seen chatting to one of their neighbouring shopkeepers. The occasional stall is closed, with the owners on either side taking advantage of the extra room to show more wares.
The thing that stood out about the shoppers is that they were all predominantly witches, with the occasional wizard sticking out like a beacon in the night. The stall holders seemed to be a good mix of both witches and wizards though. As she stands there Professor Sprout puts her hand on Harry's shoulder making her jump.
"It's quite a sight isn't it. 2,000 square feet of magical shopping. This end is all crafts and household goods, there's even the odd bookshop. Though, you'll tend to find only fiction and household books here. Flourish and Blotts and the second hand bookshop across the Alley from it are really the only places to buy books on magic or spells. You'll also find very few enchanted items here, or equipment suitable for potions brewing. Though the main apothecary traders take up the other half of the building, and open from 3am to around 8am. I think the Quibbler also has a large office near the back. Come on, and keep your eyes open this is supposed to be educational for you as well as practical."
As Pomona led her to a shop that took up 4 units at one of the walkways, it's plate glass windows showing off wooden mannequins wearing different witches fashions, Harry noticed that the odd wizard that he saw was either wearing a coat with large pockets, or was carrying a case or large bag that looks like the sort used by the doctor in 'Little House on the Prairie'. A show that Aunt Petunia used to have on during the day, and he'd watch through the grill on his door before…
Shaking her head, Harry dispels those thoughts and focuses on the other thing she noticed. All of the witches have some sort of bag with them. Whether it's a sporran like Professor McGonagall wears, or a more substantial cloth handbag or woven basket. Now she looks, she can see the bag that her professor has tucked under her arm. A bag that looks very out of place compared to the others here.
"Professor, why don't they have coats like the wizards?"
Pomona ruffles Harrys hair, "It's simple Dani, fashion. The ladies of the noble and merchant houses wear skirts with their robes, so the rest of us do. Same with shawls and stoles. Come on, let's get you some witches casual, Bianca's here should have that. At least they did when I was last here."
The tinkle of a bell sounds as they enter, and the sounds of the market outside disappear as if the place was suddenly empty. Harry checks behind her as it happens to see what occurred.
A young woman came from behind a curtain at the back, dressed in a deep green dress with a white apron around her waist. Various pins were threaded through the edges of the apron, and a tape measure and pair of scissors poked out of the pockets.
"Good Morrow, you related to Professor Sprout?"
Pomona laughs, "I am Professor Sprout Janice. Is your mother around?"
"Nae, she died afew years ago. Ah should probably get around to changing the sign some point. Anyhow, what can I do for ya?"
"This is Dani, one of the rare cases of Accidental Magic. And I need a new wardrobe."
"Ah. Ah can see it now. That there dress from a friend?"
"Yes Miss." Harry responds.
"Call me Janice or Jan. Everyone else does. I do you well, have a look round while I look aft'r your professor. Anything catches your eye, make a note or put it on the counter 'ere."
As she's left alone in the store, Harry looks around the dresses, skirts and blouses that are so hopelessly out of date that not even Gramma Puddle, the oldest person living in Little Whinging, had worn anything like it, and she wore skirts and dresses all the time. She goes around the store looking for something that doesn't look like her waist is under her armpits, and eventually settles on a skirt that only comes up to her belly button in maroon, and a peach blouse with barely any ruffles. She also finds a dress that isn't too poofy and comes down to the ankle, again in red.
Pomona comes out with Janice, who looks at the clothes Harry picked out before frowning. "The cut'll work, but the colour's all wrong for that hair. Come ta the back an we'll get you into some stays and proper underwear. I'll make a calico mock-up and we can try different colours. You'll see then."
As Harry is being put into a corset, high bloomers, 3 petticoats, and a vest, Janice continues to talk to her, "Now, ah know ye a noble lass. So you're probably gonna be a bit underdressed. But it's probably for the best at the moment. Now, with the stays. They're for support not shaping, so they should be done tight, but not so tight you can't breathe. Not like the stays the muggleborns like to use. Stays are also strictly underwear, so they're usually undyed. This one has a split busk to make it possible to put on yaself. Can ya feel that, how the stays hug your figure and provide the support ya'll need up here? I've laced yours at the bottom so as you can get out yourself. When ya get married, your man may wanna lace in the middle here, ya may also need ta use a traditional busk.
"Not that it matters. Ah can show ya a spell for lacing and unlacing once we're done with the mockups. Now on with the Bloomers, that's right. When ya married, ya man might want ya to put em on first. It's just awkward when they do, as ya can't drink properly until the evening when they get home. Then your up all night pissing. Ere's the petticoats, it's January, so ya need so many ta keep ya warm. Same as the vest. When ya be going to an event, you'll also wear a slip to smooth everything out.
"When ya come of age, ya should also get fitted for ya fashion corset a month before the event, so ya can get used to the shaping. T'ain't good ta pass out on the dance floor cause ya can't breath properly.
"There, ya all dressed. Now step on that box and I'll do ya dress first. Now, ah like to use zippers from the muggle world. But I can use traditional buttons or hooks and eyes if ya wish."
Harry quickly shakes her head, "No. No, a zip's fine."
Janice pulls out her wand and with a swish she starts conducting a couple of bolts of calico, thread and needle, and a pair of sissors, "That makes things easier."
"Excuse me Janice. Why don't witches wear bras?"
"Some do, those that know the muggle world. 'part from that, it be considered indecent by the men. Corse, muggleborn don't know that, so they get shunned once they leave 'ogwarts. Cept in bars, they're right popular there. Corse, they learn not to accept drinks quickly enough. Least they can get work, soma the men hav' ta leave as they dinna the customs, an they dinna have a trade. Shame only 'ogwarts takes em I think. They right inventive, we 'ave a few here. It's were I get most me fabric from these days. Course, I dinna tell the witches that. Me ma would be rollin' if she knew. Sides I'm a little sweet on Richard, he's taken me out to London a couple a times. Ah felt like ah was walking around in me shift, but it was a fun night. He owns the bookshop down the way, does a right trade in mills & boons, but only the period stuff. Couple a sickles for a copy that'll last a week, a galleon for a permanent copy.
"There, what ya think?"
A wide full length mirror turns around so that Harry can see her reflection, and she gapes.
"Ah take it ya like? Ya chose a good cut for ya body. Now these the colours ya picked out there. See how they wash out ya hair, and make ya look like ya ain't seen the sun fa a year? Ya want ta say away from bold redish colours. Pastels ya can probably get away with. Green's 'll do well, an bring out ya eyes."
A wave of Janice's wand and the whole dress is a bottle green, "Now, I won't do this colour for the dress, as it's just wrong for it. But see how it brings out the red in your hair, as well as complementing your eyes? Same with lavender, some blues, and purples. 'fore a dress like this, ya want deeper colours and use ya shawl to set off ya hair. Now, as ya probably dinna wanna ride side saddle on ya broom, I'll be sewing in a riding slit for ya skirts. Just tap ya wand here and it will drape over ya broom and keep ya decent to those below ya. Ah'm going to run through some colours ah have in stock, let me know which ones you like and we'll do ya dresses and skirts in those colours."
Harry eventually settles on a royal blue, deep forest green, and purple that will go well with a pale pink blouse or shawl.
It doesn't take long for her to then be fitted for her skirt and blouse combination. The last fitting is a girls dress for running around the Dorm and Hogwarts in. Pomona then takes her out in Hermione's dress with swatches of fabric in her chosen colours to buy some shawls and scarves. At some point the warming charms that Pomona placed on her clothes runs out and she ends up shivering in the cold air, her breath steaming while everyone else looks fine. Pomona notices and reapplies the charm with a smile. Then they're back to Bianca's and Harry redresses in a deep green skirt with a bottle green blouse. A matching shawl finishes the outfit, along with a muff for her hands. When she looks in the mirror, she doesn't recognise the young woman looking back at her.
As she walks out from behind the curtain, she immediately notices how the stays change the way that she moves. Pomona looks her up and down and smiles, "Yes, I think that will do Dani. Will you be able to put that on my account Janice and I'll get the money to you later once I go to Gringotts, we need to get Dani's uniform later after all."
"Ya were good ta my mum, so I'll give ya the same. Those have the basic sizing charms sewing in, but I'll send up another skirt with the broom charm."
When they left the store Harry immediately noticed the difference between Hermione's dress and the clothes she's wearing now. To start with, while it's still cold, it's no longer so cold that she's shivering. Their next stop is to buy some new shoes to go with the skirt that she's wearing. Finally they stop at a bag shop to find something that fits her. She ends up buying a fairly muggle like handbag with a shoulder strap and a minor expansion charm in it.
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Pomona smiles as Harry looks uncertainly at the chair in the tea shop they're stopping for lunch in.
"Here, watch me. Pull out your chair and then place your hands behind your skirt and lift it forward. Then step to the side in front of the chair and sit down. Once you're sat down, hold the seat of the chair with both hands and stand up slightly and shuffle forward. It will take a bit of practice, but you should get there quickly enough."
Harry takes a couple of tries to get it right without treading on her skirt, or trapping it under the chair leg. Once they're sat down she asks, "Why do I have an outfit like this? I've not seen any of the other girls wearing anything like this."
"I'll warrant that Misses Greengrass, Davis, Abbott and Bones all have outfits like these in their wardrobes at home. Roper, Perks, and Granger are all muggleborn, so they probably don't know they should have them. The other few girls, I'm not sure. They might not as they're from merchant stock, and got into Hogwarts through their parents contacts. What you've probably seen them wearing is their girls dresses, like the ones that are going to be sent out to Hogwarts for you. You'll almost certainly find that they still wear their stays underneath them, if their mothers have decided that they're old enough for them. If you meet any of them in Diagon Alley over the summer, they'll probably be wearing womens clothes rather than girls clothes. If not this year, then certainly next year."
"What about all that stuff she was saying about men and how I dress?"
Pomona sighs, "Yes Harry, everything that she said was true. Not necessarily the whole truth, but still true. When I attended Hogwarts, there was still an Etiquette and Customs class. Though, there were calls to end it even then. It was in the 60's that Dumbledore buckled under pressure from the traditionalists, and scrapped the class. Since then, we've been unable to run anything that seems like a class due to the political slant of the board of Governors. They might not be able to control what we teach in our classes, but they can certainly control what classes are available by strangling the funding if there's anything they don't like. Since then, more and more parents have been teaching their children over the summer, which leaves the muggleborn out of luck. As it stands, we're using the fact that you're switching sex, and are a noble born orphan to teach you in school. We can get away with including your classmates in this, as they're also your friends. However, we couldn't include any of the other years, as it might start to look like a club or class."
"Could you run the class in the Realm of Magic?"
"Possibly, but then we'd only be benefitting the Hufflepuff house, and that doesn't really seem fair."
"Why would they stop such a useful class anyway?"
Pomona looks down at her hands for a moment before she sighs and looks up again, "Racism. The number of muggleborns coming into the school has been rising rapidly over the last 100 years. When I was a student, I think there were only two muggleborns in the whole school. This year there are 13. We've also had the Grindlewald war which, much like the first world war did for muggles, reduced our population a lot. Though our losses were spread fairly equally amongst men and women, so we haven't had the large social change they did. But our numbers didn't bounce back nearly as quickly as theirs did.
"We still hadn't fully recovered when the second war happened and He who must not be named terrorised our community. He was strong enough to power a Taboo spell across the country, and we lost so many families during the early years because they spoke against him that the rest of our community just hid in their homes and prayed to whatever gods would hear them.
"While the war affected the people here, the causes of the war didn't. Though, the rhetoric found fertile ground in some. Amongst the noble houses, magical strength has been waning for a few hundred years now. Amongst the most traditional houses they've also had an increase in the number of squib births. Something that's fairly easy for us to track, as we have the book of names. That's a magical book that writes the name of every magical baby born in the British isles, most of them will never get a Hogwarts letter, as one is only sent out to children that aren't enrolled in a school, or those that are enrolled at Hogwarts. But, in high society it's easy to tell when someone is pregnant and their baby mysteriously disappears. Or their 10 year old happens to die in an accident.
"So, you see that the people with political power had a vested interest in discouraging muggleborns from settling here. People like Janice are able to chose their own partners, and muggleborn make good partners. Increasingly so, as they're often less sexist than their magical counterparts. And that's what they're afraid of. So they stopped educating children in our ways. Because muggleborn are no longer integrating, they've passed laws that discriminate against them, making it even harder to find work. If they could, they'd ban Hogwarts from taking them. But Hogwarts and Hogsmeade are semi independent entities in the magical world.
"Our charter predates the current system of governance. There are also specific laws in place guaranteeing our independence. Though, they also have provisions in there to appoint someone to oversee our teaching standards. But that's never been used. Even if it is used, it would need an 80% majority vote in the government to give them anymore than the ability to suggest where we can be teaching differently. But even that can't change who the school accepts as students."
Pomona looks at Harry's lost expression, "Sorry, I forgot that you're only 11 and you don't have the background to understand everything I just said."
Harry shakes her head, "But I don't understand why they would feel that way. Surely it would be better to bring more people like Hermione in?"
Pomona laughs, "We'll be covering that in your lessons. For the moment finish your lunch and we'll go to Diagon to buy you a hat and hat pins, along with your school uniform."