Tom woke up the next morning in the hospital wing. It wasn't the first time he had to spend some time there, but Tom wasn't very accident prone so he could still count the amount of times he'd been in the hospital wing on one hand and have a finger or two left over.
"Good morning," Madam Pomfrey said as she came bustling over. She placed a potions vial on his nightstand. "Drink that, for your concussion. Afterwards you can get dressed and go back to classes." Pomfrey turned away, but then stopped and looked at him over her shoulder. "Oh, and Professor Lupin asked me to tell you that you have detention with him this afternoon right after classes end."
Oh, fuck. Tom remembered what had happened. He ran a tired hand down his face. Remus undoubtedly was going to tell Tom how disappointed he was in him, even if Tom hadn't technically broken his promise.
Tom made it to the Great Hall just in time for breakfast. The whole student body was whispering about the discovery of Harriet Potter's real gender. Well, everyone except the Gryffindors.
Harriet looked half her usual size as she sat squeezed between Granger and Weasley, head bent down as she poked at the food on her plate without ever taking a bite. Across from her sat Longbottom who was glaring around as though he was a mother bear eager to defend his cub against anyone foolish enough to come too close. The Weasley twins even looked utterly serious, mouths drawn in tight lines as they looked around the hall as though they were taking names for later retribution. The Weasley girl was having a shouting match with Smith at the Hufflepuff table concerning Harriet's gender and she was about to go for her wand when McGonagall got up from her seat at the head table.
"Quiet down, quiet down!" McGonagall folded her hands in front of her while she gazed around the hall until most students had stopped their whispering. "Someone," and here McGonagall gave the entire Slytherin table what could only be described as the evil eye, "has let slip some very personal information concerning Harriet Potter. I will now attempt to explain Ms Potter's situation, so that you may all stop your inane gossiping about matters that do not concern you personally." McGonagall inhaled a deep breath and continued, "Ms Potter is a girl who happened to be born in the body of a boy." At this point McGonagall had to hold up a hand again to quiet everyone down again. "She is undergoing a potions regime to change her body to match her true gender, that of a girl. Currently the Ministry for Magic does not yet recognize transgender individuals, but I assure you that a lot of people are working very hard to change this. If anyone has any questions, you are welcome to talk to Madam Pomfrey or with your Head of House."
After McGonagall sat down again, the whispering resumed, though this time they did, for the most part, take on a kinder tone as people wondered what it was like to change your gender through potions or while others discussed the political aspect of the whole situation.
Tom, in the meantime, didn't even bother putting any food on his plate. He had no appetite to speak of.
He'd done this. Not directly, no, but he was the one to point Draco in the right direction. If Tom had kept his mouth shut he very much doubted Draco would have realized Harriet had a secret she was protecting in the first place. Perhaps down the line, once the Ministry got some laws changed, it might have become public knowledge, but at least then Harriet would have been able to come out at her own terms.
Tom was still terribly confused about the whole being born in a body of the wrong gender, if he was honest. He had heard of people dressing up as the opposite gender, mostly for a lark or for putting on a flamboyant musical number.
Draco was practically glowing with victory at having caused so much chaos and so much pain to the Gryffindors as a whole and Harriet Potter in particular. Harriet was Draco's greatest rival on the Quidditch pitch and Tom didn't think Draco had ever managed to beat Harriet to the snitch.
"I am not surprised there's something fundamentally wrong with Potter," Druella said in her snootiest tone, nose up in the air. "He's always been a freak."
Tom wasn't even sure how it happened, but at once a flare of wild magic discharged from him only to hit Druella right in the chest, sending her flying backwards out of her seat until she landed on her back with a dull thud. He hadn't even raised a hand while his wand was still sitting firmly in its holster.
"Druella!" Draco was on his feet at once to see to his cousin who had trouble sitting up.
"Did anyone see where that came from?" Pansy asked, looking around in alarm as Druella had been sitting beside her. "Who just cursed her?"
Blaise was about to say something, his mouth slowly opening, but then he noticed the dark look on Tom's face and he quickly closed his mouth again.
"No idea," Theo said, studiously avoiding Tom's gaze.
"Tom can take me to the infirmary," Druella said while Draco pulled her to her feet. "Right, Tom?"
The hell he could. Tom ignored her, didn't even look in her direction until Draco all but dragged her out of the hall. Tom was far too busy feeling more guilt than he'd ever done in his entire life.
It felt decidedly unpleasant. As though the pain Harriet must be feeling was contagious and magically appeared inside Tom's chest as well. Every time Tom looked over at the Gryffindor table and saw Harriet's miserable face, he wanted to rush over and hold her hand and tell her everything would be all right and that she was still the most amazing person in the whole world.
Wait, what?
Tom frowned while he examined these contradictory thoughts in his head. On the one hand, he thought Harriet was a boy and a fraud and a liar. But on the other hand, he was still convinced that Harriet was the most amazing person in the whole world and the best match, if not the only match, for him.
Unsure what to do with these opposing thoughts, Tom pushed himself away from the breakfast table. He wasn't hungry anyway, so he might as well go down to the dungeon to get his books and get ready for class.
As Tom marched out the Great Hall it wasn't lost on him that the entirety of the Gryffindor Table was watching him leave with disgusted glares.
Once classes ended for the day, Tom felt an enormous sense of relief. Having to listen to students gossiping about Harriet left and right was bloody exhausting. And seeing Harriet move around the castle with her head down, face pale and drawn, had been unexpectantly painful. So yeah, Tom was more than happy to go to detention with Remus, even if he was sure his guardian would have some less than stellar things to say to him.
"I do not believe I have ever been so disappointed in you, Tom," Remus said as he stood behind his desk, arms crossed. There were no comforting cups of tea to be found.
"I didn't –"
"Don't lie!" Remus all but barked, brown eyes narrowing. "You made me a promise, that you immediately broke."
"I didn't –"
"Tell me the truth, Tom." Remus' lips were now barely visible, so tightly was Remus pursing them.
"Look, I found a loophole," Tom said in all honestly, because he genuinely didn't like how Remus was looking at him. Remus had always been kind and patient and full of second chances even after Tom messed up. Yet now Remus looked as though he regretted ever getting involved with Tom Riddle in the first place. "I promised that I wouldn't go looking for Harriet's secret, and I haven't." Tom stared down at the desk in front of him, shoulders hunched. "But I did sort of let it slip in front of Draco that Harriet had a secret."
"Merlin's sweaty balls," Remus muttered while he lowered his head and ran a hand across his face. "Spare me from Slytherins and their fucking loopholes."
Tom blinked. Remus never swore, so the fact that he was doing so now was a very good indicator of how pissed off he truly was.
"You have hurt Harriet more than you could possibly imagine," Remus said after a lengthy pause in which Tom dropped further and further down in his seat, his whole body warm with shame.
"I know," Tom whispered, unwilling to meet Remus' eyes. "I'm sorry."
"Are you truly?" Remus asked in a tone of voice that suggested he didn't believe that for a second. "Because I told you how delicate of a situation this was and to leave it alone. Yet you loopholed your way straight to it no matter that I actually pleaded with you not to."
The only thing Tom could do was nod, throat filled with a lump that made it impossible to speak.
"You get detention until the Yule holidays. With Filch."
"What?" Tom sat up at once, staring at Remus in sheer disbelief. "That's almost a month."
"Keep talking and I'll make it two months," Remus said without an ounce of emotion in his voice.
Tom wasn't stupid, so he backed down and quickly nodded in agreement. He could do a month of detention. Well, if he didn't die from sheer boredom while scrubbing toilets all night every night before Yule came along, that was.
"Another thing I want to talk to you about is how you accosted Harriet last night." Finally, Remus sat down behind his desk and his expression relaxed enough that it lost most of the obvious anger from before. "Why, Tom?"
"I was angry," Tom muttered, unsure why he had been so angry at the time now that he'd had almost a day to think everything over.
"Why were you angry?"
Heaving a deep sigh, Tom shifted in his seat a few times while he searched for the right words. "I don't understand how Harriet could be a boy yet also a girl."
"Harriet's a girl," Remus said in a very firm voice that brooked no argument.
"How?" Tom said, his voice taking on a slightly hysterical note. "How does that even work?"
"Ah." Remus gave Tom a strangely fond smile. "Let me explain. You are a man, right? You are certain with every bone in your body that you are a man."
"Yes," Tom said, unsure where Remus was going with this.
"All right," Remus said, leaning forwards a little while he stared at Tom with an expectant look on his face. "Now imagine, just for a moment, that every time you take off your clothes and look in the mirror, you see a woman's body. Breasts and vulva and all. But you know you're a man. You are absolutely certain of this."
"Oh." Tom frowned for a moment before he stared at Remus with wide eyes. "That's it? That's truly how that works?"
"That's how Harriet explained it to me some years ago, yes." Remus was back to smiling kindly again, which did a lot to take a huge weight off Tom's shoulders.
"Then if I like Harriet," Tom said softly, carefully, almost feeling out the words, "And she's a girl, I am still straight, right?"
"I would say so, yes," Remus agreed. "But would it be so bad if you weren't straight?"
"No, of course not," Tom said at once, and he meant that. "I just got so confused for a moment. I always considered myself straight, but then when I thought Harriet was really a boy suddenly nothing made sense anymore."
"Good thing Harriet's a girl then."
"Yes," Tom said, and at once a sense of peace washed over Tom, which lasted until he remembered what he'd all said to Harriet the previous evening. "Fuck. I've really messed up this time."
"Oh yes," Remus agreed at once.
"I should really apologize," Tom concluded with a firm nod.
Remus actually laughed in his face. "Oh Tom, this whole mess is so far beyond apologizing, you have no idea."
"Really?" Tom suddenly felt all kinds of uncertain. Had he really messed up that badly?
"Even beyond grovelling," Remus said and then frowned. "Though I have honestly no idea what lies beyond grovelling."
"Submission?" Tom guessed, though he truthfully had no clue either.
"Perhaps. But do you understand now how much harm you've caused?" Remus summoned a house-elf and asked for a pot of tea, much to Tom's relief. That at least gave the impression that things might be going back to normal.
"I'm starting to, I think." Tom waited while Remus poured them both cups of tea. "I never meant to hurt Harriet. I'm really sorry about that."
"I know," Remus said quietly and sipped his tea. "But have you at least learned a lesson from all this? Would you do the same things if you could go back and do it over, or would you do things differently?"
Tom almost dropped his cup of tea as he sat up at once, giving Remus a triumphant look. "A time-turner! I could go back and –"
"No, absolutely not!" Remus actually got up from his chair again, causing Tom to shrink in his seat. "Tom, do not make me force you to swear an Unbreakable Vow on this!"
"I won't go messing with a time-turner, I swear it," Tom quickly said, because Unbreakable Vows freaked him the fuck out. Imagine dying because you accidentally said something you shouldn't. Tom shuddered at the very thought of it.
"And you won't having anyone else do it for you, either," Remus insisted.
"And I swear I won't have anyone else do it either." Tom gave Remus his most innocent look, which Remus saw right through he was sure, but it was worth a try. At least Remus said back down again, so there was that.
They quietly sipped their tea for a few moments while Tom went over everything in his head again. Sometimes his thoughts just kept going around and around, like a mental carrousel that never ran out of power. "I think there's something wrong with me," Tom whispered out of the blue, not even sure where that observation came from or why he was voicing it out loud. "I think I might actually be defective."
"What do you mean?" Remus asked with a worried frown as he reached for the teapot for some refills.
Tom looked up at Remus with pleading eyes. "Give me the most difficult Arithmancy problem, and I'll find the solution faster than anyone else. I can brew any potions recipe. I can master any spell or hex or curse. But when it comes to people, I don't understand a bloody thing. I can put up a good act, sure, but I haven't a clue why people do the things they do most of the time. There's something really wrong with me."
"No, there isn't," Remus said with an utterly sympathetic smile. "You remind me so much of Severus, you know."
"Really?" Tom had to swallow a few times against strange emotions that rose up from his chest.
"Both of you are so very clever and so very dedicated to your work once you put your minds to it. But both of you are so very bad with people." Remus softened his words with a warm chuckle. "Personally, I think it's simply the price you pay for having the kind of intelligence you two have."
Tom blinked and mulled that information over in his head. That did sound logical. "Like with rituals, as we discussed in class," Tom mused, giving Remus a searching look. "That everything comes at a price and no magic is truly free."
"Yes. You are without a doubt one of the smartest students ever to walk these halls, Tom, but that kind of talent isn't free, as we now know."
"But I can learn." Tom was nothing if not determined. He wanted to learn. The last thing he wanted to see happen again was him hurting the most important people in his life through his own ignorance.
"So what should I do about Harriet?" Tom asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
"I have no idea," Remus said as he pushed himself up from his seat. "Start with apologizing, continue with grovelling and then do whatever comes after that. What that is you have to figure out yourself." Then Remus was suddenly standing beside Tom, urging him to stand up with a few gestures.
"Oh, are we hugging?" Tom asked when Remus wrapped his arms around Tom's shoulders.
"Yes, just like we practiced," Remus mumbled, giving Tom a firm hug. "After all the misery of the past day we can both use one."
"Okay." Tom returned the hug and he didn't mind it, not at all. In fact, he rather liked that Remus wanted to hug him, even if the hug itself did very little for him.
"It's almost time for dinner," Remus said when he finally pulled back. "I'll let you have tonight off, but tomorrow your detention with Filch starts."
"Ah, fuck," Tom said, with feeling.
Remus actually laughed at that. "Actions have consequences, dear boy. Let that be another lesson you learn here tonight."
Detention with Filch was as boring as Tom feared it to be, but scrubbing toilets and polishing trophies did give Tom ample time to consider how to tackle the Harriet situation.
Tom had messed up. Badly. He knew this. He accepted this. He also desperately wanted to fix it, yet there in lay the problem.
Harriet was avoiding him like the plague. Anytime Tom tried to get without ten feet of her, one of her friends all but threw themselves in Tom's path and warded him off with sharp verbal rebukes and the occasional hex. So approaching Harriet directly was out. Tom briefly considered sending her an owl with an apology but that was too impersonal.
Instead of focussing on Harriet, which her friends made impossible for now, Tom decided to focus on himself and his own environment.
The students of Slytherin House had take to misgendering Harriet at every opportunity they had, in Harriet's face and in the Slytherin common room. Tom remained quiet for about two days before he'd seen enough.
The next time a Slytherin (Willard Bletchley, a sixth year) misgendered Harriet in the common room, Tom hexed him. Nothing serious, just a little skin crawling hex, which was uncomfortable but would pass quickly.
Some Slytherins, like Blaise, Theo, Daphne and Tracey, were able to read the room, or rather Tom's face, and never misgendered Harriet again, at least that Tom knew. Others, like Draco, Druella, Vince and Greg, and most of the rest of the house, took a little longer to learn and required Tom to use progressively worse curses. Within two weeks, Tom had sent at least half of Slytherin House to the hospital wing at least once. Some stubborn individuals more than once.
"What on earth is going on?" Severus demanded when he held Tom back after potions class. "What are you doing to my students?"
"Educating," Tom said in his most reasonable voice. He tapped his Prefect's badge and gave Severus a bright little smile. "It is my duty as a Prefect to educate my fellow Slytherins as to the correct pronouns to use when addressing Miss Potter."
Severus snorted and shook his head. "Very well. Carry on."
Over the next week, another quarter of Slytherin House needed a little medical attention but after that everyone seemed to get the picture and from then on they addressed Harriet with the correct pronouns, at least as long as Tom was within earshot.
Yule came and while Tom was glad his utterly useless detentions came to a halt, he still hadn't come up with a way to make up with Harriet and to get her to at least want to listen to him. There was still the possibility that Tom might be able to talk to her during the holidays, tough. Remus always spent some of it with his friends, and Tom always tagged along.
This year they had a get together planned with the Potters at their home in Wales. Unfortunately, it became quickly apparent that Harriet's younger brothers Edward and William had appointed themselves as Harriet's unofficial bodyguards and they refused to leave her side. Elladora Black, Sirius' daughter who was also a Gryffindor in the same year as Edward, even took to shooting stinging hexes in Tom's direction every time the adults weren't paying attention.
So Tom kept away from Harriet and eventually ended up in the Potters' library. While not nearly as big as the Malfoy or Black libraries, they still had plenty of interesting titles that Tom enjoyed browsing. An hour later James Potter strolled into the library, glass of wine in hand, looking very much as if he just got lost in his own home.
"Ah, there you are, Tom."
"Mr Potter," Tom said politely. James Potter was an Auror and for some reason Tom never was able to fully relax around a law enforcement officer. Tom hadn't done anything truly illegal in a long time, but he had spent much of his childhood stealing food from supermarkets and pickpocketing ignorant adults, and he always worried someone like James could see right through him and see the criminal within.
Currently, Tom was of course also worried James Potter might want to tell Tom off for having hurt his daughter. Or hex him, even. Tom had heard more than enough worrying tales from Severus, of how eager James once was to curse Slytherins for shits and giggles.
"Heard you messed up," James said, giving Tom a very strong pat on his shoulder before rounding the table and sitting down opposite him.
"You could say that again," Tom said with a rueful laugh and a shake of your head.
"Any ideas how to fix it?" James asked, leaning back in his seat and giving Tom a curious look.
"Well, I started with putting three quarters of Slytherin House in the hospital wing for chronically misgendering your daughter, but further than that I have no ideas."
That earned him a very amused bout of laughter from James, who threw his head back and everything. "It's a good start," James finally said and then he sobered up, put his glass of wine down on the table and folded his hands beside it. "Truth be told, I reacted much the same as you did at first."
"Really?" Tom asked in genuine shock, the Ancient Runes book he'd been reading forgotten in his hand.
"Oh yeah," James replied with a solemn nod. "I didn't understand how my son could suddenly claim to be my daughter. Said some very hurtful things to Harriet before Lily set me straight." A very fond smile appeared on James' face, one he always sported while talking about his wife. "It's funny, really. On some things, like same-sex relationships, the wizarding world is miles ahead of the muggle world. But when it comes to transmen and transwomen, we're lightyears behind."
"I hadn't really even heard of them," Tom confessed, strangely relieved to hear he hadn't been the only one to react so negatively at first.
"That's why we're fighting with the Wizengamot right now, to get the laws changed," James explained while he picked up his wine again. "Since Harriet's still a minor, those sessions should have remained confidential, but well…"
"Lucius decided to write his son a letter regardless of the laws," Tom finished for him.
"Yep, and he happily paid the fine that the Wizengamot gave him for that stunt." James snorted and shook his head. "When people are that rich, fines mean nothing. It's only the poor that get hurt while having to pay them. Lily taught me that." And that fond smile was back again.
Tom nodded in understanding. "I have no clue how to fix this. She won't even talk to me."
"Don't lose hope," James said, his eyes suddenly gleaming with something mischievous. "It took me years and years to convince Lily to go out on a date with me. Support Harriet as much as you can, from a distance until she lets you close again. And I'm sure she will." James leaned a little closer, his smile turning into a utterly devious grin. "Don't tell her I said this, but Harriet's been mooning over you for years now." And James finished that revelation off with a cheeky wink.
"Really?" Tom's whole face suddenly felt like it was on fire.
"Yes, really. Now shush." James quickly got up, patted Tom on his shoulder again. "Good luck, Tom. And remember, she is a Gryffindor. They like to go big, or go home." And with that, James sauntered out the library again, leaving Tom with more thoughts than could possibly fit in his head.
Harriet had been mooning over him. Harriet liked him. Well, had liked him once upon a time. And Tom was certain that with enough time and energy he could get Harriet to like him again. What had James suggested? Support Harriet. And go big or go home.
Yes, that is what Tom was going to do. As he sat in the Potters' library, he was going to plan ways to start supporting Harriet in every possible way he could.