CHAPTER ONE - THE BEGINNING OF OUR STORY

"Harry, come downstairs! Breakfast is ready!"

He blearily rubbed at his eyes as he woke from a deep sleep. He rolled over and was greeted by the sun shining just right into his overly-sensitive eyes. Covering his face with his hand, he blindly reached for his duvet to replace his hand as a cover.

"I'll be down in a moment," he answered as the duvet finally shielded his eyes from the harsh sun. He laid there a moment, hearing his mum rustling for dishes to set the table downstairs as he finally worked up the courage to reach for his glasses on his bedside table. His glasses found their resting place and he slowly sat up, the duvet falling off of his head, leaving his hair even more askew than usual.

The room was messy, as it usually was, and to even get to his dresser, he had to watch his step with all the rubbish lying around. He had a small afterthought to clean after breakfast but he doubted it would happen. It never did. His mum used to nag him constantly to clean his room, back before she had given up on him being any sort of non-stereotypical teenaged boy.

After a bit of tip-toeing, he'd finally made it to his dresser and started his morning routine. It consists of a little more than a normal teenage boy's routine usually would, he thought to himself as he pulled his binder over his head and shoulders, but Harry didn't like to think that he was too different from everyone else. He was just Harry.

He'd always known he was Harry, even before that was his name. It was one of those gut feelings you hear about in those muggle movies where it just made everything feel right and there was a happy ending. He hadn't gotten that happy ending just yet, so he couldn't wait to turn 16 this summer. But no matter how fast he wished time would pass, he was still just a Fifth Year on his Easter holiday.

Once he felt he was put together with a presentable enough outfit, he made his way through the maze of things in his room to the door and down the stairs that were right outside. He had stopped hearing clanging on glass and pots while he was getting dressed so he'd assumed his mother was done setting up their breakfast. He peeked in though the living room archway on his way to the dining room and saw his father and his twin little sisters, Acacia and Briar, playing with their newest baby dolls, a small birthday gift from his parents.

They had just turned three on the first day he had arrived home from Hogwarts and their birthday party was the first time he had seen his Uncle Remus outside of school and, therefore, was free to not call him professor. His Uncle Sirius had gotten a kick out of his husband being called professor by accident and had taken to calling him Professor Moony for the remainder of the event. His uncles were weird, but he loved them and he didn't have any other aunts or uncles (except the ones on his mum's side that they really didn't talk to), so he supposed he was stuck with them.

Harry must have stood there a second too long as his dad noticed him standing in the doorway and beckoned him over to lend a hand with his sisters.

Acacia and Briar looked when they saw their dad wave Harry over and they both squealed with delight at seeing their older brother for the first time that day.

"Harry! Harry! We missed you while you were sleepin'! Dad said we couldn't wake you up, so we's have to wait but we wanted to jump on you to wake you up!" said Acacia as she ran straight into Harry's long, knobbly-kneed legs and hugged as tight as her little arms could. Briar followed soon after.

He started trying to walk, struggling with the weight of two small children attached to his legs, and just as his face started turning red with the effort of it, his dad took pity on him and lifted Briar up onto his hip and held out his arm to Acacia to get her to let go.

Both of his sisters had gotten used to the idea of having a brother instead of a sister rather quickly. Their mum had explained to them that Harry was now their brother instead of their sister and they immediately made the switch with his name and using his pronouns. It was hard to believe that small children had an easier time with his transition than most of the kids at school.

Harry had told his mum and dad about him the summer after second year, just after his thirteenth birthday. He couldn't take being thought of as a girl anymore. The thought of going back to Hogwarts as a girl made him feel physically sick and it was driving him insane thinking about it over and over and over again. Once he told his parents, it felt like a weight was lifted off of his shoulders and he could finally breathe again.

They didn't take it that well at first and they had fought for about a week before Harry broke down in front of them, trying to convince them to at least change his name with Hogwarts so that he could go back, be in the correct dorms, and called the correct name in his classes. Lily and James, finally seeing how badly their son needed their help and love, picked him up and held him until he had cried himself to sleep at the end of the night. They had put him to bed in his room and immediately went to work.

Their son's happiness was their priority and they realized that they were causing him nothing but strife by not helping him. They ended up flooing Sirius and Remus to come watch the children while they sprung into action. Their first order of business was changing his name and sex on all of his documents (they had to wake up their barrister to get everything to go through because by the time they had started all of this, it was two in the morning), the next was writing out letters to friends and family (Yes, even Petunia, though the letter was opened and then consequently returned) telling them of the change in reference to their son and how to address him from now on. The final task was to request information from Saint Mungo's on what more they needed to do for Harry. They had also scheduled him an appointment for the day after next.

This had taken them hours to do, digging through old paperwork to do the aforementioned, and then old magic grimoires to find a spell to recognize Harry as a first-born male heir to the Potter family. They didn't subscribe to pureblood bigotry obviously (Lily was a Muggleborn), but still recognized that blood status could be important to Harry and their girls, so they made sure that they could claim their birthrights when needed. Finding it was more difficult than they thought it would be, but eventually they found something in the Black family library that Sirius had given them permission to raid. It took a bit of finagling to get it to work, but with all of Harry's documents fixed, and Harry's state of being, the family magic easily grasped what they were trying to achieve. Harry was officially their firstborn (and only) son, the heir to the Potter family.

They let their newly-minted son sleep half the day away as they took Pepperup Potion to stay awake (and keep up with Acacia and Briar) and tidy up loose ends with all of their own paperwork, revising wills and the like. At around noon, they finally woke Harry with a surprise brunch in bed and a new birth certificate that read Henry James Potter. They had decided to derive his new name from the old, Henry coming from Harry's great-grandfather, who once sat on the Wizengamot (and was called Harry by his closest friends), and James for his father, as the naming tradition went in the Wizarding world.

Soon after that fateful night and the news the next day had brought him, Harry began the process of changing his body to better fit who he was on the inside with a little help from his favorite healer from Saint Mungo's, Healer Calix Parrish. Healer Parrish was just like Harry; crazy hair, funny glasses, and—most importantly—he understood what Harry was going through. He prescribed special potions for Harry that would stop his natal puberty, and at the same time, start his male puberty instead.

And so Henry James Potter had set off that fateful summer, as the proper boy he always had known he was. He was excited for the rest of his Hogwarts career for the first time since he'd gotten his acceptance letter. It had been almost four years since he had officially become Harry. He couldn't imagine being any other way.

He was jarred from his thoughts by Acacia and Briar yelling for him to come into the kitchen and that breakfast was ready. The day began anew and so did our story.