Morning came and Harry woke up at his normal time, getting up and dressed he went downstairs and realised that Hermione wasn't up yet. So he rushed up the stairs and found the first year dorm room. Going in he found Hermione's bed and shook her awake. Groggily Hermione woke up and stared uncomprehendingly at him.
"Why are you here?"
"To wake you up for our meditation practice."
"No, I meant, why are you here in the girls dorm."
"Well, it's where you were sleeping and so I had to come up to wake you up."
"No, gah. One mo... This is the girls dorm, how did you get up the stairs past the alarm?"
"Oh. I don't know, I just walked up the stairs."
A soft pop by the door drew their attention as a house-elf appeared and brought in Harry's suitcase and bed. It grumbled softly under its breath "Silly students can't make up their minds on what sex they are. Whatever next."
"Excuse me, what do you mean making up my mind on what sex I am"
"Eeep, Mipsy is sorry, she thought she was invisible. Brightest miss is now female, last night she was male. Hoggywarts automatically updates the registers and room allocation for your sex. Mipsy be going now." And promptly did nothing before walking across the room to send dirty washing wherever.
Harry eeped as Hermione hit her in the crotch. "Well you're definitely a girl at the moment as dad always collapsed when I did that accidentally, oh and Mipsy I thought you said you were going."
Mipsy froze and turned around slowly, "yous can still see me?"
They both nodded, "This not good, Mipsy need see head elf." A quiet pop and she disappeared.
Harry turned to Hermione and slowly began to freak out quietly. Pulling her into a hug, she muttered, "On the bright side, if you stay like this we get to share a dorm, though when we're older I'd like to try having you as a boyfriend."
She was still crying softly when the other girls started to wake up.
"What's he doing in here?" one of the girls demanded.
"Apparently Harry's magic decided to turn him into a girl so he could come to wake me up. Would one of you get a teacher, as she seems to be having trouble with what's happened."
Fay ended up being pushed out the door as she was closest and the other girls wanted the gossip.
"So why would he, she, oh this could get confusing. Anyway why would she want to wake you up?"
"We meditate every day so that we can learn to feel our magic and eventually control it. And she's used to doing it first thing with her aunt. So I guess she woke up and wanted to do it as normal except with me. Oh, and Mipsy moved her bed and chest in here earlier." Hermione indicates the new bed.
Hermione and the girls continued to talk over Harry's head while she sobs into her shoulder. Apparently they're not averse to having Harry share a dorm with them, just with having a boy share the dorm. Eventually McGonagall turns up with Fay and another adult in tow.
"Mr Potter, what are you doing in this dorm?"
McGonagall's tone of voice just made Harry start to shake and cry harder muttering "I'm a freak, I'm a freak." Over and over again.
"Professor, if you're going to be like that please leave, as you're just making her worse." Hermione snapped as Harry got worse.
"she's had a hard life and she was doing so much better before today."
"Minnie, maybe you should let me have a look and find something else to do." The other witch said.
McGonagall pursed her lips disapprovingly, but did leave.
"I'm Madam Pomfrey the schools mediwitch. I'm just going to cast some diagnostic charms and then we can talk. Do you think you could drink this potion for me."
Hermione helps coax Harry into drinking the potion over the next few minutes and all the other girls take turns hugging her and telling her she's not a freak. As the potion takes effect and Harry calms down, she gradually relaxes her hold on Hermione, now that she's aware of all they eyes on her she folds in on herself.
"I'm sorry Hermione, I shouldn't be here. You deserve a better friend than me, so I'll just go back to my dorm and this will just be a big mistake. Will it be ok if we still meditate in the mornings?"
"You, young lady, will be going precisely nowhere until I finish my initial diagnosis, after that the only place you'll be going is to the hospital wing so that I can make a proper note of all your changes. And until we know you have control over your changes, you will be sleeping right here as it's inappropriate to have a girl sleeping with boys at your age, even if it turns out you're only a girl part time." Pomfrey interjected, firmly squashing any idea that Harry was in the wrong place.
Madam Pomfrey then proceeded to run a quick set of diagnosis on her. "So far as I can tell, my scans say you are a perfectly healthy 11-year-old girl and you always have been. I can't detect any active magic on you apart from the calming draft, and you don't appear to have any obvious magical talents that would explain this. So you young lady will be following me, and I will be holding you until I've run some more detailed tests and contacted your guardian. Don't the rest of you need to get ready to go down to breakfast?"
Madam Pomfrey waits long enough for all the girls to get cleaned and dressed, though she tells them that they don't have time to do more than run a brush through their hair, before leading them down to the Entrance to the Great Hall, and taking Harry off to the infirmary.
"Right young lady hop up onto that bed there right there. You're probably the Potter that has ended up in my care the fastest after the beginning of school, though your Dad did seem to try to beat the overall record on occasion, it would normally take him a couple of days to need my attention."
She then walked to a desk at the far end of the infirmary and wrote a couple of notes.
"Lopsy" a house-elf popped in when she called
"How may Lopsy help mistress?"
"Can you take this to Minerva, and have this one sent to Harry's Magical Guardian, and get the owl to wait for a reply. When you're done can you bring some breakfast for the two of us." Lopsy took the letters and disappeared with a pop.
"Well, until I receive a reply from your Guardian, I can't run the scans I want, so I want you to tell me what happened, what you were feeling, and anything else that you think I may need to know. If you're good I'll teach you how to do this. Once we're done I'll go through all the things you should have learnt about your new body growing up." She holds her wand up and the end of it lights up, then she flicks it and the light detaches from the wand and goes up before fading out.
What follows is the most excruciating and embarrassing couple of hours in Harrys life, as Madam Pomfrey's idea of what she should have learnt is vastly more detailed than primary school was. And as she's a witch, it came with animated pictures too. Fortunately, Professor McGonagall interrupts after her first class, Harry just watches hoping that she doesn't notice her there.
"OK, how's Harry doing?"
"Well, so far as I can tell she's a perfectly healthy 11-year-old girl, and always has been. I'm still waiting for permission to do more in-depth scans from her Legal Guardian, but that could be a couple of hours yet depending on how far the owl has to go."
"I thought the Headmaster was Harry's Magical Guardian."
"Apparently not. Oh and I need you to tell the house elves not to move Miss Potters stuff, if she changes again. Until we know she's got a handle on whatever it is that caused the change, she needs to sleep in the girls dorm."
"And what's wrong with the Boy's dorm, they're only first years for Merlin's sake?"
Pomfrey glances at Harry before choosing her next words carefully. "You know that I get a few cases every year. It's not always the older girls that are caught and do you really want an 11-year-old girl where anyone can get at her?"
McGonagall sucks in air through her teeth, "No, I suppose you're right. I guess if it's a problem in a year or so's time he can have a private room."
"She Minerva, she. She's currently a girl and you should remember to treat her as such."
Taking a deep breath McGonagall turns to Harry, "Well it seems like I owe you an apology. I'm sorry for the way that I behaved earlier, and I shouldn't have shouted at you until I had all of the facts. I want you to know that you can come to see me if you have any issues"
"Maybe you should call a house meeting this evening to explain what's happened so that you get ahead of the rumours."
"I dinna really have the time."
"Maybe you should get Albus to do his own job this evening so that you can do yours."
Harry had a mischief thought and felt that it would be poetic justice for what McGonagall did this morning even if she apologised. "Mrs McGonagall, have you seen Hermione's Familiar?"
"I haven't Mr… Miss Potter, I wasn't aware of the fact she had one."
"Don't you remember the sorting hat saying it would go to Hufflepuff if it was a student?"
McGonagall thought back for a moment, "Now that you mention it, yes, I do remember something about that. I'm sorry Miss Potter, so much happened last night that it completely slipped my mind.
"That reminds me, here's your timetable, you've got Transfiguration this afternoon if you're done here and you missed Charms this morning. If you're not there I'll try and arrange for Professor Flitwick to give you a catch up lesson one evening this week as these first few lessons are very important, and I'll find time to do the same."
With that she McGonagall left.
"OK young lady, what was that about?"
"Hermione's familiar is an Aictuilaxr."
"What's one of those?"
"Have you seen Hagrid's new pet? It was in his beard last night."
"I wasn't aware that he had a new pet."
"Oh, well it's about this big, with brown fur and black stripes and furry tentacles instead of a mouth. They eat magic, and they seem to find spells really tasty."
"That sounds interesting, I'll have to see if Hagrid will let me see his one. But that doesn't explain why, wait you said it eats spells."
"Uh huh"
"Oh you little minx, thought it's about time she let her hair down." At which point she bursts out laughing.
The rest of the morning passes with her teaching Harry to cast and throw the light spell.
Albus got up in the morning after a frustrating evening. The unspeakables had gone by the time he found the wall of words, though he was surprised at just how many prophecies were written there. Then he'd needed to deal with a missive from Russia calling for an emergency meeting as they had reports of Unseelie showing up in East Russia in the night, and magical offices were closed so it made it to the local news before they could get on top of it. They're currently pushing to get it printed in the local speculative newspapers. He managed to persuade them to roll it into the same meeting that Egypt called for. By the time that finished he'd missed the school song.
He came down to check his early morning post and find out who he was the designated Magical Guardian for this year, only to find that there were no assignments. Unusual, but it would leave him with more time, which is something he was permanently short of. Nothing else needed his attention right now, so he made his way down to Breakfast as was his custom for the first school day, as it was good to be seen by the new first years, as it made him seem more present. He watched as all the Gryffindor girls came down in a group, then the boys turned up in drips and drabs. He didn't see Harry though, although his friend seemed to have her nose in a book already. Minerva went down handing out their schedules, and spoke to a couple of them, but didn't seem to be concerned by his lack. He'd catch him at lunchtime then.
Lunchtime rolled around and Harry wasn't there so he approached McGonagall. "I noticed that Harry wasn't around at breakfast, and he's not around now. Do you know where he is?"
"Aye, she's currently in the infirmary waiting for Permission to have some in-depth scans done."
There was something wrong with that sentence, but he'd look at it later. "Why wasn't I informed, I'm his magical guardian."
"I have no idea, I know that Pomfrey sent the note to her magical guardian."
The bottom fell out of his stomach as he realised that he would have been notified if he was Harry's Guardian. He took a moment too long to pull his wits back together as McGonagall wandered off to deal with a disturbance at one of the tables.