8th October 1975

Sometimes it seems like the wizarding world makes a trade between the stupid and the bloody stupid. Potter and his friends as an example, cobbled together a rather impressive map of the school last year that they've tried to keep secret. If they wanted to keep it secret they shouldn't have worked on it in the common room, it took me all of 30 seconds and a brief distraction to copy all of their notes for it, once I improved on it I put a copy in the back of this Journal so that I don't have to say any stupid passwords. Back to the subject at hand, they decided they wanted to go to Hogsmeade a week early, so what did they do? Use their marvellous new map that shows everyone in the castle, and has a special mark for Filch and his current cat. No, they all crowd under James' Cloak and shuffle off to a secret entrance. They even remembered to cast silencing and scent masking before they left the dorm. The stupid idiots just forgot to take into account that they weren't first years anymore, so 4 of them under the cloak left their ankles visible to the world.

I bet they were giggling too much to even notice McGonagall following them to the one-eyed witch and catch them as they opened that secret exit, which incidentally only goes to Hogsmeade. I wouldn't mind, but I'm running low on sugar quills and I was going to grab some this weekend, and now the teachers are on high alert.

They got back to Hogwarts to find lavender playing chess with Ron and chatting in the great hall. Harry made a note to question her about that later so that she had all the gossip. She then made a note to talk to Hermione later about that thought, as she was sure that gossip used to be a bad thing.

They quickly settled back into a routine that lasted for a few weeks before Ron ended up in the hospital wing for some reason. That evening Lavender approached Harry.

"Harry?"

"Would it be ok to borrow your invisibility cloak tomorrow night?"

"Why?"

"Hagrid hatched a dragon, and we've arranged for some of Charlie's friends to pick it up from the astronomy tower at midnight."

Harry briefly panics, "Are you all suicidal? What about the witching hour?"

"That's not until one in the morning."

"Oh yeah, the clocks changed. Why do wizards even follow non-magical time changes?"

"Dunno, never thought about it."

"So why exactly are the top of the Astronomy tower?"

"Apparently, they're flying down from the dragon reserve in the Outer Hebrides, and they're camping to save money. Can I borrow the cloak or not?"

"I just want to clear up something first. So just to get this clear, you want to smuggle a sleeping dragon to the top of the astronomy tower, so that some dragon handlers that are on their way home from the Outer Hebrides dragon sanctuary can fly in on broomsticks and pick it up?"

"Yes!" Lavender looks like she's starting to get frustrated.

"Why don't you see if you can just get Hagrid to walk to the village as he often does, buy them a drink and then see them off with it?

"They'd probably appreciate the break too. If they say no, then I'll lend you the cloak, OK?"

"Thanks Harry, I'll get Hagrid to send an owl tonight and let you know."

With that she runs off.

"What was that about Harry?" Hermione asks as she comes out of the bathroom

Harry filled her in, to which she responded, "Good idea, though the dragon keepers probably thought of that, and didn't have time to land in order to make it to their camping spot on time."

"Oh." Her expression dropped.

"No, you did the right thing by getting them to ask. As it's always better to ask for clarification than it is just assume. But in this case it wasn't Lavender and Hagrid that arranged the timing and location, it was the handlers."

"Thanks Hermione." She brightened a little, but it still hurt a little.

It turned out that they did still need the cloak, which lead to his current meeting with the Headmaster.

"Harry, thank you for coming. Please take a seat. Lemon drop?" The Headmaster indicates a chair and then waves his hand at a bowl of lemon drops on the desk.

"No Thank you sir."

"Now, I have recently come into possession of something of yours." He takes the invisibility cloak out of a drawer and places it on the desk.

"Oh, I can explain."

"No need, Lavender and Parvati were caught out of bounds by Professor McGonagall. Indeed, I suspect that if it wasn't for the late hour they'd have got away with some docked points. However, they will need to attend a detention.

"Before I give this back to you with a warning that next time it comes into my possession due to being used to break the rules I will keep it until you return home for the holidays, would you mind if we had a chat about your scar and what happened the night your parents died?"

"Uh, sure, though I'd prefer it if my aunt was here."

"I was under the impression that Petunia was a muggle."

"Ah… she's my magical guardian."

"Very well, I'll send her an owl."

"Erm, we do live in a non-magical area, so it might be better to Floo call her."

"You have a Floo connected?"

"We got it connected last year, it was very useful for Christmas shopping."

"Very well, if you give me the address, I'll arrange a meeting and summon you when she arrives. I'll also give you your cloak back with the warning then too."

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A thoughtful Harry walked back to the Dorm and absentmindedly changed back to a girl. Then stopped on the stairs. When did she start thinking of being a girl as being her default? With that thought she went to find Hermione. She found her in the Library of all places. Why she didn't check there first she wasn't sure, but there you go.

"Hermione?"

Hermione looks up from the book she's studying. "Yes?"

"Would you mind if I talked to you about a couple of things that I've noticed about myself?"

"Sure, can you wait until I finish up here?"

"I can." Harry grabs a book on some of their class material and sits down to read while she finishes up.

Around half an hour later she puts her quill down and looks up at Harry, she watches the way that she's started to suck on the end of her hair when she's concentrating and how reactive it is to her emotions, with ruby sparkles appearing with increasing intensity when she's interested or excited.

"You wanted to talk to me?" she smiles as the hair she's sucking on immediately pulls back behind her ear, the sparkles disappear, and she puts the book down.

"Oh, yes, sorry about that."

"It's ok, what did you want to talk about?"

"It's just well… it seems so silly now, it's not that important."

"Harry, it concerned you enough to want to talk about it, so why don't you tell me and then you can stop thinking about it. Now knowing you I bet it's to do with your scar."

"Actually, no, apart from DADA, it doesn't hurt at all, so there's no change there. It's just that, this is silly." Her ears start to go red with embarrassment.

"I promise I won't laugh."

"IveStartedToFeelMoreAtHomeAsAGirlThanAsABoy." Harry blurts out.

Hermione has to struggle not to laugh, "I think I got that, but could you say it again more slowly?"

"I feel like I'm a girl that turns into a boy rather than the other way around."

"Harry, that's great."

"It is?"

"Well I think it is, but I'm not a mind healer. But think about it, you've spent most of your time here as a girl, and apart from me, you made your first friends here as a girl. You also spend most of your time here as a girl.

"I can write to Daddy and see if he can find any books on psychology that would help."

"I don't think you need to do that. Is it weird that I've also started to enjoy gossiping?"

Hermione shuffles a little uncomfortably, "I must confess, it's not just you. I think it's because we've been socialising more because you keep taking my books away."

Harry holds her hands over her heart dramatically "Gasp! Hermione just confessed to learning something without a book? Oh my god!"

Hermione reaches over with her parchment roll and swipes half-heartedly at her, "Prat, it's Merlin not my god."

She then freezes as Harry flashes into a boy and has a look of panic on his face for a moment.

"Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry, I forgot."

A moment later he recovers and starts laughing weakly. "It's ok Hermione, it's not your fault. I just remembered my Aunt took a swing at me with a frying pan when I was younger. But mum's not like that."

"How could she do something like that?"

Harry shrinks back into her seat, "I don't think I could talk it through without support right now. I'm not saying I won't, just that it's going to be hard and I'll probably cry a lot."

Hermione warred in herself between her need to know now and her first friend's distress, eventually her concern won out, "OK, I won't forget, but maybe talking about it at school is a bad idea."

"Mum's going to be coming to the school soon." Harry changed the subject and hoped that Hermione would go along with it.

"Oh? What happened?"

"Lavender and Parvati got caught after they delivered the dragon."

"Ouch, so why does that involve you?"

"The headmaster wanted to see me, he says he'd like to talk to me about something to do with my scar. I said I didn't want to talk about it without Mum there, though I used her other name. He was surprised that she is magical, and once I told him she was my magical guardian he seemed to be ok with it."

They both packed the books away and then started to head back to the Dorm before dinner. As they were walking up the grand staircase Hermione stopped suddenly.

"I've just realised something, we haven't been able to practice delving yet."

"You're right, we haven't. I think it's because we're still doing the meditation with the others before bed, and we're not good with just pretending to sleep."

"I wonder if there are any ways to wake up unobtrusively, I just go and have a look." Hermione got a couple of steps down the stairs before a gentle grip on her arm caused her to stop.

"Hermione… We were going to get ready for dinner."

With that they finished returning to the dorm and went to dinner and the evening chat.