Chapter 6: School
During the summer, the four watched lots of superhero movies and made a list of powers that Danny should develop: levitation, flying, invisibility, super-strength, stopping bullets. She decided to focus on levitation first, but couldn't get past making objects wiggle on the ground.
Danny leaned back and spit into the Thames watching it travel a few meters. The four sat on the river's edge, eating crisps and drinking coke.
"Not bad," Peter told her. "For a girl."
She tried to look as if she didn't take him seriously and stuck out her tongue. Sam gave a sideways glance.
"Not denying it?"
"Are you serious? I'm not a girl!" She said, standing up. "If I were a girl, I wouldn't be able to beat you up." She pushed him down.
"Fine, then take a piss in front of us."
"I would, if I had to."
"Danny, I'm not stupid-"
"Yes yeh are!"
"A girl!" Winston yelled. "But, we've seen her shirtless and she doesn't have boobs."
"Because she's seven, yeh idiot." Peter said. She kicked him.
"Ow!"
"Yeh've ruined everything!" She yelled, tears springing to her eyes.
"That's not very ladylike." Sam said, smirking. She pushed him onto the ground.
Winston watched her, laughing. She kicked Peter again, but he grabbed her leg and tripped her. She stood up and punched him in the face.
"Yeh ruined everything!" She yelled again. Winston finally intervened and grabbed her but she immediately screamed.
"Whoa! Calm down!" Peter yelled, checking on his nose. Winston let go and she went to run.
"Danny, don't go. It's fine, you can just stop pretending."
"I don't want to stop, I like being a boy."
"Fine then."
"No, you ruined everything. I'm not safe anymore."
"Why?"
She was full out crying now. "You don't understand what it's like to be a girl. Its not safe."
"We won't tell anybody."
"Tell anyone, and I'll set you on fire," she threatened.
"That's not very nice." Peter now stood up and towered over her.
"Promise!"
"I promise not to say anything," he said. She looked at the other two and they promised as well.
"But, yeh're not gonna be able to keep it secret for long."
"I know-"
"And yeh have your powers, yeh're safe?"
"Yeh never know. It's easier for yeh."
Later, while curled up in bed, Sam asked why she didn't like being a girl.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"The same reason I don't want to talk about my Uncle?"
She was confused.
"It doesn't just happen to girls you know." He told her.
"Oh," was all she said.
"I just... I wanted you to know I understand. I don't want to talk about it either." After a long pause he said "night."
"Night." She turned onto her back. The three of them had claimed half the bed, with their heads on the long end. They didn't mind her sleeping with them, even if she was a girl.
x-x-x-x
"Danielle Woodhouse." Danny glowered at the girl name.
"I go by Danny." She corrected her teacher on the first day of school.
Peter had roped Jasper, one of the boys who had a room in the house, to act as Danny's uncle.
She took Peter's last name, Woodhouse, and was registered at the same grade as Sam. When she threatened to set him on fire, Peter said that Jasper figured it out on his own that she was a girl. Now she was Danielle Woodhouse.
She was terribly behind and had to suffer remedial reading and math during recess. But, when Sam failed a math quiz, he joined her and they gave the teacher assistant hell together.
They also gave hell to the girly girls in their class. Melissa and Hayley made fun of Danny's hair and boy clothes in the girls' bathroom. She hit Melissa and they told on her, giving her time out for half the day. Naturally, Sam and Danny hated them after that. During a particularly boring class, Danny concentrated on Hayley's eraser. After she and Melissa giggled together, Hayley's eraser flew up and smacked her on the forehead.
Danny straightened up in her seat, excited.
"Psst, Sam!"
Sam had his eyes half-closed as the teacher droned on.
"Sam I did it! I levitated something!"
After doing it once, she was able to do it on demand, like fire. She lifted her pencil from her desk when she was bored (just half an inch or so). She started to focus on moving other things, like unlocking a door or dressing herself without moving.
She took to practicing almost all day: spinning around the pencil, drawing on the chalkboard, getting the football into the net, warming water—she did everything she could with magic.
Winter came again, marking a year that she'd collected memories. The house even got a Christmas tree and accumulated more blankets for the basement. Her housemates were mostly junkies in their mid-twenties, but she liked Jasper and Ellie, a girl who Peter was "in love with," or so he said. They spent a lot more time at the house now that it was too cold to play football or wander around town. Christmas break was spent almost exclusively on video games and the young adults even gave them each a glass of champagne on New Year's Eve. Danny loved the taste and convinced several strangers to give her just one glass.
After three glasses, she was dizzy and unable to do the most simple magic. After she vomited first thing after waking up the next day, she decided that she'd never drink again.
x-x-x-x
Christmas at the Weasley's was a blast, but crowded. A family photo was taken and Harry's heart hurt to have only three children there again. Now that Ariana had a schedule of home and school, it was clear that she had settled in somewhere new.
The Ministry of Magic, even the Department of Mysteries, had almost every department on some sort of project to find her. They tried to use the clock, the only thing tracking her, as a compass. They looked for ways to use her fraternal twin, Lily, to find her. Even poor Teddy, who was in his final year at Hogwarts, was using his final project to develop a new, powerful location spell.
But Harry wondered when they should all give up. If she was safe somewhere now, going to school and settled into a home, just maybe she was happy. Maybe she had Christmas gifts and a new family, her mind wiped of any memory of him. The thought hurt, but it was better than imagining her locked up scared somewhere.