"It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be."
- Albus Dumbledore
"We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry..."
He had folded the letter backwards right before that line, hiding the salutation he did not want to see. He wanted to focus only on the giddy rush of joy that hit him when he saw the owl swooping out of the sky to drop the envelope into his hands. The salutation had been a punch to the gut, and yet – it had been wishful thinking, that they would know his secret thoughts. It was ridiculous to think they could have read his mind.
His parents were ecstatic, of course. Their only daughter, off to be a witch! (And they laughed genially, recalling the times that as a child he had proudly declared that he was a wizard, and they would gently correct him, amused and bemused by the crestfallen look on his face.)
#
He loved the bustle of Diagon Alley: the crowds and the colours, the kids gushing over broomsticks. His parents lovingly guided him from one store to the next, counting out Galleons and Sickles and Knuts to buy his schoolbooks and equipment, regaling him with wild tales of their own school days as they savoured frothy glasses of Butterbeer.
But always his mind returns to the old wand shop. He remembers the frustration of the first few wands failing in his hands, and looking up to see Ollivander gazing at him with a thoughtful look; and then the wand that infused him with a joyous warmth that almost brought tears to his eyes, golden stars sparkling beautifully out its end, and his parents smiled, saying yes, that was the one.
Ollivander leaned in to gently take the wand (hawthorn, unicorn hair, ten and a half inches, pliable) and pack it neatly in a box. Then, in a voice low enough that only he would hear:
"The wand chooses the wizard."
And the boy looked at the old man in shock, and saw only kindness and sadness in his eyes.
#
Everything was fine, at first. There was that irrepressible wonder of walking through the wall at King's Cross Station onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters, his luggage stowed on the trolley, hugging his parents goodbye and climbing onto the Hogwarts Express as he tried to stem the wave of homesickness that already threatened to rise. A couple of first-year girls in a carriage kindly called out to him to join them. He did, giving them the name he had been given, and tried not to feel like an imposter. He bit down the sudden stab of envy when he saw a trio of boys run laughing down the corridor together, free in a way he could never be.
The girl next to him made a face. "Boys," she huffed.
His gaze lingered longingly on the boys as they disappeared into their carriage. Strains of their conversation still reached his ears. He wished he was brave enough to join them.
#
I'm not brave, he told the Sorting Hat in the momentarily shared privacy of his mind, choking at the thought that all his secrets were gone, that for the first time, someone knew everything about him and there was nothing he could hide. You know I'm not brave.
Ahhhh, the Hat said. But you could be, if you wanted.
He trembled where he sat.
You will have to be brave, the Hat said, its voice holding a gravity that made the boy afraid, if you want to survive in this school and in this world.
I can't, he pleaded.
Pfft, the Hat said, and opened its mouth: "GRYFFINDOR!"
He stumbled towards their table amidst the roar of cheers. His knees were weak. His new housemates clapped him on the back, and he nervously returned their grins. His heart would not stop pounding.
Yet he had calmed down by the time the Headmistress gave her opening words and the students broke into cheers. Amidst the grandeur and the feasting and the friendly conversations of welcome, he could not recall ever having felt this happy before.
#
It was the stairs that did it.
He had followed the other first-years up from the table, his heart (and stomach) blissfully full from the dinner and now the awe of the castle. The prefect deftly guided them through the stairs and hallways to Gryffindor Tower where the Fat Lady greeted them, glad to see the new students, and at the password, her painting swung aside to reveal the entrance.
The common room was the cosiest place that he had ever been in. He felt at once the warmth of the fireplace, the plush armchairs, the rugs underfoot. His gaze roved over the clustered tables and chairs, the private alcoves, the cabinets of books and artefacts, and he imagined quiet nights reading before the crackling fire, secure in the soft embrace of this room.
He was still lost in that reverie when the prefect pointed out the dormitories and suggested they all turn in for the night. He cast a brief longing glance as the boys headed up their stairs.
"Come on," the prefect said gently. She smiled and pointed him towards the stairs to the girls' dormitory. "I know it's tempting to stay up, but you'll need to be well rested for classes tomorrow."
The others were already going up the stairs, their voices carrying down towards him. He brightened up as he saw two familiar faces from dinner. They called out and waved at him, pausing to let him catch up. He waved back and hurried up after them-
A klaxon went off. He yelped in shock, and then the two girls screamed as the stairs beneath their feet turned into a slide and deposited him heavily on the ground, the girls following swiftly after. One yelled in pain as she hit the wall.
He looked around wildly, panicking.
Everyone was staring at him, drawn by the sound of the klaxon. The two girls were glaring at him, the friendliness from dinner gone. "What did you do?" one demanded.
"I... I didn't..."
The prefect rushed over, shocked. She stared at him, and for a moment he saw a flicker of something nasty in her gaze. Then it vanished, smoothed over by the practiced calm that had made her a prefect.
"I was just trying to go up," he babbled. "I don't know what happened, really!"
The prefect looked at the stairs, which were stairs once again. "Don't worry," she said, but the friendliness had left her face. "It's charmed to keep boys out of the girls' dormitory, but it sometimes makes... mistakes."
The students broke into whispers. He felt their gazes on him and wanted nothing more than to disappear. The prefect looked at them. They shut up.
"Go on to bed, the rest of you," she said firmly. "There's nothing to see here. You, come with me."
#
They found him another room outside the common room. It was barely more than a closet, once used to store old Potions ingredients whose scents still lingered in the air despite Filch's best (or not best) efforts. It was just large enough to stand in; if he grew much taller, he would have to crouch.
A squashy mattress on the floor, well-appointed with blankets and pillows. A nightstand that doubled as a desk. A sturdy wooden chest for his belongings by the door, levitated over from the dorms. A shallow wardrobe for his school robes with a grimy mirror on one door. A lightbulb from the slanted ceiling cast a warm and steady light.
He loved it. He hated it. He loved it.
#
The first Transfiguration class.
He no longer remembers how it began.
He remembers only the moment when the faces of all his classmates turned as one towards him (he had asked a question, a very wrong question, a question that revealed too much of the longing he needed to keep silent), and his mind protectively skips over what happened: the pursed lips of the Professor; a curt response that burned him through with deep and crimson shame; the echoes of incredulous laughter; the knowing whispers about the stairs; the knowledge that he was all alone, and the sickening fear that the magic that surrounded him in this world – his secret world, his cherished world – had perhaps never been meant for him.
And yet. Sometimes he would lie awake at night in the darkness of his room, hearing the muted sounds of life in the castle, one hand reaching out for his wand on the nightstand – feeling the magic and power within the wood and recalling again that time in the shop when it called to him, and chose him to be its wizard, out of everyone else it could have chosen.
Sometimes he would send up sparks in the dark that arc across the ceiling in showers of red and gold, rising and falling in a symphony of light.
Those moments were sacred.
In those moments, he could imagine – for just a moment – that he belonged.
It was easier than being brave.
#
One day, he came back to find words written on his door, large and mocking and cruel.
There were new words the next day, and the next and the next. Sometimes they made no sense. ("Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?" they said once, next to graphic drawings of anatomy; another time: "WE WON'T WHEESHT TILL YOU ARE GONE".)
Sometimes they flashed in different colours, or burst into maliciously cheerful song. Sometimes the author(s?) ran out of ideas and merely recycled the previous messages.
He tried to ignore them. At least they were always gone by morning.
#
"My Muggle aunt told me all about it," a boy said loudly, looking pointedly in his direction as the other kids sniggered. A smirk. "They're so stupid they don't even know what a woman is."
#
He remembers running: away from the others and the contempt in their gazes, the way they would zoom in on him whenever he neared the toilets, conversations falling silent, waiting and watching like predators to see which he would enter, coldness lining the edges of their innocent smiles; and that day, he could not bring himself to go in, but he needed, so desperately, to pee.
They did not follow him when he left them lazily winding their way to their next class (and he knew he would be late, but there were worse things), and ran up the steps to the next floor. It would be emptier up there, he thought. But there was a gang of third-years noisily making their way past, and so he went up again, and up, and up, hopping onto stairs and riding them, driven by a sudden fervent need to get away from all of it and just let the stairs take him wherever they might. To the stairs, he was just another student: no different from all the others.
The seventh floor was quiet. There was a peace that came upon him when he stepped off the stairs. He kept up a brisk pace as he walked, scanning the hallway for where the toilets might be, his gaze caught momentarily on a tapestry of trolls in tutus trying to learn the ballet.
(His face flushed. Someone had once drawn a troll in a tutu on his door.)
He really needed to pee. He looked on ahead down the dimly lit corridor. He flinched, for he was only eleven, then, and still afraid of the dark. But as he started walking back, he stopped himself. There had to be toilets on this floor. He wasn't likely to find one more secluded than this, where people would leave him in peace. He turned, swallowing back his fear. He was a Gryffindor, he reminded himself. He was supposed to be brave. He started walking again-
-and then he saw, materialising in the opposite wall, a door where a door had not previously been.
He slowed to a stop. Pulse racing, he nervously walked up to the door and grasped the brass knob cool beneath his hand. He turned it and pushed open the door... and beyond lay the most beautiful bathroom that he had ever seen.
Light from a crystal chandelier played softly upon rose-veined marble walls. A large tub was sunk in the middle, filled with gently rippling water. Along its edge were bottles of soap exuding a subtle floral fragrance. Fluffy white towels hung waiting on golden rods. And against one wall – to his delighted relief – was a polished toilet bowl.
It took him a while to work out the magic of the room. Back and forth, three times, keeping what he needed in his mind. But he had a place to go, now, away from the others. He started bathing there as well, relaxing in the water and the quiet luxury of the room. It made things easier. It was a part of the castle that felt like his own.
It was a part of this world that felt like his own.
#
If he had been less stuck inside his own pain, perhaps he would have wondered why the words on his door were always gone by morning.
It may not have mattered. The last thing Filch would ever have done would be admit to cleaning them off. He hated the nasty little students. Every single one of them.
But Filch also knew what it was like to be unwanted in this world, and it was with a particularly aggressive fervour each night that he snatched a jar of Mrs Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover and stomped off to the door, muttering under his breath the whole time.
The boy did notice how the words got less frequent. Sometimes, he would return to his room just in time to see the shadow of a cat slinking off into the darkness, as though it had been guarding it for him.
#
If he had been more observant, perhaps he would have noticed the Ravenclaw girl: the double-take she did when another student shouted if he knew which toilet to use, while he struggled to keep his expression steady and go on up to his sanctuary on the seventh floor; the way she watched him go with a dawning understanding in her bright, almost hopeful gaze; the way she spent a suspicious amount of time hanging outside Gryffindor Tower; the time she found his room one day and stood before it, reading the palimpsest of erased words still faintly visible on the door, an unreadable expression on her face.
#
He almost missed the potion when he came back from dinner. It was hidden in the shadows to the side of the doorway, but the note slid under his door was white against the creaky wooden floor.
Of course he had heard about Polyjuice Potion. It had haunted his dreams since he first heard about it, long before he had named the aching need in his soul. But he was only eleven, and such things were neither for children nor most adults, remaining always tantalisingly out of reach, and when he picked up the vial with trembling hands, he was barely able to believe it was real. It had to be a prank. He should not drink things that strangers left outside his door. He should know this school by now.
There was a single strand of hair taped to the note. With shaking hands, he gently detached it and dropped it into the uncorked vial. His pulse was pounding in his head as he watched the potion fizzle and turn into a light hazel colour smelling faintly of lavender and coffee.
This is a school, he reminded himself. Students generally did not attempt to murder other students. The most they did were hexes and curses, and he had survived enough of those in just the past few months. If this were a prank, it would just mean seeing Madam Pomfrey again.
And if it wasn't a prank...
He drank the potion.
He gasped, doubling over as a wave of nausea wracked his body. His insides were on fire, his entire body shivering and retching as he fell to the floor, and he had been about to try and crawl his way towards the Hospital Wing when he realised his arm no longer looked like his arm.
#
Once, he had heard of a special mirror hidden away in the castle. Just rumours; no one knew where it was, but he had found himself drawn to quiet, abandoned rooms, hoping to catch a glint of glass and see at last the deepest yearning of his heart.
He never discovered it.
But this, he thought, stumbling back to his feet, his eyes growing wide at his reflection in the wardrobe door's mirror, a lump forming in his throat as he reached out to the boy he saw and found his hand touching only glass...
This was so much better.
#
He did not know how long he stood there, staring from his reflection to his altered body, trying to grasp the impossible enormity of what had happened as a spreading lightness of wild euphoria blossomed in his heart. The boy in the mirror looked about his age. It was no one he had seen before, but that only made it easier to think of him as himself.
It should last about three hours, the note had said.
He wanted to go out. He didn't know where. It didn't matter where. The first-years' curfew was in an hour, but no one would recognise him like this. He almost tripped over his legs (his legs! he thought, slightly longer and sturdier than he was used to), grabbed his hat from the top of the chest and left his room.
No one saw him leave. The first other students he saw were milling around further down the corridor, chatting idly beneath the light of a wall sconce. He felt their dispassionate gazes pass over him, seeing only a boy they did not know.
He did not know where he was going. Yet every step was precious, every moment something he savoured with the desperation of knowing he might never feel this again. Energy thrummed through his veins. He felt so alive, so free, as though he had been released from a dark cage into a wide and wondrous world, seeing and experiencing everything for the first time, every mundane moment turned ineffably magical, laughter bubbling in his throat even as he tried to keep it down.
He felt, for the first time, that he was actually here at Hogwarts, not observing it dimly from behind a veil that he could never break through. He struggled not to flinch when he passed a group of first-year boys he knew – the ones who most tormented him – but for once there was no malice in their gaze, only a subtle acknowledgement of him as a peer. He was troubled by the sudden yearning he felt to be among them, the ones who had made his life a living hell.
The crowds got denser as he neared the bustle of the Great Hall. There were still students inside finishing off their dinners or lost in conversation. He went in, hand trailing over the wooden tables as he gazed up at the enchanted ceiling, struck with renewed awe at being in this space in this form, wishing it could have been this way from the start.
He sat down at an empty spot at the Gryffindor table. He looked up at the other students scattered around the Hall. He imagined that he was back on the first day of school with a lifetime of magic ahead of him: looking like this, having always looked like this, with dinner just over and his new friends by his side – friends who would not shortly abandon him for things he could not control. He imagined racing up the stairs to the boys' dormitories, exchanging banter, falling comfortably asleep among friends, joining in the laughter of classmates, impressing professors, strolling down the corridors free from stares and whispers; he imagined growing tall and strong with the passing years, voice breaking into his own, shooting high into the sky on a broomstick with the wind in his hair and the impossible thrill of life running through his veins.
He closed his eyes, willing himself there but hearing only the sound of his breaths.
In the silence, he found his thoughts going back to the note and the potion.
Someone had given it to him.
Someone knew.
Perhaps, after all, he wasn't alone.
###