CW: Transmedicalism typical of 1993

Hermione was relieved to get a very long letter back from her Aunt Margaret later in October. It was pages and pages of information, much of it type-written. It began with an introduction stating that all of the information contained was very much not discussed in public, and it was only because of her aunt's connection to her community that she knew much at all. Hermione was able to read between the lines – her aunt and partner were lesbians, so they had access to this secret knowledge, while other people mostly did not.

Hermione found Luna, and they discussed it quietly in a back corner of the library.

"So it is a thing," Hermione said, reading. "People born in the wrong body are called 'transgender'. If they take steps to get the right body, like take hormones or get surgery, they're called 'transsexuals'."

"Muggles can do that?" Luna blinked. "Change a boy to a girl or a girl to a boy?"

"Apparently, there are pills you can take to give you the right hormones," Hermione said, reading. "If you want to be a girl, you take a testosterone blocker and take estrogen. If you want to be a boy, you take an estrogen blocker and take testosterone. It helps you get 'secondary sex characteristics' – breasts, or a deeper voice and facial hair, that sort of thing."

"I understand that." Luna's voice was edgy. "But surely Muggles can't just Vanish a person's penis?"

"Oh! Sorry." Hermione colored. "No, they do that part through surgery. That's where – ah – Muggles cut you open, fix things, and then sew you back up. It's quite normal," she said hurriedly, seeing Luna's aghast expression. "It's how they have to do medicine. They can't just cast spells to fix your ruptured spleen, they have to go into your body and actually look at your spleen."

"So they… they just cut the penis off?" Luna's eyes were wide. "Leaving… what, down there? Just an abandoned hole to go to the loo from?"

"Generally, they try to switch the parts," Hermione said. "Look, she drew a little diagram – they take the penis and testicles and kind of turn them inside-out, and they shove them inside the body to make a vagina."

Luna looked like she couldn't quite seem to decide if she was fascinated or horrified.

"What about for girls?" Luna asked. "If a girl wants to be a boy, you can't exactly turn a vagina inside-out into a penis." She paused. "Can you?"

"I don't know." Hermione scanned the rest of the letter. "Err, no. It seems they either hope the testosterone will make the clitoris grow large enough to be like a tiny penis, or they have to take skin from your arm to 'build' one." Hermione gnawed on her lip. "My aunt says that most people she knows haven't opted to try and build a penis – they just use fake ones."

"Fake penises?" Luna's eyes grew big.

"Muggles… they make what they call 'sex toys'?" Hermione winced. "There are fake penises to use to masturbate with – they're called 'dildos' – so I guess they just make a soft, hollow one? And then the person can just wear it around and pee out of it so it feels like they have a penis?"

Luna looked curious and fascinated. Hermione abruptly remembered that Luna was a year under her, and she hadn't yet gone through the Special Lecture on sex.

"Do you think magic could attach one and make it real for Amanda?" Luna asked. "Like, have it link up with her and become her skin?"

"I don't think so," Hermione said. "You can't really turn plastic or silicone into human flesh. You'd have to almost grow a penis, somehow, and then figure out the medical spells to attach it."

Hermione wondered if it was possible, somehow. She'd heard of experiments being done to grow organs for transplant in Muggle laboratories. Could magic take some of a person's cells and grow them a new body-part?

Had anyone ever tried?

"Did she say anything else?" Luna prodded. "What about both?"

"Umm…" Hermione continued reading. "There's more about how to get hormones – I don't think that's a good idea to rely on Muggle pills, not like we can just dash off to the chemist whenever – there's warnings about it too… oh, here we go."

She paused, scanning the paragraph, before biting her lip.

"So, the answer is 'kind of'?" Hermione ventured. "One of the ways a person ends up in the wrong body is something gets messed up when they're still growing in the mother's womb. There are people who end up with some parts getting messed up, but not all of them, which can give them something in between. They're called 'intersex'."

"Intersex." Luna repeated. She tilted her head. "But are they a boy or girl, then?"

"I think it depends on the person," Hermione said, reading. "She listed a couple kinds. One is where a girl over-responds to testosterone, so she ends up with a large clitoris that looks like a small penis. One is a where a boy doesn't respond to testosterone, so he ends up looking like a girl and growing breasts and such and doesn't really realize that he's not a girl until he's doesn't menstruate."

"What if a person has both?" Luna wanted to know. "What if they have a penis and they have a vagina? How do they know if they're a girl or a boy?"

Hermione gnawed her lip.

"I mean, I think Muggles just kind of pick which one they feel more like?" she ventured. "Like if they feel like they're supposed to be a girl, even if they don't get a period, they're just a 'girl', then, with parts that are a little odd."

"But we're not Muggles," Luna insisted. "We're magical. So how can we tell?"

Hermione paused.

"I mean," she said carefully, "I would say we test their magic, and see whether it reacts to female-only or male-only spells, but if we've already done that, and a person responds to both…"

She trailed off, looking at Luna, and Luna flushed, a redness coming to her pale cheeks.

"Do Muggles fix it, though?" she asked, changing the subject. "If they cut penises off for boys who were supposed to be girls, do they do it for girls who were supposed to be girls too, and just ended up with a penis?"

"I imagine they could," Hermione said cautiously, "if it was bothering the person enough. I think it's mostly a question of what makes a person happier in their body. If someone's really unhappy with part of their body, muggle scientists try to figure out how best to help."

"That doesn't answer how a person can be both, though," Luna said grumpily. She folded her arms.

"Not everything magical is male or female," Hermione suggested. "Like elementals – they don't have a gender."

Luna paused to consider.

"Is no gender the same as both, though?" she asked.

Hermione shrugged. "I don't know."

Luna sat quietly for a few moments, thinking. Hermione let her, giving her space.

It had become clear to Hermione somewhere along the way that Luna was not just asking out of curiosity. The questions she was asking were too specific, too deliberate, to just be idle interest. And there were other things, now, that Hermione could remember if she thought back.

Luna had been very particular about Hermione not looking at her body during the purification ritual before they became a coven. And she'd also been very particular about how they circled the ritual circle to balance it – Hermione had presumed it was impossible to perfectly balance it, given there were three girls and two boys, but now that she thought back, the energy in it had seemed balanced, somehow.

So Luna was… both?

"Do you like being a girl?" Hermione asked quietly.

Luna looked at her.

"Yes," she said simply. "It's just a question of… am I a girl?"

The two looked at each other for a long moment.

"Do you want to look up some magical creatures that are both genders?" Hermione asked. "If there's some with none, there's probably some with both. Maybe we can find clues there, and work backwards from that."

Luna's face started to brighten.

"I like that idea," she said. She smiled at Hermione. "Books always help."

Hermione smiled widely. Sometimes she forgot that Luna was in Ravenclaw for a reason.

"Exactly," she said, folding the letter up and tucking it away. "Let's get started, then."

"You need what?"

"A potion to block estrogen and encourage testosterone," Hermione repeated. "They're hormones inside the body – estrogen helps girls grow breasts, and testosterone—"

"I know what they are," Snape snarled. Hermione abruptly remembered that he'd led the Special Lecture for the boys, and her face colored as Snape gave her a sharp look. "What I need to know is why you need such a thing."

Hermione bit her lip.

"I don't need it," she said. "But one of the students does—"

"Then why," Snape cut in, "has that not student come to see me directly?"

Hermione winced.

"Ah... it's for Amanda Barrows. We interrupted you playing chess with Professor Vector, if you remember." She hesitated. "I think you scared her."

Snape looked exasperated. Hermione suspected this was not the first time he had been told he had frightened a first year.

"Anyway, she asked me for help," she continued. "And Madame Pomfrey said you supply most of the medicinal potions for the school."

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned.

"Miss Granger," Snape said, "such a potion does not exist. Or if it does, I have never heard of it before, and I stay well appraised of any new developments in the Potions community."

"Well," Hermione said, "I figured that." She paused. "So it will need to be created first, then."

Snape raised an eyebrow, incredulous.

"Created?" he said sharply. "Miss Granger, do you realize how difficult potions engineering is—?"

"I found a base potion recipe that might help," Hermione continued on, unfolding a piece of paper and smoothing it out. "It was to make a weak son grow up stronger. But reading the description, it sounds like the potion magically influenced testosterone production during puberty."

"You what?" Snape snatched the piece of paper from her, his black eyes scanning over it.

"If that's how it works, then we'd just need to figure out the estrogen blocker part," Hermione said. "I couldn't find anything on that, but—"

"Be quiet," Snape snapped, and Hermione fell silent.

Snape continued to read over the potion recipe, before fixing her with a sharp look.

Hermione bit her lip, bracing herself.

"Miss Granger," Snape said, his voice neutral. "Where did you find this recipe?"

"In a book, sir," she responded.

"Which book?" Snape asked, eyes fixed on hers.

Hermione took a deep breath.

"Building a Magical Legacy, sir," she said. She was careful to keep her voice calm and neutral, and she fought the urge to bite her lip, hoping that the book was too old for Snape to have ever heard of. From the way Snape's nostrils flared and his eyes grew, however, Hermione suspected he had rather heard of it.

"Forgive me if I am misremembering," Snape said conversationally, "but isn't that book full of Dark curses and poisons for rival families, as well as other Dark curses and potions to keep one's own family strong but obedient?"

Hermione winced.

"That would be correct, sir." She struggled to keep the waver out of her voice.

Snape's eyes were narrowed, beady.

"And how," he breathed, "did a young girl like you manage to get her hands on a very Dark text that went out of print over a century ago?"

Hermione swallowed hard.

"I'm not using it for Dark magic, sir," she implored. "I'm trying to help someone, and sure, this potion could be Dark if you force-fed it to a child, but if someone willingly takes it, wants to take it—"

"Where did you get the book?" Snape hissed, his eyes glittering. "Tell me now, Miss Granger."

Hermione took a deep breath.

"It was in Professor Quirrell's office first year, sir," she said. "He loaned me a couple books when he learned I was trying to maximize my magical potential, sir. And then when he… left… I didn't have anyone to return them to, so I just… kept them."

Hermione's statement had all the benefits of being true while not being the whole truth. Her eyes met Snape's steadily, his dark eyes boring into hers, and there was a tense silence.

"You are not an idiot, Miss Granger." Snape's voice was a whisper. "You know who was part of Quirrell that year – you told the entire Slytherin House."

Hermione bit her lip. "I do, sir."

"And you did not think it urgent to hand in any books he may have lent to you…?"

Hermione took a deep breath.

"It seemed a bad idea to do so, sir," she explained. "After learning that openly pursuing maximizing one's magical potential was looked upon with wariness, and after realizing most of what was in the books was Dark, and then learning who Quirrell's… other side… was…" She exhaled. "Revealing that I had the books seemed like a good way to get teachers very paranoid about me unnecessarily."

Snape snorted.

"Unnecessarily," he sneered, "as she holds an ancient Dark text in her hands."

"That I'm trying to help people with!" Hermione snapped. She threw her hands up. "You, of all people, I thought would understand!"

Snape stiffened as Hermione glared at him. She fought the urge to stamp her foot or scowl, but he was just so frustrating. She'd given him no reason to suspect her motives of being bad or Dark. And it hurt, to have her Head of House so openly suspicious of her. Had she not earned his trust?

"Me, of all people?" His eyes narrowed. "Why?"

Hermione was annoyed and upset, missing the suspicion in his tone.

"Because you were the one who taught me that Dark magic was based on intent," she sulked. "You taught me that magic wasn't naturally 'Dark' or 'Light', that it depended what you used it for. That magic was just a tool." She glared at him. "And now that I've found a tool that could help someone, you refuse to see it. You just see a knife that could be used to stab someone, instead of a precise scalpel that could be used to heal harm."

She looked at Snape defiantly. She held onto her anger tightly, glaring, aware that there were tears of frustration glittering in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Snape looked taken aback for a moment, before an emotionless mask dropped back over him. He looked at Hermione for a long moment.

"This is for your first-year friend?" he said finally.

"Yes," Hermione said promptly. "Amanda Barrows, 1st year Ravenclaw. The one who Hogwarts won't let into the girls' dormitory and put a bed for her in the boys' dormitory instead."

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose very tightly.

"Miss Granger," he said. "I am a busy person. This is not a simple medical request, you realize?"

Hermione bit her lip.

"I realize this," she said haltingly. "All the same… it's still for one of your students, who you oversee the care of…"

Snape massaged his temples, his eyes tightly shut, before he sighed.

"If," he snarled. He opened his eyes to give her a sharp look. "If Miss Barrows comes to me and confirms that yes, she does want to explore this course of treatment—"

"She does," Hermione said hurriedly. "Amanda's transgender. It means—"

"I know what it means," Snape snarled. "If Amanda comes to me directly and asks, and if you return to your dormitory right now and bring me the books that Quirrell gave you…"

His eyes were glinting at her, and Hermione bit her lip.

"If you do this… I might try and research such avenues for your friend," he finished disgustedly. "If! If you go and get those books right now."

Hermione quickly rose from her seat.

"I'll go right now, sir!" she said quickly. "I'll go now! I'll be right back!"

Snape's suspicious beady eyes followed her as she fled his office, and Hermione hurried to the Slytherin common room, rushing past everyone to her dormitory.

She was lucky – it was early still, and none of the other girls were around. Quickly, she flipped open the trunk Quirrell had given her, gasping as the trunk stabbed her and pausing only a moment to cast Episkey on her hand after the trunk's latch sucked in her blood.

Hermione had feared something like this would happen. Snape knew more about the Dark Arts than any other professor, she knew, and there had been a chance he'd recognize the origin of the potion. As such, she had two books right on top inside the chest – Building a Magical Legacy and a splattered, untitled grimoire that had Dark fertility rituals, recipes, and spells inside.

Both of which had predated copyright charms, apparently, and hadn't objected to being duplicated in the slightest when she had tried.

She swept up the two books and slammed the chest shut, latching it and shoving it back under her bed as she hurried back out into the common room, ignoring the stares of her classmates, and back down the hallway to Snape's office.

She was panting when she arrived, two books in hand. Snape looked up from the recipe she had given him with a raised eyebrow, and Hermione put the books on his desk.

"Here, sir." She fought to catch her breath. "I got them."

She fell back into the chair before his desk, panting. Snape watched her for a moment before carefully picking up the top book, paging through it with nimble fingers. His eyes scanned the pages, and he paused toward the middle.

"You ripped the recipe from the book?" he sounded incredulous, and his eyes narrowed on her suspiciously. "You, rip a book?"

"It seemed important enough, and I didn't want to risk copying it and getting anything wrong," Hermione countered. "I thought if we were careful with the page, I could try and Reparo it back in later."

The tightness around Snape's eyes seemed to ease a bit, but his expression was still curt as he paged through the book.

"I still cannot believe you did not hand this in immediately," Snape said dryly, closing it. "That you thought to just keep such Dark texts—"

"They're not against the rules!" Hermione said hotly. "They're just books!"

"Dark magic books." His tone was sharp, and Snape's nostrils flared. "Nevertheless… I do not go back on my word."

His eyes were sharp on her, glittering, and Hermione looked back defiantly, clutching her courage to her.

"If your friend comes and confirms she wishes to pursue this course of treatment…" Snape said, eyes dark, "I will begin investigating the usefulness of this potion for her."

Hermione fought back her instinctive relief, instead nodding smartly.

"Thank you, sir," she said instead. "I'll make sure you hear from her soon."