Children of the Gods

by inwardtransience

When the message came, there was little left of Cassiopeia Black in her — soon she would move on, shed her face and her name for another. But, at the last possible moment, she found a reason to carry on, the smouldering embers of her identity sparking to new life. Unfortunately, adopting the Boy Who Lived came with complications. (metamorphs, fairies, AU and very weird)

2. Foundling — II

With a hard thud, shaking Harry down to its bones, everything stopped moving, the squeezing from all sides lifted away, Harry could breathe again.

It felt like it might sick up.

"Oh darling, I'm sorry — I forgot how awful apparation is the first few times." That was Cassie, standing somewhere nearby, but Harry couldn't look. It was focusing on not being sick, eyes squeezed shut and breathing carefully. "Here, sit down." A hand on its shoulder — it jumped, but the touch was soft and gentle, not like Uncle Vernon at all — Cassie pushed Harry back a little, a wood chair bumping back against its legs. "I'll be back in a minute."

Harry sat down gratefully. It waited for the sick to crawl back down to where it belonged, shivering. It didn't think it liked the popping thing.

In time, Harry's skin stopped crawling, its stomach settled down, so it blinked open its eyes, looked around. It was in a kind of...mixed dining and sitting room, it thought. The chair Harry was sitting on — wood, solid but pretty plain-looking — was one of a few around a table made of the same wood, with room for maybe six. On the other side of the room was a sofa and a couple armchairs, dark cloth but very poofy and comfy-looking. Around the table the floors were tile, looked like maybe real stone a rusty red, taken over with long dark blue carpet on the other side.

Over by the sofa and armchairs was a window, but a big window, from maybe Harry's waist to a couple inches from the ceiling, and really wide, filling the room with sunlight. The rest of the walls were covered with stuff, mostly framed papers — things that looked kind of like the fancy stuff at special people's offices, and newspaper clippings, and lots of photos. By the door was a round spindly rack, hanging up a couple coats and jackets...and a broom?

Harry blinked — the photos on the walls were moving.

"Are you okay now?" asked a woman...who did not look like Cassie. Her hair was different, a warm blonde falling over her shoulders in twisting curls, her face rounder and dotted with freckles, her eyes blue-ish green. She was a little shorter, Harry thought, the black dress gone, replaced with a sleeveless one, cutting off a little above her knees, in a blue-ish green very similar to her eyes.

Harry was pretty sure this was Cassie. She was a freak too, she'd probably changed while Harry was trying not to be sick. Just to be sure, it asked, "Um, Cassie?"

She smiled, a little crooked. "Yes, darling. When I used to work at the Ministry, I usually looked like I did when you met me. I prefer to look more like this these days." She meant...she could just decide to look different, and nobody had a problem with that? "Are you okay?"

Oh, it'd never answered her question, oops. Shrinking in the chair a little, a nervous tingle pinching at its shoulders, Harry muttered, "Yes, sorry, I'm fine."

"Good. I am sorry about that, I should have warned you — it's been a long time since I've apparated a child." Since Harry had no idea what to say to someone apologising to it, not a thing that happened a lot, it just nodded. "Okay, let me show you around quick. There's only one bedroom here, so I think we'll find somewhere else to stay, but until we figure that out..."

The flat, as Harry quickly decided the place was, was nice and clean and everything, but pretty small. Some stuff was also kind of weird. The pictures on the walls moved, for one thing, and instead of the smooth almost plastic-y stuff all the tiles were actually rock, in some places polished, smooth to the touch, in others rough, like they'd just been cut out of the ground somewhere and put there. Also, there weren't light switches — you just walked into the room and said a special word, it sounded like loo-kay-ought, and they turned on by themselves, and there was a different special word to turn them off, noke-tay-scoh.

Harry muttered the words under its breath, trying to remember them, and accidentally turned the lights off. "Loo-kate! No, luceat!" They switched back on and Harry let out a breath, looking up at Cassie through its bangs. "Sorry..."

Cassie didn't seem annoyed, though, just gave it a warm smile and moved on. The bathroom was a mix of familiar and weird. The walls and floor were made of the same stone tile (though grey this time), instead of a mirror over the sink there was a big wall-to-floor one right next to it. (Cassie said it was to make sure she looked right coming out of the bath, which Harry guessed made sense.) The toilet didn't look the same, a different shape and made out of something else, but Harry could tell what it was supposed to be right away. The bath was a little weird, sort of like a big hole in the floor instead of a tub, but the floor there was set a step up — not very high, about Harry's knee — which was kind of weird but okay.

They were just moving on to Cassie's bedroom — she said Harry could have the bed until they found somewhere else to stay, Cassie would transfigure one of the sofas (whatever that meant), which made Harry uncomfortable, but it didn't want to argue with her — when Cassie suddenly stopped, frowning down at it. "Harry, are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Harry noticed it'd wrapped its arms around itself, forced itself to let go, tried to relax its shoulders.

"Darling, I..." Cassie let out a light sigh, glancing away for a second, before looking back at Harry. There was an odd look on her face, Harry wasn't sure how to read it. "If there's something wrong, I want you to tell me. Don't worry about...I don't know, annoying me, or offending me or whatever. I want to know what it is."

Harry bit its lip for a moment, eyes dropping down to the carpet. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had always hated it when Harry complained...but then, Cassie wasn't much like them at all, was she? (It had the feeling Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would want to make that very clear themselves, if they were here.) And, Cassie was trying to be nice, Harry thought (she was even giving it her bed), so maybe... Carefully, its voice soft and quiet, Harry said, "It's really cold in here."

Cassie frowned, blinking. "It shouldn't be— Oh, maybe it's the wards. Can I check something quick, Harry?" she said, raising a hand up toward him. "It won't hurt."

"Um, okay?"

Gently pressing her hand against its chest, right over Harry's heart, her eyes fell closed. Nothing happened for a couple seconds, Cassie silent and still...but Harry thought it might be able to feel little tingles where she was touching it, could be imagining that. Then Cassie's hand fell away, her eyes opening again but not all the way, narrowed in thought, her head tilted a little. "Huh. I don't think I've ever met a light-aligned metamorph before. Well, that makes things a little more complicated. Right, come on."

Cassie led the way back into the dining/sitting room, so Harry quietly followed, trying not to feel nervous. It didn't really know what had just happened, but it wasn't supposed to ask— No, Cassie didn't mind if it asked questions, actually. Maybe it should...

"Nola?" It kind of sounded like Cassie was talking to someone, but there wasn't any—

Pop! "Yes, Mistress Cassie?"

Harry blinked. A little...something had appeared out of thin air, only a couple feet away from Cassie. It definitely wasn't a normal person. Maybe about Harry's height, maybe even shorter, with weird grey-green skin, big floppy ears and huge round yellow eyes, its hands all long and... What was it?

There was a little bit of talking between Cassie and the weird little magical person (obviously they had to be magical), but Harry was caught up staring at them, it didn't catch any of it. After a bit, Cassie came closer, sinking down a little closer to Harry's height, getting its attention. "Harry, this is Nola, he's one of the Black house-elves." House...elf? What? "Nola, this is Harry Potter, Dorea's grandson — I'm going to be looking after him from now on."

The elf's already too-big eyes somehow got even bigger. He stared at Harry for a second, and then twitched, dipped his head in a bow quick enough to send his ears flapping a little. "It's an honour to meet you, Mister Harry Potter, sir. You can call on Nola if you ever need anything."

"Oh, um..." Harry glanced up at Cassie for a second before turning back to Nola. "Thank you?"

Nola smiled a little at it, before looking up at Cassie, his big eyes narrowing in what Harry was pretty sure was a frown. "Mistress Cassie, did you kidnap Harry Potter?"

"Technically."

"Cassie, what are you doing? You are being in so much trouble when the Ministry hears, and Lord Arcturus—"

"They were keeping him in a cupboard, Nola."

The elf (because apparently elves were real?) cut off with a little choking noise. His eyes going really wide again, he glanced between Cassie and Harry a couple times, before giving Cassie a very serious kind of nod. "Okay, Nola will help. I'm having the papers in an hour, I think."

"Right, I'm taking Harry clothes shopping, so we might be in public by then. Just go ahead and pop in whenever we're alone."

"Yes, Mistress Cassie."

"Thank you, Nola."

Another soft little pop! and the elf was gone. That was...weird. Harry wondered if it should ask about that.

Cassie must have noticed Harry kind of wanted to ask something, but she didn't answer the question it was actually thinking about. "Nola is going out to make a list of places we can stay." She pushed open a closet just next to the door out, took out a pair of sandals. Bent at the waist to put them on, leather straps wrapping around her legs to buckle just under her knee, she said, "My wards, the spells on the flat that keep it safe, are very dark, but it turns out you're a light wizard. That's why you feel cold — light mages often feel cold around powerful dark magic. I can't just take down the wards for one night, so we have to find somewhere else to stay right away."

"Um." Harry kind of felt like it should apologise for forcing Cassie to move out of her house. But, hadn't Cassie already said they were going to find somewhere else to live anyway? Her wards or whatever making Harry uncomfortable was only moving her plans up...and it wasn't like Harry had actually complained or anything, Cassie had decided to do it herself. "What..." Cassie, standing straight again, ticked up a curious eyebrow at him. "Um, what does that mean, light and dark?"

"That's kind of hard to explain." Off the rack with the coats Cassie pulled a reddish-brown leather bag, started checking through it, waved a hand toward the hallway further into the flat, kind of like pulling something toward her. Harry thought that was the only answer it was going to get, but then she said, "There are all kinds of different magic, and there are different qualities the energy going into a spell can have. Think of it like different colours, I guess."

Harry twitched as something zipped through the air from its left, coming to a halt in Cassie's hand with a little slap — she didn't seem surprised it was there at all, just dropped it in her bag before Harry could even make it out. It guessed the yanking before had been making that thing fly over here.

Lifting the strap on the bag over her head, Cassie dropped it on her left shoulder, the bag resting against her right hip. "One of these special colours we call light, and another dark. These colours are different from most of the others out there in that they don't like getting too close — they don't mix well, it's complicated. Now, spells can have these colours on their own, but people can too. Your magic is light, which means you'll find it much easier to cast light spells, and they'll be more powerful, but you'll have more trouble with dark spells.

"My magic is dark, so it was easiest to make my wards dark too, and I find dark magic pleasant to be around — like a nice spring breeze, sweet and tingly. But since you're light, it's uncomfortable for you, so we can't stay here. Did that make sense?" Harry wasn't sure it really understood the magic having colours thing, but it thought it followed the point she was making about its magic not getting along with her flat's magic, so it nodded. "All right. I want to cast a glamour on you quick, to cover up your scar, if that's okay?"

Harry felt its eyes go wide. "What? You can do that?"

Her eyes narrowed a little bit for a second, but just for a second, Cassie then smiling instead. "Sure, it's basic magic. You'll learn all about it in your second year at Hogwarts — that's a magic school," she added after a second, must have noticed Harry didn't know what she was talking about. "It doesn't stick very well on people like us, but as long as you don't try to change anything it should last for a few hours."

It wasn't supposed to change anything anyway, and really not in public. "Okay."

"Okay. It'll just take a second." In a blink, Cassie's magic stick was in her hand, pointed right at Harry's head. It remembered Aunt Petunia screaming, couldn't help a little twitch of fear, squeezed its eyes shut. (It wasn't going to hurt, was it? Harry thought Cassie would have told it first...but she hadn't said the popping would make it sick...) Harry waited for the spell to happen, holding its breath, and— "There, done."

It blinked. What, that was it? It hadn't felt anything. Harry rubbed at its forehead with its fingers, but it could still feel the scar there... "Um, did it work?"

"Yes, it worked. Glamours don't change what something is, just what it looks like — the scar is still there, but nobody can see it."

"Oh, okay." That was so cool, Harry had to learn that. "Thank you, Aunt Cassie." It was supposed to call her that, right? She hadn't actually said, but...

"Think nothing of it, darling. That scar of yours is distinctive, I wouldn't want to attract too much attention. Come on now, let's go."

It didn't take them very long to get to the clothing store. A little bit down a hallway — it looked normal, except there weren't lightbulbs, instead these little glowing yellow crystal things — then down the stairs and through a lobby, and then they were walking out onto a street. It was kind of a weird street. Narrow and curvy, paved with cobblestones, there weren't any cars or anything anywhere, instead just some people walking around, they passed maybe a couple dozen in all. And they were weird people too, wearing what looked a lot like bathrobes in every colour of the rainbow, but not fuzzy like bathrobes, some of them sparkling in the thin autumn sunlight a little, some of the designs moved! Not all of them were wearing the special bathrobes, but a lot of them, and they were strange and colourful and, just, wild.

Harry spent so long staring at the people in the funny clothes that it almost didn't notice that the buildings were funny too, in bright clashing colours, none of them matching each other, some even looked crooked. Apparently magical people were really weird, which wasn't a surprise, Harry guessed.

The clothing store place was a lot darker than Harry was used to, from the trips it'd been on with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. There were plenty of the glowing crystals around, but they weren't nearly as bright, the light rather...moodier. It wasn't really dark, just less glaring and in-your-face — Harry thought it was better, it'd definitely get less head-aches this way. (It didn't like department stores.) And there were racks and stuff around with clothes hanging on them — a lot of weird-looking bathrobes and dresses and stuff, but more familiar clothes too (though the cloth looked different, and they were all very colourful) — but not as much as Harry would expect. They didn't even seem to have different sections for boys and girls and stuff. Maybe it was just a really small store? It'd never seen a clothes store this small before, but, maybe there just weren't very many magical people...

Cassie and Harry were inside for less than a minute before someone came bounding up offering to help them — a woman, older than school-age but younger than Aunt Petunia, in a weird loose draping dress in a bright blue, cutting off well above her knee. (Though she was wearing leggings, must be normal for these weird magic people.) The lady was barely a few words into something about cloaks when she cut off, staring at Harry, wide-eyed.

Harry tried not to fidget too obviously.

"Ah, yes, this is Henry." There was a touch on its shoulder, Harry twitched, almost jerked away before stopping itself — it was only Cassie, she wasn't hurting it, it was okay. "I stumbled across him earlier today. He's muggleborn, and I'm afraid his family weren't treating him particularly well, so I took him off their hands. The circumstances being as they are, I'm afraid these are the only clothes Henry has." (Apparently it was Henry now.)

Well, it had had more, but not anymore. Cassie had told Harry to pack up everything it wanted to keep, but she'd taken one look at Dudley's hand-me-downs and said she'd buy Harry new clothes, don't worry about those. And it'd be going to a different school, so there was no point in bringing its workbooks, so Harry actually hadn't wanted to keep anything.

(That had made Cassie angry again. She'd set the inside of the cupboard on fire, fwoosh! just for a couple seconds and everything inside was ash.)

(Harry felt kind of bad for the spiders.)

The lady gasped, one hand coming up to cover her mouth. "Oh my, that's—" She glanced back and forth between Harry and Cassie. "Wait, Miss Black, you can't just go stealing muggleborns out of their homes!"

Cassie's lips twisted into a smirk, blue-green eyes sparkling. "Now that's funny, I'm pretty sure I just did. Don't you worry about me, girl, I'll go down to the Ministry and straighten everything out soon enough. In the meantime, Henry here needs something to wear."

"Of course, I'm only saying, the Ministry won't— Oh, never mind. Come on, Henry, dear," the lady said, her voice going a little higher and softer like people did when talking to kids sometimes. "Let's go into the back and we'll get started."

There were a few doors at the back of the store, and the lady — she said her name was Eirwen — led them through one of them. There was another room in here, much smaller, enough room for a few people to move around and not much else. It was made of the same dark wood as the rest of the store, a bunch of hooks stuck into one wall, off in the corner a divider thing, folded up at the moment. One wall was almost all covered with a big mirror, floor to ceiling, just a little bit of wood showing on the left and right.

Cassie was talking to Eirwen, talking about what kind of stuff they needed — Harry wasn't really listening, Cassie knew more about magic clothes than Harry did. (Besides, it didn't know how much stuff she was planning on buying for it, and it wouldn't know what to say anyway.) Harry poked at the mirror instead. There was something funny about it, but Harry couldn't say what, it just looked a little off. Before too long, Eirwen told Harry to undress, and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Harry stared at the door, frozen. What did she just say...?

"Magical clothing is made to fit the wearer." Harry jumped at Cassie's voice, its heart pounding almost painfully — it hadn't forgotten she was there, really, it just hadn't expected it. "She's going to take down some measurements quick, and then we'll try some things on. We'll leave here, and the seamsters will sew everything up, lay in the enchantments, and send them off to us. Mages hardly ever buy clothes off the rack, unless you're getting them second-hand."

That was...kind of weird. But Harry was getting the feeling magical people were just kind of weird in general. "Okay, but. Um." It didn't know how to say what it was thinking, the thought of taking its clothes off here was just...bad.

Also, it was kind of a girl right now, and it was supposed to be a boy — Cassie didn't know about that yet, and Harry wasn't sure it wanted her to...

"You don't have to take off everything, your underclothes are fine. The trousers and jumper you're wearing right now are just too baggy for Eirwen to work around." Cassie paused for a second. "I can leave the room for a moment, if you like."

"No." It didn't like the thought of taking its clothes off in front of Cassie, but the thought of undressing alone in a strange place and then letting a stranger poke at it sounded even worse. (Cassie had hurt Aunt Petunia for keeping Harry in a cupboard, it though it made sense to think she wouldn't let anything bad happen to it.) And, if it could keep its pants on, maybe it would be fine. They had been Dudley's before, too big and taken in a little, baggy — it shouldn't be obvious Harry wasn't what it was supposed to be. It was fine.

It took Harry a moment to convince itself of that, but it was pretty sure it was fine.

Stepping toward one side of the room, so someone looking through the door when it opened wouldn't be able to see it, Harry picked at the button of its trousers for a moment, trying to push down its heart pounding in its throat, its skin tingling. It found the nerve to do it after a little bit — the too-big trousers fell off almost on their own, Harry slid them closer to the wall with one foot. Without really thinking, Harry glanced at Cassie, saw she wasn't facing it, watching the wall on the other side. Trying to be nice, maybe? Hmm.

If Harry was being honest, this wasn't that bad, really. At least Cassie had just asked Harry to do it by itself, and it'd be able to keep its pants on. Much better than Aunt Petunia was sometimes...a lot of the times...but that wasn't a surprise, Harry had already decided Cassie was a very different kind of aunt than Petunia was.

Reluctantly, Harry pulled its jumper over its head, along with the shirt under it — Cassie had said the problem was how baggy its things were, and the shirt used to be Dudley's too, it'd also be in the way. Now standing in the little room in only its underwear, Harry hugged its arms around itself. It wasn't cold, really, or at least not as cold as Cassie's flat had been, but it still felt...not good.

(Like Aunt Petunia would barge in here and yell at it for being freakish and wrong and drag it off into the cupboard. But that wasn't going to happen, Aunt Petunia wasn't here and Cassie had said Harry was never going back to Little Whinging.)

(She'd set Harry's cupboard on fire.)

It jumped again when Cassie said its name. She was looking at it now, but...something was wrong. She was staring at Harry, frowning a little, her eyes narrowed. People staring at Harry didn't often lead to good things, it felt itself start tensing up, shoulders hunching, its eyes falling down to the floor.

Harry hated this moment, the waiting. Not sure if it was about to be yelled at or punished or something, not knowing what it'd done wrong yet, but maybe it was nothing, and it could never tell, just wait and try not to look like too much of an ungrateful freak...

"Darling, put your clothes back on."

Blinking, Harry looked back up at her. "What?" Had it done something wrong? It did kind of need clothes, Cassie had burned all its old ones, they couldn't just leave without getting anything...

"We'll come back in a little bit, but we have to talk about something first. Don't worry, you're not in trouble." Despite itself — sometimes when Aunt Petunia said that, Harry actually was in trouble, just didn't know it yet — Harry felt itself relaxing a little. "Only it's complicated, and it might take us a little bit to get through it. Okay?"

Harry didn't know why Cassie even bothered asking that. "Okay." Reaching for its clothes, Harry was already pulling its shirt over its head when it finally figured out what might be going on.

Did Cassie know? Did she see something somehow, could she tell Harry was wrong even with its pants still on? It'd thought it would be okay, but...

Harry did what it was told, its fingers stiff and clumsy, its stomach twisting, trying to keep breathing normal. It was pretty sure it was in trouble. Cassie knew, that Harry was a freak who couldn't even be a boy properly, and it was going to be in trouble. But they had to pretend everything was fine in public, nobody could know, but once they got home Cassie would deal with Harry, just like Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

Harry hoped it wouldn't be too bad. It remembered what Cassie had done to Aunt Petunia — Harry had the feeling making Cassie angry was even worse than the Dursleys.

፠

Sending the waitress on her way, Cassie let out a heavy sigh, her fingers tapping at the table. She had absolutely no idea how the fuck she was supposed to get through this conversation.

She stole a glance at Harry, trying to be subtle about it, to hopefully not worry them overmuch. It hadn't escaped Cassie's notice that, ever since they'd left the clothiery, Harry had been visibly tense — anticipating an upcoming punishment of some kind, she thought. Cassie had only needed a couple seconds after making the quick observation, tying back to how very skittish Harry was just in general, how they'd used the word "freak" before, to come to some extraordinarily unpleasant conclusions. And she couldn't say she liked any of them.

If Jamie were still alive she would slap that boy, and she was starting to regret not killing that vile Evans woman earlier.

But she was trying not to think about that, as difficult as it was to distract herself at the moment. If she allowed herself to contemplate her fury over what she suspected had been done to Harry, it would almost certainly show on her face. She didn't want to scare Harry...especially since she was positive they'd been abused.

Cassie grit her teeth, rubbing her cheek with one hand — she'd picked a hell of a day to quit drinking.

Harry was clearly nervous, avoiding looking directly at Cassie, but they couldn't help curiously looking around the little cafe. It was an inviting place, if relatively plain by magical standards, the floors and walls aged wood littered with the occasional scuff mark, chairs covered in dark upholstery lacking in decoration but plenty comfortable. The smallish rectangular seating area was slashed with sunlight from the front windows (redirected deeper into the room with wards), glinting off the dozens of bottles behind the counter. It was mostly empty at the moment — this sort of place usually did most of their business in the morning, before working people started their labours for the day, and again late in the evening. In fact, save for a young couple flirting and giggling a couple tables away, she and Harry were the only patrons here.

This place wasn't special by any means, but Cassie had some...nostalgic appreciation for it. She'd discovered it over one summer when she'd still been in school, and had come regularly ever since, though it'd been some years since she had with any frequency. It'd changed hands twice in that time — to a grandson of the first proprietor she'd known, and then to the grandson's niece — but it hadn't changed significantly.

She recalled her mother had been scandalised at the thought of her daughter frequenting low-class coffeehouses, worried she'd been associating with uncouth characters, being exposed to people and ideas and ways of life unsuited to the good noble girl she'd (theoretically) been. Or, horror of all horrors, letting some poor dirty commoner touch her. Of course, she'd been doing all of those things, but she hadn't been using her real name and none of their peers ever found out about any of it, so it hardly mattered.

(She was struck with a memory of her mother confronting her about what she'd do if she ended up pregnant from an encounter with someone completely unacceptable for a Black to even be seen in the company of. Cassie had laughed in her face — she was a metamorph, her body did nothing she didn't will it to.)

No, she suspected Harry wasn't really that interested in looking around the place. They were really just avoiding Cassie's eyes. They didn't seem quite as nervous as they'd been before, on the walk over here, and unless Cassie had seriously missed the mark she thought she knew why: Harry's previous relatives couldn't well have punished them for some imagined transgression or another in public. They hadn't relaxed completely, but the difference was noticeable, their withdrawn, shifty movements seeming more confused than frightened.

If only Cassie could decide what the hell she was supposed to say. A bit about what metamorphs were, precisely, she doubted Harry knew any of that, and she'd have to bring up expected gender roles in the traditional Light especially, and bring that back around to how odd gender as a concept was to begin with...

Cassie let out another sigh, decided she might as well get down to it. She could rehearse what she meant to say in her head forever, but it wouldn't do any good, she'd almost certainly be derailed before too long by something Harry said anyway. Before starting, she pulled a bit of ambient magic into her finger, drew a couple glyphs onto the surface of the table — the symbols lingered, glowing a deep, gentle blue, the air around the table tensing with a privacy paling. Harry was staring at the glyphs, their eyes wide. "This is a rare magic called runic casting. As long as these symbols are there, nobody will hear what we're saying."

Harry's eyes flicked up to hers, only for a second before uneasily dropping again. "Okay."

As shy as this kid was, it was almost impossible to imagine they were really Jamie and Lily's. Blame that on the muggles, she guessed. "Right, so, the thing we have to talk about. As I explained earlier, there are mages, people who can do magic, all over the world. But I'm not just any other ordinary mage, and neither are you. We are both what are called metamorphs."

Still not looking up at her, Harry frowned down at their hands in their lap, clearly thinking. "I don't know what that is."

"You can change yourself. Most people, they can only be one thing, they're always the same. But you can be whatever you want. You can change the colours of things, your hair or your eyes or your skin, but not just that, you can change the shape of things. Easy, just imagine it, whenever you want."

Harry looked a little nervous that she was just coming out and saying this — Cassie guessed it wasn't an approved topic of conversation with their relatives — but eventually they nodded. "I don't mean to, I just..."

"Harry, darling, you don't have to apologise for that." That they clearly felt like they should was just making her hate their relatives all the more. "You haven't done anything wrong. You were simply born like this — and that's not bad, it's not a wrong way to be. In fact, many mages consider it a good thing. It means you're special, in a good way."

That got a little twitch from Harry, their eyes finally jumping up to Cassie's and staying there. They just stared back at her, mouth half-opened as though to speak, but nothing came out.

They were interrupted a moment later by the waitress returning, and their conversation was temporarily stalled with the fixing of tea. Cassie had asked Harry if they wanted a pastry or something — it was starting to get closer to dinner time, but she expected they'd be eating late today anyway — but they'd awkwardly said they were fine. She'd suspected they were too nervous about maybe being in trouble to be comfortable asking for food, so Cassie had ordered a plate of petit fours. If Harry decided they wanted to try a couple, they could go right ahead — Cassie made sure the plate was sitting in the middle of the table (slightly closer to their side) just to make that clear.

Once the waitress was gone again, Harry asked why there were multiple tiny bowls of honey — it turned out Harry was completely unfamiliar with the concept of infusions. Which wasn't a surprise, Cassie guessed, she didn't know if muggles did this sort of thing. After explaining what everything was, stirring a little orange-flavoured honey into her tea, Cassie soon had no excuse but to return to the conversation she was supposed to be having.

She'd really rather she didn't have to, she did hate this, but it was something they'd need to talk about eventually one way or the other. Might as well get it out of the way as soon as possible.

"Metamorphs," she started, Harry twitching slightly as the brief silence was broken, "have special talent with transfiguration — magic that changes one thing into something else." Cassie demonstrated quick, turning her spoon into a quill and back again. Of course, Harry didn't know shite about magic, so they didn't realise how unusual it was that she'd just done that without even drawing her wand, but they'd put it together eventually. "We can cast more powerful magic than most other mages. Also, since we can change our bodies however we want, we don't age like ordinary people — metamorphs don't die of old age, we'll live forever as long as we don't have an accident or fall ill. For these reasons, metamorphs are seen as special, it's a big deal for a family to have one, something worth bragging about to families who don't."

Harry's eyes had gone wide at some point during that explanation. After a couple seconds, they muttered, their voice low and a little shaky, "Really? I won't die, ever?"

Shaking her head, Cassie said, "Unless you fall ill or get hurt," or were murdered, "no, you won't. And mages grow more powerful the older we get." Technically, a mage grew more powerful as they used magic, but that was a distinction without a meaningful difference. "Some of the most powerful mages in the world are very old metamorphs. And to mages, being magically powerful is a good thing. People want to be around them, to get close to them." Often, to get very close to them. "Metamorphs are so revered people literally used to think we were fairies or blessed by the gods or something.

"Being what you are is nothing to be ashamed of, darling. Your relatives had no idea what they were talking about, everything they told you was wrong."

Harry wasn't looking at her again, their eyes fixed on the tea cupped in their hands. They were blinking a little more than they had been before, a look on their face Cassie didn't know how to read — unnervingly blank for a child so young, but there was something there, no idea what. Their eyes jumped up, but not at Cassie, instead the little square pastries on the plate. "Um. May I have one, please?"

"Sure," Cassie chirped, hiding a smirk. "The pink stuff in these ones is cream cheese — flavoured with strawberry, I think — the berries on these ones are blackcurrants, and these are chocolate-cherry dacquoises. Take whichever you want." After another moment of hesitation, Harry plucked a dacquoise off the plate; Cassie hadn't missed how their lip had curled a little at the blackcurrant cakes, so she took one of those. "Being a metamorph can be kind of weird sometimes — we're not like ordinary people in some ways, and it can be confusing, growing up. But it's not a bad thing to be. You're not a freak, darling, you're not."

Harry's eyes dropped again, they shifted in their seat a little. "Okay. I didn't... I'll try to remember. It's just, my aunt and uncle always said..."

"That's okay. This kind of thing can take time. It's okay if you don't believe me right away — I just hope that, whatever your relatives might have said and no matter that you can't help thinking it yourself sometimes, you can believe that I don't think that. Okay?"

Nodding a little morosely (but with relief, much of the remaining tension in their shoulders easing), Harry popped a forkful of their dacquoise into their mouth. She personally thought eating petit fours with a fork was slightly ridiculous, but Harry's mouth was smaller than hers. "Oh! This is really good!"

Cassie couldn't help smiling a little. "Do you like meringue, Harry?"

"What?"

Her lips twitched. "The bottom layer is a chocolate butter biscuit, the middle is hazelnut meringue, and the top is cherry buttercream. Meringue is something I actually know how to make, and I can just buy butter biscuits — we can keep them in the house, if you like."

"Oh, um..." Harry's eyes fell again, fixed on the dacquoise, carefully breaking off another piece. It could be her imagination, but Cassie thought Harry was blushing a little. "I was just, um, if that's okay..."

Cassie was getting the feeling Harry hadn't been offered sweets very often — the strength of their reaction to that first bite had been a bit much, and they almost seemed embarrassed now. What kind of person wouldn't even give the child they were raising a biscuit now and then, honestly... "Okay, I'll look into that." And maybe some other things while she was at it, there were probably a lot of even basic things Harry had never even tried. (She suspected she was going to end up spoiling this kid a little, but after what it seemed they'd gone through so far, she really didn't care.) Stalling for a moment with a bite out of her cake, and nearly dripping a little bit of custard, Cassie waited for Harry's discomfort to ease a little. "But, back to what we were talking about a moment ago.

"Most of the time, if a metamorph wants to do something different, change something big and difficult, they have to know what they're doing. All the little bits and pieces that go into how a body works, it's very complicated. If they don't know what they're doing, a metamorph can even accidentally hurt themselves — so I'll be teaching you some anatomy soon, just in case. But, if a metamorph is changed by some other magic somehow, a potion or a spell, they can remember that change, and go back to it without having to learn it the hard way.

"A long time ago, people found out that a metamorph doesn't have to be very old at all for this to work. If a big change is forced on a baby, even only a few days after they're born, they'll remember it for the rest of their life. Without having to think about it, they just know it. I've read something written by an older metamorph, where she said it's like two sides of a coin." Cassie nearly second-guessed the use of the gendered pronoun, since she wasn't certain the metamorph in question had a preference, but the book had been written under a feminine name, so she supposed it would do. "She can switch to either of the big changes easily, and then changes little things from there, how metamorphs who didn't have this done to them do. Almost like they're separate things, but not really, because both shapes are still part of them, but the big change is clearly its own thing.

"Is this something you've noticed?"

The blush was gone now, Harry's face now noticeably paling. They'd gone very still, another bit of dacquoise broken off but not gathered onto their fork, hardly even seeming to breathe. Shakily, avoiding her eyes, Harry nodded.

"You can be a boy and a girl, can't you, darling?"

They sank into their chair a little, shoulders tensing up. "I don't mean to... I know I'm supposed to be a boy." Harry sounded almost scared, their fingers twitching a little — Cassie could only imagine their muggle relatives hadn't dealt with this particular thing at all well.

(Like she'd thought before: she could just slap Jamie, and she kind of regretted not murdering that vile woman.)

"That's just the thing, Harry: if there is such a thing as supposed to be, I think you're supposed to be a girl." Harry jumped, eyes twitching up to hers before dropping right back down to their lap, fidgeting nervously. "This is a...kind of difficult thing to explain, so I'll do it best I can. You see, there are reasons some people prefer to have boys. In many cases, things — money, land, titles — pass father to son, and if there isn't a son to give it to, figuring out where it should go gets...complicated. Also, when a couple get married the wife usually takes the husband's name, so often a man's name will only be passed down through his sons. To some people all this is important, so they want to have at least one boy, to make sure everything is passed down easy, and they don't have to worry about it.

"As I said before, if metamorphs are made to do a big change very young, they'll always remember it. It used to be a thing that happened quite often, if a metamorph is born a girl, that the parents give them a potion, a magic drink, to change them into a boy. And they tell everyone that their child was born a boy — they can still turn into a girl whenever they want, of course, but for legal reasons which one they were born as matters. This isn't done very much anymore, hasn't for hundreds of years. One reason is because it can be very confusing for the child, trying to figure out who and what they are, exactly."

And it didn't help that doing this didn't even solve the problem it was supposed to address: the children of a female-by-birth metamorph and an ordinary woman were always, without exception, girls, so it only pushed back the inheritance issue by a single generation. At the time this practice was commonplace (relatively speaking, metamorphs were rare to begin with) people hadn't any clue how sex selection worked, but muggle scientists had since solved that mystery — obviously, such a couple wouldn't have a y-chromosome between them.

"What I think happened," Cassie said, speaking slowly, carefully, "is that you were born a girl, and your parents figured out you're a metamorph almost right away. Jamie, your father, decided to give you that potion to turn you into a boy. It must have been his idea — your mother didn't grow up with magic, so she didn't know about these things sometimes. And it must have been a potion, because the only other way for a metamorph to pick up this kind of big change is to be taught how to do it, and you had nobody to teach you. Your parents gave you that potion, when you were very small, only a couple days old, and they told everyone you were a boy, that you'd always been a boy.

"And they shouldn't have done it, Harry. They shouldn't have done that to you. I don't blame Lily, she didn't know these things sometimes, but Jamie really should have known better. It's not a nice thing to do to your kid, to make them be something else like that. Being the way you are, it's not your fault, darling, it's nothing you did, nothing that's wrong with you. It's something that was done to you. And now that you are this way, there's nothing you can do about it. I know it may be confusing or upsetting for you sometimes, but that's not... Something was done to you that makes things harder for you, but you aren't bad, for being this way. It just is what it is. You know?" Cassie had no idea if this made any sense, or if she was even helping at all, this whole thing was just so terribly fucked up...

Harry wasn't looking at her, staring down into their lap — their hands were down there too, leaving their dacquoise abandoned. They were blinking a bit more, shoulders visibly hunched, stiff and still, hardly seeming to breathe. Despite how blank their face still was, Cassie suspected they were on the edge of tears. How thick and half-strangled their voice was only made that seem more likely. "Couldn't... Couldn't it be the other way?"

"No, darling, it couldn't. There's a reason someone might want to change their daughter into a son — what I said before, about passing things down, remember? I don't think they're good reasons, not to do something like this, but there are people who do think so. There isn't a reason to do it the other way around."

Their head dipping a couple times in a slow, heavy nod, Harry silently glared at the table for a moment. As the silence stretched on, Cassie debated whether she should try elaborating more on...something, ask Harry what they were thinking, anything other than just sit here feeling useless. But...perhaps Harry was just taking a moment to...process that thought. That was fine. Cassie thought. Maybe.

Who the fuck was she kidding, she had absolutely no idea what she was doing — it'd been a long time since she'd dealt with children much at all, and even before she'd gotten out of practice she'd never had to manage a situation quite this fucked up. She could give them a moment at the very least, she thought. So she focused on her blackcurrant cake, pointedly not even looking at Harry, waiting for them to get through whatever it was that was occupying them over there.

It was maybe a couple minutes later that Harry moved. They didn't speak, or even look up, but they did pick up their fork, break off another piece of their dacquoise. They did seem a little shaky, their hand not moving quite as smoothly as before, but they managed it. Popping the bite into their mouth, Harry relaxed a little, weirdly enough — no idea what was going on in their head, and Cassie didn't want to put them on the spot by asking. They followed the bite with a sip of tea, then nodded again. "Okay. I understand. I think."

"Well, we're not done, actually," she admitted, a little reluctantly. This had been hard enough on the kid all ready, but there would hardly be any point at all to having this conversation if they didn't properly finish it. Harry tensed again a little bit, eyes warily flicking back up at her. "It's nothing bad. There's just something I want you to think about.

"When I was in school, thirteen or fourteen, I had the thought that maybe I might like to be a boy." Harry's eyes went very wide, Cassie gave him a little smirk. "I wasn't given a potion as a baby like you were, so I had to learn it the hard way — there are shortcuts you can take, and I figured out how to get it right without help in a couple weeks. It didn't take very long before I decided it just...wasn't right. It can be fun to play around with sometimes, but I'm more comfortable being a girl. That's what feels right to me. I can still be a boy if I want, but I almost never do."

These days, she pretty much only changed sexes now and again for...somewhat adventurous sexual purposes, but that definitely wasn't something she should be telling her baby sister's seven-year-old grandchild.

"It's okay if you don't have an answer right now. You have time to think about it, but I do want you to think about it. If you want to be a boy, that's fine; if you want to be a girl, that's fine too. If you want to be both, or neither, or switch back and forth as the fancy strikes you, it doesn't matter to me. All that I want is for you to be happy — whatever it is that makes you most comfortable, that's what I want you to be."

Harry's fingers were visibly shaking now. They set down their fork, apparently not wanting to risk dropping it, the metal rattling against the wood for a second before it was all the way down. They took a slow, heavy breath. "That– That's why we left the store. You wanted me to think about maybe...girl clothes, instead." They sounded unreasonably terrified saying that — but then, considering what Cassie assumed of how Harry had been treated in the past, maybe it wasn't unreasonable.

"I want you to think about what you want. Not what other people tell you you should want, but what you think is right for you."

A thin, shaky breath, "I don't..."

"It's okay if you don't have an answer right now, darling, we have time. I can conjure you better clothes for now, we can get by on that for a while."

"No, I didn't mean I..." Harry was quiet a moment, staring down at their dacquoise. They were frowning, a little, the expression very mild but undoubtedly present. They barely seemed to be breathing at all, what air did get through drawn thin and laboured. When they finally spoke it was slow, noticeably choked, as though forced through a constricted throat. "I was always told I was supposed to be a boy, that I...wasn't supposed to do...girl things. But that...never really made sense, because, I'm not sure how people tell which are girl things and which are boy things?"

Cassie's lips twitched into a reluctant smile. "I'm not surprised. These things work the way they do because people say they do — they change from time to time and place to place. Even ordinary children have trouble figuring it out sometimes."

"...Oh." She didn't think she was imagining that confused look in their eyes. After a moment of thought, they nodded, still uncertain, but having decided to pass that one off and move on. "I just... I try...not to? I mean, I try to be a boy all proper, all the time, but I'm...not very good at it. And I don't—" Harry bit off, head bowing forward a little, enough their hair came around to hide half their face. Their voice dropped so low Cassie could barely hear it, "If I go to sleep a boy, I...wake up a girl."

She'd thought that might be the case, but it was possible that was simply a lingering after-effect of what had been done to them as an infant. "And when you're awake? which feels more comfortable to you?"

"I... It's scary sometimes, being a girl, because I'm not supposed to be, but..." Harry trailed off for a moment, shoulders hunching even further, as though defensively curling up against an incoming blow. One hand came up, rubbing at their eyes with the wrist of their ratty old jumper. "Girl, I think. I think, I'm not sure."

Repeat: she could slap Jamie, and murder that woman. "Okay, darling, that's okay. And, your relatives never let you be a girl before, so it's fine if you're not sure. If you want to give being a girl a try, we can do that. You don't have to switch to being a girl all the time, if you want to still be a boy sometimes that's fine. Whatever you decide, I'll help you figure it out. Okay?"

Harry nodded, the motion a little stiff and unsteady. "I think I...want to try. If that's okay?"

"Yes, darling, that's okay. It's your body, and your life — this is your choice, and nobody else's." Cassie paused a moment, pouring herself a fresh cup of tea. Thankfully, the pots were enchanted to keep the contents warm, they'd probably been talking long enough now the tea would have cooled quite a bit. Harry used the moment to dab at their — her — eyes again, taking slow and even breaths, consciously, so Cassie waited a few extra seconds, giving her a moment to collected herself. "So. Do you want girl clothes instead?"

"...Maybe. But not all girl clothes, I mean, if I don't like it, and..."

"We can get you trousers and things too." For prepubescent children, their frames were generally similar enough between sexes that they could use the same clothes anyway — there were differences, enough Cassie could tell when Harry'd stripped to her pants, but minor ones. As long as Harry didn't change too much, clothing tailored to her as a girl should fit just fine as a boy too.

"I don't want to, um..."

It took a moment to figure out what Harry couldn't quite gather the courage to say. "Oh! No, darling, don't worry about money. My family is extremely wealthy, even if I have to buy you two entire wardrobes it won't make a difference."

Harry blinked. "Oh. Okay." She was quiet another moment, still not quite meeting Cassie's eyes, but then she finally reached for her fork again, breaking off another piece of dacquoise.

"But there is another thing we should consider, before we get going. I think we'll go to a different clothing store, so we don't have to explain to Eirwen or whoever what's going on." Popping another bite into her mouth, Harry looked a little relieved at that. Gladrags, maybe? She didn't want to apparate Harry more than necessary, and while the Hogsmeade shop only sold clothing second-hand, the London site had seamsters as well. Gladrags's enchanting work wasn't great, but it would do for a growing metamorph. "You should pick a new name before we go."

Frowning up at her, Harry muttered, "Name?"

"Yes, I'm afraid calling a girl 'Harry' might seem weird to people — it doesn't feel like a girl's name, does it?" At least Cassiopeia had been able to use Cassius, but 'Henrik' didn't feminise very well. In English, at least, she guessed Henrika or the like would work perfectly fine on the Continent. "That's something we can figure out right now, if you like."

"Okay. Um. What should we use?" Harry asked, an odd wheedling tone to her voice. Sheepish? Anxious?

Cassie smiled, making the expression as warm and reassuring as she possibly could. "It's your name, darling, I don't see why you shouldn't choose it yourself." Of course, due to her personal circumstances, the whole Boy Who Lived thing, Harry would never be entirely rid of her birth name, no matter what happened, but that didn't mean she couldn't use another if she felt like it — especially around people who had no clue who she was anyway. While Harry just stared up at her, obviously uncertain, Cassie added, "Maybe we should use a Black name. We can tell people you're whatever-name-you-pick Black, people would ask fewer questions about why you're living with me."

Harry's eyes went a little wider at that, for what reason Cassie couldn't guess. "Okay." She paused for a second. "Thank you."

For what? letting Harry use the Black name? No, that probably wasn't it — Harry had no idea who the Blacks were, so wouldn't be aware of the significance of giving an outsider permission to use the name — but she couldn't guess what else she could be thinking about. Out of a lack of anything better, she said, "You're welcome, darling. Now, let's think a second." She focused for a second, then snapped her fingers, conjuring a piece of paper and a fountain pen, scribbled down names as she said them. "Nymphadora was a famous Black metamorph, metamorphs in our family are often named after her. Your grandmother was Dorea, of course. I have a niece named Walburga, but that's a very...old person kind of name, you know?"

Harry let out a little laugh, but then froze, guiltily glancing between her and the dacquoise.

Cassie just gave her a playful smirk. "Bellatrix is another name used a lot in the family, but there's a Bellatrix alive right now who's not well-liked, you maybe shouldn't use that one. Her sisters are Andromeda and Narcissa. My mother, your great-grandmother, was named Violetta — she wasn't born a Black, of course, but if I ever had a daughter I might have named her after my mother. I had an aunt named Belvina, but that's another old person name. I had a cousin named Lycoris, which I think is a pretty name — it means 'twilight', and is also a flower." Cassie added the meaning next to it, and then went back and added meanings for the others as well: Nymphadora, gift from the nymphs (fairies); Dorea, gift; Bellatrix, warrior; Andromeda, protector or provider (princess in a myth); Narcissa, a flower; Violetta, a flower. "Right, there we are.

"And then there are my nieces. Callidora," beautiful gift, "Cedrella," beloved (I think), "and Charis," kindness, charity. "Cedrella is the only one of those three who's still around, she's a Weasley now. And then there's Lucretia," wealthy, fortunate (I think), "who also still lives, she's married to Lord Prewett. Give these a look and see if you like any — I can come up with more if none strike your fancy." She pushed the paper toward Harry, then plucked up the second blackcurrant cake.

Strangely wary, Cassie wasn't sure why, Harry turned the paper around and started scanning it, scooping up the last bite of her dacquoise. She was frowning a little bit as she chewed, one corner of her lips quirking. "These are really...fancy. I mean, er..."

Cassie chuckled a little. "I did say a moment ago my family is filthy rich. Some of my relatives could be a bit...snooty. Picking a strong, dignified name for your child is just the thing to do in our circles." Her smile tilting into a smirk, she teased, "You don't see a lot of kids named Cassiopeia, do you?"

Harry's lips twitched, seemingly trying to stop herself from smiling. She quietly read over the paper for a moment. "Um, what does that one mean? Cassiopeia?"

"It's a constellation, named after a queen in Greek myth." She wasn't at all a flattering character, though, so Cassie wasn't going to explain that. "The name might be from the old Greek word for the cinnamon tree."

"Cinnamon comes from a tree?"

"Sure, cinnamon is the powdered bark of a certain tree." Harry glanced up at her, surprised, so Cassie smiled back at her. "Really. A lot of spices are from the bits of plants you wouldn't normally eat."

"Oh." Harry blinked for a second, before turning back to the paper. She hesitated, her eyes flicking back and forth between the page and Cassie, before muttering, quiet and breathless, "Um, Violet? If that's okay..."

Cassie smiled. "If you like it, darling. I'm sure my mother would be flattered." Well, no, she'd probably be demanding Cassie explain what she thought she was doing — if Cassie were to name a girl after her she would be flattered, which was close enough to what was going on here for that not to be totally untrue.

A bit of tension Cassie hadn't noticed dribbling out of Har– Violet, and she pushed the paper a little away, nodding. "Okay." Her mouth opened as though to say something else, but apparently thought better of it, moving one of the strawberry cream cheese cakes onto her plate instead. Her eyes flicked up to Cassie, wary — belatedly wondering if she was allowed to take a second one, she guessed.

Two petit fours was probably a bit much for such a small child so late in the afternoon, but it'd be a while until they had dinner, it was fine. "We'll head to Gladrags once you're done. We're not in any rush, take your time."

Cassie plucked up the second blackcurrant cake, smiling to herself — that had been bloody awkward, but it turned out well enough. Maybe she wasn't so rusty at this dealing with kids thing as she thought.

(She'd still picked a terrible day to quite drinking, though.)

፠

Cassie pushed open the door to the bathroom, glanced around for a second before turning back to Harry. "Right, this will do, come on in."

The bathroom at the back of the tea shop thing was mostly normal, Harry knew what everything was supposed to be, but it couldn't be mistaken for being non-magical. The toilet was shaped different, the sink didn't seem to have a knob or anything, and Harry wasn't sure how it was supposed to dry its hands — there weren't any towels or an air dryer or anything. It was also bigger on the inside than normal, enough it wasn't uncomfortable with two people walking around.

Also the tiles were all actual rock, not the fake plastic-y stuff it was used to, but Harry had thought they might be, since it'd been the same in Cassie's flat.

A flick of Cassie's magic stick, and a little table appeared out of nowhere. "So. I can conjure nearly anything you like, Violet darling. Better-fitting jumper and trousers, and maybe different shoes — those poor things have seen better days. Or if you want something else, just say the word."

Harry took in and out a long, slow breath, trying to force out its nervousness with the air. It knew what Cassie meant by something else: girl clothes.

When they were done eating, Cassie had said it might make sense to magically make something else for Harry to wear before going to the other clothes shop — adults might think what was up with the kid in the old, badly-fitting clothes, and might be nosey, make Harry uncomfortable. That made sense to Harry, it'd agreed immediately. (It wasn't like it really wanted to keep the clothes it was wearing right now anyway.) But that meant Cassie had to make the stuff, and Harry had to change into it.

And it was supposed to be a girl. So girl clothes would make sense. It probably wouldn't be too weird to go wearing boyish clothes, but...

Harry's breath caught in its throat, tingles prickling over its skin, it said, "Let's try...girl things." It wasn't sure if it would freak out too much being put in girl clothes at the shop, so trying it here first was a good idea. If it couldn't, it'd have to be a boy, which meant Cassie would have to make new stuff, but she didn't seem to mind...

Cassie just nodded. "It'll have to be a muggle style, you're not used to magical fashion." Her eyes tipping up to the ceiling, Cassie let out a long hum, her head bopping side to side a little bit. "Okay, how about this." Her stick started flicking, pieces of clothing appearing in the air one after the other, each set down on the table.

The first one was a jumper, blue with bits of white at the cuffs. The next was a shirt, white with flowers printed on it, green stems and red and blue buds. After that was a skirt, which kind of looked like denim except green, with a couple pockets on it and a bow tied at the top — after setting it down, Cassie pulled the bow apart, "Okay, I got it right." Then there was a vest, pale cotton, followed by matching pants. Cassie frowned for a second, thinking, another flick of her stick making a sandal appear in her hand, dark brown leather. She fiddled with it for a little, the shape of the bottom and the length of the straps changing, and then nodded, a tap against the straps in two places, bink bink, and little black flowers appeared. A swirl of her stick, and a second shoe appeared, Cassie set them down next to the table.

Harry wondered, if she could do that so easily, why they needed to buy real clothes at all.

"Right, that should be everything. I would make you closed shoes, but I have trouble transfiguring socks — no idea why, just one of those things. I'll go wait outside, I won't let anyone come in. If you decide you don't like anything, or if you can't figure out how it all goes on, knock on the door for me. Okay?"

Cassie waited for Harry to give her a nod, and then walked out, closing the door behind her. And Harry was left alone to get dressed. In girl clothes.

It took a couple moments just to breathe, its breath thick and hard and heavy in its throat. This was far more scary than Harry really thought it should be, its skin crawling and barely able to get air. But as kind of silly as it was — they were only clothes, honestly — it'd kind of thought it might be hard, that's why it was doing it here alone instead of in the clothing store with strangers around.

It took another long, slow breath, the air coming out funny, stuttering, its chest not quite moving the way it should.

Harry kicked off its shoes, leaned against the little table to peel off its socks. Its fingers shaking a little, it undid the button on its trousers, pushed them over by its shoes, pulled off its jumper. It kept its shirt on for now — it didn't really like the thought of being completely naked in here, so. It needed another long breath, trying to force its heart pounding in its throat back down into its chest where it belonged, before it could hook its thumbs in the waistband of its pants, and then another moment — telling itself that it was fine that it was a girl right now, Cassie didn't care, she wasn't going to jump in here and punish it for being wrong, and she would stop anyone else from coming in and freaking out about it — to actually push them down.

Not wanting to be pantsless any longer than it needed to, Harry quickly snatched up the pair sitting on top of the pile of clothes on the table. This wasn't so different than what it was used to — the shape wasn't quite the same, and the cloth felt a little different. They were also much smaller, but that made sense, since Cassie had made them for Harry, they hadn't been Dudley's first. Harry stepped into them — carefully, feeling all too shaky and unsteady, nearly fell over — quickly pulled them up.

Okay, that was kind of weird. Harry was used to its pants being way too big, it could feel the cloth close to its skin which was...weird, it was weird. Not bad, exactly, just different.

Harry thought it should be very obvious (to it) if it were a girl or a boy wearing these. It wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing...or neither? Whatever, it was weird. But it wasn't freaking out, so, so far so good.

Next on the pile was the vest, which wasn't so different, Harry quickly swapped its shirt for it. And then rolled its shoulders, a little awkwardly — it felt a little weird not having any sleeves covering its shoulders, but it would be wearing stuff over this, it was fine.

Now it was at the hard part: the skirt.

Pants and vests were one thing, those were fine. But boys definitely weren't supposed to wear skirts.

Harry could almost hear Aunt Petunia yelling at it, that it was a freak and if it wanted to be fed it would—

Aunt Cassie had given it little cakes. Harry didn't think it'd ever had cake before.

And it could almost hear Uncle Vernon yelling at it, that it wouldn't be having this kind of freakishness in his house, he would stamp it—

But Harry wasn't in his house. It would never go back, Cassie had promised.

It was scary, Harry was almost shivering, and not from the cold, but it was okay, it wasn't going to get in trouble, Cassie had made the things for it, she wanted it to wear them, it wasn't going to get in trouble for that, Harry just had to—

No, Violet. That was part of why it'd agreed to picking a name, to... It didn't know exactly.

Harry was supposed to be a boy, so obviously he couldn't do things like wearing skirts and shirts with pretty flowers on them. But Violet was supposed to be a girl, so it was perfectly fine for her.

Violet took in a long, slow, shaky breath. It was fine. It was fine. It wasn't going to be punished for this, this was okay, it was fine.

Its fingers shaking, its skin tingling, it picked up the skirt. It kind of felt like denim, but not quite the same, softer and kind of fuzzy, no idea what that was. Skirts weren't complicated, it wasn't hard to figure out — maybe easier than trousers, with how shaky it was it might have gotten its foot caught in the legs and fallen over like a clumsy idiot. It got the thing over its hips and...it would probably stay there on its own, but it was pretty loose, it might fall down pretty easy. But Har– Violet remembered there'd been a thing...

The thing around the waist, where a belt would go, was some kind of heavy ribbon, it thought. Not really sure how to tie the thing, it just did it like shoes, turn over, bunny ears, tighten, done. That...didn't look quite right. With shoestrings, it didn't really matter, but the ribbon made it obvious it'd gotten folded over and squished somehow, it looked kind of weird. But it didn't matter that much, it was fine.

Somehow, fiddling with the tie thing, it forgot to be nervous about the fact that it was wearing a skirt right now.

Right, next was the shirt — moving over to pick it up, the skirt shifted against its legs, which was a little distracting, but it wasn't so bad. Har— No, Violet, it was supposed to be Violet now. (Because, obviously, Harry wasn't supposed to do girl things, and it was doing girl things, so it couldn't be Harry, that was how this worked.) Violet turned the shirt around a little, making sure it had it the right way around. It wasn't easy, since it wasn't a real shirt, Cassie hadn't bothered putting a tag on it anywhere to show it where the back was, but one side of the neck pointed down in a little angle and the other was round, Violet thought the side with the point was supposed to be the front. The shirt wasn't hard to figure out, it was just a shirt — the cloth was different from what it was used to, and the sleeves were kind of loose and...fluttery, but it was fine.

The jumper wasn't a normal pull-over jumper, it had a line of buttons on the front. Not like the little metal button on its trousers, but big buttons, like three times the size, and made out of...wood, maybe? Okay. Violet undid all the buttons, and pulled the thing on one arm at a time, like a jacket — it really didn't feel like a jacket though, very soft and warm. It thought for a bit, then decided to leave the buttons open. It wasn't that cold out, but if Violet did get cold she could do the buttons up, it was fine.

(Also, the flowers on the shirt were pretty, and if all the buttons were done up they'd be hidden. But the thought made it uncomfortable, so it pretended that wasn't what it was thinking.)

And all that was left was the shoes. It plopped down onto its bum, started trying to figure out the shoes. They were kind of weird. It didn't think it'd ever worn sandals before, and it took a little bit of playing around before it found out how the strap in the back was supposed to hook around its ankle. Once it had them on right...it thought...it popped up onto its feet, took a few steps around. These felt...slightly odd. Not uncomfortable, just different. It normally just wore trainers, though, it thought it'd get used to them. And they would stay on right — it hopped up and down a couple times just to make sure, the shoes making little slapping noises against the tile and the skirt tickling its legs — yep, good.

And that was everything. It was done now. Now it just had to...open the door and leave.

The fear slammed into its chest like Dudley's fist, the air freezing in its throat. But it was just being silly, it wasn't going to get in trouble, Cassie didn't care if it did girl things, it was fine. Forcing air through its throat, slow and shaky, it wandered around the little room for a little bit, trying to work up the nerve to open the door. After a couple times back and forth, it hitched to a stop, blinking.

Whoa.

There was a mirror in the room, obviously, and... It looked like a girl. That only made sense, since it was wearing girl clothes, and was also girl-shaped right now, but, still. Wild.

Its hair was still...well, its hair. But Harry's hair had never been that boyish anyway, so it guessed that didn't really matter.

Distracted staring at the mirror for a moment — in clothes that actually fit, and girl clothes at that, Harry didn't really look like itself anymore, which it felt was a good thing — it completely forgot to be afraid, for at least a little bit. Before it could wear off, Harry darted for the door, pulled it open.

Cassie was standing just outside, same as before, but she was holding a little bundle of papers she must have gotten from somewhere. When the door opened, she turned around, smiled down at it. "There we are. Everything fit okay?"

"Um, sure." Harry hadn't ever really had clothes that fit right before, so it didn't know how things were supposed to fit...

Her lips quirking to the side a little, Cassie let out a hum, her eyes flicking downward for a second. "Let's straighten this out quick before we go. Come on," she said, waving it back into the room.

Har– Violet, stupid, it was supposed to be Violet now. Anyway, it must have gotten something wrong. A fearful tingle started prickling across its skin, but it tried to push it back — Cassie didn't sound angry, she wasn't going to punish it for this, it was fine. It had to remind itself of that again a second later when, after closing the door behind her, Cassie sank down into a crouch, pulling apart the sloppy-looking bow Violet had tied the ribbon into. Cassie's fingers hooked into the pockets a little, and Harry looked away, biting its lip, fists tightening a little. Panic bubbling at the back of its throat, it had to stop itself from changing, Cassie wasn't going to check, she didn't care of Har– Violet was a girl right now (Violet was supposed to be a girl), it was fine, it was fine.

Instead of yanking the skirt down, Cassie pulled it up an inch or two, tightened the ribbon with a pull from both ends at once — not tight or anything, just enough to hold it up — making the skirt sit a little higher up Violet's body. Then she folded the ribbon over in the middle, holding it in place, her fingers running down the lengths all the way to the end, looped it around into a bow and tied it closed.

Violet blinked — how had she done that? The ribbon scrunched up going through the knot, but everywhere else it went wide again, smooth and not wrinkled or twisted around at all. It hadn't looked like she'd done anything special, but...

"There, perfect," Cassie chirped, smiling bright. Her hands came up to Violet's arms, gripping gently, when it twitched Cassie let go immediately. (She wasn't hurting it, it knew that, it didn't know what that twitch was for.) An odd look crossing her face, eyes slipping away from Violet's, Cassie stood up, and then smiled down at her again, the odd moment over. "Boys' and girls' waistlines are in a slightly different spot. You had the skirt sitting just a little bit off, was all."

"Oh. I didn't know that." Actually, when it thought about it, it might have guessed that, just looking at how dresses fit on people, but it hadn't been thinking too hard about what it was doing.

"I didn't think you would have. It's due to the differences in— Oh here, darling, give me your hand." Not sure what she wanted it for, but fine. Cassie (gently) moved Violet's hand to her side, pressing its fingers against her, moving up and down a little bit — um, okay, weird thing to do... "You feel that little dip, right there?"

"Er, yes...?"

"The waistline is supposed to be the narrowest point in the middle here, and this same spot is where it is in boys. But in girls it's up here," she said, moving Violet's hand up. "There, feel this bone right here?"

"Yeah?"

"That's right under the waistline on girls, its what things are held up on." Cassie let go of its hand, Violet quickly snatched it back. "Often clothes on girls don't actually sit all the way up there, but they'll be somewhere between the two spots. It depends on what the thing is."

"Um, the pants are in the normal spot?" It came out more a question than anything, but it was pretty sure they were supposed to go there. Violet didn't think it could pull them up any higher...and that might be why it hadn't thought the skirt might go different...

Cassie nodded. "Yep, sometimes they do that — I thought you would be more comfortable with more familiar underwear. The skirt is supposed to sit up there, though. You can probably feel the spots on yourself, if you want to check later, but it might not be as obvious. It's one of the things that change a little bit when you get older.

"This works, though? If you don't like it, we can try something else. I think you're very cute, but my tastes are, well..."

For a second, it could only blink up at her. 'Cute' was not a word anyone had ever used to describe it before. But then, neither was 'darling'... "No, this is fine." Violet didn't know if it liked it or not, but it didn't hate it, which was good enough, really. And, hopefully it didn't freak out when they went outside, it would have to find out.

"Okay. I was going to get rid of your old stuff, unless you want to keep anything."

Violet, of course, didn't want to keep anything. A flick of Cassie's magic stick, and the old second-hand clothes were gone, leaving no trace behind, as though they'd never been there at all.

For some reason it couldn't explain, following Cassie out of the bathroom (fighting the tingling of nerves along its arms and the back of its neck), Violet felt a smile pulling at its face.