//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2:  Who Disappeared 
// Story: The Boy Who Disappeared 
// by computerneek 
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Ten.  Almost eleven.
Harry didn’t really care what the calendar said, though.  He could be ten years old, or he could be twenty years old, it made no difference to him.  The Dursleys would never treat him any differently.
The important part was that it was close to the end of July.  Thus, it was halfway through summer break.
Over the last couple of years, ever since Hermione had knocked Dudley silly, he had wanted to be a girl.  He’d told Hermione about that right about when he turned nine.
She’d giggled, and told him that her parents were always telling her she needed more female friends, and suggested that he be her first one.
So he did that.  He had worked with her to build himself a female persona- a persona he preferred to his male one, actually.  And, since Hermione had healing magic, they figured there was probably magic somewhere that could transform, and had planned out what his female persona would look like, named it, and so on.  He’d gotten pretty good at switching between his normal persona as Harry, and her preferred persona as Hailey- and of course, at hiding Hailey from the Dursleys.
Hailey was a pretty girl.  Hermione had turned out to be pretty good at drawing as well, so she’d done a few drawings of Hailey, and Harry sorely wished he could truly become Hailey.  If he could, she would be so much freer, so much happier, than Harry could ever be.  Than even she could ever be, while still trapped in Harry’s body.
Meanwhile, Hermione had graduated to four textbooks- and then, not two weeks later, gone back to just three.  Shortly before summer break had begun, she’d been forced to go down to just two once again- and Harry could tell why, even without her telling him.  Her body was beginning to take the shape he was used to seeing on all the older girls at school.
She had explained why it was a problem, of course.  He hadn’t asked, but she’d felt like he should know.  Apparently, she was afflicted by some rare condition that slowed her muscle development to just about nothing.  As a result, had she not been constantly working out, training her muscles, and carrying those books around, she would still be only as strong as a three-year-old- and, as a result, be pinned down by the weight of her own body.  He knew she was afraid that her biological maturation might do that to her anyways, and prayed- as did she- that it wouldn’t.
Just the week before, when he’d met her out behind her house, she had told him she was getting close to going back down to one book- which, she knew it wouldn’t be long after that that she wouldn’t be able to lift herself into a standing position any more.  She’d even explained- with a cherry red face- that he was actually her role model.  She was envious of his strength, the strength that had been denied her, and the apparently amazing resilience he demonstrated in regards to pain.  She had made sure to clarify that she did not covet his male form, and very much wanted to stay as a girl.
Harry sighed, staring at the ceiling in his cupboard.  Earlier that day, he’d accompanied his aunt and uncle out into town so Dudley could get his Smeltings uniform- and it was finally time for him to get some rest.  He was thoroughly exhausted from trying not to laugh at Dudley.
He closed his eyes, and allowed himself to drift off to sleep.





He was dreaming.  He knew he was dreaming, because he’d never woken up in the morning, just found himself, very suddenly, standing in the middle of an empty hallway at school.
He looked both ways down the passage.  There was nothing here.  The lockers stood in perfect rows, far neater and cleaner than he’d ever seen them before.
He shrugged, and turned to head for the nearest exit.  It was a dream, so it wouldn’t hurt anything.
No sooner had he turned, though, than the bell rang.  Classroom doors flew open all around him, and boys came charging out.  They quickly formed a large, dense circle around Harry- and then one part of the circle split, briefly, so Dudley could walk into the ring, looking triumphant.
One thing Harry noticed about the boys:  They had exactly four faces.  He had been surrounded by a hundred copies of Piers, Gordon, Dennis, and Malcom, Dudley’s gang members.  Funny, he’d never had a nightmare about Dudley and his gang before.
Dudley smiled nastily at him, raising his fists.  “I’ve caught you,” he stated.
“More like the clones of your gang have,” Harry stated fearlessly.  It was a dream, so it couldn’t actually hurt him.  Not that Dudley usually could anyways, on the rare occasions when he caught him.
Dudley snarled.  “No, I have.”  He rose one fist to strike.
Then, the dream seemed to shift.  Harry was suddenly running through…  blackness.  Endless blackness, all around him.  When he looked down, he could see himself.  When he looked behind him, he could see Dudley and an even larger army of Piers and Gordons chasing him.  Yet, he couldn’t see where he was going, nor the ground he ran on.  It was all just…  blackness.  He could feel the ground under his feet, though, and he could see Dudley and his gang army falling behind, since he was faster than they.
He wondered, idly, what would happen if they caught him.  After a moment’s deliberation, he decided to instead see just how far ahead he could get- his breathing was calm and measured, despite his run, and he wasn’t getting tired at all.  He had to admit, he was mildly curious just how long Dudley and his gang would take to run two hundred miles…  and how long it would take for him to get that far of a lead on them.
The dream shifted again.  The blackness was gone, replaced with darkness.  He was sitting in the corner of a lightless room, crying silently, and nursing a multitude of bruises.  He stopped immediately- the ‘pain’ from the bruises wasn’t that bad, and they were only bruises.  When he looked up, even though he could tell there was no light in the room, he could still see.
The room seemed to be made out of black stone.  There was a large wooden door in the wall next to him, behind which he could hear a hundred Dudleys doing some kind of Harry Hunting chant and parading in circles.
The room was otherwise bare.  No windows, no lights.  Cold, black stone floor.
Except for only one thing.
Right in the middle of the room, there was the corpse of some kind of bug horse.  It was covered in black carapace, and shaped…  Well, a bit like a horse.  It was horselike enough for him to recognize it as that kind of creature, but it looked nothing like the pictures he’d seen.  It had long, insect wings.  It had a blue-green mane and tail, and its horn- it had one, right in the middle of its forehead- was sharply curved, as if it had once been a much larger unicorn horn that someone had bored massive round notches into.  He could see the rings on the horn following the bends, though, so it must have grown that way.
Then, there was the great big hole right through the middle of its chest and out its back, right between its wings.  This hole, unlike the ones in its legs, was caked with dried green blood.
Then, its eyes opened, and it stood up to look at him with huge, slitted green eyes.  Harry noticed the crown-like structure on the top of its head, which was clearly part of its skull.
“You’re alive?” he asked.
It shook its head and stepped closer.  “What’s wrong?”  Its voice had an odd, buzzing quality to it, but it still sounded female.  Despite how alien it was, it was also warm and caring, like a mother- the mother Harry had never had.
Harry was taken aback- what was wrong?  It was a dream.  There was nothing wrong.
But words found their way out of his mouth anyways.  “Those boys,” he muttered quietly- and felt himself gesture towards the door.  “They always attack me.”
Harry very nearly blinked, but caught himself in time.  If that was how the dream wanted to play out, who was he to fight it?  Who knew, it might even be entertaining!
The corpse nodded.  “My power could help with that,” it said.  “I have no need of it anymore.  Would you like it?”
He tilted his head, genuinely curious.  “Your power?” he asked.
She nodded.  “Let me show you what I can do.”
Another shift.  He was back in the blackness, this time walking purposefully through it.  He was all alone.  There was nobody behind him, but he saw no reason to stop walking.
Then he thought about that strange corpse, and what it had said.  What was it going to show him?
He suddenly became aware that there was someone walking next to him, where there had been nobody, and looked.
It was Hailey.
And Hermione’s drawings didn’t do her justice either- she was beautiful.
She smiled at him, and waved.  “Long time no see.”  She had a beautiful voice, too- far better than anything he or Hermione had come up with in their discussions.
He smiled back.
And then the dream shifted again.  He was standing in that school hallway, facing Dudley, and surrounded by his gang army.
Dudley stepped forwards, fist raised, to strike him.  He estimated that he could dodge this blow by leaning to the left; it usually wasn’t that hard to dodge Dudley’s attacks if there wasn’t anyone holding him still.
“Oy!”  Harry instantly recognized Hailey’s voice, coming from outside the ring, the same direction Dudley had entered from.
Dudley’s gang-army froze, like so many statues.  Dudley himself paused, then turned to look in Hailey’s direction.  “What are you doing here?” he asked.  “This is a boy’s school!”
Then Hailey stepped through the ring, shoving boys aside with crackling green energy.  “So?  You leave my friend alone, or we’ll find out how well you fare at MY school!”
Dudley put his hands to the sides of his face and screamed.
Then the dream shifted.  The blackness was back; Harry was walking through it again, next to Hailey.
Hailey reached up and touched his shoulder with her fingertips, exactly as Hermione did whenever she wanted to heal some injury or another of his.  “And that’s only the beginning,” she smiled.
The dream shifted again, before he had time to respond.  He was…  sitting in the room with the corpse again.  It was closer to him than it was before, like it had walked up to him- it was close enough he could touch it, if he wanted to.  It opened its mouth, and spoke.  “So, do you want it?”
Harry stared at her for a couple seconds while he tried to figure out what exactly the dream was trying to tell him.  Finally, unable to find any logical flow, he opened his mouth, and spoke.  “How…  What is…?”  He tilted his head curiously.
The corpse smiled.  “My power is, primarily, the power of transformation.”
He blinked.  “So I could become…?”
She nodded silently.
He nodded honestly.  “Yes please.”  Even if it was only for the duration of a dream, he’d be able to be Hailey.
“Very well.”  She lowered her head, and touched his forehead with the tip of her horn.
The moment it touched, the dream shifted, to the blackness again.  This time, though, he wasn’t walking.  He was standing in one place with Hailey, facing her.  She was facing him as well.
She smiled at him.  “Are you ready?”
He tilted his head.  “Ready for what?”
She grinned, and flicked her silky black hair.  “Why, your first magic lesson, of course!”
He blinked.  “Magic?”  Was this something like Hermione’s healing magic?
She raised an eyebrow at him.  “You didn’t think Chrissy’s power was mundane, did you?”
“Oh.  I, ahh, thought it was…”  He took a deep breath.  “I’m ready.”
She grinned.  “Well of course it’s transformation- that’s her main power.  But she also gave you the rest of her powers, and that includes quite a few other magical abilities.  But we’ll focus on the transformation for now- that’ll be the easiest one to use, and besides, it’s also the one you’ll have to use to cement your acceptance of it.”
He nodded slowly.  “...  Alright.”
She smiled softly at him.  “I know, this is kinda coming out of nowhere.  But it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity- quite literally, actually.  What you’re going to have to do…  is to turn into me.”
“...  Turn into you.”
She nodded.  “Or anyone else, technically, but whoever you turn into now will be your base form from now on.”
“But you’re you,” he said.  “I can’t just…  become you.”
She smiled, but it was a sad smile.  “I’m not me, though.  I’m a magical construct, cooked up by an amalgamation of magics and based on your imagination.  By the time you wake up in the morning, I will no longer exist, except in your mind.  Unless you become me, where Hailey can truly exist, in you.”
“...  Oh.  I…  Okay.  So…  How?”
“I am you,” she answered.  “Well…  think of it that way.  You are me.”  She shrugged.  “Just let it be true.”
“So…  I am you,” he stated.
She nodded.  “Now let that be true.”
He concentrated briefly.
The dream shifted again- though not with a simple cut like it had the other times.  Instead, this time, it shifted with a blaze of green fire.  He was back in the hallway with the boys…  and Hailey was gone.
No, wait, she wasn’t.  Harry was gone, he was Hailey.
She looked around at the boys, while Dudley turned back to her.  “Well?”  They all looked uncertain.
Dudley stumbled backwards, while his gang army only took a single step back.  “Uhh,” they muttered.
She leaped into the air, waving her arms over her head.  “Boo!”
The boys all turned and fled.  Within moments, the passage was empty once again.
She sighed, and took a step towards the nearest exit.
The moment she did, the dream shifted again.  The blackness was back- and she was still Hailey, now facing Harry.  “Uhh,” she began.
Harry smiled.  “That’s the ticket,” he said.  Then he glanced down at himself.  “And no, I’m still the same construct, just with a different appearance.”  He took a deep breath, and looked up into her eyes.  “Just remember:  Let it be true.”
With one final shift, the blackness was gone again.  She was sitting in the room with the corpse- and still Hailey.
The corpse, meanwhile, was disintegrating into black dust, which then seemed to blow away in a nonexistent wind.  “Use it well,” the dust spoke, before vanishing into thin air.
She took a deep breath, and rose to her feet.  “I will,” she stated, before turning, and stepping slowly, dramatically, to the door.  She smiled.  “Dudley, here I come,” she said, and reached for the doorknob.
Then, she touched it.





Hailey bolted awake, sitting straight up in bed, and looking around her cupboard.  No, it was still in the middle of night.  She took a deep breath, and let it out.  It was just a-
She froze, and looked down.  Brought a hand to her chest, then down to her groin.
Then she flopped back down on her bed, staring at the ceiling.
It wasn’t just a dream.
She had wanted to be a girl.

And then, she was one.