//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3:  Hair 
// Story: Gift of Divinity 
// by computerneek 
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“Good morning.  My name is Minerva McGonagall; I am the Deputy Headmistress and Professor of Transfiguration at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”  The woman curtseyed slightly as well.
Harry blinked.  “And the one that wrote those letters.”  His hair was tucked into his shirt, since she was a stranger.
She paused.  “Uh, actually no, but that’s a story for another time.”  She glanced around the gathered family- Vernon, Petunia, Harry, and Dudley were all present.  “I’m here to provide a magical introduction for Harry Potter and Dudley Dursley and, should such be desired, assistance in acquiring the necessary materials for a Hogwarts education.”  She waited.
“Perhaps we should talk in the living room?” Petunia suggested, gesturing into the room in question.





The hour-long car ride was a little bit tight with Professor McGonagall seated between Harry and Dudley, but overall, it went quite smoothly, in Harry’s opinion.  At least compared to the conversation- she’d mentioned his scar, and getting her to believe that it had just disappeared as he grew up had taken some time.  Especially since he only barely remembered it, and it had taken Vernon and Petunia a couple of minutes to remember it.
“Welcome to the Leaky Cauldron,” Professor McGonagall told them, leading the way into the building.  Apparently, Petunia and Vernon couldn’t even see it without Harry or Dudley holding their hands.  McGonagall paused when there was no reaction, then nodded.  “Alright then, moving on.”





“Good morning,” Professor McGonagall greeted the strange bank teller in the massive, open hall- ‘goblin’, according to what she’d told them ahead of time.  “We’re here to, ahh, exchange some muggle money, probably,” she glanced at the Dursleys, “and get some money from Mr. Potter’s vault.”
“His vault?” Vernon asked.
McGonagall nodded.  “Yes, his wizarding parents left him some money in their vault.”
The goblin sighed.  “Do you have his key?”
“Ahh…”  She reached her hands into her pockets, but only produced pocket lint.  “I thought I had it…?”  She tried some inside pockets, but also came up empty- all except for a foot-long straight wooden stick and a small pouch that jingled when she moved it.
Finally, she stopped.  “Oh…  Right.  I think Hagrid still has it.”  She sighed.  “Which means…  It’s going to be a bit of a pain to do now, but you’ll have to do it at some point anyways, Harry.”
Harry tilted his head.  “What?”
“You’re going to need to reclaim your family vault,” she told him.
“Is that really necessary?” Petunia asked.
“Aside from giving him access to the money that’s rightfully his, no,” McGongall answered directly.





When Harry walked out of the strange goblin’s office to meet Professor McGonagall again, it was with an odd smile on his face.
“How did it go?” McGonagall asked him, as the goblin runner started leading them back up to the main concourse.
“They called me Miss,” Harry told her.
“What did you think?” she asked.
“I don’t know.  I think I liked it.”
She sighed.  “You do look very much like a girl, don’t you?”
Harry grinned back.





All three Dursleys ducked in the back of the cart while it rattled down the rails at breakneck speed, eyes pinched tightly shut and concentrating on resisting the motion sickness.  Professor McGonagall sat up straight with her eyes open, but was largely unmoving.
Harry, meanwhile, only sat down when McGonagall ordered him to, preferring to stand in the middle of the cart so he could get the wind in his face.  For some reason, it made him feel alive.
When the cart rattled to a stop, the goblin led everyone out of it, over to a huge door set into the stone wall.  Harry followed the instructions he gave him, and opened the door.
Inside was mountain after mountain of coins of different materials.  He stepped slowly inside, staring around in awe.
“All yours,” McGonagall smiled.
Which reminded Harry of something fairly important.
He turned right around to look at her.  “All I see is a bunch of shiny bits of metal,” he said bluntly.
McGonagall let out a small snort of laughter.  Vernon baulked, having evidently grasped the value of the coins in his exchange of the currency Harry was familiar with for them while Harry was off claiming his Vault.
She pointed at a pile of brownish-colored coins.  “Twenty-nine bronze knuts to a silver sickle,” she said, and pointed to a pile of bright silver coins.  “Seventeen silver sickles to the golden galleon.”  She pointed at the tidal wave of gold that hid three of the four walls from view.
Harry nodded slowly.  “Okay,” he muttered.  “So how much do I need?”
“Er, fifteen galleons should be enough.”  She gave him a small bag.  “Here, you can use this.”
He accepted the bag, and stepped up to the tidal wave.  He didn’t bother counting coins, and instead merely filled the bag before he closed and pocketed it on the way out of his Vault.





“Hogwarts, dears?” Madam Malkin guessed, glancing up when the door chimed.  It was that time of year again- and this family was wearing entirely muggle clothing…  even though there was no Professor with them.  They were probably being guided by a magical relative, or perhaps even a Professor, that had gotten distracted or something and wandered off.
If it was Professor McGonagall, she was probably getting the kids ice cream.  She usually did, since clothes shopping was perhaps the longest part of the shopping trip.
The man was well dressed in a crisp suit and tie- the spitting image of a muggle businessman.  He’d probably been interrupted on his way to work by the appearance of Hogwarts staff to help guide his children to Diagon Alley.  The woman- his wife, presumably- was similarly well dressed in an elegant black dress made from a fabric that shone gently- and perfectly matched their daughter’s hair.  The cut was wrong for a formal dress, though- it was a casual dress made with expensive material.
Their daughter was wearing denim carpenter pants that probably came from the boy’s section and a blue tee shirt that looked like it had come from the same.  She also had her hair tucked down the back of her shirt.
Their son had a similar, less-formal appearance than their parents.  His outfit matched his sister’s, except for the green shirt instead of blue, and blonde hair.  It also looked like he had recently started puberty, so his body was just beginning to change shape; his sister didn’t have that same look.
Overall, it looked like a rich but relaxed and perhaps casual family.  They also practically oozed kindness- and it made Madam Malkin wonder how they’d managed to have two muggleborn children; her shop wards had reacted to both of them, though not the parents.  Perhaps…  Perhaps one of them was adopted?
Except that the blonde boy’s hair matched the mother’s as much as the girl’s matched the father’s.
And she could see the family resemblance.
So…  maybe they’d just gotten lucky?
“Uh- Yes,” the mother answered.
“Got the lot here,” she chuckled.  “Got another young man being fitted up right now, actually.  So…”  She glanced at the two children.  “Who first?”
The two children looked at one another, then the girl stepped forwards.  “Me,” she volunteered.
Madam Malkin smiled; she could practically see the strength of the sibling bond.  They were a wonderful, happy family- something that had become increasingly more difficult to find in wizarding circles, as the political environment polarized itself into radical pure-blood families and ‘others’.
“Alright, right over here, Dear,” she told the girl, guiding her to the stool and picking a robe off of a rack.
“You Hogwarts too?”
Madam Malkin barely avoided wincing at the drawling voice.  Speaking of radical pure-bloods- that was Draco Malfoy, the son of one of the most radical pure-blood families.  He happened to be getting robes at the same time- and Madam Malkin’s assistant was working on his.
The girl looked- and Malkin sensed her sudden caution, like she could already tell that the boy wasn’t going to like her.  “Hmm?  Yes.”  Her voice still sounded careless, though.
Draco continued promptly.  “My father’s next door buying my books, and my mother’s up the street looking at wands,” he said.  “Then I’m-!”
“Doesn’t the Wand choose the Wizard?” the girl asked.
There was a pause.
“Which means you’ll never get as good of results if you aren’t there to pick the right wand, right?” the girl continued.  Then she smiled.  “Besides, I hear getting your own wand is fun in its own way.  I can’t wait.”
Draco stared at her.  “Hmm, yeah, I suppose,” he muttered noncommittally.  He sighed, then continued.  “Anyways, once they’re done with that, I’m going to drag them off to look at racing brooms.  I don’t understand why first years aren’t allowed to bring their own, do you?”
“Probably for safety,” the girl observed calmly.  “They won’t know how good you are at flying until you show them- so they don’t want you to try until they have a chance to make sure you won’t hurt yourself.”
He stared at her again.  “Hmm, yeah, I suppose,” he muttered noncommittally once again.  “But everyone learns to fly before they go to Hogwarts, why can’t they just allow that?”
The girl looked like she wanted to shrug, but Madam Malkin was working on the lower hem of her robes.  “I imagine it helps them avoid preferential treatment,” she told him.
He scowled.  “They ought to give us preferential treatment,” he muttered.  “Don’t you think so?”
“I think preferential treatment is the path to a dystopian world,” the girl said darkly.
“What-?” he began.  “What house are you going to be in?”
“I’m not sure yet,” she answered.  “Though I have a pretty good idea.  You?”
“I just know I’ll be in Slytherin,” he muttered.  “All our family have been.  Just imagine being in Hufflepuff- I’d leave, wouldn’t you?”
“Hufflepuff might not be a glorious house,” the girl remanded, “but they’re known for their hard work and loyalty.”
He paused.  “Uhh…  Okay, yeah, I suppose,” he muttered noncommittally.  Then he seemed to spot the girl’s family.  “Er- your parents are our sort, right?”
“They’re a witch and wizard if that’s what you mean,” the girl answered coolly- and Madam Malkin, who was facing away from Draco, couldn’t resist raising an eyebrow.
“I don’t think they should let the other sort in, do you?”
It felt like Draco was planning on continuing, but the girl didn’t give him a chance.  “I think it depends,” she injected, “on what they’re going to achieve throughout their life.  There’s no use throwing out amazing talent where it appears just because they don’t happen to be pure-blooded, is there?”
Draco paused.  “Hmm…  Yeah, I suppose,” he muttered noncommittally.
“The challenge with that, though, is that it’s impossible to know what someone is going to achieve until after they do it, so they have no choice but to let them all in in the hopes of catching the talent.”
Draco sighed.  “Yeah, I suppose,” he muttered.  Then he scowled.  “What’s your surname, anyways?”
“That’s you done,” Malkin’s assistant announced, doing what Malkin recognized as her level best to shove Draco off of the stool without seeming to at all.
The girl watched in silence as the assistant compiled the rest of his purchase, packaged it, attached the receipt from the payment his parents had made in advance, and sent him out the door.
When the door finally closed, her assistant hung her arms, letting out a breath.  “Huugh, I thought that was never going to end.”  Then she straightened herself back up again.  “Anyways, though, sorry about that.”  She turned to the girl’s brother.  “If you would step onto the stool, please?”
The boy obeyed.
“How did you do that?” Madam Malkin asked the girl, as she finished with her hem and moved to her sleeves.
“Do what?” the girl asked, sounding genuinely confused.
“You got a Malfoy to admit that purebloods might not always be superior in every situation.”
“Huh,” she muttered, and shrugged.  “I don’t know, it just felt like the right thing to say.”
She stared at her for a second, then shook her head and returned to her work.
“Your parents are a witch and wizard?” the boy asked.
“Yeah,” the girl answered.  “No idea how I know that, but I do.”
“Witch and wizard?” Madam Malkin repeated, glancing towards her parents…  Parents?
She nodded.  “My Aunt and Uncle took me in when they died,” she said somberly.
There was a second of silence.
“I’m sorry,” Madam Malkin muttered.
“No worries, I don’t remember them at all,” the girl said, then looked up at the ceiling.  “Sometimes I wonder what they were like, though.  And for some reason, I have an odd feeling that someday, I’ll be able to meet them.”  She chuckled softly.
Madam Malkin sighed.  “I’m still sorry,” she told her.  “Aaand, that’s you done.”
The girl hopped off of the stool, removing the pinned robe so Madam Malkin could do her magic on it.
Malkin accepted it, used a quick hemming charm to make the hems she’d pinned permanent, and a second charm to remove all the pins.  A third charm duplicated the same hems onto two more sets of robes, then a fourth tied their name tags to the girl- causing the name ‘Hailey Potter’ to appear on them- before she folded and stacked them and started pulling out the other uniform components she’d need.
“Uh- is that a skirt?” the girl- Hailey- asked suddenly, sounding confused.
She looked up.  “Yes.  It’s part of the Hogwarts girls’ uniform.”
She blinked.  “I’m a boy.”
It was Madam Malkin’s turn to blink.  “Really?”  She looked back down at the stack of clothing.  “But the magic said you were a girl…?”  She paused.  Was the magic wrong?  She looked up at the girl again.  “Are you sure?”
The girl blinked, looking taken aback.  “Uh…  I think?”  It sounded like a question.
Madam Malkin turned fully away from the stack of clothes, to face the girl.  “Do you…  Where you pee, do you have a, er, dangly bit for it to come out of?”
She blinked.  “What dangly bit?”
“How about…”  She trailed off, then sighed.  “Around that same place, a hole big enough to fit a fingertip.”
She flinched.  “Feels weird when I touch it, but yeah.”
She nodded.  “Then you’re a girl.”
She tilted her head.  “Really?”
She nodded.  “Boys have the dangly bit.  Girls have the hole.”
“...  Oh.”  She looked at her aunt and uncle.  “So I guess I’m a girl?”  She still sounded confused.
Both of them seemed to be confused too, while Madam Malkin resumed preparing and packaging Hailey’s robes.  Even her…  Cousin?  Unless he was adopted too, at least- seemed to be confused.





Harry was a little bit preoccupied for much of the rest of the shopping trip, though Professor McGonagall was unable to figure out why.  When it came time to get him a wand, he seemed to enjoy watching Ollivander dash all over the shop, fetching wands, one after another.
Then the wandmaker had asked the Dursleys about the material Petunia’s dress was made of- apparently, it was extremely powerfully magical, and he was curious what it was because apparently he had never encountered a material that was so perfectly suited for use as a wand core.
Harry had, for some reason, looked uneasy ever since then, even though Petunia hadn’t told Ollivander anything.
Then both of the parents had gotten wands too, which seemed to surprise them.  McGonagall had been about to stop Ollivander in the middle of finding Petunia’s wand- the first of the two- when a stream of red and gold sparks leaped from the end of the wand she had just accepted to wave around, scaring her so much she dropped it.  Vernon also jumped when he found his match, but didn’t drop it- or let out any ungainly shrieks of surprise.
The rest of the shopping trip had been uneventful- though when Harry had mentioned that the letters mentioned owls, and McGonagall had subsequently explained that owls carried wizard mail…  and the family had promptly purchased three of them.  Harry got a beautiful snowy owl, which he had named Hedwig on the way out of the shop.
Finally, after Professor McGonagall helped them load their luggage into the back of their car, she gave them the envelope of tickets.  “This’ll be their train tickets,” she told Vernon, who was closest.
He took the envelope, opened it right away, and slid a gold-colored ticket out.  “King’s cross, platform…”  He paused, and checked the other one before looking up.  “Nine and three quarters?”
“Yes,” McGonagall nodded.  “Just walk straight through the barrier between platforms nine and ten- and don’t be scared you’ll crash into it, that’s very important.”
He sighed.  “Alright.”
And then, they were headed home, and McGonagall was heading for Hogwarts to tell Dumbledore that Harry and Dudley were going to be attending.





When they got back home, the sun was beginning to go down, so Harry’s and Dudley’s things were transferred to their bedrooms- and the family owl got placed in Vernon and Petunia’s bedroom.  Especially since both kids had owls, it was going to be easier to keep visitors from realizing they had a mail-carrying owl that way- even Vernon’s sister Marge, whenever she visited.
Harry, meanwhile, went straight to his room with his luggage, locked the door, and opened the package with his robes in it.
He then undressed, and examined himself critically in the mirror.
Yes, he decided, he did seem to be a girl, judging by Madam Malkin’s description.
So…  was ‘he’ the right pronoun to use, or ‘she’?
Well, he had always liked it when people mistook him for a girl and used female terms of address- so perhaps he was a girl, and had always been a girl… and just hadn’t realized it?
Which meant that he was actually a she.
For some reason, being able to definitively claim the female pronoun for himself- herself- made him- her- feel giddy.
He- she- ran back to the clothes she’d- yes!- left on the floor, grabbed the ones she’d just gotten- which even came with underwear- and put them on.  She recognized three…  Those were called bras, right?  But her chest was still as flat as a boy’s, so she left them on the floor.
Finally, she swept her Hogwarts robes about her, did up the fastenings, pulled her hair out to drape down her back, and stepped in front of the mirror as she set her pointed hat on top of her head.
She very nearly let out a squeal of glee.
Then her eyes tracked down to her chest…  where her name plate proclaimed her name to be Hailey Potter.
“Hailey,” she muttered.  “I’m…  Hailey.”  Then she smiled.  “I like it.”
After that, she looked at the long, thin package containing her wand…  then at Hedwig, still sleeping in her cage.  “Hmm,” she muttered, then reached up and plucked a single hair from her head.  She coiled it up gently, while being careful not to kink it, folded a blank piece of paper around it, slipped that into an envelope, sealed the envelope closed, then wrote just one word on the face of the envelope.
‘Ollivander’.
Right when she finished, and set the pen down, there was a soft hoot next to her.  She looked- Hedwig was awake and looking at the letter.  The owl then looked up at her.
She looked between Hedwig and the letter for a second, then settled on Hedwig.  “It’s going to Mister Ollivander in Diagon Alley.  Are you saying you want to take it now?” she asked.
Hedwig gave an unmistakable nod.
She blinked.  “Okay then.”  She undid the latch on the cage, and held out her arm.  Hedwig obediently hopped onto her offered arm, then she carried the owl to the window, opened the window with one hand, and held up the letter.  “Have a safe journey,” she told her.
Hedwig nodded, gave another soft hoot, clamped the sealed envelope in her beak, spread her wings, and took off out the window.
“Even without breakfast,” Hailey mused, as she watched her disappear into the distance, then chuckled.  “Let’s be fair, she’s probably going to fetch her own breakfast either along the way or on the way back.”  Then she scowled.  “Wish I could tell him what that hair is from without…”  She sighed.  “I don’t want people to start pestering me for my hair.”





Vernon looked up when Harry appeared in the doorway into the living room…  Wearing his sweeping black robes and tall, pointed hat.
It was interesting how easy it was to tell that he wasn’t wearing pants under it, but a skirt.
“Looks nice,” he nodded.  “Though your hair is sticking out.”
Harry smiled.  “I know,” he said.  “And since I’m apparently a girl, and my name is apparently Hailey…”  He touched the nametag, and shrugged.
“True,” Vernon muttered, putting his hand to his chin.  “What do you think?”
“I think I’m a girl named Hailey,” she said simply.  “I wonder what happened to make us think I was a boy?”
Vernon laughed.  “Yeah, I wonder.”
Then she twirled around in a circle, causing her skirts to twirl out around her.  “How do I- Oooh, I like that.”  Then she spun in place several times, making her skirts fly up high enough Vernon was certain it was a full skirt…  and that her robes weren’t enough to pin it down.
Then she stopped, wobbled, and braced herself against the wall.  “Woo, dizzy!  But that was fun!”





Garrick Ollivander was just getting ready for bed when a sudden tap sounded on his bedroom window.  He looked- it was a snowy owl, holding a letter.
So he opened the window.  The owl held the letter out to him- and when he accepted it, it turned around and took off, vanishing back out into the night.
“Huh,” he muttered, and looked at the envelope as he closed the window with one hand.
It looked to be a muggle envelope, constructed with paper and glue, with only his last name written on it.  He slit it open with a tap of his wand, and removed the contents.
When he unfolded the piece of paper at his reading desk, it was to find a single, very long hair from…  something.  It gave off the same impossible energy as Petunia Dursley’s dress had- and he was right, it was perfectly suited for wandmaking.
But what was it?
He looked at the page it had been wrapped in…  and spied a few words, written in a strange language that he had never seen before, but could understand anyways.
Hair from the head of a goddess.
There was nothing else written on it- on either side, on the inside of the envelope (though the ‘security weave’ made verifying that difficult), or anywhere else.
He looked at the window again.  “Thanks,” he muttered softly.  “Whoever you are.”
He then headed downstairs to his workshop, in his pajamas, to set the undamaged hair carefully on his work table for the following morning, before returning upstairs to sleep.
Had Petunia Dursley’s dress really been made from the hair of a goddess?  How much hair did that goddess have?  How many goddesses had it come from?  What kinds of effects would wearing a part of a deity like that have on the wearer?
Because it most certainly would have effects of some sort or another.  Perhaps that was why the family had seemed so happy when they came in?  Perhaps that was why he’d sensed that the adults had been muggles when they entered…  yet when he finished finding wands for the children, one of which had claimed the wand that had the second of Dumbledore’s phoenix’ tail feathers in it, he could tell that they had somehow become a witch and wizard.
But why would something Petunia was wearing affect Vernon?  Was he also wearing something made from the hair of a goddess, but that was covered up somehow?