Harry wasn’t sure what to think when the front door suddenly flew open during what would normally have been breakfast.
The last day and a half or so, since that visit to the zoo… had been stressful. Once the strange people had left- he never did find out what the color-changing-haired woman’s name was- he had found out, courtesy of Dudley, that while he was faster as a girl… he was also weaker. Easier to avoid him in open terrain, but the blows hurt more when they landed- and, he’d found out when they got home, he bruised easier as well.
He’d also found out that the dress the woman had given him tore easier than Dudley’s cast-offs did; Dudley and his friend Piers Polkiss, who had been using the bathroom when the transformation thing had happened, had started shredding it almost as soon as they caught him. The only reason Petunia had stopped them was because she was worried about what people would think if she allowed her family to be associated with a ‘streaker’.
Then they’d gotten home, and Vernon had taken his turn at beating Harry… and he wouldn’t be surprised if someone told him he was lucky to have survived it. He’d been covered in blood at the end- mostly his own- and had sported lots of broken bones.
Then he’d been thrown into his cupboard without dinner.
He had struggled to fall asleep, still as a girl and wearing the fragmented remains of the dress, all the while wondering if he’d ever wake up again.
When he’d awoken… he’d done so as a completely uninjured boy once again. The dress had even turned back into some of Dudley’s castoffs- albeit still ripped to shreds. Oh well, he had… two outfits left.
The Dursleys had been shocked to find him back as usual, and the day had gone on, also as usual. This included another beating, of course, though his stronger male body withstood the blows a lot better; none of his bones broke, he only got a lot of bruises.
Around midday, Petunia had dragged him forcefully out to the car to demand he do the ‘girl thing’ again so they could get the clothes ‘those people’ wanted them to.
She was afraid of going to… they had called it ‘magical prison’, right? He wondered what made it so terrifying that even Petunia had a shadow of utter terror in her eyes at the mention of it.
He’d had to tell her he didn’t know what had done it.
So she had driven out of town. Harry had wondered why Dudley and Vernon weren’t with them; Petunia hated driving. She also hated answering his questions, so he hadn’t found out why.
He could guess, though. Both boys had been enraged at the sight of his female form, and Petunia needed him to be in one piece long enough to buy clothes that would fit ‘well enough’.
And she was afraid that, if the ‘people’ didn’t see his female form, they would think she and Vernon had dumped him on the streets and replaced him.
It took close to an hour to figure out what it was- and quite a few slaps from Petunia telling him not to be silly.
Well, she shouldn’t have; it was one of his silly ideas that had borne fruit: He… sneezed. While thinking about girls.
The flash of light was unexpected… but his suddenly getting shorter, and having things that needed hiding on his chest, was expected. It was a good thing he’d already used a piece of thread from the frayed edges of some of his socks to tie the top of his shirt shut in place of the busted buttons; nothing was unduly exposed, and they’d had a… rather uneventful shopping trip, in which Petunia had gotten Harry three dresses… which were all the fanciest, frilliest, poofiest ones she could find. No doubt she’d claim it was all the store had, but at least it was clothes.
Nothing else, though- and as he found out, he really did need some kind of undershirt or something, because his… chest bumps, whatever they were called, had really sensitive spots in the middle of each one. Maybe that was what that… weird-shaped kind of girls’ underwear was for- the one Petunia hadn’t let him go anywhere near?
Not that she’d let him go anywhere near the more normally-shaped kind either, but that was beside the point.
When they’d gotten home… Harry had hidden himself away in a hurry. He’d then waited for the entire rest of the day; while all the broken bones had seemed to be mended, they were also all tender, and Harry got the idea that they weren’t actually healed, only barely set in place, and as such very easily re-breakable.
Then came this morning. The night before, Petunia had forced him to change into one of the dresses and give her all of the elephant skins he had left. The dress was terribly uncomfortable, but it was what he had.
It was all he had, actually. This morning, he’d picked the least flashy of the three and, despite still being male, dressed in it. It was tight; he was slightly larger as a boy, especially in the shoulders, but he managed to get it on without busting any seams.
He knew what all three Dursleys would do if he dared emerge from his cupboard naked, after all.
He’d started making breakfast.
Then Vernon had entered… and flown into a rage.
He’d dodged the first blow and fled- but the dress had gotten in his way. He’d tripped on it in the hallway, and gone down face-first- then before he could recover, Vernon had caught up and begun beating him to a pulp.
By the time the door opened, he could feel several broken bones. As near as he could tell, the only way for him to survive would be to turn himself into a girl… and hope that his bones would knit themselves together when he did, as they had the first of the two nights.
There was a barked word Harry didn’t catch and a bright flash of scarlet light, then Vernon flew away from him, howling in rage. Another flash of light, and his voice was muffled; he’d evidently been tied up.
He knew what had happened.
He concentrated on girls… and focused the rest of his mind on sneezing. It took him a few seconds, but he managed it.
The sneeze was insanely painful… but as he’d hoped, he could feel his bones click back together like a puzzle.
He was alive… and the People had arrived, so he would probably remain so for a few minutes longer. Perhaps they’d even see how much of a danger they were to him!
Junior Auror Nymphadora Tonks was basically nothing but nerves as she led a representative from Magical Child Services- a branch of St. Mungo’s- and four other Aurors, including Director Amelia Bones herself, up the walk of Number Four, Privet Drive.
She’d known, when she’d leveled the neglect charges against the Dursleys, that it would be her case- even if all child abuse or neglect cases were required, by law, to involve the Director.
It was quite the first case to have; she’d graduated from Auror School literally the day before she’d run into the Dursleys on her first assignment. And here she suddenly had such a huge case, which required her to lead it until it was fully resolved, which would basically never happen for an abuse or neglect case until the child came of age!
The Healer, Director Bones, and all four Aurors had read her report from the initial… event. They knew what to expect- even if all the Aurors, even the Director, were technically only there to support or witness her in her case.
She froze for a fraction of a second as she approached the front door. The yelling coming from behind it-! That couldn’t be good.
Her wand flashed up and she nearly blew the door off its hinges, but managed to switch to a far less destructive ‘Alohomora’ at the last second. She did overpower the spell quite significantly, though, causing the door to burst open and smash the handle against the inside wall.
She had perhaps a half a second to see what was happening inside- Mr. Dursley was sitting on top of someone that looked like the girl, pummeling her with his fists- before Director Bones overpowered a disarming charm to send him soaring down the hall and through the kitchen door with an ungainly shriek.
She bolted in after the charm, the Healer and Director on her heels. It took her about a second to cover the girl, silence Mr. Dursley by hog-tying him with a binding charm, and verify that there was nobody in position to endanger them, before turning back to look inquisitively at the Healer… and to realize that it actually wasn’t the girl. A boy was lying on the floor, wearing a frilly- and very bloodied- dress. His hair was as black as the girl’s had been, so it was easy to mistake them.
The Healer brandished her wand silently at him… then, just as silently, shook her head.
Director Bones then sucked in a sudden breath and reached up to brush a lock of the boy’s hair away from his forehead.
Tonks blinked.
She recognized him.
That was Harry Potter, the Boy who Lived!
Then he sneezed, and turned into the girl.
“What the-!?” the Healer began in alarm.
Amelia only stared for a second, before standing to turn to the other four aurors. “What are you waiting for?” she demanded. “Arrest that man for attempted murder of the Lord and sole surviving member of a Noble and Most Ancient House!”
“O-Of what?” the girl- Harry- asked, sitting up while the Healer watched Amelia.
That earned… Him? Her? Them a number of stares. Their voice was still pained, but it looked like they no longer had any broken bones.
Director Bones looked at them for a second, then back up to the other Aurors as they moved to obey. “And this case is strictly confidential,” she commanded.
Tonks nodded. That order would keep the news that Harry Potter could apparently turn into a girl by sneezing from being revealed to the public.
She lowered herself down in front of Harry. “Um… Harry, right?” she asked.
“Uh- Y-Yeah,” the girl muttered. “You’re… color-changing-hair?”
She blinked. She’d been kicking herself for forgetting to ask for the girl’s name back at the zoo, but had she really forgotten to introduce herself?
“Ah- Yeah,” she answered. “Call me Tonks. Where are the others?”
Harry pointed at the door Vernon had crashed through. “In the kitchen,” they answered. “Sounds like Petunia’s cooking and Dudley’s stuffing his face.”
She nodded faintly as the other four aurors walked into the kitchen. One of them cried out. “Holy Crap she wasn’t kidding!” Then- “Why on earth are you feeding him that much? Are you trying to kill him?”
“How are you feeling?” she asked. “How badly does it hurt?”
“Not that bad, actually,” Harry observed, looking down at theirself. “Most of the pain is residual now… like I’m a completely different person. Weird.”
“Very weird,” the Healer agreed, evidently nonplussed by whatever results she was getting from her scanning spells.
Harry gingerly touched their ribs. “Still tender, though. From the day before yesterday, not from…”
“What happened the day before yesterday?” Tonks asked, her tone darkening while her heart filled with dread.
There was a moment of silence.
“You don’t want to know,” they muttered just as darkly.
“They beat you up, didn’t they?” the Healer asked, her expression betraying a sudden, dark understanding. Perhaps she was seeing the traces of not the injuries he’d just ‘healed’ but other injuries instead? “Broke your bones?”
They looked at her, then sighed, and nodded. “Not as bad as… just now, though.”
“I should hope not,” Tonks told them- then forced herself to ask the question that might solve some of her confusion. “So, um- what do you want me to call you?”
“I’m Harry,” they answered promptly, then paused. “Though… that isn’t a girls’ name, is it?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she told them.
They shook their head. “No, no. If I’m going to turn into a girl when I sneeze, I want to do it properly,” they asserted. “And that means… Hmm.” They paused. “Harry… Harrey… Halley…? Hailey.” They nodded. “Hailey, when I’m…” They glanced down. “A girl.”
“... Alright,” she muttered slowly. “So… ‘Hailey’ when you’re… physically female, and ‘Harry’ when you’re physically male…?”
They nodded. “Yeah.”
She rubbed her chin. “And… should the pronouns also do that?” She paused for a second, then clarified in response to Harry… Hailey’s confused expression. “So that, um, She is Miss Hailey, and He is Mister Harry.” She scowled. “Why do I suck at this?” she asked rhetorically.
“Oh, I get it,” Har-Hailey nodded. “So Hailey does girl things with Her actions, and Harry does boy things with His actions… Wow, feels really weird to refer to myself in third person.”
“I bet,” Tonks agreed. “But yeah, essentially.”
She shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
“Ahh…” She paused. “Alright. Um… that- that raises another question.” She met Hailey’s eyes. “When I don’t happen to know which you happen to be at the time… how should I refer to you?”
“Well, I’m-!” She paused. Then she frowned, and finally rubbed her chin. “That’s… that’s a good question. Maybe as Harry because that’s what I’m used to…?”
She nodded as well. “Makes sense to me. Let me know if that changes, though, please. Um…” She glanced down at the dress. “That… gown. Is that what they got you?”
She shrugged. “Well it fits,” she observed bluntly. Then she glanced down at it. “Er… this is- was- the tamest of the bunch.”
Three days later, a parchment envelope arrived in the mail. When Petunia opened and read it, she burst into tears, and Harry peered over her shoulder to read it as well.
Vernon Dursley had been sentenced to life in ‘Azkaban’ prison.
Three days after that, another letter informed them that Vernon had died in Azkaban Prison, having deliberately broken his own neck. Petunia was devastated- though not as devastated as she was the following day, when Tonks returned for her weekly visit with Harry. Harry had proper clothes of both genders and a real bedroom rather than the cupboard under the stairs, all thanks to some very strict orders the week before- and this week, Child Services decided that Petunia wasn’t taking care of Dudley properly, and took him away, kicking and screaming.
Harry noticed that Petunia seemed a little less aversive to him when he was in female form, so he started transforming himself for her. It wasn’t long before he’d acquired the peculiar skill of being able to sneeze at will.
The house was quiet with neither Vernon nor Dudley in it. Harry sneezed every morning, then Hailey did the cooking, gardening, and everything she could… all the while staying out of Petunia’s way, and refilling the cleaners whenever Petunia got low. That was what Petunia did when she got stressed out: She began cleaning everything in sight.
Two weeks later, Tonks walked in to find Hailey holding Petunia while the older woman cried. Interestingly, Tonks commented on seeing traces of red in Hailey’s hair when she’d done that, and used her own strange color-changing ability (apparently she was a ‘metamorphmagus’) to show her what it had looked like.
Then the mail had arrived, and Hailey fetched it. There were a few letters on the doormat- and one of them looked like the check from Vernon’s life insurance. Tonks had helped Hailey notify the company of Vernon’s death a week before, while Petunia had been crying over a bottle of bleach in the kitchen.
Another of them was, unexpectedly, addressed to Hailey, in an envelope of heavy parchment. It wasn’t even paper, but parchment! She stared at it for a few seconds, and the title before her name, then sighed, picked up all the mail, and headed back to the kitchen, where Petunia was just finishing up her meal.
“What is it?” Petunia asked.
“It looks like the life insurance check is here,” she observed. “I’m sorry he…”
“Don’t be,” Petunia half-commanded her. “He made his own choices. I warned him not to!” She took a deep breath. “Didn’t… Didn’t realize you were…”
“That Lily married into such a powerful family,” Hailey whispered. Following the disaster that had gotten Vernon arrested, Tonks and her top-tier boss had explained what the Potters were to the Wizarding World. Apparently, she was the sole surviving member of one of the most powerful magical noble families in the world: The Grand Royal and Most Ancient House of Potter. And of course, while her family outright owned a ruling majority in several countries’ magical governments, Britain was their home country, so this was where they lived- even though they only had five Wizengamot seats. Her father had appointed Albus Dumbledore to one of them, and set him as proxy for the other four, just as he’d done with the two highly influential Potter seats on the International Confederation of Wizards: One appointed, the other proxied, both to the same man. Her family was so powerful that, by international law… she was allowed to kill anyone that attacked or even just insulted her House, and endangering her (as the Head of House Potter) or her family, as Vernon had done, was a capital offense around the world. So was abusing the same, except only if she formally forgave them, using words- and invoking magic- that were completely foreign to her.
It was rather fortunate nobody had witnessed Dudley beating her up, and Petunia had been on her best behavior in those first few encounters, so no charges had been leveled against them.
And that neglect wasn’t considered ‘abuse’ by that law, unless the perpetrator didn’t correct it promptly upon being notified.
Apparently, imprisonment for life in Azkaban was considered worse than capital punishment, hence why Vernon had gotten that- for the gruesome nature of his attack against her- instead of what Director Amelia Bones had called the ‘Veil of Death’, apparently the magical version of a hangman’s noose.
Petunia nodded, deftly picked up the official envelope, and left the room, headed for the office.
Then Tonks spoke up, looking at the mail pile. “Did… Did Hogwarts send your invitation by muggle post?” she muttered.
“Who?” Hailey asked, looking down at the pile, then paused. “That was the magic school, right?”
“Yeah. That’s the Hogwarts logo on the wax seal.”
She raised an eyebrow, and flipped the envelope to reveal the address, complete with the title. “So when they invite Princess Hailey to Hogwarts…”
She blinked. “... Huh. Muggle post, yet applying wizarding titles.” She paused. “Impersonating a title that you don’t have is a pretty big crime in either world, so I’d recommend not claiming the title in the muggle world until and unless you can confirm a muggle title that applies it.” She rubbed her chin. “Hmm. I know you like, ahh, girlifying, but it’ll probably be a good idea to stay male for a day to do your Hogwarts shopping. Turn girl in the middle if you want to get a female uniform as well, and all.”
She sighed. “Whenever Petunia sees Harry… It’s like she’s desperately holding herself back from doing something she’ll regret. Yet she hugs Hailey with all her might…” She sighed again. “I guess I remind her of her little sister, my mother.”
“And Harry looks very much like James did,” Tonks observed. “I wonder what she has against him?”
“Good question,” she agreed, “and I’m afraid to ask.” She scowled. “It might be… easier if I just went to Hogwarts as Hailey.” She rubbed the side of her head. “I mean, I can girlify basically at will now- I’ve been able to get away with smaller sneezes lately, whereas at first they had to be so strong they hurt, even without healing my bones- but I can’t go back. Well.. I can, but only if I sleep for a while. And if I don’t get a good sleep- say, if I need to use the bathroom multiple times during the night- I don’t actually turn back at all.” She sighed. “So… yeah.”
“I’m worried about what might happen if you go as Hailey, though,” Tonks confided. “If you do, and sleep in the girls’ dormitories… say one morning, one of the other girls decides to wake you up, and…”
She flinched. “That would not be a comfortable morning,” she agreed, then rubbed her chin. “Do… Do you think I can request private accommodations?”
“Well, we already know you’re the Princess of a Grand Royal House, and if I remember right, anything Noble and up gets the right to use what’s called the Lord’s Quarters at Hogwarts if they want to.” She scowled. “As far as I know, you request it by bringing it up during the Sorting Ceremony?”