• Published 15th Aug 2023
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A Hogwarts Harmony - computerneek



Sometimes, the path to harmony is quite... discordant. Especially at Hogwarts.

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Chapter 9: Discordad

Ron and Morning turned out to be decent companions, Hailey found. The Weasleys weren’t going to give up on finding Harry Potter- and, as they’d apparently missed her surname when she’d offered it with her title earlier, she’d professed to be unrelated. She hated how famous Harry was, even after experiencing it for only half a day, and wanted to have the option of ‘disappearing’ into her Hailey persona whenever she wanted.

Though of course, she had already declared her rank… She was probably going to be famous anyways, though at least this time not for getting attacked by a mass murderer. She was also going to be less famous- just enough for people to know about her, but not so much that every single person in the entire Leaky Cauldron would want to shake her hand five times in a row.

She would, she supposed, have to keep an eye out for political maneuvering, though. Probably in both forms.

But in any case, Ron had stayed behind to hang out while his older brothers searched the train for Harry; Ron was evidently the lazy sort, letting them do all the hard work.

She- and Morning, she realized- ended up learning a great deal about the magical world from him. Eventually, they were interrupted by a smiling witch pushing a cart full of candy. While Ron pulled out a few sandwiches his mother had made and complained about how long it was taking his brothers to find Harry, Hailey and Morning together bought enough to stock a candy shop, each intent on trying some of everything.

And, of course, on having enough to share.

It wasn’t too long after that that they were interrupted by a boy named Neville Longbottom, looking for a toad he’d lost.

Morning lost no time. “Two compartments down,” she indicated, “and under the bench. You’ll want to get a suitable habitat to keep him from running away in the future- he’s uncomfortable, and is looking for something more suitable.”

“Th-Thanks!” the boy cried, then vanished.

There was a moment of silence, then Morning closed the door. “Aww, dang. I was about to offer to help him build such a habitat when we got to the school.”

Ron sighed. “Don’t know why he’s so bothered,” he muttered. “If I’d brought a toad, I’d lose it as quick as I could.”

Morning shrugged her shoulders. “It’d probably be happiest after being ‘lost’ if you waited to lose it until reaching the Black Lake.”

He snorted. “Probably,” he agreed offhandedly. “Mind, I brought Scabbers, so I can’t talk.”

Scabbers was the rat that Ron had brought as a pet- and every time he pulled the rat out, it would just snooze. Eat and sleep, Ron had claimed. Seemed a bit docile for a rat- and Hailey had the incongruous idea that an excellent use for the rat might be exactly what Hedwig- her snowy owl- obviously wanted to do with it, watching its every movement from her cage.

It would go in line with how much Ron was complaining about having been given said rat.

“He might have died and you wouldn’t know the difference,” Ron continued, glaring at the rat in question, snoozing on the seat next to him. “I tried to turn him yellow yesterday, to make him more interesting, but the spell didn’t work.”

“It didn’t?” Morning asked, tilting her head. “What spell was it?”

“I’ll show you,” Ron indicated, then dug his wand out of his trunk.

“That wand doesn’t like you,” Hailey observed. “Not so much that it won’t behave, but…” She scowled. “Is there a reason you didn’t get a better fit in Diagon Alley?”

Ron shrugged. “Didn’t have the money.”

Morning blinked. “Yet not half an hour ago, you were describing famous Quidditch games you’ve been to with your brothers…?”

He nodded.

“Sounds like your family has a budgeting problem,” Hailey muttered.

The silence held for almost three full seconds.

“I… won’t deny it,” Ron finally answered.

Right at that moment, the next visitor appeared. It was a girl this time- with bushy brown hair and a bit of a bossy attitude. The same girl, Hailey realized, as had waved to her in Gringotts. “Hi,” she began. “I heard someone in here found Neville’s-!” She broke off, staring at Hailey. “Uh… Are you Harry Potter?” she asked.

Hailey sighed. “Would you care to explain to me what part of the Girl sitting in the corner made you think of the Boy who lived?” she snapped. She wasn’t sure exactly what annoyed her about being called Harry, but it was truly infuriating, even without considering Harry’s fame!

“S-Sorry!” the girl squeaked. “I- I just saw the scar, and-!”

“So I happen to have a scar that is shaped in a manner that fits the description in the books and you thought I was Harry, without even considering the rest of me?”

She put her face in her hands, blushing furiously. “S-Sorry, I- I-!”

“Ahh, let’s try not to bite each other’s heads off just yet,” Morning injected cautiously. “So, uh, Ron, you were going to demonstrate that spell, right?”

The new girl looked up suddenly, her eyes zeroing in on Ron’s wand. “Oooh, are you doing magic? Let’s see it then!” She sat down.

Hailey snorted and turned to Ron as well.

“Oh, ahh,” Ron muttered, evidently unsettled, then raised his wand over the rat and began to incant. “Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid, fat rat yellow.” He waved his wand.

“Uh… Are you sure that’s a real spell?” the bushy-haired girl offered. “Well it’s not very-!”

“Who gave it to you?” Hailey asked, raising her voice slightly to cut the other girl off.

“Fred and George,” Ron answered, while the girl shot Hailey a quick glare. “Bet they knew it was a dud.”

“The pranksters?” Hailey confirmed.

He blinked. “Ahh… Yeah, I walked straight into that one, didn’t I?”

“Though… A good color changing charm ought to work,” Morning observed, then turned to Hailey. “You know any?”

Hailey paused. “Hmm… Yeah, I have an idea.” She drew her wand, and flicked it at the rat, casting the spell that had come to her mind. Her wand wanted to add one to it- it felt like the incantation was ‘Homorphus’- so she let it, and both spells hit the rat simultaneously.

There was a moment of silence- then the rat grew and changed shape. A head, shoulders- a second later, a man sat where the rat had. His face looked amazingly like a rat’s- and his hair was bright yellow.

“... Huh,” Hailey observed into the ensuing silence. “That seems to have made him more interesting.”

“More… interesting?” the bushy-haired girl asked tensely, elbowing the man in the face as her other hand escorted his hand away from her legs.

Morning rose to her feet. “Hmm… Peter Pettigrew, who was supposed to have died nine years ago.” She scowled. “And what’s that on his arm?” She indicated the man’s left arm, which he’d reflexively raised to shield his face, even as he pretended to snooze on.

“Th-The Dark Mark,” Ron muttered.

The man finally opened his eyes, blinked at the back of his left forearm, then drew a wand from his back pocket.

There was an echoing bang and a bright flash of greenish light, and the next thing anyone knew, the man was lying on the floor, tied up like a mummy with a thick green rope that Morning was tying into a knot as she stood over him.

“Not so fast,” she commanded. “You’re under arrest for assault and sexual assault. Now.” She looked up. “Anyone have an owl handy?”

Hailey looked up. “Hey Hedwig,” she called- and Hedwig fluttered out of her suddenly opened cage to land on her outstretched arm. “How fast do you think you can get a letter to the Auror Office?”

“Hoo Hoo.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” she smiled, then looked up at Morning. “She’s ready when you are.”

The bushy-haired girl lowered her wand, her face plastered with surprise. “... Huh,” she muttered slowly.

Morning looked up at her, even as she handed Hedwig her fully written letter; she’d conjured it already written. “Hmm? Oh. A secret technique- I’m Morning Sun, Second in Command of the Equestrian Royal Guard. You?”

“Ahh… Hermione. Hermione Granger. Um… daughter of a dentist?” she offered.

Hailey laughed. “Nice to meet you, Miss Granger. I’m Hailey- or Princess Hailey if you feel like being formal.”

“Princess-?” Hermione repeated back at her.

She shrugged. “Grand Royal and Most Ancient House of not-going-to-say-it.”

“... Huh,” Hermione muttered, then turned to Ron. “And you…?”

“R-Ron Weasley,” Ron muttered, after shaking himself out. “I think we’re an Ancient House, but no nobility.” His eyes tracked back to the man his rat had turned into. “Was… Was Scabbers really…?”

“Seems like it,” Morning answered, tossing him casually into the overhead luggage rack. “Peter Pettigrew. Supposedly killed by Sirius Black, alongside thirteen muggles, right after accusing Black of setting Voldemort on Harry Potter’s trail. But if he’s got the Dark Mark, I rather expect he was framing Black. He probably killed the muggles himself, and was the one that set Voldemort on that trail. We’ll see what the Department of Magical Law Enforcement thinks- we’re still close enough to London that we’ll probably meet them at Hogsmeade Station.”

“Y-You said You Know Who’s name,” Ron muttered softly, staring almost admiringly at Morning.

“Whose?” Morning asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“You Know Who’s,” Ron ‘clarified’.

“I think he means Voldemort,” Hailey informed her. “But… it’s just a name, right? Nothing scary about that- right, Hermione?”

Hermione didn’t answer right away, busy covering her mouth with one hand as she seemed to be suppressing giggles. She forced her face straight, then straightened up. “I don’t think there’s anything scary about it,” she answered. “Most everyone I’ve met up Diagon Alley seems to disagree, though. Always ‘You Know Who’ this and ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’ that- I mean, the man has a name, does he not?”

“People are still scared,” Morning sighed. “Wouldn’t happen in Equestria, we get big bads at least as bad as Voldemort every Tuesday. Well… we didn’t always, that started in earnest right around the time the worldwall started breaking down some fifty years ago, but…” She shrugged. “We’re used to dealing with magical armageddon every other month or so by now, so a mere Dark Lord is no big deal. Lots of people have started calling them dork lords.”

Hermione burst into laughter.


Around a half an hour later, the compartment door slid open again- and this time, three boys entered. The middle one was a tall blonde with pale skin, the other two both thick and heavy, looking like bodyguards. “Is it true,” the middle one asked, making Hermione immediately think of the stuck-up nobles… which was completely right. Unlike she and Hailey, the boy was wearing his nameplate, and it read ‘Draco Malfoy’. “They’re saying all up and down the train that Harry Potter’s in this compartment.” He looked at Hailey. “So, it’s you, isn’t it?”

Hailey rose to her feet, drawing in a breath.

More importantly, to Voldemort at least, was that Morning Sun let out a frightened ‘eek’ and shrunk into her seat. Morning Sun, the formidable Second in Command of the Royal Guard, who had flattened Wormtail before she, Voldemort, could so much as draw her wand, was scared of a little girl!

Why does everyone seem to think that I am Harry Potter?” she demanded sharply, her anger filling the compartment and causing all three boys to falter. “Why do they see a little mark on my forehead that happens to look like the scar on Harry’s, and automatically decide that I must be him!?”

“Ah-!” Malfoy began.

Hailey wasn’t done, though. “Well, here’s some news for you, then!” She stuck her fingers into her hairline and peeled her scar right off, leaving unblemished skin. “It’s a sticker!” she hollered, and threw it on the floor. “See? Not. Harry. Potter! At. All!

Hermione stared at the scar as it burst into black flames on the floor and disappeared, carefully not allowing the searing soul-pain of a shattered horcrux to show on her face- even as both of the other two of her screamed in agony, startling and scaring their families.

That had most definitely not been a sticker.

So how had the girl so easily peeled a horcrux out of her forehead!?

“Now, now, Hailey, dear, there’s no need to get violent.”

She shivered at the sudden addition of the adult male voice to the room and looked up to see a tall man patting Hailey on the shoulder with a lion’s paw glove. He wore an eagle talon glove on his other hand, and each of his boots seemed to be designed to look like a different kind of hoof. He was wearing a long brown trench coat with a gray hood on top and a red tail pinned to the back, giving him the appearance of a man that wasn’t quite sane. The two horns sewn into the top of his hood didn’t exactly help; one was a white-yellow antler that looked like lightning, the other resembling a strange, swollen blue unicorn horn.

Hailey looked up at him. “I wasn’t going to get violent, Dad,” she informed him.

Across the compartment from Hermione, Morning Sun’s eyes went wide. “Wha-!?” she began, but never finished, too busy staring.

The man raised an eyebrow so high it went clear off his face and into the air above it. What kind of magic was he using to do that? “And the scar?”

“That was just standard fare,” Hailey informed him calmly.

There was a pause.

“Fair,” the man agreed, then looked up at Hermione. “Is something wrong, Hermione dear?”

“N-No, Dad,” she answered, then blinked and brought her fingers to her mouth. “D-Dad?” she whispered, testing the word. Why had she called him that?

“Oh, I see,” he answered, then reached over to touch the tip of his taloned glove to her forehead for a moment.

And she understood… instantly.

This man wasn’t actually a man. He was the avatar of magic itself- and more specifically, the magic she’d drawn to be able to reincarnate. An act which had made her… his daughter, so to speak- resulting in the peculiar situation of having more than two ‘biological’ parents for the same body.

His name… was Discord, apparently. An interesting name for an avatar of magic.

Discord, apparently satisfied, turned to Draco. “It would generally behoove you not to…?” He trailed off. “Hangon, why are you male?”

“Uh- what?” Draco asked, taking a step back- and judging by the facial expressions, the sentiment was shared by everyone else in the compartment.

Except Ron, who was fast asleep for some reason.

Discord moved quickly, completely unhindered from being behind Hailey; he simply stepped through her. A second later, he touched Draco’s shoulder- and with a bright flash of light, Draco was gone.

In his place stood a girl. She was a very cute girl, and unless Hermione missed her guess, short for her age, though rather… well-endowed for her age as well. Her hair hung all the way down to her waist, waving gently all the way- and it was a bright, gleaming silver, almost like it was made of liquid metal, except for the two royal blue stripes that split it neatly into thirds.

“There, that’s better,” Discord asserted. “Now, as I was saying, it would generally behoove you-!”

The girl fainted, falling on top of Hermione.

Hermione caught her quickly. “What the-?” she began, before flicking her wand, casting a quick diagnostic spell. The girl… was unconscious due to shock, as expected. If awoken earlier than she would on her own, she’d probably just pass right back out again, so there was no point trying. She looked up at the two bodyguards- but they’d already wandered off someplace, and she somehow understood that Discord had done something to them… and not just to make them completely miss the sudden transformation right in front of them.

“Why did you turn him into a girl?” Hermione asked.

“... Behoove you not to call Hailey by a male name,” Discord muttered dejectedly, and sighed, before looking up at Hermione. “Hmm? Oh, wasn’t she already a girl?”

“Uh- no, he was a boy before you…?”

“Hmm? No, she was never a boy to begin with, was she? Not unlike you weren’t ever a boy, were you?”

“N-No,” she muttered, carefully not thinking about her past life as the very male Tom Riddle slash Lord Voldemort. “I never was.”

“See?” Discord offered.

“So if… if she was already a girl,” Hailey began, “what did you do?”

Discord turned to Hailey, who looked confused, but not really scared. “Hmm? Oh, I just did about the same thing as ‘Mione did to you,” he informed her.

Hermione looked up from using her wand to close the door and levitate the girl up onto the seat next to her, using her own lap as a pillow. What was he talking about?

“Eh?” Hailey began, glancing at Hermione and back to Discord. “You- You-!” She paused. “You mean she can sneeze?”

Hermione blinked. Of course she could sneeze- but no, that wasn’t what Hailey was asking.

She had given Discord a quick wink.

And when talking to Discord, winks could tell entire books.

She wasn’t sure how she knew that.

Discord chuckled, evidently amused by whatever information was embedded in the wink. “Ah, yes, yes, she can sneeze. Just like you can, can’t you?” He winked as well.

Hailey giggled. “Yes, I can. So, um…” She looked around the compartment, and Hermione followed suit.

Nobody new had appeared; there was just Hailey, Hermione, Discord, Morning Sun, Ron, and the silver-haired girl that used to be Draco in the room. The girl was still out cold- and Ron was still sleeping. Morning Sun was awake, watching Discord with an expression of wary curiosity, though it didn’t look like she understood what was going on any better than Hermione did.

Except, of course, that Discord seemed to be familiar to her. There was no trace of the fear she’d shown earlier.

Finally, Hailey asked her question. “What exactly is a ‘Seed of Magic’?”

Hermione blinked. A Seed of Magic? Was she referring to the legendary ‘Carrier of the Seed of Magic’ title that guaranteed a House a Grand Royal and Most Ancient status for all eternity?

There was a pause. “Ahh, yes,” Discord muttered slowly. “A random question with nothing to do with the topic at hand.”

Hailey shrugged. “I’ve been wondering for a while now.”

He chuckled. “Yes, I suppose you have, haven’t you? Well then, the Seeds of Magic. They work a bit differently in Equestria- every Equestrian carries one, and it is in fact what lets you… sneeze.” He winked at Hailey, who snorted. “But you’re not asking about the Equestrian Seeds of Magic, are you?”

“I’ll admit, I didn’t know they were a thing in Equestria,” Hailey muttered, resuming her seat and gesturing for Discord to go ahead and take a seat… which he did, sitting in midair in front of the door. “But yeah, I guess I was talking about the… uh, is it Earthen, or British-specific?”

“It’s general to all of Earth, even if all the remaining Terrestrial Seeds are in fact in Britain right now,” Discord mused. “Simply breathing Equestrian air will give you an Equestrian seed, even though said seed is lethal to a terrestrial soul without some special tuning, but the Terrestrial ones are much harder. Especially since you simply can’t get them any more…” He sighed, then began to sing.

A long, long, time ago,

Long before the super bowl,

And things like lemonade, -!

“Hangon a second,” Hailey scowled. “Don’t you mean-!”

Hermione grinned, and began. “A long, long time ago,” she began.

Long before humanity,” Hailey continued.

And things like industry,” Hermione finished- honestly amazed by how well the impromptu duet had gone.

“True enough,” Discord conceded, “but that actually rhymes.”

“Fair,” Hailey nodded. “So, how far back are we talking?”

“Hmm… Muggles have found fossils of those things called ‘dinosaurs’, right? Well, a piece of the asteroid that killed them bounced on the water’s surface and grew into a tree when it hit the shore. A Tree… known as the Tree of Life. It stood for an incredibly long time, up until some silly human chopped it down to make a wardrobe. Silly, I tell you. Mind, that same human became the world’s first Dark Lord, and is actually still alive today, sealed away…” He trailed off. “But anyways, anyone that ate the fruit of that tree got the Terrestrial Seed of Magic.”

“That’d make it an extra-terrestrial Seed of Magic,” Hermione mused.

Hailey and Morning both snorted.

“Yes, yes, I suppose it would, wouldn’t it? But then, even old Terra herself came from outer space at one point, so you could make a case for anything, depending on when you drew the line.” He shrugged. “In any case, this Seed instantly granted them magic, and the ability to use it. It could only be passed down to the first child, even though anyone born from someone that carried the Seed is guaranteed to be magical. For many years before the Tree was hewn down, in the small clan that grew up around it that called themselves the Magicites, it was customary to feed the Fruit of the Tree to all children, to ensure that they all had the Seed.

“This saved them, in the end- there were enough of them to suppress that old Dark Lord, who named himself Satan, when he appeared. However, without the Tree of Life… no new Seeds would ever enter the world again. The source was gone.”

Morning shivered. “One of the worst fates that could ever befall a magical society,” she muttered darkly. “The Source of Magic disappears at the same time as an immortal Dark Lord appears. The world is eventually doomed to total destruction.”

“Normally, yes,” Discord nodded. “The Equestrian Seed is its own source, though, so Equestrians need not worry. And in the ages since, magical densities have risen high enough that magicals can be born from non-magical parents, forget non-Seed-carriers; Magic is here to stay, Seeds or not.” He sighed. “Anyways, the Magicites fought and contained Satan for a few thousand years before finally executing an immensely powerful magical seal on him. So long as any of their Seeds remain, that seal will also remain, and Dark Lord Satan permanently unconscious.

“On top of that seal, they built a city, and called it Atlantis.”

“The Sunken City of Atlantis?” Hermione asked suddenly.

He nodded. “Oh, yes. They sunk it into the earth, wrapped it in powerful magical barriers and shields to protect and hide it from the wars taking place around them. You see, while the Magicites were a peaceful lot, everyone else had begun to fight wars over territory and religion of all things. As the death of a Seed carrier before they could produce a child would permanently end that Seed, the Magicites could not afford to have any die without good cause, and created a Utopia in their city.

“By that point, a vast majority of the Magicites were actually non-magicals descended from other Magicites; squibs, you’d call them. But the magicals held on strong- and in that city, the ambient magic levels began to rise. This made magicals more powerful- and eventually allowed magicals to have magical young without being a Seed: The first true pure-bloods, as the Seeds made sure to never marry one another; such would bind both of their Seeds into the same child, bringing magicals one step closer to extinction.

“A few hundred years after purebloods began to appear, the first half-bloods began to appear- born between a magical and a non-magical. Another few hundred years saw the first muggleborn- and a thousand years after that, every new birth was magical, regardless of parentage.

“That was an age of advancement. With so much magical power available, and the constantly rising power levels of new mages, there was nothing that could stop them.

“Except… just two hundred years after the final non-magical Atlantean died, Magic Poisoning began to appear.”

Hermione scowled. “Wouldn’t that have set in long before that point…?”

“Ahh, no. Mere magic densities won’t hurt anyone- the Magic Poisoning was actually a side-effect of the steep gradient in ambient magic across the barrier, and the massive internal turbulence that gradient created. Atlanteans began dying off in droves- Seeds included- and there was nothing they could do.

“Until the final surviving Seed beyond the city of Atlantis found them, discovered the turbulence they’d been so complacent about, and warned them of the danger.

“The City was evacuated immediately, abandoned. Legends say there were even meals left out on dinner tables, they left so fast. The Atlanteans reentered the world, and quickly threw together new strongholds for each Seed, to protect them. These strongholds were layered with enchantments of the age, and protected with barriers similar to the ones on Atlantis but far more powerful- though tuned to never allow a buildup beyond a certain gradient, far below that required to start any Magic Poisoning effects.” He sighed. “All the modern myths about Magic Poisoning are based on the real thing, but are indeed mere myths.”

“Yikes,” Hailey muttered. “How many of those Seeds are left?”

“Just one,” an unfamiliar girl’s voice said suddenly- and Hermione turned to look. It was the girl Draco had become; she’d awoken at some point during Discord’s explanation, sat up, and curled up into a ball in the corner. Her voice wavered slightly, and was tainted with fear, but she was clearly forcing herself to remain calm. “The Seeds have directly ruled wizardkind throughout history- up until the year five hundred and three, when the three remaining Seeds decided to introduce the current system of nobility so they wouldn’t be forced to do everything themselves. They’re still the highest authority of magic worldwide- and it’s believed the Seed lets them command any other magical.” She paused for a second. “All three seeds were granted the title of ‘Carrier of the Seed of Magic’, which would pass down with the Seed rather than the House, and would carry with it the highest possible House ranking- Grand Royal and Most Ancient, no matter how young the House really was.

“Not that it’s possible to create a new Seed House, but…” She sighed. “One of the three died off in the year 1202 when the young Seed fell from her tower bedroom to the ground outside, but nobody knows what the House name was, nor why she fell. We do, however, know her parents never had any other children, so the House ended with her.

“The second is believed to have died in an ocean accident involving a sinking ship in the seventeen hundreds sometime; the Seed was a child aboard a ship headed for Britain from what is now the United States of America, a territory of Britain at the time, and was never seen nor heard from again.

“The third… is Harry Potter.”

“And the House of Potter actually carries two Seeds,” Discord observed. “One from the Atlanteans… and the other that non-Atlantean Seed that saved the rest from Magic Poisoning.” He smiled. “And you’re right, the Seed does grant its carrier a certain level of… obligatory authority over other non-Seed magicals, though it may or may not be very easy to use.”

Quite suddenly, a bell sprang out of the air next to Discord and rang violently, smacking him in the side of the head with every toll. Everyone- except Ron, who was still out cold- jumped.

Discord swatted the bell away, causing it to disappear with a crash. “Ahh, I need to be going,” he informed them. “My dear Fluttershy is waiting for me; I agreed to have tea with her today.” He rose to his feet, turned on the spot, nodded his head, raised his hand, snapped his talon-gloved fingers, and vanished.

Hailey immediately rose to her feet and stepped over to the silver-haired girl. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Wh-What do you mean?”

“Well, I know that all this was… well, quite sudden,” she told her, gesturing down at the girl’s body.

The girl glanced downwards, briefly, and blushed. “Y-Yeah,” she muttered. “Father will be furious.”

Hailey shrugged. “He doesn’t need to ever hear about it if you don’t want him to,” she observed- and shot a brief but commanding glare around the room as if to say or else. “I mean, your bookends wandered off, the Weasley in the corner fell asleep at some point-!”

“He fell asleep!?” the girl gasped, turning to look. “... Oh. How did he…?”

Hailey shrugged. “Hit him with the Somnus Charm when Discord appeared.” She glanced in his direction. “He doesn’t give me the trustworthy vibe.”

She snorted.

“And as for the change itself, just make sure you get five contiguous hours of sleep tonight and you’ll see what I mean.” She paused. “So, um, any thoughts on what I should call you in the meantime?”

“Eh?” the girl muttered, staring at her.

Morning smiled. “Just because if someone hears us calling you by your normal name while you look like that, it’s going to get you laughed at in both shapes. Appearances, you know. One of the worst inventions of civilization.”

Hailey snorted, but nodded her agreement.

The girl let out a laugh as well, then paused, and shook her head. “No idea.”

“How about… Silver, until and unless you pick something different?” Hailey suggested.

“Silver?” she repeated.

She shrugged. “The color of your hair. Or most of it, anyways.”

Author's Note:

You may or may not be able to tell that I'm taking a deliberately slower approach to the transgender issue than I have in the past. Like yes, they both get instant transform ability... but they don't realize they like it, or for Draco/Silver, she's actually afraid of the transform... but eventually...

And I had some fun writing Discord's views on transgenderism, and designing exactly which terms he uses to refer to the person (gender) and which for their body (sex). Yes, he transformed her clothes as well... temporarily.

Patreon, Discord.

FINALLY finished chapter fifteen, and started on sixteen! Things are moving again, because I've finally gotten out of that difficult section of scenes! This morning. So things might be moving rapidly again from here on out.