Hogwarts Reimagined

Quick content warning for flashback, trauma, misgendering, child abuse and transphobia all in reference to that flashback. Then there's anger and a bunch of separation anxiety.

Rhiannon was woken by a shrill whistle and the rattling clamour of sliding doors slamming into the ends of their tracks all up and down the train. She groaned and rubbed her eyes, then fumbled in the top of her shirt for her glasses. Dimly she realised she had overslept, and twisted awkwardly around to shrug off her mostly-empty backpack. She inadvertently kicked Calypso’s crate as she rummaged for her school robes and threw them on over her jeans and t-shirt in record time, accompanied by the indignant cat’s yowls of protest.

Rhi stood, wincing as one of her knees overextended back with the movement. She stretched, clicking her elbows and wrists back into some sort of working order, and retrieved first her backpack and then Callie’s crate. “Sssh, ssssh, I’ll let you out soon, I promise,” she whispered. The cat fell silent and instead reached out through the front bars of the crate to grab pitifully at Rhiannon’s clothing. Rhiannon’s heart tore a little, but she resolutely ignored the melodramatic feline and instead turned her attention to her friends as they’d waited for her. She smiled and held out her cane hand to Luna. “C’mon, you’ve got this,” she reassured them.

Luna’s smile was a fragile one, but it was at least mostly genuine. Ze stood and shook out the last remnants of his earlier shutdown, then retrieved Cheshire’s crate and set her jaw stubbornly. “Yeah. I guess I do,” fae responded quietly. Cat crates in hand, Luna and Rhiannon trailed out of the carriage behind Ron and Hermione, falling in step with Dudley, Ginny and the rest of the student body as they shuffled slowly off the train.

Just as the year before, the weather outside the Hogwarts Express was wretched. Luna, Dudley and Ginny huddled together and shivered miserably in the freezing rain, The downpour of almost-sleet on the cobbles was near-deafening, and through it all was the clamour of students’ voices and protesting yowls and squawks from indignant pets. Ron tugged Rhiannon’s arm, pointing through over to a row of carriages standing horseless under the street-lamps. His lips moved, but the sound of his words was lost amid everything else.

“Firs’ years! Firs’ years!” a very familiar voice bellowed. That voice carried through the weather. Ginny, Dudley and Luna shuffled closer together, casting looks over to where Hagrid stood with his cloaked back to the Black Lake, carrying the same great hook-topped staff with its’ hooded lantern as Rhiannon remembered from her own first year. “Y- yo-you’ve got to go with him, we’ll see you at the castle,” Rhiannon half-shouted to Dudley and the others through the weather. She coughed and leaned more heavily on her cane, the joints of her extremities shrieking at the bitter chill of the stormy evening.

Dudley grimaced, clutching his own cane tightly. He tucked Hope’s cage under his arm and jerked his head at Hagrid, saying something Rhiannon couldn’t make out through the clamour. Luna set xir shoulders and took Ginny’s hand as the small girl wavered between her brother and where they had to go. Luna looked back at Rhiannon and nodded once, a stoic half-smile picking up the corner of their slightly blue lips before they turned back to the others and the three first-years set off through the storm to where Hagrid and his fleet of coracles waited for them.

Rhiannon stared after them, and Hermione doubled back from where she and the others had begun to make their way towards the horseless carriages. She shook Rhiannon’s elbow gently and when Rhi whirled around, she shifted to usher the slightly-shorter girl forward with an arm around her back instead. “Give me that,” Hermione said, taking Callie’s crate from Rhi. “Aren’t you freezing?” she asked, as they reached one of the carriages and she helped Rhiannon up the slick stairs and in through the doorway.

Rhi shook her head, and went to draw her cloak more closely around herself only to find it soaked. Her joints throbbed dully in protest, and dimly Rhiannon realised she should have been cold in such a state. She grimaced and took off her glasses, wiping them futilely on the front of her sodden robes. “’m fine,” she mumbled, huddling into the corner of the dim carriage.

A damp, chilly hand worked its way into her own as the carriage shuddered and began to move, and Rhiannon looked up then immediately ducked her head away from Neville’s concerned gaze.
“’s a werewolf thing, with the cold.” Neville said quietly. Rhiannon flinched – she’d not told Neville – she’d had some indication he could have known, but the confirmation was unsettling. Just Hermione – she hadn’t even meant to tell Ron. Aside from Rhiannon and Neville, those two were the only others in the carriage – so it wasn’t as if Neville had just spilled her secret to strangers. But hearing it out loud was jarring. Everyone always danced around it – your condition, your illness, this that or the other... even when she had first found out, it had been Rhiannon, not either of the adults tasked with the issue, who had been the one to say the words out loud.

Of course she knew that was what she was now. But there was a difference between passively knowing something, and thinking of oneself in that way. Sure, there had been that moment in the Weasleys’ car a few days ago. But nobody else had called her such. In their heads, maybe – but not out loud. They danced around the issue like it could bite them just by being acknowledged.

Rhi stifled a teary laugh and hugged herself with her free arm. Of course it was Neville who had said it. The blond boy was never one of many words, and as such, he never wasted them. But Rhi was still on edge by his knowledge of her lycanthropy at all. He didn’t seem judgmental, but she didn’t like mysteries. There was a difference between guessing her friend might know about her condition, and having the evidence of such presented to her directly.

“Y-you know?” Rhiannon asked quickly. She winced – her tone was a little more accusatory than she had intended, Neville squeezed her hand and shook his head. His lips moved soundlessly, and Rhi waited patiently as he laid out what he had to say in his head first.

“Me ‘n Grams were at St. Mungo’s when you were brought in, Mum was having a bad night.” Neville replied slowly, placing each word with care. Rhiannon had guessed some time ago that he was hard of hearing, which was why he spoke so carefully when rarely he had to do so at any length. “Grams and... we know another, werewolf, so when we saw... We knew what had happened to you. Didn’t say anything ‘cos... didn’t think you were ready to talk about it.” Neville added, wringing his free hand uncomfortably at his side in time with the halting rhythm of his words.

Rhiannon thought back to the stern gray-haired woman in old-fashioned black robes who had delivered Neville to her belated birthday party. At the time, Rhi had thought her to be disapproving and cold. But now Rhiannon had to re-examine that impression. Mistress Longbottom’s birthday gift had been a practical one, one that had served Rhiannon well in the weeks since. And Rhiannon had learned too that the Longbottoms had been at St. Mungo’s that night she and Dudley were admitted – that, plus the cane, had been the suggestion that they might know.

But again, suggestion and confirmation were not the same. Mentally Rhi kicked herself for putting Neville on the spot – she should have remembered all this before she’d said anything. Guilt ate away at the edges of the warm feeling his quiet support had brought her, and she knocked aside her glasses to scrub impatiently at her eyes that insisted on tearing up. It was reassuring to know for certain, and to know that she had another friend on her side – and she felt guilty that it reassured her, given the difficulty it took Neville to say as much.

“I’m s-s-sorry,” Rhiannon mumbled, lowering her eyes. Neville squeezed her hand again, and he didn’t relent until she looked up at him. He shook his head resolutely, and Rhiannon’s lip quivered. Neville let go her hand and opened his arms, and she scooted across the bench to accept the awkward hug.

Someone coughed, and Rhiannon shifted away again to look at Ron who had tried to get her attention. Then she noticed belatedly the carriage had stopped, and flushed as she realised that must have been what he was trying to tell her. “Thanks,” she mumbled sheepishly. She went to get Callie’s crate from the floor, but Hermione beat her to it.
“I’ll take the cat, you focus on not hurting yourself yeah?” said Hermione, a crooked smile softening her words. Rhiannon snorted and fumbled for her cane, her hand slipping on the slick wooden grip as she did so. Maybe Hermione had a point, she reflected, as she needed her other hand free to grab the handle beside the open carriage door. Even with her grip on that steady, she slipped on the bottom step and would have fallen had Ron not grabbed her in time. Rhi scowled and mumbled a sullen thanks, more irritable than anything at the slip. She felt like a burden on everyone. It wasn’t as if, at the age of twelve, she had ever had much chance to stand on her own and now, she thought gloomily, it looked as if she might never.

Rhiannon was roused from her sullen train of thought by Hermione’s steady hand on her elbow, and together they fell in with the rest of the general student population as they hurried toward the castle.

Their clothes were dried by magic as they crossed the threshold through the open door, and Professor McGonagall’s stoic expression warmed as Rhi passed her. The throng of students made its’ way through the lamplit hallways to the Great Hall. Gradually they separated into four groups and settled themselves across the hall into the four house tables. Red, green, blue and gold, the divide seemed unnatural to Rhiannon where before they had all been one unified mass.

A feeling of nostalgia swelled over Rhiannon as, once they were all seated, Professor McGonagall entered the hall leading a crowd of about forty first years. She knew intimately the feelings their expressions betrayed – the trepidation, the hope, the bewilderment, all of it. She’d lived it. For a moment she thought she caught side of Dudley’s wheat-blond hair in the crowd of black-robed first-years, but then he was gone again and Rhi watched anxiously as Professor McGonagall turned and spoke to the first years, then left them and strode to the front of the hall.

Rhiannon’s heart sank as she followed the professor’s movement, her gaze drawn to the white-haired man at the staff table that Professor McGonagall stood in front of. Albus Dumbledore. She groaned softly and covered her ears, screwing up her face against the memory of the last time the man had spoken to her. His words echoed sickly through her patchy memories – she hadn’t seen his face, but his dismissive tone had haunted her nightmares. “Really, my boy, it was very irresponsible of you to get a cat, especially in light of your dear aunt’s allergy. Your cat – Calypso, was it? Yes, Calypso, will be sent home with Miss Granger, along with your school belongings for safekeeping. Your clothes have also been gifted to her – clothes better suited to a young girl, should be with a young girl.”

Rhiannon shook her head stubbornly and she discarded her cane against the bench to rub her hands into her eyes so hard that sparks flooded them, shoving back the hungry torrent of the flashback. Then she opened her eyes and stared across the great hall at the man in question. He did not give her so much as a passing glance, but she stared him down anyway. Look at me, old man, she wanted to say. Look at me. See what you did. Tell me you were right.
It was a bitter sort of feeling, but anything was better than being caught in the crushing despair and horror of that memory. She had survived it. And she sat here before him in those same clothes ‘better suited for a young girl’ – as if they would have even fit Hermione, she thought with a scowl. Her cat she had gotten ‘irresponsibly’ was by now upstairs in her warm dormitory waiting for her. Rhiannon hadn’t wanted to face Albus Dumbledore. She would have happily never returned. But now she had, and it was a victory of its’ own kind to sit here in her own private defiance.

Rhiannon was shaken from her vengeful thoughts by a quiet nudge from Hermione. “You ok?” her friend whispered, having followed the path of Rhiannon’s gaze. Rhi forced down the first snappish responses that occurred to her, and considered the question more fairly. She tore her eyes away from Dumbledore, and managed a wry sort of smile for Hermione’s benefit. “Yeah,” she replied simply – and she was surprised to find that in the moment, that was true.

They were stopped from any further discussion of the matter by a sharp crack that cut over the low chatter of the students in the hall. Immediately Rhiannon’s attention snapped to Professor McGonagall as the thin woman lowered her hands, and noticed that before her now stood the Sorting Hat on its’ padded stool. Rhi hadn’t even noticed it being brought out. Just as it had before, the shabby thing coughed and spluttered and drew itself upright, a face shaping itself from the rips and wrinkles. This time Rhiannon was ready for the startling volume the raggedy thing could produce, and she clapped her hands over her ears as it began to sing:

A thousand years or more ago,
When I was newly sewn,
There lived four wizards of renown,
Whose names are still well known:
Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,
Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,
Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,
Shrewd Slytherin, from fen.
They shared a wish, a hope, a dream,
They hatched a daring plan
To educate young sorcerers
Thus Hogwarts School began.
Now each of these four founders
Formed their own house, for each
Did value different virtues
In the ones they had to teach.
By Gryffindor, the bravest were
Prized far beyond the rest;
For Ravenclaw, the cleverest
Would always be the best;
For Hufflepuff, hard workers were
Most worthy of admission;
And power-hungry Slytherin
Loved those of great ambition.
While still alive they did divide
Their favorites from the throng,
Yet how to pick the worthy ones
When they were dead and gone?
'Twas Gryffindor who found the way,
He whipped me off his head
The founders put some brains in me
So I could choose instead!
Now slip me snug about your ears,
I've never yet been wrong,
I'll have a look inside your mind
And tell where you belong!

Slowly, Rhiannon uncovered her ears and scowled across the hat as it finished its’ song. She supposed it did have all year to sit there and put a song together, but did it have to perform its creations so loudly?
Professor McGonagall took the now-silent hat from the stool it sat upon, and looked out over the hall. “Now, let the Sorting begin,” she said with an air of finality. Rhiannon looked back at the crowd of first-years as they shifted closer together and muttered amongst eachother, then back at the professor as she considered a list levitating before her.

“First – Bailey, Vanessa.” announced Professor McGonagall. The crowd of first-years parted and the same chubby reddish-haired girl Rhi had seen on the train made her way hesitantly to the front of the hall. A low ripple of laughter echoed around the hall as Vanessa Bailey went to sit on the stool but in her worry miscalculated where it was behind her and almost fell on the floor instead. Rhiannon scowled, she empathised with the first-year girl’s nerves and resented the laughter at her expense.

The hat deliberated for a time, before announcing loudly, GRYFFINDOR! Rhiannon grinned, then nudged Ron to get his attention and scooted away from him to make space between them on the bench. She stuck out an arm and waved to the red-faced first year girl who hurried to sit down stammering her thanks. “N-n-no worries,” Rhi replied a little awkwardly and she managed a shy smile before returning her attention to the front.

After Vanessa there was Emmeline Byrd sorted into Slytherin, then another Gryffindor – Colin Creevey. Then there was a brilliantly-smiling bookish-looking girl named Mallika Dias sorted into Ravenclaw, and all at once Rhiannon realised whose name would be if not next, then soon after.

“Dursley, Dudley.”

Another wave of snide laughter rippled across the hall, and Rhiannon curled her lip. She had felt for Vanessa Bailey and her anxious slip-up, but this was personal. She startled as Hermione nudged her sharply. Rhiannon blinked, then noticed the low rumble in her throat and immediately fell silent, contenting herself with glaring daggers at anyone who so much as smirked.

Her anger faded into an unfamiliar sort of pride as Dudley stepped out of the crowd of first-years. Cane in hand, he set his shoulders and ignored any further laughter (though Rhiannon certainly did not) at his weight or his name or his persistent limp as he made his way up the aisle. He turned and shook his head when Professor McGonagall indicated he sit. “Easier to stand.” he replied calmly, rapping his cane on the floor to make his point. She nodded, and set the Sorting Hat on his head with a wry smile.

The Hat fell silent. Rhiannon waited with bated breath, she could almost hear its’ sly deliberations all over again. Dudley’s stoic expression hardened, and he set his jaw stubbornly as he swayed a little in place, but he had made his point and he was going to stick to it.

The Hat carried out its’ silent deliberation with Dudley for the best part of six minutes. Rhiannon fidgeted in her seat, her heart leaping every time the hat’s wrinkles shifted, and began to twist her cane in her hands anxiously. Maybe it wouldn’t sort him at all. The Hat made the choices its’ founders would have – did the prejudice against nontraditional wizards extend that far back?

Gradually Rhiannon descended into a frantic mess of worry and she was just beginning to chew her nails when the Hat opened the rip in its brim that served as its mouth and let out a great sigh that turned into a gravelly laugh. “Ha! I like this one... better make it HUFFLEPUFF for you!” it bellowed.

Dudley grinned broadly, and he returned the Hat to Professor McGonagall. He stepped away and beamed at Rhiannon, locking eyes with her across the hall before he turned and stiffly picked his way across the rows to the Hufflepuff table, where he was welcomed with a round of cheers.

After the lengthy period of time Dudley’s Sorting had taken up, the others were of little interest to Rhiannon as she fretted on the matter. She had privately hoped he would be in Gryffindor with her too, and felt a twinge of pain in her chest at the prospect of being separated from her cousin. Family, real family, was such a new concept to Rhiannon and she didn’t know how to process the idea of it being divided – it seemed so permanent to her in that moment.

That twinge settled into a persistent nagging concern, and she would have worried away the rest of the Sorting had Hermione not taken her hand and squeezed it.

Rhiannon’s lip trembled, and she snuggled into her friend’s side and pressed her face into Hermione’s hair. She whimpered quietly and hugged her arms around Hermione’s waist, breathing in the familiar scent that made her Hermione. Her Hermione. She grumbled and snuggled in closer, and Hermione spluttered a little and wheezed, then laughed. Her fingers tangled in Rhiannon’s hair, working in comforting circles against Rhi’s scalp, and slowly Rhi began to relax.

“Rhi, he’s his own person. It might be good for him, to figure out being his own person here too. You don’t want him to be just Rhiannon Potter’s Cousin forever, right?” Hermione murmured, her low voice a comforting rumble in her chest against Rhiannon’s ear. Rhi whined again, but she shook her head reluctantly. Hermione made a quiet consoling noise, and Rhiannon relaxed her squashing grip a little. She made a little grumbling noise when Hermione’s hand went still in her hair, and Hermione laughed softly. “Fine, you can stay there, just don’t squish me yeah?” she teased.

Rhiannon nodded again, and closed her eyes to listen better to the rest of the Sorting going on around her. She just caught the tail end of “Greengrass, Astoria”’s Sorting into Ravenclaw, to a chorus of boos from the far corner of the hall. Rhiannon growled, and Hermione gently tugged the hair that was twisted between her fingers in a silent warning. She lapsed into peaceful silence to listen.

“Lovegood, Luna.”

Rhiannon pricked up her ears and went stiff in Hermione’s arms. A scant moment later she deflated, as the announcement “RAVENCLAW!” was made. She whined again and squeezed Hermione more tightly.
“Rhi, you can’t really think Luna would be a Gryffindor,” Hermione murmured. Rhiannon shook her head and sort of whine-growled quietly. It wasn’t a rational thing. Of course Luna wouldn’t have been assigned to Gryffindor. That didn’t stop the very instinctive want to keep everyone she cared about close to her, and after Dudley it hurt having her new friend-family torn away.

She couldn’t explain that. There weren’t words for that. So she just squished Hermione a bit more, making the taller girl laugh and ruffle her hair teasingly. They stayed there together quietly, as gradually the Sorting wore on and from the Ls they gradually got through to the rest of the alphabet.

After “Vaisey, James” was announced a Slytherin, “Weasley, Ginevra” was announced. The Gryffindor breathed a collective sigh, as if it were a foregone conclusion. But that wry anticipation of a known answer faded as like with Dudley, the Sorting Hat’s answer was not immediately forthcoming and the silence grew uncomfortable. Muttering rose around them, and Rhiannon finally relented and wiggled herself out of her perfectly comfortable position to see better.

Ginny was, in a word, tense. Her hands knotted together in her lap, she twisted them in her skirt and bit her lip. She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head frantically, then her shoulders slumped as clearly the hat came to some kind of decision.

“Slytherin.” it announced calmly.

The Great Hall was very, very quiet as it spoke. Then it erupted with chaotic clamour that had Rhiannon and Hermione rushing to cover their ears, the Gryffindor table alive with indignation. “Hey, who broke the Hat?” someone hollered, and one of the Weasley twins responded with something similar but lost in the clamour.

Minerva McGonagall’s stern expression grew darker, and she raised her wand to her throat. A small violet spark jumped from its end. “SILENCE!” she bellowed, shocking the outraged students into just that. Ginny shrank under everyone’s attention, and jerked the Hat off her head. She patted her hair into order and hugged her arms around her chest, then fled from the aisle to the table of students in green at the far side of the hall.

Gradually, the shocked chatter resumed at a more acceptable volume. Professor McGonagall negated her Amplifying Charm with another touch of her wand, and the Sorting Hat was taken from the room. That concluded the ceremony, and she strode up the few steps to the raised section of the hall front on which the staff table stood, motioning as she did so to Albus Dumbledore.

Still more than a little shocked herself by the revelation of Ginny’s placement, Rhiannon didn’t notice that it was really over until Albus Dumbledore began to speak. His voice was as shallowly warm and grating as she remembered, and she bared her teeth. A low growl rose again in her throat, and the room seemed to fall away around them. All that remained was the white-haired man in the green robes pontificating about nothing, saying nothing except to amuse himself, and all at once the sheer bitter fury of earlier returned with a vengeance.

A sharp sensation in her palm startled Rhiannon from her single-minded hate, and she snapped her head around to stare at a wide-eyed Hermione who had dug her nails into Rhiannon’s palm. Hermione relaxed her grip once Rhi responded, but kept hold of her and shook her head. “Rhi, people are staring,” she whispered. The effect was broken, and Rhiannon flushed under the weight of scrutiny directed at her. She coughed and rubbed her face with her free hand, embarrassed. Satisfied that Rhiannon had control of herself again Hermione let her hand go, just in time for the arrival of their meal.

But after the turbulence of the whole affair, Rhiannon was exhausted. She ate little and hurriedly, and excused herself from dinner before dessert was served. Hermione accompanied her, and the two of them begged the common room password from Nomi Eun on their way past and then made their way up to bed. Rhiannon groaned at the ordeal that was the many flights of stairs that impeded their passage up to the seventh floor, leaning alternately on Hermione and the railings. She was now much more glad that they had left early, unused to the new limitations of her complaining body, and finally stumbled into the common room barely awake in a haze of exhaustion. Hermione scowled at the girls’ dormitory stairs as if they presented a personal insult, and together the two of them staggered upstairs. On muscle memory they stopped at the first-year dormitory door, then laughed wearily and stumbled further down the corridor to the next one.

Inside was a haven of warmth. Rhiannon threw off her robes and discarded her cane, and turned her back to the wall to hurriedly swap her regular clothes for kitten-printed mint green pyjamas, then fell into bed to the comforting weight of her cat against her side. Now she stared up at the canopy of the bed, exhausted. She had expected to simply fall asleep after the emotional tangle of it all, but should have know better. For three months she had fallen asleep with Dudley just through the wall and Luna down the hallway. Hermione was no replacement – she was her own person, it was different, and the entire rhythm of it was disrupted.

Blankets rustled as Hermione turned over in bed, and out of the corner of one tired eye Rhiannon saw her prop herself up on her elbow. “Would a story help?” she asked simply. Rhi felt a rush of affection at her friend’s insight. She didn’t need to explain what was wrong. They’d never needed that. Her throat clogged up, and she nodded. Another rustle of sheets, and Hermione leaned over out of sight, fumbling around under the bed for something.

Hermione retrieved her wand from under the bed and a paperback book. “I was going to start reading it anyway,” she explained a little shyly. “I know you like Tamora Pierce, it’s a different world this time but you might like it. It’s kinda heavy at the start though but she gets out ok... just, tell me if you need it to stop ok?” she added on. She flicked the book open and adjusted her grip on her wand. “Loquitibus,” she ordered it clearly, using the same read-aloud spell that once they discovered it last Christmas had become a favourite of theirs.

‘In the Palace of the Black Swans, Zakdin, capital of Hatar. Blue eyes wide, Lady Sandrilene fa Toren watched her near-empty oil lamp. Her small mouth quivered as the flame at the end of the wick danced and shrank, throwing grim shadows on the barrels of food and water that shared her prison...’

Hermione hadn’t lied, it started off dark. But in a way that was what Rhiannon needed right now, and she was immersed in Lady Sandrilene’s plight in a way that made it a little easier to set aside her own. Gradually she slipped into sleep, lulled by the story, into tangled dreams of light that burst from thread without fire.