Hogwarts Reimagined

With the lure of the Mirror of Erised removed, Rhiannon felt restless, as if some anchor had been taken from her. She stumbled through the last weeks of term half-aware and would have carried on into the next the same, had Hermione not intervened. They received news a few days before the holidays that Neville’s grandmother was unwell, so both Rhiannon and Neville were surprised when Hermione extended an invitation for them both to stay with her family for the two weeks of Easter holiday.

In truth, Rhiannon barely remembered Easter as a concept, let alone a physical holiday that got her time off school. She’d not have remembered to pack had Hermione not assisted her, and even when she was seated on the Hogwarts express watching the Scottish moors flash by outside it still seemed to her like a dream she could wake up from at any moment. Only when the Grangers’ car pulled up outside their Hampstead Garden home late that afternoon did Rhiannon start to feel grounded again, and once inside she felt she had to touch everything all over again just to make sure it was real.

For the first few days of the holiday, the three of them drifted through the house like ghosts. Hermione adjusted the quickest – it was her home after all; followed by Rhiannon who had stayed before. It was Neville who was hardest to work out given how little he spoke. In the week leading up to Easter he did start to come out of his shell, and among the three of them he was the most eager to help Hermione’s father in the kitchen with holiday preparations. He gradually brightened, enough that Rhiannon was confident in suggesting they all work together to make an Easter gift for his family. To her surprise Neville agreed readily, and the three of them were provided with craft materials by Hermione’s parents with little fuss, only a warning to put down newspaper if they were going to make mess.

So it was after dinner on Saturday the 30^th of March that the three of them found themselves huddled around a table in Hermione’s bedroom, steadily making a terrible glittery mess that could possibly have been considered art. And just as with Rhiannon, Hermione’s banner - made up of brilliantly-coloured flags strung together through the eyelets and hung under the five-letter word painstakingly cut out of cardboard and blue-tacked to the wall - drew Neville’s interest.

“P-ass the g-green pen, ‘mione – Hey, Neville, what’re you up to?” Rhiannon commented, noticing Neville had got up to look at the banner. He turned back, almost guiltily, and shuffled back to the table with his head down. “H-hey, no, nobody’s mad, what’s up?” Rhi added on hastily.

“Pride,” Neville whispered. Neither of the girls caught it, but Rhiannon tilted her head and turned back towards Neville. “Didn’t catch that?” she said. Neville shook his head, struggling on the words. “What – is, Pride?” he asked, more clearly than the first time. Rhiannon grinned, relieved, and Hermione looked up as her interest was caught. “It’s a, m-movement like, including people l-like me-” she began, to be cut off by an excited Hermione.

“And me, I think! And others – anyone who’s not the gender people thought they were when they were born, or is attracted to the same gender as themself or multiple genders or even none at all, and some people who were born with bodies other people say aren’t right – there’s lots and lots of different people and Pride is for all of that.” Hermione explained, pausing only to breathe at the end. She would have carried on had Rhiannon not shushed, her, noticing as a lopsided smile spread across their friend’s face.

“There’s – people are proud? Of...” he murmured, wonderingly. Rhiannon grinned and nodded emphatically.

“T-there’s f-lags for lots of different groups, nnnot all of them yet but – lots. There’s even one for people like me, trans people, see?” She explained, leaping up from her chair to point out the blue, pink and white flag hanging on the wall.

Rhi remembered a time when she had sat on Hermione’s bed in green kitten pyjamas, wearing that same flag around her shoulders like a cape while the two of them laughed together about something or other. Hermione’s words echoed in her mind and she paraphrased them haltingly for Neville. “The- The flag is like a mirror, see. It’s correct whichever way up it’s flown. The d-designer, she said it was a representation that we can’t be, I guess, made into anything else – we’re our true selves no matter how we look o-or what they say.”

Neville didn’t respond. He reached over the table for three pots of glitter paint – one blue, one pink, one silver-white. “G-grams knows. Didn’t know anybody else like this until Rhi. Just kind of was.” he stated, his voice wavering as he resolutely copied the image of the flag into the inside of the card he had been working on, in the usually-blank space at the left.
Slowly, as if approaching a frightened animal, Rhiannon resumed her seat and stared wide-eyed at Neville. “You, you’re trans, too? D-do you want us to call you something else? I’m sorry for all year-” she stuttered, embarrassed. Neville shook his head violently. “No- no. Me nan named me. When I said. She- said it was like having part of my dad back. And that was- what they wanted to call me. If I was a boy. And I was after all.” he explained, tapping the dry end of the paintbrush against his lower lip as he spoke carefully.

Neville frowned slightly, looking at Hermione and Rhiannon as if expecting them to hate him, berate him, tell him he was stupid or incapable of complex understandings of the kind as so many others did. “Can I. Have a hug now. Um, please. If you like.” he asked, awkwardly pushing his thick hair off his sweaty forehead with a glittery hand as he looked up at the girls. Rhiannon and Hermione looked at eachother, then back at Neville. Their smiles matched his own and all three wiggled and flapped happily before surging together to form a tightly-knit human knot of a group hug. They remained that way for a moment before releasing it by some unspoken agreement, all of them then shaking out the cobwebby clinging feeling that came with the end of hugs. Realising how odd they must have looked to any outsiders the three of them shared a bout of breathless laughter, a great weight taken from off of them but Neville most of all in the relief of a secret shared.

“I-isss th-that part of why you don’t talk much? You don’t like your voice? Or you’re scared people will find out?” Rhiannon asked. “I- mean, only part. We both sort of figured you were like us in here-” she tapped her temple for emphasis, smiling a crookedly self-deprecating smile – “and found it hard, so we just – sort of never thought further.”

Neville considered it for a moment, then nodded. “M’ not great at words. And every time I tried. It just, sounds, all wrong. So I stopped t-rying. Even when I could do it.” he replied shyly. His voice was a little husky with disuse, with that same sense of him not quite hearing the edges of it that Rhiannon had got when she first met him. Nothing about it particularly said ‘girl’ to her – in fact, her own was higher in pitch, and she told Neville as much. He grinned wryly. “I know that. Can hear that.” he responded, tapping his ear to emphasise the statement. “S’ like something else in here-” here he tapped against his temple as Rhiannon had done earlier – “doesn’a hear it. And it tells me the other story over an’ over.”

Rhiannon laughed, this time a bitter sort of laugh. “Y-yeah. Evelyn said that’s called gender d-dysphoria. Not, not all trans people – people like us – have it. But a lot do. I-it’s kind of like having Draco Malfoy in my head sometimes.” she said, grimacing at the mental image.

___________________________________________________________________

The three of them fell asleep talking, and when they awoke late the next morning the house was filled with the smells of sweets and spices. Music drifted from downstairs, and when they dressed and made their way downstairs they found the living area a riot of colour and activity. Candles stood on the dining room table surrounded by flowers and crafting clutter. Something large stood on the kitchen bench, covered with a cloth, and the kids could hear Hermione’s parents whistling away somewhere outside.

Hermione’s father popped his head back in the open door to the garden, and waved to them. “Come on out, kids! Evelyn’s got the eggs and paint set up on the grass.”

Rhiannon wasn’t totally sure what that meant and shared a bewildered glance with Neville, but Hermione clearly did and bounded on outside leaving the two of them to follow awkwardly behind. As Mr. Granger had said, Hermione’s mother was outside with rows of acrylic paint paint pots and a cardboard tray of twenty eggs. Each had a hole in the top, and Rhiannon picked one up curiously to inspect it, finding it also had a hole in the bottom and was completely hollow.

“We paint them!” Hermione explained excitedly, reaching over Hermione to grab an egg from the tray. Still a bit confused, Rhiannon and Neville settled themselves on the picnic table’s bench seats and took up paintbrushes and eggshells of their own. Unsurprisingly, Neville managed to break his first, then Rhiannon hers in quick succession. Hermione went to mend them and was stopped by a glare from her mother, who reminded the three that there was to be no magic outside school.

The four of them sat and worked quietly with few more accidents for a while, enjoying the mild weather and the quiet methodical task. Eventually Hermione’s mother excused herself to go and check on Danjuma and the baking inside, and the kids were a little bewildered as she squirreled away her painted projects to bring inside, resolute about not letting them peek. Seeing they’d get nowhere with pestering her, however, they soon resumed their painting and quiet chatter, letting the morning slip away from them with ease.

All too soon the sun rose high overhead, bringing with it the smell of spices and fruit and a clattering of dishes from inside the house. Hermione grinned ruefully. “Best go in, Mum’ll be burning something and Dad’s probably got sugar over half the house,” she suggested, blowing on her last egg to dry the paint once she’d finished speaking. Rhiannon held up hers, sharing a wry smile with them both. “O-or wash up, first.” she suggested, smearing sky-blue and sunrise pink paint across her cheek when she went to push hair out of her face, casting an eye back to the open door of the house.

The three of them shared a laugh as they took in the mess they’d made of themselves, and set about packing up their paints and finished projects. Hermione carried their finished eggs in the tray they’d been brought in, while Rhiannon and Neville between them brought the closed paint pots and cloths they were using. Hermione’s parents were busy with something in the kitchen, and they directed the kids to put their mess on a spare table cleared for the purpose and then chased them out of the kitchen to go and wash up before midday dinner.

When Hermione, Neville and Rhiannon came back downstairs, damp and fresh-faced from the shower with clean clothes on, the bustling kitchen had stilled and a sense of anticipation hung over the still room. The main table and its’ contents were covered with an opaque tassel-edged sheet, and the curtains were partly closed leaving the room in a pleasant state of low light.

Hermione’s parents stepped out from behind the pantry’s open doors wearing matching smiles as they took in the three eleven-year-olds’ uncertainty. A hug was offered and rejected, and the five of them settled around the covered dining table. Danjuma and Evelyn shared a conspiratorial glance and together they pulled off the cloth, revealing a delicious-smelling spread of Easter baking. Rhiannon was totally unfamiliar with all of it except the most obvious – the citrus-scented cake in pride of place at the centre of the table, lovingly decorated with pink, blue and white icing.

The three of them stared at the cake and at Hermione’s parents in turn, too overwhelmed to really focus on either. Rhiannon wrung her hands together in her lap, Neville drummed his against the side of the chair. Even Hermione was taken aback at the gesture.

“We overheard you kids talking last night on our way to bed and... Hermione said Rhiannon had a rough time being outed at school so we just, wanted to make this holiday a good memory for the both of you.” Danjuma explained, while Evelyn began to cut the cake – thankfully into very even slices, with some encouragement from the girls.

Neville was silent, his lower lip quivering, until Hermione took over. “Mum, Dad, can we go to the magic post office tomorrow? They should be open... just to send the things to Neville’s family and all.”

Hermione’s parents agreed readily, and Evelyn reached over to squeeze Neville’s hands gently. “It’s alright Neville, you don’t have to put together a speech for us or anything. It’s been lovely having friends of Hermione’s over for the holidays.” she reassured him. Hermione smiled ruefully, sharing a shy glance with her parents.

“It. It really is. I know I didn’t make it a big deal or anything but... I’ve never had friends over before. My magic was really explosive when I was little, and we went to so many doctors and – Rhiannon was here over the summer but that was different, and I didn’t really expect you both to say yes but I’m so so happy you did,” she explained, her words tumbling over eachother in the swell of emotion. Her parents shook their heads, and Danjuma gently pushed his daughter’s braids out of her face, a silent show of support.

And that was really that, for the rest of the day. The three children helped with making the evening meal, and the rest of the holiday passed in a warm haze. All too soon they found themselves on the train back to Hogwarts, but just as the weather grew warmer and the days longer, the three of them found their steps lightened and the prospect of the final term at Hogwarts not such a threatening one.