Chapter Text
“Ah, dammit, Ron!” Hermione’s voice echoed through the deserted classroom.
Harry could see Ron shake his head in the waning crescent moonlight, the young wizard’s fiery hair shading his eyes. Ron scoffed.
“Maybe next time stop prodding Harry about his Potions book and I won’t have to save you from dropping the detonating dandelions on the floor and killing all three of us,” he said.
“Well, it’s true isn’t it?” said the third voice. “He doesn’t know what anything in there really does, now does he? What’s wrong with my voice? My throat hurts…”
“Huh? Sounds fine to me, Harry.”
“I think… Lumos. Lumos! I told you this was a bad idea, Harry!”
“Harry?” Ron asked. “But you’re Harry? Lumos.” He quickly added, stopping Hermione’s gruff repeated exclamations.
“What? Hold on.”
Harry blinked at his own reflection. He lifted a hand to his face. No glasses, but he could see better than ever? Face smooth… Long hair… And the wrong wand. He could tell it wasn’t his without feeling its length. Not only was the resonance wrong, he could tell it didn’t like him that much. That meant….
“Er, sorry?” Harry said in Hermione’s voice. “This definitely wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Hermione growled, sounding much more angry than she probably intended. She too examined her face, pushing the glasses around and wrinkling her nose until she realized that that only made them start to slide off. For over a minute, she stroked her cheeks, breathing unsteadily, staring into the distance. Harry’s belief that he looked really weird stood affirmed. He wouldn’t have been surprised to hear Hermione was thinking the same about herself.
“I suppose that means we ought to begin finding an antidote. We’ll have to do it ourselves of course because if we admit that we were practicing unendorsed potions in the middle of the night using stolen ingredients-”
“All right, Harry, I get it..”
“I’m not Harry,” Hermione said, Harry’s voice wavering.
“Sorry, Hermione. That’s going to take getting used to.”
“No it isn’t, because you aren’t getting used to it. We’re changing back as soon as possible!”
“I think we should just go to Professor Dumbledore,” said Harry, unevenly, distracted by how strange his voice sounded, coming out at much a high pitch. “We can trust him. He’ll know what to do… or if he doesn’t he’ll know who does.”
“Harry’s right,” Ron said. “He’s not going to expel us for this, not after- not after this summer. I think if-”
“No!” Hermione shouted. “We can do this by ourselves. Nobody has to know anything about this, right? It’s our secret.” She laughed nervously “After we’re done, we can pretend it never happened. And no proof anywhere! Let’s go back over every step in the process…”
Hermione reached to grab the Half Blood Prince’s book out of Harry’s hands, only to find them empty because the book was in her lap already. With shaking hands and a breath shallower than Harry thought was healthy for him, she began to trace over the hand written notes they had spent the last three hours following.
Harry and Ron looked at one another incredulously in an unspoken agreement of “Yep, that’s Hermione all right.” It was good that Hermione was still acting like herself. That meant that Harry would probably still be the same as ever, too. He didn’t want to start telling people off for not studying or thinking that a planner that nagged you over not doing your homework was a good Christmas gift.
Since his friend wasn’t sharing the book and his other friend seemed preoccupied with something behind him, Harry had ample time to think about his new situation. It felt very strange to be a girl, like one’s entire being was crystal candy sugar. Hermione had been kneeling, which Harry thought was extremely uncomfortable, so he quickly sat down properly, only to be reminded that he was wearing a skirt along with all the uncomfortable thoughts that came with that. He felt very exposed suddenly, in a bad way, and even though he knew that he was fine, he shifted just a bit to be a little safer. In the process, hair got into his eyes and he had to brush it away, a motion which then reminded him that his distribution of mass wasn’t at all like it was before.
“God, I’m not getting this tonight,” Hermione muttered. “It’s just… I have no idea what half of these references are, and the Prince never bothers to explain a tenth of what he’s doing! And I can’t see, either. Harry, how do you read? Ugh, I’m taking you to Saint Mungo’s to get your eyes fixed as soon as classes are out for the winter.”
“You can’t do that,” he objected.
“Of course I can, and I will. I had no idea it was this bad, Harry. The magic is there, you just need to be willing to get better.”
“Wait, really? Everyone’s been letting me wear glasses all this time?” Harry asked.
“I thought it was a fashion statement,” said Ron. “They’re pretty sophisticated.” He shrugged.
“I don’t have to wear glasses…”
“Argh, I’m too tired for this! What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just focus?” Hermione shouted.
“Maybe because you had quidditch practice this evening and you’re sore?” Harry suggested.
“Oh,” Hermione said quietly. “In that case, I’m not thinking of anything clever tonight, and I doubt either of you are too.”
“We’ll be sharper in the morning,” Ron agreed.
“Yeah- In the evening, you mean. We have Defence Against, Potions… What else do we have, Ron?” said Harry.
He yawned. “Let’s get to sleep so we can talk about schedules in the morning, all right? I can barely keep my eyes open right now.”
The trio scurried back to the Gryffindor dormitories under Harry’s cloak, Hermione staring at their map while Ron steered. A few stumbling minutes later, they were back in the common room, ready to part ways. After trying and failing to rub her eyes through a pair of glasses, Hermione started to stagger up to her room.
“Hermione, wait!” Ron hissed. “You can’t go up there.”
“... Oh,” she sighed. “But I’m a girl, so- The spell doesn’t check people’s souls- Actually, do souls have genders? What properties do souls actually have? I was reading a fascinating-”
“Hermione,” interrupted Harry.
“Right, not helpful. God, this is… You’re going to have to go up to the girls’ dormitory.”
“What if we all went up to the boys’?” Ron suggested.
“No. Even if nobody saw, how is Harry going to get a change of clothes? He can’t just keep wearing the same thing for however long it takes us to fix this. Look, Harry. Don’t read my diary-”
“You have a diary?”
“Yes, Ron. I like to write things down so I remember them later. But we need to focus. Harry, just be careful. Don’t shower until everyone else is finished, and… don’t look down.”
Harry’s face was turning an oddly feminine shade of pink, something that didn’t quite suit his features, and the real Harry was mostly sure that he’d never looked like that in his life.
“Yeah…” he said. “The same goes for you. You take off the glasses to bathe, by the way. And sleep! You’ll crush them if you don’t, and then you’ll have to repair them blind.” Harry winced. “Otherwise… Just stick close to Ron. That’s what I’ve been doing so I doubt anyone’s going to notice… Also, the… thing. Just pretend it isn’t there and it goes away. It’s annoying but it doesn’t last too long usually.” Harry winced again.
“What thing?” asked Hermione.
“Don’t worry about it,” Ron said, trying and failing to force a laugh. “Let’s just get to bed, all right, Harry?”
“Of course, bestie,” she replied, her body tensing as she looked toward the stairs.
“Never call me that. Seriously. Be normal Harry.”
“Yeah…”
“Good night, boys,” Harry said, his stomach a bubbling tar pit of emotions he couldn’t begin to name.
“I never call the two of you that,” Hermione objected.
“Er… Good night… Harry and Ron?”
That didn’t seem as awkward. Harry then gingerly, carefully climbed the stairs, one step at a time, ready to leap down if Hermione was wrong about the castle’s magic. As nothing whatsoever happened, he began to relax and think about how in the world he was going to be able to pretend to be Hermione Granger, the smartest witch at Hogwarts. He could barely pass some of his classes with her help. How was he going to be able to uphold her reputation? Well, surely it was only for a couple of days. He could last that long. Maybe he could pretend to be sick?
The room Hermione shared with the four other girls in her year was indistinguishable from Harry and Ron’s, canopy beds shut against disturbance, the minimum possible lighting in case somebody needed to get up during the night, windows with the curtains drawn, a bathroom door, and not much else. Obviously at this hour none of the girls- none of the “other” girls, rather, were awake, meaning that Harry was free to take his time and ensure that in the morning he would know his way around Hermione’s things well enough to avoid looking suspicious.
For a moment, Harry thought about changing into Hermione’s nightgown, wherever that was, but he decided that he was too tired to change and unbuttoned everything and slipped off her shoes and socks and simply allowed himself to fall asleep under the very warm, very comfortable blankets. Admittedly they were probably identical to the ones in the other room, but they were so comfy tonight, and Harry had been awake so very long…