Yer A Witch, Gura

After waking, Wulfric and Mrs. Weasley informed me that I would be staying with the Weasley’s for the summers, in Ginny’s room. Which raised a few points of contention from me, but Mrs. Weasley eased one of them by saying Ginny was fine with it. After she fed me, Wulfric and I headed back to Hogwarts to gather my things. From what little of them I had- which was mainly my school things and clothes.

As we walked through the halls, I tried to think of the best way to approach Dumbledore about it but couldn’t get the words out. My mouth kept opening, but no words escaped- only air. When we got to my temporary room, I managed to force something out: “I-…” I took a deep breath, now that Albus’s attention was on me. “Iwasaguy.”

Albus’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing, content to let me form my words.

“I… was… a… guy. In. my last. Life,” I forced out.

“That is certainly news.”

I jumped onto the bed and grabbed one of the pillows to hug, as I rested against the headboard. “I was a guy in my last life,” I said again. Albus sat in the chair desk, turning it to face me. “I was a guy in my last life.”

“I do not believe the words will change, no matter how many times you say them.”

I huffed out a chuckle, humorless as it was. “That’s. All I can say.”

“You do not feel any sign of dysphoria?” I shook my head. “You do not feel as if something’s wrong with your body?” Shake.

“I feel. Fine. Great, even. It’s just…” I sighed. “I feel as if… as if. I feel like this is my body. Like this is who I’m supposed to be, that I’m supposed to be like this. An Atlantean, a girl. Like my body is right, that- that- that I’m supposed to be like this. My body feels correct like it didn’t in my last life, like it’s supposed to be like this.” I gripped the pillow tighter. “It scares me. I’m not supposed to be Gura, I’m not supposed to be here, I’m not supposed to exist, I’m not- I’m not- I’m NOT!” I stuffed my face into the pillow. “And yet I am,” I mumbled.

Albus sat in silence after my outburst, but as soon as he went to say something, I threw my pillow to the side and jumped up.

“Enough moping, work time.” I got off the bed and started grabbing clothes from the drawers of the dresser.

Albus stared at me for a few seconds. I turned to look at him- concern.

“You gonna help out or what?” I asked. Albus smiled at me- sadnessgreifregret.

“I believe I know just the spell.” He waved his wand, and the trunk at the foot of my bed flipped open and my clothes started floating and folding themselves into it.

“That’s handy,” I commented.

“Indeed. It has helped me several times over the course of my years.”

Grabbing a few other knickknacks I had around the room, I tossed them into the trunk. Checking over the room with a critical eye, I nodded. Looks like I got everything. “I think that’s all. ‘Snot like I had much to begin with, anyway.” I gave a shrug and closed the trunk, clicking the lock into place.

Dragging the trunk behind me, we left my room and arrived at Wulfric’s office, where we would take the Floo back to the Weasley’s. I stopped up short as a thought occurred to me. Wulfric made a questioning noise, seeing that I had stopped.

“Thought just occurred to me-  The Weasley family reminds me of family friends I had in my- past? Last?- life, where they were always late to everything. And one of the things that is kinda-sorta ingrained into me is that to never be late? I always get anxious about being late, and I usually arrive to everything several hours before, if I could manage.” I sucked in a deep breath. “And so I’m kinda worried about being late to the Hogwarts train and not making it in and then being left out to rot and never making it to Hogwarts until it was too late and then-” Wulfric’s hand on my shoulder knocked me out of my ramble.

He smiled gently at me. “Never in my life have I seen any of the Weasleys make it to Hogwarts late. And even for those who are running late, the train stays back a few extra minutes just in case. Hogwarts will never close itself off from those who are held back, it will always wait for them.”

“That- while comforting- doesn’t ease many worries.”

Wulfric chuckled. “I suppose not, hmm? It sounds as if you have a challenge ahead of yourself to make the Weasley’s not late, this time.”

I gave him the flattest look I possibly could. He only chuckled again before turning to throw floo powder into the fireplace. Taking a pinch of it myself, I arrived at The Burrow, trunk in tow. Mrs. Weasley led me up the stairs to Ginny’s room, where I would be staying for the foreseeable future. Leaving me in front of the door, she patted me on the back and left to go talk with Wulfric again.

I stood dumbly for a few seconds, before I hesitantly knocked on the door. It swung open less than a second later, revealing Ginny Weasley. Barely shorter than me, orange hair, freckles, the whole Weasley package, really. We stared at each other in silence for a few moments. “You’re short.”

“You’re shorter.”

We stared at each other for another few moments. “Ginny.”

“Gura.” The door opened further, and Ginny let me in.

The room was small, made even smaller by the two beds taking up most of the available space. A desk was situated between the two beds, and underneath a window. Both beds were pushed up into the far corners of the room, with the main foot space being between the beds in front of the desk and at the feet of the beds. A dresser sat across from the leftmost bed, along the door wall.

Ginny nodded at the side of the room that wasn’t messy. Nodding back, I set my trunk at the foot of my bed before grabbing a few things I thought I would need from it. As I set the few things on my side of the desk, I caught Ginny staring at my tail. I tilted my head at her as I wiggled it back and forth, and that snapped her out of staring.

“Sorry.”

I gave her a lopsided grin, “You’ve never seen someone with a tail before?”

Ginny shook her head, a faint blush on her cheeks.

“Don’t blame you, not many Atlanteans visit the surface. Think I was being stared at, too, when I was in Diagon with Hagrid.”

“Atlantean…?”

“Oh! Right! They’re the race I’m a part of- half fish-half person sorta deal. Kinda like Centaurs! But better, since we can breathe underwater.” I lifted my shirt to show my gills. Sticking a hand underneath a flap, I wiggled it. Before immediately collapsing. Ginny looked alarmed and nearly ran to my side before my giggling caught her ears. “Was not expecting it to be that sensitive, hoo boy.” I pat the skin above my gill, trying to pat the weird feeling away. “Never doing that again.” I shook myself out and looked back up at Ginny. “What were we doing again?”

“You were unpacking.”

“Right! Thanks.”

After all that the day passed rather… lamely. I settled in, talked with Ginny a bit more, ate and met the rest of the Weasleys, and eventually settled in for bed. With naught but a couple of weeks left before the school semester started, not much happened. The Weasleys got their school supplies before I got here, so it was just hanging around the house and helping with chores. Not that Mrs. Weasley wanted me to help, but I left her no choice- I was here and I was here to help.

Despite my spilling of being late worries to Dumbledore, I didn’t really… do much to make the Weasleys not late? It wasn’t really much of my laziness, and more of the knowledge that Harry would be- wait. I sighed as I looked at Bloop. “I’m such a dum dum, Bloop. I forgot that Harry got there before the Weasleys got there! Uuuuughhhhh.” Bouncing his bubble up and down on the seat of the car, I watched as the rest of the Weasleys kept running in and out of the house.

Because I packed the night before, I was ready before all of them and didn’t have to run around like a chicken with its head cut off. So, being the little shit that I am, I called shotgun before any of them could get into the car. I grinned at the rest of the Weasley kids as they all packed into the back seat, each of them giving me the stink-eye. It wasn’t as much of a long drive as it was a chaotic one. The Weasley kids were jostling around in the back seat, complaining and yelling.

At one point in the drive over, I looked at Mrs. Weasley and told her, “You need a van.” Which then led to an explanation of what a van was, which my explanation boiled down to: Car but longer with more seats. She looked somewhat enticed by that idea, I think. Might have to bring it up with Mr. Weasley and see what he thinks. Though, they could probably just use expansion magic on the back seat. Might be a simpler solution to stealing a van. Er, I mean buying a van.

We arrived at the station with roughly thirty minutes to spare. That settled my nerves a bit, but then it took fifteen minutes to unpack everything from the trunk and put it all onto trolleys. From there, it took nearly five minutes to track from the car and through the building. All the while, Mrs. Weasley was explaining the history of Nine and three-quarters.

To some detriment of my trolley steering skills, I kept my eyes open for Harry and his owl, which was a bright white snowy- THERE! “Harry!” I shouted, abandoning my trolley. I grabbed his shoulder and turned him around, grinning wildly.

He was a deer in headlights for a few moments before his brain caught up to his eyes, then he blinked rapidly. “Gura?”

“Yeah! C’mon, grab your trolley or we’re gonna be late!” I turned back around and took up my trolley again- Harry quickly following behind me. We managed to weave through the crowds and made our way to the Weasleys. “We’re here!”

“Oh, good.” Mrs. Weasley smiled down at Harry. “First time?” I saw her eyes flicker over Harry’s face, and recognition flash, but she said nothing but, “It’s Gura’s and Ron’s first time as well. All you need to do to get onto the platform is run into the pillar between platforms nine and ten.”

I paused at her explanation and looked at the pillars. We were facing the third pillar from the entrance, and huh. “Wow. I literally just realized that. Wow. Okay.”

“What?” Harry asked.

“Count the pillars and see which one the other twin is going into.” I nodded at George (it was George because Fred would never go first into things, so obviously it would be George who would go second).

Harry took a second to count the pillars and let out an “Oh.”

“Yeah, I know right?”

“Is that why you and Hagrid didn’t tell me?”

“No, we just forgot.” I heard Ginny try and stifle a laugh, turning it into a snorting cough.

Mrs. Weasley just huffed and rolled her eyes. “Go ahead before Ron, dearie.” Harry nodded and took a deep breath and ran through. A crowd passed by as he went through the barrier. Ron went next at Mrs. Weasley’s urging, then finally I went.

I shivered as I slipped through the barrier, a wiggling feeling as it passed over me before the new sounds of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters appeared. Which were mostly the same, except now there’s more sounds of animals like owls and magic sounds (which mostly consisted of whizz-bangs, pops, whistles, and occasionally a balloon deflation). I vibrated in place as I waited for Mrs. Weasley and Ginny to walk through- she told us earlier to wait just outside the landing zone (she didn’t refer to it as that, I decided to call it that) so she could see us off.

I tried looking around the crowd for Harry, but the shifting crowds made it hard to see. Not even a second after I walked through, Mrs. Weasley walked through the barrier with Ginny in tow. She hustled us out of the landing zone, and more towards the train itself. As she started fussing over Ron, I plucked Bloop from the air.

“Alright, Bloop. I need you to find Harry for me, think you’re up for the task?” Bloop continued to stare blankly at me. I nodded firmly and seriously. “Good. Now go.” I chucked him towards the train, above the heads of the people.

“Did you just…” Ginny muttered, staring strangely at me and the direction I threw Bloop.

I looked at her, the utmost serious expression on my face. “He’s on a mission.”

Ginny searched me over with her eyes before she rolled them. “Whatever.”

I grinned brightly again as Mrs. Weasley started berating the twins. This time, over blowing up a toilet. One of the twins perked up as a thought occurred to him. “Hey mum! Guess who we just met on the train!”

The other joined in, “Yea! You’d never guess!”

“Who?”

“Harry Potter!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! Got the scar and everything!”

“Is that who your friend was, Gura?” Mrs. Weasley asked, looking at me.

“Mhm!” I used a quick burst of water to jump up and conk the twins’ heads together. “And don’t you think about bothering him, alright? He’s just a kid.”

The twins rubbed the sides of their heads but nodded.

“I’m glad that you’re looking after him, Gura. Poor dear.” A whistle sounded then. “Oh! Best you all get on the train before it leaves! Go on, then! Hurry!” Mrs. Weasley shoo’d us off, the twins, Ron, and I ran to the train. But not before grabbing the remaining trunks and pulling them into the train car.

Waving from the door, we said our goodbyes, promising to write, and the twins jokingly promising to owl Ginny a toilet seat. The train started moving, and Ginny ran along with it until it went too fast for her. When the train pulled out of the station, we moved further into the car.

I heaved my trunk onto my shoulder, before it went lopsided and pulled me down backwards. Letting out a squawk of alarm, I grumbled before I decided to just drag it along. Bloop reappeared before I could march off. “Ah! Sergeant Bloop! Have you completed your mission?” I nodded as he stared blankly. “Good, take me to him!” Bloop started off again, and I followed.

It didn’t take long before I arrived at the door to a compartment. Opening it, I found Harry. “Harry! Hi! Again!”

Harry started and looked over. “Oh, hey Gura.”

I went in without asking and shoved my own trunk next to Harry’s. “Thought you’d like a familiar face on the train ride over, at the very least.”

Harry hesitated for a second before, “Thanks.”