Chapter Text
Hazel Daffodil Potter, though that was not yet her name, was some youngish age when a brick sailed through the window of Number Four Privet Drive.
Now, the house's other inhabitants were rather displeased with this turn of events, of course. Vernon hollered and stormed outside in hopes of finding the culprit, Petunia fussed indignantly at the mess all over the kitchen, and Dudley took the opportunity to snatch an extra helping of bacon.
Hazel, meanwhile, though that was not yet her name, examined the brick itself. There was a pamphlet wrapped around it, as it happened, emblazoned with colorful flags and symbols which would no doubt cause Vernon to rant and rave were he to see it.
The pamphlet was titled "An Anarchist's Guide to Gender", and as it happens Vernon did not see it, because Hazel (though that was not yet her name) snatched it up in the confusion and slipped it right under the door of her cupboard to stash it away safely, for it was something new and colorful and she was feeling daring that day.
And when the dust settled, and Hazel – as would soon be her name – had finished sweeping up the glass and excused herself to her cupboard, she read by the light filtering through the gap in the door, and she discovered who she wanted to be.
—
Things changed quite a bit for Hazel – as she had now decided was her name – once she learned a girl was something she could be.
Hazel didn't have anything with which to make herself into a girl, of course, being an abused orphan child, but she didn't need much. As the astute reader may have guessed from prior experience, after all, Hazel was magical. Her magic quietly flipped the switch for which way to develop, made her old name and gender a bit harder to remember and her new one much easier, and that was that.
(Somewhere, Delores Umbridge commiserated with her master Joleister Krowling about the unidentifiable seething rage that filled them both.)
Petunia mellowed out a bit once Hazel began growing into a girl. Not deliberately, but Hazel had begun to remind her of her sister as a child, and fond memories made it much harder to heap vitriol upon Hazel. She encouraged Dudley to be a bit better toward Hazel as well, and while they still didn't generally get along he was willing to let Hazel have an occasional turn on the impossible playstation. Vernon was worse than ever.
Hazel wore baggy clothes, kept to herself, and dreamed.