Concerned when Hermione sleeps late, Harry decides to check on her and climbs the Gryffindor Girls' Stairs. This begins a journey of self-exploration and transition for Harry as she blossoms into her true self.
Magical Metamorphosis (FFN
, AO3) is a Harry Potter fanfic by Eon the Dragon Mage, in which Harry is a trans girl, Holly. It starts partway through Prisoner of Azkaban and branches off from there.
The fic is currently marked as complete; the author has commented on AO3 that she no longer enjoys writing a trans story in J. K. Rowling's universe at least not as long as Rowling is still profiting off of the franchise.
This fic contains examples of:
- Adaptational Gender Identity: Holly is a trans girl rather than a cis boy.
- Adaptational Sexuality:
- Holly is shown to have an interest in boys as well as girls, while in canon Harry was only shown with an interest in women.
- Ginny is shown to be just as interested in Holly as she ever was in Harry, while in canon she was only shown with interest towards boys.
- Adults Are Useless: Unlike canon, this is averted.
- Professor McGonagall and Madame Pomfrey manage to guide Holly through her transition, even though the resources to achieve that do not yet exist in the Magical world.
- When Severus Snape learns about the extent of the abuse Holly is suffering canon she was only shown with the Dursleys, he immediately reports it to Dumbledore.
- Blunt "Yes": One of Dudley's bully friends tries to taunt Holly with "what are you, a girl?" — the insult falls flat when she simply responds, "Yeah, I am."
- Crush Blush: Holly has a lot of them when she's with Cedric. Especially when he compliments her.
- Cut Short: The fic was unceremoniously marked complete some time after chapter 17 despite the story clearly not being complete.
- Death Equals Redemption: After Pettigrew is killed by Voldemort for letting Cedric escape, his Priori Incantatem shade warns Holly about Barty Crouch Jr. being disguised as Moody and tells her he's sorry for everything.
- Fiery Redhead: Holly becomes a lot more openly confident and assertive after she dyes her hair red like her mother's.
- Floral Theme Naming: Holly picks that name in keeping with the Evans family tradition.
- For Want Of A Nail: The simple fact of Holly coming out as trans has caused such changes as the trio getting on Rita Skeeter's good side and Cedric getting away from Voldemort alive.
- Heteronormative Crusader: The Dursleys brutally repressed any attempt by Holly to express her true gender in her childhood, and blatantly call her unnatural and disgusting when she starts transitioning. Thankfully for Holly, her friends are there to prevent escalation into violence and the Dursleys' abuse is eventually reported to Dumbledore.
- LGBT Awakening: Hermione demonstrates the use of female pronouns for Holly, and this proves to be the tipping point for her to start transitioning.
- Loophole Abuse: Madame Pomfrey states that faculty giving students presents is forbidden by school rules...but her giving medical apparatuses, i.e. an enchanted necklace that maintains a voice-modifying charm when worn, isn't.
- Meaningful Rename: As expected of a transgender story, the Potter child eventually changes her name to Holly.
- Politically Incorrect Villain:
- The Dursleys, who are already conservatives in the original books, are turned into blatant transphobic and homophobic bigots and are the main reasons Holly repressed her feelings.
- Voldemort blatantly ignores Holly's gender identity and keeps calling her a boy, somehow making him far more hateable than the original book.
- Race Lift: It's offhandedly mentioned that Holly is half-Indian, presumably on her father's side. In canon, the Potters' race is unspecified in the books, and they were cast as white actors in the films.
- Ship Tease: Holly has tons of it with Cedric. She's shown to be quite flustered around him and her face usually becomes as red as a tomato whenever he compliments her. Cedric is also quite close to her, closer than he was to Harry in the original book.
- Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person:
- The story kicks off when Holly manages to get through the no-boys-allowed ward on the Gryffindor dormitory, much to the confusion of Ron and Hermione.
- The Marauder's Map starts referring to Holly by her new name once she returns to Hogwarts for her fourth year.
- Trans Tribulations: Not only Holly is still forced to live with the aggressively heteronormative Dursleys, some people in the Wizarding World refuse to accept that the child proclaimed to be "the Boy-Who-Lived" is actually a girl.
