Rose Dursley: The Girl Who Lived

27. An Unlikely Ally

The next morning, Rob was awake before the others. He thought about getting dressed quickly before anyone else woke up. But then he decided it would be safer to go to the bathroom to change clothes.

Mrs Weasley had given Rob some of Ron's old uniform to wear. So now he had school trousers and shirts to wear, instead of the skirts and blouses he had before. Rob looked at himself in the mirror and liked what he saw.

Once he got dressed, Rob went downstairs to the common room. When he came down, he found Hermione sitting by the fireplace.

"Good morning," she said. "How was it in the boy's dormitory, did you sleep okay?"

"Yeah, it was okay," said Rob.

"They didn't act weird towards you, did they?" Hermione asked.

"No, not really," said Rob. "It was just weird for me."

"How do you mean?" asked Hermione.

"It just feels like my body is wrong, and I worry about other people seeing it," said Rob. "How I look doesn't match how I feel. When I'm dressed I look okay, but what's underneath the clothes is different. When I see my body, there is a kind of disconnect."

Hermione thought about what Rob was saying, and she tried to understand how he was feeling. "You think your body should have more masculine features?" she asked.

"Yes. It makes me feel uneasy how people see me," said Rob.

"I'm not sure what you would be able to do about that," said Hermione. "Maybe McGonagall would know?"

"That's true. I could ask her next time I see her," said Rob.

Eventually, Ron woke up and came downstairs. Then the three of them went down for breakfast.

When they entered the Great Hall, Rob was sure he heard a hush spread through the room.

"Keep your head up," Hermione whispered.

Rob took her advice, and put on a confident expression as he walked to the Gryffindor table. He didn't feel so good inside, but the confident mask he wore made him feel better on the outside.

After breakfast they went to their lessons. First was charms with Professor Flitwick, and after that was DADA with Professor Moody.

When Rob arrived at the DADA classroom, he saw Draco sitting alone. It was still a few minutes before the lesson was going to start. So most of the other children had not arrived yet. Rob thought it would be a good time to talk alone with Draco.

"Hi, Draco," said Rob.

Draco looked up and sneered at Rob. "Get lost, mudblood," he said.

Rob took a step back nervously. "Draco, it's just us here. Talk to me. We used to be friends. What's wrong?" he asked.

"I don't know why I ever liked you," said Draco. "You're disgusting, you and your weird muggle behaviour."

"I'm still the same person inside," said Rob. "I'm only changing my appearance to match who I really am."

"No. You are some kind of dirty pervert. Pretending to be a boy and confusing people's feelings," said Draco. "You make me sick."

"That's enough," came a loud voice.

Rob and Draco looked around the empty room, unable to see where the voice had come from. Then the door opened and Professor Moody entered. He glared at Draco with both of his eyes.

"There will be no more of that behaviour, Mr Malfoy," said Moody. "And that's a detention tomorrow evening too."

"You can't give me detention for this," said Draco. "Wait till my father hears about this."

"I know your father, and I don't care for his opinion," said Moody. "Now sit down before I make it a week's worth of detention."

Draco glared angrily at Rob as he sat down at his desk.

Moody turned and put his hand on Rob's shoulder. "Come into my office," he said.

Rob followed Moody to the back of the classroom and into his office. The room was dark and filled with weird devices. Moody sat down and pointed to the other chair. Rob did as instructed and sat down opposite Moody.

"I know what it's like to be seen as different," said Moody. "To have people treat you differently because of your appearance."

Rob wasn't sure what to say, so he just nodded.

"People can be cruel," said Moody. "But if you have any more problems with Malfoy, you come to me."

"Okay, thank you, Professor," said Rob.

"Right, well get back into the classroom, the lesson will start soon," said Moody.

When Rob went back to the classroom, he saw that Hermione and Ron had arrived. Also, Crabbe and Goyle had joined Draco. As Rob went to sit with Ron, he noticed Draco glaring at him.

The way that Draco was acting towards him made Rob feel sad. They had been quite good friends before. But the way Draco had reacted to Rob coming out as trans was quite shocking. Rob had known that Draco's father had some views on blood status that were not nice. But he had not expected Draco to react even stronger to his gender identity.

After a while, Rob started to concentrate on the lesson. As he did, he tried to forget about Draco.

Once the DADA lesson had finished, it was time for Care of Magical Creatures. It had always been Rob's favourite lesson before. Mostly because Hagrid was his favourite professor.

But now, Rob was feeling nervous. He had not seen Hagrid since the Christmas break. After the way Draco had turned on him, Rob was scared that Hagrid would be the same.

As he got nearer to Hagrid's hut, Rob started to have trouble breathing. He could see Hagrid standing out the front, filling a bucket with water. When Rob got closer, Hagrid looked up and a big smile came on his face.

"Hello there my little, err, Rob," said Hagrid cheerfully. "Did you have a nice Christmas?"

Rob gave a relieved grin. "Yeah, it was nice," he said. "How was yours?"

"Oh, you know me, same as usual," said Hagrid. "Not like you, making all these changes. But it's good to see you turning back to your true self."

Rob was puzzled. "What do you mean 'turning back'?" he asked.

"Oh, err, yeah" said Hagrid. "What I meant was, umm, it's good to see you smiling again. Back to being yourself."

Rob shrugged. "Okay," he said. It was typical of Hagrid to say things wrong like that.

Hagrid looked around to see if everyone else had arrived for the lesson. He did a quick count of heads, and there seemed to be enough.

"Okay then, for today's lesson we will be starting to learn about caring for Nifflers," said Hagrid. "First thing we are going to start with food, so everyone grab a bucket."

"Why? Is it going to be something disgusting?" Hermione asked.

"No, don't you worry," said Hagrid. "They eat plants and roots. So we're going to head into the forest to dig up some nice roots for them to eat."

And so the children all took a bucket each and started walking towards the forbidden forest.