3The fic contains discussions of transgender issues.
Laura, love, this one's for you :)
Steven Bones is born squealing and crying in the middle of St Mungo's. It's a birth attended by people who will never know him in life – hope in the middle of war is rare to find, and the birth of a child is exactly that.
Besides, he's the first male Bones born of his generation, and every eye is on him; waiting to see what future he will hold for his family.
Two weeks after that sign of hope, the only living members of the Bones family are Steven, his parents, and his aunt Amelia.
The first time he feels empty is a few days short of his fourth birthday. His mother is dragging him around Muggle London to shop for new clothes, and no matter what he tries out he's not satisfied.
He knows what he wants, and they're nothing like the clothes he's being forced to try. No, what he wants is something light and airy, like the dresses in the girls' side of the shops he visits.
He doesn't say anything then. He's only four, but he knows that that's not how he's supposed to feel. So he simply smiles unconvincingly at the next set his mother picks out, just to get it done with.
He's seven when he's finally able to find, read, and understand what he's feeling.
It's one of the many Muggle books his father has stored away. For all that mind healing involves magic, it's also a good part understanding, and his father has always maintained that Muggles understand people better than wizards ever can – a result of a lack of magic that forces them to interact with each other far more than most people in the wizarding world would ever do.
It's always seemed like a doubtful claim to Steven, whose only experiences with the Muggle world have been the infrequent trips his mother takes him on to shop. But the book that he finds – a dictionary of sorts – shows him why his father's right.
transgender (adj.): An umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from what is typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.
As awful as it is to think it, when she grows up, a part of Susan knows that the only reason her father didn't blow up when she told him about her discovery was the fact that most of their family had been slaughtered not long after her birth.
For all that it was his job to consult other people, he didn't know how to cope with having a son who had declared himself to be a girl. And were it not for the fact that said daughter was one of the last remnants of his family, it was likely he would have said or done something neither of them would have been able to recover from.
As it is, though, Aldred Bones forces past the lump of denial that sticks in his throat when Steven walks into his study and declares, "My name's Susan now, Daddy! I'm a girl." He doesn't know whether it just a childish flight of fancy, or if he actually means it, but he knows he has to find out.
(Maybe other parents would never even consider that it could be more than mere childhood speaking, but he's seen the effect that those beliefs have on the children.
He isn't about to lose his son in a far more final way than he lost his family, not even if it means he will have to adjust to the fact that he has a daughter.)
Susan's never been to St Mungo's before, not that she can remember, but her father insists that she needs to talk to a mind healer. When she asks him why she simply can't talk to him, he refuses to answer.
Al he says that this is the best way, and no matter how confused (and a tad bit terrified) she is, Susan walks into the office that is both like and unlike her father's.
It's – enlightening. The first time she goes there, she's still to young to fully articulate the person she is, but it's enough for the woman, Healer Lussier, to judge that it is no childhood fabrication.
That is the day that Steven Bones dies, and the one on which Susan Bones is born.
It won't be legal until she confirms it as an adult – Susan knows this. But the fact that everyone, even Aunt Amelia's co-workers, refer to her as Susan is enough for her to consider it all a closed matter.
(Aunt Amelia may have had a stern talk with those she works with, but they acceded to her demands, and that's all that matter in the end.)
The fact that her Hogwarts letter says 'Susan,' not 'Steven' is merely the icing on the cake, a validation of the fact that she has always been meant to be a girl.
A part of her knows that it isn't so simple, of course. One day, she will apply for a legal gender change, and will have to explain the choices she already knows she'll make.
She'll have to explain why she has no desire to change the sex of her birth, only the gender assigned to her. But for now, she's happy with her life the way it is, and no matter how many times she may have to explain, she cannot see that changing.
Susan knows well she's lucky to have the family she does. But she doesn't know how lucky until she goes to Hogwarts and meets Justin, whose family threated to disown him over his magic before coming around, and meets Leanne, who's been living with Katie Bell since her first year at Hogwarts because her all-Ravenclaw family have all but abandoned her after her sorting – the only line they haven't crossed is formally disowning her, though she refuses to use her last name all the same.
She never entertained the idea of revealing her sex to anyone who didn't already know, but she's safe, unlike so many of the other people she's met. And she might not be a Gryffindor, but Hufflepuffs had never backed down from a difficult problem.
(There's a reason one of their house qualities is loyalty, though.
It's Hannah she tells first, and Ernie and Justin next. They never treat her as anyone but Susan, not even when Draco Malfoy announces it all publicly in their third year, and she has to deal with people gaping at her on top of all her worry for her Aunt Amelia over the escape of Sirius Black.)
The last time she visits St Mungos to talk to Healer Lussier is in her third year, when she confirms that she doesn't want to change her body – that she's happy the way she is. But even though she thinks she's done with St Mungo's, it's obvious that it's not done with her.
In many ways, her memories of being are inexplicably tied to this place, she thinks as walks through the white halls. It's where some of the most important decisions of her life have been taken – the overarching ones that influence her eternity – and it shouldn't be a surprise to her that the next one is no different.
It does.
The next overarching event was never meant to be Aunt Amelia's death; she knows this. This wasn't destiny, fate set in stone – no, this was murder, and in that moment, she hopes and prays that Umbridge will return to teach Defence once again.
The woman may have been horrible, but Harry wasn't. And seeing her aunt's broken body lying on white, she knows that the next thing her life will be utterly intertwined with is Defence Against the Dark Arts.
It's the death of her aunt that drives her, of course – the deaths of everyone she knows, or knows of. But at the same time, she isn't blind enough to realise that a good part of it's simply self-preservation.
She can only imagine what would happen to her if Voldemort were to come to power and learn the truth about her. Her wand is heavy in her hands, almost a literal sword instead of merely a metaphor, but she knows that if she wants to survive, she has to fight.
In many ways, she's lived her life on luck. It's time for her to live it one her own terms now, even if it the good fortune she's always had will be a thing of the past.
After all, she's Susan Bones, and she knows that a little thing like life is not going to destroy her.
A/N: A couple of things:
1) The definition of transgender is part of the definition provided by the GLAAD Media Reference Guide. I cut out the bit following it so that it's still conceivably possible for a seven year old to understand. Part of the reason why I decided that a seven-year old Susan could understand it, despite not being a Ravenclaw, is the fact that Hufflepuffs are determined, hard-workers according to their characteristics. I have no doubt that they could manage something of this sort if they put their mind to it.
Susan may not be such a dedicated researcher all the time, but the point is that she can be when she needs to be.
2) This started out as a rant on the ease in which characters who are genderbended in the middle of a story transition between genders. Sex is the biological/genetic part of it - XX or XY, and the outer bits. Gender is the performed aspect - the acts you do to be considered a male or female, according to societal expectations of the society you're raised in. A Harry-Harriet change in the middle of a story may change the sex, but it wouldn't mean an automatic change in gender, and this is basically a vic version of my rant.
3) The reason the first half is entirely in male pronouns is because Steven still hasn't comprehended that he's a female.
4) The conflated pronouns in the section where Susan announces her gender identity is simply because her father doesn't know whether she means it or is playing. He knows he needs to confirm it, but until then, he's confused too - after all, she's seven in that section.
5) I'm not completely comfortable with calling Healer Lussier a 'Mind Healer' in terms of her work with Susan, because that makes it seem like she has metal illness - to clarify, she doesn't. It's the person she is. Ultimately, Healer is to the wizarding world what doctor is to the Muggle one, and we call our therapists/psychologists/psychiatrists doctors regardless of whether one goes to talk to them about depression or regarding one's sexuality/gender/sex.
6) Transgender and transsexual are two categories - transgender is the umbrella term, as mentioned in the story. It's perfectly possible to be transgender without changing your sex - it's your gender identity that matters. Transsexuality is when transition involves, is dependant upon or a person simply wishes to change one's sex.
Finally, and most importantly, this story was written based on second hand information from sites like the aforementioned GLAAD and with psychological theories taught in college, like Judith Butler's ideas of gender perfomativity. If I've gotten something wrong here because of my lack of first-hand knowledge, I apologise, and I'd love if you drop me a PM letting me know where I've gone wrong :)
A/N 2: This was also for the Hunger Games: Fanfiction Style Competition II, using the word, emotion, character, setting, genre and class prompts.
