Finding Heather

Year 3 Chapter 2

Author's Notes: Chapter 2 begins at the start of the Christmas Holiday, a few days after Harry snuck into Hogsmeade and learned the truth about Sirius Black. In my story Ron went home for Christmas, leaving only Harry and Hermione in Gryffindor Tower.

Harry Potter and all characters, events, locations, etc belong to JK Rowling.

Chapter Two

Harry lay in his four-poster bed trying to sleep, but his brain was racing to fast to be able to let him. Everything from Sirius Black to the Committee for the Disposal of Magical Creatures kept going round and round until he had to sit up. It was late, with moonlight shining onto the floor through the window into the empty dormitory. Harry climbed out of bed and walked over to the jug by the bathroom, pouring a cup of cold water before moving to the window. The grounds were still and quiet, snow covered everything, and nothing moved. For a while he figured that since he couldn't sleep anyway, he might as well use his father's cloak to sneak down to the library and get a jump on the preparations for Buckbeak's trial but decided instead to pull out the Marauder's map and study it. He was just pulling it out from where he had hidden it at the bottom of his trunk when he saw the hem of a skirt sticking out from under his cloak.

Doing a quick guilty glance around the room even though he was alone, you never knew when Peeves was lurking out of sight, he pulled the folded uniform out and set it on his bed. His heart raced just looking at it. He'd completely forgotten its existence. For the first week after it had appeared, he'd been extremely nervous anytime he was close to Lavender, as if she would be able to know just by looking at him that he had her uniform. He'd been expecting questions to be asked if anyone had found it, or even for it to vanish, but it stayed hidden where he had put it.

As he stood there simply looking at it, he thought back to those memories from being young and wanting to dress like a girl. It took several moments for it to sink in that this was finally his chance. In a surge of boldness, He stripped out of his pajamas but stopped short, unsure where to begin. He picked up the black tights, twisting them this way and that to determine if there was a front or back. It took a few tries to get them correctly on his feet and up his legs. Once they were up, he stepped into the skirt and pulled it up, zipping it around his waist. It was only then, with a cold breeze in a place he wasn't accustomed to, he realized just how cold the tower was. Shivering slightly, he picked up the shirt which confused him for a moment as the buttons were on the opposite side as they were on his. After that he pulled the sweater over his head. Both of these fit very differently than his regular uniforms. They were tighter around the middle and in the sleeves, showing off his slim waist. Last he did up the tie, tucked it down under the sweater, and pulled the robes over his arms and into place.

When he was done and after adjusting everything until it all felt like it was where it should be, he walked into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. "Definitely a boy, but this feels amazing" he whispered to himself. With a start he realized that he had a small bulge at the front of his skirt, and quickly adjusted himself to hide it. He soon realized that the floor was freezing on his stocking feet, and he almost pranced back into the dormitory to get his slippers, thinking that as cute as the uniform was, there were certainly some drawbacks. "How do girls survive this during winter out on the grounds?" he muttered to himself. Once his slippers were on and his feet and he had sat down on the bed to let them warm back up, he started to flatten the skirt on his legs and look at himself. He thought about how the other girls in the school looked in their uniforms, his thoughts slipping to the Ravenclaw Seeker, Cho Chang, which made him excited again, and admitted that he thought he did look a little like a girl. He was missing the breasts that the girls in his year were starting to grow. At the same time, there were many girls even in the upper years that he and Ron had looked at who didn't have much to show in that department, so he knew that really wasn't all that big of a deal. Regardless, Harry knew his face and hair were definitely boyish. Standing back up, he felt his briefs rubbing very uncomfortably and found himself wishing for a pair of knickers without realizing it.