In my heart, Harry Potter could have been a girl. I know he was a boy who lived, a hero for the ages, a face for a revolution. And yet I knew him not in magic, but in the very small indecency of daily life.
He is shadowed by backwards comments on his appearance, unasked for opinions on his eyes; hands searching to control his hair. Can I fix your glasses? And that scar… that scar that dares be front and center, a declaration of difference. If he was a girl, how often would it be called a shame? Otherwise such striking features. Gawky, awkward Harry, who as a girl is a mirror of my eleven year old self because she is granted talent only through the magic of genetic transfusion alone.
The reality of a future. You must bear the next generation, be gentle until then. Long nights behind closed doors where the role is to teach, always softly. The art of disarming. How to be weak.
Silence in throats. Shouting the same thing over and over, promising the threat is real and present and horrible. And still no one believes until a boy dies for it. And then, somehow, still, it is Harry’s fault.
Deep depressions that are called overemotional. The greatest weakness of all.
And always, men who are shadows. Don’t you know some of them are nice? Even the one you hate is good because he once loved a woman, who cares if he hurt you.
That others know best, that other old men know even better. That the truth is a package that can only be unwrapped by your betters. That luck granted this position.
The love of Ginny for being a strong, brilliant survivor. The hatred of Umbridge for having power and abusing it. Running across nowhere, searching for meaning while emptiness crawls in.
How satisfying it would be. The girl who lived. Who fought and died and fought again, who loved a queen of fire, who held good girl friends and stood up to evil. And stood up to tradition. Who saw the story and took it, because it could belong to her, because she deserved it.
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