I stared at the boy, perplexed by his combination of makeshift attire, erratic makeup, and a gaze heavy with agonizing plea. If one were to make a list of those most aggrieved by recent events, Percy and Lee Jordan would take the lion's share. Percy's situation was already common knowledge, but Lee's... Let's just say that receiving such an overdose of mental magic at the hands of Lockhart had fractured his psyche in a way as profound as it was unusual.
Lee had not been left foolish, nor had he lost his memories, but it had triggered a dissociative identity disorder. According to the healers, Lee Jordan's original consciousness barely managed to take control 40% of the time. Another 30% belonged to a distinctly marked female personality, while 20% fell into the hands of a grumpy old man who seemed like a Black version of Filch. The remaining 10% was an unpredictable chaos between the three. The specialists at St. Mungo's didn't dare intervene any deeper for fear of erasing him entirely; they had done enough just integrating the initial dozens of fragments into those three stable identities.
The only reason he wasn't currently confined to the psychiatric ward was, precisely, the girl standing in front of me now. While the original Lee felt a paralyzing shame at the thought of returning to school in that state, the female personality proved to be persuasive, responsible, and tenacious. She convinced his parents that losing the school year would ruin his future, leaving them no choice but to give in—not without first filing a lawsuit against Lockhart and Hogwarts.
In the castle, the matter sparked inevitable ridicule, but also an unexpected wave of empathy. With Lockhart branded by the press as the "mastermind," the students' battle took on heroic undertones. Everyone understood that Lee's condition was the aftermath of his struggle. Because of this, the students tolerated the grumpy old man's rants and feigned ignorance when Lee's gestures became excessively delicate; and whenever the usual Lee managed to surface, everyone showered him with kindness.
But at this precise moment, the entity in charge was the young woman.
"Red! I really need you to help me!" she begged in a forced high-pitched voice, reaching her hands out to delicately grasp mine.
I took a step back immediately, dodging the contact out of pure instinct. Seeing Lee acting like a distressed damsel sent a shudder down my spine that I preferred not to hide.
"There's no need to touch me... I have my reservations about physical contact. A mild mysophobia," I excused myself quickly.
"That's the exact reason I came to you!" she exclaimed, hurt, pointing to her own body with both hands. "This always happens! No one can look at me without remembering what's underneath..."
"Slow down. You're losing me," I intervened, trying to decipher where she was going with this.
"You said you'd reward us for the Lockhart thing, right?" (Lee)
"Yes, I gave you the money. Do you need more?" I asked with curiosity. Truth be told, as long as it meant not prolonging this conversation with a poorly made-up Lee, I was ready to throw a bag of Galleons at her face and consider the matter closed.
"No! I don't want gold... What I need is for you to help me fix this!" she said, patting her chest to emphasize her dilemma.
I stood in silence, watching him. His forcibly tight clothes, the crooked eyeliner, the features of my brothers' friend distorted by the mannerisms of a mind that was and wasn't him at the same time.
"I see... You're right," I nodded serenely.
I couldn't ignore her misery. In a way, this wouldn't have happened if I had dealt with Lockhart in time. It wasn't my direct responsibility, but I felt in debt for having let the scoundrel run free; after all, I had my own grudge against him for Hermione liking him while he was a fraud. My plan had been to let the girls unmask him after the basilisk affair, but with the sheer volume of things I had on my plate, it slipped my mind. The fact that these kids had resolved the problem was convenient, but the price had been high.
I looked at Lee once more.
"Alright. I'm going to heal you," I said, calmly raising a hand toward his forehead.
Although I tried not to display abilities too far above this world's standards, I could repair his mind and then modify his memories so he would forget it. It would even serve as practice for tackling the damage to Neville's parents later on.
"NO! No, no, no!" Lee screamed, leaping backward while covering his head with his arms, terrified.
I raised an eyebrow, surprised by the reaction.
"My head doesn't need any fixing! I am perfectly fine!" she declared in panic.
"Having three people fighting for control isn't the standard definition of 'fine,'" I replied with subtle irony. "Trust me. I can restructure your psyche and leave you exactly as you were before. It will be as if this episode never happened."
"It's just that I DON'T WANT to be like before!" the female personality exclaimed, cowering and pressing her fists against her temples. "I'm not a simple symptom of Lee Jordan! I exist! Healing him means erasing me! That would be murder! I have the right to live!" she pleaded with the visceral desperation of someone facing the guillotine.
"True... Perhaps I should have brought up the solution while the original Lee was in control," I admitted to myself, watching as the girl drew her wand with trembling hands and pointed it at me in a defensive stance.
"I have the right to exist!" she shrieked, her voice breaking between the forced high pitch and Lee's natural deep timbre. "I have my own thoughts, my memories, my ambitions! I am a real consciousness, just like you or him... I could even be the authentic version that was repressed!"
"We both know you are a consciousness built from fragments of Lee's memory. Your memories are his, just sifted through a distorted perception," I commented with total indifference, unbothered by the wand pointed at me. "You aren't even a year old."
"You don't know that! Maybe I was always there, waiting to emerge!" she protested, trying to instill a firmness that her trembling body betrayed. "I am a conscious mind! You can't just erase me! I have the right to live!"
"Alright, I'm not going to sit here debating the nature of existence right now... I still have research to do regarding consciousness and artificial intelligence before I can have a clear answer," I said, shaking my head. "Fine, I won't try to erase you. It's not my place to make that call... though if the original Lee asks me to at some point, I might have to. But then, what did you mean by needing my help?" I inquired, genuinely confused about where all this was leading.
"Do you promise you won't try to erase me?" she asked in a tone that, were it not for her appearance, would have been sweet; in her current context, it bordered strictly on the bizarre.
"Yeah, whatever... Just tell me what you want, consider your reward settled, and we will never bring this up again. I have matters to attend to," I stated impatiently. I was only making this gesture because of Lee's situation and his being a friend to my brothers; in reality, I had never been close enough to him to consider him a friend.
Lee sighed in relief and relaxed her posture. She holstered her wand and began to speak, regaining a degree of composure. The speed with which she shifted from panic to serenity proved how unstable these facets were, though I had to admit they weren't devoid of interest. It had its charm when "Old Man Lee" took control on the staircases to yell at first-years to "get off his lawn." However, what was about to come out of her mouth took me by surprise.
"I need your help to be a real girl!" she asked in a pleading tone.
"What?" was all I managed to formulate.
"I am a woman, Red... It's just that I'm trapped in this man's body," she confessed, on the verge of tears.
"I see..." I commented out of sheer politeness.
"I deserve to be who I truly am too!" she protested with indignation. "If Lee has a right to his male body, I have a right to possess mine too! I can't keep living with 'that'... between my legs," she added with a mix of disgust and fear, pointing to the lower area of her trousers.
"Uh-huh..." I muttered, rubbing the bridge of my nose while processing what I was witnessing.
"So, Red... I want you to turn me into a woman!" she demanded with sudden vigor and conviction.
I took a step back immediately to establish distance, but the girl stepped even closer to me.
"I know what you're capable of, Red. More than anyone in this school. I know you're the only one willing to step over the rules. The professors wouldn't help me, the healers wouldn't either, my parents... they're all waiting for the other Lee to return and for me to disappear. But I want my own life!" she exclaimed vehemently. "You don't have personal favoritism toward Lee... You don't care about practically anyone beyond your girls. I could even become one of your girlfriends if you help me!" she offered with a degree of hesitation, but absolute surrender.
"No!" I cut in sharply. "There's no need to go that far..."
"You see? If my body reflected what I am inside, you wouldn't react like that... No one would look at me like a freak!" she sobbed pitifully. "That's why I need your help. The reward you promised us... I don't care about gold. I just want to inhabit my own reality."
I scratched my head at such a dilemma. Unexpected was an understatement. The female personality turned out to be far more observant than the original Lee, having deciphered my general disinterest in my surroundings. The matter didn't affect me in the slightest, so I decided to settle the debt quickly and leave the problem to providence.
"You know full well that if they find a way to restore Lee's mind to its original state, they are going to try to eliminate you, right?" I warned as I slid my hand inside my robes, actually accessing my [inventory].
"I know... But I'll fight to prove I deserve to exist as much as or more than him," she replied, raising a fist with determination. "And even if I don't succeed, the time I have left, I want to live it under my true form," she concluded, looking me straight in the eye.
I pulled a ring set with a gem imbued with body alteration magic from my robes and tossed it to her without further ceremony.
"Take this. Put it on and focus on your 'genuine' form. It's single-use, but once activated, the physical traits of each personality will physically synchronize with whichever mind takes control. Oh, and you and I never had this conversation. Don't look for me, and don't speak to me. From now on, you're on your own. If anyone asks me, I'll feign ignorance," I said, turning around.
The situation bordered on surreal even for these days, but it was beyond my responsibility. The transaction for her services against Lockhart was officially settled; whatever happened next was no longer my concern.
The girl caught the ring mid-air with a radiant smile and placed it on her finger without hesitating for a second.
"Thank you, Red! You're a good person!" she called out behind me as she closed her eyes to channel the artifact's magic.
Behind my back, the boy's body began to reshape little by little, softening his features toward a more stylized structure, a curvy silhouette, and flowing hair. I didn't even bother turning around to look; I had more important matters to attend to.
...
The uproar that broke out in the following days, when the school and Lee Jordan himself discovered the side effects of the change, was colossal.
If the sudden appearance of the "old man" identity—a gray-haired, wrinkled, one-eyed elder missing teeth—caused utter stupefaction, the manifestation of "Leah Jordan" provoked absolute chaos. Fred and George were on the verge of flirting with the female version of their friend before realizing who it actually was, though the one most devastated by the situation was, without a doubt, the original Lee.
What I didn't know at the time was that, by granting a biological vessel to each personality, I also ended up stabilizing them. The 10% random variability was redistributed between the two secondary identities, unintentionally reducing the time the real Lee held control.
Oh well, it's not like it kept me up at night. What I did take the trouble to do was secretly inspect my brothers' mental state following the lingering effects of Lockhart's spell. I treated them subtly to eradicate any damage to their psyches; they were nowhere near Lee's condition, but better safe than sorry.