Summary:
Ariadne's life continues, and eventually, her parents let her go to school as a girl. New uniform, new experiences, new bathrooms, and sadly, new bullies.
Notes:
Apologies, but alas I must divert from the fluff for but a mo'. Much like chapter 4, we'll have some time skips bringing us up from 1998 to late 2000. Next chapter, we're getting to the Good Shit.
TW: Bullying, transphobia, deadnaming, assault, trauma, child abuse.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
August, 1998
The better part of a year had passed since that stressful night. Ariadne had never been happier, at home at least. Allowed to wear what she wished, their parents had even bought her new clothes - Christmas had been more meager in comparison, but they had assured her it was because of the timing and that many of their intended gifts had been inappropriate following the revelation that they had a daughter, not a son. It had been more than made up for on July 31st, as once again, her birthday came - her 8th. More gifts had awaited her that day than she thought she'd ever seen for Dudley, but unlike her old terror of a cousin, her gifts had thought behind them. Among them had been shirts, socks, girls' jeans, and even a dress or two. A lego braille card gushed of how beautiful their "youngest princess" was and how far she'd come in so short a time. Hermione had used some of her pocket money to buy her a set of hairclips, each adorned with different tiny shapes - a butterfly, a flower and others became Ariadne's go-to accessories. She noticed that even her own colours had changed - while they'd been strong before, now there was a confidence to it that she couldn't explain. It fluctuated with mood, but she took comfort in the fact that this change brought strength to what the sisters had been calling her 'core.'
Alas, however, her parents hadn't allowed her to go to school as a girl yet. Much as her rebellious side urged her to collaborate with Hermione for uniforms and to sneak them there, she knew that the name on the roll wouldn't be hers, and the teachers would yell at her. So every weekday, she'd gritted her teeth and taken the old name, becoming delayed in her reaction to it with each passing month. The teachers already hated her hair, and had pointedly suggested that boys' hair should be shorter at parent-teacher interviews. But, for now, she didn't have to endure it - the school year was over for the time being, and while she knew it'd be the same once September came, she relished its absence. She'd never thought she'd like not being at school, even with the bullying that had predated her long hair. Hermione had taken to calling her Ari at school, if only because it was rarely noticed by others. But Ariadne always heard the lack of an H and felt the tiniest bubble of joy at it.
She was lying on her bed, not tired but also not particularly energetic that day. The CD gently played music, but not David Bowie this time. Instead, a recorded live performance of Gallows Pole by Led Zeppelin was bursting from the speakers as she gently tapped her heel on the blankets and murmured along. As the song reached the convict's sister, and the drums were unleashed, there was a knock at her door. Reluctantly swinging herself up and finding the pause button, she opened the door to the vague shapes of her parents.
"Hey 'Adne, mind if we pop in for a bit? Got something to talk to you about," Dennis asked. Ariadne stepped back in response, pointing them in as they shuffled through and sat down on the bed. "So. This, stuff with you being a girl. It's obvious that you're having a bad time hiding it at school, yeah?" Ariadne nodded, head hanging. "Well, we talked to some of the staff, and if you feel safe, we're willing to let you go. As you, I mean. As Ariadne." Ariadne's brain erupted into activity as she instinctively looked up, inhaling sharply.
Safe wasn't exactly the word she'd use for school in the first place. Brayden had left the school at the end of term, but some of his younger cronies were still about. She was certain that this development would only give the taunting and jabs more ammunition, but to be honest they weren't exactly accommodating to begin with. Nasty kids would always find more reasons to be nasty. She'd had it for being blind, small, and all manner of things both imaginary and real. Being a girl now was just one more thing on the pile. Hiding it had sucked the life from the last year. Time for Harry to finally disappear for real, for Ariadne to take his place.
"Y-yes, yes please," she said, as she nodded vigorously.
"All right then, we'll let your teachers know. Hermione needs new uniforms anyway, so we might as well get you some too."
--
Ariadne had been to the uniform shop before, but never in a dress. It was one of her birthday gifts, and she was told it was light blue with pink flowers - their mum had made it. She could feel the shapes of the flowers sewn on, and that of the vine they snaked along. Her heart thumped in her ears as she stepped over the threshold, where she had previously been unable to go as herself.
"Okay, you shouldn't need any new socks, but 'Adne will," Valerie said. "We'll get you 5 pairs so you each have a week's worth before we do laundry." Ariadne heard one of them pick up a number of pairs and put them in a basket. "All right, basic stuff first - Hermione, would you show Ariadne where the changing rooms are so she can try these on?" She heard coathangers clack into her sister's hands.
"Okay, this way Ari!" Ariadne carefully swept her way through the store - she'd been caught out before, tripping over some shoes in another store and hurting herself. People weren't tidy in these sorts of stores. When they got there, Hermione pressed the clothes into her hands - a skirt and blouse - and she closed the door. They weren't unlike Hermione's old ones, but unfortunately those hadn't fit her either anymore and had on occasion been damaged. She was glad not to have to wear a tie anymore, she'd never been able to get the hang of them, she realized as she tugged the dress off over her shoulders and pulled up the skirt. Once dressed, she stepped back out for the family to see.
"Oh, that'll be a concern. Maybe some shorts to go under that too eh?" Valerie said, clicking through a rack and handing something to Ariadne.
"What's a concern?" she asked.
"Ah, I'll say front of your dress and leave it there, you go put those shorts on under the skirt and we'll see if that fixes the problem." Ariadne put 2 and 2 together, shocked that the problem was so visible. Cursing everyone else's ability to see, she put the sports shorts on and stepped back out again.
"Much better."
"We all wear shorts underneath anyway, it's warmer that way," Hermione said, making Ariadne feel less out of place for it.
"All right, let's get you out of that and we'll get you those, a jumper or two and a hat. Oh, and best get you a beanie too. Plenty comfortable?" Dennis said, as Ariadne bounced on the spot in response and headed back into the changing room. With her dress back on and the uniforms back on the hangers, she followed them around as they grabbed what was left and headed to the till, both hers and Hermione's new uniforms in hand. The woman who ran the shop scanned them, Hermione imitating the beeps as she always did to the hushing of her parents. Ariadne heard her reluctantly go back to her more quiet practice of tapping her hand to the beeps, but every now and then she heard her defiantly smack her lips to the sound.
"Say, I haven't seen her before, is she new to the… school…" the cashier said, trailing off as Ariadne heard her lean forward. "Thought he was a boy, what's he wearing a dress for?" Ariadne shrunk back behind her mum as she could downright feel the tension in the air.
"Not a boy," she said simply, finding herself unable to process more as Hermione froze.
"Hmph, if you say so. That'll be £58.70, would you like your receipt?" Valerie paid wordlessly, taking her change and pulling the kids away firmly.
"Well that was mortifying, you okay there Ariadne?" Dennis said, turning and taking her shoulder. She nodded, still under a cloud of muteness.
"All right, well, let's go get you some new shoes for school eh?"
--
September, 1998
The day had come. Ariadne shoveled down her breakfast so fast she almost felt sick, and put on her new uniform. While she didn't have a mirror and couldn't see it even if she did, but she gleefully twirled a bit and ran her hands down her sides. The soft texture of the jumper she'd only worn as cast-offs from Hermione before, now of her own greeted her. She put on her gloves and took up her cane, ready to go. She'd briefly been baffled by the lack of pockets on her clothes, and had had to put her lesson recorder in her bag instead, alongside her water bottle and lunch. Thinking twice, she put it in a plastic bag in case condensation from the bottle got on it. Swinging it onto her back, she strode out the door, newfound confidence ringing silently in the footsteps of her new shoes.
Instead of the usual walk, their parents had elected to drop them off today. Ariadne's cane jutted out from the car door as she stepped down, looking for the curb as Hermione jumped out of the right side. Dennis and Valerie wished them a good day, giving them each a hug before driving off again to work. Eventually, after milling about in wait for class for some time, the bell shrieked in their ears and they sat down at their seats.
The teacher, whose grey aura like most didn't convey who they were to Ariadne, sat down at their desk and after a brief introduction started calling the roll, asking the kids to tell the class something interesting about themselves. Ariadne, knowing her default answer to that sat and waited.
"Adam Young?" the teacher called. An unfamiliar voice, Ariadne noted. Adam responded, saying that his grandmother had escaped 1940s Germany. Ariadne was familiar with the answer, it was the answer Adam gave every year. She was ready to be internally scathing of the monotony, but to be fair, she thought, she wasn't any better.
"Ariadne Granger?" Ariadne shot up in her seat in shock. She hadn't considered that her new name would put her earlier in the roll.
"Uh-I, I-I-I'm blind," she replied, a sensation not unlike brainfreeze creeping up her entire body. Once she'd gotten the strangled response out, she knew she couldn't say any more. Luckily, the teacher didn't pick on her to explain like they had Adam, and she was mercifully disregarded in favour of the next student. Around her though, she heard whispers. Whispers that didn't exactly fill her with confidence.
"Granger? Blind Granger?" A stifled giggle responded.
"Oh we all knew Harry was a sissy," they said. "Didn't think he'd be so obvious about it though!" laughter erupted with attempts to suppress it as immediate as it had been. It had already been intercepted by the teacher, who stood.
"You two at the back. Something to share?"
"No miss…"
"Good. Your names? You can go next."
As the mocking kids floundered, a pool of warmth flourished in her heart. Her name was on the roll. Her real name. Sure, some would treat her badly for it, but they'd been treating her badly since she arrived. It was better than them treating "Harry" badly, but she had to admit, the immediate stealthy rebuke stung as if it were more personal.
--
Ariadne was quiet for the rest of the day, although that wasn't abnormal. Wherever she went, she knew people recognized her - after all, there wasn't another blind kid whose last name was Granger around, and she didn't know what else she'd expected. She had good enough ears to hear the whispers, but whispers quickly became open conversations, and after only a few days became open taunts and jeers once more. It was a cycle Ariadne was very used to by now, it had gone the same way with her blindness. What she wasn't expecting was how quickly the teachers would abandon protecting her; some didn't even step in right from the beginning. They probably shared the sentiment, Ariadne had realized with a jolt. It would hardly shake her world though - they hadn't had her faith to begin with, as they'd slowly turned a blind eye to the original bullying in her first year at the school. On the way home, she felt bittersweet, glad to be herself, walking down the road as Ariadne Granger, but at the same time, she knew it would attract hate.
--
February, 1999
It was lunchtime, and the sisters were sitting in the courtyard. They both hated the field for the soggy grass and uneven ground, least of all sitting on it, so they sat in bewilderment at those who sat amongst the damp grass from the dry, flat concrete. Ariadne's bottle stood empty in her bag, as she finished her sandwich.
"So could you make a space station powered by hamster wheels?" Ariadne asked. The two had been on the topic for a small while, discussing the physics of it - Hermione had taken an interest in orbital physics of late.
"I mean, yeah, it's not impossible. It's just… dumb!" she giggled. "You'd need so many hamsters!" Ariadne put her lunchbox away.
"Hey I need-I need to pee, do you mind?" Ariadne said, pointing. She realized she was pointing the wrong way and swung around.
"Sure, one sec." It had become standard practice for Hermione to make sure Ariadne was safe in the bathroom - Ariadne had protested, but both Hermione and their parents had put their feet down. Hermione crammed down the remains of her sandwich and, mouth full, the two made their way over to the girls' side bathroom. Hermione came in too, obviously not into the stall but hung about around the sinks. Ariadne completed her business and got back up, leaving the stall to go wash her hands.
As she found the tap, she heard another couple stalls open and two more students do the same. One of them stifled a laugh, right before gravity upended itself - her chin slammed into the sink as she fell, and her cane got tugged from her hands as it clattered into a corner.
"Hey - woah!" Hermione exclaimed before she too was shoved. "What are you- what?!" If she'd been paying more attention, Ariadne would have noticed that both her own and Hermione's cores were frantic and shifting, but her attention was focused more on standing up. Just as she got to her knees, a foot hooked under her and flipped her back down.
"Not supposed to use the girl's room, HARRY ," one of the girls snarled as Hermione tried to get up. "Boys aren't allowed." She could feel her breath coming short and laboured, tears escaping her eyes as she reached over to where she thought her cane was.
"Aww, blindey needs his stick? Hey Abby, catch!" Ariadne heard the cane getting thrown and frantically swung her arms in the air to catch it, before Abby threw it back again and the two tossed it between them for a bit, cackling at her feeble attempts to re-acquire the device.
"Hey, what's in here?" Ariadne's face went numb as she was pulled up by the bag, raking her hands through the air trying to grab at her assailant. "What's this, your little recorder? Wonder how much it likes water," the girl said as she rifled through the bag and pulled it out.
She couldn't speak, instead a strangled cry escaped her lips as she heard a tap begin to run and the ziploc bag open. She tried to get to it, but she was held in place as she heard the plastic case get tossed as well. She wasn't sure if Hermione was stuck too or if she'd completely shut down, but either way she was on her own. Despair filled her as she heard the recorder get dropped into a filled sink.
"Oh you want your little recorder? You can have it!" one of them exclaimed, throwing it at her stomach. "And you can have your fucking stick, blindey boy," she continued, whacking her over the knuckles with it.
Ariadne's ears rang. She was at #4 Privet Drive, marvelling at the colours when Dudley threw her off the second floor landing, crashing to the ground. Petunia was yelling at her and slapping her for burning breakfast even though she couldn't see in the first place. Vernon was raging at the revelation that she'd gotten a plaster from a stranger. Dudley was spraying bleach in her eyes because he'd gotten bored and didn't want to do chores.
She felt like she'd be sick, but it didn't feel the same. All she knew is that she went rigid without any such bidding to her spine, and before she knew it, a shriek escaped her lips, the room was suddenly so awash with her colours that she could sense the outline of Hermione huddled and rocking violently in the corner, and a thunderous CRASH surrounded her, bits of something exploding across the room and scratching her face. The bigger girls screamed too, and Hermione fell into a ball on the ground.
She knew that sound to be glass shattering.
The mirrors had exploded. She felt the two run from the room, without a word to the terrorized sisters, as Hermione continued to wobble. Ariadne, whose spine no longer demanded straightness, found her way over to her sister and simply held her.
"Are you okay?" she asked. It took several minutes of comforting to get Hermione to even mumble anything, one word sentences at best. Ariadne almost forgot her own experience with her concern for her sister, she'd never shut down this badly before. It took the rest of lunch for her to jump at the shrieking bell and force out a sentence.
"How did you do that?" she asked.
--
July 31st 1999
Ariadne's 9th birthday had brought with it a safe elation that hadn't existed at school in years. On top of that, it wasn't a school day, and she'd slept in until damn near 11. She'd even been allowed to choose what was for dinner (she'd chosen chinese takeaways, as she hadn't had them in a while) and after, the family had sung for her and brought cake. Once again, wishes were made over the candles, but Ariadne knew that it didn't make a difference. Presents had been fewer than previous years, but more expensive this time - among them had been a nice dress which Ariadne had been overjoyed to discover had pockets within which to store nice-textured rocks and snacks, and a chess set. But no ordinary chess set was this, instead of coloured tiles it had inset and extruded ones, with pins to keep the pieces in place. Hermione too had been ecstatic to teach Ariadne how to play, somehow losing against her in their first real game. Ariadne suspected she may have been going easy, but Hermione had protested otherwise. She was told that the dress was black with white spots, and she loved the way the poofy pleats eternally shifted with her movement.
--
August, 2000
Their penultimate school year was coming to a close, Hermione's 11th birthday was coming up, and now Ariadne and she were among the elder kids themselves - while they got hassled by other kids in their year, no more was the harassment from bigger ones. Age wise, at least, Ariadne, despite her excellent treatment by the Grangers, would always be a bit small for her age.
In their report cards, Hermione and Ariadne had received exceptional marks consistently - Ariadne only hindered by her reliance on recordings and aides. In fact, the two were almost always top of their class, and had each gotten certificate after certificate for their performance. Ariadne had even tentatively joined the chess club, and while she'd had to fight to get her blind chessboard allowed, she'd learnt well since then, even besting some of the long-term members. They didn't like her, per-se, but they tolerated her better than most others did. One of the kids in the club had been the younger boy with colours, who bragged about having better chess sets at home, but every time Ariadne had tried to ask him about it he'd gotten all secretive. She'd immediately presumed him a liar and resolved to verify his moves where possible whenever she played against him. His colours were smooth gradients between blue and green, with no multicoloured bits drifting within.
At Prizegiving that year, Hermione and herself had gotten awards for their school work, Ariadne particularly for "overcoming great difficulty to complete classwork to a standard well above his- sorry, her peers." She sneered at the obvious pandering. Let them pat themselves on the back for being oh so accommodating , she thought sarcastically. As if half of them weren't my biggest obstacles . Ariadne was even surprised to find herself called up as part of a certificate given to a member of the chess club, apparently he'd beaten another school's champion or something. Ariadne hadn't heard about it until now.
The two departed for the summer holidays with a sense of accomplishment, having overcome some serious difficulties and done so well - they'd even been in the G.A.T.E. classes for their entire year.
--
September 19th, 2000
Hermione's 11th birthday had finally come, and the family were scrambling about trying to find their dad's keys. Ariadne, not exactly able to contribute, was sitting on the stairs in the hall while Hermione ran past to the kitchen to check for a third time.
"Are you sure they're not under anything on the table? Check in the newspaper!" Valerie called from the bathroom. They were intending to go to the zoo for the day, it being a Saturday anyway.
Knock knock knock came a gentle, measured tap at the front door.
--
Notes:
Yes, Hermione is meant to be exhibiting echolalia and stimming in the shop - I'm trying to write her as low support (a term I use as an alternative to the more harmful 'high functioning' label) autistic, but I don't want to do so badly, so if I'm doing badly PLEASE tell me because I don't want to slip into ableism by accident. Ariadne too to an extent but that might just be my self-insert instincts kicking in with her, she goes nonverbal there for a bit.
This was the hardest chapter I've written so far, didn't want to hurt my babies!
Also no, Hermione isn't going easy on Ariadne, she just sucks at chess. She's not an expert at everything… yet. But she will study strategies to eventually beat her little sister!!