"Come on, Lia, try this one."
"You think it looks great too, right, Vernon?"
"But it's a dress, Aunt Petunia." Holly's voice dropped to almost a whisper. A faint blush crept up her cheeks.
"But it's such a beautiful dress, and it looks perfect with your hair."
Petunia held a pale moon-white dress in front of Holly and measured it against her. "This one. We're getting this one. Just this one. You'll look absolutely beautiful in it."
"I think it's fantastic. It really suits you, Lia, I mean it!"
Vernon chimed in as well. His hands were full of shopping bags, but the man looked energized, practically buoyant, not at all like someone who'd been dragged around the mall for hours.
"Then… okay… alright."
Holly had no idea what else to say, so she nodded stiffly. She knew the dress was pretty. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that the person wearing it… would be her.
How am I supposed to wear a dress?!
She covered her face with both hands. The shy, flustered little gesture made Petunia's eyes practically sparkle.
"You'll get used to it, Lia." Petunia looped their arms together and guided her toward the next shop. "Now let's find you a few pairs of glasses to match your outfits."
In the eleven years Holly had been alive, she had never experienced a single day with this much kindness. Part of her resisted it, unsure how to accept any of it. But another part… was touched. She could feel how sincere her aunt and uncle were being. That sincerity made her think.
Did Dad really do something to make them hate him this much?
Just because I look like Mom now… the difference is this huge?
She could feel how deeply Petunia missed her mother. She could also feel just how much Petunia had despised James. The contrast was sharp, undeniable.
They spent almost the entire morning shopping. The pile of bags grew so high they could barely fit everything into Vernon's new car. Even the back seat was stuffed.
After a wonderful lunch at a French restaurant, Vernon drove them home. Dudley came sprinting out the moment the car pulled up. He hadn't eaten lunch and looked starving, but he didn't dare complain.
"At least you're behaving today."
Seeing him run over to open the car door and help with the bags, Petunia gave a satisfied nod. "Already thinking about taking care of your sister, are you?"
"We brought you pizza." She handed him a boxed twelve-inch pizza she'd packed up earlier.
"Thanks, Mom!"
Dudley nearly exploded with joy. He grabbed the box like it was treasure.
"Lia said we should bring it. She figured you probably skipped lunch."
Dudley looked over at Holly and felt his throat tighten. For a second, he almost cried.
She remembered me… even after everything I did to her. I really was awful…
Clutching the pizza, Dudley shuffled off, wiping his eyes and eating at the same time. Even if it was a bit cold, it was still the best pizza he'd ever tasted.
Upstairs, Petunia began rearranging Holly's new room from scratch. New bedding, new decorations, carefully chosen trinkets she'd picked herself. Holly tried to help, but her aunt pushed her out gently and sent her to rest in the living room.
She couldn't sit still.
"Aunt Petunia, I'm going out for a bit."
She stood in the doorway on the second floor as she spoke. She planned to find Lynn. She needed answers.
"Alright. You know Privet Drive well. Be careful and be back before dinner."
Petunia pressed a twenty-pound note into her hand. "If you want something to eat, buy it. Lia, you're far too thin. Put on a little weight and you'll look even cuter."
Once Holly stepped outside, warm sunlight poured over her. Her long black hair fell like a waterfall down her back, swaying with each step. Even though she was dressed in boys' clothes, nothing looked out of place. On her, it somehow came across as sharp and stylish.
When someone was pretty enough, anything they wore looked good. Even a burlap sack could be called fashion.
The walk to the little park wasn't far, maybe ten minutes, but it felt longer. By the time Holly reached the swings, most of the anger she'd felt earlier had already drained away.
"You came."
Lynn was sitting on a swing, gently rocking back and forth with a Muggle magazine in his hands. When he saw her, he closed it.
"Why didn't you tell me what the price would be?"
Holly tried to gather what little annoyance she had left. She puffed up slightly. "I—"
But Lynn cut her off with a single question, one that shoved all her words back down her throat.
"Did your aunt, uncle, and even your cousin change how they treat you?"
Holly fell silent for a long time. Finally, she gave a tiny, reluctant nod. "Yes… they did."
"Then your wish came true, didn't it?"
"Yes, but—"
"Everything has a price. Sometimes it's small. Sometimes it's not. So tell me, do you think the price you paid was big or small?"
"It's huge!" Holly glared at him. "I'm a boy, not a girl!"
"Really? Think about it a little more."
Lynn looked at her calmly.
"If being a boy is better, what exactly is better about it?"
The question stunned her. She was only eleven, and she hadn't lived enough life to have complicated thoughts.
"But… I…"
"You're thinking that as a boy, one day you'd get to meet a girl you like, right?" Lynn gave her an amused look and patted the swing beside him.
"That's not… I mean, maybe…"
"And who said girls can't like girls?" Lynn shrugged. "Sometimes all you need is a different perspective."
"For example, imagine there's a girl who makes your heart race. If you stayed a boy, do you honestly think you'd have the courage to talk to her? To become friends?"
Holly paused. She knew how awkward she was around girls.
"Probably… not…"
"And here's the problem. A girl who makes your heart race must be pretty, right?"
Holly nodded.
"Then other people will like her too, right?"
"Yeah…"
"You aren't great at talking to girls. You aren't exactly a super handsome boy either. So the most likely outcome is that you'd have to watch the girl you like walk straight into someone else's arms."
Her face shifted from pink, to pale, to a little green. She had followed Lynn's words and accidentally imagined it. The mental image was so awful she could practically hear horror-movie music in the background.
"But if you're a girl," Lynn continued with a smile, "it's easy to become her friend. You can talk to her without pressure. You can take classes together, eat meals together, even share a dorm room. And if one night you can't sleep and you slip under her blanket, she probably won't mind."
Holly's breath caught.
"You might even bathe together. And if you kissed her, she probably wouldn't push you away either."
"When you were a boy, you never even believed a girl could like you so you never dared dream this far. Right?"
Holly's entire face went scarlet. She hadn't thought anything that extreme… but now that he'd said it, something warm fluttered in her chest. As her mind slowly adjusted to the idea of being a girl, the feeling softened bit by bit.
At eleven, she was right at the beginning of emotional development, at the most malleable age.
"So, do you still need to feel guilty about any of it?"
Holly lifted her head and met Lynn's clear eyes. She didn't know how to argue back. Compared to her old life, a simple change in gender had turned everything around.
"Then…" After a long moment, Holly whispered, "Is there any way I can change back?"
"You'd just need another piece of the same biscuit. But unfortunately, I only had one. The second one… I have no idea when it'll show up. Maybe next month. Maybe next year. Maybe longer."
Doraemon's gadget bag held over a thousand items across the original series, not counting all the ultra-advanced tech. Lynn's own trash-bag version only refreshed one random item a month. In three years, the only time he'd gotten more than one was when he ended up with three identical Bamboo Copters.
Even he wasn't confident he'd ever see a second Gender Swap Biscuit.
"So there's basically no way I'll turn back?"
"There's still hope. Not a big chance, but it's there." Lynn didn't sugarcoat it. "But no matter what, the result right now is good, isn't it?"
"Maybe… I guess…" Holly wasn't sure, but she knew it wasn't worse than before.
"So are you happy now?"
Lynn smiled. "You've got your own room. New clothes. An aunt who wants to pour every drop of love she had for your mom into you. An uncle and cousin who've changed how they see you."
"Are you happy?"
He asked again.
Holly didn't answer for a long time. She just swung gently, tapping her shoes against the gravel like she had yesterday, lost in thought.
"I think… I think I'm happy…"
She murmured it softly, and when she looked up again, Lynn was already gone.