Title: Henrietta Among the Pigeons
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: One sided Harry/many people
Content Notes: Crack, temporary genderbend
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 2800
Summary: A stray spell temporarily changes Harry into a woman. He promptly goes "undercover" by pretending the change is permanent—and purebloods fall all over themselves to make incriminating statements when they think he might marry into their families.
Author's Notes: One of my "From Samhain to the Solstice" fics, and in some ways a parody of fics where Harry becomes a blood purist. There will be a second part tomorrow.

Henrietta Among the Pigeons

Harry stared into the mirror, and sighed a little. "If you think these robes are really the right sort, Hermione…"

"They're the ones Lavender recommended," Hermione said firmly. She smoothed down a touch of black lace over his shoulder, and then her reflection shook her head at him. "You can't really believe this is going to work."

"You don't deal with purebloods all the time who—"

"Yes, of course I do!"

"You didn't let me finish, Hermione. Are women supposed to interrupt each other?"

Hermione ducked her head, her cheeks flushing. "Sorry, Harry."

Harry snorted laughter. Hermione's head flew up. "See how easy it was for you to forget I'm a man, Hermione?" He fluttered a hand and smiled at his ridiculous painted nails. Lavender had said they should be pink. She'd been right. "I meant to say, not purebloods who are arguing for their right to own house-elves. Purebloods who are constantly hinting that I could understand them and marry into their families if I just conducted myself right. They're always telling me how much I look like a pureblood Potter, and that my mother's 'unfortunate' blood doesn't touch me at all."

Hermione opened her mouth, and then ended up saying nothing. "How dare they!" she finally erupted. "Why in the world would they do that?"

"Because they're bigots, Hermione."

"I know that! I just mean, among all the arguments they use against me, I've never heard that one—"

Harry rolled his shoulders and frowned a little at the dress robes. They were tighter than he wanted. Then again, he wasn't used to breasts. The bra was a little annoying, and he wondered again whether Lavender, even though she'd been right about everything else, had been right to tell him to pick one that pushed his breasts out. Still, it would catch attention.

"They wouldn't dare say something like that to you, Hermione," Harry told her soothingly, when her rant had reached the tone and pitch that meant he could safely interrupt. "You wear your heritage as a Muggleborn openly and proudly. I don't spend all my time talking about my parents, and so it's easy for some people to forget that they were anything other than heroes."

"Plus, your last name is pureblood." Hermione ran out of steam and sighed. "Yes, I know. But I think that this method is still pretty risky, Harry. You don't even know if you're going to get good information."

Harry grinned into the mirror. He'd taken a potion to make his hair grow out a bit, so that it fluffed softly around his shoulders, and then he'd had Lavender style it for him. She was working in the Muggle Relations Department, but her wife was an Auror, and she had more than enough interest in seeing some of the bigoted purebloods go down.

He made a striking woman, Harry decided. His cheekbones were a little higher, but honestly, the biggest difference about his face was the new pair of glasses he'd adopted for the charade and the fact that he didn't have any stubble on his chin. He looked like himself to himself.

Below the face…

He looked enough like Henrietta Potter, he hoped, to make some people give themselves away.

"At least they'll never bother me again after this, even if I don't get good information," he said, and grinned at Hermione in the mirror. "They're never going to forget what they said to me."

Hermione put her hands on her hips. "You have to make them say it in the first place, Henrietta."

Harry grinned at her instead of her reflection this time. "Challenge accepted."

"You must understand that with the divorce from my wife, I gave up on having more children."

Harry grinned at Lucius Malfoy. He wasn't going to notice the edge to that grin. He hadn't looked up from Harry's breasts once since Harry walked into the drawing room at Malfoy Manor. Harry leaned back and crossed his legs, and the robes, silky and diaphanous, slid back from his knees. Malfoy took a breath and held it. "I thought it was also because your only son had come out as gay?"

Malfoy did let the breath out now, as his eyes snapped up to Harry's face. "Yes, well. That is something I'd prefer not to speak of."

Harry only nodded and lowered his eyelashes so that they veiled his eyes. "Well. You understand that I—I've always wanted a family, but I never got around to starting one before this happened." A lot of the rest of what he did came from Lavender's advice, but the way he let his hand hover over his belly was his own innovation. "And since the Healers have said that I'm fertile…"

"They did? What kinds of tests did they have to do to determine that?"

Harry clenched his lips against a determined guffaw. Lucius Malfoy has a Healer kink, then? "Fairly invasive procedures," he murmured. "With most women they can simply give them a potion that measures fertility, you understand, but with someone turned into a woman by a magical accident…"

"Of course," Malfoy whispered. He had gone back to noticing Harry's breasts. "Of course they would have to do that. Did it—did it involve gloves?"

"It might have done." Harry lowered his eyelashes even further, until he almost blinded himself. "But you must understand, Mr. Malfoy, I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to find a suitable father for my children."

"Your children," Malfoy said, whispering again, and then straightened and shook his head. "Right. Of course. You want them to be pure, Miss Henrietta?"

To fairly follow etiquette and tradition, he should have called me Miss Potter. Not that Harry was shocked anymore to find that the purebloods violated their precious traditions when it suited them. "Yes," he said. "I—didn't understand, when I was a man."

"Yes?" Malfoy was speaking in a slightly louder voice now, his smile patronizing. Harry marveled. He didn't even have to follow some of the more obvious arguments that Lavender had vetoed. Men treated women as lesser than they were all by themselves.

It was something Harry hoped he'd broken out of himself, given that one of his best friends was a determined feminist and he worked with and had fought a lot of dangerous women. But probably not. He would have to watch out for it in the future.

"When I was a man," Harry said, and frowned as though that had been so long ago instead of two days, "it was—weird. It seemed so simple and straightforward that I'd find a woman and start a family once I got over my flings with men, and it wouldn't matter if she was pureblood or not. I'd fall in love. But as a woman," he said, and made his voice flutter like his eyelashes, "I understand. I have to think of my children and the challenges they would face in this world."

"Yes?" Malfoy was nodding encouragingly so hard he looked as if he was in danger of having his head stick that way like a Muggle toy.

"Plus," Harry said, and let his eyes widen a little now, "I have a womb."

"Of course."

"And the womb—I thought they were all jokes, the way that wombs affected women's thinking." Harry bit his lip and looked down, partially to make sure that he wasn't sitting in the spread-legged way that Lavender said would make them think he still had a cock. "They're not."

"Of course," Malfoy said, all but purred. It made Harry feel sorry for Narcissa, if she'd had to listen to that day and night. Malfoy reached out and let his hand brush Harry's knee for a second. "It is such a hard thing to believe, in this day and age that persists in presenting itself as enlightened."

Such a hard thing to believe because it's not fucking true. But Harry held the expression on his face and nodded earnestly twice. "I know what it would be like to have someone inside me now." Of course, Harry had known that for years, but probably not in a way Malfoy wanted to think about.

"Yes." Malfoy's voice was thick as he spoke. "Well. I can promise that any children born to me and you would be pure, Miss Henrietta."

"Tell me why, though." Harry fluttered his lashes again. Lavender had told him that his moue was frankly a disgrace to pouts everywhere. "I mean, I still have a mother who wasn't—pure."

Malfoy smiled as if he heard "Mudblood" hiding just behind Harry's words. "But your body is a new one. The Healers had to verify fertility, after all." A slightly glazed blink that made Harry think Malfoy was thinking about gloves. "That means it must have changed completely. As far as I'm concerned, you are now a pureblood maiden, Miss Henrietta."

A maiden? But Harry wasn't that surprised to find that the term still existed, only that Malfoy could sound so deadly serious when saying it.

"I hoped you would see it that way." Harry smoothed down the robes over his legs again. "Can you tell me what I would acquire if I became part of your family? If I can be so bold to ask the question."

"Well, heirlooms and treasures, of course—"

"Of course." Harry tried to look pretty and penitent for interrupting, and must have succeeded, if the indulgent look Malfoy gave him was anything to go by. "But I more meant—knowledge. I feel so ignorant. I'm so many years behind, and if I'm going to marry into a family of the proper sort and bear pure children, I should know what the family does. Secrets. Important things."

Malfoy chuckled again and began to talk. And Harry listened to him and beamed brainlessly and kept asking.

By the time he left Malfoy Manor, the secrets to several unsolved murders were locked in his head, but he didn't go to the Aurors yet. He had only ten days more that his body would look like this, and a lot more people to see.

"Thank you so much for seeing me, Mr. Nott."

The man who greeted him at the door wasn't Theodore Nott, who Harry would have found more tolerable, since he was Harry's age and had never been Marked as a Death Eater. But ancient Heinrich Nott had. And he seemed to have a face made of leers. He certainly didn't show Harry any other expression as he showed him into a darkened library.

At least the chair he sat on wasn't blood-splattered, Harry thought. He had to wonder about the stains on several other cushions.

"Henrietta Potter." Nott bowed to him, the depth perfectly correct. Harry would have thought he was more attentive to supposed pureblood traditions than Malfoy, except for the leering. "Is it true that you are seeking a husband?"

Harry forced a blush to rise to his face. "It sounds so indelicate when you phrase it like this."

"I don't want to be indelicate," Nott said at once, while his eyes said that he wanted to be as indelicate as possible, but it was probably against pureblood etiquette to rip Harry's clothes off in the library. "Why don't you tell me what you're seeking, and I'll tell you whether I can…provide it."

Harry held back his little choke as he crossed his legs. There really wasn't that much innuendo in the word "provide" normally, but Nott could probably put it there.

He could probably put it anywhere, Harry thought, and then shoved away the thought before he laughed.

"I want to bring pure children into the world," he said. "Pureblood children. This body has been certified as fertile and female, and…"

"Of course," Nott said softly. "You were able to put off children and dream of them for a later time when you were a man, but children are the most important things to a woman. Any woman."

Harry nodded breathlessly. If the breathlessness came from holding back hysterical chuckles at the thought of what Hermione's face would look like if she heard that, well, Nott would never know. "And the problem is, there seem to be several eligible pureblood men I could wed. I have to admit, I don't know if you would be my first choice. You were on the other side of the war, and you're so much older than me."

"Ah, but that means I am that much more experienced as well, my dear."

"Well, of course I know that you've fought in duels and battles, some of them even battles against my allies—"

"I meant in the bed, Miss Potter."

Harry stared and then looked away. He hoped he was blushing again, but his cheeks hurt so much from not grinning like a lunatic that he wasn't sure. "Oh."

"It is natural for a maiden of your youth and stature to be puzzled by such things." Nott waved a hand, and a teapot and two cups, along with a delicate set of tongs and a bowl of sugar appeared. "Please ask me your questions, and I will do my best to answer them."

Harry let Nott put sugar in his tea, and, as he lifted his cup to his lips, wandlessly Vanished the liquid instead of drinking it. Merlin knew what potions Nott would think appropriate to add to it. He gulped and took a risk. Hermione would say that he shouldn't be asking this kind of question, but Harry wanted to know. "I mean—I wanted to know, first of all, why you would be willing to marry a half-blood when you were a Death Eater."

"One does not speak of such things in public, my darling."

My darling? Presumptuous, aren't you? Harry managed to blink and simply say, "But we aren't in public, are we? And my friend Hermione keeps telling me that wives and husbands have no secrets from each other."

Nott gave him a twisted smile that Harry wondered at. How could he ever have persuaded the Wizengamot when his face betrayed him at every turn? Then again, Harry knew full well that the Wizengamot saw only what they wanted to see. "For the woman who will be my wife, I can make an exception. I have not changed my mind on matters of blood purity."

Ha. The speech Nott had given the other month when he donated a bunch of Galleons to St. Mungo's said otherwise.

"But there are other kinds of power than purity," Nott said. "Magical and financial. Fame and beauty." He let his gaze trail down Harry's legs. Harry hoped that he was sitting with the right amount of modesty, whatever that was. "You have so many, my dear. I only hope to be found worthy."

Harry sighed. "Well, it's just so confusing, you see. If you could tell me a little more about the early days? I've heard that Vol—I mean, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had some good ideas then, before Dumbledore began to spread his propaganda."

And Nott ate it up. The more he told Harry about the original Death Eaters, the better an idea Harry had of where to check for hiding places—for bodies, certainly, but even for damning written evidence. By the time he had given his "card" to Nott and promised to contact him again, he was smiling sincerely.

He did pause as he was leaving the house. There was someone standing against the side of a doorway that seemed to lead to another sitting room, someone too tall to be a house-elf.

Theodore Nott leaned his pale face into the light. "You'd better know what you're doing, Potter."

"Mr. Theodore. You startled me." Harry put a hand over his heart and swayed back a step. "Also, I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."

"Maybe some of the others forgot because you're in a woman's body now, or because you wore Gryffindor colors." Theodore narrowed his eyes at Harry. "But you're an Auror, and you're a cunning bastard."

"I don't see how. Cunning is the province of men, and Slytherins."

Theodore snorted. "Oh, don't give me that. I don't believe that rubbish about women, and neither do you."

"It's not rubbish, though. It sounded like it when I had—what I had between my legs, but now that I'm living a woman's life, I see how much is true without me knowing it."

Theodore rolled his eyes. "And you aren't delicate, either. Look, go ahead and drag down all the Death Eaters and inbred purebloods you can, I don't care. But leave me out of it. And don't expect me to back you up or buy what you're selling."

"I should hope not, Mr. Theodore. I don't sell myself to anyone.. I'm not that kind of girl."

"Oh, go away, Potter."

Theodore turned and disappeared down the corridor. Harry watched his back thoughtfully. It was interesting that while Theodore had seen through his act, he also hadn't run to tell his father that Harry wasn't what he appeared. And Harry knew, as with an Auror's instinct, that he wouldn't do it when Harry left the house, either.

Theodore Nott is worth keeping an eye on, Harry decided, and left, fluttering his lashes at the house-elves.