Neither a Witch nor a Wizard, so Where do I Fit In?

The worst betrayal I have experienced was by someone who will likely never know my name or face. Like any devastating betrayal, it was years in the making. It starts when I was tiny, before I started school, and my older sister, who was in second grade at the time.

For me, it felt as if the bookmark had always been there. It was plain white, with a curly quote printed on it and laminated. At the top, it was hole-punched and looped with a colorful pipe cleaner, which attached a feather and a bead. In short, the sort of project any first or second-grader would be proud of. It was a gift from my sister.  I asked over and over again what it said until that quote was imprinted on my heart. “Once you learn to read, you will forever be free,” a quote from Fredrick Douglas. I was desperate for that freedom, the way it was promised to be mine as long as I could read. I found it in second grade, and it was everything I wanted it to be. I read like I had been starved of books. I was never more than an arm’s length away from the current story I was devouring. It wasn’t until I was seven, on some insignificant day, that I discovered something else about good stories and myself.

This moment is forever imprinted on my mind, but what day of the week it was or what time of year, I couldn’t say. I remember laying on my bed, feet swaying over my pillow and sunlight streaming through the window to illuminate my chapter book. I remember pausing, basking in the sun like a contented cat, and the whirlwind adventure that seems to only exist between the pages of a good book. At that moment I knew an indisputable fact of the universe: good stories are magic. I also knew I wanted to be one of the people who share that magic. I wanted to be an author.

How does one become an author? To seven-year-old me, it appeared you had to be a middle-aged white man. That was the reality of any author I paused my voracious reading to take a look at. Those that had pictures along with their biographies even looked the same, with similar haircuts and achromatic filters. It was fourth grade when I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the first time. I was obsessed. Before I knew it I was on a second or third readthrough of the series, and we were picking real-life figures to portray in our fifth-grade “wax” museum. It was a no-brainer for me. I picked J.K. Rowling. I put my hair up in a bun, wore a cardigan, and held a witch’s hat for people to pull a Hogwarts House out of, which would start my speech. I loved it. She became my hero. If she could publish a book and be successful, so could I.

By middle school, my Harry Potter books were looking… well-loved. It was there that I met my best friend who absolutely refused to read Harry Potter, certain it could never be better than Percy Jackson and the Olympians. It was her love of PJO that made me sure she would love my favorite series too. It wasn’t until the end of middle school that she relented and read the books. She became more obsessed than I was, which was a little concerning but vindicated me all the same. My hard work paid off and Harry Potter was sufficiently loved. Then started the debate among my friends: “Which house is Kris?”. Was I a Hufflepuff, with my unbreakable loyalty? Was I Ravenclaw, with how smart I was? No, I decided. I would be a Gryffindor. I would be brave. As a kid who battled intensely against chronic acute anxiety and chronic depression, I can never regret that choice. The choice to be a Gryffindor was more meaningful than if I had just picked one of the houses because it meant that when everything scared me and it seemed better to just not, I kept moving forward. That winter, my family had a surprise for my birthday.

It was a week or so from my birthday celebrations and my sister was giddily leading me through… a Menards? Stranger still, she was pulling down a construction aisle, as if I wouldn’t follow her anywhere like a lost duckling. Here, she pulled out two different colors of brick facades. For my birthday that year, my family built me places from the Wizarding World. On our front walk was Platform 9¾, complete with a section to disappear through the “wall”. In our dining room were tons of floating candles. In our basement, the jagged edges of an open Diagon Alley and the corner and door for Olivander’s Wandmakers. It was all magical. My sister even made frozen butterbeer! If she wasn’t adverse to touch, I would have hugged her over and over. I couldn’t have asked for more.

During my freshman year of high school, I got to see The Wizarding World at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. I wore my Harry Potter shirts and found Number 12 Grimmauld Place. I spoke with the driver of The Knight Bus and yet I couldn’t find the entrance to Diagon Alley. I was so upset. How could we not find Diagon Alley, the first magical place we ever visit in the Harry Potter books? Why was I barred from entering such a magical place? Could only some people get in? Surely this couldn’t be it? I was trying to put on a brave face, but tears stung at my eyes, and I couldn’t work up a smile.

Then I wandered around the right corner… and there it was! I was so ecstatic. I was jumping and grinning from ear to ear, flapping my hands and pointing at this and that. My parents didn’t take their eyes off me, grinning at my excitement and antics. You better believe I was gonna explore every inch of that place, from Honeydukes (candy shop) to Gringotts Bank to Knockturn Alley (dark magic shops). Regardless of the hot day, I remember standing out in the alley, reveling in scorching Dragonfire roiling over the crowd from the white dragon perched on Gringotts, simply because this was my beloved magical world.

We came across a hiccup once I had explored every shop and every corner. The Gringotts Ride. I have never liked a single “drop” on a roller coaster. Whenever someone asks me why, I respond with, “I like my organs where they are, thank you.” But this was Gringotts. How could I not go on the ride, regardless of all the warnings for sudden drops and stops? Well, I squared my shoulders and got in line. Time to prove I was a Gryffindor. The nerves for the long three-hour wait were awful. I didn’t know what to expect, but the warnings plastered all over the entrance were enough to make me dance in place with anxiety. My sister, who was just as excited as I was (she has never read the Harry Potter books, but she loves a wild coaster), did something she had never done before. My beautiful older sister, who has always had my back, offered me a fist bump and said, “You got this.” It felt as magical to me as everything else I had seen and done that day. The anxiety calmed just enough to be noticeable and keep me from crawling out of my skin, and I felt the warmth of my sister’s care. I had always been an anxious mess and never expected people to do something because it was the norm, but here she was, offering me a fist bump and nonchalant assurances that I would conquer this ride. Since then, I always try to sit next to my sister.

We sat together, and as we were locked in, she still offered me another fist bump. She even let me cling to her hand and arm and still does to this day. For most, that’s like, “Wow, she lets you hold her hand”, being all sarcastic, but I know my sister hates being touched. Every fist bump, every offered hand, and every hug is precious. But I have since discovered that whenever I’m nervous, asking for a fist bump –from anyone –helps calm my nerves. It reminds me of the love and confidence my sister has for me, regardless of who I’m fist-bumping or if they say anything. I think that is the most magical thing I discovered in the Wizarding World.

The next year, the year I came out as non-binary, my mom, sister, and I went on a girls’ trip (ironic, right?) to California, where we went to Universal Studios. It was misty that day, so the park was practically deserted. We could walk on any ride we wanted, including the Hogwarts ride. I wore a Hogwarts raincoat, my hair was pulled back to create the illusion of having shorter hair and in all the fun, I was quickly distracted from the hurt of being constantly misgendered. We got an interactive wand, making sure we hit every spot to do all the magic we could. The time in the world of magic was an escape from the eye rolls and ‘you’re a girl’ comments. Who cared about that when you can make a window display dance with just a flick of a wand? It was such a fun day and an experience we knew would likely never be repeated.

The year after that, I was back in Orlando, Florida, wearing a Gryffindor t-shirt to remind me to be courageous. I spent another day rediscovering the Wizarding World there and trying out the new ride based on Hagrid’s motorcycle (or Sirius’ if you prefer). Just like with Gringott’s, this ride boasted insanely fast speeds in a second, sudden stops, and sudden drops. Either way, I climbed onto that ride next to my sister. It was so adrenaline-inducing that it was exhilarating. I couldn’t feel my face after that ride! I’m glad I got to enjoy it before everything was tainted with a bitter taste.

It wasn’t much later that I found out: J.K. Rowling is transphobic. I am not a Witch, nor am I a Wizard, so where is my place in the Wizarding World? I, a nonbinary person who uses they/them pronouns has never been and would never be welcome in the magical world of Harry Potter. It felt like the moments in which I couldn’t find Diagon Alley. Suddenly barred from something I loved so much. I latched on to any hope I had of being accepted in the Wizarding World. I had found out from a friend, so maybe it was the rumor mill hard at work. I couldn’t believe it. I looked it up myself, searching desperately for any hint that it wasn’t true. Article after article confirmed it was. My hero, the creator of my beloved Wizarding World, was transphobic. She didn’t accept people who identified as trans, going so far as to write essays on these views. It broke my heart. What was I supposed to do now? Who was I supposed to look up to? Whose footsteps should I follow?

All my Wizarding World books began to collect dust, tucked away in a corner. My Harry Potter themed shirts and trinkets were tucked away in a drawer or a cabinet, hidden away from the sun as much as they were hidden from my gaze. I don’t think I realized how sad my family was to see something I loved so dearly bring me so much pain. I didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t even want to think about it, and among all the other things that come with growing up, high school, and college, my family let me be. And so I grieved. I grieved for years. I still grieve. Looking back, I think I also was mourning who I might have been and the stories I would have written if not for this betrayal. It was only recently that my sister understood my grief. Luckily, it was not through suffering the same pain I did, but through finding a love of a series and admiration of an author. Perhaps Harry Potter still has some magic left for me, or maybe it was always magic of my own. Either way, in true Gryffindor fashion, I keep my head held high and march on toward my goal of spreading the best kind of magic I can through good stories and good storytelling.