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It was the morning of Valentine's Day – a Friday, which meant Potions, and which also meant plenty of speculation about whether Professor Snape would have them making love potions – when Draco came over to the Gryffindor table with Vincent and Gregory flanking him.

"I knew you'd get in trouble sooner or later, Potter," he said, holding up a copy of the Daily Prophet.

"Good morning," Harry replied, determined to be polite even if Draco wasn't. "Is there something in the news? I'm afraid I don't get the paper, though maybe I should."

"You're not even supposed to be here, Potter," Draco insisted. "You're not human, and it's only humans who are allowed wands."

Harry heard a ruffling sound behind him, and then Hermione tapped him on the shoulder.

"I think it's this," she said, handing him a borrowed copy of the Prophet folded open to one of the inside pages. Harry took it, and saw that there was a half-page letter by someone called 'Disgusted of Uxbridge'.

It described Professor Dumbledore as 'bowing to the demands of inclusivity', mentioned Hagrid as a 'tragic example of the results of a short-sighted process' and noted that the law was clear that 'Harry Potter is clearly not a human, and the Wand Ban restricts the ownership of wands to humans, so it is clear that Harry Potter should not have a wand or be attending Hogwarts".

Draco was looking delighted by the time Harry finished the letter, and Harry raised a talon.

"Draco," he began. "How does the law define a human?"

The Slytherin blinked, looking confused. "Pardon?"

"I definitely had human parents," Harry went on. "So if that's what makes you human or not, I'm human."

"But you're clearly not!" Draco insisted. "Humans don't have wings! Or scales! Or – or – paws!"

"Mr. Malfoy," Percy said. "Please allow Mr. Potter to finish his breakfast in peace."

Draco's fists clenched, then he stepped back a pace. "This isn't over, Potter," he added, turning to leave.

After he was gone, Harry wondered if Draco could prove that Draco was human.

How exactly did you test that sort of thing in the magical world? Couldn't you just transfigure a cat into a human, and end up with a human who remembered being a cat? Their Transfiguration textbook warned that permanent human transfiguration was dangerous because the resulting animal would be only as smart as what they'd been turned into should be, but in that case, if you turned a Sphinx into a human and a human into a Sphinx, which one of them was allowed a wand?

Of course, when he asked Ron that question, Ron decided that the Malfoy family had come about because of a Transfiguration on a particularly sleek-looking long-haired dog a few generations ago.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/13230340/13/