Boys Will Be Bugs

Chapter 2: Bitten

CW// misgendering

***

Lyall was pleased. He had his daughter back. Hope had started to say "she" again, and she'd even taken Dahlia shopping— at Dahlia's request— for some girl robes and outfits. Dahlia still refused to grow out her hair, but she paraded around the living room in her new clothes, to the smiles and encouragement of her father. He knew he had been right all along. Dahlia was clearly happier now. It had all been a phase after all.

Remus, on the other hand, had begun to resent his father. Unwillingly of course, but it got to the point where he just wanted his father out of the house, because when his father wasn't around, Remus could be himself. He could wear his boy clothes, and his mother would call him "he" again. He was her boy again, and he was happy. When his father was there, he wasn't happy. But he never let on to either of his parents how he felt. His mother would worry and tell him to go back to normal and not worry about his father. His father would get angry and blame both of them. Remus just didn't want any arguing. So his parents continued to believe that everything was okay.

And then came that fateful night.

His parents awoke to screaming. The silence of the night was being pierced by a child's desperate cries, and they had no time to think, they just ran. Ran down the landing and into their son's bedroom.

A man was crouched over the figure of their child, his head bent over Remus's neck. Remus was frozen with terror. Hope screamed, alerting the man, and Lyall wasted no time in fending the intruder off with a rapid series of hexes and jinxes. The man managed to escape out of the window, just missing getting hit by a jet of red light before he disappeared off into the night.

"Lyall, he's hurt, oh god he's hurt! Call the police!" Lyall stared at the child. Remus was being cradled in Hope's arms, barely conscious. His face had been scratched right across and the left hand side of the bed was soaked in blood: Remus's shoulder was bleeding profusely. "Lyall he has to go to hospital, we have to take him to the hospital!" She was sobbing hysterically. Lyall had rushed to her and was now bending over Remus's shoulder, wand in hand.

"We can't," he breathed. Hope stared at him in shocked confusion.

"What do you mean we can't!? He needs help!"

"I'm helping him! I can fix his wound with magic, he'll be fine."

"He's been attacked, he needs a doctor and we need to call the police!" Lyall didn't look up. He was frantically casting spell after spell to stop the bleeding and close up the wound.

"We just can't," he reiterated. "It's not a normal attack he... it's not a normal wound."

"What do you mean it's not a normal wound!? Who was that man!? What did he do to him!?"

Remus started to gain consciousness again, cutting off his mother's questions. First he started to whimper, then he began to cry. His mother held him close, whispering comforting words in his ear.

"It's okay, sweetheart, you're safe now. You're going to be fine."

***

Hope interrogated her husband once they were out of Remus's bedroom and in their living room. It had been an hour now since the attack. They had stayed with Remus until he had fallen back to sleep, making sure he was okay, bandaging up his wounds and locking his window tightly. It took a while for him to fall asleep again, terrified as he was of the intruder and traumatised from what had just happened to him. But he was only young, and by around two in the morning he simply couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. The whole event had left him exhausted.