Boys Will Be Bugs

Chapter 95: Gender

Cw// intense body dysphoria and slight dysmorphia, body insecurities as a whole, brief ideations/thoughts of self-harm, further discussions of sex and rather a lot of swearing. Please take care with this chapter.

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Remus stayed in his room for the rest of the day, wandering aimlessly around with one of his records on full volume to drown out his own thoughts. His dad was yelling at him to turn the music down but he didn't listen. Whenever Lyall forcefully turned the music off with magic, Remus turned it right back on again. Eventually his dad had no choice but to give up and go back downstairs with a muffling charm placed around him. It was easier than to ask what was wrong.

Remus was scared. He didn't want to lose Sirius, but as things were going, it felt inevitable. As if someone like him could date normally, what had he been thinking? Sirius wanted a man, and that meant a man's body. Remus didn't have that, he couldn't give that to him. Had Sirius even thought about that? Or was he just stringing him along for some sort of sick joke, knowing full well that he couldn't keep this up forever?

Lyall tried again to knock on Remus's bedroom door.

"Go away," was the only response he received. Remus was lying on his bed, face down, and he didn't want to be disturbed. Luckily his dad never pushed it, and Remus didn't hear the knocking again. He did turn the music down, though, listening out to make sure his dad was safely back downstairs before he opened his bedroom door and made his way to the bathroom.

He hated looking at himself in the mirror with his shirt off. He never did if he could help it, and whenever he showered he tried his best not to look down. Usually he didn't shower unless the charm was on his chest, but even then, looking at it up close made him acutely aware of the parts that still weren't quite flat. He could see it now, in the mirror. It didn't look flat to him at all, he may as well not even have a charm on it. He tried to push it down with his hands, but that didn't exactly make him feel any better. It didn't look any better either.

He had his wand with him, and he looked at it, thinking. He could use magic right now. He could point his wand at his chest and remove his tits once and for all. Who was there to stop him? The fucking ministry? Like he gave a shit, they could expel him for all he cared, he didn't even like Hogwarts anymore. He didn't know which spell to use, but he could easily figure it out. Find some sort of vanishing spell, something permanent. By this point he wouldn't even care finding a spell that simply cut them off. He'd deal with the consequences after, but at least they'd be gone.

He put his wand down and leant over the sink. That wasn't the best idea; he was staring directly at his chest now, and gravity wasn't exactly making his boobs look any smaller. God, he hated calling them that. Boobs, tits, breasts. It all sounded so wrong. He could vaguely stand describing them as tits, because at least the sharpness of the word represented his distaste towards them. He picked his wand up again. He felt like just shooting some sort of exploding spell at them, something violent. He was angry and he wanted to take it out on the things that were causing him all this pain. He didn't want to wait till he was seventeen, because chances are, that wouldn't even be realistic. Where the fuck was he going to go to get surgery like that? A hospital? He didn't think they did that sort of stuff, but he couldn't think of anywhere else. It was just wishful thinking by this point, clearly he had to do this himself, the same way he'd eventually have to make his own Morfosis potion when he left Hogwarts. Everyone had made it perfectly clear that his transition was ultimately down to him: he was on his own, and if that were the case then why did he have to wait another two years? He could just get it over with now, and who gave a fuck if he got in trouble?

He left the bathroom and ransacked his school trunk for every book he had. He went to his father's old study (now disused ever since Lyall had got fired, except in the evenings when he locked himself in there to read), picking out as many books as he could find that might help him. He just needed a spell that could remove body parts without causing irreparable damage. He pulled books off the shelves until they fell into a pile around him. Some of them fell on top of him and he barely even noticed. He was too focused on finding what he wanted.