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Remus hated showing his chest in public. Not only because of the scars, though they were plentiful and pretty grotesque. No, it was because of the breast tissue. He hated getting changed in the girls' dorms, hated sleeping there. It just wasn’t him. But there was nothing he could do. He was an honorary Marauder, not allowed full membership because it was dorm mates only. It just wasn’t fair.
In fourth year, he started flinching whenever Madame Pomfrey used female pronouns or mentioned anything to do with his breasts.
In fifth year, she noticed, and sat with him while he explained himself after a moon, tripping over his words but feeling exhilarated at the revelation. Two moons later, she offered him top surgery, but he’d need parental permission. She also offered to speak to McGonagall and get him moved into the boys' dormitory, but he’d need to speak to the boys in his year himself.
He ummed and ahhed about the latter option, but got permission from his parents when he went home for Christmas. It wasn’t a pleasant conversation. He could feel his dad’s eyes boring into him, feel his disappointment growing ever stronger. But it was okay. They’d signed the form, in the end.
He took it to Madame Pomfrey on the first day back, and she looked it over, then looked up at his excited face. ‘Well, that all looks in order’ she offered to do it right away, but he’d need to have a couple of days in the hospital wing. Together they decided it would be best to do immediately after his transformation- he would already be spending time in the hospital wing, so it wouldn’t raise suspicions from the Marauders.
The next moon, he was so excited that he barely felt the agonising pain, and spent the whole night bounding around the shrieking shack. He woke up sore, but with fewer injuries than usual. Madame Pomfrey collected him just after sunrise and carried moved him to the hospital wing, where she performed his procedure
When the Marauders came to visit, they didn’t notice. Neither did Lily. By the time he was allowed back to the dormitories, he was hurting with excitement. His face could barely contain his grin, not that anyone was there to notice.
His chest! It was flat! Flatter than it had been in five years!
In the end, the second decision was made for him. When he tried to go up to his dorm, the stairs turned into a slide. They no longer saw him as a girl.
He spent the night sleeping on one of the couches, then summoned down new clothes in the morning, getting changed in the prefects’ bathroom.
He managed to spend a whole week like this before anyone noticed, then found a room that gave him a bed whenever he needed it at the start of the second week.
Eventually Lily confronted him about where he’d been sleeping, and he confessed. She tried to get him to tell McGonagall, but he refused. He had a bed, it was fine.
So she decided to get the marauders into him. They followed his every move, sitting with him in the common room, saying they’d stay up until he got to bed. By three am they were pleading with him, so he caved again.
‘The stairs won’t let me up anymore’
They tried to get him to go to McGonagall, to tell her that the magic had gone wonky. He refused
‘It’s not the magic that’s wonky. It’s, it’s me I’m wonky. I’m not a girl. I never have been. My whole life I’ve thought I was a boy, longed for a boy’s body. Madame Pomfrey gave me one, sort of, last moon. Now I can’t go up. Not a girl, but not really a boy either.’
They were super supportive, once they got the gist of what was going on. They even asked after a new name.
‘I’ve been thinking about that. I. I quite like Remus. It’s nothing like my old name, and it, well, it’s one of the boys raised by wolves who founded Rome. Thought it a bit ironic. I’d be Wolf Wolf, the werewolf’
They loved it, but still wanted him to go to McGonagall.
When he woke up in the morning, having fallen asleep on the couch, it was to the Scottish mistress herself, peering down at him.
‘And why are you down here and not in your bed??’
‘I can’t get up there, Professor’
She was wonderful about it, even asking Madame Pomfrey for a Man Maker Draught for him to take every day. She even let slip that she had wondered why there was an extra bed in the boys' dorm in first year. Apparently, it had been quite a pain to convince the towers to move it to the girls' tower.
Remus loved getting changed. He was quite an exhibitionist these days, loved showing how flat his chest was. He didn’t even care about the scars. He knew that hidden amongst the mass of silver lines were two that were his. No one could see them unless they really looked, but they were there.