Title: Home's the Farthest Way
Chapter: 6
Author: ReeraTheRed
Date: January 27, 2005
Rating: PG13
Summary: When Lupin is offered a werewolf cure, he dreams of no longer living in dread of hurting or killing an innocent person. But will things go smoothly? RLSS, romance but NOT SLASH.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to beta readers Michelle, Patti and Liz
Author's Note: Thanks for all the reviews – the different reactions have been REALLY interesting. Makes me want to have a discussion about all this.
This is not about being a true transsexual, this seems to be more about what changes about a character if they are male or female. I didn't expect this story to go so heavily into this, but I find I have to. Obviously, these are my thoughts on this subject, I'm very interesting in hearing everyone else's thoughts.
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Chapter 6
Lupin felt amazingly better the next morning, and her legs supported her easily as she slid out of the hospital bed and walked to the bathroom.
The strange face that looked back in the mirror also looked much better. The sunken cheeks had filled out, the old scars and lines were greatly reduced. She made faces at herself in the mirror, grimacing, sticking her tongue out, stretching her mouth out as wide as it would go. Everything moved, all the muscles responded. This is me, she thought. It's still me. Just different.
She showered. Her body had filled out as much as her face, the terrible wasted thinness was nearly gone. This meant the breasts had filled out as well, at least to some extent. I am clearly not going to be pneumatic, she thought, with some amusement. A number of adjectives ran through her mind: buxom, built, stacked – all these things I am not. And a pang at the thought, of back in the old school days, James and Sirius comparing the attributes of the girls. They'd have considered this figure I have now not worth bothering with, she thought. Would they have considered me not worth bothering with as well, if I'd been female back then? It was all right to be an ordinary looking fellow, but an ordinary looking girl? To them?
Thank Merlin I'm the age I am now, where it does not matter so much, where my life is about far more important things than my appearance.
She toweled off, put on a fresh hospital gown, and went back out into the ward. Back at her bed, one of the staff women was setting up the tray-table, which was covered with food and potions. She found herself feeling genuinely hungry, and easily downed everything in front of her.
She'd just put down the last mug of potion when a round, grey-haired witch with a no-nonsense air and dressed in a healer's robe came into the ward.
"Professor Lupin," the woman said, "I'm Healer Chandler, I wondered if I might speak with you for a bit."
Lupin nodded, and the woman sat down in the chair beside the bed.
"I handle our gender re-assignment cases," the Healer said. "I thought I might have a talk with you, just to see how you were getting on."
Lupin gulped a little when she heard the words "gender re-assignment" but she managed a wry half-smile.
"Of course, your case is so different from our typical re-assignments. We do get the odd case, where it's done for medical reasons, instead of psychological, but either way, it's been completely voluntary, usually with a reasonable amount of preparation time for the patient." She frowned. "You had no warning of this at all, of course."
"No," Lupin said. "But I did have a choice, I could have changed back."
The Healer looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't have a script for you, a chart of steps, the way I do for my other patients. Your case is unique." She pursed her lips, and then nodded her head. "Well, I'm a great believer in information. You're a professor, so I expect you are, too. I can give you that, if nothing else."
"I would appreciate that."
"Very well, then." The Healer shifted in the chair. "You are aware, I'm sure, that Magic cannot change the basics of who we are. It's nearly impossible for a mage to transfigure his basic self in any significant way for more than a few hours. Some people can't even get a haircut that lasts more than a day, though that's extreme. There's a basic pattern, in all of us, and we inevitably revert to it. Or we'd all be doing beautifying spells on ourselves, making ourselves thinner, or what have you."
"I take it that's not the case with me," Lupin said.
"No. It is possible, though difficult, to change that basic pattern with Magic, in certain, very limited ways. A new pattern has been imposed on your body. Everything that was male is now female, and your body has rebuilt itself accordingly.
"But everything else about you is the same, at least relatively," the Healer continued. "For example, your basic form. I've had a look at your records. You were, as I understand it, a slender man of medium height. You are now a slender woman of medium height. You understand that medium height for a woman is shorter than medium height for a man."
"I figured that out," Lupin said.
"If you had been a tall, broad-shouldered man, you would now be a tall, broad-shouldered woman. If you'd been a small, slight man, you'd be a small, slight woman." The Healer pursed her lips. "More than once, I've had to explain to a great big fellow that a gender change would not turn him into a delicate, wispy creature. Or a slight man that he won't keep his current height and weight, and become an athlete."
Lupin blinked.
"Your own basic nature also will not change," said the Healer. "I've talked with some of your friends, I hope you don't mind." The Healer pulled out a notepad from her robe, and looked at it. "Your friends describe you as kind, sensible, intelligent, gentle, bookish, quiet, humorous, gracious, highly civilized, reliable, and very nurturing and supportive. More than one of your friends described you as their rock, or words to that effect."
"Goodness, how dull," said Lupin.
"These are excellent characteristics in a man or a woman." The Healer looked at Lupin. "There's a lot of common ground in what is considered socially acceptable in men and women's behaviors. From what your friends tell me, you don't have anything in your behavior or nature that would be considered socially unacceptable in a woman."
"I suppose I always was an androgynous person," Lupin said, wistfully.
"No one's attacking your previous masculinity by any means. By all accounts, you were a completely acceptable male. But there's nothing in your nature that isn't completely acceptable for a female, from what I've heard."
Lupin looked down at her hands on the bedsheets.
"It means you will have a much easier adjustment to this change than some other people. There are behaviors that society considers perfectly acceptable for men, but not for women, and behaviors that are thought acceptable for women but not men. But mostly, there's a whole lot of overlap between the two. You seem to fall more in the overlap section, that's all."
She went on. "This is not to say that there are not a lot of conventions that women have to deal with that men do not; there are. Some people find they like it, others don't. Some choose to defy convention, others to conform. But the same can be said for born women. You have the same choices, and the same consequences.
"But as you sit here now," the Healer continued, "you look fully a woman, your manner and speech, the way you move, you are a perfectly acceptable woman. I can see these mannerisms all being perfectly acceptable for a man as well, when done in a male body." She took a deep breath. "You are still the same person you were before. That does not have to change."
Lupin nodded. "I know that."
"Good, I'm glad to hear it. You'd be surprised at how many people think they're going to have a complete personality change. People can have some very funny ideas about what makes a man or a woman." The Healer shook her head. "It doesn't hurt that you're older, of course. You've got a well developed ego, a stronger sense of who you are, you're less likely to feel that your identity is determined by outward attributes like clothing or appearance. A much younger person, or someone with a less well developed sense of self, they'd have much more trouble with a change like this." The Healer frowned, "There are so many people who feel that who they are is determined by the clothes they wear."
Lupin shook her head. "No, that's not me. I tend to forget what I'm wearing, most of the time." She paused. "But I have to confess, I'm not looking forward to dealing with a lot of things."
The Healer nodded. "I can imagine. Your body is that of a completely healthy woman. This means menses will occur, probably within a few weeks. And everything that goes with that – birth control, for example. Hormonal cycles – with the additional complications caused by being a werewolf, of course."
Lupin could feel herself flushing and she had to force herself not to clutch the sheets. Birth control would, at least, not be much of an issue, she thought, any more than it had been before.
"We've got some literature, you can read up on it all." The Healer smiled gently at her. "It's really not that bad. You'll find most things you have to deal with are more annoying than anything." She hesitated, and then said, "Your sexuality also is likely to be different than before. That will probably be the biggest change for you."
Lupin gulped, this time she did grip the sheets.
"Odds are, you're the female equivalent of what you were," the Healer said. "That is, if you were a heterosexual male, you'll be a heterosexual female. It's not always the case, but that's most likely."
Lupin remembered the two women helping her into the bath the day before, how she hadn't even noticed. "I think it's already started," she said. And she shrugged, "But I confess, it's not as if sexuality was a large part of my life, before."
"Not uncommon among the lone werewolves like yourself," the Healer said. "Again, you're older, you're not some young thing full of raging hormones, so that makes things easier. What you'll mostly notice is that barriers will appear, when you talk with your male friends, that weren't there before. You won't be quite safe for them, anymore. Subjects will become uncomfortable to talk about – you've probably experienced them yourself, in the past, as a male with your female friends. And, of course, barriers that were up with your female friends will drop. You weren't entirely safe with them before, now you will be."
"That's what concerns me most," said Lupin. "How this will affect my relations with people. How I'll be viewed."
"Well, as you know, the wizard world won't think twice about this kind of change. This is practically normal, compared to some of the problems we get here in St. Mungo's. Anyone who meets you for the first time won't be bothered at all. Very different from the Muggle world, I understand, there's a huge stigma, sad to say." The Healer shook her head.
"But the people who know me. . ."
"They'll have the hardest time, yes, but you'll be surprised at how quickly they get used to this. It would be harder, of course, if you had a family, or a significant other – we've done some sexual orientation changes to accommodate that, or even changed the gender of the partner. But that's not necessary in your case, I take it."
"No." Lupin was surprised at how sorrowful her voice sounded. No one for me.
The Healer looked at her for a long moment. Then she stood up. "Very well, then. I'll leave you. I'll have someone bring some reading material for you – some of it's a little silly, but there's some good information. If you want to talk to me again, feel free. Though I expect you'll find the best help from your female friends."
"Thank you."
"All right, then." The Healer turned to leave, then stopped. "There is one thing, that may make you feel uncomfortable, or it may not. It will make your life easier, and more difficult at the same time."
Lupin tilted her head in question.
"You are attractive," the Healer said. "Not stunningly gorgeous, you won't turn heads when you enter a room, which I think you will consider a relief. But you are reasonably attractive. This is a more important thing in a woman's life than a man's, sad to say, but it is a reality." She nodded her head, and then left the room.
Lupin blinked. Well, that was certainly very strange, she thought.
On her next trip to the bathroom, Lupin stared at her face in the mirror again. Attractive? She couldn't see it, the face looked perfectly ordinary. Just as her previous male face had always seemed before. She shrugged, and decided not to worry about it. It wasn't as if it was going to make any difference.
More potions came that day, and she spent time walking up and down the ward, not brave enough to venture into the corridor outside. She felt cold dread every time she approached the door at the end of the ward, leading to the safe room. In only a few days, she would go in there, and they'd see if everything really worked. What if it doesn't? What if I go mad, I won't be on the Wolfsbane Potion? That thought was too horrible to contemplate. They'd told her the cure had worked, they'd taken blood and done tests, and said she was no longer contagious. It had to work.
She had just finished a very bland, but substantial lunch, when she heard a "Hello, Professor Lupin," at the doorway, and looked up to see Harry standing there.
"Harry," she said, her face breaking into a smile.
Harry froze for a moment, looking at her, and she felt a jolt inside. He's shocked at how I look, she thought.
But Harry hesitated only a moment, and a warm smile shone from his face. "Ron and Hermione are meeting me here, they should be along any minute." He crossed the room and sat down in the chair by the bed.
"Once again, you find me in hospital," Lupin said. "I can't seem to stay out of these places." And she felt another jolt as she realized, he's quite beautiful. I never noticed before. I'm seeing him with female eyes, now.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Better today," Lupin said, "Much better. Yesterday was harder."
"I can imagine. I bet it was a shock for you."
"Oh, yes." She could sense Harry's eyes observing her, taking in every line of her new body. I have to get used to that, she thought, he's better acquainted with my appearance than I am, I expect. I never had to look at myself much.
She said, lightly, "I suspect it's a shock for everyone."
Harry nodded. "A bit. Though for a few minutes there, we thought we were going to lose you altogether. So this is much better. I'm just glad to have you alive and well."
She smiled back at him. She noticed his eyes were now mostly focused on her face, though they did flick down a little lower every so often. She almost flushed as she thought, he's trying to keep his eyes off my chest. The hospital gown suddenly felt very thin. Well, he is a young male, and I'm not wearing a bra, am I? And it's probably even more noticeable because I didn't have anything like that before. Another thing to get used to – it's payback, I suppose, I remember talking to women's chests a few times, when I was younger.
"A lot to get used to," she said out loud, "and a lot to learn about."
"You'll do fine," Harry said. "Now, if it had happened to some other people I could mention, I wouldn't be so sure." He grinned. "Ron and I were joking about it last night, can you see Crabbe? Or Sn--, I mean, some other people? But you," he nodded at Lupin, "you look pretty good."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Lupin said. "I never had to bother with that kind of thing before."
"It's just beginning," Harry said. "Mrs. Weasley and Ginny were talking, and I definitely heard the words 'make-over.'"
"Oh, dear," Lupin said, wincing.
"Ginny said she was going to get you into glitter nail polish."
"That will not happen, I can promise you."
"I dunno," Harry said, "Ginny's pretty persuasive when she sets her mind to something."
Lupin looked carefully at Harry. "You wouldn't have some kind of bet going on, would you?"
Harry started. "Oh, uh--," and then he looked up, "Ron!"
Lupin turned to see Ron and Molly Weasley come through the doorway, followed by Hermione. And surprised herself again as she thought, Ron is quite a good-looking young man. Merlin, am I going to be like this with all the males I know? But I was like that with all the females I knew, before; I'd notice if they were attractive.
"You're looking very well, my dear," Molly said, beaming. "We were so worried." Has she ever called me "my dear," before?, wondered Lupin.
Hermione looked into Lupin's face, and squeezed her hand. Hermione is still an attractive girl, Lupin thought, and Molly is attractive, too, though I feel differently about it now. Completely asexual. But women are allowed to notice other women.
Ron gave a nervous grin. "You gave us a real scare the other night," he said. "Glad to see you looking better." He's trying not to look at my chest, too, Lupin noted. Goodness, this is strange. What a different undercurrent to things. Or is it? I had the schoolgirl crushes on me, when I was teaching at Hogwarts, isn't this the same?
"I've got to get your measurements while I'm here," Molly said. "I'm going to get you some new clothes – the Ministry has coughed up some funds. I can alter your old clothes, too – your cloak will just need to be hemmed up a little." Lupin saw that Molly had a bag with her, full of what appeared to be the fine, new clothes that had been purchased so that Lupin would be presentable (what was it, only in the past month? It seemed like a year ago).
Molly fished a tape measure out of her bag, and tossed it at Lupin. It unwound in mid-air, and began to stretch here and there, hovering in front of Lupin's shoulders, or lying along an arm.
Molly studied Lupin's face. "We'll need to do something with your hair, too. For this weekend, you know, when the Press is here to observe at the full moon. The St. Mungo's people tell me you can go out for short periods in a day or two, we can take you out then, get some things done."
"Thank you, Molly," Lupin said. "I do appreciate this." And I do, she thought, I can't imagine doing any of this on my own, and it needs to be done. If nothing else, I can't leave this place without clothes.
"Delighted to do it, Remus," Molly said, "It'll be great fun for me. Of course, I expect you're terrified."
"A bit," Lupin said. "More overwhelmed."
Molly smiled, and a look flashed between her and Hermione.
"It won't be that bad, Professor," Hermione said. "Just a haircut, and clothes. And a few other things." She looked at Harry and Ron, then at Lupin, as if to say, we'll talk, when the boys are gone.
The tape measure wound itself up and flew back into Molly's hand. She stuffed it in her bag. "I'm off now," she said, and left them.
Ron and Hermione sat on the next bed over. "So," Ron said, "What's it like?" Hermione kicked him.
"It's all right, Hermione," Lupin said, "it's a fair question, and I'm sure you've all been wondering."
They looked at her, and she smiled. "And the answer is, if I just lie here, and don't hear my voice, I don't feel any different." All right, except for suddenly realizing how attractive all the males I know are, but I'm not going to say that, any more than I said how attractive I found the females in my life before.
Ron glanced, despite himself, at the bathroom. Hermione kicked him again, but Lupin said, "Yes, Ron, I've been in there, and it was a bit of a shock the first time. It's still odd, but I'm starting to get used to it."
"Honestly," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "It's clear, Professor Lupin is still the same. You've seen him - her, I mean - as a wolf after all, Ron."
"And that was pretty strange, too," Ron said. "Although she's right, Professor, this is stranger."
"Sometimes we're more disturbed by things that are only slightly off," Lupin said. "And gender is important, in the way we define people. Perhaps the most important."
"I think you were right to make the choice, Professor," Hermione said. "Isn't it better, to be cured?"
Lupin nodded. "I would make the same choice again--"
"Professor Lupin!" called a voice from the doorway, and they turned to see Charles Willoughby, the young Ministry fellow. He looked straight into Lupin's face, and froze for a moment. Again, thought Lupin. Everyone is going to have that moment of terrible disorientation when they see me. And again, she thought, Willoughby's not bad looking, either.
Willoughby gathered himself, and came over to the bed. "I just wanted to come by, to say how very sorry I am about this turn of events. Everyone at the Ministry is astounded that such a thing could have happened. Arthur Weasley is working on getting some kind of additional compensation for you, and I'm helping him as much as I can. It won't be enough, of course, nothing could . . ." His words dropped off, and he stared at her again.
Lupin almost felt like flushing. I feel so freakish. "I'm very grateful," she said, trying to break the awkward silence, "for everything Arthur, and you, are doing."
"Oh, yes," Willoughby said, "yes." He blinked, and seemed to recover himself. "It's so remarkable, what you have chosen to do, in the name of the cure. So very noble."
"Is there anything I, or any other of Professor Lupin's friends can do?" Harry asked.
"No, I don't think--" Willoughby started to say, and then blinked. "Why, you're Harry Potter!"
The barest frown flashed across Harry's face, to be instantly replaced by a friendly smile. "We're all very concerned about the Professor."
"Oh, my, yes," Willoughby said, "If I tell everyone that Harry Potter is concerned, that would be . . . You are going to come by during the full moon, aren't you?"
"I plan on being there, yes," Harry said.
"That would be marvelous – we'd get a front page picture in the Prophet, for sure," Willoughby said. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you, what this means, the werewolf cure." He stepped closer to the bed. "And how much your own actions mean to the program, Professor Lupin."
"I was wondering if, perhaps," Lupin swallowed, "maybe I'm not the best spokesperson anymore. Given the transformation." No front page picture, please, no front page picture.
"Oh, actually, you will be even better," Willoughby said, earnestly. "A woman is always better press than a man." He looked into Lupin's eyes. "People are always more sympathetic to the plight of an attractive female."
"I, uh, see," Lupin said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.
"Professor Lupin," came yet another voice from the doorway, one that Lupin did not recognize. Lupin turned to look, grateful for the interruption.
A too-thin young woman stood there, wearing a St. Mungo's robe over another robe that seemed to be made up of a lot of floaty, drapey material in a rainbow of different colors. She had a pretty face, and a mass of long, pale hair that was twisted with colored ribbons. Jewelry of all kinds hung round her neck, her arms, and sparkled in her hair.
The young woman gracefully swept over to the bed, ribbons and gauzy material floating behind her. Lupin noticed she was carrying a thick wad of pamphlets and parchments. Ah, this must be the literature that was being sent over.
"Professor Lupin," the young woman said, taking hold of Lupin's hand, "my name is Hyacinth Treble. May I be the first to welcome you to your new-found womanhood, and to congratulate you on accepting the Goddess and joining in her worshippers."
"Um, I'm not much of a joiner," Lupin said without thinking, trying to pull her hand back.
Hyacinth Treble ignored her, and turned to Harry, Ron and Willoughby. "You must leave the Professor now. There is much she and I have to discuss."
Harry raised his eyebrows, and sat very firmly in the chair. "I've come to visit my friend," he said.
"But these are mysteries that are not meant for you," Hyacinth said. "These are for women only."
Lupin looked at Harry and Ron. Ron looked back at Lupin and rolled his eyes, silently mouthing, "Balmy."
"Very well, then, if you insist." Hyacinth looked at Lupin. "We will begin, Professor." She pulled out a pamphlet with large, bright red letters. "Here we are, 'Menstruation and the Moon: the Horror of Menses for the Female Werewolf.'"
Harry and Ron both stood up immediately, and all three males turned pale. "Uh, perhaps we should be going," Harry said.
"Uh, yeah," Ron said, his voice tight. "We'll be back. Another time."
"Pressing business at the Ministry, you understand," Willoughby said.
They almost ran for the exit.
"Men are such cowards," Hyacinth said, tossing her head in satisfaction. Her hair floated around her head, the various ornaments twinkling.
Lupin looked desperately at Hermione, who came over from the other bed to sit beside Lupin's.
Hyacinth turned back to Lupin, her eyes wide and dreamy. "It must have been so exciting for you, going to sleep as a coarse male, and waking to find those baser parts of yourself gone. You are Woman now, gentle and nurturing, giving succor to the World."
"Was I coarse, before, Hermione?" Lupin said.
"Never," Hermione said.
"You leave behind you the stark, violent nature of Man," Hyacinth continued, as if they hadn't said anything. "You are newly born, fresh, delicate, gentle and yielding. You will discover a world of intuition and wisdom that you never knew before. You are one with the great cycles of Nature, in harmony with--"
"Um, yes," Lupin said, "you do have some literature for me?"
Hyacinth looked a little stunned. She had her speech all rehearsed, thought Lupin, and I made her lose her place. "Oh," said Hyacinth, "Yes, yes, here." She placed the stack she held on the bedside table.
"I think I would prefer to just read the material quietly by myself," Lupin said, smiling as sweetly as possible. "It is something I would prefer to do privately."
"But, surely, you will require some guidance--," Hyacinth blinked.
"Oh, Hermione can help me, I'm sure," Lupin said.
"Oh yes," Hermione said. "What with my being in harmony with the great cycles of Nature and all."
"I do appreciate your bringing them by," Lupin said, still smiling. "I'm sure they will be very helpful."
"Well, yes," Hyacinth said, biting her lip. "If you're sure you'll be all right, then."
"Oh yes. And thank you," Lupin said, in her most gracious, you-are-dismissed teacher voice. And she thought, not without sympathy, she was so eager to be my guide, to help me find my way. She's very young.
"You are most welcome," Hyacinth said, "I'll look in on you another time, just to see how you are doing."
Lupin and Hermione watched her leave, her ribbons and gauze floating behind her, then looked at each other, and burst out laughing.
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Lupin was reading one of the pamphlets when Snape came by that evening. As Lupin had been many times before, she was caught by the sight of him – his pale face and hands seeming to float, disembodied, above the mass of his black robes. How striking he looks, she thought. She found herself automatically smiling, and her smile grew even bigger when she saw that he carried yet another large paper bag that smelled wonderful.
"Ah," she said. "You do know me."
"I know how you get when you're recovering from an illness," he said, sitting down by the bed. He pulled out a carton and was about to place it on the bedside table, when he noticed the pamphlets scattered there.
Lupin saw, with horror, that the top pamphlet said, in large letters, "Your New Sexuality – Learning to Light Your Fire All Over Again."
Snape looked at it, and turned even paler than normal.
Lupin quickly gathered the pamphlets up, carefully turning the sexuality one face down. "I have to learn these things somehow." She looked at him. "And don't you dare start reading the titles out loud."
"They are that offensive?"
"Well, no, they're actually quite funny. Hermione and I had a good laugh over them this afternoon. But you might not think so."
He stared at her for a moment, one eyebrow cocked. Then he nodded, and began to pull out more cartons from the bag. He filled two disposable plates with food and passed one to her. She began to eat, and, as with the previous night, she was finished with hers long before he'd finished his. But he simply took her plate and heaped on more food.
"I think I'm required to say something about being a complete pig," Lupin said, between bites, "and then agonize about all this going to my hips, or something like that. I'm not going to, you understand, I don't feel the need to at all."
"Very sensible," said Snape, finishing a mouthful.
"I've been thinking, in a way, I'm luckier, I've become female without having to go through adolescence about it. I think adolescence is very hard on girls." She took another bite and chewed it thoughtfully. "Of course, it's hard on boys, too. And I had to go through that."
Snape went very quiet. Merlin, think what HIS adolescence was like.
"And I've never had any kind of agony about feeling I was in the wrong body, the way a transsexual does." She thought again. "Well, at least, not that I was the wrong gender. I certainly felt my body did not reflect who I was – never mind the werewolf aspect, but simply my appearance, my shape, lots of times I thought it wasn't what I wanted to be."
And again, Snape was very quiet, he'd stopped eating. I'm certain he still feels as if he's in the wrong body, thought Lupin.
"I think every teen-ager feels that way, at some point or another," she went on. "The world defines us by how we look, too often, rather than who we really are, inside. It's amazing, so many people will assign an entire personality to someone just because of the shape of their body. And how many people evolve to fit those imposed, outside expectations? How many people would have turned out completely differently, if they'd had different bodies?" Peter, if he hadn't been in that little lump of a body of his, would that have helped him?
And Severus, what would you have been like? Though I expect your body was the least of your problems.
"Why do we allow these roles to be imposed, when they have nothing to do with reality? Someone can think, this is what a woman is, or a man is, when the true evidence that their own eyes and experience gives them is completely different?"
"Anyway," she went on, "I've decided I'm luckier, in many ways, than a lot of people. At least about this. It could be much worse. And I had it on good authority this morning, I should come through this much easier than many other people might. I'm in the overlap group."
"The what?" Snape asked, forkful halfway up to his mouth.
"Sorry, I'm rambling. It's been a very strange day."
Snape's eyes flicked to the pile of pamphlets. "I can imagine."
She told him about the counselor that came by that morning. "Overlap means I have behaviors that are acceptable to both men and women," she said.
Snape looked at her, as if considering the thought, and then nodded.
And where on the bell curve do you fall, my friend?, she thought. What if this had happened to you? I can picture a woman with all your characteristics – tall, thin, pale, brooding, angry, intense. Even with a large hooked nose. Very Gothic. Bellatrix's plain, awkward sister.
And yet, she thought, as she looked at him, you are so very male to me right now.
"What else did the counselor say?" asked Snape. He had put his empty plate down, and was watching her now.
"Just some of the basics about what I would find to be different," she said. "Some of the obvious ones, of course – the physical things that I won't go into in front of you because you don't want to know – most of that is in the pamphlets there."
Did Snape shrink away from the bedside table?
"My sexuality is reversed," Lupin said, carefully watching Snape's face out of the corner of her eye, "I'm a heterosexual female now, not a heterosexual male."
Snape's face was completely blank, not a muscle flinched.
"And she said I would probably find some slight differences in my relationships," Lupin said. Am I testing him, trying to see how he'll react? "Situations will become uncomfortable with males, situations that used to be uncomfortable with females won't be so."
Again, no reaction in Snape's face. He's making himself not react, she thought. Which means he is, inside.
Lupin looked straight into his unreadable black eyes. "I am frightened by this. I value your friendship more than anything, and the idea that anything might compromise it, I don't think I could bear it."
He stared back at her. No warmth there in those black eyes, but no flinching away, either. "I am not leaving," he said, quietly.
"That means a great deal to me." Damn, it's there, I feel it, I'm aware of him, as a male, in a way that I never was before. He is attractive to me, even with his ridiculous nose, and stringy hair.
She took a deep breath. "So, friends forever, eh?" She turned back to her plate.
"'Til death," he said, lightly (for Snape).
"Next week is 'Ariadne' at Covent Garden, I expect us to be still on for that. Assuming they let me out of here."
"You requested I supply the butterbeer."
"Yes. Lots."
She ate. They talked. When she was tired, she lay flat, and, as with the past few nights, he watched until she fell asleep.
When she woke the next morning, he was gone, of course. The food cartons had been cleared away, and everything on the bedside table had been straightened up. She noticed the pamphlets had been very neatly stacked. And the pamphlet on sexuality was no longer on the top.
TBC
