Changes

Changes-

‘Can you… you know… make them change? Make them grow bigger?'

Yeah. Imagine. I get that all the time from men. Since I was in Hogwarts, it's always been, ‘Oh, so you can change shape? Wicked!'

And then the guy's eyes suddenly ‘happen' to wander downwards, lingering on my chest for a little too long, and there comes the bloody question that I've grown to dread:

‘Can you morph your boobs too?'

Crikey. Is that all that goes on up there?

*

It all started back at Hogwarts. I think I was thirteen… fourteen? Most probably fourteen. It was an odd time… most girls I knew were furious at their mothers because they wouldn't let them wear bras yet, and those who actually got to wear bras were angry because, get this, they weren't allowed to take them off and ‘experience freedom'.

I didn't understand why the girls who weren't allowed to wear bras yet (and let's face it, what the hell were they going to wear them for? Most of them were flatter than the house tables after a good house-elf scrub) were so up in arms about it. I personally thought they were a hassle, always so bloody tight, but Mum was adamant that I get used to them before I ‘developed too much' otherwise I'd become like those ‘nasty girls' who always went and chucked theirs out the window. She was rather acquainted with this practice, especially since she had received no less than three owls from the school that had somehow managed to end up with bras hanging from their heads or tangled with the letters. One was even from Dumbledore! Well, the owl was at least- not the bra.

To solve their problem of being bra-less, most of the girls in my dorm had snuck over to Gladrags Lingerie during the previous Hogsmeade weekend and bought bras. Not the conventional ones, though… they had bought these huge monstrosities that I didn't see them wearing until they were fifty. I swear, some of those things were so huge you could have probably pushed three of us in there and had room for Professor McG to boot while she gave us all detention for being so stupid.

That was the time I finally understood why they seemed so eager to get into their bras. The whole point behind buying those things was to pad them chock full of tissue or some other material and walk around school with one's ‘chest' thrown out, garnering stares of admiration from boys and envy from girls. Well, most of them anyway.

Not that there wasn't a boob charm… in a world where you can probably enlarge anything with magic, I'm sure a number of witches must have tried an Engorgement charm on their breasts. And I'm pretty damn sure that the results weren't exactly pleasant if it went wrong, which is why the girls went the long way around to achieving miraculous growth spurts overnight.

Now, there was this boy in Hufflepuff, damn if I can even remember his name… Ray or Roger or Rick… something like that. He was cute. He wasn't cute in the ‘Sweet Merlin, look at that body!' way, but he was… well… cute . I'd noticed him staring at me quite a few times in Transfiguration and Herbology, but every time I looked at him, he'd turn away.

Disappointing, because I actually fancied him quite a bit.

Finally, there was a day I got a wonderful chance. We were paired up in the greenhouse, so I could finally talk to him freely. Perhaps even ask him out. If he was too shy to come up to me… well, there was nothing written that a girl couldn't do the asking, was there? Besides, I came from a family of strong women… Mum had told me all about her family, even if she didn't talk to most of them anymore, and there had been some pretty headstrong witches amongst the Blacks, always going after what they wanted.

And I wanted him.

We started off pretty quiet. I noticed him staring again, and I told myself that there wasn't a better chance to do this.

‘Hey.'

He looked at me as if I had suddenly morphed another head. ‘Hey,' he returned, but his voice came out all squeaky… oh, that was too cute, you know, the fact that he was so shy! But he did smile a bit, and that was encouraging.

We began talking. A bit of this, a little about quidditch… school stuff. And then, I decided to take the plunge.

‘Uhm… you know there's a Hogsmeade visit coming up, yeah? Er… would you like to… you know…?'

‘Comewithyou?'

I nodded. He turned about fifty shades of pink. I was impressed… I never thought anyone could do that, and without Metamorphmagus powers too. I thought he was cuter when he blushed, if that was possible. We walked out of the greenhouse, hand in hand, chattering away about how we would meet up and what we would do.

And then, he said it. And it wiped the silly little grin off my face completely.

‘You know… I've always wondered, Nymphie… can I call you that? You know, since we're going out and everything… Nymphie, can you, like, make your boobs bigger? Since you can change and all…'

He definitely stopped being cute then. First off, no-one, no-one could bloody call me Nymphie . That was almost as bad as Nymphadora itself. And then… this? He wanted me to turn into some big-boobed bimbo like the rest of my dorm mates? Is that why he was interested in me?

I was mortified. Suffice to say, the Hogsmeade date didn't quite materialise. It simply wasn't possible with that idiot Ray or Roger or Rick, whatever his name was, in the hospital wing with a broken nose and with me on detention for giving it to him.

*

You always remember your first. You remember your first day of school, your first letter from home, your first kiss behind the curtains so that no one would catch you.

And you always remember your worst. Your worst day ever, when everything just went wrong, your worst mistake, your worst boyfriend.

You'd think that I'd probably have grown weary of men by then, the way they asked all these stupid questions about morphing my body, and not just my breasts, mind you.

But they weren't a completely lost cause… not all men were awful. I'd had a handful of dates that were sweet and kind, boys who miraculously managed to grow a brain in their heads instead of between their legs. Of course, it didn't help that as much as these boys were intelligent, they were also more likely to shag their precious books than me. It wasn't that they weren't interested... they were simply less into girls and spending time with their girlfriends than they were into studying. There was the occasional kiss, the hug in the common room, sometimes a quick squeeze of the hand in class, but that was it.

Those were few and far between, though. Most of the time, I always managed to fall for the idiot who shut down completely when he saw anything that looked remotely female.

Jimmy Brown- or, at least, we called him Jimmy Brown because he had some unpronounceable French name that no one was really bothered to learn- was a fellow trainee Auror. We had to do Stealth and Tracking together… the trainees were rotated amongst the classes so that we could get to know as many of our potential colleagues as possible.

And from the first day, Jimmy became target number one for most of the female trainees, including myself.

Hey, he was good looking! You can't blame a girl for appreciating what she sees, now, can you? And especially when the man in question returns the attention you give him. At the time, I was blissfully unaware of what Jimmy was really looking for… some auror trainee, huh?

At first, I enjoyed Jimmy's attention. He was exciting, dangerous, mysterious… tall, dark and handsome seemed to have been coined for him. It didn't help that he also came across as a genuinely nice guy, albeit one with a hint of a darker side. He was an incurable flirt, but at one point he seemed to calm down somewhat, especially after a certain training mission where we ended up being locked in a werewolf holding cell for all of three days before people realised we were missing.

Jimmy was like a brief encounter with fire. It's always fascinating to look at and the urge to reach out and touch it is overwhelming, but you never forget the experience of burning your fingers. He always wanted more, always wanted to move one step further than I was willing to. I wasn't exactly a prude, but my mother had instilled some form of values in me, and those values did not involve moving in with Jimmy and shagging each other senseless every night. Even after I did move in with him, I refused to share his room, always guilty and hearing my mother's voice in my head.

Then one night, we had a little too much to drink. Fresh out of the Stealth unit of training, everyone decided to go celebrate. Nights like these were rare, especially because each auror trainee was subjected to testing when they came in to determine if they had been drinking or else might be unfit for the exercise of the day. Now, there was a whole week of freedom ahead of us, a whole week in which we could do almost anything we wanted. Jimmy was particularly excited; all night in the club he knocked back shot after shot, whispering into my ear, his hands wandering higher and higher until I pushed them away.

‘Not now!' I hissed. He laughed.

‘Of course not. Do you think I want to share you with all these people?'

Perhaps it was the alcohol. Perhaps it was the exhilaration of finally finishing one of the most difficult units in auror training and not having to worry about failing. Perhaps it was simply the teasing touches, his fingers on my arm, my wrist, casually brushing across my breasts, resting on my thigh. Perhaps it was his voice.

Whatever it was, that night found us stumbling into his flat, already half undressed, joined at the lip. He was impatient, far too impatient, and he fairly tried to rip off my clothes.

‘Jim-‘ I began, but he silenced me by suddenly pushing me hard against the wall, his hand over my mouth. His other hand worked fast, ripping my shirt off and slipping into my pants.

‘Now we'll see,' he slurred. ‘Now we'll see how you work.'

His words were bad enough. His voice made it clear that he wasn't going to take no this time, and I cursed myself for suddenly not being able to see what was coming. He wanted sex. I hadn't been giving it to him. I still didn't want to give it to him, and definitely not in this way.

His hand found its way into my underwear. The other one was still clamped firmly over my mouth and even as I tried to say something, he glared at me. My arms were pinioned behind me, caught when he had pushed me against the wall. I felt him fingering me, his eyes rolling up temporarily, and then a wicked grin I wasn't sure I liked at all.

‘Change for me. Come on, change it. I want to feel you changing around me.'

My eyes went wide. I could feel his fingers, pushing away, trying to get inside me. First one, then two.

‘Change it, you stupid little bitch.' He moved his hand away from my mouth and slapped me hard before pulling my pants and underwear down to give him more room.

I understood. The tears came without me realising, but I blinked them back. There was no way I'd give him this, no way I'd let him simply play with me as if I was a doll. I was frozen in shock, not knowing what to do. His hand still covered my vagina, the fingers still probing me, unwelcome and suddenly disgusting. I looked at him. He was eyeing my body, his free hand moving to my breasts, fondling me even as I looked away.

‘Change, damn you,' he whispered harshly, before launching himself towards me. He had to let go, had to stop his incessant touching for all of a second so that he could grab at me with both hands.

All of one second. It was enough. I swung to the side so that he crashed into the wall. I ran like hell away from him the best I could with my pants causing me to trip over twice before I reached a safe doorway.

‘Come back here, you-‘

I didn't even wait for the next word. I slammed the door of the room I had claimed as my own and locked it behind me. The buzz had cleared from my mind and even if I was shaking I managed to perform a Colloportus charm, sealing the door. He slammed into it heavily, and I could hear it creaking… a charm cast in a drunken manner wouldn't hold long, I knew.

But there was no way I was even going to stay a minute longer in this place.

Everything I owned was strewn about the room as I had left it. I stumbled through the room, wondering what I could take, what I could leave, how the hell I was supposed to get out now. I tripped over and realised that my pants were still pooled around my ankles and I pulled them up fast. The cold air against my legs was only another reminder of what had almost happened.

I was tempted to simply sit down and cry. But that wasn't an option. Summoning everything I had, I threw it all helter-skelter into a suitcase. I didn't even bother to look when he managed to break through, hearing the crash of the door being broken down even as I apparated away.

*

I hear them, oh I hear them. Molly Weasley thinks her boys are all good and proper and would never stoop to such levels, but I've heard them talking about me. Charlie's dead set on having me, I've heard.

‘Can you just imagine what it's like having a Metamorphmagus in bed? She could do… she could be anything… '

He'll have to wait to find that one out. Charlie's probably a nice guy… I once had a crush on him, way back in Hogwarts… but I don't care for him now, and perhaps I care even less after hearing that.

The truth is, I'd rather have someone who doesn't want the Metamorphmagus, but who wants me . I know that my real self is disappointing, not remotely as attractive as perhaps who they want me to be.

I guess the only man who could understand, perhaps barely, is one who finds himself in the same position. The man who wants to be seen as he is, not as something he has no control over. A man who makes love when the lights are out because he wants to know me, not what I look like; a man who whispers don't ever change when he holds me because he doesn't care what I decide to look like, only that I have to be myself for him.

Does such a man exist?

Well. Not as a Metamorphmagus. But he does exist. He exists in all his scarred and quiet glory.

And I'm hopelessly in love with him right now.

Of course, Mum doesn't really know what to say about it. I know she's itching to tell me that he's too old, that I deserve better, that I'm probably damning myself through all this. After Jimmy, she's been horribly overprotective… but I needed that then. I don't need it now, when I'm finding myself, and finding my life again.

At least, though, even if she thinks he's not good enough, she won't say it. After all, she did pretty much the same thing… went after a man her parents would sooner kill than accept as a son-in-law.

Not that she'd kill Remus, mind you. She just finds it horribly awkward that her only daughter has suddenly taken up with a werewolf nearly twice her age.

I don't find it awkward at all.

You understand, don't you?

*