The Amazing Bust of Nymphadora Tonks

I got my boobs when I was thirteen. All right, technically I got them when I was twelve. But I didn't let anyone know until I was thirteen. And when I say let anyone know I don't mean I ran around school with my top off, like some girls in my year.

Well, really, no one did that. Marjorie Wheaton came pretty damn close, though. She started stuffing her bra when she was eleven (really - I caught her doing it twice) but as soon as she got her real boobs, she started going around the common room in these horrible tight pink tops. I have nothing against pink (as anyone who's seen me three days out of seven would know) but the pink she wore was pretty close to the color of her skin, so it looked like...

Well, you can imagine. Some of the older boys thought she was rather fit. Most of us girls slagged her off behind her back. Looking back, I don't know if we actually thought she was a slag, or if we were jealous, or what.

That's not important. I was talking about my boobs. It's not my favorite subject, but hey, you asked.

So, I started filling out when I was about twelve. I happened over the summer hols, and there weren't any girls my age in the London suburb where my parents lived, so I had no one to compare myself with.

It was horrible.

You can imagine why. I'm a Metamorphmagus, and I've always had control over the way my body looks. Not complete control. Unless I change them, I've got my dad's turned-up nose, and my mum's dark brown hair. But I could change them. My parents didn't like me wandering around our neighborhood with yellow eyes, lilac hair, and a foot-long nose, but if I'd wanted to look that way, I could have, as easily as blinking.

But then there I was with these soft little bumps on my chest, and I knew they hadn't been there before, and I knew I hadn't put them there. I'm making it sound like they sprouted overnight, and they really couldn't have. It must have been gradual. But it's been ten years, and that's how it seems when I look back. I went to bed perfectly flat, and woke up with these funny lumps.

I panicked.

You know how sometimes you'll bump your shin on something (well, much more often than sometimes, if you're me) and you won't even realize that you bumped it hard enough to bruise until you take off your trousers?

Me waking up with boobs was kind of like that, only much, much worse.

I knew what they were. I wasn't stupid. Mum had told me about what would happen when I hit a certain age (speaking of horrible!) and there were plenty of older girls at Hogwarts. I don't even remember if I'd wanted them or not.

All right, that's not completely true. When I was younger, I had a crush on my mum's cousin, Sirius. A completely asexual crush. I was eight when he killed all those Muggles, and got sent to Azkaban. But before that, I thought he was just the funniest, most brilliant person in the world. I had this photograph of him, and I kept it hidden in my room, so Mum didn't destroy it along with the others. I kept it in a book under my mattress, and I took it out and looked at it whenever I was mad at Mum. I guess my rationale was, I still like him, even though you don't! And if you knew I liked him, you'd be really upset! So there!

I don't think she ever found out, and I'm glad she didn't. Trust me, I don't have a crush on him anymore. Even if I did, you've seen me in the field; it takes a lot more than a pretty face to sway me these days.

All right, my crush on Sirius Black. It became a little less asexual as I got older. I mean, he was fit. Even with sideburns. And really, his weren't half as horrible as my dad's were in the Seventies. He had this wicked flying motorbike - a Vincent Black Shadow - and he'd met the Clash. You know, the Muggle band? He made up this bloody awful song called Nymphadora, I Adore Ya, that he sang whenever he came over. I had to pretend I hated it because I hate my first name, but I secretly liked it. The song, I mean. Well, the fact that he had a song for me. Also, he had these grey eyes that were like January ice, and this smile that was just -

How many of these things have I had? That many, really? No, I'm fine. Nope, not even slightly buzzed. I took a potion before I met you. I'm fine. Just a little maudlin. Guess the potion can't prevent that from happening.

Anyway. I used to look at his photograph, and wish I were older. I kept thinking that if I were his age, maybe he'd have trusted me. Or confided in me. Maybe I'd have understood him better, and been able to stop him from going bad. I used to fantasize that I caught him just in time. And we fell in love and - I don't know. We were rebels together. But good rebels. And I had a perfect figure like that Muggle actress Dad liked so much - Sophia something. And this long, lustrous honey-blond hair. It's really not fair that my evil aunties got the best hair in the family -

I said honey-blond and compared a bloke's eyes to January ice in the same five minutes, didn't I? All right, this is my last one tonight.

So, yeah, I'd given it some thought. Becoming a woman. Getting my boobs. But all that fantasizing didn't stop me from panicking when I woke up a different shape from the one I'd gone to bed with.

I didn't cry, or run to Mum, or anything. I stayed in bed with the blanket pulled up over my chest all day. I pretended to be sick when Mum and Dad came looking for me. I don't think I ate anything all day. I actually felt sick after a while. Sometimes, I lifted up the blanket and took peeks at them. I poked at them.

Yep, I see him. Like that image, do you? Go ahead, smirk. I was twelve, you perv.

Where was - oh, right. I was afraid to go to sleep that night. Would I wake up with something else changed? I lay awake almost the entire night, completely rigid. I kept picturing my body the way I wanted it - which was the way it had been for the past year. I wanted a flat chest, narrow hips... I didn't want to be a boy, but I didn't want to be like those older girls at Hogwarts, either.

Some of them were all right. But some of them - like Marjorie Wheaton - seemed silly. And the boys treated them differently, I noticed. Boys were really weird around them. Most of my friends were boys. I didn't want anything to change.

So, I lay there as still as I could and thought flat thoughts. I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up the next morning, my boobs were gone.

Not gone. Flat. The way they'd been before. For a little while, I thought they'd been part of a very vivid nightmare. They hadn't gone, of course. I'd just willed them away, the same way I could will my hair green if I wanted. They came back, of course. While I was in the shower later that morning. I was soaping up, and suddenly I noticed -

I screamed. And naturally, my parents heard, and they both - well, Dad Apparated to just outside the bathroom door. Mum Apparated right into the bathroom. Fortunately - I suppose - I was so startled by the sound of them Apparating that I slipped on the porcelain and fell on my arse.

It wasn't really a bad fall. I was used to landing on my arse, and my parents were used to my clumsiness. The way I was crouching after I fell, Mum couldn't see my chest. I told her I'd seen a spider on the ceiling. She couldn't wait to get out of there once she realized I was all right. Mum's terrified of spiders. Dad's not much braver, to be honest.

I used to be, but I got over it. I had to get over it. There was this boy I hated, and he was afraid of spiders. Martin Sommers. Ravenclaw. What a wanker. He was always taking the mickey out of me. So, once, I nicked this jar from the Potions classroom and went down to the lake. I caught as many spiders as I could.

Eurgh, by hand? Of course not. Please. You're a witch. Accio spider. Simple.

So, I got this jar full of spiders and carried it back to the castle, under my cloak. I was going to let them go behind Sommers' chair, while we were in History of Magic, and have them crawl up his robes. Except, as I was taking my seat, the jar slipped out from under my cloak and broke.

Right. Spiders everywhere. Sommers screamed. And I couldn't scream, even though there were spiders crawling up my legs, because bugger if I was going to let him know I was afraid of anything. Or maybe I was just too petrified to scream.

Spiders didn't really bother me after that. It was like I'd got all the fear out my system in one go. Sommers didn't bother me anymore, either. He stayed about as far away from me as he could. Until sixth year, when he became a bit less of a wanker, and asked me out.

Anyway, my parents didn't find out about my boobs for about a year.

No one did. After my accident in the shower, I kept my chest firmly under control. I wanted to be flat. Boy-flat. It was exhausting. Think about it. It takes a bit of effort to turn my hair this color. It doesn't take any effort to keep it this color because hair isn't something that changes really quickly. I mean - well, hair is the same color every day unless it's going grey or something. And it grows so slowly. It's not like I'm struggling against something.

For a year I struggled with my body.

Yeah, I just saw that. Don't worry, I'm paying attention to him. I'll finish the story quickly, though.

It was horrible. It was like - I don't think I can tell you what it was like, since you're not a Metamorphmagus. If your body is going to change, then it just will, and you can't will it not to. I can, or at least I could, before. I can now because I stopped growing years ago. But while I was growing, especially that first year...

No, I don't mind talking about it. If I did, I wouldn't be talking about it. Yes, I still see our man. He's not going anywhere. Listen.

So. It was exhausting and horrible. I was tired all the time. My friends and some of my professors figured out pretty quickly that something was wrong. They couldn't figure it out because I still looked like my old self, and I wasn't going to tell them what was bothering me if I didn't have to.

I looked at other girls. Not in a pervy way. Just out of curiosity. I swear I never looked at you! Just the girls in my own house. I swear. Why are you pulling that face? I've seen you in your knickers. When we were at Camden Market, trying on dresses, remember?

These other girls I looked at, some of them were getting their curves. Some weren't yet. But of course I thought I was the only one traumatized by the whole thing. I don't know if I actually had it worse than anyone else. It was just different for me, is all.

The boys teased me. Some of them, anyway. I was a bit crabby because I was tired all the time, so some of them said I had perpetual PMS. Prats. I didn't have enough energy to do anything back, so they gave me shite about finally learning to keep quiet like a proper girl. Really, it was just two or three boys. From my own house! The prefect that year wasn't one of them, but he was one of their friends. So I couldn't have said anything to him, even if I'd wanted to.

Can you imagine me just taking that? I did for months, though, because I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't stand my body changing without me willing it to. No one could've helped me because I didn't tell anyone what was happening. My friends suspected something was wrong, but it was my body that was making me miserable, and there wasn't anything any of them could do about it. It was my problem, and I was just going to have to fix it on my own. Or learn to cope.

I've never learned to just cope - not with something that really bothers me, and after a few months, I was really bothered. My marks were getting worse. It was bad.

One afternoon, this idiotic fifth-year cornered me in the corridor after supper. He didn't grab me and slam me against the wall. He just started following me and wouldn't bloody go away. He was walking much too closely, and the things he was saying...

He said he knew what I was.

That struck me as a bit odd. I never kept the fact that I'm a Metamorphmagus a secret. I kept things their normal colors most of the time because the professors told me I had to. They thought it'd be distracting if I walked around with a pig snout and turquoise hair.

"I know what you are," this boy said. I still remember exactly the way he said it. After all these years. I can still hear it in my head. Isn't that scary? I didn't like the way he said it. The way he said it, it sounded dirty. Or like he knew a real secret about me.

For a second I thought he was going to tell me that he knew about the boobs. But that was stupid. I mean, how would he know? Nobody knew.

Then he said, kind of quietly, "If you wanted to, you could be a real woman, couldn't you? With real big..." He trailed off and cupped his hands in front of his chest.

You're pulling that face - think of how horrified I was.

I was horrified and I was furious. He was smirking at me, and I snapped. All that anger I'd been feeling toward my body just swept over onto him, and I started yelling.

I told him that I could look however I wanted. However I wanted. Not him. Not anyone else. Me. As long as I was yelling I reckoned I ought to mention that I could be whoever I wanted to be, too. I yelled a lot of other things that would probably have gotten me in quite a bit of trouble if any professors had overheard us.

But they didn't, and that boy just stood there staring at me while I -

Well, while I got everything off my chest. So to speak.

Afterward - once I was back in the dorm, I mean - I spent a lot of time in the shower, looking at myself. I let my boobs grow out to their normal size, and just studied them.

I didn't like them. They weren't what I was used to. But they were a part of me and I reckoned I was stuck with them - if I didn't want things to stay the way they were.

It was awkward for a while, suddenly looking different. But I've always been a bit quirky. It's their turn to cope, I thought.

So -

Yep, I saw that. Looks like our man is about to make his move. It's about bloody time. Stay there. If Shacklebolt's done his job, this won't take any time at all.

What was that? Oh, finally cottoned on, have you? I love telling that story right before I make a bust. Smirk all you want. I told you I was quirky. That's me.

04/30/05