#magicaltrans

The biggest and oldest scars rise on his skin like ancient mountain chains. They wind around his chest, over his shoulders and across his face. Big, thick marks of feral claws and teeth. They flicker with silver in the light, edges forever not quite perfectly healed, not quite rid of the red tinge. Memories of moonlight red with blood.

Those scars bring so much sorrow to their house. Like a storm that curls above the rocky peaks and casts shadow at everything underneath, the sight of the scars brings a darkness to his parents’ faces that they never seem to shake for longer than a moment. Remus counts himself lucky, as he grows up, that he doesn’t properly remember the quake that raised those mountain-scars. That first pain bleaks with the years of repetition of the full moon transformations.

He remembers other things. There are old, but small scars scattered all over his body, a few memory trinkets that he never needs to worry he would lose.

There’s the burn mark on his right wrist from the hot iron baking tray. His mother cooled it under the kitchen sink, treated it with ointment and bandages, leaving the cookies to spoil on the floor until they were completely inedible. The scar is of faint, clay red colour. It looks like a stray fleck of cinnamon.

His knees are speckled with healed over scrapes, like desolate trees on two twin, rocky hills. He fell over the gravel path in their garden when he was running back and forth between the kittens hidden underneath the porch stairs and the kitchen, for the whole summer. He fell over in his haste many times, made many holes in his sundresses, until he was allowed to wear trousers instead. He persuaded his parents that he wouldn’t trip as much without the flowy fabric around his legs, catching on any traitorous bush and branch. He did anyway.

There’s a cut or three on his fingers from when he fiddled with the broken cassette player using a knife instead of a screwdriver, wishing for magic so he could fix it in a snap.

Those little marks he brought onto himself and though their nature is not exactly pleasant, the scars are not unwelcome. Signposts.

And then there are more claws and teeth marks. They don’t rise like mountains on his skin. Instead they rumble and crack like sinkholes in the ground. The wolf attacks itself in its misery and loneliness, growing in power and strength. It bites away at his own flesh, digging out the ground and letting the gaping holes swallow up everything, leaving behind only rubble.

They heal, somewhat, with advanced potions and complicated spells. And then they heal to the same almost-there degree as the old ones when they’re not split anew every month. The wolf isn’t lonely anymore, it runs free in the forest with its pack and it stopped carving away his own flesh.

A few days after his seventeenth birthday Remus willingly adds two scars to his collection. Two matching lines on his chest bring in such lightness to his lungs, the weight finally off his ribs and off his mind. It feels like standing on the shore, the fresh breeze filling him up with every breath. A signpost to freedom and unabashed truth.

Even the weight of his feelings for Sirius cannot crush him when he feels strong and free like the sea.

Until the water isn’t enough to hold the flames away.

Remus thinks, the first time Sirius kisses him, that he must have been set on fire. He is prepared to look in the mirror and see his lips blistered, the layers on his neck peeling and falling away, his fingertips cut and scabbing over. Every spot where Sirius touched him surely must be a raging wildfire. He prepares himself for the scars, for the reminders, for the physical, undeniable proof that Sirius held him and kissed him.

But there are no wounds, no blisters, no cuts. No scars.

It feels entirely surreal and impossible. He is no longer the same man who woke up that day for breakfast and yet his body remains unchanged. How is it that a common paper cut makes him bleed and taste iron on his tongue and this, this, doesn’t?

Remus exists in a haze for days after, a fog that turns into smouldering smoke when Sirius catches his eye or accidentally makes the knuckles of their hands rub against each other when they walk side by side. Any kiss in a deserted hallway or embrace under the cover of the night is a turned over can of oil, sparking him ablaze again.

Remus is a fire hazard walking, a pine forest in a heatwave, and no one can see it.

He breaks all of a sudden one morning, putting on clothes on his body that’s more a hot pile of ash than a boy. He catches his reflection in the mirror when he fixes his tie that came undone and notices a patch of dark pink, almost purple, on the side of his throat.

Remus raises his hand and pushes tentative fingers into it, letting out a hiss at the contact with sore skin. It briefly turns white and when he pulls his hand back the colour runs back in and with it the memory of Sirius’ lips and teeth on his neck. The sea floods the fire, the magma, and turns it into solid rock.

Sirius is alarmed by the pained noise, which shouldn’t be discernible in the routine commotion of the dorm, but it is. He steps over to Remus’ side, his eyes big and apologetic when he realises what he’s inflicted upon him.

Remus looks back at Sirius, shakes his head and laughs and after a beat of their hearts Sirius laughs too. They drown in the sounds of their voices until they’re cut short with a kiss.

The water subsides, leaving stable ground over the charred remains and building a new signpost in its place.