Boys Will Be Bugs
is a Harry Potter fanfic by The_Infamous_Jack that can be read on Archive of Our Own. The story is set during the Marauders Era from Remus Lupin's POV, and takes place from his childhood through his last year at Hogwarts, as he grows up and comes to term with both his lycanthropy, gender identity and his sexuality.
One of the fic's most notable aspects is the fact that, per words of the author himself, is that it gives this period of Harry Potter history a LGBT lens, with most of the stories themes dealing with genderqueer issues.
Boys Will Be Bugs contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: As in canon, Sirius's parents are pureblood fanatics who emotionally abuse Sirius. This get a lot worse when Sirius comes out as gay, which leads to them locking him the basement and torturing him with a crucio spell.
- Remus Lupin, who is indicated to be a cisgender male in canon, is instead a trans boy. Much of the story's drama revolves around his dysphoria and how a lot of people around it deal with it.
- Halfway through th fic, it turns out that Sirius Black is genderfluid, and from then on, the narration alternates between calling him by different pronouns depending on the way he is identifying at the moment.
- Cool Aunt: Remus's paternal aunt, Selene, fits this trope to a T, acting like a secondary maternal figure towards him, and eventually becomes the primary one when Hope passes away.
- Gayngst: Similarly to All the Young Dudes, Sirius gets this because of his homophobic family, which certainly isn't unfounded.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While calling him a jerk is a bit too much, Lyall isn't sure of what to make of both Remus's gender identity and sexuality, with him, but as he constantly points out, they're living in a time period that despite being slightly more accepting of the LGBT community, said people are still very much a hot button issue, with them either being the butt of jokes or outright harrassed. As for Remus coming out to him, he correctly tells him that Sirius isn't precisely the best choice given the the family he comes from.
- Parents as People: While Lyall is indeed a strict parent whose anger gets the better of him, he genuinely does care for his son despite initially not agreeing with his gender identity, and most of the stuff he does is mainly out of concern for Remus. Despite this, this is also in a way deconstructed, as the story does call him out when he goes to far.
