pith (pith) wrote in pithia, @ 2007-09-23 17:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | harry potter |
Harry Potter: The Shadows Smile
Title: The Shadows Smile
Fandom: Harry Potter
Spoilers: entire Harry Potter book series; influenced by the movies
Disclaimers: Characters and world belong to J.K. Rowling; the ficlet is mine.
Admissions: I know the dates don't really add up. The Cure (originally The Easy Cure) formed around 1976, so Snape would've been about 16, at which point he and Lily were probably already estranged. Let's play pretend, shall we? My sincerest apologies to Professor Snape.
Inspirations: "Burn" (including the title for the ficlet; look up the lyrics and you'll find they're very Lily/Severus) and "Mint Car" by The Cure, as well as some random LJ convos.
'Oh, come on, Sev! Please? It won't hurt, I promise!'
Severus Snape eyed his friend Lily Evans dubiously. Sixteen-year-old boys didn't do what she was suggesting or, at least in his estimation, they shouldn't. But he never could resist her when her eyes shone like that. Besides, he was the most gifted Potions student Hogwarts had ever seen. If anything went awry, he'd surely be able to concoct a remedy. 'All right,' he conceded, 'but it has to be somewhere out of sight—'
'I know the perfect place,' Lily insisted. 'The Room of Requirement!' Tugging on his hand, Lily surged forward, a suspiciously bulging bag dangling from her other hand. Snape wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know what was in the bag. What she had suggested shouldn't have required enough equipment to fill a rucksack. . . .
As they passed a window, Snape noticed that Lily quickly glanced outside towards the Quidditch pitch, but he ignored the gesture. She's not out there with Potter, he told himself before his temper could flare. She's in here, with me. He'd barely noticed that Lily had already snuck the two of them into the Room of Requirement and sealed the door. 'What did you ask for?' Severus asked. He knew the magic of Hogwarts Castle was very specific, and he didn't want people walking in and disturbing them.
'Don't worry, Sev!' The room Lily's request had conjured was simplistic, like a guest bedroom that didn't get much use. A plain bed was pushed into a corner beside a nightstand with a lamp. A chest of drawers stood beside the nightstand, and a large open window took up most of a wall, filling the room with fresh air and natural light.
The sheer amount of light made Severus, never a huge fan of the outdoors, cringe, until he noticed what was amplifying it: a large mirror on the wall facing the bed. 'Lily, I—'
'C'mon, Sev! I'm your best friend, right? I don't want to do this with anyone but you.'
Severus felt best friend might be pushing it a bit. They had certainly been best friends before they'd arrived at Hogwarts, but ever since the Sorting Hat split them up—she into Gryffindor with that blasted Potter and his gang, Severus into Slytherin—she hadn't seemed to have the same amount of time for him. Still, if this would make things better, make her happy, then Severus was willing. 'Oh, all right. But don't tell anyone. I mean it.'
Lily grinned wickedly and dumped the contents of her bag onto the bed. 'What shall we start with first? This?' She held up a sleek plastic tube. 'Get on the bed and pucker up!' she instructed.
Severus did as he was told, closing his eyes on contact. He had to admit, the creamy lipstick didn't feel too bad. He cracked open an eye when he felt Lily step back to critique her work. 'Well?'
'It's fabulous,' Lily smiled. 'Look.' With a wave of her wand, the mirror slid off its hooks and hovered in front of him. His mouth was a smudge of artful red. 'Shall I do your hair next or your eyes or your nails?'
'Nails? I don't remember Robert Smith wearing nail varnish,' Severus interjected. He and Lily had snuck off campus to see a Muggle concert by a band called The Easy Cure, and both had become smitten the lead singer, whose unmoving picture Lily had pinned to the wall for reference.
'We weren't close enough to the stage, that's all,' Lily said dismissively, brandishing a thin pencil after she moved the mirror out of the way. 'Stay still. I'm going to line your eyes.'
Severus hissed slightly at the pressure of the pencil on his eyelids, but Lily kept him still by gripping his chin, tilting his head this way and that. Another pressure, softer and thicker, followed, and Severus's nose twitched. 'What is that?'
'Eye shadow. Don't worry—it's black.' Next he felt Lily's fingers gently rubbing his eyelids, and she giggled. 'I can feel your eyes moving!'
'Well, I should hope so,' he retorted mock haughtily. Still, he obliged her, moving his eyes in absurd directions, sharing her laughter as she scuttled her fingertips across the delicate skin of his eyelids, as if she were discovering a new landscape or learning Braille.
'You can open your eyes now,' Lily said, wiping her fingers clean on a damp cloth. 'Are you sure you don't want your nails done? They can dry whilst I'm tousling your hair. . . .'
'Oh, all right.' Severus looked over her selection of tiny bottles, not unlike his stash of potions—except his potions didn't come with small applicators in the stoppers or bear names like "Gothique" and "Vampyre's Rapture".
'See, they're all sheer and sparkly, so you can keep it on and no one will notice unless they get really close,' Lily added, as if this were somehow a selling point.
At least none of them are pink—or red, Severus thought to himself. He wouldn't be caught dead in Gryffindor colours. 'I'll go with "Lucifer's Ashes", I suppose.' He held his hands out as if expecting them to be slapped with a ruler.
'Sev, are you okay? Your hands are shaking.' Lily paused in her ministrations to squeeze his trembling fingers.
'Fine,' he answered. 'I've been doing a bit of extra work in Potions. Makes my hands cramp.' He splayed his fingers out on the bed. 'That better?'
'It'll do.' With the dedication of an artist, Lily carefully dipped the small brush into the bottle and swiped the bristles across one of Severus's nails, repeating the process until all ten fingernails were coated in gunmetal glitter. For his part, Snape was riveted by the process, watching how her nose crinkled in frustration if her hair got in her way, how she'd bite at the corner of her lip as she concentrated on spreading the sparkles evenly. 'See? Robert would be envious.'
Severus tilted his hands in front of his face, trying not to inhale too much of the varnish fumes; he spent enough time with noxious odours in Potions. 'How do I dry them?'
'You'll just have to fan your hands like a silly old biddy, like the rest of us do!' When Severus flapped his hands like a baby bird wary of its wings, she giggled. 'Just like that. Keep it up.' She grabbed various hair implements which looked like they could double as instruments of torture, then settled behind Severus. 'Your hair's pretty limp, Sev, but I'll do my best.'
Severus was wheezing, trying to blow his nails dry. Finally, he gave up and settled his hands on his knees, careful to keep his fingers from touching each other. He endured Lily's ministrations for as long as he could, trying not to wince when she pulled too hard. 'I'm not Nearly Headless Nick, you know,' he quipped darkly.
'I know, Sev. I'm sorry.' Heaving a sigh, Lily crawled around him and slumped against the wall. 'I can't do it with just the combs. I could probably do it with magic, but—'
'No. No magic.' Being dolled up was bad enough, but if they used magic, with his luck, someone would notice and find them. Besides, magic would make it feel different, somehow. 'How is it?'
Lily begrudgingly brought the mirror around so Severus could see his reflection. 'I'll try to fix it, Sev—without magic, I promise. . . .'
Robert Smith, lead singer of The Easy Cure, had a gloriously goth-halo of black hair, as if shadows had exploded from his mind. While Lily had undoubtedly tried her best to replicate the look, on Severus it simply looked like someone had electrified a bird which had been caught in an oil slick.
Before Severus could regain the power of speech, Lily leapt to her feet, gaping at her watch. 'Oh no! I have five minutes to get to Transfiguration!'
'Go on. I'll clean up here,' Severus offered, unearthing Lily's textbook from the pile of supplies.
'Thanks, Sev. I owe you one.' Lily grabbed her books, wand, and quill case, then gave Severus a kiss on the cheek. 'You look so great!' Without warning, she pulled a camera out of her robes and snapped a few photos. 'I'll get you copies!' she called as she dashed out of the room.
Snape closed the door quickly and crammed all the cosmetics and supplies back into Lily's rucksack. He took a final look at himself in the mirror, turning to each side. Except for the hair, he had to admit he looked quite good. At least the lipstick gave him some colour. He cast a quick spell that would make everyone who saw him see his normal self; he didn't want to run into James and his boorish friends, looking like he did. He made it to the Slytherin common room without incident, and dashed up to his dormitory room.
Thankfully, the dorm room was empty, all his roommates in their classes. Comfortable in the solitude, Snape let his obscuring charm drop so he could get a better look at himself, without all the sunlight. The hair was the only part that didn't work. 'A little spell won't hurt,' Snape reasoned, pointed his wand at his head.
His first attempt did little more than shower him in glitter. 'Must've forgot to pronounce the umlaut,' Severus muttered, clearing his throat. Maybe the lipstick was making his lips too sticky. By his fourth casting, he had succeeded in recreating Robert Smith's distinctive dishevelled look. More or less.
'No girls allowed in the boys' rooms,' a clipped voice declared. fading into stunned silence when Severus turned to face the speaker. Lucius Malfoy looked flummoxed. 'Oh. Severus. I—'
'I can explain,' Snape began. Malfoy was a pure-blood with connections, someone Snape admired; he didn't want to jeopardize their friendship because of a misunderstanding.
A strange look crossed Malfoy's face as he backed up to the door. 'You look—It looks good on you. Nice sense of . . . foreboding.'
Severus didn't know how to respond. 'It's the sparkles,' he said at last, lamely. 'No one ever expects the sparkles.'
'Quite. Well, er, carry on,' Lucius stammered, shutting the door behind him.
Snape stood in front of the room's tall mirror, sweeping his robes from side to side. To teach Defence against the Dark Arts was still his ultimate goal, but if that didn't pan out, it was good to know he had other options.
Weeks later, Severus still had glitter in his robes, but he didn't mind so much. And if Lily had noticed her bottle of Lucifer's Ashes and her kohl pencil were missing, she never mentioned it.