"No Draco! That's not right! Watch me. Right you walk in, pause and look at the people in the room or 'audience' and wait for it…the hair flick. Now you try." Lucius Malfoy turned round and looked at his son flicking his hair as he did so. "Come on Draco it's not hard, how are you ever going to impress people if you don't try, how are you ever going to get a girlfriend?"
"Dad! I've had girlfriends, and anyway I don't want a girlfriend at the moment."
"A boyfriend?" Lucius asked looking worried. At that moment the doorbell rang. "This is not over." Lucius left the room to answer the door as it rang again.
"I'm coming!" he growled impatiently as he opened the door. On the doorstep he was greeted by a mass of dark greasy hair hitting him in the face as the owner of the hair flicked it out of his dark, cold, beetle-like eyes. The man was tall and skinny with shoulder length greasy hair, a large hooked nose and sallow skin that looked like it never saw daylight.
Lucius gazed in awe at this mastery of the hair flicking technique. He opened his mouth to congratulate this individual but his jaw hung open in realization.
"Severus?!" exclaimed Lucius as he grabbed Severus around the middle in a bear like grip. "Snapeeeeyyyyyyy!" he squealed "I thought I'd never see you again! I heard you were dead!"
"Can I come inside?" Lucius received another mouthful of hair as Severus glanced nervously over his shoulder. "There were some rather vicious looking muggles following me for about half an hour. I think I shook them off, I had to go round the block a couple of times."
"Yes of course! Come in, come in! My wife is out at the moment and Draco is in the study. Take a seat in the lounge while I go and get us some drinks." Severus folded himself into an armchair and fixed his eyes on a picture of their Hogwarts class photograph. His eyes roved hungrily over the faces until he spotted the one he had been searching for, the beautiful face of a red-headed girl.
"Is coffee all right?" Lucius asked as he bustled back into the room and caught the direction of Severus's gaze. He winked knowingly, "Yes I did look good back then didn't I?" Severus nodded whilst Lucius poured his coffee. "So what's the story? We were all told that you were dead! The Dark Lord said that he had killed you. I was so upset. What really happened?"
"Well Lucius, I was never really on his side, Voldemort I mean. I was helping Dumbledore all along."
"Me too! Well I wasn't helping Dumbledore but I didn't really like Voldemort after he took and broke my wand. I was quietly plotting his downfall, in fact, when me and my wife served him dinner the other day it wasn't really 'spaghetti' on his plate."
"Yes I am sure that contributed to his downfall. Anyway at the time of my supposed 'death' it wasn't actually me. You see sometimes I used an impostor to pretend to be me using polyjuice potion and help Voldemort whilst I helped Dumbledore."
"Severus? Are you saying you were with Dumbledore at the time of your supposed death? And it was an impostor that died instead? I thought Dumbledore was dead? Is no one around here dead anymore?!"
"Well yes…and no. An impostor did die instead of me but I wasn't with Dumbledore. He is really dead."
"Where were you then?" Lucius cried.
Severus looked uncomfortable, "I was at an emergency hair appointment, I had a rather nasty lice infestation that needed to be seen to immediately."
"I understand." Lucius said patting Severus's hand consolingly. "Actually on the subject of hair I have a little proposition for you.
"You see for a while now I have been thinking of setting up my own business. My inspiration: greasy haired muggles. You know when you walk down a muggle street and see those untidy locks and you just feel sorry for them? They all have inferior hair products that never seem to have any effect on them and I was thinking, what if I created a hair product with the magic of wizards but for muggles. Now the thing is I cannot make these products by myself. I have no degree in potions so I cannot make these. I need somebody to experiment and create these hair products and you seem to be the perfect person for the job, until I heard you were dead….but now that I know you're not, would you like to join me in this quest?"
"Where would we sell these hair products?"
"We would be door to door salesmen! And it's perfect because you wouldn't have to explain to anyone why you are not dead! It's brilliant! Please Severus would you help an old friend?" Lucius looked pleadingly into Severus's eyes and stretched out his hand.
Severus took it and said quietly, "Yes old friend, anything for you."