Shampoo Lessons

Disclaimer time! The fact that I'm disclaiming at all should tell you all you need to know. As well as the fact that I don't think J K Rowling is a Severus/Lily shipper, although she might be...

"Incidentally, Severus," Lily asked me from her table in the library, "do you ever wash your hair?"

I shifted uncomfortably. "Er…"

"It won't clean itself, you know," she scolded.

I stared at her. How had she known why I didn't wash it? Anyway, I was sure it would clean itself. The inside of the body managed to clean itself out without any help, so why shouldn't the outside too?

"You do know", she continued, "that it's dripping grease onto your Potions homework?"

I looked down and guiltily cast a cleansing charm on my Advanced Potions book.

"Please, will you wash it?" she asked me. "Just once?"

I almost blushed, and shifted even more uncomfortably. "I… er… I don't know… er… how to…"

Lily sighed, and proceeded to give me a detailed explanation. She even gave me some of her Lily-of-the-Valley shampoo.

Friday afternoon found me locked in the prefects' bathroom with Lily. I was bent over a sink, and she was carefully trying to wring some of the grease out of my hair.

"This is disgusting, Severus," she told me in disgust. "How can you live with hair this dirty? And do you ever brush it? Don't tell me, I probably don't want to know," she added before I could reply.

I bent further over the sink, hoping my back wouldn't be permanently twisted out of shape, and Lily forced more water and grease out of my black hair, which was beginning to look more glossy, even while it was still wet.

"There," Lily finally said. "That's that done. Now, next time, I want you to do it yourself. We don't want Peeves floating in on me stroking your hair in a locked bathroom, do we?"

I wasn't so sure about that. Oh, all right, Peeves wouldn't be very welcome, but the stroking hair part sounded all right, and even more would be wonderful…

Wishful thinking, Severus, I told myself firmly, smiled at Lily, and stalkd back to the Slytherin common room.

"That's very good," Lily told me, the next time I washed my hair, this time on my own. "Now, if you do that every day your hair will soon be squeaky clean!"

Like yours? I wondered, but didn't say anything. Lily's hair was beautiful, a burning chestnut-red. Mine would never be anything like that – it was just a plain and boring black. It didn't even have the not-quite-blue sheen of Sirius Black's.

I'd discovered that Scourgify didn't work on my hair, and was planning to invent a spell that did. This shampoo business took forever, and if I was planning to become a Potions Master, I couldn't be in the shower with soapy hair when my potions went wrong, could I?

Over the summer, I honestly didn't have time to wash my hair: I was too busy dodging flying Unforgivables. James Potter might be a Quidditch expert, but I was sure that my reflexes were better than his, However, I didn't care for sport at all; I preferred the darkness of the dungeons.

When I returned to Hogwarts, the first sight I saw was Lily holding hands with James Potter. I was nearly sick. Lily later explained to me that her parents had both died in some muggle travelling accident during the holidays, and James had been so very sympathetic, and maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

I had listened, smiled and nodded. Once Lily had left, I'd screamed in frustration and reduced the prefects' bathroom to a crumbling wreck. I hurriedly fixed it, and returned to the Slytherin common room.

Lily spoke to me less and less that year, opting to spend more and more time with James Potter. A year later, they were married and Lily had a son, Harry James Potter.

It wasn't fair, I thought bitterly. Why should I be the one to fade from Lily's life? Why did James Potter get everything I wanted, and why did he never appreciate it?

After another year, I was grieving for Lily, who had died at the hands of Lord Voldemort. The worst part was that she hadn't needed to die. She died to save her son, who was going to grow up as arrogant as his father. Life wasn't fair.

I never washed my hair after that. I remember Albus asking me once why I didn't wash it.

"What about women?" he asked me, carefully.

I'm sure I heard someone mutter something about 'ladies of the night' not minding what someone looked like.

"Do you think Lily cares anymore?" I asked, bluntly.

It had taken me ten years to admit that I loved her, and now that I knew it… she was gone.

AN: Read, review, don't flame, please.