A/N: Here's the second chapter, people! A big thank you to the people who put this on Story Alert! It would make me happier if you reviewed too... :)
FYI, the story is set when Sev and the Marauders are in fifth year. I realised that Lucius Malfoy would have already graduated so there's a tiny edit to the first chapter. Anyway, enjoy!
Unfortunately, Moaning Myrtle's was already occupied.
Severus had expected the bathroom to be deserted (with the exception of its permanent ghostly occupant) but as he cautiously slid the door shut behind him, hoping no one had spotted him entering a girls' bathroom*, he was puzzled to hear the sound of sobbing. It distinctly did not sound like Moaning Myrtle, given that she, well, moaned most of the time. And the voice was a boy's, unless Severus was mistaken.
It sounded like it was coming from the cubicle on the far end. Severus wondered whether it was worth going to investigate when he heard the sound of the cubicle unlocking. Quickly, he moved behind the pillar of sinks out of sight, and waited to see who would emerge.
To his surprise, an all-too-familiar face came into view, framed by raven hair like his own (although somewhat sleeker, Severus couldn't help but notice a bit enviously). In one hand was the ashes of what Severus suspected had previously been a Howler.
Wiping away at his eyes, Sirius Black stumbled to a sink, steadied himself and began washing his face.
Severus felt a stab of pity for him. It seemed even the popular, handsome, self-confident Black had his own demons to deal with. Despite his deep-seated hatred of Sirius, Severus felt that no one deserved family troubles of any kind (he assumed the head of the Black family had sent the Howler, Sirius' position as sole Gryffindor in a Slytherin bloodline being close to legendary). For a fleeting moment, Severus wondered if this was why Black went around acting so cool and careless, to hide the pain he felt inside. As Sirius finished cleaning up and headed for the door, Severus backed further around the sinks in order to stay out of sight.
Unfortunately, his foot hit a loose tile and it shifted out of place with a noisy clatter. Sirius had his wand out and pointing at Severus before Severus had time to begin mentally cursing his luck.
Black opened his mouth, presumably to hex Severus into silence, but for once Severus was quicker. "What's the matter, Black? Mummy not happy with your homework?" he snarled.
"Bugger off, Snivellus," said Black loudly. "If you say a word about this to anyone I'll Jinx you so bad that the Curio Museum in Diagon Alley will set you up as a permanent exhibit."
Severus's sympathy evaporated immediately. "What, in this bathroom where no one can see us? Funny, I thought your style was to hex me where the whole school can see. Isn't that what you like?" He started shifting sideways, slowly reaching for his own wand in his pocket and hoping his words were enough to distract Sirius. "Making others suffer to satisfy your pride – how typical of your family –"
Black's voice was strained now. In spite of that, he kept his wand trained on Severus. "Shut up, Snape. I am not like them."
A sneer crossed Severus's face. Inside he was rejoicing; he knew he had Black at a disadvantage for once. "Aren't you? Tell me, do your friends know about you? Coming in here and bawling your eyes out in the girls' bathroom. Pretending to be so strong, when in fact you're afraid to face your family."
Sirius's jaw clenched. "At least I don't follow them blindly. You've been fed the same pureblood supremacy nonsense and you eat it all up." His stare bore into Severus, who began to feel that he had lost the initiative. "You don't understand, Snape. I don't just hate you. I hate everything you believe in. I hate your stupid unthinking acceptance that purebloods are better than everyone else. I hate you because you're just like my stupid, bigoted family!"
No sooner had he finished his sentence when Severus whipped out his wand and yelled "Levicorpus!" Black dodged and Severus's spell hit a toilet, raising it five feet into the air. Water spewed from the broken pipes, making the floor slippery.
"Furnunculus!" screamed Black, eyes wild. Severus leapt out of the way, but the greenish bolt narrowly skimmed his ankle, which promptly broke out into small oozing boils. From the cover of a sink, he aimed a Stupefy at Black, which, to his credit, would have hit if the door to the bathroom had not flown open with a bang, revealing Delilah Malfoy, with Terrance Nott in tow looking a trifle embarrassed. Both combatants suddenly remembered that Delia was a Prefect and lowered their wands hurriedly.
"There you are! What in blazes is going on?" she said furiously, storming up to them.
Sirius recognized Delia at once. "You're Lucius Malfoy's sister, aren't you?"
"Yes. And you must be the Blacks' only Gryffindor," she said contemptuously. The only response from Sirius was an equally contemptuous snort.
"Well, what do you have to say for yourselves?" Severus muttered something about running into and generally disagreeing with each other's faces. Delia evidently did not believe this.
"In a girls' bathroom? Even disregarding that you both aren't supposed to be here, for illegal fighting I will take ten points from Gryffindor." Delia scribbled it down in a notebook.
This elicited a second snort from Sirius. "Only from Gryffindor? Should have expected that from a Malfoy. You're all the same, just like Snivellus here."
Delia paused. "And Slytherin." Severus felt his jaw drop. "You didn't let me finish. Merlin forbid I should be unfair in my duty as a Prefect." Delia gave Sirius her most irritating smile. Severus willed her not to say anything more.
Instead of making a biting retort and walking away, as Severus had expected him to do, Black returned the smile briefly and said, "An honest Slytherin? There's hope for the world yet – I owe Remus a Galleon." Severus stared after him as he pushed past Nott without another word and left.
"What the hell," he asked Delia, "was that?"
Delia was also staring mistily at the now-empty doorway and did not respond. Severus waved his hand in front of her face. "Hello? Anyone home?"
"What? Oh. Well, you tell me, what were you even doing here?"
"Avoiding you," he muttered sheepishly.
Delia glared at him. "You said you wanted my help. Don't you?"
"Well, yes, but I never said anything about letting you and Nott inflict Transfiguration spells on my nose!"
"Look, Sevvy –"
"I said don't call me that!"
"Severus. You do like Evans, don't you?" Delia gave Severus a meaningful look.
He managed to drag out the words, "Yes, but…"
"But nothing! If you want to really grab her attention, get across to her that you're someone worth noticing and being with, you have to look like it!" Severus sighed. There was no persuading her now that she had worked herself up into one of her enthusiastic moods.
He tried anyway. "Look, I really don't need any of this. If I want to… I'll just do it looking like myself."
"Oh, really? How's that working out for you? If you carry on, maybe she'll notice you about six more years from now." Severus swore he heard a drop of sarcasm fall off her words and hit the stone floor of the bathroom.
"Put it this way, Severus. At least you'll end up looking better. I mean, aside from the nose, your hair could use some work. I could research a few potions that might get it looking like Black's…" she trailed off. Severus sighed inwardly.
Nott coughed meaningfully. "Um, Delilah, the bell for History of Magic goes in about three minutes."
"Well, thanks to you, I suppose we'll have to do this after lessons." Delia gave Severus another glare, but it was wasted on him as he was too busy feeling immensely relieved. "I wonder if I can find out what Black uses on his hair…"
Severus tactfully did not say anything. He had seen enough of Black to last him for weeks. "Come on," he said miserably, "let's get to class in case Binns actually notices we're gone."
*A few second-year Ravenclaws saw him, but they thought he looked like a girl from behind, so they never mentioned it.
Severus had first met Delia on the Hogwarts Express. Since then, he had almost completely regretted it.
He had just emerged from one of the changing rooms on the train, wearing his school robes, when he bumped into someone and scattered his clothes. "Sorry," he mumbled, scrambling to pick them up.
Unexpectedly, the someone knelt down beside him and helped him gather his belongings. Glancing out the corner of his eye, Severus had a vague impression of rather expensive satin dark blue robes and long, shimmering pale-blonde hair. Soon the girl stood up and handed him his things. Before he could open his mouth to say thanks, she said, "Delilah Malfoy. And you must be Severus Snape."
"How'd you know that?" Severus said, taken aback.
She smiled, and he noticed she had twinkling violet eyes. "It's sewn on your shirt label."
"Oh." Dimly, he remembered something his mother had said about the pureblood wizarding families. "You're going to be in Slytherin, are you?"
"Of course! My older brother's already there. In fact, I think my whole family's been in there for about six generations now. I take it you're going to be in Slytherin yourself?" she asked.
"Can't see myself in Gryffindor," he answered sarcastically.
She replied playfully, "Oh, I don't know, you'd make a splendid Hufflepuff."
Severus gave her a stony look. "I'll have you know I could get into Ravenclaw if I wanted. The day I land in Hufflepuff is the day I drop dead."
This only encouraged her. "Alright then, do you want lilies or white roses for your funeral? I could get my brother to do you a quick Orchideous…"
The mention of lilies made Severus remember who was waiting for him back in his compartment. "Go hug a Manticore," he snapped, too preoccupied by that thought to think of anything better, and headed towards the main corridor. As he left, he heard her shout something after him.
"I'll get your coffin before the Sorting ceremony!"
Severus increased his pace. He decided that the girl annoyed him, Malfoy or not, and he would avoid her as much as possible.
He hadn't known Delia long enough to realize that this was absolutely futile.
About five years later, Severus was still wishing that he could turn himself invisible whenever Delia came looking for him. Apart from the fact that she had the ability to find him no matter where in the castle he escaped to, she was constantly coming up with ridiculous plans that somehow always backfired on Severus.
Take that time in second year, for example, where, seeing how he was being antagonized by Potter and Black, she organized an ambush for them in the corridors. It was supposed to animate the suits of armour to charge after the two Gryffindors, scaring them off.
Severus had ended up in the hospital wing for close to a fortnight. Even Madam Pomfrey was compelled to ask how he had managed to so thoroughly shatter his spine.
Potter and his gang had made "spineless" jokes for weeks.
Then there was the time she had come up with an experimental potion that was supposed to have the same effect as the Cheering Charm. Of course, she had it tested on him, saying that he needed to "lighten up a bit". For about eleven days afterwards Severus had to be fed nothing but oatmeal before his stomach began functioning properly again.
Currently, Delia was heading towards him with a thick leather-bound spellbook in her hand and a determined look on her face that made Severus cringe and think of Skele-Gro. Nott was following behind, and from his eager grin Severus decided it couldn't be anything good. He shut his Charms textbook with a sigh, knowing that it was no use trying to get homework done for the rest of the afternoon, and resigned himself to his fate.
"Alright, what disfiguring punishment do you have to inflict on me this time?" he said expectantly.
"Aren't you cheerful today," Delia replied. "I found a spell to make your nose better in The ABC of Advanced Beautification Charms. The theory is pretty simple actually."
Severus said something under his breath that was not at all complimentary to Delia's ability with spells.
Delia only raised an eyebrow and said, "It'll be Terrance who'll do the spell, since you are so convinced I will mess it up. Terrance is a sixth-year, and he said they've done this kind of spell before, so it should work fine."
Severus just groaned. "Just do your worst and get it over with." He shut his eyes, expecting the worst.
There were a few moments of agonizing silence, and then, just as he wondered when they would begin, he heard a voice say, "Rinoverto!" Instantly, his nose felt like it was swelling up again, just like that awful day in Potions class. The bones started reshaping themselves. Severus bit down the urge to cry out and set his jaw in a grimace.
Slowly, the pain dwindled to a warm, numb sort of feeling. There was another pause as he sensed the others scrutinising the result. "Well?" he asked, eyes still clamped shut. "Does it look like a dog snout or something?"
"I think you better see for yourself," came Delia's slightly awed-sounding answer. Someone handed him what felt like a mirror. He tentatively opened his eyes a crack and took the smallest of peeks in it. Then his eyes flung his eyelids out of the way and barged out demanding an explanation.
His nose looked… normal, amazingly enough. More than normal, in fact. Nott's piece of amateur alteration magic had made his previously-hooked nose seem almost Grecian. He would have sworn it had gained a regal, even arrogant air to it. Here was a nose that would not have looked out of place at a fifty degree angle to the ground, on a noble's face, or even a statue's.
Severus finally tore his eyes away from his reflection, to see purple eyes glinting back at his own. "What did I tell you?" Delia grinned happily.
He found himself saying this to Delia for the first time. "Th… thanks. It looks great."
"Don't thank me, it was all Nott's doing. Except the idea. And I had to explain the theory to him, of course, but –"
"Yeah, alright. Thanks, Terrance."
"Not a problem," the older boy said. "Like I said, I needed practice."
That remark made Severus shudder and thank whatever planets had aligned to prevent Nott from making a mistake. "How long does this enchantment last, anyway?"
Delia consulted the book. "It says… it'll stay there pretty much permanently, as long as you don't do a counterspell or get your nose broken in the next month or so."
"Great," said Severus, thinking of Potter and Black. "That should be easy to manage."