Magical Makeup – Chapter 2
Professor Severus Snape watched the 6th year Gryffindor girl scuttle off down the hallway toward the upper levels of the castle, obviously guilty and evidently disappointed to have been discovered in her illegal pursuit.
He felt the bulk of the parcel within his pocket and sneered at her hubris at trying to deceive him or influence him into letting her keep the contraband. He had a reputation to maintain and he intended to live up to it as much as possible; it had become almost a challenge to him.
Severus had been heading to his office in the dungeons as he did not have a class during first period today, yet he had some marking he was hoping to complete instead. He turned abruptly on the spot and swept into the darkened hallway toward his rooms.
Once he arrived he strode through the door, wielding his wand to cause the door to snap sharply shut behind him. Gliding to his desk he promptly took his seat behind it and reached for the pile of 2nd year Defence essays he intended to mark; but the bulky item in his robes made his halt. He removed the article and placed it on the desk beside him, the sender's address facing him again.
Magical Makeup. "Magical Makeup?" he said quietly to himself. "Magical, is it?" he added, mild curiosity for the contents of the parcel beginning to build.
He considered the parcel for a moment. It looked decidedly Muggle to him… and yet the young witch he'd confiscated it from seemed very eager to retain it. What Muggle originating item could have captured her interest so markedly, Severus wondered. Maybe it wasn't really Muggle… perhaps that was part of the deception.
He reached for the parcel… perhaps he'd better open it. Merlin knows what kind of potion or curse item it contained.
Severus produced his wand from his robes once more to open the parcel. What was inside both surprised and intrigued him further.
A neat, black case, similar to a Muggle spectacle case lay upon his desk. He ran his wand over it and detected no curses… and indeed no magic of any kind at all.
"Magical indeed," he scoffed softly.
He placed his wand on the desk beside him and picked up the case, reading the silver embossing on the top of the case. 'younique', it read with a logo which seemed to represent something 'growing', or so he perceived.
'Somebody needs to go back to school to learn to spell,' he thought with a cynical sneer.
Opening it up gently he found a folded brochure, and two black canisters nestled neatly inside. He took up the brochure and smoothed it upon his desk, glancing over it disparagingly.
On it was an image of a pretty young lady with her eyes closed sporting, in his opinion, rather impossibly long and thick eyelashes.
'What is it, some kind of growing potion, or swelling solution?' he wondered humorously.
Hi eyes tracked to the side of the girl and there was an image of the two canisters with the name 'Moodstruck 3D Fiber Lashes' beneath them. Again with the misspelling – Fiber instead of Fibre … though he wondered momentarily if it was perhaps an American product, for he recalled they used this spelling of that word. Still… nothing could excuse the butchering of the word 'unique' he countered his thoughts disdainfully.
He remembered seeing some kind of similar looking product in the Muggle supermarkets the few times he'd been into them, but had no idea the function of it, or what it was called. But they were typically sold as individual canisters, he recalled… this product had two.
Beneath the name was the description 'Transplanting Gel & Natural Fibers'.
Intrigued, he went looking for further information, flipping the brochure over and finding a set of instructions and list of ingredients which he promptly read through.
300% increase in thickness and volume read the manufacturers claims. He scoffed cynically again. 'Doubt it,' he thought to himself.
It was a three step process… gel, fibres, gel. Wet gel - dry, natural green-tea fibres - and then wet gel again which would dry and seal the fibres in. Seemed simple enough.
Severus harrumphed and pushed the product aside to continue with his marking job. He only managed a few minutes before he was again distracted by the twin canisters sitting to the side of him.
He took them both out and unscrewed the lids. He found the slightly longer one contained the black, wet transplanting gel, and the other the black, dry fibres, as described. He was mildly curious as to whether the rest of the claims in the brochure were true. And then he came up with an utterly mad idea – he'd try it out!
His sense should have kicked in to stop him right there and then. Should have, but didn't.
He stood and retrieved a small mirror he had stored on a shelf behind him and with his wand affixed it to the wall. And moving close to the mirror he lifted the canisters and used first the wet gel, wiggling it gently, coated the lashes of his left eye. It was a bit messy, he was certainly not experienced or practiced at this – he WAS a MAN after all! As per the directions he immediately followed up with the dry fibres, coating his gel covered lashes with them, and then switching to the wet gel once more. He was utterly amazed at the difference the product made. He batted his eyelashes once in the mirror, admiring the new length and thickness and what it seemed to do for his normally beady, black eyes. He quite liked it.
Than the unthinkable happened.
