Snapshot 4 – Buns
It was evil. It was devilish. It was cruel and uncaring and it was not fair. The red-headed woman had smiled sweetly at him and grabbed her broom, throwing it carelessly over her right shoulder. She approached him and gave him a light peck on the lips.
- Bye, bye, sweetie. – and just before she left, she turned around and added: - Oh, by the way, Lily's got ballet at 4, can you fix her hair? – and apparated. He stood there for a whole minute just staring at the empty space previously occupied by his wife, only thinking: "How the hell am I supposed to do that?"
Now there he was, brush and pins on his side, looking extremely confused and concentrated as he tried to produce a bun on his daughter's hair. The 5-year-old red-headed girl instructed him bossily, sitting on a little bench covered in red velvet, wearing a white tutu and small ballet shoes. He had tried magic, but he failed miserably. In the end her hair looked a bit like Marge Simpson's. So she walked up to her room, grabbed all the material he needed and told him to make it "muggle style".
- Did you make the ponytail?
- Yes. Now what?
- Now you grab the ponytail, and wrap it around the…
- What?
- The ponytail, dad! – she said, exasperated. – Wrap it around itself!
- And how do I do that?
- Dad, you grab the ponytail. – he did so, very carefully not to pull her hair – Okay?
- Yes.
- And you twist it while wrapping it around the ponytail itself! – an image of Ginny wrapping her hair in a bun before a Quidditch match assaulted him, and helped him understand what she meant.
- Okay! – he finally did as he was told.
- Did you do it?
- Yes. But it won't stay if I let it go. – he told her as-a-matter-of-factly. Lily rolled her eyes.
- Of course it won't stay, daddy. That's what the pins are for.
- And how do I put them?
- I don't know, dad, just put them. Open and… Push. With the hair. I think.
He did his best. He really tried. But when he finally finished he felt Lily needed to know.
- It looks ugly, Lily. – he told her sheepishly. She turned around, still sitting in the bench and said sweetly and tiredly to her thirty two years old father.
- It's okay dad. It was your first one. Now take us to Uncle Ron.
…
- There, Lily. – Ron said, handing his niece the few pins that were not used. She smiled brightly and hugged him.
- Thanks, Uncle Ron! – Harry just looked miserable as he saw the perfect bun on his daughter's head. Ron noticed and laughed, patting him on the back.
- Cheer up, mate! Yours was better than my first one. With practice it gets easier. – the dark-haired looked horrified.
- You mean I'll have to do more of those? – Ron let out a bitter laugh.
- It only just began, my friend. It only just began…
A/N: My father used to make all our hairdos when we were little because our mother worked a lot and we had to go to class/ballet class/English class and such. Not that he liked, but somebody had to do the job. All girls have the ballet phase. I just imagined that even the witch kids take ballet classes too.