A/N: Surprise!

So I was reading some HP meta over on tumblr, and this was born. Can I hear a wahoo?

"Hey."

She didn't look at the stranger who sat down next to her. She didn't look at anyone anymore. "Go away," she whispered.

But the stranger didn't. "You looked lonely," they said. Hah! What joke. Of course she looked lonely. "And sad."

She scoffed. "No shit," she sneered. "I don't know who wouldn't, in my shoes."

"You might be right," acknowledged the stranger. The other girl, she finally registered. "What journeys have those shoes of yours taken?"

Was the girl serious? Half the school knew who she was by now! Oh. Wait. That's right. She was hiding her face.

Marietta removed the scarf from around her cheeks and glared at the other girl, a Slytherin, she registered. She expected her to recoil as all the others would, but the girl didn't. Oh, that's right. Slytherins had their masks.

The girl didn't recoil. Her eyes did that very slight widening thing that Slytherins always did when they were speechless, but otherwise... Huh. The girl looked compassionate.

"Who did this to you?" she asked softly.

"Potter," Marietta sneered. "Or one of his stupid Army. Who else?"

The girl blinked. "Harry? Certainly not by himself. My stupid brother is way too rubbish at Dark Magic to pull something like this off."

"Your brother?" Marietta asked incredulously. "Wait. DARK MAGIC!?"

The girl - a Potter? No, wait, Potter did have a twin sister - had an unreadable expression on her face. "Yes. Dark Magic." She snorted humourlessly. "Yes, yes, I know, all Slytherins knowing Dark Magic stereotype. Moving on." The Potter leaned forward, studying Marietta's face intently. She felt herself starting to blush.

"Dark Magic indeed," the girl whispered. "These are most likely going to scar, and permanently."

Marietta felt her eyes start to widen. "I'm going to have those scars forever?"

Potter - blast, Marietta had forgotten her name - hummed. "Mm. Curse scars never really fade, you know. But I think I can move them. Into less obvious places - with your permission, of course."

Marietta didn't even hesitate. "Do it."

The Potter looked at her. "Are you sure? It will hurt. Curses, especially petty ones like this one, don't like to be moved."

Marietta nodded. "You heard me, Potter."

The girl quirked her mouth. "As you wish."

She whipped out her wand and touched it to the tip of Marietta's nose. Her eyes narrowed.

And then Marietta felt it. The same itching, crawling, painful feeling that had crawled across her face the first time, now spreading and moving outward, down her neck, across her shoulders... and stopping, just as easily as it had started. She started pawing for a mirror.

"Here," the Potter said, handing her a compact. Marietta grabbed it, and peered into it.

...Huh.

All the angry, pink pustules were gone, a few faint white scars remaining on her cheeks and nose. They looked almost like... freckles.

"Some of them didn't want to move at all," Potter said. "So I kept them where they were and moved the rest to your shoulders. I also faded them as much as possible. I'm afraid they'll never be quite gone, but-"

That's as far as the girl got, mostly because Marietta had grabbed her into a very tight hug. "Thank you," she whispered. Then she remembered that the other girl was still a Slytherin. "What... do I owe you?"

The Potter smirked. "Help me put the fear of a Slytherin/Ravenclaw alliance into the hearts of my stupid brother and his clique and we're even."

Marietta smirked back. "Hell yes I will."