Chapter 19: Conflict
"I think I'll grow my hair out."
It wasn't so much a question as a declaration, but Snape answered it anyway.
"I should think not."
That's it. That's all he said. So simple, yet so… I'm not even sure how to describe it. Nor do I know why it offended me as much as I did.
"I don't care what you think of my appearance." I snapped. "Yours is certainly nothing to brag about."
"Rein won't like it," he bit back.
"We'll see."
This animosity had unfortunately become the norm since the attack on Hogsmead cut Rein's visit drastically short. We had returned to Casa Snape to find letters from one Narcissa Malfoy piled three feet high on the dining room table. He wouldn't let me read them, but whatever she wanted made the Professor perfectly irate.
He was not, however, nearly as irate as Hermione.
When we'd returned from Hogwarts, I'd walked into my room to find half a dozen letters buried under what appeared to be the remains of twice as many Howlers. How she got her hands on that blasted red parchment is beyond me, but it looked at first glance that Madam Puddifoot had sent some of her cupids to rain confetti all over my desk. By the end of the week I was heartily sick of both the color red and Hermione's voice. If I get one more letter form her yelling about how I should have told her that I was living elsewhere, I thought after sitting through a particularly shrill lecture in which she had berated me for telling Ron first, I'll send her a bloody Howler of her own, and hex it to follow her around bite her on the arse.
Her most recent Howler bleated on about how I'd been photographed "looking and absolute mess" leaving Twillfit and Tatting's. She yelled and shrieked about how, now that I was out of my relatives' care, I "no longer needed to look like a drowned cat" and I should "make more of an effort to look like a civilized wizard". I wanted to Floo to her house and choke her, restrictions on underage magic be damned. I instead settled for returning her letter with a Howler of my own.
HERMIONE JANE GRANGER, it read in the most menacing voice I could muster, HOW DARE YOU BERATE MY APPEARANCE! HAVE YOU SEEN YOURSELF LATELY? NOT ONLY DO YOU HAVE TERRIBLE POSTURE, BUT IT LOOKS LIKE SOME BIRD CLIMBED ONTOP OF YOUR HEAD, BUILT A NEST, AND DIED.
REMEMBER WHEN YOU ACCIDENTALLY POYLJUICED INTO MILICENT BULSTRODE'S CAT? YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED THAT WAY! IT WAS A MUCH BETTER LOOK FOR YOU THAN THAT HORRENDOUS TUMBLEWEED-MOP HYBRID YOU'RE SPORTING! AS FOR MY HAIR, IT WAS NEATLY COMBED THAT MORNING (which is actually true), AND I APPEARED DISHEVELED BECAUSE THERE WAS A DEATH EATER ATTACK AND I WAS TRYING TO GET TO SAFETY.
WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE? YOU LOOK LIKE THAT EVERY DAY!
YOU KNOW HERMIONE, IF YOU SPENT LESS TIME BEING SUCH AN INSUFFERABLE KNOW-IT-ALL AND MORE TIME BEING A GIRL MAYBE PEOPLE WOULD FIND YOU MORE ATTRACTIVE. PITY YOUR BOOKS CAN'T HELP YOU IN THE LOOKS DEPARTMENT. OR IS YOUR STUCK-UP, HOLIER-THAN-THOU ATTIDTUDE YOUR WAY OF COVERING UP HOW BAD YOU ARE AT APPLYING GLAMOURS?
MAYBE YOU SHOULD STOP MEMORIZING THOSE DUSTY TOMES IN THE BACK OF THE LIBRARY AND FIND A BOOK THAT CAN TEACH YOU HOW TO CONJURE A BOYFRIEND. THAT WAY YOU'LL HAVE SOMEONE WHO'S SOUL IS AS DRY AND LIFELESS AS YOURS!
It was after Hedwig had sailed out the window with the hexed parchment and a smug look on her face that I'd decided to voice my concerns about my appearance.
Which leaves us back where we started.
"It'll become an unexpected ingredient in one of your potions if you grow it long." Snape said as he sailed out of my room. "Dinner is in half an hour."