Harry was the only person working when a Varia member next visited the salon. There were only four people who worked there anyway, so he was used to not having much company while he worked. He liked it that way; it meant that he was familiar with everyone he was expected to interact with on a regular basis. He was used to working around them, so they didn't set off his war-honed reflexes like working with strangers would. That particular night, Daniela was off sick, it was Alberto's day off and Emilia had vanished again. It was a slow day anyway, so it wasn't too much for Harry to handle by himself. He was just seeing off the last customer of the day when the flamboyant green-haired man from a couple of weeks ago flounced in, clutching a bag, wailing, and drenched in blood. The leaving customer dashed for the door, squeezing against the wall to avoid brushing against the strange man. Harry sighed and flipped the sign on the door to 'Closed'. He could sense that this was going to be a long job, and he could feel his chances of a relaxing bath and an early night fading away with every drop of blood that plopped down onto the floor.

"How can I help you? I'm afraid I didn't catch your name last time,' Harry said with his best dealing-with-the-customer smile as he showed the man to the sofas. He even managed not to wince at the blood that was smeared all over them as the man flung himself down dramatically, posing like he expected a cameraman with a taste for the macabre and bizarre to be wandering by. Years spent scrubbing the blood from his nosebleeds and skinned knees out from carpets and sofas, lest he face the wrath of Aunt Petunia, had made him very aware of exactly how hard it would be to get the sofas back to their former cream colour. They would probably have to be replaced.

"I'm Lussuria! Did I not introduce myself last time? How rude of me, I'm so embarrassed! And it's simply dreadful. That awful man bled all over me; the uniform is probably ruined! Can you believe his nerve? Some people just refuse to die neatly, it's so inconsiderate. I have no idea how to get all of this filth out of my hair without using peroxide, which would be awful. I can't bleach my hair, Harry-chan! It would take weeks to get it back to fabulous again, and I can't spend weeks with hair like straw. It's just unbearable, I'm shuddering thinking about it. And Bel cut it! Cut it! I told that little menace to be careful with his knives, but will he listen? I can't go back to headquarters with my hair like this! It's a disaster." Lussuria sobbed theatrically, pulling a blood-soaked handkerchief from a pocket and wringing it out before using it to wipe the blood from his face. In the end, it smeared across his face like war paint.

Harry took a deep breath and shifted to mission mode, picking out the useful information from Lussuria's disturbing speech and putting aside the things that he really didn't want to think about. Even wandless, he was confident in his ability to take down a muggle, but he really didn't need to have it confirmed that he was dealing with a murderer. He knew that the war had skewed both his morality and his sense of self-preservation, but that didn't mean he was thrilled to be helping a man whose biggest problem with a violent death was staining his clothes. Harry steered his mind away from questions of morality with the ease of practice, focussing on what needed to be done.

"You need to get clean then. Do you have a change of clothes? I don't think any of my spares will fit you." That was an understatement. Harry was five foot five and skinny as a twig, whereas Lussuria was at least six foot and built like a bodybuilder. There was no way he would be able to squeeze into even Harry's drawstring sweatpants.

Lussuria held up his bag with a triumphant grin. Obviously, he had come prepared. Had he expected to end up soaked in blood? Harry really didn't want to know. Without any warning, Lussuria started to wriggle out of his bloodstained leather, letting the clothes drop to the floor with a wet slap. Harry just turned his back politely. Living in a dorm with communal showers, and then fighting in war with limited bathing facilities, had pretty much removed his body shyness. Besides, with people like Lussuria, showing a reaction like embarrassment or anger was like throwing fuel on a fire. He seemed like the Weasley twins in that way. His suspicions were confirmed when Lussuria pouted at his lack of reaction after he turned back around. Had he been expecting Harry to blush and faint? He hoped it had just been innocent teasing, rather than a serious test. He was not in the mood for mind games.

Harry was glad to see that Lussuria was wearing boxers and a tank top even before he put on whatever was in the bag, and that despite the mess his clothes had been he himself was mostly blood-free. Harry handed him a damp cloth to wipe away the little blood that had made it past the leather, while he took the leather clothes himself. The coppery scent was overpowering, and the feel of blood of his hands was instantly familiar. He took shallow breaths through his mouth and forced his mind to stay in the present.

"Do you want me to try to clean these here, or do you want to take them to a professional?" He was willing to give cleaning them a try, but he really hoped Lussuria didn't want him to. Getting blood out of leather was a nightmare. By the end of the war, they had all given up on wearing clothes that couldn't be easily washed or replaced. Apart from the Weasley twins, who clung to their dragon-hide jackets with a fierce possessiveness that was somewhat disturbing.

"Don't worry about it, Harry-chan, I'll have someone take care of it. Could you just put it in a bag for me, pretty please?"

The sight of him batting his eyelashes was just disturbing, as was his instance on using a Japanese suffix, especially one Harry was fairly sure was for girls. Who used Japanese in the middle of Italy? Harry chose not to assume that Lussuria actually meant to call him a girl as he dumped the clothes in a plastic bag, and then in another to make sure nothing leaked. In the war, his allies had mocked his girly looks once. Just once. Everyone agreed afterwards that McLaggen wasn't worth wasting the healing potions on, and the broken jaw healed fine without them anyway. Eventually. Mostly. If it made it a little harder for the obnoxious teen to talk, who was complaining?

With Lussuria's clothes sorted, Harry turned back to his customer. Except for his hair, he was pretty much clean now, and redressing himself in a uniform that was identical to the first. Minus the bloodstains, to Harry's relief. That meant it was time to get to his actual job.

"So what do you want doing with your hair today?" After the incredibly unusual start to the appointment, it felt almost surreal to fall back on the standard lines.

"I need this mess cleaning. And restyling. Can you even up the mess that little monster made?"

Harry couldn't tell what the damage might be under all of the blood, but he was sure that he could work something out. As he smiled and reassured Lussuria (Lust? Really? As fake names went, it wasn't even subtle, and he didn't want to think about what the man had done to earn it), he ran through his options in his head. He would rather stick with muggle options, but he would probably have to use a potion to clean the blood out. Muggle shampoo just wasn't designed to deal with that level of filth. It was a good thing he wasn't squeamish anymore, because he was fairly sure that there was some brain tissue stuck in Lussuria's hair. The man shouldn't notice that he was using a potion instead of normal hair product - it was in a generic shampoo bottle. And restyling the hair shouldn't be a problem, no matter what the crazy prince had done to it. He couldn't see any major damage through the muck coating the hair, so it couldn't be too bad.

Harry got Lussuria settled in a chair and prepared to wash his hair.

"I don't need to see you to kill you, you know," the man warned as he took off his glasses. His tone was joking, but Harry had no doubt that he was deadly serious. The blood drenching him had been a hint that the man might be dangerous, although nowhere near as dangerous as Harry himself. His Gryffindor curiosity was burning him fiercely about these people, and only his Slytherin survival instincts were keeping his mouth shut. The war had taught him to temper his curiosity with caution, and he got the feeling that knowing more about these people would cause him more problems than he wanted to deal with.

"I'm sure. I have a shampoo that will clean the blood out. It's a lot gentler than peroxide, but it will still remove the colour of the dye, leaving the hair its natural brunet. Would you like me to leave it like that, or to re-dye your hair today? I have quite a few greens to choose from, or other colours if you feel like a change. Perhaps a nice bright yellow?"

Harry wasn't quite sure why he recommended yellow, instead of more common hair dyes like blue or purple. Yellow wouldn't take well on brunet hair anyway. To get a nice bright yellow, he would have to bleach the hair first, which Lussuria had already said he didn't want. The suggestion seemed to be a bad move, given the way Lussuria stiffened.

"Why yellow?" His voice was completely serious, no trilling or flirting. The contrast was startling, and disconcerting.

"For your sunny personality? If you don't think that it would suit you, there are a lot of other colours to choose from." Harry tried to placate the suddenly intimidating customer, hoping to smooth over whatever offence he had inadvertently caused. Truthfully, he was regretting offering the dye, but yellow just seemed to be so much Lussuria's colour that he had suggested it without thinking. He wasn't sure why. The man wasn't wearing any yellow, and he hadn't been the last time Harry had seen him either.

"I'll stick with green, thank you Harry-chan." Although the flamboyant persona was back, the man didn't relax as Harry finished washing his hair and the last of the pink (and disturbingly lumpy) water washed down the drain. Harry had to resist the urge to offer a massage, his muscles were so tensely knotted. Although, given the way his last offer had gone across, he was probably better off keeping his mouth shut.

Harry tried to figure out his mistake as he dried Lussuria's hair. Did the man not like yellow? It wasn't a common colour for hair dye, but the man was the furthest thing from conventional Harry had ever seen, so Harry hadn't thought he'd find the idea offensive. Maybe he was just attached to the green? Or did he think it meant that Harry hadn't been listening when he said he didn't want it bleached? Whatever it was, Harry hoped the man got over it soon. He was sure he could take the man, even with his wand in his bag in the back room, but he still found the man's dangerous aura unsettling.

Lussuria's hair was quite short, so it didn't take long to dry. Now that it was clean, Harry could see where the front part of his fringe had been cut off. If this had been done by the teenage prince's knives, the man was lucky not to have lost an eye. Lucky or skilled. Dodging was probably a required skill for entrance into whatever they were involved in, given that it involved working with homicidal teenagers and murdering people in bloody ways. Strangely, it was the fact that they provided a uniform that bothered Harry most. Or perhaps not so strangely. It meant that whatever Lussuria was involved in, it was organised. That made it far more of a threat than a few lone weirdos, and solidified Harry's desire to have nothing to do with them at all.

Harry quickly got to work evening out the hair, trimming and reshaping the fringe slightly rather than removing length from the whole thing. The front of the fringe had been longer than the rest originally, so it wasn't as hard as he had feared it would be. Once he had finished, he left Lussuria cooing at the result in the mirror while he went to fetch the book of dye colours. He could feel Lussuria's eyes on him, and he had no doubt the man was watching him using the mirror. That meant he didn't want to duck into the back room and grab his wand; it would only make the man suspicious. Besides, Lussuria hadn't made any threatening moves, and seemed pleased with the work Harry had done. Sometimes the ingrained paranoia was a pain, although he wasn't surprised the strange killer was setting off every instinct he had. That relaxing bath he had been planning on was calling to him. He would have to indulge himself no matter how late he got home, unless he wanted to be a twitchy wreck tomorrow.

Lussuria quickly picked out the emerald green colour that he wanted and Harry applied it using quick, neat brushstrokes. Compared to complicated spellwork, this was child's play. His habitual use of magic prevented it dripping or smearing onto Lussuria's skin or the shaved part of his head. It also meant that the developing time was cut in half compared to muggle dyes, so it wasn't long before he was rinsing the dye out, drying the hair again, and styling the fringe with muggle products to give it the volume that Lussuria asked for. When he'd finished, Lussuria was declaring his new look 'absolutely fabulous, Harry-chan, you're a miracle worker!'

As Harry turned to lead the man to the desk to pay, he felt a blinding pain in the back of his head. He collapsed to the floor, stunned. The world went black for a second, and when he came to Lussuria was kneeling over him with a syringe in hand. His legs were pinned in place by Lussuria's knees, and his wrists were held above his head in a bruising grip by one of Lussuria's hands. He realised that he had been foolish to discount Lussuria's physical strength and tried desperately to call on his magic to protect him, but it responded sluggishly and erratically. He heard a window shatter just before he felt the needle pierce the skin of his arm. His body suddenly felt like it was made of lead. His raised head fell back to the floor, smacking against the tiles. He couldn't even scream, he couldn't control his breathing, there wasn't enough air in his lungs. His dry eyes stared as Lussuria's hand came into his field of vision, and the world went dark.

There probably won't be any major plot changes here. I'm just fixing how badly written the first version was.