Spiders & magic toothpaste.
Severus couldn't believe his eyes.
After Madam Pomfrey had made him down a skelegrow potion he had been instructed to stay in the medical wing until the cartilage was finished regrowing.
The night had been long and uncomfortable, not quite the same pain as regrowing bones, but still that uncomfortable itch from where the cells were multiplying and clinging onto eachother.
He had slept only a few hours throughout do to the irritation, so when morning came he was up and waiting for Madam pomfrey to clear him to leave.
While he waited for her to finish administering an anti arachnid venom to an unlucky third year hufflepuff girl, he heard loud whispers and felt eyes on him. It was coming from the girls two friends that had walked her down, a ravenclaw boy and another hufflepuff girl.
The Hufflepuff girl jumped when she realized he noticed them, turning bright red, while the boy wrung his hands apologetically, it was.....strange.
He wasn't a stranger to people talking about him, behind his back or to his face, but something about their body language seemed different. He could place his finger on it.
Madam Pomfrey finished with the girl and walked over to him. Snapping him out of his thoughts.
"Well I'll say. It seems the Skelegrow did the trick! You must also be breathing quite a bit better as well huh. You feel free to head on off when you want" she said, dismissing him with a small smile.
"Breath better?" Now that she said something he realized he was breathing easier today. The stuffy feeling he got in his nose having vanished overnight, even his voice sounded less congested.
Pomfrey just smiled at him softly, turning to the night stand next to the cot and pulling out a hand held mirror, leaving it in his hand before turning and walking away to her next patient.
Severus gasped. He couldn't believe his eyes. His nose, once crooked in multiple places, enlarged from prior swelling and just wrong looking with the rest of his features was gone.
His nose was still hooked, and still his largest feature; But it was no longer twisting and unseemly like a trolls. He looked at the mirror with wide eyes. He still had grease filled hair, crooked nicotine stained teeth, too pale skin, etc. But he couldn't help the small smile that stretched across his face at the small, but noticeable change.
He sat there smiling for a short amount of time when
"Oooooh Koshka!!" A loud, accented voice called tauntingly. Severus's smile quickly disappeared. He looked up to see Lebedova sauntering over to him with all the grace of a swan as her namesake. "Come along now we have much to do! Fixing your heathened nose was only the first of our ventures! It may be a Saturday but we haven't the time for dilly dallying!" She said, snatching him by his rist and pulling him along and out the doorway
"there's just so happened to be a small arachnid sighting, no need to worry about it but there happened to be enough to fill the nurse wing with plenty of witnesses to your Skelegrow escapades that there will be no room for accusations of unnatural means!" She laughed conspiratorially. He felt dread fill him at the mention of an arachnid trying to remember what her familiar was.
She dragged him to the abandoned girls bathroom where moaning Myrtle liked to hide out, being pulled toward the sink as she set the bag she had been carrying on her other shoulder in the ground.
She pulled her robe off leaving her in her uniform, before rolling her sleeves up and removing her expensive looking wand holster.
She transfigured the old mop bucket left forgotten in the corner into a tall chair before pulling it to the sink. "Sit down and lean your head back!" She commanded him, while she dug through the bag she had discarded on the floor.
Severus felt uneasy, but did as she said, remembering the fuzzy feeling he had gotten this morning when he had looked in the mirror.
Lebedova was quickly at his side, placing objects out of his peripheral on the counter, and turning the faucet on. combing her hands through the greasy strands until water saturated it all evenly.
Looking up at her from this angle she didn't look half as much like the near insane pure blood she had revealed herself to him as.
He quickly retracted that statement when she pushed his head further back dumping an unknown potion on and through it. Then wrenching his head forward and scrubbing through it with the pads of her fingers. Rinsing and repeating a few times until all the potion was out.
It dawned on him to just ask her what it was instead of continuing to wonder like a shy first year. "Excuse me, Lebedova, um, may I inquire what you've been putting on my scalp?" He asked trying for an air of nonchalance.
She looked down at his face boredly humming "a squid ink and tonic hair stripper, it should strip all of the oils and build up from potion fumes and poor hygiene away from your scalp. And this" she punctuated by grabbing another potion bottle, this one a creamy light green with small bubbles at the top formed by her swishing of it, as she grinned "is a birch wood, caravan tea, and matricaria chamomilla hair protectant!"
She pulled his head up from the water, just a tad gentler with her attention seemingly drawn to the hair product. Her hand left his head as she dipped it into the container and scooped some out. She quickly spread it to both hands before lathering it all through out his hair. It seemed to disappear into it, his hair drying almost instantaneously with the new product coating it evenly.
When she was satisfied she backed off, stepping back to look at him again. She grabbed the chair before pulling it forward again. "Ok! Time for a hair cut!" She said joyfully, Severus springing out of the chair and rounding to stair at her with a sneer "you are NOT cutting my hair!"
She tutted at him "oh but we are, the dance at the ends needs to be cut off or it will just keep spreading upwards, besides you could do with some layers" Severus didn't budge at that stepping back with one foot "oh please, it's not like we're taking off more then an inch or too, stop behaving like a fool!" She stepped forward dragging him back into the seat.
Severus let her drag him with only a small bit of resistance, sitting in the seat still with a pout on his face.
Lebedova made quick work of cutting his hair, brushing it through a final time but not turning his chair around to look at himself just yet.
She returned to her bag again to bring out another comtainer, and upon hearing Severus' sneer she rolled her eyes and explained "this is to fix your ugly sallow skin you little minx!" She grinned applying it thoroughly, watching as it too disappeared into the skin barrier, he felt his skin tingle as it instantly started firming up.
When she finally turned the chair around he felt his heart stutter at what he was seeing. His hair was cut into a shaggy, wolf cut, that landed a little past his shoulders. It was soft and curled up at the ends like he remembers it doing as a child. His skin was smoother now, still a little too pale, but it seemed his pours had shrunken to an extreme extent.
Lebedova was standing with her arm leaned into the chair, that Cheshire grin returning and looking just as startling as ever. Her face quickly dropping to one of distaste and grabbing her wand off the counter when she saw him open his mouth in a small shooken smile.
"Episky" she said startling him as he felt a sharp pain in his teeth, he groaned and arched his back in pain as his hands shot up to his mouth trying to sooth the pain as his teeth forced themselves into place. "Scourgify" he he hear dully as he started to choke on soapy bubbles along with the splitting pain from his teeth.
He reached for his wand only to have his hand slapped away as it was ripped from its old holster. "I expect you to brush your teeth and maintain your appearance if you don't want to have a repeat of this experience dear Koshka" she said turning from him as his world blinded into white.
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When the pain finally died down he was alone again. The soap having subsided long before the pain had. He dragged himself to the sink to rinse his mouth with water and rinse his face from the stray tears that had slid down his cheeks. The cold water making his currently very sensitive teeth ache. He looked in the mirror again and made gave himself a small smile despite himself.
He had to admit that he did look good.
He stumbled out of the bathroom. exhaustedly he looked out the window judging it to be around dinner time, he decided to make his way to the great hall.
He felt a small ball of nerves in his stomach for how people would react. The feeling quickly growing as he got closer to the great hall’s large open doors.
He took a deep breath and walked in…