Even Stranger Things

Chrissy Cunningham was Sirianna’s favorite person in the world.

Second favorite.

Maybe third, except Benny was gone and had joined the list of Sirianna’s people who she cared about and could never see again.

After a day spent being confused by boys - Harry and Billy and Jonathan and Steve and Harry - Sirianna wasn’t feeling very friendly when it was time for gym. She changed slowly in the locker room, ignored the giggles as she shed layers.

Sirianna had seen the other girls, seen the curves they had that she didn’t, seen the soft and pretty underclothes they had. It was a selfish thought to have, but Sirianna would do almost anything to have bodies and clothes like theirs.

It wasn’t fair, none of it. It wasn’t fair that Benny was gone and Sirianna couldn’t bring him back, it wasn’t fair that girls giggled at Sirianna because she wasn’t curvy and didn’t have clothes like theirs. It wasn’t fair that Sirianna could imagine a whole different life for herself and Harry and it was forever out of her reach.

Sirianna kicked one of her shoes off, maybe more aggressively than the poor shoe really deserved, and nearly hit one of the other girls with it.

“Bad day?” Chrissy asked, picking up Sirianna’s shoe and handing it to her.

Sirianna huffed and blew away a strand of her hair that wouldn’t stay in the ponytail because she didn’t have a hairbrush at Chief Hopper’s house because Benny was gone and Sirianna couldn’t go back to his house.

“Sorry, stupid question,” Chrissy said with a nervous sounding laugh. She tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear and she was so pretty that Sirianna wanted to cry.

Sirianna’s mum was pretty, beautiful really. Sirianna had seen her in the Mirror of Erised, she had seen photos of her. Sirianna had her father’s hair, but she had always thought she looked like her mum. Sirianna assumed that she would be as beautiful as Lily Potter when she was older, beautiful enough to have boys tripping over themselves to impress her and girls asking her what her secrets were.

Instead, Sirianna had hair that wasn’t brushed, no curves, and she wouldn’t know what to do with makeup even if she owned any. Boys didn’t trip over themselves for her, girls didn’t like her. And none of it should matter because Benny was gone and she was free.

“Oh, are you - I… here.” Chrissy had a purse on the locker room bench and she dug in it to offer Sirianna a tissue. “My grandma died when I was in fifth grade and it was like the saddest thing to ever happen to me,” she said as she sat beside Sirianna. “I lit a candle at church for Benny, I am sorry he’s gone.”

“I’m not even crying about Benny!” Sirianna huffed. The other girls had left for class and Sirianna felt so terribly stupid. Stupid and selfish and sad. And part of it was for Benny, it was. Sirianna missed him, she missed the too brief time they had together.

“I am never going to fit in here, I don’t have a stupid hairbrush. I look - I look like a freak! You know someone called me Harry today, they actually confused me with my brother?” Sirianna shouldn’t be upset about that, they were nearly identical. Except Sirianna was a girl and she didn’t feel like a girl.

“I don’t have boobs or makeup or a - a family.” Sirianna didn’t have a mum she could talk to or a Benny who would give her advice. She had a brother who spoke more to his friends than he did Sirianna and that was it.

It was all making her feel lonely - alone and miserable.

“You are so not a freak,” Chrissy said. “I think you’re super pretty. I mean, you have to brush your hair, because it’ll get ratty if you don’t, but ugh, I would die to have hair as long as yours! Can I?” Chrissy reached up for Sirianna’s hair and her fingers paused there, the sparkly painted nails just above Sirianna’s head.

“Won’t we get in trouble for skipping?” Sirianna asked, stalling on answering Chrissy.

“Nope! I’ll just tell them we have cramps,” Chrissy said without a care in the world.

“I… okay,” Sirianna said, blushing. She didn’t have cramps and her hair wasn’t in great condition, she had taken a shower after walking the woods the night before. Chief Hopper only owned a bar of soap, which was hard to wash her hair with. Then it became all tangled and Sirianna only had her fingers to detangle it.

“Yay!” Chrissy jumped off the bench and snatched her bag back out of her locker and immediately dumped it on the bench. Sirianna looked at the contents and had never seen so much makeup, so many cosmetics and hair styling bottles and tools before.

And scrunchies. Wow. Chrissy owned a lot of scrunchies.

“It’s totally going to be worth missing gym for this,” Chrissy said. She grabbed a piece of gum to pop in her mouth before moving to stand behind Sirianna. “I’ve been dying to see what I could do with your hair. I think I’m going to be a hair stylist when I graduate. Wouldn’t that be fun? Spending all day making women beautiful?”

Sirianna thought it might, though Chrissy would probably need to work on being gentle. Sirianna swore she felt hair rip from her scalp when Chrissy took out the scrunchie she had used.

“Sorry, it’s - hm. Maybe you should get it wet first? Come on, let’s get it wet! Oh, you’re going to love it.” Chrissy jumped around the bench and grabbed Sirianna’s hands in hers, squeezing them with the friendliest smile. “Do you trust me? Because I have the best idea.”

Did Sirianna trust Chrissy? With… what? Her hair?

“Sure,” Sirianna said, hoping fiercely that she wasn’t making a mistake. Chrissy had been kind, friendly. She didn’t laugh at Sirianna or Harry, she didn’t make any cruel jokes. She even sat with her in class, partnered together in gym.

And honestly, Sirianna didn’t think that she could get any more depressed over the state of herself. It was so bad that even seeing herself in a mirror made her want to break the mirror.

Chrissy didn’t give Sirianna time to look in a mirror or to question herself. She waved her hand, excitedly telling Sirianna to - to take her top off so it wouldn’t get wet while Chrissy sprayed her hair.

“Oh! Is that weird? Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” Chrissy stole someone’s towel from the shower area and draped it around Sirianna’s shoulders when Sirianna hesitated at taking her top off. “I’m used to the girls on my team, I swear they’re always walking around naked after practice. I think I’m like immune to it now? Whatever. Okay, lean back.”

Sirianna was pushed in a chair and then caught up in Chrissy. Chrissy had her head tipped back and she started spraying her hair down with warm water, adding some nice smelling soap, and then - then she was scrubbing Sirianna’s hair and she didn’t expect to like it but she did.

Sirianna actually closed her eyes while Chrissy scratched her scalp and listened to the gossip that Chrissy shared. Most of it she didn’t understand, the girls on the cheerleading team seemed to be Chrissy’s best friends, but she knew some of the people.

“So Nancy was upset because Steve never called her and she thought they were going to go out again but Lisa told her that Steve is a skank, and he’s totally not, now I think Nancy’s upset. Plus the boy that’s missing? Jonathan’s little brother? He’s best friends with Nancy’s little brother and I think it’s probably hard at her house. My mom said she’s going to take them a casserole, which - like - what? Doesn’t Jonathan’s family need a casserole?”

Sirianna did some humming and felt as quiet as Harry while Chrissy rinsed her hair, added more soap, massaged it on her scalp.

“Tammy was being a total cunt about the pep rally being canceled. She was really acting like she’s the captain who worked so hard on the routine? When it was me? But she told Lisa who told Katie who told Ashley who told me that she’s threatening to quit the squad. And really, goodbye. She always has the worst attitude, it brings the whole team down.”

“You’re the captain of the cheerleading team?” Sirianna asked, terribly impressed by that. She peeked an eye open and saw Chrissy raised the shower sprayer again so she closed her eyes so the water didn’t get in them.

“Yeah, it’s my first year and it’s a big deal because my mom was the captain when she was on the team and so like if I do badly then I’m letting her down and if I do good it’s because I’m her daughter.”

“Oh.” Sirianna could understand that, to an extent. She was told she was an excellent flier - like her father, like her brother. She was told she was good at transfiguration - like her father.

“It’s cool though, I love most of the girls on the team.” Chrissy rinsed Sirianna’s hair and continued to chatter away comfortingly. “And it feels really romantic to cheer at Jason’s games, it’s like I’m there just for him and he plays harder for me. Sometimes he’ll blow me a kiss or something and I know the guys tease him, but don’t you think that’s sweet?”

Yeah, Sirianna did.

Chrissy wrapped another towel around Sirianna’s hair and had her sit up then decided that the lighting would be better by the window and she took her bag of girlie things while Sirianna moved two chairs for them to use.

“So you’re going to think about freaking out, but don’t…” Chrissy stuck a cigarette between her lips and lit it before pulling a pair of silver scissors out from behind her back. Sirianna looked at the scissors, looked at Chrissy. The scissors. Chrissy.

“I’ve…” Sirianna couldn’t explain why the sight of scissors made her want to bolt, but they did. “I’ve never cut my hair,” she said. It had been cut, not by Sirianna’s choice. It was probably magic that made it grow back out so quickly and fully, some sort of Potter family magic that made up for the young deaths and tragic lives.

“Then it’s totally time to do it,” Chrissy said. She pulled smoke in, blew it toward the window, and offered Sirianna the cigarette. “I promise, if it looks like trash then you can cut my ponytail off.”

Sirianna didn’t know if she could do that, Chrissy had the prettiest red hair. It was curled and her bangs always looked so great with her eyes.

“Okay,” Sirianna agreed, unreasonably scared of a teenage girl with a pair of scissors. “If you ruin my hair, I’ll cut yours.”

It would hurt them both, Sirianna was sure.

“Okay, so! You should dish.” Chrissy took no time at all in brushing out Sirianna’s hair while they swapped a cigarette back and forth. When the scissors moved from the sink to Chrissy’s hand, Sirianna clutched the armrests of her chair tightly.

“What is going on with you and Billy Hargrove?” Chrissy asked. “No offense, but he’s an ass. I mean, he’s totally hot, but he’s an ass. And Steve couldn’t stop looking at you two like Billy stole you away, it was almost funny really.”

Billy did seem like he could be an arse. And he was terribly hot… an unfair level of perfectly fit. But he’d been… surprisingly kind to Harry? Sirianna had been surprised to see them sitting together, she was worried Billy was going to be cruel to Harry as he had been to Steve, but he wasn’t.

There were a lot of comments that made Sirianna blush from head to toe and scowl, nothing rude to Harry though.

“Nothing’s going on,” Sirianna said truthfully. “We talked the other day when we met at the principal’s office, then I asked him about getting hurt today.”

And she told him that he should go to the nurses office because he was hurt and muggles had medicine to make pains go away. Sirianna hadn’t expected him to listen, though he swore he did and Harry had nodded in agreement.

“You and Harry sat with him at lunch,” Chrissy said. She laughed - which seemed to be a bad time to do it as Sirianna could see a snip of her black hair landing on the bathroom floor. “Billy’s never sat with anyone at lunch, he doesn’t even show up for it most of the time.”

“Oh.” Sirianna wanted to hear more about Billy, but she was also becoming concerned with her hair that Chrissy was cutting. “I think he’s lonely,” she said.

“Or he thinks you’re cute.”

Sirianna nearly snorted, but she didn’t want to move her head and risk having a horrible haircut.

“I’m not sure that’s it,” Sirianna said evenly, keeping her head perfectly still. “But - um… thanks.”

“Whatever you saaaaay,” Chrissy sang brightly. “We’ll see after gym. I’m really good at picking up on things like that. You’ll walk out, like a total movie star, and I’ll watch Billy. You shouldn’t look at him, don’t let him think you’re into him.”

“If I don’t look at him, he’ll think I don’t like him, and that’s good?” Sirianna asked. That didn’t make any sense.

“Trust me,” Chrissy said again. “I was going to suggest that if Billy wasn’t an ass then you should flirt with Steve or Jonathan, see if you can make him jealous. Because if so then he’s like serious, if not then he probably just wants to get laid.”

Sirianna had never wished so badly that she had a notebook with her. Chrissy was beautiful, her boyfriend was handsome, and Sirianna wanted to remember all of her advice.

Even if the idea of Sirianna flirting with a boy was terrifying and filled her body with a nervous kind of buzzing.

“Oh this is soo Farrah Fawcett.” Chrissy spent forever on Sirianna’s hair, then she wouldn’t let Sirianna see it before she decided to do her makeup as well. Sirianna had her eyes poked a few times, but she was excited to see herself with makeup.

“Wait! Do not move, Sirianna!” Chrissy put her hands on Sirianna’s shoulders to hold her in place and it didn’t bother her, Chrissy had already poked all over her face, messed with her hair. Chrissy was…

Well, if Sirianna didn’t look like a freak then Chrissy would probably be the greatest person Sirianna knew.

“Okay,” Sirianna promised, breathless with excitement. There was a mirror behind the sinks and if Sirianna just stood up, she could see herself in it.

Would she look older? Mature? Would she be pretty? Even - even a little bit?

Would she look like her mum?

“Hold this.” Chrissy ran back in the room, she probably didn’t trust Sirianna to hold out very long. Chrissy was beaming while she thrust a handful of fabric at Sirianna before she began stripping her black sweater and pleated skirt off.

Sirianna quickly looked away, trying to give Chrissy privacy since it seemed as if they were friends, and Chrissy explained quickly.

“You can’t have a total makeover then go show it off in those clothes,” she said. She grabbed the bundle of white clothes she gave Sirianna from her hands and replaced them with the clothes she pulled off herself. “I’ve got to cheer tonight and my mom will never notice an outfit missing from my closet. Oh! Sirianna! You should come over this weekend! You’re a little bit shorter than me and my mom keeps like everything! I bet I’ve got so many outfits you could take!”

“What? No, I couldn’t.” Sirianna tried to push the clothes back to Chrissy, but Chrissy refused to take them. It was… terribly exciting, imagining herself in cute clothes, dressed like one of the other girls. But Chrissy had done enough… and Sirianna couldn’t go to someone’s house without Harry.

“Too bad.” Chrissy pushed the clothes right back at her even while she tugged on her cute cheerleading uniform. “Come on, do it for me! I want to see if I’m right about Billy and Steve.”

Sirianna sighed, but she couldn’t help smile a little bit. Chrissy was crazy, crazy with her ideas that Billy and Steve found her cute… it - it would be exciting, Sirianna couldn’t deny that even to herself.

It was crazy talk though and if putting on a different outfit would prove it, make Chrissy tell her that she was wrong, Sirianna was a freak… better to get it over with.

And a part of Sirianna desperately wanted her to be right. She wanted to be pretty and do things for fun. She didn’t want Benny to be gone and Harry to be silent.

“Okay, I’ll try it. Thank you.” Sirianna stepped backward in a stall so she could peel off the clothes she wore and replace them with Chrissy’s. She tucked the sweater in like Chrissy did and looked down at herself, somehow feeling different already.

They were the same clothes that a lot of the girls wore, the pretty sweater and skirt like Sirianna had wore at Hogwarts… they - it shouldn’t have, but just changing into something normal made Sirianna feel some of the weight on her chest lighten.

“Okay! Let’s see!!” Chrissy backed up beside the mirror and was positively beaming when Sirianna walked out of the stall. She even clapped, which made Sirianna laugh when she didn’t mean to.

“Oh, everyone is going to die,” Chrissy swore. “Are you ready?”

No. Sirianna was terrified.

What if Chrissy spent all that time, did all that work, and it didn’t matter? What if Sirianna wasn’t ugly because she didn’t know how to do her hair right, didn’t know how to apply makeup, but because she was just ugly?

It shouldn’t matter, but Sirianna knew it would.

Sirianna held her breath and resisted the urge to squish her eyes shut when she slowly stepped up to the mirror.

For a long moment, Sirianna didn’t recognize herself. Her wild black curls, always so difficult to even brush, had been thinned out, layered, fluffed out in a hairstyle Sirianna had seen other girls wear. The round eyes blinked when Sirianna blinked and seemed bigger, brighter, with the green eyeshadow and black makeup that circled them.

For the first time since she was a little girl playing dress-up with Lavender Brown, Sirianna looked in the mirror and thought the girl that looked back was - was pretty.

Chrissy smiled when Sirianna did.

“Well? Do you feel completely gorgeous now?” she asked.

Sirianna tilted her head, studied herself from different angles, and nodded.

“I feel - I - I look like my mum,” Sirianna said. She lifted her hand to touch her reflection and she couldn’t cry, not when Chrissy put so much work into her makeup, but she wanted to.

Not sad tears, not tears of grief or pain, but for a small spark of happiness that she felt. She looked like Lily Potter, she looked pretty.

It was stupid, it was, but… it wasn’t at the same time.

Chrissy was probably more excited than Sirianna was when they went outside to wait behind the gym for class to end. Chrissy wanted to smoke and she gave Sirianna her own cigarette with a warning to not cry.

“When I feel like crying, I smoke,” she said, sounding smart even if Sirianna thought it might have been flawed logic. It worked though, Sirianna had felt her eyes prickling since she saw herself in the mirror and instead they sort of burned while she smoked again.

The bell rang and Sirianna jumped, just as terrified and excited as she had been startled. Chrissy tossed her cigarette quickly so she could fluff Sirianna’s hair, fussing over it until they were both laughing.

“Perfect,” she said. “Okay, go stand over by Jonathan’s car so the boys all see you. We’ll totally compare notes tomorrow when you come over.”

Sirianna didn’t remember agreeing to go to Chrissy’s house, but she let Chrissy give her a small push to get her out in the lot. It was terrifying, dizzying, thrilling to stand in the lot and know that any minute the back doors would open and who would laugh? Who would laugh after all the work Chrissy did?

Chrissy was a witch, she had to be. It was magic, the way that Sirianna felt. She felt taller, more mature, like a whole different person.

Beneath the makeup and the new hair was still too many problems, but Sirianna felt like she was someone who could tackle them all.

Sirianna could slay dragons, defeat evil, flirt with fit boys with stormy blue eyes and blonde curls.

The back doors of the school opened and Chrissy shot her a thumbs up. Sirianna shouldn’t have been nervous, she looked much better than she had on the first day of school when everyone stared.

Her heart still raced and there was a buzzing filling her veins, her ears. Was she swallowing weird? She reached up to touch her hair, made herself drop her hands.

What did she do with her hands?

Sirianna ended up tucking them behind her back, held tightly while she tried to watch all the students who walked past without looking like she was watching them. Were they looking at her twice because she was doing something wrong? Did Carol’s face twist up because she just hated Sirianna or some other reason?

Jonathan walked out of the gym briskly, his hands pushed deep in his jean pockets and his head ducked. Sirianna was right beside his car, he couldn’t miss her. He didn’t say anything at all until Nancy passed Sirianna and said that she loved her hair, then he looked up.

“Oh. Hey.” Jonathan’s gaze lingered for a second on Sirianna’s hair, but… but he didn’t look ready to trip over himself when he nodded at her. “You ready?”

“Yes,” Sirianna said. There were more important things happening than her brand new look. Jonathan’s brother was important, finding out who killed Benny was important. But Harry wasn’t even outside yet and they couldn’t leave without him.

Jonathan still slid in the driver’s seat of his car and Sirianna straightened up again when she saw her brother walking out of the gym with Steve. Steve would definitely say something, Sirianna hoped. He had to notice. He was the one who said she had pretty eyes and he was… he was kind of nice, or he had been since Benny died anyway.

Harry noticed Sirianna first and he frowned at her before nodding at whatever Steve was telling him that involved a lot of hand movements. Sirianna was disappointed, but she didn’t want her brother to think she was pretty, she wanted real boys to think so.

“You could come over this weekend, oh! What about tonight? My parents aren’t home? You could ride home with me after we get done searching the woods? We could practice?” Steve stopped when Harry did in front of Sirianna and he threw her a brief smile, his attention focused on Harry.

Which… wasn’t exactly new, but managed to sting still.

“There’s a net set up in the garage - woah, wait!” Steve turned back to Sirianna and she lit up when his eyes widened as he took her in. “Hey, you look great,” he said. “New clothes?”

“They’re Chrissy’s,” Sirianna said in a rush, jumping up and down on the inside that someone finally noticed. She beamed and couldn’t stop herself from ruffling the side of her hair, making sure that he saw it was new too.

“Nice.” Steve was still smiling and then he dismissed Sirianna rather abruptly in favor of turning back to Harry and trying to convince him to go to his house.

Chrissy was watching closely from behind the gym. Sirianna could see her looking between Sirianna and her brother and Steve. Sirianna should have warned her that it wasn’t exactly a blank test if Harry was there, he was always more interesting even when he said nothing at all.

Sirianna wanted to be like that, to be someone that people were drawn to. She thought - maybe - with the right clothes and makeup like everyone else had…

There was a whistle that caught everyone’s attention, made everyone turn in time to see Billy step in the lot. He wasn’t looking at Harry, he was looking directly at Sirianna and he had whistled.

Sirianna swore she could hear Chrissy giggle.

“Damn, kitten.” Billy pushed past Steve, stepping right up in front of Sirianna until she had to tilt her head up some to see the lazy grin on his face, the spark in his eyes.

Billy was an arse, Chrissy had said so and Sirianna had seen it. But he had dreamy eyes that seemed to see her - actually see her, Sirianna - and better than that? He looked as if he liked what he saw.

“Got all dolled up, for me? You shouldn’t have,” Billy said, which was definitely flirting, Sirianna was sure of it. “I thought you said you were busy tonight.”

“I am,” Sirianna said, too proud of herself for not stuttering. She had told Billy as much when he asked her to go for a drive with him after school, Jonathan was her friend and his brother was missing. “I have important plans.”

“Change them,” Billy said. He grinned and it was so cocky and confident. “You won’t regret it.”

Sirianna almost did when he winked - when he winked at her.

“She’s got plans, man, back off,” Steve interjected, saving Sirianna from saying something she wouldn’t have meant.

“I didn’t hear her say no,” Billy said, still looking at Sirianna with something like a challenge in his eyes. “Say no and I’ll walk away,” he said.

Sirianna didn’t want to say no, but Will was missing. Sirianna liked challenges, she liked new things - exciting things. And Billy was exciting, intimidating, veryhandsome.

“I can’t,” she said, genuinely apologetic. She wanted to ride in Billy’s car, she wanted to see what it was like to be alone with a boy who was not her brother. “We have to find Will, he’s just a boy and he’s missing.”

“Yeah?” Billy shrugged and Sirianna didn’t want him to walk away, she wanted him to understand that she had to help find Jonathan’s little brother.

“If I help you find the kid, you’ll be out of excuses,” he said. He was definitely challenging Sirianna then. It might not be real flirting, it might be the makeup and the hair and Chrissy’s clothes that made Sirianna wish it were.

But a small voice in the back of her head said that maybe it was real flirting, maybe Chrissy was right.

“Hey! Nobody invited you —”

“Brilliant,” Sirianna breathed. She leaned past Billy to find Harry, to make sure that he was okay with it. Harry didn’t seem to like Billy that morning, though he’d been fine during lunch. “Har? Do you mind?”

Harry had been quiet all day around Sirianna. She thought he was tired, she should have let him sleep in the bedroom and taken the couch. Harry didn’t like to sleep with doorways unblocked and there were too many of them in Chief Hopper’s house for him to have blocked.

It had been selfish of her, she didn’t even think about it until she saw how tired Harry looked. When they returned, Sirianna would sleep on the couch and she would promise Harry that nobody would get to him while he slept.

Harry shook his head, though there was something sort of sad about it. Something that tugged at Sirianna’s chest and nearly made her take it back - she didn’t want Harry to be upset. She only ever wanted him to be happy.

“Awesome,” Steve said, scowling at Billy and shuffling half a step closer to Harry. “I’m sure the kid is going to hear your voice and run further away.”

“Clever,” Billy said dryly. “You think of that one on your own or pay someone to do it for you?”

“You drive a freaking Camaro, Hargrove!”

“Yeah, I do.” Billy’s attention was back on Sirianna, blocking her view of Harry. “Ride with me, we’ll catch up to them. I gotta drop my stepsister off at home first.”

It might have been a bad idea, or maybe the best idea in the world. But Harry didn’t say anything to stop Sirianna and she was alive and pretty and free.

“Okay.”

Alive, pretty, free, and could finally see if the inside of Billy’s car was everything he claimed it was.