First Day Of Classes Pt. 1(Fine, maybe that’s a more boring title, but it’s true)
Monday, September 4th, 2023
Severus woke up at 7:03 the next morning, just to find Lucius fully ready and anxiously pacing around the room. “Why are you doing that?”
Lucius startled, quickly turning to look at his polar opposite. “I want to go to breakfast and stuff with you since except our electives which we don’t even have until tomorrow our school schedules are the same, but I’m ready and you just woke up and—”
“Right, then.” Severus cut in, done with the panic and just wanting to sleep more. “Just go. I wanna sleep more.”
“What? No! Transfiguration starts in less than an hour!”
“So?”
“You need to shower and get dressed and brush your teeth and comb your hair and eat breakfast and—”
“Eh, I might just wear this. And showering and all that isn’t so important. Breakfast isn’t my style either.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t interrupt me this time.”
“Fine.” Severus groaned, it being too early to care about keeping his guards up or or making sure he didn’t sound defenseless.
“You have to shower because you haven’t in I don’t know how long and your hair and body need to be clean; about the same goes for brushing your teeth and combing your hair and such. Those clothes are most definitely dirty—you’ve been wearing them since the 1st at least.”
“And breakfast?”
“Breakfast is so important! How can you expect to make it until lunch, over four hours without even taking in consideration the fact that your last meal was at 7:00 last night, with 0 calories?! No calories, no energy!”
“You’re too skinny to tell me to eat.”
“I eat three times a day, and often have a snack as well.” Lucius protested.
“God, I hate people like you.”
“People like me?”
“People with high metabolisms. The money and appetite to eat the fattiest food 24/7 and stay a size 12 or whatever.”
“Studies have actually shown that things like fat and sugar don’t make you gain weight. It has a lot more to do with the amount of calories you eat, the amount you burn off, the amount of water you drink, alcohol and drug consumption, genetics, and just your general body type because not all bodies are the same. Not to mention diseases, sex, and tons of other factors that are too long to list.”
“Whatever.”
“You’re skinny too.”
“I’m malnourished….And still bigger than you.”
“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat!”
“It wouldn’t hurt to miss a meal or two.”
“Yes it would!” Lucius insisted, horrified at the other boy’s nonchalant attitude as he spouted out something he had been fighting to keep away from his sisters their whole lives. “You have to eat to survive!”
“This man, Agostino "Angus" Giuseppe A Barbieri, lived for like a year, I think 382 days, on just coffee, tea, sparkling water, and vitamins.”
Lucius lost his words, mouth hanging open, eyes squinting, from the intense shock of it. He did not like Severus’s knowledge of this man.
“Well?”
“That—that’s horrible.”
“It’s impressive.”
“No, it’s disordered.”
“He was twenty-five. It was from 1965-1966.” Severus went on, finally sitting up on his bed, but not getting up. “I read the whole Wikipedia article on him.”
“W-why?”
“He lost 125 kg(206 pounds).”
“That’s way too much.”
“He started at 207 kg(456 pounds) and ended at 82 kg(180 pounds).”
“He lost nearly 136 kg(three hundred pounds) in a year?! That’s so unhealthy!”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. I’m not saying he didn’t need to lose weight, I know next to nothing about him, but you should not, under any circumstance, lose more than about 47 kg(104 pounds) a year. At most just under 1 kg(2 pounds) a week.”
“He was much skinnier though….I mean in the before-and-after pictures he looked happier in the before one, but still.”
“You need food.” Lucius didn’t leave any room for argument. “Now, get up before you run out of time.”
Severus huffed, but decided it would just be easier to comply, so got up and walked over to the bathroom, grabbing some random clothes out of his closet on the way.
The shower was much better than Severus was expecting—unfamiliarly hot water, good soap, and no T.V. in the background spewing bigoted bullshit to ignore. Then there were the unfamiliar creams promising hydration and no blemishes and wrinkle prevention that he only knew where went because of the labels. That followed by toothpaste that didn’t make him gag, a much softer way of detangling his hair than rough pulling with an old, hair-filled, brush, and lip balm that assured it would provide protection while keeping you stylish.
But, then he got to his clothes.
The random pulling out got him a knee-length, grass green, dress with a light blue bow around the waist, black tucking underwear, and white sandals.
He wanted the dress, it made his heart flutter in an unexplainable way, it was the first dress he circled in any of the magazines, but his first day? There was no way Lucius’s efforts would save him from bullying if he wore this.
Then again: why did it even matter what people thought? It was his clothes, his body, he could wear whatever he wanted. And if people didn’t like him? Well, they probably wouldn’t anyway.
With that Severus slipped the clothes on, spinning both from joy and to see what the dress looked like as it mushroomed out.
Not too long after, however, Lucius knocked on the door, ruining his fairy tail. “Twenty more minutes until class starts! We need to go to the Great Hall right now so we can grab some food to eat on the way!”
“I—I’m not going!” Severus flipflopped again, deciding some cloth wasn’t worth all that harassment.
“What?”
“I’m not going to class.”
“You have to.”
“No.”
“Severus.”
“I’m not going!”
“Come out here.”
That he would do, surely Lucius wouldn’t buy him such girly things just to make fun of him. Right?
Lucius got a look of understanding on his face as he comprehended what the short teen had on, and why that may make him nervous to leave the dorm. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“....You look really pretty.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
“I can’t go out there like this.”
“Sure you can.”
“Not after the million pounds or whatever you spent just to keep me from getting bullied.”
“I didn’t buy you that stuff just to keep you from getting bullied. Anyway, being comfortable in your own skin is more important than being popular….I won’t let any hurt you.”
“What can you do?”
“Quite a lot, actually. My name means a lot, and I’m not completely incompetent.”
Severus wanted to say that he wasn’t incompetent at all, but he didn’t actually know that was true yet, and it was far too sappy. They barely knew each other—yet Lucius was offering protection.
“Severus?”
“Do you want to be friends?”
“W-what?”
Severus had to think for a second before realizing what he said, before deciding if he wanted to go through with it. “I want to be friends; me and you. We’d make a good duo.”
“Because I have power?” He was only half-joking.
“Yeah.” Severus fought back a grin. “That’s definitely the only reason.”
Lucius didn’t hold back. “Alright then!”
“....I guess we really have to go now, huh?”
“Sure do!”
“Ugh, great.”
He kept on smiling. “Yup, great!”