Severus Snape was touched by Lily Evans once. Not anywhere sexual, but on his hair. She roughly caressed his scalp. Of course, she was actually pushing him away as he tried to kiss her, but that didn’t matter. Not to him at least. His ginger, ephemeral, bombshell of a Eurydice had blessed him with a touch. That was enough.
But when he had come for her, when he had tried to be her Orpheus, he gazed back at her for reassurance in the hell that followed and he failed. James Potter, that Hades of a brat had swept her away and locked him out.
Severus doubted that James even truly loved her. He was likely only dating her to torment him. Then they got married. Had a child. All to spite Snape.
The touch happened during their last day of their seventh year. It had been a long time since, twenty-five years to be exact. But that didn’t matter. Snape had never washed his hair since. Sure, it was a bit crusty. Maybe it was kind of dirty. But he could still commemorate the touch of his queen, so it was all worth it.
And finally, he had reached the twenty-five year reunion of Lily Evans (never Potter. He refused to disgrace his queen in such a way) coming in contact with him. It was the final day of school before summer break. He smeared a full container of greasy gel onto his hair and glowed with happiness as students parted in the main hall to allow him to close the distance to his seat.
McGonagall delivered her speech as the newly instated headmaster of Hogwarts, and the party for the end of the year began. It lasted for hours, and Snape spent every one of them thinking about how he would greet his Lily Evans body pillow back at home. It was a special occasion after all.
He was so busy fantasizing that he didn’t even realize that the students had filed out of the great hall, as had the teachers. All were gone for summer break. All except him and McGonagall. He knew that she stayed for a few hours to speak with the portrait of Albus, which was hung in the hall.
Speaking of her, he couldn’t see her. Suddenly he heard from behind him, quietly:
“I’m so sorry, Severus. But this had to be done.” A cloth covered his mouth. He sharply inhaled, and everything faded to black.
—------------------------------
McGonagall cheered. She had finally done it. She had managed to get Snape unconscious. His hair would finally be cleansed. It was a biohazard at this point. It was most of the reason that Harry Potter could defeat Voldemort. The fumes from Severus’ hair had weakened him. It would hardly have taken a shove to destroy him. And it had only gotten worse since.
She had had to have all the students wear masks this year under the pretense of a disease, but it was really just the sheer threat of having Severus within a 5 mile radius of someone. Everyone had to resort to muggle tactics to deliver mail. The owls would drop dead before they could even leave. She would’ve asked Snape to wear a mask too, but the hair gel behind his ears had hardened and built up so much that the straps could never stay.
It had been twenty-five years since he washed his hair. But McGonagall would finally be able to stop the madness. She would wash his hair. She wanted to sob from relief. But now wasn’t the time to celebrate. She first had to make sure he would stay unconscious through the process. If he didn’t, well, McGonagall wasn’t sure she would survive.
She dragged his body through the halls by his feet, quickly reaching the infirmary. She had trained for years for this. It was child’s play. Wrenching open the case of draught of dreamless sleep that Madam Pomfrey kept, she quickly unscrewed three bottles and poured them down Snape’s throat, carefully refraining from letting him choke.
Finally, he was out cold.
McGonagall let out a sigh of relief and once again got a hold of his foot. She now dragged him to the prefect’s bathroom. Since summer had begun, the bath was completely drained. Perfect. She set Snape inside and unceremoniously propped him against the side. Lastly, she picked up the tools she had deposited there earlier that day, and began the most challenging task of her career. Restoring Severus’ hair.
Her first tool was a small chisel, the type used to refine details on ice sculptures. This was used to begin removing the hair gel behind his ears, which had become a block. McGonagall donned her oxygen mask (attached to a large tank) and her 4 pairs of heavy-duty gloves, and began the task.
Whilst she did so, she couldn’t help but think about how much easier life would be if Snape had come to his recent revelation less… recently. He had, as of late, been using more greasy hair gel in a vague attempt to imitate the hair of James Potter during his teenage years. Who he was trying to impress, McGonagall wasn’t sure. But it didn’t harden like his other gels did, and therefore was way easier to chip off. That, or it was more recent and hadn’t had a chance to set. Either way, she was grateful.
Until she faced the literal block that was Snape’s residual hair gel. But it was not met with despair. It was met with willpower. McGonagall meticulously chipped at the sides attached to his skin. She worked with precision previously unknown to humanity. And finally, after an hour and a half of work, she finished. The first of the two blocks came loose. McGonagall marveled at the result of her efforts.
Something that not many people know about McGonagall is that she has always had a backup plan in case witchcraft didn’t work out. Should all else fail, she would become an entomologist and study insects. She had a sort of infatuation with the things. They were so interesting to her, with all the different species and traits.
So when she, within the block of clear hair dye, saw a perfectly preserved batch of lice eggs, she was both amazed and horrified. Something like that had never been previously seen. Not in her time, and certainly never before. And Snape had done it accidentally. However, even through her awe, McGonagall recognized the importance of her original task and got back to it. She was able to promptly beat her previous time of an hour and a half with forty-five minutes. Soon she had two vaguely cube-shaped cubes of hardened hair gel sitting to the side, and had to take out her second and third tools.
A spray bottle full of warm water and a small bit of acetone along with a couple combs. Sure, the combs should all be counted separately, but shut up.
McGonagall knew that acetone damaged hair, but honestly, if Snape’s hair could survive all it had previously endured, it could take a bit of acetone.
She slipped another dose of draught of dreamless sleep down his throat for good measure, and began the centerpiece of her project.
Spraying the water and combing at first seemed like a futile task, but slowly and surely began working chunks of gel off. Somehow she knew that she must be working at the easier part, though. Every hour of her work, she got a centimeter closer to the scalp of the madman that she called a friend.
But another surprise was in store. As McGonagall got further and further down, the hair got easier to comb instead of harder. It should have been as bad as, or even worse than how his ears had been. But instead, the hair became more and more gel-free. She combed nonetheless, until she eventually got out more than just grease. An unhealthy amount of lice were caught on her comb.
McGonagall reached for the nearest container –one that had some residual hair gel inside– and tapped the comb against the edge. Most of the lice fell off, and she dropped the comb in favor of sealing the container. Suddenly, she noticed a strange thing. The hair gel. They were eating it.
A mound of completely black lice slowly fed on it.
Fascination took over McGonagall for multiple reasons. The first of which was that completely black lice had never been seen before. Dark gray, sure. But never black. The second of which was the sheer amount of selective breeding that would have been necessary to produce a breed of lice that ate hair gel.
“Severus, you lucky bastard.”
Once again, he had managed to complete an amazing task through sheer luck.
Another repetitive factor was that McGonagall sadly had to continue her work despite wanting to study her discovery. She transported ample amounts of lice into a jar before finally bringing out her fourth tool.
A fire extinguisher full of sulfuryl fluoride.
Or, for those who don’t know much about fumigation, a fire extinguisher full of lice bye bye juice.
McGonagall attached a shower cap to Snape’s head and cut a hole in the top, spraying the chemicals onto his hair. She let the canister empty for a moment before removing his hat and washing the chemicals out.
His hair was mostly pliant after that. Finally, she could reach from the back of his scalp to the front of it with no hitch. But the back was a different story. A small dome of gel still attached itself to it.
Upon peeling it off, McGonagall was met with an amazing sight. A rat was conducting 5 cockroaches to play a biblically accurate version of the bohemian rhapsody on miniature instruments. It was like a lullaby.
Seeing her, the cockroaches and the rat scattered, but not before she could notice that the rat was missing its right index finger.
But even with the suspicious dismemberment of a finger on the rat, McGonagall still cried tears of joy when she realized that Snape’s hair was clear of gel.
She quickly shampooed and conditioned his hair, administering a dandruff treatment before washing it all out and trimming it.
McGonagall’s favorite colleague’s hair was finally clean and properly cut after six hours of effort and multiple new species of bugs being discovered.
Snape never forgave her.