Jily Oneshots (pt2)

Unique Results for Gingers

by cascader on archiveofourown.org

October, 1974. Lily.

Sleekeazy’s new line has been recommended by every other witch Lily’s talked to this month, extolments in the loo, shiny new hair flashed in classes, and tips traded over the dinner table having coalesced into an endorsement so powerful that even Lily and Mary, staunch Muggle product users that they are, scored a bottle at Hogsmeade for a trial run.

A dreary autumn Thursday finds the girls testing it out for the first time. Weak, early-morning light filters in through the lone lavatory window, setting the thick, silver potion aglitter in Lily’s hands. Cold and unnaturally light for its viscosity, it’s subtly disconcerting in that way that magic still always is.

She leans forward, her neck bending to an uncomfortable angle and hair flopping into the sink as she mimics Mary’s posture from just minutes prior. She massages the potion in slowly, fingers working in goosebump-inducing figure-eights against her scalp, just like how Annabeth from Ravenclaw had recommended.

Her fingers starts to freeze up after about a minute, so she straightens, reaches to flip her hair over one shoulder, and —

Screams. She screams.

“Oh my god,” says Mary, agape at the other sink. Her mouth works uselessly for a few more seconds as she points, shakily and seemingly unconsciously, at Lily’s reflection. The gesture, as Lily would later recall, looks straight from the mind of Edvard Munch, and it’d be the most comical thing in the room, if not for… well. 

“You’re — you’ve got…” Mary trails off.

“Oh my god,” Lily moans, pressing closer to the mirror. Her hands flutter upwards only to pause before they can touch anything. She feels her entire person freeze up, then release, slow and sluggish — absurdity, the paralytic. “What's it even done? It… you — you just used this, and your hair is fine. How could it…”

“Lily?” Marlene calls from the dormitory bedroom. “Or was that Mary? Are you alright in there?”

Lily sees the door handle start to twitch and yelps, instinctively snatching her wand off the counter to lock it back shut. Marlene is a dear, but Lily needs time to kickstart her higher faculties. She turns back to Mary, a flush creeping up her neck.

The handle rattles again. “Did you just lock this? What are you doing in there?” Marlene asks, voice muffled through the wood.

Lily stares at Mary. Mary stares back.

“Oh, dear,” Mary says.

Lily turns back to her reflection, caught between wanting to lean close and never look at herself again. A giggle escapes her, a bit unhinged, before she presses her fingers loosely over her mouth. “I… I think it’s going to be a long day, Mare.”

Thirty minutes later finds Lily and Mary still locked in the dormitory loo, Marlene and the rest of their roommates having grumbled away to beg off the fifth years. Penance for years of showers long enough to make her eye twitch, Lily thinks.

“That’s every spell I can think of,” Lily mutters, still glaring at her reflection. She’s exhausted, and it’s not yet eight.

Mary winces. “We probably should’ve read that label more carefully, yeah?”

Lily sighs, crossing her arms as she finally turns her back on the bloody mirror. “I guess, but really, I mean, who would’ve thought... ‘unique results for gingers’... I still don’t even know what that means. Does it do this for every ginger?” She gestures vaguely at her head.