βoh, come on, remus ! just tell me who it is already ! i swear to merlin i wonβt tell a soul !β you exclaimed for what you figured must have been the fifthΒ timeΒ that day. yourΒ best mate, a gryffindor boy by the name of remus lupin, had continued to refuse to reveal to you who his crush was, despite all the promises you made to keep it a secret. remus'Β reasoning for not telling you were complete bloodyΒ shit;Β he kept saying that ifΒ he told you, james would never let him hear the end of it, as he hadnβt even told himΒ yet. you were friendly enoughΒ with james, but that was truly only because he was the best mate of your boyfriend, the infamous sirius black. if it had been up to you, you wouldnβt talk to the messy haired boy at all, as he was too much of a player for your liking; you didnβt really like to associate with those types of people.
remus just shook his head, sending you a small smile over the top of his library book. βsorry, ( n/n ). no can do.β
there was something hidden deep in the depths of his eyes, something that you couldnβt quite put your finger on. it unnerved you, and so you quickly got up, huffing as you did so, muttering something about how annoying boys were. you didnβt bother to push your chair in before walking away from yourβs and remusβ table andΒ rounding the corner of one of the bookshelves, beginningΒ to look forΒ a book of your own to read through.
you found the ancient looking spell book hidden away in the spaces between shelves, where oneΒ open-backed shelf met the open back of another. it had slipped out as someone re-shelved a book on the other side, opening up to a worn, yellowing page as it hit the floor with a soft and chilling thud. crouching down to pickΒ the book up, you drew in a sharp breath as you readΒ the large, almost bold-lookingΒ text at the top of the page. in scrawling script, which appeared to truly be handwritten, read the wordsΒ "BEAUTIFICATION CHARM : APPEAR AS THE PERSON WHOΒ IS FOUND TO BE MOST ATTRACTIVE BY ANY WHO LAY EYES ON THEEβ.Β appearing as the person who any of your many peers found most beautiful ? sign me the hell up, you thought as you pushed yourself back up. peering around the corner of the shelves, you spotted no one near the section you were in, and quickly slipped the small, leather bound book up the sleeve of your school robes, hurriedly making your way towards the front ofΒ the library. you threw a quick apology at remus as you passed the table that you had previously been sitting at, the one that he was still sitting at, and almost ran to the great wooden doors leading out into the hallway. as soon as you made it outside, you pressed yourself up against the wall, breathing heavily. you had never done anything like this before; you were usually so well-behaved, and stealing a book from a library was certainly a first for you.
Λ ΛΛ β β : β β’ *
once back in your common room, you scrambled up the stairs to theΒ girls dorm, almost tripping twice, and making many of your housemates laugh at your hurry. you peaked into your dorm room, silent as a mouse, and pushed the door open wider as you realized that none if your dorm mates were currently inside. you scurried into the room, flopping yourself down on your bed and holding the spell book high above your head. you flipped through the pages impatiently, until at last you came to the page the book had opened to previously, the one with the spell scribbled across the worn yellow page. you quickly read over the directions, muttering the spell to yourself as you went : "venusenthium, venusenthium, venusenthium.β
in a rush to try out the new ( or old, rather ) spell, you rolled off of your bed, just managing to catch yourself before your back hit the hard wood flooring of the dorm room. pushing yourself up onto your feet, you grabbed for your wand, which you had thrown onto your bed when you entered the room, and pulled the tiny leather-bound book closer to you.
βvenusenthium,β you murmured, pointing your wand at your chest like the book had directed.
you stood very still for a moment, trying to determine if it had worked or not; you didn'tΒ feelΒ any different from before, except maybe for the feeling of anxiousness that had settled itself into the pit of your stomach.
you held your breath as you turned to face the full length mirror that was propped up against one wall of the dorm. what if it hadnβt worked ?Β you thought to yourself. i would have ditched remus for nothing.
however, when you finally caught a glimpse of what you were sure had to be your form, your mouth fell open in a silent gasp.Β you didnβt look like you. your facial features seemed to be shifting between those of audrey hepburn and judy garland, both muggle actresses who you simply adored. your hair was changing, too, from red to blonde to black to green, and many more colors as well. your figure was altering too, and it was when you noticed that that the fact that the spell had actually worked had finally begun to sink in.
βyes !β you screamed, spinning away from the mirror and pumping a fist in the air. βyes, yes, yes !β you had done it! you had actually, really done it. and you knew exactly what you were going to do first with this awesome new charm.
you were going to find out who your best mate had a crush on.
Λ ΛΛ β β : β β’ *
you had never meant to run into your boyfriend in the halls while you were heading back down to the library. all you had wanted to do was find remus, make him a stuttering, blushing mess by appearing to him as whomever it was that he found to be most beautiful ( who you naturally assumed would be his crush ), and finally figuring out who it was that he was, well, crushing on.
but of course, fate never pays any mind to what we want, now does it ?
in your rush to get back to the library, you had stopped paying attention to the people surrounding you, so it really shouldnβt have come as quite such a shock to you when you collided with a solid chest immediately after turning a corner. the personβs arms wrapped around your waist out of what you assumed was instinct, your palms coming to rest flat against their broad chest. when you tilted your head up to face said person, you found the face of sirius black, your beloved significant other, grinning down at you.
you opened your mouth to say something to the dark haired pureblood, probably something along the lines of βthanks for saving me from falling on my arse, babeβ, but sirius beat you to it :
βhey marlene, funny running into you here.β
upon hearing and registering siriusβ words, you inhaled sharply. you had been so startled when you ran into sirius that you had almost forgotten about the charm that you had placed on yourself. almost. apparently, all it took for the memory to shove its way to the front of your brain was sirius mistaking you for marlene mckinnon.
βsirius,β you said, staring up at him, ( e/c ) eyes wide. βsirius, iβm not marlene. itβs me, ( y/n ).β your voice was quiet, barley even above a whisper.
siriusβ eyes went wide as well. β( y/n ) ? but, but you look so much like marlene.β his hand came up to caress your face, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. βyou look β¦ you look so much like her β¦β
you tried to speak, to say something, anything, but the words were stuck in your throat. siriusβ embrace was suffocatingly tight, and you wanted more than anything to be out of it. merlin, you felt like your lungs were going to explode.
you hadnβt noticed that there were tears in your eyes until sirius commented on them : βhey, mar - ( y/n ), are you crying ? babe, why are you crying ? and why do you look so much like marlene ?β
you looked away from him. you knew it was stupid of you to be crying over this, over the fact that sirius apparently found marlene mckinnon to be the most attractive person in the world ( or the most attractive person he had seen so far, at least ); after all, it wasnβt like sirius didnβt still love you in spite of the fact that he found marlene to be more physically attractive.
but it was like that, you told yourself. it wasnβt as if marlene were someone famous, some untouchable goddess who everyone in the wizarding world was familiar with; it would be different if she was. but no, marlene was just marlene, the same fierce little blonde girl that you had known since you were eleven. and if your boyfriend found her to be more attractive than you, then surely he loved her more than you, right ?
you subconsciously pushed at siriusβ chest with your palms, trying to escape his suffocating embrace, only to have him pull you tighter against him. your eyes met with his again, and you suddenly felt a terrible melancholy feeling wash over you.
finally finding the strength to pull away from your boyfriend, you did just that, detangling yourself from his arms and backing slowly away, back in the direction from which you had come.
your watery eyes were still locked with siriusβ when he let out a heartbreakingly confused mummer of βmar - ( y/n ) ?β you froze completely for a moment, the tears beginning to fall silently down your cheeks, before turning on your heel and sprinting down the corridor, ignoring siriusβ pleas for you to come back.
