(A/N This took kind of a dark turn...)
You didn't have a face for troublemaking, but all your faces seemed to be troublemakers. Like face you would use if you were a troublemaker, rather than convincing others that you were up to no good. You weren't sure what to make of it, your faces were to manipulate other people, rather than convince yourself. For once in your life you felt like your faces didn't fit. You weren't a troublemaker, your faces were. You spent the next week feeling like two separate people, you yourself and your face. You spent class with a child rather than an innocent. You spent the night with a face you couldn't control, like a monster clawing at its cage.
You stopped changing your faces all together, and the worst part is that no one noticed. They looked at a face they had never seen before and only saw you. They looked at your deception and saw you. They associated the troublemaker, the scared, the dead eyed, the colorless face with you. Your trickery had worked too well, and now there was no way to go back.
You sighed quietly to yourself, your own voice feeling oddly quiet. Your second face had a loud voice, but you couldn't bring yourself to bring it up. In the silver mirror, your face wasn't even recognizable. There were elements here are there that were familiar. A nose from your third face, an eye color from your first face, a widow's peak in your hair from your second face. The list went on and on, you had gotten used to analyzing every part of your face and others.
On particularly bad days you started to experiment. It turned out you could even edit your own organs. It was very difficult and sensitive work, but that hadn't ever stopped you before. Transfiguration was just as deadly, but that didn't stop it from being taught in the school. So how bad could it be to try it out? Perfect you lungs, your liver, your own individual cells. Creating the perfect human. A liver that can handle any amount of liquor. Even though it was prohibited to drink in Hogwarts, you weren't underage in England. You could spend all night in pubs watching guys slowly get drunk, buying countless numbers of drinks for you as they tried to get you drunk enough to sleep with them. You could even train your lungs to get oxygen through water. The possibilities were endless.
You relished in the idea. This was what you were looking for. The moment it all clicked. The same feeling of euphoria that you had felt when you had first perfected your faces, the same feeling a junkie chases of their first high. Your addiction was making you better, helping you, it couldn't possibly be bad that way. When you could multiply your cells fast enough to grow an extra few inches of hair every day, to stop your nails growing when they were finally the perfect length. To push your wounds to heal faster. It was only a matter of pushing yourself a little harder. Pumping blood a little faster, pushing your synapses to connect and form ideas. Concentrating a little bit more, skipping a few more classes, spending a few more nights without sleep. You didn't need sleep anymore, you could eat during that time. Break down proteins, make ATP to fuel your cells. Push yourself just a little bit harder. Perfect yourself just a little bit more. Get closer and closer to that high.
It was on the day that Remus was going to confront you that you collapsed. In your dormitory where no one knew you were. Sitting on your comforter and staring into the mirror. You couldn't see the changes happening within you, but to look right into the eyes that weren't yours was enough motivation to keep you working. Eyes that you couldn't change to be perfect. But the rest of you could be, if you worked hard enough.
When you passed out, you tumbled from the bed in a heap. You organs kept working, reverting back to their original condition. The dormitory below you heard a light thump against the floor, but paid it little attention. Probably just a students dropping something from a desk. Nothing too important.
Remus couldn't get up to the girl's dormitory, if he got through to the common room in the first place. He couldn't do anything but pace and think about what he was going to say, the perfect words to use to break down the secrets you'd been holding for so long. And eventually he couldn't pace anymore and tried to sleep. He stayed awake with his eyes squeezed tightly shut, listening to the calm breathing of his roommates. He could not understand how he had not seen it before, how none of them had. How many still did not. Even he didn't fully see what was happening. Even the boy he was best friends with who was slowly falling in love with you hadn't realized.
A teacher was the one to find you. After days without attending classes, which was becoming a norm for you, someone finally thought to check with you. In a room you shared with two others girl who spent the night with friends or boyfriends, who came in for only a moment to fetch something. And it took more than a moment to see the unconscious girl who was half under her large bed against the window seat that was too full of books and notes to sit at.
A tracking spell. Something Remus hadn't thought of and regretted not thinking of as he stood by your side in the Hospital Wing. The Maurader's Map only showed him that you were in the girl's dormitory, and more than often when he checked it there were footsteps nearby. He was concerned, but had never imagined anything of this magnitude. He hadn't even known of the 'cancer' Madam Pomfrey spoke of after you were sent to St. Mungo's, or that it could cause seizures. They didn't know the cause, but he hoped that they weren't the cause of the dangerous things he had imagined. He'd seen records of the books you were getting from the school library, books of Metamorphagi and Transfiguration. Powerful and dangerous experimental ideas in both areas. He had already guessed you were a Metamorphagus, but had never had sufficient evidence.
Cancer. You did not speak as the doctor said that word to you, followed by more that hardly made sense. Your heart beat against your ears as your watched your mother cry. You did not cry, even after the doctor left with a sorry look. Now you would never be perfect.
~
You graduated from Hogwarts with the cancer still growing inside you. The more your tried to get rid of it with your own power, the more it grew. You had eventually given up and let the painful mass in your abdomen continue. It was the natural course of things. And it seemed the universe was trying to tell you you'd never be perfect. You went back to your three faces, or more you just stuck with the first. No more meddling with your own appearance or your internal organs. But that also lead to an almost fatal drop in your grades. Your parents didn't notice, spending day and night exploring new ideas for treatment and trying to pay off experimental experiments that didn't work. Your teachers had learned not to try to push the dying girl. Remus remained concerned, but as apprehensive as always.
Alarm bells went off in your head. Sitting at James and Lily's home, enjoying a cup of tea and watching them fawn over their newborn son. You were always on edge, so feeling paranoid was normal for you. But this was different. This was dangerous. This was the same feeling that was stuck in your gut. You first thought that that there was another tumor. But the silhouette against the textured glass of the door said otherwise.
The tea cup broke, slipping from Lily's hands. The silhouette shivered, a pleasant breath coming from it's mouth. James had his arms around his wife. You were the only one not scared. The Dark Lord could be no scarier than the mess you'd made of your own body. You stepped forward, taking a deep breath and getting ready to do something you hadn't done in years.
"Go upstairs," You whispered to James and Lily. He looked ready to fight. He didn't have his wand on him, but his wife and his son were taking priority over his own life. He reluctantly left you alone downstairs. Lily could barely stutter a protest before the door blew off. Glass was everywhere and the house filled with noise.
Harry was upstairs in his crib, crying. Lily screamed at the noise of the hinges of the door breaking off and the glass shooting in every direction. James yelled in his most steady voice to guide his terrified wife.
"Run Lily!" You yelled in a booming male voice. The silhouette against the door stepped in and was immediately focused on you. He did not see the real James rushing up the stairs, he only saw the illusion in front of him. Dressed in rather small jeans, but more importantly wandless.
He didn't say anything, but the slow cold breathes that came from his pale face were enough to freeze the whole room. Harry was still crying. His parents weren't there yet. They weren't out yet.
He drew his wand, white and gleaming with such livelihood that it seemed like it was just waiting to kill. Waiting to kill you, or James as you looked. If you hadn't looked this way, he probably wouldn't have drawn it out so much, he probably wouldn't have enjoyed to look at your face as he cast the spell.
You jumped out of the way, not because you wanted to live but because they weren't out of the house yet. They were the closest friends you had. They were all you had left. Your parents were dead, you would be dead soon. In that moment, they seemed to much more important than you ever were.
In a selfless rage you launched at the man in all black. Even if you didn't have a wand, you planned to do some damage. You punched him in the face so hard you thought his nose might fall right off. You wished it had. You wanted him to be permanently scarred. A reminder never to mess with a Potter, let alone a (L/N).
He grunted and struggled under your weight. Under the mass of muscles you grew like a distance memory of a skill that still hadn't faded. He yelled out the spell in anger. You landed another punch to his gob as he spoke. The spell was interrupted, it didn't quite kill you, but it was enough to knock you off of him and leave you crumpled on the ground.
It took all your will not to revert back to your own face. The energy you had left was just enough to smile and you paid attention and heard that Harry was no longer crying. James and Lily were gone. They were safe for now. Probably on their way to Sirius's flat. Remus was probably already casting protective charms. The entire order would be at their side, protecting them and their child.
The Dark Lord ran up the stairs as fast as he could, his angry scream echoed through the house ans he found the nursery empty. He was destroying the house. He was tearing down posters and breaking furniture. Cracking glass and burning photos. You finally let go, melting away into your own face and a dazed state. Close to being unconscious. The pain still prodded at your side, but you could only feel happiness.
He came down the stairs to find not the dead body of James, but the seemingly dead body of a person he did not know. "You!" He screamed. There was the sound of wood breaking. "He's not dead! None of them are dead! Oh I've failed, oh mercy I've failed."
You couldn't muster the will to smile, even though you desperately wanted to. He left again, his shoes crunching against the glass. The wind blew in through the open door. A distant fire seemed to be slowly growing above you. But none of that mattered now. Lily was probably holding her child tightly, her tears falling against his sleeping face as her husband sat beside her with his face in his hands. They would both still be scared out of their wits, desperate to catch a breath. But in the end they knew they were finally safe. Remus was probably trying to cook some food, but would keep getting distracted by trying to get Sirius to stop pacing and asking demanding questions to no one in general. You smiled at the thought of him. Sirius Black. He'd never been very attentive, and didn't notice there was anything wrong until it was too late. But you didn't mind. You liked him better that way. You liked the days better when he forgot you were dying. Because in the end, weren't you all dying? Slowly but surely, your cells dying off and your DNA getting shorter until it can't duplicate any longer.
Remus always meant well, he always seemed constantly worried. And as stressful as it was, his concern was what kept you awake when you really wanted to go to sleep. When he was scared you'd fall into a coma again, and then you'd realize you were scared to. He made you feel human. He seemed to be over pouring with emotion, it always reached your heart and filled you with the worst emotions that still managed to lighten the load off your shoulders a bit.
You desperately wanted them to be there. To see Remus trying to find a way to heal you, holding back tears. To see Sirius crack a joke with tears streaming down his face. To see how sad Lily would be realizing you were dying for the second time. To see the thankful look in James's eyes as he held his son as though it were the last time he'd hold his son. But that was the thing, it wouldn't be the last time. To just see their faces for one last time, just the way they were. Raw and true. A face you'd never been able to master.
Of all the faces you had, you never had one for dying. You never had one that truly showed the way you felt in that moment. You couldn't even imagine what such a face would look like, but you could still see it on their faces. On every person you'd ever met. On the only boy you ever loved. On the unknowing face of child who's life you'd saved. Those faces were perfect. And for once in so many long years, you felt perfect.
(A/N Oh the feels. I'm crying, but I'm a super empathetic person so it's not surprising. I really want to write a part 3, or even 4. So this person on the first part said to turn it into a book, and I think I'm going to! It won't be the exact same, but the premise will be.)