Severus found an empty spot and lit a cigarette.
Every Order of the Phoenix meeting was as noisy as the one just now. Everyone rushed to voice their own opinions, hoping to persuade others to agree with them, while Severus Snape, a venomous snake from Slytherin, always watched them with mocking disdain. This made him extremely unpopular within the Order.
In his eyes, all the schemes Sirius Black proposed were ridiculous and utterly impossible to carry out. Yet Sirius Black still opposed him at every turn, just as he had in their school days, as though doing so could turn back time.
Twelve years as a prisoner in Azkaban had left him far more haggard, but Sirius was still handsome. Even though everyone said he had killed Peter Pettigrew, and even the Daily Prophet had published the details of his trial, women were still willing to commit perjury, claiming they had been having candlelit dinners with him on the day of the crime.
In an age when teachers treated students as customers, when teachers were assessed by KPIs instead of teaching students to distinguish right from wrong, appearance determined a person's future. More and more people underwent cosmetic surgery, practically changing their entire faces.
As for whether there was a person or a monster behind the mask, people were unwilling to truly find out. This way of perceiving things also gave Werewolves and Voldemort an opening.
At least the Dark Lord had a beautiful face, just like his father, Tom Riddle Sr. Anyone who had seen the father and son would never doubt their blood relation, just as no one would doubt that Lily had betrayed James Potter when looking at Harry Potter and his father.
In The Decameron, the husband who entertained the friar sleeping with his wife with