most people are really excited about their summer vacations from school. cole and lottie were heartbroken. they had promised to call each other at least once a week, but they knew that phone calls were not going to solve the multiple-thousand mile problem of going back to the states. not when they were used to sleeping in the same room and being together almost constantly.
one week before they boarded separate transatlantic flights, they were halfheartedly brainstorming ways to feel better and complaining about beverages, sprawled on the floor between their beds.
“what we need, what we need is,” lottie drawled, sighing heavily and taking a sip of her drink, “is- better stinkin juice! ugh, what is with this pumpkin crap, i will never understand it! ugh!”
“a-frickin-men,” cole said vehemently to the ceiling, lying spread-eagle on her back, “hear hear.”
“anyway.” lottie said, “like i was saying, we need a distraction. something to focus on. something we can report on so we have something in common to talk about, not just my-sister-did-this your-step-dad-did-that. like when we’re researching here. something in common.”
cole lifted her head, interested. “like, science research?”
“yeah, if you want. you have any ideas?”
“maybe. let me think a bit.”
two days later she slammed the door to the bathroom open while lottie was brushing her hair.
“what? cole asked, bewildered.
“oh, were we not just yelling parts of the body at each other? i never can tell with us.”
“no, genius, HAIR. that’s what we should research. like, changing color and length-”
“and texture and style oh my god that’s brilliant!” lottie said, eyes shining with mirth. “let’s start with color? should be easiest, since we’ve never done this kind of charm work.”
“yes! we’ll call when we have something to report.”
“absolutely.” lottie agreed, and the girls grinned at each other.
it was still difficult to adjust, of course. not that they were unhappy at being home; the girls had missed their families and homes terribly while they had been away. they reveled in being back in places where the food was delicious, the people spoke like they did, and they never had to explain themselves for being southern belles.
their weekly phonecalls ended up being nightly phonecalls, where they swapped silly stories (”we just got a pet goat, nicole, we named him percy and i wish you could see him he is the cutest thing!” “we made literal hundreds of ice pops today for the neighborhood party tomorrow i really want to eat every one of them pero...”) and exchanged research and prank ideas. when they got letters from george they compared them and teased him in their letters back.
they had been pleased when they discovered the underage restrictions on magic were not as strict at home, so as long as they confined their magic use to their homes and didn’t blow anything up or experiment with dark magic, they were free to do as they pleased. so, their research went surprisingly well, considering all the spells they were trying to master were above their year. but since they had no supervising adults telling them they couldn’t and had a friendly competition to see who, exactly, would master each skill set first, they learned quickly. lottie was the first to master changing colors, and after color they found changing hair length to be incredibly easy, but cole had taken to altering hair styles so quickly lottie had to scramble to catch up. they had some trouble figuring out how to change hair texture, but they managed. from then on, the reports focused on their experiments with combinations of the charms and transfigurations and growing hair where they didn’t have it.
by the end of the summer, they were experts on magically altering their hair in any way they wanted to, and celebrated their reunion in england by showing off to each other in an impromptu “fight” with their new knowledge. they were a bit worried, after, that they were going to make a bad first in-person impression on george weasley, but found he was most impressed with their results.
when they rode the train to hogwarts that year, in between lamenting the wizarding world’s lack of airports and writing sad sonnents about the wonders of biscuits, cole looked at lottie and smiled.
“great idea, by the way, about the distraction thing. what should we do next summer?”
lottie’s eyes lit up. “well, i was kinda thinking about flying...”
