Roxanne stood her ground, refusing to back away as Fred leaned close and looked her straight in the eyes.
"Promise me," he said. "Promise that, no matter how badly I do, you won't help me with magic. I have to do this for myself."
Roxanne gave a short nod, already thinking of ways she could sneakily charm the car while both Fred and their Muggle driving instructor were distracted. It wasn't that she believed Fred incapable of learning how to drive. It was merely that she wanted to give him the best possible chance with the resources at their disposal. She didn't think there was anything wrong with that.
But Fred finally accepting that he was a squib had been accompanied by a strong drive to do everything in his life without magic. She could understand the desire, even if she personally couldn't imagine limiting herself from using magic if it would help her along. There were responsibilities that came with being a twin, and if Fred wound up embarrassing himself, she couldn't be blamed for giving him a boost. It was what she was supposed to do.
Fred was still watching her with a sharp gaze, so she smiled, tilting her head to the side to feign innocence. She hadn't done anything for him to be upset about yet anyway. With a sigh, he turned away and let their father lead them into the Muggle driving school.
Fred and Roxanne took one look at the mustard yellow car in front of them before looking at each other with raised eyebrows.
"That's the ugliest car I've ever seen," Fred said.
Roxanne was about to giggle, but a throat cleared behind them. They turned to find a tall, muscular man holding a clipboard and scowling at Fred as if personally offended by his thoughts on the car. Roxanne would have rolled her eyes if she didn't have to be in a car with the man for an hour. You'd have thought it was his personal car and not the driving school's vehicle. Perhaps he had personally picked out the cars himself.
"You'll drive first," the man snapped at Roxanne before throwing an angry look at Fred.
Roxanne got into the car without wasting a minute. She had been excited about trying her hand with driving since she'd convinced Fred to let her take lessons alongside him.
As she drove, there were a couple close calls, but by the time she was done, she'd gotten the hang of it. It wasn't that different from flying. She could imagine pushing down or letting up on the gas to be a lot like moving her entire body to speed up or slow down her broom. The steering wheel was like moving the broom itself. Once she had that down, picking up on everything else was easy. Her biggest problem was forgetting to use her blinker, but the instructor's annoyance with that seemed largely feigned.
She was feeling pretty good about her performance when she and Fred switched places. Then he nearly slammed them into a brick wall, and she felt a lot worse about the whole driving school thing they'd decided to accomplish together.
The moment they were home, Fred fled to his room, taking away any doubt Roxanne may have had about how upset he was about what had happened.
She could understand. Fred had struggled with feelings of inadequacy since he'd realized he was a squib, and his twin had gone and usurped him at a Muggle skill too. She hadn't meant to, but it had happened. Fred didn't care—probably couldn't even remember—that Roxanne wasn't even capable of frying an egg without magic. What mattered was that she could do it with magic.
It wasn't her fault that riding a broom had better prepared her for driving, but she still felt bad about it.
Whenever Fred disappeared into his room, it was difficult to get him back out again. Roxanne went to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of water, and stared out the window as she sipped it, her thoughts wandering.
Leaves covered the ground in the back garden. Her parents weren't the types to require a perfect garden, so the leaves had been left to scatter themselves naturally over the grass, reminding her for the first time that it was the autumn season.
The sight made her think back to her childhood, back to when she and Fred hadn't been conscious of any differences between them despite Roxanne's occasional displays of accidental magic. They'd loved any chance they had to play outside. Back then, gathering piles of leaves before demolishing them had been the best part of autumn.
When they'd gotten older and Roxanne had begun spending her autumns at Hogwarts, the tradition had fallen to the wayside.
But she was home during the autumn for the first time in seven years, and her brother needed something to cheer him up, which meant there was only one thing left for her to do.
She made a beeline for the center of the garden and began pushing the leaves together with her hands and feet. Though they hadn't used tools or magic as kids, she quickly began to wonder how they'd had enough energy to stay focused on the task. Her fingers itched to reach for her wand, but she was cognizant of Fred's window overlooking the garden, which drove her to do things the Muggle way.
It took ages, but she had a halfway decent pile of leaves when Fred spoke from behind her.
"What are you doing?"
"Making a leaf pile," Roxanne replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Why?" Fred asked, drawing out the question and raising one eyebrow.
Roxanne rolled her eyes and added another armful of leaves on top of the others.
"So we can jump in it. We haven't jumped in leaves in years. Remember when we got excited when the leaves started falling, and then we'd have to wait for there to be enough of them to build a pile? There's enough of them right now."
Fred looked sceptically at the leaves.
"We haven't jumped in them for so long because we're too old for it," he said.
"You're never too old for leaf piles."
Fred crossed his arms against his chest.
"Were you jumping in leaf piles while you were at Hogwarts then?" he asked.
Roxanne shrugged.
"No," she admitted. "Jumping in leaf piles was our thing. I couldn't do it just with anyone."
The comment was only true in the vaguest sense. It had never occurred to her to jump in leaf piles with her Hogwarts friends, so any consideration for tradition had never happened. Still, it made Fred smile at her before his lips settled back into a frown.
"Come on," she said, holding out her hand to him. "Just once."
He still looked reluctant, but he took her hand and jumped into the leaf pile with her. Roxanne would have to admit later that the experience was less thrilling than she'd remembered, but Fred was laughing loudly by the time they were brushing leaves off themselves, and that was enough.
Prompts
Hogwarts Challenges and Assignments
Seasonal Challenge - Days of the Year: Name Your Car Day - write about a wizard or witch taking driving lessons
Seasonal Challenge - Autumn Prompts: (object) leaf pile
Seasonal Challenge - Colours: mustard
Word count: 1,194