"Let's play a game!" Lysander announced as he sat dipping his toes into the Great Lake. "Let's play which one's Lorcan and which one's Lysander."
"Well that's easy," Astrid Young, Lysander's best friend, said. "You're in different houses so we can see that you're Lysander and that's Lorcan by your ties."
Both he and Lorcan were waiting for that. As soon as Astrid had stopped speaking, they both ran behind the diving rock—the name being decided when Fred Weasley and James Potter decided to have a diving competition after watching the Muggle Olympics in 2016—removed their ties and robes, and strolled back out, an identical smirk prominent on both of their faces.
The reaction was instantaneous. Lysander could see Astrid's face drop, a look mirrored on the faces of his other friends too. Penny's reaction was particularly hilarious—she looked like she was about to throw up from confusion—and Lysander had to bite his tongue to stop himself from laughing.
"So, think you can tell us apart that easily?" Lorcan asked, starting the performance that the two of them had been perfecting since they had first thought of the game as children.
"How certain are you?"
"Do you think I'm Lysander, or do you think I'm Lorcan?"
"You said it was easy, so we'll give you three guesses."
"Three guesses?" Dylan Porter asked. "But there's only two of you; why would we need three guesses?"
"Ah!" Lysander exclaimed, turning to Lorcan. "He seems to be under the impression that we'll be staying still."
Lorcan turned to face Dylan. "Sadly, you are mistaken. You all said it was easy, so decided to we'd add a little challenge."
At that, the two of them sped off towards the forest, darting behind rocks and between trees. Penny, Astrid and Dylan chased them, slowing only after Lorcan and Lysander had disappeared from view.
"Where the—" Astrid started before being cut off by Lysander jumping out of a tree, closely followed by Lorcan.
"It's time for your first guess. Who's going first?" Lysander asked.
When none of them answered, Lorcan spoke. "Penny, you can go first. Am I Lorcan or Lysander?"
All colour drained from Penny's face. "But… I… How…" she stammered. "You're identical, even down to the way you style your hair. There's no way of telling."
"Now, now, Penny," Lysander said. "It's a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right. Just make a guess."
"Okay… um… you're Lysander." She pointed at Lorcan. "And you're Lorcan." She pointed at Lysander.
"Wrong!" they both shouted.
Penny looked utterly dejected, but the two of them didn't stay to comfort her. Instead, they shared a quick glance at each other before taking off into the forest again.
"Hey, we're not allowed to go in further than the shoreline!" Astrid called after them, but the two of them kept on running and soon enough, Lysander could hear the footsteps of his friends chasing after them.
The game continued for most of the afternoon with Astrid guessing correctly (but Lorcan told her she was wrong since she clearly had no idea) and Dylan guessing incorrectly. They gave their friends another guess each—this time with Astrid and Dylan getting it wrong and Penny getting it correct—before giving them one final guess where they could confer, deciding that if they got it correct, Lorcan and Lysander would reveal the truth.
"So, one final guess," Lorcan announced.
"Am I Lorcan, or am I Lysander?" Lysander asked, feeling slightly upset at the looks of confusion on his friends' faces.
"Okay, so you're Lysander," Astrid said, pointing at Lorcan. "And you're Lorcan." She pointed at Lysander.
Lysander felt his heart plummet. His friends really couldn't tell them apart.
"Wrong," he said, the disappointment obvious in his voice. "Come on, let's get out stuff and go back to the castle."
He walked away, shrugging off the arm Lorcan, who was celebrating their victory rather loudly, threw around his shoulders.
"Is it really that hard to tell us apart?" Lysander asked Astrid once they were alone. He hadn't wanted to show his true feelings in front of the others, so he had waited until they'd gone their separate ways—Lorcan and Penny to Ravenclaw tower, Dylan to the library, and himself and Astrid to the Slytherin common room.
"Well, you are identical twins, so obviously you look the same. Penny was right earlier—you even style your hair the same way."
He sighed. "I'm just… I'm fed up of being 'Lorcan and Lysander'. I just want to be Lysander. You know what I mean?"
"I do. Why do you think I'm in Slytherin when the rest of my family were in Hufflepuff? We all want to be seen as an individual."
Lysander nodded, sinking down in his chair and grasping his discarded tie in his hand.
"I've got it!" he yelled, looking down at his tie.
Within seconds, Lysander was out of his chair, up the stairs to his dormitory, and standing in front of the bathroom mirror.
He stared at his reflection; pale skin, blue-green eyes, straight nose, thin lips, high cheekbones, and slightly curly, pale blond hair falling over his forehead and hanging limply past his ears. He couldn't do anything about his facial features—he wasn't a metamorphmagus, no matter how much he wished he was ever since he'd met Teddy Lupin—but he could change his hair.
The first thing he did was change the length. He hadn't performed the spell himself, but as his hair grew so fast, he'd seen the hairdresser use the charm enough times to have the basic premise down. He took a couple of deep breaths to centre himself before casting the charm and watching strands of hair fall to the floor around him.
Once it had been cut, Lysander decided to go one further and dye it. If he was allowed, he would have dyed it Slytherin green, but it was seriously frowned upon at Hogwarts—James had told him of the time Fred dyed his hair pink as a prank and landed James in detention for a month as a result. Instead, Lysander decided to go for a chocolate brown. Waving his wand, Lysander cast the spell he'd only seen done a handful of times.
Thankfully, when Lysander looked in the mirror, he saw that both spells had worked perfectly. His once long hair was now much shorter, apart from the top which still slightly fell over his forehead making the slight curls look more organised. Running a hand through his hair to give it more volume, he decided that he liked it much more as it made him feel much more like himself than it had previously (or that's what he told himself. Secretly, he liked it more because it seemed to bring his cheekbones out and make his eyes shine a little brighter). After one final glance at his reflection, Lysander headed back down to the common room.
Astrid didn't notice him when he first came down. She glanced up but quickly looked away again when she didn't recognise him. It wasn't he returned to his seat that Astrid realised that it was him and gasped.
"Lysander?"
"The one and only," he laughed, feeling more carefree than he had all day.
"Your hair!"
"Do you like it?" he asked, his smile waving slightly.
"I love it," Astrid told him.
Lysander could see from the look of amazement in her eyes that she was telling the truth and he relaxed, wondering how the rest of his friends, and his twin brother, would react when they saw it.
Word Count: 1,256
AN: I probably haven't described Lysander's hair very well. Before he changed it I imagined it a little like Jamie Campbell Bower but paler and with less volume, after he cut it I imagined it like Dan Howell's in his latest Instagram post.
This is for:
Transfiguration Assignment 3;
Write about a character who changes an aspect of themselves that they believe is too identical to someone else.
(word) think
The Valentine-Making Station;
Wax Lips – Write about someone who changes their appearance.
Pokemon Trading Card – Rapidash;
(Platinum) Write about someone being chased/chasing someone on foot.