A rewrite of Judy Blume's Summer Sisters in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I do not own much if any of this and all rights go to Judy Blume, J.K Rowling, and Lauren Myracle who's The Winnie Years series I also pull inspiration from
Chapter One
Gwen
Gwendolyn's world shook for the first time on the day Dominique Weasley sashayed up to her desk, plunked herself down on the edge, and said "Gwen…" It came out sounding smooth, like the name of a beautiful flower, not like someone was trying to clear their throat. Dominique followed after her famous cousins, James Potter and Rose Weasley, to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Everyone in their first year fell instantly in love with her. And it wasn't just the way she looked with her pale, wavy hair, her satin skin and deep set, almost navy blue eyes. She was scrappy, fearless, and had a smart mouth. She was the first to say fuck in class and get away with it. No teacher, no adult, would have believed the words that rolled so easily off Dom's pretty pink tongue. And then there was that smile, that laugh.
Gwen was too shy, too quiet to even speak her name. She sat back and worshiped from afar as the others fought over who would get to be her partner, who would share desks with her. So she thought she'd heard wrong when Dom asked, "Want to come away with me this summer?"
Gwen was wearing her worn uniform skirt, a juice stain on her Gryffindor tie, her dark hair pushed back sloppily behind her ears. She had an ink smudge on her left cheek. As Dom spoke Vix could swear she heard Spellbound, their favorite all witch band, playing in the background. She missed most of what Dom said except it had to do with some cottage on the coast of France. France for Merlin's sake. She was unable to answer, sure this was a trick, a joke. She expected the rest of the class to start laughing, even though Professor Longbottom had just dismissed them and the other kids were rushing past them towards the door.
"Gwen…" Dom tilted her head to one said and the corners of her mouth turned up. "The family visits Shell Cottage for practically the whole summer."
The whole summer. The whole damned summer! The music swelled. "I've never even been to France." She could not believe how stupid she sounded, as if she had no control over the words in her mouth.
"Oh Gwen, have you ever seen anything outside of Hogwarts?" Dom asked. She was genuinely interested, genuinely intrigued that a person could have lived almost twelve years without ever having seen anything outside of their own home.
All Gwen could do was shrug and smile. She wondered if Dom heard the music too, if it followed her wherever she went. From then on whenever Gwen heard Spellbound she was back in first year on a sunny afternoon in June. The afternoon some fairy godmother waved her magic wand over Gwen's head and changed her life forever.
When the Hogwarts Express was long out of the station and Gwen was finally home she asked her mother, "How is it possible in this day and age, that I've never been out of my own home?"
Her mother, who was scrubbing dished in the basin the muggle way, looked at her as if she were nuts. Gwen would never understand why her mother insisted on doing such things the muggle way. When she no longer had the trace she wouldn't waste her magics.
"What kind of question is that?" Her mother said, "of course you've seen more than your own home. You just came back from Hogwarts for goodness sakes."
But to Gwen, now, this simply didn't seem to be enough. She sat at the kitchen table, arms folded defiantly across her chest, as she watched her mother scrub at a tough bit of grease on her favorite cooking pan.
She couldn't sit still. She'd never wanted something so badly in her life. And she was determined. One way or another she was going away with Dominque Weasley. "Stop squirming," her mother said, "go get washed up for dinner."
"So I can go?" Gwen called as she headed down the short hallway to the half bath.
"Your father and I will discuss it, Gwendolyn." Her mother called back, letting her know it wasn't a done deal. Her mother never called her Gwen like everyone else. She'd always hated that shorthand. You'd think she'd have thought of that, when writing such a long name down on her birth certificate.
She wrote her parents a letter, making a case for letting her go, not the least being Dom's promise that it wouldn't cost them a penny. But her mother wasn't convinced. In the end, it was her father who'd come through for her. Her father, a man who looked surprised to open the front door to his home after work and find his family inside. A man so few of words he could spend a whole weekend without speaking, but if he did his voice dropped way low on the last part of every sentence and someone was always asking What? What'd you say? But he was never unkind.
She imagined jumping into his arms, hugging him as hard as she could to show how thankful she was, but that would have embarrassed them both so she said, "Thanks, Dad," and he mumbled something, something she didn't get, while he rested a hand atop her head. Until then the highlight of her childhood had been the weekend her father installed a muggle telly-vision into the living room.
Her mother didn't often apparate and the cottage wasn't connected to the floo but in the end it didn't matter. Dom's father, Bill, insisted on stopping by himself to pick Gwen up and introduce himself to her family.
Her father had been at work but her mother waited patiently, ankles crossed as she sat on the loveseat placed center in their living room. When Bill finally showed, her mother bolted up in her seat. Her mother introduced herself as Charity Rabnott. For some reason Gwen thought she caught a blush across her mother's pale, thin, face but before she could question it further she'd bent down and hugged her. Gwen gave her mother a lopsided grin and hurriedly took Bill's hand in preparation for side-along. She was ready to go. She'd been waiting for today since that warm afternoon in June. "Don't worry," she tells her mother, just before they disappear with a pop.
Charity
What was she thinking? Letting Gwendolyn go off on her own. She shouldn't have listened to her husband, Ed, shouldn't have agreed to let Gwen go off to the coast of all places when she didn't even know how to swim. For Merlins sake! But still. They have to be prepared for life and life is hard, full of disappointments. And telling her not to worry. Worry? She's too tired to worry. She can't remember what it's like not to be tired. She closes her eyes and prays to Merlin to protect her daughter. To keep her safe. But it will never be the same. Once Gwendolyn gets a taste of another way of life, once she spends her summer with a girl like Dominique Weasley, she'll be lost to them. Sure as a nargle hiding in mistletoe. She knows it even if Ed doesn't.
Ed
Charity expects too much of the girl. Gives her too much responsibility. She's still a kid, just turning twelve. The same age he was when his father died. But things are different now aren't they? The war has long since been over. For three years his mother's neediness nearly suffocated him My little man she called him. Hell, he was no man. Never mind how hard he'd tried.