Chapter 6

Summer before 3rd Year

"Please, Rapunzel? It'll be fun."

"I can't go, Belle. I'm sorry." Rapunzel smiled on the other side of the telephone. Belle and Rose were right now trying to convince her to go to Rose's cousin Albus' summer party. She didn't want to go for two reasons:

She wasn't really a great person to invite to a wizard party.

If Albus was hosting it, Jack Frost would be there.

"But Goldie! We'll be able to hang out, and dance, and watch fireworks. Albus' parties are always the best!" Rose's voice came on the other line.

"I'm not really a party person, Rose. Besides, Mother is gone right now, and I have to take care of the house. Make sure no one robs the place." She smiled as the other two laughed. "I'm sorry."

"Alright, I guess we'll let it go. We're gonna miss you, Punzie."

"So very, very much."

"I'll see you guys at the train station in a few months. Bye!"

"Tootles!"

"Ciaou!"

Rapunzel hung up, and started folding the laundry. It was a beautiful day outside in the grotto, and she decided to make use of it. Her mother seemed to have lived in the Dark Ages, because not only did they not have a washer or dryer, but they lacked a computer, heating and cooling system, and a T.V. Rapunzel had managed to get Gothel to buy the cellphone for her because of her long-distance friendships with Rose and Belle. Living in a secret location in Germany really didn't help with the whole 'make-new-friends' thing.

Obviously that hadn't stopped Jack. I wonder how he found me anyways…

Eh, who cares? Rapunzel decided not to. She finished folding the clothes, and got up to start cleaning. By the time she had managed to finish sweeping, dusting, mopping, wiping down the windows, and doing the dishes, the hang-dry laundry was ready. She grabbed a wooden basket, filled it with wet laundry, and skipped down the many steps of her tower to hang them on the line that hung by the creek. She liked hanging laundry. It made her happy, and she so rarely felt that nowadays.

"Flowers gleam and glow, Let your power shine, Make the clock reverse, Bring back what once was mine. Heal what has been hurt. Change the Fate's design. Save what has been lost, bring back what once was mine. What once was mine." She sang as she hung up the many shirts, dresses, and skirts, causing her hair to light up in the sunshine. She loved singing; it was one of her favorite things to do. She didn't like her voice though, so she didn't often sing in front of people, except for Mother.

Mother loved it when she sang. But I'm not so naïve as to not know why.

"Oh my God."

Rapunzel froze. Oh God, oh dear, oh crap they found me. HOW DO THESE PEOPLE FIND ME? THIS GROTTO IS SUPPOSED TO BE SECRET.

"YOUR HAIR FUCKING GLOWS? AND YOU NEVER TOLD US?" Belle raced over to where Rapunzel stood staring into the creek, and started running her fingers through her hair. "This could've been so fucking useful when I needed to go pee at three in the morning last year, and I kept falling over things because Rose doesn't know how to keep her crap in one place."

"Hey! That's insulting!" Rapunzel turned, and Rose was there too. She grabbed a shirt out of the basket next to Rapunzel, and started hanging it up. "Well, not as insulting as this shirt. Who gave it to you, Goldie? An old blind woman?"

Rapunzel smiled. "It's Mother's."

"Your mother lives in the 1800s."

Pretty sure that's when she was a teenager, so yeah. She does live in the 1800s.

"CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT YOUR HAIR RAPUNZEL." Belle kept stroking it with her fingers. "It. Fucking. GLOWS."

"Yeah, but Belle, I'm pretty sure that's something Goldie over here doesn't want us screaming about." Rose smiled, taking out a skirt. "Yikes, Rapunzel. Please burn these if any of them are yours."

"How did you guys get here?" Rapunzel asked, as the three of them hung the laundry together.

"Oh! Right!" Rose turned. "UNCLE GEORGE! YOU CAN COME OUT OF THE BUSHES!"

A tall man with ginger hair a lot like Rose's emerged from the pile of shrubbery near the entrance. He was missing an ear. He smiled sheepishly at Rapunzel. "Hi."

"That's George. He's my uncle, on my dad's side. I figured he'd be the one person in my family to understand your case the most." Rose leaned over to Rapunzel, whispering in her ear. "He lost his ear during a fight with a Death Eater before the Battle of Hogwarts. It's a touchy subject, but when I told him a bit about you, he wanted to Apparate us here."

"Oh. Uh, okay." Rapunzel looked up at George. She smiled. "Hi! I'm Rapunzel. I'm cursed." She stuck out a hand, which George stared at for a bit. She pulled it back, still smiling. "Sorry. You don't have to touch me if you don't want to."

"What? Oh, no! Of course not!" George beamed, grabbing her hand and pulling it towards him, shaking it vigorously. "It's such a pleasure to meet you, Rose. I'm cursed as well, see?" He pointed to his ear‒or rather, the place on the side of his head where there should've been an ear. "You probably don't want to hear the story. It's a bit of an earful."

Rapunzel smiled. "That was awful."

"I get that a lot. So, Rose and Belle say you're coming to the Potter's summer party." George gave a pointed look to Rose.

"Right." Rose butted in. "You're coming with us, Goldie."

"What? But, I've got work to do, and I need to watch the house, and just look at this laundry, I'm not even half-finished with it, besides I need to study for Charms (you know how stressed I get about that homework), and I have a whole list that I‒"

"Breathe, Rapunzel." Belle shook her, smiling. "No one's ever going to find this place. It took us days to figure out where it was."

"But you called me no less than 2 hours ago."

"We planned ahead." Rose said, picking up the now-empty laundry basket. "You didn't think you could lecture Jack Frost about being a manwhore, and expect to keep it a secret from us, did you?"

"Uh…how do you guys know about that?" Rapunzel started twirling a piece of hair, staring at the ground.

"Well, hypothetically, if the girls' room was right underneath Scorpius, Al, and Jack's…" began Belle.

"…And if said girls decided to use some spells to eavesdrop on the boys…." continued Rose.

"…then, hypothetically of course, these girls would know every dirty little secret ever told by them, especially an argument involving the said girls' best friend." finished Belle. Rapunzel laughed.

"You two are positively devious."

"We learned from the best." Rose glanced at George, who looked at the sky and started whistling innocently.

"Anywho, let's get going Punzie. We've got to get you party-ready." Belle and Rose dragged her to the door leading to the tower. "Hey, any chance that your hair can keep itself glowing for over four seconds? Maybe, say, three hours? Possibly more?"