Madam Malkin looked up when the door to her shop chimed again. There was nobody in her shop right now- a rather infrequent occurrence, at that time of year. The Hogwarts letters had to have been sent out a few days ago; there had been a steady stream of Hogwarts students coming in- somewhat noticeably fewer first-years than normal, and at that point, only a couple upper-year students had needed new robes. Funny, there were usually at least three times as many of those.
Immediately upon seeing them, she figured the two girls entering her shop would probably make her top ten list of strangest customers on their looks alone. They were both Hogwarts first-year age, and wearing color-coordinated muggle clothing. That itself wasn’t all that unusual; about five out of every ten years, she’d get a set of twins, and they would tend to do that. The truly unusual part about them would be their hair. They were both wearing muggle clothes, but their hair was very clearly magically done; there was no way a muggle dye would hold those vivid colors so neatly separated in the wind outside- and those colors were most definitely not natural.
One had wavy blue and white hair, with the division between the colors visible- and sharply defined- all the way down to where the tip of her hair peeked out from behind her waist. The other had long, straight, and dark blue hair, with pink and purple stripes all the way down it and a split at the front that gave it the appearance of a solid wood wig that someone had hit with an axe. It still moved smoothly when she did, though, so that clearly wasn’t actually the case- even though that split stayed, her hair moving almost like it was made of fabric.
No adults came in with them, she noticed. A quick glance out the window explained it- Hagrid was walking towards Fortescue’s. He didn’t like entering, as his bulk would almost always knock something over in her small shop, so he’d developed a habit of sending whatever muggleborn first-year he happened to be escorting in… and going to get them ice cream while he waited.
“Hogwarts, dears?” she greeted.
“Ahh, yes,” the blue-haired girl nodded.
“I take it you already know what we need for that?” the wavy-haired girl asked curiously.
“Yes, I do,” she smiled, guiding them to the stools in the back of the shop. “Just one at a time, please,” she instructed- and, as the blue-and-white-haired girl hopped up on the stool, she made a quick guess as to the size that would fit her and pulled it out, before slipping it over her head. Unlike some fairly rare muggleborns she’s had in here, that have no idea what she’s doing, the girl cooperated fully, quickly running her arms into the sleeves and holding them out for her.
Then the other girl spoke up. “Huh. We ought to be able to get away with just one or two- I imagine Rarity can make-!”
Madam Malkin was in the middle of an involuntary wince at the girl’s willingness to go someplace else when the first interrupted, looking down from the stool.
“Absolutely not! Madam Malkin here is a tailor, a profession unique to this world. Her job is to take this no-doubt mass-produced base and make it fit as well as possible… such that, when you get a bunch of Hogwarts students right next to each other, they all look the same. Can you imagine Rarity being willing to make fifty of the same thing?”
“Of course not, Lyra! I’d only be asking her to make three!”
“Twilight, can you imagine Rarity being willing to make even three of the same plain thing? Hay, even one would be torture to her! And that’s three… what, per each equestrian coming? Which would push it to over ten thousand of effectively the same thing!”
The blue-haired girl- apparently Twilight- opened and closed her mouth a few times. “... Well… Okay. But I’m sure we could find a tailor in Equestria.”
Lyra sighed, rolling her eyes. “Twilight, tailors are like computer scientists. They don’t exist in Equestria, I’ve checked.”
Twilight blinked. “Computer scientists? What’s that?”
“A profession on this side. I’ll have to introduce you to computer science at some point.” A scowl. “I haven’t seen anything computer-driven in Diagon Alley, so I’m starting to think it’s just the muggles.”
Madam Malkin let the silence fall for several seconds before speaking up. “I can’t say I’ve ever heard of Equestria before,” she began.
Lyra chuckled good-naturedly. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Equestria has been- and still is, actually- magically isolated from your world. Until a week and a half ago, that is, when I opened a gateway to connect the two. Then a few days ago, a bunch of owls made their way…” She gasped suddenly. “I almost forgot! Do you know about how many new students Hogwarts gets every year?”
“Hmm?” Madam Malkin muttered, finishing up with the lower hem of the girl’s robes and moving up to one of the sleeves. “I usually see around forty first-years each year, and often a hundred to one fifty upper-year students. Why?”
“... Oh. Then, ahh, I might recommend finding some seasonal help… and stocking extra, and fast. We’ve already confirmed over two thousand Equestrian students this year, and they’ll all be coming here for their robes.”
She froze after that, for a second, before resuming. “Two… Thousand?”
Twilight nodded. “Yep. And every last one of them was invited directly by Hogwarts.”
Lyra nodded as well. “The latest estimate for the final count, at the acceptance deadline, is anywhere between eight thousand… and about eighteen thousand, depending on who the owls get to.” She sighs. “And, if we assume that the Gate is still open for next year and it resumes sending invitations to the ones that couldn’t be invited by the deadline this year, and so on, I think the estimate is that it would take around eight years to invite everyone eligible, after which point it would- theoretically- drop below the maximum, and start inviting everyone as they became eligible, as I imagine it has done on this side for years.”
“I hope Hogwarts knows what they’re doing,” Twilight muttered.
Madam Malkin chuckled briefly, stepping back to get a better look at Lyra; she’d finished the sleeves. “That should be you done, my dear,” she indicated.
Lyra promptly lowered her arms to a normal position, and gave her robes a twirl. “Nice, I like it.” She then slipped them off, handing them to Madam Malkin, and stepped off the stool. “Will you need to pin the other two, or will the one work as a template?”
“It’ll work as a template,” Madam Malkin informed her, accepting the pinned robes and laying them on the counter.
As she did so, Lyra turned towards Twilight. “Your turn, then.”
Madam Malkin smiled, making her initial size guess- she was mighty well practiced with that- as the girl trotted up to and stepped onto the stool, before approaching to start preparing the robes. Twilight cooperated just as fully as Lyra had.
Twilight’s fitting went silently, though it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. Both girls, despite Lyra’s declaration that tailors didn’t exist in their homeland, clearly had some not insignificant experience with being fitted. They did both seem amused, though, like it wasn’t quite going down as they were used to- which, if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t surprised by, either. Lyra did say they had designers, and both of them seemed to know this ‘Rarity’ rather well.
Then, it finally came time for her to draw her wand, finalize the hems of both robes, duplicate the measurements onto two more robes and a cloak each, and magically apply names to the labels on all of the above. Seeing the two girls staring unblinkingly at her while she had her wand out was… unnerving, so she did her best not to look at them until she was finished, and pocketed her wand.
“... Huh,” Twilight muttered. “I… I don’t think I’ve ever seen ambient magic used that efficiently before.”
Lyra put a hand to her chin. “The magic bond mighta been part of that, but I want to say at least some of that efficiency wasn’t specific to that bond.”
Twilight looked at her. “Wait, there’s a magic bond?”
“Yeah. There’s a symbiotic thaumic bond between her and her wand. Very low-key, but it peaked while it was in her hand- so it’s probably something that either only she can use, or that she can get the most utility out of.”
“Ahh, something like that,” Madam Malkin muttered, packaging the two girls’ robes separately and making her way to the register. “I’m not familiar with how it works, but I know you’ll never get as good of results with another wizard’s wand. Ollivander will probably tell you more than I can without asking, whenever you get your wands.”
Lyra held up a bulging pouch she almost certainly hadn’t been holding a minute ago, shaking it slightly to make the coinage inside tinkle. “Sounds good to me. So, how much?” The pouch looked to hold at least a couple hundred galleons.
She named the total… Then, with a distinctive crash that shook the shop, Twilight suddenly had a very large bag of coins on the floor next to her.
“Heh heh,” Twilight muttered, opening the top to pull out a single golden galleon; the total was just over a galleon.
“Ahh…” Madam Malkin muttered.
“We’ll each pay for our own robes and stuff,” Lyra chuckled. “We’re shopping together, but buying separately.” She glanced at Twilight’s bag. “And Princess, I still think you didn’t need to hunt up the biggest bag you could find and stuff it with as much of the treasury as you could fit.”
“Hey, it’s not the biggest I could find!”
“Only because the biggest wouldn’t fit in your pocket.”
Twilight blushed, looking away, while Madam Malkin silently counted out their change.
As Lyra accepted her change, she spoke to Twilight again. “How about this: We can use my gold for the rest of our purchases today, it should be enough. So long as you repay me- from that- at the end.”
Finally, both Lyra’s pouch and Twilight’s bag- the latter of which would have fit both of the girls, had it not been full of gold- disappeared tracelessly, and they thanked her and headed out of her shop, carrying their new clothes.
Madam Malkin let out a small sigh, watching them as they went. Definitely the strangest two customers she’d ever had. If she knew one thing, it was that Hogwarts was in for the year of their lives.
… And Lyra’s packaged robes just vanished into thin air as they reached the door, Twilight’s following suit as they made it outside.
She smiled. Hopefully, the students won’t be the only ones learning at Hogwarts this year, and strange abilities like that could then be shared across wizardkind.