Here are a few spells we’d love to be able to use to help us through the hottest season.
Aguamenti – for general cooling down
Picture the terrible scene: it’s a sweltering hot, 27c, you reach for the water bottle – and disaster. The bottle has gone warm and may as well have come straight from the kettle. Oh, to be a wizard: a quick flick of the wand and an ‘Aguamenti’ later, and a crisp glass of seemingly bottomless water lies before you. That’d be nice.
Accio – for emergency picnics
Summer is a time for picnics (well, every season is an excuse to eat in a more extravagant sort of way) but isn’t it always the way that you forget at least one thing?
This is where we wish we could use the summoning charm Accio to fly those sandwiches off the table at home, and onto the picnic mat before anyone knew wiser. This spell practically saved Harry’s life in Goblet of Fire and has the potential to save many embarrassing ‘what do you mean you forgot the cake’ explanations. Maybe a Remembrall would solve this problem too, but then again as Neville pointed out - we probably wouldn’t remember what we’d forgotten anyway.
Engorgement Charm – For giant ice creams
Now, the enlarging charm Engorgio would be useful all year round, to be honest – Hagrid inflating his Halloween pumpkins proved this - but there’s definitely a whole lot of summer problems that this spell would fix in an instant.
This ice cream is too small! Engorgio. This fan could be bigger. Engorgio. You could even indulge in an extra-large flamboyant hat to escape those sun rays. The world is your (giant) oyster.
Scourgify – For eliminating pesky sand
Arguably, the worst part of a beach day is getting the coarse sand grains off before the long car journey home. Try showering a thousand times; the grains will still find a way into your shoes for several weeks afterwards. The Scourging charm (Scourgify) would solve this problem in an instant – one flick of the wand and annoying grainy feet begone!
Extendable Charms, Lumos and fire-making spells – For elevated camping trips
We’ll wager that a few of you will be going on an inevitable camping trip during the summer months, so remember to bring your mallet and torch – because there’s nothing worse than a camping trip without them.
Of course, if you’re a wizard or witch, none of those items would be required – unless you’re Arthur Weasley who probably adores torches and mallets. For every other magical person in the wizarding community who prefers some short-cuts: camping becomes far simpler: Lumos will light your way to find the loos on those muggy, summer nights, the fire-making spell can help you roast your marshmallows far more efficiently, and you could even try a sneaky Extendable Charm on your tent to make it the size of the flat, just like the Weasleys do during their trip to the Quidditch World Cup.
Of course, you could argue that it takes all the fun and arduous hard work out of camping – but at the same time... it’d be nice to be sleeping in an actual bed rather than a muddy mound of grass and a sleeping bag...
Oh, how marvellous it would all be. Alas, we’ll have to just struggle on with normal sized ice creams and regular, rickety tents this summer. Oh, woe is us...