The Houses Competition
House: Hufflepuff
Class: DADA
Category: Themed
Prompts: (theme) food The inclusion and significance of food, and (object) a quickly melting ice cream cone
Word Count: 2,109
Additional Information: Warning for mentions of the second wizarding war, and discrimination of young people against their peers.
I would like to thank everyone who beta read this story for me. It truly means a lot that you would take the time to help me like that. So, thank you all very much. I hope everyone enjoys Florean Fortescue's Non-Melting Ice Cream.
For as long as ice cream had been a food item there had been a Fortescue to serve it. In fact, it is claimed that the true inventor of ice cream was a Fortescue. Or, at least, that is how Florean's father tells it to him and his younger siblings the summer our story takes place.
"Our great ancestor, also named Florean, was the first to put milk and ice together in a bowl," his father's loud voice had boomed proudly about the accomplishment. "But you don't hear the Muggles calling him a great inventor."
In fact, Florean didn't hear them calling his ancestor a great inventor. It was quite the opposite indeed. The whole town thought that the entire Fortescue family, past, present, and future, were quite mad.
This indeed kept young Florean at a disadvantage over other children. But most other children didn't know what they wanted to do when they grew up whereas Florean had his entire future planned out. He would take over the family business when his father was too old to run it. He knew the ins and outs of running the place even as a child. He usually spent all his time there helping his father run the family ice parlor. That was his favorite place to be even now as an adult. He loved the smell of ice cream being churned. The flavoring being added. He loved the whole entire process.
He couldn't help smiling fondly as he remembered the day he invented his legacy. The never melting ice cream cone. It had been rather unseasonably hot this particular year. The summer sun had been rather brutal on the children of Hogsmeade and the neighboring towns. So hot in fact that many families traveled the distance to enjoy a Fortescue ice cream. He can still feel the summer heat upon his skin like it had only taken place just yesterday.
The tinkling ring of the bell over the shop door had rung alerting him that someone had entered the shop. He had looked at his father who was in the middle of churning a batch of ice cream. His father nodded him towards the front of the shop.
Trembling in anticipation of seeing what the person who'd just entered would order, he walked towards the front. It was a local boy who had once tried to befriend Florean but had been ridiculed until he had given it up.
"Thomas," Florean called in greeting to his once potential friend.
"Florean," Thomas said back rather curtly.
"What can I get for you?" he asked, dropping the hopeful tone from his voice. He had been hoping that the other boy had rethought not befriending him. But that must not have been the case.
"I would like one of your father's famous ice cream cones," the light-haired boy said, the curtness dropping from his voice.
"In what flavor would you like your cone?" Florean asked, trying not to look eager to hear the other boy's answer. In Florean's mind, the ice cream flavor a person chose spoke volumes of their character.
Some were spot on. But others were rather difficult to pinpoint. Like Thomas. He studied the shop owner's son's face and then smirked.
"Surprise me," he said, sounding rather bold and proud of it.
"Surprise you?" Florean asked, taken aback. He'd never had anyone answer that question in such a manner.
"Yes," Thomas replied, folding his arms across his chest.
"Alright then."
He quickly walked back to where his father was still churning the ice cream in one of the buckets.
"What flavour?" his father asked, looking up at Florean as the boy neared him.
"I was told to surprise him," Florean said, looking at some of the interesting concoctions that his father had made. Some of them he wouldn't even dare feed the town's wandering dog.
"You pick and I'll make up the cone."
Florean loved picking the ice cream for people who were bold enough to ask to be surprised. His judgments usually took into consideration the person, the person's personality, and the mood they seemed to be in when they came in.
Florean studied the casks of ice cream with the look of someone trying to pick out a gift for a person they didn't quite know yet.
Thomas had been smiling happily when he'd come into the store. Probably happy to be out of the summer heat. But his demeanor had changed upon seeing Florean. He'd become a bit sour and curt.
"The lemon cream," Florean said, pointing to the ice cream in question.
"A fine choice," his father said, smiling at him. "You are going to make a great ice cream maker when you grow up."
"Just like you," he said, taking the cone that his father had just made.
He walked up to the front of the store. The ice cream cone held gently in his hand. One didn't want to hold an ice cream cone too tightly. If it is held too tightly it might break and send ice cream down the front of you. That would give the other children the right to mock you mercilessly forever. If held too gently the cone would slip right through your fingers. That would be a loss of product which would be a loss of money.
"What did you choose for me?" Thomas asked, looking eagerly at the ice cream cone.
"Why don't you take a lick and find out?" Florean said, holding the cone out carefully. He'd been taught that the transition from maker to the buyer had to be done carefully. One didn't want to make a mess of things and cost the shop a customer.
"How did you know I liked lemons and cream?" Thomas asked, surprised.
"It was just a guess," Florean said, looking modest. He always had a knack for knowing what his customers wanted. Which would only grow with time.
Thomas licked the quickly melting lemon cream ice cream as it began to drip down the cone. "It's a shame that one can't make ice cream stay perfect and not melt, isn't it?" he asked, licking the sticky lemony substance off his fingers.
"It really is a shame," Florean said, a troubled look crossing his face.
What if people stopped buying the ice cream cones here because they melted and took their beauty away from their holder? What if one day the whole ice cream store melted and it was just one great big flood of sticky coloured gooeyness?
"I've just had an idea," Florean told the other boy before running into the back room. He wasn't sure what exactly his idea was. But he was sure that it would revolutionize the ice cream business in Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, the place where he built his own shop, for generations to come.
It struck him before he even reached the backroom workstations. Struck him like the sorrow for the creations his father made melting away to nothing.
"What is your rush, Florean?" his father asked, looking up as his son made himself an ice cream cone.
"I'm testing out an idea," he said, looking through one of the many books he'd bought to study more over the summer. He was going into his fourth year at Hogwarts after all.
"What is this idea of yours?"
"You will know as soon as I know," Florean said, setting his sight upon a spell that looked like it would do the trick. He performed the spell and was surprised to find that instead of staying solid the ice cream cone turned to liquid and mush in his hand.
"What are you doing, son?" his father asked, looking from his son's mad scientist grin to the product that was covering both clothing and floor. "Your mother is not going to like this."
"I'm trying to make a never melting ice cream cone," Florean said, looking at the spell in confusion. It should have worked. Why hadn't it worked?
"That's the wrong section of the book," his father said, looking over Florean's shoulder. "See it says to melt. You are looking for something to keep the creamed ice frozen." He took the book and flipped toward a section in the back of the book. "You would be better off looking in this section."
"Thank you, Father," Florean said, smiling as he skimmed spell after spell after spell. Finally, he had found it. The perfect spell. It was as though this spell was made just for Florean's purpose. Even if that wasn't the case.
He walked over to his favorite flavour, Bertie Botts Every Flavour Bean, and made himself another cone. He walked back over to the book and practiced the spell in his mind. Spells were tricky. They had to be said properly or you wouldn't get the desired results. You would probably end up the exact opposite.
When he was sure he was able to say the spell properly he set his cone down in one of the cone holders. "Ut Gelida," he said, pointing his wand at the cone of ice cream.
He waited for a splash of cold milk to run over his clothes and shoes. But it never came. He looked towards the workbench, his mouth hanging open in shock. It worked. His idea had worked splendidly.
"Florean, where are you going?" his father called after him. "Your shift isn't over yet."
"I'm testing a theory, father," he said, a wicked grin lighting his face as the delight of invention took over him. "I'll be right back!"
He raced past Thomas who was still gawking after him like a carp. He could hear the boy asking where he was going and telling him that his ice cream cone would melt if he went outside. But that was the point of the experiment. If the ice cream melted he would get back to the drawing board so to say. If it didn't melt then Florean's Ice Cream Parlor would have a gold mine on its hands. But how did one explain that to someone who wasn't involved in the family business quite like Florean was?
He set the ice cream cone on the window sill before picking up the lunch that his mother had made for his father and himself. She had told him to come to pick it up about this time anyway. So, why not pick up the lunch and do the experiment with his new concoction at the same time?
His mother was just finishing up packing the sandwiches she'd made from last night's dinner when Florean burst through the door excitedly. He told her in an excited babble about the invention that he'd hopefully made that would stop his father's ice cream cones from melting in the summer heat.
"That sounds like a very productive day, dear," his mother said in the voice that all mothers use with their children. The kind encouraging tone made Florean eager to get back to his ice cream cone and see if his experiment had worked.
He, however, waited patiently until his mother finished packing the lunches and gave him a soft peck on the cheek before running off. He was more than excited now. His mind was a fire of curiosity about what this could mean for Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. The shop would be the only one around that had ice cream that didn't melt when left out for too long.
He skidded to a halt next to his non-dripping ice cream cone. Letting out a whoop of excitement he burst into the shop and brought father the lunch parcel. He could see Thomas was still there licking at his still quickly melting ice cream cone. The sticky gooey confection coating the boy's fingers and wrists.
He, Florean Fortescue, had found a way to stop that from happening in the future. This would be his greatest invention ever. He showed his father the non-melted ice cream cone with pride at his experiment and its outcome. No one else would have or could have this type of thing in their shop. He was sure of it.
He could still hear his father's proud voice telling him that he had done a great job. His father had always been an encouraging type who allowed his children the freedom to do as they pleased to an extent.
Looking out upon the chilly street where he'd opened his shop when he was old enough, he could almost feel the warmth of that day upon his skin. He would hold onto that warmth all through the Second Wizarding War and it would lead him down the right path.
I hope that everyone enjoyed Florean Fortescue's Non-Melting Ice Cream as much as I enjoyed writing it.
