A/N: I had this idea for a while but never got around to actually writing it. Here it finally is, I hope you enjoy it even though it's a bit different from my other chapters so far.
"It was a successful evening," Giles grinned and looked at his bag of candy.
His neighbour Maggie looked critically at her bag. "There is still room for a bit more."
"But we've been everywhere!"
Maggie eyes glistened. "Not everywhere…"
"Oh?" Brian, Giles' brother, asked confused. "I though we went throughout the town. We've been going by the doors for nearly two hours now."
Maggie beckoned the boys to come closer and they leaned in, curious. "We haven't been to the house over the hill top," she said conspiratingly.
Giles and Brian looked doubtful. "I don't know," Brian said. "Mum says the people that live there rarely show themselves in the grocery store and that's a bit suspicious…"
"Nonsense," Maggie replied. "I heard they grow their own vegetables. Besides, they have a baby, so they can't be all that awful."
Brian still didn't look convinced, but Giles said: "There's three of us, we'll just go over there. If they're not nice, we'll cover their house in toilet paper and eggs."
Maggie chuckled. "We have plenty of toilet paper with us," she said, alluding to Giles' outfit as a mummy.
They both laughed.
"Ah come on, Brian, it's no fun without you."
At last, Brian gave in. "Fine, I'll go with you. But only because I don't want you to get into trouble with Mum."
Giles rolled his eyes.
Together, the mummy, Tutankhamen and Cleopatra – part of their successful evening was due to the fact that they had matching outfits – climbed the hill outside the village.
"It isn't much of a house, is it?" Maggie said critically as they approached.
"Dad said this used to be a pigsty," Giles said. "Old Harlowe apparently laughed himself nearly to death when he finally sold it."
They had reached the door and where looking at a wooden name plaque that read "Weasley Family" and a brass knocker.
"Go on then, you wanted to do this," Brian urged Maggie.
Maggie took a deep breath and took the knocker. It came down loudly on the wood and they waited in anticipation.
Shortly after, they heard noises from inside the house. The door was opened and a man appeared. He had red hair and freckles and looked at them questioningly. "Yes?"
Giles was the first to remember. "Trick or treat!" he said.
The man looked amused. "Well, I'm sure we must have some candy lying around here somewhere. Wait a moment."
"See, I told you they weren't scary," Maggie hissed at the two brothers, when the man turned around and went inside.
"Arthur? Who's at the door?" they heard a woman call from the living room.
"It's Halloween, dear, there's some kids from the village trick or treating."
It wasn't long before he came back with in his arms a variety of candy they had never seen before.
"There you go," he said. "I didn't know what you guys'd like, so I got a bit of everything. There's some Skeletal Sweets, Caramel Cobwebs, some Lick'O'Rice Spiders…"
"Wicked!" the trio grinned and eyed the mysterious candy. It was probably of trick of the light, but it sure seemed like the liquorice spiders were moving.
"No, Arthur, you can't give them that!" the woman's voice they had heard earlier called. A woman with the same red vivid hair as her husband, and carrying a baby with equally red hair, hastily appeared.
"Give me those," she said.
"Why? Why can't I give…"
"Because… because they're past their due date," the woman said.
"But…"
The woman glared at her husband and he sighed and handed her the spiders.
"Are the Skeletal Sweets and the Caramel Cobwebs okay?"
She bit her lip. "Well, I suppose no harm will come from them," she said eventually, which Maggie found an odd thing to say.
They stacked the sweets into their bags, while the baby kept pointing at them and bouncing excitedly up and down in his mother's arms.
"Yes dear, they do look marvellous, don't they?" the woman cooed at the baby.
Brian cleared his throat. "Thank you very much, Mr and Mrs Weasley. We'll be off then. Have a nice evening."
They greeted the young family and started walking back towards the wooden fence, but not before Maggie had shot another look at the adorable baby boy, who loved their outfits so much.
"Let's have a look at this candy," she urged when they were over the hilltop again.
They opened their bags and took out the candy. The Skeletal Sweets really looked like tiny skeletons.
"Wicked!" Giles said again as he put one in his mouth. "Mmm, these are delicious!"
Encouraged by his brother's exclamation, Brian tried one too, and then of course Maggie couldn't stay behind.
"I think this is probably the best candy I've ever gotten," Brian said, enjoying the flavour.
"Told you they were nice people," Maggie said smartly.
"Oh shut up, Maggie," the brothers told her.
They called it a night and went back home in an amiable silence, savouring the strange candy they had received.
-o0o- -o0o- -o0o-
In the little cottage over the hilltop though, things were a little less amiable.
"Lick'O'Rice Spiders? What were you thinking?!" Molly said angrily.
"What's the matter with them anyway? And don't give me that "they're past their due date", we only bought them last week."
"They crawl."
"So?"
"Arthur! Those were Muggle children! You can't go handing out wizard candy to Muggle children! Not the ones that move, anyway," she added. "Can't you see the trouble that would have gotten us into? It would be a severe breech of the Statute, and I can't even begin to think what they'd say at the Ministry…"
Arthur stared sheepishly at his shoes. "Yeah, right. I hadn't thought about that. Sorry."
Molly sighed. "It's okay. I'm only glad nothing serious happened. But you really ought to be more careful in the future if we want to continue living here."
"I will. I promise," he added. "Come on, Molly, I didn't do it on purpose. I'll be double careful next time." He wrapped his arm around her. "Just lucky Alfred and Robert ate all the Pepper Imps and the Chocolate Frogs yesterday then," he chuckled.
"Arthur! That's not funny!"
"No, no, of course not," Arthur hastily replied, trying to hide his smile.
"Next year, we'll have to buy some Muggle candy just to be on the safe side," Molly said.
Arthur's eyes lit up. "Ah, and sure we need to…uhm, try them ourselves first before we hand them out?"
Molly shook her head. "Oh, Arthur, you really are hopeless." But she sounded amused rather than annoyed when she said it.
