"Max, I'm wet, and I'm freezing cold," Rose said mid-Halloween day when being led secretly through the castle.

Max rolled his eyes at her complaints. She had just come into the common room after taking a shower where Max forced her into her shoes and had drug her out. He had successfully kept his plans a secret, but Rose wasn't one for surprises.

"Won't you just get into the Halloween spirit of surprise?" he asked, trying to ignore how cold he was too.

The October air was freezing and the castle was empty because most third years and above were permitted to visit Hogsmeade, the local all magic town, a couple times a year. This year, one of the Hogsmeade dates were set on 31, October. They stepped on crunchy leaves as they headed outside across the courtyard where the statue resided. This statue was the only known safe secret passageway in and out of Hogsmeade. Them, being only in second year weren't permitted to go but had gone last year anyway by means of masks. Drawing closer, Max caught sight of Al and Scorpius leaning against the one-eyed, humped witch statue with expressions somewhere between excitement, curiosity, and anxiety.

Rose's face brightened when seeing them waiting for her and looked up at Max with playful curiosity. She put on a blank expression when approaching the boys; she didn't want to let on how much she had missed them.

"What are you guys doing here?" Rose asked kindly.

The boys glanced at Max. "We don't know yet," they replied.

Rose's expression fell a fraction; Max could tell that she wanted them to miss her as well. "Based on where we're standing, or more accurately, what we're standing in front of, on this day, where do you think we're going?" Max asked.

Rose smiled broadly, then suddenly dropped her grin. "But Max," she said. "We haven't planned anything, we don't have masks or costumes, and we're still not old enough to go without being expelled!"

"We're not going to Hogsmeade exactly," said Max with a mischievous smile. All three of his friends furrowed their eyebrows in confusion. "You need to trust me." Max smiled as this brought back a major déjà vu from his first year when meeting these people for the first time. It was then also that they had followed him across the grounds mysteriously as he took them to a magical garden. Today, though, he was taking them somewhere almost exactly opposite.

He opened his mouth to utter the words, 'dissendium' when a booming voice behind them startled the group to jump.

"Happy Halloween, yeh lot!" It was Hagrid. He was striding up with an armful of pumpkins probably for the Halloween feast.

"Hello, Hagrid," they all said in unison, which only happened when they were hiding something.

Hagrid looked suspicious for a moment at the four kids smiling with their hands folded neatly behind their backs. "Wha'r yeh lot doin' down er' on Halloween?" he asked.

"We were just admiring this statue," Scorpius replied, gazing fixedly at the witch's mangled face.

Hagrid stared up at it too. "I've never liked tha statue, creeps me out," he said.

The four looked at each other amusedly, Hagrid being taller than the thing itself and the burliest man you'd ever see.

"It makes a lot'a funny noises this time o' year," he said. "Anyhow, I best be getting these er' pumpkins to the great hall." And he walked away.

The kids waited until he was long out of sight before Max quickly spoke the spell that made the hump of the witch scrape loudly until it revealed a hole big enough for a small person to fit inside. Max went first, followed by Scorpius who didn't want to go before Rose because she had landed on him last year, then Al slid down the shaft, then Rose. Everything was pitch black after the hump closed and with a 'lumos' four wand tips illuminated the earthy walls and ground.

"You ready?" Max asked, not looking forward to the three-mile hike ahead.

The others nodded, now looking excited, and the trip began. It was a lot more enjoyable this year. They were traveling on their own terms, and James wasn't with them meaning they didn't have a captain telling them what to do nor did they have someone to argue with Al.

"Are you going to tell us where we're going?" Rose asked.

"No," Max replied. "But I'll give you a hint." He pulled three extra sacks from his side bag and handed it behind him.

"Sacks?" said Scorpius. "Yeah, that doesn't clear anything up."

Max smiled at the vagueness of his plan and continued. They were all very sore and tired when they started up an incline and about seven and a half to eight minutes later, they were met with a stone panel above them. Max signaled that they kill the light and stay silent. He slowly lifted the panel to peek through. When seeing that the coast was clear, he climbed out followed by his friends. They had just emerged into a room filled with wooden crates, sweet smells, boxed sweets, and sales signs.

"Honeyduke's Sweet Shop," Max whispered. They were in the cellar of the most popular candy store in Hogsmeade.

Just as Scorpius was placing down the stone panel to hide where they had just emerged from, an old man in a pink apron and a tuft of white hair atop his head came from a side room. He stopped when he spotted them, and his face turned purple with rage.

"What do you think you're doing?" he barked. The man swept over and grabbed Max and Scorpius by the back of their necks and began dragging them up the wooden staircase to the main shop. "Every year, busiest day of the year, you kids have to make our jobs harder by sneaking in and stealing in our cellar," he said had he walked. "Bet you thought you could pull one over on us, didn't you? Well you're wrong, had the place guarded, didn't I?" he swung open the door at the top of the stairs and threw the two boys out before pushing Al and Rose as well. "I don't want to see you back in my shop!" and he shut the door again.

"Well," said Max. "That was easier than I had thought. I was under the impression we would have to sneak out. Come on." The others looked quite frazzled as they followed him still and Max had forgotten that they had probably never been banished from a store before.

"So, I thought we weren't going to Hogsmeade," said Al.

"We're not," Max replied, taking his friends to the back of the shop where no one ever goes. "We're going in there." He pointed to a dark patch of forest guarded by a metal fence.

"But that's the forbidden forest!" said Scorpius worriedly.

"No, that's the forbidden forest." Max pointed at a tiny wooden stake stabbed into the ground fifty meters away with an orange rope around it. "That spike indicates the property line. Come on."

The farther he got his friends to go, the more worried they looked. He stopped before the fence and glanced around to be sure no one was watching. They had already pulled their hoods over their heads to keep themselves from being recognized.

Max took a deep breath and turned to his friends with an expression that they cringed under. "I know I've been saying it all day," he started calmly. "But I really need you to trust me, seriously, close your eyes and don't think."

Rose did this at once, soon followed my Scorpius, then finally, Al gave in. Max took a deep breath and prayed to Merlin that he would screw this up and accidentally kill any of them. Starting with Al who was in the front, Max focused all his might and with a swish and flick of his wand, made Al slowly levitate off the ground. Al wavered slightly and tried to peek at what was going on.

"Don't open your eyes, Al, not even a bit!" Max called, still trying to focus. Al closed his eyes tighter and didn't open them again until the other two and Max were safely on the opposite side of the fence.

The three opened their eyes and gasped in amazement to see themselves on the other side.

"But-" sputtered Scorpius. "How?"

"It's Wingardium Leviosa," Max replied, grinning from ear to ear that they were still alive. "It's the same way we made that feather fly and the same way I made those umbrellas."

"Professor Flitwick can do that!" said Max excitedly. "But how are you able to?"

"I've been practicing during Transfiguration while Professor Donima is talking," Max replied. "Let's go," he urged, and they began through the forest. Max pulled from his pocket the letter that his old neighbor had sent him and stared closely at the map contained within. He grinned again, not at his success with levitating, but at the fact that he was able to levitate Rose. Because if he had truly broken her trust before, he would not have been able to lift her.

This bit of woods seemed no different form the little Max had seen of the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts. It was dark and damp, cold with many large tree roots littering the ground and many that blended in so well they were all too easy to trip over. In particular areas, the brush would become so thick that they had to duck walk as the branches pulled off their hoods and caught their hair, especially Rose's. By the time they emerged near the end of the forest, they were all muddy and wet, cold and their hair was sticking up in odd places. They all got a good laugh at each other and helped flatten everything down. They stood still and closed their eyes as Max lifted them over the fence again and to himself.

Scorpius took the lead but stopped on the orange lines of the road.

"I've never been on a road before," he said excitedly. A rumbling drawing closer told Max that this wasn't the time to enjoy the scenery of certain death. He grabbed Scor by the arms and pulled him away from the Simi truck that honked as it drove by. Scorpius stared in awe, apparently unbothered by the fact that he was almost steamrolled. "It's huge!" he exclaimed.

"And you would have been a huge stop on the ground if you hadn't moved," said Max. "You can't just stand in the middle of a muggle road; they won't stop."

"We're in a muggle town?" asked Rose as she peered around toward a small strip.

"Yeah," Max replied now realizing that he would be having to keep them from killing themselves here. He had grown up mostly in a muggle town and knew plenty, but the other had only seen it in passing.

"This is cool and all Max," said Rose turning toward him. "But why did you bring us here?"

A sudden jolt of excitement shot through him as he remembered again why. "On this night, 31 October," he started mysteriously. "Every muggle town decorates their homes with the bones of the dead and give out free candy to the children who utter the threat, 'Trick or Treat.'"

The three friends looked intrigued. "So, we go to these people's houses," Al started. "say those words, and they give us candy," Max nodded happily. "And if they don't," Al continued to think. "We curse them?" Max froze and shook his head quickly.

"No, no, no," he said. "Not everyone has to give you candy; it's an empty threat! This is just the muggles way of having fun. For the love of Merlin, please do not curse any of them!"

"Ohhh," said Scorpius. "That's what the sacks are for, to collect the bones of the dead around their homes! It's like a scavenger hunt!"

"No, no," Max tried again, rubbing his eyes. "The sacks are to collect the candy that the muggles will give you. They get to keep their decorations."

"When can we start?" Rose asked looking excited.

"We have about an hour and a half before muggles doors start to open," said Max. "So, we can explore a bit."

They took toward the small muggle strip of rather dodgy buildings; the nice shops were near five miles away.

"Do they have any sweet shops here?" Scor asked. "Given that, we're banished from Honeyduke's."

"I wouldn't eat anything from these shops," said Max. "I don't trust this place."

"How do you know which shops are good and which aren't?" Rose asked, becoming highly interested in the upside-down bike in the corner.

Max took her by the arm to keep her from touching it. "If the place has large colorful paint drawings on the outside, don't go in. That stuff is called graffiti, and very few classy establishments are coated in it."

"Even if it's a pub?" asked Al.

"Especially if it's a pub," said Max. "Why?"

"Because there's a pub with colorful writing on the outside and I want to go in," Al replied, gazing at a brick building with neon lights, smoke issuing form the windows, and music from the inside.

"We can't even enter if we wanted," said Max, pulling Al along now too.

"Why not?"

"Because you have to be eighteen to enter and twenty-one to drink anything other than milk or water," Max replied.

"Twenty-one?" Al exclaimed. "That doesn't make any sense!"

"Al, muggles have a lower tolerance to alcohol than we do when they drink it, they do stupid things. Kind of like when you're under the influence of Moonacher."

The party looked confused.

Max sighed. "It's kind of like a potion that they drink which makes them lose part of their brain for a couple of hours, the sensible part."

"Who would want that?" Scorpius asked.

Max shrugged. "People who have been hurt and want to forget."

"So, that's a place of loss and loneliness?" Rose asked with a sad glance back at the pub.

"Pretty much," Max replied.

"Max," Scorpius started. "If we're not allowed to go into any building with graffiti, then we can enter any of these places… especially not that one." He pointed to a sketchy little brick building with a torn canopy and window covered using garbage bags.

Max stopped to look. The sign outside showed photos of muggle body piercings and tattoos. He got suddenly excited. He had only ever heard of these, nobody back home had them, not even the muggles. He leaned down to read the sign and its services.

"Max, this place looks like bad news," said Rose. "We should carry on."

Max, however, wasn't listening. There was his kind of music echoing form inside, and something pulled him.

"Where do you think you're going?" said Al grabbing Max by the arm to stop him from waltzing into the creepy store.

"I just want to look," he said.

The other three looked from the smashed windows and moldy doormat and back to Max in disbelief. "I'll sneak you into the pub later, I'm not planning on getting anything, I'm just curious," said Max.

Al let go of him hesitantly, and they followed him into the building. The inside was very smoky. The walls were covered in tattoo stencils and walls of piercing options. Belts and spikes hung over chairs and music that was nothing but shouted words and overpowering beats issued from speakers around the room and Max smiled as he admired muggles idea of fashion.

"Looking for somethin', kid?" Max hadn't realized that he had wandered up to the front desk.

A younger woman with pink and black hair, tattooed sleeves and neck, more piercings than visible skin and a wad of either Tabaco or chewing gum in her mouth was peering down at him.

"No, I was just looking," he said calmly.

"You gettin' a percin' or ink or what? Kids don't wander in here for the scenery," she said in a rather rough, impatient, smokers voice.

"You provide piercings to people our age?" he asked in disbelief and non-mistakable excitement.

"If you can pay we don't give a coin who's gettin' holes," she replied.

Rose pulled on his sleeve to leave, but he was too busy fiddling with his pockets. He pulled from them, three sickles but realized that he had no muggle money, which perhaps was a good thing considering he thought it to be highly likely that he would have bought a piercing.

The woman reached out and snatched the coins in her hand. She looked at them carefully for a minute, then her eyes widened.

"Bloody balls," she said. "This is real silva'. Oi, Jip! Jippy, come er'!" An old man with tired eyes and holes in his face emerged from a back room hidden by a wall of beads. "Jip, what does this look like to yah?"

Jip slipped a humorously large pair of glasses over his nose to stare at the sickles.

"Would you look at that?" he whispered to himself.

"Polly, you give these kids what they want," he said before exiting the lobby with the coins clutched in his hands.

"Well what'll it be, kid?" she said excitedly, taking Max by the shoulders and shoving him into a chair.

"Well I wasn't planning on-" he started, looking quite surprised and his friends standing beside him looking scared.

"Come on, spit it out," she barked, losing her smile. "I have money to be spendin'. Tattoo or peircin'?"

"Piercing," Max said quickly.

"Max," Rose barked worriedly. "What are you doing?"

"I've always wanted one," he smiled.

"What'll it be?" The woman held out a tray of cartilage hoops. Max pointed at the smallest of the lot which was jet black.

"Alright, hold still," she said, loading the ring into a machine like she was cocking a gun. "I'm gonna count to three," she said as she positioned the gun to his upper cartilage like a stapler. "One-" *click*.

Max jumped as a blast of pain shot through his ear, then subsided.

"Done," the woman smiled, chewing her smack still.

Rose, Scorpius, and Al had their hands over their mouths in horror.

"Anything else?" she asked.

"Uh, no thanks," he mumbled, holding the bead of metal now implanted into his ear.

"What did it feel like?" Scorpius asked as they left the shop.

Max thought. "It wasn't as bad as I thought," he replied, then smiled. "But I don't think they know how little a sickle is. You still want to go to the pub, Al?"

"No, thanks," he replied. "I don't really trust muggles anymore, not these muggles anyway."

Max looked at Rose's watch; they had just enough time visit the record shop before they headed toward the subdivision that Max's neighbor had told him about. They stopped to stare down the street. The sky was growing dark, filled with navy blue clouds. The orange lights of the house fronts illuminated Halloween decorations such as sheets hanging from a tree, bones sticking up out of the ground, and fuzzy spiders blocking the porch. Many children ran around the street holding jack-o-lantern buckets while dressed like, pirates, princesses, tigers, and zombies.

Al, Rose, and Scorpius's eyes were wide with unseen wonder as they watched the kids collect free candy from each and every house.

"And you told me not to stand in the road," said Scorpius gesturing to the children running across the pavement.

"This is the only day of the year that it's okay to play in the streets, as long as it's not super busy," Max clarified.

"Muggle rules are rather misleading," Scorpius thought allowed.

Max smiled to himself because they had no idea how right that statement was. He took Rose's wrist to read her watch. "I think this is a good time," he thought allowed. "Go ahead and take your sacks."

"Okay," Max stopped before the first house. It was large, clearly owned by wealthy people, with cobwebs hanging from the doorframe and plastic ghosts dangling from a small crabapple tree. "Watch how I do this, then follow suit."

He stepped up to the red door and rang the bell which echoed inside. A plump woman dressed in a big black dress, tall pointy hat, green face paint, and an artificial nose answered the door.

"Hello, dears," she smiled, clutching a jack-o-lantern full to the brim of sweets.

"Trick or treat!" Max called.

As though it were magic, the woman dropped a handful of candy into Max's bag without hesitation. She then turned to the other three and waited. Rose, Scorpius, and Al looked awestruck.

"Just say it," Max whispered from the corner of his mouth.

"Trick or treat!" the three called.

The woman laughed and dropped candy into their bags as well.

"Rather new to this, aren't you?" she asked.

"It's their first-time trick or treating," Max replied. The other three were gazing into their sacks as the colorful array of food in their bags. "Come on," he took Scorpius around the arm and pushed everyone down the steps.

"It's magic!" said Al.

"Of course it's not," Max smiled at his friend's faces.

"What else would make muggles give strange kids candy in the middle of the night?" Al reasoned. "Trick or treat must be a spell, like impirio! It makes muggles do what you want!"

"That's not even close," Max tried, but the others weren't listening.

"This is such a huge neighborhood!" Rose said excitedly. "I bet I can finish the strip before you two make it to the neighbors!"

"Yeah right!" Scorpius laughed, and the three of them took off running to the following houses.

"Guys wait!" Max called, but it was no use. "Uh, okay! Just, don't touch anything, or say anything! Guys?"

And the night went on like that. Rose, Al, and Scor running until their heart's content and Max chasing after them like an angry goose. This was not how the evening was supposed to go. It became much more complicated when Rose got in an argument with a know-it-all muggle kid who thought he knew it all about wizards and witchcraft. Rose beamed with success when he couldn't answer her simple Arithmancy test questions but became infuriated when he tried to point her out as a fraud who knew nothing about the art of spells. Max caught her hand reaching for her wand and had to physically carry her away as her dad came out and she attempted to swing at the nerd.

Though half way through the neighborhood, he was tired and sweaty from chasing them, he didn't regret bringing them here. His plan had worked. He had successfully made Rose forget, just for tonight, that she was angry with him, with her cousin, and with Scorpius. And he had finally gotten Al and Scor to raise their heads from books and papers to remember that there was still a sky to marvel at instead of whatever they were hunting.

"Hey, guys," Max said, finding his friends taking a break against a haybale near a mailbox.

"Scorpius," Rose scorned. "You can't eat your candy yet! We have to save room for dinner."

"We missed dinner," said Max, plopping himself down on the hay as well, being more exhausted than any of them.

"What?" said Rose in surprise. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"I did," Max yawned. "When you guys were bobbing for poison apples, but I think you may have had a bit of water in your ears. Anyway, it's eleven-thirty-six. We've missed dinner, dessert, the show, and our nice warm beds."

The boys groaned and fell backward, but Rose was staring at Max. she had been so caught up in this new, strange event that she hadn't realized how much they had taken out of him. He had bags under his eyes, his hair was a mess, and he was absentmindedly playing with his new earing which she still couldn't believe he had gotten.

"I think we should head back now," said Rose, standing up and hoisting her candy bag over her shoulder.

"What do you mean 'head back'?" asked Al. "We're only halfway done!"

"Our bags are full," she reasoned.

"We have pockets," Scorpius shrugged.

"We're done," she said more sternly on Max's behalf who looked extremely excited that his night as the responsible adult could possibly be over.

After a bit of arguing, Rose won, as she nearly always did because of her persistence. They decided to find the train tracks and take them back to Hogsmeade station, the muggle town being much creepier in the dark where freaky people lurked and probably wouldn't hesitate in kidnapping four young children alone on Halloween night. This also prevented them from having to take that hike through the woods. Getting back into Honeyduke's cellar for the tunnel wasn't hard but they did set off the alarm and had to sprint through their secrets passageway. But the worst part of it all was having to sneak back through the castle a one o'clock in the morning. Filtch always roamed the halls on Halloween because of the constant mischief that occurred. They crept around corners, ducked under desks, and tried to pick up their candy as they made a trail when they ran. But as for Rose and Max, they made it safely to their common room. Exhausted and hungry, the two kids collapse on the sofa. The house elves had already cleaned the Halloween party wreck.

"Thank you, Max," Rose breathed. "For doing all that for us."

She turned to see why he wasn't responding only to find him fast asleep over the arm of the couch, his mouth open, and fully dressed. Rose smiled and threw a blanket over him before wishing him a Happy Halloween and heading to her bed where she would lock up her candy in case Cromwell came snooping.