Devon pulled down a small square scarlet box with icons of the Hogwarts Express on all four sides and the words CINNAMON TRAINS in goldish yellowish lettering across the top of the box.
Cinnamon wasn't a hugely popular flavor amongst this group but as Devon was a huge train aficionado, he was excited at the prospect of trying a train themed sweet.
Devon pulled the tab on top of the box and opened it. He poured the candies into his right hand. There were seven pieces of candy that were shaped and colored to look exactly like baby Hogwarts Expresses.
Devon handed one of the candies each to James, Hugo, Ainsley, Stephanie, Samantha, and Lily while keeping one for himself.
All seven of them popped the cinnamon trains into their mouths at the exact same nanosecond.
The flavor of cinnamon was intense, but it was what happened after they swallowed that was truly notable.
The nanosecond after all seven of them swallowed at the exact same nanosecond, Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Stephanie, Samantha, and Lily involuntarily found themselves down on all fours and they had all sprouted wheels. Involuntary train noises then started coming out of their mouths. Their bodies shifted shapes into the shapes of trains. Finally, their skin turned scarlet with some gold accent. This effect worked so much better because they were all naked.
Without warning, Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Stephanie, Samantha, and Lily all started their engines and zoomed around the room seven times.
After the seventh time the spell wore off and Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Stephanie, Samantha, and Lily all became themselves again.
"THAT!" squeaked Devon in delight, "Was the COOLEST THING EVER!"
"It was a thrill ride," agreed James, "I've rarely had more fun in my life."
"Honeydukes threw an eighty yard touchdown pass with the introduction of cinnamon trains!" smiled Samantha.
"It's great to see you smile again, Samantha," said Lily warmly, "This is the first time I've seen you smile since your accident."
"I needed to have some kind of frivolous fun before I could smile again," admitted Samantha, "I've tried to handle things in as classy a way as I can but these last few days have been really hard for me both physically and emotionally."
"But," said Hugo happily, "When we all became trains, you forgot about everything and lost yourself in that moment of fun, just like we all did."
"BINGO!" squealed Samantha, "A welcome diversion if you will."
"Agreed," said Stephanie in the most cheerful voice she had used since the accident, "For me, it was an unburdening of sort to forget my guilt, forget what had happened and just get caught in some good clean fun."
"Samantha, Stephanie, I'm glad you two enjoyed that," beamed Lily, "I've never had more respect for you two than I do now. Stephanie, it would have been easy for you to act like the whole situation was entirely an accident, but you took full responsibility for the role your inattentiveness played in Samantha's accident."
"You have to be honest about your mistakes because if you aren't then you will repeat them," replied Stephanie, "The best thing you can do after making a mistake is to own it and learn from it."
"And, Samantha, " added Lily, "A situation like the one in Potions could have driven a wedge between you and Stephanie and caused an estrangement between you and Stephanie. But you were the one who most encouraged and supported her."
"That's my sister," said Samantha fiercely, "I'm always going to stand by Stephanie 100% because that's what a strong family does and because I know she would do the same for me if the roles were reversed."
Lily sensed something else going on. While neither Samantha nor Stephanie showed any signs of affection or attachment, Lily sensed that Samantha and Stephanie were now closer with each other than either had ever been with another person. This was clearly the outcome of their shared experiences and adversities. While Lily knew that she never change Samantha's or Stephanie's mind on their beliefs on not valuing love/affection and not becoming attached to other people, she hoped that the Saver sisters would come to realize the inner strength that came with strong relationships.
"Not to be a spoilsport because I enjoyed the ride too," said Ainsley, "But I'm feeling fatigued and nauseated now."
"That can happen with some magical sweets," said the ghost employee matter of factly.
"I am prone to fatigue and nausea," admitted Ainsley, "But I'm going to guess that most magical sweets are meant to be consumed in small portions?"
"Cinnamon trains certainly are," said the ghost, "Any sweet that has any effect other than taste and chew should consumed in extreme moderation."
James now pulled down a clear bag with seven very pale pink licorice like sticks in it. The words WATERmelon Wands were stamped on the front of the bag in all caps block face pink letters with white accent around them.
"Me and Lily are interested in anything wand related," smiled James.
"Damn straight!" beamed Lily, "And Ainsley will love to try a new watermelon flavor candy, she's always been a big tropical girl."
"And this year is my only year to come into Hogsmeade as I am transferring to the Ultimate University of Wizarding Healing next fall. I'd better make the most of this year's Hogsmeade trips," said Ainsley matter of factly.
"Maybe?" suggested Devon, "We could invite you to join us on Hogsmeade trips even if you're not still at Hogwarts. If the ultimate University of Wizarding Healing doesn't have weekend classes, then we could invite you to join us in Hogsmeade. We've already made it clear that we will make sure that you can continue to be a part of our lives by letting you join us when we all get together over the summers."
"The difference, though, " said Ainsley uncertainly, "Is that Hogsmeade trips are for Hogwarts students and I won't be a Hogwarts student anymore. I don't think I'll be eligible to join Hogwarts Hogsmeade Weekends anymore once I'm no longer a Hogwarts student."
"I'm sure McGonagall would permit it," said Lily confidently.
"I agree with Lily," said James certainly, "McGonagall would view Ainsley as a special case."
"I know McGonagall is very supportive of our group and the friendship between us," piped up Hugo.
"That's why I'm so confident McGonagall will allow Ainsley to visit us for Hogsmeade trips in future years," replied Lily warmly.
"I hope you're right," said Ainsley hopefully.
"For now, let's dig into some WATERmelon Wands," said James excitedly.
James tore up the top of the bag and handed Devon, Hugo, Ainsley, Stephanie, Samantha, and Lily one WATERmelon wand each while keeping one for himself.
WATERmelon Wands had one of the weaker flavors of any magical sweet they had ever tasted. Watermelon was a naturally muted flavor anyway and water had been added to the inside of the WATERmelon wands and that diluted the flavor even more.
This was perfectly fine as watermelon was meant to be a soothing and relaxing flavor as opposed to a bold and intense flavor.
Everyone, especially Ainsley, enjoyed the WATERmelon Wands. Then after they swallowed, a massive shower of water descended upon James, Devon, Hugo, Ainsley, Stephanie, Samantha, and Lily. It was as though a historic rainstorm had come cascading down upon them.
In this moment James, Devon, Hugo, Ainsley, Stephanie, Samantha, and Lily were all quite glad that they were naked as this amount of water would have drenched any clothes and made them heavy.
As water continued to spray them, James, Devon, Hugo, Ainsley, Stephanie, Samantha, and Lily were all laughing their asses off.
This was just good old clean soaking fun and James, Devon, Hugo, Ainsley, Stephanie, Samantha, and Lily were enjoying the hell out of it.
And as if that fun wasn't enough, the thing that made them all, especially James and Lily, really happy, happened after calm had been restored.
Once the water had stopped, there were seven of what appeared to be tickets on the floor at each of their feet.
When they picked them up, James, Devon, Hugo, Ainsley, Stephanie, Samantha, and Lily couldn't believe their great luck.
These seven tickets read: Congratulations! As one of the first seven people to eat a WATERmelon Wand, you have won free admission to the Wand Hall of Fame, a museum showing the history of wands and displaying antique wands that opens in Diagon Alley in London on August 9th, 2021 at any time of your choosing between August 9th, 2021 and August 31st, 2021.
"Wow!" beamed Lily, "An opportunity to go the Wand Hall of Fame for free around the time of it's opening! Any witch or wizard would salivate over such an opportunity, "I'm looking forward to visiting the Wand Hall of Fame more than most and I know James is too!"
"It will be one of the most exciting days of my life," glowed James with anticipation in his voice, "Perfect timing too."
"The summer before you become Hogwarts wandmaking teacher," smiled Lily, "What a perfect lead up."
"What a neat thing to happen to a nice group like us," said Devon happily, "In the New Era of Hogwarts, you never know what surprises might await you."
"Even as someone who is more interested in and adept at Wandless Magic, even I cherish the opportunity to explore the Wand Hall of Fame." said Hugo simply.
"How can you not love the opportunity," agreed Ainsley, "And we'll be amongst the first people to see the Wand Hall of Fame."
"We're a Lucky seven indeed," squealed Stephanie, "Of all the people in the Wizarding World, the seven of us get this chance."
"James made a great choice when he picked WATERmelon Wands and now, we all get to reap the rewards of James's brilliance," said Samantha as she grinned at James.
"And," said Lily sincerely, "It'll also be a great opportunity to have Ainsley with us just before she goes off to the Ultimate University of Wizarding Healing."
"Yes," said Ainsley warmly, "It'll be a perfect time and way for me to spend some time with the rest of you before I head off to the Ultimate University of Wizarding Healing."
"My turn to pick now," insisted Hugo as he pulled down a pale blue tube with the label Blueberry Blast appearing in a vertical format in a shade in of blue reminiscent of New York Giants jerseys. There was a San Diego Chargers powder blue screw off top on top of the tube. Inside the tube were seven what looked to be mega blueberries.
Blueberry was one of Both Hugo's and Devon's favorite flavors and James loved all berry flavors as he viewed all berry flavors as "bold" flavors.
Hugo unscrewed the top and passed one of the mega blueberries each to James, Devon, Ainsley, Samantha, Stephanie, and Lily while keeping one for himself.
As expected, this was the most intense sweet they had all tasted so far on this day.
After Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Samantha, Stephanie, and Lily had all swallowed, a 77 MPH wind cut across Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Samantha, Stephanie, and Lily, completely drying them off.
"I see now why these are called Blueberry BLASTS!" exclaimed James, "We're all totally dry now."
"And that was a LOT of water that the WATERmelon Wands sprayed on us," added Hugo.
"So always follow up eating WATERmelon Wands by eating Blueberry Blasts," smirked Devon.
"I've never felt stronger wind," observed Samantha, "We don't get hurricanes in Arizona, though some monsoons can be pretty strong."
"It was a warm wind too," said Stephanie, "That felt really good."
"It especially good to have that warm wind blowing against our faces," smiled Ainsley.
"Quick extreme shower, quicker extreme drying," grinned Lily, "three for three so far."
Ainsley made the next selection. As she was a huge cat lover, she grabbed a box of chocolates with Chocolate Cats stamped in gold lettering atop the box.
Ainsley lifted the lid off of the box and discovered that it contained seven cat shaped chocolates.
"I'm going to pass the box around," explained Ainsley, "Everyone take one and I'll take the last one when the box comes back to me."
Ainsley first offered the box to Devon, who took one Chocolate Cat and then passed the box on James, who took one Chocolate Cat and passed the box on to Hugo. This process was repeated until Hugo, Stephanie, Samantha, and Lily had each gotten one Chocolate Cat and Lily passed the box back to Ainsley, who took the last Chocolate Cat for herself.
As they started to hold the Chocolate Cats, a distinct meowing sound emanated from the chocolate and grew louder and louder.
"The only way to shut them up is to eat them," explained the ghost.
This statement caused Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Samantha, Stephanie, and Lily, all of whose ears were ringing by this point, to quickly eat the Chocolate Cats.
Chocolate was a universally beloved flavor in this group. Devon, James, Ainsley, Samantha, Stephanie, and Lily were all huge chocolate fans. Hugo liked chocolate less than the other six but still enjoyed it, nevertheless.
The Chocolate Cats were delicious. They were made of high quality milk chocolate and Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Samantha, Stephanie, and Lily all chewed slowly so as to savor the flavor more.
There was no after effect this time but Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Samantha, Stephanie, and Lily savored the yumminess of the chocolate.
Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Samantha, Stephanie, and Lily all looked at each other and smiled at each other broadly. They didn't say a word. They didn't need to. Everyone knew that they were all in agreement that it was most delicious chocolate they had ever tasted.
Stephanie selected a handful of multicolored candies that were just individually sitting in a plain box that was labeled Sweet Swirls. The candies were pretty generic shaped but had a colorful mix of abstract orange, yellow, lime green, white, hot pink, sky blue, Arizona Cardinals red, and baby blue.
Stephanie grabbed seven of these Sweet Swirls out of the box but dropped them on the ground. Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Samantha, Stephanie, and Lily each picked one up and ate it.
While Sweet Swirls were sweet and juicy, they clearly tried to mix too many flavors. They tasted disgusting and they all spit them out.
"Yuck!" screeched James, "This is the most disgusting candy I've ever tasted."
Stephanie groaned. James had always believed in honesty and bluntness over tact and sensitivity so if you made a gaffe around James, you knew you had made a gaffe.
Deciding the best way to protect Stephanie's feelings was to move on quickly, Samantha quickly grabbed a bright white plastic holder shaped like a light bulb with Lemon Lights glowing in vivid yellow lettering across the front.
The container was transparent, and Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Samantha, Stephanie, and Lily could easily see that exactly seven yellow candies were in the container, four of them were shaped like lemons and three of them were shaped like light bulbs.
"Easy enough," grinned Samantha, "There are three light bulb shapes and four lemon shapes. There are three boys and four girls here. I think it would make sense for the boys to take the light bulb shaped candies and the girls to take the lemon shaped candies."
There was a muttering of accent to this. Samantha quickly passed one light bulb shaped candy each to Devon, James, and Hugo. She then passed one lemon shaped candy each to Ainsley, Stephanie, and Lily while keeping the last of those for herself.
Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Samantha, Stephanie, and Lily were all lemon fans, but Samantha, Stephanie, and Lily were the ones who liked lemon best.
Stephanie had the most diverse taste in sweets amongst the seven and lemon was her favorite citrus flavor. Samantha usually preferred chocolate candy but lemon was one of her two favorite non chocolate flavors (along with orange.) Lily was a huge citrus fan whose three favorite sweet flavors were lemon, orange. and lime. As a young child, Lily had been PISSED in 2013 when green apple had replaced lime in Skittles. But really, all seven of them were lemon fans so all seven of them eagerly popped the candies into their mouths.
These candies were somewhat harder than the candies they had been eating. The flavor of lemon was strong enough at the start. The candies also had what could called a progressive chew and eventually a bite collapsed the candy and a huge explosion of juice in the mouth occurred. The nanosecond this happen, the flavor of lemon intensified. Lemon Lights reminded Samantha of the American Sweet Lemonhead.
"YUMMMMM!" squeaked Lily happily, "Best lemon flavored candy I've ever tasted!"
"As a bona fide candy expert, I can confirm that that is 100%!" exclaimed James.
"Lemon is an awesome flavor anyway but Lemon Lights take the cake!" said Stephanie brightly.
"An all-time great candy," agreed Samantha.
"Look at the light!" said Devon in amazement!
As Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Samantha, Stephanie, and Lily all looked around themselves, they saw that they all had rings of light around them as though they were light bulbs.
"We're burning brightly!" smirked Samantha, "I showed us the light!"
"Ha ha very funny!" Ainsley razed Samantha.
"We're all lit up!" said Stephanie cheerfully.
"I love magic!" beamed Samantha, "I've seen so many amazing things since I joined the Wizarding World."
"Totally agree," chorused her fellow muggleborns Devon and Stephanie.
"Well, big sis, it's finally your turn to pick," said James encouragingly, "I know you'll make it a good one."
Lily saw something that make her insides glow with warmth on the shelf directly aligned with her head. As Lily was a midget, this was pretty low shelf. She saw a plain box of candies that were sitting individually in a box in the same the Sweet Swirls. These candies were Easter pastel colors that were similar to the colors used on the boxes in the pricing game 1/2 Off.
These candies were heart shaped and bore messages in red letters such as "Forever friends.", "I Love you.", "My sweetheart.", "BFF", "Got Love.", "Soulmate." and "My dearest."
They looked like ordinary muggle candy hearts, Lily picked seven of the hearts up in her right hand and distributed them to Devon, James, Hugo, Ainsley, Samantha, and Stephanie while keeping one for herself.
These magical candy hearts tasted exactly like muggle candy hearts.
But the nanosecond they swallowed them, they suddenly joined closer together and engaged in a tight group hug and rubbed against each other's bodies at the same time. The affection they were all feeling for each other was palpable. Even the normally unaffectionate Samantha felt it as the effects of the candies were irresistible for anyone, no matter how ordinarily unaffectionate. But Lily felt it strongest. It was a feeling of loving each other and loving this shared experience. Lily savored this feeling more than anything else. Nothing felt better to Lily than the feeling of loving and being loved.
Once the spell wore off, Samantha and Stephanie were the first two to break away from the hug.
"I'm NEVER eating those poor influencing candies again," said Samantha decisively, "The very worst of human beings is that they become emotionally attached to other people. This of course, leads to grief and sadness later. And we have a magical candy PROMOTING this? Most disgusting candy of all time."
"PDA's are disgusting anyway," added Stephanie scornfully.
"Absolutely right," agreed Samantha.
"At least they tasted decent," admitted Stephanie.
"True," agreed Samantha, "But in the future let's stick with the muggle version."
"What next?" asked Devon.
"The three Broomsticks," piped Hugo, "I'm thirsty and I've been looking forward to trying butterbeer."
"The three Broomsticks it is then," smiled Lily.