It was the afternoon of Saturday, October 3rd, 2020, and James decided to propose an idea for a competition to Lily.

"Hey, Lily?" said James eagerly as he and Lily were walking around the Black Lake, "I have an idea for a unique competition between us."

"Let's hear it!" said Lily excitedly.

"So, " smirked James, "The idea is that I will set up two rows of various kinds of M&Ms on the Quidditch Pitch. We will have a competition to see who can eat their row of M&Ms faster. "

"What kinds of M&Ms will be included in these rows?" asked Lily cautiously.

"Milk chocolate, pretzel, birthday cake, raspberry, and crispy, " explained James.

"Alright, then, I agree to the competition, " said Lily crisply.

"Here's how it will work, " explained James, "I will lay out two rows of fifty M&Ms. Yours on the left side and mine on the right side with ten of each flavor for each of us. These rows will lead up to the center circle. I will place a full bag of mint M&Ms in the center circle. Whoever picks up the bag of mint M&Ms wins the competition. Neither one of us has ever tried mint M&Ms before so how about whichever one of us wins the competition gets to eat the bag of mint M&Ms?"

"I agree, " said Lily simply.

"Okay, I just need to go retrieve the M&Ms we will be using, " said James briskly, "Meet me on the Qudditch pitch."

James went up to his room to retrieve the M&Ms and met up with Lily on the Qudditch pitch a minute and a nanosecond later.

James set the bag of mint M&Ms down in the center circle and proceeded to place the appropriate rows of fifty in two lines leading up to the center circle.

James pulled his wand out of his right hand pocket and pointed it at Lily's left hand row.

"Mixicus!" cried James and the M&Ms in Lily's row randomly mixed themselves up so there was no idea to know which flavors were where.

James then pointed his wand at his right hand row and cried, "Mixicus!" again and the M&Ms in James's row now randomly mixed themselves up so there was no idea to know which flavors were where.

James got down on his knees in front of his right hand row and Lily got down on her knees in front of her left hand row. They would be crawling as they ate so they didn't have to bend down and pick up every piece of candy by hand one by one.

"GO!" shouted James.

James and Lily both got off to quick starts as they each ate their way through their first ten M&Ms rather quickly. Interestingly, both James and Lily got exactly two of each of the five flavors through their first ten M&Ms.

Naturally, the pace settled down through the heart of the race and it was so nip and tuck that James and Lily had experienced twenty lead changes through the first forty six M&Ms. They ended up tying at forty eight and incredibly each ate the fiftieth M&M at the exact same nanosecond, both ending on milk chocolate.

It simply came down to who could pick up the bag of mint M&Ms first.

It was Lily who stretched out her left had to pick up the green bag.

"YES!" piped up Lily loudly as she stood up and held out the bag, "I, Lily Luna Potter am the winner of the Potter Siblings M&Ms Eating Competition and have therefore won the mint M&Ms bag. Yes!"

"Congratulations, Lily, " said James in a genuine and sincere voice, "Enjoy the mint M&Ms bag!"

Next nanosecond, Lily opened the mint M&Ms bag.

"Cool!" said Lily cheerfully as she saw the three different shades of green that mint M&Ms came in.

"The different shades of green do look super cool!" agreed James.

Lily took one mint M&M of each green shade and eagerly popped the handful of three into her mouth.

James looked on, expecting to see a smile come across Lily's face.

James therefore felt his heart sink when he saw Lily spit the handful out.

"No good?" inquired James.

"There's nothing wrong with the quality, " explained Lily, "But I personally REALLY didn't like them. You try a handful and see what you think."

Lily passed the bag of mint M&Ms to James.

James took one mint M&M of each green shade and eagerly popped the handful of three into his mouth.

'YUMMY! said James in a blissful voice, delighting in the taste of the mint M&Ms.

"I LOVE these, " said James matter of factly.

"I wonder if it's because they're made with dark chocolate rather than milk chocolate?" wondered Lily aloud, "I rarely eat dark chocolate so I can't have much of an opinion on it. But that's my suspicion."

"I rarely eat dark chocolate either, " mused James, "I wonder if we're learning here that I like dark chocolate and you don't."

James ate another handful of the mint M&Ms and said "Mmmm!" without thinking about it.

"Maybe that's what it boils down to, " agreed Lily, "You like dark chocolate and I don't and that's what we've learned from all this. At any rate, the mint M&Ms bag is all yours now, James. I hated them and you loved them so you might as well keep it."

"This is unfair to you, " James told Lily, "You won fair and square and I ended up getting the prize anyway because you turned out not to like it. I tell you what, Lily, I will compensate you in some way."

"You don't have to do that, James, " said Lily reasonably, "We both expected that we would both like the mint M&Ms. Sometimes these things just don't work out."

"All the same, " said James simply, "Please follow me up to my room."

Lily followed James up to James's room.

Once they were inside, James walked straight over to his candy jar and asked Lily, "Which of the M&Ms flavors would you consider your favorite, Lily?"

"Peanut butter, " said Lily honestly, "But of the flavors you'd be carrying here, birthday cake. I love the vanillaishness of birthday cake M&Ms."

James dug his right hand into the candy jar and ejected a light blue bag of birthday cake M&Ms and handed it to Lily.

"Enjoy, Lily, " said James with a genuine smile.