Making magical memories

[Jacob King]

May 29th 1989

Monday, 4:00 PM

The King family had just returned from a weekend trip to Hogsmeade. Jacob picked up three issues of Daily Prophet from their patio doors where a Tawny owl dropped one fresh off the print every morning. It had arrived this way for years, Twany owls being a safe option here in the relatively wooded neighbourhood in Sutton where they were a more or less common sight anyway. He'd opted to pay the subscription annually in advance so he wouldn't need to interract with the delivery owl and draw unnecessary attention and could go away for a few days without needing to freeze the service. At Hogsmeade Jacob had mostly glanced through these issues, busy spending time with his children, intending to look them through more htoroughly at home. This seemed like a good time, now that the little ones hurried off to their rooms to unpack. Though Jacob suspected he'd have to do most of it later, that the kids would only unpack everything that had been bought or that they'd found.

9-year old Hunter burst into his bedroom, threw his very heavy backbag on his made bed, jumped on it himself and dug in. He'd got something from nearly every store. Nearly. Dad hadn't been too cheap as Hogsneade was too far away to visit often. To their muggle friends they'd claimed they'd gone for a mini-holiday at a holiday resort in Kent, which was close but still far enough away for a weekend trip to make sense. As he emptied the contents on his bed he wished he had wizardkind friends living close by, but the closest lived in other parts of London and couldn't come over whenever. But perhaps he could show off and share at least some of this awesomeness with even a muggle friend, he reckoned. Perhaps his oldest friend in this neighbourhood. He'd been allowed to get him a box of Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans for him anyway, to be given with the story that a private candy maker was selling them at a kids' event at the holiday resort so that Sammy or his family wouldn't wonder why they couldn't find them anywhere.

"Dad, may I invite Sammy over?" the boy asked whilst hurrying down the stairs.
"Only for a couple of hours. I want you to wind down after supper," Jacob agreed, sitting at the dining room table with Saturday's Daily Prophet. "And don't show him anything too magical. Actually..." the man added, deciding to not trust his 9-year old's judgment--or caring--quite so much, "Before you call him, let's see what we brought home."
He got up and ushered his son back upstairs. He felt sure he couldn't remember everything and needed to take a look.

A few minutes later they'd managed to agree upon the selection of safe items and Jacob put the rest back in Hunter's backbag and took it downstairs with him. Hunter rushed to the study between his dad and little sister's rooms to call Samuel Rees who lived only a few minutes away.

[Samuel Connor Rees]

It was a bit of a long day already and not everything went as well as Sam had hoped. His head was still spinning from the meeting at the park earlier that day. It was somewhat difficult to know if what he saw was really true or if he just fell for a really clever trick. As he was nearing his home he didn't know if he was disappointed or angry or just confused. Most likely it was a little bit of all three.  It wasn't really important right now anyway. The moment he stood in front of his home the young boy took a few moments to take a few deep breaths and tried a few really good smiles to put on a happy face. There was no need to worry his dad about all this. Not that he would understand it anyway.

Sam entered the house with a really convincing smile on his face. "Hey dad, I'm home!" he called loudly from the door even though he knew he shouldn't. Dad never liked him yelling throughout the house.
"In here!" he heard a faint reply from the kitchen. Keeping the smile frozen on his face Sam took off his shoes, washed his hands in the bathroom, and entered the kitchen.
"So, how was your walk? Seems like you had a good time." dad asked him.

Sammy just shrugged "Everything was fine. But I think I will go and get some rest. I am a bit tired. Is that ok?" Sam asked.
"Are you sure you are fine?" dad asked him while raising his eyebrow slightly. It was one of the dad's looks that showed he was on to him.
"Sure I'm sure. Just a bit winded that's all," Sam answered and wanted to go to his room to sulk quietly but he got interrupted by the phone ringing.
"Got it" he yelled and ran to the phone. It was always a race.

"Rees's residence, Sam's speaking," he answered the call with a bit of an overly serious reply but he learned to be a bit more formal in this matter as quite often it was someone from dad's job.

[Stephen Hunter King]

"He, Sam. It's me," Hunter greeted, speaking fast in excitement. "We're back from our holiday. I brought you some fun candy that you can't find in stores. And I want to show you some cool stuff Dad bought me. Can you come over now?"
The boy wished he could apparate and just go snatch his friend instead of waiting for several minutes or maybe even hours or days if Sam's dad wouldn't let him visit now. But it would be another eight years before he could even begin to practise apparation so right now he could only practise patience.

[Samuel Connor Rees]

Sam smiled as he heard the voice of his oldest friend. "Oh, hey there! Nice to hear you are back. Did you enjoy the trip?" he asked. For a short moment, Sam felt silent as he was thinking. He just got home and his mood wasn't the best, but visiting Hunter should improve it a bit. It usually did.
"Sure, let me just ask dad. Oh, yelling incoming, cover your ears" he put his hand over the phone so his voice wasn't as loud.
"DAD? CAN I GO TO ST... HUNTER'S? I'LL BE HOME IN TIME FOR DINNER, PROMISE" he yelled to the kitchen.
Sam heard steps as his dad was coming closer.
"Sammy, no yelling in the house!" he said with a strict voice before smiling
"But yes, say them "hi" for me, will you?" he said, going back to the kitchen to continue with the cooking.
"Dad is saying "hi" and yeah, I'll be right there," he agreed, waiting to hear if Hunter didn't want to add something else before ending the call, grabbing his shoes once more, and running out toward's his friend'S house. It was close enough and Sam had a lot of energy left to burn.
It didn't take him long at all to stand in front of his friend's house, ringing the bell.

[Stephen Hunter King]

Hunter waited at the kitchen window and opened the front door long before Sam reached even their yard. Jacob ended up having to close it after the boys rushed upstairs to Hunter's room.

"This is for you. These are weird and fun," he grabbed a large tin box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans from his desk and handed it to Sam. "They're jelly beans but some of them are gross. There are lots of great flavours like strawberry or chocolate or even chips with ketchup, but also lots of bad ones like black pepper and coffee or disgusting ones like vomit or dirt. One can't always tell from the colour. Once I got vinegar when I thought it might be apple, and another time I got earwax flavour though it looked like maybe banana," he explained.
"The bloke selling these said there's no way to tell which box has mostly good ones so I just grabbed a random box. I hope I chose well. The box I opened had lots of goods."

// The real life version has only twenty flavourrs, but in this universe there likely would be countless possible flavours overall and indeed no way to tell the rario of good vs. bad in each box. There isn't any kind of guide paper either. It'll be completely blind tasting. )

[Samuel Connor Rees]

As Sam was closing on Hunter's house he was quite enthusiastically pulled inside by his friend. Before he knew it Sam was upstairs in Hunter's room and there was a tin box in his hands. Somewhere in that time, he was sure to say a faint "Hello" but in his semi-bad mood, he was completely unprepared for his friend's seemingly endless energy.
"Oh, that sounds cool. And slightly disturbing but mostly cool, thank you" he said once he got an explanation of what this thing actually was.
"So... uh... I suspect I should try one?" he asked and rattled the box a little, hearing the beans bouncing inside.
He opened the box and pushed his hand inside, grabbing a brownish bean from the inside, looking at it with distrusting eyes.
"Well, here goes..." he said and start chewing it. Almost immediately his face turned to pure agony.
"Oh geez... that tastes like a mushroom. I hate mushrooms!" he said but didn't stop chewing. After he gulped it down he started laughing.
"This was by far the second strangest thing that happened to me today!"

[Stephen Hunter King]

Brown certainly wasn't a colour I would have picked for my first ever try, Hunter thought.
"Ohh," he wrinkled his nose. "Well, at least it wasn't poo. I'm not sure if it could be. The man did not seem that looney though," he tried to put a positive spin on the unfortunate first experience.
"What's the most strange thing then?" he addressed the curious statement.

[Samuel Connor Rees]

Sam looked at the box with a worrying look, closing the lid once again.
"If that is an option suddenly I am not sure if this is a gift or one of your pranks... or perhaps revenge for something? Did I step on your dog or something?" he joked.
His mood changed a bit when Hunter asked him about the strangest encounter.
"Well... I met this kid in a park, a bit older, and... he played a weird joke on me. It was all weird. He had this strange animal with a large pouch..." he just waved it off as this condensed version probably didn't make any sense to poor Hunter.
"That is not important I guess" he shrugged.

[Stephen Hunter King]

A playful smirk crept on Hunter's face. He hadn't even thought of that possibility, and now was glad to leave Sam hanging with that. Sooner or later he would find some really good flavours too and would come to a conclusion, whatever it would be. So he just focused on the story which began rather confusingly. Hunter frowned, staring past his friend's shoulder, and could not think of any pouch equipped animal that would be strange. Sure maybe strange to bring to a park, but...
"What kind of a joke?" he asked, in part hoping to get new ideas for his own prankster use. "And are you sure? Maybe it was something from Australia? They have lots of strange animals there."

[Samuel Connor Rees]

Sam just shook his head as he saw his friend's smirk. At that moment he knew it was the only answer he was going to get.
"I suppose it could've been some exotic animal, but he made it look like the pouch was way bigger than it was. But I guess it was just a trick. Though very convincing one. He even pulled a gold-looking coin from it..." he tried to explain. Talking about it felt a bit foolish.
Sam just ended up shrugging "One would say I would be better prepared to deal with pranks," he gave Hunter a knowing look.
"Anyway... you wanted to show me something else, right?" he asked wanting to leave the story behind.