Sweet as Sugar

[April Ward]

April always loved Halloween at Hogwarts, as it was the only time of the year where they got to dress up and be silly. This year she had gone all out, and she was excited to show off her costume to everyone. The idea of going as cotton candy had come to her after a visit to Honeydukes, and she had worked on her costume very hard. Now she beamed as she looked around, loving the decorations and the atmosphere. She made sure to stand in the middle of the hall, hoping to get some comments on her costume. There were a lot of interesting people around, and she loved to meet new friends. She looked around, hoping to find a friendly face.

 

[Gideon Zelinsky]

This year, Halloween had been kind of awful for Gideon. His headless horseman costume idea had seemed great at first - every year the first years grew pumpkins in Herbology, so there'd be no shortage of them to use an appropriate head. Rather than take a pre-carved one, however, the boy had been adamant on carving it himself, to make it more fitting to his aesthetic. That had been his first mistake. His second was trying on the pumpkin head before he'd even started cutting out the eyeholes, or being dressed up for that matter. Now it was firmly stuck, and he'd had to blindly be assisted down to the Great Hall, his vision filled only by orange gourd-guts or complete darkness, depending on how he tilted his head.

The start of the feast was spent by Giddy trying to dig out an eyehole with a fork. It had worked, sort of. He could semi-see through a dug out crack, but once he'd actually seen the fork and how close it came to his eyes, he freaked and stopped trying to widen the hole even more. Even his newfound vision had turned out to be a bad idea. Being able to now see the food table left his stomach rumbling, but he couldn't fit a cauldron cake through the hole around his neck, and having another attempt at stabbing through the pumpkin-head for a mouth hole was out of the question.

Groaning, Gideon left the table and meandered around aimlessly, wondering if he should simply give up and try find a professor to vanish the gourd and be done with it. What he found first was what looked like a magically enlarged fairy floss, at least through the narrow window he had to view it from. That was new, and he briefly wondered if it was a prop, or some sort of communal thing anyone could take from - until it turned around and had a persons face. "OhMerlinyou'reaperson." Gideon exclaimed, surprised to see a candy treat suddenly become a human right in front of his eyes. Or eye, in this circumstance. He looked her up and down, gradually taking in the entirety of the girl's outfit through the hole. "Your costume is actually pretty cool!" He commented, now recovered from the initial shock. It sucked to miss out on seeing everyone else's outfits, and this was the first actual one he was seeing in its entirety. Everyone else was just blobs of fabrics.

 

[April Ward]

April was busy trying to find her friends, or anyone else to talk to, and turned to see a walking pumpkin talking to her. She stared at him, then giggled uncertainly as he told her she was a person. It didn't take long for her to get this was a boy with a pumpkin over his head, though for what reason he had done that she didn't know. "Yes I'm a person, are you?" She asked him with a giggle. "Thanks though! Are you dressed as a living pumpkin?" She asked him, leaning in to peer at the pumpkin more closely. She saw there was a small crack in the pumpkin from behind which she saw an eye. "You should have made bigger eye holes, you know." She pointed out. "But your costume isn't bad either, you look silly but in a Halloween-y way." She said happily, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Maybe we can form a club people in of food-related costumes!" She said happily, grinning. "Can you see a lot through that? If not, I can keep an eye out for any others." She said, already looking around for anyone to join them. She could've sworn she had seen a hotdog walking around earlier.

 

[Gideon Zelinsky]

Gideon grinned, an act hidden by the gourd on his head. It was a response he quickly regretted, and he wiped the grin off his face as the taste of pumpkin became more invasive. "I dunno anymore. Maybe I am a living pumpkin now. I'm starting to forget what my life was like before I put this on." He joked, giving the gourd another useless tug. Nope, still stuck fast. "I tried to make them bigger! I spent ages digging this part out with a fork, but then all I could see where the sharps prongs way way way too close to my eyes so I gave up before I lost one, y'know?" The Gryffindor admitted. Never before did he think he could be afraid of a utensil, but here he was. Perhaps he was slowly becoming a real pumpkin after all. "I can only really see if people are standing kind of far away, but there's so many people here I can barely make out anyone far enough away to properly see." He twisted on the spot experimentally, looking for a gap in the crowds to see if you could make out any of the wallflowers, but to little avail. "Ok, sudden club name idea, are you ready? We could be the Snack Pack." Pause for dramatic effect, then he imitated an explosion from his pumpkin, as if it was the most mind-blowing name ever.

 

[April Ward]

April frowned a little at the boy's words. She had assumed his entire situation had been something he'd done on purpose, but the way he talked about it didn't sound like it was. "If you need it removed, I'm sure a professor could help." She said with a shrug of her shoulders. "I could ask my dad." The idea of making the eye hole with the fork after putting it on his head made her wince. "Maybe you should have made holes first." She suggested, though she knew it was a little too late to say that now. "But it's okay, don't worry. I'll be your eyes." She said, waving at her eyes dramatically and looking around. "I could have sworn I saw someone in a hot dog costume earlier." She commented as she looked at the others in the hall. Her attention was caught by him again when he told her he had a club name idea, and his suggestion made her laugh loudly. "That's a fantastic name!" She said happily, not at all thinking he was overreacting when he acted like it was some sort of mind-blowing name idea. She held up her hand for a high five, then realized he probably couldn't see it. "High five!" She added, hoping he would be able to roughly judge where her hand was for a high five.

 

[Gideon Zelinsky]

Gideon laughed at the fairy-floss girls advice to have put eye-holes in first. "I was gonna! I didn't think I'd get my head stuck though. Help from a professor sounds like a great idea, but now I'm thinking about maybe signing up for the competition like this? See if I can win Most Ridiculous?" It was a bit of a stretch, considering he looked otherwise normal, but he thought he should at least try to get something out of this otherwise bad situation. He was glad for her to offer to be his eyes, and the fact that she liked his club name idea. He tried his best to give her a high-five, head swiveling to try and find her hand, but only managed to clumsily slap half of it. Good enough. "So you're um, April, right? Are you related to Amy? From the joke shop?" He asked, finally remembering her name. It had taken him a while to piece together her face, of what little of it he could see at the best of times. He recognised her from some of the classes, and realised she might have been related to his new boss, since they shared the same last name and looked kind of similar.

 

[April Ward]

April laughed again, shaking her head though she had to steady her pink wig to do so. "Alright, I'll take you to my dad later okay? I bet he'll know what to do." She told him with a smile. "Though the competition idea isn't bad." She sort of wished he wouldn't, as she was also signing up and wanted to win. But she knew that wouldn't be very nice of her to say. "I'll help you sign up, if you want." She added with a small shrug. The high five went surprisingly well, and April grinned. Her grin only widened when the boy knew her name, he recognized her! "Yes! I'm April. You know my aunt?" She asked him curiously. She knew Aunt Amy's shop was probably very popular among students, but didn't expect most of them to know her by name so quickly. The boy was one in her year, but she wasn't entirely sure who it was. The pumpkin wasn't really making it any easier. "Sorry, I don't know your name. Though I might have if it wasn't for the pumpkin hiding your entire face." She said with an apologetic smile.