An American at Hogwarts

Chapter Twenty

I woke up bright and early Saturday morning, along with all my friends, to go down to Hogsmeade as soon as possible. They'd all been before, so their excitement was mostly to show me everything about the place.

An all-wizarding village. Oh boy. This was gonna be interesting.

"You ready for the coolest day of your life Lex?" asked Lee as the six of us finished up breakfast and started heading down to Hogsmeade.

"Heck yes! We gotta stock up on candy though, okay? Since it's Halloween?"

"Of course!" Alicia agreed.

"Honeydukes has the best sweets in the country," said Angelina. "Just wait till you try them."

"Sounds great!" I agreed.

"Honeydukes is good, but the real highlight is going to be Zonko's," said Fred.

"What's Zonko's?"

All three of the boys got this mischievous glint in their eyes which made me a little nervous that I'd asked, but mostly just excited to see what they were talking about.

"Zonko's is a wizarding joke shop," George answered. "It's got the best stuff for anyone like us."

"Meaning anyone who likes pranks?" I asked.

"Exactly," chorused the twins.

"Excellent. We gotta make that stop for sure."

"Obviously," agreed George.

"It is called trick or treat," added Fred.

"Good, I like that," I said. "Do you guys do that at Hogwarts? Do you dress up and do some trick or treating?"

"No," said Angelina. "I mean, we don't really have a place to do it. Besides, the costumes would get absolutely insane at a wizarding school."

"Oh my gosh, that's so true. As soon as I'm allowed to do magic outside of Hogwarts I'm gonna go crazy making the most epic costumes out there," I decided.

"Excellent! Maybe we can all make something crazy and go trick-or-treating with you in the states!" suggested Lee.

"Hell yes! Perfect plan." Lee grinned as we all took the lasts steps into Hogsmeade. Unlike just about everywhere else in the world, no one here was making any effort to conceal their use of magic.

It was insanely weird to see it like this, out in the street. At Hogwarts, no one hid their magic, but it was all within the context of school. Here, it was all the everyday life things, but with magic and absolutely no technology. This was a normal, everyday village that did absolutely nothing normally.

"Let's go to Honeydukes and then we can eat our sweets in the Three Broomsticks with some Butterbeers!" suggested Alicia.

"Sounds like a plan to me!" Angelina agreed excitedly.

"Race you!" Fred and George turned and yelled to me before taking off down the magical street.

"How am I supposed to beat you?" I yelled, running after them. "I don't know where I'm going!"

The twins just cackled, and I decided to give in and just trail behind them. I could destroy them in a rematch later.

We came to a stop just outside a cutely painted building, with what looked like half of Hogwarts swarming around it, trying to get in.

"Wow, this place sure is popular," I commented, staring up at the painted green lettering that spelled out HONEYDUKES.

"That's because it has the absolute best candy," said Fred.