Chapter 23: The First Not Customers!

I hold still, keeping a balancing act as I toss another hat onto the pile.

 

“Okay,” I announce. “I have put 42 hats on my head. Think I can do another?” The bored Fred and George look at me, not even giving me the time of day.

 

I huff, grab a sombrero, and attempt the next toss.

 

I guess I should explain. Despite my magical manipulations, we haven’t received any customers to our shop and smuggling business. Obviously, we can’t be loud in our advertising, so I was forced to put subliminal messages in students’ dreams. However, this barely did anything.

 

“Are we going to get a store of our own?” Fred asks, grabbing a chocolate bar from the stash.

 

I lash out with a tentacle. “Don’t eat the product,” I admonish. “Also, eventually. Likely after Christmas break. I need tools that not even I can get, because someone about as strong as me is guarding them.” Plus, I also need an energy solution. I’m starting to use more energy in finding worlds to eat than I’m actually getting back out.

 

George sits up, wide eyed. “Wait! Someone like you?”

 

“Yeah. My dad, well, adoptive dad. We’re technically more of co-workers using our ability to look like…whatever we want in a complicated way to get around bureaucracy.”

 

“Makes sense.”

 

“I’m still on the fact that he’s like you.”

 

I scoff. “Not exactly like me. He’s…mostly human. About a quarter. Rest is machinery. He’s pretty strong though.” I leave them at that, not wanting to explain more about someone that isn’t me.

 

Right as I’m about to balance hat number three, the doors burst open.

 

“Customers!” I cheer, running over to find…five angry seventh years? No, that’s not right. They aren’t prefects… Hmm… Do I need to factory reset the entire rune stuff that the school runs on?

 

“Have you three been sellin’ stuff?” One asks in a…poor fake-Boston accent. “On our turf?”

 

I scrunch my eyes in confusion. No, wait. I get it! The horse’s name was Friday!

 

“YE—” “No, not really.” I turn a glare over George, who is also glaring back at me. If we need to advertise, then saying that business is booming is best!

 

“Really?” Bad Boston asks, pulling out his wand; the tip right in my face, glowing with eerie magical energies.

 

I push it away with a finger. “I sense that you’re partially upset about something…”

 

A bigger fella in the back, Slytherin, I’ll call him Brick Wall, grunts in affirmation. Bad Boston the Ravenclaw sniffs, turning his nose up at me. “Yeah! You’re selling jokes and stuff, and that’s what we do!”

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“Okay. So, what’s with the Silent Trio behind you? Those three haven’t made their purpose known yet.” In fact, the three have all dressed similarly, not showing their school colors. They’ve also all have been staring at me, unblinking.

 

I perform a quick few sessions of mitosis, creating three copies of me, engaging in the staring competition the Silent Trio has initiated. I easily win as they immediately blink. Hahaha! Suckers!

 

“They…uh…” Bad Boston has shifted out of his fake accent, something more…cockney? I think? I dunno. Don’t care. “They were supposed to increase…numbers.”

 

“Anyway,” I say, still reveling in my success, “isn’t competition good? We just need to prove that we’re the better salespeople than you.”

 

Brick Wall smirks, sighs, and coughs as I direct his spit a little to the side, causing him to choke a smidge.

 

“Actually,” Bad…Cockney smiles, bad to his bad Boston accent, “we had more of an initiation for you. We’re graduating soon, so we’d like ta know if you’re gonna stay in this game well and long.”

 

“Get to the point!” Fred shouts, him and George fed up with the show these seventh years have put on. The two are always up for some fun, but this is just the same thing over and over and over and over again.

 

“Smuggle something for us, will ya’?” Huh, he has some spinach in his teeth.

 

“Like what? Food, potions, muggle assortments…” I dig through reality…Ooh! “The pleasure tool your mom uses because her husband can’t satisfy herself anymore?” I, daintily, rip a hole in space as a tentacle retrieves the item in question. A pink…thing wobbles about, clearly molded to look like a horse’s…appendage.

 

Yeah…

 

Bad Boston stands slack-jawed as he stares at the monument to his mother’s dissatisfaction with his father. Every other guy in the room awkwardly stares in any other direction than the floating tentacle with a horse on the end.

 

Even if they’re ignoring for a moment that a tentacle is holding the damned thing.

 

Thing in question is still wet from recent use, and not, in fact, from the mucus that my tentacles lubricate themselves with. It’s not even midday yet!

 

I drop the thing, landing on the ground with a squelch. Bad Boston continues staring at it. Brick Wall slowly comes up behind him and grabs his shoulder, leading them out of the bathroom. My own triplet trio pushes the Silent Trio out after them.

 

As the door closes, the appendage tool thing melts into hundreds of tentacles. “What?” I ask to the two wide-eyed twins. “It wasn’t real. I’m not going to do that. Plus, it’ll sit in his head for years, and it might ruin his relationship with his parents later.”

 

“Yeah,” Fred edges, “but wasn’t that too much?”

 

“…Nah. There’s a lot worse I could’ve done.” For example, bring the actual thing here, though it’s a smidge bigger than the one I made.

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