Treats for everyone

Noah had raced up to the dorm from the owlry, Jupiter, his owl, had just delivered a parcel and he was excited to find out what it was. He recognised the handwriting as that of his mothers and she hadn’t said she was sending him anything in their last letter so he was curious.

He dived on his bed and began to tear the packaging off; beneath the brown wrapping was another plain brown box and a letter. He quickly read through the letter.

Quote :

Dear Noah
I think with all your hard work this year you need a bit of a surprise, I hope you enjoy it and share it with your friends in the dorm. I don’t want you eating it all otherwise you’ll make yourself sick.
I hope you are doing well any ways, keep up the hard work.
We love you
Mum and Dad

Noah grinned and open the lid of the box to find a multitude of sweets from Honeydukes and even some he didn’t recognise, his father had recently told him about a muggle sweet shop that he passed on his way to work and he guessed that he had included some of them in the parcel too.

Noah lifted his head to the doorway as he heard some voice and footsteps, lessons had just finished and it was probably the other boys on their way back to dump their bags off and find excuses not to do their homework.

“Hey guys,” he smiled at them all when they entered the room and held up the box of sweets, “mum sent me some stuff and unfortunately for you guys, I’ve been told to share.”

He dropped the box on the rug in the middle of the room and sat down, waiting for the others to join him. Homework could certainly wait until later, when they all felt sick and fat and didn’t want to move and even then he was sure it could wait until another time.

Lucky wanker, Eli thought when he saw the Noah had a package. Aunt Amelia was a muggle, so she didn't send post by owl, which meant that he didn't get any care packages from home.

He was in the middle of staring at his quill intently, trying to get it to move across the page and write his charms essay for him when Noah declared that he was sharing the contents of his package. "Awesome!" He gladly abandoned his essay, for which he had succeeded in writing only four words (Elijah Owens- Charms Essay), and rolled off his bed to plunk himself on the floor in front of the box of goodies.

"SCORE!" he rooted around in it. He had no idea what some of the candy was, but he was going to try it all, no matter how sick it made him. "Bet I can eat more of these without retching than you can," he held up a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and grinned at the others, wondering if they were up for the challenge.

Mark grinned at the idea of having candy instead of trying to do homework. He'd hardly written much anyway, the title, his name and one sentence. He could hardly be bothered with it anyway, and it was a pointless homework. He got himself up off his chair and went over to where Noah was with his package of sweets and quickly grabbed a Chocolate Frog and a couple of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, same as Eli had, and munched the chocolate frog quickly.

He thanked Noah, he wasn't a complete arse to everyone after all, just not people he liked. He shook his head at Eli. "You're probably right really, I'm by no means the best at eating till I retch, well, with sugary stuff at least." He said, grinning. "Or don't you remember the last time we all tried to see who could eat the most?" He asked.

Noah grabbed his own box of Bertie Bott's, this was a challenge that he wasn't going to back down from.

"It's on Eli," he mock glared at the other boy as if it was a duel, not breaking eye contact, "First one to be sick loses, and the forfeit?" He looked at the other boys for ideas, he could think of a couple but he wanted to see what they had in mind first.

"Oh we know Mark," Noah burst out laughing, "I think the whole house knows what happened last time you took on the challenge. That incident had gotten them all in trouble not only with Professor Sparrow but also the other people in their house.

"Anyway I'll start shall I?" he pulled off the lid of the box and stuck his hand in closing his eyes, he popped the jelly bean in his mouth before opening his eyes again, "Ha, toffee, not bad for a first go. Now it’s your turn.”

Eli shrugged and said the first punishment for failing that he can think of. "Loser has to shove as many as he can into his mouth and go down and talk to the girls in the common room?" It wasn't an entirely horrible punishment, but after being sick and having to fit more in there, plus having to go talk to the gossiping harpies down in the common room was enough that it would probably make the loser sick again, which would make it even funnier.

Eli closed his eyes and reached into the box. "I'm going in blind!" he declared as if it were some great feat of courage and bravery, which it was in a way. He just hoped he didn't get a poopie flavored one (but those were so rare that you'd never get one).

He popped it into his mouth and chewed and swallowed quickly. "Grass," he informed them. "Dunno how animals eat that crap."

Mark just grabbed a few more sweets and stepped back a bit to watch, no way was he getting involved in this, last time had been more than enough for him to join right in again, next time yes, but not after the trouble they got into last time. He laughed when Eli said about going in blind, though he had to admit, not knowing the color meant you had no idea what it would be. "Grass isn't as bad as it could be Eli, but then you probably know that." He said, shrugging. "After all, you had the one that tasted like vomit." He said, which was pretty ironic, seeing as he threw that same one up almost straight after.

Noah shrugged as Mark backed out of the challenge, he could understand why he didn’t want to join in. But Noah was not going to back out himself, if he was challenged he would complete that challenge or die trying, or come close to die trying at least.

“Well I guess grass is rather fitting for a farm animal,” he grinned and drew his next weapon of choice, or two; he threw the two jelly beans in his mouth and chewed. Screwing his face up in disgust he stuck out his tongue and forced himself to swallow. “Bleurgh, mud and shampoo, brilliant!”

He grabbed a chocolate cauldron and took a bite of that to get rid of the weird taste in his mouth.

"OI!" Eli chucked a cauldron cake at Noah's head. "Farm animal..." he grumbled, all in good fun.

Just to one-up Noah, literally, he took three jelly beans and tossed them into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. He pretended to enjoy the flavor of them. "You know, you wouldn't think it, but strawberry, escargot, and burnt toast don't actually taste that bad together."

He coughed as the after-taste started to hit him, causing him to shove a cauldron cake into his mouth. "Yourff turfffn," he said to Noah with a full mouth, scattering crumbs all over the place.

The cauldron cake his Noah square in the forehead and he tried to brush the crumbs out his hair and the icing off of his face, flicking a bit at the boy sat opposite him.

"Ooh think we're tough now," Noah mocked, he was ready for this, he tipped his head back and poured several jelly beans in, "Yuh, knrow, vis is nrot..."

He screwed up a face as the flavours attacked his tastebuds, he didn't know exactly what was in his mouth but it sure as hell didn't taste great. He closed his eyes and swallowed quickly grabbing a gummy snake thing to chew on to get rid of the taste.

"Worse than sherbet in the eye I think."

"Yeah, like you're so tough," Eli retorted. "You should just give up now, Blondie, because Wizard God knows you aren't going to win."

Noah's face didn't deter Eli from the urge to compete. He took a rather large handful and stuffed them all into his mouth at once. So many different flavors were crammed into his mouth that he felt as though he was trying to eat a whole buffet table at once, including the table. Chewing was difficult but he managed to do it, followed by swallowing the lump of disgusting candy.

He coughed again. "I don't know what was in that, but I think it's what it would taste like if you licked a Slytherin," his face screwed up in disgust.

Noah snorted at the comment about the Slytherin, he looked into his box of Jellybeans and wondered how much more he could take. Taking a last bite and chew of the snake he tried to just keep his mind on that.

"Not giving up Owens," Noah mirrored Eli's actions, grabbing a handful for himself and filling his mouth, a couple of beans decided to jump ship and escape his mouth but he chewed the rest trying not to think about the Slytherin he was supposedly chewing. He stuck out his tongue once he was finished to prove they were gone, "Muh, see gone."

Noah didn't want to admit that he was starting to feel rather sick, whether it was due to the revolting flavours or just the magnitude of sweets they were eating so quickly he didn't know. But he didn't let on how he was feeling.

Eli was going to do whatever it took to win this little competition of theirs, even if he had to lay on the floor and have Mark pour the beans into his mouth he was going to win. He repeated his earlier actions. Among the varied flavors in his mouth, he could taste a surprisingly sweet caramel bean, dirty laundry, and something that he thought was jalapeño and banana.

He forced himself to swallow again and laid down on the floor. "Okay, that was worse than licking a Slytherin," he said. He closed his eyes to try to make the sick feeling go away.

It was getting tough, it looked like Eli was starting to struggle now too, which made it that much more motivating to carry on. If he could only win by a little bit that'd be all he needed but Noah thought that if he had to look at one more bean he might be sick.

"Nice, Eli, very nice," Noah closed his eyes, and stuffed his mouthful once again and as he chewed had to stop his gag reflex from forcing him to spit the beans everywhere. "Urgh, there was definitely coffee and cheese in there amongst something else, broccoli maybe, I dunno."

He leant back against the trunk at the end of his bed placing a hand on his stomach and taking a deep breathe of air.

"I will still defeat you, Grayson!"

Taking handfuls of beans wasn't really working out for him, so Eli reverted back to one at a time. He chucked one into his mouth and swallowed it without chewing. He was about to report what flavor it was when he realized that he didn't know. The revelation washed over him and he grinned. He had finally discovered the secret. Of course, it was a minor choking hazard, but who paid attention to minor hazards anyway?

He did this several times before remarking. "You know, these ones actually taste quite nice," he grinned at Noah. "Have a few more, I think we've hit a sweet patch," he lied.

Noah was fit to burst, he didn't know how much more he could eat and stomach. He didn't want to give him though, he would go until he was forced to stop.

"Sweet patch?" Noah looked into his box again and thought that it looked exactly the same as it had always done, a rainbow of colours that earlier seemed exciting and mouth watering now just looked sickening, "My luck it's just your box."

He grabbed a couple more and chewed, and gagged. Breathing he swallowed and shook his head.

"Seriously, there should be laws on what flavours they are allowed to make these things."

"Come on, mate, they wouldn't be every flavor beans if they didn't have every flavor," Eli mocked.

The sick feeling was starting to go away as he continued with his newly discovered trick, although he made the mistake of biting into a white one that he was sure would be marshmallow but turned out to be salt. The feeling instantly returned and Eli shot up off the floor and went over to the window. He opened it and sat by it, thinking the fresh air would help.

He was absolutely miserable and he had a feeling that if Noah wasn't already thinking the same thing, he would be soon. "Why do we do this to ourselves?" he groaned.

"Um my mum tells me I'm competitive, stubborn and stupid," he shrugged and collapsed on the floor, "I'm guessing that might cover us both."

He ate a couple more, hoping that Wizard God might take kindly on him and give him something nice, but somehow it wasn't his day and Noah knew that his game was up.

"Quick get me a bin or something!" he sat up and dragged himself towards a window. He had gone to his limit and was sat on the edge, but those last beans were pushing him over the edge and his stomach was flipping out.

Eli's victory was a short-lived one, since he realized he would have to smell it if Noah retched. He kicked the trash can toward his friend and stuck his head out the window to try to suck in as much fresh air as he could. "Just keep it downwind," he said, knowing that if he smelled it, he would follow suit soon after.

Noah hated being sick. Why had they done this? Who's smart idea...wait it was Eli's. Noah would get him back for this, one way or another but right now he was a bit too busy to concentrate on anything else.

He felt awful, and was sure that when his mother had told him to enjoy himself, she didn't imagine him empty his stomach into a bin.

He also hated the fact that Eli had won, and he was sure the smug git would milk it for all it was worth.

"Go on," he said while breathing over the bin making sure he wasn't going to chuck again, "rub it in."

Lots of deep breaths were helping to settle Eli's stomach. When he was satisfied that he wasn't going to toss his cookies, he turned around to look at Noah and Mark. "Rub it in? Me? Would I do that?" he asked with a cheeky grin.

"Tell you what buddy, I say that we both won. The real loser here is..." he got up, went over to Mark, and clapped him on the shoulder, dubbing him the true loser of their little competition. "At least we had the guts to try, mate."

Noah gave him a look as if to say 'you have got to be kidding this is the perfect opportunity to rub it in and you aren't going to?'

He decided that it was safe to leave the bucket now, but just in case he crawled onto his bed and lay down with the breeze from an open window blowing across his face.

"He's right Mark," Noah said with eyes closed, "Letting the Gryffindor side down you are."

Noah was only joking, he knew any of them could take any other house on if they wanted to.