[honeydukes] like a kid in a candy store [honey bea]

Piper could not remember the last time she had ventured into Hogsmeade; eight or nine years felt about right but she could not be so sure. There had been no particular reason for it, even before she had started Hogwarts, Piper had been particularly fond of the small town and never found reason to tire from it. However, her life was consumed with work and while she often traveled abroad, Hogsmeade did not top the list in the world of fashion. Regardless, Hogsmeade felt nostalgic, and was a reoccurring backdrop to some of her fondest memories: an impromptu snowball fight, a first date, giggling with her friends as she tried out the trinkets at Zonko’s Joke Shop, filling up on chocolates at Honeydukes before dinner, daring each other to see who would make it closest to the Shrieking Shack without chickening out. Piper smiled to herself as she recalled childhood memories that already seemed so far away.

She had been wandering around for at least an hour, peaking into the store windows and observing the people bustling about their business. Piper preferred the pace here than she ever did in the city and as a child had often dreamed about living in the town. But while her mind preferred the quiet and peaceful living of the small village, her heart could not stay away from the big city, no matter how much she claimed to hate it. But she liked to visit once in a while, just to clear her head, it was probably the closest she would ever get to a vacation. Her coworkers had been shocked when she had taken the assignment from one of her subordinates, Piper belonged in Paris running coverage on an upcoming winter fashion show, but had decided to postpone that stressful assignment for a day on a small feature on Hogsmeade for the travel section. Many of Label Magazine’s biggest funders were from England and had asked for the magazine to place more focus on domestic travel rather than travel abroad. Piper was not sure of the logistics for it, nor did she care enough to ask, but she figured that if those investors had a stake in businesses in villages like Hogsmeade, then pushing for domestic tourism was just another way to make money.

Her boss had outlined a few places for her to visit, many of which Piper had visited herself as a young student. Not much had changed in the village, and even though some renovations had been done, it was still very much the town she knew and loved. It was not long before Piper had made the most important stop of the day: Honeydukes. She had promised some coworkers, those who had not had the pleasure of attending Hogwarts, some of her favorite sweets as an early Christmas gift and was very intent on keeping her promise. Piper had been feeling suddenly generous the last few days and wondered if part of it was due to the prospect of a short but much needed mental vacation. And what better place to start a mental vacation than on the happiest place on Earth, her favorite sweets shop.

It was hard to guess from one look but Piper had an insufferable sweet tooth. She took three sugars with her coffee and tea, preferred sweet over savory, and rarely missed dessert after dinner or after lunch if it was available. Once, she had tried to stop smoking and had immediately taken to decadent desserts: pancakes smothered in sweet syrup for breakfast, something small for lunch followed by the cake or pie of the day, and then barely any dinner followed by a hearty bowl of ice cream or coffee with a thick dollop of whipped cream. It was a terribly habit that caused her more problems than none, and in the end she returned to smoking. But even then, her sweet tooth, once ignited, would rarely die down.

She eyed the sweets as she walked in, the jingle of the door chime announcing her arrival. The store was relatively empty but figured it was because it was a weekday, the students probably hard at work in wait for a weekend of adventures. Piper looked on in wonder at the shelves lined with sweets, she was here to get an interview, at least Catherine had scheduled one due at half past one. Piper looked down at her watch and then made a beeline for the counter, she was already ten minutes late.

“Ms. Flume…?” she said tentatively to the woman behind the counter before widening her eyes in disbelief, “Honey Bea? You’re the Ms. Flume I’ll be interviewing today! Wow, it’s been such a long time, how are you?” This was certainly an unexpected surprise.

@Honey Bea Flume

Quiet days were frankly rather bad for business, but Honey Bea Flume rather enjoyed them. The quiet that had settled over the carefully labeled jars and colorful displays hadn’t spread into the kitchen. Music was playing from a battered radio set in the corner, and Honey was nodding along to the beat, happy for the distraction from the mindless rolling and re-rolling of cookie dough she was currently engrossed in. Christmas at Honeydukes was maybe her busiest season, with the largest amount of speciality chocolates and sweets and cookies, as well as plenty of custom orders, the oddball yule log request, and a stack of owl mail orders she had to attend to at some point.

She heard the chime on the door jingle and wiped a flour-covered hand across her forehead, just making the mess worse. Wiping her hands on her apron, Honey exited the kitchen, prepared to tell whoever it was that they could just yell for her attention once they were ready to ring up. But she stopped, taking just a second to recognize the face and the voice and a smile spread across her face. “Piper!” She came around the counter quickly and moved in for a hug, stopping inches away when she remembered the floury mess she was with probably a few different streaks of red and green icing here and there. “I can clean up for that,” she added with a laugh, her smile widening.

“It must be forever! I’ve had Honeydukes for --” she stopped to make it look like she had to do the math in her head, but she knew the day, the hour, the minute, that her father had relinquished control of the shop to her, “Nearly four years now.” Piper’s initial words replayed in her mind and she paused. “Did you say interview?” He smile dropped and she brought a hand up to her mouth. “Merlin’s balls, that was today, shit.” She laughed, trying to brush off her disorganization, which really only showed itself during the holidays.

She turned and headed back towards the kitchen, beckoning her friend and interviewer to follow her back. “I could have sworn this was tomorrow, but I s’pose I’m as prepared as ever.” There was a weathered wooden table and a few mismatched chairs off to one side of the room, and she led Piper there, pulling out a chair to wordlessly invite her to take a seat. “Let me just get this dough chilling. How have you been?” She called from over her shoulder, not wanting to start off the interview by leaving her guest already bored. She had been interviewed for Honeydukes purposes a few times before, and she never had any problem talking up her shop, her namesake.

Waving her wand over the dough, she set it all to chill, moving about the kitchen for just a few more minutes, gathering a trayful of the reject (read: ugly) truffles and two mugs that soon held steaming hot chocolate. She set down her haul on the table as she settled in across from Piper, clapping her hands together to signal that she was ready to get started.

Piper nodded, looking over to remember that Catherine, her assistant was not around to take notes manually as she normally did therefore she smiled politely, reaching into her bag for her Quick-Quotes Quill and a spare notebook. It had been some time since Piper had been in charge of this part of the work, had approached interviews in this way—and it made her visit to Hogsmeade that much more nostalgic. “Four years, that’s quite some time,” she said, thinking about how much must have changed in four years. She could barely remember what she did the previous week, her schedule often chockfull of assignments and projects that she normally did not have the time to simply reflect—to think about the past. “If it’s too much trouble, I could come back at another time, I know how it is, Decembers must be hell around here,” she said with a small laugh.

She followed Honey Bea into the back, making a detailed mental note of the surroundings for reference later. It was an interesting thing; no matter how many times Piper had been inside of Honeydukes, she had never seen this part of the story. There was no need for her to, she was always a customer and a child; she had no business in that part of the store anyway. But coming back to Hogsmeade as an adult made it a different experience. She had always wondered what was back here and would finally get an idea of where the candy-making magic happened. She took a seat, setting her bag aside and crossing her legs. “Little old me? Oh I’ve been well, quite busy with the magazine—aside from that there is little else, I can’t believe I had no idea you’d inherited Honeydukes! I obviously must get out more,” she said with a wry smile. “I’m here on work but compared to my usual schedule, this is a bit of a vacation for me. I’m quite excited to be back in Hogsmeade,” she continued.

As soon as Honey Bea sat down across from her with two steaming mugs of hot chocolate and a tray full of truffles, she knew the young witch was ready to begin. But first, Piper could not help but to pop a truffle into her mouth, savoring the way the chocolate melted on her tongue, “it’s been such a long time! This is absolutely heavenly,” she added. “It’s not hard to see why Honeydukes is still everyone’s favorite, the taste here unique, you know, nothing like what you get in the city,” Piper explained, taking a sip from the hot chocolate before straightening her back in the chair, it was time to get to work. “Now I’m sure you’ve been given a brief explanation of the nature of this interview but I do want to tell you first, if I may,” she started and paused momentarily before continuing, “a large percentage of our investors are London born and bred, our travel section often focuses on travel abroad but for our big issue, or spring issue, we’d like to feature local business, just in an effort to encourage domestic travel and what not. Anyway, I want to focus on your vision for Honeydukes. Anyone that’s been to Hogwarts know how important Honeydukes is to the Hogsmeade community but where do you see yourself taking it? Are you following your family’s approach? Are you looking to try something new for the upcoming year?”

“December being hell is exactly why you need to stay!” Honey reassured her with a laugh, motioning her towards the kitchen once again. She didn’t appreciate the break, really, but now that she had been reminded of the interview, she sort of remembered scheduling one. The last thing Honey wanted to do was to cancel and miss her chance to get Honeydukes included in this writeup. Which magazine was it for again? Probably better not to ask that now.

She listened to Piper as she worked, nodding along as she talked business and staying busy focusing on work. It was a life she knew rather intimately, and it made her happy to know that she hadn’t been the only one to go in this direction. She welcomed the change in conversation back in her direction, only realizing a second too late that was what being interviewed was all about. Still, she loved talking about her business and she loved talking about it in a context that made her look good. “My parents retired to Majorca right after the war,” Honey said, turning to look at Piper as she leaned back against the counter. She didn’t go into more details, like how her mother had been in hiding, nor did she feel the need to remind her that Hogsmeade had been under curfew and their business had suffered for it, that she had been handed a shop she didn’t know could recover. “It’s been great,” she said instead, smiling. “I’m sure Hogsmeade is glad to have you back.”

“You can take this whole lot with you, I can’t sell them.” A second passed before she realized how that might be interpreted as something being wrong with the truffles. Far from it. “They’re just ugly,” she added with a shrug, popping one into her own mouth to show that they were perfectly safe to eat. Honey wrapped both hands around her mug of hot chocolate, straightening her own back as Piper did the same. She nodded as the other woman began the interview proper, though while she had probably been given the brief explanation, she couldn’t recall what it was.

A compliment and three questions. That was easy. She had been doing this for years. Honey reassured herself, taking a quick sip of her drink before launching into her answers. “Well I certainly won’t be getting rid of the favorites anytime soon -- the bestsellers like Bertie Bott’s or chocolate frogs or sugar quills. But none of those are made in house, and I think that’s really what I’ve been trying to change, y’know? We have great chocolate, have the best recipe, I just want to give it the recognition it deserves.” She cast her glance down at the quick-quotes quill, trying to see if it was recording her accurately, but she wasn’t able to make out any of the words.

“This past year I’ve started doing wedding cakes or other large and elaborate chocolate pieces for events, and I’ve had nothing but positive reviews.” It helped that the majority of events she had worked so far had been for close friends or friends of friends. It was all mostly word of mouth by now. “I’m still doing a lot of things like my father did. He’s the one that taught me almost everything I know, after all.” Her father had been the one to inherit Honeydukes before her. “Still, despite all that, we’re still carrying plenty of things we don’t make in house, and have started carrying more muggle-made things. Those have been doing really well, actually.”