Mrs. Mursey

"Dreamy Dessert Workshop… Why did that name sound so much like the Weasley twins’ Magical Trick Emporium?"

Bernard could not help saying.

"What did it matter if they sounded alike? They were both family businesses anyway."

Adam waved a hand dismissively.

"But the sign was quite pretty… Just looking at it made me want to drool a little."

Uther was still being very supportive.

"I guarantee that once the shop is decorated, you’ll want to drool even more!"

"Oh?"

Uther’s eyes lit up.

"You’re planning to decorate the shop with desserts?"

"Mm, that’s a good idea, but I’d rather make the shop look as if it were built from desserts than actually decorate it with desserts."

In Adam’s original vision, Dreamy Dessert Workshop would indeed be turned into something like a fairy-tale candy house. Cookies, candy, bread… on Adam’s side, they could be ingredients or building materials. After all, the physical properties of the sweets created by Sweet Card could be adjusted however he wished.

In fact, Adam had considered this idea while preparing for the banquet before: replacing even the containers used to hold food with food itself.

But Fred and George had said that if the tables were made tasty and delicious, then no matter how hard they were, someone would want to eat them. The tables might even get gnawed apart before the banquet ended. Adam had thought that made sense, so that time he had created tables made of pure chocolate and reinforced them to three times their normal hardness. Yet somehow, the Gryffindor table had still ended up missing a corner…

When Adam checked the leftovers to gauge everyone’s satisfaction with the food, he stared wordlessly at that missing corner. All he could do was sigh and assume that someone simply had a taste for that sort of thing.

The facts had proven that even if edible containers did not taste good, someone would still be unable to resist taking a bite. Once the shop officially opened, customers would come in all varieties, and there would definitely be even more bizarre problems.

Even if Adam made those decorations as hard as carbyne, if someone still wanted to give them a try, then even if they gnawed for ages without managing to bite off so much as a speck of frosting, the other customers would lose much of their desire to buy the candy displayed on shelves that had been chewed on.

After weighing it over several times, Adam reluctantly gave up on his original plan—but not entirely. He could simply find a larger plot of land and create an amusement park made entirely of desserts, with every blade of grass and every tree there made from sweets.

Why not call it Dreamy Dessert Paradise? Or Dreamy Dessert World?

"Oh! We’re here!"

Klon’s voice pulled Adam out of his musings. Looking up, he saw a rather small storefront ahead.

They were now at the edge of Hogsmeade. Although the Magical Menagerie storefront was not large, the vast area behind it enclosed by hedges all belonged to Magical Menagerie. The shop itself was merely a place for transactions.

Klon took the lead, jogging up to the entrance of Magical Menagerie and throwing open the door.

"Dad! Mum! I’m back!"

"Klon? Why are you back?"

Accompanied by a puzzled voice, hurried footsteps gradually approached. Adam followed Bernard into the shop and saw a woman with a headscarf and apron, her sleeves rolled up and gloves on her hands, hurrying toward them while carrying a purple giant toad.

Clearly, she was Klon’s mother, Mrs. Mursey.

"Did something happen at Hogwarts?!"

Mrs. Mursey swept her gaze over them and discovered that her son had not come alone—there were several Hufflepuff students with him.

After thinking back, Mrs. Mursey, who had only just finished her work, remembered that today was the day before Halloween—the day Hogwarts students were allowed to visit Hogsmeade. She had even signed the permission slip before.

It could not be helped. Magical Menagerie was a business passed down from Mrs. Mursey’s parents, and she herself had grown up in Hogsmeade. When she had been young, Mrs. Mursey had been rather… lively, so she had never been interested in coming to Hogsmeade to play.

After graduating, even when Hogwarts students came to Hogsmeade for fun, they would not visit somewhere like Magical Menagerie. Magical Menagerie mainly dealt in bulk transactions of magical creatures and magical creature by-products, not a pet shop like the magical creature stores in Diagon Alley.

No matter what, although Mrs. Mursey had not been particularly fond of returning home as a child, she was still very happy to see her son back—and he had brought friends with him as well.

"Time really flies. Halloween is almost here already… Sigh, you should have written ahead."

Mrs. Mursey placed the purple giant toad into a glass tank on the counter, wiped her hands on her apron, pulled off her gloves in one swift motion, and tossed them onto the counter. Her movements were smooth but slightly hurried, while her voice remained full of excitement.

"Your father went out to discuss business today, and your sister is in India on an inspection trip. I’m the only one at home, so I haven’t prepared anything… What would you like to drink? Sorry, there’s only black tea and coffee here—"

"That’s all right, Auntie. We came prepared. Leave lunch to me. Before that, though—"

Adam and the others raised the gifts in their hands.

"Where should we put these?"

Hogsmeade was a wizarding settlement. Unlike Diagon Alley, besides shops, many wizards lived here permanently. Klon’s family did not live inside the Magical Menagerie shop, but they did live in Hogsmeade.

With her son home, Mrs. Mursey simply closed the shop and invited her son’s classmates to her house.

"Klon, isn’t this a little inappropriate?"

Mrs. Mursey glanced at Klon’s classmates lined up outside the kitchen, then pulled her son aside and whispered.

"Having guests make lunch… Why don’t I do it instead? It’s a little rushed, but I can still get a few of my signature dishes on the table before you have to leave."

"It’s completely fine, Mum!"

The moment Klon heard "signature dishes," he could not help shuddering all over. Stargazy pie, haggis, beef pie, and the like—he could accept them before tasting Adam’s cooking, but now they had become demonic beasts in his mind.

What had Adam said before… After seeing the vast ocean, no other water would do; except for Mount Wu, all clouds were clouds?

Ahem. In any case, he truly did not want to eat his mother’s "signature dishes" again. Besides, it was time to let her taste Adam’s cooking!

"Adam’s cooking is excellent. He doesn’t need anyone to help him… Oh, right, he plans to open a restaurant near our shop in the future. If you think it tastes good, Mum, why not recommend it to our customers as well?"

Mrs. Mursey raised an eyebrow. From the sound of her son’s words, whether it was rude to let guests cook was beside the point—the important thing was that her cooking was not as good as his classmate’s?

Come to think of it, after Kelly had returned from Egypt, she seemed to have mentioned that Klon had a classmate whose cooking was exceptional. She had been thinking about it ever since, praising it as something unmatched in heaven or on earth… Could that classmate be the one in the kitchen now?

Mrs. Mursey could not help looking toward the kitchen. After thinking for a moment, she rose and headed inside. She wanted to see whether this classmate of her son’s really could cook as perfectly as both her son and daughter claimed!