Money Hungry in Harry Potter

Inside of England, within a normal street called Providence, enclosed a peculiar girl of ten. She was dressed in a plaid dress, with a warm sweater vest, and a cute red beret on her straw-colored hair. Her face was stiff as her mother crouched down to touch up the slight red on her cheeks with a perfumed brand blush. This girl that was treated like a doll was called Alice.

"Dear Alice," Alice's mom said with a soft, tender voice. Her hands were gripping the soft-doughy arms of the young girl with extreme vigor. "Remember to act like a lady at school today."

"Yes, mother," Alice said flatly. The pressure wasn't painful, but enough for Alice to understand how important it was.

Alice's mom, Mary-Ann, was spotless. Not a single hair on her head was out of place. Her makeup was as if it was tattooed on her face, never moving out of place and always a timeless look. She even had a fake beauty mark carefully placed beneath her right eye. It was because of the mannequin-like look that she attracted someone from the House of Lords. That's why she wanted her daughter to be the same, successful.

"That's wonderful, but you have to put a bit more oomph to it," Mary-Ann insisted with a big smile. Her eyes did not follow suit. "Now say it like this, "Yes, mother!"

"Yes, mother," Alice said, with no change in tone.

Mary-Ann's ears flushed as red as the rouge on her lips. Her first instinct was to raise her hand and punish her ungrateful child, but her husband, Adam, stopped her.

"Honey, Alice's cheeks are red enough," he said very cooly as he eyed the stares of the others. Adam was a hefty man that couldn't button his dress shirt all the way, luckily he had an expensive brand name jacket to cover the fact. "Alice, do you have the cookies to share with your classmates?"

"Yes, father," Alice said as she lifted the lid of her paper box. Inside were individually wrapped cookies with cute pink ribbons sealing each one. Adam counted the cookies, making sure that Alice didn't snatch a cookie from the goodies. If a student was left out, because of his daughter's lack of self-control, it would be very embarrassing. A perfect gift by their family must be never too much or too little.

"Okay, you go and make some friends," Mary-Ann said, scooting Alice towards the private school.

Almost stumbling by the forceful pushing, Alice made it up the stairs to the inside of the church building. Once she was safely inside, Alice quickly found her way to where her locker was and quickly put the cookies amongst the rest of her "supplies".

As to what those supplies were, Alice revealed them during the mandatory lunch break that the school got. Whenever the school bell would chime, instead of eating her lunch or having fun with friends, Alice would go to her locker and pull out a sign she made in her art class which said, "Alice's Snack Store."

Alice was quite detailed with this setup. She had convinced her family that she needed a portable chalkboard for class, which she used to write prices that students of a private school could afford. Today's special was limited-brand name cookies. Only 24 in stock.

For the desk and chair that she needed for the hallway, she had paid two bigger kids a portion of the profits to move them from a nearby classroom and to stand around to make sure the other kids didn't try to steal any of the goods.

It was the only time of day that Alice smiled. With every transaction with sugar starved rich kids, she could feel her cheeks ache.

"Yo, candy girl, wha cha got today?" a rather rough boy asked. He was apparently going through his rebellious phase, as his white button-up wasn't tucked in and he was trying this lean-back that he discovered look cool. Alice didn't quite understand the mind of a 12 almost 13-year-old boy.

"Well, I know that you've been looking for a present for your girl," Alice said, with the customary smile. She had to act friendly with customers. That was business rule number one. "I've got something good today. Special, limited edition cookies from La Creme on Oxford. Each cookie is specially wrapped for today."

"That's great! How much?" he asked, mentally counting the few pounds in his pockets.

"2 pounds," Alice said with a toothy grin. She put her hand up with a smile.

"2 pounds! No way. You're ripping me off," he declared. The cookie would take up most of the money he saved up. He had to get his girlfriend something, but he wanted to also get some strawberry refresher for 30 pence. "You normally sell cookies for 50 pence."

"Well if you go to the store and buy just one of these," Alice said. "They would be 2 pounds at the store. Considering that I'm selling it to you straight, I'm saving you a trip to Oxford. No profit for me. But if your girl's affection is not worth 2 pounds, I still have my regular cookies for 50 pence."

The rough boy looked at the regular cookies that were neatly stacked in a plastic container. They weren't ugly, but they were extravagant looking either. They were just an arrangement of chocolate chip cookies that were extra-large. Usually a perfect gift for any child, because of the high sugar content, but today wasn't a usual day. It was Valentine's day.

That was the main reason that Alice's special cookies were selling extra well today. She had even provided a bonus of having a little paper tag attached to the cookie with a cheap rubber band. The bodyguard had a pen in his pocket in case some poor sap needed to write something right away.

"Maybe she'll be okay with 3 cookies," muttered the soon-to-be customer.

"Hmm, I don't know. I know for a fact that her best friend is going to get one of these cookies," Alice said, gesturing to her mostly empty paper box. There were only three left. "You know they'll talk if you give the regular cookies that you can get her any day."

Strike one.

"Come on, if you're not going to buy anything, let me buy one of those cookies! The break is half over!" cried the girl behind him. She wanted to snatch the cookie from the box.

Strike two.

"For my loyal customer, how about I throw in two of your favorite strawberry refreshers if you buy one special Valentine cookie," Alice slyly said. "Just. For. You."

Strike three. And he's out.

"Fine! Here's your two pounds," the boy said, slapping the money on the desk. He would be a fool to pass this up. He bought three chocolate chip cookies with 2 strawberry refreshers, he would be paying an extra 10 pence. He may be rough, but he's not bad at math.

Alice readied the three treats for him and bowed slightly, "Thank you. Happy Valentine's Day."

The gruff boy grumbled as he pocked his treats and hurried over to his middle school sweet-heart.

"Kept a loyal customer, sold a cookie at 200% value, and got rid of some stock before the weekend," Alice thought to herself. She didn't lie. The cookies were sold for 2 pounds at the fancy bakery, but her father got the set of 24 for 15 pounds. If she was selling exactly what these cookies were worth, it would only be around 70 pence. Alice was glad that her dad would buy her bulk goodies in the guise of bribing the friendship of her fellow peers.

"Can you give me the same deal?" asked the girl, who finally got her turn. She activated her secret move. She tilted her head and looked at the boys next to her with large, slightly watery eyes.

"No," Alice said. "It was a special deal for a loyal customer. He comes in 3 times a week. I've only seen you around once a month."

The girl turned off the little devilish look she was going for. It was no use against another devilish girl.

"Fine, just give me a special cookie," the girl said, crossing her arms. "And a ring pop."

"What kind of ring pop?" Alice asked, as she looked through her locker. She heard a curt declaration for red. "Okay, a cherry ring pop for you."

Some time passed until it was only 10 minutes left of break and Alice had to close the shop. She carefully had her guards block all view as she put things back into her locker and locked her goodies up. She counted the money she earned today and gave each the bit of the cut.

"Thank you," Alice said as she gave each boy the money and a special cookie that specifically saved for this moment. Each one had their name carefully written down. It was at this moment that she returned to her flat expression. "I will see you on two Monday."

"Wait a moment," one of the boys said as he grabbed Alice's wrist. The hallways were mostly empty, as students were returning to their classrooms. The boys were significantly older. They were both born later in the year so they were 14 in the final year of middle school. Furthermore, Alice was a dainty girl, who was more interested in money than training her body.

"What?" Alice asked. "I gave both of you a bonus sweet since you followed me for the whole year. They are both worth 2 pounds and you earned our agreed arrangement."

"No, we think we'll take it all this time," said the other boy.

"The money gap was too large. Viva la revolution," Alice thought, slightly amused. Originally, Alice offered to pay them 10% of net gain or 2 pounds each. That was 20 pounds every week! It was their job to protect Alice from bullies that would try to take her loot and sweets, but now they were trying to be the bullies.

They didn't think that the business that was run by a 10-year-old would get so profitable. After all, why risk your lunch break on a few pence, when you can get 2 pounds for playing shop with a spoiled princess. Also, they weren't very good in math, so they didn't want to mess with fractions. Once they saw the profit from Valentine's day, they figured that they could rob her and be set for the rest of the school year. After all, how hard could it be to run a sweet shop when you have the magic stock of a daddy that was in the House of Lords.

"Let go," Alice said venomously. She tried to get free from the iron-clad grasp of the teen. That was when her money box was snatched away from her despite her attempts to kick the other in the shins.

"Not so tough without us, huh?" one of the bullies said. He gestured at his friend to open the locker. After working with Alice for a good several months, they had picked up the numbers that she tried to hide so hard.

Alice's gains were being stolen right before her. There was a rage she felt stirring inside of her. Was it the pride that her parents tried to ingrain within her, or something even deeper inside that was hurt by these actions?

All Alice's knows, was that wanted to be bigger than these two. How dare they pick on her, because she was small.

Inside a windowless hallway, a gust came out and blew back the bullies. The money box was thrown up in surprise. It opened and scattered pences and pounds everywhere. They started to shout in their recently deepen voices until it started to sound like they were reversing the effects of puberty. Their voices were slightly squeaky as they noticed that they were smaller.

They weren't comically small, where the money was huge hazards that they needed to avoid. They were a full head smaller than Alice after they stood up.

"What is this?" shouted one of the ex-guards.

"What did you do?" exclaimed the other.

"What is going on here?" a teacher asked as he stomped his way over to the chaotic mess of money and candy everywhere.

What just happened? Was this magic?