The Other Wizards PV Murder Thread Finished

”Of course you are”

The stranger’s words were greedily eaten up by Galton’s ears. “Duh! It’s Halloween! Who isn’t out for candy right now?!”

Galton lacked few things in life. He had a steady stream of candy from his family, a pet, a bed, food, what else did one need? As it would turn out, the two things that wound to him turning up here. Common sense and Halloween candy. A dangerous duo to be without. But? Here he was. Draped in makeshift costume, going for a diy vibe rather than a not-spend-all-his-money-on-candy vibe.

Tattered black sheets hung from his arms and torso, with a black hood pulled down. Death eaters were spooky, and Galton liked spooky. That’s how you got the most candy, impressing the candy givers. Or scare them into giving you all of it! If the costume wasn’t spooky enough, Galton had a few tricks with him. If you counted supplies for the same truck multiple times as a few. All the candy in Hogwarts was his for the taking, and he’d take it.

“Okay, but it’s halloween so shouldn’t all of your candy be free? Or at least the first batch of each candy should be free. You know, cause it’s halloween, mister.”
He smiles wide, a lollipop stick pressed to his left cheek. “Oh yeah! TRICK OR TREAT!” He raised a pillowcase and smiled wider.

"Ah yes, Halloween..." he repeated with a Cheshire grin. "You are in for one hell of a treat," he announced as he opened up his flasher trench to reveal candy banded to his coat liner. 

"A few of these," he dropped three pastries wrapped in wax coated cloth.  "And one of these..." he dropped a large green candy into Galton's waiting bag. "And one of these also," a blue one. "Aaannd... this too," as if he had completed a mental checklist he dropped the last candy, a red one, into his bag.

"However," the incredibly shady young man with a coat full of candy started to segue into another topic of discussion. "I have plenty of extra treats if you are interested in performing a trick."

Was his interest piqued? Perhaps, depends on the trick. Depends on the candy. Depends on the target. Depends on the consequences. 

"There is a lotta kids that can't have my candy. Curfews. Locked doors. Bitchy paintings not letting me in," he complained to the dementor. "Bring me in, show me around. Let me leave a few treasures, maybe a prank for the Head of House... they need to grow a sense of humor anyways. In exchange, a bit of extra candy. What do you say kid?"

“You just assumed a lot of things there, mister.” Galton puffed his chest up a bit to look more confident. That is until he started bobbing up and down like a kid in a candy store. The sheer excitement of whatever treats lay for him within his goody bag was almost too much for him to keep bottled up. He felt like a shaken soda ready to fizzle and pop. But, he had gotten ahead of himself.

He whipped his hand forward and raised a finger. “One! Thank you for the candy!” He raised a second finger. “Two! You’re assuming this candy is good enough I’ll want more!” A lie, Galton would want a second piece of just about any candy. He raised a third finger, really on a roll now. “Three! You assume I want to share your candy with my classmates!” Halloween may have envoked a sense of greed unmatched and unfelt for the rest of the year deep within Galton. “Forth! I... yes! Forth!” He raised his forth finger, only to just aim it down at his pillowcase filled with candy, it seems the candy had finally won its battle with the rest of Galton’s thoughts.

The boy plucked one of each of the new sweets from the bag. A pastry, red candy, blue and green. He unwrapped the pastry first, then the colored ones in turn. Would he try a bit of each? No, Halloween was no place for such tact. He plopped each of the colored candies onto the pastry and formed a nice open faced candy sandwich. He raised his free hand and kissed it, as he’d seen tv chefs do before him. Then he took a bite. Or was it three? All that mattered was a second later each colored candy had a large chomp out of them with the pastry underneath as well.

What tastes would he enjoy?

The pastry had a saccharine scent, a bit too sweet, as if sugar dust was aerosolized. The bits of candy, one chewy, one hard and one soft, fluid-filled. They had no scent, but they had an uncanny heft. 

The combination of flavors, salty, spicy, sweet and buttery would assail his palate. All but savory and unami competing for culinary supremacy as they rolled about on the boy's tongue. With a greedy gulp, a bolus of gut breaking candy was down the hatch. Like a lead weight in the gut, the effect immediate.

Jittery. As if he had pulled out a spoon and chowed down on a plate of sugar and chased it with a redbull. His heart raced, he would be a bit sweaty. The grounds were a bit brighter even in this dark night.

All was well here. Galton was the confectionary prince. He might not be the King yet, that was a crown he would have to earn. 

Night would turn to day, it felt like only a matter of minutes. The sky a bright teal, the grass an emerald hue. The forest and the trees so terribly far away, but also so colorful and bright. When had the trees regained their fall foliage? Over the course of a night, tangerine and flamingo replaced those barren limbs.

That was not all. There was the castle. That glorious castle he learned magic in. It was big, like really big. In fact it was huge. It smelled funny as well, like a barbecue. Yum. Barbecues have decent burgers and salads but they have even better cookies. There was this shining mist creeping out of one of the windows so high above.

"That's some strong candy," a muffled distant sounding voice commented.

It was incredibly far away...

Then you would hear a distant cacophony of laughter.

"Shouldda had just one..." a barely perceivable voice tsked.

Distant laughter from the castle beckoned you back inside. They were having fun without you. The lake was so far away but you saw mermaids, the hot kind, not the normal kind waving for you to come their way. When did the lake get so close? Then there was the woods. So bright and colorful. The leaves would remind you of cotton candy, the trunks of great candy canes. So yummy. So far away...

Where do you go?

He had been given a crown. A crown that graced him with all the wonders of might and magic of the most renown wizards and knights throughout history. But the crown could always be bigger. He must become King.

His golden crown could only be fed one way. More candy. He still held the sweet, valor-inspiring craft in his hand, just begging to be finished. And finish it he would. All of the flavors from before that he couldn’t seem to remember came rushing back. This world was the best it could possibly be and nothing would let him shake his love for it. He wanted to tell everyone. He’d hunt down all he could to make sure they knew how amazing they were.

He couldn’t see the man who’d given him his gift. All he could do was shout his thanks. “HENGIST! I know it was you. What a rascal of a ghost you are! Thank you for your sweets! I loveeeeee-“ he cut off mid thought. He’d had 200 more in the previous second and he’d be off. Off to the castle.

Off to the castle that looked like it was imbued with magic by Merlin himself. It was of course a magical place, but this, what Galton was seeing, was true magic. His mind had been wingardium leviosa-ed to new heights. He felt like a true Gryffin, running, jumping, and flying for a few seconds as he made his way.

The castle was full of laughter and light. The paintings of the wall greeted Galton the mighty. Some cheered. Some heralded his presence with the most noble declarations. 

Hail! Hail Galton! Yes, they knew his name. Hail Galton the Prince of Confections on this his day of coronation! Illusions of grandeur, the boy that would become king!

He would need a scepter, a regal cloak and a crown. Where were his vassals? Where were his loyal subjects? His people.

On the wall you would see between two framed portraits a sheet of paper. An announcement of a great gathering. A ball. One most certainly in Galton's honor.

"Wait!"

A painting begged. A small child with a dog.

"Great and powerful sir. Go no further, for the ball is a trap. A great evil lurks in wait."

"A great evil! A darkness falls!"

The paintings down the hall would shout in unison. 

"Take us with you, we know the way."

The child and the dog claimed.

There was nobody else in the hall, just Galton, the paintings and the scent of burning wood. It was getting stronger. Muffled and distant you would hear someone shout, not that you would know what was said. 

He ran through the halls to the cries and cheers of his people, he was truly blessed. Loved by so many, supported by all! What more could one wish than to be loved by the people. They looked so quaint in their houses, windows open all around. It really was an interesting city design, Galton wasn't sure how you got into most of their houses, but he imagined he could just enter through the window if he really wanted. But he had better things to get to. Like the smell of cookies needing desperately to be taken from the oven, else they burn too much.

And then! Then! He found the true sign he was loved, a royal event to honor the Great Galton. He surely must make an appearance, it would be rude not to. Not only rude but he knew that he jeopardized his position by not showing. Losing the trust of the people was the quickest way to one's doom. He was needed! Cookies and the people's trust called!

That's when he heard him, a knight from his round table. Calling forward with his trusty war hound. They feared for the boys life, and offered their valiant service to protect and aid their lord. He needed them, but how to move their house, he didn't want to burden them so much as to make them leave their home!

A carpet made both a great cape and a great way to drag a home (painting) about. Galton pushed the rug to the painting, and sized the it up. He'd need all his strength. And so he lifted! He just needed to get it off it's pin and it would be free. He summoned all his candy fueled strength to lift it and let it down as gentle as possible. Then he would spin it so his knight would be facing up as he dragged him. With all this done, he tied the ends of the carpet together around his neck and grabbed backwards. THEY RIDE FOR GLORY!

(Carpet is 6ft x 2ft, lighter material)

I thought I posted here, where did my post go!

It was obvious by this point that something was wrong, perhaps not to young Galton who probably needed almost no prodding and rather just an ephemeral suggestion, but Galton had been poisoned. His delusion, actually mild compared to most. Had a certain Ravenclaw or Slytherin partaken of the confectioneries provided by the obviously shady young man, the visions that awaited them would have been quite different. For Galton however, he was just starting to go down the rabbit hole. 


The painting liberated from the wall was actually screaming in protest but all Galton heard was cheers of encouragement. For Galton, the world was rose-colored and sweet. Nothing was going to harm him. He was good. The world was good. Everything would work out. There was also a bit of gluttony in the works for Galton, he craved candy like a werewolf craved meat or a vampire blood. 

To each, their own vice and Galton was no exception.

The ascent to his coronation, a cruel, grandiose delusion that would be facilitated not only by the terrible concoction he had imbued but also the fact that there was nobody to set him straight. The ball was ongoing, most of the students were housed within the confines of that great space. Chaos had already ensued. There was a fire, he could smell the burning wood in the midst of his delusion but the scent was more like a forgettable red herring. 

The weight of the carpet that the boy would have to rip up from the floor with this pastry and sugar-filled might would have weighed down a lesser youth as Galton ascended the great staircase. The paintings on the wall would take form, that of men and women standing alongside a great walkway cheering his name. In reality they were warning him, begging him to turn back. Conversing among themselves that the child was not quite right.

The delusion would take a bleak turn as he rounded the third floor. A dangerous ne'er do well waiting in the wings with a menacing gaze among his loyal subjects. With a maddened gaze fixated upon the poisoned Gryffindor he would plunge something long and something hard into the back of one of Galton's cheering subjects. 

A scream.

A cacophony of screams in fact.

Pounding and shouting, chaos and disarray. It was his mind reconciling the dissonance a floor above. The part-giant incursion that had trapped most of his classmates in the ballroom. He was not there yet, but he could hear them. He might even recognize some of the noises, the words garbled and unintelligible, they were indeed so far away. If he looked for a face to attach to the voice, he would not find their form among the roused and terrified people. 

The guards? The guards! Where were the guards!

There were none, not here to sully this his wonderful day with their swords and their shields. His subjects unarmed, now at the illusionary mercy of a madman. 

His kingdom was crumbling in front of him. His brave knight had been correct to warn him, but it seems even he was left without a weapon on such a glorious day. Is this what is was to be royalty? To watch all you love destroyed at the whim of the heartless? What had Galton done? What could he have done differently? His heart became heavy, a weight he hadn't felt before. He felt it for a few seconds at least. Then, a more primal instinct took hold. He needed candy, he needed the thing that fueled his crown. Of course this had happened, he'd been all too long without another glutenous heaping of candy.

And he knew where it would be. The barbecue. He could feel the blood pumping in his veins, rearing him forward, revving his biological engine. He was a fool to have let something like a cape slow him down, he dropped it to the floor and went forth. Right after he searched his pockets. Maybe he'd left some candy in one of them?

Right? No, nothing in that one. He thought for a second there was but that was just him touching his own thigh through the pocket.

Left? Yes? He couldn't quite tell what candy it was, as it was unwrapped, but it looked like candy floss. Yum. That was what he needed!

He was off! Letting his nose carry him as if he were a hound searching for whatever hounds search for. Get the sweets, save his people, eat more sweets provided by the people. Foolproof.