Ice Cream Chillin' (Cara)

[felix valentin fortescue]

September 2025

In general, Felix wasn't a fan of colder weather. At Hogwarts, it hadn't been so bad; the Ravenclaw Common Room was cozy, and he could avoid going outside if the weather was really that bad. Working at the ice cream parlor, though, it was the slow season. People associated ice cream with summer, sunshine, and warmer weather. The colder it got, the more people would forget about enjoying a frozen treat.

Because it was harder to get people in the door, finances got tighter. Felix knew that he probably shouldn't have been worrying about it as much as he did, but it was his family's business. Without Vas's constant creativity at the ready, it was occasionally a challenge to drum up sales, though Felix hoped that he could find something to get people more excited about ice cream before winter hit. A part of him wondered how much it would cost to build an area around the outdoor seating in which the weather remained ideal all year round, but that was more of a fantasy than anything.

In the meantime, he knew that he would have to settle for his usual routine. It wasn't thrilling, but Felix wasn't in the ice cream business for thrills and couldn't really complain.

"Hey, Cara," he called towards the end of the day as he and Cara Bainbridge were closing up the shop for the night. "Is 'I Scream' an awful pun for Halloween promotions, do you think?"

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

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Working closing shift sucked. Not because of any particular person or the customers that showed up near the end of the day, but because it always felt like a wasted afternoon and there was typically a ton of cleaning to do. Now, magic made the cleaning part a lot easier, but that still didn’t change the fact that she disliked having to clean up messes made by other people. When she graduated from Hogwarts a year and a half earlier, she had never imagined that the scourgify spell would end up becoming her most used one daily. It had become such a habit since starting at the ice cream shop that she used it at home way more than she needed to. Ink smudge on her desk from writing? Scourgified. Mascara stains in the sink? Scourgified. One of her sisters spilling food on the kitchen countertop? Scourgified. And if it was bad at home, she was even worse at work.

During opening shifts she didn’t feel as compelled to keep things clean, knowing that whoever was closing would be able to do it. But that didn’t completely stop her. Puddles of melted ice cream had become one of her biggest pet peeves. Sopping wet napkins full of cone bits and sprinkles were even worse. It wasn’t difficult to pick up after yourself, yet there were grown adults that were absolutely dreadful at it. She had been able to bottle it up so far, though every closing shift she got closer and closer to completely losing it. One of these days she was going to slip up, and then she would need to find a new job. The Fortescue’s were pretty relaxed people, but she was positive that there was a limit to that. Yelling at customers, whether she was right or now, would most likely push her past that.

Currently she was biting down on her tongue, stopping herself from calling out to an older gentleman with his grandchild who had just left behind one of the worst messes she had seen today. She only had a little longer left until she was done for the day, and with the departure of the old man and child, the shop was empty aside from her and Felix Fortescue. “I am about to scream if I have to clean up something like this again today,” she muttered aggressively under her breath as she moved across the shop and towards the table, wand flying out of her pocket as she cast the scourgify spell for the umpteenth time today. With the mess gone instantly, she let out a long exhale before turning back to Felix, “I think its fine. But is that for a certain flavor, or just everything?”

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[felix valentin fortescue]

September 2025

Closing for the night was no one's idea of fun; Felix knew that. There was a lot that had to be done thoroughly in a short span of time, and there was no way of knowing at the beginning of a day how well closing would go that night. That day hadn't been the absolute worst; the worst days were always when it was unbearably hot in the summertime, but they had had a few customers in that day who'd tried their patience.

Cara commented that she would be the one screaming if she had to clean up another mess like the one that some small child had left behind. Messes like that usually weren't the kids' faults, but there were enough adults who surprisingly didn't care that the children they were supervising were making a mess of things. Some were just oblivious, in fact, though the worst were the people who acted as though the ice cream parlor's employees were the ones whose job it was to clean up after everyone. There were napkins there for a reason, and it was far less of a hassle to bring out a wand or more cleaning supplies then and there than to wait around for things to get horribly sticky.

Fortunately, Cara had things under control, getting rid of the mess more quickly than it had been made in the first place. As for his suggestion about the "I scream" wording, she said that it was fine, although she questioned if it would be used for a certain flavor or for everything they had.

"Unless we're looking to rebrand the blood ice cream temporarily for Halloween," Felix mused—not a terrible promotional idea, provided that the ice cream parlor's non-vampire customers could stomach it—"I was thinking that it would be for everything. You know, put it on a chalkboard or something…" He shrugged. Maybe it was too corny.

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

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Right. The blood ice cream. She had sort of forgotten about that, and normally did, unless there was a vampire asking for it. There had been some sort of event over the summer for it, she was pretty sure, but she hadn’t worked that day. The perks of being a part-timer, apparently. Though the longer it took her to write her damn book, the more likely it was that she was going to be asking for a full time position here soon. It was hard to not feel like a bit of a failure due to that. While her grades weren’t top marks at Hogwarts and she had taken a risk by trying to exercise her creativity after graduating, it was beyond frustrating to see her old classmates and even the most recent graduating class move on past her in terms of careers. And having to clean up silly messes like this one only reinforced the idea that maybe she was doing the wrong thing with her life. While it definitely put money in her pocket, she wasn’t making progress on the book, and there was only so many more conversations she could have with mutuals about it until she felt like screaming.

“Yeah I think if you put it on a sign it would bring people in. But I know I would be looking for themed flavors at that point,” she commented as she stared down at the table she had just finished scourgifying again. It looked clean to her. Better than the liquid mess of mint chocolate chip that had puddled up and was daring to drip off the edge of the table, at least. “And ones that are different than what are normally available this time of year. I know the muggles make you think pumpkin spice in literally everything is good, but they’ve failed to convince me for the last couple years that it’s worth it anymore.”

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[felix valentin fortescue]

September 2025

Blood ice cream wasn't—and probably wouldn't ever be—their best-selling flavor, but it gave the vampires and part-vampires who came into the ice cream parlor something that they could enjoy. Making it in even larger batches would probably be a little bit gross, but that was a small price to pay if the gimmicky nature of it happened to be enough of a pull for the patrons who wouldn't have been inclined towards blood otherwise. If blood lollipops somehow made money, then blood ice cream could.

Cara said that putting the "I scream" thing on a sign might get people through the door, but then they would be looking for themed flavors once they got there. "And ones that are different than what are normally available this time of year," she added, mentioning how obsessed the Muggles seemed to be with putting pumpkin spice flavor in "literally everything" they could.

Felix had to laugh. It wasn't as though they didn't have pumpkin juice year-round in the magical world, anyway, yet the Muggles acted as though pumpkin was something that was reserved solely for the autumn and winter months. Obviously, it wasn't, though pumpkin itself wasn't horrible. They could do something more creative than that for Halloween; Felix was sure of that.

"Hmmm…" he mused. What could they come up with that would get crowds of people through the door for Halloween? "There's the blood ice cream," Felix noted, "or maybe some sort of flavor with loads of sweets in?" They could probably get a discount from Honeydukes or Sugarplum's if they purchased enough. Liquorice wands would probably be too weird, but maybe some Fizzing Whizzbees or something could work. "Or you know what would be brilliant?" he thought aloud. "Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans ice cream." It would be different, but people would surely find it interesting enough to want to try it for themselves. "Especially if we could enchant it so that every scoop is a different flavor…"

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

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Cara hated to think that having a blood-flavored ice cream, for the non-vampires, would actually go over well. There were plenty of students she knew at Hogwarts that would willingly try the flavor just to score points with their friends. And while Diagon did seem to have a more active vampire population than she remembered there being, it wasn’t like they always wanted blood ice cream. It seemed to be a novelty amongst the younger, half-vampires that were all at school right now. The summer had proved that, at least.

Felix had some great ideas though, and loading up the flavors with the more popular sweets definitely sounded like a good way to take things. As he brought up the concept of making every scoop being a different Bertie Bott’s flavor, her eyes lit up. “That’s genius Felix!” she exclaimed. “Would you charm the scooper or the actual ice cream as it came out?” Cara had no idea how that would actually function, but there had to be a way to do it. Deconstructing an actual Bertie Bott’s jellybean to figure out how it was done would probably the easiest method, except she didn’t know how to do that either. Felix was the Fortescue here, and therefore the master of ice cream.

“And here I was going to suggest Peanut Butter Bats, where their wings are charmed like how Chocolate Frogs are, but in the ice cream…” She had been thinking about that one for a while now, because it seemed like such a great idea. It probably still was, but there would be no way it could compare to a Bertie Bott’s ice cream if they managed to pull it off. That would be something else entirely.

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[felix valentin fortescue]

September 2025

Bouncing around flavor ideas was one of the more enjoyable aspects of working at an ice cream parlor, though Felix had been a sounding board for ice cream flavors since he had been capable of testing out the flavors his family made. There were almost infinite possibilities, some more likely to be successful than others, but ice cream was almost, almost a blank slate. Cara's reaction to his suggestion of a Bertie Bott’s ice cream flavor was resoundingly positive, with her saying that it was "genius". "Would you charm the scooper or the actual ice cream as it came out?" she wondered.

Working with the ice cream directly seemed to make the most sense to him, Felix considered, but using an enchanted ice cream scoop would make it a lot easier, and there would be less chance of messing up an entire batch. If the flavors of some of the beans mixed together, they would be absolutely revolting, and that would be enough to defeat the whole purpose of the ice cream flavor. As he pondered how feasible it would be to approach someone about charming an ice cream scoop, of all things, Cara chimed in.

"And here I was going to suggest Peanut Butter Bats, where their wings are charmed like how Chocolate Frogs are, but in the ice cream…” she said.

"Why not try it?" Felix asked her, grinning mischievously. There was nothing to say they couldn't do more than one limited flavor for Halloween.

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

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Calling her ability in Charms simply passing wouldn’t be doing it justice. She had done well in the class, and while not at the top of it like some of her peers were, she also wasn’t a complete slouch with it like others were. But food related charms always seemed to stump her. Even working here, they still had a way of being complicated and a lengthy process if she didn’t catch on immediately. That was why she was thankful that she was simply a cashier and not one of the Fortescue’s chosen ice cream people. Felix obviously had no problem, and Vas hadn’t either (Cara often thought of the elder Fortescue as a bit of a mad scientist with her Taste Test Tuesdays). How one would go about doing what she had just offered up as an idea, with the scooper, was beyond her. She knew metal charmers could get things, like silverware and other kitchen utensils, could get them to do all sorts of crazy things. But attaching an ever-changing flavor? That eluded her.

“If you could shape the chocolate, I can try to find a tub of peanut butter in the back. I’m pretty sure I saw one a few days ago,” Cara said quickly, already heading off in the direction of the cold storage where all of their ice cream was kept. She couldn’t design things even if her life depended on it, but she could think ideas up on the spot. That was why her chosen career had forced her into the life of being a cashier at an ice cream parlour. Writing a novel wasn’t nearly as easy as she had hoped. But throwing some charmed chocolate bat wings into peanut butter flavored ice cream? With a Fortescue by her side, that would be easy.

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[felix valentin fortescue]

September 2025

"If you could shape the chocolate, I can try to find a tub of peanut butter in the back. I’m pretty sure I saw one a few days ago," Cara suggested, already making her way towards the back.

"Just check that it's not for the strawberry and peanut butter, yeah?" Felix called to her cautiously. He didn't want them to end up being without one of the key ingredients for one of the shop's more popular flavors. It had always been a hit, in his experience, even before the Americans came over from Ilvermorny. He didn't mind going out to purchase another jar of peanut butter if he had to for the sake of experimentation, and he was already beginning to think through the approach that they would need to take to make Cara's idea real.

He could definitely shape the chocolate; doing a bat shape wouldn't be too complicated if it wasn't extraordinarily detailed. If he made a mold in which to shape the chocolate to ensure that it stayed uniform, that would be even better. "So… For the bats," he spoke aloud and paced, half speaking to Cara and half speaking so that he could hear his own thought process to work his way through it, "do we want the bats to be chocolate with a peanut butter center? Like a truffle?" People would bite into the bats and have the peanut butter that way. "And then the ice cream itself could be a vanilla base with the bats in?" That was his first thought. "Or do we want the truffle bats plus a peanut butter ice cream base instead of the vanilla?" That was option two, double the peanut butter. "Or… Do we want solid chocolate bats with no peanut butter in the center but with the peanut butter ice cream base?" That was option three, at least as far as he was thinking.

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

▲

“Right!” she called behind her as Felix warned about not grabbing the peanut butter that was already set aside for the other flavor. It really didn’t matter if they had it then and there, as this was still a trial phase for the idea. It would matter once October started, but that was plenty of time to get the correct ice cream to round it all out. As she cracked open the walk-in, her face was met with the arctic chill of the freeze inside. That was easily one of the best ways to wake up during a morning shift. Get in, clock in, grab a coffee, and then stand in the freezer for five minutes. It got the whole body working double-time to keep things running, and she had always found it more addictive than caffeine.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a singular tub of peanut butter ice cream, aside from the ones reserved for the strawberry combo, just as Felix had seemingly predicted. Obviously he knew their stock better than she did, so that sort of made sense. She returned in time to hear him contemplating the many ways they could go about putting the ice cream flavor together, as well as developing the peanut butter bats. All three options sounded good, but they didn’t match up exactly to how she thought it should be. “I was thinking the bats have a chocolate outer, with peanut butter in the middle. And then the ice cream could be vanilla with a swirl of peanut butter in it? That wasn’t one of the options right?” she asked as she realized that she had pulled from each of Felix’s ideas. It seemed like they were on the same page, but it all came to actual execution and then taste tests. “I’ve always thought that having the flavor hinted in both the candy and the ice cream works well. That way it isn’t overpowering but you know when you’re getting it.”

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[felix valentin fortescue]

September 2025

Cara acknowledged that she needed to make sure not to grab something that they would need for the strawberry and peanut butter ice cream, lest they wind up making more work for themselves after the fact. That was one of the frustrating things about working in an environment like that, but it was life. Ingredients got incorporated into different flavors, and then they had to make or buy more if they were going to do something that wasn't in their usual ice cream repertoire. They had also lost employees that way in the past, Felix considered. Nobody had been lost in a freezer or anything, of course; it was from the standpoint of ingredients. Tempting though it was to eat a little bit of chocolate here or a couple of strawberries there, they had to make up for it.

Returning from the back empty-handed as he rattled off his thoughts on the composition of the flavor, for what they were worth, Cara said that she thought that the ice cream could take a slightly different form from the ideas he'd brought up. She thought that the bats could have the peanut butter at the center, as he had mentioned, but with vanilla ice cream that had a swirl of peanut butter running through it. That way, she said, people would get the hint of the peanut butter throughout, but it also wouldn't be enough to overpower anyone.

"Oooh," Felix vocalized as he considered it, "that would work well…" Two heads were better than one for something like that, though he knew that the reality was that they would need to try out a few different takes on the same flavor to see how they held up—and how they tasted, most importantly.

He looked at her empty hands and the absence of a tub of peanut butter ice cream in them. "We should write this down before we forget," he advised. They wouldn't be able to get everything done that night, nice though that might have been, but they could at least ensure that they had their thoughts on the matter written down on paper.

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

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Confirmation that her idea would work well made her bristle with pride. Of course it would. She'd worked with enough ice cream flavors by now, that she knew exactly what combinations drew in the customers. Cara didn't think she was arrogant in the sense that she knew what she was talking about, but getting positive feedback from a Fortescue about ice cream? That was a stupidly high praise whether Felix knew it or not. Completing this flavor was a tall order now though. Cara was fairly confident that the two of them combined could get it done and have a winner of a flavor too. All they really had to do to sell it was label it as chocolate and peanut butter. That practically sold itself, and they were merely altering it slightly so that it fit the season. She'd definitely buy it if she was a customer, and that was probably the most important part about creating a flavor.

Felix added that they should write everything down, and Cara immediately stepped out from behind the counter and to where the napkins for customers were kept. "So vanilla ice cream with a peanut butter swirl?" she repeated for confirmation as she returned to her spot behind the counter, retrieving a pen as she did so. "And then there will be chocolates in the shape of bats that have peanut butter innards." Then there was the bit about the bats being charmed. That wasn't too much for a scoop of ice cream, was it? "You wanted the wings charmed to work like chocolate frogs, right? Wouldn't it be easier if they were treated as a topping instead? So you have the vanilla and peanut butter swirl ice cream, and then drop the flapping chocolate peanut butter bats on top." In terms of getting the effect of the bats, that was what worked best in her visualization of it. If the candies were mixed in the ice cream and moving, they'd be chopped up by the scoops. That sort of defeated the point of the bats being charmed.

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[felix valentin fortescue]

September 2025

"So vanilla ice cream with a peanut butter swirl?"

Felix nodded. "Yeah," he agreed with Cara on that choice of flavor profile. "I like that one." For the same reason as she'd mentioned, having the swirl would be better than having peanut butter throughout. Too much, and the Americans would be the only ones able to stomach it.

"And then there will be chocolates in the shape of bats that have peanut butter innards."

"Yeah." Felix nodded again as Cara jotted the ideas down. Granted, he wasn't sure that he would have gone with the word "innards". It fit the "Halloween" vibe, at least, but felt a bit too "blood ice cream" for him. (He was glad that he hadn't had to test that one out himself.)

"You wanted the wings charmed to work like chocolate frogs, right?" That seemed like the best way to do it, Felix thought, until Cara brought up another point. "Wouldn't it be easier if they were treated as a topping instead? So you have the vanilla and peanut butter swirl ice cream, and then drop the flapping chocolate peanut butter bats on top."

That also meant that there would be less risk of ending up with a bunch of crushed bat chocolates while mixing the ice cream together, Felix realized. "That works, actually," he considered as he thought about it some more. "But nothing, er… sentient. We don't want chocolate bats flying everywhere like Cornish Pixies."

cara june bainbridge

[cara june bainbridge]

▲

Getting positive feedback on ice cream ideas was certainly not how she thought she would use her creativity, as that had solely been reserved for her writing up until now. The horribly monotonous job as cashier had given her plenty of time to daydream, especially during the early morning when no one was stopping in for ice cream. While that was great for generating plot hooks or new characters to shove into her many stories (both legit and her more off-color work), staring at tubs of frozen treats made her think about ice cream just as often. The instant gratification that showed on customers’ faces when a flavor worked for them was the same she got from reading a good book. Somehow the two things had merged together since she’d started working here. As long as she kept any overt mentions of Fortescue’s out of her side gig as a smut writer, she was sure that her identity would stay secret. Which sucked because ice cream could be used for so much…

“I don’t think I’d be able to charm them that well, to be honest,” Cara admitted, pulling herself out of her gutter of a brain. Her work right now was the ice cream parlor, and the thought of having autonomous chocolate bats struggling to fly through the store was admittedly more hilarious than her dumb little stories she wrote. The only downside to her extremely rough plan was the clean-up she would be subjected to if the bats managed to fly on their own. A crime scene of broken chocolate wings and melted peanut butter dreams. The horror! “I’m sure there’s something that could stimulate the wings to move every couple of seconds,” she rephrased. Going as far as recreating the chocolate frog charm would be cool, but the repercussions for the store wouldn’t be all that great. At least they’d make a headline in the food section of the Daily Prophet if it turned out that way?

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[felix valentin fortescue]

September 2025

Cara expressed doubt that she would be able to charm the bats that well, and Felix appreciated her honesty. He also didn't think that that would be too much of a hurdle. If they weren't able to do it after putting their heads together, then maybe Vas would have some ideas. (Just because she couldn't do magic didn't mean that she didn't understand how it worked.) "I'm sure there's something that could stimulate the wings to move every couple of seconds," she offered, however.

"Yeah," agreed Felix. "It's not a problem. I mean, it's only September, so we've got the rest of this month and then some of October. Depends on how early we'd want to launch the flavor, of course, but it won't be too much of a rush." They would be able to experiment when they had a free moment, and even just having chocolate in the shape of bats would be enough to get people interested. If it went well enough, then maybe the Ballycastle Bats would come knocking. (It was a thought, at least!)

"I'll try to charm some chocolate tonight just to see how that goes," Felix told Cara. "Mimicking a Chocolate Frog can't be too difficult. I'm sure there's recipes for homemade ones."

cara june bainbridge