"Zhang, I was only just here..."
Malfoy stood at the entrance to Honeydukes and spoke helplessly.
"Draco, I didn't come last time either. If I don't have a look around now, I'll have to wait until after Christmas.
Besides, there's something else I wanted to talk to you about."
Zhang Xiao pushed open the door and walked in. The moment he entered, a warm, sugary fragrance filled his nostrils.
Honeydukes was packed with Hogwarts students. Zhang Xiao wandered among them, looking around curiously.
If there was such a thing as a candy house, this was it.
The shop was crammed with shelves, one beside another, laden with the most enticing sweets anyone could imagine.
There were great slabs of creamy peanut brittle, shimmering pink squares of Coconut Ice, and hundreds of different chocolates arranged in neat rows.
Dozens of Chocolate Frogs hopped about inside a clear glass jar. Beside it stood a little sign: "Loose Chocolate Frogs, no cards, half price."
An enormous oak barrel by the door was filled to the brim with Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. There was a barrel of Fizzing Whizzbees too, along with the floating sherbet drinks Ron had mentioned.
Along another wall were all sorts of sweets with "special effects": Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, which could fill an entire room with bluebell-colored bubbles that would not burst for days;
peculiar, splinter-like Toothflossing Stringmints;
tiny black Pepper Imps ("Make your friends breathe fire through their noses!");
Ice Mice ("Hear your teeth chatter and squeak!");
toad-shaped peppermint creams ("They really hop in your stomach!"), crunchy Sugar Quills, and exploding bonbons.
"You wanted to talk to me?" Malfoy asked curiously. "About what?"
Zhang Xiao picked up a blood-flavored lollipop that gave off a pungent, bloody smell. Apparently, these lollipops were meant to satisfy vampires' cravings.
"Keep