Envy Engenders Spite

Natalie scrambled out of her chair. “I’ve got dibs on that girl!” she announced to the bewilderment of the rest of the English national team.

“Malfoy’s into girls?” Ricky’s jaw hung open. “Is that why you won’t sleep with me?”

“Malfoy — what?” exclaimed Dent; she had nearly knocked him out of his own seat when she jumped up.

Caddy wailing, “does this mean Malfoy will never talk to me?” and the snickering of the Pottingers ringing in her ears, Natalie made her way through the outside tables and stepped into the dim atmosphere of the inside section of the café. 

Her entrance must have been rampant with energy. Natalie found every single person inside staring at her. The fact they were Muggles made it all the more creepy and unsettling. 

But she ignored them. Eyes roving towards the table where Tom Riddle and the blonde girl sat. His gaze was on her before hers was on him. Their eyes locked across the tables and Muggles, making Natalie freeze as she received the distinct feeling she was not to approach him under any circumstances.

Twitching her eyebrows at him, she flicked her piercing stare over to the blonde. The Muggle — or witch — had briefly glanced over upon her entrance, and quickly returned to ogling Tom Riddle as if Natalie was just another Muggle customer at the café.

Nausea welled up within Natalie. She began to regret eating those eggs so quickly. A familiar spinning inside her very soul kicked into high speed. The blonde looked like she wanted to eat Tom Riddle instead of the dainty croissant on a porcelain plate before her. A sudden urge to wipe the table with the girl’s hair seized Natalie. It would at least get rid of that stupid, vapid expression on her face. Maybe it would even knock a few of her overly-white teeth out too.

Natalie watched Tom give the blonde a flirtatious smile and reach across the table to pick up the girl’s hand. He kissed the back of her palm — Natalie could see the flawlessly manicured, red-tipped nails even from this distance. The blonde giggled and patted his face with her hand, lightly tapping at his jawline with each of her cherry-red nails. 

Why were her nails so red? The desire to vomit gripped her. They were redder than a Gryffindor’s scarf and looked utterly sinful contrasting against Tom’s pale skin. She wanted to rip each of them off — one by one — drop them into the untouched cappuccino on the table, and then make the blonde drink it. Maybe that would get rid of the equally-red lipstick on the lips she kept biting for no practical reason. 

The blonde finally removed her hand from Tom’s face and dropped it onto the table between them, one of her red-tipped fingers spinning circles around the rim of the cappuccino. Natalie narrowed her eyes as the blonde finally picked up the cappuccino, waggled her eyebrows across the table at Tom, took a sip (unfortunately, her nails were still attached to her fingers), and placed it back on the table, proceeding to lick her lips and giggle.

Natalie’s eyes widened as the blonde’s giggle shot through the inside of the café like a curse and clanged within her ears. She winced at the noise as it crashed through her head. She had to reach out and place a hand on a nearby table to steady herself. 

“Excusez-moi!” Natalie jumped as a voice loudly snapped nearby. She glanced over at the table she had leaned against and blinked rapidly for a moment. The table was not empty. A young French couple — a very angry young French couple at that — were glaring at her. 

“Le buerre, l’idiot!”

Looking down, she realized when reaching out to steady herself, she had stuck her hand right into a dish of butter on the couple’s table. 

“Oh, sorry,” she muttered in English, retracting her hand from the table and gawking at her butter-covered fingers with the same amount of disgust she felt from looking at the blonde bitch across the café. 

“Um. . . .” instinctively, she grabbed one of the fancy lace napkins on the table and used it to wipe the butter off her hand before dropping it back onto the table. “Thanks.”

Quickly stepping away from the now furious couple, her gaze snapped back across the café to watch Tom lean towards the blonde and conspiratorially mutter something as the incensed French couple began furiously complaining to a member of the waitstaff. 

The blonde batted her eyelashes as she replied to whatever it was Tom had said, wiping invisible crumbs from her cheek with a lace napkin. Natalie stared at the napkin she held. It was just large enough to be twisted around a neck. . . . 

They continued chatting. Their voices too low for Natalie to pick up on — or the howling in her head was drowning out any external noise. 

What the bloody hell was Lord Voldemort doing in Paris? And what the fuck was he doing meeting some blonde, attractive, obviously very spoiled, bitchy, also obviously very wealthy, annoying, slutty girl — who looked like she’d rather drink his face than the poor cappuccino she had started sticking her fingers in just to lick them in front of him — in some Muggle café a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower?

Natalie’s eyes shot towards a slim piece of parchment Tom produced. It lay on the table between the two and she paused as a new thought sprung into her mind. 

Was this business for Borgin and Burke’s? But what the hell was her Uncle thinking, sending his handsome young assistant — her boyfriend — to Paris to conduct some probably worthless business deal with some dumb blonde who didn’t even look like she could hold a wand with her stupidly long, red nails?

“Hello!” Natalie found herself staring at a very excited looking middle-aged Muggle man. Blocking both her path, and her view of Tom Riddle and whoever the blonde was. An English tourist, from his accent and dress.

“Er, hi. . .” she said with suspicion, taking a step backwards. The Muggle had gotten way too close for her liking. She could see her own reflection in his thick glasses and the day old stubble upon his not-yet-wrinkled chin.

The Muggle stepped forward as if pulled towards her. “I couldn’t help but notice your outfit-”

The bloody Muggle football clothes they had to wear. A bubble of panic burst in her. She moved to the side, trying to sidestep the Muggle. “Er. . . uh, yeah. . . okay, uh, excuse me-”

He moved with her, preventing her from slipped past him and raising a hand as though to stop her with a serious question. 

“You wouldn’t happen to know a Theodore Borealis, would you?” the Muggle asked with excitement. “Chap passed a couple years ago but he was a bloody all-star back in my day. Most goals above and below the Thames.”

Natalie nearly tripped as every muscle in her body seized up. Heart squirming beneath her ribs like a worm exposed to sunlight. 

She was in the middle of a Muggle café in the middle of Paris, France, with her boyfriend flirting with a stupid blonde for reasons undetermined, the rest of the Quidditch national team outside, probably waiting to hound her, and this bloody Muggle had just stepped in her path to ask her if she knew her own dead Muggle father. What the fuck was she supposed to say? That she’d killed him?

“I, uh, no! Don’t know him — never heard of him — no idea,” she blurted out, trying to edge her way past the Muggle. He kept moving to stand directly in front of her.

“Ah, well, that’s a shame. I swear, might be it’s just the uniform, but you walked in here the same way old Theo Borealis would walk onto the field. Absolutely incredible! Always got the crowd going. I should know, he was one of my favorite players — still have his autograph and everything. I watched every game-”

“Sounds lovely,” she squeaked; her skin starting to crawl with a furious energy in response to the mention of her father. She needed to get out. She needed to get to practice now. Before she blew the café straight across the city. Tom and that blonde bitch could wait. 

“I really must be going-” she insisted, trying to shrug her way past the Muggle.

“What, so soon?” cried the Muggle, clearly wanting to engage her in further conversation, he mindlessly reached a hand towards her shoulder. 

The instant his hand brushed against the English football shirt, the Muggle collapsed unconscious to the ground as though he had been struck by a strong electrical shock.

Natalie stared at his motionless body in stunned horror before a scream erupted from somewhere nearby. Her head jerked up and she locked eyes once again with Tom Riddle and she knew he had seen the entire interaction. 

Spurred into action, she took off, sprinting out of the café and to where the team was still sitting around the table. Ricky Webster was looking very annoyed, the Pottingers were still laughing, and Dent looked exasperated, but she didn’t care.

She barrelled straight towards them as more screams and yelling began erupting from inside the café.

“We gotta go!” she shouted at them, “we gotta go, now!”

Dent looked stunned as the screaming and shouting carried out towards them. “What the bloody fuck did you do, Malfoy?”

“Doesn’t matter!” she groaned, grabbing Dent by the arm and tugging him to his feet. “We have to get out of here!”

The English national team stumbled back into their hotel to find Seymour Mulciber, assistant to the Head of the Department of Magical Sports and Games waiting for them in the hotel lobby. Arms crossed and a frown adorning his face, nobody else was present. The hotel staff had mysteriously disappeared.

“Er, hey, Seymour,” Dent greeted him nervously as the whole team shuffled to a halt. Natalie blanched upon sighting him. She knew this had to do with the Muggle at the café.

“Hey, Dent,” Mulciber greeted the captain before his voice turned grave. “I need to speak with Malfoy. The rest of you can scram.”

Dent grew annoyed. “It’s my team, I give the orders.”

“Then tell them to scram,” Mulciber said with cool authority and Natalie knew this was a Department — and possibly a whole Ministry — issue.

Reluctantly, Dent turned to the team. “Let’s go.”

“Is Malfoy in trouble?” whispered Cadwallader as the Pottingers vanished and Ricky grudgingly followed.

“Yeah, for not shagging me,” mumbled Ricky before he vanished around the corner. Natalie glared at his back as he disappeared.

“You’ll be in trouble if you don’t get out,” snapped Dent and he and Cadwallader hurried off after the rest of the team.

“Right,” said Mulciber, looking much more relaxed now. He moved to sit on one of the couches that circled the fireplace in the lobby. The fireplace wasn’t lit, but he flicked his wand and it roared to life. 

“Malfoy,” Mulciber turned to look at her before gravely pronouncing, “you’re a murderer.”