Envy Engenders Spite

“Does anyone speak Spanish? Anyone?” Eugene Dent demanded from his team as they settled into seats around a large table at a wizarding restaurant in Mexico City. The English team would be playing the Mexican team the following morning. And this was the fanciest restaurant in the city. Jack Lament said they were allowed to treat themselves, a reward for having defeated the Russian team and moved onto the third round.

“No, but one time I met this Spanish witch with the biggest-”

“No, Ricky!” hissed Natalie, stomping on his foot under the table. She sat between Dent and one of the Pottingers (Ted, she thought). The Pottingers freaked her out so she had moved her seat as close to Dent as possible without being on top of him. Dent wasn’t going to complain about it.

“I speak Spanish,” said another of the Pottingers (possibly Tommy).

“Well, doesn’t that mean you all speak Spanish?” asked Dent with immense irritation. The waiters were standing about expectantly, waiting for the team to begin ordering. 

“No,” replied the third Pottinger. 

Both Dent and Natalie stared at the Pottinger triplets before Dent flung the menu at the one who said he could speak Spanish and began telling him what to order for the team. Dent was obsessed with personally monitoring the team’s diet, especially the night before a match.

Ricky Webster, meanwhile, proceeded to regale a fascinated Leonard Cadwallader with his Spanish witch story. “-enormous eyes too, if I didn’t know better I’d say-”

“Ricky!” Natalie kicked him again. He sat directly across from her, Caddy practically leaning on his arm as he listened. “What did I say!”

“You can’t tell me what to do, Malfoy,” Ricky looked smug, his expression then turning salacious. “I only let witches tell me what to do when we’re in bed-”

One of the waitresses, who was taking the translated orders from the only Pottinger triplet who spoke Spanish, giggled and hid her face behind her hands.

Everyone fell silent, staring at her.

Dent finally exploded. “You lot speak English?!” 

“Yes,” she smiled through her fingers and spoke in accentless English. “But it was fun listening to your teammate’s poor Spanish.”

“Tucker, you said you were fluent!” barked Dent, slamming a hand on the table and rattling everyone’s glass of water.

“I’m Ted,” this Pottinger remarked. “And I never said I spoke it fluently.”

“What’s your name, love?” asked Ricky, as loud as he could. He now turned his entire body (and attention) towards this witch and looked her up and down as if devouring her with his eyes.

She blushed and giggled — and Natalie didn’t bother trying to hide her eye-roll. 

“Maria,” said the waitress and the other waiters grew irritated as her voice turned flirtatious. “And I assume you’re the famous Ricky Webster.”

“That I am,” Ricky preened, stretching a hand all the way over his head to then run his fingers through his blond hair. He stroked his jaw with his other hand and gave Maria a very obvious wink. “You doing anything later?”

“Ricky,” interrupted Dent, the captain sounded like he was on the verge of an apoplectic fit. Natalie was having trouble keeping her jaw shut, determined not to break into laughter. It would only aggravate Dent further and make Ricky more determined to find someone to shag. “We have a game tomorrow. We’re eating as a team and then you can go shag all the girls in Mexico City.”

Ricky hadn’t even taken his eyes off Maria. “Well, I only know of one girl in Mexico City. . . .”

A snort broke through Natalie’s lips and she had to duck her head under the table as Maria batted her eyelashes and smiled coyly at Ricky.

She stifled her laughter under the table until Dent barked out the rest of the teams orders and the waiters and waitresses disappeared, Maria rather reluctantly.

“Get up, Malfoy,” growled Dent and she popped back up with a wide grin on her face.

“Wow, beautiful, didn’t know you and the captain were involved. And at dinner, too, that’s pretty bold. Yet I can’t even flirt with a pretty waitress,” Ricky commented immediately and Natalie stared at him in bewilderment. Then she remembered that this was Ricky Webster, and she was sitting so close to Dent that when she ducked under the table, her head had nearly been in his lap.

“Oh, shut up, Webster,” she rolled her eyes as Dent picked up on what Ricky was insinuating and turned red. “All I was doing was laughing at how bloody stupid you are.”

“I’m not stupid,” he argued and the Pottingers all started sniggering, “everyone knows I have a routine the night before a match.”

“And what’s that? Shag the first girl you lay eyes on?” she sneered.

“It’s not always the first girl-”

“Wait, you shag before a match?” Leonard Cadwallader’s jaw dropped in amazement. “How?”

“Caddy, Ricky,” snapped Dent, “both of you shut up.”

“Wait,” cried Caddy, “Ricky never finished telling me about the Spanish witch with the huge-”

“No!” growled Natalie. “Nobody wants to hear it!”

“I do,” Caddy looked so dejected everyone almost felt bad for the bloke.

“Isn’t there anything else you lot can talk about?” asked Dent with exasperation.

Natalie shot up in her seat. “I’ve got something, actually.”

Dent gave her a suspicious look as the others eagerly turned to her. “What is it?”

“Our uniforms,” she said, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms, waiting for them to inquire further.

“Well, what about them?” snapped Dent.

“They don’t show off my muscles as well as they could,” said Ricky, like this was a goddamn tragedy.

Cadwallader was once again, flabbergasted. “Your uniform shows off your muscles?” 

“They’re tacky,” Natalie said this loudly, so Ricky and Caddy wouldn’t continue. “I think we should get new ones.”

“We can’t decide that,” said Dent, though he did not sound like he disagreed with her statement. “You gotta take that up with Jack Lament. Or his brother, Matt. It’s probably a whole department thing because it’ll be for the whole team — and we’re in a Cup run.”

“Can they show off my-”

“Shut up!” Natalie and Dent both barked across the table at Ricky Webster, who froze, before a huge smirk appeared on his face.

Natalie bared her teeth, knowing something lewd was about to spill from Ricky’s mouth. But Dent kicked her under the table before waving across the room.

“Oh, hi, Maria!” 

And Ricky whipped around immediately to give the Mexican waitress a charming smile.

Natalie glared at Ricky’s mop of blond curls as he started spilling out the same flirty comments she’d heard in France, Russia, and wherever and whenever else Ricky felt like it.

“Leave it,” Dent warned her.

“Fine,” she muttered, flashing her eyes at the captain. “But on the topic of uniforms-”

“Please tell me you know a wizard-”

“I know a witch, yes.”

Winky Crockett and Seymour Mulciber stepped into Bulstrode’s Befittings in Diagon Alley and Crockett sighed, making Mulciber laugh at him. 

“Shut it,” Crockett muttered to Mulciber. 

“You’re the one who insisted on coming here,” Mulciber reminded him. “Matt and Jack said I could come myself. This involves the whole team so it’s technically my job.”

“I’m only here because Malfoy requested it,” grunted Crockett. “She’d have come herself if they weren’t in Mexico.”

“Any word if they’ve won?”

“They should be finishing the game right now,” said Crockett, checking his watch. “Expect we’ll find out soon. Hopefully Dent will send a howler to the Department again.”

“I bloody hope not,” groaned Mulciber, “last time Antonin Dolohov and all of Malfoy’s friends pranced into my office with the howler and nearly destroyed hundreds of important documents. Besides, what sort of bloke sends a howler to announce a victory?”

“Dent,” sniggered Crockett and he tapped the bell on the front desk of the clothing shop. “He’s bloody mental.”

“Morning, what can I do for you — oh,” Quinn Bulstrode popped out from behind a rack of dress robes and spotted the two wizards. “Hello.”

“Hello, Quinn,” greeted Mulciber and he gestured at Crockett, who stepped forward and extended a hand.

“Winky Crockett,” he shook Bulstrode’s hand and smiled as recognition flashed across her face. “We were at Hogwarts together for a bit. I’m Natalie Malfoy’s agent.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” she said with a smile. “I assume you’re not here to buy robes.”

“Well, that’s somewhat correct,” said Crockett with a grin. Mulciber snorted, making Bulstrode raise an eyebrow. 

“Right,” she laughed and beckoned them to follow her. “This way, then.” She led the two through the shop, behind a pair of dark oak saloon doors and into a small office space in the back.

They took a seat on the plush cushioned couch she gestured them to. In front of it was a rectangular wooden table a shade darker than the desk opposite it. A mountain of paperwork sat on the desk, bewitched to organize and color-code itself. Mulciber looked at it with envy. Crockett had to hide his smirk upon seeing the expression on Mulciber’s face.

Bulstrode flicked her wand and a bottle of gin and glasses appeared. Another flick and the gin poured itself, then floated towards the two wizards.

“I’m assuming this is Quidditch World Cup business?” Bulstrode asked with a grin as they sipped on the gin.

Crockett nodded, swallowing a mouthful of gin before placing the glass on the table before him. “Yes — I know you’re already sponsoring Malfoy, but she was wondering if you’d be interested in another project for the national team-”

“Which is backed by Matt Lament, so you’d have funding from the Department of Magical Sports and Games,” Mulciber jumped in.

Bulstrode took a seat behind the desk and gave them a curious look. “What exactly would this project entail?” she inquired, “and I’d have to pass this by my parents, of course. They still own the place.”

“We know,” said Mulciber, “Malfoy, and by default, the entire national team, claim the current robes they’re using for uniforms are ‘tacky’. So they want new ones. Preferably ones they can wear all the way to the Cup Final, though they might be getting a bit ahead of themselves. Malfoy suggested Bulstrode’s Befittings as the place to get them — and the Department is willing to drop a good number of Galleons if the designs are acceptable.”

Bulstrode leaned forward with excitement, dark curls swinging around her face. “Brilliant! We’d love to do them. I’m sure my parents would be glad to furnish the team with new robes. We did the Cannons uniforms a few years back and they reorder new sets every season. In fact-” she jumped up from the seat, tugged open one of the drawers of the desk and began digging through it, out of sight from the two wizards.

“We should have the Cannon’s designs in here,” she said aloud, “let’s see, I think they were done in forty one. . . yep, here we are!” she pulled out a thick sheet of parchment and brought it around to present to them.

Mulciber took the parchment and scrutinized it, studying the revolving black and red uniform with a critical eye.

“Obviously the coloring and style would be different for the national team,” explained Bulstrode, “and we’d, er, hopefully have a bit bigger budget.”

“Yeah, absolutely, you would,” piped up Crockett with a smug look at Mulciber. He received a glare in return, and Crockett winked. 

“Yes, certainly,” Mulciber then announced, handing the parchment back to Bulstrode. “If you can draw up some preliminary designs, I can get Matt Lament’s approval. Then I’m sure — if they’ve won today’s match — that the team would love to have them for the next round at the end of December.”

Bulstrode beamed. “Of course! How does the end of the week sound?”

“Perfect.”