Envy Engenders Spite

Natalie hadn’t planned on staying the night in the town. She hadn’t exactly planned beyond finding Tom Riddle. She jumped awake as the first rays of sun burst over the town and immediately rolled herself and Tom Riddle off the bed in a panic.

“What the fuck,” he hissed, snapped out of sleep as she frantically untangled her sore body from him.

“I wasn’t supposed to stay here!” she groaned, throwing her clothes back on and wrapping her cloak over herself.

“What are they going to do?” he asked sarcastically, “arrest you?”

“Dent’s gonna kill me — or the Aurors will stick a tracking charm on me or something stupid,” she ran her hands through her hair, trying not to look totally disheveled from last night.

“If they find out,” he said, he hadn’t bothered moving from the floor, watching her with glittering eyes.

“That if grows bigger every second.”

He said nothing. She deflated under his gaze and sighed.

“I’ve nearly forgotten we’re here to play in the Quidditch World Cup.”

“I can tell. It seems everyone else has forgotten that too.”

“It’s taking too long to get here.”

“So it seems.”

She stared at him. His voice had a hint of something in it — probably anger. They hadn’t done much talking last night but he had made it clear he was not happy about something. His mood hadn’t seemed to improve much over the course of the night either.

“What is it?” she asked. 

He was silent. He stared up at her from the floor, his jaw twitching almost imperceptibly. She watched a flame of red dart through his eyes and found herself struck with a familiar feeling — a churning in her gut and a buzzing in the back of her mind. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered — it was the same anxiety she felt before a Quidditch match. She looked away from him and the feeling faded but she could still feel his eyes on her. 

“What?” she snapped, growing angry now.

He made a noncommittal humming noise in the back of his throat that did nothing but annoy her further. 

Natalie didn’t say anything else. She shot one last peek at him before darting out the door. Her legs were shaky as she bolted down the stairs and nearly ran right into Ricky Webster in the hallway. She froze and they both stared at each other before a smirk flashed across his face.

“Seems like we both had a fun night,” he made kissing noises. “Who was the bloke?”

“Who was the girl?” she snapped.

Ricky looked scandalized. “My girlfriend-”

“Good for you,” she stomped past him towards the kitchen. “Hurry up, we need to get back to the castle before everything goes to shit — oh fuck,” she paused, realizing she and Ricky were not the only ones awake.

Antonin Dolohov, Eric Dawson, and Winky Crockett were sitting around the kitchen table, Dawson nursing what looked like the worst hangover of his life. Mugs of coffee and a platter of pancakes and eggs were in front of all of them. There were two other wizards present whom she vaguely recognized. One had a very bushy blond mustache, and she could have sworn she’d seen him at Quidditch matches. The other had well-groomed dark hair and was staring at her with interest in his sharp eyes. Both were wearing jumpers with the English national team logo on them. 

Crockett looked at her with annoyance, then raised his eyebrows when Ricky appeared behind her. “Did you two come here to shag?”

“No,” she hissed while Ricky immediately said, “yes.”

She rolled her eyes and strolled forward, dropping into an empty seat, Ricky following. Both Quidditch players immediately helped themselves to food.

“Not each other, at least,” Dolohov muttered. Natalie gave him a glare and he winked. Crockett did not miss this. 

“Wow,” Crockett said under his breath. She didn’t feel like trying to convince her agent that she was not shagging her Uncle’s assistant. 

“Who made the food?” she asked, using a charm to pour syrup over her pancakes. Ricky then banged the table with his fork until she poured syrup over his pancakes too.

“Eric,” said Dolohov, “apparently he likes to cook when he’s hungover.”

Dawson made a groaning noise. “You woke me up.”

“I thought you were dead,” Dolohov pointed out.

Natalie snorted, swallowed a mouthful of eggs and shot a look at Crockett. “What are you doing here, Winky?” 

“Heard a rumor that the national team was crashing a party in the village,” he said, looking none too happy about this. “Knew it had to be the party these idiots throw,” he pointed between Dawson and Dolohov. The former chugged the rest of his coffee and the latter just smirked. “And I knew you had to be doing the crashing.”

“Mad you weren’t invited?” Dolohov teased.

“Zack invited him,” mumbled Dawson, pouring himself more coffee. “He never comes.”

Dolohov looked outraged to learn this. “Well — well, then why don’t you come?”

Dawson winced, “shut the fuck up, Antonin.”

The wizard with the sharp eyes pulled something from his pocket and rolled it over to Dawson. 

“Pepper-Up Potion,” the wizard explained. “It’ll have you back to normal in no time.”

Dawson immediately uncorked the vial and dumped it into his coffee. “Thanks, Gus.”

Natalie chewed on a pancake and studied the two unfamiliar wizards. They were older than everyone else present and she had a feeling they were Ministry. With Winky Crockett angry at her and Lord Voldemort anxious about something, she was not in the mood to play nice. She gestured between the two with her fork. “Who are these blokes?”

The mustached wizard flung his hand across the table and gave her an enormous grin. “Harry Bagman — I work for Jack Lament, help out with game ops and other fun stuff.”

“Oh, right,” she realized why he looked familiar. Ricky scooped Bagman’s hand up. 

“I assume you know who I am,” he gave Bagman a winning smile.

Bagman laughed and tried to extricate his hand from Ricky’s. “Of course.”

Natalie turned her gaze to the other, darker wizard. He winked. 

“Augustus Rookwood.”

“Rookwood’s an Unspeakable,” Dolohov dropped the fact. “Department of Mysteries bloke. Refuses to tell anyone what he does.”

“That happens to be part of the job,” Rookwood said with a laugh.

“Hm,” Natalie focused on cutting a pancake into triangles. She liked Rookwood’s energy and it didn’t seem like Bagman was here to rat her out to the Aurors — or even his boss. “So. . . what’s everyone doing here?”

“These blokes saw me hurrying my ass over here this morning,” Crockett said irritably. “Figured it had something to do with you — tagged along because they wanted to meet you.”

“We were on our way to the Mountain Skies Café,” Bagman said, “any of you lot try it yet?”

“Yeah,” Dolohov grinned. “Get the blueberry vanilla scones if you want to see everything as opposite colors all day. I thought I’d lost my bloody mind.”

Crockett cleared his throat. “Lovely suggestion, thank you, Antonin. But I’d like to address the elephant in the room.”

Ricky started, looking all around. He leaned over to whisper in Natalie’s ear. “Is this bloke mental? There’s no elephant in here.”

“It’s you,” she whispered back. Ricky looked offended but Crockett cut over his retort.

“What the fuck are you two doing outside the castle?” 

Natalie ignored the question as she finished off her pancakes and poured herself a mug of coffee, happy that Dent wasn’t there to snatch it out of her hands.

“Shagging,” said Ricky, sounding pleased with himself. 

Natalie sighed, “to be clear, I did not shag him.”

“But she was given every opportunity to do so,” Ricky announced, “let that be noted.”

“It’s noted,” Dolohov said. His comment did nothing but reinforce Crockett's belief that Dolohov and Natalie were sleeping together. Her agent gave her a disapproving look.

Natalie elbowed Ricky. “Where’s Maria?” 

Ricky shrugged, unconcerned as he shoveled eggs into his mouth. “Dunno. She’s always gone when I wake up.”

“Nice girlfriend,” remarked Dawson. He was looking immensely better after the Pepper-Up Potion.

“She is bloody nice,” Ricky shot at him, mouth full of food. “In everything she does, actually-”

Natalie kicked him under the table. He yelped and started choking. Rookwood shot a spell at him to clear his throat. Taking several deep breaths, Ricky pointed between Crockett and Natalie.

“She’s trying to bloody kill me!”

Everyone at the table either laughed or rolled their eyes. Feeling a prickling gaze on her, Natalie turned to spot Tom Riddle enter the kitchen. He was dressed in clean robes and looked like he had taken the time to shower before heading downstairs. But something about his damp hair felt uneasy. She glared at him. He ignored her and dropped into the seat between her and Ricky, helping himself to food.

Ricky immediately peered over at her, his blue eyes wide as he tried and failed to whisper around Tom Riddle. “You shagged him last night? Blimey, we would’ve invited both of you to join me and Maria.”

Natalie inhaled her mouthful of coffee and had to slap a hand to her throat to make sure it didn’t end up in her lungs. Dolohov was shaking in the seat on her right like he was about to piss himself laughing and Augustus Rookwood looked like he was watching prime time entertainment. Crockett looked between her, Antonin Dolohov, and Tom Riddle in bewilderment before shaking his head. 

“The question still wasn’t answered,” said Crockett.

“What question?” she snapped.

“Why are you two out of the castle?”

“How come Ricky’s agent isn’t here too?” she asked instead, “why are you always running after me?”

“Natalie, I swear to Merlin-”

Natalie groaned, slumping back in her seat. “Winky, do you know how boring it is there? We’ve been here for almost two weeks, we’ve explored nearly the whole castle, there’s nothing else to do, and I’m the only witch stuck in a castle with a load of wizards who are also bored out of their goddamn minds and anxious for the bloody World Cup to hurry up and happen-”

“I’ve been so bloody horny,” said Ricky, shaking his head. “Like bloody hell-”

“They all are,” she snapped.

Crockett laughed. “Including you?”

“No,” she quickly said, but Tom Riddle snorted into his cup of coffee. She kicked him under the table and was annoyed when it did nothing to bother him. On her other side, Dolohov was doing his damnedest to keep a straight face. 

“If Mikko Takkala keeps bugging me, Finland might not have a Seeker to play in the World Cup,” she sneered and looked between Bagman and Crockett now. “Whose bloody idea was it to send us here so early anyway?”

Bagman shrugged. “No one’s, really. Just protocol, to get the teams adjusted. You lot got sent to Texas for the Semi-Final two weeks early. . . .”

“That’s different,” she said.

“How?” demanded Crockett.

“This is the World Cup,” she said simply and poured herself more coffee. Dent was just going to have to deal with her today. “That was the Semi-Final.”

“That’s not an excuse to ignore security protocols,” Crockett said. Natalie glared at him, the cup of coffee halfway to her mouth, debating whether or not to snap her fingers and fire a bolt of electricity through her agent. But she felt Lord Voldemort rest a hand on her knee under the table and instead swallowed as much coffee as she could. 

“We should get back,” she announced, downing the rest of the coffee and standing up. Everyone else around the table jumped to their feet as she did so, except Tom Riddle, who continued eating as though he was alone.

“And how did you plan on doing that?” Crockett raised an eyebrow, looking smug. “Walk through the front door? That’s a wonderful way to let everyone know you were wandering about the village last night.”

But Natalie was grinning maniacally at him, an image of a golden eagle landing on the parapets of the castle floating through her head. 

“Uh oh,” Dawson muttered, making Voldemort pause his eating and shoot a glance at her. She pulled out her wand and flicked it. When nothing immediately happened, looks were exchanged.

“Never seen you fuck a spell up,” Dolohov looked surprised. Dawson nudged him.

“I don’t think she did. . . .”

A loud banging on the door made most of them flinch. Crockett strode over and tugged it open, jumping aside as two brooms shot into the room and flew towards Natalie. She snatched them from the air and tossed one to Ricky, who looked like he wanted to kiss her.

“I’ll be damned,” Bagman shook his head, visibly impressed. Natalie knew he wasn’t letting a word slip to Jack Lament about this. She beamed at him. “They’re gonna fly in.”

Her calculations based on an eagle had been correct. There were no charms or spells inhibiting entry of the castle from the air. She thought it tremendously funny — nobody had thought about flying a broomstick in and out of the castle where the best Quidditch players in the world were staying. She was furious she hadn’t thought of it days ago.

They landed on the parapets near a door leading into the castle. Natalie banished their broomsticks back to their locker room at the pitch as Ricky tried to tell her about the one time he had shagged a witch while flying his broom over the Mediterranean. She did not believe a word of it.

Natalie yanked the heavy door open, Ricky behind her, and realized she had not quite calculated everything. Hans, the Swiss Auror, was a few steps down the stairs. For a moment, they all froze, staring at each other before Hans let out a very annoyed sigh and muttered something in another language. 

“I knew Dent was being ridiculous,” said Hans. His blue eyes screamed his irritation.

“He usually is,” Natalie said. She stepped through the doorway and dragged Ricky after her, a tight grip on his wrist in hope he would keep his mouth shut. “What’s it this time?”

“He’s convinced you both snuck out of the castle,” Hans said. He straightened his robes and started back down the stairs. Natalie shot a look at Ricky out of Hans’s sight. Ricky mimed zipping his lips shut and throwing away the key. 

“He’s in your kitchen, I would say he is having a tantrum. Lassila and the Finns came up to see what the noise is about. Dent insisted the Aurors search the castle.” It was clear Hans was upset about having to scour the castle for the missing players. 

Natalie made her laugh cheerful. “Well, you found us.”

“You know there are plenty of rooms here.”

“Uh, yeah-”

“So you know you don’t have to have sex on the parapets of the castle.”

“Yeah, Malfoy,” Ricky couldn’t keep his mouth shut any longer. “I rated the roof a six. There are plenty of nines here, maybe even a ten-”

“Oh my Merlin,” she groaned. “Thank you, Hans, but I was not shagging this git.”

Hans looked her over as they came to a stop outside the door to the English floor. “Jacob Coot said you were working your way through both teams.”

“That bastard,” she muttered under her breath. “Coot’s full of it. Tell him to spend more time searching the castle for me than spreading rumors about me.”

“I wish he would,” Hans snapped. “I’m supposed to be giving my daily security report to Lars Oblinger but Dent insisted I help search for you two.”

Ricky laughed. “Who’s Lars Oblinger and why is his name so funny?”

“Our Minister of Magic here in Switzerland,” Hans said coldly. 

“Oh.”

Natalie yanked the door open. Dent’s yelling could be heard from down the hall. She laughed. 

“You can go, Hans,” she said.

He muttered something in what sounded like German and continued down the stairs. When he was out of sight, Natalie pushed Ricky through the door. 

“Good job, idiot, you’ve just insulted the Swiss Minister.”

“It’s not my fault he has a funny name!”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, marching past him. “How many bloody days until the World Cup?”

“Four,” Ricky happily reported.

“Can’t fucking wait.”