Natsu Dragneel and the Goblet of Fire

Back to the Burrow

By twelve o'clock the next day, Natsu's school trunk was packed with his school things and all his most prized possessions - the Invisibility Cloak he had inherited from his mother, the broomstick he had gotten from Weiss, the enchanted map of Hogwarts he had been given by Erza and Mira last year.

He had emptied his hiding place under the loose floorboard of all food, double-checked every nook and cranny of his bedroom for forgotten spell books or quills, and taken down the chart on the wall counting down the days to September the first, on which he liked to cross off the days remaining until his return to Hogwarts. The atmosphere inside number four, Privet Drive was extremely tense.

The imminent arrival at their house of an assortment of wizards was making the Dragneels uptight and irritable. Uncle Nicholas had looked downright alarmed when Natsu informed him that the Milkovichs would be arriving at five o'clock the very next day.

"I hope you told them to dress properly, these people," he snarled at once. "I've seen the sort of stuff your lot wear. They'd better have the decency to put on normal clothes, that's all."

Natsu felt a slight sense of foreboding. He had rarely seen Mrs. Milkovich wearing anything that the Dragneels would call "normal." Their children might don Muggle clothing during the holidays, but Mrs. Milkovich usually wore long robes in varying states of shabbiness. Natsu wasn't bothered about what the neighbors would think, but he was anxious about how rude the Dragneels might be to the Milkovichs if they turned up looking like their worst idea of wizards.

Uncle Nicholas had put on his best suit. To some people, this might have looked like a gesture of welcome, but Natsu knew it was because Uncle Nicholas wanted to look impressive and intimidating.

Zeref, on the other hand, looked somehow diminished. This was not because the diet was at last taking effect, but due to fright. Zeref had emerged from his last encounter with a fully grown wizard with a curly pig's tail poking out of the seat of his trousers, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had had to pay for its removal at a private hospital in London. It wasn't altogether surprising, therefore, that Zeref kept running his hand nervously over his backside, and walking sideways from room to room, so as not to present the same target to the enemy.

Lunch was an almost silent meal. Zeref didn't even protest at the food (cottage cheese and grated celery). Aunt Bethany wasn't, eating anything at all. Her arms were folded, her lips were pursed, and she seemed to be chewing her tongue, as though biting back the furious diatribe she longed to throw at Natsu.

"They'll be driving, of course?" Uncle Nicholas barked across the table.

"Er," said Natsu.

He hadn't thought of that. How were the Milkovichs going to pick him up? They didn't have a car anymore; the old Ford Anglia they had once owned was currently running wild in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts.

But Mr. Heartfilia had borrowed a Ministry of Magic car last year; possibly she would do the same today?

"I think so," said Natsu.

Uncle Nicholas snorted. Normally, Uncle Nicholas would have asked what car Mrs. Milkovich drove; he tended to judge other men by how big and expensive their cars were. But Natsu doubted whether Uncle Nicholas would have taken to Mrs. Milkovich even if she drove a Ferrari.

Natsu spent most of the afternoon in his bedroom; he couldn't stand watching Aunt Bethany peer out through the net curtains every few seconds, as though there had been a warning about an escaped rhinoceros. Finally, at a quarter to five, Natsu went back downstairs and into the living room.

Aunt Bethany was compulsively straightening cushions. Uncle Nicholas was pretending to read the paper, but his tiny eyes were not moving, and Natsu was sure he was really listening with all his might for the sound of an approaching car. Zeref was crammed into an armchair, his porky hands beneath him, clamped firmly around his bottom. Natsu couldn't take the tension; he left the room and went and sat on the stairs in the hall, his eyes on his watch and his heart pumping fast from excitement and nerves.