Natsu Dragneel and the Goblet of Fire

The Invitation

By the time Natsu arrived in the kitchen, the three Dragneels were already seated around the table. None of them looked up as he entered or sat down. Uncle Nicholas' large red face was hidden behind the morning's Daily Mail, and Aunt Bethany was cutting a grapefruit into quarters, her lips pursed over her horse-like teeth.

Zeref looked furious and sulky, and somehow seemed to be taking up even more space than usual. This was saying something, as he always took up an entire side of the square table by himself.

When Aunt Bethany put a quarter of unsweetened grapefruit onto Zeref's plate with a tremulous "There you are, Ziffy darling," Zeref glowered at her. His life had taken a most unpleasant turn since he had come home for the summer with his end-of-year report.

Uncle Nicholas and Aunt Bethany had managed to find excuses for his bad marks as usual: Aunt Bethany always insisted that Zeref was a very gifted boy whose teachers didn't understand him, while Uncle Nicholas maintained that "he didn't want some swotty little nancy boy for a son anyway." They also skated over the accusations of bullying in the report - "He's a boisterous little boy, but he wouldn't hurt a fly!" Aunt Bethany had said tearfully.

However, at the bottom of the report there were a few well-chosen comments from the school nurse that not even Uncle Nicholas and Aunt Bethany could explain away. No matter how much Aunt Bethany wailed that Zeref was big-boned, and that his poundage was really puppy fat, and that he was a growing boy who needed plenty of food, the fact remained that the school outfitters didn't stock knickerbockers big enough for him anymore.

The school nurse had seen what Aunt Bethany's eyes - so sharp when it came to spotting fingerprints on her gleaming walls, and in observing the comings and goings of the neighbors - simply refused to see: that far from needing extra nourishment, Zeref had reached roughly the size and weight of a young killer whale.

So - after many tantrums, after arguments that shook Natsu's bedroom floor, and many tears from Aunt Bethany - the new regime had begun. The diet sheet that had been sent by the Smeltings school nurse had been taped to the fridge, which had been emptied of all Zeref's favorite things - fizzy drinks and cakes, chocolate bars and burgers and filled instead with fruit and vegetables and the sorts of things that Uncle Nicholas called "rabbit food."

To make Zeref feel better about it all, Aunt Bethany had insisted that the whole family follow the diet too. She now passed a grapefruit quarter to Natsu. He noticed that it was a lot smaller than Zeref's.

Aunt Bethany seemed to feel that the best way to keep up Zeref's morale was to make sure that he did, at least, get more to eat than Natsu.

But Aunt Bethany didn't know what was hidden under the loose floorboard upstairs. She had no idea that Natsu was not following the diet at all.

The moment he had got wind of the fact that he was expected to survive the summer on carrot sticks, Natsu had sent Happy to his friends with pleas for help, and they had risen to the occasion magnificently. Happy had returned from Levy's house with a large box stuffed full of sugar-free snacks.

(Levy's parents were dentists.) Gildarts, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had obliged with a sack full of his own homemade rock cakes. (Natsu hadn't touched these; he had had too much experience of Gildarts' cooking.)

Mrs. Milkovich, however, had sent the family owl, Errol, with an enormous fruitcake and assorted meat pies. Poor Errol, who was elderly and feeble, had needed a full five days to recover from the journey. And then on Natsu's birthday (which the Dragneels had completely ignored) he had received four superb birthday cakes, one each from Gray, Lucy, Gildarts, and Weiss.

Natsu still had two of them left, and so, looking forward to a real breakfast when he got back upstairs, he ate his grapefruit without complaint. Uncle Nicholas laid aside his paper with a deep sniff of disapproval and looked down at his own grapefruit quarter.