It's Hard to be Perky when You're a Malfoy

Jack

Melanie squealed with delight and ran forward, avoiding the hands of her teachers and classmates, and threw her arms around one of the Durmstrung students. He seized her up and spun her round before placing her down and examining her.

"My goodness," he said, in a perfect English accent, looking shocked. "Mel-an-nee! You've grown so much! You're gorgeous!"

Melanie blushed with pride, her grin wider than ever. Other Durmstrung students, obviously Jack's friends, leaned forward in curiosity. Jack held them back with his arm.

"Keep off," he warned. "That's my cousin that is. What are you doing here?" he asked her.

"I go here," she responded. "What are you doing here?" he didn't get a chance to respond as she threw her arms round him again crying. "It's so good to see you!"

Jack Bower was a stocky boy with blond hair a shade darker than Melanie's and Joseph's. He had a friendly face and was attracting a lot of attention from some of the female students.

"Come on," Melanie grabbed his hand and pulled him over to see us. "Joseph's here as well."

"Joey!" cried Jack delightedly.

Melanie looked particularly evil behind his back. Joseph looked worse than he had when he'd faced the boggart. As if this was a horror worse than he could have imagined and he wished more than anything that he could cast Riddikulus and make it go away. He was completely speechless, that didn't seem to matter to Jack who apparently made up Joseph's side of the conversation in his head.

"Great to see you too. Aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?"

Joseph very grudgingly responded by pointing roughly at each Gryffindor third year and saying their names. Jack gave all the boys hearty handshakes, looking genuinely happy to make their acquaintance, but reacted to each of the girls very differently. He winked at Anya, wiggled his ears at me, bowed low for Lione and when he was introduced to Laura he didn't show any surprise at her surname and kissed her hand mumbling what I suspected to be the Bulgarian version of 'Enchanté'.

Melanie took Jack's arm like Professor Delacour had taken Madame Maxime's shortly before and they followed Professor Aranov and the rest of the Durmstrung pupils inside. Everyone made to follow suit and we took a few steps towards the school before we realised Joseph wasn't with us. We turned around, the rest of our house streaming past us, to look at him. He was still standing in the same spot we had left him, still staring at the place where Jack had stood. We all sighed and called his name. Suddenly we noticed he was shaking all over and breathing heavily. We ran back and he collapsed on Gregory's shoulder.

"He's having a panic attack!" I cried.

"Oh dear Merlin," Lione breathed, shocked.

If any of us had thought Jack was just going to be another Melanie incident we were wrong. When Melanie came Joseph had ranted, yelled, sulked and generally been grumpy and bad-tempered - but he's never had a panic attack before.

Lione pushed him to the ground. "Sit down."

"What's - he - doing - here?" he gasped.

"Do you have an asthma pump?" Gregory asked.

"We all looked at him. "He doesn't have asthma."

"Oh, right."

"We were alone on the lawn now, Joseph sitting on the ground, clutching his chest, Lione kneeling opposite him repeating "Breath, breath." I looked around and saw one of the carriages coming up the path.

"Who's that?"

Gregory asked.

"Must be the other judges," I said. "They have two other impartial judges as well as the head teachers. Usually it's a couple of ministers."

"Which ones?"

"Usually the head of international Magical co-operation and the head of Magical sports and games."

Gregory suddenly went very red. The door of the carriage opened and a bald black man jumped out. He held his hand to assist someone else out of the carriage. A lady wearing maroon robes clambered out of the carriage. I couldn't help smiling. It was Gregory's mum. She noticed us, or rather noticed Joseph on the ground. She pointed us out to the man and the two hurried over.

"Joseph," she cried, concerned. "What's wrong?"

"I'm-" he gasped, "I'm- WHAT IS HE DOING HERE!" he half whined, half croakily screamed.

Mrs Weasley glanced at the man next to her. "This is Christopher Turkleton, head of international magical co-operation."

"Not him," I assured them.

"Do I know you?" Turkleton asked me. "You look familiar."

I felt myself go pink. "I don't think so."

"Ginny Malfoy," he burst out, realising.

"This is Lucy Malfoy," Mrs Weasley told him in careful tones, keeping her eyes on me.

"Oh," he said. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," I muttered.

"No," he insisted. "No really. Ginny was a wonderful person and a good secretary and I'm sorry for your loss."

I ignored him. I didn't like it when people mentioned my parents. I had only got so far by trying not to think about it. What made things worse was the way everyone was talking as if they were dead when there was no evidence they were dead. I mean the house was destroyed but they were just... gone. Missing. Vanished. Besides, this was Joseph's turn to have a breakdown.

With a little help he got up and we all headed inside. Lione seemed to have felt the need to lighten the mood.

"Well here's a turnip-" she started.

"A turnip?" Gregory interrupted, curiously.

"A turnip for the books," she continued, we all groaned obediently. "If Lucy becomes school champion Mrs Weasley can help her."

"Oh yeah!" said Gregory. "You'd do that, wouldn't you, Mum?"

"Even if I would I can't," she replied. "I'm sorry, Lucy, but if either you or your brother-" My brother, I noted. She didn't want to say his name or accept any connection to herself. "-I go home and Fletcher Greslan gets to come."

She looked put down at the prospect. I found myself hoping that neither Colubra nor I would become champion.

When we entered the hall Mrs Weasley (I should really call her Aunt Angelina but seeing her in such an official context and me not being used to having Aunts and Uncles at the time that was the name on my mind) and Mr Turkleton took their seats at the head table. Joseph froze again and his breathing quickened. Jack was sitting next to Melanie at the Gryffindor table. Lione put her hand on Joseph's back and pushed him forward. The second we sat down Lione, who was sitting on his left, immediately began distracting his attention from his cousin (who was sitting several seats to his right). Joseph lapsed into the conversation gratefully and I had a look around.

The hall was decked out magnificently with a huge banner depicting each house's sign above each table. Behind the head table was the largest version of the Hogwarts crest I had ever seen on a backdrop of rich purple. The place was sparkling and the foreign students seemed suitably impressed. The extra pupils seemed to have split into four groups. Jack and all his Durmstrung friends were sitting at the Gryffindor tables with more on the nearby Hufflepuff table. The Beauxbatons pupils had split themselves between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables. The feast was in full flow - we had apparently missed the opening speeches (if there had been any although I'm sure Dumbledore wouldn't have left the guests ungreeted). I leaned across the table and helped myself to an ample helping of pasta.

"You gonna eat all that?" Gregory asked, watching me fill up nearly all of my plate with it and reach across for a roll.

"Yep," I assured him, taking a big mouthful.

He himself had a large portion of pie on his plate and Lione and found time between talking to get herself some salad and was squirting dressing on it as she discussed, for some reason, ancient Egypt, with Joseph (she was, at that moment, telling him that if a surgeon lost a patient the penalty was to have their hands chopped off. "This," she said, shoving a whole lettuce leaf in her mouth, "Made a lot of sense actually.").

Robert was, as usual, making one of his disgusting food concoctions by mixing a foreign, soup like food I didn't recognise with mashed potato and mushy peas. He seemed to be trying to sculpt something out of it but when the... substance appeared to still be too wet he seized up the boiled eggs and started crushing them in his hands and adding them to the mixture. I risked a glance at Jack but didn't catch a glimpse of what he was eating because at that moment he seemed to have chosen to glance at us and met my eye. He winked and I felt myself blushing and hid my face. I looked back at Robert who was now using sausages as supporting beams while spooning off excess material into his mouth. I winced and looked away again at Joseph. Gregory had taken over talking to him while Lione was setting into a baked potato. I looked down at his (Joseph's) plate. It was empty. And very, very clean. When dessert came along Lione slipped an éclair onto his plate but it sat there until all the plates vanished and Dumbledore stood up to speak.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," he announced. "In just a few minutes I will have the great pleasure and privilege to open this year's Tri-wizard tournament. But first, a few introductions. Angelina Weasley, Head of Magical sports and games." Mrs Weasley waved and there were cheers and applause. Gregory hid his face. "And Christopher Turkleton, head of International Magical co-operation." There was more applause. "They, in conjunction with their counterparts in the other countries have done, in my opinion, a marvellous job of organising this year's Tri-wizard tournament." There was a brief burst of applause, encouraged by Dumbledore. "They have personally thought through the tasks the school champions will face. There will be three tasks spread throughout the year and tomorrow night an independent judge will choose who will be each school's champion. All you have to do is volunteer your name."

Everyone old enough looked round at each other eagerly. Gregory gave me a look that was almost hungry. Dumbledore beckoned to Mr Creevey, school caretaker, who moved forward carrying a casket and placed it on the table in front of Dumbledore before sloping off. "The three tasks will be a test of each champion's bravery, cunning, powers of deduction, magical prowess and their ability to deal with danger." Some of the people who, moments before, had looked at each other with excitement suddenly looked nervous. Others looked even more thrilled. Gregory had a particularly manic smile on his face.

"Each champion will be scored on each task and the person with then highest score after the third task will be the winner. But I warn you; this is not something to go into lightly. You must be prepared for the hardest challenge both of your powers and of your self-perception. But if you feel up to it allow me to introduce your selector." Dumbledore tapped three times on the top of the casket with his wand. It creaked open. He reached inside and pulled out a wooden cup that he held high. "The Goblet of Fire."

Everyone stared and there was an all round "ooh." There were blue flames dancing around the rim.

"The Goblet," Dumbledore continued, "will be placed in the entrance hall and will be freely accessible for all those who want to put their names in to it. All you have to do is write your name and school on a piece of parchment and drop it in. It's as simple as that." He smiled and his eyes twinkled. "The hard part happens later. You have twenty-four hours and tomorrow night the Goblet will return the names of those it has judged most worthy of representing their schools and for three lucky people; the adventure begins. To prevent younger students from being tempted I will be drawing an age line around the Goblet of Fire so that no one under the age of fourteen can cross it. Now all that needs to be said has been said, I suggest you all trot off to bed to mull it over for a while."

Everyone got up to go back to their dormitories. I saw Jack say goodnight to Melanie then follow the Durmstrung pupils out the hall. Lione, Gregory and I quickly whisked Joseph out of there. We took a back passage we knew so that there was no chance of bumping into his cousin on our way back to Gryffindor tower. It took us a little longer than the normal route (okay, a lot longer. It wouldn't have been that long if it wasn't for not one but four of the staircases deciding they wanted to change directions while we were climbing them) so by the time we got back to the common room everyone had already gone to bed. We all turned to face Joseph.

"Okay," said Gregory. "What's up with the whole Jack thing?"

"You won't understand," said Joseph, miserably.

"Try us."

Joseph paused, squaring us up, as if testing to see if we could cope with it. Then he launched into a very long, very fast rant. "Look, Melanie and I don't get on, right? And that's fine! It's perfectly normal sibling rivalry. I mean we're so close in ages that we just clash, you know?"

"You're only about six months older than her," said Lione, frowning "Aren't you? How does that work?"

"Melanie was really premature," he dismissed. "Same as Caitlyn, same as my Great Aunt - it's a female thing in our family. Anyway we don't get on. Normal behaviour, yes? Well Jack makes it worse. He's three years older than Melanie, right, and boy does she worship him. And he loves her for worshipping him so they always take each other's sides. So suddenly I can't have a discussion with my own sister without Jack getting involved. So if Melanie and I fight, Jack beats me up. If Melanie lies to Jack and claims that we've had a fight when we actually haven't, Jack beats me up. If Jack's bored, Jack beats me up. But it got really bad when Aunt Helly died. Jack and Uncle Rob moved in. I like Uncle Rob; he's a lot like my dad. But suddenly, oh ho, suddenly I'm not the oldest anymore. Suddenly I've got an older brother. I mean imagine it. Just Melanie and I. Caitlyn's still a baby so there's only a small amount of stuff you could reasonably hand down to her.

"We've always got new stuff, our own stuff. Now I'm getting Jack's hand me downs. Whatever I want, he gets. He gets a new lunchbox. I get whatever broken rubbish he throws away. He gets whatever he wants. I get his old clothes and he has the cheek, the blooming cheek to actually make fun of me for being 'unfashionable'. I mean I was seven years old for crying out loud! I wasn't meant to be fashionable. And could I fight back? Talk fire with fire? Oh no. Not me. I wasn't allowed to be mean to the poor little boy without a mother. I mean I was sorry for him of course but boy did he milk it way more than he should have. Nothing bad could happen to him because he was the poor little boy without a mother. He could do whatever he flipping well pleased and everyone had to obey his every little whim because aww poor him. And all the time Melanie was one step behind him, grinning. Just looking like the little demon she is." He rounded on us. "You wouldn't understand, especially you two!" he pointed at Lione and Gregory. "Only children you get whatever you want!"

Gregory and Lione murmured something like "No we don't, not really."

"Oh yes you do!" Joseph shrieked. "And you." He jabbed his finger at Lione who backed away in shock. "You're the worst one. You've got everything. You're well off, you're an only child and on top of that you're the only grandchild as well. You are the focus of your family's attention. You're a... a spoilt brat!"

Joseph collapsed into a heap on a chair and let his head flop onto the table. We stared. I opened my mouth to protest that Lee wasn't a spoilt brat but she held up her hand to stop me. She took a tentative step towards Joseph.

"Joseph," she said, gently. "Joseph? Do you want a cookie?"

I opened my mouth again to protest that a cookie was probably the last thing that he wanted but Lione stopped me again.

"'Es," came from the heap.

"Okay," said Lione, sounding like a mother talking to a two year old. "Let's go get you one, shall we?"

Joseph sat up. "Okay."