In all her days, Eden Haywood had never seen anything quite like the final match of the Quidditch World Cup-Ireland against Bulgaria. Her bright green eyes scanned the hundreds of thousands of witches and wizards who gathered in the large stadium to witness the match. She had always wanted to go to the world cup but up until this year her father and siblings always went without her.
"Come on now, Eden darling, keep up!" The fourteen-year-old shakes her head, coming back down to earth as her father calls her name while continuing to climb the stairs with her older brother and older sister.
Eden was the youngest of the Haywood children, following her sister Clara and her brother Sebastian. Clara was a year above Eden-going into her fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where Eden herself was going into her fourth year. Sebastian was going into his seventh and final year at the same school, right on track to join their father, Francis, in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic.
Their mother, Florence, did not attend the match with them, no matter how much their father insisted she did. She wasn't quite fond of large crowds or Quidditch for that matter. The Haywoods were a highly prominent and very wealthy family in the Wizarding World, that's why they were able to be invited by the Minister of Magic himself-one of the two families, that is.
"Lucius!" Eden's father greets his lifelong friend, Lucius Malfoy, once he and his children make it up the steps to another level of the stadium.
"Ah, Francis, I was wondering when you all would be along." They formally greet each other with a firm handshake. Lucius Malfoy has been best friends with her father since their days at Hogwarts and now both work high up in the Ministry, hence why the Haywood and Malfoy families all got invited to watch the final match of the World Cup in the Minister's box.
"Well, it's young Eden's first time at the Cup so it was a bit of work getting her to keep up." Francis places his hand on his youngest daughter's shoulders, bringing her to stand in front of him.
Eden smiles her signature kind smile up at the bitter looking man in front of her. Lucius always managed to have a sneer on his face, his long platinum blond hair slicked back in a way that made him look extra pompous in Eden's opinion. But she would never say it out loud.
Eden wasn't only the youngest in her family but she was also the only one to not be sorted into Slytherin's house. When she arrived at Hogwarts her first year and sat underneath the sorting hat, she had fully expected it to announce her into Slytherin, but she was extremely shocked to hear it announce Hufflepuff instead.
Not only was she shocked, but so were her two siblings sitting at the Slytherin table and her childhood best friend who had just been sorted there himself, Draco Malfoy.
That same Draco Malfoy stood in front of her now in an all-black suit, standing smugly behind his father as per usual. Draco and Eden had been practically inseparable before their years at Hogwarts, the young wizards usually caused mayhem at the Haywood mansion or snuck out onto the roof of Malfoy Manor to practice magic without their parents knowing.
The close bliss of their friendship didn't last as long as everyone thought, though. Once Eden had been sorted into Hufflepuff everything changed. With such a long line of Slytherins in her family before her, surely something had to be wrong with her, right? Well, everyone seemed to think so at least.
"Great to see you Mr. Malfoy," Sebastian takes a step in front of his father and sister, holding his hand out to Lucius who shakes it happily.
"Sebastian, looking forward to having you at the Ministry after this year." Eden is pretending to pay attention to the riveting conversation happening in front of her but she didn't care much for the formality of the situation. It happened every time they saw the Malfoys, no matter how long they've known each other it was as if a business transaction was happening.
Eden gets bumped on the shoulder as her older sister pushes past her, making her way over to the younger boy still standing behind his father. At the sight of Clara, Draco straightens up, smoothing out his suit jacket, "Hi, Draco," Clara flashes her normal flirtatious smile at Draco, her beautiful face glowing with the excitement of seeing him after the summer holidays.
"Clara," he takes her hand and kisses her in a disgustingly old fashioned way. Eden restrains her eye roll and slips over to the two of them briefly.
"Hey, Draco." She greets him kindly, her real intention is to get over to the railing and look over the edge. Luckily, the pair doesn't have much to say to her and she can do exactly that.
It was no secret between the two families that Clara and Draco would one day be married. They were by no means officially betrothed to one another yet, but it could happen any day now. It was a goal of the two families to keep their bloodlines pure, of course. Draco wasn't exactly protesting the possibility of being married to Clara one day, she was incredibly gorgeous. She had inherited their mother's long, silky blonde hair and blue eyes and slim figure, standing at an average height she was almost perfect. At least, most of the boys at school thought so.
Eden had heard the whispers behind closed doors, the meetings between their parents. It was quite easy to find out lots of information when you could be easily ignored. In the beginning, it was to be Eden and Draco who were getting married, but as previously mentioned, there had to be something wrong with Eden if she had been the first one to break the Slytherin legacy of the Haywoods. Lucius Malfoy simply could not fathom the thought of having his son marry a sort of malfunction such as that of young Eden.
It was also Eden's thought that Draco would be much more against the thought of marrying Eden. She wasn't ugly or unattractive by any means of the word but she wasn't Clara and seeing her sister every day reminded her of that fact. Eden had a much rounder, chubbier face, her green eyes being something she inherited from her father along with her dark brown hair that the sheer amount of made it so she often found it hard to control. She had much more of a curve to her finger than Clara and the combination of this with her long legs made it impossible to take any of the hand me downs that would come from her older sister. But that was something their family didn't care much for since they were extremely wealthy and didn't need such common things like hand me downs.
It didn't bother Eden that she was constantly being compared to her sister, and it didn't bother her that her family thought less of her because of her differences from them. She was just Eden and she liked being Eden.
"Blimey, dad, how far up are we?" The familiar voice catches Eden's attention and she looks up at the level just above them, a smile spreading across her face as she sees members of the Weasley family, Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger. But, before she can give them her own greeting, a voice she isn't as happy to hear speaks up from beside her.
"Well, put it this way, if it rains you'll be the first to know," Lucius says with such an edge of disgust to his voice that Eden has to suppress another eye-roll at him.
The groups stop and look down at the sound of his voice, the excitement washing off of their faces as soon as they see who it is, "The Haywoods, father and I are in the ministry box," Draco brags, "from personal invitation of Cornelius Fudge himself."
"Don't boast, Draco." Lucius turns and smacks his son in the chest with the head of his walking stick. Clara places a hand on Draco's back as if to silently say 'it's alright'. Eden herself eyes Lucius as he reaches his walking stick up and catches Harry Potter by the sleeve of his jacket, "Do enjoy yourself," He gives him an evil glare, his eyes narrowing, "While you can."
The ominous undertone to his voice made Eden's skin crawl. She wasn't scared of Mr. Malfoy and hadn't ever been. But she was slightly fearful of the things that he knew. She had known him since she was born and knew he was a cowardly man who compensated his fear with intimidation to those he thought were lesser than him. He was vile and cruel, to his wife and to his own son. Ever since Draco was a young boy Lucius had treated him so awful that Eden wasn't surprised Draco had turned out to be the way he is. He only ever wanted to make his father proud and no matter how hard he tried he never seemed to succeed.
Eden Haywood's heart ached for Draco Malfoy, for many reasons. No matter how horrible he treated her these days, she thought it always would.
After Lucius releases his nasty grip on Harry, Eden leans over the edge of the railing to look up at the group, "Enjoy the match!" She calls up and they all look down at her, confused at first and thinking it was sarcasm, but the genuine smile placed on her kind features made them all at ease, "Go Ireland!" She gives them a thumbs up, noticing Fred and George's spirited outfits.
"Eden, come!" Her father's sharp tone snaps her out of her friendly interaction and she steps away from the railing, scurrying to follow her group.
Their fathers are in front of them, talking about Merlin knows what, and she was stuck trailing behind with her siblings and Draco. She falls into stride next to Draco who was standing oddly close to Clara, with Sebastian on the other side of her. "Honestly do you have to be so insufferable?" Clara leans in front of Draco to hiss directly at her sister, "Those blood traitors and mudblood don't deserve your kindness yet you insist on being friends with them."
"Oh, please, Clara, they've never done anything harmful to me." Eden retorts, "Why should I spend my energy hating people who have not given me a reason to?"
"Don't waste your breath, Clara," Draco turns to Eden with a sneer, one Eden had come accustomed to, "there are obvious reasons why this one doesn't share our distaste for others," His lips curl and Eden continues to stare at him blankly as she realizes they've come to a stop and Draco has turned his body to look at her straight on, his grey-blue eyes staring directly into her green ones, "or have you forgotten what house she was sorted into?"
"How could one forget that?" Sebastian scoffs from the other side of the group, "She only reminds us every day with how odd she is."
"Oh, Bash, you flatter me." She places her hand over her heart dramatically, "Come on then," She stands up straight, looking back at Draco with such cheerfulness on her face that it made him even angrier, "Don't want to miss the start of the match, do we?" She pushes past the group, making her way to their seats without another glance back at them.
In the years since she was sorted into the "wrong house", Eden had received so many insults and had so many angry encounters with her family and the Malfoys that it stopped phasing her. She simply didn't care anymore, she was happy with who she was and she had confidence in herself that there was, in fact, nothing wrong with her. Indeed, everything was right with Eden Haywood...everything except this one nagging feeling that had followed her from childhood and had only grown stronger and stronger with each passing day.
You see, if there was one thing that Eden could change if she could go back in time, it wouldn't be that she was sorted into Slytherin, no she wanted to be a Hufflepuff. But if she could go back and tell her younger self anything, it would be simple. In fact, it's just advice for any person.
Whatever you do, do not fall in love with your childhood best friend. Especially when they are to be betrothed to your older sister.
She could try and ignore it all she wanted, she could try and hate him as much as he hated her. But, as previously mentioned, her heart ached for Draco Malfoy in many ways, and one of those ways was the fact that he would never love her back.
