Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire hp-4 Read online

  “What’s that?” said Ron, pointing at a large dish of some sort of shellfish stew that stood beside a large steak and kidney pudding.

  “Bouillabaisse,” said Hermione.

  “Bless you,” said Ron.

  “It’s French,” said Hermione, “I had it on holiday summer before last. It’s very nice.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” said Ron, helping himself to black pudding.

  The Great Hall seemed somehow much more crowded than usual, even though there were barely twenty additional students there; perhaps it was because their differently colored uniforms stood out so clearly against the black of the Hogwarts’ robes. Now that they had removed their furs, the Durmstrang students were revealed to be wearing robes of a deep bloodred.

  Hagrid sidled into the Hall through a door behind the staff table twenty minutes after the start of the feast. He slid into his seat at the end and waved at Harry, Ron, and Hermione with a very heavily bandaged hand.

  “Skrewts doing all right, Hagrid?” Harry called.

  “Thrivin’,” Hagrid called back happily.

  “Yeah, I’ll just bet they are,” said Ron quietly. “Looks like they’ve finally found a food they like, doesn’t it? Hagrid’s fingers.”

  At that moment, a voice said, “Excuse me, are you wanting ze bouillabaisse?”

  It was the girl from Beauxbatons who had laughed during Dumbledore’s speech. She had finally removed her muffler. A long sheet of silvery blonde hair fell almost to her waist. She had large, deep blue eyes, and very white, even teeth.

  Ron went purple. He stared up at her, opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out except a faint gurgling noise.

  “Yeah, have it,” said Harry, pushing the dish toward the girl.

  “You ’ave finished wiz it?”

  “Yeah,” Ron said breathlessly. “Yeah, it was excellent.”

  The girl picked up the dish and carried it carefully off to the Ravenclaw table. Ron was still goggling at the girl as though he had never seen one before. Harry started to laugh. The sound seemed to jog Ron back to his senses.

  “She’s a veela!” he said hoarsely to Harry.

  “Of course she isn’t!” said Hermione tartly. “I don’t see anyone else gaping at her like an idiot!”

  But she wasn’t entirely right about that. As the girl crossed the Hall, many boys’ heads turned, and some of them seemed to have become temporarily speechless, just like Ron.

  “I’m telling you, that’s not a normal girl!” said Ron, leaning sideways so he could keep a clear view of her. “They don’t make them like that at Hogwarts!”

  “They make them okay at Hogwarts,” said Harry without thinking. Cho happened to be sitting only a few places away from the girl with the silvery hair.

  “When you’ve both put your eyes back in,” said Hermione briskly, “you’ll be able to see who’s just arrived.”

  She was pointing up at the staff table. The two remaining empty seats had just been filled. Ludo Bagman was now sitting on Professor Karkaroff’s other side, while Mr. Crouch, Percy’s boss, was next to Madame Maxime.

  “What are they doing here?” said Harry in surprise.

  “They organized the Triwizard Tournament, didn’t they?” said Hermione. “I suppose they wanted to be here to see it start.”

  When the second course arrived they noticed a number of unfamiliar desserts too. Ron examined an odd sort of pale blancmange closely, then moved it carefully a few inches to his right, so that it would be clearly visible from the Ravenclaw table. The girl who looked like a veela appeared to have eaten enough, however, and did not come over to get it.

  Once the golden plates had been wiped clean, Dumbledore stood up again. A pleasant sort of tension seemed to fill the Hall now. Harry felt a slight thrill of excitement, wondering what was coming. Several seats down from them, Fred and George were leaning forward, staring at Dumbledore with great concentration.

  “The moment has come,” said Dumbledore, smiling around at the sea of upturned faces. “The Triwizard Tournament is about to start. I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket—”

  “The what?” Harry muttered.

  Ron shrugged.

  “—just to clarify the procedure that we will be following this year. But first, let me introduce, for those who do not know them, Mr. Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation”—there was a smattering of polite applause—“and Mr. Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports.”

  There was a much louder round of applause for Bagman than for Crouch, perhaps because of his fame as a Beater, or simply because he looked so much more likable. He acknowledged it with a jovial wave of his hand. Bartemius Crouch did not smile or wave when his name was announced. Remembering him in his neat suit at the Quidditch World Cup, Harry thought he looked strange in wizard’s robes. His toothbrush mustache and severe parting looked very odd next to Dumbledore’s long white hair and beard.

  “Mr. Bagman and Mr. Crouch have worked tirelessly over the last few months on the arrangements for the Triwizard Tournament,” Dumbledore continued, “and they will be joining myself, Professor Karkaroff, and Madame Maxime on the panel that will judge the champions’ efforts.”

  At the mention of the word “champions,” the attentiveness of the listening students seemed to sharpen. Perhaps Dumbledore had noticed their sudden stillness, for he smiled as he said, “The casket, then, if you please, Mr. Filch.”

  Filch, who had been lurking unnoticed in a far corner of the Hall, now approached Dumbledore carrying a great wooden chest encrusted with jewels. It looked extremely old. A murmur of excited interest rose from the watching students; Dennis Creevey actually stood on his chair to see it properly, but, being so tiny, his head hardly rose above anyone else’s.

  “The instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by Mr. Crouch and Mr. Bagman,” said Dumbledore as Filch placed the chest carefully on the table before him, “and they have made the necessary arrangements for each challenge. There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways… their magical prowess—their daring—their powers of deduction—and, of course, their ability to cope with danger.”

  At this last word, the Hall was filled with a silence so absolute that nobody seemed to be breathing.

  “As you know, three champions compete in the tournament,” Dumbledore went on calmly, “one from each of the participating schools. They will be marked on how well they perform each of the Tournament tasks and the champion with the highest total after task three will win the Triwizard Cup. The champions will be chosen by an impartial selector: the Goblet of Fire.”

  Dumbledore now took out his wand and tapped three times upon the top of the casket. The lid creaked slowly open. Dumbledore reached inside it and pulled out a large, roughly hewn wooden cup. It would have been entirely unremarkable had it not been full to the brim with dancing blue white flames.

  Dumbledore closed the casket and placed the goblet carefully on top of it, where it would be clearly visible to everyone in the Hall.

  “Anybody wishing to submit themselves as champion must write their name and school clearly upon a slip of parchment and drop it into the goblet,” said Dumbledore. “Aspiring champions have twenty four hours in which to put their names forward. Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to represent their schools. The goblet will be placed in the entrance hall tonight, where it will be freely accessible to all those wishing to compete.

  “To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation,” said Dumbledore, “I will be drawing an Age Line around the Goblet of Fire once it has been placed in the entrance hall. Nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross this line.

  “Finally, I wish to impress upon any of you wishing to compete that this tournament is no
t to be entered into lightly. Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obliged to see the tournament through to the end. The placing of your name in the goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract. There can be no change of heart once you have become a champion. Please be very sure, therefore, that you are wholeheartedly prepared to play before you drop your name into the goblet. Now, I think it is time for bed. Good night to you all.”

  “An Age Line!” Fred Weasley said, his eyes glinting, as they all made their way across the Hall to the doors into the entrance hall. “Well, that should be fooled by an Aging Potion, shouldn’t it? And once your name’s in that goblet, you’re laughing—it can’t tell whether you’re seventeen or not!”

  “But I don’t think anyone under seventeen will stand a chance,” said Hermione, “we just haven’t learned enough…”

  “Speak for yourself,” said George shortly. “You’ll try and get in, won’t you, Harry?”

  Harry thought briefly of Dumbledore’s insistence that nobody under seventeen should submit their name, but then the wonderful picture of himself winning the Triwizard Tournament filled his mind again… He wondered how angry Dumbledore would be if someone younger than seventeen did find a way to get over the Age Line.

  “Where is he?” said Ron, who wasn’t listening to a word of this conversation, but looking through the crowd to see what had become of Krum. “Dumbledore didn’t say where the Durmstrang people are sleeping, did he?”

  But this query was answered almost instantly; they were level with the Slytherin table now, and Karkaroff had just bustled up to his students.

  “Back to the ship, then,” he was saying. “Viktor, how are you feeling? Did you eat enough? Should I send for some mulled wine from the kitchens?”

  Harry saw Krum shake his head as he pulled his furs back on. “Professor, I vood like some vine,” said one of the other Durmstrang boys hopefully.

  “I wasn’t offering it to you, Poliakoff,” snapped Karkaroff, his warmly paternal air vanishing in an instant. “I notice you have dribbled food all down the front of your robes again, disgusting boy—”

  Karkaroff turned and led his students toward the doors, reaching them at exactly the same moment as Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Harry stopped to let him walk through first.

  “Thank you,” said Karkaroff carelessly, glancing at him. And then Karkaroff froze. He turned his head back to Harry and stared at him as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. Behind their headmaster, the students from Durmstrang came to a halt too. Karkaroff’s eyes moved slowly up Harry’s face and fixed upon his scar. The Durmstrang students were staring curiously at Harry too. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw comprehension dawn on a few of their faces. The boy with food all down his front nudged the girl next to him and pointed openly at Harry’s forehead.

  “Yeah, that’s Harry Potter,” said a growling voice from behind them.

  Professor Karkaroff spun around. Mad-Eye Moody was standing there, leaning heavily on his staff, his magical eye glaring unblinkingly at the Durmstrang headmaster.

  The color drained from Karkaroff’s face as Harry watched. A terrible look of mingled fury and fear came over him.

  “You!” he said, staring at Moody as though unsure he was really seeing him.

  “Me,” said Moody grimly. “And unless you’ve got anything to say to Potter, Karkaroff, you might want to move. You’re blocking the doorway.”

  It was true; half the students in the Hall were now waiting behind them, looking over one another’s shoulders to see what was causing the holdup.

  Without another word, Professor Karkaroff swept his students away with him. Moody watched him until he was out of sight, his magical eye fixed upon his back, a look of intense dislike upon his mutilated face.

  As the next day was Saturday, most students would normally have breakfasted late. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, however, were not alone in rising much earlier than they usually did on weekends. When they went down into the entrance hall, they saw about twenty people milling around it, some of them eating toast, all examining the Goblet of Fire. It had been placed in the center of the hall on the stool that normally bore the Sorting Hat. A thin golden line had been traced on the floor, forming a circle ten feet around it in every direction.

  “Anyone put their name in yet?” Ron asked a third year girl eagerly.

  “All the Durmstrang lot,” she replied. “But I haven’t seen anyone from Hogwarts yet.”

  “Bet some of them put it in last night after we’d all gone to bed,” said Harry. “I would’ve if it had been me… wouldn’t have wanted everyone watching. What if the goblet just gobbed you right back out again?”

  Someone laughed behind Harry. Turning, he saw Fred, George, and Lee Jordan hurrying down the staircase, all three of them looking extremely excited.

  “Done it,” Fred said in a triumphant whisper to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. “Just taken it.”

  “What?” said Ron.

  “The Aging Potion, dung brains,” said Fred.

  “One drop each,” said George, rubbing his hands together with glee. “We only need to be a few months older.”

  “We’re going to split the thousand Galleons between the three of us if one of us wins,” said Lee, grinning broadly.

  “I’m not sure this is going to work, you know,” said Hermione warningly. “I’m sure Dumbledore will have thought of this.”

  Fred, George, and Lee ignored her.

  “Ready?” Fred said to the other two, quivering with excitement. “C’mon, then—I’ll go first—”

  Harry watched, fascinated, as Fred pulled a slip of parchment out of his pocket bearing the words Fred Weasley—Hogwarts. Fred walked right up to the edge of the line and stood there, rocking on his toes like a diver preparing for a fifty foot drop. Then, with the eyes of every person in the entrance hall upon him, he took a great breath and stepped over the line.

  For a split second Harry thought it had worked—George certainly thought so, for he let out a yell of triumph and leapt after Fred—but next moment, there was a loud sizzling sound, and both twins were hurled out of the golden circle as though they had been thrown by an invisible shot putter. They landed painfully, ten feet away on the cold stone floor, and to add insult to injury, there was a loud popping noise, and both of them sprouted identical long white beards.

  The entrance hall rang with laughter. Even Fred and George joined in, once they had gotten to their feet and taken a good look at each other’s beards.

  “I did warn you,” said a deep, amused voice, and everyone turned to see Professor Dumbledore coming out of the Great Hall. He surveyed Fred and George, his eyes twinkling. “I suggest you both go up to Madam Pomfrey. She is already tending to Miss Fawcett, of Ravenclaw, and Mr. Summers, of Hufflepuff, both of whom decided to age themselves up a little too. Though I must say, neither of their beards is anything like as fine as yours.”

  Fred and George set off for the hospital wing, accompanied by Lee, who was howling with laughter, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione, also chortling, went in to breakfast.

  The decorations in the Great Hall had changed this morning. As it was Halloween, a cloud of live bats was fluttering around the enchanted ceiling, while hundreds of carved pumpkins leered from every corner. Harry led the way over to Dean and Seamus, who were discussing those Hogwarts students of seventeen or over who might be entering.

  “There’s a rumor going around that Warrington got up early and put his name in,” Dean told Harry. “That big bloke from Slytherin who looks like a sloth.”

  Harry, who had played Quidditch against Warrington, shook his head in disgust.

  “We can’t have a Slytherin champion!”

  “And all the Hufflepuffs are talking about Diggory,” said Seamus contemptuously. “But I wouldn’t have thought he’d have wanted to risk his good looks.”

  “Listen!” said Hermione suddenly.

  People were cheering out in the entrance hall. They all swiv
eled around in their seats and saw Angelina Johnson coming into the Hall, grinning in an embarrassed sort of way. A tall black girl who played Chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Angelina came over to them, sat down, and said, “Well, I’ve done it! Just put my name in!”

  “You’re kidding!” said Ron, looking impressed.

  “Are you seventeen, then?” asked Harry.

  “Course she is, can’t see a beard, can you?” said Ron.

  “I had my birthday last week,” said Angelina.

  “Well, I’m glad someone from Gryffindor’s entering,” said Hermione. “I really hope you get it, Angelina!”

  “Thanks, Hermione,” said Angelina, smiling at her.

  “Yeah, better you than—Pretty Boy Diggory,” said Seamus, causing several Hufflepuffs passing their table to scowl heavily at him.

  “What’re we going to do today, then?” Ron asked Harry and Hermione when they had finished breakfast and were leaving the Great Hall.

  “We haven’t been down to visit Hagrid yet,” said Harry.

  “Okay,” said Ron, “just as long as he doesn’t ask us to donate a few fingers to the skrewts.” A look of great excitement suddenly dawned on Hermione’s face.

  “I’ve just realized—I haven’t asked Hagrid to join S.P.E.W. yet!” she said brightly. “Wait for me, will you, while I nip upstairs and get the badges?”

  “What is it with her?” said Ron, exasperated, as Hermione ran away up the marble staircase.

  “Hey, Ron,” said Harry suddenly. “It’s your friend…”

  The students from Beauxbatons were coming through the front doors from the grounds, among them, the veela girl. Those gathered around the Goblet of Fire stood back to let them pass, watching eagerly.

  Madame Maxime entered the hall behind her students and organized them into a line. One by one, the Beauxbatons students stepped across the Age Line and dropped their slips of parchment into the blue white flames. As each name entered the fire, it turned briefly red and emitted sparks.

  “What d’you reckon’ll happen to the ones who aren’t chosen?” Ron muttered to Harry as the veela girl dropped her parchment into the Goblet of Fire. “Reckon they’ll go back to school, or hang around to watch the tournament?”