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

  “Father,” said the boy with the straw colored hair. “Father… please…”

  “that we have rarely heard the like of it within this court,” said Crouch, speaking more loudly, drowning out his son’s voice.

  “We have heard the evidence against you. The four of you stand accused of capturing an Auror—Frank Longbottom—and subjecting him to the Cruciatus Curse, believing him to have knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled master, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named—”

  “Father, I didn’t!” shrieked the boy in chains below. “I didn’t, I swear it. Father, don’t send me back to the Dementors—”

  “You are further accused,” bellowed Mr. Crouch, “of using the Cruciatus Curse on Frank Longbottom’s wife, when he would not give you information. You planned to restore He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to power, and to resume the lives of violence you presumably led while he was strong. I now ask the jury—”

  “Mother!” screamed the boy below, and the wispy little witch beside Crouch began to sob, rocking backward and forward. “Mother, stop him. Mother, I didn’t do it, it wasn’t me!”

  “I now ask the jury,” shouted Mr. Crouch, “to raise their hands if they believe, as I do, that these crimes deserve a life sentence in Azkaban!”

  In unison, the witches and wizards along the right hand side of the dungeon raised their hands. The crowd around the walls began to clap as it had for Bagman, their faces full of savage triumph. The boy began to scream.

  “No! Mother, no! I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, I didn’t know! Don’t send me there, don’t let him!”

  The Dementors were gliding back into the room. The boys’ three companions rose quietly from their seats; the woman with the heavy lidded eyes looked up at Crouch and called, “The Dark Lord will rise again, Crouch! Throw us into Azkaban; we will wait! He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any of his other supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him!”

  But the boy was trying to fight off the Dementors, even though Harry could see their cold, draining power starting to affect him. The crowd was jeering, some of them on their feet, as the woman swept out of the dungeon, and the boy continued to struggle.

  “I’m your son!” he screamed up at Crouch. “I’m your son!”

  “You are no son of mine!” bellowed Mr. Crouch, his eyes bulging suddenly. “I have no son!”

  The wispy witch beside him gave a great gasp and slumped in her seat. She had fainted. Crouch appeared not to have noticed.

  “Take them away!” Crouch roared at the Dementors, spit flying from his mouth. “Take them away, and may they rot there!”

  “Father! Father, I wasn’t involved! No! No! Father, please!”

  “I think, Harry, it is time to return to my office,” said a quiet voice in Harry’s ear.

  Harry started. He looked around. Then he looked on his other side.

  There was an Albus Dumbledore sitting on his right, watching Crouch’s son being dragged away by the Dementors—and there was an Albus Dumbledore on his left, looking right at him.

  “Come,” said the Dumbledore on his left, and he put his hand under Harry’s elbow. Harry felt himself rising into the air; the dungeon dissolved around him; for a moment, all was blackness, and then he felt as though he had done a slow motion somersault, suddenly landing flat on his feet, in what seemed like the dazzling light of Dumbledore’s sunlit office. The stone basin was shimmering in the cabinet in front of him, and Albus Dumbledore was standing beside him.

  “Professor,” Harry gasped, “I know I shouldn’t’ve—I didn’t mean—the cabinet door was sort of open and—”

  “I quite understand,” said Dumbledore. He lifted the basin, carried it over to his desk, placed it upon the polished top, and sat down in the chair behind it. He motioned for Harry to sit down opposite him.

  Harry did so, staring at the stone basin. The contents had returned to their original, silvery white state, swirling and rippling beneath his gaze.

  “What is it?” Harry asked shakily.

  “This? It is called a Pensieve,” said Dumbledore. “I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.”

  “Er,” said Harry, who couldn’t truthfully say that he had ever felt anything of the sort.

  “At these times,” said Dumbledore, indicating the stone basin, “I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one’s mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one’s leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.”

  “You mean… that stuff’s your thoughts?” Harry said, staring at the swirling white substance in the basin.

  “Certainly,” said Dumbledore. “Let me show you.”

  Dumbledore drew his wand out of the inside of his robes and placed the tip into his own silvery hair, near his temple. When he took the wand away, hair seemed to be clinging to it—but then Harry saw that it was in fact a glistening strand of the same strange silvery white substance that filled the Pensieve. Dumbledore added this fresh thought to the basin, and Harry, astonished, saw his own face swimming around the surface of the bowl. Dumbledore placed his long hands on either side of the Pensieve and swirled it, rather as a gold prospector would pan for fragments of gold… and Harry saw his own face change smoothly into Snape’s, who opened his mouth and spoke to the ceiling, his voice echoing slightly.

  “It’s coming back… Karkaroff’s too… stronger and clearer than ever…”

  “A connection I could have made without assistance,” Dumbledore sighed, “but never mind.” He peered over the top of his half moon spectacles at Harry, who was gaping at Snape’s face, which was continuing to swirl around the bowl. “I was using the Pensieve when Mr. Fudge arrived for our meeting and put it away rather hastily. Undoubtedly I did not fasten the cabinet door properly. Naturally, it would have attracted your attention.”

  “I’m sorry,” Harry mumbled.

  Dumbledore shook his head. “Curiosity is not a sin,” he said. “But we should exercise caution with our curiosity… yes, indeed…”

  Frowning slightly, he prodded the thoughts within the basin with the tip of his wand. Instantly, a figure rose out of it, a plump, scowling girl of about sixteen, who began to revolve slowly, with her feet still in the basin. She took no notice whatsoever of Harry or Professor Dumbledore. When she spoke, her voice echoed as Snape’s had done, as though it were coming from the depths of the stone basin. “He put a hex on me, Professor Dumbledore, and I was only teasing him, sir, I only said I’d seen him kissing Florence behind the greenhouses last Thursday…”

  “But why, Bertha,” said Dumbledore sadly, looking up at the now silently revolving girl, “why did you have to follow him in the first place?”

  “Bertha?” Harry whispered, looking up at her. “Is that—was that Bertha Jorkins?”

  “Yes,” said Dumbledore, prodding the thoughts in the basin again; Bertha sank back into them, and they became silvery and opaque once more. “That was Bertha as I remember her at school.”

  The silvery light from the Pensieve illuminated Dumbledore’s face, and it struck Harry suddenly how very old he was looking. He knew, of course, that Dumbledore was getting on in years, but somehow he never really thought of Dumbledore as an old man.

  “So, Harry,” said Dumbledore quietly. “Before you got lost in my thoughts, you wanted to tell me something.”

  “Yes,” said Harry. “Professor—I was in Divination just now, and—er—I fell asleep.”

  He hesitated here, wondering if a reprimand was coming, but Dumbledore merely said, “Quite understandable. Continue.”

  “Well, I had a dream,” said Harry. “A dream about Lord Voldemort. He was torturing Wormtail… You know who Wormtail—”

  “I do know,” said Dumbledore promptly. “Please continue.”

  “Voldemort got a letter from an owl. He said something like,
Wormtail’s blunder had been repaired. He said someone was dead. Then he said, Wormtail wouldn’t be fed to the snake—there was a snake beside his chair. He said—he said he’d be feeding me to it, instead. Then he did the Cruciatus Curse on Wormtail—and my scar hurt,” Harry said. “It woke me up, it hurt so badly.” Dumbledore merely looked at him.

  “Er—that’s all,” said Harry.

  “I see,” said Dumbledore quietly. “I see. Now, has your scar hurt at any other time this year, excepting the time it woke you up over the summer?”

  “No, I—how did you know it woke me up over the summer?” said Harry, astonished.

  “You are not Sirius’s only correspondent,” said Dumbledore. “I have also been in contact with him ever since he left Hogwarts last year. It was I who suggested the mountainside cave as the safest place for him to stay.”

  Dumbledore got up and began walking up and down behind his desk. Every now and then, he placed his wand tip to his temple, removed another shining silver thought, and added it to the Pensieve. The thoughts inside began to swirl so fast that Harry couldn’t make out anything clearly: It was merely a blur of color.

  “Professor?” he said quietly, after a couple of minutes.

  Dumbledore stopped pacing and looked at Harry.

  “My apologies,” he said quietly. He sat back down at his desk.

  “D’you—d’you know why my scar’s hurting me?”

  Dumbledore looked very intently at Harry for a moment, and then said, “I have a theory, no more than that… It is my belief that your scar hurts both when Lord Voldemort is near you, and when he is feeling a particularly strong surge of hatred.”

  “But… why?”

  “Because you and he are connected by the curse that failed,” said Dumbledore. “That is no ordinary scar.”

  “So you think… that dream… did it really happen?”

  “It is possible,” said Dumbledore. “I would say—probable. Harry—did you see Voldemort?”

  “No,” said Harry. “Just the back of his chair. But—there wouldn’t have been anything to see, would there? I mean, he hasn’t got a body, has he? But… but then how could he have held the wand?” Harry said slowly.

  “How indeed?” muttered Dumbledore. “How indeed…”

  Neither Dumbledore nor Harry spoke for a while. Dumbledore was gazing across the room, and, every now and then, placing his wand tip to his temple and adding another shining silver thought to the seething mass within the Pensieve.

  “Professor,” Harry said at last, “do you think he’s getting stronger?”

  “Voldemort?” said Dumbledore, looking at Harry over the Pensieve. It was the characteristic, piercing look Dumbledore had given him on other occasions, and always made Harry feel as though Dumbledore were seeing right through him in a way that even Moody’s magical eye could not. “Once again, Harry, I can only give you my suspicions.” Dumbledore sighed again, and he looked older, and wearier, than ever.

  “The years of Voldemort’s ascent to power,” he said, “were marked with disappearances. Bertha Jorkins has vanished without a trace in the place where Voldemort was certainly known to be last. Mr. Crouch too has disappeared… within these very grounds. And there was a third disappearance, one which the Ministry, I regret to say, do not consider of any importance, for it concerns a Muggle. His name was Frank Bryce, he lived in the village where Voldemort’s father grew up, and he has not been seen since last August. You see, I read the Muggle newspapers, unlike most of my Ministry friends.” Dumbledore looked very seriously at Harry.

  “These disappearances seem to me to be linked. The Ministry disagrees—as you may have heard, while waiting outside my office.”

  Harry nodded. Silence fell between them again, Dumbledore extracting thoughts every now and then. Harry felt as though he ought to go, but his curiosity held him in his chair.

  “Professor?” he said again.

  “Yes, Harry?” said Dumbledore.

  “Er… could I ask you about… that court thing I was in… in the Pensieve?”

  “You could,” said Dumbledore heavily. “I attended it many times, but some trials come back to me more clearly than others… particularly now…”

  “You know—you know the trial you found me in? The one with Crouch’s son? Well…were they talking about Neville’s parents?”

  Dumbledore gave Harry a very sharp look. “Has Neville never told you why he has been brought up by his grandmother?” he said.

  Harry shook his head, wondering, as he did so, how he could have failed to ask Neville this, in almost four years of knowing him.

  “Yes, they were talking about Neville’s parents,” said Dumbledore. “His father, Frank, was an Auror just like Professor Moody. He and his wife were tortured for information about Voldemort’s whereabouts after he lost his powers, as you heard.”

  “So they’re dead?” said Harry quietly.

  “No,” said Dumbledore, his voice full of a bitterness Harry had never heard there before. “They are insane. They are both in St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I believe Neville visits them, with his grandmother, during the holidays. They do not recognize him.”

  Harry sat there, horror struck. He had never known… never, in four years, bothered to find out…

  “The Longbottoms were very popular,” said Dumbledore. “The attacks on them came after Voldemort’s fall from power, just when everyone thought they were safe. Those attacks caused a wave of fury such as I have never known. The Ministry was under great pressure to catch those who had done it. Unfortunately, the Longbottoms’ evidence was—given their condition—none too reliable.”

  “Then Mr. Crouch’s son might not have been involved?” said Harry slowly.

  Dumbledore shook his head.

  “As to that, I have no idea.”

  Harry sat in silence once more, watching the contents of the Pensieve swirl. There were two more questions he was burning to ask… but they concerned the guilt of living people…

  “Er,” he said, “Mr. Bagman…”

  “…has never been accused of any Dark activity since,” said Dumbledore calmly.

  “Right,” said Harry hastily, staring at the contents of the Pensieve again, which were swirling more slowly now that Dumbledore had stopped adding thoughts. “And… er…” But the Pensieve seemed to be asking his question for him.

  Snape’s face was swimming on the surface again. Dumbledore glanced down into it, and then up at Harry.

  “No more has Professor Snape,” he said.

  Harry looked into Dumbledore’s light blue eyes, and the thing he really wanted to know spilled out of his mouth before he could stop it.

  “What made you think he’d really stopped supporting Voldemort, Professor?”

  Dumbledore held Harry’s gaze for a few seconds, and then said, “That, Harry, is a matter between Professor Snape and myself.”

  Harry knew that the interview was over; Dumbledore did not look angry, yet there was a finality in his tone that told Harry it was time to go. He stood up, and so did Dumbledore.

  “Harry,” he said as Harry reached the door. “Please do not speak about Neville’s parents to anybody else. He has the right to let people know, when he is ready.”

  “Yes, Professor,” said Harry, turning to go.

  “And—”

  Harry looked back. Dumbledore was standing over the Pensieve, his face lit from beneath by its silvery spots of light, looking older than ever. He stared at Harry for a moment, and then said, “Good luck with the third task.”

  31. THE THIRD TASK

  “Dumbledore reckons You-Know-Who’s getting stronger again as well?” Ron whispered.

  Everything Harry had seen in the Pensieve, nearly everything Dumbledore had told and shown him afterward, he had now shared with Ron and Hermione—and, of course, with Sirius, to whom Harry had sent an owl the moment he had left Dumbledore’s office. Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat up late in the common room once aga
in that night, talking it all over until Harry’s mind was reeling, until he understood what Dumbledore had meant about a head becoming so full of thoughts that it would have been a relief to siphon them off.

  Ron stared into the common room fire. Harry thought he saw Ron shiver slightly, even though the evening was warm.

  “And he trusts Snape?” Ron said. “He really trusts Snape, even though he knows he was a Death Eater?”

  “Yes,” said Harry.

  Hermione had not spoken for ten minutes. She was sitting with her forehead in her hands, staring at her knees. Harry thought she too looked as though she could have done with a Pensieve.

  “Rita Skeeter,” she muttered finally.

  “How can you be worrying about her now?” said Ron, in utter disbelief.

  “I’m not worrying about her,” Hermione said to her knees. “I’m just thinking… remember what she said to me in the Three Broomsticks? ‘I know things about Ludo Bagman that would make your hair curl.’ This is what she meant, isn’t it? She reported his trial, she knew he’d passed information to the Death Eaters. And Winky too, remember… ‘Ludo Bagman’s a bad wizard.’ Mr. Crouch would have been furious he got off, he would have talked about it at home.”

  “Yeah, but Bagman didn’t pass information on purpose, did he?” Hermione shrugged.

  “And Fudge reckons Madame Maxime attacked Crouch?” Ron said, turning back to Harry.

  “Yeah,” said Harry, “but he’s only saying that because Crouch disappeared near the Beauxbatons carriage.”

  “We never thought of her, did we?” said Ron slowly. “Mind you, she’s definitely got giant blood, and she doesn’t want to admit it—”

  “Of course she doesn’t,” said Hermione sharply, looking up. “Look what happened to Hagrid when Rita found out about his mother. Look at Fudge, jumping to conclusions about her, just because she’s part giant. Who needs that sort of prejudice? I’d probably say I had big bones if I knew that’s what I’d get for telling the truth.”