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

  “When we saw Malfoy under that tree…” said Ron slowly.

  “He was talking to her, in his hand,” said Hermione. “He knew, of course. That’s how she’s been getting all those nice little interviews with the Slytherins. They wouldn’t care that she was doing something illegal, as long as they were giving her horrible stuff about us and Hagrid.”

  Hermione took the glass jar back from Ron and smiled at the beetle, which buzzed angrily against the glass.

  “I’ve told her I’ll let her out when we get back to London,” said Hermione. “I’ve put an Unbreakable Charm on the jar, you see, so she can’t transform. And I’ve told her she’s to keep her quill to herself for a whole year. See if she can’t break the habit of writing horrible lies about people.” Smiling serenely, Hermione placed the beetle back inside her schoolbag.

  The door of the compartment slid open.

  “Very clever, Granger,” said Draco Malfoy.

  Crabbe and Goyle were standing behind him. All three of them looked more pleased with themselves, more arrogant and more menacing, than Harry had ever seen them.

  “So,” said Malfoy slowly, advancing slightly into the compartment and looking slowly around at them, a smirk quivering on his lips. “You caught some pathetic reporter, and Potter’s Dumbledore’s favorite boy again. Big deal.” His smirk widened. Crabbe and Goyle leered.

  “Trying not to think about it, are we?” said Malfoy softly, looking around at all three of them. “Trying to pretend it hasn’t happened?”

  “Get out,” said Harry.

  He had not been this close to Malfoy since he had watched him muttering to Crabbe and Goyle during Dumbledore’s speech about Cedric. He could feel a kind of ringing in his ears. His hand gripped his wand under his robes.

  “You’ve picked the losing side, Potter! I warned you! I told you you ought to choose your company more carefully, remember? When we met on the train, first day at Hogwarts? I told you not to hang around with riffraff like this!” He jerked his head at Ron and Hermione. “Too late now, Potter! They’ll be the first to go, now the Dark Lord’s back! Mudbloods and Muggle lovers first! Well—second—Diggory was the f—”

  It was as though someone had exploded a box of fireworks within the compartment. Blinded by the blaze of the spells that had blasted from every direction, deafened by a series of bangs, Harry blinked and looked down at the floor.

  Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were all lying unconscious in the doorway. He, Ron, and Hermione were on their feet, all three of them having used a different hex. Nor were they the only ones to have done so.

  “Thought we’d see what those three were up to,” said Fred matter of factly, stepping onto Goyle and into the compartment. He had his wand out, and so did George, who was careful to tread on Malfoy as he followed Fred inside.

  “Interesting effect,” said George, looking down at Crabbe. “Who used the Furnunculus Curse?”

  “Me,” said Harry.

  “Odd,” said George lightly. “I used Jelly-Legs. Looks as though those two shouldn’t be mixed. He seems to have sprouted little tentacles all over his face. Well, let’s not leave them here, they don’t add much to the decor.”

  Ron, Harry, and George kicked, rolled, and pushed the unconscious Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle—each of whom looked distinctly the worse for the jumble of jinxes with which they had been hit—out into the corridor, then came back into the compartment and rolled the door shut.

  “Exploding Snap, anyone?” said Fred, pulling out a pack of cards.

  They were halfway through their fifth game when Harry decided to ask them.

  “You going to tell us, then?” he said to George. “Who you were blackmailing?”

  “Oh,” said George darkly. “That.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Fred, shaking his head impatiently. “It wasn’t anything important. Not now, anyway.”

  “We’ve given up,” said George, shrugging.

  But Harry, Ron, and Hermione kept on asking, and finally, Fred said, “All right, all right, if you really want to know… it was Ludo Bagman.”

  “Bagman?” said Harry sharply. “Are you saying he was involved in—”

  “Nah,” said George gloomily. “Nothing like that. Stupid git. He wouldn’t have the brains.”

  “Well, what, then?” said Ron.

  Fred hesitated, then said, “You remember that bet we had with him at the Quidditch World Cup? About how Ireland would win, but Krum would get the Snitch?”

  “Yeah,” said Harry and Ron slowly.

  “Well, the git paid us in leprechaun gold he’d caught from the Irish mascots.”

  “So?”

  “So,” said Fred impatiently, “it vanished, didn’t it? By next morning, it had gone!”

  “But—it must’ve been an accident, mustn’t it?” said Hermione.

  George laughed very bitterly.

  “Yeah, that’s what we thought, at first. We thought if we just wrote to him, and told him he’d made a mistake, he’d cough up. But nothing doing. Ignored our letter. We kept trying to talk to him about it at Hogwarts, but he was always making some excuse to get away from us.”

  “In the end, he turned pretty nasty,” said Fred. “Told us we were too young to gamble, and he wasn’t giving us anything.”

  “So we asked for our money back,” said George glowering.

  “He didn’t refuse!” gasped Hermione.

  “Right in one,” said Fred.

  “But that was all your savings!” said Ron.

  “Tell me about it,” said George. “’Course, we found out what was going on in the end. Lee Jordan’s dad had had a bit of trouble getting money off Bagman as well. Turns out he’s in big trouble with the goblins. Borrowed loads of gold off them. A gang of them cornered him in the woods after the World Cup and took all the gold he had, and it still wasn’t enough to cover all his debts. They followed him all the way to Hogwarts to keep an eye on him. He’s lost everything gambling. Hasn’t got two Galleons to rub together. And you know how the idiot tried to pay the goblins back?”

  “How?” said Harry.

  “He put a bet on you, mate,” said Fred. “Put a big bet on you to win the tournament. Bet against the goblins.”

  “So that’s why he kept trying to help me win!” said Harry. “Well—I did win, didn’t I? So he can pay you your gold!”

  “Nope,” said George, shaking his head. “The goblins play as dirty as him. They say you drew with Diggory, and Bagman was betting you’d win outright. So Bagman had to run for it. He did run for it right after the third task.”

  George sighed deeply and started dealing out the cards again.

  The rest of the journey passed pleasantly enough; Harry wished it could have gone on all summer, in fact, and that he would never arrive at King’s Cross… but as he had learned the hard way that year, time will not slow down when something unpleasant lies ahead, and all too soon, the Hogwarts Express was pulling in at platform nine and three-quarters. The usual confusion and noise filled the corridors as the students began to disembark. Ron and Hermione struggled out past Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, carrying their trunks. Harry, however, stayed put.

  “Fred—George—wait a moment.”

  The twins turned. Harry pulled open his trunk and drew out his Triwizard winnings.

  “Take it,” he said, and he thrust the sack into George’s hands.

  “What?” said Fred, looking flabbergasted.

  “Take it,” Harry repeated firmly. “I don’t want it.”

  “You’re mental,” said George, trying to push it back at Harry.

  “No, I’m not,” said Harry. “You take it, and get inventing. It’s for the joke shop.”

  “He is mental,” Fred said in an almost awed voice.

  “Listen,” said Harry firmly. “If you don’t take it, I’m throwing it down the drain. I don’t want it and I don’t need it. But I could do with a few laughs. We could all do with a few laughs. I’ve got a feeling we’re going
to need them more than usual before long.”

  “Harry,” said George weakly, weighing the money bag in his hands, “there’s got to be a thousand Galleons in here.”

  “Yeah,” said Harry, grinning. “Think how many Canary Creams that is.”

  The twins stared at him.

  “Just don’t tell your mum where you got it… although she might not be so keen for you to join the Ministry anymore, come to think of it…”

  “Harry,” Fred began, but Harry pulled out his wand.

  “Look,” he said flatly, “take it, or I’ll hex you. I know some good ones now. Just do me one favor, okay? Buy Ron some different dress robes and say they’re from you.”

  He left the compartment before they could say another word, stepping over Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who were still lying on the floor, covered in hex marks.

  Uncle Vernon was waiting beyond the barrier. Mrs. Weasley was close by him. She hugged Harry very tightly when she saw him and whispered in his ear, “I think Dumbledore will let you come to us later in the summer. Keep in touch, Harry.”

  “See you, Harry,” said Ron, clapping him on the back.

  “’Bye, Harry!” said Hermione, and she did something she had never done before, and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Harry—thanks,” George muttered, while Fred nodded fervently at his side.

  Harry winked at them, turned to Uncle Vernon, and followed him silently from the station. There was no point worrying yet, he told himself, as he got into the back of the Dursleys’ car.

  As Hagrid had said, what would come, would come… and he would have to meet it when it did.

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