The Goblet of Fire Page 13

  ‘She didn’t do anything – she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time!’ Hermione snapped at Percy, who looked very taken aback. Hermione had always got on fairly well with Percy – better, indeed, than any of the others.

  ‘Hermione, a wizard in Mr Crouch’s position can’t afford a house-elf who’s going to run amok with a wand!’ said Percy pompously, recovering himself.

  ‘She didn’t run amok!’ shouted Hermione. ‘She just picked it up off the ground!’

  ‘Look, can someone just explain what that skull thing was?’ said Ron impatiently. ‘It wasn’t hurting anyone … why’s it such a big deal?’

  ‘I told you, it’s You-Know-Who’s symbol, Ron,’ said Hermione, before anyone else could answer. ‘I read about it in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts.’

  ‘And it hasn’t been seen for thirteen years,’ said Mr Weasley quietly. ‘Of course people panicked … it was almost like seeing You-Know-Who back again.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Ron, frowning. ‘I mean … it’s still only a shape in the sky …’

  ‘Ron, You-Know-Who and his followers sent the Dark Mark into the air whenever they killed,’ said Mr Weasley. ‘The terror it inspired … you have no idea, you’re too young. Just picture coming home, and finding the Dark Mark hovering over your house, and knowing what you’re about to find inside …’ Mr Weasley winced. ‘Everyone’s worst fear … the very worst …’

  There was silence for a moment.

  Then Bill, removing the sheet from his arm to check on his cut, said, ‘Well, it didn’t help us tonight, whoever conjured it. It scared the Death Eaters away the moment they saw it. They all Disapparated before we’d got near enough to unmask any of them. We caught the Robertses before they hit the ground, though. They’re having their memories modified right now.’

  ‘Death Eaters?’ said Harry. ‘What are Death Eaters?’

  ‘It’s what You-Know-Who’s supporters called themselves,’ said Bill. ‘I think we saw what’s left of them tonight – the ones who managed to keep themselves out of Azkaban, anyway.’

  ‘We can’t prove it was them, Bill,’ said Mr Weasley. ‘Though it probably was,’ he added hopelessly.

  ‘Yeah, I bet it was!’ said Ron suddenly. ‘Dad, we met Draco Malfoy in the woods, and he as good as told us his dad was one of those nutters in masks! And we all know the Malfoys were right in with You-Know-Who!’

  ‘But what were Voldemort’s supporters –’ Harry began. Everybody flinched – like most of the wizarding world, the Weasleys always avoided saying Voldemort’s name. ‘Sorry,’ said Harry quickly. ‘What were You-Know-Who’s supporters up to, levitating Muggles? I mean, what was the point?’

  ‘The point?’ said Mr Weasley, with a hollow laugh. ‘Harry, that’s their idea of fun. Half the Muggle killings back when You-Know-Who was in power were done for fun. I suppose they had a few drinks tonight and couldn’t resist reminding us all that lots of them are still at large. A nice little reunion for them,’ he finished disgustedly.

  ‘But if they were the Death Eaters, why did they Disapparate when they saw the Dark Mark?’ said Ron. ‘They’d have been pleased to see it, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Use your brains, Ron,’ said Bill. ‘If they really were Death Eaters, they worked really hard to keep out of Azkaban when You-Know-Who lost power, and told all sorts of lies about him forcing them to kill and torture people. I bet they’d be even more frightened than the rest of us to see him come back. They denied they’d ever been involved with him when he lost his powers, and went back to their daily lives … I don’t reckon he’d be over-pleased with them, do you?’

  ‘So … whoever conjured the Dark Mark …’ said Hermione slowly, ‘were they doing it to show support for the Death Eaters, or to scare them away?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as ours, Hermione,’ said Mr Weasley. ‘But I’ll tell you this … it was only the Death Eaters who ever knew how to conjure it. I’d be very surprised if the person who did it hadn’t been a Death Eater once, even if they’re not now … Listen, it’s very late, and if your mother hears what’s happened she’ll be worried sick. We’ll get a few more hours’ sleep and then try and get an early Portkey out of here.’

  Harry got back into his bunk with his head buzzing. He knew he ought to feel exhausted; it was nearly three in the morning, but he felt wide awake – wide awake, and worried.

  Three days ago – it felt like much longer, but it had only been three days – he had awoken with his scar burning. And tonight, for the first time in thirteen years, Lord Voldemort’s Mark had appeared in the sky. What did these things mean?

  He thought of the letter he had written to Sirius before leaving Privet Drive. Would Sirius have got it yet? When would he reply? Harry lay looking up at the canvas, but no flying fantasies came to him now to ease him to sleep, and it was a long time after Charlie’s snores filled the tent that Harry finally dozed off.

  — CHAPTER TEN —

  Mayhem at the Ministry

  Mr Weasley woke them after only a few hours’ sleep. He used magic to pack up the tents, and they left the campsite as quickly as possible, passing Mr Roberts at the door of his cottage. Mr Roberts had a strange, dazed look about him, and he waved them off with a vague ‘Merry Christmas’.

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ said Mr Weasley quietly, as they marched off onto the moor. ‘Sometimes, when a person’s memory’s modified, it makes them a bit disorientated for a while … and that was a big thing they had to make him forget.’

  They heard urgent voices as they approached the spot where the Portkeys lay and, when they reached it, they found a great number of witches and wizards gathered around Basil, the keeper of the Portkeys, all clamouring to get away from the campsite as quickly as possible. Mr Weasley had a hurried discussion with Basil; they joined the queue, and were able to take an old rubber tyre back to Stoatshead Hill before the sun had really risen. They walked back through Ottery St Catchpole towards The Burrow in the dawn light, talking very little because they were so exhausted, and thinking longingly of their breakfast. As they rounded the corner in the lane, and The Burrow came into view, a cry echoed along the damp lane.

  ‘Oh, thank goodness, thank goodness!’

  Mrs Weasley, who had evidently been waiting for them in the front yard, came running towards them, still wearing her bedroom slippers, her face pale and strained, a screwed-up copy of the Daily Prophet clutched in her hand. ‘Arthur – I’ve been so worried – so worried –’

  She flung her arms around Mr Weasley’s neck, and the Daily Prophet fell out of her limp hand onto the ground. Looking down, Harry saw the headline: SCENES OF TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP, complete with a twinkling, black-and-white photograph of the Dark Mark over the tree-tops.

  ‘You’re all right,’ Mrs Weasley muttered distractedly, releasing Mr Weasley and staring around at them all with red eyes, ‘you’re alive … oh, boys …’

  And to everybody’s surprise, she seized Fred and George and pulled them both into such a tight hug that their heads banged together.

  ‘Ouch! Mum – you’re strangling us –’

  ‘I shouted at you before you left!’ Mrs Weasley said, starting to sob. ‘It’s all I’ve been thinking about! What if You-Know-Who had got you, and the last thing I ever said to you was that you didn’t get enough O.W.Ls? Oh, Fred … George …’

  ‘Come on, now, Molly, we’re all perfectly OK,’ said Mr Weasley soothingly, prising her off the twins and leading her back towards the house. ‘Bill,’ he added in an undertone, ‘pick up that paper, I want to see what it says …’

  When they were all crammed into the tiny kitchen, and Hermione had made Mrs Weasley a cup of very strong tea, into which Mr Weasley insisted on pouring a shot of Ogdens Old Firewhisky, Bill handed his father the newspaper. Mr Weasley scanned the front page while Percy looked over his shoulder.

  ‘I knew it,’ said Mr Weasley heavily. ‘Ministry blunders … culprits not apprehended … lax sec
urity … Dark wizards running unchecked … national disgrace … Who wrote this? Ah … of course … Rita Skeeter.’

  ‘That woman’s got it in for the Ministry of Magic!’ said Percy furiously. ‘Last week she was saying we’re wasting our time quibbling about cauldron thickness, when we should be stamping out vampires! As if it wasn’t specifically stated in paragraph twelve of the Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans –’

  ‘Do us a favour, Perce,’ said Bill, yawning, ‘and shut up.’

  ‘I’m mentioned,’ said Mr Weasley, his eyes widening behind his glasses as he reached the bottom of the Daily Prophet article.

  ‘Where?’ spluttered Mrs Weasley, choking on her tea and whisky. ‘If I’d seen that, I’d have known you were alive!’

  ‘Not by name,’ said Mr Weasley. ‘Listen to this: “If the terrified wizards and witches who waited breathlessly for news at the edge of the wood expected reassurance from the Ministry of Magic, they were sadly disappointed. A Ministry official emerged some time after the appearance of the Dark Mark, alleging that nobody had been hurt, but refusing to give any more information. Whether this statement will be enough to quash the rumours that several bodies were removed from the woods an hour later, remains to be seen.” Oh, really,’ said Mr Weasley in exasperation, handing the paper to Percy. ‘Nobody was hurt, what was I supposed to say? Rumours that several bodies were removed from the woods … well, there certainly will be rumours now she’s printed that.’

  He heaved a deep sigh. ‘Molly, I’m going to have to go into the office, this is going to take some smoothing over.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, Father,’ said Percy importantly. ‘Mr Crouch will need all hands on deck. And I can give him my cauldron report in person.’

  He bustled out of the kitchen.

  Mrs Weasley looked most upset. ‘Arthur, you’re supposed to be on holiday! This hasn’t got anything to do with your office, surely they can handle this without you?’

  ‘I’ve got to go, Molly,’ said Mr Weasley, ‘I’ve made things worse. I’ll just change into my robes and I’ll be off …’

  ‘Mrs Weasley,’ said Harry suddenly, unable to contain himself, ‘Hedwig hasn’t arrived with a letter for me, has she?’

  ‘Hedwig, dear?’ said Mrs Weasley distractedly. ‘No … no, there hasn’t been any post at all.’

  Ron and Hermione looked curiously at Harry.

  With a meaningful look at both of them he said, ‘All right if I go and dump my stuff in your room, Ron?’

  ‘Yeah … think I will, too,’ said Ron at once. ‘Hermione?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said quickly, and the three of them marched out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  ‘What’s up, Harry?’ said Ron, the moment they had closed the door of the attic room behind them.

  ‘There’s something I haven’t told you,’ Harry said. ‘On Saturday morning, I woke up with my scar hurting again.’

  Ron and Hermione’s reactions were almost exactly as Harry had imagined them back in his bedroom in Privet Drive. Hermione gasped and started making suggestions at once, mentioning a number of reference books, and everybody from Albus Dumbledore to Madam Pomfrey, the Hogwarts matron.

  Ron simply looked dumbstruck. ‘But – he wasn’t there, was he? You-Know-Who? I mean – last time your scar kept hurting, he was at Hogwarts, wasn’t he?’

  ‘I’m sure he wasn’t in Privet Drive,’ said Harry. ‘But I was dreaming about him … him and Peter – you know, Wormtail. I can’t remember all of it now, but they were plotting to kill … someone.’

  He had teetered for a moment on the verge of saying ‘me’, but couldn’t bring himself to make Hermione look any more horrified than she already did.

  ‘It was only a dream,’ said Ron bracingly. ‘Just a nightmare.’

  ‘Yeah, but was it, though?’ said Harry, turning to look out of the window at the brightening sky. ‘It’s weird, isn’t it … my scar hurts, and three days later the Death Eaters are on the march, and Voldemort’s sign’s up in the sky again.’

  ‘Don’t – say – his – name!’ Ron hissed through gritted teeth.

  ‘And remember what Professor Trelawney said?’ Harry went on, ignoring Ron. ‘At the end of last year?’

  Professor Trelawney was their Divination teacher at Hogwarts.

  Hermione’s terrified look vanished as she let out a derisive snort. ‘Oh, Harry, you aren’t going to pay any attention to anything that old fraud says?’

  ‘You weren’t there,’ said Harry. ‘You didn’t hear her. This time was different. I told you, she went into a trance – a real one. And she said the Dark Lord would rise again … greater and more terrible than ever before … and he’d manage it because his servant was going to go back to him … and that night Wormtail escaped.’

  There was a silence in which Ron fidgeted absent-mindedly with a hole in his Chudley Cannons bedspread.

  ‘Why were you asking if Hedwig had come, Harry?’ Hermione asked. ‘Are you expecting a letter?’

  ‘I told Sirius about my scar,’ said Harry, shrugging. ‘I’m waiting for his answer.’

  ‘Good thinking!’ said Ron, his expression clearing. ‘I bet Sirius’ll know what to do!’

  ‘I hoped he’d get back to me quickly,’ said Harry.

  ‘But we don’t know where Sirius is … he could be in Africa or somewhere, couldn’t he?’ said Hermione reasonably. ‘Hedwig’s not going to manage that journey in a few days.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ said Harry, but there was a leaden feeling in his stomach as he looked out of the window at the Hedwig-free sky.

  ‘Come and have a game of Quidditch in the orchard, Harry,’ said Ron. ‘Come on – three on three, Bill and Charlie and Fred and George will play … you can try out the Wronski Feint …’

  ‘Ron,’ said Hermione, in an I-don’t-think-you’re-being-very-sensitive sort of voice, ‘Harry doesn’t want to play Quidditch right now … he’s worried, and he’s tired … we all need to go to bed …’

  ‘Yeah, I want to play Quidditch,’ said Harry suddenly. ‘Hang on, I’ll get my Firebolt.’

  Hermione left the room, muttering something which sounded very much like ‘Boys’.

  *

  Neither Mr Weasley nor Percy was at home much over the following week. Both left the house each morning before the rest of the family got up, and returned well after dinner every night.

  ‘It’s been absolute uproar,’ Percy told them importantly, the Sunday evening before they were due to return to Hogwarts. ‘I’ve been putting out fires all week. People keep sending Howlers and of course, if you don’t open a Howler straight away, it explodes. Scorch marks all over my desk and my best quill reduced to cinders.’

  ‘Why are they all sending Howlers?’ asked Ginny, who was mending her copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi with Spellotape on the rug in front of the living-room fire.

  ‘Complaining about security at the World Cup,’ said Percy. ‘They want compensation for their ruined property. Mundungus Fletcher’s put in a claim for a twelve-bedroomed tent with en-suite jacuzzi, but I’ve got his number. I know for a fact he was sleeping under a cloak propped on sticks.’

  Mrs Weasley glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. Harry liked this clock. It was completely useless if you wanted to know the time, but otherwise very informative. It had nine golden hands, and each of them was engraved with one of the Weasley family’s names. There were no numerals around the face, but descriptions of where each family member might be. ‘Home’, ‘school’ and ‘work’ were there, but there was also ‘lost’, ‘hospital’, ‘prison’ and, in the position where the number twelve would be on a normal clock, ‘mortal peril’.

  Eight of the hands were currently pointing at the ‘home’ position, but Mr Weasley’s, which was the longest, was still pointing at ‘work’. Mrs Weasley sighed.

  ‘Your father hasn’t had to go into the office at weekends since the days of You-Know-Who,’ she said. �
�They’re working him far too hard. His dinner’s going to be ruined if he doesn’t come home soon.’

  ‘Well, Father feels he’s got to make up for his mistake at the match, doesn’t he?’ said Percy. ‘If truth be told, he was a tad unwise to make a public statement without clearing it with his Head of Department first –’

  ‘Don’t you dare blame your father for what that wretched Skeeter woman wrote!’ said Mrs Weasley, flaring up at once.

  ‘If Dad hadn’t said anything, old Rita would just have said it was disgraceful that nobody from the Ministry had commented,’ said Bill, who was playing chess with Ron. ‘Rita Skeeter never makes anyone look good. Remember, she interviewed all the Gringotts curse breakers once, and called me “a long-haired pillock”?’

  ‘Well, it is a bit long, dear,’ said Mrs Weasley gently. ‘If you’d just let me –’

  ‘No, Mum.’

  Rain lashed against the living-room window. Hermione was immersed in The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4, copies of which Mrs Weasley had bought for her, Harry and Ron in Diagon Alley. Charlie was darning a fireproof balaclava. Harry was polishing his Firebolt, the Broomstick Servicing Kit Hermione had given him for his thirteenth birthday open at his feet. Fred and George were sitting in a far corner, quills out, talking in whispers, their heads bent over a piece of parchment.

  ‘What are you two up to?’ said Mrs Weasley sharply, her eyes on the twins.

  ‘Homework,’ said Fred vaguely.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, you’re still on holiday,’ said Mrs Weasley.

  ‘Yeah, we’ve left it a bit late,’ said George.

  ‘You’re not by any chance writing out a new order form, are you?’ said Mrs Weasley shrewdly. ‘You wouldn’t be thinking of restarting Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, by any chance?’

  ‘Now, Mum,’ said Fred, looking up at her, a pained look on his face. ‘If the Hogwarts Express crashed tomorrow, and George and I died, how would you feel knowing that the last thing we ever heard from you was an unfounded accusation?’