The Goblet of Fire Read online

  ‘You should’ve told us you’d entered!’ bellowed Fred; he looked half annoyed, half deeply impressed.

  ‘How did you do it without getting a beard? Brilliant!’ roared George.

  ‘I didn’t,’ Harry said. ‘I don’t know how –’

  But Angelina had now swooped down upon him. ‘Oh, if it couldn’t be me, at least it’s a Gryffindor –’

  ‘You’ll be able to pay back Diggory for that last Quidditch match, Harry!’ shrieked Katie Bell, another of the Gryffindor Chasers.

  ‘We’ve got food, Harry, come and have some –’

  ‘I’m not hungry, I had enough at the feast –’

  But nobody wanted to hear that he wasn’t hungry; nobody wanted to hear that he hadn’t put his name in the Goblet; not one single person seemed to have noticed that he wasn’t at all in the mood to celebrate … Lee Jordan had unearthed a Gryffindor banner from somewhere, and he insisted on draping it around Harry like a cloak. Harry couldn’t get away; whenever he tried to sidle over to the staircase up to the dormitories, the crowd around him closed ranks, forcing another Butterbeer on him, stuffing crisps and peanuts into his hands … everyone wanted to know how he had done it, how he had tricked Dumbledore’s Age Line, and managed to get his name into the Goblet …

  ‘I didn’t,’ he said, over and over again, ‘I don’t know how it happened.’

  But for all the notice anyone took, he might just as well not have answered at all.

  ‘I’m tired!’ he bellowed finally, after nearly half an hour. ‘No, seriously, George – I’m going to bed –’

  He wanted more than anything to find Ron and Hermione, to find a bit of sanity, but neither of them seemed to be in the common room. Insisting that he needed to sleep, and almost flattening the little Creevey brothers as they attempted to waylay him at the foot of the stairs, Harry managed to shake everyone off, and climbed up to the dormitory as fast as he could.

  To his great relief, he found Ron was lying on his bed in the otherwise empty dormitory, still fully dressed. He looked up when Harry slammed the door behind him.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ Harry said.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ said Ron.

  He was grinning, but it looked a very odd, strained sort of grin. Harry suddenly became aware that he was still wearing the scarlet Gryffindor banner that Lee had tied around him. He hastened to take it off, but it was knotted very tightly. Ron lay on the bed without moving, watching Harry struggle to remove it.

  ‘So,’ he said, when Harry had finally removed the banner and thrown it into a corner. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘What d’you mean, congratulations?’ said Harry, staring at Ron. There was definitely something wrong with the way Ron was smiling; it was more like a grimace.

  ‘Well … no one else got across the Age Line,’ said Ron. ‘Not even Fred and George. What did you use – the Invisibility Cloak?’

  ‘The Invisibility Cloak wouldn’t have got me over that line,’ said Harry slowly.

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Ron. ‘I thought you might’ve told me if it was the Cloak … because it would’ve covered both of us, wouldn’t it? But you found another way, did you?’

  ‘Listen,’ said Harry, ‘I didn’t put my name in that Goblet. Someone else must’ve done it.’

  Ron raised his eyebrows. ‘What would they do that for?’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Harry. He felt it would sound very melodramatic to say ‘to kill me’.

  Ron’s eyebrows rose so high that they were in danger of disappearing into his hair.

  ‘It’s OK, you know, you can tell me the truth,’ he said. ‘If you don’t want everyone else to know, fine, but I don’t know why you’re bothering to lie, you didn’t get into trouble for it, did you? That friend of the Fat Lady’s, that Violet, she’s already told us all, Dumbledore’s letting you enter. A thousand Galleons prize money, eh? And you don’t have to do end-of-year tests either …’

  ‘I didn’t put my name in that Goblet!’ said Harry, starting to feel angry.

  ‘Yeah, OK,’ said Ron, in exactly the same sceptical tone as Cedric. ‘Only you said this morning you’d have done it last night, and no one would’ve seen you … I’m not stupid, you know.’

  ‘You’re doing a really good impression of it,’ Harry snapped.

  ‘Yeah?’ said Ron, and there was no trace of a grin, forced or otherwise, on his face now. ‘You want to get to bed, Harry, I expect you’ll need to be up early tomorrow for a photocall or something.’

  He wrenched the hangings shut around his four-poster, leaving Harry standing there by the door, staring at the dark red velvet curtains, now hiding one of the few people he had been sure would believe him.

  — CHAPTER EIGHTEEN —

  The Weighing of the Wands

  When Harry woke up on Sunday morning, it took him a moment to remember why he felt so miserable and worried. Then the memory of the previous night rolled over him. He sat up and ripped back the curtains of his own four-poster, intending to talk to Ron, to force Ron to believe him – only to find that Ron’s bed was empty; he had obviously gone down to breakfast.

  Harry dressed and went down the spiral staircase into the common room. The moment he appeared, the people who had already finished breakfast broke into applause again. The prospect of going down into the Great Hall and facing the rest of the Gryffindors, all treating him like some sort of hero, was not inviting; it was that, however, or stay here and allow himself to be cornered by the Creevey brothers, who were both beckoning frantically to him to join them. He walked resolutely over to the portrait hole, pushed it open, climbed out of it and found himself face to face with Hermione.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, holding up a stack of toast, which she was carrying in a napkin. ‘I brought you this … want to go for a walk?’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Harry, gratefully.

  They went downstairs, crossed the Entrance Hall quickly without looking in at the Great Hall, and were soon striding across the lawn towards the lake, where the Durmstrang ship was moored, reflected blackly in the water. It was a chilly morning, and they kept moving, munching their toast, as Harry told Hermione exactly what had happened after he had left the Gryffindor table the night before. To his immense relief, Hermione accepted his story without question.

  ‘Well, of course, I knew you hadn’t entered yourself,’ she said, when he’d finished telling her about the scene in the chamber off the Hall. ‘The look on your face when Dumbledore read out your name! But the question is, who did put it in? Because Moody’s right, Harry … I don’t think any student could have done it … they’d never be able to fool the Goblet, or get over Dumbledore’s –’

  ‘Have you seen Ron?’ Harry interrupted.

  Hermione hesitated.

  ‘Erm … yes … he was at breakfast,’ she said.

  ‘Does he still think I entered myself?’

  ‘Well … no, I don’t think so … not really,’ said Hermione awkwardly.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean, not really?’

  ‘Oh, Harry, isn’t it obvious?’ Hermione said despairingly. ‘He’s jealous!’

  ‘Jealous?’ Harry said incredulously. ‘Jealous of what? He wants to make a prat of himself in front of the whole school, does he?’

  ‘Look,’ said Hermione patiently, ‘it’s always you who gets all the attention, you know it is. I know it’s not your fault,’ she added quickly, seeing Harry open his mouth furiously, ‘I know you don’t ask for it … but – well – you know, Ron’s got all those brothers to compete against at home, and you’re his best friend, and you’re really famous – he’s always shunted to one side whenever people see you, and he puts up with it, and he never mentions it, but I suppose this is just one time too many …’

  ‘Great,’ said Harry bitterly. ‘Really great. Tell him from me I’ll swap any time he wants. Tell him from me he’s welcome to it … people gawping at my forehead everywhere I go …’

  ‘I’m not telling him anything,�
� Hermione said shortly. ‘Tell him yourself, it’s the only way to sort this out.’

  ‘I’m not running around after him trying to make him grow up!’ Harry said, so loudly that several owls in a nearby tree took flight in alarm. ‘Maybe he’ll believe I’m not enjoying myself once I’ve got my neck broken or –’

  ‘That’s not funny,’ said Hermione quietly. ‘That’s not funny at all.’ She looked extremely anxious. ‘Harry, I’ve been thinking – you know what we’ve got to do, don’t you? Straight away, the moment we get back to the castle?’

  ‘Yeah, give Ron a good kick up the –’

  ‘Write to Sirius. You’ve got to tell him what’s happened. He asked you to keep him posted on everything that’s going on at Hogwarts … it’s almost like he expected something like this to happen. I brought some parchment and a quill out with me –’

  ‘Come off it,’ said Harry, looking around to check that they couldn’t be overheard; but the grounds were quite deserted. ‘He came back to the country just because my scar twinged. He’ll probably come bursting right into the castle if I tell him someone’s entered me for the Triwizard Tournament –’

  ‘He’d want you to tell him,’ said Hermione sternly. ‘He’s going to find out anyway –’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Harry, this isn’t going to be kept quiet,’ said Hermione, very seriously. ‘This Tournament’s famous, and you’re famous, I’ll be really surprised if there isn’t anything in the Daily Prophet about you competing … you’re already in half the books about You-Know-Who, you know … and Sirius would rather hear it from you, I know he would.’

  ‘OK, OK, I’ll write to him,’ said Harry, throwing his last piece of toast into the lake. They both stood and watched it floating there for a moment, before a large tentacle rose out of the water and scooped it beneath the surface. Then they returned to the castle.

  ‘Whose owl am I going to use?’ Harry said, as they climbed the stairs. ‘He told me not to use Hedwig again.’

  ‘Ask Ron if you can borrow –’

  ‘I’m not asking Ron anything,’ Harry said flatly.

  ‘Well, borrow one of the school owls, then, anyone can use them,’ said Hermione.

  They went up to the Owlery. Hermione gave Harry a piece of parchment, a quill and a bottle of ink, then strolled around the long lines of perches, looking at all the different owls, while Harry sat down against a wall and wrote his letter.

  Dear Sirius,

  You told me to keep you posted on what’s happening at Hogwarts, so here goes – I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Triwizard Tournament’s happening this year and on Saturday night I got picked as a fourth champion. I don’t know who put my name in the Goblet of Fire, because I didn’t. The other Hogwarts champion is Cedric Diggory, from Hufflepuff.

  He paused at this point, thinking. He had an urge to say something about the large weight of anxiety that seemed to have settled inside his chest since last night, but he couldn’t think how to translate this into words, so he simply dipped his quill back into the ink bottle and wrote:

  Hope you’re OK, and Buckbeak – Harry.

  ‘Finished,’ he told Hermione, getting to his feet and brushing straw off his robes. At this, Hedwig came fluttering down onto his shoulder, and held out her leg.

  ‘I can’t use you,’ Harry told her, looking around for the school owls. ‘I’ve got to use one of these …’

  Hedwig gave a very loud hoot, and took off so suddenly that her talons cut into his shoulder. She kept her back to Harry all the time he was tying his letter to the leg of a large barn owl. When the barn owl had flown off, Harry reached out to stroke Hedwig, but she clicked her beak furiously and soared up into the rafters out of reach.

  ‘First Ron, then you,’ said Harry angrily. ‘This isn’t my fault.’

  *

  If Harry had thought that matters would improve once everyone got used to the idea of him being champion, the following day showed him how mistaken he was. He could no longer avoid the rest of the school once he was back at lessons – and it was clear that the rest of the school, just like the Gryffindors, thought Harry had entered himself for the Tournament. Unlike the Gryffindors, however, they did not seem impressed.

  The Hufflepuffs, who were usually on excellent terms with the Gryffindors, had turned remarkably cold towards the whole lot of them. One Herbology lesson was enough to demonstrate this. It was plain that the Hufflepuffs felt that Harry had stolen their champion’s glory; a feeling exacerbated, perhaps, by the fact that Hufflepuff house very rarely got any glory, and that Cedric was one of the few who had ever given them any, having beaten Gryffindor once at Quidditch. Ernie Macmillan and Justin Finch-Fletchley, with whom Harry normally got on very well, did not talk to him even though they were re-potting Bouncing Bulbs at the same tray – though they did laugh rather unpleasantly when one of the Bouncing Bulbs wriggled free from Harry’s grip and smacked him hard in the face. Ron wasn’t talking to Harry either. Hermione sat between them, making very forced conversation, but though both answered her normally, they avoided making eye contact with each other. Harry thought even Professor Sprout seemed distant with him – but then, she was Head of Hufflepuff house.

  He would have been looking forward to seeing Hagrid under normal circumstances, but Care of Magical Creatures meant seeing the Slytherins, too – the first time he would come face to face with them since becoming champion.

  Predictably, Malfoy arrived at Hagrid’s cabin with his familiar sneer firmly in place.

  ‘Ah, look, boys, it’s the champion,’ he said to Crabbe and Goyle, the moment he got within earshot of Harry. ‘Got your autograph books? Better get a signature now, because I doubt he’s going to be around much longer … half the Triwizard champions have died … how long d’you reckon you’re going to last, Potter? Ten minutes into the first task’s my bet.’

  Crabbe and Goyle guffawed sycophantically, but Malfoy had to stop there, because Hagrid emerged from the back of his cabin, holding a teetering tower of crates, each containing a very large Blast-Ended Skrewt. To the class’s horror, Hagrid proceeded to explain that the reason the Skrewts had been killing each other was an excess of pent-up energy, and that the solution would be for each of the class to fix a leash on a Skrewt and take it for a short walk. The only good thing about this plan was that it distracted Malfoy completely.

  ‘Take this thing for a walk?’ he repeated in disgust, staring into one of the boxes. ‘And where exactly are we supposed to fix the leash? Around the sting, the blasting end or the sucker?’

  ‘Roun’ the middle,’ said Hagrid, demonstrating. ‘Er – yeh might want ter put on yer dragon-hide gloves, jus’ as an extra precaution, like. Harry – you come here an’ help me with this big one …’

  Hagrid’s real intention, however, was to talk to Harry away from the rest of the class.

  He waited until everyone else had set off with their Skrewts, then turned to Harry and said, very seriously, ‘So – yer competin’, Harry. In the Tournament. School champion.’

  ‘One of the champions,’ Harry corrected him.

  Hagrid’s beetle-black eyes looked very anxious under his wild eyebrows. ‘No idea who put yeh in fer it, Harry?’

  ‘You believe I didn’t do it, then?’ said Harry, concealing with difficulty the rush of gratitude he felt at Hagrid’s words.

  ‘’Course I do,’ Hagrid grunted. ‘Yeh say it wasn’ you, an’ I believe yeh – an’ Dumbledore believes yer, an’ all.’

  ‘Wish I knew who did do it,’ said Harry bitterly.

  The pair of them looked out over the lawn; the class was widely scattered now, and all in great difficulty. The Skrewts were now over three feet long, and extremely powerful. No longer shell-less and colourless, they had developed a kind of thick, greyish shiny armour. They looked like a cross between giant scorpions and elongated crabs – but still without recognisable heads or eyes. They had become immensely strong, and very hard to control.

 
‘Look like they’re havin’ fun, don’ they?’ Hagrid said happily. Harry assumed he was talking about the Skrewts, because his classmates certainly weren’t; every now and then, with an alarming bang, one of the Skrewts’ ends would explode, causing it to shoot forward several yards, and more than one person was being dragged along on their stomach, trying desperately to get back on their feet.

  ‘Ah, I don’ know, Harry,’ Hagrid sighed suddenly, looking back down at him with a worried expression on his face. ‘School champion … everythin’ seems ter happen ter you, doesn’ it?’

  Harry didn’t answer. Yes, everything did seem to happen to him … that was more or less what Hermione had said as they had walked around the lake, and that was the reason, according to her, that Ron was no longer talking to him.

  *

  The next few days were some of Harry’s worst at Hogwarts. The closest he had ever come to feeling like this had been during those months, in his second year, when a large part of the school had suspected him of attacking his fellow students. But Ron had been on his side then. He thought he could have coped with the rest of the school’s behaviour if he could just have had Ron back as a friend, but he wasn’t going to try and persuade Ron to talk to him if Ron didn’t want to. Nevertheless, it was lonely, with dislike pouring in on him from all sides.

  He could understand the Hufflepuffs’ attitudes, even if he didn’t like it; they had their own champion to support. He expected nothing less than vicious insults from the Slytherins – he was highly unpopular there and always had been, as he had helped Gryffindor beat them so often, both at Quidditch and in the Inter-House Championship. But he had hoped the Ravenclaws might have found it in their hearts to support him as much as Cedric. He was wrong, however. Most Ravenclaws seemed to think that he had been desperate to earn himself a bit more fame by tricking the Goblet into accepting his name.