The Goblet of Fire Page 3

  Even inside his head the words sounded stupid.

  And so he tried to imagine his other best friend Ron Weasley’s reaction, and in a moment, Ron’s long-nosed, freckled face seemed to swim before Harry, wearing a bemused expression.

  ‘Your scar hurt? But … but You-Know-Who can’t be near you now, can he? I mean … you’d know, wouldn’t you? He’d be trying to do you in again, wouldn’t he? I dunno, Harry, maybe curse scars always twinge a bit … I’ll ask Dad …’

  Mr Weasley was a fully qualified wizard who worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, but he didn’t have any particular expertise in the matter of curses, as far as Harry knew. In any case, Harry didn’t like the idea of the whole Weasley family knowing that he, Harry, was getting jumpy about a few moments’ pain. Mrs Weasley would fuss worse than Hermione, and Fred and George, Ron’s sixteen-year-old twin brothers, might think Harry was losing his nerve. The Weasleys were Harry’s favourite family in the world; he was hoping that they might invite him to stay any time now (Ron had mentioned something about the Quidditch World Cup), and he somehow didn’t want his visit punctuated with anxious enquiries about his scar.

  Harry kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. What he really wanted (and it felt almost shameful to admit it to himself) was someone like – someone like a parent: an adult wizard whose advice he could ask without feeling stupid, someone who cared about him, who had had experience of Dark Magic …

  And then the solution came to him. It was so simple, and so obvious, that he couldn’t believe it had taken so long – Sirius.

  Harry leapt up from the bed, hurried across the room and sat down at his desk; he pulled a piece of parchment towards him, loaded his eagle-feather quill with ink, wrote Dear Sirius, then paused, wondering how best to phrase his problem, and still marvelling at the fact that he hadn’t thought of Sirius straight away. But then, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising – after all, he had only found out that Sirius was his godfather two months ago.

  There was a simple reason for Sirius’ complete absence from Harry’s life until then – Sirius had been in Azkaban, the terrifying wizard gaol guarded by creatures called Dementors, sightless, soul-sucking fiends who had come to search for Sirius at Hogwarts when he had escaped. Yet Sirius had been innocent – the murders for which he had been convicted had been committed by Wormtail, Voldemort’s supporter, whom nearly everybody now believed dead. Harry, Ron and Hermione knew otherwise, however; they had come face to face with Wormtail the previous year, though only Professor Dumbledore had believed their story.

  For one glorious hour, Harry had believed that he was leaving the Dursleys at last, because Sirius had offered him a home once his name had been cleared. But the chance had been snatched away from him – Wormtail had escaped before they could take him to the Ministry of Magic, and Sirius had had to flee for his life. Harry had helped him escape on the back of a Hippogriff called Buckbeak, and since then, Sirius had been on the run. The home Harry might have had if Wormtail had not escaped had been haunting him all summer. It had been doubly hard to return to the Dursleys knowing that he had so nearly escaped them for ever.

  Nevertheless, Sirius had been of some help to Harry, even if he couldn’t be with him. It was due to Sirius that Harry now had all his school things in his bedroom with him. The Dursleys had never allowed this before; their general wish of keeping Harry as miserable as possible, coupled with their fear of his powers, had led them to lock his school trunk in the cupboard under the stairs every summer prior to this. But their attitude had changed since they had found out that Harry had a dangerous murderer for a godfather – Harry had conveniently forgotten to tell them that Sirius was innocent.

  Harry had received two letters from Sirius since he had been back at Privet Drive. Both had been delivered, not by owls (as was usual with wizards) but by large, brightly coloured, tropical birds. Hedwig had not approved of these flashy intruders; she had been most reluctant to allow them to drink from her water tray before flying off again. Harry, on the other hand, had liked them; they put him in mind of palm trees and white sand, and he hoped that wherever Sirius was (Sirius never said, in case the letters were intercepted) he was enjoying himself. Somehow, Harry found it hard to imagine Dementors surviving for long in bright sunlight; perhaps that was why Sirius had gone south. Sirius’ letters, which were now hidden beneath the highly useful loose floorboard under Harry’s bed, sounded cheerful, and in both of them he had reminded Harry to call on him if ever Harry needed to. Well, he needed to now, all right …

  Harry’s lamp seemed to grow dimmer as the cold grey light that precedes sunrise slowly crept into the room. Finally, when the sun had risen, when his bedroom walls had turned gold and when sounds of movement could be heard from Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia’s room, Harry cleared his desk of crumpled pieces of parchment, and re-read his finished letter.

  Dear Sirius,

  Thanks for your last letter, that bird was enormous, it could hardly get through my window.

  Things are the same as usual here. Dudley’s diet isn’t going too well. My aunt found him smuggling doughnuts into his room yesterday. They told him they’d have to cut his pocket money if he keeps doing it, so he got really angry and chucked his PlayStation out of the window. That’s a sort of computer thing you can play games on. Bit stupid really, now he hasn’t even got Mega-Mutilation Part Three to take his mind off things.

  I’m OK, mainly because the Dursleys are terrified you might turn up and turn them all into bats if I ask you to.

  A weird thing happened this morning, though. My scar hurt again. Last time that happened it was because Voldemort was at Hogwarts. But I don’t reckon he can be anywhere near me now, can he? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt years afterwards?

  I’ll send this with Hedwig when she gets back, she’s off hunting at the moment. Say hello to Buckbeak for me.

  Harry

  Yes, thought Harry, that looked all right. There was no point putting in the dream, he didn’t want it to look as though he was too worried. He folded the parchment up and laid it aside on his desk, ready for when Hedwig returned. Then he got to his feet, stretched and opened his wardrobe once more. Without glancing at his reflection, he started to get dressed before going down to breakfast.

  — CHAPTER THREE —

  The Invitation

  By the time Harry arrived in the kitchen, the three Dursleys were already seated around the table. None of them looked up as he entered or sat down. Uncle Vernon’s large red face was hidden behind the morning’s Daily Mail and Aunt Petunia was cutting a grapefruit into quarters, her lips pursed over her horse-like teeth.

  Dudley looked furious and sulky, and somehow seemed to be taking up even more space than usual. This was saying something, as he always took up an entire side of the square table by himself. When Aunt Petunia put a quarter of unsweetened grapefruit onto Dudley’s plate with a tremulous ‘There you are, Diddy darling’, Dudley glowered at her. His life had taken a most unpleasant turn since he had come home for the summer with his end-of-year report.

  Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had managed to find excuses for his bad marks as usual; Aunt Petunia always insisted that Dudley was a very gifted boy whose teachers didn’t understand him, while Uncle Vernon maintained that ‘he didn’t want some swotty little nancy boy for a son anyway’. They also skated over the accusations of bullying in the report – ‘He’s a boisterous little boy, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly!’ said Aunt Petunia tearfully.

  However, at the bottom of the report there were a few well chosen comments from the school nurse which not even Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia could explain away. No matter how much Aunt Petunia wailed that Dudley was big-boned, and that his poundage was really puppy-fat, and that he was a growing boy who needed plenty of food, the fact remained that the school outfitters didn’t stock knickerbockers big enough for him any more. The school nurse had seen what Aunt Petunia’s eyes – so sharp when it came to s
potting fingerprints on her gleaming walls, and in observing the comings and goings of the neighbours – simply refused to see: that, far from needing extra nourishment, Dudley had reached roughly the size and weight of a young killer whale.

  So – after many tantrums, after arguments that shook Harry’s bedroom floor, and many tears from Aunt Petunia – the new regime had begun. The diet sheet that had been sent by the Smeltings school nurse had been taped to the fridge, which had been emptied of all Dudley’s favourite things – fizzy drinks and cakes, chocolate bars and burgers – and filled instead with fruit and vegetables and the sorts of things that Uncle Vernon called ‘rabbit food’. To make Dudley feel better about it all, Aunt Petunia had insisted that the whole family follow the diet too. She now passed a grapefruit quarter to Harry. He noticed that it was a lot smaller than Dudley’s. Aunt Petunia seemed to feel that the best way to keep up Dudley’s morale was to make sure that he did, at least, get more to eat than Harry.

  But Aunt Petunia didn’t know what was hidden under the loose floorboard upstairs. She had no idea that Harry was not following the diet at all. The moment he had got wind of the fact that he was expected to survive the summer on carrot sticks, Harry had sent Hedwig to his friends with pleas for help, and they had risen to the occasion magnificently. Hedwig had returned from Hermione’s house with a large box stuffed full of sugar-free snacks (Hermione’s parents were dentists). Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had obliged with a sack full of his own home-made rock cakes (Harry hadn’t touched these; he had had too much experience of Hagrid’s cooking). Mrs Weasley, however, had sent the family owl, Errol, with an enormous fruitcake and assorted pasties. Poor Errol, who was elderly and feeble, had needed a full five days to recover from the journey. And then on Harry’s birthday (which the Dursleys had completely ignored) he had received four superb birthday cakes, one each from Ron, Hermione, Hagrid and Sirius. Harry still had two of them left, and so, looking forward to a real breakfast when he got back upstairs, he started eating his grapefruit without complaint.

  Uncle Vernon laid aside his paper with a deep sniff of disapproval and looked down at his own grapefruit quarter.

  ‘Is this it?’ he said grumpily to Aunt Petunia.

  Aunt Petunia gave him a severe look, and then nodded pointedly at Dudley, who had already finished his own grapefruit quarter, and was eyeing Harry’s with a very sour look in his piggy little eyes.

  Uncle Vernon gave a great sigh which ruffled his large, bushy moustache, and picked up his spoon.

  The doorbell rang. Uncle Vernon heaved himself out of his chair and set off down the hall. Quick as a flash, while his mother was occupied with the kettle, Dudley stole the rest of Uncle Vernon’s grapefruit.

  Harry heard talking at the door, and someone laughing, and Uncle Vernon answering curtly. Then the front door closed, and the sound of ripping paper came from the hall.

  Aunt Petunia set the teapot down on the table and looked curiously around to see where Uncle Vernon had got to. She didn’t have to wait long to find out; after about a minute, he was back. He looked livid.

  ‘You,’ he barked at Harry. ‘In the living room. Now.’

  Bewildered, wondering what on earth he was supposed to have done this time, Harry got up and followed Uncle Vernon out of the kitchen and into the next room. Uncle Vernon closed the door sharply behind both of them.

  ‘So,’ he said, marching over to the fireplace and turning to face Harry as though he was about to pronounce him under arrest. ‘So.’

  Harry would have dearly loved to have said ‘So what?’, but he didn’t feel that Uncle Vernon’s temper should be tested this early in the morning, especially when it was already under severe strain from lack of food. He therefore settled for looking politely puzzled.

  ‘This just arrived,’ said Uncle Vernon. He brandished a piece of purple writing paper at Harry. ‘A letter. About you.’

  Harry’s confusion increased. Who would be writing to Uncle Vernon about him? Who did he know who sent letters by the postman?

  Uncle Vernon glared at Harry, then looked down at the letter, and began to read aloud:

  Dear Mr and Mrs Dursley,

  We have never been introduced, but I am sure you have heard a great deal from Harry about my son Ron.

  As Harry might have told you, the final of the Quidditch World Cup takes place next Monday night, and my husband, Arthur, has just managed to get prime tickets through his connections at the Department of Magical Games and Sports.

  I do hope you will allow us to take Harry to the match, as this really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; Britain hasn’t hosted the Cup for thirty years and tickets are extremely hard to come by. We would of course be glad to have Harry to stay for the remainder of the summer holidays, and to see him safely onto the train back to school.

  It would be best for Harry to send us your answer as quickly as possible in the normal way, because the Muggle postman has never delivered to our house, and I am not sure he even knows where it is.

  Hoping to see Harry soon,

  Yours sincerely,

  Molly Weasley

  P.S. I do hope we’ve put enough stamps on.

  Uncle Vernon finished reading, put his hand back into his breast pocket, and drew out something else.

  ‘Look at this,’ he growled.

  He held up the envelope in which Mrs Weasley’s letter had come, and Harry had to fight down a laugh. Every bit of it was covered in stamps except for a square inch on the front, into which Mrs Weasley had squeezed the Dursleys’ address in minute writing.

  ‘She did put enough stamps on, then,’ said Harry, trying to sound as though Mrs Weasley’s was a mistake anyone could make. His uncle’s eyes flashed.

  ‘The postman noticed,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Very interested to know where this letter came from, he was. That’s why he rang the doorbell. Seemed to think it was funny.’

  Harry didn’t say anything. Other people might not understand why Uncle Vernon was making a fuss about too many stamps, but Harry had lived with the Dursleys too long not to know how touchy they were about anything even slightly out of the ordinary. Their worst fear was that anyone would find out that they were connected (however distantly) with people like Mrs Weasley.

  Uncle Vernon was still glaring at Harry, who tried to keep his expression neutral. If he didn’t do or say anything stupid, he might just be in for the treat of a lifetime. He waited for Uncle Vernon to say something, but he merely continued to glare. Harry decided to break the silence.

  ‘So – can I go, then?’ he asked.

  A slight spasm crossed Uncle Vernon’s large, purple face. The moustache bristled. Harry thought he knew what was going on behind the moustache: a furious battle as two of Uncle Vernon’s most fundamental instincts came into conflict. Allowing Harry to go would make Harry happy, something Uncle Vernon had struggled against for thirteen years. On the other hand, allowing Harry to disappear to the Weasleys’ for the rest of the summer would get rid of him two weeks earlier than anyone could have hoped, and Uncle Vernon hated having Harry in the house. To give himself thinking time, it seemed, he looked down at Mrs Weasley’s letter again.

  ‘Who is this woman?’ he said, staring at the signature with distaste.

  ‘You’ve seen her,’ said Harry. ‘She’s my friend Ron’s mother, she was meeting him off the Hog– off the school train at the end of last term.’

  He had almost said ‘Hogwarts Express’, and that was a sure way to get his uncle’s temper up. Nobody ever mentioned the name of Harry’s school aloud in the Dursley household.

  Uncle Vernon screwed up his enormous face as though trying to remember something very unpleasant.

  ‘Dumpy sort of woman?’ he growled finally. ‘Load of children with red hair?’

  Harry frowned. He thought it was a bit rich of Uncle Vernon to call anyone ‘dumpy’, when his own son, Dudley, had finally achieved what he’d been threatening to do since the age of three, and become wider
than he was tall.

  Uncle Vernon was perusing the letter again.

  ‘Quidditch,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Quidditch – what is this rubbish?’

  Harry felt a second stab of annoyance.

  ‘It’s a sport,’ he said shortly. ‘Played on broom–’

  ‘All right, all right!’ said Uncle Vernon loudly. Harry saw, with some satisfaction, that his uncle looked vaguely panicky. Apparently his nerves wouldn’t stand the sound of the word ‘broomsticks’ in his living room. He took refuge in perusing the letter again. Harry saw his lips form the words ‘send us your answer in the normal way’. He scowled.

  ‘What does she mean, the normal way?’ he spat.

  ‘Normal for us,’ said Harry, and before his uncle could stop him, he added, ‘you know, owl post. That’s what’s normal for wizards.’

  Uncle Vernon looked as outraged as if Harry had just uttered a disgusting swear word. Shaking with anger, he shot a nervy look through the window, as though expecting to see some of the neighbours with their ears pressed against the glass.

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you not to mention that unnaturalness under my roof?’ he hissed, his face now a rich plum colour. ‘You stand there, in the clothes Petunia and I have put on your ungrateful back –’

  ‘Only after Dudley finished with them,’ said Harry coldly, and indeed, he was dressed in a sweatshirt so large for him that he had had to roll back the sleeves five times so as to be able to use his hands, and which fell past the knees of his extremely baggy jeans.

  ‘I will not be spoken to like that!’ said Uncle Vernon, trembling with rage.

  But Harry wasn’t going to stand for this. Gone were the days when he had been forced to take every single one of the Dursleys’ stupid rules. He wasn’t following Dudley’s diet, and he wasn’t going to let Uncle Vernon stop him going to the Quidditch World Cup, not if he could help it.