The Goblet of Fire Read online

  ‘Thank you, miss!’ said Dobby, grinning toothily at her. ‘But most wizards doesn’t want a house-elf who wants paying, miss. “That’s not the point of a house-elf,” they says, and they slammed the door in Dobby’s face! Dobby likes work, but he wants to wear clothes and he wants to be paid, Harry Potter … Dobby likes being free!’

  The Hogwarts house-elves had now started edging away from Dobby, as though he was carrying something contagious. Winky, however, remained where she was, though there was a definite increase in the volume of her crying.

  ‘And then, Harry Potter, Dobby goes to visit Winky, and finds out Winky has been freed, too, sir!’ said Dobby delightedly.

  At this, Winky flung herself forwards off her stool, and lay, face down, on the flagged stone floor, beating her tiny fists upon it and positively screaming with misery. Hermione hastily dropped down to her knees beside her, and tried to comfort her, but nothing she said made the slightest difference.

  Dobby continued with his story, shouting shrilly over Winky’s screeches. ‘And then Dobby had the idea, Harry Potter, sir! “Why doesn’t Dobby and Winky find work together?” Dobby says. “Where is there enough work for two house-elves?” says Winky. And Dobby thinks, and it comes to him, sir! Hogwarts! So Dobby and Winky came to see Professor Dumbledore, sir, and Professor Dumbledore took us on!’

  Dobby beamed very brightly, and happy tears welled in his eyes again.

  ‘And Professor Dumbledore says he will pay Dobby, sir, if Dobby wants paying! And so Dobby is a free elf, sir, and Dobby gets a Galleon a week and one day off a month!’

  ‘That’s not very much!’ Hermione shouted indignantly from the floor, over Winky’s continued screaming and fist-beating.

  ‘Professor Dumbledore offered Dobby ten Galleons a week, and weekends off,’ said Dobby, suddenly giving a little shiver, as though the prospect of so much leisure and riches was frightening, ‘but Dobby beat him down, miss … Dobby likes freedom, miss, but he isn’t wanting too much, miss, he likes work better.’

  ‘And how much is Professor Dumbledore paying you, Winky?’ Hermione asked kindly.

  If she had thought this would cheer Winky up, she was wildly mistaken. Winky did stop crying, but when she sat up she was glaring at Hermione through her massive brown eyes, her whole face sopping wet and suddenly furious.

  ‘Winky is a disgraced elf, but Winky is not yet getting paid!’ she squeaked. ‘Winky is not sunk so low as that! Winky is properly ashamed of being freed!’

  ‘Ashamed?’ said Hermione blankly. ‘But – Winky, come on! It’s Mr Crouch who should be ashamed, not you! You didn’t do anything wrong, he was really horrible to you –’

  But at these words, Winky clapped her hands over the holes in her hat, flattening her ears so that she couldn’t hear a word, and screeched, ‘You is not insulting my master, miss! You is not insulting Mr Crouch! Mr Crouch is a good wizard, miss! Mr Crouch is right to sack bad Winky!’

  ‘Winky is having trouble adjusting, Harry Potter,’ squeaked Dobby confidentially. ‘Winky forgets she is not bound to Mr Crouch any more; she is allowed to speak her mind now, but she won’t do it.’

  ‘Can’t house-elves speak their minds about their masters, then?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Oh, no, sir, no,’ said Dobby, looking suddenly serious.‘’Tis part of the house-elf’s enslavement, sir. We keeps their secrets and our silence, sir, we upholds the family’s honour, and we never speaks ill of them – though Professor Dumbledore told Dobby he does not insist upon this. Professor Dumbledore said we is free to – to –’

  Dobby looked suddenly nervous, and beckoned Harry closer. Harry bent forwards.

  Dobby whispered, ‘He said we is free to call him a – a barmy old codger if we likes, sir!’

  Dobby gave a frightened sort of giggle.

  ‘But Dobby is not wanting to, Harry Potter,’ he said, talking normally again, and shaking his head so that his ears flapped. ‘Dobby likes Professor Dumbledore very much, sir, and is proud to keep his secrets for him.’

  ‘But you can say what you like about the Malfoys now?’ Harry asked him, grinning.

  A slightly fearful look came into Dobby’s immense eyes.

  ‘Dobby – Dobby could,’ he said doubtfully. He squared his small shoulders. ‘Dobby could tell Harry Potter that his old masters were – were – bad Dark wizards!’

  Dobby stood for a moment, quivering all over, horror-struck by his own daring – then he rushed over to the nearest table, and began banging his head on it, very hard, squealing, ‘Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!’

  Harry seized Dobby by the back of his tie and pulled him away from the table.

  ‘Thank you, Harry Potter, thank you,’ said Dobby breathlessly, rubbing his head.

  ‘You just need a bit of practice,’ Harry said.

  ‘Practice!’ squealed Winky furiously. ‘You is ought to be ashamed of yourself, Dobby, talking that way about your masters!’

  ‘They isn’t my masters any more, Winky!’ said Dobby defiantly. ‘Dobby doesn’t care what they think any more!’

  ‘Oh, you is a bad elf, Dobby!’ moaned Winky, tears leaking down her face once more. ‘My poor Mr Crouch, what is he doing without Winky? He is needing me, he is needing my help! I is looking after the Crouches all my life, and my mother is doing it before me, and my grandmother is doing it before her … oh, what is they saying if they knew Winky was freed? Oh, the shame, the shame!’ She buried her face in her skirt again and bawled.

  ‘Winky,’ said Hermione, firmly, ‘I’m quite sure Mr Crouch is getting along perfectly well without you. We’ve seen him, you know –’

  ‘You is seeing my master?’ said Winky breathlessly, raising her tear-stained face out of her skirt once more, and goggling at Hermione. ‘You is seeing him here at Hogwarts?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hermione. ‘He and Mr Bagman are judges in the Triwizard Tournament.’

  ‘Mr Bagman comes, too?’ squeaked Winky, and to Harry’s great surprise (and Ron and Hermione’s, too, by the looks on their faces), she looked angry again. ‘Mr Bagman is a bad wizard! A very bad wizard! My master isn’t liking him, oh no, not at all!’

  ‘Bagman – bad?’ said Harry.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Winky said, nodding her head furiously. ‘My master is telling Winky some things! But Winky is not saying … Winky – Winky keeps her master’s secrets …’

  She dissolved yet again in tears; they could hear her sobbing into her skirt, ‘Poor master, poor master, no Winky to help him no more!’

  They couldn’t get another sensible word out of Winky. They left her to her crying, and finished their tea, while Dobby chatted happily about his life as a free elf, and his plans for his wages.

  ‘Dobby is going to buy a jumper next, Harry Potter!’ he said happily, pointing at his bare chest.

  ‘Tell you what, Dobby,’ said Ron, who seemed to have taken a great liking to the elf, ‘I’ll give you the one my mum knits me this Christmas, I always get one from her. You don’t mind maroon, do you?’

  Dobby was delighted.

  ‘We might have to shrink it a bit to fit you,’ Ron told him, ‘but it’ll go well with your tea-cosy.’

  As they prepared to take their leave, many of the surrounding elves pressed in upon them, offering snacks to take back upstairs. Hermione refused, with a pained look at the way the elves kept bowing and curtseying, but Harry and Ron loaded their pockets with cream cakes and pies.

  ‘Thanks a lot!’ Harry said to the elves, who had all clustered around the door to say goodnight. ‘See you, Dobby!’

  ‘Harry Potter … can Dobby come and see you sometimes, sir?’ Dobby asked tentatively.

  ‘’Course you can,’ said Harry, and Dobby beamed.

  ‘You know what?’ said Ron, once he, Hermione and Harry had left the kitchens behind, and were climbing the steps into the Entrance Hall again. ‘All these years I’ve been really impressed with Fred and George, nicking food from the kitchens – well, it’s not exactly difficult, is it
? They can’t wait to give it away!’

  ‘I think this is the best thing that could have happened to those elves, you know,’ said Hermione, leading the way back up the marble staircase. ‘Dobby coming to work here, I mean. The other elves will see how happy he is, being free, and slowly it’ll dawn on them that they want that, too!’

  ‘Let’s hope they don’t look too closely at Winky,’ said Harry.

  ‘Oh, she’ll cheer up,’ said Hermione, though she sounded a bit doubtful. ‘Once the shock’s worn off, and she’s got used to Hogwarts, she’ll see how much better off she is without that Crouch man.’

  ‘She seems to love him,’ said Ron thickly (he had just started on a cream cake).

  ‘Doesn’t think much of Bagman, though, does she?’ said Harry. ‘Wonder what Crouch says at home about him?’

  ‘Probably says he’s not a very good Head of Department,’ said Hermione, ‘and let’s face it … he’s got a point, hasn’t he?’

  ‘I’d still rather work for him than old Crouch,’ said Ron. ‘At least Bagman’s got a sense of humour.’

  ‘Don’t let Percy hear you saying that,’ Hermione said, smiling slightly.

  ‘Yeah, well, Percy wouldn’t want to work for anyone with a sense of humour, would he?’ said Ron, now starting on a chocolate éclair. ‘Percy wouldn’t recognise a joke if it danced naked in front of him wearing Dobby’s tea-cosy.’

  — CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO —

  The Unexpected Task

  ‘Potter! Weasley! Will you pay attention?’

  Professor McGonagall’s irritated voice cracked like a whip through the Transfiguration class on Thursday, and Harry and Ron both jumped and looked up.

  It was the end of the lesson; they had finished their work; the guinea-fowl they had been changing into guinea-pigs had been shut away in a large cage on Professor McGonagall’s desk (Neville’s guinea-pig still had feathers); they had copied down their homework from the blackboard (‘Describe, with examples, the ways in which Transforming Spells must be adapted when performing Cross-Species Switches’). The bell was due to ring at any moment, and Harry and Ron, who had been having a sword fight with a couple of Fred and George’s fake wands at the back of the class, looked up, Ron now holding a tin parrot, and Harry, a rubber haddock.

  ‘Now Potter and Weasley have been kind enough to act their age,’ said Professor McGonagall, with an angry look at the pair of them as the head of Harry’s haddock drooped and fell silently to the floor – Ron’s parrot’s beak had severed it moments before – ‘I have something to say to you all.

  ‘The Yule Ball is approaching – a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament and an opportunity for us to socialise with our foreign guests. Now, the ball will be open only to fourth-years and above – although you may invite a younger student if you wish –’

  Lavender Brown let out a shrill giggle. Parvati Patil nudged her hard in the ribs, her face working furiously as she, too, fought not to giggle. They both looked around at Harry. Professor McGonagall ignored them, which Harry thought was distinctly unfair, as she had just told off him and Ron.

  ‘Dress robes will be worn,’ Professor McGonagall continued, ‘and the ball will start at eight o’clock on Christmas Day, finishing at midnight, in the Great Hall. Now then –’

  Professor McGonagall stared deliberately around the class.

  ‘The Yule Ball is of course a chance for us all to – er – let our hair down,’ she said, in a disapproving voice.

  Lavender giggled harder than ever, with her hand pressed hard against her mouth to stifle the sound. Harry could see what was funny this time: Professor McGonagall, with her hair in a tight bun, looked as though she had never let her hair down in any sense.

  ‘But that does NOT mean,’ Professor McGonagall went on, ‘that we will be relaxing the standards of behaviour we expect from Hogwarts students. I will be most seriously displeased if a Gryffindor student embarrasses the school in any way.’

  The bell rang, and there was the usual scuffle of activity as everyone packed their bags and swung them onto their shoulders.

  Professor McGonagall called above the noise, ‘Potter – a word, if you please.’

  Assuming this had something to do with his headless rubber haddock, Harry proceeded gloomily to the teacher’s desk.

  Professor McGonagall waited until the rest of the class had gone, and then said, ‘Potter, the champions and their partners –’

  ‘What partners?’ said Harry.

  Professor McGonagall looked suspiciously at him, as though she thought he was trying to be funny.

  ‘Your partners for the Yule Ball, Potter,’ she said coldly. ‘Your dance partners.’

  Harry’s insides seemed to curl up and shrivel. ‘Dance partners?’

  He felt himself going red. ‘I don’t dance,’ he said quickly.

  ‘Oh, yes, you do,’ said Professor McGonagall irritably. ‘That’s what I’m telling you. Traditionally, the champions and their partners open the ball.’

  Harry had a sudden mental image of himself in a top hat and tails, accompanied by a girl in the sort of frilly dress Aunt Petunia always wore to Uncle Vernon’s work parties.

  ‘I’m not dancing,’ he said.

  ‘It is traditional,’ said Professor McGonagall firmly. ‘You are a Hogwarts champion, and you will do what is expected of you as a representative of the school. So make sure you get yourself a partner, Potter.’

  ‘But – I don’t –’

  ‘You heard me, Potter,’ said Professor McGonagall, in a very final sort of way.

  *

  A week ago, Harry would have said finding a partner for a dance would be a cinch compared to taking on a Hungarian Horntail. But now that he had done the latter, and was facing the prospect of asking a girl to the ball, he thought he’d rather have another round with the Horntail.

  Harry had never known so many people to put their names down to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas; he always did, of course, because the alternative was usually going back to Privet Drive, but he had always been very much in the minority before now. This year, however, everyone in the fourth year and above seemed to be staying, and they all seemed to Harry to be obsessed with the coming ball – or, at least, all the girls were, and it was amazing how many girls Hogwarts suddenly seemed to hold; he had never quite noticed that before. Girls giggling and whispering in the corridors, girls shrieking with laughter as boys passed them, girls excitedly comparing notes on what they were going to wear on Christmas night …

  ‘Why do they have to move in packs?’ Harry asked Ron, as a dozen or so girls walked past them, sniggering and staring at Harry. ‘How’re you supposed to get one on their own to ask them?’

  ‘Lasso one?’ Ron suggested. ‘Got any idea who you’re going to try?’

  Harry didn’t answer. He knew perfectly well whom he’d like to ask, but working up the nerve was something else … Cho was a year older than he was; she was very pretty; she was a very good Quidditch player, and she was also very popular.

  Ron seemed to know what was going on inside Harry’s head.

  ‘Listen, you’re not going to have any trouble. You’re a champion. You’ve just beaten a Hungarian Horntail. I bet they’ll be queuing up to go with you.’

  In tribute to their recently repaired friendship, Ron had kept the bitterness in his voice to a bare minimum. Moreover, to Harry’s amazement, he turned out to be quite right.

  A curly-haired third-year Hufflepuff girl to whom Harry had never spoken in his life asked him to go to the ball with her the very next day. Harry was so taken aback he said ‘no’ before he’d even stopped to consider the matter. The girl walked off looking rather hurt, and Harry had to endure Dean’s, Seamus’s and Ron’s taunts about her all through History of Magic. The following day, two more girls asked him, a second-year and (to his horror) a fifth-year who looked as though she might knock him out if he refused.

  ‘She was quite good-looking,’ said Ron fairly, after he�
�d stopped laughing.

  ‘She was a foot taller than me,’ said Harry, still unnerved. ‘Imagine what I’d look like trying to dance with her.’

  Hermione’s words about Krum kept coming back to him. ‘They only like him because he’s famous!’ Harry doubted very much if any of the girls who had asked to be his partner so far would have wanted to go to the ball with him if he hadn’t been school champion. Then he wondered if this would bother him if Cho asked him.

  On the whole, Harry had to admit that even with the embarrassing prospect of opening the ball before him, life had definitely improved since he had got through the first task. He wasn’t attracting nearly as much unpleasantness in the corridors any more, which he suspected had a lot to do with Cedric – he had an idea Cedric might have told the Hufflepuffs to leave Harry alone, in gratitude for Harry’s tip-off about the dragons. There seemed to be fewer Support CEDRIC DIGGORY badges around, too. Draco Malfoy, of course, was still quoting Rita Skeeter’s article at him at every possible opportunity, but he was getting fewer and fewer laughs out of it – and just to heighten Harry’s feeling of well-being, no story about Hagrid had appeared in the Daily Prophet.

  ‘She didn’ seem very int’rested in magical creatures, ter tell yeh the truth,’ Hagrid said, when Harry, Ron and Hermione asked him how his interview with Rita Skeeter had gone during the last Care of Magical Creatures lesson of term. To their very great relief, Hagrid had given up on direct contact with the Skrewts now, and they were merely sheltering behind his cabin today, sitting at a trestle table and preparing a fresh selection of food with which to tempt the Skrewts.

  ‘She jus’ wanted me ter talk about you, Harry,’ Hagrid continued in a low voice. ‘Well, I told her we’d been friends since I went ter fetch yeh from the Dursleys. “Never had to tell him off in four years?” she said. “Never played you up in lessons, has he?” I told her no, an’ she didn’ seem happy at all. Yeh’d think she wanted me to say yeh were horrible, Harry.’

  ‘’Course she did,’ said Harry, throwing lumps of dragon liver into a large metal bowl and picking up his knife to cut some more. ‘She can’t keep writing about what a tragic little hero I am, it’ll get boring.’