The Goblet of Fire Read online

  Their money bags considerably lighter, they went back to the tents. Bill, Charlie and Ginny were all sporting green rosettes too, and Mr Weasley was carrying an Irish flag. Fred and George had no souvenirs as they had given Bagman all their gold.

  And then a deep, booming gong sounded somewhere beyond the woods, and, at once, green and red lanterns blazed into life in the trees, lighting a path to the pitch.

  ‘It’s time!’ said Mr Weasley, looking as excited as any of them. ‘Come on, let’s go!’

  — CHAPTER EIGHT —

  The Quidditch World Cup

  Clutching their purchases, Mr Weasley in the lead, they all hurried into the wood, following the lantern-lit trail. They could hear the sounds of thousands of people moving around them, shouts and laughter, snatches of singing. The atmosphere of feverish excitement was highly infectious; Harry couldn’t stop grinning. They walked through the wood for twenty minutes, talking and joking loudly, until at last they emerged on the other side, and found themselves in the shadow of a gigantic stadium. Though Harry could see only a fraction of the immense gold walls surrounding the pitch, he could tell that ten cathedrals would fit comfortably inside it.

  ‘Seats a hundred thousand,’ said Mr Weasley, spotting the awestruck look on Harry’s face. ‘Ministry task force of five hundred have been working on it all year. Muggle-Repelling Charms on every inch of it. Every time Muggles have got anywhere near here all year, they’ve suddenly remembered urgent appointments and had to dash away again … Bless them,’ he added fondly, leading the way towards the nearest entrance, which was already surrounded by a swarm of shouting witches and wizards.

  ‘Prime seats!’ said the Ministry witch at the entrance, when she checked their tickets. ‘Top Box! Straight upstairs, Arthur, and as high as you can go.’

  The stairs into the stadium were carpeted in rich purple. They clambered upwards with the rest of the crowd, which slowly filtered away through doors into the stands to their left and right. Mr Weasley’s party kept climbing, and at last they reached the top of the staircase, and found themselves in a small box, set at the highest point of the stadium and situated exactly halfway between the golden goalposts. About twenty purple-and-gilt chairs stood in two rows here, and Harry, filing into the front seats with the Weasleys, looked down upon a scene the like of which he could never have imagined.

  A hundred thousand witches and wizards were taking their places in the seats which rose in levels around the long oval pitch. Everything was suffused with a mysterious golden light that seemed to come from the stadium itself. The pitch looked smooth as velvet from their lofty position. At either end of the pitch stood three goal hoops, fifty feet high; right opposite them, almost at Harry’s eye level, was a gigantic blackboard. Gold writing kept dashing across it as though an invisible giant’s hand was scrawling upon it and then wiping it off again; watching it, Harry saw that it was flashing advertisements across the pitch.

  The Bluebottle: A Broom for All the Family – safe, reliable and with In-built Anti-Burglar Buzzer … Mrs Skower’s All-Purpose Magical Mess-Remover: No Pain, No Stain!… Gladrags Wizardwear – London, Paris, Hogsmeade …

  Harry tore his eyes away from the sign and looked over his shoulder to see who else was sharing the box with them. So far it was empty, except for a tiny creature sitting in the second from last seat at the end of the row behind them. The creature, whose legs were so short they stuck out in front of it on the chair, was wearing a tea-towel draped like a toga, and it had its face hidden in its hands. Yet those long, bat-like ears were oddly familiar …

  ‘Dobby?’ said Harry incredulously.

  The tiny creature looked up and parted its fingers, revealing enormous brown eyes and a nose the exact size and shape of a large tomato. It wasn’t Dobby – it was, however, unmistakeably a house-elf, as Harry’s friend Dobby had been. Harry had set Dobby free from his old owners, the Malfoy family.

  ‘Did sir just call me Dobby?’ squeaked the elf curiously, from between its fingers. Its voice was higher even than Dobby’s had been, a teeny, quivering squeak of a voice, and Harry suspected – though it was very hard to tell with a house-elf – that this one might just be female. Ron and Hermione spun around in their seats to look. Though they had heard a lot about Dobby from Harry, they had never actually met him. Even Mr Weasley looked around in interest.

  ‘Sorry,’ Harry told the elf, ‘I just thought you were someone I knew.’

  ‘But I knows Dobby too, sir!’ squeaked the elf. She was shielding her face, as though blinded by light, though the Top Box was not brightly lit. ‘My name is Winky, sir – and you, sir –’ her dark brown eyes widened to the size of side plates as they rested upon Harry’s scar, ‘you is surely Harry Potter!’

  ‘Yeah, I am,’ said Harry.

  ‘But Dobby talks of you all the time, sir!’ she said, lowering her hands very slightly and looking awestruck.

  ‘How is he?’ said Harry. ‘How’s freedom suiting him?’

  ‘Ah, sir,’ said Winky, shaking her head, ‘ah, sir, meaning no disrespect, sir, but I is not sure you did Dobby a favour, sir, when you is setting him free.’

  ‘Why?’ said Harry, taken aback. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Freedom is going to Dobby’s head, sir,’ said Winky sadly. ‘Ideas above his station, sir. Can’t get another position, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Harry.

  Winky lowered her voice by a half octave and whispered, ‘He is wanting paying for his work, sir.’

  ‘Paying?’ said Harry blankly. ‘Well – why shouldn’t he be paid?’

  Winky looked quite horrified at the idea, and closed her fingers slightly so that her face was half-hidden again.

  ‘House-elves is not paid, sir!’ she said in a muffled squeak. ‘No, no, no. I says to Dobby, I says, go find yourself a nice family and settle down, Dobby. He is getting up to all sorts of high jinks, sir, what is unbecoming to a house-elf. You goes racketing around like this, Dobby, I says, and next thing I hear you’s up in front of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, like some common goblin.’

  ‘Well, it’s about time he had a bit of fun,’ said Harry.

  ‘House-elves is not supposed to have fun, Harry Potter,’ said Winky firmly, from behind her hands. ‘House-elves does what they is told. I is not liking heights at all, Harry Potter –’ she glanced towards the edge of the box and gulped, ‘– but my master sends me to the Top Box and I comes, sir.’

  ‘Why’s he sent you up here, if he knows you don’t like heights?’ said Harry, frowning.

  ‘Master – master wants me to save him a seat, Harry Potter, he is very busy,’ said Winky, tilting her head towards the empty space beside her. ‘Winky is wishing she is back in master’s tent, Harry Potter, but Winky does what she is told, Winky is a good house-elf.’

  She gave the edge of the box another frightened look, and hid her eyes completely again. Harry turned back to the others.

  ‘So that’s a house-elf?’ Ron muttered. ‘Weird things, aren’t they?’

  ‘Dobby was weirder,’ said Harry, fervently.

  Ron pulled out his Omnioculars and started testing them, staring down into the crowd on the other side of the stadium.

  ‘Wild!’ he said, twiddling the replay knob on the side. ‘I can make that old bloke down there pick his nose again … and again … and again …’

  Hermione, meanwhile, was skimming eagerly through her velvet-covered, tasselled programme.

  ‘“A display from the team mascots will precede the match”,’ she read aloud.

  ‘Oh, that’s always worth watching,’ said Mr Weasley. ‘National teams bring creatures from their native land, you know, to put on a bit of a show.’

  The box filled gradually around them over the next half hour. Mr Weasley kept shaking hands with people who were obviously very important wizards. Percy jumped to his feet so often that he looked as though he was trying to sit on a hedgehog. When Cornelius Fudge,
the Minister for Magic himself, arrived, Percy bowed so low that his glasses fell off and shattered. Highly embarrassed, he repaired them with his wand, and thereafter remained in his seat, throwing jealous looks at Harry, whom Cornelius Fudge had greeted like an old friend. They had met before, and Fudge shook Harry’s hand in fatherly fashion, asked how he was, and introduced him to the wizards on either side of him.

  ‘Harry Potter, you know,’ he loudly told the Bulgarian Minister, who was wearing splendid robes of black velvet trimmed with gold, and didn’t seem to understand a word of English. ‘Harry Potter … oh, come on now, you know who he is … the boy who survived You-Know-Who … you do know who he is –’

  The Bulgarian wizard suddenly spotted Harry’s scar and started gabbling loudly and excitedly, pointing at it.

  ‘Knew we’d get there in the end,’ said Fudge wearily to Harry. ‘I’m no great shakes at languages, I need Barty Crouch for this sort of thing. Ah, I see his house-elf’s saving him a seat … good job too, these Bulgarian blighters have been trying to cadge all the best places … ah, and here’s Lucius!’

  Harry, Ron and Hermione turned quickly. Edging along the second row to three still-empty seats right behind Mr Weasley were none other than Dobby the house-elf’s old owners – Lucius Malfoy, his son, Draco, and a woman Harry supposed must be Draco’s mother.

  Harry and Draco Malfoy had been enemies ever since their very first journey to Hogwarts. A pale boy with a pointed face and white-blond hair, Draco greatly resembled his father. His mother was blonde, too; tall and slim, she would have been nice looking if she hadn’t been wearing a look that suggested there was a nasty smell under her nose.

  ‘Ah, Fudge,’ said Mr Malfoy, holding out his hand as he reached the Minister for Magic. ‘How are you? I don’t think you’ve met my wife, Narcissa? Or our son, Draco?’

  ‘How do you do, how do you do?’ said Fudge, smiling and bowing to Mrs Malfoy. ‘And allow me to introduce you to Mr Oblansk – Obalonsk – Mr – well, he’s the Bulgarian Minister for Magic, and he can’t understand a word I’m saying anyway, so never mind. And let’s see who else – you know Arthur Weasley, I daresay?’

  It was a tense moment. Mr Weasley and Mr Malfoy looked at each other and Harry vividly recalled the last time that they had come face to face; it had been in Flourish and Blotts bookshop, and they had had a fight. Mr Malfoy’s cold grey eyes swept over Mr Weasley, and then up and down the row.

  ‘Good Lord, Arthur,’ he said softly. ‘What did you have to sell to get seats in the Top Box? Surely your house wouldn’t have fetched this much?’

  Fudge, who wasn’t listening, said, ‘Lucius has just given a very generous contribution to St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Arthur. He’s here as my guest.’

  ‘How – how nice,’ said Mr Weasley, with a very strained smile.

  Mr Malfoy’s eyes had returned to Hermione, who went slightly pink, but stared determinedly back at him. Harry knew exactly what was making Mr Malfoy’s lip curl. The Malfoys prided themselves on being pure-bloods; in other words, they considered anyone of Muggle descent, like Hermione, second-class. However, under the gaze of the Minister for Magic, Mr Malfoy didn’t dare say anything. He nodded sneeringly to Mr Weasley, and continued down the line to his seats. Draco shot Harry, Ron and Hermione one contemptuous look, then settled himself between his mother and father.

  ‘Slimy gits,’ Ron muttered, as he, Harry and Hermione turned to face the pitch again. Next moment, Ludo Bagman had charged into the box.

  ‘Everyone ready?’ he said, his round face gleaming like a great, excited Edam. ‘Minister – ready to go?’

  ‘Ready when you are, Ludo,’ said Fudge comfortably.

  Ludo whipped out his wand, directed it at his own throat and said ‘Sonorus!’ and then spoke over the roar of sound that was now filling the packed stadium; his voice echoed over them, booming into every corner of the stands: ‘Ladies and gentlemen … welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!’

  The spectators screamed and clapped. Thousands of flags waved, adding their discordant national anthems to the racket. The huge blackboard opposite them was wiped clear of its last message (Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans – a Risk with Every Mouthful!) and now showed BULGARIA: ZERO, IRELAND: ZERO.

  ‘And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce … the Bulgarian Team Mascots!’

  The right-hand side of the stands, which was a solid block of scarlet, roared its approval.

  ‘I wonder what they’ve brought?’ said Mr Weasley, leaning forwards in his seat. ‘Aaah!’ He suddenly whipped off his glasses and polished them hurriedly on his robes. ‘Veela!’

  ‘What are Veel–?’

  But a hundred Veela were now gliding out onto the pitch, and Harry’s question was answered for him. Veela were women … the most beautiful women Harry had ever seen … except that they weren’t – they couldn’t be – human. This puzzled Harry for a moment, while he tried to guess what exactly they could be; what could make their skin shine moon-bright like that, or their white-gold hair fan out behind them without wind … but then the music started, and Harry stopped worrying about them not being human – in fact, he stopped worrying about anything at all.

  The Veela had started to dance, and Harry’s mind had gone completely and blissfully blank. All that mattered in the world was that he kept watching the Veela, because if they stopped dancing, terrible things would happen …

  And as the Veela danced faster and faster, wild, half-formed thoughts started chasing through Harry’s dazed mind. He wanted to do something very impressive, right now. Jumping from the box into the stadium seemed a good idea … but would it be good enough?

  ‘Harry, what are you doing?’ said Hermione’s voice from a long way off.

  The music stopped. Harry blinked. He was standing up, and one of his legs was resting on the wall of the box. Next to him, Ron was frozen in an attitude that looked as though he was about to dive from a springboard.

  Angry yells were filling the stadium. The crowd didn’t want the Veela to go. Harry was with them; he would, of course, be supporting Bulgaria, and he wondered vaguely why he had a large green shamrock pinned to his chest. Ron, meanwhile, was absent-mindedly shredding the shamrocks on his hat. Mr Weasley, smiling slightly, leant over to Ron and tugged the hat out of his hands.

  ‘You’ll be wanting that,’ he said, ‘once Ireland have had their say.’

  ‘Huh?’ said Ron, staring open-mouthed at the Veela, who had now lined up along one side of the pitch.

  Hermione made a loud tutting noise. She reached up and pulled Harry back into his seat. ‘Honestly!’ she said.

  ‘And now,’ roared Ludo Bagman’s voice, ‘kindly put your wands in the air … for the Irish National Team Mascots!’

  Next moment, what seemed to be a great green-and-gold comet had come zooming into the stadium. It did one circuit of the stadium, then split into two smaller comets, each hurtling towards the goalposts. A rainbow arced suddenly across the pitch, connecting the two balls of light. The crowd ‘oooohed’ and ‘aaaaahed’, as though at a firework display. Now the rainbow faded and the balls of light reunited and merged; they had formed a great shimmering shamrock, which rose up into the sky and began to soar over the stands. Something like golden rain seemed to be falling from it –

  ‘Excellent!’ yelled Ron, as the shamrock soared over their heads, and heavy gold coins rained from it, bouncing off their heads and seats. Squinting up at the shamrock, Harry realised that it was actually composed of thousands of tiny little bearded men with red waistcoats, each carrying a minute lamp of gold or green.

  ‘Leprechauns!’ said Mr Weasley, over the tumultuous applause of the crowd, many of whom were still fighting and rummaging around under their chairs to retrieve the gold.

  ‘There you go,’ Ron yelled happily, stuffing a fistful of gold coins into Harry’s hand. ‘For the Omnioculars! Now you’ve got to buy
me a Christmas present, ha!’

  The great shamrock dissolved, the leprechauns drifted down onto the pitch on the opposite side from the Veela, and settled themselves cross-legged to watch the match.

  ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, kindly welcome – the Bulgarian National Quidditch Team! I give you – Dimitrov!’

  A scarlet-clad figure on a broomstick, moving so fast it was blurred, shot out onto the pitch from an entrance far below, to wild applause from the Bulgarian supporters.

  ‘Ivanova!’

  A second scarlet-robed player zoomed out.

  ‘Zograf! Levski! Vulchanov! Volkov! Aaaaaaand – Krum!’

  ‘That’s him, that’s him!’ yelled Ron, following Krum with his Omnioculars; Harry quickly focused his own.

  Viktor Krum was thin, dark and sallow-skinned, with a large curved nose and thick black eyebrows. He looked like an overgrown bird of prey. It was hard to believe he was only eighteen.

  ‘And now, please greet – the Irish National Quidditch Team!’ yelled Bagman. ‘Presenting – Connolly! Ryan! Troy! Mullet! Moran! Quigley! Aaaaaand – Lynch!’

  Seven green blurs swept onto the pitch; Harry spun a small dial on the side of his Omnioculars, and slowed the players down enough to read the word ‘Firebolt’ on each of their brooms, and see their names, embroidered in silver, upon their backs.

  ‘And here, all the way from Egypt, our referee, acclaimed Chairwizard of the International Association of Quidditch, Hassan Mostafa!’

  A small and skinny wizard, completely bald but with a moustache to rival Uncle Vernon’s, wearing robes of pure gold to match the stadium, strode out onto the pitch. A silver whistle was protruding from under the moustache, and he was carrying a large wooden crate under one arm, his broomstick under the other. Harry spun the speed dial on his Omnioculars back to normal, watching closely as Mostafa mounted his broomstick and kicked the crate open – four balls burst into the air: the scarlet Quaffle, the two black Bludgers and (Harry saw it for the briefest moment, before it sped out of sight) the minuscule, winged, Golden Snitch. With a sharp blast on his whistle, Mostafa shot into the air after the balls.