Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)

by J.K. Rowling

Nobody wasted their breath pretending to feel very sad about the Riddles, for they had been most unpopular. Elderly Mr. and Mrs. Riddle had been rich, snobbish, and rude, and their grown-up son, Tom, had been, if anything, worse. All the villagers cared about was the identity of their murderer — for plainly, three apparently healthy people did not all drop dead of natural causes on the same night.

“I can always tell, Wormtail! You are regretting that you ever returned to me. I revolt you. I see you flinch when you look at me, feel you shudder when you touch me. . . .” “No! My devotion to Your Lordship —” “Your devotion is nothing more than cowardice. You would not be here if you had anywhere else to go.

He was dead before he hit the floor. Two hundred miles away, the boy called Harry Potter woke with a start.

“It doesn’t matter,” Harry muttered to Mr. Weasley. “Honestly, I don’t care.” Mr. Weasley did not remove his hand from Harry’s shoulder. “You aren’t going to see your nephew till next summer,” he said to Uncle Vernon in mild indignation. “Surely you’re going to say good-bye?”

Cedric Diggory was an extremely handsome boy of around seventeen. He was Captain and Seeker of the Hufflepuff House Quidditch team at Hogwarts.

On the contrary, their faces were elongating into sharp, cruel-beaked bird heads, and long, scaly wings were bursting from their shoulders — “And that, boys,” yelled Mr. Weasley over the tumult of the crowd below, “is why you should never go for looks alone!”

but the only possible cause was the sudden appearance of the skull, which had now risen high enough to illuminate the entire wood like some grisly neon sign.

“It’s the Dark Mark, Harry!”

Harry looked away. He would willingly have split all the money in his Gringotts vault with the Weasleys, but he knew they would never take it.

“Yeah, I sort of wish I were back at Hogwarts this year,” said Bill, hands in his pockets, looking almost wistfully at the train. “Why?” said George impatiently. “You’re going to have an interesting year,” said Bill, his eyes twinkling. “I might even get time off to come and watch a bit of it. . . .” “A bit of what?” said Ron.

“It would’ve been so easy to push Malfoy off a glacier and make it look like an accident. . . . Shame his mother likes him. . . .”

“May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?” said Dumbledore brightly into the silence. “Professor Moody.”

“Don’t you dare insult my mother, Potter.” “Keep your fat mouth shut, then,” said Harry, turning away. BANG! Several people screamed — Harry felt something white-hot graze the side of his face — he plunged his hand into his robes for his wand, but before he’d even touched it, he heard a second loud BANG, and a roar that echoed through the entrance hall. “OH NO YOU DON’T, LADDIE!” Harry spun around. Professor Moody was limping down the marble staircase. His wand was out and it was pointing right at a pure white ferret, which was shivering on the stone-flagged floor, exactly where Malfoy had been standing.

Harry felt a sudden thrill of foreboding. “Avada Kedavra!” Moody roared. There was a flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound, as though a vast, invisible something was soaring through the air — instantaneously the spider rolled over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakably dead.

How Voldemort had killed Harry’s father first. How James Potter had tried to hold him off, while he shouted at his wife to take Harry and run . . . Voldemort had advanced on Lily Potter, told her to move aside so that he could kill Harry . . . how she had begged him to kill her instead, refused to stop shielding her son . . . and so Voldemort had murdered her too,

“Apparently, Professor Sprout told Professor Moody I’m really good at Herbology,” Neville said. There was a faint note of pride in his voice that Harry had rarely heard there before. “He thought I’d like this.”

“Look at that, you lot . . . Potter fought! He fought it, and he damn near beat it! We’ll try that again, Potter, and the rest of you, pay attention — watch his eyes, that’s where you see it — very good, Potter, very good indeed! They’ll have trouble controlling you!”

Hagrid’s smile faded off his face. “Yeh’ll do wha’ yer told,” he growled, “or I’ll be takin’ a leaf outta Professor Moody’s book. . . . I hear yeh made a good ferret, Malfoy.”

“Yeah, that’s Harry Potter,” said a growling voice from behind them. Professor Karkaroff spun around. Mad-Eye Moody was standing there, leaning heavily on his staff, his magical eye glaring unblinkingly at the Durmstrang headmaster. The color drained from Karkaroff’s face as Harry watched. A terrible look of mingled fury and fear came over him. “You!” he said, staring

at Moody as though unsure he was really seeing him. “Me,” said Moody grimly. “And unless you’ve got anything to say to Potter, Karkaroff, you might want to move. You’re blocking the doorway.”

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. .

“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. . .

“Nice Cloak, Potter.” Harry stared at him in amazement. The large chunk missing from Moody’s nose was particularly obvious at a few inches’ distance. Moody grinned. “Can your eye — I mean, can you — ?” “Yeah, it can see through Invisibility Cloaks,” Moody said quietly. “And it’s come in useful at times, I can tell you.”

Dragons. Four fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing onto their hind legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planks of wood, roaring and snorting — torrents of fire were shooting into the dark sky from their open, fanged mouths, fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks.

“Karkaroff,” said Sirius. “Harry, he was a Death Eater. You know what Death Eaters are, don’t you?” “Yes — he — what?” “He was caught, he was in Azkaban with me, but he got released. I’d bet everything that’s why Dumbledore wanted an Auror at Hogwarts this year — to keep an eye on him. Moody caught Karkaroff. Put him into Azkaban in the first place.”

“Yeah, but . . .” Harry stared at him. “I’m not allowed a broom, I’ve only got my wand —” “My second piece of general advice,” said Moody loudly, interrupting him, “is to use a nice, simple spell that will enable you to get what you need.” Harry looked at him blankly. What did he need? “Come on, boy . . .” whispered Moody. “Put them together . . . it’s not that difficult. . . .” And it clicked. He was best at flying. He needed to pass the dragon in the air. For that, he needed his Firebolt. And for his Firebolt, he needed —

he realized that he had left not only the ground behind, but also his fear. . . . He was back where he belonged. . . .

Madam Pomfrey examined Harry’s shoulder, talking furiously all the while. “Last year dementors, this year dragons, what are they going to bring into this school next?

But she didn’t look like Hermione at all. She had done something with her hair; it was no longer bushy but sleek and shiny, and twisted up into an elegant knot at the back of her head. She was wearing robes made of a floaty, periwinkle-blue material, and she was holding herself differently, somehow — or maybe it was merely the absence of the twenty or so books she usually had slung over her back. She was also smiling — rather nervously, it was true — but the reduction in the size of her front teeth was more noticeable than ever; Harry couldn’t understand how he hadn’t spotted it before.

don’t see what there is to fuss about, Igor.” “Severus, you cannot pretend this isn’t happening!” Karkaroff’s voice sounded anxious and hushed, as though keen not to be overheard. “It’s been getting clearer and clearer for months. I am becoming seriously concerned, I can’t deny it —” “Then flee,” said Snape’s voice curtly. “Flee — I will make your excuses. I, however, am remaining at Hogwarts.”

‘Disgraced Ex-Head of Magical Games and Sports, Ludo Bagman . . . ’ Snappy start to a sentence, Bozo — we just need to find a story to fit it —” “Trying to ruin someone else’s life?” said Harry loudly.

But the dot wasn’t labeled “Severus Snape” . . . it was Bartemius Crouch.

“’Course Dumbledore trusts you,” growled Moody. “He’s a trusting man, isn’t he? Believes in second chances. But me — I say there are spots that don’t come off, Snape. Spots that never come off, d’you know what I mean?”

“You ever thought of a career as an Auror, Potter?” “No,” said Harry, taken aback. “You want to consider it,”

he thought he’d like to check how scarred the rest of them were before he chose it as a career.

“Right before you go into the lake, sir — gillyweed!” “What’s it do?” said Harry, staring at the gillyweed. “It will make Harry Potter breathe underwater, sir!”

“I’ll talk to you after my lesson, Karkaroff,” Snape muttered, but Karkaroff interrupted him. “I want to talk now, while you can’t slip off, Severus. You’ve been avoiding me.” “After the lesson,” Snape snapped.

“What’re you doing here, Sirius?” he said. “Fulfilling my duty as godfather,” said Sirius,

If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

And I wasn’t the only one who was handed straight to the dementors without trial. Crouch fought violence with violence, and authorized the use of the Unforgivable Curses against suspects. I would say he became as ruthless and cruel as many on the Dark Side.

“I don’t care . . . I’ll breathe freely again when this tournament’s over, and that’s not until June.

“Poor old Snuffles,” said Ron, breathing deeply. “He must really like you, Harry. . . . Imagine having to live off rats.”

Suddenly a man staggered out from behind a tall oak. For a moment, Harry didn’t recognize him . . . then he realized it was Mr. Crouch.

Harry — what do you think you are playing at, walking off into the forest with Viktor Krum? I want you to swear, by return owl, that you are not going to go walking with anyone else at night.

You could have been killed.

“Crucio!” said the cold voice. Wormtail screamed, screamed as though every nerve in his body were on fire, the screaming filled Harry’s ears as the scar on his forehead seared with pain; he was yelling too. . . . Voldemort would hear him, would know he was there. . .

“There was Travers — he helped murder the McKinnons! Mulciber — he specialized in the Imperius Curse, forced countless people to do horrific things!

The four of you stand accused of capturing an Auror — Frank Longbottom — and subjecting him to the Cruciatus Curse, believing him to have knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled master, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named —”

“Curiosity is not a sin,” he said. “But we should exercise caution with our curiosity . . .

If Voldemort is really getting stronger again, he wrote, my priority is to ensure your safety.