Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire hp-4

by J. K. Rowling

  Hermione stopped looking astonished and snorted with laughter. “Scarlet woman?” she repeated, shaking with suppressed giggles as she looked around at Ron.

  “It’s what my mum calls them,” Ron muttered, his ears going red.

  “If that’s the best Rita can do, she’s losing her touch,” said Hermione, still giggling, as she threw Witch Weekly onto the empty chair beside her. “What a pile of old rubbish.”

  She looked over at the Slytherins, who were all watching her and Harry closely across the room to see if they had been upset by the article. Hermione gave them a sarcastic smile and a wave, and she, Harry, and Ron started unpacking the ingredients they would need for their Wit Sharpening Potion.

  “There’s something funny, though,” said Hermione ten minutes later, holding her pestle suspended over a bowl of scarab beetles. “How could Rita Skeeter have known…?”

  “Known what?” said Ron quickly. “You haven’t been mixing up Love Potions, have you?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Hermione snapped, starting to pound up her beetles again. “No, it’s just… how did she know Viktor asked me to visit him over the summer?”

  Hermione blushed scarlet as she said this and determinedly avoided Ron’s eyes.

  “What?” said Ron, dropping his pestle with a loud clunk.

  “He asked me right after he’d pulled me out of the lake,” Hermione muttered. “After he’d got rid of his shark’s head. Madam Pomfrey gave us both blankets and then he sort of pulled me away from the judges so they wouldn’t hear, and he said, if I wasn’t doing anything over the summer, would I like to—”

  “And what did you say?” said Ron, who had picked up his pestle and was grinding it on the desk, a good six inches from his bowl, because he was looking at Hermione.

  “And he did say he’d never felt the same way about anyone else,” Hermione went on, going so red now that Harry could almost feel the heat coming from her, “but how could Rita Skeeter have heard him? She wasn’t there… or was she? Maybe she has got an Invisibility Cloak; maybe she sneaked onto the grounds to watch the second task…”

  “And what did you say?” Ron repeated, pounding his pestle down so hard that it dented the desk.

  “Well, I was too busy seeing whether you and Harry were okay to—”

  “Fascinating though your social life undoubtedly is, Miss Granger,” said an icy voice right behind them, and all three of them jumped, “I must ask you not to discuss it in my class. Ten points from Gryffindor.”

  Snape had glided over to their desk while they were talking. The whole class was now looking around at them; Malfoy took the opportunity to flash POTTER STINKS across the dungeon at Harry.

  “Ah… reading magazines under the table as well?” Snape added, snatching up the copy of Witch Weekly. “A further ten points from Gryffindor… oh but of course…” Snape’s black eyes glittered as they fell on Rita Skeeter’s article. “Potter has to keep up with his press cuttings…”

  The dungeon rang with the Slytherins’ laughter, and an unpleasant smile curled Snape’s thin mouth. To Harry’s fury, he began to read the article aloud.

  “‘Harry Potter’s Secret Heartache…’ dear, dear. Potter, what’s ailing you now? ‘A boy like no other, perhaps…’”

  Harry could feel his face burning. Snape was pausing at the end of every sentence to allow the Slytherins a hearty laugh. The article sounded ten times worse when read by Snape. Even Hermione was blushing scarlet now.

  “‘…Harry Potter’s well wishers must hope that, next time, he bestows his heart upon a worthier candidate.’ How very touching,” sneered Snape, rolling up the magazine to continued gales of laughter from the Slytherins. “Well, I think I had better separate the three of you, so you can keep your minds on your potions rather than on your tangled love lives. Weasley, you stay here. Miss Granger, over there, beside Miss Parkinson. Potter—that table in front of my desk. Move. Now.”

  Furious, Harry threw his ingredients and his bag into his cauldron and dragged it up to the front of the dungeon to the empty table. Snape followed, sat down at his desk and watched Harry unload his cauldron. Determined not to look at Snape, Harry resumed the mashing of his scarab beetles, imagining each one to have Snape’s face.

  “All this press attention seems to have inflated your already over large head, Potter,” said Snape quietly, once the rest of the class had settled down again.

  Harry didn’t answer. He knew Snape was trying to provoke him; he had done this before. No doubt he was hoping for an excuse to take a round fifty points from Gryffindor before the end of the class.

  “You might be laboring under the delusion that the entire wizarding world is impressed with you,” Snape went on, so quietly that no one else could hear him (Harry continued to pound his scarab beetles, even though he had already reduced them to a very fine powder), “but I don’t care how many times your picture appears in the papers. To me, Potter, you are nothing but a nasty little boy who considers rules to be beneath him.”

  Harry tipped the powdered beetles into his cauldron and started cutting up his ginger roots. His hands were shaking slightly out of anger, but he kept his eyes down, as though he couldn’t hear what Snape was saying to him.

  “So I give you fair warning, Potter,” Snape continued in a sorter and more dangerous voice, “pint sized celebrity or not—if I catch you breaking into my office one more time—”

  “I haven’t been anywhere near your office!” said Harry angrily, forgetting his feigned deafness.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Snape hissed, his fathomless black eyes boring into Harry’s. “Boomslang skin. Gillyweed. Both come from my private stores, and I know who stole them.”

  Harry stared back at Snape, determined not to blink or to look guilty. In truth, he hadn’t stolen either of these things from Snape. Hermione had taken the boomslang skin back in their second year—they had needed it for the Polyjuice Potion—and while Snape had suspected Harry at the time, he had never been able to prove it. Dobby, of course, had stolen the gillyweed.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry lied coldly.

  “You were out of bed on the night my office was broken into!” Snape hissed. “I know it, Potter! Now, Mad-Eye Moody might have joined your fan club, but I will not tolerate your behavior! One more nighttime stroll into my office, Potter, and you will pay!”

  “Right,” said Harry coolly, turning back to his ginger roots. “I’ll bear that in mind if I ever get the urge to go in there.”

  Snape’s eyes flashed. He plunged a hand into the inside of his black robes. For one wild moment. Harry thought Snape was about to pull out his wand and curse him—then he saw that Snape had drawn out a small crystal bottle of a completely clear potion. Harry stared at it.

  “Do you know what this is, Potter?” Snape said, his eyes glittering dangerously again.

  “No,” said Harry, with complete honesty this time.

  “It is Veritaserum—a Truth Potion so powerful that three drops would have you spilling your innermost secrets for this entire class to hear,” said Snape viciously. “Now, the use of this potion is controlled by very strict Ministry guidelines. But unless you watch your step, you might just find that my hand slips”—he shook the crystal bottle slightly—“right over your evening pumpkin juice. And then, Potter… then we’ll find out whether you’ve been in my office or not.”

  Harry said nothing. He turned back to his ginger roots once more, picked up his knife, and started slicing them again. He didn’t like the sound of that Truth Potion at all, nor would he put it past Snape to slip him some. He repressed a shudder at the thought of what might come spilling out of his mouth if Snape did it… quite apart from landing a whole lot of people in trouble—Hermione and Dobby for a start—there were all the other things he was concealing… like the fact that he was in contact with Sirius… and—his insides squirmed at the thought—how he felt about Cho… He tipped his ginger roots into the cauldron too, and won
dered whether he ought to take a leaf out of Moody’s book and start drinking only from a private hip flask.

  There was a knock on the dungeon door.

  “Enter,” said Snape in his usual voice.

  The class looked around as the door opened. Professor Karkaroff came in. Everyone watched him as he walked up toward Snape’s desk. He was twisting his finger around his goatee and looking agitated.

  “We need to talk,” said Karkaroff abruptly when he had reached Snape. He seemed so determined that nobody should hear what he was saying that he was barely opening his lips; it was as though he were a rather poor ventriloquist. Harry kept his eyes on his ginger roots, listening hard.

  “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.

  Under the pretext of holding up a measuring cup to see if he’d poured out enough armadillo bile, Harry sneaked a sidelong glance at the pair of them. Karkaroff looked extremely worried, and Snape looked angry.

  Karkaroff hovered behind Snape’s desk for the rest of the double period. He seemed intent on preventing Snape from slipping away at the end of class. Keen to hear what Karkaroff wanted to say, Harry deliberately knocked over his bottle of armadillo bile with two minutes to go to the bell, which gave him an excuse to duck down behind his cauldron and mop up while the rest of the class moved noisily toward the door.

  “What’s so urgent?” he heard Snape hiss at Karkaroff.

  “This,” said Karkaroff, and Harry, peering around the edge of his cauldron, saw Karkaroff pull up the left hand sleeve of his robe and show Snape something on his inner forearm.

  “Well?” said Karkaroff, still making every effort not to move his lips. “Do you see? It’s never been this clear, never since—”

  “Put it away!” snarled Snape, his black eyes sweeping the classroom.

  “But you must have noticed—” Karkaroff began in an agitated voice.

  “We can talk later, Karkaroff!” spat Snape. “Potter! What are you doing?”

  “Clearing up my armadillo bile, Professor,” said Harry innocently, straightening up and showing Snape the sodden rag he was holding.

  Karkaroff turned on his heel and strode out of the dungeon. He looked both worried and angry. Not wanting to remain alone with an exceptionally angry Snape, Harry threw his books and ingredients back into his bag and left at top speed to tell Ron and Hermione what he had just witnessed.

  They left the castle at noon the next day to find a weak silver sun shining down upon the grounds. The weather was milder than it had been all year, and by the time they arrived in Hogsmeade, all three of them had taken off their cloaks and thrown them over their shoulders. The food Sirius had told them to bring was in Harry’s bag; they had sneaked a dozen chicken legs, a loaf of bread, and a flask of pumpkin juice from the lunch table.

  They went into Gladrags Wizardwear to buy a present for Dobby, where they had fun selecting the most lurid socks they could find, including a pair patterned with flashing gold and silver stars, and another that screamed loudly when they became too smelly. Then, at half past one, they made their way up the High Street, past Dervish and Banges, and out toward the edge of the village.

  Harry had never been in this direction before. The winding lane was leading them out into the wild countryside around Hogsmeade. The cottages were fewer here, and their gardens larger; they were walking toward the foot of the mountain in whose shadow Hogsmeade lay. Then they turned a corner and saw a stile at the end of the lane. Waiting for them, its front paws on the topmost bar, was a very large, shaggy black dog, which was carrying some newspapers in its mouth and looking very familiar…

  “Hello, Sirius,” said Harry when they had reached him.

  The black dog sniffed Harry’s bag eagerly, wagged its tail once, then turned and began to trot away from them across the scrubby patch of ground that rose to meet the rocky foot of the mountain. Harry, Ron, and Hermione climbed over the stile and followed.

  Sirius led them to the very foot of the mountain, where the ground was covered with boulders and rocks. It was easy for him, with his four paws, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione were soon out of breath. They followed Sirius higher, up onto the mountain itself. For nearly half an hour they climbed a steep, winding, and stony path, following Sirius’s wagging tail, sweating in the sun, the shoulder straps of Harry’s bag cutting into his shoulders.

  Then, at last, Sirius slipped out of sight, and when they reached the place where he had vanished, they saw a narrow fissure in the rock. They squeezed into it and found themselves in a cool, dimly lit cave. Tethered at the end of it, one end of his rope around a large rock, was Buckbeak the hippogriff. Half gray horse, half giant eagle, Buckbeak’s fierce orange eye flashed at the sight of them. All three of them bowed low to him, and after regarding them imperiously for a moment, Buckbeak bent his scaly front knees and allowed Hermione to rush forward and stroke his feathery neck. Harry, however, was looking at the black dog, which had just turned into his godfather.

  Sirius was wearing ragged gray robes; the same ones he had been wearing when he had left Azkaban. His black hair was longer than it had been when he had appeared in the fire, and it was untidy and matted once more. He looked very thin.

  “Chicken!” he said hoarsely after removing the old Daily Prophets from his mouth and throwing them down onto the cave floor.

  Harry pulled open his bag and handed over the bundle of chicken legs and bread.

  “Thanks,” said Sirius, opening it, grabbing a drumstick, sitting down on the cave floor, and tearing off a large chunk with his teeth. “I’ve been living off rats mostly. Can’t steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I’d draw attention to myself.” He grinned up at Harry, but Harry returned the grin only reluctantly.

  “What’re you doing here, Sirius?” he said.

  “Fulfilling my duty as godfather,” said Sirius, gnawing on the chicken bone in a very doglike way. “Don’t worry about it, I’m pretending to be a lovable stray.”

  He was still grinning, but seeing the anxiety in Harry’s face, said more seriously, “I want to be on the spot. Your last letter… well, let’s just say things are getting fishier. I’ve been stealing the paper every time someone throws one out, and by the looks of things, I’m not the only one who’s getting worried.”

  He nodded at the yellowing Daily Prophets on the cave floor, and Ron picked them up and unfolded them. Harry, however, continued to stare at Sirius.

  “What if they catch you? What if you’re seen?”

  “You three and Dumbledore are the only ones around here who know I’m an Animagus,” said Sirius, shrugging, and continuing to devour the chicken leg.

  Ron nudged Harry and passed him the Daily Prophets. There were two: The first bore the headline Mystery Illness of Bartemius Crouch, the second, Ministry Witch Still Missing Minister of Magic Now Personally Involved.

  Harry scanned the story about Crouch. Phrases jumped out at him: hasn’t been seen in public since November… house appears deserted… St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries decline comment… Ministry refuses to confirm rumors of critical illness…

  “They’re making it sound like he’s dying,” said Harry slowly. “But he can’t be that ill if he managed to get up here…”

  “My brother’s Crouch’s personal assistant,” Ron informed Sirius. “He says Crouch is suffering from overwork.”

  “Mind you, he did look ill, last time I saw him up close,” said Harry slowly, still reading the story. “The night my name came out of the goblet…”

  “Getting his comeuppance for sacking Winky, isn’t he?” said Hermione, an edge to her voice. She was stroking Buckbeak, who was crunching up Sirius’s chicken bones. “I bet he wishes he hadn’t done it now—bet he feels the difference now she’s not there to look after him.”

 
; “Hermione’s obsessed with house-elfs,” Ron muttered to Sirius, casting Hermione a dark look.

  Sirius, however, looked interested.

  “Crouch sacked his house-elf?”

  “Yeah, at the Quidditch World Cup,” said Harry, and he launched into the story of the Dark Mark’s appearance, and Winky being found with Harry’s wand clutched in her hand, and Mr. Crouch’s fury. When Harry had finished, Sirius was on his feet again and had started pacing up and down the cave.

  “Let me get this straight,” he said after a while, brandishing a fresh chicken leg. “You first saw the elf in the Top Box. She was saving Crouch a seat, right?”

  “Right,” said Harry, Ron, and Hermione together.

  “But Crouch didn’t turn up for the match?”

  “No,” said Harry. “I think he said he’d been too busy.”

  Sirius paced all around the cave in silence. Then he said, “Harry, did you check your pockets for your wand after you’d left the Top Box?”

  “Erm…” Harry thought hard. “No,” he said finally. “I didn’t need to use it before we got in the forest. And then I put my hand in my pocket, and all that was in there were my Omnioculars.” He stared at Sirius. “Are you saying whoever conjured the Mark stole my wand in the Top Box?”

  “It’s possible,” said Sirius.

  “Winky didn’t steal that wand!” Hermione insisted.

  “The elf wasn’t the only one in that box,” said Sirius, his brow furrowed as he continued to pace. “Who else was sitting behind you?”

  “Loads of people,” said Harry. “Some Bulgarian ministers… Cornelius Fudge… the Malfoys…”

  “The Malfoys!” said Ron suddenly, so loudly that his voice echoed all around the cave, and Buckbeak tossed his head nervously. “I bet it was Lucius Malfoy!”

  “Anyone else?” said Sirius.

  “No one,” said Harry.

  “Yes, there was, there was Ludo Bagman,” Hermione reminded him.