Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.docx

Harry Potter and the Goblet of FirebyJ.K. RowlingTHIS E-TEXT WAS NOT PRODUCED FOR PROFIT AND IS NOT FOR SALE.we all know this is a copyright protected book.blah, blah,blah. no reproduction by any means.blah, blah, blah. enjoy.To Peter Rowling.In Memory of Mr. Ridley.And to Susan Sladden.Who Helped HarryOut of His Cupboard.CONTENTSONEThe Riddle House - 1TWOThe Scar - 16THREEThe Invitation - 26FOURBack to the Burrow - 39FIVEWeasleys' Wizard Wheezes - 51SIXThe Portkey - 65SEVENBagman and Crouch - 75EIGHTThe Quidditch World Cup - 95NINEThe Dark Mark - 117TENMayhem at the Ministry - 145ELEVENAboard the Hogwarts Express - 158TWELVEThe Triwizard Tournament - 171THIRTEENMad-Eye Moody - 193FOURTEENThe Unforgivable Curses - 209FIFTEENBeauxbatons and Durmstrang - 228SIXTEENThe Goblet of Fire - 248SEVENTEENThe Four Champions -272EIGHTEENThe Weighing of the Wands -288NINTEENThe Hungarian Horntail -313TWENTYThe First Task - 337TWENTY-ONEThe House-Elf Liberation Front - 363TWENTY-TWOThe Unexpected Task - 385TWENTY-THREEThe Yule Ball - 403TWENTY-FOURRita Skeeter's Scoop - 433TWENTY-FIVEThe Egg and the Eye - 458TWENTY-SIXThe Second Task - 479TWENTY-SEVENPadfoot Returns - 509TWENTY-EIGHTThe Madness of Mr. Crouch - 535TWENTY-NINEThe Dream - 564THIRTYThe Pensive - 581THIRTY-ONEThe Third Task - 605THIRTY-TWOFlesh, Blood, and Bone - 636THIRTY-THREEThe Death Eaters - 644THIRTY-FOURPriori Incantatem - 659THIRTY-FIVEVeritaserum - 670THIRTY-SIXThe Parting of the Ways - 692THIRTY-SEVENThe Beginning - 716HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRECHAPTER ONE - THE RIDDLE HOUSEThe villagers of Little Hangleron still called it “the RiddleHouse,“ even though it had been many years since the Riddle familyhad lived there. It stood on a hill overlooking the village, some ofits windows boarded, tiles missing from its roof, and ivy spreadingunchecked over its face. Once a fine-looking manor, and easily thelargest and grandest building for miles around, the Riddle Housewas now damp, derelict, and unoccupied.The Little Hagletons all agreed that the old house was“creepy.“ Half a century ago, something strange and horrible hadhappened there, something that the older inhabitants of the villagestill liked to discuss when topics for gossip were scarce.The story had been picked over so many times, and had beenembroidered in so many places, that nobody was quite sure whatthe truth was anymore. Every version of the tale, however,started in the same place: Fifty years before, at daybreak on afine summer's morning when the Riddle House had still been wellkept and impressive, a maid had entered the drawing room to findall three Riddles dead.The maid had run screaming down the hill into the village androused as many people as she could.“Lying there with their eyes wide open! Cold as ice! Still intheir dinner things!“The police were summoned, and the whole of Little Hangleton hadseethed with shocked curiosity and ill-disguised excitement. Nobodywasted 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-upson, Tom, had been, if anything, worse. All the villagers caredabout was the identity of their murderer - for plainly, threeapparently healthy people did not all drop dead of natural causeson the same night.The Hanged Man, the village pub, did a roaring trade thatnight; the whole village seemed to have turned out to discuss themurders. They were rewarded for leaving their firesides when theRiddles' cook arrived dramatically in their midst and announcedto the suddenly silent pub that a man called Frank Bryce had justbeen arrested.“Frank!“ cried several people. “Never!“Frank Bryce was the Riddles' gardener. He lived alone in arun-down cottage on the grounds of the Riddle House. Frank had comeback from the war with a very stiff leg and a great dislike of crowdsand loud noises, and had been working for the Riddles ever since.There was a rush to buy the cook drinks and hear more details.“Always thought he was odd,“ she told the eagerly listeningvillagers, after her fourth sherry. “Unfriendly, like. I'm sure ifI've offered him a cuppa once, I've offered it a hundred times. Neverwanted to mix, he didn't.“Ah, now,“ said a woman at the bar, “he had a hard war, Frank. Helikes the quiet life. That's no reason to -“Who else had a key to the back door, then?“ barked thecook. “There's been a spare key hanging in the gardener's cottagefar back as I can remember! Nobody forced the door last night! Nobroken windows! All Frank had to do was creep up to the big housewhile we was all sleeping.“The villagers exchanged dark looks.“I always thought that he had a nasty look about him, rightenough,“ grunted a man at the bar.“War turned him funny, if you ask me,“ said the landlord.“Told you I wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of Frank,didn't I, Dot?“ said an excited woman in the corner.“Horrible temper,“ said Dot, nodding fervently. “I remember,when he was a kid.“By the following morning, hardly anyone in Little Hangletondoubted that Frank Bryce had killed the Riddles.But over in the neighboring town of Great Hangleton, in thedark and dingy police station, Frank was stubbornly repeating,again and again, that he was innocent, and that the only personhe had seen near the house on the day of the Riddles' deaths hadbeen a teenage boy, a stranger, dark-haired and pale. Nobody elsein the village had seen any such boy, and the police were quitesure Frank had invented him.Then, just when things were looking very serious for Frank,the report on the Riddles' bodies came back and changed everything.The police had never read an odder report. A team of doctorshad examined the bodies and had concluded that none of the Riddleshad been poisoned, stabbed, shot, strangles, suffocated, or (as faras they could tell) harmed at all. In fact (the report continued,in a tone of unmistakable bewilderment), the Riddles all appearedto be in perfet health - apart from the fact that they were alldead. The doctors did note (as though determined to find somethingwrong with the bodies) that each of the Riddles had a look ofterror upon his or her face - but as the frustrated police said,whoever heard of three people being frightened to death?As there was no proof that the Riddles had been murdered at all,the police were forced to let Frank go. The Riddles were buried inthe Little Hangleton churchyard, and their graves remained objectsof curiosity for a while. To everyone's surprise, and amid a cloudof suspicion, Frank Bryce returned to his cottage on the groundsof the Riddle House.“'S far as I'm concerned, he killed them, and I don't care whatthe police say,“said Dot in the Hanged Man. “And if he had any decency, he'dleave here, knowing as how we knows he did it.“But Frank did not leave. He stayed to tend the garden for thenext family who lived in the Riddle House, and then the next - forneither family stayed long. Perhaps it was partly because of Frankthat the new owners said there was a nasty feeling about the place,which, in the absence of inhabitants, started to fall into disrepair.The wealthy man who owned the Riddle House these days neitherlived there nor put it to any use; they said in the village thathe kept it for “tax reasons,“ though nobody was very clear whatthese might be. The wealthy owner continued to pay Frank to do thegardening, however. Frank was nearing his seventy-seventh birthdaynow, very deaf, his bad leg stiffer than ever, but could be seenpottering around the flower beds in fine weather, even thoughthe weeds were starting to creep up on him, try as he might tosuppress them.Weeds were not the only things Frank had to contend witheither. Boys from the village made a habit of throwing stones throughthe windows of the Riddle House. They rode their bicycles over thelawns Frank worked so hard to keep smooth. Once or twice, they brokeinto the old house for a dare. They knew that old Frank's devotionto the house and the grounds amounted almost to an obsession, andit amused them to see him limping across the garden, brandishing hisstick and yelling croakily at them. Frank, for his part, believed theboys tormented him because they, like their parents and grandparents,though him a murderer. So when Frank awoke one night in August andsaw something very odd up at the old house, he merely assumed thatthe boys had gone one step further in their attempts to punish him.It was Frank's bad leg that woke him; it was paining him worsethan ever in his old age. He got up and limped downstairs into thekitchen with the idea of refilling his hot-water bottle to ease thestiffness in his knee. Standing at the sink, filling the kettle,he looked up at the Riddle House and saw lights glimmering in itsupper windows.Frank knew at once what was going on. The boys had broken intothe house again, and judging by the flickering quality of the light,they had started a fire.Frank had no telephone, in any case, he had deeply mistrustedthe police ever since they had taken him in for questioning aboutthe Riddles' deaths. He put down the kettle at once, hurried backupstairs as fast as his bad leg would allow, and was soon back inhis kitchen, fully dressed and removing a rusty old key from itshook by the door. He picked up his walking stick, which was proppedagainst the wall, and set off into the night.The front door of the Riddle House bore no sign of being forced,nor did any of the windows. Frank limped around to the back of thehouse until he reached a door almost completely hidden by ivy,took out the old key, put it into the lock, and opened the doornoiselessly.He let himself into the cavernous kitchen. Frank had not enteredit for many years; nevertheless, although it was very dark, heremembered where the door into the hall was, and he groped his waytowards it, his nostrils full of the smell of decay, ears prickedfor any sound of footsteps or voices from overhead. He reached thehall, which was a little lighter owing to the large mullioned windowson either side of the front door, and started to climb the stairs,blessing the dust that lay thick upon the stone, because it muffledthe sound of his feet and stick.On the landing, Frank turned right, and saw at once where theintruders were: At the every end of the passage a door stood ajar,and a flickering light shone through the gap, casting a long sliverof gold across the black floor. Frank edged closer and closer,he was able to see a narrow slice of the room beyond.The fire, he now saw, had been lit in the grate. This surprisedhim. Then he stopped moving and listened intently, for a man'svoice spoke within the room; it sounded timid and fearful.“There is a little more in the bottle, My Lord, if you arestill hungry.“Later,“ said a second voice. This too belonged to a man -but it was strangely high-pitched, and cold as a sudden blast of icywind. Something about that voice made the sparse hairs on the backof Frank's neck stand up. “Move me closer to the fire, Wormtail.“Frank turned his right ear toward the door, the better tohear. There came the clink of a bottle being put down upon some hardsurface, and then the dull scraping noise of a heavy chair beingdragged across the floor. Frank caught a glimpse of a small man,his back to the door, pushing the chair into place. He was wearinga long black cloak, and there was a bald patch at the back of hishead. Then he went out of sight again.“Where is Nagini?“ said the cold voice.“I - I don't know, My Lord,“ said the first voicenervously. “She set out to explore the house, I think.“You will milk her before we retire, Wormtail,“ said the secondvoice. “I will need feeding in the night. The journey has tiredme greatly.“Brow furrowed, Frank inclined his good ear still closer tothe door, listening very hard. There was a pause, and then the mancalled Wormtail spoke again.“My Lord, may I ask how long we are going to stay here?“A week,“ said the cold voice. “Perhapse longer. The place ismoderately comfortable, and the plan cannot proceed yet. It wouldbe foolish to act before the Quidditch World Cup is over.“Frank inserted a gnarled finger into his ear and rotatedit. Owing, no doubt, to a buildup of earwax, he had heard the word“Quidditch,“ which was not a word at all.“The - the Quidditch World Cup, My Lord?“ said Wormtail. (Frankdug his finger still more vigorously into his ear.) “Forgive me,but - I do not understand - why should we wait until the WorldCup is over?“Because, fool, at this very moment wizards are pouring into thecountry from all over the world, and every meddler from the Ministryof Magic will be on duty, on the watch for signs of ususual activity,checking and double-checking identities. They will be obsessed withsecurity, lest the Muggles notice anything. So we wait.“Frank stopped trying to clear out his ear. He haddistinctly heard the words “Ministry of Magic,“ “wizards,“ and“Muggles.“ Plainly, each of these expressions meant something secret,and Frank could think of only two sorts of people who would speak incode: spies and criminals. Frank tightened his hold on his walkingstick once more, and listened more closely still.“Your Lordship is still determined, then?“ Wormtail said quietly.“Certainly I am determined, Wormtail.“ There was a note ofmenace in the cold voice now.A slight pause followed - and the Wormtail spoke, the wordstumbling from him in a rush, as though he was forcing himself tosay this before he lost his nerve.“It could be done without Harry Potter, My Lord.“Another pause, more protracted, and then - “Without HarryPotter?“ breathed the second voice softly. “I see.“My Lord, I do not say this out of concern for the boy!“ saidWormtail, his voice rising squeakily. “The boy is nothing to me,nothing at all! It is merely that if we were to use another witchor wizard - any wizard - the thing could be done so much morequickly! If you allowed me to leave you for a short while - youknow that I can disguise myself most effectively - I could be backhere in as little as two days with a suitable person -“I could use another wizard,“ said the cold voice softly,“that is true.“My Lord, it makes sense,“ said Wormtail, sounding thoroughlyrelieved now.“Laying hands on Harry Potter would be so difficult, he is sowell protected -“And so you volunteer to go and fetch me a substitute? Iwonder.perhaps the task of nursing me has become wearisome for you,Wormtail? Could this suggestion of abandoning the plan be nothingmore than an attempt to desert me?“My Lord! I - I have no wish to leave you, none at all -“Do not lie to me!“ hissed the second voice. “I can always tell,Wormtail! You are regretting that you ever returned to me. I revoltyou. I see you flinch when you look at me, feel you shudder whenyou touch me.“No! My devotion to Your Lordship -“Your devotion is nothing more than cowardice. You would not behere if you had anywhere else to go. How am I to survive without you,when I need fe