Australian Survivor!! Now - Tribal!! Final!! Congratulations to our Sole Survivor - Outpost31!!

[The Orca]

Wtf just happened 

[SwAg]

Well, I'm not one to deprive everyone of a good story once I've started.  I'll see if I can make another installment of it.

[Pickle Rick]

@SwAg wins 

[Malfatron]

2 minutes ago, SwAg said:

3 minutes ago, Malfatron said:

good read imo

Why would you quote this?

5 minutes ago, SwAg said:

The villagers of Little Hangleron still called it "the Riddle House," even though it
had been many years since the Riddle family had lived there. It stood on a hill
overlooking the village, some of its windows boarded, tiles missing from its roof,
and ivy spreading unchecked over its face. Once a fine-looking manor, and easily
the largest and grandest building for miles around, the Riddle House was now
damp, derelict, and unoccupied.

The Little Hagletons all agreed that the old house was "creepy." Half a century
ago, something strange and horrible had happened there, something that the older
inhabitants of the village still liked to discuss when topics for gossip were scarce.
The story had been picked over so many times, and had been embroidered in so
many places, that nobody was quite sure what the truth was anymore. Every
version of the tale, however, started in the same place: Fifty years before, at
daybreak on a fine summer's morning when the Riddle House had still been well
kept and impressive, a maid had entered the drawing room to find all three Riddles
dead.

The maid had run screaming down the hill into the village and roused as many
people as she could.

"Lying there with their eyes wide open! Cold as ice! Still in their dinner things!"

The police were summoned, and the whole of Little Hangleton had seethed with
shocked curiosity and ill-disguised excitement. 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.

The Hanged Man, the village pub, did a roaring trade that night; the whole village
seemed to have turned out to discuss the murders. They were rewarded for leaving
their firesides when the Riddles' cook arrived dramatically in their midst and
announced to the suddenly silent pub that a man called Frank Bryce had just been
arrested.

"Frank!" cried several people. "Never!"

Frank Bryce was the Riddles' gardener. He lived alone in a run-down cottage on
the grounds of the Riddle House. Frank had come back from the war with a very
stiff leg and a great dislike of crowds and loud noises, and had been working for
the Riddles ever since.

3

 

There was a rush to buy the cook drinks and hear more details.

"Always thought he was odd," she told the eagerly listening villagers, after her
fourth sherry. "Unfriendly, like. I'm sure if I've offered him a cuppa once, I've
offered it a hundred times. Never wanted to mix, he didn't."

"Ah, now," said a woman at the bar, "he had a hard war, Frank. He likes the quiet
life. That's no reason to --"

"Who else had a key to the back door, then?" barked the cook. "There's been a
spare key hanging in the gardener's cottage far back as I can remember! Nobody
forced the door last night! No broken windows! All Frank had to do was creep up
to the big house while we was all sleeping..."

The villagers exchanged dark looks.

"I always thought that he had a nasty look about him, right enough," 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 Hangleton doubted that Frank
Bryce had killed the Riddles.

But over in the neighboring town of Great Hangleton, in the dark and dingy police
station, Frank was stubbornly repeating, again and again, that he was innocent, and
that the only person he had seen near the house on the day of the Riddles' deaths
had been a teenage boy, a stranger, dark-haired and pale. Nobody else in the
village had seen any such boy, and the police were quite sure 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 doctors had examined the
bodies and had concluded that none of the Riddles had been poisoned, stabbed,
shot, strangles, suffocated, or (as far as they could tell) harmed at all. In fact (the
report continued, in a tone of unmistakable bewilderment), the Riddles all
appeared to be in perfet health -- apart from the fact that they were all dead. The
doctors did note (as though determined to find something wrong with the bodies)
that each of the Riddles had a look of terror 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

4

 

forced to let Frank go. The Riddles were buried in the Little Hangleton
churchyard, and their graves remained objects of curiosity for a while. To
everyone's surprise, and amid a cloud of suspicion, Frank Bryce returned to his
cottage on the grounds of the Riddle House.

"'S far as I'm concerned, he killed them, and I don't care what the police say," said
Dot in the Hanged Man. "And if he had any decency, he'd leave here, knowing as
how we knows he did it."

But Frank did not leave. He stayed to tend the garden for the next family who
lived in the Riddle House, and then the next -- for neither family stayed long.
Perhaps it was partly because of Frank that 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 neither lived there nor
put it to any use; they said in the village that he kept it for "tax reasons," though
nobody was very clear what these might be. The wealthy owner continued to pay
Frank to do the gardening, however. Frank was nearing his seventy-seventh
birthday now, very deaf, his bad leg stiffer than ever, but could be seen pottering
around the flower beds in fine weather, even though the weeds were starting to
creep up on him, try as he might to suppress them.

Weeds were not the only things Frank had to contend with either. Boys from the
village made a habit of throwing stones through the windows of the Riddle House.
They rode their bicycles over the lawns Frank worked so hard to keep smooth.
Once or twice, they broke into the old house for a dare. They knew that old Frank's
devotion to the house and the grounds amounted almost to an obsession, and it
amused them to see him limping across the garden, brandishing his stick and
yelling croakily at them. Frank, for his part, believed the boys tormented him
because they, like their parents and grandparents, though him a murderer. So when
Frank awoke one night in August and saw something very odd up at the old house,
he merely assumed that the 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 worse than ever in his old
age. He got up and limped downstairs into the kitchen with the idea of refilling his
hot-water bottle to ease the stiffness in his knee. Standing at the sink, filling the
kettle, he looked up at the Riddle House and saw lights glimmering in its upper
windows. Frank knew at once what was going on. The boys had broken into the
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 mistrusted the police ever
since they had taken him in for questioning about the Riddles' deaths. He put down
the kettle at once, hurried back upstairs as fast as his bad leg would allow, and was
soon back in his kitchen, fully dressed and removing a rusty old key from its hook
by the door. He picked up his walking stick, which was propped against the wall,

5

 

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 the house until he reached a door
almost completely hidden by ivy, took out the old key, put it into the lock, and
opened the door noiselessly.

He let himself into the cavernous kitchen. Frank had not entered it for many years;
nevertheless, although it was very dark, he remembered where the door into the
hall was, and he groped his way towards it, his nostrils full of the smell of decay,
ears pricked for any sound of footsteps or voices from overhead. He reached the
hall, which was a little lighter owing to the large mullioned windows on either side
of the front door, and started to climb the stairs, blessing the dust that lay thick
upon the stone, because it muffled the sound of his feet and stick.

On the landing, Frank turned right, and saw at once where the intruders were: At
the every end of the passage a door stood ajar, and a flickering light shone through
the gap, casting a long sliver of 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 surprised him. Then he
stopped moving and listened intently, for a man's voice spoke within the room; it
sounded timid and fearful.

"There is a little more in the bottle, My Lord, if you are still 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 icy wind. Something about that voice
made the sparse hairs on the back of Frank's neck stand up. "Move me closer to
the fire, Wormtail."

Frank turned his right ear toward the door, the better to hear. There came the clink
of a bottle being put down upon some hard surface, and then the dull scraping
noise of a heavy chair being dragged across the floor. Frank caught a glimpse of a
small man, his back to the door, pushing the chair into place. He was wearing a
long black cloak, and there was a bald patch at the back of his head. Then he went
out of sight again.

"Where is Nagini?" said the cold voice.

"I -- I don't know, My Lord," said the first voice nervously. "She set out to explore
the house, I think..."

"You will milk her before we retire, Wormtail," said the second voice. "I will need
feeding in the night. The journey has tired me greatly."

Brow furrowed, Frank inclined his good ear still closer to the door, listening very
hard. There was a pause, and then the man called Wormtail spoke again.

"My Lord, may I ask how long we are going to stay here?"

6

 

"A week," said the cold voice. "Perhapse longer. The place is moderately
comfortable, and the plan cannot proceed yet. It would be foolish to act before the
Quidditch World Cup is over."

Frank inserted a gnarled finger into his ear and rotated it. 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. (Frank dug his finger
still more vigorously into his ear.) "Forgive me, but -- I do not understand -- why
should we wait until the World Cup is over?"

"Because, fool, at this very moment wizards are pouring into the country from all
over the world, and every meddler from the Ministry of Magic will be on duty, on
the watch for signs of ususual activity, checking and double-checking identities.
They will be obsessed with security, lest the Muggles notice anything. So we
wait."

Frank stopped trying to clear out his ear. He had distinctly 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 in code: spies and criminals. Frank tightened his hold on his walking
stick 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 of menace in the cold
voice now.

A slight pause followed -- and the Wormtail spoke, the words tumbling from him
in a rush, as though he was forcing himself to say this before he lost his nerve.

"It could be done without Harry Potter, My Lord."

Another pause, more protracted, and then --

"Without Harry Potter?" breathed the second voice softly. "I see..."

"My Lord, I do not say this out of concern for the boy!" said Wormtail, his voice
rising squeakily. "The boy is nothing to me, nothing at all! It is merely that if we
were to use another witch or wizard -- any wizard -- the thing could be done so
much more quickly! If you allowed me to leave you for a short while -- you know
that I can disguise myself most effectively -- I could be back here 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 thoroughly relieved now.
"Laying hands on Harry Potter would be so difficult, he is so well protected --"

7

 

"And so you volunteer to go and fetch me a substitute? I wonder...perhaps the task
of nursing me has become wearisome for you, Wormtail? Could this suggestion of
abandoning the plan be nothing more 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 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. How am I to survive without you, when I need feeding every
few hours? Who is to milk Nagini?"

"But you seem so much stronger, My Lord --"

"Liar," breathed the second voice. "I am no stronger, and a few days alone would
be enough to rob me of the little health I have regained under your clumsy care.
Silence!"

Wormtail, who had been sputtering incoherently, fell silent at once. For a few
seconds, Frank could hear nothing but the fire crackling. The the second man
spoke once more, in a whisper that was almost a hiss.

"I have my reasons for using the boy, as I have already explained to you, and I will
use no other. I have waited thirteen years. A few more months will make no
difference. As for the protection surrounding the boy, I believe my plan will be
effective. All that is needed is a little courage from you, Wormtail -- courage you
will find, unless you wish to feel the full extent of Lord Voldermort's wrath --"

"My Lord, I must speak!" said Wormtail, panic in his voice now. "All through our
journey I have gone over the plan in my head -- My Lord, Bertha Jorkin's
disappearance will not go unnoticed for long, and if we proceed, if I murder --"

"If?" whispered the second voice. "If? If you follow the plan, Wormtail, the
Ministry need never know that anyone else has died. You will do it quietly and
without fuss; I only wish that i could do it myself, but in my present
condition...Come, Wormtail, one more death and our path to Harry Potter is clear.
I am not asking you to do it alone. By that time, my faithful serant will have
rejoined us --"

"I am a faithful servant," said Wormtail, the merest trace of sullenness in his voice.

"Wormtail, I need somebody with brains, somebody whose loyalty has never
wavered, and you, unfortunately, fulfill neither requirement."

"I found you," said Wormtail, and there was definitely a sulky edge to his voice
now. "I was the one who found you. I brought you Bertha Jorkins."

8

 

"That is true," said the second man, sounding amused. "A stroke of brilliance I
would not have thought possible from you, Wormtail -- though, if truth be told,
you were not aware how useful she would be when you caught her, were you?"

"I -- I thought she might be useful, My Lord --"

"Liar," said the second voice again, the cruel amusement more pronounced than
ever. "However, I do not deny that her information was invaluable. Without it, I
could never have formed our plan, and for that, you will have your reward,
Wormtail. I will allow you to perform an essential task for me, one that many of
my followers would give their right hands to perform..."

"R-really, My Lord? What -- ?" Wormtail sounded terrified again.

"Ah, Wormtail, you don't want me to spoil the surprise? Your part will come at the
very end...but I promise you, you will have the honor of being just as useful as
Bertha Jorkins."

"You...you..." Wormtail's voice suddenly sounded hoarse, as though his mouth had
gone very dry. "You...are going...to kill me too?"

"Wormtail, Wormtail," said the cold voice silkily, "why would I kill you? I killed
Bertha because I had to. She was fit for nothing after my questioning, quite
useless. In any case, awkward questions would have been asked if she had gone
back to the Ministry with the news that she had met you on her holidays. Wizards
who are supposed to be dead would do well not to run into Ministry of Magic
witches at wayside inns..."

Wormtail muttered something so quietly that Frank could not hear it, but it made
the second man laugh -- an entirely mirthless laugh, cold as his speech.

"We could have modified her memory? But Memory Charms can be broken by a
powerful wizard, as I proved when I questioned her. It would be an insult to her
memory not to use the information I extracted from her, Wormtail."

Out in the corridor, Frank suddenly became aware that the hand gripping his
walking stick was slippery with sweat. The man with the cold voice had killed a
woman. He was talking about it without any kind of remorse -- with amusement.
He was dangerous -- a madman. And he was planning more murders -- this boy,
Harry Potter, whoever he was -- was in danger --

Frank knew what he must do. Now, if ever, was the time to go to the police. He
would creep out of the house and head straight for the telephone box in the
village...but the cold voice was speaking again, and Frank remained where he was,
frozen to the spot, listening with all his might.

"One more murder...my faithful servant at Hogwarts...Harry Potter is as good as
mine, Wormtail. It is decided. There will be no more argument. But quiet...I think
I hear Nagini..."

9

 

And the second man's voice changed. He started making noises such as Frank had
never heard before; he was hissing and spitting without drawing breath. Frank
thought he must be having some sort of fit or seizure.

And then Frank heard movement behind him in the dark passageway. He turned to
look, and found himself paralyzed with fright.

Something was slithering toward him along the dark corridor floor, and as it drew
nearer to the sliver of firelight, he realized with a thrill of terror that it was a
gigantic snake, at least twelve feet long. Horrified, transfixed, Frank stared as its
undulating body cut a wide, curving track through the thick dust on the floor,
coming closer and closer -- What was he to do? The only means of escape was
into the room where the two men sat plotting murder, yet if he stayed where he
was the snake would surely kill him --

But before he had made his decision, the snake was level with him, and then,
incredibly, miraculously, it was passing; it was following the spitting, hissing
noises made by the cold voice beyond the door, and in seconds, the tip of its
diamond-patterned tail had vanished through the gap.

There was sweat on Frank's forehead now, and the hand on the walking stick was
trembling. Inside the room, the cold voice was continuing to hiss, and Frank was
visited by a strange idea, an impossible idea...This man could talk to snakes.

Frank didn't understand what was going on. He wanted more than anything to be
back in his bed with his hot-water bottle. The problem was that his legs didn't
seem to want to move. As he stood there shaking and trying to master himself, the
cold voice switched abruptly to English again.

"Nagini has interesting news, Wormtail," it said.

"In-indeed, My Lord?" said Wormtail.

"Indeed, yes," said the voice, "According to Nagini, there is an old Muggle
standing right outside this room, listening to every word we say."

Frank didn't have a chance to hide himself. There were footsteps and then the door
of the room was flung wide open.

A short, balding man with graying hair, a pointed nose, and small, watery eyes
stood before Frank, a mixture of fear and alarm in his face.

"Invite him inside, Wormtail. Where are your manners?"

The cold voice was coming from the ancient armchair before the fire, but Frank
couldn't see the speaker. the snake, on the other hand, was curled up on the rotting
hearth rug, like some horrible travesty of a pet dog.

Wormtail beckoned Frank into the room. Though still deeply shaken, Frank took a
firmer grip on his walking stick and limped over the threshold.

10

 

The fire was the only source of light in the room; it cast long, spidery shadows
upon the walls. Frank stared at the back of the armchair; the man inside it seemed
to be even smaller than his servant, for Frank couldn't even see the back of his
head.

"You heard everything, Muggle?" said the cold voice.

"What's that you're calling me?" said Frank defiantly, for now that he was inside
the room, now that the time had come for some sort of action, he felt braver; it had
always been so in the war.

"I am calling you a Muggle," said the voice coolly. "It means that you are not a
wizard."

"I don't know what you mean by wizard," said Frank, his voice growing steadier.
"All I know is I've heard enough to interest the police tonight, I have. You've done
murder and you're planning more! And I'll tell youthis too," he added, on a sudden
inspiration, "my wife knows I'm up here, and if I don't come back --"

"You have no wife," said te cold voice, very quietly. "Nobody knows you are here.
You told nobody that you were coming. Do not lie to Lord Voldemort, Muggle,
for he knows...he always knows..."

"Is that right?" said Frank roughly. "Lord, is it? Well, I don't think much of your
manners, My Lord. Turn 'round and face me like a man, why don't you?"

"But I am not a man, Muggle," said the cold voice, barely audible now over the
crackling of the flames. "I am much, much more than a man. However...why not? I
will face you...Wormtail, come turn my chair around."

The servant gave a whimper.

"You heard me, Wormtail."

Slowly, with his face screwed up, as though he would rather have done anything
than approach his master and the hearth rug where the snake lay, the small man
walked forward and began to turn the chair. The snake lifted its ugly triangular
head and hissed slightly as the legs of the chair snagged on its rug.

And then the chair was facing Frank, and he saw what was sitting in it. His
walking stick fell to the floor with a clatter. He opened his mouth and let out a
scream. He was screaming so loudly that he never heard the words the thing in the
chair spoke as it raised a wand. There was a flash of green light, a rushing sound,
and Frank Bryce crumpled. He was dead before he hit the floor.

Two hundred miles away, the boy called Harry Potter woke with a start.

11

 

CHAPTER TWO - THE SCAR

Harry lay flat on his back, breathing hard as though he had been running. He had
awoken from a vivid dream with his hands pressed over his face. The old scar on
his forehead, which was shaped like a bolt of lightning, was burning beneath his
fingers as though someone had just pressed a white-hot wire to his skin.

He sat up, one hand still on his scar, the other hand reaching out in the darkness
for his glasses, which were on the bedside table. He put them on and his bedroom
came into clearer focus, lit by a faint, misty orange light that was filtering through
the curtains from the street lamp outside the window.

Harry ran his fingers over the scar again. It was still painful. He turned on the
lamp beside him, scrambled out of bed, crossed the room, opened his wardrobe,
and peered into the mirror on the inside of the door. A skinny boy of fourteen
looked back at him, his bright green eyes puzzled under his untidy black hair. He
examined the lightning-bolt scar of his reflection more closely. It looked normal,
but it was still stinging.

harry tried to recall what he had been dreaming about before he had awoken. It
had seemed so real...There had been two people he knew and one he didn't ...He
concentrated hard, frowning, trying to remember...

The dim picture of a darkened room came to him...There had been a snake on a
hearth rug...a small man called Peter, nicknamed Wormtail...and a cold, high
voice...the voice of Lord Voldemort. Harry felt as though an ice cube had slipped
down into his stomach at the very thought...

He closed his eyes tightly and tried to remember what Voldemort had looked like,
but it was impossible...All Harry knew was that at the moment when Voldemort's
chair had swung around, and he, Harry, had seen what was sitting in it, he had felt
a spasm of horror, which had awoken him...or had that been the pain in his scar?

And who had the old man been? For there had definitely been an old man; Harry
had watched him fall to the ground. It was all becoming confused. Harry put his
face into his hands, blocking out his bedroom, trying to hold on to the picture of
that dimly lit room, but it was like trying to keep water in his cupped hands; the
details were now trickling away as fast as he tried to hold on to them...Voldemort
and Wormtail had been talking about someone they had killed, though Harry could
not remember the name...and they had been plotting to kill someone else...him!

Harry took his face out of his hands, opened his eyes, and stared around his
bedroom as though expecting to see something unusual there. As it happened,
there was an extraordinary number of unusual things in this room. A large wooden
trunk stood open at the foot of his bed, revealing a cauldron, broomstick, black
robes, and assorted spellbooks. Rolls of parchment littered that part of his desk
that was not taken up by the large, empty cage in which his snowy owl, Hedwig,

12

 

usually perched. On the floor beside his bed a book lay open; Harry had been
reading it before he fell asleep last night. The pictures in this book were all
moving. Men in bright orange robes were zooming in and out of sight on
broomsticks, throwing a red ball to one another.

Harry walked over to the book, picked it up, and watched on of the wizards score a
spectacular goal by putting the ball through a fifty-foot-high hoop. Then he
snapped the book shut. Even Quidditch -- in Harry's opinion, the best sport in the
world -- couldn't distract him at the moment. He placed Flying with the Cannons
on his bedside table, crossed to the window, and drew back the curtains to survey
the street below.

Privet Drive looked exactly as a respectable suburban street would be expected to
look inthe early hours of Saturday morning. All the curtains were closed. As far as
Harry could see through the darkness, there wasn't a living creature in sight, not
even a cat.

And yet...and yet...Harry went restlessly back to the bed and sat down on it,
running a finger over his scar again. It wasn't the pain that bothered him; Harry
was no stranger to pain and injury. He had lost all the bones from his right arm
once and had them painfully regrown in a night. The same arm had been pierced
by a venemous foot-long fang not long afterward. Only last year Harry had fallen
fifty feet from an airborn broomstick. He was used to bizarre accidents and
injuries; they were unavoidable if you attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft
and Wizardry and had a knack for attracting a lot of trouble.

No, the thing that was bothering Harry was the last time his scar had hurt him, it
had been because Voldemort had been close by...But Voldemort couldn't be here,
now...The idea of Voldemort lurking in Privet Drive was absurd, impossible...

Harry listened closely to the silence around him. Was he half expecting to hear the
creak of a stair or the swish of a cloak? And then he jumped slightly as he heard
his cousin Dudley give a tremendous grunting snore from the next room.

Harry shook himself mentally; he was being stupid. There was no one in the house
with him except Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley, and they were plainly
still asleep, their dreams untroubled and painless.

Asleep was the way Harry liked the Dursleys best; it wasn't as though they were
ever any help to him awake. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley were
Harry's only living relatives. They were Muggles who hated and despised magic in
any form, which meant that Harry was about as welcome in their house as dry rot.
They had explained away Harry's long absences at Hogwarts over the last three
years by telling everyone that he went to St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably
Criminal Boys. They knew perfectly well that, as an underage wizard, Harry
wasn't allowed to use magic outside Hogwarts, but they were still apt to blame him
for anything that went wrong about the house. Harry had never been able to
confide in them or tell them anything about his life in the wizarding world. The

13

 

very idea of going to them when they awoke, and telling them about his scar
hurting him, and about his worries about Voldemort, was laughable.

And yet it was because of Voldemort that Harry had come to live with the
Dursleys in the first place. If it hadn't been for Voldemort, Harry would not have
had the lightning scar on his forehead. If it hadn't been for Voldemort, Harry
would still have had parents...

Harry had been a year old the night that Voldemort -- the most powerful Dark
wizard for a century, a wizard who had been gaining power steadily for eleven
years -- arrived at his house and killed his father and mother. Voldemort had then
turned his wand on Harry; he had performed the curse that had disposed of many
full-grown witches and wizards in his steady rise to power -- and, incredibly, it
had not worked. Instead of killing the small boy, the curse had rebounded upon
Voldemort. Harry had survived with nothing but a lightning-shaped cut on his
forehead, and Voldemort had been reduced to something barely alive. His powers
gone, his life almost extinguished, Voldemort had fled; the terror in which the
secret community of witches and wizards had lived for so long had lifted,
Voldemort's followers had disbanded, and Harry Potter had become famous.

It had been enough of a shock for Harry to discover, on his eleventh birthday, that
he was a wizard; it had been even more disconcerting to find out that everyone in
the hidden wizarding world knew his name. Harry had arrived at Hogwarts to find
that heads turned and whispers followed him wherever he went. But he was used
to it now: At the end of this summer, he would be starting his fourth year at
Hogwarts, and Harry was already counting the days until he would be back at the
castle again.

But there was still a fortnight to go before he went back to school. He looked
hopelessly around his room again, and his eye paused on the birthday cards his
two best friends had sent him at the end of July. What would they say if Harry
wrote to them and told them about his scar hurting?

At once, Hermione Granger's voice seemed to fill his head, shrill and panicky.

"Your scar hurt? Harry, that's really serious.... Write to Professor Dumbledore!
And I'll go and check Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions.... Maybe there's
something in there about curse scars. . . ."

Yes, that would be Hermione's advice: Go straight to the headmaster of Hogwarts,
and in the meantime, consult a book. Harry stared out of the window at the inky
blue-black sky. He doubted very much whether a book could help him now. As far
as he knew, he was the only living person to have survived a curse like
Voldemort's; it was highly unlikely, therefore, that he would find his symptoms
listed in Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions. As for informing the
headmaster, Harry had no idea where Dumbledore went during the summer
holidays. He amused himself for a moment, picturing Dumbledore, with his long
silver beard, full length wizard's robes, and pointed hat, stretched out on a beach

14

 

somewhere, rubbing suntan lotion onto his long crooked nose. Wherever
Dumbledore was, though, Harry was sure that Hedwig would be able to find him;
Harry's owl had never yet failed to deliver a letter to anyone, even without an
address. But what would he write?

Dear Professor Dumbledore, Sorry to bother you, but my scar hurt this morning.
Yours sincerely, Harry Potter.

Even inside his head the words sounded stupid.

And so he tried to imagine his other best friend, Ron Weasley's, reaction, and in a
moment, Ron's red hair and long-nosed, freckled face seemed to swim before
Harry, wearing a bemused expression.

"Your scar hurt? But ... but You-Know-Who can't be near you now, can he? I
mean ... you'd know, wouldn't you? He'd be trying to do you in again, wouldn't be?
I dunno, Harry, maybe curse scars always twinge a bit... I'll ask Dad. . . ."

Mr. Weasley was a fully qualified wizard who worked in the Misuse of Muggle
Artifacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, but he didn't have any particular
expertise in the matter of curses, as far as Harry knew. In any case, Harry didn't
like the idea of the whole Weasley family knowing that he, Harry, was getting
jumpy about a few moments' pain. Mrs. Weasley would fuss worse than
Hermione, and Fred and George, Ron's sixteen- year-old twin brothers, might
think Harry was losing his nerve. The Weasleys were Harry's favorite family in the
world; he was hoping that they might invite him to stay any time now (Ron had
mentioned something about the Quidditch World Cup), and he somehow didn't
want his visit punctuated with anxious inquiries about his scar.

Harry kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. What he really wanted (and it felt
almost shameful to admit it to himself) was someone like - someone like a parent:
an adult wizard whose advice he could ask without feeling stupid, someone who
cared about him, who had had experience with Dark Magic....

And then the solution came to him. It was so simple, and so obvious, that he
couldn't believe it had taken so long - Sirius.

Harry leapt up from the bed, hurried across the room, and sat down at his desk; he
pulled a piece of parchment toward him, loaded his eagle-feather quill with ink,
wrote Dear Sirius, then paused, wondering how best to phrase his problem, still
marveling at the fact that he hadn't thought of Sirius straight away. But then,
perhaps it wasn't so surprising - after all, he had only found out that Sirius was his
godfather two months ago.

There was a simple reason for Sirius's complete absence from Harry's life until
then - Sirius had been in Azkaban, the terrifying wizard jail guarded by creatures
called dementors, sightless, soul-sucking fiends who had come to search for Sirius
at Hogwarts when he had escaped. Yet Sirius had been innocent - the murders for
which he had been convicted had been committed by Wormtail, Voldemort's

15

 

supporter, whom nearly everybody now believed dead. Harry, Ron, and Hermione
knew otherwise, however; they had come face-to-face with Wormtail only the
previous year, though only Professor Dumbledore had believed their story.

For one glorious hour, Harry had believed that he was leaving the Dursleys at last,
because Sirius had offered him a home once his name had been cleared. But the
chance had been snatched away from him - Wormtail had escaped before they
could take him to the Ministry of Magic, and Sirius had had to flee for his life.
Harry had helped him escape on the back of a hippogriff called Buckbeak, and
since then, Sirius had been on the run. The home Harry might have had if
Wormtail had not escaped had been haunting him all summer. It had been doubly
hard to return to the Dursleys knowing that he had so nearly escaped them forever.

Nevertheless, Sirius had been of some help to Harry, even if he couldn't be with
him. It was due to Sirius that Harry now had all his school things in his bedroom
with him. The Dursleys had never allowed this before; their general wish of
keeping Harry as miserable as possible, coupled with their fear of his powers, had
led them to lock his school trunk in the cupboard under the stairs every summer
prior to this. But their attitude had changed since they had found out that Harry
had a dangerous murderer for a godfather - for Harry had conveniently forgotten
to tell them that Sirius was innocent.

Harry had received two letters from Sirius since he had been back at Privet Drive.
Both had been delivered, not by owls (as was usual with wizards), but by large,
brightly colored tropical birds. Hedwig had not approved of these flashy intruders;
she had been most reluctant to allow them to drink from her water tray before
flying off again. Harry, on the other hand, had liked them; they put him in mind of
palm trees and white sand, and he hoped that, wherever Sirius was (Sirius never
said, in case the letters were intercepted), he was enjoying himself. Somehow,
Harry found it hard to imaging dementors surviving for long in bright sunlight,
perhapse that was why Sirius had gone South. Sirius's letters, which were now
hidden beneath the highly useful loose floorboards under Harry's bed, sounded
chearful, and in both of them he had reminded Harry to call on him if ever Harry
needed to. Well, he needed to right now, all right...

Harry's lamp seemed to grow dimmer as the cold gray light that precedes sunrise
slowly crept into the room. Finally, when the sun had risen, when his bedroom
walls had turned gold, and when sounds of movement could be heard from Uncle
Vernon and Aunt Petunia's room, Harry cleared his desk of crumpled pieces of
parchment and reread his finished letter.

Dear Sirius,

Thanks for your last letter. That bird was enormous; it could hardly get through
my window. Things are the same as usual here. Dudley's diet isn't going too well.
My aunt found him smuggling doughnuts into his room yesterday. They told him
they'd have to cut his pocket money if he keeps doing it, so he got really angry and
chucked his PlayStation out of the window. That's a sort of computer thing you

16

 

can play games on. Bit stupid really, now he hasn't even got Mega-Mutilation Part
Three to take his mind off things.
I'm okay, mainly because the Dursleys are terrified you might turn up and turn
them all into bats if I ask you to.
A weird thing happened this morning, though. My scar hurt again. Last time that
happened it was because Voldemort was at Hogwarts. But I don't reckon he can be
anywhere near me now, can he? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt years
afterward?
I'll send this with Hedwig when she gets back; she's off hunting at the moment.
Say hello to Buckbeak for me. Harry
Yes, thought Harry, that looked all right. There was no point putting in the dream;
he didn't want it to look as though he was too worried. He folded up the parchment
and laid it aside on his desk, ready for when Hedwig returned. Then he got to his
feet, stretched, and opened his wardrobe once more. Without glancing at his
reflection he started to get dressed before going down to breakfast.

17

 

CHAPTER THREE - THE INVITATION

By the time Harry arrived in the kitchen, the three Dursleys were already seated
around the table. None of them looked up as he entered or sat down. Uncle
Vernon's large red face was hidden behind the morning's Daily Mail, and Aunt
Petunia was cutting a grapefruit into quarters, her lips pursed over her horselike
teeth.

Dudley looked furious and sulky, and somehow seemed to be taking up even more
space than usual. This was saying something, as he always took up an entire side
of the square table by himself. When Aunt Petunia put a quarter of unsweetened
grapefruit onto Dudley's plate with a tremulous "There you are, Diddy darling,"
Dudley glowered at her. His life had taken a most unpleasant turn since he had
come home for the summer with his end-of-year report.

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had managed to find excuses for his bad marks as
usual: Aunt Petunia always insisted that Dudley was a very gifted boy whose
teachers didn't understand him, while Uncle Vernon maintained that "he didn't
want some swotty little nancy boy for a son anyway." They also skated over the
accusations of bullying in the report - "He's a boisterous little boy, but he wouldn't
hurt a fly!" Aunt Petunia had said tearfully.

However, at the bottom of the report there were a few well-chosen comments from
the school nurse that not even Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia could explain
away. No matter how much Aunt Petunia wailed that Dudley was big-boned, and
that his poundage was really puppy fat, and that he was a growing boy who needed
plenty of food, the fact remained that the school outfitters didn't stock
knickerbockers big enough for him anymore. The school nurse had seen what
Aunt Petunia's eyes - so sharp when it came to spotting fingerprints on her
gleaming walls, and in observing the comings and goings of the neighbors -
simply refused to see: that far from needing extra nourishment, Dudley had
reached roughly the size and weight of a young killer whale.

So - after many tantrums, after arguments that shook Harry's bedroom floor, and
many tears from Aunt Petunia - the new regime had begun. The diet sheet that had
been sent by the Smeltings school nurse had been taped to the fridge, which had
been emptied of all Dudley's favorite things - fizzy drinks and cakes, chocolate
bars and burgers and filled instead with fruit and vegetables and the sorts of things
that Uncle Vernon called "rabbit food." To make Dudley feel better about it all,
Aunt Petunia had insisted that the whole family follow the diet too. She now
passed a grapefruit quarter to Harry. He noticed that it was a lot smaller than
Dudley's. Aunt Petunia seemed to feet that the best way to keep up Dudley's
morale was to make sure that he did, at least, get more to eat than Harry.

But Aunt Petunia didn't know what was hidden under the loose floorboard
upstairs. She had no idea that Harry was not following the diet at all. The moment
he had got wind of the fact that he was expected to survive the summer on carrot

18

 

sticks, Harry had sent Hedwig to his friends with pleas for help, and they had risen
to the occasion magnificently. Hedwig had returned from Hermione's house with a
large box stuffed full of sugar-free snacks. (Hermione's parents were dentists.)
Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had obliged with a sack full of his own
homemade rock cakes. (Harry hadn't touched these; he had had too much
experience of Hagrid's cooking.) Mrs. Weasley, however, had sent the family owl,
Errol, with an enormous fruitcake and assorted meat pies. Poor Errol, who was
elderly and feeble, had needed a full five days to recover from the journey. And
then on Harry's birthday (which the Dursleys had completely ignored) he had
received four superb birthday cakes, one each from Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, and
Sirius. Harry still had two of them left, and so, looking forward to a real breakfast
when he got back upstairs, he ate his grapefruit without complaint.

Uncle Vernon laid aside his paper with a deep sniff of disapproval and looked
down at his own grapefruit quarter.

"Is this it?" he said grumpily to Aunt Petunia.

Aunt Petunia gave him a severe look, and then nodded pointedly at Dudley, who
had already finished his own grapefruit quarter and was eyeing Harry's with a very
sour look in his piggy little eyes.

Uncle Vernon gave a great sigh, which ruffled his large, bushy mustache, and
picked up his spoon.

The doorbell rang. Uncle Vernon heaved himself out of his chair and set off down
the hall. Quick as a flash, while his mother was occupied with the kettle, Dudley
stole the rest of Uncle Vernon's grapefruit.

Harry heard talking at the door, and someone laughing, and Uncle Vernon
answering curtly. Then the front door closed, and the sound of ripping paper came
from the hall.

Aunt Petunia set the teapot down on the table and looked curiously around to see
where Uncle Vernon had got to. She didn't have to wait long to find out; after
about a minute, he was back. He looked livid.

"You," he barked at Harry. "In the living room. Now."

Bewildered, wondering what on earth he was supposed to have done this time,
Harry got up and followed Uncle Vernon out of the kitchen and into the next
room. Uncle Vernon closed the door sharply behind both of them.

"So," he said, marching over to the fireplace and turning to face Harry as though
he were about to pronounce him under arrest. "So."

Harry would have dearly loved to have said, "So what?" but he didn't feel that
Uncle Vernon's temper should be tested this early in the morning, especially when
it was already under severe strain from lack of food. He therefore settled for

19

 

looking politely puzzled.

"This just arrived," said Uncle Vernon. He brandished a piece of purple writing
paper at Harry. "A letter. About you."

Harry's confusion increased. Who would be writing to Uncle Vernon about him?
Who did he know who sent letters by the postman?

Uncle Vernon glared at Harry, then looked down at the letter and began to read
aloud:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dursley,

We have never been introduced, but I am sure you have heard a great deal from
Harry about my son Ron.

As Harry might have told you, the final of the Quidditch World Cup takes place
this Monday night, and my husband, Arthur, has just managed to get prime tickets
through his connections at the Department of Magical Games and Sports.

I do hope you will allow us to take Harry to the match, as this really is a once-in-a-
lifetime opportunity; Britain hasn't hosted the cup for thirty years, and tickets are
extremely hard to come by. We would of course be glad to have Harry stay for the
remainder of the summer holidays, and to see him safely onto the train back to
school.

It would be best for Harry to send us your answer as quickly as possible in the
normal way, because the Muggle postman has never delivered to our house, and I
am not sure he even knows where it is.

Hoping to see Harry soon,

Yours sincerely,

Molly Weasley

P.S. I do hope we've put enough stamps on.

Uncle Vernon finished reading, put his hand back into his breast pocket, and drew
out something else.

"Look at this," he growled.

He held up the envelope in which Mrs. Weasley's letter had come, and Harry had
to fight down a laugh. Every bit of it was covered in stamps except for a square
inch on the front, into which Mrs. Weasley had squeezed the Dursleys' address in
minute writing.

"She did put enough stamps on, then," said Harry, trying to sound as though Mrs.
Weasley's was a mistake anyone could make. His uncle's eyes flashed.

20

 

"The postman noticed," he said through gritted teeth. "Very interested to know
where this letter came from, he was. That's why he rang the doorbell. Seemed to
think it was funny."

Harry didn't say anything. Other people might not understand why Uncle Vernon
was making a fuss about too many stamps, but Harry had lived with the Dursleys
too long not to know how touchy they were about anything even slightly out of the
ordinary. Their worst fear was that someone would find out that they were
connected (however distantly) with people like Mrs. Weasley.

Uncle Vernon was still glaring at Harry, who tried to keep his expression neutral.
If he didn't do or say anything stupid, he might just be in for the treat of a lifetime.
He waited for Uncle Vernon to say something, but he merely continued to glare.
Harry decided to break the silence.

"So - can I go then?" he asked.

A slight spasm crossed Uncle Vernon's large purple face. The mustache bristled.
Harry thought he knew what was going on behind the mustache: a furious battle as
two of Uncle Vernon's most fundamental instincts came into conflict. Allowing
Harry to go would make Harry happy, something Uncle Vernon had struggled
against for thirteen years. On the other hand, allowing Harry to disappear to the
Weasleys' for the rest of the summer would get rid of him two weeks earlier than
anyone could have hoped, and Uncle Vernon hated having Harry in the house. To
give himself thinking time, it seemed, he looked down at Mrs. Weasley's letter
again.

"Who is this woman?" he said, staring at the signature with distaste.

"You've seen her," said Harry. "She's my friend Ron's mother, she was meeting
him off the Hog - off the school train at the end of last term."

He had almost said "Hogwarts Express," and that was a sure way to get his uncle's
temper up. Nobody ever mentioned the name of Harry's school aloud in the
Dursley household.

Uncle Vernon screwed up his enormous face as though trying to remember
something very unpleasant.

"Dumpy sort of woman?" he growled finally. "Load of children with red hair?"

Harry frowned. He thought it was a bit rich of Uncle Vernon to call anyone
"dumpy," when his own son, Dudley, had finally achieved what he'd been
threatening to do since the age of three, and become wider than he was tall.

Uncle Vernon was perusing the letter again.

"Quidditch," he muttered under his breath. "Quidditch - what is this rubbish?"

Harry felt a second stab of annoyance.

21

 

"It's a sport," he said shortly. "Played on broom- "

"All right, all right!" said Uncle Vernon loudly. Harry saw, with some satisfaction,
that his uncle looked vaguely panicky. Apparently his nerves couldn't stand the
sound of the word "broomsticks" in his living room. He took refuge in perusing
the letter again. Harry saw his lips form the words "send us your answer ... in the
normal way." He scowled.

"What does she mean, 'the normal way'?" he spat.

"Normal for us," said Harry, and before his uncle could stop him, he added, "you
know, owl post. That's what's normal for wizards."

Uncle Vernon looked as outraged as if Harry had just uttered a disgusting
swearword. Shaking with anger, he shot a nervous look through the window, as
though expecting to see some of the neighbors with their ears pressed against the
glass.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to mention that unnaturalness under my
roof?" he hissed, his face now a rich plum color. "You stand there, in the clothes
Petunia and I have put on your ungrateful back -"

"Only after Dudley finished with them," said Harry coldly, and indeed, he was
dressed in a sweatshirt so large for him that he had had to roll back the sleeves five
times so as to be able to use his hands, and which fell past the knees of his
extremely baggy jeans.

"I will not be spoken to like that!" said Uncle Vernon, trembling with rage.

But Harry wasn't going to stand for this. Gone were the days when he had been
forced to take every single one of the Dursleys' stupid rules. He wasn't following
Dudley's diet, and he wasn't going to let Uncle Vernon stop him from going to the
Quidditch World Cup, not if he could help it. Harry took a deep, steadying breath
and then said, "Okay, I can't see the World Cup. Can I go now, then? Only I've got
a letter to Sirius I want to finish. You know - my godfather."

He had done it, he had said the magic words. Now he watched the purple recede
blotchily from Uncle Vernon's face, making it look like badly mixed black currant
ice cream.

"You're - you're writing to him, are you?" said Uncle Vernon, in a would-be calm
voice - but Harry had seen the pupils of his tiny eyes contract with sudden fear.

"Well - yeah," said Harry, casually. "It's been a while since he heard from me, and,
you know, if he doesn't he might start thinking something's wrong."

He stopped there to enjoy the effect of these words. He could almost see the cogs
working under Uncle Vernon's thick, dark, neatly parted hair. If he tried to stop
Harry writing to Sirius, Sirius would think Harry was being mistreated. If he told
Harry he couldn't go to the Quidditch World Cup, Harry would write and tell

22

 

Sirius, who would know Harry was being mistreated. There was only one thing for
Uncle Vernon to do. Harry could see the conclusion forming in his uncle's mind as
though the great mustached face were transparent. Harry tried not to smile, to keep
his own face as blank as possible. And then -

"Well, all right then. You can go to this ruddy ... this stupid ... this World Cup
thing. You write and tell these - these Weasleys they're to pick you up, mind. I
haven't got time to go dropping you off all over the country. And you can spend
the rest of the summer there. And you can tell your - your godfather ... tell him ...
tell him you're going."

"Okay then," said Harry brightly.

He turned and walked toward the living room door, fighting the urge to jump into
the air and whoop. He was going ... he was going to the Weasleys', he was going
to watch the Quidditch World Cup!

Outside in the hall he nearly ran into Dudley, who had been lurking behind the
door, clearly hoping to overhear Harry being told off. He looked shocked to see
the broad grin on Harry's face.

"That was an excellent breakfast, wasn't it?" said Harry. "I feel really full, don't
you?"

Laughing at the astonished look on Dudley's face, Harry took the stairs three at a
time, and hurled himself back into his bedroom.

The first thing he saw was that Hedwig was back. She was sitting in her cage,
staring at Harry with her enormous amber eyes, and clicking her beak in the way
that meant she was annoyed about something. Exactly what was annoying her
became apparent almost at once.

"OUCH!" said Harry as what appeared to be a small, gray, feathery tennis ball
collided with the side of his head. Harry massaged the spot furiously, looking up
to see what had hit him, and saw a minute owl, small enough to fit into the palm of
his hand, whizzing excitedly around the room like a loose firework. Harry then
realized that the owl had dropped a letter at his feet. Harry bent down, recognized
Ron's handwriting, then tore open the envelope. Inside was a hastily scribbled
note.

Harry - DAD GOT THE TICKETS - Ireland versus Bulgaria, Monday night.
Mum's writing to the Muggles to ask you to stay. They might already have the
letter, I don't know how fast Muggle post is. Thought I'd send this with Pig
anyway.

Harry stared at the word "Pig," then looked up at the tiny owl now zooming
around the light fixture on the ceiling. He had never seen anything that looked less
like a pig. Maybe he couldn't read Ron's writing. He went back to the letter:

23

 

We're coming for you whether the Muggles like it or not, you can't miss the World
Cup, only Mum and Dad reckon it's better if we pretend to ask their permission
first. If they say yes, send Pig back with your answer pronto, and we'll come and
get you at five o'clock on Sunday. If they say no, send Pig back pronto and we'll
come and get you at five o'clock on Sunday anyway.

Hermione's arriving this afternoon. Percy's started work - the Department of
International Magical Cooperation. Don't mention anything about Abroad while
you're here unless you want the pants bored off you.

See you soon - Ron

"Calm down!" Harry said as the small owl flew low over his head, twittering
madly with what Harry could only assume was pride at having delivered the letter
to the right person. "Come here, I need you to take my answer back!"

The owl fluttered down on top of Hedwig's cage. Hedwig looked coldly up at it, as
though daring it to try and come any closer.

Harry seized his eagle-feather quill once more, grabbed a fresh piece of
parchment, and wrote:

Ron, it's all okay, the Muggles say I can come. See you five o'clock tomorrow.
Can't wait. Harry

He folded this note up very small, and with immense difficulty, tied it to the tiny
owl's leg as it hopped on the spot with excitement. The moment the note was
secure, the owl was off again; it zoomed out of the window and out of sight.

Harry turned to Hedwig.

"Feeling up to a long journey?" he asked her.

Hedwig hooted in a dignified sort of a way.

"Can you take this to Sirius for me?" he said, picking up his letter. "Hang on ... I
just want to finish it."

He unfolded the parchment and hastily added a postscript.

If you want to contact me, I'll be at my friend Ron Weasley's for the rest of the
summer. His dad's got us tickets for the Quidditch World Cup!

The letter finished, he tied it to Hedwig's leg; she kept unusually still, as though
determined to show him how a real post owl should behave.

"I'll be at Ron's when you get back, all right?" Harry told her.

She nipped his finger affectionately, then, with a soft swooshing noise, spread her
enormous wings and soared out of the open window.

24

 

Harry watched her out of sight, then crawled under his bed, wrenched up the loose
floorboard, and pulled out a large chunk of birthday cake. He sat there on the floor
eating it, savoring the happiness that was flooding through him. He had cake, and
Dudley had nothing but grapefruit; it was a bright summer's day, he would be
leaving Privet Drive tomorrow, his scar felt perfectly normal again, and he was
going to watch the Quidditch World Cup. It was hard, just now, to feel worried
about anything - even Lord Voldemort.

25

 

CHAPTER FOUR - BACK TO THE BURROW

By twelve o'clock the next day, Harry's school trunk was packed with his school
things and all his most prized possessions - the Invisibility Cloak he had inherited
from his father, the broomstick he had gotten from Sirius, the enchanted map of
Hogwarts he had been given by Fred and George Weasley last year. He had
emptied his hiding place under the loose floorboard of all food, double-checked
every nook and cranny of his bedroom for forgotten spellbooks or quills, and taken
down the chart on the wall counting down the days to September the first, on
which he liked to cross off the days remaining until his return to Hogwarts.

The atmosphere inside number four, Privet Drive was extremely tense. The
imminent arrival at their house of an assortment of wizards was making the
Dursleys uptight and irritable. Uncle Vernon had looked downright alarmed when
Harry informed him that the Weasleys would be arriving at five o'clock the very
next day.

"I hope you told them to dress properly, these people," he snarled at once. "I've
seen the sort of stuff your lot wear. They'd better have the decency to put on
normal clothes, that's all."

Harry felt a slight sense of foreboding. He had rarely seen Mr. or Mrs. Weasley
wearing anything that the Dursleys would call "normal." Their children might don
Muggle clothing during the holidays, but Mr. and Mrs. Weasley usually wore long
robes in varying states of shabbiness. Harry wasn't bothered about what the
neighbors would think, but he was anxious about how rude the Dursleys might be
to the Weasleys if they turned up looking like their worst idea of wizards.

Uncle Vernon had put on his best suit. To some people, this might have looked
like a gesture of welcome, but Harry knew it was because Uncle Vernon wanted to
look impressive and intimidating. Dudley, on the other hand, looked somehow
diminished. This was not because the diet was at last taking effect, but due to
fright. Dudley had emerged from his last encounter with a fully grown wizard with
a curly pig's tail poking out of the seat of his trousers, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle
Vernon had had to pay for its removal at a private hospital in London. It wasn't
altogether surprising, therefore, that Dudley kept running his hand nervously over
his backside, and walking sideways from room to room, so as not to present the
same target to the enemy.

Lunch was an almost silent meal. Dudley didn't even protest at the food (cottage
cheese and grated celery). Aunt Petunia wasn't, eating anything at all. Her arms
were folded, her lips were pursed, and she seemed to be chewing her tongue, as
though biting back the furious diatribe she longed to throw at Harry.

"They'll be driving, of course?" Uncle Vernon barked across the table.

26

 

"Er," said Harry.

He hadn't thought of that. How were the Weasleys going to pick him up? They
didn't have a car anymore; the old Ford Anglia they had once owned was currently
running wild in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts. But Mr. Weasley had borrowed
a Ministry of Magic car last year; possibly he would do the same today?

"I think so," said Harry.

Uncle Vernon snorted into his mustache. Normally, Uncle Vernon would have
asked what car Mr. Weasley drove; he tended to judge other men by how big and
expensive their cars were. But Harry doubted whether Uncle Vernon would have
taken to Mr. Weasley even if he drove a Ferrari.

Harry spent most of the afternoon in his bedroom; he couldn't stand watching Aunt
Petunia peer out through the net curtains every few seconds, as though there had
been a warning about an escaped rhinoceros. Finally, at a quarter to five, Harry
went back downstairs and into the living room.

Aunt Petunia was compulsively straightening cushions. Uncle Vernon was
pretending to read the paper, but his tiny eyes were not moving, and Harry was
sure he was really listening with all his might for the sound of an approaching car.
Dudley was crammed into an armchair, his porky hands beneath him, clamped
firmly around his bottom. Harry couldn't take the tension; he left the room and
went and sat on the stairs in the hall, his eyes on his watch and his heart pumping
fast from excitement and nerves.

But five o'clock came and then went. Uncle Vernon, perspiring slightly in his suit,
opened the front door, peered up and down the street, then withdrew his head
quickly.

"They're late!" he snarled at Harry.

I know," said Harry. "Maybe - er - the traffic's bad, or something."

Ten past five ... then a quarter past five ... Harry was starting to feel anxious
himself now. At half past, he heard Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia conversing in
terse mutters in the living room.

"No consideration at all."

"We might've had an engagement."

"Maybe they think they'll get invited to dinner if they're late."

"Well, they most certainly won't be," said Uncle Vernon, and Harry heard him
stand up and start pacing the living room. "They'll take the boy and go, there'll be
no hanging around. That's if they're coming at all. Probably mistaken the day. I
daresay their kind don't set much store by punctuality. Either that or they drive
some tin-pot car that's broken d- AAAAAAAARRRRRGH!"

27

 

Harry jumped up. From the other side of the living room door came the sounds of
the three Dursleys scrambling, panic-stricken, across the room. Next moment
Dudley came flying into the hall, looking terrified.

"What happened?" said Harry. "What's the matter?"

But Dudley didn't seem able to speak. Hands still clamped over his buttocks, he
waddled as fast as he could into the kitchen. Harry hurried into the living room.

Loud bangings and scrapings were coming from behind the Dursleys' boarded-up
fireplace, which had a fake coal fire plugged in front of it.

"What is it?" gasped Aunt Petunia, who had backed into the wall and was staring,
terrified, toward the fire. "What is it, Vernon?"

But they were left in doubt barely a second longer. Voices could be heard from
inside the blocked fireplace.

"Ouch! Fred, no - go back, go back, there's been some kind of mistake - tell
George not to - OUCH! George, no, there's no room, go back quickly and tell Ron-
"

"Maybe Harry can hear us, Dad - maybe he'll be able to let us out-"

There was a loud hammering of fists on the boards behind the electric fire.

"Harry? Harry, can you hear us?"

The Dursleys rounded on Harry like a pair of angry wolverines.

"What is this?" growled Uncle Vernon. "What's going on?"

"They - they've tried to get here by Floo powder," said Harry, fighting a mad
desire to laugh. "They can travel by fire - only you've blocked the fireplace - hang
on -"

He approached the fireplace and called through the boards.

"Mr. Weasley? Can you hear me?"

The hammering stopped. Somebody inside the chimney piece said, "Shh!"

"Mr. Weasley, it's Harry ... the fireplace has been blocked up. You won't be able to
get through there."

"Damn!" said Mr. Weasley's voice. "What on earth did they want to block up the
fireplace for?"

"They've got an electric fire," Harry explained.

"Really?" said Mr. Weasley's voice excitedly. "Eclectic, you say? With a plug?
Gracious, I must see that.... Let's think ... ouch, Ron!"

28

 

Ron's voice now joined the others'.

"What are we doing here? Has something gone wrong?"

"Oh no, Ron," came Fred's voice, very sarcastically. "No, this is exactly where we
wanted to end up."

"Yeah, we're having the time of our lives here," said George, whose voice sounded
muffled, as though he was squashed against the wall.

"Boys, boys. . ." said Mr. Weasley vaguely. "I'm trying to think what to do.... Yes
... only way. . . Stand back, Harry."

Harry retreated to the sofa. Uncle Vernon, however, moved forward.

"Wait a moment!" he bellowed at the fire. "What exactly are you going to -"

BANG.

The electric fire shot across the room as the boarded-up fireplace burst outward,
expelling Mr. Weasley, Fred, George, and Ron in a cloud of rubble and loose
chippings. Aunt Petunia shrieked and fell backward over the coffee table; Uncle
Vernon caught her before she hit the floor, and gaped, speechless, at the Weasleys,
all of whom had bright red hair, including Fred and George, who were identical to
the last freckle.

"That's better," panted Mr. Weasley, brushing dust from his long green robes and
straightening his glasses. "Ah - you must be Harry's aunt and uncle!"

Tall, thin, and balding, he moved toward Uncle Vernon, his hand outstretched, but
Uncle Vernon backed away several paces, dragging Aunt Petunia. Words utterly
failed Uncle Vernon. His best suit was covered in white dust, which had settled in
his hair and mustache and made him look as though he had just aged thirty years.

"Er - yes - sorry about that," said Mr. Weasley, lowering his hand and looking
over his shoulder at the blasted fireplace. "It's all my fault. It just didn't occur to
me that we wouldn't be able to get out at the other end. I had your fireplace
connected to the Floo Network, you see - just for an afternoon, you know, so we
could get Harry. Muggle fireplaces aren't supposed to be connected, strictly
speaking - but I've got a useful contact at the Floo Regulation Panel and he fixed it
for me. I can put it right in a jiffy, though, don't worry. I'll light a fire to send the
boys back, and then I can repair your fireplace before I Disapparate."

Harry was ready to bet that the Dursleys hadn't understood a single word of this.
They were still gaping at Mr. Weasley, thunderstruck. Aunt Petunia staggered
upright again and hid behind Uncle Vernon.

"Hello, Harry!" said Mr. Weasley brightly. "Got your trunk ready?"

"It's upstairs," said Harry, grinning back.

29

 

"We'll get it," said Fred at once. Winking at Harry, he and George left the room.
They knew where Harry's bedroom was, having once rescued him from it in the
dead of night. Harry suspected that Fred and George were hoping for a glimpse of
Dudley; they had heard a lot about him from Harry.

"Well," said Mr. Weasley, swinging his arms slightly, while he tried to find words
to break the very nasty silence. "Very - erm - very nice place you've got here."

As the usually spotless living room was now covered in dust and bits of brick, this
remark didn't go down too well with the Dursleys. Uncle Vernon's face purpled
once more, and Aunt Petunia started chewing her tongue again. However, they
seemed too scared to actually say anything.

Mr. Weasley was looking around. He loved everything to do with Muggles. Harry
could see him itching to go and examine the television and the video recorder.

"They run off eckeltricity, do they?" he said knowledgeably. "Ah yes, I can see the
plugs. I collect plugs," he added to Uncle Vernon. "And batteries. Got a very large
collection of batteries. My wife thinks I'm mad, but there you are."

Uncle Vernon clearly thought Mr. Weasley was mad too. He moved ever so
slightly to the right, screening Aunt Petunia from view, as though he thought Mr.
Weasley might suddenly run at them and attack.

Dudley suddenly reappeared in the room. Harry could hear the clunk of his trunk
on the stairs, and knew that the sounds had scared Dudley out of the kitchen.
Dudley edged along the wall, gazing at Mr. Weasley with terrified eyes, and
attempted to conceal himself behind his mother and father. Unfortunately, Uncle
Vernon's bulk, while sufficient to hide bony Aunt Petunia, was nowhere near
enough to conceal Dudley.

"Ah, this is your cousin, is it, Harry?" said Mr. Weasley, taking another brave stab
at making conversation.

"Yep," said Harry, "that's Dudley."

He and Ron exchanged glances and then quickly looked away from each other; the
temptation to burst out laughing was almost overwhelming. Dudley was still
clutching his bottom as though afraid it might fall off. Mr. Weasley, however,
seemed genuinely concerned at Dudley's peculiar behavior. Indeed, from the tone
of his voice when he next spoke, Harry was quite sure that Mr. Weasley thought
Dudley was quite as mad as the Dursleys thought he was, except that Mr. Weasley
felt sympathy rather than fear.

"Having a good holiday, Dudley?" he said kindly.

Dudley whimpered. Harry saw his hands tighten still harder over his massive
backside.

Fred and George came back into the room carrying Harry's school trunk. They

30

 

glanced around as they entered and spotted Dudley. Their faces cracked into
identical evil grins.

"Ah, right," said Mr. Weasley. "Better get cracking then."

He pushed up the sleeves of his robes and took out his wand. Harry saw the
Dursleys draw back against the wall as one.

"Incendio!" said Mr. Weasley, pointing his wand at the hole in the wall behind
him.

Flames rose at once in the fireplace, crackling merrily as though they had been
burning for hours. Mr. Weasley took a small drawstring bag from his pocket,
untied it, took a pinch of the powder inside, and threw it onto the flames, which
turned emerald green and roared higher than ever.

"Off you go then, Fred," said Mr. Weasley.

"Coming," said Fred. "Oh no - hang on -"

A bag of sweets had spilled out of Fred's pocket and the contents were now rolling
in every direction - big, fat toffees in brightly colored wrappers.

Fred scrambled around, cramming them back into his pocket, then gave the
Dursleys a cheery wave, stepped forward, and walked right into the fire, saying
"the Burrow!" Aunt Petunia gave a little shuddering gasp. There was a whooshing
sound, and Fred vanished.

"Right then, George," said Mr. Weasley, "you and the trunk."

Harry helped George carry the trunk forward into the flames and turn it onto its
end so that he could hold it better. Then, with a second whoosh, George had cried
"the Burrow!" and vanished too.

"Ron, you next," said Mr. Weasley.

"See you," said Ron brightly to the Dursleys. He grinned broadly at Harry, then
stepped into the fire, shouted "the Burrow!" and disappeared.

Now Harry and Mr. Weasley alone remained.

"Well . . . 'bye then," Harry said to the Dursleys.

They didn't say anything at all. Harry moved toward the fire, but just as he reached
the edge of the hearth, Mr. Weasley put out a hand and held him back. He was
looking at the Dursleys in amazement.

"Harry said good-bye to you," he said. "Didn't you hear him?"

"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.

31

 

"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?"

Uncle Vernon's face worked furiously. The idea of being taught consideration by a
man who had just blasted away half his living room wall seemed to be causing
him intense suffering. But Mr. Weasley's wand was still in his hand, and Uncle
Vernon's tiny eyes darted to it once, before he said, very resentfully, "Good-bye,
then."

"See you," said Harry, putting one foot forward into the green flames, which felt
pleasantly like warm breath. At that moment, however, a horrible gagging sound
erupted behind him, and Aunt Petunia started to scream.

Harry wheeled around. Dudley was no longer standing behind his parents. He was
kneeling beside the coffee table, and he was gagging and sputtering on a foot-long,
purple, slimy thing that was protruding from his mouth. One bewildered second
later, Harry realized that the foot-long thing was Dudley's tongue - and that a
brightly colored toffee wrapper lay on the floor before him.

Aunt Petunia hurled herself onto the ground beside Dudley, seized the end of his
swollen tongue, and attempted to wrench it out of his mouth; unsurprisingly,
Dudley yelled and sputtered worse than ever, trying to fight her off. Uncle Vernon
was bellowing and waving his arms around, and Mr. Weasley had to shout to
make himself heard.

"Not to worry, I can sort him out!" he yelled, advancing on Dudley with his wand
outstretched, but Aunt Petunia screamed worse than ever and threw herself on top
of Dudley, shielding him from Mr. Weasley.

"No, really!" said Mr. Weasley desperately. "It's a simple process it was the toffee
- my son Fred - real practical joker - but it's only an Engorgement Charm - at least,
I think it is - please, I can correct it -"

But far from being reassured, the Dursleys became more panic- stricken; Aunt
Petunia was sobbing hysterically, tugging Dudley's tongue as though determined
to rip it out; Dudley appeared to be suffocating under the combined pressure of his
mother and his tongue; and Uncle Vernon, who had lost control completely, seized
a china figure from on top of the sideboard and threw it very hard at Mr. Weasley,
who ducked, causing the ornament to shatter in the blasted fireplace.

"Now really!" said Mr. Weasley angrily, brandishing his wand. "I'm trying to
help!"

Bellowing like a wounded hippo, Uncle Vernon snatched up another ornament.

"Harry, go! Just go!" Mr. Weasley shouted, his wand on Uncle Vernon. "I'll sort
this out!"

Harry didn't want to miss the fun, but Uncle Vernon's second ornament narrowly

32

 

missed his left ear, and on balance he thought it best to leave the situation to Mr.
Weasley. He stepped into the fire, looking over his shoulder as he said "the
Burrow!" His last fleeting glimpse of the living room was of Mr. Weasley blasting
a third ornament out of Uncle Vernon's hand with his wand, Aunt Petunia
screaming and lying on top of Dudley, and Dudley's tongue lolling around like a
great slimy python. But next moment Harry had begun to spin very fast, and the
Dursleys' living room was whipped out of sight in a rush of emerald-green flames.

33

 

CHAPTER FIVE - WEASLEYS' WIZARD WHEEZES

Harry spun faster and faster, elbows tucked tightly to his sides, blurred fireplaces
flashing past him, until he started to feel sick and closed his eyes. Then, when at
last he felt himself slowing down, he threw out his hands and came to a halt in
time to prevent himself from falling face forward out of the Weasleys' kitchen fire.

"Did he eat it?" said Fred excitedly, holding out a hand to pull Harry to his fee

"Yeah," said Harry, straightening up. "What was it?"

"Ton-Tongue Toffee," said Fred brightly. "George and I invented them, and we've
been looking for someone to test them on all summer. . . ."

The tiny kitchen exploded with laughter; Harry looked around and saw that Ron
and George were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with two red-haired people
Harry had never seen before, though he knew immediately who they must be: Bill
and Charlie, the two eldest Weasley brothers.

"How're you doing, Harry?" said the nearer of the two, grinning at him and
holding out a large hand, which Harry shook, feeling calluses and blisters under
his fingers. This had to be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. Charlie
was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both
long and lanky. He had a broad, good-natured face, which was weather-beaten and
so freckly that he looked almost tanned; his arms were muscular, and one of them
had a large, shiny burn on it.

Bill got to his feet, smiling, and also shook Harry's hand. Bill came as something
of a surprise. Harry knew that he worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and
that Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts; Harry had always imagined Bill to be an
older version of Percy: fussy about rule-breaking and fond of bossing everyone
around. However, Bill was - there was no other word for it - cool. He was tall,
with long hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing an earring with
what looked like a fang dangling from it. Bill's clothes would not have looked out
of place at a rock concert, except that Harry recognized his boots to be made, not
of leather, but of dragon hide.

Before any of them could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise, and
Mr. Weasley appeared out of thin air at George's shoulder. He was looking angrier
than Harry had ever seen him.

"That wasn't funny Fred!" he shouted. "What on earth did you give that Muggle
boy?"

"I didn't give him anything," said Fred, with another evil grin. I just dropped it.... It
was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to."

34

 

"You dropped it on purpose!" roared Mr. Weasley. "You knew he'd eat it, you
knew he was on a diet -"

"How big did his tongue get?" George asked eagerly.

"It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!"

Harry and the Weasleys roared with laughter again.

"It isn't funny!" Mr. Weasley shouted. "That sort of behavior seriously undermines
wizard-Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the
mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons

"We didn't give it to him because he's a Muggle!" said Fred indignantly.

"No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git," said George. "Isn't he,
Harry?"

"Yeah, he is, Mr. Weasley," said Harry earnestly.

"That's not the point!" raged Mr. Weasley. "You wait until I tell your mother -"

"Tell me what?" said a voice behind them.

Mrs. Weasley had just entered the kitchen. She was a short, plump woman with a
very kind face, though her eyes were presently narrowed with suspicion.

"Oh hello, Harry, dear," she said, spotting him and smiling. Then her eyes snapped
back to her husband. "Tell me what, Arthur?"

Mr. Weasley hesitated. Harry could tell that, however angry he was with Fred and
George, he hadn't really intended to tell Mrs. Weasley what had happened. There
was a silence, while Mr. Weasley eyed his wife nervously. Then two girls
appeared in the kitchen doorway behind Mrs. Weasley. One, with very bushy
brown hair and rather large front teeth, was Harry's and Ron's friend, Hermione
Granger. The other, who was small and red-haired, was Ron's younger sister,
Ginny. Both of them smiled at Harry, who grinned back, which made Ginny go
scarlet - she had been very taken with Harry ever since his first visit to the
Burrow.

"Tell me what, Arthur?" Mrs. Weasley repeated, in a dangerous sort of voice.

"It's nothing, Molly," mumbled Mr. Weasley, "Fred and George just - but I've had
words with them -"

"What have they done this time?" said Mrs. Weasley. "If it's got anything to do
with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes -"

"Why don't you show Harry where he's sleeping, Ron?" said Hermione from the
doorway.

35

 

"He knows where he's sleeping," said Ron, "in my room, he slept there last -"

"We can all go," said Hermione pointedly.

"Oh," said Ron, cottoning on. "Right."

"Yeah, we'll come too," said George.

"You stay where you are!" snarled Mrs. Weasley.

Harry and Ron edged out of the kitchen, and they, Hermione, and Ginny set off
along the narrow hallway and up the rickety staircase that zigzagged through the
house to the upper stories.

"What are Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?" Harry asked as they climbed.

Ron and Ginny both laughed, although Hermione didn't.

"Mum found this stack of order forms when she was cleaning Fred and George's
room," said Ron quietly. "Great long price lists for stuff they've invented. Joke
stuff, you know. Fake wands and trick sweets, loads of stuff. It was brilliant, I
never knew they'd been inventing all that . . ."

"We've been hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought
they were actually making things," said Ginny. "We thought they just liked the
noise."

"Only, most of the stuff - well, all of it, really - was a bit dangerous," said Ron,
"and, you know, they were planning to sell it at Hogwarts to make some money,
and Mum went mad at them. Told them they weren't allowed to make any more of
it, and burned all the order forms.... She's furious at them anyway. They didn't get
as many O.W.L.s as she expected."

O.W.L.s were Ordinary Wizarding Levels, the examinations Hogwarts students
took at the age of fifteen.

"And then there was this big row," Ginny said, "because Mum wants them to go
into the Ministry of Magic like Dad, and they told her all they want to do is open a
joke shop."

Just then a door on the second landing opened, and a face poked out wearing horn-
rimmed glasses and a very annoyed expression.

"Hi, Percy," said Harry.

"Oh hello, Harry," said Percy. "I was wondering who was making all the noise.
I'm trying to work in here, you know I've got a report to finish for the office - and
it's rather difficult to concentrate when people keep thundering up and down the
stairs."

"We're not thundering, "said Ron irritably. "We're walking. Sorry if we've

36

 

disturbed the top-secret workings of the Ministry of Magic."

"What are you working on?" said Harry.

"A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," said Percy
smugly. "We're trying to standardize cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign
imports are just a shade too thin - leakages have been increasing at a rate of almost
three percent a year -"

"That'll change the world, that report will," said Ron. "Front page of the Daily
Prophet, I expect, cauldron leaks."

Percy went slightly pink.

"You might sneer, Ron," he said heatedly, "but unless some sort of international
law is imposed we might well find the market flooded with flimsy, shallow-
bottomed products that seriously endanger -"

"Yeah, yeah, all right," said Ron, and he started off upstairs again. Percy slammed
his bedroom door shut. As Harry, Hermione, and Ginny followed Ron up three
more flights of stairs, shouts from the kitchen below echoed up to them. It sounded
as though Mr. Weasley had told Mrs. Weasley about the toffees.

The room at the top of the house where Ron slept looked much as it had the last
time that Harry had come to stay: the same posters of Ron's favorite Quidditch
team, the Chudley Cannons, were whirling and waving on the walls and sloping
ceiling, and the fish tank on the windowsill, which had previously held frog
spawn, now contained one extremely large frog. Ron's old rat, Scabbers, was here
no more, but instead there was the tiny gray owl that had delivered Ron's letter to
Harry in Privet Drive. It was hopping up and down in a small cage and twittering
madly.

"Shut up, Pig," said Ron, edging his way between two of the four beds that had
been squeezed into the room. "Fred and George are in here with us, because Bill
and Charlie are in their room," he told Harry. "Percy gets to keep his room all to
himself because he's got to work."

"Er - why are you calling that owl Pig?" Harry asked Ron.

"Because he's being stupid," said Ginny, "Its proper name is Pigwidgeon."

"Yeah, and that's not a stupid name at all," said Ron sarcastically. "Ginny named
him," he explained to Harry. "She reckons it's sweet. And I tried to change it, but it
was too late, he won't answer to anything else. So now he's Pig. I've got to keep
him up here because he annoys Errol and Hermes. He annoys me too, come to
that.

Pigwidgeon zoomed happily around his cage, hooting shrilly. Harry knew Ron too
well to take him seriously. He had moaned continually about his old rat, Scabbers,
but had been most upset when Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, appeared to have

37

 

eaten him.

"Where's Crookshanks?" Harry asked Hermione now.

"Out in the garden, I expect," she said. "He likes chasing gnomes. He's never seen
any before."

"Percy's enjoying work, then?" said Harry, sitting down on one of the beds and
watching the Chudley Cannons zooming in and out of the posters on the ceiling.

"Enjoying it?" said Ron darkly. "I don't reckon he'd come home if Dad didn't make
him. He's obsessed. Just don't get him onto the subject of his boss. According to
Mr. Crouch ... as I was saying to Mr. Crouch ... Mr. Crouch is of the opinion ...
Mr. Crouch was telling me ... They'll be announcing their engagement any day
now."

"Have you had a good summer, Harry?" said Hermione. "Did you get our food
parcels and everything?"

"Yeah, thanks a lot, " said Harry. "They saved my life, those cakes.

"And have you heard from -?" Ron began, but at a look from Hermione he fell
silent. Harry knew Ron had been about to ask about Sirius. Ron and Hermione had
been so deeply involved in helping Sirius escape from the Ministry of Magic that
they were almost as concerned about Harry's godfather as he was. However,
discussing him in front of Ginny was a bad idea. Nobody but themselves and
Professor Dumbledore knew about how Sirius had escaped, or believed in his
innocence.

"I think they've stopped arguing," said Hermione, to cover the awkward moment,
because Ginny was looking curiously from Ron to Harry. "Shall we go down and
help your mum with dinner?"

"Yeah, all right," said Ron. The four of them left Ron's room and went back
downstairs to find Mrs. Weasley alone in the kitchen, looking extremely bad-
tempered.

"We're eating out in the garden," she said when they came in. "There's just not
room for eleven people in here. Could you take the plates outside, girls? Bill and
Charlie are setting up the tables. Knives and forks, please, you two," she said to
Ron and Harry, pointing her wand a little more vigorously than she had intended
at a pile of potatoes in the sink, which shot out of their skins so fast that they
ricocheted off the walls and ceiling.

"Oh for heaven's sake," she snapped, now directing her wand at a dustpan, which
hopped off the sideboard and started skating across the floor, scooping up the
potatoes. "Those two!" she burst out savagely, now pulling pots and pans out of a
cupboard, and Harry knew she meant Fred and George. I don't know what's going
to happen to them, I really don't. No ambition, unless you count making as much

38

 

trouble as they possibly can...."

Mrs. Weasley slammed a large copper saucepan down on the kitchen table and
began to wave her wand around inside it. A creamy sauce poured from the wand
tip as she stirred.

"It's not as though they haven't got brains, she continued irritably, taking the
saucepan over to the stove and lighting it with a further poke of her wand, "but
they're wasting them, and unless they pull themselves together soon, they'll be in
real trouble. I've had more owls from Hogwarts about them than the rest put
together. If they carry on the way they're going, they'll end up in front of the
Improper Use of Magic Office."

Mrs. Weasley jabbed her wand at the cutlery drawer, which shot open. Harry and
Ron both jumped out of the way as several knives soared out of it, flew across the
kitchen, and began chopping the potatoes, which had just been tipped back into the
sink by the dustpan.

"I don't know where we went wrong with them," said Mrs. Weasley, putting down
her wand and starting to pull out still more saucepans. "It's been the same for
years, one thing after another, and they won't listen to - OH NOT AGAIN!"

She had picked up her wand from the table, and it had emitted a loud squeak and
turned into a giant rubber mouse.

"One of their fake wands again!" she shouted. "How many times have I told them
not to leave them lying around?"

She grabbed her real wand and turned around to find that the sauce on the stove
was smoking.

"C'mon," Ron said hurriedly to Harry, seizing a handful of cutlery from the open
drawer, "let's go and help Bill and Charlie."

They left Mrs. Weasley and headed out the back door into the yard.

They had only gone a few paces when Hermione's bandy-legged ginger cat,
Crookshanks, came pelting out of the garden, bottle-brush tail held high in the air,
chasing what looked like a muddy potato on legs. Harry recognized it instantly as
a gnome. Barely ten inches high, its horny little feet pattered very fast as it
sprinted across the yard and dived headlong into one of the Wellington boots that
lay scattered around the door. Harry could hear the gnome giggling madly as
Crookshanks inserted a paw into the boot, trying to reach it. Meanwhile, a very
loud crashing noise was coming from the other side of the house. The source of
the commotion was revealed as they entered the garden, and saw that Bill and
Charlie both had their wands out, and were making two battered old tables fly high
above the lawn, smashing into each other, each attempting to knock the other's out
of the air. Fred and George were cheering, Ginny was laughing, and Hermione
was hovering near the hedge, apparently torn between amusement and anxiety.

39

 

Bill's table caught Charlie's with a huge bang and knocked one of its legs off.
There was a clatter from overhead, and they all looked up to see Percy's head
poking out of a window on the second floor.

"Will you keep it down?!" he bellowed.

"Sorry, Perce," said Bill, grinning. "How're the cauldron bottoms coming on?"

"Very badly," said Percy peevishly, and he slammed the window shut. Chuckling,
Bill and Charlie directed the tables safely onto the grass, end to end, and then, with
a flick of his wand, Bill reattached the table leg and conjured tablecloths from
nowhere.

By seven o'clock, the two tables were groaning under dishes and dishes of Mrs.
Weasley's excellent cooking, and the nine Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione were
settling themselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky. To somebody who
had been living on meals of increasingly stale cake all summer, this was paradise,
and at first, Harry listened rather than talked as he helped himself to chicken and
ham pie, boiled potatoes, and salad.

At the far end of the table, Percy was telling his father all about his report on
cauldron bottoms.

"I've told Mr. Crouch that I'll have it ready by Tuesday," Percy was saying
pompously. "That's a bit sooner than he expected it, but I like to keep on top of
things. I think he'll be grateful I've done it in good time, I mean, its extremely busy
in our department just now, what with all the arrangements for the World Cup.
We're just not getting the support we need from the Department of Magical Games
and Sports. Ludo Bagman -"

"I like Ludo," said Mr. Weasley mildly. "He was the one who got us such good
tickets for the Cup. I did him a bit of a favor: His brother, Otto, got into a spot of
trouble - a lawnmower with unnatural powers - I smoothed the whole thing over."

"Oh Bagman's likable enough, of course," said Percy dismissively, "but how he
ever got to be Head of Department ... when I compare him to Mr. Crouch! I can't
see Mr. Crouch losing a member of our department and not trying to find out
what's happened to them. You realize Bertha Jorkins has been missing for over a
month now? Went on holiday to Albania and never came back?"

"Yes, I was asking Ludo about that," said Mr. Weasley, frowning. "He says
Bertha's gotten lost plenty of times before now - though must say, if it was
someone in my department, I'd be worried. . . ."

"Oh Bertha's hopeless, all right," said Percy. "I hear she's been shunted from
department to department for years, much more trouble than she's worth ... but all
the same, Bagman ought to be trying to find her. Mr. Crouch has been taking a
personal interest, she worked in our department at one time, you know, and I think
Mr. Crouch was quite fond of her - but Bagman just keeps laughing and saying she

40

 

probably misread the map and ended up in Australia instead of Albania. However"
- Percy heaved an impressive sigh and took a deep swig of elderflower wine -
"we've got quite enough on our plates at the Department of International Magical
Cooperation without trying to find members of other departments too. As you
know, we've got another big event to organize right after the World Cup."

Percy cleared his throat significantly and looked down toward the end of the table
where Harry, Ron, and Hermione were sitting. "You know the one I'm talking
about, Father." He raised his voice slightly. "The top-secret one."

Ron rolled his eyes and muttered to Harry and Hermione, "He's been trying to get
us to ask what that event is ever since he started work. Probably an exhibition of
thick-bottomed cauldrons."

In the middle of the table, Mrs. Weasley was arguing with Bill about his earring,
which seemed to be a recent acquisition.

". . . with a horrible great fang on it. Really, Bill, what do they say at the bank?"

"Mum,.no one at the bank gives a damn how I dress as long as I bring home plenty
of treasure," said Bill patiently.

"And your hair's getting silly, dear," said Mrs. Weasley, fingering her wand
lovingly." I wish you'd let me give it a trim. . . ."

"I like it," said Ginny, who was sitting beside Bill. "You're so old-fashioned,
Mum. Anyway, it's nowhere near as long as Professor Dumbledore's...."

Next to Mrs. Weasley, Fred, George, and Charlie were all talking spiritedly about
the World Cup.

"It's got to be Ireland," said Charlie thickly, through a mouthful of potato. "They
flattened Peru in the semifinals."

"Bulgaria has got Viktor Krum, though," said Fred.

"Krum's one decent player, Ireland has got seven," said Charlie shortly. "I wish
England had got through. That was embarrassing, that was."

"What happened?" said Harry eagerly, regretting more than ever his isolation from
the wizarding world when he was stuck on Privet Drive.

"Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten," said Charlie
gloomily. "Shocking performance. And Wales lost to Uganda, and Scotland was
slaughtered by Luxembourg."

Harry had been on the Gryffindor House Quidditch team ever since his first year at
Hogwarts and owned one of the best racing brooms in the world, a Firebolt. Flying
came more naturally to Harry than anything else in the magical world, and he
played in the position of Seeker on the Gryffindor House team.

41

 

Mr. Weasley conjured up candles to light the darkening garden before they had
their homemade strawberry ice cream, and by the time they had finished, moths
were fluttering low over the table, and the warm air was perfumed with the smells
of grass and honeysuckle. Harry was feeling extremely well fed and at peace with
the world as he watched several gnomes sprinting through the rosebushes,
laughing madly and closely pursued by Crookshanks.
Ron looked carefully up the table to check that the rest of the family were all busy
talking, then he said very quietly to Harry, "So - have you heard from Sirius
lately?"
Hermione looked around, listening closely.
"Yeah," said Harry softly, "twice. He sounds okay. I wrote to him yesterday. He
might write back while I'm here."
He suddenly remembered the reason he had written to Sirius, and for a moment
was on the verge of telling Ron and Hermione about his scar hurting again, and
about the dream that had awoken him ... but he really didn't want to worry them
just now, not when he himself was feeling so happy and peaceful.
"Look at the time," Mrs. Weasley said suddenly, checking her wristwatch. "You
really should be in bed, the whole lot of you you'll be up at the crack of dawn to
get to the Cup. Harry, if you leave your school list out, I'll get your things for you
tomorrow in Diagon Alley. I'm getting everyone else's. There might not be time
after the World Cup, the match went on for five days last time."
"Wow - hope it does this time!" said Harry enthusiastically.
"Well, I certainly don't," said Percy sanctimoniously. "I shudder to think what the
state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days."
"Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?" said Fred.
"That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!" said Percy, going very red in the
face. "It was nothing personal!"
"It was," Fred whispered to Harry as they got up from the table. "We sent it."

42

 

CHAPTER SIX - THE PORTKEY

Harry felt as though he had barely lain down to steep in Ron's room when he was
being shaken awake by Mrs. Weasley.

"Time to go, Harry, dear," she whispered, moving away to wake Ron.

Harry felt around for his glasses, put them on, and sat up. It was still dark outside.
Ron muttered indistinctly as his mother roused him. At the foot of Harry's mattress
he saw two large, disheveled shapes emerging from tangles of blankets.

"'S' time already?" said Fred groggily.

They dressed in silence, too sleepy to talk, then, yawning and stretching, the four
of them headed downstairs into the kitchen.

Mrs. Weasley was stirring the contents of a large pot on the stove, while Mr.
Weasley was sitting at the table, checking a sheaf of large parchment tickets. He
looked up as the boys entered and spread his arms so that they could see his
clothes more clearly. He was wearing what appeared to be a golfing sweater and a
very old pair of jeans, slightly too big for him and held up with a thick leather belt.

"What d'you think?" he asked anxiously. "We're supposed to go incognito - do I
look like a Muggle, Harry?"

"Yeah," said Harry, smiling, "very good."

"Where're Bill and Charlie and Per-Per-Percy?" said George, failing to stifle a
huge yawn.

"Well, they're Apparating, aren't they?" said Mrs. Weasley, heaving the large pot
over to the table and starting to ladle porridge into bowls. "So they can have a bit
of a lie-in."

Harry knew that Apparating meant disappearing from one place and reappearing
almost instantly in another, but had never known any Hogwarts student to do it,
and understood that it was very difficult.

"So they're still in bed?" said Fred grumpily, pulling his bowl of porridge toward
him. "Why can't we Apparate too?"

"Because you're not of age and you haven't passed your test," snapped Mrs.
Weasley. "And where have those girls got to?"

She bustled out of the kitchen and they heard her climbing the stairs.

"You have to pass a test to Apparate?" Harry asked.

43

 

"Oh yes," said Mr. Weasley, tucking the tickets safely into the back pocket of his
jeans. "The Department of Magical Transportation had to fine a couple of people
the other day for Apparating without a license. It's not easy, Apparition, and when
it's not done property it can lead to nasty complications. This pair I'm talking about
went and splinched themselves."

Everyone around the table except Harry winced.

"Er - splinched?" said Harry.

"They left half of themselves behind," said Mr. Weasley, now spooning large
amounts of treacle onto his porridge. "So, of course, they were stuck. Couldn't
move either way. Had to wait for the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad to sort
them out. Meant a fair old bit of paperwork, I can tell you, what with the Muggles
who spotted the body parts they'd left behind....."

Harry had a sudden vision of a pair of legs and an eyeball lying abandoned on the
pavement of Privet Drive.

"Were they okay?" he asked, startled.

"Oh yes," said Mr. Weasley matter-of-factly. "But they got a heavy fine, and I
don't think they'll be trying it again in a hurry. You don't mess around with
Apparition. There are plenty of adult wizards who don't bother with it. Prefer
brooms - slower, but safer."

"But Bill and Charlie and Percy can all do it?"

"Charlie had to take the test twice," said Fred, grinning. "He failed the first time.
Apparated five miles south of where he meant to, right on top of some poor old
dear doing her shopping, remember?"

"Yes, well, he passed the second time," said Mrs. Weasley, marching back into the
kitchen amid hearty sniggers.

"Percy only passed two weeks ago," said George. "He's been Apparating
downstairs every morning since, just to prove he can."

There were footsteps down the passageway and Hermione and Ginny came into
the kitchen, both looking pale and drowsy.

"Why do we have to be up so early?" Ginny said, rubbing her eyes and sitting
down at the table.

"We've got a bit of a walk," said Mr. Weasley.

"Walk?" said Harry. "What, are we walking to the World Cup?"

"No, no, that's miles away," said Mr. Weasley, smiling. "We only need to walk a
short way. It's just that it's very difficult for a large number of wizards to
congregate without attracting Muggle attention. We have to be very careful about

44

 

how we travel at the best of times, and on a huge occasion like the Quidditch
World Cup..."

"George!" said Mrs. Weasley sharply, and they all jumped.

"What?" said George, in an innocent tone that deceived nobody.

"What is that in your pocket?"

"Nothing!"

"Don't you lie to me!"

Mrs. Weasley pointed her wand at George's pocket and said, "Accio!"

Several small, brightly colored objects zoomed out of George's pocket; he made a
grab for them but missed, and they sped right into Mrs. Weasley's outstretched
hand.

"We told you to destroy them!" said Mrs. Weasley furiously, holding up what
were unmistakably more Ton-Tongue Toffees. "We told you to get rid of the lot!
Empty your pockets, go on, both of you!"

It was an unpleasant scene; the twins had evidently been trying to smuggle as
many toffees out of the house as possible, and it was only by using her
Summoning Charm that Mrs. Weasley managed to find them all.

"Accio! Accio! Accio!" she shouted, and toffees zoomed from all sorts of unlikely
places, including the lining of George's jacket and the turn-ups of Fred's jeans.

"We spent six months developing those!" Fred shouted at his mother as she threw
the toffees away.

"Oh a fine way to spend six months!" she shrieked. "No wonder you didn't get
more O.W.L.s!"

All in all, the atmosphere was not very friendly as they took their departure. Mrs.
Weasley was still glowering as she kissed Mr. Weasley on the cheek, though not
nearly as much as the twins, who had each hoisted their rucksacks onto their backs
and walked out without a word to her.

"Well, have a lovely time," said Mrs. Weasley, "and behave yourselves," she
called after the twins' retreating backs, but they did not look back or answer. "I'll
send Bill, Charlie, and Percy along around midday," Mrs. Weasley said to Mr.
Weasley, as he, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny set off across the dark yard
after Fred and George.

It was chilly and the moon was still out. Only a dull, greenish tinge along the
horizon to their right showed that daybreak was drawing closer. Harry, having
been thinking about thousands of wizards speeding toward the Quidditch World
Cup, sped up to walk with Mr. Weasley.

45

 

"So how does everyone get there without all the Muggles noticing?" he asked.

"It's been a massive organizational problem," sighed Mr. Weasley. "The trouble is,
about a hundred thousand wizards turn up at the World Cup, and of course, we just
haven't got a magical site big enough to accommodate them all. There are places
Muggles can't penetrate, but imagine trying to pack a hundred thousand wizards
into Diagon Alley or platform nine and three-quarters. So we had to find a nice
deserted moor, and set up as many anti-Muggle precautions as possible. The whole
Ministry's been working on it for months. First, of course, we have to stagger the
arrivals. People with cheaper tickets have to arrive two weeks beforehand. A
limited number use Muggle transport, but we can't have too many clogging up
their buses and trains - remember, wizards are coming from all over the world.
Some Apparate, of course, but we have to set up safe points for them to appear,
well away from Muggles. I believe there's a handy wood they're using as the
Apparition point. For those who don't want to Apparate, or can't, we use Portkeys.
They're objects that are used to transport wizards from one spot to another at a
prearranged time. You can do large groups at a time if you need to. There have
been two hundred Portkeys placed at strategic points around Britain, and the
nearest one to us is up at the top of Stoatshead Hill, so that's where we're headed."

Mr. Weasley pointed ahead of them, where a large black mass rose beyond the
village of Ottery St. Catchpole.

"What sort of objects are Portkeys?" said Harry curiously.

"Well, they can be anything," said Mr. Weasley. "Unobtrusive things, obviously,
so Muggles don't go picking them up and playing with them ... stuff they'll just
think is litter...."

They trudged down the dark, dank lane toward the village, the silence broken only
by their footsteps. The sky lightened very slowly as they made their way through
the village, its inky blackness diluting to deepest blue. Harry's hands and feet were
freezing. Mr. Weasley kept checking his watch.

They didn't have breath to spare for talking as they began to climb Stoatshead Hill,
stumbling occasionally in hidden rabbit holes, slipping on thick black tuffets of
grass. Each breath Harry took was sharp in his chest and his legs were starting to
seize up when, at last, his feet found level ground.

"Whew," panted Mr. Weasley, taking off his glasses and wiping them on his
sweater. "Well, we've made good time - we've got ten minutes."

Hermione came over the crest of the hill last, clutching a stitch in her side.

"Now we just need the Portkey," said Mr. Weasley, replacing his glasses and
squinting around at the ground. "It won't be big.... Come on..."

They spread out, searching. They had only been at it for a couple of minutes,
however, when a shout rent the still air.

46

 

"Over here, Arthur! Over here, son, we've got it."

Two tall figures were silhouetted against the starry sky on the other side of the
hilltop.

"Amos!" said Mr. Weasley, smiling as he strode over to the man who had shouted.
The rest of them followed.

Mr. Weasley was shaking hands with a ruddy-faced wizard with a scrubby brown
beard, who was holding a moldy-looking old boot in his other hand.

"This is Amos Diggory, everyone," said Mr. Weasley. "He works for the
Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. And I think you
know his son, Cedric?"

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

"Hi," said Cedric, looking around at them all.

Everybody said hi back except Fred and George, who merely nodded. They had
never quite forgiven Cedric for beating their team, Gryffindor, in the first
Quidditch match of the previous year.

"Long walk, Arthur?" Cedric's father asked. "Not too bad," said Mr. Weasley. "We
live just on the other side of the village there. You?"

"Had to get up at two, didn't we, Ced? I tell you, I'll be glad when he's got his
Apparition test. Still ... not complaining ... Quidditch World Cup, wouldn't miss it
for a sackful of Galleons - and the tickets cost about that. Mind you, looks like I
got off easy. . . ." Amos Diggory peered good-naturedly around at the three
Weasley boys, Harry, Hermione, and Ginny. "All these yours, Arthur?"

"Oh no, only the redheads," said Mr. Weasley, pointing out his children. "This is
Hermione, friend of Ron's - and Harry, another friend -"

"Merlin's beard," said Amos Diggory, his eyes widening. "Harry? Harry Potter?"

"Er - yeah," said Harry.

Harry was used to people looking curiously at him when they met him, used to the
way their eyes moved at once to the lightning scar on his forehead, but it always
made him feel uncomfortable.

"Ced's talked about you, of course," said Amos Diggory. "Told us all about
playing against you last year... I said to him, I said - Ced, that'll be something to
tell your grandchildren, that will.... You beat Harry Potter!"

Harry couldn't think of any reply to this, so he remained silent. Fred and George
were both scowling again. Cedric looked slightly embarrassed.

47

 

"Harry fell off his broom, Dad," he muttered. I told you ... it was an accident...."

"Yes, but you didn't fall off, did you?" roared Amos genially, slapping his son on
his back. "Always modest, our Ced, always the gentleman ... but the best man
won, I'm sure Harry'd say the same, wouldn't you, eh? One falls off his broom, one
stays on, you don't need to be a genius to tell which one's the better flier!"

"Must be nearly time," said Mr. Weasley quickly, pulling out his watch again. "Do
you know whether we're waiting for any more, Amos?"

"No, the Lovegoods have been there for a week already and the Fawcetts couldn't
get tickets," said Mr. Diggory. "There aren't any more of us in this area, are
there?"

"Not that I know of," said Mr. Weasley. "Yes, it's a minute off ... We'd better get
ready...."

He looked around at Harry and Hermione.

"You just need to touch the Portkey, that's all, a finger will do -"

With difficulty, owing to their bulky backpacks, the nine of them crowded around
the old boot held out by Amos Diggory.

They all stood there, in a tight circle, as a chill breeze swept over the hilltop.
Nobody spoke. It suddenly occurred to Harry how odd this would look if a
Muggle were to walk up here now ... nine people, two of them grown men,
clutching this manky old boot in the semidarkness, waiting....

"Three. . ." muttered Mr. Weasley, one eye still on his watch, two. . . one. . ."

It happened immediately: Harry felt as though a hook just behind his navel had
been suddenly jerked irresistibly forward. His feet left the ground; he could feel
Ron and Hermione on either side of him, their shoulders banging into his; they
were all speeding forward in a howl of wind and swirling color; his forefinger was
stuck to the boot as though it was pulling him magnetically onward and then -

His feet slammed into the ground; Ron staggered into him and he fell over; the
Portkey hit the ground near his head with a heavy thud.

Harry looked up. Mr. Weasley, Mr. Diggory, and Cedric were still standing,
though looking very windswept; everybody else was on the ground.

"Seven past five from Stoatshead Hill," said a voice.

48

 

CHAPTER SEVEN - BAGMAN AND CROUCH

Harry disentangled himself from Ron and got to his feet. They had arrived on what
appeared to be a deserted stretch of misty moor. In front of them was a pair of
tired and grumpy-looking wizards, one of whom was holding a large gold watch,
the other a thick roll of parchment and a quill. Both were dressed as Muggles,
though very inexpertly: The man with the watch wore a tweed suit with thigh-
length galoshes; his colleague, a kilt and a poncho.

"Morning, Basil," said Mr. Weasley, picking up the boot and handing it to the
kilted wizard, who threw it into a large box of used Portkeys beside him; Harry
could see an old newspaper, an empty drinks can, and a punctured football.

"Hello there, Arthur," said Basil wearily. "Not on duty, eh? It's all right for
some.... We've been here all night.... You'd better get out of the way, we've got a
big party coming in from the Black Forest at five fifteen. Hang on, I'll find your
campsite.... Weasley ... Weasley...." He consulted his parchment list. "About a
quarter of a mile's walk over there, first field you come to. Site manager's called
Mr. Roberts. Diggory ... second field ... ask for Mr. Payne."

"Thanks, Basil," said Mr. Weasley, and he beckoned everyone to follow him.

They set off across the deserted moor, unable to make out much through the mist.
After about twenty minutes, a small stone cottage next to a gate swam into view.
Beyond it, Harry could just make out the ghostly shapes of hundreds and hundreds
of tents, rising up the gentle slope of a large field toward a dark wood on the
horizon. They said good-bye to the Diggorys and approached the cottage door.

A man was standing in the doorway, looking out at the tents. Harry knew at a
glance that this was the only real Muggle for several acres. When he heard their
footsteps, he turned his head to look at them.

"Morning!" said Mr. Weasley brightly.

"Morning," said the Muggle.

"Would you be Mr. Roberts?"

"Aye, I would," said Mr. Roberts. "And who're you?"

"Weasley - two tents, booked a couple of days ago?"

"Aye," said Mr. Roberts, consulting a list tacked to the door. "You've got a space
up by the wood there. Just the one night?"

"That's it," said Mr. Weasley.

"You'll be paying now, then?" said Mr. Roberts.

 

because i wanted you to see my notification to know i thought was a p good story 

[SwAg]

5 minutes ago, SwAg said:

The villagers of Little Hangleron still called it "the Riddle House," even though it
had been many years since the Riddle family had lived there. It stood on a hill
overlooking the village, some of its windows boarded, tiles missing from its roof,
and ivy spreading unchecked over its face. Once a fine-looking manor, and easily
the largest and grandest building for miles around, the Riddle House was now
damp, derelict, and unoccupied.

The Little Hagletons all agreed that the old house was "creepy." Half a century
ago, something strange and horrible had happened there, something that the older
inhabitants of the village still liked to discuss when topics for gossip were scarce.
The story had been picked over so many times, and had been embroidered in so
many places, that nobody was quite sure what the truth was anymore. Every
version of the tale, however, started in the same place: Fifty years before, at
daybreak on a fine summer's morning when the Riddle House had still been well
kept and impressive, a maid had entered the drawing room to find all three Riddles
dead.

The maid had run screaming down the hill into the village and roused as many
people as she could.

"Lying there with their eyes wide open! Cold as ice! Still in their dinner things!"

The police were summoned, and the whole of Little Hangleton had seethed with
shocked curiosity and ill-disguised excitement. 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.

The Hanged Man, the village pub, did a roaring trade that night; the whole village
seemed to have turned out to discuss the murders. They were rewarded for leaving
their firesides when the Riddles' cook arrived dramatically in their midst and
announced to the suddenly silent pub that a man called Frank Bryce had just been
arrested.

"Frank!" cried several people. "Never!"

Frank Bryce was the Riddles' gardener. He lived alone in a run-down cottage on
the grounds of the Riddle House. Frank had come back from the war with a very
stiff leg and a great dislike of crowds and loud noises, and had been working for
the Riddles ever since.

3

 

There was a rush to buy the cook drinks and hear more details.

"Always thought he was odd," she told the eagerly listening villagers, after her
fourth sherry. "Unfriendly, like. I'm sure if I've offered him a cuppa once, I've
offered it a hundred times. Never wanted to mix, he didn't."

"Ah, now," said a woman at the bar, "he had a hard war, Frank. He likes the quiet
life. That's no reason to --"

"Who else had a key to the back door, then?" barked the cook. "There's been a
spare key hanging in the gardener's cottage far back as I can remember! Nobody
forced the door last night! No broken windows! All Frank had to do was creep up
to the big house while we was all sleeping..."

The villagers exchanged dark looks.

"I always thought that he had a nasty look about him, right enough," 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 Hangleton doubted that Frank
Bryce had killed the Riddles.

But over in the neighboring town of Great Hangleton, in the dark and dingy police
station, Frank was stubbornly repeating, again and again, that he was innocent, and
that the only person he had seen near the house on the day of the Riddles' deaths
had been a teenage boy, a stranger, dark-haired and pale. Nobody else in the
village had seen any such boy, and the police were quite sure 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 doctors had examined the
bodies and had concluded that none of the Riddles had been poisoned, stabbed,
shot, strangles, suffocated, or (as far as they could tell) harmed at all. In fact (the
report continued, in a tone of unmistakable bewilderment), the Riddles all
appeared to be in perfet health -- apart from the fact that they were all dead. The
doctors did note (as though determined to find something wrong with the bodies)
that each of the Riddles had a look of terror 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

4

 

forced to let Frank go. The Riddles were buried in the Little Hangleton
churchyard, and their graves remained objects of curiosity for a while. To
everyone's surprise, and amid a cloud of suspicion, Frank Bryce returned to his
cottage on the grounds of the Riddle House.

"'S far as I'm concerned, he killed them, and I don't care what the police say," said
Dot in the Hanged Man. "And if he had any decency, he'd leave here, knowing as
how we knows he did it."

But Frank did not leave. He stayed to tend the garden for the next family who
lived in the Riddle House, and then the next -- for neither family stayed long.
Perhaps it was partly because of Frank that 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 neither lived there nor
put it to any use; they said in the village that he kept it for "tax reasons," though
nobody was very clear what these might be. The wealthy owner continued to pay
Frank to do the gardening, however. Frank was nearing his seventy-seventh
birthday now, very deaf, his bad leg stiffer than ever, but could be seen pottering
around the flower beds in fine weather, even though the weeds were starting to
creep up on him, try as he might to suppress them.

Weeds were not the only things Frank had to contend with either. Boys from the
village made a habit of throwing stones through the windows of the Riddle House.
They rode their bicycles over the lawns Frank worked so hard to keep smooth.
Once or twice, they broke into the old house for a dare. They knew that old Frank's
devotion to the house and the grounds amounted almost to an obsession, and it
amused them to see him limping across the garden, brandishing his stick and
yelling croakily at them. Frank, for his part, believed the boys tormented him
because they, like their parents and grandparents, though him a murderer. So when
Frank awoke one night in August and saw something very odd up at the old house,
he merely assumed that the 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 worse than ever in his old
age. He got up and limped downstairs into the kitchen with the idea of refilling his
hot-water bottle to ease the stiffness in his knee. Standing at the sink, filling the
kettle, he looked up at the Riddle House and saw lights glimmering in its upper
windows. Frank knew at once what was going on. The boys had broken into the
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 mistrusted the police ever
since they had taken him in for questioning about the Riddles' deaths. He put down
the kettle at once, hurried back upstairs as fast as his bad leg would allow, and was
soon back in his kitchen, fully dressed and removing a rusty old key from its hook
by the door. He picked up his walking stick, which was propped against the wall,

5

 

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 the house until he reached a door
almost completely hidden by ivy, took out the old key, put it into the lock, and
opened the door noiselessly.

He let himself into the cavernous kitchen. Frank had not entered it for many years;
nevertheless, although it was very dark, he remembered where the door into the
hall was, and he groped his way towards it, his nostrils full of the smell of decay,
ears pricked for any sound of footsteps or voices from overhead. He reached the
hall, which was a little lighter owing to the large mullioned windows on either side
of the front door, and started to climb the stairs, blessing the dust that lay thick
upon the stone, because it muffled the sound of his feet and stick.

On the landing, Frank turned right, and saw at once where the intruders were: At
the every end of the passage a door stood ajar, and a flickering light shone through
the gap, casting a long sliver of 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 surprised him. Then he
stopped moving and listened intently, for a man's voice spoke within the room; it
sounded timid and fearful.

"There is a little more in the bottle, My Lord, if you are still 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 icy wind. Something about that voice
made the sparse hairs on the back of Frank's neck stand up. "Move me closer to
the fire, Wormtail."

Frank turned his right ear toward the door, the better to hear. There came the clink
of a bottle being put down upon some hard surface, and then the dull scraping
noise of a heavy chair being dragged across the floor. Frank caught a glimpse of a
small man, his back to the door, pushing the chair into place. He was wearing a
long black cloak, and there was a bald patch at the back of his head. Then he went
out of sight again.

"Where is Nagini?" said the cold voice.

"I -- I don't know, My Lord," said the first voice nervously. "She set out to explore
the house, I think..."

"You will milk her before we retire, Wormtail," said the second voice. "I will need
feeding in the night. The journey has tired me greatly."

Brow furrowed, Frank inclined his good ear still closer to the door, listening very
hard. There was a pause, and then the man called Wormtail spoke again.

"My Lord, may I ask how long we are going to stay here?"

6

 

"A week," said the cold voice. "Perhapse longer. The place is moderately
comfortable, and the plan cannot proceed yet. It would be foolish to act before the
Quidditch World Cup is over."

Frank inserted a gnarled finger into his ear and rotated it. 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. (Frank dug his finger
still more vigorously into his ear.) "Forgive me, but -- I do not understand -- why
should we wait until the World Cup is over?"

"Because, fool, at this very moment wizards are pouring into the country from all
over the world, and every meddler from the Ministry of Magic will be on duty, on
the watch for signs of ususual activity, checking and double-checking identities.
They will be obsessed with security, lest the Muggles notice anything. So we
wait."

Frank stopped trying to clear out his ear. He had distinctly 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 in code: spies and criminals. Frank tightened his hold on his walking
stick 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 of menace in the cold
voice now.

A slight pause followed -- and the Wormtail spoke, the words tumbling from him
in a rush, as though he was forcing himself to say this before he lost his nerve.

"It could be done without Harry Potter, My Lord."

Another pause, more protracted, and then --

"Without Harry Potter?" breathed the second voice softly. "I see..."

"My Lord, I do not say this out of concern for the boy!" said Wormtail, his voice
rising squeakily. "The boy is nothing to me, nothing at all! It is merely that if we
were to use another witch or wizard -- any wizard -- the thing could be done so
much more quickly! If you allowed me to leave you for a short while -- you know
that I can disguise myself most effectively -- I could be back here 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 thoroughly relieved now.
"Laying hands on Harry Potter would be so difficult, he is so well protected --"

7

 

"And so you volunteer to go and fetch me a substitute? I wonder...perhaps the task
of nursing me has become wearisome for you, Wormtail? Could this suggestion of
abandoning the plan be nothing more 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 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. How am I to survive without you, when I need feeding every
few hours? Who is to milk Nagini?"

"But you seem so much stronger, My Lord --"

"Liar," breathed the second voice. "I am no stronger, and a few days alone would
be enough to rob me of the little health I have regained under your clumsy care.
Silence!"

Wormtail, who had been sputtering incoherently, fell silent at once. For a few
seconds, Frank could hear nothing but the fire crackling. The the second man
spoke once more, in a whisper that was almost a hiss.

"I have my reasons for using the boy, as I have already explained to you, and I will
use no other. I have waited thirteen years. A few more months will make no
difference. As for the protection surrounding the boy, I believe my plan will be
effective. All that is needed is a little courage from you, Wormtail -- courage you
will find, unless you wish to feel the full extent of Lord Voldermort's wrath --"

"My Lord, I must speak!" said Wormtail, panic in his voice now. "All through our
journey I have gone over the plan in my head -- My Lord, Bertha Jorkin's
disappearance will not go unnoticed for long, and if we proceed, if I murder --"

"If?" whispered the second voice. "If? If you follow the plan, Wormtail, the
Ministry need never know that anyone else has died. You will do it quietly and
without fuss; I only wish that i could do it myself, but in my present
condition...Come, Wormtail, one more death and our path to Harry Potter is clear.
I am not asking you to do it alone. By that time, my faithful serant will have
rejoined us --"

"I am a faithful servant," said Wormtail, the merest trace of sullenness in his voice.

"Wormtail, I need somebody with brains, somebody whose loyalty has never
wavered, and you, unfortunately, fulfill neither requirement."

"I found you," said Wormtail, and there was definitely a sulky edge to his voice
now. "I was the one who found you. I brought you Bertha Jorkins."

8

 

"That is true," said the second man, sounding amused. "A stroke of brilliance I
would not have thought possible from you, Wormtail -- though, if truth be told,
you were not aware how useful she would be when you caught her, were you?"

"I -- I thought she might be useful, My Lord --"

"Liar," said the second voice again, the cruel amusement more pronounced than
ever. "However, I do not deny that her information was invaluable. Without it, I
could never have formed our plan, and for that, you will have your reward,
Wormtail. I will allow you to perform an essential task for me, one that many of
my followers would give their right hands to perform..."

"R-really, My Lord? What -- ?" Wormtail sounded terrified again.

"Ah, Wormtail, you don't want me to spoil the surprise? Your part will come at the
very end...but I promise you, you will have the honor of being just as useful as
Bertha Jorkins."

"You...you..." Wormtail's voice suddenly sounded hoarse, as though his mouth had
gone very dry. "You...are going...to kill me too?"

"Wormtail, Wormtail," said the cold voice silkily, "why would I kill you? I killed
Bertha because I had to. She was fit for nothing after my questioning, quite
useless. In any case, awkward questions would have been asked if she had gone
back to the Ministry with the news that she had met you on her holidays. Wizards
who are supposed to be dead would do well not to run into Ministry of Magic
witches at wayside inns..."

Wormtail muttered something so quietly that Frank could not hear it, but it made
the second man laugh -- an entirely mirthless laugh, cold as his speech.

"We could have modified her memory? But Memory Charms can be broken by a
powerful wizard, as I proved when I questioned her. It would be an insult to her
memory not to use the information I extracted from her, Wormtail."

Out in the corridor, Frank suddenly became aware that the hand gripping his
walking stick was slippery with sweat. The man with the cold voice had killed a
woman. He was talking about it without any kind of remorse -- with amusement.
He was dangerous -- a madman. And he was planning more murders -- this boy,
Harry Potter, whoever he was -- was in danger --

Frank knew what he must do. Now, if ever, was the time to go to the police. He
would creep out of the house and head straight for the telephone box in the
village...but the cold voice was speaking again, and Frank remained where he was,
frozen to the spot, listening with all his might.

"One more murder...my faithful servant at Hogwarts...Harry Potter is as good as
mine, Wormtail. It is decided. There will be no more argument. But quiet...I think
I hear Nagini..."

9

 

And the second man's voice changed. He started making noises such as Frank had
never heard before; he was hissing and spitting without drawing breath. Frank
thought he must be having some sort of fit or seizure.

And then Frank heard movement behind him in the dark passageway. He turned to
look, and found himself paralyzed with fright.

Something was slithering toward him along the dark corridor floor, and as it drew
nearer to the sliver of firelight, he realized with a thrill of terror that it was a
gigantic snake, at least twelve feet long. Horrified, transfixed, Frank stared as its
undulating body cut a wide, curving track through the thick dust on the floor,
coming closer and closer -- What was he to do? The only means of escape was
into the room where the two men sat plotting murder, yet if he stayed where he
was the snake would surely kill him --

But before he had made his decision, the snake was level with him, and then,
incredibly, miraculously, it was passing; it was following the spitting, hissing
noises made by the cold voice beyond the door, and in seconds, the tip of its
diamond-patterned tail had vanished through the gap.

There was sweat on Frank's forehead now, and the hand on the walking stick was
trembling. Inside the room, the cold voice was continuing to hiss, and Frank was
visited by a strange idea, an impossible idea...This man could talk to snakes.

Frank didn't understand what was going on. He wanted more than anything to be
back in his bed with his hot-water bottle. The problem was that his legs didn't
seem to want to move. As he stood there shaking and trying to master himself, the
cold voice switched abruptly to English again.

"Nagini has interesting news, Wormtail," it said.

"In-indeed, My Lord?" said Wormtail.

"Indeed, yes," said the voice, "According to Nagini, there is an old Muggle
standing right outside this room, listening to every word we say."

Frank didn't have a chance to hide himself. There were footsteps and then the door
of the room was flung wide open.

A short, balding man with graying hair, a pointed nose, and small, watery eyes
stood before Frank, a mixture of fear and alarm in his face.

"Invite him inside, Wormtail. Where are your manners?"

The cold voice was coming from the ancient armchair before the fire, but Frank
couldn't see the speaker. the snake, on the other hand, was curled up on the rotting
hearth rug, like some horrible travesty of a pet dog.

Wormtail beckoned Frank into the room. Though still deeply shaken, Frank took a
firmer grip on his walking stick and limped over the threshold.

10

 

The fire was the only source of light in the room; it cast long, spidery shadows
upon the walls. Frank stared at the back of the armchair; the man inside it seemed
to be even smaller than his servant, for Frank couldn't even see the back of his
head.

"You heard everything, Muggle?" said the cold voice.

"What's that you're calling me?" said Frank defiantly, for now that he was inside
the room, now that the time had come for some sort of action, he felt braver; it had
always been so in the war.

"I am calling you a Muggle," said the voice coolly. "It means that you are not a
wizard."

"I don't know what you mean by wizard," said Frank, his voice growing steadier.
"All I know is I've heard enough to interest the police tonight, I have. You've done
murder and you're planning more! And I'll tell youthis too," he added, on a sudden
inspiration, "my wife knows I'm up here, and if I don't come back --"

"You have no wife," said te cold voice, very quietly. "Nobody knows you are here.
You told nobody that you were coming. Do not lie to Lord Voldemort, Muggle,
for he knows...he always knows..."

"Is that right?" said Frank roughly. "Lord, is it? Well, I don't think much of your
manners, My Lord. Turn 'round and face me like a man, why don't you?"

"But I am not a man, Muggle," said the cold voice, barely audible now over the
crackling of the flames. "I am much, much more than a man. However...why not? I
will face you...Wormtail, come turn my chair around."

The servant gave a whimper.

"You heard me, Wormtail."

Slowly, with his face screwed up, as though he would rather have done anything
than approach his master and the hearth rug where the snake lay, the small man
walked forward and began to turn the chair. The snake lifted its ugly triangular
head and hissed slightly as the legs of the chair snagged on its rug.

And then the chair was facing Frank, and he saw what was sitting in it. His
walking stick fell to the floor with a clatter. He opened his mouth and let out a
scream. He was screaming so loudly that he never heard the words the thing in the
chair spoke as it raised a wand. There was a flash of green light, a rushing sound,
and Frank Bryce crumpled. He was dead before he hit the floor.

Two hundred miles away, the boy called Harry Potter woke with a start.

11

 

CHAPTER TWO - THE SCAR

Harry lay flat on his back, breathing hard as though he had been running. He had
awoken from a vivid dream with his hands pressed over his face. The old scar on
his forehead, which was shaped like a bolt of lightning, was burning beneath his
fingers as though someone had just pressed a white-hot wire to his skin.

He sat up, one hand still on his scar, the other hand reaching out in the darkness
for his glasses, which were on the bedside table. He put them on and his bedroom
came into clearer focus, lit by a faint, misty orange light that was filtering through
the curtains from the street lamp outside the window.

Harry ran his fingers over the scar again. It was still painful. He turned on the
lamp beside him, scrambled out of bed, crossed the room, opened his wardrobe,
and peered into the mirror on the inside of the door. A skinny boy of fourteen
looked back at him, his bright green eyes puzzled under his untidy black hair. He
examined the lightning-bolt scar of his reflection more closely. It looked normal,
but it was still stinging.

harry tried to recall what he had been dreaming about before he had awoken. It
had seemed so real...There had been two people he knew and one he didn't ...He
concentrated hard, frowning, trying to remember...

The dim picture of a darkened room came to him...There had been a snake on a
hearth rug...a small man called Peter, nicknamed Wormtail...and a cold, high
voice...the voice of Lord Voldemort. Harry felt as though an ice cube had slipped
down into his stomach at the very thought...

He closed his eyes tightly and tried to remember what Voldemort had looked like,
but it was impossible...All Harry knew was that at the moment when Voldemort's
chair had swung around, and he, Harry, had seen what was sitting in it, he had felt
a spasm of horror, which had awoken him...or had that been the pain in his scar?

And who had the old man been? For there had definitely been an old man; Harry
had watched him fall to the ground. It was all becoming confused. Harry put his
face into his hands, blocking out his bedroom, trying to hold on to the picture of
that dimly lit room, but it was like trying to keep water in his cupped hands; the
details were now trickling away as fast as he tried to hold on to them...Voldemort
and Wormtail had been talking about someone they had killed, though Harry could
not remember the name...and they had been plotting to kill someone else...him!

Harry took his face out of his hands, opened his eyes, and stared around his
bedroom as though expecting to see something unusual there. As it happened,
there was an extraordinary number of unusual things in this room. A large wooden
trunk stood open at the foot of his bed, revealing a cauldron, broomstick, black
robes, and assorted spellbooks. Rolls of parchment littered that part of his desk
that was not taken up by the large, empty cage in which his snowy owl, Hedwig,

12

 

usually perched. On the floor beside his bed a book lay open; Harry had been
reading it before he fell asleep last night. The pictures in this book were all
moving. Men in bright orange robes were zooming in and out of sight on
broomsticks, throwing a red ball to one another.

Harry walked over to the book, picked it up, and watched on of the wizards score a
spectacular goal by putting the ball through a fifty-foot-high hoop. Then he
snapped the book shut. Even Quidditch -- in Harry's opinion, the best sport in the
world -- couldn't distract him at the moment. He placed Flying with the Cannons
on his bedside table, crossed to the window, and drew back the curtains to survey
the street below.

Privet Drive looked exactly as a respectable suburban street would be expected to
look inthe early hours of Saturday morning. All the curtains were closed. As far as
Harry could see through the darkness, there wasn't a living creature in sight, not
even a cat.

And yet...and yet...Harry went restlessly back to the bed and sat down on it,
running a finger over his scar again. It wasn't the pain that bothered him; Harry
was no stranger to pain and injury. He had lost all the bones from his right arm
once and had them painfully regrown in a night. The same arm had been pierced
by a venemous foot-long fang not long afterward. Only last year Harry had fallen
fifty feet from an airborn broomstick. He was used to bizarre accidents and
injuries; they were unavoidable if you attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft
and Wizardry and had a knack for attracting a lot of trouble.

No, the thing that was bothering Harry was the last time his scar had hurt him, it
had been because Voldemort had been close by...But Voldemort couldn't be here,
now...The idea of Voldemort lurking in Privet Drive was absurd, impossible...

Harry listened closely to the silence around him. Was he half expecting to hear the
creak of a stair or the swish of a cloak? And then he jumped slightly as he heard
his cousin Dudley give a tremendous grunting snore from the next room.

Harry shook himself mentally; he was being stupid. There was no one in the house
with him except Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley, and they were plainly
still asleep, their dreams untroubled and painless.

Asleep was the way Harry liked the Dursleys best; it wasn't as though they were
ever any help to him awake. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley were
Harry's only living relatives. They were Muggles who hated and despised magic in
any form, which meant that Harry was about as welcome in their house as dry rot.
They had explained away Harry's long absences at Hogwarts over the last three
years by telling everyone that he went to St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably
Criminal Boys. They knew perfectly well that, as an underage wizard, Harry
wasn't allowed to use magic outside Hogwarts, but they were still apt to blame him
for anything that went wrong about the house. Harry had never been able to
confide in them or tell them anything about his life in the wizarding world. The

13

 

very idea of going to them when they awoke, and telling them about his scar
hurting him, and about his worries about Voldemort, was laughable.

And yet it was because of Voldemort that Harry had come to live with the
Dursleys in the first place. If it hadn't been for Voldemort, Harry would not have
had the lightning scar on his forehead. If it hadn't been for Voldemort, Harry
would still have had parents...

Harry had been a year old the night that Voldemort -- the most powerful Dark
wizard for a century, a wizard who had been gaining power steadily for eleven
years -- arrived at his house and killed his father and mother. Voldemort had then
turned his wand on Harry; he had performed the curse that had disposed of many
full-grown witches and wizards in his steady rise to power -- and, incredibly, it
had not worked. Instead of killing the small boy, the curse had rebounded upon
Voldemort. Harry had survived with nothing but a lightning-shaped cut on his
forehead, and Voldemort had been reduced to something barely alive. His powers
gone, his life almost extinguished, Voldemort had fled; the terror in which the
secret community of witches and wizards had lived for so long had lifted,
Voldemort's followers had disbanded, and Harry Potter had become famous.

It had been enough of a shock for Harry to discover, on his eleventh birthday, that
he was a wizard; it had been even more disconcerting to find out that everyone in
the hidden wizarding world knew his name. Harry had arrived at Hogwarts to find
that heads turned and whispers followed him wherever he went. But he was used
to it now: At the end of this summer, he would be starting his fourth year at
Hogwarts, and Harry was already counting the days until he would be back at the
castle again.

But there was still a fortnight to go before he went back to school. He looked
hopelessly around his room again, and his eye paused on the birthday cards his
two best friends had sent him at the end of July. What would they say if Harry
wrote to them and told them about his scar hurting?

At once, Hermione Granger's voice seemed to fill his head, shrill and panicky.

"Your scar hurt? Harry, that's really serious.... Write to Professor Dumbledore!
And I'll go and check Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions.... Maybe there's
something in there about curse scars. . . ."

Yes, that would be Hermione's advice: Go straight to the headmaster of Hogwarts,
and in the meantime, consult a book. Harry stared out of the window at the inky
blue-black sky. He doubted very much whether a book could help him now. As far
as he knew, he was the only living person to have survived a curse like
Voldemort's; it was highly unlikely, therefore, that he would find his symptoms
listed in Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions. As for informing the
headmaster, Harry had no idea where Dumbledore went during the summer
holidays. He amused himself for a moment, picturing Dumbledore, with his long
silver beard, full length wizard's robes, and pointed hat, stretched out on a beach

14

 

somewhere, rubbing suntan lotion onto his long crooked nose. Wherever
Dumbledore was, though, Harry was sure that Hedwig would be able to find him;
Harry's owl had never yet failed to deliver a letter to anyone, even without an
address. But what would he write?

Dear Professor Dumbledore, Sorry to bother you, but my scar hurt this morning.
Yours sincerely, Harry Potter.

Even inside his head the words sounded stupid.

And so he tried to imagine his other best friend, Ron Weasley's, reaction, and in a
moment, Ron's red hair and long-nosed, freckled face seemed to swim before
Harry, wearing a bemused expression.

"Your scar hurt? But ... but You-Know-Who can't be near you now, can he? I
mean ... you'd know, wouldn't you? He'd be trying to do you in again, wouldn't be?
I dunno, Harry, maybe curse scars always twinge a bit... I'll ask Dad. . . ."

Mr. Weasley was a fully qualified wizard who worked in the Misuse of Muggle
Artifacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, but he didn't have any particular
expertise in the matter of curses, as far as Harry knew. In any case, Harry didn't
like the idea of the whole Weasley family knowing that he, Harry, was getting
jumpy about a few moments' pain. Mrs. Weasley would fuss worse than
Hermione, and Fred and George, Ron's sixteen- year-old twin brothers, might
think Harry was losing his nerve. The Weasleys were Harry's favorite family in the
world; he was hoping that they might invite him to stay any time now (Ron had
mentioned something about the Quidditch World Cup), and he somehow didn't
want his visit punctuated with anxious inquiries about his scar.

Harry kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. What he really wanted (and it felt
almost shameful to admit it to himself) was someone like - someone like a parent:
an adult wizard whose advice he could ask without feeling stupid, someone who
cared about him, who had had experience with Dark Magic....

And then the solution came to him. It was so simple, and so obvious, that he
couldn't believe it had taken so long - Sirius.

Harry leapt up from the bed, hurried across the room, and sat down at his desk; he
pulled a piece of parchment toward him, loaded his eagle-feather quill with ink,
wrote Dear Sirius, then paused, wondering how best to phrase his problem, still
marveling at the fact that he hadn't thought of Sirius straight away. But then,
perhaps it wasn't so surprising - after all, he had only found out that Sirius was his
godfather two months ago.

There was a simple reason for Sirius's complete absence from Harry's life until
then - Sirius had been in Azkaban, the terrifying wizard jail guarded by creatures
called dementors, sightless, soul-sucking fiends who had come to search for Sirius
at Hogwarts when he had escaped. Yet Sirius had been innocent - the murders for
which he had been convicted had been committed by Wormtail, Voldemort's

15

 

supporter, whom nearly everybody now believed dead. Harry, Ron, and Hermione
knew otherwise, however; they had come face-to-face with Wormtail only the
previous year, though only Professor Dumbledore had believed their story.

For one glorious hour, Harry had believed that he was leaving the Dursleys at last,
because Sirius had offered him a home once his name had been cleared. But the
chance had been snatched away from him - Wormtail had escaped before they
could take him to the Ministry of Magic, and Sirius had had to flee for his life.
Harry had helped him escape on the back of a hippogriff called Buckbeak, and
since then, Sirius had been on the run. The home Harry might have had if
Wormtail had not escaped had been haunting him all summer. It had been doubly
hard to return to the Dursleys knowing that he had so nearly escaped them forever.

Nevertheless, Sirius had been of some help to Harry, even if he couldn't be with
him. It was due to Sirius that Harry now had all his school things in his bedroom
with him. The Dursleys had never allowed this before; their general wish of
keeping Harry as miserable as possible, coupled with their fear of his powers, had
led them to lock his school trunk in the cupboard under the stairs every summer
prior to this. But their attitude had changed since they had found out that Harry
had a dangerous murderer for a godfather - for Harry had conveniently forgotten
to tell them that Sirius was innocent.

Harry had received two letters from Sirius since he had been back at Privet Drive.
Both had been delivered, not by owls (as was usual with wizards), but by large,
brightly colored tropical birds. Hedwig had not approved of these flashy intruders;
she had been most reluctant to allow them to drink from her water tray before
flying off again. Harry, on the other hand, had liked them; they put him in mind of
palm trees and white sand, and he hoped that, wherever Sirius was (Sirius never
said, in case the letters were intercepted), he was enjoying himself. Somehow,
Harry found it hard to imaging dementors surviving for long in bright sunlight,
perhapse that was why Sirius had gone South. Sirius's letters, which were now
hidden beneath the highly useful loose floorboards under Harry's bed, sounded
chearful, and in both of them he had reminded Harry to call on him if ever Harry
needed to. Well, he needed to right now, all right...

Harry's lamp seemed to grow dimmer as the cold gray light that precedes sunrise
slowly crept into the room. Finally, when the sun had risen, when his bedroom
walls had turned gold, and when sounds of movement could be heard from Uncle
Vernon and Aunt Petunia's room, Harry cleared his desk of crumpled pieces of
parchment and reread his finished letter.

Dear Sirius,

Thanks for your last letter. That bird was enormous; it could hardly get through
my window. Things are the same as usual here. Dudley's diet isn't going too well.
My aunt found him smuggling doughnuts into his room yesterday. They told him
they'd have to cut his pocket money if he keeps doing it, so he got really angry and
chucked his PlayStation out of the window. That's a sort of computer thing you

16

 

can play games on. Bit stupid really, now he hasn't even got Mega-Mutilation Part
Three to take his mind off things.
I'm okay, mainly because the Dursleys are terrified you might turn up and turn
them all into bats if I ask you to.
A weird thing happened this morning, though. My scar hurt again. Last time that
happened it was because Voldemort was at Hogwarts. But I don't reckon he can be
anywhere near me now, can he? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt years
afterward?
I'll send this with Hedwig when she gets back; she's off hunting at the moment.
Say hello to Buckbeak for me. Harry
Yes, thought Harry, that looked all right. There was no point putting in the dream;
he didn't want it to look as though he was too worried. He folded up the parchment
and laid it aside on his desk, ready for when Hedwig returned. Then he got to his
feet, stretched, and opened his wardrobe once more. Without glancing at his
reflection he started to get dressed before going down to breakfast.

17

 

CHAPTER THREE - THE INVITATION

By the time Harry arrived in the kitchen, the three Dursleys were already seated
around the table. None of them looked up as he entered or sat down. Uncle
Vernon's large red face was hidden behind the morning's Daily Mail, and Aunt
Petunia was cutting a grapefruit into quarters, her lips pursed over her horselike
teeth.

Dudley looked furious and sulky, and somehow seemed to be taking up even more
space than usual. This was saying something, as he always took up an entire side
of the square table by himself. When Aunt Petunia put a quarter of unsweetened
grapefruit onto Dudley's plate with a tremulous "There you are, Diddy darling,"
Dudley glowered at her. His life had taken a most unpleasant turn since he had
come home for the summer with his end-of-year report.

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had managed to find excuses for his bad marks as
usual: Aunt Petunia always insisted that Dudley was a very gifted boy whose
teachers didn't understand him, while Uncle Vernon maintained that "he didn't
want some swotty little nancy boy for a son anyway." They also skated over the
accusations of bullying in the report - "He's a boisterous little boy, but he wouldn't
hurt a fly!" Aunt Petunia had said tearfully.

However, at the bottom of the report there were a few well-chosen comments from
the school nurse that not even Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia could explain
away. No matter how much Aunt Petunia wailed that Dudley was big-boned, and
that his poundage was really puppy fat, and that he was a growing boy who needed
plenty of food, the fact remained that the school outfitters didn't stock
knickerbockers big enough for him anymore. The school nurse had seen what
Aunt Petunia's eyes - so sharp when it came to spotting fingerprints on her
gleaming walls, and in observing the comings and goings of the neighbors -
simply refused to see: that far from needing extra nourishment, Dudley had
reached roughly the size and weight of a young killer whale.

So - after many tantrums, after arguments that shook Harry's bedroom floor, and
many tears from Aunt Petunia - the new regime had begun. The diet sheet that had
been sent by the Smeltings school nurse had been taped to the fridge, which had
been emptied of all Dudley's favorite things - fizzy drinks and cakes, chocolate
bars and burgers and filled instead with fruit and vegetables and the sorts of things
that Uncle Vernon called "rabbit food." To make Dudley feel better about it all,
Aunt Petunia had insisted that the whole family follow the diet too. She now
passed a grapefruit quarter to Harry. He noticed that it was a lot smaller than
Dudley's. Aunt Petunia seemed to feet that the best way to keep up Dudley's
morale was to make sure that he did, at least, get more to eat than Harry.

But Aunt Petunia didn't know what was hidden under the loose floorboard
upstairs. She had no idea that Harry was not following the diet at all. The moment
he had got wind of the fact that he was expected to survive the summer on carrot

18

 

sticks, Harry had sent Hedwig to his friends with pleas for help, and they had risen
to the occasion magnificently. Hedwig had returned from Hermione's house with a
large box stuffed full of sugar-free snacks. (Hermione's parents were dentists.)
Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had obliged with a sack full of his own
homemade rock cakes. (Harry hadn't touched these; he had had too much
experience of Hagrid's cooking.) Mrs. Weasley, however, had sent the family owl,
Errol, with an enormous fruitcake and assorted meat pies. Poor Errol, who was
elderly and feeble, had needed a full five days to recover from the journey. And
then on Harry's birthday (which the Dursleys had completely ignored) he had
received four superb birthday cakes, one each from Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, and
Sirius. Harry still had two of them left, and so, looking forward to a real breakfast
when he got back upstairs, he ate his grapefruit without complaint.

Uncle Vernon laid aside his paper with a deep sniff of disapproval and looked
down at his own grapefruit quarter.

"Is this it?" he said grumpily to Aunt Petunia.

Aunt Petunia gave him a severe look, and then nodded pointedly at Dudley, who
had already finished his own grapefruit quarter and was eyeing Harry's with a very
sour look in his piggy little eyes.

Uncle Vernon gave a great sigh, which ruffled his large, bushy mustache, and
picked up his spoon.

The doorbell rang. Uncle Vernon heaved himself out of his chair and set off down
the hall. Quick as a flash, while his mother was occupied with the kettle, Dudley
stole the rest of Uncle Vernon's grapefruit.

Harry heard talking at the door, and someone laughing, and Uncle Vernon
answering curtly. Then the front door closed, and the sound of ripping paper came
from the hall.

Aunt Petunia set the teapot down on the table and looked curiously around to see
where Uncle Vernon had got to. She didn't have to wait long to find out; after
about a minute, he was back. He looked livid.

"You," he barked at Harry. "In the living room. Now."

Bewildered, wondering what on earth he was supposed to have done this time,
Harry got up and followed Uncle Vernon out of the kitchen and into the next
room. Uncle Vernon closed the door sharply behind both of them.

"So," he said, marching over to the fireplace and turning to face Harry as though
he were about to pronounce him under arrest. "So."

Harry would have dearly loved to have said, "So what?" but he didn't feel that
Uncle Vernon's temper should be tested this early in the morning, especially when
it was already under severe strain from lack of food. He therefore settled for

19

 

looking politely puzzled.

"This just arrived," said Uncle Vernon. He brandished a piece of purple writing
paper at Harry. "A letter. About you."

Harry's confusion increased. Who would be writing to Uncle Vernon about him?
Who did he know who sent letters by the postman?

Uncle Vernon glared at Harry, then looked down at the letter and began to read
aloud:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dursley,

We have never been introduced, but I am sure you have heard a great deal from
Harry about my son Ron.

As Harry might have told you, the final of the Quidditch World Cup takes place
this Monday night, and my husband, Arthur, has just managed to get prime tickets
through his connections at the Department of Magical Games and Sports.

I do hope you will allow us to take Harry to the match, as this really is a once-in-a-
lifetime opportunity; Britain hasn't hosted the cup for thirty years, and tickets are
extremely hard to come by. We would of course be glad to have Harry stay for the
remainder of the summer holidays, and to see him safely onto the train back to
school.

It would be best for Harry to send us your answer as quickly as possible in the
normal way, because the Muggle postman has never delivered to our house, and I
am not sure he even knows where it is.

Hoping to see Harry soon,

Yours sincerely,

Molly Weasley

P.S. I do hope we've put enough stamps on.

Uncle Vernon finished reading, put his hand back into his breast pocket, and drew
out something else.

"Look at this," he growled.

He held up the envelope in which Mrs. Weasley's letter had come, and Harry had
to fight down a laugh. Every bit of it was covered in stamps except for a square
inch on the front, into which Mrs. Weasley had squeezed the Dursleys' address in
minute writing.

"She did put enough stamps on, then," said Harry, trying to sound as though Mrs.
Weasley's was a mistake anyone could make. His uncle's eyes flashed.

20

 

"The postman noticed," he said through gritted teeth. "Very interested to know
where this letter came from, he was. That's why he rang the doorbell. Seemed to
think it was funny."

Harry didn't say anything. Other people might not understand why Uncle Vernon
was making a fuss about too many stamps, but Harry had lived with the Dursleys
too long not to know how touchy they were about anything even slightly out of the
ordinary. Their worst fear was that someone would find out that they were
connected (however distantly) with people like Mrs. Weasley.

Uncle Vernon was still glaring at Harry, who tried to keep his expression neutral.
If he didn't do or say anything stupid, he might just be in for the treat of a lifetime.
He waited for Uncle Vernon to say something, but he merely continued to glare.
Harry decided to break the silence.

"So - can I go then?" he asked.

A slight spasm crossed Uncle Vernon's large purple face. The mustache bristled.
Harry thought he knew what was going on behind the mustache: a furious battle as
two of Uncle Vernon's most fundamental instincts came into conflict. Allowing
Harry to go would make Harry happy, something Uncle Vernon had struggled
against for thirteen years. On the other hand, allowing Harry to disappear to the
Weasleys' for the rest of the summer would get rid of him two weeks earlier than
anyone could have hoped, and Uncle Vernon hated having Harry in the house. To
give himself thinking time, it seemed, he looked down at Mrs. Weasley's letter
again.

"Who is this woman?" he said, staring at the signature with distaste.

"You've seen her," said Harry. "She's my friend Ron's mother, she was meeting
him off the Hog - off the school train at the end of last term."

He had almost said "Hogwarts Express," and that was a sure way to get his uncle's
temper up. Nobody ever mentioned the name of Harry's school aloud in the
Dursley household.

Uncle Vernon screwed up his enormous face as though trying to remember
something very unpleasant.

"Dumpy sort of woman?" he growled finally. "Load of children with red hair?"

Harry frowned. He thought it was a bit rich of Uncle Vernon to call anyone
"dumpy," when his own son, Dudley, had finally achieved what he'd been
threatening to do since the age of three, and become wider than he was tall.

Uncle Vernon was perusing the letter again.

"Quidditch," he muttered under his breath. "Quidditch - what is this rubbish?"

Harry felt a second stab of annoyance.

21

 

"It's a sport," he said shortly. "Played on broom- "

"All right, all right!" said Uncle Vernon loudly. Harry saw, with some satisfaction,
that his uncle looked vaguely panicky. Apparently his nerves couldn't stand the
sound of the word "broomsticks" in his living room. He took refuge in perusing
the letter again. Harry saw his lips form the words "send us your answer ... in the
normal way." He scowled.

"What does she mean, 'the normal way'?" he spat.

"Normal for us," said Harry, and before his uncle could stop him, he added, "you
know, owl post. That's what's normal for wizards."

Uncle Vernon looked as outraged as if Harry had just uttered a disgusting
swearword. Shaking with anger, he shot a nervous look through the window, as
though expecting to see some of the neighbors with their ears pressed against the
glass.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to mention that unnaturalness under my
roof?" he hissed, his face now a rich plum color. "You stand there, in the clothes
Petunia and I have put on your ungrateful back -"

"Only after Dudley finished with them," said Harry coldly, and indeed, he was
dressed in a sweatshirt so large for him that he had had to roll back the sleeves five
times so as to be able to use his hands, and which fell past the knees of his
extremely baggy jeans.

"I will not be spoken to like that!" said Uncle Vernon, trembling with rage.

But Harry wasn't going to stand for this. Gone were the days when he had been
forced to take every single one of the Dursleys' stupid rules. He wasn't following
Dudley's diet, and he wasn't going to let Uncle Vernon stop him from going to the
Quidditch World Cup, not if he could help it. Harry took a deep, steadying breath
and then said, "Okay, I can't see the World Cup. Can I go now, then? Only I've got
a letter to Sirius I want to finish. You know - my godfather."

He had done it, he had said the magic words. Now he watched the purple recede
blotchily from Uncle Vernon's face, making it look like badly mixed black currant
ice cream.

"You're - you're writing to him, are you?" said Uncle Vernon, in a would-be calm
voice - but Harry had seen the pupils of his tiny eyes contract with sudden fear.

"Well - yeah," said Harry, casually. "It's been a while since he heard from me, and,
you know, if he doesn't he might start thinking something's wrong."

He stopped there to enjoy the effect of these words. He could almost see the cogs
working under Uncle Vernon's thick, dark, neatly parted hair. If he tried to stop
Harry writing to Sirius, Sirius would think Harry was being mistreated. If he told
Harry he couldn't go to the Quidditch World Cup, Harry would write and tell

22

 

Sirius, who would know Harry was being mistreated. There was only one thing for
Uncle Vernon to do. Harry could see the conclusion forming in his uncle's mind as
though the great mustached face were transparent. Harry tried not to smile, to keep
his own face as blank as possible. And then -

"Well, all right then. You can go to this ruddy ... this stupid ... this World Cup
thing. You write and tell these - these Weasleys they're to pick you up, mind. I
haven't got time to go dropping you off all over the country. And you can spend
the rest of the summer there. And you can tell your - your godfather ... tell him ...
tell him you're going."

"Okay then," said Harry brightly.

He turned and walked toward the living room door, fighting the urge to jump into
the air and whoop. He was going ... he was going to the Weasleys', he was going
to watch the Quidditch World Cup!

Outside in the hall he nearly ran into Dudley, who had been lurking behind the
door, clearly hoping to overhear Harry being told off. He looked shocked to see
the broad grin on Harry's face.

"That was an excellent breakfast, wasn't it?" said Harry. "I feel really full, don't
you?"

Laughing at the astonished look on Dudley's face, Harry took the stairs three at a
time, and hurled himself back into his bedroom.

The first thing he saw was that Hedwig was back. She was sitting in her cage,
staring at Harry with her enormous amber eyes, and clicking her beak in the way
that meant she was annoyed about something. Exactly what was annoying her
became apparent almost at once.

"OUCH!" said Harry as what appeared to be a small, gray, feathery tennis ball
collided with the side of his head. Harry massaged the spot furiously, looking up
to see what had hit him, and saw a minute owl, small enough to fit into the palm of
his hand, whizzing excitedly around the room like a loose firework. Harry then
realized that the owl had dropped a letter at his feet. Harry bent down, recognized
Ron's handwriting, then tore open the envelope. Inside was a hastily scribbled
note.

Harry - DAD GOT THE TICKETS - Ireland versus Bulgaria, Monday night.
Mum's writing to the Muggles to ask you to stay. They might already have the
letter, I don't know how fast Muggle post is. Thought I'd send this with Pig
anyway.

Harry stared at the word "Pig," then looked up at the tiny owl now zooming
around the light fixture on the ceiling. He had never seen anything that looked less
like a pig. Maybe he couldn't read Ron's writing. He went back to the letter:

23

 

We're coming for you whether the Muggles like it or not, you can't miss the World
Cup, only Mum and Dad reckon it's better if we pretend to ask their permission
first. If they say yes, send Pig back with your answer pronto, and we'll come and
get you at five o'clock on Sunday. If they say no, send Pig back pronto and we'll
come and get you at five o'clock on Sunday anyway.

Hermione's arriving this afternoon. Percy's started work - the Department of
International Magical Cooperation. Don't mention anything about Abroad while
you're here unless you want the pants bored off you.

See you soon - Ron

"Calm down!" Harry said as the small owl flew low over his head, twittering
madly with what Harry could only assume was pride at having delivered the letter
to the right person. "Come here, I need you to take my answer back!"

The owl fluttered down on top of Hedwig's cage. Hedwig looked coldly up at it, as
though daring it to try and come any closer.

Harry seized his eagle-feather quill once more, grabbed a fresh piece of
parchment, and wrote:

Ron, it's all okay, the Muggles say I can come. See you five o'clock tomorrow.
Can't wait. Harry

He folded this note up very small, and with immense difficulty, tied it to the tiny
owl's leg as it hopped on the spot with excitement. The moment the note was
secure, the owl was off again; it zoomed out of the window and out of sight.

Harry turned to Hedwig.

"Feeling up to a long journey?" he asked her.

Hedwig hooted in a dignified sort of a way.

"Can you take this to Sirius for me?" he said, picking up his letter. "Hang on ... I
just want to finish it."

He unfolded the parchment and hastily added a postscript.

If you want to contact me, I'll be at my friend Ron Weasley's for the rest of the
summer. His dad's got us tickets for the Quidditch World Cup!

The letter finished, he tied it to Hedwig's leg; she kept unusually still, as though
determined to show him how a real post owl should behave.

"I'll be at Ron's when you get back, all right?" Harry told her.

She nipped his finger affectionately, then, with a soft swooshing noise, spread her
enormous wings and soared out of the open window.

24

 

Harry watched her out of sight, then crawled under his bed, wrenched up the loose
floorboard, and pulled out a large chunk of birthday cake. He sat there on the floor
eating it, savoring the happiness that was flooding through him. He had cake, and
Dudley had nothing but grapefruit; it was a bright summer's day, he would be
leaving Privet Drive tomorrow, his scar felt perfectly normal again, and he was
going to watch the Quidditch World Cup. It was hard, just now, to feel worried
about anything - even Lord Voldemort.

25

 

CHAPTER FOUR - BACK TO THE BURROW

By twelve o'clock the next day, Harry's school trunk was packed with his school
things and all his most prized possessions - the Invisibility Cloak he had inherited
from his father, the broomstick he had gotten from Sirius, the enchanted map of
Hogwarts he had been given by Fred and George Weasley last year. He had
emptied his hiding place under the loose floorboard of all food, double-checked
every nook and cranny of his bedroom for forgotten spellbooks or quills, and taken
down the chart on the wall counting down the days to September the first, on
which he liked to cross off the days remaining until his return to Hogwarts.

The atmosphere inside number four, Privet Drive was extremely tense. The
imminent arrival at their house of an assortment of wizards was making the
Dursleys uptight and irritable. Uncle Vernon had looked downright alarmed when
Harry informed him that the Weasleys would be arriving at five o'clock the very
next day.

"I hope you told them to dress properly, these people," he snarled at once. "I've
seen the sort of stuff your lot wear. They'd better have the decency to put on
normal clothes, that's all."

Harry felt a slight sense of foreboding. He had rarely seen Mr. or Mrs. Weasley
wearing anything that the Dursleys would call "normal." Their children might don
Muggle clothing during the holidays, but Mr. and Mrs. Weasley usually wore long
robes in varying states of shabbiness. Harry wasn't bothered about what the
neighbors would think, but he was anxious about how rude the Dursleys might be
to the Weasleys if they turned up looking like their worst idea of wizards.

Uncle Vernon had put on his best suit. To some people, this might have looked
like a gesture of welcome, but Harry knew it was because Uncle Vernon wanted to
look impressive and intimidating. Dudley, on the other hand, looked somehow
diminished. This was not because the diet was at last taking effect, but due to
fright. Dudley had emerged from his last encounter with a fully grown wizard with
a curly pig's tail poking out of the seat of his trousers, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle
Vernon had had to pay for its removal at a private hospital in London. It wasn't
altogether surprising, therefore, that Dudley kept running his hand nervously over
his backside, and walking sideways from room to room, so as not to present the
same target to the enemy.

Lunch was an almost silent meal. Dudley didn't even protest at the food (cottage
cheese and grated celery). Aunt Petunia wasn't, eating anything at all. Her arms
were folded, her lips were pursed, and she seemed to be chewing her tongue, as
though biting back the furious diatribe she longed to throw at Harry.

"They'll be driving, of course?" Uncle Vernon barked across the table.

26

 

"Er," said Harry.

He hadn't thought of that. How were the Weasleys going to pick him up? They
didn't have a car anymore; the old Ford Anglia they had once owned was currently
running wild in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts. But Mr. Weasley had borrowed
a Ministry of Magic car last year; possibly he would do the same today?

"I think so," said Harry.

Uncle Vernon snorted into his mustache. Normally, Uncle Vernon would have
asked what car Mr. Weasley drove; he tended to judge other men by how big and
expensive their cars were. But Harry doubted whether Uncle Vernon would have
taken to Mr. Weasley even if he drove a Ferrari.

Harry spent most of the afternoon in his bedroom; he couldn't stand watching Aunt
Petunia peer out through the net curtains every few seconds, as though there had
been a warning about an escaped rhinoceros. Finally, at a quarter to five, Harry
went back downstairs and into the living room.

Aunt Petunia was compulsively straightening cushions. Uncle Vernon was
pretending to read the paper, but his tiny eyes were not moving, and Harry was
sure he was really listening with all his might for the sound of an approaching car.
Dudley was crammed into an armchair, his porky hands beneath him, clamped
firmly around his bottom. Harry couldn't take the tension; he left the room and
went and sat on the stairs in the hall, his eyes on his watch and his heart pumping
fast from excitement and nerves.

But five o'clock came and then went. Uncle Vernon, perspiring slightly in his suit,
opened the front door, peered up and down the street, then withdrew his head
quickly.

"They're late!" he snarled at Harry.

I know," said Harry. "Maybe - er - the traffic's bad, or something."

Ten past five ... then a quarter past five ... Harry was starting to feel anxious
himself now. At half past, he heard Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia conversing in
terse mutters in the living room.

"No consideration at all."

"We might've had an engagement."

"Maybe they think they'll get invited to dinner if they're late."

"Well, they most certainly won't be," said Uncle Vernon, and Harry heard him
stand up and start pacing the living room. "They'll take the boy and go, there'll be
no hanging around. That's if they're coming at all. Probably mistaken the day. I
daresay their kind don't set much store by punctuality. Either that or they drive
some tin-pot car that's broken d- AAAAAAAARRRRRGH!"

27

 

Harry jumped up. From the other side of the living room door came the sounds of
the three Dursleys scrambling, panic-stricken, across the room. Next moment
Dudley came flying into the hall, looking terrified.

"What happened?" said Harry. "What's the matter?"

But Dudley didn't seem able to speak. Hands still clamped over his buttocks, he
waddled as fast as he could into the kitchen. Harry hurried into the living room.

Loud bangings and scrapings were coming from behind the Dursleys' boarded-up
fireplace, which had a fake coal fire plugged in front of it.

"What is it?" gasped Aunt Petunia, who had backed into the wall and was staring,
terrified, toward the fire. "What is it, Vernon?"

But they were left in doubt barely a second longer. Voices could be heard from
inside the blocked fireplace.

"Ouch! Fred, no - go back, go back, there's been some kind of mistake - tell
George not to - OUCH! George, no, there's no room, go back quickly and tell Ron-
"

"Maybe Harry can hear us, Dad - maybe he'll be able to let us out-"

There was a loud hammering of fists on the boards behind the electric fire.

"Harry? Harry, can you hear us?"

The Dursleys rounded on Harry like a pair of angry wolverines.

"What is this?" growled Uncle Vernon. "What's going on?"

"They - they've tried to get here by Floo powder," said Harry, fighting a mad
desire to laugh. "They can travel by fire - only you've blocked the fireplace - hang
on -"

He approached the fireplace and called through the boards.

"Mr. Weasley? Can you hear me?"

The hammering stopped. Somebody inside the chimney piece said, "Shh!"

"Mr. Weasley, it's Harry ... the fireplace has been blocked up. You won't be able to
get through there."

"Damn!" said Mr. Weasley's voice. "What on earth did they want to block up the
fireplace for?"

"They've got an electric fire," Harry explained.

"Really?" said Mr. Weasley's voice excitedly. "Eclectic, you say? With a plug?
Gracious, I must see that.... Let's think ... ouch, Ron!"

28

 

Ron's voice now joined the others'.

"What are we doing here? Has something gone wrong?"

"Oh no, Ron," came Fred's voice, very sarcastically. "No, this is exactly where we
wanted to end up."

"Yeah, we're having the time of our lives here," said George, whose voice sounded
muffled, as though he was squashed against the wall.

"Boys, boys. . ." said Mr. Weasley vaguely. "I'm trying to think what to do.... Yes
... only way. . . Stand back, Harry."

Harry retreated to the sofa. Uncle Vernon, however, moved forward.

"Wait a moment!" he bellowed at the fire. "What exactly are you going to -"

BANG.

The electric fire shot across the room as the boarded-up fireplace burst outward,
expelling Mr. Weasley, Fred, George, and Ron in a cloud of rubble and loose
chippings. Aunt Petunia shrieked and fell backward over the coffee table; Uncle
Vernon caught her before she hit the floor, and gaped, speechless, at the Weasleys,
all of whom had bright red hair, including Fred and George, who were identical to
the last freckle.

"That's better," panted Mr. Weasley, brushing dust from his long green robes and
straightening his glasses. "Ah - you must be Harry's aunt and uncle!"

Tall, thin, and balding, he moved toward Uncle Vernon, his hand outstretched, but
Uncle Vernon backed away several paces, dragging Aunt Petunia. Words utterly
failed Uncle Vernon. His best suit was covered in white dust, which had settled in
his hair and mustache and made him look as though he had just aged thirty years.

"Er - yes - sorry about that," said Mr. Weasley, lowering his hand and looking
over his shoulder at the blasted fireplace. "It's all my fault. It just didn't occur to
me that we wouldn't be able to get out at the other end. I had your fireplace
connected to the Floo Network, you see - just for an afternoon, you know, so we
could get Harry. Muggle fireplaces aren't supposed to be connected, strictly
speaking - but I've got a useful contact at the Floo Regulation Panel and he fixed it
for me. I can put it right in a jiffy, though, don't worry. I'll light a fire to send the
boys back, and then I can repair your fireplace before I Disapparate."

Harry was ready to bet that the Dursleys hadn't understood a single word of this.
They were still gaping at Mr. Weasley, thunderstruck. Aunt Petunia staggered
upright again and hid behind Uncle Vernon.

"Hello, Harry!" said Mr. Weasley brightly. "Got your trunk ready?"

"It's upstairs," said Harry, grinning back.

29

 

"We'll get it," said Fred at once. Winking at Harry, he and George left the room.
They knew where Harry's bedroom was, having once rescued him from it in the
dead of night. Harry suspected that Fred and George were hoping for a glimpse of
Dudley; they had heard a lot about him from Harry.

"Well," said Mr. Weasley, swinging his arms slightly, while he tried to find words
to break the very nasty silence. "Very - erm - very nice place you've got here."

As the usually spotless living room was now covered in dust and bits of brick, this
remark didn't go down too well with the Dursleys. Uncle Vernon's face purpled
once more, and Aunt Petunia started chewing her tongue again. However, they
seemed too scared to actually say anything.

Mr. Weasley was looking around. He loved everything to do with Muggles. Harry
could see him itching to go and examine the television and the video recorder.

"They run off eckeltricity, do they?" he said knowledgeably. "Ah yes, I can see the
plugs. I collect plugs," he added to Uncle Vernon. "And batteries. Got a very large
collection of batteries. My wife thinks I'm mad, but there you are."

Uncle Vernon clearly thought Mr. Weasley was mad too. He moved ever so
slightly to the right, screening Aunt Petunia from view, as though he thought Mr.
Weasley might suddenly run at them and attack.

Dudley suddenly reappeared in the room. Harry could hear the clunk of his trunk
on the stairs, and knew that the sounds had scared Dudley out of the kitchen.
Dudley edged along the wall, gazing at Mr. Weasley with terrified eyes, and
attempted to conceal himself behind his mother and father. Unfortunately, Uncle
Vernon's bulk, while sufficient to hide bony Aunt Petunia, was nowhere near
enough to conceal Dudley.

"Ah, this is your cousin, is it, Harry?" said Mr. Weasley, taking another brave stab
at making conversation.

"Yep," said Harry, "that's Dudley."

He and Ron exchanged glances and then quickly looked away from each other; the
temptation to burst out laughing was almost overwhelming. Dudley was still
clutching his bottom as though afraid it might fall off. Mr. Weasley, however,
seemed genuinely concerned at Dudley's peculiar behavior. Indeed, from the tone
of his voice when he next spoke, Harry was quite sure that Mr. Weasley thought
Dudley was quite as mad as the Dursleys thought he was, except that Mr. Weasley
felt sympathy rather than fear.

"Having a good holiday, Dudley?" he said kindly.

Dudley whimpered. Harry saw his hands tighten still harder over his massive
backside.

Fred and George came back into the room carrying Harry's school trunk. They

30

 

glanced around as they entered and spotted Dudley. Their faces cracked into
identical evil grins.

"Ah, right," said Mr. Weasley. "Better get cracking then."

He pushed up the sleeves of his robes and took out his wand. Harry saw the
Dursleys draw back against the wall as one.

"Incendio!" said Mr. Weasley, pointing his wand at the hole in the wall behind
him.

Flames rose at once in the fireplace, crackling merrily as though they had been
burning for hours. Mr. Weasley took a small drawstring bag from his pocket,
untied it, took a pinch of the powder inside, and threw it onto the flames, which
turned emerald green and roared higher than ever.

"Off you go then, Fred," said Mr. Weasley.

"Coming," said Fred. "Oh no - hang on -"

A bag of sweets had spilled out of Fred's pocket and the contents were now rolling
in every direction - big, fat toffees in brightly colored wrappers.

Fred scrambled around, cramming them back into his pocket, then gave the
Dursleys a cheery wave, stepped forward, and walked right into the fire, saying
"the Burrow!" Aunt Petunia gave a little shuddering gasp. There was a whooshing
sound, and Fred vanished.

"Right then, George," said Mr. Weasley, "you and the trunk."

Harry helped George carry the trunk forward into the flames and turn it onto its
end so that he could hold it better. Then, with a second whoosh, George had cried
"the Burrow!" and vanished too.

"Ron, you next," said Mr. Weasley.

"See you," said Ron brightly to the Dursleys. He grinned broadly at Harry, then
stepped into the fire, shouted "the Burrow!" and disappeared.

Now Harry and Mr. Weasley alone remained.

"Well . . . 'bye then," Harry said to the Dursleys.

They didn't say anything at all. Harry moved toward the fire, but just as he reached
the edge of the hearth, Mr. Weasley put out a hand and held him back. He was
looking at the Dursleys in amazement.

"Harry said good-bye to you," he said. "Didn't you hear him?"

"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.

31

 

"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?"

Uncle Vernon's face worked furiously. The idea of being taught consideration by a
man who had just blasted away half his living room wall seemed to be causing
him intense suffering. But Mr. Weasley's wand was still in his hand, and Uncle
Vernon's tiny eyes darted to it once, before he said, very resentfully, "Good-bye,
then."

"See you," said Harry, putting one foot forward into the green flames, which felt
pleasantly like warm breath. At that moment, however, a horrible gagging sound
erupted behind him, and Aunt Petunia started to scream.

Harry wheeled around. Dudley was no longer standing behind his parents. He was
kneeling beside the coffee table, and he was gagging and sputtering on a foot-long,
purple, slimy thing that was protruding from his mouth. One bewildered second
later, Harry realized that the foot-long thing was Dudley's tongue - and that a
brightly colored toffee wrapper lay on the floor before him.

Aunt Petunia hurled herself onto the ground beside Dudley, seized the end of his
swollen tongue, and attempted to wrench it out of his mouth; unsurprisingly,
Dudley yelled and sputtered worse than ever, trying to fight her off. Uncle Vernon
was bellowing and waving his arms around, and Mr. Weasley had to shout to
make himself heard.

"Not to worry, I can sort him out!" he yelled, advancing on Dudley with his wand
outstretched, but Aunt Petunia screamed worse than ever and threw herself on top
of Dudley, shielding him from Mr. Weasley.

"No, really!" said Mr. Weasley desperately. "It's a simple process it was the toffee
- my son Fred - real practical joker - but it's only an Engorgement Charm - at least,
I think it is - please, I can correct it -"

But far from being reassured, the Dursleys became more panic- stricken; Aunt
Petunia was sobbing hysterically, tugging Dudley's tongue as though determined
to rip it out; Dudley appeared to be suffocating under the combined pressure of his
mother and his tongue; and Uncle Vernon, who had lost control completely, seized
a china figure from on top of the sideboard and threw it very hard at Mr. Weasley,
who ducked, causing the ornament to shatter in the blasted fireplace.

"Now really!" said Mr. Weasley angrily, brandishing his wand. "I'm trying to
help!"

Bellowing like a wounded hippo, Uncle Vernon snatched up another ornament.

"Harry, go! Just go!" Mr. Weasley shouted, his wand on Uncle Vernon. "I'll sort
this out!"

Harry didn't want to miss the fun, but Uncle Vernon's second ornament narrowly

32

 

missed his left ear, and on balance he thought it best to leave the situation to Mr.
Weasley. He stepped into the fire, looking over his shoulder as he said "the
Burrow!" His last fleeting glimpse of the living room was of Mr. Weasley blasting
a third ornament out of Uncle Vernon's hand with his wand, Aunt Petunia
screaming and lying on top of Dudley, and Dudley's tongue lolling around like a
great slimy python. But next moment Harry had begun to spin very fast, and the
Dursleys' living room was whipped out of sight in a rush of emerald-green flames.

33

 

CHAPTER FIVE - WEASLEYS' WIZARD WHEEZES

Harry spun faster and faster, elbows tucked tightly to his sides, blurred fireplaces
flashing past him, until he started to feel sick and closed his eyes. Then, when at
last he felt himself slowing down, he threw out his hands and came to a halt in
time to prevent himself from falling face forward out of the Weasleys' kitchen fire.

"Did he eat it?" said Fred excitedly, holding out a hand to pull Harry to his fee

"Yeah," said Harry, straightening up. "What was it?"

"Ton-Tongue Toffee," said Fred brightly. "George and I invented them, and we've
been looking for someone to test them on all summer. . . ."

The tiny kitchen exploded with laughter; Harry looked around and saw that Ron
and George were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with two red-haired people
Harry had never seen before, though he knew immediately who they must be: Bill
and Charlie, the two eldest Weasley brothers.

"How're you doing, Harry?" said the nearer of the two, grinning at him and
holding out a large hand, which Harry shook, feeling calluses and blisters under
his fingers. This had to be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. Charlie
was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both
long and lanky. He had a broad, good-natured face, which was weather-beaten and
so freckly that he looked almost tanned; his arms were muscular, and one of them
had a large, shiny burn on it.

Bill got to his feet, smiling, and also shook Harry's hand. Bill came as something
of a surprise. Harry knew that he worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and
that Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts; Harry had always imagined Bill to be an
older version of Percy: fussy about rule-breaking and fond of bossing everyone
around. However, Bill was - there was no other word for it - cool. He was tall,
with long hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing an earring with
what looked like a fang dangling from it. Bill's clothes would not have looked out
of place at a rock concert, except that Harry recognized his boots to be made, not
of leather, but of dragon hide.

Before any of them could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise, and
Mr. Weasley appeared out of thin air at George's shoulder. He was looking angrier
than Harry had ever seen him.

"That wasn't funny Fred!" he shouted. "What on earth did you give that Muggle
boy?"

"I didn't give him anything," said Fred, with another evil grin. I just dropped it.... It
was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to."

34

 

"You dropped it on purpose!" roared Mr. Weasley. "You knew he'd eat it, you
knew he was on a diet -"

"How big did his tongue get?" George asked eagerly.

"It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!"

Harry and the Weasleys roared with laughter again.

"It isn't funny!" Mr. Weasley shouted. "That sort of behavior seriously undermines
wizard-Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the
mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons

"We didn't give it to him because he's a Muggle!" said Fred indignantly.

"No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git," said George. "Isn't he,
Harry?"

"Yeah, he is, Mr. Weasley," said Harry earnestly.

"That's not the point!" raged Mr. Weasley. "You wait until I tell your mother -"

"Tell me what?" said a voice behind them.

Mrs. Weasley had just entered the kitchen. She was a short, plump woman with a
very kind face, though her eyes were presently narrowed with suspicion.

"Oh hello, Harry, dear," she said, spotting him and smiling. Then her eyes snapped
back to her husband. "Tell me what, Arthur?"

Mr. Weasley hesitated. Harry could tell that, however angry he was with Fred and
George, he hadn't really intended to tell Mrs. Weasley what had happened. There
was a silence, while Mr. Weasley eyed his wife nervously. Then two girls
appeared in the kitchen doorway behind Mrs. Weasley. One, with very bushy
brown hair and rather large front teeth, was Harry's and Ron's friend, Hermione
Granger. The other, who was small and red-haired, was Ron's younger sister,
Ginny. Both of them smiled at Harry, who grinned back, which made Ginny go
scarlet - she had been very taken with Harry ever since his first visit to the
Burrow.

"Tell me what, Arthur?" Mrs. Weasley repeated, in a dangerous sort of voice.

"It's nothing, Molly," mumbled Mr. Weasley, "Fred and George just - but I've had
words with them -"

"What have they done this time?" said Mrs. Weasley. "If it's got anything to do
with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes -"

"Why don't you show Harry where he's sleeping, Ron?" said Hermione from the
doorway.

35

 

"He knows where he's sleeping," said Ron, "in my room, he slept there last -"

"We can all go," said Hermione pointedly.

"Oh," said Ron, cottoning on. "Right."

"Yeah, we'll come too," said George.

"You stay where you are!" snarled Mrs. Weasley.

Harry and Ron edged out of the kitchen, and they, Hermione, and Ginny set off
along the narrow hallway and up the rickety staircase that zigzagged through the
house to the upper stories.

"What are Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?" Harry asked as they climbed.

Ron and Ginny both laughed, although Hermione didn't.

"Mum found this stack of order forms when she was cleaning Fred and George's
room," said Ron quietly. "Great long price lists for stuff they've invented. Joke
stuff, you know. Fake wands and trick sweets, loads of stuff. It was brilliant, I
never knew they'd been inventing all that . . ."

"We've been hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought
they were actually making things," said Ginny. "We thought they just liked the
noise."

"Only, most of the stuff - well, all of it, really - was a bit dangerous," said Ron,
"and, you know, they were planning to sell it at Hogwarts to make some money,
and Mum went mad at them. Told them they weren't allowed to make any more of
it, and burned all the order forms.... She's furious at them anyway. They didn't get
as many O.W.L.s as she expected."

O.W.L.s were Ordinary Wizarding Levels, the examinations Hogwarts students
took at the age of fifteen.

"And then there was this big row," Ginny said, "because Mum wants them to go
into the Ministry of Magic like Dad, and they told her all they want to do is open a
joke shop."

Just then a door on the second landing opened, and a face poked out wearing horn-
rimmed glasses and a very annoyed expression.

"Hi, Percy," said Harry.

"Oh hello, Harry," said Percy. "I was wondering who was making all the noise.
I'm trying to work in here, you know I've got a report to finish for the office - and
it's rather difficult to concentrate when people keep thundering up and down the
stairs."

"We're not thundering, "said Ron irritably. "We're walking. Sorry if we've

36

 

disturbed the top-secret workings of the Ministry of Magic."

"What are you working on?" said Harry.

"A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," said Percy
smugly. "We're trying to standardize cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign
imports are just a shade too thin - leakages have been increasing at a rate of almost
three percent a year -"

"That'll change the world, that report will," said Ron. "Front page of the Daily
Prophet, I expect, cauldron leaks."

Percy went slightly pink.

"You might sneer, Ron," he said heatedly, "but unless some sort of international
law is imposed we might well find the market flooded with flimsy, shallow-
bottomed products that seriously endanger -"

"Yeah, yeah, all right," said Ron, and he started off upstairs again. Percy slammed
his bedroom door shut. As Harry, Hermione, and Ginny followed Ron up three
more flights of stairs, shouts from the kitchen below echoed up to them. It sounded
as though Mr. Weasley had told Mrs. Weasley about the toffees.

The room at the top of the house where Ron slept looked much as it had the last
time that Harry had come to stay: the same posters of Ron's favorite Quidditch
team, the Chudley Cannons, were whirling and waving on the walls and sloping
ceiling, and the fish tank on the windowsill, which had previously held frog
spawn, now contained one extremely large frog. Ron's old rat, Scabbers, was here
no more, but instead there was the tiny gray owl that had delivered Ron's letter to
Harry in Privet Drive. It was hopping up and down in a small cage and twittering
madly.

"Shut up, Pig," said Ron, edging his way between two of the four beds that had
been squeezed into the room. "Fred and George are in here with us, because Bill
and Charlie are in their room," he told Harry. "Percy gets to keep his room all to
himself because he's got to work."

"Er - why are you calling that owl Pig?" Harry asked Ron.

"Because he's being stupid," said Ginny, "Its proper name is Pigwidgeon."

"Yeah, and that's not a stupid name at all," said Ron sarcastically. "Ginny named
him," he explained to Harry. "She reckons it's sweet. And I tried to change it, but it
was too late, he won't answer to anything else. So now he's Pig. I've got to keep
him up here because he annoys Errol and Hermes. He annoys me too, come to
that.

Pigwidgeon zoomed happily around his cage, hooting shrilly. Harry knew Ron too
well to take him seriously. He had moaned continually about his old rat, Scabbers,
but had been most upset when Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, appeared to have

37

 

eaten him.

"Where's Crookshanks?" Harry asked Hermione now.

"Out in the garden, I expect," she said. "He likes chasing gnomes. He's never seen
any before."

"Percy's enjoying work, then?" said Harry, sitting down on one of the beds and
watching the Chudley Cannons zooming in and out of the posters on the ceiling.

"Enjoying it?" said Ron darkly. "I don't reckon he'd come home if Dad didn't make
him. He's obsessed. Just don't get him onto the subject of his boss. According to
Mr. Crouch ... as I was saying to Mr. Crouch ... Mr. Crouch is of the opinion ...
Mr. Crouch was telling me ... They'll be announcing their engagement any day
now."

"Have you had a good summer, Harry?" said Hermione. "Did you get our food
parcels and everything?"

"Yeah, thanks a lot, " said Harry. "They saved my life, those cakes.

"And have you heard from -?" Ron began, but at a look from Hermione he fell
silent. Harry knew Ron had been about to ask about Sirius. Ron and Hermione had
been so deeply involved in helping Sirius escape from the Ministry of Magic that
they were almost as concerned about Harry's godfather as he was. However,
discussing him in front of Ginny was a bad idea. Nobody but themselves and
Professor Dumbledore knew about how Sirius had escaped, or believed in his
innocence.

"I think they've stopped arguing," said Hermione, to cover the awkward moment,
because Ginny was looking curiously from Ron to Harry. "Shall we go down and
help your mum with dinner?"

"Yeah, all right," said Ron. The four of them left Ron's room and went back
downstairs to find Mrs. Weasley alone in the kitchen, looking extremely bad-
tempered.

"We're eating out in the garden," she said when they came in. "There's just not
room for eleven people in here. Could you take the plates outside, girls? Bill and
Charlie are setting up the tables. Knives and forks, please, you two," she said to
Ron and Harry, pointing her wand a little more vigorously than she had intended
at a pile of potatoes in the sink, which shot out of their skins so fast that they
ricocheted off the walls and ceiling.

"Oh for heaven's sake," she snapped, now directing her wand at a dustpan, which
hopped off the sideboard and started skating across the floor, scooping up the
potatoes. "Those two!" she burst out savagely, now pulling pots and pans out of a
cupboard, and Harry knew she meant Fred and George. I don't know what's going
to happen to them, I really don't. No ambition, unless you count making as much

38

 

trouble as they possibly can...."

Mrs. Weasley slammed a large copper saucepan down on the kitchen table and
began to wave her wand around inside it. A creamy sauce poured from the wand
tip as she stirred.

"It's not as though they haven't got brains, she continued irritably, taking the
saucepan over to the stove and lighting it with a further poke of her wand, "but
they're wasting them, and unless they pull themselves together soon, they'll be in
real trouble. I've had more owls from Hogwarts about them than the rest put
together. If they carry on the way they're going, they'll end up in front of the
Improper Use of Magic Office."

Mrs. Weasley jabbed her wand at the cutlery drawer, which shot open. Harry and
Ron both jumped out of the way as several knives soared out of it, flew across the
kitchen, and began chopping the potatoes, which had just been tipped back into the
sink by the dustpan.

"I don't know where we went wrong with them," said Mrs. Weasley, putting down
her wand and starting to pull out still more saucepans. "It's been the same for
years, one thing after another, and they won't listen to - OH NOT AGAIN!"

She had picked up her wand from the table, and it had emitted a loud squeak and
turned into a giant rubber mouse.

"One of their fake wands again!" she shouted. "How many times have I told them
not to leave them lying around?"

She grabbed her real wand and turned around to find that the sauce on the stove
was smoking.

"C'mon," Ron said hurriedly to Harry, seizing a handful of cutlery from the open
drawer, "let's go and help Bill and Charlie."

They left Mrs. Weasley and headed out the back door into the yard.

They had only gone a few paces when Hermione's bandy-legged ginger cat,
Crookshanks, came pelting out of the garden, bottle-brush tail held high in the air,
chasing what looked like a muddy potato on legs. Harry recognized it instantly as
a gnome. Barely ten inches high, its horny little feet pattered very fast as it
sprinted across the yard and dived headlong into one of the Wellington boots that
lay scattered around the door. Harry could hear the gnome giggling madly as
Crookshanks inserted a paw into the boot, trying to reach it. Meanwhile, a very
loud crashing noise was coming from the other side of the house. The source of
the commotion was revealed as they entered the garden, and saw that Bill and
Charlie both had their wands out, and were making two battered old tables fly high
above the lawn, smashing into each other, each attempting to knock the other's out
of the air. Fred and George were cheering, Ginny was laughing, and Hermione
was hovering near the hedge, apparently torn between amusement and anxiety.

39

 

Bill's table caught Charlie's with a huge bang and knocked one of its legs off.
There was a clatter from overhead, and they all looked up to see Percy's head
poking out of a window on the second floor.

"Will you keep it down?!" he bellowed.

"Sorry, Perce," said Bill, grinning. "How're the cauldron bottoms coming on?"

"Very badly," said Percy peevishly, and he slammed the window shut. Chuckling,
Bill and Charlie directed the tables safely onto the grass, end to end, and then, with
a flick of his wand, Bill reattached the table leg and conjured tablecloths from
nowhere.

By seven o'clock, the two tables were groaning under dishes and dishes of Mrs.
Weasley's excellent cooking, and the nine Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione were
settling themselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky. To somebody who
had been living on meals of increasingly stale cake all summer, this was paradise,
and at first, Harry listened rather than talked as he helped himself to chicken and
ham pie, boiled potatoes, and salad.

At the far end of the table, Percy was telling his father all about his report on
cauldron bottoms.

"I've told Mr. Crouch that I'll have it ready by Tuesday," Percy was saying
pompously. "That's a bit sooner than he expected it, but I like to keep on top of
things. I think he'll be grateful I've done it in good time, I mean, its extremely busy
in our department just now, what with all the arrangements for the World Cup.
We're just not getting the support we need from the Department of Magical Games
and Sports. Ludo Bagman -"

"I like Ludo," said Mr. Weasley mildly. "He was the one who got us such good
tickets for the Cup. I did him a bit of a favor: His brother, Otto, got into a spot of
trouble - a lawnmower with unnatural powers - I smoothed the whole thing over."

"Oh Bagman's likable enough, of course," said Percy dismissively, "but how he
ever got to be Head of Department ... when I compare him to Mr. Crouch! I can't
see Mr. Crouch losing a member of our department and not trying to find out
what's happened to them. You realize Bertha Jorkins has been missing for over a
month now? Went on holiday to Albania and never came back?"

"Yes, I was asking Ludo about that," said Mr. Weasley, frowning. "He says
Bertha's gotten lost plenty of times before now - though must say, if it was
someone in my department, I'd be worried. . . ."

"Oh Bertha's hopeless, all right," said Percy. "I hear she's been shunted from
department to department for years, much more trouble than she's worth ... but all
the same, Bagman ought to be trying to find her. Mr. Crouch has been taking a
personal interest, she worked in our department at one time, you know, and I think
Mr. Crouch was quite fond of her - but Bagman just keeps laughing and saying she

40

 

probably misread the map and ended up in Australia instead of Albania. However"
- Percy heaved an impressive sigh and took a deep swig of elderflower wine -
"we've got quite enough on our plates at the Department of International Magical
Cooperation without trying to find members of other departments too. As you
know, we've got another big event to organize right after the World Cup."

Percy cleared his throat significantly and looked down toward the end of the table
where Harry, Ron, and Hermione were sitting. "You know the one I'm talking
about, Father." He raised his voice slightly. "The top-secret one."

Ron rolled his eyes and muttered to Harry and Hermione, "He's been trying to get
us to ask what that event is ever since he started work. Probably an exhibition of
thick-bottomed cauldrons."

In the middle of the table, Mrs. Weasley was arguing with Bill about his earring,
which seemed to be a recent acquisition.

". . . with a horrible great fang on it. Really, Bill, what do they say at the bank?"

"Mum,.no one at the bank gives a damn how I dress as long as I bring home plenty
of treasure," said Bill patiently.

"And your hair's getting silly, dear," said Mrs. Weasley, fingering her wand
lovingly." I wish you'd let me give it a trim. . . ."

"I like it," said Ginny, who was sitting beside Bill. "You're so old-fashioned,
Mum. Anyway, it's nowhere near as long as Professor Dumbledore's...."

Next to Mrs. Weasley, Fred, George, and Charlie were all talking spiritedly about
the World Cup.

"It's got to be Ireland," said Charlie thickly, through a mouthful of potato. "They
flattened Peru in the semifinals."

"Bulgaria has got Viktor Krum, though," said Fred.

"Krum's one decent player, Ireland has got seven," said Charlie shortly. "I wish
England had got through. That was embarrassing, that was."

"What happened?" said Harry eagerly, regretting more than ever his isolation from
the wizarding world when he was stuck on Privet Drive.

"Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten," said Charlie
gloomily. "Shocking performance. And Wales lost to Uganda, and Scotland was
slaughtered by Luxembourg."

Harry had been on the Gryffindor House Quidditch team ever since his first year at
Hogwarts and owned one of the best racing brooms in the world, a Firebolt. Flying
came more naturally to Harry than anything else in the magical world, and he
played in the position of Seeker on the Gryffindor House team.

41

 

Mr. Weasley conjured up candles to light the darkening garden before they had
their homemade strawberry ice cream, and by the time they had finished, moths
were fluttering low over the table, and the warm air was perfumed with the smells
of grass and honeysuckle. Harry was feeling extremely well fed and at peace with
the world as he watched several gnomes sprinting through the rosebushes,
laughing madly and closely pursued by Crookshanks.
Ron looked carefully up the table to check that the rest of the family were all busy
talking, then he said very quietly to Harry, "So - have you heard from Sirius
lately?"
Hermione looked around, listening closely.
"Yeah," said Harry softly, "twice. He sounds okay. I wrote to him yesterday. He
might write back while I'm here."
He suddenly remembered the reason he had written to Sirius, and for a moment
was on the verge of telling Ron and Hermione about his scar hurting again, and
about the dream that had awoken him ... but he really didn't want to worry them
just now, not when he himself was feeling so happy and peaceful.
"Look at the time," Mrs. Weasley said suddenly, checking her wristwatch. "You
really should be in bed, the whole lot of you you'll be up at the crack of dawn to
get to the Cup. Harry, if you leave your school list out, I'll get your things for you
tomorrow in Diagon Alley. I'm getting everyone else's. There might not be time
after the World Cup, the match went on for five days last time."
"Wow - hope it does this time!" said Harry enthusiastically.
"Well, I certainly don't," said Percy sanctimoniously. "I shudder to think what the
state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days."
"Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?" said Fred.
"That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!" said Percy, going very red in the
face. "It was nothing personal!"
"It was," Fred whispered to Harry as they got up from the table. "We sent it."

42

 

CHAPTER SIX - THE PORTKEY

Harry felt as though he had barely lain down to steep in Ron's room when he was
being shaken awake by Mrs. Weasley.

"Time to go, Harry, dear," she whispered, moving away to wake Ron.

Harry felt around for his glasses, put them on, and sat up. It was still dark outside.
Ron muttered indistinctly as his mother roused him. At the foot of Harry's mattress
he saw two large, disheveled shapes emerging from tangles of blankets.

"'S' time already?" said Fred groggily.

They dressed in silence, too sleepy to talk, then, yawning and stretching, the four
of them headed downstairs into the kitchen.

Mrs. Weasley was stirring the contents of a large pot on the stove, while Mr.
Weasley was sitting at the table, checking a sheaf of large parchment tickets. He
looked up as the boys entered and spread his arms so that they could see his
clothes more clearly. He was wearing what appeared to be a golfing sweater and a
very old pair of jeans, slightly too big for him and held up with a thick leather belt.

"What d'you think?" he asked anxiously. "We're supposed to go incognito - do I
look like a Muggle, Harry?"

"Yeah," said Harry, smiling, "very good."

"Where're Bill and Charlie and Per-Per-Percy?" said George, failing to stifle a
huge yawn.

"Well, they're Apparating, aren't they?" said Mrs. Weasley, heaving the large pot
over to the table and starting to ladle porridge into bowls. "So they can have a bit
of a lie-in."

Harry knew that Apparating meant disappearing from one place and reappearing
almost instantly in another, but had never known any Hogwarts student to do it,
and understood that it was very difficult.

"So they're still in bed?" said Fred grumpily, pulling his bowl of porridge toward
him. "Why can't we Apparate too?"

"Because you're not of age and you haven't passed your test," snapped Mrs.
Weasley. "And where have those girls got to?"

She bustled out of the kitchen and they heard her climbing the stairs.

"You have to pass a test to Apparate?" Harry asked.

43

 

"Oh yes," said Mr. Weasley, tucking the tickets safely into the back pocket of his
jeans. "The Department of Magical Transportation had to fine a couple of people
the other day for Apparating without a license. It's not easy, Apparition, and when
it's not done property it can lead to nasty complications. This pair I'm talking about
went and splinched themselves."

Everyone around the table except Harry winced.

"Er - splinched?" said Harry.

"They left half of themselves behind," said Mr. Weasley, now spooning large
amounts of treacle onto his porridge. "So, of course, they were stuck. Couldn't
move either way. Had to wait for the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad to sort
them out. Meant a fair old bit of paperwork, I can tell you, what with the Muggles
who spotted the body parts they'd left behind....."

Harry had a sudden vision of a pair of legs and an eyeball lying abandoned on the
pavement of Privet Drive.

"Were they okay?" he asked, startled.

"Oh yes," said Mr. Weasley matter-of-factly. "But they got a heavy fine, and I
don't think they'll be trying it again in a hurry. You don't mess around with
Apparition. There are plenty of adult wizards who don't bother with it. Prefer
brooms - slower, but safer."

"But Bill and Charlie and Percy can all do it?"

"Charlie had to take the test twice," said Fred, grinning. "He failed the first time.
Apparated five miles south of where he meant to, right on top of some poor old
dear doing her shopping, remember?"

"Yes, well, he passed the second time," said Mrs. Weasley, marching back into the
kitchen amid hearty sniggers.

"Percy only passed two weeks ago," said George. "He's been Apparating
downstairs every morning since, just to prove he can."

There were footsteps down the passageway and Hermione and Ginny came into
the kitchen, both looking pale and drowsy.

"Why do we have to be up so early?" Ginny said, rubbing her eyes and sitting
down at the table.

"We've got a bit of a walk," said Mr. Weasley.

"Walk?" said Harry. "What, are we walking to the World Cup?"

"No, no, that's miles away," said Mr. Weasley, smiling. "We only need to walk a
short way. It's just that it's very difficult for a large number of wizards to
congregate without attracting Muggle attention. We have to be very careful about

44

 

how we travel at the best of times, and on a huge occasion like the Quidditch
World Cup..."

"George!" said Mrs. Weasley sharply, and they all jumped.

"What?" said George, in an innocent tone that deceived nobody.

"What is that in your pocket?"

"Nothing!"

"Don't you lie to me!"

Mrs. Weasley pointed her wand at George's pocket and said, "Accio!"

Several small, brightly colored objects zoomed out of George's pocket; he made a
grab for them but missed, and they sped right into Mrs. Weasley's outstretched
hand.

"We told you to destroy them!" said Mrs. Weasley furiously, holding up what
were unmistakably more Ton-Tongue Toffees. "We told you to get rid of the lot!
Empty your pockets, go on, both of you!"

It was an unpleasant scene; the twins had evidently been trying to smuggle as
many toffees out of the house as possible, and it was only by using her
Summoning Charm that Mrs. Weasley managed to find them all.

"Accio! Accio! Accio!" she shouted, and toffees zoomed from all sorts of unlikely
places, including the lining of George's jacket and the turn-ups of Fred's jeans.

"We spent six months developing those!" Fred shouted at his mother as she threw
the toffees away.

"Oh a fine way to spend six months!" she shrieked. "No wonder you didn't get
more O.W.L.s!"

All in all, the atmosphere was not very friendly as they took their departure. Mrs.
Weasley was still glowering as she kissed Mr. Weasley on the cheek, though not
nearly as much as the twins, who had each hoisted their rucksacks onto their backs
and walked out without a word to her.

"Well, have a lovely time," said Mrs. Weasley, "and behave yourselves," she
called after the twins' retreating backs, but they did not look back or answer. "I'll
send Bill, Charlie, and Percy along around midday," Mrs. Weasley said to Mr.
Weasley, as he, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny set off across the dark yard
after Fred and George.

It was chilly and the moon was still out. Only a dull, greenish tinge along the
horizon to their right showed that daybreak was drawing closer. Harry, having
been thinking about thousands of wizards speeding toward the Quidditch World
Cup, sped up to walk with Mr. Weasley.

45

 

"So how does everyone get there without all the Muggles noticing?" he asked.

"It's been a massive organizational problem," sighed Mr. Weasley. "The trouble is,
about a hundred thousand wizards turn up at the World Cup, and of course, we just
haven't got a magical site big enough to accommodate them all. There are places
Muggles can't penetrate, but imagine trying to pack a hundred thousand wizards
into Diagon Alley or platform nine and three-quarters. So we had to find a nice
deserted moor, and set up as many anti-Muggle precautions as possible. The whole
Ministry's been working on it for months. First, of course, we have to stagger the
arrivals. People with cheaper tickets have to arrive two weeks beforehand. A
limited number use Muggle transport, but we can't have too many clogging up
their buses and trains - remember, wizards are coming from all over the world.
Some Apparate, of course, but we have to set up safe points for them to appear,
well away from Muggles. I believe there's a handy wood they're using as the
Apparition point. For those who don't want to Apparate, or can't, we use Portkeys.
They're objects that are used to transport wizards from one spot to another at a
prearranged time. You can do large groups at a time if you need to. There have
been two hundred Portkeys placed at strategic points around Britain, and the
nearest one to us is up at the top of Stoatshead Hill, so that's where we're headed."

Mr. Weasley pointed ahead of them, where a large black mass rose beyond the
village of Ottery St. Catchpole.

"What sort of objects are Portkeys?" said Harry curiously.

"Well, they can be anything," said Mr. Weasley. "Unobtrusive things, obviously,
so Muggles don't go picking them up and playing with them ... stuff they'll just
think is litter...."

They trudged down the dark, dank lane toward the village, the silence broken only
by their footsteps. The sky lightened very slowly as they made their way through
the village, its inky blackness diluting to deepest blue. Harry's hands and feet were
freezing. Mr. Weasley kept checking his watch.

They didn't have breath to spare for talking as they began to climb Stoatshead Hill,
stumbling occasionally in hidden rabbit holes, slipping on thick black tuffets of
grass. Each breath Harry took was sharp in his chest and his legs were starting to
seize up when, at last, his feet found level ground.

"Whew," panted Mr. Weasley, taking off his glasses and wiping them on his
sweater. "Well, we've made good time - we've got ten minutes."

Hermione came over the crest of the hill last, clutching a stitch in her side.

"Now we just need the Portkey," said Mr. Weasley, replacing his glasses and
squinting around at the ground. "It won't be big.... Come on..."

They spread out, searching. They had only been at it for a couple of minutes,
however, when a shout rent the still air.

46

 

"Over here, Arthur! Over here, son, we've got it."

Two tall figures were silhouetted against the starry sky on the other side of the
hilltop.

"Amos!" said Mr. Weasley, smiling as he strode over to the man who had shouted.
The rest of them followed.

Mr. Weasley was shaking hands with a ruddy-faced wizard with a scrubby brown
beard, who was holding a moldy-looking old boot in his other hand.

"This is Amos Diggory, everyone," said Mr. Weasley. "He works for the
Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. And I think you
know his son, Cedric?"

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

"Hi," said Cedric, looking around at them all.

Everybody said hi back except Fred and George, who merely nodded. They had
never quite forgiven Cedric for beating their team, Gryffindor, in the first
Quidditch match of the previous year.

"Long walk, Arthur?" Cedric's father asked. "Not too bad," said Mr. Weasley. "We
live just on the other side of the village there. You?"

"Had to get up at two, didn't we, Ced? I tell you, I'll be glad when he's got his
Apparition test. Still ... not complaining ... Quidditch World Cup, wouldn't miss it
for a sackful of Galleons - and the tickets cost about that. Mind you, looks like I
got off easy. . . ." Amos Diggory peered good-naturedly around at the three
Weasley boys, Harry, Hermione, and Ginny. "All these yours, Arthur?"

"Oh no, only the redheads," said Mr. Weasley, pointing out his children. "This is
Hermione, friend of Ron's - and Harry, another friend -"

"Merlin's beard," said Amos Diggory, his eyes widening. "Harry? Harry Potter?"

"Er - yeah," said Harry.

Harry was used to people looking curiously at him when they met him, used to the
way their eyes moved at once to the lightning scar on his forehead, but it always
made him feel uncomfortable.

"Ced's talked about you, of course," said Amos Diggory. "Told us all about
playing against you last year... I said to him, I said - Ced, that'll be something to
tell your grandchildren, that will.... You beat Harry Potter!"

Harry couldn't think of any reply to this, so he remained silent. Fred and George
were both scowling again. Cedric looked slightly embarrassed.

47

 

"Harry fell off his broom, Dad," he muttered. I told you ... it was an accident...."

"Yes, but you didn't fall off, did you?" roared Amos genially, slapping his son on
his back. "Always modest, our Ced, always the gentleman ... but the best man
won, I'm sure Harry'd say the same, wouldn't you, eh? One falls off his broom, one
stays on, you don't need to be a genius to tell which one's the better flier!"

"Must be nearly time," said Mr. Weasley quickly, pulling out his watch again. "Do
you know whether we're waiting for any more, Amos?"

"No, the Lovegoods have been there for a week already and the Fawcetts couldn't
get tickets," said Mr. Diggory. "There aren't any more of us in this area, are
there?"

"Not that I know of," said Mr. Weasley. "Yes, it's a minute off ... We'd better get
ready...."

He looked around at Harry and Hermione.

"You just need to touch the Portkey, that's all, a finger will do -"

With difficulty, owing to their bulky backpacks, the nine of them crowded around
the old boot held out by Amos Diggory.

They all stood there, in a tight circle, as a chill breeze swept over the hilltop.
Nobody spoke. It suddenly occurred to Harry how odd this would look if a
Muggle were to walk up here now ... nine people, two of them grown men,
clutching this manky old boot in the semidarkness, waiting....

"Three. . ." muttered Mr. Weasley, one eye still on his watch, two. . . one. . ."

It happened immediately: Harry felt as though a hook just behind his navel had
been suddenly jerked irresistibly forward. His feet left the ground; he could feel
Ron and Hermione on either side of him, their shoulders banging into his; they
were all speeding forward in a howl of wind and swirling color; his forefinger was
stuck to the boot as though it was pulling him magnetically onward and then -

His feet slammed into the ground; Ron staggered into him and he fell over; the
Portkey hit the ground near his head with a heavy thud.

Harry looked up. Mr. Weasley, Mr. Diggory, and Cedric were still standing,
though looking very windswept; everybody else was on the ground.

"Seven past five from Stoatshead Hill," said a voice.

48

 

CHAPTER SEVEN - BAGMAN AND CROUCH

Harry disentangled himself from Ron and got to his feet. They had arrived on what
appeared to be a deserted stretch of misty moor. In front of them was a pair of
tired and grumpy-looking wizards, one of whom was holding a large gold watch,
the other a thick roll of parchment and a quill. Both were dressed as Muggles,
though very inexpertly: The man with the watch wore a tweed suit with thigh-
length galoshes; his colleague, a kilt and a poncho.

"Morning, Basil," said Mr. Weasley, picking up the boot and handing it to the
kilted wizard, who threw it into a large box of used Portkeys beside him; Harry
could see an old newspaper, an empty drinks can, and a punctured football.

"Hello there, Arthur," said Basil wearily. "Not on duty, eh? It's all right for
some.... We've been here all night.... You'd better get out of the way, we've got a
big party coming in from the Black Forest at five fifteen. Hang on, I'll find your
campsite.... Weasley ... Weasley...." He consulted his parchment list. "About a
quarter of a mile's walk over there, first field you come to. Site manager's called
Mr. Roberts. Diggory ... second field ... ask for Mr. Payne."

"Thanks, Basil," said Mr. Weasley, and he beckoned everyone to follow him.

They set off across the deserted moor, unable to make out much through the mist.
After about twenty minutes, a small stone cottage next to a gate swam into view.
Beyond it, Harry could just make out the ghostly shapes of hundreds and hundreds
of tents, rising up the gentle slope of a large field toward a dark wood on the
horizon. They said good-bye to the Diggorys and approached the cottage door.

A man was standing in the doorway, looking out at the tents. Harry knew at a
glance that this was the only real Muggle for several acres. When he heard their
footsteps, he turned his head to look at them.

"Morning!" said Mr. Weasley brightly.

"Morning," said the Muggle.

"Would you be Mr. Roberts?"

"Aye, I would," said Mr. Roberts. "And who're you?"

"Weasley - two tents, booked a couple of days ago?"

"Aye," said Mr. Roberts, consulting a list tacked to the door. "You've got a space
up by the wood there. Just the one night?"

"That's it," said Mr. Weasley.

"You'll be paying now, then?" said Mr. Roberts.

What do you guys think about my next part?

 

"Ah - right - certainly -" said Mr. Weasley. He retreated a short distance from the
cottage and beckoned Harry toward him. "Help me, Harry," he muttered, pulling a
roll of Muggle money from his pocket and starting to peel the notes apart. "This
one's a - a - a ten? Ah yes, I see the little number on it now... So this is a five?"

"A twenty," Harry corrected him in an undertone, uncomfortably aware of Mr.
Roberts trying to catch every word.

"Ah yes, so it is.... I don't know, these little bits of paper..."

"You foreign?" said Mr. Roberts as Mr. Weasley returned with the correct notes.

"Foreign?" repeated Mr. Weasley, puzzled.

"You're not the first one who's had trouble with money," said Mr. Roberts,
scrutinizing Mr. Weasley closely. "I had two try and pay me with great gold coins
the size of hubcaps ten minutes ago."

"Did you really?" said Mr. Weasley nervously.

Mr. Roberts rummaged around in a tin for some change.

"Never been this crowded," he said suddenly, looking out over the misty field
again. "Hundreds of pre-bookings. People usually just turn up...."

"Is that right?" said Mr. Weasley, his hand held out for his change, but Mr.
Roberts didn't give it to him.

"Aye," he said thoughtfully. "People from all over. Loads of foreigners. And not
just foreigners. Weirdos, you know? There's a bloke walking 'round in a kilt and a
poncho."

"Shouldn't he?" said Mr. Weasley anxiously

"It's like some sort of... I dunno ... like some sort of rally," said Mr. Roberts. "They
all seem to know each other. Like a big party."

At that moment, a wizard in plus-fours appeared out of thin air next to Mr.
Roberts's front door.

"Obliviate!" he said sharply, pointing his wand at Mr. Roberts.

Instantly, Mr. Roberts's eyes slid out of focus, his brows unknitted, and a took of
dreamy unconcern fell over his face. Harry recognized the symptoms of one who
had just had his memory modified.

"A map of the campsite for you," Mr. Roberts said placidly to Mr. Weasley. "And
your change."

"Thanks very much," said Mr. Weasley.

The wizard in plus-fours accompanied them toward the gate to the campsite. He

50

 

looked exhausted: His chin was blue with stubble and there were deep purple
shadows under his eyes. Once out of earshot of Mr. Roberts, he muttered to Mr.
Weasley, "Been having a lot of trouble with him. Needs a Memory Charm ten
times a day to keep him happy. And Ludo Bagman's not helping. Trotting around
talking about Bludgers and Quaffles at the top of his voice, not a worry about anti-
Muggle security Blimey, I'll be glad when this is over. See you later, Arthur."

He Disapparated.

"I thought Mr. Bagman was Head of Magical Games and Sports," said Ginny,
looking surprised. "He should know better than to talk about Bludgers near
Muggles, shouldn't he?"

"He should," said Mr. Weasley, smiling, and leading them through the gates into
the campsite, "but Ludo's always been a bit ... well . . . lax about security. You
couldn't wish for a more enthusiastic head of the sports department though. He
played Quidditch for England himself, you know. And he was the best Beater the
Wimbourne Wasps ever had."

They trudged up the misty field between long rows of tents. Most looked almost
ordinary; their owners had clearly tried to make them as Muggle-like as possible,
but had slipped up by adding chimneys, or bellpulls, or weather vanes. However,
here and there was a tent so obviously magical that Harry could hardly be
surprised that Mr. Roberts was getting suspicious. Halfway up the field stood an
extravagant confection of striped silk like a miniature palace, with several live
peacocks tethered at the entrance. A little farther on they passed a tent that had
three floors and several turrets; and a short way beyond that was a tent that had a
front garden attached, complete with birdbath, sundial, and fountain.

"Always the same," said Mr. Weasley, smiling. "We can't resist showing off when
we get together. Ah, here we are, look, this is us."

They had reached the very edge of the wood at the top of the field, and here was
an empty space, with a small sign hammered into the ground that read WEEZLY.

"Couldn't have a better spot!" said Mr. Weasley happily. "The field is just on the
other side of the wood there, we're as close as we could be." He hoisted his
backpack from his shoulders. "Right," he said excitedly, "no magic allowed,
strictly speaking, not when we're out in these numbers on Muggle land. We'll be
putting these tents up by hand! Shouldn't be too difficult.... Muggles do it all the
time.... Here, Harry, where do you reckon we should start?"

Harry had never been camping in his life; the Dursleys had never taken him on
any kind of holiday, preferring to leave him with Mrs. Figg, an old neighbor.
However, he and Hermione worked out where most of the poles and pegs should
go, and though Mr. Weasley was more of a hindrance than a help, because he got
thoroughly overexcited when it came to using the mallet, they finally managed to
erect a pair of shabby two-man tents.

51

 

All of them stood back to admire their handiwork. Nobody looking at these tents
would guess they belonged to wizards, Harry thought, but the trouble was that
once Bill, Charlie, and Percy arrived, they would be a party of ten. Hermione
seemed to have spotted this problem too; she gave Harry a quizzical look as Mr.
Weasley dropped to his hands and knees and entered the first tent.

"We'll be a bit cramped," he called, "but I think we'll all squeeze in. Come and
have a look."

Harry bent down, ducked under the tent flap, and felt his jaw drop. He had walked
into what looked like an old-fashioned, three room flat, complete with bathroom
and kitchen. Oddly enough, it was furnished in exactly the same sort of style as
Mrs. Figg's house: There were crocheted covers on the mismatched chairs and a
strong smell of cats.

"Well, it's not for long," said Mr. Weasley, mopping his bald patch with a
handkerchief and peering in at the four bunk beds that stood in the bedroom. I
borrowed this from Perkins at the office. Doesn't camp much anymore, poor
fellow, he's got lumbago."

He picked up the dusty kettle and peered inside it. "We'll need water....

"There's a tap marked on this map the Muggle gave us," said Ron, who had
followed Harry inside the tent and seemed completely unimpressed by its
extraordinary inner proportions. "It's on the other side of the field."

"Well, why don't you, Harry, and Hermione go and get us some water then" - Mr.
Weasley handed over the kettle and a couple of saucepans - "and the rest of us will
get some wood for a fire?"

"But we've got an oven," said Ron. "Why can't we just -"

"Ron, anti-Muggle security!" said Mr. Weasley, his face shining with anticipation.
"When real Muggles camp, they cook on fires outdoors. I've seen them at it!"

After a quick tour of the girls' tent, which was slightly smaller than the boys',
though without the smell of cats, Harry, Ron, and Hermione set off across the
campsite with the kettle and saucepans.

Now, with the sun newly risen and the mist lifting, they could see the city of tents
that stretched in every direction. They made their way slowly through the rows,
staring eagerly around. It was only just dawning on Harry how many witches and
wizards there must be in the world; he had never really thought much about those
in other countries.

Their fellow campers were starting to wake up. First to stir were the families with
small children; Harry had never seen witches and wizards this young before. A
tiny boy no older than two was crouched outside a large pyramid-shaped tent,
holding a wand and poking happily at a slug in the grass, which was swelling

52

 

slowly to the size of a salami. As they drew level with him, his mother came
hurrying out of the tent.

"How many times, Kevin? You don't - touch - Daddy's - wand - yecchh! "

She had trodden on the giant slug, which burst. Her scolding carried after them on
the still air, mingling with the little boy's yells - "You bust slug! You bust slug!"

A short way farther on, they saw two little witches, barely older than Kevin, who
were riding toy broomsticks that rose only high enough for the girls' toes to skim
the dewy grass. A Ministry wizard had already spotted them; as he hurried past
Harry, Ron, and Hermione he muttered distractedly, "In broad daylight! Parents
having a lie-in, I suppose -"

Here and there adult wizards and witches were emerging from their tents and
starting to cook breakfast. Some, with furtive looks around them, conjured fires
with their wands; others were striking matches with dubious looks on their faces,
as though sure this couldn't work. Three African wizards sat in serious
conversation, all of them wearing long white robes and roasting what looked like a
rabbit on a bright purple fire, while a group of middle-aged American witches sat
gossiping happily beneath a spangled banner stretched between their tents that
read: THE SALEM WITCHES' INSTITUTE. Harry caught snatches of
conversation in strange languages from the inside of tents they passed, and though
he couldn't understand a word, the tone of every single voice was excited.

"Er - is it my eyes, or has everything gone green?" said Ron.

It wasn't just Ron's eyes. They had walked into a patch of tents that were all
covered with a thick growth of shamrocks, so that it looked as though small, oddly
shaped hillocks had sprouted out of the earth. Grinning faces could be seen under
those that had their flaps open. Then, from behind them, they heard their names.

"Harry! Ron! Hermione!"

It was Seamus Finnigan, their fellow Gryffindor fourth year. He was sitting in
front of his own shamrock-covered tent, with a sandy-haired woman who had to
be his mother, and his best friend, Dean Thomas, also of Gryffindor.

"Like the decorations?" said Seamus, grinning. "The Ministry's not too happy."

"Ah, why shouldn't we show our colors?" said Mrs. Finnigan. "You should see
what the Bulgarians have got dangling all over their tents. You'll be supporting
Ireland, of course?" she added, eyeing Harry, Ron, and Hermione beadily. When
they had assured her that they were indeed supporting Ireland, they set off again,
though, as Ron said, "Like we'd say anything else surrounded by that lot." I
wonder what the Bulgarians have got dangling all over their tents?" said
Hermione.

"Let's go and have a look," said Harry, pointing to a large patch of tents upfield,

53

 

where the Bulgarian flag - white, green, and red - was fluttering in the breeze.

The tents here had not been bedecked with plant life, but each and every one of
them had the same poster attached to it, a poster of a very surly face with heavy
black eyebrows. The picture was, of course, moving, but all it did was blink and
scowl.

"Krum," said Ron quietly.

"What?" said Hermione.

"Krum!" said Ron. "Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian Seeker!"

"He looks really grumpy," said Hermione, looking around at the many Krums
blinking and scowling at them.

"'Really grumpy?" Ron raised his eyes to the heavens. "Who cares what he looks
like? He's unbelievable. He's really young too. Only just eighteen or something.
He's a genius, you wait until tonight, you'll see."

There was already a small queue for the tap in the corner of the field. Harry, Ron,
and Hermione joined it, right behind a pair of men who were having a heated
argument. One of them was a very old wizard who was wearing a long flowery
nightgown. The other was clearly a Ministry wizard; he was holding out a pair of
pinstriped trousers and almost crying with exasperation.

"Just put them on, Archie, there's a good chap. You can't walk around like that, the
Muggle at the gate's already getting suspicious -

I bought this in a Muggle shop," said the old wizard stubbornly. "Muggles wear
them."

"Muggle women wear them, Archie, not the men, they wear these," said the
Ministry wizard, and he brandished the pinstriped trousers.

"I'm not putting them on," said old Archie in indignation. "I like a healthy breeze
'round my privates, thanks."

Hermione was overcome with such a strong fit of the giggles at this point that she
had to duck out of the queue and only returned when Archie had collected his
water and moved away.

Walking more slowly now, because of the weight of the water, they made their
way back through the campsite. Here and there, they saw more familiar faces:
other Hogwarts students with their families. Oliver Wood, the old captain of
Harry's House Quidditch team, who had just left Hogwarts, dragged Harry over to
his parents' tent to introduce him, and told him excitedly that he had just been
signed to the Puddlemere United reserve team. Next they were hailed by Ernie
Macmillan, a Hufflepuff fourth year, and a little farther on they saw Cho Chang, a
very pretty girl who played Seeker on the Ravenclaw team. She waved and smiled

54

 

at Harry, who slopped quite a lot of water down his front as he waved back. More
to stop Ron from smirking than anything, Harry hurriedly pointed out a large
group of teenagers whom he had never seen before.

"Who d'you reckon they are?" he said. "They don't go to Hogwarts, do they?"

"'Spect they go to some foreign school," said Ron. "I know there are others. Never
met anyone who went to one, though. Bill had a penfriend at a school in Brazil ...
this was years and years ago ... and he wanted to go on an exchange trip but Mum
and Dad couldn't afford it. His penfriend got all offended when he said he wasn't
going and sent him a cursed hat. It made his ears shrivel up."

Harry laughed but didn't voice the amazement he felt at hearing about other
wizarding schools. He supposed, now that he saw representatives of so many
nationalities in the campsite, that he had been stupid never to realize that Hogwarts
couldn't be the only one. He glanced at Hermione, who looked utterly unsurprised
by the information. No doubt she had run across the news about other wizarding
schools in some book or other.

"You've been ages," said George when they finally got back to the Weasleys' tents.

"Met a few people," said Ron, setting the water down. "You've not got that fire
started yet?"

"Dad's having fun with the matches," said Fred.

Mr. Weasley was having no success at all in lighting the fire, but it wasn't for lack
of trying. Splintered matches littered the ground around him, but he looked as
though he was having the time of his life.

"Oops!" he said as he managed to light a match and promptly dropped it in
surprise.

"Come here, Mr. Weasley," said Hermione kindly, taking the box from him, and
showing him how to do it properly.

At last they got the fire lit, though it was at least another hour before it was hot
enough to cook anything. There was plenty to watch while they waited, however.
Their tent seemed to be pitched right alongside a kind of thoroughfare to the field,
and Ministry members kept hurrying up and down it, greeting Mr. Weasley
cordially as they passed. Mr. Weasley kept up a running commentary, mainly for
Harry's and Hermione's benefit; his own children knew too much about the
Ministry to be greatly interested.

"That was Cuthbert Mockridge, Head of the Goblin Liaison Office.... Here comes
Gilbert Wimple; he's with the Committee on Experimental Charms; he's had those
horns for a while now... Hello, Arnie ... Arnold Peasegood, he's an Obliviator -
member of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, you know... and that's Bode and
Croaker ... they're Unspeakables...."

55

 

"They're what?"

"From the Department of Mysteries, top secret, no idea what they get up to...."

At last, the fire was ready, and they had just started cooking eggs and sausages
when Bill, Charlie, and Percy came strolling out of the woods toward them.

"Just Apparated, Dad," said Percy loudly. "Ah, excellent, lunch!"

They were halfway through their plates of eggs and sausages when Mr. Weasley
jumped to his feet, waving and grinning at a man who was striding toward them.
"Aha!" he said. "The man of the moment! Ludo!"

Ludo Bagman was easily the most noticeable person Harry had seen so far, even
including old Archie in his flowered nightdress. He was wearing long Quidditch
robes in thick horizontal stripes of bright yellow and black. An enormous picture
of a wasp was splashed across his chest. He had the look of a powerfully built man
gone slightly to seed; the robes were stretched tightly across a large belly he surely
had not had in the days when he had played Quidditch for England. His nose was
squashed (probably broken by a stray Bludger, Harry thought), but his round blue
eyes, short blond hair, and rosy complexion made him look like a very overgrown
schoolboy.

"Ahoy there!" Bagman called happily. He was walking as though he had springs
attached to the balls of his feet and was plainly in a state of wild excitement.

"Arthur, old man," he puffed as he reached the campfire, "what a day, eh? What a
day! Could we have asked for more perfect weather? A cloudless night coming ...
and hardly a hiccough in the arrangements.... Not much for me to do!"

Behind him, a group of haggard-looking Ministry wizards rushed past, pointing at
the distant evidence of some sort of a magical fire that was sending violet sparks
twenty feet into the air.

Percy hurried forward with his hand outstretched. Apparently his disapproval of
the way Ludo Bagman ran his department did not prevent him from wanting to
make a good impression.

"Ah - yes," said Mr. Weasley, grinning, "this is my son Percy. He's just started at
the Ministry - and this is Fred - no, George, sorry - that's Fred - Bill, Charlie, Ron
- my daughter, Ginny and Ron's friends, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter."

Bagman did the smallest of double takes when he heard Harry's name, and his
eyes performed the familiar flick upward to the scar on Harry's forehead.

"Everyone," Mr. Weasley continued, "this is Ludo Bagman, you know who he is,
it's thanks to him we've got such good tickets -"

Bagman beamed and waved his hand as if to say it had been nothing.

56

 

"Fancy a flutter on the match, Arthur?" he said eagerly, jingling what seemed to be
a large amount of gold in the pockets of his yellow-and-black robes. "I've already
got Roddy Pontner betting me Bulgaria will score first - I offered him nice odds,
considering Ireland's front three are the strongest I've seen in years - and little
Agatha Timms has put up half shares in her eel farm on a weeklong match."

"Oh ... go on then," said Mr. Weasley. "Let's see ... a Galleon on Ireland to win?"

"A Galleon?" Ludo Bagman looked slightly disappointed, but recovered himself.
"Very well, very well ... any other takers?"

"They're a bit young to be gambling," said Mr. Weasley. "Molly wouldn't like -"

"We'll bet thirty-seven Galleons, fifteen Sickles, three Knuts," said Fred as he and
George quickly pooled all their money, "that Ireland wins - but Viktor Krum gets
the Snitch. Oh and we'll throw in a fake wand."

"You don't want to go showing Mr. Bagman rubbish like that," Percy hissed, but
Bagman didn't seem to think the wand was rubbish at all; on the contrary, his
boyish face shone with excitement as he took it from Fred, and when the wand
gave a loud squawk and turned into a rubber chicken, Bagman roared with
laughter.

"Excellent! I haven't seen one that convincing in years! I'd pay five Galleons for
that!"

Percy froze in an attitude of stunned disapproval.

"Boys," said Mr. Weasley under his breath, "I don't want you betting.... That's all
your savings .... Your mother -"

"Don't be a spoilsport, Arthur!" boomed Ludo Bagman, rattling his pockets
excitedly. "They're old enough to know what they want! You reckon Ireland will
win but Krum'll get the Snitch? Not a chance, boys, not a chance.... I'll give you
excellent odds on that one .... We'll add five Galleons for the funny wand, then,
shall we...."

Mr. Weasley looked on helplessly as Ludo Bagman whipped out a notebook and
quill and began jotting down the twins' names.

"Cheers," said George, taking the slip of parchment Bagman handed him and
tucking it away into the front of his robes. Bagman turned most cheerfully back to
Mr. Weasley.

"Couldn't do me a brew, I suppose? I'm keeping an eye out for Barty Crouch. My
Bulgarian opposite number's making difficulties, and I can't understand a word
he's saying. Barty'll be able to sort it out. He speaks about a hundred and fifty
languages."

"Mr. Crouch?" said Percy, suddenly abandoning his look of poker-stiff

57

 

disapproval and positively writhing with excitement. "He speaks over two
hundred! Mermish and Gobbledegook and Troll. . ."

"Anyone can speak Troll," said Fred dismissively. "All you have to do is point and
grunt."

Percy threw Fred an extremely nasty look and stoked the fire vigorously to bring
the kettle back to the boil.

"Any news of Bertha Jorkins yet, Ludo?" Mr. Weasley asked as Bagman settled
himself down on the grass beside them all.

"Not a dicky bird," said Bagman comfortably. "But she'll turn up. Poor old Bertha
... memory like a leaky cauldron and no sense of direction. Lost, you take my word
for it. She'll wander back into the office sometime in October, thinking it's still
July."

"You don't think it might be time to send someone to look for her?" Mr. Weasley
suggested tentatively as Percy handed Bagman his tea.

"Barty Crouch keeps saying that," said Bagman, his round eyes widening
innocently, "but we really can't spare anyone at the moment. Oh - talk of the devil!
Barty!"

A wizard had just Apparated at their fireside, and he could not have made more of
a contrast with Ludo Bagman, sprawled on the grass in his old Wasp robes. Barty
Crouch was a stiff, upright, elderly man, dressed in an impeccably crisp suit and
tie. The parting in his short gray hair was almost unnaturally straight, and his
narrow toothbrush mustache looked as though he trimmed it using a slide rule. His
shoes were very highly polished. Harry could see at once why Percy idolized him.
Percy was a great believer in rigidly following rules, and Mr. Crouch had
complied with the rule about Muggle dressing so thoroughly that he could have
passed for a bank manager; Harry doubted even Uncle Vernon would have spotted
him for what he really was.

"Pull up a bit of grass, Barry," said Ludo brightly, patting the ground beside him.

"No thank you, Ludo," said Crouch, and there was a bite of impatience in his
voice. "I've been looking for you everywhere. The Bulgarians are insisting we add
another twelve seats to the Top Box."

"Oh is that what they're after?" said Bagman. I thought the chap was asking to
borrow a pair of tweezers. Bit of a strong accent."

"Mr. Crouch!" said Percy breathlessly, sunk into a kind of halfbow that made him
look like a hunchback. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

"Oh," said Mr. Crouch, looking over at Percy in mild surprise. "Yes - thank you,
Weatherby."

58

 

Fred and George choked into their own cups. Percy, very pink around the ears,
busied himself with the kettle.

"Oh and I've been wanting a word with you too, Arthur," said Mr. Crouch, his
sharp eyes falling upon Mr. Weasley. "Ali Bashir's on the warpath. He wants a
word with you about your embargo on flying carpets."

Mr. Weasley heaved a deep sigh.

"I sent him an owl about that just last week. If I've told him once I've told him a
hundred times: Carpets are defined as a Muggle Artifact by the Registry of
Proscribed Charmable Objects, but will he listen?"

"I doubt it," said Mr. Crouch, accepting a cup from Percy. "He's desperate to
export here."

"Well, they'll never replace brooms in Britain, will they?" said Bagman.

"Ali thinks there's a niche in the market for a family vehicle, said Mr. Crouch. "I
remember my grandfather had an Axminster that could seat twelve - but that was
before carpets were banned, of course."

He spoke as though he wanted to leave nobody in any doubt that all his ancestors
had abided strictly by the law.

"So, been keeping busy, Barty?" said Bagman breezily.

"Fairly," said Mr. Crouch dryly. "Organizing Portkeys across five continents is no
mean feat, Ludo."

"I expect you'll both be glad when this is over?" said Mr. Weasley.

Ludo Bagman looked shocked.

"Glad! Don't know when I've had more fun.... Still, it's not as though we haven't
got anything to took forward to, eh, Barty? Eh? Plenty left to organize, eh?"

Mr. Crouch raised his eyebrows at Bagman.

"We agreed not to make the announcement until all the details -"

"Oh details!" said Bagman, waving the word away like a cloud of midges.
"They've signed, haven't they? They've agreed, haven't they? I bet you anything
these kids'll know soon enough anyway. I mean, it's happening at Hogwarts -"

"Ludo, we need to meet the Bulgarians, you know," said Mr. Crouch sharply,
cutting Bagman's remarks short. "Thank you for the tea, Weatherby."

He pushed his undrunk tea back at Percy and waited for Ludo to rise; Bagman
struggled to his feet, swigging down the last of his tea, the gold in his pockets
chinking merrily.

59

 

"See you all later!" he said. "You'll be up in the Top Box with me - I'm
commentating!" He waved, Barty Crouch nodded curtly, and both of them
Disapparated.

"What's happening at Hogwarts, Dad?" said Fred at once. "What were they talking
about?"

"You'll find out soon enough," said Mr.Weasley, smiling.

"It's classified information, until such time as the Ministry decides to release it,"
said Percy stiffly. "Mr. Crouch was quite right not to disclose it."

"Oh shut up, Weatherby," said Fred.

A sense of excitement rose like a palpable cloud over the campsite as the
afternoon wore on. By dusk, the still summer air itself seemed to be quivering with
anticipation, and as darkness spread like a curtain over the thousands of waiting
wizards, the last vestiges of pretence disappeared: the Ministry seemed to have
bowed to the inevitable and stopped fighting the signs of blatant magic now
breaking out everywhere.

Salesmen were Apparating every few feet, carrying trays and pushing carts full of
extraordinary merchandise. There were luminous rosettes - green for Ireland, red
for Bulgaria - which were squealing the names of the players, pointed green hats
bedecked with dancing shamrocks, Bulgarian scarves adorned with lions that
really roared, flags from both countries that played their national anthems as they
were waved; there were tiny models of Firebolts that really flew, and collectible
figures of famous players, which strolled across the palm of your hand, preening
themselves.

"Been saving my pocket money all summer for this," Ron told Harry as they and
Hermione strolled through the salesmen, buying souvenirs. Though Ron purchased
a dancing shamrock hat and a large green rosette, he also bought a small figure of
Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian Seeker. The miniature Krum walked backward and
forward over Ron's hand, scowling up at the green rosette above him.

"Wow, look at these!" said Harry, hurrying over to a cart piled high with what
looked like brass binoculars, except that they were covered with all sorts of weird
knobs and dials.

"Omnioculars," said the saleswizard eagerly. "You can replay action ... slow
everything down ... and they flash up a play-by- play breakdown if you need it.
Bargain - ten Galleons each."

"Wish I hadn't bought this now," said Ron, gesturing at his dancing shamrock hat
and gazing longingly at the Omnioculars.

"Three pairs," said Harry firmly to the wizard.

"No - don't bother," said Ron, going red. He was always touchy about the fact that

60

 

Harry, who had inherited a small fortune from his parents, had much more money
than he did.
"You won't be getting anything for Christmas," Harry told him, thrusting
Omnioculars into his and Hermione's hands. "For about ten years, mind."
"Fair enough," said Ron, grinning.
"Oooh, thanks, Harry," said Hermione. "And I'll get us some programs, look -"
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
field.
"It's time!" said Mr. Weasley, looking as excited as any of them. "Come on, let's
go!"

61

 

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 field, 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
toward 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 upward
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 goal
posts. 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 likes 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 field. Everything was suffused with a
mysterious golden light, which seemed to come from the stadium itself. The field
looked smooth as velvet from their lofty position. At either end of the field 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 were scrawling upon the blackboard and then wiping it off
again; watching it, Harry saw that it was flashing advertisements across the field.

The Bluebottle: A Broom for All the Family - safe, reliable, and with Built-in
Anti-Burgler Buzzer ... Mrs. Shower's All Purpose Magical Mess Remover: No
Pain, No Stain! ... Gladrags Wizardwear - London, Paris, Hogsmeade...

62

 

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,
batlike ears were oddly familiar....

"Dobby?" said Harry incredulously.

The tiny creature looked up and stretched 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, unmistakably 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!" s he 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 favor, 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

63

 

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 toward 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 toward 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 velvetcovered, tasseled
program.

"'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 were trying to sit on a
hedgehog. When Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic himself, arrived, Percy
bowed so low that his glasses fell off and shattered. Highly embarrassed, he

64

 

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 a fatherly fashion, asked how he
was, and introduced him to the wizards on either side of him.

"Harry Potter, you know," he told the Bulgarian minister loudly, 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 former 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 of
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 of 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 they had come face-to-face: It had been in
Flourish and Blotts' bookshop, and they had had a fight. Mr. Malfoy's cold gray
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.

65

 

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 like that. The Malfoys prided themselves on being purebloods; in other words,
they considered anyone of Muggle descent, like Hermione, second-class.
However, under the gaze of the Minister of 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 field
again. Next moment, Ludo Bagman 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 Flavor Beans - A Risk With
Every Mouthful!) and now showed BULGARIA: 0, IRELAND: 0.

"And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce. . . the Bulgarian National
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 forward 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 field, 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

66

 

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 were 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 absentmindedly shredding the shamrocks on his hat. Mr. Weasley, smiling
slightly, leaned 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 openmouthed at the veela, who had now lined up along
one side of the field.

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 came zooming
into the stadium. It did one circuit of the stadium, then split into two smaller
comets, each hurtling toward the goal posts. A rainbow arced suddenly across the
field, connecting the two balls of light. The crowd oooohed and aaaaahed, as
though at a fireworks 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
them, and heavy gold coins rained from it, bouncing off their heads and seats.
Squinting up at the shamrock, Harry realized that it was actually comprised of
thousands of tiny little bearded men with red vests, each carrying a minute lamp of
gold or green.

"Leprechauns!" said Mr. Weasley over the tumultuous applause of the crowd,

67

 

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 field 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 field 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 field; 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 mustache to rival Uncle
Vernon's, wearing robes of pure gold to match the stadium, strode out onto the
field. A silver whistle was protruding from under the mustache, 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.

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"Theeeeeeeey're OFF!" screamed Bagman. "And it's Mullet! Troy! Moran!
Dimitrov! Back to Mullet! Troy! Levski! Moran!"

It was Quidditch as Harry had never seen it played before. He was pressing his
Omnioculars so hard to his glasses that they were cutting into the bridge of his
nose. The speed of the players was incredible - the Chasers were throwing the
Quaffle to one another so fast that Bagman only had time to say their names.
Harry spun the slow dial on the right of his Omnioculars again, pressed the play-
by-play button on the top, and he was immediately watching in slow motion, while
glittering purple lettering flashed across the lenses and the noise of the crowd
pounded against his eardrums.

HAWKSHEAD ATTACKING FORMATION, he read as he watched the three
Irish Chasers zoom closely together, Troy in the center, slightly ahead of Mullet
and Moran, bearing down upon the Bulgarians. PORSKOFF PLOY flashed up
next, as Troy made as though to dart upward with the Quaffle, drawing away the
Bulgarian Chaser Ivanova and dropping the Quaffle to Moran. One of the
Bulgarian Beaters, Volkov, swung hard at a passing Bludger with his small club,
knocking it into Moran's path; Moran ducked to avoid the Bludger and dropped
the Quaffle; and Levski, soaring beneath, caught it - "TROY SCORES!" roared
Bagman, and the stadium shuddered with a roar of applause and cheers. "Ten zero
to Ireland!"

"What?" Harry yelled, looking wildly around through his Omnioculars. "But
Levski's got the Quaffle!"

"Harry, if you're not going to watch at normal speed, you're going to miss things!"
shouted Hermione, who was dancing up and down, waving her arms in the air
while Troy did a lap of honor around the field. Harry looked quickly over the top
of his Omnioculars and saw that the leprechauns watching from the sidelines had
all risen into the air again and formed the great, glittering shamrock. Across the
field, the veela were watching them sulkily.

Furious with himself, Harry spun his speed dial back to normal as play resumed.

Harry knew enough about Quidditch to see that the Irish Chasers were superb.
They worked as a seamless team, their movements so well coordinated that they
appeared to be reading one another's minds as they positioned themselves, and the
rosette on Harry's chest kept squeaking their names: "Troy - Mullet - Mo ran!"
And within ten minutes, Ireland had scored twice more, bringing their lead to
thirty-zero and causing a thunderous tide of roars and applause from the green-
clad supporters.

The match became still faster, but more brutal. Volkov and Vulchanov, the
Bulgarian Beaters, were whacking the Bludgers as fiercely as possible at the Irish
Chasers, and were starting to prevent them from using some of their best moves;
twice they were forced to scatter, and then, finally, Ivanova managed to break
through their ranks; dodge the Keeper, Ryan; and score Bulgaria's first goal.

69

 

"Fingers in your ears!" bellowed Mr. Weasley as the veela started to dance in
celebration. Harry screwed up his eyes too; he wanted to keep his mind on the
game. After a few seconds, he chanced a glance at the field. The veela had stopped
dancing, and Bulgaria was again in possession of the Quaffle.

"Dimitrov! Levski! Dimitrov! Ivanova - oh I say!" roared Bagman.

One hundred thousand wizards gasped as the two Seekers, Krum and Lynch,
plummeted through the center of the Chasers, so fast that it looked as though they
had just jumped from airplanes without parachutes. Harry followed their descent
through his Omnioculars, squinting to see where the Snitch was -

"They're going to crash!" screamed Hermione next to Harry.

She was half right - at the very last second, Viktor Krum pulled out of the dive and
spiraled off. Lynch, however, hit the ground with a dull thud that could be heard
throughout the stadium. A huge groan rose from the Irish seats.

"Fool!" moaned Mr. Weasley. "Krum was feinting!"

"It's time-out!" yelled Bagman's voice, "as trained mediwizards hurry onto the
field to examine Aidan Lynch!"

"He'll be okay, he only got ploughed!" Charlie said reassuringly to Ginny, who
was hanging over the side of the box, looking horror-struck. "Which is what Krum
was after, of course... ."

Harry hastily pressed the replay and play-by-play buttons on his Omnioculars,
twiddled the speed dial, and put them back up to his eyes.

He watched as Krum and Lynch dived again in slow motion. WRONSKI
DEFENSIVE FEINT - DANGEROUS SEEKER DIVERSION read the shining
purple lettering across his lenses. He saw Krum's face contorted with
concentration as he pulled out of the dive just in time, while Lynch was flattened,
and he understood - Krum hadn't seen the Snitch at all, he was just making Lynch
copy him. Harry had never seen anyone fly like that; Krum hardly looked as
though he was using a broomstick at all; he moved so easily through the air that he
looked unsupported and weightless. Harry turned his Omnioculars back to normal
and focused them on Krum. He was now circling high above Lynch, who was
being revived by mediwizards with cups of potion. Harry, focusing still more
closely upon Krum's face, saw his dark eyes darting all over the ground a hundred
feet below. He was using the time while Lynch was revived to look for the Snitch
without interference.

Lynch got to his feet at last, to loud cheers from the green-clad supporters,
mounted his Firebolt, and kicked back off into the air. His revival seemed to give
Ireland new heart. When Mostafa blew his whistle again, the Chasers moved into
action with a skill unrivaled by anything Harry had seen so far.

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After fifteen more fast and furious minutes, Ireland had pulled ahead by ten more
goals. They were now leading by one hundred and thirty points to ten, and the
game was starting to get dirtier.

As Mullet shot toward the goal posts yet again, clutching the Quaffle tightly under
her arm, the Bulgarian Keeper, Zograf, flew out to meet her. Whatever happened
was over so quickly Harry didn't catch it, but a scream of rage from the Irish
crowd, and Mostafa's long, shrill whistle blast, told him it had been a foul.

"And Mostafa takes the Bulgarian Keeper to task for cobbing -- excessive use of
elbows!" Bagman informed the roaring spectators. "And - yes, it's a penalty to
Ireland!"

The leprechauns, who had risen angrily into the air like a swarm of glittering
hornets when Mullet had been fouled, now darted together to form the words "HA,
HA, HA!" The veela on the other side of the field leapt to their feet, tossed their
hair angrily, and started to dance again.

As one, the Weasley boys and Harry stuffed their fingers into their ears, but
Hermione, who hadn't bothered, was soon tugging on Harry's arm. He turned to
look at her, and she pulled his fingers impatiently out of his ears.

"Look at the referee!" she said, giggling.

Harry looked down at the field. Hassan Mostafa had landed right in front of the
dancing veela, and was acting very oddly indeed. He was flexing his muscles and
smoothing his mustache excitedly.

"Now, we can't have that!" said Ludo Bagman, though he sounded highly amused.
"Somebody slap the referee!"

A mediwizard came tearing across the field, his fingers stuffed into his own ears,
and kicked Mostafa hard in the shins. Mostafa seemed to come to himself; Harry,
watching through the Omnioculars again, saw that he looked exceptionally
embarrassed and had started shouting at the veela, who had stopped dancing and
were looking mutinous.

"And unless I'm much mistaken, Mostafa is actually attempting to send off the
Bulgarian team mascots!" said Bagman's voice. "Now there's something we
haven't seen before. . . . Oh this could turn nasty. . .

It did: The Bulgarian Beaters, Volkov and Vulchanov, landed on either side of
Mostafa and began arguing furiously with him, gesticulating toward the
leprechauns, who had now gleefully formed the words "HEE, HEE, HEE."
Mostafa was not impressed by the Bulgarians' arguments, however; he was
jabbing his finger into the air, clearly telling them to get flying again, and when
they refused, he gave two short blasts on his whistle.

"Two penalties for Ireland!" shouted Bagman, and the Bulgarian crowd howled

71

 

with anger. "And Volkov and Vulchanov had better get back on those brooms. . .
yes. . . there they go. . . and Troy takes the Quaffle. .

Play now reached a level of ferocity beyond anything they had yet seen. The
Beaters on both sides were acting without mercy: Volkov and Vulchanov in
particular seemed not to care whether their clubs made contact with Bludger or
human as they swung them violently through the air. Dimitrov shot straight at
Moran, who had the Quaffle, nearly knocking her off her broom.

"Foul!" roared the Irish supporters as one, all standing up in a great wave of green.

"Foul!" echoed Ludo Bagman's magically magnified voice. "Dimitrov skins
Moran - deliberately flying to collide there - and it's got to be another penalty -
yes, there's the whistle!"

The leprechauns had risen into the air again, and this time, they formed a giant
hand, which was making a very rude sign indeed at the veela across the field. At
this, the veela lost control. Instead of dancing, they launched themselves across the
field and began throwing what seemed to be handfuls of fire at the leprechauns.
Watching through his Omnioculars, Harry saw that they didn't look remotely
beautiful now. 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!"

Ministry wizards were flooding onto the field to separate the veela and the
leprechauns, but with little success; meanwhile, the pitched battle below was
nothing to the one taking place above. Harry turned this way and that, staring
through his Omnioculars, as the Quaffie changed hands with the speed of a bullet.

"Levski - Dimitrov - Moran - Troy - Mullet - Ivanova - Moran again - Moran -
MORAN SCORES!"

But the cheers of the Irish supporters were barely heard over the shrieks of the
veela, the blasts now issuing from the Ministry members' wands, and the furious
roars of the Bulgarians. The game recommenced immediately; now Levski had the
Quaffle, now Dimitrov -

The Irish Beater Quigley swung heavily at a passing Bludger, and hit it as hard as
possible toward Krum, who did not duck quickly enough. It hit him full in the
face.

There was a deafening groan from the crowd; Krum's nose looked broken, there
was blood everywhere, but Hassan Mostafa didn't blow his whistle. He had
become distracted, and Harry couldn't blame him; one of the veela had thrown a
handful of fire and set his broom tail alight.

Harry wanted someone to realize that Krum was injured; even though he was

72

 

supporting Ireland, Krum was the most exciting player on the field. Ron obviously
felt the same.

"Time-out! Ah, come on, he can't play like that, look at him -"

"Look at Lynch!" Harry yelled.

For the Irish Seeker had suddenly gone into a dive, and Harry was quite sure that
this was no Wronski Feint; this was the real thing...

"He's seen the Snitch!" Harry shouted. "He's seen it! Look at him go!"

Half the crowd seemed to have realized what was happening; the Irish supporters
rose in another great wave of green, screaming their Seeker on. . . but Krum was
on his tail. How he could see where he was going, Harry had no idea; there were
flecks of blood flying through the air behind him, but he was drawing level with
Lynch now as the pair of them hurtled toward the ground again -

"They're going to crash!" shrieked Hermione.

"They're not!" roared Ron.

"Lynch is!" yelled Harry.

And he was right - for the second time, Lynch hit the ground with tremendous
force and was immediately stampeded by a horde of angry veela.

"The Snitch, where's the Snitch?" bellowed Charlie, along the row.

"He's got it - Krum's got it - it's all over!" shouted Harry.

Krum, his red robes shining with blood from his nose, was rising gently into the
air, his fist held high, a glint of gold in his hand.

The scoreboard was flashing BULGARIA: 160, IRELAND: 170 across the crowd,
who didn't seem to have realized what had happened. Then, slowly, as though a
great jumbo jet were revving up, the rumbling from the Ireland supporters grew
louder and louder and erupted into screams of delight.

"IRELAND WINS!" Bagman shouted, who like the Irish, seemed to be taken
aback by the sudden end of the match.

"KRUM GETS THE SNITCH - BUT IRELAND WINS -- good lord, I don't think
any of us were expecting that!"

"What did he catch the Snitch for?" Ron bellowed, even as he jumped up and
down, applauding with his hands over his head. "He ended it when Ireland were a
hundred and sixty points ahead, the idiot!"

"He knew they were never going to catch up!" Harry shouted back over all the
noise, also applauding loudly. "The Irish Chasers were too good. . . . He wanted to

73

 

end it on his terms, that's all. . .

"He was very brave, wasn't he?" Hermione said, leaning forward to watch Krum
land as a swarm of mediwizards blasted a path through the battling leprechauns
and veela to get to him. "He looks a terrible mess. . ."

Harry put his Omnioculars to his eyes again. It was hard to see what was
happening below, because leprechauns were zooming delightedly all over the
field, but he could just make out Krum, surrounded by mediwizards. He looked
surlier than ever and refused to let them mop him up. His team members were
around him, shaking their heads and looking dejected; a short way away, the Irish
players were dancing gleefully in a shower of gold descending from their mascots.
Flags were waving all over the stadium, the Irish national anthem blared from all
sides; the veela were shrinking back into their usual, beautiful selves now, though
looking dispirited and forlorn.

"Vell, ve fought bravely," said a gloomy voice behind Harry. He looked around; it
was the Bulgarian Minister of Magic.

"You can speak English!" said Fudge, sounding outraged. "And you've been
letting me mime everything all day!"

"Veil, it vos very funny," said the Bulgarian minister, shrugging.

"And as the Irish team performs a lap of honor, flanked by their mascots, the
Quidditch World Cup itself is brought into the Top Box!" roared Bagman.

Harry's eyes were suddenly dazzled by a blinding white light, as the Top Box was
magically illuminated so that everyone in the stands could see the inside.
Squinting toward the entrance, he saw two panting wizards carrying a vast golden
cup into the box, which they handed to Cornelius Fudge, who was still looking
very disgruntled that he'd been using sign language all day for nothing.

"Let's have a really loud hand for the gallant losers - Bulgaria!" Bagman shouted.

And up the stairs into the box came the seven defeated Bulgarian players. The
crowd below was applauding appreciatively; Harry could see thousands and
thousands of Omniocular lenses flashing and winking in their direction.

One by one, the Bulgarians filed between the rows of seats in the box, and
Bagman called out the name of each as they shook hands with their own minister
and then with Fudge. Krum, who was last in line, looked a real mess. Two black
eyes were blooming spectacularly on his bloody face. He was still holding the
Snitch. Harry noticed that he seemed much less coordinated on the ground. He
was slightly duck-footed and distinctly round-shouldered. But when Krum's name
was announced, the whole stadium gave him a resounding, earsplitting roar.

And then came the Irish team. Aidan Lynch was being supported by Moran and
Connolly; the second crash seemed to have dazed him and his eyes looked

74

 

strangely unfocused. But he grinned happily as Troy and Quigley lifted the Cup
into the air and the crowd below thundered its approval. Harry's hands were numb
with clapping.
At last, when the Irish team had left the box to perform another lap of honor on
their brooms (Aidan Lynch on the back of Confolly's, clutching hard around his
waist and still grinning in a bemused sort of way), Bagman pointed his wand at his
throat and muttered, "Quietus."
"They'll be talking about this one for years," he said hoarsely, "a really unexpected
twist, that. . . . shame it couldn't have lasted longer. . . . Ah yes... . yes, I owe you. .
. how much?"
For Fred and George had just scrambled over the backs of their seats and were
standing in front of Ludo Bagman with broad grins on their faces, their hands
outstretched.

75

 

CHAPTER NINE - THE DARK MARK

Don't tell your mother you've been gambling," Mr. Weasley implored Fred and
George as they all made their way slowly down the purple-carpeted stairs.

"Don't worry, Dad," said Fred gleefully, "we've got big plans for this money. We
don't want it confiscated."

Mr. Weasley looked for a moment as though he was going to ask what these big
plans were, but seemed to decide, upon reflection, that he didn't want to know.

They were soon caught up in the crowds now flooding out of the stadium and back
to their campsites. Raucous singing was borne toward them on the night air as they
retraced their steps along the lantern-lit path, and leprechauns kept shooting over
their heads, cackling and waving their lanterns. When they finally reached the
tents, nobody felt like sleeping at all, and given the level of noise around them,
Mr. Weasley agreed that they could all have one last cup of cocoa together before
turning in. They were soon arguing enjoyably about the match; Mr. Weasley got
drawn into a disagreement about cobbing with Charlie, and it was only when
Ginny fell asleep right at the tiny table and spilled hot chocolate all over the floor
that Mr. Weasley called a halt to the verbal replays and insisted that everyone go
to bed. Hermione and Ginny went into the next tent, and Harry and the rest of the
Weasleys changed into pajamas and clambered into their bunks. From the other
side of the campsite they could still hear much singing and the odd echoing bang.

"Oh I am glad I'm not on duty," muttered Mr. Weasley sleepily. "I wouldn't fancy
having to go and tell the Irish they've got to stop celebrating."

Harry, who was on a top bunk above Ron, lay staring up at the canvas ceiling of
the tent, watching the glow of an occasional leprechaun lantern flying overhead,
and picturing again some of Krum's more spectacular moves. He was itching to get
back on his own Firebolt and try out the Wronski Feint. . . . Somehow Oliver
Wood had never managed to convey with all his wriggling diagrams what that
move was supposed to look like.. . . Harry saw himself in robes that had his name
on the back, and imagined the sensation of hearing a hundred-thousand-strong
crowd roar, as Ludo Bagman's voice echoed throughout the stadium, "I give you. .
. Potter!"

Harry never knew whether or not he had actually dropped off to sleep - his
fantasies of flying like Krum might well have slipped into actual dreams - all he
knew was that, quite suddenly, Mr. Weasley was shouting.

"Get up! Ron - Harry - come on now, get up, this is urgent!"

Harry sat up quickly and the top of his head hit canvas.

76

 

"S' matter?" he said.

Dimly, he could tell that something was wrong. The noises in the campsite had
changed. The singing had stopped. He could hear screams, and the sound of
people running. He slipped down from the bunk and reached for his clothes, but
Mr. Weasley, who had pulled on his jeans over his own pajamas, said, "No time,
Harry - just grab a jacket and get outside - quickly!"

Harry did as he was told and hurried out of the tent, Ron at his heels.

By the light of the few fires that were still burning, he could see people running
away into the woods, fleeing something that was moving across the field toward
them, something that was emitting odd flashes of light and noises like gunfire.
Loud jeering, roars of laughter, and drunken yells were drifting toward them; then
came a burst of strong green light, which illuminated the scene.

A crowd of wizards, tightly packed and moving together with wands pointing
straight upward, was marching slowly across the field. Harry squinted at them. . . .
They didn't seem to have faces. . . . Then he realized that their heads were hooded
and their faces masked. High above them, floating along in midair, four struggling
figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes. It was as though the masked
wizards on the ground were puppeteers, and the people above them were
marionettes operated by invisible strings that rose from the wands into the air.
Two of the figures were very small.

More wizards were joining the marching group, laughing and pointing up at the
floating bodies. Tents crumpled and fell as the marching crowd swelled. Once or
twice Harry saw one of the marchers blast a tent out of his way with his wand.
Several caught fire. The screaming grew louder.

The floating people were suddenly illuminated as they passed over a burning tent
and Harry recognized one of them: Mr. Roberts, the campsite manager. The other
three looked as though they might be his wife and children. One of the marchers
below flipped Mrs. Roberts upside down with his wand; her nightdress fell down
to reveal voluminous drawers and she struggled to cover herself up as the crowd
below her screeched and hooted with glee.

"That's sick," Ron muttered, watching the smallest Muggle child, who had begun
to spin like a top, sixty feet above the ground, his head flopping limply from side
to side. "That is really sick. . . ."

Hermione and Ginny came hurrying toward them, pulling coats over their
nightdresses, with Mr. Weasley right behind them. At the same moment, Bill,
Charlie, and Percy emerged from the boys' tent, fully dressed, with their sleeves
rolled up and their wands out.

"We're going to help the Ministry!" Mr. Weasley shouted over all the noise,
rolling up his own sleeves. "You lot - get into the woods, and stick together. I'll
come and fetch you when we've sorted this out!"

77

 

Bill, Charlie, and Percy were already sprinting away toward the oncoming
marchers; Mr. Weasley tore after them. Ministry wizards were dashing from every
direction toward the source of the trouble. The crowd beneath the Roberts family
was coming ever closer.

"C'mon," said Fred, grabbing Ginny's hand and starting to pull her toward the
wood. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and George followed. They all looked back as they
reached the trees. The crowd beneath the Roberts family was larger than ever; they
could see the Ministry wizards trying to get through it to the hooded wizards in the
center, but they were having great difficulty. It looked as though they were scared
to perform any spell that might make the Roberts family fall.

The colored lanterns that had lit the path to the stadium had been extinguished.
Dark figures were blundering through the trees; children were crying; anxious
shouts and panicked voices were reverberating around them in the cold night air.
Harry felt himself being pushed hither and thither by people whose faces he could
not see. Then he heard Ron yell with pain.

"What happened?" said Hermione anxiously, stopping so abruptly that Harry
walked into her. "Ron, where are you? Oh this is stupid - lumos!"

She illuminated her wand and directed its narrow beam across the path. Ron was
lying sprawled on the ground.

"Tripped over a tree root," he said angrily, getting to his feet again.

"Well, with feet that size, hard not to," said a drawling voice from behind them.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione turned sharply. Draco Malfoy was standing alone
nearby, leaning against a tree, looking utterly relaxed. His arms folded, he seemed
to have been watching the scene at the campsite through a gap in the trees.

Ron told Malfoy to do something that Harry knew he would never have dared say
in front of Mrs. Weasley.

"Language, Weasley," said Malfoy, his pale eyes glittering. "Hadn't you better be
hurrying along, now? You wouldn't like her spotted, would you?"

He nodded at Hermione, and at the same moment, a blast like a bomb sounded
from the campsite, and a flash of green light momentarily lit the trees around
them.

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Hermione defiantly. "Granger, they're after
Muggles, "said Malfoy. "D'you want to be showing off your knickers in midair?
Because if you do, hang around. . . they're moving this way, and it would give us
all a laugh."

"Hermione's a witch," Harry snarled.

"Have it your own way, Potter," said Malfoy, grinning maliciously. "If you think

78

 

they can't spot a Mudblood, stay where you are."

"You watch your mouth!" shouted Ron. Everybody present knew that "Mudblood"
was a very offensive term for a witch or wizard of Muggle parentage.

"Never mind, Ron," said Hermione quickly, seizing Ron's arm to restrain him as
he took a step toward Malfoy.

There came a bang from the other side of the trees that was louder than anything
they had heard. Several people nearby screamed. Malfoy chuckled softly.

"Scare easily, don't they?" he said lazily. "I suppose your daddy told you all to
hide? What's he up to - trying to rescue the Muggles?"

"Where're your parents?" said Harry, his temper rising. "Out there wearing masks,
are they?"

Malfoy turned his face to Harry, still smiling.

"Well. . . if they were, I wouldn't be likely to tell you, would I, Potter?"

"Oh come on," said Hermione, with a disgusted look at Malfoy, "let's go and find
the others."

"Keep that big bushy head down, Granger," sneered Malfoy.

"Come on," Hermione repeated, and she pulled Harry and Ron up the path again.

"I'll bet you anything his dad is one of that masked lot!" said Ron hotly.

"Well, with any luck, the Ministry will catch him!" said Hermione fervently. "Oh I
can't believe this. Where have the others got to?"

Fred, George, and Ginny were nowhere to be seen, though the path was packed
with plenty of other people, all looking nervously over their shoulders toward the
commotion back at the campsite. A huddle of teenagers in pajamas was arguing
vociferously a little way along the path. When they saw Harry, Ron, and
Hermione, a girl with thick curly hair turned and said quickly, "Oü est Madame
Maxime? Nous l'avons perdue -"

"Er - what?" said Ron.

"Oh. . ." The girl who had spoken turned her back on him, and as they walked on
they distinctly heard her say, "Ogwarts."

"Beauxbatons," muttered Hermione.

"Sorry?" said Harry.

"They must go to Beauxbatons," said Hermione. "You know... Beauxbatons
Academy of Magic. . . I read about it in An Appraisal ofMagical Education in
Europe."

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"Oh. . . yeah. . . right," said Harry.

"Fred and George can't have gone that far," said Ron, pulling out his wand,
lighting it like Hermione's, and squinting up the path. Harry dug in the pockets of
his jacket for his own wand - but it wasn't there. The only thing he could find was
his Omnioculars.

"Ah, no, I don't believe it. . . I've lost my wand!"

"You're kidding!"

Ron and Hermione raised their wands high enough to spread the narrow beams of
light farther on the ground; Harry looked all around him, but his wand was
nowhere to be seen.

"Maybe it's back in the tent," said Ron.

"Maybe it fell out of your pocket when we were running?" Hermione suggested
anxiously.

"Yeah," said Harry, "maybe. .

He usually kept his wand with him at all times in the wizarding world, and finding
himself without it in the midst of a scene like this made him feel very vulnerable.

A rustling noise nearby made all three of them jump. Winky the house-elf was
fighting her way out of a clump of bushes nearby. She was moving in a most
peculiar fashion, apparently with great difficulty; it was as though someone
invisible were trying to hold her back.

"There is bad wizards about!" she squeaked distractedly as she leaned forward and
labored to keep running. "People high - high in the air! Winky is getting out of the
way!"

And she disappeared into the trees on the other side of the path, panting and
squeaking as she fought the force that was restraining her.

"What's up with her?" said Ron, looking curiously after Winky. "Why can't she
run properly?"

"Bet she didn't ask permission to hide," said Harry. He was thinking of Dobby:
Every time he had tried to do something the Malfoys wouldn't like, the house-elf
had been forced to start beating himself up.

"You know, house-elves get a very raw deal!" said Hermione indignantly. "It's
slavery, that's what it is! That Mr. Crouch made her go up to the top of the
stadium, and she was terrified, and he's got her bewitched so she can't even run
when they start trampling tents! Why doesn't anyone do something about it?"

"Well, the elves are happy, aren't they?" Ron said. "You heard old Winky back at
the match.. . 'House-elves is not supposed to have fun'. . . that's what she likes,

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being bossed around. . . ."

"It's people like you, Ron," Hermione began hotly, "who prop up rotten and unjust
systems, just because they're too lazy to -"

Another loud bang echoed from the edge of the wood.

"Let's just keep moving, shall we?" said Ron, and Harry saw him glance edgily at
Hermione. Perhaps there was truth in what Malfoy had said; perhaps Hermione
was in more danger than they were. They set off again, Harry still searching his
pockets, even though he knew his wand wasn't there.

They followed the dark path deeper into the wood, still keeping an eye out for
Fred, George, and Ginny. They passed a group of goblins who were cackling over
a sack of gold that they had undoubtedly won betting on the match, and who
seemed quite unperturbed by the trouble at the campsite. Farther still along the
path, they walked into a patch of silvery light, and when they looked through the
trees, they saw three tall and beautiful veela standing in a clearing, surrounded by
a gaggle of young wizards, all of whom were talking very loudly.

"I pull down about a hundred sacks of Galleons a year!" one of them shouted. "I'm
a dragon killer for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures."

"No, you're not!" yelled his friend. "You're a dishwasher at the Leaky Cauldron. . .
. but I'm a vampire hunter, I've killed about ninety so far -"

A third young wizard, whose pimples were visible even by the dim, silvery light of
the veela, now cut in, "I'm about to become the youngest ever Minister of Magic, I
am."

Harry snorted with laughter. He recognized the pimply wizard: His name was Stan
Shunpike, and he was in fact a conductor on the triple-decker Knight Bus. He
turned to tell Ron this, but Ron's face had gone oddly slack, and next second Ron
was yelling, "Did I tell you I've invented a broomstick that'll reach Jupiter?"

"Honestly!" said Hermione, and she and Harry grabbed Ron firmly by the arms,
wheeled him around, and marched him away. By the time the sounds of the veela
and their admirers had faded completely, they were in the very heart of the wood.
They seemed to be alone now; everything was much quieter.

Harry looked around. "I reckon we can just wait here, you know. We'll hear
anyone coming a mile off."

The words were hardly out of his mouth, when Ludo Bagman emerged from
behind a tree right ahead of them.

Even by the feeble light of the two wands, Harry could see that a great change had
come over Bagman. He no longer looked buoyant and rosy-faced; there was no
more spring in his step. He looked very white and strained.

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"Who's that?" he said, blinking down at them, trying to make out their faces.
"What are you doing in here, all alone?"

They looked at one another, surprised.

"Well - there's a sort of riot going on," said Ron.

Bagman stared at him.

"What?"

"At the campsite. . . some people have got hold of a family of Muggles. . .

Bagman swore loudly.

"Damn them!" he said, looking quite distracted, and without another word, he
Disapparated with a small pop!

"Not exactly on top of things, Mr. Bagman, is he?" said Hermione, frowning.

"He was a great Beater, though," said Ron, leading the way off the path into a
small clearing, and sitting down on a patch of dry grass at the foot of a tree. "The
Wimbourne Wasps won the league three times in a row while he was with them."

He took his small figure of Krum out of his pocket, set it down on the ground, and
watched it walk around. Like the real Krum, the model was slightly duck-footed
and round-shouldered, much less impressive on his splayed feet than on his
broomstick. Harry was listening for noise from the campsite. Everything seemed
much quieter; perhaps the riot was over.

"I hope the others are okay," said Hermione after a while.

"They'll be fine," said Ron.

"Imagine if your dad catches Lucius Malfoy," said Harry, sitting down next to Ron
and watching the small figure of Krum slouching over the fallen leaves. "He's
always said he'd like to get something on him."

"That'd wipe the smirk off old Draco's face, all right," said Ron.

"Those poor Muggles, though," said Hermione nervously. "What if they can't get
them down?"

"They will," said Ron reassuringly. "They'll find a way."

"Mad, though, to do something like that when the whole Ministry of Magic's out
here tonight!" said Hermione. "I mean, how do they expect to get away with it? Do
you think they've been drinking, or are they just -"

But she broke off abruptly and looked over her shoulder. Harry and Ron looked
quickly around too. It sounded as though someone was staggering toward their
clearing. They waited, listening to the sounds of the uneven steps behind the dark

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trees. But the footsteps came to a sudden halt.

"Hello?" called Harry.

There was silence. Harry got to his feet and peered around the tree. It was too dark
to see very far, but he could sense somebody standing just beyond the range of his
vision.

"Who's there?" he said.

And then, without warning, the silence was rent by a voice unlike any they had
heard in the wood; and it uttered, not a panicked shout, but what sounded like a
spell.

"MORSMORDRE!"

And something vast, green, and glittering erupted from the patch of darkness
Harry's eyes had been struggling to penetrate; it flew up over the treetops and into
the sky.

"What the - ?" gasped Ron as he sprang to his feet again, staring up at the thing
that had appeared.

For a split second, Harry thought it was another leprechaun formation. Then he
realized that it was a colossal skull, comprised of what looked like emerald stars,
with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue. As they watched, it rose
higher and higher, blazing in a haze of greenish smoke, etched against the black
sky like a new constellation.

Suddenly, the wood all around them erupted with screams. Harry didn't understand
why, 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. He scanned the darkness for the person who had conjured the skull, but he
couldn't see anyone.

"Who's there?" he called again.

"Harry, come on, move!" Hermione had seized the collar of his jacket and was
tugging him backward.

"What's the matter?" Harry said, startled to see her face so white and terrified.

"It's the Dark Mark, Harry!" Hermione moaned, pulling him as hard as she could.
"You-Know-Who's sign!"

"Voldemort's - "Harry, come on!"

Harry turned - Ron was hurriedly scooping up his miniature Krum - the three of
them started across the clearing - but before they had taken a few hurried steps, a
series of popping noises announced the arrival of twenty wizards, appearing from
thin air, surrounding them.

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Harry whirled around, and in an instant, he registered one fact: Each of these
wizards had his wand out, and every wand was pointing right at himself, Ron, and
Hermione.

Without pausing to think, he yelled, "DUCK!"

He seized the other two and pulled them down onto the ground.

"STUPEFY!" roared twenty voices - there was a blinding series of flashes and
Harry felt the hair on his head ripple as though a powerful wind had swept the
clearing. Raising his head a fraction of an inch he saw jets of fiery red light flying
over them from the wizards' wands, crossing one another, bouncing off tree trunks,
rebounding into the darkness--

"Stop!" yelled a voice he recognized. "STOP! That's my son!"

Harry's hair stopped blowing about. He raised his head a little higher. The wizard
in front of him had lowered his wand. He rolled over and saw Mr. Weasley
striding toward them, looking terrified.

"Ron - Harry" - his voice sounded shaky - "Hermione - are you all right?"

"Out of the way, Arthur," said a cold, curt voice.

It was Mr. Crouch. He and the other Ministry wizards were closing in on them.
Harry got to his feet to face them. Mr. Crouch's face was taut with rage.

"Which of you did it?" he snapped, his sharp eyes darting between them. "Which
of you conjured the Dark Mark?"

"We didn't do that!" said Harry, gesturing up at the skull.

"We didn't do anything!" said Ron, who was rubbing his elbow and looking
indignantly at his father. "What did you want to attack us for?"

"Do not lie, sir!" shouted Mr. Crouch. His wand was still pointing directly at Ron,
and his eyes were popping - he looked slightly mad. "You have been discovered at
the scene of the crime!"

"Barty," whispered a witch in a long woolen dressing gown, "they're kids, Barty,
they'd never have been able to

"Where did the Mark come from, you three?" said Mr. Weasley quickly.

"Over there," said Hermione shakily, pointing at the place where they had heard
the voice. "There was someone behind the trees. . . they shouted words - an
incantation -"

"Oh, stood over there, did they?" said Mr. Crouch, turning his popping eyes on
Hermione now, disbelief etched all over his face. "Said an incantation, did they?
You seem very well informed about how that Mark is summoned, missy -"

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But none of the Ministry wizards apart from Mr. Crouch seemed to think it
remotely likely that Harry, Ron, or Hermione had conjured the skull; on the
contrary, at Hermione's words, they had all raised their wands again and were
pointing in the direction she had indicated, squinting through the dark trees.

"We're too late," said the witch in the woolen dressing gown, shaking her head.
"They'll have Disapparated."

"I don't think so," said a wizard with a scrubby brown beard. It was Amos
Diggory, Cedric's father. "Our Stunners went right through those trees. . . . There's
a good chance we got them. . .

"Amos, be careful!" said a few of the wizards warningly as Mr. Diggory squared
his shoulders, raised his wand, marched across the clearing, and disappeared into
the darkness. Hermione watched him vanish with her hands over her mouth.

A few seconds later, they heard Mr. Diggory shout.

"Yes! We got them! There's someone here! Unconscious! It's - but - blimey. .

"You've got someone?" shouted Mr. Crouch, sounding highly disbelieving. "Who?
Who is it?"

They heard snapping twigs, the rustling of leaves, and then crunching footsteps as
Mr. Diggory reemerged from behind the trees. He was carrying a tiny, limp figure
in his arms. Harry recognized the tea towel at once. It was Winky.

Mr. Crouch did not move or speak as Mr. Diggory deposited his elf on the ground
at his feet. The other Ministry wizards were all staring at Mr. Crouch. For a few
seconds Crouch remained transfixed, his eyes blazing in his white face as he stared
down at Winky. Then he appeared to come to life again.

"This - cannot - be," he said jerkily. "No -"

He moved quickly around Mr. Diggory and strode off toward the place where he
had found Winky.

"No point, Mr. Crouch," Mr. Diggory called after him. "There's no one else there."

But Mr. Crouch did not seem prepared to take his word for it. They could hear him
moving around and the rustling of leaves as he pushed the bushes aside, searching.

"Bit embarrassing," Mr. Diggory said grimly, looking down at Winky's
unconscious form. "Barty Crouch's house-elf. . . I mean to say..."

"Come off it, Amos," said Mr. Weasley quietly, "you don't seriously think it was
the elf? The Dark Mark's a wizard's sign. It requires a wand."

"Yeah," said Mr. Diggory, "and she had a wand."

"What?" said Mr. Weasley.

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"Here, look." Mr. Diggory held up a wand and showed it to Mr. Weasley. "Had it
in her hand. So that's clause three of the Code of Wand Use broken, for a start. No
non-human creature is permitted to carry or use a wand."

Just then there was another pop, and Ludo Bagman Apparated right next to Mr.
Weasley. Looking breathless and disorientated, he spun on the spot, goggling
upward at the emerald-green skull.

"The Dark Mark!" he panted, almost trampling Winky as he turned inquiringly to
his colleagues. "Who did it? Did you get them? Barry! What's going on?"

Mr. Crouch had returned empty-handed. His face was still ghostly white, and his
hands and his toothbrush mustache were both twitching.

"Where have you been, Barty?" said Bagman. "Why weren't you at the match?
Your elf was saving you a seat too - gulping gargoyles!" Bagman had just noticed
Winky lying at his feet. "What happened to her?"

"I have been busy, Ludo," said Mr. Crouch, still talking in the same jerky fashion,
barely moving his lips. "And my elf has been stunned."

"Stunned? By you lot, you mean? But why - ?"

Comprehension dawned suddenly on Bagman's round, shiny face; he looked up at
the skull, down at Winky, and then at Mr. Crouch.

"No!" he said. "Winky? Conjure the Dark Mark? She wouldn't know how! She'd
need a wand, for a start!"

"And she had one," said Mr. Diggory. "I found her holding one, Ludo. If it's all
right with you, Mr. Crouch, I think we should hear what she's got to say for
herself."

Crouch gave no sign that he had heard Mr. Diggory, but Mr. Diggory seemed to
take his silence for assent. He raised his own wand, pointed it at Winky, and said,
"Ennervate!"

Winky stirred feebly. Her great brown eyes opened and she blinked several times
in a bemused sort of way. Watched by the silent wizards, she raised herself shakily
into a sitting position.

She caught sight of Mr. Diggory's feet, and slowly, tremulously, raised her eyes to
stare up into his face; then, more slowly still, she looked up into the sky. Harry
could see the floating skull reflected twice in her enormous, glassy eyes. She gave
a gasp, looked wildly around the crowded clearing, and burst into terrified sobs.

"Elf!" said Mr. Diggory sternly. "Do you know who I am? I'm a member of the
Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures!"

Winky began to rock backward and forward on the ground, her breath coming in

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sharp bursts. Harry was reminded forcibly of Dobby in his moments of terrified
disobedience.

"As you see, elf, the Dark Mark was conjured here a short while ago," said Mr.
Diggory. "And you were discovered moments later, right beneath it! An
explanation, if you please!"

"I - I - I is not doing it, sir!" Winky gasped. "I is not knowing how, sir!"

"You were found with a wand in your hand!" barked Mr. Diggory, brandishing it
in front of her. And as the wand caught the green light that was filling the clearing
from the skull above, Harry recognized it

"Hey - that's mine!" he said

Everyone in the clearing looked at him.

"Excuse me?" said Mr. Diggory, incredulously.

"That's my wand!" said Harry. "I dropped it!"

"You dropped it?" repeated Mr. Diggory in disbelief. "Is this a confession? You
threw it aside after you conjured the Mark?"

"Amos, think who you're talking to!" said Mr. Weasley, very angrily. "Is Harry
Potter likely to conjure the Dark Mark?"

"Er - of course not," mumbled Mr. Diggory. "Sorry. . . carried away. .

"I didn't drop it there, anyway," said Harry, jerking his thumb toward the trees
beneath the skull. "I missed it right after we got into the wood."

"So," said Mr. Diggory, his eyes hardening as he turned to look at Winky again,
cowering at his feet. "You found this wand, eh, elf? And you picked it up and
thought you'd have some fun with it, did you?"

"I is not doing magic with it, sir!" squealed Winky, tears streaming down the sides
of her squashed and bulbous nose. "I is. . . I is. . . I is just picking it up, sir! i is not
making the Dark Mark, sir, i is not knowing how!"

"It wasn't her!" said Hermione. She looked very nervous, speaking up in front of
all these Ministry wizards, yet determined all the same. "Winky's got a squeaky
little voice, and the voice we heard doing the incantation was much deeper!" She
looked around at Harry and Ron, appealing for their support. "It didn't sound
anything like Winky, did it?"

"No," said Harry, shaking his head. "It definitely didn't sound like an elf."

"Yeah, it was a human voice," said Ron.

"Well, we'll soon see," growled Mr. Diggory, looking unimpressed. "There's a

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simple way of discovering the last spell a wand performed, elf, did you know
that?"

Winky trembled and shook her head frantically, her ears flapping, as Mr. Diggory
raised his own wand again and placed it tip to tip with Harry's.

"Prior Incantato!" roared Mr. Diggory.

Harry heard Hermione gasp, horrified, as a gigantic serpent-tongued skull erupted
from the point where the two wands met, but it was a mere shadow of the green
skull high above them; it looked as though it were made of thick gray smoke: the
ghost of a spell.

"Deletrius!" Mr. Diggory shouted, and the smoky skull vanished in a wisp of
smoke.

"So," said Mr. Diggory with a kind of savage triumph, looking down upon Winky,
who was still shaking convulsively.

"I is not doing it!" she squealed, her eyes rolling in terror. "I is not, I is not, I is not
knowing how! I is a good elf, I isn't using wands, I isn't knowing how!"

"You've been caught red-handed, elf!" Mr. Diggory roared. "Caught with the
guilty wand in your hand!"

"Amos," said Mr. Weasley loudly, "think about it. . . precious few wizards know
how to do that spell. . . . Where would she have learned it?"

"Perhaps Amos is suggesting," said Mr. Crouch, cold anger in every syllable, "that
I routinely teach my servants to conjure the Dark Mark?"

There was a deeply unpleasant silence. Amos Diggory looked horrified. "Mr.
Crouch.. . not. . . not at all.

"You have now come very close to accusing the two people in this clearing who
are least likely to conjure that Mark!" barked Mr. Crouch. "Harry Potter - and
myself. I suppose you are familiar with the boy's story, Amos?"

"Of course - everyone knows -" muttered Mr. Diggory, looking highly
discomforted.

"And I trust you remember the many proofs I have given, over a long career, that I
despise and detest the Dark Arts and those who practice them?" Mr. Crouch
shouted, his eyes bulging again.

"Mr. Crouch, I - I never suggested you had anything to do with it!" Amos Diggory
muttered again, now reddening behind his scrubby brown beard.

"If you accuse my elf, you accuse me, Diggory!" shouted Mr. Crouch. "Where else
would she have learned to conjure it?"

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"She - she might've picked it up anywhere -"

"Precisely, Amos," said Mr. Weasley. "She might have picked it up anywhere.. . .
Winky?" he said kindly, turning to the elf, but she flinched as though he too was
shouting at her. "Where exactly did you find Harry's wand?"

Winky was twisting the hem of her tea towel so violently that it was fraying
beneath her fingers.

"I - I is finding it. . . finding it there, sir. . . ." she whispered, "there . . . in the trees,
sir.

"You see, Amos?" said Mr. Weasley. "Whoever conjured the Mark could have
Disapparated right after they'd done it, leaving Harry's wand behind. A clever
thing to do, not using their own wand, which could have betrayed them. And
Winky here had the misfortune to come across the wand moments later and pick it
up."

"But then, she'd have been only a few feet away from the real culprit!" said Mr.
Diggory impatiently. "Elf? Did you see anyone?"

Winky began to tremble worse than ever. Her giant eyes flickered from Mr.
Diggory, to Ludo Bagman, and onto Mr. Crouch. Then she gulped and said, "I is
seeing no one, sir. . . no one. .

"Amos," said Mr. Crouch curtly, "I am fully aware that, in the ordinary course of
events, you would want to take Winky into your department for questioning. I ask
you, however, to allow me to deal with her."

Mr. Diggory looked as though he didn't think much of this suggestion at all, but it
was clear to Harry that Mr. Crouch was such an important member of the Ministry
that he did not dare refuse him.

"You may rest assured that she will be punished," Mr. Crouch added coldly.

"M-m-master. . ." Winky stammered, looking up at Mr. Crouch, her eyes
brimming with tears. "M-m-master, p-p-please. . ."

Mr. Crouch stared back, his face somehow sharpened, each line upon it more
deeply etched. There was no pity in his gaze.

"Winky has behaved tonight in a manner I would not have believed possible," he
said slowly. "I told her to remain in the tent. I told her to stay there while I went to
sort out the trouble. And I find that she disobeyed me. This means clothes."

"No!" shrieked Winky, prostrating herself at Mr. Crouch's feet. "No, master! Not
clothes, not clothes!"

Harry knew that the only way to turn a house-elf free was to present it with proper
garments. It was pitiful to see the way Winky clutched at her tea towel as she

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sobbed over Mr. Crouch's feet.

"But she was frightened!" Hermione burst out angrily, glaring at Mr. Crouch.
"Your elf's scared of heights, and those wizards in masks were levitating people!
You can't blame her for wanting to get out of their way!"

Mr. Crouch took a step backward, freeing himself from contact with the elf, whom
he was surveying as though she were something filthy and rotten that was
contaminating his over-shined shoes.

"I have no use for a house-elf who disobeys me," he said coldly, looking over at
Hermione. "I have no use for a servant who forgets what is due to her master, and
to her master's reputation."

Winky was crying so hard that her sobs echoed around the clearing. There was a
very nasty silence, which was ended by Mr. Weasley, who said quietly, "Well, I
think I'll take my lot back to the tent, if nobody's got any objections. Amos, that
wand's told us all it can - if Harry could have it back, please -"

Mr. Diggory handed Harry his wand and Harry pocketed it.

"Come on, you three," Mr. Weasley said quietly. But Hermione didn't seem to
want to move; her eyes were still upon the sobbing elf. "Hermione!" Mr. Weasley
said, more urgently. She turned and followed Harry and Ron out of the clearing
and off through the trees.

"What's going to happen to Winky?" said Hermione, the moment they had left the
clearing.

"I don't know," said Mr. Weasley.

"The way they were treating her!" said Hermione furiously. "Mr. Diggory, calling
her 'elf' all the time. . . and Mr. Crouch! He knows she didn't do it and he's still
going to sack her! He didn't care how frightened she'd been, or how upset she was
- it was like she wasn't even human!"

"Well, she's not," said Ron.

Hermione rounded on him.

"That doesn't mean she hasn't got feelings, Ron. It's disgusting the way -"

"Hermione, I agree with you," said Mr. Weasley quickly, beckoning her on, "but
now is not the time to discuss elf rights. I want to get back to the tent as fast as we
can. What happened to the others?"

"We lost them in the dark," said Ron. "Dad, why was everyone so uptight about
that skull thing?"

"I'll explain everything back at the tent," said Mr. Weasley tensely.

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But when they reached the edge of the wood, their progress was impeded. A large
crowd of frightened-looking witches and wizards was congregated there, and
when they saw Mr. Weasley coming toward them, many of them surged forward.

"What's going on in there?"

"Who conjured it?"

"Arthur - it's not - Him?"

"Of course it's not Him," said Mr. Weasley impatiently. "We don't know who it
was; it looks like they Disapparated. Now excuse me, please, I want to get to bed."

He led Harry, Ron, and Hermione through the crowd and back into the campsite.
All was quiet now; there was no sign of the masked wizards, though several ruined
tents were still smoking.

Charlie's head was poking out of the boys' tent.

"Dad, what's going on?" he called through the dark. "Fred, George, and Ginny got
back okay, but the others -"

"I've got them here," said Mr. Weasley, bending down and entering the tent.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered after him.

Bill was sitting at the small kitchen table, holding a bedsheet to his arm, which
was bleeding profusely. Charlie had a large rip in his shirt, and Percy was sporting
a bloody nose. Fred, George, and Ginny looked unhurt, though shaken.

"Did you get them, Dad?" said Bill sharply. "The person who conjured the Mark?"

"No," said Mr. Weasley. "We found Barry Crouch's elf holding Harry's wand, but
we're none the wiser about who actually conured the Mark."

"What?" said Bill, Charlie, and Percy together. "Harry's wand?" said Fred.

"Mr. Crouch's elf" said Percy, sounding thunderstruck.

With some assistance from Harry, Ron, and Hermione, Mr. Weasley explained
what had happened in the woods. When they had finished their story, Percy
swelled indignantly.

"Well, Mr. Crouch is quite right to get rid of an elf like that!" he said. "Running
away when he'd expressly told her not to. . . embarrassing him in front of the
whole Ministry. . . how would that have looked, if she'd been brought up in front
of the Department for the Regulation and Control -"

"She didn't do anything - she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time!"
Hermione snapped at Percy, who looked very taken aback. Hermione had always
got on fairly well with Percy - better, indeed, than any of the others.

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"Hermione, a wizard in Mr. Crouch's position can't afford a house-elf who's going
to run amok with a wand!" said Percy pompously, recovering himself.

"She didn't run amok!" shouted Hermione. "She just picked it up off the ground!"

"Look, can someone just explain what that skull thing was?" said Ron impatiently.
"It wasn't hurting anyone. . . . Why's it such a big deal?"

"I told you, it's You-Know-Who's symbol, Ron," said Hermione, before anyone
else could answer. "I read about it in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts."

"And it hasn't been seen for thirteen years," said Mr. Weasley quietly. "Of course
people panicked. . . it was almost like seeing You-Know-Who back again."

"I don't get it," said Ron, frowning. "I mean. . . it's still only a shape in the sky. . .

"Ron, You-Know-Who and his followers sent the Dark Mark into the air whenever
they killed," said Mr. Weasley. "The terror it inspired. . . you have no idea, you're
too young. Just picture coming home and finding the Dark Mark hovering over
your house, and knowing what you're about to find inside. . . ." Mr. Weasley
winced. "Everyone's worst fear. . . the very worst..

There was silence for a moment. Then Bill, removing the sheet from his arm to
check on his cut, said, "Well, it didn't help us tonight, whoever conjured it. It
scared the Death Eaters away the moment they saw it. They all Disapparated
before we'd got near enough to unmask any of them. We caught the Robertses
before they hit the ground, though. They're having their memories modified right
now."

"Death Eaters?" said Harry. "What are Death Eaters?"

"It's what You-Know-Who's supporters called themselves," said Bill. "I think we
saw what's left of them tonight - the ones who managed to keep themselves out of
Azkaban, anyway."

"We can't prove it was them, Bill," said Mr. Weasley. "Though it probably was,"
he added hopelessly.

"Yeah, I bet it was!" said Ron suddenly . "Dad, we met Draco Malfoy in the
woods, and he as good as told us his dad was one of those nutters in masks! And
we all know the Malfoys were right in with You-Know-Who!"

"But what were Voldemort's supporters -" Harry began. Everybody flinched - like
most of the wizarding world, the Weasleys always avoided saying Voldemort's
name. "Sorry," said Harry quickly. "What were You-Know-Who's supporters up
to, levitating Muggles? I mean, what was the point?"

"The point?" said Mr. Weasley with a hollow laugh. "Harry, that's their idea of
fun. Half the Muggle killings back when You-Know-Who was in power were
done for fun. I suppose they had a few drinks tonight and couldn't resist reminding

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us all that lots of them are still at large. A nice little reunion for them," he finished
disgustedly.
"But if they were the Death Eaters, why did they Disapparate when they saw the
Dark Mark?" said Ron. "They'd have been pleased to see it, wouldn't they?"
"Use your brains, Ron," said Bill. "If they really were Death Eaters, they worked
very hard to keep out of Azkaban when You-Know-Who lost power, and told all
sorts of lies about him forcing them to kill and torture people. I bet they'd be even
more frightened than the rest of us to see him come back. They denied they'd ever
been involved with him when he lost his powers, and went back to their daily
lives. . . . I don't reckon he'd be over-pleased with them, do you?"
"So. . . whoever conjured the Dark Mark. . ." said Hermione slowly, "were they
doing it to show support for the Death Eaters, or to scare them away?"
"Your guess is as good as ours, Hermione," said Mr. Weasley. "But I'll tell you
this. . . it was only the Death Eaters who ever knew how to conjure it. I'd be very
surprised if the person who did it hadn't been a Death Eater once, even if they're
not now. . Listen, it's very late, and if your mother hears what's happened she'll be
worried sick. We'll get a few more hours sleep and then try and get an early
Portkey out of here."
Harry got back into his bunk with his head buzzing. He knew he ought to feel
exhausted: It was nearly three in the morning, but he felt wide-awake - wide-
awake, and worried.
Three days ago - it felt like much longer, but it had only been three days - he had
awoken with his scar burning. And tonight, for the first time in thirteen years,
Lord Voldemort's mark had appeared in the sky. What did these things mean?
He thought of the letter he had written to Sirius before leaving Privet Drive.
Would Sirius have gotten it yet? When would he reply? Harry lay looking up at
the canvas, but no flying fantasies came to him now to ease him to sleep, and it
was a long time after Charlie's snores filled the tent that Harry finally dozed off.

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CHAPTER TEN - MAYHEM AT THE MINISTRY

Mr. Weasley woke them after only a few hours sleep. He used magic to pack up
the tents, and they left the campsite as quickly as possible, passing Mr. Roberts at
the door of his cottage. Mr. Roberts had a strange, dazed look about him, and he
waved them off with a vague "Merry Christmas."

"He'll be all right," said Mr. Weasley quietly as they marched off onto the moor.
"Sometimes, when a person's memory's modified, it makes him a bit disorientated
for a while...and that was a big thing they had to make him forget."

They heard urgent voices as they approached the spot where the Portkeys lay, and
when they reached it, they found a great number of witches and wizards gathered
around Basil, the keeper of the Portkeys, all clamoring to get away from the
campsite as quickly as possible. Mr. Weasley had a hurried discussion with Basil;
they joined the queue, and were able to take an old rubber tire back to Stoatshead
Hill before the sun had really risen. They walked back through Ottery St.
Catchpole and up the damp lane toward the Burrow in the dawn light, talking very
little because they were so exhausted, and thinking longingly of their breakfast. As
they rounded the corner and the Burrow came into view, a cry echoed along the
lane.

"Oh thank goodness, thank goodness!"

Mrs. Weasley, who had evidently been waiting for them in the front yard, came
running toward them, still wearing her bedroom slippers, her face pale and
strained, a rolled-up copy of the Daily Prophet clutched in her hand.

"Arthur - I've been so worried - so worried-"

She flung her arms around Mr. Weasley's neck, and the Daily Prophet fell out of
her limp hand onto the ground. Looking down, Harry saw the headline: SCENES
OF TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP, complete with a twinkling
black-and-white photograph of the Dark Mark over the treetops.

"You're all right," Mrs. Weasley muttered distractedly, releasing Mr. Weasley and
staring around at them all with red eyes, "you're alive. . . . Oh boys. .

And to everybody's surprise, she seized Fred and George and pulled them both
into such a tight hug that their heads banged together.

"Ouch! Mum - you're strangling us -"

"I shouted at you before you left!" Mrs. Weasley said, starting to sob. "It's all I've
been thinking about! What if You-Know-Who had got you, and the last thing I
ever said to you was that you didn't get enough OW.L.s? Oh Fred. . . George. ."

94

 

"Come on, now, Molly, we're all perfectly okay," said Mr. Weasley soothingly,
prising her off the twins and leading her back toward the house. "Bill," he added in
an undertone, "pick up that paper, I want to see what it says. . ."

When they were all crammed into the tiny kitchen, and Hermione had made Mrs.
Weasley a cup of very strong tea, into which Mr. Weasley insisted on pouring a
shot of Ogdens Old Firewhiskey, Bill handed his father the newspaper. Mr.
Weasley scanned the front page while Percy looked over his shoulder.

"I knew it," said Mr. Weasley heavily. "Ministry blunders. . . culprits not
apprehended. . . lax security. . . Dark wizards running unchecked... national
disgrace. . . Who wrote this? Ah. . . of course. . . Rita Skeeter."

"That woman's got it in for the Ministry of Magic!" said Percy furiously. "Last
week she was saying we're wasting our time quibbling about cauldron thickness,
when we should be stamping out vampires! As if it wasn't specifically stated in
paragraph twelve of the Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans
--"

"Do us a favor, Perce," said Bill, yawning, "and shut up."

"I'm mentioned," said Mr. Weasley, his eyes widening behind his glasses as he
reached the bottom of the Daily Prophet article.

"Where?" spluttered Mrs. Weasley, choking on her tea and whiskey. "If I'd seen
that, I'd have known you were alive!"

"Not by name," said Mr. Weasley. "Listen to this: 'If the terrified wizards and
witches who waited breathlessly for news at the edge of the wood expected
reassurance from the Ministry ofMagic, they were sadly disappointed. A Ministry
official emerged some time after the appearance of the Dark Mark alleging that
nobody had been hurt, but reflising to give any more information. Whether this
statement will be enough to quash the rumors that several bodies were removed
from the woods an hour later, remains to be seen.' Oh really," said Mr. Weasley in
exasperation, handing the paper to Percy. "Nobody was hurt. What was I supposed
to say? Rumors that several bodies were removed from the woods. . . well, there
certainly will be rumors now she's printed that."

He heaved a deep sigh. "Molly, I'm going to have to go into the office; this is
going to take some smoothing over."

"I'll come with you, Father," said Percy importantly. "Mr. Crouch will need all
hands on deck. And I can give him my cauldron report in person."

He bustled out of the kitchen. Mrs. Weasley looked most upset. "Arthur, you're
supposed to be on holiday! This hasn't got anything to do with your office; surely
they can handle this without you?"

"I've got to go, Molly," said Mr. Weasley. "I've made things worse. I'll just change

95

 

into my robes and I'll be off. . . ."

"Mrs. Weasley," said Harry suddenly, unable to contain himself, "Hedwig hasn't
arrived with a letter for me, has she?"

"Hedwig, dear?" said Mrs. Weasley distractedly. "No. . . no, there hasn't been any
post at all."

Ron and Hermione looked curiously at Harry. With a meaningful look at both of
them he said, "All right if I go and dump my stuff in your room, Ron?"

"Yeah. . . think I will too," said Ron at once. "Hermione?"

"Yes," she said quickly, and the three of them marched out of the kitchen and up
the stairs.

"What's up, Harry?" said Ron, the moment they had closed the door of the attic
room behind them.

"There's something I haven't told you," Harry said. "On Saturday morning, I woke
up with my scar hurting again."

Ron's and Hermione's reactions were almost exactly as Harry had imagined them
back in his bedroom on Privet Drive. Hermione gasped and started making
suggestions at once, mentioning a number of reference books, and everybody from
Albus Dumbledore to Madam Pomfrey, the Hogwarts nurse. Ron simply looked
dumbstruck.

"But - he wasn't there, was he? You-Know-Who? I mean - last time your scar kept
hurting, he was at Hogwarts, wasn't he?"

"I'm sure he wasn't on Privet Drive," said Harry. "But I was dreaming about him.. .
him and Peter - you know, Wormtail. I can't remember all of it now, but they were
plotting to kill...someone."

He had teetered for a moment on the verge of saying "me," but couldn't bring
himself to make Hermione look any more horrified than she already did.

"It was only a dream," said Ron bracingly. "Just a nightmare."

"Yeah, but was it, though?" said Harry, turning to look out of the window at the
brightening sky. "It's weird, isn't it?. . . My scar hurts, and three days later the
Death Eaters are on the march, and Voldemort's sign's up in the sky again."

"Don't - say - his - name!" Ron hissed through gritted teeth.

"And remember what Professor Trelawney said?" Harry went on, ignoring Ron.
"At the end of last year?"

Professor Trelawney was their Divination teacher at Hogwarts. Hermione's
terrified look vanished as she let out a derisive snort.

96

 

"Oh Harry, you aren't going to pay attention to anything that old fraud says?"

"You weren't there," said Harry. "You didn't hear her. This time was different. I
told you, she went into a trance - a real one. And she said the Dark Lord would
rise again. . . greater and more terrible than ever before. . . and he'd manage it
because his servant was going to go back to him. . . and that night Wormtail
escaped."

There was a silence in which Ron fidgeted absentmindedly with a hole in his
Chudley Cannons bedspread.

"Why were you asking if Hedwig had come, Harry?" Hermione asked. "Are you
expecting a letter?"

"I told Sirius about my scar," said Harry, shrugging. "I'm waiting for his answer."

"Good thinking!" said Ron, his expression clearing. "I bet Sirius'll know what to
do!"

"I hoped he'd get back to me quickly," said Harry.

"But we don't know where Sirius is. . . he could be in Africa or somewhere,
couldn't he?" said Hermione reasonably. "Hedwig's not going to manage that
journey in a few days."

"Yeah, I know," said Harry, but there was a leaden feeling in his stomach as he
looked out of the window at the Hedwig-free sky.

"Come and have a game of Quidditch in the orchard, Harry" said Ron. "Come on -
three on three, Bill and Charlie and Fred and George will play. .. . You can try out
the Wronski Feint... ."

"Ron," said Hermione, in an I-don't-think-you're-being-very-sensitive sort of
voice, "Harry doesn't want to play Quidditch right now... . He's worried, and he's
tired. . . . We all need to go to bed..."

"Yeah, I want to play Quidditch," said Harry suddenly. "Hang on, I'll get my
Firebolt."

Hermione left the room, muttering something that sounded very much like "Boys."

Neither Mr. Weasley nor Percy was at home much over the following week. Both
left the house each morning before the rest of the family got up, and returned well
after dinner every night.

"It's been an absolute uproar," Percy told them importantly the Sunday evening
before they were due to return to Hogwarts. "I've been putting out fires all week.
People keep sending Howlers, and of course, if you don't open a Howler straight
away, it explodes. Scorch marks all over my desk and my best quill reduced to
cinders."

97

 

"Why are they all sending Howlers?" asked Ginny, who was mending her copy of
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi with Spellotape on the rug in front of the
living room fire.

"Complaining about security at the World Cup," said Percy. "They want
compensation for their ruined property. Mundungus Fletcher's put in a claim for a
twelve-bedroomed tent with en-suite Jacuzzi, but I've got his number. I know for a
fact he was sleeping under a cloak propped on sticks."

Mrs. Weasley glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. Harry liked this
clock. It was completely useless if you wanted to know the time, but otherwise
very informative. It had nine golden hands, and each of them was engraved with
one of the Weasley family's names. There were no numerals around the face, but
descriptions of where each family member might be. "Home," "school," and
"work" were there, but there was also "traveling," "lost," "hospital," "prison," and,
in the position where the number twelve would be on a normal clock, "mortal
peril."

Eight of the hands were currently pointing to the "home" position, but Mr.
Weasley's, which was the longest, was still pointing to "work." Mrs. Weasley
sighed.

"Your father hasn't had to go into the office on weekends since the days of You-
Know-Who," she said. "They're working him far too hard. His dinner's going to be
ruined if he doesn't come home soon."

"Well, Father feels he's got to make up for his mistake at the match, doesn't he?"
said Percy. "If truth be told, he was a tad unwise to make a public statement
without clearing it with his Head of Department first -"

"Don't you dare blame your father for what that wretched Skeeter woman wrote!"
said Mrs. Weasley, flaring up at once.

"If Dad hadn't said anything, old Rita would just have said it was disgraceful that
nobody from the Ministry had commented," said Bill, who was playing chess with
Ron. "Rita Skeeter never makes anyone look good. Remember, she interviewed all
the Gringotts' Charm Breakers once, and called me 'a long-haired pillock'?"

"Well, it is a bit long, dear," said Mrs. Weasley gently. "If you'd just let me -"

"No, Mum."

Rain lashed against the living room window. Hermione was immersed in The
Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4, copies of which Mrs. Weasley had bought for
her, Harry, and Ron in Diagon Alley. Charlie was darning a fireproof balaclava.
Harry was polishing his Firebolt, the broomstick servicing kit Hermione had given
him for his thirteenth birthday open at his feet. Fred and George were sitting in a
far corner, quills out, talking in whispers, their heads bent over a piece of
parchment.

98

 

"What are you two up to?" said Mrs. Weasley sharply, her eyes on the twins.

"Homework," said Fred vaguely.

"Don't be ridiculous, you're still on holiday," said Mrs. Weasley.

"Yeah, we've left it a bit late," said George.

"You're not by any chance writing out a new order form, are you?" said Mrs.
Weasley shrewdly. "You wouldn't be thinking of restarting Weasleys' Wizard
Wheezes, by any chance?"

"Now, Mum," said Fred, looking up at her, a pained look on his face. "If the
Hogwarts Express crashed tomorrow, and George and I died, how would you feel
to know that the last thing we ever heard from you was an unfounded accusation?"

Everyone laughed, even Mrs. Weasley.

"Oh your father's coming!" she said suddenly, looking up at the clock again.

Mr. Weasley's hand had suddenly spun from "work" to "traveling"; a second later
it had shuddered to a halt on "home" with the others, and they heard him calling
from the kitchen.

"Coming, Arthur!" called Mrs. Weasley, hurrying out of the room.

A few moments later, Mr. Weasley came into the warm living room carrying his
dinner on a tray. He looked completely exhausted.

"Well, the fat's really in the fire now," he told Mrs. Weasley as he sat down in an
armchair near the hearth and toyed unenthusiastically with his somewhat shriveled
cauliflower. "Rita Skeeter's been ferreting around all week, looking for more
Ministry mess-ups to report. And now she's found out about poor old Bertha going
missing, so that'll be the headline in the Prophet tomorrow. I told Bagman he
should have sent someone to look for her ages ago."

"Mr. Crouch has been saying it for weeks and weeks," said Percy swiftly.

"Crouch is very lucky Rita hasn't found out about Winky," said Mr. Weasley
irritably. "There'd be a week's worth of headlines in his house-elf being caught
holding the wand that conjured the Dark Mark."

"I thought we were all agreed that that elf, while irresponsible, did not conjure the
Mark?" said Percy hotly.

"If you ask me, Mr. Crouch is very lucky no one at the Daily Prophet knows how
mean he is to elves!" said Hermione angrily.

"Now look here, Hermione!" said Percy. "A high-ranking Ministry official like
Mr. Crouch deserves unswerving obedience from his servants -"

99

 

[The Orca]

6 minutes ago, SwAg said:

The villagers of Little Hangleron still called it "the Riddle House," even though it
had been many years since the Riddle family had lived there. It stood on a hill
overlooking the village, some of its windows boarded, tiles missing from its roof,
and ivy spreading unchecked over its face. Once a fine-looking manor, and easily
the largest and grandest building for miles around, the Riddle House was now
damp, derelict, and unoccupied.

The Little Hagletons all agreed that the old house was "creepy." Half a century
ago, something strange and horrible had happened there, something that the older
inhabitants of the village still liked to discuss when topics for gossip were scarce.
The story had been picked over so many times, and had been embroidered in so
many places, that nobody was quite sure what the truth was anymore. Every
version of the tale, however, started in the same place: Fifty years before, at
daybreak on a fine summer's morning when the Riddle House had still been well
kept and impressive, a maid had entered the drawing room to find all three Riddles
dead.

The maid had run screaming down the hill into the village and roused as many
people as she could.

"Lying there with their eyes wide open! Cold as ice! Still in their dinner things!"

The police were summoned, and the whole of Little Hangleton had seethed with
shocked curiosity and ill-disguised excitement. 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.

The Hanged Man, the village pub, did a roaring trade that night; the whole village
seemed to have turned out to discuss the murders. They were rewarded for leaving
their firesides when the Riddles' cook arrived dramatically in their midst and
announced to the suddenly silent pub that a man called Frank Bryce had just been
arrested.

"Frank!" cried several people. "Never!"

Frank Bryce was the Riddles' gardener. He lived alone in a run-down cottage on
the grounds of the Riddle House. Frank had come back from the war with a very
stiff leg and a great dislike of crowds and loud noises, and had been working for
the Riddles ever since.

3

 

There was a rush to buy the cook drinks and hear more details.

"Always thought he was odd," she told the eagerly listening villagers, after her
fourth sherry. "Unfriendly, like. I'm sure if I've offered him a cuppa once, I've
offered it a hundred times. Never wanted to mix, he didn't."

"Ah, now," said a woman at the bar, "he had a hard war, Frank. He likes the quiet
life. That's no reason to --"

"Who else had a key to the back door, then?" barked the cook. "There's been a
spare key hanging in the gardener's cottage far back as I can remember! Nobody
forced the door last night! No broken windows! All Frank had to do was creep up
to the big house while we was all sleeping..."

The villagers exchanged dark looks.

"I always thought that he had a nasty look about him, right enough," 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 Hangleton doubted that Frank
Bryce had killed the Riddles.

But over in the neighboring town of Great Hangleton, in the dark and dingy police
station, Frank was stubbornly repeating, again and again, that he was innocent, and
that the only person he had seen near the house on the day of the Riddles' deaths
had been a teenage boy, a stranger, dark-haired and pale. Nobody else in the
village had seen any such boy, and the police were quite sure 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 doctors had examined the
bodies and had concluded that none of the Riddles had been poisoned, stabbed,
shot, strangles, suffocated, or (as far as they could tell) harmed at all. In fact (the
report continued, in a tone of unmistakable bewilderment), the Riddles all
appeared to be in perfet health -- apart from the fact that they were all dead. The
doctors did note (as though determined to find something wrong with the bodies)
that each of the Riddles had a look of terror 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

4

 

forced to let Frank go. The Riddles were buried in the Little Hangleton
churchyard, and their graves remained objects of curiosity for a while. To
everyone's surprise, and amid a cloud of suspicion, Frank Bryce returned to his
cottage on the grounds of the Riddle House.

"'S far as I'm concerned, he killed them, and I don't care what the police say," said
Dot in the Hanged Man. "And if he had any decency, he'd leave here, knowing as
how we knows he did it."

But Frank did not leave. He stayed to tend the garden for the next family who
lived in the Riddle House, and then the next -- for neither family stayed long.
Perhaps it was partly because of Frank that 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 neither lived there nor
put it to any use; they said in the village that he kept it for "tax reasons," though
nobody was very clear what these might be. The wealthy owner continued to pay
Frank to do the gardening, however. Frank was nearing his seventy-seventh
birthday now, very deaf, his bad leg stiffer than ever, but could be seen pottering
around the flower beds in fine weather, even though the weeds were starting to
creep up on him, try as he might to suppress them.

Weeds were not the only things Frank had to contend with either. Boys from the
village made a habit of throwing stones through the windows of the Riddle House.
They rode their bicycles over the lawns Frank worked so hard to keep smooth.
Once or twice, they broke into the old house for a dare. They knew that old Frank's
devotion to the house and the grounds amounted almost to an obsession, and it
amused them to see him limping across the garden, brandishing his stick and
yelling croakily at them. Frank, for his part, believed the boys tormented him
because they, like their parents and grandparents, though him a murderer. So when
Frank awoke one night in August and saw something very odd up at the old house,
he merely assumed that the 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 worse than ever in his old
age. He got up and limped downstairs into the kitchen with the idea of refilling his
hot-water bottle to ease the stiffness in his knee. Standing at the sink, filling the
kettle, he looked up at the Riddle House and saw lights glimmering in its upper
windows. Frank knew at once what was going on. The boys had broken into the
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 mistrusted the police ever
since they had taken him in for questioning about the Riddles' deaths. He put down
the kettle at once, hurried back upstairs as fast as his bad leg would allow, and was
soon back in his kitchen, fully dressed and removing a rusty old key from its hook
by the door. He picked up his walking stick, which was propped against the wall,

5

 

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 the house until he reached a door
almost completely hidden by ivy, took out the old key, put it into the lock, and
opened the door noiselessly.

He let himself into the cavernous kitchen. Frank had not entered it for many years;
nevertheless, although it was very dark, he remembered where the door into the
hall was, and he groped his way towards it, his nostrils full of the smell of decay,
ears pricked for any sound of footsteps or voices from overhead. He reached the
hall, which was a little lighter owing to the large mullioned windows on either side
of the front door, and started to climb the stairs, blessing the dust that lay thick
upon the stone, because it muffled the sound of his feet and stick.

On the landing, Frank turned right, and saw at once where the intruders were: At
the every end of the passage a door stood ajar, and a flickering light shone through
the gap, casting a long sliver of 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 surprised him. Then he
stopped moving and listened intently, for a man's voice spoke within the room; it
sounded timid and fearful.

"There is a little more in the bottle, My Lord, if you are still 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 icy wind. Something about that voice
made the sparse hairs on the back of Frank's neck stand up. "Move me closer to
the fire, Wormtail."

Frank turned his right ear toward the door, the better to hear. There came the clink
of a bottle being put down upon some hard surface, and then the dull scraping
noise of a heavy chair being dragged across the floor. Frank caught a glimpse of a
small man, his back to the door, pushing the chair into place. He was wearing a
long black cloak, and there was a bald patch at the back of his head. Then he went
out of sight again.

"Where is Nagini?" said the cold voice.

"I -- I don't know, My Lord," said the first voice nervously. "She set out to explore
the house, I think..."

"You will milk her before we retire, Wormtail," said the second voice. "I will need
feeding in the night. The journey has tired me greatly."

Brow furrowed, Frank inclined his good ear still closer to the door, listening very
hard. There was a pause, and then the man called Wormtail spoke again.

"My Lord, may I ask how long we are going to stay here?"

6

 

"A week," said the cold voice. "Perhapse longer. The place is moderately
comfortable, and the plan cannot proceed yet. It would be foolish to act before the
Quidditch World Cup is over."

Frank inserted a gnarled finger into his ear and rotated it. 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. (Frank dug his finger
still more vigorously into his ear.) "Forgive me, but -- I do not understand -- why
should we wait until the World Cup is over?"

"Because, fool, at this very moment wizards are pouring into the country from all
over the world, and every meddler from the Ministry of Magic will be on duty, on
the watch for signs of ususual activity, checking and double-checking identities.
They will be obsessed with security, lest the Muggles notice anything. So we
wait."

Frank stopped trying to clear out his ear. He had distinctly 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 in code: spies and criminals. Frank tightened his hold on his walking
stick 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 of menace in the cold
voice now.

A slight pause followed -- and the Wormtail spoke, the words tumbling from him
in a rush, as though he was forcing himself to say this before he lost his nerve.

"It could be done without Harry Potter, My Lord."

Another pause, more protracted, and then --

"Without Harry Potter?" breathed the second voice softly. "I see..."

"My Lord, I do not say this out of concern for the boy!" said Wormtail, his voice
rising squeakily. "The boy is nothing to me, nothing at all! It is merely that if we
were to use another witch or wizard -- any wizard -- the thing could be done so
much more quickly! If you allowed me to leave you for a short while -- you know
that I can disguise myself most effectively -- I could be back here 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 thoroughly relieved now.
"Laying hands on Harry Potter would be so difficult, he is so well protected --"

7

 

"And so you volunteer to go and fetch me a substitute? I wonder...perhaps the task
of nursing me has become wearisome for you, Wormtail? Could this suggestion of
abandoning the plan be nothing more 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 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. How am I to survive without you, when I need feeding every
few hours? Who is to milk Nagini?"

"But you seem so much stronger, My Lord --"

"Liar," breathed the second voice. "I am no stronger, and a few days alone would
be enough to rob me of the little health I have regained under your clumsy care.
Silence!"

Wormtail, who had been sputtering incoherently, fell silent at once. For a few
seconds, Frank could hear nothing but the fire crackling. The the second man
spoke once more, in a whisper that was almost a hiss.

"I have my reasons for using the boy, as I have already explained to you, and I will
use no other. I have waited thirteen years. A few more months will make no
difference. As for the protection surrounding the boy, I believe my plan will be
effective. All that is needed is a little courage from you, Wormtail -- courage you
will find, unless you wish to feel the full extent of Lord Voldermort's wrath --"

"My Lord, I must speak!" said Wormtail, panic in his voice now. "All through our
journey I have gone over the plan in my head -- My Lord, Bertha Jorkin's
disappearance will not go unnoticed for long, and if we proceed, if I murder --"

"If?" whispered the second voice. "If? If you follow the plan, Wormtail, the
Ministry need never know that anyone else has died. You will do it quietly and
without fuss; I only wish that i could do it myself, but in my present
condition...Come, Wormtail, one more death and our path to Harry Potter is clear.
I am not asking you to do it alone. By that time, my faithful serant will have
rejoined us --"

"I am a faithful servant," said Wormtail, the merest trace of sullenness in his voice.

"Wormtail, I need somebody with brains, somebody whose loyalty has never
wavered, and you, unfortunately, fulfill neither requirement."

"I found you," said Wormtail, and there was definitely a sulky edge to his voice
now. "I was the one who found you. I brought you Bertha Jorkins."

8

 

"That is true," said the second man, sounding amused. "A stroke of brilliance I
would not have thought possible from you, Wormtail -- though, if truth be told,
you were not aware how useful she would be when you caught her, were you?"

"I -- I thought she might be useful, My Lord --"

"Liar," said the second voice again, the cruel amusement more pronounced than
ever. "However, I do not deny that her information was invaluable. Without it, I
could never have formed our plan, and for that, you will have your reward,
Wormtail. I will allow you to perform an essential task for me, one that many of
my followers would give their right hands to perform..."

"R-really, My Lord? What -- ?" Wormtail sounded terrified again.

"Ah, Wormtail, you don't want me to spoil the surprise? Your part will come at the
very end...but I promise you, you will have the honor of being just as useful as
Bertha Jorkins."

"You...you..." Wormtail's voice suddenly sounded hoarse, as though his mouth had
gone very dry. "You...are going...to kill me too?"

"Wormtail, Wormtail," said the cold voice silkily, "why would I kill you? I killed
Bertha because I had to. She was fit for nothing after my questioning, quite
useless. In any case, awkward questions would have been asked if she had gone
back to the Ministry with the news that she had met you on her holidays. Wizards
who are supposed to be dead would do well not to run into Ministry of Magic
witches at wayside inns..."

Wormtail muttered something so quietly that Frank could not hear it, but it made
the second man laugh -- an entirely mirthless laugh, cold as his speech.

"We could have modified her memory? But Memory Charms can be broken by a
powerful wizard, as I proved when I questioned her. It would be an insult to her
memory not to use the information I extracted from her, Wormtail."

Out in the corridor, Frank suddenly became aware that the hand gripping his
walking stick was slippery with sweat. The man with the cold voice had killed a
woman. He was talking about it without any kind of remorse -- with amusement.
He was dangerous -- a madman. And he was planning more murders -- this boy,
Harry Potter, whoever he was -- was in danger --

Frank knew what he must do. Now, if ever, was the time to go to the police. He
would creep out of the house and head straight for the telephone box in the
village...but the cold voice was speaking again, and Frank remained where he was,
frozen to the spot, listening with all his might.

"One more murder...my faithful servant at Hogwarts...Harry Potter is as good as
mine, Wormtail. It is decided. There will be no more argument. But quiet...I think
I hear Nagini..."

9

 

And the second man's voice changed. He started making noises such as Frank had
never heard before; he was hissing and spitting without drawing breath. Frank
thought he must be having some sort of fit or seizure.

And then Frank heard movement behind him in the dark passageway. He turned to
look, and found himself paralyzed with fright.

Something was slithering toward him along the dark corridor floor, and as it drew
nearer to the sliver of firelight, he realized with a thrill of terror that it was a
gigantic snake, at least twelve feet long. Horrified, transfixed, Frank stared as its
undulating body cut a wide, curving track through the thick dust on the floor,
coming closer and closer -- What was he to do? The only means of escape was
into the room where the two men sat plotting murder, yet if he stayed where he
was the snake would surely kill him --

But before he had made his decision, the snake was level with him, and then,
incredibly, miraculously, it was passing; it was following the spitting, hissing
noises made by the cold voice beyond the door, and in seconds, the tip of its
diamond-patterned tail had vanished through the gap.

There was sweat on Frank's forehead now, and the hand on the walking stick was
trembling. Inside the room, the cold voice was continuing to hiss, and Frank was
visited by a strange idea, an impossible idea...This man could talk to snakes.

Frank didn't understand what was going on. He wanted more than anything to be
back in his bed with his hot-water bottle. The problem was that his legs didn't
seem to want to move. As he stood there shaking and trying to master himself, the
cold voice switched abruptly to English again.

"Nagini has interesting news, Wormtail," it said.

"In-indeed, My Lord?" said Wormtail.

"Indeed, yes," said the voice, "According to Nagini, there is an old Muggle
standing right outside this room, listening to every word we say."

Frank didn't have a chance to hide himself. There were footsteps and then the door
of the room was flung wide open.

A short, balding man with graying hair, a pointed nose, and small, watery eyes
stood before Frank, a mixture of fear and alarm in his face.

"Invite him inside, Wormtail. Where are your manners?"

The cold voice was coming from the ancient armchair before the fire, but Frank
couldn't see the speaker. the snake, on the other hand, was curled up on the rotting
hearth rug, like some horrible travesty of a pet dog.

Wormtail beckoned Frank into the room. Though still deeply shaken, Frank took a
firmer grip on his walking stick and limped over the threshold.

10

 

The fire was the only source of light in the room; it cast long, spidery shadows
upon the walls. Frank stared at the back of the armchair; the man inside it seemed
to be even smaller than his servant, for Frank couldn't even see the back of his
head.

"You heard everything, Muggle?" said the cold voice.

"What's that you're calling me?" said Frank defiantly, for now that he was inside
the room, now that the time had come for some sort of action, he felt braver; it had
always been so in the war.

"I am calling you a Muggle," said the voice coolly. "It means that you are not a
wizard."

"I don't know what you mean by wizard," said Frank, his voice growing steadier.
"All I know is I've heard enough to interest the police tonight, I have. You've done
murder and you're planning more! And I'll tell youthis too," he added, on a sudden
inspiration, "my wife knows I'm up here, and if I don't come back --"

"You have no wife," said te cold voice, very quietly. "Nobody knows you are here.
You told nobody that you were coming. Do not lie to Lord Voldemort, Muggle,
for he knows...he always knows..."

"Is that right?" said Frank roughly. "Lord, is it? Well, I don't think much of your
manners, My Lord. Turn 'round and face me like a man, why don't you?"

"But I am not a man, Muggle," said the cold voice, barely audible now over the
crackling of the flames. "I am much, much more than a man. However...why not? I
will face you...Wormtail, come turn my chair around."

The servant gave a whimper.

"You heard me, Wormtail."

Slowly, with his face screwed up, as though he would rather have done anything
than approach his master and the hearth rug where the snake lay, the small man
walked forward and began to turn the chair. The snake lifted its ugly triangular
head and hissed slightly as the legs of the chair snagged on its rug.

And then the chair was facing Frank, and he saw what was sitting in it. His
walking stick fell to the floor with a clatter. He opened his mouth and let out a
scream. He was screaming so loudly that he never heard the words the thing in the
chair spoke as it raised a wand. There was a flash of green light, a rushing sound,
and Frank Bryce crumpled. He was dead before he hit the floor.

Two hundred miles away, the boy called Harry Potter woke with a start.

11

 

CHAPTER TWO - THE SCAR

Harry lay flat on his back, breathing hard as though he had been running. He had
awoken from a vivid dream with his hands pressed over his face. The old scar on
his forehead, which was shaped like a bolt of lightning, was burning beneath his
fingers as though someone had just pressed a white-hot wire to his skin.

He sat up, one hand still on his scar, the other hand reaching out in the darkness
for his glasses, which were on the bedside table. He put them on and his bedroom
came into clearer focus, lit by a faint, misty orange light that was filtering through
the curtains from the street lamp outside the window.

Harry ran his fingers over the scar again. It was still painful. He turned on the
lamp beside him, scrambled out of bed, crossed the room, opened his wardrobe,
and peered into the mirror on the inside of the door. A skinny boy of fourteen
looked back at him, his bright green eyes puzzled under his untidy black hair. He
examined the lightning-bolt scar of his reflection more closely. It looked normal,
but it was still stinging.

harry tried to recall what he had been dreaming about before he had awoken. It
had seemed so real...There had been two people he knew and one he didn't ...He
concentrated hard, frowning, trying to remember...

The dim picture of a darkened room came to him...There had been a snake on a
hearth rug...a small man called Peter, nicknamed Wormtail...and a cold, high
voice...the voice of Lord Voldemort. Harry felt as though an ice cube had slipped
down into his stomach at the very thought...

He closed his eyes tightly and tried to remember what Voldemort had looked like,
but it was impossible...All Harry knew was that at the moment when Voldemort's
chair had swung around, and he, Harry, had seen what was sitting in it, he had felt
a spasm of horror, which had awoken him...or had that been the pain in his scar?

And who had the old man been? For there had definitely been an old man; Harry
had watched him fall to the ground. It was all becoming confused. Harry put his
face into his hands, blocking out his bedroom, trying to hold on to the picture of
that dimly lit room, but it was like trying to keep water in his cupped hands; the
details were now trickling away as fast as he tried to hold on to them...Voldemort
and Wormtail had been talking about someone they had killed, though Harry could
not remember the name...and they had been plotting to kill someone else...him!

Harry took his face out of his hands, opened his eyes, and stared around his
bedroom as though expecting to see something unusual there. As it happened,
there was an extraordinary number of unusual things in this room. A large wooden
trunk stood open at the foot of his bed, revealing a cauldron, broomstick, black
robes, and assorted spellbooks. Rolls of parchment littered that part of his desk
that was not taken up by the large, empty cage in which his snowy owl, Hedwig,

12

 

usually perched. On the floor beside his bed a book lay open; Harry had been
reading it before he fell asleep last night. The pictures in this book were all
moving. Men in bright orange robes were zooming in and out of sight on
broomsticks, throwing a red ball to one another.

Harry walked over to the book, picked it up, and watched on of the wizards score a
spectacular goal by putting the ball through a fifty-foot-high hoop. Then he
snapped the book shut. Even Quidditch -- in Harry's opinion, the best sport in the
world -- couldn't distract him at the moment. He placed Flying with the Cannons
on his bedside table, crossed to the window, and drew back the curtains to survey
the street below.

Privet Drive looked exactly as a respectable suburban street would be expected to
look inthe early hours of Saturday morning. All the curtains were closed. As far as
Harry could see through the darkness, there wasn't a living creature in sight, not
even a cat.

And yet...and yet...Harry went restlessly back to the bed and sat down on it,
running a finger over his scar again. It wasn't the pain that bothered him; Harry
was no stranger to pain and injury. He had lost all the bones from his right arm
once and had them painfully regrown in a night. The same arm had been pierced
by a venemous foot-long fang not long afterward. Only last year Harry had fallen
fifty feet from an airborn broomstick. He was used to bizarre accidents and
injuries; they were unavoidable if you attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft
and Wizardry and had a knack for attracting a lot of trouble.

No, the thing that was bothering Harry was the last time his scar had hurt him, it
had been because Voldemort had been close by...But Voldemort couldn't be here,
now...The idea of Voldemort lurking in Privet Drive was absurd, impossible...

Harry listened closely to the silence around him. Was he half expecting to hear the
creak of a stair or the swish of a cloak? And then he jumped slightly as he heard
his cousin Dudley give a tremendous grunting snore from the next room.

Harry shook himself mentally; he was being stupid. There was no one in the house
with him except Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley, and they were plainly
still asleep, their dreams untroubled and painless.

Asleep was the way Harry liked the Dursleys best; it wasn't as though they were
ever any help to him awake. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley were
Harry's only living relatives. They were Muggles who hated and despised magic in
any form, which meant that Harry was about as welcome in their house as dry rot.
They had explained away Harry's long absences at Hogwarts over the last three
years by telling everyone that he went to St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably
Criminal Boys. They knew perfectly well that, as an underage wizard, Harry
wasn't allowed to use magic outside Hogwarts, but they were still apt to blame him
for anything that went wrong about the house. Harry had never been able to
confide in them or tell them anything about his life in the wizarding world. The

13

 

very idea of going to them when they awoke, and telling them about his scar
hurting him, and about his worries about Voldemort, was laughable.

And yet it was because of Voldemort that Harry had come to live with the
Dursleys in the first place. If it hadn't been for Voldemort, Harry would not have
had the lightning scar on his forehead. If it hadn't been for Voldemort, Harry
would still have had parents...

Harry had been a year old the night that Voldemort -- the most powerful Dark
wizard for a century, a wizard who had been gaining power steadily for eleven
years -- arrived at his house and killed his father and mother. Voldemort had then
turned his wand on Harry; he had performed the curse that had disposed of many
full-grown witches and wizards in his steady rise to power -- and, incredibly, it
had not worked. Instead of killing the small boy, the curse had rebounded upon
Voldemort. Harry had survived with nothing but a lightning-shaped cut on his
forehead, and Voldemort had been reduced to something barely alive. His powers
gone, his life almost extinguished, Voldemort had fled; the terror in which the
secret community of witches and wizards had lived for so long had lifted,
Voldemort's followers had disbanded, and Harry Potter had become famous.

It had been enough of a shock for Harry to discover, on his eleventh birthday, that
he was a wizard; it had been even more disconcerting to find out that everyone in
the hidden wizarding world knew his name. Harry had arrived at Hogwarts to find
that heads turned and whispers followed him wherever he went. But he was used
to it now: At the end of this summer, he would be starting his fourth year at
Hogwarts, and Harry was already counting the days until he would be back at the
castle again.

But there was still a fortnight to go before he went back to school. He looked
hopelessly around his room again, and his eye paused on the birthday cards his
two best friends had sent him at the end of July. What would they say if Harry
wrote to them and told them about his scar hurting?

At once, Hermione Granger's voice seemed to fill his head, shrill and panicky.

"Your scar hurt? Harry, that's really serious.... Write to Professor Dumbledore!
And I'll go and check Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions.... Maybe there's
something in there about curse scars. . . ."

Yes, that would be Hermione's advice: Go straight to the headmaster of Hogwarts,
and in the meantime, consult a book. Harry stared out of the window at the inky
blue-black sky. He doubted very much whether a book could help him now. As far
as he knew, he was the only living person to have survived a curse like
Voldemort's; it was highly unlikely, therefore, that he would find his symptoms
listed in Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions. As for informing the
headmaster, Harry had no idea where Dumbledore went during the summer
holidays. He amused himself for a moment, picturing Dumbledore, with his long
silver beard, full length wizard's robes, and pointed hat, stretched out on a beach

14

 

somewhere, rubbing suntan lotion onto his long crooked nose. Wherever
Dumbledore was, though, Harry was sure that Hedwig would be able to find him;
Harry's owl had never yet failed to deliver a letter to anyone, even without an
address. But what would he write?

Dear Professor Dumbledore, Sorry to bother you, but my scar hurt this morning.
Yours sincerely, Harry Potter.

Even inside his head the words sounded stupid.

And so he tried to imagine his other best friend, Ron Weasley's, reaction, and in a
moment, Ron's red hair and long-nosed, freckled face seemed to swim before
Harry, wearing a bemused expression.

"Your scar hurt? But ... but You-Know-Who can't be near you now, can he? I
mean ... you'd know, wouldn't you? He'd be trying to do you in again, wouldn't be?
I dunno, Harry, maybe curse scars always twinge a bit... I'll ask Dad. . . ."

Mr. Weasley was a fully qualified wizard who worked in the Misuse of Muggle
Artifacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, but he didn't have any particular
expertise in the matter of curses, as far as Harry knew. In any case, Harry didn't
like the idea of the whole Weasley family knowing that he, Harry, was getting
jumpy about a few moments' pain. Mrs. Weasley would fuss worse than
Hermione, and Fred and George, Ron's sixteen- year-old twin brothers, might
think Harry was losing his nerve. The Weasleys were Harry's favorite family in the
world; he was hoping that they might invite him to stay any time now (Ron had
mentioned something about the Quidditch World Cup), and he somehow didn't
want his visit punctuated with anxious inquiries about his scar.

Harry kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. What he really wanted (and it felt
almost shameful to admit it to himself) was someone like - someone like a parent:
an adult wizard whose advice he could ask without feeling stupid, someone who
cared about him, who had had experience with Dark Magic....

And then the solution came to him. It was so simple, and so obvious, that he
couldn't believe it had taken so long - Sirius.

Harry leapt up from the bed, hurried across the room, and sat down at his desk; he
pulled a piece of parchment toward him, loaded his eagle-feather quill with ink,
wrote Dear Sirius, then paused, wondering how best to phrase his problem, still
marveling at the fact that he hadn't thought of Sirius straight away. But then,
perhaps it wasn't so surprising - after all, he had only found out that Sirius was his
godfather two months ago.

There was a simple reason for Sirius's complete absence from Harry's life until
then - Sirius had been in Azkaban, the terrifying wizard jail guarded by creatures
called dementors, sightless, soul-sucking fiends who had come to search for Sirius
at Hogwarts when he had escaped. Yet Sirius had been innocent - the murders for
which he had been convicted had been committed by Wormtail, Voldemort's

15

 

supporter, whom nearly everybody now believed dead. Harry, Ron, and Hermione
knew otherwise, however; they had come face-to-face with Wormtail only the
previous year, though only Professor Dumbledore had believed their story.

For one glorious hour, Harry had believed that he was leaving the Dursleys at last,
because Sirius had offered him a home once his name had been cleared. But the
chance had been snatched away from him - Wormtail had escaped before they
could take him to the Ministry of Magic, and Sirius had had to flee for his life.
Harry had helped him escape on the back of a hippogriff called Buckbeak, and
since then, Sirius had been on the run. The home Harry might have had if
Wormtail had not escaped had been haunting him all summer. It had been doubly
hard to return to the Dursleys knowing that he had so nearly escaped them forever.

Nevertheless, Sirius had been of some help to Harry, even if he couldn't be with
him. It was due to Sirius that Harry now had all his school things in his bedroom
with him. The Dursleys had never allowed this before; their general wish of
keeping Harry as miserable as possible, coupled with their fear of his powers, had
led them to lock his school trunk in the cupboard under the stairs every summer
prior to this. But their attitude had changed since they had found out that Harry
had a dangerous murderer for a godfather - for Harry had conveniently forgotten
to tell them that Sirius was innocent.

Harry had received two letters from Sirius since he had been back at Privet Drive.
Both had been delivered, not by owls (as was usual with wizards), but by large,
brightly colored tropical birds. Hedwig had not approved of these flashy intruders;
she had been most reluctant to allow them to drink from her water tray before
flying off again. Harry, on the other hand, had liked them; they put him in mind of
palm trees and white sand, and he hoped that, wherever Sirius was (Sirius never
said, in case the letters were intercepted), he was enjoying himself. Somehow,
Harry found it hard to imaging dementors surviving for long in bright sunlight,
perhapse that was why Sirius had gone South. Sirius's letters, which were now
hidden beneath the highly useful loose floorboards under Harry's bed, sounded
chearful, and in both of them he had reminded Harry to call on him if ever Harry
needed to. Well, he needed to right now, all right...

Harry's lamp seemed to grow dimmer as the cold gray light that precedes sunrise
slowly crept into the room. Finally, when the sun had risen, when his bedroom
walls had turned gold, and when sounds of movement could be heard from Uncle
Vernon and Aunt Petunia's room, Harry cleared his desk of crumpled pieces of
parchment and reread his finished letter.

Dear Sirius,

Thanks for your last letter. That bird was enormous; it could hardly get through
my window. Things are the same as usual here. Dudley's diet isn't going too well.
My aunt found him smuggling doughnuts into his room yesterday. They told him
they'd have to cut his pocket money if he keeps doing it, so he got really angry and
chucked his PlayStation out of the window. That's a sort of computer thing you

16

 

can play games on. Bit stupid really, now he hasn't even got Mega-Mutilation Part
Three to take his mind off things.
I'm okay, mainly because the Dursleys are terrified you might turn up and turn
them all into bats if I ask you to.
A weird thing happened this morning, though. My scar hurt again. Last time that
happened it was because Voldemort was at Hogwarts. But I don't reckon he can be
anywhere near me now, can he? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt years
afterward?
I'll send this with Hedwig when she gets back; she's off hunting at the moment.
Say hello to Buckbeak for me. Harry
Yes, thought Harry, that looked all right. There was no point putting in the dream;
he didn't want it to look as though he was too worried. He folded up the parchment
and laid it aside on his desk, ready for when Hedwig returned. Then he got to his
feet, stretched, and opened his wardrobe once more. Without glancing at his
reflection he started to get dressed before going down to breakfast.

17

 

CHAPTER THREE - THE INVITATION

By the time Harry arrived in the kitchen, the three Dursleys were already seated
around the table. None of them looked up as he entered or sat down. Uncle
Vernon's large red face was hidden behind the morning's Daily Mail, and Aunt
Petunia was cutting a grapefruit into quarters, her lips pursed over her horselike
teeth.

Dudley looked furious and sulky, and somehow seemed to be taking up even more
space than usual. This was saying something, as he always took up an entire side
of the square table by himself. When Aunt Petunia put a quarter of unsweetened
grapefruit onto Dudley's plate with a tremulous "There you are, Diddy darling,"
Dudley glowered at her. His life had taken a most unpleasant turn since he had
come home for the summer with his end-of-year report.

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had managed to find excuses for his bad marks as
usual: Aunt Petunia always insisted that Dudley was a very gifted boy whose
teachers didn't understand him, while Uncle Vernon maintained that "he didn't
want some swotty little nancy boy for a son anyway." They also skated over the
accusations of bullying in the report - "He's a boisterous little boy, but he wouldn't
hurt a fly!" Aunt Petunia had said tearfully.

However, at the bottom of the report there were a few well-chosen comments from
the school nurse that not even Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia could explain
away. No matter how much Aunt Petunia wailed that Dudley was big-boned, and
that his poundage was really puppy fat, and that he was a growing boy who needed
plenty of food, the fact remained that the school outfitters didn't stock
knickerbockers big enough for him anymore. The school nurse had seen what
Aunt Petunia's eyes - so sharp when it came to spotting fingerprints on her
gleaming walls, and in observing the comings and goings of the neighbors -
simply refused to see: that far from needing extra nourishment, Dudley had
reached roughly the size and weight of a young killer whale.

So - after many tantrums, after arguments that shook Harry's bedroom floor, and
many tears from Aunt Petunia - the new regime had begun. The diet sheet that had
been sent by the Smeltings school nurse had been taped to the fridge, which had
been emptied of all Dudley's favorite things - fizzy drinks and cakes, chocolate
bars and burgers and filled instead with fruit and vegetables and the sorts of things
that Uncle Vernon called "rabbit food." To make Dudley feel better about it all,
Aunt Petunia had insisted that the whole family follow the diet too. She now
passed a grapefruit quarter to Harry. He noticed that it was a lot smaller than
Dudley's. Aunt Petunia seemed to feet that the best way to keep up Dudley's
morale was to make sure that he did, at least, get more to eat than Harry.

But Aunt Petunia didn't know what was hidden under the loose floorboard
upstairs. She had no idea that Harry was not following the diet at all. The moment
he had got wind of the fact that he was expected to survive the summer on carrot

18

 

sticks, Harry had sent Hedwig to his friends with pleas for help, and they had risen
to the occasion magnificently. Hedwig had returned from Hermione's house with a
large box stuffed full of sugar-free snacks. (Hermione's parents were dentists.)
Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had obliged with a sack full of his own
homemade rock cakes. (Harry hadn't touched these; he had had too much
experience of Hagrid's cooking.) Mrs. Weasley, however, had sent the family owl,
Errol, with an enormous fruitcake and assorted meat pies. Poor Errol, who was
elderly and feeble, had needed a full five days to recover from the journey. And
then on Harry's birthday (which the Dursleys had completely ignored) he had
received four superb birthday cakes, one each from Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, and
Sirius. Harry still had two of them left, and so, looking forward to a real breakfast
when he got back upstairs, he ate his grapefruit without complaint.

Uncle Vernon laid aside his paper with a deep sniff of disapproval and looked
down at his own grapefruit quarter.

"Is this it?" he said grumpily to Aunt Petunia.

Aunt Petunia gave him a severe look, and then nodded pointedly at Dudley, who
had already finished his own grapefruit quarter and was eyeing Harry's with a very
sour look in his piggy little eyes.

Uncle Vernon gave a great sigh, which ruffled his large, bushy mustache, and
picked up his spoon.

The doorbell rang. Uncle Vernon heaved himself out of his chair and set off down
the hall. Quick as a flash, while his mother was occupied with the kettle, Dudley
stole the rest of Uncle Vernon's grapefruit.

Harry heard talking at the door, and someone laughing, and Uncle Vernon
answering curtly. Then the front door closed, and the sound of ripping paper came
from the hall.

Aunt Petunia set the teapot down on the table and looked curiously around to see
where Uncle Vernon had got to. She didn't have to wait long to find out; after
about a minute, he was back. He looked livid.

"You," he barked at Harry. "In the living room. Now."

Bewildered, wondering what on earth he was supposed to have done this time,
Harry got up and followed Uncle Vernon out of the kitchen and into the next
room. Uncle Vernon closed the door sharply behind both of them.

"So," he said, marching over to the fireplace and turning to face Harry as though
he were about to pronounce him under arrest. "So."

Harry would have dearly loved to have said, "So what?" but he didn't feel that
Uncle Vernon's temper should be tested this early in the morning, especially when
it was already under severe strain from lack of food. He therefore settled for

19

 

looking politely puzzled.

"This just arrived," said Uncle Vernon. He brandished a piece of purple writing
paper at Harry. "A letter. About you."

Harry's confusion increased. Who would be writing to Uncle Vernon about him?
Who did he know who sent letters by the postman?

Uncle Vernon glared at Harry, then looked down at the letter and began to read
aloud:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dursley,

We have never been introduced, but I am sure you have heard a great deal from
Harry about my son Ron.

As Harry might have told you, the final of the Quidditch World Cup takes place
this Monday night, and my husband, Arthur, has just managed to get prime tickets
through his connections at the Department of Magical Games and Sports.

I do hope you will allow us to take Harry to the match, as this really is a once-in-a-
lifetime opportunity; Britain hasn't hosted the cup for thirty years, and tickets are
extremely hard to come by. We would of course be glad to have Harry stay for the
remainder of the summer holidays, and to see him safely onto the train back to
school.

It would be best for Harry to send us your answer as quickly as possible in the
normal way, because the Muggle postman has never delivered to our house, and I
am not sure he even knows where it is.

Hoping to see Harry soon,

Yours sincerely,

Molly Weasley

P.S. I do hope we've put enough stamps on.

Uncle Vernon finished reading, put his hand back into his breast pocket, and drew
out something else.

"Look at this," he growled.

He held up the envelope in which Mrs. Weasley's letter had come, and Harry had
to fight down a laugh. Every bit of it was covered in stamps except for a square
inch on the front, into which Mrs. Weasley had squeezed the Dursleys' address in
minute writing.

"She did put enough stamps on, then," said Harry, trying to sound as though Mrs.
Weasley's was a mistake anyone could make. His uncle's eyes flashed.

20

 

"The postman noticed," he said through gritted teeth. "Very interested to know
where this letter came from, he was. That's why he rang the doorbell. Seemed to
think it was funny."

Harry didn't say anything. Other people might not understand why Uncle Vernon
was making a fuss about too many stamps, but Harry had lived with the Dursleys
too long not to know how touchy they were about anything even slightly out of the
ordinary. Their worst fear was that someone would find out that they were
connected (however distantly) with people like Mrs. Weasley.

Uncle Vernon was still glaring at Harry, who tried to keep his expression neutral.
If he didn't do or say anything stupid, he might just be in for the treat of a lifetime.
He waited for Uncle Vernon to say something, but he merely continued to glare.
Harry decided to break the silence.

"So - can I go then?" he asked.

A slight spasm crossed Uncle Vernon's large purple face. The mustache bristled.
Harry thought he knew what was going on behind the mustache: a furious battle as
two of Uncle Vernon's most fundamental instincts came into conflict. Allowing
Harry to go would make Harry happy, something Uncle Vernon had struggled
against for thirteen years. On the other hand, allowing Harry to disappear to the
Weasleys' for the rest of the summer would get rid of him two weeks earlier than
anyone could have hoped, and Uncle Vernon hated having Harry in the house. To
give himself thinking time, it seemed, he looked down at Mrs. Weasley's letter
again.

"Who is this woman?" he said, staring at the signature with distaste.

"You've seen her," said Harry. "She's my friend Ron's mother, she was meeting
him off the Hog - off the school train at the end of last term."

He had almost said "Hogwarts Express," and that was a sure way to get his uncle's
temper up. Nobody ever mentioned the name of Harry's school aloud in the
Dursley household.

Uncle Vernon screwed up his enormous face as though trying to remember
something very unpleasant.

"Dumpy sort of woman?" he growled finally. "Load of children with red hair?"

Harry frowned. He thought it was a bit rich of Uncle Vernon to call anyone
"dumpy," when his own son, Dudley, had finally achieved what he'd been
threatening to do since the age of three, and become wider than he was tall.

Uncle Vernon was perusing the letter again.

"Quidditch," he muttered under his breath. "Quidditch - what is this rubbish?"

Harry felt a second stab of annoyance.

21

 

"It's a sport," he said shortly. "Played on broom- "

"All right, all right!" said Uncle Vernon loudly. Harry saw, with some satisfaction,
that his uncle looked vaguely panicky. Apparently his nerves couldn't stand the
sound of the word "broomsticks" in his living room. He took refuge in perusing
the letter again. Harry saw his lips form the words "send us your answer ... in the
normal way." He scowled.

"What does she mean, 'the normal way'?" he spat.

"Normal for us," said Harry, and before his uncle could stop him, he added, "you
know, owl post. That's what's normal for wizards."

Uncle Vernon looked as outraged as if Harry had just uttered a disgusting
swearword. Shaking with anger, he shot a nervous look through the window, as
though expecting to see some of the neighbors with their ears pressed against the
glass.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to mention that unnaturalness under my
roof?" he hissed, his face now a rich plum color. "You stand there, in the clothes
Petunia and I have put on your ungrateful back -"

"Only after Dudley finished with them," said Harry coldly, and indeed, he was
dressed in a sweatshirt so large for him that he had had to roll back the sleeves five
times so as to be able to use his hands, and which fell past the knees of his
extremely baggy jeans.

"I will not be spoken to like that!" said Uncle Vernon, trembling with rage.

But Harry wasn't going to stand for this. Gone were the days when he had been
forced to take every single one of the Dursleys' stupid rules. He wasn't following
Dudley's diet, and he wasn't going to let Uncle Vernon stop him from going to the
Quidditch World Cup, not if he could help it. Harry took a deep, steadying breath
and then said, "Okay, I can't see the World Cup. Can I go now, then? Only I've got
a letter to Sirius I want to finish. You know - my godfather."

He had done it, he had said the magic words. Now he watched the purple recede
blotchily from Uncle Vernon's face, making it look like badly mixed black currant
ice cream.

"You're - you're writing to him, are you?" said Uncle Vernon, in a would-be calm
voice - but Harry had seen the pupils of his tiny eyes contract with sudden fear.

"Well - yeah," said Harry, casually. "It's been a while since he heard from me, and,
you know, if he doesn't he might start thinking something's wrong."

He stopped there to enjoy the effect of these words. He could almost see the cogs
working under Uncle Vernon's thick, dark, neatly parted hair. If he tried to stop
Harry writing to Sirius, Sirius would think Harry was being mistreated. If he told
Harry he couldn't go to the Quidditch World Cup, Harry would write and tell

22

 

Sirius, who would know Harry was being mistreated. There was only one thing for
Uncle Vernon to do. Harry could see the conclusion forming in his uncle's mind as
though the great mustached face were transparent. Harry tried not to smile, to keep
his own face as blank as possible. And then -

"Well, all right then. You can go to this ruddy ... this stupid ... this World Cup
thing. You write and tell these - these Weasleys they're to pick you up, mind. I
haven't got time to go dropping you off all over the country. And you can spend
the rest of the summer there. And you can tell your - your godfather ... tell him ...
tell him you're going."

"Okay then," said Harry brightly.

He turned and walked toward the living room door, fighting the urge to jump into
the air and whoop. He was going ... he was going to the Weasleys', he was going
to watch the Quidditch World Cup!

Outside in the hall he nearly ran into Dudley, who had been lurking behind the
door, clearly hoping to overhear Harry being told off. He looked shocked to see
the broad grin on Harry's face.

"That was an excellent breakfast, wasn't it?" said Harry. "I feel really full, don't
you?"

Laughing at the astonished look on Dudley's face, Harry took the stairs three at a
time, and hurled himself back into his bedroom.

The first thing he saw was that Hedwig was back. She was sitting in her cage,
staring at Harry with her enormous amber eyes, and clicking her beak in the way
that meant she was annoyed about something. Exactly what was annoying her
became apparent almost at once.

"OUCH!" said Harry as what appeared to be a small, gray, feathery tennis ball
collided with the side of his head. Harry massaged the spot furiously, looking up
to see what had hit him, and saw a minute owl, small enough to fit into the palm of
his hand, whizzing excitedly around the room like a loose firework. Harry then
realized that the owl had dropped a letter at his feet. Harry bent down, recognized
Ron's handwriting, then tore open the envelope. Inside was a hastily scribbled
note.

Harry - DAD GOT THE TICKETS - Ireland versus Bulgaria, Monday night.
Mum's writing to the Muggles to ask you to stay. They might already have the
letter, I don't know how fast Muggle post is. Thought I'd send this with Pig
anyway.

Harry stared at the word "Pig," then looked up at the tiny owl now zooming
around the light fixture on the ceiling. He had never seen anything that looked less
like a pig. Maybe he couldn't read Ron's writing. He went back to the letter:

23

 

We're coming for you whether the Muggles like it or not, you can't miss the World
Cup, only Mum and Dad reckon it's better if we pretend to ask their permission
first. If they say yes, send Pig back with your answer pronto, and we'll come and
get you at five o'clock on Sunday. If they say no, send Pig back pronto and we'll
come and get you at five o'clock on Sunday anyway.

Hermione's arriving this afternoon. Percy's started work - the Department of
International Magical Cooperation. Don't mention anything about Abroad while
you're here unless you want the pants bored off you.

See you soon - Ron

"Calm down!" Harry said as the small owl flew low over his head, twittering
madly with what Harry could only assume was pride at having delivered the letter
to the right person. "Come here, I need you to take my answer back!"

The owl fluttered down on top of Hedwig's cage. Hedwig looked coldly up at it, as
though daring it to try and come any closer.

Harry seized his eagle-feather quill once more, grabbed a fresh piece of
parchment, and wrote:

Ron, it's all okay, the Muggles say I can come. See you five o'clock tomorrow.
Can't wait. Harry

He folded this note up very small, and with immense difficulty, tied it to the tiny
owl's leg as it hopped on the spot with excitement. The moment the note was
secure, the owl was off again; it zoomed out of the window and out of sight.

Harry turned to Hedwig.

"Feeling up to a long journey?" he asked her.

Hedwig hooted in a dignified sort of a way.

"Can you take this to Sirius for me?" he said, picking up his letter. "Hang on ... I
just want to finish it."

He unfolded the parchment and hastily added a postscript.

If you want to contact me, I'll be at my friend Ron Weasley's for the rest of the
summer. His dad's got us tickets for the Quidditch World Cup!

The letter finished, he tied it to Hedwig's leg; she kept unusually still, as though
determined to show him how a real post owl should behave.

"I'll be at Ron's when you get back, all right?" Harry told her.

She nipped his finger affectionately, then, with a soft swooshing noise, spread her
enormous wings and soared out of the open window.

24

 

Harry watched her out of sight, then crawled under his bed, wrenched up the loose
floorboard, and pulled out a large chunk of birthday cake. He sat there on the floor
eating it, savoring the happiness that was flooding through him. He had cake, and
Dudley had nothing but grapefruit; it was a bright summer's day, he would be
leaving Privet Drive tomorrow, his scar felt perfectly normal again, and he was
going to watch the Quidditch World Cup. It was hard, just now, to feel worried
about anything - even Lord Voldemort.

25

 

CHAPTER FOUR - BACK TO THE BURROW

By twelve o'clock the next day, Harry's school trunk was packed with his school
things and all his most prized possessions - the Invisibility Cloak he had inherited
from his father, the broomstick he had gotten from Sirius, the enchanted map of
Hogwarts he had been given by Fred and George Weasley last year. He had
emptied his hiding place under the loose floorboard of all food, double-checked
every nook and cranny of his bedroom for forgotten spellbooks or quills, and taken
down the chart on the wall counting down the days to September the first, on
which he liked to cross off the days remaining until his return to Hogwarts.

The atmosphere inside number four, Privet Drive was extremely tense. The
imminent arrival at their house of an assortment of wizards was making the
Dursleys uptight and irritable. Uncle Vernon had looked downright alarmed when
Harry informed him that the Weasleys would be arriving at five o'clock the very
next day.

"I hope you told them to dress properly, these people," he snarled at once. "I've
seen the sort of stuff your lot wear. They'd better have the decency to put on
normal clothes, that's all."

Harry felt a slight sense of foreboding. He had rarely seen Mr. or Mrs. Weasley
wearing anything that the Dursleys would call "normal." Their children might don
Muggle clothing during the holidays, but Mr. and Mrs. Weasley usually wore long
robes in varying states of shabbiness. Harry wasn't bothered about what the
neighbors would think, but he was anxious about how rude the Dursleys might be
to the Weasleys if they turned up looking like their worst idea of wizards.

Uncle Vernon had put on his best suit. To some people, this might have looked
like a gesture of welcome, but Harry knew it was because Uncle Vernon wanted to
look impressive and intimidating. Dudley, on the other hand, looked somehow
diminished. This was not because the diet was at last taking effect, but due to
fright. Dudley had emerged from his last encounter with a fully grown wizard with
a curly pig's tail poking out of the seat of his trousers, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle
Vernon had had to pay for its removal at a private hospital in London. It wasn't
altogether surprising, therefore, that Dudley kept running his hand nervously over
his backside, and walking sideways from room to room, so as not to present the
same target to the enemy.

Lunch was an almost silent meal. Dudley didn't even protest at the food (cottage
cheese and grated celery). Aunt Petunia wasn't, eating anything at all. Her arms
were folded, her lips were pursed, and she seemed to be chewing her tongue, as
though biting back the furious diatribe she longed to throw at Harry.

"They'll be driving, of course?" Uncle Vernon barked across the table.

26

 

"Er," said Harry.

He hadn't thought of that. How were the Weasleys going to pick him up? They
didn't have a car anymore; the old Ford Anglia they had once owned was currently
running wild in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts. But Mr. Weasley had borrowed
a Ministry of Magic car last year; possibly he would do the same today?

"I think so," said Harry.

Uncle Vernon snorted into his mustache. Normally, Uncle Vernon would have
asked what car Mr. Weasley drove; he tended to judge other men by how big and
expensive their cars were. But Harry doubted whether Uncle Vernon would have
taken to Mr. Weasley even if he drove a Ferrari.

Harry spent most of the afternoon in his bedroom; he couldn't stand watching Aunt
Petunia peer out through the net curtains every few seconds, as though there had
been a warning about an escaped rhinoceros. Finally, at a quarter to five, Harry
went back downstairs and into the living room.

Aunt Petunia was compulsively straightening cushions. Uncle Vernon was
pretending to read the paper, but his tiny eyes were not moving, and Harry was
sure he was really listening with all his might for the sound of an approaching car.
Dudley was crammed into an armchair, his porky hands beneath him, clamped
firmly around his bottom. Harry couldn't take the tension; he left the room and
went and sat on the stairs in the hall, his eyes on his watch and his heart pumping
fast from excitement and nerves.

But five o'clock came and then went. Uncle Vernon, perspiring slightly in his suit,
opened the front door, peered up and down the street, then withdrew his head
quickly.

"They're late!" he snarled at Harry.

I know," said Harry. "Maybe - er - the traffic's bad, or something."

Ten past five ... then a quarter past five ... Harry was starting to feel anxious
himself now. At half past, he heard Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia conversing in
terse mutters in the living room.

"No consideration at all."

"We might've had an engagement."

"Maybe they think they'll get invited to dinner if they're late."

"Well, they most certainly won't be," said Uncle Vernon, and Harry heard him
stand up and start pacing the living room. "They'll take the boy and go, there'll be
no hanging around. That's if they're coming at all. Probably mistaken the day. I
daresay their kind don't set much store by punctuality. Either that or they drive
some tin-pot car that's broken d- AAAAAAAARRRRRGH!"

27

 

Harry jumped up. From the other side of the living room door came the sounds of
the three Dursleys scrambling, panic-stricken, across the room. Next moment
Dudley came flying into the hall, looking terrified.

"What happened?" said Harry. "What's the matter?"

But Dudley didn't seem able to speak. Hands still clamped over his buttocks, he
waddled as fast as he could into the kitchen. Harry hurried into the living room.

Loud bangings and scrapings were coming from behind the Dursleys' boarded-up
fireplace, which had a fake coal fire plugged in front of it.

"What is it?" gasped Aunt Petunia, who had backed into the wall and was staring,
terrified, toward the fire. "What is it, Vernon?"

But they were left in doubt barely a second longer. Voices could be heard from
inside the blocked fireplace.

"Ouch! Fred, no - go back, go back, there's been some kind of mistake - tell
George not to - OUCH! George, no, there's no room, go back quickly and tell Ron-
"

"Maybe Harry can hear us, Dad - maybe he'll be able to let us out-"

There was a loud hammering of fists on the boards behind the electric fire.

"Harry? Harry, can you hear us?"

The Dursleys rounded on Harry like a pair of angry wolverines.

"What is this?" growled Uncle Vernon. "What's going on?"

"They - they've tried to get here by Floo powder," said Harry, fighting a mad
desire to laugh. "They can travel by fire - only you've blocked the fireplace - hang
on -"

He approached the fireplace and called through the boards.

"Mr. Weasley? Can you hear me?"

The hammering stopped. Somebody inside the chimney piece said, "Shh!"

"Mr. Weasley, it's Harry ... the fireplace has been blocked up. You won't be able to
get through there."

"Damn!" said Mr. Weasley's voice. "What on earth did they want to block up the
fireplace for?"

"They've got an electric fire," Harry explained.

"Really?" said Mr. Weasley's voice excitedly. "Eclectic, you say? With a plug?
Gracious, I must see that.... Let's think ... ouch, Ron!"

28

 

Ron's voice now joined the others'.

"What are we doing here? Has something gone wrong?"

"Oh no, Ron," came Fred's voice, very sarcastically. "No, this is exactly where we
wanted to end up."

"Yeah, we're having the time of our lives here," said George, whose voice sounded
muffled, as though he was squashed against the wall.

"Boys, boys. . ." said Mr. Weasley vaguely. "I'm trying to think what to do.... Yes
... only way. . . Stand back, Harry."

Harry retreated to the sofa. Uncle Vernon, however, moved forward.

"Wait a moment!" he bellowed at the fire. "What exactly are you going to -"

BANG.

The electric fire shot across the room as the boarded-up fireplace burst outward,
expelling Mr. Weasley, Fred, George, and Ron in a cloud of rubble and loose
chippings. Aunt Petunia shrieked and fell backward over the coffee table; Uncle
Vernon caught her before she hit the floor, and gaped, speechless, at the Weasleys,
all of whom had bright red hair, including Fred and George, who were identical to
the last freckle.

"That's better," panted Mr. Weasley, brushing dust from his long green robes and
straightening his glasses. "Ah - you must be Harry's aunt and uncle!"

Tall, thin, and balding, he moved toward Uncle Vernon, his hand outstretched, but
Uncle Vernon backed away several paces, dragging Aunt Petunia. Words utterly
failed Uncle Vernon. His best suit was covered in white dust, which had settled in
his hair and mustache and made him look as though he had just aged thirty years.

"Er - yes - sorry about that," said Mr. Weasley, lowering his hand and looking
over his shoulder at the blasted fireplace. "It's all my fault. It just didn't occur to
me that we wouldn't be able to get out at the other end. I had your fireplace
connected to the Floo Network, you see - just for an afternoon, you know, so we
could get Harry. Muggle fireplaces aren't supposed to be connected, strictly
speaking - but I've got a useful contact at the Floo Regulation Panel and he fixed it
for me. I can put it right in a jiffy, though, don't worry. I'll light a fire to send the
boys back, and then I can repair your fireplace before I Disapparate."

Harry was ready to bet that the Dursleys hadn't understood a single word of this.
They were still gaping at Mr. Weasley, thunderstruck. Aunt Petunia staggered
upright again and hid behind Uncle Vernon.

"Hello, Harry!" said Mr. Weasley brightly. "Got your trunk ready?"

"It's upstairs," said Harry, grinning back.

29

 

"We'll get it," said Fred at once. Winking at Harry, he and George left the room.
They knew where Harry's bedroom was, having once rescued him from it in the
dead of night. Harry suspected that Fred and George were hoping for a glimpse of
Dudley; they had heard a lot about him from Harry.

"Well," said Mr. Weasley, swinging his arms slightly, while he tried to find words
to break the very nasty silence. "Very - erm - very nice place you've got here."

As the usually spotless living room was now covered in dust and bits of brick, this
remark didn't go down too well with the Dursleys. Uncle Vernon's face purpled
once more, and Aunt Petunia started chewing her tongue again. However, they
seemed too scared to actually say anything.

Mr. Weasley was looking around. He loved everything to do with Muggles. Harry
could see him itching to go and examine the television and the video recorder.

"They run off eckeltricity, do they?" he said knowledgeably. "Ah yes, I can see the
plugs. I collect plugs," he added to Uncle Vernon. "And batteries. Got a very large
collection of batteries. My wife thinks I'm mad, but there you are."

Uncle Vernon clearly thought Mr. Weasley was mad too. He moved ever so
slightly to the right, screening Aunt Petunia from view, as though he thought Mr.
Weasley might suddenly run at them and attack.

Dudley suddenly reappeared in the room. Harry could hear the clunk of his trunk
on the stairs, and knew that the sounds had scared Dudley out of the kitchen.
Dudley edged along the wall, gazing at Mr. Weasley with terrified eyes, and
attempted to conceal himself behind his mother and father. Unfortunately, Uncle
Vernon's bulk, while sufficient to hide bony Aunt Petunia, was nowhere near
enough to conceal Dudley.

"Ah, this is your cousin, is it, Harry?" said Mr. Weasley, taking another brave stab
at making conversation.

"Yep," said Harry, "that's Dudley."

He and Ron exchanged glances and then quickly looked away from each other; the
temptation to burst out laughing was almost overwhelming. Dudley was still
clutching his bottom as though afraid it might fall off. Mr. Weasley, however,
seemed genuinely concerned at Dudley's peculiar behavior. Indeed, from the tone
of his voice when he next spoke, Harry was quite sure that Mr. Weasley thought
Dudley was quite as mad as the Dursleys thought he was, except that Mr. Weasley
felt sympathy rather than fear.

"Having a good holiday, Dudley?" he said kindly.

Dudley whimpered. Harry saw his hands tighten still harder over his massive
backside.

Fred and George came back into the room carrying Harry's school trunk. They

30

 

glanced around as they entered and spotted Dudley. Their faces cracked into
identical evil grins.

"Ah, right," said Mr. Weasley. "Better get cracking then."

He pushed up the sleeves of his robes and took out his wand. Harry saw the
Dursleys draw back against the wall as one.

"Incendio!" said Mr. Weasley, pointing his wand at the hole in the wall behind
him.

Flames rose at once in the fireplace, crackling merrily as though they had been
burning for hours. Mr. Weasley took a small drawstring bag from his pocket,
untied it, took a pinch of the powder inside, and threw it onto the flames, which
turned emerald green and roared higher than ever.

"Off you go then, Fred," said Mr. Weasley.

"Coming," said Fred. "Oh no - hang on -"

A bag of sweets had spilled out of Fred's pocket and the contents were now rolling
in every direction - big, fat toffees in brightly colored wrappers.

Fred scrambled around, cramming them back into his pocket, then gave the
Dursleys a cheery wave, stepped forward, and walked right into the fire, saying
"the Burrow!" Aunt Petunia gave a little shuddering gasp. There was a whooshing
sound, and Fred vanished.

"Right then, George," said Mr. Weasley, "you and the trunk."

Harry helped George carry the trunk forward into the flames and turn it onto its
end so that he could hold it better. Then, with a second whoosh, George had cried
"the Burrow!" and vanished too.

"Ron, you next," said Mr. Weasley.

"See you," said Ron brightly to the Dursleys. He grinned broadly at Harry, then
stepped into the fire, shouted "the Burrow!" and disappeared.

Now Harry and Mr. Weasley alone remained.

"Well . . . 'bye then," Harry said to the Dursleys.

They didn't say anything at all. Harry moved toward the fire, but just as he reached
the edge of the hearth, Mr. Weasley put out a hand and held him back. He was
looking at the Dursleys in amazement.

"Harry said good-bye to you," he said. "Didn't you hear him?"

"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.

31

 

"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?"

Uncle Vernon's face worked furiously. The idea of being taught consideration by a
man who had just blasted away half his living room wall seemed to be causing
him intense suffering. But Mr. Weasley's wand was still in his hand, and Uncle
Vernon's tiny eyes darted to it once, before he said, very resentfully, "Good-bye,
then."

"See you," said Harry, putting one foot forward into the green flames, which felt
pleasantly like warm breath. At that moment, however, a horrible gagging sound
erupted behind him, and Aunt Petunia started to scream.

Harry wheeled around. Dudley was no longer standing behind his parents. He was
kneeling beside the coffee table, and he was gagging and sputtering on a foot-long,
purple, slimy thing that was protruding from his mouth. One bewildered second
later, Harry realized that the foot-long thing was Dudley's tongue - and that a
brightly colored toffee wrapper lay on the floor before him.

Aunt Petunia hurled herself onto the ground beside Dudley, seized the end of his
swollen tongue, and attempted to wrench it out of his mouth; unsurprisingly,
Dudley yelled and sputtered worse than ever, trying to fight her off. Uncle Vernon
was bellowing and waving his arms around, and Mr. Weasley had to shout to
make himself heard.

"Not to worry, I can sort him out!" he yelled, advancing on Dudley with his wand
outstretched, but Aunt Petunia screamed worse than ever and threw herself on top
of Dudley, shielding him from Mr. Weasley.

"No, really!" said Mr. Weasley desperately. "It's a simple process it was the toffee
- my son Fred - real practical joker - but it's only an Engorgement Charm - at least,
I think it is - please, I can correct it -"

But far from being reassured, the Dursleys became more panic- stricken; Aunt
Petunia was sobbing hysterically, tugging Dudley's tongue as though determined
to rip it out; Dudley appeared to be suffocating under the combined pressure of his
mother and his tongue; and Uncle Vernon, who had lost control completely, seized
a china figure from on top of the sideboard and threw it very hard at Mr. Weasley,
who ducked, causing the ornament to shatter in the blasted fireplace.

"Now really!" said Mr. Weasley angrily, brandishing his wand. "I'm trying to
help!"

Bellowing like a wounded hippo, Uncle Vernon snatched up another ornament.

"Harry, go! Just go!" Mr. Weasley shouted, his wand on Uncle Vernon. "I'll sort
this out!"

Harry didn't want to miss the fun, but Uncle Vernon's second ornament narrowly

32

 

missed his left ear, and on balance he thought it best to leave the situation to Mr.
Weasley. He stepped into the fire, looking over his shoulder as he said "the
Burrow!" His last fleeting glimpse of the living room was of Mr. Weasley blasting
a third ornament out of Uncle Vernon's hand with his wand, Aunt Petunia
screaming and lying on top of Dudley, and Dudley's tongue lolling around like a
great slimy python. But next moment Harry had begun to spin very fast, and the
Dursleys' living room was whipped out of sight in a rush of emerald-green flames.

33

 

CHAPTER FIVE - WEASLEYS' WIZARD WHEEZES

Harry spun faster and faster, elbows tucked tightly to his sides, blurred fireplaces
flashing past him, until he started to feel sick and closed his eyes. Then, when at
last he felt himself slowing down, he threw out his hands and came to a halt in
time to prevent himself from falling face forward out of the Weasleys' kitchen fire.

"Did he eat it?" said Fred excitedly, holding out a hand to pull Harry to his fee

"Yeah," said Harry, straightening up. "What was it?"

"Ton-Tongue Toffee," said Fred brightly. "George and I invented them, and we've
been looking for someone to test them on all summer. . . ."

The tiny kitchen exploded with laughter; Harry looked around and saw that Ron
and George were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with two red-haired people
Harry had never seen before, though he knew immediately who they must be: Bill
and Charlie, the two eldest Weasley brothers.

"How're you doing, Harry?" said the nearer of the two, grinning at him and
holding out a large hand, which Harry shook, feeling calluses and blisters under
his fingers. This had to be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. Charlie
was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both
long and lanky. He had a broad, good-natured face, which was weather-beaten and
so freckly that he looked almost tanned; his arms were muscular, and one of them
had a large, shiny burn on it.

Bill got to his feet, smiling, and also shook Harry's hand. Bill came as something
of a surprise. Harry knew that he worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and
that Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts; Harry had always imagined Bill to be an
older version of Percy: fussy about rule-breaking and fond of bossing everyone
around. However, Bill was - there was no other word for it - cool. He was tall,
with long hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing an earring with
what looked like a fang dangling from it. Bill's clothes would not have looked out
of place at a rock concert, except that Harry recognized his boots to be made, not
of leather, but of dragon hide.

Before any of them could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise, and
Mr. Weasley appeared out of thin air at George's shoulder. He was looking angrier
than Harry had ever seen him.

"That wasn't funny Fred!" he shouted. "What on earth did you give that Muggle
boy?"

"I didn't give him anything," said Fred, with another evil grin. I just dropped it.... It
was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to."

34

 

"You dropped it on purpose!" roared Mr. Weasley. "You knew he'd eat it, you
knew he was on a diet -"

"How big did his tongue get?" George asked eagerly.

"It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!"

Harry and the Weasleys roared with laughter again.

"It isn't funny!" Mr. Weasley shouted. "That sort of behavior seriously undermines
wizard-Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the
mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons

"We didn't give it to him because he's a Muggle!" said Fred indignantly.

"No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git," said George. "Isn't he,
Harry?"

"Yeah, he is, Mr. Weasley," said Harry earnestly.

"That's not the point!" raged Mr. Weasley. "You wait until I tell your mother -"

"Tell me what?" said a voice behind them.

Mrs. Weasley had just entered the kitchen. She was a short, plump woman with a
very kind face, though her eyes were presently narrowed with suspicion.

"Oh hello, Harry, dear," she said, spotting him and smiling. Then her eyes snapped
back to her husband. "Tell me what, Arthur?"

Mr. Weasley hesitated. Harry could tell that, however angry he was with Fred and
George, he hadn't really intended to tell Mrs. Weasley what had happened. There
was a silence, while Mr. Weasley eyed his wife nervously. Then two girls
appeared in the kitchen doorway behind Mrs. Weasley. One, with very bushy
brown hair and rather large front teeth, was Harry's and Ron's friend, Hermione
Granger. The other, who was small and red-haired, was Ron's younger sister,
Ginny. Both of them smiled at Harry, who grinned back, which made Ginny go
scarlet - she had been very taken with Harry ever since his first visit to the
Burrow.

"Tell me what, Arthur?" Mrs. Weasley repeated, in a dangerous sort of voice.

"It's nothing, Molly," mumbled Mr. Weasley, "Fred and George just - but I've had
words with them -"

"What have they done this time?" said Mrs. Weasley. "If it's got anything to do
with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes -"

"Why don't you show Harry where he's sleeping, Ron?" said Hermione from the
doorway.

35

 

"He knows where he's sleeping," said Ron, "in my room, he slept there last -"

"We can all go," said Hermione pointedly.

"Oh," said Ron, cottoning on. "Right."

"Yeah, we'll come too," said George.

"You stay where you are!" snarled Mrs. Weasley.

Harry and Ron edged out of the kitchen, and they, Hermione, and Ginny set off
along the narrow hallway and up the rickety staircase that zigzagged through the
house to the upper stories.

"What are Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?" Harry asked as they climbed.

Ron and Ginny both laughed, although Hermione didn't.

"Mum found this stack of order forms when she was cleaning Fred and George's
room," said Ron quietly. "Great long price lists for stuff they've invented. Joke
stuff, you know. Fake wands and trick sweets, loads of stuff. It was brilliant, I
never knew they'd been inventing all that . . ."

"We've been hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought
they were actually making things," said Ginny. "We thought they just liked the
noise."

"Only, most of the stuff - well, all of it, really - was a bit dangerous," said Ron,
"and, you know, they were planning to sell it at Hogwarts to make some money,
and Mum went mad at them. Told them they weren't allowed to make any more of
it, and burned all the order forms.... She's furious at them anyway. They didn't get
as many O.W.L.s as she expected."

O.W.L.s were Ordinary Wizarding Levels, the examinations Hogwarts students
took at the age of fifteen.

"And then there was this big row," Ginny said, "because Mum wants them to go
into the Ministry of Magic like Dad, and they told her all they want to do is open a
joke shop."

Just then a door on the second landing opened, and a face poked out wearing horn-
rimmed glasses and a very annoyed expression.

"Hi, Percy," said Harry.

"Oh hello, Harry," said Percy. "I was wondering who was making all the noise.
I'm trying to work in here, you know I've got a report to finish for the office - and
it's rather difficult to concentrate when people keep thundering up and down the
stairs."

"We're not thundering, "said Ron irritably. "We're walking. Sorry if we've

36

 

disturbed the top-secret workings of the Ministry of Magic."

"What are you working on?" said Harry.

"A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," said Percy
smugly. "We're trying to standardize cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign
imports are just a shade too thin - leakages have been increasing at a rate of almost
three percent a year -"

"That'll change the world, that report will," said Ron. "Front page of the Daily
Prophet, I expect, cauldron leaks."

Percy went slightly pink.

"You might sneer, Ron," he said heatedly, "but unless some sort of international
law is imposed we might well find the market flooded with flimsy, shallow-
bottomed products that seriously endanger -"

"Yeah, yeah, all right," said Ron, and he started off upstairs again. Percy slammed
his bedroom door shut. As Harry, Hermione, and Ginny followed Ron up three
more flights of stairs, shouts from the kitchen below echoed up to them. It sounded
as though Mr. Weasley had told Mrs. Weasley about the toffees.

The room at the top of the house where Ron slept looked much as it had the last
time that Harry had come to stay: the same posters of Ron's favorite Quidditch
team, the Chudley Cannons, were whirling and waving on the walls and sloping
ceiling, and the fish tank on the windowsill, which had previously held frog
spawn, now contained one extremely large frog. Ron's old rat, Scabbers, was here
no more, but instead there was the tiny gray owl that had delivered Ron's letter to
Harry in Privet Drive. It was hopping up and down in a small cage and twittering
madly.

"Shut up, Pig," said Ron, edging his way between two of the four beds that had
been squeezed into the room. "Fred and George are in here with us, because Bill
and Charlie are in their room," he told Harry. "Percy gets to keep his room all to
himself because he's got to work."

"Er - why are you calling that owl Pig?" Harry asked Ron.

"Because he's being stupid," said Ginny, "Its proper name is Pigwidgeon."

"Yeah, and that's not a stupid name at all," said Ron sarcastically. "Ginny named
him," he explained to Harry. "She reckons it's sweet. And I tried to change it, but it
was too late, he won't answer to anything else. So now he's Pig. I've got to keep
him up here because he annoys Errol and Hermes. He annoys me too, come to
that.

Pigwidgeon zoomed happily around his cage, hooting shrilly. Harry knew Ron too
well to take him seriously. He had moaned continually about his old rat, Scabbers,
but had been most upset when Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, appeared to have

37

 

eaten him.

"Where's Crookshanks?" Harry asked Hermione now.

"Out in the garden, I expect," she said. "He likes chasing gnomes. He's never seen
any before."

"Percy's enjoying work, then?" said Harry, sitting down on one of the beds and
watching the Chudley Cannons zooming in and out of the posters on the ceiling.

"Enjoying it?" said Ron darkly. "I don't reckon he'd come home if Dad didn't make
him. He's obsessed. Just don't get him onto the subject of his boss. According to
Mr. Crouch ... as I was saying to Mr. Crouch ... Mr. Crouch is of the opinion ...
Mr. Crouch was telling me ... They'll be announcing their engagement any day
now."

"Have you had a good summer, Harry?" said Hermione. "Did you get our food
parcels and everything?"

"Yeah, thanks a lot, " said Harry. "They saved my life, those cakes.

"And have you heard from -?" Ron began, but at a look from Hermione he fell
silent. Harry knew Ron had been about to ask about Sirius. Ron and Hermione had
been so deeply involved in helping Sirius escape from the Ministry of Magic that
they were almost as concerned about Harry's godfather as he was. However,
discussing him in front of Ginny was a bad idea. Nobody but themselves and
Professor Dumbledore knew about how Sirius had escaped, or believed in his
innocence.

"I think they've stopped arguing," said Hermione, to cover the awkward moment,
because Ginny was looking curiously from Ron to Harry. "Shall we go down and
help your mum with dinner?"

"Yeah, all right," said Ron. The four of them left Ron's room and went back
downstairs to find Mrs. Weasley alone in the kitchen, looking extremely bad-
tempered.

"We're eating out in the garden," she said when they came in. "There's just not
room for eleven people in here. Could you take the plates outside, girls? Bill and
Charlie are setting up the tables. Knives and forks, please, you two," she said to
Ron and Harry, pointing her wand a little more vigorously than she had intended
at a pile of potatoes in the sink, which shot out of their skins so fast that they
ricocheted off the walls and ceiling.

"Oh for heaven's sake," she snapped, now directing her wand at a dustpan, which
hopped off the sideboard and started skating across the floor, scooping up the
potatoes. "Those two!" she burst out savagely, now pulling pots and pans out of a
cupboard, and Harry knew she meant Fred and George. I don't know what's going
to happen to them, I really don't. No ambition, unless you count making as much

38

 

trouble as they possibly can...."

Mrs. Weasley slammed a large copper saucepan down on the kitchen table and
began to wave her wand around inside it. A creamy sauce poured from the wand
tip as she stirred.

"It's not as though they haven't got brains, she continued irritably, taking the
saucepan over to the stove and lighting it with a further poke of her wand, "but
they're wasting them, and unless they pull themselves together soon, they'll be in
real trouble. I've had more owls from Hogwarts about them than the rest put
together. If they carry on the way they're going, they'll end up in front of the
Improper Use of Magic Office."

Mrs. Weasley jabbed her wand at the cutlery drawer, which shot open. Harry and
Ron both jumped out of the way as several knives soared out of it, flew across the
kitchen, and began chopping the potatoes, which had just been tipped back into the
sink by the dustpan.

"I don't know where we went wrong with them," said Mrs. Weasley, putting down
her wand and starting to pull out still more saucepans. "It's been the same for
years, one thing after another, and they won't listen to - OH NOT AGAIN!"

She had picked up her wand from the table, and it had emitted a loud squeak and
turned into a giant rubber mouse.

"One of their fake wands again!" she shouted. "How many times have I told them
not to leave them lying around?"

She grabbed her real wand and turned around to find that the sauce on the stove
was smoking.

"C'mon," Ron said hurriedly to Harry, seizing a handful of cutlery from the open
drawer, "let's go and help Bill and Charlie."

They left Mrs. Weasley and headed out the back door into the yard.

They had only gone a few paces when Hermione's bandy-legged ginger cat,
Crookshanks, came pelting out of the garden, bottle-brush tail held high in the air,
chasing what looked like a muddy potato on legs. Harry recognized it instantly as
a gnome. Barely ten inches high, its horny little feet pattered very fast as it
sprinted across the yard and dived headlong into one of the Wellington boots that
lay scattered around the door. Harry could hear the gnome giggling madly as
Crookshanks inserted a paw into the boot, trying to reach it. Meanwhile, a very
loud crashing noise was coming from the other side of the house. The source of
the commotion was revealed as they entered the garden, and saw that Bill and
Charlie both had their wands out, and were making two battered old tables fly high
above the lawn, smashing into each other, each attempting to knock the other's out
of the air. Fred and George were cheering, Ginny was laughing, and Hermione
was hovering near the hedge, apparently torn between amusement and anxiety.

39

 

Bill's table caught Charlie's with a huge bang and knocked one of its legs off.
There was a clatter from overhead, and they all looked up to see Percy's head
poking out of a window on the second floor.

"Will you keep it down?!" he bellowed.

"Sorry, Perce," said Bill, grinning. "How're the cauldron bottoms coming on?"

"Very badly," said Percy peevishly, and he slammed the window shut. Chuckling,
Bill and Charlie directed the tables safely onto the grass, end to end, and then, with
a flick of his wand, Bill reattached the table leg and conjured tablecloths from
nowhere.

By seven o'clock, the two tables were groaning under dishes and dishes of Mrs.
Weasley's excellent cooking, and the nine Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione were
settling themselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky. To somebody who
had been living on meals of increasingly stale cake all summer, this was paradise,
and at first, Harry listened rather than talked as he helped himself to chicken and
ham pie, boiled potatoes, and salad.

At the far end of the table, Percy was telling his father all about his report on
cauldron bottoms.

"I've told Mr. Crouch that I'll have it ready by Tuesday," Percy was saying
pompously. "That's a bit sooner than he expected it, but I like to keep on top of
things. I think he'll be grateful I've done it in good time, I mean, its extremely busy
in our department just now, what with all the arrangements for the World Cup.
We're just not getting the support we need from the Department of Magical Games
and Sports. Ludo Bagman -"

"I like Ludo," said Mr. Weasley mildly. "He was the one who got us such good
tickets for the Cup. I did him a bit of a favor: His brother, Otto, got into a spot of
trouble - a lawnmower with unnatural powers - I smoothed the whole thing over."

"Oh Bagman's likable enough, of course," said Percy dismissively, "but how he
ever got to be Head of Department ... when I compare him to Mr. Crouch! I can't
see Mr. Crouch losing a member of our department and not trying to find out
what's happened to them. You realize Bertha Jorkins has been missing for over a
month now? Went on holiday to Albania and never came back?"

"Yes, I was asking Ludo about that," said Mr. Weasley, frowning. "He says
Bertha's gotten lost plenty of times before now - though must say, if it was
someone in my department, I'd be worried. . . ."

"Oh Bertha's hopeless, all right," said Percy. "I hear she's been shunted from
department to department for years, much more trouble than she's worth ... but all
the same, Bagman ought to be trying to find her. Mr. Crouch has been taking a
personal interest, she worked in our department at one time, you know, and I think
Mr. Crouch was quite fond of her - but Bagman just keeps laughing and saying she

40

 

probably misread the map and ended up in Australia instead of Albania. However"
- Percy heaved an impressive sigh and took a deep swig of elderflower wine -
"we've got quite enough on our plates at the Department of International Magical
Cooperation without trying to find members of other departments too. As you
know, we've got another big event to organize right after the World Cup."

Percy cleared his throat significantly and looked down toward the end of the table
where Harry, Ron, and Hermione were sitting. "You know the one I'm talking
about, Father." He raised his voice slightly. "The top-secret one."

Ron rolled his eyes and muttered to Harry and Hermione, "He's been trying to get
us to ask what that event is ever since he started work. Probably an exhibition of
thick-bottomed cauldrons."

In the middle of the table, Mrs. Weasley was arguing with Bill about his earring,
which seemed to be a recent acquisition.

". . . with a horrible great fang on it. Really, Bill, what do they say at the bank?"

"Mum,.no one at the bank gives a damn how I dress as long as I bring home plenty
of treasure," said Bill patiently.

"And your hair's getting silly, dear," said Mrs. Weasley, fingering her wand
lovingly." I wish you'd let me give it a trim. . . ."

"I like it," said Ginny, who was sitting beside Bill. "You're so old-fashioned,
Mum. Anyway, it's nowhere near as long as Professor Dumbledore's...."

Next to Mrs. Weasley, Fred, George, and Charlie were all talking spiritedly about
the World Cup.

"It's got to be Ireland," said Charlie thickly, through a mouthful of potato. "They
flattened Peru in the semifinals."

"Bulgaria has got Viktor Krum, though," said Fred.

"Krum's one decent player, Ireland has got seven," said Charlie shortly. "I wish
England had got through. That was embarrassing, that was."

"What happened?" said Harry eagerly, regretting more than ever his isolation from
the wizarding world when he was stuck on Privet Drive.

"Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten," said Charlie
gloomily. "Shocking performance. And Wales lost to Uganda, and Scotland was
slaughtered by Luxembourg."

Harry had been on the Gryffindor House Quidditch team ever since his first year at
Hogwarts and owned one of the best racing brooms in the world, a Firebolt. Flying
came more naturally to Harry than anything else in the magical world, and he
played in the position of Seeker on the Gryffindor House team.

41

 

Mr. Weasley conjured up candles to light the darkening garden before they had
their homemade strawberry ice cream, and by the time they had finished, moths
were fluttering low over the table, and the warm air was perfumed with the smells
of grass and honeysuckle. Harry was feeling extremely well fed and at peace with
the world as he watched several gnomes sprinting through the rosebushes,
laughing madly and closely pursued by Crookshanks.
Ron looked carefully up the table to check that the rest of the family were all busy
talking, then he said very quietly to Harry, "So - have you heard from Sirius
lately?"
Hermione looked around, listening closely.
"Yeah," said Harry softly, "twice. He sounds okay. I wrote to him yesterday. He
might write back while I'm here."
He suddenly remembered the reason he had written to Sirius, and for a moment
was on the verge of telling Ron and Hermione about his scar hurting again, and
about the dream that had awoken him ... but he really didn't want to worry them
just now, not when he himself was feeling so happy and peaceful.
"Look at the time," Mrs. Weasley said suddenly, checking her wristwatch. "You
really should be in bed, the whole lot of you you'll be up at the crack of dawn to
get to the Cup. Harry, if you leave your school list out, I'll get your things for you
tomorrow in Diagon Alley. I'm getting everyone else's. There might not be time
after the World Cup, the match went on for five days last time."
"Wow - hope it does this time!" said Harry enthusiastically.
"Well, I certainly don't," said Percy sanctimoniously. "I shudder to think what the
state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days."
"Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?" said Fred.
"That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!" said Percy, going very red in the
face. "It was nothing personal!"
"It was," Fred whispered to Harry as they got up from the table. "We sent it."

42

 

CHAPTER SIX - THE PORTKEY

Harry felt as though he had barely lain down to steep in Ron's room when he was
being shaken awake by Mrs. Weasley.

"Time to go, Harry, dear," she whispered, moving away to wake Ron.

Harry felt around for his glasses, put them on, and sat up. It was still dark outside.
Ron muttered indistinctly as his mother roused him. At the foot of Harry's mattress
he saw two large, disheveled shapes emerging from tangles of blankets.

"'S' time already?" said Fred groggily.

They dressed in silence, too sleepy to talk, then, yawning and stretching, the four
of them headed downstairs into the kitchen.

Mrs. Weasley was stirring the contents of a large pot on the stove, while Mr.
Weasley was sitting at the table, checking a sheaf of large parchment tickets. He
looked up as the boys entered and spread his arms so that they could see his
clothes more clearly. He was wearing what appeared to be a golfing sweater and a
very old pair of jeans, slightly too big for him and held up with a thick leather belt.

"What d'you think?" he asked anxiously. "We're supposed to go incognito - do I
look like a Muggle, Harry?"

"Yeah," said Harry, smiling, "very good."

"Where're Bill and Charlie and Per-Per-Percy?" said George, failing to stifle a
huge yawn.

"Well, they're Apparating, aren't they?" said Mrs. Weasley, heaving the large pot
over to the table and starting to ladle porridge into bowls. "So they can have a bit
of a lie-in."

Harry knew that Apparating meant disappearing from one place and reappearing
almost instantly in another, but had never known any Hogwarts student to do it,
and understood that it was very difficult.

"So they're still in bed?" said Fred grumpily, pulling his bowl of porridge toward
him. "Why can't we Apparate too?"

"Because you're not of age and you haven't passed your test," snapped Mrs.
Weasley. "And where have those girls got to?"

She bustled out of the kitchen and they heard her climbing the stairs.

"You have to pass a test to Apparate?" Harry asked.

43

 

"Oh yes," said Mr. Weasley, tucking the tickets safely into the back pocket of his
jeans. "The Department of Magical Transportation had to fine a couple of people
the other day for Apparating without a license. It's not easy, Apparition, and when
it's not done property it can lead to nasty complications. This pair I'm talking about
went and splinched themselves."

Everyone around the table except Harry winced.

"Er - splinched?" said Harry.

"They left half of themselves behind," said Mr. Weasley, now spooning large
amounts of treacle onto his porridge. "So, of course, they were stuck. Couldn't
move either way. Had to wait for the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad to sort
them out. Meant a fair old bit of paperwork, I can tell you, what with the Muggles
who spotted the body parts they'd left behind....."

Harry had a sudden vision of a pair of legs and an eyeball lying abandoned on the
pavement of Privet Drive.

"Were they okay?" he asked, startled.

"Oh yes," said Mr. Weasley matter-of-factly. "But they got a heavy fine, and I
don't think they'll be trying it again in a hurry. You don't mess around with
Apparition. There are plenty of adult wizards who don't bother with it. Prefer
brooms - slower, but safer."

"But Bill and Charlie and Percy can all do it?"

"Charlie had to take the test twice," said Fred, grinning. "He failed the first time.
Apparated five miles south of where he meant to, right on top of some poor old
dear doing her shopping, remember?"

"Yes, well, he passed the second time," said Mrs. Weasley, marching back into the
kitchen amid hearty sniggers.

"Percy only passed two weeks ago," said George. "He's been Apparating
downstairs every morning since, just to prove he can."

There were footsteps down the passageway and Hermione and Ginny came into
the kitchen, both looking pale and drowsy.

"Why do we have to be up so early?" Ginny said, rubbing her eyes and sitting
down at the table.

"We've got a bit of a walk," said Mr. Weasley.

"Walk?" said Harry. "What, are we walking to the World Cup?"

"No, no, that's miles away," said Mr. Weasley, smiling. "We only need to walk a
short way. It's just that it's very difficult for a large number of wizards to
congregate without attracting Muggle attention. We have to be very careful about

44

 

how we travel at the best of times, and on a huge occasion like the Quidditch
World Cup..."

"George!" said Mrs. Weasley sharply, and they all jumped.

"What?" said George, in an innocent tone that deceived nobody.

"What is that in your pocket?"

"Nothing!"

"Don't you lie to me!"

Mrs. Weasley pointed her wand at George's pocket and said, "Accio!"

Several small, brightly colored objects zoomed out of George's pocket; he made a
grab for them but missed, and they sped right into Mrs. Weasley's outstretched
hand.

"We told you to destroy them!" said Mrs. Weasley furiously, holding up what
were unmistakably more Ton-Tongue Toffees. "We told you to get rid of the lot!
Empty your pockets, go on, both of you!"

It was an unpleasant scene; the twins had evidently been trying to smuggle as
many toffees out of the house as possible, and it was only by using her
Summoning Charm that Mrs. Weasley managed to find them all.

"Accio! Accio! Accio!" she shouted, and toffees zoomed from all sorts of unlikely
places, including the lining of George's jacket and the turn-ups of Fred's jeans.

"We spent six months developing those!" Fred shouted at his mother as she threw
the toffees away.

"Oh a fine way to spend six months!" she shrieked. "No wonder you didn't get
more O.W.L.s!"

All in all, the atmosphere was not very friendly as they took their departure. Mrs.
Weasley was still glowering as she kissed Mr. Weasley on the cheek, though not
nearly as much as the twins, who had each hoisted their rucksacks onto their backs
and walked out without a word to her.

"Well, have a lovely time," said Mrs. Weasley, "and behave yourselves," she
called after the twins' retreating backs, but they did not look back or answer. "I'll
send Bill, Charlie, and Percy along around midday," Mrs. Weasley said to Mr.
Weasley, as he, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny set off across the dark yard
after Fred and George.

It was chilly and the moon was still out. Only a dull, greenish tinge along the
horizon to their right showed that daybreak was drawing closer. Harry, having
been thinking about thousands of wizards speeding toward the Quidditch World
Cup, sped up to walk with Mr. Weasley.

45

 

"So how does everyone get there without all the Muggles noticing?" he asked.

"It's been a massive organizational problem," sighed Mr. Weasley. "The trouble is,
about a hundred thousand wizards turn up at the World Cup, and of course, we just
haven't got a magical site big enough to accommodate them all. There are places
Muggles can't penetrate, but imagine trying to pack a hundred thousand wizards
into Diagon Alley or platform nine and three-quarters. So we had to find a nice
deserted moor, and set up as many anti-Muggle precautions as possible. The whole
Ministry's been working on it for months. First, of course, we have to stagger the
arrivals. People with cheaper tickets have to arrive two weeks beforehand. A
limited number use Muggle transport, but we can't have too many clogging up
their buses and trains - remember, wizards are coming from all over the world.
Some Apparate, of course, but we have to set up safe points for them to appear,
well away from Muggles. I believe there's a handy wood they're using as the
Apparition point. For those who don't want to Apparate, or can't, we use Portkeys.
They're objects that are used to transport wizards from one spot to another at a
prearranged time. You can do large groups at a time if you need to. There have
been two hundred Portkeys placed at strategic points around Britain, and the
nearest one to us is up at the top of Stoatshead Hill, so that's where we're headed."

Mr. Weasley pointed ahead of them, where a large black mass rose beyond the
village of Ottery St. Catchpole.

"What sort of objects are Portkeys?" said Harry curiously.

"Well, they can be anything," said Mr. Weasley. "Unobtrusive things, obviously,
so Muggles don't go picking them up and playing with them ... stuff they'll just
think is litter...."

They trudged down the dark, dank lane toward the village, the silence broken only
by their footsteps. The sky lightened very slowly as they made their way through
the village, its inky blackness diluting to deepest blue. Harry's hands and feet were
freezing. Mr. Weasley kept checking his watch.

They didn't have breath to spare for talking as they began to climb Stoatshead Hill,
stumbling occasionally in hidden rabbit holes, slipping on thick black tuffets of
grass. Each breath Harry took was sharp in his chest and his legs were starting to
seize up when, at last, his feet found level ground.

"Whew," panted Mr. Weasley, taking off his glasses and wiping them on his
sweater. "Well, we've made good time - we've got ten minutes."

Hermione came over the crest of the hill last, clutching a stitch in her side.

"Now we just need the Portkey," said Mr. Weasley, replacing his glasses and
squinting around at the ground. "It won't be big.... Come on..."

They spread out, searching. They had only been at it for a couple of minutes,
however, when a shout rent the still air.

46

 

"Over here, Arthur! Over here, son, we've got it."

Two tall figures were silhouetted against the starry sky on the other side of the
hilltop.

"Amos!" said Mr. Weasley, smiling as he strode over to the man who had shouted.
The rest of them followed.

Mr. Weasley was shaking hands with a ruddy-faced wizard with a scrubby brown
beard, who was holding a moldy-looking old boot in his other hand.

"This is Amos Diggory, everyone," said Mr. Weasley. "He works for the
Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. And I think you
know his son, Cedric?"

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

"Hi," said Cedric, looking around at them all.

Everybody said hi back except Fred and George, who merely nodded. They had
never quite forgiven Cedric for beating their team, Gryffindor, in the first
Quidditch match of the previous year.

"Long walk, Arthur?" Cedric's father asked. "Not too bad," said Mr. Weasley. "We
live just on the other side of the village there. You?"

"Had to get up at two, didn't we, Ced? I tell you, I'll be glad when he's got his
Apparition test. Still ... not complaining ... Quidditch World Cup, wouldn't miss it
for a sackful of Galleons - and the tickets cost about that. Mind you, looks like I
got off easy. . . ." Amos Diggory peered good-naturedly around at the three
Weasley boys, Harry, Hermione, and Ginny. "All these yours, Arthur?"

"Oh no, only the redheads," said Mr. Weasley, pointing out his children. "This is
Hermione, friend of Ron's - and Harry, another friend -"

"Merlin's beard," said Amos Diggory, his eyes widening. "Harry? Harry Potter?"

"Er - yeah," said Harry.

Harry was used to people looking curiously at him when they met him, used to the
way their eyes moved at once to the lightning scar on his forehead, but it always
made him feel uncomfortable.

"Ced's talked about you, of course," said Amos Diggory. "Told us all about
playing against you last year... I said to him, I said - Ced, that'll be something to
tell your grandchildren, that will.... You beat Harry Potter!"

Harry couldn't think of any reply to this, so he remained silent. Fred and George
were both scowling again. Cedric looked slightly embarrassed.

47

 

"Harry fell off his broom, Dad," he muttered. I told you ... it was an accident...."

"Yes, but you didn't fall off, did you?" roared Amos genially, slapping his son on
his back. "Always modest, our Ced, always the gentleman ... but the best man
won, I'm sure Harry'd say the same, wouldn't you, eh? One falls off his broom, one
stays on, you don't need to be a genius to tell which one's the better flier!"

"Must be nearly time," said Mr. Weasley quickly, pulling out his watch again. "Do
you know whether we're waiting for any more, Amos?"

"No, the Lovegoods have been there for a week already and the Fawcetts couldn't
get tickets," said Mr. Diggory. "There aren't any more of us in this area, are
there?"

"Not that I know of," said Mr. Weasley. "Yes, it's a minute off ... We'd better get
ready...."

He looked around at Harry and Hermione.

"You just need to touch the Portkey, that's all, a finger will do -"

With difficulty, owing to their bulky backpacks, the nine of them crowded around
the old boot held out by Amos Diggory.

They all stood there, in a tight circle, as a chill breeze swept over the hilltop.
Nobody spoke. It suddenly occurred to Harry how odd this would look if a
Muggle were to walk up here now ... nine people, two of them grown men,
clutching this manky old boot in the semidarkness, waiting....

"Three. . ." muttered Mr. Weasley, one eye still on his watch, two. . . one. . ."

It happened immediately: Harry felt as though a hook just behind his navel had
been suddenly jerked irresistibly forward. His feet left the ground; he could feel
Ron and Hermione on either side of him, their shoulders banging into his; they
were all speeding forward in a howl of wind and swirling color; his forefinger was
stuck to the boot as though it was pulling him magnetically onward and then -

His feet slammed into the ground; Ron staggered into him and he fell over; the
Portkey hit the ground near his head with a heavy thud.

Harry looked up. Mr. Weasley, Mr. Diggory, and Cedric were still standing,
though looking very windswept; everybody else was on the ground.

"Seven past five from Stoatshead Hill," said a voice.

48

 

CHAPTER SEVEN - BAGMAN AND CROUCH

Harry disentangled himself from Ron and got to his feet. They had arrived on what
appeared to be a deserted stretch of misty moor. In front of them was a pair of
tired and grumpy-looking wizards, one of whom was holding a large gold watch,
the other a thick roll of parchment and a quill. Both were dressed as Muggles,
though very inexpertly: The man with the watch wore a tweed suit with thigh-
length galoshes; his colleague, a kilt and a poncho.

"Morning, Basil," said Mr. Weasley, picking up the boot and handing it to the
kilted wizard, who threw it into a large box of used Portkeys beside him; Harry
could see an old newspaper, an empty drinks can, and a punctured football.

"Hello there, Arthur," said Basil wearily. "Not on duty, eh? It's all right for
some.... We've been here all night.... You'd better get out of the way, we've got a
big party coming in from the Black Forest at five fifteen. Hang on, I'll find your
campsite.... Weasley ... Weasley...." He consulted his parchment list. "About a
quarter of a mile's walk over there, first field you come to. Site manager's called
Mr. Roberts. Diggory ... second field ... ask for Mr. Payne."

"Thanks, Basil," said Mr. Weasley, and he beckoned everyone to follow him.

They set off across the deserted moor, unable to make out much through the mist.
After about twenty minutes, a small stone cottage next to a gate swam into view.
Beyond it, Harry could just make out the ghostly shapes of hundreds and hundreds
of tents, rising up the gentle slope of a large field toward a dark wood on the
horizon. They said good-bye to the Diggorys and approached the cottage door.

A man was standing in the doorway, looking out at the tents. Harry knew at a
glance that this was the only real Muggle for several acres. When he heard their
footsteps, he turned his head to look at them.

"Morning!" said Mr. Weasley brightly.

"Morning," said the Muggle.

"Would you be Mr. Roberts?"

"Aye, I would," said Mr. Roberts. "And who're you?"

"Weasley - two tents, booked a couple of days ago?"

"Aye," said Mr. Roberts, consulting a list tacked to the door. "You've got a space
up by the wood there. Just the one night?"

"That's it," said Mr. Weasley.

"You'll be paying now, then?" said Mr. Roberts.

Does this count as a post

[Pickle Rick]

At least write an original story 

[Malfatron]

2 minutes ago, SwAg said:

Well, I'm not one to deprive everyone of a good story once I've started.  I'll see if I can make another installment of it.

this is almost good enough to be published!

[Malfatron]

1 minute ago, Pickle Rick said:

At least write an original story 

its a little derivative of lotr, but not overly so

[Pickle Rick]

Just now, Malfatron said:

this is almost good enough to be published!

People keep quoting it just to increase its popularity 

[Pickle Rick]

Just now, Malfatron said:

its a little derivative of lotr, but not overly so

Is it worth the read? 

[Daboyle]

lol

[swoosh]

what’s good on netflix

[Malfatron]

Just now, Pickle Rick said:

People keep quoting it just to increase its popularity 

shhh, im fixated on reading swags next installment

[MacReady]

I’m watching a movie.  It’s good so farz