Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire

Fourteen-year-old wizard Harry Potter wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night from a terrible dream. He tries to remember the details, but all he can recall is that the evil Lord Voldemort and his servant Wormtail were talking about killing Harry, and they mentioned someone else they had killed recently. An old Muggle man interrupted them, and Voldemort killed him. Harry’s lightning-bolt scar, which he has had since Lord Voldemort tried to kill him as a baby, is burning “as though someone had just pressed a white-hot wire to his skin” (7). Harry only experiences this kind of pain when Voldemort is close by, and he becomes worried because he isn’t sure if the dream was real or not. Because Voldemort killed Harry’s parents, Harry lives with his non-magical relatives, the Dursleys, who hate magic and have never been kind to him, and he knows he can’t talk to them about his concerns. He considers writing to his friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, but Harry decides that he needs to talk to “someone like a parent: an adult wizard” and someone who “ha[s] experience with Dark Magic” (9). He decides to write a letter to his godfather, Sirius Black, and he explains that his scar is hurting, and he isn’t sure if he should be worried or not.

The next morning, Harry joins the Dursleys for breakfast. Harry’s cousin, Dudley, is a spoiled boy who has gained a lot of weight over the past year, and Harry’s Aunt Petunia has put the whole family on a strict diet. Breakfast is interrupted by the arrival of an unusual letter: Ron’s mother, Mrs. Weasley, has written to the Dursleys to ask if Harry can attend the Quidditch World Cup with their family and stay with them for the remainder of the summer. The Weasleys are wizards and are unaccustomed to the ways of Muggles, so Mrs. Weasley’s letter arrives in an envelope covered in stamps, which amuses Harry and angers his Uncle Vernon. Uncle Vernon is reluctant to let Harry go because “allowing Harry to go would make Harry happy, something Uncle Vernon ha[s] struggled against for thirteen years” (13). However, when Harry hints that he might write to his godfather, Uncle Vernon becomes nervous. Sirius is an accused murderer on the run from the wizarding authorities, and although he was wrongfully accused of these crimes, the Dursleys don’t know about his innocence. Uncle Vernon finally agrees to let Harry go, and Harry writes to the Weasleys and makes arrangements for them to come and get him.

On the day the Weasleys are scheduled to come and get Harry, tensions are high in the Dursley house. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia go to great lengths to make their house and themselves look intimidating and perfect, while Dudley becomes anxious at the thought of wizards coming to his home. When the time comes for the Weasleys to arrive, they are running late, which concerns Harry and annoys the Dursleys. However, the Weasleys try to get into the house through the Dursleys’ fireplace, which is electric, so they get stuck. Mr. Weasley blasts a hole in the fireplace to get through. Mr. Weasley is accompanied by Ron and Ron’s twin brothers, Fred and George, who help Harry gather his things while the Dursleys stand by in horrified silence. Ron and his brothers leave first by going into the fireplace again, but Fred drops a bunch of “big, fat toffees in brightly colored wrappers” (19) on the floor and leaves one behind. When no one is looking, Dudley, who has been denied sweets all summer, grabs the candy and eats it. Suddenly, Dudley’s tongue swells until it looks like “a great slimy python” (20). The Dursleys begin shrieking and attacking Mr. Weasley when he tries to help them, and he sends Harry into the fireplace after the other boys.

Harry arrives at Weasley’s house, the Burrow. Fred and George, who are trying to start their own business, are delighted to hear that Dudley ate their “Ton-Tongue Toffee.” Mr. Weasley, however, is enraged and scolds his sons for baiting a Muggle, especially because he has spent “half [his] life campaigning against the mistreatment of Muggles” (21). Mrs. Weasley explodes with anger when she finds out what happened. Ron privately tells Harry that Mrs. Weasley has been unhappy with Fred and George for their poor marks in school, and although she wants them to work for the Ministry of Magic like their father, “all they want to do is open a joke shop” (22). Harry meets Ron’s oldest brothers, Bill and Charlie, for the first time and learns that Ron’s third-oldest brother Percy has just started working for the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Hermione is also staying with the Weasleys for the World Cup. Over dinner, Harry listens as Percy and Mr. Weasley discuss Percy’s boss, a wizard named Mr. Crouch, and a Ministry of Magic employee named Bertha Jorkins, who has been missing for a month. Ron’s brothers discuss the World Cup and the game of Quidditch, and after dinner, Mrs. Weasley urges everyone to hurry up and go to bed because they will have to be up early the next morning.

The next morning, Mr. Weasley and the underage wizards in the group prepare to leave. Mrs. Weasley explains that Bill, Charlie, and Percy are old enough to Apparate—or transport themselves instantly—so they will join the party later. The rest of the group will use a Portkey, an object that can transport wizards from one place to another, and Mr. Weasley explains that they have to be careful not to attract attention from Muggles along the way. After all, “[wizards] have to be very careful about how [they] travel at the best of times” (27), and the World Cup is a massive gathering. Before they leave, Mrs. Weasley, who is staying behind, discovers that George is hiding more of the Ton-Tongue Toffees in his pockets, and she confiscates them and yells at her sons for wasting their time and energy on inventing such foolish things. The group leaves and starts walking toward a big hill nearby, and they meet Cedric and Amos Diggory, already waiting on the hill with the Portkey, which is an old boot. Cedric is a Hogwarts student and plays the same Quidditch position as Harry but for the Hufflepuff House team. Cedric is very humble, but his father, Amos, wastes no time bragging about how his son “beat Harry Potter” (29) in the Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff Quidditch match of the previous year. Mrs. Weasley changes the subject by instructing everyone to touch the Portkey, and the entire group is instantly transported.

The group arrives at the campsite where they will stay for the Quidditch World Cup. They meet the Muggle man who runs the campsite, Mr. Roberts, and when the man mentions that he has seen some strange behavior from the people arriving at the campsite, another wizard appears and wipes Mr. Roberts’s memory. As Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys set up their campsite, Harry is amazed to see such an enormous gathering of witches and wizards, including people from Africa and America. He starts to realize that he “never really thought much about [wizards] in other countries” (32), and when he learns that there are more magical schools than just Hogwarts in the world, he is stunned. They see the tents decorated in the colors of the top teams for the World Cup—Ireland and Bulgaria—and Ron points out the picture of a Bulgarian player named Viktor Krum, who is only 18 and already playing professionally as a Seeker. Ludo Bagman, the Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, greets the group and asks if anyone would like to gamble on the game's outcome. Fred and George eagerly agree and wager their entire savings that “Ireland wins—but Viktor Krum gets the Snitch” (35) to end the game. Mr. Weasley disapproves of his sons' gambling, but Bagman is more than eager to take them up on their offer. Mr. Crouch, Percy’s no-nonsense boss, joins the group to remind Bagman of his duties, and when Bagman starts making comments about a big event that is supposed to happen at Hogwarts, Mr. Crouch refuses to talk about it and excuses himself. Dusk approaches, and a cloud of excitement fills the campgrounds until the time finally arrives for the Quidditch World Cup to begin.