Harry Potter 04 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I’ll be really surprised if there isn’t anything in the Daily Prophet about you competing … you’re already in half the books about You-Know-Who, you know … and Sirius would rather hear it from you, I know he would.’
    ‘OK, OK, I’ll write to him,’ said Harry, throwing his last piece of toast into the lake. They both stood and watched it floating there for a moment, before a large tentacle rose out of the water and scooped it beneath the surface. Then they returned to the castle.
    ‘Whose owl am I going to use?’ Harry said, as they climbed the stairs. ‘He told me not to use Hedwig again.’
    ‘Ask Ron if you can borrow –’
    ‘I’m not asking Ron anything,’ Harry said flatly.
    ‘Well, borrow one of the school owls, then, anyone can use them,’ said Hermione.
    They went up to the Owlery. Hermione gave Harry a piece of parchment, a quill and a bottle of ink, then strolled around the long lines of perches, looking at all the different owls, while Harry sat down against a wall and wrote his letter.
     
    Dear Sirius,
    You told me to keep you posted on what’s happening at Hogwarts, so here goes – I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Triwizard Tournament’s happening this year and on Saturday night I got picked as a fourth champion. I don’t know who put my name in the Goblet of Fire, because I didn’t. The other Hogwarts champion is Cedric Diggory, from Hufflepuff.
     
    He paused at this point, thinking. He had an urge to say something about the large weight of anxiety that seemed to have settled inside his chest since last night, but he couldn’t think how to translate this into words, so he simply dipped his quill back into the ink bottle and wrote:
     
    Hope you’re OK, and Buckbeak – Harry.
     
    ‘Finished,’ he told Hermione, getting to his feet and brushing straw off his robes. At this, Hedwig came fluttering down onto his shoulder, and held out her leg.
    ‘I can’t use you,’ Harry told her, looking around for the school owls. ‘I’ve got to use one of these …’
    Hedwig gave a very loud hoot, and took off so suddenly that her talons cut into his shoulder. She kept her back to Harry all the time he was tying his letter to the leg of a large barn owl. When the barn owl had flown off, Harry reached out to stroke Hedwig, but she clicked her beak furiously and soared up into the rafters out of reach.
    ‘First Ron, then you,’ said Harry angrily. ‘This isn’t my fault.’
    *
    If Harry had thought that matters would improve once everyone got used to the idea of him being champion, the following day showed him how mistaken he was. He could no longer avoid the rest of the school once he was back at lessons – and it was clear that the rest of the school, just like the Gryffindors, thought Harry had entered himself for the Tournament. Unlike the Gryffindors, however, they did not seem impressed.
    The Hufflepuffs, who were usually on excellent terms with the Gryffindors, had turned remarkably cold towards the whole lot of them. One Herbology lesson was enough to demonstrate this. It was plain that the Hufflepuffs felt that Harry had stolen their champion’s glory; a feeling exacerbated, perhaps, by the fact that Hufflepuff house very rarely got any glory, and that Cedric was one of the few who had ever given them any, having beaten Gryffindor once at Quidditch. Ernie Macmillan and Justin Finch-Fletchley, with whom Harry normally got on very well, did not talk to him even though they were re-potting Bouncing Bulbs at the same tray – though they did laugh rather unpleasantly when one of the Bouncing Bulbs wriggled free from Harry’s grip and smacked him hard in the face. Ron wasn’t talking to Harry either. Hermione sat between them, making very forced conversation, but though both answered her normally, they avoided making eye contact with each other. Harry thought even Professor Sprout seemed distant with him – but then, she was Head of Hufflepuff house.
    He would have been looking forward to seeing Hagrid under normal circumstances, but Care of Magical Creatures meant seeing the Slytherins, too – the first time he would come face to face with them since becoming champion.
    Predictably, Malfoy arrived at Hagrid’s cabin with his familiar sneer firmly in place.
    ‘Ah, look, boys, it’s the champion,’ he said to Crabbe and Goyle, the moment he got within earshot of Harry. ‘Got your autograph books? Better get a signature now, because I doubt he’s