Harry Potter 04 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

‘I’m not allowed a broom, I’ve only got my wand –’
    ‘My second piece of general advice,’ said Moody loudly, interrupting him, ‘is to use a nice, simple spell which will enable you to get what you need. ’
    Harry looked at him blankly. What did he need?
    ‘Come on, boy …’ whispered Moody. ‘Put them together … it’s not that difficult …’
    And it clicked. He was best at flying. He needed to pass the dragon in the air. For that, he needed his Firebolt. And for his Firebolt, he needed –
    ‘Hermione,’ Harry whispered, when he had sped into greenhouse three ten minutes later, uttering a hurried apology to Professor Sprout as he passed her, ‘Hermione – I need you to help me.’
    ‘What d’you think I’ve been trying to do, Harry?’ she whispered back, her eyes round with anxiety over the top of the quivering Flutterby Bush she was pruning.
    ‘Hermione, I need to learn how to do a Summoning Charm properly by tomorrow afternoon.’
    *
    And so they practised. They didn’t have lunch, but headed for a free classroom, where Harry tried with all his might to make various objects fly across the room towards him. He was still having problems. The books and quills kept losing heart halfway across the room and dropping like stones to the floor.
    ‘Concentrate, Harry, concentrate … ’
    ‘What d’you think I’m trying to do?’ said Harry angrily. ‘A filthy great dragon keeps popping up in my head, for some reason … OK, try again …’
    He wanted to skip Divination to keep practising, but Hermione refused point-blank to skive off Arithmancy, and there was no point staying without her. He therefore had to endure over an hour of Professor Trelawney, who spent half the lesson telling everyone that the position of Mars in relation to Saturn at that moment meant that people born in July were in great danger of sudden, violent deaths.
    ‘Well, that’s good,’ said Harry loudly, his temper getting the better of him, ‘just as long as it’s not drawn-out, I don’t want to suffer.’
    Ron looked for a moment as though he was going to laugh; he certainly caught Harry’s eye for the first time in days, but Harry was still feeling too resentful towards Ron to care. He spent the rest of the lesson trying to attract small objects towards him under the table with his wand. He managed to make a fly zoom straight into his hand, though he wasn’t entirely sure that was owing to his prowess at Summoning Charms – perhaps the fly was just stupid.
    He forced down some dinner after Divination, then returned to the empty classroom with Hermione, using the Invisibility Cloak to avoid the teachers. They kept practising until past midnight. They would have stayed longer, but Peeves turned up and, pretending to think that Harry wanted things thrown at him, started chucking chairs across the room. Harry and Hermione left in a hurry before the noise attracted Filch, and went back to the Gryffindor common room, which was now mercifully empty.
    At two o’clock in the morning, Harry stood near the fireplace, surrounded by heaps of objects – books, quills, several upturned chairs, an old set of Gobstones and Neville’s toad, Trevor. Only in the last hour had Harry really got the hang of the Summoning Charm.
    ‘That’s better, Harry, that’s loads better,’ Hermione said, looking exhausted, but very pleased.
    ‘Well, now we know what to do next time I can’t manage a spell,’ Harry said, throwing a Rune Dictionary back to Hermione, so he could try again, ‘threaten me with a dragon. Right …’ He raised his wand once more. ‘Accio Dictionary!’
    The heavy book soared out of Hermione’s hand, flew across the room, and Harry caught it.
    ‘Harry, I really think you’ve got it!’ said Hermione, delightedly.
    ‘Just as long as it works tomorrow,’ Harry said. ‘The Firebolt’s going to be much further away than the stuff in here, it’s going to be in the castle, and I’m going to be out there in the grounds …’
    ‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Hermione firmly. ‘Just as long as you’re concentrating really, really hard on it, it’ll come. Harry, we’d better get some sleep … you’re going to need it.’
    *
    Harry had been focusing so hard on learning the Summoning Charm that evening that some of his blind panic had left him. It returned in full measure, however, on the following morning. The atmosphere in the school was one of great tension and excitement. Lessons were to