Harry Potter 04 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

faces of the house-elves around the kitchen. They were suddenly looking at Hermione as though she was mad and dangerous.
    ‘We has your extra food!’ squeaked an elf at Harry’s elbow, and he shoved a large ham, a dozen cakes and some fruit into Harry’s arms. ‘Goodbye!’
    The house-elves crowded around Harry, Ron and Hermione, and began shunting them out of the kitchen, many little hands pushing in the smalls of their backs.
    ‘Thank you for the socks, Harry Potter!’ Dobby called miserably from the hearth, where he was standing next to the lumpy tablecloth that was Winky.
    ‘You couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you, Hermione?’ said Ron angrily, as the kitchen door slammed shut behind them. ‘They won’t want us visiting them now! We could’ve tried to get more stuff out of Winky about Crouch!’
    ‘Oh, as if you care about that!’ scoffed Hermione. ‘You only like coming down here for the food!’
    It was an irritable sort of day after that. Harry got so tired of Ron and Hermione sniping at each other over their homework in the common room that he took Sirius’ food up to the Owlery that evening on his own.
    Pigwidgeon was much too small to carry an entire ham up to the mountain by himself, so Harry enlisted the help of two school screech owls as well. When they had set off into the dusk, looking extremely odd carrying the large package between them, Harry leaned on the window-sill, looking out at the grounds, at the dark, rustling treetops of the Forbidden Forest, and the rippling sails of the Durmstrang ship. An eagle owl flew through the coil of smoke rising from Hagrid’s chimney; it soared towards the castle, around the Owlery and out of sight. Looking down, Harry saw Hagrid digging energetically in front of his cabin. Harry wondered what he was doing; it looked as though he was making a new vegetable patch. As he watched, Madame Maxime emerged from the Beauxbatons carriage and walked over to Hagrid. She appeared to be trying to engage him in conversation. Hagrid leant upon his spade, but did not seem keen to prolong their talk, because Madame Maxime returned to the carriage shortly afterwards.
    Unwilling to go back to Gryffindor Tower and listen to Ron and Hermione snarling at each other, Harry watched Hagrid digging until the darkness swallowed him, and the owls around Harry began to awake, swooshing past him, into the night.
    *
    By breakfast next day, Ron and Hermione’s bad moods had burnt out, and to Harry’s relief, Ron’s dark predictions that the house-elves would send sub-standard food up to the Gryffindor table because Hermione had insulted them proved false; the bacon, eggs and kippers were quite as good as usual.
    When the post owls arrived, Hermione looked up eagerly; she seemed to be expecting something.
    ‘Percy won’t’ve had time to answer yet,’ said Ron. ‘We only sent Hedwig yesterday.’
    ‘No, it’s not that,’ said Hermione. ‘I’ve taken out a new subscription to the Daily Prophet , I’m getting sick of finding everything out from the Slytherins.’
    ‘Good thinking!’ said Harry, also looking up at the owls. ‘Hey, Hermione, I think you’re in luck –’
    A grey owl was soaring down towards Hermione.
    ‘It hasn’t got a newspaper, though,’ she said, looking disappointed. ‘It’s –’
    But to her bewilderment, the grey owl landed in front of her plate, closely followed by four barn owls, a brown owl and a tawny.
    ‘How many subscriptions did you take out?’ said Harry, seizing Hermione’s goblet before it was knocked over by the cluster of owls, all of whom were jostling close to her, trying to deliver their own letter first.
    ‘What on earth –?’ Hermione said, taking the letter from the grey owl, opening it and starting to read. ‘Oh, really!’ she spluttered, going rather red.
    ‘What’s up?’ said Ron.
    ‘It’s – oh, how ridiculous –’ She thrust the letter at Harry, who saw that it was not handwritten, but composed from pasted letters that seemed to have been cut out of the Daily Prophet .
     
    You are a WickEd giRL. HaRRy PottEr desErves BetteR. gO Back wherE you cAME from mUggle.
     
    ‘They’re all like it!’ said Hermione desperately, opening one letter after another. ‘“Harry Potter can do much better than the likes of you …” “You deserve to be boiled in frog-spawn …” Ouch!’
    She had opened the last envelope, and yellowish green liquid smelling strongly of petrol gushed over her hands,