Harry Potter 04 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

had blasted from every direction, deafened by a series of bangs, Harry blinked, and looked down at the floor.
    Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were all lying unconscious in the doorway. He, Ron and Hermione were on their feet, all three of them having used a different hex. Nor were they the only ones to have done so.
    ‘Thought we’d see what those three were up to,’ said Fred matter-of-factly, stepping onto Goyle, and into the compartment. He had his wand out, and so did George, who was careful to tread on Malfoy as he followed Fred inside.
    ‘Interesting effect,’ said George, looking down at Crabbe. ‘Who used the Furnunculus curse?’
    ‘Me,’ said Harry.
    ‘Odd,’ said George lightly. ‘I used Jelly-Legs. Looks as though those two shouldn’t be mixed. He seems to have sprouted little tentacles all over his face. Well, let’s not leave them here, they don’t add much to the decor.’
    Ron, Harry and George kicked, rolled and pushed the unconscious Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle – each of whom looked distinctly the worse for the jumble of jinxes with which they had been hit – out into the corridor, then came back into the compartment and rolled the door shut.
    ‘Exploding Snap, anyone?’ said Fred, pulling out a pack of cards.
    They were halfway through their fifth game when Harry decided to ask them.
    ‘You going to tell us, then?’ he said to George. ‘Who you were blackmailing?’
    ‘Oh,’ said George darkly. ‘That.’
    ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Fred, shaking his head impatiently. ‘It wasn’t anything important. Not now, anyway.’
    ‘We’ve given up,’ said George, shrugging.
    But Harry, Ron and Hermione kept on asking, and finally Fred said, ‘All right, all right, if you really want to know … it was Ludo Bagman.’
    ‘Bagman?’ said Harry sharply. ‘Are you saying he was involved in –’
    ‘Nah,’ said George gloomily. ‘Nothing like that. Stupid git. He wouldn’t have the brains.’
    ‘Well, what, then?’ said Ron.
    Fred hesitated, then said, ‘You remember that bet we had with him, at the Quidditch World Cup? About how Ireland would win, but Krum would get the Snitch?’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Harry and Ron slowly.
    ‘Well, the git paid us in leprechaun gold he’d caught from the Irish mascots.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘So,’ said Fred impatiently, ‘it vanished, didn’t it? By next morning, it had gone!’
    ‘But – it must’ve been an accident, mustn’t it?’ said Hermione.
    George laughed very bitterly. ‘Yeah, that’s what we thought, at first. We thought if we just wrote to him, and told him he’d made a mistake, he’d cough up. But nothing doing. Ignored our letter. We kept trying to talk to him about it at Hogwarts, but he was always making some excuse to get away from us.’
    ‘In the end, he turned pretty nasty,’ said Fred. ‘Told us we were too young to gamble, and he wasn’t giving us anything.’
    ‘So we asked for our money back,’ said George, glowering.
    ‘He didn’t refuse!’ gasped Hermione.
    ‘Right in one,’ said Fred.
    ‘But that was all your savings!’ said Ron.
    ‘Tell me about it,’ said George. ‘’Course, we found out what was going on in the end. Lee Jordan’s dad had had a bit of trouble getting money off Bagman as well. Turns out he’s in big trouble with the goblins. Borrowed loads of gold off them. A gang of them cornered him in the woods after the World Cup and took all the gold he had, and it still wasn’t enough to cover all his debts. They followed him all the way to Hogwarts to keep an eye on him. He’s lost everything gambling. Hasn’t got two Galleons to rub together. And you know how the idiot tried to pay the goblins back?’
    ‘How?’ said Harry.
    ‘He put a bet on you, mate,’ said Fred. ‘Put a big bet on you to win the Tournament. Bet against the goblins.’
    ‘So that’s why he kept trying to help me win!’ said Harry. ‘Well – I did win, didn’t I? So he can pay you your gold!’
    ‘Nope,’ said George, shaking his head. ‘The goblins play as dirty as him. They say you drew with Diggory, and Bagman was betting you’d win outright. So Bagman had to run for it. He made a run for it right after the third task.’
    George sighed deeply, and started dealing out the cards again.
    The rest of the journey passed pleasantly enough; Harry wished it could have gone on all summer, in fact, and that he would never arrive at King’s Cross … but as he had learnt the hard way that year, time