Harry Potter 04 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

George Weasley, who had not joined the crowd moving towards the door, but was standing up and glaring at Dumbledore. ‘We’re seventeen in April, why can’t we have a shot?’
    ‘They’re not stopping me entering,’ said Fred stubbornly, also scowling at the top table. ‘The champions’ll get to do all sorts of stuff you’d never be allowed to do normally. And a thousand Galleons prize money!’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Ron, a faraway look on his face. ‘Yeah, a thousand Galleons …’
    ‘Come on,’ said Hermione, ‘we’ll be the only ones left here if you don’t move.’
    Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred and George set off for the Entrance Hall, Fred and George debating the ways in which Dumbledore might stop those who were under seventeen entering the Tournament.
    ‘Who’s this impartial judge who’s going to decide who the champions are?’ said Harry.
    ‘Dunno,’ said Fred, ‘but it’s them we’ll have to fool. I reckon a couple of drops of Ageing Potion might do it, George …’
    ‘Dumbledore knows you’re not of age, though,’ said Ron.
    ‘Yeah, but he’s not the one who decides who the champion is, is he?’ said Fred shrewdly. ‘Sounds to me like once this judge knows who wants to enter, he’ll choose the best from each school and never mind how old they are. Dumbledore’s trying to stop us giving our names.’
    ‘People have died, though!’ said Hermione in a worried voice, as they walked through a door concealed behind a tapestry and started up another, narrower staircase.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Fred airily, ‘but that was years ago, wasn’t it? Anyway, where’s the fun without a bit of risk? Hey, Ron, what if we find out how to get round Dumbledore? Fancy entering?’
    ‘What d’you reckon?’ Ron asked Harry. ‘Be cool to enter, wouldn’t it? But I s’pose they might want someone older … dunno if we’ve learnt enough …’
    ‘I definitely haven’t,’ came Neville’s gloomy voice from behind Fred and George. ‘I expect my gran’d want me to try, though, she’s always going on about how I should be upholding the family honour. I’ll just have to – ooops …’
    Neville’s foot had sunk right through a step halfway up the staircase. There were many of these trick stairs at Hogwarts; it was second nature to most of the older students to jump this particular step, but Neville’s memory was notoriously poor. Harry and Ron seized him under the armpits and pulled him out, while a suit of armour at the top of the stairs creaked and clanked, laughing wheezily.
    ‘Shut it, you,’ said Ron, banging down its visor as they passed.
    They made their way up to the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, which was concealed behind a large portrait of a fat lady in a pink silk dress.
    ‘Password?’ she said, as they approached.
    ‘Balderdash,’ said George, ‘a Prefect downstairs told me.’
    The portrait swung forwards to reveal a hole in the wall, through which they all climbed. A crackling fire was warming the circular common room, which was full of squashy armchairs and tables. Hermione cast the merrily dancing flames a dark look, and Harry distinctly heard her mutter ‘slave labour’ , before bidding them goodnight, and disappearing through the doorway to the girls’ dormitories.
    Harry, Ron and Neville climbed up the last, spiral staircase until they reached their own dormitory, which was situated at the top of the Tower. Five four-poster beds with deep crimson hangings stood against the walls, each with its owner’s trunk at the foot. Dean and Seamus were already getting into bed; Seamus had pinned his Ireland rosette to his headboard, and Dean had tacked up a poster of Viktor Krum over his bedside table. His old poster of West Ham football team was pinned right next to it.
    ‘Mental,’ Ron sighed, shaking his head at the completely stationary soccer players.
    Harry, Ron and Neville got into their pyjamas and into bed. Someone – a house-elf, no doubt – had placed warming pans between the sheets. It was extremely comfortable, lying there in bed and listening to the storm raging outside.
    ‘I might go in for it, you know,’ Ron said sleepily through the darkness, ‘if Fred and George find out how to … the Tournament … you never know, do you?’
    ‘S’pose not …’ Harry rolled over in bed, a series of dazzling new pictures forming in his mind’s eye … he had hoodwinked the impartial judge into believing he was seventeen … he had become Hogwarts champion