Harry Potter 04 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

not hungry, I had enough at the feast –’
    But nobody wanted to hear that he wasn’t hungry; nobody wanted to hear that he hadn’t put his name in the Goblet; not one single person seemed to have noticed that he wasn’t at all in the mood to celebrate … Lee Jordan had unearthed a Gryffindor banner from somewhere, and he insisted on draping it around Harry like a cloak. Harry couldn’t get away; whenever he tried to sidle over to the staircase up to the dormitories, the crowd around him closed ranks, forcing another Butterbeer on him, stuffing crisps and peanuts into his hands … everyone wanted to know how he had done it, how he had tricked Dumbledore’s Age Line, and managed to get his name into the Goblet …
    ‘I didn’t,’ he said, over and over again, ‘I don’t know how it happened.’
    But for all the notice anyone took, he might just as well not have answered at all.
    ‘I’m tired!’ he bellowed finally, after nearly half an hour. ‘No, seriously, George – I’m going to bed –’
    He wanted more than anything to find Ron and Hermione, to find a bit of sanity, but neither of them seemed to be in the common room. Insisting that he needed to sleep, and almost flattening the little Creevey brothers as they attempted to waylay him at the foot of the stairs, Harry managed to shake everyone off, and climbed up to the dormitory as fast as he could.
    To his great relief, he found Ron was lying on his bed in the otherwise empty dormitory, still fully dressed. He looked up when Harry slammed the door behind him.
    ‘Where’ve you been?’ Harry said.
    ‘Oh, hello,’ said Ron.
    He was grinning, but it looked a very odd, strained sort of grin. Harry suddenly became aware that he was still wearing the scarlet Gryffindor banner that Lee had tied around him. He hastened to take it off, but it was knotted very tightly. Ron lay on the bed without moving, watching Harry struggle to remove it.
    ‘So,’ he said, when Harry had finally removed the banner and thrown it into a corner. ‘Congratulations.’
    ‘What d’you mean, congratulations?’ said Harry, staring at Ron. There was definitely something wrong with the way Ron was smiling; it was more like a grimace.
    ‘Well … no one else got across the Age Line,’ said Ron. ‘Not even Fred and George. What did you use – the Invisibility Cloak?’
    ‘The Invisibility Cloak wouldn’t have got me over that line,’ said Harry slowly.
    ‘Oh, right,’ said Ron. ‘I thought you might’ve told me if it was the Cloak … because it would’ve covered both of us, wouldn’t it? But you found another way, did you?’
    ‘Listen,’ said Harry, ‘I didn’t put my name in that Goblet. Someone else must’ve done it.’
    Ron raised his eyebrows. ‘What would they do that for?’
    ‘I dunno,’ said Harry. He felt it would sound very melodramatic to say ‘to kill me’.
    Ron’s eyebrows rose so high that they were in danger of disappearing into his hair.
    ‘It’s OK, you know, you can tell me the truth,’ he said. ‘If you don’t want everyone else to know, fine, but I don’t know why you’re bothering to lie, you didn’t get into trouble for it, did you? That friend of the Fat Lady’s, that Violet, she’s already told us all, Dumbledore’s letting you enter. A thousand Galleons prize money, eh? And you don’t have to do end-of-year tests either …’
    ‘I didn’t put my name in that Goblet!’ said Harry, starting to feel angry.
    ‘Yeah, OK,’ said Ron, in exactly the same sceptical tone as Cedric. ‘Only you said this morning you’d have done it last night, and no one would’ve seen you … I’m not stupid, you know.’
    ‘You’re doing a really good impression of it,’ Harry snapped.
    ‘Yeah?’ said Ron, and there was no trace of a grin, forced or otherwise, on his face now. ‘You want to get to bed, Harry, I expect you’ll need to be up early tomorrow for a photocall or something.’
    He wrenched the hangings shut around his four-poster, leaving Harry standing there by the door, staring at the dark red velvet curtains, now hiding one of the few people he had been sure would believe him.

 
     
— CHAPTER EIGHTEEN —
     
The Weighing of the Wands
    When Harry woke up on Sunday morning, it took him a moment to remember why he felt so miserable and worried. Then the memory of the previous night rolled over him. He sat up and ripped back the curtains of his own four-poster, intending to talk to Ron, to force Ron to