ozen pairs of hands, and was facing the whole of Gryffindor
House, all of whom were screaming, applauding, and whistling.
"You should've told us you'd entered!" bellowed Fred; he looked half annoyed,
half deeply impressed.
"How did you do it without getting a beard? Brilliant!" roared George.
"I didn't," Harry said. "I don't know how -"
But Angelina had now swooped down upon him; "Oh if it couldn't be me, at least
it's a Gryffindor -"
"You'll be able to pay back Diggory for that last Quidditch match, Harry!"
shrieked Katie Bell, another of the Gryffindor Chasers.
"We've got food, Harry, come and have some -"
"I'm 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 climb 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.
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"Oh hello," said Ron.
He was grinning, but it was 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 okay, 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, okay," 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
187
tomorrow for a photo-call 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.
188
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 believe him - only to find that Ron's bed was empty;
he had obviously gone down to breakfast.
Harry dressed and went down the spiral staircase into the common room. The
moment he appeared, the people who had already finished breakfast broke into
applause again. The prospect of going down into the Great Hall and facing the rest
of the Gryffindors, all treating him like some sort of hero, was not inviting; it was
that, however, or stay here and allow himself to be cornered by the Creevey
brothers, who were both beckoning frantically to him to join them. He walked
resolutely over to the portrait hole, pushed it open, climbed out of it, and found
himself face-to-face with Hermione.
"Hello," she said, holding up a stack of toast, which she was carrying in a napkin.
"I brought you this. . . . Want to go for a walk?"
"Good idea," said Harry gratefully.
They went downstairs, crossed the entrance hall quickly without looking in at the
Great Hall, and were soon striding across the lawn toward the lake, where the
Durmstrang ship was moored, reflected blackly in the water. It was a chilly
morning, and they kept moving, munching their toast, as Harry told Hermione
exactly what had happened after he had left the Gryffindor table the night before.
To his immense relief, Hermione accepted his story without question.
"Well, of course I knew you hadn't entered yourself," she said when he'd finished
telling her about the scene in the chamber off the Hall. "The look on your face
when Dumbledore read out your name! But the question is, who did put it in?
Because Moody's right, Harry... I don't think any student could have done it. . .
they'd never be able to fool the Goblet, or get over Dumbledore's -"
"Have you seen Ron?" Harry interrupted.
Hermione hesitated.
"Erm. . . yes. . . he was at breakfast," she said.
"Does he still think I entered myself?"
"Well. . . no, I don't think so . . . not really," said Hermione awkwardly.
"What's that supposed to mean, 'not really'?"
189
"Oh Harry, isn't it obvious?" Hermione said despairingly. "He's jealous!"
"Jealous?" Harry said incredulously. "Jealous of what? He wants to make a prat of
himself in front of the whole school, does he?"
"Look," said Hermione patiently, "it's always you who gets all the attention, you
know it is. I know it's not your fault," she added quickly, seeing Harry open his
mouth furiously. "I know you don't ask for it.. . but - well - you know, Ron's got
all those brothers to compete against at home, and you're his best friend, and
you're really famous - he's always shunted to one side whenever people see you,
and he puts up with it, and he never mentions it, but I suppose this is just one time
too many. . .
"Great," said Harry bitterly. "Really great. Tell him from me I'll swap any time he
wants. Tell him from me he's welcome to it.... People gawping at my forehead
everywhere I go. . ."
"I'm not teiling him anything," Hermione said shortly. "Tell him yourself. It's the
only way to sort this out."
"I'm not running around after him trying to make him grow up!" Harry said, so
loudly that several owls in a nearby tree took flight in alarm. "Maybe he'll believe
I'm not enjoying myself once I've got my neck broken or -"
"That's not funny," said Hermione quietly. "That's not funny at all." She looked
extremely anxious. "Harry, I've been thinking - you know what we've got to do,
don't you? Straight away, the moment we get back to the castle?"
"Yeah, give Ron a good kick up the -"
"Write to Sirius. You've got to tell him what's happened. He asked you to keep
him posted on everything that's going on at Hogwarts. . . . It's almost as if he
expected something like this to happen. I brought some parchment and a quill out
with me -"
"Come off it," said Harry, looking around to check that they couldn't be overheard,
but the grounds were quite deserted. "He came back to the country just because
my scar twinged. He'll probably come bursting right into the castle if I tell him
someone's entered me in the Triwizard Tournament -"
"He'd want you to tell him," said Hermione sternly. "He's going to find out
anyway."
"How?"
"Harry, this isn't going to be kept quiet," said Hermione, very seriously. "This
tournament's famous, and you're famous. I'll be really surprised if there isn't
anything in the Daily Prophet about you competing. . . . You're already in half the
books about You-Know-Who, you know.. . and Sirius would rather hear it from
you, I know he would."
190
"Okay, okay, I'll write to him," said Harry, throwing his last piece of toast into the
lake. They both stood and watched it floating there for a moment, before a large
tentacle rose out of the water and scooped it beneath the surface. Then they
returned to the castle.
"Whose owl am I going to use?" Harry said as they climbed the stairs. "He told me
not to use Hedwig again."
"Ask Ron if you can borrow -"
"I'm not asking Ron for anything," Harry said flatly.
"