 Support Cedric Diggory! badges and were
trying to bewitch them to make them say Support Harry Potter! instead. So far,
however, all they had managed to do was get the badges stuck on POTTER
STINKS. Harry crept past them to the portrait hole and waited for a minute or so,
keeping an eye on his watch. Then Hermione opened the Fat Lady for him from
outside as they had planned. He slipped past her with a whispered "Thanks!" and
set off through the castle.
The grounds were very dark. Harry walked down the lawn toward the lights
shining in Hagrid's cabin. The inside of the enormous Beauxbatons carriage was
also lit up; Harry could hear Madame Maxime talking inside it as he knocked on
Hagrid's front door.
"You there, Harry?" Hagrid whispered, opening the door and looking around.
"Yeah," said Harry, slipping inside the cabin and pulling the cloak down off his
head. "What's up?"
"Got summat ter show yeh," said Hagrid.
There was an air of enormous excitement about Hagrid. He was wearing a flower
that resembled an oversized artichoke in his buttonhole. It looked as though he had
abandoned the use of axle grease, but he had certainly attempted to comb his hair -
Harry could see the comb's broken teeth tangled in it.
"What're you showing me?" Harry said warily, wondering if the skrewts had laid
eggs, or Hagrid had managed to buy another giant three-headed dog off a stranger
in a pub.
"Come with me, keep quiet, an' keep yerself covered with that cloak," said Hagrid.
"We won' take Fang, he won' like it. . .
"Listen, Hagrid, I can't stay long. . . . I've got to be back up at the castle by one
o'clock -"
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But Hagrid wasn't listening; he was opening the cabin door and striding off into
the night. Harry hurried to follow and found, to his great surprise, that Hagrid was
leading him to the Beauxbatons carriage.
"Hagrid, what - ?"
"Shhh!" said Hagrid, and he knocked three times on the door bearing the crossed
golden wands.
Madame Maxime opened it. She was wearing a silk shawl wrapped around her
massive shoulders. She smiled when she saw Hagrid.
"Ah, 'Agrid . . . it is time?"
"Bong-sewer," said Hagrid, beaming at her, and holding out a hand to help her
down the golden steps.
Madame Maxime closed the door behind her, Hagrid offered her his arm, and they
set off around the edge of the paddock containing Madame Maxime's giant winged
horses, with Harry, totally bewildered, running to keep up with them. Had Hagrid
wanted to show him Madame Maxime? He could see her any old time he wanted..
. she wasn't exactly hard to miss....
But it seemed that Madame Maxime was in for the same treat as Harry, because
after a while she said playfully, "Wair is it you are taking me, 'Agrid?"
"Yeh'll enjoy this," said Hagrid gruffly, "worth seein', trust me. On'y - don' go
tellin' anyone I showed yeh, right? Yeh're not s'posed ter know."
"Of course not," said Madame Maxime, fluttering her long black eyelashes.
And still they walked, Harry getting more and more irritated as he jogged along in
their wake, checking his watch every now and then. Hagrid had some harebrained
scheme in hand, which might make him miss Sirius. If they didn't get there soon,
he was going to turn around, go straight back to the castle, and leave Hagrid to
enjoy his moonlit stroll with Madame Maxime.
But then - when they had walked so far around the perimeter of the forest that the
castle and the lake were out of sight - Harry heard something. Men were shouting
up ahead. . . then came a deafening, earsplitting roar. . .
Hagrid led Madame Maxime around a clump of trees and came to a halt. Harry
hurried up alongside them - for a split second, he thought he was seeing bonfires,
and men darting around them - and then his mouth fell open.
Dragons.
Four fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing onto their hind
legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planks of wood, roaring and snorting -
torrents of fire were shooting into the dark sky from their open, fanged mouths,
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fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks. There was a silvery-blue
one with long, pointed horns, snapping and snarling at the wizards on the ground;
a smooth-scaled green one, which was writhing and stamping with all its might; a
red one with an odd fringe of fine gold spikes around its face, which was shooting
mushroom-shaped fire clouds into the air; and a gigantic black one, more lizardhike
than the others, which was nearest to them.
At least thirty wizards, seven or eight to each dragon, were attempting to control
them, pulling on the chains connected to heavy leather straps around their necks
and legs. Mesmerized, Harry looked up, high above him, and saw the eyes of the
black dragon, with vertical pupils like a cat's, bulging with either fear or rage, he
couldn't tell which. . . . It was making a horrible noise, a yowling, screeching
scream.
"Keep back there, Hagrid!" yelled a wizard near the fence, straining on the chain
he was holding. "They can shoot fire at a range of twenty feet, you know! I've seen
this Horntail do forty!"
"Is'n' it beautiful?" said Hagrid softly.
"It's no good!" yelled another wizard. "Stunning Spells, on the count of three!"
Harry saw each of the dragon keepers pull out his wand.
"Stupefy!" they shouted in unison, and the Stunning Spells shot into the darkness
like fiery rockets, bursting in showers of stars on the dragons' scaly hides -
Harry watched the dragon nearest to them teeter dangerously on its back legs; its
jaws stretched wide in a silent howl; its nostrils were suddenly devoid of flame,
though still smoking - then, very slowly, it fell. Several tons of sinewy, scalyblack
dragon hit the ground with a thud that Harry could have sworn made the
trees behind him quake.
The dragon keepers lowered their wands and walked forward to their fallen
charges, each of which was the size of a small hill. They hurried to tighten the
chains and fasten them securely to iron pegs, which they forced deep into the
ground with their wands.
"Wan' a closer look?" Hagrid asked Madame Maxime excitedly. The pair of them
moved right up to the fence, and Harry followed. The wizard who had warned
Hagrid not to come any closer turned, and Harry realized who it was: Charlie
Weasley.
"All right, Hagrid?" he panted, coming over to talk. "They should be okay now -
we put them out with a Sleeping Draft on the way here, thought it might be better
for them to wake up in the dark and the quiet - but, like you saw, they weren't
happy, not happy at all -"
"What breeds you got here, Charlie?" said Hagrid, gazing at the closest dragon, the
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black one, with something chose to reverence. Its eyes were still just open. Harry
could see a strip of gleaming yellow beneath its wrinkled black eyelid.
"This is a Hungarian Horntail," said Charlie. "There's a Common Welsh Green
over there, the smaller one -- a Swedish Short-Snout, that blue-gray -- and a
Chinese Fireball, that's the red."
Charlie looked around; Madame Maxime was strolling away around the edge of
the enclosure, gazing at the stunned dragons.
"I didn't know you were bringing her, Hagrid," Charlie said, frowning. "The
champions aren't supposed to know what's coming - she's bound to tell her student,
isn't she?"
"Jus' thought she'd like ter see 'em," shrugged Hagrid, still gazing, enraptured, at
the dragons.
"Really romantic date, Hagrid," said Charlie, shaking his head.
"Four. . ." said Hagrid, "so it's one fer each o' the champions, is it? What've they
gotta do - fight 'em?"
"Just get past them, I think," said Charlie. "We'll be on hand if it gets nasty,
Extinguishing Spells at the ready. They wanted nesting mothers, I don't know
why. . . but I tell you this, I don't envy the one who gets the Horntail. Vicious
thing. Its back end's as dangerous as its front, look."
Charlie pointed toward the Horntail's tail, and Harry saw long, bronze-colored
spikes protruding along it every few inches.
Five of Charlie's fellow keepers staggered up to the Horntail at that moment,
carrying a clutch of huge granite-gray eggs between them in a blanket. They
placed them carefully at the Horntail's side. Hagrid let out a moan of longing.
"I've got them counted, Hagrid," said Charlie sternly. Then he said, "How's
Harry?"
"Fine," said Hagrid. He was still gazing at the eggs.
"Just hope he's still fine after he's faced this lot," said Charlie grimly, looking out
over the dragons' enclosure. "I didn't dare tell Mum what he's got to do for the first
task; she's already having kittens about him. . . ." Charlie imitated his mother's
anxious voice. "How could they let him enter that tournament, he's much too
young! I thought they were all safe, I thought there was going to be an age limit!'
She was in floods after that Daily Prophet article about him. 'He still cries about
his parents! Oh bless him, I never knew!"
Harry had had enough. Trusting to the fact that Hagrid wouldn't miss him, with the
attractions of four dragons and Madame Maxime to occupy him, he turned silently
and began to walk away, back to the castle.
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He didn't know whether he was glad he'd seen what was coming or not. Perhaps
this way was better. The first shock was over now. Maybe if he'd seen the dragons
for the first time on Tuesday, he would have passed out cold in front of the whole
school. . . but maybe he would anyway. .. . He was going to be armed with his
wand - which, just now, felt like nothing more than a narrow strip of wood --
against a fifty-foot-high, scaly, spike-ridden, fire-breathing dragon. And he had to
get past it. With everyone watching. How?
Harry sped up, skirting the edge of the forest; he had just under fifteen minutes to
get back to the fireside and talk to Sirius, and he couldn't remember, ever, wanting
to talk to someone more than he did right now -- when, without warning, he ran
into something very solid.
H