on with practicing for your next
interview in peace."
Harry seized one of the POTTER REALLY STINKS badges off the table and
chucked it, as hard as he could, across the room. It hit Ron on the forehead and
bounced off.
"There you go," Harry said. "Something for you to wear on Tuesday. You might
even have a scar now, if yon're lucky.. . . That's what you want, isn't it?"
He strode across the room toward the stairs; he half expected Ron to stop him, he
would even have liked Ron to throw a punch at him, but Ron just stood there in his
too-small pajamas, and Harry, having stormed upstairs, lay awake in bed fuming
for a long time afterward and didn't hear him come up to bed.
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CHAPTER TWENTY - THE FIRST TASK
Harry got up on Sunday morning and dressed so inattentively that it was a while
before he realized he was trying to pull his hat onto his foot instead of his sock.
When he'd finally got all his clothes on the right parts of his body, he hurried off to
find Hermione, locating her at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, where she
was eating breakfast with Ginny. Feeling too queasy to eat, Harry waited until
Hermione had swallowed her last spoonful of porridge, then dragged her out onto
the grounds. There, he told her all about the dragons, and about everything Sirius
had said, while they took another long walk around the lake.
Alarmed as she was by Sirius's warnings about Karkaroff, Hermione still thought
that the dragons were the more pressing problem.
"Let's just try and keep you alive until Tuesday evening," she said desperately,
"and then we can worry about Karkaroff."
They walked three times around the lake, trying all the way to think of a simple
spell that would subdue a dragon. Nothing whatsoever occurred to them, so they
retired to the library instead. Here, Harry pulled down every book he could find on
dragons, and both of them set to work searching through the large pile.
"Talon-clipping by charms. .. treating scale-rot. . .' This is no good, this is for
nutters like Hagrid who want to keep them healthy. ..
"Dragons are extremely difficult to slay, owing to the ancient magic that imbues
their thick hides, which none but the most powerful spells can penetrate. . .' But
Sirius said a simple one would do it.. .
"Let's try some simple spellbooks, then," said Harry, throwing aside Men Who
Love Dragons Too Much.
He returned to the table with a pile of spellbooks, set them down, and began to
flick through each in turn, Hermione whispering nonstop at his elbow.
"Well, there are Switching Spells. . . but what's the point of Switching it? Unless
you swapped its fangs for wine-gums or something that would make it less
dangerous.. . . The trouble is, like that book said, not much is going to get through
a dragon's hide. . . . I'd say Transfigure it, but something that big, you really
haven't got a hope, I doubt even Professor McGonagall. . . unless you're supposed
to put the spell on yourself? Maybe to give yourself extra powers? But they're not
simple spells, I mean, we haven't done any of those in class, I only know about
them because I've been doing O.W.L. practice papers. . . ."
"Hermione," Harry said, through gritted teeth, "will you shut up for a bit, please? I
m trying to concentrate."
220
But all that happened, when Hermione fell silent, was that Harry's brain filled with
a sort of blank buzzing, which didn't seem to allow room for concentration. He
stared hopelessly down the index of Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed. Instant
scalping. . . but dragons had no hair. . . pepper breath.. . that would probably
increase a dragon's firepower. . . horn tongue. . . just what he needed, to give it an
extra weapon...
"Oh no, he's back again, why can't he read on his stupid ship?" said Hermione
irritably as Viktor Krum slouched in, cast a surly look over at the pair of them, and
settled himself in a distant corner with a pile of books. "Come on, Harry, we'll go
back to the common room. . . his fan club'll be here in a moment, twittering
away... ."
And sure enough, as they left the library, a gang of girls tiptoed past them, one of
them wearing a Bulgaria scarf tied around her waist.
Harry barely slept that night. When he awoke on Monday morning, he seriously
considered for the first time ever just running away from Hogwarts. But as he
looked around the Great Hall at breakfast time, and thought about what leaving the
castle would mean, he knew he couldn't do it. It was the only place he had ever
been happy. . . well, he supposed he must have been happy with his parents too,
but he couldn't remember that.
Somehow, the knowledge that he would rather be here and facing a dragon than
back on Privet Drive with Dudley was good to know; it made him feel slightly
calmer. He finished his bacon with difficulty (his throat wasn't working too well),
and as he and Hermione got up, he saw Cedric Diggory leaving the Hufflepuff
table.
Cedric still didn't know about the dragons. . . the only champion who didn't, if
Harry was right in thinking that Maxime and Karkaroff would have told Fleur and
Krum....
"Hermione, I'll see you in the greenhouses," Harry said, coming to his decision as
he watched Cedric leaving the Hall. "Go on, I'll catch you up."
"Harry, you'll be late, the bell's about to ring -"
"I'll catch you up, okay?"
By the time Harry reached the bottom of the marble staircase, Cedric was at the
top. He was with a load of sixth-year friends. Harry didn't want to talk to Cedric in
front of them; they were among those who had been quoting Rita Skeeter's article
at him every time he went near them. He followed Cedric at a distance and saw
that he was heading toward the Charms corridor. This gave Harry an idea. Pausing
at a distance from them, he pulled out his wand, and took careful aim.
"Diffindo!"
221
Cedric's bag split. Parchment, quills, and books spilled out of it onto the floor.
Several bottles of ink smashed.
"Don't bother," said Cedric in an exasperated voice as his friends bent down to
help him. "Tell Flitwick I'm coming, go on. . .
This was exactly what Harry had been hoping for. He slipped his wand back into
his robes, waited until Cedric's friends had disappeared into their classroom, and
hurried up the corridor, which was now empty of everyone but himself and Cedric.
"Hi," said Cedric, picking up a copy of A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration that
was now splattered with ink. "My bag just split. . . brand-new and all. . ."
"Cedric," said Harry, "the first task is dragons."
"What?" said Cedric, looking up.
"Dragons," said Harry, speaking quickly, in case Professor Flitwick came out to
see where Cedric had got to. "They've got four, one for each of us, and we've got
to get past them."
Cedric stared at him. Harry saw some of the panic he'd been feeling since Saturday
night flickering in Cedric's gray eyes.
"Are you sure?" Cedric said in a hushed voice.
"Dead sure," said Harry. "I've seen them."
"But how did you find out? We're not supposed to know. . . ."
"Never mind," said Harry quickly - he knew Hagrid would be in trouble if he told
the truth. "But I'm not the only one who knows. Fleur and Krum will know by now
- Maxime and Karkaroff both saw the dragons too."
Cedric straightened up, his arms full of inky quills, parchment, and books, his
ripped bag dangling off one shoulder. He stared at Harry, and there was a puzzled,
almost suspicious look in his eyes.
"Why are you telling me?" he asked.
Harry looked at him in disbelief. He was sure Cedric wouldn't have asked that if
he had seen the dragons himself. Harry wouldn't have let his worst enemy face
those monsters unprepared - well, perhaps Malfoy or Snape...
"It's just . . . fair, isn't it?" he said to Cedric. "We all know now. . . we're on an
even footing, aren't we?"
Cedric was still hooking at him in a slightly suspicious way when Harry heard a
familiar clunking noise behind him. He turned around and saw Mad-Eye Moody
emerging from a nearby classroom.
222
"Come with me, Potter," he growled. "Diggory, off you go."
Harry stared apprehensively at Moody. Had he overheard them?
"Er - Professor, I'm supposed to be in Herbology -"
"Never mind that, Potter. In my office, please...
Harry followed him, wondering what was going to happen to him now. What if
Moody wanted to know how he'd found out about the dragons? Would Moody go
to Dumbledore and tell on Hagrid, or just turn Harry into a ferret? Well, it might
be easier to get past a dragon if he were a ferret, Harry thought dully, he'd be
smaller, much less easy to see from a height of fifty feet..
He followed Moody into his office. Moody closed the door behind them and
turned to look at Harry, his magical eye fixed upon him as well as the normal one.
"That was a very decent thing you just did, Potter," Moody said quietly.
Harry didn't know what to say; this wasn't the reaction he had expected at all.
"Sit down," said Moody, and Harry sat, looking around.
He had visited this office under two of its previous occupants. In Professor
Lockhart's day, the walls had been plastered with beaming, winking pictures of
Professor Lockhart himself. When Lupin had lived here, you were more likely to
come across a specimen of some fascinating new Dark creature he had procured
for them to study in class. Now, however, the office was full of a number of
exceptionally odd objects that Harry supposed Moody had used in the days when
he had been an Auror.
On his desk stood what looked hike a large, cracked, glass spinning top; Harry
recognized it at once as a Sneakoscope, because he owned one himself, though it
was much smaller than Moody's. In the corner on a small table stood an object that
looked something like an extra-squiggly, golden television aerial. It was humming
slightly. What appeared to be a mirror hung opposite Harry on the wall, but it was
not reflecting the room. Shadowy figures w