TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT 2 страница

“Because, fool, at this very moment wizards are pouring into the country from all over the world, and every meddler from the Min- istry of Magic will be on duty, on the watch for signs of unusual ac- tivity, checking and double-checking identities. They will be obsessed with security, lest the Muggles notice anything. So we wait. ”

Frank stopped trying to clear out his ear. He had distinctly heard the words “Ministry of Magic, ” “wizards, ” and “Muggles. ” Plainly, each of these expressions meant something secret, and Frank could think of only two sorts of people who would speak in code: spies and criminals. Frank tightened his hold on his walking stick once more, and listened more closely still.

“Your Lordship is still determined, then? ” Wormtail said quietly. “Certainly I am determined, Wormtail. ” There was a note of menace in the cold voice now.

A slight pause followed — and then Wormtail spoke, the words tumbling from him in a rush, as though he was forcing himself to say this before he lost his nerve.

“It could be done without Harry Potter, My Lord. ” Another pause, more protracted, and then —

“Without Harry Potter? ” breathed the second voice softly. “I see. . . ”

“My Lord, I do not say this out of concern for the boy! ” said Wormtail, his voice rising squeakily. “The boy is nothing to me, nothing at all! It is merely that if we were to use another witch or

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wizard — any wizard — the thing could be done so much more quickly! If you allowed me to leave you for a short while — you know that I can disguise myself most effectively — I could be back here in as little as two days with a suitable person —”

“I could use another wizard, ” said the cold voice softly, “that is true. . . . ”

“My Lord, it makes sense, ” said Wormtail, sounding thoroughly relieved now. “Laying hands on Harry Potter would be so difficult, he is so well protected —”

“And so you volunteer to go and fetch me a substitute? I won- der. . . perhaps the task of nursing me has become wearisome for you, “Wormtail? Could this suggestion of abandoning the plan be nothing more than an attempt to desert me? ”

“My Lord! I — I have no wish to leave you, none at all —” “Do not lie to me! ” hissed the second voice. “I can always tell, Wormtail! You are regretting that you ever returned to me. I revolt you. I see you flinch when you look at me, feel you shudder when you touch me. . . . ”

“No! My devotion to Your Lordship —”

“Your devotion is nothing more than cowardice. You would not be here if you had anywhere else to go. How am I to survive with- out you, when I need feeding every few hours? Who is to milk Nagini? ”

“But you seem so much stronger, My Lord —” “Liar, ” breathed the second voice. “I am no stronger, and a few days alone would be enough to rob me of the little health I have re-

gained under your clumsy care. Silence! ”

Wormtail, who had been sputtering incoherently, fell silent at

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CHAPTER ONE

once. For a few seconds, Frank could hear nothing but the fire crackling. Then the second man spoke once more, in a whisper that was almost a hiss.

“I have my reasons for using the boy, as I have already explained to you, and I will use no other. I have waited thirteen years. A few more months will make no difference. As for the protection sur- rounding the boy, I believe my plan will be effective. All that is needed is a little courage from you, Wormtail — courage you will find, unless you wish to feel the full extent of Lord Voldemort’s wrath —”

“My Lord, I must speak! ” said Wormtail, panic in his voice now. “All through our journey I have gone over the plan in my head — My Lord, Bertha Jorkins’s disappearance will not go unnoticed for long, and if we proceed, if I murder —”

“If? ” whispered the second voice. “ If? If you follow the plan,

Wormtail, the Ministry need never know that anyone else has died. You will do it quietly and without fuss; I only wish that I could do it myself, but in my present condition. . . Come, Wormtail, one more death and our path to Harry Potter is clear. I am not asking

you to do it alone. By that time, my faithful servant will have re-

joined us —”

“ I am a faithful servant, ” said Wormtail, the merest trace of sul-

lenness in his voice.

“Wormtail, I need somebody with brains, somebody whose loy- alty has never wavered, and you, unfortunately, fulfill neither requirement. ”

“I found you, ” said Wormtail, and there was definitely a sulky edge to his voice now. “I was the one who found you. I brought you Bertha Jorkins. ”

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“That is true, ” said the second man, sounding amused. “A stroke of brilliance I would not have thought possible from you, Worm- tail — though, if truth be told, you were not aware how useful she would be when you caught her, were you? ”

“I — I thought she might be useful, My Lord —” “Liar, ” said the second voice again, the cruel amusement more pronounced than ever. “However, I do not deny that her informa- tion was invaluable. Without it, I could never have formed our plan, and for that, you will have your reward, Wormtail. I will al- low you to perform an essential task for me, one that many of my followers would give their right hands to perform. . . . ”

“R-really, My Lord? What —? ” Wormtail sounded terrified again.

“Ah, Wormtail, you don’t want me to spoil the surprise? Your part will come at the very end. . . but I promise you, you will have the honor of being just as useful as Bertha Jorkins. ”

“You. . . you. . . ” Wormtail’s voice suddenly sounded hoarse, as though his mouth had gone very dry. “You. . . are going. . . to kill me too? ”

“Wormtail, Wormtail, ” said the cold voice silkily, “why would I kill you? I killed Bertha because I had to. She was fit for nothing af- ter my questioning, quite useless. In any case, awkward questions would have been asked if she had gone back to the Ministry with the news that she had met you on her holidays. Wizards who are supposed to be dead would do well not to run into Ministry of Magic witches at wayside inns. . . . ”

Wormtail muttered something so quietly that Frank could not hear it, but it made the second man laugh — an entirely mirthless laugh, cold as his speech.

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CHAPTER ONE

“ We could have modified her memory? But Memory Charms can

be broken by a powerful wizard, as I proved when I questioned her.

It would be an insult to her memory not to use the information I ex-

tracted from her, Wormtail. ”

Out in the corridor, Frank suddenly became aware that the hand gripping his walking stick was slippery with sweat. The man with the cold voice had killed a woman. He was talking about it without

any kind of remorse — with amusement. He was dangerous — a

madman. And he was planning more murders — this boy, Harry Potter, whoever he was — was in danger —

Frank knew what he must do. Now, if ever, was the time to go to the police. He would creep out of the house and head straight for the telephone box in the village. . . but the cold voice was speaking again, and Frank remained where he was, frozen to the spot, listen- ing with all his might.

“One more murder. . . my faithful servant at Hogwarts. . . Harry Potter is as good as mine, Wormtail. It is decided. There will be no more argument. But quiet. . . I think I hear Nagini. . . . ” And the second man’s voice changed. He started making noises such as Frank had never heard before; he was hissing and spitting without drawing breath. Frank thought he must be having some sort of fit or seizure.

And then Frank heard movement behind him in the dark pas- sageway. He turned to look, and found himself paralyzed with fright.

Something was slithering toward him along the dark corridor floor, and as it drew nearer to the sliver of firelight, he realized with a thrill of terror that it was a gigantic snake, at least twelve feet long. Horrified, transfixed, Frank stared as its undulating body cut

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THE RIDDLE HOUSE

a wide, curving track through the thick dust on the floor, coming closer and closer — What was he to do? The only means of escape was into the room where two men sat plotting murder, yet if he stayed where he was the snake would surely kill him —

But before he had made his decision, the snake was level with him, and then, incredibly, miraculously, it was passing; it was fol- lowing the spitting, hissing noises made by the cold voice beyond the door, and in seconds, the tip of its diamond-patterned tail had vanished through the gap.

There was sweat on Frank’s forehead now, and the hand on the walking stick was trembling. Inside the room, the cold voice was continuing to hiss, and Frank was visited by a strange idea, an im-

possible idea. . . . This man could talk to snakes.

Frank didn’t understand what was going on. He wanted more than anything to be back in his bed with his hot-water bottle. The problem was that his legs didn’t seem to want to move. As he stood there shaking and trying to master himself, the cold voice switched abruptly to English again.

“Nagini has interesting news, Wormtail, ” it said. “In-indeed, My Lord? ” said Wormtail.

“Indeed, yes, ” said the voice. “According to Nagini, there is an old Muggle standing right outside this room, listening to every word we say. ”

Frank didn’t have a chance to hide himself. There were footsteps, and then the door of the room was flung wide open.

A short, balding man with graying hair, a pointed nose, and small, watery eyes stood before Frank, a mixture of fear and alarm in his face.

“Invite him inside, Wormtail. Where are your manners? ”

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CHAPTER ONE

The cold voice was coming from the ancient armchair before the fire, but Frank couldn’t see the speaker. The snake, on the other hand, was curled up on the rotting hearth rug, like some horrible travesty of a pet dog.

Wormtail beckoned Frank into the room. Though still deeply shaken, Frank took a firmer grip upon his walking stick and limped over the threshold.

The fire was the only source of light in the room; it cast long, spidery shadows upon the walls. Frank stared at the back of the armchair; the man inside it seemed to be even smaller than his ser- vant, for Frank couldn’t even see the back of his head.

“You heard everything, Muggle? ” said the cold voice. “What’s that you’re calling me? ” said Frank defiantly, for now that he was inside the room, now that the time had come for some sort of action, he felt braver; it had always been so in the war.

“I am calling you a Muggle, ” said the voice coolly. “It means that you are not a wizard. ”

“I don’t know what you mean by wizard, ” said Frank, his voice growing steadier. “All I know is I’ve heard enough to interest the police tonight, I have. You’ve done murder and you’re planning more! And I’ll tell you this too, ” he added, on a sudden inspiration, “my wife knows I’m up here, and if I don’t come back —”

“You have no wife, ” said the cold voice, very quietly. “Nobody knows you are here. You told nobody that you were coming. Do not lie to Lord Voldemort, Muggle, for he knows. . . he always knows. . . . ”

“Is that right? ” said Frank roughly. “Lord, is it? Well, I don’t

think much of your manners, My Lord. Turn ’round and face me

like a man, why don’t you? ”

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“But I am not a man, Muggle, ” said the cold voice, barely audi- ble now over the crackling of the flames. “I am much, much more than a man. However. . . why not? I will face you. . . . Wormtail, come turn my chair around. ”

The servant gave a whimper. “You heard me, Wormtail. ”

Slowly, with his face screwed up, as though he would rather have done anything than approach his master and the hearth rug where the snake lay, the small man walked forward and began to turn the chair. The snake lifted its ugly triangular head and hissed slightly as the legs of the chair snagged on its rug.

And then the chair was facing Frank, and he saw what was sit- ting in it. His walking stick fell to the floor with a clatter. He opened his mouth and let out a scream. He was screaming so loudly that he never heard the words the thing in the chair spoke as it raised a wand. There was a flash of green light, a rushing sound, and Frank Bryce crumpled. He was dead before he hit the floor. Two hundred miles away, the boy called Harry Potter woke with a start.

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THE SCAR

arry lay flat on his back, breathing hard as though he had

been running. He had awoken from a vivid dream with

his hands pressed over his face. The old scar on his forehead, which was shaped like a bolt of lightning, was burning beneath his fingers as though someone had just pressed a white-hot wire to his skin. He sat up, one hand still on his scar, the other reaching out in the darkness for his glasses, which were on the bedside table. He put them on and his bedroom came into clearer focus, lit by a faint, misty orange light that was filtering through the curtains from the street lamp outside the window.

Harry ran his fingers over the scar again. It was still painful. He turned on the lamp beside him, scrambled out of bed, crossed the room, opened his wardrobe, and peered into the mirror on the in- side of the door. A skinny boy of fourteen looked back at him, his bright green eyes puzzled under his untidy black hair. He examined

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the lightning-bolt scar of his reflection more closely. It looked normal, but it was still stinging.

Harry tried to recall what he had been dreaming about before he had awoken. It had seemed so real. . . . There had been two people he knew and one he didn’t. . . . He concentrated hard, frowning, trying to remember. . . .

The dim picture of a darkened room came to him. . . . There had been a snake on a hearth rug. . . a small man called Peter, nicknamed Wormtail. . . and a cold, high voice. . . the voice of Lord Voldemort. Harry felt as though an ice cube had slipped down into his stomach at the very thought. . . .

He closed his eyes tightly and tried to remember what Volde- mort had looked like, but it was impossible. . . . All Harry knew was that at the moment when Voldemort’s chair had swung around, and he, Harry, had seen what was sitting in it, he had felt a spasm of horror, which had awoken him. . . or had that been the pain in his scar?

And who had the old man been? For there had definitely been an old man; Harry had watched him fall to the ground. It was all be- coming confused. Harry put his face into his hands, blocking out his bedroom, trying to hold on to the picture of that dimly lit room, but it was like trying to keep water in his cupped hands; the details were now trickling away as fast as he tried to hold on to them. . . . Voldemort and Wormtail had been talking about some- one they had killed, though Harry could not remember the

name. . . and they had been plotting to kill someone else. . . him!

Harry took his face out of his hands, opened his eyes, and stared around his bedroom as though expecting to see something unusual

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CHAPTER TWO

there. As it happened, there were an extraordinary number of un- usual things in this room. A large wooden trunk stood open at the foot of his bed, revealing a cauldron, broomstick, black robes, and assorted spellbooks. Rolls of parchment littered that part of his desk that was not taken up by the large, empty cage in which his snowy owl, Hedwig, usually perched. On the floor beside his bed a book lay open; Harry had been reading it before he fell asleep last night. The pictures in this book were all moving. Men in bright or- ange robes were zooming in and out of sight on broomsticks, throwing a red ball to one another.

Harry walked over to the book, picked it up, and watched one of the wizards score a spectacular goal by putting the ball through a fifty-foot-high hoop. Then he snapped the book shut. Even Quidditch — in Harry’s opinion, the best sport in the world —

couldn’t distract him at the moment. He placed Flying with the

Cannons on his bedside table, crossed to the window, and drew

back the curtains to survey the street below.

Privet Drive looked exactly as a respectable suburban street would be expected to look in the early hours of Saturday morning. All the curtains were closed. As far as Harry could see through the darkness, there wasn’t a living creature in sight, not even a cat.

And yet. . . and yet. . . Harry went restlessly back to the bed and sat down on it, running a finger over his scar again. It wasn’t the pain that bothered him; Harry was no stranger to pain and in- jury. He had lost all the bones from his right arm once and had them painfully regrown in a night. The same arm had been pierced by a venomous foot-long fang not long afterward. Only last year Harry had fallen fifty feet from an airborne broomstick. He was used to bizarre accidents and injuries; they were unavoidable if you

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THE SCAR

attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and had a knack for attracting a lot of trouble.

No, the thing that was bothering Harry was that the last time his scar had hurt him, it had been because Voldemort had been close by. . . . But Voldemort couldn’t be here, now. . . . The idea of Voldemort lurking in Privet Drive was absurd, impossible. . . . Harry listened closely to the silence around him. Was he half- expecting to hear the creak of a stair or the swish of a cloak? And then he jumped slightly as he heard his cousin Dudley give a tremendous grunting snore from the next room.

Harry shook himself mentally; he was being stupid. There was no one in the house with him except Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley, and they were plainly still asleep, their dreams un- troubled and painless.

Asleep was the way Harry liked the Dursleys best; it wasn’t as though they were ever any help to him awake. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley were Harry’s only living relatives. They were Muggles who hated and despised magic in any form, which meant that Harry was about as welcome in their house as dry rot. They had explained away Harry’s long absences at Hogwarts over the last three years by telling everyone that he went to St. Brutus’s Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys. They knew perfectly well that, as an underage wizard, Harry wasn’t allowed to use magic out- side Hogwarts, but they were still apt to blame him for anything that went wrong about the house. Harry had never been able to confide in them or tell them anything about his life in the wizard- ing world. The very idea of going to them when they awoke, and telling them about his scar hurting him, and about his worries about Voldemort, was laughable.

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CHAPTER TWO

And yet it was because of Voldemort that Harry had come to live with the Dursleys in the first place. If it hadn’t been for Voldemort, Harry would not have had the lightning scar on his forehead. If it hadn’t been for Voldemort, Harry would still have had parents. . . . Harry had been a year old the night that Voldemort — the most powerful Dark wizard for a century, a wizard who had been gain- ing power steadily for eleven years — arrived at his house and killed his father and mother. Voldemort had then turned his wand on Harry; he had performed the curse that had disposed of many full-grown witches and wizards in his steady rise to power — and, incredibly, it had not worked. Instead of killing the small boy, the curse had rebounded upon Voldemort. Harry had survived with nothing but a lightning-shaped cut on his forehead, and Volde- mort had been reduced to something barely alive. His powers gone, his life almost extinguished, Voldemort had fled; the terror in which the secret community of witches and wizards had lived for so long had lifted, Voldemort’s followers had disbanded, and Harry Potter had become famous.

It had been enough of a shock for Harry to discover, on his eleventh birthday, that he was a wizard; it had been even more dis- concerting to find out that everyone in the hidden wizarding world knew his name. Harry had arrived at Hogwarts to find that heads turned and whispers followed him wherever he went. But he was used to it now: At the end of this summer, he would be starting his fourth year at Hogwarts, and Harry was already counting the days until he would be back at the castle again.

But there was still a fortnight to go before he went back to school. He looked hopelessly around his room again, and his eye

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THE SCAR

paused on the birthday cards his two best friends had sent him at the end of July. What would they say if Harry wrote to them and told them about his scar hurting?

At once, Hermione Granger’s voice seemed to fill his head, shrill and panicky.

“ Your scar hurt? Harry, that’s really serious. . . . Write to Professor

Dumbledore! And I’ll go and check Common Magical Ailments and

Afflictions. . . . Maybe there’s something in there about curse scars. . . . ”

Yes, that would be Hermione’s advice: Go straight to the head- master of Hogwarts, and in the meantime, consult a book. Harry stared out of the window at the inky blue-black sky. He doubted very much whether a book could help him now. As far as he knew, he was the only living person to have survived a curse like Volde- mort’s; it was highly unlikely, therefore, that he would find his

symptoms listed in Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions. As

for informing the headmaster, Harry had no idea where Dumble- dore went during the summer holidays. He amused himself for a moment, picturing Dumbledore, with his long silver beard, full- length wizard’s robes, and pointed hat, stretched out on a beach somewhere, rubbing suntan lotion onto his long crooked nose. Wherever Dumbledore was, though, Harry was sure that Hedwig would be able to find him; Harry’s owl had never yet failed to de- liver a letter to anyone, even without an address. But what would he write?

Dear Professor Dumbledore, Sorry to bother you, but my scar hurt

this morning. Yours sincerely, Harry Potter.

Even inside his head the words sounded stupid. And so he tried to imagine his other best friend, Ron Weasley’s,

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CHAPTER TWO

reaction, and in a moment, Ron’s red hair and long-nosed, freckled face seemed to swim before Harry, wearing a bemused expression.

“ Your scar hurt? But. . . but You-Know-Who can’t be near you

now, can he? I mean. . . you’d know, wouldn’t you ? He’d be trying to

do you in again, wouldn’t he? I dunno, Harry, maybe curse scars always

twinge a bit. . . . I’ll ask Dad. . . . ”

Mr. Weasley was a fully qualified wizard who worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, but he didn’t have any particular expertise in the matter of curses, as far as Harry knew. In any case, Harry didn’t like the idea of the whole Weasley family knowing that he, Harry, was getting jumpy about a few moments’ pain. Mrs. Weasley would fuss worse than Hermione, and Fred and George, Ron’s sixteen-year-old twin brothers, might think Harry was losing his nerve. The Weasleys were Harry’s favorite family in the world; he was hoping that they might invite him to stay any time now (Ron had mentioned some- thing about the Quidditch World Cup), and he somehow didn’t want his visit punctuated with anxious inquiries about his scar. Harry kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. What he really wanted (and it felt almost shameful to admit it to himself) was

someone like — someone like a parent: an adult wizard whose ad-

vice he could ask without feeling stupid, someone who cared about him, who had had experience with Dark Magic. . . .

And then the solution came to him. It was so simple, and so ob-

vious, that he couldn’t believe it had taken so long — Sirius.

Harry leapt up from the bed, hurried across the room, and sat down at his desk; he pulled a piece of parchment toward him,

loaded his eagle-feather quill with ink, wrote Dear Sirius, then

paused, wondering how best to phrase his problem, still marveling

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THE SCAR

at the fact that he hadn’t thought of Sirius straight away. But then, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising — after all, he had only found out that Sirius was his godfather two months ago.

There was a simple reason for Sirius’s complete absence from Harry’s life until then — Sirius had been in Azkaban, the terrifying wizard jail guarded by creatures called dementors, sightless, soul- sucking fiends who had come to search for Sirius at Hogwarts when he had escaped. Yet Sirius had been innocent — the murders for which he had been convicted had been committed by Worm- tail, Voldemort’s supporter, whom nearly everybody now believed dead. Harry, Ron, and Hermione knew otherwise, however; they had come face-to-face with Wormtail only the previous year, though only Professor Dumbledore had believed their story.

For one glorious hour, Harry had believed that he was leaving the Dursleys at last, because Sirius had offered him a home once his name had been cleared. But the chance had been snatched away from him — Wormtail had escaped before they could take him to the Ministry of Magic, and Sirius had had to flee for his life. Harry had helped him escape on the back of a hippogriff called Buckbeak, and since then, Sirius had been on the run. The home Harry might have had if Wormtail had not escaped had been haunting him all summer. It had been doubly hard to return to the Dursleys know- ing that he had so nearly escaped them forever.

Nevertheless, Sirius had been of some help to Harry, even if he couldn’t be with him. It was due to Sirius that Harry now had all his school things in his bedroom with him. The Dursleys had never allowed this before; their general wish of keeping Harry as miser- able as possible, coupled with their fear of his powers, had led them to lock his school trunk in the cupboard under the stairs every

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CHAPTER TWO

summer prior to this. But their attitude had changed since they had found out that Harry had a dangerous murderer for a god- father — for Harry had conveniently forgotten to tell them that Sirius was innocent.

Harry had received two letters from Sirius since he had been back at Privet Drive. Both had been delivered, not by owls (as was usual with wizards), but by large, brightly colored tropical birds. Hedwig had not approved of these flashy intruders; she had been most reluctant to allow them to drink from her water tray before flying off again. Harry, on the other hand, had liked them; they put him in mind of palm trees and white sand, and he hoped that, wherever Sirius was (Sirius never said, in case the letters were inter- cepted), he was enjoying himself. Somehow, Harry found it hard to imagine dementors surviving for long in bright sunlight; perhaps that was why Sirius had gone south. Sirius’s letters, which were now hidden beneath the highly useful loose floorboard under Harry’s bed, sounded cheerful, and in both of them he had reminded Harry to call on him if ever Harry needed to. Well, he needed to now, all right. . . .

Harry’s lamp seemed to grow dimmer as the cold gray light that precedes sunrise slowly crept into the room. Finally, when the sun had risen, when his bedroom walls had turned gold, and when sounds of movement could be heard from Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia’s room, Harry cleared his desk of crumpled pieces of parch- ment and reread his finished letter.