TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT 29 страница

Both of Moody’s mismatched eyes widened.

“You’re a sharp boy, Potter, ” he said. His magical eye roved back to the Marauder’s Map. “Crouch could be thinking along those lines, ” he said slowly. “Very possible. . . there have been some funny rumors flying around lately — helped along by Rita Skeeter, of course. It’s making a lot of people nervous, I reckon. ” A grim smile twisted his lopsided mouth. “Oh if there’s one thing I hate, ” he muttered, more to himself than to Harry, and his magical eye

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was fixed on the left-hand corner of the map, “it’s a Death Eater who walked free. . . . ”

Harry stared at him. Could Moody possibly mean what Harry thought he meant?

“And now I want to ask you a question, Potter, ” said Moody in a

more businesslike tone.

Harry’s heart sank; he had thought this was coming. Moody was going to ask where he had got this map, which was a very dubious magical object — and the story of how it had fallen into his hands incriminated not only him, but his own father, Fred and George Weasley, and Professor Lupin, their last Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Moody waved the map in front of Harry, who braced himself —

“Can I borrow this? ”

“Oh! ” said Harry.

He was very fond of his map, but on the other hand, he was ex- tremely relieved that Moody wasn’t asking where he’d got it, and there was no doubt that he owed Moody a favor.

“Yeah, okay. ”

“Good boy, ” growled Moody. “I can make good use of this. . .

this might be exactly what I’ve been looking for. . . . Right, bed,

Potter, come on, now. . . . ”

They climbed to the top of the stairs together, Moody still ex- amining the map as though it was a treasure the like of which he had never seen before. They walked in silence to the door of Moody’s office, where he stopped and looked up at Harry.

“You ever thought of a career as an Auror, Potter? ”

“No, ” said Harry, taken aback.

“You want to consider it, ” said Moody, nodding and looking

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at Harry thoughtfully. “Yes, indeed. . . and incidentally. . . I’m guessing you weren’t just taking that egg for a walk tonight? ”

“Er — no, ” said Harry, grinning. “I’ve been working out the clue. ”

Moody winked at him, his magical eye going haywire again. “Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas, Potter. . . . See you in the morning. . . . ”

He went back into his office, staring down at the Marauder’s Map again, and closed the door behind him.

Harry walked slowly back to Gryffindor Tower, lost in thought about Snape, and Crouch, and what it all meant. . . . Why was Crouch pretending to be ill, if he could manage to get to Hogwarts when he wanted to? What did he think Snape was concealing in his office?

And Moody thought he, Harry, ought to be an Auror! Interest- ing idea. . . but somehow, Harry thought, as he got quietly into his four-poster ten minutes later, the egg and the cloak now safely back in his trunk, he thought he’d like to check how scarred the rest of them were before he chose it as a career.

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ou said you’d already worked out that egg clue! ” said

Hermione indignantly.

“Keep your voice down! ” said Harry crossly. “I just need to — sort of fine-tune it, all right? ”

He, Ron, and Hermione were sitting at the very back of the Charms class with a table to themselves. They were supposed to be practicing the opposite of the Summoning Charm today — the Banishing Charm. Owing to the potential for nasty accidents when objects kept flying across the room, Professor Flitwick had given each student a stack of cushions on which to practice, the theory being that these wouldn’t hurt anyone if they went off target. It was a good theory, but it wasn’t working very well. Neville’s aim was so poor that he kept accidentally sending much heavier things flying across the room — Professor Flitwick, for instance.

“Just forget the egg for a minute, all right? ” Harry hissed as Pro- fessor Flitwick went whizzing resignedly past them, landing on top

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of a large cabinet. “I’m trying to tell you about Snape and Moody. . . . ”

This class was an ideal cover for a private conversation, as every- one was having far too much fun to pay them any attention. Harry had been recounting his adventures of the previous night in whis- pered installments for the last half hour.

“Snape said Moody’s searched his office as well? ” Ron whispered, his eyes alight with interest as he Banished a cushion with a sweep of his wand (it soared into the air and knocked Parvati’s hat off). “What. . . d’you reckon Moody’s here to keep an eye on Snape as well as Karkaroff? ”

“Well, I dunno if that’s what Dumbledore asked him to do, but he’s definitely doing it, ” said Harry, waving his wand without pay- ing much attention, so that his cushion did an odd sort of belly flop off the desk. “Moody said Dumbledore only lets Snape stay here because he’s giving him a second chance or something. . . . ” “What? ” said Ron, his eyes widening, his next cushion spinning high into the air, ricocheting off the chandelier, and dropping heavily onto Flitwick’s desk. “Harry. . . maybe Moody thinks

Snape put your name in the Goblet of Fire! ”

“Oh Ron, ” said Hermione, shaking her head sceptically, “we thought Snape was trying to kill Harry before, and it turned out he was saving Harry’s life, remember? ”

She Banished a cushion and it flew across the room and landed in the box they were all supposed to be aiming at. Harry looked at Hermione, thinking. . . it was true that Snape had saved his life once, but the odd thing was, Snape definitely loathed him, just as he’d loathed Harry’s father when they had been at school together. Snape loved taking points from Harry, and had certainly never

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missed an opportunity to give him punishments, or even to suggest that he should be suspended from the school.

“I don’t care what Moody says, ” Hermione went on. “Dumble- dore’s not stupid. He was right to trust Hagrid and Professor Lupin, even though loads of people wouldn’t have given them jobs, so why shouldn’t he be right about Snape, even if Snape is a bit —”

“— evil, ” said Ron promptly. “Come on, Hermione, why are all these Dark wizard catchers searching his office, then? ”

“Why has Mr. Crouch been pretending to be ill? ” said Hermi- one, ignoring Ron. “It’s a bit funny, isn’t it, that he can’t manage to come to the Yule Ball, but he can get up here in the middle of the night when he wants to? ”

“You just don’t like Crouch because of that elf, Winky, ” said Ron, sending a cushion soaring into the window.

“ You just want to think Snape’s up to something, ” said Her-

mione, sending her cushion zooming neatly into the box.

“I just want to know what Snape did with his first chance, if he’s on his second one, ” said Harry grimly, and his cushion, to his very great surprise, flew straight across the room and landed neatly on top of Hermione’s.

Obedient to Sirius’s wish of hearing about anything odd at Hog- warts, Harry sent him a letter by brown owl that night, explaining all about Mr. Crouch breaking into Snape’s office, and Moody and Snape’s conversation. Then Harry turned his attention in earnest to the most urgent problem facing him: how to survive underwater for an hour on the twenty-fourth of February.

Ron quite liked the idea of using the Summoning Charm again — Harry had explained about Aqua-Lungs, and Ron couldn’t

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see why Harry shouldn’t Summon one from the nearest Muggle town. Hermione squashed this plan by pointing out that, in the un- likely event that Harry managed to learn how to operate an Aqua- Lung within the set limit of an hour, he was sure to be disqualified for breaking the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy — it was too much to hope that no Muggles would spot an Aqua-Lung zooming across the countryside to Hogwarts.

“Of course, the ideal solution would be for you to Transfigure yourself into a submarine or something, ” Hermione said. “If only we’d done human Transfiguration already! But I don’t think we start that until sixth year, and it can go badly wrong if you don’t know what you’re doing. . . . ”

“Yeah, I don’t fancy walking around with a periscope sticking out of my head, ” said Harry. “I s’pose I could always attack some- one in front of Moody; he might do it for me. . . . ”

“I don’t think he’d let you choose what you wanted to be turned into, though, ” said Hermione seriously. “No, I think your best chance is some sort of charm. ”

So Harry, thinking that he would soon have had enough of the library to last him a lifetime, buried himself once more among the dusty volumes, looking for any spell that might enable a hu- man to survive without oxygen. However, though he, Ron, and Hermione searched through their lunchtimes, evenings, and whole weekends — though Harry asked Professor McGonagall for a note of permission to use the Restricted Section, and even asked the ir- ritable, vulture-like librarian, Madam Pince, for help — they found nothing whatsoever that would enable Harry to spend an hour underwater and live to tell the tale.

Familiar flutterings of panic were starting to disturb Harry now,

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and he was finding it difficult to concentrate in class again. The lake, which Harry had always taken for granted as just another fea- ture of the grounds, drew his eyes whenever he was near a class- room window, a great, iron-gray mass of chilly water, whose dark and icy depths were starting to seem as distant as the moon.

Just as it had before he faced the Horntail, time was slipping away as though somebody had bewitched the clocks to go extra- fast. There was a week to go before February the twenty-fourth (there was still time). . . there were five days to go (he was bound

to find something soon). . . three days to go ( please let me find

something. . . please ). . .

With two days left, Harry started to go off food again. The only good thing about breakfast on Monday was the return of the brown owl he had sent to Sirius. He pulled off the parchment, unrolled it, and saw the shortest letter Sirius had ever written to him.

Send date of next Hogsmeade weekend by return owl.

Harry turned the parchment over and looked at the back, hop- ing to see something else, but it was blank.

“Weekend after next, ” whispered Hermione, who had read the note over Harry’s shoulder. “Here — take my quill and send this owl back straight away. ”

Harry scribbled the dates down on the back of Sirius’s letter, tied it onto the brown owl’s leg, and watched it take flight again. What had he expected? Advice on how to survive underwater? He had been so intent on telling Sirius all about Snape and Moody he had completely forgotten to mention the egg’s clue.

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“What’s he want to know about the next Hogsmeade weekend for? ” said Ron.

“Dunno, ” said Harry dully. The momentary happiness that had flared inside him at the sight of the owl had died. “Come on. . . Care of Magical Creatures. ”

Whether Hagrid was trying to make up for the Blast-Ended Skrewts, or because there were now only two skrewts left, or be- cause he was trying to prove he could do anything that Professor Grubbly-Plank could, Harry didn’t know, but Hagrid had been continuing her lessons on unicorns ever since he’d returned to work. It turned out that Hagrid knew quite as much about uni- corns as he did about monsters, though it was clear that he found their lack of poisonous fangs disappointing.

Today he had managed to capture two unicorn foals. Unlike full-grown unicorns, they were pure gold. Parvati and Lavender went into transports of delight at the sight of them, and even Pansy Parkinson had to work hard to conceal how much she liked them. “Easier ter spot than the adults, ” Hagrid told the class. “They turn silver when they’re abou’ two years old, an’ they grow horns at aroun’ four. Don’ go pure white till they’re full grown, ’round about seven. They’re a bit more trustin’ when they’re babies. . . don’ mind boys so much. . . . C’mon, move in a bit, yeh can pat ’em if yeh want. . . give ’em a few o’ these sugar lumps. . . .

“You okay, Harry? ” Hagrid muttered, moving aside slightly, while most of the others swarmed around the baby unicorns. “Yeah, ” said Harry.

“Jus’ nervous, eh? ” said Hagrid.

“Bit, ” said Harry.

“Harry, ” said Hagrid, clapping a massive hand on his shoulder,

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so that Harry’s knees buckled under its weight, “I’d’ve bin worried before I saw yeh take on tha’ Horntail, but I know now yeh can do anythin’ yeh set yer mind ter. I’m not worried at all. Yeh’re goin’ ter be fine. Got yer clue worked out, haven’ yeh? ”

Harry nodded, but even as he did so, an insane urge to confess that he didn’t have any idea how to survive at the bottom of the lake for an hour came over him. He looked up at Hagrid — per- haps he had to go into the lake sometimes, to deal with the crea- tures in it? He looked after everything else on the grounds, after all —

“Yeh’re goin’ ter win, ” Hagrid growled, patting Harry’s shoulder again, so that Harry actually felt himself sink a couple of inches

into the soft ground. “I know it. I can feel it. Yeh’re goin’ ter win,

Harry. ”

Harry just couldn’t bring himself to wipe the happy, confident smile off Hagrid’s face. Pretending he was interested in the young unicorns, he forced a smile in return, and moved forward to pat them with the others.

By the evening before the second task, Harry felt as though he were trapped in a nightmare. He was fully aware that even if, by some miracle, he managed to find a suitable spell, he’d have a real job mastering it overnight. How could he have let this happen? Why hadn’t he got to work on the egg’s clue sooner? Why had he ever let his mind wander in class — what if a teacher had once mentioned how to breathe underwater?

He sat with Hermione and Ron in the library as the sun set out- side, tearing feverishly through page after page of spells, hidden from one another by the massive piles of books on the desk in front

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of each of them. Harry’s heart gave a huge leap every time he saw the word “water” on a page, but more often than not it was merely “Take two pints of water, half a pound of shredded mandrake leaves, and a newt. . . ”

“I don’t reckon it can be done, ” said Ron’s voice flatly from the

other side of the table. “There’s nothing. Nothing. Closest was that

thing to dry up puddles and ponds, that Drought Charm, but that was nowhere near powerful enough to drain the lake. ”

“There must be something, ” Hermione muttered, moving a candle closer to her. Her eyes were so tired she was poring over the

tiny print of Olde and Forgotten Bewitchments and Charmes with

her nose about an inch from the page. “They’d never have set a task that was undoable. ”

“They have, ” said Ron. “Harry, just go down to the lake tomor- row, right, stick your head in, yell at the merpeople to give back whatever they’ve nicked, and see if they chuck it out. Best you can do, mate. ”

“There’s a way of doing it! ” Hermione said crossly. “There just has to be! ”

She seemed to be taking the library’s lack of useful information on the subject as a personal insult; it had never failed her before. “I know what I should have done, ” said Harry, resting, face-

down, on Saucy Tricks for Tricky Sorts. “I should’ve learned to be an

Animagus like Sirius. ”

An Animagus was a wizard who could transform into an animal. “Yeah, you could’ve turned into a goldfish any time you wanted! ” said Ron.

“Or a frog, ” yawned Harry. He was exhausted. “It takes years to become an Animagus, and then you have to

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squinting down the index of Weird Wizarding Dilemmas and Their

Solutions. “Professor McGonagall told us, remember. . . you’ve

got to register yourself with the Improper Use of Magic Office. . . what animal you become, and your markings, so you can’t abuse it. . . . ”

“Hermione, I was joking, ” said Harry wearily. “I know I haven’t got a chance of turning into a frog by tomorrow morning. . . . ”

“Oh this is no use, ” Hermione said, snapping shut Weird Wiz-

arding Dilemmas. “Who on earth wants to make their nose hair

grow into ringlets? ”

“I wouldn’t mind, ” said Fred Weasley’s voice. “Be a talking point, wouldn’t it? ”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked up. Fred and George had just emerged from behind some bookshelves.

“What’re you two doing here? ” Ron asked.

“Looking for you, ” said George. “McGonagall wants you, Ron. And you, Hermione. ”

“Why? ” said Hermione, looking surprised.

“Dunno. . . she was looking a bit grim, though, ” said Fred. “We’re supposed to take you down to her office, ” said George. Ron and Hermione stared at Harry, who felt his stomach drop. Was Professor McGonagall about to tell Ron and Hermione off? Perhaps she’d noticed how much they were helping him, when he ought to be working out how to do the task alone?

“We’ll meet you back in the common room, ” Hermione told Harry as she got up to go with Ron — both of them looked very anxious. “Bring as many of these books as you can, okay? ”

“Right, ” said Harry uneasily.

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By eight o’clock, Madam Pince had extinguished all the lamps and came to chivvy Harry out of the library. Staggering under the weight of as many books as he could carry, Harry returned to the Gryffindor common room, pulled a table into a corner, and con-

tinued to search. There was nothing in Madcap Magic for Wacky

Warlocks. . . nothing in A Guide to Medieval Sorcery. . . not one

mention of underwater exploits in An Anthology of Eighteenth-

Century Charms, or in Dreadful Denizens of the Deep , or Powers

You Never Knew You Had and What to Do with Them Now You’ve

Wised Up.

Crookshanks crawled into Harry’s lap and curled up, purring deeply. The common room emptied slowly around Harry. People kept wishing him luck for the next morning in cheery, confident voices like Hagrid’s, all of them apparently convinced that he was about to pull off another stunning performance like the one he had managed in the first task. Harry couldn’t answer them, he just nod- ded, feeling as though there were a golfball stuck in his throat. By ten to midnight, he was alone in the room with Crookshanks. He had searched all the remaining books, and Ron and Hermione had not come back.

It’s over, he told himself. You can’t do it. You’ll just have to go down to the lake in the morning and tell the judges. . . .

He imagined himself explaining that he couldn’t do the task. He pictured Bagman’s look of round-eyed surprise, Karkaroff’s satis- fied, yellow-toothed smile. He could almost hear Fleur Delacour

saying “ I knew it. . . ’ e is too young, ’e is only a little boy. ” He saw

Malfoy flashing his POTTER STINKS badge at the front of the

crowd, saw Hagrid’s crestfallen, disbelieving face. . . .

Forgetting that Crookshanks was on his lap, Harry stood up

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very suddenly; Crookshanks hissed angrily as he landed on the floor, gave Harry a disgusted look, and stalked away with his bot- tlebrush tail in the air, but Harry was already hurrying up the spi- ral staircase to his dormitory. . . . He would grab the Invisibility Cloak and go back to the library, he’d stay there all night if he had to. . . .

“ Lumos, ” Harry whispered fifteen minutes later as he opened the

library door.

Wand tip alight, he crept along the bookshelves, pulling down more books — books of hexes and charms, books on merpeople and water monsters, books on famous witches and wizards, on magical inventions, on anything at all that might include one pass- ing reference to underwater survival. He carried them over to a table, then set to work, searching them by the narrow beam of his wand, occasionally checking his watch. . . .

One in the morning. . . two in the morning. . . the only way

he could keep going was to tell himself, over and over again, next

book. . . in the next one. . . the next one. . .

The mermaid in the painting in the prefects’ bathroom was laugh- ing. Harry was bobbing like a cork in bubbly water next to her rock, while she held his Firebolt over his head.

“Come and get it! ” she giggled maliciously. “Come on, jump! ” “I can’t, ” Harry panted, snatching at the Firebolt, and struggling not to sink. “Give it to me! ”

But she just poked him painfully in the side with the end of the broomstick, laughing at him.

“That hurts — get off — ouch —”

“Harry Potter must wake up, sir! ”

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“Stop poking me —”

“Dobby must poke Harry Potter, sir, he must wake up! ” Harry opened his eyes. He was still in the library; the Invisibil- ity Cloak had slipped off his head as he’d slept, and the side of his

face was stuck to the pages of Where There’s a Wand, There’s a Way.

He sat up, straightening his glasses, blinking in the bright daylight. “Harry Potter needs to hurry! ” squeaked Dobby. “The second task starts in ten minutes, and Harry Potter —”

“Ten minutes? ” Harry croaked. “Ten — ten minutes? ”

He looked down at his watch. Dobby was right. It was twenty past nine. A large, dead weight seemed to fall through Harry’s chest into his stomach.

“Hurry, Harry Potter! ” squeaked Dobby, plucking at Harry’s sleeve. “You is supposed to be down by the lake with the other champions, sir! ”

“It’s too late, Dobby, ” Harry said hopelessly. “I’m not doing the task, I don’t know how —”

“Harry Potter will do the task! ” squeaked the elf. “Dobby knew

Harry had not found the right book, so Dobby did it for him! ”

“What? ” said Harry. “But you don’t know what the second task

is —”

“Dobby knows, sir! Harry Potter has to go into the lake and find his Wheezy —”

“Find my what? ”

“— and take his Wheezy back from the merpeople! ” “What’s a Wheezy? ”

“Your Wheezy, sir, your Wheezy — Wheezy who is giving Dobby his sweater! ”

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Dobby plucked at the shrunken maroon sweater he was now wearing over his shorts.

“ What? ” Harry gasped. “They’ve got. . . they’ve got Ron? ”

“The thing Harry Potter will miss most, sir! ” squeaked Dobby.

“‘ But past an hour —’”

“— ‘the prospect’s black, ’” Harry recited, staring, horror-struck, at

the elf. “‘ Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back . ’ Dobby — what’ve I

got to do? ”

“You has to eat this, sir! ” squeaked the elf, and he put his hand in the pocket of his shorts and drew out a ball of what looked like slimy, grayish-green rat tails. “Right before you go into the lake, sir — gillyweed! ”

“What’s it do? ” said Harry, staring at the gillyweed. “It will make Harry Potter breathe underwater, sir! ” “Dobby, ” said Harry frantically, “listen — are you sure about this? ”

He couldn’t quite forget that the last time Dobby had tried to “help” him, he had ended up with no bones in his right arm. “Dobby is quite sure, sir! ” said the elf earnestly. “Dobby hears things, sir, he is a house-elf, he goes all over the castle as he lights the fires and mops the floors. Dobby heard Professor McGonagall and Professor Moody in the staffroom, talking about the next task. . . . Dobby cannot let Harry Potter lose his Wheezy! ”

Harry’s doubts vanished. Jumping to his feet he pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, stuffed it into his bag, grabbed the gillyweed, and put it into his pocket, then tore out of the library with Dobby at his heels.

“Dobby is supposed to be in the kitchens, sir! ” Dobby squealed

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as they burst into the corridor. “Dobby will be missed — good luck, Harry Potter, sir, good luck! ”

“See you later, Dobby! ” Harry shouted, and he sprinted along the corridor and down the stairs, three at a time.

The entrance hall contained a few last-minute stragglers, all leaving the Great Hall after breakfast and heading through the double oak doors to watch the second task. They stared as Harry flashed past, sending Colin and Dennis Creevey flying as he leapt down the stone steps and out onto the bright, chilly grounds.

As he pounded down the lawn he saw that the seats that had en- circled the dragons’ enclosure in November were now ranged along the opposite bank, rising in stands that were packed to the bursting point and reflected in the lake below. The excited babble of the crowd echoed strangely across the water as Harry ran flat-out around the other side of the lake toward the judges, who were sit- ting at another gold-draped table at the water’s edge. Cedric, Fleur, and Krum were beside the judges’ table, watching Harry sprint to- ward them.

“I’m. . . here. . . ” Harry panted, skidding to a halt in the mud and accidentally splattering Fleur’s robes.

“Where have you been? ” said a bossy, disapproving voice. “The task’s about to start! ”

Harry looked around. Percy Weasley was sitting at the judges’ table — Mr. Crouch had failed to turn up again.

“Now, now, Percy! ” said Ludo Bagman, who was looking in- tensely relieved to see Harry. “Let him catch his breath! ” Dumbledore smiled at Harry, but Karkaroff and Madame Maxime didn’t look at all pleased to see him. . . . It was obvious

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from the looks on their faces that they had thought he wasn’t going to turn up.

Harry bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath; he had a stitch in his side that felt as though he had a knife between his ribs, but there was no time to get rid of it; Ludo Bagman was now moving among the champions, spacing them along the bank at in- tervals of ten feet. Harry was on the very end of the line, next to Krum, who was wearing swimming trunks and was holding his wand ready.

“All right, Harry? ” Bagman whispered as he moved Harry a few feet farther away from Krum. “Know what you’re going to do? ” “Yeah, ” Harry panted, massaging his ribs.

Bagman gave Harry’s shoulder a quick squeeze and returned to the judges’ table; he pointed his wand at his throat as he had done

at the World Cup, said, “ Sonorus! ” and his voice boomed out across

the dark water toward the stands.