How It All Goes Down
The Four Champions
- The Great Hall is absolutely silent.
- Everyone is stunned, not least of all Harry.
- Dumbledore tells Harry to go follow the other champions.
- Harry walks in to a small room where Viktor Krum, Cedric Diggory, and Fleur Delacour are all sitting.
- The five judges all come rushing in.
- Ludo Bagman seems thrilled that Harry is going to be participating in the tournament
- Slightly less pleased are Madame Maxine and Professor Karkaroff.
- They both feel that Hogwarts is trying to cheat its way into having two champions.
- They accuse Dumbledore of messing up the Age Line.
- Harry swears that he didn't enter himself into the competition.
- Mr. Crouch (who is looking rather ill) states curly that, "We must follow the rules, and the rules state clearly that those people whose names come out of the Goblet of Fire are bound to compete in the tournament" (17.48).
- So Harry has to participate, whether he wants to or not.
- As Madame Maxine and Professor Karkaroff keep protesting, Moody points out another potential motive: murdering Harry Potter.
- Professor Karkaroff dismisses Moody's suspicions as paranoid nonsense.
- Done arguing for the time, Mr. Crouch informs the four champions that the first task will be a surprise test of their courage.
- Harry goes up to the Gryffindor dormitory.
- He's depressed and fearful: no one truly seems to believe that he didn't submit his own name to the Goblet of Fire.
- When Harry gets up to Gryffindor, he finds everyone awake and waiting to congratulate him.
- He was right: no one thinks he didn't put his name into the Goblet.
- Harry wants "more than anything to find Ron and Hermione, to find a bit of sanity" (17.124).
- But Harry is wrong if he thinks that's what he's going to get, at least with Ron.
- Ron is waiting in their shared bedroom.
- Ron also thinks that Harry found some way to cheat the Age Line.
- Worse, he thinks Harry deliberately left Ron out.
- Finally, Ron sneers, "You want to get to bed, Harry. I expect you'll need to be up early for a photo-call or something" (17.144).
- Harry feels totally betrayed.