Friday, 6 March 2009

Harry Potter and the goblet of fire

Plot

This Book starts of with Frank Bryce, the Riddle House’s elderly caretaker who had been accused of the murdering of the Riddles over fifty years ago, seeing a light go on in the abandoned mansion. Investigating, he overhears Lord Voldemort and Peter Pettigrew (Wormtail) plotting the death of Harry Potter. Nagini, Voldemort’s Snake, tells Voldemort that Frank is eavesdropping. After a brief talk with Voldemort, Frank is killed by the Dark Lord's Killing Curse.

Soon after, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Fred, George, Ginny, Percy, Bill, Charlie, and Mr. Weasley, go to the Quidditch World Cup, having been invited by Ludo Bagman. After the Cup, a flight of Death Eaters, storm the camp, creating panic and destruction. Harry, Ron, and Hermione flee into the forest, where they see Voldemort’s sign, the Dark Mark, beam into the sky by a man not too far away from them. A group of ministry members, including the head of Department of International Magical Cooperation, Barty Crouch, Sr., arrive and accuse the trio of conjuring the Dark Mark. Harry points out where he saw the man conjuring it and Barty Crouch searched there and only found his house elf, Winky, clutching Harry’s stolen wand. A furious Crouch sacks Winky on the spot, causing Hermione’s near obsession on elf rights.

Professor Dumbledore announces during the Welcoming Feast that Hogwarts would be Hosting the Triwizard Tournament, a centuries-old inter-school competition that was discontinued because it became too dangerous, but has been recently revived. Meanwhile, Hermione begins S.P.E.W. (Society For the Protection of Elfish Welfare), but nobody seems interested on what she has to say because they know that house elves are happy to work.

The Goblet of Fire chooses one student from each competing school. Students must be at least seventeen years old to enter. In addition, if chosen, a champion has no choice but to compete. Cedric Diggory is chosen as Hogwarts’ champion, Fleur Delacour as Beauxbatons’ and Viktor Krum as Durmstrangs’. The Goblet unexpectedly selects a fourth champion, Harry Potter, even though Harry never entered and is underage. This leads to Ron thinking Harry entered without telling him and becomes envious of Harry thinking he is an ‘Attention-seeking git.'

Harry is guided through the tournament by Professor Moody. In the first task, the champions are required to retrieve a golden egg from a dragon. With the advice from Hagrid, Moody, and Hermione, Harry uses a Summoning Charm to summon his broomstick to fly past the dragon and capture the egg, earning high marks. Ron sees that Harry would not have cheated when he sees how dangerous the first task was, and they make-up.

As part of the Triwizard Tournament's tradition, over the Christmas holidays, the students of Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons remain at school to attend the Yule Ball. Harry wants to invite Cho Chang, but when he learns she is attending with Cedric Diggory, he agrees to take Parvati Patil, while her twin sister, Padma, goes with Ron. Hermione attends with Viktor Krum, which makes Ron jealous, made worse by Hermione's unexpectedly beautiful appearance at the Ball.

The second task requires retrieving something important taken from each champion hidden in Hogwarts' lake. The problem is that they must stay underwater for an hour. Ten minutes before the task, Harry is waken up and given gillyweed by Dobby so he can breathe underwater. The gillyweed is successful and Harry finds the four “important objects”: Ron, Hermione, Cho and Fleur’s little sister, Gabrielle. Harry stays on the spot to ensure that everyones is rescued, but Fleur never comes. He is forced to rescue Gabrielle along with Ron, which causes him to lose points but gains points for ‘moral fiber.'

As the remainder of the school year passes, Harry regularly contacts Sirius Black, his godfather, who is on the run for a crime he was wrongfully imprisoned for. One night, Harry and Krum are startled when a disheveled Mr. Crouch emerges from the forest, mumbling nonsense and demanding to see Dumbledore. Harry runs for help, but when he returns with Dumbledore, they find Krum unconscious and Crouch missing.

Harry has a dream about Voldemort during Divination and goes straight to Dumbledore. While waiting in Dumbledore's office for the headmaster's return, Harry discovers a Pensieve, a method of storing memories one does not wish to be continually remembering, and enters it. It contains one of Dumbledore's own memories of a trial in which Barty Crouch, Jr, a Death Eater, was sentenced to Azkaban by his own father for torturing Frank and Alice Longbottom (Neville's parents) into insanity.

The third and final task involves navigating a large maze located on the Quidditch Pitch which is filled with magical obstacles. Harry and Cedric successfully navigate the maze, helping each other on the way. They reach the Triwizard cup and agree on grabbing it together. The Cup turns out to be a portkey that transports them to an old graveyard in Little Hangleton. Peter Pettigrew awaits them, carrying a deformed Lord Voldemort, who orders Pettigrew to "kill the spare" (Cedric). Pettigrew kills Diggory with the Avada Kedavra curse, and gags Harry with a rough kind of material and ties him to the Riddle tombstone. He then uses a bone from Voldemort's father's grave, some of Harry's blood, and his own cutoff hand in a bizarre magical ritual that restores Lord Voldemort to his former powers and a new body.

Voldemort summons his Death Eaters by touching Pettigrew's Dark Mark, and reveals that his servant at Hogwarts ensured that Harry would participate in the tournament, win it, and thus be brought to the graveyard. After giving Pettigrew a new hand made of silver, Voldemort challenges Harry to a duel, and punishes Harry with the Cruciatus Curse. Harry tries to disarm Voldemort with the Expelliarmus spell, at exactly the same time as Voldemort uses the Avada Kedavra (Killing Curse). The two curses meet in the air and interlock, causing an effect called Priori Incantatem (because both their wands are made of phoenix feather from the same phoenix) to take place. This bond between the wands causes the spirits of Voldemort's most recent murdered victims, including Cedric Diggory, Bertha Jorkins, James and Lily Potter, and even the Muggle Frank Bryce, to spill out from his wand. The spirit victims provide protection to Harry, allowing him to escape with Diggory's body and leaving Voldemort behind in a raging anger.

After Harry returns to the school grounds through the portkey, Harry is in a terrible state and he refuses to leave Cedric's body. Through the chaos and woes, Moody takes Harry to his office immediately. He reveals that he has been helping Harry throughout the tournament so that Harry would reach the portkey, thereby going to the graveyard so Voldemort could be restored. Moody then attempts to kill Harry himself, but Dumbledore, Severus Snape, and Minerva McGonagall barge in. Dumbledore had realized that something was wrong when he saw Moody take Harry away from the maze so quickly, and followed them. Dumbledore feeds Moody three drops of Veritaserum, a truth potion, and they discover that "Moody" is actually Barty Crouch, Jr. He was smuggled out of Azkaban by his father and used a Polyjuice Potion to impersonate the real Alastor Moody, who is trapped in a magical trunk. Crouch, Jr. entered Harry's name into the Goblet of Fire, ensuring that Harry completed each difficult task by supplying help one way or another, murdered his own father, transfigured his body into a bone, and buried it. Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, arrives at Hogwarts accompanied by a Dementor. When the Dementor enters the room where Crouch, Jr. was, it swooped down and gave him the fatal “Dementor’s Kiss”, sucking out his soul. He was now worse than dead. Fudge refused to believe Dumbledore's and Harry's word that Voldemort is back. The only proof now besides Dumbledore’s and Harry’s word, was now laying soulless on the floor.

Harry is taken to Dumbledore's office where he reunites with Sirius and he relives his story of his night. He is taken to the hospital wing and is crowned Triwizard Champion and awarded with 1,000 galleons. That night, Dumbledore revives "the old crowd," seeing Fudge and the Ministry denies the resurrection of Voldemort. Days later, Dumbledore then makes an announcement at the gloomy Leaving Feast, telling everybody about Voldemort and saying that to deny the true way Cedric dies would be 'an insult to his memory.' While leaving the Hogwart’s Express on King’s Cross Station, Harry gives his winnings to Fred and George to start a joke shop and Harry sets off for another summer at the Dursleys'.

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