Harry Potter - 4 - The Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

Author:J.K. Rowling [J.K. Rowling]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, General, Juvenile Fiction, Science Fiction; Fantasy; Magic, England, Magic, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Imaginary place), Wizards, Potter; Harry (Fictitious character), Schools
ISBN: 9780747574507
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published: 2004-07-09T23:00:00+00:00

The start of De­cem­ber brought wind and sleet to Hog­warts. Drafty though the cas­tle al­ways was in win­ter. Har­ry was glad of its fires and thick walls ev­ery time he passed the Durm­strang ship on the lake, which was pitch­ing in the high winds, its black sails bil­low­ing against the dark skies. He thought the Beaux­ba­tons car­avan was like­ly to be pret­ty chilly too. Ha­grid, he no­ticed, was keep­ing Madame Maxime's hors­es well pro­vid­ed with their pre­ferred drink of sin­gle-​malt whiskey; the fumes waft­ing from the trough in the com­er of their pad­dock was enough to make the en­tire Care of Mag­ical Crea­tures class light-​head­ed. This was un­help­ful, as they were still tend­ing the hor­ri­ble skrewts and need­ed their wits about them.

“I'm not sure whether they hi­ber­nate or not,” Ha­grid told the shiv­er­ing class in the windy pump­kin patch next les­son. “Thought we'd jus' try an see if they fan­cied a kip…we'll jus' set­tle 'em down in these box­es.…”

There were now on­ly ten skrewts left; ap­par­ent­ly their de­sire to kill one an­oth­er had not been ex­er­cised out of them. Each of them was now ap­proach­ing six feet in length. Their thick gray ar­mor; their pow­er­ful, scut­tling legs; their fire-​blast­ing ends; their stings and their suck­ers, com­bined to make the skrewts the most re­pul­sive things Har­ry had ev­er seen. The class looked dispirit­ed­ly at the enor­mous box­es Ha­grid had brought out, all lined with pil­lows and fluffy blan­kets.

“We'll jus' lead 'em in here,” Ha­grid said, “an' put the lids on, and we'll see what hap­pens.”

But the skrewts, it tran­spired, did not hi­ber­nate, and did not ap­pre­ci­ate be­ing forced in­to pil­low-​lined box­es and nailed in. Ha­grid was soon yelling, “Don pan­ic, now, don' pan­ic!” while the skrewts ram­paged around the pump­kin patch, now strewn with the smol­der­ing wreck­age of the box­es. Most of the class - Mal­foy, Crabbe, and Goyle in the lead - had fled in­to Ha­grid's cab­in through the back door and bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves in; Har­ry, Ron, and Hermione, how­ev­er, were among those who re­mained out­side try­ing to help Ha­grid. To­geth­er they man­aged to re­strain and tie up nine of the skrewts, though at the cost of nu­mer­ous burns and cuts; fi­nal­ly, on­ly one skrewt was left.

“Don' fright­en him, now!” Ha­grid shout­ed as Ron and Har­ry used their wands to shoot jets of fiery sparks at the skrewt, which was ad­vanc­ing men­ac­ing­ly on them, its sting arched, quiv­er­ing, over its back. “Jus' try an slip the rope 'round his sting, so he won hurt any o' the oth­ers!”

“Yeah, we wouldn't want that!” Ron shout­ed an­gri­ly as he and Har­ry backed in­to the wall of Ha­grid's cab­in, still hold­ing the skrewt off with their sparks.

“Well, well, well…this does look like fun.”

Ri­ta Skeeter was lean­ing on Ha­grid's gar­den fence, look­ing in at the may­hem. She was wear­ing a thick ma­gen­ta cloak with a fur­ry pur­ple col­lar to­day, and her crocodile-​skin hand­bag was over her arm.

Ha­grid launched him­self for­ward on top of the skrewt that was cor­ner­ing Har­ry and Ron and flat­tened it; a blast of fire shot out of its end, with­er­ing the pump­kin plants near­by.

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