The Goblet of Fire

by J. K. Rowling

  ‘Hello, Sirius,’ said Harry, when they had reached him.

  The black dog sniffed Harry’s bag eagerly, wagged its tail once, then turned, and began to trot away from them across the scrubby patch of ground which rose to meet the rocky foot of the mountain. Harry, Ron and Hermione climbed over the stile and followed.

  Sirius led them to the very foot of the mountain, where the ground was covered with boulders and rocks. It was easy for him, with his four paws, but Harry, Ron and Hermione were soon out of breath. They followed Sirius higher, up onto the mountain itself. For nearly half an hour they climbed a steep, winding and stony path, following Sirius’ wagging tail, sweating in the sun, the shoulder straps of Harry’s bag cutting into his shoulders.

  Then, at last, Sirius slipped out of sight, and when they reached the place where he had vanished, they saw a narrow fissure in the rock. They squeezed into it, and found themselves in a cool, dimly lit cave. Tethered at the end of it, one end of his rope around a large rock, was Buckbeak the Hippogriff. Half-grey horse, half-giant eagle, Buckbeak’s fierce orange eye flashed at the sight of them. All three of them bowed low to him, and after regarding them imperiously for a moment, Buckbeak bent his scaly front knees, and allowed Hermione to rush forward and stroke his feathery neck. Harry, however, was looking at the black dog, which had just turned into his godfather.

  Sirius was wearing ragged grey robes; the same ones he had been wearing when he had left Azkaban. His black hair was longer than it had been when he had appeared in the fire, and it was untidy and matted once more. He looked very thin.

  ‘Chicken!’ he said hoarsely, after removing the old Daily Prophets from his mouth and throwing them down onto the cave floor.

  Harry pulled open his bag and handed over the bundle of chicken legs and bread.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Sirius, opening it, grabbing a drumstick, sitting down on the cave floor and tearing off a large chunk with his teeth. ‘I’ve been living off rats mostly. Can’t steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I’d draw attention to myself.’

  He grinned up at Harry, but Harry returned the grin only reluctantly.

  ‘What’re you doing here, Sirius?’ he said.

  ‘Fulfilling my duty as godfather,’ said Sirius, gnawing on the chicken bone in a very dog-like way. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m pretending to be a loveable stray.’

  He was still grinning, but seeing the anxiety in Harry’s face, said more seriously, ‘I want to be on the spot. Your last letter … well, let’s just say things are getting fishier. I’ve been stealing the paper every time someone throws one out, and by the looks of things, I’m not the only one who’s getting worried.’

  He nodded at the yellowing Daily Prophets on the cave floor, and Ron picked them up and unfolded them.

  Harry, however, continued to stare at Sirius. ‘What if they catch you? What if you’re seen?’

  ‘You three and Dumbledore are the only ones round here who know I’m an Animagus,’ said Sirius, shrugging, and continuing to devour the chicken leg.

  Ron nudged Harry, and passed him the Daily Prophets. There were two; the first bore the headline Mystery Illness of Bartemius Crouch, the second, Ministry Witch Still Missing – Minister for Magic Now Personally Involved.

  Harry looked down the story about Crouch. Phrases jumped out at him: hasn’t been seen in public since November … house appears deserted … St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies decline comment … Ministry refuses to confirm rumours of critical illness …

  ‘They’re making it sound like he’s dying,’ said Harry slowly. ‘But he can’t be that ill if he managed to get up here …’

  ‘My brother’s Crouch’s personal assistant,’ Ron informed Sirius. ‘He says Crouch is suffering from overwork.’

  ‘Mind you, he did look ill, last time I saw him up close,’ said Harry slowly, still reading the story. ‘The night my name came out of the Goblet …’

  ‘Getting his comeuppance for sacking Winky, isn’t he?’ said Hermione coldly. She was stroking Buckbeak, who was crunching up Sirius’ chicken bones. ‘I bet he wishes he hadn’t done it now – bet he feels the difference now she’s not there to look after him.’

  ‘Hermione’s obsessed with house-elves,’ Ron muttered to Sirius, casting Hermione a dark look.

  Sirius, however, looked interested. ‘Crouch sacked his house-elf?’

  ‘Yeah, at the Quidditch World Cup,’ said Harry, and he launched into the story of the Dark Mark’s appearance, and Winky being found with Harry’s wand clutched in her hand, and Mr Crouch’s fury.

  When Harry had finished, Sirius was on his feet again, and had started pacing up and down the cave. ‘Let me get this straight,’ he said after a while, brandishing a fresh chicken leg. ‘You first saw the elf in the Top Box. She was saving Crouch a seat, right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Harry, Ron and Hermione together.

  ‘But Crouch didn’t turn up for the match?’

  ‘No,’ said Harry. ‘I think he said he’d been too busy.’

  Sirius paced all around the cave in silence. Then he said, ‘Harry, did you check your pockets for your wand after you’d left the Top Box?’

  ‘Erm …’ Harry thought hard. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘I didn’t need to use it before we got in the forest. And then I put my hand in my pocket, and all that was in there were my Omnioculars.’ He stared at Sirius. ‘Are you saying whoever conjured the Mark stole my wand in the Top Box?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Sirius.

  ‘Winky didn’t steal that wand!’ said Hermione shrilly.

  ‘The elf wasn’t the only one in that box,’ said Sirius, his brow furrowed as he continued to pace. ‘Who else was sitting behind you?’

  ‘Loads of people,’ said Harry. ‘Some Bulgarian ministers … Cornelius Fudge … the Malfoys …’

  ‘The Malfoys!’ said Ron suddenly, so loudly that his voice echoed all around the cave, and Buckbeak tossed his head nervously. ‘I bet it was Lucius Malfoy!’

  ‘Anyone else?’ said Sirius.

  ‘No one,’ said Harry.

  ‘Yes, there was, there was Ludo Bagman,’ Hermione reminded him.

  ‘Oh, yeah …’

  ‘I don’t know anything about Bagman, except that he used to be Beater for the Wimbourne Wasps,’ said Sirius, still pacing. ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘He’s OK,’ said Harry. ‘He keeps offering to help me with the Triwizard Tournament.’

  ‘Does he, now?’ said Sirius, frowning more deeply. ‘I wonder why he’d do that?’

  ‘Says he’s taken a liking to me,’ said Harry.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Sirius, looking thoughtful.

  ‘We saw him in the forest just before the Dark Mark appeared,’ Hermione told Sirius. ‘Remember?’ she said to Harry and Ron.

  ‘Yeah, but he didn’t stay in the forest, did he?’ said Ron. ‘The moment we told him about the riot, he went off to the campsite.’

  ‘How d’you know?’ Hermione shot back. ‘How d’you know where he Disapparated to?’

  ‘Come off it,’ said Ron incredulously, ‘are you saying you reckon Ludo Bagman conjured the Dark Mark?’

  ‘It’s more likely he did it than Winky,’ said Hermione stubbornly.

  ‘Told you,’ said Ron, looking meaningfully at Sirius, ‘told you she’s obsessed with house–’

  But Sirius held up a hand to silence Ron. ‘When the Dark Mark had been conjured, and the elf had been discovered holding Harry’s wand, what did Crouch do?’

  ‘Went to look in the bushes,’ said Harry, ‘but there wasn’t anyone else there.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sirius muttered, pacing up and down, ‘of course, he’d want to pin it on anyone but his own elf … and then he sacked her?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hermione in a heated voice, ‘he sacked her, just because she hadn’t stayed in her tent and let herself get trampled –’

  ‘Hermione, will you give it a rest with the elf!’ said Ron.

  But Sirius sh
ook his head and said, ‘She’s got the measure of Crouch better than you have, Ron. If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.’

  He ran a hand over his unshaven face, evidently thinking hard. ‘All these absences of Barty Crouch’s … he goes to the trouble of making sure his house-elf saves him a seat at the Quidditch World Cup, but doesn’t bother to turn up and watch. He works very hard to reinstate the Triwizard Tournament, and then stops coming to that, too … it’s not like Crouch. If he’s ever taken a day off work because of illness before this, I’ll eat Buckbeak.’

  ‘D’you know Crouch, then?’ said Harry.

  Sirius’ face darkened. He suddenly looked as menacing as the night when Harry had first met him, the night when Harry had still believed Sirius to be a murderer.

  ‘Oh, I know Crouch all right,’ he said quietly. ‘He was the one who gave the order for me to be sent to Azkaban – without a trial.’

  ‘What?’ said Ron and Hermione together.

  ‘You’re kidding!’ said Harry.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ said Sirius, taking another great bite of chicken. ‘Crouch used to be Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, didn’t you know?’

  Harry, Ron and Hermione shook their heads.

  ‘He was tipped as the next Minister for Magic,’ said Sirius. ‘He’s a great wizard, Barty Crouch, powerfully magical – and power-hungry. Oh, never a Voldemort supporter,’ he said, reading the look on Harry’s face. ‘No, Barty Crouch was always very outspoken against the Dark side. But then a lot of people who were against the Dark side … well, you wouldn’t understand … you’re too young …’

  ‘That’s what my dad said at the World Cup,’ said Ron, with a trace of irritation in his voice. ‘Try us, why don’t you?’

  A grin flashed across Sirius’ thin face. ‘All right, I’ll try you…’

  He walked once up the cave, back again, and then said, ‘Imagine that Voldemort’s powerful now. You don’t know who his supporters are, you don’t know who’s working for him and who isn’t; you know he can control people so that they do terrible things without being able to stop themselves. You’re scared for yourself, and your family, and your friends. Every week, news comes of more deaths, more disappearances, more torturing … the Ministry of Magic’s in disarray, they don’t know what to do, they’re trying to keep everything hidden from the Muggles, but meanwhile, Muggles are dying too. Terror everywhere … panic … confusion … that’s how it used to be.

  ‘Well, times like that bring out the best in some people, and the worst in others. Crouch’s principles might’ve been good in the beginning – I wouldn’t know. He rose quickly through the Ministry, and he started ordering very harsh measures against Voldemort’s supporters. The Aurors were given new powers – powers to kill rather than capture, for instance. And I wasn’t the only one who was handed straight to the Dementors without trial. Crouch fought violence with violence, and authorised the use of the Unforgivable Curses against suspects. I would say he became as ruthless and cruel as many on the Dark side. He had his supporters, mind you – plenty of people thought he was going about things the right way, and there were a lot of witches and wizards clamouring for him to take over as Minister for Magic. When Voldemort disappeared, it looked like only a matter of time until Crouch got the top job. But then something rather unfortunate happened …’ Sirius smiled grimly. ‘Crouch’s own son was caught with a group of Death Eaters who’d managed to talk their way out of Azkaban. Apparently they were trying to find Voldemort and return him to power.’

  ‘Crouch’s son was caught?’ gasped Hermione.

  ‘Yep,’ said Sirius, throwing his chicken bone to Buckbeak, and flinging himself back down on the ground beside the loaf of bread, and tearing it in half. ‘Nasty little shock for old Barty, I’d imagine. Should have spent a bit more time at home with his family, shouldn’t he? Ought to have left the office early once in a while … got to know his own son.’

  He began to wolf down large pieces of bread.

  ‘Was his son a Death Eater?’ said Harry.

  ‘No idea,’ said Sirius, still stuffing down bread. ‘I was in Azkaban myself when he was brought in. This is mostly stuff I’ve found out since I got out. The boy was definitely caught in the company of people I’d bet my life were Death Eaters – but he might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like the house-elf.’

  ‘Did Crouch try and get his son off?’ Hermione whispered.

  Sirius let out a laugh that was much more like a bark. ‘Crouch let his son off? I thought you had the measure of him, Hermione? Anything that threatened to tarnish his reputation had to go, he had dedicated his whole life to becoming Minister for Magic. You saw him dismiss a devoted house-elf because she associated him with the Dark Mark again – doesn’t that tell you what he’s like? Crouch’s fatherly affection stretched just far enough to give his son a trial and, by all accounts, it wasn’t much more than an excuse for Crouch to show how much he hated the boy … then he sent him straight to Azkaban.’

  ‘He gave his own son to the Dementors?’ asked Harry quietly.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Sirius, and he didn’t look remotely amused now. ‘I saw the Dementors bringing him in, watched them through the bars in my cell door. He can’t have been more than nineteen. They took him into a cell near mine. He was screaming for his mother by nightfall. He went quiet after a few days, though … they all went quiet in the end … except when they shrieked in their sleep …’

  For a moment, the deadened look in Sirius’ eyes became more pronounced than ever, as though shutters had closed behind them.

  ‘So he’s still in Azkaban?’ Harry said.

  ‘No,’ said Sirius dully. ‘No, he’s not in there any more. He died about a year after they brought him in.’

  ‘He died?’

  ‘He wasn’t the only one,’ said Sirius bitterly. ‘Most go mad in there, and plenty stop eating in the end. They lose the will to live. You could always tell when a death was coming, because the Dementors could sense it, they got excited. That boy looked pretty sickly when he arrived. Crouch being an important Ministry member, he and his wife were allowed a deathbed visit. That was the last time I saw Barty Crouch, half carrying his wife past my cell. She died herself, apparently, shortly afterwards. Grief. Wasted away just like the boy. Crouch never came for his son’s body. The Dementors buried him outside the fortress, I watched them do it.’

  Sirius threw aside the bread he had just lifted to his mouth, and instead picked up the flask of pumpkin juice and drained it.

  ‘So old Crouch lost it all, just when he thought he had it made,’ he continued, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘One moment, a hero, poised to become Minister for Magic … next, his son dead, his wife dead, the family name dishonoured, and, so I’ve heard since I escaped, a big drop in popularity. Once the boy had died, people started feeling a bit more sympathetic towards him, and started asking how a nice young lad from a good family had gone so badly astray. The conclusion was that his father never cared much for him. So Cornelius Fudge got the top job, and Crouch was shunted sideways into the Department of International Magical Co-operation.’

  There was a long silence. Harry was thinking of the way Crouch’s eyes had bulged as he’d looked down at his disobedient house-elf back in the wood at the Quidditch World Cup. This, then, must have been why Crouch had overreacted to Winky being found beneath the Dark Mark. It had brought back memories of his son, and the old scandal, and his fall from grace at the Ministry.

  ‘Moody says Crouch is obsessed with catching Dark wizards,’ Harry told Sirius.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve heard it’s become a bit of a mania with him,’ said Sirius, nodding. ‘If you ask me, he still thinks he can bring back the old popularity by catching one more Death Eater.’

  ‘And he sneaked up here to search Snape’s office!’ said Ron triumphantly, looking at Hermione.

  ‘Y
es, and that doesn’t make sense at all,’ said Sirius.

  ‘Yeah, it does!’ said Ron excitedly.

  But Sirius shook his head. ‘Listen, if Crouch wants to investigate Snape, why hasn’t he been coming to judge the Tournament? It would be an ideal excuse to make regular visits to Hogwarts and keep an eye on him.’

  ‘So you think Snape could be up to something, then?’ asked Harry, but Hermione broke in.

  ‘Look, I don’t care what you say, Dumbledore trusts Snape –’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Hermione,’ said Ron impatiently, ‘I know Dumbledore’s brilliant and everything, but that doesn’t mean a really clever Dark wizard couldn’t fool him –’

  ‘Why did Snape save Harry’s life in the first year, then? Why didn’t he just let him die?’

  ‘I dunno – maybe he thought Dumbledore would kick him out –’

  ‘What d’you think, Sirius?’ Harry said loudly, and Ron and Hermione stopped bickering to listen.

  ‘I think they’ve both got a point,’ said Sirius, looking thoughtfully at Ron and Hermione. ‘Ever since I found out Snape was teaching here, I’ve wondered why Dumbledore hired him. Snape’s always been fascinated by the Dark Arts, he was famous for it at school. Slimy, oily, greasy-haired kid, he was,’ Sirius added, and Harry and Ron grinned at each other. ‘Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in seventh year and he was part of a gang of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be Death Eaters.’

  Sirius held up his fingers, and began ticking off names. ‘Rosier and Wilkes – they were both killed by Aurors the year before Voldemort fell. The Lestranges – they’re a married couple – they’re in Azkaban. Avery – from what I’ve heard he wormed his way out of trouble by saying he’d been acting under the Imperius Curse – he’s still at large. But as far as I know, Snape was never even accused of being a Death Eater – not that that means much. Plenty of them were never caught. And Snape’s certainly clever and cunning enough to keep himself out of trouble.’

  ‘Snape knows Karkaroff pretty well, but he wants to keep that quiet,’ said Ron.