Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

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This article is about the book. See Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film) or Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (video game) for other formats.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth book in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. Published in 2000, the release of this book was surrounded by more hype than any other children's book in recent times - outdone only by its successors, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. At 636 pages (hardback British edition) it was fairly large for a children's book. The book attracted a lot of attention owing to a pre-publication warning from J. K. Rowling that one of the characters would be murdered in the book. This started a stream of rumour and speculation as to who the murdered character would be. The publishing of Goblet of Fire caused unprecedented heights of Pottermania to be reached internationally.

This novel won a Hugo Award in 2001.

Contents

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Editions

Bloomsbury (United Kingdom, Australia, Canada etc.)
Scholastic (United States etc.)

See Harry Potter in translation for foreign editions

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Plot overview

Image:Goblet fire cover.jpg

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Harry spends the end of his summer with the Weasleys before going to the Quidditch World Cup. A group of Death Eaters attack a number of Muggle bystanders and Voldemort’s sign, the Dark Mark causes terror amongst wizards when it is seen again.

Back at school, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher is retired Auror, "Mad-Eye" Moody. The school's Triwizard Tournament is to be restarted, and to be held at Hogwarts. The names of all intending participants will be put into a goblet - known as the Goblet of Fire - which will shoot out one name from each of the three competing schools (Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang). Mysteriously, the Goblet also spits out Harry's name and he is forced to participate. Harry suspects that he has been deliberately put in grave danger, but Ron refuses to believe Harry did not enter himself.

Hagrid reveals the secret first task to Harry and Madame Maxime, Headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy. The champions must battle a dragon in order to retrieve a golden egg. Igor Karkaroff, Headmaster of the Durmstrang Institute also sees the dragons, leaving only official Hogwarts champion Cedric Diggory who does not know what awaits him. Harry feels this is unfair and informs Diggory, but still goes on to win the first task. The task is terrifying for Harry's friends Ron and Hermione, and Harry's friendship with Ron is saved once Ron realises just how dangerous the Tournament will be.

In the last part of the Tournament, Harry and Cedric arrive at the trophy first and decide, because of the help they provided to each other, to grab the trophy at the same time. The trophy turns out to be a Portkey, a magical object which transports them to a graveyard - where they find Peter Pettigrew and Lord Voldemort. Pettigrew kills Cedric, then uses Harry's blood as part of a macabre ritual to restore Voldemort’s body. Voldemort summons the Death Eaters and attempts to kill Harry, but Harry escapes and carrying Cedric’s body uses the trophy to return to Hogwarts.

Back at the castle Professor Moody is revealed as an imposter, Barty Crouch Jr., who has imprisoned the real Moody in a trunk. Crouch had been the one who placed Harry’s name in the goblet. He is captured but a dementor takes his soul before he can be made to repeat his story to Cornelius Fudge, minister of magic, who refuses to believe that Voldemort has returned.

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Long Plot Summary

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The Quidditch World Cup

In this book, Harry Potter spends the end of his summer with the Weasleys in anticipation of the Quidditch World Cup. During the World Cup, a group of Death Eaters attack a number of Muggle bystanders, but flee when the Dark Mark - Voldemort's sign - mysteriously appears above them. The sign is found to have been made by Winky using Harry's wand. Winky serves Barty Crouch, a respected official at the Ministry of Magic and is fired by her master at once. Crouch's treatment of Winky prompts Hermione to start campaigning for elves' rights.

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The Tri-Wizard Tournament

Image:Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire adult edition.jpg There is a surprise in store for Hogwarts students at the start of the new school year. The new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher is famed Auror (a wizard trained to fight the Dark Arts) Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, an old eccentric who manages to simultaneously terrify, awe and amuse the students with his combined paranoia and astonishing knowledge and intelligence. What is more, the Triwizard Tournament, a centuries-old interschool competition that was banned for years due to its increasingly dangerous "tasks" is to be restarted, and to be held at Hogwarts. The names of all intending participants will be put into a goblet - known as the Goblet of Fire - which will shoot out one name from each of the three competing wizarding schools (Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang). After choosing famous international Quidditch player and Durmstrang student Viktor Krum, eerily beautiful Beauxbatons student Fleur Delacour, and Hogwarts Hufflepuff Cedric Diggory, the Goblet spits out Harry's name - although he is too young to have added his name to the Goblet and a Hogwarts champion has already been selected. Harry is forced to participate although he suspects that he has been deliberately put in grave danger. Many students are outraged (particularly as their best efforts to put their names in the Goblet failed) and to Harry's intense dismay, his best friend Ron Weasley is suddenly jealous.

The First Task is an unknown challenge, but Hogwarts gamekeeper Hagrid reveals it to Harry as well as to Madame Maxime, the enormous, elegant Headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy. For the First Task, the champions must battle a dragon in order to retrieve a golden egg from among her own eggs. Igor Karkaroff, Headmaster of the Durmstrang Institute sees the dragons, although from a hiding place. This leaves Cedric Diggory as the only champion not knowing what awaits him. Harry feels it is unfair that all the other champions are aware of what awaits them in the First Task, and informs Diggory. He is surprised when, after Diggory walks away, Professor Moody calls Harry into his study and, not only praises him for telling Diggory about the task, but then hints at how Harry can successfully complete the First Task. At the start of the First Task, the champions randomly draw a numbered miniature dragon from a silk bag, which indicates which species of dragon they will face and in which order the champions will complete their task. Harry is number four, and draws the Hungarian Horntail, supposedly the most dangerous dragon of them all. Harry, with the aid of his broomstick, outmanouvers the dragon and manages to steal the golden egg with only one injury in his shoulder. The task is terrifying for Harry's friends Ron and Hermione, and Harry's friendship with Ron is saved once Ron realises just how perilous the Tournament will be for Harry.

The golden egg provides the clue to the Second Task, which takes place in February.

Harry could not understand the egg's clue. With Cedric's help, he learns that he must retrieve something stolen by the merpeople, who live in the Black Lake adjoining Hogwarts. Dobby gives Harry some gillyweed which allows him to breathe underwater. At the task the champions were informed that their most valuable things have been stolen from them. The people who were stolen were Ron (for Harry), Hermione (for Victor), Cho Chang (for Cedric), and Fleur Delacour’s younger sister. Although Fleur was eliminated in the task, Harry, Cedric and Victor reached the hostages easily. Harry was left with Fleur Delacour’s small sister and Ron so he tried to rescue both. The mer-people tried to prevent him from taking two people, but Harry threatened them with his wand, escaped to the surface with both and was rewarded for his "moral fiber."

In the last part of the Tournament, the four competitors must run through a maze filled with dangerous creatures and spells, in which the Tri-Wizard cup is placed somewhere within. Harry and Cedric arrive at the cup first, and decide, because of the help they provided to each other during the Tournament, to grab the trophy at the same time, since it will be a Hogwarts victory anyway.

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Confrontation in the Graveyard

Image:Goblet of Fire Bloomsbury Paperback Adult.jpg The trophy turns out to be a Portkey, a magical object which transports them to a graveyard - where they find Peter Pettigrew and Lord Voldemort. Peter kills Cedric using the Avada Kedavra curse, then uses Harry's blood as part of a macabre ritual which restores Voldemort and grants him a protection from the charm which had prevented him from harming Harry twice in the past. Voldemort then summons the Death Eaters and attempts to kill Harry, to prove that "the boy who lived" will not be his undoing again.

However, because Harry's and Voldemort's wands are formed from the same core - a feather from Dumbledore's pet phoenix Fawkes - a freak phenomenon known as Priori Incantatem occurs, in which the wands connect by a golden light and Voldemort's wand begins to produce ghostly echoes of its past victims - including Harry's parents. The echoes hold off Voldemort while Harry escapes to the trophy which transports him and Cedric's body back to Hogwarts.

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Barty Crouch, Jr. Revealed

On reaching Hogwarts again, Harry lands in the centre of the confusion caused by his disappearance. He is led up to the castle by his Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and Auror (Dark-wizard-catcher), Professor Moody. Moody reveals himself as a Death Eater, saying that it was he who put Harry's name into the Goblet, and who ensured that Harry made it through the three rounds of the tournament so that he would be delivered to Voldemort. As Moody is about to attack Harry, Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall barge into the room, and stop Moody. After Dumbledore's interrogation of "Prof. Moody", it is revealed that "Moody" was Barty Crouch's son in disguise. The real Moody had been kept imprisoned in a magical trunk for the entire year.

Having learned that Voldemort had risen again, Dumbledore began proceedings to restart the Order of the Phoenix. Snape and the Durmstrang Headmaster are revealed as ex-Death Eaters. Barty Crouch Jr. has his soul sucked out by a Dementor before he can repeat his story to The Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. The Minister refuses to believe that Voldemort has risen again on the word of Dumbledore and Harry, which results in Dumbledore being removed from several important posts within the wizard community, and the reputation of Harry Potter (and Dumbledore) being trampled judiciously in the next book.

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Points of Interest

This book contains only the second instance of narrative not delivered through Harry's point of view - the first chapter, in which the murder of Frank Bryce by Voldemort is described. However, Harry is in fact aware of the events in the chapter to some degree, as they appear to him in a dream. (The first book of the series described Uncle Vernon's encounter with various wizards while the sixth book in the series, published in 2005, contained the next instance of narrative outside Harry's point of view).

In this book, Harry's world expands both physically and figuratively. He goes to places he has never been before (the moor where the World Cup is held, the graveyard), and meets a vast number of people of various nationalities and all types. He learns some profound lessons about good and evil, and the difficulty in distinguishing between the two. This is particularly exemplified in the fake Moody, but other characters like Bagman, Crouch and Karkaroff are all examples of various degrees of evil, or evil and good mixed in strange and unpredictable ways.

In many ways, this book can be seen as the turning point of Harry's transition into adulthood (which is in fact the topic of this whole series). Harry has certainly left childhood behind – for example, he "discovers" girls in this book. But he also encounters far more unpleasant aspects of adulthood, from unwanted and malicious publicity to the death of a classmate (Cedric Diggory).

The magical world takes on an international aspect in this book, with the introduction of the World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament, including the two other large European schools of Magic, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. The crisis caused by Voldemort's return in the end also, in a way, helps to bring the world together.

Spoilers end here.
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External links

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series
Philosopher's Stone
(Sorcerer's Stone in USA) 		book film game
Chamber of Secrets book film game
Prisoner of Azkaban book film game
Goblet of Fire book film game
Order of the Phoenix book (film)  
Half-Blood Prince book (film)  
Unnamed Seventh Book (book)    
Other books Other games
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup
Quidditch Through the Ages  
Plot – Characters – Places – Translations – Wizarding world
WikiProject – Related articles
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