Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Ch 32-37

Harry Potter and the First Time Readers

Chapter 32 - Flesh, Blood, and Bone

• Squinting tensely through the darkness, they watched the figure drawing nearer, walking steadily toward them between the graves. Harry couldn't make out a face, but from the way it was walking and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever it was, he was short, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over his head to obscure his face. And - several paces nearer, the gap between them closing all the time - Harry saw that the thing in the person's arms looked like a baby...or was it merely a bundle of robes?
• From far away, above his head, he heard a high, cold voice say, "Kill the spare." A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night: "Avada Kedavra!" A blast of green light blazed through Harry's eyelids, and he heard something heavy fall to the ground beside him; the pain in his scar reached such a pitch that he retched, and then it diminished; terrified of what he was about to see, he opened his stinging eyes. Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him. He was dead.

Q1 - What is your favorite Cedric moment?

Q2 - Did you expect Cedric was going to die.

Q3 - When Wormtail is doing this potion, have you ever seen magic like this?

• But then, through the mist in front of him, he saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron. "Robe me," said the high, cold voice from behind the steam, and Wormtail, sobbing and moaning, still cradling his mutilated arm, scrambled to pick up the black robes from the ground, got to his feet, reached up, and pulled them one-handed over his master's head. The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry...and Harry stared back into the face that had haunted his nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake with slits for nostrils... Lord Voldemort had risen again.

Q4 - Did you think Voldemort was going to come back this early on?

Chapter 33 - The Death Eaters

• Wormtail's robes were shining with blood now; he had wrapped the stump of his arm in them. "My Lord..." he choked, "my Lord...you promised...you did promise..." "Hold out your arm," said Voldemort lazily. "Oh Master...thank you, Master..." He extended the bleeding stump, but Voldemort laughed again. "The other arm, Wormtail." "Master, please...please..." Voldemort bent down and pulled out Wormtail's left arm; he forced the sleeve of Wormtail's robes up past his elbow, and Harry saw something upon the skin there, something like a vivid red tattoo - a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth - the image that had appeared in the sky at the Quidditch World Cup: the Dark Mark. Voldemort examined it carefully, ignoring Wormtail's uncontrollable weeping.

Q1 - Jenn, how did you know about the tattoo?

• "You stand, Harry Potter, upon the remains of my late father," he hissed softly. "A Muggle and a fool...very like your dear mother. But they both had their uses, did they not? Your mother died to defend you as a child...and I killed my father, and see how useful he has proved himself, in death...."

Q2 - Why does Voldemort call Lily a Muggle?

Q3 - At this point, what is your initial impression of Voldemort?

• "And then I ask myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to guard myself against mortal death? They, who had seen proofs of the immensity of my power in the times when I was mightier than any wizard living?

Q4 - Is this why Voldemort didn't die? What is he really talking about here?

• “You ask for forgiveness? I do not forgive. I do not forget. Thirteen long years...I want thirteen years' repayment before I forgive you. Wormtail here has paid some of his debt already, have you not, Wormtail?"

Q5 - Wormtail gets a hand…have you ever seen this kind of magic?

Q6 - Lucious was the originator of the Quidditch World Cup fiasco…did you expect him to be a Death Eater?

• The Dementors will join us…they are our natural allies…we will recall the banished giants…I shall have my devoted servant returned to me, and an army of creatures whom all fear.

Q7 - What other creatures is he talking about?

• "And here we have six missing Death Eaters...three dead in my service. One, too cowardly to return...he will pay. One, who I believe has left me forever...he will be killed, of course...and one, who remains my most faithful servant, and who has already reentered my service."

Q8 - Who is he referring to?

• "He is at Hogwarts, that faithful servant, and it was through his efforts that our young friend arrived here tonight....

Q9 - Who is this?!

• "I miscalculated, my friends, I admit it. My curse was deflected by the woman's foolish sacrifice, and it rebounded upon myself. Aaah...pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing could have prepared me for it. I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost...but still, I was alive. What I was, even I do not know...I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality. You know my goal - to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked...for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it. Nevertheless, I was as powerless as the weakest creature alive, and without the means to help myself...for I had no body, and every spell that might have helped me required the use of a wand.... "I remember only forcing myself, sleeplessly, endlessly, second by second, to exist....I settled in a faraway place, in a forest, and I waited....Surely, one of my faithful Death Eaters would try and find me...one of them would come and perform the magic I could not, to restore me to a body..., but I waited in vain...."

Q10 - What questions is this answering and leaving?

• Wormtail would have had me use any wizard, would you not, Wormtail? Any wizard who had hated me...as so many of them still do. But I knew the one I must use, if I was to rise again, more powerful than I had been when I had fallen. I wanted Harry Potters blood. I wanted the blood of the one who had stripped me of power thirteen years ago...for the lingering protection his mother once gave him would then reside in my veins too....

Q11 - Does Voldy have the protection of Lily now?

• Dumbledore invoked an ancient magic, to ensure the boy's protection as long as he is in his relations' care. Not even I can touch him there.

Q12 - What is he talking about here? Did Dumbly actually prepare?

Chapter 34 - Priori Incantatem

• "We bow to each other. Harry," said Voldemort, bending a little, but keeping his snakelike face upturned to Harry. "Come, the niceties must be observed....Dumbledore would like you to show manners....Bow to death, Harry...."

Q1 - What do you think of Voldemort and Harry’s character here?

• "We are not playing hide-and-seek, Harry," said Voldemort's soft, cold voice, drawing nearer, as the Death Eaters laughed. "You cannot hide from me. Does this mean you are tired of our duel? Does this mean that you would prefer me to finish it now, Harry? Come out, Harry...come out and play, then...it will be quick...it might even be painless...I would not know...I have never died...." Harry crouched behind the headstone and knew the end had come. There was no hope...no help to be had. And as he heard Voldemort draw nearer still, he knew one thing only, and it was beyond fear or reason: He was not going to die crouching here like a child playing hide-and-seek; he was not going to die kneeling at Voldemort's feet...he was going to die upright like his father, and he was going to die trying to defend himself, even if no defense was possible....

Q2 - What is happening to Harry and Voldemort as they duel?

• He concentrated every last particle of his mind upon forcing the bead back toward Voldemort, his ears full of phoenix song, his eyes furious, fixed...and slowly, very slowly, the beads quivered to a halt, and then, just as slowly, they began to move the other way...and it was Voldemort's wand that was vibrating extra-hard now...Voldemort who looked astonished, and almost fearful....

Q3 - Is this how Ghosts are made?

• And now another head was emerging from the tip of Voldemort's wand...and Harry knew when he saw it who it would be...he knew, as though he had expected it from the moment when Cedric had appeared from the wand...knew, because the woman appearing was the one he'd thought of more than any other tonight....

Q4 - Did you expect his mother and father to show up?

Q5 - Did you expect Harry to escape?

Q6 - What happened in this chapter?

Chapter 35 - Veritaserum

• Harry let go of the cup, but he clutched Cedric to him even more tightly. He raised his free hand and seized Dumbledore's wrist, while Dumbledore's face swam in and out of focus. "He's back," Harry whispered. "He's back. Voldemort."

Q1 - Why did Fudge want to tell Amos his son died before he got to his son? Meta Question…

• "Karkaroff's gone? He ran away? But then - he didn't put my name in the goblet?" "No," said Moody slowly. "No, he didn't. It was I who did that." Harry heard, but didn't believe. "No, you didn't," he said. "You didn't do that...you can't have done..."

Q2 - What were you thinking when he was saying all this?

• Decent people are so easy to manipulate, Potter. I was sure Cedric would want to repay you for telling him about the dragons, and so he did.

Q3 - Do you still suspect Krum?

• At that moment, Harry fully understood for the first time why people said Dumbledore was the only wizard Voldemort had ever feared. The look upon Dumbledore's face as he stared down at the unconscious form of Mad-Eye Moody was more terrible than Harry could have ever imagined. There was no benign smile upon Dumbledore's face, no twinkle in the eyes behind the spectacles. There was cold fury in every line of the ancient face; a sense of power radiated from Dumbledore as though he were giving off burning heat.

Q4 - Is this cool, or terrifying?

Q5 - If Crouch had to take it every hour, did he become crouch when he slept?

Q6 - What do you think of Crouch Jr’s whole story?

Q7 - Are there any unanswered questions?

Chapter 36 - The Parting of the Ways

• "If I thought I could help you," Dumbledore said gently, "by putting you into an enchanted sleep and allowing you to postpone the moment when you would have to think about what has happened tonight, I would do it. But I know better. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you. I ask you to demonstrate your courage one more time. I ask you to tell us what happened."

Q1 - Is Sirius right, to want to let Harry sleep, or Dumbledore?

• "He said my blood would make him stronger than if he'd used someone else's," Harry told Dumbledore. "He said the protection my - my mother left in me - he'd have it too. And he was right - he could touch me without hurting himself, he touched my face." For a fleeting instant, Harry thought he saw a gleam of something like triumph in Dumbledore's eyes. But next second. Harry was sure he had imagined it, for when Dumbledore had returned to his seat behind the desk, he looked as old and weary as Harry had ever seen him.

Q2 - What is this gleam of triumph?

• "No spell can reawaken the dead," said Dumbledore heavily. "All that would have happened is a kind of reverse echo. A shadow of the living Cedric would have emerged from the wand...am I correct, Harry?"

Q3 - Do you understand what happened here?

Q4 - Is Fudge a coward?

• "You are blinded," said Dumbledore, his voice rising now, the aura of power around him palpable, his eyes blazing once more, "by the love of the office you hold, Cornelius! You place too much importance, and you always have done, on the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be! Your dementor has just destroyed the last remaining member of a pure-blood family as old as any - and see what that man chose to make of his life! I tell you now- take the steps I have suggested, and you will be remembered, in office or out, as one of the bravest and greatest Ministers of Magic we have ever known. Fail to act - and history will remember you as the man who stepped aside and allowed Voldemort a second chance to destroy the world we have tried to rebuild!"

Q5 - Why doesn’t Fudge believe this?

Q6 - What do you think of Dumbledore here?

• Time is short, and unless the few of us who know the truth do not stand united, there is no hope for any us.
• "Severus," said Dumbledore, turning to Snape, "you know what I must ask you to do. If you are ready...if you are prepared..." "I am," said Snape. He looked slightly paler than usual, and his cold, black eyes glittered strangely. "Then good luck," said Dumbledore, and he watched, with a trace of apprehension on his face, as Snape swept wordlessly after Sirius.

Q7 - What is happening here?

Q8 - How do you think Harry is going to deal with his survivors' guilt?

• There was a loud slamming noise, and Mrs. Weasley and Harry broke apart. Hermione was standing by the window. She was holding something tight in her hand.

Q9 - What is she holding?

Q10 - Does all this make sense?

Chapter 37 - The Beginning

• They did not blame him for what had happened; on the contrary, both thanked him for returning Cedric's body to them. Mr. Diggory sobbed through most of the interview. Mrs. Diggory's grief seemed to be beyond tears.

Q1 - What are your thoughts on the Diggory’s?

• "She went to ask him if you could come straight to us this summer," he said. "But he wants you to go back to the Dursleys, at least at first."

Q2 - Why does Dumbledore want Harry to go back?

• "No good sittin' worryin' abou' it," he said. "What's comin' will come, an we'll meet it when it does. Dumbledore told me wha' you did. Harry."
• Harry caught a glimpse of Cho through the crowd. There were tears pouring silently down her face. He looked down at the table as they all sat down again.

Q3 - What kind of crier are you guys?

• "Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."

Q4 - Do you think people will believe Dumbledore, or not?

Q5 - What do you think about Hermione keep Rita in a jar with a few twigs?

Q6 - What questions do you still have?