Look at this very cool House Elf Abolitionist Badge you can buy on Etsy!

I love Etsy.

That said, Hermione’s heart is in the right place, but she has it wrong about house elves, which is just one of the thoughts I have about chapters 21-25 of [amazon_link id=”0439139600″ target=”_blank” ]Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire[/amazon_link].

Harry has successfully managed to beat the dragon in the first task, and he is trying to work out the egg clue for the second task, but it just sounds like wailing. Seamus Finnigan says it sounds like a banshee, which is what his boggart is. Neville says it sounds like someone being tortured and wonders if Harry will have to fight the Cruciatus Curse. He has been much preoccupied with this curse, for obvious reasons, and it begs the question: Did he remember, somewhere in the back of his mind, his parents’ torture? He would have been quite young, but it is possible that such an event left an impression on him.

I mentioned Hermione and house elves. As I said, she has good intentions, but house elves do not seem to want to be free, at least not for the most part. Winky is devastated when Crouch frees her, and she never really gets over it. She is so determined to view Dobby as the example instead of an exception to the rule. She can be quite stubborn when she thinks she’s right. On the other hand, Hermione is right. House elves are treated like slaves, and the fact that they seem to like it is ignorance. Even Dobby, the most “forward thinking” elf in terms of his conception of freedom, talks Dumbledore down from a larger paycheck and more benefits. So what do you do? How do you free a people who doesn’t want to be free? How do you educate them about their choices? The issue of house elves is not really resolved in the books, but I would be interested to learn more about them on Pottermore. I hope the issue of house elves is addressed when they release this book on Pottermore.

Harry faces his first major dating challenge and has to confront the dilemma of how to ask a girl out. He sets his sights on Cho Chang, with whom he has a few things in common: she’s a Seeker for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, so at least there is Quidditch to talk about. I have always liked the actress who played her in the movies. Her wonderful Scottish accent! At any rate, of course, she already has a date, and Ron and Harry grow more desperate until Ron is even willing to go with Hermione. I love her response. And I love how gorgeous she looks at the ball. They wind up, of course, with the Patil twins, and Dean Thomas even remarks that he can’t figure out how they managed to get dates with the prettiest girls in their year. Interesting that Neville thinks to ask Hermione out before her two best friends. He seems to be able to appreciate her as a girl and as a friend before they can. As Ron relates, “He told me after Potions! Said she’s always been really nice, helping him out with work and stuff.” Ron thinks Hermione has made up a date to avoid going with Neville.

I have to admit I’ve always found it kind of odd that Viktor Krum asked Hermione out. I mean, she is quite a bit younger than he is, and it’s hard to see what might attract him. I suspect he is a much more serious student than his pro-Quidditch-player background would suggest. I was glad Rowling brought Krum back later in the books. I liked him.

Fred winds up asking Angelina Johnson to the ball. Their relationship is never really elucidated in the books, but Rowling has hinted that they dated for some time because she refers to Angelina as Fred’s ex. That’s not the kind of terminology you use to describe someone with whom you went to one dance. Later on, George winds up marrying Angelina. She has intimated that it is not the healthiest thing to marry your brother’s ex under the circumstances, but also perhaps that George and Angelina came together in their grief over Fred, and they did name their son Fred (they also had a daughter Roxanne).

One last note about the whole date-procuring fiasco. Parvati Patil’s best friend is Lavender Brown, and when Harry asks Parvati to the ball, he initially asks if Lavender will go with Ron, but Lavender already has a date with Seamus. So funny that later on, Lavender will be Won-Won’s first girlfriend.

Later, Hermione has a great time at the ball until Ron ruins the end of her evening by being a jealous jackass. Viktor describes Durmstrang. It sounds sort of stark and cold. Karkaroff is prompted to quiet Viktor so as not to reveal Durmstrang’s secrets, after which Dumbledore and Karkaroff have a short discussion about their school’s secrets, and Dumbledore’s reaction always makes me laugh: “Oh, I would never dream of assuming I know all Hogwarts’ secrets, Igor.” He describes finding the Room of Requirement when he had to use the bathroom. It had been full of chamber pots. In pondering the room’s appearance, he speculates finally that it might only appear when “the seeker has an exceptionally full bladder,” which is the closest explanation to the truth.

Then the Weird Sisters take the stage, and this one aspect of the books that I felt was really well represented in the films. Of course, the filmmakers were able to convince Jarvis Cocker to be the Weird Sisters’ lead singer and write songs for the film.

A side note: Rowling included the passage when Viktor is trying to learn to say Hermione’s name in order to address frequent questions from readers about how to pronounce it. Pretty sneaky, sis.

Ron and Harry overhear Hagrid admitting he is half-giant, and he notices the Rita Skeeter beetle for the first time. She’s a great character, isn’t she? I hope we learn more about her background on Pottermore. My bet is that she was a Slytherin because she doesn’t seem to mind bending the rules—at all—when she’s after a story. She doesn’t strike me as particularly brave, so Gryffindor is out. She is not kind and loyal, so Hufflepuff is out, too. She might possibly be a Ravenclaw because she does have some brains, but I think her ambition and hungry story-seeking is much more dominant in her personality, so my vote is Slytherin. Do you ever try to figure out what House characters whose Houses are not revealed in the series are in?

Naturally, Skeeter prints the news about Hagrid’s mother. Hagrid retreats to his cabin, and he doesn’t come back to work until the trio visit him. They find Dumbledore already there, trying to convince Hagrid to come back to work. Dumbledore says, “Really, Hagrid, if you are holding out for universal popularity, I’m afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time.” Isn’t that the truth? I love Dumbledore. I have always wondered exactly what inappropriate charms Aberforth was practicing on that goat.

In the next chapter, “The Egg and the Eye,” we learn more about the limitations of the Maruader’s Map. It does show everyone, even if they are magically concealed under an invisibility cloak or Polyjuice Potion, but it does not distinguish among people with the same name. Bartemius Crouch, Sr. or Bartemius Crouch, Jr. would both just read Bartemius Crouch, which is why Harry naturally assumes Barty Sr. is poking around Snape’s office. Why on earth would he assume it was Barty Jr.? Who would? But Barty Jr. realizes that the map could reveal his big secret and asks Harry if he can borrow it.

I always found it interesting that when Moody/Crouch arrives when Snape and Filch have found Harry’s egg, and Filch is about to reveal that someone has broken into Snape’s office to Moody, Snape hisses at Filch to “Shut up!” Snape doesn’t trust Moody. Now you could go the obvious route and note that as a former Death Eater, Snape likely tangled with Moody in some capacity, but I have a hunch that he knows something is up with Moody, but is not sure what. Possibly he is more attuned to the effects of Polyjuice Potion than others might be, being the Potions Master. I think it likely he hasn’t figured out that Moody is really Barty Crouch, Jr., though, but that he thinks there is something not quite right with the guy. Snape has pretty good instincts, when he doesn’t let his prejudices blind him, and he does seem to pick up on things that others miss. He did, after all, figure out Lupin was a werewolf back in school.

Interesting that Moody/Crouch suggests Harry consider a career as an Auror. I think it’s the first time Harry ever thinks about it, and even though the suggestion comes from a madman, he winds up doing exactly that with his life later. I still contend that no matter how insane Moody/Crouch was, he was still one of the best DADA teachers Harry had. Even Dean Thomas later says they learned a lot from Barty Jr. despite his being a maniac.

Pottermore has recently released the last chapters of [amazon_link id=”0439136369″ target=”_blank” ]Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban[/amazon_link], but who knows when [amazon_link id=”0439139600″ target=”_blank” ]Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire[/amazon_link] will be ready to go. I am going to try to remember to think of questions I hope will be answered on Pottermore as I go forward. This reflection will cover chapters 11-15 of Goblet of Fire.

Of note: at the beginning of Chapter 11, “Aboard the Hogwarts Express,” Harry expresses feeling “a definite end-of-the-holidays gloom” as he, Hermione, and the Weasleys will be setting off for King’s Cross to board the Hogwarts Express that morning. This is the first time in the series when Harry wishes summer would last longer, and I contend it’s because it’s the first time he’s spent the end of his summer with the Weasleys.

On the train, the trio overhears Malfoy talking about how his father wanted to send him to Durmstrang. I suppose it stands to reason that witches and wizards can attend school outside their home region or country, but this the first time we’ve encountered it in the series. Of course, even if it were unusual, Malfoy would not likely have had any trouble, given the connection between his father and Igor Karkaroff. Have you ever noticed how often the bad guys have Russian or Eastern European names in this series? It really started to bother me a bit the more I noticed it because it almost feels like Cold War era distrust of Soviets and communism.

In the course of the conversation the trio overhears, we learn two interesting things about Durmstrang: 1) According to Malfoy, they don’t admit Muggle-born students, and 2) Students at Durmstrang learn the Dark Arts. Likely Igor Karkaroff alone is not responsible for both policies. We will later learn that Gellert Grindelwald attended Durmstrang, and he was notorious for his desire to subjugate Muggles “for the greater good.” In typical Rowling fashion, she said during an interview that she “thinks that Durmstrang is in northern Scandinavia—the very north of Sweden or Norway and that Beauxbatons is somewhere near Cannes in the south of France.” Durmstrang has been around since at least 1294 because it competed in the Triwizard Tournament that year. The films made an interesting choice in depicting it as a boys’ school (and Beauxbatons as a girls’ school). I am not a fan of that choice, but it didn’t significantly alter the storyline, so it’s not a huge deal.

In chapter 12, “The Triwizard Tournament,” we learn another interesting tidbit about sorting. It stands to reason that families frequently share certain values, such as courage, intelligence, hard work and loyalty, or resourcefulness and ambition. Thus, it is not unusual for families to wind up in the same house. Notable exceptions have occurred. We know, for instance, that Sirius Black is the only Black who wasn’t as Slytherin. The Patil twins are an interesting case, as Parvati is in Gryffindor, and Padma is in Ravenclaw. However, all the Weasleys are in the same house (and the same house as their parents), and Harry was in the same house as his parents. But according to Hermione, it is not necessarily true that family members wind up in the same house, which is interesting for later on when we learn about Sirius’s family. I like it when Rowling plants an interesting fact in her books, but we don’t see it flower until much later.

The Sorting Hat sings a different song this time, and one line goes, “I’ve never yet been wrong.” I wonder about that. I don’t understand, for instance, how Peter Pettigrew wound up in Gryffindor. Pottermore explains beautifully how Neville did, and of course, Neville shows his bravery and courage as the series unfolds. Pettigrew just doesn’t. The Sorting Hat does occasionally have a very hard time deciding where to place students. Students who take longer than five minutes to sort are known as Hatstalls. On Pottermore, we learn that Neville and Hermione came closest to being Hatstalls in Harry’s year. BUT! According to Pottermore, “the Sorting Hat is notorious for refusing to admit it has made a mistake in sorting a student.” So, you can’t believe the hat. I really think that passage was written just to explain Peter Pettigrew.

Another very cool side note on this chapter. A girl named Natalie McDonald is sorted into Gryffindor. Natalie McDonald was a real fan of the books—a young Canadian girl who passed away from leukemia. A family friend had written to Rowling asking her to write to Natalie and tell her how the series would end. Rowling did, but Natalie didn’t receive the letter before she passed. Natalie’s mother responded, and the two women developed a friendship. If you did not tear up a little when you heard that story, then I just don’t know about you, my friend. Here is a link to an article about it.

Towards the end of the chapter, there is yet another mention of Neville’s poor memory. Some fans have speculated he suffered from a poorly-cast memory charm and that he may have seen his parents being tortured. I am not sure if I buy it, but it’s an interesting theory. As evidence, I have seen these fans mention Neville’s upset over seeing the spider undergo the Cruciatus Curse. He also describes the mermish screeching from the Golden Egg as sounding like people being tortured. Later on, when Neville doesn’t sign up for Charms, McGonagall reveals that Augusta Longbottom wasn’t very good at Charms herself, which is why she denigrated it to Neville. If she were the one who cast the memory charm, so the line of thinking goes, perhaps it explains why he seems to suffer in the same way as other characters who have experienced problems with memory charms. At any rate, Rowling mentions it several times, and I wonder if we’ll find out at some point on Pottermore why Neville has such a bad memory. Or maybe there’s no reason. But I am curious.

In chapter 13, “Mad-Eye Moody,” we see Moody turn Malfoy into a bouncing ferret. Satisfying as that may have been, it’s pretty appalling behavior for a professor. I wonder if the real Moody would have done it. I have a lot of questions about Barty Crouch, Jr.

Note also that Professor McGonagall once again has an armful of books that she drops. Someone ought to count how many times she does that in the series. It’s dangerously close to a motif.

In chapter 14, “The Unforgivable Curses,” we learn for the first time exactly how Voldemort killed Harry’s parents. I actually really love this chapter. I am not sure Dumbledore actually does know what Moody is doing in his classes and actually approves, but the end result is that the class learns a lot from him. Even if he is a Death Eater. Also, unusually for a DADA teacher, Moody has communicated with their previous teacher to find out what they have learned. I guess since Quirrell died and Lockhart lost his memory, it would have been impossible for anyone to find out from them what the students had learned, but it is interesting that Moody mentions it.

The class on curses is really interesting. When Moody asks what the three Unforgivable Curses are, Ron volunteers the Imperius Curse, which he would, of course, have heard about from his dad. Neville knows about the Cruciatus Curse. He can’t know he’s possibly looking at one of the Death Eaters who tortured his parents with that curse. Hermione volunteers the Avada Kedavra. Now, I have always thought this part was genius. Avada Kedavra sounds most like the magical phrase abra cadabra that you hear in all sorts of magic shows, cartoons, stories, and even Steve Miller Band songs. It stands to reason the one curse Muggles would know about would be the Killing Curse, as any accidental witnesses wouldn’t likely forget it. But Moody tells us you have to be a powerful wizard to cast it and actually kill anyone with it: “you could all get your wands out and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I’d get so much as a nose-bleed.”

I really hope Pottermore reveals more about the Crouches. I would love to know what house Barty, Jr. was in. I suspect Ravenclaw, but I know others think Slytherin. Not all the bad guys come from that house. Quirrell was a Ravenclaw, and in many ways, Barty, Jr.’s career as a Death Eater seems to follow the same trajectory as Quirrell’s ill-fated entanglement with Voldemort. I also want to know if he really was guilty of torturing the Longbottoms or not. The books leave this open to question.

About the Avada Kedavra, Moody says, “there’s no counter-curse. There’s no blocking it.” Of course, it can be dodged, but that’s not the same thing as Moody’s talking about. “Only one known person has ever survived it, and he’s sitting right in front of me.” That sentence still gives me chills when I read it. Harry thinks, “So that was how his parents had died… exactly like that spider. Had they been unblemished and unmarked, too? Had they simply seen the flash of green light and heard the rush of speeding death, before life was wiped from their bodies?”

Later, Moody takes Neville aside and gives him a book about Mediterranean water plants, telling him Professor Sprout mentioned his aptitude for Herbology. Harry thinks, “Telling Neville what Professor Sprout had said… had been a very tactful way of cheering Neville up, for Neville very rarely heard that he was good at anything. It was the sort of thing Professor Lupin would have done.”

It is rather amazing that despite the fact that DADA is taught by a mentally unstable Death Eater that year, Harry and Co. still learn a lot. Perhaps more than they learned from any other DADA teacher. Even Lupin.

In chapter 15, “Beauxbatons and Durmstrang,” the class’s lessons continue as each of the students is put under the Imperius Curse, and Harry alone fights it. As with casting the Patronus, this ability to fight the Imperius Curse sets Harry apart from his peers in DADA. I still maintain he would have been the best DADA teacher ever had he gone that route with his career. And, in fact, some of his peers comment that he was their best DADA teacher when he teaches the DA how to fight.

Another question I have, and I hope Pottermore addresses it, is why Professor Binns was so preoccupied with goblins. True, the history of Gryffindor’s sword is really important in the last book, but I wouldn’t mind knowing more about why goblins are so important to wizarding history. Or at least to Binns. He has them writing essay after essay about Goblin rebellions in this chapter.

Of course, by the end of the chapter, the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang delegations have arrived. More about all of that anon.

J.K. Rowling begins [amazon_link id=”059035342X” target=”_blank” ]Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone[/amazon_link], [amazon_link id=”0439139600″ target=”_blank” ]Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire[/amazon_link], [amazon_link id=”0439785960″ target=”_blank” ]Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince[/amazon_link], and [amazon_link id=”0545139708″ target=”_blank” ]Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows[/amazon_link] with an outside point of view. In the case of the first book, some exposition is necessary to properly set the stage for the rest of the book. In the case of the other books, Harry is not present for some essential information. I have noticed some folks make rather a big deal of this deviation from Harry’s point of of view, but really, by the end of the series, Rowling employed this alternate POV beginning more often than she didn’t.

The events of Goblet of Fire take place a matter of nine weeks after the end of Prisoner of Azkaban. According to the Harry Potter Lexicon, whom you can usually trust to be quite thorough about these sorts of things, Harry and Co. return to London on the Hogwarts Express on June 18. Pettigrew escapes about June 9. The action of Goblet of Fire picks up again on August 23, when Voldemort murders Frank Bryce, which wakes Harry up with a prickling scar. It sure didn’t take Peter Pettigrew very long to find Voldemort in Albania, did it? He has already been with Voldemort for a few weeks when the events of the novel begin, so let’s say that he has been with Voldemort only three weeks. That would possibly give them enough time to accomplish killing Bertha Jorkins and to return to Britain. That would mean that Pettigrew found Voldemort some time around the beginning of August at the latest. Just kind of interesting to think about in terms of timing.

I always kind of liked that opening chapter. It’s so creepy. I love the description of the Riddle House and the gossipy pub, known as the Hanged Man. The Hanged Man is in the Tarot deck. In his Pictorial Key to the Tarot, A.E. Waite said of this card

The gallows from which he is suspended forms a Tau cross, while the figure—from the position of the legs—forms a fylfot cross. There is a nimbus about the head of the seeming martyr. It should be noted (1) that the tree of sacrifice is living wood, with leaves thereon; (2) that the face expresses deep entrancement, not suffering; (3) that the figure, as a whole, suggests life in suspension, but life and not death. […] It has been called falsely a card of martyrdom, a card a of prudence, a card of the Great Work, a card of duty […] I will say very simply on my own part that it expresses the relation, in one of its aspects, between the Divine and the Universe.

He who can understand that the story of his higher nature is imbedded in this symbolism will receive intimations concerning a great awakening that is possible, and will know that after the sacred Mystery of Death there is a glorious Mystery of Resurrection.

So that’s kind of interesting to think about. Another thing to think about is Frank Bryce. He is described as a war veteran, and at first glance, one assumes World War II. However, if you think about it, it’s not so clear. Frank has been working for the Riddles ever since he returned from the war, whichever war it was, which implies some time, right? Using the descriptor “ever since” the war implies it has been some time, at any rate. However, we know that the events of Goblet of Fire take place in 1994. The murder of the Riddle family happened 50 years earlier, according to the description in the book, so around 1944 or 1945. If Frank had been a World War II veteran, then he hadn’t been working very long at the Riddles’ house when they were murdered. The only way this works is if Frank was wounded earlier in the war, which in Britain, took place from 1939-1945. I think Frank is probably intended to be a World War II veteran because he is too young to be a World War I veteran, but it’s confusingly written. Rowling has repeatedly said that math is not her strong suit, and when people try to pin down events like this, it is clear.

When the Riddles are found, their cook Dot tells everyone that “Nobody forced the door last night! No broken windows!” Everyone assumes that the person who killed the Riddles must have had a key and access to the house. Around 50 years later when Frank goes over to the house to check out the light he sees, he notices that the “front door of the Riddle House bore no sign of being forced, and nor did any of the windows.” It is interesting that Frank doesn’t immediately suspect something is wrong and hightail it home because last time that happened, he was accused of murder.

I really think Rowling is great with exposition. We need to know Voldemort’s plans, and Frank Bryce overhearing Voldemort and Wormtail plot is a brilliant device for sharing them. Dumbledore appears to have been right about Pettigrew, as one of the first things he tries to do is convince Voldemort not to use Harry Potter to return to his body. When Frank is discovered and killed, surely his body is just left in the house, and one has to wonder what the gossip in Little Hangleton was like when Frank Bryce was found in the exact same condition as the Riddles. Of course, he wasn’t sitting at the dinner table, so the authorities may have been more likely to attribute his death to a heart attack or something else. Still, an autopsy should prove otherwise, right?

Chapter 2, “The Scar,” represents the last time in the series when Rowling backtracks and fills in information for readers who might not have read the earlier books. Harry is thinking about how hard it was to return to the Dursleys knowing he very nearly had been able to move in with Sirius. I wonder if Dumbledore would have allowed it, though. Remember that Harry is protected through his familial bond with Petunia.

There is yet another fine example of exposition when Harry writes to Sirius and mentions Dudley’s diet is going poorly.

In Chapter 3, “The Invitation,” Harry is invited to the Quidditch World Cup with the Weasleys, and there is a funny scene when Uncle Vernon retrieves a letter covered in stamps from the postman. Mrs. Weasley’s postscript says, “I do hope we’ve put enough stamps on.” When Harry sees the envelope, completely covered in stamps, he snarkily replies to Vernon, “She did put enough stamps on, then.” Harry in the books is much funnier than movie Harry.

In Chapter 4, “Back to the Burrow,” the Weasleys bust up the Dursleys’ fireplace. I have to admit I can see things from the Dursleys’ point of view in this chapter. I mean, first they demolish my house, then they leave stray bit of candy behind that engorges my son’s tongue. I would think they were mad and dangerous, too. I kind of wonder how Ton Tongue Toffees work. Arthur Weasley says he thinks it is an Engorgement Charm, but it could be a Swelling Solution, too. I wonder how they did in Potions class. I can’t picture Snape liking them very much, but you can’t deny they have learned a few things.

In Chapter 5, “Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes,” Harry finds out that Fred and George want to start a joke shop and have been creating products and order forms. We also get to meet Charlie and Bill for the first time. I like both of the elder Weasley brothers. I kind of wish Charlie hadn’t been deleted from the films. I realize his part’s minor, but still.

Ludo Bagman is first mentioned in this chapter, too. Arthur Weasley says that he is responsible for the Weasleys’ World Cup tickets. His name is interesting. Ludo means “I play” in Latin. A bagman is “an agent who collects or distributes the proceeds of illicit activities.” So his name basically means, “I gamble illegally”! Old Ludo has been derelict in searching for Bertha Jorkins. Wonder why he shows so little interest? Barty Crouch is sure interested. Of course, that’s likely because of the memory charm he’s placed on her. He would want to keep tabs on her.

Image via Christine