Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Dear Professor Dumbledore,
 

---

Sorry to bother you, but my scar hurt this morning. 
 
Yours sincerely, 
 
Harry Potter. 
 
Even inside his head the words sounded stupid.
And so he tried to imagine his other best friend, Ron Weasley’s, reaction, and in a moment, 
Ron’s red hair and long-nosed, freckled face seemed to swim before Harry, wearing a bemused 
expression. 
“Your scar hurt? But… but You-Know-Who can’t be near you now, can he? I mean… you’d 
know, wouldn’t you? He’d be trying to do you in again, wouldn’t be? I dunno, Harry, maybe 
curse scars always twinge a bit… I’ll ask Dad…” 
Mr. Weasley was a fully qualified wizard who worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office 
at the Ministry of Magic, but he didn’t have any particular expertise in the matter of curses, as far 
as Harry knew. In any case, Harry didn’t like the idea of the whole Weasley family knowing that 
he, Harry, was getting jumpy about a few moments’ pain. Mrs. Weasley would fuss worse than 
Hermione, and Fred and George, Ron’s sixteen- year-old twin brothers, might think Harry was 
losing his nerve. The Weasleys were Harry’s favorite family in the world; he was hoping that 
they might invite him to stay any time now (Ron had mentioned something about the Quidditch 
World Cup), and he somehow didn’t want his visit punctuated with anxious inquiries about his 
scar. 
Harry kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. What he really wanted (and it felt almost 
shameful to admit it to himself) was someone like - someone like a parent: an adult wizard 
whose advice he could ask without feeling stupid, someone who cared about him, who had had 
experience with Dark Magic…
And then the solution came to him. It was so simple, and so obvious, that he couldn’t believe it 
had taken so long - Sirius. 
Harry leapt up from the bed, hurried across the room, and sat down at his desk; he pulled a piece 
of parchment toward him, loaded his eagle-feather quill with ink, wrote Dear Sirius, then paused, 
wondering how best to phrase his problem, still marveling at the fact that he hadn’t thought of 
Sirius straight away. But then, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising - after all, he had only found out 
that Sirius was his godfather two months ago. 
There was a simple reason for Sirius’s complete absence from Harry’s life until then - Sirius had 
been in Azkaban, the terrifying wizard jail guarded by creatures called dementors, sightless, 
soul-sucking fiends who had come to search for Sirius at Hogwarts when he had escaped. Yet 
Sirius had been innocent - the murders for which he had been convicted had been committed by 
Wormtail, Voldemort’s supporter, whom nearly everybody now believed dead. Harry, Ron, and 

---

Hermione knew otherwise, however; they had come face-to-face with Wormtail only the 
previous year, though only Professor Dumbledore had believed their story.
For one glorious hour, Harry had believed that he was leaving the Dursleys at last, because Sirius 
had offered him a home once his name had been cleared. But the chance had been snatched away 
from him - Wormtail had escaped before they could take him to the Ministry of Magic, and 
Sirius had had to flee for his life. Harry had helped him escape on the back of a hippogriff called 
Buckbeak, and since then, Sirius had been on the run. The home Harry might have had if 
Wormtail had not escaped had been haunting him all summer. It had been doubly hard to return 
to the Dursleys knowing that he had so nearly escaped them forever. 
Nevertheless, Sirius had been of some help to Harry, even if he couldn’t be with him. It was due 
to Sirius that Harry now had all his school things in his bedroom with him. The Dursleys had 
never allowed this before; their general wish of keeping Harry as miserable as possible, coupled 
with their fear of his powers, had led them to lock his school trunk in the cupboard under the 
stairs every summer prior to this. But their attitude had changed since they had found out that 
Harry had a dangerous murderer for a godfather - for Harry had conveniently forgotten to tell 
them that Sirius was innocent.
Harry had received two letters from Sirius since he had been back at Privet Drive. Both had been 
delivered, not by owls (as was usual with wizards), but by large, brightly colored tropical birds. 
Hedwig had not approved of these flashy intruders; she had been most reluctant to allow them to 
drink from her water tray before flying off again. Harry, on the other hand, had liked them; they 
put him in mind of palm trees and white sand, and he hoped that, wherever Sirius was (Sirius 
never said, in case the letters were intercepted), he was enjoying himself. Somehow, Harry found 
it hard to imaging dementors surviving for long in bright sunlight, perhaps that was why Sirius 
had gone South. Sirius’s letters, which were now hidden beneath the highly useful loose 
floorboards under Harry’s bed, sounded cheerful, and in both of them he had reminded Harry to 
call on him if ever Harry needed to. Well, he needed to right now, all right…
Harry’s lamp seemed to grow dimmer as the cold gray light that precedes sunrise slowly crept 
into the room. Finally, when the sun had risen, when his bedroom walls had turned gold, and 
when sounds of movement could be heard from Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia’s room, Harry 
cleared his desk of crumpled pieces of parchment and reread his finished letter. 
Dear Sirius, 
 
Thanks for your last letter. That bird was enormous; it could hardly get through my window. 
Things are the same as usual here. Dudley
’
s diet isn
’
t going too well. My aunt found him 
smuggling doughnuts into his room yesterday. They told him they
’
d have to cut his pocket money 
if he keeps doing it, so he got really angry and chucked his PlayStation out of the window. That
’
s 
a sort of computer thing you can play games on. Bit stupid really, now he hasn
’
t even got Mega-
Mutilation Part Three to take his mind off things. 
 
I
’
m okay, mainly because the Dursleys are terrified you might turn up and turn them all into bats 
if I ask you to.

---

A weird thing happened this morning, though. My scar hurt again. Last time that happened it 
was because Voldemort was at Hogwarts. But I don
’
t reckon he can be anywhere near me now, 
can he? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt years afterward? 
 
I
’
ll send this with Hedwig when she gets back; she
’
s off hunting at the moment. Say hello to 
Buckbeak for me.
 
Harry 
Yes, thought Harry, that looked all right. There was no point putting in the dream; he didn’t want 
it to look as though he was too worried. He folded up the parchment and laid it aside on his desk, 
ready for when Hedwig returned. Then he got to his feet, stretched, and opened his wardrobe 
once more. Without glancing at his reflection he started to get dressed before going down to 
breakfast.