Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, 
 
We have never been introduced, but I am sure you have heard a great deal from Harry about my 
son Ron. 
 
As Harry might have told you, the final of the Quidditch World Cup takes place this Monday 
night, and my husband, Arthur, has just managed to get prime tickets through his connections at 
the Department of Magical Games and Sports. I do hope you will allow us to take Harry to the 
match, as this really is a once-in-a lifetime opportunity; Britain hasn
’
t hosted the cup for thirty 
years, and tickets are extremely hard to come by. We would of course be glad to have Harry stay 
for the remainder of the summer holidays, and to see him safely onto the train back to school. 
 
It would be best for Harry to send us your answer as quickly as possible in the normal way, 
because the Muggle postman has never delivered to our house, and I am not sure he even knows 
where it is. 
 
Hoping to see Harry soon, 
 
Yours sincerely, 
 
Molly Weasley 
 
P.S. I do hope we
’
ve put enough stamps on. 
Uncle Vernon finished reading, put his hand back into his breast pocket, and drew out something 
else. 
“Look at this,” he growled. 
He held up the envelope in which Mrs. Weasley’s letter had come, and Harry had to fight down a 
laugh. Every bit of it was covered in stamps except for a square inch on the front, into which 
Mrs. Weasley had squeezed the Dursleys’ address in minute writing. 
“She did put enough stamps on, then,” said Harry, trying to sound as though Mrs. Weasley’s was 
a mistake anyone could make. His uncle’s eyes flashed. 
“The postman noticed,” he said through gritted teeth. “Very interested to know where this letter 
came from, he was. That’s why he rang the doorbell. Seemed to think it was funny.” 

---

Harry didn’t say anything. Other people might not understand why Uncle Vernon was making a 
fuss about too many stamps, but Harry had lived with the Dursleys too long not to know how 
touchy they were about anything even slightly out of the ordinary. Their worst fear was that 
someone would find out that they were connected (however distantly) with people like Mrs. 
Weasley. 
Uncle Vernon was still glaring at Harry, who tried to keep his expression neutral. If he didn’t do 
or say anything stupid, he might just be in for the treat of a lifetime. He waited for Uncle Vernon 
to say something, but he merely continued to glare. 
Harry decided to break the silence. 
“So - can I go then?” he asked. 
A slight spasm crossed Uncle Vernon’s large purple face. The mustache bristled. Harry thought 
he knew what was going on behind the mustache: a furious battle as two of Uncle Vernon’s most 
fundamental instincts came into conflict. Allowing Harry to go would make Harry happy, 
something Uncle Vernon had struggled against for thirteen years. On the other hand, allowing 
Harry to disappear to the Weasleys’ for the rest of the summer would get rid of him two weeks 
earlier than anyone could have hoped, and Uncle Vernon hated having Harry in the house. To 
give himself thinking time, it seemed, he looked down at Mrs. Weasley’s letter again. 
“Who is this woman?” he said, staring at the signature with distaste. 
“You’ve seen her,” said Harry. “She’s my friend Ron’s mother, she was meeting him off the Hog 
- off the school train at the end of last term.” 
He had almost said “Hogwarts Express,” and that was a sure way to get his uncle’s temper up. 
Nobody ever mentioned the name of Harry’s school aloud in the Dursley household. 
Uncle Vernon screwed up his enormous face as though trying to remember something very 
unpleasant. 
“Dumpy sort of woman?” he growled finally. “Load of children with red hair?” 
Harry frowned. He thought it was a bit rich of Uncle Vernon to call anyone “dumpy,” when his 
own son, Dudley, had finally achieved what he’d been threatening to do since the age of three, 
and become wider than he was tall. Uncle Vernon was perusing the letter again. 
“Quidditch,” he muttered under his breath. “Quidditch - what is this rubbish?” 
Harry felt a second stab of annoyance. 
“It’s a sport,” he said shortly. “Played on broom- “ 

---

“All right, all right!” said Uncle Vernon loudly. Harry saw, with some satisfaction, that his uncle 
looked vaguely panicky. Apparently his nerves couldn’t stand the sound of the word 
“broomsticks” in his living room. He took refuge in perusing the letter again. Harry saw his lips 
form the words “send us your answer… in the normal way.” He scowled. 
“What does she mean, ‘the normal way’?” he spat. 
“Normal for us,” said Harry, and before his uncle could stop him, he added, “you know, owl 
post. That’s what’s normal for wizards.” 
Uncle Vernon looked as outraged as if Harry had just uttered a disgusting swearword. Shaking 
with anger, he shot a nervous look through the window, as though expecting to see some of the 
neighbors with their ears pressed against the glass. 
“How many times do I have to tell you not to mention that unnaturalness under my roof?” he 
hissed, his face now a rich plum color. “You stand there, in the clothes Petunia and I have put on 
your ungrateful back -” 
“Only after Dudley finished with them,” said Harry coldly, and indeed, he was dressed in a 
sweatshirt so large for him that he had had to roll back the sleeves five times so as to be able to 
use his hands, and which fell past the knees of his extremely baggy jeans. 
“I will not be spoken to like that!” said Uncle Vernon, trembling with rage. 
But Harry wasn’t going to stand for this. Gone were the days when he had been forced to take 
every single one of the Dursleys’ stupid rules. He wasn’t following Dudley’s diet, and he wasn’t 
going to let Uncle Vernon stop him from going to the Quidditch World Cup, not if he could help 
it. Harry took a deep, steadying breath and then said, “Okay, I can’t see the World Cup. Can I go 
now, then? Only I’ve got a letter to Sirius I want to finish. You know - my godfather.” 
He had done it, he had said the magic words. Now he watched the purple recede blotchily from 
Uncle Vernon’s face, making it look like badly mixed black currant ice cream. 
“You’re - you’re writing to him, are you?” said Uncle Vernon, in a would-be calm voice - but 
Harry had seen the pupils of his tiny eyes contract with sudden fear. 
“Well - yeah,” said Harry, casually. “It’s been a while since he heard from me, and, you know, if 
he doesn’t he might start thinking something’s wrong.” 
He stopped there to enjoy the effect of these words. He could almost see the cogs working under 
Uncle Vernon’s thick, dark, neatly parted hair. If he tried to stop Harry writing to Sirius, Sirius 
would think Harry was being mistreated. If he told Harry he couldn’t go to the Quidditch World 
Cup, Harry would write and tell Sirius, who would know Harry was being mistreated. There was 
only one thing for Uncle Vernon to do. Harry could see the conclusion forming in his uncle’s 
mind as though the great mustached face were transparent. Harry tried not to smile, to keep his 
own face as blank as possible. And then – 

---

“Well, all right then. You can go to this ruddy… this stupid… this World Cup thing. You write 
and tell these - these Weasleys they’re to pick you up, mind. I haven’t got time to go dropping 
you off all over the country. And you can spend the rest of the summer there. And you can tell 
your - your godfather… tell him… tell him you’re going.” 
“Okay then,” said Harry brightly. 
He turned and walked toward the living room door, fighting the urge to jump into the air and 
whoop. He was going… he was going to the Weasleys’, he was going to watch the Quidditch 
World Cup! Outside in the hall he nearly ran into Dudley, who had been lurking behind the door, 
clearly hoping to overhear Harry being told off. He looked shocked to see the broad grin on 
Harry’s face. 
“That was an excellent breakfast, wasn’t it?” said Harry. “I feel really full, don’t you?” 
Laughing at the astonished look on Dudley’s face, Harry took the stairs three at a time, and 
hurled himself back into his bedroom. 
The first thing he saw was that Hedwig was back. She was sitting in her cage, staring at Harry 
with her enormous amber eyes, and clicking her beak in the way that meant she was annoyed 
about something. Exactly what was annoying her became apparent almost at once. 
“OUCH!” said Harry as what appeared to be a small, gray, feathery tennis ball collided with the 
side of his head. Harry massaged the spot furiously, looking up to see what had hit him, and saw 
a minute owl, small enough to fit into the palm of his hand, whizzing excitedly around the room 
like a loose firework. Harry then realized that the owl had dropped a letter at his feet. Harry bent 
down, recognized Ron’s handwriting, then tore open the envelope. Inside was a hastily scribbled 
note.