"Everything's going to change now, isn't it?"
Hello everyone!
It’s time to return to Hogwarts yet again, and honestly, time flies, doesn’t it? Fourth year means that the students are pretty much halfway through their schooling and will soon have to consider what they want to do in life, and where they want to go.
Before that happens, however, there are some other things that need to be addressed.
After all, it wouldn’t be Harry Potter if things didn’t go wrong, right? Right.
It’s a pretty much given thing that if your name is Harry there’s a fairly good chance you’ll end up in trouble somewhere, somehow, and you’ll have to get yourself (and your friends) out of it. Like Hermione asks in the movie itself, will they EVER get a quiet year at Hogwarts?
Before that happens, however, there are some other things that need to be addressed.
After all, it wouldn’t be Harry Potter if things didn’t go wrong, right? Right.
It’s a pretty much given thing that if your name is Harry there’s a fairly good chance you’ll end up in trouble somewhere, somehow, and you’ll have to get yourself (and your friends) out of it. Like Hermione asks in the movie itself, will they EVER get a quiet year at Hogwarts?
Probably not. Let's be real.
And since this IS fourth year, let’s jump right to it, shall we?
The Goblet of Fire awaits our name.
The Goblet of Fire awaits our name.
Links to the previous blog posts can be found at the bottom of this page, as always. In Philosopher’s Stone, we learned Harry’s a wizard and Voldemort wants to get rid of him; in Chamber of Secrets, this continued, and we first figured out that DADA is a cursed subject that goes through more professors than any other in living history; and in Prisoner of Azkaban, we realized that what Harry was initially told about who betrayed his parents is a fabrication: the truth is even worse than that, but at least he has his godfather, right?
Right.
Still, Goblet of Fire begins a little differently to the other movies, because Harry isn’t necessarily with the Dursleys when it does. This time around, he’s with the Weasleys from the get-go, because they’re all headed to the Quidditch World Cup (Ireland vs Bulgaria, if recall).
Of course, not even a fun-filled outing with a special guest appearance by Edward Cul – I mean Cedric Diggory can stay fun for long.
Because lo and behold, Harry had a dream before it all began – and this dream will follow him throughout the movie. Of a man who swears allegiance to something terrible, and the Dark Mark.
Which, conveniently, reappears after fourteen years, right over the Quidditch cup when the Death Eaters (looking for all the world like members of the KKK gone dark, which was probably the point) come marching and destroying things.
They almost get to Harry then, but thankfully he has staunch friends, and Arthur Weasley still has a good head on his shoulders so the kids don’t get zapped by accident.
Shocked, the trio returns to Hogwarts for another year of studies, which is most definitely interrupted by the announcement that the school will host the Triwizard Tournament, a competition in which three schools vie for glory and a certain Goblet of Fire I’ve already mentioned.
The schools which join Hogwarts are Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, and there’s excitement all along the student body of Hogwarts because among Durmstrang students is Viktor Krum – the Bulgarian wonder child from the Quidditch World Cup!
Not that anything matters by the time Dumbledore pulls the names out of the cup. Cedric Diggory, Fleur Delacour, Viktor Krum.
And Harry Potter.
Because naturally, there’s got to be Harry, right? Right.
Unfortunately Harry has no idea who put his name in there, because he sure as hell didn’t (only students who are seventeen would have been able to, anyway), and now he can’t get out of competing. And on top of THAT, Ron becomes pissy and mad at his best friend for not telling him how he got his name into the goblet in the first place.
As if Harry actually WANTS any of this fame that everyone keeps pinning on to him!
The ridiculous argument lasts until Ron sees how dangerous the Tournament is, but let’s start with the first task, shall we? Hagrid takes Harry to see what it is, and it’s dragons, because why should it be anything simple right?
Right.
Harry, thinking it only fair since he knows that Viktor and Fleur both know about the dragons already, tells Cedric as a fair warning (ignoring how everyone is making fun of him and wearing ridiculous pins because … you know, for some reason Harry’s the unpopular kid, even though I’m pretty sure everybody liked him up until this point; kids are weird). And then he needs to figure out just what he’ll do about HIS dragon.
He gets a little help from Mad-Eye Moody, the new DADA professor who popped up during the initial welcoming banquet, and who seems pretty keen on seeing Harry succeed.
Harry does – but not before doing some home reno with the dragon when it escapes during his attempts to grab the golden egg its guarding. Filch probably loathes the kid, let me tell you.
But the egg is another nut to crack, literally, because the thing only screams bloody murder when Harry opens it.
Since he was good to Cedric though, Cedric returns the favour and tells Harry to go take a bath with the egg, at which point, when opening the egg underwater, Harry actually hears what the next message is, because it was made by merpeople, and he’s going to have one hour to grab whatever it was they took from him.
Nice.
But how to breathe underwater for one hour?
Before we figure that out, tradition dictates that the champions need to celebrate surviving the first task.
Which is why there’s the Yule Ball.
The girls dress up in pretty dresses, Ron bemoans his state of dress robes, Harry gets them both dates for the night, and Hermione goes as date for Viktor Krum, sparking a small sea of fanfiction across the internet.
Obviously Ron is surly about this and everything in general so the night ends in an argument, but, you know.
Neville eventually saves the day when we’re back to tackling the merpeople (this later leads to Snape being his usual waspish self and accusing Harry of making Polyjuice Potion on top of everything else). He gives Harry a special sort of weed that, when chewed, gives the person gills, and so Harry can now go underwater and find Ron tied up below, along with Hermione, Fleur’s sister, and Cho Chang, the girl Harry himself fancies but who Cedric Diggory got to before him. Being the noble heart he is, Harry doesn’t plan on leaving until everyone’s safe, and even risks the wrath of the merpeople when he saves Fleur’s sister on top of Ron because Fleur didn’t complete the challenge.
After the merpeople comes the last task of the Tournament, an enchanted maze that would rather eat you alive than allow you through to the cup that, as a portkey, will fly you back to Dumbledore and the rest (and nobody seems particularly bothered by all the near-death experiences for the kids, so I mean).
Harry’s the one who figures out something’s not right when he sees Fleur being sort of eaten by the maze and the vines there, and he eventually runs into Krum who’s been cursed to get rid of all the contestants. Harry and Cedric manage to dodge him though, and then through a little testosterone tug of war come to the heartbreaking decision to grab the cup in the middle of the maze together.
Harry will probably regret his chivalry for the rest of his life.
Because while, yes, the cup DOES transport them, it doesn’t take them to Dumbledore, but to a graveyard Harry’s seen before in his dreams, and Cedric doesn’t listen to him frantically yelling to get back to the portkey before Wormtail appears and kills him.
Then, of course, Harry gets tied up, and some creepy ass ritual is conducted, including but not limited to tossing a baby-sized Voldemort into a cauldron from which he then emerges as a full adult, back to his usual self – and this time able to touch Harry because Harry’s blood was used in his resurrection.
And because Voldemort is certifiably mad at this point (was he ever not?) he calls the Death Eaters to him, berates them for how they weren’t loyal to him, then challenges Harry to a duel so that he can kill the boy once and for all.
He doesn’t know enough about magic for that even so, however, because their wands connect in a strange way (if you recall, both share phoenix feathers from the same phoenix, making them sisters). From the connection spring the ghosts of Voldemort’s most recent victims, most importantly Lily and James Potter, who tell Harry they’ll distract Voldemort long enough for him to get to the cup (and take Cedric’s body back with him).
This goes according to plan, and Harry is teleported back to Dumbledore, where the initial cheer and celebration is horrifyingly interrupted when they realize Cedric is dead. Harry tells Dumbledore that Voldemort is back, and is then taken to the castle by Moody to recover.
Only, it’s not Moody.
See, we all THOUGHT it was Moody, but remember Snape and his Polyjuice Potion accusation? It was actually would-be Moody, who’s a Death Eater in disguise, Barty Crouch Jr., the man Harry saw in his dreams but couldn’t place until taking a look into the Pensieve in Dumbledore’s office. It’s why things have been a little weird all year, and why Barty Crouch Sr. was found murdered earlier on.
Thankfully the teachers are much, much smarter and faster than Crouch wants, and they corner him, rescue Harry, and get the real Moody out of the deep chest he’s been locked up into.
Then?
Then it’s time to say goodbye to the new friends they made from the other two schools (Viktor even leaves Hermione his address so she can write!), and to Cedric, a loyal and hardworking boy who died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So the kids are now growing up. We made it through the awkward adolescent stage and funky hairdos of this fourth year that made me want to face palm all through the movie, all the burgeoning hormones and emotions, and we survived Rita Skeeter with her horrible gossip column that can’t get anything right. I swear I hated her more than Voldemort in this movie!
And because Voldemort is out there now, fifth year promises to take a turn to the dark side. Tune in next week for The Order of the Phoenix!
xx
*poster image and video not mine, screencaps by me
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