Mark Reads ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’: Chapter 7

In the seventh chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry goes wizard camping. And it might be the best written and most fascinating chapter in the entire series. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Harry Potter.

CHAPTER 7: BAGMAN AND CROUCH

It’s like my mind PREDICTED THE FUTURE or something, because chapter 7 largely answered most of my questions from the review of chapter 6 AND from the wizarding world in general.

I’ll defend that statement in the intro, too. This is some of Rowling’s strongest writing and reminds me of the sense of wonder and fascinating I felt when we first ventured into Diagon Alley.

Love. LOVE.

  • In front of them was a pair of tired and grumpy-looking wizards, one of whom was holding a large gold watch, the other a thick roll of parchment and a quill. Both were dressed as Muggles, though very inexpertly: The man with the watch wore a tweed suit with thigh-length galoshes; his colleague, a kilt and a poncho.

I knew in the first paragraph that this was going to be pretty spectacular. And it is. YES.

  • After about twenty minutes, a small stone cottage next to a gate swam into view. Beyond it, Harry could make out the ghostly shapes of hundreds and hundreds of tents, rising up the gentle slop of a large field toward a dark wood on the horizon.

Wait. They’re not going straight to the Quidditch World Cup? Are you telling me that I am about to witness wizard camping????

ohhhhhhh my god.

Mr. Weasley pays for their campsite and there’s a really strange moment I need to point out.

  • “Help me, Harry,” he muttered, pulling a roll of Muggle money from his pocket and starting to peel the notes apart. “This one’s a–a–a ten? Ah yes, I see the little number on it now….So this is a five?”

    “A twenty,” Harry corrected him in an undertone, uncomfortably aware of Mr. Roberts trying to catch every word.

    “Ah yes, so it is….I don’t know, these little bits of paper…”

Surely wizards know numbers? I mean…really?

Mr. Roberts, the man running the campsite, catches on to this too:

  • “You foreign?” said Mr. Roberts as Mr. Weasley returned with the correct notes.

    “Foreign?” repeated Mr. Weasley, puzzled.

    “You’re not the first one who’s had trouble with money,” said Mr. Roberts, scrutinizing Mr. Weasley closely. “I had two try and pay me with great gold coins the size of hubcaps ten minutes ago.”

Oh shit.

  • “Aye,” he said thoughtfully. “People from all over. Loads of foreigners. And not just foreigners. Weirdos, you know? There’s a bloke walking ’round in a kilt and a poncho.”

    “Shouldn’t he?” said Mr. Weasley anxiously.

Bless your heart, Mr. Weasley.

The description of the wizard camp is pretty fantastic, especially since a great deal of wizards couldn’t resist making their tents…magical?

  • They trudged up the misty field between long rows of tents. Most looked almost ordinary; their owners had clearly tried to make them as Muggle-like as possible, but had slipped up by adding chimneys, or bellpulls, or weather vanes. However, here and there, there was a tent so obviously magical that Harry could hardly be surprised that Mr. Roberts was getting suspicious. Halfway up the field stood an extravagant confection of striped silk like a miniature palace, with several live peacocks tethered at the entrance. A little farther on they passed a tent that had three floors and several turrets; and a short way beyond that was a tent that had a front garden attached, complete with birdbath, sundial, and fountain.

WHY HAVE I NOT BEEN INVITED TO GO CAMPING WITH WIZARDS 🙁 🙁 🙁

Their group arrives at their campsite, on the edge of the grounds, and begins to assemble their tents. I thought it was a bit sad that this was Harry’s first camping experience and that he felt a bit sorry that Mr. Weasley couldn’t afford more tents.

  • All of them stood back to admire their handiwork. Nobody looking at these tents would guess they belonged to wizards, Harry thought, but the trouble was that once Bill, Charlie, and Percy arrived, they would be a party of ten. Hermione seemed to have spotted this problem too; she gave Harry a quizzical look as Mr. Weasley dropped to his hands and knees and entered the first tent.”We’ll be a bit cramped,” he called, “but I think we’ll all squeeze in. Come and have a look.”

Growing up poor, I can totally relate to this. WHY YOU SO SAD

Harry bent down, ducked under the tent flap, and felt his jaw drop. He had walked into what looked like an old-fashioned, three-room flat, complete with bathroom and kitchen. Oddly enough, it was furnished in exactly the same sort of style as Mrs. Figg’s house: There were crocheted covers on the mismatched chairs and a strong smell of cats.

WHAT THE FUCK. No, seriously, why am I not camping with wizards right now?

  • Now, with the sun newly risen and the mist lifting, they could see the city of tents that stretched in every direction. They made their way slowly through the rows, staring eagerly around. It was only just dawning on Harry how many witches and wizards there must be in the world; he had never really thought much about those in other countries.

Can we just talk about this? Look, even I didn’t ever entertain the though that there were other wizard schools or wizard camps or anything non-British. I suppose it makes sense, given that Charlie and Bill were off doing wizard crap in other countries. But this totally opens the world of Harry Potter up to endless possibilities.

EXCITE.

I also like that Rowling (via Harry) spends time wandering around the campsite to share with us the varied cultures present for the Quidditch World Cup, most especially:

  • …while a group of American witches sat gossiping happily beneath a spangled banner stretched between their tents that read: THE SALEM WITCHES’ INSTITUTE.

Oh god WHY IS THIS LIKE THE MOST AWESOMEST THING EVER oh my god.

There’s even more hysterical Muggle fascination too!

  • There was already a small queue for the tap in the corner of the field. Harry, Ron, and Hermione joined it, right behind a pair of men who were having a heated argument. One of them was a very old wizard who was wearing a long flowery nightgown. The other was clearly a Ministry wizard; he was holding out a pair of pin-striped trousers and almost crying with exasperation.

    “Just put them on, Archie, there’s a good chap. You can’t walk around like that, the Muggle at the gate’s already getting suspicious–“

    “I bought this in a Muggle shop,” said the old wizard stubbornly. “Muggles wear them.”

    “Muggle women wear them, Archie, not the men, they wear these,” said the Ministry wizard, and he brandished the pinstriped trousers.

    “I’m not putting them on,” said old Archie in indignation. “I like a healthy breeze ’round my privates, thanks.”

Archie the old wizard: smashing the patriarchy one flowery nightgown at a time.

  • He supposed, now that he saw representatives of so many nationalities in the campsite, that he had been stupid never to realize that Hogwarts couldn’t be the only one. He glanced at Hermione, who looked utterly unsurprised by the information. No doubt she had run across the news about other wizarding schools in some book or other.

Now I feel stupid, too. THIS IS SO AWESOME.

I’m going to put this down so I can remember it, because I have a very strong feeling it will become relevant later. While Mr. Weasley is pointing out important people walking by for Harry and Hermione, he says something quite intriguing:

  • “…and that’s Bode and Croaker…they’re Unspeakables….”

    “They’re what?”

    “From the Department of Mysteries, top secret, no idea what they get up to….”

And then Rowling just MOVES ON as if I’m going to just forget about something called the DEPARTMENT OF MYSTERIES. oh god why did I agree to review this one chapter at a time whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

  • Behind him, a group of haggard-looking Ministry wizards rushed past, pointing at the distant evidence of some sort of a magical fire that was sending violet sparks twenty feet into the air.

First, WHY AM I NOT A WIZARD and second, WHY AM I NOT WIZARD CAMPING.

greatest tragedy of our time

Some more Fred/George comedy? Why yes, please!

  • “Mr. Crouch?” said Percy, suddenly abandoning his look of poker-stiff disapproval and positively writhing with excitement. “He speaks over two hundred! Mermish and Gobbledegook and Troll…”

    “Anyone can speak Troll,” said Fred dismissively. “All you have to do is point and grunt.”

I feel as if I laugh at this, I’m encouraging it. BUT IT MADE ME LAUGH don’t judge.

Barty Crouch, Percy’s favorite wizard of all time, finally shows up and I really adore Rowling’s description of him:

  • A wizard had just Apparated at their fireside, and he could not have made more of a contrast with Ludo Bagman, sprawled on the grass in his old Wasp robes. Barty Crouch was a stiff, upright, elderly man, dressed in an impeccably crisp suit and tie. The parting in his short gray hair was almost unnaturally straight, and his narrow toothbrush mustache looked as though he trimmed it using a slide rule. His shoes were very highly polished. Harry could see at once why Percy idolized him. Percy was a great believer in rigidly following rules, and Mr. Crouch had complied with the rule about Muggle dressing so thoroughly that he could have passed for a bank manager; Harry doubted even Uncle Vernon would have spotted him for what he really was.

I don’t know if Crouch is in this next movie. And don’t tell me if he is or who portrays him. But I am imagining a very dapper Dennis Hopper in this role. DON’T JUDGE.

I’m not going to quote the Magic Carpet conversation, as fantastic as it is, only because Rowling does it again:

  • “Still, it’s not as though we haven’t got anything to look forward to, eh, Barty? Eh? Plenty left to organize, eh?”

    Mr. Crouch raised his eyebrows at Bagman.

    “We agreed not to make the announcement until all the details–“

    “Oh details!” said Bagman, waving the word away like a cloud of midges. “They’ve signed, haven’t they? They’ve agreed, haven’t they? I bet you anything these kids’ll know soon enough anyway. I mean, it’s happening at Hogwarts–“

AND THEN NOTHING MORE. Rowling ARE YOU TRYING TO PUT ME IN A STRESS-INDUCED COMA oh god whyyyyyy

The next chapter is the Quidditch World Cup. And I think I am genuinely excited for a Quidditch match. BRING IT ON.