This is my complete summary for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I included as much detail as possible without making it as long as the book because it has many clues to what is going on and it is a lot of fun to link them at the end. I hope you enjoy it!
The book starts with the history of a place called the Riddle House. Fifty years ago, the owners, the Riddles, and their adult child were found dead in the house, without a mark on them. At present day a gardener, Frank, is still taking care of the house, which is now abandoned. He sees a light in the house and is afraid teenagers are burning down the house, so he goes to investigate. In the house he overhears two voices, Voldemort and Wormtail, talking about “Muggles,” “Quidditch World Cup,” and “Harry Potter.” They also mention a woman named Bertha Jorkins and memory charms. They discover Frank, bring him in, there is a flash of green light and… Harry Potter wakes up, his scar hurting.
Harry decides to include
information about his scar hurting and the dream in a letter to his godfather,
Sirius and waits to mail it. That day in the mail comes a letter to Uncle
Vernon (Harry’s uncle), covered in stamps. It’s from the Weasleys and they are
inviting Harry to the Quidditch World Cup between
At the Weasley’s house, Harry meets
up with the rest of Ron’s family and Hermione. Ron’s older brother Percy is
very proud of his job working for Barty Crouch at the ministry. The next day,
they get up early so Mr. Weasley and the younger kids can take a Portkey to the
Quidditch world cup. A portkey is any object that has been bewitched so when
someone touches it, it will transport the person to a designated place. Also
taking the portkey with them is another Hogwarts student, Cedric Diggory, and his
father. They arrive at the campground, run by a suspicious Muggle who has to
keep having memory charms done and work on camping. (They have tents which on
the inside look like 2 room flats.) They meet up with Ludo Bagman, a former
Quidditch player and the Minister of Magical Games. Mr. Weasley asks if they’ve
found Bertha Jorkins and Bagman just says that Bertha always had bad memory,
and probably got lost, but that Mr. Crouch had been very concerned because she
used to work for him. Fred and George bet all their savings with Mr. Bagman
that
They attend the game. In the box is
also the entire Malfoy family, the Minister of Magic and a Bulgarian
equivalent, and Barty Crouch’s house elf, Winky, who is saving an empty seat
for him, but Crouch never comes. There is a pre-game show with Leprechauns for
That night, Harry is roused from sleep to find the campground in a state of panic. Some cloaked and masked wizards are floating the Campground owner and his family in the air and destroying tents. Harry, Ron, and Hermione run into the forest where they see several people, such as Draco Malfoy, who makes no attempt to hide that his parents are probably among the masked, Ludo Bagman, and Winky dragging herself very difficultly away from the campground. The three pull out their wands, but Harry finds his is missing. A second later they hear a deep voice mutter a spell and a strange symbol appears in the sky, the Dark Mark, the symbol of the Death Eaters, servants of Voldemort. Several wizards come and blast the area, but all they find is Winky holding Harry’s wand, which was the wand that conjured the Mark. Crouch tells Winky this means he will have to give her clothes, which is the way of discharging a house-elf.
Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys return home and get ready for the start of school. On the way they pass the camp ground owner who can’t remember anything and Mr. Weasley says that forgetfulness is a side effect of memory charms. On the day they leave, a friend of the family, Mad-Eye Moody makes a big disturbance, alerting the Muggles and Mr. Weasley has to go help him. The others leave for school.
They arrive at school fine and get into the Great Hall. Dumbledore is about to start his speech when in comes the new Defense Against Dark Arts teacher, Mad-Eye Moody. Mad-Eye Moody is called such because he has a magical eye that can see through pretty much anything. He is also rather beat up besides that, he has a peg leg and a scarred face.
Dumbledore then announces that Hogwarts is going to host the Triwizard Tournament that year, a competition between their school, Beaubaxtons, and Durmstrang. A champion will be picked to represent each school, but there is a restriction, only those who are seventeen may enter. The schools will arrive with their pool from which to pick representatives and they will Halloween.
Classes start, and they get to know Mad-Eye, when he first turns Draco into a Ferret as “punishment” for attacking Harry (I had to put this in, it’s the funniest part of the book.) In Moody’s class they learn the three unforgivable curses, the ones that will get you sent to Azkaban for the rest of your life and the ones favored by Voldemort and his supporters. Moody demonstrates these on spiders. The first is the Imperius curse, which takes away your free will and makes you do what the caster wants. The second is the Cruciatus curse, which causes terrible pain. When Moody performs the curse on the Spider, Neville starts shaking uncontrollably in fear. The last one is Avada Kedavra, the killing curse. Moody explains that there’s no blocking it, and no one has ever survived it, save Harry. Moody then teaches the class to fight the Imperius Curse, but the only one who manages is Harry.
October rolls around and the others arrive. The Durmstrang students arrive and with them are their headmaster Karkaroff, and Viktor Krum, who is actually a student at Durmstrang. Beauxbatons Headmistress is Madame Maxine, who is very large, like Hagrid. The way of picking the school champion if by putting your name into a Goblet which will pick the champions. Dumbledore draws an age line around it so no one under seventeen may enter. Halloween comes and the champions come out of the goblet, Viktor Krum for Durmstrang, the girl Fleur Delacour, who is part Veela, for Beauxbatons, and Cedric Diggory for Hogwarts. When they think it is finished, the Goblet spews out another name, HARRY POTTER. The teachers decide that Harry has to compete, even though he doesn’t want to. This makes Ron very jealous. Harry will have to do three “tasks” to decide who wins.
Before the first task Hagrid secretly shows Harry and Madame Maxine that the first task is dragons. Karkaroff was also sneaking around. When Harry gets back to the common room, he finds Sirius talking to him through the fire place. Sirius warns him that Karkaroff was a Death Eater and is dangerous but that Moody was an Auror, fighting Death Eaters, and should be an ally. Harry decides that since all the champions know what the first task is, except for Cedric, that he should warn him. He does, and Moody overhears him, but commends him for it and hints that Harry should try using him broom. Harry practices the summoning charm to call his broom during the task. There is also a nosy reporter, Rita Skeeter, who writes untrue stories about Harry and the others in her articles.
During the task Harry flies well and does better than all the other champions and gets a high score and a gold egg. Ron realizes that someone is probably trying to kill Harry and they become friends again. There is supposed to be a clue in the egg for the next task, but when he opens it all he can hear is a loud screeching. Hermione rushes in and tells the she found out that Mr. Crouch’s ex-house elf, Winky and Dobby, the Malfoy’s old elf, are working in Hogwarts kitchens. Dobby is thrilled with freedom, but Winky is very depressed.
The next day in class, Professor McGonagall announces that there is to be a Yule Ball and that the champions should find partners. Harry gets up the courage to ask his crush, Cho Chang, but she is already going with Cedric Diggory. Ron and Harry seem to be the only ones left without dates, Ginny is going with Neville and Hermione has a date, but won’t tell anyone who it is. Finally Harry and Ron get the Patil twins to go with them. On the night of the Yule Ball, Harry finds out that Hermione had gone with Krum. This makes Ron very mad and both Harry and Ron abandon their dates and walk in the garden. There they overhear Hagrid telling Madame Maxine that he is a half giant. As Harry is heading back, he runs into Cedric who advises Harry to take a bath with the egg. Harry return to the common room to find Ron and Hermione fighting over why she went to the ball with Krum.
The next day, the story about Hagrid being a half giant is all over the papers in a story by Rita Skeeter, which is a big deal because the giants are known for being evil. Hagrid gets depressed and refuses to come out. They go to Hogsmeade, the wizard town, and there Hermione tells Rita that she is a terrible person. Bagman offers to help Harry with the tournament and mentions off-handedly that Mr. Crouch had not being going to work recently. Harry refuses Bagman’s help, but decides to take Cedric’s advice. It turns out that when you put the egg underwater you can hear voices singing about having one hour to regain your most precious thing. Harry figures out that they are talking about mermaids under the lake and tries to figure out how to breathe underwater. As he is returning to the Gryffindor common room, wearing his invisibility cloak, he is looking at the Marauder’s map, which shows all of Hogwarts and the people in it, and sees that Barty Crouch is in Snape’s office. He is distracted by this, and gets caught in a trick stair, dropping the egg. This calls the attention of Filch and Snape, and Moody appears seconds later. Moody can see Harry because of his magical eye and gets the others to leave. Harry tells him about the Marauders map and Moody asks to borrow it from him.
By the day of the second task, Harry still hasn’t figured out how to breathe underwater, but Dobby gives him Gilly Weed and tells him to eat it before going into the water. It turns out that the precious thing taken is the person closest to the Champion, for Harry it’s Ron, for Krum it’s Hermione, for Cedric it’s Cho and for Fleur it’s her little sister. Harry eats the Gilly Weed and grows gills. He swims down to get Ron but stays to make sure everyone is safe. When Fleur doesn’t come he also rescues her little sister. Harry comes up late, but gets extra points for saving Fleur’s sister and is tied with Cedric in points. Mr. Crouch is not judging the task though; Percy is doing it for him because he has been “sick” lately.
Shortly after the second task, Rita Skeeter writes another article claiming that Hermione is dating both Harry and Krum. Hermione gets upset and wonders how the banned-from-Hogwarts Rita got interviews with the Slytherins and how she knows certain facts, like that Krum asked Hermione to come visit him over the summer. In potions class Karkaroff comes in and shows Snape his arm telling him that something is getting clearer, which perplexes Harry, Ron and Hermione so they decide to ask Sirius.
Sirius meets them in Hogsmeade as a dog. Sirius doesn’t know about the mark, but tells them that Mr. Crouch’s son was a convicted Death Eater and sent to Azkaban, where he died. Mr. Crouch’s wife also died shortly after their son. Sirius finds it odd, saying it’s not like Mr. Crouch to miss anything, not judging, work or the Quidditch World Cup. Back at Hogwarts, Harry visits Dobby to thank him for saving his neck in the second task. While there, Winky gets upset when she hears Crouch is sick and lets slip that she is guarding “great secrets” for Crouch, but refuses to say any more.
The champions are led down to the quidditch field where Bagman explains that the final task in a maze with a cup at the center. The first champion to get the cup wins. Those with the higher scores will get to start earlier. Krum pulls Harry aside after to tell him that he and Hermione are just friends and Harry tells him the same thing, and Harry asks Krum to teach him a move he did at the Quidditch World Cup. Just as they are about the leave Mr. Crouch comes from behind the trees, babbling about his son, Bertha, and keeps on talking to trees. He does, however, keep on demanding to see Dumbledore, so Krum guards him while Harry goes to get Dumbledore. When they return Krum is alone, stunned and Crouch is gone. The next day in Divination class Harry falls asleep and dreams about Voldemort talking to Wormtail, extremely angry. Harry wakes up screaming and quickly leaves the class to talk to Dumbledore.
He waits in Dumbledore’s office and accidentally stumbles across a basin holding the memories of various Death Eater trials, including those for Ludo Bagman, who claims he was tricked into giving someone information; Karkaroff, who sells out other Death Eaters in a plea bargain; and Mr. Crouch’s son, Barty Crouch Jr., who is convicted of torturing the Longbottoms with the Cruciatus curse to the point of insanity. Dumbledore then comes, takes Harry out of him memories and explains that it is a pensieve, to store his memories in. He also tells Harry that the Longbottoms spoken of were Neville’s parents, who are now insane. After hearing Harry’s dream he tells him he believes Voldemort is growing stronger and warns him to be careful.
The next day is the Third Task and is started off with an article from Rita Skeeter talking about Harry being crazy and mentions the incident in Divination. Hermione wonders again how Rita gets all her information and gets excited and runs off to the library.
The task starts in the evening and Harry and Cedric start it together. Harry passes many obstacles but then hears Krum attacking Fleur. Cedric and Harry stop him and continue. It comes down to Harry and Cedric both standing in front of the cup, urging the other to take it. They decide to take it together, only to find it is a portkey and they have been transported to a graveyard. Before they can do anything someone says “Kill the Spare.” Then “Avada Kedavra” and Cedric falls dead. Then Harry is tied up by Wormtail and he performs a spell to restore Voldemort taking a bone from his father, blood from Harry, and flesh from servant (Wormtail’s hand). Voldemort is restored and he touches a Dark Mark on Wormtail’s arm. Death Eaters start apparating (appearing) and form a circle with gaps in it. One by one Voldemort greets them and at the empty spots mentions those died or imprisoned. He mentions at one space that one has forever betrayed them, that one was cowardly and fled, and that one is still in service to him, hiding among the enemies.
Voldemort then gives Harry back his wand and unties him, and prepares to duel him. Harry resists the imperious curse, but gets hit with the Cruciatus curse. Finally Voldemort tries to kill him and Harry knows he is going to die but yells the disarming spell at the same time. What happens is that the light from their wands meets then forms a bridge between them. Harry holds on, and spells start reversing from Voldemort’s wand, then the last people he has killed starting with Cedric, then the Muggle gardener, then Bertha, and finally, Lilly and James Potter. Cedric asks Harry to take his body back to his parents and when the apparitions tell him, Harry breaks the connection, grabs Cedric’s body and manages to escape by grabbing the Tournament cup portkey.
Harry returns, and Moody takes him up into the castle. There he keeps asking what Voldemort did, and then reveals he is a Death Eater and that Karkaroff was the one who fled. Moody is about to kill Harry when McGonagall, Snape, and Dumbledore burst in and stun him. Dumbledore sends Snape off for truth serum and McGonagall off to get Winky and then explains to Harry that it isn’t the real Moody, only an impostor taking Polyjuice potion, which allows you to take the appearance of another. The potion wears off to reveal Barty Crouch Jr.
Snape gives Crouch Jr. truth serum and Crouch tells the story of how his father had him switch with his mother under Polyjuice potion to escape Azkaban. His father then kept him under the Imperius curse, so he would stay hidden, but one day Bertha Jorkins found out and his father had to put a powerful memory curse on her. His father then allowed him to go to the Quidditch world cup under an invisibility cloak, but Crouch Jr. was starting to break free and stole Harry’s wand while there. That night Crouch Jr. got mad at the free Death Eaters for not helping Voldemort more but Winky tried to get him to leave by using her own magic. Crouch Jr. cast the Dark Mark to scare the others off. He was stunned by the Ministry men, so he was unconscious when his father fired Winky. Meanwhile, Wormtail had caught Bertha Jorkins who knew about Crouch, that Moody was teaching at Hogwarts and about the Triwizard tournament. Voldemort arrived at Crouch’s house, freed Crouch Jr. and put Crouch Sr. under the Imperius curse, to act normally. Then the day school started the captured Moody, put him under the Imperius curse so they could get his hair for Poly Juice potion, and Crouch Jr. took his place at Hogwarts. Harry saw “Barty Crouch” in the Marauders map because his name was the same as his father’s, so Crouch Jr. got the map from him. Then when Crouch Sr. broke free from the Imperius curse and came to Hogwarts, Crouch Jr. stunned Krum and killed his father.
Dumbledore takes Harry to his
office and explains that the wands linked because both wands have tail feathers
from the same
Later, Harry tries to give the prize money he won from the tournament to the Diggorys, but they refuse. At the end of term feast, Dumbledore announces to the school that Voldemort is back and that he killed Cedric. Hagrid later tells the three that he and Madame Maxine have a mission over the summer and it is hinted at that they are going to go talk to the giants. On the train back Hermione reveals that she had caught Rita Skeeter, who was an unregistered animagus and could turn into a beetle, and had got her to stop writing for a year. Fred and George explain that Bagman had been acting suspiciously because he had gambling debts, having paid several betters, including Fred and George, with Leprechaun money, which disappears. Harry gives all his prize money to Fred and George to start a joke shop and goes home again to the Dursleys.
That's all for now folks. Check back again for more summaries!
