Girl Who Escaped {Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire} [BEING EDITED]

[16] The Madness of Mr. Crouch.

EDITED

February 18, 2014

If you find any grammatical/spelling errors, please politely let me know. I am not a professional, nor do I claim to be an experienced author. I do make mistakes that I am trying to clean up. Thank you, enjoy.

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[Chapter 16: The Madness of Mr. Crouch.]

Harry, Ron, Hermione and I went up to the Owlery after breakfast on Sunday to send a letter to Percy, asking, as Sirius had suggested, whether he had seen Mr. Crouch lately. We used Hedwig; when we had watched her fly out of sight through the Owlery window, we proceeded down to the kitchen to give Dobby his new socks.

     The house-elves gave us a very cheery welcome, bowing and curtsying and bustling around making tea again. Dobby was ecstatic about his present.

     "Harry Potter is too good to Dobby!" he squeaked, wiping large tears out of his enormous eyes.

     "You saved my life with that gillyweed, Dobby, you really did," said Harry.

     "No chance of more of those eclairs, is there?" said Ron, who was looking around at the beaming and bowing house-elves.

     "You've just had breakfast!" I said irritably, but a great silver platter of eclairs was already zooming toward us, supported by four elves.

     "We should get some stuff to send up to Snuffles," Harry muttered.

     "Good idea," said Ron. "Give Pig something to do. You couldn't give us a bit of extra food, could you?" he said to the surrounding elves, and they bowed delightedly and hurried off to get some more.

     "Dobby, where's Winky?" said Hermione, who was looking around.

     "Winky is over there by the fire, miss," said Dobby quietly, his ears drooping slightly.

     "Oh dear," said Hermione as she spotted Winky.

     I looked over at the fireplace too. Winky was sitting on the same stool as last time, but she had allowed herself to become so filthy that she was not immediately distinguishable from the smoke-blackened brick behind her. Her clothes were ragged and unwashed. She was clutching a bottle of butterbeer and swaying slightly on her stool, staring into the fire. As we watched her, she gave an enormous hiccup.

     "Winky is getting through six bottles a day now," Dobby whispered to Harry.

     "Well, it's not strong, that stuff," Harry said.

     But Dobby shook his head. "'Tis strong for a house-elf, sir," he said.

     Winky hiccuped again. The elves who had brought the eclairs gave her disapproving looks as they returned to work.

     "Winky is pining, Harry Potter," Dobby whispered sadly. "Winky wants to go home. Winky still thinks Mr. Crouch is her master, sir, and nothing Dobby says will persuade her that Professor Dumbledore is her master now."

     "Hey, Winky," said Harry, struck by a sudden inspiration, walking over to her, and bending down, "You don't know what Mr. Crouch might be up to, do you? Because he's stopped turning up to judge the Triwizard Tournament."

     Winky's eyes flickered. Her enormous pupils focused on Harry. She swayed slightly again and then said, "M--Master is stopped--hic--coming?"

     "Yeah," I said, sitting next to Harry. "We haven't seen him since the first task. The Daily Prophet's saying he's ill."

     Winky swayed some more, staring blurrily at us, "Master--hic--ill?" Her bottom lip began to tremble.