Chapter Twelve: The Triwizard Tournament
In chapter twelve of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Colin Creevey returns with his equally enthused brother, Mad-Eye Moody gives the children nightmares, and the Triwizard Tournament of DEATH is announced.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
Peeves is throwing water balloons in the rain, instead of oh, when everyone’s already dry for maximum humiliation of his targets
when we get our triumphant return of COLIN CREEVEY: professional stalker! A discussion on Colin’s younger brother leads to the intriguing thought about why Parvati and Padma Patil were sorted into two different houses when they’re identical twins. My personal theory is that one of them insisted on their house and the hat obliged, but what is your theory? (Maybe Parvati, since she went second, insisted on a different house then Ravenclaw to be able to forge her own identity?)
Colin’s aforementioned younger brother Dennis appears, and he seems to be just as enthusiastic as his brother at the weirdest things.
“Colin, I fell in!” he said shrilly, throwing himself into an empty seat. “It was brilliant! And something in the water grabbed me and pushed me back in the boat!”
“Cool!” said Colin, just as excitedly. “It was probably the giant squid, Dennis!”
“Wow!” said Dennis, as though nobody in their wildest dreams could hope for more than being thrown into a storm-tossed, fathoms deep lake, and pushed out of it again by a giant sea monster.
Maybe It’s just me, but I want more of these wild ass Creevey’s. Imagine them in Potions.
“Wow Colin, Professor Snape called me a Dunderhead and took five points!”
“Cool, Dennis, did he throw a jar of cockroaches at you too?”
Nearly Headless Nick lets slip that house elves work at Hogwarts, Hermione loses her mind and refuses to eat any more, and Ron tries to tempt her with something called “spotted dick” like that’s something just too tempting to resist.
“No thank you Ron, I will pass on the spotted dick, but please pass the warty vagina pudding!”
(Too far?)
Dumbledore starts to make his Triwizard Tournament speech when “Mad-Eye Moody” shows up to lurch about, and while I love Brendon Gleeson, I picture MEM looking far more like the illustration of him in the American Goblet of Fire book.
So now that Dumbledore has scared the children shitless that he’s hired this terrifying dude as their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor he’s free to tell everyone about the Triwizard Tournament or, as Cher Horowitz would say
Dumbledore does a little exposition guy about the Triwizard Tournament and its history, but let’s chat about how Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be without their headmasters almost all year for this tournament. The Triwizard Tournament just seems like such a spectacularly bad idea it’s hard to imagine anyone green lighting it. Why not a tamer type of wizard olympics, with all of the world’s wizard schools competing in certain predetermined competitions? Not three schools competing in undetermined death competitions.
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Do you want more Creeveys in the books?
Would you prefer a Wizard Olympics, Triwizard tournament, or something else?
Why are Parvati and Padma Patil, identical twins, in different houses?
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