Book Finished: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
For the third time, I’ve finished J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. And just like the previous two times, it was an excellent read and journey. As with the first three books that I’ve recently re-read, even more details have been made clear to me and even more foreshadowing has become evident to me that I didn’t recognize previously.
A great example of a bit of foreshadowing that I missed the previous two times, particularly because it specifically related to events that took place in Book 7 (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) and this is the first time that I’ve read Book 4 after having read Book 7, is the following event that took place towards the end of Book 4:
“He said my blood would make him stronger than if he’d used someone else’s,” Harry told Dumbledore. “He said the protection my — my mother left in me — he’d have it too. And he was right — he could touch me without hurting himself, he touched my face.”
For a fleeting instant, Harry thought he saw a gleam of something like triumph in Dumbledore’s eyes. But next second, Harry was sure he had imagined it, for when Dumbledore had returned to his seat behind the desk, he looked as old and weary as Harry had ever seen him.
The inclusion of Harry’s blood in his own becomes a crucial part of the plot near the end of the final book and ultimately begins the final downfall of Lord Voldemort. That Dumbledore had “a gleam of something like triumph” shows that he had an inkling of what Voldemort’s use of Harry’s blood signaled and he was right.
Those five words hold so much weight when viewed in the entirety of the Harry Potter story and yet most, if not all, readers probably had no idea that they meant anything at all the first time they read Goblet of Fire. It’s seemingly insignificant writing like this that turns out to be so enormous that makes the entire Harry Potter series beyond phenomenal.
Next Up: The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped our History
Another small break from the re-reading of the Harry Potter series. I’m going nonfiction because if I wanted fiction, I’d just keep reading Harry Potter.