The Invitation (GF)

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The Invitation is the third chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

1 Diet
2 Muggle post
3 Inquiries
4 Permission

Diet

By the time Harry finishes getting dressed (GF2) and arrives at the kitchen, the Dursleys are already having breakfast. Vernon is reading the Daily Mail and Petunia is cutting a grapefruit into quarters. Dudley's in a foul mood, which does not improve when his mother gives him one quarter of the grapefruit.

Dudley's end-of-year report has deeply changed the life at number four, Privet Drive. His parents, of course, found all sorts of excuses for his bad marks, ignored the accusations of bullying, but had to swallow the notes made by the school nurse regarding the boy's weight. The Smeltings outfitters did not make knickerbockers big enough for him. Thus the boy was forced to start a regime, following a diet sheet sent by his school, full of things Vernon calls "rabbit food". Petunia insisted that the rest of the household follow the same diet.

Harry, however, sent Hedwig to his friends with request for food the moment he heard of the new regime. Hermione sent boxes of sugar-free snacks (Mr. and Mrs. Granger are dentists); Hagrid sent his infamous rock cakes; Molly Weasley forced poor Errol to carry enormous amount of food. The owl needed five days to recover from the journey.

On July 31, 1994, Harry received four birthday cakes, one each from Ron, Hermione, Sirius and Hagrid. He still has two of them left. He eats his grapefruit without complaining, knowing that he'll have a better breakfast when he returns to his room.

Muggle post

The doorbell rings. Vernon rises to answer the door; Dudley quickly nicks the rest of his grapefruit. After a moment, Mr. Dursley returns, looking furious, and orders a bewildered Harry to go to the living room. He then snaps that a letter about Harry has arrived.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dursley,

We have never been introduced, but I am sure you have heard a great deal from Harry about my son Ron.

As Harry might have told you, the final of the Quidditch World Cup takes place next Monday night, and my husband, Arthur, has just managed to get prime tickets through his connections at the Department of Magical Games and Sports.

I do hope you will allow us to take Harry to the match, as this really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; Britain hasn't hosted the Cup for thirty years and tickets are extremely hard to come by. We would of course be glad to have Harry to stay for the remainder of the summer holidays, and to see him safely onto the train back to school.

It would be best for Harry to send us your answer as quickly as possible in the normal way, because the Muggle postman has never delivered to our house, and I am not sure he even knows where it is.

Hoping to see Harry soon,

Yours sincerely,

Molly Weasley

P.S. I do hope we've put enough stamps on.

Vernon angrily shows Harry the envelope, and the boy suppresses a laugh. Every bit of it is covered in stamps, except for a tight square n the front, in which the Dursley's address is written.

"The postman noticed," Vernon growls. "Very interested to know where this letter came from, he was. That's why he rang the doorbell. Seemed to think it was funny."

Inquiries

Harry understands his anger; the Dursleys are easily disturbed by anything out of the ordinary. He keeps his expression neutral, and asks whether he can go to the match. Vernon is clearly divided between the wonderful prospect of being rid of Harry for two whole weeks and the unpleasant idea of making the boy happy.

He asks Harry who Molly is. The boy point out that Vernon's seen her at King's Cross; he quickly remembers that "dumpy sort of woman" with a "load of children with red hair" (PS17). Mr. Dursley then asks what Quidditch is ("It's a sport, played on broom—"), but clearly does not wish to hear the reply. He questions then what Molly could possibly have meant by "the normal way".

"Normal for us, you know, owl post. That's what's normal for wizards."

Vernon hisses that Harry is under orders not to mention that word under the Dursleys' roof. He starts bellowing at Harry, who rebels against accepting his uncle's dictatorship any further. He gets up and casually mentions that he will write to Sirius with the bad news.

Permission

Vernon quickly decides that it is a bad idea for Sirius to hear any such news. He allows Harry to go, instructing him to ask the Weasleys to pick him up. Harry happily returns to his room, after teasing Dudley ("That was an excellent breakfast, wasn't it! I feel really full, don't you?"), and sees that Hedwig is back, looking annoyed.

The cause of her irritation is soon apparent: Ron's little owl (PA22) is excitedly flying around the room. She brought a letter announcing that Arthur's obtained tickets to the World Cup finale, that Molly's writing a letter to the Dursleys, and that the Weasleys will come pick Harry up, with or without the Muggles' permission, at five o'clock on Sunday. Hermione is also on her way to The Burrow. Percy has sarted working in the Department of International Magical Co-operation.

Harry sends back an answer with Pig, announcing that his uncle has allowed him to go, and then sends the letter he'd written the previous day to Sirius, along with a P.S. informing him of his upcoming journey to the Weasleys'.