"Do you reckon Moody's right?" Neville asked, as they walked up to the dorms.
"I dunno," Dudley said. "Ron's brothers say he was a great dark wizard catcher in his day. But who'd want to kill us?"
Immediately, Dudley thought of Lucius Malfoy and his family, and the Nott family and the Black family—if Sirius Black had any living relations. "Ok, scratch that—I've pissed lots of people, but who'd want to kill you?"
Neville shrugged. "What do you reckon the first task will be?"
"They said it's something to test our, what was it …"
"Courage in the face of the unknown," supplied Neville. "So I suppose it might be anything. A monster or something scary."
"Could be a boggart?" Dudley suggested. "They're all about facing your fear."
"Bit easy though," Neville said.
Dudley gave him a glance. It wasn't like Neville to brag about something been easy—but then, he had beat the boggart last year pretty easy.
They had arrived at the portrait door. "I bet the twins have got a party going," Dudley said as he pushed it open.
"Even Trelawney could predict that," Neville said, with a faint smile.
Dudley was right. The blast of noise when he opened the door almost knocked him backwards. Every Gryffindor was there, screaming, whistling, cheering and celebrating.
Ron and Dean hurried forward to wring his hands.
"Brilliant!" Ron shouted.
"Beyond cool!" said Dean.
"How did you both do it?" Ginny asked, giving them both a butterbeer.
"We didn't …" Dudley began.
"You held out on us!" Fred shouted, clearly impressed.
"Can't believe you two figured a way past Dumbledore's age line!" said George.
Angelina swooped down on them now. "Oh, if it couldn't be me at least it's Gryffindor!"
"Two champions!" Dean crowed. "We're definitely going to win!"
"We've got food, come on!" Ginny said.
Dudley and Neville found themselves led to a table in the center of the room which was groaning under the weight of all the food.
"Come and sit with us, Neville!" Parvati said.
Neville, who had never been this popular before, went to join her and Lavender.
Dudley loaded his plate and, shrugging off, Lee Jordan, hurried to join Hermione, Dean and Ron.
"Listen, I didn't …"
"We know," Hermione said.
"You do?" Dudley blinked in surprise.
"Of course," said Ron. "We were with you when the cloak failed."
"And you looked shocked!" Dean said. "It was clear you didn't do it."
"Neville is the curious one," Hermione said. "There's only meant to be four champions."
Quickly, Dudley filled them in on what Dumbledore and Moody had said.
Hermione looked throughtful. "Who could it be?"
"Malfoy—bound to be," said Ron.
"I don't think so," said Hermione. "To bewitch the Goblet, it's got to be someone who was at Hogwarts."
"Not necessarily," said Dean. "It could have happened at the Ministry. You know, where it was stored."
"Listen," Ron said, excitedly. "I reckon you will win."
Hermione looked skeptical.
"Hear me out! We saw that Beauxbatons are like—they don't look up to much. I reckon all you need to worry about is Krum."
Dudley nodded, suddenly feeling even more excited. He had a chance, he realized. He could really win this thing. "Yeah, yeah," he said. "And it's not like Neville's going to have a chance."
There was the sound of breaking china. Neville had just hurled his plate to the floor and stormed up the dorm room.
"I think he heard you, mate," said Dean, awkwardly.
Dudley bit his lip, suddenly feeling guilty. Neville may not be a great wizard, but he was his friend. Dudley immediately knew he shouldn't have bad-mouthed him like that.