Ethereal

♦ 024 ♦

The Goblet of Fire

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By breakfast the next day, Ron's and Hermione's bad moods had burnt out, and to Sadie and Harry's relief, Ron's dark predictions that the house-elves would send substandard food up to the Gryffindor table because Hermione had insulted them proved false, the bacon, eggs, and kippers were quite as good as usual.

When the post owls arrived, Sadie looked up eagerly.

"Percy won't've had time to answer yet," said Ron. "We only sent Hedwig yesterday."

"No, it's not that," said Sadie. "I've taken out a subscription to the Daily Prophet. I'm getting sick of finding everything out from the Slytherins."

"Good thinking!" said Harry, also looking up at the owls. "Hey, Sades, I think you're in luck. . . ."

A grey owl was soaring down toward Sadie.

"It hasn't got a newspaper, though," she said, looking disappointed. "It's. . . ."

But to her bewilderment, the grey owl landed in front of her plate, closely followed by four barn owls, a brown owl, and a tawny.

"How many subscriptions did you take out?" said Harry, seizing Sadie's goblet before it was knocked over by the cluster of owls, all of whom were jostling close to her, trying to deliver their own letter first.

"What on earth. . . .?" Sadie said, taking the letter from the grey owl, opening it, and starting to read a letter that was not handwritten, but composed from pasted letters that seemed to have been cut out of the Daily Prophet.

YOU ARE A WICKED GIRL. HARRY POTTER DESERVES BETTER. GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM YOU DISGUSTING  MUGGLE. YOU ARE A HOMEWRECKER, A SLUT AND ADULTEROUS WHORE.

Sadie laughed.

"What's up?" said Ron.

"Haven't you heard?" the blonde asked, "I'm an adulterous whore now." She let out a chuckle and she read the letter. "And a home-wrecker and a slut."

She handed the letter to Harry, Ron and Hermione amused.

"They're all like it!" said Sadie amused, opening one letter after another. "'Harry Potter can do much better than the likes of you. . . .' 'Go kill yourself you anorexic whore. . . .' Shit!"

She had opened the last envelope, and yellowish-green liquid smelling strongly of petrol gushed over her hands, which began to erupt in large yellow boils.

"Undiluted bubotuber pus!" said Ron, picking up the envelope gingerly and sniffing it.

"Oh fuck!" said Sadie, tears starting in her eyes as she tried to rub the pus off her hands with a napkin, but her fingers were now so thickly covered in painful sores that it looked as though she were wearing a pair of thick, knobbly gloves.

"You'd better get up to the hospital wing," said Harry as the owls around Sadie took flight. "We'll tell Professor Sprout where you've gone."

"Thanks," Sadie said, her voice shaking as she hurried out of the Great Hall, cradling her hands. 

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Near the end of their Care of Magical Creatures lesson, Sadie was walking toward her friends across the lawn. Her hands were very heavily bandaged and she looked miserable. Pansy Parkinson was watching her beadily.

"Well, let's check how yeh've done!" said Hagrid. "Count yer coins! An' there's no point tryin' ter steal any, Goyle," he added, his beetle-black eyes narrowed. "It's leprechaun gold. Vanishes after a few hours."