Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire recap

In his fourth year, Harry is mysteriously entered into the Triwizard Tournament, a dangerous contest between three magical schools normally limited to older students, becoming a fourth champion alongside Cedric Diggory, Viktor Krum, and Fleur Delacour. Much of the school believes he cheated, and he faces three deadly tasks: getting past a dragon, rescuing hostages from a lake, and navigating an enchanted maze. Throughout, signs point to Voldemort's return, and Harry's scar troubles him. Harry and Cedric reach the tournament cup together and grab it at the same moment, only to find it is a trap that transports them to a graveyard. There Cedric is murdered and Voldemort, using Harry's blood in a dark ritual, regains his body and full power. Harry escapes and returns with Cedric's body. The disguised Death Eater who engineered everything is exposed, but the Minister for Magic refuses to believe Voldemort is back, leaving the wizarding world divided as open war threatens.

Harry Potter was orphaned as a baby when the dark wizard Lord Voldemort killed his parents and was defeated attempting to kill him. Raised by his unkind relatives, he learned at eleven that he is a wizard, went to Hogwarts, was sorted into Gryffindor, and befriended loyal Ron Weasley and brilliant Hermione Granger. Over three years he stopped Voldemort from stealing the immortality-granting Philosopher's Stone; killed a monster and destroyed a diary holding the teenage Voldemort's memory beneath the school; and learned that his godfather, Sirius Black, wrongly imprisoned for betraying his parents, was innocent, the real traitor being Peter Pettigrew, who escaped to rejoin his master. Voldemort has survived every year as a weakened, disembodied remnant. Dumbledore, the headmaster, has long warned that the dark wizard means to return to full power, and the signs that he is close have been mounting.

The book opens with a chilling scene: in the ruin of the Riddle family house, the weak, shrunken Voldemort and his servant Wormtail plot a murder and kill an elderly Muggle caretaker who overhears them. Harry wakes from a dream of this with his scar burning, worried by what it might mean, and writes to his godfather Sirius Black, now in hiding. Soon the Weasleys collect Harry from the Dursleys, using magical Floo travel that goes comically wrong, and take him to the Quidditch World Cup. Harry meets Cedric Diggory, an admired older student, on the way. The friends enjoy the spectacle of the international match, in which the young star Viktor Krum plays for Bulgaria, unaware that the festivities are about to turn frightening.

In the night after the World Cup final, masked Death Eaters, Voldemort's followers, rampage through the campground, terrorizing Muggles and sending the crowd fleeing in panic. In the chaos someone conjures the Dark Mark, Voldemort's skull-and-serpent sign, into the sky for the first time in thirteen years, a sight that horrifies the wizarding world and hints that his supporters are growing bold again. Harry realizes his wand has gone missing and was used to cast the Mark, and a tense Ministry inquiry follows. The events leave the adults deeply uneasy and Harry more certain that something dark is stirring. The friends return to the Weasleys' home and prepare to go back to Hogwarts, with rumours swirling that an unusual and exciting event is planned at the school for the coming year.

At school the students learn that Hogwarts will host the Triwizard Tournament, a dangerous historic contest between three magical schools, with one champion each chosen by an impartial magical judge, the Goblet of Fire, and entry restricted to students of seventeen and over. A gruff, battle-scarred new Defence teacher, Mad-Eye Moody, arrives and shocks the class by demonstrating the three Unforgivable Curses. The rival schools, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, arrive with their students, including Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum. The Goblet selects three champions, Cedric, Fleur, and Krum, and then, impossibly, spits out a fourth name: Harry Potter, who is underage and swears he did not enter. Bound by magic to compete, and disbelieved by nearly everyone including Ron, who stops speaking to him, Harry faces the first task and gets past a fierce dragon by summoning his broom and outflying it, after which Ron, realizing the danger was real, makes up with him.

Between tasks the champions face the awkward social pressures of the Yule Ball, and Harry and Ron fumble their way through dates while Hermione attends with Viktor Krum, stirring Ron's jealousy. The gossip writer Rita Skeeter prints spiteful, invented stories about Harry and his friends. Cedric quietly repays Harry's earlier warning about the dragon by helping him understand the clue to the second task. In that task the champions must dive into the lake to rescue people dear to them held by the merpeople; Harry, taking the rules too literally, stays to help free the others and finishes last but is praised for his nerve. Meanwhile Barty Crouch, the rigid Ministry official who organized the tournament, stops appearing and behaves strangely, and Harry's scar continues to trouble him as his letters with Sirius grow more urgent.

Exploring the grounds at night, Harry and Krum find Barty Crouch wandering and raving, apparently ill and speaking as though to Voldemort, before he vanishes; he is never found alive. Investigating in Dumbledore's office, Harry falls into the headmaster's Pensieve, a device for viewing memories, and witnesses old trials from the last war: the cruel Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange and, most strikingly, Crouch's own son being sentenced to Azkaban for torturing an Auror family. The revelations deepen Harry's dread. Sirius warns him that the tournament may be a cover for something aimed at him, and that enemies are close. Harry's scar hurts more often. With the mystery of Crouch's fate unsolved and a sense of a trap tightening, the champions are shown the vast, hedged maze grown for the final task, at the heart of which waits the Triwizard Cup.

In the final task Harry and Cedric help each other through the dangers of the maze and reach the cup together, agreeing to claim it as one for Hogwarts, but it is a Portkey that transports them both to a graveyard far away. There Wormtail murders Cedric on Voldemort's command and uses Harry's blood in a dark ritual, along with a bone of Voldemort's father and Wormtail's own hand, to restore Voldemort to a body and full power. Voldemort summons his Death Eaters, boasts of his return, and duels Harry, but when their twin-cored wands connect, ghostly echoes of his recent victims, including Cedric and Harry's parents, spill out and shield Harry, allowing him to seize Cedric's body and escape back to Hogwarts by Portkey. There the impostor is unmasked: the Defence teacher Moody was really the escaped Death Eater Barty Crouch Jr, disguised all year, who entered Harry in the tournament to deliver him to his master. Dumbledore believes Harry and begins gathering allies, but the Minister for Magic, Fudge, refuses to accept that Voldemort has returned. The year ends in mourning, the wizarding world divided, and Voldemort loose and whole once more.

The Triwizard Tournament ends in tragedy. Harry and Cedric Diggory agree to take the cup together as a shared Hogwarts victory, but it is a Portkey that whisks them to a distant graveyard. There, on Voldemort's order, the servant Wormtail kills Cedric and uses Harry's blood, along with Wormtail's own flesh and the bone of Voldemort's dead father, in a ritual that restores Voldemort to a body and full power. Voldemort summons his Death Eaters and duels Harry, but when their wands lock, an effect of their twin cores forces echoes of Voldemort's recent victims, including Harry's parents and Cedric, to emerge and shield Harry, letting him escape with Cedric's body. Back at Hogwarts, the Defence teacher Mad-Eye Moody is exposed as an impostor, the Death Eater Barty Crouch Jr in disguise, who entered Harry in the tournament and steered him to the trap. Dumbledore believes Harry and begins rallying allies for the coming war, but the Minister for Magic, Fudge, refuses to accept that Voldemort has returned, and the wizarding world splits between those who believe and those who deny it. The school year ends in grief, with Voldemort restored and free.