“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.”
Goyle emptied his pockets, looking extremely sulky. It turned out that Ron’s niffler had been most successful, so Hagrid gave him an enormous slab of Honeydukes chocolate for a prize. The bell rang across the grounds for lunch; the rest of the class set off back to the castle, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione stayed behind to help Hagrid put the nifflers back in their boxes. Harry noticed Madame Maxime watching them out of her carriage window.
“What yeh done ter your hands, Hermione?” said Hagrid, looking concerned.
Hermione told him about the hate mail she had received that morning, and the envelope full of bubotuber pus.
“Aaah, don’ worry,” said Hagrid gently, looking down at her. “I got some o’ those letters an’ all, after Rita Skeeter wrote abou’ me mum. ‘Yeh’re a monster an’ yeh should be put down.’ ‘Yer mother killed innocent people an’ if you had any decency you’d jump in a lake.’”
“No!” said Hermione, looking shocked.
“Yeah,” said Hagrid, heaving the niffler crates over by his cabin wall. “They’re jus’ nutters, Hermione. Don’ open ’em if yeh get any more. Chuck ’em straigh’ in the fire.”
“You missed a really good lesson,” Harry told Hermione as they headed back toward the castle. “They’re good, nifflers, aren’t they, Ron?”
Ron, however, was frowning at the chocolate Hagrid had given him. He looked thoroughly put out about something.
“What’s the matter?” said Harry. “Wrong flavor?”
“No,” said Ron shortly. “Why didn’t you tell me about the gold?”
“What gold?” said Harry.
“The gold I gave you at the Quidditch World Cup,” said Ron. “The leprechaun gold I gave you for my Omnioculars. In the Top Box. Why didn’t you tell me it disappeared?”
Harry had to think for a moment before he realized what Ron was talking about.
“Oh . . .” he said, the memory coming back to him at last. “I dunno . . . I never noticed it had gone. I was more worried about my wand, wasn’t I?”
They climbed the steps into the entrance hall and went into the Great Hall for lunch.
“Must be nice,” Ron said abruptly, when they had sat down and started serving themselves roast beef and Yorkshire puddings. “To have so much money you don’t notice if a pocketful of Galleons goes missing.”
“Listen, I had other stuff on my mind that night!” said Harry impatiently. “We all did, remember?”
“I didn’t know leprechaun gold vanishes,” Ron muttered. “I thought I was paying you back. You shouldn’t’ve given me that Chudley Cannon hat for Christmas.”
“Forget it, all right?” said Harry.
Ron speared a roast potato on the end of his fork, glaring at it. Then he said, “I hate being poor.”
Harry and Hermione looked at each other. Neither of them really knew what to say.
“It’s rubbish,” said Ron, still glaring down at his potato. “I don’t blame Fred and George for trying to make some extra money. Wish I could. Wish I had a niffler.”
“Well, we know what to get you next Christmas,” said Hermione brightly. Then, when Ron continued to look gloomy, she said, “Come on, Ron, it could be worse. At least your fingers aren’t full of pus.” Hermione was having a lot of difficulty managing her knife and fork, her fingers were so stiff and swollen. “I hate that Skeeter woman!” she burst out savagely. “I’ll get her back for this if it’s the last thing I do!”
Hate mail continued to arrive for Hermione over the following week, and although she followed Hagrid’s advice and stopped opening it, several of her ill-wishers sent Howlers, which exploded at the Gryffindor table and shrieked insults at her for the whole Hall to hear. Even those people who didn’t read Witch Weekly knew all about the supposed Harry–Krum–Hermione triangle now. Harry was getting sick of telling people that Hermione wasn’t his girlfriend.
“It’ll die down, though,” he told Hermione, “if we just ignore it. . . . People got bored with that stuff she wrote about me last time —”
“I want to know how she’s listening into private conversations when she’s supposed to be banned from the grounds!” said Hermione angrily.
Hermione hung back in their next Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson to ask Professor Moody something. The rest of the class was very eager to leave; Moody had given them such a rigorous test of hex-deflection that many of them were nursing small injuries. Harry had such a bad case of Twitchy Ears, he had to hold his hands clamped over them as he walked away from the class.
“Well, Rita’s definitely not using an Invisibility Cloak!” Hermione panted five minutes later, catching up with Harry and Ron in the entrance hall and pulling Harry’s hand away from one of his wiggling ears so that he could hear her. “Moody says he didn’t see her anywhere near the judges’ table at the second task, or anywhere near the lake!”
“Hermione, is there any point in telling you to drop this?” said Ron.
“No!” said Hermione stubbornly. “I want to know how she heard me talking to Viktor! And how she found out about Hagrid’s mum!”
“Maybe she had you bugged,” said Harry.
“Bugged?” said Ron blankly. “What . . . put fleas on her or something?”
Harry started explaining about hidden microphones and recording equipment. Ron was fascinated, but Hermione interrupted them.
“Aren’t you two ever going to read Hogwarts: A History?”
“What’s the point?” said Ron. “You know it by heart, we can just ask you.”
“All those substitutes for magic Muggles use — electricity, computers, and radar, and all those things — they all go haywire around Hogwarts, there’s too much magic in the air. No, Rita’s using magic to eavesdrop, she must be. . . . If I could just find out what it is . . . ooh, if it’s illegal, I’ll have her . . .”