As the core creators, invited guests, media reporters, lucky fans, and all kinds of family members took their seats one after another, the screening portion of the premiere of Goblet of Fire (Part One) officially began.
The lights in the theater went completely dark, and a cold, eerie soundtrack instantly filled the room.
A Warner logo, steeped in a DC-style dark aesthetic, slowly floated to the center of the screen like a corpse rising underwater.
The short burst of music made the logo grow larger and larger. At the moment it vanished, a dirt-stained piece of parchment appeared before the audience's eyes, and a blood-dipped quill pen, as if controlled by an unseen hand, began to write and draw upon it.
First, it sketched a manor.
Then, beneath the manor, it drew a hillside.
As the camera pulled back, a village appeared below the hill, and in the upper-left corner of the entire illustration, a moon emerged.
With just a few realistic strokes, the artist's skill was made clear. As the scratching sound faded away, an aged voiceover followed:
"Fifty years ago, a strange and terrifying incident occurred in Little Hangleton."
"The local wealthiest family, the Riddles, all three members, died suddenly in a single night."
As the words fell, a mysterious force suddenly appeared.
Like a giant hand, it wiped the drawing on the parchment completely clean.
In the next second, the blood-dipped quill began moving again.
A rough sketch depicted three fallen lives, outlining a face filled with terror.
"The maid working at the Riddle house announced the news to the villagers with her screams."
"However, the villagers did not feel sorrow, because the Riddle family were snobbish and brutal, and deeply unpopular in the village."
"They were only curious about one thing: who was the murderer?"
The aged voice once again stirred the changing scene.
The drawing on the parchment was erased again by an invisible force.
Then the blood-soaked quill went wild, drawing a sequence of images:
"While everyone was discussing the incident, that very night, the cook who worked at the Riddle house told the villagers that the gardener, Frank, had been arrested by the police, and she exaggerated rumors, firmly believing that he was the murderer."
"Perhaps because the cook's story sounded convincing, the villagers all believed her."
"But Frank the gardener, an old war veteran who had lost a leg, repeatedly insisted on his innocence at the police station, saying that on the day the Riddle family died, he saw a stranger near the house."
"It was a boy, around ten years old, with black hair and a pale face."
"He believed the boy might know something."
"Since no one else in the village had seen the stranger Frank described, the police believed he was fabricating facts and interfering with their investigation. However, they were unable to determine the cause of the Riddle family's deaths, nor could they find any evidence linking Frank to the murders. In the end, they had no choice but to release him."
"But in the eyes of the villagers, Frank was a murderer."
"What shocked the villagers the most was that after leaving the police station, Frank returned to the Riddle house, returned to the small wooden hut where he had always lived, and continued tending the garden for the Riddle family that no longer existed."
"Due to long-term abandonment and disrepair, the Riddle house gradually fell into ruin. But over the past half century, Frank never left. He lived in his hut, tending the estate's garden every day—"
When the word "garden" appeared, the aged voice seemed to have completed its mission and slowly faded away.
At the same time, the parchment on the screen appeared to sink into water, descending into a pitch-black world.
After a two-second pause, a skull-shaped tombstone suddenly appeared.
The name "Riddle" engraved upon it confirmed the owner's identity. Immediately afterward, a massive serpent emerged from the skull's mouth, slithered out of the moonlit graveyard, and entered a dark world beyond.
As the camera pushed forward, the Harry Potter logo finally appeared.
"Wow, this opening is really concise and clear!"
"Telling the Goblet of Fire's background with comic-style animation? I like this idea!"
"Honestly, before coming to the theater, I thought this part would be cut, but—surprise!"
The murmurs in the theater made Isabella nod slightly.
This narration, or rather, this plot summary, did not exist in the Goblet of Fire movie from her previous life.
The director cut it, citing runtime constraints and the inability to include scenes without Harry Potter. But this segment is extremely, extremely important to the larger Harry Potter story.
As for why—
Voldemort's real name is Tom Riddle.
His father's name was Tom Riddle Sr.
Tom Riddle Sr. was born into a landed gentry family in Little Hangleton, England.
When he was young, his handsome appearance caught the eye of Merope Gaunt, a member of the Gaunt family. Merope used a love potion on Tom Riddle Sr. The two eloped to London, and Tom Riddle was born.
Since Tom Riddle Sr. never loved Merope, once the potion wore off, he abandoned her and returned to the Muggle world. As a result, Merope gave birth to young Tom alone in a London orphanage.
Not long after, Merope died.
Thus, Tom Riddle became an orphan with no mother and a father who wanted nothing to do with him.
At the age of sixteen, he returned to Little Hangleton and ended his biological father's life with a single Killing Curse.
Yes.
The twisted, tragic love story of Voldemort's parents is the true beginning of all the tragedies in the Harry Potter series.
So when a story depicts the ultimate villain personally murdering his own father and fully turning to darkness, no normal person would cut that during adaptation.
Of course, Isabella wasn't blaming the director.
Actors and directors are just workers in the entertainment industry.
If you're not capital, you don't get freedom. Dream on.
But now—
"Chris, your animation design is pretty average."
Isabella nitpicked mercilessly. "Why did you choose parchment and a quill to tell the story? Don't you think a giant hand wiping everything away is a bit unreasonable? If it were me, I'd use sand animation instead."
Isabella's comment made Chris Columbus roll his eyes.
"First, Harry Potter is a magical world, so using invisible forces is perfectly reasonable. Wizards fly on broomsticks. Second, using blood to draw better conveys Voldemort's madness and cruelty. He killed his own father with his own hands. And finally—"
"If you're not satisfied, you can do it next time."
"Right now, no one involved in this project will say no to you."
"So don't deliberately make trouble for me, okay?"
Columbus pretended to be angry.
Isabella just laughed and kept watching the screen.
As Columbus said, drawing with blood did indeed better convey the increasingly dark tone of the story.
Back to the present.
The old man boiling water in his hut suddenly noticed lights on in the distant house. He frowned, cursed under his breath, grabbed a flashlight, and went to check, assuming it was local kids playing a prank.
Though the film did not explicitly state his identity, everyone knew he was Frank, the gardener of the Riddle house.
Entering the old mansion, Frank cautiously climbed the stairs.
Through a crack in the door, a brightly lit room came into view.
At the end of the Azkaban story, Wormtail, who had escaped from Sirius Black and lived for years as Ron's pet rat Scabbers, was now nervously speaking to someone. That person leaned back in a wide-backed chair, making it impossible for Frank to see his face.
Frank pressed against the door, carefully listening.
He overheard an evil plan and a tense conversation.
The people inside planned to deal with a boy named Harry Potter.
Before acting, they intended to kill others, and someone named Bertha Jorkins was already dead.
The timing seemed to be after the Quidditch World Cup.
Because during the World Cup, there would be crowds and wizards from all over the world.
Wormtail tried to persuade the man in the chair, saying that things could be done without Harry Potter.
But before he finished speaking, the man harshly rejected him, stating that the plan depended on Harry Potter, and angrily demanded to know whether Wormtail no longer wished to serve him.
Though Frank could not understand their words, his experience as a war veteran told him these were dangerous people with blood on their hands, planning murder.
He decided to leave and call the police.
What he didn't notice was a massive snake slithering into the room beneath his feet.
It was Nagini, Voldemort's pet.
Under Frank's gaze, she informed Voldemort that a Muggle gardener was eavesdropping at the door.
Wormtail rushed to open it.
Voldemort told him to step aside, because—
"I want to properly welcome our unexpected guest."
The hoarse voice drained the color from Frank's face, his body trembling uncontrollably.
As he stood frozen in fear, green light flashed—
"Avada Kedavra!"
The sudden light illuminated the world, and the terror on the old gardener's face.
But the instant the light struck him, he made no sound at all.
He fell backward stiffly, like a slab of iron.
"Thud."
The scene cut.
At the same moment, Harry Potter jolted upright in bed.
His face was filled with shock.
His eyes with disbelief.
"Oh, cool—"
The premiere erupted into cheers.
"Voldemort is evil, but he's really handsome!"
"So Frank saw the murderer again after fifty years?"
"Why didn't they show Voldemort's face? I really want to know what he looks like in the movie. It was described in the novel!"
In the original Goblet of Fire novel, Frank's encounter with Voldemort wasn't brief.
After realizing he had no hope of survival, he stood on the side of justice and angrily condemned Voldemort's evil.
But—
Because a film's runtime is limited, the dialogue that further developed Frank as a character was cut by Columbus.
And in that Riddle House sequence, what J.K. Rowling really wanted to convey was Voldemort's cruelty.
At most, it also shows Wormtail's cowardice. Peter Pettigrew hopes that Voldemort will stop targeting Harry, stop targeting the son of an old acquaintance. But the moment Voldemort raises his voice, Wormtail immediately caves. That kind of spinelessness is pure, textbook "rat" behavior.
Back to the present.
Since a new storm has already appeared, how could Harry possibly stand still?
So once the perspective returns to the protagonist, a brand-new adventure officially begins!
Well.
Not really.
After all, Harry is still just a child.
And he's about to enter fourth year in Britain, not fourth grade in Germany.
So after waking from the nightmare, his first reaction is very simple: his scar hurts.
This is actually highly unusual. In the past, even when directly facing Voldemort, such as in Chamber of Secrets when confronting the Horcrux version of Riddle, his scar had never hurt this badly.
His second reaction comes from memory. What just happened seemed to have entered his dream, but because his view was vague and fragmented, and because he couldn't recall much after waking, he was left confused.
After sitting on the bed for a short while, he came up with a solution.
Ask for outside help.
He rushed to his desk and began writing letters.
The first name to appear on the parchment was Hermione Granger.
But Hermione's name only stayed there briefly before Harry crossed it out.
Shaking his head, he muttered, "No, no, I can't write to Hermione. If she finds out my scar hurts, she'll definitely make a huge fuss and tell me to go find Dumbledore, or—flip through books nonstop—"
"Ha ha ha ha!"
The accurate description triggered laughter throughout the theater.
Next, the second name to appear was Albus Dumbledore.
Like Hermione's, Dumbledore's name didn't last long before being erased.
Because: "No, no. The headmaster is very busy. It wouldn't be right to bother him over something like this."
Shaking his head again, Harry wrote down a third name: Ron Weasley.
That name vanished even faster than the previous two.
As for the reason—
"Oh! Harry! Are you insane?!"
"Ron has a huge mouth! If he finds out your scar hurts, he'll shout it to his whole family, and then Mrs. Weasley will panic even worse than Hermione! Mr. Weasley will probably freak out too!"
On the surface, after excluding Hermione, Ron, and Dumbledore from the list of people he could contact, Harry, sitting at his desk, seemed wrapped in a sense of loneliness.
At that moment, he couldn't find anyone he felt he could sit down with and seriously talk to.
This wasn't because Hermione, Ron, or Dumbledore wouldn't listen patiently.
It was that, in Harry's mind, because he hated troubling others, those three still felt a little distant from him.
But after a brief pause, excitement appeared on his face.
He tore off the parchment and wrote a new name at the top of a fresh page—
Sirius Black.
Yes.
Little Harry embraced his godfather.
"Oh—this scene is so warm—"
"This has to be the best summer Harry's had so far, right?"
"Harry Potter really needs to be filmed by Chris Columbus! No one understands warmth better than him! If someone else directed Goblet of Fire, this scene would definitely have been cut!"
"Chris—you did an amazing job—"
The audience's praise made Chris Columbus grin from ear to ear.
Even in the darkness, he raised his arm and waved toward the source of the voices.
Isabella also pressed her lips together, nodding slightly in satisfaction.
This scene existed in the original novel as well, though the film's presentation naturally differed.
For example, in the book, Harry's thought process about who to contact is all internal.
The movie visualized it.
Isabella's satisfaction at seeing the original plot preserved came from one reason: in her previous life, all of this had been cut. All the warmth and joy in Rowling's writing had been deleted.
And the reason for their removal was the same as everything else.
Not enough runtime.
How should one put this—
In Isabella's view, once Harry's longing for love and family was removed, he became a flat character. Starting from Goblet of Fire, the Harry on screen existed for one main purpose only: defeating Voldemort.
The entire series turned into a level-clearing grind.
Since runtime is genuinely difficult to judge fairly, Isabella chose not to dwell on the past.
After Hedwig delivered the letter, a furious shout suddenly erupted like a thunderclap—
"Why is there so little food for breakfast today?!"
"I know the school suggested Dudley lose weight, but who is this supposed to be enough for?!"
Uncle Vernon's voice pulled the story forward.
It turned out the Dursley family was on a diet.
When sticking out his iron-clad backside could knock over a full-grown tiger, and sitting down could crush a juvenile whale, if he didn't lose weight now, he'd be ready to enter adult competitive eating contests while still a minor.
So—
Uncle Vernon's complaining made Harry immediately grab his snack bag.
He crawled on the floor, pried up a loose floorboard beside his bed, and stuffed the remaining snacks inside.
As the camera shifted, a "treasure vault" appeared before the audience.
The narrow space under the floor was packed with snacks.
From Hermione. From Hagrid. From Ron. From Sirius.
Enough food to last ten years made Harry very happy.
Even when his uncle angrily yelled for him to come downstairs and eat, using disgust-inducing language, Harry didn't get upset. He calmly ate the "healthy meal," which made Dudley furious. Just as Dudley was about to teach him a lesson—
The plot moved again.
A mailman knocked on the Dursleys' door.
He delivered a letter covered in stamps.
After glancing through it, Uncle Vernon discovered it was from Mrs. Weasley. She invited Harry to attend the Quidditch World Cup with their family, since England hadn't won the trophy in thirty years.
The sudden invitation left Uncle Vernon conflicted.
He disliked Harry and wanted him gone as soon as possible, but he also didn't want Harry going out and having fun.
While he was agonizing over it, Harry cleverly mentioned his godfather, a murderer.
Harry said that if Sirius found out the Weasleys had invited him to the Quidditch World Cup, he would be very happy, because Sirius doted on him. Last term, he had even given Harry an extremely expensive Firebolt.
The wizarding world's supercar.
The mention of a murderer terrified Uncle Vernon, who immediately made his decision and allowed Harry to go watch whatever stupid World Cup it was.
Just as the Dursleys were wondering how Harry would contact the Weasleys—
"Boom—!"
A dull explosion suddenly rang out from the Dursleys' fireplace.
The Weasley family directly teleported in using Floo Powder.
They had come to pick up Harry, who now had permission to leave, and take him to the Quidditch World Cup.
The sight left the Dursleys dumbfounded. Vernon roared, "Oh—so you've been spying on us the whole time?!"
"I never saw Harry contact you!"
Ron shrugged right in front of Vernon and said, "Actually, whether you agree or not, we were coming to get Harry anyway. The letter was just to inform you, not to ask for permission."
The forced-buying energy hit, and Harry instantly broke into a huge smile on screen.
As for off screen—
"Oh damn it—Ron gets to show off again—"
"When it comes to doing bad things—Ron is actually pretty cool"
"This should be Ron's second official rescue of Harry, right?"
"Yes! The first time was in Chamber of Secrets, when Harry was locked up and Ron came to save him in a car. Wow. Ron really has talent for being a prince on a white horse."
"Ha ha ha ha—what the hell is 'being a prince on a white horse'—that comparison is hilarious!"
The massive theater turned into a sea of laughter thanks to Ron's heroic entrance.