Fifty years ago, the Riddles were murdered at their mansion. The cantankerous caretaker, Frank Bryce, was accused of the crime, though he was innocent and was cleared. At the present time, Bryce, living alone in a cottage near the now-abandoned mansion, sees a light flicker on in the manor. Investigating, he overhears a sinister conversation between a deformed Lord Voldemort and his lowly servant, Peter Pettigrew. Bryce overhears Voldemort and Pettigrew plotting to kill Harry Potter and decides to go and call the police but is caught eavesdropping and is killed by Voldemort. Harry, Hermione Granger, and the Weasley family spend most of the summer together, even watching the Quidditch World Cup. While they are at the Cup, however, a band of Death Eaters, Voldemort's servants, storm the grounds, causing mayhem, and the dark mark is shot to the sky. Ministry officials rush to the scene; the Head of the International Magical Cooperation office, Barty Crouch Sr, fires his house elf Winky, believing she shot the dark mark into the sky. Harry and his friends return home worried about the presence of the Death Eaters.
Back at Hogwarts, the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore announces during the welcoming feast that the school will host the Triwizard Tournament, a centuries-old inter-school competition that was discontinued because it became too dangerous, but has been recently revived. One student, who must be seventeen or older, from each of three magical schools will be chosen, by the Goblet of Fire, to compete (any student chosen must compete, as submitting one's name is a binding magical contract). Meanwhile, Hermione, concerned about what she sees as the plight of elves, begins S.P.E.W. (the Society For the Protection of Elfish Welfare), but few people are interested in what she has to say.
The new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor is Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, a former Auror and Dumbledore's friend. His tenacity in avoiding dark magic at all costs, even resorting to violence to fight back, has him teaching the Three Unforgivable Curses in class, a lesson which is illegal. The curses are the Imperius Curse, which forces the victim to do the caster's bidding; the Cruciatus Curse, a spell that tortures its victim; and the killing curse called Avada Kedavra. Harry learns he is the only known person to have survived the Killing Curse, cast against him by Voldemort when Harry was a baby.
The other two magical institutions, Beauxbatons Academy, from France, and Durmstrang Institute, from Bulgaria, arrive at Hogwarts two months into the school term. For one whole day, eligible students submit their names into the Goblet of Fire, and the next night, the champions are chosen by the goblet: Fleur Delacour from Beauxbatons, Viktor Krum of Durmstrang, and Cedric Diggory of Hogwarts. Mysteriously, a fourth champion is chosen: Harry, who never submitted his name, and is underage and ought to have been magically blocked from doing so anyway. Ron Weasley is instantly infuriated, thinking Harry submitted himself, and refuses to speak to him. Only Hermione and a few others believe Harry's word.
Harry is guided through the tournament by Professor Moody. In the first task, the champions each are required to retrieve a golden egg from a dragon. The egg contains a clue for the second task. After Harry completes the task with help from Rubeus Hagrid, Moody, and his Firebolt broomstick, Ron reconciles with him.
As part of the Triwizard Tournament's tradition, over the Christmas holidays, the students of Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons remain at school to attend the Yule Ball. Harry wants to invite Cho Chang, but when he learns she is attending with Cedric, he agrees to take Parvati Patil, while her twin sister, Padma, goes with Ron. Hermione attends with Viktor Krum and looks unexpectedly pretty doing so, which makes Ron doubly jealous.
The second tournament task requires retrieving something important taken from each champion hidden in the Black Lake. The problem is that they must stay underwater for an hour. Ten minutes before the task, Harry is woken up and given gillyweed by Neville Longbottom so he can breathe underwater. The gillyweed is successful and Harry finds the four “important objects” of the tournament contestants: Ron, Hermione, Cho, and Fleur’s little sister, Gabrielle Delacour. Harry stays on the spot to ensure that everyone is rescued, but Fleur never comes. He is forced to rescue Gabrielle along with Ron, which causes him to technically lose the challenge, but he gains points for ‘moral fibre.'
As the remainder of the school year passes, Harry regularly contacts Sirius Black, his godfather, who is on the run for a crime he was wrongfully imprisoned for. One night, Harry and Krum are startled when a disheveled Mr. Crouch emerges from the forest, mumbling nonsense and demanding to see Dumbledore. Harry runs for help, but when he returns with Dumbledore, they find Krum unconscious and Crouch missing.
Harry has a dream about Voldemort during Divination and goes straight to Dumbledore. While waiting in Dumbledore's office for the headmaster's return, Harry discovers a Pensieve, a method of storing memories one does not wish to be continually remembering, and enters it. It contains one of Dumbledore's own memories of a trial in which Barty Crouch, Jr, a Death Eater, was sentenced to Azkaban by his own father for torturing Frank and Alice Longbottom (Neville's parents) into insanity.
The third and final tournament task involves navigating a large maze located on the Quidditch Pitch which is filled with magical obstacles. Harry and Cedric successfully navigate the maze, helping each other on the way. They reach the Triwizard cup and agree to take hold of it simultaneously, making both of them the winners. The Cup turns out to be a portkey that transports them to an old graveyard in Little Hangleton. Pettigrew awaits them, carrying a deformed Lord Voldemort, who orders Pettigrew to murder Cedric. Pettigrew kills Diggory with the Avada Kedavra curse, and gags Harry and ties him to the Riddle tombstone. He then uses a bone from Voldemort's father's grave, some of Harry's blood, and his own cut-off hand in a magical ritual that restores Lord Voldemort to his former powers and a new body.
Voldemort summons his Death Eaters by touching Pettigrew's Dark Mark, and reveals that his servant at Hogwarts ensured that Harry would participate in the tournament, win it, and thus be brought to the graveyard. After giving Pettigrew a new hand made of silver, Voldemort attacks Harry with the Cruciatus Curse. Harry then tries to disarm Voldemort with the Expelliarmus spell, at exactly the same time as Voldemort uses the Avada Kedavra. The two curses meet in the air and interlock, causing an effect called Priori Incantatem (because both their wands are made of phoenix feather from the same phoenix) to take place. This bond between the wands causes the spirits of Voldemort's most recent murdered victims, including Cedric, Bertha Jorkins, James and Lily Potter, and even the Muggle Frank Bryce, to spill out from his wand. The spirit victims provide protection to Harry, allowing him to escape with Cedric's body and leaving Voldemort behind in a rage.
Harry, carrying Cedric's body, returns to the school grounds through the portkey. Through the chaos that ensues, Moody rushes Harry to his office. He reveals that he has been helping Harry throughout the tournament so that Harry would reach the portkey, thereby going to the graveyard so Voldemort could be restored. Moody then attempts to kill Harry himself, but Dumbledore, Severus Snape, and Minerva McGonagall barge in. Dumbledore had realised that something was wrong when he saw Moody take Harry away from the maze so quickly, and followed them. Dumbledore feeds Moody three drops of Veritaserum, a truth potion, and they discover that "Moody" is actually Barty Crouch, Jr. He was smuggled out of Azkaban by his father and used a Polyjuice Potion to impersonate the real Alastor Moody, who is trapped in a magical trunk. Crouch, Jr. entered Harry's name into the Goblet of Fire and ensured that Harry completed each difficult task by supplying help one way or another. Crouch also murdered his own father, transfigured his body into a bone, and buried it. Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic, arrives at Hogwarts accompanied by a Dementor. When the Dementor enters the room where Crouch, Jr. stands, it swoops down and gives him the fatal “Dementor’s Kiss”, sucking out his soul. Fudge refuses to believe Dumbledore's and Harry's word that Voldemort is back, and the only witness who could have verified their stories now lies soulless on the floor.
Harry is taken to Dumbledore's office where he reunites with Sirius and he relives his story of his night. He is taken to the hospital wing and is crowned Triwizard Champion and awarded with 1,000 galleons. That night, Dumbledore recalls "the old crowd"; since Fudge and the Ministry denies the resurrection of Voldemort, wizards who believe Harry's story will have to defend themselves. Days later, Dumbledore then makes an announcement at the gloomy Leaving Feast, telling everybody about Voldemort and saying that to deny the true way Cedric died would be 'an insult to his memory.' While leaving the Hogwart’s Express on King’s Cross Station, Harry gives his winnings to Fred and George to start a joke shop and Harry sets off for another summer at the Dursleys'.
Rita Skeeter, a writer for the Daily Prophet, spends much of the story writing lies about Harry (about the time his scar hurt after a strange dream in Divination), Hagrid (about the time he told them about his mother), and Hermione (in love with Viktor Krum). Skeeter carries out secret interviews with Slytherin students to get the fodder for some of her stories, but the sources for others are inexplicable. Initially, Harry suspects that she has an Invisibility Cloak, but Hermione knows that Mad Eye Moody would have been able to see through the cloak with his magical eye. Next, Harry thinks that she may have had areas of the school bugged. However, Hermione tells them that electronic devices do not work in Hogwarts because of the magic in the air. Near the end of the book, Hermione finally realises how Skeeter was doing this: she is an unregistered Animagus and can turn into a beetle. Harry and Ron realise that there was a beetle on the statue near Hagrid's hut, and later in Hermione's hair after the second task, and on the window of Divination class when Harry's scar hurt, and that the Slytherins knew about it all along. Hermione eventually traps Skeeter, in beetle form, in a jar and does not release her until the train reaches London.
- Ron's jealousy comes to the fore when Harry's name is pulled from the Goblet of Fire. He thinks Harry is lying about putting his name in for the contest, and abandons his friend. Ron later returns when he sees how dangerous the competition is. Also, Ron's feelings towards Hermione, which were more subtle prior to Goblet of Fire, now become obvious, with their relationship blossoming in Half-Blood Prince and finally being consummated with their first kiss in Deathly Hallows. Both of these are faced in the seventh book when Ron, angered by Harry's lack of a concrete plan and the lack of the usual comforts of home, leaves Hermione and Harry (though regrets this instantly).
- Fleur looks interested in Bill Weasley, whom she later dates (Order of the Phoenix), is engaged to (Half-Blood Prince), marries (Deathly Hallows) and has children with (Nineteen Years Later).
- At the end of Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore asks Sirius to round up "the old crowd". This includes Arabella Figg, who is mentioned as early in the series as the second chapter of the first book. However, she is introduced as a crazy old Muggle who lives a street or two over from Privet Drive. In Order of the Phoenix, it is revealed that she is a Squib who has been assigned to keep an eye on Harry. The only reason she never let him have fun while at her house was that she (and Dumbledore) feared that if the Dursleys believed Harry enjoyed himself there, they would find a different babysitter.
- Towards the end of the 4th book, Harry tells his tale of his night in the graveyard to Dumbledore and Sirius. He mentions his arm, sliced by Pettigrew, and there is 'a gleam of triumph' in Dumbledore's eye. This is because Dumbledore knows that using Harry's blood to bring Voldemort back will keep Harry alive in the seventh book should Voldemort kill him.
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