Days wandering around Hogwarts

Chapter 432 Any clues?
In the woods, an Auror tried to wake Winky up, but was stopped by Fudge.

This matter involves Barty Crouch and is a bit tricky, so Fudge wants to wait until he arrives to deal with it.

The Auror tried to take the wand from Winky's hand, but Hermione shouted, "Don't touch that wand!"

Everyone looked at her.

Hermione pointed to the Dark Mark in the sky that had not yet disappeared and said, "I'm worried that there is dark magic up there that could hurt someone."

"If Harry saw his wand and took it..."

Everyone understood what he meant.

At the moment, this matter was definitely done by the Death Eaters, and since Harry killed their Dark Lord, they would most likely take revenge on Harry through some means.

Fudge said, "Stop and wait until Dumbledore brings Potter here."

There may be dark magic on the wand, and since Dumbledore is here, let the big boss go first.

Soon after, Dumbledore brought Harry to the scene.

Dumbledore pointed to the wand in Winky's hand and asked Harry, "Is that your wand?"

Harry answered immediately, "It's my wand, and I was just trying to figure out how to get it back."

He quickly recognized the tea towel on the house-elf: "Isn't that Winky? We saw her in the box. What happened to her?"

Harry wanted to go over and get his wand back, but Fudge stopped him and told Dumbledore about Hermione's guess.

Dumbledore thought it made sense, so he stepped forward and checked the wand in Winky's hand.

Fortunately, there was no dark magic on the wand.

Although it was a false alarm, no one thought it was unnecessary.

If there was a Dark Mark in the sky and Harry was killed by a trap on the ground, I don’t know how I would live.

Fudge asked Harry, "Potter, when did your wand disappear?"

"I think that's when I fell, I think," Harry answered.

Scrimgeour arrived later than Harry and the others. He said to Fudge in a deep voice, "Minister, I suggest that we split into two groups. One group will follow Potter to where he fell, and the other group will follow those two footprints."

Fudge agreed, and the two groups split up, so that they met up at the spot where Harry and Ron were wrestling.

Someone cast a spell to illuminate the surroundings, and problems arose.

There were traces of Ron and Harry falling on the ground, but no tree roots.

"Malfoy!" Hermione exclaimed. "Draco Malfoy, he was standing over there."

She pointed to where Malfoy had been standing just now, and an Auror went over to check, and indeed, footprints were found.

Fudge's face was terribly dark.

Lucius Malfoy's disappearance is vaguely related to the Azkaban breakout, but there is no evidence.

Now the Dark Mark has appeared in the sky, and his son has appeared at a related occasion. Is there any connection between them?

Scrimgeour and Dumbledore questioned Harry and his group again and again to confirm that Malfoy did not cast a spell at the time.

Fudge was listening on the side, and after listening he said: "Even if he is not the mastermind, he is related to the mastermind."

"I guess his mission is to distract Potter and prevent him from discovering that his wand has been taken away."

Scrimgeour nodded. This was very likely to happen.

Dumbledore remained silent. Anything was possible now and he couldn't jump to conclusions.

Draco is the kind of person who never makes big mistakes, but makes small mistakes all the time.

I wouldn't dare ask him to steal the wand and place the Dark Mark, but I do have the courage to ask him to help me by playing a trick on Harry Potter.

The work of encircling and suppressing the black-robed wizards has been completed, and Barty Crouch was brought here.

Crouch saw Fudge, Scrimgeour and Dumbledore here, and asked calmly, "Minister, what happened here?"

Fudge took a step to the side, allowing Crouch to see Twinkle on the ground.

"Bati," Fudge said solemnly, "We found her under the Dark Mark. She was under a Stunning Spell and had Potter's wand in her hand. Potter had been tripped here before and his wand was stolen."

The corners of Crouch's mouth twitched and his hands were shaking.

"Minister!" He looked angry. "You mean to tell me to let my house-elf go out and steal and release the Dark Mark?"

Fudge immediately waved his hands and said, "No, no, no, that's not what I meant. I'm just stating my current findings."

"We also found another person's footprints next to Shanshan's footprints. She is likely to have been held hostage."

Crouch's face looked calmer, but his hands were shaking more violently and twitching a little.

Scrimgeour went over and said, "Relax, Barty. We believe in you."

Everyone was not surprised by Crouch's reaction. Anyone would be angry if something like this happened. Many people agreed in their hearts that his house-elf was kidnapped.

But Crouch knew what was going on and couldn't relax.

He took a few deep breaths and said, "Let Winky wake up."

An Auror removed the curse from Winky, and someone took the wand from her hand, but for a moment she didn't know whether to return it to Harry or to the leader.

Scrimgeour winked at the Auror, who handed the wand to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore raised Harry's wand and said to Scrimgeour, "Flashback." Scrimgeour nodded and pointed his wand at Harry's wand.

"Flashback spell!"

A little green light first appeared at the tip of Harry's wand, and then a terrifying skeleton with a snake tongue emerged from the junction of the two wands, exactly the same as the one above his head.

There was a cry of surprise from the people around him, and Crouch's face turned even darker.

Over there, the Aurors began to interrogate Winky, but she could only scream that she knew nothing.

At this time, Hermione stood up and said, "It's not her. Winky speaks in a shrill voice. The voice we just heard chanting the spell was much deeper!"

She was a little nervous. It was the first time she spoke like this to officials from the Ministry of Magic. She couldn't help but turn to look at Ron and the others.

"Yeah, that's a human voice," said Ron.

Fred also said: "We can tell that the voice should be that of a middle-aged man."

Neville also added: "The height, the place where the sound came from is not the height of the house elves, probably..."

He looked around and said, "About as tall as Mr. Crouch."

Crouch suddenly roared: "You mean I was the one who cast the spell?!"

"Barty," Scrimgeour came out to mediate for his son, "Young Longbottom was just giving an example, not an accusation against you."

Crouch snorted at the two of them, feeling relieved when he saw that they didn't suspect him.

At this time, Fudge asked Hermione and the others: "Do you have any more evidence?"

At this point Dumbledore said, "I think we need a Pensieve."

Fudge immediately said, "Yes, let the Aurors check their memories separately!"

Dumbledore said again: "Let me do it. Does anyone have a bottle?"

He felt something was wrong, but couldn't put it into words, so he decided to get the students out of this matter first.

Fudge also thought that those children had nothing to do with the matter. Because of the footprints, Winky should have been held hostage by the wizard, so he agreed to let Dumbledore retrieve the memory.

The most urgent task now is to find the wizard based on the clues.

Crouch began to get nervous again. If the Auror continued to follow the footprints, he might find that Winky and the wizard's footprints led directly to the stadium box.

At this time, Frank Longbottom came over from the direction of the stadium and said to Scrimgeour, "The two footprints near the entrance of the stadium can no longer be found. There are too many people and the scene has been destroyed."

Scrimgeour sighed helplessly and said, "The wizard may have taken the house-elf hostage when he left the stadium."

Crouch breathed a sigh of relief.

"Minister," Crouch said as he walked over to Fudge, "I am fully aware that Winky is required to be brought back to the Ministry for questioning according to procedure. However, I would like to ask your permission to deal with her in my own way."

"Don't worry, she will be punished for her mistakes," Crouch added coldly.

Fudge looked at Crouch, nodded and said, "No problem."

"I think she is also a victim, so don't be too harsh on her."

Everyone was on edge tonight, and with this unexpected incident, Fudge was worried that Crouch might do something too rough.

Crouch said: "I was so angry about Winky's behaviour tonight that I told her to stay in the tent. I noticed she hadn't done what I had asked her to do. Which means - clothes!"

Shanshan was sitting on the ground just now, looking at her master with tears in her eyes, stammering and begging in a low voice.

When the word "clothes" came out, she crawled to Crouch like crazy, hugged her thighs and screamed: "No, Master! No clothes, no clothes!"

Hermione saw this scene not far away and was about to go over to say something when it happened to be her turn to retrieve her memory.

When Dumbledore pulled the silvery memories out of her temple, Crouch and Winky were nowhere to be found.

At this time, George and Ginny came over and were relieved to see Fred and the others with Dumbledore.

Dumbledore waved his hand and asked the students to leave.

Fred asked George, "Have you seen Charles?"

George shook his head and said, "After that thing appeared, many people ran to the court. We looked for him for a long time but didn't see him."

Ron said nervously, "Do you think that Death Eater will take Charles away?"

Seamus, who had been watching the fun nearby, said, "We don't know who will catch whom yet. He must be fooling around with the Veela somewhere."

Everyone thought it made sense, and Hermione began to write it down in her little notebook.

At this time, a voice sounded: "Sorry, I'm late."

"I just went to see Mr. Smith. He looked well."

Fudge smiled and said to the visitor, "Oh, Mr. Counselor, I'm glad you're here."

Dumbledore drew his Elder Wand and stared at Grindelwald.

Grindelwald asked what had happened, and Fudge seemed to have grasped a life-saving straw and told him everything in detail.

After listening to it, he said: "Mr. Crouch is unlucky."

Fudge said, "Yes, his son died in Azkaban, and his wife also died of illness. The two events happened very close together. It was rare for him to have a well-trained house-elf. Now he is the only one at home."

Grindelwald had an expression of disbelief on his face.

(End of this chapter)