After the second task ended, the stands by the Black Lake were dismantled overnight. Even so, people continued talking excitedly about everything that had happened that day, especially what had taken place underwater.
People were always curious about things they did not know or understand.
Everyone desperately wanted to know what had happened beneath the Black Lake, but Hermione, Ginny, and Gabrielle either refused to say anything or simply told the truth without exaggerating in the slightest.
Clearly, that was not the "truth" everyone wanted to hear.
So they turned their attention to the only boy, Ron, hoping to pry a few secrets out of him.
Ron finally got his wish and became the center of attention. Carried away by the spotlight, he retold the underwater story over and over again, and every version was different.
To satisfy his own vanity, Ron added countless things that had never happened. His unconscious state beneath the lake became a thrilling kidnapping story, then transformed into a legendary tale of a hostage fighting desperately to save himself.
In reality, Dumbledore had simply used magic to hypnotize the hostages in Professor McGonagall's office beforehand, assuring them that they were in absolutely no danger and that they would wake up the moment they reached the surface.
Every time Eda heard Ron boasting and watched him gesturing animatedly, she wanted to throw him back into the Black Lake and see whether he could once again defeat a fully armed group of merpeople and wreak havoc beneath the lake.
If he couldn't, then he could just stay at the bottom of the Black Lake and marry into the merpeople's village instead.
After March arrived, the weather became a little brighter, but Eda's mood took a sharp turn for the worse. She felt as though she had fallen into a vicious cycle. The more she tried to escape it or see it clearly, the deeper she sank.
During the summer at the Burrow, Eda had learned from Mr. Weasley about the disappearance of Bertha Jorkins. That had been where everything began.
Bertha Jorkins was an employee of the Ministry of Magic. She was not particularly clever, was extremely curious, and never knew when she should or shouldn't say something.
Someone like her was unsuited for politics. Bertha was constantly transferred from one department to another, and wherever she went, she seemed to become a burden.
After Bertha Jorkins disappeared, most people at the Ministry believed she had simply lost track of time because she was rather forgetful.
They assumed she was enjoying herself too much in Albania and that there was no need to waste manpower searching for her. Sooner or later, she would come back on her own.
But now more than half a year had passed, and Bertha still had not reappeared at the Ministry. No one had seen her alive, nor had anyone found her body.
Furthermore, although Bertha Jorkins had been working in the Department of Magical Games and Sports before her disappearance, she had previously served in several other departments. She had even once worked under Barty Crouch.
If Bertha Jorkins was merely a Ministry employee, then her disappearance had nothing to do with Eda.
However, the events that followed her disappearance were another matter entirely.
Bertha Jorkins' disappearance barely caused a ripple. The 1994 Quidditch World Cup went ahead as scheduled, after which came the suspected Death Eater riot and the appearance of the Dark Mark.
When the Dark Mark rose into the sky, Eda had been at the campsite. She had even clashed with Ministry officials led by Barty Crouch over the incident. Afterward, the matter was quietly dropped, and to this day the Ministry had still failed to catch the culprit.
After that came Hogwarts' old tradition, the Halloween scare.
Only this time, Halloween in 1994 had not been as frightening as usual. The only difference was that the Triwizard Tournament had gained one extra champion, bringing the total to four.
That extra champion just happened to be Harry Potter.
Once again, everything had become connected to Harry, making it impossible not to think more deeply about it.
As for Barty Crouch, he was the Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, one of the principal organizers of the Triwizard Tournament, and also one of its judges.
The existence of this Ministry official, famous for putting duty above family by sending his own son to Azkaban, connected these three events together into a complete circle.
And he stood at its center.
In the past, Eda's impression of Barty Crouch had been that he was a man who put justice above his own family because he had sent his son to Azkaban.
After the World Cup, however, Eda's opinion of him had been reduced to a single word:
Stupid.
You'd have to suffer several hundred thousand cubic centimeters of brain hemorrhage to do something that stupid. Pinning the blame for conjuring the Dark Mark on Harry Potter was so absurd that Barty Crouch looked like he had a serious mental problem.
As it turned out, Barty Crouch really was ill. There truly was something wrong with his health.
On Halloween night, the night the fourth champion was chosen, Crouch already looked sick, and he seemed burdened by heavy worries.
At the time, however, everyone's attention was fixed on Harry Potter, so no one noticed Crouch's condition or realized anything was unusual.
After the first task, Barty Crouch never appeared at Hogwarts again. Percy attended both the Yule Ball and the second task in his place, explaining that Crouch had worked himself into illness and was recuperating at home.
That matched the information Eda had received. Barty Crouch really had claimed to be ill and was staying at home.
Eda had become trapped in this vicious cycle called "Barty Crouch." Three consecutive incidents could all be connected to this man who seemed to have been suffering from "brain hemorrhage" for years. Was it really his doing, or was he simply cursed with terrible luck?
It was difficult for Eda not to suspect Barty Crouch. Once she cast him in the role of the mastermind, all the contradictions that had previously made no sense suddenly seemed to fit together.
Bertha Jorkins had once worked under Barty Crouch. Suppose she accidentally discovered one of her superior's secrets. Soon afterward, she disappeared.
Because Bertha's superior knew her well. He knew no one at the Ministry would make a great fuss over her "disappearance."
Suppose the person who cast the Dark Mark at the World Cup campsite had been an old acquaintance of Barty Crouch, or even Crouch himself. Then his idiotic insistence on blaming Harry Potter would suddenly make perfect sense.
A man capable of serving as Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and who remained the head of an entire department even after losing much of his prestige, could not possibly be an idiot.
If someone sitting in that position truly lacked brains, they would have been devoured by political rivals until not even bones remained.
Crouch wasn't throwing the blame onto Harry because he was stupid.
He had to do it.
He had to stall everyone present, buying enough time for the real culprit to escape, or perhaps covering for himself.
As luck would have it, both Sirius and Eda had been there that night. Their impulsive actions had inadvertently helped Barty Crouch, allowing him to delay matters successfully.
Afterward, Crouch threw his house-elf Winky out to take the blame, hastily closing the case.
Suppose it had also been Barty Crouch who placed Harry's name into the Goblet of Fire on Halloween.
He had both the opportunity and the ability.
Crouch understood the rules of the Triwizard Tournament, and he understood the Goblet of Fire. He knew that once Harry's name was chosen, Harry would have no choice but to compete.
From Bertha Jorkins' "disappearance," to assisting whoever cast the Dark Mark, to placing Harry's name into the Goblet of Fire, Barty Crouch had been fully capable of accomplishing all three.
After everything was set in motion, he quietly withdrew and watched events unfold from the sidelines.
All three incidents seemed to have reasonable explanations. They all appeared to fit together.
But Eda knew her theory could not withstand scrutiny. She herself could think of countless ways to refute it.
Everything was nothing more than speculation and assumption. She had no real evidence whatsoever, and there were still obvious flaws in her reasoning.
That was what made this vicious cycle so strange.
There were simply too many things that didn't make sense.
Every time you managed to explain one contradiction, several more questions immediately appeared, and those new questions overturned all your previous conclusions.
In the end, it all came back to the same question.
What was Barty Crouch's motive?
Or rather, what was his objective?
A man who had personally sent his own Death Eater son to Azkaban choosing to help the Death Eaters and plot against Harry simply made no sense.
And what earth-shattering secret, or what kind of conflict, could have caused Bertha Jorkins to "disappear"?
Everything had come full circle again.
All the events of this year resembled a hopeless tangle of threads. Even Barty Crouch, who seemed to stand at the center, was merely one of those threads.
Snape and Karkaroff, two former Death Eaters who had successfully cleared their names, were also caught up in it.
So was Alastor Moody, who had been attacked before the school year began.
What roles were these three playing in everything that had happened this year?
It was as though an invisible, intangible hand had stirred everything into chaos, making it impossible to see clearly or guess the truth.
Eda knew that only by finding that hand, and the person it belonged to, could she break free from this vicious cycle and uncover the truth.
But where exactly was that hand?
...
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