During the World Cup, Mr. Weasley somehow managed to get the best tickets, more than ten of them at once, allowing everyone to sit in the same box as the important officials from the Ministry of Magic.
When they entered the box, there weren't many people there yet. The only one there was a house-elf named Winky, sitting in the seats in the very back row. At the time, Harry even caused a misunderstanding by mistaking Winky for Dobby.
It was also after meeting Winky that Hermione learned just how low the status of house-elves was and came up with the idea of the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare.
After that, more and more people entered the box, and the detestable old peacock Lucius Malfoy also made his appearance.
Since neither side could stand the sight of the other, everyone got into an argument with the Malfoy family and stopped paying attention to the house-elf Winky.
"Do you remember? There was an empty seat next to the house-elf at the time," Sirius said. "She was sitting in the second-to-last seat of the last row, and the seat beside her was empty."
The twins thought for a moment before Fred said, "That's right. She said she was saving the seat for her master, Barty Crouch."
"I remember that too. That house-elf seemed to be afraid of heights," George added. "She covered her eyes the whole time and didn't even dare look outside."
For a better viewing experience, the seats in the World Cup box were naturally the best in the entire stadium. But for someone with a severe fear of heights, being at that height would probably be worse than being killed.
Did Barty Crouch really not know that his own house-elf was afraid of heights?
If you want to understand what kind of person someone is, you should pay attention to how they treat their subordinates rather than only looking at how they treat people of equal status. From the way Barty Crouch treated Winky, his character could already be seen.
Even though Winky's fear of heights was severe, she kept her eyes covered the entire time, and even her voice trembled when she spoke to Harry. Yet she stayed there without moving an inch, saving a seat for her master.
"But Barty Crouch never showed up, did he?" Sirius let out a loud scoff. "If he never intended to watch the match, why did he have his servant stay there? He's not the kind of person who would do something pointless like that."
After more than half a year of hard work and countless hours of overtime, they had finally managed to revive the Triwizard Tournament, yet Barty Crouch didn't even appear at the event.
Doing all that work only to make someone else look good wasn't in keeping with Crouch's personality.
Sirius continued, "Let's talk about something else. Do you remember that Harry lost his wand that night?"
"Unforgettable," Eda said through gritted teeth. "I've never seen a wizard care so little about his own wand!"
Every time she thought about it, Eda wanted to give Harry a good beating. How had she ended up knowing someone like this?
Wasn't this exactly like a student going to an exam without a pencil, or a soldier going onto the battlefield without a weapon?
If it weren't for Lily Potter's magical protection, and if it weren't for Dumbledore, Harry's ashes would have been scattered long ago.
Sirius was embarrassed again. Losing his own wand really was too shameful.
However, Sirius quickly composed himself and said, "Harry's wand was the wand that cast the Dark Mark. I asked Harry about it afterward and asked him when he realized that his wand was missing."
"What did he say?" Eda adjusted her sitting position, making sure she was sitting more securely so she wouldn't fall off the sofa when she heard the answer.
"He said he didn't know. He suspected that he had accidentally dropped it in the darkness and confusion," Sirius said. "I've already scolded him about it. He was far too careless."
Barty Crouch's empty seat in the box, Harry's wand producing the Dark Mark, Sirius must have thought of the connection between these two things.
After thinking for a while, Eda said, "You mean Harry's wand might already have been lost while he was in the stadium box? No, it should have been stolen. Harry was so focused on the match that he didn't notice when his wand disappeared."
"I think so. Harry's wand was very likely gone while he was watching the match," Sirius said. "But he didn't realize his wand was missing until they entered the woods."
Things in the box had indeed been quite chaotic. First they argued with the Malfoy family, then many more people entered the box, and after that the mascots of both sides appeared.
The Veela from Bulgaria captivated everyone, while the Irish leprechauns scattered large amounts of magical gold coins.
The exciting final match and all of these things could have distracted Harry enough that he failed to notice what was happening to him.
In other words, the person who cast the Dark Mark was very likely hiding in the box!
The first person they would definitely suspect was Lucius Malfoy. He was a Death Eater, even though he had escaped punishment.
But he was far from the only suspicious person in the box. After all, Winky had been found at the scene of the crime, and she was even holding Harry's wand.
The house-elf Winky had appeared at the scene of the crime, holding the weapon used to commit it. Was this really a coincidence? Or had someone deliberately arranged it?
Winky's seat was in the last row, tucked into a corner, and there was an empty seat beside her. That was Barty Crouch's seat.
However, those two seats occupied by Winky were in the worst location in the entire box. Even if she did nothing, nobody would willingly choose those seats.
What's more, Barty Crouch had never appeared in the stadium box from beginning to end, so there was no need for him to reserve a seat at all.
He had arrived the earliest, yet occupied the worst and least noticeable seats. Was Barty Crouch really that selfless?
Could it be that someone had actually been sitting in that empty seat, but nobody realized there was someone there?
Eda also began searching through her memories, recalling the details of what had happened in the box that night, especially everything related to that empty seat.
Nothing. She couldn't remember anything.
From the moment she entered the box until the moment she left, Eda had never sensed that there was an extra person inside. The stadium was noisy, and there were plenty of people in the box as well. Hiding one person would have been quite easy.
Sirius's expression became frighteningly grim, just like when Eda had first met him.
Sirius thumped his leg and said unwillingly, "The blind spot! The blind spot! We might really have been fooled by Barty Crouch, that old fraud!"
He had personally sentenced his own son, refused to collect his son's body, all because his son was a Death Eater. Who would suspect someone like that? Who would suspect that such a person had rescued his own son, who had committed serious crimes, from Azkaban?
Nobody would suspect the empty seat in the box because it was Barty Crouch's seat. Even though Barty Crouch hadn't come to watch the match, nobody would find it suspicious if the seat remained empty, because everyone simply assumed he was too busy with work to watch the match.
Nobody in the box would pay much attention to that empty seat either. Were the Veela not beautiful enough, or was the final not exciting enough? Nobody would think that the seat might actually be occupied by someone who was supposed to be dead.
Only someone like Eda, whose thought process was different from ordinary people, might have suspected Barty Crouch.
A blind spot. People easily overlooked things happening right beside them.
Human vision could also be deceptive. Everyone in the box believed that the seat was empty. Even if their eyes later noticed something unusual, their brains would process and interpret it as nothing unusual.
If Barty Crouch Jr. really hadn't died, and he had really gone to the World Cup to watch the match, then he and his father had truly played everyone for fools!
"There is one problem," Fred suddenly said. "All our assumptions are based on Barty Crouch Jr. being alive. What if he really did die?"
A bucket of cold water was poured over their heads, and both Eda and Sirius immediately calmed down.
They were still only at the hypothesis stage. Their suspicions were not necessarily true, and they needed to find evidence to support their assumptions.
Without evidence, even Dumbledore couldn't accuse Barty Crouch without reason. That was the rule, the law, and morality.
The most important thing now was to find evidence, to find Barty Crouch, who was supposedly sick but wasn't staying at home. He was the center of everything.
Once they found the center, the circle could be divided, allowing them to gradually reconstruct the truth and bring everything to light.
...
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