Cedric Diggory's father, Mr. Amos Diggory, offered to take a look at the box, but strangely enough, Mr. Crouch, who had been jealous and hateful, was not very interested in his proposal, and the witch in the dressing gown shook her head to relieve Harry's confusion,

"Don't bother, Amos, the guy who conjured this thing must have apparitioned and left."

"I don't think so," said Mr. Diggory, as he gazed at the box, with interest.

"If he wanted to leave, the guy who was doing this prank should have left a long time ago, I guess he was too badly injured to leave, or he had just woken up from a coma."

Mr. Diggory moved his wrist, and he seemed to feel that the staircase leading to the box was unsafe, so he apparitioned himself up. Harry's eyes narrowed, and he noticed Mr. Diggory appear on the outside of the box, pulling the twisted railing with one hand and aiming his glowing wand at the black box.

No one in the box was casting a spell at Mr. Diggory, and after a brief observation, he took his wand in his mouth and carefully climbed over the railing.

"Oops!"

Mr. Diggory's frightened cries rang out in the quiet Quidditch arena, and the expressions of the Ministry of Magic officials waiting on the ground tensed up as they pointed their wands at the box, and Mr. Weasley shouted,

"What's going on, Amos, do you need support?"

"It's all right, I stepped on a hole and almost fell to the next floor--" Mr. Diggory came from the box, and he muttered, "Don't come up, Arthur, I can't handle the weight of more people here!" ”

The creaking and screeching sounds continued to emanate from the box, and Mr. Diggory seemed to be searching the box, and the officials of the Ministry of Magic breathed a sigh of relief, but still kept a high level of attention there. Harry wanted to ask Mr. Diggory to pay a little attention to his wand, but given the current situation, he didn't say anything.

"Hey, I got it, there's one. Hey, the coma is over, hiss. Oh, my God! ”

The three of them looked at each other, while Mr. Crouch shouted in a tone of utter disbelief,

"You caught someone? Who, who? ”

Bang!

Mr. Crouch's shouts were still echoing in the Quidditch arena, and the air in front of them exploded unexpectedly, and Mr. Diggory appeared with a cloud of swollen smoke, holding a small, limp body in his arms, and Harry immediately recognized who it was through the big bat-like ears, and when the smoke that enveloped Mr. Diggory cleared and Harry saw the situation more clearly, Harry held his breath, his heart beat a few times, and Hermione covered her mouth and took a few steps back.

Mr. Crouch watched as Mr. Diggory put his house-elf at his feet, and he did not move or speak. The other officials of the Ministry of Magic were staring at Mr. Crouch. For several seconds, Crouch stood motionless, as if frozen, the fire-breathing eyes on his pale face staring fiercely at the glitter on the ground.

Mr. Diggory found that when Shiny was on the ground, it was supposed to be lying on the ground, which allowed the skin on its front to be preserved while its back was preserved. Not much better than the hapless wizard I had seen in the woods before.

The elf's back is scorched open by Professor Blaine's magic, and the wound is covered in bloody scabs. Extrapolating to a normal time, the wound should not have healed to this extent, and it is clear that the little creature should have woken up halfway through and did something to stop his death.

"It's—impossible—impossible," Barty Crouch finally came to his senses, and said in one pause, "impossible!" ”

Bang!

Crouch didn't give anyone else a chance to dissuade him, and in full view of everyone, he apparitioned to the upper floors and plunged headlong into the box.

"It's useless, Mr. Crouch—" Diggory shouted upwards, "I've seen it all, there's no one else there!" ”

Mr. Diggory's shouts were to no avail, and there was another creaking sound in the box, and it was clear that Mr. Crouch could not accept the result.

"It's a little embarrassing," said Mr. Diggory sternly, looking down at the sparkling delirious figure, "Barty Crouch's house-elf I mean"

"No way, Amos," Mr. Weasley whispered, "do you really think that the elves did it?" The Dark Mark is a wizard symbol that requires the use of a wand. ”

"yes," Mr. Diggory looked up at Harry, pulling a wand out of his pocket, "and it was holding this in its hand when I found it. ”

"It's my wand!" Harry took his wand and looked back and forth in surprise, "I thought it was over!" ”

Mr. Diggory shrugged at Mr. Weasley,

"You see, the elf has a wand, Arthur, you see, this is a violation of the third section of the Wands Code of Conduct in the first place: no non-human creature is allowed to carry or use a wand."

At that moment, there was another pop, and Mr. Barty Crouch phantom shifted to Mr. Weasley's side, apparently unnoticed, his face pale, his hands and toothbrush-like mustache twitching.

The situation seemed to be clear, and the officials of the Ministry of Magic all looked at the fainting flashes on the ground, and some of them had hidden eyes on Mr. Crouch.

Mr. Diggory seemed to think that he was responsible for the matter, and he smiled slightly smugly,

"If you have no objection, Mr. Crouch, I think we should wake it up and hear how he defends himself."

Mr. Crouch didn't react, but Hermione looked at Mr. Diggory in surprise,

"But this little elf is seriously injured, should you treat it first, I mean, it can't answer the question."

Mr. Diggory raised his brow, as if he had heard a joke, but perhaps considering Mr. Crouch's mood, he said kindly,

"That's the normal flow, miss, but tonight, we've suffered a lot of damage, and we have to find out as soon as possible if this little elf is an accomplice."

As he spoke, Mr. Diggory pointed his wand at Twinkle,

"Recover!"

Twinkle moved weakly, it seemed to want to turn over, but the action touched the wound on its back, and Twinkle suddenly wailed, and the pain made its cry tremble.

Mr. Diggory didn't wait for Twinkle to come back to his senses, he 'helped' Twinkle again, and directly waved his wand to make Twinkle flip and float slightly.

When it realized that there were people around it, the sparkling cry was cut off, and its eyes widened and glazed over, and its expression stiffened as if someone had choked its throat.

Harry suddenly felt someone grab his arm, and turned his head to see that it was Hermione, her face unbearable, her thin body swaying in the night wind. Harry pursed his lips as he looked at the interrogated Twinkle, wanting to help but not knowing what to do.

"I can't believe Barty Crouch would do that!"

Outside Sirius's tent, Mr. Weasley gave them a stern warning and hurried away with his colleagues.

Hermione immediately screamed angrily

"There's no real evidence that Twilight performed that magic, but, Barty Crouch just fired it, he didn't even want to heal his injuries that had been serving him, what did he think of the elf, a slave?"

"You're on point, Hermione--"

Ron seemed to be very open to what was going on with the house-elf, and he said calmly

"House-elves are slaves to their owners, and to be honest, it's a good thing for Crouch to fire him, and if he does get brought back to the Ministry of Magic for interrogation, my dad told me about some of the methods of the Department of Magical Beasts. It probably won't make it out of there alive. ”

Hermione glared at Ron with a shocked expression, as if she hadn't expected the Ministry of Magic to treat non-human magical creatures with such cruelty.

"I really hope Dobby won't end up like this."

Harry looked up at the deep night sky and sighed deeply.

(End of chapter)