
Mr. Diggory reemerged from behind the trees. He was carrying a tiny, limp figure
in his arms. Harry recognized the tea towel at once. It was Winky.
Mr. Crouch did not move or speak as Mr. Diggory deposited his elf on the ground
at his feet. The other Ministry wizards were all staring at Mr. Crouch. For a few
seconds Crouch remained transfixed, his eyes blazing in his white face as he stared
down at Winky. Then he appeared to come to life again.
"This - cannot - be," he said jerkily. "No -"
He moved quickly around Mr. Diggory and strode off toward the place where he
had found Winky.
"No point, Mr. Crouch," Mr. Diggory called after him. "There's no one else there."
But Mr. Crouch did not seem prepared to take his word for it. They could hear him
moving around and the rustling of leaves as he pushed the bushes aside, searching.
"Bit embarrassing," Mr. Diggory said grimly, looking down at Winky's
unconscious form. "Barty Crouch's house-elf. . . I mean to say..."
"Come off it, Amos," said Mr. Weasley quietly, "you don't seriously think it was
the elf? The Dark Mark's a wizard's sign. It requires a wand."
"Yeah," said Mr. Diggory, "and she had a wand."
"What?" said Mr. Weasley.
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"Here, look." Mr. Diggory held up a wand and showed it to Mr. Weasley. "Had it
in her hand. So that's clause three of the Code of Wand Use broken, for a start. No
non-human creature is permitted to carry or use a wand."
Just then there was another pop, and Ludo Bagman Apparated right next to Mr.
Weasley. Looking breathless and disorientated, he spun on the spot, goggling
upward at the emerald-green skull.
"The Dark Mark!" he panted, almost trampling Winky as he turned inquiringly to
his colleagues. "Who did it? Did you get them? Barry! What's going on?"
Mr. Crouch had returned empty-handed. His face was still ghostly white, and his
hands and his toothbrush mustache were both twitching.
"Where have you been, Barty?" said Bagman. "Why weren't you at the match?
Your elf was saving you a seat too - gulping gargoyles!" Bagman had just noticed
Winky lying at his feet. "What happened to her?"
"I have been busy, Ludo," said Mr. Crouch, still talking in the same jerky fashion,
barely moving his lips. "And my elf has been stunned."
"Stunned? By you lot, you mean? But why - ?"
Comprehension dawned suddenly on Bagman's round, shiny face; he looked up at
the skull, down at Winky, and then at Mr. Crouch.
"No!" he said. "Winky? Conjure the Dark Mark? She wouldn't know how! She'd
need a wand, for a start!"
"And she had one," said Mr. Diggory. "I found her holding one, Ludo. If it's all
right with you, Mr. Crouch, I think we should hear what she's got to say for
herself."
Crouch gave no sign that he had heard Mr. Diggory, but Mr. Diggory seemed to
take his silence for assent. He raised his own wand, pointed it at Winky, and said,
"Ennervate!"
Winky stirred feebly. Her great brown eyes opened and she blinked several times
in a bemused sort of way. Watched by the silent wizards, she raised herself shakily
into a sitting position.
She caught sight of Mr. Diggory's feet, and slowly, tremulously, raised her eyes to
stare up into his face; then, more slowly still, she looked up into the sky. Harry
could see the floating skull reflected twice in her enormous, glassy eyes. She gave
a gasp, looked wildly around the crowded clearing, and burst into terrified sobs.
"Elf!" said Mr. Diggory sternly. "Do you know who I am? I'm a member of the
Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures!"
Winky began to rock backward and forward on the ground, her breath coming in
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sharp bursts. Harry was reminded forcibly of Dobby in his moments of terrified
disobedience.
"As you see, elf, the Dark Mark was conjured here a short while ago," said Mr.
Diggory. "And you were discovered moments later, right beneath it! An
explanation, if you please!"
"I - I - I is not doing it, sir!" Winky gasped. "I is not knowing how, sir!"
"You were found with a wand in your hand!" barked Mr. Diggory, brandishing it
in front of her. And as the wand caught the green light that was filling the clearing
from the skull above, Harry recognized it
"Hey - that's mine!" he said
Everyone in the clearing looked at him.
"Excuse me?" said Mr. Diggory, incredulously.
"That's my wand!" said Harry. "I dropped it!"
"You dropped it?" repeated Mr. Diggory in disbelief. "Is this a confession? You
threw it aside after you conjured the Mark?"
"Amos, think who you're talking to!" said Mr. Weasley, very angrily. "Is Harry
Potter likely to conjure the Dark Mark?"
"Er - of course not," mumbled Mr. Diggory. "Sorry. . . carried away. .
"I didn't drop it there, anyway," said Harry, jerking his thumb toward the trees
beneath the skull. "I missed it right after we got into the wood."
"So," said Mr. Diggory, his eyes hardening as he turned to look at Winky again,
cowering at his feet. "You found this wand, eh, elf? And you picked it up and
thought you'd have some fun with it, did you?"
"I is not doing magic with it, sir!" squealed Winky, tears streaming down the sides
of her squashed and bulbous nose. "I is. . . I is. . . I is just picking it up, sir! i is not
making the Dark Mark, sir, i is not knowing how!"
"It wasn't her!" said Hermione. She looked very nervous, speaking up in front of
all these Ministry wizards, yet determined all the same. "Winky's got a squeaky
little voice, and the voice we heard doing the incantation was much deeper!" She
looked around at Harry and Ron, appealing for their support. "It didn't sound
anything like Winky, did it?"
"No," said Harry, shaking his head. "It definitely didn't sound like an elf."
"Yeah, it was a human voice," said Ron.
"Well, we'll soon see," growled Mr. Diggory, looking unimpressed. "There's a
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simple way of discovering the last spell a wand performed, elf, did you know
that?"
Winky trembled and shook her head frantically, her ears flapping, as Mr. Diggory
raised his own wand again and placed it tip to tip with Harry's.
"Prior Incantato!" roared Mr. Diggory.
Harry heard Hermione gasp, horrified, as a gigantic serpent-tongued skull erupted
from the point where the two wands met, but it was a mere shadow of the green
skull high above them; it looked as though it were made of thick gray smoke: the
ghost of a spell.
"Deletrius!" Mr. Diggory shouted, and the smoky skull vanished in a wisp of
smoke.
"So," said Mr. Diggory with a kind of savage triumph, looking down upon Winky,
who was still shaking convulsively.
"I is not doing it!" she squealed, her eyes rolling in terror. "I is not, I is not, I is not
knowing how! I is a good elf, I isn't using wands, I isn't knowing how!"
"You've been caught red-handed, elf!" Mr. Diggory roared. "Caught with the
guilty wand in your hand!"
"Amos," said Mr. Weasley loudly, "think about it. . . precious few wizards know
how to do that spell. . . . Where would she have learned it?"
"Perhaps Amos is suggesting," said Mr. Crouch, cold anger in every syllable, "that
I routinely teach my servants to conjure the Dark Mark?"
There was a deeply unpleasant silence. Amos Diggory looked horrified. "Mr.
Crouch.. . not. . . not at all.
"You have now come very close to accusing the two people in this clearing who
are least likely to conjure that Mark!" barked Mr. Crouch. "Harry Potter - and
myself. I suppose you are familiar with the boy's story, Amos?"
"Of course - everyone knows -" muttered Mr. Diggory, looking highly
discomforted.
"And I trust you remember the many proofs I have given, over a long career, that I
despise and detest the Dark Arts and those who practice them?" Mr. Crouch
shouted, his eyes bulging again.
"Mr. Crouch, I - I never suggested you had anything to do with it!" Amos Diggory
muttered again, now reddening behind his scrubby brown beard.
"If you accuse my elf, you accuse me, Diggory!" shouted Mr. Crouch. "Where else
would she have learned to conjure it?"
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"She - she might've picked it up anywhere -"
"Precisely, Amos," said Mr. Weasley. "She might have picked it up anywhere.. . .
Winky?" he said kindly, turning to the elf, but she flinched as though he too was
shouting at her. "Where exactly did you find Harry's wand?"
Winky was twisting the hem of her tea towel so violently that it was fraying
beneath her fingers.
"I - I is finding it. . . finding it there, sir. . . ." she whispered, "there . . . in the trees,
sir.
"You see, Amos?" said Mr. Weasley. "Whoever conjured the Mark could have
Disapparated right after they'd done it, leaving Harry's wand behind. A clever
thing to do, not using their own wand, which could have betrayed them. And
Winky here had the misfortune to come across the wand moments later and pick it
up."
"But then, she'd have been only a few feet away from the real culprit!" said Mr.
Diggory impatiently. "Elf? Did you see anyone?"
Winky began to tremble worse than ever. Her giant eyes flickered from Mr.
Diggory, to Ludo Bagman, and onto Mr. Crouch. Then she gulped and said, "I is
seeing no one, sir. . . no one. .
"Amos," said Mr. Crouch curtly, "I am fully aware that, in the ordinary course of
events, you would want to take Winky into your department for questioning. I ask
you, however, to allow me to deal with her."
Mr. Diggory looked as though he didn't think much of this suggestion at all, but it
was clear to Harry that Mr. Crouch was such an important member of the Ministry
that he did not dare refuse him.
"You may rest assured that she will be punished," Mr. Crouch added coldly.
"M-m-master. . ." Winky stammered, looking up at Mr. Crouch, her eyes
brimming with tears. "M-m-master, p-p-please. . ."
Mr. Crouch stared back, his face somehow sharpened, each line upon it more
deeply etched. There was no pity in his gaze.
"Winky has behaved tonight in a manner I would not have believed possible," he
said slowly. "I told her to remain in the tent. I to