Chapter 227: The Trial Fourteen Years Ago

Cedric sat beside Fleur, Zhang Qiu sat beside Elena, and Ron easily took the seat next to Hermione. They whispered about the questions, occasionally laughing, the atmosphere harmonious.

Yet beyond this harmony, Harry found an excuse and slipped out of the library, meeting Renata in secret in a dark, empty classroom.

Harry gave her a hand-copied exam paper; Renata gave him a dossier, then said nothing, her footsteps echoing down the corridor until they faded away.

Harry glanced around—this was an ideal hidden spot. He sat behind a toppled cabinet and, using the faint light streaming through the skylight, began reading the dossier.

At the top of the first page was a jarring sentence, perhaps excerpted from a continuous record. Harry ignored it and continued reading—it appeared to be a transcript of a trial.

Igor Karkaroff, Harry stared at the name, certain he hadn't misread, then pressed on. The dossier stated Karkaroff had tried to reduce his sentence by naming other Death Eaters—he first implicated Antonin Dolohov, but Crouch noted he had already been captured.

Harry recalled the name Antonin—he too had escaped during the mass breakout in third year; Sirius had mentioned him, and he was likely now organizing forces to attack Hogwarts, a dangerous and vile man.

The next named was Evan Rosier, but Crouch said he had been killed resisting arrest. Karkaroff then implicated Travers and Mulciber—two Death Eaters already in Ministry custody—before making a key contribution: he exposed Augustus Lestrange, a Ministry mole.

He then named Snape, but Dumbledore vouched for him, saying Snape had become a spy before Voldemort's fall. Yet Harry felt something was off—Voldemort had once promised to spare his mother, at Snape's request. Perhaps Snape only turned against him after Voldemort killed his mother—but that very night, the night Voldemort fell.

Perhaps Dumbledore did this to fully bring Snape under his control; Harry silently thought, he had long foreseen Voldemort's return.

Later, Karkaroff privately provided information on Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange. Crouch deemed this invaluable intelligence and reduced his sentence to one month.

Bellatrix… Harry had clearly heard that name in his visions—he knew her as the Dark Lady who served Voldemort. But she was married? Was Voldemort really such a traditional leader?

Yet this raised a question: by medieval tradition, if a wife became the king's mistress, her husband should have been favored. But where was Rodolphus? Harry had never seen him in his visions; neither Malfoy nor Sirius had mentioned him—as if the man never existed.

Had he died long ago? Harry could only make a reckless guess.

The dossier's section on Karkaroff ended here. The next was Ludo Bagman. Harry remembered him—the official in charge of Quidditch betting—yet he too was a Death Eater.

He was accused of passing intelligence to Death Eaters, but Bagman claimed he only worked for Lestrange because Lestrange had promised him a job in the Ministry; at the time, he didn't know Lestrange was Voldemort's man.

This explanation was plausible, especially since he had recently shone brilliantly in the Quidditch match against Turkey, bringing honor to the nation. All agreed to acquit him. Lestrange's signed authorization for him to work in the Department of Magical Sports and Games remained valid.

Next came the trial of Barty Crouch Jr. and his three accomplices, who, after Voldemort's fall, kidnapped an Auror and used the Cruciatus Curse on him to learn Voldemort's whereabouts. When Frank Longbottom refused to give information, they tortured his wife as well.

Harry could hardly believe his eyes. He went back to the beginning of the passage and read it again.

Yes—it was Barty Crouch Jr. and his three accomplices, desperate to continue the lawless, violent life under Voldemort's rule, and foolishly believing Frank Longbottom, as an Auror, would know Voldemort's location.

It was foolish because if an Auror like Frank knew Voldemort's whereabouts, the Aurors would have mobilized en masse to destroy him—they wouldn't sit at home waiting to be kidnapped by four teenagers.

Harry took a deep breath. He hadn't misread—the murdered Auror's surname was Longbottom. Meaning, unless some improbable, unknown event had occurred, Neville's lifelong target for vengeance was Barty Crouch Jr. who now taught English openly at Beauxbatons.

Turning the thin page, the reverse bore only one cold, merciless conclusion: He was sentenced to life imprisonment and died shortly after entering Azkaban.

Harry didn't rush to summarize—he continued reading the following materials: several old newspapers detailing how old Barty Crouch's reputation collapsed after his son's crimes, shifting him from a potential Minister to a transfer to the Department of Mysteries. He then sank into gloom for three or four months, before suddenly rallying, declaring himself utterly opposed to Voldemort, reorganizing the Unspeakables, and launching the Doctor Project.

Harry stared at the word "CLASSIFIED" in the upper right corner of the Doctor Project dossier and recalled Cui Ge's words—indeed, the Ministry had been infiltrated by Soviets like a sieve.

At the project's start, they had only eight Doctors—all former Unspeakables reorganized. They spent five to six years developing the time-turner's theoretical basis, then built the large time machine, TARDIS—but for reasons unknown, decided to seal it away and reduce its use. Then they expanded recruitment, inviting personnel for internships, yet only four became official Doctors.

Harry easily understood the logic—they must have drawn the attention of the Hounds of Tindalos, forcing them to operate discreetly. Perhaps the Hounds' pressure was so great they added more Doctors to share the burden. Doudou had also said the TARDIS's paradox function allowed Doctors to collectively bear costs too heavy for any one individual.

The final pages of the dossier contained only the file of the Tenth Doctor: a photo of Barty Crouch Jr., but the name field read John Smith. His resume was nearly blank. Harry studied the pages closely—he thought perhaps this was it: Barty had changed his identity (in fact, barely at all, even sloppily), joined the Doctor Project. This was likely old Barty's maneuvering, possibly involving internal Ministry power deals—but now, he simply acted as if nothing had happened, working on the Doctor Project.

Closing the dossier, Harry pondered its inconsistencies. The foremost was this: the record stated Barty died in Azkaban—so why was he here, alive? The answer was simple: old Barty arranged a fake death. In Harry's visions, witnesses in Azkaban confirmed the man who died was not Barty.

This was, in fact, the easiest part to understand. What truly confused Harry was this: if Barty, as he later showed, was intelligent, kind, righteous, truly deserving of the title "Doctor," why had he committed such stupid, cruel, senseless crimes? He had assumed Barty was merely caught up in others' betrayals—perhaps implicated by Karkaroff. But the dossier showed otherwise.

It was too fractured. And Harry couldn't believe a man who tortured the Longbottoms deserved old Barty risking his career to arrange a fake death and launch the Doctor Project for him. Would old Barty really help such a hopelessly broken son?

Moreover, their father-son bond seemed poor. Barty's Scottish accent differed sharply from old Barty's London tone—people who speak together regularly influence each other; this gap was absurd. Add to that Barty's long absence abroad and old Barty's complete silence—this was too cold.

Of course, one could explain it: Barty's torture of the Longbottoms was a grave error, straining their relationship. Or perhaps the main perpetrator wasn't Barty, but another Death Eater—he was merely trapped, or his cover was blown and framed…

But these strained explanations were merely Harry's futile attempts to deny the truth his intuition revealed. Almost the instant he noticed the inconsistencies, he naturally thought: Barty is no longer Barty.

All clues came from Sirius: he mentioned Soviet agents sent to monitor him, a Metamorphmagus who infiltrated the Ministry, who could "impersonate anyone, for as long as needed," and most crucially, the overlap between the Werewolf and Yanayev.

But Harry truly didn't want to dig deeper. From any angle, whether Barty or Yanayev, neither had intended to sabotage the Ministry's plan to lure Voldemort. Perhaps, turning a blind eye was the wiser course.