“Elf!” Scrimgeour asked sternly. “Do you know who I am? I am Head of the Auror Office of the Ministry of Magic!”
Winky began to rock backward and forward on the ground. Her breath was interrupted by strong sobs from time to time!
When she heard that Scrimgeour was an Auror, she almost fainted again.
“A short while ago, the Dark Mark was conjured here.” Scrimgeour asked sharply, pointing with his wand firmly at Winky, “A moment later, you were discovered, right beneath the Mark! You need to give us an explanation!”
“I, I, I is not doing it, sir!” said Winky gasping for breath, “I is not knowing how, sir!”
“When you were found, you had a wand in your hand!” Scrimgeour said impatiently, taking the wand from a wizard and brandishing it in front of her. “Tell me, where did you get it?”
Harry standing in the crowd suddenly said with amazement, “That’s mine, sir!”
Everyone turned quickly and looked at the bewildered Harry.
“What did you say?!” Scrimgeour’s face was full of shock and suspicion. “Is this your wand?!”
“That’s my wand!” said Harry, swallowing, “I dropped it!”
“Hum, you dropped it? Is this a confession?” Scrimgeour groaned heavily and looked fiercely as if he were going to swallow Harry raw. “After conjuring the Mark, you just threw the wand aside?!”
“SCRIMGEOUR, pay attention to your words!” Sirius roared. “Think who you’re talking to. Is Harry Potter likely to conjure the Dark Mark?!”
“Sirius Black!” Scrimgeour said with a hint of exclamation. “This kid is Harry Potter?!”
His sharp eyes quickly swept Sirius and Evan, and then fell on Harry.
“We all saw him riding a broom in the sky just now, trying to save Evan and Hermione, who were fighting the Dark Wizard!” Sirius said angrily, “This was what you, Aurors should have done, but tonight it all depended on a few children. And now, you dare claim that Harry has conjured the Dark Mark?!”
He also pulled out his wand and pitted it against Scrimgeour.
“Take it easy, Black!” Fudge hurriedly said. “Harry certainly can’t conjure that Mark. We all know that. Rufus is just asking Harry when he dropped his wand.”
“Shortly after the chaos began, I think it was in the box.”
When Harry talked about the box, Scrimgeour’s face was even more unnatural. It was now in ruins.
Evan’s powerful magic was still fresh in his memory, and everything tonight was extraordinary.
There were so many people waiting outside for the outcome, and they must make a quick decision.
Scrimgeour looked again at Winky curled up at his feet, and his eyes became colder. “Elf, you found this wand there, didn’t you?” You picked it up and thought you could have some fun with it, didn’t 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 … I is just picking it up, sir! I is not making the Dark Mark, sir, please believe me, I is not knowing how!”
“You can’t use this magic? Easy to say,” Scrimgeour said with a hint of solemnity in his voice. “Since this wand is in your hand, it must have something to do with you. There is a 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.
Scrimgeour ignored her and seemed to have made up his mind to catch the murderer hiding behind the scenes.
He looked up at Crouch, who said nothing, raised his own wand and placed it tip to tip with Harry’s.
“Prior Incantato!” Scrimgeour said in a cold voice.
The crowd gasped, 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!” Scrimgeour roared, and the smoky skull vanished in a wisp of smoke.
“What about that?” He showed a savage smile of triumph, as he looked down upon Winky.
Winky was still shaking convulsively, looking very pitiful.
“I is not doing it!” she squealed, her eyes rolling in terror. “I is not, I is not, I I is not knowing how! I is a good elf, I isn’t using wands, I isn’t knowing how!”
“Enough, you’ve been caught red-handed, with the guilty wand in your hand!” Scrimgeour shouted. “Only a few wizards know how to do that spell… Tell us, where did you learn it?”
Winky screeched gasps, like a broken bellows.
“Scrimgeour, perhaps you’re suggesting…” Mr. Crouch spoke, cold anger in every syllable, “that I routinely teach my servants to conjure the Dark Mark?”
Scrimgeour stared at him with a very repressed silence and a strange light in his eyes.
Hundreds of Ministry of Magic officials did not speak. Barty Crouch had a high status and majesty in the Ministry.
In particular, his past experience had scared all wizards.
Fudge, who was supposed to be in charge, seemed frightened and panicked. He looked at Crouch for a moment and then turned to Scrimgeour.
“Everything is possible, we need to investigate!” Scrimgeour did not flinch, and his tone was equally cold.
Looking at him, it seemed certain that Crouch had planned the attack this evening. And in the end, he made his house-elf conjure the Dark Mark! This content belongs to Nove1Fire.net
“I hope you remember the many proofs I have given, over my long career, that I despise and detest the Dark Arts and those who practice them!” Mr. Crouch shouted, his eyes bulging.
“Obviously, but this doesn’t explain why your house-elf has this black magic.”
“She might have picked it up by chance anywhere!” Fudge said uneasily. “Okay, elf, tell me, 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 there, sir…” she whispered. “There, in the ruins, I is terrified, all the buildings were collapsing, the stones kept falling.”
“Well, let me see, this matter is already very clear!” Fudge whispered. “The Dark wizard who fought Evan must have picked up Harry’s wand in the box and finally conjured the Dark Mark.”
“Minister, I just saw someone Disapparate!” The wizard who first found Winky said in a hurry, “The figure suddenly disappeared from my sight and vanished at once…”