A long-standing mystery in Hufflepuff House — what exactly was inside Professor Moody's heavily padlocked chest — was about to be answered.
Pansy Parkinson had once declared, with great confidence in the Slytherin common room, that no student in all of Hogwarts would ever dare open that chest without permission. "He'd curse anyone who touched it within an inch of their life. I'll bow down to whoever manages it — kneel right there on the floor."
"Pansy," Blaise had said, raising an eyebrow, "a sufficiently generous reward will always produce a brave volunteer. Although perhaps the kneeling could be replaced with something more interesting."
"Absolutely not!" Pansy had gone scarlet. "I'm simply making a point, Blaise Zabini!"
Blaise had been correct, as it turned out. Pansy currently owed quite a few people a bow. Draco allowed himself a slight smile as he glanced around the Headmaster's office.
Professor Dumbledore was crouched in front of the chest with complete composure, methodically working through its seven locks. One by one the compartments yielded: spellbooks, broken Sneakoscopes, parchment and quills, two silver Invisibility Cloaks—
"Is that yours?" Hermione murmured, tugging his sleeve.
Draco tilted his head slightly. "I think so. It went missing the night outside Snape's office. I went back the next morning and couldn't find it anywhere." He kept his voice low. "Barty Crouch Junior has absolutely no shame."
"Should I say something to Professor Dumbledore—" She made to step forward.
"Don't." Draco caught her hand, stopping her. "Let me think about the best way to handle it. Don't draw attention to yourself right now."
"All right," Hermione said.
She became aware, a moment later, that she had not pulled her hand away. She thought about it. She decided, for the moment, not to.
He gave her a strange sense of steadiness — exactly what she needed.
She shifted slightly closer, letting the fall of her robes conceal their joined hands. That way, she reasoned, the professors were unlikely to notice. This seemed sensible.
Draco noticed her moving closer. He felt unreasonably pleased by this and said nothing about it.
"Who was it," he said quietly, "who threatened me about that Cloak, and went to Professor McGonagall?"
"That's your property and it should be returned to you," Hermione said, with the particular dignity of someone changing their position and declining to acknowledge it. "I still don't approve of using it to break school rules. But over the years I haven't seen you do anything genuinely harmful with it. You've always had some kind of reason."
"I'm glad you think so." Something warm settled in his chest.
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Dumbledore opened the seventh lock.
Inside the chest was a concealed pit, several metres deep — and at the bottom of it, the real Alastor Moody.
He was barely recognisable. One leg gone, the magical eye out of its socket, a section of grey hair missing, his face gaunt and hollow. Dumbledore lowered himself into the chest and crouched over the unconscious man with the careful attention of someone who has seen the worst of what wizards do to each other and never quite grown accustomed to it.
"He's been kept under the Imperius Curse," Dumbledore said, looking up. "He's very weak."
"His name was always showing in the Defence Against the Dark Arts office," Draco said to Hermione, under his breath. "I saw it on the Map and never thought to look closer."
"You couldn't watch the Map constantly," she said. "You have classes, you're not monitoring it every hour. You see his name in the office, you assume the real Moody is in his office. It's a reasonable assumption." She paused. "I just had the advantage of looking at it with fresh suspicion."
"You spotted it in one day."
"I'd been watching him for weeks," she said, more quietly. "I just hadn't put it together yet."
She looked away, but he could see she was quietly pleased with herself, and rightly so.
As Dumbledore lifted the weakened, genuine Moody out of the chest, Hermione slipped her hand free, took one of the Invisibility Cloaks, and draped it over the shivering man.
She glanced back at Draco, who was still watching her, and said in a voice barely above a breath, "You're the only person who ever dares give me trouble, you know."
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Madam Pomfrey arrived within moments, took one look at Moody, and rounded on Dumbledore with the expression of someone who has had quite enough.
"First Sirius Black with broken bones, and now Alastor Moody half-starved at the bottom of a chest — I sincerely hope, Albus, that this is the last one this year—"
"So do I, Poppy," Dumbledore said, with genuine feeling.
She clicked her teeth at him and took Moody away.
Professor Snape arrived shortly after with the Crouch family's house-elf — a small, large-eyed creature called Winky. Professor McGonagall brought Harry and Ron from the Gryffindor common room, still flushed from celebrating Harry's retrieval of the golden egg.
"The Petrificus Totalus has been lifted." Snape uncorked a small phial and tilted three measured drops into the fake Moody's mouth. "Stunning Spell re-cast. He can't be questioned under Veritaserum while unconscious — it won't take hold."
"Well done, Severus." Dumbledore sealed the office door, raised his wand, and cast Rennervate.
The potion's effect had worn off. The face shifted — away from the scarred, weather-beaten features of Alastor Moody — and became something else: pale skin, a scatter of freckles, light blond hair in disarray, and dull, Veritaserum-hazed eyes.
"Barty Crouch Junior?" Sirius stepped out of the fireplace, staring. "He's alive?"
Winky let out a piercing wail and threw herself at Barty Crouch Junior's chest, clutching at his robes.
"Master Barty, Master Barty, what are you doing here? You'll bring trouble on your father!"
But Crouch Junior's eyes were vacant, fixed on nothing.
"Can you hear me?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yes," Crouch said, in a flat, Veritaserum-flat voice.
"Master Barty, we have to go—" Winky tugged at his sleeve, tears streaming. "You have to go, before it's too late—"
"Winky." Hermione leaned toward the elf. "Please. He's done things that hurt people. We have to find out what."
Winky's enormous eyes lifted to her face — the face of the girl who had always spoken kindly to her — and filled with something close to betrayal.
"Please, Miss Granger," she whispered. "Help me get my young master away from here. Please."
"I can't," Hermione said sadly. "I'm sorry."
Winky lowered her head and knelt at Crouch's feet, weeping.
"You did the right thing," Draco said quietly, close to Hermione's ear. "She's completely devoted to him — good or bad, it doesn't matter to her. There's no reasoning with that kind of loyalty right now. It's how house-elves are."
Hermione pressed her lips together and nodded, not entirely convinced, but she turned her attention to the room.
"What are we doing here?" Ron whispered, edging closer to Harry and Hermione.
"Watching this," Hermione said, nodding toward Crouch Junior. "He's been impersonating Moody all year. I told you something was wrong."
Ron's mouth dropped open.
Harry had gone very still. He was staring at the pale face with the dull, wandering eyes. "Sirius," he said, "I've seen him before. In a dream. He was kneeling and swearing he'd bring Harry Potter back to — back to someone."
Everyone in the room was quiet for a moment.
Then Dumbledore began to ask questions, and the year's long mystery began to unravel.
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They heard it all in Crouch Junior's toneless, Veritaserum-flat voice.
How Barty Crouch Senior, at the begging of his dying wife, had smuggled his son out of Azkaban by having them drink Polyjuice Potion brewed from each other's hair — the mother taking it hourly until the day she died, maintaining her son's appearance until she was buried in his place.
"Could that actually be done?" Hermione asked Draco softly.
"The Dementors have no eyes. They sense the soul — whether it's present, whether it's fading. They can't tell one person from another by appearance. Ministry officials rarely visit unless they have to. After the real Mrs. Crouch died, the Dementors would have buried whoever they were handed and not asked questions. A clean substitution." Draco kept his voice barely audible. "Clever, in a terrible sort of way."
They learned how Winky had been left to care for the weakened Crouch Junior at home. How Bertha Jorkins — who had stumbled onto the secret during a chance visit — had been subjected to such a powerful Memory Charm by Crouch Senior that it had permanently damaged her mind. Winky let out a fresh sob at this.
"She was meddling where she shouldn't have," she wept. "Why couldn't she leave well enough alone?"
They learned how Crouch Senior had kept his son under the Imperius Curse, not knowing that, gradually, his son had begun to resist it.
"Tell me about the Quidditch World Cup," Dumbledore said.
Crouch Junior's eyelids flickered.
"Winky took pity on me. She persuaded my father for months — said I'd been good, said I deserved some fresh air, said my mother had saved me to give me freedom, not another prison. My father finally agreed. I was permitted to attend the World Cup under an Invisibility Cloak." His lip twitched. "I came back to myself in the Top Box. I stole a wand from one of the boys nearby. Winky didn't see — she had her hands over her face. She's afraid of heights."
Winky let out a fresh, despairing wail.
"That night, I heard the Death Eaters. The ones who'd never gone to Azkaban, who'd never suffered for my master, who'd abandoned him when he fell — they were strutting around and laughing. I was furious. I took the stolen wand and sent up the Dark Mark. Let them remember what real loyalty meant." His voice held a feverish edge even through the Veritaserum.
"Hermione," Draco murmured. "The night of the World Cup — Barty Crouch Senior was searching the bushes in a panic. Not for a scapegoat. He was looking for his own son."
"And he found him," she said. "That's why he looked so ill every time we saw him after that. He wasn't just worried about the Prophet — he was terrified of what his son was doing."
"How did Voldemort find you?" Dumbledore asked.
Crouch Junior's blank gaze drifted. "Pettigrew was placed in the same cell Sirius Black had used — next to Bellatrix Lestrange. She extracted information from him. The outside world. And one important piece: that the master's soul was trapped somewhere at Hogwarts."
Harry and Ron drew sharp breaths. Snape and Dumbledore exchanged a look. Sirius went very still.
Draco and Hermione glanced at each other. The missing piece. The thing they'd never quite traced back.
"My cell was across from Bellatrix's," Crouch Junior continued. "Somehow she knew I wasn't dead. Perhaps she saw my mother drinking the Potion. Perhaps she noticed something when the Dementors took the body away. She persuaded Pettigrew to escape and find me." He paused. "By then I had begun to break free of the Imperius Curse. Brief intervals of clarity, while Winky was occupied elsewhere. I used Pettigrew to carry out my instructions. In the end, we freed our master."
Winky made a small, broken sound.
Draco felt a cold, distinct chill move through him.
Even in Azkaban, Bellatrix had reached far enough to do this. He'd always known she was fanatical — she was the most fanatical of all the Dark Lord's followers, without question — but there was a particular quality to this that was harder to dismiss as mere madness. She had identified a resource in the cell across from her, cultivated it over years, and delivered a plan. That required a mind that was still, in some ways, entirely intact.
And Barty Crouch Junior — resisting the Imperius Curse in stolen moments of consciousness, laying plans through a rat, maintaining the patience to see it through — was formidable in his own right.
Hermione had caught him in one afternoon. Draco thought about that, and felt the cold recede somewhat.
"It's a pity Pettigrew is dead," Crouch continued. "He was useful. The master came to me after the World Cup — he knew I was alive through Pettigrew. He was possessing Quirrell, still very weak. By then, Winky's grip on my father's house had loosened enough for me to escape entirely. Quirrell and I subdued Moody together. We used Polyjuice Potion — Quirrell provided it — and I took Moody's place. Arthur Weasley came to check on things and was completely fooled." He smiled, slow and crooked. "Then I arrived at Hogwarts."
Dumbledore let a brief silence pass. "How did you intend to deliver Harry to Voldemort?"
"The Triwizard Tournament provided the means. A Confundus Charm on the Goblet of Fire — make it believe there were four schools, with Potter as the sole entry from a nonexistent fourth school. He would be bound by magical contract to compete." The dull eyes seemed to gleam faintly through the Veritaserum. "I would guide him through each task. Help him succeed. Keep him safe until the moment the Triwizard Cup could carry him to the graveyard — a Portkey, to the resurrection site."
"Why does the Dark Lord need Harry specifically?" Dumbledore asked.
"His blood. The master needs something from him. The spell requires it." Crouch's voice dropped to something almost reverential. "He will return. He will have his body back. And I will be rewarded as I deserve."
Dumbledore looked across the room at Draco.
"You did tell me, Mr Malfoy," he said, quietly.
"Yes, sir," Draco said. He said nothing further.
From the corner came the sound of Sirius cracking his knuckles. Harry was staring at nothing, his expression cycling through confusion, anger, and something that looked like sheer disbelief. Ron looked mortified.
Draco watched them and felt, distantly, the weight of what this meant for Harry — the realisation that the fake Moody, the professor he had actually started to trust, had engineered everything: the name from the Goblet, the two months of slander and hostility, the task with the dragon, all of it.
Hermione's hand found his sleeve. He glanced down at her, and she gave him a tired, complicated look, and tried to smile.
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When Dumbledore was satisfied, he raised his wand and Crouch Junior dropped unconscious immediately.
Winky let out a furious, despairing wail and threw herself against his chest. "You killed him! You killed him!"
"He's under a Stunning Spell, Winky," Dumbledore said. "He is not dead." He looked at her steadily. "As Headmaster of Hogwarts, I must ask you to keep silent about everything you have heard today. Tell no one. And in particular — do not contact Mr Crouch."
Winky turned her face away, tears streaming, and gave the barest, most reluctant nod of her enormous head.
"Severus — would you take Winky back to the kitchens, please? Have the other house-elves keep an eye on her."
Snape left without a word, Winky shuffling behind him, still weeping, turning back every few steps.
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"How did you discover him?" Dumbledore asked, turning to Hermione and Draco.
"I smelled Polyjuice Potion on him once, in Hogsmeade," Hermione said. "Then when Professor Snape reported that Boomslang skin and Bicorn horn had gone missing from his stores — both key Polyjuice ingredients — I looked at the Map and realised his name was never where it should have been. The person in the classroom was never the person in the office."
"He'd also been seen near Professor Snape's office on several occasions," Draco added.
"Just those things?" Professor McGonagall asked. She sounded slightly faint.
"Yes," they said, at the same moment, and avoided looking at each other.
Dumbledore's gaze was quiet and entirely too perceptive. He let it pass.
"Remarkable," Professor McGonagall managed. "Remarkably good instincts."
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"What should be done with him?" Dumbledore asked the room.
"Whatever you decide," Sirius said, with barely controlled feeling, "I'd like five minutes with him first."
Draco privately agreed.
"He had twelve OWLs," Professor McGonagall said, with the weariness of someone mourning a waste. "A genuinely brilliant student. But there's nothing to be done — he has to be handed over to the Ministry and returned to Azkaban." She paused. "Though if he can resist the Imperius Curse—"
"Azkaban won't hold him," Sirius said. "He escaped it once. You can't rely on house arrest either, not if he can break through an Imperius Curse." He looked around the room. "But locking him in that chest, on the other hand — exactly as he kept Moody—"
"Sirius," Professor McGonagall said. "He could still communicate somehow if he regained any consciousness—"
"Which is why," Professor Snape said, slowly, from the door, "the Petrificus Totalus Miss Granger performed seems worth developing. Extended and reinforced with the right potion combination, the petrification could be made considerably more complete. A state of petrification cannot communicate, cannot plan, cannot resist an Imperius Curse it can no longer perceive."
Hermione stared at him.
Snape did not acknowledge her stare.
Dumbledore looked thoughtful. "That has merit. For now, we secure him. And we tell no one."
"Tell no one," Sirius repeated. Then something changed in his face — the numbness lifting, replaced by the sharp, sudden focus of someone who has just seen a move three steps ahead. "Albus. He said Voldemort would be at the Riddle graveyard before the final task. He's expecting Crouch Junior to deliver Harry. He doesn't know we have Crouch Junior." He looked around the room. "He doesn't know any of this has happened. As far as he's aware, the plan is still on schedule."
The office went quiet.
"If we go to Little Hangleton before the final task—" Sirius pressed forward — "before Voldemort expects anything — we could be waiting for him."
Draco looked at him. For the first time all evening, Sirius Black looked like himself — clear-eyed, alert, alive.
An impulsive plan. A typically Gryffindor plan.
Not necessarily a wrong one.
Draco let out a quiet breath, and the corner of his mouth moved.