Sherlock and his group walked out of the Minister of Magic's office.
He no longer cared about what the Ministry of Magic planned to do next.
After all, no matter what they did, they would certainly never catch Barty Crouch Jr.
He turned to Dumbledore and said, "Professor, I hope to speak with Mr. Crouch again."
Hearing Sherlock's words, Dumbledore's eyes narrowed slightly. "What else do you want to know?"
"That's right. Some clues may need more direct questioning to clarify."
"Very well, leave it to me."
Dumbledore nodded his head.
Soon, Sherlock stood together with a puzzled-looking Barty Crouch.
Dumbledore stood to the side, ensuring that their conversation would not be overheard by others.
"Hulmoose, you—"
"It's Holmes."
Sherlock was not Percy. He directly corrected Crouch's mistake, then immediately cut to the heart of the matter.
"Mr. Crouch, you just mentioned that Barty Crouch Jr. hasn't left the house in several years, correct?"
"That's right."
Barty Crouch nodded his head, but didn't understand what Sherlock was getting at with this question.
"From your earlier description, and that Minister Fudge's account, you were indeed extremely vigilant about your son at first, even going so far as to use the Imperius Curse on him. But as time passed, you must have relaxed your guard—this is undoubtedly human nature.
You also mentioned just now that when Barty Crouch Jr. behaved well, the house-elf would persuade you to give him some preferential treatment as a reward. I imagine this reward must have included letting him go outside for fresh air, right?
So, what prompted you to keep him strictly imprisoned for several years before that, not letting him leave the house?"
Barty Crouch's body stiffened subtly. He didn't answer immediately, but the look he gave Sherlock was full of wariness.
This young wizard was no simple matter.
However, Crouch didn't believe that the other party could discern the truth he was hiding through observation alone.
Still, he needed to think of some way to deflect this.
But he had underestimated Sherlock far too much.
Sherlock didn't give him any breathing room and continued his questioning.
"Mr. Crouch, the name Bertha Jorkins shouldn't be unfamiliar to you, should it?"
When he heard this name, the wariness in Barty Crouch's eyes reached its maximum level.
This young wizard wasn't just no simple matter—he could read people's hearts like a book!
If he didn't know it was impossible, he would even suspect that the other party had used Legilimency on him!
"As I understand it, over these years, Bertha Jorkins has been transferred from one department to another, causing more trouble than she accomplishes. Everyone considers her an extremely forgetful person, so much so that when she went missing for over a month, no one worried. People simply thought she had no concept of time and would come back on her own after a week or two."
At this point, Sherlock's voice grew gradually heavier.
"But the problem is, her memory didn't suddenly become this poor. When a witch's memory deteriorates very abruptly and severely, it defies common sense. Coincidentally, the last period she worked normally was precisely in your department—the Department of International Magical Cooperation."
"Holmes, what exactly are you trying to say?"
"I want to ask you whether she visited your residence before this dramatic change occurred. Or rather, did she, in some moment when you were off guard, see that person who shouldn't have existed?"
Crouch didn't answer, doing his utmost to maintain a calm expression.
But those subtle changes in expression still couldn't escape Sherlock's keen eyes.
Sherlock's deduction became even more certain.
"I think Bertha Jorkins must have stumbled upon Barty Crouch Jr., whom you had controlled with the Imperius Curse, right? To guard this fatal secret, you cast an extremely powerful and brutal Memory Charm on her.
This kind of spell likely caused irreversible and severe damage to her mind, which led to her subsequent complete transformation into someone with severe amnesia. So, from that point on, she left the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and you strictly forbade Barty Crouch Jr. from leaving the house. Am I right, Mr. Crouch?"
Crouch's fingers gripped the edge of his robes tightly where no one could see, his knuckles were turning white.
Sherlock didn't stop. He threw out the most critical inference, one that left the other party completely unable to avoid it.
"Then, just a few months ago, this Bertha Jorkins, with her damaged memory and greatly reduced vigilance, mysteriously disappeared while on holiday in Albania. Note—Albania!"
"What's the problem?"
"Barty, before this, Voldemort had been hiding in the forests of Albania all along."
Dumbledore spoke up at the right moment, answering Barty Crouch's question.
"You're saying... that's impossible. Perhaps it's merely a coincidence..."
"No, this is not a coincidence."
Sherlock shook his head. "When you eliminate all the possibilities, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. When the isolated and mentally confused Bertha Jorkins appeared in Albania, she was discovered by Voldemort. With Voldemort's abilities, restoring Bertha Jorkins's memory wouldn't be a difficult matter, would it, sir?"
Sherlock's latter half was directed at Dumbledore, who nodded.
"Not difficult. He is a master of Occlumency. His accomplishments in manipulating the human mind should never be underestimated, and furthermore..."
Dumbledore looked at Barty Crouch, leaving the rest of his words unspoken.
"And the Memory Charm that Mr. Crouch cast was very strong—perhaps even excessively strong."
Sherlock picked up Dumbledore's thread and continued.
"As the saying goes, too much is as bad as too little. Precisely because of this, it actually made it easier for Voldemort to obtain the truth! He forcibly extracted key intelligence about your son's whereabouts from her damaged memory fragments!"
"This is just your speculation. There's no evidence!"
"No, the fact that they were able to find Barty Crouch Jr. so quickly and rescue him is the evidence. Those Death Eaters who created the chaos also provided convenience for these events. If I were Voldemort, I would never pass up such an opportunity."
Before Sherlock's logically rigorous reasoning and cold facts, Barty Crouch's body swayed violently, as if all his remaining strength had been instantly drained away.
However, in the next moment, he heard Sherlock say again,
"Of course, even so, this is still only my speculation. If you refuse to admit it, I have no way to force you. However... given Voldemort's cruel nature, Bertha Jorkins is most likely already dead and will never return."
Hearing these words, Barty Crouch's face, which had been taut as steel, completely collapsed.
A tremendous fatigue and bone-deep remorse surfaced on his features.
His sunken eye sockets became even darker in this moment.
"Yes."
Finally, these two words were squeezed out from his parched throat with extreme difficulty.
His voice was hoarse and broken, almost inaudible, yet they fell heavily to the ground.
"What you said... is all correct."
Barty Crouch closed his eyes painfully, opening them again only after a moment.
The look he gave Sherlock was full of despair and a kind of defeated resignation.
"The matter with Bertha... was an accident. She came to my house with documents for me to sign. I wasn't home at the time, and the elf led her inside. When I returned, Bertha confronted me directly.
He was in the kitchen at the time, with the house-elf taking care of him. Although he was under an invisibility cloak, I suspect she heard the house-elf's conversation with him, and from what she heard, she guessed who was hidden under the invisibility cloak."
"So, you cast a Memory Charm on her?"
"I couldn't... I absolutely couldn't risk it... So, I used an extremely powerful Memory Charm on her, far exceeding normal strength... making her completely forget the secret she had discovered. Just as you said, Holmes, this charm was too powerful. It caused permanent damage to her memory."
He took a deep breath, because the memory itself was scorching his lungs.
"After that, she was never the same Bertha again... Later, when news came of her disappearance, I paid close attention. But I never imagined she would... It's all my fault, all my fault. I did a foolish thing, a thoroughly foolish thing."
At this point, Crouch seemed to age years in an instant.
The fact that he could admit this also proved he believed Sherlock's deduction.
He was an intelligent man. Barty Crouch Jr. being rescued so quickly was certainly no coincidence.
So, he also understood that the crime he had committed to cover up another crime had ultimately led directly to disastrous consequences.
His son had fallen into the hands of the most vicious enemy, and he himself was not only a lawbreaker but had become an indirect catalyst for this enormous crisis.
Watching Barty Crouch's pained expression, Sherlock unexpectedly spoke up:
"Mr. Crouch, you're actually quite proud of your son, aren't you?"
"You, how did you..."
Barty Crouch jerked his head up, the astonishment on his face was even stronger than when Sherlock had revealed any of his other secrets. It was the shock of having one's deepest inner self suddenly pierced.
This matter was buried even deeper than his secretly removing Barty Crouch Jr. from Azkaban or using the Memory Charm on Bertha Jorkins.
But with this one thing, he clearly hadn't said anything at all!
Sherlock met Crouch's shocked gaze; his voice steady yet penetrating.
"'He,' Mr. Crouch. That's where the problem lies—or more precisely, it's 'his' problem."
The confusion in Crouch's eyes deepened.
Sherlock deliberately slowed his speech so that Crouch, in his currently unstable mental state, could hear more clearly.
"Throughout this entire conversation, when you mentioned your son—the person who ruined your reputation, caused you to use the illegal Imperius Curse, and was ultimately abducted due to your failed decisions—not once did you refer to him as 'my son' or by his name.
From beginning to end, you've been using 'he,' the coldest and most distant third-person pronoun. This is a deliberate distancing. This almost pathological choice to draw a clear line from your blood ties reveals an extremely intense emotional conflict. An emotional bond that you desperately want to deny, yet is deeply rooted in your bloodline, is tearing at you."
Crouch's breathing became somewhat heavier, and the hand resting on his robes trembled slightly.
"In fact, when Fudge told us all this, I had already noticed it. Look at what you did—you used the illegal and extremely dangerous Imperius Curse to control him. This wasn't merely to punish a criminal, Mr. Crouch. The sense of control that the Imperius Curse gives you—it allowed you to have a docile, obedient son who could even perform well. You reshaped a son who fit the image in your heart. This was precisely an attempt to transform him from a fallen follower of the Dark Lord toward the righteous path in your mind."
Sherlock paused, then continued.
"You just mentioned that at the house-elf's persuasion, you finally agreed to take him out. To the Quidditch World Cup—this wasn't simply a reward for a prisoner. In that moment, what did you hope for deep in your heart? You hoped to let that son you had successfully reformed briefly reintegrate into the wizarding world—even if under the concealment of an invisibility cloak.
Deep in your heart, in your subconscious, did you perhaps harbor a secret fantasy in that moment? A fantasy that he could become what you had hoped for years ago—your pride, the respectable heir of the Crouch family?
The deliberate distance you maintain when speaking of him, the resolute attitude you display when facing the terrible crimes he committed... Beneath all this fierce rejection lies precisely the truth you're most afraid of having exposed—that sense of pride that has been betrayed, twisted, and nearly humiliated."
"Yes..."
After a brief silence, Crouch finally spoke.
However, his voice sounded somewhat hoarse and broken.
"You're right, Holmes... Damn it... you're absolutely right..."
His gaze seemed to travel through the dust of time, returning to a past that had been deliberately sealed away, yet now, due to intense pain, had become incredibly clear.
"Many years ago, he obtained twelve O.W.L. certificates with very satisfactory results. Yes, I was indeed very proud of him. I took my wife and him, along with the Fudges, to a concert. I tried to let him stand in the spotlight, if only for an instant. On that occasion, I thought it was the beginning of honor, proof that the Crouch name would have a worthy successor..."
He shook his head painfully, his voice was filled with devastating despair.
"I had such high expectations for him... it was like placing him on the edge of a cliff..."
"So, when faith collapsed, the sense of falling and betrayal was particularly tragic. The severity of your imprisonment and control of him, approaching cruelty, stems precisely from your deeply ingrained system of standards that tolerates not the slightest flaw."
"If I may speak frankly, Barty."
Dumbledore, who had been mostly silent, suddenly spoke up.
"All of this actually has little to do with your expectations of him. As far as I know, he didn't even know about your expectations. The real reason he ended up where he is today is because you failed to give him the 'love' he deserved."
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